Batterskull is not overpowered whatsoever unless paired with SFM, so saying you want banning Batterskull and not SFM isnt valid. Its like saying Death rite was OP because of fetch lands, and since we have to much 1 mana creature removal, we better ban fetch lands. (its an exaggeration but you get my point).
Question, will anything like ponder, preordain, or rite of flame be unbanned (or similarly be printed)? Mainly because i feel pure combo is far and few between in Modern.
If you look at a simple UR delver decklist, they don't have any way to kill a 4/4. Jund has few ways to kill the creature, but they do not have ways to kill the artifact itself until SB. Throughout batterskull's history, it is always played in 1 or 2. It has never left as a deck's sideboard option, i don't know what else to put? Just jam a batterskull, it's good against almost everything. Batterskull may not be overpowered in terms of the card itself with straightforward text, but the card itself has been considered almost a sideboard staple throughout its' shelf life from its existence. Deathrite with fetch lands vs. Stoneforge Mystic with actual equipment are 2 completely different types of interaction. So i don't know why you are using that argument.
I will give Pardee more credit than most articles I've seen since here at least he actually shows some matches to back up his plans on banning TC.
What's frustrating is that he claims he's working on tweaking the deck to deal with the new metagame and he changed exactly one card: adding a single Spirit of the Labyrinth to the main. As he even says himself in the deck tech, that card pretty clearly isn't good here. It dies to every removal spell in Burn/Delver and gets 2 for 1'd by Forked Bolt. I mean I understand making small incremental changes but this is a far cry from a "tuned" decklist.
In the matches, he sounds a bit like the classic bad-beat story where he's spending a lot of time complaining about TC when it's questionable if it even matters. Sure, sometimes maybe he would have gotten there if they didn't have it, other times he was dead to basically anything.
I'd like to see someone legitimately tweak a pod list to beat Burn/UR Delver and see how that fares. If you're still using the old list built for Combo/Control -- you should get rolled by fast aggro.
Here's a ridiculous idea: what about banning delver? I mean is it possible that it is too good for the format?
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Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Except that every time I play against delver, I have yet to see them flip it reliably. There isn't enough topdeck manipulation for that to be a thing. It's often stuck as a 1/1 for multiple turns.
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Come watch me stream over at my twitch channel. I play Loam Pox, Ad Nauseam, and jank in modern on MTGO.
Here's a ridiculous idea: what about banning delver? I mean is it possible that it is too good for the format?
Not at all. Delver is obviously not the problem card, seeing as it's been in the format for a long time now. It's always been decent to good, but it's never been amazing because Modern does not have the library manipulation that Ponder, Preordain and Brainstorm provide. A Delver ban would make as much sense as the Nacatl ban.
Except that every time I play against delver, I have yet to see them flip it reliably. There isn't enough topdeck manipulation for that to be a thing. It's often stuck as a 1/1 for multiple turns.
i played a lot of grixis delver before they banned Deathrite and if your deck is well built, a delver stuck as a 1/1 is far from the norm. Usualy it flips almost immediately
Here's a ridiculous idea: what about banning delver? I mean is it possible that it is too good for the format?
Delver is powerful to be sure, but it carries a high deck building cost. There is a reason the deck is named after the creature. If you are playing Delver of Secrets; then you are committed to a specific strategy.
Except that every time I play against delver, I have yet to see them flip it reliably. There isn't enough topdeck manipulation for that to be a thing. It's often stuck as a 1/1 for multiple turns.
As long as the deck is built correctly; then it is roughly a coinflip. I have played some nights where it feels like it flips every time. Then there are rare occasions when Serum Visions does double duty.
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Here's a ridiculous idea: what about banning delver? I mean is it possible that it is too good for the format?
Yep. That's a ridiculous idea. It's not quite "ban Bolt" levels of ridiculous, but it's up there with the "ban Goyf" arguments during the height of BGx Midrange.
There are so many reasons why this idea is beyond bad, but I'll just list the top two. First, Delver was fine for years and then KTK came out. Now, Delver may be busted. At the exact same time, a deck that was previously just "good" (Burn) also went to stratospheric metagame levels. Those decks share two new cards, either of which could have pushed them over the edge: Swiftpsear (less likely but arguable) and TC (very likely and highly arguable). Why would you ever ban the card that was fine for 2 years when 2 new cards were just introduced and threw the entire format off? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Second, banning Delver (just read that - "banning Delver". I can't believe that's even on people's minds) doesn't do anything about Burn. Delver would totally die out and Burn would just be, like, 25% of the metagame.
If anything gets banned, it's 80% going to be TC. IT meets the abstract theoretical test: It's a sorcery speed Ancestral Recall castable on turn 4. It meets the ban context test: AV was banned for years, TC is way more broken than AV. And it meets the empirical test: It's one of two new cards that are shared by the two archetypes that totally exploded after KTK. Swiftspear only really passes that third test for bannability. It mostly fails the first two. Delver fails all three.
I would love to see some test results or number crunching on TC or Swifstpear. Like, what is TC Burn's win % against BGx Midrange versus its win % with just Swifstpear? Those are much more interesting questions, theories, and problems than this nonsense about banning Delver/Bolt or unbanning SFM and banning Skull in its place.
I have the Cruise Burn list that took first and second in the Japanese tournament put together for testing. It uses four of both Treasure Cruise and Swiftspear. I would be happy to play some matches with it against BGx tonight for testing purposes.
I don't have a BGx deck put together right now but could throw one together. A Junk list got 10th at the SCG tournament last weekend but it doesn't look suitable for the current meta at all. The list is below.
I'm open to suggestions, otherwise I'll probably play the deck below from the Japanese tournament. Four oozes and baloths maindeck seems pretty good for life gain. I'm surprised no one is running any Kitchen Finks though.
I will give Pardee more credit than most articles I've seen since here at least he actually shows some matches to back up his plans on banning TC.
What's frustrating is that he claims he's working on tweaking the deck to deal with the new metagame and he changed exactly one card: adding a single Spirit of the Labyrinth to the main. As he even says himself in the deck tech, that card pretty clearly isn't good here. It dies to every removal spell in Burn/Delver and gets 2 for 1'd by Forked Bolt. I mean I understand making small incremental changes but this is a far cry from a "tuned" decklist.
In the matches, he sounds a bit like the classic bad-beat story where he's spending a lot of time complaining about TC when it's questionable if it even matters. Sure, sometimes maybe he would have gotten there if they didn't have it, other times he was dead to basically anything.
I'd like to see someone legitimately tweak a pod list to beat Burn/UR Delver and see how that fares. If you're still using the old list built for Combo/Control -- you should get rolled by fast aggro.
Pod works a bit different from most decks. Changing a single card makes a huge impact because of Pod chains and Chord. I think he has the right idea here but he picked the wrong card. If you want a Pod deck tuned to beat Delver, I've been working on it, what experience has shown me so far is that your best defense in Pod is to streamline the cards so that you take less pain off of your mana, as a result I've really been trying to minimize my need for black in game 1. I could probably take it a step further and flip the Linvala/Exarch but I really like having the disruption Pod chain, even though now isn't the time for it.
My two main decks are Pod and Delver so I get to play them against each other a lot but the Delver deck is a couple cards off of the most popular list, I'm using TC without Swiftspear and keeping my counterspells. This is where my Pod list is currently at:
Here's a ridiculous idea: what about banning delver? I mean is it possible that it is too good for the format?
Yep. That's a ridiculous idea. It's not quite "ban Bolt" levels of ridiculous, but it's up there with the "ban Goyf" arguments during the height of BGx Midrange.
There are so many reasons why this idea is beyond bad, but I'll just list the top two. First, Delver was fine for years and then KTK came out. Now, Delver may be busted. At the exact same time, a deck that was previously just "good" (Burn) also went to stratospheric metagame levels. Those decks share two new cards, either of which could have pushed them over the edge: Swiftpsear (less likely but arguable) and TC (very likely and highly arguable). Why would you ever ban the card that was fine for 2 years when 2 new cards were just introduced and threw the entire format off? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Second, banning Delver (just read that - "banning Delver". I can't believe that's even on people's minds) doesn't do anything about Burn. Delver would totally die out and Burn would just be, like, 25% of the metagame.
If anything gets banned, it's 80% going to be TC. IT meets the abstract theoretical test: It's a sorcery speed Ancestral Recall castable on turn 4. It meets the ban context test: AV was banned for years, TC is way more broken than AV. And it meets the empirical test: It's one of two new cards that are shared by the two archetypes that totally exploded after KTK. Swiftspear only really passes that third test for bannability. It mostly fails the first two. Delver fails all three.
I would love to see some test results or number crunching on TC or Swifstpear. Like, what is TC Burn's win % against BGx Midrange versus its win % with just Swifstpear? Those are much more interesting questions, theories, and problems than this nonsense about banning Delver/Bolt or unbanning SFM and banning Skull in its place.
I'm not sure you can include burn here since it was rising in popularity long prior to KoT and its ascension is clearly a result of the printing of Eidolon and the favorable match ups with in the meta. Delver may in fact be a continuation of the metagaming that spawned burn except now KoT gave it a powerful new toy (TC). I knew everyone would consider it an insane idea but really think about it. Wild Nacatl had been banned for a very long time for the exact same power output on the exact same turn (though delver isn't quite as reliable). On top of that delver has evasion which nacatl did not. Now in a deck tuned to turn delver, what are the odds of flipping it turn 2? I'd guess 40% or better. So you have a reasonable chance at having the highest power level for mana cost creature in modern WITH evasion swinging turn 1. Now, what decks abuse cards like TC, ponder and preordain outside of combo? The delver deck seems to always push tier .5 any time it has substantial card advantage. Of course every deck is gonna be better with that advantage but delver decks seem legitimately broken with it.
I mean look, everybody knew TC was either busted or nearly so before it even hit the meta. Its effect is so close to other "broken" cards in the format, how could it not be. But there must be some desire to have that kind of card in the format or else why would it continue to see print?(Of course its possible that WotC really could care less about modern in the context of the standard game, which I think is a real possibility.) So you're left with essentially two options, provided the meta cannot adapt: either banning the dangerous card type(TC like cards) or banning the offending deck out of existence. TC seems reasonable in control, burn has to splash for it. It is only completely nuts in tempo style decks, Delver being the best in the format.
Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
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Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Here's a ridiculous idea: what about banning delver? I mean is it possible that it is too good for the format?
Yep. That's a ridiculous idea. It's not quite "ban Bolt" levels of ridiculous, but it's up there with the "ban Goyf" arguments during the height of BGx Midrange.
There are so many reasons why this idea is beyond bad, but I'll just list the top two. First, Delver was fine for years and then KTK came out. Now, Delver may be busted. At the exact same time, a deck that was previously just "good" (Burn) also went to stratospheric metagame levels. Those decks share two new cards, either of which could have pushed them over the edge: Swiftpsear (less likely but arguable) and TC (very likely and highly arguable). Why would you ever ban the card that was fine for 2 years when 2 new cards were just introduced and threw the entire format off? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Second, banning Delver (just read that - "banning Delver". I can't believe that's even on people's minds) doesn't do anything about Burn. Delver would totally die out and Burn would just be, like, 25% of the metagame.
If anything gets banned, it's 80% going to be TC. IT meets the abstract theoretical test: It's a sorcery speed Ancestral Recall castable on turn 4. It meets the ban context test: AV was banned for years, TC is way more broken than AV. And it meets the empirical test: It's one of two new cards that are shared by the two archetypes that totally exploded after KTK. Swiftspear only really passes that third test for bannability. It mostly fails the first two. Delver fails all three.
I would love to see some test results or number crunching on TC or Swifstpear. Like, what is TC Burn's win % against BGx Midrange versus its win % with just Swifstpear? Those are much more interesting questions, theories, and problems than this nonsense about banning Delver/Bolt or unbanning SFM and banning Skull in its place.
I'm not sure you can include burn here since it was rising in popularity long prior to KoT and its ascension is clearly a result of the printing of Eidolon and the favorable match ups with in the meta. Delver may in fact be a continuation of the metagaming that spawned burn except now KoT gave it a powerful new toy (TC). I knew everyone would consider it an insane idea but really think about it. Wild Nacatl had been banned for a very long time for the exact same power output on the exact same turn (though delver isn't quite as reliable). On top of that delver has evasion which nacatl did not. Now in a deck tuned to turn delver, what are the odds of flipping it turn 2? I'd guess 40% or better. So you have a reasonable chance at having the highest power level for mana cost creature in modern WITH evasion swinging turn 1. Now, what decks abuse cards like TC, ponder and preordain outside of combo? The delver deck seems to always push tier .5 any time it has substantial card advantage. Of course every deck is gonna be better with that advantage but delver decks seem legitimately broken with it.
Wizards does not typically and SHOULD NOT ban build arounds. They're the best part of the format. I don't think a delver ban would be right at all.
I'm not sure you can include burn here since it was rising in popularity long prior to KoT and its ascension is clearly a result of the printing of Eidolon and the favorable match ups with in the meta. Delver may in fact be a continuation of the metagaming that spawned burn except now KoT gave it a powerful new toy (TC).
Burn was at around 12% of the metagame, which is right where we have seen a half dozen tier 1 decks before. Twin has been there. Melira Pod has been there. UWR Control has been there. Affinity has been there. And so too have Jund and Rock at one point or another. The problem is not that the deck was trending towards 12%. It's that, before KTK, it was trending there and stayed there. And then, after KTK, it exploded well past that point into DRS and BBE levels of metagame prevalence. There's obviously no way to run the counterfactual, but if history is any indicator, it was unlikely to go past that metagame prevalence. KTK gave it the tools to push beyond that.
I knew everyone would consider it an insane idea but really think about it. Wild Nacatl had been banned for a very long time for the exact same power output on the exact same turn (though delver isn't quite as reliable). On top of that delver has evasion which nacatl did not. Now in a deck tuned to turn delver, what are the odds of flipping it turn 2? I'd guess 40% or better. So you have a reasonable chance at having the highest power level for mana cost creature in modern WITH evasion swinging turn 1. Now, what decks abuse cards like TC, ponder and preordain outside of combo? The delver deck seems to always push tier .5 any time it has substantial card advantage. Of course every deck is gonna be better with that advantage but delver decks seem legitimately broken with it.
??
Wild Nacatl was UNBANNED specifically because all of those initial reasons were ridiculous. Moreover, Delver was fair for years. It was just one more tier 2 deck. Then KTK happened and now it's feeling pretty unfair (GP results pending, all disclaimers apply). If anything is busted in that deck, there is an overwhelming likelihood that it is something from KTK itself. TC is the strongest candidate for that, Swifstpear is weaker but arguable. Why on earth would you ban Delver and kill the entire archetype, when you could just ban another card and weaken TWO out of control archetypes without killing them, and also potentially bring back BGx Midrange which is currently gone? That just doesn't make any sense.
I'd hate to see Delver banned as well. Its a fun deck that doesn't cost a fortune to play. But its also really really good. And as long as it exists, any kind of good card draw is going to instantly need a banning because it sits at near tier 1 without it and at .5 with it.
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Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
I'm not sure you can include burn here since it was rising in popularity long prior to KoT and its ascension is clearly a result of the printing of Eidolon and the favorable match ups with in the meta. Delver may in fact be a continuation of the metagaming that spawned burn except now KoT gave it a powerful new toy (TC).
Burn was at around 12% of the metagame, which is right where we have seen a half dozen tier 1 decks before. Twin has been there. Melira Pod has been there. UWR Control has been there. Affinity has been there. And so too have Jund and Rock at one point or another. The problem is not that the deck was trending towards 12%. It's that, before KTK, it was trending there and stayed there. And then, after KTK, it exploded well past that point into DRS and BBE levels of metagame prevalence. There's obviously no way to run the counterfactual, but if history is any indicator, it was unlikely to go past that metagame prevalence. KTK gave it the tools to push beyond that.
I knew everyone would consider it an insane idea but really think about it. Wild Nacatl had been banned for a very long time for the exact same power output on the exact same turn (though delver isn't quite as reliable). On top of that delver has evasion which nacatl did not. Now in a deck tuned to turn delver, what are the odds of flipping it turn 2? I'd guess 40% or better. So you have a reasonable chance at having the highest power level for mana cost creature in modern WITH evasion swinging turn 1. Now, what decks abuse cards like TC, ponder and preordain outside of combo? The delver deck seems to always push tier .5 any time it has substantial card advantage. Of course every deck is gonna be better with that advantage but delver decks seem legitimately broken with it.
??
Wild Nacatl was UNBANNED specifically because all of those initial reasons were ridiculous. Moreover, Delver was fair for years. It was just one more tier 2 deck. Then KTK happened and now it's feeling pretty unfair (GP results pending, all disclaimers apply). If anything is busted in that deck, there is an overwhelming likelihood that it is something from KTK itself. TC is the strongest candidate for that, Swifstpear is weaker but arguable. Why on earth would you ban Delver and kill the entire archetype, when you could just ban another card and weaken TWO out of control archetypes without killing them, and also potentially bring back BGx Midrange which is currently gone? That just doesn't make any sense.
I think I answered that in my previous post. As long as Delver is a thing, good card draw in modern might as well be banned the moment its printed in standard. Of course they could always unban some stuff and raise the power level of the format...
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Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
I think I answered that in my previous post. As long as Delver is a thing, good card draw in modern might as well be banned the moment its printed in standard. Of course they could always unban some stuff and raise the power level of the format...
But that argument is itself ridiculous. Can you imagine if we applied that anywhere else? Affinity prohibits good artifacts. Burn prohibits good burn spells. Twin prohibits good cantrips. Pod prohibits basically any creature that can combo with any other creature, not to mention toolbox creatures. Wizards doesn't ban cards preemptively like this. Nor should they. They ban cards that are busted and/or cards that are format warping. Delver is neither. TC is potentially both.
I don't know why Pardee didn't just maybe up the number of cannonists he's playing, it does the same same thing with added value against not TC decks.
I think he was wanting the 3 power 2 drop so the card could be applicable in matches like Zoo where it's capable of trading with a Kird Ape or Wild Nacatl.
Seems dumb since finks, kinda voice, angel all trade with zoo dudes.
Dear, thread please stop with the ridiculous 'ban X' suggestions. This is the worst thread in the whole modern sub-forum. How can we have a realistic discussion if every other page someone says something as ill thought out as ban abrupt decay, delver of secrets, or leyline of sanctity. These types of comments HAVE to stop, its irresponsible to even suggest.
I think I answered that in my previous post. As long as Delver is a thing, good card draw in modern might as well be banned the moment its printed in standard. Of course they could always unban some stuff and raise the power level of the format...
But that argument is itself ridiculous. Can you imagine if we applied that anywhere else? Affinity prohibits good artifacts. Burn prohibits good burn spells. Twin prohibits good cantrips. Pod prohibits basically any creature that can combo with any other creature, not to mention toolbox creatures. Wizards doesn't ban cards preemptively like this. Nor should they. They ban cards that are busted and/or cards that are format warping. Delver is neither. TC is potentially both.
Well is it that ridiculous? When was the last really good burn spell printed? How about a decent cantrip? I mean the format's growth is and has been seriously restricted because of the power level of certain decks. I mean the power level has to rise but at a healthy rate. And when you have a card like delver which is slightly better than anything else, if used correctly, I don't think it is ridiculous to look at as a ban prospect. Now I'm not saying it should be banned, rather it is quite erroneous to say that it has to be off of the table because it hasn't been there in the past. Further, you say that cards are looked at for bans because they are either format warping or busted and say delver is neither. From my perspective I don't think its crazy to say delver is both.
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Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
When winning decks are packing 4x Dragon's Claw in their boards you can't tell me bolt isn't a problem. It's jammed in every deck regardless of whether you are playing aggro, combo or control. There's no thought behind, it's clearly the best red card. Since all the other burn spells are more or less on the same power level, when deckbuilding you would have to actually think the type of burn spell your deck needs. With bolt, there's no decision, just play 4x Bolt and if you need more then you have to actually start thinking.
Wizards has previously stated (not that I take their word all that seriously) -- they don't like banning decks, rather, that weakening decks is the better solution. Banning Bolt wouldn't kill any deck, but weaken Burn (which was already Tier 1 and did win the last GP pre-KTK) and weaken all various UR/URx decks. And it would force all the other decks that just play red so they can jam in 4 bolts to reconsider things.
I can't be the only one a little annoyed when brewing decks thinking, How can I gain life? or How can I stay alive against Burn past turn 4? Burn has gotten enough new toys in Swiftspear and Eidolon to survive a Bolt ban.
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If you look at a simple UR delver decklist, they don't have any way to kill a 4/4. Jund has few ways to kill the creature, but they do not have ways to kill the artifact itself until SB. Throughout batterskull's history, it is always played in 1 or 2. It has never left as a deck's sideboard option, i don't know what else to put? Just jam a batterskull, it's good against almost everything. Batterskull may not be overpowered in terms of the card itself with straightforward text, but the card itself has been considered almost a sideboard staple throughout its' shelf life from its existence. Deathrite with fetch lands vs. Stoneforge Mystic with actual equipment are 2 completely different types of interaction. So i don't know why you are using that argument.
I will give Pardee more credit than most articles I've seen since here at least he actually shows some matches to back up his plans on banning TC.
What's frustrating is that he claims he's working on tweaking the deck to deal with the new metagame and he changed exactly one card: adding a single Spirit of the Labyrinth to the main. As he even says himself in the deck tech, that card pretty clearly isn't good here. It dies to every removal spell in Burn/Delver and gets 2 for 1'd by Forked Bolt. I mean I understand making small incremental changes but this is a far cry from a "tuned" decklist.
In the matches, he sounds a bit like the classic bad-beat story where he's spending a lot of time complaining about TC when it's questionable if it even matters. Sure, sometimes maybe he would have gotten there if they didn't have it, other times he was dead to basically anything.
I'd like to see someone legitimately tweak a pod list to beat Burn/UR Delver and see how that fares. If you're still using the old list built for Combo/Control -- you should get rolled by fast aggro.
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It doesn't. If you have time to cast Batterskull in the matchup you are likely winning anyways.
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I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Not at all. Delver is obviously not the problem card, seeing as it's been in the format for a long time now. It's always been decent to good, but it's never been amazing because Modern does not have the library manipulation that Ponder, Preordain and Brainstorm provide. A Delver ban would make as much sense as the Nacatl ban.
i played a lot of grixis delver before they banned Deathrite and if your deck is well built, a delver stuck as a 1/1 is far from the norm. Usualy it flips almost immediately
Delver is powerful to be sure, but it carries a high deck building cost. There is a reason the deck is named after the creature. If you are playing Delver of Secrets; then you are committed to a specific strategy.
IMO banning delver would be a very poor decision.
As long as the deck is built correctly; then it is roughly a coinflip. I have played some nights where it feels like it flips every time. Then there are rare occasions when Serum Visions does double duty.
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WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Yep. That's a ridiculous idea. It's not quite "ban Bolt" levels of ridiculous, but it's up there with the "ban Goyf" arguments during the height of BGx Midrange.
There are so many reasons why this idea is beyond bad, but I'll just list the top two. First, Delver was fine for years and then KTK came out. Now, Delver may be busted. At the exact same time, a deck that was previously just "good" (Burn) also went to stratospheric metagame levels. Those decks share two new cards, either of which could have pushed them over the edge: Swiftpsear (less likely but arguable) and TC (very likely and highly arguable). Why would you ever ban the card that was fine for 2 years when 2 new cards were just introduced and threw the entire format off? That doesn't make any sense at all.
Second, banning Delver (just read that - "banning Delver". I can't believe that's even on people's minds) doesn't do anything about Burn. Delver would totally die out and Burn would just be, like, 25% of the metagame.
If anything gets banned, it's 80% going to be TC. IT meets the abstract theoretical test: It's a sorcery speed Ancestral Recall castable on turn 4. It meets the ban context test: AV was banned for years, TC is way more broken than AV. And it meets the empirical test: It's one of two new cards that are shared by the two archetypes that totally exploded after KTK. Swiftspear only really passes that third test for bannability. It mostly fails the first two. Delver fails all three.
I would love to see some test results or number crunching on TC or Swifstpear. Like, what is TC Burn's win % against BGx Midrange versus its win % with just Swifstpear? Those are much more interesting questions, theories, and problems than this nonsense about banning Delver/Bolt or unbanning SFM and banning Skull in its place.
2x Arid Mesa
3x Island
2x Misty Rainforest
1x Mountain
2x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Steam Vents
1x Sulfur Falls
Creature (12)
4x Delver of Secrets Flip
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Young Pyromancer
1x Gut Shot
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Remand
2x Spell Pierce
3x Thought Scour
3x Vapor Snag
Sorcery (13)
1x Forked Bolt
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Serum Visions
4x Treasure Cruise
1x Arc Trail
2x Blood Moon
2x Combust
1x Dismember
2x Dispel
1x Electrickery
1x Flashfreeze
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Negate
2x Pillar of Flame
1x Spell Pierce
4 Dark Confidant
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
Planeswalkers (4)
4 Liliana of the Veil
Lands (24)
1 Forest
1 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Razorverge Thicket
3 Stirring Wildwood
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple Garden
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Batterskull
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Path to Exile
1 Slaughter Pact
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Thoughtseize
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Aven Mindcensor
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Obstinate Baloth
2 Stony Silence
1 Krosan Grip
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Timely Reinforcements
I'm open to suggestions, otherwise I'll probably play the deck below from the Japanese tournament. Four oozes and baloths maindeck seems pretty good for life gain. I'm surprised no one is running any Kitchen Finks though.
2 Forest
2 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Mutavault
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
1 Twilight Mire
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Woodland Cemetary
4 Dark Confidant
4 Obstinate Baloth
4 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
Spells (20)
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Dismember
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Putrefy
4 Thoughtseize
4 Disfigure
2 Drown in Sorrow
4 Fulminator Mage
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
'78 CB750F, '09 CBR600RR
Pod works a bit different from most decks. Changing a single card makes a huge impact because of Pod chains and Chord. I think he has the right idea here but he picked the wrong card. If you want a Pod deck tuned to beat Delver, I've been working on it, what experience has shown me so far is that your best defense in Pod is to streamline the cards so that you take less pain off of your mana, as a result I've really been trying to minimize my need for black in game 1. I could probably take it a step further and flip the Linvala/Exarch but I really like having the disruption Pod chain, even though now isn't the time for it.
My two main decks are Pod and Delver so I get to play them against each other a lot but the Delver deck is a couple cards off of the most popular list, I'm using TC without Swiftspear and keeping my counterspells. This is where my Pod list is currently at:
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Temple Garden
1 Godless Shrine
3 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains
3 Gavony Township
Creatures 29
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Dryad Militant
2 Wall of Roots
1 Viscera Seer
2 Voice of Resurgence
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
4 Kitchen Finks
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Sin Collector
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Restoration Angel
1 Entomber Exarch
1 Shriekmaw
1 Reveillark
2 Chord of Calling
2 Abrupt Decay
Artifact 4
4 Birthing Pod
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
3 Thoughtseize
1 Voice of Resurgence
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Aven Mindcensor
1 Fulminator Mage
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Dismember
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Loaming Shaman
I've been going pretty much 50/50 against Treasure Cruise builds.
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
Spirit eating a Lightning Bolt isn't the worst case scenario. Spirit and your 1 drop eating a Forked Bolt is.
I'm not sure you can include burn here since it was rising in popularity long prior to KoT and its ascension is clearly a result of the printing of Eidolon and the favorable match ups with in the meta. Delver may in fact be a continuation of the metagaming that spawned burn except now KoT gave it a powerful new toy (TC). I knew everyone would consider it an insane idea but really think about it. Wild Nacatl had been banned for a very long time for the exact same power output on the exact same turn (though delver isn't quite as reliable). On top of that delver has evasion which nacatl did not. Now in a deck tuned to turn delver, what are the odds of flipping it turn 2? I'd guess 40% or better. So you have a reasonable chance at having the highest power level for mana cost creature in modern WITH evasion swinging turn 1. Now, what decks abuse cards like TC, ponder and preordain outside of combo? The delver deck seems to always push tier .5 any time it has substantial card advantage. Of course every deck is gonna be better with that advantage but delver decks seem legitimately broken with it.
I mean look, everybody knew TC was either busted or nearly so before it even hit the meta. Its effect is so close to other "broken" cards in the format, how could it not be. But there must be some desire to have that kind of card in the format or else why would it continue to see print?(Of course its possible that WotC really could care less about modern in the context of the standard game, which I think is a real possibility.) So you're left with essentially two options, provided the meta cannot adapt: either banning the dangerous card type(TC like cards) or banning the offending deck out of existence. TC seems reasonable in control, burn has to splash for it. It is only completely nuts in tempo style decks, Delver being the best in the format.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Wizards does not typically and SHOULD NOT ban build arounds. They're the best part of the format. I don't think a delver ban would be right at all.
Burn was at around 12% of the metagame, which is right where we have seen a half dozen tier 1 decks before. Twin has been there. Melira Pod has been there. UWR Control has been there. Affinity has been there. And so too have Jund and Rock at one point or another. The problem is not that the deck was trending towards 12%. It's that, before KTK, it was trending there and stayed there. And then, after KTK, it exploded well past that point into DRS and BBE levels of metagame prevalence. There's obviously no way to run the counterfactual, but if history is any indicator, it was unlikely to go past that metagame prevalence. KTK gave it the tools to push beyond that.
??
Wild Nacatl was UNBANNED specifically because all of those initial reasons were ridiculous. Moreover, Delver was fair for years. It was just one more tier 2 deck. Then KTK happened and now it's feeling pretty unfair (GP results pending, all disclaimers apply). If anything is busted in that deck, there is an overwhelming likelihood that it is something from KTK itself. TC is the strongest candidate for that, Swifstpear is weaker but arguable. Why on earth would you ban Delver and kill the entire archetype, when you could just ban another card and weaken TWO out of control archetypes without killing them, and also potentially bring back BGx Midrange which is currently gone? That just doesn't make any sense.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
I think I answered that in my previous post. As long as Delver is a thing, good card draw in modern might as well be banned the moment its printed in standard. Of course they could always unban some stuff and raise the power level of the format...
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
But that argument is itself ridiculous. Can you imagine if we applied that anywhere else? Affinity prohibits good artifacts. Burn prohibits good burn spells. Twin prohibits good cantrips. Pod prohibits basically any creature that can combo with any other creature, not to mention toolbox creatures. Wizards doesn't ban cards preemptively like this. Nor should they. They ban cards that are busted and/or cards that are format warping. Delver is neither. TC is potentially both.
I think he was wanting the 3 power 2 drop so the card could be applicable in matches like Zoo where it's capable of trading with a Kird Ape or Wild Nacatl.
Dear, thread please stop with the ridiculous 'ban X' suggestions. This is the worst thread in the whole modern sub-forum. How can we have a realistic discussion if every other page someone says something as ill thought out as ban abrupt decay, delver of secrets, or leyline of sanctity. These types of comments HAVE to stop, its irresponsible to even suggest.
Well is it that ridiculous? When was the last really good burn spell printed? How about a decent cantrip? I mean the format's growth is and has been seriously restricted because of the power level of certain decks. I mean the power level has to rise but at a healthy rate. And when you have a card like delver which is slightly better than anything else, if used correctly, I don't think it is ridiculous to look at as a ban prospect. Now I'm not saying it should be banned, rather it is quite erroneous to say that it has to be off of the table because it hasn't been there in the past. Further, you say that cards are looked at for bans because they are either format warping or busted and say delver is neither. From my perspective I don't think its crazy to say delver is both.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Wizards has previously stated (not that I take their word all that seriously) -- they don't like banning decks, rather, that weakening decks is the better solution. Banning Bolt wouldn't kill any deck, but weaken Burn (which was already Tier 1 and did win the last GP pre-KTK) and weaken all various UR/URx decks. And it would force all the other decks that just play red so they can jam in 4 bolts to reconsider things.
I can't be the only one a little annoyed when brewing decks thinking, How can I gain life? or How can I stay alive against Burn past turn 4? Burn has gotten enough new toys in Swiftspear and Eidolon to survive a Bolt ban.
—Lim-Dûl, the Necromancer