UW control seems to be the most effective (and possibly the only) control build. Counters are bad at the moment,so uw has the better tools to combat the format at the moment
To be frank Wizards sort of needs an affordable non-rotating format
To be frank, this is impossible. Add another non rotating format and the demand for the cards goes up in turn the cost of all the formats that use said cards goes up.
Why is Fatal Push a $10 uncommon? Because its a multiformat staple.
Either Wotc makes bad cards that cant be used in other formats to keep Standard cheaper, or they make cards that span all formats and make cards and formats expensive.
Wotc is not going to let the presses run freely just to tank prices. As we have discussed, the LGS need something to sell to keep them open.
They can make an affordable non rotating format. It largely comes down to print runs and product pricing meeting demand and keeping a good hold on what is popular. Both things wotc has not been doing a good job at with Modern due to focusing on draft products to give support.
Modern is plenty affordable. You can build UR Storm for like $350. Heck, MM17 dropped the prices on plenty of Modern staples. Most Modern players I know love the set, both for drafting reasons and as a method to pick up staples at cheaper prices. What exactly does "affordable" mean to you?
Second batch of online data in! April numbers so far:
Dredge - 9.5%
Edrazi Tron - 6.5%
Affinity - 5.0%
Grixis Shadow - 5.0%
Elves - 4.5%
UR Storm - 4.5%
Jund Shadow - 4.5%
Burn - 4.0%
Bant Company - 3.5%
WU Control - 3.5%
Jund Midrange - 3.5%
Abzan Midrange - 3.5%
As expected, the numbers have normalized. Jund Shadow's drop is still the most significant change compared to last month (-7.5%). On the other hand, Dredge (+4.5%), Elves (+3.2%) and Bant Company (+2.5%) results have probably improved the most. All in all, I like the fact that the top dog has changed, even if I personally dislike facing Dredge. Again, these are preliminary results, and even at the end of the month n would just be ~300. Oh well. Any thoughts guys?
These numbers do not support my "ban ancient Stirrings + thoughtseize" agenda, do you mind fudging them a little bit and then repost them?
Second batch of online data in! April numbers so far:
Dredge - 9.5%
Edrazi Tron - 6.5%
Affinity - 5.0%
Grixis Shadow - 5.0%
Elves - 4.5%
UR Storm - 4.5%
Jund Shadow - 4.5%
Burn - 4.0%
Bant Company - 3.5%
WU Control - 3.5%
Jund Midrange - 3.5%
Abzan Midrange - 3.5%
As expected, the numbers have normalized. Jund Shadow's drop is still the most significant change compared to last month (-7.5%). On the other hand, Dredge (+4.5%), Elves (+3.2%) and Bant Company (+2.5%) results have probably improved the most. All in all, I like the fact that the top dog has changed, even if I personally dislike facing Dredge. Again, these are preliminary results, and even at the end of the month n would just be ~300. Oh well. Any thoughts guys?
These numbers do not support my "ban ancient Stirrings + thoughtseize" agenda, do you mind fudging them a little bit and then repost them?
about 18% of those decks run TS and IoK, even Affinity runs TS out of the side wish would put it at 23%
I wouldn't say ban them but TS/IoK do have a negative impact on the format in some respects. It pushes other decks into playing non-interactive redundant aggro/aggro-combo decks, it makes winning the die roll even more important than it already is, and it makes mulligans somewhat equivalent to conceding. The format needs a way for decks to interact with the hyper efficient targeted discard.
Second batch of online data in! April numbers so far:
Dredge - 9.5%
Edrazi Tron - 6.5%
Affinity - 5.0%
Grixis Shadow - 5.0%
Elves - 4.5%
UR Storm - 4.5%
Jund Shadow - 4.5%
Burn - 4.0%
Bant Company - 3.5%
WU Control - 3.5%
Jund Midrange - 3.5%
Abzan Midrange - 3.5%
As expected, the numbers have normalized. Jund Shadow's drop is still the most significant change compared to last month (-7.5%). On the other hand, Dredge (+4.5%), Elves (+3.2%) and Bant Company (+2.5%) results have probably improved the most. All in all, I like the fact that the top dog has changed, even if I personally dislike facing Dredge. Again, these are preliminary results, and even at the end of the month n would just be ~300. Oh well. Any thoughts guys?
These numbers do not support my "ban ancient Stirrings + thoughtseize" agenda, do you mind fudging them a little bit and then repost them?
about 18% of those decks run TS and IoK
I wouldn't say ban them but TS/IoK do have a negative impact on the format in some respects. It pushes other decks into playing non-interactive redundant aggro/aggro-combo decks, it makes winning the die roll even more important than it already is, and it makes mulligans somewhat equivalent to conceding. The format needs a way for decks to interact with the hyper efficient targeted discard.
About 18% of them run fatal push, does the format need ways for decks to interact with hyper efficient targeted removal as well?
Second batch of online data in! April numbers so far:
Dredge - 9.5%
Edrazi Tron - 6.5%
Affinity - 5.0%
Grixis Shadow - 5.0%
Elves - 4.5%
UR Storm - 4.5%
Jund Shadow - 4.5%
Burn - 4.0%
Bant Company - 3.5%
WU Control - 3.5%
Jund Midrange - 3.5%
Abzan Midrange - 3.5%
As expected, the numbers have normalized. Jund Shadow's drop is still the most significant change compared to last month (-7.5%). On the other hand, Dredge (+4.5%), Elves (+3.2%) and Bant Company (+2.5%) results have probably improved the most. All in all, I like the fact that the top dog has changed, even if I personally dislike facing Dredge. Again, these are preliminary results, and even at the end of the month n would just be ~300. Oh well. Any thoughts guys?
These numbers do not support my "ban ancient Stirrings + thoughtseize" agenda, do you mind fudging them a little bit and then repost them?
about 18% of those decks run TS and IoK
I wouldn't say ban them but TS/IoK do have a negative impact on the format in some respects. It pushes other decks into playing non-interactive redundant aggro/aggro-combo decks, it makes winning the die roll even more important than it already is, and it makes mulligans somewhat equivalent to conceding. The format needs a way for decks to interact with the hyper efficient targeted discard.
About 18% of them run fatal push, does the format need ways for decks to interact with hyper efficient targeted removal as well?
Agreed, Combo orientated strategies have always folded to TS/IoK effects and I don't see why people are just feeling the impact of that now.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Decks I play:
Modern:
BR Control
Grixis Bloo
EDH:
Food Chain Prossh
Land Wipe Maelstrom Wanderer
Selvala, Hearth of the Wilds Eldrazi
I wouldn't say ban them but TS/IoK do have a negative impact on the format in some respects. It pushes other decks into playing non-interactive redundant aggro/aggro-combo decks, it makes winning the die roll even more important than it already is, and it makes mulligans somewhat equivalent to conceding. The format needs a way for decks to interact with the hyper efficient targeted discard.
Decks that play heavy discard usually perform pretty well on the draw, because assuming neither player has mulliganed you are increasing your ratio of advantage when you 1:1 remove one of your opponent's cards with one of your own. You change the ratio of total cards in hand/play from 8(you):7(them) to 7(you):6(them), giving you a bigger margin of advantage rationally speaking
They cannot give you PTE in Standard, because it will be a nightmare for the R&D designing the creatures. This is why we do not see much hexproof creatures recently in the new sets.
Counterspell has a similar problem to Standard.
How would PTE make their job creating creatures any harder? If anything it makes it easier because they can continue to throw nonsense like samut, voice of dissent at us knowing there would actually be a safety valve if it was too strong.
If you follow their design approach in the recent years, you should notice that they attempt to let creatures do more and more jobs on the battlefield.
The Standard decks are dominated by creature based decks, or, balanced by various creature based decks.
Suppose there is a cheap, efficient creature removal such as PTE which is introduced, most of the creatures designed in order to balance the META will be affected. Only the hexproof or good ETB ability creatures left. <- this is not what the current R&D want to see, or want to design.
Standard is definitely dominated by the planeswalkers and not the creatures. Even crappy homebrews can win games, if you insert a set of money cards like JTMS, Gideon, big Elspeth, last Chandra, some of the good Lilianas and so on.
If they continue to print cheap and strong walkers 3-4 cmc, modern and legacy will also be affected in the future.
Well, I agree planeswalkers are also the core parts of the Standard decks. But creatures contributes a larger portion in the deck. You can simply count how many creatures are usually involved in a deck, and then compare the amount of planeswalkers in a deck.
My point is just to show how difficult we can see PTE reprint in Standard. Standard needs creatures, a large amount of creatures with CMC from 1 to 6. A PTE will let most the the creatures unplayable in Standard.
I am still finding it hard that preordain is out of possibility in people's minds at this point.
When you look at the ban list and see how Wotc has removed the top end filtering and hand sculpting cantrips. Its really easy to see it wont come off.
There is a huge disconnect between what Wotc wants the format to look like, and what a part of the player base wants the format to look like.
If they printed a card called Aquatic Stirrings, U, Sorcery, "Look at the top 5 cards, put a land or blue card into your hand." Should that be banned too? Is that too broken in terms of filtering and sculpting? Why would this restriction be any better or worse than Ancient Stirrings? Would it be the same? Why is one totally OK, but not the other? What justification does WOTC have to support this? Because this the hypocrisy we have to deal with when it comes to card draw: green gets amazing draw and filtering, while everything in blue is either banned or designed to be terrible from R&D.
I'd like to add that in no way am I advocating a ban on Ancient Stirrings, but I feel it's disappointing that similar types of cards (look and take with some drawback/restriction) is not even remotely in consideration for blue, especially at least at a 1cmc cost.
That's a false equivalency. Stirrings doesn't check for green cards the way your Aquatic Stirrings checks for blue cards. Green is the color of fatties and blowing up artifacts and enchantments. Why would they search for colorless cards? This takes some very heavy deck building restrictions to be a good card. It just so happens the card pool is large enough and recent Eldrazi good enough that that restriction has been made much easier. Come up with a similar restriction for Aquatic Stirrings and then we'll talk.
Until then, what you've defined is exponentially better than Ancient Stirrings.
I am still finding it hard that preordain is out of possibility in people's minds at this point.
When you look at the ban list and see how Wotc has removed the top end filtering and hand sculpting cantrips. Its really easy to see it wont come off.
There is a huge disconnect between what Wotc wants the format to look like, and what a part of the player base wants the format to look like.
If they printed a card called Aquatic Stirrings, U, Sorcery, "Look at the top 5 cards, put a land or blue card into your hand." Should that be banned too? Is that too broken in terms of filtering and sculpting? Why would this restriction be any better or worse than Ancient Stirrings? Would it be the same? Why is one totally OK, but not the other? What justification does WOTC have to support this? Because this the hypocrisy we have to deal with when it comes to card draw: green gets amazing draw and filtering, while everything in blue is either banned or designed to be terrible from R&D.
I'd like to add that in no way am I advocating a ban on Ancient Stirrings, but I feel it's disappointing that similar types of cards (look and take with some drawback/restriction) is not even remotely in consideration for blue, especially at least at a 1cmc cost.
That's a false equivalency. Stirrings doesn't check for green cards the way your Aquatic Stirrings checks for blue cards. Green is the color of fatties and blowing up artifacts and enchantments. Why would they search for colorless cards? This takes some very heavy deck building restrictions to be a good card. It just so happens the card pool is large enough and recent Eldrazi good enough that that restriction has been made much easier. Come up with a similar restriction for Aquatic Stirrings and then we'll talk.
Until then, what you've defined is exponentially better than Ancient Stirrings.
restrictions of a 4/4 thoughtseize and a 5/5 trample haste or a planeswalker who wins the game. Yep "restrictions".
This is also why I think people who say "we need a FoW for modern" are somewhat just blowing smoke because we already have a FoW style T0 counter and it is deemed to powerful by people.
The problem with MM isn't that it's too powerful, it's not. In fact, I believe a free counter that only hit 1 drops would be good for the format. The problem is that it's too ubiquitous. Because the cost was phyrexian mana, it can be played in any deck regardless of what colors you're playing, and because MM is the best answer to MM, it will be played in almost every deck. The idea of what it was trying to do was a good idea, but this was a very poorly designed card. There needs to be a deck building constriction limiting it to decks playing blue, and it shouldn't counter itself. There are several ways to achieve this, but WotC is probably too scared to make the card.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
Second batch of online data in! April numbers so far:
Dredge - 9.5%
Edrazi Tron - 6.5%
Affinity - 5.0%
Grixis Shadow - 5.0%
Elves - 4.5%
UR Storm - 4.5%
Jund Shadow - 4.5%
Burn - 4.0%
Bant Company - 3.5%
WU Control - 3.5%
Jund Midrange - 3.5%
Abzan Midrange - 3.5%
As expected, the numbers have normalized. Jund Shadow's drop is still the most significant change compared to last month (-7.5%). On the other hand, Dredge (+4.5%), Elves (+3.2%) and Bant Company (+2.5%) results have probably improved the most. All in all, I like the fact that the top dog has changed, even if I personally dislike facing Dredge. Again, these are preliminary results, and even at the end of the month n would just be ~300. Oh well. Any thoughts guys?
These numbers do not support my "ban ancient Stirrings + thoughtseize" agenda, do you mind fudging them a little bit and then repost them?
about 18% of those decks run TS and IoK
I wouldn't say ban them but TS/IoK do have a negative impact on the format in some respects. It pushes other decks into playing non-interactive redundant aggro/aggro-combo decks, it makes winning the die roll even more important than it already is, and it makes mulligans somewhat equivalent to conceding. The format needs a way for decks to interact with the hyper efficient targeted discard.
About 18% of them run fatal push, does the format need ways for decks to interact with hyper efficient targeted removal as well?
being a little hyperbolic aren't we? Fatal Push doesn't do things like invalidate your mulligan choices and it is reactive and can be interacted with. IoK/TS have the issue of being both driving players toward non-interactive decks and is its own best hate. Want to stop your opponent from IoK/TS you? well you should run IoK/TS because either you will take theirs or they will take yours.
Not to mention that Fatal push can simply be played around, its no mistake that most every non-Bxx/BGx deck on the list is naturally resilient to Fatal Push, Eldrazi builds don't really care about it, elves is hyper redundant and CoCo decks make 1:1 removal not very good generally and of course Dredge is the king of not giving a fudge about targeted removal or discard surprised that it is rising back to the top? I'm not since those types of uber targeted discard spell decks help dredge be great and keep decks that are good against dredge down.
not to mention targeted removal already has a entire mechanic devoted to making it bad in Hexproof.
I am still finding it hard that preordain is out of possibility in people's minds at this point.
When you look at the ban list and see how Wotc has removed the top end filtering and hand sculpting cantrips. Its really easy to see it wont come off.
There is a huge disconnect between what Wotc wants the format to look like, and what a part of the player base wants the format to look like.
If they printed a card called Aquatic Stirrings, U, Sorcery, "Look at the top 5 cards, put a land or blue card into your hand." Should that be banned too? Is that too broken in terms of filtering and sculpting? Why would this restriction be any better or worse than Ancient Stirrings? Would it be the same? Why is one totally OK, but not the other? What justification does WOTC have to support this? Because this the hypocrisy we have to deal with when it comes to card draw: green gets amazing draw and filtering, while everything in blue is either banned or designed to be terrible from R&D.
I'd like to add that in no way am I advocating a ban on Ancient Stirrings, but I feel it's disappointing that similar types of cards (look and take with some drawback/restriction) is not even remotely in consideration for blue, especially at least at a 1cmc cost.
That's a false equivalency. Stirrings doesn't check for green cards the way your Aquatic Stirrings checks for blue cards. Green is the color of fatties and blowing up artifacts and enchantments. Why would they search for colorless cards? This takes some very heavy deck building restrictions to be a good card. It just so happens the card pool is large enough and recent Eldrazi good enough that that restriction has been made much easier. Come up with a similar restriction for Aquatic Stirrings and then we'll talk.
Until then, what you've defined is exponentially better than Ancient Stirrings.
You're right that Stirrings doesn't check for green, it checks for colorless cards, which include all lands, artifacts, and cards classified as colorless. Maybe back in 2010, that was a design limitation. But between the bonkers lands, bonkers artifacts, and bonkers colorless cards available today, that might as well read "Look at the top 5, take the best card you need." Based on the practical power level of blue cards that see play in Modern, how is the blue limitation any different from a colorless limitation? More often than not, you'd likely be pulling a weaker card than the people casting Stirrings anyway...
I am still finding it hard that preordain is out of possibility in people's minds at this point.
When you look at the ban list and see how Wotc has removed the top end filtering and hand sculpting cantrips. Its really easy to see it wont come off.
There is a huge disconnect between what Wotc wants the format to look like, and what a part of the player base wants the format to look like.
If they printed a card called Aquatic Stirrings, U, Sorcery, "Look at the top 5 cards, put a land or blue card into your hand." Should that be banned too? Is that too broken in terms of filtering and sculpting? Why would this restriction be any better or worse than Ancient Stirrings? Would it be the same? Why is one totally OK, but not the other? What justification does WOTC have to support this? Because this the hypocrisy we have to deal with when it comes to card draw: green gets amazing draw and filtering, while everything in blue is either banned or designed to be terrible from R&D.
I'd like to add that in no way am I advocating a ban on Ancient Stirrings, but I feel it's disappointing that similar types of cards (look and take with some drawback/restriction) is not even remotely in consideration for blue, especially at least at a 1cmc cost.
That's a false equivalency. Stirrings doesn't check for green cards the way your Aquatic Stirrings checks for blue cards. Green is the color of fatties and blowing up artifacts and enchantments. Why would they search for colorless cards? This takes some very heavy deck building restrictions to be a good card. It just so happens the card pool is large enough and recent Eldrazi good enough that that restriction has been made much easier. Come up with a similar restriction for Aquatic Stirrings and then we'll talk.
Until then, what you've defined is exponentially better than Ancient Stirrings.
So is your point the blue one would be to good but the Green one with a "restriction" that is in practical application not a actual restriction for the format isn't?
I'm not on board with the ban Stirrings thing, it just seems like a very odd line of reasoning as a restriction that is not very restrictive isn't much of a restriction. A critical mass of Colorless spells have been printed to simply make Strrings sorcery speed impulse for G and green is the color of ramp and land tutoring so it would seem that Eldrazi/Tron all revolve around G for exactly this reason..
I wouldn't say ban them but TS/IoK do have a negative impact on the format in some respects. It pushes other decks into playing non-interactive redundant aggro/aggro-combo decks, it makes winning the die roll even more important than it already is, and it makes mulligans somewhat equivalent to conceding. The format needs a way for decks to interact with the hyper efficient targeted discard.
Decks that play heavy discard usually perform pretty well on the draw, because assuming neither player has mulliganed you are increasing your ratio of advantage when you 1:1 remove one of your opponent's cards with one of your own. You change the ratio of total cards in hand/play from 8(you):7(them) to 7(you):6(them), giving you a bigger margin of advantage rationally speaking
In no way does this address anything I said. Im sure most people in the forum are aware of why you choose to be on the draw against 8 rack. The problem isn't that you go down on cards as compared to your opponent its that it has a cascading value of T1 take your T1 play, essentially putting you down a card out losing mana since you didn't cast anything, T2 they remove your next play which perpetuates the issue of being behind on mana now 2-3 mana behind depending on the content of your hand; they can then play a cheap threat or another discard spell potentially putting you even further behind on mana. Discard is only really bad for BGx decks in the mirror its because BGx decks in general are designed to capitalize on the game states created by them.
I am still finding it hard that preordain is out of possibility in people's minds at this point.
When you look at the ban list and see how Wotc has removed the top end filtering and hand sculpting cantrips. Its really easy to see it wont come off.
There is a huge disconnect between what Wotc wants the format to look like, and what a part of the player base wants the format to look like.
If they printed a card called Aquatic Stirrings, U, Sorcery, "Look at the top 5 cards, put a land or blue card into your hand." Should that be banned too? Is that too broken in terms of filtering and sculpting? Why would this restriction be any better or worse than Ancient Stirrings? Would it be the same? Why is one totally OK, but not the other? What justification does WOTC have to support this? Because this the hypocrisy we have to deal with when it comes to card draw: green gets amazing draw and filtering, while everything in blue is either banned or designed to be terrible from R&D.
I'd like to add that in no way am I advocating a ban on Ancient Stirrings, but I feel it's disappointing that similar types of cards (look and take with some drawback/restriction) is not even remotely in consideration for blue, especially at least at a 1cmc cost.
That's a false equivalency. Stirrings doesn't check for green cards the way your Aquatic Stirrings checks for blue cards. Green is the color of fatties and blowing up artifacts and enchantments. Why would they search for colorless cards? This takes some very heavy deck building restrictions to be a good card. It just so happens the card pool is large enough and recent Eldrazi good enough that that restriction has been made much easier. Come up with a similar restriction for Aquatic Stirrings and then we'll talk.
Until then, what you've defined is exponentially better than Ancient Stirrings.
You're right that Stirrings doesn't check for green, it checks for colorless cards, which include all lands, artifacts, and cards classified as colorless. Maybe back in 2010, that was a design limitation. But between the bonkers lands, bonkers artifacts, and bonkers colorless cards available today, that might as well read "Look at the top 5, take the best card you need." Based on the practical power level of blue cards that see play in Modern, how is the blue limitation any different from a colorless limitation? More often than not, you'd likely be pulling a weaker card than the people casting Stirrings anyway...
It might be too strong. The very large difference right off the bat is this can find itself to look even deeper in the deck. It's also always on color which is why a deck like Eldrazi Tron doesn't run Stirrings. But the reason it might be too strong is that it lends itself to combo decks very easily. Storm can mana fix, find a mana reducer, or find gifts.
I am still finding it hard that preordain is out of possibility in people's minds at this point.
When you look at the ban list and see how Wotc has removed the top end filtering and hand sculpting cantrips. Its really easy to see it wont come off.
There is a huge disconnect between what Wotc wants the format to look like, and what a part of the player base wants the format to look like.
If they printed a card called Aquatic Stirrings, U, Sorcery, "Look at the top 5 cards, put a land or blue card into your hand." Should that be banned too? Is that too broken in terms of filtering and sculpting? Why would this restriction be any better or worse than Ancient Stirrings? Would it be the same? Why is one totally OK, but not the other? What justification does WOTC have to support this? Because this the hypocrisy we have to deal with when it comes to card draw: green gets amazing draw and filtering, while everything in blue is either banned or designed to be terrible from R&D.
I'd like to add that in no way am I advocating a ban on Ancient Stirrings, but I feel it's disappointing that similar types of cards (look and take with some drawback/restriction) is not even remotely in consideration for blue, especially at least at a 1cmc cost.
That's a false equivalency. Stirrings doesn't check for green cards the way your Aquatic Stirrings checks for blue cards. Green is the color of fatties and blowing up artifacts and enchantments. Why would they search for colorless cards? This takes some very heavy deck building restrictions to be a good card. It just so happens the card pool is large enough and recent Eldrazi good enough that that restriction has been made much easier. Come up with a similar restriction for Aquatic Stirrings and then we'll talk.
Until then, what you've defined is exponentially better than Ancient Stirrings.
You're right that Stirrings doesn't check for green, it checks for colorless cards, which include all lands, artifacts, and cards classified as colorless. Maybe back in 2010, that was a design limitation. But between the bonkers lands, bonkers artifacts, and bonkers colorless cards available today, that might as well read "Look at the top 5, take the best card you need." Based on the practical power level of blue cards that see play in Modern, how is the blue limitation any different from a colorless limitation? More often than not, you'd likely be pulling a weaker card than the people casting Stirrings anyway...
I am still finding it hard that preordain is out of possibility in people's minds at this point.
When you look at the ban list and see how Wotc has removed the top end filtering and hand sculpting cantrips. Its really easy to see it wont come off.
There is a huge disconnect between what Wotc wants the format to look like, and what a part of the player base wants the format to look like.
If they printed a card called Aquatic Stirrings, U, Sorcery, "Look at the top 5 cards, put a land or blue card into your hand." Should that be banned too? Is that too broken in terms of filtering and sculpting? Why would this restriction be any better or worse than Ancient Stirrings? Would it be the same? Why is one totally OK, but not the other? What justification does WOTC have to support this? Because this the hypocrisy we have to deal with when it comes to card draw: green gets amazing draw and filtering, while everything in blue is either banned or designed to be terrible from R&D.
I'd like to add that in no way am I advocating a ban on Ancient Stirrings, but I feel it's disappointing that similar types of cards (look and take with some drawback/restriction) is not even remotely in consideration for blue, especially at least at a 1cmc cost.
That's a false equivalency. Stirrings doesn't check for green cards the way your Aquatic Stirrings checks for blue cards. Green is the color of fatties and blowing up artifacts and enchantments. Why would they search for colorless cards? This takes some very heavy deck building restrictions to be a good card. It just so happens the card pool is large enough and recent Eldrazi good enough that that restriction has been made much easier. Come up with a similar restriction for Aquatic Stirrings and then we'll talk.
Until then, what you've defined is exponentially better than Ancient Stirrings.
So is your point the blue one would be to good but the Green one with a "restriction" that is in practical application not a actual restriction for the format isn't?
I'm not on board with the ban Stirrings thing, it just seems like a very odd line of reasoning as a restriction that is not very restrictive isn't much of a restriction. A critical mass of Colorless spells have been printed to simply make Strrings sorcery speed impulse for G and green is the color of ramp and land tutoring so it would seem that Eldrazi/Tron all revolve around G for exactly this reason..
Wow people are reacting quickly to this.
The point is, Ancient Stirrings doesn't check for Green cards. Cfusion's "Aquatic Stirrings" costs U and checks for Blue cards. I don't care whatsoever that the colorless cards available now are strong. You're simply not asking for an equivalent card.
You could ask for U, look at top 5 take a colorless card. But that would just go in Tezz and Tron and Eldrazi decks anyway. Instead you're looking for a card that searches up U cards. Stirrings doesn't search for G cards. So it's simply not the right comparison.
Which means that really what you're looking for is something close to Dig Through Time. You're taking away the extra mana cost, the Delve, 2 cards seen and a card taken and switching it from instant to sorcery. But U, sorcery, look at top 5 take 1 is still much better than both Ponder and Preordain and close to (if not equal to) the power level of DTT. If you think those are all reasonable in Modern, then have at it.
I am still finding it hard that preordain is out of possibility in people's minds at this point.
When you look at the ban list and see how Wotc has removed the top end filtering and hand sculpting cantrips. Its really easy to see it wont come off.
There is a huge disconnect between what Wotc wants the format to look like, and what a part of the player base wants the format to look like.
If they printed a card called Aquatic Stirrings, U, Sorcery, "Look at the top 5 cards, put a land or blue card into your hand." Should that be banned too? Is that too broken in terms of filtering and sculpting? Why would this restriction be any better or worse than Ancient Stirrings? Would it be the same? Why is one totally OK, but not the other? What justification does WOTC have to support this? Because this the hypocrisy we have to deal with when it comes to card draw: green gets amazing draw and filtering, while everything in blue is either banned or designed to be terrible from R&D.
I'd like to add that in no way am I advocating a ban on Ancient Stirrings, but I feel it's disappointing that similar types of cards (look and take with some drawback/restriction) is not even remotely in consideration for blue, especially at least at a 1cmc cost.
That's a false equivalency. Stirrings doesn't check for green cards the way your Aquatic Stirrings checks for blue cards. Green is the color of fatties and blowing up artifacts and enchantments. Why would they search for colorless cards? This takes some very heavy deck building restrictions to be a good card. It just so happens the card pool is large enough and recent Eldrazi good enough that that restriction has been made much easier. Come up with a similar restriction for Aquatic Stirrings and then we'll talk.
Until then, what you've defined is exponentially better than Ancient Stirrings.
restrictions of a 4/4 thoughtseize and a 5/5 trample haste or a planeswalker who wins the game. Yep "restrictions".
Cool. Go put Ancient Stirrings in your Elves deck and see how it goes.
Stirrings is broken in the right deck and mediocre/bad in another. The fact BFZ Eldrazi came along with "colorless" made that card too good. It would be nice to scale them back some and see the card go away. They can get by with Oath of Nissa. Also, I don't care if Scrap Trawler or Lantern leave with it, they can get by with Glint-Nest Crane(a blue card).
Also, Aquatic Stirrings would look more like this:
U
Look at the top 5 cards and choose an artifact, blue instant or sorcery card into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom.
Commander GUR Maelstrom Wanderer BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith RRR Feldon of the Third Path WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
I am still finding it hard that preordain is out of possibility in people's minds at this point.
When you look at the ban list and see how Wotc has removed the top end filtering and hand sculpting cantrips. Its really easy to see it wont come off.
There is a huge disconnect between what Wotc wants the format to look like, and what a part of the player base wants the format to look like.
If they printed a card called Aquatic Stirrings, U, Sorcery, "Look at the top 5 cards, put a land or blue card into your hand." Should that be banned too? Is that too broken in terms of filtering and sculpting? Why would this restriction be any better or worse than Ancient Stirrings? Would it be the same? Why is one totally OK, but not the other? What justification does WOTC have to support this? Because this the hypocrisy we have to deal with when it comes to card draw: green gets amazing draw and filtering, while everything in blue is either banned or designed to be terrible from R&D.
I'd like to add that in no way am I advocating a ban on Ancient Stirrings, but I feel it's disappointing that similar types of cards (look and take with some drawback/restriction) is not even remotely in consideration for blue, especially at least at a 1cmc cost.
That's a false equivalency. Stirrings doesn't check for green cards the way your Aquatic Stirrings checks for blue cards. Green is the color of fatties and blowing up artifacts and enchantments. Why would they search for colorless cards? This takes some very heavy deck building restrictions to be a good card. It just so happens the card pool is large enough and recent Eldrazi good enough that that restriction has been made much easier. Come up with a similar restriction for Aquatic Stirrings and then we'll talk.
Until then, what you've defined is exponentially better than Ancient Stirrings.
You're right that Stirrings doesn't check for green, it checks for colorless cards, which include all lands, artifacts, and cards classified as colorless. Maybe back in 2010, that was a design limitation. But between the bonkers lands, bonkers artifacts, and bonkers colorless cards available today, that might as well read "Look at the top 5, take the best card you need." Based on the practical power level of blue cards that see play in Modern, how is the blue limitation any different from a colorless limitation? More often than not, you'd likely be pulling a weaker card than the people casting Stirrings anyway...
Yea I don't know if "Aquatic Stirrings" would even be very good for the reason you said at the end. Card draw spells are only as good as the cards they can get you. Using this list from mtggoldfish (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/modern/full/all) "Aquatic Stirrings" would only grab 4 of the top 50 cards while Ancient Stirrings grabs 13 not including Ugin, Karen, the Eldrazi Titans, or lands. No perhaps a card like "Aquatic Stirrings" would cause more ppl to want to play U spells to keep the card active but outside of counters, which aren't well positioned now and likely will stay that way, the blue spells that are in the format generally aren't as strong or varied in their usefulness as the cards Ancient Stirrings can get.
I'm absolutely not advocating for an Ancient Stirrings ban though.
Second batch of online data in! April numbers so far:
Dredge - 9.5%
Edrazi Tron - 6.5%
Affinity - 5.0%
Grixis Shadow - 5.0%
Elves - 4.5%
UR Storm - 4.5%
Jund Shadow - 4.5%
Burn - 4.0%
Bant Company - 3.5%
WU Control - 3.5%
Jund Midrange - 3.5%
Abzan Midrange - 3.5%
As expected, the numbers have normalized. Jund Shadow's drop is still the most significant change compared to last month (-7.5%). On the other hand, Dredge (+4.5%), Elves (+3.2%) and Bant Company (+2.5%) results have probably improved the most. All in all, I like the fact that the top dog has changed, even if I personally dislike facing Dredge. Again, these are preliminary results, and even at the end of the month n would just be ~300. Oh well. Any thoughts guys?
These numbers do not support my "ban ancient Stirrings + thoughtseize" agenda, do you mind fudging them a little bit and then repost them?
about 18% of those decks run TS and IoK
I wouldn't say ban them but TS/IoK do have a negative impact on the format in some respects. It pushes other decks into playing non-interactive redundant aggro/aggro-combo decks, it makes winning the die roll even more important than it already is, and it makes mulligans somewhat equivalent to conceding. The format needs a way for decks to interact with the hyper efficient targeted discard.
About 18% of them run fatal push, does the format need ways for decks to interact with hyper efficient targeted removal as well?
being a little hyperbolic aren't we? Fatal Push doesn't do things like invalidate your mulligan choices and it is reactive and can be interacted with. IoK/TS have the issue of being both driving players toward non-interactive decks and is its own best hate. Want to stop your opponent from IoK/TS you? well you should run IoK/TS because either you will take theirs or they will take yours.
Not to mention that Fatal push can simply be played around, its no mistake that most every non-Bxx/BGx deck on the list is naturally resilient to Fatal Push, Eldrazi builds don't really care about it, elves is hyper redundant and CoCo decks make 1:1 removal not very good generally and of course Dredge is the king of not giving a fudge about targeted removal or discard surprised that it is rising back to the top? I'm not since those types of uber targeted discard spell decks help dredge be great and keep decks that are good against dredge down.
not to mention targeted removal already has a entire mechanic devoted to making it bad in Hexproof.
Wait so all of the top decks in the format are warped to make push in effective against them and thats not a problem, but it is a problem when decks are warped around discard?
When you look at the ban list and see how Wotc has removed the top end filtering and hand sculpting cantrips. Its really easy to see it wont come off.
There is a huge disconnect between what Wotc wants the format to look like, and what a part of the player base wants the format to look like.
If they printed a card called Aquatic Stirrings, U, Sorcery, "Look at the top 5 cards, put a land or blue card into your hand." Should that be banned too? Is that too broken in terms of filtering and sculpting? Why would this restriction be any better or worse than Ancient Stirrings? Would it be the same? Why is one totally OK, but not the other? What justification does WOTC have to support this? Because this the hypocrisy we have to deal with when it comes to card draw: green gets amazing draw and filtering, while everything in blue is either banned or designed to be terrible from R&D.
I'd like to add that in no way am I advocating a ban on Ancient Stirrings, but I feel it's disappointing that similar types of cards (look and take with some drawback/restriction) is not even remotely in consideration for blue, especially at least at a 1cmc cost.
That's a false equivalency. Stirrings doesn't check for green cards the way your Aquatic Stirrings checks for blue cards. Green is the color of fatties and blowing up artifacts and enchantments. Why would they search for colorless cards? This takes some very heavy deck building restrictions to be a good card. It just so happens the card pool is large enough and recent Eldrazi good enough that that restriction has been made much easier. Come up with a similar restriction for Aquatic Stirrings and then we'll talk.
Until then, what you've defined is exponentially better than Ancient Stirrings.
You're right that Stirrings doesn't check for green, it checks for colorless cards, which include all lands, artifacts, and cards classified as colorless. Maybe back in 2010, that was a design limitation. But between the bonkers lands, bonkers artifacts, and bonkers colorless cards available today, that might as well read "Look at the top 5, take the best card you need." Based on the practical power level of blue cards that see play in Modern, how is the blue limitation any different from a colorless limitation? More often than not, you'd likely be pulling a weaker card than the people casting Stirrings anyway...
Yea I don't know if "Aquatic Stirrings" would even be very good for the reason you said at the end. Card draw spells are only as good as the cards they can get you. Using this list from mtggoldfish (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/modern/full/all) "Aquatic Stirrings" would only grab 4 of the top 50 cards while Ancient Stirrings grabs 13 not including Ugin, Karen, the Eldrazi Titans, or lands. No perhaps a card like "Aquatic Stirrings" would cause more ppl to want to play U spells to keep the card active but outside of counters, which aren't well positioned now and likely will stay that way, the blue spells that are in the format generally aren't as strong or varied in their usefulness as the cards Ancient Stirrings can get.
I'm absolutely not advocating for an Ancient Stirrings ban though.
5 of those are affinity cards which is a deck that doesn't run stirrings. Which also asks the question why doesn't it run Stirrings if it is that powerful.
This is also why I think people who say "we need a FoW for modern" are somewhat just blowing smoke because we already have a FoW style T0 counter and it is deemed to powerful by people.
The problem with MM isn't that it's too powerful, it's not. In fact, I believe a free counter that only hit 1 drops would be good for the format. The problem is that it's too ubiquitous. Because the cost was phyrexian mana, it can be played in any deck regardless of what colors you're playing, and because MM is the best answer to MM, it will be played in almost every deck. The idea of what it was trying to do was a good idea, but this was a very poorly designed card. There needs to be a deck building constriction limiting it to decks playing blue, and it shouldn't counter itself. There are several ways to achieve this, but WotC is probably too scared to make the card.
I don't see how this is much different than the current situation with IoK/TS as they are the best answer to themselves and nearly every deck that can run them does run them. Yes it will likely be on the level of IoK/TS ubiquitous but if we ever receive a FoW that is playable this will be true. I think the design is actually on the point, they printed it to be a universal FoW affect for all colors not just blue it just happens that it is blue and pitches to FoW in Legacy and created the issue of a critical mass of free blue counters.
Even if it had restriction for blue like FoW it would be trivial to just put a snap, visions splash for which would just make BUG a actual deck. And if its to restrictive it will end up in the never going to see serious play like Disrupting Shoal
If they printed a card called Aquatic Stirrings, U, Sorcery, "Look at the top 5 cards, put a land or blue card into your hand." Should that be banned too? Is that too broken in terms of filtering and sculpting? Why would this restriction be any better or worse than Ancient Stirrings? Would it be the same? Why is one totally OK, but not the other? What justification does WOTC have to support this? Because this the hypocrisy we have to deal with when it comes to card draw: green gets amazing draw and filtering, while everything in blue is either banned or designed to be terrible from R&D.
I'd like to add that in no way am I advocating a ban on Ancient Stirrings, but I feel it's disappointing that similar types of cards (look and take with some drawback/restriction) is not even remotely in consideration for blue, especially at least at a 1cmc cost.
That's a false equivalency. Stirrings doesn't check for green cards the way your Aquatic Stirrings checks for blue cards. Green is the color of fatties and blowing up artifacts and enchantments. Why would they search for colorless cards? This takes some very heavy deck building restrictions to be a good card. It just so happens the card pool is large enough and recent Eldrazi good enough that that restriction has been made much easier. Come up with a similar restriction for Aquatic Stirrings and then we'll talk.
Until then, what you've defined is exponentially better than Ancient Stirrings.
You're right that Stirrings doesn't check for green, it checks for colorless cards, which include all lands, artifacts, and cards classified as colorless. Maybe back in 2010, that was a design limitation. But between the bonkers lands, bonkers artifacts, and bonkers colorless cards available today, that might as well read "Look at the top 5, take the best card you need." Based on the practical power level of blue cards that see play in Modern, how is the blue limitation any different from a colorless limitation? More often than not, you'd likely be pulling a weaker card than the people casting Stirrings anyway...
Yea I don't know if "Aquatic Stirrings" would even be very good for the reason you said at the end. Card draw spells are only as good as the cards they can get you. Using this list from mtggoldfish (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/modern/full/all) "Aquatic Stirrings" would only grab 4 of the top 50 cards while Ancient Stirrings grabs 13 not including Ugin, Karen, the Eldrazi Titans, or lands. No perhaps a card like "Aquatic Stirrings" would cause more ppl to want to play U spells to keep the card active but outside of counters, which aren't well positioned now and likely will stay that way, the blue spells that are in the format generally aren't as strong or varied in their usefulness as the cards Ancient Stirrings can get.
I'm absolutely not advocating for an Ancient Stirrings ban though.
5 of those are affinity cards which is a deck that doesn't run stirrings. Which also asks the question why doesn't it run Stirrings if it is that powerful.
Modern is plenty affordable. You can build UR Storm for like $350. Heck, MM17 dropped the prices on plenty of Modern staples. Most Modern players I know love the set, both for drafting reasons and as a method to pick up staples at cheaper prices. What exactly does "affordable" mean to you?
These numbers do not support my "ban ancient Stirrings + thoughtseize" agenda, do you mind fudging them a little bit and then repost them?
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
about 18% of those decks run TS and IoK, even Affinity runs TS out of the side wish would put it at 23%
I wouldn't say ban them but TS/IoK do have a negative impact on the format in some respects. It pushes other decks into playing non-interactive redundant aggro/aggro-combo decks, it makes winning the die roll even more important than it already is, and it makes mulligans somewhat equivalent to conceding. The format needs a way for decks to interact with the hyper efficient targeted discard.
About 18% of them run fatal push, does the format need ways for decks to interact with hyper efficient targeted removal as well?
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
Agreed, Combo orientated strategies have always folded to TS/IoK effects and I don't see why people are just feeling the impact of that now.
Modern:
BR Control
Grixis Bloo
EDH:
Food Chain Prossh
Land Wipe Maelstrom Wanderer
Selvala, Hearth of the Wilds Eldrazi
Decks that play heavy discard usually perform pretty well on the draw, because assuming neither player has mulliganed you are increasing your ratio of advantage when you 1:1 remove one of your opponent's cards with one of your own. You change the ratio of total cards in hand/play from 8(you):7(them) to 7(you):6(them), giving you a bigger margin of advantage rationally speaking
Well, I agree planeswalkers are also the core parts of the Standard decks. But creatures contributes a larger portion in the deck. You can simply count how many creatures are usually involved in a deck, and then compare the amount of planeswalkers in a deck.
My point is just to show how difficult we can see PTE reprint in Standard. Standard needs creatures, a large amount of creatures with CMC from 1 to 6. A PTE will let most the the creatures unplayable in Standard.
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
Until then, what you've defined is exponentially better than Ancient Stirrings.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
restrictions of a 4/4 thoughtseize and a 5/5 trample haste or a planeswalker who wins the game. Yep "restrictions".
The problem with MM isn't that it's too powerful, it's not. In fact, I believe a free counter that only hit 1 drops would be good for the format. The problem is that it's too ubiquitous. Because the cost was phyrexian mana, it can be played in any deck regardless of what colors you're playing, and because MM is the best answer to MM, it will be played in almost every deck. The idea of what it was trying to do was a good idea, but this was a very poorly designed card. There needs to be a deck building constriction limiting it to decks playing blue, and it shouldn't counter itself. There are several ways to achieve this, but WotC is probably too scared to make the card.
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
being a little hyperbolic aren't we? Fatal Push doesn't do things like invalidate your mulligan choices and it is reactive and can be interacted with. IoK/TS have the issue of being both driving players toward non-interactive decks and is its own best hate. Want to stop your opponent from IoK/TS you? well you should run IoK/TS because either you will take theirs or they will take yours.
Not to mention that Fatal push can simply be played around, its no mistake that most every non-Bxx/BGx deck on the list is naturally resilient to Fatal Push, Eldrazi builds don't really care about it, elves is hyper redundant and CoCo decks make 1:1 removal not very good generally and of course Dredge is the king of not giving a fudge about targeted removal or discard surprised that it is rising back to the top? I'm not since those types of uber targeted discard spell decks help dredge be great and keep decks that are good against dredge down.
not to mention targeted removal already has a entire mechanic devoted to making it bad in Hexproof.
You're right that Stirrings doesn't check for green, it checks for colorless cards, which include all lands, artifacts, and cards classified as colorless. Maybe back in 2010, that was a design limitation. But between the bonkers lands, bonkers artifacts, and bonkers colorless cards available today, that might as well read "Look at the top 5, take the best card you need." Based on the practical power level of blue cards that see play in Modern, how is the blue limitation any different from a colorless limitation? More often than not, you'd likely be pulling a weaker card than the people casting Stirrings anyway...
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
So is your point the blue one would be to good but the Green one with a "restriction" that is in practical application not a actual restriction for the format isn't?
I'm not on board with the ban Stirrings thing, it just seems like a very odd line of reasoning as a restriction that is not very restrictive isn't much of a restriction. A critical mass of Colorless spells have been printed to simply make Strrings sorcery speed impulse for G and green is the color of ramp and land tutoring so it would seem that Eldrazi/Tron all revolve around G for exactly this reason..
In no way does this address anything I said. Im sure most people in the forum are aware of why you choose to be on the draw against 8 rack. The problem isn't that you go down on cards as compared to your opponent its that it has a cascading value of T1 take your T1 play, essentially putting you down a card out losing mana since you didn't cast anything, T2 they remove your next play which perpetuates the issue of being behind on mana now 2-3 mana behind depending on the content of your hand; they can then play a cheap threat or another discard spell potentially putting you even further behind on mana. Discard is only really bad for BGx decks in the mirror its because BGx decks in general are designed to capitalize on the game states created by them.
It might be too strong. The very large difference right off the bat is this can find itself to look even deeper in the deck. It's also always on color which is why a deck like Eldrazi Tron doesn't run Stirrings. But the reason it might be too strong is that it lends itself to combo decks very easily. Storm can mana fix, find a mana reducer, or find gifts.
The point is, Ancient Stirrings doesn't check for Green cards. Cfusion's "Aquatic Stirrings" costs U and checks for Blue cards. I don't care whatsoever that the colorless cards available now are strong. You're simply not asking for an equivalent card.
You could ask for U, look at top 5 take a colorless card. But that would just go in Tezz and Tron and Eldrazi decks anyway. Instead you're looking for a card that searches up U cards. Stirrings doesn't search for G cards. So it's simply not the right comparison.
Which means that really what you're looking for is something close to Dig Through Time. You're taking away the extra mana cost, the Delve, 2 cards seen and a card taken and switching it from instant to sorcery. But U, sorcery, look at top 5 take 1 is still much better than both Ponder and Preordain and close to (if not equal to) the power level of DTT. If you think those are all reasonable in Modern, then have at it.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Also, Aquatic Stirrings would look more like this:
U
Look at the top 5 cards and choose an artifact, blue instant or sorcery card into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom.
GURB Grixis/Jund Shadow
RBG Dredge
xUx U Ballista Tron
Commander
GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius
BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth
WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
RRR Feldon of the Third Path
WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
Yea I don't know if "Aquatic Stirrings" would even be very good for the reason you said at the end. Card draw spells are only as good as the cards they can get you. Using this list from mtggoldfish (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/modern/full/all) "Aquatic Stirrings" would only grab 4 of the top 50 cards while Ancient Stirrings grabs 13 not including Ugin, Karen, the Eldrazi Titans, or lands. No perhaps a card like "Aquatic Stirrings" would cause more ppl to want to play U spells to keep the card active but outside of counters, which aren't well positioned now and likely will stay that way, the blue spells that are in the format generally aren't as strong or varied in their usefulness as the cards Ancient Stirrings can get.
I'm absolutely not advocating for an Ancient Stirrings ban though.
Wait so all of the top decks in the format are warped to make push in effective against them and thats not a problem, but it is a problem when decks are warped around discard?
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
5 of those are affinity cards which is a deck that doesn't run stirrings. Which also asks the question why doesn't it run Stirrings if it is that powerful.
I don't see how this is much different than the current situation with IoK/TS as they are the best answer to themselves and nearly every deck that can run them does run them. Yes it will likely be on the level of IoK/TS ubiquitous but if we ever receive a FoW that is playable this will be true. I think the design is actually on the point, they printed it to be a universal FoW affect for all colors not just blue it just happens that it is blue and pitches to FoW in Legacy and created the issue of a critical mass of free blue counters.
Even if it had restriction for blue like FoW it would be trivial to just put a snap, visions splash for which would just make BUG a actual deck. And if its to restrictive it will end up in the never going to see serious play like Disrupting Shoal
Affinity is redundant enough to not need it.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate