Well this conversation is going far. I'd love for a group to get together and actually test these things. Seems like a lot of people just say formats good and don't want to see unbans. If a card truely isn't a problem let it be free. Why can't u/w have a faster win con? They play so many bad cards and Jace isn't going to help their bad matchups that I see (I'd love to test that idea). Price shouldn't even be allowed to be brought up in this thread imo because it has nothing to do with anything and it gets old hearing about. Modern continues to be a format of degenerate things so why limit what ones we can play?
Because people will eventually say that you have to pay the $1000+ tax to play blue competitively on top of the other cards you also need to get. You start getting into arguments like, "This tier 1 blue deck in Modern costs $2500 because of 4 JTMS eating 1/3 of the price tag of the deck, why don't I just spend $500 more on Legacy Grixis Delver?" There are people out there not fortunate enough with the funds to build any Modern deck they want and also complain that any deck costing more than $500 is already an unreasonable price to pay to have a deck. The buy-in to Modern is not exactly appealing as it once was like 5 years ago.
Well this conversation is going far. I'd love for a group to get together and actually test these things. Seems like a lot of people just say formats good and don't want to see unbans. If a card truely isn't a problem let it be free. Why can't u/w have a faster win con? They play so many bad cards and Jace isn't going to help their bad matchups that I see (I'd love to test that idea). Price shouldn't even be allowed to be brought up in this thread imo because it has nothing to do with anything and it gets old hearing about. Modern continues to be a format of degenerate things so why limit what ones we can play?
Because people will eventually say that you have to pay the $1000+ tax to play blue competitively on top of the other cards you also need to get. You start getting into arguments like, "This tier 1 blue deck in Modern costs $2500 because of 4 JTMS eating 1/3 of the price tag of the deck, why don't I just spend $500 more on Legacy Grixis Delver?" There are people out there not fortunate enough with the funds to build any Modern deck they want and also complain that any deck costing more than $500 is already an unreasonable price to pay to have a deck. The buy-in to Modern is not exactly appealing as it once was like 5 years ago.
That all has nothing to do with this thread. Bgx was once in the same spot except guess what people bought into it. There are plenty of decks to play in modern so people can play other decks. My interest is what would the meta actually look like. This is modern it's ok for decks to be expensive, if people are worried they can buy them at $50 now, they can rent from spare deck, they can borrow from legacy players for events... price isn't relevant and gbx proved that for a long time.
Well this conversation is going far. I'd love for a group to get together and actually test these things. Seems like a lot of people just say formats good and don't want to see unbans. If a card truely isn't a problem let it be free. Why can't u/w have a faster win con? They play so many bad cards and Jace isn't going to help their bad matchups that I see (I'd love to test that idea). Price shouldn't even be allowed to be brought up in this thread imo because it has nothing to do with anything and it gets old hearing about. Modern continues to be a format of degenerate things so why limit what ones we can play?
Because people will eventually say that you have to pay the $1000+ tax to play blue competitively on top of the other cards you also need to get. You start getting into arguments like, "This tier 1 blue deck in Modern costs $2500 because of 4 JTMS eating 1/3 of the price tag of the deck, why don't I just spend $500 more on Legacy Grixis Delver?" There are people out there not fortunate enough with the funds to build any Modern deck they want and also complain that any deck costing more than $500 is already an unreasonable price to pay to have a deck. The buy-in to Modern is not exactly appealing as it once was like 5 years ago.
That all has nothing to do with this thread. Bgx was once in the same spot except guess what people bought into it. There are plenty of decks to play in modern so people can play other decks. My interest is what would the meta actually look like. This is modern it's ok for decks to be expensive, if people are worried they can buy them at $50 now, they can rent from spare deck, they can borrow from legacy players for events... price isn't relevant and gbx proved that for a long time.
You're assuming that all Modern players are spikes and have access to anything they want at any given moment when the complete opposite is true. Modern is literally designed in such a way that you cannot maximize in-game playskill to always secure victories. People bought into BGx because it was a deck that has been hit by the banhammer twice and the expensive pieces have been reprinted enough that people can justify spending the cash. It had the "best deck" tag on it for a while, of course you could justify it back then. Many Modern players do not have large amounts of disposable income, it's one of the selling points of Modern, you don't require vast amounts of dollars to maintain a deck.
Modern has never really been "cheap". Tarmogoyf used to eat $800-$1000 in Jund's 2.5-3k price tag. Fetches had always been expensive until Khans brought us a flood of the allied fetches. The cost always goes somewhere and fair decks always end up being expensive, since they rely on the most efficient staples in the format.
WotC has shown recently that they're not afraid to reprint Modern staples. Tarmy is less than half his old price tag after the multiple reprints. Liliana is a fraction of her old cost and even enemy fetches have a slightly reduced price because of the latest print. The fact that they're always a step behind is merely because of how long their print cycles take. Which means that if Jace got unbanned, yes, we might have to deal with $200+ Jaces for a little while. But you can bet they'll include him in the next EMA set... and the next MM set, much like Tarmogoyf. I personally have faith in WotC to make the smart business decision of reprinting valuable cards in moderation to keep raking in cash.
Well this conversation is going far. I'd love for a group to get together and actually test these things. Seems like a lot of people just say formats good and don't want to see unbans. If a card truely isn't a problem let it be free. Why can't u/w have a faster win con? They play so many bad cards and Jace isn't going to help their bad matchups that I see (I'd love to test that idea). Price shouldn't even be allowed to be brought up in this thread imo because it has nothing to do with anything and it gets old hearing about. Modern continues to be a format of degenerate things so why limit what ones we can play?
Because people will eventually say that you have to pay the $1000+ tax to play blue competitively on top of the other cards you also need to get. You start getting into arguments like, "This tier 1 blue deck in Modern costs $2500 because of 4 JTMS eating 1/3 of the price tag of the deck, why don't I just spend $500 more on Legacy Grixis Delver?" There are people out there not fortunate enough with the funds to build any Modern deck they want and also complain that any deck costing more than $500 is already an unreasonable price to pay to have a deck. The buy-in to Modern is not exactly appealing as it once was like 5 years ago.
That all has nothing to do with this thread. Bgx was once in the same spot except guess what people bought into it. There are plenty of decks to play in modern so people can play other decks. My interest is what would the meta actually look like. This is modern it's ok for decks to be expensive, if people are worried they can buy them at $50 now, they can rent from spare deck, they can borrow from legacy players for events... price isn't relevant and gbx proved that for a long time.
You're assuming that all Modern players are spikes and have access to anything they want at any given moment when the complete opposite is true. Modern is literally designed in such a way that you cannot maximize in-game playskill to always secure victories. People bought into BGx because it was a deck that has been hit by the banhammer twice and the expensive pieces have been reprinted enough that people can justify spending the cash. It had the "best deck" tag on it for a while, of course you could justify it back then. Many Modern players do not have large amounts of disposable income, it's one of the selling points of Modern, you don't require vast amounts of dollars to maintain a deck.
Idk what a spike has to do with anything. Jtms wouldn't change any of that. People don't have to play Jace if they can't afford it. Just like they probably didn't buy baubles at $40 each either to play jds when it was thought to be the best deck. There are plenty of other options still if jtms is unbanned unless you can prove it somehow makes a t0 deck (find that VERY hard to imagine).
Jace, the Mind Sculptor being a degenerate card, while a Sol Land, or an Ancient Tomb without you taking damage, but for only a specific type of creatures(and the most powerful in the game) is ok is beyond me!
If JTMS is not fine, then cards like Eldrazi Temple, Simian Spirit Guide, or heck even Collected Company are not fine as well.
gotta say that comparing JtmS to SSG or CoCo is pretty laughable.
Have to agree. Even if I think JTMS is fine, just a strong fully blue Win Con, its not in the same realm as those 2.
Does not matter at all. I am not comparing cards. Just saying that JTMS is probably as safe as CoCo or the aforemention cards.
In other words, if CoCo was in the banlist, we would say the same things for that card(too strong in power level/etc). This applies to power level only and nothing else.
A format where fast mana is available in so many forms, but a very powerful 4cmc walker is not, is something that feels silly.
As was the case for Sword of The Meek and Ancestral. A format where Ancestral was banned and so many more powerful cards were legal was laughable. Yet, people there were in this very thread that were saying "Sword Of ThE Meek will mean the end to all of the aggro decks".
Seeing JTMS rotting in the banlist while watching Eldrazi Temple being legal trying to turn 2 TKS feels utterly buffling to me.
Agreed, it takes a lot for a 4 mana card that can't win the game immediately to be playable in modern. We have a format were 2 of the top decks are running a mox and a sol land, but people are worried about jace, stoneforge mystic and in some cases even Blood braid elf. Let's say in some alternative universe these cards are problematic and warp the format around them, is having a format with these cards and the decks they promote worse than what we have now. I know I would rather see more uw control, jund and d&t that rather than affinity, titan shift and eldrazi tron
Jace, the Mind Sculptor being a degenerate card, while a Sol Land, or an Ancient Tomb without you taking damage, but for only a specific type of creatures(and the most powerful in the game) is ok is beyond me!
If JTMS is not fine, then cards like Eldrazi Temple, Simian Spirit Guide, or heck even Collected Company are not fine as well.
Extended was terrible when JtmS was dominating, Jace is a slow death you died on turn 4 you just didn't realize it.
gotta say that comparing JtmS to SSG or CoCo is pretty laughable.
Have to agree. Even if I think JTMS is fine, just a strong fully blue Win Con, its not in the same realm as those 2.
Does not matter at all. I am not comparing cards. Just saying that JTMS is probably as safe as CoCo or the aforemention cards.
In other words, if CoCo was in the banlist, we would say the same things for that card(too strong in power level/etc). This applies to power level only and nothing else.
A format where fast mana is available in so many forms, but a very powerful 4cmc walker is not, is something that feels silly.
As was the case for Sword of The Meek and Ancestral. A format where Ancestral was banned and so many more powerful cards were legal was laughable. Yet, people there were in this very thread that were saying "Sword Of ThE Meek will mean the end to all of the aggro decks".
Seeing JTMS rotting in the banlist while watching Eldrazi Temple being legal trying to turn 2 TKS feels utterly buffling to me.
Agreed, it takes a lot for a 4 mana card that can't win the game immediately to be playable in modern. We have a format were 2 of the top decks are running a mox and a sol land, but people are worried about jace, stoneforge mystic and in some cases even Blood braid elf. Let's say in some alternative universe these cards are problematic and warp the format around them, is having a format with these cards and the decks they promote worse than what we have now. I know I would rather see more uw control, jund and d&t that rather than affinity, titan shift and eldrazi tron
JtmS is a slow death, you died on turn 4 you just didn't realize it for a few turns.
Extended was terrible when JtmS was dominating, Jace is a slow death you died on turn 4 you just didn't realize it.
gotta say that comparing JtmS to SSG or CoCo is pretty laughable.
Have to agree. Even if I think JTMS is fine, just a strong fully blue Win Con, its not in the same realm as those 2.
Does not matter at all. I am not comparing cards. Just saying that JTMS is probably as safe as CoCo or the aforemention cards.
In other words, if CoCo was in the banlist, we would say the same things for that card(too strong in power level/etc). This applies to power level only and nothing else.
A format where fast mana is available in so many forms, but a very powerful 4cmc walker is not, is something that feels silly.
As was the case for Sword of The Meek and Ancestral. A format where Ancestral was banned and so many more powerful cards were legal was laughable. Yet, people there were in this very thread that were saying "Sword Of ThE Meek will mean the end to all of the aggro decks".
Seeing JTMS rotting in the banlist while watching Eldrazi Temple being legal trying to turn 2 TKS feels utterly buffling to me.
Agreed, it takes a lot for a 4 mana card that can't win the game immediately to be playable in modern. We have a format were 2 of the top decks are running a mox and a sol land, but people are worried about jace, stoneforge mystic and in some cases even Blood braid elf. Let's say in some alternative universe these cards are problematic and warp the format around them, is having a format with these cards and the decks they promote worse than what we have now. I know I would rather see more uw control, jund and d&t that rather than affinity, titan shift and eldrazi tron
JtmS is a slow death, you died on turn 4 you just didn't realize it for a few turns.
Sure it's slow but it's not like most decks are gonna have trouble pressuring. Then you have decks that either don't care about jace or can win before it is cast. Let's also not pretend that there aren't already 4+ mana cards in modern that can win the game on the spot
Honestly, Dig Through Time felt borderline broken in standard, the card was outrageous; I cringe when people suggest unbanning Dig Through Time. I had to play Mardu just to outplay the blue players, and that was still a grind. i'd love a world where Goblin Rabblemaster was good in modern.
I think Jace is just too much risk, I really doubt WOTC takes that leap of faith even five years from now
I kinda think SFM is sadly off the table for an unban, Jeskai and UW Control are doing well, and DnT is a good meta call.
I really only think BBE is likely at this time, and that really depends if WOTC wants to boost Jund and if they fear a BBE+AV combo.
Still hearing people say Eldrazi Temple and a Shadow pieces are risky investments--are they?
Agreed about Dig. I see Jace coming off the banlist before it does. I don't understand how people can't see its potential for brokenness in Modern, not to mention the fact that ~2 Blue decks are tier 1.
Also agreed about BBE. She's one of the weakest cards on the list but Wizards didn't have any reason to unban her when Jund was on top; now they do. Is BBE+AV really much of a threat?
Eldrazi and Shadow pieces should be completely fine for now, unless Wizards wants to do some more shakin'.
Still hearing people say Eldrazi Temple and a Shadow pieces are risky investments--are they?
I don't think they are. Both decks are good, but they aren't oppressive so Wizards has no reason to ban anything.
The line Wizards draws for what is and isn't oppressive can change at any time for any reason. With the return of the PT and extra GP spotlights, there is even more incentive for players to break the format and Wizards to shake things up if they feel it necessary. Whether or not they stand by their word of not changing their ban strategies because of PT return is yet to be seen, but the past two years have not been kind to any decks that have been successful (including huge varying levels of success). After being burned a number of times, I would not personally feel safe investing in any deck that has any meaningful success, especially if it has few relevant pieces to other decks.
But that last line is still interesting that they have "no reason" to ban anything. Do they ever have reason to unban anything? This came up a while back but never disseminated into meaningful discussion. I'm curious what thoughts people have as to why a card or cards would be unbanned. We hear that when the format is fine, there's no need for unbans. We hear when the format is in flux, it needs to settle before thinking about unbans. So, other than simply for the sake of shaking up a Pro Tour with unbans, under what circumstances would anyone personally consider "the time" to unban cards that are seemingly safe? Whether it's BBE or Jace or SFM or that which still can't be named, what state would the format need to be in for any card on the list to come off? Because the answer, every single time, seems to continue being: "not now." I'm curious why?
Eldrazi and Shadow pieces should be completely fine for now, unless Wizards wants to do some more shakin'.
I whole-heardetly agree. I think both are basically fine (though we no longer have reliable data to back anything up anymore). But I would also not be surprised in the least bit to see something banned out of either of them in January.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor being a degenerate card, while a Sol Land, or an Ancient Tomb without you taking damage, but for only a specific type of creatures(and the most powerful in the game) is ok is beyond me!
If JTMS is not fine, then cards like Eldrazi Temple, Simian Spirit Guide, or heck even Collected Company are not fine as well.
I agree with this, to a point. A pair of Eldrazi Temples will make for way more non-games then Jace ever will.
However, I wouldn't compared CoCo to any of these cards. It is a powerful card to be sure but it is, for lack of a better word, fair.
Ultimately I think the Unban Jace Dillema is too big. It's possible implications on all aspects of the format would be unprecedented, for better or for worse, and would dwarf all the changes that came before.
My guess is wotc is biding their time. They haven't exactly been on a winning streak with b&r announcements recently and this kind of gambit takes a lot of balls and credibility - of which they currently have neither.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor being a degenerate card, while a Sol Land, or an Ancient Tomb without you taking damage, but for only a specific type of creatures(and the most powerful in the game) is ok is beyond me!
If JTMS is not fine, then cards like Eldrazi Temple, Simian Spirit Guide, or heck even Collected Company are not fine as well.
Temple is narrow because it only affects Eldrazi. In any other deck it is worthless. SSG is card disadvantage. CoCo is tempo advantage but not degenerate because it is answerable. If I am playing someone who is showing they are playing Green and have 4 mana open, I expect it. Creatures are also the easiest permanent to remove in the game. Most decks that have a problem dealing with CoCo need to pack board wipes. It is just like any other deck. JTMS is almost impossible to deal with unless you remove it the turn it comes out. U has the best support to protect it and if it lives more than 1 turn, you lose the game in a grind. Every deck in the format would need to dedicate hate for it or they lose. The power level of it is backbreaking if left unchecked unlike any of your above mentioned cards.
I don't think JtmS gets ubanned likely ever. He is way more powerful than multiple cards that people wouldn't want off. Plus the entire justification for his banning still holds, he is still a Legacy/Vintage staple.
People way under value him
Cards do different things in different formats though. Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time were well balanced for Standard’s card pool, while being broken in Legacy and Modern. You can’t always judge a card’s impact on a format by looking at how it affects older formats.
So what your saying is that we should unban Mental Misstep also.
They probably are not but I am.
Do you scoop to a turn one chalice on one? That's far worse than any misstep.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor being a degenerate card, while a Sol Land, or an Ancient Tomb without you taking damage, but for only a specific type of creatures(and the most powerful in the game) is ok is beyond me!
If JTMS is not fine, then cards like Eldrazi Temple, Simian Spirit Guide, or heck even Collected Company are not fine as well.
Temple is narrow because it only affects Eldrazi. In any other deck it is worthless. SSG is card disadvantage. CoCo is tempo advantage but not degenerate because it is answerable. If I am playing someone who is showing they are playing Green and have 4 mana open, I expect it. Creatures are also the easiest permanent to remove in the game. Most decks that have a problem dealing with CoCo need to pack board wipes. It is just like any other deck. JTMS is almost impossible to deal with unless you remove it the turn it comes out. U has the best support to protect it and if it lives more than 1 turn, you lose the game in a grind. Every deck in the format would need to dedicate hate for it or they lose. The power level of it is backbreaking if left unchecked unlike any of your above mentioned cards.
Yeah like fow, counterspell... oh wait that's legacy. So you can't give examples of how Jace is bad currently but can for the other cards mentioned? Decks need to play more wraths to deal with creatures but Jace is seemingly impossible to deal with? A sol land is narrow because it requires running arguably the best tribe in mtg (guess eye never should have been banned and it was even legendary)? Those aren't good arguments imo of cards power levels.
Jace is answered by burn to the face, having more than 1 creature, combining off before it remotely matters, stripping it out of opponents hand, making opponents sac it, counter it... I don't get how you could argue like it's the best card in the game or even the modern format. Maybe Ds lands a shadow then fames it welp sweet Jace you had. There are plenty of cards to fight Jace just like anything else and decks would adapt.
The only form in my eyes that Jace comes out it's if every midrange house in the banlist comes out too(SFM,BBE too) so the "Midrange Polarization" problem gets mitigated. I'm not sure where the format stays from a brewing/diverse standpoint. I guess those cards add archetypes and supress some other, so it should be net win if the goal is a shorter banlist.
The problem with Jace's price gets mitigated by reprints in Modern Masters like Tarmogoyf. Even then, the price won't get much lower than $100-120. Liliana is near that price and Jace would be borderline as good as she is, with the increased bubble that would grow for hyping reasons(Ancestral Visions for example).
Now the real question is, do we want to play Legacy lite? I don't. I prefer to get warped by Standard rather than those cards.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor being a degenerate card, while a Sol Land, or an Ancient Tomb without you taking damage, but for only a specific type of creatures(and the most powerful in the game) is ok is beyond me!
If JTMS is not fine, then cards like Eldrazi Temple, Simian Spirit Guide, or heck even Collected Company are not fine as well.
Temple is narrow because it only affects Eldrazi. In any other deck it is worthless. SSG is card disadvantage. CoCo is tempo advantage but not degenerate because it is answerable. If I am playing someone who is showing they are playing Green and have 4 mana open, I expect it. Creatures are also the easiest permanent to remove in the game. Most decks that have a problem dealing with CoCo need to pack board wipes. It is just like any other deck. JTMS is almost impossible to deal with unless you remove it the turn it comes out. U has the best support to protect it and if it lives more than 1 turn, you lose the game in a grind. Every deck in the format would need to dedicate hate for it or they lose. The power level of it is backbreaking if left unchecked unlike any of your above mentioned cards.
Yeah like fow, counterspell... oh wait that's legacy. So you can't give examples of how Jace is bad currently but can for the other cards mentioned? Decks need to play more wraths to deal with creatures but Jace is seemingly impossible to deal with? A sol land is narrow because it requires running arguably the best tribe in mtg (guess eye never should have been banned and it was even legendary)? Those aren't good arguments imo of cards power levels.
Jace is answered by burn to the face, having more than 1 creature, combining off before it remotely matters, stripping it out of opponents hand, making opponents sac it, counter it... I don't get how you could argue like it's the best card in the game or even the modern format. Maybe Ds lands a shadow then fames it welp sweet Jace you had. There are plenty of cards to fight Jace just like anything else and decks would adapt.
You act as if U has no answers for creatures? How many JTMS are going to be played in Mono U? None. How many mono U decks are in format? 1.and Fish doesn't want or need it. Any control deck in format is either going to T4 wipe, turn 5 Jace or vise versa. Burn is Jace's worst enemy yes but it is easily countered with life gain and counter support. This is not Legacy where a deck goes off turn 1 and you shrug and keeps a card like JTMS at bay. This is Modern where this as a turn 4/5 play with proper support wins you games.
In my opinion, Jace is simply "overpowered" when you look at the decks he would improve matchups against because they don't have strict answers for him. It would *gasp* force players to adapt and *gasp x2* make some decks have more matchups that aren't strictly 50/50 or better. Control wants to play the long game, and every linear/combo/aggro (whatever you want to call it) deck wants to do the opposite, so nobody who supports the current state of the meta would support enabling long-game strategies because it risks warping the rest of the meta. Personally, I'd love a JTMS unban because I don't think it would be difficult for the meta to adapt (the hate cards exist, as well as decks that can just outpace or go over Jace, so you'd see the format shift the same way it did with Titanshift and Eldrazi Tron). I also love Modern how it is and wouldn't be hurt or surprised if it stays banned.
It would be cool to see some sort of PTR for unbans on MTGO to test cards before making them massively unbanned. Imagine WOTC running a big modern event every day for a week to see how certain cards could warp a meta if banned/unbanned (maybe add novelty prize support or even monetary value, just to get people to participate). Then we could stop bickering about the potential impacts and actually push the format forward to be as diverse and inclusive as possible.
JTMS is overrated by most people here. It wouldn't be the end of modern, but it would be one of the cards that could end diversity but not in the way you think. It's not that EVERY blue deck would run it more like every deck would have to PREPARE for it. Essentially your T2/T3 decks that can spike an event would have less chance to do so. The only cards I think that can be unbanned in total if you had me grab as much as possible would be: Dig Through Time, Preordain, Bloodbraid Elf, Stoneforge Mystic, Green Sun's Zenith, Birthing Pod, Gitaxian Probe, Punishing Fire, and JTMS.
But that list is the "Legacy Lite" version. The most powerful modern could be and you could argue in that meta that Deathrite Shaman is also allowed but that format is insane. I'm not sure I would really want that ever.
If the goal is to strengthen the format via unbans but not go crazy, BBE, JTMS, Preordain or SFM in some combination would do it. BBE balances against JTMS but also has great synergy with ancestral visions and honestly what's wrong with RUG being great again? I don't even play the colors but would be fine with it. Only problem is that yes you're T3/T2 random piles wouldn't compete in a more consistent meta.
This is why WOTC removed consistency and useful data from the format. It makes the best decks harder to find and harder for those decks to be the best. Essentially they are Hearthstoning this game. That's not a negative if you like random finishes by things like 8-rack. That is a negative if you don't like RNGesus being how games are decided.
Personally, I just want some consistency added back to modern, then I'd be happy.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor being a degenerate card, while a Sol Land, or an Ancient Tomb without you taking damage, but for only a specific type of creatures(and the most powerful in the game) is ok is beyond me!
If JTMS is not fine, then cards like Eldrazi Temple, Simian Spirit Guide, or heck even Collected Company are not fine as well.
Temple is narrow because it only affects Eldrazi. In any other deck it is worthless. SSG is card disadvantage. CoCo is tempo advantage but not degenerate because it is answerable. If I am playing someone who is showing they are playing Green and have 4 mana open, I expect it. Creatures are also the easiest permanent to remove in the game. Most decks that have a problem dealing with CoCo need to pack board wipes. It is just like any other deck. JTMS is almost impossible to deal with unless you remove it the turn it comes out. U has the best support to protect it and if it lives more than 1 turn, you lose the game in a grind. Every deck in the format would need to dedicate hate for it or they lose. The power level of it is backbreaking if left unchecked unlike any of your above mentioned cards.
Yeah like fow, counterspell... oh wait that's legacy. So you can't give examples of how Jace is bad currently but can for the other cards mentioned? Decks need to play more wraths to deal with creatures but Jace is seemingly impossible to deal with? A sol land is narrow because it requires running arguably the best tribe in mtg (guess eye never should have been banned and it was even legendary)? Those aren't good arguments imo of cards power levels.
Jace is answered by burn to the face, having more than 1 creature, combining off before it remotely matters, stripping it out of opponents hand, making opponents sac it, counter it... I don't get how you could argue like it's the best card in the game or even the modern format. Maybe Ds lands a shadow then fames it welp sweet Jace you had. There are plenty of cards to fight Jace just like anything else and decks would adapt.
You act as if U has no answers for creatures? How many JTMS are going to be played in Mono U? None. How many mono U decks are in format? 1.and Fish doesn't want or need it. Any control deck in format is either going to T4 wipe, turn 5 Jace or vise versa. Burn is Jace's worst enemy yes but it is easily countered with life gain and counter support. This is not Legacy where a deck goes off turn 1 and you shrug and keeps a card like JTMS at bay. This is Modern where this as a turn 4/5 play with proper support wins you games.
Blue has basically no answers for creatures, you just proved that. Jace being UU is a real cost to that too. What deck are you wiping and then casting Jace and straight winning against right now? Affinity? Didn't need the Jace there, eldrazi? Assuming the wrath/Jace wasn't hit with tks, Ds? Maybe they start playing claim//fame, Valakut, can't keep them off everything, dredge? Don't think they care about a nonexililing wrath, regular tron? Don't think they care too much, coco, zoo, fish sure I'll give you that but that's fine. I wasn't saying burn as the deck I was just saying a burn spell but yes burn is another deck that won't care too much about Jace. Nothing in t1 currently really will imo. Isn't that what you want in modern a t4/5 threat that you are hoping sticks around to win you the game because if it's not that and not an infinite combo are you just saying control should never have a way to win before they take 25 min in g1(I believe Jace would help this not hurt)? This is why I said we need real proof because your idea of how it plays out and mine are very different.
? For people on here, do you think modern would even be a format if not for the reserve list/price? I ask this because so often price, legacy power level, and just results in other formats are arguments for and against cards. So if everyone had access to legacy do you think people would play modern? Everyone I talk to loves legacy, now I don't play it too much myself because our store only has like 8-12 people and modern have 20+ every night, and tons of things seem viable right now. So would a legacy lite be that bad?
I think the challenge with JTMS that you unwittingly highlight (and it's been brought up before) is that it's great against other "fair" decks and weak to combo/big mana. Unbanning JTMS has the potential to suffocate other options, unintentionally cannibalizing other "fair" archetypes and pushing the remaining players towards the linear options if they want to be competitive.
I've gone back and forth on Jace a few times but I'm inclined toward the side that says he's too strong a fair card at this point. I'd rather let that lie for a while and see Stoneforge, and maybe a printing of Counterspell in Return to Dominaria
I've gone back and forth on Jace a few times but I'm inclined toward the side that says he's too strong a fair card at this point. I'd rather let that lie for a while and see Stoneforge, and maybe a printing of Counterspell in Return to Dominaria
I don't care what gets unbanned but I'd like the format to open up more and no more bans. I really hope Paul is helping test unbans for modern (a format he enjoys).
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Because people will eventually say that you have to pay the $1000+ tax to play blue competitively on top of the other cards you also need to get. You start getting into arguments like, "This tier 1 blue deck in Modern costs $2500 because of 4 JTMS eating 1/3 of the price tag of the deck, why don't I just spend $500 more on Legacy Grixis Delver?" There are people out there not fortunate enough with the funds to build any Modern deck they want and also complain that any deck costing more than $500 is already an unreasonable price to pay to have a deck. The buy-in to Modern is not exactly appealing as it once was like 5 years ago.
That all has nothing to do with this thread. Bgx was once in the same spot except guess what people bought into it. There are plenty of decks to play in modern so people can play other decks. My interest is what would the meta actually look like. This is modern it's ok for decks to be expensive, if people are worried they can buy them at $50 now, they can rent from spare deck, they can borrow from legacy players for events... price isn't relevant and gbx proved that for a long time.
You're assuming that all Modern players are spikes and have access to anything they want at any given moment when the complete opposite is true. Modern is literally designed in such a way that you cannot maximize in-game playskill to always secure victories. People bought into BGx because it was a deck that has been hit by the banhammer twice and the expensive pieces have been reprinted enough that people can justify spending the cash. It had the "best deck" tag on it for a while, of course you could justify it back then. Many Modern players do not have large amounts of disposable income, it's one of the selling points of Modern, you don't require vast amounts of dollars to maintain a deck.
WotC has shown recently that they're not afraid to reprint Modern staples. Tarmy is less than half his old price tag after the multiple reprints. Liliana is a fraction of her old cost and even enemy fetches have a slightly reduced price because of the latest print. The fact that they're always a step behind is merely because of how long their print cycles take. Which means that if Jace got unbanned, yes, we might have to deal with $200+ Jaces for a little while. But you can bet they'll include him in the next EMA set... and the next MM set, much like Tarmogoyf. I personally have faith in WotC to make the smart business decision of reprinting valuable cards in moderation to keep raking in cash.
Idk what a spike has to do with anything. Jtms wouldn't change any of that. People don't have to play Jace if they can't afford it. Just like they probably didn't buy baubles at $40 each either to play jds when it was thought to be the best deck. There are plenty of other options still if jtms is unbanned unless you can prove it somehow makes a t0 deck (find that VERY hard to imagine).
Agreed, it takes a lot for a 4 mana card that can't win the game immediately to be playable in modern. We have a format were 2 of the top decks are running a mox and a sol land, but people are worried about jace, stoneforge mystic and in some cases even Blood braid elf. Let's say in some alternative universe these cards are problematic and warp the format around them, is having a format with these cards and the decks they promote worse than what we have now. I know I would rather see more uw control, jund and d&t that rather than affinity, titan shift and eldrazi tron
JtmS is a slow death, you died on turn 4 you just didn't realize it for a few turns.
Sure it's slow but it's not like most decks are gonna have trouble pressuring. Then you have decks that either don't care about jace or can win before it is cast. Let's also not pretend that there aren't already 4+ mana cards in modern that can win the game on the spot
Agreed about Dig. I see Jace coming off the banlist before it does. I don't understand how people can't see its potential for brokenness in Modern, not to mention the fact that ~2 Blue decks are tier 1.
Also agreed about BBE. She's one of the weakest cards on the list but Wizards didn't have any reason to unban her when Jund was on top; now they do. Is BBE+AV really much of a threat?
Eldrazi and Shadow pieces should be completely fine for now, unless Wizards wants to do some more shakin'.
The line Wizards draws for what is and isn't oppressive can change at any time for any reason. With the return of the PT and extra GP spotlights, there is even more incentive for players to break the format and Wizards to shake things up if they feel it necessary. Whether or not they stand by their word of not changing their ban strategies because of PT return is yet to be seen, but the past two years have not been kind to any decks that have been successful (including huge varying levels of success). After being burned a number of times, I would not personally feel safe investing in any deck that has any meaningful success, especially if it has few relevant pieces to other decks.
But that last line is still interesting that they have "no reason" to ban anything. Do they ever have reason to unban anything? This came up a while back but never disseminated into meaningful discussion. I'm curious what thoughts people have as to why a card or cards would be unbanned. We hear that when the format is fine, there's no need for unbans. We hear when the format is in flux, it needs to settle before thinking about unbans. So, other than simply for the sake of shaking up a Pro Tour with unbans, under what circumstances would anyone personally consider "the time" to unban cards that are seemingly safe? Whether it's BBE or Jace or SFM or that which still can't be named, what state would the format need to be in for any card on the list to come off? Because the answer, every single time, seems to continue being: "not now." I'm curious why?
I whole-heardetly agree. I think both are basically fine (though we no longer have reliable data to back anything up anymore). But I would also not be surprised in the least bit to see something banned out of either of them in January.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I agree with this, to a point. A pair of Eldrazi Temples will make for way more non-games then Jace ever will.
However, I wouldn't compared CoCo to any of these cards. It is a powerful card to be sure but it is, for lack of a better word, fair.
Ultimately I think the Unban Jace Dillema is too big. It's possible implications on all aspects of the format would be unprecedented, for better or for worse, and would dwarf all the changes that came before.
My guess is wotc is biding their time. They haven't exactly been on a winning streak with b&r announcements recently and this kind of gambit takes a lot of balls and credibility - of which they currently have neither.
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Temple is narrow because it only affects Eldrazi. In any other deck it is worthless. SSG is card disadvantage. CoCo is tempo advantage but not degenerate because it is answerable. If I am playing someone who is showing they are playing Green and have 4 mana open, I expect it. Creatures are also the easiest permanent to remove in the game. Most decks that have a problem dealing with CoCo need to pack board wipes. It is just like any other deck. JTMS is almost impossible to deal with unless you remove it the turn it comes out. U has the best support to protect it and if it lives more than 1 turn, you lose the game in a grind. Every deck in the format would need to dedicate hate for it or they lose. The power level of it is backbreaking if left unchecked unlike any of your above mentioned cards.
They probably are not but I am.
Do you scoop to a turn one chalice on one? That's far worse than any misstep.
Yeah like fow, counterspell... oh wait that's legacy. So you can't give examples of how Jace is bad currently but can for the other cards mentioned? Decks need to play more wraths to deal with creatures but Jace is seemingly impossible to deal with? A sol land is narrow because it requires running arguably the best tribe in mtg (guess eye never should have been banned and it was even legendary)? Those aren't good arguments imo of cards power levels.
Jace is answered by burn to the face, having more than 1 creature, combining off before it remotely matters, stripping it out of opponents hand, making opponents sac it, counter it... I don't get how you could argue like it's the best card in the game or even the modern format. Maybe Ds lands a shadow then fames it welp sweet Jace you had. There are plenty of cards to fight Jace just like anything else and decks would adapt.
The problem with Jace's price gets mitigated by reprints in Modern Masters like Tarmogoyf. Even then, the price won't get much lower than $100-120. Liliana is near that price and Jace would be borderline as good as she is, with the increased bubble that would grow for hyping reasons(Ancestral Visions for example).
Now the real question is, do we want to play Legacy lite? I don't. I prefer to get warped by Standard rather than those cards.
You act as if U has no answers for creatures? How many JTMS are going to be played in Mono U? None. How many mono U decks are in format? 1.and Fish doesn't want or need it. Any control deck in format is either going to T4 wipe, turn 5 Jace or vise versa. Burn is Jace's worst enemy yes but it is easily countered with life gain and counter support. This is not Legacy where a deck goes off turn 1 and you shrug and keeps a card like JTMS at bay. This is Modern where this as a turn 4/5 play with proper support wins you games.
It would be cool to see some sort of PTR for unbans on MTGO to test cards before making them massively unbanned. Imagine WOTC running a big modern event every day for a week to see how certain cards could warp a meta if banned/unbanned (maybe add novelty prize support or even monetary value, just to get people to participate). Then we could stop bickering about the potential impacts and actually push the format forward to be as diverse and inclusive as possible.
But that list is the "Legacy Lite" version. The most powerful modern could be and you could argue in that meta that Deathrite Shaman is also allowed but that format is insane. I'm not sure I would really want that ever.
If the goal is to strengthen the format via unbans but not go crazy, BBE, JTMS, Preordain or SFM in some combination would do it. BBE balances against JTMS but also has great synergy with ancestral visions and honestly what's wrong with RUG being great again? I don't even play the colors but would be fine with it. Only problem is that yes you're T3/T2 random piles wouldn't compete in a more consistent meta.
This is why WOTC removed consistency and useful data from the format. It makes the best decks harder to find and harder for those decks to be the best. Essentially they are Hearthstoning this game. That's not a negative if you like random finishes by things like 8-rack. That is a negative if you don't like RNGesus being how games are decided.
Personally, I just want some consistency added back to modern, then I'd be happy.
Blue has basically no answers for creatures, you just proved that. Jace being UU is a real cost to that too. What deck are you wiping and then casting Jace and straight winning against right now? Affinity? Didn't need the Jace there, eldrazi? Assuming the wrath/Jace wasn't hit with tks, Ds? Maybe they start playing claim//fame, Valakut, can't keep them off everything, dredge? Don't think they care about a nonexililing wrath, regular tron? Don't think they care too much, coco, zoo, fish sure I'll give you that but that's fine. I wasn't saying burn as the deck I was just saying a burn spell but yes burn is another deck that won't care too much about Jace. Nothing in t1 currently really will imo. Isn't that what you want in modern a t4/5 threat that you are hoping sticks around to win you the game because if it's not that and not an infinite combo are you just saying control should never have a way to win before they take 25 min in g1(I believe Jace would help this not hurt)? This is why I said we need real proof because your idea of how it plays out and mine are very different.
? For people on here, do you think modern would even be a format if not for the reserve list/price? I ask this because so often price, legacy power level, and just results in other formats are arguments for and against cards. So if everyone had access to legacy do you think people would play modern? Everyone I talk to loves legacy, now I don't play it too much myself because our store only has like 8-12 people and modern have 20+ every night, and tons of things seem viable right now. So would a legacy lite be that bad?
Lol sure
You've been spoiled by a format of 10 fetches and 10 shocks where you can always play any color of answer that you would like.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I don't care what gets unbanned but I'd like the format to open up more and no more bans. I really hope Paul is helping test unbans for modern (a format he enjoys).