Ancestral Vision simply doesn't belong on the ban list and never did belong there in the first place.
Well it seems Wotc and you have different ideas for the format because AV has been on the list since the beginning.
That is not entirely correct. Bitterblossom was banned from the beginning and nothing impressive happened when it got unbanned. Certain cards were banned because of their assumed power level and not the actual environment of the format, which was basically unknown.
Ancestral Vision simply doesn't belong on the ban list and never did belong there in the first place.
Well it seems Wotc and you have different ideas for the format because AV has been on the list since the beginning.
That is not entirely correct. Bitterblossom was banned from the beginning and nothing impressive happened when it got unbanned. Certain cards were banned because of their assumed power level and not the actual environment of the format, which was basically unknown.
First, bringing BB into the format made Fae playable and it has won some events here and there.
Second, its Wotc's format to do as they wish. You can agree or disagree with how they handle it, but in the end its still their format.
Third, those cards ban early were because of what they did to other formats from Legacy, to Extended, to Standard. Wotc didnt want people reverting back to the brokenness of yesteryear and wanted people to innovate. You know, be a format different from the rest.
Cruise and AV would allow draws for decks like griselcannon to draw 7 for 1 mana on turn 4, or 4 on turn 3 and 4 on turn 4. Thats a quarter of a decks worth of cards by turn 4 IF they don't try and draw extra cards off a serum visions or something turn 2. You could literally play any combo under the modern sun with a quarter of your deck in your hand.
I understand that requires an AV turn 1, but 15 cards is...nuts.
Cruise and AV would allow draws for decks like griselcannon to draw 7 for 1 mana on turn 4, or 4 on turn 3 and 4 on turn 4. Thats a quarter of a decks worth of cards by turn 4 IF they don't try and draw extra cards off a serum visions or something turn 2. You could literally play any combo under the modern sun with a quarter of your deck in your hand.
I understand that requires an AV turn 1, but 15 cards is...nuts.
With the self mill and dredge cards we have in the format right now, you can T.cruise turn 2.
This thread finally gets an interesting topic to talk about after a whole season of dead air and we ruin it by trying to define tempo and combo...
A few people said a few pages back that BGx was dead or tier w after the DRS ban.... wut? It didnt dominate for ONE GP and that was because it was misbuilt (courser is a trap card in modern bgx). Once twin took up a solid third of the top 16, BGx (particularly Junk) was pretty much the best deck in modern.
BGx will still be strong in a post Delve meta the decks just need to restructure themselves. You know, adapt. Delver is crushing Junk right now because they got a new toy (cruise) to fight against a deck that is still playing the exact same 75 it played pre khans. Delver plays 12 creatures and some decks are even cutting snapcaster and counterspells to be more proactive and draw more cards from cruise. Junk can and will adapt to that. Kill all the delvers stonewall the swiftspear and pyromancers and the deck cant win no matter hhow many cards it draws. Does junk get annihilated by Dork Storm? Yes. GOOD. Having a tier 1 deck that crushes another tier 1 deck is called BALANCE. I play twin. Lre Dig Through Time my junk matchup was like 80-20 maybe 90-10 in their favor aka hellabad. Now its still not great but the numbers are spiking.
Its just like someone said earlier: if pod had just been printed in this set people would be marching towards seattle with pitchforks and torches. Just give it time to adapt and it will. These cards are not broken and give blue a push that it did in fact need prior to khans. Golgari was the best guild to start your deck with, not close.
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When people call for a ban on treasure cruise: "But I don't WANNA draw 3 cards!"
Cruise and AV would allow draws for decks like griselcannon to draw 7 for 1 mana on turn 4, or 4 on turn 3 and 4 on turn 4. Thats a quarter of a decks worth of cards by turn 4 IF they don't try and draw extra cards off a serum visions or something turn 2. You could literally play any combo under the modern sun with a quarter of your deck in your hand.
I understand that requires an AV turn 1, but 15 cards is...nuts.
With the self mill and dredge cards we have in the format right now, you can T.cruise turn 2.
That sounds super powerful but what is that even doing? You can maybe thoughtscour and dredge a stinkweed imp so you can cruise on turn 2 but what powerful effect does this play build to? If you're exiling your graveyard you cant dredge and your opening yourself up to drawing horrible cards that you put in your deck like thought scour and stinkweed imp. It sounds much scarier than it is.
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When people call for a ban on treasure cruise: "But I don't WANNA draw 3 cards!"
Ancestral Vision simply doesn't belong on the ban list and never did belong there in the first place.
Well it seems Wotc and you have different ideas for the format because AV has been on the list since the beginning.
Quote from Valanarch »
I don't see what would be wrong with Cruise and AV in the format together. The decks that play Cruise typically wouldn't play AV (Combo decks, Delver). The decks that play Dig could use some additional help anyways.
Yeah, having 8 cheap draw spells in the same deck is not going to happen. Add Dig into the mix and I dont see AV coming off unless one of the 2 new ones get banned.
1. Thanks for not thinking that everything is combo
2. Valakut and Bitterblossom have both been unbanned off the starting list. Plans change.
3. What is wrong with 8 cheap draw spells if they aren't being played in the same decks? Besides, Dig decks like WUR and Scapeshift getting a little better wouldn't break the format. The only concern is Twin.
Ancestral Vision simply doesn't belong on the ban list and never did belong there in the first place.
Well it seems Wotc and you have different ideas for the format because AV has been on the list since the beginning.
That is not entirely correct. Bitterblossom was banned from the beginning and nothing impressive happened when it got unbanned. Certain cards were banned because of their assumed power level and not the actual environment of the format, which was basically unknown.
First, bringing BB into the format made Fae playable and it has won some events here and there.
Second, its Wotc's format to do as they wish. You can agree or disagree with how they handle it, but in the end its still their format.
Third, those cards ban early were because of what they did to other formats from Legacy, to Extended, to Standard. Wotc didnt want people reverting back to the brokenness of yesteryear and wanted people to innovate. You know, be a format different from the rest.
We know that it is Wizards's format. You have said that a thousand times. You also used it as a reason why Nacatl and Bitterblossom would stay banned. Wizards's views on the format can and do change.
Also, bringing AV into Modern would not make it like Legacy because AV is only played in cascade decks there, which are only viable because you can't cascade into your primary counterspell and you can play discard, cascade, and blue in the same deck without going 4 colors.
@Idrareb, most conversations about magic classification are best test to the players with cards in their hands. The best definition of tempo in that case is 'I just died with seven cards in my hand before I got to do my thing and I wasn't even mana screwed'.
I also sense a huge shift in the BG shells we are familiar with, and I'm excited to see where it does. Looking forward to watching Madrid.
Interesting that you diagnose courser as a trap card, I'd like to know more about why you think that. I don't necessarily disagree.
Its just far from the most powerful thing you can be doing with three mana in the shell. Playing twin, if my opponent drops a courser turn 3 then I am happy. The fact is it just doesn't do much. Perhaps in Jund it is a card but in junk just leave your three slot to lilli and lingering souls. Right now Junk looks objectivley better than Jund.
I could see why people would want it, it mitigates all the damage you inflict upon yourself, it can control your draws/bobs... but everything else you're doing is so much more powerful that you don't need this bit of "synergy"... you're a good stuff deck! However it is possible that it may be a part of the new form BG shells take to adapt to delver and burn, but one life a turn is not that good and delver flies or goes wide. The deck is better off with more removal and leylines IMO.
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When people call for a ban on treasure cruise: "But I don't WANNA draw 3 cards!"
Its just far from the most powerful thing you can be doing with three mana in the shell. Playing twin, if my opponent drops a courser turn 3 then I am happy. The fact is it just doesn't do much. Perhaps in Jund it is a card but in junk just leave your three slot to lilli and lingering souls. Right now Junk looks objectivley better than Jund.
I could see why people would want it, it mitigates all the damage you inflict upon yourself, it can control your draws/bobs... but everything else you're doing is so much more powerful that you don't need this bit of "synergy"... you're a good stuff deck! However it is possible that it may be a part of the new form BG shells take to adapt to delver and burn, but one life a turn is not that good and delver flies or goes wide. The deck is better off with more removal and leylines IMO.
I think it depends on the match up. Personally, the card I'm LEAST happy to see turn three is courser. Walls better than tarmo given I usually have rips in G2, but the life gain and consistency from courser really hurts me.
Cruise and AV would allow draws for decks like griselcannon to draw 7 for 1 mana on turn 4, or 4 on turn 3 and 4 on turn 4. Thats a quarter of a decks worth of cards by turn 4 IF they don't try and draw extra cards off a serum visions or something turn 2. You could literally play any combo under the modern sun with a quarter of your deck in your hand.
I understand that requires an AV turn 1, but 15 cards is...nuts.
With the self mill and dredge cards we have in the format right now, you can T.cruise turn 2.
As Idrareb said (more nicely than I will), this is a horrible example of a turn 2 play. In fact, it's pretty laughable, unless you draw the nuts.
But let's go through the nut draw, because I know you're going to go there and say it's consistent.
T2: Dredge 5. (Now, at this point in time, you have EXACTLY 7 cards in your Graveyard, one of which is a Faithless Looting and one of which is a Stinkweed Imp.)
Rainbowland. (This is the earliest possible point that you can cast Treasure Cruise for value. If you have a Treasure Cruise in your hand, you can pay two mana, exiling the six non-Imp cards in your graveyard, in order to either draw 3, or more likely, attempt to Dredge 3 times, for a maximum of 15 cards, assuming you hit the 3rd and 4th Imps in your deck off of the initial Dredge. But let's keep going like this is the absolute nuts.)
Let's assume that you hit a THIRD Stinkweed Imp in the Dredge 5 that happened at the start of this turn. (This gives you one Imp in hand, and two Imps in the graveyard.)
Faithless Looting (#2), allowing you to Dredge 10, giving you a total of 18 cards in your graveyard because you pitch the two Imps you just Dredged. (Of those 18 cards, 2 are Stinkweed Imps and 2 are Faithless Lootings; 1 of the Imps is still in your hand)
Now let's assume that somewhere in that set of 18 cards, is your FOURTH Stinkweed Imp.
If you play Treasure Cruise now, you remove 7 cards in your graveyard, leaving only 11 cards there. You can't remove the three Stinkweed Imps, for obvious reasons. Now you Dredge 3 times, putting an additional 12 cards in your graveyard.
At this point, you have (assuming you were on the play):
Six cards in hand, four of which are Stinkweed Imp.
Twenty-three cards in your graveyard, two of which are Faithless Looting, and one of which is Treasure Cruise.
Seven cards in exile, which are probably untouchable unless your secret plan is to win by Misthollow Griffin beats.
You have now seen 36 out of the 60 cards in your deck. You probably have a powerful turn 3 play to continue Dredging if you want (given you can drop a land and flashback Faithless Looting, or maybe one of those two cards in hand is ANOTHER Treasure cruise), but let's pretend like you're trying to win this game rather than mill yourself to death.
It's Modern. There is no GGT, Dread Return, or Cabal Therapy. Maybe you hit a few Narcomoebas, and all four of them can swing for 4 on turn 3. Maybe the last two cards in your hand are another rainbowland and a Gravecrawler. Every land you dropped can tap for black, allowing you to cast the one Gravecrawler from your hand, and two more Gravecrawlers from the yard, triggering the playset of Vengevines that you miraculously found along the way.
EVEN THEN, you're still only swinging for 20 on turn 3. 16 from the Vengevines, and 4 from the Narcomoebas. Your opponent needs no blockers, no removal, and no lifegain, and you BARELY get there on turn 3.
Please don't pretend like a Dredge deck is using Treasure Cruise to get out of hand. Even in the best possible scenario, this is no faster than Storm, and it's much, much less consistent. It's way slower than Jeskai Ascendancy. Of all of the things that you can do with a Treasure Cruise in Modern, Dredge strategies are STILL the least of your worries.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
What are you playing that gets shut down by courser?
Eh death and taxes. I kinda rely on blade splicer in a lotta matches which gets walled. Being able to chip em away in the air isn't as effective either given their life gain from courser :/
This thread finally gets an interesting topic to talk about after a whole season of dead air and we ruin it by trying to define tempo and combo...
A few people said a few pages back that BGx was dead or tier w after the DRS ban.... wut? It didnt dominate for ONE GP and that was because it was misbuilt (courser is a trap card in modern bgx). Once twin took up a solid third of the top 16, BGx (particularly Junk) was pretty much the best deck in modern.
BGx will still be strong in a post Delve meta the decks just need to restructure themselves. You know, adapt. Delver is crushing Junk right now because they got a new toy (cruise) to fight against a deck that is still playing the exact same 75 it played pre khans. Delver plays 12 creatures and some decks are even cutting snapcaster and counterspells to be more proactive and draw more cards from cruise. Junk can and will adapt to that. Kill all the delvers stonewall the swiftspear and pyromancers and the deck cant win no matter hhow many cards it draws. Does junk get annihilated by Dork Storm? Yes. GOOD. Having a tier 1 deck that crushes another tier 1 deck is called BALANCE. I play twin. Lre Dig Through Time my junk matchup was like 80-20 maybe 90-10 in their favor aka hellabad. Now its still not great but the numbers are spiking.
Its just like someone said earlier: if pod had just been printed in this set people would be marching towards seattle with pitchforks and torches. Just give it time to adapt and it will. These cards are not broken and give blue a push that it did in fact need prior to khans. Golgari was the best guild to start your deck with, not close.
This is exactly what I have been thinking, but you've articulated it way better than I ever could. Thanks!
I'm simply referring to currently viable combo. If twin were allowed to see 15 cards by turn 3 for example, or griselcannon, or ect ect.
the whole dredge exercise is wasted on me.
Sorry, it was for Bocephus. If you read the quote, you'll see he's talking about using self-mill as a means of playing Treasure Cruise. His point is either to say that (a) it's possible, which is technically correct, (b) that it's useful, which is correct, but it's slower than other things you can do with Treasure Cruise, or (c) that it can be abused, which is ridiculous.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
This is completely speculation on my part but here's a reason why AV should possibly stay banned in Modern (and maybe TC should be looked at):
Library manipulation / card draw is powerful in all formats but *especially* so in eternal formats since the power level is higher and thus the value of drawing a card / fixing your next draw is higher. The main reason why Legacy is largely blue-dominated (IMO) is because blue has access to all the best library manipulation. Force of Will is certainly important but I'd cut it before Brainstorm. There are tier 1 non-blue decks like Elves but they have their own form of library manipulation (glimpse/visionary chains, GSZ, etc.)
Personally, I don't have a problem with this in Legacy. I will admit I have never played a deck with less than 4 Brainstorm but those decks have been of just about every archetype: combo, control, tempo, midrange, aggro (or whatever you want to call UR delver). So to me, there's still a level of diversity in that I can choose a deck that fits my playstyle.
A lot of people don't like that though. They want to have diversity in terms of colors as well. Legacy and Vintage are probably never going to be like that but Modern could be (and is, IMO). However, if you give blue a bunch of reasonably playable library manipulation, you run the risk of creating another format where if you aren't playing blue you better have a really, really good reason.
Again, this is all speculation, and I'm not saying that AV should stay banned or TC should be banned or anything like that. My point is that historically, the value of library manipulation has been underestimated (see most people's comments on TC when it first came out) and it's important to be really, really careful when adding anything like that to an eternal format.
I'm simply referring to currently viable combo. If twin were allowed to see 15 cards by turn 3 for example, or griselcannon, or ect ect.
the whole dredge exercise is wasted on me.
Twin wont be digging turn 3. Twin wants to dig end of your turn 5 and cast a tapper that it found with the rest of its mana and then kill you on turn 6. This is if it doesnt kill you turn 4 and if it finds the right pieces from dig and if you cant abrupt decay its combo piece. Twin got a push from dig but I really feel like khans just helped catch the rest of the cardpool up to the power level BGx was playing on.
I feel this is a pretty overblown reaction because we're not used to big changes in this format. Since RTR block we've only added Anger of the Gods to sideboards and Eidolon of the Great Revel to burn. This set actually shakes the meta up and thats what makes people call for emergency bans (which has happened to one card. One). Not that everyone is doing that but some people are and its laughable.
@sheepz. Ican see that. However I dont think DnT takes up enough real estate that BGx should start putting in coursers (which only helps you, right?)
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When people call for a ban on treasure cruise: "But I don't WANNA draw 3 cards!"
I'm sorry if someone inferred that I thought the DRS ban killed GB. That was not my intention. Losing DRS did significantly power down GB and gave enough wriggle room in the format for burn to gain a foothold. Now something needs to be able to knock burn off. And I don't rightly know what that is since combo runs at nearly the same speed and control is traditionally very weak in modern.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
I'm simply referring to currently viable combo. If twin were allowed to see 15 cards by turn 3 for example, or griselcannon, or ect ect.
the whole dredge exercise is wasted on me.
Twin wont be digging turn 3. Twin wants to dig end of your turn 5 and cast a tapper that it found with the rest of its mana and then kill you on turn 6. This is if it doesnt kill you turn 4 and if it finds the right pieces from dig and if you cant abrupt decay its combo piece. Twin got a push from dig but I really feel like khans just helped catch the rest of the cardpool up to the power level BGx was playing on.
I feel this is a pretty overblown reaction because we're not used to big changes in this format. Since RTR block we've only added Anger of the Gods to sideboards and Eidolon of the Great Revel to burn. This set actually shakes the meta up and thats what makes people call for emergency bans (which has happened to one card. One). Not that everyone is doing that but some people are and its laughable.
@sheepz. Ican see that. However I dont think DnT takes up enough real estate that BGx should start putting in coursers (which only helps you, right?)
I've played against the deck in a GP Trial with my Esper Control deck (a deck that plays almost exactly like Jeskai [UWR] Control, but with Esper Charm, which can destroy the Ascendancy), I had done my research, boarded 2 Annuls just to deal with it (and because they still help against Affinity), still lost in close 3 games and only felt slightly favored overall - and that is a really bad and worrying sign.
Generally, as the Control deck, I should beat up most Combo decks unless they're slow, resilient Combo decks like Scapeshift - my entire deck basically consists only of permission, removal and card draw ! However, due to Jeskai Ascendancy Storm's speed (it can kill on turn 2 on occasion and on turn 3 pretty reliably if not interruped) and its resiliency (cantrips get you what you need, you have the "wish board" against disruption/permission and basically run 7 combo pieces), I only felt slightly favored when playing in 3 games and evenly matched in 2 games (about 40:60 in game 1 and 60:40 in games 2 and 3).
This is, like I said, really worrying because if Control, which should be the "nightmare match-up" for fast Combo, is only slightly favored in the match-up, what other decks do match-up well against a deck that has a pretty reliable turn 3 kill and lots of resiliency ? Aggro is usually too slow unless they draw the nuts (Affinity or Infect on the play with a fast start, Burn on the play with a turn 2 Eidolon of the Great Revel), Midrange usually doesn't nearly have enough disruption to do more than slow down the kill for a few turns, which is usually not enough and other Combo decks tend to be slower, less resilient, less reliable or any combination of those attributes.
Can Jeskai Ascendancy Storm be beaten ? Definitely, but it will take lots of Control being played and eat up tons of sideboard (and maybe main deck) slots, just to deal with one deck (and one card, Jeskai Ascendancy, in particular) - the clear hallmark of a card (and subsequent deck) warping the meta game. This is why Jeskai Ascendancy needs to get the axe as soon as possible - as much as that pains me because I usually advocate unbans and letting the format sort things out, and I enjoy playing Combo myself, btw.
Once it gets good results I'll agree with you. Until it actually starts doing things, a ban is unnecessary.
I'm simply referring to currently viable combo. If twin were allowed to see 15 cards by turn 3 for example, or griselcannon, or ect ect.
the whole dredge exercise is wasted on me.
Twin wont be digging turn 3. Twin wants to dig end of your turn 5 and cast a tapper that it found with the rest of its mana and then kill you on turn 6. This is if it doesnt kill you turn 4 and if it finds the right pieces from dig and if you cant abrupt decay its combo piece. Twin got a push from dig but I really feel like khans just helped catch the rest of the cardpool up to the power level BGx was playing on.
I feel this is a pretty overblown reaction because we're not used to big changes in this format. Since RTR block we've only added Anger of the Gods to sideboards and Eidolon of the Great Revel to burn. This set actually shakes the meta up and thats what makes people call for emergency bans (which has happened to one card. One). Not that everyone is doing that but some people are and its laughable.
@sheepz. Ican see that. However I dont think DnT takes up enough real estate that BGx should start putting in coursers (which only helps you, right?)
Oh yea you're definitely right, was just sayin it personally is a hassle haha. Don't they want it for burn though? Burns big and it seems like a grand counter measure there. I might just not understand BGx well enough though so could be wrong.
We really need to wait till GP Madrid and a couple weeks of the SCG modern tournaments before we can make any calls on the deck. Play like 20 more games with UWR/Esper against Jeskai Combo and see what the results are. Hearing from Jeskai players, they have a fairly rough time with the Control decks. You just have to learn what to pilot.
Imagine if Splinter Twin and Deceiver Exarch were just now released instead. Everyone would be freaking out about this fast and consistent turn 4 deck. The meta would adjust. We just need to give this one a bit of time.
If it has 8 decks in the top 16 at Madrid, then I think the idea of a ban needs to be visited.
First, bringing BB into the format made Fae playable and it has won some events here and there.
Second, its Wotc's format to do as they wish. You can agree or disagree with how they handle it, but in the end its still their format.
Third, those cards ban early were because of what they did to other formats from Legacy, to Extended, to Standard. Wotc didnt want people reverting back to the brokenness of yesteryear and wanted people to innovate. You know, be a format different from the rest.
It indeed made Fae playable. However the deck has marginally won a few events, no major event, maybe had some top 8s here and there, 1 GP top 16 and now you barely ever see it in MODO (1 3-1 for the past week I think) and it consists like 1% of a big tournament. The same, if not worse, go for wild nacatl.
It is Wotc's format, that doesn't mean we have no opinion on it. If that is the case why do you even take part in the discussion? Lets close down the thread and just let Wotc's do whatever they want no matter if it right or wrong, no matter if players like it or not. It is not like they are depended on their player base.
Those cards were banned, as I said, because of their ASSUMED power. They were powerful everywhere else so Wotc assumed that they would be powerful in the new format. Of course modern has a much much bigger card pool than extended had which was Fae dominated. Indeed Fae in extended has basically no enemy, I've been playing back then as well (as I do now). However that doesn't mean that their choice to ban them was correct. And of course it does matter in the end. Modern was and still is a format different from the rest. That doesn't mean we should be afraid of difference or voice our argumentation. We play the game at the end of the day.
I totally agree that the ascendency list is very powerful, but like val said, I'm waiting to see how saturated the meta becomes. If its too oppressive we can wait until the fate reforged balist update. This card is no memory jar and its not skullclamp.
@damagecase if burn's real life meta share approaches DRS jund levels the meta will very quickly adapt without having to ban anything. Affinity and bogles will clean that mess.
I kind of like the picture in my head of what the meta will shake out to be: delver, ascendancy, burn, pod, affinity, scapeshift, twin and junk (its not unplayable, it always finds a way). Each deck on this list devours at least one other deck on this list and in turn gets devoured by another. Plus, its still super early and Dork Storm is only the most obvious new deck from khans. We could still see something else pop up.
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When people call for a ban on treasure cruise: "But I don't WANNA draw 3 cards!"
According to the last week-and-change of MTGO events, JA Storm is one of the most overblown ban hypes we have seen in a while.
In about 200 decks over 10 days, we have seen 6 total JA Storms. Two of them went 4-0, and four of them went 3-1. When your broken, bannable deck is about 3% of the online metagame, doesn't always go 4-0, and doesn't even appear in every Daily, we probably have a case of unrealized ban mania.
Now, I already know what most people are going to say: JA Storm is being kept in check by Burn. Burn currently has about an 18% metagame share with 36 decks of the 200. It shows up in every Daily at least twice, and many Burn players are running Eidolon in addition to all their Bolt effects. So we might conclude a few things from this. First, we might say that JA Storm is THE reason (or one of the reasons) why Burn has such a high metagame share. Second, we might say that a ban on some JA Storm piece will bring down the Burn percentage, and would thus be good for the format.
Both of those explanations are bad ones. Burn had a 12% MTGO share before JA Storm even appeared, a share that was rising every week both in paper and online. It was an excellent metagame choice against the tides of BGx Midrange, and people took a while to catch on to how strong Eidolon was. Burn has also been benefiting from Swiftspear, which wasn't even legal until early October anyway. Finally, Burn is the cheapest Tier 1 deck in the format. It's the cheapest by a good margin as well. Of course more people are playing it, given the price of other staples and the (potentially) rising popularity of the format.
As for banning JA Storm cards to slow down Burn, that's the sort of indirect ban logic that never happens. It's not like Wizards banned Twin in an effort to make BGx Midrange a worse deck choice. That's not how bans operate. You use bans to regulate a deck that is overrepresented.
The funny thing is that Wizards really wanted a new aggro deck in the format besides just Affinity. Now they have it and people are upset. But either way, it has no bearing on JA Storm, a deck that has been proved overhyped for the last two weeks. I'm all for more data on the deck (SCG IQs this week will be great), but preliminary results are blowing the ban boat out of the water.
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UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
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First, bringing BB into the format made Fae playable and it has won some events here and there.
Second, its Wotc's format to do as they wish. You can agree or disagree with how they handle it, but in the end its still their format.
Third, those cards ban early were because of what they did to other formats from Legacy, to Extended, to Standard. Wotc didnt want people reverting back to the brokenness of yesteryear and wanted people to innovate. You know, be a format different from the rest.
I understand that requires an AV turn 1, but 15 cards is...nuts.
With the self mill and dredge cards we have in the format right now, you can T.cruise turn 2.
A few people said a few pages back that BGx was dead or tier w after the DRS ban.... wut? It didnt dominate for ONE GP and that was because it was misbuilt (courser is a trap card in modern bgx). Once twin took up a solid third of the top 16, BGx (particularly Junk) was pretty much the best deck in modern.
BGx will still be strong in a post Delve meta the decks just need to restructure themselves. You know, adapt. Delver is crushing Junk right now because they got a new toy (cruise) to fight against a deck that is still playing the exact same 75 it played pre khans. Delver plays 12 creatures and some decks are even cutting snapcaster and counterspells to be more proactive and draw more cards from cruise. Junk can and will adapt to that. Kill all the delvers stonewall the swiftspear and pyromancers and the deck cant win no matter hhow many cards it draws. Does junk get annihilated by Dork Storm? Yes. GOOD. Having a tier 1 deck that crushes another tier 1 deck is called BALANCE. I play twin. Lre Dig Through Time my junk matchup was like 80-20 maybe 90-10 in their favor aka hellabad. Now its still not great but the numbers are spiking.
Its just like someone said earlier: if pod had just been printed in this set people would be marching towards seattle with pitchforks and torches. Just give it time to adapt and it will. These cards are not broken and give blue a push that it did in fact need prior to khans. Golgari was the best guild to start your deck with, not close.
That sounds super powerful but what is that even doing? You can maybe thoughtscour and dredge a stinkweed imp so you can cruise on turn 2 but what powerful effect does this play build to? If you're exiling your graveyard you cant dredge and your opening yourself up to drawing horrible cards that you put in your deck like thought scour and stinkweed imp. It sounds much scarier than it is.
1. Thanks for not thinking that everything is combo
2. Valakut and Bitterblossom have both been unbanned off the starting list. Plans change.
3. What is wrong with 8 cheap draw spells if they aren't being played in the same decks? Besides, Dig decks like WUR and Scapeshift getting a little better wouldn't break the format. The only concern is Twin.
We know that it is Wizards's format. You have said that a thousand times. You also used it as a reason why Nacatl and Bitterblossom would stay banned. Wizards's views on the format can and do change.
Also, bringing AV into Modern would not make it like Legacy because AV is only played in cascade decks there, which are only viable because you can't cascade into your primary counterspell and you can play discard, cascade, and blue in the same deck without going 4 colors.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
@Idrareb, most conversations about magic classification are best test to the players with cards in their hands. The best definition of tempo in that case is 'I just died with seven cards in my hand before I got to do my thing and I wasn't even mana screwed'.
I also sense a huge shift in the BG shells we are familiar with, and I'm excited to see where it does. Looking forward to watching Madrid.
Interesting that you diagnose courser as a trap card, I'd like to know more about why you think that. I don't necessarily disagree.
I could see why people would want it, it mitigates all the damage you inflict upon yourself, it can control your draws/bobs... but everything else you're doing is so much more powerful that you don't need this bit of "synergy"... you're a good stuff deck! However it is possible that it may be a part of the new form BG shells take to adapt to delver and burn, but one life a turn is not that good and delver flies or goes wide. The deck is better off with more removal and leylines IMO.
I think it depends on the match up. Personally, the card I'm LEAST happy to see turn three is courser. Walls better than tarmo given I usually have rips in G2, but the life gain and consistency from courser really hurts me.
As Idrareb said (more nicely than I will), this is a horrible example of a turn 2 play. In fact, it's pretty laughable, unless you draw the nuts.
But let's go through the nut draw, because I know you're going to go there and say it's consistent.
T1: Rainbow land, Faithless Looting, pitching two Stinkweed Imps (3 cards in graveyard)
T2: Dredge 5. (Now, at this point in time, you have EXACTLY 7 cards in your Graveyard, one of which is a Faithless Looting and one of which is a Stinkweed Imp.)
Rainbow land. (This is the earliest possible point that you can cast Treasure Cruise for value. If you have a Treasure Cruise in your hand, you can pay two mana, exiling the six non-Imp cards in your graveyard, in order to either draw 3, or more likely, attempt to Dredge 3 times, for a maximum of 15 cards, assuming you hit the 3rd and 4th Imps in your deck off of the initial Dredge. But let's keep going like this is the absolute nuts.)
Let's assume that you hit a THIRD Stinkweed Imp in the Dredge 5 that happened at the start of this turn. (This gives you one Imp in hand, and two Imps in the graveyard.)
Faithless Looting (#2), allowing you to Dredge 10, giving you a total of 18 cards in your graveyard because you pitch the two Imps you just Dredged. (Of those 18 cards, 2 are Stinkweed Imps and 2 are Faithless Lootings; 1 of the Imps is still in your hand)
Now let's assume that somewhere in that set of 18 cards, is your FOURTH Stinkweed Imp.
If you play Treasure Cruise now, you remove 7 cards in your graveyard, leaving only 11 cards there. You can't remove the three Stinkweed Imps, for obvious reasons. Now you Dredge 3 times, putting an additional 12 cards in your graveyard.
At this point, you have (assuming you were on the play):
Six cards in hand, four of which are Stinkweed Imp.
Twenty-three cards in your graveyard, two of which are Faithless Looting, and one of which is Treasure Cruise.
Seven cards in exile, which are probably untouchable unless your secret plan is to win by Misthollow Griffin beats.
You have now seen 36 out of the 60 cards in your deck. You probably have a powerful turn 3 play to continue Dredging if you want (given you can drop a land and flashback Faithless Looting, or maybe one of those two cards in hand is ANOTHER Treasure cruise), but let's pretend like you're trying to win this game rather than mill yourself to death.
It's Modern. There is no GGT, Dread Return, or Cabal Therapy. Maybe you hit a few Narcomoebas, and all four of them can swing for 4 on turn 3. Maybe the last two cards in your hand are another rainbow land and a Gravecrawler. Every land you dropped can tap for black, allowing you to cast the one Gravecrawler from your hand, and two more Gravecrawlers from the yard, triggering the playset of Vengevines that you miraculously found along the way.
EVEN THEN, you're still only swinging for 20 on turn 3. 16 from the Vengevines, and 4 from the Narcomoebas. Your opponent needs no blockers, no removal, and no lifegain, and you BARELY get there on turn 3.
Please don't pretend like a Dredge deck is using Treasure Cruise to get out of hand. Even in the best possible scenario, this is no faster than Storm, and it's much, much less consistent. It's way slower than Jeskai Ascendancy. Of all of the things that you can do with a Treasure Cruise in Modern, Dredge strategies are STILL the least of your worries.
WUDeath&TaxesWG
Legacy
UBRGDredgeUBRG
UHigh TideU
URGLandsURG
WR Card Choice List
WUR American D&T
WUB Esper D&T
The Reserved List
Heat Maps
Eh death and taxes. I kinda rely on blade splicer in a lotta matches which gets walled. Being able to chip em away in the air isn't as effective either given their life gain from courser :/
the whole dredge exercise is wasted on me.
This is exactly what I have been thinking, but you've articulated it way better than I ever could. Thanks!
Sorry, it was for Bocephus. If you read the quote, you'll see he's talking about using self-mill as a means of playing Treasure Cruise. His point is either to say that (a) it's possible, which is technically correct, (b) that it's useful, which is correct, but it's slower than other things you can do with Treasure Cruise, or (c) that it can be abused, which is ridiculous.
WUDeath&TaxesWG
Legacy
UBRGDredgeUBRG
UHigh TideU
URGLandsURG
WR Card Choice List
WUR American D&T
WUB Esper D&T
The Reserved List
Heat Maps
Library manipulation / card draw is powerful in all formats but *especially* so in eternal formats since the power level is higher and thus the value of drawing a card / fixing your next draw is higher. The main reason why Legacy is largely blue-dominated (IMO) is because blue has access to all the best library manipulation. Force of Will is certainly important but I'd cut it before Brainstorm. There are tier 1 non-blue decks like Elves but they have their own form of library manipulation (glimpse/visionary chains, GSZ, etc.)
Personally, I don't have a problem with this in Legacy. I will admit I have never played a deck with less than 4 Brainstorm but those decks have been of just about every archetype: combo, control, tempo, midrange, aggro (or whatever you want to call UR delver). So to me, there's still a level of diversity in that I can choose a deck that fits my playstyle.
A lot of people don't like that though. They want to have diversity in terms of colors as well. Legacy and Vintage are probably never going to be like that but Modern could be (and is, IMO). However, if you give blue a bunch of reasonably playable library manipulation, you run the risk of creating another format where if you aren't playing blue you better have a really, really good reason.
Again, this is all speculation, and I'm not saying that AV should stay banned or TC should be banned or anything like that. My point is that historically, the value of library manipulation has been underestimated (see most people's comments on TC when it first came out) and it's important to be really, really careful when adding anything like that to an eternal format.
Twin wont be digging turn 3. Twin wants to dig end of your turn 5 and cast a tapper that it found with the rest of its mana and then kill you on turn 6. This is if it doesnt kill you turn 4 and if it finds the right pieces from dig and if you cant abrupt decay its combo piece. Twin got a push from dig but I really feel like khans just helped catch the rest of the cardpool up to the power level BGx was playing on.
I feel this is a pretty overblown reaction because we're not used to big changes in this format. Since RTR block we've only added Anger of the Gods to sideboards and Eidolon of the Great Revel to burn. This set actually shakes the meta up and thats what makes people call for emergency bans (which has happened to one card. One). Not that everyone is doing that but some people are and its laughable.
@sheepz. Ican see that. However I dont think DnT takes up enough real estate that BGx should start putting in coursers (which only helps you, right?)
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
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GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Once it gets good results I'll agree with you. Until it actually starts doing things, a ban is unnecessary.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Oh yea you're definitely right, was just sayin it personally is a hassle haha. Don't they want it for burn though? Burns big and it seems like a grand counter measure there. I might just not understand BGx well enough though so could be wrong.
Imagine if Splinter Twin and Deceiver Exarch were just now released instead. Everyone would be freaking out about this fast and consistent turn 4 deck. The meta would adjust. We just need to give this one a bit of time.
If it has 8 decks in the top 16 at Madrid, then I think the idea of a ban needs to be visited.
It is Wotc's format, that doesn't mean we have no opinion on it. If that is the case why do you even take part in the discussion? Lets close down the thread and just let Wotc's do whatever they want no matter if it right or wrong, no matter if players like it or not. It is not like they are depended on their player base.
Those cards were banned, as I said, because of their ASSUMED power. They were powerful everywhere else so Wotc assumed that they would be powerful in the new format. Of course modern has a much much bigger card pool than extended had which was Fae dominated. Indeed Fae in extended has basically no enemy, I've been playing back then as well (as I do now). However that doesn't mean that their choice to ban them was correct. And of course it does matter in the end. Modern was and still is a format different from the rest. That doesn't mean we should be afraid of difference or voice our argumentation. We play the game at the end of the day.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
@damagecase if burn's real life meta share approaches DRS jund levels the meta will very quickly adapt without having to ban anything. Affinity and bogles will clean that mess.
I kind of like the picture in my head of what the meta will shake out to be: delver, ascendancy, burn, pod, affinity, scapeshift, twin and junk (its not unplayable, it always finds a way). Each deck on this list devours at least one other deck on this list and in turn gets devoured by another. Plus, its still super early and Dork Storm is only the most obvious new deck from khans. We could still see something else pop up.
In about 200 decks over 10 days, we have seen 6 total JA Storms. Two of them went 4-0, and four of them went 3-1. When your broken, bannable deck is about 3% of the online metagame, doesn't always go 4-0, and doesn't even appear in every Daily, we probably have a case of unrealized ban mania.
Now, I already know what most people are going to say: JA Storm is being kept in check by Burn. Burn currently has about an 18% metagame share with 36 decks of the 200. It shows up in every Daily at least twice, and many Burn players are running Eidolon in addition to all their Bolt effects. So we might conclude a few things from this. First, we might say that JA Storm is THE reason (or one of the reasons) why Burn has such a high metagame share. Second, we might say that a ban on some JA Storm piece will bring down the Burn percentage, and would thus be good for the format.
Both of those explanations are bad ones. Burn had a 12% MTGO share before JA Storm even appeared, a share that was rising every week both in paper and online. It was an excellent metagame choice against the tides of BGx Midrange, and people took a while to catch on to how strong Eidolon was. Burn has also been benefiting from Swiftspear, which wasn't even legal until early October anyway. Finally, Burn is the cheapest Tier 1 deck in the format. It's the cheapest by a good margin as well. Of course more people are playing it, given the price of other staples and the (potentially) rising popularity of the format.
As for banning JA Storm cards to slow down Burn, that's the sort of indirect ban logic that never happens. It's not like Wizards banned Twin in an effort to make BGx Midrange a worse deck choice. That's not how bans operate. You use bans to regulate a deck that is overrepresented.
The funny thing is that Wizards really wanted a new aggro deck in the format besides just Affinity. Now they have it and people are upset. But either way, it has no bearing on JA Storm, a deck that has been proved overhyped for the last two weeks. I'm all for more data on the deck (SCG IQs this week will be great), but preliminary results are blowing the ban boat out of the water.