Can someone tell me what card(s) have ever been banned from Modern because they "create[d] unfun and unpopular play patterns"? I glanced over the list, and as far as I can tell, not a single card on the ban list falls into this category
Can someone tell me what card(s) have ever been banned from Modern because they "create[d] unfun and unpopular play patterns"? I glanced over the list, and as far as I can tell, not a single card on the ban list falls into this category
Also, no love for SFM in the article :(?
It'd be easy to argue that Second Sunrise qualifies, what with Eggs and its 20-minute turns.
Maybe, though considering that it was explicitly banned for logistical reasons, the choice of wording was pretty poor if that's the case.
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Decks
Modern: UWUW Control UBRGrixis Shadow URIzzet Phoenix
Can someone tell me what card(s) have ever been banned from Modern because they "create[d] unfun and unpopular play patterns"? I glanced over the list, and as far as I can tell, not a single card on the ban list falls into this category
Also, no love for SFM in the article :(?
It'd be easy to argue that Second Sunrise qualifies, what with Eggs and its 20-minute turns.
Maybe, though considering that it was explicitly banned for logistical reasons, the choice of wording was pretty poor if that's the case.
Logistical reasoning is a way to make "unfun and unpopular" sound more palatable to pilots of those decks; everyone knew they took forever to finish their games, but it's a bit on the nose to say "We're banning your deck because people didn't enjoy playing against it." Doesn't make it less true.
I don't feel it's fair to defend SSG but not chalice.
SSG can win the game on spot by enabling things like AD Naus, or Goryos shenanigans. I mean, a turn 2 Griselbrand isn't technically a turn 2 win, but let's be honest, it's somewhat of a soft-lock win, decks aren't designed to come back from that. That's also not super common, but there's certainly articles out there on Channelfireball and Starcity that describe losing in that scenario. A turn 2 blood moon on the play is also a somewhat soft-lock win if the player has the landbase for it.
Again, chalice is primarily used in one deck. It's also flat out bad in some games. I believe that if chalice was good enough across a wide scope, it could be a better candidate for a ban. It's often one of the first cards E-tron players cut postboard
E-Tron also has a philosophy, in the opening hand, it's trying to do something broken, but that broken thing can be the absolute wrong thing. A chalice with 2 land on the play can be a snap keep, but it could be the wrong keep and you lose promptly.
I think Chalice is the right target if you wanted to eliminate E-Tron without killing the eldrazi archetype. I do think you're underestimating how horrible the GBx matchup is against Bant Eldrazi though, it's definitely worse. Bant Eldrazi shares would be positive for UW Control though.
A temple ban would kill too many decks in modern, Eldrazi would be flat out unplayable
A chalice ban would most definitely kill E-Tron in modern
Emma suggested BBE, splinter twin and JTMS are acceptable unbans. SFM is probably left off to prevent the full out caw-blade deck from 2010 standard. She also picked 3 cards with converted mana cost 4 for a turn four format.
It would be aggressive and unlikely to unban all those on monday. But I guess is be okay with that. I would be completely happy with the ban list if we could unban BBE and Twin. Jace is cool but I'm a bit afraid of unbanning him. I'm open to discussion, but I'm leaning toward keeping him banned right now.
As much as I would love it, twin likely won't come off for the rebood of the modern PT. If they are going to unban something, it would likely be something new (Jace, SFM) or something that has been on the banlist for a long time (BBE).
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Modern: UWR Breach, UWB Esper control
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
Instead of bans, I want answers. Give us some unbans, counterspell, and better SB hate against Eldrazi.
Answers are too strong for Standard. Not just Counterspell, any answers at all. StP would have been an absolute godsend for Standard the past two or so years, but in a recent article, it was singled out specifically as s card that will not return to the format while the current people work there. The fact that people had to be so excited for Walk the Plank, and Abrade as the best removal in a long time says a lot. D-rev was only in Theros, and Doom Blade was a CORE Set staple, but they have nerfed answers so hard even just since then....while unleashing vehicles and Lovecraftian monsters as threats that did more damage to the game than to Zendikar. Because 'your opponent having an answer to the thing you want to play isn't fun'
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Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
I do think the format would be better without chalice but with counterspell, simply because i find prison cards boring but regular counterspells more interesting
Couldn't agree more with this.
That said i would not ban anything in modern right now. I would keep my eye on storm as it can and does often win turn 3 and it is requires a lot of steps in a single turn to go off, something most opponents hate to sit through
I haven't seen anyone make this point yet, but I think Legacy Storm feels "better" to lose to because Tendrils only requires about half the storm count of Grapeshot. You don't have to wait around quite as long.
Instead of bans, I want answers. Give us some unbans, counterspell, and better SB hate against Eldrazi.
Answers are too strong for Standard. Not just Counterspell, any answers at all. StP would have been an absolute godsend for Standard the past two or so years, but in a recent article, it was singled out specifically as s card that will not return to the format while the current people work there. The fact that people had to be so excited for Walk the Plank, and Abrade as the best removal in a long time says a lot. D-rev was only in Theros, and Doom Blade was a CORE Set staple, but they have nerfed answers so hard even just since then....while unleashing vehicles and Lovecraftian monsters as threats that did more damage to the game than to Zendikar. Because 'your opponent having an answer to the thing you want to play isn't fun'
This isn’t true. Look at Collective Brutality, Ceremonious Rejection, Kolaghan’s Command and Fatal Push. We’ve been getting new cards basically every block that have become all-stars in both mainboard and sideboard. It’d be nice if colors other than black got some love though. It does prove that they have the capability of printing cards that are great in Modern, but don’t break Standard in two.
As far as StP, we already have Path to Exile. If they really want a one mana exile effect in white, they'd probably reprint that before bringing Swords to Plowshares into Standard. And having that AND Swords to Plowshares would be overkill in white for modern.
The problem with answers for Modern isn't that they don't exist. As @LeoTzu clearly showed in his response, WotC has been willing to give us plenty of removal spells over the past few years. Hell Fatal Push is probably one of the most influential cards on Modern since the format's inception.
However there is an issue that is also pointed out. All of these answers are in black. What sort of interaction does White, Blue, Red, or Green get? Honestly next to nothing. Black is the colour that gets all the answers in Modern, while it seems the other colours get the cards that need to be answered. It's a bit of a colour instability really.
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
For what it's worth, I will say what I have said 1,000 times here before. I do think that currently there is a real Rock/Paper/Scissors in Modern, but it just isn't enjoyable to players. I hope this is a sign to Wizards that their quest for the Holy Grail in a meta of 5% X 10 and 2.5% X 20 is not only unattainable, but could possibly NOT BE what players are looking for. I find it incredulous when someone complains about a deck that is 12% of the meta. That just blows me away. I used to play in metas where 33% of people played a certain deck and there was NO complaining.
Were these metas Standard? Because people are much more willing to accept a deck being about 30% of the format in Standard than Modern, and a big reason for that is that Standard rotates, so there's a guaranteed end to those decks. In Modern, if something is 30% of the format, there's no rotation to eventually get rid of it.
Actually I think the collective unconscious may have wiped their memory because looking back at meta analysis for modern in seasons past, we have indeed seen decks at 20+% meta score and people haven't batted an eyelid. The community has been burnt by a series of bans with meta share as a justification, and is now twitchy and hyper-sensitive to meta-share as a reflection of 'unhealthiness' or 'bannability' or an equivalent negative connotation. Before, this just wasn't the case, and it's actually kinda fun to look back at how people treated this data very differently and focused on other issues instead.
What decks did we see at 20+% in Modern without anyone batting an eyelid? The only ones I can think of are Eldrazi, Treasure Cruise Delver, Birthing Pod (after gaining Siege Rhino), Jund (with Deathrite Shaman and Bloodbraid Elf), and Zoo (when it had Punishing Fire and Wild Nacatl). And except for maybe Zoo, which was sorta before I got into Modern, people bat plenty of eyelids at those decks. What decks passed 20% other than those? I guess all of the BGx variants might have added up to that after Bloodbraid Elf got banned but before Deathrite Shaman was removed, but again there was plenty of eyelid batting.
The problem with answers for Modern isn't that they don't exist. As @LeoTzu clearly showed in his response, WotC has been willing to give us plenty of removal spells over the past few years. Hell Fatal Push is probably one of the most influential cards on Modern since the format's inception.
However there is an issue that is also pointed out. All of these answers are in black. What sort of interaction does White, Blue, Red, or Green get? Honestly next to nothing. Black is the colour that gets all the answers in Modern, while it seems the other colours get the cards that need to be answered. It's a bit of a colour instability really.
All colors have interactions with resolved nonland permanents. Black's creature/planeswalker removal might be most relevant in today's metagame, though.
Personally -- and I know my opinion is unpopular -- I feel like blue's stack interaction is somewhat weak, but then again, I started playing in 1995.
I am also of the opinion that WotC has apparently decided that the two biggest parts of blue's colour pie - drawing cards and interacting with ***** on the stack - is not "fun" and as such we don't get very many good cards for it.
Stuff like Chart A Course is an interesting take on it, but I would like some more consistency tools in Modern. Opt is an interesting start, but I'm not sure whether it's any better than what we already had except in decks that only want to draw-go, and those are reasonably infrequent in Modern.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
For what it's worth, I will say what I have said 1,000 times here before. I do think that currently there is a real Rock/Paper/Scissors in Modern, but it just isn't enjoyable to players. I hope this is a sign to Wizards that their quest for the Holy Grail in a meta of 5% X 10 and 2.5% X 20 is not only unattainable, but could possibly NOT BE what players are looking for. I find it incredulous when someone complains about a deck that is 12% of the meta. That just blows me away. I used to play in metas where 33% of people played a certain deck and there was NO complaining.
Were these metas Standard? Because people are much more willing to accept a deck being about 30% of the format in Standard than Modern, and a big reason for that is that Standard rotates, so there's a guaranteed end to those decks. In Modern, if something is 30% of the format, there's no rotation to eventually get rid of it.
Actually I think the collective unconscious may have wiped their memory because looking back at meta analysis for modern in seasons past, we have indeed seen decks at 20+% meta score and people haven't batted an eyelid. The community has been burnt by a series of bans with meta share as a justification, and is now twitchy and hyper-sensitive to meta-share as a reflection of 'unhealthiness' or 'bannability' or an equivalent negative connotation. Before, this just wasn't the case, and it's actually kinda fun to look back at how people treated this data very differently and focused on other issues instead.
What decks did we see at 20+% in Modern without anyone batting an eyelid? The only ones I can think of are Eldrazi, Treasure Cruise Delver, Birthing Pod (after gaining Siege Rhino), Jund (with Deathrite Shaman and Bloodbraid Elf), and Zoo (when it had Punishing Fire and Wild Nacatl). And except for maybe Zoo, which was sorta before I got into Modern, people bat plenty of eyelids at those decks. What decks passed 20% other than those? I guess all of the BGx variants might have added up to that after Bloodbraid Elf got banned but before Deathrite Shaman was removed, but again there was plenty of eyelid batting.
fair question - I got this from going back and reading a few articles from years ago, a mix of deck techs and metagame analysis. I can't for the life of me remember which ones, but I remember specifically being stunned by the numbers and it's etched in my mind how our perspective has changed so much, and my assumption is that it's changes so slowly that we didn't notice the change.
for posterity i'll see if i can unearth my previous train of throught and random deck-browsing that got me to those sites, because just for that "wait what?!" moment it's worth it haha. give me some time i'll see what I can do.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
The problem with answers for Modern isn't that they don't exist. As @LeoTzu clearly showed in his response, WotC has been willing to give us plenty of removal spells over the past few years. Hell Fatal Push is probably one of the most influential cards on Modern since the format's inception.
However there is an issue that is also pointed out. All of these answers are in black. What sort of interaction does White, Blue, Red, or Green get? Honestly next to nothing. Black is the colour that gets all the answers in Modern, while it seems the other colours get the cards that need to be answered. It's a bit of a colour instability really.
I mean white already has path, RiP, stony silence...red has blood moon, shatterstorm, lightning bolt, and hell abrade is seeing play in vintage and legacy. green isn't supposed to have answers besides enchantment and artifact removal, which it does several times over. The color pie is a thing, allegedly. But let's talk blue.
WOTC's new order supposedly researched how newer players felt about the game and found that countermagic was generally disliked. People wanted to play big badass creatures and planeswalkers apparently, and it was disheartening to base decks around cards that were stopped cold by blue instants that cost less mana. That's why blue won't get better answers - a supposed barrier to entry. That being said...
Any claim by WOTC that modern cards have to enter by standard is bs. They could make an exception at any time with a B&R list update. I don't think counterspell is quite right, but I do have another idea: Daze. Daze should be reintroduced. It wouldn't bring about the revival of draw-go control, but honestly I'm okay with that not being in the format. It would open up blue-based aggro, tempo, and midrange though, boosting decks based around cards like delver and spell queller.
If WOTC keeps to the "has to be a standard set" premise, then blue needs a shakeup. Green now has the fight mechanic for creature removal, which I think is BS but that's one man's opinion. If counterspells are going to be worse, then blue should get something to make up for it. That never really happened.
Generally, answers prevent mechanical degeneracy. New players do not have a sufficiently sophisticated understanding of the game mechanics to grok most degenerate deck strategies, so they initially won't appreciate the presence of answers in a given format. Countermagic is even more punishing than black removal in that it prevents ETBs. Granted, I'm no fan of big bodies with stapled-on ETBs, but whatever.
Part of people moving away from modern into standard is just because standard is actually playable atm. For months standard events just didn't fire because no one wanted to play saheeli rai then Aetherworks Marvel, then just some weak garbage sets. Modern swelled because standard was miserable and now that standard is playable again many of the players who went to modern will move back to standard.
I find it incredulous when someone complains about a deck that is 12% of the meta. That just blows me away. I used to play in metas where 33% of people played a certain deck and there was NO complaining.
I hope this is a sign to Wizards that their quest for the Holy Grail in a meta of 5% X 10 and 2.5% X 20 is not only unattainable, but could possibly NOT BE what players are looking for.
I picked this comment, because @foodchainsgoblins, it's really the best post in 2017. Your post, this post should be stickied to the top and people should read it twice before even posting something. It's really perfect.
I don't mind if we have a best or two best decks, but the main thing that should be taken into account is the games to be enjoyabale and that the matchups should not be lopsided. In other words, Wizards has sacrificed fun and skill in the altar of diversity.
Not all that perfect. I still want to know what these mythical metagames where "33% of people played a certain deck and there was NO complaining" were. If it's Standard, it doesn't count because (1) there's less reason to complain about a dominant deck as it'll inevitably rotate out, and (2) Standard players complain about that kind of thing all the time.
Maybe it's Vintage, because I remember Shops was at a percentage like that for a while... but I saw plenty of Vintage players (well, for a given definition of "plenty" due to the relative lack of Vintage players) complain about Shops being too good and wanting restrictions.
Unfortunately, I will state that if Wizards don't unban something outside of Bloodbraid Elf(because I think this card is a joke in the Banlist)
I think it's sad how many times I'll bring up the fact Bloodbraid Elf doesn't belong on the banned list in real life and someone goes on about how it's way too good, inevitably citing Bloodbraid Elf into Liliana of the Veil. Ignoring the fact that usually doesn't happen, I should remind everyone that as far as I can remember, no one thought this interaction was a problem for the first year it was possible--it was only after Deathrite Shaman got printed that people started really disliking the card. And considering that Deathrite Shaman is no longer legal...
Part of people moving away from modern into standard is just because standard is actually playable atm. For months standard events just didn't fire because no one wanted to play saheeli rai then Aetherworks Marvel, then just some weak garbage sets. Modern swelled because standard was miserable and now that standard is playable again many of the players who went to modern will move back to standard.
This is actually a really interesting point. I wonder if Wizards is seeing similar results, that Modern attendance is down, but overall FNM attendance (e.g. Standard) is up, and they're just accepting (or possibly preferring) that Modern is the sacrificial lamb for this not-terrible Standard. In recent years it's obvious they want to have more focus on the rotating format, both for monetary incentives as well as interest (let's face it, it's just more exciting to have new decks every few months). It's possible Wizards will see current Modern issues as less relevant, and will announce something like "While the 'true Modern players' adapt to a format without the now-Standard-players, we're laying off the bans/unbans to see what happens with a smaller player pool."
Wizards succeeded in creating an interesting Standard, and it might just be fact that Modern needs to suffer some negligence for it.
How interesting that modern is in a bad state now after some of the regulars here were laughing about how bad standard was for years...
Go ahead and play standard, I have no interest in spending all that money on rotating metas where a tier 1 deck can literally become unplayable weeks later. I do think as a whole standard is more skill-testing and interactive, mainly because there's so much interaction and board-stalls.
I do feel as though people are beginning to say, "hey, modern is now too diverse, I can't meta as well"
I don't think that's completely untrue. The meta has become so open that you simply can't be prepared, and some matchups are so atrocious that the better player is really fighting uphill
There's no way to meta against Titanshift, Grixis Shadow, Storm and E-Tron while fighting through a slew of diverse decks in a long tournament.
At the same time, is it really a coincidence we see so many familiar big names do well in these modern tournaments?
Standard was a pile of garbage for years, it makes sense that modern is shrinking now that the format is decent again.
Not really sure how you guys think things will be fixed, but I don't think a BBE unban is going to do it.
I do think the death of infect hurt this format though, it kept decks like storm and titan shift in check
I called Infect a police deck and was corrected that it was a parameter deck. What do you guys think?
Infect being dead severely hurt jund. I actually think Jund is a straight up bad deck now, despite playing a pile of some of the best cards in the format.
There's not enough keeping combo in check while being reasonable against an open field---this is an issue.
I absolutely believe dredge was a toxic deck and believe GGT was one of the best bans modern has ever received.
But I am starting to doubt Probe's ban now, for the first time ever, along with Splinter Twin.
Would splinter twin really do well though? Shadow would eat it alive, and I'm trying to think if E-Tron would, too
Would splinter twin really do well though? Shadow would eat it alive, and I'm trying to think if E-Tron would, too
I actually don' think grixis or jeskai twin would have that bad of a match up against GDS between fatal push and terminate or path depending on the variant. More importantly, twin would be able to punish and pressure eldrazi and valakut decks. Not that this is relevant since twin won't come off the banlist.
How interesting that modern is in a bad state now after some of the regulars here were laughing about how bad standard was for years...
Go ahead and play standard, I have no interest in spending all that money on rotating metas where a tier 1 deck can literally become unplayable weeks later. I do think as a whole standard is more skill-testing and interactive, mainly because there's so much interaction and board-stalls.
I do feel as though people are beginning to say, "hey, modern is now too diverse, I can't meta as well"
I don't think that's completely untrue. The meta has become so open that you simply can't be prepared, and some matchups are so atrocious that the better player is really fighting uphill
There's no way to meta against Titanshift, Grixis Shadow, Storm and E-Tron while fighting through a slew of diverse decks in a long tournament.
At the same time, is it really a coincidence we see so many familiar big names do well in these modern tournaments?
Standard was a pile of garbage for years, it makes sense that modern is shrinking now that the format is decent again.
Not really sure how you guys think things will be fixed, but I don't think a BBE unban is going to do it.
I do think the death of infect hurt this format though, it kept decks like storm and titan shift in check
I called Infect a police deck and was corrected that it was a parameter deck. What do you guys think?
Infect being dead severely hurt jund. I actually think Jund is a straight up bad deck now, despite playing a pile of some of the best cards in the format.
There's not enough keeping combo in check while being reasonable against an open field---this is an issue.
I absolutely believe dredge was a toxic deck and believe GGT was one of the best bans modern has ever received.
But I am starting to doubt Probe's ban now, for the first time ever, along with Splinter Twin.
Would splinter twin really do well though? Shadow would eat it alive, and I'm trying to think if E-Tron would, too
I'm not sure how to fix Modern. Part of my issue is identifying what specifically needs fixing. Going by the very limited sample size here, the problems seem to be:
-fun factor (which is subjective as hell)
-top decks are boring to watch in action for the most part
-color pie imbalance
The issue of a deck being unable to compete against the field and the top decks (without being one of them) irks me. Isn't that how it's always been? What makes the current top tier different? Is it because people just have a massive hatred of them all except GDS? I get that playing against Titanshift and ETron can be frustrating, but tbh I'd rather face either one a dozen times before sitting across from pod or dredge again. Storm doesn't come close, I just don't get why some people treat that deck like the Boogeyman.
As far as colors, I've been a blue player since I started magic back in 1996. I've always enjoyed the idea of out playing my opponent through subterfuge and careful planning, which blue represented. That's changed a bit over the years, and frankly the way I like to play MTG is a) hard to win with and b) would be deemed unfun by a majority of players. Something that starts a lot of arguments is what does playing a color(s) mean? What is the accepted idea of what a blue deck should mean? For instance, GDS doesn't quite fulfill my ideal of a blue deck, but it is a damn good deck.
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Most likely bet would be Second Sunrise.
Modern:
UWUW Control
UBRGrixis Shadow
URIzzet Phoenix
Logistical reasoning is a way to make "unfun and unpopular" sound more palatable to pilots of those decks; everyone knew they took forever to finish their games, but it's a bit on the nose to say "We're banning your deck because people didn't enjoy playing against it." Doesn't make it less true.
SSG can win the game on spot by enabling things like AD Naus, or Goryos shenanigans. I mean, a turn 2 Griselbrand isn't technically a turn 2 win, but let's be honest, it's somewhat of a soft-lock win, decks aren't designed to come back from that. That's also not super common, but there's certainly articles out there on Channelfireball and Starcity that describe losing in that scenario. A turn 2 blood moon on the play is also a somewhat soft-lock win if the player has the landbase for it.
Again, chalice is primarily used in one deck. It's also flat out bad in some games. I believe that if chalice was good enough across a wide scope, it could be a better candidate for a ban. It's often one of the first cards E-tron players cut postboard
E-Tron also has a philosophy, in the opening hand, it's trying to do something broken, but that broken thing can be the absolute wrong thing. A chalice with 2 land on the play can be a snap keep, but it could be the wrong keep and you lose promptly.
I think Chalice is the right target if you wanted to eliminate E-Tron without killing the eldrazi archetype. I do think you're underestimating how horrible the GBx matchup is against Bant Eldrazi though, it's definitely worse. Bant Eldrazi shares would be positive for UW Control though.
A temple ban would kill too many decks in modern, Eldrazi would be flat out unplayable
A chalice ban would most definitely kill E-Tron in modern
It would be aggressive and unlikely to unban all those on monday. But I guess is be okay with that. I would be completely happy with the ban list if we could unban BBE and Twin. Jace is cool but I'm a bit afraid of unbanning him. I'm open to discussion, but I'm leaning toward keeping him banned right now.
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
Answers are too strong for Standard. Not just Counterspell, any answers at all. StP would have been an absolute godsend for Standard the past two or so years, but in a recent article, it was singled out specifically as s card that will not return to the format while the current people work there. The fact that people had to be so excited for Walk the Plank, and Abrade as the best removal in a long time says a lot. D-rev was only in Theros, and Doom Blade was a CORE Set staple, but they have nerfed answers so hard even just since then....while unleashing vehicles and Lovecraftian monsters as threats that did more damage to the game than to Zendikar. Because 'your opponent having an answer to the thing you want to play isn't fun'
I haven't seen anyone make this point yet, but I think Legacy Storm feels "better" to lose to because Tendrils only requires about half the storm count of Grapeshot. You don't have to wait around quite as long.
This isn’t true. Look at Collective Brutality, Ceremonious Rejection, Kolaghan’s Command and Fatal Push. We’ve been getting new cards basically every block that have become all-stars in both mainboard and sideboard. It’d be nice if colors other than black got some love though. It does prove that they have the capability of printing cards that are great in Modern, but don’t break Standard in two.
As far as StP, we already have Path to Exile. If they really want a one mana exile effect in white, they'd probably reprint that before bringing Swords to Plowshares into Standard. And having that AND Swords to Plowshares would be overkill in white for modern.
However there is an issue that is also pointed out. All of these answers are in black. What sort of interaction does White, Blue, Red, or Green get? Honestly next to nothing. Black is the colour that gets all the answers in Modern, while it seems the other colours get the cards that need to be answered. It's a bit of a colour instability really.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Personally -- and I know my opinion is unpopular -- I feel like blue's stack interaction is somewhat weak, but then again, I started playing in 1995.
Stuff like Chart A Course is an interesting take on it, but I would like some more consistency tools in Modern. Opt is an interesting start, but I'm not sure whether it's any better than what we already had except in decks that only want to draw-go, and those are reasonably infrequent in Modern.
fair question - I got this from going back and reading a few articles from years ago, a mix of deck techs and metagame analysis. I can't for the life of me remember which ones, but I remember specifically being stunned by the numbers and it's etched in my mind how our perspective has changed so much, and my assumption is that it's changes so slowly that we didn't notice the change.
for posterity i'll see if i can unearth my previous train of throught and random deck-browsing that got me to those sites, because just for that "wait what?!" moment it's worth it haha. give me some time i'll see what I can do.
I mean white already has path, RiP, stony silence...red has blood moon, shatterstorm, lightning bolt, and hell abrade is seeing play in vintage and legacy. green isn't supposed to have answers besides enchantment and artifact removal, which it does several times over. The color pie is a thing, allegedly. But let's talk blue.
WOTC's new order supposedly researched how newer players felt about the game and found that countermagic was generally disliked. People wanted to play big badass creatures and planeswalkers apparently, and it was disheartening to base decks around cards that were stopped cold by blue instants that cost less mana. That's why blue won't get better answers - a supposed barrier to entry. That being said...
Any claim by WOTC that modern cards have to enter by standard is bs. They could make an exception at any time with a B&R list update. I don't think counterspell is quite right, but I do have another idea: Daze. Daze should be reintroduced. It wouldn't bring about the revival of draw-go control, but honestly I'm okay with that not being in the format. It would open up blue-based aggro, tempo, and midrange though, boosting decks based around cards like delver and spell queller.
If WOTC keeps to the "has to be a standard set" premise, then blue needs a shakeup. Green now has the fight mechanic for creature removal, which I think is BS but that's one man's opinion. If counterspells are going to be worse, then blue should get something to make up for it. That never really happened.
Not one good deck uses it... because its an easy way to get 2 for 1'd.
Green is the only color that is heavily combo orientated. Let that sink in.
Bring back good draw spells/creatures and ug will get better.
Maybe it's Vintage, because I remember Shops was at a percentage like that for a while... but I saw plenty of Vintage players (well, for a given definition of "plenty" due to the relative lack of Vintage players) complain about Shops being too good and wanting restrictions.
I think it's sad how many times I'll bring up the fact Bloodbraid Elf doesn't belong on the banned list in real life and someone goes on about how it's way too good, inevitably citing Bloodbraid Elf into Liliana of the Veil. Ignoring the fact that usually doesn't happen, I should remind everyone that as far as I can remember, no one thought this interaction was a problem for the first year it was possible--it was only after Deathrite Shaman got printed that people started really disliking the card. And considering that Deathrite Shaman is no longer legal...
This is actually a really interesting point. I wonder if Wizards is seeing similar results, that Modern attendance is down, but overall FNM attendance (e.g. Standard) is up, and they're just accepting (or possibly preferring) that Modern is the sacrificial lamb for this not-terrible Standard. In recent years it's obvious they want to have more focus on the rotating format, both for monetary incentives as well as interest (let's face it, it's just more exciting to have new decks every few months). It's possible Wizards will see current Modern issues as less relevant, and will announce something like "While the 'true Modern players' adapt to a format without the now-Standard-players, we're laying off the bans/unbans to see what happens with a smaller player pool."
Wizards succeeded in creating an interesting Standard, and it might just be fact that Modern needs to suffer some negligence for it.
There was a period where Standard wouldn't fire half the time, though.
Go ahead and play standard, I have no interest in spending all that money on rotating metas where a tier 1 deck can literally become unplayable weeks later. I do think as a whole standard is more skill-testing and interactive, mainly because there's so much interaction and board-stalls.
I do feel as though people are beginning to say, "hey, modern is now too diverse, I can't meta as well"
I don't think that's completely untrue. The meta has become so open that you simply can't be prepared, and some matchups are so atrocious that the better player is really fighting uphill
There's no way to meta against Titanshift, Grixis Shadow, Storm and E-Tron while fighting through a slew of diverse decks in a long tournament.
At the same time, is it really a coincidence we see so many familiar big names do well in these modern tournaments?
Standard was a pile of garbage for years, it makes sense that modern is shrinking now that the format is decent again.
Not really sure how you guys think things will be fixed, but I don't think a BBE unban is going to do it.
I do think the death of infect hurt this format though, it kept decks like storm and titan shift in check
I called Infect a police deck and was corrected that it was a parameter deck. What do you guys think?
Infect being dead severely hurt jund. I actually think Jund is a straight up bad deck now, despite playing a pile of some of the best cards in the format.
There's not enough keeping combo in check while being reasonable against an open field---this is an issue.
I absolutely believe dredge was a toxic deck and believe GGT was one of the best bans modern has ever received.
But I am starting to doubt Probe's ban now, for the first time ever, along with Splinter Twin.
Would splinter twin really do well though? Shadow would eat it alive, and I'm trying to think if E-Tron would, too
I actually don' think grixis or jeskai twin would have that bad of a match up against GDS between fatal push and terminate or path depending on the variant. More importantly, twin would be able to punish and pressure eldrazi and valakut decks. Not that this is relevant since twin won't come off the banlist.
I'm not sure how to fix Modern. Part of my issue is identifying what specifically needs fixing. Going by the very limited sample size here, the problems seem to be:
-fun factor (which is subjective as hell)
-top decks are boring to watch in action for the most part
-color pie imbalance
The issue of a deck being unable to compete against the field and the top decks (without being one of them) irks me. Isn't that how it's always been? What makes the current top tier different? Is it because people just have a massive hatred of them all except GDS? I get that playing against Titanshift and ETron can be frustrating, but tbh I'd rather face either one a dozen times before sitting across from pod or dredge again. Storm doesn't come close, I just don't get why some people treat that deck like the Boogeyman.
As far as colors, I've been a blue player since I started magic back in 1996. I've always enjoyed the idea of out playing my opponent through subterfuge and careful planning, which blue represented. That's changed a bit over the years, and frankly the way I like to play MTG is a) hard to win with and b) would be deemed unfun by a majority of players. Something that starts a lot of arguments is what does playing a color(s) mean? What is the accepted idea of what a blue deck should mean? For instance, GDS doesn't quite fulfill my ideal of a blue deck, but it is a damn good deck.