Punishing Fire even works better for Zoo to burn opposing Cliques than as a Control tool to combat Zoo. Ban it? We all know that WotC loves Zoo and other turn-creatures-sideways.dec. The engine is not going to be banned anytime soon.
Wait, DnT is a real deck? In any format? I guess I missed something.
It would be if more people played it. I believe it was even a DtB for a while last year (Legacy). It doesn't help that the Green splash version of it is now lumped under Maverick.
DnT is probably the best for Aether Vial, but Merfolk is a way better deck. In other words, if I ever want to get my hands on Aether Vial - it would be for Merfolk, not DnT (I'm not saying that DnT is not the best for Vial.)
I see a lot of people going on about punishing fire, but I have never seen it in action. I think it is bulky, slow, and not worth the space myself, but many folks have raved about it being great for this or that matchup, so I assumed I would see someone pull it out in a few games at least, but so far have not. Week before last I went on a MTGO bender and played 70+ games in the tourney practice room over the week, and never saw anyone use punishing fire, and only once saw a single grove. It looks to me like a golden calf that a bunch of deck builders feel looks great on paper, but is not that great in reality, but I could be wrong.
My bet is punishing fire gets banned next december. I don't know how many times I've lost to any deck with them with my elves deck. It's just impossible to beat. And it's not only zoo decks that play that combo. It's many decks, from zoo to jund to rockish decks. It's that good and oppressive. If you don't have goyf you can't play other aggro decks because they get owned by punishing fire. If you want to play zoo you can't because you don't have the 400$ playset. GG.
My bet is punishing fire gets banned next december. I don't know how many times I've lost to any deck with them with my elves deck. It's just impossible to beat. And it's not only zoo decks that play that combo. It's many decks, from zoo to jund to rockish decks. It's that good and oppressive. If you don't have goyf you can't play other aggro decks because they get owned by punishing fire. If you want to play zoo you can't because you don't have the 400$ playset. GG.
Mtgo. Actually, this morning have played 1 match, and g1 and g2 the guy had the combo ready. My elves were dying 1 or 2 per turn while his dark confidant and kitchen finks did the rest. And like this many other games. Mtgo is full of this combo, don't know why you haven't met them. Probably because they side the PFs on g2 and g3 if they are not useful.
The fact that the grove gets tutored by the second best aggro creature in the format makes it even more ban worthy.
Mtgo. Actually, this morning have played 1 match, and g1 and g2 the guy had the combo ready. My elves were dying 1 or 2 per turn while his dark confidant and kitchen finks did the rest. And like this many other games. Mtgo is full of this combo, don't know why you haven't met them. Probably because they side the PFs on g2 and g3 if they are not useful.
Actually I have been playing single games for the most part, as it is hard for me to block out the time for a match most of the time. Even if they are siding in for PF, I still have only ever faced a single deck that packed (or least played) Grove. It is conceivable that I have just missed it, but then do not play aggro most of the time, so it might not be as useful.
DnT is probably the best for Aether Vial, but Merfolk is a way better deck. In other words, if I ever want to get my hands on Aether Vial - it would be for Merfolk, not DnT (I'm not saying that DnT is not the best for Vial.)
That's debatable. If it was pre-banning Modern, this would probably be true because Merfolk is blue. Right now, though, I have no idea which is better. I will say Punishing Fire does kind of do Merfolk in. DnT is far more resilient to it and has more ways of dealing with it.
On topic: Punishing Fire is the least of the things that we should be worried about. It's a solid roleplayer in Jund/Zoo. What really makes these decks is Bob and Nacatl. Even without Punishing Fire, all these other weenie strategies that are getting pushed out would probably still lose to the bigger Zoo creatures, or to the card advantage in Jund.
Mtgo. Actually, this morning have played 1 match, and g1 and g2 the guy had the combo ready. My elves were dying 1 or 2 per turn while his dark confidant and kitchen finks did the rest. And like this many other games. Mtgo is full of this combo, don't know why you haven't met them. Probably because they side the PFs on g2 and g3 if they are not useful.
The fact that the grove gets tutored by the second best aggro creature in the format makes it even more ban worthy.
you were the one that was saying that cloudpost was not broken and now your saying that punishing fire is broke? Punishing fire is really good against elves, but elves is really good against decks not running it.(that is if your running combo elves)
I promise you its perfectly fair because it can't be tutored for effectivly.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
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Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
you were the one that was saying that cloudpost was not broken and now your saying that punishing fire is broke? Punishing fire is really good against elves, but elves is really good against decks not running it.(that is if your running combo elves)
I promise you its perfectly fair because it can't be tutored for effectivly.
... if you ban everything left and right that's what happens.
you were the one that was saying that cloudpost was not broken and now your saying that punishing fire is broke? Punishing fire is really good against elves, but elves is really good against decks not running it.(that is if your running combo elves)
I promise you its perfectly fair because it can't be tutored for effectivly.
You are correct, and the combo isn't even good. If you don't believe me or slipknot, just check the price of Grove, it has been steadily falling since Modern was announced.
Zoo doesn't even want to play that card. It doesn't pump Nacatl and it gives the opponent life, which makes it terrible vs Combo and Control, pretending for a second Control exists. It isn't efficient so it is only good in attrition matchups, against decks like Melira Combo. It acts as a reasonable answer to Planeswalkers but that hardly justifies it, they aren't exactly widely played.
Seriously, Pein, Firespout is 10x the card against Elves, same with Engineered Explosives. If people want to beat Elves, it can be hated out and beaten. It is good in a meta with less creature removal, but when Zoo is dominant Elves is a bad deck, both due to the Zoo matchup and the amount of removal being played.
I'm not really sure I can see anything else being banned from Modern not in Innistraad except part of Splinter Twin.dec and Cranial Plating. Preordain/Ponder may have already hurt Twin enough, it is impossible to know. I actually think plating is worse than the artifact lands but is just broken in fewer decks. They would have to ban disciple if they let the lands back in, but that's another discussion. Gifts would maybe be a distant third, but it isn't broken, or even played in Legacy, so I doubt it will be too good in Modern.
You are correct, and the combo isn't even good. If you don't believe me or slipknot, just check the price of Grove, it has been steadily falling since Modern was announced.
Zoo doesn't even want to play that card. It doesn't pump Nacatl and it gives the opponent life, which makes it terrible vs Combo and Control, pretending for a second Control exists. It isn't efficient so it is only good in attrition matchups, against decks like Melira Combo. It acts as a reasonable answer to Planeswalkers but that hardly justifies it, they aren't exactly widely played.
Seriously, Pein, Firespout is 10x the card against Elves, same with Engineered Explosives. If people want to beat Elves, it can be hated out and beaten. It is good in a meta with less creature removal, but when Zoo is dominant Elves is a bad deck, both due to the Zoo matchup and the amount of removal being played.
I'm not really sure I can see anything else being banned from Modern not in Innistraad except part of Splinter Twin.dec and Cranial Plating. Preordain/Ponder may have already hurt Twin enough, it is impossible to know. I actually think plating is worse than the artifact lands but is just broken in fewer decks. They would have to ban disciple if they let the lands back in, but that's another discussion. Gifts would maybe be a distant third, but it isn't broken, or even played in Legacy, so I doubt it will be too good in Modern.
About affinity:
With the lands being banned all you really have to do is keep a high number creatures off the board and cranial plating isn't so bad. really only blue and black struggle with destroying artifacts, and they have answers with removal or other niche cards. Affinity even with plating is just as easily hated out as elves.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
With the lands being banned all you really have to do is keep a high number creatures off the board and cranial plating isn't so bad. really only blue and black struggle with destroying artifacts, and they have answers with removal or other niche cards. Affinity even with plating is just as easily hated out as elves.
With Darksteel Citadel, Plating, and either Mox Opal or Springlead Dum, every creature the deck draws is a serious threat. Inkmoth Nexus is a 3 turn clock, and it isn't hard to make Blinkmoth nexus one either.
They are always going to have 4 platings, can every deck really afford 4 artifact removal spells in the board? Decks that run Grudge and Pridemage are fine, but it is not easily hated out like elves, I can't win just by having a few sweepers.
Punishing fire destroys every weenie deck, not only elves. But if it doesn't see enough play, they don't need to ban it by any means. We have to wait until the metagame is settled after worlds. Then, if too many decks are packing the combo, it would be safe to say that many decks that could exist don't because of that combo.
I totally expect more bannings. The card pool is rather large and the only way they have to balance the format IS bannings. I dont agree all hot 1 cc cards need to be banned. I really dont care if the ban list is 50-75 cards long as long as the format is balanced.
I could see Modern having the largest ban list in the end because of its lack of certain type cards to stop certain things and the interaction of some cards with in the card pool. The size of the ban list should not be the factor that determines if a format is weak or strong, it should be the meta and the amount of viable decks that can be played and win on any given weekend.
As long as Wotc sticks to its turn 4 rule the format will be fine. Look at Legacy. They stuck with the turn 3 rule there and its turned out fine. All we need to do is give it time.
In the end I expect Modern to be a weaker then Vinatge (in my opinion die roll magic), a bit weaker then Legacy (as it should be), stronger then Extended (if still around), and much stronger then Standard. But its going to take time to get there.
Two points on this one, because it is a recurring one throughout the thread.
1) There will ABSOLUTELY be more bannings. There is no doubt in my mind that whether in December 2011 or December 2015 there will still be cards getting banned in this format. That said, we should separate out the two reasons that a card would get banned. Down the road, we will look forward to newly broken cards. In non-rotating formats, newly printed or reprinted cards can have degenerate synergy with older, already legal ones. That's the basic ban that we see in Legacy, these days.
But this is a new format, so we still are defining our null-banlist. Wizards is going to probably take another 9 or so months to sort that out, using the December, March, and June announcements to continue molding the banlist into its proper form. As more tournaments happen, this process will be increasingly evidence-based.
2) More generally on the topic of bannings, I really think that there is no reason to talk about them just yet. And this is coming from a dude who loves to converse and debate on these forums. Why should we not talk about the banlist? We do not have enough information about the post-September 2011 bannings and how they impact the Modern metagame.
After PT Philly went down, I will be the first to admit that I was up in arms about Twelvepost. MTGO data showed how that deck was warping the format, and PT Philly data corroborated these assessments (remember: Breachpost was broken and Traditional Twelvepost was not). With over 300 decklists from PT Philly, 10 rounds of data, and between 50 and 70 Daily Events in the books, I had enough evidence to make decent arguments for certain bannings. Wizards did too.
BUT We do not have that information right now. MTGO Daily Events are currently deader than Lindsey Lohan's career. We have no major paper tournaments coming up. The next time that we can really discuss bannings will be in early November, after about a month of post-banning MTGO Daily Events. Even then, we can't be comfortable about our conclusions until Worlds (with a Modern event), because as I have striven to show in the past, MTGO is not predictive of a deck's success in Modern. MTGO just reflects the status quo of best decks; there is no innovation.
Any banning discussion until we have MTGO Daily Event evidence and some paper tournament data is just going to be speculation. I am aching to call bloody murder for Tarmogoyf's banning, but I acknowledge that I need some evidence to back that up. MTGO Daily Events and Worlds are our evidence sources, and we shouldn't even talk about bannings until those happen.
I will honestly be shocked if any other cards get banned in the next update baring someone breaking something from ISD which doesn't seem likely. Right now combo is not nearly as powerful, the biggest barrier for Control being part of the metagame is gone and aggro is well aggro (meaning its only really good so long as the metagame is poorly defined). The only cards I see people calling to be banned are because they are expensive or they don't like playing against them, neither of which are reasonable reasons to ban a card.
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It would be if more people played it. I believe it was even a DtB for a while last year (Legacy). It doesn't help that the Green splash version of it is now lumped under Maverick.
DnT is probably the best for Aether Vial, but Merfolk is a way better deck. In other words, if I ever want to get my hands on Aether Vial - it would be for Merfolk, not DnT (I'm not saying that DnT is not the best for Vial.)
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
It's like that for some reasons, and one of them is certainly punishing fire combo.
Where do you play that you are seeing it?
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
The fact that the grove gets tutored by the second best aggro creature in the format makes it even more ban worthy.
Actually I have been playing single games for the most part, as it is hard for me to block out the time for a match most of the time. Even if they are siding in for PF, I still have only ever faced a single deck that packed (or least played) Grove. It is conceivable that I have just missed it, but then do not play aggro most of the time, so it might not be as useful.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
That's debatable. If it was pre-banning Modern, this would probably be true because Merfolk is blue. Right now, though, I have no idea which is better. I will say Punishing Fire does kind of do Merfolk in. DnT is far more resilient to it and has more ways of dealing with it.
On topic: Punishing Fire is the least of the things that we should be worried about. It's a solid roleplayer in Jund/Zoo. What really makes these decks is Bob and Nacatl. Even without Punishing Fire, all these other weenie strategies that are getting pushed out would probably still lose to the bigger Zoo creatures, or to the card advantage in Jund.
you were the one that was saying that cloudpost was not broken and now your saying that punishing fire is broke? Punishing fire is really good against elves, but elves is really good against decks not running it.(that is if your running combo elves)
I promise you its perfectly fair because it can't be tutored for effectivly.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
... if you ban everything left and right that's what happens.
Everything isnt banned... its only like 20 some cards. Plenty of cards to still build with.
You are correct, and the combo isn't even good. If you don't believe me or slipknot, just check the price of Grove, it has been steadily falling since Modern was announced.
Zoo doesn't even want to play that card. It doesn't pump Nacatl and it gives the opponent life, which makes it terrible vs Combo and Control, pretending for a second Control exists. It isn't efficient so it is only good in attrition matchups, against decks like Melira Combo. It acts as a reasonable answer to Planeswalkers but that hardly justifies it, they aren't exactly widely played.
Seriously, Pein, Firespout is 10x the card against Elves, same with Engineered Explosives. If people want to beat Elves, it can be hated out and beaten. It is good in a meta with less creature removal, but when Zoo is dominant Elves is a bad deck, both due to the Zoo matchup and the amount of removal being played.
I'm not really sure I can see anything else being banned from Modern not in Innistraad except part of Splinter Twin.dec and Cranial Plating. Preordain/Ponder may have already hurt Twin enough, it is impossible to know. I actually think plating is worse than the artifact lands but is just broken in fewer decks. They would have to ban disciple if they let the lands back in, but that's another discussion. Gifts would maybe be a distant third, but it isn't broken, or even played in Legacy, so I doubt it will be too good in Modern.
About affinity:
With the lands being banned all you really have to do is keep a high number creatures off the board and cranial plating isn't so bad. really only blue and black struggle with destroying artifacts, and they have answers with removal or other niche cards. Affinity even with plating is just as easily hated out as elves.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
With Darksteel Citadel, Plating, and either Mox Opal or Springlead Dum, every creature the deck draws is a serious threat. Inkmoth Nexus is a 3 turn clock, and it isn't hard to make Blinkmoth nexus one either.
They are always going to have 4 platings, can every deck really afford 4 artifact removal spells in the board? Decks that run Grudge and Pridemage are fine, but it is not easily hated out like elves, I can't win just by having a few sweepers.
but it fine. many card still too powerful in modern that we need to be banned.
zoo & affinity is overpower and combo before turn 5 is not acceptable.
elf need ban some cards.
You think weaker, others say stronger. Modern will be fine, give it time.
Elves already have been nerfed enough. They dont go off earlier then turn 4 or 5 consistantly.
i think if keep continus banning , modern will be weaker.
the banned list may be the longest compare to other formats.
all 1 cc hot cards must be banned to make modern slow
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I totally expect more bannings. The card pool is rather large and the only way they have to balance the format IS bannings. I dont agree all hot 1 cc cards need to be banned. I really dont care if the ban list is 50-75 cards long as long as the format is balanced.
I could see Modern having the largest ban list in the end because of its lack of certain type cards to stop certain things and the interaction of some cards with in the card pool. The size of the ban list should not be the factor that determines if a format is weak or strong, it should be the meta and the amount of viable decks that can be played and win on any given weekend.
As long as Wotc sticks to its turn 4 rule the format will be fine. Look at Legacy. They stuck with the turn 3 rule there and its turned out fine. All we need to do is give it time.
In the end I expect Modern to be a weaker then Vinatge (in my opinion die roll magic), a bit weaker then Legacy (as it should be), stronger then Extended (if still around), and much stronger then Standard. But its going to take time to get there.
Two points on this one, because it is a recurring one throughout the thread.
1) There will ABSOLUTELY be more bannings. There is no doubt in my mind that whether in December 2011 or December 2015 there will still be cards getting banned in this format. That said, we should separate out the two reasons that a card would get banned. Down the road, we will look forward to newly broken cards. In non-rotating formats, newly printed or reprinted cards can have degenerate synergy with older, already legal ones. That's the basic ban that we see in Legacy, these days.
But this is a new format, so we still are defining our null-banlist. Wizards is going to probably take another 9 or so months to sort that out, using the December, March, and June announcements to continue molding the banlist into its proper form. As more tournaments happen, this process will be increasingly evidence-based.
2) More generally on the topic of bannings, I really think that there is no reason to talk about them just yet. And this is coming from a dude who loves to converse and debate on these forums. Why should we not talk about the banlist? We do not have enough information about the post-September 2011 bannings and how they impact the Modern metagame.
After PT Philly went down, I will be the first to admit that I was up in arms about Twelvepost. MTGO data showed how that deck was warping the format, and PT Philly data corroborated these assessments (remember: Breachpost was broken and Traditional Twelvepost was not). With over 300 decklists from PT Philly, 10 rounds of data, and between 50 and 70 Daily Events in the books, I had enough evidence to make decent arguments for certain bannings. Wizards did too.
BUT We do not have that information right now. MTGO Daily Events are currently deader than Lindsey Lohan's career. We have no major paper tournaments coming up. The next time that we can really discuss bannings will be in early November, after about a month of post-banning MTGO Daily Events. Even then, we can't be comfortable about our conclusions until Worlds (with a Modern event), because as I have striven to show in the past, MTGO is not predictive of a deck's success in Modern. MTGO just reflects the status quo of best decks; there is no innovation.
Any banning discussion until we have MTGO Daily Event evidence and some paper tournament data is just going to be speculation. I am aching to call bloody murder for Tarmogoyf's banning, but I acknowledge that I need some evidence to back that up. MTGO Daily Events and Worlds are our evidence sources, and we shouldn't even talk about bannings until those happen.
-ktkenshinx-