I'm clearly bias about Troll, so I wont defend it. The only thing I will say is legacy deals with a much more powerful version of dredge with the same hate we have here, and does perfectly fine, and the data has shown that prepared modern decks do the same.
I will make a more important note here, that isn't even about this banning, but how wizards has handled modern for sometime now. I've been here since the beginning of modern, and I feel like someone beat down year after year. I want to defend my favorite format in magic, but I have a hard time doing it when wizards bans decks instead of fixing the meta (one might argue this is something akin to cutting off your hand when you break a finger.)
Now more people have to either enjoy losing all the time as their deck is still playable, but bad, or cash out their deck to retirement, salvage their mana base, and pay more money than they lost to make a different deck. Modern is where players seek to avoid rotation, not surgically extracted force deck changes.
The last time they unbanned things worth mentioning is 2012 when they unbanned valakut, 2014 (2 years between) when they unbanned nacatl admitting that ban was a mistake, 2015 (a year later) where they unbanned troll, which they banned again one year later in 2016 and unbanning a blue card worth mentioning, after killing a huge protion of blue decks.
When is this going to stop? When will they see people are already looking at a "new modern format" because they screwed up standard and modern so bad people are just looking for ways to play magic.
For this banning, cannot you replace the GGT with Golgari Thug (dredge 4 instead of dredge 6)?
It does *weaken* the deck, but on the other hand, there is going to be alot less grave hate in the meta. (And likely players will switch back to cards like Nihil Spellbomb or Relic instead of these insane gravehate cards like Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void)
No, you can't, because you don't have the late-game finisher that 11/11 GGTs were. It's not only about dredging hard.
I think the winners here are Living End and Reckless Zoo.
"Increased the number of third-turn kills in a few ways, but particularly by giving perfect information (and a card) to decks that often have to make strategic decisions about going "all-in.""
Are we looking at a push back on this kind of play period, or was it really about the fact it was Phyrexian Mana?
Is a GGT ban really going to drop dredge out of tier 1? Why can't the deck run a weaker version, ala Thug, and stay tier 1?
I'm a little shocked about the probe ban.
Sigh, the midrange fiesta won't last long before tron and eldrazi come along. I hope infect stays fairly powerful and can still easily beat those decks
With infect, death's shadow, and burn out of the picture, storm dying on the spot, and dredge dropping to tier 2 or 3 (maybe), doesn't this almost certainly bring Tron decks to tier 1 with very little weaknesses?
we have burn, and affinity for that, plus infect and dredge will still possibly be tier 1-2 decks, we wont know until a few months pass. but like vs. any broken deck. you will need to pack some tron hate thats for sure.
It is worth noting that abzan had been gaining in popularity recently because of sideboard cards for dredge and lingering souls for infect so i can't help but wonder if jund goes back to being the clear favorite since both decks are getting hit
I'm bias on troll, so I won't even attempt to make a defense for it, other than legacy uses the same exact grave hate we do and its doing fine against the stronger form of dredge.
Overall, bannings after bannings have worn on me. I've been with modern from the very beginning. And rather than create an environment you support your players with, they just kill decks rather than fix meta games, and refuse to reprint cards which leads to ever increasing prices.
Cool, if dredge is unplaybe now, I have "lost" around 200 dollars (not including the mana base) and need to use that mana base to build something like jund now, which will cost me an extra 1000 or so.
You still have golgari thug that dredges 4 instead of 6. Dredge will still be tier 2. It was super dumb that dredge got to win through cages with relative ease if they have a grave troll in hand.
I'm bias on troll, so I won't even attempt to make a defense for it, other than legacy uses the same exact grave hate we do and its doing fine against the stronger form of dredge.
Overall, bannings after bannings have worn on me. I've been with modern from the very beginning. And rather than create an environment you support your players with, they just kill decks rather than fix meta games, and refuse to reprint cards which leads to ever increasing prices.
Cool, if dredge is unplaybe now, I have "lost" around 200 dollars (not including the mana base) and need to use that mana base to build something like jund now, which will cost me an extra 1000 or so.
but they are supporting players with these bans. they are slowing the game down so the game has more room to breathe. and removing a little sideboard lottery from the game, an aspect that many dislike.
Or they could make the banlist alot smaller by having control actually have answers to these dumb threats and do its job. Instead of it being a joke deck.
The modern meta is actually MISSING a part and everyone knows it and they just dont support it, so instead the banned list is pretending to be a police control deck.
Do these bans slow down the format? Yes
Was something from Dredge expected to be banned? Yes
Was the Probe ban unexpected AND reasonable? Yes
People know WotC doesn't like the Dredge mechanic therefore these types of bans now and in the future shouldn't be 'shocking' to anyone. If I had to give an honest opinion about the next ban announcement, I would expect Wizards to go after Dredge again until it is nowhere to be seen in Modern. Dredge bans are to be expected and if people think otherwise, then they are only fooling themselves.
As for Probe, it was too good for what it did. Banning it will slow down the format a quarter of a turn and hurt most linear aggro decks. Cantripping and getting hand information for essentially free is simply too good of a card. Anyone who plays Modern consistently will attest that these bans are more than reasonable. Getting probed by an aggro deck feels bad and playing against dredge feels helpless in general. Then again, playing against an opponent with t3 Tron is no fun as well which is a different discussion on its own.
With Fatal Push coming in and Probe/GGT leaving, I am very excited to see what Modern will look like starting January 20th.
Well, I guess I'm glad I sold out of Death's Shadow a few weeks back. I didn't enjoy the deck all that much anyway so no issue for myself, there. Now if only I'd done the same with my beloved Storm. At least I've only got half the deck foiled, I guess.
The GGT ban was... fine? I guess. I've not played against Dredge enough myself to know how I feel about the deck. The Probe ban sucks. Alot. Storm is no longer a deck in Modern, which I know some people are probably very happy about as they don't enjoy playing against Storm. I get it, its an un-interactive and fairly boring deck to play against. I happen to think Burn is a fairly boring and un-interactive deck to play against, but I certainly want it to be an option for people that do enjoy the deck. I know Probe wasn't hit explicitly because of Storm, but it was probably the only card they could possibly ban that would gut the deck. Yeah, we have Peek, but is that really what we want to be doing with our mana when it comes to cantripping? I doubt it. It certainly doesn't turn on Ascensions as easily as Probe did, which was huge.
Guess I'm glad I bought into Grixis Delver and didn't include any Probes in my list.
Dredge drops to tier 2 or 3, infect drops down to tier 2 between the probe ban and fatal push being released, burn is relatively absent, but also negatively impacted by push
How is Tron not the clear-cut winner? Tron just saw 3 of it's major decks get knocked down a peg
Tron is will absolutely be hitting tier 1 in the next couple of months, and be very formidable
i do not buy the sky is falling talk. 2015 and 2016 modern has been more diverse than ever. They are making the right moves for the format consistently with a focus on long term improvement. The primary complaint of 2016 was linear uninteractive decks. Probe ban single handedly fixes that. keeping dredge in the tier 2 range is good for other graveyard based strategies as well.
I'm bias on troll, so I won't even attempt to make a defense for it, other than legacy uses the same exact grave hate we do and its doing fine against the stronger form of dredge.
Overall, bannings after bannings have worn on me. I've been with modern from the very beginning. And rather than create an environment you support your players with, they just kill decks rather than fix meta games, and refuse to reprint cards which leads to ever increasing prices.
Cool, if dredge is unplaybe now, I have "lost" around 200 dollars (not including the mana base) and need to use that mana base to build something like jund now, which will cost me an extra 1000 or so.
but they are supporting players with these bans. they are slowing the game down so the game has more room to breathe. and removing a little sideboard lottery from the game, an aspect that many dislike.
Or they could make the banlist alot smaller by having control actually have answers to these dumb threats and do its job. Instead of it being a joke deck.
The modern meta is actually MISSING a part and everyone knows it and they just dont support it, so instead the banned list is pretending to be a police control deck.
while this is true, how do we enter such cards into modern? through standard? like push?
also what cards on the banned list slow this format down better than the probe ban?
im sure we will see some unbans soon, but too many changes at once are not a good idea. for now, wizards did good.
Dredge drops to tier 2 or 3, infect drops down to tier 2 between the probe ban and fatal push being released, burn is relatively absent, but also negatively impacted by push
How is Tron not the clear-cut winner? Tron just saw 3 of it's major decks get knocked down a peg
Tron is will absolutely be hitting tier 1 in the next couple of months, and be very formidable
How is the Probe ban reasonable? With the printing of Fatal Push those "T3 win" decks would have too many problems to stay T1. Also, Probe ban hurts delver lists, who were the bane of those 3 decks and could be aggressive enough to handle Tron and/or Valakut decks.
If they really wanted to hurt the Turn 2-3 wins they should've cut Become Immense, since Delve is by itself broken.
"Increased the number of third-turn kills in a few ways, but particularly by giving perfect information (and a card) to decks that often have to make strategic decisions about going "all-in.""
Are we looking at a push back on this kind of play period, or was it really about the fact it was Phyrexian Mana?
Full justification paragraph:
"Gitaxian Probe increased the number of third-turn kills in a few ways, but particularly by giving perfect information (and a card) to decks that often have to make strategic decisions about going "all-in." This hurt the ability of reactive decks to effectively bluff or for the aggressive deck to miss-sequence their turn. Ultimately, the card did too much for too little cost."
I think the last part of the statement implies it's only phyrexian mana.
Really surprised at preordain not getting unbanned. It seems like it's super safe now that probe is banned. I almost expect it to be unbanned in march at this point.
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Really surprised at preordain not getting unbanned. It seems like it's super safe now that probe is banned. I almost expect it to be unbanned in march at this point.
idk about that. cantrips, especially in blue, help combo more than they help fair decks?
How is the Probe ban reasonable? With the printing of Fatal Push those "T3 win" decks would have too many problems to stay T1. Also, Probe ban hurts delver lists, who were the bane of those 3 decks and could be aggressive enough to handle Tron and/or Valakut decks.
If they really wanted to hurt the Turn 2-3 wins they should've cut Become Immense, since Delve is by itself broken.
Probe is casting a sorcery free version of peek. It takes a lot of the skill out of playing these super fast decks by just getting information for basically free while filling up graveyards for become immense. I really don't feel bad that super fast decks actually have to THINK before they cast their stuff now.
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I think the winners here are Living End and Reckless Zoo.
Looking at the timing of the next B&R I feel they are going to unban Jace with MM17
"Increased the number of third-turn kills in a few ways, but particularly by giving perfect information (and a card) to decks that often have to make strategic decisions about going "all-in.""
Are we looking at a push back on this kind of play period, or was it really about the fact it was Phyrexian Mana?
Spirits
we have burn, and affinity for that, plus infect and dredge will still possibly be tier 1-2 decks, we wont know until a few months pass. but like vs. any broken deck. you will need to pack some tron hate thats for sure.
decks playing:
none
You still have golgari thug that dredges 4 instead of 6. Dredge will still be tier 2. It was super dumb that dredge got to win through cages with relative ease if they have a grave troll in hand.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Or they could make the banlist alot smaller by having control actually have answers to these dumb threats and do its job. Instead of it being a joke deck.
The modern meta is actually MISSING a part and everyone knows it and they just dont support it, so instead the banned list is pretending to be a police control deck.
Was something from Dredge expected to be banned? Yes
Was the Probe ban unexpected AND reasonable? Yes
People know WotC doesn't like the Dredge mechanic therefore these types of bans now and in the future shouldn't be 'shocking' to anyone. If I had to give an honest opinion about the next ban announcement, I would expect Wizards to go after Dredge again until it is nowhere to be seen in Modern. Dredge bans are to be expected and if people think otherwise, then they are only fooling themselves.
As for Probe, it was too good for what it did. Banning it will slow down the format a quarter of a turn and hurt most linear aggro decks. Cantripping and getting hand information for essentially free is simply too good of a card. Anyone who plays Modern consistently will attest that these bans are more than reasonable. Getting probed by an aggro deck feels bad and playing against dredge feels helpless in general. Then again, playing against an opponent with t3 Tron is no fun as well which is a different discussion on its own.
With Fatal Push coming in and Probe/GGT leaving, I am very excited to see what Modern will look like starting January 20th.
The GGT ban was... fine? I guess. I've not played against Dredge enough myself to know how I feel about the deck. The Probe ban sucks. Alot. Storm is no longer a deck in Modern, which I know some people are probably very happy about as they don't enjoy playing against Storm. I get it, its an un-interactive and fairly boring deck to play against. I happen to think Burn is a fairly boring and un-interactive deck to play against, but I certainly want it to be an option for people that do enjoy the deck. I know Probe wasn't hit explicitly because of Storm, but it was probably the only card they could possibly ban that would gut the deck. Yeah, we have Peek, but is that really what we want to be doing with our mana when it comes to cantripping? I doubt it. It certainly doesn't turn on Ascensions as easily as Probe did, which was huge.
Guess I'm glad I bought into Grixis Delver and didn't include any Probes in my list.
UBRGDredge
Under Construction
WUBAd Nauseam
Dredge drops to tier 2 or 3, infect drops down to tier 2 between the probe ban and fatal push being released, burn is relatively absent, but also negatively impacted by push
How is Tron not the clear-cut winner? Tron just saw 3 of it's major decks get knocked down a peg
Tron is will absolutely be hitting tier 1 in the next couple of months, and be very formidable
Wizards gives no f***s.
while this is true, how do we enter such cards into modern? through standard? like push?
also what cards on the banned list slow this format down better than the probe ban?
im sure we will see some unbans soon, but too many changes at once are not a good idea. for now, wizards did good.
decks playing:
none
Which 5?
Spirits
more of a reason to run hate I guess.
decks playing:
none
If they really wanted to hurt the Turn 2-3 wins they should've cut Become Immense, since Delve is by itself broken.
Full justification paragraph:
"Gitaxian Probe increased the number of third-turn kills in a few ways, but particularly by giving perfect information (and a card) to decks that often have to make strategic decisions about going "all-in." This hurt the ability of reactive decks to effectively bluff or for the aggressive deck to miss-sequence their turn. Ultimately, the card did too much for too little cost."
I think the last part of the statement implies it's only phyrexian mana.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
TiTi, Infect, ~3 Bloo Variants, Suicide Zoo, UR Storm
Well UR Prowess, Death's Shadow Zoo and Storm at least.
RGTron
UGInfect
URStorm
WUBRAd Nauseam
BRGrishoalbrand
URGScapeshift
WBGAbzan Company
WUBRGAmulet Titan
BRGLiving End
WGBogles
idk about that. cantrips, especially in blue, help combo more than they help fair decks?
decks playing:
none
Probe is casting a sorcery free version of peek. It takes a lot of the skill out of playing these super fast decks by just getting information for basically free while filling up graveyards for become immense. I really don't feel bad that super fast decks actually have to THINK before they cast their stuff now.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)