Chrome Mox enables a Modern Belcher deck. Trust me, you don't want that.
In what way? Belcher wasn't a thing in Modern even when we had more accelerants than we would have in the present format with an unbanned Chrome Mox. Heck, I don't think we'd see an actually competitive Belcher deck even if Rite of Flame, Seething Song, and Chrome Mox were all unbanned.
I thought Chrome Mox would be fine if it didn't make a dedicated Belcher deck viable.
It does. While we only played a few matches, it was enough to tell that the Belcher deck felt quite reasonable.
Turn two kills are against what Wizards wants for Modern. If Chrome Mox comes off, cards like Goblin Charbelcher and Empty the Warrens need to go, and it makes more sense to keep the enabler banned.
Still, it would be a nice tool to have around.
Granted, this series was done when Probe was still legal, but do you really think it's worth taking the risk that the removal of Probe from the list he tested here would be enough to make Belcher not a thing? I don't. Chrome Mox is just the kind of card that nothing good can possibly come out of. He doesn't even take into account other possible combo decks, like Cheeri0s. Cheeri0s is already capable of too many turn 2 and 3 kills, it's just being held down by Push and discard decks right now. Add Chrome Mox to it, and now Cheeri0s might be so fast that even the rock style decks can't disrupt it fast enough. As one of the designers once said (paraphrasing), "What are you planning on doing with all that fast mana? Not anything fair, that's for sure. No one's running out Chrome Moxes and rituals to cast an early Huntmaster of the Fells." Chrome Mox is a card that has literally 0 upside to unbanning it, and a hell of a lot of risk. Not worth it.
I'm pretty sure people would try to run fair things with Chrome Mox it's just that whatever fair card you trying to get out early will never be as good as letting essentially every combo deck shave a entire turn off their kill. Your T1 bob or T2 LotV will be laughably bad in the face of T2/3 storm kills or T3 ad naus.
I'm pretty sure people would try to run fair things with Chrome Mox it's just that whatever fair card you trying to get out early will never be as good as letting essentially every combo deck shave a entire turn off their kill. Your T1 bob or T2 LotV will be laughably bad in the face of T2/3 storm kills or T3 ad naus.
The card disadvantage of Chrome Mox does not lend itself to playing fair with it. You want to play unfair with it to make up for the card you're losing. Only combo decks are going to want that card and combo is strong enough already. Chrome Mox is staying on the banned list, probably forever.
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WoTC, thank you for finally announcing the Modern format, an eternal format where everyone can participate.
I'm pretty sure people would try to run fair things with Chrome Mox it's just that whatever fair card you trying to get out early will never be as good as letting essentially every combo deck shave a entire turn off their kill. Your T1 bob or T2 LotV will be laughably bad in the face of T2/3 storm kills or T3 ad naus.
The card disadvantage of Chrome Mox does not lend itself to playing fair with it. You want to play unfair with it to make up for the card you're losing. Only combo decks are going to want that card and combo is strong enough already. Chrome Mox is staying on the banned list, probably forever.
Well lots of decks like UB control etc... ran it in Extended and they where not for the most part trying to do much more than take advantage of the synergy it has with Thirst and letting you jam a bob out on T1. Modern lacks some of the tools to really help mitigate the card disadvantage like JtmS was a major player in nearly every "fair" Chrome Mox deck back then. The major reason it doesn't see play in fair decks like Delver in Legacy is because you are already committed to 4x card disadvantage spells in the form of FoW and running that plus Chrome Mox is simply to taxing.
So I disagree that "only combo decks are going to want that card" but I do agree that in Modern only combo decks will be able to exploit it in a highly favorable way.
I'm pretty sure people would try to run fair things with Chrome Mox it's just that whatever fair card you trying to get out early will never be as good as letting essentially every combo deck shave a entire turn off their kill. Your T1 bob or T2 LotV will be laughably bad in the face of T2/3 storm kills or T3 ad naus.
The card disadvantage of Chrome Mox does not lend itself to playing fair with it. You want to play unfair with it to make up for the card you're losing. Only combo decks are going to want that card and combo is strong enough already. Chrome Mox is staying on the banned list, probably forever.
Actually, it's basically the opposite. Chrome Mox works best in fair decks that build card advantage, because they can recover from the early CA hit. Storm doesn't want it at all in my experience- if anything, Mox slows the deck down by about half a turn. Two cards for 1 mana is not where Storm wants to be. I've only seen one dedicated combo deck that wants it: No-land Belcher. Twin is kind of a hybrid deck, but they like it a lot too, to be entirely fair. Otherwise, it's how you start a grindy, fair deck in NBLM: 4 Chrome Mox, 4 CotV, 4 SDT, 1-2 Jitte. That's why it's banned.
Also, Durward's "test" of Belcher is not valid. It's basically a series of videos where he plays against decks that are functionally unprepared for his, didn't get to use Mox of their own, and then is surprised how "busted" his deck is. IMO, it's not really a good representative of how the deck plays out over a large sample of games in a mature metagame.
How does everyone feel about dark depth. It would enable some land based decks and make knight of the reliquary more of a player in modern. It's not really any more broken than what we currently have in modern
Dark Depths is my favorite card in all of M:tG and I play Dark Times in Vintage and Turbo Depths in Legacy (though I have other decks as well). I never played extended so didn't use it there, and wasn't playing Magic when it was in Standard.
I would absolutely love it if DD could come off the list. I vote for it in every poll. But it's never coming off. At this point, now that there are 3 cards that interact with it (Thespian's Stage, Vampire Hexmage, and now Solemnity), it's never coming off the list. If you were to break the banned list into "possible to come off" tiers, it would probably occupy the same tier as Skullclamp and Mental Misstep.
Theres also thr new three drop artifact that copies a land for 2 mana
Mirage Mirror. Good call, didn't realize it existed. I don't think it'd be played over any of the other 3 options in conjunction with DD, but it's still got the right effect.
Theres also thr new three drop artifact that copies a land for 2 mana
Mirage Mirror. Good call, didn't realize it existed. I don't think it'd be played over any of the other 3 options in conjunction with DD, but it's still got the right effect.
Yeah probably not, but it's another nail in the coffin particularly if a Tron version of it ever came out which is not impossible since the deck would run land tutors. Into the North and Expedition Map and Life from the Loam are good for the lands and with the other effects you noted it would be a super consistent combo to say the least. You can't even thoughtseize it away if it's Depths + Stage in hand.
How does everyone feel about dark depth. It would enable some land based decks and make knight of the reliquary more of a player in modern. It's not really any more broken than what we currently have in modern
Dark Depths is my favorite card in all of M:tG and I play Dark Times in Vintage and Turbo Depths in Legacy (though I have other decks as well). I never played extended so didn't use it there, and wasn't playing Magic when it was in Standard.
I would absolutely love it if DD could come off the list. I vote for it in every poll. But it's never coming off. At this point, now that there are 3 cards that interact with it (Thespian's Stage, Vampire Hexmage, and now Solemnity), it's never coming off the list. If you were to break the banned list into "possible to come off" tiers, it would probably occupy the same tier as Skullclamp and Mental Misstep.
I would love to see everyones "possible to come off" ban list tiers
Green Sun's Zenith, Bloodbraid Elf, and Stoneforge Mystic can all come off without breaking the format. None of these cards are strict upgrades to anything currently existing that is commonly played in modern
Can Second Sunrise come back? How much slower does it take for Eggs to combo off than Krak-Clan Ironworks combo? I am not too familiar with how the combo operates
That doesn't really speak to the relative strength of either of those cards. Serum and Sleight are actually not very good at all. They are just literally the only remotely playable options in terms of 1 mana cantrips. What else is there? Peek? Quicken? Ooooo! Slip Through Space? Reach Through Mists? Aura Finesse? Aaaaaaa! Those two are "the best" because literally every other one has beenbanned or neverprinted in a modern-legal set or relativelynarrow in application.
Wizards is fairly firm in wanting as little consistency as they can get away with in terms of cantrips and card draw. We should be "lucky" to still have Serum Visions, even as bad as it is.
How does everyone feel about dark depth. It would enable some land based decks and make knight of the reliquary more of a player in modern. It's not really any more broken than what we currently have in modern
Dark Depths is my favorite card in all of M:tG and I play Dark Times in Vintage and Turbo Depths in Legacy (though I have other decks as well). I never played extended so didn't use it there, and wasn't playing Magic when it was in Standard.
I would absolutely love it if DD could come off the list. I vote for it in every poll. But it's never coming off. At this point, now that there are 3 cards that interact with it (Thespian's Stage, Vampire Hexmage, and now Solemnity), it's never coming off the list. If you were to break the banned list into "possible to come off" tiers, it would probably occupy the same tier as Skullclamp and Mental Misstep.
I would love to see everyones "possible to come off" ban list tiers
SFM and BBE are the two major candidates for an unban. BBE is more likely right now since it was a collatoral damage ban (would probably have been fine if it wasn't for DRS. SFM is less likely at this time, but is possible.
Jace has huge logistical issues hindering his unbanning (price being the big one). He also isn't good for the format since it means that all the fair decks have to play Jace or they lose to him, and all the unfair decks ignore him entirely. But it's conceivable that 5 years down the line there are enough answers for planeswalkers for fair decks that he could be unbanned.
Dig could potentially be a tool for control that doesn't help combo, but it's a risky unban.
Chrome Mox enables a Modern Belcher deck. Trust me, you don't want that.
In what way? Belcher wasn't a thing in Modern even when we had more accelerants than we would have in the present format with an unbanned Chrome Mox. Heck, I don't think we'd see an actually competitive Belcher deck even if Rite of Flame, Seething Song, and Chrome Mox were all unbanned.
I thought Chrome Mox would be fine if it didn't make a dedicated Belcher deck viable.
It does. While we only played a few matches, it was enough to tell that the Belcher deck felt quite reasonable.
Turn two kills are against what Wizards wants for Modern. If Chrome Mox comes off, cards like Goblin Charbelcher and Empty the Warrens need to go, and it makes more sense to keep the enabler banned.
Still, it would be a nice tool to have around.
Granted, this series was done when Probe was still legal, but do you really think it's worth taking the risk that the removal of Probe from the list he tested here would be enough to make Belcher not a thing? I don't.
Then why wasn't Belcher ever a thing in the past? Sure, Chrome Mox wasn't legal, but Seething Song was--and Seething Song is better acceleration, giving you +2 mana instead of +1 and not using up another card in the process. Someone might point out that Seething Song, despite the better acceleration, requires more mana up front, but if you're trying to get the mana required to pull off the Goblin Charbelcher, you're going to have that 3 mana. So if Belcher wasn't a real deck when it had access to Seething Song (now banned), how is a card that's worse for it than Seething Song going to break it?
Chrome Mox is just the kind of card that nothing good can possibly come out of. He doesn't even take into account other possible combo decks, like Cheeri0s. Cheeri0s is already capable of too many turn 2 and 3 kills, it's just being held down by Push and discard decks right now. Add Chrome Mox to it, and now Cheeri0s might be so fast that even the rock style decks can't disrupt it fast enough.
I didn't say anything about other decks in that post. I was referring specifically to the claim of Belcher.
As one of the designers once said (paraphrasing), "What are you planning on doing with all that fast mana? Not anything fair, that's for sure. No one's running out Chrome Moxes and rituals to cast an early Huntmaster of the Fells."
What is exactly unfair about this deck? Chrome Mox was actually a favorite of control decks in Extended.
Here are my acceptable unbans in order of likelihood.
#1 BBE
#2 (Can we have this discussion without being able to name all the contenders?)
#3 SFM
#4 Green Sun zenith
#5 JTMS
#6 Preordain
Nothing else is very likely.
Then why wasn't Belcher ever a thing in the past? Sure, Chrome Mox wasn't legal, but Seething Song was--and Seething Song is better acceleration, giving you +2 mana instead of +1 and not using up another card in the process. Someone might point out that Seething Song, despite the better acceleration, requires more mana up front, but if you're trying to get the mana required to pull off the Goblin Charbelcher, you're going to have that 3 mana. So if Belcher wasn't a real deck when it had access to Seething Song (now banned), how is a card that's worse for it than Seething Song going to break it?
Because Belcher requires a critical mass of free mana to get off the ground in the first place, since it plays only like 1 land in the entire deck. Right now, there's just SSG and Mox Opal, which isn't enough. Caleb's testing showed that adding Chrome Mox would be enough to make the deck work.
I didn't say anything about other decks in that post. I was referring specifically to the claim of Belcher.
I wasn't referring to your comment, I was talking about what Caleb said in his conclusion on the card. He felt it wasn't safe to unban because it enables Belcher, and he doesn't even go into other combo decks that could abuse the card.
What is exactly unfair about this deck? Chrome Mox was actually a favorite of control decks in Extended.
If everyone has access to Chrome Mox, then I could see fair decks feeling like they had to play it to keep up on tempo with the combo decks. Isn't it just better, though, if nobody has it and we don't have to worry about as much fast mana? That's just not what Modern is supposed to be about.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Here are my acceptable unbans in order of likelihood.
#1 BBE
#2 (Can we have this discussion without being able to name all the contenders?)
#3 SFM
#4 Green Sun zenith
#5 JTMS
#6 Preordain
Nothing else is very likely.
Pretty close to mine.
1. Bloodbraid Elf
2. Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3. Stoneforge Mystic
4. Preordain
5. Green Sun's Zenith
6. Seething Song
Honestly for me, 2-4 are all pretty close to interchangeable. The first one in my opinion would have the same effect as Sword of the Meek on Modern.
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 could see BBE and SFM coming off. Same with GSZ and JtMS.
Jace isn't the boogeyman people think he is. He's strong in Legacy because Blue is the strongest color bar none in Legacy. Without his support tools, he would just be a fairly powerful 4 drop in a format with a bunch of them.
I don't see Seething Song coming off as long as Storm is still doing decent. Second Sunrise has a coffin lined up next to Sensei's.
I could see Voldetwin come back eventually. Not a likely scenario, but I could see it. Maybe if the format got a little bit stronger.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
I could see BBE and SFM coming off. Same with GSZ and JtMS.
Jace isn't the boogeyman people think he is. He's strong in Legacy because Blue is the strongest color bar none in Legacy. Without his support tools, he would just be a fairly powerful 4 drop in a format with a bunch of them.
I don't see Seething Song coming off as long as Storm is still doing decent. Second Sunrise has a coffin lined up next to Sensei's.
I could see Voldetwin come back eventually. Not a likely scenario, but I could see it. Maybe if the format got a little bit stronger.
Come on now, JtmS has been strong in every format in which he has been legal. He is in the top 50 in Vintage.
I don't WotC will ever unban GSZ or BBE. GSZ they view as a card that leads to homogenizing deck types and I just don't see them reversing such a strong opinion on a card. BBE I also don't think they would unban as Cascade is a functionally broken mechanic and BBE is by far the best Cascade card available in the Modern card pool, they just produced the Expertise cycle as a fixed version of that mechanic and just doubt that they will reintroduce it.
SFM could come off, I'm all for giving most of the never legal cards a try with a few exceptions but SFM isn't one of them. I just don't think that it will enable the kinds of decks many assume it would.
If they bring back Chrome Mox then you need to ban SSG. I'm personally hoping they ban Blood Moon as its becoming too oppressive in a format which was designed to have more freedom to play multi color decks and not be shut down by 1 card. If they do then maybe a card like Wasteland can take its place or print something similar but toned down. As far as unbannings I think BBE, SFM and maybe Jace. Its about time for Wizards to stop playing too safe and baby the community, take some risks and let it play out as it should.
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That doesn't seem like an Anti-GDS meta to me at all. It seems people start to pack some cards to beat GDS and the format is regulating it while not diluting their decks too much. Obviously there are some decks that are good in this particular metagame because of GDS but that's natural in my opinion.
Other than that, Combo is still heavily represented in MTGO, and RG Valakut has picked up some steam. I guess Titanshift players learned how to beat GDS? Not sure.
Regarding Banlist: Nothing should be unbanned IMO. Nothing should be unbanned until Standard bring some anti-combo tools to the format. Modern is still too Combo-Centric, which leads to too many non-games. Temple and Valakut itself are pretty overpowered, and it's amazing how a deck that relies on having a 2-mana X/3 on the battliefield in format full of removal is so good. That screams for better answers or better deckbuilding(Possibly a mix between the two).
I can only imagine what horrors could bring us a DS ban. DS DEFINITELY looks like the good guy in this film.
PS: UW Control destroying MTGO and GDS not having big finishes are most likely connected. GDS is still the best deck in the format, and UW in an open meta is still not this good.
I think BBE is the only card with a reasonable possibility of being unbanned. The next most likely is probably SFM, but it's a very distant second. After that it's a quagmire. Preordain is probably the next but this new (well, new/old) Gifts Storm version relies on selection a lot more than Ascension Storm, which just relied on churning through its cards. As such, Preordain is a lot less likely of an unban now.
Phew, Shadow is definitely trending down. Pretty soon it'll just be known as one of the best decks on a consistent basis
E-Tron looks to be getting hated out by Titanshift
Meta looks good, nothing in the list looks concerning.
That Abzan list looks not good to me, on a personal note, it actually looks bad.
If I had to take a list like that, I'd say to run burn, surprized there aren't like 3 burn decks there, it has nothing but a bunch of 50/50's to positive matchups in almost that entire mtgo winners list.
And here's Caleb's final verdict on the card:
Granted, this series was done when Probe was still legal, but do you really think it's worth taking the risk that the removal of Probe from the list he tested here would be enough to make Belcher not a thing? I don't. Chrome Mox is just the kind of card that nothing good can possibly come out of. He doesn't even take into account other possible combo decks, like Cheeri0s. Cheeri0s is already capable of too many turn 2 and 3 kills, it's just being held down by Push and discard decks right now. Add Chrome Mox to it, and now Cheeri0s might be so fast that even the rock style decks can't disrupt it fast enough. As one of the designers once said (paraphrasing), "What are you planning on doing with all that fast mana? Not anything fair, that's for sure. No one's running out Chrome Moxes and rituals to cast an early Huntmaster of the Fells." Chrome Mox is a card that has literally 0 upside to unbanning it, and a hell of a lot of risk. Not worth it.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
The card disadvantage of Chrome Mox does not lend itself to playing fair with it. You want to play unfair with it to make up for the card you're losing. Only combo decks are going to want that card and combo is strong enough already. Chrome Mox is staying on the banned list, probably forever.
Well lots of decks like UB control etc... ran it in Extended and they where not for the most part trying to do much more than take advantage of the synergy it has with Thirst and letting you jam a bob out on T1. Modern lacks some of the tools to really help mitigate the card disadvantage like JtmS was a major player in nearly every "fair" Chrome Mox deck back then. The major reason it doesn't see play in fair decks like Delver in Legacy is because you are already committed to 4x card disadvantage spells in the form of FoW and running that plus Chrome Mox is simply to taxing.
So I disagree that "only combo decks are going to want that card" but I do agree that in Modern only combo decks will be able to exploit it in a highly favorable way.
Actually, it's basically the opposite. Chrome Mox works best in fair decks that build card advantage, because they can recover from the early CA hit. Storm doesn't want it at all in my experience- if anything, Mox slows the deck down by about half a turn. Two cards for 1 mana is not where Storm wants to be. I've only seen one dedicated combo deck that wants it: No-land Belcher. Twin is kind of a hybrid deck, but they like it a lot too, to be entirely fair. Otherwise, it's how you start a grindy, fair deck in NBLM: 4 Chrome Mox, 4 CotV, 4 SDT, 1-2 Jitte. That's why it's banned.
Also, Durward's "test" of Belcher is not valid. It's basically a series of videos where he plays against decks that are functionally unprepared for his, didn't get to use Mox of their own, and then is surprised how "busted" his deck is. IMO, it's not really a good representative of how the deck plays out over a large sample of games in a mature metagame.
I would absolutely love it if DD could come off the list. I vote for it in every poll. But it's never coming off. At this point, now that there are 3 cards that interact with it (Thespian's Stage, Vampire Hexmage, and now Solemnity), it's never coming off the list. If you were to break the banned list into "possible to come off" tiers, it would probably occupy the same tier as Skullclamp and Mental Misstep.
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
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
Yeah probably not, but it's another nail in the coffin particularly if a Tron version of it ever came out which is not impossible since the deck would run land tutors. Into the North and Expedition Map and Life from the Loam are good for the lands and with the other effects you noted it would be a super consistent combo to say the least. You can't even thoughtseize it away if it's Depths + Stage in hand.
I would love to see everyones "possible to come off" ban list tiers
Preordain and Ponder are strict upgrades to Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand so they will likely not come back
Can Second Sunrise come back? How much slower does it take for Eggs to combo off than Krak-Clan Ironworks combo? I am not too familiar with how the combo operates
That doesn't really speak to the relative strength of either of those cards. Serum and Sleight are actually not very good at all. They are just literally the only remotely playable options in terms of 1 mana cantrips. What else is there? Peek? Quicken? Ooooo! Slip Through Space? Reach Through Mists? Aura Finesse? Aaaaaaa! Those two are "the best" because literally every other one has been banned or never printed in a modern-legal set or relatively narrow in application.
Wizards is fairly firm in wanting as little consistency as they can get away with in terms of cantrips and card draw. We should be "lucky" to still have Serum Visions, even as bad as it is.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
SFM and BBE are the two major candidates for an unban. BBE is more likely right now since it was a collatoral damage ban (would probably have been fine if it wasn't for DRS. SFM is less likely at this time, but is possible.
Jace has huge logistical issues hindering his unbanning (price being the big one). He also isn't good for the format since it means that all the fair decks have to play Jace or they lose to him, and all the unfair decks ignore him entirely. But it's conceivable that 5 years down the line there are enough answers for planeswalkers for fair decks that he could be unbanned.
Dig could potentially be a tool for control that doesn't help combo, but it's a risky unban.
I didn't say anything about other decks in that post. I was referring specifically to the claim of Belcher.
What is exactly unfair about this deck? Chrome Mox was actually a favorite of control decks in Extended.
#1 BBE
#2 (Can we have this discussion without being able to name all the contenders?)
#3 SFM
#4 Green Sun zenith
#5 JTMS
#6 Preordain
Nothing else is very likely.
I wasn't referring to your comment, I was talking about what Caleb said in his conclusion on the card. He felt it wasn't safe to unban because it enables Belcher, and he doesn't even go into other combo decks that could abuse the card.
If everyone has access to Chrome Mox, then I could see fair decks feeling like they had to play it to keep up on tempo with the combo decks. Isn't it just better, though, if nobody has it and we don't have to worry about as much fast mana? That's just not what Modern is supposed to be about.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Pretty close to mine.
1. Bloodbraid Elf
2. Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3. Stoneforge Mystic
4. Preordain
5. Green Sun's Zenith
6. Seething Song
Honestly for me, 2-4 are all pretty close to interchangeable. The first one in my opinion would have the same effect as Sword of the Meek on Modern.
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)Jace isn't the boogeyman people think he is. He's strong in Legacy because Blue is the strongest color bar none in Legacy. Without his support tools, he would just be a fairly powerful 4 drop in a format with a bunch of them.
I don't see Seething Song coming off as long as Storm is still doing decent. Second Sunrise has a coffin lined up next to Sensei's.
I could see Voldetwin come back eventually. Not a likely scenario, but I could see it. Maybe if the format got a little bit stronger.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Come on now, JtmS has been strong in every format in which he has been legal. He is in the top 50 in Vintage.
I don't WotC will ever unban GSZ or BBE. GSZ they view as a card that leads to homogenizing deck types and I just don't see them reversing such a strong opinion on a card. BBE I also don't think they would unban as Cascade is a functionally broken mechanic and BBE is by far the best Cascade card available in the Modern card pool, they just produced the Expertise cycle as a fixed version of that mechanic and just doubt that they will reintroduce it.
SFM could come off, I'm all for giving most of the never legal cards a try with a few exceptions but SFM isn't one of them. I just don't think that it will enable the kinds of decks many assume it would.
#1: Nothing
There's no reason to mess with the format right now. They ought to just let this ride right up through the pro tour.
Other than that, Combo is still heavily represented in MTGO, and RG Valakut has picked up some steam. I guess Titanshift players learned how to beat GDS? Not sure.
Regarding Banlist: Nothing should be unbanned IMO. Nothing should be unbanned until Standard bring some anti-combo tools to the format. Modern is still too Combo-Centric, which leads to too many non-games. Temple and Valakut itself are pretty overpowered, and it's amazing how a deck that relies on having a 2-mana X/3 on the battliefield in format full of removal is so good. That screams for better answers or better deckbuilding(Possibly a mix between the two).
I can only imagine what horrors could bring us a DS ban. DS DEFINITELY looks like the good guy in this film.
PS: UW Control destroying MTGO and GDS not having big finishes are most likely connected. GDS is still the best deck in the format, and UW in an open meta is still not this good.
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
E-Tron looks to be getting hated out by Titanshift
Meta looks good, nothing in the list looks concerning.
That Abzan list looks not good to me, on a personal note, it actually looks bad.
If I had to take a list like that, I'd say to run burn, surprized there aren't like 3 burn decks there, it has nothing but a bunch of 50/50's to positive matchups in almost that entire mtgo winners list.
Hopefully this means no more bans for a long, long time