Rewinding the conversation a bit, but it's a little strange to see so many people insist there already exists ample land hate for ETron and Scapeshift. Crumble to Dust and Fulminator Mage are far too slow for their minor impact. Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge, and Spreading Seas are weak solo answers without a critical mass. It really takes multiple in a decklist (8+) to provide any reasonable answer to lands like Valakut or Temple, which in turn means gearing a significant portion of a deck towards mana denial.
Most aren't calling for a ban, most aren't calling for a "I win" card that can't be played through. What reasonable objection is there to more answers other than protecting your pet strategy? That's the reason we have a sideboard -- to react. Without answers, there is no reaction to "big mana" (or whatever title is most apt) and that causes frustration.
The argument would be that it's not dominating in a particular fashion, and that it is difficult to conceive of effective hate cards that dont cause a lot of splash damage and/or just kill an archetype. A lot of decks cause frustration. UW can be frustrating. Lantern can be frustrating. Heck, midrange can be frustrating. Simply disliking a strategy is typically not ample reason for something to exist. I may as well complain there isn't something that completely annihilates lantern at sufficient speed.
Firstly, the original conversation WAS calling for an "I win" card. People were asking for something like choke or boil. Like affinity level hate. Other people are pointing out that seems to be an overreaction to what is the 2nd best deck in the meta.
"Dominating" is a really high bar for hate cards, bordering on ridiculous. You're effectively arguing that a safety valve should never be printed until the pipes are already exploding from pressure. That's exactly the mentality that leads to bans rather than proactively managing the format by ensuring threats have answers. When most of the card ideas floated in this thread don't seem to have significant splash damage or destroy the archetype, I'm not seeing why this particular strategy should be protected from reasonable hate. Especially when it provides at least some protection against the next Eye of Ugin debacle.
You're making a straw man of my comment on frustration. Obviously many decks can be frustrating to play against, but I'm specifically referencing the lack of interactivity caused by a strategy without any sideboard-able answers. Why should this particular strategy be immune to sideboard hate? Getting caught up on Choke or Boil is silly; those cards see very little play in competitive decks. Stony Silence can be played through by anything not named Lantern Control (and even then they run Abrupt Decay). Regardless, the card ideas mentioned here are far from "I win" and some posters still seem opposed to a card between Wasteland and Ghost Quarter's power levels when it doesn't kill the archetype.
Except you can interact with Scapeshift...you can counter everything except the lands coming into play. Again, these complains are mostly midrange players who don't want bad matchups. The meta is not warped around Valakut ramp. Now players, like you, make comments that sound as if you just want a bad game one followed by a devastating hate card. Or, you could just play disruption plus a clock like I did back with Grixis Delver...which was not a massive dog to Scapeshift. Or you can play Burn, or Affinity, or Shadow Zoo.
Rewinding the conversation a bit, but it's a little strange to see so many people insist there already exists ample land hate for ETron and Scapeshift. Crumble to Dust and Fulminator Mage are far too slow for their minor impact. Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge, and Spreading Seas are weak solo answers without a critical mass. It really takes multiple in a decklist (8+) to provide any reasonable answer to lands like Valakut or Temple, which in turn means gearing a significant portion of a deck towards mana denial.
Most aren't calling for a ban, most aren't calling for a "I win" card that can't be played through. What reasonable objection is there to more answers other than protecting your pet strategy? That's the reason we have a sideboard -- to react. Without answers, there is no reaction to "big mana" (or whatever title is most apt) and that causes frustration.
The argument would be that it's not dominating in a particular fashion, and that it is difficult to conceive of effective hate cards that dont cause a lot of splash damage and/or just kill an archetype. A lot of decks cause frustration. UW can be frustrating. Lantern can be frustrating. Heck, midrange can be frustrating. Simply disliking a strategy is typically not ample reason for something to exist. I may as well complain there isn't something that completely annihilates lantern at sufficient speed.
Firstly, the original conversation WAS calling for an "I win" card. People were asking for something like choke or boil. Like affinity level hate. Other people are pointing out that seems to be an overreaction to what is the 2nd best deck in the meta.
"Dominating" is a really high bar for hate cards, bordering on ridiculous. You're effectively arguing that a safety valve should never be printed until the pipes are already exploding from pressure. That's exactly the mentality that leads to bans rather than proactively managing the format by ensuring threats have answers. When most of the card ideas floated in this thread don't seem to have significant splash damage or destroy the archetype, I'm not seeing why this particular strategy should be protected from reasonable hate. Especially when it provides at least some protection against the next Eye of Ugin debacle.
You're making a straw man of my comment on frustration. Obviously many decks can be frustrating to play against, but I'm specifically referencing the lack of interactivity caused by a strategy without any sideboard-able answers. Why should this particular strategy be immune to sideboard hate? Getting caught up on Choke or Boil is silly; those cards see very little play in competitive decks. Stony Silence can be played through by anything not named Lantern Control (and even then they run Abrupt Decay). Regardless, the card ideas mentioned here are far from "I win" and some posters still seem opposed to a card between Wasteland and Ghost Quarter's power levels when it doesn't kill the archetype.
Again, the original argument was requesting a, as defined by the user "answer it or lose" card. We were saying that unless the deck was dominating, it's silly to want something like that. Nobody that I've read is particularly saying there should never be hate, everyone was just pointing out that some reasonable answers do in fact exist. I don't think anyone in the thread is broken up about some new slightly better hate coming out.
I didn't see anyone actually arguing the point you seem to be making, which is any and all hate for big mana is bad. There are simply pointing out that this discussion needs to be based on some actual goal of making the meta healthier.
Why is tron uninteractable? Not only does it play creatures you can kill, there ARE ways to interact with it in the sideboard(ceremonious rejection, spreading seas, blood moon, ensnaring bridge). Again, we aren't arguing for an immunity to side-board hate. We're just saying the original idea that lands-based decks require affinity level hate doesn't really seem justified.
Honestly it doesn't seem like a straw-man. You find a specific strategy "frustrating" because you dont like the side-board cards enough. I could make that claim about literally any deck. I don't think there is a good enough side board card against lantern. I hate that deck. It simply isn't enough to declare something "frustrating", you have to explain why, in the context of the meta, we are making these changes. That is the purpose of the meta discussion thread.
If you want to argue for tron suppressing a greater variety of midrange that's one thing. But a lot of statements being thrown around seem to presuppose the idea that tron is just automatically something they need to print better hate for just because.
I for one am enjoying our eldrazitron, titan shift, affinity, death shadow meta. The games are over quick so I have time In between rounds to grab food and stuff
Except you can interact with Scapeshift...you can counter everything except the lands coming into play. Again, these complains are mostly midrange players who don't want bad matchups. The meta is not warped around Valakut ramp. Now players, like you, make comments that sound as if you just want a bad game one followed by a devastating hate card. Or, you could just play disruption plus a clock like I did back with Grixis Delver...which was not a massive dog to Scapeshift. Or you can play Burn, or Affinity, or Shadow Zoo.
You're barking up the wrong tree. I've played a variety of decks, some with great Scapeshift match-ups and others not. I don't want to see it banned or neutered. It really is as simple as believing that threats should at least have sideboard-able answers in a couple colors. That becomes even more important when a deck exploits an unfamiliar axis of attack (e.g. Dredge or Affinity).
Again, the original argument was requesting a, as defined by the user "answer it or lose" card. We were saying that unless the deck was dominating, it's silly to want something like that. Nobody that I've read is particularly saying there should never be hate, everyone was just pointing out that some reasonable answers do in fact exist. I don't think anyone in the thread is broken up about some new slightly better hate coming out.
I didn't see anyone actually arguing the point you seem to be making, which is any and all hate for big mana is bad. There are simply pointing out that this discussion needs to be based on some actual goal of making the meta healthier.
Why is tron uninteractable? Not only does it play creatures you can kill, there ARE ways to interact with it in the sideboard(ceremonious rejection, spreading seas, blood moon, ensnaring bridge). Again, we aren't arguing for an immunity to side-board hate. We're just saying the original idea that lands-based decks require affinity level hate doesn't really seem justified.
Honestly it doesn't seem like a straw-man. You find a specific strategy "frustrating" because you dont like the side-board cards enough. I could make that claim about literally any deck. I don't think there is a good enough side board card against lantern. I hate that deck. It simply isn't enough to declare something "frustrating", you have to explain why, in the context of the meta, we are making these changes. That is the purpose of the meta discussion thread.
If you want to argue for tron suppressing a greater variety of midrange that's one thing. But a lot of statements being thrown around seem to presuppose the idea that tron is just automatically something they need to print better hate for just because.
That was an original argument, not necessarily mine. I'm not going to carry the torch for @idSurge, but his suggestions for "answer it or lose" are hardly overpowered analogues. Again, Choke or Boil don't see play and Stony Silence can definitely be played through. Click back a couple pages --
several people responded that nothing else is needed because there is plenty of existing land hate which is a frankly baffling belief.
Let me rephrase -- there is no way to interact with the ETron or Scapeshift lands at anything close to parity or without gearing your entire deck to fight them. Other decks that exploit an unfamiliar axis of attack (Dredge, Affinity) have hate cards that can be sideboarded. Why? Because threats need answers, otherwise they inevitably lead to excessive power creep and then bannings. Re-read my first paragraph you're responding to. There are several reasons to encourage answers even before a strategy becomes "dominating"; it's called proactively managing the format.
Lantern is quite possibly the worst example you could bring up. It's quite possibly my least favorite deck to play against it but there is plenty of sideboard hate, basically everything that hits Affinity. There is absolutely no argument to be made that it needs more answers. You're missing my point here; my arguments here have nothing to do with whether I think any particular strategy is frustrating. The problem is that these land-based strategies in particular are already immune to the existing sideboard options. Ceremonious Rejection isn't any more an answer to ETron than Celestial Purge is to Dredge, Spreading Seas/Ensnaring Bridge require building an entire strategy around, etc.
Sadly, all this discussion won't do much at all. Unless someone here is on Magic R&D They will probably ban whatever problematic land arises before giving Modern better land hate through Standard. They could achieve that if priorities were different, but eh. I'll take whatever comes our way. After all, the format is doing fine.
Not a mod anymore, but we need to remember that the purpose of discussion is not necessarily to influence D&D/R&D. Wizards is no more/less likely to look at an MTGS custom card than they are to look at our ban/unban rationale. I push back here because the suggestion appears to be "there's no point in discussing this because Wizards won't act on it," but that should never be a reason for us to avoid any topic in this wide-reaching thread. If that's not your intent then disregard. If it is, we should avoid those kinds of unproductive suggestions.
Oh, I know discussion here is moot and theoretical rather than practical. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good discussion here regardless of how productive it actually is. I was just pointing out how it makes me sad it is the way it is, almost lamenting WotC could change their priorities but it won't happen, probably. Like I said, I've come around that so I'll take whatever we get as long as the format is doing fine, which it is.
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Modern:WU WU Control | WBG Abzan Company Frontier:UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
Except you can interact with Scapeshift...you can counter everything except the lands coming into play. Again, these complains are mostly midrange players who don't want bad matchups. The meta is not warped around Valakut ramp. Now players, like you, make comments that sound as if you just want a bad game one followed by a devastating hate card. Or, you could just play disruption plus a clock like I did back with Grixis Delver...which was not a massive dog to Scapeshift. Or you can play Burn, or Affinity, or Shadow Zoo.
You're barking up the wrong tree. I've played a variety of decks, some with great Scapeshift match-ups and others not. I don't want to see it banned or neutered. It really is as simple as believing that threats should at least have sideboard-able answers in a couple colors. That becomes even more important when a deck exploits an unfamiliar axis of attack (e.g. Dredge or Affinity).
Again, the original argument was requesting a, as defined by the user "answer it or lose" card. We were saying that unless the deck was dominating, it's silly to want something like that. Nobody that I've read is particularly saying there should never be hate, everyone was just pointing out that some reasonable answers do in fact exist. I don't think anyone in the thread is broken up about some new slightly better hate coming out.
I didn't see anyone actually arguing the point you seem to be making, which is any and all hate for big mana is bad. There are simply pointing out that this discussion needs to be based on some actual goal of making the meta healthier.
Why is tron uninteractable? Not only does it play creatures you can kill, there ARE ways to interact with it in the sideboard(ceremonious rejection, spreading seas, blood moon, ensnaring bridge). Again, we aren't arguing for an immunity to side-board hate. We're just saying the original idea that lands-based decks require affinity level hate doesn't really seem justified.
Honestly it doesn't seem like a straw-man. You find a specific strategy "frustrating" because you dont like the side-board cards enough. I could make that claim about literally any deck. I don't think there is a good enough side board card against lantern. I hate that deck. It simply isn't enough to declare something "frustrating", you have to explain why, in the context of the meta, we are making these changes. That is the purpose of the meta discussion thread.
If you want to argue for tron suppressing a greater variety of midrange that's one thing. But a lot of statements being thrown around seem to presuppose the idea that tron is just automatically something they need to print better hate for just because.
That was an original argument, not necessarily mine. I'm not going to carry the torch for @idSurge, but his suggestions for "answer it or lose" are hardly overpowered analogues. Again, Choke or Boil don't see play and Stony Silence can definitely be played through. Click back a couple pages --
several people responded that nothing else is needed because there is plenty of existing land hate which is a frankly baffling belief.
Let me rephrase -- there is no way to interact with the ETron or Scapeshift lands at anything close to parity or without gearing your entire deck to fight them. Other decks that exploit an unfamiliar axis of attack (Dredge, Affinity) have hate cards that can be sideboarded. Why? Because threats need answers, otherwise they inevitably lead to excessive power creep and then bannings. Re-read my first paragraph you're responding to. There are several reasons to encourage answers even before a strategy becomes "dominating"; it's called proactively managing the format.
Lantern is quite possibly the worst example you could bring up. It's quite possibly my least favorite deck to play against it but there is plenty of sideboard hate, basically everything that hits Affinity. There is absolutely no argument to be made that it needs more answers. You're missing my point here; my arguments here have nothing to do with whether I think any particular strategy is frustrating. The problem is that these land-based strategies in particular are already immune to the existing sideboard options. Ceremonious Rejection isn't any more an answer to ETron than Celestial Purge is to Dredge, Spreading Seas/Ensnaring Bridge require building an entire strategy around, etc.
How is Ceremonious Rejection not an answer to ETron? UW has a fine matchup due primarily to an improving game after turn 2.
- Ensnaring Bridge doesnt require you build an entire strategy around it. Affinity, Burn, and a bunch of control variants can play it if desired.
- Spreading seas does not require your entire strategy be built around it, it requires you play blue. UW does not have any synergy with seas and it mainboards the card.
- Blood moon fits into every red deck + affinity
- Tec Edge, Fulminator mage, Leyline, and more interact with land based decks
Saying there is "no way" to interact with lands is just not true. There is already hate for lands, you just dont think it's good enough. Why is it not good enough? Is there a metagame benefit for better hate? I'd probably agree there. However, let's not pretend the metagame is dominated by big mana. The last 10 or so big tournaments don't really bear that out. Why is it baffling that some prefer the status quo when the meta is relatively healthy?
The point I'm making with lantern is you need to make an argument towards improving the metagame if you talk about changing the environment. Your previous arguments did not address this at all. Yes there exists hate, but I can simply say "well I don't think its good enough, I find stony silence laughable, they just decay it and it barely changes their clock. " or "Lifegain is laughable against burn i say, they can just skullcrack you, we should make it so Oketra's Last Mercy can't be prevented. It lets more decks deal with burn in the SB!"
Unless I can make a compelling argument as to whether the meta gets better with the printing of [BetterLanternHateTheCard], saying this doesn't mean much.
If you want other examples, why isn't there direct hate for: infinite mana, all fast mana, storm cards, creatures with flash, hexproof things, token generators. I'm sure these things don't count as a "familiar axis" (however you define that).
Basically we need to establish how our theoretical hate card is helping the meta. For example:
- "I think there should be a blue card which counters all triggers on the stack, so that control can help naturally control big mana."
- "Green is too soft to eldrazi and it's hurting diversity, we should pring the 1G prismatic moon thing. It's worse than blood moon for most decks, but gives green decks an out"
Mindbreak Trap is a Modern legal card. It's much better then the proposed storm hoser and it gets even better with Snapcaster Mage.
As far as cast triggers go how many of them besides Storm acutally matter in this meta?
Well, valakut is a triggered ability, and Ulamog is also kind of a beast (Tron is less of a major issue these days but it does tend to rear its head with some regularity).
Ulamog is a thing, but I don't think he is enough to warrant a very narrow hate card.
I don't think Valakut is as big of an issue as people make it out to be. You can hate on it, you can race it and you should be able to contain it with a control deck. It's not perfect sure but little is in Modern.
Not sure I understand what you're saying here. Wall of cards does not an argument make...
Is it ETB effects, cast triggers LTB triggers, non-basic land hate, static abilities, which one is it? And what in blazes is Signal Pest doing there anyway???
In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
Except you can interact with Scapeshift...you can counter everything except the lands coming into play. Again, these complains are mostly midrange players who don't want bad matchups. The meta is not warped around Valakut ramp. Now players, like you, make comments that sound as if you just want a bad game one followed by a devastating hate card. Or, you could just play disruption plus a clock like I did back with Grixis Delver...which was not a massive dog to Scapeshift. Or you can play Burn, or Affinity, or Shadow Zoo.
You're barking up the wrong tree. I've played a variety of decks, some with great Scapeshift match-ups and others not. I don't want to see it banned or neutered. It really is as simple as believing that threats should at least have sideboard-able answers in a couple colors. That becomes even more important when a deck exploits an unfamiliar axis of attack (e.g. Dredge or Affinity).
Again, the original argument was requesting a, as defined by the user "answer it or lose" card. We were saying that unless the deck was dominating, it's silly to want something like that. Nobody that I've read is particularly saying there should never be hate, everyone was just pointing out that some reasonable answers do in fact exist. I don't think anyone in the thread is broken up about some new slightly better hate coming out.
I didn't see anyone actually arguing the point you seem to be making, which is any and all hate for big mana is bad. There are simply pointing out that this discussion needs to be based on some actual goal of making the meta healthier.
Why is tron uninteractable? Not only does it play creatures you can kill, there ARE ways to interact with it in the sideboard(ceremonious rejection, spreading seas, blood moon, ensnaring bridge). Again, we aren't arguing for an immunity to side-board hate. We're just saying the original idea that lands-based decks require affinity level hate doesn't really seem justified.
Honestly it doesn't seem like a straw-man. You find a specific strategy "frustrating" because you dont like the side-board cards enough. I could make that claim about literally any deck. I don't think there is a good enough side board card against lantern. I hate that deck. It simply isn't enough to declare something "frustrating", you have to explain why, in the context of the meta, we are making these changes. That is the purpose of the meta discussion thread.
If you want to argue for tron suppressing a greater variety of midrange that's one thing. But a lot of statements being thrown around seem to presuppose the idea that tron is just automatically something they need to print better hate for just because.
That was an original argument, not necessarily mine. I'm not going to carry the torch for @idSurge, but his suggestions for "answer it or lose" are hardly overpowered analogues. Again, Choke or Boil don't see play and Stony Silence can definitely be played through. Click back a couple pages --
several people responded that nothing else is needed because there is plenty of existing land hate which is a frankly baffling belief.
Let me rephrase -- there is no way to interact with the ETron or Scapeshift lands at anything close to parity or without gearing your entire deck to fight them. Other decks that exploit an unfamiliar axis of attack (Dredge, Affinity) have hate cards that can be sideboarded. Why? Because threats need answers, otherwise they inevitably lead to excessive power creep and then bannings. Re-read my first paragraph you're responding to. There are several reasons to encourage answers even before a strategy becomes "dominating"; it's called proactively managing the format.
Lantern is quite possibly the worst example you could bring up. It's quite possibly my least favorite deck to play against it but there is plenty of sideboard hate, basically everything that hits Affinity. There is absolutely no argument to be made that it needs more answers. You're missing my point here; my arguments here have nothing to do with whether I think any particular strategy is frustrating. The problem is that these land-based strategies in particular are already immune to the existing sideboard options. Ceremonious Rejection isn't any more an answer to ETron than Celestial Purge is to Dredge, Spreading Seas/Ensnaring Bridge require building an entire strategy around, etc.
How is Ceremonious Rejection not an answer to ETron? UW has a fine matchup due primarily to an improving game after turn 2.
- Ensnaring Bridge doesnt require you build an entire strategy around it. Affinity, Burn, and a bunch of control variants can play it if desired.
- Spreading seas does not require your entire strategy be built around it, it requires you play blue. UW does not have any synergy with seas and it mainboards the card.
- Blood moon fits into every red deck + affinity
- Tec Edge, Fulminator mage, Leyline, and more interact with land based decks
Saying there is "no way" to interact with lands is just not true. There is already hate for lands, you just dont think it's good enough. Why is it not good enough? Is there a metagame benefit for better hate? I'd probably agree there. However, let's not pretend the metagame is dominated by big mana. The last 10 or so big tournaments don't really bear that out. Why is it baffling that some prefer the status quo when the meta is relatively healthy?
The point I'm making with lantern is you need to make an argument towards improving the metagame if you talk about changing the environment. Your previous arguments did not address this at all. Yes there exists hate, but I can simply say "well I don't think its good enough, I find stony silence laughable, they just decay it and it barely changes their clock. " or "Lifegain is laughable against burn i say, they can just skullcrack you, we should make it so Oketra's Last Mercy can't be prevented. It lets more decks deal with burn in the SB!"
Unless I can make a compelling argument as to whether the meta gets better with the printing of [BetterLanternHateTheCard], saying this doesn't mean much.
If you want other examples, why isn't there direct hate for: infinite mana, all fast mana, storm cards, creatures with flash, hexproof things, token generators. I'm sure these things don't count as a "familiar axis" (however you define that).
Basically we need to establish how our theoretical hate card is helping the meta. For example:
- "I think there should be a blue card which counters all triggers on the stack, so that control can help naturally control big mana."
- "Green is too soft to eldrazi and it's hurting diversity, we should pring the 1G prismatic moon thing. It's worse than blood moon for most decks, but gives green decks an out"
Apologies if this comes across as patronizing, but you don't seem very familiar with the recent versions of UW Control. No Ceremonious Rejection in the 75 plus they play some combination of 4 Ghost Quarter/Tectonic Edge mainboard in addition to Spreading Seas which makes mana denial a viable strategy.
At the risk of becoming a broken record, I think you need to re-read my actual points. I've never said there is no way to interact with land, just that the options are essentially unplayable short of making a significant commitment to mana denial (like UW Control or RG Ponza). In other words, there are basically no sideboard-able cards that are effective against lands such as Valakut, Tron, or Temple. Tectonic Edge/Spreading Seas are too slow on their own, Ghost Quarter is a significant tempo loss, and Fulminator Mage is both. Ensnaring Bridge obviously isn't land hate and it's only playable in the sideboard for Burn. Blood Moon fits in a couple more decks (Affinity, Storm) but I'm willing to say that's one sideboard-able card that one color has access to.
You're getting lost in the weeds with the rest of your argument because the explanation is remarkably simple -- threats need reasonable answers, for both competitive and balance reasons. There's no need to dig very deep to find recent examples where the absence of answers has caused issues for Modern or Standard. If you want a more pragmatic line of thought then check the share of the metagame that ETron and Scapeshift currently hold; it's significant, albeit not oppressive. Wouldn't some of the other decks play answers in their sideboard if there were actually playable options? It doesn't take a million Monte Carlo simulations on the impact to justify the basic logic.
I know what would help deal with big mana decks and greedy mana bases. It's the card Ruination, but it's not modern legal. I don't think it's too strong, but I doubt wizards would print this card again. Although it's slow against a turn three tron.
With the new Treasure tokens in Ixalan, am I being overly optimistic that we will see powerful undercosted effects with the downside that your opponent will gain one of these tokens in compensation?
For instance, we can construct a new version of Wasteland using this criteria:
Pillagers Outpost
Land T: Add 1 to your mana pool T, sacrifice Pillagers Outpost: Destroy target nonbasic land. That's land's controller gets a Treasure Token
"Sorry I destroyed your city. Here's some gold."
It is neither strictly better nor strictly worse than Ghost Quarter, and therefore is better against some decks (Valakut, who benefits more from grabbing a basic land) while being arguably worse against others (affinity, who benefits more from having an extra artefact).
Except you can interact with Scapeshift...you can counter everything except the lands coming into play. Again, these complains are mostly midrange players who don't want bad matchups. The meta is not warped around Valakut ramp. Now players, like you, make comments that sound as if you just want a bad game one followed by a devastating hate card. Or, you could just play disruption plus a clock like I did back with Grixis Delver...which was not a massive dog to Scapeshift. Or you can play Burn, or Affinity, or Shadow Zoo.
You're barking up the wrong tree. I've played a variety of decks, some with great Scapeshift match-ups and others not. I don't want to see it banned or neutered. It really is as simple as believing that threats should at least have sideboard-able answers in a couple colors. That becomes even more important when a deck exploits an unfamiliar axis of attack (e.g. Dredge or Affinity).
Again, the original argument was requesting a, as defined by the user "answer it or lose" card. We were saying that unless the deck was dominating, it's silly to want something like that. Nobody that I've read is particularly saying there should never be hate, everyone was just pointing out that some reasonable answers do in fact exist. I don't think anyone in the thread is broken up about some new slightly better hate coming out.
I didn't see anyone actually arguing the point you seem to be making, which is any and all hate for big mana is bad. There are simply pointing out that this discussion needs to be based on some actual goal of making the meta healthier.
Why is tron uninteractable? Not only does it play creatures you can kill, there ARE ways to interact with it in the sideboard(ceremonious rejection, spreading seas, blood moon, ensnaring bridge). Again, we aren't arguing for an immunity to side-board hate. We're just saying the original idea that lands-based decks require affinity level hate doesn't really seem justified.
Honestly it doesn't seem like a straw-man. You find a specific strategy "frustrating" because you dont like the side-board cards enough. I could make that claim about literally any deck. I don't think there is a good enough side board card against lantern. I hate that deck. It simply isn't enough to declare something "frustrating", you have to explain why, in the context of the meta, we are making these changes. That is the purpose of the meta discussion thread.
If you want to argue for tron suppressing a greater variety of midrange that's one thing. But a lot of statements being thrown around seem to presuppose the idea that tron is just automatically something they need to print better hate for just because.
That was an original argument, not necessarily mine. I'm not going to carry the torch for @idSurge, but his suggestions for "answer it or lose" are hardly overpowered analogues. Again, Choke or Boil don't see play and Stony Silence can definitely be played through. Click back a couple pages --
several people responded that nothing else is needed because there is plenty of existing land hate which is a frankly baffling belief.
Let me rephrase -- there is no way to interact with the ETron or Scapeshift lands at anything close to parity or without gearing your entire deck to fight them. Other decks that exploit an unfamiliar axis of attack (Dredge, Affinity) have hate cards that can be sideboarded. Why? Because threats need answers, otherwise they inevitably lead to excessive power creep and then bannings. Re-read my first paragraph you're responding to. There are several reasons to encourage answers even before a strategy becomes "dominating"; it's called proactively managing the format.
Lantern is quite possibly the worst example you could bring up. It's quite possibly my least favorite deck to play against it but there is plenty of sideboard hate, basically everything that hits Affinity. There is absolutely no argument to be made that it needs more answers. You're missing my point here; my arguments here have nothing to do with whether I think any particular strategy is frustrating. The problem is that these land-based strategies in particular are already immune to the existing sideboard options. Ceremonious Rejection isn't any more an answer to ETron than Celestial Purge is to Dredge, Spreading Seas/Ensnaring Bridge require building an entire strategy around, etc.
How is Ceremonious Rejection not an answer to ETron? UW has a fine matchup due primarily to an improving game after turn 2.
- Ensnaring Bridge doesnt require you build an entire strategy around it. Affinity, Burn, and a bunch of control variants can play it if desired.
- Spreading seas does not require your entire strategy be built around it, it requires you play blue. UW does not have any synergy with seas and it mainboards the card.
- Blood moon fits into every red deck + affinity
- Tec Edge, Fulminator mage, Leyline, and more interact with land based decks
Saying there is "no way" to interact with lands is just not true. There is already hate for lands, you just dont think it's good enough. Why is it not good enough? Is there a metagame benefit for better hate? I'd probably agree there. However, let's not pretend the metagame is dominated by big mana. The last 10 or so big tournaments don't really bear that out. Why is it baffling that some prefer the status quo when the meta is relatively healthy?
The point I'm making with lantern is you need to make an argument towards improving the metagame if you talk about changing the environment. Your previous arguments did not address this at all. Yes there exists hate, but I can simply say "well I don't think its good enough, I find stony silence laughable, they just decay it and it barely changes their clock. " or "Lifegain is laughable against burn i say, they can just skullcrack you, we should make it so Oketra's Last Mercy can't be prevented. It lets more decks deal with burn in the SB!"
Unless I can make a compelling argument as to whether the meta gets better with the printing of [BetterLanternHateTheCard], saying this doesn't mean much.
If you want other examples, why isn't there direct hate for: infinite mana, all fast mana, storm cards, creatures with flash, hexproof things, token generators. I'm sure these things don't count as a "familiar axis" (however you define that).
Basically we need to establish how our theoretical hate card is helping the meta. For example:
- "I think there should be a blue card which counters all triggers on the stack, so that control can help naturally control big mana."
- "Green is too soft to eldrazi and it's hurting diversity, we should pring the 1G prismatic moon thing. It's worse than blood moon for most decks, but gives green decks an out"
Apologies if this comes across as patronizing, but you don't seem very familiar with the recent versions of UW Control. No Ceremonious Rejection in the 75 plus they play some combination of 4 Ghost Quarter/Tectonic Edge mainboard in addition to Spreading Seas which makes mana denial a viable strategy.
At the risk of becoming a broken record, I think you need to re-read my actual points. I've never said there is no way to interact with land, just that the options are essentially unplayable short of making a significant commitment to mana denial (like UW Control or RG Ponza). In other words, there are basically no sideboard-able cards that are effective against lands such as Valakut, Tron, or Temple. Tectonic Edge/Spreading Seas are too slow on their own, Ghost Quarter is a significant tempo loss, and Fulminator Mage is both. Ensnaring Bridge obviously isn't land hate and it's only playable in the sideboard for Burn. Blood Moon fits in a couple more decks (Affinity, Storm) but I'm willing to say that's one sideboard-able card that one color has access to.
You're getting lost in the weeds with the rest of your argument because the explanation is remarkably simple -- threats need reasonable answers, for both competitive and balance reasons. There's no need to dig very deep to find recent examples where the absence of answers has caused issues for Modern or Standard. If you want a more pragmatic line of thought then check the share of the metagame that ETron and Scapeshift currently hold; it's significant, albeit not oppressive. Wouldn't some of the other decks play answers in their sideboard if there were actually playable options? It doesn't take a million Monte Carlo simulations on the impact to justify the basic logic.
To happily sound like an broken record, the hate exists, people on this thread just refuse to acknowledge it. Every color except white has decent or great land hate cards that are perfectly sideboardable and often maindecked. And white can still use tec edge and ghost quarter. Hell, combine those and your fetches with a couple of crucible of worlds and you not only have a great value engine mid and late game when you want to ensure land drops, big mana will roll over if you have the interaction to force a late game and are blowing up 1 or more lands a turn while still drawing and playing counterspells and other interaction.
Everything else aside, the argument of blood moon only being playable in a few decks and being restrictive because of red is bull*****. With fetchlands and a slightly higher number of basics than normal plus 1-2 Rx shocks, basically any deck could splash blood moon if it felt like it. Hell, when GitProbe was a thing and Temur Delver existed it frequently ran 3 in the side basically just because it was 'unexpected' for a 3 color deck. And it stole a lot of games because of it. I've even seen traditional Jund sideboard it and crush with it. I bet with enough care and correct building, you could build a more midrangey Scapeshift deck with blood moon in the main. Jund colors, SFT, STE, Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, Abrupt Decay, a high land count, maybe even Goyfs (like the old extended goyfshift decks). Then Decay your blood moon and cast scapeshift if you don't just kill them with goyfs and bolts.
Honestly, I'm really excited for the uncommon land that is cavern of souls minus uncounterable. Cavern is exceptionally expensive and I'm still not convinced that the uncounterable is very important for the decks I want it for. So I'll be picking up as many as I can get my hands on.
Let's try not to discuss custom cards in this thread. There are plenty of other places to discuss them, but State of the Meta is not one of them. -- CavalryWolfPack
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Honestly, I'm really excited for the uncommon land that is cavern of souls minus uncounterable. Cavern is exceptionally expensive and I'm still not convinced that the uncounterable is very important for the decks I want it for. So I'll be picking up as many as I can get my hands on.
The land will definitely be good in the Ally/Sliver decks. Other than that, I can't see any justification for why it would be run instead of Cavern, even for budget reasons.
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Honestly, I'm really excited for the uncommon land that is cavern of souls minus uncounterable. Cavern is exceptionally expensive and I'm still not convinced that the uncounterable is very important for the decks I want it for. So I'll be picking up as many as I can get my hands on.
The land will definitely be good in the Ally/Sliver decks. Other than that, I can't see any justification for why it would be run instead of Cavern, even for budget reasons.
I will most likely be trying it in those two decks as well as some number in Abzan elves as in a pinch you can name spirit or bird or whatever to play sideboard cards. Also, I could see it in humans and potentially Merfolk if they are in Green in Ixalan and people want more UG untapped painless sources. Plus, for any deck that uses Cavern largely for colors to cast their creatures, this really is a budget option. Almost the definition of a budget option, it does some of the same stuff but not all of it and is cheaper by a lot. A worse placeholder while you save up and buy the expensive one. I will definitely be suggesting it as a budget option to anyone trying to get into Elves who can't swing a playset of Gilt Leafs. This plus 4 blossoming marsh and you are pretty close to half your lands casting Shaman of the Pack.
Warping Wail...there, a two mana full counter to Scapeshift with no color requirement. Hell Shadow of Doubt costs just double u/b and effectively counters scapeshift AND titan and ANY RAMP SPELL BESIDES EXPLORE.
If you don't want an "I win" button, then your sideboard card should be something that makes the deck stumble. If you're still trying to win with a pair of Lingering Souls tokens, or swings from a Dark Confidant, then making an opponent stumble won't really matter. That's the problem - yeah you could play Blood Moon on turn 2 or 3 and slow Tron or Valakut down but if you aren't playing the most efficient threats you are hurting yourself. Blood Moon into Tasigur is good, or Goyf into Fulminator, Delver into Mana Leak into Blood Moon, or just running friggin' burn...
Let's try not to discuss custom cards in this thread. There are plenty of other places to discuss them, but State of the Meta is not one of them. -- CavalryWolfPack
This represents a change from the broad State of Modern parameters when we first envisioned the thread. It is also allowed under the current rules in the first post. Why change it? This topic frequently dovetails with banlist discusssion, design philosophy, and Modern issues, which is why we allowed it here in the first place.
Warping Wail...there, a two mana full counter to Scapeshift with no color requirement. Hell Shadow of Doubt costs just double u/b and effectively counters scapeshift AND titan and ANY RAMP SPELL BESIDES EXPLORE.
If you don't want an "I win" button, then your sideboard card should be something that makes the deck stumble. If you're still trying to win with a pair of Lingering Souls tokens, or swings from a Dark Confidant, then making an opponent stumble won't really matter. That's the problem - yeah you could play Blood Moon on turn 2 or 3 and slow Tron or Valakut down but if you aren't playing the most efficient threats you are hurting yourself. Blood Moon into Tasigur is good, or Goyf into Fulminator, Delver into Mana Leak into Blood Moon, or just running friggin' burn...
Sigh, BlueTron, I've been reading a lot of your posts and just kinda ignored it...
But you have such a large unwillingness to admit that lands are a problem, and the horrible speed bumps we have for them in this format.
I'm playing GBx and Eldrazi Tron, and I absolutely do not believe the land destruction is good enough against decks like this or Scapeshift. Fulminator Mages, and even GQs+Surgical hasn't been consistently good enough to stop the deck.
And then you bringing up an awful counterpoint, "WARPING WAIL!" is an incredibly willfully ignorant and bias response. Warping Wail is going to look real stupid as they decide to just play Titan itself, or a summoners pact and play Titan to win.
Shadow of Doubt? Seriously? There's a reason it isn't played, it sucks.
Saying, "PLAY UR STORM, GUYS" is an awful thing. I can't have a sideboard card that's more than a speed bump? I don't believe there should be any, "I win" cards from the SB, as that's what made the summer of dredge and infect an awful format for modern---but we should have some serious roadblocks.
I think nearly every archetype has powerful hate in modern except land based destruction/non-basic land.
Cermonius Rejection was certainly a right step for WOTC to take, it's efficient and powerful, but not broken good. It actually made blue decks v Tron not 20/80 matchups.
We need something along those lines for non-basic lands; your bias is off the charts in this thread in regard to this. There is no true good answers from the board for E-Tron or Titanshift, just archetypes itself. Blood Moon decks aren't very viable because bolt itself is lacking with Delvers and Smashers all over the place.
You understand the format, you just seem to have a massive bias in all of your opinions relating to big mana/land ramp.
I don't even play the decks, so if you want to claim bias have more evidence than "you're biased because you disagree with us." I'm just sick of the whining, since we have a great format right now. People want to start introducing lands that blow up other lands, trying to theorycraft the next Wasteland.
So you had better damn well clarify the difference between a "stumble" sb card, a "serious roadblock" sb card, and a "game over" sb card, because all I'm seeing are the latter. People want unstoppable, massive nonbasic hate against decks that are not dominating the meta because they don't like losing to Tron and Valakut. That's it. I lose to decks all the time. I play storm and I am a serious dog to Grixis Shadow. I don't call for the deck to be hosed as a result. I acknowledge that my deck choice has weaknesses, and I accept it or I look for another deck.
That's the problem here that I see. People want the meta to warp around their pet deck being the best. I'm actually the less biased individual because I don't have a horse in this race.
We have GQ, Tec Edge, Blood Moon, Fulminator, Leyline of Sanctity for Valakut Triggers, Stony Silence for Tron eggs, Leonin Arbiter, Shadow of Doubt, Warping Wail, Ceremonious Rejection, and the reality of being in a rock/paper/scissors meta where no deck enters the field 50/50 or better. Your complains are childish.
Except you can interact with Scapeshift...you can counter everything except the lands coming into play. Again, these complains are mostly midrange players who don't want bad matchups. The meta is not warped around Valakut ramp. Now players, like you, make comments that sound as if you just want a bad game one followed by a devastating hate card. Or, you could just play disruption plus a clock like I did back with Grixis Delver...which was not a massive dog to Scapeshift. Or you can play Burn, or Affinity, or Shadow Zoo.
You're barking up the wrong tree. I've played a variety of decks, some with great Scapeshift match-ups and others not. I don't want to see it banned or neutered. It really is as simple as believing that threats should at least have sideboard-able answers in a couple colors. That becomes even more important when a deck exploits an unfamiliar axis of attack (e.g. Dredge or Affinity).
Again, the original argument was requesting a, as defined by the user "answer it or lose" card. We were saying that unless the deck was dominating, it's silly to want something like that. Nobody that I've read is particularly saying there should never be hate, everyone was just pointing out that some reasonable answers do in fact exist. I don't think anyone in the thread is broken up about some new slightly better hate coming out.
I didn't see anyone actually arguing the point you seem to be making, which is any and all hate for big mana is bad. There are simply pointing out that this discussion needs to be based on some actual goal of making the meta healthier.
Why is tron uninteractable? Not only does it play creatures you can kill, there ARE ways to interact with it in the sideboard(ceremonious rejection, spreading seas, blood moon, ensnaring bridge). Again, we aren't arguing for an immunity to side-board hate. We're just saying the original idea that lands-based decks require affinity level hate doesn't really seem justified.
Honestly it doesn't seem like a straw-man. You find a specific strategy "frustrating" because you dont like the side-board cards enough. I could make that claim about literally any deck. I don't think there is a good enough side board card against lantern. I hate that deck. It simply isn't enough to declare something "frustrating", you have to explain why, in the context of the meta, we are making these changes. That is the purpose of the meta discussion thread.
If you want to argue for tron suppressing a greater variety of midrange that's one thing. But a lot of statements being thrown around seem to presuppose the idea that tron is just automatically something they need to print better hate for just because.
That was an original argument, not necessarily mine. I'm not going to carry the torch for @idSurge, but his suggestions for "answer it or lose" are hardly overpowered analogues. Again, Choke or Boil don't see play and Stony Silence can definitely be played through. Click back a couple pages --
several people responded that nothing else is needed because there is plenty of existing land hate which is a frankly baffling belief.
Let me rephrase -- there is no way to interact with the ETron or Scapeshift lands at anything close to parity or without gearing your entire deck to fight them. Other decks that exploit an unfamiliar axis of attack (Dredge, Affinity) have hate cards that can be sideboarded. Why? Because threats need answers, otherwise they inevitably lead to excessive power creep and then bannings. Re-read my first paragraph you're responding to. There are several reasons to encourage answers even before a strategy becomes "dominating"; it's called proactively managing the format.
Lantern is quite possibly the worst example you could bring up. It's quite possibly my least favorite deck to play against it but there is plenty of sideboard hate, basically everything that hits Affinity. There is absolutely no argument to be made that it needs more answers. You're missing my point here; my arguments here have nothing to do with whether I think any particular strategy is frustrating. The problem is that these land-based strategies in particular are already immune to the existing sideboard options. Ceremonious Rejection isn't any more an answer to ETron than Celestial Purge is to Dredge, Spreading Seas/Ensnaring Bridge require building an entire strategy around, etc.
How is Ceremonious Rejection not an answer to ETron? UW has a fine matchup due primarily to an improving game after turn 2.
- Ensnaring Bridge doesnt require you build an entire strategy around it. Affinity, Burn, and a bunch of control variants can play it if desired.
- Spreading seas does not require your entire strategy be built around it, it requires you play blue. UW does not have any synergy with seas and it mainboards the card.
- Blood moon fits into every red deck + affinity
- Tec Edge, Fulminator mage, Leyline, and more interact with land based decks
Saying there is "no way" to interact with lands is just not true. There is already hate for lands, you just dont think it's good enough. Why is it not good enough? Is there a metagame benefit for better hate? I'd probably agree there. However, let's not pretend the metagame is dominated by big mana. The last 10 or so big tournaments don't really bear that out. Why is it baffling that some prefer the status quo when the meta is relatively healthy?
The point I'm making with lantern is you need to make an argument towards improving the metagame if you talk about changing the environment. Your previous arguments did not address this at all. Yes there exists hate, but I can simply say "well I don't think its good enough, I find stony silence laughable, they just decay it and it barely changes their clock. " or "Lifegain is laughable against burn i say, they can just skullcrack you, we should make it so Oketra's Last Mercy can't be prevented. It lets more decks deal with burn in the SB!"
Unless I can make a compelling argument as to whether the meta gets better with the printing of [BetterLanternHateTheCard], saying this doesn't mean much.
If you want other examples, why isn't there direct hate for: infinite mana, all fast mana, storm cards, creatures with flash, hexproof things, token generators. I'm sure these things don't count as a "familiar axis" (however you define that).
Basically we need to establish how our theoretical hate card is helping the meta. For example:
- "I think there should be a blue card which counters all triggers on the stack, so that control can help naturally control big mana."
- "Green is too soft to eldrazi and it's hurting diversity, we should pring the 1G prismatic moon thing. It's worse than blood moon for most decks, but gives green decks an out"
Apologies if this comes across as patronizing, but you don't seem very familiar with the recent versions of UW Control. No Ceremonious Rejection in the 75 plus they play some combination of 4 Ghost Quarter/Tectonic Edge mainboard in addition to Spreading Seas which makes mana denial a viable strategy.
At the risk of becoming a broken record, I think you need to re-read my actual points. I've never said there is no way to interact with land, just that the options are essentially unplayable short of making a significant commitment to mana denial (like UW Control or RG Ponza). In other words, there are basically no sideboard-able cards that are effective against lands such as Valakut, Tron, or Temple. Tectonic Edge/Spreading Seas are too slow on their own, Ghost Quarter is a significant tempo loss, and Fulminator Mage is both. Ensnaring Bridge obviously isn't land hate and it's only playable in the sideboard for Burn. Blood Moon fits in a couple more decks (Affinity, Storm) but I'm willing to say that's one sideboard-able card that one color has access to.
You're getting lost in the weeds with the rest of your argument because the explanation is remarkably simple -- threats need reasonable answers, for both competitive and balance reasons. There's no need to dig very deep to find recent examples where the absence of answers has caused issues for Modern or Standard. If you want a more pragmatic line of thought then check the share of the metagame that ETron and Scapeshift currently hold; it's significant, albeit not oppressive. Wouldn't some of the other decks play answers in their sideboard if there were actually playable options? It doesn't take a million Monte Carlo simulations on the impact to justify the basic logic.
To happily sound like an broken record, the hate exists, people on this thread just refuse to acknowledge it. Every color except white has decent or great land hate cards that are perfectly sideboardable and often maindecked. And white can still use tec edge and ghost quarter. Hell, combine those and your fetches with a couple of crucible of worlds and you not only have a great value engine mid and late game when you want to ensure land drops, big mana will roll over if you have the interaction to force a late game and are blowing up 1 or more lands a turn while still drawing and playing counterspells and other interaction.
Everything else aside, the argument of blood moon only being playable in a few decks and being restrictive because of red is bull*****. With fetchlands and a slightly higher number of basics than normal plus 1-2 Rx shocks, basically any deck could splash blood moon if it felt like it. Hell, when GitProbe was a thing and Temur Delver existed it frequently ran 3 in the side basically just because it was 'unexpected' for a 3 color deck. And it stole a lot of games because of it. I've even seen traditional Jund sideboard it and crush with it. I bet with enough care and correct building, you could build a more midrangey Scapeshift deck with blood moon in the main. Jund colors, SFT, STE, Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, Abrupt Decay, a high land count, maybe even Goyfs (like the old extended goyfshift decks). Then Decay your blood moon and cast scapeshift if you don't just kill them with goyfs and bolts.
Meh, this is getting tiresome when far too many people enjoy beating up on strawmen rather than reading actual comments. Since anything else is wasted, here's the crux:
Land hate exists but it's unplayable/ineffective outside of Blood Moon and decks with a dedicated mainboard mana denial plan (D&T, UW Control, RG Ponza, etc.) because it's either too slow, too negative tempo, or both. Decks that are able to make use of existing hate are only effective versus Scapeshift and ETron because they run 8+ pieces. Nothing is sideboard-able against Scapeshift and ETron outside of a couple decks (Affinity, Storm).
This is important, not because ETron or Scapeshift are overly dominant, but because threats should have answers. That ensures minimal bannings and provides a proactive safety valve should those decks become more oppressive over time or with the printing of a new card. Proactive management of the format is healthier than reactive.
I think nearly every archetype has powerful hate in modern except land based destruction/non-basic land.
I'll reiterate the point I made before.
Stony Silence stop artifacts from working, but you can still cast them. You can still play Magic. Rest in Peace exiles graveyard, but you can still just cast those cards instead. You can still play Magic. Stone Rain destroys your land and mana. You cannot play Magic.
I agree with you that cards like Ceremonious Rejection are a step in the right direction. However Rejection isn't a land deck hoser. It is a colourless deck hoser. That you think Rejection is a step in the right direction shows that it probably isn't land-hate you want in Modern. Instead it is a way to deal with the expensive cards that these decks essentially get to cheat into play. So something like Gaddock Teeg would be amazing for you, provided it gets extended to also deal with creatures costing 4 or greater as well. Now obviously something like what I just suggested would 'stop someone from playing Magic'. But it's an easy scenario to get around. They play Teeg+, you need to draw into your Dismember or Fatal Push to kill it. Once it's dead, you're able to cast all those things you couldn't before, and your land base hasn't been blown to smithereens. You get to still play Magic as dealing with the hate card.
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Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
No, I meant that Rejection was a right step in fighting all the things in modern that breaks the color-pie chart
Eldrazi Tron, Bant Eldrazi, Tron, Blue Tron, Affinity, Lantern, SOTM decks, etc.
That's a lot of major decks right there.
Stony Silence is one of the "I win buttons" for the most part, but if that card didn't exist, I honestly think Affinity would need to be banned in modern.
On a funny note, the second I stopped playing Affinity, was when someone at my old LGS played a turn 2 Stony Silence, followed by a turn 3 Kataki. It was the hugest blowout I have ever received in modern, and I never wanted to play a deck that could be hated out that hard ever again. He pretty much single-handedly destroyed Affinity for me. I wasn't noticing an improvement in my play with the deck though, so that was a huge factor. Sorry to digress, I was just reminded of that moment talking about "I win cards".
Is anyone else excited about the Ixalan spoilers? I loved Lorywn and Morningtide (and also Onslaught, Legions, Scourge and Odyssey sets too) for their Tribal matters theme. I'm looking forward to seeing more of it. Is there anything that stands out as Modern playable?
Going off what was spoilt during the rare sheet leak a few months back - I think Shaper's Sanctuary has potential. It lets you draw cards when your creature gets targeted, so your zoo deck for example doesn't run out of steam as quickly
You're barking up the wrong tree. I've played a variety of decks, some with great Scapeshift match-ups and others not. I don't want to see it banned or neutered. It really is as simple as believing that threats should at least have sideboard-able answers in a couple colors. That becomes even more important when a deck exploits an unfamiliar axis of attack (e.g. Dredge or Affinity).
That was an original argument, not necessarily mine. I'm not going to carry the torch for @idSurge, but his suggestions for "answer it or lose" are hardly overpowered analogues. Again, Choke or Boil don't see play and Stony Silence can definitely be played through. Click back a couple pages --
several people responded that nothing else is needed because there is plenty of existing land hate which is a frankly baffling belief.
Let me rephrase -- there is no way to interact with the ETron or Scapeshift lands at anything close to parity or without gearing your entire deck to fight them. Other decks that exploit an unfamiliar axis of attack (Dredge, Affinity) have hate cards that can be sideboarded. Why? Because threats need answers, otherwise they inevitably lead to excessive power creep and then bannings. Re-read my first paragraph you're responding to. There are several reasons to encourage answers even before a strategy becomes "dominating"; it's called proactively managing the format.
Lantern is quite possibly the worst example you could bring up. It's quite possibly my least favorite deck to play against it but there is plenty of sideboard hate, basically everything that hits Affinity. There is absolutely no argument to be made that it needs more answers. You're missing my point here; my arguments here have nothing to do with whether I think any particular strategy is frustrating. The problem is that these land-based strategies in particular are already immune to the existing sideboard options. Ceremonious Rejection isn't any more an answer to ETron than Celestial Purge is to Dredge, Spreading Seas/Ensnaring Bridge require building an entire strategy around, etc.
How is Ceremonious Rejection not an answer to ETron? UW has a fine matchup due primarily to an improving game after turn 2.
- Ensnaring Bridge doesnt require you build an entire strategy around it. Affinity, Burn, and a bunch of control variants can play it if desired.
- Spreading seas does not require your entire strategy be built around it, it requires you play blue. UW does not have any synergy with seas and it mainboards the card.
- Blood moon fits into every red deck + affinity
- Tec Edge, Fulminator mage, Leyline, and more interact with land based decks
Saying there is "no way" to interact with lands is just not true. There is already hate for lands, you just dont think it's good enough. Why is it not good enough? Is there a metagame benefit for better hate? I'd probably agree there. However, let's not pretend the metagame is dominated by big mana. The last 10 or so big tournaments don't really bear that out. Why is it baffling that some prefer the status quo when the meta is relatively healthy?
The point I'm making with lantern is you need to make an argument towards improving the metagame if you talk about changing the environment. Your previous arguments did not address this at all. Yes there exists hate, but I can simply say "well I don't think its good enough, I find stony silence laughable, they just decay it and it barely changes their clock. " or "Lifegain is laughable against burn i say, they can just skullcrack you, we should make it so Oketra's Last Mercy can't be prevented. It lets more decks deal with burn in the SB!"
Unless I can make a compelling argument as to whether the meta gets better with the printing of [BetterLanternHateTheCard], saying this doesn't mean much.
If you want other examples, why isn't there direct hate for: infinite mana, all fast mana, storm cards, creatures with flash, hexproof things, token generators. I'm sure these things don't count as a "familiar axis" (however you define that).
Basically we need to establish how our theoretical hate card is helping the meta. For example:
- "I think there should be a blue card which counters all triggers on the stack, so that control can help naturally control big mana."
- "Green is too soft to eldrazi and it's hurting diversity, we should pring the 1G prismatic moon thing. It's worse than blood moon for most decks, but gives green decks an out"
Apologies if this comes across as patronizing, but you don't seem very familiar with the recent versions of UW Control. No Ceremonious Rejection in the 75 plus they play some combination of 4 Ghost Quarter/Tectonic Edge mainboard in addition to Spreading Seas which makes mana denial a viable strategy.
At the risk of becoming a broken record, I think you need to re-read my actual points. I've never said there is no way to interact with land, just that the options are essentially unplayable short of making a significant commitment to mana denial (like UW Control or RG Ponza). In other words, there are basically no sideboard-able cards that are effective against lands such as Valakut, Tron, or Temple. Tectonic Edge/Spreading Seas are too slow on their own, Ghost Quarter is a significant tempo loss, and Fulminator Mage is both. Ensnaring Bridge obviously isn't land hate and it's only playable in the sideboard for Burn. Blood Moon fits in a couple more decks (Affinity, Storm) but I'm willing to say that's one sideboard-able card that one color has access to.
You're getting lost in the weeds with the rest of your argument because the explanation is remarkably simple -- threats need reasonable answers, for both competitive and balance reasons. There's no need to dig very deep to find recent examples where the absence of answers has caused issues for Modern or Standard. If you want a more pragmatic line of thought then check the share of the metagame that ETron and Scapeshift currently hold; it's significant, albeit not oppressive. Wouldn't some of the other decks play answers in their sideboard if there were actually playable options? It doesn't take a million Monte Carlo simulations on the impact to justify the basic logic.
To happily sound like an broken record, the hate exists, people on this thread just refuse to acknowledge it. Every color except white has decent or great land hate cards that are perfectly sideboardable and often maindecked. And white can still use tec edge and ghost quarter. Hell, combine those and your fetches with a couple of crucible of worlds and you not only have a great value engine mid and late game when you want to ensure land drops, big mana will roll over if you have the interaction to force a late game and are blowing up 1 or more lands a turn while still drawing and playing counterspells and other interaction.
Everything else aside, the argument of blood moon only being playable in a few decks and being restrictive because of red is bull*****. With fetchlands and a slightly higher number of basics than normal plus 1-2 Rx shocks, basically any deck could splash blood moon if it felt like it. Hell, when GitProbe was a thing and Temur Delver existed it frequently ran 3 in the side basically just because it was 'unexpected' for a 3 color deck. And it stole a lot of games because of it. I've even seen traditional Jund sideboard it and crush with it. I bet with enough care and correct building, you could build a more midrangey Scapeshift deck with blood moon in the main. Jund colors, SFT, STE, Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, Abrupt Decay, a high land count, maybe even Goyfs (like the old extended goyfshift decks). Then Decay your blood moon and cast scapeshift if you don't just kill them with goyfs and bolts.
Meh, this is getting tiresome when far too many people enjoy beating up on strawmen rather than reading actual comments. Since anything else is wasted, here's the crux:
Land hate exists but it's unplayable/ineffective outside of Blood Moon and decks with a dedicated mainboard mana denial plan (D&T, UW Control, RG Ponza, etc.) because it's either too slow, too negative tempo, or both. Decks that are able to make use of existing hate are only effective versus Scapeshift and ETron because they run 8+ pieces. Nothing is sideboard-able against Scapeshift and ETron outside of a couple decks (Affinity, Storm).
This is important, not because ETron or Scapeshift are overly dominant, but because threats should have answers. That ensures minimal bannings and provides a proactive safety valve should those decks become more oppressive over time or with the printing of a new card. Proactive management of the format is healthier than reactive.
That is purely your opinion. That's not 'the crux'. It might be the crux of your argument, but it's entirely your opinion and it's one I disagree with wholeheartedly. Not only does hate exist, I personally think it's not bad. It causes enough stumble that you can beat these decks if you have any kind of clock. Additionally, if you are going to disparage someone who carefully reads comments before responding by just out of the blue saying I'm 'beating up on strawmen', at least give a reason why you think that.
Also, I really like skitzafreaks suggested Teeg+. Especially if it had a low color requirement so it could be splashable. As a one mana 2/1 like dryad militant it could stop the nut draw from ETron, and even as a head it stops natural tron from being effective on 3. Played in the right timing against scapeshift it even stops Shift, Prime Time, and Hour of Promise.
Except you can interact with Scapeshift...you can counter everything except the lands coming into play. Again, these complains are mostly midrange players who don't want bad matchups. The meta is not warped around Valakut ramp. Now players, like you, make comments that sound as if you just want a bad game one followed by a devastating hate card. Or, you could just play disruption plus a clock like I did back with Grixis Delver...which was not a massive dog to Scapeshift. Or you can play Burn, or Affinity, or Shadow Zoo.
Again, the original argument was requesting a, as defined by the user "answer it or lose" card. We were saying that unless the deck was dominating, it's silly to want something like that. Nobody that I've read is particularly saying there should never be hate, everyone was just pointing out that some reasonable answers do in fact exist. I don't think anyone in the thread is broken up about some new slightly better hate coming out.
I didn't see anyone actually arguing the point you seem to be making, which is any and all hate for big mana is bad. There are simply pointing out that this discussion needs to be based on some actual goal of making the meta healthier.
Why is tron uninteractable? Not only does it play creatures you can kill, there ARE ways to interact with it in the sideboard(ceremonious rejection, spreading seas, blood moon, ensnaring bridge). Again, we aren't arguing for an immunity to side-board hate. We're just saying the original idea that lands-based decks require affinity level hate doesn't really seem justified.
Honestly it doesn't seem like a straw-man. You find a specific strategy "frustrating" because you dont like the side-board cards enough. I could make that claim about literally any deck. I don't think there is a good enough side board card against lantern. I hate that deck. It simply isn't enough to declare something "frustrating", you have to explain why, in the context of the meta, we are making these changes. That is the purpose of the meta discussion thread.
If you want to argue for tron suppressing a greater variety of midrange that's one thing. But a lot of statements being thrown around seem to presuppose the idea that tron is just automatically something they need to print better hate for just because.
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
You're barking up the wrong tree. I've played a variety of decks, some with great Scapeshift match-ups and others not. I don't want to see it banned or neutered. It really is as simple as believing that threats should at least have sideboard-able answers in a couple colors. That becomes even more important when a deck exploits an unfamiliar axis of attack (e.g. Dredge or Affinity).
That was an original argument, not necessarily mine. I'm not going to carry the torch for @idSurge, but his suggestions for "answer it or lose" are hardly overpowered analogues. Again, Choke or Boil don't see play and Stony Silence can definitely be played through. Click back a couple pages --
several people responded that nothing else is needed because there is plenty of existing land hate which is a frankly baffling belief.
Let me rephrase -- there is no way to interact with the ETron or Scapeshift lands at anything close to parity or without gearing your entire deck to fight them. Other decks that exploit an unfamiliar axis of attack (Dredge, Affinity) have hate cards that can be sideboarded. Why? Because threats need answers, otherwise they inevitably lead to excessive power creep and then bannings. Re-read my first paragraph you're responding to. There are several reasons to encourage answers even before a strategy becomes "dominating"; it's called proactively managing the format.
Lantern is quite possibly the worst example you could bring up. It's quite possibly my least favorite deck to play against it but there is plenty of sideboard hate, basically everything that hits Affinity. There is absolutely no argument to be made that it needs more answers. You're missing my point here; my arguments here have nothing to do with whether I think any particular strategy is frustrating. The problem is that these land-based strategies in particular are already immune to the existing sideboard options. Ceremonious Rejection isn't any more an answer to ETron than Celestial Purge is to Dredge, Spreading Seas/Ensnaring Bridge require building an entire strategy around, etc.
Frontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
How is Ceremonious Rejection not an answer to ETron? UW has a fine matchup due primarily to an improving game after turn 2.
- Ensnaring Bridge doesnt require you build an entire strategy around it. Affinity, Burn, and a bunch of control variants can play it if desired.
- Spreading seas does not require your entire strategy be built around it, it requires you play blue. UW does not have any synergy with seas and it mainboards the card.
- Blood moon fits into every red deck + affinity
- Tec Edge, Fulminator mage, Leyline, and more interact with land based decks
Saying there is "no way" to interact with lands is just not true. There is already hate for lands, you just dont think it's good enough. Why is it not good enough? Is there a metagame benefit for better hate? I'd probably agree there. However, let's not pretend the metagame is dominated by big mana. The last 10 or so big tournaments don't really bear that out. Why is it baffling that some prefer the status quo when the meta is relatively healthy?
The point I'm making with lantern is you need to make an argument towards improving the metagame if you talk about changing the environment. Your previous arguments did not address this at all. Yes there exists hate, but I can simply say "well I don't think its good enough, I find stony silence laughable, they just decay it and it barely changes their clock. " or "Lifegain is laughable against burn i say, they can just skullcrack you, we should make it so Oketra's Last Mercy can't be prevented. It lets more decks deal with burn in the SB!"
Unless I can make a compelling argument as to whether the meta gets better with the printing of [BetterLanternHateTheCard], saying this doesn't mean much.
If you want other examples, why isn't there direct hate for: infinite mana, all fast mana, storm cards, creatures with flash, hexproof things, token generators. I'm sure these things don't count as a "familiar axis" (however you define that).
Basically we need to establish how our theoretical hate card is helping the meta. For example:
- "I think there should be a blue card which counters all triggers on the stack, so that control can help naturally control big mana."
- "Green is too soft to eldrazi and it's hurting diversity, we should pring the 1G prismatic moon thing. It's worse than blood moon for most decks, but gives green decks an out"
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
Not sure I understand what you're saying here. Wall of cards does not an argument make...
Is it ETB effects, cast triggers LTB triggers, non-basic land hate, static abilities, which one is it? And what in blazes is Signal Pest doing there anyway???
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
Apologies if this comes across as patronizing, but you don't seem very familiar with the recent versions of UW Control. No Ceremonious Rejection in the 75 plus they play some combination of 4 Ghost Quarter/Tectonic Edge mainboard in addition to Spreading Seas which makes mana denial a viable strategy.
At the risk of becoming a broken record, I think you need to re-read my actual points. I've never said there is no way to interact with land, just that the options are essentially unplayable short of making a significant commitment to mana denial (like UW Control or RG Ponza). In other words, there are basically no sideboard-able cards that are effective against lands such as Valakut, Tron, or Temple. Tectonic Edge/Spreading Seas are too slow on their own, Ghost Quarter is a significant tempo loss, and Fulminator Mage is both. Ensnaring Bridge obviously isn't land hate and it's only playable in the sideboard for Burn. Blood Moon fits in a couple more decks (Affinity, Storm) but I'm willing to say that's one sideboard-able card that one color has access to.
You're getting lost in the weeds with the rest of your argument because the explanation is remarkably simple -- threats need reasonable answers, for both competitive and balance reasons. There's no need to dig very deep to find recent examples where the absence of answers has caused issues for Modern or Standard. If you want a more pragmatic line of thought then check the share of the metagame that ETron and Scapeshift currently hold; it's significant, albeit not oppressive. Wouldn't some of the other decks play answers in their sideboard if there were actually playable options? It doesn't take a million Monte Carlo simulations on the impact to justify the basic logic.
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
My Peasant Cube (looking for feedback)
For instance, we can construct a new version of Wasteland using this criteria:
It is neither strictly better nor strictly worse than Ghost Quarter, and therefore is better against some decks (Valakut, who benefits more from grabbing a basic land) while being arguably worse against others (affinity, who benefits more from having an extra artefact).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
To happily sound like an broken record, the hate exists, people on this thread just refuse to acknowledge it. Every color except white has decent or great land hate cards that are perfectly sideboardable and often maindecked. And white can still use tec edge and ghost quarter. Hell, combine those and your fetches with a couple of crucible of worlds and you not only have a great value engine mid and late game when you want to ensure land drops, big mana will roll over if you have the interaction to force a late game and are blowing up 1 or more lands a turn while still drawing and playing counterspells and other interaction.
Everything else aside, the argument of blood moon only being playable in a few decks and being restrictive because of red is bull*****. With fetchlands and a slightly higher number of basics than normal plus 1-2 Rx shocks, basically any deck could splash blood moon if it felt like it. Hell, when GitProbe was a thing and Temur Delver existed it frequently ran 3 in the side basically just because it was 'unexpected' for a 3 color deck. And it stole a lot of games because of it. I've even seen traditional Jund sideboard it and crush with it. I bet with enough care and correct building, you could build a more midrangey Scapeshift deck with blood moon in the main. Jund colors, SFT, STE, Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, Abrupt Decay, a high land count, maybe even Goyfs (like the old extended goyfshift decks). Then Decay your blood moon and cast scapeshift if you don't just kill them with goyfs and bolts.
Marath, Will of the Wild Tokens!! / Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund Dragons! / Muzzio, Visionary Architect / Brago, King Eternal / Daretti, Scrap Savant / Narset, Enlightened Master / Alesha, Who Smiles at Death / Bruna, Light of Alabaster / Marchesa, the Black Rose / Iroas, God of Victory / Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury / Omnath, Locus of rage / Titania, Protector of Argoth / Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Modern
Elves / Titanshift / Merfolk
Marath, Will of the Wild Tokens!! / Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund Dragons! / Muzzio, Visionary Architect / Brago, King Eternal / Daretti, Scrap Savant / Narset, Enlightened Master / Alesha, Who Smiles at Death / Bruna, Light of Alabaster / Marchesa, the Black Rose / Iroas, God of Victory / Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury / Omnath, Locus of rage / Titania, Protector of Argoth / Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Modern
Elves / Titanshift / Merfolk
The land will definitely be good in the Ally/Sliver decks. Other than that, I can't see any justification for why it would be run instead of Cavern, even for budget reasons.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I will most likely be trying it in those two decks as well as some number in Abzan elves as in a pinch you can name spirit or bird or whatever to play sideboard cards. Also, I could see it in humans and potentially Merfolk if they are in Green in Ixalan and people want more UG untapped painless sources. Plus, for any deck that uses Cavern largely for colors to cast their creatures, this really is a budget option. Almost the definition of a budget option, it does some of the same stuff but not all of it and is cheaper by a lot. A worse placeholder while you save up and buy the expensive one. I will definitely be suggesting it as a budget option to anyone trying to get into Elves who can't swing a playset of Gilt Leafs. This plus 4 blossoming marsh and you are pretty close to half your lands casting Shaman of the Pack.
Marath, Will of the Wild Tokens!! / Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund Dragons! / Muzzio, Visionary Architect / Brago, King Eternal / Daretti, Scrap Savant / Narset, Enlightened Master / Alesha, Who Smiles at Death / Bruna, Light of Alabaster / Marchesa, the Black Rose / Iroas, God of Victory / Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury / Omnath, Locus of rage / Titania, Protector of Argoth / Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Modern
Elves / Titanshift / Merfolk
Warping Wail...there, a two mana full counter to Scapeshift with no color requirement. Hell Shadow of Doubt costs just double u/b and effectively counters scapeshift AND titan and ANY RAMP SPELL BESIDES EXPLORE.
If you don't want an "I win" button, then your sideboard card should be something that makes the deck stumble. If you're still trying to win with a pair of Lingering Souls tokens, or swings from a Dark Confidant, then making an opponent stumble won't really matter. That's the problem - yeah you could play Blood Moon on turn 2 or 3 and slow Tron or Valakut down but if you aren't playing the most efficient threats you are hurting yourself. Blood Moon into Tasigur is good, or Goyf into Fulminator, Delver into Mana Leak into Blood Moon, or just running friggin' burn...
This represents a change from the broad State of Modern parameters when we first envisioned the thread. It is also allowed under the current rules in the first post. Why change it? This topic frequently dovetails with banlist discusssion, design philosophy, and Modern issues, which is why we allowed it here in the first place.
Sigh, BlueTron, I've been reading a lot of your posts and just kinda ignored it...
But you have such a large unwillingness to admit that lands are a problem, and the horrible speed bumps we have for them in this format.
I'm playing GBx and Eldrazi Tron, and I absolutely do not believe the land destruction is good enough against decks like this or Scapeshift. Fulminator Mages, and even GQs+Surgical hasn't been consistently good enough to stop the deck.
And then you bringing up an awful counterpoint, "WARPING WAIL!" is an incredibly willfully ignorant and bias response. Warping Wail is going to look real stupid as they decide to just play Titan itself, or a summoners pact and play Titan to win.
Shadow of Doubt? Seriously? There's a reason it isn't played, it sucks.
Saying, "PLAY UR STORM, GUYS" is an awful thing. I can't have a sideboard card that's more than a speed bump? I don't believe there should be any, "I win" cards from the SB, as that's what made the summer of dredge and infect an awful format for modern---but we should have some serious roadblocks.
I think nearly every archetype has powerful hate in modern except land based destruction/non-basic land.
Cermonius Rejection was certainly a right step for WOTC to take, it's efficient and powerful, but not broken good. It actually made blue decks v Tron not 20/80 matchups.
We need something along those lines for non-basic lands; your bias is off the charts in this thread in regard to this. There is no true good answers from the board for E-Tron or Titanshift, just archetypes itself. Blood Moon decks aren't very viable because bolt itself is lacking with Delvers and Smashers all over the place.
You understand the format, you just seem to have a massive bias in all of your opinions relating to big mana/land ramp.
So you had better damn well clarify the difference between a "stumble" sb card, a "serious roadblock" sb card, and a "game over" sb card, because all I'm seeing are the latter. People want unstoppable, massive nonbasic hate against decks that are not dominating the meta because they don't like losing to Tron and Valakut. That's it. I lose to decks all the time. I play storm and I am a serious dog to Grixis Shadow. I don't call for the deck to be hosed as a result. I acknowledge that my deck choice has weaknesses, and I accept it or I look for another deck.
That's the problem here that I see. People want the meta to warp around their pet deck being the best. I'm actually the less biased individual because I don't have a horse in this race.
We have GQ, Tec Edge, Blood Moon, Fulminator, Leyline of Sanctity for Valakut Triggers, Stony Silence for Tron eggs, Leonin Arbiter, Shadow of Doubt, Warping Wail, Ceremonious Rejection, and the reality of being in a rock/paper/scissors meta where no deck enters the field 50/50 or better. Your complains are childish.
Meh, this is getting tiresome when far too many people enjoy beating up on strawmen rather than reading actual comments. Since anything else is wasted, here's the crux:
Land hate exists but it's unplayable/ineffective outside of Blood Moon and decks with a dedicated mainboard mana denial plan (D&T, UW Control, RG Ponza, etc.) because it's either too slow, too negative tempo, or both. Decks that are able to make use of existing hate are only effective versus Scapeshift and ETron because they run 8+ pieces. Nothing is sideboard-able against Scapeshift and ETron outside of a couple decks (Affinity, Storm).
This is important, not because ETron or Scapeshift are overly dominant, but because threats should have answers. That ensures minimal bannings and provides a proactive safety valve should those decks become more oppressive over time or with the printing of a new card. Proactive management of the format is healthier than reactive.
I'll reiterate the point I made before.
Stony Silence stop artifacts from working, but you can still cast them. You can still play Magic.
Rest in Peace exiles graveyard, but you can still just cast those cards instead. You can still play Magic.
Stone Rain destroys your land and mana. You cannot play Magic.
I agree with you that cards like Ceremonious Rejection are a step in the right direction. However Rejection isn't a land deck hoser. It is a colourless deck hoser. That you think Rejection is a step in the right direction shows that it probably isn't land-hate you want in Modern. Instead it is a way to deal with the expensive cards that these decks essentially get to cheat into play. So something like Gaddock Teeg would be amazing for you, provided it gets extended to also deal with creatures costing 4 or greater as well. Now obviously something like what I just suggested would 'stop someone from playing Magic'. But it's an easy scenario to get around. They play Teeg+, you need to draw into your Dismember or Fatal Push to kill it. Once it's dead, you're able to cast all those things you couldn't before, and your land base hasn't been blown to smithereens. You get to still play Magic as dealing with the hate card.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Eldrazi Tron, Bant Eldrazi, Tron, Blue Tron, Affinity, Lantern, SOTM decks, etc.
That's a lot of major decks right there.
Stony Silence is one of the "I win buttons" for the most part, but if that card didn't exist, I honestly think Affinity would need to be banned in modern.
On a funny note, the second I stopped playing Affinity, was when someone at my old LGS played a turn 2 Stony Silence, followed by a turn 3 Kataki. It was the hugest blowout I have ever received in modern, and I never wanted to play a deck that could be hated out that hard ever again. He pretty much single-handedly destroyed Affinity for me. I wasn't noticing an improvement in my play with the deck though, so that was a huge factor. Sorry to digress, I was just reminded of that moment talking about "I win cards".
Going off what was spoilt during the rare sheet leak a few months back - I think Shaper's Sanctuary has potential. It lets you draw cards when your creature gets targeted, so your zoo deck for example doesn't run out of steam as quickly
That is purely your opinion. That's not 'the crux'. It might be the crux of your argument, but it's entirely your opinion and it's one I disagree with wholeheartedly. Not only does hate exist, I personally think it's not bad. It causes enough stumble that you can beat these decks if you have any kind of clock. Additionally, if you are going to disparage someone who carefully reads comments before responding by just out of the blue saying I'm 'beating up on strawmen', at least give a reason why you think that.
Also, I really like skitzafreaks suggested Teeg+. Especially if it had a low color requirement so it could be splashable. As a one mana 2/1 like dryad militant it could stop the nut draw from ETron, and even as a head it stops natural tron from being effective on 3. Played in the right timing against scapeshift it even stops Shift, Prime Time, and Hour of Promise.
Marath, Will of the Wild Tokens!! / Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund Dragons! / Muzzio, Visionary Architect / Brago, King Eternal / Daretti, Scrap Savant / Narset, Enlightened Master / Alesha, Who Smiles at Death / Bruna, Light of Alabaster / Marchesa, the Black Rose / Iroas, God of Victory / Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury / Omnath, Locus of rage / Titania, Protector of Argoth / Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Modern
Elves / Titanshift / Merfolk