If Grixis would give Junk/Jund a run for its money with SFM, why isnt it giving a run for its money now? Seems backwards thinking (at least to me) to say we need to add a powerful card such as SFM to make Grixis more powerful against SFM decks. Also, Jund/Junk has not been hated out, bans have brought it back to the field. I just think making Jund/Junk better by adding SFM to the format is dangerous. Modern doesnt have the policing cards like Legacy does to self regulate. What stops everyone from playing SFM Junk and it all of a sudden becomes 20% or more of the meta? I still feel its a bad idea at the moment. Change for sake of change is always bad.
Grixis does very well against BGX. It has a hard time in the meta currently because of the hyper linear decks. You haven't given any good reasons why sfm breaks anything, especially because a deck that would prey on it exists and is relatively popular. Also Grixis already plays k command, we would just add a few more - I feel like you aren't at all familiar with the modern meta.
From what I've seen, including my experiences piloting Jund, Grixis does OK against Junk because Junk is relatively slow. But Jund does very well against all of Grixis's forms. Adding SFM to Junk would likely lower its curve, which would give it one of Jund's advantages over Grixis.
Would people say that the Abzan vs. Grixis Control (or Grixis Midrange) matchup is about 40-60 for Grixis? 45-55? I ask because I like identifying the matchups before we think about testing. For instance, I like that Abzan vs. Affinity is a flat 50-50 in almost all MWP calculations I've seen. That makes it easy to test Abzan+SFM vs. Affinity to see if it warps the percentage. But what about for Abzan vs. Grixis?
If Grixis would give Junk/Jund a run for its money with SFM, why isnt it giving a run for its money now? Seems backwards thinking (at least to me) to say we need to add a powerful card such as SFM to make Grixis more powerful against SFM decks. Also, Jund/Junk has not been hated out, bans have brought it back to the field. I just think making Jund/Junk better by adding SFM to the format is dangerous. Modern doesnt have the policing cards like Legacy does to self regulate. What stops everyone from playing SFM Junk and it all of a sudden becomes 20% or more of the meta? I still feel its a bad idea at the moment. Change for sake of change is always bad.
Grixis does very well against BGX. It has a hard time in the meta currently because of the hyper linear decks. You haven't given any good reasons why sfm breaks anything, especially because a deck that would prey on it exists and is relatively popular. Also Grixis already plays k command, we would just add a few more - I feel like you aren't at all familiar with the modern meta.
From what I've seen, including my experiences piloting Jund, Grixis does OK against Junk because Junk is relatively slow. But Jund does very well against all of Grixis's forms. Adding SFM to Junk would likely lower its curve, which would give it one of Jund's advantages over Grixis.
As was said a few posts up, Grixis can run a list that is basically 2-1.deck against these low cmc junk stone blade lists. Grixis would do just fine in that meta to the point that I think it might be able to keep abzan under control. Combo would be able to take advantage of this midrange meta and aggro can continue to do what it does now.
Ktk- it's difficult to test all of these things because the unbanning of a major card that will see play will cause plenty of lists to adapt, so it's almost unfair to play non sfm lists against sfm because they'd almost certainly change (like the case with Grixis). Like if AV were to be unbanned I'd expect remand heavy decks to begin to rise in prominence, but that's just so difficult to predict.
I hate to derail the talk of Stoneforge Mystic in Modern (or whatever you guys are talking about; I'm not really sure anymore), but I did another goldfishing session, this time with the Griselbros/Grishoalbrand/Griselshoal/The Griselbrand Deck/Griselcannon/Just pick something that doesn't make me sound like Sean Connery, guys. Here are the results of 100 goldfished games:
Turn 1 Kills: 0 -- I've achieved this exactly once ever.
Turn 2 Kills: 7
Turn 3 Kills: 30
Turn 4 Kills: 38
Turn 5+ Kills: 25
"Kill" here meaning getting Griselbrand or Worldspine Wurm into play. There's a small percentage chance that Griselbrand fizzles, but I ignored that for the time being as I've found the chances of fizzling only matter once the combo player gets below 15 life, which seldom happens while goldfishing.
As with last time, this means over the course of a 30-45 game tournament, 11.1-16.65 -- a little more than a third -- of the goldfish you play are going to complain about how degenerate your deck is. However, since my last post, I've realized a problem with this conclusion:
All of these goldfish games -- these as well as the Bloom ones previously -- were performed on the play. Being on the draw against a goldfish obviously gives the combo decks slightly higher percentage chance of drawing what they need, though it also inherently puts them behind in tempo. With Griselbrand specifically, being on the draw also provides an additional discard outlet to seven card hands if necessary. So that's something I (or anyone else) will need to do when I (or they) have time.
A turner of phrases quite pleasin'
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.
The very last line
Might seem sans design
What I mean is without why or wherefore.
-Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Why are people debating what deck would be helped the most by SFM, or whether that deck would be too good? The problem with the card is that it improves so many decks (UWx flavors, GBx flavors, WGx flavors, etc) that it just seems like an auto-include in so many decks.
Modern would to be in a very very bad place before wotc ever even considers dropping a bomb like that. Modern isn't at that place.
It's like killing a fly with a flamethrower. Maybe it would get the job done, but it would burn a bunch of other #!$% in the process.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Why are people debating what deck would be helped the most by SFM, or whether that deck would be too good? The problem with the card is that it improves so many decks (UWx flavors, GBx flavors, WGx flavors, etc) that it just seems like an auto-include in so many decks.
Modern would to be in a very very bad place before wotc ever even considers dropping a bomb like that. Modern isn't at that place.
It's like killing a fly with a flamethrower. Maybe it would get the job done, but it would burn a bunch of other #!$% in the process.
We already have cards like it in Goyf, Snapcaster and Bob that demand to be played in decks that have their colors. SFM would just give that option to white decks as well. There is nothing wrong with that.
We already have cards like it in Goyf, Snapcaster and Bob that demand to be played in decks that have their colors. SFM would just give that option to white decks as well. There is nothing wrong with that.
I would understand this argument if we were talking about SFM NOT being banned. However the discussion was prompted from the assumption that fair decks might need some help.
Fair decks need some love? Sure lets release one of the most powerful 2 drops ever printed on the format. Seems completely reasonable.
/rollseyes
It is just way too extreme of a response considering modern isn't exactly dying or anything. The format is at a relatively good place, and probably needs some gently pushes in certain directions to get a better balance. Not a punch in the face.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
We already have cards like it in Goyf, Snapcaster and Bob that demand to be played in decks that have their colors. SFM would just give that option to white decks as well. There is nothing wrong with that.
I would understand this argument if we were talking about SFM NOT being banned. However the discussion was prompted from the assumption that fair decks might need some help.
Fair decks need some love? Sure lets release one of the most powerful 2 drops ever printed on the format. Seems completely reasonable.
/rollseyes
It is just way too extreme of a response considering modern isn't exactly dying or anything. The format is at a relatively good place, and probably needs some gently pushes in certain directions to get a better balance. Not a punch in the face.
It wouldnt have a negative impact on the format anymore so than most of the other most played "fair" cards. When the fair decks are having trouble or problems against linear and degenerate decks then either ban the problems or give the fair players a reason to play the fair decks over something abusable like Grishoalbrand in a larger event.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active Modern Decks
U Tron GW Bogles RG Loam UR Blue Breach RBU Grixis Goryo BRU Grixis Delver GBR Jund GBW Junk
We already have cards like it in Goyf, Snapcaster and Bob that demand to be played in decks that have their colors. SFM would just give that option to white decks as well. There is nothing wrong with that.
I would understand this argument if we were talking about SFM NOT being banned. However the discussion was prompted from the assumption that fair decks might need some help.
Fair decks need some love? Sure lets release one of the most powerful 2 drops ever printed on the format. Seems completely reasonable.
/rollseyes
It is just way too extreme of a response considering modern isn't exactly dying or anything. The format is at a relatively good place, and probably needs some gently pushes in certain directions to get a better balance. Not a punch in the face.
It wouldnt have a negative impact on the format anymore so than most of the other most played "fair" cards. When the fair decks are having trouble or problems against linear and degenerate decks then either ban the problems or give the fair players a reason to play the fair decks over something abusable like Grishoalbrand in a larger event.
This. I am not advocating that fair decks need "help" because they aren't as good. I am advocating that SFM isn't too powerful for Modern and as such, should not be banned. SFM was never allowed into modern and I think (with the testing some of us are trying to do) we can prove if that is justified or not. Currently in my testing it is looking like it is not justified to leave it banned.
It wouldnt have a negative impact on the format anymore so than most of the other most played "fair" cards. When the fair decks are having trouble or problems against linear and degenerate decks then either ban the problems or give the fair players a reason to play the fair decks over something abusable like Grishoalbrand in a larger event.
Those other popular fair cards already exist in the modern ecosystem. We are talking about releasing an equally (if not more) powerful beast onto the format. That is a completely different paradigm.
Are fair decks in such a bad spot that a card on the level of Snapcaster Mage needs to be introduced? I am saying that they are not.
They need help for sure, but there is no way to fully predict the ramifications of unbanning such a powerful card. Are some modern legal cards as powerful as SFM? Sure. However there is no telling that unbanning SFM wouldn't overshoot the mark and put modern in an equally bad position (if not worse). Why would wotc even take that risk? Especially with a card they will probably never reprint in another modern legal set; which means that there will just be another instant modern staple in very low supply.
This is why bannings are more commonplace than unbannings. Changes should be incremental and surgical in nature. SFM is a blunt instrument.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
It wouldnt have a negative impact on the format anymore so than most of the other most played "fair" cards. When the fair decks are having trouble or problems against linear and degenerate decks then either ban the problems or give the fair players a reason to play the fair decks over something abusable like Grishoalbrand in a larger event.
Those other popular fair cards already exist in the modern ecosystem. We are talking about releasing an equally (if not more) powerful beast onto the format. That is a completely different paradigm.
Are fair decks in such a bad spot that a card on the level of Snapcaster Mage needs to be introduced? I am saying that they are not.
They need help for sure, but there is no way to fully predict the ramifications of unbanning such a powerful card. Are some modern legal cards as powerful as SFM? Sure. However there is no telling that unbanning SFM wouldn't overshoot the mark and put modern in an equally bad position (if not worse). Why would wotc even take that risk? Especially with a card they will probably never reprint in another modern legal set; which means that there will just be another instant modern staple in very low supply.
This is why bannings are more commonplace than unbannings. Changes should be incremental and surgical in nature. SFM is a blunt instrument.
SFM could easily be reprinted in standard. It is only as strong as the equipment it can tutor for. WotC has already come out and said they will never print equipment on the level of the swords or batterskull ever again. SFM by itself isn't all that strong.
If Grixis would give Junk/Jund a run for its money with SFM, why isnt it giving a run for its money now? Seems backwards thinking (at least to me) to say we need to add a powerful card such as SFM to make Grixis more powerful against SFM decks. Also, Jund/Junk has not been hated out, bans have brought it back to the field. I just think making Jund/Junk better by adding SFM to the format is dangerous. Modern doesnt have the policing cards like Legacy does to self regulate. What stops everyone from playing SFM Junk and it all of a sudden becomes 20% or more of the meta? I still feel its a bad idea at the moment. Change for sake of change is always bad.
It doesn't because Abzan is currently not affected by artifact removal. If Abzan uses its slots to play 4 SFM and 2-3 equipments, K-Command, Electrolyze and Spell Snare get a lot stronger. I'd think that Grixis Control would at least play 3 Spell Snare, 2 K-Commands and 1 Electrolyze.
If BGx breaks cards that only seem too strong in Modern (BBE) and break other good stuff cards, maybe something is wrong with the core shell itself.
Here's the issue as I see it; if you release Mystic into modern, what else is there to do in white? Nothing. It would be the best thing EVERY white deck can do. Sure, you would have slightly different flavors, but this is similar to what kind of topping do you want on your vanilla ice cream. So now you have 5 different color decks all trying to stick a mystic. Eventually one will be better than the rest at sticking her and keeping it there then why play the other colors? We keep discussing snapcaster mage as the equivalent in blue, but it's really not. Yes, both cards require other cards to be relevant, but you need a lot of instants/sorceries to make the mage good. Mystic only needs batterskull and a sword and she's good to go.
If you want to play blue but not play mage, you play merfolk. If you want to play green but not goyf, you can play Amulet Bloom or Infect. Don't want to play liliana/confidant but like black? Tasigur and his fish say hello. Red is a support color in many decks and its burn power stretches far from "just bolt" now. But what does white have? Thalia? Death and taxes? The current best white cards that aren't already played in junk are anti-synergistic in modern. You can't jam the stoneforge package into D&T in modern because we don't have the denial package to back it up like legacy does.
The question is does it solve a problem? No, it does not. We have 8-9 tier 1 decks and many tier 2 decks in modern right now so I would say there is no problem. That's a pretty wide playing field. Every color is represented in the top decks. Yes, some more than others, but there will never be an even 20% split. There has never been a split like that in the years I've played (since Betrayers). It's not like legacy where you start with a blue deck then decide what other cards you want to play.
If a card MIGHT break the format, it is better not to risk it than have to clean up a mess down the line.
Here's the issue as I see it; if you release Mystic into modern, what else is there to do in white? Nothing. It would be the best thing EVERY white deck can do. Sure, you would have slightly different flavors, but this is similar to what kind of topping do you want on your vanilla ice cream. So now you have 5 different color decks all trying to stick a mystic. Eventually one will be better than the rest at sticking her and keeping it there then why play the other colors? We keep discussing snapcaster mage as the equivalent in blue, but it's really not. Yes, both cards require other cards to be relevant, but you need a lot of instants/sorceries to make the mage good. Mystic only needs batterskull and a sword and she's good to go.
If you want to play blue but not play mage, you play merfolk. If you want to play green but not goyf, you can play Amulet Bloom or Infect. Don't want to play liliana/confidant but like black? Tasigur and his fish say hello. Red is a support color in many decks and its burn power stretches far from "just bolt" now. But what does white have? Thalia? Death and taxes? The current best white cards that aren't already played in junk are anti-synergistic in modern. You can't jam the stoneforge package into D&T in modern because we don't have the denial package to back it up like legacy does.
The question is does it solve a problem? No, it does not. We have 8-9 tier 1 decks and many tier 2 decks in modern right now so I would say there is no problem. That's a pretty wide playing field. Every color is represented in the top decks. Yes, some more than others, but there will never be an even 20% split. There has never been a split like that in the years I've played (since Betrayers). It's not like legacy where you start with a blue deck then decide what other cards you want to play.
If a card MIGHT break the format, it is better not to risk it than have to clean up a mess down the line.
It doesn't completely solve the problem but it gives you a step in the right direction for white. What is there to play in white now? Lingering Souls (which forces you to play black as well to get value) and Path... At least give white A deck to be excited about. It's better to have Vanilla in which to put your toppings on then the option of only Chocolate or Strawberry.
I feel like you aren't at all familiar with the modern meta.
I play Modern (the only format I play) 3 days a week competitively, test another 2 or 3 depending on the play groups schedule, have the cards to make any deck and usually carry 3-5 decks with me to play test or give me a choice after I see what everyone else is playing. I understand what SFM will do to Modern. Just because I disagree with you and the idea of SFM in the format, dont assume you know me or my knowledge of Modern.
Quote from Ignithas1 »
It doesn't because Abzan is currently not affected by artifact removal. If Abzan uses its slots to play 4 SFM and 2-3 equipments, K-Command, Electrolyze and Spell Snare get a lot stronger. I'd think that Grixis Control would at least play 3 Spell Snare, 2 K-Commands and 1 Electrolyze.
So Grixis adds cards to fight a package for SFM, but SFM would be only a part of the deck, not the main line of winning. With Goyf, Bob, and Snapcaster (not to mention a bunch more 2 drop spells) in the format, why isnt Grixis already playing 3 Spell Snare? It doesnt add up, so Grixis shifts its fight against one aspect of the deck and its suppose to event things out? I dont see it happening.
It doesn't completely solve the problem but it gives you a step in the right direction for white. What is there to play in white now? Lingering Souls (which forces you to play black as well to get value) and Path... At least give white A deck to be excited about. It's better to have Vanilla in which to put your toppings on then the option of only Chocolate or Strawberry.
The problem is nobody is willing to take a risk at the higher levels. You go to a large tournament you play to win so you only play with a known variable. If you suspect there will be a lot of twin you play something good against twin, if delver is popular burn is the right choice. So instead of playing your FNM White Weenies, you play a tiered deck so you can guarantee a win. It's not that the white deck is bad, it's that no one is willing to take the risk.
I would agree that white decks need something to be excited for, but we don't do that by unbaning something so splashable. When the Abzan decks drop Rhino( a white card) for mystic, does that make it a white deck now? When Jeskai drops delver to play mystic, is it not still just a snapcaster tempo deck with a stronger finisher? What we need are better prison effects. I feel white is good at two things; little synergistic creatures and locking players out of the game. Give me more thalia, Vryn Wingmare, and Ghostly Prison cards and let me make mono white control, but don't overpower the decks that are already tier 1+2.
The problem is nobody is willing to take a risk at the higher levels. You go to a large tournament you play to win so you only play with a known variable. If you suspect there will be a lot of twin you play something good against twin, if delver is popular burn is the right choice. So instead of playing your FNM White Weenies, you play a tiered deck so you can guarantee a win. It's not that the white deck is bad, it's that no one is willing to take the risk.
I was largely in agreement with this post and your last few, but this bolded bit isn't really accurate, at least as it pertains to white. There's this myth that some strategies, cards, and decktypes are secretly much stronger than the rest of the format realizes. Although there is some truth to this when it's taken up by players who are experts in those decks (see Lantern Control at GP Oklahoma City), for the most part it's just a myth. There are just so many players in Modern and there's a lot of incentive to try and get ahead of the format. When new decks and cards are truly strong, not just strong in theory, they almost always make a big impact. See the Jund to Abzan shift last year, the immediate adoption of TC/DTT by many decks, Kolaghan's Command and Tasigur, Amulet Bloom's breakout performance this spring, Become Immense in Infect (and Infect more generally as a metagame answer), etc. The format is full of these examples, and that's just from the last year!
If something isn't succeeding after a long period of time, that probably means it's not good enough to succeed on a widespread level. You might be able to exploit some metagame gap with it, but you aren't going to reshape the format. Almost all the white cards you mentioned have been around for a long time, and many players have tried to break past tiers 2 and 3 with those cards. Some succeed (see Bogles, Abzan, and Jeskai Control back when it was just "UWR Control"). Many do not.
Of course, none of this suggests SFM is a necessary or even a good/healthy unban. It's just to say that white probably does need a shot in the arm. Should SFM be that injection? My suspicion is "no", but I'd love to see testing data to support it. But the color would benefit from some help, even if SFM (quite probably) turns out to be too much.
When new decks and cards are truly strong, not just strong in theory, they almost always make a big impact. See the Jund to Abzan shift last year, the immediate adoption of TC/DTT by many decks, Kolaghan's Command and Tasigur, Amulet Bloom's breakout performance this spring, Become Immense in Infect (and Infect more generally as a metagame answer), etc. The format is full of these examples, and that's just from the last year!
I'm not as worried with new cards that make sense from the beginning. TC/DTT, Kommand, tasigur, and become immense were all cards that made sense in the decks they were played in. Any card that is essentially Ancestral Recall is good. I will, however, give you Amulet Bloom as the important cards are all a few years old, but it does illustrate my point. It is a complex interaction with cards that have all been around for years that everyone missed until recently. How many more lurk in the depths of modern or who just need one effect to push them into the top? I feel like the better use of our time would be to find these interactions than to hope for a mystic un-ban, or at the very least, be reasonable about its power level. What I was trying to say is that, largely in competitive magic, we tend to prefer what is known. I don't believe we would reshape the format, but it would be too easy to just say, "White is bad in format X so we need OP cards so it's better." We should look for things we missed not wish for those we can't have.
It doesn't completely solve the problem but it gives you a step in the right direction for white. What is there to play in white now? Lingering Souls (which forces you to play black as well to get value) and Path... At least give white A deck to be excited about. It's better to have Vanilla in which to put your toppings on then the option of only Chocolate or Strawberry.
If those are the best cards you can think of for White, it actually just shows how much the color's hurting. You note that Lingering Souls and Wilt-Lief Liege can be cast off of mono-White, but they also suck without the other color; it's like saying you can cast Wild Nacatl in an all-Green deck. Sure, you can, but you need those other colors for it to be worth playing.
Kitchen Finks is good, but isn't that relevant against fair amount of decks. Dryad Militant, Brimaz, and Hero of Bladehold are just okay at best. Thalia is stellar but can only work in specific deck types. Restoration Angel is decent, but honestly, Path to Exile is really the only super amazing card you listed.
You mean a bunch of cards that Affinity generally doesn't play?
Bogols is nothing without the white enchantments and ad nauseam can't even combo off without Angel's Grace.
Neither of those are particularly large forces in the metagame. Also, the White cards they're playing are generally hugely specific and work in no other decks. Other than Ad Nauseam, what runs Angel's Grace or Phyrexian Unlife? Outside of Bogles, what runs all those White enchantments you identified?
Oh, lets not forget Leyline of Sanctity a white card that blanks the most powerful spells in many decks and completely shuts down burn.
It's also a White card that you don't even need White to play. Also, "completely shuts down Burn"? Maybe that would've been true a year or two ago, but nowadays Burn is running Atarka's Command, Destructive Revelry, and Eidolon of the Great Revel. It hurts it, but it hardly completely shuts it down. It's also pretty much exclusively a sideboard card. To be fair, White actually has a lot of good sideboard cards, which is probably the best thing about the color in the format.
The problem is nobody is willing to take a risk at the higher levels. You go to a large tournament you play to win so you only play with a known variable. If you suspect there will be a lot of twin you play something good against twin, if delver is popular burn is the right choice. So instead of playing your FNM White Weenies, you play a tiered deck so you can guarantee a win. It's not that the white deck is bad, it's that no one is willing to take the risk.
Or simply that the decks aren't as good as you're making them out to be. Indeed, that "take the risk" is exactly the problem. Those decks you listed are risky decks. Soul Sisters is killer against aggro but is infamously bad against combo. I've seen some people refer to Bogles as Modern's version of dredge. If you have to take a risk on a deck, that often means the deck isn't that good because you could simply play a deck that's better across the board.
I would agree that white decks need something to be excited for, but we don't do that by unbaning something so splashable. When the Abzan decks drop Rhino( a white card) for mystic, does that make it a white deck now? When Jeskai drops delver to play mystic, is it not still just a snapcaster tempo deck with a stronger finisher?
No. Stone-Blade and Delver are very different decks. You're not dropping Delver to play Mystic (incidentally, is Jeskai Delver even much of a thing?), you're outright changing decks. Not sure what the point is there, though.
So essentially, what you're saying is that, if a card isn't universally played across every tier, in every deck, and splashed just for it, it's not good? If that's the criteria for what is good, then each color has exactly one good card. White=path, blue=snapcaster, black=thoughtseize, red=bolt, and green=tarmogoyf.
Let's take a look at Tier 1 as presented by MTGSalvation and how these cards stack up.
Currently the tier one is:
Gr/Gx Tron
Burn
infect
Merfolk
Jund
Ur twin
Affinity
Abzan
Of these, path is played in 2 decks(if burn is naya), snapcaster is played in 1 deck, thoughtseize is played in 2 decks, bolt is played in 2 decks, and gofy is played in 2 decks. Even if we say liliana is the best black card, she is only played in the same two decks as thoughtseize.
That's like saying splinter twin is a bad card because I can't put it in my infect deck. Or that the urza lands are bad because I can't use them to cast colored spells. So essentially, cards like Ghostly prison, flickerwisp, thalia, Gideon Jura, ethersworn canonist...are not bad, they are good cards with good effects that don't have a home or have a sub par home. Yes, Daybreak Coronet is only good in bogols, but I wouldn't play Lord of Atlantis outside of merfolk either. Does that make him a bad blue card? Modern doesn't have a boogyman like brainstorm, and that's good.
Why are people debating what deck would be helped the most by SFM, or whether that deck would be too good? The problem with the card is that it improves so many decks (UWx flavors, GBx flavors, WGx flavors, etc) that it just seems like an auto-include in so many decks.
Modern would to be in a very very bad place before wotc ever even considers dropping a bomb like that. Modern isn't at that place.
It's like killing a fly with a flamethrower. Maybe it would get the job done, but it would burn a bunch of other #!$% in the process.
Except that there are already cards that just go into every strategy that help decks. Goyf, Snap, bolt, and other cards already do this. The big problem with white as a color in modern is that there is no great reason to use the color outside of path to exile. Stoneforge mystic gives allows decks to actually use white effectively rather than just for a path/sideboard splash. As far as the aggro argument goes aggro decks are already in a great spot, stoneforge takes 2 turns to set up, stoneforge is boltable so you have to wait a turn to even cheat an artifact into play. Stoneforge honestly isn't as strong as it is in legacy because legacy decks run FAR less removal than modern decks to because legacy is a spell based format while modern is a creature based one. I think that Stoneforge would be a fine unban because: it takes an ENTIRE turn to set up, cheating in a batterskull turn 3 isn't broken in the world or turn 3 kills or turn 3 karns, stoneforge strengths white as a color in modern and gives it purpose besides path/sideboard, and stoneforge gives us another power card that helps basically every playstyle. (aggro, control and combo).
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
So essentially, what you're saying is that, if a card isn't universally played across every tier, in every deck, and splashed just for it, it's not good?
No, I am saying that if a card is played in exactly one deck, it shouldn't exactly be held up as some kind of amazing card for its color, especially when the one deck that card is played in isn't that big. Sure, Angel's Grace is critical to Ad Nauseam. It sees play in no other deck and Ad Nauseam isn't a major deck.
If that's the criteria for what is good, then each color has exactly one good card. White=path, blue=snapcaster, black=thoughtseize, red=bolt, and green=tarmogoyf.
Blue has Remand and Serum Visions (how do you list Snapcaster Mage and not Serum Visions? Serum Visions sees more play!), Black has Tasigur and Inquisition of Kozilek, and Green has Scavenging Ooze. I'll grant you that Red doesn't really have anything else in the vein of Lightning Bolt, but Lightning Bolt is also basically in a league of its own compared to all the other cards mentioned, being the most played nonland card in the format... actually, it might be the most played card, period, counting lands.
If Grixis would give Junk/Jund a run for its money with SFM, why isnt it giving a run for its money now? Seems backwards thinking (at least to me) to say we need to add a powerful card such as SFM to make Grixis more powerful against SFM decks. Also, Jund/Junk has not been hated out, bans have brought it back to the field. I just think making Jund/Junk better by adding SFM to the format is dangerous. Modern doesnt have the policing cards like Legacy does to self regulate. What stops everyone from playing SFM Junk and it all of a sudden becomes 20% or more of the meta? I still feel its a bad idea at the moment. Change for sake of change is always bad.
Stoneforge Mystic being legal would cause grixis to be a great deck again because: grixis runs maindeckable artifact hate with kolaghan's command, grixis runs tons of spot removal so many times stoneforge would just die before it can even cheat the equipment into play. In a world where kolaghan's command already sees alot of play, there is already cards like wear/tear or stony silence/rakdos charm that can take care of stoneforge's equipment I don't see how this card is "broken." Stoneforge is about the same power as tarmogoyf to me. Heck, in modern I'd wager that stoneforge is weaker because tamogoyf is a 3/4 or a 4/5 right away.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
See, this is good discussion! First then, what do you think it means to be legacy powered? For me, legacy is the specific subset of cards that cannot and will not be reprinted, not an amorphous and intangible power level. It's difficult to define what makes legacy legacy, and it's difficult to know what players are apprehensive about when approaching the idea of legacy.
By saying legacy powered I mean decks/cards starting to look like this format.
Legacy is defined as the format that needs Force Of Will to prevent consistent turn 1/2 kills everywhere that does not promote pleasant play and make the players happy.
Some would argue that we are already legacy like. Powerful combo, midrange AND Aggro strategies are all prevalent using cards and strategies that are MUCH MUCH higher than the current standard. I think to fully be more legacy like we'd need wasteland, Force of Will, show and tell, and urza-odyssey block.
This is not true as far as I am concerned. As you say Bloom and Shoal is SOOOO far away than Show and tell or Dredge combo...
Yeah the difference in legacy is that fair decks actually have maindeckable answers to the unfair combo decks. In modern fair decks CAN'T DO ANYTHING about a turn 2 kill from infect (gliserner elf with vast of vinewood at turn 2 is a loss for every deck), turn 2 kill from reanimator nor can we do anything about a turn 2 kill from amulet via hive mind kill. To be honest, when you look at the metagame of legacy you see that most of the great decks are infact control decks because they actually have answers. Heck show and tell is literally the splinter twin of their format in how it plays.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
If Grixis would give Junk/Jund a run for its money with SFM, why isnt it giving a run for its money now? Seems backwards thinking (at least to me) to say we need to add a powerful card such as SFM to make Grixis more powerful against SFM decks. Also, Jund/Junk has not been hated out, bans have brought it back to the field. I just think making Jund/Junk better by adding SFM to the format is dangerous. Modern doesnt have the policing cards like Legacy does to self regulate. What stops everyone from playing SFM Junk and it all of a sudden becomes 20% or more of the meta? I still feel its a bad idea at the moment. Change for sake of change is always bad.
Stoneforge Mystic being legal would cause grixis to be a great deck again because: grixis runs maindeckable artifact hate with kolaghan's command, grixis runs tons of spot removal so many times stoneforge would just die before it can even cheat the equipment into play. In a world where kolaghan's command already sees alot of play, there is already cards like wear/tear or stony silence/rakdos charm that can take care of stoneforge's equipment I don't see how this card is "broken." Stoneforge is about the same power as tarmogoyf to me. Heck, in modern I'd wager that stoneforge is weaker because tamogoyf is a 3/4 or a 4/5 right away.
But thats my point, K-command is already being played and the SFM-artifact package would just add to a deck, not be the deck. I dont understand how Grixis gets so much better by a deck adding a few cards. The Junk players just have to learn how to play against Grixis. Players know how to play around removal or counters.
Also, most players agree Goyf is th weakest of the 2 drops. He does nothing but beat. SFM is a tutor and can cheat out equipment and had legs. Snappy and Bob are stronger then both Goyf and SFM.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Would people say that the Abzan vs. Grixis Control (or Grixis Midrange) matchup is about 40-60 for Grixis? 45-55? I ask because I like identifying the matchups before we think about testing. For instance, I like that Abzan vs. Affinity is a flat 50-50 in almost all MWP calculations I've seen. That makes it easy to test Abzan+SFM vs. Affinity to see if it warps the percentage. But what about for Abzan vs. Grixis?
As was said a few posts up, Grixis can run a list that is basically 2-1.deck against these low cmc junk stone blade lists. Grixis would do just fine in that meta to the point that I think it might be able to keep abzan under control. Combo would be able to take advantage of this midrange meta and aggro can continue to do what it does now.
Ktk- it's difficult to test all of these things because the unbanning of a major card that will see play will cause plenty of lists to adapt, so it's almost unfair to play non sfm lists against sfm because they'd almost certainly change (like the case with Grixis). Like if AV were to be unbanned I'd expect remand heavy decks to begin to rise in prominence, but that's just so difficult to predict.
Just pick something that doesn't make me sound like Sean Connery, guys. Here are the results of 100 goldfished games:Turn 1 Kills: 0 -- I've achieved this exactly once ever.
Turn 2 Kills: 7
Turn 3 Kills: 30
Turn 4 Kills: 38
Turn 5+ Kills: 25
"Kill" here meaning getting Griselbrand or Worldspine Wurm into play. There's a small percentage chance that Griselbrand fizzles, but I ignored that for the time being as I've found the chances of fizzling only matter once the combo player gets below 15 life, which seldom happens while goldfishing.
As with last time, this means over the course of a 30-45 game tournament, 11.1-16.65 -- a little more than a third -- of the goldfish you play are going to complain about how degenerate your deck is. However, since my last post, I've realized a problem with this conclusion:
All of these goldfish games -- these as well as the Bloom ones previously -- were performed on the play. Being on the draw against a goldfish obviously gives the combo decks slightly higher percentage chance of drawing what they need, though it also inherently puts them behind in tempo. With Griselbrand specifically, being on the draw also provides an additional discard outlet to seven card hands if necessary. So that's something I (or anyone else) will need to do when I (or they) have time.
-r
Had a penchant for trick'ry and teasin'.
The very last line
Might seem sans design
What I mean is without why or wherefore.
-Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
Modern would to be in a very very bad place before wotc ever even considers dropping a bomb like that. Modern isn't at that place.
It's like killing a fly with a flamethrower. Maybe it would get the job done, but it would burn a bunch of other #!$% in the process.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)We already have cards like it in Goyf, Snapcaster and Bob that demand to be played in decks that have their colors. SFM would just give that option to white decks as well. There is nothing wrong with that.
I would understand this argument if we were talking about SFM NOT being banned. However the discussion was prompted from the assumption that fair decks might need some help.
Fair decks need some love? Sure lets release one of the most powerful 2 drops ever printed on the format. Seems completely reasonable.
/rollseyes
It is just way too extreme of a response considering modern isn't exactly dying or anything. The format is at a relatively good place, and probably needs some gently pushes in certain directions to get a better balance. Not a punch in the face.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)It wouldnt have a negative impact on the format anymore so than most of the other most played "fair" cards. When the fair decks are having trouble or problems against linear and degenerate decks then either ban the problems or give the fair players a reason to play the fair decks over something abusable like Grishoalbrand in a larger event.
U Tron
GW Bogles
RG Loam
UR Blue Breach
RBU Grixis Goryo
BRU Grixis Delver
GBR Jund
GBW Junk
Active Legacy Decks
BR Reanimator
This. I am not advocating that fair decks need "help" because they aren't as good. I am advocating that SFM isn't too powerful for Modern and as such, should not be banned. SFM was never allowed into modern and I think (with the testing some of us are trying to do) we can prove if that is justified or not. Currently in my testing it is looking like it is not justified to leave it banned.
Those other popular fair cards already exist in the modern ecosystem. We are talking about releasing an equally (if not more) powerful beast onto the format. That is a completely different paradigm.
Are fair decks in such a bad spot that a card on the level of Snapcaster Mage needs to be introduced? I am saying that they are not.
They need help for sure, but there is no way to fully predict the ramifications of unbanning such a powerful card. Are some modern legal cards as powerful as SFM? Sure. However there is no telling that unbanning SFM wouldn't overshoot the mark and put modern in an equally bad position (if not worse). Why would wotc even take that risk? Especially with a card they will probably never reprint in another modern legal set; which means that there will just be another instant modern staple in very low supply.
This is why bannings are more commonplace than unbannings. Changes should be incremental and surgical in nature. SFM is a blunt instrument.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)SFM could easily be reprinted in standard. It is only as strong as the equipment it can tutor for. WotC has already come out and said they will never print equipment on the level of the swords or batterskull ever again. SFM by itself isn't all that strong.
It doesn't because Abzan is currently not affected by artifact removal. If Abzan uses its slots to play 4 SFM and 2-3 equipments, K-Command, Electrolyze and Spell Snare get a lot stronger. I'd think that Grixis Control would at least play 3 Spell Snare, 2 K-Commands and 1 Electrolyze.
If BGx breaks cards that only seem too strong in Modern (BBE) and break other good stuff cards, maybe something is wrong with the core shell itself.
If you want to play blue but not play mage, you play merfolk. If you want to play green but not goyf, you can play Amulet Bloom or Infect. Don't want to play liliana/confidant but like black? Tasigur and his fish say hello. Red is a support color in many decks and its burn power stretches far from "just bolt" now. But what does white have? Thalia? Death and taxes? The current best white cards that aren't already played in junk are anti-synergistic in modern. You can't jam the stoneforge package into D&T in modern because we don't have the denial package to back it up like legacy does.
The question is does it solve a problem? No, it does not. We have 8-9 tier 1 decks and many tier 2 decks in modern right now so I would say there is no problem. That's a pretty wide playing field. Every color is represented in the top decks. Yes, some more than others, but there will never be an even 20% split. There has never been a split like that in the years I've played (since Betrayers). It's not like legacy where you start with a blue deck then decide what other cards you want to play.
If a card MIGHT break the format, it is better not to risk it than have to clean up a mess down the line.
It doesn't completely solve the problem but it gives you a step in the right direction for white. What is there to play in white now? Lingering Souls (which forces you to play black as well to get value) and Path... At least give white A deck to be excited about. It's better to have Vanilla in which to put your toppings on then the option of only Chocolate or Strawberry.
I play Modern (the only format I play) 3 days a week competitively, test another 2 or 3 depending on the play groups schedule, have the cards to make any deck and usually carry 3-5 decks with me to play test or give me a choice after I see what everyone else is playing. I understand what SFM will do to Modern. Just because I disagree with you and the idea of SFM in the format, dont assume you know me or my knowledge of Modern.
So Grixis adds cards to fight a package for SFM, but SFM would be only a part of the deck, not the main line of winning. With Goyf, Bob, and Snapcaster (not to mention a bunch more 2 drop spells) in the format, why isnt Grixis already playing 3 Spell Snare? It doesnt add up, so Grixis shifts its fight against one aspect of the deck and its suppose to event things out? I dont see it happening.
What does white have? Path to Exile, Lingering Souls, Kitchen Finks/Wilt-Leaf Liege/Dryad Militant (all of which can be cast as mono white), Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Hero of Bladehold, Restoration Angel and those are just the mono white cards you can pull from the Tier 1 Abzan primer. Then you have Ethersworn Canonist/Dispatch/Tempered Steel for robots, Bogols is nothing without the white enchantments and ad nauseam can't even combo off without Angel's Grace. Do you want to play mono white? Let me introduce you to the Sisters of Soul and their friends Serra Ascendant and Martyr of Sands. Oh, lets not forget Leyline of Sanctity a white card that blanks the most powerful spells in many decks and completely shuts down burn.
The problem is nobody is willing to take a risk at the higher levels. You go to a large tournament you play to win so you only play with a known variable. If you suspect there will be a lot of twin you play something good against twin, if delver is popular burn is the right choice. So instead of playing your FNM White Weenies, you play a tiered deck so you can guarantee a win. It's not that the white deck is bad, it's that no one is willing to take the risk.
I would agree that white decks need something to be excited for, but we don't do that by unbaning something so splashable. When the Abzan decks drop Rhino( a white card) for mystic, does that make it a white deck now? When Jeskai drops delver to play mystic, is it not still just a snapcaster tempo deck with a stronger finisher? What we need are better prison effects. I feel white is good at two things; little synergistic creatures and locking players out of the game. Give me more thalia, Vryn Wingmare, and Ghostly Prison cards and let me make mono white control, but don't overpower the decks that are already tier 1+2.
I was largely in agreement with this post and your last few, but this bolded bit isn't really accurate, at least as it pertains to white. There's this myth that some strategies, cards, and decktypes are secretly much stronger than the rest of the format realizes. Although there is some truth to this when it's taken up by players who are experts in those decks (see Lantern Control at GP Oklahoma City), for the most part it's just a myth. There are just so many players in Modern and there's a lot of incentive to try and get ahead of the format. When new decks and cards are truly strong, not just strong in theory, they almost always make a big impact. See the Jund to Abzan shift last year, the immediate adoption of TC/DTT by many decks, Kolaghan's Command and Tasigur, Amulet Bloom's breakout performance this spring, Become Immense in Infect (and Infect more generally as a metagame answer), etc. The format is full of these examples, and that's just from the last year!
If something isn't succeeding after a long period of time, that probably means it's not good enough to succeed on a widespread level. You might be able to exploit some metagame gap with it, but you aren't going to reshape the format. Almost all the white cards you mentioned have been around for a long time, and many players have tried to break past tiers 2 and 3 with those cards. Some succeed (see Bogles, Abzan, and Jeskai Control back when it was just "UWR Control"). Many do not.
Of course, none of this suggests SFM is a necessary or even a good/healthy unban. It's just to say that white probably does need a shot in the arm. Should SFM be that injection? My suspicion is "no", but I'd love to see testing data to support it. But the color would benefit from some help, even if SFM (quite probably) turns out to be too much.
I'm not as worried with new cards that make sense from the beginning. TC/DTT, Kommand, tasigur, and become immense were all cards that made sense in the decks they were played in. Any card that is essentially Ancestral Recall is good. I will, however, give you Amulet Bloom as the important cards are all a few years old, but it does illustrate my point. It is a complex interaction with cards that have all been around for years that everyone missed until recently. How many more lurk in the depths of modern or who just need one effect to push them into the top? I feel like the better use of our time would be to find these interactions than to hope for a mystic un-ban, or at the very least, be reasonable about its power level. What I was trying to say is that, largely in competitive magic, we tend to prefer what is known. I don't believe we would reshape the format, but it would be too easy to just say, "White is bad in format X so we need OP cards so it's better." We should look for things we missed not wish for those we can't have.
Kitchen Finks is good, but isn't that relevant against fair amount of decks. Dryad Militant, Brimaz, and Hero of Bladehold are just okay at best. Thalia is stellar but can only work in specific deck types. Restoration Angel is decent, but honestly, Path to Exile is really the only super amazing card you listed.
You mean a bunch of cards that Affinity generally doesn't play?
Neither of those are particularly large forces in the metagame. Also, the White cards they're playing are generally hugely specific and work in no other decks. Other than Ad Nauseam, what runs Angel's Grace or Phyrexian Unlife? Outside of Bogles, what runs all those White enchantments you identified?
Too bad that deck is Tier 3.
It's also a White card that you don't even need White to play. Also, "completely shuts down Burn"? Maybe that would've been true a year or two ago, but nowadays Burn is running Atarka's Command, Destructive Revelry, and Eidolon of the Great Revel. It hurts it, but it hardly completely shuts it down. It's also pretty much exclusively a sideboard card. To be fair, White actually has a lot of good sideboard cards, which is probably the best thing about the color in the format.
Or simply that the decks aren't as good as you're making them out to be. Indeed, that "take the risk" is exactly the problem. Those decks you listed are risky decks. Soul Sisters is killer against aggro but is infamously bad against combo. I've seen some people refer to Bogles as Modern's version of dredge. If you have to take a risk on a deck, that often means the deck isn't that good because you could simply play a deck that's better across the board.
No. Stone-Blade and Delver are very different decks. You're not dropping Delver to play Mystic (incidentally, is Jeskai Delver even much of a thing?), you're outright changing decks. Not sure what the point is there, though.
So essentially, what you're saying is that, if a card isn't universally played across every tier, in every deck, and splashed just for it, it's not good? If that's the criteria for what is good, then each color has exactly one good card. White=path, blue=snapcaster, black=thoughtseize, red=bolt, and green=tarmogoyf.
Let's take a look at Tier 1 as presented by MTGSalvation and how these cards stack up.
Currently the tier one is:
Gr/Gx Tron
Burn
infect
Merfolk
Jund
Ur twin
Affinity
Abzan
Of these, path is played in 2 decks(if burn is naya), snapcaster is played in 1 deck, thoughtseize is played in 2 decks, bolt is played in 2 decks, and gofy is played in 2 decks. Even if we say liliana is the best black card, she is only played in the same two decks as thoughtseize.
That's like saying splinter twin is a bad card because I can't put it in my infect deck. Or that the urza lands are bad because I can't use them to cast colored spells. So essentially, cards like Ghostly prison, flickerwisp, thalia, Gideon Jura, ethersworn canonist...are not bad, they are good cards with good effects that don't have a home or have a sub par home. Yes, Daybreak Coronet is only good in bogols, but I wouldn't play Lord of Atlantis outside of merfolk either. Does that make him a bad blue card? Modern doesn't have a boogyman like brainstorm, and that's good.
Except that there are already cards that just go into every strategy that help decks. Goyf, Snap, bolt, and other cards already do this. The big problem with white as a color in modern is that there is no great reason to use the color outside of path to exile. Stoneforge mystic gives allows decks to actually use white effectively rather than just for a path/sideboard splash. As far as the aggro argument goes aggro decks are already in a great spot, stoneforge takes 2 turns to set up, stoneforge is boltable so you have to wait a turn to even cheat an artifact into play. Stoneforge honestly isn't as strong as it is in legacy because legacy decks run FAR less removal than modern decks to because legacy is a spell based format while modern is a creature based one. I think that Stoneforge would be a fine unban because: it takes an ENTIRE turn to set up, cheating in a batterskull turn 3 isn't broken in the world or turn 3 kills or turn 3 karns, stoneforge strengths white as a color in modern and gives it purpose besides path/sideboard, and stoneforge gives us another power card that helps basically every playstyle. (aggro, control and combo).
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Blue has Remand and Serum Visions (how do you list Snapcaster Mage and not Serum Visions? Serum Visions sees more play!), Black has Tasigur and Inquisition of Kozilek, and Green has Scavenging Ooze. I'll grant you that Red doesn't really have anything else in the vein of Lightning Bolt, but Lightning Bolt is also basically in a league of its own compared to all the other cards mentioned, being the most played nonland card in the format... actually, it might be the most played card, period, counting lands.
Stoneforge Mystic being legal would cause grixis to be a great deck again because: grixis runs maindeckable artifact hate with kolaghan's command, grixis runs tons of spot removal so many times stoneforge would just die before it can even cheat the equipment into play. In a world where kolaghan's command already sees alot of play, there is already cards like wear/tear or stony silence/rakdos charm that can take care of stoneforge's equipment I don't see how this card is "broken." Stoneforge is about the same power as tarmogoyf to me. Heck, in modern I'd wager that stoneforge is weaker because tamogoyf is a 3/4 or a 4/5 right away.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Yeah the difference in legacy is that fair decks actually have maindeckable answers to the unfair combo decks. In modern fair decks CAN'T DO ANYTHING about a turn 2 kill from infect (gliserner elf with vast of vinewood at turn 2 is a loss for every deck), turn 2 kill from reanimator nor can we do anything about a turn 2 kill from amulet via hive mind kill. To be honest, when you look at the metagame of legacy you see that most of the great decks are infact control decks because they actually have answers. Heck show and tell is literally the splinter twin of their format in how it plays.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
But thats my point, K-command is already being played and the SFM-artifact package would just add to a deck, not be the deck. I dont understand how Grixis gets so much better by a deck adding a few cards. The Junk players just have to learn how to play against Grixis. Players know how to play around removal or counters.
Also, most players agree Goyf is th weakest of the 2 drops. He does nothing but beat. SFM is a tutor and can cheat out equipment and had legs. Snappy and Bob are stronger then both Goyf and SFM.