There was quite a bit I disagreed with in that article, but I suppose that is the way they have been pushing things anyway. Zoo not being able to interact with combo is fine IMO. In fact I'd say that is exactly how it should be, but it certainly isn't in modern. Decks like burn, zoo, infect (not as much anymore), and affinity, have always been my toughest matches when playing combo.
I agree. "Combo or bust" is not necessarily a great option when your combo only assembles on ~15-25% of the time on the correct turn, and is still slower than great aggro hands.
I thought that article was hilarious in how the mentioned Marvel being a bad combo card, but didn't go anywhere near mentioning how the printed Felidar Guardian and Saheeli Rai in the same block. Not even that they were both printed in Standard, they were printed one set apart and no one in development caught the combo
I feel like WOTC themselves admitted to this mistake already. No need to address it again. The PD team exists in order to control things like this (and Emrakul, Copter, Ulamog, Marvel, etc) from happening to Standard again.
I thought that article was hilarious in how the mentioned Marvel being a bad combo card, but didn't go anywhere near mentioning how the printed Felidar Guardian and Saheeli Rai in the same block. Not even that they were both printed in Standard, they were printed one set apart and no one in development caught the combo
I feel like WOTC themselves admitted to this mistake already. No need to address it again. The PD team exists in order to control things like this (and Emrakul, Copter, Ulamog, Marvel, etc) from happening to Standard again.
I feel this article would have been a great article to be like, "These are examples of combos we don't like. Development missed this one, but now we, the Play Design Team as here to ensure that doesn't happen again." I like reassurance from a company that wants me to spend hundreds of dollars a month on its game.
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I thought that article was hilarious in how the mentioned Marvel being a bad combo card, but didn't go anywhere near mentioning how the printed Felidar Guardian and Saheeli Rai in the same block. Not even that they were both printed in Standard, they were printed one set apart and no one in development caught the combo
I feel like WOTC themselves admitted to this mistake already. No need to address it again. The PD team exists in order to control things like this (and Emrakul, Copter, Ulamog, Marvel, etc) from happening to Standard again.
I feel this article would have been a great article to be like, "These are examples of combos we don't like. Development missed this one, but now we, the Play Design Team as here to ensure that doesn't happen again." I like reassurance from a company that wants me to spend hundreds of dollars a month on its game.
WOTC is rarely one to admit their mistakes, no matter how blunderous or numerous.
Regarding FoW in the format, I have an even more extreme stance than most; I'd be fine if the rules of the games were altered to say: "once per full turn (i.e. between two of your upkeeps) you can exile two non-land cards from your hand to counter a target spell."
Like FoW, but without it warping everyone to play blue cards to pitch to it. The weaker alternative would be Force of Not: FoW, but you can pitch a card of any color to it instead of only blue
Once everyone can say no at the price of card disadvantage, we can move on from not having answers.
FoW is fine in nearly any format. it's a get-out-of-jail free card against Combo, and card disadvantage when played normally. It's basically a Pact for turns 1-4.
I thought that article was hilarious in how the mentioned Marvel being a bad combo card, but didn't go anywhere near mentioning how the printed Felidar Guardian and Saheeli Rai in the same block. Not even that they were both printed in Standard, they were printed one set apart and no one in development caught the combo
I feel like WOTC themselves admitted to this mistake already. No need to address it again. The PD team exists in order to control things like this (and Emrakul, Copter, Ulamog, Marvel, etc) from happening to Standard again.
I feel this article would have been a great article to be like, "These are examples of combos we don't like. Development missed this one, but now we, the Play Design Team as here to ensure that doesn't happen again." I like reassurance from a company that wants me to spend hundreds of dollars a month on its game.
WOTC is rarely one to admit their mistakes, no matter how blunderous or numerous.
I dont know that they need to take another beating over that combo. They admitted a long time ago they missed it completely. Thats already a huge admission to make.
Actually, it's possible for certain aggro decks to race combo and win. Two examples I can think of are Affinity putting Plating on/saccing their board with Ravager to Inkmoth Nexus, and the old DS Zoo deck using Become Immense + Temur Battle Rage. What both these have in common is going all-in on a creature with 2x power. Against a fair deck you usually don't want to do this because you'll get blown out by removal (you'd much rather put Plating on Etched Champion), but against combo you know it's safe because they don't play removal.
Combo decks have been getting faster, but also easier to interact with. Remember the turn 2 Sram scare? All said, the deck still relies on sticking a creature. 3 of the 5 colors have access to good, generically playable 1-mana removal spells. Go figure. Several other combo decks also share this reliance on creatures (e.g. Storm with Baral/Electromancer, Amulet with Sakura-Tribe Scout, Eggs with Scrap Trawler), but not as heavily.
It's this fact that makes me believe that it's possible to have balanced combo decks without the need for Force of Will to keep them in check. You could have a format where the combo decks kill you on turn 1-3 if you don't have disruption, then balance that by having an anti-combo card, in a single color, that can be played on their turn 1. Or you could have combo decks that kill you on turn 2-4 AND rely on creatures to get the job done, and balance that by having good 1-mana removal spells in 3/5 colors and counterspells in a fourth.
I think Force would make Combo better than it is now instead of keeping it in check. And that's where play FOW or busts. UR Storm particularly would be a huge home for FOW.
Remember that Legacy can play everything in the right time due to it's painless mana bases. Here in Modern, only Death's Shadow gets to do that, being hyper efficient without the atribbuted downside of dealing too much damage to yourself.
I think Force would make Combo better than it is now instead of keeping it in check. And that's where play FOW or busts. UR Storm particularly would be a huge home for FOW.
Remember that Legacy can play everything in the right time due to it's painless mana bases. Here in Modern, only Death's Shadow gets to do that, being hyper efficient without the atribbuted downside of dealing too much damage to yourself.
They already have pact. As I said last page: A force is a pact you can cast before you skip a turn to play pact. When going off it's less attractive than pact, and when defending it's more attractive. So it doesn't really make combo any stronger since they already have this card.
I think Force would make Combo better than it is now instead of keeping it in check. And that's where play FOW or busts. UR Storm particularly would be a huge home for FOW.
Remember that Legacy can play everything in the right time due to it's painless mana bases. Here in Modern, only Death's Shadow gets to do that, being hyper efficient without the atribbuted downside of dealing too much damage to yourself.
If that were the case, Pact of Negation would see more play outside of Ad Nauseam (which it doesn't, because the card is basically unplayable unless you are winning that turn). Combo already has a free protection spell. It's the fair decks that are lacking a free protection spell.
I'd be fine with force in modern. No brainstorm, no jace, it's fine. Not 100% convinced it would see much play tbh. It feels pretty awful against most of the good decks in the format. It might give control a slightly better burn matchup and a slightly better combo matchup which is fine -- combo beating control is a weird quirk of the modern format that is not intended.
People forget pretty quickly that (I say as I launch into a legacy discussion) that force is really only playable in legacy with Brainstorm to shuffle dead ones away and to find blue cards. Playing it in modern would mean adding at least 4-6 more blue spells to a deck than they play in legacy if not more.
Whoever in this thread thinks or wants another card back(for example....Seething Song - I am just saying a random card, it could be sth else), he must realize it.
The real takeaway here, is that other cards like, you know, others, won't be unbanned in the next 2 years.
I came to a different conclusion based off the SPEED and INTERACTIVITY sections, but oh well.
Either way, the real takeaway here is that moving forward, this team will heavily influence many decisions about the development and management of multiple formats (and will do so with a high level of play skill and non-zero amount of testing). Whatever they end up doing in the coming months and years, this is a monumental step up from closed-room, echo chamber meetings and discussions among people that demonstratably do not understand the basics of deck construction or format metagames.
I think with Gitaxian Probe, we saw a new criteria for the banlist. A card could be deemed too good because it gives a Tier 1 deck information. They wanted to bring Infect down a notch, with Death's Shadow Zoo too. I personally do think that Gitaxian Probe is better than most people think, but it certainly is NOT as good as some people think as well. It's a tough card to evaluate. I've played with Gitaxian Probe ever since it was printed in Standard Uw Delver and then other formats. I've played against it in every round of the new post-Sensei's Divining Top meta. I have at least some grasp on the card.
That being said, there's no way in hell that every deck plays it. There's a real cost to playing it. Burn would love for you to have 4 copies. It's somewhat tougher to evaluate some opening hands. I personally had considered for about a year playing it in Bogles. Why would I run it in a GW deck? Because I already had a LOT of lifegain to offset it and I was looking to chop the deck to 56 cards. My plan was to remove a land, a Hyena Umbra, Unflinching Courage, and Spirit Mantle. This would leave me with 2-3 Hyena Umbra and 2 Spirit Mantle. I never got around to try it, but I do in fact think that not enough decks played the card. It certainly would not be in all decks either (somewhat obvious to most people here).
I can compare it to another ban that I didn't agree with the justification at the time. But for Probe, I still don't agree with the justification, even if it did need banning at the next announcement. They should have waited.
*On another note, there are some things that sisicat says that I agree with. Personally when Birthing Pod got banned, I was SUPER annoyed to have Burn, Zoo, and Infect be viable again. That's just a personal thing. I do understand that Pod had to go, but it was such an elegant deck, and it took me around 8 months to finally come to terms with it exiting.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I'm Not sure where the Pact of Negation theories come from but Force and Pact have only in common their color.
Pact doesn't let you counter spells from T0 like Fow does.
Force certainly makes its way into fair decks too, which could make it more symetrical but still way better than Pact in all decks.
They're also common in that Combo decks looking to win that turn would use both.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Modern is doing better than fine; almost great. There won't be any cards unbanned or banned in 2017. I don't think this is only my opinion. It's more than obvious at this point.
I agree that this is better than 2016. But so is a punch in the face. Which leads me back yet again to the question: when should we see unbans? We don't see them in bad states, we don't see them in good states, we ONLY see them accompanying a huge and predictable ban. Why?
Can you imagine how dead of a format Modern would be if the pillars were constant? If the format was so glacially unmoving that you could always pinpoint exactly that decks A, B, C, & D were the best? The format would be DEAD. No one would play it.
Legacy quite handily disproves your claim.
I wouldn't use Legacy as a positive example. Participation in that format is dropping like a stone.
Legacy's problems have nothing to do meta diversity and everything to do with the Reserve List making decks prohibitively expensive for new players. Those that do play Legacy, consistently praise it for the quality and depth of nearly every match.
Legacy has severe colour diversity and overall diversity problems. There are cards that you "must play them, or you have severe disadvantage over anything else". If Legacy had more traction, many cards would be surely banned. We know Wizards; Ponder, Deathrite Shaman, Show and Tell and more cards would be under scrutiny, and by Wizard's criteria, rightly so. Those cards are super warping. I won'n talk about Brainstorm which is a formt pillar and can't be banned, because chaos will follow(as is the case for DRS actually), but Wizards don't care about this. But I could see a universe that they could go and ban this as well, on the basis of being a warping card for the format.
Legacy has other problems as well. Decks turn 2 killing you unless you run FOW; For example, if you play Death and Taxes and play against a Belcher deck, it's a horrible matchup. They will turn 2 kill you an awful lot of times. Going by Wizards criteria, turn 3 kills might be OK in Legacy, but Turn 2 would not be I think.
Modern is a lot more colour diverse and interesting format, and personally I enjoy it more(even if I play Legacy at times-favourite deck: Elves)
Whether or not Modern or Legacy is better or not is irrelevant to the original point. Someone made the claim that if the pillars of the format didn't change much, Modern would be dead. Legacy is a format where the pillars of the format don't change and a lot of people like it exactly because of that. The claim that Modern would be "dead" as a result of that therefore seems rather disproven.
Modern is doing better than fine; almost great. There won't be any cards unbanned or banned in 2017. I don't think this is only my opinion. It's more than obvious at this point.
I agree that this is better than 2016. But so is a punch in the face. Which leads me back yet again to the question: when should we see unbans? We don't see them in bad states, we don't see them in good states, we ONLY see them accompanying a huge and predictable ban. Why?
PT shakeup unbans could be the answer. It gives them an opportunity to do it in the face of a healthy, diverse meta and large, mostly content player base.
Modern is doing better than fine; almost great. There won't be any cards unbanned or banned in 2017. I don't think this is only my opinion. It's more than obvious at this point.
I agree that this is better than 2016. But so is a punch in the face. Which leads me back yet again to the question: when should we see unbans? We don't see them in bad states, we don't see them in good states, we ONLY see them accompanying a huge and predictable ban. Why?
PT shakeup unbans could be the answer. It gives them an opportunity to do it in the face of a healthy, diverse meta and large, mostly content player base.
When AF speaks of "No PT unbans for shakeup reasons this time" and "we will manage the format as we currently are, as opposed to the previous time", I don't have reason to wear my tin-foil hat and don't believe him.
He makes zero mention of unbans. His exact words are: "I hear you loud and clear re: "shake-up bannings" in advance of the Modern PT. No plans for that. We plan to manage the format as we do now."
But if we take that premise that shake-ups include unbans, then... under what criteria should we unban cards? I don't think I've gotten an opinion from anyone other than "PT shake up unbans" (which is probably mostly in line with what they'll do). I'm genuinely curious, because I keep hearing statements like "meta is fine, no need to change" or "meta is bad, but give time to adjust" or "meta is in too much chaos, no need to introduce unbans." If all this is to be believed, it seems like there are literally zero opportunities to unban anything (which is ridiculous given how safe a number of banned cards are)...
Historically, unbanning cards has not really worked out well in the long term. Take for example Golgari Grave-Troll. It seemed like a good idea to trying and give graveyard players a second breath of life, but then SoI gave them a bunch of new tools and took the deck over the top, forcing them to basically back pedal. Just leave the ban list as is and enjoy what there is still in the format. Wizards will always print some new card that will be horribly degenerate in modern and make a new T1 deck anyway, we don't need to unban a known card that already was proven to be a troublemaker in the past. I'm just glad Bitterblossom got unbanned and hasn't broken anything.
Plus, would the world really be better if something like Gitaxian Probe, Ponder, and Preordain got unbanned in modern? Or perhaps have the fated dread return make a comeback?
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Historically, unbanning cards has not really worked out well in the long term. Take for example Golgari GraveTroll. It seemed like a good idea to trying and give graveyard players a second breath of life, but then SoI gave them a bunch of new tools and took the deck over the top, forcing them to basically back pedal. Just leave the ban list as is and enjoy what there is still in the format. Wizards will always print some new card that will be horribly degenerate in modern and make a new T1 deck anyway, we don't need to unban a known card that already was proven to be a troublemaker in the past. I'm just glad Bitterblossom got unbanned and hasn't broken anything.
Arguably GGT was not the problem in Dredge, but the printing of Prized Amalgam and Cathartic Reunion. Get rid of Amalgam and GGT is probably fine. Every other unbanned card has either done nothing any real significance or is Valakut (meaning they probably shouldn't have been banned and/or unbanning them was a completely reasonable decision). The most frustrating bans are ones like Jace and SFM, who have never actually existed in Modern, and are banned for the sins of another format entirely (as well as ones that perhaps hit the wrong targets, like BBE, *redacted*, and Probe). If there's one thing most of these bans and unbans have in common, it's the appearance of laziness. Laziness in understanding true impacts, laziness in choices, laziness in justifications, laziness in unban action. Thank goodness we have the Play Design team helping out moving forward.
Edit:
Plus, would the world really be better if something like Gitaxian Probe, Ponder, and Preordain got unbanned in modern? Or perhaps have the fated dread return make a comeback?
It would mean Delver/Pyromancer were playable again, so for my selfish reasons, yeah, Probe would be awesome. But in all seriousness, you could easily swap Probe for Become Immense and be fine, especially with Push, Path, and Thoughtseize being the most played cards in the format
Historically, unbanning cards has not really worked out well in the long term. Take for example Golgari Grave-Troll. It seemed like a good idea to trying and give graveyard players a second breath of life, but then SoI gave them a bunch of new tools and took the deck over the top, forcing them to basically back pedal. Just leave the ban list as is and enjoy what there is still in the format. Wizards will always print some new card that will be horribly degenerate in modern and make a new T1 deck anyway, we don't need to unban a known card that already was proven to be a troublemaker in the past. I'm just glad Bitterblossom got unbanned and hasn't broken anything.
Plus, would the world really be better if something like Gitaxian Probe, Ponder, and Preordain got unbanned in modern? Or perhaps have the fated dread return make a comeback?
This is a really odd statement. You claim unbans haven't worked out as a general principle, and then cite only the one problematic unban. Nacatl, Valakut, AV, Sword, and BB (which you do mention) were just fine. Indeed, Nacatl, BB, Sword, and AV actually see very little competitive play. So if anything can be said about unbans from a historic Modern perspective, it's that they really haven't had much impact as a whole.
That previous unbans have worked out isn't evidence that future unbans will though. Each card should be evaluated on an individual basis and considering the power level of each individual card WotC should err on the side of caution.
Historically, unbanning cards has not really worked out well in the long term. Take for example Golgari Grave-Troll. It seemed like a good idea to trying and give graveyard players a second breath of life, but then SoI gave them a bunch of new tools and took the deck over the top, forcing them to basically back pedal. Just leave the ban list as is and enjoy what there is still in the format. Wizards will always print some new card that will be horribly degenerate in modern and make a new T1 deck anyway, we don't need to unban a known card that already was proven to be a troublemaker in the past. I'm just glad Bitterblossom got unbanned and hasn't broken anything.
Plus, would the world really be better if something like Gitaxian Probe, Ponder, and Preordain got unbanned in modern? Or perhaps have the fated dread return make a comeback?
This is a really odd statement. You claim unbans haven't worked out as a general principle, and then cite only the one problematic unban. Nacatl, Valakut, AV, Sword, and BB (which you do mention) were just fine. Indeed, Nacatl, BB, Sword, and AV actually see very little competitive play. So if anything can be said about unbans from a historic Modern perspective, it's that they really haven't had much impact as a whole.
Well, do we really need more than one example? Modern doesn't exactly need the cards on the banlist to operate and the best case scenario is that unbanning a card helps one deck slightly or not at all, and in the worst case ends up drastically powering up a deck thanks to additional synergies coming from newer sets.
That previous unbans have worked out isn't evidence that future unbans will though. Each card should be evaluated on an individual basis and considering the power level of each individual card WotC should err on the side of caution.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
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I agree. "Combo or bust" is not necessarily a great option when your combo only assembles on ~15-25% of the time on the correct turn, and is still slower than great aggro hands.
I feel like WOTC themselves admitted to this mistake already. No need to address it again. The PD team exists in order to control things like this (and Emrakul, Copter, Ulamog, Marvel, etc) from happening to Standard again.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I feel this article would have been a great article to be like, "These are examples of combos we don't like. Development missed this one, but now we, the Play Design Team as here to ensure that doesn't happen again." I like reassurance from a company that wants me to spend hundreds of dollars a month on its game.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
WOTC is rarely one to admit their mistakes, no matter how blunderous or numerous.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
FoW is fine in nearly any format. it's a get-out-of-jail free card against Combo, and card disadvantage when played normally. It's basically a Pact for turns 1-4.
I dont know that they need to take another beating over that combo. They admitted a long time ago they missed it completely. Thats already a huge admission to make.
Regardless, its a pretty fair article.
Spirits
Combo decks have been getting faster, but also easier to interact with. Remember the turn 2 Sram scare? All said, the deck still relies on sticking a creature. 3 of the 5 colors have access to good, generically playable 1-mana removal spells. Go figure. Several other combo decks also share this reliance on creatures (e.g. Storm with Baral/Electromancer, Amulet with Sakura-Tribe Scout, Eggs with Scrap Trawler), but not as heavily.
It's this fact that makes me believe that it's possible to have balanced combo decks without the need for Force of Will to keep them in check. You could have a format where the combo decks kill you on turn 1-3 if you don't have disruption, then balance that by having an anti-combo card, in a single color, that can be played on their turn 1. Or you could have combo decks that kill you on turn 2-4 AND rely on creatures to get the job done, and balance that by having good 1-mana removal spells in 3/5 colors and counterspells in a fourth.
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Big Johnny.
Remember that Legacy can play everything in the right time due to it's painless mana bases. Here in Modern, only Death's Shadow gets to do that, being hyper efficient without the atribbuted downside of dealing too much damage to yourself.
They already have pact. As I said last page: A force is a pact you can cast before you skip a turn to play pact. When going off it's less attractive than pact, and when defending it's more attractive. So it doesn't really make combo any stronger since they already have this card.
If that were the case, Pact of Negation would see more play outside of Ad Nauseam (which it doesn't, because the card is basically unplayable unless you are winning that turn). Combo already has a free protection spell. It's the fair decks that are lacking a free protection spell.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
People forget pretty quickly that (I say as I launch into a legacy discussion) that force is really only playable in legacy with Brainstorm to shuffle dead ones away and to find blue cards. Playing it in modern would mean adding at least 4-6 more blue spells to a deck than they play in legacy if not more.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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
I came to a different conclusion based off the SPEED and INTERACTIVITY sections, but oh well.
Either way, the real takeaway here is that moving forward, this team will heavily influence many decisions about the development and management of multiple formats (and will do so with a high level of play skill and non-zero amount of testing). Whatever they end up doing in the coming months and years, this is a monumental step up from closed-room, echo chamber meetings and discussions among people that demonstratably do not understand the basics of deck construction or format metagames.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I think with Gitaxian Probe, we saw a new criteria for the banlist. A card could be deemed too good because it gives a Tier 1 deck information. They wanted to bring Infect down a notch, with Death's Shadow Zoo too. I personally do think that Gitaxian Probe is better than most people think, but it certainly is NOT as good as some people think as well. It's a tough card to evaluate. I've played with Gitaxian Probe ever since it was printed in Standard Uw Delver and then other formats. I've played against it in every round of the new post-Sensei's Divining Top meta. I have at least some grasp on the card.
That being said, there's no way in hell that every deck plays it. There's a real cost to playing it. Burn would love for you to have 4 copies. It's somewhat tougher to evaluate some opening hands. I personally had considered for about a year playing it in Bogles. Why would I run it in a GW deck? Because I already had a LOT of lifegain to offset it and I was looking to chop the deck to 56 cards. My plan was to remove a land, a Hyena Umbra, Unflinching Courage, and Spirit Mantle. This would leave me with 2-3 Hyena Umbra and 2 Spirit Mantle. I never got around to try it, but I do in fact think that not enough decks played the card. It certainly would not be in all decks either (somewhat obvious to most people here).
I can compare it to another ban that I didn't agree with the justification at the time. But for Probe, I still don't agree with the justification, even if it did need banning at the next announcement. They should have waited.
*On another note, there are some things that sisicat says that I agree with. Personally when Birthing Pod got banned, I was SUPER annoyed to have Burn, Zoo, and Infect be viable again. That's just a personal thing. I do understand that Pod had to go, but it was such an elegant deck, and it took me around 8 months to finally come to terms with it exiting.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Pact doesn't let you counter spells from T0 like Fow does.
Force certainly makes its way into fair decks too, which could make it more symetrical but still way better than Pact in all decks.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I agree that this is better than 2016. But so is a punch in the face. Which leads me back yet again to the question: when should we see unbans? We don't see them in bad states, we don't see them in good states, we ONLY see them accompanying a huge and predictable ban. Why?
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
PT shakeup unbans could be the answer. It gives them an opportunity to do it in the face of a healthy, diverse meta and large, mostly content player base.
But of course metas are fluid so you really never know. Just because they won't do it for "shakeup" reasons doesn't mean they might not unban.
He makes zero mention of unbans. His exact words are: "I hear you loud and clear re: "shake-up bannings" in advance of the Modern PT. No plans for that. We plan to manage the format as we do now."
But if we take that premise that shake-ups include unbans, then... under what criteria should we unban cards? I don't think I've gotten an opinion from anyone other than "PT shake up unbans" (which is probably mostly in line with what they'll do). I'm genuinely curious, because I keep hearing statements like "meta is fine, no need to change" or "meta is bad, but give time to adjust" or "meta is in too much chaos, no need to introduce unbans." If all this is to be believed, it seems like there are literally zero opportunities to unban anything (which is ridiculous given how safe a number of banned cards are)...
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Plus, would the world really be better if something like Gitaxian Probe, Ponder, and Preordain got unbanned in modern? Or perhaps have the fated dread return make a comeback?
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Arguably GGT was not the problem in Dredge, but the printing of Prized Amalgam and Cathartic Reunion. Get rid of Amalgam and GGT is probably fine. Every other unbanned card has either done nothing any real significance or is Valakut (meaning they probably shouldn't have been banned and/or unbanning them was a completely reasonable decision). The most frustrating bans are ones like Jace and SFM, who have never actually existed in Modern, and are banned for the sins of another format entirely (as well as ones that perhaps hit the wrong targets, like BBE, *redacted*, and Probe). If there's one thing most of these bans and unbans have in common, it's the appearance of laziness. Laziness in understanding true impacts, laziness in choices, laziness in justifications, laziness in unban action. Thank goodness we have the Play Design team helping out moving forward.
Edit:
It would mean Delver/Pyromancer were playable again, so for my selfish reasons, yeah, Probe would be awesome. But in all seriousness, you could easily swap Probe for Become Immense and be fine, especially with Push, Path, and Thoughtseize being the most played cards in the format
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
This is a really odd statement. You claim unbans haven't worked out as a general principle, and then cite only the one problematic unban. Nacatl, Valakut, AV, Sword, and BB (which you do mention) were just fine. Indeed, Nacatl, BB, Sword, and AV actually see very little competitive play. So if anything can be said about unbans from a historic Modern perspective, it's that they really haven't had much impact as a whole.
Well, do we really need more than one example? Modern doesn't exactly need the cards on the banlist to operate and the best case scenario is that unbanning a card helps one deck slightly or not at all, and in the worst case ends up drastically powering up a deck thanks to additional synergies coming from newer sets.
That's my own feeling, really.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!