Like I said I have no strong feelings about the card but I think that is a good thing in general to have. It's nothing against you personally but I talked about that before that people drag their experience from Standard into a discussion about how that card would be in Modern but that should have no relevance at all.
I dont blame people for doing that because Wizards does it too but it being bonkers in Standard has nothing to do with how it would be in Modern.
If you want a recent example look at Bitterblossom which was solely banned on it being dominating in Standard but it's completely fine in Modern.
I think that cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic are not being seen 100% objectively by players and Wizards because of what the did to Standard.
\
Ding Ding. We have a winner here folks!
Every single card that enabled a bonkers standard deck back in the day and has been unbanned, has not broken modern.
Jace + stoneforge is probably too much to give the UW shell, but just one of them would probably be ok. Infact Jace is a lot less damaging that Stoneforge is.
The main problem that I see with Jace is the price issue. If he was unbanned, he would triple in price at least. That will make many decks impossible to afford for players with less money.
Every single card that enabled a bonkers standard deck back in the day and has been unbanned, has not broken modern.
Jace + stoneforge is probably too much to give the UW shell, but just one of them would probably be ok. Infact Jace is a lot less damaging that Stoneforge is.
The main problem that I see with Jace is the price issue. If he was unbanned, he would triple in price at least. That will make many decks impossible to afford for players with less money.[/quote]
You say that like sfm wouldn't triple in price as well. Jace being on the list because of monetary reasons is also ridiculous as he's half the price of goyf.
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():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Currently Playing:
Modern: UWUW TronUW
Legacy: WDeath N TaxesW CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
[quote from="Valanarch »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/543227-current-modern-banlist-discussion?comment=3253"]
Ding Ding. We have a winner here folks!
Every single card that enabled a bonkers standard deck back in the day and has been unbanned, has not broken modern.
Jace + stoneforge is probably too much to give the UW shell, but just one of them would probably be ok. Infact Jace is a lot less damaging that Stoneforge is.
The main problem that I see with Jace is the price issue. If he was unbanned, he would triple in price at least. That will make many decks impossible to afford for players with less money.
SFM would triple in price, but unlike Jace its price can be brought down by reprints. It can be reprinted at rare. As a planeswalker, Jace will never be reprinted below mythic, making it almost impossible to lower his price.
Price should not play an impact on ban list decisions and belongs in the price discussion thread. It's up to WOTC to find a way to keep the price down to reasonable levels. Same thing happened with bitterblossom, it's now triple the price that it once was. It used to be higher as well, and if faeries had turned out to make a bigger impact on the format it's price likely would have stayed up in the $70-90 range. Good thing they didn't make the unban decision on that card based on price, or else it would still be sitting on the ban list for no reason at all.
Ban list decisions should be made simply on the impact that the card will have on the format as a whole, nothing more, nothing less.
*Edit: why not just put Jace in a future modern event deck if he becomes unbanned, make it a bit more expensive than the recent $75 one, say maybe a $125-150 deck with an unlimited print run. It would fly off the shelves and help keep his price about where it is now.
Like I said I have no strong feelings about the card but I think that is a good thing in general to have. It's nothing against you personally but I talked about that before that people drag their experience from Standard into a discussion about how that card would be in Modern but that should have no relevance at all.
I dont blame people for doing that because Wizards does it too but it being bonkers in Standard has nothing to do with how it would be in Modern.
If you want a recent example look at Bitterblossom which was solely banned on it being dominating in Standard but it's completely fine in Modern.
I think that cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic are not being seen 100% objectively by players and Wizards because of what the did to Standard.
Ding Ding. We have a winner here folks!
Every single card that enabled a bonkers standard deck back in the day and has been unbanned, has not broken modern.
Jace + stoneforge is probably too much to give the UW shell, but just one of them would probably be ok. Infact Jace is a lot less damaging that Stoneforge is.
Bitterblossom was not banned solely because of its status in Standard. That wasn't even mentioned in the banning announcement. What was mentioned was its status in Extended. Here's the original explanation:
"After everything I've just told you about choosing to ban, the last obvious deck that we haven't hit is Faeries, which was almost certainly the best deck in four-year Extended the last time we ran it. While Faeries does not currently have as much enmity from players as Stoneforge Mystic decks do, its historical popularity is not very high. We would rather remove it than risk a Faeries-dominated Pro Tour."
Also, "Every single card that enabled a bonkers standard deck back in the day and has been unbanned, has not broken modern"? To this date, there has been exactly one deck that enabled a "bonkers Standard deck" that has been unbanned, which was Bitterblossom, though I'm not even sure if it's fair to call Faeries "bonkers" because while the dominant deck, it wasn't at the level of something like Affinity or Caw-Blade, where a banning was actually necessary. Still, even if we consider Faeries to be bonkers, the other cards were not. Neither Valakut nor Wild Nacatl contributed to any deck in Standard being dominant that I can recall, and in fact were pretty overshadowed by other decks during their tenure (Faeries and Jund for Wild Nacatl, Jund and Caw-Blade for Valakut).
Also, while it is fair that Stoneforge and Jace being crazy in Standard doesn't mean they'd necessarily be too good in Modern, that's ignoring the fact that they were crazy in Extended and, while not crazy in Legacy, are still very powerful. We're not talking about something like Monoblack Devotion (the current dominant deck in Standard), which is a complete nonentity anywhere else; we're talking about cards and a deck that were very good in Standard, Extended, and Legacy.
Like I said I have no strong feelings about the card but I think that is a good thing in general to have. It's nothing against you personally but I talked about that before that people drag their experience from Standard into a discussion about how that card would be in Modern but that should have no relevance at all.
I dont blame people for doing that because Wizards does it too but it being bonkers in Standard has nothing to do with how it would be in Modern.
If you want a recent example look at Bitterblossom which was solely banned on it being dominating in Standard but it's completely fine in Modern.
I think that cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic are not being seen 100% objectively by players and Wizards because of what the did to Standard.
Ding Ding. We have a winner here folks!
Every single card that enabled a bonkers standard deck back in the day and has been unbanned, has not broken modern.
Jace + stoneforge is probably too much to give the UW shell, but just one of them would probably be ok. Infact Jace is a lot less damaging that Stoneforge is.
Bitterblossom was not banned solely because of its status in Standard. That wasn't even mentioned in the banning announcement. What was mentioned was its status in Extended. Here's the original explanation:
"After everything I've just told you about choosing to ban, the last obvious deck that we haven't hit is Faeries, which was almost certainly the best deck in four-year Extended the last time we ran it. While Faeries does not currently have as much enmity from players as Stoneforge Mystic decks do, its historical popularity is not very high. We would rather remove it than risk a Faeries-dominated Pro Tour."
Also, "Every single card that enabled a bonkers standard deck back in the day and has been unbanned, has not broken modern"? To this date, there has been exactly one deck that enabled a "bonkers Standard deck" that has been unbanned, which was Bitterblossom, though I'm not even sure if it's fair to call Faeries "bonkers" because while the dominant deck, it wasn't at the level of something like Affinity or Caw-Blade, where a banning was actually necessary. Still, even if we consider Faeries to be bonkers, the other cards were not. Neither Valakut nor Wild Nacatl contributed to any deck in Standard being dominant that I can recall, and in fact were pretty overshadowed by other decks during their tenure (Faeries and Jund for Wild Nacatl, Jund and Caw-Blade for Valakut).
Also, while it is fair that Stoneforge and Jace being crazy in Standard doesn't mean they'd necessarily be too good in Modern, that's ignoring the fact that they were crazy in Extended and, while not crazy in Legacy, are still very powerful. We're not talking about something like Monoblack Devotion (the current dominant deck in Standard), which is a complete nonentity anywhere else; we're talking about cards and a deck that were very good in Standard, Extended, and Legacy.
I'd respond, but you've shown time and time in the past that you don't read what I post and instead just nitpick tiny details. So why bother?
[quote from="Valanarch »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/543227-current-modern-banlist-discussion?comment=3253"]
Ding Ding. We have a winner here folks!
Every single card that enabled a bonkers standard deck back in the day and has been unbanned, has not broken modern.
Jace + stoneforge is probably too much to give the UW shell, but just one of them would probably be ok. Infact Jace is a lot less damaging that Stoneforge is.
The main problem that I see with Jace is the price issue. If he was unbanned, he would triple in price at least. That will make many decks impossible to afford for players with less money.
SFM would triple in price, but unlike Jace its price can be brought down by reprints. It can be reprinted at rare. As a planeswalker, Jace will never be reprinted below mythic, making it almost impossible to lower his price.
</blockquote>
Up to WOTC to fix not me. Price shouldn't factor into bans or unbans though.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Currently Playing:
Modern: UWUW TronUW
Legacy: WDeath N TaxesW CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Like I said I have no strong feelings about the card but I think that is a good thing in general to have. It's nothing against you personally but I talked about that before that people drag their experience from Standard into a discussion about how that card would be in Modern but that should have no relevance at all.
I dont blame people for doing that because Wizards does it too but it being bonkers in Standard has nothing to do with how it would be in Modern.
If you want a recent example look at Bitterblossom which was solely banned on it being dominating in Standard but it's completely fine in Modern.
I think that cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic are not being seen 100% objectively by players and Wizards because of what the did to Standard.
Ding Ding. We have a winner here folks!
Every single card that enabled a bonkers standard deck back in the day and has been unbanned, has not broken modern.
Jace + stoneforge is probably too much to give the UW shell, but just one of them would probably be ok. Infact Jace is a lot less damaging that Stoneforge is.
Bitterblossom was not banned solely because of its status in Standard. That wasn't even mentioned in the banning announcement. What was mentioned was its status in Extended. Here's the original explanation:
"After everything I've just told you about choosing to ban, the last obvious deck that we haven't hit is Faeries, which was almost certainly the best deck in four-year Extended the last time we ran it. While Faeries does not currently have as much enmity from players as Stoneforge Mystic decks do, its historical popularity is not very high. We would rather remove it than risk a Faeries-dominated Pro Tour."
Also, "Every single card that enabled a bonkers standard deck back in the day and has been unbanned, has not broken modern"? To this date, there has been exactly one deck that enabled a "bonkers Standard deck" that has been unbanned, which was Bitterblossom, though I'm not even sure if it's fair to call Faeries "bonkers" because while the dominant deck, it wasn't at the level of something like Affinity or Caw-Blade, where a banning was actually necessary. Still, even if we consider Faeries to be bonkers, the other cards were not. Neither Valakut nor Wild Nacatl contributed to any deck in Standard being dominant that I can recall, and in fact were pretty overshadowed by other decks during their tenure (Faeries and Jund for Wild Nacatl, Jund and Caw-Blade for Valakut).
Also, while it is fair that Stoneforge and Jace being crazy in Standard doesn't mean they'd necessarily be too good in Modern, that's ignoring the fact that they were crazy in Extended and, while not crazy in Legacy, are still very powerful. We're not talking about something like Monoblack Devotion (the current dominant deck in Standard), which is a complete nonentity anywhere else; we're talking about cards and a deck that were very good in Standard, Extended, and Legacy.
I'd respond, but you've shown time and time in the past that you don't read what I post and instead just nitpick tiny details. So why bother?
If that's your wont, okay. Though I was actually mostly responding to the message you quoted, I just included your message because the only unbanned card with real Standard relevance was Bitterblossom.
Price should not play an impact on ban list decisions and belongs in the price discussion thread. It's up to WOTC to find a way to keep the price down to reasonable levels. Same thing happened with bitterblossom, it's now triple the price that it once was. It used to be higher as well, and if faeries had turned out to make a bigger impact on the format it's price likely would have stayed up in the $70-90 range. Good thing they didn't make the unban decision on that card based on price, or else it would still be sitting on the ban list for no reason at all.
Ban list decisions should be made simply on the impact that the card will have on the format as a whole, nothing more, nothing less.
*Edit: why not just put Jace in a future modern event deck if he becomes unbanned, make it a bit more expensive than the recent $75 one, say maybe a $125-150 deck with an unlimited print run. It would fly off the shelves and help keep his price about where it is now.
[quote from="Valanarch »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/543227-current-modern-banlist-discussion?comment=3253"]
Ding Ding. We have a winner here folks!
Every single card that enabled a bonkers standard deck back in the day and has been unbanned, has not broken modern.
Jace + stoneforge is probably too much to give the UW shell, but just one of them would probably be ok. Infact Jace is a lot less damaging that Stoneforge is.
The main problem that I see with Jace is the price issue. If he was unbanned, he would triple in price at least. That will make many decks impossible to afford for players with less money.
SFM would triple in price, but unlike Jace its price can be brought down by reprints. It can be reprinted at rare. As a planeswalker, Jace will never be reprinted below mythic, making it almost impossible to lower his price.
</blockquote>
Up to WOTC to fix not me. Price shouldn't factor into bans or unbans though.
I would say that while price shouldn't be a factor in bans, it should be one in unbans. The problem with banning cards because they are too expensive is because there are people who have bought the cards already and expect to be able to use them in Modern. This is not the case with unbans. With Jace, there is almost no way to keep his price reasonable.
some things just don't make sense on the ban list, as their unbanning would make the format more diverse and healthy.
unban golgari grave-troll, dread return, blazing shoal, chrome mox, ancestral vision, and dark depths.
ALL of the "overpowered" decks that revolve around these cards have tons of hate and answers, and they also don't run tarmogoyf/dark confidant.
I'd just love the format to open up a bit.
I have to disagree about Dread Return, but all of those other cards are fine in my opinion. I still think that Chrome Mox is okay, Dark Depths would provide a nice most to RG Tron and Big Zoo (though it might be problematic in Scapeshift), and Blazing Shoal is much less consistent without Ponder and Preordain. However, I would like to keep Blazing Shoal banned because an eventual Preordain unban would be better for the format.
some things just don't make sense on the ban list, as their unbanning would make the format more diverse and healthy.
unban golgari grave-troll, dread return, blazing shoal, chrome mox, ancestral vision, and dark depths.
ALL of the "overpowered" decks that revolve around these cards have tons of hate and answers, and they also don't run tarmogoyf/dark confidant.
I'd just love the format to open up a bit.
Sooooo just chuck the turn four rule out the window? No thanks. I've never been one to believe that you can balance powerful interactions like those with just leaning on hate. GGT and dread would be FAR too consistent just to start with the problems there, but really the only one even remotely safe there is just GGT, though I do believe an AV unban would be mostly okay.
some things just don't make sense on the ban list, as their unbanning would make the format more diverse and healthy.
unban golgari grave-troll, dread return, blazing shoal, chrome mox, ancestral vision, and dark depths.
ALL of the "overpowered" decks that revolve around these cards have tons of hate and answers, and they also don't run tarmogoyf/dark confidant.
I'd just love the format to open up a bit.
Sooooo just chuck the turn four rule out the window? No thanks. I've never been one to believe that you can balance powerful interactions like those with just leaning on hate. GGT and dread would be FAR too consistent just to start with the problems there, but really the only one even remotely safe there is just GGT, though I do believe an AV unban would be mostly okay.
Dark Depths doesn't break the turn 4 rule consistently. Neither does Blazing Shoal without the good cantrips. I think that Chrome Mox doesn't either, but that one I am a little more worried about.
some things just don't make sense on the ban list, as their unbanning would make the format more diverse and healthy.
unban golgari grave-troll, dread return, blazing shoal, chrome mox, ancestral vision, and dark depths.
ALL of the "overpowered" decks that revolve around these cards have tons of hate and answers, and they also don't run tarmogoyf/dark confidant.
I'd just love the format to open up a bit.
Sooooo just chuck the turn four rule out the window? No thanks. I've never been one to believe that you can balance powerful interactions like those with just leaning on hate. GGT and dread would be FAR too consistent just to start with the problems there, but really the only one even remotely safe there is just GGT, though I do believe an AV unban would be mostly okay.
Dark Depths doesn't break the turn 4 rule consistently. Neither does Blazing Shoal without the good cantrips. I think that Chrome Mox doesn't either, but that one I am a little more worried about.
I think what it comes down to is I don't anything else even remotely resembling combo to be introduced to the format at the moment. There's enough of it as is. Dark depths would just be run as an easy back up finisher too which I don't really feel is good for the format either.
some things just don't make sense on the ban list, as their unbanning would make the format more diverse and healthy.
unban golgari grave-troll, dread return, blazing shoal, chrome mox, ancestral vision, and dark depths.
ALL of the "overpowered" decks that revolve around these cards have tons of hate and answers, and they also don't run tarmogoyf/dark confidant.
I'd just love the format to open up a bit.
Sooooo just chuck the turn four rule out the window? No thanks. I've never been one to believe that you can balance powerful interactions like those with just leaning on hate. GGT and dread would be FAR too consistent just to start with the problems there, but really the only one even remotely safe there is just GGT, though I do believe an AV unban would be mostly okay.
Dark Depths doesn't break the turn 4 rule consistently. Neither does Blazing Shoal without the good cantrips. I think that Chrome Mox doesn't either, but that one I am a little more worried about.
I think what it comes down to is I don't anything else even remotely resembling combo to be introduced to the format at the moment. There's enough of it as is. Dark depths would just be run as an easy back up finisher too which I don't really feel is good for the format either.
Dark Depths would enable Tron, Junk, and Big Zoo much more than a traditional combo deck (except for Scapeshift). I still think that Chrome Mox would help out control much more than it would help out combo.
Dark Depths would be bad for the format. Blazing Shoal would enable a relatively consistent turn 3 deck, something Wizards has repeatedly said they don't want. Chrome Mox would make the format faster. GGT and Dread Return would bring Dredge back. AV would allow blue decks to dominate. In short, all those cards are bad for the format, and as others have been saying, you're trying to throw the turn 3 rule out the window.
Dark Depths would be bad for the format. Blazing Shoal would enable a relatively consistent turn 3 deck, something Wizards has repeatedly said they don't want. Chrome Mox would make the format faster. GGT and Dread Return would bring Dredge back. AV would allow blue decks to dominate. In short, all those cards are bad for the format, and as others have been saying, you're trying to throw the turn 3 rule out the window.
Dark Depths would be bad for the format how? How consistent would Blazing Shoal be? How would AV make blue decks dominate? What combo decks would want Chrome Mox? How does GGT possibly break anything?
affinity is already a consistent turn 3 deck, so there isn't really a 'turn 4' rule. blazing shoal is only bad because we decided poison counters were good for the game again (sigh).
Modern should be a lot closer to legacy than limited. I really don't think I'm in the minority, either. It should be more than "land, creature, attack, pass." "land, creature, removal, pass." and repeat.
tl;dr without really good combo decks, hand disruption decks and permission decks simply lose to aggro decks, so the format and meta is whittled down to Aggro vs. Midrange vs. Control.
Let's unban a lot of combo pieces so that this format can be like past extended formats and legacy, which had healthier meta games with Aggro vs. Combo vs. Control vs. Permission vs. Hand/Land disruption.
edit: People shouldn't be scared to bring dredge back when the format has so much hate for it already in place. I want to see a format where any of thirty decks could be considered serious contenders. Not just Jund, Affinity, splinter twin, and Pod. Four decks.
How often does affinity win on turn 3 though? Honest question, as I've rarely seen it do so in my limited games against it (I don't play MTGO, not a lot of affinity players locally here).
When you say Tarmo and Bob aren't fun, are you referring to the cards not being fun or the price not being fun?
As for JTMS, Ponder, Preordain...I think cards like that are fun, does my fun matter less because of that?
@Shinyfirefly: Anyway, there is a turn 4 rule. Wizards says things about it all the time. And decks winning on turn 3 with creatures isn't the same thing as decks winning on turn 3 with spells. Creature decks like Affinity can be disrupted with a simple Pyroclasm or Ancient Grudge, or you can just block their creatures with your creatures. Plus, Affinity isn't consistent in the least when it comes to T3 wins. Storm, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely.
As for the notion that Modern isn't diverse, we have two VERY different Pod decks (personally I don't like it when people lump them together), three Twin decks with completely different gameplans, two blue control decks (UWR and Scapeshift), Affinity, Zoo, Jund, Merfolk, UWR Midrange, UR Delver... And once you get further down the ladder, you get bizarre, awesome combo decks like Living End and Weird Paradise, a few more control decks, and a lot more. In short, Modern is diverse.
affinity is already a consistent turn 3 deck, so there isn't really a 'turn 4' rule. blazing shoal is only bad because we decided poison counters were good for the game again (sigh).
Modern should be a lot closer to legacy than limited. I really don't think I'm in the minority, either. It should be more than "land, creature, attack, pass." "land, creature, removal, pass." and repeat.
tl;dr without really good combo decks, hand disruption decks and permission decks simply lose to aggro decks, so the format and meta is whittled down to Aggro vs. Midrange vs. Control.
Let's unban a lot of combo pieces so that this format can be like past extended formats and legacy, which had healthier meta games with Aggro vs. Combo vs. Control vs. Permission vs. Hand/Land disruption.
edit: People shouldn't be scared to bring dredge back when the format has so much hate for it already in place. I want to see a format where any of thirty decks could be considered serious contenders. Not just Jund, Affinity, splinter twin, and Pod. Four decks.
Biiiig issue with this post. FUN is subjective. How can you bring that up as argument to unban / ban things? Combo unrepresented in Modern? POD and TWIN are arguably the strongest decks of the format and hey, those are both combo decks.
No offense but I think you might know less about Modern than you think. Saying affinity is a consistent turn 3 deck does show that. It's simply not true. If it was, there would be something banned from the deck, plain and simple.
Modenr shouldn't be near anything. It's a format on its own. It shouldn't be Legacy 0.5 or 2.0. Modern is Modern and it should be as different as possible from other formats. Just like Legacy doesn't look anything like Vintage.
affinity is already a consistent turn 3 deck, so there isn't really a 'turn 4' rule.
I don't know what deck you're thinking of, but Affinity is not a consistent turn 3 deck.
Also, many people think that some of the cards you list as "fun" are anything but. Indeed, the cards you list as "not fun" are cards I've seen many people think are very fun and should be in the format. Personally, I'd like Jace in the format much more than Dark Depths or Blazing Shoal.
if you lead with a colonnade on the draw against an infect deck that has the option of running blazing shoal that led with a nexus, you deserve to lose. just saying.
i'm not for shoal to come off the list, but come on, at least come up with a proper play.
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I speak in sarcasm because calling people ******* ******** is not allowed.
The fact is, only four decks are viable (sure, they have variants. it's still only four). Out of 11 years of magic, only two combo decks are viable, and both are infinite? dredge isn't infinite, dstorm isn't infinite, infect should never have been printed, etc.
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The main problem that I see with Jace is the price issue. If he was unbanned, he would triple in price at least. That will make many decks impossible to afford for players with less money.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
The main problem that I see with Jace is the price issue. If he was unbanned, he would triple in price at least. That will make many decks impossible to afford for players with less money.[/quote]
You say that like sfm wouldn't triple in price as well. Jace being on the list because of monetary reasons is also ridiculous as he's half the price of goyf.
Modern:
UWUW TronUW
Legacy:
WDeath N TaxesW
CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Vintage
WWhite Trash
SFM would triple in price, but unlike Jace its price can be brought down by reprints. It can be reprinted at rare. As a planeswalker, Jace will never be reprinted below mythic, making it almost impossible to lower his price.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Ban list decisions should be made simply on the impact that the card will have on the format as a whole, nothing more, nothing less.
*Edit: why not just put Jace in a future modern event deck if he becomes unbanned, make it a bit more expensive than the recent $75 one, say maybe a $125-150 deck with an unlimited print run. It would fly off the shelves and help keep his price about where it is now.
"After everything I've just told you about choosing to ban, the last obvious deck that we haven't hit is Faeries, which was almost certainly the best deck in four-year Extended the last time we ran it. While Faeries does not currently have as much enmity from players as Stoneforge Mystic decks do, its historical popularity is not very high. We would rather remove it than risk a Faeries-dominated Pro Tour."
Also, "Every single card that enabled a bonkers standard deck back in the day and has been unbanned, has not broken modern"? To this date, there has been exactly one deck that enabled a "bonkers Standard deck" that has been unbanned, which was Bitterblossom, though I'm not even sure if it's fair to call Faeries "bonkers" because while the dominant deck, it wasn't at the level of something like Affinity or Caw-Blade, where a banning was actually necessary. Still, even if we consider Faeries to be bonkers, the other cards were not. Neither Valakut nor Wild Nacatl contributed to any deck in Standard being dominant that I can recall, and in fact were pretty overshadowed by other decks during their tenure (Faeries and Jund for Wild Nacatl, Jund and Caw-Blade for Valakut).
Also, while it is fair that Stoneforge and Jace being crazy in Standard doesn't mean they'd necessarily be too good in Modern, that's ignoring the fact that they were crazy in Extended and, while not crazy in Legacy, are still very powerful. We're not talking about something like Monoblack Devotion (the current dominant deck in Standard), which is a complete nonentity anywhere else; we're talking about cards and a deck that were very good in Standard, Extended, and Legacy.
unban golgari grave-troll, dread return, blazing shoal, chrome mox, ancestral vision, and dark depths.
ALL of the "overpowered" decks that revolve around these cards have tons of hate and answers, and they also don't run tarmogoyf/dark confidant.
I'd just love the format to open up a bit.
I'd respond, but you've shown time and time in the past that you don't read what I post and instead just nitpick tiny details. So why bother?
</blockquote>
Up to WOTC to fix not me. Price shouldn't factor into bans or unbans though.
Modern:
UWUW TronUW
Legacy:
WDeath N TaxesW
CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Vintage
WWhite Trash
I would say that while price shouldn't be a factor in bans, it should be one in unbans. The problem with banning cards because they are too expensive is because there are people who have bought the cards already and expect to be able to use them in Modern. This is not the case with unbans. With Jace, there is almost no way to keep his price reasonable.
I have to disagree about Dread Return, but all of those other cards are fine in my opinion. I still think that Chrome Mox is okay, Dark Depths would provide a nice most to RG Tron and Big Zoo (though it might be problematic in Scapeshift), and Blazing Shoal is much less consistent without Ponder and Preordain. However, I would like to keep Blazing Shoal banned because an eventual Preordain unban would be better for the format.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Sooooo just chuck the turn four rule out the window? No thanks. I've never been one to believe that you can balance powerful interactions like those with just leaning on hate. GGT and dread would be FAR too consistent just to start with the problems there, but really the only one even remotely safe there is just GGT, though I do believe an AV unban would be mostly okay.
Dark Depths doesn't break the turn 4 rule consistently. Neither does Blazing Shoal without the good cantrips. I think that Chrome Mox doesn't either, but that one I am a little more worried about.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I think what it comes down to is I don't anything else even remotely resembling combo to be introduced to the format at the moment. There's enough of it as is. Dark depths would just be run as an easy back up finisher too which I don't really feel is good for the format either.
Dark Depths would enable Tron, Junk, and Big Zoo much more than a traditional combo deck (except for Scapeshift). I still think that Chrome Mox would help out control much more than it would help out combo.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Dont even need GGT to make dredge a consistent turn 3 deck, just give us dread return.
Blazing shoal turn 2 consitent kills with counter back up, sure, that would be great for the game!
Free mana excel in chrome mox wouldnt be abused at all.
Like has already been said, you would be throwing the turn 4 rule out the window and changing the basis of the format.
The question is, would it be more or less appealing to the player base.
Current decks of choice:
Vintage: Shops.
Legacy: Lands.
Modern: Lantern.
EDIT: Deleted doublepost
Just pointing out that Blazing Shoal isn't a consistent turn 2 kill without Ponder and Preordain. It might still be a turn 3 kill though.
Dark Depths would be bad for the format how? How consistent would Blazing Shoal be? How would AV make blue decks dominate? What combo decks would want Chrome Mox? How does GGT possibly break anything?
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
blazing shoal is only bad because we decided poison counters were good for the game again (sigh).
But we all can agree, Magic: the Gathering should be about fun.
dread return is fun.
golgari grave-troll is fun.
(ban bridge from below if you think dredge is too fast, but then again, just bile blight or echoing truth or pyroclasm or ensnaring bridge...)
chrome mox is fun.
ancestral vision is fun (the ultimate "wait for it...!"
blazing shoal is fun.
dark depths is fun. (and there's plenty of hate out there for it. ghost quarter, condemn, path to exile, threads of disloyalty, act of treason... that makes this game fun.)
what's not fun? sensei's divining top (add 10 minutes to every game for each top in play). JTMS. Ponder. Preordain. $200 tarmogoyfs. $100 Bobs. faeries. infect.
Modern should be a lot closer to legacy than limited. I really don't think I'm in the minority, either. It should be more than "land, creature, attack, pass." "land, creature, removal, pass." and repeat.
And while we're at it... bring back freaking seething song and rite of flame, give hand disruption and permission decks a reason to survive.
/soapbox
tl;dr without really good combo decks, hand disruption decks and permission decks simply lose to aggro decks, so the format and meta is whittled down to Aggro vs. Midrange vs. Control.
Let's unban a lot of combo pieces so that this format can be like past extended formats and legacy, which had healthier meta games with Aggro vs. Combo vs. Control vs. Permission vs. Hand/Land disruption.
edit: People shouldn't be scared to bring dredge back when the format has so much hate for it already in place. I want to see a format where any of thirty decks could be considered serious contenders. Not just Jund, Affinity, splinter twin, and Pod. Four decks.
When you say Tarmo and Bob aren't fun, are you referring to the cards not being fun or the price not being fun?
As for JTMS, Ponder, Preordain...I think cards like that are fun, does my fun matter less because of that?
@Shinyfirefly: Anyway, there is a turn 4 rule. Wizards says things about it all the time. And decks winning on turn 3 with creatures isn't the same thing as decks winning on turn 3 with spells. Creature decks like Affinity can be disrupted with a simple Pyroclasm or Ancient Grudge, or you can just block their creatures with your creatures. Plus, Affinity isn't consistent in the least when it comes to T3 wins. Storm, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely.
As for the notion that Modern isn't diverse, we have two VERY different Pod decks (personally I don't like it when people lump them together), three Twin decks with completely different gameplans, two blue control decks (UWR and Scapeshift), Affinity, Zoo, Jund, Merfolk, UWR Midrange, UR Delver... And once you get further down the ladder, you get bizarre, awesome combo decks like Living End and Weird Paradise, a few more control decks, and a lot more. In short, Modern is diverse.
Biiiig issue with this post. FUN is subjective. How can you bring that up as argument to unban / ban things? Combo unrepresented in Modern? POD and TWIN are arguably the strongest decks of the format and hey, those are both combo decks.
No offense but I think you might know less about Modern than you think. Saying affinity is a consistent turn 3 deck does show that. It's simply not true. If it was, there would be something banned from the deck, plain and simple.
Modenr shouldn't be near anything. It's a format on its own. It shouldn't be Legacy 0.5 or 2.0. Modern is Modern and it should be as different as possible from other formats. Just like Legacy doesn't look anything like Vintage.
Also, many people think that some of the cards you list as "fun" are anything but. Indeed, the cards you list as "not fun" are cards I've seen many people think are very fun and should be in the format. Personally, I'd like Jace in the format much more than Dark Depths or Blazing Shoal.
if you lead with a colonnade on the draw against an infect deck that has the option of running blazing shoal that led with a nexus, you deserve to lose. just saying.
i'm not for shoal to come off the list, but come on, at least come up with a proper play.