I honestly feel like Preordain is pretty much safe. It's potent, yes, and more potent when you're running 4x Serum Visions 4x Preordain since you're almost guaranteed to get some good dig/filtering in your opening hand... But these days, the killer decks in modern have evolved to the point where spending a turn durdling can get you blown out pretty dang easily. Right now, the slower decks are the swordsman from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Infect/Burn/Zooicide are Indy with a gun. Giving the swordsman a slightly bigger sword isn't going to change that, even if he has an array of smaller swords, too.
I mean, the one marginal concern is that it possibly makes Grishoalbrand reliable enough that it's ban worthy. I don't think many tears would be shed if that happens. I mean, last I checked, Grishoalbrand's fast kill dies to almost any graveyard hate, and can lead to massive blowouts.
I think Preordain is fine now. It might not have been when it had the possibility of boosting Twin (which I think we all can agree while never broken was EXACTLY on the bubble for being "as good as a Modern deck should be allowed to be"), but Modern's grown, and the Blue decks now need the help a lot more.
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I still stand by Cavern of Souls being fundamentally unhealthy for the format- I wouldn't ever say its broken, but you've got a card that does exactly two things- 1: Prevents interaction. and 2. Hurts a uniquely Blue mechanic, since ONLY blue cares about countering spells. So it hurts two things we want to see more of in the format, and at a minuscule opportunity cost. I mean, if it ONLY gave mana for creatures, that's one thing, but you've got a card that Merfolk and Eldrazi players seriously discuss as being possible mainboard, just because the cost is so low for deckbuilding. In Merfolk it reads "Your merfolk are uncounterable. This can only pay 1 towards Kira or Spreading Seas."
As others have said, it's fundamentally a bad card for diversity (it hurts strategies we should be promoting, and while it marginally incentivizes tribal play, it in and of itself is a marginal factor in favor of tribal play that doesn't do enough to promote it), but not degenerate enough to get banned. But if we ever want to see reactive blue NOT suck, I think it's got to go. Otherwise, reactive Blue decks are up against a situation akin to Dredge facing a meta where 15% (e.g. something you're almost guaranteed to see in a 6 round tourney) of decks are MAINBOARDING Leyline of the Void.
The burden is on those calling for a Preordain unban to show that it won't break any decks.
This is quite literally the opposite of how logic works. And I don't mean you personally, but one of the first axioms of logic you learn in philosophy and computer science fundamentals is that you can't prove a negative - so if Preordain doesn't break any decks (which is the negative here), you cant actually prove it. You can only prove positives, which means if there is a deck that's broken my Preordain, it's easily demonstrable because you just gotta point it out.
So the burden falls squarely on those claiming it's broken.
The burden is on those calling for a Preordain unban to show that it won't break any decks.
This is quite literally the opposite of how logic works. And I don't mean you personally, but one of the first axioms of logic you learn in philosophy and computer science fundamentals is that you can't prove a negative - so if Preordain doesn't break any decks (which is the negative here), you cant actually prove it. You can only prove positives, which means if there is a deck that's broken my Preordain, it's easily demonstrable because you just gotta point it out.
So the burden falls squarely on those claiming it's broken.
While you are correct that you can't "prove a negative", what is actually meant here is we need to prove it is safe. Now, in the intellectual world this is considered impossible due to infinite permutations of decks to test in order to completely prove this, but this is the real world, so there is a lot of wiggle room for this. Simply testing the card in the upper tier decks that want it to get a feel for its impact is enough for a "proof" in this scenario, as it is unlikely lower tier decks will suddenly leap into viability and even more unlikely that a whole new deck is formed by the card.
Because wizards has shown that think the card is not right for the format, it is indeed on us to show it is safe, but in the way i described above, not the way you would in a logic class
The burden is on those calling for a Preordain unban to show that it won't break any decks.
This is quite literally the opposite of how logic works. And I don't mean you personally, but one of the first axioms of logic you learn in philosophy and computer science fundamentals is that you can't prove a negative - so if Preordain doesn't break any decks (which is the negative here), you cant actually prove it. You can only prove positives, which means if there is a deck that's broken my Preordain, it's easily demonstrable because you just gotta point it out.
So the burden falls squarely on those claiming it's broken.
While you are correct that you can't "prove a negative", what is actually meant here is we need to prove it is safe. Now, in the intellectual world this is considered impossible due to infinite permutations of decks to test in order to completely prove this, but this is the real world, so there is a lot of wiggle room for this. Simply testing the card in the upper tier decks that want it to get a feel for its impact is enough for a "proof" in this scenario, as it is unlikely lower tier decks will suddenly leap into viability and even more unlikely that a whole new deck is formed by the card.
Because wizards has shown that think the card is not right for the format, it is indeed on us to show it is safe, but in the way i described above, not the way you would in a logic class
Eh, I see what you're saying but I've just gone with the theory that WoTC simply doesn't want to unban it - no matter how much proof is given. I think they simply enjoy the lack of consistency in the format, which would be fine imo, if they gave us broad answers to slow the game down in exchange for lack of said consistency. Ssdly, narrows answers and poor card filtering are THE underlying issues in modern. It creates a lot of variance and swinginess which WoTC seems to like right now.
The burden is on those calling for a Preordain unban to show that it won't break any decks.
This is quite literally the opposite of how logic works. And I don't mean you personally, but one of the first axioms of logic you learn in philosophy and computer science fundamentals is that you can't prove a negative - so if Preordain doesn't break any decks (which is the negative here), you cant actually prove it. You can only prove positives, which means if there is a deck that's broken my Preordain, it's easily demonstrable because you just gotta point it out.
So the burden falls squarely on those claiming it's broken.
While you are correct that you can't "prove a negative", what is actually meant here is we need to prove it is safe. Now, in the intellectual world this is considered impossible due to infinite permutations of decks to test in order to completely prove this, but this is the real world, so there is a lot of wiggle room for this. Simply testing the card in the upper tier decks that want it to get a feel for its impact is enough for a "proof" in this scenario, as it is unlikely lower tier decks will suddenly leap into viability and even more unlikely that a whole new deck is formed by the card.
Because wizards has shown that think the card is not right for the format, it is indeed on us to show it is safe, but in the way i described above, not the way you would in a logic class
Eh, I see what you're saying but I've just gone with the theory that WoTC simply doesn't want to unban it - no matter how much proof is given. I think they simply enjoy the lack of consistency in the format, which would be fine imo, if they gave us broad answers to slow the game down in exchange for lack of said consistency. Ssdly, narrows answers and poor card filtering are THE underlying issues in modern. It creates a lot of variance and swinginess which WoTC seems to like right now.
Sure, the reality is that none of this matters as wizards makes all the decisions. However, that type of logic invalidates this entire threads existence, if nothing we think/say matters why discuss it? The reality is somewhat different, discussion in here, and i mean the good discussion not the random "unban hypergenisis ban fetchlands cuz yolo" posts, followed by Good testing leads the modern community as a whole to create a strong, solidified opinion about cards, and that alone can push wizards from not unbanning a card to banning it. I find it very unlikely that almost every unban has been directly proceeded by heavy discussion and the arrival at a general consensus in here just before. Even if that was all a coincidence, at the very least discussion and experimentation are very thought provoking and most of all entertaining
Ok, another questions/good for thought.
When speeading about bans(meta leave unbans in the bag for now) I am more interested in the long term implications of any given ban.
Firstly, the goal here is to help blue based control/attrition decks, do we all agree?
Ban an eldrazi piece, such as cavern or temple:
- URx get rid of an awful matchup and can grind all but the tron and scapeshift decks while having an excellent matchup vs linear decks like infect or affinity etc.
Linear decks like burn and affinity and infect lose an excellent matchup.
Ban mox opal/ban an infect piece such as gitaxian probe or become immense:
- URx/BGx decks lose one of their best matchups
- Tron/Scapeshift/Rg titanshift/dredge/linear combo decks lose their worst matchup=they go party and tier 1 some of them possibly.
Meta becomes more linear and nearly every tiered deck is a house vs URx decks.
Lightning bolt loses value as a card. If infect gets nerfed, affinity becomes the super best deck because it has only one bad matchup: URx(the other bad matchup being infect).
If both decks are banned/nerfed, whats the reason to play bolt? I mean, sure, you have some(nacatl, elves, goblins, etc) but does not it become just a good card? Especially if you are to have tier 1 decks in dredge, tron, rg valakut and bant eldrazi does not have bad matchups. There is a possibiliby you go into a tourney and face: dredge, burn, bant eldrazi, bant eldrazi, bant eldrazi, tron, Jund, junk, rg titanshift, junk, jeskai, dredge, tron, ad nauseam, bant eldrazi.
-Ban faithless looting: ok, we are not up there yet, so i will leave it up to you.
What do you think its the best to ban for the URx decks to flourish? Do you think my analysis is wrong? I know its speculative. Lets get speculative.
PS: i dont want any bans.
The best ban to help URx would probably be ancient stirrings tbh, hurt the consistency of both tron and eldrazi, allowing URx to be able to outgrind them potentially.
That being said, URx is not in such a bad position that we start banning other decks to improve it. Actually, i dont think we should do this ever. Unbans and new cards are how we power up underpowered decks, bans are how we power down overpowered decks.
I strongly believe URx is in a decent spot, and just needs a tiny push in the right direction. Hence my advocacy for Preordain. I know the card is only a minor upgrade, but a tiny push is really all i feel the archetype needs to get it into a good place. I feel like Preordain + 1 more 1-2cmc generic answer card will make URx a mainstay in tier 1,whether that be something like innocent blood, swords to plowshares, counterspell or whatever wizards feels is safe, and then Preordain to boost consistency a tiny bit
What are the chances of Blood Moon getting the ban hammer? It's unfun to play against. It punishes players for streamlining their manabase. If played well, it can suddenly lock the opponent out of the game.
What are the chances of Blood Moon getting the ban hammer? It's unfun to play against. It punishes players for streamlining their manabase. If played well, it can suddenly lock the opponent out of the game.
Currently? I'd say 0%. Blood Moon is a necessary evil in my opinion and always will be.
"It's unfun to play against." - This is not a reason to ban a card. If it was, hundreds of cards would fall into this bucket.
"It punishes players for streamlining their manabase." - Since when was making a mana base as greedy as possible looked at as streamlining?
Banning Temple is bad- it's the closest thing you can do to killing Eldrazi. And we don't kill decks here. If you're aiming to power down Eldrazi, you want to either ban Hierarch, or ban Cavern of Souls, since banning Hierarch also depowers infect (thus depowering two of the four most often whinged about strategies, and Zooicide and Dredge fold to hate). Forcing Eldrazi into a slightly worse mana dork would only weaken the deck a little, as opposed to "there's no point to it any more". (It would also hurt Abzan coco, but I'm sure they'd have the easiest time filling the slot)
Banning Faithless Looting also fixes nothing- Sure, it's a T1 play for Dredge or Grishoalbrand, but that's not the broken card. If dredge is too strong, simply ban one of the better dredgers. If Grishoalbrand is too strong, get rid of either Simian or Goryo's, since both are basically just waiting to be banned anyways. And this all is neglecting the fact that you should be running a buttload of graveyard hate in any competent deck. You should have four sideboard slots, and ideally, one or two mainboard hate cards too (Noxious Revival and Scooze come to mind) The new Cathartic Embrace card from Kaladesh shows we'll keep seeing pushed Faithless Looting effects, period. Banning Looting just gets rid of the fastest one, and even then, it'd slow them down by a turn, some games.
What are the chances of Blood Moon getting the ban hammer? It's unfun to play against. It punishes players for streamlining their manabase. If played well, it can suddenly lock the opponent out of the game.
Currently? I'd say 0%. Blood Moon is a necessary evil in my opinion and always will be.
"It's unfun to play against." - This is not a reason to ban a card. If it was, hundreds of cards would fall into this bucket.
"It punishes players for streamlining their manabase." - Since when was making a mana base as greedy as possible looked at as streamlining?
This guy gets it. Right now, non-basic lands run amok on the format. Tons of people clamor for a Eldrazi Temple ban, or a Cavern of Souls ban. Meanwhile Inkmoth Nexus is an all-star in both Infect and Affinity. About the only playable tools to fight these cards are Ghost Quarter which presents an awful tempo loss and Fullminator Mage which often is an answer that comes too vs many of these decks. Lands are far too strong right now for Blood Moon NOT to exist in the format.
And if you're playing a multicolor mana-base? Well, you should be fetching around a Moon or at the very least, don't expect there to be zero consequence for jamming every multi-color value card in a 3 color deck and expecting everything to just be gravy. Blood Moon itself requires you to build a mana base that can support it, so it's not like there's zero opportunity cost to running it.
Ok, another questions/good for thought.
When speeading about bans(meta leave unbans in the bag for now) I am more interested in the long term implications of any given ban.
Firstly, the goal here is to help blue based control/attrition decks, do we all agree?
Ban an eldrazi piece, such as cavern or temple:
- URx get rid of an awful matchup and can grind all but the tron and scapeshift decks while having an excellent matchup vs linear decks like infect or affinity etc.
Linear decks like burn and affinity and infect lose an excellent matchup.
Ban mox opal/ban an infect piece such as gitaxian probe or become immense:
- URx/BGx decks lose one of their best matchups
- Tron/Scapeshift/Rg titanshift/dredge/linear combo decks lose their worst matchup=they go party and tier 1 some of them possibly.
Meta becomes more linear and nearly every tiered deck is a house vs URx decks.
Lightning bolt loses value as a card. If infect gets nerfed, affinity becomes the super best deck because it has only one bad matchup: URx(the other bad matchup being infect).
If both decks are banned/nerfed, whats the reason to play bolt? I mean, sure, you have some(nacatl, elves, goblins, etc) but does not it become just a good card? Especially if you are to have tier 1 decks in dredge, tron, rg valakut and bant eldrazi does not have bad matchups. There is a possibiliby you go into a tourney and face: dredge, burn, bant eldrazi, bant eldrazi, bant eldrazi, tron, Jund, junk, rg titanshift, junk, jeskai, dredge, tron, ad nauseam, bant eldrazi.
-Ban faithless looting: ok, we are not up there yet, so i will leave it up to you.
What do you think its the best to ban for the URx decks to flourish? Do you think my analysis is wrong? I know its speculative. Lets get speculative.
PS: i dont want any bans.
The best ban to help URx would probably be ancient stirrings tbh, hurt the consistency of both tron and eldrazi, allowing URx to be able to outgrind them potentially.
That being said, URx is not in such a bad position that we start banning other decks to improve it. Actually, i dont think we should do this ever. Unbans and new cards are how we power up underpowered decks, bans are how we power down overpowered decks.
I strongly believe URx is in a decent spot, and just needs a tiny push in the right direction. Hence my advocacy for Preordain. I know the card is only a minor upgrade, but a tiny push is really all i feel the archetype needs to get it into a good place. I feel like Preordain + 1 more 1-2cmc generic answer card will make URx a mainstay in tier 1,whether that be something like innocent blood, swords to plowshares, counterspell or whatever wizards feels is safe, and then Preordain to boost consistency a tiny bit
That's the third choice.
-Ban nothing. Instead, give blue based control/attrition decks some more help.
I am in that camp really. But not all people are. Edited to reflect this choice.
This is the correct answer. Modern is just way too big / too linear for anything less than numerous sweeping bans to fix the fundamental issues preventing URx from succeeding. Sleight of Hand / Serum Visions already do a decent enough job at card filtering and I don't see Preordain being hugely better for URx decks. New cards in the format will be way more impactful to the archetype.
I agree with you that new cards are likely to contribute the largest impact on format. But I don't agree that Serum Visions and Sleight of hand are good enough filtering.
Thanks for the replies. Its a strong card I agree, I just didn't want to spend $30 bux only to see it get banned.
Its really not even that strong, you can almost always see it coming a mile away, and if you manage to "get" them game 1 you will absolutely not be getting them games 2 and 3,essentially leaving you with a bunch of dead draws. There is also a large size of the format that just doesn't care about it anyway
This is shown by how little it sees play in the format right now, its just not good enough
Do you remember Khans-BFZ standard, with four color decks running amuck? That is Modern without Blood Moon. People are WAY too greedy on their mana bases, running bare minimum lands and almost no basics. One of my back-pocket decks is WR Land Destruction, and any deck besides Merfolk or Elves has a really hard time with even one or two lands getting nuked. (Well, Affinity is just affinity sometimes, and goes straight under it, and Infect can sometimes too, which is why Boros Prison isn't a tiered deck, I'm guessing.) Blood Moon is literally the definition of a police card- It's one of the biggest forces pushing towards less splashing and more basic lands.
Landhate is a very tenuous balance, akin to the power level of Twin before the ban. If they give us much stronger, it could become a format boogeyman, but as is, it's not quite there (to a degree where people are complaining about it needing a power up). Even a functional reprint of GQ could actually put Land Destruction over the top.
I think a key thing for people to understand is cards are additive, not a zero sum game. If you give me an improved Ghost Quarter (like say, GQ without the mana cost to activate), sure, it'll slot into decks that ran GQ before... But you're running into players running 8Quarters.dec Hell, maybe even players using Noxious Revival, Boom//Bust, Blood Moon, and Flagstones of Trokair along with Crucible of Worlds, for something that plays more like 20 Ghost Quarters.
It's in an obnoxious position where it's either useless or dominatingly strong. But I think Blood Moon isn't the criminal, it's a necessary evil for the format ecosystem. Banning it would just make Modern go more off the rails.
Blood moon is not in any way oppressive, and encourages a player to make choices during deck building. It's easy to spot and keeps decks from being 5 color goodstuff.
Blood moon is actually one of the best forms of land hate to play against. It doesn't oppress new players trying to get into the format (who will likely be playing decks with a high number of basics for budget concerns or monored.) for starters. It also limits only the colors you have access to and not the amount of mana like other forms of land destruction.
Compare this to a card like Choke, Boil, or Flashfires which will absolutely be a feels bad experience for a new player and actually punish you for playing basics!
Tl;Dr moon good because it punishes greed, you can play around it, and enforces deck building choices. Boil/Choke/Flashfires bad because they punish basics.
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I've been playing bit of UR Kiki with AVs, and I played Twin pre-banning; and I honestly feel like Twin could still come back with both AV and Preordain in the format. I don't think Twin would benifit that much from Preordain because the deck was always pressed for room. Almost everything is a 4-of (Twin, Exarch, Bolt, Snap, Serum, Remand). There's simply not enough room in the deck for both Serum and Preordain. And as mentioned before, Preordain is really not that much better than Serum -- it's more slight, so it might replace Serum to very small bonuses.
That said, AV is a different animal. Still tho, AV is actively bad against all of the unfair decks -- it's only good against BGx and control. Against Burn, Infect, and Affinity, it may as well read "U: discard this card from your hand." since it just doesn't come off of suspend fast enough (and that's when you have it on T1). So AV is more of a sb card, and unlikely to make Twin overpowered imo.
Banning Temple is bad- it's the closest thing you can do to killing Eldrazi. And we don't kill decks here.
Agreed.
If you're aiming to power down Eldrazi, you want to either ban Hierarch, or ban Cavern of Souls, since banning Hierarch also depowers infect (thus depowering two of the four most often whinged about strategies, and Zooicide and Dredge fold to hate). Forcing Eldrazi into a slightly worse mana dork would only weaken the deck a little, as opposed to "there's no point to it any more". (It would also hurt Abzan coco, but I'm sure they'd have the easiest time filling the slot)
This is laughable. Noble Hierarch is the only kind of ramp that it perfectly fine and the only ramp that is interactable. Besides, with banning Hierarch you power down Bant Company, Abzan Company, possibly Abzan Midrange, Kiki Chord, Infect, Dredgevine and a ton of other mono green decks-brews that are going around, thus decrease diversity as well. Banning the uninteractable ramp piece is 100% more of a right solution intead of banning the bolt-able one. This is wrong and unjust(I will admit Hierarch is my fav Modern legal card of all times, as well)
Banning Faithless Looting also fixes nothing- Sure, it's a T1 play for Dredge or Grishoalbrand, but that's not the broken card. If dredge is too strong, simply ban one of the better dredgers. If Grishoalbrand is too strong, get rid of either Simian or Goryo's, since both are basically just waiting to be banned anyways.
I disagree with that as well. Banning Faithless Looting is the right way to depowering all of the UNINTERACTABLE decks, whether they try to reanimate a Griselbrand on turn 2 or trying to start dredging. This card creates all of the strategies that makes counters, and most of the spot removal look irrelevant(I believe this should not be happening in the first place, but I get it we are in a non rotating, possibly unfair format. In addition, this card would make Dredge deck look highly inconsistent. I do not care if we are going to get stronger Lootings, I only care that we are not going to get stronger or even Lootings on 1 mana. If Dredge's t1 play was nothing or Neonate and t2 Cathartic Reunion, the deck would be a lot less consistent and slower and could be hated even more easil by cards like Relic Of Progenitus, which is really a mediocre-simply good hate card vs Dredge now. That way, URx decks would have a real shot at winning Dredge decks if they would find the right hate, because they take a t1 serum visions and t2 countering the enabler or shooting the hate.
I am not advocating for a Dredge ban(even if I think that Dredge is 50% of the problems that URx decks face-the other 50 being big mana decks: I am saying that if Cavern Of Souls+Faithless Looting+Tronlands did not exist URx would really be a wise choice and strong t1 competetors), I am just saying that if we were to go down this path, Looting would be better than rebanning GGT, because they will just replace that with worst Dredgers. Ross Meriam said that Looting would be the best card as well.
Banning Looting just gets rid of the fastest one, and even then, it'd slow them down by a turn, some games.
This is what we would be after.
I REPEAT, No bans needed at this point and I hope that the next 3 announcements will be without bannings, as most of the people agree in here from what I have seen. And, finally I am convined by a Preordain unban because the arguments for it seem solid, even if I have no idea if its going to happen.
Note: Preordain unbanned and Ancetral Vision legal=> Splinter Twin has a tombstone in it(IMO it already has with AV).
So, you're against banning one of the cards that would slow infect and Eldrazi down by a turn (arguably the best Linear and Midrange decks in the format, respectively), but you insist Faithless Looting is the most bannable card because it slows Dredge down by a turn? You know what else slows Dredge down by a turn? Noxious Revival. Surgical Extraction is just plain nasty, and can kill entire decks when you're tapped out (namely, Grishoalbrand folds hard, and taking Harbinger's Emrakul or one of their burn pieces can shoot their whole plan). If you ban Faithless, you're just going to see Dredge replace them with a playset of Tormenting Voice, and emphasize mulliganing into a Voice/Embrace hand with a Simian Spirit Guide instead, or slamming Neonate. Maybe they'd run Bomat Courier instead, which technically operates at roughly the same speed and feeds Grave Troll, even if it costs 1 more overall. Dredge can adapt to losing looting pieces, easily. It's losing Dredge pieces that actually would hurt them. (Not to mention that Dredge is one of the least bannable strategies. It follows a cycle. Dredge sees play, people play more hate, Dredge decreases, people play less Dredge hate, Dredge sees more play, rinse and repeat)
As for Hierarch, powering down Infect is a feature, not a bug. Infect and Eldrazi are the two decks most needing to be brought into line with the rest of the format, since Eldrazi right now is so much better at out-bulking and outvaluing any other midrange strategy, and Infect is on the cusp of being a too-fast kill and forces the rest of the format to go faster to compensate. And what do mono-green builds lose from losing Hierarch? If you're in Mono-green, Utopia Sprawl is probably doing just as good of a job. Kiki-Chord loses a dork that taps for W, but I'm sure that slot can be replaced or filled somehow. Abzan Company loses a respectable dork, but on the other hand, they're also dealing with Infect being powered down, and that makes their infinite life combo a LOT stronger (I mean, infect can still kill them, but if you slow both decks down, you'll find Abzan is much better once it gets to mid-game). Heck, if we just got a dork that tapped for G or W and had a CMC of 1, it'd fill Hierarch's spot effortlessly in the fair decks. (Of course, that would be a ban and a new card to fill the slot, but then again, Wizards likes to give us tools to fill in for bannings. Thus Eldritch Evolution and Evolutionary Leap on the heels of Pod being banned) Basically, ask yourself, how much would fair decks lose if you just swapped in Sylvan Caryatid for Noble Hierarch in their lists? It might be substantial, but it's a heck of a lot less than in Infect where it speeds their kills up by a full turn and Eldrazi where it makes their Thought Knots and Smashers big enough fair decks simply can't compete.
I'm not saying to ban Hierarch, but I am saying as far as fixing the format goes, she's one of the biggest targets to achieve a more evenly balanced format.
I'm not sure why a card should be good, if it punishes you for playing non-basics.
Noone cares.
People still run mainly nonbasics. Even merfolks run 4-5 nonbasics.
Outside of giving free wins, the card does nothing.
Is this in regards to bloodmoon?
Are you saying it should be banned? The argument is that people shouldn't just be able to run all non-basics and expect no consequences.
Ok, another question/food for thought.
When speaking about bans I am more interested in the long term implications of any given ban.
Firstly, the goal here is to help blue based control/attrition decks, do we all agree?
No. Bans are there to enforce diversity and T4 rule (and for extreme cases like Eggs). They are not there to help your pet deck.
Ok, another question/food for thought.
When speaking about bans I am more interested in the long term implications of any given ban.
Firstly, the goal here is to help blue based control/attrition decks, do we all agree?
No. Bans are there to enforce diversity and T4 rule (and for extreme cases like Eggs). They are not there to help your pet deck.
Technically bans exist to foster an environment that WOTC in accordance with the player base would most like to see. If 99% of players suddenly decided that all that mattered was blue control decks and Wizards agreed then the ban list would change to reflect that.
So, you're against banning one of the cards that would slow infect and Eldrazi down by a turn (arguably the best Linear and Midrange decks in the format, respectively), but you insist Faithless Looting is the most bannable card because it slows Dredge down by a turn?
So many hyperboles and wrong lines of thinking here, I do not know where to start off. Noble Hierarch is the kind of ramp WOTC wants to exist in the format(and they do want ramp to exist). This card promotes interactivity as it is highly interactable. T1 bird(hierarch), URx goes t1 bolt your hierarch, 20 years and counting. If we were to write a handbook, this would be the first perfect example of how a perfect interactive game should begin(blue mage bolting doing his thing, meaning bolting green mage's mana dork). This is perfectly acceptable and in no circumstances neither WOTC or me is going to discuss such a laughable proposition in a serious tone.
You know what else slows Dredge down by a turn? Noxious Revival. Surgical Extraction is just plain nasty, and can kill entire decks when you're tapped out (namely, Grishoalbrand folds hard, and taking Harbinger's Emrakul or one of their burn pieces can shoot their whole plan). If you ban Faithless, you're just going to see Dredge replace them with a playset of Tormenting Voice, and emphasize mulliganing into a Voice/Embrace hand with a Simian Spirit Guide instead, or slamming Neonate. Maybe they'd run Bomat Courier instead, which technically operates at roughly the same speed and feeds Grave Troll, even if it costs 1 more overall.
Noxious Revival is a card Dredge is not even interested in or playing in the 75. This card sees occasional play at Grishoalbrand(battlespawn should expand on this), but it is just irrelevant concerning Dredge. Ok. This is the plan. Ban Faithless Looting IF NEED BE(which there is NOT), let them run Tormenting Voice. Let them have only occasional t1 play, meaning some games they will go t1 go. This slows them down just enough to not get t4 kills(goryos) or to let the opponent finds the hate(for dredge).
(Not to mention that Dredge is one of the least bannable strategies. It follows a cycle. Dredge sees play, people play more hate, Dredge decreases, people play less Dredge hate, Dredge sees more play, rinse and repeat)
Ok, we agree, Goryos and Dredge are perfectly fine for now and may be for ever. IT's just that they throw URx interaction into the abyss.
As for Hierarch, powering down Infect is a feature, not a bug. Infect and Eldrazi are the two decks most needing to be brought into line with the rest of the format, since Eldrazi right now is so much better at out-bulking and outvaluing any other midrange strategy, and Infect is on the cusp of being a too-fast kill and forces the rest of the format to go faster to compensate.
Powering down Infect is not a feature, as I said it is a bug, because this deck promotes interaction and makes Bolt/Seizes/Kozileks/Terminates/Electrolyzes/Dipels/Mana Leaks/Path To Exiles valid and stronger answers. Infect when facing against Kozilek, Bolt, Terminate and lands is with the back against the wall. Or vs early double path/bolt as well.
Ban Noble Hierarch vs ban Eldrazi temple: mark 2. WOTC's logic, always prefer to ban the uninteractable piece(even if temple might not be the optimal ban if there is a need-which is not)
-Ban Temple: URx bolts Eldrazi's hierarchs, so that Eldrazi player plays a T4 TKS. No real problems there. By turn 4, Jeskai could play Nahiri and move on.
-Ban Hierarch, he is still able to play it on turn 3 and bolt remains useless. This should not be happening. Even if you spend a Path on TKS, and they take your Nahiri, they take an extra land and they move on having a GREAT ADVANTAGE. Thus, this whole logic of yours is flawed concerning Wizards.
Kiki-Chord loses a dork that taps for W, but I'm sure that slot can be replaced or filled somehow. Abzan Company loses a respectable dork,
. They cant. They go half(or a full) tier down, maybe they are considered unplayable. I am playing enough of Kiki Chord to know that without Hierarch, we would have real problems.
I'm not saying to ban Hierarch, but I am saying as far as fixing the format goes, she's one of the biggest targets to achieve a more evenly balanced format.
I dont mean to sound hostile, because I am not. It's just that Noble Hierarch will never be a ban target and this is right. Let me be able to play my Abzan Coco/Kiki Chord/Bant Company/Eldritch Evolution/Dredgevine/Infect/ramp decks without having a problem. Literally every favourite deck of mine,
has this card as its best t1 play. And for the last time, Hierarch ramp is the kind of ramp we want because it is easily as hell interactable. If WOTC ever wants to target ramp hard, they will go for Temple/Tronlands.
PS: Again, I am against any ban. This is something more of a thought exercise.
My apologies if I didn't state it clearly enough- I was meaning that Noxious Revival is a card that's main-deckable hate *against* Dredge, as is Surgical Extraction. If you take their best Dredge card or slap a key combo piece on top of their deck, it throws a giant wrench in their plans. And Noxious/Surgical are both very strong options for a lot of decks, since Noxious basically soft counters t1 Discard plays and reanimator strategies and lets you do a budget Bolt-Snap-Bolt in some decks (at the cost of a draw step, and only on your own turn), and Surgical can turn "answer one card" into "answer a whole deck" (e.g. GQ a Tron land into extraction, shut down the tron engine, or Extract any one win condition from Jeskai Harbinger, or Extract G-brand when a Goryo's is coming down).
My argument isn't against interacting with Hierarch. Yes, it can be interacted with, but you're failing to see the invisible costs of it. If you remove Hierarch, that's one less removal card to stop Infect, and there's no way to remove Hierarch at better than parity (basically Bolt, Gut Shot, Dark Blast, and Tarfire are the only cards I see played a lot that can do it). Path just ramps them like Hierarch never went away at all, Dismember puts you down a whopping four life(tho admittedly irrelevant against infect), Pyroclasm only works if they haven't sandbagged a mutagenic growth for their kill turn... Basically, unless you're directly answering with Bolt, Darkblast, or Gut Shot, you're falling behind to answer it. And against Eldrazi/Infect, you need every piece of removal you can get. (Don't forget that all the stuff that could answer Hierarch at parity is completely useless in the face of a spellskite and garbage against Eldrazi, too, so you're using removal that's generally bad against the rest of the deck if you're trying to answer Hierarch)
And Infect, I'd argue, does promote interaction, but I believe without Hierarch, the deck is still going to easily be strong enough to remain Tier 1. Losing Hierarch instead slows the deck down enough for more interaction to come online. As it is, if you tap out vs. Infect, even for a blocker, you're likely to just get straight up blown out. Having an extra turn gives you more time to stabilize, more time dig for answers, more time to get your own board presence going. It turns it into a back and forth instead of "answer all my questions in the first two or three turns, or lose".
I will take your word on Kiki Chord, and it would be a shame if that deck took a major hit, but I feel like it'd still be viable. You lose some velocity, but you'd pick up points vs. Burn and better fixing with Hierarch, which are not negligible factors. It would admittedly slip slightly in the tiering though, as you say.
On the other hand, the more I think about it, the more I think Abzan wouldn't lose all that much. They'd gain a solid blocker that also synergizes better with the colors of their deck (since Caryatid fixes for Black, it boosts Rhino and Souls, and it gives them another early blocker to help stabilize). It would slow them down, but I think almost everybody in this thread agrees that we WANT a slightly slower metagame. It would further pronounce the differences in gameplay between Abzan and Jund, because it would make Abzan's defensive/grindy slant more pronounced.
You don't think that for every deck you play, Hierarch being your key turn 1 play isn't an indication that something might be amiss with its balance? I don't think it's a bad card, but I feel it's a fairly innocuous looking factor that's responsible for a lot of the speed in the format.
Hierarch is not a good ban target. In all of magics history, t1 mana dork has always been a solid play, and this is no different in modern Hierarch is the go-to dork because it is simply the best 1 mana dork in the format. The only deck truly "abusing" Hierarch is infect, since the exalted trigger is extra good on infect dudes. Otherwise, banning Hierarch just causes the dork decks to get a minor entirely undeserved nerf and move on to the next best dork. None of infect's fastest hands even require a t1 Hierarch, in fact it's t2 kills actually cant employ a Hierarch at all, so you wouldn't even be hitting infect's speed, only its resilience. Infect only needs 1-2 mana to make a kill, Hierarch is there to have mana for protection and help grindy matchups. This just makes the deck fold to spot removal even more, creating a deck even more glass canonny, which is something we have far too much of in modern already. If your going to hit infect, you hit either become immense or mutagenic growth. If your afraid future pump spells would break infect more, you hit nexus or blighted agent. If your going to hit eldrazi you hit temple to kill the deck or stirrings to nerf it. Also, if your going to hit dredge, you hit either a dredger or amalgam, you sure as hell dont hit faithless looting, and if your going to hit grishoalbrand, you hit goryo's to kill it or simian to slow it down
You don't think that for every deck you play, Hierarch being your key turn 1 play isn't an indication that something might be amiss with its balance? I don't think it's a bad card, but I feel it's a fairly innocuous looking factor that's responsible for a lot of the speed in the format.
How is this relevant ? There will always be a key turn 1 play for every deck. GBx decks love to see a T1 Inquisition, Burn wants to see a guide, Blue decks on the play want a serum vision, Merfolk wants a Vial. Just because there is a 'best' turn 1 play doesn't mean that there is anything amiss with its balance. I could apply the logic you used for the favoured turn 1 play of every deck.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
Banning Temple is bad- it's the closest thing you can do to killing Eldrazi. And we don't kill decks here.
I disagree with this for 2 reasons. First, they're not hesitant to kill decks if it's necessary. See Rituals, Pod, Twin, etc. But moreover, I doubt banning Temple would kill the Eldrazi deck. It would simply create a more "fair" ramp deck because all of a sudden each of its lands has to adhere to the same rules as any other land in the format instead of being the most powerful contextual land in Modern. TKS, Smasher, Drowner, etc. are all still relevant and good on-cost or only a single turn early due to a mana dork instead of 2 turns early due to dork + sol land. Temple is only a 4-of. The deck is perfectly capable of winning games where it doesn't see Temple. Banning it would bring it down to a more fair level but wouldn't kill it.
I mean, the one marginal concern is that it possibly makes Grishoalbrand reliable enough that it's ban worthy. I don't think many tears would be shed if that happens. I mean, last I checked, Grishoalbrand's fast kill dies to almost any graveyard hate, and can lead to massive blowouts.
I think Preordain is fine now. It might not have been when it had the possibility of boosting Twin (which I think we all can agree while never broken was EXACTLY on the bubble for being "as good as a Modern deck should be allowed to be"), but Modern's grown, and the Blue decks now need the help a lot more.
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I still stand by Cavern of Souls being fundamentally unhealthy for the format- I wouldn't ever say its broken, but you've got a card that does exactly two things- 1: Prevents interaction. and 2. Hurts a uniquely Blue mechanic, since ONLY blue cares about countering spells. So it hurts two things we want to see more of in the format, and at a minuscule opportunity cost. I mean, if it ONLY gave mana for creatures, that's one thing, but you've got a card that Merfolk and Eldrazi players seriously discuss as being possible mainboard, just because the cost is so low for deckbuilding. In Merfolk it reads "Your merfolk are uncounterable. This can only pay 1 towards Kira or Spreading Seas."
As others have said, it's fundamentally a bad card for diversity (it hurts strategies we should be promoting, and while it marginally incentivizes tribal play, it in and of itself is a marginal factor in favor of tribal play that doesn't do enough to promote it), but not degenerate enough to get banned. But if we ever want to see reactive blue NOT suck, I think it's got to go. Otherwise, reactive Blue decks are up against a situation akin to Dredge facing a meta where 15% (e.g. something you're almost guaranteed to see in a 6 round tourney) of decks are MAINBOARDING Leyline of the Void.
This is quite literally the opposite of how logic works. And I don't mean you personally, but one of the first axioms of logic you learn in philosophy and computer science fundamentals is that you can't prove a negative - so if Preordain doesn't break any decks (which is the negative here), you cant actually prove it. You can only prove positives, which means if there is a deck that's broken my Preordain, it's easily demonstrable because you just gotta point it out.
So the burden falls squarely on those claiming it's broken.
While you are correct that you can't "prove a negative", what is actually meant here is we need to prove it is safe. Now, in the intellectual world this is considered impossible due to infinite permutations of decks to test in order to completely prove this, but this is the real world, so there is a lot of wiggle room for this. Simply testing the card in the upper tier decks that want it to get a feel for its impact is enough for a "proof" in this scenario, as it is unlikely lower tier decks will suddenly leap into viability and even more unlikely that a whole new deck is formed by the card.
Because wizards has shown that think the card is not right for the format, it is indeed on us to show it is safe, but in the way i described above, not the way you would in a logic class
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
Eh, I see what you're saying but I've just gone with the theory that WoTC simply doesn't want to unban it - no matter how much proof is given. I think they simply enjoy the lack of consistency in the format, which would be fine imo, if they gave us broad answers to slow the game down in exchange for lack of said consistency. Ssdly, narrows answers and poor card filtering are THE underlying issues in modern. It creates a lot of variance and swinginess which WoTC seems to like right now.
Sure, the reality is that none of this matters as wizards makes all the decisions. However, that type of logic invalidates this entire threads existence, if nothing we think/say matters why discuss it? The reality is somewhat different, discussion in here, and i mean the good discussion not the random "unban hypergenisis ban fetchlands cuz yolo" posts, followed by Good testing leads the modern community as a whole to create a strong, solidified opinion about cards, and that alone can push wizards from not unbanning a card to banning it. I find it very unlikely that almost every unban has been directly proceeded by heavy discussion and the arrival at a general consensus in here just before. Even if that was all a coincidence, at the very least discussion and experimentation are very thought provoking and most of all entertaining
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
RGTron
UGInfect
URStorm
WUBRAd Nauseam
BRGrishoalbrand
URGScapeshift
WBGAbzan Company
WUBRGAmulet Titan
BRGLiving End
WGBogles
The best ban to help URx would probably be ancient stirrings tbh, hurt the consistency of both tron and eldrazi, allowing URx to be able to outgrind them potentially.
That being said, URx is not in such a bad position that we start banning other decks to improve it. Actually, i dont think we should do this ever. Unbans and new cards are how we power up underpowered decks, bans are how we power down overpowered decks.
I strongly believe URx is in a decent spot, and just needs a tiny push in the right direction. Hence my advocacy for Preordain. I know the card is only a minor upgrade, but a tiny push is really all i feel the archetype needs to get it into a good place. I feel like Preordain + 1 more 1-2cmc generic answer card will make URx a mainstay in tier 1,whether that be something like innocent blood, swords to plowshares, counterspell or whatever wizards feels is safe, and then Preordain to boost consistency a tiny bit
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
Currently? I'd say 0%. Blood Moon is a necessary evil in my opinion and always will be.
"It's unfun to play against." - This is not a reason to ban a card. If it was, hundreds of cards would fall into this bucket.
"It punishes players for streamlining their manabase." - Since when was making a mana base as greedy as possible looked at as streamlining?
Banning Faithless Looting also fixes nothing- Sure, it's a T1 play for Dredge or Grishoalbrand, but that's not the broken card. If dredge is too strong, simply ban one of the better dredgers. If Grishoalbrand is too strong, get rid of either Simian or Goryo's, since both are basically just waiting to be banned anyways. And this all is neglecting the fact that you should be running a buttload of graveyard hate in any competent deck. You should have four sideboard slots, and ideally, one or two mainboard hate cards too (Noxious Revival and Scooze come to mind) The new Cathartic Embrace card from Kaladesh shows we'll keep seeing pushed Faithless Looting effects, period. Banning Looting just gets rid of the fastest one, and even then, it'd slow them down by a turn, some games.
This guy gets it. Right now, non-basic lands run amok on the format. Tons of people clamor for a Eldrazi Temple ban, or a Cavern of Souls ban. Meanwhile Inkmoth Nexus is an all-star in both Infect and Affinity. About the only playable tools to fight these cards are Ghost Quarter which presents an awful tempo loss and Fullminator Mage which often is an answer that comes too vs many of these decks. Lands are far too strong right now for Blood Moon NOT to exist in the format.
And if you're playing a multicolor mana-base? Well, you should be fetching around a Moon or at the very least, don't expect there to be zero consequence for jamming every multi-color value card in a 3 color deck and expecting everything to just be gravy. Blood Moon itself requires you to build a mana base that can support it, so it's not like there's zero opportunity cost to running it.
I agree with you that new cards are likely to contribute the largest impact on format. But I don't agree that Serum Visions and Sleight of hand are good enough filtering.
Its really not even that strong, you can almost always see it coming a mile away, and if you manage to "get" them game 1 you will absolutely not be getting them games 2 and 3,essentially leaving you with a bunch of dead draws. There is also a large size of the format that just doesn't care about it anyway
This is shown by how little it sees play in the format right now, its just not good enough
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
Landhate is a very tenuous balance, akin to the power level of Twin before the ban. If they give us much stronger, it could become a format boogeyman, but as is, it's not quite there (to a degree where people are complaining about it needing a power up). Even a functional reprint of GQ could actually put Land Destruction over the top.
I think a key thing for people to understand is cards are additive, not a zero sum game. If you give me an improved Ghost Quarter (like say, GQ without the mana cost to activate), sure, it'll slot into decks that ran GQ before... But you're running into players running 8Quarters.dec Hell, maybe even players using Noxious Revival, Boom//Bust, Blood Moon, and Flagstones of Trokair along with Crucible of Worlds, for something that plays more like 20 Ghost Quarters.
It's in an obnoxious position where it's either useless or dominatingly strong. But I think Blood Moon isn't the criminal, it's a necessary evil for the format ecosystem. Banning it would just make Modern go more off the rails.
Blood moon is actually one of the best forms of land hate to play against. It doesn't oppress new players trying to get into the format (who will likely be playing decks with a high number of basics for budget concerns or monored.) for starters. It also limits only the colors you have access to and not the amount of mana like other forms of land destruction.
Compare this to a card like Choke, Boil, or Flashfires which will absolutely be a feels bad experience for a new player and actually punish you for playing basics!
Tl;Dr moon good because it punishes greed, you can play around it, and enforces deck building choices. Boil/Choke/Flashfires bad because they punish basics.
That said, AV is a different animal. Still tho, AV is actively bad against all of the unfair decks -- it's only good against BGx and control. Against Burn, Infect, and Affinity, it may as well read "U: discard this card from your hand." since it just doesn't come off of suspend fast enough (and that's when you have it on T1). So AV is more of a sb card, and unlikely to make Twin overpowered imo.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
So, you're against banning one of the cards that would slow infect and Eldrazi down by a turn (arguably the best Linear and Midrange decks in the format, respectively), but you insist Faithless Looting is the most bannable card because it slows Dredge down by a turn? You know what else slows Dredge down by a turn? Noxious Revival. Surgical Extraction is just plain nasty, and can kill entire decks when you're tapped out (namely, Grishoalbrand folds hard, and taking Harbinger's Emrakul or one of their burn pieces can shoot their whole plan). If you ban Faithless, you're just going to see Dredge replace them with a playset of Tormenting Voice, and emphasize mulliganing into a Voice/Embrace hand with a Simian Spirit Guide instead, or slamming Neonate. Maybe they'd run Bomat Courier instead, which technically operates at roughly the same speed and feeds Grave Troll, even if it costs 1 more overall. Dredge can adapt to losing looting pieces, easily. It's losing Dredge pieces that actually would hurt them. (Not to mention that Dredge is one of the least bannable strategies. It follows a cycle. Dredge sees play, people play more hate, Dredge decreases, people play less Dredge hate, Dredge sees more play, rinse and repeat)
As for Hierarch, powering down Infect is a feature, not a bug. Infect and Eldrazi are the two decks most needing to be brought into line with the rest of the format, since Eldrazi right now is so much better at out-bulking and outvaluing any other midrange strategy, and Infect is on the cusp of being a too-fast kill and forces the rest of the format to go faster to compensate. And what do mono-green builds lose from losing Hierarch? If you're in Mono-green, Utopia Sprawl is probably doing just as good of a job. Kiki-Chord loses a dork that taps for W, but I'm sure that slot can be replaced or filled somehow. Abzan Company loses a respectable dork, but on the other hand, they're also dealing with Infect being powered down, and that makes their infinite life combo a LOT stronger (I mean, infect can still kill them, but if you slow both decks down, you'll find Abzan is much better once it gets to mid-game). Heck, if we just got a dork that tapped for G or W and had a CMC of 1, it'd fill Hierarch's spot effortlessly in the fair decks. (Of course, that would be a ban and a new card to fill the slot, but then again, Wizards likes to give us tools to fill in for bannings. Thus Eldritch Evolution and Evolutionary Leap on the heels of Pod being banned) Basically, ask yourself, how much would fair decks lose if you just swapped in Sylvan Caryatid for Noble Hierarch in their lists? It might be substantial, but it's a heck of a lot less than in Infect where it speeds their kills up by a full turn and Eldrazi where it makes their Thought Knots and Smashers big enough fair decks simply can't compete.
I'm not saying to ban Hierarch, but I am saying as far as fixing the format goes, she's one of the biggest targets to achieve a more evenly balanced format.
Is this in regards to bloodmoon?
Are you saying it should be banned? The argument is that people shouldn't just be able to run all non-basics and expect no consequences.
G Green Stompy
RG Shamans
UB Mill
UG Infect
WUBRG Slivers!
Technically bans exist to foster an environment that WOTC in accordance with the player base would most like to see. If 99% of players suddenly decided that all that mattered was blue control decks and Wizards agreed then the ban list would change to reflect that.
My apologies if I didn't state it clearly enough- I was meaning that Noxious Revival is a card that's main-deckable hate *against* Dredge, as is Surgical Extraction. If you take their best Dredge card or slap a key combo piece on top of their deck, it throws a giant wrench in their plans. And Noxious/Surgical are both very strong options for a lot of decks, since Noxious basically soft counters t1 Discard plays and reanimator strategies and lets you do a budget Bolt-Snap-Bolt in some decks (at the cost of a draw step, and only on your own turn), and Surgical can turn "answer one card" into "answer a whole deck" (e.g. GQ a Tron land into extraction, shut down the tron engine, or Extract any one win condition from Jeskai Harbinger, or Extract G-brand when a Goryo's is coming down).
My argument isn't against interacting with Hierarch. Yes, it can be interacted with, but you're failing to see the invisible costs of it. If you remove Hierarch, that's one less removal card to stop Infect, and there's no way to remove Hierarch at better than parity (basically Bolt, Gut Shot, Dark Blast, and Tarfire are the only cards I see played a lot that can do it). Path just ramps them like Hierarch never went away at all, Dismember puts you down a whopping four life(tho admittedly irrelevant against infect), Pyroclasm only works if they haven't sandbagged a mutagenic growth for their kill turn... Basically, unless you're directly answering with Bolt, Darkblast, or Gut Shot, you're falling behind to answer it. And against Eldrazi/Infect, you need every piece of removal you can get. (Don't forget that all the stuff that could answer Hierarch at parity is completely useless in the face of a spellskite and garbage against Eldrazi, too, so you're using removal that's generally bad against the rest of the deck if you're trying to answer Hierarch)
And Infect, I'd argue, does promote interaction, but I believe without Hierarch, the deck is still going to easily be strong enough to remain Tier 1. Losing Hierarch instead slows the deck down enough for more interaction to come online. As it is, if you tap out vs. Infect, even for a blocker, you're likely to just get straight up blown out. Having an extra turn gives you more time to stabilize, more time dig for answers, more time to get your own board presence going. It turns it into a back and forth instead of "answer all my questions in the first two or three turns, or lose".
I will take your word on Kiki Chord, and it would be a shame if that deck took a major hit, but I feel like it'd still be viable. You lose some velocity, but you'd pick up points vs. Burn and better fixing with Hierarch, which are not negligible factors. It would admittedly slip slightly in the tiering though, as you say.
On the other hand, the more I think about it, the more I think Abzan wouldn't lose all that much. They'd gain a solid blocker that also synergizes better with the colors of their deck (since Caryatid fixes for Black, it boosts Rhino and Souls, and it gives them another early blocker to help stabilize). It would slow them down, but I think almost everybody in this thread agrees that we WANT a slightly slower metagame. It would further pronounce the differences in gameplay between Abzan and Jund, because it would make Abzan's defensive/grindy slant more pronounced.
You don't think that for every deck you play, Hierarch being your key turn 1 play isn't an indication that something might be amiss with its balance? I don't think it's a bad card, but I feel it's a fairly innocuous looking factor that's responsible for a lot of the speed in the format.
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
How is this relevant ? There will always be a key turn 1 play for every deck. GBx decks love to see a T1 Inquisition, Burn wants to see a guide, Blue decks on the play want a serum vision, Merfolk wants a Vial. Just because there is a 'best' turn 1 play doesn't mean that there is anything amiss with its balance. I could apply the logic you used for the favoured turn 1 play of every deck.
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