I'm relieved that WOTC has realized that they've made the threats way better than the answers.
However, they print and design so far into the future, so wouldn't it be about a year and a half or so before we start seeing better removal and answers from standard that trickles down into modern?
I'm relieved that WOTC has realized that they've made the threats way better than the answers.
However, they print and design so far into the future, so wouldn't it be about a year and a half or so before we start seeing better removal and answers from standard that trickles down into modern?
Depends a bit of what you define as 'soon'.. I would say that soon is within a year..
I'm relieved that WOTC has realized that they've made the threats way better than the answers.
However, they print and design so far into the future, so wouldn't it be about a year and a half or so before we start seeing better removal and answers from standard that trickles down into modern?
Possibly. They could have also identified the problem early and implemented a more "gradual" release of answer cards (Fatal Push being an example). I don't necessarily believe that is the case, but I wouldn't rule it out until the next round of standard spoilers begin.
Absolutely giddy over these bans. I have been trying to tell people Wotc doesnt want cards that reduce variance in the format. No way they are going to switch out variance diminishing cards (probe for preordain). Absolutely the correct bans. GGT ban opens up 4 slots in a very tight 60 card deck and hurts its consistence and power knocking it down from a solid T1 deck to T1.5 maybe T2. Probe hurts infect without killing the deck. They can still play peek and have card disadvantage for the knowledge they receive.
I have always been a proponent of bans to keep the format in check. Glad to see Wotc is being hands on with this format.
One other thing, with the announcement of multiple B&R announcements for a single set, it seems Wotc is just going to design cards, test a little, then let the player base find the broken interactions for all formats. Then move forward form there. That tells me the power of cards coming will be higher and interactions probably more degenerate, or at least more powerful. I can see more bannings coming in the future with little to no testing for the Modern format. Also wouldnt expect much in the way of unbannings. Wotc has made it pretty clear what they wish out of the format.
It is certainly to late for Amonkhet and probably so for Hour, but they would still have the ability to shift some mana costs etc in the following sets.
Memory Lapse would be format defining. It feels like this is worse than counterspell but it's deceptively strong. I'd like lapse as much as the next guy and have suggested it before but it's distinctly possible it's stronger than counterspell in modern.
We're also having a lot of very serious discussions about hate cards and powerful answers. As you have noticed with Fatal Push, we are not totally against printing very powerful answers in Standard, but we need to up that number. The pendulum of threats versus answers has swung too far toward the threats, and that has caused problems with our metagame. Our decision to not print enough answer cards also has shown to be a real problem. Some parts of this were conscious, like pushing story cards and new card types, and some were a result of moving to two-block world and removing the core set where we traditionally put many of the answers to these kinds of cards. We learned a lot from the last three blocks on how the two-block world should work and are incorporating those ideas into future sets. Again, you won't see all the changes immediately, but we are incorporating those learnings into sets you will play with soon.
It's good that they acknowledged what most players (esp modern players) have been aware of for some time. Hopefully we'll see some solid answers in the upcoming sets, even if it takes a bit of time to materialize.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Tricky statement to unravel, but I'd like to point out that a large part of legacy's perceived "balance" is due to factors like:
- Small niche audience
- Less competitive play
- Less discussion and push to "solve" and break the format
- Less 'pro' engagement
- absurdly high expense of cards, inclining players to invest into a strategy they enjoy and stick with it, rather than transition around freely between what's best.
There's more, but let's take a moment to appreciate that if legacy ever became as popular as modern (e.g. if they dropped the reserved list, as you mentioned), it would have to have a similarly active monitoring and ban system in order to keep things in check. The legacy metagame doesn't shift wildly around on a weekly basis, it sort of smooshes over months or years like a glacier. This is due to those aforementioned reasons as well. Mostly low numbers.
One singly important distinction between modern and legacy, however, is Wizards' ability to print new cards for legacy without pushing them through standard. In the long term (in the hypothetical world where they removed the reserved list and reprinted everything to heck) this would enable some very tight and precise control over printing new things like "police cards" people are so obsessed with talking about at the moment.
the only one of those that i think is valid is "absurdly high expense of cards", Legacy has multiple known busted/broken decks they are simply kept in check by FoW/Daze leaving various tempo style creature decks to run the show. WotC only had to make Modern as a format because of the reserved list, people just can't afford the entry level cost into competitive play. Pro's actually love playing Legacy because of cards like FoW/Daze making it so much harder for unfair decks to simply dominate(which they would if those cards didn't exist).
Modern will never receive card injections from non-standard sets or releases, this is something WotC was very clear about when they defined the format at its inception. The article posted a bit above here did have a WotC employee addressing the problems they have created by powering down answers and even acknowledging that the shift has been to far in favor of threats/answers so that is promising.
As a former legacy player, Modern will never be legacy. I always find it odd when people compare cards in this format to their performances in Legacy. Its just a completely different format and WotC will likely never print cards no par with Legacy staples in terms of non-creature spells ever again.
In Modern especially, we often attempt to weaken decks in a way that doesn't remove the deck entirely from the metagame, if we can help it. While Splinter Twin didn't have any other good options, bannings of cards like Eye of Ugin, Deathrite Shaman, Bloodbraid Elf, and Cloudpost did pretty good jobs of leaving behind decks that were still competitive, but not nearly as powerful as they were before.
Wizards doesn't like killing decks. This suggests they will pick ban targets that limit a deck's power but don't kill it outright. But that isn't always the case: see Twin, which Wizards explicitly mentions.
His inclusion of BBE puzzles me. After BBE was banned, the BG deck(s) left behind were in fact nearly as powerful as before, for a reasonable definition of "nearly". Not quite "won 3 GPs" powerful, but "put 6 players into a single T8" and "ended up having to ban DRS later" powerful.
It would have been possible to weaken Twin without killing it. Ban Deceiver Exarch instead. Then Twin would have to max Pestermites, which are easily killed with their 1 toughness, and/or splash for Bounding Krasis or Village Bell-Ringer. The multicolor combo creatures can't tap lands, too.
Well I guess it's good to hear they might start printing minimal hate and slightly stronger answers starting in at least 1 year down the road. Here's hoping we don't lose faith in the format in the meantime.
That is what Stoddard Said "While Splinter Twin didn't have any other good options" means Twin was the exception to what he was saying.
I think he forgets to mention Birthing Pod as well.
Abzan Chord became a pretty solid deck to beat for a while using many of the same cards that were in Pod. The heart of the deck is still there, but without it ascending to tier 0.5 levels. All the grave hate flying around and the way the infinite life combo works on MTGO kind of make the deck unplayable in both paper and online.
While I liked almost everything Sam said here, and it gives me A New Hope for the direction Modern is going, one thing he said pissed me off immensely:
In Modern especially, we often attempt to weaken decks in a way that doesn't remove the deck entirely from the metagame, if we can help it. While Splinter Twin didn't have any other good options, bannings of cards like Eye of Ugin, Deathrite Shaman, Bloodbraid Elf, and Cloudpost did pretty good jobs of leaving behind decks that were still competitive, but not nearly as powerful as they were before.
Deceiver Exarch. THAT was your other good option. It weakens the combo and makes it more vulnerable to Lightning Bolt. It solves the problem of Twin stifling diversity among blue decks because Twin would have been pigeon-holed into Temur for Bounding Krassis (or Jeskai for Village Bell-Ringer, but I think the Temur shell would be much better and more popular). Being forced to be in 3 colors also makes it a much worse Blood Moon deck, which is another hit. But most importantly, it would have allowed the deck to continue to exist, albeit in a weaker form. The thing that pisses me off the most about the Twin banning was that they completely killed the deck when there was an option to weaken it instead.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
While I liked almost everything Sam said here, and it gives me A New Hope for the direction Modern is going, one thing he said pissed me off immensely:
In Modern especially, we often attempt to weaken decks in a way that doesn't remove the deck entirely from the metagame, if we can help it. While Splinter Twin didn't have any other good options, bannings of cards like Eye of Ugin, Deathrite Shaman, Bloodbraid Elf, and Cloudpost did pretty good jobs of leaving behind decks that were still competitive, but not nearly as powerful as they were before.
Deceiver Exarch. THAT was your other good option. It weakens the combo and makes it more vulnerable to Lightning Bolt. It solves the problem of Twin stifling diversity among blue decks because Twin would have been pigeon-holed into Temur for Bounding Krassis (or Jeskai for Village Bell-Ringer, but I think the Temur shell would be much better and more popular). Being forced to be in 3 colors also makes it a much worse Blood Moon deck, which is another hit. But most importantly, it would have allowed the deck to continue to exist, albeit in a weaker form. The thing that pisses me off the most about the Twin banning was that they completely killed the deck when there was an option to weaken it instead.
Maybe not as much anymore now that Reflector Mage is on a banlist - but Deceiver Exarch sitting on a ban list in 5 years would look as strange to us now as the fact that at one point Zuran Orb was banned. I'm not sure they ever even considered an uncommon as a ban due to just how bizarre that'd be. The only other uncommon bans are EXCEEDINGLY busted (Skullclamp, etc.).
^This. I don't disagree that Exarch would have been enough to make twin more manageable and possibly the better ban, but Exarch on the banlist is just laughable.
While I liked almost everything Sam said here, and it gives me A New Hope for the direction Modern is going, one thing he said pissed me off immensely:
In Modern especially, we often attempt to weaken decks in a way that doesn't remove the deck entirely from the metagame, if we can help it. While Splinter Twin didn't have any other good options, bannings of cards like Eye of Ugin, Deathrite Shaman, Bloodbraid Elf, and Cloudpost did pretty good jobs of leaving behind decks that were still competitive, but not nearly as powerful as they were before.
Deceiver Exarch. THAT was your other good option. It weakens the combo and makes it more vulnerable to Lightning Bolt. It solves the problem of Twin stifling diversity among blue decks because Twin would have been pigeon-holed into Temur for Bounding Krassis (or Jeskai for Village Bell-Ringer, but I think the Temur shell would be much better and more popular). Being forced to be in 3 colors also makes it a much worse Blood Moon deck, which is another hit. But most importantly, it would have allowed the deck to continue to exist, albeit in a weaker form. The thing that pisses me off the most about the Twin banning was that they completely killed the deck when there was an option to weaken it instead.
If we can interpret the unbanning and re-banning of Golgari Grave-Troll in a positive light, it MAY allow precedent for Wizards to be more liberal with their future unbans. Now that we know they have no issue re-banning a card that creates further issues, there should be several cards that could easily come off and be totally fine. Then, if any of them turn out to *not* be fine as a result of new printings/etc, then a re-ban or reassessment of the deck can take place. And although my foil Deceiver Exarchs would cry at a swap ban/unban for Splinter Twin, that's really the card that should have been banned in the first place (hurting the deck without destroying it). Maybe GGT's decision opens that opportunity for them to release things like Twin, SFM, BBE, whatever? I have no idea. But that's what I've been trying to convince myself of in order to attempt to maintain confidence in Wizards' ability to manage a format.
But in the end, Stoddard acknowledging that Splinter Twin had no other good options (which, in AF's words meant that the deck was "nuked out of existence") is at least a step in the right direction for them communicating that it may not have been the correct choice (while the other examples are pretty spot on in reducing, but not killing a deck).
^This. I don't disagree that Exarch would have been enough to make twin more manageable and possibly the better ban, but Exarch on the banlist is just laughable.
There's always a context to everything. Artifact lands being banned is pretty laughable too until you put them into the context of what they do with Affinity. Dark Depths is a silly ban until you put it in the context of what it does with Thespian Stage and Vampire Hexmage. Sure, new people to the format might look at Deceiver Exarch and wonder why it's banned, but then they'd understand once they were shown the Twin combo and how Exarch made it resilient to Bolt and allowed the deck to be 2 colors instead of 3.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
While I liked almost everything Sam said here, and it gives me A New Hope for the direction Modern is going, one thing he said pissed me off immensely:
In Modern especially, we often attempt to weaken decks in a way that doesn't remove the deck entirely from the metagame, if we can help it. While Splinter Twin didn't have any other good options, bannings of cards like Eye of Ugin, Deathrite Shaman, Bloodbraid Elf, and Cloudpost did pretty good jobs of leaving behind decks that were still competitive, but not nearly as powerful as they were before.
Deceiver Exarch. THAT was your other good option. It weakens the combo and makes it more vulnerable to Lightning Bolt. It solves the problem of Twin stifling diversity among blue decks because Twin would have been pigeon-holed into Temur for Bounding Krassis (or Jeskai for Village Bell-Ringer, but I think the Temur shell would be much better and more popular). Being forced to be in 3 colors also makes it a much worse Blood Moon deck, which is another hit. But most importantly, it would have allowed the deck to continue to exist, albeit in a weaker form. The thing that pisses me off the most about the Twin banning was that they completely killed the deck when there was an option to weaken it instead.
Maybe not as much anymore now that Reflector Mage is on a banlist - but Deceiver Exarch sitting on a ban list in 5 years would look as strange to us now as the fact that at one point Zuran Orb was banned. I'm not sure they ever even considered an uncommon as a ban due to just how bizarre that'd be. The only other uncommon bans are EXCEEDINGLY busted (Skullclamp, etc.).
^This. I don't disagree that Exarch would have been enough to make twin more manageable and possibly the better ban, but Exarch on the banlist is just laughable.
You guys are weird. I'd rather a stabler format with more viable decks and stronger checks to linear strategies than a slightly-less-weird-looking-in-5-years banlist.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
Regarding the "Sideboard Battle" topic and the difference between boarding against Affinity and Dredge:
Someone alse already said something about Affinity, that I think is really important: Most decks have the ability to fight Affinity G1 because most of them play removal spells. If I play Grixis control, my deck contains 3-4 Terminates, 4 Lightning bolts and 2-3 Kolaghan's Commands. I don't actually have to sideboard that much to fight Affinity. In my Titanshift deck, I run 3 Lightning Bolts and 2 Anger of the Gods in my MB. Same thing goes for Burn. I can kill their Goblin Guides, I can counter their Atarka's Commands, I can preserve my life total by fetching not as aggressively as I would do in other Matchups. Against Infect, I can Bolt their Elf. I can destroy their hand with discard. But still, most of the time, I am not favored in Game 1. After sideboarding, I have the chance to board in Ancient Grudge, I can board in Melira, I can board in Leyline of Sanctity and many other viable SB options. Those cards then improve my chances of winning in G2 and G3 but I do not completely rely on drawing them to win post board games. My chances are a lot better when I do draw them, but I can still have a chance without them.
Dredge is a prime example of what I think is then "Sideboard Battle" they were referring to. There are no good maindeckable answers, that I do not only have to run because of Dredge. My MB answers are completely useless. They do work against Affinity, Burn or Infect, but they are complete blanks against Dredge. That means that I have to include a lot more hate against Dredge in my SB than I need to against other decks, against which my MB configuration is at least still viable. Those MB Bolts still work well against Affinity and I now have some copies of Ancient Grudge to fight them more efficiently, but I do not rely on having them as hard as I rely on having GY hate against Dredge. That results in postboard games coming down to basically: "Did I draw my SB hate?". Of course that also applies to other decks. I still have to include SB hate for other decks. But against most decks, I do not win or lose based on wether I drew those hate cards or not. Against Dredge, exactly that is the case.
I think this is the reason why they are okay with Affinity, but not with Dredge. Same thing goes for Bogles, but that deck loses by far too often against itself and is horrible against Liliana and discard, keeping it at bay. But the same principle applies as well. The deck blanks almost all maindeckable answers and forces the player to draw those SB cards or lose. This is also the reason, why some decks are just not fun to play against. Those decks are, most of the time, exactly those kind of decks I just described. They blank most of your deck and force you to a)play super narrow SB cards and b)draw them.
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Quote from Mystic-X »
Yikes. The only thing worse than a sexless marriage is a stale metagame at home. When that happens, it's time to sideboard a mistress or two.
^This. I don't disagree that Exarch would have been enough to make twin more manageable and possibly the better ban, but Exarch on the banlist is just laughable.
Like AK said, who cares if it's laughable on the list if the replacement makes the format better? If the format improves because Jeskai and Temur Twin are viable decks, it shouldn't matter if a "silly" card is on the banlist. Especially if Wizards is already resigned to banning something from Twin; why not make it the card that does the least damage? Eldrazi lived after the Eye ban, and that deck was in an entirely different league of brokenness than Twin. If Eldrazi got just an Eye ban, it feels pretty unfair that Twin got the deck-killer ban instead of just a limited Exarch ban.
Apparently everyone missed the part where I said I didn't disagree that Exarch would have been better. A 1/4 Flash creature on the banlist would look absurd, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be right or preferable.
However, they print and design so far into the future, so wouldn't it be about a year and a half or so before we start seeing better removal and answers from standard that trickles down into modern?
Depends a bit of what you define as 'soon'.. I would say that soon is within a year..
Possibly. They could have also identified the problem early and implemented a more "gradual" release of answer cards (Fatal Push being an example). I don't necessarily believe that is the case, but I wouldn't rule it out until the next round of standard spoilers begin.
I have always been a proponent of bans to keep the format in check. Glad to see Wotc is being hands on with this format.
One other thing, with the announcement of multiple B&R announcements for a single set, it seems Wotc is just going to design cards, test a little, then let the player base find the broken interactions for all formats. Then move forward form there. That tells me the power of cards coming will be higher and interactions probably more degenerate, or at least more powerful. I can see more bannings coming in the future with little to no testing for the Modern format. Also wouldnt expect much in the way of unbannings. Wotc has made it pretty clear what they wish out of the format.
Memory Lapse would be format defining. It feels like this is worse than counterspell but it's deceptively strong. I'd like lapse as much as the next guy and have suggested it before but it's distinctly possible it's stronger than counterspell in modern.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
the only one of those that i think is valid is "absurdly high expense of cards", Legacy has multiple known busted/broken decks they are simply kept in check by FoW/Daze leaving various tempo style creature decks to run the show. WotC only had to make Modern as a format because of the reserved list, people just can't afford the entry level cost into competitive play. Pro's actually love playing Legacy because of cards like FoW/Daze making it so much harder for unfair decks to simply dominate(which they would if those cards didn't exist).
Modern will never receive card injections from non-standard sets or releases, this is something WotC was very clear about when they defined the format at its inception. The article posted a bit above here did have a WotC employee addressing the problems they have created by powering down answers and even acknowledging that the shift has been to far in favor of threats/answers so that is promising.
As a former legacy player, Modern will never be legacy. I always find it odd when people compare cards in this format to their performances in Legacy. Its just a completely different format and WotC will likely never print cards no par with Legacy staples in terms of non-creature spells ever again.
It would have been possible to weaken Twin without killing it. Ban Deceiver Exarch instead. Then Twin would have to max Pestermites, which are easily killed with their 1 toughness, and/or splash for Bounding Krasis or Village Bell-Ringer. The multicolor combo creatures can't tap lands, too.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Spirits
I think he forgets to mention Birthing Pod as well.
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron
Abzan Chord became a pretty solid deck to beat for a while using many of the same cards that were in Pod. The heart of the deck is still there, but without it ascending to tier 0.5 levels. All the grave hate flying around and the way the infinite life combo works on MTGO kind of make the deck unplayable in both paper and online.
Spirits
While I liked almost everything Sam said here, and it gives me A New Hope for the direction Modern is going, one thing he said pissed me off immensely:
Deceiver Exarch. THAT was your other good option. It weakens the combo and makes it more vulnerable to Lightning Bolt. It solves the problem of Twin stifling diversity among blue decks because Twin would have been pigeon-holed into Temur for Bounding Krassis (or Jeskai for Village Bell-Ringer, but I think the Temur shell would be much better and more popular). Being forced to be in 3 colors also makes it a much worse Blood Moon deck, which is another hit. But most importantly, it would have allowed the deck to continue to exist, albeit in a weaker form. The thing that pisses me off the most about the Twin banning was that they completely killed the deck when there was an option to weaken it instead.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Maybe not as much anymore now that Reflector Mage is on a banlist - but Deceiver Exarch sitting on a ban list in 5 years would look as strange to us now as the fact that at one point Zuran Orb was banned. I'm not sure they ever even considered an uncommon as a ban due to just how bizarre that'd be. The only other uncommon bans are EXCEEDINGLY busted (Skullclamp, etc.).
If we can interpret the unbanning and re-banning of Golgari Grave-Troll in a positive light, it MAY allow precedent for Wizards to be more liberal with their future unbans. Now that we know they have no issue re-banning a card that creates further issues, there should be several cards that could easily come off and be totally fine. Then, if any of them turn out to *not* be fine as a result of new printings/etc, then a re-ban or reassessment of the deck can take place. And although my foil Deceiver Exarchs would cry at a swap ban/unban for Splinter Twin, that's really the card that should have been banned in the first place (hurting the deck without destroying it). Maybe GGT's decision opens that opportunity for them to release things like Twin, SFM, BBE, whatever? I have no idea. But that's what I've been trying to convince myself of in order to attempt to maintain confidence in Wizards' ability to manage a format.
But in the end, Stoddard acknowledging that Splinter Twin had no other good options (which, in AF's words meant that the deck was "nuked out of existence") is at least a step in the right direction for them communicating that it may not have been the correct choice (while the other examples are pretty spot on in reducing, but not killing a deck).
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
There's always a context to everything. Artifact lands being banned is pretty laughable too until you put them into the context of what they do with Affinity. Dark Depths is a silly ban until you put it in the context of what it does with Thespian Stage and Vampire Hexmage. Sure, new people to the format might look at Deceiver Exarch and wonder why it's banned, but then they'd understand once they were shown the Twin combo and how Exarch made it resilient to Bolt and allowed the deck to be 2 colors instead of 3.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Someone alse already said something about Affinity, that I think is really important: Most decks have the ability to fight Affinity G1 because most of them play removal spells. If I play Grixis control, my deck contains 3-4 Terminates, 4 Lightning bolts and 2-3 Kolaghan's Commands. I don't actually have to sideboard that much to fight Affinity. In my Titanshift deck, I run 3 Lightning Bolts and 2 Anger of the Gods in my MB. Same thing goes for Burn. I can kill their Goblin Guides, I can counter their Atarka's Commands, I can preserve my life total by fetching not as aggressively as I would do in other Matchups. Against Infect, I can Bolt their Elf. I can destroy their hand with discard. But still, most of the time, I am not favored in Game 1. After sideboarding, I have the chance to board in Ancient Grudge, I can board in Melira, I can board in Leyline of Sanctity and many other viable SB options. Those cards then improve my chances of winning in G2 and G3 but I do not completely rely on drawing them to win post board games. My chances are a lot better when I do draw them, but I can still have a chance without them.
Dredge is a prime example of what I think is then "Sideboard Battle" they were referring to. There are no good maindeckable answers, that I do not only have to run because of Dredge. My MB answers are completely useless. They do work against Affinity, Burn or Infect, but they are complete blanks against Dredge. That means that I have to include a lot more hate against Dredge in my SB than I need to against other decks, against which my MB configuration is at least still viable. Those MB Bolts still work well against Affinity and I now have some copies of Ancient Grudge to fight them more efficiently, but I do not rely on having them as hard as I rely on having GY hate against Dredge. That results in postboard games coming down to basically: "Did I draw my SB hate?". Of course that also applies to other decks. I still have to include SB hate for other decks. But against most decks, I do not win or lose based on wether I drew those hate cards or not. Against Dredge, exactly that is the case.
I think this is the reason why they are okay with Affinity, but not with Dredge. Same thing goes for Bogles, but that deck loses by far too often against itself and is horrible against Liliana and discard, keeping it at bay. But the same principle applies as well. The deck blanks almost all maindeckable answers and forces the player to draw those SB cards or lose. This is also the reason, why some decks are just not fun to play against. Those decks are, most of the time, exactly those kind of decks I just described. They blank most of your deck and force you to a)play super narrow SB cards and b)draw them.
Like AK said, who cares if it's laughable on the list if the replacement makes the format better? If the format improves because Jeskai and Temur Twin are viable decks, it shouldn't matter if a "silly" card is on the banlist. Especially if Wizards is already resigned to banning something from Twin; why not make it the card that does the least damage? Eldrazi lived after the Eye ban, and that deck was in an entirely different league of brokenness than Twin. If Eldrazi got just an Eye ban, it feels pretty unfair that Twin got the deck-killer ban instead of just a limited Exarch ban.