Now, UW tap out Control is certainly going to try the card. The best decks would be Abzan, Esper, Mardu and taxes though. In that order. And even taxes is dubious.
For taxes to run the card it would look like a completely different list than the ones currently riding the coat tales of leonin arbiter, not to say it couldn't happen, and you seemed to be hinting this in your post, I just wanted to make it clear that the focal point of the current taxes list is completely at odds with SFM, and would make me think taxes doesn't want SFM but would rather continue the arbiter plan to not only hurt land fixing, but the influx of SFM players.
I think esper, abzan, and straight Orzhov are the most likely homes for it. I've played BW deadguy ale for years now and it is a really good deck but it has desperately needed SFM or some other cheap finisher (that is better than pack rat) to make it competitively viable.
I don't know about BBE so much anymore. It has a really feel bad mechanic attached to it that they would never print again and I just don't think they want to hear people be salty about it. I think Modern Nexuses recent article on it did a good job point all this out.
I know I'm weird and out there but I'd rather see GSZ than stoneforge at this point. I think green based midrange could use some serious help, probably more even than white. It's pretty lame to me how hard green has been driven out of the format recently. But I do think it's close.
If you look at decks playing green these days it's pretty much exclusively those that want a t1 mana dork and then to do some kind of combo horsecrap (knightfall, elves, abzan company) or Scapeshift. Abzan midrange and Jund are pretty much gone.
Given a choice between a UWx / Wx midrange deck and green creatures I think I'd rather see green creatures I think. If it comes down to it I think that unbanning GSZ is worth the risk that Valakut might have to be banned -- I know I can come down heavily on the side of GSZ as the healthier card for any metagame.
I have...a hard time digesting some people's opinions and thoughts.
It seems---coy, when people say, "Jeskai players won't play SFM". I think Jeskai would love a 2 cmc bomb. I feel there's games they'd love to be on the play, drop a SFM, and know that the rest of their hand can deal with a creature not eating a counter. If the deck they're playing is a goldfish deck with minimum interaction, that's fantastic, a 6/6 life-link is a nice clock with counters and removal.
Bring in narrow hate cards to deal with a batterskull? Great, now they can attack you with manlands and bolt snap bolt while you hold a dead card in hand.
SFM into Spell Queller sounds like a fantastic curve to me, and yes, I am absolutely sure they would cut the Geist for it.
Tax decks will absolutely play SFM! I'm sure there will have to be a recongifuration, but that card will absolutely find its way in. Tax decks have their bases covered with combo, decent game against slow control, and a so so relationship with midrange--but they really lack power against creature aggro and board-stalls.
On top of that, Tax decks are filled to the brim with the 3 drop spot. There is absolutely, 100%, no freaking way, that SFM would not find itself playing without a modern legal SFM. It's just plain wrong--and citing Arbiter is woefully ignorant.
GK, I find it baffling as a GBx player when you say something like, "BBE will unite all GBx players into jund". What on earth do you think will happen if SFM were unbanned and BBE wasn't? I'm certain that Jund would lose 2/3rds of it's small base now to go into a deck that has access to SFM
Cascade can be a feel bad mechanic. But, do you know what else feels bad? Having someone tutor up a batterskull or Sword and already be up in card advantage.
I think you're cherrypicking the narrative to suit your liking, knowing you're a GDS player with Jeskai on the side (or is it the other way around?)
As for a GSZ unbanning---that makes me nervous. For the same reason I dislike the thought of Jace being unbanned, I dislike GSZ. Will that card run fair blue decks out of the meta? Will an existing deck break this, or come close to it? Will it destroy all midrange green deck and unify them to play a toolbox deck with all the answers?
I'm trying to stay unbiased, and as someone who's against Jace in this format I can't sit here and argue for GSZ either.
As for Storm---yeah, I have a problem with this deck. I think it's flat out better than every combo deck in the format. I believe it runs a lot of the linear decks out into tier 2 or more. I feel the deck can't be attacked on one axis. Have GY hate, sure, I'll kill you with 12 tokens. It isn't like dredge, if they don't have an answer to relic or Cage, they're in very huge trouble. Having hate in the opening hand against Storm isn't often enough, if they have 3 mana and baral, the game is probably over. If they naturally get to 5 or 6 mana, the game is probably over. This isn't a combo deck that can be locked out. The honest to god only real lockout I can think of is things like Eidolon, game 1 Meddling Mage, or an LOTV that has stripped their entire hand.
Hand hate isn't a good counter, I play a ton of decks with thoughtseize, they easily resculpt their hand, they need to be under absolute, immediate pressure. Removal doesn't scare them, in fact, the pieces of the puzzle package comes in postboard.
Eidolon of the Revel hoses this deck, and part of Humans place in the meta is how hard it hates this deck
Storm is being underplayed and I think the pro's are going to expose this. I don't think there's anything remotely healthy about Storm, and when I see this deck I am reminded of Bloom, 2016 Dredge and so on...
I think the PT is going to expose modern for looking uglier than we realize, and while that is cynical, I believe we're going to see a very linear top 32. If that isn't the case I will absolutely be thrilled.
I'm not screaming for a Storm ban because at the moment it's results aren't enough to warrant that, but make no mistake, I think this deck is awful for modern and I do think its time is coming.
I have...a hard time digesting some people's opinions and thoughts.
It seems---coy, when people say, "Jeskai players won't play SFM". I think Jeskai would love a 2 cmc bomb. I feel there's games they'd love to be on the play, drop a SFM, and know that the rest of their hand can deal with a creature not eating a counter. If the deck they're playing is a goldfish deck with minimum interaction, that's fantastic, a 6/6 life-link is a nice clock with counters and removal.
Bring in narrow hate cards to deal with a batterskull? Great, now they can attack you with manlands and bolt snap bolt while you hold a dead card in hand.
SFM into Spell Queller sounds like a fantastic curve to me, and yes, I am absolutely sure they would cut the Geist for it.
Tax decks will absolutely play SFM! I'm sure there will have to be a recongifuration, but that card will absolutely find its way in. Tax decks have their bases covered with combo, decent game against slow control, and a so so relationship with midrange--but they really lack power against creature aggro and board-stalls.
On top of that, Tax decks are filled to the brim with the 3 drop spot. There is absolutely, 100%, no freaking way, that SFM would not find itself playing without a modern legal SFM. It's just plain wrong--and citing Arbiter is woefully ignorant.
GK, I find it baffling as a GBx player when you say something like, "BBE will unite all GBx players into jund". What on earth do you think will happen if SFM were unbanned and BBE wasn't? I'm certain that Jund would lose 2/3rds of it's small base now to go into a deck that has access to SFM
Cascade can be a feel bad mechanic. But, do you know what else feels bad? Having someone tutor up a batterskull or Sword and already be up in card advantage.
I think you're cherrypicking the narrative to suit your liking, knowing you're a GDS player with Jeskai on the side (or is it the other way around?)
As for a GSZ unbanning---that makes me nervous. For the same reason I dislike the thought of Jace being unbanned, I dislike GSZ. Will that card run fair blue decks out of the meta? Will an existing deck break this, or come close to it? Will it destroy all midrange green deck and unify them to play a toolbox deck with all the answers?
I'm trying to stay unbiased, and as someone who's against Jace in this format I can't sit here and argue for GSZ either.
As for Storm---yeah, I have a problem with this deck. I think it's flat out better than every combo deck in the format. I believe it runs a lot of the linear decks out into tier 2 or more. I feel the deck can't be attacked on one axis. Have GY hate, sure, I'll kill you with 12 tokens. It isn't like dredge, if they don't have an answer to relic or Cage, they're in very huge trouble. Having hate in the opening hand against Storm isn't often enough, if they have 3 mana and baral, the game is probably over. If they naturally get to 5 or 6 mana, the game is probably over. This isn't a combo deck that can be locked out. The honest to god only real lockout I can think of is things like Eidolon, game 1 Meddling Mage, or an LOTV that has stripped their entire hand.
Hand hate isn't a good counter, I play a ton of decks with thoughtseize, they easily resculpt their hand, they need to be under absolute, immediate pressure. Removal doesn't scare them, in fact, the pieces of the puzzle package comes in postboard.
Eidolon of the Revel hoses this deck, and part of Humans place in the meta is how hard it hates this deck
Storm is being underplayed and I think the pro's are going to expose this. I don't think there's anything remotely healthy about Storm, and when I see this deck I am reminded of Bloom, 2016 Dredge and so on...
I think the PT is going to expose modern for looking uglier than we realize, and while that is cynical, I believe we're going to see a very linear top 32. If that isn't the case I will absolutely be thrilled.
I'm not screaming for a Storm ban because at the moment it's results aren't enough to warrant that, but make no mistake, I think this deck is awful for modern and I do think its time is coming.
I think there's a reason people aren't playing Storm, its because its a hard deck to have a good payoff. Yeah, you have to attack it on multiple axis, but pretty much all the tier 1 decks are prepared for the matchup, and they all have a winning matchup against storm post board besides Affinity. That is the reason why it's underperforming (plus the prevalence of burn at major open events). There are plenty of hosers to Storm in Modern but if you don't want to play them, then you better be able to interact with them on the stack.
I agree in what you said that Storm is the premier combo deck, and if you want to play a linear combo deck, then Storm just blows everything out of the water, which is one major negative in my book. But in the current meta game I don't see how any linear pure engine combo deck can really ever be tier one that isn't on the same power level as Storm.
Do you just not want liner combo decks to exist in tier 1? You haven't explicitly said it, but it seems that is what is implied. Do you think that combo is just bad for Modern?
Why are you under the assumption I don't combo in tier 1? I despise Tron decks, and haven't pushed for it to be gone.
I'm fine with combo decks, it all depends on resilient it is
For example, 2016 Dredge was absurd. The deck was only held back by the fact that the average deck was packing 6 to 8 hate cards for it.
Bloom became oppressive
Combo decks worry me because they can skirt on the rules.
I don't believe a combo deck should only have a weakness to certain archetypes, I believe decks should have a weakness if desired
For example, Stony Silence hosing Affinity, current Dredge seeing a cage.
My issue with Storm is that you MUST provide a very fast clock, while killing their enablers, and stripping their hand, and providing hate all at the same time.
Some combo decks absolutely fall apart if two cards are discarded---but I believe Storm is fairly resilient to hand hate, unless the clock is blistering fast. I'm certain WOTC probably feels similar to what I've written. Storm isn't breaking this format as of now so demanding a ban isn't reasonable.
Combo isn't bad for modern, I just don't want them to be required to have 5 different angles of attack to be susceptible, otherwise why play any other deck?
Combo decks benefit from a few things
more free wins
less issues with drawing the wrong half of a deck
being proactive
If more combo decks were like Abzan Company or AD NAUS, I'd be ok. Abzan company has the secondary plan of beating you down with value creatures. AD Naus isn't crazy fast, but it is fairly consistent while weak to hand hate or artifact hate. Goroyos vengeance can fall apart go grave/hand hate
It's less about combo decks and more about how Storm has absolutely everything you would want in a combo deck. Seriously, if you're playing any other spell based combo deck you're handicapping yourself a lot, just like I'm handicapping myself with Jund by not playing Grixis Shadow, which is better in nearly every way.
That's absolutely non-true. Cascade can hit a LOTV and it means you are coasting.
Just one note here, BBE into LoTV is ofc one of if not the best thing and surely not great experience for the opponent, but, on the other side, this can be easily disrupted with a single bolt. As you cascade into LoTV and cast LoTV, BBE is still on the stack and when LoTV resolves, she can just be bolted to death without the controlling player getting to uptick her beforehand.
Now, not that I want to say its not that bad, but its probably not devastating at least.
Why are you under the assumption I don't combo in tier 1? I despise Tron decks, and haven't pushed for it to be gone.
I'm fine with combo decks, it all depends on resilient it is
For example, 2016 Dredge was absurd. The deck was only held back by the fact that the average deck was packing 6 to 8 hate cards for it.
Bloom became oppressive
Combo decks worry me because they can skirt on the rules.
I don't believe a combo deck should only have a weakness to certain archetypes, I believe decks should have a weakness if desired
For example, Stony Silence hosing Affinity, current Dredge seeing a cage.
My issue with Storm is that you MUST provide a very fast clock, while killing their enablers, and stripping their hand, and providing hate all at the same time.
Some combo decks absolutely fall apart if two cards are discarded---but I believe Storm is fairly resilient to hand hate, unless the clock is blistering fast. I'm certain WOTC probably feels similar to what I've written. Storm isn't breaking this format as of now so demanding a ban isn't reasonable.
Combo isn't bad for modern, I just don't want them to be required to have 5 different angles of attack to be susceptible, otherwise why play any other deck?
Combo decks benefit from a few things
more free wins
less issues with drawing the wrong half of a deck
being proactive
If more combo decks were like Abzan Company or AD NAUS, I'd be ok. Abzan company has the secondary plan of beating you down with value creatures. AD Naus isn't crazy fast, but it is fairly consistent while weak to hand hate or artifact hate. Goroyos vengeance can fall apart go grave/hand hate
It's less about combo decks and more about how Storm has absolutely everything you would want in a combo deck. Seriously, if you're playing any other spell based combo deck you're handicapping yourself a lot, just like I'm handicapping myself with Jund by not playing Grixis Shadow, which is better in nearly every way.
Yeah but I dont think that should be a reason to ban a card from Death's Shadow because its better than Jund, and same for Strom vs any other combo deck. The deck has clear weaknesses as show by it only being around 3-4% of the meta.
I see your point about it being dangerous, but Wizards has printed so many cards over the years to combat combo decks like Rule of Law effects, Sphere effects, etc. (And yeah, hand disruption is very good against the deck, that's the reason why GDS is its worst MU after Burn, and why GBx decks have always done good vs Storm in the past.)
The reason i said that it seems like you dont want Combo to be tier 1, is because, like Wizards, whenever a combo deck does become tier 1, it just gets banned, simple as that.
It has to satisfy the criterion of the "turn 4 rule" at the same time being resilient enough to battle through the other tier 1 decks that will either tear their hand apart or counter every spell it ever puts on the stack turns 1-3.
This makes me come to the conclusion that a tier 1 modern combo deck cannot exist unless it has the current power of the Storm deck. I think the current power of the storm deck is the healthiest power level any combo deck that has reached tier 1 in Modern has ever become. If it becomes more powerful due to a new printing, then ban it. But if the current power level becomes nerfed, then it will fall into the same catergory as Counters Company in tier 1.5ish or Ad Naus in solid tier 2.
No doubt it would be fun. RUG decks would go from Tier 3 to Tier 2 possibly. There are some RUG aficionados at my LGS.
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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)
I know I'm weird and out there but I'd rather see GSZ than stoneforge at this point. I think green based midrange could use some serious help, probably more even than white. It's pretty lame to me how hard green has been driven out of the format recently. But I do think it's close.
If you look at decks playing green these days it's pretty much exclusively those that want a t1 mana dork and then to do some kind of combo horsecrap (knightfall, elves, abzan company) or Scapeshift. Abzan midrange and Jund are pretty much gone.
Given a choice between a UWx / Wx midrange deck and green creatures I think I'd rather see green creatures I think. If it comes down to it I think that unbanning GSZ is worth the risk that Valakut might have to be banned -- I know I can come down heavily on the side of GSZ as the healthier card for any metagame.
The problem is, "those [decks] that want a t1 mana dork and then to do some kind of combo horsecrap" are some of the best decks to run Green Sun's Zenith in. So I don't see how Green Sun's Zenith would empower other decks when it goes straight into the decks you're complaining about.
I know I'm weird and out there but I'd rather see GSZ than stoneforge at this point. I think gree^_^;n based midrange could use some serious help, probably more even than white. It's pretty lame to me how hard green has been driven out of the format recently. But I do think it's close.
If you look at decks playing green these days it's pretty much exclusively those that want a t1 mana dork and then to do some kind of combo horsecrap (knightfall, elves, abzan company) or Scapeshift. Abzan midrange and Jund are pretty much gone.
Given a choice between a UWx / Wx midrange deck and green creatures I think I'd rather see green creatures I think. If it comes down to it I think that unbanning GSZ is worth the risk that Valakut might have to be banned -- I know I can come down heavily on the side of GSZ as the healthier card for any metagame.
The problem is, "those [decks] that want a t1 mana dork and then to do some kind of combo horsecrap" are some of the best decks to run Green Sun's Zenith in. So I don't see how Green Sun's Zenith would empower other decks when it goes straight into the decks you're complaining about.
Pokken plays Abzan Company decks
It'd probably break Titanshift, and probably have a slew of issues. It would shake up modern and then probably have to be corrected with some changes
It is absolutely not the card to unban in a healthy meta.
We've talked about it to death, but Jace is a bad idea
There's the price issue, which people will quickly point out isn't a consideration, but I do think it's in the back of WOTC's mind, it'd be disastrous if half a grand of cards needed to be re-banned.
Jace also just makes non blue fair decks worse while not fixing the horrible matchups it has.
Jace is also just a design mistake that WOTC made when they were trying to figure out what to do with planeswalkers.
GSZ is just a bad idea, it possibly breaks a deck or two and probably forces every green player to play the same toolbox deck, and makes fair blue decks worse on top of it.
Yeah but I dont think that should be a reason to ban a card from Death's Shadow because its better than Jund, and same for Strom vs any other combo deck. The deck has clear weaknesses as show by it only being around 3-4% of the meta.
I see your point about it being dangerous, but Wizards has printed so many cards over the years to combat combo decks like Rule of Law effects, Sphere effects, etc. (And yeah, hand disruption is very good against the deck, that's the reason why GDS is its worst MU after Burn, and why GBx decks have always done good vs Storm in the past.)
The reason i said that it seems like you dont want Combo to be tier 1, is because, like Wizards, whenever a combo deck does become tier 1, it just gets banned, simple as that.
It has to satisfy the criterion of the "turn 4 rule" at the same time being resilient enough to battle through the other tier 1 decks that will either tear their hand apart or counter every spell it ever puts on the stack turns 1-3.
This makes me come to the conclusion that a tier 1 modern combo deck cannot exist unless it has the current power of the Storm deck. I think the current power of the storm deck is the healthiest power level any combo deck that has reached tier 1 in Modern has ever become. If it becomes more powerful due to a new printing, then ban it. But if the current power level becomes nerfed, then it will fall into the same catergory as Counters Company in tier 1.5ish or Ad Naus in solid tier 2.
There's a certain class of player who despises combo decks being good because they feel like they didnt get to play magic when they lose to them. I've never been able to grasp how it feels better to die to aggro at the same speeds but c'est la vie. People who state things like Ad Naus being the combo decks they want in the format are simply saying (like you pointed out) they don't want tier 1 combo. Ad naus is neither fast enough nor resilient enough to be a viable top tier deck. Maybe I'm wrong to, but I don't put ramp decks like tron or shift in the same category as a combo deck like storm (even though wizards often equates combo with ramp). Either way, shift isn't a good deck and currently Tron and Storm are the only "combo" decks that are top tier, with storm being the only traditional combo deck. You look down to tier 2 and below and you see things like Ad Naus and Shoal and Amulet that are missing speed, resiliency or consistency to be competitive. Killing storm isn't going to magically make other combo decks more playable. Killing storm is killing combo because the speed and disruption of decks like Shadow and Humans are working wonders holding down combo (including storm).Honestly, it seems to me that people complaining about storm have never piloted the deck versus something like shadow or humans.
I responded to you, which is weird because I agreed with everything you said...so I guess I'm really responding to the guy you originally quoted.
I think there is a difference between them making Development (costing) mistakes, and Game Design mistakes. I can get behind Dev mistakes, but the design of the card is not an issue to me.
I mean he's good, granted, but what exactly makes him a design mistake?
WotC themselves suggested so in their breakdown of why they banned Jace in Standard. They firstly awknoledge that they undercosted Jace: 'I'll talk about Jace first. A huge number of factors went into getting him printed the way he was. First, to quote Randy again, the line "the more innovative a new mechanic is, the more likely we are to misunderstand exactly how to take best advantage of it and thus the more likely we are to miscost cards" holds true for planeswalkers, even to this day'.
This is reitterated by Sam Stoddard in his article Developmental mistakes: 'While I was not here for the decision, I have to imagine moving Jace, the Mind Sculptor up to five mana, or limiting which Equipment Stoneforge Mystic could get could've read as a less-harsh solution than banning the cards in Standard, but I don't think it is the better long-term solution for Magic'.
Then go on to say, in the banning explanation, that there was a last minute design change that made him too powerful: 'we didn't fully understand Jace's power. His first ability underwent a significant late change, going from milling two cards to "fatesealing" one. That ability was playtested very little, and we didn't recognize just how easy it was to put away games with it'.
First, that's a development mistake, not a design mistake. Additionally, it was a last minute change to Tarmogoyf that made it as powerful as it was (originally it was supposed to be a */* for 2G, then got changed to */*+1 for 1G). Should Tarmogoyf be banned on that basis? Similarly, Arcbound Ravager was changed from 3 mana to 2 mana at the last minute. Should we ban Arcbound Ravager for that? The fact Jace is as amazing as he is due to a last-minute change that wasn't playtested enough is completely irrelevant when it comes to whether he should be banned in Modern or not.
There's a certain class of player who despises combo decks being good because they feel like they didnt get to play magic when they lose to them. I've never been able to grasp how it feels better to die to aggro at the same speeds but c'est la vie. People who state things like Ad Naus being the combo decks they want in the format are simply saying (like you pointed out) they don't want tier 1 combo. Ad naus is neither fast enough nor resilient enough to be a viable top tier deck. Maybe I'm wrong to, but I don't put ramp decks like tron or shift in the same category as a combo deck like storm (even though wizards often equates combo with ramp). Either way, shift isn't a good deck and currently Tron and Storm are the only "combo" decks that are top tier, with storm being the only traditional combo deck. You look down to tier 2 and below and you see things like Ad Naus and Shoal and Amulet that are missing speed, resiliency or consistency to be competitive. Killing storm isn't going to magically make other combo decks more playable. Killing storm is killing combo because the speed and disruption of decks like Shadow and Humans are working wonders holding down combo (including storm).Honestly, it seems to me that people complaining about storm have never piloted the deck versus something like shadow or humans.
I think you both hit the nail on the head with this statement, combo decks need to be slightly faster than aggro decks to have a chance of battling their consistency whilst needing to be somewhat resilient to not outright lose on the spot to discard or a counter, if they are on the level of Ad Nauseam which just gets outraced by aggro decks or as fragile as Bloom then they stand no chance of being anything other than a tier 2 deck or lower.
Storm is obviously a powerful deck, but as its low % share showcases it is not oppressive by any means and it has its fair share of terrible MUs even in tier 1, Burn and Humans just feeling miserable to play against and GDS being the epitome of efficient disruption backed up by a quick clock, heck even Jeskai Control is an even MU and Nikolichs list packs 0 hate (he does not board in Runed Halo v Storm).
Why are you under the assumption I don't combo in tier 1? I despise Tron decks, and haven't pushed for it to be gone.
I don't know how you consider Tron a combo deck, it's more control than combo if you were to categorize it under the big 3 being Aggro/Control/Combo. It is clear that many people including yourself would preferably relegate combo decks to tier 2 and below by stating that more combo decks should be like Ad Nauseam though (which by the way can be way less interacted with than Storm).
I'm honestly always perplexed at how people can advocate for unbans which likely slot into current tier 1 decks while arguing for another tier 1 deck with a lower metagame share to get banned.
So...Bant Eldrazi casting a turn 2 Thought-Knot is a combo? Just because a Karn turn 3 makes you scoop more often than not doesn't make it a combo deck. When a combo deck goes off you lose the game the same turn or the following one, i.e. Storm, Ad Nauseam, Scapeshift, Amulet titan, Abzan CoCo, Living End, Reanimator, Infect, Cheerios etc.
Tron is a combo deck in much the same way Enchantress is a combo deck, a very slow-moving combo/ramp deck that squawks like a control deck but generally exists to invalidate everything you're doing. I suppose it could also be compared to Sneak&Show, which is most certainly a combo deck.
Bant Eldrazi is just a tribal deck, doing unfair tribal decks (compare to, say, Goblin Lackey).
Tron is a combo deck in much the same way Enchantress is a combo deck, a very slow-moving combo/ramp deck that squawks like a control deck but generally exists to invalidate everything you're doing. I suppose it could also be compared to Sneak&Show, which is most certainly a combo deck.
Bant Eldrazi is just a tribal deck, doing unfair tribal decks (compare to, say, Goblin Lackey).
I'm going to drop the "Tron is a combo or control deck" discussion after this post since it's just semantics and in the end it is neither, being a ramp/big mana deck, but by your definition Lantern Control would be a combo deck.
Imagine company, Titanshift and elves with green suns zenith...
An unban that will result in multiple bannings is not a right call for me.
Yes SFM and BBE are the safest call for me. We will have many versions of midrange, big mana will rise to fight them, aggro and storm in their order and the cycle of modern meta will carry on...
The only problem of SFM is the hit it will do to burn. You just cant let batterskull get in. you have to bolt her so its a gain 3 life card
The only advantage Titanshift would get out of GSZ is that it can search up a Sakura as a 3 mana ramp spell or post SB things like Obstinate Baloth for 5 mana, other than that Pact is just straight up better to power out a Primeval Titan.
The effect it would have on Elves is much harder to judge since it would provide them with a lot of other lines to have the explosive Heritage/Nettle Sentinel -> dump your hand start, and a slightly cheaper way to get Ezuri/Archdruid probably making it slightly faster, but it would still suffer from the same hindrances as it does now to be tier 1 (extremely weak to sweepers, one removal spell often leaves you with a bunch of 1/1's), not to mention that GSZ does have its downsides when comparing to Chord as it cannot search up non-green creatures like Selfless Spirit, Vizier of Remedies and other bullets.
Clearly the biggest argument against unbanning GSZ is the existence of Dryad Arbor making it a good turn 1 play and a tutor in the late game, although one can argue once again that in the current existing CoCo decks not tutoring up non-green creatures is a huge down side. GSZ reshuffling itself also prevents the value play of the E-Witness loop one can make with Chord.
In my honest opinion I believe GSZ would be a safe unban, the argument that it would stifle the diversity of green decks is not valid since they all are extremely similar already and tier 2 below anyways, and having a good early game, but less flexible late game tutor would not break any of the current decks.
Tron is a combo deck in much the same way Enchantress is a combo deck, a very slow-moving combo/ramp deck that squawks like a control deck but generally exists to invalidate everything you're doing. I suppose it could also be compared to Sneak&Show, which is most certainly a combo deck.
Bant Eldrazi is just a tribal deck, doing unfair tribal decks (compare to, say, Goblin Lackey).
I'm going to drop the "Tron is a combo or control deck" discussion after this post since it's just semantics and in the end it is neither, being a ramp/big mana deck, but by your definition Lantern Control would be a combo deck.
Imagine company, Titanshift and elves with green suns zenith...
An unban that will result in multiple bannings is not a right call for me.
Yes SFM and BBE are the safest call for me. We will have many versions of midrange, big mana will rise to fight them, aggro and storm in their order and the cycle of modern meta will carry on...
The only problem of SFM is the hit it will do to burn. You just cant let batterskull get in. you have to bolt her so its a gain 3 life card
The only advantage Titanshift would get out of GSZ is that it can search up a Sakura as a 3 mana ramp spell or post SB things like Obstinate Baloth for 5 mana, other than that Pact is just straight up better to power out a Primeval Titan.
The effect it would have on Elves is much harder to judge since it would provide them with a lot of other lines to have the explosive Heritage/Nettle Sentinel -> dump your hand start, and a slightly cheaper way to get Ezuri/Archdruid probably making it slightly faster, but it would still suffer from the same hindrances as it does now to be tier 1 (extremely weak to sweepers, one removal spell often leaves you with a bunch of 1/1's), not to mention that GSZ does have its downsides when comparing to Chord as it cannot search up non-green creatures like Selfless Spirit, Vizier of Remedies and other bullets.
Clearly the biggest argument against unbanning GSZ is the existence of Dryad Arbor making it a good turn 1 play and a tutor in the late game, although one can argue once again that in the current existing CoCo decks not tutoring up non-green creatures is a huge down side. GSZ reshuffling itself also prevents the value play of the E-Witness loop one can make with Chord.
In my honest opinion I believe GSZ would be a safe unban, the argument that it would stifle the diversity of green decks is not valid since they all are extremely similar already and tier 2 below anyways, and having a good early game, but less flexible late game tutor would not break any of the current decks.
Titan Shift would also turn 1 GSZ for 0 to get Dryad Arbor, ramping even faster. Could be too good, idk.
SFM has way too many implications that can happen and will most likly shut down a lot of creature based decks and way too dangerous to unban imo.
The only real safe bet is BBE
Yep true, it would turn on all of the removal from the opponent though, stranding all of the bolts/fatal pushes is a big plus from the current iterations. Like I said, Dryad Arbor is the biggest culprit when arguing for a GSZ unban :).
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For taxes to run the card it would look like a completely different list than the ones currently riding the coat tales of leonin arbiter, not to say it couldn't happen, and you seemed to be hinting this in your post, I just wanted to make it clear that the focal point of the current taxes list is completely at odds with SFM, and would make me think taxes doesn't want SFM but would rather continue the arbiter plan to not only hurt land fixing, but the influx of SFM players.
I think esper, abzan, and straight Orzhov are the most likely homes for it. I've played BW deadguy ale for years now and it is a really good deck but it has desperately needed SFM or some other cheap finisher (that is better than pack rat) to make it competitively viable.
I don't know about BBE so much anymore. It has a really feel bad mechanic attached to it that they would never print again and I just don't think they want to hear people be salty about it. I think Modern Nexuses recent article on it did a good job point all this out.
If you look at decks playing green these days it's pretty much exclusively those that want a t1 mana dork and then to do some kind of combo horsecrap (knightfall, elves, abzan company) or Scapeshift. Abzan midrange and Jund are pretty much gone.
Given a choice between a UWx / Wx midrange deck and green creatures I think I'd rather see green creatures I think. If it comes down to it I think that unbanning GSZ is worth the risk that Valakut might have to be banned -- I know I can come down heavily on the side of GSZ as the healthier card for any metagame.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
It seems---coy, when people say, "Jeskai players won't play SFM". I think Jeskai would love a 2 cmc bomb. I feel there's games they'd love to be on the play, drop a SFM, and know that the rest of their hand can deal with a creature not eating a counter. If the deck they're playing is a goldfish deck with minimum interaction, that's fantastic, a 6/6 life-link is a nice clock with counters and removal.
Bring in narrow hate cards to deal with a batterskull? Great, now they can attack you with manlands and bolt snap bolt while you hold a dead card in hand.
SFM into Spell Queller sounds like a fantastic curve to me, and yes, I am absolutely sure they would cut the Geist for it.
Tax decks will absolutely play SFM! I'm sure there will have to be a recongifuration, but that card will absolutely find its way in. Tax decks have their bases covered with combo, decent game against slow control, and a so so relationship with midrange--but they really lack power against creature aggro and board-stalls.
On top of that, Tax decks are filled to the brim with the 3 drop spot. There is absolutely, 100%, no freaking way, that SFM would not find itself playing without a modern legal SFM. It's just plain wrong--and citing Arbiter is woefully ignorant.
GK, I find it baffling as a GBx player when you say something like, "BBE will unite all GBx players into jund". What on earth do you think will happen if SFM were unbanned and BBE wasn't? I'm certain that Jund would lose 2/3rds of it's small base now to go into a deck that has access to SFM
Cascade can be a feel bad mechanic. But, do you know what else feels bad? Having someone tutor up a batterskull or Sword and already be up in card advantage.
I think you're cherrypicking the narrative to suit your liking, knowing you're a GDS player with Jeskai on the side (or is it the other way around?)
As for a GSZ unbanning---that makes me nervous. For the same reason I dislike the thought of Jace being unbanned, I dislike GSZ. Will that card run fair blue decks out of the meta? Will an existing deck break this, or come close to it? Will it destroy all midrange green deck and unify them to play a toolbox deck with all the answers?
I'm trying to stay unbiased, and as someone who's against Jace in this format I can't sit here and argue for GSZ either.
As for Storm---yeah, I have a problem with this deck. I think it's flat out better than every combo deck in the format. I believe it runs a lot of the linear decks out into tier 2 or more. I feel the deck can't be attacked on one axis. Have GY hate, sure, I'll kill you with 12 tokens. It isn't like dredge, if they don't have an answer to relic or Cage, they're in very huge trouble. Having hate in the opening hand against Storm isn't often enough, if they have 3 mana and baral, the game is probably over. If they naturally get to 5 or 6 mana, the game is probably over. This isn't a combo deck that can be locked out. The honest to god only real lockout I can think of is things like Eidolon, game 1 Meddling Mage, or an LOTV that has stripped their entire hand.
Hand hate isn't a good counter, I play a ton of decks with thoughtseize, they easily resculpt their hand, they need to be under absolute, immediate pressure. Removal doesn't scare them, in fact, the pieces of the puzzle package comes in postboard.
Eidolon of the Revel hoses this deck, and part of Humans place in the meta is how hard it hates this deck
Storm is being underplayed and I think the pro's are going to expose this. I don't think there's anything remotely healthy about Storm, and when I see this deck I am reminded of Bloom, 2016 Dredge and so on...
I think the PT is going to expose modern for looking uglier than we realize, and while that is cynical, I believe we're going to see a very linear top 32. If that isn't the case I will absolutely be thrilled.
I'm not screaming for a Storm ban because at the moment it's results aren't enough to warrant that, but make no mistake, I think this deck is awful for modern and I do think its time is coming.
I think there's a reason people aren't playing Storm, its because its a hard deck to have a good payoff. Yeah, you have to attack it on multiple axis, but pretty much all the tier 1 decks are prepared for the matchup, and they all have a winning matchup against storm post board besides Affinity. That is the reason why it's underperforming (plus the prevalence of burn at major open events). There are plenty of hosers to Storm in Modern but if you don't want to play them, then you better be able to interact with them on the stack.
I agree in what you said that Storm is the premier combo deck, and if you want to play a linear combo deck, then Storm just blows everything out of the water, which is one major negative in my book. But in the current meta game I don't see how any linear pure engine combo deck can really ever be tier one that isn't on the same power level as Storm.
Do you just not want liner combo decks to exist in tier 1? You haven't explicitly said it, but it seems that is what is implied. Do you think that combo is just bad for Modern?
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
I'm fine with combo decks, it all depends on resilient it is
For example, 2016 Dredge was absurd. The deck was only held back by the fact that the average deck was packing 6 to 8 hate cards for it.
Bloom became oppressive
Combo decks worry me because they can skirt on the rules.
I don't believe a combo deck should only have a weakness to certain archetypes, I believe decks should have a weakness if desired
For example, Stony Silence hosing Affinity, current Dredge seeing a cage.
My issue with Storm is that you MUST provide a very fast clock, while killing their enablers, and stripping their hand, and providing hate all at the same time.
Some combo decks absolutely fall apart if two cards are discarded---but I believe Storm is fairly resilient to hand hate, unless the clock is blistering fast. I'm certain WOTC probably feels similar to what I've written. Storm isn't breaking this format as of now so demanding a ban isn't reasonable.
Combo isn't bad for modern, I just don't want them to be required to have 5 different angles of attack to be susceptible, otherwise why play any other deck?
Combo decks benefit from a few things
more free wins
less issues with drawing the wrong half of a deck
being proactive
If more combo decks were like Abzan Company or AD NAUS, I'd be ok. Abzan company has the secondary plan of beating you down with value creatures. AD Naus isn't crazy fast, but it is fairly consistent while weak to hand hate or artifact hate. Goroyos vengeance can fall apart go grave/hand hate
It's less about combo decks and more about how Storm has absolutely everything you would want in a combo deck. Seriously, if you're playing any other spell based combo deck you're handicapping yourself a lot, just like I'm handicapping myself with Jund by not playing Grixis Shadow, which is better in nearly every way.
Just one note here, BBE into LoTV is ofc one of if not the best thing and surely not great experience for the opponent, but, on the other side, this can be easily disrupted with a single bolt. As you cascade into LoTV and cast LoTV, BBE is still on the stack and when LoTV resolves, she can just be bolted to death without the controlling player getting to uptick her beforehand.
Now, not that I want to say its not that bad, but its probably not devastating at least.
Yeah but I dont think that should be a reason to ban a card from Death's Shadow because its better than Jund, and same for Strom vs any other combo deck. The deck has clear weaknesses as show by it only being around 3-4% of the meta.
I see your point about it being dangerous, but Wizards has printed so many cards over the years to combat combo decks like Rule of Law effects, Sphere effects, etc. (And yeah, hand disruption is very good against the deck, that's the reason why GDS is its worst MU after Burn, and why GBx decks have always done good vs Storm in the past.)
The reason i said that it seems like you dont want Combo to be tier 1, is because, like Wizards, whenever a combo deck does become tier 1, it just gets banned, simple as that.
It has to satisfy the criterion of the "turn 4 rule" at the same time being resilient enough to battle through the other tier 1 decks that will either tear their hand apart or counter every spell it ever puts on the stack turns 1-3.
This makes me come to the conclusion that a tier 1 modern combo deck cannot exist unless it has the current power of the Storm deck. I think the current power of the storm deck is the healthiest power level any combo deck that has reached tier 1 in Modern has ever become. If it becomes more powerful due to a new printing, then ban it. But if the current power level becomes nerfed, then it will fall into the same catergory as Counters Company in tier 1.5ish or Ad Naus in solid tier 2.
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Spirits
No doubt it would be fun. RUG decks would go from Tier 3 to Tier 2 possibly. There are some RUG aficionados at my LGS.
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)Pokken plays Abzan Company decks
It'd probably break Titanshift, and probably have a slew of issues. It would shake up modern and then probably have to be corrected with some changes
It is absolutely not the card to unban in a healthy meta.
SFM and BBE are much safer options.
There's the price issue, which people will quickly point out isn't a consideration, but I do think it's in the back of WOTC's mind, it'd be disastrous if half a grand of cards needed to be re-banned.
Jace also just makes non blue fair decks worse while not fixing the horrible matchups it has.
Jace is also just a design mistake that WOTC made when they were trying to figure out what to do with planeswalkers.
GSZ is just a bad idea, it possibly breaks a deck or two and probably forces every green player to play the same toolbox deck, and makes fair blue decks worse on top of it.
I mean he's good, granted, but what exactly makes him a design mistake?
Spirits
There's a certain class of player who despises combo decks being good because they feel like they didnt get to play magic when they lose to them. I've never been able to grasp how it feels better to die to aggro at the same speeds but c'est la vie. People who state things like Ad Naus being the combo decks they want in the format are simply saying (like you pointed out) they don't want tier 1 combo. Ad naus is neither fast enough nor resilient enough to be a viable top tier deck. Maybe I'm wrong to, but I don't put ramp decks like tron or shift in the same category as a combo deck like storm (even though wizards often equates combo with ramp). Either way, shift isn't a good deck and currently Tron and Storm are the only "combo" decks that are top tier, with storm being the only traditional combo deck. You look down to tier 2 and below and you see things like Ad Naus and Shoal and Amulet that are missing speed, resiliency or consistency to be competitive. Killing storm isn't going to magically make other combo decks more playable. Killing storm is killing combo because the speed and disruption of decks like Shadow and Humans are working wonders holding down combo (including storm).Honestly, it seems to me that people complaining about storm have never piloted the deck versus something like shadow or humans.
I responded to you, which is weird because I agreed with everything you said...so I guess I'm really responding to the guy you originally quoted.
Spirits
I think you both hit the nail on the head with this statement, combo decks need to be slightly faster than aggro decks to have a chance of battling their consistency whilst needing to be somewhat resilient to not outright lose on the spot to discard or a counter, if they are on the level of Ad Nauseam which just gets outraced by aggro decks or as fragile as Bloom then they stand no chance of being anything other than a tier 2 deck or lower.
Storm is obviously a powerful deck, but as its low % share showcases it is not oppressive by any means and it has its fair share of terrible MUs even in tier 1, Burn and Humans just feeling miserable to play against and GDS being the epitome of efficient disruption backed up by a quick clock, heck even Jeskai Control is an even MU and Nikolichs list packs 0 hate (he does not board in Runed Halo v Storm).
I don't know how you consider Tron a combo deck, it's more control than combo if you were to categorize it under the big 3 being Aggro/Control/Combo. It is clear that many people including yourself would preferably relegate combo decks to tier 2 and below by stating that more combo decks should be like Ad Nauseam though (which by the way can be way less interacted with than Storm).
I'm honestly always perplexed at how people can advocate for unbans which likely slot into current tier 1 decks while arguing for another tier 1 deck with a lower metagame share to get banned.
I've heard the control argument. It's. Not. It certainly can be when games go long against decks that don't flat out fold to it, though.
Bant Eldrazi is just a tribal deck, doing unfair tribal decks (compare to, say, Goblin Lackey).
The only advantage Titanshift would get out of GSZ is that it can search up a Sakura as a 3 mana ramp spell or post SB things like Obstinate Baloth for 5 mana, other than that Pact is just straight up better to power out a Primeval Titan.
The effect it would have on Elves is much harder to judge since it would provide them with a lot of other lines to have the explosive Heritage/Nettle Sentinel -> dump your hand start, and a slightly cheaper way to get Ezuri/Archdruid probably making it slightly faster, but it would still suffer from the same hindrances as it does now to be tier 1 (extremely weak to sweepers, one removal spell often leaves you with a bunch of 1/1's), not to mention that GSZ does have its downsides when comparing to Chord as it cannot search up non-green creatures like Selfless Spirit, Vizier of Remedies and other bullets.
Clearly the biggest argument against unbanning GSZ is the existence of Dryad Arbor making it a good turn 1 play and a tutor in the late game, although one can argue once again that in the current existing CoCo decks not tutoring up non-green creatures is a huge down side. GSZ reshuffling itself also prevents the value play of the E-Witness loop one can make with Chord.
In my honest opinion I believe GSZ would be a safe unban, the argument that it would stifle the diversity of green decks is not valid since they all are extremely similar already and tier 2 below anyways, and having a good early game, but less flexible late game tutor would not break any of the current decks.
Titan Shift would also turn 1 GSZ for 0 to get Dryad Arbor, ramping even faster. Could be too good, idk.
SFM has way too many implications that can happen and will most likly shut down a lot of creature based decks and way too dangerous to unban imo.
The only real safe bet is BBE
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]