Yeah, I 100% agree its degenerate, and can lead to non-games. I'm not willing to accept the number of bans that would be required to remove all poor design choices from the format however.
I've had this argument many times, and it virtually always comes down to whether or not we agree on this premise: Unhealthy designs alone are worth banning.
If you agree, you're probably inclined to agree with the banning. If you disagree, you probably agree it's degenerate, but don't think that alone warrants a ban. There exists, I'm sure, a minority that would defend a T2 combo win as perfectly fine, but that would lead to an entirely different philosophical discussion, one which I'm perfectly happy having, but it's not typically the case.
Yeah, I 100% agree its degenerate, and can lead to non-games. I'm not willing to accept the number of bans that would be required to remove all poor design choices from the format however.
Exactly. I believe design health warrants a ban, and you disagree; your position is perfectly defensible, and I'd never argue you're inherently correct for upholding it. I merely disagree.
I mean, I guess this is what we get when we ban out one of the most prominent regulatory decks of the format, then drop any meaningful support for other regulating cards or decks while simultaneously printing oodles of new broken degeneracy over and over. It's no wonder we have to ban so many things so often...
What would that be? Modern was a format defined by Combo decks for years. Jund and on occasion Junk were the only fair decks that could exist for the longest time.
That's the view I don't think is healthy right there. A format should be defined by archtype diversity not combo and linearity.
Modern was a format defined by combo decks for years, it has only really now moved away from combo decks being the best thing around. People pining for the good old days of the first years of the format are essentially asking for a format in which Combo is king.
That's a gross misrepresentation and total oversimplification.
People are pining (well, a minority, in this thread) for Jund and Twin to be kings again, thats really all.
Not entirely wrong! LOL. But the good things both of those decks did for the format is often overlooked or ignored entirely. First without Twin, we see linear nightmares, then after those bans we still have linear degeneracy, but it's backed up by stupidly powerful big mana. Linear can't be kept in check by reactive decks, big mana can't be kept in check by reactive decks. Death's Shadow is about the only "police" deck left which, if it keeps growing, will get banned anyway and linear/big mana will take over again, until those receive yet more bans.
In what way was that a over simplification? Twin, Pod, Storm, Infect, URprowess, DS with probe, Jeskai Ascendancy, Bloom, etc... the list goes on and on Modern for the longest time was defined by combo.
And Twin really didn't stop hyper linear decks, Burn and Infect both start moving up in the rankings after Pod is banned and it is because going under the Twin combo with your own faster kill was a viable method of beating the deck. Pod actually did more to keep those decks at bay as infinite life combo makes fast aggro like burn and zoo not a great plan and it had main deck splash hate against Infect. Not a great plan to run those types of strategies when you can anticipate running into Pod regularly at events.
And DS decks just do what Jund does faster and better. They have access to the same hand disruption and removal cards they simply play a aggro plan with its threats rather than a Mid-range one.
Supplanting is an interesting term here as it implies that other fair decks would be played at all if shadow was banned.
Obviously impossible to predict but an interesting topic.Do other fair decks re-emerge if Shadow is banned?, personally I'm not convinced they do, I think I'd return to storm (or naya burn) if shadow was out of the meta.
Also does everyone at this point basically agree that SFM and BBE are good to come off the banned list? (with any old blue card for balance). Seems that more and more people are pro unbanning of those two over the last year especially.
Supplanting is an interesting term here as it implies that other fair decks would be played at all if shadow was banned.
Obviously impossible to predict but an interesting topic.Do other fair decks re-emerge if Shadow is banned?, personally I'm not convinced they do, I think I'd return to storm (or naya burn) if shadow was out of the meta.
Also does everyone at this point basically agree that SFM and BBE are good to come off the banned list? (with any old blue card for balance). Seems that more and more people are pro unbanning of those two over the last year especially.
People are beginning to come around because SFM and BBE look ridiculous on that banlist compared to what's going on in the format. Preordain is actually more dangerous than BBE and SFM - at least imo. And I say this as someone who's willing to unban all three.
They showed concrete statistics demonstrating that it wasn't winning an unreasonable amount of the time, nor did it have an unreasonable amount of representation in the meta.
It was banned solely because it was an unhealthy card design that relied on variance. Cards that unilaterally decide variance should play a far more significant role in the match are bad for the game. Not to mention, Goryo's Vengeance cuts the T4 rule in half.
The Modern playerbase is amazing. Goryo's has basically zero results (except the eminently fair Esper Goryo's) and is probably Tier 4 by every metric, and there are still people who want to ban the card. It just goes to show that everyone has a personal axe to grind and they'll grind it with essentially no evidence to support their arguments. I largely blame Wizards for this because they have done almost everything possible to foster so much ban mania, but players still have responsibility to not make their personal biases a ban topic.
And yet some self-regulating formats see far fewer overall bans, on top of fewer bans as a percentage of the card pool. Some bans are fine. If we get another Eldrazi Winter or T4 violator then sure, ban away. But this practice of constantly trimming away a best deck results in needless, endless bans of fair and unfair decks alike. That cycle needs to be disrupted.
I mean, I guess this is what we get when we ban out one of the most prominent regulatory decks of the format, then drop any meaningful support for other regulating cards or decks while simultaneously printing oodles of new broken degeneracy over and over. It's no wonder we have to ban so many things so often...
What would that be? Modern was a format defined by Combo decks for years. Jund and on occasion Junk were the only fair decks that could exist for the longest time.
I'll once again let someone else's words explain it better than myself:
Quote from Modern Nexus, Nov 2015 »
No matter how you feel about the BGx grindfest or living in fear in the URx Twin contest, it’s hard to deny the importance of these decks in Modern. We’ve seen this all year, notably at Charlotte in June, and Pittsburgh was an important next chapter in the buddy cop narrative.
... Due to its massive card pool and relative lack of generic answers, Modern is always going to have a lot of random linear decks floating around. These lists take many forms. There are the “pure” combo builds like Ad Nauseam, Hulk Combo, and Storm. There are the old-school aggro decks such as Burn, Merfolk, and more Zoos than we can name. We see ramp (Tron, Amulet Bloom), we see aggro with combo-esque elements (Affinity, Bogles, Infect, Suicide Zoo, Elves), and we see decks that are just plain weird (Time Warp). All of these strategies share an almost single-minded devotion to goldfish games. If I wanted to operationalize a definition for a “linear deck”, it would be by counting the number of maindeck cards that are at their best when used non-interactively. I’m not doing that now, but we can all see the common goldfishing thread between these kinds of decks. Also, just to be clear, these decks are not low-skill despite their linear nature. “Linear” isn’t an insult. It’s a gameplay description.
Given all these linear options, why are most Modern events like Pittsburgh or Charlotte [full of diversity and interaction] and not like Porto Alegre or Dallas[linear nightmares]? Thank URx Twin and BGx Midrange. That’s not “URx Twin or BGx Midrange”. It’s “and” because healthy metagames need both decks.
It’s almost impossible for the assorted linear decks to punch through a metagame with both Twin and BGx. If you’re too deep on synergy, Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek will rip you apart. If you’re too light on interaction, an early Remand is guaranteed to keep the Twin player alive until the turn 4-5 combo. And if you’re too reliant on cheap creatures, there’s nothing like a Lightning Bolt to set you back, and there’s nothing like Twin and Jund when it comes to wielding Bolt efficiently. Linear decks can’t deal with these different policing angles and typically crumble over long tournaments. Pittsburgh showcased this effect throughout the weekend, especially in the finals where Jeskai Twin made textbook work of Affinity.
Modern breaks down in two scenarios. The first is where tournaments are too small for the metagame to arc towards Twin and BGx justice. Linear decks can dodge these policemen in smaller events, and then hope to get lucky in the single game where they get jammed up. This doesn’t work at a Grand Prix, which is exactly what Chapin talked about in his Monday article with respect to Bloom’s finishes. If you just look at small-event data, you tend to see more of the goldfish decks bullying their way to the finals. That’s not going to happen at a tournament where both Twin and Jund show up in force (or Abzan, depending on the BGx police flavor of the month). Of course, the second breakdown scenario is where one (or both) of the decks are absent. No Twin? Get ready for Affinity and Amulet to run over everything in sight. No BGx? Honesty, i can’t think of a time when there was no BGx at all, but I know that an absence of Jund sees big increases in Infect and other small-critter-based aggro.
At Pittsburgh, we saw both decks which is why the event was so healthy and such a return to old-school Modern. This is a critical observation because it shows us situations where the metagame can be broken (relatively speaking) and then self-correct just a month later. That’s important if you are playing (prepare for the correction or jump on board a policing deck), speculating (don’t play the long-game on spending on linear decks that might be here today and gone tomorrow), investing (Twin and BGx only go up because they are always here), or just trying to understand the format (we’ll always come back to these two decks no matter where the format is at any given moment). Pittsburgh should have been a faith-restoring event for all Modern players, and I am optimistic that we can keep seeing these forces in more events to come.
As of right now, we have Shadow playing the Jundish Twinish role, but not nearly as effectively, as removal of the deck from top tables simply opens the door for MORE fast linear/aggro/combo decks to fill the void. There really is *NOT* an abundance of other fair decks or other highly interactive decks, because none of the fair decks can compete with Shadow and none of the non-Shadow interactive/reactive decks can beat the linear/big mana decks.
I get it. You have an ax to grind against Twin. You can't seem to let go that Twin, despite being a "broken combo deck" as you claim (which it was not) also managed to do quite a lot of good for the format (along with old Jund) in helping regulate most of the stuff that everyone seems to complain about: fast linear decks, big mana annoyances, too many bans, etc. And it did this without ever actually pushing ANY of these decks out of competition (Affinity and Burn had excellent results most of 2015, Affinity was at a higher meta share than Twin when it was banned). It kept decks like that in check without oppressing them or letting them get out of control to the point of needing multiple additional bans. And this is because Modern has absolutely no other way to regulate itself other than a drag race to the bottom to see who can do the fastest, most busted, broken thing before getting banned. This isn't helped by the fact that set after set prints new broken things to enable more busted shenanigans, while at the same time a meaningful 1 mana cantrip is unquestionably too powerful and reasonable counterspells are absolutely off the table. Answers are not coming and decks will continue to get faster and more broken until banned, and then the next deck will be banned, and the next, and the next. This is the precedent that they have set and this is hole they have dug themselves in with their R&D, Design, and B&R choices. It will take years to recover otherwise.
Don't have a axe to grind, it was the deck I was on from the start of the format till the day it was banned. Do I think it was to good yes, overall it was simply the best Combo deck in the format unless a T4 violator deck would pop up like Bloom. What I don't like is people acting like it was something that it clearly wasn't it was a combo deck, if a combo deck can be a police deck than we should simply accept any broken combo that comes along and invalidates swaths of decks because it is simply policing those decks at that point.
I'm a UR mage, anyone who has ever played me on MTGO would have to say I was on a URx deck of some type, Twin was my deck for a long time I just don't delude myself into thinking I was playing something other than the best Combo deck in the format.
I agree that linear strategies are going to be continually problematic in the format but the argument that other will make is functionally that Twin was the lesser of 2 evils and that this combo deck should have a reserved protected status in the format, I disagree. I much prefer Grixis DS to Twin as a deck to stifle unfair strategies than Twin which was a unfair deck its self which just happened to be more well liked by others and myself. If it was unbanned I would be right back on the Twin train, but I wouldn't be and wasn't surprised if it ate a ban.
I would love for straight up counterspell to be printed again but I don't think it would actually do much for the format outside of improve some slower match ups but as it stands counterspells of nearly all stripes are very poorly positioned currently Denial is the exception because its most often a 1 mana Negate to protect your proactive threat. Cryptic will always be playable in a deck that ensure it can get to the point in the game which you can actually cast it but it is bounce, tap, cantrip spell in addition to offering a counter.
I even tried to play Twin when it was standard legal.
They showed concrete statistics demonstrating that it wasn't winning an unreasonable amount of the time, nor did it have an unreasonable amount of representation in the meta.
It was banned solely because it was an unhealthy card design that relied on variance. Cards that unilaterally decide variance should play a far more significant role in the match are bad for the game. Not to mention, Goryo's Vengeance cuts the T4 rule in half.
The Modern playerbase is amazing. Goryo's has basically zero results (except the eminently fair Esper Goryo's) and is probably Tier 4 by every metric, and there are still people who want to ban the card. It just goes to show that everyone has a personal axe to grind and they'll grind it with essentially no evidence to support their arguments. I largely blame Wizards for this because they have done almost everything possible to foster so much ban mania, but players still have responsibility to not make their personal biases a ban topic.
I presented a reason. It unilaterally decides for both players that their match degenerates into a coin flip weighted against the Goryo's player.
I think i'm in a lonely position here but i actually think they have to Ban Street Wraith and Grapeshot, Unban Preordain, Stoneforge and if the numbers allow it, Bloodbraid Elf too.
By banning those two cards you get rid of the enabler which still feels degenerate by doing too much(Like Gitaxian Probe which i think it was rightfully banned) and the best and faster combo archetype that ever existed in Storm(which they obviosuly hate too) and keep us attached to Legacy speed. Instead you get: Midrange tools to be proactive and bold in SFM and BBE(although i have nightmares about BBE into LotV), and the filtering needed to align answers to questions. Spell based combo is still viable in Nauseam but a legal T4 speed, Shadow becomes slower but more consistent in Preordain, and Blue-based control gets another high power cantrip and a win con.
This is too much of a shake for an announcement alone, but in two it could work. However, i do feel by the look of the format and DS dominance numbers that Street Wraith is rightfully getting choped on August.
No, fair decks would not come back if Shadow was banned, it would revert to more linear decks.
I would also like to reaffirm my personal stance that *NOTHING* should currently be banned, and that Stoneforge Mystic, Bloodbraid Elf, and Splinter Twin should all be unbanned. Death's Shadow is currently playing a role (thought not as well) that Jund and Twin used to do individually, however since it's the ONLY deck capable of doing so, rather than two decks with completely different colors, builds, and philosophies, that unilateral funnel will lead it to grow in meta share until it's banned. Unbanning Twin and BBE will help this "trinity" keep in check the explosive growth and power level of fast/linear/unfair decks that have taken over the format the past couple years. Stoneforge Mystic also helps power up fair strategies and could fit into a number of shells profitably (Abzan and Esper seem to stand out most to me). With a powering-up of reactive/interactive decks and fair decks, the power level of the degeneracy in the format is fine. But without those kinds of decks in place, the degeneracy will continually get banned until we're at a power level where standard jank is playable (perhaps this is Wizards' ultimate goal?).
They showed concrete statistics demonstrating that it wasn't winning an unreasonable amount of the time, nor did it have an unreasonable amount of representation in the meta.
It was banned solely because it was an unhealthy card design that relied on variance. Cards that unilaterally decide variance should play a far more significant role in the match are bad for the game. Not to mention, Goryo's Vengeance cuts the T4 rule in half.
The Modern playerbase is amazing. Goryo's has basically zero results (except the eminently fair Esper Goryo's) and is probably Tier 4 by every metric, and there are still people who want to ban the card. It just goes to show that everyone has a personal axe to grind and they'll grind it with essentially no evidence to support their arguments. I largely blame Wizards for this because they have done almost everything possible to foster so much ban mania, but players still have responsibility to not make their personal biases a ban topic.
I presented a reason. It unilaterally decides for both players that their match degenerates into a coin flip weighted against the Goryo's player.
It's a very bad reason. The deck is not top-tier, not consistent, and basically doesn't exist for most competitive purposes. Wizards has been extremely clear that T4 violators aren't T4 violators because they have the potential to win on T4. They must be consistent and top-tier. Goryo's is neither. It isn't even close.
I want to establish a dichotomy between game design and game health here. I'll concede the fact it has counterplay and is a very weak deck. I'm saying its unhealthy design alone warrants a ban. It's really a debate about whether or not you think designs alone are sufficient to ban a given card.
I want to establish a dichotomy between game design and game health here. I'll concede the fact it has counterplay and is a very weak deck. I'm saying its unhealthy design alone warrants a ban. It's really a debate about whether or not you think designs alone are sufficient to ban a given card.
They aren't. Modern is full of badly designed cards. Most of the top-tier decks are composed exclusively of badly designed cards. By a bad design metric, we'd have to ban most of Tier 1. Cards are only banned when there isn't counterplay and they become too dominant and/or break the T4 rule. Also, some other weird criteria (logistical reasons, "battle of sideboards," etc.), but Gory's isn't doing any of that.
I want to establish a dichotomy between game design and game health here. I'll concede the fact it has counterplay and is a very weak deck. I'm saying its unhealthy design alone warrants a ban. It's really a debate about whether or not you think designs alone are sufficient to ban a given card.
You'd remove half of the Modern playable card pool. That is just a terrible metric.
Not true. I believe decks that significantly increase the importance of variation and exist solely to win before there's much counterplay are bad designs because they degenerate the match into a coin flip weighted against the combo player. By in large, Wizards seems to agree with this sentiment.
This is not true of any other Modern deck as much as it is for Instant Reanimator.
They won't ban Grapeshot. They have avoided banning any of the storm cards for years now, and I can't see that changing anytime soon. Instead they have always gone after rituals and cantrips. The most busted card left in storm IMO is Past in Flames, but storm is not oppressive right now anyways.
They also will not unban Preordain anytime soon. It is quite a bit better than Serum Visions and visions is still a perfectly fine magic card that finds its way into most decks featuring blue. If visions was truly not a good enough cantrip for modern, nobody would play it! It's that simple. The fact that it shows up quite frequently means it must be pretty damn good!
Not true. I believe decks that significantly increase the importance of variation and exist solely to win before there's much counterplay are bad designs because they degenerate the match into a coin flip weighted against the combo player. By in large, Wizards seems to agree with this sentiment.
This is not true of any other Modern deck as much as it is for Instant Reanimator.
They do not agree with that statement because those decks are all legal, as long as they aren't top-tier and consistent. You are reinventing the T4 rule to suit your own purposes and arguments, but that's not how the rule actually plays out. You may personally want it this way and that's fine, but Wizards clearly does not.
Not true. I believe decks that significantly increase the importance of variation and exist solely to win before there's much counterplay are bad designs because they degenerate the match into a coin flip weighted against the combo player. By in large, Wizards seems to agree with this sentiment.
This is not true of any other Modern deck as much as it is for Instant Reanimator.
You have no numbers to back up your statement - that's the whole point of this discussion. You're theorycrafting.
They won't ban Grapeshot. They have avoided banning any of the storm cards for years now, and I can't see that changing anytime soon. Instead they have always gone after rituals and cantrips. The most busted card left in storm IMO is Past in Flames, but storm is not oppressive right now anyways.
They also will not unban Preordain anytime soon. It is quite a bit better than Serum Visions and visions is still a perfectly fine magic card that finds its way into most decks featuring blue. If visions was truly not a good enough cantrip for modern, nobody would play it! It's that simple. The fact that it shows up quite frequently means it must be pretty damn good!
Serum is a fine card. I wouldn't call it great or anything - but Preordain is definitely Modern power-level. I think it should exist in this format.
Preordain is too strong currently with Grixis DS and Storm where they are. SFM is fine. Not sure about the other two.
Not sure I'd rate BBE higher on the power-level scale than SFM. Midrange Jund needs a good reason to be played now and I think that BBE is that reason if it were ever unbanned.
Spirits
Numbers > Subjective opinions about unhealthy.
Exactly. I believe design health warrants a ban, and you disagree; your position is perfectly defensible, and I'd never argue you're inherently correct for upholding it. I merely disagree.
In what way was that a over simplification? Twin, Pod, Storm, Infect, URprowess, DS with probe, Jeskai Ascendancy, Bloom, etc... the list goes on and on Modern for the longest time was defined by combo.
And Twin really didn't stop hyper linear decks, Burn and Infect both start moving up in the rankings after Pod is banned and it is because going under the Twin combo with your own faster kill was a viable method of beating the deck. Pod actually did more to keep those decks at bay as infinite life combo makes fast aggro like burn and zoo not a great plan and it had main deck splash hate against Infect. Not a great plan to run those types of strategies when you can anticipate running into Pod regularly at events.
And DS decks just do what Jund does faster and better. They have access to the same hand disruption and removal cards they simply play a aggro plan with its threats rather than a Mid-range one.
Obviously impossible to predict but an interesting topic.Do other fair decks re-emerge if Shadow is banned?, personally I'm not convinced they do, I think I'd return to storm (or naya burn) if shadow was out of the meta.
Also does everyone at this point basically agree that SFM and BBE are good to come off the banned list? (with any old blue card for balance). Seems that more and more people are pro unbanning of those two over the last year especially.
Legacy - LED Dredge, ANT & WDnT
People are beginning to come around because SFM and BBE look ridiculous on that banlist compared to what's going on in the format. Preordain is actually more dangerous than BBE and SFM - at least imo. And I say this as someone who's willing to unban all three.
The Modern playerbase is amazing. Goryo's has basically zero results (except the eminently fair Esper Goryo's) and is probably Tier 4 by every metric, and there are still people who want to ban the card. It just goes to show that everyone has a personal axe to grind and they'll grind it with essentially no evidence to support their arguments. I largely blame Wizards for this because they have done almost everything possible to foster so much ban mania, but players still have responsibility to not make their personal biases a ban topic.
Don't have a axe to grind, it was the deck I was on from the start of the format till the day it was banned. Do I think it was to good yes, overall it was simply the best Combo deck in the format unless a T4 violator deck would pop up like Bloom. What I don't like is people acting like it was something that it clearly wasn't it was a combo deck, if a combo deck can be a police deck than we should simply accept any broken combo that comes along and invalidates swaths of decks because it is simply policing those decks at that point.
I'm a UR mage, anyone who has ever played me on MTGO would have to say I was on a URx deck of some type, Twin was my deck for a long time I just don't delude myself into thinking I was playing something other than the best Combo deck in the format.
I agree that linear strategies are going to be continually problematic in the format but the argument that other will make is functionally that Twin was the lesser of 2 evils and that this combo deck should have a reserved protected status in the format, I disagree. I much prefer Grixis DS to Twin as a deck to stifle unfair strategies than Twin which was a unfair deck its self which just happened to be more well liked by others and myself. If it was unbanned I would be right back on the Twin train, but I wouldn't be and wasn't surprised if it ate a ban.
I would love for straight up counterspell to be printed again but I don't think it would actually do much for the format outside of improve some slower match ups but as it stands counterspells of nearly all stripes are very poorly positioned currently Denial is the exception because its most often a 1 mana Negate to protect your proactive threat. Cryptic will always be playable in a deck that ensure it can get to the point in the game which you can actually cast it but it is bounce, tap, cantrip spell in addition to offering a counter.
I even tried to play Twin when it was standard legal.
Spirits
I presented a reason. It unilaterally decides for both players that their match degenerates into a coin flip weighted against the Goryo's player.
By banning those two cards you get rid of the enabler which still feels degenerate by doing too much(Like Gitaxian Probe which i think it was rightfully banned) and the best and faster combo archetype that ever existed in Storm(which they obviosuly hate too) and keep us attached to Legacy speed. Instead you get: Midrange tools to be proactive and bold in SFM and BBE(although i have nightmares about BBE into LotV), and the filtering needed to align answers to questions. Spell based combo is still viable in Nauseam but a legal T4 speed, Shadow becomes slower but more consistent in Preordain, and Blue-based control gets another high power cantrip and a win con.
This is too much of a shake for an announcement alone, but in two it could work. However, i do feel by the look of the format and DS dominance numbers that Street Wraith is rightfully getting choped on August.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
It's a very bad reason. The deck is not top-tier, not consistent, and basically doesn't exist for most competitive purposes. Wizards has been extremely clear that T4 violators aren't T4 violators because they have the potential to win on T4. They must be consistent and top-tier. Goryo's is neither. It isn't even close.
They aren't. Modern is full of badly designed cards. Most of the top-tier decks are composed exclusively of badly designed cards. By a bad design metric, we'd have to ban most of Tier 1. Cards are only banned when there isn't counterplay and they become too dominant and/or break the T4 rule. Also, some other weird criteria (logistical reasons, "battle of sideboards," etc.), but Gory's isn't doing any of that.
You'd remove half of the Modern playable card pool. That is just a terrible metric.
This is not true of any other Modern deck as much as it is for Instant Reanimator.
They also will not unban Preordain anytime soon. It is quite a bit better than Serum Visions and visions is still a perfectly fine magic card that finds its way into most decks featuring blue. If visions was truly not a good enough cantrip for modern, nobody would play it! It's that simple. The fact that it shows up quite frequently means it must be pretty damn good!
They do not agree with that statement because those decks are all legal, as long as they aren't top-tier and consistent. You are reinventing the T4 rule to suit your own purposes and arguments, but that's not how the rule actually plays out. You may personally want it this way and that's fine, but Wizards clearly does not.
You have no numbers to back up your statement - that's the whole point of this discussion. You're theorycrafting.
Serum is a fine card. I wouldn't call it great or anything - but Preordain is definitely Modern power-level. I think it should exist in this format.
Twin might be a riskier unban if you have Preordain + AV + Ceremonious Rejection, no?
Preordain is too strong currently with Grixis DS and Storm where they are. SFM is fine. Not sure about the other two.
Not sure I'd rate BBE higher on the power-level scale than SFM. Midrange Jund needs a good reason to be played now and I think that BBE is that reason if it were ever unbanned.
BBE for traditional Jund
SFM for Abzan and something else not Shadow/Linear.
I mean that would be awesome to me.
EDIT: And lets go nuts, Jace for UWx Control!
Spirits