A rotating ban list would probably drive modern players insane. It would introduce a buying / sell off pattern like they have in standard, only in this case people are diving for a limited supply of cardboard from potentially 10+ years ago. Also, the sell off pattern would be interesting because who exactly buys up modern cards that aren't modern legal? There's some cross over with Legacy and EDH, but Legacy players likely already have the copies of what they are after and EDH players are not a seriously big source of demand for MTG singles. My own opinion is that a rotation of any sort in modern would basically tank the format.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I think honestly Modern should not have had a preconceived ban list. Then they could have just banned cards that deserved it along the way. Basically every card would get a free shot. We would no longer have people here asking why Mental Misstep is banned or why Umezawa's Jitte is banned. We would know why - because they were broken (or not, lol) in this format.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
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)
Isn't Bogles doing so well a reason to worry? I usually see people on these forums hating on Bogles.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
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)
Oh, definitely. I just have seen in the past (because Bogles has rarely had results even close to this) when Bogles did solidly, a lot of negative comments about how "the format is bad when this happens."
But you're right. People say the same when Tron, Storm, E Tron, ..., lll, ... etc. does well. Rarely saw it for Jund or Twin, oddly enough. Affinity too...rarely saw it for that one. The "good guys," lol.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
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)
BTW: Personal question: How come and you don't play Storm, since you are a combo player through thick and thin and since you were playing Storm with Seething Song in the past and enjoyed it? I mean, it's got to be a great time for combo players as well, right?
No, I actually never got to play Storm with Seething Song. I played Pyromancer Ascension Storm for 3 months in a row before the printing of Eidolon of the Great Revel. I loved the deck, but had to quit because I would get matched against too many Burn players at the time. After 3 rough outings, I switched to Bogles to decimate Burn, only to find that I wasn't matched up up quite as often. I still did well with it.
Storm is the type of mechanic that I LOOOOOVE. I played it in Vintage when 4 Dark Rituals were allowed. Oddly enough, I hadn't tried it in Legacy until a year ago and actually found it really hard to play there. It took longer than usual for me to feel comfortable playing it at a Legacy tournament, especially the Miracles matchup. But around the time that Eidolon was printed, a deck that I love even more than Storm came around - Jeskai Ascendancy. This was the one time that in Modern I literally told myself that I will only play this deck from now on. That's how much I loved it! But Eidolon of the Great Revel caused me problems once again and when Treasure Cruise was banned, it kind of put the lid on it for me (not quite as broken anymore, lol).
Anyway, relating to this thread, I guess people will hate against anything they don't like, so I shouldn't "preinsulate" myself for the comments that may never come.
*I have been testing with Gifts Storm recently, but sometimes it just loses to itself and it has been nice to not lose to grave hate in the past few months (since I played so many grave based decks). It really hurt me mentally to ask my opponent how many Grafdigger's Cage they had, just to hear them say "one" out of the board, playing it on turn 1 in games 2 and 3. I had answers, but didn't draw them. This was before Dredge, so grave hate was much more rare at the time. It's not like nowadays. It just felt good not to have that grave vulnerability. Who knows? I may try Storm again. Burn seems to be on the decline.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
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)
I played Seething Song Storm as my first "real" Modern deck (My Throne of Geth/Chandra Ablaze deck was hilarious and fun, but not a "real" deck).
The deck was super powerful, and deserved the ban. But Gifts Storm feels like it runs entirely through Electromancer and Baral to me. Every time I don't have them on the field, I feel like my chances of whiffing on a storm out are really high for an all-in combo deck.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
Interestingly, Storm's MTGO share appears to be decreasing, at least if the RPTQ and Challenges are a good indicator. If so, this may revise a few previous Storm calculations. For one, it is possible that Storm's top-tier status may be jeopardized in the long-term. I don't think it has seen that much of a hit, but it is possible. Second, and more relevantly, Storm's T4 win rate is almost definitely decreasing as a result of its lower performance. If Storm pilots are moving away from the deck and/or doing worse, that probably means it is losing more, in which case its overall T3 win% as a function of total games is probably falling. I suppose we can invent some statistical corner cases where that isn't the case, but I think those models would be purely theoretical.
If the T3 win% is truly falling, that would be good news for anyone who fears a possible ban. It is certainly supported in my own stats, where Storm has seen its T3 win% drop from early this year to November.
Storm is the type of mechanic that I LOOOOOVE. I played it in Vintage when 4 Dark Rituals were allowed. Oddly enough, I hadn't tried it in Legacy until a year ago and actually found it really hard to play there.
Huh? 4x Dark Ritual has always been allowed in Vintage; the card was never restricted. It got banned in Extended, but was untouched in every other format.
I played Seething Song Storm as my first "real" Modern deck (My Throne of Geth/Chandra Ablaze deck was hilarious and fun, but not a "real" deck).
The deck was super powerful, and deserved the ban. But Gifts Storm feels like it runs entirely through Electromancer and Baral to me. Every time I don't have them on the field, I feel like my chances of whiffing on a storm out are really high for an all-in combo deck.
If Storm was so "super powerful" it deserved the Seething Song ban, then why is it that in the five big events (one Pro Tour, four Grand Prix) that occurred between the printing of Goblin Electromancer and the banning of Seething Song, Storm took only one Top 8 spot out of the forty total?
Sure, it broke the arbitrary turn 4 rule, blah blah blah. But in terms of power level, there's no justification for its banning. Affinity had five times the number of Top 8's that Storm got, but it received no banning.
Storm is the type of mechanic that I LOOOOOVE. I played it in Vintage when 4 Dark Rituals were allowed. Oddly enough, I hadn't tried it in Legacy until a year ago and actually found it really hard to play there.
Huh? 4x Dark Ritual has always been allowed in Vintage; the card was never restricted. It got banned in Extended, but was untouched in every other format.
I haven't played Vintage in 8 years now. I haven't followed it much, outside of articles that Mishra's Workshop is causing all kinds of trouble. I couldn't have seen that coming, lol. The Workshop deck back then caused me the most problems of any deck and it was humiliating to lose to Goblin Welder beatdown because there was occasionally a possibility of drawing out of it.
I looked at the Restricted list. I could have sworn it was Dark Ritual, but it was probably Brainstorm that I was thinking about or perhaps Mind's Desire. I don't remember those being restricted at the time - maaaybe the Mind's Desire. Probably that.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
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)
Storm is the type of mechanic that I LOOOOOVE. I played it in Vintage when 4 Dark Rituals were allowed. Oddly enough, I hadn't tried it in Legacy until a year ago and actually found it really hard to play there.
Huh? 4x Dark Ritual has always been allowed in Vintage; the card was never restricted. It got banned in Extended, but was untouched in every other format.
I played Seething Song Storm as my first "real" Modern deck (My Throne of Geth/Chandra Ablaze deck was hilarious and fun, but not a "real" deck).
The deck was super powerful, and deserved the ban. But Gifts Storm feels like it runs entirely through Electromancer and Baral to me. Every time I don't have them on the field, I feel like my chances of whiffing on a storm out are really high for an all-in combo deck.
If Storm was so "super powerful" it deserved the Seething Song ban, then why is it that in the five big events (one Pro Tour, four Grand Prix) that occurred between the printing of Goblin Electromancer and the banning of Seething Song, Storm took only one Top 8 spot out of the forty total?
Sure, it broke the arbitrary turn 4 rule, blah blah blah. But in terms of power level, there's no justification for its banning. Affinity had five times the number of Top 8's that Storm got, but it received no banning.
I think it's pretty clear why Storm got banned. It was about 12% of MTGO and won on T2 or T3 somewhere around 20%-30% of games. Wizards has drawn a line about fast wins (probably because they feel bad for players) and Storm crossed that line. Indeed, the Probe ban affirms this; multiple decks were winning pre-T4 and Wizards acted against that play experience by banning a common card.
Boggles is on the rise because the Humans deck is quite popular at the moment, I seem to recall, and Boggles just stomps on the Humans list.
Fortunately, Boggles is the kind of deck that once you're prepared for it, you can make your matchup versus is very good, so...
It does indeed smash the Humans matchup. Played against it 3 times in 7 rounds at a PPTQ. Those were my only wins on the day.
With Bogles (I played the deck for quite a bit), it's more that some matchups are dirt poor and some are incredibly easy. There's stuff that decks can put in, but usually outside of the Bogles player playing poorly or being vulnerable (because of mulligans or the hand and draws were just poor), those few cards don't create more than a mild annoyance at most. When you play against a solid player, you will realize that Engineered Explosives is not a guarantee win on the spot that everyone claims it is.
There's some decks that hardly stand a chance to win vs. Bogles, many of these decks not being played much anymore - Delver, Zoo, most Blue based Control, UWR, Humans, Dredge...
Merfolk, Affinity, and Burn are all positive matchups as well.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
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)
Storm is the type of mechanic that I LOOOOOVE. I played it in Vintage when 4 Dark Rituals were allowed. Oddly enough, I hadn't tried it in Legacy until a year ago and actually found it really hard to play there.
Huh? 4x Dark Ritual has always been allowed in Vintage; the card was never restricted. It got banned in Extended, but was untouched in every other format.
I played Seething Song Storm as my first "real" Modern deck (My Throne of Geth/Chandra Ablaze deck was hilarious and fun, but not a "real" deck).
The deck was super powerful, and deserved the ban. But Gifts Storm feels like it runs entirely through Electromancer and Baral to me. Every time I don't have them on the field, I feel like my chances of whiffing on a storm out are really high for an all-in combo deck.
If Storm was so "super powerful" it deserved the Seething Song ban, then why is it that in the five big events (one Pro Tour, four Grand Prix) that occurred between the printing of Goblin Electromancer and the banning of Seething Song, Storm took only one Top 8 spot out of the forty total?
Sure, it broke the arbitrary turn 4 rule, blah blah blah. But in terms of power level, there's no justification for its banning. Affinity had five times the number of Top 8's that Storm got, but it received no banning.
I think it's pretty clear why Storm got banned. It was about 12% of MTGO and won on T2 or T3 somewhere around 20%-30% of games. Wizards has drawn a line about fast wins (probably because they feel bad for players) and Storm crossed that line. Indeed, the Probe ban affirms this; multiple decks were winning pre-T4 and Wizards acted against that play experience by banning a common card.
The argument against that has been that Storm was abnormally played on MTGO more than in paper because the MTGO Storm list could be built for as little as 6-8 tickets if you already had your Tarns and Steam Vents. To this day it gets played a ton because of how cheap it is to build compared to other decks.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
Oh, it certainly does. It's what you call a nearly unwinnable matchup. Luckily, not that many players play Lantern around here and those who do are far from proficient at it. It's also the #1 deck I hate to see when I'm playing Grishoalbrand.
Against Lantern as Bogles, I side in 4 Leyline of Sanctity, 2 Rest in Peace, 4 Seal of Primordium (would diversify if Lantern got played more), and 3 Stony Silence. I side in every card except Gaddock Teeg. Sometimes, I don't even cut 13 cards for those 13 that I bring in. Still, it's an abysmal matchup. They have too much discard to slow things down until they can Abrupt Decay and Nature's Claim stuff, then use Welding Jar for the stuff I try to destroy. It gets ugly real quick.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
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)
Storm is the type of mechanic that I LOOOOOVE. I played it in Vintage when 4 Dark Rituals were allowed. Oddly enough, I hadn't tried it in Legacy until a year ago and actually found it really hard to play there.
Huh? 4x Dark Ritual has always been allowed in Vintage; the card was never restricted. It got banned in Extended, but was untouched in every other format.
I played Seething Song Storm as my first "real" Modern deck (My Throne of Geth/Chandra Ablaze deck was hilarious and fun, but not a "real" deck).
The deck was super powerful, and deserved the ban. But Gifts Storm feels like it runs entirely through Electromancer and Baral to me. Every time I don't have them on the field, I feel like my chances of whiffing on a storm out are really high for an all-in combo deck.
If Storm was so "super powerful" it deserved the Seething Song ban, then why is it that in the five big events (one Pro Tour, four Grand Prix) that occurred between the printing of Goblin Electromancer and the banning of Seething Song, Storm took only one Top 8 spot out of the forty total?
Sure, it broke the arbitrary turn 4 rule, blah blah blah. But in terms of power level, there's no justification for its banning. Affinity had five times the number of Top 8's that Storm got, but it received no banning.
I think it's pretty clear why Storm got banned. It was about 12% of MTGO and won on T2 or T3 somewhere around 20%-30% of games. Wizards has drawn a line about fast wins (probably because they feel bad for players) and Storm crossed that line. Indeed, the Probe ban affirms this; multiple decks were winning pre-T4 and Wizards acted against that play experience by banning a common card.
The argument against that has been that Storm was abnormally played on MTGO more than in paper because the MTGO Storm list could be built for as little as 6-8 tickets if you already had your Tarns and Steam Vents. To this day it gets played a ton because of how cheap it is to build compared to other decks.
I never disagreed with this. In fact, it's supported by later bans. Wizards doesn't care WHY a T4 rule violator is top-tier. They just care THAT it is top-tier, because this probably means something about format-wide experience. See the Probe ban, where a collection of decks were affecting overall format T4 violations. This would definitely be a problem if Wizards claimed decks like Storm were highly-played because they are powerful/good, but they never make that claim about T4 violators. They just claim the decks are widely-played.
Yea, people are rapidly getting better at fighting storm. Empty the warrens is no longer a surprise, people bring in staticasters and what not; elves know to mull for eidolon of rhetoric (together with scooze to attack the combo on 2 fronts), and people just generally know how to play against the deck instead of making decisions blindly. Its been harder and harder to 3-0 at FNM with storm, because of what i've mentioned, and because there aren't any more tron decks.
It looks like I've achieved my aim. I'm going to try playing a snapcaster deck now. That's one less storm pilot in the meta
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BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Interestingly, this broader picture actually undercuts my anecdotal observation that Storm's share is falling, so disregard a previous post of mine about that deck. Storm still may have an overall reduction in T3 wins, but it isn't because the share is falling. If that is the case, it's because it has more tough matchups to fight through.
If that metagame picture is true for any number of GP or PT going into 2018, there is absolutely no way we see any bans. There is also no way we see an SFM unban; Jeskai Queller/Control alone would prevent that. Add the possibility of Humans and a Company deck using the card and it seems like a solid no-go. BBE, however, continues to look like the perfect unban. BGx is doing so poorly overall and seems to be dropping whenever we look away and look back.
Indeed a very positive picture, which is great. something I would like to point out here is how this data compares to the mtggoldfish data. Some people have been bashing on the mtggoldfish data as completely crap and unusable because they include 5-0 selected decklists. I have argued that, while yes, these results are a bit skewed, we shouldn't dismiss them completely, as we shouldn't dismiss completely the data from one of the largest data collectors we have for modern.
Jeskai control: 7.54|7.4
UR Storm: 6.58|6.8
Humans: 6.19|6.2
Affinity: 6|7.5
Burn: 5.03|5.6
Grixis DS: 4.26|5.6
Eldrazi Tron 3.09|4.6
Tron: 5.61|4.0
Devoted Company 3.09|4.6
Lantern control 3.09|1.7
UW control 2.7|2.7
Both datasets go back to 3 weeks. There is definitely an observable overlapping between the datasets, with a few notable differenes. Affinity seems to be higher than what is indicated in mtggoldfish.
Stormis also has a slightly higher % in the reddit metagame analysis. This is weird to me because of storm's prevalence online (which is also reflected in the 5-0s). It seems that the 5-0s don't really affect its share.
Lantern picks up a lot of % in the mtggoldfish probably because of its constant inclusion in 5-0 decklists. This probably happens because the deck has so little overlap with other decks that it is easier for it to make it to the published decklists (if card overlapping is a criterion).
Tron and Eldrazi tron seem to have opposite results with one become prevalent in one list and the other in the other.
I think it is interesting to observe the effect the selective publishing has on our metagame data instead of simply scraping it altogether. It would be possible to identify a pattern and maybe make those datasets more relevant.
It still blows my mind that people think bbe is too strong. These must be the same folks who wanted sword to stay banned because it would break lantern control, and wild nacatl because no other aggro deck would exist.
If bbe is too strong then collected company must be too strong. Two cards on battlefield for four mana with a splash of variance.
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Modern
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
It still blows my mind that people think bbe is too strong. These must be the same folks who wanted sword to stay banned because it would break lantern control, and wild nacatl because no other aggro deck would exist.
If bbe is too strong then collected company must be too strong. Two cards on battlefield for four mana with a splash of variance.
That's cute. I agree. BBE is not too strong. But if you look it through developer's eyes, it's something that's difficult to unban.
I get where you're coming from, but it's worth pointing out that we don't know how big of a factor the developer angle is in considering an unban. It's hard to make an argument that BBE is too powerful at this point, so what other considerations are there? We know that whether or not a card would slot into a tier 1 deck is a factor, but unless something big changes in the next few months, I don't see Jund making that big of a comeback.
Getting back to the original point, does BBE really have a chance of dominating the 4cmc position in decks it would feasibly be put into? I don't know, I'm not a Jund player, but that is a valid concern.
Who cares if it invalidates other cards? Should I go about naming all of the cards that Lightning Bolt invalidates? Poor Shock, seeing no time in the sun...
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
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)
Yeah the other laugh is the idea that modern is swimming in viable four drops and that bbe would sweep them all away. Modern is extremely hostile to four drops just due to the brutal efficiency of it, but fatal push didnt help matters either. Four used to matter for dodging decay, now the benchmark is 5 for dodging push (which basically means tasigur and angler) Do you see resto angels everywhere? Siege rhinos? Pia and kiran? Thought knot is pretty much where it starts and stops, in large part because people end up paying 3 for it.
Jund traditionally runs a very optional four drop or two. Are we all mourning the lack of olivia voldaren? Cause thats where this argument goes - a deck that runs almost no four drops might replace those almost no four drops with bbe. And ps we arent sure 4 bbe is going to go very smooth with those 4 dark confidants in any case.
The only deck that I can think of off the top of my head that does run 5 drops in modern as the top of the curve is Soul Sisters, in large part because the lifegain lets them brute force their way to turn 5. Even then that deck sometimes feels like it plays better just comboing out with Rally the Ancestors or immortal Servitude into a couple of giant Ajani's Pridemate. That deck hasn't felt relevant for a long time in the top of the meta.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
When we have such a large card pool, being an eternal format, linear strategies are going to be prevalent. I think its just the way its going to be for Modern forever. The only reason control decks survive in Legacy is because of insanely powerful reactive control cards like Force of Will and Counterbalance. The car pools are just too big to cover everything, and even if we had something like Counterspell, I'm not sure if control would even be much more powerful than the current Jeskai lists are. There's a reason proactive cards like Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize are so good.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
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)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)But you're right. People say the same when Tron, Storm, E Tron, ..., lll, ... etc. does well. Rarely saw it for Jund or Twin, oddly enough. Affinity too...rarely saw it for that one. The "good guys," lol.
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)No, I actually never got to play Storm with Seething Song. I played Pyromancer Ascension Storm for 3 months in a row before the printing of Eidolon of the Great Revel. I loved the deck, but had to quit because I would get matched against too many Burn players at the time. After 3 rough outings, I switched to Bogles to decimate Burn, only to find that I wasn't matched up up quite as often. I still did well with it.
Storm is the type of mechanic that I LOOOOOVE. I played it in Vintage when 4 Dark Rituals were allowed. Oddly enough, I hadn't tried it in Legacy until a year ago and actually found it really hard to play there. It took longer than usual for me to feel comfortable playing it at a Legacy tournament, especially the Miracles matchup. But around the time that Eidolon was printed, a deck that I love even more than Storm came around - Jeskai Ascendancy. This was the one time that in Modern I literally told myself that I will only play this deck from now on. That's how much I loved it! But Eidolon of the Great Revel caused me problems once again and when Treasure Cruise was banned, it kind of put the lid on it for me (not quite as broken anymore, lol).
Anyway, relating to this thread, I guess people will hate against anything they don't like, so I shouldn't "preinsulate" myself for the comments that may never come.
*I have been testing with Gifts Storm recently, but sometimes it just loses to itself and it has been nice to not lose to grave hate in the past few months (since I played so many grave based decks). It really hurt me mentally to ask my opponent how many Grafdigger's Cage they had, just to hear them say "one" out of the board, playing it on turn 1 in games 2 and 3. I had answers, but didn't draw them. This was before Dredge, so grave hate was much more rare at the time. It's not like nowadays. It just felt good not to have that grave vulnerability. Who knows? I may try Storm again. Burn seems to be on the decline.
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)The deck was super powerful, and deserved the ban. But Gifts Storm feels like it runs entirely through Electromancer and Baral to me. Every time I don't have them on the field, I feel like my chances of whiffing on a storm out are really high for an all-in combo deck.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
If the T3 win% is truly falling, that would be good news for anyone who fears a possible ban. It is certainly supported in my own stats, where Storm has seen its T3 win% drop from early this year to November.
If Storm was so "super powerful" it deserved the Seething Song ban, then why is it that in the five big events (one Pro Tour, four Grand Prix) that occurred between the printing of Goblin Electromancer and the banning of Seething Song, Storm took only one Top 8 spot out of the forty total?
Sure, it broke the arbitrary turn 4 rule, blah blah blah. But in terms of power level, there's no justification for its banning. Affinity had five times the number of Top 8's that Storm got, but it received no banning.
I haven't played Vintage in 8 years now. I haven't followed it much, outside of articles that Mishra's Workshop is causing all kinds of trouble. I couldn't have seen that coming, lol. The Workshop deck back then caused me the most problems of any deck and it was humiliating to lose to Goblin Welder beatdown because there was occasionally a possibility of drawing out of it.
I looked at the Restricted list. I could have sworn it was Dark Ritual, but it was probably Brainstorm that I was thinking about or perhaps Mind's Desire. I don't remember those being restricted at the time - maaaybe the Mind's Desire. Probably that.
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I think it's pretty clear why Storm got banned. It was about 12% of MTGO and won on T2 or T3 somewhere around 20%-30% of games. Wizards has drawn a line about fast wins (probably because they feel bad for players) and Storm crossed that line. Indeed, the Probe ban affirms this; multiple decks were winning pre-T4 and Wizards acted against that play experience by banning a common card.
Fortunately, Boggles is the kind of deck that once you're prepared for it, you can make your matchup versus is very good, so...
It does indeed smash the Humans matchup. Played against it 3 times in 7 rounds at a PPTQ. Those were my only wins on the day.
With Bogles (I played the deck for quite a bit), it's more that some matchups are dirt poor and some are incredibly easy. There's stuff that decks can put in, but usually outside of the Bogles player playing poorly or being vulnerable (because of mulligans or the hand and draws were just poor), those few cards don't create more than a mild annoyance at most. When you play against a solid player, you will realize that Engineered Explosives is not a guarantee win on the spot that everyone claims it is.
There's some decks that hardly stand a chance to win vs. Bogles, many of these decks not being played much anymore - Delver, Zoo, most Blue based Control, UWR, Humans, Dredge...
Merfolk, Affinity, and Burn are all positive matchups as well.
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Lantern Control
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The argument against that has been that Storm was abnormally played on MTGO more than in paper because the MTGO Storm list could be built for as little as 6-8 tickets if you already had your Tarns and Steam Vents. To this day it gets played a ton because of how cheap it is to build compared to other decks.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Oh, it certainly does. It's what you call a nearly unwinnable matchup. Luckily, not that many players play Lantern around here and those who do are far from proficient at it. It's also the #1 deck I hate to see when I'm playing Grishoalbrand.
Against Lantern as Bogles, I side in 4 Leyline of Sanctity, 2 Rest in Peace, 4 Seal of Primordium (would diversify if Lantern got played more), and 3 Stony Silence. I side in every card except Gaddock Teeg. Sometimes, I don't even cut 13 cards for those 13 that I bring in. Still, it's an abysmal matchup. They have too much discard to slow things down until they can Abrupt Decay and Nature's Claim stuff, then use Welding Jar for the stuff I try to destroy. It gets ugly real quick.
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I never disagreed with this. In fact, it's supported by later bans. Wizards doesn't care WHY a T4 rule violator is top-tier. They just care THAT it is top-tier, because this probably means something about format-wide experience. See the Probe ban, where a collection of decks were affecting overall format T4 violations. This would definitely be a problem if Wizards claimed decks like Storm were highly-played because they are powerful/good, but they never make that claim about T4 violators. They just claim the decks are widely-played.
It looks like I've achieved my aim. I'm going to try playing a snapcaster deck now. That's one less storm pilot in the meta
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/7g3w60/latest_developments_in_the_modern_metagame/
Interestingly, this broader picture actually undercuts my anecdotal observation that Storm's share is falling, so disregard a previous post of mine about that deck. Storm still may have an overall reduction in T3 wins, but it isn't because the share is falling. If that is the case, it's because it has more tough matchups to fight through.
If that metagame picture is true for any number of GP or PT going into 2018, there is absolutely no way we see any bans. There is also no way we see an SFM unban; Jeskai Queller/Control alone would prevent that. Add the possibility of Humans and a Company deck using the card and it seems like a solid no-go. BBE, however, continues to look like the perfect unban. BGx is doing so poorly overall and seems to be dropping whenever we look away and look back.
Assessing Tier 1 deck %: (list 1 mtggoldfish, list 2 reddit)
Jeskai control: 7.54|7.4
UR Storm: 6.58|6.8
Humans: 6.19|6.2
Affinity: 6|7.5
Burn: 5.03|5.6
Grixis DS: 4.26|5.6
Eldrazi Tron 3.09|4.6
Tron: 5.61|4.0
Devoted Company 3.09|4.6
Lantern control 3.09|1.7
UW control 2.7|2.7
Both datasets go back to 3 weeks. There is definitely an observable overlapping between the datasets, with a few notable differenes. Affinity seems to be higher than what is indicated in mtggoldfish.
Stormis also has a slightly higher % in the reddit metagame analysis. This is weird to me because of storm's prevalence online (which is also reflected in the 5-0s). It seems that the 5-0s don't really affect its share.
Lantern picks up a lot of % in the mtggoldfish probably because of its constant inclusion in 5-0 decklists. This probably happens because the deck has so little overlap with other decks that it is easier for it to make it to the published decklists (if card overlapping is a criterion).
Tron and Eldrazi tron seem to have opposite results with one become prevalent in one list and the other in the other.
I think it is interesting to observe the effect the selective publishing has on our metagame data instead of simply scraping it altogether. It would be possible to identify a pattern and maybe make those datasets more relevant.
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)
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If bbe is too strong then collected company must be too strong. Two cards on battlefield for four mana with a splash of variance.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
I get where you're coming from, but it's worth pointing out that we don't know how big of a factor the developer angle is in considering an unban. It's hard to make an argument that BBE is too powerful at this point, so what other considerations are there? We know that whether or not a card would slot into a tier 1 deck is a factor, but unless something big changes in the next few months, I don't see Jund making that big of a comeback.
Getting back to the original point, does BBE really have a chance of dominating the 4cmc position in decks it would feasibly be put into? I don't know, I'm not a Jund player, but that is a valid concern.
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Jund traditionally runs a very optional four drop or two. Are we all mourning the lack of olivia voldaren? Cause thats where this argument goes - a deck that runs almost no four drops might replace those almost no four drops with bbe. And ps we arent sure 4 bbe is going to go very smooth with those 4 dark confidants in any case.
* Esper Draw-Go
* Tezzeret Whir
* Blue Tron
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]