SO yes, if you put on Blinders and just look at the Top 8, Modern looks pretty bad. However the Top 32 show that the metagame is relatively healthy with a lot of archetypes seeing good results.
I think the Top 8 we got is a representation of how the Modern metagame shifts over time. The last time big mana did well, people reacted by bringing more decks that fought against big mana. This drove people to playing less big mana decks, which caused people to stop playing those decks that fought big mana. And now again we are back to having big mana do well, and us needing decks like D&T back in the meta to fight against it.
Do I think Modern is healthy? Yes of course I do. I'm just sad of the current state we're in because Lantern Control is my deck and Tron is it's worst match up
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I'm not sure why you guys think midrange cards being unbanned is going to alleviate things
Yeah, let's unban BBE and SFM...to still lose to Tron and Titanshift?
HolyDiva's experience doesn't make me feel warm or soft about modern.
It is just one short period though, modern players may overreact and show up with too much land hate or decks that punish ramp.
All those jeskai/UW Control players explains why GDS did so poorly, go draw is a nightmare for them.
It looks like Tron/Titanshift was a good call since they saw how popular Jeskai and Go-Draw Jeskai was becoming. Those decks suppress their bad matchups in the process.
3) BBE and SFM both seem almost laughable at this point. We saw SO many T3 powerful things this weekend that a Batterskull T3 sounds underwhelming, if that can actually be a thing.
I would just like to add another follow up point to this. I can't remember who said it first, but I believe it was during eldrazi winter or amulet bloom where a pro or commentator was referring to the insanity of games ending on 3 (literally or effectively) by saying "JTMS being banned seems rather pedestrian." That has been my opinion of him for my entire time playing modern since twin got banned for a ratings boost. Whenever the subject of him comming off the list arises I always think at first "yeah, way too good." But then I'm reminded of how often he would be sided out real quick.
The Bad
Affinity? He dies.
Burn? He dies.
Tron? Lol cast triggers.
Infect? I hope you're joking.
Storm? I really hope you're joking.
Ad Nauseum? ...wat.
Titanshift? You die.
Living end? You die.
Humans? He dies.
Dredge? He dies. And so do you.
The Good.
GDS? Cool angler, bro.
CoCo? Resolve CoCo now or scoop.
Lantern? Resolve pithing needle now or scoop.
Ux Control? 2UU - Win the game.
Eldrazi? Seems medium.
Blood Moon.dec? Seems medium.
BGx? 2UU - Win the game.
Taxes/hatebears? 2UU - Win the game.
Granted I may be biased with my assessment as I haven't played with him in modern obviously, but these can't be far off from that reality. Sure if the board is clear and titanshift or affinity are hellbent of course he'll crush them. But then again nearly any 4 mana walker would do the exact same thing, walkers on stable boards tend to win fast. But if you think about it, the fair and interactive decks that would want jace wouldn't get any help in the matches where they need it the most while making the fair jace decks THE fair deck of the format.
If you pretend that the above is factual, bringing jace out of jail wouldn't help all that much. Naturally he would be great and would help conserve spots in your 75 as he is both card advantage and a win con, but if you're good against the fair decks you don't even need him. Meanwhile against anybody playing unfair, if you try to cast him you will simply die on the spot without fail.
Yes JTMS is better than all, yes he is the best walker ever made, yes he destroyed a standard format until his banning. But when would you want 4 in your deck? Before making the claim of "pfft you haven't played with him obviously you dummy" please tell me which of the listed decks above would be actually afraid of you casting a jace on turn 4 rather than merely inconvenienced? Do you think that jace is actually good against strom or burn or any unfair deck at all? Would he be impactful in any unfair match up and if so, how?
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And on that day, Garfield said unto the world "Go ye forth and durdle!"
I'm not sure why you guys think midrange cards being unbanned is going to alleviate things
Yeah, let's unban BBE and SFM...to still lose to Tron and Titanshift?
HolyDiva's experience doesn't make me feel warm or soft about modern.
It is just one short period though, modern players may overreact and show up with too much land hate or decks that punish ramp.
All those jeskai/UW Control players explains why GDS did so poorly, go draw is a nightmare for them.
It looks like Tron/Titanshift was a good call since they saw how popular Jeskai and Go-Draw Jeskai was becoming. Those decks suppress their bad matchups in the process.
I think that SFM specifically would help for several reasons. Firstly, it would help white as a color in the format (irrelevant though to tron). She would also give a decent boost to D&T decks which can keep Tron decks honest, but they lose to too much of everything else. With a relatively stronger D&T, Tron and E. Tron would be worse choices.
BBE would help a struggling Jund which is lagging behind an evolving meta game. It might also give a small boost to decks like eternal command or other flavors of URG.
I heard an amazing analogy the other day (I swear I need to start this podcast, I've been brewing for years), Wizards saying the Modern format has a balanced metagame is like Kellogg's selling you a cereal saying it's a balanced breakfast. There are a ton of different objects shown on the table, but they all full of sugar.
BBE would help a struggling Jund which is lagging behind an evolving meta game. It might also give a small boost to decks like eternal command or other flavors of URG.
Also of note is that BBE and SFM are some of the few reasonable cards to unban that could actually help a fair interactive deck against other decks that just try to close their eyes and goldfish you.
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And on that day, Garfield said unto the world "Go ye forth and durdle!"
I heard an amazing analogy the other day (I swear I need to start this podcast, I've been brewing for years), Wizards saying the Modern format has a balanced metagame is like Kellogg's selling you a cereal saying it's a balanced breakfast. There are a ton of different objects shown on the table, but they all full of sugar.
Are the 8 Ux control variants: 3 Queller, 2 Jeskai Control, 1 Jeskai Breach, 1 UW Control, and 1 Grixis, or up to 10 if you count the 2 GDS showings different objects full of sugar also?
We should stop making absurd, unbiased claims that those ones. Yes. The top 8 was horrendous. Couple of hours later, we get to look the Top 32 metagame and it's really fine.
That said, we still need a card like Stoneforge Mystic in Modern. It's long overdue.
What does SFM bring to the table. The more pople talking about SFM and Tron, the more happy I am bringing Storm to the tables
SFM would at the very least be a huge buff to jeskai. It's better than Geist of St. Traft in almost every way except deck slots. It comes down on turn 2 (huge), it casts out Bskull or SoFaF or SoFaI at instant speed on like turn 4 when you can hold up countermagic and basically wins your midrange and aggro matchups on the spot. I think it's probably OK, but I really dislike this notion that rushing t3 batterskull during my main phase is all that it does.
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Modern UWUW ControlUW UGWSpiritsUGW GHardened ScalesG WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
SFM would at the very least be a huge buff to jeskai. It's better than Geist of St. Traft in almost every way except deck slots. It comes down on turn 2 (huge), it casts out Bskull or SoFaF or SoFaI at instant speed on like turn 4 when you can hold up countermagic and basically wins your midrange and aggro matchups on the spot. I think it's probably OK, but I really dislike this notion that rushing t3 batterskull during my main phase is all that it does.
And if you do go for the turn 3 vial in a batterskull you get savaged by your opponent's turn 3 kolaghan's command which is completely ok and makes for a nice balancing act. The real issue with SFM isn't power level, even though it certainly is way up there. The problem is that so, so many decks will be splashing for it making a significant majority of fair decks Wxx stoneforge decks with their own flavors, but still a sfm based deck none the less. Lets be honest, splashing for a card that only costs 1W is absolutely trivial and the pay off for it would be huge. This would dramatically lower diversity amoung fair decks which may be the real thing keeping her banned. Whether or not this is true is of course up for debate, but the likelihood is so high that I expect her to be gone for a while still.
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And on that day, Garfield said unto the world "Go ye forth and durdle!"
Bloodbraid Elf, Jace the Mind Sculptor, Stoneforge Mystic et al,. Do not in anyway make these decks better against or stop the decks that would play them losing to turn 3 Karn. Any one who is using the recent success of big mana to promote the unbanning of these cards is just ban mongering.
It is perfectly acceptable for midrange decks and controls to have bad matchups. Lopsided bad matchups even. That's part of being a big format. Even Miracles got crushed by 12 Post.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
Bloodbraid Elf, Jace the Mind Sculptor, Stoneforge Mystic et al,. Do not in anyway make these decks better against or stop the decks that would play them losing to turn 3 Karn. Any one who is using the recent success of big mana to promote the unbanning of these cards is just ban mongering.
It is perfectly acceptable for midrange decks and controls to have bad matchups. Lopsided bad matchups even. That's part of being a big format. Even Miracles got crushed by 12 Post.
I think the argument stems from the fact that players are looking at things like Turn 3 Karn followed by turn 4 Ulamog and wondering why that is acceptable while Stoneforge Mystic or Bloodbraid Elf are considered too strong.
I disagree with the sentiment "Tron has proven to be beatable" based on past experiences. The big issue I have with Tron isn't what Tron used to be but all the tools that have been added to tron over the last 2-4 years. It steadily has gotten more and more tools to help it in it's bad matchups and it's good matchups also got better. Sure it got hit with the Eye of Ugin ban but I think it wasn't enough to offset all the additional tools it has gotten. As it's gotten tuned it's started seeing more and more play and has been putting up results. Top that all off with it's style of play and the number of non-games it brings to the Modern format. I think it's boring and unhealthy on the whole and forces a you race it or you lose mentality that needs to be dealt with.
Top 8 looks horrendous. 5x Big mana decks, 2 graveyard combo decks and 1 combo deck.
HOWEVER, if one looks at the top 32, the image looks much healthier and the top 8 can be explained. There are a lot of control decks (3 Jeskai Queller, 2 Jeskai Control, 1 Grixis control, 1 UW control),
Just a little correction, that is: 3 Jeskai Queller, 1 Jeskai Control, 2 UW Control and 1 grixis control.
Do I think Modern is healthy? Yes of course I do. I'm just sad of the current state we're in because Lantern Control is my deck and Tron is it's worst match up
Well, then I guess there is one good thing about Tron, if it keeps that cancer in check.
Do I think Modern is healthy? Yes of course I do. I'm just sad of the current state we're in because Lantern Control is my deck and Tron is it's worst match up
Well, then I guess there is one good thing about Tron, if it keeps that cancer in check.
I think Lantern Control is just another example of a deck that is thriving because nobody is out there to interact with it.
Except from waiting a stoneforge unban I sit here thinking how doomed GBx would be without push in this meta
Except it's the opposite. Fatal Push was the worst thing to happen to GBx. Before Tarmogoyf was the king creature. It was a fast, large threat that couldn't be easily answered 1 for 1 in the format. Now that push is a thing Tarmogoyf is a lot worse. Push even made the bad matchups more prolific which is terrible for GBx. When the most common removal cares about CMC then creatures like Smasher/Wurmcoil become popular and those matchups destroy traditional midrange.
Do I think Modern is healthy? Yes of course I do. I'm just sad of the current state we're in because Lantern Control is my deck and Tron is it's worst match up
Well, then I guess there is one good thing about Tron, if it keeps that cancer in check.
Oh please, tell me how you really feel
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I think Push was great for midrange decks, just not GBx. BWx Midrange decks are really poised to be good if Tron and such weren't such a big portion of the format.
So, Starcity had jund with BBE and Jeskai with Mind Sculptor
BBE downright looked embarrassing at some points, seeing as how not every cascade trigger is the dream of Goyf/LOTV/K-Command
It's seriously laughable that this banned, especially when cards like Collected Company exist. WOTC, it's time to unban the card.
Jace---well, I think he need stop stay banned. Stevens clearly never casted the card before and was just manhandling Brad Nelson. Once Jace landed the game was over. They both agreed, BBE is not even half of what Jace is, and this argument that BBE is his counter is definitely not true.
I'm not surprised, I think Jace needs to stay banned from modern for the foreseeable future.
We should really be looking at a SFM and BBE unban, and WOTC printing an answer for land ramp, whether that's some kind of wasteland or FOW.
Also, Push absolutely destroyed GBx decks, they'd love for that card to stop existing. I really couldn't understand GBx players excitement for the card, it meant that every threat could be answered for 1 mana.
Not that I'm complaining about push, just observing it through a GBx perspective.
5C Shadow is a good call for Tron and Titanshift, but it won't make the top 8 without dodging all the go-draw decks, which is nightmarishly bad and probably in the 20/80, 35/65 range.
So the big thing that we are already starting to see though is an increase in 3cmc creatures. Fatal push doesn't always cleanly answer everything. Revolt is hard to trigger sometimes. This is why we have seen Rabblemaster also making a showing in Jund. Also we will see increases in things like Tasigur and Angler and such if the format ever opens up so midrange decks are better positioned. Things are too fast right now because everyone is trying to race big mana decks.
This is one of the biggest tournaments that GDS performed very poorly in. I wonder what the problem was---Are GDS decks messing around too much with Opt and cutting the 1x K-Command to blame?
The problem is tron.
I don't think Tron is particularly favored against Death's Shadow.
When I play GDS I'm fine with E-Tron but I've never been happy to face classic Tron. I think it's a rough mu for GDS and I truly believe that large presence of Tron was (one of the) reason(s) to poor GDS performance.
Hrm, I haven't played too much against Grixis Death's Shadow as Gx Tron, but I found the matchup even when I did. The problem is that Tron can't really take advantage of the low life total GDS has, so they can zap their life total down without fear and end up with very scarily big Death's Shadows at no real risk. Tron is favored against decks like Jund (regular) or Junk because they're slow, but GDS is able to combine the disruption of those decks with a significantly faster clock.
SFM would at the very least be a huge buff to jeskai. It's better than Geist of St. Traft in almost every way except deck slots. It comes down on turn 2 (huge), it casts out Bskull or SoFaF or SoFaI at instant speed on like turn 4 when you can hold up countermagic and basically wins your midrange and aggro matchups on the spot. I think it's probably OK, but I really dislike this notion that rushing t3 batterskull during my main phase is all that it does.
And if you do go for the turn 3 vial in a batterskull you get savaged by your opponent's turn 3 kolaghan's command which is completely ok and makes for a nice balancing act. The real issue with SFM isn't power level, even though it certainly is way up there. The problem is that so, so many decks will be splashing for it making a significant majority of fair decks Wxx stoneforge decks with their own flavors, but still a sfm based deck none the less. Lets be honest, splashing for a card that only costs 1W is absolutely trivial and the pay off for it would be huge. This would dramatically lower diversity amoung fair decks which may be the real thing keeping her banned. Whether or not this is true is of course up for debate, but the likelihood is so high that I expect her to be gone for a while still.
Let's suppose that this is all true. How is this particularly different from Tarmogoyf? Sure, much of Tarmogoyf's stock has plummeted lately, but for most of the format's history, everything you ascribe to Stoneforge Mystic can be transferred straight to Tarmogoyf. I mean, let's just rewrite it a little:
The real issue with Tarmogoyf isn't power level, even though it certainly is way up there. The problem is that so, so many decks are splashing for it making a significant majority of fair decks Gxx Tarmogoyf decks with their own flavors, but still a Tarmogoyf based deck none the less. Let's be honest, splashing for a card that only costs 1G is absolutely trivial and the pay off for it is huge. This dramatically lowers diversity amoung fair decks which is why it should be banned.
So I don't think this is a particularly persuasive argument when one can apply that same argument to a card that was legal throughout the format's entire history.
The go-draw decks as you call them are not real decks that serious players would bring to a serious tournament
For the most part this is true, but you never know when a player like Shota Yasooka or Ivan Floch may want to just run a Controllish type deck at the Pro Tour.
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Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
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SO yes, if you put on Blinders and just look at the Top 8, Modern looks pretty bad. However the Top 32 show that the metagame is relatively healthy with a lot of archetypes seeing good results.
I think the Top 8 we got is a representation of how the Modern metagame shifts over time. The last time big mana did well, people reacted by bringing more decks that fought against big mana. This drove people to playing less big mana decks, which caused people to stop playing those decks that fought big mana. And now again we are back to having big mana do well, and us needing decks like D&T back in the meta to fight against it.
Do I think Modern is healthy? Yes of course I do. I'm just sad of the current state we're in because Lantern Control is my deck and Tron is it's worst match up
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Yeah, let's unban BBE and SFM...to still lose to Tron and Titanshift?
HolyDiva's experience doesn't make me feel warm or soft about modern.
It is just one short period though, modern players may overreact and show up with too much land hate or decks that punish ramp.
All those jeskai/UW Control players explains why GDS did so poorly, go draw is a nightmare for them.
It looks like Tron/Titanshift was a good call since they saw how popular Jeskai and Go-Draw Jeskai was becoming. Those decks suppress their bad matchups in the process.
I would just like to add another follow up point to this. I can't remember who said it first, but I believe it was during eldrazi winter or amulet bloom where a pro or commentator was referring to the insanity of games ending on 3 (literally or effectively) by saying "JTMS being banned seems rather pedestrian." That has been my opinion of him for my entire time playing modern since twin got banned for a ratings boost. Whenever the subject of him comming off the list arises I always think at first "yeah, way too good." But then I'm reminded of how often he would be sided out real quick.
The Bad
Affinity? He dies.
Burn? He dies.
Tron? Lol cast triggers.
Infect? I hope you're joking.
Storm? I really hope you're joking.
Ad Nauseum? ...wat.
Titanshift? You die.
Living end? You die.
Humans? He dies.
Dredge? He dies. And so do you.
The Good.
GDS? Cool angler, bro.
CoCo? Resolve CoCo now or scoop.
Lantern? Resolve pithing needle now or scoop.
Ux Control? 2UU - Win the game.
Eldrazi? Seems medium.
Blood Moon.dec? Seems medium.
BGx? 2UU - Win the game.
Taxes/hatebears? 2UU - Win the game.
Granted I may be biased with my assessment as I haven't played with him in modern obviously, but these can't be far off from that reality. Sure if the board is clear and titanshift or affinity are hellbent of course he'll crush them. But then again nearly any 4 mana walker would do the exact same thing, walkers on stable boards tend to win fast. But if you think about it, the fair and interactive decks that would want jace wouldn't get any help in the matches where they need it the most while making the fair jace decks THE fair deck of the format.
If you pretend that the above is factual, bringing jace out of jail wouldn't help all that much. Naturally he would be great and would help conserve spots in your 75 as he is both card advantage and a win con, but if you're good against the fair decks you don't even need him. Meanwhile against anybody playing unfair, if you try to cast him you will simply die on the spot without fail.
Yes JTMS is better than all, yes he is the best walker ever made, yes he destroyed a standard format until his banning. But when would you want 4 in your deck? Before making the claim of "pfft you haven't played with him obviously you dummy" please tell me which of the listed decks above would be actually afraid of you casting a jace on turn 4 rather than merely inconvenienced? Do you think that jace is actually good against strom or burn or any unfair deck at all? Would he be impactful in any unfair match up and if so, how?
BBE would help a struggling Jund which is lagging behind an evolving meta game. It might also give a small boost to decks like eternal command or other flavors of URG.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
Also of note is that BBE and SFM are some of the few reasonable cards to unban that could actually help a fair interactive deck against other decks that just try to close their eyes and goldfish you.
What does SFM bring to the table. The more pople talking about SFM and Tron, the more happy I am bringing Storm to the tables
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
And if you do go for the turn 3 vial in a batterskull you get savaged by your opponent's turn 3 kolaghan's command which is completely ok and makes for a nice balancing act. The real issue with SFM isn't power level, even though it certainly is way up there. The problem is that so, so many decks will be splashing for it making a significant majority of fair decks Wxx stoneforge decks with their own flavors, but still a sfm based deck none the less. Lets be honest, splashing for a card that only costs 1W is absolutely trivial and the pay off for it would be huge. This would dramatically lower diversity amoung fair decks which may be the real thing keeping her banned. Whether or not this is true is of course up for debate, but the likelihood is so high that I expect her to be gone for a while still.
It is perfectly acceptable for midrange decks and controls to have bad matchups. Lopsided bad matchups even. That's part of being a big format. Even Miracles got crushed by 12 Post.
I think the argument stems from the fact that players are looking at things like Turn 3 Karn followed by turn 4 Ulamog and wondering why that is acceptable while Stoneforge Mystic or Bloodbraid Elf are considered too strong.
Just a little correction, that is: 3 Jeskai Queller, 1 Jeskai Control, 2 UW Control and 1 grixis control.
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
I think Lantern Control is just another example of a deck that is thriving because nobody is out there to interact with it.
Except it's the opposite. Fatal Push was the worst thing to happen to GBx. Before Tarmogoyf was the king creature. It was a fast, large threat that couldn't be easily answered 1 for 1 in the format. Now that push is a thing Tarmogoyf is a lot worse. Push even made the bad matchups more prolific which is terrible for GBx. When the most common removal cares about CMC then creatures like Smasher/Wurmcoil become popular and those matchups destroy traditional midrange.
Oh please, tell me how you really feel
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 think the "suprise of the PT" will be that it's Tron, Affinity and Storm and it's truly terrible. Then they go after 2/3 of those decks.
BBE downright looked embarrassing at some points, seeing as how not every cascade trigger is the dream of Goyf/LOTV/K-Command
It's seriously laughable that this banned, especially when cards like Collected Company exist. WOTC, it's time to unban the card.
Jace---well, I think he need stop stay banned. Stevens clearly never casted the card before and was just manhandling Brad Nelson. Once Jace landed the game was over. They both agreed, BBE is not even half of what Jace is, and this argument that BBE is his counter is definitely not true.
I'm not surprised, I think Jace needs to stay banned from modern for the foreseeable future.
We should really be looking at a SFM and BBE unban, and WOTC printing an answer for land ramp, whether that's some kind of wasteland or FOW.
Also, Push absolutely destroyed GBx decks, they'd love for that card to stop existing. I really couldn't understand GBx players excitement for the card, it meant that every threat could be answered for 1 mana.
Not that I'm complaining about push, just observing it through a GBx perspective.
5C Shadow is a good call for Tron and Titanshift, but it won't make the top 8 without dodging all the go-draw decks, which is nightmarishly bad and probably in the 20/80, 35/65 range.
Let's suppose that this is all true. How is this particularly different from Tarmogoyf? Sure, much of Tarmogoyf's stock has plummeted lately, but for most of the format's history, everything you ascribe to Stoneforge Mystic can be transferred straight to Tarmogoyf. I mean, let's just rewrite it a little:
The real issue with Tarmogoyf isn't power level, even though it certainly is way up there. The problem is that so, so many decks are splashing for it making a significant majority of fair decks Gxx Tarmogoyf decks with their own flavors, but still a Tarmogoyf based deck none the less. Let's be honest, splashing for a card that only costs 1G is absolutely trivial and the pay off for it is huge. This dramatically lowers diversity amoung fair decks which is why it should be banned.
So I don't think this is a particularly persuasive argument when one can apply that same argument to a card that was legal throughout the format's entire history.
For the most part this is true, but you never know when a player like Shota Yasooka or Ivan Floch may want to just run a Controllish type deck at the Pro Tour.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)