No it's not a reasonable card, it will never be playable in a fair deck, it only sees fringe play in some combo decks and saying that Delver doesn't want cantrips is a joke.. all of its threats require good cantrips to be useful, not to mention that the card selection is also useful for its reactive cards.
I think Faeries would get a significant boost from an AV unban, which is probably the main reason I'm so hopeful that it hurts. I mean, who wouldn't like to see Faeries vs. Jund? Superman vs. Batman of Modern Magic?
Cantrips are fine as they are. Sleight of Hand, while not usually mentioned, is a reasonable card for Modern and throwing any other cantrips into the mix that are on par with that and SV makes combo decks that much more troublesome. Sleight doesn't set up delver, but those sort of decks really want more free spells, not cantrips.
I will admit that this comment made me smile. I too would gladly play a format where such a battle of giants is a common thing. I don't think that AV would do much to help in that regard though.
Faeries has a few structural weaknesses that AV doesn't address. First as probably many of the Faeries players who are still on it can agree with there is a big difference between games where you have a turn 2 Bitterblossom and the games where you don't. The power level is considerable higher when that happens then when it doesn't which is a problem because you have no way to make that reliably happen besides hoping to get lucky. The reason for that is because the Faerie cards are reliant on synergy. They are powerful and above the curve when the synergy is there but they are pretty bad when it doesn't. Ever held a Spellstutter Sprite or Mistbind Clique in your hand when your board is empty? Yeah, it's a pretty bad feeling. I have played the deck for a time and in my opinion these factor makes for some higher variance games which I am not really a fan of.
In Jund every card is good and can stand on it's own. Tarmogoyf + Liliana of the Veil are pretty good together but they both have a high power level on there own and don't require each other.
The other reason has more to do with a general trend in MTG that has developed over time. There was a point in time where allied and enemy colors at least meant something but those days are over. As a matter of fact I would say that BG is the most synergistic color combination in the game and the reason why BG decks are a thing in pretty much every format. Alone they have their strengths but also have some serious drawbacks like no disruption, no creature removal, no way to deal with artifacts and enchantments and so on but together they pretty much eliminate all of their weaknesses and can do pretty much every thing besides countering spells. Well I guess they can't bounce stuff too but they can destroy any type of permanent anyway so there is no need for that.
UB on the other hand is a pretty sad and limited color combination these days. Certainly compared to BG but also even to ones like UW. I would say that UB, BR and UG are actually the 3 worst color combos in the game and the only time to find them being played is when they are teamed up with a third color. Wizards fascination with mill makes it clear that they have no intention of changing that any time soon though.
AV would definitely drown Jund and Junk in card advantage, and there's no way they can come back
One unban at a time. Right now, Jund is fine and blue-based decks are the suck. If you unbanned AV to help blue-based decks and Jund took the suckage mantle, then you could unban BBE to help out. But maybe blue-based AV decks are only "decent" and not "good," and a BBE unban makes Jund decks too strong for blue-based strategies to gain a foothold. This is why Wizards should be more conservative in the unban schedule.
That said, they don't need to be as ridiculously conservative as they are now. It's insane that they have unbanned so few cards but routinely **** up the format with new cards from new untested sets.
I am for unban both BBE and AV or nothing. Unbanning just AV makes no sense. It would make control better and Jund worse (and Jund isn't great positioned now) as it can't fight against so good card advantage. The you need to unban BBE too to make them closer like they are now otherwise control gets too big advantage comparing to Jund. Wizards need to make all fair interactive decks better not just one type while leave the other behind. Even Junk would have much closer matchup against control if AV was legal while now it there's bigger gap in that mu in the favour of Junk.
Jund is in a good position right after Eldrazi gets banned so I don't buy that jund becomes "bad" since they just got Kalitas. BBE would push Jund over the edge just like the last time it was legal. BBE into Liliana/goyf is a dumb interaction.
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On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
good card selection spells like ponder and preordain only overpower combo decks when you can play all of them. As long as modern is limited to a single 1 mana ponder effect, ponder or preordain would be great for modern. this type of effect is needed for decks built around reactive answers.
They're not going to unban BBE until they ban Liliana of the Veil at a minimum. She's kind of unconditionally good, unlike Maelstrom Pulse, which may have no target when BBE is cast and Fulminator Mage, which may just be a 2/2 chump blocker with benefits effectively by the time you have 4 mana to cast BBE.
The interesting thing is that Shardless Agent is not banned despite the fact that it theoretically lets you fine tune your potential pulls off of the cascade much better than BBE does. At a guess WotC has decided that there are no unconditionally good spells at 2cc or less that are not creatures and thus easily removed if necessary.
I think Faeries would get a significant boost from an AV unban, which is probably the main reason I'm so hopeful that it hurts. I mean, who wouldn't like to see Faeries vs. Jund? Superman vs. Batman of Modern Magic?
I will admit that this comment made me smile. I too would gladly play a format where such a battle of giants is a common thing. I don't think that AV would do much to help in that regard though.
Faeries has a few structural weaknesses that AV doesn't address. First as probably many of the Faeries players who are still on it can agree with there is a big difference between games where you have a turn 2 Bitterblossom and the games where you don't. The power level is considerable higher when that happens then when it doesn't which is a problem because you have no way to make that reliably happen besides hoping to get lucky. The reason for that is because the Faerie cards are reliant on synergy. They are powerful and above the curve when the synergy is there but they are pretty bad when it doesn't. Ever held a Spellstutter Sprite or Mistbind Clique in your hand when your board is empty? Yeah, it's a pretty bad feeling. I have played the deck for a time and in my opinion these factor makes for some higher variance games which I am not really a fan of.
In Jund every card is good and can stand on it's own. Tarmogoyf + Liliana of the Veil are pretty good together but they both have a high power level on there own and don't require each other.
The other reason has more to do with a general trend in MTG that has developed over time. There was a point in time where allied and enemy colors at least meant something but those days are over. As a matter of fact I would say that BG is the most synergistic color combination in the game and the reason why BG decks are a thing in pretty much every format. Alone they have their strengths but also have some serious drawbacks like no disruption, no creature removal, no way to deal with artifacts and enchantments and so on but together they pretty much eliminate all of their weaknesses and can do pretty much every thing besides countering spells. Well I guess they can't bounce stuff too but they can destroy any type of permanent anyway so there is no need for that.
UB on the other hand is a pretty sad and limited color combination these days. Certainly compared to BG but also even to ones like UW. I would say that UB, BR and UG are actually the 3 worst color combos in the game and the only time to find them being played is when they are teamed up with a third color. Wizards fascination with mill makes it clear that they have no intention of changing that any time soon though.
That kind of what makes it Superman vs Batman thing for me. Jund seems to have nearly everything, it plays some of the individually most powerful cards in the format (Superman). The fact that it is also often cited as the fairest deck in Modern also places it in the "boy-scout" category. On the other hand, Faeries with all it's frailty can, under proper circumstances, achieve incredible feats and defy even the worst odds (Batman). Also, it kind of has a bad reputation from it's Standard days when it used to strike fear into the harts of it's adversaries, which is a very Dark Knight thing.
Those random thoughts aside, I kind of think you are downplaying what AV contributes to the Faeries shell. Context being everything, a turn one AV is as good as a Thoughtseize game one against BGx, arguably better. It also makes you less dependent on mulliganing into Bitterblossom since you can go on and trade one for one while hitting land drops until AV kicks in. If nothing else, the deck would certainly be leaps and bounds better then it is now if it had Ancestral Vision in it.
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In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
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They're not going to unban BBE until they ban Liliana of the Veil at a minimum. She's kind of unconditionally good, unlike Maelstrom Pulse, which may have no target when BBE is cast and Fulminator Mage, which may just be a 2/2 chump blocker with benefits effectively by the time you have 4 mana to cast BBE.
The interesting thing is that Shardless Agent is not banned despite the fact that it theoretically lets you fine tune your potential pulls off of the cascade much better than BBE does. At a guess WotC has decided that there are no unconditionally good spells at 2cc or less that are not creatures and thus easily removed if necessary.
BBE + Lily was fine until DRS came out, after which BBE got unrightfully banned. BBE is perfectly ok to come off, if only because it never should have been on the list in the first place.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
P&P were mostly an issue because Storm was very powerful back then. Now that Storm has been nerfed into oblivion, the only combo deck that might be problematic with Preordain would be the Goryo's Vengeance deck. But I'd rather just have card selection unbanned and then ban combo enablers instead. That's what wizards likes to do anyway; I'm not sure why back when they banned P&P they deviated from their usual "ban the enabler" plan.
I think at least Preordain deserves to be freed. Control really needs card selection. If it means we have to ban some combo enablers down the road, so be it.
I'm afraid it would help combo too much (combo with good cantrip spells and combo without them are completely different story) and we already have a lot of linear decks. We don't need more of them. Once again Preordain and/or Ponder would help combo much more than control. It would only work if they ban all combo enablers, rituals and other good stuff but then again it's possible that some person would find out new combo deck and these cantrip spells can give it a big boost.
The bias against combo in this thread is ridiculous. Apparently tier 3 decks like Storm prevent the unbanning of one cantrip, which at best could push it into tier 2.
Also combo decks getting better wouldn't lead to more linear decks since they most likely would replace some of the linear aggro's metashare.
BBE's cascade has gotten stronger with time since hitting Kommand is stupid value too. It's as simple as the fact that it would definitely be the best four drop for jund and it would definitely be buffing a tier 1 deck. The diversity we've seen in the four drop slot is a GOOD thing, I don't know why you guys wanna change that.
AV would definitely drown Jund and Junk in card advantage, and there's no way they can come back
One unban at a time. Right now, Jund is fine and blue-based decks are the suck. If you unbanned AV to help blue-based decks and Jund took the suckage mantle, then you could unban BBE to help out. But maybe blue-based AV decks are only "decent" and not "good," and a BBE unban makes Jund decks too strong for blue-based strategies to gain a foothold. This is why Wizards should be more conservative in the unban schedule.
That said, they don't need to be as ridiculously conservative as they are now. It's insane that they have unbanned so few cards but routinely **** up the format with new cards from new untested sets.
I am for unban both BBE and AV or nothing. Unbanning just AV makes no sense. It would make control better and Jund worse (and Jund isn't great positioned now) as it can't fight against so good card advantage. The you need to unban BBE too to make them closer like they are now otherwise control gets too big advantage comparing to Jund. Wizards need to make all fair interactive decks better not just one type while leave the other behind. Even Junk would have much closer matchup against control if AV was legal while now it there's bigger gap in that mu in the favour of Junk.
Jund is in a good position right after Eldrazi gets banned so I don't buy that jund becomes "bad" since they just got Kalitas. BBE would push Jund over the edge just like the last time it was legal. BBE into Liliana/goyf is a dumb interaction.
BBE never pushed Jund over the edge, DRS did. Before DRS was printed Jund with BBE was a perfectly reasonable deck. Also, even after BBE was banned BGx was still oppressive because of DRS. DRS was clearly the problem card, not BBE. BBE was actually kind of irrelevant in the whole thing.
I don't see how you can say BBE into Lili/Goyf is a "dumb" interaction. Do you also think Snapcaster + Kolghans command is "dumb"? There's nothing dumb about getting sweet value plays in the midgame. It's what makes playing a fair deck worth it. =
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Current Modern decks BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam UB Reanimator
BBE's cascade has gotten stronger with time since hitting Kommand is stupid value too. It's as simple as the fact that it would definitely be the best four drop for jund and it would definitely be buffing a tier 1 deck. The diversity we've seen in the four drop slot is a GOOD thing, I don't know why you guys wanna change that.
It wouldn't be the "best" 4 drop; just the most General.
Huntmaster of the Fells is far more grindy, and Olivia Volderin is still better for removing things than BBE ever will be. Kalitas is far better at countering Graveyard based decks if Scooze needs redundancy.
Yes, you can cascade into Kommand, but you also can not. And Competitive Magic players hate chance when they NEED to know what a card will do. You would most likely see 4 BBE's main with some of the others in the side.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
They're not going to unban BBE until they ban Liliana of the Veil at a minimum. She's kind of unconditionally good, unlike Maelstrom Pulse, which may have no target when BBE is cast and Fulminator Mage, which may just be a 2/2 chump blocker with benefits effectively by the time you have 4 mana to cast BBE.
The interesting thing is that Shardless Agent is not banned despite the fact that it theoretically lets you fine tune your potential pulls off of the cascade much better than BBE does. At a guess WotC has decided that there are no unconditionally good spells at 2cc or less that are not creatures and thus easily removed if necessary.
BBE + Lily was fine until DRS came out, after which BBE got unrightfully banned. BBE is perfectly ok to come off, if only because it never should have been on the list in the first place.
Completely disagree; BBE was already being hated as oppressive before DRS. DRS just put a format warping deck over the top. If you don't think it was warping the format your practicing some very selective memory. No other mid range deck existed as a competitive option. The cascade plus a hasty okay body was so much better than anything else going on. It would simply demand the removal of other spells from the format simply due to the dual card advantage and free mana. If the body didn't come stock with haste I think it would be okay but with all of the great =/<3cc options jund has it would quickly eradicate the other mid range options.
BBE's cascade has gotten stronger with time since hitting Kommand is stupid value too. It's as simple as the fact that it would definitely be the best four drop for jund and it would definitely be buffing a tier 1 deck. The diversity we've seen in the four drop slot is a GOOD thing, I don't know why you guys wanna change that.
It wouldn't be the "best" 4 drop; just the most General.
Huntmaster of the Fells is far more grindy, and Olivia Volderin is still better for removing things than BBE ever will be. Kalitas is far better at countering Graveyard based decks if Scooze needs redundancy.
Yes, you can cascade into Kommand, but you also can not. And Competitive Magic players hate chance when they NEED to know what a card will do. You would most likely see 4 BBE's main with some of the others in the side.
Lol most general is what jund DOES. And if players really hated the randomness they wouldn't have played it back in the day. When it's top deck mode and jund wants to close the game, BBE is there for you. You can't dispute it's a buff for a tier 1 deck making this idea bad. Until blue gets something to help on the card advantage end, we don't need to give that kind of value to jund.
BBE was one of the worst cards in the deck, it was banned because it was the only specific card Jund used. But in the years since the ban, people see the card on the banlist and assume it must be this super powerful card. It's not. It's like barely above Siege Rhino or Batterskull in power level.
This is fabulous. Please, please, please unban BBE so it can be one of the worst cards in my deck.
Using the Jund decklist in the primer, the odds of BBE into Liliana, Tarmogoyf, Bob, Scavenging Ooze, Lightning Bolt or Kolaghan's Command, all of which are outstanding on almost any board state is over 60%. If your opponent has a creature in play that isn't hexproof or a card in their hand its all gravy. This is of course, without adjusting the decklist at all to reflect BBE being available.
Give us a break, BBE would be a terrible unban. Fortunately, Wizards has said they are only unbanning cards if the metagame has passed them by, not to power up Tier decks.
BBE's cascade has gotten stronger with time since hitting Kommand is stupid value too. It's as simple as the fact that it would definitely be the best four drop for jund and it would definitely be buffing a tier 1 deck. The diversity we've seen in the four drop slot is a GOOD thing, I don't know why you guys wanna change that.
It wouldn't be the "best" 4 drop; just the most General.
Huntmaster of the Fells is far more grindy, and Olivia Volderin is still better for removing things than BBE ever will be. Kalitas is far better at countering Graveyard based decks if Scooze needs redundancy.
Yes, you can cascade into Kommand, but you also can not. And Competitive Magic players hate chance when they NEED to know what a card will do. You would most likely see 4 BBE's main with some of the others in the side.
Lol most general is what jund DOES. And if players really hated the randomness they wouldn't have played it back in the day. When it's top deck mode and jund wants to close the game, BBE is there for you. You can't dispute it's a buff for a tier 1 deck making this idea bad. Until blue gets something to help on the card advantage end, we don't need to give that kind of value to jund.
No, Efficient is what Jund does. It's easy to get the two mixed, but the reason Jund runs what it does is because the cards (a 4/5 for 1G, Murder anything for BG, Kill most things for R) is because they give the best bang for the buck, not because they answer general threats. The fact that the most efficient answers often were the most general is not a reason to confuse the two.
Back in the day there wasn't Kalitas or the Nalaar parents. Huntmaster and Olivia were just introduced and there wasn't much time to experiment with them along with BBE. It was pretty much BBE or Thrun, the Last Troll, and it's not hard to see why BBE won that debate.
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BBE makes non-blue decks play like blue decks, and we're not allowed to have that
But really, BBE in a vacuum is a strong card, but not broken. The problem is that cascade at 4CMC is insanely strong. Big enough to get really good value out of it, small enough to be well tuned.
Before we see a BBE unban, I would rather see what the meta would look like with a nerf'ed Eldrazi. My hope is for Eye to be hit, to steal some of Tron's inevitability away at the same time. This, in theory, would allow for the midrange decks to return, while still allowing the current aggro decks to exist. Unbanning something like BBE while also hitting a major part of the current meta game is a recipe for disaster. It'd be better to unban something like SOTM, as it currently doesn't have a home. This would hopefully keep people from all flocking to one deck, and have people experimenting on the best home for SOTM, while also being rid of your Eldrazi overlords.
I have to say it again, Delver is a deck that most likely would only be one cantrip away from being viable after the Eldrazi ban.
Every Legacy and Pauper Delver deck plays 2 cantrips to set up Delver, meanwhile Modern still has only one: Serum Visions, one good cantrip like Preordain or Ponder is really all that's needed.
Ancestral Vision is good to help control decks, but it still won't do anything to help tempo which is also non existent.
I think Faeries would get a significant boost from an AV unban, which is probably the main reason I'm so hopeful that it hurts. I mean, who wouldn't like to see Faeries vs. Jund? Superman vs. Batman of Modern Magic?
Cantrips are fine as they are. Sleight of Hand, while not usually mentioned, is a reasonable card for Modern and throwing any other cantrips into the mix that are on par with that and SV makes combo decks that much more troublesome. Sleight doesn't set up delver, but those sort of decks really want more free spells, not cantrips.
Tempo needs better cantripx to reliably flip delver and get rid of dead cards but you are vorrect in bdtter tempo tools being needed. Counterspelss that are chesper than 2 mana but some kind of draw back like daze but maybe not as good. Personally I think daze would be fine in modern but I know most eould disagree.
BBE was banned cuz they didn't want to ban expensive cards used in other decks. BBE was used in Jund and some fringe Zoo decks.
Umm. Or they banned BBE because it was central to Jund's power and wasn't used in too many other decks, thereby minimizing the splash of the ban? I'm all for exposing Wizards' deceptions when they are involved in them, but this is not the conspiracy you are looking for.
I have to say it again, Delver is a deck that most likely would only be one cantrip away from being viable after the Eldrazi ban.
Every Legacy and Pauper Delver deck plays 2 cantrips to set up Delver, meanwhile Modern still has only one: Serum Visions, one good cantrip like Preordain or Ponder is really all that's needed.
Ancestral Vision is good to help control decks, but it still won't do anything to help tempo which is also non existent.
I think Faeries would get a significant boost from an AV unban, which is probably the main reason I'm so hopeful that it hurts. I mean, who wouldn't like to see Faeries vs. Jund? Superman vs. Batman of Modern Magic?
Cantrips are fine as they are. Sleight of Hand, while not usually mentioned, is a reasonable card for Modern and throwing any other cantrips into the mix that are on par with that and SV makes combo decks that much more troublesome. Sleight doesn't set up delver, but those sort of decks really want more free spells, not cantrips.
Tempo needs better cantripx to reliably flip delver and get rid of dead cards but you are vorrect in bdtter tempo tools being needed. Counterspelss that are chesper than 2 mana but some kind of draw back like daze but maybe not as good. Personally I think daze would be fine in modern but I know most eould disagree.
Daze would be on the cusp of allowable in Modern, mainly because of the shocklands needed to fully run it in a tempo deck. The lack of cantrips in Modern to tuck it away in the lategame also make the card have a very limited lifespan
I think it's fine as well; although I can understand why people would disagree with a free early-game counterspell being legal in Modern, especially as there's less way to come back from having your Turn 1 play get countered on the draw if your opponent flips Delver of Secrets, or has as quick a clock as it.
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Eternal Masters 2015 Legacy Champion. Has an unnatural love towards perfectly reasonable respect for Lightning Bolt.
BBE was banned cuz they didn't want to ban expensive cards used in other decks. BBE was used in Jund and some fringe Zoo decks.
Umm. Or they banned BBE because it was central to Jund's power and wasn't used in too many other decks, thereby minimizing the splash of the ban? I'm all for exposing Wizards' deceptions when they are involved in them, but this is not the conspiracy you are looking for.
Jund with BBE and without DRS was fine. Once DRS was printed, Jund became too good. Isn't it most logical to ban DRS in that situation? Especially since DRS was the enabler and BBE was the payoff card, and Wizards likes banning enablers generally. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it's hard not to think that they chose BBE over DRS because DRS was a new card.
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Current Modern decks BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam UB Reanimator
I love playing Delver decks, but Daze would make the risk of playing 3cc+ sorcery speed anything probably not worth taking (Liliana is still good enough I suppose). Basically all the good done by the Twin ban, being able to play a tap out game to a greater extent, would be undone and more if Daze was legal.
Daze would be much worse in Modern than it is in Legacy for a couple of reasons:
1.You can't get rid of it in the mid to late game, no pitching to Force of Will or shuffling it away with Brainstorm
2.No mana denial in the form of Wasteland or Stifle to go along with it
3.Bouncing Shocklands in a format with tier 1 decks like Burn is not what you want to be doing
I love playing Delver decks, but Daze would make the risk of playing 3cc+ sorcery speed anything probably not worth taking (Liliana is still good enough I suppose). Basically all the good done by the Twin ban, being able to play a tap out game to a greater extent, would be undone and more if Daze was legal.
I don't think that's true. If you look at Legacy the "tap-out" decks (Shardless BUG and Jund for example) are actually favored against the Delver decks that play Daze. Daze would not kill tap out decks, in fact quite the opposite.
Besides, "being able to tap out on turn 3" was not the point of the Twin ban. The point of the ban was because Wizards believed the deck was creating too much homogeneity between blue decks and having too much success at the competitive level. It had nothing to do with helping tap-out decks (most of which had a good MU against Twin).
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Current Modern decks BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam UB Reanimator
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I will admit that this comment made me smile. I too would gladly play a format where such a battle of giants is a common thing. I don't think that AV would do much to help in that regard though.
Faeries has a few structural weaknesses that AV doesn't address. First as probably many of the Faeries players who are still on it can agree with there is a big difference between games where you have a turn 2 Bitterblossom and the games where you don't. The power level is considerable higher when that happens then when it doesn't which is a problem because you have no way to make that reliably happen besides hoping to get lucky. The reason for that is because the Faerie cards are reliant on synergy. They are powerful and above the curve when the synergy is there but they are pretty bad when it doesn't. Ever held a Spellstutter Sprite or Mistbind Clique in your hand when your board is empty? Yeah, it's a pretty bad feeling. I have played the deck for a time and in my opinion these factor makes for some higher variance games which I am not really a fan of.
In Jund every card is good and can stand on it's own. Tarmogoyf + Liliana of the Veil are pretty good together but they both have a high power level on there own and don't require each other.
The other reason has more to do with a general trend in MTG that has developed over time. There was a point in time where allied and enemy colors at least meant something but those days are over. As a matter of fact I would say that BG is the most synergistic color combination in the game and the reason why BG decks are a thing in pretty much every format. Alone they have their strengths but also have some serious drawbacks like no disruption, no creature removal, no way to deal with artifacts and enchantments and so on but together they pretty much eliminate all of their weaknesses and can do pretty much every thing besides countering spells. Well I guess they can't bounce stuff too but they can destroy any type of permanent anyway so there is no need for that.
UB on the other hand is a pretty sad and limited color combination these days. Certainly compared to BG but also even to ones like UW. I would say that UB, BR and UG are actually the 3 worst color combos in the game and the only time to find them being played is when they are teamed up with a third color. Wizards fascination with mill makes it clear that they have no intention of changing that any time soon though.
Jund is in a good position right after Eldrazi gets banned so I don't buy that jund becomes "bad" since they just got Kalitas. BBE would push Jund over the edge just like the last time it was legal. BBE into Liliana/goyf is a dumb interaction.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
The interesting thing is that Shardless Agent is not banned despite the fact that it theoretically lets you fine tune your potential pulls off of the cascade much better than BBE does. At a guess WotC has decided that there are no unconditionally good spells at 2cc or less that are not creatures and thus easily removed if necessary.
That kind of what makes it Superman vs Batman thing for me. Jund seems to have nearly everything, it plays some of the individually most powerful cards in the format (Superman). The fact that it is also often cited as the fairest deck in Modern also places it in the "boy-scout" category. On the other hand, Faeries with all it's frailty can, under proper circumstances, achieve incredible feats and defy even the worst odds (Batman). Also, it kind of has a bad reputation from it's Standard days when it used to strike fear into the harts of it's adversaries, which is a very Dark Knight thing.
Those random thoughts aside, I kind of think you are downplaying what AV contributes to the Faeries shell. Context being everything, a turn one AV is as good as a Thoughtseize game one against BGx, arguably better. It also makes you less dependent on mulliganing into Bitterblossom since you can go on and trade one for one while hitting land drops until AV kicks in. If nothing else, the deck would certainly be leaps and bounds better then it is now if it had Ancestral Vision in it.
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......Shardless Agent isn't even Modern Legal.....
BBE + Lily was fine until DRS came out, after which BBE got unrightfully banned. BBE is perfectly ok to come off, if only because it never should have been on the list in the first place.
The bias against combo in this thread is ridiculous. Apparently tier 3 decks like Storm prevent the unbanning of one cantrip, which at best could push it into tier 2.
Also combo decks getting better wouldn't lead to more linear decks since they most likely would replace some of the linear aggro's metashare.
BBE never pushed Jund over the edge, DRS did. Before DRS was printed Jund with BBE was a perfectly reasonable deck. Also, even after BBE was banned BGx was still oppressive because of DRS. DRS was clearly the problem card, not BBE. BBE was actually kind of irrelevant in the whole thing.
I don't see how you can say BBE into Lili/Goyf is a "dumb" interaction. Do you also think Snapcaster + Kolghans command is "dumb"? There's nothing dumb about getting sweet value plays in the midgame. It's what makes playing a fair deck worth it. =
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator
It wouldn't be the "best" 4 drop; just the most General.
Huntmaster of the Fells is far more grindy, and Olivia Volderin is still better for removing things than BBE ever will be. Kalitas is far better at countering Graveyard based decks if Scooze needs redundancy.
Yes, you can cascade into Kommand, but you also can not. And Competitive Magic players hate chance when they NEED to know what a card will do. You would most likely see 4 BBE's main with some of the others in the side.
Completely disagree; BBE was already being hated as oppressive before DRS. DRS just put a format warping deck over the top. If you don't think it was warping the format your practicing some very selective memory. No other mid range deck existed as a competitive option. The cascade plus a hasty okay body was so much better than anything else going on. It would simply demand the removal of other spells from the format simply due to the dual card advantage and free mana. If the body didn't come stock with haste I think it would be okay but with all of the great =/<3cc options jund has it would quickly eradicate the other mid range options.
Lol most general is what jund DOES. And if players really hated the randomness they wouldn't have played it back in the day. When it's top deck mode and jund wants to close the game, BBE is there for you. You can't dispute it's a buff for a tier 1 deck making this idea bad. Until blue gets something to help on the card advantage end, we don't need to give that kind of value to jund.
This is fabulous. Please, please, please unban BBE so it can be one of the worst cards in my deck.
Using the Jund decklist in the primer, the odds of BBE into Liliana, Tarmogoyf, Bob, Scavenging Ooze, Lightning Bolt or Kolaghan's Command, all of which are outstanding on almost any board state is over 60%. If your opponent has a creature in play that isn't hexproof or a card in their hand its all gravy. This is of course, without adjusting the decklist at all to reflect BBE being available.
Give us a break, BBE would be a terrible unban. Fortunately, Wizards has said they are only unbanning cards if the metagame has passed them by, not to power up Tier decks.
No, Efficient is what Jund does. It's easy to get the two mixed, but the reason Jund runs what it does is because the cards (a 4/5 for 1G, Murder anything for BG, Kill most things for R) is because they give the best bang for the buck, not because they answer general threats. The fact that the most efficient answers often were the most general is not a reason to confuse the two.
Back in the day there wasn't Kalitas or the Nalaar parents. Huntmaster and Olivia were just introduced and there wasn't much time to experiment with them along with BBE. It was pretty much BBE or Thrun, the Last Troll, and it's not hard to see why BBE won that debate.
But really, BBE in a vacuum is a strong card, but not broken. The problem is that cascade at 4CMC is insanely strong. Big enough to get really good value out of it, small enough to be well tuned.
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Tempo needs better cantripx to reliably flip delver and get rid of dead cards but you are vorrect in bdtter tempo tools being needed. Counterspelss that are chesper than 2 mana but some kind of draw back like daze but maybe not as good. Personally I think daze would be fine in modern but I know most eould disagree.
Umm. Or they banned BBE because it was central to Jund's power and wasn't used in too many other decks, thereby minimizing the splash of the ban? I'm all for exposing Wizards' deceptions when they are involved in them, but this is not the conspiracy you are looking for.
I think it's fine as well; although I can understand why people would disagree with a free early-game counterspell being legal in Modern, especially as there's less way to come back from having your Turn 1 play get countered on the draw if your opponent flips Delver of Secrets, or has as quick a clock as it.
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Jund with BBE and without DRS was fine. Once DRS was printed, Jund became too good. Isn't it most logical to ban DRS in that situation? Especially since DRS was the enabler and BBE was the payoff card, and Wizards likes banning enablers generally. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it's hard not to think that they chose BBE over DRS because DRS was a new card.
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator
1.You can't get rid of it in the mid to late game, no pitching to Force of Will or shuffling it away with Brainstorm
2.No mana denial in the form of Wasteland or Stifle to go along with it
3.Bouncing Shocklands in a format with tier 1 decks like Burn is not what you want to be doing
I don't think that's true. If you look at Legacy the "tap-out" decks (Shardless BUG and Jund for example) are actually favored against the Delver decks that play Daze. Daze would not kill tap out decks, in fact quite the opposite.
Besides, "being able to tap out on turn 3" was not the point of the Twin ban. The point of the ban was because Wizards believed the deck was creating too much homogeneity between blue decks and having too much success at the competitive level. It had nothing to do with helping tap-out decks (most of which had a good MU against Twin).
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator