These are the problems brought on by the genius idea of banning cards before the format even starts... well done WotC!!! Bravo!!!
PR man. PR. They didn't want the busted Extended decks of old to destroy their fledgling format before it even started.
In other news: I refuse to be a part of this thread if people are going to talk about the artifact lands as if they're ok to unban. 1 person trying 1 deck out for one article/video series does NOTHING to prove what the community could do with artifact lands.
Meh... They could have banned them soon after the start of the format. But we've had this conversation several times and I don't want Bocephus to remind me "It's WotC's sandbox, you have a choice."
In other news: Let them talk about the artifact lands, Lantern Control would love to have those and guarantee a turn 1 mox opal activation lol.
I still don't think it needs a ban beyond hivemind. I think a consistent turn 3 titan is perfectly interactible, whether or not it is followed by subsequent Titans. I'm also interested to see what it's ACTUAL win turn percentages are, since the only numbers I've seen are "virtual wins" which is hard to take seriously. I think the comparison to storm is problematic since storm is ACTUALLY very uninteractive compared to bloom. I also think the common comparison of summer bloom to seething song is silly as well since you have to jump through so many more hoops with bloom.
But hey, we'll see in short time if wizards agrees.
It's literally Storm. How is Bloom that different from Seething Song?
Storm is identically as uninteractive as Storm, except graveyard hoses Storm, and it can't blank discard spells. Azusa, Lost but Seeking=Goblin Electromancer
Who the hell cares if you have to jump through more hoops, it still does broken things, you're sidestepping the issue and making excuses
Amulet itself is literally a green Storm with more resilency.
You don't have to count virtitual losses, but Bobby in his article said he's never lost a game with a resolved turn 2 Titan
Turn 2 Titan isn't an auto win, but it's more often than not, a soft lock win
Bloom requires Amulet of Vigor on the field and 2 Karoo lands in hand to do anything meaningful? Seething Song requires nothing on the field?
And you running T-Seize and IoK, cards specifically designed to eliminate the opponent's ability to interact with you is really funny.
So you got hosed by Leyline of Sanctity by a Bloom player. How is that different than getting hosed by Leyline against Burn, Infect, Jund, Junk, Twin, Tron, or ANY OTHER DECK? And then you got hurt by them playing a sideboard only card designed specifically to combat your strategy.
"Scissors is OP, Rock is balanced"
-Paper.
Honestly, if you have played the deck enough you should have figured out how resilient it was and how it was not gonna survive bannings when January rolled around. It's currently the cheapest Tier 1 deck in both paper/MTGO. It's kind of your fault for not abusing such a powerful deck to farm store credit/MTGO tickets. I own the deck in paper and I played it cold (no goldfishing) this week and the things this deck can do are disgusting. If this deck doesn't get touched the Modern PT will be so narrow to the point where the meta will be Bloom decks/decks that beat Bloom. I wouldn't mind this meta personally, but a lot of you probably wouldn't want to watch 6+ matches of Bloom on camera at the Pro Tour.
I've also played the deck to know that Turn 2 haste Titan and Turn 3 Titan spam are extremely rare closet cases. The deck can pump out Titans on 3 with consistent turn 4 or 5 Titan afterwards, depending on the matchup. To do anything degenerate requires multiple Amulets in hand, which rarely happens even with Ancient Stirrings. Players at my local shops have learned to deal with the deck easily. If I'm on the draw, an Abrupt Decay hitting Amulet can wreck my whole gameplan. Burn brings in Vandalblast and hits Amulet. If your hand is Bloom, Karoo, Karoo, Pact, Titan and they pop your Amulet, you get to watch the next couple turns go by while they beat your face.
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You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
These are the problems brought on by the genius idea of banning cards before the format even starts... well done WotC!!! Bravo!!!
PR man. PR. They didn't want the busted Extended decks of old to destroy their fledgling format before it even started.
In other news: I refuse to be a part of this thread if people are going to talk about the artifact lands as if they're ok to unban. 1 person trying 1 deck out for one article/video series does NOTHING to prove what the community could do with artifact lands.
Every time someone mentions cards like bbe or artifact lands people who think that they would destroy the format fail to construct a coherent argument and always hide behind that "oh you don't know anything i refuse to talk with you..." shield... Come on! How is replacing your precious manlands with artifact lands a straight upside?
You increase the rate at which metalcraft is turned on. Affinity ACTUALLY becomes affinity again and uses Disciple of the vault. Tezzerator makes a strong case to become tier 1. Hell, Kuldotha goblins becomes a turn 2/3 deck. The artifact lands are BUSTED as hell - simply slotting them into modern robots makes absolutely no sense and does nothing to actually take advantage of them.
It "virtually" wins on Turn 3 a large portion of the time. According to what you guys seems to think a "virtual" win is, them flashing in Exarch on 3 and you having no answer is a "virtual" win.
Exarch is usually cast on 3 with no followup, it also does not win the game on it's own, or enable winning the game the way Titan does. Exarch requires a Twin in hand. Titan when ETB finds another Titan which finds another and then another. 1 removal spell stops Twin if it's cast on T4. You need 4 exile based removal spells to stop Titan (if you destroy, they'll just get it back with Mortuary Mire)
It "virtually" wins on Turn 3 a large portion of the time. According to what you guys seems to think a "virtual" win is, them flashing in Exarch on 3 and you having no answer is a "virtual" win.
Exarch is usually cast on 3 with no followup, it also does not win the game on it's own, or enable winning the game the way Titan does. Exarch requires a Twin in hand. Titan when ETB finds another Titan which finds another and then another. 1 removal spell stops Twin if it's cast on T4. You need 4 exile based removal spells to stop Titan (if you destroy, they'll just get it back with Mortuary Mire)
You do realize Summoner's Pact has a cost right? And that if you tutor for a Pact with Tolaria West, you likely won't be able to cast a Titan that turn?
Again, I wonder how many railing against the deck have actually piloted it, even if just on Cockatrice or TappedOut.
If you flash in Exarch on 3 and there is no response, the game is over by a "virtual" metric. Obviously the Twin player didn't just flash in his win condition for giggles.
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You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
You do realize Summoner's Pact has a cost right? And that if you tutor for a Pact with Tolaria West, you likely won't be able to cast a Titan that turn?
Again, I wonder how many railing against the deck have actually piloted it, even if just on Cockatrice or TappedOut.
If you flash in Exarch on 3 and there is no response, the game is over by a "virtual" metric. Obviously the Twin player didn't just flash in his win condition for giggles.
Yes, I realize Summoner's Pact has a cost. But it's not a cost paid on that turn. If you play a Titan on T2 and it dies, you will have additional Titan's on turns 3-4, 5, and 6 or possibly 2 on 5.
Twin on the other hand, if they flash in an Exarch on 3, they are tapped out and you can use any removal you want on the Exarch. The Exarch does not come in and contribute to finding another combo piece. And yes, often times you do just flash in an Exarch on 3 for giggles. Though against Bloom specifically you don't want to end step an Exarch on 3.
It "virtually" wins on Turn 3 a large portion of the time. According to what you guys seems to think a "virtual" win is, them flashing in Exarch on 3 and you having no answer is a "virtual" win.
Exarch is usually cast on 3 with no followup, it also does not win the game on it's own, or enable winning the game the way Titan does. Exarch requires a Twin in hand. Titan when ETB finds another Titan which finds another and then another. 1 removal spell stops Twin if it's cast on T4. You need 4 exile based removal spells to stop Titan (if you destroy, they'll just get it back with Mortuary Mire)
You do realize Summoner's Pact has a cost right? And that if you tutor for a Pact with Tolaria West, you likely won't be able to cast a Titan that turn?
Again, I wonder how many railing against the deck have actually piloted it, even if just on Cockatrice or TappedOut.
If you flash in Exarch on 3 and there is no response, the game is over by a "virtual" metric. Obviously the Twin player didn't just flash in his win condition for giggles.
"Virtual wins" have not been mentioned in actual ban announcements or other articulations of Modern policy. Because of that, we should exclude them from our analysis of any Modern decks, whether Bloom, Twin, Affinity, Jund, etc. There's just too much speculation around this and not enough evidence. This is particularly true because all of the previous turn four rule violators actually won on turn three or earlier. They didn't have virtual wins.
It "virtually" wins on Turn 3 a large portion of the time. According to what you guys seems to think a "virtual" win is, them flashing in Exarch on 3 and you having no answer is a "virtual" win.
Exarch is usually cast on 3 with no followup, it also does not win the game on it's own, or enable winning the game the way Titan does. Exarch requires a Twin in hand. Titan when ETB finds another Titan which finds another and then another. 1 removal spell stops Twin if it's cast on T4. You need 4 exile based removal spells to stop Titan (if you destroy, they'll just get it back with Mortuary Mire)
You do realize Summoner's Pact has a cost right? And that if you tutor for a Pact with Tolaria West, you likely won't be able to cast a Titan that turn?
Again, I wonder how many railing against the deck have actually piloted it, even if just on Cockatrice or TappedOut.
If you flash in Exarch on 3 and there is no response, the game is over by a "virtual" metric. Obviously the Twin player didn't just flash in his win condition for giggles.
You also realize that opponent conceding to said Summoner's Pact with a Hive Mind negates the cost. Just because your local metagame extremely hostile towards your deck reinforces the fact that Amulet Bloom cannot be contained by normal means. I just piloted the deck cold this Tuesday and 2-0'ed everything that wasn't Splinter Twin or Infect. I've played 8 matches, I've gotten the turn 2 kill once and a lot of virtual wins on turn 3. So many of the games my opponent just had nonsense that does nothing to interact with my deck.
You know I can kind of relate to Amulet bloom players. I didn't want DRS banned back in the day and I wouldn't
yield any ground regardless of facts, but this is getting into finger in ears and singing "lalala, I can't hear you" territory.
You know I can kind of relate to Amulet bloom players. I didn't want DRS banned back in the day and I wouldn't
yield any ground regardless of facts, but this is getting into finger in ears and singing "lalala, I can't hear you" territory.
Yeah, because aside from nut draws on camera there's so much evidence being posted here.
Oh, wait.
These are the problems brought on by the genius idea of banning cards before the format even starts... well done WotC!!! Bravo!!!
PR man. PR. They didn't want the busted Extended decks of old to destroy their fledgling format before it even started.
In other news: I refuse to be a part of this thread if people are going to talk about the artifact lands as if they're ok to unban. 1 person trying 1 deck out for one article/video series does NOTHING to prove what the community could do with artifact lands.
Every time someone mentions cards like bbe or artifact lands people who think that they would destroy the format fail to construct a coherent argument and always hide behind that "oh you don't know anything i refuse to talk with you..." shield... Come on! How is replacing your precious manlands with artifact lands a straight upside?
I would be okay with artifact land unban for sure if the format had artifact wipes in the same class as Back to Nature or Patrician's Scorn. But it doesn't.
I also still feel that Tron is more of a format problem than Bloom Titan, as I think Bloom Titan folds to any reasonable control deck running stuff like Path and any sort of non-remand counterspell. It's been a consistent 50/50 matchup vs. my Tier 2 BW token deck, so I have a hard to time believing that the format can't combat it so much as I think the format is held back from countering it by certain other decks.
You know I can kind of relate to Amulet bloom players. I didn't want DRS banned back in the day and I wouldn't
yield any ground regardless of facts, but this is getting into finger in ears and singing "lalala, I can't hear you" territory.
Yeah, because aside from nut draws on camera there's so much evidence being posted here.
Oh, wait.
Sheridan's made repeated and so far undisputed claims that Bloom is well into the danger zone, with numbers comparable to Storm right before Storm's biggest enabler was banned. Can you give us a) counterarguments also grounded in data, or b) a reason to disbelieve him? Failing that, at least a reason you don't think that constitutes evidence? He even has the Sparknotes version pasted on Quiet Speculation, so AFAIK anyone with a subscription could corroborate.
I'd also add that I don't think we've seen any solid numbers to support the position of no bans for Amulet Bloom.
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WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
You know I can kind of relate to Amulet bloom players. I didn't want DRS banned back in the day and I wouldn't
yield any ground regardless of facts, but this is getting into finger in ears and singing "lalala, I can't hear you" territory.
Yeah, because aside from nut draws on camera there's so much evidence being posted here.
Oh, wait.
There has been so much anecdotal and data based discussion of this deck in the past year, and Ktkenshinx has mentioned a hard data based article coming on tuesday about a million times by now.
Just my two cents, I've got 3 friends who have played this deck dedicatedly since it debuted. They all produce consistent fast plays. No it's not every game or even every round, but neither is a pre turn 4 win christmas land for the deck. Just the other night one of said friends got a turn 2 win and a turn 3 win Round 1 at a wednesday night modern event against infect, and got a couple more early wins the rest of the night in a 4 round event. I asked him how unusual that night's performance was for him and he said "not extremely common but not that unusual either." This is someone who just bought 4 foiled Primeval Titans and has no interest whatsoever in seeing the deck banned.
But at this point I'm just waiting for the article and the actual ban list update rather than trying to argue with the sun about it in this thread, and I'm sure many posters and lurkers here feel the same.
As an amulet bloom player, I'm hoping for the deck to stay unbanned. It wouldn't make sense to ban it. It is less than 5 percent of the meta, and it only gets a turn 1 or 2 win when the stars align. This is also true with storm and infect, and there's no talk about that getting unbanned.
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(On Lantern Control)"A guy who literally just sits there and mills cards he doesn't like from your library while he slowly, slowly kills you this way."
"If a person's profile includes anime or My Little Pony, feel free to ignore everything they say."
You know I can kind of relate to Amulet bloom players. I didn't want DRS banned back in the day and I wouldn't
yield any ground regardless of facts, but this is getting into finger in ears and singing "lalala, I can't hear you" territory.
Yeah, because aside from nut draws on camera there's so much evidence being posted here.
Oh, wait.
Sheridan's made repeated and so far undisputed claims that Bloom is well into the danger zone, with numbers comparable to Storm right before Storm's biggest enabler was banned. Can you give us a) counterarguments also grounded in data, or b) a reason to disbelieve him? Failing that, at least a reason you don't think that constitutes evidence? He even has the Sparknotes version pasted on Quiet Speculation, so AFAIK anyone with a subscription could corroborate.
I'd also add that I don't think we've seen any solid numbers to support the position of no bans for Amulet Bloom.
Simply put, I haven't seen the numbers. I'm not a subscriber to QS. I can't give counterarguments to data that I can't see, so that's a foolish thing to ask for. And it doesn't constitute evidence because it's just not there to see. I have no doubt that Sheridan's statements reflect the numbers he got. I'm not trying to say he's exaggerating things. I do want to read the article before I accept it as fact though.
You realize that asking for "solid numbers to support the position of no bans for Amulet Bloom" is the definition of requiring proof of a negative? I've said before there's no numbers publicly either way, so attempting to call me out on that is interesting.
As an amulet bloom player, I'm hoping for the deck to stay unbanned. It wouldn't make sense to ban it. It is less than 5 percent of the meta, and it only gets a turn 1 or 2 win when the stars align. This is also true with storm and infect, and there's no talk about that getting unbanned.
Storm is poorly positioned for a lot of reasons, and everything in infect dies to every main decked removal spell. Amulet is significantly harder to interact with, attacks from several angles that require different interaction, and grinds value while doing so. That's why no one talks about bans for the other two but Amulet ban discussion is on the table. FWIW I believe Infect is currently tier 2 at modernnexus and Storm is either tier 2 or lower, which means they are much less likely to meet the Top Tier condition of the Turn 4 rule ban requirements.
You know I can kind of relate to Amulet bloom players. I didn't want DRS banned back in the day and I wouldn't
yield any ground regardless of facts, but this is getting into finger in ears and singing "lalala, I can't hear you" territory.
Yeah, because aside from nut draws on camera there's so much evidence being posted here.
Oh, wait.
There has been so much anecdotal and data based discussion of this deck in the past year, and Ktkenshinx has mentioned a hard data based article coming on tuesday about a million times by now.
Well, anecdotal evidence isn't, and yes - he's mentioned this article a lot. I'm not attempting to call him into question whatsoever, but I haven't been able to see the data so I can't take it into account.
Just my two cents, I've got 3 friends who have played this deck dedicatedly since it debuted. They all produce consistent fast plays. No it's not every game or even every round, but neither is a pre turn 4 win christmas land for the deck. Just the other night one of said friends got a turn 2 win and a turn 3 win Round 1 at a wednesday night modern event against infect, and got a couple more early wins the rest of the night in a 4 round event. I asked him how unusual that night's performance was for him and he said "not extremely common but not that unusual either." This is someone who just bought 4 foiled Primeval Titans and has no interest whatsoever in seeing the deck banned.
You know I can kind of relate to Amulet bloom players. I didn't want DRS banned back in the day and I wouldn't
yield any ground regardless of facts, but this is getting into finger in ears and singing "lalala, I can't hear you" territory.
Yeah, because aside from nut draws on camera there's so much evidence being posted here.
Oh, wait.
Sheridan's made repeated and so far undisputed claims that Bloom is well into the danger zone, with numbers comparable to Storm right before Storm's biggest enabler was banned. Can you give us a) counterarguments also grounded in data, or b) a reason to disbelieve him? Failing that, at least a reason you don't think that constitutes evidence? He even has the Sparknotes version pasted on Quiet Speculation, so AFAIK anyone with a subscription could corroborate.
I'd also add that I don't think we've seen any solid numbers to support the position of no bans for Amulet Bloom.
Simply put, I haven't seen the numbers. I'm not a subscriber to QS. I can't give counterarguments to data that I can't see, so that's a foolish thing to ask for. And it doesn't constitute evidence because it's just not there to see. I have no doubt that Sheridan's statements reflect the numbers he got. I'm not trying to say he's exaggerating things. I do want to read the article before I accept it as fact though.
You realize that asking for "solid numbers to support the position of no bans for Amulet Bloom" is the definition of requiring proof of a negative? I've said before there's no numbers publicly either way, so attempting to call me out on that is interesting.
Yeah, I see no issue with that. Can't argue against numbers you haven't seen, and I'm standing by my decision to wait until Tuesday to release them as part of an article rather than stealing my own thunder with posting them here and basically writing the article out in this thread.
That said, I'm sad that Bloom's defense is always just "the numbers aren't there". I'd rather someone actually try to make a case, using some hard evidence, that the deck isn't consistently winning before turn four. The top-tier case is decided so there isn't much arguing to do there. But the consistent win piece is more up in the air.
Storm is tier three or lower, and needs a lucky run without BGx and Burn to run well. It struggles to put together turn three wins during real games, and you usually go for it turn four. You can throw in SSG to increase your potential win turn, but you will be lowering the decks overall consistency. I don't understand why people bring up current Storm builds when talking about current unfair decks. I love storm, but it's a none factor in todays meta. Lets focus on the actual good unfair decks please?
As an amulet bloom player, I'm hoping for the deck to stay unbanned. It wouldn't make sense to ban it. It is less than 5 percent of the meta, and it only gets a turn 1 or 2 win when the stars align. This is also true with storm and infect, and there's no talk about that getting unbanned.
Storm makes up about 1% of the metagame. Maybe 2% on a good day. It's not top-tier and thus doesn't fall victim to the turn four rule. Remember that the turn four explicitly refers only to "top-tier decks".
Infect is a more open question. That deck is certainly top-tier, but I don't have a lot of good data on its win-turn.
Yeah, I see no issue with that. Can't argue against numbers you haven't seen, and I'm standing by my decision to wait until Tuesday to release them as part of an article rather than stealing my own thunder with posting them here and basically writing the article out in this thread.
Sure - and to be clear, I'm not asking you to steal your own thunder.
That said, I'm sad that Bloom's defense is always just "the numbers aren't there". I'd rather someone actually try to make a case, using some hard evidence, that the deck isn't consistently winning before turn four. The top-tier case is decided so there isn't much arguing to do there. But the consistent win piece is more up in the air.
Well, like what? "Bloom just isn't that fast!" That's a foolish thing to say - it definitely can be. "Bloom can't kill turn 2!" It can, with the right cards. Other decks can as well though, so that's not a relevant statement.
I started to run the math on the odds of having the right cards for a pre-turn-4 win but I ran into need more math than I know to get there.
what decks are being pushed out of the meta or being oppressed by bloom? i dont play the deck but i find the ban happy attitude saddening. modern should have a moderate power level, not a mediocre one.
You know I can kind of relate to Amulet bloom players. I didn't want DRS banned back in the day and I wouldn't
yield any ground regardless of facts, but this is getting into finger in ears and singing "lalala, I can't hear you" territory.
Yeah, because aside from nut draws on camera there's so much evidence being posted here.
Oh, wait.
There has been so much anecdotal and data based discussion of this deck in the past year, and Ktkenshinx has mentioned a hard data based article coming on tuesday about a million times by now.
Well, anecdotal evidence isn't, and yes - he's mentioned this article a lot. I'm not attempting to call him into question whatsoever, but I haven't been able to see the data so I can't take it into account.
Just my two cents, I've got 3 friends who have played this deck dedicatedly since it debuted. They all produce consistent fast plays. No it's not every game or even every round, but neither is a pre turn 4 win christmas land for the deck. Just the other night one of said friends got a turn 2 win and a turn 3 win Round 1 at a wednesday night modern event against infect, and got a couple more early wins the rest of the night in a 4 round event. I asked him how unusual that night's performance was for him and he said "not extremely common but not that unusual either." This is someone who just bought 4 foiled Primeval Titans and has no interest whatsoever in seeing the deck banned.
Were they wins, concessions, or "soft wins"?
Well right, what I'm saying is that you're criticizing people who argue for the ban for not presenting the data we are all actively waiting for. Aside from that there has been no shortage of a discussion on the speed of the deck and at least one occasion where people actually attempted to aggregate turn win results in this thread.
As for the wins, one was a Hivemind + Slaughter Pact, the other involved the Rampaging Baloth he was testing for fun out of the board and a number of landfall triggers. So a hard win and a soft win, respectively. I wasn't sitting next to him the rest of the night so I couldn't say for those.
Well right, what I'm saying is that you're criticizing people who argue for the ban for not presenting the data we are all actively waiting for. Aside from that there has been no shortage of a discussion on the speed of the deck and at least one occasion where people actually attempted to aggregate turn win results in this thread.
No. I'm criticizing people who have decided that it's 100% factual that bans must happen even with no evidence or data aside from anecdotal.
As for the wins, one was a Hivemind + Slaughter Pact, the other involved the Rampaging Baloth he was testing for fun out of the board and a number of landfall triggers. So a hard win and a soft win, respectively. I wasn't sitting next to him the rest of the night so I couldn't say for those.
So neither was the bogeyman Turn 2 hasty double striking prime time that also gets Pact backup.
Thanks.
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Meh... They could have banned them soon after the start of the format. But we've had this conversation several times and I don't want Bocephus to remind me "It's WotC's sandbox, you have a choice."
In other news: Let them talk about the artifact lands, Lantern Control would love to have those and guarantee a turn 1 mox opal activation lol.
"When you get your opponent down to 0 sanity, you win the game!"
I've also played the deck to know that Turn 2 haste Titan and Turn 3 Titan spam are extremely rare closet cases. The deck can pump out Titans on 3 with consistent turn 4 or 5 Titan afterwards, depending on the matchup. To do anything degenerate requires multiple Amulets in hand, which rarely happens even with Ancient Stirrings. Players at my local shops have learned to deal with the deck easily. If I'm on the draw, an Abrupt Decay hitting Amulet can wreck my whole gameplan. Burn brings in Vandalblast and hits Amulet. If your hand is Bloom, Karoo, Karoo, Pact, Titan and they pop your Amulet, you get to watch the next couple turns go by while they beat your face.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You increase the rate at which metalcraft is turned on. Affinity ACTUALLY becomes affinity again and uses Disciple of the vault. Tezzerator makes a strong case to become tier 1. Hell, Kuldotha goblins becomes a turn 2/3 deck. The artifact lands are BUSTED as hell - simply slotting them into modern robots makes absolutely no sense and does nothing to actually take advantage of them.
it just isnt something i would see wizards do
Exarch is usually cast on 3 with no followup, it also does not win the game on it's own, or enable winning the game the way Titan does. Exarch requires a Twin in hand. Titan when ETB finds another Titan which finds another and then another. 1 removal spell stops Twin if it's cast on T4. You need 4 exile based removal spells to stop Titan (if you destroy, they'll just get it back with Mortuary Mire)
You do realize Summoner's Pact has a cost right? And that if you tutor for a Pact with Tolaria West, you likely won't be able to cast a Titan that turn?
Again, I wonder how many railing against the deck have actually piloted it, even if just on Cockatrice or TappedOut.
If you flash in Exarch on 3 and there is no response, the game is over by a "virtual" metric. Obviously the Twin player didn't just flash in his win condition for giggles.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Yes, I realize Summoner's Pact has a cost. But it's not a cost paid on that turn. If you play a Titan on T2 and it dies, you will have additional Titan's on turns 3-4, 5, and 6 or possibly 2 on 5.
Twin on the other hand, if they flash in an Exarch on 3, they are tapped out and you can use any removal you want on the Exarch. The Exarch does not come in and contribute to finding another combo piece. And yes, often times you do just flash in an Exarch on 3 for giggles. Though against Bloom specifically you don't want to end step an Exarch on 3.
We need to move away from this idea about "virtual wins" until we get more evidence than this one article from Sam Stoddard:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/development-risks-modern-2015-05-22
"Virtual wins" have not been mentioned in actual ban announcements or other articulations of Modern policy. Because of that, we should exclude them from our analysis of any Modern decks, whether Bloom, Twin, Affinity, Jund, etc. There's just too much speculation around this and not enough evidence. This is particularly true because all of the previous turn four rule violators actually won on turn three or earlier. They didn't have virtual wins.
You also realize that opponent conceding to said Summoner's Pact with a Hive Mind negates the cost. Just because your local metagame extremely hostile towards your deck reinforces the fact that Amulet Bloom cannot be contained by normal means. I just piloted the deck cold this Tuesday and 2-0'ed everything that wasn't Splinter Twin or Infect. I've played 8 matches, I've gotten the turn 2 kill once and a lot of virtual wins on turn 3. So many of the games my opponent just had nonsense that does nothing to interact with my deck.
yield any ground regardless of facts, but this is getting into finger in ears and singing "lalala, I can't hear you" territory.
Yeah, because aside from nut draws on camera there's so much evidence being posted here.
Oh, wait.
I would be okay with artifact land unban for sure if the format had artifact wipes in the same class as Back to Nature or Patrician's Scorn. But it doesn't.
I also still feel that Tron is more of a format problem than Bloom Titan, as I think Bloom Titan folds to any reasonable control deck running stuff like Path and any sort of non-remand counterspell. It's been a consistent 50/50 matchup vs. my Tier 2 BW token deck, so I have a hard to time believing that the format can't combat it so much as I think the format is held back from countering it by certain other decks.
Sheridan's made repeated and so far undisputed claims that Bloom is well into the danger zone, with numbers comparable to Storm right before Storm's biggest enabler was banned. Can you give us a) counterarguments also grounded in data, or b) a reason to disbelieve him? Failing that, at least a reason you don't think that constitutes evidence? He even has the Sparknotes version pasted on Quiet Speculation, so AFAIK anyone with a subscription could corroborate.
I'd also add that I don't think we've seen any solid numbers to support the position of no bans for Amulet Bloom.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
There has been so much anecdotal and data based discussion of this deck in the past year, and Ktkenshinx has mentioned a hard data based article coming on tuesday about a million times by now.
Just my two cents, I've got 3 friends who have played this deck dedicatedly since it debuted. They all produce consistent fast plays. No it's not every game or even every round, but neither is a pre turn 4 win christmas land for the deck. Just the other night one of said friends got a turn 2 win and a turn 3 win Round 1 at a wednesday night modern event against infect, and got a couple more early wins the rest of the night in a 4 round event. I asked him how unusual that night's performance was for him and he said "not extremely common but not that unusual either." This is someone who just bought 4 foiled Primeval Titans and has no interest whatsoever in seeing the deck banned.
But at this point I'm just waiting for the article and the actual ban list update rather than trying to argue with the sun about it in this thread, and I'm sure many posters and lurkers here feel the same.
Simply put, I haven't seen the numbers. I'm not a subscriber to QS. I can't give counterarguments to data that I can't see, so that's a foolish thing to ask for. And it doesn't constitute evidence because it's just not there to see. I have no doubt that Sheridan's statements reflect the numbers he got. I'm not trying to say he's exaggerating things. I do want to read the article before I accept it as fact though.
You realize that asking for "solid numbers to support the position of no bans for Amulet Bloom" is the definition of requiring proof of a negative? I've said before there's no numbers publicly either way, so attempting to call me out on that is interesting.
Storm is poorly positioned for a lot of reasons, and everything in infect dies to every main decked removal spell. Amulet is significantly harder to interact with, attacks from several angles that require different interaction, and grinds value while doing so. That's why no one talks about bans for the other two but Amulet ban discussion is on the table. FWIW I believe Infect is currently tier 2 at modernnexus and Storm is either tier 2 or lower, which means they are much less likely to meet the Top Tier condition of the Turn 4 rule ban requirements.
Well, anecdotal evidence isn't, and yes - he's mentioned this article a lot. I'm not attempting to call him into question whatsoever, but I haven't been able to see the data so I can't take it into account.
Were they wins, concessions, or "soft wins"?
Yeah, I see no issue with that. Can't argue against numbers you haven't seen, and I'm standing by my decision to wait until Tuesday to release them as part of an article rather than stealing my own thunder with posting them here and basically writing the article out in this thread.
That said, I'm sad that Bloom's defense is always just "the numbers aren't there". I'd rather someone actually try to make a case, using some hard evidence, that the deck isn't consistently winning before turn four. The top-tier case is decided so there isn't much arguing to do there. But the consistent win piece is more up in the air.
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Storm makes up about 1% of the metagame. Maybe 2% on a good day. It's not top-tier and thus doesn't fall victim to the turn four rule. Remember that the turn four explicitly refers only to "top-tier decks".
Infect is a more open question. That deck is certainly top-tier, but I don't have a lot of good data on its win-turn.
Well, like what? "Bloom just isn't that fast!" That's a foolish thing to say - it definitely can be. "Bloom can't kill turn 2!" It can, with the right cards. Other decks can as well though, so that's not a relevant statement.
I started to run the math on the odds of having the right cards for a pre-turn-4 win but I ran into need more math than I know to get there.
Well right, what I'm saying is that you're criticizing people who argue for the ban for not presenting the data we are all actively waiting for. Aside from that there has been no shortage of a discussion on the speed of the deck and at least one occasion where people actually attempted to aggregate turn win results in this thread.
As for the wins, one was a Hivemind + Slaughter Pact, the other involved the Rampaging Baloth he was testing for fun out of the board and a number of landfall triggers. So a hard win and a soft win, respectively. I wasn't sitting next to him the rest of the night so I couldn't say for those.
No. I'm criticizing people who have decided that it's 100% factual that bans must happen even with no evidence or data aside from anecdotal.
So neither was the bogeyman Turn 2 hasty double striking prime time that also gets Pact backup.
Thanks.