The point is that she takes too long to bring any impact to the game, and this impact is based in cards that you may or may not have in hand.
The Goyf from the example most of the times would just ignore her and go for your hit points.
But I agree the she may play in an esper.
See, the problem with logic like that is that it's like saying "Goyf is worthless without cards in the graveyard." You play her, play a spell (Any spell) and you get a free copy. It becomes absolutely ridiculous with any Esper card you can name. Any topdeck that's not a land is great with her.
I'm also cautiously optimistic for Narset, and have a few lists brewed to test her out, but i don't find those two comparable at all. Narset comes down turn 4 minimum and *may* produce value every turn at +. Her rebound is excellent value but requires you to continue playing at sorcery speed which is not where deck like esper control wants to be if it can help it. Goyf comes down at 2 and both you and your opponent play spells and crack fetches all game, so he's passively getting better. You have to work for Narset to gain value, she doesn't impact the board or protect herself (high loyalty won't keep her alive for long by itself), she's a lot more expensive, and she can't actually end the game for you (though her ult is still very strong).
The point is that she takes too long to bring any impact to the game, and this impact is based in cards that you may or may not have in hand.
The Goyf from the example most of the times would just ignore her and go for your hit points.
But I agree the she may play in an esper.
See, the problem with logic like that is that it's like saying "Goyf is worthless without cards in the graveyard." You play her, play a spell (Any spell) and you get a free copy. It becomes absolutely ridiculous with any Esper card you can name. Any topdeck that's not a land is great with her.
That is not my logic, that is just one unadvantage. My logic is that the free copy will only be available on your next turn and you need to cast the original spell on your turn. In situations in which she is the last resource on your hand or you just topdecked her, you will just play her and then? Liliaa can take one of your opponents creatures, JTMS can bounce one creature or get you one of the first three cards in your library, Ajani can keep a threat tapped or Hellix something. And Narset? At most will maybe give you a card.
She looks like the kind of card that is good when you are already winning.
She is a good option against control (the real), but overall I don't think she is better than the others.
I still think that some build tuned for her my appear.
I think Burn could really get out of hand with the new Atarka’s Command, it's already the best deck on MTGO http://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern#online. And because banning something from Burn seems rdiculous as there are no "broken" cards in the deck (one could say Lightning Bolt, but I really don't want to go there) some unbans most likely really have to happen(there will still be people who disagree because the format is already so "diverse", maybe in your FNM but I play dailies and I don't wanna play against 2+ burn players everytime).
Would JTMS put Scapeshift over the top with its card selection and pseudo removal?
Let's see
An alternative win condition? Check.
A way to buy time by bouncing creatures and fatesealing? Check.
A card drawing engine? Check.
A way to put drawn Mountains and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacles back into the library? Check.
Obviously nobody knows for sure. He does fill quite a few check marks though.
Would JTMS put Scapeshift over the top with its card selection and pseudo removal?
Definitely not. I'd be unsurprised to see him see play in Scapeshift, but he wouldn't put the deck "over the top."
The only deck I see Jace potentially putting "over the top" is Twin, and that's not so much because of strong synergies with him so much as Twin is already a really good deck and thus the boost would put it higher than the boost would for Scapeshift.
The main problem with Narset Transcendent is that when you don't have any relevant spell for her rebound ability and you skipped opponent's threat you just SHOULD do +1 ability and maybe with 40-45% probability you will get a card (I will not even say that this card would be relevant to fix a table state, it can be Mana Leak or Spell Snare or something like this that will not help). JtMS doesn't have this issue, he has more options and can draw you needed cards or bounce an opponent's threat. So I don't think Narset can actually replace Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
The main problem with Jace, the Mind Sculptor unban that this card can be used not only in fair UWR/Esper decks, I think Twin and Scapeshift will put him in a maindeck too and that can give them too strong advantage between other decks. My opinion is that this card can be unbanned only if it can be used only in a "fair" control decks. That's why Wizards gave us Narset Transcendent with 2WU mana cost.
The main problem with Narset Transcendent is that when you don't have any relevant spell for her rebound ability and you skipped opponent's threat you just SHOULD do +1 ability and maybe with 40-45% probability you will get a card (I will not even say that this card would be relevant to fix a table state, it can be Mana Leak or Spell Snare or something like this that will not help). JtMS doesn't have this issue, he has more options and can draw you needed cards or bounce an opponent's threat. So I don't think Narset can actually replace Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
The main problem with Jace, the Mind Sculptor unban that this card can be used not only in fair UWR/Esper decks, I think Twin and Scapeshift will put him in a maindeck too and that can give them too strong advantage between other decks. My opinion is that this card can be unbanned only if it can be used only in a "fair" control decks. That's why Wizards gave us Narset Transcendent with 2WU mana cost.
Wizards could at least give us a real playable replacement.
Regarding the use of Jace by unfair decks,if it really happens this way, Wizards should do what they have done with BBE, ban a card from those decks that are only relevant for those decks leaving cards that can be used in other archetypes alone. But this criteria does not seems to be applied when it comes to blue cards, just see what they have done with DTT.
Regarding the use of Jace by unfair decks,if it really happens this way, Wizards should do what they have done with BBE, ban a card from those decks that are only relevant for those decks leaving cards that can be used in other archetypes alone.
Why should Wizards risk to break two decks and unban kind of unfair card?
I don't expect them to unban him. They generally prematurely ban some cards and it becomes really hard to get them back due to possible "collateral damage".
The main problem with Narset Transcendent is that when you don't have any relevant spell for her rebound ability and you skipped opponent's threat you just SHOULD do +1 ability and maybe with 40-45% probability you will get a card (I will not even say that this card would be relevant to fix a table state, it can be Mana Leak or Spell Snare or something like this that will not help). JtMS doesn't have this issue, he has more options and can draw you needed cards or bounce an opponent's threat. So I don't think Narset can actually replace Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
The main problem with Jace, the Mind Sculptor unban that this card can be used not only in fair UWR/Esper decks, I think Twin and Scapeshift will put him in a maindeck too and that can give them too strong advantage between other decks. My opinion is that this card can be unbanned only if it can be used only in a "fair" control decks. That's why Wizards gave us Narset Transcendent with 2WU mana cost.
Wizards could at least give us a real playable replacement.
Regarding the use of Jace by unfair decks,if it really happens this way, Wizards should do what they have done with BBE, ban a card from those decks that are only relevant for those decks leaving cards that can be used in other archetypes alone. But this criteria does not seems to be applied when it comes to blue cards, just see what they have done with DTT.
And what they did with Bloodbraid Elf was a mistake; by wanting to ban something used "only" in Jund, they missed the actual problem card, Deathrite Shaman, and they paid for their mistake by having to ban it later anyway.
Ban a card because the card itself is broken, not because it happens to be used in a good deck.
I think that anyone who believes that narset is a functional replacement for Jace the mindsculptor is really just jumping on the hype train. Jace brainstorms and narset could easily whiff in a deck that runs a lot of lands. Also I want to point out how powerful a brainstorm effect is in a format with fetchlands. Narset doesn't actually protect herself like jace does although her loyalty is quite high. Her ultimate will not win you the game and jace's will. I don't think jace is too powerful in modern because I think that his loyalty being at three makes him extremely fair. I don't think that splinter twin would play him and if they did it would be 1-2 copies but still I think he would just slow them down. Scapeshift would probably play 2-4 but I don't think it would make their game all that more impressive. Overall I think it would just really help control which is pretty much non-existent in the format.
why do you assume that Jace is fair? because Twin and the hyper agro decks could care less about ANY 4-cmc spell that doesn't win the game immediately? does that mean anything above 4 cmc cannot be broken?
imagine a typical Jeskai control build casting a sweeper and than following up with Jace and protecting him with Cryptic Command and removal that's it! game over for any creature based deck, even mighty Abzan or the now banned Melira Pod wouldn't be able to compete with such card advantage/selection
you could argue that Abzan could just Thoughtseize him, but that's of course no argument, it's like saying it doesn't matter if a card is broken you can just counter/path it.
you could also argue that turn 4 Is late, but it's not, in fact I cannot ever recall winning or loosing before turn 4 with a hand of more than 4 cards( I once lost to an affinity god-hand, after I mulled to 4 with a hand with no removal, but this sort of bad luck is extremely uncommon and not representative of the game), in fact a deck armed with bolts,remand,helixes, paths and snapcasters FORCES it's way to turn 6+, it's impossible to win before turn 5 if they are bolting every creature you cast of that I assure you, I was playing WUR midrange and answering the first 3-4 threats they land is child's play unless you kept a terrible hand or the threat is named Tarmogoyf or Etched Champion, the point is what happens after, if you draw more answers and a finisher or if you just flood, with Jace the answers are going to be infinite, so the only risk will be getting burned
I know that to some people speaking of Jeskai being overpowered must sound like a joke(currently it's tier 2 for a good reason after all) but Jace solves that reason and takes it to the other side, just remember Treasure Cruise often a single card is all a tier 2 deck needs to become tier 1 or better, and Jeskai has already solid match-ups vs the decks that don't care about Jace
btw comparing that cute little lady to Jace is completely out of the question, he is broken she is not, free Brainstorm(card selection AND card advantage) cannot be compared to ''you might draw a card'', also Jace can affect the board(if you are desperate or need tempo to close the game) while Narset cannot, finally Narset's -2 does nothing unless you already have an answer in hand, Jace gives you the answer in your hand, or can even cast Unsummon on your Snapcaster Mage, in fact Jace cannot be compared with any planeswalker in power level save the ones at 6+cmc
as for the proof of burden that previous posters have mentioned as in all things it fall to those who want changes or to introduce something new, if I invent a new type of plane I have to prove that it's safe and not someone else in abstract that it's not, we do not fly in untested planes till someone proves that they are dangerous, so far Jace's testing was absolutely disheartening
of course people have different ideas for what is broken and there lies the root of the problem, for some Treasure Cruise was totally fine, and many of the bans are not, to these people there is also nothing wrong with JTMS
others like myself want to keep Modern's powerlevel between Legacy and Standard and JTMS doesn't really fit that vision (Wizards seems to share it, they were clear on Jace by the way- he has a tombstone in modern he will be played in Legacy)
lastly there is a matter of color balance, even if some people could care less about the lore and flavor aspect of the game,i think we can all agree that color balance means diversity(if you don't care about diversity you have a problem imo,endless mirror matches are not exactly fun)
blue and black were given too much originally, the ''draw a card'' effect cannot be given to a single color as it's a vital part of most successful decks as the consistency tools that blue have (without these you could probably play something like Abzan where every card is individually powerful so every draw is a good draw most of the times), if blue is to be the most consistent color than it has to be the least powerful by default, but that's a design choice that could only be made at the very beginning of the game, and it would also require to make blue unplayable with other colors otherwise blue would become an almost universal splash, consistency tools also break combo decks upsetting archetype balance: if you are not too fast you will have to answer the combo multiple times and that's not even possible with black(1 of the 2 colors that can fight combo) only blue itself could do this by stacking counterspells in hand, if you add the reserved list that's pretty much the story of Legacy a format left to take a terribly wrong path, due to the lack of bans, instead they gave the players 0 cmc counterspells and hatecards and all the tools they need to consistently find them, Legacy needed some brave bans and Wizards has learned this and is applying it in Modern, so that we can play Magic as it was meant to be played and not with degenerate cards/ synergies that are the by product of poorly designed cards from the time where Magic was in it's infancy
It's funny that you talk about the degeneracy of Legacy, when fair interactive decks in Legacy make up a bigger % of the metagame than in Modern.
Best post i've seen here in a LONG time. I can't believe people struggle with the concept that some cards, while not breaking the turn 4 rule, are just too powerful for modern. There IS such a thing as a card simply having too much value for the format, be it DRS, Jace, Jitte, BBE, or Pod. The game doesn't end at turn 4, you don't just every card by whatever the fastest win time is.
The main problem with Narset Transcendent is that when you don't have any relevant spell for her rebound ability and you skipped opponent's threat you just SHOULD do +1 ability and maybe with 40-45% probability you will get a card (I will not even say that this card would be relevant to fix a table state, it can be Mana Leak or Spell Snare or something like this that will not help). JtMS doesn't have this issue, he has more options and can draw you needed cards or bounce an opponent's threat. So I don't think Narset can actually replace Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
The main problem with Jace, the Mind Sculptor unban that this card can be used not only in fair UWR/Esper decks, I think Twin and Scapeshift will put him in a maindeck too and that can give them too strong advantage between other decks. My opinion is that this card can be unbanned only if it can be used only in a "fair" control decks. That's why Wizards gave us Narset Transcendent with 2WU mana cost.
Wizards could at least give us a real playable replacement.
Regarding the use of Jace by unfair decks,if it really happens this way, Wizards should do what they have done with BBE, ban a card from those decks that are only relevant for those decks leaving cards that can be used in other archetypes alone. But this criteria does not seems to be applied when it comes to blue cards, just see what they have done with DTT.
And what they did with Bloodbraid Elf was a mistake;
Yes, it was, but unfortunately they did print it.
by wanting to ban something used "only" in Jund, they missed the actual problem card, Deathrite Shaman, and they paid for their mistake by having to ban it later anyway.
Ban a card because the card itself is broken, not because it happens to be used in a good deck.
The difficulty with this is that you're applying a different standard to Bloodbraid Elf to that being applied to practically every other card added to the banned list. If you just look at the last set of bans, Treasure Cruise and Birthing Pod were both banned because of the metagame percentage those decks enjoyed, not because of the power level of the cards themselves. Dig Through Time was a precautionary ban made because Wizards expected it to keep Delver at the same proportion of the metagame as it had been with Cruise. Arguing that Bloodbraid shouldn't have been banned because Deathrite was the card that took the deck to tier 1 is akin to arguing that Siege Rhino rather than Birthing Pod should have been banned because that's the card most responsible for the increase in its popularity. And then subsequently pointing to the continued popularity of Abzan as evidence that Siege Rhino is the issue rather than Pod.
You may disagree with Wizards' approach to bannings, but there was nothing inconsistent or mistaken about their approach to Bloodbraid Elf.
The difficulty with this is that you're applying a different standard to Bloodbraid Elf to that being applied to practically every other card added to the banned list. If you just look at the last set of bans, Treasure Cruise and Birthing Pod were both banned because of the metagame percentage those decks enjoyed, not because of the power level of the cards themselves. Dig Through Time was a precautionary ban made because Wizards expected it to keep Delver at the same proportion of the metagame as it had been with Cruise. Arguing that Bloodbraid shouldn't have been banned because Deathrite was the card that took the deck to tier 1 is akin to arguing that Siege Rhino rather than Birthing Pod should have been banned because that's the card most responsible for the increase in its popularity. And then subsequently pointing to the continued popularity of Abzan as evidence that Siege Rhino is the issue rather than Pod.
You may disagree with Wizards' approach to bannings, but there was nothing inconsistent or mistaken about their approach to Bloodbraid Elf.
Both of those cards were banned for power level reasons - their percentage of the metagame is merely a marker of the power those cards had in those decks. Pod was not a metashare ban, it was banned largely because creatures would keep pushing it overboard as we saw with Rhino. Treasure Cruise was banned because it gave Delver (and other decks) insane amounts of card advantage which allowed them to fuel their game plan at a level of consistency that shouldn't exist in a tempo deck. Meta share tends to demonstrate a power imbalance, but calling bans as a result of the meta share is warped logic and incorrect.
Please stop posting if all you're going to do in respond with one sentence opinions with no justifications, here I can do that too and it doesn't make it suddenly correct:
Said it a thousand times. BBE is not better than Siege Rhino. It's also much much more dangerous for the future so it risks a reban.
Especially when I just literally pointed out why you're wrong
Also the idea that BBE is somehow a "risky card for the future" is hilarious. What's it gonna do in the future that might suddenly "break" it?
Hello! So I see the board is once again discussing the unbanning of bloodbraid elf!
I'd just like to lay out some reasons why I feel that this is not currently the appropriate time to do so;
1. First off, I don't believe in anything coming off the banlist without a good reason. There has to be a reason for a card to come off, there is no virtue in a short banlist for the sake of being short, due to the fact that each unban wizards chooses to make carries risks, whether it be current or future interactions. So at this point you might be saying "Well Jund is underrepresented! That's a good reason! Down with the BBE oppressors!" Well that may be true, but it's shell most certainly is not. For some strange reason this board likes to separate out the BGx shells such as Jund, BG rock, and Junk, but when it comes to every other deck strategy based on the same shell they lump them together (lookin at you delver). At least have some consistency there. In any case, many of the Jund players simply jumped ship for junk (seeing as all the cost of the deck is in the base shell so it's not hard to switch variants) and should BBE be printed, most players would likely stay with either Junk or Jund, depending on how it's positioned. AS OF CURRENT CARD PRINTINGS I do not think it is likely we will see an even distribution of players between these two similar decks WHETHER OR NOT BBE is unbanned.
2. If thise argument has not been made already, it most definitely will; "Well siege rhino is legal and is ABOUT as good as BBE if not better!" This one I admit is disputable, meta depending, but in the VAST MAJORITY OF METAS BBE is the stronger card. Card advantage is almost always better than almost any static effect, and life gain outside of a fast aggro meta is not as relevant as board presence. Cascade is also essentially splitting one spell into two, which reduces the risks of it getting countered. In a top deck war against a blue deck, this is key. Counterspells are already weak as is in modern, there's no need to nerf them further. It's also worth noting that WITHIN A JUND SHELL the cascade is LIKELY to hit a card of greater value than a lightning helix. If it hits a discard spell and that spell is not relevant, then it is likely because the Jund deck is already winning. The deck is DESIGNED to win top deck wars. It's why it runs liliana to force players into that situation. Other than an irrelevant discard spell, it might hit Scavenging ooze. If the worst it could hit is scooze or a discard spell (or removal it rhino's body is. Welllllll sure if things are going to last terribly long.
In a fast meta, BBE is going to do more damage given if jund can clear the path. Looking at how much removal it packs, that's not unlikely. Also if it cascades into a scooze or tarmogoyf, it could STILL end up doing more damage long term than the rhino. Sorry guys, I just don't think that trample is always better than haste, I don't think life gain is frequently as important as board presence/card advantage, and while a big butt IS valuable, if you wanna just get damage through quickly BBE is gonna do a better job. Another point to note was BGx shells DO occasionally make use of Courser of Kruphix. This would reduce the variance on cascade significantly while not having to run a terribly suboptimal card, especially since courser's lifegain is currently relevant. It's also worth noting that siege rhino locks players into playing white, which being probably the least played color in modern, certainly needs other reasons to play it at a high level beyond path of exile and the occasional lingering souls. Rhino is a step toward color diversity, while I personally feel it's not as important as archetype diversity, it is still a noble goal. So yes the casting cost colors ARE relevant in the discussion.
3. Card advantage is highly regulated in modern. The fact that BBE provides this (and to the shell with the most efficient spells in the format which therefore can make the most effective use of card advantage) is NOT a small point. It's probably my biggest beef with the card in general. Had cruise stayed legal I may have been able to get behind a BBE unban, I was coming around to it late this fall, but with that and DTT out of the format, no way.
4.People may disagree with this, but the easier casting cost is highly relevant. Keeping players off certain colors is part of the game, and many decks are maindecking tectonic edge to do just that. It's just another problem with the card, certainly lesser than the others, but still notable.
5. Wizards doesn't unban lots of cards at the same time. There are cards that have been on there far longer with far less reason than BBE. I'd rather they take the chance with those unbannings, which, by the way, may help archetypes that actually NEED help unlike midrange, than unban BBE. A year or two more sitting on that list certainly won't kill the BGx shell and might give the format time to raise it's own power level to the point where BBE is less aggregious.
6. With BBE unbanned, people can play 2/3rds of the non-land legacy jund deck. This bring it closer than almost any other modern deck to the legacy deck it's ported from. I don't view this as a positive thing at all. It's been a struggle enough for modern to develop it's own unique, competitive decks, we don't need to bring the format any closer to legacy lite than it is. I also would like to note that I feel this does speak for BBE's power level. I know seeing play in legacy vs modern is not always a clear indicator of power (see Revoker), but for a four drop to see play that doesn't win the game on the spot (and sometmes even if it does) it has to be at LEAST at a reasonably high level of power.
7. Likeliness to be rebanned due to the rising power of 3 cmc spells, thus giving more power to BBE, IS a cause for concern, and unbanning then rebanning would do further harm to the credibility of the format. There is such a thing as too much value on a card.
Those are the reasons I can think of at the moment to keep BBE on the banlist without going too far into bias about how it's a stupid lotto value card that should have never been printed. I do believe there will come a time when it is certainly appropriate to take it off the list, I just don't feel that time is now.
^Covers most of my complaints. This was written last fall, and I haven't updated it yet, so I can't promise it's everything. Key points here are BBE's body is arguably better than rhinos within the jund shell, and card advantage being heavily regulated in modern is always a dangerous effect to releave, particularly since they JUST banned cruise and DDT which would have been solid justification to allow other colors to generate more efficient advantage. I do think the banning of pod shows that wizards IS concerned about cards having the potential to cause future problems, and I think BBE is the sorta card that presents such an issue.
Okay, as someone that wants JTMS unbanned, let me try to put this to rest (at least for a little while). Jace, the Mind Sculptor is an incredibly powerful card, despite being a sorcery speed 4 drop. Jace may or may not be too powerful for the format, and he may or may not make certain decks too good, but let's realistically look at this instead of theorycrafting. Wizards doesn't unban a card until the card is a joke. It's as simple as that, Wizards is so deathly afraid of breaking the format (especially now that Modern Masters is around the bend) that they wait until they are sure a card is going to have little to no impact on the format until they unban it, let's look at the history of this:
-Valakut: LOLOLOL everyone still played Jund, Valakut has made a splash since, but when it was unbanned it really didn't do anything.
-Bitterblossom: Faeries is still a tier 2/3 deck even though it was the boogie man of standard.
-Wild Nacatl: Zoo is still tier 2/3, even though it had a huge turnout in its first "free" PT, it got rekt and way underperformed.
-Golgari Grave-Troll: Dredge is cool, but again tier 2/3/4
Now looking at this list do you actually think that Jace, the Mind Sculptor will be unbanned any time soon? Five years down the road? Maybe. If Wizards changes their tune about modern? Maybe. If (by some ridiculously improbable happenstance) Jace becomes the joke of the banlist? Maybe. Realistically, it isn't going to happen anytime soon.
...6. With BBE unbanned, people can play 2/3rds of the non-land legacy jund deck. This bring it closer than almost any other modern deck to the legacy deck it's ported from. I don't view this as a positive thing at all. It's been a struggle enough for modern to develop it's own unique, competitive decks, we don't need to bring the format any closer to legacy lite than it is. I also would like to note that I feel this does speak for BBE's power level. I know seeing play in legacy vs modern is not always a clear indicator of power (see Revoker), but for a four drop to see play that doesn't win the game on the spot (and sometmes even if it does) it has to be at LEAST at a reasonably high level of power.
Just a quick FYI, The most successful Legacy Jund lists have dropped BBE altogether. This has been the case for a couple of months now.
Thanks! I'll update that. I'll be the first to admit i'm not particularly well versed in legacy.
And what they did with Bloodbraid Elf was a mistake;
Yes, it was, but unfortunately they did print it.
Ha ha. Congratulations, you have deliberately misunderstood something I said in order to... um... er... oh, wait, you didn't have any actual argument or point there other than a pointless swipe.
by wanting to ban something used "only" in Jund, they missed the actual problem card, Deathrite Shaman, and they paid for their mistake by having to ban it later anyway.
Ban a card because the card itself is broken, not because it happens to be used in a good deck.
The difficulty with this is that you're applying a different standard to Bloodbraid Elf to that being applied to practically every other card added to the banned list.
Uh, no, actually. I'm applying the same standard: Ban overpowered cards; don't ban something just because it happens to be in a great deck. Bloodbraid Elf was not banned under the same standard as "practically everything else." That's the problem.
If you just look at the last set of bans, Treasure Cruise and Birthing Pod were both banned because of the metagame percentage those decks enjoyed, not because of the power level of the cards themselves.
No, both were banned because those cards were incredibly powerful. I may not have been in agreement with those bans, but there were real power level concerns with them, rather than them just happening to be in what were seen as the best decks.
By the Bloodbraid Elf ban logic, they should've banned Delver of Secrets instead. After all, other decks ran Treasure Cruise, but the only deck to really run Delver of Secrets is URx Delver.
As for Birthing Pod, that's a dramatically different situation because the whole deck is built around Birthing Pod; it's not a card that goes into the deck; it is the deck.
Dig Through Time was a precautionary ban made because Wizards expected it to keep Delver at the same proportion of the metagame as it had been with Cruise.
Which was terrible reasoning.
Arguing that Bloodbraid shouldn't have been banned because Deathrite was the card that took the deck to tier 1 is akin to arguing that Siege Rhino rather than Birthing Pod should have been banned because that's the card most responsible for the increase in its popularity.
Uh... no. No it isn't. Bloodbraid Elf shouldn't have been banned because the actual problem was Deathrite Shaman. Which the following year nicely showed, including the particularly infamous Top 8 at Grand Prix Detroit where 6 of the 8 decks were of the BGx Midrange variety, a feat never achieved while Bloodbraid Elf was legal. Incidentally, one of the two remaining decks was running Deathrite Shaman, making a whopping 7 of those 8 decks be running DRS. Are you going to blame that fact on Bloodbraid Elf? No, because Bloodbraid Elf wasn't legal.
A more accurate analogy for the Bloodbraid Elf ban was that it's like when Hypnotic Specter was banned in Extended (yes, that happened). Is Hypnotic Specter broken? No, it's just a good card (albeit a less impressive one nowadays). So why was it banned? Because, like Bloodbraid Elf, it was the scapegoat for another card that was far more broken, in this case Necropotence. Necropotence, like Deathrite Shaman, went right on its merry way being an absurd card that they had to ban anyway later on.
And then subsequently pointing to the continued popularity of Abzan as evidence that Siege Rhino is the issue rather than Pod.
Siege Rhino isn't overpowered; it's just a really good card. Just like, what do you know, Bloodbraid Elf.
You may disagree with Wizards' approach to bannings, but there was nothing inconsistent or mistaken about their approach to Bloodbraid Elf.
No, it was pretty inconsistent. And, as the BGx dominance afterward shows, quite mistaken.
why do you assume that Jace is fair? because Twin and the hyper agro decks could care less about ANY 4-cmc spell that doesn't win the game immediately? does that mean anything above 4 cmc cannot be broken?
imagine a typical Jeskai control build casting a sweeper and than following up with Jace and protecting him with Cryptic Command and removal that's it! game over for any creature based deck, even mighty Abzan or the now banned Melira Pod wouldn't be able to compete with such card advantage/selection
you could argue that Abzan could just Thoughtseize him, but that's of course no argument, it's like saying it doesn't matter if a card is broken you can just counter/path it.
you could also argue that turn 4 Is late, but it's not, in fact I cannot ever recall winning or loosing before turn 4 with a hand of more than 4 cards( I once lost to an affinity god-hand, after I mulled to 4 with a hand with no removal, but this sort of bad luck is extremely uncommon and not representative of the game), in fact a deck armed with bolts,remand,helixes, paths and snapcasters FORCES it's way to turn 6+, it's impossible to win before turn 5 if they are bolting every creature you cast of that I assure you, I was playing WUR midrange and answering the first 3-4 threats they land is child's play unless you kept a terrible hand or the threat is named Tarmogoyf or Etched Champion, the point is what happens after, if you draw more answers and a finisher or if you just flood, with Jace the answers are going to be infinite, so the only risk will be getting burned
I know that to some people speaking of Jeskai being overpowered must sound like a joke(currently it's tier 2 for a good reason after all) but Jace solves that reason and takes it to the other side, just remember Treasure Cruise often a single card is all a tier 2 deck needs to become tier 1 or better, and Jeskai has already solid match-ups vs the decks that don't care about Jace
btw comparing that cute little lady to Jace is completely out of the question, he is broken she is not, free Brainstorm(card selection AND card advantage) cannot be compared to ''you might draw a card'', also Jace can affect the board(if you are desperate or need tempo to close the game) while Narset cannot, finally Narset's -2 does nothing unless you already have an answer in hand, Jace gives you the answer in your hand, or can even cast Unsummon on your Snapcaster Mage, in fact Jace cannot be compared with any planeswalker in power level save the ones at 6+cmc
as for the proof of burden that previous posters have mentioned as in all things it fall to those who want changes or to introduce something new, if I invent a new type of plane I have to prove that it's safe and not someone else in abstract that it's not, we do not fly in untested planes till someone proves that they are dangerous, so far Jace's testing was absolutely disheartening
of course people have different ideas for what is broken and there lies the root of the problem, for some Treasure Cruise was totally fine, and many of the bans are not, to these people there is also nothing wrong with JTMS
others like myself want to keep Modern's powerlevel between Legacy and Standard and JTMS doesn't really fit that vision (Wizards seems to share it, they were clear on Jace by the way- he has a tombstone in modern he will be played in Legacy)
lastly there is a matter of color balance, even if some people could care less about the lore and flavor aspect of the game,i think we can all agree that color balance means diversity(if you don't care about diversity you have a problem imo,endless mirror matches are not exactly fun)
blue and black were given too much originally, the ''draw a card'' effect cannot be given to a single color as it's a vital part of most successful decks as the consistency tools that blue have (without these you could probably play something like Abzan where every card is individually powerful so every draw is a good draw most of the times), if blue is to be the most consistent color than it has to be the least powerful by default, but that's a design choice that could only be made at the very beginning of the game, and it would also require to make blue unplayable with other colors otherwise blue would become an almost universal splash, consistency tools also break combo decks upsetting archetype balance: if you are not too fast you will have to answer the combo multiple times and that's not even possible with black(1 of the 2 colors that can fight combo) only blue itself could do this by stacking counterspells in hand, if you add the reserved list that's pretty much the story of Legacy a format left to take a terribly wrong path, due to the lack of bans, instead they gave the players 0 cmc counterspells and hatecards and all the tools they need to consistently find them, Legacy needed some brave bans and Wizards has learned this and is applying it in Modern, so that we can play Magic as it was meant to be played and not with degenerate cards/ synergies that are the by product of poorly designed cards from the time where Magic was in it's infancy
1) Jace is fair because he does not win the game. Unfair cards are things like Scapeshift, Splinter Twin, Ad Nauseum, Grapeshot/Storm, etc. Unfair=Combo.
2) Why do people overlook that Delver got one of the best 1 drops of all-time in Monastery Swiftspear and only look at Treasure Cruise for why it become one of the most played decks? What's wrong with a Tier 2 deck becoming Tier 1? Are we forever doomed to a stale status-quo?
3) You talk about wanting Modern to be inbetween Standard and Legacy, and this is your reason for keeping cards like JtMS out of Modern, YET almost the entire BGx shell is a port from Legacy to Modern. Why is Liliana of the Veil which sees more play in Legacy than Jace, fine for Modern, yet Jace is way too powerful for Modern? That makes NO sense to me other than blue/control hatred.
4) Legacy has more deck diversity. More than half of Tier 1 modern decks are non-interactive shlock. Would have more fun coin-flipping in the Casino, as it takes roughly the same amount of skill.
5) It seems your problem is more to do with combo decks, than with cards that reduce magic variance. Why not ban the combos rather than the cards that increase player skill needed?
6) Blue and White are the weakest colors in Modern, so why not provide them with the opportunity to rise to the level of BGR?
Im of the opinion that just because these things are more "fair" then Show and Tell -> Emrakul, the Aeons Torn doesn't make them any less f***** up.
So on the topic of Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
It's baffling how people leave out the biggest argument against the card and which is why he will continue to sit there. What do you think would everybody do once he is unbanned?
I know I would immediately buy 4 copies of him and would jam him into all my decks. I would try to make him work. He is among one of the most powerful cards ever printed. You would be stupid if you wouldn't do that.
Especially the pros would be guilty of that. Every single big name pro would be on some kind of Jace deck. I would guarantee that. And to be honest everybody would. The only ones who wouldn't include Jace would be hipsters and people who are too poor to afford him.
Do you seriously think Wizards would ever risk the format looking like that?
Sadly I can't find the video anymore from I think Grand Prix Richmond where Brian Kibler, Craig Wescoe, Shaun McLaren and another one had a discussion about Modern. The topic of Jace came up too there and Shaun McLaren said Jace would warp the format around him like no other card.
Saying that Jace would be bad against Affinity, Infect and Burn is a stupid argument for three reasons:
1. Just because these decks can win on turn 4 doesn't make everything that comes after it OK. Per that definition Cloudpost would be OK. I mean a turn 5 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is fair game because you would be dead already, right? Yeah, no.
2. Something that bill_zagoudis already pointed out but that seems to be commonly ignored when making arguments for unbanning Jace.
Decks packing Jace would never lose on turn 4. There are packed to the brim with counter and removal spells. If you keep an decent hand and know how to play that is not happening.
3. The format would change overnight anyway. I mean who in their right mind would even play stuff like Affinity, Burn and Infect anymore when you could be playing a Jace deck? Like I already said only hipsters and people who are too poor to afford him.
You can make as many arguments as you want in terms of how he would be fine when actually playing in the game. It's mostly irrelevant though since the main problem with him is his popularity/reputation and his format-warping power.
You cannot disprove this claim with theory crafting. The only way to do it would be by actually unbanning him.
And guess what happens if it turns out to be true? You have changed and ruined the format overnight. It would be a PR nightmare for Wizards since Jace is already known as an extremely powerful problem card. People would be questioning how Wizards could have been so stupid despite having first-hand experience with him because they had to ban him in Standard already. They would have to reban him which would be a disaster of untold proportions.
We are not talking about a few cents common or a few dollar rare like Dig Through Time or Treasure Cruise. We are talking about a card that would make the price of Tarmogoyf look like a joke.
The risk vs reward balance is completely unbalanced here.
What is the reward? People can now play with Jace. Cool.
What is the risk? One of the biggest sh*tstorms in the history of this game
No person in their right mind would make this gamble. Especially when we are talking about a multi-million dollar business that has a reputation and money to lose. And the people making that decision would have a job to lose.
Galerion, no offence, but most of your post about JTMS is really just hyperbolic fluff confirming that its banned for its reputation and standard infamy - similar to Bitterblossom, a card I heard very similar things about. Someone once claimed to me that unbanning it would destroy modern as everyone would play Faeries and it would be unbeatable - this was a guy who played standard in the faeries era and obviously that was clouding his judgement.
JTMS won't be unbanned for the foreseeable future because the format isn't stable enough for WotC to feel its safe, but more importantly because it would have to reprinted or else WotC would have enough Tarmogoyf-level priced card on their hands which damages the image of modern being somewhat accessible. In terms of whether Jace would actually be overpowered in modern or detrimental to the metagame, the answer is no. This is a format of Infect, Splinter Twin and Affinity, where the only walker that sees mainstream play is Liliana of the Veil. There are tons of answers out there for Jace that are maindeckable.
You are free to think what you will. Bitterblossom doesn't see Legacy and Vintage play and was never banned in Standard though. Not really comparable.
Having trouble responding to Lord Seth's response to me with quotes, however Wizards' own stance makes it very clear that the only factors they considered with the recent bans were metagame percentages and format diversity. From the original announcement:
However, as [Delver] decks have occupied a large portion of the competitive metagame, the overall variety of successful decks has been suppressed. It is imbalanced enough that Wizards of the Coast has decided to act.
In the interest of supporting a diverse format, Birthing Pod is banned.
Individual card power has nothing to do with ban decisions. Second Sunrise is not an overpowered Magic card - should it be unbanned? For that matter, arguably Deathrite Shaman is not an overpowered Magic card.
In any event, whatever the original reasoning the result with Bloodbraid Elf was to excise a poorly-designed Magic card from the format, and I don't see why anyone would want to reverse that decision if they want to avoid a format dominated by random-effects generators rather than play skill.
Simple test: regardless of the original reasoning for the ban, is the format as a whole heathier for the absence of Bloodbraid Elf? If so, keep it banned.
While I agree with most of this, I don't think Jace would be to backbreaking from a power point of view in modern. He most certainly would warp the format, but I think he is easy enough to manage with current modern tools. I know his power from the Caw-Blade era very well.
The best deck for Jace would be probably be Sultai, Esper or Cruel Control where you can use discard and counters to clear the way for him and make you opponent quit magic
That being said there is no way WOTC unbans Jace without significant reprint and sculpting of the format discounting the extremely low chances that they would be crazy enough to unban him.
Back on topic, I have a sneaking suspicion that Simian Spirit Guide might get the hammer on March 23rd.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Level 1 Judge
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU "Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR "The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas
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I'm also cautiously optimistic for Narset, and have a few lists brewed to test her out, but i don't find those two comparable at all. Narset comes down turn 4 minimum and *may* produce value every turn at +. Her rebound is excellent value but requires you to continue playing at sorcery speed which is not where deck like esper control wants to be if it can help it. Goyf comes down at 2 and both you and your opponent play spells and crack fetches all game, so he's passively getting better. You have to work for Narset to gain value, she doesn't impact the board or protect herself (high loyalty won't keep her alive for long by itself), she's a lot more expensive, and she can't actually end the game for you (though her ult is still very strong).
That is not my logic, that is just one unadvantage. My logic is that the free copy will only be available on your next turn and you need to cast the original spell on your turn. In situations in which she is the last resource on your hand or you just topdecked her, you will just play her and then? Liliaa can take one of your opponents creatures, JTMS can bounce one creature or get you one of the first three cards in your library, Ajani can keep a threat tapped or Hellix something. And Narset? At most will maybe give you a card.
She looks like the kind of card that is good when you are already winning.
She is a good option against control (the real), but overall I don't think she is better than the others.
I still think that some build tuned for her my appear.
UW Approach UW
EDH
U Azami, Lady of Scrolls U
Let's see
An alternative win condition? Check.
A way to buy time by bouncing creatures and fatesealing? Check.
A card drawing engine? Check.
A way to put drawn Mountains and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacles back into the library? Check.
Obviously nobody knows for sure. He does fill quite a few check marks though.
The only deck I see Jace potentially putting "over the top" is Twin, and that's not so much because of strong synergies with him so much as Twin is already a really good deck and thus the boost would put it higher than the boost would for Scapeshift.
The main problem with Jace, the Mind Sculptor unban that this card can be used not only in fair UWR/Esper decks, I think Twin and Scapeshift will put him in a maindeck too and that can give them too strong advantage between other decks. My opinion is that this card can be unbanned only if it can be used only in a "fair" control decks. That's why Wizards gave us Narset Transcendent with 2WU mana cost.
Wizards could at least give us a real playable replacement.
Regarding the use of Jace by unfair decks,if it really happens this way, Wizards should do what they have done with BBE, ban a card from those decks that are only relevant for those decks leaving cards that can be used in other archetypes alone. But this criteria does not seems to be applied when it comes to blue cards, just see what they have done with DTT.
Why should Wizards risk to break two decks and unban kind of unfair card?
Ban a card because the card itself is broken, not because it happens to be used in a good deck.
It's funny that you talk about the degeneracy of Legacy, when fair interactive decks in Legacy make up a bigger % of the metagame than in Modern.
Yes, it was, but unfortunately they did print it.
The difficulty with this is that you're applying a different standard to Bloodbraid Elf to that being applied to practically every other card added to the banned list. If you just look at the last set of bans, Treasure Cruise and Birthing Pod were both banned because of the metagame percentage those decks enjoyed, not because of the power level of the cards themselves. Dig Through Time was a precautionary ban made because Wizards expected it to keep Delver at the same proportion of the metagame as it had been with Cruise. Arguing that Bloodbraid shouldn't have been banned because Deathrite was the card that took the deck to tier 1 is akin to arguing that Siege Rhino rather than Birthing Pod should have been banned because that's the card most responsible for the increase in its popularity. And then subsequently pointing to the continued popularity of Abzan as evidence that Siege Rhino is the issue rather than Pod.
You may disagree with Wizards' approach to bannings, but there was nothing inconsistent or mistaken about their approach to Bloodbraid Elf.
Both of those cards were banned for power level reasons - their percentage of the metagame is merely a marker of the power those cards had in those decks. Pod was not a metashare ban, it was banned largely because creatures would keep pushing it overboard as we saw with Rhino. Treasure Cruise was banned because it gave Delver (and other decks) insane amounts of card advantage which allowed them to fuel their game plan at a level of consistency that shouldn't exist in a tempo deck. Meta share tends to demonstrate a power imbalance, but calling bans as a result of the meta share is warped logic and incorrect.
Hello! So I see the board is once again discussing the unbanning of bloodbraid elf!
I'd just like to lay out some reasons why I feel that this is not currently the appropriate time to do so;
1. First off, I don't believe in anything coming off the banlist without a good reason. There has to be a reason for a card to come off, there is no virtue in a short banlist for the sake of being short, due to the fact that each unban wizards chooses to make carries risks, whether it be current or future interactions. So at this point you might be saying "Well Jund is underrepresented! That's a good reason! Down with the BBE oppressors!" Well that may be true, but it's shell most certainly is not. For some strange reason this board likes to separate out the BGx shells such as Jund, BG rock, and Junk, but when it comes to every other deck strategy based on the same shell they lump them together (lookin at you delver). At least have some consistency there. In any case, many of the Jund players simply jumped ship for junk (seeing as all the cost of the deck is in the base shell so it's not hard to switch variants) and should BBE be printed, most players would likely stay with either Junk or Jund, depending on how it's positioned. AS OF CURRENT CARD PRINTINGS I do not think it is likely we will see an even distribution of players between these two similar decks WHETHER OR NOT BBE is unbanned.
2. If thise argument has not been made already, it most definitely will; "Well siege rhino is legal and is ABOUT as good as BBE if not better!" This one I admit is disputable, meta depending, but in the VAST MAJORITY OF METAS BBE is the stronger card. Card advantage is almost always better than almost any static effect, and life gain outside of a fast aggro meta is not as relevant as board presence. Cascade is also essentially splitting one spell into two, which reduces the risks of it getting countered. In a top deck war against a blue deck, this is key. Counterspells are already weak as is in modern, there's no need to nerf them further. It's also worth noting that WITHIN A JUND SHELL the cascade is LIKELY to hit a card of greater value than a lightning helix. If it hits a discard spell and that spell is not relevant, then it is likely because the Jund deck is already winning. The deck is DESIGNED to win top deck wars. It's why it runs liliana to force players into that situation. Other than an irrelevant discard spell, it might hit Scavenging ooze. If the worst it could hit is scooze or a discard spell (or removal it rhino's body is. Welllllll sure if things are going to last terribly long.
In a fast meta, BBE is going to do more damage given if jund can clear the path. Looking at how much removal it packs, that's not unlikely. Also if it cascades into a scooze or tarmogoyf, it could STILL end up doing more damage long term than the rhino. Sorry guys, I just don't think that trample is always better than haste, I don't think life gain is frequently as important as board presence/card advantage, and while a big butt IS valuable, if you wanna just get damage through quickly BBE is gonna do a better job. Another point to note was BGx shells DO occasionally make use of Courser of Kruphix. This would reduce the variance on cascade significantly while not having to run a terribly suboptimal card, especially since courser's lifegain is currently relevant. It's also worth noting that siege rhino locks players into playing white, which being probably the least played color in modern, certainly needs other reasons to play it at a high level beyond path of exile and the occasional lingering souls. Rhino is a step toward color diversity, while I personally feel it's not as important as archetype diversity, it is still a noble goal. So yes the casting cost colors ARE relevant in the discussion.
3. Card advantage is highly regulated in modern. The fact that BBE provides this (and to the shell with the most efficient spells in the format which therefore can make the most effective use of card advantage) is NOT a small point. It's probably my biggest beef with the card in general. Had cruise stayed legal I may have been able to get behind a BBE unban, I was coming around to it late this fall, but with that and DTT out of the format, no way.
4.People may disagree with this, but the easier casting cost is highly relevant. Keeping players off certain colors is part of the game, and many decks are maindecking tectonic edge to do just that. It's just another problem with the card, certainly lesser than the others, but still notable.
5. Wizards doesn't unban lots of cards at the same time. There are cards that have been on there far longer with far less reason than BBE. I'd rather they take the chance with those unbannings, which, by the way, may help archetypes that actually NEED help unlike midrange, than unban BBE. A year or two more sitting on that list certainly won't kill the BGx shell and might give the format time to raise it's own power level to the point where BBE is less aggregious.
6. With BBE unbanned, people can play 2/3rds of the non-land legacy jund deck. This bring it closer than almost any other modern deck to the legacy deck it's ported from. I don't view this as a positive thing at all. It's been a struggle enough for modern to develop it's own unique, competitive decks, we don't need to bring the format any closer to legacy lite than it is. I also would like to note that I feel this does speak for BBE's power level. I know seeing play in legacy vs modern is not always a clear indicator of power (see Revoker), but for a four drop to see play that doesn't win the game on the spot (and sometmes even if it does) it has to be at LEAST at a reasonably high level of power.
7. Likeliness to be rebanned due to the rising power of 3 cmc spells, thus giving more power to BBE, IS a cause for concern, and unbanning then rebanning would do further harm to the credibility of the format. There is such a thing as too much value on a card.
Those are the reasons I can think of at the moment to keep BBE on the banlist without going too far into bias about how it's a stupid lotto value card that should have never been printed. I do believe there will come a time when it is certainly appropriate to take it off the list, I just don't feel that time is now.
^Covers most of my complaints. This was written last fall, and I haven't updated it yet, so I can't promise it's everything. Key points here are BBE's body is arguably better than rhinos within the jund shell, and card advantage being heavily regulated in modern is always a dangerous effect to releave, particularly since they JUST banned cruise and DDT which would have been solid justification to allow other colors to generate more efficient advantage. I do think the banning of pod shows that wizards IS concerned about cards having the potential to cause future problems, and I think BBE is the sorta card that presents such an issue.
-Valakut: LOLOLOL everyone still played Jund, Valakut has made a splash since, but when it was unbanned it really didn't do anything.
-Bitterblossom: Faeries is still a tier 2/3 deck even though it was the boogie man of standard.
-Wild Nacatl: Zoo is still tier 2/3, even though it had a huge turnout in its first "free" PT, it got rekt and way underperformed.
-Golgari Grave-Troll: Dredge is cool, but again tier 2/3/4
Now looking at this list do you actually think that Jace, the Mind Sculptor will be unbanned any time soon? Five years down the road? Maybe. If Wizards changes their tune about modern? Maybe. If (by some ridiculously improbable happenstance) Jace becomes the joke of the banlist? Maybe. Realistically, it isn't going to happen anytime soon.
Thanks! I'll update that. I'll be the first to admit i'm not particularly well versed in legacy.
Uh, no, actually. I'm applying the same standard: Ban overpowered cards; don't ban something just because it happens to be in a great deck. Bloodbraid Elf was not banned under the same standard as "practically everything else." That's the problem.
No, both were banned because those cards were incredibly powerful. I may not have been in agreement with those bans, but there were real power level concerns with them, rather than them just happening to be in what were seen as the best decks.
By the Bloodbraid Elf ban logic, they should've banned Delver of Secrets instead. After all, other decks ran Treasure Cruise, but the only deck to really run Delver of Secrets is URx Delver.
As for Birthing Pod, that's a dramatically different situation because the whole deck is built around Birthing Pod; it's not a card that goes into the deck; it is the deck.
Which was terrible reasoning.
Uh... no. No it isn't. Bloodbraid Elf shouldn't have been banned because the actual problem was Deathrite Shaman. Which the following year nicely showed, including the particularly infamous Top 8 at Grand Prix Detroit where 6 of the 8 decks were of the BGx Midrange variety, a feat never achieved while Bloodbraid Elf was legal. Incidentally, one of the two remaining decks was running Deathrite Shaman, making a whopping 7 of those 8 decks be running DRS. Are you going to blame that fact on Bloodbraid Elf? No, because Bloodbraid Elf wasn't legal.
A more accurate analogy for the Bloodbraid Elf ban was that it's like when Hypnotic Specter was banned in Extended (yes, that happened). Is Hypnotic Specter broken? No, it's just a good card (albeit a less impressive one nowadays). So why was it banned? Because, like Bloodbraid Elf, it was the scapegoat for another card that was far more broken, in this case Necropotence. Necropotence, like Deathrite Shaman, went right on its merry way being an absurd card that they had to ban anyway later on.
Siege Rhino isn't overpowered; it's just a really good card. Just like, what do you know, Bloodbraid Elf.
No, it was pretty inconsistent. And, as the BGx dominance afterward shows, quite mistaken.
1) Jace is fair because he does not win the game. Unfair cards are things like Scapeshift, Splinter Twin, Ad Nauseum, Grapeshot/Storm, etc. Unfair=Combo.
2) Why do people overlook that Delver got one of the best 1 drops of all-time in Monastery Swiftspear and only look at Treasure Cruise for why it become one of the most played decks? What's wrong with a Tier 2 deck becoming Tier 1? Are we forever doomed to a stale status-quo?
3) You talk about wanting Modern to be inbetween Standard and Legacy, and this is your reason for keeping cards like JtMS out of Modern, YET almost the entire BGx shell is a port from Legacy to Modern. Why is Liliana of the Veil which sees more play in Legacy than Jace, fine for Modern, yet Jace is way too powerful for Modern? That makes NO sense to me other than blue/control hatred.
4) Legacy has more deck diversity. More than half of Tier 1 modern decks are non-interactive shlock. Would have more fun coin-flipping in the Casino, as it takes roughly the same amount of skill.
5) It seems your problem is more to do with combo decks, than with cards that reduce magic variance. Why not ban the combos rather than the cards that increase player skill needed?
6) Blue and White are the weakest colors in Modern, so why not provide them with the opportunity to rise to the level of BGR?
Jace is fine, and control needs a boost.
If we count Stoneforge Mystic putting a Batterskull or a Umezawa's Jitte out on turn 3, Miracles locking you out of the game with Counterbalance, getting Wastelanded out of the game, lands getting lockdowned by Rishadan Port, your spells getting countered for free with Force of Will and Daze, fetchlands getting Stifled, etc. as fair and interactive then yes you are right.
Im of the opinion that just because these things are more "fair" then Show and Tell -> Emrakul, the Aeons Torn doesn't make them any less f***** up.
So on the topic of Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
It's baffling how people leave out the biggest argument against the card and which is why he will continue to sit there. What do you think would everybody do once he is unbanned?
I know I would immediately buy 4 copies of him and would jam him into all my decks. I would try to make him work. He is among one of the most powerful cards ever printed. You would be stupid if you wouldn't do that.
Especially the pros would be guilty of that. Every single big name pro would be on some kind of Jace deck. I would guarantee that. And to be honest everybody would. The only ones who wouldn't include Jace would be hipsters and people who are too poor to afford him.
Do you seriously think Wizards would ever risk the format looking like that?
Sadly I can't find the video anymore from I think Grand Prix Richmond where Brian Kibler, Craig Wescoe, Shaun McLaren and another one had a discussion about Modern. The topic of Jace came up too there and Shaun McLaren said Jace would warp the format around him like no other card.
Saying that Jace would be bad against Affinity, Infect and Burn is a stupid argument for three reasons:
1. Just because these decks can win on turn 4 doesn't make everything that comes after it OK. Per that definition Cloudpost would be OK. I mean a turn 5 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is fair game because you would be dead already, right? Yeah, no.
2. Something that bill_zagoudis already pointed out but that seems to be commonly ignored when making arguments for unbanning Jace.
Decks packing Jace would never lose on turn 4. There are packed to the brim with counter and removal spells. If you keep an decent hand and know how to play that is not happening.
3. The format would change overnight anyway. I mean who in their right mind would even play stuff like Affinity, Burn and Infect anymore when you could be playing a Jace deck? Like I already said only hipsters and people who are too poor to afford him.
You can make as many arguments as you want in terms of how he would be fine when actually playing in the game. It's mostly irrelevant though since the main problem with him is his popularity/reputation and his format-warping power.
You cannot disprove this claim with theory crafting. The only way to do it would be by actually unbanning him.
And guess what happens if it turns out to be true? You have changed and ruined the format overnight. It would be a PR nightmare for Wizards since Jace is already known as an extremely powerful problem card. People would be questioning how Wizards could have been so stupid despite having first-hand experience with him because they had to ban him in Standard already. They would have to reban him which would be a disaster of untold proportions.
We are not talking about a few cents common or a few dollar rare like Dig Through Time or Treasure Cruise. We are talking about a card that would make the price of Tarmogoyf look like a joke.
The risk vs reward balance is completely unbalanced here.
What is the reward? People can now play with Jace. Cool.
What is the risk? One of the biggest sh*tstorms in the history of this game
No person in their right mind would make this gamble. Especially when we are talking about a multi-million dollar business that has a reputation and money to lose. And the people making that decision would have a job to lose.
You are free to think what you will.
Bitterblossom doesn't see Legacy and Vintage play and was never banned in Standard though. Not really comparable.
Individual card power has nothing to do with ban decisions. Second Sunrise is not an overpowered Magic card - should it be unbanned? For that matter, arguably Deathrite Shaman is not an overpowered Magic card.
In any event, whatever the original reasoning the result with Bloodbraid Elf was to excise a poorly-designed Magic card from the format, and I don't see why anyone would want to reverse that decision if they want to avoid a format dominated by random-effects generators rather than play skill.
Simple test: regardless of the original reasoning for the ban, is the format as a whole heathier for the absence of Bloodbraid Elf? If so, keep it banned.
The best deck for Jace would be probably be Sultai, Esper or Cruel Control where you can use discard and counters to clear the way for him and make you opponent quit magic
That being said there is no way WOTC unbans Jace without significant reprint and sculpting of the format discounting the extremely low chances that they would be crazy enough to unban him.
Back on topic, I have a sneaking suspicion that Simian Spirit Guide might get the hammer on March 23rd.
Level 2 in progress...
UUU Merfolk UUU
"Above the waves you may be mighty indeed, but down here you belong to me."
-Empress Galina
UBR Cruel Control UBR
"The essence of every world, every spell, and every thought is power. Nothing else matters, because nothing else exists."
-Nicol Bolas