I may snatch up some SFMs again after they announced that, i don't want it to be like missing out on AV and going from speculating on 45 bucks to 160
Even if she's not released, she'll spike before every ban announcement. I picked up 2 playsets at $60/ea last November and sold one of them for $140 after the ban announcement. Still sitting on the other and debating if I want to spec on another set. If unbanned, she'll easily hit $80+ EACH, and if not unbanned, will still probably jump from <$20 to $40ish again.
I may snatch up some SFMs again after they announced that, i don't want it to be like missing out on AV and going from speculating on 45 bucks to 160
Even if she's not released, she'll spike before every ban announcement. I picked up 2 playsets at $60/ea last November and sold one of them for $140 after the ban announcement. Still sitting on the other and debating if I want to spec on another set. If unbanned, she'll easily hit $80+ EACH, and if not unbanned, will still probably jump from <$20 to $40ish again.
I think it is a low risk spec for sure. She probably isn't seeing a reprint any time soon, is still in high demand for legacy (and probably commander to a lesser extent) and WoTC is not going to print a strictly better version of her ever (most likely).
I would feel very safe buying an extra playlet or two if you have the money to do so. At worst you'll get a small return, at best you'll get a 5-6x return.
I may snatch up some SFMs again after they announced that, i don't want it to be like missing out on AV and going from speculating on 45 bucks to 160
Even if she's not released, she'll spike before every ban announcement. I picked up 2 playsets at $60/ea last November and sold one of them for $140 after the ban announcement. Still sitting on the other and debating if I want to spec on another set. If unbanned, she'll easily hit $80+ EACH, and if not unbanned, will still probably jump from <$20 to $40ish again.
I think it is a low risk spec for sure. She probably isn't seeing a reprint any time soon, is still in high demand for legacy (and probably commander to a lesser extent) and WoTC is not going to print a strictly better version of her ever (most likely).
I would feel very safe buying an extra playlet or two if you have the money to do so. At worst you'll get a small return, at best you'll get a 5-6x return.
Well, she was just printed as a GP promo for all of this year, and may show up in Eternal Masters. I think I'm just going to hold on to the set I have and spend the investment chunks on KTK fetchlands instead.
Wizards didn't care for pro's playing modern, they only care for standard really and selling that. From their perspective Eldrazi winter was a success I am sure.
No more shake up bans? Good. Give me Twin back while you're at it.
If Twin comes back, i think pod can come back too. they were both banned for the same reasons.
The big difference I see is Pod got a suitable and competitive replacement with the combinations of Collected Company and Chord of Calling. You can dig 6 deep for 2 free creatures at instant speed or you can tutor for any one at instant speed, using your board state to convoke. It was competitive all throughout Eldrazi Winter and remains a strong deck still today. Twin on the other hand has no suitable replacement. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker builds (which can be fun) are mostly awful, slow, unreliable, and totally uncompetitive. And the rest of the UR piles are broken up into a bunch of random control-ish, midrange-ish Grixis or Jeskai builds with mediocre success, but nothing top tier. The fact that Twin was banned for GP and PT performance alone, and not on Turn 4 rules, dominance in metashare, limitations on future design, or oppression and warping of the meta as a whole, makes it feel extremely safe to come off at some point in the future (and probably shouldn't have been banned at all in the first place).
Wizards didn't care for pro's playing modern, they only care for standard really and selling that. From their perspective Eldrazi winter was a success I am sure.
No more shake up bans? Good. Give me Twin back while you're at it.
If Twin comes back, i think pod can come back too. they were both banned for the same reasons.
I wouldn't hold your breath for either coming back, despite not more PTs.
Pod will simply get better and better as more creatures are printed with new abilities.
Twin is just a notch below that in my opinion, but I don't see it coming off either (at least not for a while).
The format has a ton of decks in it and is arguably as diverse as it has ever been, I just don't see a reason for unbanning those cards at the moment other than for those who are still upset about either of those decks being banned (I used to play Twin, and I no longer have an issue with the ban).
Well, Wizards of the Coast has successfully killed any interest I had in watching future Pro Tours as well as any interest I had in any PTQs that aren't in my home city (and possibly even those). It makes me feel like they're actively trying to push me away from the game (it's not for nothing I've taken up Force of Will).
I still don't know why they don't have at least some of the Pro Tours be split Standard/Modern. It just solves everything. It gives the Modern fans something interesting. It keeps the Pro Tour NEW AND EXCITING because you have the Standard portion, so even if the Modern part is a bit repetitive the Standard portion is NEW AND EXCITING. The only downside is that it drops the draft portion, and legitimate question: Is anyone actually that interested in watching that part? Most people I know just ignore the Pro Tour until the first three rounds are done. I can understand a desire for limited in order to 'challenge' people but that doesn't mean they have to do it every Pro Tour. They could easily have every other Pro Tour being Standard+Limited and the intervening ones being Standard+Modern.
Am I missing something? This just seems such an obvious solution to everything.
Be a fun way to play Magic (first, and easy to forget, but very important!)
Let you tap into your collection to expand upon established decks and familiar strategies from Magic's recent past
Offer different types of decks and gameplay than what you typically see in Standard
Not rotate, allowing you to keep a deck for a long period of time
Consist of cards that we are willing and able to reprint
I think the last point is going to be the one that will determine moderns future more than anything. They may just completely cut swaths of cards from the modern roster even with modern borders in order to reach that goal, especially if they want to have cards from only magic's recent past.
Private Mod Note
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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!
Well, Wizards of the Coast has successfully killed any interest I had in watching future Pro Tours as well as any interest I had in any PTQs that aren't in my home city (and possibly even those). It makes me feel like they're actively trying to push me away from the game (it's not for nothing I've taken up Force of Will).
I still don't know why they don't have at least some of the Pro Tours be split Standard/Modern. It just solves everything. It gives the Modern fans something interesting. It keeps the Pro Tour NEW AND EXCITING because you have the Standard portion, so even if the Modern part is a bit repetitive the Standard portion is NEW AND EXCITING. The only downside is that it drops the draft portion, and legitimate question: Is anyone actually that interested in watching that part? Most people I know just ignore the Pro Tour until the first three rounds are done. I can understand a desire for limited in order to 'challenge' people but that doesn't mean they have to do it every Pro Tour. They could easily have every other Pro Tour being Standard+Limited and the intervening ones being Standard+Modern.
Am I missing something? This just seems such an obvious solution to everything.
Honestly, the quality of the coverage and commentary SCG provides is vastly superior anyway. Plus, the Opens and Invitationals aren't hyper-metagamed by inbreeding teams where most members are all running the same deck. GPs do a way better job of creating relatable content for the game anyway, since they aren't based around playing in a vacuum with a limited number of opponents (and don't have to spend half the day drafting...).
The relevance of the Pro Tour on Modern is embarrassingly small. I mean, it took the ban of a format staple deck AND a series of utterly busted new cards to make it matter in any way. And even then, it produced one of the most spectacularly bad environments Modern has ever seen.
I am thrilled to see Modern relegated back to the people under real world environments like GPs and Opens. It means that what we get to see matters more for local competitive play. And best of all, it won't be f***ed with just for the sake of shaking things up. Hopefully players can be a little more confident that their deck won't be randomly banned anymore.
Well, Wizards of the Coast has successfully killed any interest I had in watching future Pro Tours as well as any interest I had in any PTQs that aren't in my home city (and possibly even those). It makes me feel like they're actively trying to push me away from the game (it's not for nothing I've taken up Force of Will).
I still don't know why they don't have at least some of the Pro Tours be split Standard/Modern. It just solves everything. It gives the Modern fans something interesting. It keeps the Pro Tour NEW AND EXCITING because you have the Standard portion, so even if the Modern part is a bit repetitive the Standard portion is NEW AND EXCITING. The only downside is that it drops the draft portion, and legitimate question: Is anyone actually that interested in watching that part? Most people I know just ignore the Pro Tour until the first three rounds are done. I can understand a desire for limited in order to 'challenge' people but that doesn't mean they have to do it every Pro Tour. They could easily have every other Pro Tour being Standard+Limited and the intervening ones being Standard+Modern.
Am I missing something? This just seems such an obvious solution to everything.
You're missing 2 things:
1. WOTC will always prioritize Draft over everything else, including Standard
2. You're still including Modern, which WOTC obviously feels is more trouble than its worth. Just bunching it with Standard instead of with Draft doesn't address any of the issues they have with the format.
Well, Wizards of the Coast has successfully killed any interest I had in watching future Pro Tours as well as any interest I had in any PTQs that aren't in my home city (and possibly even those). It makes me feel like they're actively trying to push me away from the game (it's not for nothing I've taken up Force of Will).
I still don't know why they don't have at least some of the Pro Tours be split Standard/Modern. It just solves everything. It gives the Modern fans something interesting. It keeps the Pro Tour NEW AND EXCITING because you have the Standard portion, so even if the Modern part is a bit repetitive the Standard portion is NEW AND EXCITING. The only downside is that it drops the draft portion, and legitimate question: Is anyone actually that interested in watching that part? Most people I know just ignore the Pro Tour until the first three rounds are done. I can understand a desire for limited in order to 'challenge' people but that doesn't mean they have to do it every Pro Tour. They could easily have every other Pro Tour being Standard+Limited and the intervening ones being Standard+Modern.
Am I missing something? This just seems such an obvious solution to everything.
I understand the feeling. I feel like that a little bit as well. But there are positives to what they are doing.
A positive is that they won't have to do bans to "shaken up the Pro Tour format diversity," better known here as the Splinter Twin ban. Another positive is that we won't have Pro Player teams "figure" out the format immediately and realize that Eldrazi is OP. Now I'm actually pretty sure that there never was a completely optimal Eldrazi list, but for the teams to figure out something that probably would take laymen a LOT longer to do kind of ruined the next few months for many people.
I played Eldrazi exclusively after the Pro Tour. There was no reason to play anything else. I won around $1,000-1,300 in cash and mostly store credit and played in every GPT I could make it to. I felt like a "real Grinder." But the deck was horrible for Magic and it was absolutely no fun to just stomp people. But it beat the alternative of being curb stomped by people and it was basically "free money." This type of situation is not good for the Modern format. I considered quitting Modern. I considered quitting Magic and selling out. But I figured I would wait it out and thank God I did. Once Ancestral Vision and Sword of the Meek came back, I was overjoyed and honestly right now, Wizards can do almost nothing wrong in my eyes because of the latest ban list, which was 100% SPOT ON.
If anyone doubts the power of Eldrazi, here are the numbers for me personally during the reign.
I played in 9 GPTs with Eldrazi and lost a total of 3 games in the Swiss rounds, top 8ing all but one of those GPTs. That is 8 out of 9. My previous best ever percentage was with Standard Lorwyn Merfolk at 3 of 5 PTQs top 8ing. I got 2nd and 2 5th-8ths. That is a 60% percentage of top 8s. Eldrazi was 88% with 1 win and 2 scoops in the finals because I already had Byes. I will never have that type of success in Magic again. I simply don't have time to be the player I once was, so I have to live with mediocrity right now until the next Tier 0 deck that not everyone decides to play pops up.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Well, Wizards of the Coast has successfully killed any interest I had in watching future Pro Tours as well as any interest I had in any PTQs that aren't in my home city (and possibly even those). It makes me feel like they're actively trying to push me away from the game (it's not for nothing I've taken up Force of Will).
I still don't know why they don't have at least some of the Pro Tours be split Standard/Modern. It just solves everything. It gives the Modern fans something interesting. It keeps the Pro Tour NEW AND EXCITING because you have the Standard portion, so even if the Modern part is a bit repetitive the Standard portion is NEW AND EXCITING. The only downside is that it drops the draft portion, and legitimate question: Is anyone actually that interested in watching that part? Most people I know just ignore the Pro Tour until the first three rounds are done. I can understand a desire for limited in order to 'challenge' people but that doesn't mean they have to do it every Pro Tour. They could easily have every other Pro Tour being Standard+Limited and the intervening ones being Standard+Modern.
Am I missing something? This just seems such an obvious solution to everything.
I love this post, and I think it hits the nail on the head. Although I disagree with Draft, and believe there is a skill set required to do well with limited, I overall support your ideals. This is where I believe SCG could step in, and take over this entire Market. I would double the Modern Opens, there is in no way that SCG shouldn't be having huge meetings about this. They could make Modern the next Legacy, after they highhandedly made Legacy; Legacy.
Overall, I hate to see Modern leave the Pro Tour and PPTQ season. I don't think Wizards benefits at all from this abandonment, and truthfully, I know all the Pro's don't agree with these changes, but a specific set of minds do.
Well, Wizards of the Coast has successfully killed any interest I had in watching future Pro Tours as well as any interest I had in any PTQs that aren't in my home city (and possibly even those). It makes me feel like they're actively trying to push me away from the game (it's not for nothing I've taken up Force of Will).
I still don't know why they don't have at least some of the Pro Tours be split Standard/Modern. It just solves everything. It gives the Modern fans something interesting. It keeps the Pro Tour NEW AND EXCITING because you have the Standard portion, so even if the Modern part is a bit repetitive the Standard portion is NEW AND EXCITING. The only downside is that it drops the draft portion, and legitimate question: Is anyone actually that interested in watching that part? Most people I know just ignore the Pro Tour until the first three rounds are done. I can understand a desire for limited in order to 'challenge' people but that doesn't mean they have to do it every Pro Tour. They could easily have every other Pro Tour being Standard+Limited and the intervening ones being Standard+Modern.
Am I missing something? This just seems such an obvious solution to everything.
Well, Wizards of the Coast has successfully killed any interest I had in watching future Pro Tours as well as any interest I had in any PTQs that aren't in my home city (and possibly even those). It makes me feel like they're actively trying to push me away from the game (it's not for nothing I've taken up Force of Will).
I still don't know why they don't have at least some of the Pro Tours be split Standard/Modern. It just solves everything. It gives the Modern fans something interesting. It keeps the Pro Tour NEW AND EXCITING because you have the Standard portion, so even if the Modern part is a bit repetitive the Standard portion is NEW AND EXCITING. The only downside is that it drops the draft portion, and legitimate question: Is anyone actually that interested in watching that part? Most people I know just ignore the Pro Tour until the first three rounds are done. I can understand a desire for limited in order to 'challenge' people but that doesn't mean they have to do it every Pro Tour. They could easily have every other Pro Tour being Standard+Limited and the intervening ones being Standard+Modern.
Am I missing something? This just seems such an obvious solution to everything.
Modern shows off less of the new set than draft.
It'd also get a lot more viewers. How good of "showing off" of a set if not many people watch it?
Is there some secret cabal of people who love watching Limited that I'm unaware of? Don't get me wrong, I know Limited is popular to play, but I've never found anyone who's particularly interested in watching it, and the general tendency of viewers I've talked to is to not bother watching the Limited and only tune in when the Constructed part is on. That said, that's anecdotal evidence and I haven't really paid attention to the viewer count on the stream; is there less of a difference in viewers than I think there is? On the YouTube videos, there was a roughly 30% increase in viewers between Round 1 (first round of Limited) and Round 4 (first round of Constructed) in the most recent Pro Tour.
There's no way I can agree with AV and Twin existing at the same time, I see Jund and Junk drowning in CA with it around and Twin having no true predators outside of some fringe decks
Twin was the best deck in the format, which is fine, there needs to be a top dog, but you want it to have a turn 1 draw 3 as well? Hell no, that ship has passed
id rather they unbanned twin and admitted there mistake, instead they unban av and mess up the chances of twin ever coming back. oh well
It'd also get a lot more viewers. How good of "showing off" of a set if not many people watch it?
Is there some secret cabal of people who love watching Limited that I'm unaware of? Don't get me wrong, I know Limited is popular to play, but I've never found anyone who's particularly interested in watching it, and the general tendency of viewers I've talked to is to not bother watching the Limited and only tune in when the Constructed part is on. That said, that's anecdotal evidence and I haven't really paid attention to the viewer count on the stream; is there less of a difference in viewers than I think there is? On the YouTube videos, there was a roughly 30% increase in viewers between Round 1 (first round of Limited) and Round 4 (first round of Constructed) in the most recent Pro Tour.
How good is getting more viewers when they can only see maybe 2/250 of a new product that you're trying to sell them, sometimes even 0/250?
They do video coverage for Limited GPs, so clearly someone enjoys watching them.
Wizards didn't care for pro's playing modern, they only care for standard really and selling that. From their perspective Eldrazi winter was a success I am sure.
No more shake up bans? Good. Give me Twin back while you're at it.
If Twin comes back, i think pod can come back too. they were both banned for the same reasons.
The big difference I see is Pod got a suitable and competitive replacement with the combinations of Collected Company and Chord of Calling. You can dig 6 deep for 2 free creatures at instant speed or you can tutor for any one at instant speed, using your board state to convoke. It was competitive all throughout Eldrazi Winter and remains a strong deck still today. Twin on the other hand has no suitable replacement. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker builds (which can be fun) are mostly awful, slow, unreliable, and totally uncompetitive. And the rest of the UR piles are broken up into a bunch of random control-ish, midrange-ish Grixis or Jeskai builds with mediocre success, but nothing top tier. The fact that Twin was banned for GP and PT performance alone, and not on Turn 4 rules, dominance in metashare, limitations on future design, or oppression and warping of the meta as a whole, makes it feel extremely safe to come off at some point in the future (and probably shouldn't have been banned at all in the first place).
Two cards are banned for the same reason and one should be unbanned and the other stay banned based on other cards that might or might not fill the role? Thats a stupid doublestandard i think.
Just because you dont like the twin replacement in kiki-jiki doesn´t mean it should be seen different. And tell you what, while pod decks evolved into company decks, they play very different from each other.
They were banned for one overlapping reason and several different reasons. Most notably, the other reasons given for Twin are hilariously untrue: like Twin holding back other UR decks from being successful. They postulated that Twin had to be banned because it was put into most UR shells, but failed to recognize that those other UR shells are not winning because they're not good. Even now with AV, Grixis is the only deck putting up mediocre success with a modest 3-5% metashare. The rest are still non-existent. They also cite specifically in the ban that "We considered what one would do with the cards from a Splinter Twin deck with Splinter Twin banned. In the case of some Jeskai or Temur, there are very similar decks to build. In other cases, there is Kiki-Jiki as a replacement." Kiki is awful in that shell and only really works in the toolbox/tutor Chord deck. Jeskai and Temur decks are not even on the map.
I miss Twin a lot, but now that AV is unbanned, there's no way in hell Twin can be unbanned, at this point, we may as well unban POD and Deathrite Shaman, because it's seriously the only way Twin would have a predator. Twin had about a 40-60% game 1 against GBx, and then game 2 most pro's felt the match up was 50/50. Add a turn 1 AV to that, there's no way Jund or Junk could keep up with that, it means Twin would have no tier 1 or tier 2 predators...That's a pretty huge problem, if you ask me.
It sucks, because they can't just backtrack, ban AV, and unban Twin. Sorry, guys. At that point, we seriously should just unban broken good cards all together
AV isn't showing too be THAT good, and I'm quite surprised what a flop Thopter decks are right now. Thopter has too many weaknesses, it gets crapped all over by combo decks, Junk and Jund can beat it, and I'm not sure how a control player deals with it since I don't really play Jeskai or anything too much
They messed up blue with the Twin banning, but I think it shows that blue still needs a bit of a push to balance out aggro and combos.
I wonder if SFM is the next attempt with helping blue decks out. It would help out Junk, but then Jund would have a competitor, and then Mardu would actually be a legit deck as well. Probably in the process, BBE would then be unbanned. Now, if Jeskai, Esper, decks with SFM could help stem combo or aggro, maybe it would work.
I'm not sure what's going to help blue outside of a 2 mana hard counterspell, or Force of Will. Force of will would seriously crush combo decks in the format, I wonder if it would crush GBx decks too, or if they wouldn't be too effected by it
From my experience playing legacy, fair decks don't really care about force. DnT, Maverick, Jund, Shardless Bug all just play lots of good stuff, and 2 for 1 ing yourself isn't normally the best idea.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy
Death and Taxes Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
I'm not sure what's going to help blue outside of a 2 mana hard counterspell, or Force of Will. Force of will would seriously crush combo decks in the format, I wonder if it would crush GBx decks too, or if they wouldn't be too effected by it
What blue needs is a way to win the game in less than 15 turns, and that's what Twin provided.
Twin was not banned for PT gp reasons.
It was the superior deck in the format.
It was disgustingly good and only had 1 bad matchup in the bgx region that was fixed with double keranos sideboard.
Everything written in every official announcement and every tweet from every Wizards representative disagrees with this. It was said time and time again, including the original announcement, that it was banned for competitive diversity with regards to top 8 performance of GPs and PTs.
Spirits
Even if she's not released, she'll spike before every ban announcement. I picked up 2 playsets at $60/ea last November and sold one of them for $140 after the ban announcement. Still sitting on the other and debating if I want to spec on another set. If unbanned, she'll easily hit $80+ EACH, and if not unbanned, will still probably jump from <$20 to $40ish again.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I think it is a low risk spec for sure. She probably isn't seeing a reprint any time soon, is still in high demand for legacy (and probably commander to a lesser extent) and WoTC is not going to print a strictly better version of her ever (most likely).
I would feel very safe buying an extra playlet or two if you have the money to do so. At worst you'll get a small return, at best you'll get a 5-6x return.
Well, she was just printed as a GP promo for all of this year, and may show up in Eternal Masters. I think I'm just going to hold on to the set I have and spend the investment chunks on KTK fetchlands instead.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
The big difference I see is Pod got a suitable and competitive replacement with the combinations of Collected Company and Chord of Calling. You can dig 6 deep for 2 free creatures at instant speed or you can tutor for any one at instant speed, using your board state to convoke. It was competitive all throughout Eldrazi Winter and remains a strong deck still today. Twin on the other hand has no suitable replacement. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker builds (which can be fun) are mostly awful, slow, unreliable, and totally uncompetitive. And the rest of the UR piles are broken up into a bunch of random control-ish, midrange-ish Grixis or Jeskai builds with mediocre success, but nothing top tier. The fact that Twin was banned for GP and PT performance alone, and not on Turn 4 rules, dominance in metashare, limitations on future design, or oppression and warping of the meta as a whole, makes it feel extremely safe to come off at some point in the future (and probably shouldn't have been banned at all in the first place).
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I wouldn't hold your breath for either coming back, despite not more PTs.
Pod will simply get better and better as more creatures are printed with new abilities.
Twin is just a notch below that in my opinion, but I don't see it coming off either (at least not for a while).
The format has a ton of decks in it and is arguably as diverse as it has ever been, I just don't see a reason for unbanning those cards at the moment other than for those who are still upset about either of those decks being banned (I used to play Twin, and I no longer have an issue with the ban).
I still don't know why they don't have at least some of the Pro Tours be split Standard/Modern. It just solves everything. It gives the Modern fans something interesting. It keeps the Pro Tour NEW AND EXCITING because you have the Standard portion, so even if the Modern part is a bit repetitive the Standard portion is NEW AND EXCITING. The only downside is that it drops the draft portion, and legitimate question: Is anyone actually that interested in watching that part? Most people I know just ignore the Pro Tour until the first three rounds are done. I can understand a desire for limited in order to 'challenge' people but that doesn't mean they have to do it every Pro Tour. They could easily have every other Pro Tour being Standard+Limited and the intervening ones being Standard+Modern.
Am I missing something? This just seems such an obvious solution to everything.
Spirits
Be a fun way to play Magic (first, and easy to forget, but very important!)
Let you tap into your collection to expand upon established decks and familiar strategies from Magic's recent past
Offer different types of decks and gameplay than what you typically see in Standard
Not rotate, allowing you to keep a deck for a long period of time
Consist of cards that we are willing and able to reprint
I think the last point is going to be the one that will determine moderns future more than anything. They may just completely cut swaths of cards from the modern roster even with modern borders in order to reach that goal, especially if they want to have cards from only magic's recent past.
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!
He didn't say reprint via Standard.
Spirits
Honestly, the quality of the coverage and commentary SCG provides is vastly superior anyway. Plus, the Opens and Invitationals aren't hyper-metagamed by inbreeding teams where most members are all running the same deck. GPs do a way better job of creating relatable content for the game anyway, since they aren't based around playing in a vacuum with a limited number of opponents (and don't have to spend half the day drafting...).
The relevance of the Pro Tour on Modern is embarrassingly small. I mean, it took the ban of a format staple deck AND a series of utterly busted new cards to make it matter in any way. And even then, it produced one of the most spectacularly bad environments Modern has ever seen.
I am thrilled to see Modern relegated back to the people under real world environments like GPs and Opens. It means that what we get to see matters more for local competitive play. And best of all, it won't be f***ed with just for the sake of shaking things up. Hopefully players can be a little more confident that their deck won't be randomly banned anymore.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
1. WOTC will always prioritize Draft over everything else, including Standard
2. You're still including Modern, which WOTC obviously feels is more trouble than its worth. Just bunching it with Standard instead of with Draft doesn't address any of the issues they have with the format.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
I understand the feeling. I feel like that a little bit as well. But there are positives to what they are doing.
A positive is that they won't have to do bans to "shaken up the Pro Tour format diversity," better known here as the Splinter Twin ban. Another positive is that we won't have Pro Player teams "figure" out the format immediately and realize that Eldrazi is OP. Now I'm actually pretty sure that there never was a completely optimal Eldrazi list, but for the teams to figure out something that probably would take laymen a LOT longer to do kind of ruined the next few months for many people.
I played Eldrazi exclusively after the Pro Tour. There was no reason to play anything else. I won around $1,000-1,300 in cash and mostly store credit and played in every GPT I could make it to. I felt like a "real Grinder." But the deck was horrible for Magic and it was absolutely no fun to just stomp people. But it beat the alternative of being curb stomped by people and it was basically "free money." This type of situation is not good for the Modern format. I considered quitting Modern. I considered quitting Magic and selling out. But I figured I would wait it out and thank God I did. Once Ancestral Vision and Sword of the Meek came back, I was overjoyed and honestly right now, Wizards can do almost nothing wrong in my eyes because of the latest ban list, which was 100% SPOT ON.
If anyone doubts the power of Eldrazi, here are the numbers for me personally during the reign.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I love this post, and I think it hits the nail on the head. Although I disagree with Draft, and believe there is a skill set required to do well with limited, I overall support your ideals. This is where I believe SCG could step in, and take over this entire Market. I would double the Modern Opens, there is in no way that SCG shouldn't be having huge meetings about this. They could make Modern the next Legacy, after they highhandedly made Legacy; Legacy.
Overall, I hate to see Modern leave the Pro Tour and PPTQ season. I don't think Wizards benefits at all from this abandonment, and truthfully, I know all the Pro's don't agree with these changes, but a specific set of minds do.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Is there some secret cabal of people who love watching Limited that I'm unaware of? Don't get me wrong, I know Limited is popular to play, but I've never found anyone who's particularly interested in watching it, and the general tendency of viewers I've talked to is to not bother watching the Limited and only tune in when the Constructed part is on. That said, that's anecdotal evidence and I haven't really paid attention to the viewer count on the stream; is there less of a difference in viewers than I think there is? On the YouTube videos, there was a roughly 30% increase in viewers between Round 1 (first round of Limited) and Round 4 (first round of Constructed) in the most recent Pro Tour.
id rather they unbanned twin and admitted there mistake, instead they unban av and mess up the chances of twin ever coming back. oh well
decks playing:
none
They do video coverage for Limited GPs, so clearly someone enjoys watching them.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
They were banned for one overlapping reason and several different reasons. Most notably, the other reasons given for Twin are hilariously untrue: like Twin holding back other UR decks from being successful. They postulated that Twin had to be banned because it was put into most UR shells, but failed to recognize that those other UR shells are not winning because they're not good. Even now with AV, Grixis is the only deck putting up mediocre success with a modest 3-5% metashare. The rest are still non-existent. They also cite specifically in the ban that "We considered what one would do with the cards from a Splinter Twin deck with Splinter Twin banned. In the case of some Jeskai or Temur, there are very similar decks to build. In other cases, there is Kiki-Jiki as a replacement." Kiki is awful in that shell and only really works in the toolbox/tutor Chord deck. Jeskai and Temur decks are not even on the map.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
It sucks, because they can't just backtrack, ban AV, and unban Twin. Sorry, guys. At that point, we seriously should just unban broken good cards all together
AV isn't showing too be THAT good, and I'm quite surprised what a flop Thopter decks are right now. Thopter has too many weaknesses, it gets crapped all over by combo decks, Junk and Jund can beat it, and I'm not sure how a control player deals with it since I don't really play Jeskai or anything too much
They messed up blue with the Twin banning, but I think it shows that blue still needs a bit of a push to balance out aggro and combos.
I wonder if SFM is the next attempt with helping blue decks out. It would help out Junk, but then Jund would have a competitor, and then Mardu would actually be a legit deck as well. Probably in the process, BBE would then be unbanned. Now, if Jeskai, Esper, decks with SFM could help stem combo or aggro, maybe it would work.
I'm not sure what's going to help blue outside of a 2 mana hard counterspell, or Force of Will. Force of will would seriously crush combo decks in the format, I wonder if it would crush GBx decks too, or if they wouldn't be too effected by it
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
What blue needs is a way to win the game in less than 15 turns, and that's what Twin provided.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Everything written in every official announcement and every tweet from every Wizards representative disagrees with this. It was said time and time again, including the original announcement, that it was banned for competitive diversity with regards to top 8 performance of GPs and PTs.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
If a thopter deck doesn't come around we will see just how diverse blue is.
Next GP is when?
Spirits