Again, we should be focusing on new, powerful prints rather than unbans(Preordain and Stoneforge Mystic still being on the radar I suppose).
I would love to hope for new cards, but outside of Fatal Push, every card that makes its way into Modern is either a creature or threat or threat-enabler of some kind. We are not getting answers, cantrips, or counters whatsoever. With that in mind, Stoneforge should be totally fine alongside the other nonsense creatures they have no problem shoving into the format.
People have ridiculous demands. Wizards said that Modern will only be getting new cards via Standard. Fact Or Fiction, (maybe) Opt, Counterspell without disadvantage are some examples that you need to get away from.
Hang on. Opt is not too strong for Standard (in general). It was in Magic Origins for a while, but it was too good in their FFL-testing that had a Jeskai-tokens deck as being one of the best (Jeskai Ascendancy, Monastery Mentor, etc.), so they concluded that "[then] was not the time for it". I doubt things have changed that much since then.
This just highlights how awful and useless the FFL "testing" is. Jeskai Tokens became completely unplayable after Dromoka's Command was printed in DTK. I played that deck exclusively through THS/KTK Standard before switching to Esper Dragons (which, itself became unplayable after Abzan started main-decking Crackling Doom), and the deck struggled against even basic green creature decks, never mind Abzan powerhouses with or without Command. Considering Origins came out after DTK, they should have known that Siege Rhino.dec would be packing the most powerful Standard-legal modal card in quite a long time and that Jeskai Tokens decks fell to pieces without Jeskai Ascendancy in play. Their fear of spells and spell-based decks has absolutely no basis in reality, but perfectly explains why most spells are either horrendously over-costed, underpowered, downgraded to Sorcery, or modal to make up for being over-costed and individually underpowered. We will not be getting playable cheap blue spells for years.
They missed with quite a few things in that standard. Not sure about the details, but I think there was a late change to Temur Charm which meant that Temur decks became a lot worse than they anticipated (which also explains why they thought Savage Knuckleblade would be a Standard staple), and Siege Rhino also was a different card for a lot of the testing, starting out as a Loxodon Smiter variant (which was there to combat Liliana of the Veil, who was in Magic 2015). This in turn meant that Abzan got stronger than they thought.
Hopefully the new changes announced today will make for better testing, but it still sounds super challenging to test for a format with ever-changing cards.
Wasn't Kolaghan's Command also designed for modern? I'm pretty sure I heard that somewhere, but I'm not sure.
Going back to the discussion on the last page about whether or not Merfolk, Grixis Shadow, etc. should be considered a "blue" deck, this is completely missing the point. IMO we should stop saying things like "blue is weak" or "white is only a splash color" because it's not really capturing what people are thinking. It's not the lack of certain colors that we don't like, it's the lack of certain styles of play. I want Counterspell reprinted for modern equally the same if merfolk is a 1% deck, or a 25% deck, because merfolk being viable doesn't allow me to play the kinds of decks that I want to play. If we start talking about archetypes, and stop talking about colors, the discussion becomes a lot clearer.
I also don't think it's fair to tell people "modern is a proactive format, stop trying to play control." We know modern is a "be proactive or lose" format. We're saying it shouldn't be. All archetypes should be represented at least decently in the top tiers, because that gives you the healthiest metagame and the most player choice.
Wasn't Kolaghan's Command also designed for modern? I'm pretty sure I heard that somewhere, but I'm not sure.
If it was, it seemed like nobody caught on until months after it was printed. I wasn't playing much Modern at the time, but price data says it was essentially a worthless $1-2 bulk rare before exploding after MM15; likely as a result of Grixis Twin and Grixis Control (which beat up on Twin). It's a happy accident that falls directly in line with spells being modal to make up for the fact that the spell's overall cost is pretty high and each individual mode is pretty weak (no one mode is worth more than 1 mana). If anything, we could argue Atarka's Command was pushed for Burn, but it's also a strictly better Skullcrack if you are running green, but it was more likely printed to support Atarka Red in Standard (which was a great deck).
People have ridiculous demands. Wizards said that Modern will only be getting new cards via Standard. Fact Or Fiction, (maybe) Opt, Counterspell without disadvantage are some examples that you need to get away from.
About Unbans: People insisting on Dig Through Time. It's not happening.
IMO, most of you should get a large dose of reality. Those cards are not coming.
The only thing that it's possible is: new prints(meaning new cards-totally new designs, eg Counterspell with a weakness like "Reveal a Dragon", or "Return a land to your hand", 1UU: counter target spell with an advantage, but not a serious one, etc).
Regarding unbans, Stoneforge Mystic is the only possible card that could see the light of day in Modern. Maybe Preordain as well, but that Storm situation is not helping at all.
Dig is safer than stoneforge. What deck is dominating with Dig in it? Unban mystic and expect 50 shades of abzan to be modern's top tier deck. I would also expect bant eldrazi to get a sizable upgrade from mystic.
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Wasn't Kolaghan's Command also designed for modern? I'm pretty sure I heard that somewhere, but I'm not sure.
Going back to the discussion on the last page about whether or not Merfolk, Grixis Shadow, etc. should be considered a "blue" deck, this is completely missing the point. IMO we should stop saying things like "blue is weak" or "white is only a splash color" because it's not really capturing what people are thinking. It's not the lack of certain colors that we don't like, it's the lack of certain styles of play. I want Counterspell reprinted for modern equally the same if merfolk is a 1% deck, or a 25% deck, because merfolk being viable doesn't allow me to play the kinds of decks that I want to play. If we start talking about archetypes, and stop talking about colors, the discussion becomes a lot clearer.
I also don't think it's fair to tell people "modern is a proactive format, stop trying to play control." We know modern is a "be proactive or lose" format. We're saying it shouldn't be. All archetypes should be represented at least decently in the top tiers, because that gives you the healthiest metagame and the most player choice.
Fatal push was designed for modern. R&D even admitted to it by saying that they made the name simple so it could be reprinted again.
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People have ridiculous demands. Wizards said that Modern will only be getting new cards via Standard. Fact Or Fiction, (maybe) Opt, Counterspell without disadvantage are some examples that you need to get away from.
Hang on. Opt is not too strong for Standard (in general). It was in Magic Origins for a while, but it was too good in their FFL-testing that had a Jeskai-tokens deck as being one of the best (Jeskai Ascendancy, Monastery Mentor, etc.), so they concluded that "[then] was not the time for it". I doubt things have changed that much since then.
This just highlights how awful and useless the FFL "testing" is. Jeskai Tokens became completely unplayable after Dromoka's Command was printed in DTK. I played that deck exclusively through THS/KTK Standard before switching to Esper Dragons (which, itself became unplayable after Abzan started main-decking Crackling Doom), and the deck struggled against even basic green creature decks, never mind Abzan powerhouses with or without Command. Considering Origins came out after DTK, they should have known that Siege Rhino.dec would be packing the most powerful Standard-legal modal card in quite a long time and that Jeskai Tokens decks fell to pieces without Jeskai Ascendancy in play. Their fear of spells and spell-based decks has absolutely no basis in reality, but perfectly explains why most spells are either horrendously over-costed, underpowered, downgraded to Sorcery, or modal to make up for being over-costed and individually underpowered. We will not be getting playable cheap blue spells for years.
They missed with quite a few things in that standard. Not sure about the details, but I think there was a late change to Temur Charm which meant that Temur decks became a lot worse than they anticipated (which also explains why they thought Savage Knuckleblade would be a Standard staple), and Siege Rhino also was a different card for a lot of the testing, starting out as a Loxodon Smiter variant (which was there to combat Liliana of the Veil, who was in Magic 2015). This in turn meant that Abzan got stronger than they thought.
Hopefully the new changes announced today will make for better testing, but it still sounds super challenging to test for a format with ever-changing cards.
Trap Essence was supposed to just counter any spell before they nerfed it, Knuckleblade's abilities costed a lot less, and temur charm was twice as strong. They nerfed temur to the ground right before the set hit.
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Personally I like my old decklists to be relevant a long time. But I also like building a new deck as soon as I finish the last one; magic gets boring real quick if youre not building new decks. Modern has a lot of decks to build. Sooooooo I don't know, I don't see a problem with decks "lasting forver." I don't think this has to cut into packs sales and whatnot. If that makes any sense. Besides, some people only want to own one or two decks and I think that is OK, even from wizards point of view.
Regarding unbans, Stoneforge Mystic is the only possible card that could see the light of day in Modern. Maybe Preordain as well, but that Storm situation is not helping at all.
While storm is riding as high as it is (2nd only to affinity!) there is absolutely 0 chance preordain will see the light of day. Even if something was banned from storm it would only push other combo decks up. As much as I would love to get access to this for my UW control deck I know that in the long run the combo decks will benefit more.
If you look at modern's colour representation white is very underrepresented (not counting tiny splashes for sideboard hate) and unbanning stoneforge certainly gives a solid reason to have white as a colour so I would be in favour of unbanning it.
Personally I think the format could handle Bloodbraid Elf back. Of the 14 decks with 2% or higher meta share on mtg goldfish only Jund Death's shadow could realistically run it. It would give regular Jund a boost and perhaps be enough to let zoo come back even in a field of fatal push.
The only other card I feel is safe is... Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Call me crazy but he's just not great without force of will. So many of the decks will punish you for tapping out on turn 4 to drop him. If he's coming down later on an empty board why shouldn't he win the game? The way he takes over the game is no different to how karn or ugin dominates an empty board, or big elspeth.
Question:What do you say to the people who feel that their favorite parts of magic (for example, heavy control elements and discard) are being pushed out of the game? Is magic just not for them anymore?
Maro: We made a choice many, many years ago to power down strategies that kept the opponent from being able to play. Those elements still exist, with individual cards that see tournament play from time to time, but we’ve kept the concentrated decks from being powerful.
Note, I’m not saying that elements of those strategies are unplayable. The decks that do nothing but that thing are purposely unplayable. For example, there have been playable counterspells. We just haven’t allowed Draw, Go decks that do nothing but counter spells to be good.
If you’ve been playing long enough to remember decks that were centered solely on those strategies, that means you been playing Magic for about fifteen years without them.
I don’t understand how you can be playing for so many years if the think that makes Magic special to you, that you don’t want to play without, the thing that the game just isn’t fun if it’s missing hasn’t existed for fifteen years.
Wow, I wish that quote could have been around years ago, it should be pasted in red letters at the top of every modern control primer on this forum as a disclaimer.
So by this logic, I can't unconditionally counter a spell for 2 mana because it's "not fun", but someone virtually ending the game with a Blood Moon, Ensnaring Bridge, or Boil is perfectly ok. Glad to have that cleared up.
I don't want any of those cards banned for the record.
This just highlights how awful and useless the FFL "testing" is.
Or how much difference there is between what Wotc wants out of the format and what the player base wants.
Wotc wants players to buy packs and boxes, LGS want players to buy singles, most players only want to buy into one deck and ride that baby for years.
Something has to give...
WOTC also has a testing team either so lazy or so incompetent that they entirely missed an infinitecombo discovered by players within 5 minutes of the final spoiler release. A system so bad, it led to several years of awful Standard seasons, multiple bannings that shouldn't have had to happen, and a complete overhaul of their testing processes. If that's a showcase for the formats they actually care about, I don't have a lot of faith that they actually know what's best for the game anymore.
Question:What do you say to the people who feel that their favorite parts of magic (for example, heavy control elements and discard) are being pushed out of the game? Is magic just not for them anymore?
Maro: We made a choice many, many years ago to power down strategies that kept the opponent from being able to play. Those elements still exist, with individual cards that see tournament play from time to time, but we’ve kept the concentrated decks from being powerful.
Note, I’m not saying that elements of those strategies are unplayable. The decks that do nothing but that thing are purposely unplayable. For example, there have been playable counterspells. We just haven’t allowed Draw, Go decks that do nothing but counter spells to be good.
If you’ve been playing long enough to remember decks that were centered solely on those strategies, that means you been playing Magic for about fifteen years without them.
I don’t understand how you can be playing for so many years if the think that makes Magic special to you, that you don’t want to play without, the thing that the game just isn’t fun if it’s missing hasn’t existed for fifteen years.
Wow, I wish that quote could have been around years ago, it should be pasted in red letters at the top of every modern control primer on this forum as a disclaimer.
So by this logic, I can't unconditionally counter a spell for 2 mana because it's "not fun", but someone virtually ending the game with a Blood Moon, Ensnaring Bridge, or Boil is perfectly ok. Glad to have that cleared up.
I don't want any of those cards banned for the record.
That isn't at all what MaRo said. He said they don't want Draw/Go decks to be viable options in Standard but that they can still print decent control cards as one-offs when there isn't a risk of them helping create a Standard-format Draw/Go deck. That's it. That's all he said. There is no mention whatsoever of lock effects like Blood Moon or Ensnaring Bridge. Modern players whining about those existing while Counterspell does not should instead complain about the arbitrary 8th edition onward starting point for the format rather than this quote.
I think Opt and Counterspell are fine for many, if not most, Standard environments and are both totally fine for Modern. I also think Baleful Strix should be fine in both.
But what I would love to see is more enemy themed cards like the Nemesis cycle of Sivvi's Ruse, Submerge, Massacre, Mogg Salvage, and Refreshing Rain. Sivvi and Mogg probably can't be re-used but the others are flavor-free. And it doesn't have to be exactly these cards, but cards of their ilk. Wizards turned away from enemy color matters after Theros block but I think it's an important element.
I think Submerge in particular would be a great addition to Modern.
A Daze reprint isn't the craziest thing I've seen suggested in this thread. Hell, it would probably be fine even in Standard. What would be the real downside? Grixis Shadow gets a new toy? Scapeshift? I honestly can't think of one. I'd say pure combo decks but Storm doesn't seem like it has room and Ad Nauseam already runs a free counterspell in Pact of Negation.
This just highlights how awful and useless the FFL "testing" is.
Or how much difference there is between what Wotc wants out of the format and what the player base wants.
Wotc wants players to buy packs and boxes, LGS want players to buy singles, most players only want to buy into one deck and ride that baby for years.
Something has to give...
There would be a pretty good middle ground in there. Players only pick a deck and ride because the expense of the format puts a hamper on picking up multiple decks. This leads to these players picking up fewer singles at an LGS, because their deck may not gain anything from the new set, which in turn has the LGS crack less product for singles.
Question:What do you say to the people who feel that their favorite parts of magic (for example, heavy control elements and discard) are being pushed out of the game? Is magic just not for them anymore?
Maro: We made a choice many, many years ago to power down strategies that kept the opponent from being able to play. Those elements still exist, with individual cards that see tournament play from time to time, but we’ve kept the concentrated decks from being powerful.
Note, I’m not saying that elements of those strategies are unplayable. The decks that do nothing but that thing are purposely unplayable. For example, there have been playable counterspells. We just haven’t allowed Draw, Go decks that do nothing but counter spells to be good.
If you’ve been playing long enough to remember decks that were centered solely on those strategies, that means you been playing Magic for about fifteen years without them.
I don’t understand how you can be playing for so many years if the think that makes Magic special to you, that you don’t want to play without, the thing that the game just isn’t fun if it’s missing hasn’t existed for fifteen years.
Wow, I wish that quote could have been around years ago, it should be pasted in red letters at the top of every modern control primer on this forum as a disclaimer.
So by this logic, I can't unconditionally counter a spell for 2 mana because it's "not fun", but someone virtually ending the game with a Blood Moon, Ensnaring Bridge, or Boil is perfectly ok. Glad to have that cleared up.
I don't want any of those cards banned for the record.
With that quote, MaRo was specifically talking about "Draw, Go" as the 1998-deck, not as "Draw Go Control" in the modern sense, as exemplified more recently with Sphinx's Rev. decks. Notice how he talks about it as a strategy that hasn't been viable for 15 years. He cleared this up in other posts around that time if memory serves.
When it comes to reactive decks in non-rotating formats, is it even theoretically possible that something like that could be consistently strong enough to be a tier 1 choice for a 15 round tournament like a GP? Not having access to free wins would just seem like such a drawback.
I'm all for Modern getting better reactive control tools by the way, but I think it will always be handicapped in a format with so many different angles of attack. I sometimes wonder what a control list in modern with Swords to PlowsharesandCounterspell would do, and if it would be enough to be solidly and consistently Tier 1.
Even if I did interpret the quote out of context, I still wish I would have known about that decision before building my modern card pool. Additionally, I think that my point about Counterspell and those other cards in still valid in the sense that Counterspell would actually be a tool to protect against them. I clearly recall playing one game against RG Valakut where at the end of my turn 4, my opponent cast boil, I countered with cryptic, he untapped and cast a second boil. Though I didn't scoop, the game ended right there due to a card that allowed him to triple stone rain me. Yeah it's an anecdote, and there would have been other post board draws that could have worked out, but a more nimble answer couldn't have hurt. I don't mind 8th edition being in the format, I just think we need s stronger counter spell available that is relevant all game long.
Guess there's nothing to do but sit back and wait til spoilers for Hour start popping up, but after reading the last two pages of this thread, I'm not very optimistic anymore. I can't believe they were worried about the impact of Disallow in modern...that's just disappointing.
Esper Dragons was a draw go control deck that was fine in standard. It ran DTT, a spell that was basically counterspell, 5 creatures and 1 walker. It also ran thoughtseize. The deck proves they can print cards that make a draw go control deck without them being too strong and warping the meta. Wizards just has an irrational fear of those types of cards and decks. A UU counter with a slight restriction (not downside) and strong late/midgame draw spells like DTT are clearly fine for standard.
Maro is also extremely vague and loose with how he defined the types of draw go control decks they don't want. How many counters equals a "very high concentration?" Can the deck have just target removal and discard and be fine? The quote is from April 2016 so after Esper Dragrons was a deck so it would be good to know if he felt like the deck was acceptable or if it met his criteria for a draw go deck that wont be seen again.
Esper Dragons was a draw go control deck that was fine in standard. It ran DTT, a spell that was basically counterspell, 5 creatures and 1 walker. It also ran thoughtseize. The deck proves they can print cards that make a draw go control deck without them being too strong and warping the meta. Wizards just has an irrational fear of those types of cards and decks. A UU counter with a slight restriction (not downside) and strong late/midgame draw spells like DTT are clearly fine for standard.
Maro is also extremely vague and loose with how he defined the types of draw go control decks they don't want. How many counters equals a "very high concentration?" Can the deck have just target removal and discard and be fine? The quote is from April 2016 so after Esper Dragrons was a deck so it would be good to know if he felt like the deck was acceptable or if it met his criteria for a draw go deck that wont be seen again.
Esper dragons wasn't a draw-go deck like Maro mentions. That's more of a tribal control deck. There hasn't been a draw go deck in standard for over 15 years. In his words he literally means a control deck with 15+ counterspells, removal and 1 wincon. Sphinx rev decks were close to it but they weren't exactly draw-go in Maro's words.
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I would love to hope for new cards, but outside of Fatal Push, every card that makes its way into Modern is either a creature or threat or threat-enabler of some kind. We are not getting answers, cantrips, or counters whatsoever. With that in mind, Stoneforge should be totally fine alongside the other nonsense creatures they have no problem shoving into the format.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Well, I do see people including myself using Counterflux to fight against Twin in the past. But as you said, not a usual case
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron
They missed with quite a few things in that standard. Not sure about the details, but I think there was a late change to Temur Charm which meant that Temur decks became a lot worse than they anticipated (which also explains why they thought Savage Knuckleblade would be a Standard staple), and Siege Rhino also was a different card for a lot of the testing, starting out as a Loxodon Smiter variant (which was there to combat Liliana of the Veil, who was in Magic 2015). This in turn meant that Abzan got stronger than they thought.
Hopefully the new changes announced today will make for better testing, but it still sounds super challenging to test for a format with ever-changing cards.
(In case you haven't seen it:Blogatog Play Design Announcement).
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
Going back to the discussion on the last page about whether or not Merfolk, Grixis Shadow, etc. should be considered a "blue" deck, this is completely missing the point. IMO we should stop saying things like "blue is weak" or "white is only a splash color" because it's not really capturing what people are thinking. It's not the lack of certain colors that we don't like, it's the lack of certain styles of play. I want Counterspell reprinted for modern equally the same if merfolk is a 1% deck, or a 25% deck, because merfolk being viable doesn't allow me to play the kinds of decks that I want to play. If we start talking about archetypes, and stop talking about colors, the discussion becomes a lot clearer.
I also don't think it's fair to tell people "modern is a proactive format, stop trying to play control." We know modern is a "be proactive or lose" format. We're saying it shouldn't be. All archetypes should be represented at least decently in the top tiers, because that gives you the healthiest metagame and the most player choice.
If it was, it seemed like nobody caught on until months after it was printed. I wasn't playing much Modern at the time, but price data says it was essentially a worthless $1-2 bulk rare before exploding after MM15; likely as a result of Grixis Twin and Grixis Control (which beat up on Twin). It's a happy accident that falls directly in line with spells being modal to make up for the fact that the spell's overall cost is pretty high and each individual mode is pretty weak (no one mode is worth more than 1 mana). If anything, we could argue Atarka's Command was pushed for Burn, but it's also a strictly better Skullcrack if you are running green, but it was more likely printed to support Atarka Red in Standard (which was a great deck).
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Dig is safer than stoneforge. What deck is dominating with Dig in it? Unban mystic and expect 50 shades of abzan to be modern's top tier deck. I would also expect bant eldrazi to get a sizable upgrade from mystic.
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/)
Fatal push was designed for modern. R&D even admitted to it by saying that they made the name simple so it could be reprinted again.
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/)
Trap Essence was supposed to just counter any spell before they nerfed it, Knuckleblade's abilities costed a lot less, and temur charm was twice as strong. They nerfed temur to the ground right before the set hit.
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 how much difference there is between what Wotc wants out of the format and what the player base wants.
Wotc wants players to buy packs and boxes, LGS want players to buy singles, most players only want to buy into one deck and ride that baby for years.
Something has to give...
While storm is riding as high as it is (2nd only to affinity!) there is absolutely 0 chance preordain will see the light of day. Even if something was banned from storm it would only push other combo decks up. As much as I would love to get access to this for my UW control deck I know that in the long run the combo decks will benefit more.
If you look at modern's colour representation white is very underrepresented (not counting tiny splashes for sideboard hate) and unbanning stoneforge certainly gives a solid reason to have white as a colour so I would be in favour of unbanning it.
Personally I think the format could handle Bloodbraid Elf back. Of the 14 decks with 2% or higher meta share on mtg goldfish only Jund Death's shadow could realistically run it. It would give regular Jund a boost and perhaps be enough to let zoo come back even in a field of fatal push.
The only other card I feel is safe is... Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Call me crazy but he's just not great without force of will. So many of the decks will punish you for tapping out on turn 4 to drop him. If he's coming down later on an empty board why shouldn't he win the game? The way he takes over the game is no different to how karn or ugin dominates an empty board, or big elspeth.
Maro: We made a choice many, many years ago to power down strategies that kept the opponent from being able to play. Those elements still exist, with individual cards that see tournament play from time to time, but we’ve kept the concentrated decks from being powerful.
Note, I’m not saying that elements of those strategies are unplayable. The decks that do nothing but that thing are purposely unplayable. For example, there have been playable counterspells. We just haven’t allowed Draw, Go decks that do nothing but counter spells to be good.
If you’ve been playing long enough to remember decks that were centered solely on those strategies, that means you been playing Magic for about fifteen years without them.
I don’t understand how you can be playing for so many years if the think that makes Magic special to you, that you don’t want to play without, the thing that the game just isn’t fun if it’s missing hasn’t existed for fifteen years.
Wow, I wish that quote could have been around years ago, it should be pasted in red letters at the top of every modern control primer on this forum as a disclaimer.
So by this logic, I can't unconditionally counter a spell for 2 mana because it's "not fun", but someone virtually ending the game with a Blood Moon, Ensnaring Bridge, or Boil is perfectly ok. Glad to have that cleared up.
I don't want any of those cards banned for the record.
WOTC also has a testing team either so lazy or so incompetent that they entirely missed an infinite combo discovered by players within 5 minutes of the final spoiler release. A system so bad, it led to several years of awful Standard seasons, multiple bannings that shouldn't have had to happen, and a complete overhaul of their testing processes. If that's a showcase for the formats they actually care about, I don't have a lot of faith that they actually know what's best for the game anymore.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
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
But what I would love to see is more enemy themed cards like the Nemesis cycle of Sivvi's Ruse, Submerge, Massacre, Mogg Salvage, and Refreshing Rain. Sivvi and Mogg probably can't be re-used but the others are flavor-free. And it doesn't have to be exactly these cards, but cards of their ilk. Wizards turned away from enemy color matters after Theros block but I think it's an important element.
I think Submerge in particular would be a great addition to Modern.
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
There would be a pretty good middle ground in there. Players only pick a deck and ride because the expense of the format puts a hamper on picking up multiple decks. This leads to these players picking up fewer singles at an LGS, because their deck may not gain anything from the new set, which in turn has the LGS crack less product for singles.
My H/W list
With that quote, MaRo was specifically talking about "Draw, Go" as the 1998-deck, not as "Draw Go Control" in the modern sense, as exemplified more recently with Sphinx's Rev. decks. Notice how he talks about it as a strategy that hasn't been viable for 15 years. He cleared this up in other posts around that time if memory serves.
When it comes to reactive decks in non-rotating formats, is it even theoretically possible that something like that could be consistently strong enough to be a tier 1 choice for a 15 round tournament like a GP? Not having access to free wins would just seem like such a drawback.
I'm not that well versed in Legacy, but looking from the outside it seems that even with Swords to plowshares, Counterspell, Brainstorm and Force of Will it took a One mana wrath and prison elements to create a good reactive control deck.
I'm all for Modern getting better reactive control tools by the way, but I think it will always be handicapped in a format with so many different angles of attack. I sometimes wonder what a control list in modern with Swords to Plowshares and Counterspell would do, and if it would be enough to be solidly and consistently Tier 1.
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
Guess there's nothing to do but sit back and wait til spoilers for Hour start popping up, but after reading the last two pages of this thread, I'm not very optimistic anymore. I can't believe they were worried about the impact of Disallow in modern...that's just disappointing.
I can see them printing a 1UU counter target spell cycling 2.
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/)
Maro is also extremely vague and loose with how he defined the types of draw go control decks they don't want. How many counters equals a "very high concentration?" Can the deck have just target removal and discard and be fine? The quote is from April 2016 so after Esper Dragrons was a deck so it would be good to know if he felt like the deck was acceptable or if it met his criteria for a draw go deck that wont be seen again.
Esper dragons wasn't a draw-go deck like Maro mentions. That's more of a tribal control deck. There hasn't been a draw go deck in standard for over 15 years. In his words he literally means a control deck with 15+ counterspells, removal and 1 wincon. Sphinx rev decks were close to it but they weren't exactly draw-go in Maro's words.
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/)