This was a situation that needed an emergency ban. Bad move by wizards.
Can't buy into the deck because a ban is 100%
Can't not buy into the deck because it's almost guaranteed to be the best deck choice to bring.
So the only solution is to not play?
How is this anything but exactly the situation an emergency ban should happen?
I was just going to reply to Seth with something directly along these lines, except I believe you would have worded it better than I could have.
You are essentially pigeon-holing people into not playing in the Grand Prix.
Except that post you quoted is irrelevant to my point. Let's suppose it's 100% correct in its arguments.
So what?
You claimed that Wizards of the Coast will emergency ban. Not a single argument in that post relates to that claim. That's just a bunch of arguments as to why they should. That's a very different conclusion. There's a whole ton of things that Wizards of the Coast arguably should do, but that doesn't mean they will do them.
It is quite possible you'll end up GP Detroit and more relevant for me GP Melbourne (Which people spent $100s to travel to since my state is extremely unlikely to ever have a GP), will have side events bigger than the main event. The problem is not quite the now but the danger it leaves for the future, people will not preregister in case the format breaks before the event.
All the idea's people had to combat the eldrazi... are defeated by the UW eldrazi deck...it's got the answers. the well adapt crowed fail to take into account that eldrazi can adapt as well.
Banning or unbanning non eye of ugin things in April is the fastest way to kill the format. They did it with Pod during TC era (Which wasn't as bad as you could play storm, burn and Jeskai ascendancy as well as delver), twin during the summer bloom era. They knock out the most versatile decks just because they adapted to the format and perhaps their competitors didn't. Banning something from affinity in April will probably be the actual death of the format.
I hope they don't ban anything from affinity in a years time either because that would signal a death spiral not just because of affinity but because they are taking sledgehammer to the pillars of the format. (DRS ban had to happen, Pod didn't but I understand the reasoning, Twin shouldn't of happend)
If Jund or Junk just cannot recover by the next modern pro tour and the format is nothing but the fastest linear combo decks, then we start looking at BBE, If blue is weak AV isn't going to help in that situation, AV is only good against Jund and Junk, that dosen't help if they are also bad.
Sword of the meek is my pet unban, I want "combo" control, If we can't have twin because it became too aggressive and slippery and scapeshift can't beat the hate, what is left of control decks that can just end the game, *snaps fingers*.
Stoneforge is like pod, restricts equipment design space, I'd still kind of want to see it. JTMS is too hard to remove for non lightning bolt decks (and even then a +1 avoids that) and again it's only good against fair decks comes down too late to help.
I think the problem with the whole of the ban list is that either it's broken or it's useless against a deck trying to kill you turn 3.
Is the only hope new cards? If they don't test for modern, which our current situations seems to highlight, How can they ever print a new card to help modern?
Although to be fair there is exactly two ways they could of avoided this current situation:
1. Not printed dumb cards, that would of made colourless eldrazi unplayable in standard probably, why would people mess up their sweet fetch/tangoland mana bases?
2. Randomly pre banned Eye of Ugin, tron and processor players would of been up in arms over a completely random ban. I think this is what they mean about clever pro players, no one broke the format in the weeks before the pro tour, but the pros did and kept it quiet.
I would love a Sword of the Meek unban. It's just one of the most fun pieces of equipment in the game when used in the right shell.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Trust me, the community is in a rile. This card is getting banned sooner than you think, no matter what Aaron Forscythe says. The community is picking up steam. Eye of Ugin will be banned before GPDetroit.
I doubt it. Wizards has always taken it slow with Modern and they have every reason to. The format doesn't rotate, it's not like Standard where they have to act quickly to preserve a format that may only exist for 3 or 6 months. Lets step forward 6 months to a year from now, will there really have been any difference in the format other than a bad precedent set if they emergency ban rather than wait?
Furthermore, they may need more data. A worst case scenario is that they emergency ban Eye but then they still need other bans (especially for Eldrazi) in April. Adhering to the already set schedule is the best course of action. They get more data and more time to think. The cost of that being 6 more weeks of a horrible format isn't really a large price. The vast majority of people aren't going to sell out of their collections because of 6 more weeks of Eldrazi.
I don't know if you agree with my premise on what's wrong with Modern (I posted it in your thread) but assuming it's right, that would be another reason to not emergency ban. An emergency ban assumes the meta is actually going to be in a good case after the banning but given what the next best tier of the format is looking like (and has looked like for a year now, especially in a now Twinless world) there are just as many problems with Eldrazi as without. Emergency banning only to have a format that still needs ban updates or significant structural changes 6 weeks into the future is not a good place to be.
And its this precisely bittersweet state of affairs in which I am able to roll store credit every week, as people who haven't bought into eldrazi, and won't due to all the gloom of an impending ban, try their best to beat the drazi deck with all kinds of maindeck hate.
I'm prepared to sell the deck off before April, and by then I would have accumulated enough store credit, coupled with proceeds from that sale, to probably move on to whatever's next.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
No need to discuss emergency bans. Aaron Forsythe has spoken and no emergency bans will be issued. "We'll assess everything on the normal timeline." Read - Nothing will be done until April.
read- nothing will be done until right before the next Modern PT, the format is making us no new money until then and it can screw itself*
and before you respond, let me point out that I oppose a ban of any kind, and a dozen unbans
I'm not sure how you got that from "we will ban things only at the scheduled times, just like we've done for the last 22 years."
I didn't. Nothing that they have done for 22 years applies to this format. What they have done since this format was created is established a solid precedent of banning or unbanning only once per year as predictably as the rising and setting of the Sun. Only at the one time of the year when they can make new money off of this format without printing a special set. But just for the record, haven't they emergency band cards repeatedly in other formats?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
I didn't. Nothing that they have done for 22 years applies to this format. What they have done since this format was created is established a solid precedent of banning or unbanning only once per year as predictably as the rising and setting of the Sun. Only at the one time of the year when they can make new money off of this format without printing a special set. But just for the record, haven't they emergency band cards repeatedly in other formats?
They have only emergency banned cards once. Memory Jar, 1999.
I didn't. Nothing that they have done for 22 years applies to this format. What they have done since this format was created is established a solid precedent of banning or unbanning only once per year as predictably as the rising and setting of the Sun. Only at the one time of the year when they can make new money off of this format without printing a special set. But just for the record, haven't they emergency band cards repeatedly in other formats?
Second Sunrise was banned outside of the January ban cycle (still a normal ban update though) and Eggs was on the verge of becoming as dominant a strategy as Eldrazi is now. Though it got banned for the reason of tournament logistics rather than the fact that it was winning an awful lot.
The only emergency banning to date in any format was Memory Jar, and even that wasn't banned outside of the normal update time. Rather the emergency banning was an additional announcement for the following update (it happened between the time of the announcement, and the changes taking place).
No need to discuss emergency bans. Aaron Forsythe has spoken and no emergency bans will be issued. "We'll assess everything on the normal timeline." Read - Nothing will be done until April.
read- nothing will be done until right before the next Modern PT, the format is making us no new money until then and it can screw itself*
and before you respond, let me point out that I oppose a ban of any kind, and a dozen unbans
I'm not sure how you got that from "we will ban things only at the scheduled times, just like we've done for the last 22 years."
I didn't. Nothing that they have done for 22 years applies to this format. What they have done since this format was created is established a solid precedent of banning or unbanning only once per year as predictably as the rising and setting of the Sun. Only at the one time of the year when they can make new money off of this format without printing a special set.
You say "since this format was created" they have established that precedent. Odd, considering this format was created in 2011, and in both 2011 and 2013 they had two separate changes to the banlist (2011 had Blazing Shoal/Cloudpost/Green Sun's Zenith/Ponder/Preordain/Rite of Flame banned, then Punishing Fire and Wild Nacatl at the next announcement; 2013 had Bloodbraid Elf/Seething Song banned, and then Second Sunrise in the next announcement). And none of those were even preceding a Pro Tour (two of them came immediately after Pro Tours). So how is this as predictable "as the rising and setting of the Sun"?
But just for the record, haven't they emergency band cards repeatedly in other formats?
They have emergency banned exactly once: Memory Jar. But even ignoring the drastically different circumstances that this happened in, that "emergency ban" was not what people are requesting happen here.
I'll explain. Back then, bans were announced a month before they took effect. So in March they announced the bans, which would then all be banned come April. Midway between those time periods, they added Memory Jar to the list. So this "emergency ban" was not banning a card between banning times (which is what people are requesting), but simply them announcing it later than usual. It was still banned at the same time as the other cards.
If by "emergency ban" we mean to ban outside of the standard banning time, that has never happened once.
If by "emergency ban" we mean to ban outside of the standard banning time, that has never happened once.
It has, Memory Jar happened.
Uh... if you had read the paragraph immediately preceding that sentence, you would see you are wrong.
I mean, this post of yours is baffling. That sentence you quoted came immediately after a paragraph explaining it. Did you actually read only that one sentence and not read a single other thing in my post?
I've said it before and I'll say it again; banning cards just for the sake of taking off the top of the totem and shaking up the format is no way to handle the game. It hasn't worked for Yu-Gi-Oh, and there's no reason to think it'll work for Magic. All it does is cause the player base to lose trust in the format as a whole. After all, why invest your money in the best deck if it's just going to be banned in a couple months?
If Modern didn't have the reputation as being "the format that bans everything", I think we would be seeing an emergency ban.
Let's face it, Modern's aggressive use of the ban list to maintain the format has turned it into the butt of jokes on articles for the last few years. The Cardboard Crack comic where everyone was hoping their decks would lose so they wouldn't get banned immediately comes to mind. Modern doesn't have the tools that Legacy has to keep the format from spiraling into degeneracy so they have to use the ban list to balance things, for better or worse. With the ban mania reputation already established as part of the culture, an emergency ban of Eye/Temple would cement the argument that Modern is the ban format. And if that happens, the consumer confidence in Modern would be shattered and likely unable to be repaired. With that in mind, Wizards is erring on the side of caution and trying to keep what little consumer confidence is left in Modern by not doing an emergency ban.
But the alternative isn't any better. Waiting until the next ban list announcement would be admitting that the GPs and other major events are "lost". That will obviously piss off a lot of players who play Modern and travel to events to play the format. GPs don't happen all the time in the regions they come into. If you're in the Detroit area and the only opportunity you had to play in a GP nearby was a "lost" GP, I would be extremely upset. I really feel for the players who have already spent hundreds to travel to any of these events. If history holds up, these GPs are going to have bad turnouts.
I really feel bad for Aaron Forsythe here. Both decisions are very damning. But it appears they've decided on what they believe is the lesser of the two evils. I can only hope that we get a huge article and apology from Forsythe for unleashing this monstrosity onto Modern. That, and hopefully R&D undergoes some major changes to keep this garbage from ever happening again. If this debacle is the thing that finally gets R&D to get off their butts and playtest Modern in the FFL, so be it.
If Modern didn't have the reputation as being "the format that bans everything", I think we would be seeing an emergency ban.
Let's face it, Modern's aggressive use of the ban list to maintain the format has turned it into the butt of jokes on articles for the last few years. The Cardboard Crack comic where everyone was hoping their decks would lose so they wouldn't get banned immediately comes to mind. Modern doesn't have the tools that Legacy has to keep the format from spiraling into degeneracy so they have to use the ban list to balance things, for better or worse. With the ban mania reputation already established as part of the culture, an emergency ban of Eye/Temple would cement the argument that Modern is the ban format. And if that happens, the consumer confidence in Modern would be shattered and likely unable to be repaired. With that in mind, Wizards is erring on the side of caution and trying to keep what little consumer confidence is left in Modern by not doing an emergency ban.
But the alternative isn't any better. Waiting until the next ban list announcement would be admitting that the GPs and other major events are "lost". That will obviously piss off a lot of players who play Modern and travel to events to play the format. GPs don't happen all the time in the regions they come into. If you're in the Detroit area and the only opportunity you had to play in a GP nearby was a "lost" GP, I would be extremely upset. I really feel for the players who have already spent hundreds to travel to any of these events. If history holds up, these GPs are going to have bad turnouts.
I really feel bad for Aaron Forsythe here. Both decisions are very damning. But it appears they've decided on what they believe is the lesser of the two evils. I can only hope that we get a huge article and apology from Forsythe for unleashing this monstrosity onto Modern. That, and hopefully R&D undergoes some major changes to keep this garbage from ever happening again. If this debacle is the thing that finally gets R&D to get off their butts and playtest Modern in the FFL, so be it.
The issue about testing for Modern is that there are so many crazy combinations that the amount of testing required to catch everything would be obscene.
For the sake of argument, what would you have done with Eldrazi in standard that they could be used in a draft format, used in standard lists, feel unique, but not be broken with Eye of Ugin or Eldrazi Temple?
I mean, imagine this card gets created with standard in mind:
1 colorless
Artifact
Enchantments you control cost 2 less to cast
In Standard? Probably doesn't do anything. Maybe makes auras a little better. In Modern? Bogles maybe gets a new tool, Intruder Alarm is suddenly a terrifying card, maybe another deck goes bananas. And that's probably a crappy example.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Level 1 Judge
"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.
This was a situation that needed an emergency ban. Bad move by wizards.
Can't buy into the deck because a ban is 100%
Can't not buy into the deck because it's almost guaranteed to be the best deck choice to bring.
So the only solution is to not play?
How is this anything but exactly the situation an emergency ban should happen?
The situation in which an emergency ban should happen (if ever) is what happened with Memory Jar (which still wasn't quite an emergency ban in the way people want this to be). Memory Jar got retroactively added to the banlist announcement (but still banned at the same time as the other things) because the game itself was in jeopardy. Not just one format. Not even just several formats. The game itself.
Let's look back at the situation. Urza's Saga came out. Stupid things happened. And this was in all formats. Turn 1 wins were possible in Standard with Tolarian Academy, and the other formats weren't in better shape. A whole lot of bannings happened in December, and things still didn't work out. People were leaving the game because there was no format to play to avoid these issues, because the issues were everywhere, from Block Constructed to Standard to Extended to Legacy/Vintage.
So eventually, March of 1999 rolled around. By this point, there had been five straight months of this degeneracy. And again, there was nowhere to avoid it in; all of the constructed formats were affected by it. This was causing people to leave the game entirely because of the impossibility of avoiding the problems. More bans were announced with the hope that this time they'd get everything and things would get fixed. Then Memory Jar was discovered after the bannings were announced but before they took effect. Not wanting another three months of these issues after already suffering through five of them, they quickly added Memory Jar to the banning announcement and it was banned at the same time as the rest of the cards previously announced. And while some bannings were still done afterwards, things had at least gotten a lot better before then.
Let's stop and notice some key differences.
Back then: Every format was affected by the super powerful cards. Before the banning announcement, this had been going on for five months, and would have gone on for three more if not for the Memory Jar ban (for a total of eight!).
Now: One format is affected. Before the previous banning announcement, Modern and the game as a whole had been in pretty good shape. This will go on for two months (for a total of two) if they wait until the proper time to ban something.
Do you not see some major differences between these two situations? Memory Jar got "emergency banned" because the game itself was at stake due to all formats being so fundamentally screwed up for months preceding the issue. That is the time to pull the trigger on those emergency bans. Right now we have Eldrazi running rampant, but in only one format and without any months of degeneracy preceding it (there were certainly issues with Modern beforehand, but nothing compared to what was going on back in the Urza's Saga days).
I disagree completely that an emergency ban should only happen when the whole game is in jeopardy. That's basically saying never emergency ban anything because the odds of the game being in such a state again is nearly impossible.
The entire modern format has been reduced to a joke. Major tournament plans are being cancelled. The format diversity is the worst it's ever been. The way the format is being handled overall is now a source of satire.
In short, modern is dead for the time being.
Not only is it dead, but we know the killer. An emergency ban can fix it. The format diversity would explode without eldrazi. It would still have it's non-interactive problems, but at least it would be diverse non-interactivity.
The format needed an emergency ban a week ago. It doesn't matter that it's not the whole game in jeopardy, an entire format is in jeopardy right now which is plenty enough to justify pissing off people who bought into the latest overpowered deck in a ban happy format.
If Modern didn't have the reputation as being "the format that bans everything", I think we would be seeing an emergency ban.
Let's face it, Modern's aggressive use of the ban list to maintain the format has turned it into the butt of jokes on articles for the last few years. The Cardboard Crack comic where everyone was hoping their decks would lose so they wouldn't get banned immediately comes to mind. Modern doesn't have the tools that Legacy has to keep the format from spiraling into degeneracy so they have to use the ban list to balance things, for better or worse. With the ban mania reputation already established as part of the culture, an emergency ban of Eye/Temple would cement the argument that Modern is the ban format. And if that happens, the consumer confidence in Modern would be shattered and likely unable to be repaired. With that in mind, Wizards is erring on the side of caution and trying to keep what little consumer confidence is left in Modern by not doing an emergency ban.
But the alternative isn't any better. Waiting until the next ban list announcement would be admitting that the GPs and other major events are "lost". That will obviously piss off a lot of players who play Modern and travel to events to play the format. GPs don't happen all the time in the regions they come into. If you're in the Detroit area and the only opportunity you had to play in a GP nearby was a "lost" GP, I would be extremely upset. I really feel for the players who have already spent hundreds to travel to any of these events. If history holds up, these GPs are going to have bad turnouts.
I really feel bad for Aaron Forsythe here. Both decisions are very damning. But it appears they've decided on what they believe is the lesser of the two evils. I can only hope that we get a huge article and apology from Forsythe for unleashing this monstrosity onto Modern. That, and hopefully R&D undergoes some major changes to keep this garbage from ever happening again. If this debacle is the thing that finally gets R&D to get off their butts and playtest Modern in the FFL, so be it.
Modern killed all consumer confidence with the splinter twin ban. There is none left. There is no longer a set of rules people can look at to see if a ban is coming.
If Modern didn't have the reputation as being "the format that bans everything", I think we would be seeing an emergency ban.
Let's face it, Modern's aggressive use of the ban list to maintain the format has turned it into the butt of jokes on articles for the last few years. The Cardboard Crack comic where everyone was hoping their decks would lose so they wouldn't get banned immediately comes to mind. Modern doesn't have the tools that Legacy has to keep the format from spiraling into degeneracy so they have to use the ban list to balance things, for better or worse. With the ban mania reputation already established as part of the culture, an emergency ban of Eye/Temple would cement the argument that Modern is the ban format. And if that happens, the consumer confidence in Modern would be shattered and likely unable to be repaired. With that in mind, Wizards is erring on the side of caution and trying to keep what little consumer confidence is left in Modern by not doing an emergency ban.
But the alternative isn't any better. Waiting until the next ban list announcement would be admitting that the GPs and other major events are "lost". That will obviously piss off a lot of players who play Modern and travel to events to play the format. GPs don't happen all the time in the regions they come into. If you're in the Detroit area and the only opportunity you had to play in a GP nearby was a "lost" GP, I would be extremely upset. I really feel for the players who have already spent hundreds to travel to any of these events. If history holds up, these GPs are going to have bad turnouts.
I really feel bad for Aaron Forsythe here. Both decisions are very damning. But it appears they've decided on what they believe is the lesser of the two evils. I can only hope that we get a huge article and apology from Forsythe for unleashing this monstrosity onto Modern. That, and hopefully R&D undergoes some major changes to keep this garbage from ever happening again. If this debacle is the thing that finally gets R&D to get off their butts and playtest Modern in the FFL, so be it.
The issue about testing for Modern is that there are so many crazy combinations that the amount of testing required to catch everything would be obscene.
For the sake of argument, what would you have done with Eldrazi in standard that they could be used in a draft format, used in standard lists, feel unique, but not be broken with Eye of Ugin or Eldrazi Temple?
Make them big creatures like the original Eldrazi, and make fewer of them. Honestly the new Eldrazi feel so banal compared to the original. They should have made them all cost as much as Worldbreaker or Reality Smasher at least.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern RGTron UGInfect URStorm WUBRAd Nauseam BRGrishoalbrand URGScapeshift WBGAbzan Company WUBRGAmulet Titan BRGLiving End WGBogles
If Modern didn't have the reputation as being "the format that bans everything", I think we would be seeing an emergency ban.
Let's face it, Modern's aggressive use of the ban list to maintain the format has turned it into the butt of jokes on articles for the last few years. The Cardboard Crack comic where everyone was hoping their decks would lose so they wouldn't get banned immediately comes to mind. Modern doesn't have the tools that Legacy has to keep the format from spiraling into degeneracy so they have to use the ban list to balance things, for better or worse. With the ban mania reputation already established as part of the culture, an emergency ban of Eye/Temple would cement the argument that Modern is the ban format. And if that happens, the consumer confidence in Modern would be shattered and likely unable to be repaired. With that in mind, Wizards is erring on the side of caution and trying to keep what little consumer confidence is left in Modern by not doing an emergency ban.
But the alternative isn't any better. Waiting until the next ban list announcement would be admitting that the GPs and other major events are "lost". That will obviously piss off a lot of players who play Modern and travel to events to play the format. GPs don't happen all the time in the regions they come into. If you're in the Detroit area and the only opportunity you had to play in a GP nearby was a "lost" GP, I would be extremely upset. I really feel for the players who have already spent hundreds to travel to any of these events. If history holds up, these GPs are going to have bad turnouts.
I really feel bad for Aaron Forsythe here. Both decisions are very damning. But it appears they've decided on what they believe is the lesser of the two evils. I can only hope that we get a huge article and apology from Forsythe for unleashing this monstrosity onto Modern. That, and hopefully R&D undergoes some major changes to keep this garbage from ever happening again. If this debacle is the thing that finally gets R&D to get off their butts and playtest Modern in the FFL, so be it.
The issue about testing for Modern is that there are so many crazy combinations that the amount of testing required to catch everything would be obscene.
For the sake of argument, what would you have done with Eldrazi in standard that they could be used in a draft format, used in standard lists, feel unique, but not be broken with Eye of Ugin or Eldrazi Temple?
Make them big creatures like the original Eldrazi, and make fewer of them. Honestly the new Eldrazi feel so banal compared to the original. They should have made them all cost as much as Worldbreaker or Reality Smasher at least.
Then all you have is creatures that aren't very good in draft, and extremely poor in standard without a dedicated ramp deck. Yeah, Modern would be in a better place, but Standard and Draft wouldn't, and those two are a LOT more popular.
There's the issue. Unless I'm missing something, the Eldrazi were either going to mess up standard or mess up modern.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Level 1 Judge
"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 Modern didn't have the reputation as being "the format that bans everything", I think we would be seeing an emergency ban.
Let's face it, Modern's aggressive use of the ban list to maintain the format has turned it into the butt of jokes on articles for the last few years. The Cardboard Crack comic where everyone was hoping their decks would lose so they wouldn't get banned immediately comes to mind. Modern doesn't have the tools that Legacy has to keep the format from spiraling into degeneracy so they have to use the ban list to balance things, for better or worse. With the ban mania reputation already established as part of the culture, an emergency ban of Eye/Temple would cement the argument that Modern is the ban format. And if that happens, the consumer confidence in Modern would be shattered and likely unable to be repaired. With that in mind, Wizards is erring on the side of caution and trying to keep what little consumer confidence is left in Modern by not doing an emergency ban.
But the alternative isn't any better. Waiting until the next ban list announcement would be admitting that the GPs and other major events are "lost". That will obviously piss off a lot of players who play Modern and travel to events to play the format. GPs don't happen all the time in the regions they come into. If you're in the Detroit area and the only opportunity you had to play in a GP nearby was a "lost" GP, I would be extremely upset. I really feel for the players who have already spent hundreds to travel to any of these events. If history holds up, these GPs are going to have bad turnouts.
I really feel bad for Aaron Forsythe here. Both decisions are very damning. But it appears they've decided on what they believe is the lesser of the two evils. I can only hope that we get a huge article and apology from Forsythe for unleashing this monstrosity onto Modern. That, and hopefully R&D undergoes some major changes to keep this garbage from ever happening again. If this debacle is the thing that finally gets R&D to get off their butts and playtest Modern in the FFL, so be it.
The issue about testing for Modern is that there are so many crazy combinations that the amount of testing required to catch everything would be obscene.
For the sake of argument, what would you have done with Eldrazi in standard that they could be used in a draft format, used in standard lists, feel unique, but not be broken with Eye of Ugin or Eldrazi Temple?
Make them big creatures like the original Eldrazi, and make fewer of them. Honestly the new Eldrazi feel so banal compared to the original. They should have made them all cost as much as Worldbreaker or Reality Smasher at least.
Then all you have is creatures that aren't very good in draft, and extremely poor in standard without a dedicated ramp deck. Yeah, Modern would be in a better place, but Standard and Draft wouldn't, and those two are a LOT more popular.
There's the issue. Unless I'm missing something, the Eldrazi were either going to mess up standard or mess up modern.
Wasn't Rise of the Eldrazi one of the best formats to draft?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern RGTron UGInfect URStorm WUBRAd Nauseam BRGrishoalbrand URGScapeshift WBGAbzan Company WUBRGAmulet Titan BRGLiving End WGBogles
If Modern didn't have the reputation as being "the format that bans everything", I think we would be seeing an emergency ban.
Let's face it, Modern's aggressive use of the ban list to maintain the format has turned it into the butt of jokes on articles for the last few years. The Cardboard Crack comic where everyone was hoping their decks would lose so they wouldn't get banned immediately comes to mind. Modern doesn't have the tools that Legacy has to keep the format from spiraling into degeneracy so they have to use the ban list to balance things, for better or worse. With the ban mania reputation already established as part of the culture, an emergency ban of Eye/Temple would cement the argument that Modern is the ban format. And if that happens, the consumer confidence in Modern would be shattered and likely unable to be repaired. With that in mind, Wizards is erring on the side of caution and trying to keep what little consumer confidence is left in Modern by not doing an emergency ban.
But the alternative isn't any better. Waiting until the next ban list announcement would be admitting that the GPs and other major events are "lost". That will obviously piss off a lot of players who play Modern and travel to events to play the format. GPs don't happen all the time in the regions they come into. If you're in the Detroit area and the only opportunity you had to play in a GP nearby was a "lost" GP, I would be extremely upset. I really feel for the players who have already spent hundreds to travel to any of these events. If history holds up, these GPs are going to have bad turnouts.
I really feel bad for Aaron Forsythe here. Both decisions are very damning. But it appears they've decided on what they believe is the lesser of the two evils. I can only hope that we get a huge article and apology from Forsythe for unleashing this monstrosity onto Modern. That, and hopefully R&D undergoes some major changes to keep this garbage from ever happening again. If this debacle is the thing that finally gets R&D to get off their butts and playtest Modern in the FFL, so be it.
The issue about testing for Modern is that there are so many crazy combinations that the amount of testing required to catch everything would be obscene.
For the sake of argument, what would you have done with Eldrazi in standard that they could be used in a draft format, used in standard lists, feel unique, but not be broken with Eye of Ugin or Eldrazi Temple?
Make them big creatures like the original Eldrazi, and make fewer of them. Honestly the new Eldrazi feel so banal compared to the original. They should have made them all cost as much as Worldbreaker or Reality Smasher at least.
It doesn't take a ton of testing to see what was going to happen in modern. At least two R & D devs have said that they expected this to happen, but shoulder shrugged and said whatever, I only test for standard.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Currently Playing: R8whackR WUBGAtraxa Stax-Superfriends *Under Construction*WUBG
If Modern didn't have the reputation as being "the format that bans everything", I think we would be seeing an emergency ban.
Let's face it, Modern's aggressive use of the ban list to maintain the format has turned it into the butt of jokes on articles for the last few years. The Cardboard Crack comic where everyone was hoping their decks would lose so they wouldn't get banned immediately comes to mind. Modern doesn't have the tools that Legacy has to keep the format from spiraling into degeneracy so they have to use the ban list to balance things, for better or worse. With the ban mania reputation already established as part of the culture, an emergency ban of Eye/Temple would cement the argument that Modern is the ban format. And if that happens, the consumer confidence in Modern would be shattered and likely unable to be repaired. With that in mind, Wizards is erring on the side of caution and trying to keep what little consumer confidence is left in Modern by not doing an emergency ban.
But the alternative isn't any better. Waiting until the next ban list announcement would be admitting that the GPs and other major events are "lost". That will obviously piss off a lot of players who play Modern and travel to events to play the format. GPs don't happen all the time in the regions they come into. If you're in the Detroit area and the only opportunity you had to play in a GP nearby was a "lost" GP, I would be extremely upset. I really feel for the players who have already spent hundreds to travel to any of these events. If history holds up, these GPs are going to have bad turnouts.
I really feel bad for Aaron Forsythe here. Both decisions are very damning. But it appears they've decided on what they believe is the lesser of the two evils. I can only hope that we get a huge article and apology from Forsythe for unleashing this monstrosity onto Modern. That, and hopefully R&D undergoes some major changes to keep this garbage from ever happening again. If this debacle is the thing that finally gets R&D to get off their butts and playtest Modern in the FFL, so be it.
The issue about testing for Modern is that there are so many crazy combinations that the amount of testing required to catch everything would be obscene.
For the sake of argument, what would you have done with Eldrazi in standard that they could be used in a draft format, used in standard lists, feel unique, but not be broken with Eye of Ugin or Eldrazi Temple?
Make them big creatures like the original Eldrazi, and make fewer of them. Honestly the new Eldrazi feel so banal compared to the original. They should have made them all cost as much as Worldbreaker or Reality Smasher at least.
Then all you have is creatures that aren't very good in draft, and extremely poor in standard without a dedicated ramp deck. Yeah, Modern would be in a better place, but Standard and Draft wouldn't, and those two are a LOT more popular.
There's the issue. Unless I'm missing something, the Eldrazi were either going to mess up standard or mess up modern.
Wasn't Rise of the Eldrazi one of the best formats to draft?
RoE is great. But you're still asking them to warp standard/limited to save modern. That will never ever happen.
The issue about testing for Modern is that there are so many crazy combinations that the amount of testing required to catch everything would be obscene.
For the sake of argument, what would you have done with Eldrazi in standard that they could be used in a draft format, used in standard lists, feel unique, but not be broken with Eye of Ugin or Eldrazi Temple?
Make them big creatures like the original Eldrazi, and make fewer of them. Honestly the new Eldrazi feel so banal compared to the original. They should have made them all cost as much as Worldbreaker or Reality Smasher at least.
Then all you have is creatures that aren't very good in draft, and extremely poor in standard without a dedicated ramp deck. Yeah, Modern would be in a better place, but Standard and Draft wouldn't, and those two are a LOT more popular.
There's the issue. Unless I'm missing something, the Eldrazi were either going to mess up standard or mess up modern.
Wasn't Rise of the Eldrazi one of the best formats to draft?
RoE is great. But you're still asking them to warp standard/limited to save modern. That will never ever happen.
What do you mean warp? I wasn't playing Magic during Rise of the Eldrazi but was Standard warped back then? It seems kind of similar with fetchlands being in rotation.
I guess my question is, why couldn't the Eldrazi have been made to cost a lot?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern RGTron UGInfect URStorm WUBRAd Nauseam BRGrishoalbrand URGScapeshift WBGAbzan Company WUBRGAmulet Titan BRGLiving End WGBogles
Eldrazi Mimic/Endless One/Thought-Knot Seer could have been Greater Scion or Eldraziloid or some other creature type not Eldrazi. Eye and Temple would be good, but not massive early game broken.
Make them big creatures like the original Eldrazi, and make fewer of them. Honestly the new Eldrazi feel so banal compared to the original. They should have made them all cost as much as Worldbreaker or Reality Smasher at least.
Then all you have is creatures that aren't very good in draft, and extremely poor in standard without a dedicated ramp deck. Yeah, Modern would be in a better place, but Standard and Draft wouldn't, and those two are a LOT more popular.
There's the issue. Unless I'm missing something, the Eldrazi were either going to mess up standard or mess up modern.
Wasn't Rise of the Eldrazi one of the best formats to draft?
RoE is great. But you're still asking them to warp standard/limited to save modern. That will never ever happen.
What do you mean warp? I wasn't playing Magic during Rise of the Eldrazi but was Standard warped back then? It seems kind of similar with fetchlands being in rotation.
I guess my question is, why couldn't the Eldrazi have been made to cost a lot?
Point is they were going for an Eldrazi spawn horde sorta theme. For that they needed cheap Eldrazi. Doing just giant Eldrazi wouldn't have really fit. if they wanted to do giant Eldrazi as the focus they would have had to have introduced more ramp and what not. Honestly it's easier for designers to just let them do what they want and ban to fix for other formats.
I disagree completely that an emergency ban should only happen when the whole game is in jeopardy. That's basically saying never emergency ban anything because the odds of the game being in such a state again is nearly impossible.
That's the point. Don't ever emergency ban anything unless you have to in order to save the game. It's a last resort.
The entire modern format has been reduced to a joke. Major tournament plans are being cancelled. The format diversity is the worst it's ever been. The way the format is being handled overall is now a source of satire.
In short, modern is dead for the time being.
Which is why we had a fairly well attended IQ at my store this weekend. Do you think you might be overreacting in claiming it's "dead"? Perhaps less popular, but hardly "dead." I mean, the last SCG Open had about as many people as the Modern Open that came before it.
Not only is it dead, but we know the killer. An emergency ban can fix it.
And frighten everyone away. The whole blasted point of having bans only at specific times is that you know your deck is safe between those times.
The format needed an emergency ban a week ago. It doesn't matter that it's not the whole game in jeopardy, an entire format is in jeopardy right now which is plenty enough to justify pissing off people who bought into the latest overpowered deck in a ban happy format.
And the people who didn't buy into it who would now become afraid that their decks could be banned at any point. And this sets a precedent for other formats as well.
And I would say to say it "doesn't matter" if it's the whole game or just a format in jeopardy is very silly, considering just how big a difference those are. The worst case scenario if they wait, quite frankly, is that people get upset, stop playing Modern until Eldrazi get banned, then people come back. I'm not sure why people seem to think that "create a problematic precedent that creates a continual paranoia and loss of confidence" is somehow better than "have reduced attendance for two months."
Modern killed all consumer confidence with the splinter twin ban. There is none left. There is no longer a set of rules people can look at to see if a ban is coming.
Yeah, uh, no. Some consumer confidence was lost, but certainly not all of it; to claim there is none left is silly. What would likely erase it all, though, would be this emergency ban you're so eager in advocating.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So what?
You claimed that Wizards of the Coast will emergency ban. Not a single argument in that post relates to that claim. That's just a bunch of arguments as to why they should. That's a very different conclusion. There's a whole ton of things that Wizards of the Coast arguably should do, but that doesn't mean they will do them.
I would love a Sword of the Meek unban. It's just one of the most fun pieces of equipment in the game when used in the right shell.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I doubt it. Wizards has always taken it slow with Modern and they have every reason to. The format doesn't rotate, it's not like Standard where they have to act quickly to preserve a format that may only exist for 3 or 6 months. Lets step forward 6 months to a year from now, will there really have been any difference in the format other than a bad precedent set if they emergency ban rather than wait?
Furthermore, they may need more data. A worst case scenario is that they emergency ban Eye but then they still need other bans (especially for Eldrazi) in April. Adhering to the already set schedule is the best course of action. They get more data and more time to think. The cost of that being 6 more weeks of a horrible format isn't really a large price. The vast majority of people aren't going to sell out of their collections because of 6 more weeks of Eldrazi.
I don't know if you agree with my premise on what's wrong with Modern (I posted it in your thread) but assuming it's right, that would be another reason to not emergency ban. An emergency ban assumes the meta is actually going to be in a good case after the banning but given what the next best tier of the format is looking like (and has looked like for a year now, especially in a now Twinless world) there are just as many problems with Eldrazi as without. Emergency banning only to have a format that still needs ban updates or significant structural changes 6 weeks into the future is not a good place to be.
I'm prepared to sell the deck off before April, and by then I would have accumulated enough store credit, coupled with proceeds from that sale, to probably move on to whatever's next.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
I didn't. Nothing that they have done for 22 years applies to this format. What they have done since this format was created is established a solid precedent of banning or unbanning only once per year as predictably as the rising and setting of the Sun. Only at the one time of the year when they can make new money off of this format without printing a special set. But just for the record, haven't they emergency band cards repeatedly in other formats?
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Second Sunrise was banned outside of the January ban cycle (still a normal ban update though) and Eggs was on the verge of becoming as dominant a strategy as Eldrazi is now. Though it got banned for the reason of tournament logistics rather than the fact that it was winning an awful lot.
The only emergency banning to date in any format was Memory Jar, and even that wasn't banned outside of the normal update time. Rather the emergency banning was an additional announcement for the following update (it happened between the time of the announcement, and the changes taking place).
They have emergency banned exactly once: Memory Jar. But even ignoring the drastically different circumstances that this happened in, that "emergency ban" was not what people are requesting happen here.
I'll explain. Back then, bans were announced a month before they took effect. So in March they announced the bans, which would then all be banned come April. Midway between those time periods, they added Memory Jar to the list. So this "emergency ban" was not banning a card between banning times (which is what people are requesting), but simply them announcing it later than usual. It was still banned at the same time as the other cards.
If by "emergency ban" we mean to ban outside of the standard banning time, that has never happened once.
It has, Memory Jar happened.
Also bloody Aaron
I mean, this post of yours is baffling. That sentence you quoted came immediately after a paragraph explaining it. Did you actually read only that one sentence and not read a single other thing in my post?
UWU/W BlinkUW
BMono-Black ControlB
Commander:
GWUJenaraGWU
BGeth MBCB
RGXenagosRG
WUBSharuumWUB (retired)
Modern:
xAffinityx (starting)
Standard:
Ha! That's a good one.
Let's face it, Modern's aggressive use of the ban list to maintain the format has turned it into the butt of jokes on articles for the last few years. The Cardboard Crack comic where everyone was hoping their decks would lose so they wouldn't get banned immediately comes to mind. Modern doesn't have the tools that Legacy has to keep the format from spiraling into degeneracy so they have to use the ban list to balance things, for better or worse. With the ban mania reputation already established as part of the culture, an emergency ban of Eye/Temple would cement the argument that Modern is the ban format. And if that happens, the consumer confidence in Modern would be shattered and likely unable to be repaired. With that in mind, Wizards is erring on the side of caution and trying to keep what little consumer confidence is left in Modern by not doing an emergency ban.
But the alternative isn't any better. Waiting until the next ban list announcement would be admitting that the GPs and other major events are "lost". That will obviously piss off a lot of players who play Modern and travel to events to play the format. GPs don't happen all the time in the regions they come into. If you're in the Detroit area and the only opportunity you had to play in a GP nearby was a "lost" GP, I would be extremely upset. I really feel for the players who have already spent hundreds to travel to any of these events. If history holds up, these GPs are going to have bad turnouts.
I really feel bad for Aaron Forsythe here. Both decisions are very damning. But it appears they've decided on what they believe is the lesser of the two evils. I can only hope that we get a huge article and apology from Forsythe for unleashing this monstrosity onto Modern. That, and hopefully R&D undergoes some major changes to keep this garbage from ever happening again. If this debacle is the thing that finally gets R&D to get off their butts and playtest Modern in the FFL, so be it.
The issue about testing for Modern is that there are so many crazy combinations that the amount of testing required to catch everything would be obscene.
For the sake of argument, what would you have done with Eldrazi in standard that they could be used in a draft format, used in standard lists, feel unique, but not be broken with Eye of Ugin or Eldrazi Temple?
I mean, imagine this card gets created with standard in mind:
1 colorless
Artifact
Enchantments you control cost 2 less to cast
In Standard? Probably doesn't do anything. Maybe makes auras a little better. In Modern? Bogles maybe gets a new tool, Intruder Alarm is suddenly a terrifying card, maybe another deck goes bananas. And that's probably a crappy example.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
I disagree completely that an emergency ban should only happen when the whole game is in jeopardy. That's basically saying never emergency ban anything because the odds of the game being in such a state again is nearly impossible.
The entire modern format has been reduced to a joke. Major tournament plans are being cancelled. The format diversity is the worst it's ever been. The way the format is being handled overall is now a source of satire.
In short, modern is dead for the time being.
Not only is it dead, but we know the killer. An emergency ban can fix it. The format diversity would explode without eldrazi. It would still have it's non-interactive problems, but at least it would be diverse non-interactivity.
The format needed an emergency ban a week ago. It doesn't matter that it's not the whole game in jeopardy, an entire format is in jeopardy right now which is plenty enough to justify pissing off people who bought into the latest overpowered deck in a ban happy format.
Modern killed all consumer confidence with the splinter twin ban. There is none left. There is no longer a set of rules people can look at to see if a ban is coming.
Make them big creatures like the original Eldrazi, and make fewer of them. Honestly the new Eldrazi feel so banal compared to the original. They should have made them all cost as much as Worldbreaker or Reality Smasher at least.
RGTron
UGInfect
URStorm
WUBRAd Nauseam
BRGrishoalbrand
URGScapeshift
WBGAbzan Company
WUBRGAmulet Titan
BRGLiving End
WGBogles
Then all you have is creatures that aren't very good in draft, and extremely poor in standard without a dedicated ramp deck. Yeah, Modern would be in a better place, but Standard and Draft wouldn't, and those two are a LOT more popular.
There's the issue. Unless I'm missing something, the Eldrazi were either going to mess up standard or mess up modern.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Wasn't Rise of the Eldrazi one of the best formats to draft?
RGTron
UGInfect
URStorm
WUBRAd Nauseam
BRGrishoalbrand
URGScapeshift
WBGAbzan Company
WUBRGAmulet Titan
BRGLiving End
WGBogles
It doesn't take a ton of testing to see what was going to happen in modern. At least two R & D devs have said that they expected this to happen, but shoulder shrugged and said whatever, I only test for standard.
R8whackR
WUBGAtraxa Stax-Superfriends *Under Construction*WUBG
RoE is great. But you're still asking them to warp standard/limited to save modern. That will never ever happen.
http://cardboard-crack.com/post/98983401681/flying-squirrel-revenge
I'm sorry. Please carry on.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
What do you mean warp? I wasn't playing Magic during Rise of the Eldrazi but was Standard warped back then? It seems kind of similar with fetchlands being in rotation.
I guess my question is, why couldn't the Eldrazi have been made to cost a lot?
RGTron
UGInfect
URStorm
WUBRAd Nauseam
BRGrishoalbrand
URGScapeshift
WBGAbzan Company
WUBRGAmulet Titan
BRGLiving End
WGBogles
Point is they were going for an Eldrazi spawn horde sorta theme. For that they needed cheap Eldrazi. Doing just giant Eldrazi wouldn't have really fit. if they wanted to do giant Eldrazi as the focus they would have had to have introduced more ramp and what not. Honestly it's easier for designers to just let them do what they want and ban to fix for other formats.
Which is why we had a fairly well attended IQ at my store this weekend. Do you think you might be overreacting in claiming it's "dead"? Perhaps less popular, but hardly "dead." I mean, the last SCG Open had about as many people as the Modern Open that came before it.
And frighten everyone away. The whole blasted point of having bans only at specific times is that you know your deck is safe between those times.
And the people who didn't buy into it who would now become afraid that their decks could be banned at any point. And this sets a precedent for other formats as well.
And I would say to say it "doesn't matter" if it's the whole game or just a format in jeopardy is very silly, considering just how big a difference those are. The worst case scenario if they wait, quite frankly, is that people get upset, stop playing Modern until Eldrazi get banned, then people come back. I'm not sure why people seem to think that "create a problematic precedent that creates a continual paranoia and loss of confidence" is somehow better than "have reduced attendance for two months."
Yeah, uh, no. Some consumer confidence was lost, but certainly not all of it; to claim there is none left is silly. What would likely erase it all, though, would be this emergency ban you're so eager in advocating.