I think the power level of SFM is being greatly overestimated in here. It is a "combo" that requires you to run dead draws. I am not saying she is bad certainly but 2 mana 1/2s had better have good abilities. When other 2 drops of the format being cards like tarmogoyf, Snapcaster, even lesser played cards like young pyromancer all either have MUCH larger stats or VERY powerful abilites. Why should white not also have a powerful 2 drop?
There is another problem here. Abzan Blade will be the deck that will have a GREAT( i mean, it already has great matchups ) vs all of the fair decks. I have played a lot with Grixis, Jeskai, UR Twin and a with a lot of URx matchups against Abzan and I can confirm this. With SFM, it will probably be suppressing the fair decks.
Also, Abzan MIdrange was at 19% some months ago(at PT FRF). Can you tell me that with SFM Abzan Midrange won't go at that Birthing Podesque Levels again, but will sustain its place there this time?
If Abzan is already favoured against all the other fair decks and doesn't suppress them now, why should this change only because fair matchups get better but don't change much against unfair decks? Only the Burn matchup would really improve, but many other decks don't care at all about SFM. Eldrazis are bigger than Skull and play TKS, Dredge ignores it, Infect laughs at it, Tron exiles or destroys it, Scapeshift races it, Suicide Bloo/Zoo punches through it...these decks make up a way bigger portion of the metagame than fair decks and having a good matchup against these decks is far more important than against Abzan. I am not even too certain that Abzan would be the best deck for SFM. Maybe there is a better Jeskai or Esper list with SFM. I would certainly brew a lot with her and not just settle on Abzan.
Ancient Stirrings is legal much for the same reasons Mox Opal is legal. At least so far, the deck building restrictions prevent the cards from seeing wide play, as they might if they had slightly easier requirements like Ponder and Chrome Mox.
For that reason, I just don't see Ancient Stirrings being banned. As long as Mox Opal is fine because 'artifacts matter' for it, then AS will likely stay legal for 'colourless matters' decks.
Both very strong cards, kept in check by their deckbuilding requirements (at least as far as WotC is treating them).
There is an unsettling amount of cards being thrown around for bans. Ancient Stirrings being a great card should not put it on the chopping block unless and until you can show it is in a dominant share of the metagame.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Ancient Stirrings is legal much for the same reasons Mox Opal is legal. At least so far, the deck building restrictions prevent the cards from seeing wide play, as they might if they had slightly easier requirements like Ponder and Chrome Mox.
For that reason, I just don't see Ancient Stirrings being banned. As long as Mox Opal is fine because 'artifacts matter' for it, then AS will likely stay legal for 'colourless matters' decks.
Both very strong cards, kept in check by their deckbuilding requirements (at least as far as WotC is treating them).
There is an unsettling amount of cards being thrown around for bans. Ancient Stirrings being a great card should not put it on the chopping block unless and until you can show it is in a dominant share of the metagame.
Agree %100 why is everyone wanting bans rather than opening up the format to diversity? Who cares if SFM pushes abzan if infect and dredge are already being pushed. Rather than trying to make every deck equally bad let's try to make decks equally good! Banning cards to destroy decks is just bad and stirrings would def kill Tron, lantern, and bant eldrazi (two of which just got hit and the other is just getting off the ground). You play more post board games than mb games so who cares if you can't have all good/decent matchups, welcome to magic people.
SFM is one of those cards that shouldn't come off and I don't think people suggesting her unban are aware of her power.
This is exactly the kind of hyperbole that my post was referencing. Yes, SFM is a good card but it is a one off card advantage then it is a 1/2. i am fully aware of "her power" of cheating equipment into play but the only equipment that is even relevant to that discussion is a 4/4 lifelink vigilance which is SMALLER than the green 2 drop tarmogoyf. Seriously, the idea that she is somehow way more powerful than anything this format is already doing is just hyperbole. If the discussion boils down to whether she reduces deck diversity rather than increasing deck diversity then that is a fine discussion but trying to pretend she is over the top powerful is not a profitable discussion because she clearly is not.
People need to prove Abzanblade would be too dominant other than making blanket statements. Bant Eldrazi makes any SFM deck laughable as Reality Smasher is just better than Batterskull and Displacer can blink the germ token away. All unfair decks don't care about SFM like they generally don't care about any current fair deck and fairer decks like Jund and Grixis can easily interact with her.
Modern's power creep has shown SFM is fine, the only legitimate argument against her is now is diversity amongst White decks.
SFM is one of those cards that shouldn't come off and I don't think people suggesting her unban are aware of her power.
This is exactly the kind of hyperbole that my post was referencing. Yes, SFM is a good card but it is a one off card advantage then it is a 1/2. i am fully aware of "her power" of cheating equipment into play but the only equipment that is even relevant to that discussion is a 4/4 lifelink vigilance which is SMALLER than the green 2 drop tarmogoyf. Seriously, the idea that she is somehow way more powerful than anything this format is already doing is just hyperbole. If the discussion boils down to whether she reduces deck diversity rather than increasing deck diversity then that is a fine discussion but trying to pretend she is over the top powerful is not a profitable discussion because she clearly is not.
Just from reading your comment I'm guessing you've never played with or against SFM. Sure, it's not quite as broken as in Legacy since you can't tutor for Jitte, but turn-3 Batterskull is a game-winning play in Modern most of the time. Even if they kill SFM before it can be activated, it's still a Steelshaper's Gift that takes out a removal spell. And you can't compare Batterskull to Tarmogoyf - most creatures that are played in Modern are smaller than Tarmogoyf, and this one has two relevant abilities. Now, I don't necessarily think that SFM shouldn't EVER come off, but it's definitely one of the stronger cards on the banned list, and I don't think it should get unbanned right now or for the foreseeable future.
Who cares if SFM pushes abzan if infect and dredge are already being pushed. Rather than trying to make every deck equally bad let's try to make decks equally good!
So Abzan is fine to have SFM while Jund isn't allowed to have BBE. I know you haven't said BBE shouldn't come off but balance is exactly what Wizards should be looking for. On top of that BBE isn't any stronger than SFM. So if SFM is fine to be legal then BBE is so more so.
In general I think none deck should be pushed above others. Of course some decks are better than other and this is perfectly fine but they should be similar in terms of power level. When we reach this, metagame is balanced but if some decks are too much above others this isn't good for format. For me metagame where you can't say which deck is clearly the best is what we need. So it's ok to push some decks a bit but then others (that are not on the top already) need a help too.
That's correct I never did say don't unban it. However some things I did say long ago were that if SFM and batterskull are too powerful then batterskull should be the card ban not SFM, this fixes all these agument against it's unban (EDIT: and batterskull sees very little play currently with plating being the only other equipment that sees any). SFM opens up equepment stratagies/creatures like puresteel and the like, SFM allows decks that aren't in the meta currently. BBE is way better than what jund players are saying because with flayer now they do have top deck manipulation too so it's possible to hit with flayer t3 set up BBE into k command into another something like who knows tasigur or another bbe for next turn on t4 all for 4cmc. If your goal is to always use bans to keep power levels down and even the ban list will grow massive. We need unbans to bring other levels up not vise versa.
SFM is one of those cards that shouldn't come off and I don't think people suggesting her unban are aware of her power.
This is exactly the kind of hyperbole that my post was referencing. Yes, SFM is a good card but it is a one off card advantage then it is a 1/2. i am fully aware of "her power" of cheating equipment into play but the only equipment that is even relevant to that discussion is a 4/4 lifelink vigilance which is SMALLER than the green 2 drop tarmogoyf. Seriously, the idea that she is somehow way more powerful than anything this format is already doing is just hyperbole. If the discussion boils down to whether she reduces deck diversity rather than increasing deck diversity then that is a fine discussion but trying to pretend she is over the top powerful is not a profitable discussion because she clearly is not.
Just from reading your comment I'm guessing you've never played with or against SFM. Sure, it's not quite as broken as in Legacy since you can't tutor for Jitte, but turn-3 Batterskull is a game-winning play in Modern most of the time. Even if they kill SFM before it can be activated, it's still a Steelshaper's Gift that takes out a removal spell. And you can't compare Batterskull to Tarmogoyf - most creatures that are played in Modern are smaller than Tarmogoyf, and this one has two relevant abilities. Now, I don't necessarily think that SFM shouldn't EVER come off, but it's definitely one of the stronger cards on the banned list, and I don't think it should get unbanned right now or for the foreseeable future.
I have not only played with and against her but i have done some testing with my brother in law in current modern and your statement is at best ignorant and at worst damaging to intelligent discourse.
I am listing what she actually does as a card and speaking from VERY recent experience decking 2 equipment is a very real cost. Drawing either the sword or the skull requires 5 mana investment to see any benefit and it is actively bad in a number of matchups. Particularly in abzan which is a very tight list with precious few slots to cut you are often in a situation where you need an answer and draw a SFM or equipment, and along with that you regularly would rather have tarmogoyf than SFM when you pull it off the top of the deck. (It is most often better than tarmogoyf on exactly turn 2 but not even always then.)
Also, she is only as good as the equipment you can get with her. So saying she is not as good in modern where you cannot get jitte is a GROSS understatement jitte is often whoever gets it first wins and that is just not the case for batterskull or swords in modern
SFM is one of those cards that shouldn't come off and I don't think people suggesting her unban are aware of her power.
This is exactly the kind of hyperbole that my post was referencing. Yes, SFM is a good card but it is a one off card advantage then it is a 1/2. i am fully aware of "her power" of cheating equipment into play but the only equipment that is even relevant to that discussion is a 4/4 lifelink vigilance which is SMALLER than the green 2 drop tarmogoyf. Seriously, the idea that she is somehow way more powerful than anything this format is already doing is just hyperbole. If the discussion boils down to whether she reduces deck diversity rather than increasing deck diversity then that is a fine discussion but trying to pretend she is over the top powerful is not a profitable discussion because she clearly is not.
Just from reading your comment I'm guessing you've never played with or against SFM. Sure, it's not quite as broken as in Legacy since you can't tutor for Jitte, but turn-3 Batterskull is a game-winning play in Modern most of the time. Even if they kill SFM before it can be activated, it's still a Steelshaper's Gift that takes out a removal spell. And you can't compare Batterskull to Tarmogoyf - most creatures that are played in Modern are smaller than Tarmogoyf, and this one has two relevant abilities. Now, I don't necessarily think that SFM shouldn't EVER come off, but it's definitely one of the stronger cards on the banned list, and I don't think it should get unbanned right now or for the foreseeable future.
I have not only played with and against her but i have done some testing with my brother in law in current modern and your statement is at best ignorant and at worst damaging to intelligent discourse.
I am listing what she actually does as a card and speaking from VERY recent experience decking 2 equipment is a very real cost. Drawing either the sword or the skull requires 5 mana investment to see any benefit and it is actively bad in a number of matchups. Particularly in abzan which is a very tight list with precious few slots to cut you are often in a situation where you need an answer and draw a SFM or equipment, and along with that you regularly would rather have tarmogoyf than SFM when you pull it off the top of the deck. (It is most often better than tarmogoyf on exactly turn 2 but not even always then.)
Also, she is only as good as the equipment you can get with her. So saying she is not as good in modern where you cannot get jitte is a GROSS understatement jitte is often whoever gets it first wins and that is just not the case for batterskull or swords in modern
I agree swapping 6 cards in these t1ish decks for the package is not a small cost to the lists. EDIT: not to mention how your own sb will now change for matchups like affinity because your threats are artifact based.
People need to prove Abzanblade would be too dominant other than making blanket statements.
Obviously you are wrong. It's the yaysayers that have to prove SFM is OK to enter the Modern pool, not the other way around. Most of us have agreed on this in the past. Test, show results and then maybe you can convince us.
The issue is a group of "pros" would have to do so for it to matter at all, and they don't care about modern at all because no pro tour for modern! So people needed to test for AV and Thopter/Sword then too? Most of modern is played at LGS and smaller events so I don't see why WOTC wouldn't want to open it up to more diversity in deckbuilding. There is a reason they set up the modern GP's on the same weekends and so few and far between and that is so it doesn't look like the same crap every day. No PT means teams aren't going to test and brew, they are just going to take something proven to the couple GP's each year and worry about STD.
To the people who are saying SFM would be bad against Eldrazi let me correct them and say this just isn't true. SFM into (turn 3) Batterskull is very big deal against Eldrazi as early Batterskull is certainly one of the best things you can do against them. Along with Lingering Souls to provide some time Eldrazi would have hard time racing it, I'm pretty sure about that. She's not the end of the world for Eldrazi but I'm sure she would pose bigger problem to them than most people here thinks.
Turn 3 Batterskull is the ideal play, so let's examine some of Eldrazi's ideal plays.
T2 Thought-Knot Seer, take out their Batterskull permanently. T3 Reality Smasher just stone walls Batterskull while forcing Abzan to lose some of its advantage gained from SFM to remove it. Eldrazi Displacer just blinks away the germ and Lingering Souls' token, SFM cries in the corner. Again, Reality Smasher is a faster clock. It would be an even match, but in all honestly why is that a problem? People were saying a few weeks ago that Bant Eldrazi is too good against fair midrange decks.
The only way SFM is truly scary is the T1 Thoughtseize/Kozilek into T2 SFM but you'll probably want to mulligan aggressively which comes with its own problems.
Edit: Burden of proof is on those who make the claim. People here who say Abzan would be too good need to provide some evidence other than anecdotal evidence.
I think the testing was great and it all made sense but his conclusion did not make sense. It has a margin of error impact on all matchups that are not burn which mirrors Sheridan's testing then he goes on to conclude that it is indeed not too powerful. Which his data backs up and is all we needed to see. However, he continued to go on with the conclusion by saying that it could encourage people to go even faster so since it wont fix modern there is no reason to unban it. This is not the correct conclusion to draw. The correct conclusion to draw is: SFM is not format warping or oppressive so it should be unbanned. Which is exactly why naysayers need testing to prove it is any of the things you claim SFM is.
You are switching who made their claim first, which isn't anyone's fault as this thread is more like a stream that flows and you jump in at anytime other than a formal argument
that has a starting proposal.
People said Abzan would be too good with SFM and that's where I came in, and that's where I stand.
As for Modern Nexus's article we've had this argument before in the last thread. Great start but not enough data versus a more varied field of test decks to draw a final conclusion. He didn't even test against decks that were hot at the moment ( such as Eldrazi ) of the article's posting as he had to started the experiment many months prior. Also, as pointed out by others, he play tested against decks that weren't prepared for a SFM Modern. Not ragging on the guy's hard work, and it certainly does start the conversation regarding SFM with more facts but you shouldn't state it as absolute factual evidence.
However, he continued to go on with the conclusion by saying that it could encourage people to go even faster so since it wont fix modern there is no reason to unban it. This is not the correct conclusion to draw.
Yes, his conclusion was a bit confusing. It almost seemed more like a answering a question with another question. His testing even show that Abzan was fine against those decks but not completely overwhelming like people originally thought. With the selection of simple deck it seemed natural Burn would be the only one adversely affected, but on the other hand the Burn player he found did weird things like boarding out his Eidolons against Abzan.
You are switching who made their claim first, which isn't anyone's fault as this thread is more like a stream that flows and you jump in at anytime other than a formal argument
that has a starting proposal.
People said Abzan would be too good with SFM and that's where I came in, that's where I stand.
As for Modern Nexus's article we've had this argument before in the last thread. Great start but not enough data versus a more varied field of test decks to draw a final conclusion. He didn't even test against decks that were hot at the moment ( such as Eldrazi ) of the article's posting as he had to started the experiment many months prior. Also, as pointed out by others, he play tested against decks that weren't prepared for a SFM Modern. Not ragging on the guy's hard work, and it certainly does start the conversation regarding SFM with more facts but you shouldn't state it as absolute factual evidence.
Nope, I am not saying anything. SFM can stay banned and nothing has to change regarding SFM. If you, have to claim otherwise, enlighten us with a similar test to this with hard data.
He did the research, so he has to know better than us having played 200 games with or against SFM. Inevitably, his words counts more than your or mine. It's not factual evidence, I just happen to weight it a little bit more than yours and mine
Except that you are ignoring his data. Naysayers are saying that SFM is format warping and too powerful for modern that is what this entire conversation is about. His data directly contradicts that. His data confirms SFM is a good card, (which we all already knew) but even he concedes it is not those things.
I think that it'd be interesting to see dark depths unbanned...
If they instead banned vampire hexmage, then that would encourage players to find other means to create a combo
I don't get all these swap ban arguments. People are like "I think we should re-enable a degenerate combo but ban the part of the combo that hasn't actually done anything wrong, which means we can never print an effect like that again."
It's the same kind of people who are like "Let's ban Batterskull, a card that has never done anything wrong and isn't even that good in the format right now, and unban Stoneforge Mystic, a card that warps formats and forces Wizards to never push equipment again."
I just don't see the point to any of these, nor do I see them as a healthy use of the banlist.
I think that it'd be interesting to see dark depths unbanned...
If they instead banned vampire hexmage, then that would encourage players to find other means to create a combo
I don't get all these swap ban arguments. People are like "I think we should re-enable a degenerate combo but ban the part of the combo that hasn't actually done anything wrong, which means we can never print an effect like that again."
It's the same kind of people who are like "Let's ban Batterskull, a card that has never done anything wrong and isn't even that good in the format right now, and unban Stoneforge Mystic, a card that warps formats and forces Wizards to never push equipment again."
I just don't see the point to any of these, nor do I see them as a healthy use of the banlist.
I agree that is not a healthy use of the banlist. However your assumption that SFM is format warping goes against all testing that has taken place to date.
Swap bans are mostly just a thought experiment and go against Wizards' typical MO of banning the enabler. Usually I relegate those arguments to same side of banning fetchlands.
"URx and abzan dont need help, just look at their numbers!"
Then
"jund needs help! Plz ignore the numbers, they lie!"
Your bias is so blatant its almost hilarious
*slow clap*
I should really take better consideration of what arguments I want to jump heedlessly into. Not sure if anyone here remembers when AV was just unbanned and he thought it would bury BGx for good. Jund is still alive and AV hardly sees play at top tables, who would've thought that MTG players are terrible at evaluating MTG cards.
Ancient Stirrings is legal much for the same reasons Mox Opal is legal. At least so far, the deck building restrictions prevent the cards from seeing wide play, as they might if they had slightly easier requirements like Ponder and Chrome Mox.
For that reason, I just don't see Ancient Stirrings being banned. As long as Mox Opal is fine because 'artifacts matter' for it, then AS will likely stay legal for 'colourless matters' decks.
Both very strong cards, kept in check by their deckbuilding requirements (at least as far as WotC is treating them).
There is an unsettling amount of cards being thrown around for bans. Ancient Stirrings being a great card should not put it on the chopping block unless and until you can show it is in a dominant share of the metagame.
Agree %100 why is everyone wanting bans rather than opening up the format to diversity? Who cares if SFM pushes abzan if infect and dredge are already being pushed. Rather than trying to make every deck equally bad let's try to make decks equally good! Banning cards to destroy decks is just bad and stirrings would def kill Tron, lantern, and bant eldrazi (two of which just got hit and the other is just getting off the ground). You play more post board games than mb games so who cares if you can't have all good/decent matchups, welcome to magic people.
I agree with both of you, but to be fair, matches against Lantern Control often are around 1-2 games, with Game 1 being the longest. (I realize that opponents can scoop at any time, but sometimes you play on for percentage points to win or just to see the minor differences in the Lantern list when you believe the Lantern player already knows your deck list.)
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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)
I don't get all these swap ban arguments. People are like "I think we should re-enable a degenerate combo but ban the part of the combo that hasn't actually done anything wrong, which means we can never print an effect like that again."
It's the same kind of people who are like "Let's ban Batterskull, a card that has never done anything wrong and isn't even that good in the format right now, and unban Stoneforge Mystic, a card that warps formats and forces Wizards to never push equipment again."
I just don't see the point to any of these, nor do I see them as a healthy use of the banlist.
I agree that is not a healthy use of the banlist. However your assumption that SFM is format warping goes against all testing that has taken place to date.
That's true, though I would argue that there hasn't been terribly much testing done (though big props to the guys at Modern Nexus for their work with testing Mystic).
The main point is that it's like banning Siege Rhino and unbanning Birthing Pod (which I have also seen argued). By keeping the enabler in the format you limit what else can be done when it's much more logical to remove the enabler which allows a more free design space. You're either playing whack-a-mole with cards that suddenly become broken or you can get rid of it and never run into that problem again.
To be fair it's more likely they print a creature with an abusable ETB trigger before an busted equipment, especially with their current design philosophy. Wizards also admits they don't test for Modern.
Jitte will never happened again, and Batterskull was a unique case because it also circumvents the equip cost that balance all other equipments with Living Weapon.
Looking over the metagame, I'm increasingly convinced Wizards is going to ban something from Dredge (probably GGT) and justify it by whatever rationale they can throw together. For lack of better terms, there are enough people that probably believe the deck "feels bad" and just want it gone. It wouldn't necessarily be a very data-driven decision, nor one aligned with the previous diversity and T4 rule bans, but I do think it's what's going to happen in January.
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If Abzan is already favoured against all the other fair decks and doesn't suppress them now, why should this change only because fair matchups get better but don't change much against unfair decks? Only the Burn matchup would really improve, but many other decks don't care at all about SFM. Eldrazis are bigger than Skull and play TKS, Dredge ignores it, Infect laughs at it, Tron exiles or destroys it, Scapeshift races it, Suicide Bloo/Zoo punches through it...these decks make up a way bigger portion of the metagame than fair decks and having a good matchup against these decks is far more important than against Abzan. I am not even too certain that Abzan would be the best deck for SFM. Maybe there is a better Jeskai or Esper list with SFM. I would certainly brew a lot with her and not just settle on Abzan.
My Modern Decks:
BGWAbzan MidrangeWGB
UWRJeskai NahiriRWU
BRUGrixis ControlURB
For that reason, I just don't see Ancient Stirrings being banned. As long as Mox Opal is fine because 'artifacts matter' for it, then AS will likely stay legal for 'colourless matters' decks.
Both very strong cards, kept in check by their deckbuilding requirements (at least as far as WotC is treating them).
There is an unsettling amount of cards being thrown around for bans. Ancient Stirrings being a great card should not put it on the chopping block unless and until you can show it is in a dominant share of the metagame.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Agree %100 why is everyone wanting bans rather than opening up the format to diversity? Who cares if SFM pushes abzan if infect and dredge are already being pushed. Rather than trying to make every deck equally bad let's try to make decks equally good! Banning cards to destroy decks is just bad and stirrings would def kill Tron, lantern, and bant eldrazi (two of which just got hit and the other is just getting off the ground). You play more post board games than mb games so who cares if you can't have all good/decent matchups, welcome to magic people.
This is exactly the kind of hyperbole that my post was referencing. Yes, SFM is a good card but it is a one off card advantage then it is a 1/2. i am fully aware of "her power" of cheating equipment into play but the only equipment that is even relevant to that discussion is a 4/4 lifelink vigilance which is SMALLER than the green 2 drop tarmogoyf. Seriously, the idea that she is somehow way more powerful than anything this format is already doing is just hyperbole. If the discussion boils down to whether she reduces deck diversity rather than increasing deck diversity then that is a fine discussion but trying to pretend she is over the top powerful is not a profitable discussion because she clearly is not.
Modern's power creep has shown SFM is fine, the only legitimate argument against her is now is diversity amongst White decks.
Just from reading your comment I'm guessing you've never played with or against SFM. Sure, it's not quite as broken as in Legacy since you can't tutor for Jitte, but turn-3 Batterskull is a game-winning play in Modern most of the time. Even if they kill SFM before it can be activated, it's still a Steelshaper's Gift that takes out a removal spell. And you can't compare Batterskull to Tarmogoyf - most creatures that are played in Modern are smaller than Tarmogoyf, and this one has two relevant abilities. Now, I don't necessarily think that SFM shouldn't EVER come off, but it's definitely one of the stronger cards on the banned list, and I don't think it should get unbanned right now or for the foreseeable future.
That's correct I never did say don't unban it. However some things I did say long ago were that if SFM and batterskull are too powerful then batterskull should be the card ban not SFM, this fixes all these agument against it's unban (EDIT: and batterskull sees very little play currently with plating being the only other equipment that sees any). SFM opens up equepment stratagies/creatures like puresteel and the like, SFM allows decks that aren't in the meta currently. BBE is way better than what jund players are saying because with flayer now they do have top deck manipulation too so it's possible to hit with flayer t3 set up BBE into k command into another something like who knows tasigur or another bbe for next turn on t4 all for 4cmc. If your goal is to always use bans to keep power levels down and even the ban list will grow massive. We need unbans to bring other levels up not vise versa.
I have not only played with and against her but i have done some testing with my brother in law in current modern and your statement is at best ignorant and at worst damaging to intelligent discourse.
I am listing what she actually does as a card and speaking from VERY recent experience decking 2 equipment is a very real cost. Drawing either the sword or the skull requires 5 mana investment to see any benefit and it is actively bad in a number of matchups. Particularly in abzan which is a very tight list with precious few slots to cut you are often in a situation where you need an answer and draw a SFM or equipment, and along with that you regularly would rather have tarmogoyf than SFM when you pull it off the top of the deck. (It is most often better than tarmogoyf on exactly turn 2 but not even always then.)
Also, she is only as good as the equipment you can get with her. So saying she is not as good in modern where you cannot get jitte is a GROSS understatement jitte is often whoever gets it first wins and that is just not the case for batterskull or swords in modern
I agree swapping 6 cards in these t1ish decks for the package is not a small cost to the lists. EDIT: not to mention how your own sb will now change for matchups like affinity because your threats are artifact based.
The issue is a group of "pros" would have to do so for it to matter at all, and they don't care about modern at all because no pro tour for modern! So people needed to test for AV and Thopter/Sword then too? Most of modern is played at LGS and smaller events so I don't see why WOTC wouldn't want to open it up to more diversity in deckbuilding. There is a reason they set up the modern GP's on the same weekends and so few and far between and that is so it doesn't look like the same crap every day. No PT means teams aren't going to test and brew, they are just going to take something proven to the couple GP's each year and worry about STD.
Turn 3 Batterskull is the ideal play, so let's examine some of Eldrazi's ideal plays.
T2 Thought-Knot Seer, take out their Batterskull permanently. T3 Reality Smasher just stone walls Batterskull while forcing Abzan to lose some of its advantage gained from SFM to remove it. Eldrazi Displacer just blinks away the germ and Lingering Souls' token, SFM cries in the corner. Again, Reality Smasher is a faster clock. It would be an even match, but in all honestly why is that a problem? People were saying a few weeks ago that Bant Eldrazi is too good against fair midrange decks.
The only way SFM is truly scary is the T1 Thoughtseize/Kozilek into T2 SFM but you'll probably want to mulligan aggressively which comes with its own problems.
Edit: Burden of proof is on those who make the claim. People here who say Abzan would be too good need to provide some evidence other than anecdotal evidence.
that has a starting proposal.
People said Abzan would be too good with SFM and that's where I came in, and that's where I stand.
As for Modern Nexus's article we've had this argument before in the last thread. Great start but not enough data versus a more varied field of test decks to draw a final conclusion. He didn't even test against decks that were hot at the moment ( such as Eldrazi ) of the article's posting as he had to started the experiment many months prior. Also, as pointed out by others, he play tested against decks that weren't prepared for a SFM Modern. Not ragging on the guy's hard work, and it certainly does start the conversation regarding SFM with more facts but you shouldn't state it as absolute factual evidence.
Yes, his conclusion was a bit confusing. It almost seemed more like a answering a question with another question. His testing even show that Abzan was fine against those decks but not completely overwhelming like people originally thought. With the selection of simple deck it seemed natural Burn would be the only one adversely affected, but on the other hand the Burn player he found did weird things like boarding out his Eidolons against Abzan.
Except that you are ignoring his data. Naysayers are saying that SFM is format warping and too powerful for modern that is what this entire conversation is about. His data directly contradicts that. His data confirms SFM is a good card, (which we all already knew) but even he concedes it is not those things.
If they instead banned vampire hexmage, then that would encourage players to find other means to create a combo
It's the same kind of people who are like "Let's ban Batterskull, a card that has never done anything wrong and isn't even that good in the format right now, and unban Stoneforge Mystic, a card that warps formats and forces Wizards to never push equipment again."
I just don't see the point to any of these, nor do I see them as a healthy use of the banlist.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
Thespian's Stage - no, you do not want to see this legal.
I agree that is not a healthy use of the banlist. However your assumption that SFM is format warping goes against all testing that has taken place to date.
"URx and abzan dont need help, just look at their numbers!"
Then
"jund needs help! Plz ignore the numbers, they lie!"
Your bias is so blatant its almost hilarious
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
*slow clap*
I should really take better consideration of what arguments I want to jump heedlessly into. Not sure if anyone here remembers when AV was just unbanned and he thought it would bury BGx for good. Jund is still alive and AV hardly sees play at top tables, who would've thought that MTG players are terrible at evaluating MTG cards.
I agree with both of you, but to be fair, matches against Lantern Control often are around 1-2 games, with Game 1 being the longest. (I realize that opponents can scoop at any time, but sometimes you play on for percentage points to win or just to see the minor differences in the Lantern list when you believe the Lantern player already knows your deck list.)
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)That's true, though I would argue that there hasn't been terribly much testing done (though big props to the guys at Modern Nexus for their work with testing Mystic).
The main point is that it's like banning Siege Rhino and unbanning Birthing Pod (which I have also seen argued). By keeping the enabler in the format you limit what else can be done when it's much more logical to remove the enabler which allows a more free design space. You're either playing whack-a-mole with cards that suddenly become broken or you can get rid of it and never run into that problem again.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
Jitte will never happened again, and Batterskull was a unique case because it also circumvents the equip cost that balance all other equipments with Living Weapon.