i dont believe dredge at any point has ever played burning inquiry. i agree though that the design of the card is obnoxious. not sure if that is enough reason to take action against it.
the humans manabase continues to be brought up. i cant say im happy about it because i think rainbow lands are stupid in general. however humans continues to be just a good deck, and not a menace to the format. unless it truly separates itself from the pack, there is no reason to consider it a problem because there will ALWAYS be a set of decks that is good. humans just happens to be one of them right now.
the real question is how much wizards cares about decks that are immune to meta shifts (ie the 50/50 deck). humans is the first in a while that is a candidate for being such a deck. the only way we will find out is if the deck can weather multiple sets being released while having a target on its back for a prolonged period of time; both of which havent happened yet.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
An I the only only one who thinks Humans gets an unfair rep for the rainbow lands? I come from a LGS with mostly burn and control, but I would think not even being able to run CoCo in a deck that so badly wants it would be a trade off. I think my real question is this: if a deck isn't broken, but can only use creatures of one tribe and colorless cards, is it not OK that they, in exchange for giving up colored non-creature spells, be allowed a rainbow mana base?
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Modern: UWUW Control UBRGrixis Shadow URIzzet Phoenix
An I the only only one who thinks Humans gets an unfair rep for the rainbow lands? I come from a LGS with mostly burn and control, but I would think not even being able to run CoCo in a deck that so badly wants it would be a trade off. I think my real question is this: if a deck isn't broken, but can only use creatures of one tribe and colorless cards, is it not OK that they, in exchange for giving up colored non-creature spells, be allowed a rainbow mana base?
It doesn't help garner sympathy when all those creatures are also relevant, 2-for-1 spells that can be uncounterable.
for any run-of-the-mill tribal deck i would say yes. however the humans tribe being 5 colors makes the number of creatures with 'spells' attached to them diverse and plentiful, meaning the opportunity cost for playing a mono creature deck is significantly lower than usual.
so humans sacrifices having access to powerful spells, specifically in the sideboard; however the success of the deck hinges on its ability to disrupt basically any strategy conceivable. this alone says the deck isnt lacking in any particular areas, because if it had a glaring weakness due to all of these 'missing' spells the deck would obviously be easier to hate out.
again, this is not saying the deck is too strong or a problem, but just a response to the notion that the mana base being a significant cost. for me, i just dont like the concept of rainbow lands in general, it just happens to be more glaring in a deck that can make full use of them.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Cavern is definitely not ban worthy. I've noticed a lot of people have a tendency when evaluating decks and power levels, to focus on cards in a vacuum and single out individual cards that are high "value", usually ignoring how things interact synergistically within the deck, and the meta as a whole. The obvious example of this is the big Jace debacle a few months back, with so many pundits saying "OMG brainstorm planeswalker OP OP!!", completely ignoring the greater context of the format.
I've said this a bunch before, but if you wanted to ban a card from Humans (and I'm not arguing FOR a ban, just to be clear), the best choice is Meddling Mage. It turns off "Fair" interaction people seem to love so much, while further advancing the Humans win condition. Unlike other hate cards it's main deckable and it's strong in multiples (and the deck runs 7-8 copies typically) It single handedly destroys combo decks, which should be the natural predator of aggro. And it has warped the meta around its presence, as seen with decks playing sub optimal removal just to have different named cards.
well if any cards got humans to where it is now it would be phantasmal image and aether vial. prior to those inclusions humans was just another decent tribal deck on par with something like bant spirits (which is an underrated deck imo).
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
If it wasn't clear, I'm not saying that Humans are somehow bad. Even with my local meta being skewed the way it is I know that humans are one of the best decks out there. Rather, it seem like a deck was being singled out for its mechanics, not its results. I've always thought that decks should only be judged by results only, not mechanics,and yet some decks, particularly "unfair" decks like 5c humans or, more recently, Tron, seemed to be judged by their mechanics, not their results, and at the end of the day, a deck's mechanics and, by extension, their "fairness", shouldn't ever be a factor in ban discussions.
Course I've been in exile due to fumigation so maybe I'm just looking for an argument just to maintain human contact
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Modern: UWUW Control UBRGrixis Shadow URIzzet Phoenix
thats a fair point. also by most metrics humans is a 'fair' deck, with maybe is linearity being more debatable.
a lot of decks get hated on based on stuff that people just find annoying. sometimes discussions involve veiled suggestions at a ban, but other times its just people pointing out certain mechanics or interactions that seem dumb or short sighted. i consider rainbow lands in the latter category.
for instance burning inquiry is just a stupid design for a card. wizards probably just threw it together as one of those throwaway commons that they didnt expect people to play even on the draft level. yet here it is, enabling 0 mana 4/4's.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
thats a fair point. also by most metrics humans is a 'fair' deck, with maybe is linearity being more debatable.
Although it's probably technically "fair", I can tell you I wish I had a pain-free manabase and that my Serum Visions and Opts could attack and block...
meh, its fair in the context of modern. also your serums and opts can attack/block with the best human ever printed, which comically the humans deck cant even play.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
My own feeling is that the modern meta is as healthy as people allow it to be. If the game becomes too focused on victory and not enough on how one gets to that victory, we end up in a format that folds in on itself as people all go to whatever archetype has won the most games, which keeps shifting and folding into an ever narrowing number of decks. If not for standard introducing a few new cards each release modern probably would have fallen to this ages ago. We may like to complain about how Burning Inquiry enables 0 mana 4/4s, but what else got introduced besides Hollow One? Over the last few years we've had Collective Brutality, Grim Flayer, Search for Azcanta, and many other interesting cards like As foretold. Not to mention we also got Teferi, Hero of Dominaria.
There's more than enough good to come out of everything to drown the bad if people look hard enough.
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!
meh, its fair in the context of modern. also your serums and opts can attack/block with the best human ever printed, which comically the humans deck cant even play.
What I mean is imagine a 1 mana 1/1 for U that has "ETB: Draw a card. Scry 1." They put plenty of nonsense spells on other creatures. Blue should at least get a bad cantrip.
the humans deck is broken in the sense that it breaks one of the most important aspects of magic, you need to choose a color to gain access to certain effects, and normally, if you splash a color, it comes with a downside (for example, be color screwed), but this doesnt happen to humans. you can choose anything and painfree, cause your manabase is PERFECT, and, with the philosophy of WOTC, everyset you have more and more powerful humans to feed the deck, and you dont even care what are the colors of such creatures. it's hilarious
(english is not my language, so sorry for any mistakes)
If we can put a pin in the never-ending bashing & justification cycle of Urzatron discussion, I would like to propose another topic.
Noble Hierarch is becoming oppressive. Personally I feel it's reaching a Deathrite-Shaman-level of format warping. Just as the justification for banning DRS, I feel that Noble Hierarch simply does too much for just 1 mana. Any thoughts?
What is it oppressing? There are many different kinds of green strategies that run Hierarch (e.g. Company decks, Humans, Infect), many green strategies that don't run Hierarch (e.g. Jund, Tron, Titan Shift), and many green strategies that could run Hierarch in a dork slot and are instead choosing to run other acceleration (e.g. Ponza, Elves). Moreover, the Hierarch strategies comprise a small metagame share even when combined. It's not remotely offensive by any known ban standard we've seen so far, and the DRS comparison is completely off-base: DRS was pushing a single macro-archetype, BGx Midrange, to 20%-25% of the format. Hierarch doesn't come close.
Fair enough. I was assessing it to be doing for GW what DRS did for BG. Although you make a valid point that their are plenty of green archetypes that wouldn't even consider using the Noble. I just see it used in Infect, Humans, GW Hatebear, GW Value, Bogles...and the decks I play have bad match-ups here so maybe it was too subjective on my part. Considering your assessment that DRS (was oppressively) pushing BGx decks to 25% of the overall competitive metagame, keep in mind that decks with mandatory 4x Hierarch are about 22% of the current metagame according to stats on mtgtop8.
Hierarch is more of a support card rather utility tool like DRS but I still think the comparison is valid.
Radical subjectivism is just as faulty of a framework for assessing the Modern metagame as it is for assessing things in the real world. Traditional control decks, traditional midrange decks, and go-wide/tribal decks that pack a respectable amount of interaction should absolutely be the strong backbone of this format if we want it to survive and thrive.
Interesting assertion, but I dont think it holds up.
Modern offers other flavours of the game that cannot be found (often/at all) in Standard. Control, Midrange, and 'Go Wide' certainly are common enough. I played Control to punish a lack of archetype diversity, it worked.
I play Turns when I want to play 'Modern' and not just play 'punish people for thinking they can just be aggro and turn em sideways'.
Turns, Storm, any kind of Prison, none of those types of things will exist in Standard, and THAT is a huge part of the appeal of Modern.
I agree that fair decks should make up most of the metagame, otherwise we'd be playing legacy. But I think combo/unfair decks like Storm, Living End, KCI, Hollow One, Bogles are the essence of modern.
the humans deck is broken in the sense that it breaks one of the most important aspects of magic, you need to choose a color to gain access to certain effects, and normally, if you splash a color, it comes with a downside (for example, be color screwed), but this doesnt happen to humans. you can choose anything and painfree, cause your manabase is PERFECT, and, with the philosophy of WOTC, everyset you have more and more powerful humans to feed the deck, and you dont even care what are the colors of such creatures. it's hilarious
(english is not my language, so sorry for any mistakes)
The only downside humans have is you cannot play many actual spells but that is not much of disadvantage since WOTC loves ETBs on Creatures.
Humans are the default so they get to be in every color and thus get a broad range of abilities.
Nothing is currently bannable. Not Cavern, not Inquiry, not Stirrings, not anything. Barring a GP Vegas T8 with 2+ copies of Humans or 3+ copies of anything else, I don't think anything will be on the table for ban discussion after Vegas either. Unbans, however, are a VERY real possibility and conversation topic after the event.
the humans deck is broken in the sense that it breaks one of the most important aspects of magic, you need to choose a color to gain access to certain effects, and normally, if you splash a color, it comes with a downside (for example, be color screwed), but this doesnt happen to humans. you can choose anything and painfree, cause your manabase is PERFECT, and, with the philosophy of WOTC, everyset you have more and more powerful humans to feed the deck, and you dont even care what are the colors of such creatures. it's hilarious
(english is not my language, so sorry for any mistakes)
Agreed! Probably a good move to ban Cavern of Souls at this time and also provide a much earlier solution to mana abusive decks as Field of Ruin is just 1 turn too slow. Also would like to see Chalice of the Void banned if they do end up banning Cavern of Souls.
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"Battle doesn't need a purpose; the battle is its own purpose. You don't ask why a plague spreads or a field burns. Don't ask why I fight."
there is a difference between not liking the design of card/interaction/mechanic and those things being too good; therefore implying it/they should be removed for the sake of balance.
i dont like the humans manabase, but the deck is fine. similarly i dont like blood moon as a card, but the decks that play it are fine.
another example is deathrite shaman in legacy. one of the loudest arguments against the card is that it violates the color pie giving black access to a mana dork. is that enough reason to ban it though? non-rotating formats are largely defined by the 'mistakes' that wizards has made.
of course the card is doing a lot of other things that people arent happy about, but that is another discussion entirely.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
What does everyone think about a Punishing Fire unban? I feel like it's probably too slow to be the powerhouse that it once was but allows any deck who might want to play Grove of the Burnwillows a chance to compete. It gives inevitability to slow decks, while also lining up really well against aggro decks like humans. Slogging through a repeatable 2 damage will likely be difficult for aggro to deal with.
Does Punishing Fire really add anything to the format that we need? We already have a large array of removal and CA based strategies that prey on creature based aggro, and it seems unnecessary.
All it really seems to do is add another way for Tron to deal with aggro strategies, which is an archtype that is supposed to struggle with fast aggro.
With all the aggro in the meta right now Tron still prefers mono green over G/R with sweepers
Punishing Fire is a borderline binder card in Modern right now
Do you mean that Grove of the Burnwillows is a borderline binder card right now? It is played in KCI and GR Tron, which admittedly is a pretty fringe version of Tron right now. But Punishing Fire is much more riskier than several other unbans as of right now. I do see it possibly being unbanned in the future, but I am pretty lenient. But there are other cards that deserve unbans way before.
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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)
Not playing any noncreature spells outside of Aether Vial (which is most relevant on turn 1) has the upside of turning Stubborn Denial, Negate and several other counterspells into dead cards, especially when combined with Cavern of Souls. The CoCo versions of Humans are considerably easier to handle for some of the nost popular blue-based decks in the format. I would, thus, not call it a bug but a feature, at least to some degree.
the humans manabase continues to be brought up. i cant say im happy about it because i think rainbow lands are stupid in general. however humans continues to be just a good deck, and not a menace to the format. unless it truly separates itself from the pack, there is no reason to consider it a problem because there will ALWAYS be a set of decks that is good. humans just happens to be one of them right now.
the real question is how much wizards cares about decks that are immune to meta shifts (ie the 50/50 deck). humans is the first in a while that is a candidate for being such a deck. the only way we will find out is if the deck can weather multiple sets being released while having a target on its back for a prolonged period of time; both of which havent happened yet.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Modern:
UWUW Control
UBRGrixis Shadow
URIzzet Phoenix
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
so humans sacrifices having access to powerful spells, specifically in the sideboard; however the success of the deck hinges on its ability to disrupt basically any strategy conceivable. this alone says the deck isnt lacking in any particular areas, because if it had a glaring weakness due to all of these 'missing' spells the deck would obviously be easier to hate out.
again, this is not saying the deck is too strong or a problem, but just a response to the notion that the mana base being a significant cost. for me, i just dont like the concept of rainbow lands in general, it just happens to be more glaring in a deck that can make full use of them.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I've said this a bunch before, but if you wanted to ban a card from Humans (and I'm not arguing FOR a ban, just to be clear), the best choice is Meddling Mage. It turns off "Fair" interaction people seem to love so much, while further advancing the Humans win condition. Unlike other hate cards it's main deckable and it's strong in multiples (and the deck runs 7-8 copies typically) It single handedly destroys combo decks, which should be the natural predator of aggro. And it has warped the meta around its presence, as seen with decks playing sub optimal removal just to have different named cards.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Course I've been in exile due to fumigation so maybe I'm just looking for an argument just to maintain human contact
Modern:
UWUW Control
UBRGrixis Shadow
URIzzet Phoenix
a lot of decks get hated on based on stuff that people just find annoying. sometimes discussions involve veiled suggestions at a ban, but other times its just people pointing out certain mechanics or interactions that seem dumb or short sighted. i consider rainbow lands in the latter category.
for instance burning inquiry is just a stupid design for a card. wizards probably just threw it together as one of those throwaway commons that they didnt expect people to play even on the draft level. yet here it is, enabling 0 mana 4/4's.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Although it's probably technically "fair", I can tell you I wish I had a pain-free manabase and that my Serum Visions and Opts could attack and block...
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)There's more than enough good to come out of everything to drown the bad if people look hard enough.
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!
What I mean is imagine a 1 mana 1/1 for U that has "ETB: Draw a card. Scry 1." They put plenty of nonsense spells on other creatures. Blue should at least get a bad cantrip.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
(english is not my language, so sorry for any mistakes)
Fair enough. I was assessing it to be doing for GW what DRS did for BG. Although you make a valid point that their are plenty of green archetypes that wouldn't even consider using the Noble. I just see it used in Infect, Humans, GW Hatebear, GW Value, Bogles...and the decks I play have bad match-ups here so maybe it was too subjective on my part. Considering your assessment that DRS (was oppressively) pushing BGx decks to 25% of the overall competitive metagame, keep in mind that decks with mandatory 4x Hierarch are about 22% of the current metagame according to stats on mtgtop8.
Hierarch is more of a support card rather utility tool like DRS but I still think the comparison is valid.
I agree that fair decks should make up most of the metagame, otherwise we'd be playing legacy. But I think combo/unfair decks like Storm, Living End, KCI, Hollow One, Bogles are the essence of modern.
Draft My Cube!
The only downside humans have is you cannot play many actual spells but that is not much of disadvantage since WOTC loves ETBs on Creatures.
Humans are the default so they get to be in every color and thus get a broad range of abilities.
Agreed! Probably a good move to ban Cavern of Souls at this time and also provide a much earlier solution to mana abusive decks as Field of Ruin is just 1 turn too slow. Also would like to see Chalice of the Void banned if they do end up banning Cavern of Souls.
i dont like the humans manabase, but the deck is fine. similarly i dont like blood moon as a card, but the decks that play it are fine.
another example is deathrite shaman in legacy. one of the loudest arguments against the card is that it violates the color pie giving black access to a mana dork. is that enough reason to ban it though? non-rotating formats are largely defined by the 'mistakes' that wizards has made.
of course the card is doing a lot of other things that people arent happy about, but that is another discussion entirely.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)All it really seems to do is add another way for Tron to deal with aggro strategies, which is an archtype that is supposed to struggle with fast aggro.
Punishing Fire is a borderline binder card in Modern right now
Do you mean that Grove of the Burnwillows is a borderline binder card right now? It is played in KCI and GR Tron, which admittedly is a pretty fringe version of Tron right now. But Punishing Fire is much more riskier than several other unbans as of right now. I do see it possibly being unbanned in the future, but I am pretty lenient. But there are other cards that deserve unbans way before.
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)Edit: I mean to say that if Punishing Fire were unbanned tomorrow it would be mostly binder fodder in this current Modern meta