Also I should say that people need to understand the whole picture with cards like Ancient Stirrings. I won a game during the beginning of Abzan Company because I cast a Collected Company that whiffed completely. I was in a grindy game with Twin and after missing on that CoCo, I hit 4 straight creatures, including 2 Kitchen Finks and completely took over. If I had to draw those 6 cards, I lose 100%. That was actually the best CoCo I have ever cast in any form of Magic with Abzan Company, although it was frustrating at that very moment until I drew creature after creature.
I think this is the real power of Ancient Stirrings in decks that can use it. You're finding the one card out of the top five that will be useful soon, and even if you whiff you're getting rid of 5 bad cards. I've definitely cast Stirrings where my reaction was "Well, I'm super glad I'm not drawing any of those next turn..."
I think that the real power of Ancient Stirrings is that it has a deceptively low opportunity cost to use it. The fact that every deck is running around 23 lands, which are all colorless gives you a ridiculous hit rate with the card. Something like Peer Through Depths requires a serious commitment to spells in order to use it, but without running any extra colorless cards, just 23 lands Ancient Stirrings has a 92% hit rate. If you add 4 more colorless cards to the deck, like say some Engineered Explosives, and whatever else you like, at 27 hits you have a 95.7% hit rate.
That's without Tron lands, without Eldrazi, without eggs, and without any other colorless enablers.
Granted, you might not get a great selection with that number of hits, but it's still quite good. 23 land+4 stirrings is strictly better than 27 land to hit your land drops.
Also I should say that people need to understand the whole picture with cards like Ancient Stirrings. I won a game during the beginning of Abzan Company because I cast a Collected Company that whiffed completely. I was in a grindy game with Twin and after missing on that CoCo, I hit 4 straight creatures, including 2 Kitchen Finks and completely took over. If I had to draw those 6 cards, I lose 100%. That was actually the best CoCo I have ever cast in any form of Magic with Abzan Company, although it was frustrating at that very moment until I drew creature after creature.
I think this is the real power of Ancient Stirrings in decks that can use it. You're finding the one card out of the top five that will be useful soon, and even if you whiff you're getting rid of 5 bad cards. I've definitely cast Stirrings where my reaction was "Well, I'm super glad I'm not drawing any of those next turn..."
Granted, you might not get a great selection with that number of hits, but it's still quite good. 23 land+4 stirrings is strictly better than 27 land to hit your land drops.
This is not always true. Besides, your argument ignores the cost of stirrings: one green mana.
Here's a question: if Ancient Stirrings is so insane, why doesn't it see play in legacy? They have all of the same colorless cards we do, plus more.
It still digs deeper than Ponder, Preordain, or Brainstorm
The cost is higher in Legacy. It's not blue, and it requires you to play more not blue cards (note that Legacy also plays fewer lands, so there's fewer natural hits in the deck)
Here's a question: if Ancient Stirrings is so insane, why doesn't it see play in legacy? They have all of the same colorless cards we do, plus more.
It still digs deeper than Ponder, Preordain, or Brainstorm
Brainstorm provides functional card advantage as well by shuffling away bad cards and enabling miracles and delver.
Ponder also provides much better control over the top of your deck which is generally more relevant in legacy by virtue of miracles and delver being more important to the format.
In general the "it's not blue and blue is more important in legacy" is the best answer but there're a million reasons why Ponder and Brainstorm compare more favorably to stirrings than serum visions and sleight of hand, particularly in legacy.
Here's a question: if Ancient Stirrings is so insane, why doesn't it see play in legacy? They have all of the same colorless cards we do, plus more.
It still digs deeper than Ponder, Preordain, or Brainstorm
What was said already, plus Stirrings can't be pitched to Force of Will if unneeded.
What decks with enough colorless cards to possibly want Ancient Stirrings (if they could cast it) would ever run Force of Will to begin with?
I don't think Force of Will is even a factor in Ancient Stirrings' lack of play. It's more the fact that the decks that are colorless enough to get usage out of it are straight up colorless decks that don't have access to Green anyway.
If Ancient Stirrings, instead of requiring one Green mana, could only be cost off of colorless mana instead, it'd probably actually see a decent amount of play.
I'd love to make 'Miracles' a viable modern deck. No Top of course - that card is busted and slows games down too much. But Ponder, Preordain, and Jace would probably offer enough deck manipulation for it to work.
Titanpost is often U/G, plays force in the 75, and could effectively use stirrings. Its still worse than brainstorm, though.
I don't think miracles could be anything other than an incredibly fringe deck without atleast top or brainstorm.
Being able to put cards from your hand back on top means you can cast your miracle cards when you actually want to consistently. Ponder/preordain aren't nearly as good in that regard.
Titanpost is often U/G, plays force in the 75, and could effectively use stirrings. Its still worse than brainstorm, though.
I'm probably beating this horse too dead, but Expedition Map is better in those decks, as it finds Eye of Ugin, which then in turn finds any colorless threat you could want, outside of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.
I would say that if UG Titanpost doesn't run Ancient Stirrings, then no other deck would. It still doesn't diminish the power of Stirrings in Modern.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Most of those decks play brainstorm (over stirrings), was my point.
Just kind of playing devil's advocate though, I think stirrings is insanely strong in modern.
Personally I don't see today's announcement being anything other then "no changes". The format seems diverse enough. Sure not all core strategies are equally represented across the tiers but I don't think that has ever been a realistic ban list guideline. None of the most popular decks pushes the envelope enough to warrant a drastic intervention. If they feel something is off about DSJ they will probably just ban said card but I don't see it happening yet.
On the other hand I don't think there is any card on the banned list that's being "pained for" by the format. Cantrips are too risky to take off and provide generally little to no reward for taking said risk (they would do much more for combo then control in any case) and don't even get me started on Stoneforge Mystic. Jace would always be nice to have back but that would be an excessive move towards pushing control in this format.
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In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
I would say that wizards should just unban ponder and preordain.
~Not sure one, but I would unban~ Chrome Mox has been banned since the inception of Modern, and I have always been curious to see how it would shape the meta.
Should all the artifact lands banned? I feel they were all banned since they were just part of a cycle.
Verdict Unban - Tree of Tales is interesting since green is not really used by affinity and there are not many green cards that care for artifacts.
Verdict Unban - Ancient Den also appears fine the big cards I see that benefit are Puresteel Paladin and Dispatch. I don't see it causing any problems.
Verdict Maybe Unban - Great Furnace is pretty obvious as it makes casting Galvanic Blast easier to cast, and there other red cards that interact with artifacts. However, I am more hesitant to uban it than Vault of Whispers.
Verdict leave banned - Seat of the Synod, there a lot blue cards that like artifacts so it's probably too much.
I would say that wizards should just unban ponder and preordain.
~Not sure one, but I would unban~ Chrome Mox has been banned since the inception of Modern, and I have always been curious to see how it would shape the meta.
Should all the artifact lands banned? I feel they were all banned since they were just part of a cycle.
Verdict Unban - Tree of Tales is interesting since green is not really used by affinity and there are not many green cards that care for artifacts.
Verdict Unban - Ancient Den also appears fine the big cards I see that benefit are Puresteel Paladin and Dispatch. I don't see it causing any problems.
Verdict Maybe Unban - Great Furnace is pretty obvious as it makes casting Galvanic Blast easier to cast, and there other red cards that interact with artifacts. However, I am more hesitant to uban it than Vault of Whispers.
Verdict leave banned - Seat of the Synod, there a lot blue cards that like artifacts so it's probably too much.
I would say that wizards should just unban ponder and preordain.
~Not sure one, but I would unban~ Chrome Mox has been banned since the inception of Modern, and I have always been curious to see how it would shape the meta.
Should all the artifact lands banned? I feel they were all banned since they were just part of a cycle.
Verdict Unban - Tree of Tales is interesting since green is not really used by affinity and there are not many green cards that care for artifacts.
Verdict Unban - Ancient Den also appears fine the big cards I see that benefit are Puresteel Paladin and Dispatch. I don't see it causing any problems.
Verdict Maybe Unban - Great Furnace is pretty obvious as it makes casting Galvanic Blast easier to cast, and there other red cards that interact with artifacts. However, I am more hesitant to uban it than Vault of Whispers.
Verdict leave banned - Seat of the Synod, there a lot blue cards that like artifacts so it's probably too much.
obviously affinity can do similar things without artifact lands but unbanning them would make this too consistent
Affinity runs very few lands as is. If the artifact lands are not a colour that affinity can use affinity would have to sacrifice their colour fixing, by swapping out their Glimmervoids. Lastly, affinity could swap out the man lands, but that is a critical part of the deck.
I'd love to make 'Miracles' a viable modern deck. No Top of course - that card is busted and slows games down too much. But Ponder, Preordain, and Jace would probably offer enough deck manipulation for it to work.
IDK no brainstorm and no top seems like with only Sorcery speed deck manipulation you would need to be really lucky to guess the correct c.c. often enough to make it work. Whats worse is that DSjund plays bauble and simply look at what you topped and play around it.
I think the deck would work if top was legal but without the responsive manipulation it wouldn't be better than UW control
I just don't see how it could be good in Modern without top, already lagging behind on viable deck manipulation and Abrupt Decay is a card
With Ancient DenTempered Steel becomes viable if you decide to exchange the Darksteel Citadels with them.(The only reason they are not being played is the WW manacost.)
On another note I think it is kind of funny that so many people regard Ancient Stirrings as too strong. Initially this conversation was brought up by a guy who wanted to make arguments for unbanning Preordain and now people are talking about banning Ancient Stirrings, which in my opinion would be a statement that Preordain can't be unbanned for at least quite some time. It's funny how the same people that wanted to unban Preordain now want Ancient Stirrings to be banned, because it's a stronger cantrip than blue has, assuming you have the right shell for it.
IT should be as obvious that Stirrings has a higher ceiling as it should be that Preordain has way less restrictions than Stirrings does. I find both of them okay, well I obviously don't know about Preordain, but I can't imagine it being a problem in itself. If there is one thing Ad Nauseam and Storm do, it's going off on turn 4-5 every single game, or at least quite a high amount, undisrupted that is. It does enable them to rebuild faster/better from discard/disruption than they could before, but it doesn't make them faster and I think the change in the fail rate of the decks isn't enough to make them suddenly oppressive although it certainly would help. For Delver decks Preordain would be huge as they need the additional cantrips, the deck I don't know at all how it would be influenced is Grixis Shadow, maybe someone could assess an upgrade in cantrips there?
I've been very skeptical towards the Preordain unban hype but I'm starting to think they should let it go. The main counter-argument appears to be that UR Storm would become too powerful, but what's the evidence? Discussion of particular cards often takes place as if they were banned in a stepwise manner. But actually, when Preordain was banned, they didn't just ban Preordain to see what effect it would have. They banned Ponder, Preordain and Rite of Flame at the same time to nuke a lot of combo decks in one fell swoop. That decision was understandable at the time, but probably a bit hasty. An unfortunate result is that the only data we have from when Preordain was legal comes from when both Ponder and Preordain were legal. This means that the whole Preordain discussion is based on a whole lot of speculation.
All of the three cards mentioned were great for Storm but would unbanning Preordain, the least powerful of them, really push it over the top? I have no idea. Who does? Also consider that both Gitaxian Probe and Seething Song have been banned since, so the UR Storm that did have access to Preordain also had 16 other insane spells that are now banned. Thus, the Storm deck that would get Preordain today would be a very different deck from the last one that had it. For one thing, it now relies on boltable creatures to generate fast mana.
The evidence for Preordain being banned is lacking, because it's tangled up with effects from other banned cards. There never was a time where we had only Preordain (and Serum Visions) so we don't know if that would be fine. Ponder and Preordain were banned simultaneously in Extended at the same time as in Modern, so the data on non-Standard formats with Preordain without Ponder is really scarce. Frankly, it's quite significant that there's just a big gap here. I think this is sufficient reason to unban Preordain and see how it fares, kinda like how they did with Ancestral Vision. Vision was banned from the outset and in the end they hesitantly gave it a chance, and it was fine. Similarly, Preordain never got an actual chance; it was banned after one month. So why not give it one, eh?
Well Storm continued to perform very well until they banned seething song so imagine that counts as a type of evidence that Preordain is still to good given that Serum Visions and Slight of Hand proved to be enough with a op'ed ritual. WotC has already expressed that they do not want Modern to be a very "consistent" format by ways of cantrips and deck manipulation I think it would be more likely they ban Stirrings than unban Preordain.
Right now Storm has to jump through hoops like crazy and is still rising in popularity and imo the gifts version affords a lot more skill testing than the old PA versions and probably fits more in line with what WotC wants from spell based sorcery decks than a 4 preordain, 4 serum vision, x Slight of hand would really just help the combo deck find the exact cards it wants by the turn it wants to go off and the games would play out very similar. Your also assuming that the current build of the deck is the optimal one that would be played if preordain was unbanned, preordain helps to ensure active PA's better than either SV or SH but with all three it would likely be very trivial to get 2 counters very fast. That is the whole reason that it was abandoned with GP gone not enough fast enablers and preordain is far better enabler.
Yes just banning out Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens and I imagine even Ignite Memories would mean it might be safe to unban Preordain etc... but WotC wants players to be able to play powerful cards like those, they just don't want the deck that supports them to be able to time after time play out the combo with such consistency.
Note: I initially posted this in the wrong location; also, I'm not calling for a ban of CC but rather speculating that its effect being possibly problematic down the road.
Not having this on the list, what do you guys think the critical mass of infinite combos will be before they ban Collected Company? I'd hate to see the card go (because its one of my best specs ever) but with the printing Vezier of Remedies and already having devoted druid, Melira, Kitchen Finks and a sac outlet (Viscera Seer) and also helix pinnacle (as janky as it is) one has to wonder. I mean I know a deck is gonna use it, some already do I believe, so will they wait until it reaches 12-14% of the meta or will they hit it sooner? You'll might think I'm crazy but I was among the first to see both pod and twin being hit. CC unfortunately fits the mold as well with all these undercosted weapons running around.
Or does the copious amounts of discard and cheap removal keep it in check for the time being?
Curious to your thoughts?
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
With Ancient DenTempered Steel becomes viable if you decide to exchange the Darksteel Citadels with them.(The only reason they are not being played is the WW manacost.)
On another note I think it is kind of funny that so many people regard Ancient Stirrings as too strong. Initially this conversation was brought up by a guy who wanted to make arguments for unbanning Preordain and now people are talking about banning Ancient Stirrings, which in my opinion would be a statement that Preordain can't be unbanned for at least quite some time. It's funny how the same people that wanted to unban Preordain now want Ancient Stirrings to be banned, because it's a stronger cantrip than blue has, assuming you have the right shell for it.
IT should be as obvious that Stirrings has a higher ceiling as it should be that Preordain has way less restrictions than Stirrings does. I find both of them okay, well I obviously don't know about Preordain, but I can't imagine it being a problem in itself. If there is one thing Ad Nauseam and Storm do, it's going off on turn 4-5 every single game, or at least quite a high amount, undisrupted that is. It does enable them to rebuild faster/better from discard/disruption than they could before, but it doesn't make them faster and I think the change in the fail rate of the decks isn't enough to make them suddenly oppressive although it certainly would help. For Delver decks Preordain would be huge as they need the additional cantrips, the deck I don't know at all how it would be influenced is Grixis Shadow, maybe someone could assess an upgrade in cantrips there?
Assuming you have the right shell for it.......there are only 3 base colorless decks that are in the format, Eldrazi, Tron, and Lantern Control. This is ignoring variants and amalgamations. It is kind of silly that people keep talking about Stirrings like maybe in the future some hypothetical base colorless deck might exist. We have literally had a entire block devoted to theme of colorless, it is a well supported segment of the color pie at this point.
Its not that I want Stirrings to be banned it is that it is doing things that got Preordained/Ponder banned and its doing it multiple decks.
WotC doesn't like super consistency in Modern and regardless of how you feel about the card you cannot deny that for the decks it is run in it is a tool for consistency on par or better than Ponder/Preordain. Which to me signals that it is at least being watched. If Tron can consistently hit Tron on 3 more times than not it probably has WotC watching the deck, the fact that it has been T1 for quite awhile also probably puts a flag up, and we all know they don't like Lantern Control.
I honestly don't think that combo getting better is a bad thing. When combo is better control is better. I'd rather have a strong combo deck to force aggro into interaction bringing control/combo back into tier one status together.
I think that the real power of Ancient Stirrings is that it has a deceptively low opportunity cost to use it. The fact that every deck is running around 23 lands, which are all colorless gives you a ridiculous hit rate with the card. Something like Peer Through Depths requires a serious commitment to spells in order to use it, but without running any extra colorless cards, just 23 lands Ancient Stirrings has a 92% hit rate. If you add 4 more colorless cards to the deck, like say some Engineered Explosives, and whatever else you like, at 27 hits you have a 95.7% hit rate.
That's without Tron lands, without Eldrazi, without eggs, and without any other colorless enablers.
Granted, you might not get a great selection with that number of hits, but it's still quite good. 23 land+4 stirrings is strictly better than 27 land to hit your land drops.
This is not always true. Besides, your argument ignores the cost of stirrings: one green mana.
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
It still digs deeper than Ponder, Preordain, or Brainstorm
The cost is higher in Legacy. It's not blue, and it requires you to play more not blue cards (note that Legacy also plays fewer lands, so there's fewer natural hits in the deck)
What was said already, plus Stirrings can't be pitched to Force of Will if unneeded.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Brainstorm provides functional card advantage as well by shuffling away bad cards and enabling miracles and delver.
Ponder also provides much better control over the top of your deck which is generally more relevant in legacy by virtue of miracles and delver being more important to the format.
In general the "it's not blue and blue is more important in legacy" is the best answer but there're a million reasons why Ponder and Brainstorm compare more favorably to stirrings than serum visions and sleight of hand, particularly in legacy.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I don't think Force of Will is even a factor in Ancient Stirrings' lack of play. It's more the fact that the decks that are colorless enough to get usage out of it are straight up colorless decks that don't have access to Green anyway.
If Ancient Stirrings, instead of requiring one Green mana, could only be cost off of colorless mana instead, it'd probably actually see a decent amount of play.
I don't think miracles could be anything other than an incredibly fringe deck without atleast top or brainstorm.
Being able to put cards from your hand back on top means you can cast your miracle cards when you actually want to consistently. Ponder/preordain aren't nearly as good in that regard.
I'm probably beating this horse too dead, but Expedition Map is better in those decks, as it finds Eye of Ugin, which then in turn finds any colorless threat you could want, outside of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.
I would say that if UG Titanpost doesn't run Ancient Stirrings, then no other deck would. It still doesn't diminish the power of Stirrings in Modern.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Just kind of playing devil's advocate though, I think stirrings is insanely strong in modern.
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On the other hand I don't think there is any card on the banned list that's being "pained for" by the format. Cantrips are too risky to take off and provide generally little to no reward for taking said risk (they would do much more for combo then control in any case) and don't even get me started on Stoneforge Mystic. Jace would always be nice to have back but that would be an excessive move towards pushing control in this format.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
~Not sure one, but I would unban~
Chrome Mox has been banned since the inception of Modern, and I have always been curious to see how it would shape the meta.
Should all the artifact lands banned? I feel they were all banned since they were just part of a cycle.
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
My Peasant Cube (looking for feedback)
artifact land, ornitopther, mox
artifact land, cranial plating, turn 2 5/2 flyer attacking
obviously affinity can do similar things without artifact lands but unbanning them would make this too consistent
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
Affinity runs very few lands as is. If the artifact lands are not a colour that affinity can use affinity would have to sacrifice their colour fixing, by swapping out their Glimmervoids. Lastly, affinity could swap out the man lands, but that is a critical part of the deck.
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
My Peasant Cube (looking for feedback)
IDK no brainstorm and no top seems like with only Sorcery speed deck manipulation you would need to be really lucky to guess the correct c.c. often enough to make it work. Whats worse is that DSjund plays bauble and simply look at what you topped and play around it.
I think the deck would work if top was legal but without the responsive manipulation it wouldn't be better than UW control
I just don't see how it could be good in Modern without top, already lagging behind on viable deck manipulation and Abrupt Decay is a card
On another note I think it is kind of funny that so many people regard Ancient Stirrings as too strong. Initially this conversation was brought up by a guy who wanted to make arguments for unbanning Preordain and now people are talking about banning Ancient Stirrings, which in my opinion would be a statement that Preordain can't be unbanned for at least quite some time. It's funny how the same people that wanted to unban Preordain now want Ancient Stirrings to be banned, because it's a stronger cantrip than blue has, assuming you have the right shell for it.
IT should be as obvious that Stirrings has a higher ceiling as it should be that Preordain has way less restrictions than Stirrings does. I find both of them okay, well I obviously don't know about Preordain, but I can't imagine it being a problem in itself. If there is one thing Ad Nauseam and Storm do, it's going off on turn 4-5 every single game, or at least quite a high amount, undisrupted that is. It does enable them to rebuild faster/better from discard/disruption than they could before, but it doesn't make them faster and I think the change in the fail rate of the decks isn't enough to make them suddenly oppressive although it certainly would help. For Delver decks Preordain would be huge as they need the additional cantrips, the deck I don't know at all how it would be influenced is Grixis Shadow, maybe someone could assess an upgrade in cantrips there?
Well Storm continued to perform very well until they banned seething song so imagine that counts as a type of evidence that Preordain is still to good given that Serum Visions and Slight of Hand proved to be enough with a op'ed ritual. WotC has already expressed that they do not want Modern to be a very "consistent" format by ways of cantrips and deck manipulation I think it would be more likely they ban Stirrings than unban Preordain.
Right now Storm has to jump through hoops like crazy and is still rising in popularity and imo the gifts version affords a lot more skill testing than the old PA versions and probably fits more in line with what WotC wants from spell based sorcery decks than a 4 preordain, 4 serum vision, x Slight of hand would really just help the combo deck find the exact cards it wants by the turn it wants to go off and the games would play out very similar. Your also assuming that the current build of the deck is the optimal one that would be played if preordain was unbanned, preordain helps to ensure active PA's better than either SV or SH but with all three it would likely be very trivial to get 2 counters very fast. That is the whole reason that it was abandoned with GP gone not enough fast enablers and preordain is far better enabler.
Yes just banning out Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens and I imagine even Ignite Memories would mean it might be safe to unban Preordain etc... but WotC wants players to be able to play powerful cards like those, they just don't want the deck that supports them to be able to time after time play out the combo with such consistency.
Not having this on the list, what do you guys think the critical mass of infinite combos will be before they ban Collected Company? I'd hate to see the card go (because its one of my best specs ever) but with the printing Vezier of Remedies and already having devoted druid, Melira, Kitchen Finks and a sac outlet (Viscera Seer) and also helix pinnacle (as janky as it is) one has to wonder. I mean I know a deck is gonna use it, some already do I believe, so will they wait until it reaches 12-14% of the meta or will they hit it sooner? You'll might think I'm crazy but I was among the first to see both pod and twin being hit. CC unfortunately fits the mold as well with all these undercosted weapons running around.
Or does the copious amounts of discard and cheap removal keep it in check for the time being?
Curious to your thoughts?
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Assuming you have the right shell for it.......there are only 3 base colorless decks that are in the format, Eldrazi, Tron, and Lantern Control. This is ignoring variants and amalgamations. It is kind of silly that people keep talking about Stirrings like maybe in the future some hypothetical base colorless deck might exist. We have literally had a entire block devoted to theme of colorless, it is a well supported segment of the color pie at this point.
Its not that I want Stirrings to be banned it is that it is doing things that got Preordained/Ponder banned and its doing it multiple decks.
WotC doesn't like super consistency in Modern and regardless of how you feel about the card you cannot deny that for the decks it is run in it is a tool for consistency on par or better than Ponder/Preordain. Which to me signals that it is at least being watched. If Tron can consistently hit Tron on 3 more times than not it probably has WotC watching the deck, the fact that it has been T1 for quite awhile also probably puts a flag up, and we all know they don't like Lantern Control.