bizzycola That's actually an interesting thought how about a land that protects you from discard.
Land
This land enters the battlefield tapped
Tap this land: add 1 mana of any colour to your mana pool
As long as this land remains untapped spells and abilities your opponents control cannot force you to discard cards.
(could obviously be changed doesn't enter tapped but pay 1 and tap for the mana of any colour)
Would be a great protection to prevent Bxx from getting too out of control when 8x discard spells is so prevalent. Wouldn't want that land all the time due to tapped or pay but could be good in scenarios like a heavy DSJ meta.
Yes something like that would actually be good, It has a healthy risk/reward element "do I need to protect my hand, well then I'm down a mana for the time" or "do I counter this spell and open myself up to a follow up of multiple hand disruption spells that my opponent has held onto". Though I would probably drop the "abilities" part as the spells should be enough to help you keep counters in hand etc....
I would even be happy with the 1:1 color fixing as that is not great but reasonable.
Certainly not suggesting that a card (or cycle of cards) like that should be printed instead of better answers.
But the price of playing a card like that cannot be understated.
Tapped land like that would allow turn 1 thoughtseize even on the draw and then HUGE tempo loss of never tapping that land again of you want to remain 'safe'.
More I consider it the more interesting a cycle of these that generate only 1 colour but have a cool effect would just be neat design space
Not to mention the land Teal53 described is absolutely terrible. On the draw it doesn't protect you from turn 1 OR turn 2 discard, not to mention you can't make the play you were worried about having discarded because your land entered tapped. Even on the play it doesn't stop them from doing turn 1 discard and you gave up your first turn to protect against turn 2 discard effects when they are clearly most important on turn 1.
You mentioned that the nephalia academy effect is too weak because it makes you lose your draw step but that is a gross simplification of the actual situation. If the card they are making you discard is the card you really want to play next turn, then you aren't losing a draw step, you are simply drawing the card you absolutely wanted to draw. They put themselves down a card to get you there. They didn't magically gain some card advantage from it. If you don't want to draw the card they discarded then don't put it on top. In that case they wasted a card from their hand and mana to get rid of a card you didn't want anyway.
And do you guys realize what decks would use a land like that? Difficult to interact with combo decks. Good luck ever beating Ad Nauseam again if they printed something like that. It's hard enough to beat them when they open with a Leyline of Sanctity unless you're playing a deck that can race. This is the exact same thinking that went into cards like Cavern of Souls, which is part of the reason why counterspells are just invalid against some decks. Wizards printed a great answer to colorless cards, Ceremonious Rejection, and it sees very little play because one of the main decks you would want it against in Modern, Bant Eldrazi, plays 4 Caverns.
We don't need more ways to stifle interaction in Modern. If you want to see less discard, then make the counterspells better so that discard isn't far and away the best way to interact in Modern.
So a combo deck with almost no room for new cards would suddenly run a card that is like a I said a vanilla card(I'm talking like a grizzly bear like draft level playable)
I don't buy this, Ad Naus actually plays the terrible Academy land because its a land and has little to no risk for them to run. This is the reason that I said it should be a ability tacked onto a generally not great card so that it comes with deck building concerns. Combo decks like Ad Naus cannot really afford to run cards that don't progress its plan.
Again this is a completely interactive affect how does making a interactive card stifle interaction? Actually the Card I suggested is far worse since it would be discarded from hand as not stick around like Leyline of Sancitiy which Ad Naus would still favor over a 1 time interaction.
I play nothing but UXx decks in Modern and I think that Caverns is fine. Yes it shuts off my counterspells and that sucks but I don't think its the major reason Ceremonious Rejection doesn't see much play. IMO its because TKS is back breaking as its a better discard affect and a giant body to deal with So its almost always going to be a 2:1 in which the 2 you lose are good cards i.e. whatever they took and the removal you had to expend to deal with it and the upside of killing TKS is just draw 1 not return cards exiled with TKS to their owner hand or something you are not going to get a useful card 1/3rd of the time almost certainly as that would be a land, or you draw into a non-removal spell or a creature that doesn't compare to a Eldrazi, not to mention they will follow up with either another TKS or Smasher or some other built in 2:1 card.
If cavern was the sole reason that Eldrazi is good against Uxx decks Spreading Sea's is a main deck worthy card. UW control for instance is actually pretty good against Eldrazi decks and its mostly because of Spreading Sea's to cut their Temples and Verdict to get a 1:x on them.
Making counterspells better will not make discard worse, discard is cheaper than counters in MTG 1>2 in terms of power scaling, If I keep a hand with 2 counters and my opponent keeps a hand with 2 discard spells he gets to remove my 2cc counter and see my other one and play around it perfectly( or to the best of his ability) and if he just wants to take the second counter all he need do is cast the discard spell and I either must counter it or lose my counter either way I lose my counter. So no making counterspells better does not do anything to diminish the superior nature of discard in the format, If we a got a FoW option to interact on T0 it would but apparently interaction like that is bad because its good against discard.
I think the effect on the land is actually quite good. The problem is not the weak effect, you are trading a drawstep for your "best" card, which is above average and if not you don't put it back on top it's that simple. The problem is that the land is often not going to be in play when hit with the discard spell. You are on the draw and get turn 1 TS'ed? Well the land certainly doesn't do anything there. Even on the play there is a cost for playing a turn 1 colorless land. I think if I could reveal this land instead from my hand too in order to gain the effect, I might actually be playing it in Affinity.
If the affect on Academy was actually good it would see play in non-black fair decks, it doesn't because it is a huge lose in game state It doesn't prevent the discard affect only modifies its text box to be more like MEmoRyLaPSE which is very powerful for exactly the reasons I stated, not only do you deal with a card for now but you fate seal your opponent putting them behind on the draw step. So what my Bxx opponent goes discard spell, put the card on top of my deck, resolve a threat? Again this is bad enough as far as its a self punishing affect I have to fall way behind on game state the land should at least tap for colored mana. Its really only good for Combo decks like Ad Naus because they only must have 2 cards in hand or 1 in hand and 1 on board to win, if you cast discard and they have nothing but bells and whistles like Prism or Serum Visions etc.. then they will not use the affect if they have a essential combo piece they will put it on top. Its good in combo bad in fair decks.
Atm, in mtggoldfish Jund DS is the 4th best deck and I have the numbers. The numbers of 5-0 Comp MODO leagues place it in 4-5th position. The deck is ok. People need to relax IMO.
On the one hand, I agree people need to relax and that the numbers aren't as bad as people suggest.
On the other hand, Wizards has done almost everything they can to increase ban mania in these past months. This is easily the zenith of Magic-wide ban mania, and it's virtually impossible to fight against it at this point. Even though the recent bans haven't directly affected Modern, the climate is so charged and bah-centric that it is hard to not think of Modern in a banning context. There is no easy out for this either; Wizards has basically committed to a ban mentality for the near future, even if they don't end up banning more cards. Ultimately, I think this is really going to hurt their competitive formats and we'll see some changes down the road, but for now, ban mania will be even more constant than it was before.
As for the Felidar ban, hopefully this frees up R&D space to test out Modern unbans. I can't envision a world where either SFM or JTMS appear dangerous in testing in this current format, and if we don't see either those or Preordain unbanned in the next update, I'll just assume Wizards is comfortable with the current color/archetype balance and we shouldn't expect any changes for at least another year.
Discard is interaction just as permission and removal are interaction.
Paying mana and a card to strip away resources and gain information is interacting. You appear to be claiming that the presence of discard spells pushes people to be less interactive. I do not believe that to be true. Your example above illustrates this. You opponent spent 2 turns playing discard spells to take the of your cards. You had 2 turns to develop your board while they attacked your hand. What did you do with the mana and time?
I know discard can be frustrating to play against. The same is true of removal and permission. These tools keep opponents honest and interrupt the gameplan.
Asking for a new card that is so good that it invalidates one form of interaction is unreasonable. Academy lets you draw the card you need if they try and take it. They still have to pay mana and spend a card.
I didn't say it wasn't interaction. I said that it would be healthy to have a way to interact with discard spells. I don't think a affect like the one I put would invalidate discard anymore than AV did. This type of interaction would be similar to the the Trap cards that are strong against counters. I specifically said that it should be attached to very vanilla cards so that it would have a draw back, am I going to play a more powerful/affect card or am I going to play the slightly worse general option with a upside against discard. That kind of affect would only be good in interactive decks and would slow down any aggro deck or combo deck trying to run it to much. Your essentially arguing that this form of interaction should have no counter method of interaction.
I'm not saying its frustrating but it like anything else has a affect on the meta-game. The affect that targeted discard has is that it is great against other fair decks not really that great against redundant non-interactive aggro. So we have more players going towards fast non-interactive decks because it is better against targeted discard. This is the trend that we have seen in the meta-game since the banning of Pod, Pod was the best deck at keeping people off of fast aggro-combo decks because those strategies are laughably bad in the face of T3 infinite life gain. My example actually showcased why it pushes players towards super redundant aggro-combo decks than interactive decks, is it better to have a mix of interactive spells and threats with varying value or to have 12 copies of the exact same affect? Just look at the other decks rising to the top of the meta-game with the only functioning fair decks being Bxx DS discard heavy decks, affinity highly redundant fast aggro, Dredge naturally strong against discard, Burn highly redundant fast aggro, Gifts Storm highly redundant fast combo(https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern#online) while these decks are good in their own right they are made even better by the fact that their highly redundant builds are less impacted by targeted discard. If I TS my opponent and they have 6-7 cards in hand and say they have 2 lands, if the other 4-5 cards are a mix of spells and or creature in a deck that is looking to play a fair game the TS will be very good, if the 4-5 cards are all functionally the same then the TS was not that impactful as the cards my opponent has are functionally the same. This is why those strategies are good, because the non-black fair decks that would have better match ups against them cannot play a fair interactive game against such efficient disruption. 1c.c. mana cost for a perfect information of the opponents hand and removing the best card is likely under costed as WotC has moved toward 2c.c. for that type of affect give 1c.c. to more conditional "discard a creature or a planeswalker" or "discard a non-creature spell" for standard and I'm again in no way advocating that it shouldn't exist but it is under costed and a method for non-black fair decks to interact with it would be healthy.
Academy, is bad for multiple reasons, 1st it sets you back further as you actually lose a card and a draw step it essentially is a card that lets you Time Ebb yourself setting you back a draw step. 2nd It is a colorless land, if it had a city of brass type fixing affect it could be playable but in the turns that matter in modern I have to risk mana screwing myself to have a again very self punishing slight measure of protection from targeted discard? It is played in decks like ad naus because the early turns of the game are not as important as they are to fair decks and they only care about 2 cards being in hand or 1 in hand and one on board way into the mid-range of the game.
I'll ask you this, if Academy is good then why does it see no play in non-black fair decks? because its bad that is why.
Discard is interaction just as permission and removal are interaction.
Paying mana and a card to strip away resources and gain information is interacting. You appear to be claiming that the presence of discard spells pushes people to be less interactive. I do not believe that to be true. Your example above illustrates this. You opponent spent 2 turns playing discard spells to take the of your cards. You had 2 turns to develop your board while they attacked your hand. What did you do with the mana and time?
I know discard can be frustrating to play against. The same is true of removal and permission. These tools keep opponents honest and interrupt the gameplan.
Asking for a new card that is so good that it invalidates one form of interaction is unreasonable. Academy lets you draw the card you need if they try and take it. They still have to pay mana and spend a card.
I didn't say it wasn't interaction. I said that it would be healthy to have a way to interact with discard spells. I don't think a affect like the one I put would invalidate discard anymore than AV did. This type of interaction would be similar to the the Trap cards that are strong against counters. I specifically said that it should be attached to very vanilla cards so that it would have a draw back, am I going to play a more powerful/affect card or am I going to play the slightly worse general option with a upside against discard. That kind of affect would only be good in interactive decks and would slow down any aggro deck or combo deck trying to run it to much. Your essentially arguing that this form of interaction should have no counter method of interaction.
I'm not saying its frustrating but it like anything else has a affect on the meta-game. The affect that targeted discard has is that it is great against other fair decks not really that great against redundant non-interactive aggro. So we have more players going towards fast non-interactive decks because it is better against targeted discard. This is the trend that we have seen in the meta-game since the banning of Pod, Pod was the best deck at keeping people off of fast aggro-combo decks because those strategies are laughably bad in the face of T3 infinite life gain. My example actually showcased why it pushes players towards super redundant aggro-combo decks than interactive decks, is it better to have a mix of interactive spells and threats with varying value or to have 12 copies of the exact same affect? Just look at the other decks rising to the top of the meta-game with the only functioning fair decks being Bxx DS discard heavy decks, affinity highly redundant fast aggro, Dredge naturally strong against discard, Burn highly redundant fast aggro, Gifts Storm highly redundant fast combo(https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern#online) while these decks are good in their own right they are made even better by the fact that their highly redundant builds are less impacted by targeted discard. If I TS my opponent and they have 6-7 cards in hand and say they have 2 lands, if the other 4-5 cards are a mix of spells and or creature in a deck that is looking to play a fair game the TS will be very good, if the 4-5 cards are all functionally the same then the TS was not that impactful as the cards my opponent has are functionally the same. This is why those strategies are good, because the non-black fair decks that would have better match ups against them cannot play a fair interactive game against such efficient disruption. 1c.c. mana cost for a perfect information of the opponents hand and removing the best card is likely under costed as WotC has moved toward 2c.c. for that type of affect give 1c.c. to more conditional "discard a creature or a planeswalker" or "discard a non-creature spell" for standard and I'm again in no way advocating that it shouldn't exist but it is under costed and a method for non-black fair decks to interact with it would be healthy.
Academy, is bad for multiple reasons, 1st it sets you back further as you actually lose a card and a draw step it essentially is a card that lets you Time Ebb yourself setting you back a draw step. 2nd It is a colorless land, if it had a city of brass type fixing affect it could be playable but in the turns that matter in modern I have to risk mana screwing myself to have a again very self punishing slight measure of protection from targeted discard? It is played in decks like ad naus because the early turns of the game are not as important as they are to fair decks and they only care about 2 cards being in hand or 1 in hand and one on board way into the mid-range of the game.
I'll ask you this, if Academy is good then why does it see no play in non-black fair decks? because its bad that is why.
Those are decks resilient to common answers (removal, counterspell) in general and not only to discard; in return they are weak to specific type of hate: GY removal against dredge and mass removal/artifact removal against affinity. If the best interaction in the format would be permission the decks better positioned would still be dredge, tron and other linear decks not some type of fair Interactive decks, for the same reason you give for discard: why lose when i have my best card countered when i can have multiple functionally equal spells to replace the first? All in all discard has inner weakness that doesn't make necessary to print many specific answers (even if they exist: loxodon smither), these weaknesses are being useless against topdecked cards and being bad against redundant decks.
actually those decks are weaker to counters and removal and less so to discard. If you discard 1 of your opponents multiple functional copies of cards it not very impactful, if you counter their 2 drop they are losing a card and tempo, removal is similar though they will get the value of any ETB triggers. URx decks for example are actually very good against most of those strategies, which is why most run TS in the board to strip away cards.
Not to mention the land Teal53 described is absolutely terrible. On the draw it doesn't protect you from turn 1 OR turn 2 discard, not to mention you can't make the play you were worried about having discarded because your land entered tapped. Even on the play it doesn't stop them from doing turn 1 discard and you gave up your first turn to protect against turn 2 discard effects when they are clearly most important on turn 1.
Personally not worried about combo being better, I like playing against combo. And if combo gets better, I would hope control would become better too.
On the leyline (Good in your opener or T4) front my concern is that WotC will probably never reprint the things so we're stuck with design spaces they haven't explored much or abilities stapled onto creatures.
Further to that the intention wasn't to design a land that is a complete hoser because it has to be printed under the current design philosophy.
You want people to play Magic and at least get a little bit of what their deck is meant to do.
Edit added in Leyline is only good in opener or T4
Leyline Of Sanctity is a great sideboard card that hoses Deaths Shadow. Rest In Peace is another.
Playing go wide decks can beat DS as well.
Playing hard traditional control decks can easily beat DS decks as well.
Or playing decks that just dont care about discard, such as Dredge, Affinity, or other stuff.
There are so many ways.
Atm, in mtggoldfish Jund DS is the 4th best deck and I have the numbers. The numbers of 5-0 Comp MODO leagues place it in 4-5th position. The deck is ok. People need to relax IMO.
Okay Leyline is good if its in your opener and RIP is good against some hands in some builds, can we get a non-white card that is useful against the ubiquitous nature of 1cc targeted discard? Because currently the best answer is to play 1cc targeted discard spells. Its almost to the point where people don't even consider splashing black for those spells as a splash, Played a guy just the other day online asked him what deck he was on he said "GW Maverick" I was like cool neat looking forward to seeing how the deck does, T1 IoK, T2 TS push on my creature, T3 Collective Brutality push my last creature, I ask him So its Abzan Maverick he insists "no no its GW good stuff creatures its GW Maverick" my response "you have played nothing but black spells how is this not a Abzan deck?" a few minutes later he says "but all of my creatures are GW" it was hilarious. Also articles like the one on Modern Nexus "Temur Shadow" in which he has a "temur" deck with a small splash for 11 main deck back spells, its clearly a 4 color deck as that is not just a small splash into black for like 1 card(http://modernnexus.com/introducing-temur-shadow/) also hilariously miss labeled deck. But why because adding black to a deck currently is almost like not a consideration of course you have to add TS affects how else can you compete?
I agree that UW control is good against DS decks but its not a easy match up by any measure, It is very dependent on how many discard spells they have.
Yup fast redundant non-interactive decks like Dredge, Affinity, and Burn are very good because of the position of Bxx discard based decks. See this is my point want to beat DS well play a deck that everyone complains about being unhealthy for the format because relying on interaction other than 1cc discard spells is a losing strategy.
Not to mention the land Teal53 described is absolutely terrible. On the draw it doesn't protect you from turn 1 OR turn 2 discard, not to mention you can't make the play you were worried about having discarded because your land entered tapped. Even on the play it doesn't stop them from doing turn 1 discard and you gave up your first turn to protect against turn 2 discard effects when they are clearly most important on turn 1.
Personally not worried about combo being better, I like playing against combo. And if combo gets better, I would hope control would become better too.
On the leyline front my concern is that WotC will probably never reprint the things so we're stuck with design spaces they haven't explored much or abilities stapled onto creatures.
Further to that the intention wasn't to design a land that is a complete hoser because it has to be printed under the current design philosophy.
You want people to play Magic and at least get a little bit of what their deck is meant to do.
I see the end game and I don't disagree, I just don't see how control could get better if you make the combo decks more resilient to the removal control needs to use to slow them down. I would expect it to further incentivize linear goldfish strategies.
See this is my point want to beat DS well play a deck that everyone complains about being unhealthy for the format because relying on interaction other than 1cc discard spells is a losing strategy.
So really we're all just saying we'd like better counter spells and non-black removal/interaction?
See this is my point want to beat DS well play a deck that everyone complains about being unhealthy for the format because relying on interaction other than 1cc discard spells is a losing strategy.
So really we're all just saying we'd like better counter spells and non-black removal/interaction.
Yes, removing the only decent form of interaction from the format is not going to lead to a more interactive format.
See this is my point want to beat DS well play a deck that everyone complains about being unhealthy for the format because relying on interaction other than 1cc discard spells is a losing strategy.
So really we're all just saying we'd like better counter spells and non-black removal/interaction?
Yes.
Though someone made the point with Black having such good discard, blue is less relevant. Black can do almost anything Blue can do, and more. Blue has issues removing creatures from the battlefield. Black laughs at those creatures. Blue has issues stopping spells from resolving. Black doesn't even allow those spells to be cast. Blue has trouble finishing games off. Black has ample supplies of creatures.
Dont take that as me complaining about Blue. I still stand behind my view that Blue is an awesome support color, and that maybe its current state is exactly where it should be (in Modern).
Without counterspell, maybe even a BETTER counterspell, there is nothing that Wizards of today will provide that is interaction, that is better than 1 mana discard.
See this is my point want to beat DS well play a deck that everyone complains about being unhealthy for the format because relying on interaction other than 1cc discard spells is a losing strategy.
So really we're all just saying we'd like better counter spells and non-black removal/interaction?
while i do want both i dont think either help against 1cc discard, discard is very strong against counters and removal is actually pretty good its actually having it in hand that difficult but variety in colors outside of black would welcomed.
I know we're all on this "OP discard OMG!!" phase, but let's remember that IoK and TS have been around forever and it was always considered bad for Jund to run all 8 because of the very real cost associated with doing so. If it has turned into a problem (don't think it is) then it isn't the discard that caused it, but what the discard is protecting.
So what is a 3/1 flying body worth to you guys? If we remove it from a card, how does this sound?
Thoughtwrinkle
U
Sorcery
look at target player's hand. You may choose a nonland card from it. If you do, that player reveals the chosen card, puts it on the bottom of his or her library, then draws a card.
Busted? Unplayable? Goes right into grixis shadow?
I fell a little like that goes without saying. Definitely anti-bannings here!
The more diverse in colour, CMC and card type interaction in Magic is the healthier (I hope) the format will be.
We dont need to tone BGx down by banning sth, we need to make UW better by unbanning a card.
I don't think unbanning anything on the list really makes UW control that much better. JtmS might but splashing for a 4cc UU is trivial in modern and currently the best decks DS wouldn't mind double bolting themselves for JtmS.
WotC needs to print better Blue White and to a lesser extent Red card(for Red I think they need to make better red mid-range options not more burn or 1 mana haste creatures)
For blue I think better card draw should be available, AV is good but really not that great in modern as it comes off suspend about a turn to slow in many match ups( UW control for instance only about 29% of the lists even run AV which is kinda funny given that everyone was complaining it was going to kill BGx discard based attrition decks)
Would UU draw 2 be to strong for modern? I mean black has sign in blood which is literally that with a slight draw back because black is getting a blue affect, but some how that is better than any blue option for the same affect, I can't think of any card other than Perilous Research that even offers a comparable affect in blue and the draw back is far worse which is crazy that blue gets punished harder for doing something its supposed to actually be good at.
So what is a 3/1 flying body worth to you guys? If we remove it from a card, how does this sound?
Thoughtwrinkle
U
Sorcery
look at target player's hand. You may choose a nonland card from it. If you do, that player reveals the chosen card, puts it on the bottom of his or her library, then draws a card.
Busted? Unplayable? Goes right into grixis shadow?
This card isn't good. It is a 1 for 0 which is the exact opposite of what blue interactive decks need. If it were to see play I think it would be again mostly as combo protection.
We dont need to tone BGx down by banning sth, we need to make UW better by unbanning a card.
Still hoping for urban SFM & Preordain and printing counter spell in Hours.
The longer Wizards are inactive on Modern unbans the more it seems like Jace has a grave.
We dont need to tone BGx down by banning sth, we need to make UW better by unbanning a card.
Still hoping for urban SFM & Preordain and printing counter spell in Hours.
The longer Wizards are inactive on Modern unbans the more it seems like Jace has a grave.
I don't think that WotC will reprint counterspell...
So what is a 3/1 flying body worth to you guys? If we remove it from a card, how does this sound?
Thoughtwrinkle
U
Sorcery
look at target player's hand. You may choose a nonland card from it. If you do, that player reveals the chosen card, puts it on the bottom of his or her library, then draws a card.
Busted? Unplayable? Goes right into grixis shadow?
This card isn't good. It is a 1 for 0 which is the exact opposite of what blue interactive decks need. If it were to see play I think it would be again mostly as combo protection.
what combo would want this over TS/IoK? ad naus is already running those in the board, so is Goryo's, builds. Is Storm really going to run a card that puts them down a card and the deck is so redundant plus Past in Flames is naturally good against discard strategies I don't think they need it which is why its meta shares are increasing in the face of DS decks being so dominate.
By this logic its obvious that TS and IoK are just combo protection since so many combo decks run it right?
We dont need to tone BGx down by banning sth, we need to make UW better by unbanning a card.
Still hoping for urban SFM & Preordain and printing counter spell in Hours.
The longer Wizards are inactive on Modern unbans the more it seems like Jace has a grave.
I don't think that WotC will reprint counterspell...
Yes something like that would actually be good, It has a healthy risk/reward element "do I need to protect my hand, well then I'm down a mana for the time" or "do I counter this spell and open myself up to a follow up of multiple hand disruption spells that my opponent has held onto". Though I would probably drop the "abilities" part as the spells should be enough to help you keep counters in hand etc....
I would even be happy with the 1:1 color fixing as that is not great but reasonable.
But the price of playing a card like that cannot be understated.
Tapped land like that would allow turn 1 thoughtseize even on the draw and then HUGE tempo loss of never tapping that land again of you want to remain 'safe'.
More I consider it the more interesting a cycle of these that generate only 1 colour but have a cool effect would just be neat design space
If you are so worried about discard, just run leyline of sanctity?
Not to mention the land Teal53 described is absolutely terrible. On the draw it doesn't protect you from turn 1 OR turn 2 discard, not to mention you can't make the play you were worried about having discarded because your land entered tapped. Even on the play it doesn't stop them from doing turn 1 discard and you gave up your first turn to protect against turn 2 discard effects when they are clearly most important on turn 1.
You mentioned that the nephalia academy effect is too weak because it makes you lose your draw step but that is a gross simplification of the actual situation. If the card they are making you discard is the card you really want to play next turn, then you aren't losing a draw step, you are simply drawing the card you absolutely wanted to draw. They put themselves down a card to get you there. They didn't magically gain some card advantage from it. If you don't want to draw the card they discarded then don't put it on top. In that case they wasted a card from their hand and mana to get rid of a card you didn't want anyway.
So a combo deck with almost no room for new cards would suddenly run a card that is like a I said a vanilla card(I'm talking like a grizzly bear like draft level playable)
I don't buy this, Ad Naus actually plays the terrible Academy land because its a land and has little to no risk for them to run. This is the reason that I said it should be a ability tacked onto a generally not great card so that it comes with deck building concerns. Combo decks like Ad Naus cannot really afford to run cards that don't progress its plan.
Again this is a completely interactive affect how does making a interactive card stifle interaction? Actually the Card I suggested is far worse since it would be discarded from hand as not stick around like Leyline of Sancitiy which Ad Naus would still favor over a 1 time interaction.
I play nothing but UXx decks in Modern and I think that Caverns is fine. Yes it shuts off my counterspells and that sucks but I don't think its the major reason Ceremonious Rejection doesn't see much play. IMO its because TKS is back breaking as its a better discard affect and a giant body to deal with So its almost always going to be a 2:1 in which the 2 you lose are good cards i.e. whatever they took and the removal you had to expend to deal with it and the upside of killing TKS is just draw 1 not return cards exiled with TKS to their owner hand or something you are not going to get a useful card 1/3rd of the time almost certainly as that would be a land, or you draw into a non-removal spell or a creature that doesn't compare to a Eldrazi, not to mention they will follow up with either another TKS or Smasher or some other built in 2:1 card.
If cavern was the sole reason that Eldrazi is good against Uxx decks Spreading Sea's is a main deck worthy card. UW control for instance is actually pretty good against Eldrazi decks and its mostly because of Spreading Sea's to cut their Temples and Verdict to get a 1:x on them.
Making counterspells better will not make discard worse, discard is cheaper than counters in MTG 1>2 in terms of power scaling, If I keep a hand with 2 counters and my opponent keeps a hand with 2 discard spells he gets to remove my 2cc counter and see my other one and play around it perfectly( or to the best of his ability) and if he just wants to take the second counter all he need do is cast the discard spell and I either must counter it or lose my counter either way I lose my counter. So no making counterspells better does not do anything to diminish the superior nature of discard in the format, If we a got a FoW option to interact on T0 it would but apparently interaction like that is bad because its good against discard.
If the affect on Academy was actually good it would see play in non-black fair decks, it doesn't because it is a huge lose in game state It doesn't prevent the discard affect only modifies its text box to be more like MEmoRyLaPSE which is very powerful for exactly the reasons I stated, not only do you deal with a card for now but you fate seal your opponent putting them behind on the draw step. So what my Bxx opponent goes discard spell, put the card on top of my deck, resolve a threat? Again this is bad enough as far as its a self punishing affect I have to fall way behind on game state the land should at least tap for colored mana. Its really only good for Combo decks like Ad Naus because they only must have 2 cards in hand or 1 in hand and 1 on board to win, if you cast discard and they have nothing but bells and whistles like Prism or Serum Visions etc.. then they will not use the affect if they have a essential combo piece they will put it on top. Its good in combo bad in fair decks.
On the one hand, I agree people need to relax and that the numbers aren't as bad as people suggest.
On the other hand, Wizards has done almost everything they can to increase ban mania in these past months. This is easily the zenith of Magic-wide ban mania, and it's virtually impossible to fight against it at this point. Even though the recent bans haven't directly affected Modern, the climate is so charged and bah-centric that it is hard to not think of Modern in a banning context. There is no easy out for this either; Wizards has basically committed to a ban mentality for the near future, even if they don't end up banning more cards. Ultimately, I think this is really going to hurt their competitive formats and we'll see some changes down the road, but for now, ban mania will be even more constant than it was before.
As for the Felidar ban, hopefully this frees up R&D space to test out Modern unbans. I can't envision a world where either SFM or JTMS appear dangerous in testing in this current format, and if we don't see either those or Preordain unbanned in the next update, I'll just assume Wizards is comfortable with the current color/archetype balance and we shouldn't expect any changes for at least another year.
actually those decks are weaker to counters and removal and less so to discard. If you discard 1 of your opponents multiple functional copies of cards it not very impactful, if you counter their 2 drop they are losing a card and tempo, removal is similar though they will get the value of any ETB triggers. URx decks for example are actually very good against most of those strategies, which is why most run TS in the board to strip away cards.
Personally not worried about combo being better, I like playing against combo. And if combo gets better, I would hope control would become better too.
On the leyline (Good in your opener or T4) front my concern is that WotC will probably never reprint the things so we're stuck with design spaces they haven't explored much or abilities stapled onto creatures.
Further to that the intention wasn't to design a land that is a complete hoser because it has to be printed under the current design philosophy.
You want people to play Magic and at least get a little bit of what their deck is meant to do.
Edit added in Leyline is only good in opener or T4
Legacy - LED Dredge, ANT & WDnT
Okay Leyline is good if its in your opener and RIP is good against some hands in some builds, can we get a non-white card that is useful against the ubiquitous nature of 1cc targeted discard? Because currently the best answer is to play 1cc targeted discard spells. Its almost to the point where people don't even consider splashing black for those spells as a splash, Played a guy just the other day online asked him what deck he was on he said "GW Maverick" I was like cool neat looking forward to seeing how the deck does, T1 IoK, T2 TS push on my creature, T3 Collective Brutality push my last creature, I ask him So its Abzan Maverick he insists "no no its GW good stuff creatures its GW Maverick" my response "you have played nothing but black spells how is this not a Abzan deck?" a few minutes later he says "but all of my creatures are GW" it was hilarious. Also articles like the one on Modern Nexus "Temur Shadow" in which he has a "temur" deck with a small splash for 11 main deck back spells, its clearly a 4 color deck as that is not just a small splash into black for like 1 card(http://modernnexus.com/introducing-temur-shadow/) also hilariously miss labeled deck. But why because adding black to a deck currently is almost like not a consideration of course you have to add TS affects how else can you compete?
I agree that UW control is good against DS decks but its not a easy match up by any measure, It is very dependent on how many discard spells they have.
Yup fast redundant non-interactive decks like Dredge, Affinity, and Burn are very good because of the position of Bxx discard based decks. See this is my point want to beat DS well play a deck that everyone complains about being unhealthy for the format because relying on interaction other than 1cc discard spells is a losing strategy.
I see the end game and I don't disagree, I just don't see how control could get better if you make the combo decks more resilient to the removal control needs to use to slow them down. I would expect it to further incentivize linear goldfish strategies.
So really we're all just saying we'd like better counter spells and non-black removal/interaction?
Legacy - LED Dredge, ANT & WDnT
Yes, removing the only decent form of interaction from the format is not going to lead to a more interactive format.
Yes.
Though someone made the point with Black having such good discard, blue is less relevant. Black can do almost anything Blue can do, and more. Blue has issues removing creatures from the battlefield. Black laughs at those creatures. Blue has issues stopping spells from resolving. Black doesn't even allow those spells to be cast. Blue has trouble finishing games off. Black has ample supplies of creatures.
Dont take that as me complaining about Blue. I still stand behind my view that Blue is an awesome support color, and that maybe its current state is exactly where it should be (in Modern).
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Its about as efficient as it can possibly be.
Spirits
The more diverse in colour, CMC and card type interaction in Magic is the healthier (I hope) the format will be.
Legacy - LED Dredge, ANT & WDnT
while i do want both i dont think either help against 1cc discard, discard is very strong against counters and removal is actually pretty good its actually having it in hand that difficult but variety in colors outside of black would welcomed.
Thoughtwrinkle
U
Sorcery
look at target player's hand. You may choose a nonland card from it. If you do, that player reveals the chosen card, puts it on the bottom of his or her library, then draws a card.
Busted? Unplayable? Goes right into grixis shadow?
I don't think unbanning anything on the list really makes UW control that much better. JtmS might but splashing for a 4cc UU is trivial in modern and currently the best decks DS wouldn't mind double bolting themselves for JtmS.
WotC needs to print better Blue White and to a lesser extent Red card(for Red I think they need to make better red mid-range options not more burn or 1 mana haste creatures)
For blue I think better card draw should be available, AV is good but really not that great in modern as it comes off suspend about a turn to slow in many match ups( UW control for instance only about 29% of the lists even run AV which is kinda funny given that everyone was complaining it was going to kill BGx discard based attrition decks)
Would UU draw 2 be to strong for modern? I mean black has sign in blood which is literally that with a slight draw back because black is getting a blue affect, but some how that is better than any blue option for the same affect, I can't think of any card other than Perilous Research that even offers a comparable affect in blue and the draw back is far worse which is crazy that blue gets punished harder for doing something its supposed to actually be good at.
This card isn't good. It is a 1 for 0 which is the exact opposite of what blue interactive decks need. If it were to see play I think it would be again mostly as combo protection.
Still hoping for urban SFM & Preordain and printing counter spell in Hours.
The longer Wizards are inactive on Modern unbans the more it seems like Jace has a grave.
Legacy - LED Dredge, ANT & WDnT
I don't think that WotC will reprint counterspell...
they just reprinted essence scatter in ahmonket.
if WoTC was planning to unban SFM or preordian, they would have unbanned it in the last banlist change.
what combo would want this over TS/IoK? ad naus is already running those in the board, so is Goryo's, builds. Is Storm really going to run a card that puts them down a card and the deck is so redundant plus Past in Flames is naturally good against discard strategies I don't think they need it which is why its meta shares are increasing in the face of DS decks being so dominate.
By this logic its obvious that TS and IoK are just combo protection since so many combo decks run it right?
Why? Didnt you read the message? They had more pressing issues, and couldnt spare the time to think about Modern.
They will not unban anything until they need to boost PR for the format. Simple as that.
They will not print Counterspell in Standard, because its too good for the format, and does not fit into how they Design/Develop.
The only hope we have for that card, is if there is as a result of the last several Standard Formats, a huge shift in policy on their side.
I'm not holding my breath.
Spirits
Legacy - LED Dredge, ANT & WDnT