I want to hear more people chime in on this subject. I'm very curious. Do people want modern to be a format where decks are banned when they get too "dominant"? Or do people miss the days when cards were banned and the meta was encouraged to self-balance and develop its own counter-strategies(since every deck can be beaten). Personally, I think it's because of this lazy balancing act Wizards is doing that decks like Jund gain so much ground in the first place(because people know if they push it up, Wiz will knock it down for them).
As long as Legacy is around, I want Wotc to keep the power level of the format firmly between Standard and Legacy not leaning to far toward either one. If this means banning a deck that gets too close to one or the other, I am fine with it. Also keep the decks with in the rules set forth for the format.
Maybe one day Modern will have the policing cards to self regulate, but I dont believe they exist now without tilting the format towards certain colors.
Also, if and when Legacy is done away with, my views would change and allow Modern to get a higher power level.
I want to hear more people chime in on this subject. I'm very curious. Do people want modern to be a format where decks are banned when they get too "dominant"? Or do people miss the days when cards were banned and the meta was encouraged to self-balance and develop its own counter-strategies(since every deck can be beaten). Personally, I think it's because of this lazy balancing act Wizards is doing that decks like Jund gain so much ground in the first place(because people know if they push it up, Wiz will knock it down for them).
As long as Legacy is around, I want Wotc to keep the power level of the format firmly between Standard and Legacy not leaning to far toward either one. If this means banning a deck that gets too close to one or the other, I am fine with it. Also keep the decks with in the rules set forth for the format.
Maybe one day Modern will have the policing cards to self regulate, but I dont believe they exist now without tilting the format towards certain colors.
Also, if and when Legacy is done away with, my views would change and allow Modern to get a higher power level.
While I disagree with this view, I suppose that it makes sense. I just think that both Modern and Standard should have higher power-levels. I want Modern to be closer to Overextended and Standard to be more like the stronger Standard seasons of the past, like Ravnica/Time Spiral.
Here's all the bans and unbans I think will help Modern:
Unban Ancestral Vision, BBE, Jace, and Second Sunrise
Ban Blind Obedience, Laboratory Maniac, and Pyrite Spellbomb
This would fix the problems with Eggs that caused Wizards to ban Second Sunrise and give Modern a real tier 1 control deck. BBE would keep Jace in check, and the tier 1 control deck that played Jace could also play Counterflux, which would help keep BBE in check. But since BBE is good against control, it would help keep control from dominating. These unbannings would also open up a bunch of new archetypes.
While I disagree with this view, I suppose that it makes sense. I just think that both Modern and Standard should have higher power-levels. I want Modern to be closer to Overextended and Standard to be more like the stronger Standard seasons of the past, like Ravnica/Time Spiral.
I dont know if I could say RAV/TSP Standard was stronger then todays Standard. With the advent of Planeswalkers, Standard is a different animal. Yes they have nuked some stratgies due to set size and a change in design thinking, but todays decks would match up well against those from RAV/TSP. Hell I would say 3 of the top 10 standard decks of all time have come after the RAV/TSP time frame.
Here's all the bans and unbans I think will help Modern:
Unban Ancestral Vision, BBE, Jace, and Second Sunrise
Ban Blind Obedience, Laboratory Maniac, and Pyrite Spellbomb
This would fix the problems with Eggs that caused Wizards to ban Second Sunrise and give Modern a real tier 1 control deck. BBE would keep Jace in check, and the tier 1 control deck that played Jace could also play Counterflux, which would help keep BBE in check. But since BBE is good against control, it would help keep control from dominating. These unbannings would also open up a bunch of new archetypes.
Second Sunrise being kept under wraps by the hypothetical birth of a new t1 control deck doesn't actually change the part that got Second Sunrise on the banlist: that Eggs is a damn slow deck.
Also those bans do absolutely nothing short of some sort of shortsighted understanding of how to kneecap Eggs. You're better off nixing Ghost Quarter.
Which would definitely piss off a subsection of players.
I mentioned this before, Why would anyone want Modern to look like Old Extended when Old Extended was considered a failure by Wotc? To make Modern not fail, Wotc needs to make it different then Old Extended.
I provided you a clear and concise explanation of why Old Extended was unpopular and ultimately failed here. I'll repost it just for you to read again. And to reiterate, Extended's failure had nothing to do with power level, gameplay, or particular interactions.
Reasons why Extended was unpopular and ultimately died:
Rotation made it hard to keep decks together (stability)
High costs made Legacy - and later, Modern - a suitable alternative (card availability)
Rotations used to occur on a non-intuitive schedule (logistics)
Reasons why Modern is different than Extended and will therefore not fail like Extended:
Modern doesn't rotate (stability)
WotC is committed to reprints (card availability)
Modern doesn't rotate (logistics)
You keep suggesting that Old Extended was unpopular because of power level or gameplay. I see no evidence to suggest that's true. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate your view, and the weight of the evidence needs to outweigh the evidence provided by WotC itself in their explanation of the change in rotation schedule. Unless you can do that, I'm going to start reporting it as spam every time you (or anyone else for that matter) uses the "Extended failed so Modern would too if [X]" line and [X] isn't explicitly related to reprint policy or rotation.
I'm pretty sure that the deck would move to Grapeshot or Banefire before using Blind Obedience or Laboratory Maniac.
It used Blind Obedience and Laboratory Maniac as sideboard win conditions already. My version still does. Banefire is equally slow as the other options because the deck is so mana hungry now. Grapeshot is the only quicker option. If you unban Second Sunrise then Banefire is also a fast option.
Here's all the bans and unbans I think will help Modern:
Unban Ancestral Vision, BBE, Jace, and Second Sunrise
Ban Blind Obedience, Laboratory Maniac, and Pyrite Spellbomb
This would fix the problems with Eggs that caused Wizards to ban Second Sunrise and give Modern a real tier 1 control deck. BBE would keep Jace in check, and the tier 1 control deck that played Jace could also play Counterflux, which would help keep BBE in check. But since BBE is good against control, it would help keep control from dominating. These unbannings would also open up a bunch of new archetypes.
The problem with Blind Obedience isn't anything degenerate about the card itself but that it's the least interactive card with extort. Because extort doesn't target it gets around Leyline without having to water down your combo with Echoing Truths. Without Blind Obedience you could use Basilica Guards (I think that's the name), or any of several other extort cards. The reasoning for Blind Obedience would essentially require banning everything with extort.
I mentioned this before, Why would anyone want Modern to look like Old Extended when Old Extended was considered a failure by Wotc? To make Modern not fail, Wotc needs to make it different then Old Extended.
I provided you a clear and concise explanation of why Old Extended was unpopular and ultimately failed here. I'll repost it just for you to read again. And to reiterate, Extended's failure had nothing to do with power level, gameplay, or particular interactions.
Reasons why Extended was unpopular and ultimately died:
Rotation made it hard to keep decks together (stability)
High costs made Legacy - and later, Modern - a suitable alternative (card availability)
Rotations used to occur on a non-intuitive schedule (logistics)
Reasons why Modern is different than Extended and will therefore not fail like Extended:
Modern doesn't rotate (stability)
WotC is committed to reprints (card availability)
Modern doesn't rotate (logistics)
You keep suggesting that Old Extended was unpopular because of power level or gameplay. I see no evidence to suggest that's true. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate your view, and the weight of the evidence needs to outweigh the evidence provided by WotC itself in their explanation of the change in rotation schedule. Unless you can do that, I'm going to start reporting it as spam every time you (or anyone else for that matter) uses the "Extended failed so Modern would too if [X]" line and [X] isn't explicitly related to reprint policy or rotation.
Ask any TO at the time and they will tell you no one played the format unless it was for a PT or GP.
You can think and type as you wish, but power level and interaction had something to do with the lack of players and it being considered a failure, just as much as rotation. Wotc is very big on attendance as a measure of popularity.
The same thing some are complaining about with Modern and getting at least 8 together for a Modern event, was the same if not worse with Extended. The local last chance event to go to Amsterdam (which was Extended) had 12 people show up.
Here's all the bans and unbans I think will help Modern:
Unban Ancestral Vision, BBE, Jace, and Second Sunrise
Ban Blind Obedience, Laboratory Maniac, and Pyrite Spellbomb
This would fix the problems with Eggs that caused Wizards to ban Second Sunrise and give Modern a real tier 1 control deck. BBE would keep Jace in check, and the tier 1 control deck that played Jace could also play Counterflux, which would help keep BBE in check. But since BBE is good against control, it would help keep control from dominating. These unbannings would also open up a bunch of new archetypes.
Second Sunrise being kept under wraps by the hypothetical birth of a new t1 control deck doesn't actually change the part that got Second Sunrise on the banlist: that Eggs is a damn slow deck.
Also those bans do absolutely nothing short of some sort of shortsighted understanding of how to kneecap Eggs. You're better off nixing Ghost Quarter.
Which would definitely piss off a subsection of players.
It seems my wording was really, really confusing. Ancestral Vision, BBE, and Jace being unbanned would have nothing to do with Eggs, I was merely trying to find a way to make Eggs work without 20-minute turns. Turns out there are so many viable wincons that there's no way it would work. As for Ancestral Vision, BBE, and Jace, I think those cards have no business on the banned list at this point in time and I was explaining why.
I'd eventually like to see the following changes. Eventually. They don't need to be the next update, but over the next couple years would be fine:
Ban:
Batterskull
Grapeshot
Unban:
Ancestral Vision
Golgari Grave-troll
Ponder
Preordain
Jace, The Mind Sculptor
Seething Song
Stoneforge Mystic
That would leave the Banned list as follows:
Artifact Lands
Batterskill
Blazing Shoal
Bloodbraid Elf*
Chrome Mox
Dark Depths*
Deathrite Shaman*
Dread Return
Glimpse of Nature
Green Sun's Zenith
Hypergenesis
Mental Misstep
Punishing Fire
Rite of Flame
Second Sunrise
Sensei's Divining Top
Skullclamp
Sword of the Meek*
Umezawa's Jitte
*=On Deck to be unbanned but not right now
Printings:
1(B/W) - kill a creature or planeswalker, unless its controller pays N
UU - Smother for Spells
Something in between Wasteland and Tec Edge/Encroaching Waste
Force Spike
Something in between Crystal Ball and Sensei's Divining top.
That would be a good start towards a more powerful and self-regulating format but not so far as the completely deregulated Modern where you're Misstepping Clamps and a game that ends on turn 2 or 3 isn't an unheard-of freak occurrence. Tempo, combo, control, aggro, ramp, midrange - they all should be in the mix with that banned list. I'm not sure if Dredge would come back with that (or if it should be in the format in the first place) but there could also be some reprints or banned list changes that could enable it without it being completely oppressive )looking at OverExtended as a model?)
I want to hear more people chime in on this subject. I'm very curious. Do people want modern to be a format where decks are banned when they get too "dominant"? Or do people miss the days when cards were banned and the meta was encouraged to self-balance and develop its own counter-strategies(since every deck can be beaten). Personally, I think it's because of this lazy balancing act Wizards is doing that decks like Jund gain so much ground in the first place(because people know if they push it up, Wiz will knock it down for them).
As long as Legacy is around, I want Wotc to keep the power level of the format firmly between Standard and Legacy not leaning to far toward either one. If this means banning a deck that gets too close to one or the other, I am fine with it. Also keep the decks with in the rules set forth for the format.
Maybe one day Modern will have the policing cards to self regulate, but I dont believe they exist now without tilting the format towards certain colors.
Also, if and when Legacy is done away with, my views would change and allow Modern to get a higher power level.
I'll say this again. Power level is completely irrelevant to what I'm talking about. They could ban the "best" card, the "best" 5 cards, the "best" 100 cards or the "best" 1000 cards. They would all result in different power levels for the format. And could put it anywhere from (almost)Legacy to weaker-than-Standard.
That is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about HOW they are going about the bans. Banning cards from specific decks as opposed to what they have ALWAYS done in magic's decades of history, which was to ban CARDS that were deemed too powerful. BBE is a mediocre card. It is objectively meh. A modern(no pun intended) take on a Flametongue Kavu equivalent. But it was banned because Wizards wanted to hurt Jund. Not because BBE was too strong. But because Jund was. It's a completely different approach to the system of bans, and personally I feel it's a massively flawed one. And one that will only lead to a perpetually broken format, and an ever sprawling banned list as stop-gaps are continuously added to it.
Let me be clear though, I have different feelings for cards like Rite of Flame. Since it caused an interaction that strictly broke the defined parameters of the "turn-4" format. In this case it wasn't the deck being "too popular"(see: Jund), it was a case of the deck being broken as defined by the format rules. Similar logic applies to Second Sunrise as the deck wasn't nerfed for being too strong but for breaking the spirit of the format.
I don't want to go deep into a delineated list between what I think does and does not fall into this category(mostly because most people are jaded and don't care about others' opinions), because that would just stir up further controversy, and I want to nail down this first issue before that. I think Wizards has gone way off the deep end in extremely subjective stop-gap bandage bans.
I'd rather see them print a new, balanced version of SFM instead of unbanning it. You could easily print a card that is a 1/2 for 1W that tutors for an equipment and puts it into your hand when it enters the battlefield. Then just make it so you can tap the creature for 1 that can only be spent to cast or equip an equipment card. Perfectly reasonable, yet still very powerful. Not too good like SFM is.
Realistically I think AV is the next card to consider unbanning to push control a bit. I can see why they would not unban it at the same time as BB. So long as Fae doesn't dominate the format, I could see AV being a legitimate unban. If Fae ends up being super strong however, they wouldn't want to give it another potential tool.
Chrome Mox and Sword of the Meek (or Dark Depths) I also think are perfectly safe to come off.....
Banning cards from specific decks as opposed to what they have ALWAYS done in magic's decades of history
I think this is the hang up. Older players refuse to see new ways about doing things. What worked in card design or even art 10 or 20 years ago, doesnt work today. I dont think the way they thought about bans 10 years ago works for todays game. I applaud Wotc for changing their stance on how and why they they ban in Modern.
I also disagree BBE is a mediocre card. It carries one of the top 3 most broken mechanics on it and its probably the best one of those cards that carry it. That is not mediocre, thats top of the curve. Look how much deck building design opened up when BBE went away. That says a lot about the power of the card.
As for your thinking power level means nothing when considering bannings, I think you are wrong. Wotc has to look at the power level of the deck and the format when considering a banning. Its all part of it.
Banning cards from specific decks as opposed to what they have ALWAYS done in magic's decades of history
I think this is the hang up. Older players refuse to see new ways about doing things. What worked in card design or even art 10 or 20 years ago, doesnt work today. I dont think the way they thought about bans 10 years ago works for todays game. I applaud Wotc for changing their stance on how and why they they ban in Modern.
I also disagree BBE is a mediocre card. It carries one of the top 3 most broken mechanics on it and its probably the best one of those cards that carry it. That is not mediocre, thats top of the curve. Look how much deck building design opened up when BBE went away. That says a lot about the power of the card.
As for your thinking power level means nothing when considering bannings, I think you are wrong. Wotc has to look at the power level of the deck and the format when considering a banning. Its all part of it.
Well you're allowed to think that. And I'm not saying you(or Wizards) are wrong. I'm just saying I think it would do this thread a lot of good to hear several different points of view on this issue to get everyone on the same page. Personally I think it's a really poor idea to ban at specific decks, because(to put this in terms you specifically will understand) this leads to a perpetually updating list based on whatevers popular, which leads to excessive rotation, which leads to Extended-problems. And we all know how well Extended did at the end.
And I didn't say that power level meant nothing when it comes to bans. I'm saying it has no bearing on the delineation between bannings based on power and banning based on deck popularity. Which it doesn't.
...And as for Cascade being top3 mechanics, aside from it being irrelevant, Dredge, Ripple, Splice, Infect, Ninjutsu, Living Weapon, Flash, Madness, Cycling, etc. Several of which have legacy archetypes built around them, and have completely broken different formats at one time or another.
@NessOnett I doubt we will ever be on the same page when it comes to bannings. You see them as a bad thing, I see them as a tool to make the format more friendly to more players. If a decks power starts creeping toward the Legacy power level, yes it should be nuked, or at least fixed to fall back to the range of other decks in the format.
I also disagree BBE is a mediocre card. It carries one of the top 3 most broken mechanics on it and its probably the best one of those cards that carry it. That is not mediocre, thats top of the curve. Look how much deck building design opened up when BBE went away. That says a lot about the power of the card.
Cascade isn't one of the 3 most broken mechanics of all time. Storm, Dredge, and the Urza Block free mechanic were all more broken than Cascade. And I don't think that Cascade is any more broken than Miracle.
Well I believe free things in Magic are inherently broken. My list would be Dredge, Cascade, Miracles, Affinity, Storm. All have something to do with getting something for cheaper or free.
I'd rather see them print a new, balanced version of SFM instead of unbanning it. You could easily print a card that is a 1/2 for 1W that tutors for an equipment and puts it into your hand when it enters the battlefield. Then just make it so you can tap the creature for 1 that can only be spent to cast or equip an equipment card. Perfectly reasonable, yet still very powerful. Not too good like SFM is.
True. But I doubt there will ever be an equipment that breaks SFM as badly as what we've already seen. Batterskull was designed to push SFM as far as possible with living weapon (which we'll probably never see again, or at least not as pushed) and I doubt we'll ever see another equipment as warping as Jitte. The Swords of Opposite Things are just about the best we can realistically hope for. Caw-go started as a cheeky metagame deck for the 2010 World Championships, became a consistent 2-3-of Top8 contender with Sword of Feast and Famine, but it took Batterskull to make it a dominant and oppressive powerhouse. I'd posit that Sword of Feast and Famine as the best tool in Modern for SFM would be merely fair. Batterskull was what pushed a fun and interesting card into broken absurdity. We've seen lately that WotC wants to ban a card that pushes a deck over the top (BBE) rather than the core (Bob, Goyf, Lily), so if we follow that, we should be looking at a card that pushes it (Batterskull) rather than the core (SFM, Jace, AV etc).
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see just a Squire with Steelshaper's Gift and a conditional mana ability for equipment as you propose, but I frankly don't think its necessary. An enabler is only as scary as the thing its enabling. I've never thought: "great, you played Misty. I'm dead." Its always the Batterskull or Jitte she's forging into play that's gonna kill you. Keep Jitte banned and add Batterskull to the list and suddenly Misty is just good but not too good.
Realistically I think AV is the next card to consider unbanning to push control a bit. I can see why they would not unban it at the same time as BB. So long as Fae doesn't dominate the format, I could see AV being a legitimate unban. If Fae ends up being super strong however, they wouldn't want to give it another potential tool.
I agree with this. I don't see Fae being as dominant as it once was. It dominates in a metagame infested with fast combos and disruptable fast aggro but Modern just isn't there right now. I expect it to be just another good deck among many, albeit one that will reward correct deck building and tight play more than maybe any other in the format.
I look forward to seeing AV unbanned someday. I wouldn't run it in my UWR deck (Sphinx's Rev is a better topdeck and the lifegain does matter) but I'd like it in any U/x without white (Grixis and BUG being top candidates).
Chrome Mox and Sword of the Meek (or Dark Depths) I also think are perfectly safe to come off.....
I have yet to be convinced that Chrome Mox would be good for the format, even if it would be fair. In every format where the speed has been relevant for fighting a fast deck (in the absence of a blowoff valve like Force of Will) we've seen Chrome Mox leave a dominant footprint on the format. Look at an elite Extended event like Worlds 2008 - 39/84 decks that were 4-2 or better (that's 46% of winning decks!) ran Chrome Mox in the mainboard between All-in Red and Dredge and the control, aggro, and ramp decks that were trying to fight them or race them.
I think there's a very real argument for unbanning Chrome Mox if WotC completely abandons the Turn 4 Rule. But until that happens I just don't see it. The card speeds up the critical turn by one across the board, and that subtly warps the entire format around it.
I'd really like to see more about why you think Dark Depths or Sword of the Meek would be good for the format, especially considering I was on Magic hiatus when they were dominating. Both of those have been banned in Extended for being oppressive and Modern's card pool isn't that much bigger than the historical Extended formats they dominated; also unfortunately many of the newer powerful cards that might be able to challenge those decks on level footing (SFM, JTMS, DRS etc) are banned, so I'm not sure the context and landscape of the format is different enough to justify the risk of letting them loose.
@NessOnett I doubt we will ever be on the same page when it comes to bannings. You see them as a bad thing, I see them as a tool to make the format more friendly to more players. If a decks power starts creeping toward the Legacy power level, yes it should be nuked, or at least fixed to fall back to the range of other decks in the format.
We can agree to disagree about broken mechanics.
I don't see them as a bad thing. I see them as a way to fix things that are broken. Skullclamp is broken. It was a mistake to print. Wizards has admitted they didn't properly think through how it would be used. Banning it undoes their mistake.
But being "the best deck at this specific instance in time" does not make something broken.
As far as making the format more friendly, also subjective. Banning answers just makes more problems. Banning the most popular deck because its the most popular leads to people being jaded because they know their deck is gonna be ripped apart if it performs well, so they don't want to have any attachment or innovation to their decks. And denying people the ability to play fun and interesting decks because "a key card from your deck was found in jund, and we need to nerf jund, so we're gonna kill your deck even though it's perfectly fair and balanced with 0 overpowered cards because we want to nerf Jund."
@CrazyMike366: I was under the impression that Caw-Blade was the format even prior to Batterskull. Once the deck came out, I thought it was basically the only way to play if you wanted to win, and it dominated every event afterwards. That was only running Sword of Feast and Famine. If SFM came off and Batterskull got banned to allow it, you would suddently find a ton of decks forced to play white just for 4 SFM plus their sword package, which is heavily meta dependant (though you can assume 1 each of Feast and Famine, Fire and Ice, and probably Light and Shadow in the 75 of every SFM deck). Basically if your deck could play white there would be no reason to not play SFM and 2-3 swords in the 75....
Chrome Mox does speed everything up by a turn, at the cost of another card in hand plus needing to find your combo pieces. So long as it isn't making turn 3 Splinter Twin super consistent I think it'd be fine. They could easily build RUG twin right now and just play Bird of Paradise if they wanted that kind of effect, but speeding up the combo by a turn just isn't good enough. Even the decks that use Simian Spirit Guide to go off a turn sooner wouldn't care for it, though that's mostly because they only need a single extra mana on a single turn (rather than on back to back turns like twin).
Sword of the Meek is a very grindy card that is very susceptible to graveyard hate, which I feel is going to be coming back in full force in the SB of main decks due to the DRS ban. As graveyard based strategies become more common as they are no longer pushed out of the format you will need to have answers for them. On top of that, it's not even really doing anything broken. Yes, a two card combo that can be online as early as turn 3 (I think) will start to generate you 1/1 fliers and gain you life, but it's not like you can go infinite on either side (life gain or making dudes). It's a great strategy against fair decks (assuming they can't just blow up your foundry), but it doesn't do much against the unfair decks of the format and it's pretty slow to win. If zoo continues to perform well this could come out as a great counter strategy to it that won't dominate the format. On top of the fact that the combo pieces are horrid on their own, and generally require some kind of enabler to be consistent I would think (Gifts, Tezzerett).
Dark Depths is similar but much more open to an all-in strategy. Most of the time you're managing to pull off a turn 4 trigger, turn 5 attack. Yes, sometimes you can trigger turn 3, and very rarely turn 2. However this is a very all in strategy that is actually easier to deal with than say Goryo's Vengeance/Emrakul. Bitterblossom, Lingering Souls, Path to Exile, Crytpic Command, plus I'm sure a bunch of others answer the Dark Depths token very well.
For those who are interested, William Spaniel did an analysis of match win percentages in the Caw-Blade Standard, and pre-batterskull, it consistently won over 60% of matches, with the closest other deck being Valakut with about 52%. RUG was up there, especially near the end, but I don't THINK it ever breached 60%. Take the numbers with a grain of salt, though, I haven't taken the time to look them up.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Go to my blog, Musings of the False God, for in-depth guides playing the game, from the building blocks of deck design to deceiving your opponent through clever game play!
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
@CrazyMike366: I was under the impression that Caw-Blade was the format even prior to Batterskull.
Not that I can find. The only Pro level Standard events at the time were PT Paris (13.9%), GP Barcelona (35%), and GP Dallas (31%) which each had CawGo/Blade according to the percent I added in parentheses (caveat, there were other decks that had SFM, just those were listed as CawGo/Blade). It was the top deck at Dallas and Barcelona but it wasn't the crazy 70% that it was after Batterskull. Just the top deck among many. It won Paris (where it was a small part of the metagame) and Dallas (where it was the top deck) but it didn't win in Barcelona (despite the biggest chunk of the field).
Stoneforge Mystic just happened to be the best card in what we know in retrospect as a format that didn't have a whole lot of alternatives. People indiscriminately jammed SFM/Batterskull/Jace into everything. People tried to combat it despite the lack of good tools - Exarch/Splinter Twin came out of that as a good option, and its doing well in Modern. We've got really powerful alternatives in Modern (especially without Batterskull) - Tarmogoyf, Snapcaster Mage, Dark Confidant, Lightning Bolt, etc - all in the same goodstuff class as Misty; they were insane in Standard, were temporarily dominant in other formats, then fell out of all but the decks they were intuitive in. Valakut isn't splashing for Dark Confidant, and Jund isn't splashing for Snapcaster Mages. Why would SFM be any different, especially if it requires additional slots for the equipment? Its not like every deck is going to give up 12% of their available maindeck slots for 4 Misty and 3 swords.
Chrome Mox does speed everything up by a turn, at the cost of another card in hand plus needing to find your combo pieces. So long as it isn't making turn 3 Splinter Twin super consistent I think it'd be fine. They could easily build RUG twin right now and just play Bird of Paradise if they wanted that kind of effect, but speeding up the combo by a turn just isn't good enough. Even the decks that use Simian Spirit Guide to go off a turn sooner wouldn't care for it, though that's mostly because they only need a single extra mana on a single turn (rather than on back to back turns like twin).
So what about the warping effect? Is it ok for 40+% of decks to run a card in a large format and its healthy? Can you provide links to another time Mox was legal in Extended that it didn't appear at a high frequency?
Sword of the Meek ... Dark Depths
What would Sword or Depths combo/control decks look like using the entire Modern card pool instead of just the subsets from the Extended seasons they were legal for? Could you provide lists? I haven't played them in Extended let alone tested them much in Modern.
Personally, I would have liked Wizards to let D-Rite stay in the format with the unbans,just to see if it was really necessary with two new powerful decks in the field.
On the topic of Unbans: I would really like to see GGT unbanned, mostly because it would be a very safe unban and the dredge players would have a new toy to play with. But I can accept that GGT doesn't do anything for the format and unbanning for the sake of having less cards isn't a valid reason.
On the topic of Second Sunrise: I wonder what would have happened to the eggs deck if it was Faith's reward that was banned instead of SS. I would imagine that the deck would have been nerfed, but it would still do alright. But it did look like wizards wanted the deck to stop existing rather than be nerfed.
With regards to SFM and Batterskull, I think both can be considered culprit for cheating mana cost. SFM's tap ability and Batterskull's Living Weapon ability. Consider if Batterskull is not a Living Weapon, would you search for it with SFM? Sure you can cheat it to play, but can you equip it as early as turn 3? Or if SFM did not have the tap ability, would you search a 5cc equipment and wait for 5 mana to cast it?
As long as Legacy is around, I want Wotc to keep the power level of the format firmly between Standard and Legacy not leaning to far toward either one. If this means banning a deck that gets too close to one or the other, I am fine with it. Also keep the decks with in the rules set forth for the format.
Maybe one day Modern will have the policing cards to self regulate, but I dont believe they exist now without tilting the format towards certain colors.
Also, if and when Legacy is done away with, my views would change and allow Modern to get a higher power level.
While I disagree with this view, I suppose that it makes sense. I just think that both Modern and Standard should have higher power-levels. I want Modern to be closer to Overextended and Standard to be more like the stronger Standard seasons of the past, like Ravnica/Time Spiral.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Unban Ancestral Vision, BBE, Jace, and Second Sunrise
Ban Blind Obedience, Laboratory Maniac, and Pyrite Spellbomb
This would fix the problems with Eggs that caused Wizards to ban Second Sunrise and give Modern a real tier 1 control deck. BBE would keep Jace in check, and the tier 1 control deck that played Jace could also play Counterflux, which would help keep BBE in check. But since BBE is good against control, it would help keep control from dominating. These unbannings would also open up a bunch of new archetypes.
I dont know if I could say RAV/TSP Standard was stronger then todays Standard. With the advent of Planeswalkers, Standard is a different animal. Yes they have nuked some stratgies due to set size and a change in design thinking, but todays decks would match up well against those from RAV/TSP. Hell I would say 3 of the top 10 standard decks of all time have come after the RAV/TSP time frame.
Second Sunrise being kept under wraps by the hypothetical birth of a new t1 control deck doesn't actually change the part that got Second Sunrise on the banlist: that Eggs is a damn slow deck.
Also those bans do absolutely nothing short of some sort of shortsighted understanding of how to kneecap Eggs. You're better off nixing Ghost Quarter.
Which would definitely piss off a subsection of players.
I provided you a clear and concise explanation of why Old Extended was unpopular and ultimately failed here. I'll repost it just for you to read again. And to reiterate, Extended's failure had nothing to do with power level, gameplay, or particular interactions.
Reasons why Extended was unpopular and ultimately died:
Reasons why Modern is different than Extended and will therefore not fail like Extended:
You keep suggesting that Old Extended was unpopular because of power level or gameplay. I see no evidence to suggest that's true. The burden of proof is on you to demonstrate your view, and the weight of the evidence needs to outweigh the evidence provided by WotC itself in their explanation of the change in rotation schedule. Unless you can do that, I'm going to start reporting it as spam every time you (or anyone else for that matter) uses the "Extended failed so Modern would too if [X]" line and [X] isn't explicitly related to reprint policy or rotation.
Speculate less. Test more.
It used Blind Obedience and Laboratory Maniac as sideboard win conditions already. My version still does. Banefire is equally slow as the other options because the deck is so mana hungry now. Grapeshot is the only quicker option. If you unban Second Sunrise then Banefire is also a fast option.
The problem with Blind Obedience isn't anything degenerate about the card itself but that it's the least interactive card with extort. Because extort doesn't target it gets around Leyline without having to water down your combo with Echoing Truths. Without Blind Obedience you could use Basilica Guards (I think that's the name), or any of several other extort cards. The reasoning for Blind Obedience would essentially require banning everything with extort.
May: Bloodbraid Elf and Sword of the Meek/Chrome Mox
July: Preordain and Ancestral Visions
September: Ponder
If this happened, I would be reasonably happy with the banned list.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Ask any TO at the time and they will tell you no one played the format unless it was for a PT or GP.
You can think and type as you wish, but power level and interaction had something to do with the lack of players and it being considered a failure, just as much as rotation. Wotc is very big on attendance as a measure of popularity.
The same thing some are complaining about with Modern and getting at least 8 together for a Modern event, was the same if not worse with Extended. The local last chance event to go to Amsterdam (which was Extended) had 12 people show up.
It seems my wording was really, really confusing. Ancestral Vision, BBE, and Jace being unbanned would have nothing to do with Eggs, I was merely trying to find a way to make Eggs work without 20-minute turns. Turns out there are so many viable wincons that there's no way it would work. As for Ancestral Vision, BBE, and Jace, I think those cards have no business on the banned list at this point in time and I was explaining why.
Ban:
Batterskull
Grapeshot
Unban:
Ancestral Vision
Golgari Grave-troll
Ponder
Preordain
Jace, The Mind Sculptor
Seething Song
Stoneforge Mystic
That would leave the Banned list as follows:
Artifact Lands
Batterskill
Blazing Shoal
Bloodbraid Elf*
Chrome Mox
Dark Depths*
Deathrite Shaman*
Dread Return
Glimpse of Nature
Green Sun's Zenith
Hypergenesis
Mental Misstep
Punishing Fire
Rite of Flame
Second Sunrise
Sensei's Divining Top
Skullclamp
Sword of the Meek*
Umezawa's Jitte
*=On Deck to be unbanned but not right now
Printings:
1(B/W) - kill a creature or planeswalker, unless its controller pays N
UU - Smother for Spells
Something in between Wasteland and Tec Edge/Encroaching Waste
Force Spike
Something in between Crystal Ball and Sensei's Divining top.
That would be a good start towards a more powerful and self-regulating format but not so far as the completely deregulated Modern where you're Misstepping Clamps and a game that ends on turn 2 or 3 isn't an unheard-of freak occurrence. Tempo, combo, control, aggro, ramp, midrange - they all should be in the mix with that banned list. I'm not sure if Dredge would come back with that (or if it should be in the format in the first place) but there could also be some reprints or banned list changes that could enable it without it being completely oppressive )looking at OverExtended as a model?)
Speculate less. Test more.
I'll say this again. Power level is completely irrelevant to what I'm talking about. They could ban the "best" card, the "best" 5 cards, the "best" 100 cards or the "best" 1000 cards. They would all result in different power levels for the format. And could put it anywhere from (almost)Legacy to weaker-than-Standard.
That is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about HOW they are going about the bans. Banning cards from specific decks as opposed to what they have ALWAYS done in magic's decades of history, which was to ban CARDS that were deemed too powerful. BBE is a mediocre card. It is objectively meh. A modern(no pun intended) take on a Flametongue Kavu equivalent. But it was banned because Wizards wanted to hurt Jund. Not because BBE was too strong. But because Jund was. It's a completely different approach to the system of bans, and personally I feel it's a massively flawed one. And one that will only lead to a perpetually broken format, and an ever sprawling banned list as stop-gaps are continuously added to it.
Let me be clear though, I have different feelings for cards like Rite of Flame. Since it caused an interaction that strictly broke the defined parameters of the "turn-4" format. In this case it wasn't the deck being "too popular"(see: Jund), it was a case of the deck being broken as defined by the format rules. Similar logic applies to Second Sunrise as the deck wasn't nerfed for being too strong but for breaking the spirit of the format.
I don't want to go deep into a delineated list between what I think does and does not fall into this category(mostly because most people are jaded and don't care about others' opinions), because that would just stir up further controversy, and I want to nail down this first issue before that. I think Wizards has gone way off the deep end in extremely subjective stop-gap bandage bans.
I'd rather see them print a new, balanced version of SFM instead of unbanning it. You could easily print a card that is a 1/2 for 1W that tutors for an equipment and puts it into your hand when it enters the battlefield. Then just make it so you can tap the creature for 1 that can only be spent to cast or equip an equipment card. Perfectly reasonable, yet still very powerful. Not too good like SFM is.
Realistically I think AV is the next card to consider unbanning to push control a bit. I can see why they would not unban it at the same time as BB. So long as Fae doesn't dominate the format, I could see AV being a legitimate unban. If Fae ends up being super strong however, they wouldn't want to give it another potential tool.
Chrome Mox and Sword of the Meek (or Dark Depths) I also think are perfectly safe to come off.....
I think this is the hang up. Older players refuse to see new ways about doing things. What worked in card design or even art 10 or 20 years ago, doesnt work today. I dont think the way they thought about bans 10 years ago works for todays game. I applaud Wotc for changing their stance on how and why they they ban in Modern.
I also disagree BBE is a mediocre card. It carries one of the top 3 most broken mechanics on it and its probably the best one of those cards that carry it. That is not mediocre, thats top of the curve. Look how much deck building design opened up when BBE went away. That says a lot about the power of the card.
As for your thinking power level means nothing when considering bannings, I think you are wrong. Wotc has to look at the power level of the deck and the format when considering a banning. Its all part of it.
Well you're allowed to think that. And I'm not saying you(or Wizards) are wrong. I'm just saying I think it would do this thread a lot of good to hear several different points of view on this issue to get everyone on the same page. Personally I think it's a really poor idea to ban at specific decks, because(to put this in terms you specifically will understand) this leads to a perpetually updating list based on whatevers popular, which leads to excessive rotation, which leads to Extended-problems. And we all know how well Extended did at the end.
And I didn't say that power level meant nothing when it comes to bans. I'm saying it has no bearing on the delineation between bannings based on power and banning based on deck popularity. Which it doesn't.
...And as for Cascade being top3 mechanics, aside from it being irrelevant, Dredge, Ripple, Splice, Infect, Ninjutsu, Living Weapon, Flash, Madness, Cycling, etc. Several of which have legacy archetypes built around them, and have completely broken different formats at one time or another.
We can agree to disagree about broken mechanics.
Cascade isn't one of the 3 most broken mechanics of all time. Storm, Dredge, and the Urza Block free mechanic were all more broken than Cascade. And I don't think that Cascade is any more broken than Miracle.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
True. But I doubt there will ever be an equipment that breaks SFM as badly as what we've already seen. Batterskull was designed to push SFM as far as possible with living weapon (which we'll probably never see again, or at least not as pushed) and I doubt we'll ever see another equipment as warping as Jitte. The Swords of Opposite Things are just about the best we can realistically hope for. Caw-go started as a cheeky metagame deck for the 2010 World Championships, became a consistent 2-3-of Top8 contender with Sword of Feast and Famine, but it took Batterskull to make it a dominant and oppressive powerhouse. I'd posit that Sword of Feast and Famine as the best tool in Modern for SFM would be merely fair. Batterskull was what pushed a fun and interesting card into broken absurdity. We've seen lately that WotC wants to ban a card that pushes a deck over the top (BBE) rather than the core (Bob, Goyf, Lily), so if we follow that, we should be looking at a card that pushes it (Batterskull) rather than the core (SFM, Jace, AV etc).
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see just a Squire with Steelshaper's Gift and a conditional mana ability for equipment as you propose, but I frankly don't think its necessary. An enabler is only as scary as the thing its enabling. I've never thought: "great, you played Misty. I'm dead." Its always the Batterskull or Jitte she's forging into play that's gonna kill you. Keep Jitte banned and add Batterskull to the list and suddenly Misty is just good but not too good.
I agree with this. I don't see Fae being as dominant as it once was. It dominates in a metagame infested with fast combos and disruptable fast aggro but Modern just isn't there right now. I expect it to be just another good deck among many, albeit one that will reward correct deck building and tight play more than maybe any other in the format.
I look forward to seeing AV unbanned someday. I wouldn't run it in my UWR deck (Sphinx's Rev is a better topdeck and the lifegain does matter) but I'd like it in any U/x without white (Grixis and BUG being top candidates).
I have yet to be convinced that Chrome Mox would be good for the format, even if it would be fair. In every format where the speed has been relevant for fighting a fast deck (in the absence of a blowoff valve like Force of Will) we've seen Chrome Mox leave a dominant footprint on the format. Look at an elite Extended event like Worlds 2008 - 39/84 decks that were 4-2 or better (that's 46% of winning decks!) ran Chrome Mox in the mainboard between All-in Red and Dredge and the control, aggro, and ramp decks that were trying to fight them or race them.
I think there's a very real argument for unbanning Chrome Mox if WotC completely abandons the Turn 4 Rule. But until that happens I just don't see it. The card speeds up the critical turn by one across the board, and that subtly warps the entire format around it.
I'd really like to see more about why you think Dark Depths or Sword of the Meek would be good for the format, especially considering I was on Magic hiatus when they were dominating. Both of those have been banned in Extended for being oppressive and Modern's card pool isn't that much bigger than the historical Extended formats they dominated; also unfortunately many of the newer powerful cards that might be able to challenge those decks on level footing (SFM, JTMS, DRS etc) are banned, so I'm not sure the context and landscape of the format is different enough to justify the risk of letting them loose.
Speculate less. Test more.
I don't see them as a bad thing. I see them as a way to fix things that are broken. Skullclamp is broken. It was a mistake to print. Wizards has admitted they didn't properly think through how it would be used. Banning it undoes their mistake.
But being "the best deck at this specific instance in time" does not make something broken.
As far as making the format more friendly, also subjective. Banning answers just makes more problems. Banning the most popular deck because its the most popular leads to people being jaded because they know their deck is gonna be ripped apart if it performs well, so they don't want to have any attachment or innovation to their decks. And denying people the ability to play fun and interesting decks because "a key card from your deck was found in jund, and we need to nerf jund, so we're gonna kill your deck even though it's perfectly fair and balanced with 0 overpowered cards because we want to nerf Jund."
Chrome Mox does speed everything up by a turn, at the cost of another card in hand plus needing to find your combo pieces. So long as it isn't making turn 3 Splinter Twin super consistent I think it'd be fine. They could easily build RUG twin right now and just play Bird of Paradise if they wanted that kind of effect, but speeding up the combo by a turn just isn't good enough. Even the decks that use Simian Spirit Guide to go off a turn sooner wouldn't care for it, though that's mostly because they only need a single extra mana on a single turn (rather than on back to back turns like twin).
Sword of the Meek is a very grindy card that is very susceptible to graveyard hate, which I feel is going to be coming back in full force in the SB of main decks due to the DRS ban. As graveyard based strategies become more common as they are no longer pushed out of the format you will need to have answers for them. On top of that, it's not even really doing anything broken. Yes, a two card combo that can be online as early as turn 3 (I think) will start to generate you 1/1 fliers and gain you life, but it's not like you can go infinite on either side (life gain or making dudes). It's a great strategy against fair decks (assuming they can't just blow up your foundry), but it doesn't do much against the unfair decks of the format and it's pretty slow to win. If zoo continues to perform well this could come out as a great counter strategy to it that won't dominate the format. On top of the fact that the combo pieces are horrid on their own, and generally require some kind of enabler to be consistent I would think (Gifts, Tezzerett).
Dark Depths is similar but much more open to an all-in strategy. Most of the time you're managing to pull off a turn 4 trigger, turn 5 attack. Yes, sometimes you can trigger turn 3, and very rarely turn 2. However this is a very all in strategy that is actually easier to deal with than say Goryo's Vengeance/Emrakul. Bitterblossom, Lingering Souls, Path to Exile, Crytpic Command, plus I'm sure a bunch of others answer the Dark Depths token very well.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
Not that I can find. The only Pro level Standard events at the time were PT Paris (13.9%), GP Barcelona (35%), and GP Dallas (31%) which each had CawGo/Blade according to the percent I added in parentheses (caveat, there were other decks that had SFM, just those were listed as CawGo/Blade). It was the top deck at Dallas and Barcelona but it wasn't the crazy 70% that it was after Batterskull. Just the top deck among many. It won Paris (where it was a small part of the metagame) and Dallas (where it was the top deck) but it didn't win in Barcelona (despite the biggest chunk of the field).
Stoneforge Mystic just happened to be the best card in what we know in retrospect as a format that didn't have a whole lot of alternatives. People indiscriminately jammed SFM/Batterskull/Jace into everything. People tried to combat it despite the lack of good tools - Exarch/Splinter Twin came out of that as a good option, and its doing well in Modern. We've got really powerful alternatives in Modern (especially without Batterskull) - Tarmogoyf, Snapcaster Mage, Dark Confidant, Lightning Bolt, etc - all in the same goodstuff class as Misty; they were insane in Standard, were temporarily dominant in other formats, then fell out of all but the decks they were intuitive in. Valakut isn't splashing for Dark Confidant, and Jund isn't splashing for Snapcaster Mages. Why would SFM be any different, especially if it requires additional slots for the equipment? Its not like every deck is going to give up 12% of their available maindeck slots for 4 Misty and 3 swords.
So what about the warping effect? Is it ok for 40+% of decks to run a card in a large format and its healthy? Can you provide links to another time Mox was legal in Extended that it didn't appear at a high frequency?
What would Sword or Depths combo/control decks look like using the entire Modern card pool instead of just the subsets from the Extended seasons they were legal for? Could you provide lists? I haven't played them in Extended let alone tested them much in Modern.
Speculate less. Test more.
On the topic of Unbans: I would really like to see GGT unbanned, mostly because it would be a very safe unban and the dredge players would have a new toy to play with. But I can accept that GGT doesn't do anything for the format and unbanning for the sake of having less cards isn't a valid reason.
On the topic of Second Sunrise: I wonder what would have happened to the eggs deck if it was Faith's reward that was banned instead of SS. I would imagine that the deck would have been nerfed, but it would still do alright. But it did look like wizards wanted the deck to stop existing rather than be nerfed.
UWR Midrange
BRG Jund
BG Rock
UR Storm
The Philippine Modern Community
RGWUB MTG Modern Philippines