As for unbannings, I'm still on SDT. Does anyone have any non-anecdotal evidence about that card causing time problems in Legacy? Here's why I ask. I trust Wizards that SDT caused time issues in Extended; I just don't think they would overtly lie about that before the Modern format was even a real thing. The SDT ban is predicated on those time issues. But if SDT does not cause time issues in Legacy, then it becomes a question as to whether it would screw with Modern logistics. Of course, if SDT did in fact cause time issues in Legacy, then we could safely confirm Wizards' initial ban rationale and never revisit SDT again. I am just personally unconvinced (right now) that SDT would be such a logistical nightmare as Wizards claimed, mostly because I don't think it causes those issues in Legacy.
I am not worried about time problems as much as I am worried about the interaction between Counterbalance and SDT. Legacy has been able to easily stomach that combo, but I don't know if Modern could have the ability to fight through that kind of soft lock.
I think that it could. After all, Abrupt Decay is Modern legal and their is more of a variation of CMCs in Modern than in Legacy.
It's not, that would be arguing from authority, which is either the fourth or sixth formal fallacy, depending on what authority you're taking the list from. But, no one's really doing that here. When people quote pros, they aren't saying "this is true because the pro says so", they're saying "this pro said it better than I could, read his article". It's possible I'm wrong about that, but if I am, people need to stop quoting pros.
Who did you test with after valakut, specifically, by the way? If they were dedicated combo players, that would easily explain that discrepancy and we could all put the whole "Bocephus was wrong about Valakut" thing aside.
This is what I am talking about. Its not good enough for someone to say they play tested with pros/semi pros and make a statement and retract it. Now you have to know which pros/semi pros. Would it make a difference if I told you who it was? Would that put me in a different light then before? Its not enough someone can say something and retract it, you have to be a pro to get a second chance?
No, it wouldn't matter. You could be Jon Finkel himself and that wouldn't change a thing. Being good at playing Magic does not necessarily mean that you understand what is best for a format.
This is what I am talking about. Its not good enough for someone to say they play tested with pros/semi pros and make a statement and retract it. Now you have to know which pros/semi pros. Would it make a difference if I told you who it was? Would that put me in a different light then before? Its not enough someone can say something and retract it, you have to be a pro to get a second chance?
Well you're on record saying your local pros think that Stoneforge Mystic is stronger and more powerful than Tinker. So I mean it does matter a bit, since they've been known to have outrageous opinions before.
Wrong, Aaron Forsyth said that SFM is on par with SFM in a video I linked in the past. I just agreed with him.
That is not what AF says at all. You are either totally missing what he actually says, or you are just summarizing it badly.
Here's the transcript of the quote.
Quote from Aaron Forsythe »
I think Kibler (was it Kibler?) or someone wrote an article on Starcity saying, you know...maybe it was Pat Sullivan? It was somebody, you know, one of those other guys who works for other game companies, saying,
"Stoneforge is a card that they should have just said, why are we making this? We would never make a card that does this. We would never make a tutor that ignores mana costs. Right? That's Tinker. That's Natural Order. That's cards that we know are ridiculous."
They're right; we shouldn't have done that. In retrospect it's kind of a <facepalm> what were we thinking?
So first of all, AF is paraphrasing another author on SCG. He is not saying that this is his stance. The comparison to Tinker and NO, apart from being mostly rhetorical, was not actually something AF believes. Sure, he agrees that they shouldn't have done SFM the way they did her. But the "They're right; we shouldn't have done that" quote really does not read as if he's saying "Tinker = SFM". He's just agreeing that SFM was poorly designed. There's a reason that Tinker is restricted in Vintage and SFM is totally legal and fair. That comparison, although potentially effective as a rhetorical gimmick, is miles off in gauging the actual power level of the cards in question.
Really, thats what you get out of that? Wow, that explains a lot. He admits SFM is like tinker and natural order, outrageous, a mistake. I dont know how much more the man has to say.
Yes, he says that SFM is like Tinker and Natural Order. Well guess what? Shock is like Lightning Bolt. Molten Rain is like Sinkhole. Distress is like Thoughtseize. Serum Visions is like Brainstorm. Zombify is like Reanimate. Gilded Lotus is like Black Lotus. Cancel is like Force of Will. In no version of English that I know of does like mean exactly the same. And even if Forsythe was saying that SFM is just as broken as Tinker, he would still be wrong. Please Bocephus, explain how SFM is a better Tinker (for the benefit of the posters who weren't looking at this thread when you said that SFM is better because it has a body and doesn't make you sacrifice an artifact, all while you were ignoring that SFM is vulnerable to removal, leaves another entire turn where discard can be used, can cheat far less powerful cards into play than Tinker, takes a total of 4 mana to use, and because of its lack of haste, it is a lot harder to cheat in early and use), especially since Tinker is banned or restricted in every non-rotating format+Extended while SFM is safe in Legacy, EDH, and Vintage.
I actually agree with the conclusion of this argument, which is that SFM should stay banned. I don't want that card in Modern and I think t would be incredibly unhealthy for the format. But to agree with that statement I don't also need to believe that Tinker has the same power level as Stoneforge Mystic. That's like saying Jarad's Orders has the same power level of Entomb, or that Polymorph has the same power level as Oath of Druids.
I still don't understand how, if Batterskull was banned, Stoneforge Mystic couldn't be unbanned (yes, I know that this will never happen, just like many of the ideas in this thread. I just want to know why people think that a Steelshaper's Gift attatched to a Squire that makes a Sword cost 1 less is much more powerful than Snapcaster Mage).
IF they had banned Bolt right at the outset then yes, it would never have came back. But they didn't.
Bolt is overpowered but not broken. Anyway, this isn't a matter of whether a card is too powerful to be on the banlist or not, it's an observation of how unbans work. Based on historical evidence, prior to an unban, the only possible decks that could use the unbanned card must not be tier 1. See for yourself:
Scapeshift: was non-existent before Valakut
Zoo: all variants were tier 2 before Nacatl
Faeries: practically unplayed before BB
Even Tokens (which could use BB, but ended up not doing so) wasn't tier 1.
I'm not saying that Bolt should be on the banlist - I'm saying that IF it was banned for whatever reason, it would be very hard to get back into the format.
To be fair, Faeries was at least Tier 1.5 before the unbanning of BB. I know a guy from the area who has won 2 PTQs with Mono Blue Faeries. There was a 14 yr. old kid at my FNM who placed 1st-3rd for many weeks in a row with Mono Blue Faeries (but he is no ordinary kid, getting 10th place at the recent Las Vegas Invitational and winning our 54 person GPT in Legacy among many other accolades).
I still think that people are too quick to dismiss the new UB Faeries. Sure it didn't do well yet, but once a good metagamed list is hammered out, I feel it will be tough to beat.
No, Faeries was Tier 3 at best. It had few MTGO results and not many results in Grand Prix and Pro Tours either. If Faeries was tier 1.5 before Bitterblossom was unbanned, then Monogreen Devotion and Team Italia are tier 1.5 now.
There are a couple of other concerns about Stoneforge: the first is that even without batterskull it would be trivially easy to slot it into a UWR package with a Sword of Fire and Ice, Sword of Feast and Famine, and maybe a Loxodon Warhammer or something to bring the lifegain, and then be able to get multiple activations with Restoration Angel. Also, it DRAMATICALLY restricts the kind of equipment R&D can print forever, in a way that a lot of other banned or bannable cards just don't for other types of spell, and equipment is something R&D rather likes being able to play with. Finally, the ability to just search out any equipment and have a body to put it on is a lot more powerful than people think, and would give a ton of decks a whole new angle of attack, mainly RUW twin and midrange/control. It's not like Stoneforge/Batterskull swap would be the dumbest idea ever, but it still scares me a fair amount.
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potential future equipment has always been, and still is a terrible argument against stoneforge. do you really think they're going to print something on the power level of jitte, batterskull, or to a lesser extent, swords, again? maybe if we do Mirrodin Pure, we'll get the ally cycle of swords, but i really doubt that. have you seen the ***** they've printed as equipment? it'll never be something like 5 to cast, 0 to equip (because you still need to pay the equip cost) equipped creature gets +10/+10, annihilator 3.
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I speak in sarcasm because calling people ******* ******** is not allowed.
potential future equipment has always been, and still is a terrible argument against stoneforge. do you really think they're going to print something on the power level of jitte, batterskull, or to a lesser extent, swords, again? maybe if we do Mirrodin Pure, we'll get the ally cycle of swords, but i really doubt that. have you seen the ***** they've printed as equipment? it'll never be something like 5 to cast, 0 to equip (because you still need to pay the equip cost) equipped creature gets +10/+10, annihilator 3.
No it is not. You understimate the capability of wizards doing stupid things (they printed snapcaster two blocks ago). One of the equipment open design space is toying with CMC and equip cost (high CMC low equip cost, low CMC high equip cost) and SFM freedom reduces a lot.
And i don't see how SFM improves the format experience.
Will it bring new decks without killing another decks?
Will increase the power of lower tier decks without powering up higher tier decks?
I don't see how it will make modern meta better, all i see is people wanting to play a pet card.
potential future equipment has always been, and still is a terrible argument against stoneforge. do you really think they're going to print something on the power level of jitte, batterskull, or to a lesser extent, swords, again? maybe if we do Mirrodin Pure, we'll get the ally cycle of swords, but i really doubt that. have you seen the ***** they've printed as equipment? it'll never be something like 5 to cast, 0 to equip (because you still need to pay the equip cost) equipped creature gets +10/+10, annihilator 3.
No it is not. You understimate the capability of wizards doing stupid things (they printed snapcaster two blocks ago). One of the equipment open design space is toying with CMC and equip cost (high CMC low equip cost, low CMC high equip cost) and SFM freedom reduces a lot.
And i don't see how SFM improves the format experience.
Will it bring new decks without killing another decks?
Will increase the power of lower tier decks without powering up higher tier decks?
I don't see how it will make modern meta better, all i see is people wanting to play a pet card.
It would help several Tier 2-3 decks (Azorius Midrange, Team Italia, Junk, WB Tokens, Death and Taxes, WG Hatebears, Boros Midrange) while the only higher tier decks that it would help would be Naya Midrange and WUR Midrange, which are both only Tier 1.5 anyways.
I still don't buy the 'elbrus is bad with stoneforge' argument. I see a situation where you can equip for a trivial cost, and turn any creature into a threat infinitely more than 1 mana should net you. To make a creature that you either kill instantly(with full kill because burn won't work) or lose. It may not be the exact scenario of Depths, but it's close. It extremely strong, extremely degenerate(as cheats usually are), and it easily slots into...everything(the big problem with SFM+Batterskull). I'd do tests to show this, but I don't feel like putting in the effort for something that looks so blatantly to obvious to non-biased people, you guys are more than welcome to test it though so you can see what it does.
And then of course there's the fact that Jitte has as much chance coming off as anything else a year down the line. Its a lot worse than it once was because of rules changes, and the power level of modern is getting to the point where it can handle it.
But it comes down to something as simple as this: Anyone who argues that SFM + X is bad, is a liar. Since that's the only thing you can do with SFM is play it with X. Either SFM + X is good, and you're lying because you want to play it. Or SFM + X is bad, in which case you'd never want it swapped with Batterskull, because Batterskull does a lot of good things for the format. And if a dozen+ random decks with absolutely no synergy with the 'combo'(other than it plays the same colors) would suddenly slot in 5+ cards without a second thought, that says something.
I still don't buy the 'elbrus is bad with stoneforge' argument. I see a situation where you can equip for a trivial cost, and turn any creature into a threat infinitely more than 1 mana should net you. To make a creature that you either kill instantly(with full kill because burn won't work) or lose. It may not be the exact scenario of Depths, but it's close. It extremely strong, extremely degenerate(as cheats usually are), and it easily slots into...everything(the big problem with SFM+Batterskull). I'd do tests to show this, but I don't feel like putting in the effort for something that looks so blatantly to obvious to non-biased people, you guys are more than welcome to test it though so you can see what it does.
I never claimed that it is bad, I just don't see why it would be broken. It can't be used to win before turn 4, the combo is vulnerable to artifact removal, creature removal, and discard, and it is useless when it is drawn without SFM.
And then of course there's the fact that Jitte has as much chance coming off as anything else a year down the line. Its a lot worse than it once was because of rules changes, and the power level of modern is getting to the point where it can handle it.
How did Jitte get worse? Now it can't be stopped by other people's Jittes. Also, Jitte would just slot into every creature-based deck in the format, which I don't think is something that should happen in Modern.
But it comes down to something as simple as this: Anyone who argues that SFM + X is bad, is a liar. Since that's the only thing you can do with SFM is play it with X. Either SFM + X is good, and you're lying because you want to play it. Or SFM + X is bad, in which case you'd never want it swapped with Batterskull, because Batterskull does a lot of good things for the format. And if a dozen+ random decks with absolutely no synergy with the 'combo'(other than it plays the same colors) would suddenly slot in 5+ cards without a second thought, that says something.
I never claimed that SFM and the swords and Elbrus would be bad. I claimed that it would be good for the format and that it wouldn't be broken. Without Batterskull or Jitte, I'd say that SFM is about as powerful as Snapcaster Mage, which is safe in Modern.
I still don't understand how, if Batterskull was banned, Stoneforge Mystic couldn't be unbanned (yes, I know that this will never happen, just like many of the ideas in this thread. I just want to know why people think that a Steelshaper's Gift attatched to a Squire that makes a Sword cost 1 less is much more powerful than Snapcaster Mage).
As I have said before, I think SFM is actually okay without BSkull in the format. But it just seems so improbable that Wizards will do a swap ban that I can't bring myself to talk about it. At least all the other far-fetched ideas in the thread (unbanning JTMS, banning this-or-that from Storm, printing a new Counterspell, banning fetches, etc.) could maybe happen. And so long as BSkull is around and there isn't some serious new card or reprint that changes the format, SFM is unsafe.
How did Jitte get worse? Now it can't be stopped by other people's Jittes. Also, Jitte would just slot into every creature-based deck in the format, which I don't think is something that should happen in Modern.
When I say it 'got worse' I meant in regards to when it was in Standard. Because old Jitte is the boogeyman that terrorized the playerbase and got Wizards to pro-actively ban out the card before ever testing it. As they did with Bitterblossom, Valakut, GGT, etc. And stack changes made Jitte CONSIDERABLY worse than how it once was.
And that slotting into every deck is worse with SFM. It would be slotted into literally every creature deck that plays white(and some non-creature decks as well) along with a collection of Elbrus and a couple swords(maybe more). Which is different, because it's a combo of several cards vs a single card.
The Jitte is analogy is akin to: "Bolt just slots into every red deck" or "Goyf slots into every green creature deck." Single cards showing up in a lot of decks isn't an issue if the card itself isn't imbalanced(like DRS was).
To be fair, Faeries was at least Tier 1.5 before the unbanning of BB. I know a guy from the area who has won 2 PTQs with Mono Blue Faeries. There was a 14 yr. old kid at my FNM who placed 1st-3rd for many weeks in a row with Mono Blue Faeries (but he is no ordinary kid, getting 10th place at the recent Las Vegas Invitational and winning our 54 person GPT in Legacy among many other accolades).
It's true Faeries was probably Tier 1.5 before the unbanning of Bitterblossom. The problem is that it was long before the unbanning of Bitterblossom that it was Tier 1.5. When we talk about just before Bitterblossom was unbanned, it was maybe Tier 2.5.
And then of course there's the fact that Jitte has as much chance coming off as anything else a year down the line. Its a lot worse than it once was because of rules changes, and the power level of modern is getting to the point where it can handle it.
How is it worse? As far as I can tell it's better.
Previously, you could kill Jitte with your own Jitte. Some decks even ran Jitte for this purpose. That's gone, so it's slightly harder to get rid of.
It's not a big increase in power, but I can't figure out how the rule change has in any way made it worse.
If memory serves, in Old Extended the only creature deck that didn't play Jitte was Affinity, and that was because of Cranial Plating and the fact that with Arcbound Ravager and some gray matter the opposing Jitte was very hard pressed to get even a single hit in.
Rules changes or no, I don't see how thing would be different if they unbanned it now. The card is just an insanely powerful trump card in midrange and aggro mirrors and those decks would have to go through some serious hoops to make it anything less, even with Abrupt Decay in the format.
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It's not worse due to Legend rule changes. It's worse due to earlier changes to the stack and combat damage no longer using the stack. Before you could let combat damage hit the stack giving your creature lethal damage, then use a newly added counter from Jitte to save your creature before damage resolved. This doesn't work anymore because the creature just dies before the counters get put onto Jitte.
Considering those changes predate Modern, I don't see how they're relevant.
It's not worse due to Legend rule changes. It's worse due to earlier changes to the stack and combat damage no longer using the stack. Before you could let combat damage hit the stack giving your creature lethal damage, then use a newly added counter from Jitte to save your creature before damage resolved. This doesn't work anymore because the creature just dies before the counters get put onto Jitte.
It's never worked like that. Jitte won't get counters when damage is on the stack, Jitte gets counters after damage is dealt.
I just don't understand what people think Jitte brings to the format. Does it create more decks than it pushes out? What decks right now need a Jitte to get to the next level today? And what decks would just be worse if Jitte were around? I haven't gone over every possible deck in the format, but just at a glance, all the decks that Jitte might benefit are already doing okay right now. Are there actual decks that the pro-Jitte camp has in mind when they think this card could get unbanned? Or is it just the principle of the ban? Or an untested theory?
I just don't understand what people think Jitte brings to the format. Does it create more decks than it pushes out? What decks right now need a Jitte to get to the next level today? And what decks would just be worse if Jitte were around? I haven't gone over every possible deck in the format, but just at a glance, all the decks that Jitte might benefit are already doing okay right now. Are there actual decks that the pro-Jitte camp has in mind when they think this card could get unbanned? Or is it just the principle of the ban? Or an untested theory?
There's a subset of players who seem to have a complete inability to see beyond the satisfaction they personally enjoy when leveraging a specific card.
Kenshin, you should know by now that I don't look at specific decks as much as I look at cards. Abbey Griffin doesn't need to 'bring anything' to the format to be worthy of not being banned.
But as far as Jitte, I wasn't advocating it should come off. And certainly not now. I was saying that there is a REAL possibility that it COULD come off sometime in the not-so-distant future. In the same way that Jace, Preordain, SoM, Nacatyl, and Bitterblossom could(Oh, wait, those last 2 already did, guess I need to update my defacto list). And when it does, the format will likely look a lot different than it does now...probably because it will have SoM, GGT, BBE, and a bunch of newly printed cards in it.
And if there's ever an environment where it can come off, we'd run into the SFM issue again. Which is an added reason why its the problem, not Bskull.
Its pretty clear there are those who wish to play with those cards that are broken, and those who wish to play fair decks. There is always going to be an argument between these 2 groups to what is 'safe' and what is not.
It is perfectly clear to Wotc and most players SFM is broken and crosses the line, in a vacuum and interactions with other cards, but there are those who like playing with such cards.
Please name me one example of a possible equipment that:
a) would breaks SFM
b) is not unreasonable to print (like Batterskull which is rarely used as a equipment, and pretty much always counted as a creature during deckbuilding)
Any halfway decent equipment that has a cmc above 3. That is the only reason Batterskull(and possibly Elbrus) is the current issue. This is how cheats work, and I don't know how many times this needs to be restated. The problem is that you're forgoing casting costs. SFM doesn't LOOK broken without Batterskull, because every equip that costs above 3 is so horribly bad that it isn't even worth cheating out. Strandwalker? Argentum Armor? There's a reason you've never heard of these cards before, they're terrible. Look at Griselbrand. A legitimately bad card, the only reason it sees play is because when you make it cost nothing, you break the rules of magic and it suddenly becomes the go-to best thing since sliced bread.
So yes, they would never again be allowed to print an even remotely decent equipment that cost the same or more than Batterskull. Which is why Batterskull exists now and isn't breaking anything, because it costs 5 and gives you something worth 5. But when paired with SFM, it costs 2, and gives you an effect worth 5(and is tutored for free as well). So they would have to intentionally print bad cards for the whole subset '4+ cmc equipment' until the end of time, because anything playable suddenly breaks SFM again.
This is so painstakingly obvious to everyone, I don't understand how such a small group of people can be so completely blinded by their bias.
Please name me one example of a possible equipment that:
a) would breaks SFM
b) is not unreasonable to print (like Batterskull which is rarely used as a equipment, and pretty much always counted as a creature during deckbuilding)
Any halfway decent equipment that has a cmc above 3. That is the only reason Batterskull(and possibly Elbrus) is the current issue. This is how cheats work, and I don't know how many times this needs to be restated. The problem is that you're forgoing casting costs. SFM doesn't LOOK broken without Batterskull, because every equip that costs above 3 is so horribly bad that it isn't even worth cheating out. Strandwalker? Argentum Armor? There's a reason you've never heard of these cards before, they're terrible. Look at Griselbrand. A legitimately bad card, the only reason it sees play is because when you make it cost nothing, you break the rules of magic and it suddenly becomes the go-to best thing since sliced bread.
So yes, they would never again be allowed to print an even remotely decent equipment that cost the same or more than Batterskull. Which is why Batterskull exists now and isn't breaking anything, because it costs 5 and gives you something worth 5. But when paired with SFM, it costs 2, and gives you an effect worth 5(and is tutored for free as well). So they would have to intentionally print bad cards for the whole subset '4+ cmc equipment' until the end of time, because anything playable suddenly breaks SFM again.
This is so painstakingly obvious to everyone, I don't understand how such a small group of people can be so completely blinded by their bias.
Actually, the only thing that they couldn't print would be equipment with high CMCs and low equip costs, which would be bad without SFM to cheat them out anyways.
Actually, the only thing that they couldn't print would be equipment with high CMCs and low equip costs, which would be bad without SFM to cheat them out anyways.
1. The equip cost is very relevant to valuation of a card. High equip costs are bad, for the same reason enchants are generally bad. Investing more in a creature that's just as vulnerable.
2. Elbrus. Elbrus isn't breaking anything, and it's high cost, low equip. Because it's balanced by the high cost. Because being balanced around cmc is how magic works.
3. If you're trying to argue that they would be bad cards(not imbalanced ones). Then yeah, things can be bad and then suddenly be broken when cheats come into play. See: Flash-Hulk.
Actually, the only thing that they couldn't print would be equipment with high CMCs and low equip costs, which would be bad without SFM to cheat them out anyways.
1. The equip cost is very relevant to valuation of a card. High equip costs are bad, for the same reason enchants are generally bad. Investing more in a creature that's just as vulnerable.
2. Elbrus. Elbrus isn't breaking anything, and it's high cost, low equip. Because it's balanced by the high cost. Because being balanced around cmc is how magic works.
3. If you're trying to argue that they would be bad cards(not imbalanced ones). Then yeah, things can be bad and then suddenly be broken when cheats come into play. See: Flash-Hulk.
My point was that Wizards wouldn't be losing anything if they stopped making equipment with high CMCs and low equip costs because other than their interaction with SFM, they aren't any good anyways.
Actually, the only thing that they couldn't print would be equipment with high CMCs and low equip costs, which would be bad without SFM to cheat them out anyways.
1. The equip cost is very relevant to valuation of a card. High equip costs are bad, for the same reason enchants are generally bad. Investing more in a creature that's just as vulnerable.
2. Elbrus. Elbrus isn't breaking anything, and it's high cost, low equip. Because it's balanced by the high cost. Because being balanced around cmc is how magic works.
3. If you're trying to argue that they would be bad cards(not imbalanced ones). Then yeah, things can be bad and then suddenly be broken when cheats come into play. See: Flash-Hulk.
My point was that Wizards wouldn't be losing anything if they stopped making equipment with high CMCs and low equip costs because other than their interaction with SFM, they aren't any good anyways.
But they can't make any equipment with high CMCs PERIOD. If there's a "good" card with a high casting cost, it will be broken regardless of equip cost.
Actually, the only thing that they couldn't print would be equipment with high CMCs and low equip costs, which would be bad without SFM to cheat them out anyways.
1. The equip cost is very relevant to valuation of a card. High equip costs are bad, for the same reason enchants are generally bad. Investing more in a creature that's just as vulnerable.
2. Elbrus. Elbrus isn't breaking anything, and it's high cost, low equip. Because it's balanced by the high cost. Because being balanced around cmc is how magic works.
3. If you're trying to argue that they would be bad cards(not imbalanced ones). Then yeah, things can be bad and then suddenly be broken when cheats come into play. See: Flash-Hulk.
My point was that Wizards wouldn't be losing anything if they stopped making equipment with high CMCs and low equip costs because other than their interaction with SFM, they aren't any good anyways.
But they can't make any equipment with high CMCs PERIOD. If there's a "good" card with a high casting cost, it will be broken regardless of equip cost.
Um, how? If a card says "When equipped creature deals combat damage to an opponent, you win the game. Equipped creature has protection from everything except for equipment." it wouldn't be broken with SFM if it had an equip cost of 12. Or, for a real card, Argentum Armor isn't broken with SFM not because it is a bad card, but because it has an equip cost of 6.
Actually, the only thing that they couldn't print would be equipment with high CMCs and low equip costs, which would be bad without SFM to cheat them out anyways.
1. The equip cost is very relevant to valuation of a card. High equip costs are bad, for the same reason enchants are generally bad. Investing more in a creature that's just as vulnerable.
2. Elbrus. Elbrus isn't breaking anything, and it's high cost, low equip. Because it's balanced by the high cost. Because being balanced around cmc is how magic works.
3. If you're trying to argue that they would be bad cards(not imbalanced ones). Then yeah, things can be bad and then suddenly be broken when cheats come into play. See: Flash-Hulk.
My point was that Wizards wouldn't be losing anything if they stopped making equipment with high CMCs and low equip costs because other than their interaction with SFM, they aren't any good anyways.
But they can't make any equipment with high CMCs PERIOD. If there's a "good" card with a high casting cost, it will be broken regardless of equip cost.
Um, how? If a card says "When equipped creature deals combat damage to an opponent, you win the game. Equipped creature has protection from everything except for equipment." it wouldn't be broken with SFM if it had an equip cost of 12. Or, for a real card, Argentum Armor isn't broken with SFM not because it is a bad card, but because it has an equip cost of 6.
How do you not understand. Costs are relevant to how 'good' or 'bad' something is.
Wild Nacatyl is a good creature because it's a 3/3 for 1. Canyon Minotaur however is a 3/3 for 4 and is thus terrible.
An equipment could have a casting cost of -5(as in you gain 5 mana when you play it), and still be awful with an equip cost of 12 no matter how good the effect is. Because the cost of 12 makes it worthless. Because it's a bad card.
Argentum armor IS a bad card BECAUSE it has an equip cost of 6. And it's not broken with SFM because it's a bad card. If it weren't a bad card, it would get played...anywhere...ever.
But because I've proven my point at least a dozen times and you refuse to accept it, I'll pose you the question.
Make an equipment, ANY equipment, that costs 5+, that would be worth playing by itself, and doesn't break with SFM. Because you can't. Because anything even remotely close to playable suddenly breaks when it's tutored and cheated for free.
I think that it could. After all, Abrupt Decay is Modern legal and their is more of a variation of CMCs in Modern than in Legacy.
No, it wouldn't matter. You could be Jon Finkel himself and that wouldn't change a thing. Being good at playing Magic does not necessarily mean that you understand what is best for a format.
Oh great, this again.
Yes, he says that SFM is like Tinker and Natural Order. Well guess what? Shock is like Lightning Bolt. Molten Rain is like Sinkhole. Distress is like Thoughtseize. Serum Visions is like Brainstorm. Zombify is like Reanimate. Gilded Lotus is like Black Lotus. Cancel is like Force of Will. In no version of English that I know of does like mean exactly the same. And even if Forsythe was saying that SFM is just as broken as Tinker, he would still be wrong. Please Bocephus, explain how SFM is a better Tinker (for the benefit of the posters who weren't looking at this thread when you said that SFM is better because it has a body and doesn't make you sacrifice an artifact, all while you were ignoring that SFM is vulnerable to removal, leaves another entire turn where discard can be used, can cheat far less powerful cards into play than Tinker, takes a total of 4 mana to use, and because of its lack of haste, it is a lot harder to cheat in early and use), especially since Tinker is banned or restricted in every non-rotating format+Extended while SFM is safe in Legacy, EDH, and Vintage.
I still don't understand how, if Batterskull was banned, Stoneforge Mystic couldn't be unbanned (yes, I know that this will never happen, just like many of the ideas in this thread. I just want to know why people think that a Steelshaper's Gift attatched to a Squire that makes a Sword cost 1 less is much more powerful than Snapcaster Mage).
No, Faeries was Tier 3 at best. It had few MTGO results and not many results in Grand Prix and Pro Tours either. If Faeries was tier 1.5 before Bitterblossom was unbanned, then Monogreen Devotion and Team Italia are tier 1.5 now.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
And i don't see how SFM improves the format experience.
Will it bring new decks without killing another decks?
Will increase the power of lower tier decks without powering up higher tier decks?
I don't see how it will make modern meta better, all i see is people wanting to play a pet card.
It would help several Tier 2-3 decks (Azorius Midrange, Team Italia, Junk, WB Tokens, Death and Taxes, WG Hatebears, Boros Midrange) while the only higher tier decks that it would help would be Naya Midrange and WUR Midrange, which are both only Tier 1.5 anyways.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
And then of course there's the fact that Jitte has as much chance coming off as anything else a year down the line. Its a lot worse than it once was because of rules changes, and the power level of modern is getting to the point where it can handle it.
But it comes down to something as simple as this: Anyone who argues that SFM + X is bad, is a liar. Since that's the only thing you can do with SFM is play it with X. Either SFM + X is good, and you're lying because you want to play it. Or SFM + X is bad, in which case you'd never want it swapped with Batterskull, because Batterskull does a lot of good things for the format. And if a dozen+ random decks with absolutely no synergy with the 'combo'(other than it plays the same colors) would suddenly slot in 5+ cards without a second thought, that says something.
SFM isn't going to come off for as long as Zoo remains a top deck...or in fact, any other fair deck with white in it, like UWR.
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Big Johnny.
I never claimed that it is bad, I just don't see why it would be broken. It can't be used to win before turn 4, the combo is vulnerable to artifact removal, creature removal, and discard, and it is useless when it is drawn without SFM.
How did Jitte get worse? Now it can't be stopped by other people's Jittes. Also, Jitte would just slot into every creature-based deck in the format, which I don't think is something that should happen in Modern.
I never claimed that SFM and the swords and Elbrus would be bad. I claimed that it would be good for the format and that it wouldn't be broken. Without Batterskull or Jitte, I'd say that SFM is about as powerful as Snapcaster Mage, which is safe in Modern.
I said if Batterskull was banned. Also, WUR Midrange and Naya Midrange are not tier 1 and WUR Control wouldn't play SFM just for the swords.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
As I have said before, I think SFM is actually okay without BSkull in the format. But it just seems so improbable that Wizards will do a swap ban that I can't bring myself to talk about it. At least all the other far-fetched ideas in the thread (unbanning JTMS, banning this-or-that from Storm, printing a new Counterspell, banning fetches, etc.) could maybe happen. And so long as BSkull is around and there isn't some serious new card or reprint that changes the format, SFM is unsafe.
When I say it 'got worse' I meant in regards to when it was in Standard. Because old Jitte is the boogeyman that terrorized the playerbase and got Wizards to pro-actively ban out the card before ever testing it. As they did with Bitterblossom, Valakut, GGT, etc. And stack changes made Jitte CONSIDERABLY worse than how it once was.
And that slotting into every deck is worse with SFM. It would be slotted into literally every creature deck that plays white(and some non-creature decks as well) along with a collection of Elbrus and a couple swords(maybe more). Which is different, because it's a combo of several cards vs a single card.
The Jitte is analogy is akin to: "Bolt just slots into every red deck" or "Goyf slots into every green creature deck." Single cards showing up in a lot of decks isn't an issue if the card itself isn't imbalanced(like DRS was).
Jitte itself:
It's slow, has next to no immediate impact, and there's so many ways to play around it.
As for the comparison between SFM and Snapcaster, one ignores CMC, the other doesn't(and this is the biggest sticking point with SFM).
It's true Faeries was probably Tier 1.5 before the unbanning of Bitterblossom. The problem is that it was long before the unbanning of Bitterblossom that it was Tier 1.5. When we talk about just before Bitterblossom was unbanned, it was maybe Tier 2.5.
How is it worse? As far as I can tell it's better.
Previously, you could kill Jitte with your own Jitte. Some decks even ran Jitte for this purpose. That's gone, so it's slightly harder to get rid of.
It's not a big increase in power, but I can't figure out how the rule change has in any way made it worse.
Rules changes or no, I don't see how thing would be different if they unbanned it now. The card is just an insanely powerful trump card in midrange and aggro mirrors and those decks would have to go through some serious hoops to make it anything less, even with Abrupt Decay in the format.
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Considering those changes predate Modern, I don't see how they're relevant.
It's never worked like that. Jitte won't get counters when damage is on the stack, Jitte gets counters after damage is dealt.
There's a subset of players who seem to have a complete inability to see beyond the satisfaction they personally enjoy when leveraging a specific card.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
But as far as Jitte, I wasn't advocating it should come off. And certainly not now. I was saying that there is a REAL possibility that it COULD come off sometime in the not-so-distant future. In the same way that Jace, Preordain, SoM, Nacatyl, and Bitterblossom could(Oh, wait, those last 2 already did, guess I need to update my defacto list). And when it does, the format will likely look a lot different than it does now...probably because it will have SoM, GGT, BBE, and a bunch of newly printed cards in it.
And if there's ever an environment where it can come off, we'd run into the SFM issue again. Which is an added reason why its the problem, not Bskull.
It is perfectly clear to Wotc and most players SFM is broken and crosses the line, in a vacuum and interactions with other cards, but there are those who like playing with such cards.
Any halfway decent equipment that has a cmc above 3. That is the only reason Batterskull(and possibly Elbrus) is the current issue. This is how cheats work, and I don't know how many times this needs to be restated. The problem is that you're forgoing casting costs. SFM doesn't LOOK broken without Batterskull, because every equip that costs above 3 is so horribly bad that it isn't even worth cheating out. Strandwalker? Argentum Armor? There's a reason you've never heard of these cards before, they're terrible. Look at Griselbrand. A legitimately bad card, the only reason it sees play is because when you make it cost nothing, you break the rules of magic and it suddenly becomes the go-to best thing since sliced bread.
So yes, they would never again be allowed to print an even remotely decent equipment that cost the same or more than Batterskull. Which is why Batterskull exists now and isn't breaking anything, because it costs 5 and gives you something worth 5. But when paired with SFM, it costs 2, and gives you an effect worth 5(and is tutored for free as well). So they would have to intentionally print bad cards for the whole subset '4+ cmc equipment' until the end of time, because anything playable suddenly breaks SFM again.
This is so painstakingly obvious to everyone, I don't understand how such a small group of people can be so completely blinded by their bias.
Actually, the only thing that they couldn't print would be equipment with high CMCs and low equip costs, which would be bad without SFM to cheat them out anyways.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
1. The equip cost is very relevant to valuation of a card. High equip costs are bad, for the same reason enchants are generally bad. Investing more in a creature that's just as vulnerable.
2. Elbrus. Elbrus isn't breaking anything, and it's high cost, low equip. Because it's balanced by the high cost. Because being balanced around cmc is how magic works.
3. If you're trying to argue that they would be bad cards(not imbalanced ones). Then yeah, things can be bad and then suddenly be broken when cheats come into play. See: Flash-Hulk.
My point was that Wizards wouldn't be losing anything if they stopped making equipment with high CMCs and low equip costs because other than their interaction with SFM, they aren't any good anyways.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
But they can't make any equipment with high CMCs PERIOD. If there's a "good" card with a high casting cost, it will be broken regardless of equip cost.
Um, how? If a card says "When equipped creature deals combat damage to an opponent, you win the game. Equipped creature has protection from everything except for equipment." it wouldn't be broken with SFM if it had an equip cost of 12. Or, for a real card, Argentum Armor isn't broken with SFM not because it is a bad card, but because it has an equip cost of 6.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
How do you not understand. Costs are relevant to how 'good' or 'bad' something is.
Wild Nacatyl is a good creature because it's a 3/3 for 1. Canyon Minotaur however is a 3/3 for 4 and is thus terrible.
An equipment could have a casting cost of -5(as in you gain 5 mana when you play it), and still be awful with an equip cost of 12 no matter how good the effect is. Because the cost of 12 makes it worthless. Because it's a bad card.
Argentum armor IS a bad card BECAUSE it has an equip cost of 6. And it's not broken with SFM because it's a bad card. If it weren't a bad card, it would get played...anywhere...ever.
But because I've proven my point at least a dozen times and you refuse to accept it, I'll pose you the question.
Make an equipment, ANY equipment, that costs 5+, that would be worth playing by itself, and doesn't break with SFM. Because you can't. Because anything even remotely close to playable suddenly breaks when it's tutored and cheated for free.