Is it possible that Summoner's Pact could be banned? It hurts Amulet's consistency, both with the PrimeTime kill and the Hive Mind kill, while leaving the deck perfectly alive.
I don't see what's wrong with my "attitude", I'm just pointing out facts about the deck, having played it a good amount.
Sure, you can play Amulet Bloom with Primeval Titan. You can also play Jund without Tarmogoyf and Liliana. But it's not gonna be any good. That's what I'm saying. So why ban a card that is used in another deck (a fun, interesting one at that) just to try and keep Amulet alive if it won't even work anyway?
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I don't see what's wrong with my "attitude", I'm just pointing out facts about the deck, having played it a good amount.
Sure, you can play Amulet Bloom with Primeval Titan. You can also play Jund without Tarmogoyf and Liliana. But it's not gonna be any good. That's what I'm saying. So why ban a card that is used in another deck (a fun, interesting one at that) just to try and keep Amulet alive if it won't even work anyway?
We disagree it wouldnt work.
Like I mentioned the newer version of Scapeshift doesnt even run Titans. So minimal damage.
Wotc banned Seething Song and hurt other decks, same with TC and DDT. I dont see how other decks should determine the correct ban in an offending deck.
Just like I feel Amulet would figure a way to be competitive without Titan, I am sure Scapeshift could too.
Willy Edel: "I think wotc went so far with the new mana in OGW that even if they ban eldrazi temple we will see a lots of Eldrazi at the PT (in modern)"
If anything Wizards would be ecstatic to have a bunch of Eldrazi decks at the Pro Tour; one of the stated goals of the PT is to showcase cards from the new set (I believe this was referenced when they wanted to discontinue the Modern PT). The new eldrazi decks seem very strong, but definitely need to see how they settle out before people even start discussing bans.
Also, I think his point was less that Eldrazi Temple should/would be banned and more that the deck will be very popular/good.
Willy Edel: "I think wotc went so far with the new mana in OGW that even if they ban eldrazi temple we will see a lots of Eldrazi at the PT (in modern)"
If anything Wizards would be ecstatic to have a bunch of Eldrazi decks at the Pro Tour; one of the stated goals of the PT is to showcase cards from the new set (I believe this was referenced when they wanted to discontinue the Modern PT). The new eldrazi decks seem very strong, but definitely need to see how they settle out before people even start discussing bans.
Also, I think his point was less that Eldrazi Temple should/would be banned and more that the deck will be very popular/good.
They have found the new Heartless summoning, so there are now 3 ways for that deck to reduce its mana costs Temple Eye and Heartless. Banning Temple will hurt it a little, but it should still be able to crawl through without!
As for Bloom, i think Summer Bloom will get the axe, its the engine like birthing pod was!
Then you understand what Titan brings to the table. You dont want the deck to be a fair combo deck. You want your turn 3 multiple hasty Titans swinging for lethal. Its because of that mentality Wotc will probably just kill the deck out right and remove Amulet. Instead of at least trying the deck without Titan. By the way, with Amulet and karoos you can make more mana turn 2 (7 mana) and 3 (9 mana) then you can with Tron so even without Titan it would be faster then Tron. I think it still would be playable without Titans. Simply because of the mana it can make early. Titan being able to rip certain land cards out of the deck is what speeds it up so much to break the turn 4 rule of the format, not summer bloom. But with you attitude about it, they might as well ban Amulet and be done with it.
I don't see a problem with killing Amulet Bloom outright by banning the deck's namesake. Banning an auxiliary card carries with it the huge risk that Amulet Bloom is still a very powerful combo deck in the format that can still pull wins out of nowhere (aka a ban that would do next to nothing). It would be just like when Wizards banned auxiliary cards from the Necropotence deck in old Extended before they finally realized that the deck's namesake had to be banned to make Extended healthy again. There's a reason why Wizards bans enabler cards. They don't mess around with bans anymore. If a deck is causing problems in a format, they ban the heart of the deck to ensure that deck can no longer cause anymore damage.
Unfortunately I am starting to dislike what Modern is becoming.
Not because of power level or lack-thereof, not because of WOTC's silly attempts at Modern Masters, and not because of price.
I am starting to hate it because every time a deck does well, this forum, reddit, Channel Fireball, and SCG just talk about bannings. That is all Modern seems to be now. Ban list speculation.
This will kill this format at some point. It will stop attracting new players. I have friends who won't play Modern because they are scared any deck they invest in will be banned.
If WOTC wants this format to thrive, they need to be more vocal about what is safe and how they make their ban decisions.
We have all these rules that Sheridan has parsed from different ban announcements and put them together to form some sort of cohesive understanding about what is ok in the format. "Turn 4 Rule", "Reduces Diversity", "Too consistent", etc. We have no idea if these rules are still applicable in today's meta and we don't know if WOTC is just making up new ones as they go.
Wizards needs to release a list, in 2016, with their stated goals for this format. The rules we have are outdated and many were arbitrarily created at the beginning of Modern with no testing by Wizards. They need to give confidence back to the player base, because ban speculation is ruining this format.
...I was making fun of people calling for Bloom bans earlier, in case it wasn't clear.
That wasn't in response to you, I know you were being sarcastic.
There are just so many 'pros' and article writers that are trying to shape the format to suit their needs.
Jeff Hoogland wants Bloom and Tron and Goryo's banned. Why? Because the dude cries about everything and he wants his pet deck to be the best. People read articles from him and think "Well Tron looked really neat but if this 'pro' thinks it will get banned I guess I will stick to drafting and standard".
Hoogland being salty aside, I think we will get a nice break from banlist talk because of what happened this weekend. If Goryo's had won the event though...
Honestly if future Modern top 8s/top 32s look like today's results I would be thrilled. Lots of fair interactive decks did well and there was some very interesting Magic played in the top 8, something that was sorely missed in Cincinnati last week.
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Then you understand what Titan brings to the table. You dont want the deck to be a fair combo deck. You want your turn 3 multiple hasty Titans swinging for lethal. Its because of that mentality Wotc will probably just kill the deck out right and remove Amulet. Instead of at least trying the deck without Titan. By the way, with Amulet and karoos you can make more mana turn 2 (7 mana) and 3 (9 mana) then you can with Tron so even without Titan it would be faster then Tron. I think it still would be playable without Titans. Simply because of the mana it can make early. Titan being able to rip certain land cards out of the deck is what speeds it up so much to break the turn 4 rule of the format, not summer bloom. But with you attitude about it, they might as well ban Amulet and be done with it.
I don't see a problem with killing Amulet Bloom outright by banning the deck's namesake. Banning an auxiliary card carries with it the huge risk that Amulet Bloom is still a very powerful combo deck in the format that can still pull wins out of nowhere (aka a ban that would do next to nothing). It would be just like when Wizards banned auxiliary cards from the Necropotence deck in old Extended before they finally realized that the deck's namesake had to be banned to make Extended healthy again. There's a reason why Wizards bans enabler cards. They don't mess around with bans anymore. If a deck is causing problems in a format, they ban the heart of the deck to ensure that deck can no longer cause anymore damage.
If we kill every deck that breaks the rules instead of trying to reign them into the guidelines, we wont have any decks to play. I think the right way to go about it is to try and bring the deck back into the guidelines first, if that doesnt work then kill it.
Unfortunately I am starting to dislike what Modern is becoming.
Not because of power level or lack-thereof, not because of WOTC's silly attempts at Modern Masters, and not because of price.
I am starting to hate it because every time a deck does well, this forum, reddit, Channel Fireball, and SCG just talk about bannings. That is all Modern seems to be now. Ban list speculation…
I think it'll die down a little in a couple weeks. It's on everyone's mind right now because of the banlist announcement on the 18th.
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WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
If we kill every deck that breaks the rules instead of trying to reign them into the guidelines, we wont have any decks to play. I think the right way to go about it is to try and bring the deck back into the guidelines first, if that doesnt work then kill it.
That's exactly what I fear. If Wizards bans an auxiliary card and it fails to reign in Amulet Bloom, they would have to admit they made a colossal mistake. The uproar in the community would be insane as articles on SCG/CFB/etc. would pop up everywhere questioning the decision-making process of Wizards trying to regulate Modern. It's the kind of blunder that would cause consumer confidence and faith in Modern to erode in a big way.
If we kill every deck that breaks the rules instead of trying to reign them into the guidelines, we wont have any decks to play. I think the right way to go about it is to try and bring the deck back into the guidelines first, if that doesnt work then kill it.
That's exactly what I fear. If Wizards bans an auxiliary card and it fails to reign in Amulet Bloom, they would have to admit they made a colossal mistake. The uproar in the community would be insane as articles on SCG/CFB/etc. would pop up everywhere questioning the decision-making process of Wizards trying to regulate Modern. It's the kind of blunder that would cause consumer confidence and faith in Modern to erode in a big way.
If they ban Ancient Stirrings I guess I might be okay with it, but otherwise I'm really not sold on any bans that hit Bloom.
Unfortunately I am starting to dislike what Modern is becoming.
Not because of power level or lack-thereof, not because of WOTC's silly attempts at Modern Masters, and not because of price.
I am starting to hate it because every time a deck does well, this forum, reddit, Channel Fireball, and SCG just talk about bannings. That is all Modern seems to be now. Ban list speculation.
This will kill this format at some point. It will stop attracting new players. I have friends who won't play Modern because they are scared any deck they invest in will be banned.
If WOTC wants this format to thrive, they need to be more vocal about what is safe and how they make their ban decisions.
We have all these rules that Sheridan has parsed from different ban announcements and put them together to form some sort of cohesive understanding about what is ok in the format. "Turn 4 Rule", "Reduces Diversity", "Too consistent", etc. We have no idea if these rules are still applicable in today's meta and we don't know if WOTC is just making up new ones as they go.
Wizards needs to release a list, in 2016, with their stated goals for this format. The rules we have are outdated and many were arbitrarily created at the beginning of Modern with no testing by Wizards. They need to give confidence back to the player base, because ban speculation is ruining this format.
I think the problem with Modern is simply this: Lack of good general answers that a variety of decks can play.
What, right now, is our good "catch-all" answer? Thoughtseize. It can yank any nonland card out of an opponent's hand for just 1 mana. And... that's it. There's nothing in any other color that can do what Thoughtseize does at a cheap cost.
Legitimate question. Has any fair midrange or control deck gotten Top 8 in any Grand Prix in the last year that wasn't running Thoughtseize? Because I don't think any has. That seems telling to me.
(EDIT: Okay, there was the Grixis Control/Midrange deck that got Top 8 of GP Copenhagen, but I think that's it)
The alternative to discard is supposed to be counterspells, but there's a dearth of good general ones that are cheap. What are the best counterspells at 2 mana? Mana Leak and Remand. Cards that are great in combo or tempo but are ill-suited for midrange or control. Thoughtseize is a fairly versatile card that can go in a lot of different decks, but the same isn't true for Mana Leak or Remand. You have to go up to 3 mana to get any unconditional counterspells, and they all kind of are bad. Cryptic Command is playable, but it's also 4 mana, which is rather high.
Now, Twin does fine because the deck is thrilled to play Remand. But any other fair nonlinear deck struggles because the counterspells available aren't good. Remand only delays a spell, and Mana Leak gets weak after several turns and is especially weak against Tron, which midrange/control already has issues with.
This means that if you want to be able to have general answers, you have to be in Black or be playing Twin (as it's the deck best with Remand), and that really hampers the decks that could conceivably be answering all of these linear decks. The format really needs a good catch-all 2-mana counterspell that can work for midrange or control. Something like... well, Counterspell. I think Wizards of the Coast needs to just man up and put that card back into Standard for the good of Modern. If they're so terrified of it, then just put in Cavern of Souls (which could use a reprint anyway) and some other "can't be countered" spells to balance it out.
But I guess that's not really something that can be fixed by adding or removing cards to the banned list. I suppose they could fix it without reintroducing the card into Standard by just moving the starting point back to Invasion or Masques, which I'd actually be in favor of, but that solution comes with its own set of issues.
Ancient Stirrings: Now drawing your Amulets is much more difficult, but it also pounds down decks like Tron or Eldrazi.
Amulet of Vigor: Murders the deck in cold blood. The deck cannot function without it.
Summer Bloom: Would kill the deck, but with a knife to the gut rather than a shotgun blast to the head. The other options are way worse, and slow the deck to the point of unplayability.
Primeval Titan: Would stop the ultra ramp, as well as fast kills. The deck would either go wide with things like Wurmcoil Engine, or go balls to the wall with Sylvan Primordial. You cannot chain summon with either. I doubt the deck survives this ban, but I could be wrong.
Hive Mind: Stops the fastest possible ACTUAL kills, while hitting nothing else in the format. Easily the safest ban.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
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.
If we kill every deck that breaks the rules instead of trying to reign them into the guidelines, we wont have any decks to play. I think the right way to go about it is to try and bring the deck back into the guidelines first, if that doesnt work then kill it.
That's exactly what I fear. If Wizards bans an auxiliary card and it fails to reign in Amulet Bloom, they would have to admit they made a colossal mistake. The uproar in the community would be insane as articles on SCG/CFB/etc. would pop up everywhere questioning the decision-making process of Wizards trying to regulate Modern. It's the kind of blunder that would cause consumer confidence and faith in Modern to erode in a big way.
You mean like some of the player base feels about the BBE ban? How some feel about the DDT ban?
No matter what Wotc does, there will be articles and part of the player base that feels Wotc doesnt know what its doing.
Its been going on like that since the inception of the format.
I'd be interested to see how the meta shaped up but my suspicion that what happened was:
Lots of people came prepared to hate out amulet bloom and tron, and got annihilated by Jund, Abzan company and BW tokens because the strategies that work to combat bloom/tron are really bad against solid midrange decks.
I'd be interested to see how the meta shaped up but my suspicion that what happened was:
Lots of people came prepared to hate out amulet bloom and tron, and got annihilated by Jund, Abzan company and BW tokens because the strategies that work to combat bloom/tron are really bad against solid midrange decks.
Not to mention, how many Bloom players ditched the deck after last weeks showing and all the talk about bans? Smart players want to sell when they can make some of the money back.
Ancient Stirrings: Now drawing your Amulets is much more difficult, but it also pounds down decks like Tron or Eldrazi.
Amulet of Vigor: Murders the deck in cold blood. The deck cannot function without it.
Summer Bloom: Would kill the deck, but with a knife to the gut rather than a shotgun blast to the head. The other options are way worse, and slow the deck to the point of unplayability.
Primeval Titan: Would stop the ultra ramp, as well as fast kills. The deck would either go wide with things like Wurmcoil Engine, or go balls to the wall with Sylvan Primordial. You cannot chain summon with either. I doubt the deck survives this ban, but I could be wrong.
Hive Mind: Stops the fastest possible ACTUAL kills, while hitting nothing else in the format. Easily the safest ban.
You have an interesting look at these cards. I personally feel like Amulet or Bloom are the safe bans. Neither of them "murder" the deck as unplayable, but both of them definitely take it down a notch or two.
Ancient Stirrings: Splash hits Tron and Top Control Amulet of Vigor: The deck can still ramp to 5 mana turn 2 without Vigor. Yes, this definitely slows the deck though. Summer Bloom: The most powerful card in the deck. They would still have Azusa for a similar effect. Primeval Titan: This card is played in multiple decks. The splash would be too much. Hive Mind: I've seen a lot of lists not even play this card. I don't think this would be much of an impact.
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if anything, the results this week show that the format does need to be shaken up. the decks featured all have been around for essentially a year or more. lets unban them stoneforges!
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I speak in sarcasm because calling people ******* ******** is not allowed.
Agreed If only Wizards publiced such a text on the stated goals of the format. It would be great and would attract new players.
I think they know that Bloom broke the format, and just don't want a new wave of disappointed players(like Pod had) so they are trying to delay it to the point that it's inevitable.
The reason Wizards doesn't lay out exactly what "consistently" or "top tier" means is because then they are forced to ban things.
Imagine if they had some dumb internal criterion like "Must win two GPs to be banned". Then, the second something wins two GPs, people will dump the deck as fast as humanely possible. This leads to much more instability than if Bloom can always hypothetically not get a card banned.
Summer Bloom: Would kill the deck, but with a knife to the gut rather than a shotgun blast to the head. The other options are way worse, and slow the deck to the point of unplayability.
A couple pages back it was shown the deck can still hit 6 mana on turn 2 with Explore. I dont think banning summer bloom even slows the deck down.
Quote from JPoJohnson »
Primeval Titan: This card is played in multiple decks. The splash would be too much.
What other decks? Its in one version of Scapeshift. The new bring to light version doesnt even play them. Primeval is mainly played in one top tier deck. Amulet Bloom.
Quote from Billiondegree »
Heres a thought: what do all the noninteractive combo decks have in common? Serum Visions
why not ban Serum Visions to slow down all current AND all future broken combos?
they already hit ponder and preordain for similar reasons. why not continue the trend?
Heard some talk about this a few weeks ago. Might be a way to hit all the interactive linear combo decks at the same time.
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Sure, you can play Amulet Bloom with Primeval Titan. You can also play Jund without Tarmogoyf and Liliana. But it's not gonna be any good. That's what I'm saying. So why ban a card that is used in another deck (a fun, interesting one at that) just to try and keep Amulet alive if it won't even work anyway?
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator
We disagree it wouldnt work.
Like I mentioned the newer version of Scapeshift doesnt even run Titans. So minimal damage.
Wotc banned Seething Song and hurt other decks, same with TC and DDT. I dont see how other decks should determine the correct ban in an offending deck.
Just like I feel Amulet would figure a way to be competitive without Titan, I am sure Scapeshift could too.
ban Goyf
If anything Wizards would be ecstatic to have a bunch of Eldrazi decks at the Pro Tour; one of the stated goals of the PT is to showcase cards from the new set (I believe this was referenced when they wanted to discontinue the Modern PT). The new eldrazi decks seem very strong, but definitely need to see how they settle out before people even start discussing bans.
Also, I think his point was less that Eldrazi Temple should/would be banned and more that the deck will be very popular/good.
They have found the new Heartless summoning, so there are now 3 ways for that deck to reduce its mana costs Temple Eye and Heartless. Banning Temple will hurt it a little, but it should still be able to crawl through without!
As for Bloom, i think Summer Bloom will get the axe, its the engine like birthing pod was!
Legacy: Dark Depths, Pox, Eldrazi Agro
Vintage: Dark Depths, Grey Orge
Pauper: Faerie Ninja
7pt Highlander: BW Combo
EDH: Horobi, (t)Toshiro, (t)Isamaru
I don't see a problem with killing Amulet Bloom outright by banning the deck's namesake. Banning an auxiliary card carries with it the huge risk that Amulet Bloom is still a very powerful combo deck in the format that can still pull wins out of nowhere (aka a ban that would do next to nothing). It would be just like when Wizards banned auxiliary cards from the Necropotence deck in old Extended before they finally realized that the deck's namesake had to be banned to make Extended healthy again. There's a reason why Wizards bans enabler cards. They don't mess around with bans anymore. If a deck is causing problems in a format, they ban the heart of the deck to ensure that deck can no longer cause anymore damage.
Not because of power level or lack-thereof, not because of WOTC's silly attempts at Modern Masters, and not because of price.
I am starting to hate it because every time a deck does well, this forum, reddit, Channel Fireball, and SCG just talk about bannings. That is all Modern seems to be now. Ban list speculation.
This will kill this format at some point. It will stop attracting new players. I have friends who won't play Modern because they are scared any deck they invest in will be banned.
If WOTC wants this format to thrive, they need to be more vocal about what is safe and how they make their ban decisions.
We have all these rules that Sheridan has parsed from different ban announcements and put them together to form some sort of cohesive understanding about what is ok in the format. "Turn 4 Rule", "Reduces Diversity", "Too consistent", etc. We have no idea if these rules are still applicable in today's meta and we don't know if WOTC is just making up new ones as they go.
Wizards needs to release a list, in 2016, with their stated goals for this format. The rules we have are outdated and many were arbitrarily created at the beginning of Modern with no testing by Wizards. They need to give confidence back to the player base, because ban speculation is ruining this format.
That wasn't in response to you, I know you were being sarcastic.
There are just so many 'pros' and article writers that are trying to shape the format to suit their needs.
Jeff Hoogland wants Bloom and Tron and Goryo's banned. Why? Because the dude cries about everything and he wants his pet deck to be the best. People read articles from him and think "Well Tron looked really neat but if this 'pro' thinks it will get banned I guess I will stick to drafting and standard".
Honestly if future Modern top 8s/top 32s look like today's results I would be thrilled. Lots of fair interactive decks did well and there was some very interesting Magic played in the top 8, something that was sorely missed in Cincinnati last week.
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator
If we kill every deck that breaks the rules instead of trying to reign them into the guidelines, we wont have any decks to play. I think the right way to go about it is to try and bring the deck back into the guidelines first, if that doesnt work then kill it.
I think it'll die down a little in a couple weeks. It's on everyone's mind right now because of the banlist announcement on the 18th.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
That's exactly what I fear. If Wizards bans an auxiliary card and it fails to reign in Amulet Bloom, they would have to admit they made a colossal mistake. The uproar in the community would be insane as articles on SCG/CFB/etc. would pop up everywhere questioning the decision-making process of Wizards trying to regulate Modern. It's the kind of blunder that would cause consumer confidence and faith in Modern to erode in a big way.
If they ban Ancient Stirrings I guess I might be okay with it, but otherwise I'm really not sold on any bans that hit Bloom.
What, right now, is our good "catch-all" answer? Thoughtseize. It can yank any nonland card out of an opponent's hand for just 1 mana. And... that's it. There's nothing in any other color that can do what Thoughtseize does at a cheap cost.
Legitimate question. Has any fair midrange or control deck gotten Top 8 in any Grand Prix in the last year that wasn't running Thoughtseize? Because I don't think any has. That seems telling to me.
(EDIT: Okay, there was the Grixis Control/Midrange deck that got Top 8 of GP Copenhagen, but I think that's it)
The alternative to discard is supposed to be counterspells, but there's a dearth of good general ones that are cheap. What are the best counterspells at 2 mana? Mana Leak and Remand. Cards that are great in combo or tempo but are ill-suited for midrange or control. Thoughtseize is a fairly versatile card that can go in a lot of different decks, but the same isn't true for Mana Leak or Remand. You have to go up to 3 mana to get any unconditional counterspells, and they all kind of are bad. Cryptic Command is playable, but it's also 4 mana, which is rather high.
Now, Twin does fine because the deck is thrilled to play Remand. But any other fair nonlinear deck struggles because the counterspells available aren't good. Remand only delays a spell, and Mana Leak gets weak after several turns and is especially weak against Tron, which midrange/control already has issues with.
This means that if you want to be able to have general answers, you have to be in Black or be playing Twin (as it's the deck best with Remand), and that really hampers the decks that could conceivably be answering all of these linear decks. The format really needs a good catch-all 2-mana counterspell that can work for midrange or control. Something like... well, Counterspell. I think Wizards of the Coast needs to just man up and put that card back into Standard for the good of Modern. If they're so terrified of it, then just put in Cavern of Souls (which could use a reprint anyway) and some other "can't be countered" spells to balance it out.
But I guess that's not really something that can be fixed by adding or removing cards to the banned list. I suppose they could fix it without reintroducing the card into Standard by just moving the starting point back to Invasion or Masques, which I'd actually be in favor of, but that solution comes with its own set of issues.
Ancient Stirrings: Now drawing your Amulets is much more difficult, but it also pounds down decks like Tron or Eldrazi.
Amulet of Vigor: Murders the deck in cold blood. The deck cannot function without it.
Summer Bloom: Would kill the deck, but with a knife to the gut rather than a shotgun blast to the head. The other options are way worse, and slow the deck to the point of unplayability.
Primeval Titan: Would stop the ultra ramp, as well as fast kills. The deck would either go wide with things like Wurmcoil Engine, or go balls to the wall with Sylvan Primordial. You cannot chain summon with either. I doubt the deck survives this ban, but I could be wrong.
Hive Mind: Stops the fastest possible ACTUAL kills, while hitting nothing else in the format. Easily the safest ban.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You mean like some of the player base feels about the BBE ban? How some feel about the DDT ban?
No matter what Wotc does, there will be articles and part of the player base that feels Wotc doesnt know what its doing.
Its been going on like that since the inception of the format.
Lots of people came prepared to hate out amulet bloom and tron, and got annihilated by Jund, Abzan company and BW tokens because the strategies that work to combat bloom/tron are really bad against solid midrange decks.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Not to mention, how many Bloom players ditched the deck after last weeks showing and all the talk about bans? Smart players want to sell when they can make some of the money back.
I think its a little bit of both.
You have an interesting look at these cards. I personally feel like Amulet or Bloom are the safe bans. Neither of them "murder" the deck as unplayable, but both of them definitely take it down a notch or two.
Ancient Stirrings: Splash hits Tron and Top Control
Amulet of Vigor: The deck can still ramp to 5 mana turn 2 without Vigor. Yes, this definitely slows the deck though.
Summer Bloom: The most powerful card in the deck. They would still have Azusa for a similar effect.
Primeval Titan: This card is played in multiple decks. The splash would be too much.
Hive Mind: I've seen a lot of lists not even play this card. I don't think this would be much of an impact.
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge
why not ban Serum Visions to slow down all current AND all future broken combos?
they already hit ponder and preordain for similar reasons. why not continue the trend?
The reason Wizards doesn't lay out exactly what "consistently" or "top tier" means is because then they are forced to ban things.
Imagine if they had some dumb internal criterion like "Must win two GPs to be banned". Then, the second something wins two GPs, people will dump the deck as fast as humanely possible. This leads to much more instability than if Bloom can always hypothetically not get a card banned.
A couple pages back it was shown the deck can still hit 6 mana on turn 2 with Explore. I dont think banning summer bloom even slows the deck down.
What other decks? Its in one version of Scapeshift. The new bring to light version doesnt even play them. Primeval is mainly played in one top tier deck. Amulet Bloom.
Heard some talk about this a few weeks ago. Might be a way to hit all the interactive linear combo decks at the same time.