If Censor is CMC of 1, it is Modern playable. Since it is 2 instead of 1, I really doubt it does a better job than mana leak.
If Censor were a CMC of 1, it would be among the best counter magic ever printed.
True, it could conceivably even see Legacy play at that stage, although it'd still likely be worse than Daze in most situations.
For what it's worth, I've done some testing with 2x Censor in Grixis Death's Shadow and it's been pretty decent. You already have the discard element, so you know the exact correct moment to play it at. Not sure I would play it in any other kind of deck. I've also had insane turns where I have Snapcaster'd a previously cycled Censor to blow out a play.
If it had been Miscalculation with blue instead of 2 colorless for cycling, it would've been the strongest 2 mana counter in Modern by a long shot imnsho.
While I agree, mana leak is a solid counter through turn four and possible turn five. Without counterspell, playing countermagic is a bit of a guessing game. How many early threats are you gonna see? Which turns? What is the backup plan if I miss my counter? How early can I play a rock solid counter? What do I need to do in concordance with said counter?(Do I need to play additional spells, drop a threat or protect one etc.) How many turns until I'm at critical mass and I just fold? These things need to be addressed at the design phase, from the ground up. Personally I would like to see something along the lines of IOK except as a counter spell. Maybe through in a small life lose(2 points something like that)and have it counter spells with a converted mana cost 3 or less. Keep it UU so it has to be a deck solidly in blue to prevent ubiquity.
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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.
Truth is... most players arent old enough to remember how good cycling really is on the right effects. Time will tell if its aged well enough to make censor playable. I'm cool with letting the grinders figure that one out. Even with naysaying, people are going to test it.
It's funny you mention this because a lot of people also don't see how good Glorious End is, as I was around in mirage when Final Fortune was a thing. This set is using mechanics that older players know more about than the newer players that started in modern border times. Cycling is one of the best things to happen in magic and I'm hoping they make it evergreen, but that doesn't seem super likely.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Disallow can hit fetches. Late game mana fixing is critical and it stifles it. Yeah for 3 mana, but it's still solid and does something CC cannot.
I do like soul manipulation and Rise and Fall and have been looking for something to run them in...
As for Familiar's Ruse, what blue really needs is a good DnT creature. Wait...why isn't anyone using Familiar's ruse with SCM? That seems kinda good doesn't?
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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.
The thing that makes me skeptical of Censor's viability isn't the similarity to Leak/Squall/Negate et al. It's the similarity to Condescend. Scry 2 vs. Cycling is debatable value, but I'd say they're reasonably close to one another. Compared to Condescend, then, the only real upside of Censor is that you can get the incidental value out of it without a spell being on the stack. On the other hand, Condescend is still a Force Spike at 1U, but it gives you the extra value while countering the spell rather than instead of countering the spell. On top of that, its counter ability scales up with more mana.
Given Condescend sees virtually zero play outside Mono-U Tron, I'm not expecting Censor to blow anyone away. Either I'm mis-evaluating the two compared to each other, Condescend is way better than its use indicates, or Censor isn't going to make much impact. I don't really see room for an alternate explanation, although I'm open to on (and of course also open to being wrong on the comparison).
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Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
Seriously, Familiar's Ruse and Snapcaster Mage, could it be a thing? Do we need another Ruse target that is lights out perfect to make it viable? Returning SCM to your hand doesn't feel like a drawback to me. IDK. Maybe something that deals damage when it comes into play? Or bounces. Or makes a boat load of tokens??? It feels viable.
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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.
As for Familiar's Ruse, what blue really needs is a good DnT creature. Wait...why isn't anyone using Familiar's ruse with SCM? That seems kinda good doesn't?
It's not that great, because it only works after you have a Snapcaster Mage down, which generally means turns 5+. Spellstutter Sprite has been paired with it to decent success before, but that's still only enough to make it a 1-2 of.
Seriously, Familiar's Ruse and Snapcaster Mage, could it be a thing? Do we need another Ruse target that is lights out perfect to make it viable? Returning SCM to your hand doesn't feel like a drawback to me. IDK. Maybe something that deals damage when it comes into play? Or bounces. Or makes a boat load of tokens??? It feels viable.
Problem with Familiar's ruse and Deprive to a lesser extent is the tempo. I think Deprive is much better positioned than Familiar's Ruse. Having to return a creature can be a problem.
Right now the premier counterspell in modern is Stubborn Denial (in Grixis Death Shadow) due to the fact that it counters all the problem cards and your creatures tend to be much bigger. Kind of sad, but still funny at the same time. Turns out that Patrick Chapin's Esper Delve list wasn't that far off from the mark.
In general, countermagic is so bad in modern right now that you just play the bare minimum to remove your opponent's "gotchas" and you use discard for everything else. Which isn't bad, mind you, but it it would be nice if decks other than death's shadow could use counters to their advantage.
It's honestly a shame they missed out on the Revolt counter.
One other thing: is it that 3 mana isn't viable or that the community as a whole has been spoiled by 2 mana counter magic. Rather, I mean that sounds too negative, but WotC wouldn't print it if it wasn't viable in standard. But people don't seem to play it much there either. And Spell Queller isn't even a hard counter, but people play it. IDK. I think sometimes the community at large has gotten so myopic and creature centric that if it doesn't have legs its not worth running. Is it possible we as a community are just not patient enough for the decks to work? That 3 mana counter magic is feasible, just not so with the currently understood playstyle. Or rather, are control decks trying to play too fast, kind of absorbed the tempo instinct unconsciously and like wise are unconsciously trying to apply it to an actual control build?
I'm just kinda spitballing here. Deep down, if what everybody around here tells me is true and WotC did not and does not continue to want to make modern a counterspellless format, why would they continue to print unviable countermagic? Why waste the set space?
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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.
Damage, the issue is one of mana efficiency. If threats that will see you die in 3 turns are 1 or 2 mana, how stupid will you feel having to hold up 3 mana? It's just a losing proposal.
Edit: As to wasting set space, Maro has said nothing is wasted, everything is intended for Limited, as disgusting as that is.
Snap bolt snap or snap path snap or snap push snap doesn't need to be turn 5. And you would likely still run leak and or remand for the early game anyway. And just because a creature is on the board doesn't mean you have to attack or block with it. If the opponent feels scm has to die, let them waste a removal spell. Otherwise let him sit there. Control almost always has the long game in the bag. To me, the biggest mistake is pushing it to be faster than it is. Also, the one thing I remember from many matches against control, was it has an ability to generate tempo when it needs to to win. Snap push snap into a hard 2 mana counter is pretty solid for tempo. IDk, more less just a thought.
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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.
While I agree, mana leak is a solid counter through turn four and possible turn five. Without counterspell, playing countermagic is a bit of a guessing game. How many early threats are you gonna see? Which turns? What is the backup plan if I miss my counter? How early can I play a rock solid counter? What do I need to do in concordance with said counter?(Do I need to play additional spells, drop a threat or protect one etc.) How many turns until I'm at critical mass and I just fold? These things need to be addressed at the design phase, from the ground up. Personally I would like to see something along the lines of IOK except as a counter spell. Maybe through in a small life lose(2 points something like that)and have it counter spells with a converted mana cost 3 or less. Keep it UU so it has to be a deck solidly in blue to prevent ubiquity.
Then we go back to our old topic: control does not have a good game finisher.
If we can drop a good game finisher on Turn 4 or 5, who cares if mana leak is garbage or not on Turn 5 or 6?
At that point, mana leak serves the same thing as counterspell.
We do not need a counter as good as counterspell, we just need a better game finisher for Control to play with.
Snap bolt snap or snap path snap or snap push snap doesn't need to be turn 5. And you would likely still run leak and or remand for the early game anyway. And just because a creature is on the board doesn't mean you have to attack or block with it. If the opponent feels scm has to die, let them waste a removal spell. Otherwise let him sit there. Control almost always has the long game in the bag. To me, the biggest mistake is pushing it to be faster than it is. Also, the one thing I remember from many matches against control, was it has an ability to generate tempo when it needs to to win. Snap push snap into a hard 2 mana counter is pretty solid for tempo. IDk, more less just a thought.
Modern these days is all about board presence. If you remove your board presence in order to get rid of something that your opponent is adding to their board, as is the case if you Familiar's Ruse, you may stop the spell but you're still falling behind. You wind up down an attacker/blocker, and down 4 mana (2 ruse, 2 snap) in order to eliminate just 1 card from the opponent. It's not a good trade.
You can contrast that with something like Spell Queller which not only answers the opponents card, but gives you the ability to make attacks and blocks.
Control has universal board wipes though, the ultimate catch me up. A good control deck should be able to fall to 4 or 5 life and stabilize and win. I remember some of my early games and playing control guys that just let me swing away. It was the same deal over and over again where I could do what ever I wanted...to a point and then nothing. My creatures died, my spells fizzled and I was in top deck mode in a couple turns while they sat with a fist full of cards. I had eroded a good chunk of life but after they stabilized, there was no breaking through.
To me you're talking like a tempo player here too. Down an attacker/blocker. I want to use SCM to affect the game in ways other than simple combat math. Everybody can do combat math. If you FR your opponent's spell and return the SCM you just blew like five big holes in their initial game plan. They planned on 4 removal, some counter magic and 4 SCM, they didn't prepare for up to 8 of them and the untold havoc you can instill upon them from your yard. Magic is about so much more than battlefield tactics and math and doing some off the wall stuff can yield benefits. Maybe they forget about the rebounded SCM and two removal spells in the yard. Maybe they don't account for second SCM you just drew.
I do think you hit the proverbial nail on the head though with the statement of "modern these days..." We have all been coaxed into this vision of mtg where creatures are manifested and create these amazing board states of intercat interactions. And me, I love it. I'm not a natural control player. I hated it so much I learned it. And because of that, I began to appreciate it. Personally, I think WotC doesn't want control to be a powerful player in the format. Folks can say what they want that I have some crazy hair brained conspiracy theories but they're more based on what I see in magic today and how I internally rationalize them. The game we play is literally based on infinite numbers of worlds and its hard to couple that fact that it is all under WotC control and direction.
I guess part of me must miss playing control, otherwise why advocate for it...:P
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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.
So what is a good finisher. In my mind a cheap beatstick with counterspell back-up and an open battlefield should do the job. Celestial Colonnade was almost perfect, except it does get expensive. GoST needs evasion to get through most of the time. Delver is a little slow. Tas and ANgler tax your yard something fierce, making it hard to recover if one is lost. Thing in Ice more or less spawned its own deck but would require to much time and protection to really be viable in control. Torrential Gearhulk is a little pricy at 6. Gideon is a little slow at 5.
See, in my mind everybody is trying to end games way to early for control. Control never used to win on turn 4 or 5 or 6. Earliest I would consider for control is like turn 8.
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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.
To me this kinda sounds like folks aren't running enough solutions. Or they are playing too aggressively. Mana leak will answer most problems through turn 5. DS is one that it doesn't. Plan old removal in the form of FP, path or dismember would be adequate here, sometimes lightning bolt even does the job. I would avoid path against DSJ if possible because the deck has an aggressive mana base and giving them a land is likely about as bad as letting them keep a creature. Discard is always a huge pain for control. Also, why not use Nullify or Psychic Barrier or Remove Soul? If a decks major threat density is creatures, why not use countermagic that affects them? There are 12 creature counters there at 2 mana per. How does DSJ win without DS or Goyf? These are real SB options if you wanna put the work in. Have something more generic maindeck and slide them in once you know what they are packing. I know they are narrow solutions but DSJ is a really narrow deck. Its actual threat count isn't that high.
There must be solutions to this problem, we just have to find them.
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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.
1. Answers should be cheaper than questions (threats). Otherwise why bother playing answers? Answers do not win you the game, questions do. If you do not have an appropriate answer for the questions presented, you move towards losing. This is an issue in a format like modern because a large number of the respectable creature threats requiring tapping only 1 or 2 lands to play. If you cannot compete on mana efficiency with answers you will be run over by threats, even if you have the answers. 3 mana for an unconditional counterspell (see Cancel) in the format is not acceptable. It represents too much of a tempo loss when an opponent can play two separate legitimate threats for the price it costs you to answer one. Control decks succeed when they can get to the part of the game where those things matter less. If you can play a 12/12 for one mana on turn ten it doesn't matter if the answer to it costs four mana at that point in the game. That is where trading life for tempo and eventually stabilizing (trading concerns about mana efficiency into concerns about card efficiency) is a fundamental part of many control strategies. That strategy isn't viable if you cannot interact with what your opponent is doing at a reasonable mana efficiency exchange early.
2. Situational answers are tough to balance. They inherently need to cost less than a universal answer but cost can come in many forms, not just mana. Why doesn't utter end or hero's downfall see more play in modern? They are universal answers. The problem is that the playable rate for universal answers in modern needs to be less expensive than 3 mana. This is why terminate is good. As a backbone of a deck, the majority of answers are ones that are efficient relative to the threats of the format. You can often squeeze in more universal answers like maelstrom pulse or detention sphere into a list but they rarely outnumber cheaper answers. The same is true of counterspells. 3 mana counterspells are not efficient enough to see modern play. Modern would greatly benefit from counterspells on the same level in power as cards like terminate, abrupt decay, or victim of night for the purpose of having answers cost a similar amount as threats. Some sort of path to exile or last breath type counterspell is design space wizards could build on to get to a hard counter costing 2 plus x where x is a resource besides mana. Could be detrimental to the player or beneficial for the opponent.
So what is a good finisher. In my mind a cheap beatstick with counterspell back-up and an open battlefield should do the job. Celestial Colonnade was almost perfect, except it does get expensive. GoST needs evasion to get through most of the time. Delver is a little slow. Tas and ANgler tax your yard something fierce, making it hard to recover if one is lost. Thing in Ice more or less spawned its own deck but would require to much time and protection to really be viable in control. Torrential Gearhulk is a little pricy at 6. Gideon is a little slow at 5.
See, in my mind everybody is trying to end games way to early for control. Control never used to win on turn 4 or 5 or 6. Earliest I would consider for control is like turn 8.
Personally, I like using either the Gifts/Unburial Rites or Madcap/Emperion combos as win-cons. They can be played early enough to help you stabilize against decks like Affinity and Burn and are far more powerful than a "fair" finisher would be. They do take up a couple of extra card slots, but I'd say that is worth it.
Izzet thanks for the Revolt recap. Its always cool to see how peoples predictions are so often wrong. Clearly everyone caught push to be great, but not Walking Ballista to be the next played card. I see affinity's land. Unexiting, but stable, I always like that. Zoo and storm, and mel company did get a push too. and everything else more or less fell off.
Kari Zev's Expertise is clearly the best steal effect ever printed. I called that one a mile away. I tossed all my other steal effects from my storage when it was printed. 3 mana is too much for that effect to be "awesome" and 2 mana is broken. But that card in an aggro deck feels like its 2.5 mana, where it should be. Least for sideboards.
OK I made a mistake, Spire of Industry is actually more of a Lantern Control land. Using mtgtop8 data from 4/1/17 to 14/4/17, this is how much play Spire sees in the decks that it's been included in:
Affinity with Spire/Affinity without Spire: 41/90
KCI: 2/2
Lantern: 14/22
Hardened Scales: 1/6
Anyway, it's not a must-include in any deck, like Baral in Storm or Ballista in colorless Eldrazi. It's just another option you can use for artifact decks if the mood hits you.
Using the same time period, these are the stats for Kari Zev's Expertise:
Living End: 3/14
Revolt Zoo: 3/20
Fuse combo: 4/4
Goblins: 1/1
Given that Fuse combo is dead with the new split card CMC rule, I doubt it has much of a future.
To be honest, we also had a huge discussion about Traverse the Ulvenwald (like, pages long) and, as I predicted, it ended up being the best card in the set, widely played in a million Death Shadow variants and Traverse toolbox decks, heheheh
Sure. If you had told me that DSZ would lose Probe, drop Become Immense, and gain Fatal Push I would have said that Traverse would be playable. The fact is, for a good 9 months Traverse was a bad card.
I only make predictions about playability 3 months ahead. Too far out and people start to argue "what if Wizards prints a card that combos with it" or "what if Wizards bans/unbans X card, and Y card becomes playable" and I'm not going to waste my time playing what-if. Everyone has equal access to the same information after set release and ban/unban updates; if they can't get something right until the next time the card pool changes, they have no excuse.
Next time you want to call me out, try doing it after a set release or ban/unban update announcement, when we get new cards that might make me change my mind. Here, I'll even provide a template for you:
Dear izzet,
I know you said __(card)__ was unplayable when __(set)__ was released, and that has been true for __(amount of time)__. However, now that __(another card)__ has been __(printed/banned/unbanned)__, do you still feel the same way?
So what is a good finisher. In my mind a cheap beatstick with counterspell back-up and an open battlefield should do the job. Celestial Colonnade was almost perfect, except it does get expensive. GoST needs evasion to get through most of the time. Delver is a little slow. Tas and ANgler tax your yard something fierce, making it hard to recover if one is lost. Thing in Ice more or less spawned its own deck but would require to much time and protection to really be viable in control. Torrential Gearhulk is a little pricy at 6. Gideon is a little slow at 5.
See, in my mind everybody is trying to end games way to early for control. Control never used to win on turn 4 or 5 or 6. Earliest I would consider for control is like turn 8.
So what is a good finisher. In my mind a cheap beatstick with counterspell back-up and an open battlefield should do the job. Celestial Colonnade was almost perfect, except it does get expensive. GoST needs evasion to get through most of the time. Delver is a little slow. Tas and ANgler tax your yard something fierce, making it hard to recover if one is lost. Thing in Ice more or less spawned its own deck but would require to much time and protection to really be viable in control. Torrential Gearhulk is a little pricy at 6. Gideon is a little slow at 5.
See, in my mind everybody is trying to end games way to early for control. Control never used to win on turn 4 or 5 or 6. Earliest I would consider for control is like turn 8.
Splinder Twin, for example.
Twin does not need a 2 cmc hard counter. It just needs remand or mana leak to delay the game to Turn 4 or 5 and drop the combo, win the game.
Scapshift is another example, but not as efficient as Twin.
Jace the mind sculptor, probably. But I doubt he can finish the game alone, without a counter back up.
I never considered Twin a control deck. It had control elements but ultimately feels like a tempo combo hybrid. Ultimately I think that is why the whole Twin ban experiment failed. They thought removing a combo deck would help control be a thing again.
It's like calling DSJ midrange. It's not. DSJ is the aggro-tempo/midrange hybrid equivalent to Twin. The difference is if you got rid of DSJ, there would likely be other GBx builds to fill the gap. Removing twin left a combo vacuum that was quickly filled by a couple more banned decks, but control never happened to any major degree. You could argue that is because control is missing what it needs or that WotC doesn't want it in the format really, or that combo breaks all the good control cards so they have to be pulled from the format.
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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.
Sure. If you had told me that DSZ would lose Probe, drop Become Immense, and gain Fatal Push I would have said that Traverse would be playable. The fact is, for a good 9 months Traverse was a bad card.
I only make predictions about playability 3 months ahead. Too far out and people start to argue "what if Wizards prints a card that combos with it" or "what if Wizards bans/unbans X card, and Y card becomes playable" and I'm not going to waste my time playing what-if. Everyone has equal access to the same information after set release and ban/unban updates; if they can't get something right until the next time the card pool changes, they have no excuse.
Next time you want to call me out, try doing it after a set release or ban/unban update announcement, when we get new cards that might make me change my mind. Here, I'll even provide a template for you:
Dear izzet,
I know you said __(card)__ was unplayable when __(set)__ was released, and that has been true for __(amount of time)__. However, now that __(another card)__ has been __(printed/banned/unbanned)__, do you still feel the same way?
What green decks are you running that is aggressive, wants 1 drop beaters, and ISNT zoo? Green stompy? Doesnt play nice with Experimental One. RUG? Swiftspear, guide, delver are all better, and the 2 mana dudes in abbot, snap, goyf, are all better than him. Nacatl decks? Better options, like steppe lynx
Scythe Leopard is SEVERELY well rated. It does less damage than lynx, pretty much any average you use. And by the time lynx is crap, so is leopard. The difference between 1 damage and 0 isnt much when your on top deck mode.
It isnt that scythe is a bad card. Hes just worse than every single other 1 drop you could play.
Wrong. That's exactly my point, Delver and Swiftspear are NOT better in the 1-drop. Trust me, I'be played temur delver dor years now and in Modern it has always been too unreliable. Plus it always forces you to play a 12/13 creature. 18 land deck which has a sucky threat density that doesnt work in a non-FoW, non wasteland environment.
Switspear is terrible without Treasure Cruise in non hyper aggro or Burn strategies, because it makes you tap out and is not good when holding counterspells. Trust me, as I said I'm an OCD tempo brewer and I test a LOT of hours
Scythe Leopard fits exactly that spot in RUG strategies by letting you play more creatures and lands (more midrangey but staying "aggrocontrol") and not 29 spells, and works perfectly when holding countermagic
I am so sure about saying its a bad card for modern I'll even make a deal with you. 2 weeks after the release of the set online, if Scythe Leopard top 8s a big paper even like SCG OR is in ten 3-1/4-0 decks online, I'll get a foil Scythe Leopard and pay to have it altered professionally into a really sad pumpkin face, and sign it. I'll even put up a video of me doing it, because It would be super funny.
If that doesnt happen however, then I wanna foil steppe lynx, altered with a happy pumpkin face signed.
There's very few things I'm sure of in my life, but aggro naya colored little dudes is my corner of the internet. I know this wont see an ounce of play.
I feel like I should make some kinda bet in this set too and make it an ongoing thing. But there isnt really any thing I feel super strong about. Maybe Censor or Harsh Mentor.
For Modern, we are looking for a counter better than the current options, not on par with them.
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
True, it could conceivably even see Legacy play at that stage, although it'd still likely be worse than Daze in most situations.
For what it's worth, I've done some testing with 2x Censor in Grixis Death's Shadow and it's been pretty decent. You already have the discard element, so you know the exact correct moment to play it at. Not sure I would play it in any other kind of deck. I've also had insane turns where I have Snapcaster'd a previously cycled Censor to blow out a play.
If it had been Miscalculation with blue instead of 2 colorless for cycling, it would've been the strongest 2 mana counter in Modern by a long shot imnsho.
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.
It's funny you mention this because a lot of people also don't see how good Glorious End is, as I was around in mirage when Final Fortune was a thing. This set is using mechanics that older players know more about than the newer players that started in modern border times. Cycling is one of the best things to happen in magic and I'm hoping they make it evergreen, but that doesn't seem super likely.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I do like soul manipulation and Rise and Fall and have been looking for something to run them in...
As for Familiar's Ruse, what blue really needs is a good DnT creature. Wait...why isn't anyone using Familiar's ruse with SCM? That seems kinda good doesn't?
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.
Given Condescend sees virtually zero play outside Mono-U Tron, I'm not expecting Censor to blow anyone away. Either I'm mis-evaluating the two compared to each other, Condescend is way better than its use indicates, or Censor isn't going to make much impact. I don't really see room for an alternate explanation, although I'm open to on (and of course also open to being wrong on the comparison).
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
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.
It's not that great, because it only works after you have a Snapcaster Mage down, which generally means turns 5+. Spellstutter Sprite has been paired with it to decent success before, but that's still only enough to make it a 1-2 of.
Problem with Familiar's ruse and Deprive to a lesser extent is the tempo. I think Deprive is much better positioned than Familiar's Ruse. Having to return a creature can be a problem.
Right now the premier counterspell in modern is Stubborn Denial (in Grixis Death Shadow) due to the fact that it counters all the problem cards and your creatures tend to be much bigger. Kind of sad, but still funny at the same time. Turns out that Patrick Chapin's Esper Delve list wasn't that far off from the mark.
In general, countermagic is so bad in modern right now that you just play the bare minimum to remove your opponent's "gotchas" and you use discard for everything else. Which isn't bad, mind you, but it it would be nice if decks other than death's shadow could use counters to their advantage.
It's honestly a shame they missed out on the Revolt counter.
I'm just kinda spitballing here. Deep down, if what everybody around here tells me is true and WotC did not and does not continue to want to make modern a counterspellless format, why would they continue to print unviable countermagic? Why waste the set space?
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.
Edit: As to wasting set space, Maro has said nothing is wasted, everything is intended for Limited, as disgusting as that is.
Spirits
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.
Then we go back to our old topic: control does not have a good game finisher.
If we can drop a good game finisher on Turn 4 or 5, who cares if mana leak is garbage or not on Turn 5 or 6?
At that point, mana leak serves the same thing as counterspell.
We do not need a counter as good as counterspell, we just need a better game finisher for Control to play with.
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
Modern these days is all about board presence. If you remove your board presence in order to get rid of something that your opponent is adding to their board, as is the case if you Familiar's Ruse, you may stop the spell but you're still falling behind. You wind up down an attacker/blocker, and down 4 mana (2 ruse, 2 snap) in order to eliminate just 1 card from the opponent. It's not a good trade.
You can contrast that with something like Spell Queller which not only answers the opponents card, but gives you the ability to make attacks and blocks.
To me you're talking like a tempo player here too. Down an attacker/blocker. I want to use SCM to affect the game in ways other than simple combat math. Everybody can do combat math. If you FR your opponent's spell and return the SCM you just blew like five big holes in their initial game plan. They planned on 4 removal, some counter magic and 4 SCM, they didn't prepare for up to 8 of them and the untold havoc you can instill upon them from your yard. Magic is about so much more than battlefield tactics and math and doing some off the wall stuff can yield benefits. Maybe they forget about the rebounded SCM and two removal spells in the yard. Maybe they don't account for second SCM you just drew.
I do think you hit the proverbial nail on the head though with the statement of "modern these days..." We have all been coaxed into this vision of mtg where creatures are manifested and create these amazing board states of intercat interactions. And me, I love it. I'm not a natural control player. I hated it so much I learned it. And because of that, I began to appreciate it. Personally, I think WotC doesn't want control to be a powerful player in the format. Folks can say what they want that I have some crazy hair brained conspiracy theories but they're more based on what I see in magic today and how I internally rationalize them. The game we play is literally based on infinite numbers of worlds and its hard to couple that fact that it is all under WotC control and direction.
I guess part of me must miss playing control, otherwise why advocate for it...:P
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.
See, in my mind everybody is trying to end games way to early for control. Control never used to win on turn 4 or 5 or 6. Earliest I would consider for control is like turn 8.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
I think that Gideon is a fine option.
There must be solutions to this problem, we just have to find them.
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.
1. Answers should be cheaper than questions (threats). Otherwise why bother playing answers? Answers do not win you the game, questions do. If you do not have an appropriate answer for the questions presented, you move towards losing. This is an issue in a format like modern because a large number of the respectable creature threats requiring tapping only 1 or 2 lands to play. If you cannot compete on mana efficiency with answers you will be run over by threats, even if you have the answers. 3 mana for an unconditional counterspell (see Cancel) in the format is not acceptable. It represents too much of a tempo loss when an opponent can play two separate legitimate threats for the price it costs you to answer one. Control decks succeed when they can get to the part of the game where those things matter less. If you can play a 12/12 for one mana on turn ten it doesn't matter if the answer to it costs four mana at that point in the game. That is where trading life for tempo and eventually stabilizing (trading concerns about mana efficiency into concerns about card efficiency) is a fundamental part of many control strategies. That strategy isn't viable if you cannot interact with what your opponent is doing at a reasonable mana efficiency exchange early.
2. Situational answers are tough to balance. They inherently need to cost less than a universal answer but cost can come in many forms, not just mana. Why doesn't utter end or hero's downfall see more play in modern? They are universal answers. The problem is that the playable rate for universal answers in modern needs to be less expensive than 3 mana. This is why terminate is good. As a backbone of a deck, the majority of answers are ones that are efficient relative to the threats of the format. You can often squeeze in more universal answers like maelstrom pulse or detention sphere into a list but they rarely outnumber cheaper answers. The same is true of counterspells. 3 mana counterspells are not efficient enough to see modern play. Modern would greatly benefit from counterspells on the same level in power as cards like terminate, abrupt decay, or victim of night for the purpose of having answers cost a similar amount as threats. Some sort of path to exile or last breath type counterspell is design space wizards could build on to get to a hard counter costing 2 plus x where x is a resource besides mana. Could be detrimental to the player or beneficial for the opponent.
Personally, I like using either the Gifts/Unburial Rites or Madcap/Emperion combos as win-cons. They can be played early enough to help you stabilize against decks like Affinity and Burn and are far more powerful than a "fair" finisher would be. They do take up a couple of extra card slots, but I'd say that is worth it.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
To be honest, we also had a huge discussion about Traverse the Ulvenwald (like, pages long) and, as I predicted, it ended up being the best card in the set, widely played in a million Death Shadow variants and Traverse toolbox decks, heheheh
I only make predictions about playability 3 months ahead. Too far out and people start to argue "what if Wizards prints a card that combos with it" or "what if Wizards bans/unbans X card, and Y card becomes playable" and I'm not going to waste my time playing what-if. Everyone has equal access to the same information after set release and ban/unban updates; if they can't get something right until the next time the card pool changes, they have no excuse.
Next time you want to call me out, try doing it after a set release or ban/unban update announcement, when we get new cards that might make me change my mind. Here, I'll even provide a template for you:
P.S. Still waiting for hats to be eaten over Scythe Leopard and Stormchaser Mage. Wait, I already know what's going to happen. More denial, "those cards are actually secretly broken, all of you are idiots for not seeing it". lmao
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/625528-battle-for-zendikar-bfz-spoilers-modern-discussion?comment=416
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/648264-oath-of-the-gatewatch-in-modern-spoiler-discussion?comment=566
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Splinder Twin, for example.
Twin does not need a 2 cmc hard counter. It just needs remand or mana leak to delay the game to Turn 4 or 5 and drop the combo, win the game.
Scapshift is another example, but not as efficient as Twin.
Jace the mind sculptor, probably. But I doubt he can finish the game alone, without a counter back up.
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's like calling DSJ midrange. It's not. DSJ is the aggro-tempo/midrange hybrid equivalent to Twin. The difference is if you got rid of DSJ, there would likely be other GBx builds to fill the gap. Removing twin left a combo vacuum that was quickly filled by a couple more banned decks, but control never happened to any major degree. You could argue that is because control is missing what it needs or that WotC doesn't want it in the format really, or that combo breaks all the good control cards so they have to be pulled from the format.
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.
Speakin of which. WHAT ABOUT MY BET!
I feel like I should make some kinda bet in this set too and make it an ongoing thing. But there isnt really any thing I feel super strong about. Maybe Censor or Harsh Mentor.