wasteland is something that probably wouldn't hurt to have in the format either.
other than drastically redefining the whole Modern format...
Well we know Wizards isn't too bothered by doing this though bans and new cards already. Maybe they draw the line at reprints?
ehhh, I think wasteland would have a far bigger impact than any recent printing or ban/unban
The entire format was completely redefined in January of 2016 between a massive ban and newly printed Eldrazi cards. Then again in January 2017 with another series of bans and newly printed Fatal Push. Several other printed cards managed to break fringe decks here and there to the point that Modern has been completely "redefined" several times over in just the past two years. I don't think Wasteland would be any more impactful or "redefine" Modern more than the crazy metamorphosis its already taken.
Yeah, Teeg is not game over for Tron. It's not something we love to see for sure, but if you don't back it up with a respectable clock and hope that we draw poorly, it's not a big deal. It doesn't stop TKS or Wurmcoil. more importantly, it doesn't stop O-stone. Little Kithkin buddy? *smacks over horizon*
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
Simply running CoCo in multiple decks does not homogenize at all, CoCo brings with it almost no other card except maybe EWitt. GSZ + Teeg + Scooze+ Pridemage + reclamation sage + x is more homogenizing in terms of how games play out and deck's game plans. We have abzan company, value town, counters company, elves and more i've probably forgotten. The first 3 would almost surely just amalgamate into the one fair creature deck running GSZ.
And I don't know about you but I would much rather draw to a 5 outer every draw rather than having a sorcery in my graveyard. It's incredible how much more threat dense it makes your deck every turn.
I'm not saying it would break apart modern, but I think as of right now it's outside of the guidelines put out for modern, in that it homogenizes gameplay and deck design which they've specifically said they don't like. IE if you are going to keep ponder and preordain banned I don't see how GSZ is any different.
@Melkor: Sorry I did not mean teeg is the insane hoser it can be in legacy, but in a deck of green dudes it is not nontrivial against Tron. I think between that and the Excavator/GQ lock you'd see tron losing a fair percentage of the time to midrange, its prey deck. Also I grind MTGO leagues, I'm not going to lie I don't see a lot of Eldra-Tron in the meta so I don't really think about it in regards to ban list decisions, that could be short sighted by me, but it's not the tier 1 meta I really see.
I think before we consider GSZ we should be looking at the more apparent unbans of BBE, SFM, Jace. I personally would love a higher powered format (coming from legacy) but as of right now I think it sits outside the guidelines.
Gaddock Teeg WAS good. In today's modern there are just way too many ETB / on cast effects stapled to creatures to have him shine. Unless I'm missing something and there is this amazing spells deck in modern that is just needing a sideboard slot for the old guy.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
While I suspect GSZ to be to strong, I don't see how it homogenizes green decks in more significant ways than Collected Company. Elves would still run elves, counters would still run combo, value would still run value. Less 3 drops and E-wit, more dryad arbor and co. Rock decks have little use for the card (or more accurately, you end up with something pretty different like maverick, which I'm down for anyway).
Outside of a fairly short list of silver bullets (really teeg+RecSage+Scooze) I think it mostly just pick up what decks already happen to be running. Of import is that tron still takes a royal dump on these decks.
In the end, meh? I don't think wizards likes the card so I'm not exactly betting on an unban.
Although it's been covered already, GSZ turns singletons into 5-ofs. It's pretty clear how that adds consistency to a deck. CoCo is a crap shoot.
I'm aware of the power of the card; my point is that of the decks that could run it, not a whole lot would change (kinda like throwing ponder into GDS or something), ie I'm not sure how well the "homogenizing" argument holds up, they'd still be different decks running a lot of the same cards as before.
Although it's been covered already, GSZ turns singletons into 5-ofs. It's pretty clear how that adds consistency to a deck. CoCo is a crap shoot.
It turns singleton green creatures that are 1-ofs into 4-ofs that cost +1 mana (a turn slower) and are vulnerable to search hate, and 1-ofs.
The limitation to green creatures is non-trivial, as is the turn slower from a mana perspective.
The difference between Teeg turn 2 on the draw and teeg turn 3 on the draw is pretty large. Similarly, the difference between Loaming Shaman turn 3 and loaming shaman turn 4 is quite substantial (or even turn 2 v. 3 if you assume acceleration).
The green sun's zenith talk is interesting. I always thought this was one of the most overrated cards in Modern's banlist. I would be open to such unban,there is a serious chance it would be fine.
Even though I am not playing Green decks at all(played some abzan company in the past), I understand that Green creature based decks are hurt a lot from today's metagame for various reasons(Eldrazi, DS).
I wish they are testing the card and maybe unban it if they think they could to. I reserve some judgement as it could break Titanshift. If this is the case, then the card can not be unbanned.
Testing the card would be fairly strait-forward; if any deck is going to break the card, it would be elves. If a modern elves master could bring their weight to the topic it'd be valuable.
I'm curious what people think about how much to value future design space in ban/unbans. One of the largest problems I've heard with Birthing Pod was that it would only get better as you print more creatures and to that end people have said that Stoneforge Mystic limits future design space for equipment because it means high casting cost/ low equip or things like Living Weapon have to be designed around SFM. Green Sun's Zenith has the same issue of Birthing Pod in that green creatures are only going to be getting better so should that argument hold water?
I'm curious what people think about how much to value future design space in ban/unbans. One of the largest problems I've heard with Birthing Pod was that it would only get better as you print more creatures and to that end people have said that Stoneforge Mystic limits future design space for equipment because it means high casting cost/ low equip or things like Living Weapon have to be designed around SFM. Green Sun's Zenith has the same issue of Birthing Pod in that green creatures are only going to be getting better so should that argument hold water?
I think its hardly an issue usually. It was only a small case for Birthing Pod. Pod was similar to the Twin treatment where it was hard to justify playing anything else at the time. As for design space, it was probably more of a power level thing. The deck was already at the top of the meta, and future cards would only increase its power. So with the two combined, it got banned
I'm curious what people think about how much to value future design space in ban/unbans. One of the largest problems I've heard with Birthing Pod was that it would only get better as you print more creatures and to that end people have said that Stoneforge Mystic limits future design space for equipment because it means high casting cost/ low equip or things like Living Weapon have to be designed around SFM. Green Sun's Zenith has the same issue of Birthing Pod in that green creatures are only going to be getting better so should that argument hold water?
Big differences between the two: GSZ doesn't create actual card advantage, and getting only Green Creatures is a pretty big safety on future cards, as green creatures have a tendency to be kinda boring, ie it would be hard for them to make something more useful than Teeg, Scooze and Rec Sage.
Especially the printing of fatal push makes it so that GSZ Elves would be fine.
I don't think this claim is quite right. One of the biggest surprises in the post Fatal Push format is the new humans deck. Literally the entire deck dies to Fatal Push (or revolted Fatal Push) and that didn't really stop it until now.
GSZ elves, unlike humans, would be able to exploit yet another tutor, one which would require 3 less creature in play than Chord of Calling, and one that allows you to look in your entire deck.
One of the reasons elves are not very good right now is, indeed, that there are quite a few removals, and the decks that they beat are not so prevalent. I think giving them GSZ however, would increase their consistency to unacceptable levels.
Elves is already incredibly consistent. Chord is in many ways stronger than GSZ in that deck in modern due to the instant speed and cheating with convoke. I expect it would get a modest increase in power at best, but possibly enough to push it into tier 1. The odds of a creature deck dependent upon assembling critical mass of creatures taking over the format is pretty slim no matter how busted it is. Without the critical legacy elves (Symbiote especially but also Deathrite) the deck is always going to have attack surface. And don't forget there's no glimpse either.
Pokken...Chord is in no way better than GSZ, this is starting to border on disingenuous.
You're wrong, there are several ways in which it is stronger.
1) It allows summoning sick elves to tap for mana virtually
2) it's instant speed
3) it can get vizier, spellskite, selfless spirit, or any number of other important non-green creatures
It's not "better" but it is "in many ways stronger."
There are a lot of blowouts you aren't going to get with GSZ -- for example chording for selfless in response to anger. I've done that many times in both coco decks I've played and even the threat of it is enough to buy time.
There are a lot of winning lines with elves that involve end step chording for the win, or even tapping summoning sick elves to chord. Chord becomes essentially mana neutral in a lot of combo lines whereas GSZ does not.
In much the same way as terminate is "in many ways stronger" than fatal push, chord is in many ways stronger than GSZ.
Edit: Just to note, I have lots of firsthand experience with elves and nic fit in legacy, and have played basically every company deck (except humans) extensively in modern. I'm in no way blowing smoke. I honestly doubt GSZ would make a tier 1 deck and if so it would be temporary.
Chord definitely has a lot of merits.
Think about all of the creature combo decks in modern, all of them use non-green creatures (vizier, viscera seer, etc.
The value town deck might play it (excavator, knight, etc, are green), but thats about it.
IMO, if green sun's gets unbanned, we're more likely to see it in titanshift/elves than vizier combo.
Its possible that GSZ makes valuetown the indisputable best version of that deck, but I honestly kind of doubt it.
Elves also seems in general too easy to hate out for it to be truly problematic. It might be tier 1 with GSZ, but not tier 0.
Titanshift I honestly don't know, though. It already being a tier 1 deck could definitely go over the edge with GSZ.
Pokken...Chord is in no way better than GSZ, this is starting to border on disingenuous.
You're wrong, there are several ways in which it is stronger.
1) It allows summoning sick elves to tap for mana virtually
2) it's instant speed
3) it can get vizier, spellskite, selfless spirit, or any number of other important non-green creatures
It's not "better" but it is "in many ways stronger."
There are a lot of blowouts you aren't going to get with GSZ -- for example chording for selfless in response to anger. I've done that many times in both coco decks I've played and even the threat of it is enough to buy time.
There are a lot of winning lines with elves that involve end step chording for the win, or even tapping summoning sick elves to chord. Chord becomes essentially mana neutral in a lot of combo lines whereas GSZ does not.
In much the same way as terminate is "in many ways stronger" than fatal push, chord is in many ways stronger than GSZ.
Edit: Just to note, I have lots of firsthand experience with elves and nic fit in legacy, and have played basically every company deck (except humans) extensively in modern. I'm in no way blowing smoke. I honestly doubt GSZ would make a tier 1 deck and if so it would be temporary.
GSZ Would change elves as we know it, you are correct there is more utility in Chord, but Elves is not a utility deck. It's a critical mass deck. Hence the usage of Ezuri, Renegade Leader. GSZ Would jump elves out of the tier 2 box.
Pokken...Chord is in no way better than GSZ, this is starting to border on disingenuous.
Please Spsiegel..if you don't know what you're talking about ask why he believes that Chord is situationally better than Green Sun's Zenith instead of calling someone disingenuous.
Pokken already replied but let me just stress that Elves currently run 15/16 1 drops and 4 Dwynen's Elite, all being mana neutral with Chord the turn they come in and later on adding mana by just sitting there on the battlefield. This gets extremely relevant when you consider that leaving up a Chord for 1 is synonym to - fetch up Burrenton and prevent a boardwipe - against any red deck post SB. Doing this so preemptively if Chord were a sorcery like GSZ would often equal to a wasted Chord since they sometimes just don't have it, and this can be applied to most bullets - leave up Chord against combo for Eidolon/Canonist in case they have it, if not then tutor up Ezuri for the win, leave up Chord for Aven Mindcensor v Scapeshift, leave up Chord for Revoker v Tron & co., leave up Chord for Scooze, Rec Sage, Selfless Spirit, Spellskite and so on, you get the gist.
I fully agree with Shmanka, Green Sun's Zenith would change elves as we know it, from the looks of it the deck would mainly sacrifice flexibility for a small speed boost. The consistency argument is not really applicable since Elves is already extremely consistent at dumping out their whole hand and finding a Lord effect, the problem is when that isn't enough they go back to the drawing board or are stuck with a bunch of 1/1's. Even if this would put Elves into tier 1 I have my doubts about this not just being temporary due to the nature of go wide strategies being easily hated out, the metagame can adapt, pack some more sweepers which incidentally attack other common creature strategies in modern + for example the empty plan out of storm, and the rotating cycle of modern continues.
Just for referrence to GSZ's innovation when it first came out, I'll point you to this article.
People started brewing right away, Chord of Calling was always legal in that extended format and was never considered previously. I believe the reason is two fold - White Hate cards improved, and Creatures in general improved.
Take the decklists in that article with a grain of salt, but the concept is quite predictive of what would happen to Elves, especially with the printing of Shaman of the Pack. Spew the board, play Green Sun's Zenith hitting Shaman of the Pack, then swinging for lethal is an easy recipe that would completely take over any Chord of Calling strategy away from the deck.
As good as that sounds, it's still nowhere near as oppressive or frustrating to play against Grishoalbrand, Storm, Affinity, Ad Nauseam or any other deck that focuses entirely on a specific strategy.
I feel the need to give this forum some advice; Whenever you suggest unbanning a card, always ask yourself truthfully"Can I accept this card being the bad guy of Modern?"
If a 4 Mana 3/2 Haste that gives me Kolaghan's Command is the bad guy of Modern, I can accept that.
If a turn 3 4/4 Vigilance Lifelinking creature is the bad guy of Modern, I can accept that.
If there is a land in the format that makes Frogmite cost 3 mana, or potentially 0, and birthing a Tezzeret Control deck, once again, I can accept that.
We need to look at the large amounts of evidence present to us - the old extended format, it gives us large statistical notifications as how most cards are best abused. Look at Bloodbraid Elf, the most common deck that gave it tournament success in the old extended format was not Zoo, nor Jund, nor Abzan, nor some weird Temur deck everyone thinks is broken. It was Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.
I don't know how many people here have qualified for the Pro Tour, but it's not easy breaking into that scene, or even staying in it. We have hundreds upon hundreds of results of brewers and netdeckers alike and their history trying to qualify under a dramatically harder system than what is present today in the old Extended format. These cards had to compete with a completely different (and obviously broken) set of cards, but most of the concepts emerged all the same - hard to interact with combo, resilient midrange, awkward all in decks, affinity, but they also had Thirst for Knowledge based control.
This thread has derailed into so many opinions without any level of support. Opinions are fine, but please state them as such, they are not fact, they are your level of prediction. It's very hard to find Overextended results, but Extended itself rotated 3 entire blocks when Zendikar was released. Look from that point forward, because that's the basis of Modern.
I'm totally okay with elves (or even GSZ) being the format bogeyman, and even more okay with Titanshift becoming tier 0 and getting banned
I do think that it is probable GSZ elves becomes tier 1 and bounces the old chord elves to the outside, but I think people should do well to remember that modern is quite a different format from legacy. The volume of creature removal is in general much higher, with cards like Electrolyze seeing main deck play to this day.
In legacy if I t1 GSZ into a dryad arbor I can reasonably expect it is going to survive. Every so often someone has a bolt or something but the decks play 30-50% less removal than modern decks.
What I mean to point at when I say that there is some reduction in capabilities when giving up chord is that it is not a strict improvement to the deck; yes, elves is a critical mass deck, and yes GSZ is probably more powerful than Chord -- but it's not a simple powerup.
Imagine if Swords to Plowshares was legal; that's a one for one swap for almost every deck, almost no one plays Path anymore (Except burn perhaps). Decks that play snapcaster+swords get significant upgrades at basically no cost.
GSZ means the deck will sacrifice some utility and probably need to be redesigned. It's not a flat powerup I guess is what I'm saying.
-------------------------------------------------
Something tangentially related to the whole Elves/GSZ thing I think is worth discussing briefly:
There has been a renaissance in 3 mana sweepers since the days of Pod ruling the format.
One of the huge problems in Modern historically has been that 4 mana sweepers are often a half turn too slow, and the 3 mana sweepers prior to [card}anger of the gods[/card] were pretty average vs. Pod especially.
We've seen numerous strict upgrades to 3 mana sweepers with black getting an exiling sweeper, red getting an exiling 3 damage sweeper, and red getting a cycling sweeper.
This has made pretty major changes to the creature landscape in modern; cards like Voice and Kitchen Finks that used to drive the format are far to the outskirts.
The proliferation of combo and tron is a different angle of course, but Go Wide in general creature swarm strategies of any sort have gotten highly questionable in modern because Wizards has, despite constant whining by the community, been providing new and innovative answers.
A great example of a slight whiff that describes this pretty well is Bontu's Last Reckoning, wizards' attempts to provide a 4 mana sweeper a turn early. But Wizards definitely has made some strides in trying to combat the huge increase in creature power, especially in the highly efficient realm of Modern.
I am not sure G/W Devoted Elves would change. They wouldn't need to. However, GB Elves would adopt GSZ and become closer to the Legacy Elf version running perhaps Thoughtseizes and Abrupt Decays in the side like some of them do now with Shaman of the Pack as help.
People comparing GSZ to Chord or Pact are missing the point. Q: Is Pact good on turn 1 and turn 7? A: No. Q: Is GSZ good on turn 1 and turn 7. A: Yes! This is why GSZ is banned and Pact or Chord not. WotC just doesn't want this. Actual power level and the exact creatures to tutor for are details that don't matter that much, GSZ won't get unbanned unless WotC is doing a 180.
So what I'll say is that Modern is defined by cards that are good on turn 1 and good on turn 4; the whole turn 7 thing is less of a concern.
The best decks in modern invariably have proactive 1 mana plays that are strong on the first 4 turns of the game. This is the reason green for the most part sucks in modern is that its turn 1 plays are defined by cards that suck after turn 1 with the minor exception of Noble Hierarch (who is still pretty questionable on turn 4).
It'd also one of the reasons white mostly sucks, most white decks being defined by Aether vial as their 1 mana play. No Mother of Runes makes those decks clunky.
The two colors that are able to be the core of midrange strategies (blue and black) have multiple proactive strong 1 mana plays-- see the interplay between Thoughtseize and Inquisition, Serum Visions and Spell snare(sort of)/opt/thought scour/etc.
I think GSZ is stronger than they would like since unlike most of those other cards it maintains its strength throughout the game as opposed to tapering off, but I also think it would be fine and add the possibility of a green based midrange strategy to the format, which would be good.
You won't see this kind of card in red, white or green in modern though there are a few narrow almosts (grim lavamancer and search for tomorrow, ancient stirrings, oath of nissa). Red does have aggro creatures but not many that stand the turn 4 test.
If you look at almost any deck in modern you'll see how this 1-cmc spot defines the format; expedition map, ancient stirrings, thoughtseize/inquisition, serum visions/thought scour, noble hierarch, aether vial, etc. Even creature lands like celestial colonnade kinda fit into this, since they ETB tapped acting somewhat like a 1 drop. On the fringe even stuff like faithless looting.
The entire format was completely redefined in January of 2016 between a massive ban and newly printed Eldrazi cards. Then again in January 2017 with another series of bans and newly printed Fatal Push. Several other printed cards managed to break fringe decks here and there to the point that Modern has been completely "redefined" several times over in just the past two years. I don't think Wasteland would be any more impactful or "redefine" Modern more than the crazy metamorphosis its already taken.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
And I don't know about you but I would much rather draw to a 5 outer every draw rather than having a sorcery in my graveyard. It's incredible how much more threat dense it makes your deck every turn.
I'm not saying it would break apart modern, but I think as of right now it's outside of the guidelines put out for modern, in that it homogenizes gameplay and deck design which they've specifically said they don't like. IE if you are going to keep ponder and preordain banned I don't see how GSZ is any different.
@Melkor: Sorry I did not mean teeg is the insane hoser it can be in legacy, but in a deck of green dudes it is not nontrivial against Tron. I think between that and the Excavator/GQ lock you'd see tron losing a fair percentage of the time to midrange, its prey deck. Also I grind MTGO leagues, I'm not going to lie I don't see a lot of Eldra-Tron in the meta so I don't really think about it in regards to ban list decisions, that could be short sighted by me, but it's not the tier 1 meta I really see.
I think before we consider GSZ we should be looking at the more apparent unbans of BBE, SFM, Jace. I personally would love a higher powered format (coming from legacy) but as of right now I think it sits outside the guidelines.
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!
Outside of a fairly short list of silver bullets (really teeg+RecSage+Scooze) I think it mostly just pick up what decks already happen to be running. Of import is that tron still takes a royal dump on these decks.
In the end, meh? I don't think wizards likes the card so I'm not exactly betting on an unban.
CG
I'm aware of the power of the card; my point is that of the decks that could run it, not a whole lot would change (kinda like throwing ponder into GDS or something), ie I'm not sure how well the "homogenizing" argument holds up, they'd still be different decks running a lot of the same cards as before.
It turns singleton green creatures that are 1-ofs into 4-ofs that cost +1 mana (a turn slower) and are vulnerable to search hate, and 1-ofs.
The limitation to green creatures is non-trivial, as is the turn slower from a mana perspective.
The difference between Teeg turn 2 on the draw and teeg turn 3 on the draw is pretty large. Similarly, the difference between Loaming Shaman turn 3 and loaming shaman turn 4 is quite substantial (or even turn 2 v. 3 if you assume acceleration).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Testing the card would be fairly strait-forward; if any deck is going to break the card, it would be elves. If a modern elves master could bring their weight to the topic it'd be valuable.
I think its hardly an issue usually. It was only a small case for Birthing Pod. Pod was similar to the Twin treatment where it was hard to justify playing anything else at the time. As for design space, it was probably more of a power level thing. The deck was already at the top of the meta, and future cards would only increase its power. So with the two combined, it got banned
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Big differences between the two: GSZ doesn't create actual card advantage, and getting only Green Creatures is a pretty big safety on future cards, as green creatures have a tendency to be kinda boring, ie it would be hard for them to make something more useful than Teeg, Scooze and Rec Sage.
GSZ elves, unlike humans, would be able to exploit yet another tutor, one which would require 3 less creature in play than Chord of Calling, and one that allows you to look in your entire deck.
One of the reasons elves are not very good right now is, indeed, that there are quite a few removals, and the decks that they beat are not so prevalent. I think giving them GSZ however, would increase their consistency to unacceptable levels.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
You're wrong, there are several ways in which it is stronger.
1) It allows summoning sick elves to tap for mana virtually
2) it's instant speed
3) it can get vizier, spellskite, selfless spirit, or any number of other important non-green creatures
It's not "better" but it is "in many ways stronger."
There are a lot of blowouts you aren't going to get with GSZ -- for example chording for selfless in response to anger. I've done that many times in both coco decks I've played and even the threat of it is enough to buy time.
There are a lot of winning lines with elves that involve end step chording for the win, or even tapping summoning sick elves to chord. Chord becomes essentially mana neutral in a lot of combo lines whereas GSZ does not.
In much the same way as terminate is "in many ways stronger" than fatal push, chord is in many ways stronger than GSZ.
Edit: Just to note, I have lots of firsthand experience with elves and nic fit in legacy, and have played basically every company deck (except humans) extensively in modern. I'm in no way blowing smoke. I honestly doubt GSZ would make a tier 1 deck and if so it would be temporary.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Think about all of the creature combo decks in modern, all of them use non-green creatures (vizier, viscera seer, etc.
The value town deck might play it (excavator, knight, etc, are green), but thats about it.
IMO, if green sun's gets unbanned, we're more likely to see it in titanshift/elves than vizier combo.
Its possible that GSZ makes valuetown the indisputable best version of that deck, but I honestly kind of doubt it.
Elves also seems in general too easy to hate out for it to be truly problematic. It might be tier 1 with GSZ, but not tier 0.
Titanshift I honestly don't know, though. It already being a tier 1 deck could definitely go over the edge with GSZ.
GSZ Would change elves as we know it, you are correct there is more utility in Chord, but Elves is not a utility deck. It's a critical mass deck. Hence the usage of Ezuri, Renegade Leader. GSZ Would jump elves out of the tier 2 box.
Pokken already replied but let me just stress that Elves currently run 15/16 1 drops and 4 Dwynen's Elite, all being mana neutral with Chord the turn they come in and later on adding mana by just sitting there on the battlefield. This gets extremely relevant when you consider that leaving up a Chord for 1 is synonym to - fetch up Burrenton and prevent a boardwipe - against any red deck post SB. Doing this so preemptively if Chord were a sorcery like GSZ would often equal to a wasted Chord since they sometimes just don't have it, and this can be applied to most bullets - leave up Chord against combo for Eidolon/Canonist in case they have it, if not then tutor up Ezuri for the win, leave up Chord for Aven Mindcensor v Scapeshift, leave up Chord for Revoker v Tron & co., leave up Chord for Scooze, Rec Sage, Selfless Spirit, Spellskite and so on, you get the gist.
I fully agree with Shmanka, Green Sun's Zenith would change elves as we know it, from the looks of it the deck would mainly sacrifice flexibility for a small speed boost. The consistency argument is not really applicable since Elves is already extremely consistent at dumping out their whole hand and finding a Lord effect, the problem is when that isn't enough they go back to the drawing board or are stuck with a bunch of 1/1's. Even if this would put Elves into tier 1 I have my doubts about this not just being temporary due to the nature of go wide strategies being easily hated out, the metagame can adapt, pack some more sweepers which incidentally attack other common creature strategies in modern + for example the empty plan out of storm, and the rotating cycle of modern continues.
CG
People started brewing right away, Chord of Calling was always legal in that extended format and was never considered previously. I believe the reason is two fold - White Hate cards improved, and Creatures in general improved.
Take the decklists in that article with a grain of salt, but the concept is quite predictive of what would happen to Elves, especially with the printing of Shaman of the Pack. Spew the board, play Green Sun's Zenith hitting Shaman of the Pack, then swinging for lethal is an easy recipe that would completely take over any Chord of Calling strategy away from the deck.
As good as that sounds, it's still nowhere near as oppressive or frustrating to play against Grishoalbrand, Storm, Affinity, Ad Nauseam or any other deck that focuses entirely on a specific strategy.
I feel the need to give this forum some advice;
Whenever you suggest unbanning a card, always ask yourself truthfully "Can I accept this card being the bad guy of Modern?"
If a 4 Mana 3/2 Haste that gives me Kolaghan's Command is the bad guy of Modern, I can accept that.
If a turn 3 4/4 Vigilance Lifelinking creature is the bad guy of Modern, I can accept that.
If there is a land in the format that makes Frogmite cost 3 mana, or potentially 0, and birthing a Tezzeret Control deck, once again, I can accept that.
We need to look at the large amounts of evidence present to us - the old extended format, it gives us large statistical notifications as how most cards are best abused. Look at Bloodbraid Elf, the most common deck that gave it tournament success in the old extended format was not Zoo, nor Jund, nor Abzan, nor some weird Temur deck everyone thinks is broken. It was Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle.
I don't know how many people here have qualified for the Pro Tour, but it's not easy breaking into that scene, or even staying in it. We have hundreds upon hundreds of results of brewers and netdeckers alike and their history trying to qualify under a dramatically harder system than what is present today in the old Extended format. These cards had to compete with a completely different (and obviously broken) set of cards, but most of the concepts emerged all the same - hard to interact with combo, resilient midrange, awkward all in decks, affinity, but they also had Thirst for Knowledge based control.
This thread has derailed into so many opinions without any level of support. Opinions are fine, but please state them as such, they are not fact, they are your level of prediction. It's very hard to find Overextended results, but Extended itself rotated 3 entire blocks when Zendikar was released. Look from that point forward, because that's the basis of Modern.
I do think that it is probable GSZ elves becomes tier 1 and bounces the old chord elves to the outside, but I think people should do well to remember that modern is quite a different format from legacy. The volume of creature removal is in general much higher, with cards like Electrolyze seeing main deck play to this day.
In legacy if I t1 GSZ into a dryad arbor I can reasonably expect it is going to survive. Every so often someone has a bolt or something but the decks play 30-50% less removal than modern decks.
What I mean to point at when I say that there is some reduction in capabilities when giving up chord is that it is not a strict improvement to the deck; yes, elves is a critical mass deck, and yes GSZ is probably more powerful than Chord -- but it's not a simple powerup.
Imagine if Swords to Plowshares was legal; that's a one for one swap for almost every deck, almost no one plays Path anymore (Except burn perhaps). Decks that play snapcaster+swords get significant upgrades at basically no cost.
GSZ means the deck will sacrifice some utility and probably need to be redesigned. It's not a flat powerup I guess is what I'm saying.
-------------------------------------------------
Something tangentially related to the whole Elves/GSZ thing I think is worth discussing briefly:
There has been a renaissance in 3 mana sweepers since the days of Pod ruling the format.
One of the huge problems in Modern historically has been that 4 mana sweepers are often a half turn too slow, and the 3 mana sweepers prior to [card}anger of the gods[/card] were pretty average vs. Pod especially.
We've seen numerous strict upgrades to 3 mana sweepers with black getting an exiling sweeper, red getting an exiling 3 damage sweeper, and red getting a cycling sweeper.
This has made pretty major changes to the creature landscape in modern; cards like Voice and Kitchen Finks that used to drive the format are far to the outskirts.
The proliferation of combo and tron is a different angle of course, but Go Wide in general creature swarm strategies of any sort have gotten highly questionable in modern because Wizards has, despite constant whining by the community, been providing new and innovative answers.
A great example of a slight whiff that describes this pretty well is Bontu's Last Reckoning, wizards' attempts to provide a 4 mana sweeper a turn early. But Wizards definitely has made some strides in trying to combat the huge increase in creature power, especially in the highly efficient realm of Modern.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
So what I'll say is that Modern is defined by cards that are good on turn 1 and good on turn 4; the whole turn 7 thing is less of a concern.
The best decks in modern invariably have proactive 1 mana plays that are strong on the first 4 turns of the game. This is the reason green for the most part sucks in modern is that its turn 1 plays are defined by cards that suck after turn 1 with the minor exception of Noble Hierarch (who is still pretty questionable on turn 4).
It'd also one of the reasons white mostly sucks, most white decks being defined by Aether vial as their 1 mana play. No Mother of Runes makes those decks clunky.
The two colors that are able to be the core of midrange strategies (blue and black) have multiple proactive strong 1 mana plays-- see the interplay between Thoughtseize and Inquisition, Serum Visions and Spell snare(sort of)/opt/thought scour/etc.
I think GSZ is stronger than they would like since unlike most of those other cards it maintains its strength throughout the game as opposed to tapering off, but I also think it would be fine and add the possibility of a green based midrange strategy to the format, which would be good.
You won't see this kind of card in red, white or green in modern though there are a few narrow almosts (grim lavamancer and search for tomorrow, ancient stirrings, oath of nissa). Red does have aggro creatures but not many that stand the turn 4 test.
If you look at almost any deck in modern you'll see how this 1-cmc spot defines the format; expedition map, ancient stirrings, thoughtseize/inquisition, serum visions/thought scour, noble hierarch, aether vial, etc. Even creature lands like celestial colonnade kinda fit into this, since they ETB tapped acting somewhat like a 1 drop. On the fringe even stuff like faithless looting.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall