I am moderately unhappy with the format, yes. The lack of color diversity is a problem for me. White is garbage. Green is mediocre except as a support color (what White would probably be with SFM; splash for goyf // splash for SFM). Black and Red are significantly stronger than everything else. Faithless looting is becoming a problem. The only core green decks in the format use lands as weapons because of broken land tutors (Scapeshift, Ancient Stirrings).
I still enjoy playing humans, but I don't like how there're basically no white decks and green company decks have been completely edged out of the format by looting aggro decks and BBE.
The format's power is distributed in really weird ways where Black gets to be the police with discard and Red is the card selection color with wonky cards like looting. It's also crazy fast, which is possibly a feature but I find that the balance of decks I see are looking to kill you as fast as possible with whatever broken mechanic they happen to be using
I'd like to see several cards unbanned and Wizards to continue their aggressive modern printing to keep the format fresh and try to achieve some more color diversity.
I don't think the sky is falling at all because the format has a lot of fun, redeeming features--there are crazy cool decks and a lot of different ones that create engaging games. As long as you play black or red or big mana, or humans.
Honestly at this point I am close to thinking they should unban Pod. Creature toolbox midrange is basically trash right now, and I'm willing to consider that Felidar Guardian or Kiki Jiki should get the banhammer rather than Pod
Are you all that unhappy with the current modern format?
The format is pretty good right now, but that doesn't mean that it's without problems to discuss. I'm pretty sure Umezawa's Jitte isn't the answer to any of those problems though.
This is a good way to look at unbans and format health. Does a proposed unban a) address a format problem that b) Wizards has identified as a problem c) without risking too many other problems arising? SFM easily checks off a and b (improves white decks which are unrepresented) leaving us to debate c. Cards like Twin and Jitte can't even fulfill a, let alone b and c.
Another way to think about an unbab is to envision the probability of a R&D meeting actually proposing the unban and agreeing that unban is the next best thing for Modern. This is where sonething like BBE was bound to pass, but T4 violators like Song when Storm is already top-tier will never, ever fly.
quite a bit of hyperbole if you ask me. not even sure what information you are basing your opinion on. green using lands? of course green uses lands its what the color does. bant, gw, and scapeshift top8 the last gp.
black being a dominant choice shouldnt be surprising. nothing can compete with cheap discard for disruption. no amount of unbans will ever change that.
outside of homogenizing the color pie im honestly not sure what people expect. SFM being unbanned doesnt mean people are going to stop playing other colors. if jund isnt green then jeskai/uw isnt white and neither is abzan or mardu.
ponza, infect, scapeshift, amulet titan, mono g tron, uw control, jeskai, counters company, rg eldrazi, bogles, zoo, etc. if none of these decks fit the bill of being green or white what does?
really. what would a satisfactory metagame look like for those who think green and white is utterly underpowered?
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
quite a bit of hyperbole if you ask me. not even sure what information you are basing your opinion on. green using lands? of course green uses lands its what the color does. bant, gw, and scapeshift top8 the last gp.
black being a dominant choice shouldnt be surprising. nothing can compete with cheap discard for disruption. no amount of unbans will ever change that.
outside of homogenizing the color pie im honestly not sure what people expect. SFM being unbanned doesnt mean people are going to stop playing other colors. if jund isnt green then jeskai/uw isnt white and neither is abzan or mardu.
ponza, infect, scapeshift, amulet titan, mono g tron, uw control, jeskai, counters company, rg eldrazi, bogles, zoo, etc. if none of these decks fit the bill of being green or white what does?
really. what would a satisfactory metagame look like for those who think green and white is utterly underpowered?
I dunno, but I am still perplexed by people who seem to think that unless all five colors are equally represented in very slim definitions like wincons that the format is bad.
For me it'd probably some kind of creature toolbox deck rolling around closer to tier 1.5, and D&T being a stable part of the metagame instead of being constantly in flux.
So Ponza, Elves, Abzan company, Tron and Scapeshift are all green decks. Unfortunately they're pretty bad choices excepting Tron and Scapeshift on occasion. And the decks are never remotely stable except Scapeshift/Tron. We're talking massive constant changes to composition. This is a sign that a deck is crap.
Just to expand on that thesis a little, compare Jund to Death & Taxes.
-Death and Taxes has something like 5 variants, with a core of maybe 20 cards and as many as 18 or so that change not counting lands. Which deck places is inconsistent; it's had finishes with mono white, eldrazi, BW, GW and even UW over the years.
-Jund is Jund. Even with BBE coming in, all that did was solidify its flex slots. The removal suite morphs by a card or two (e.g. 1 KC vs. 2, 2 abrupt decays vs 3, 1 vs 2 maelstrom pulse), but the deck is largely stable.
You can tell that no one has figured out the right build for D&T, and the reason they haven't is because it's a crappy deck that has a powerful set of glue cards that mask how bad it is as a whole -- that is Ghost quarter, Thalia, Leonin arbiter, Flickerwisp, Aether Vial. The fundamental issue with the deck is those cards are good and sometimes you draw them. When you don't you get wrecked and there's no real way to be even moderately competitive.
For me it'd probably some kind of creature toolbox deck rolling around closer to tier 1.5, and D&T being a stable part of the metagame instead of being constantly in flux.
So Ponza, Elves, Abzan company, Tron and Scapeshift are all green decks. Unfortunately they're pretty bad choices excepting Tron and Scapeshift on occasion. And the decks are never remotely stable except Scapeshift/Tron. We're talking massive constant changes to composition. This is a sign that a deck is crap.
Just to expand on that thesis a little, compare Jund to Death & Taxes.
-Death and Taxes has something like 5 variants, with a core of maybe 20 cards and as many as 18 or so that change not counting lands. Which deck places is inconsistent; it's had finishes with mono white, eldrazi, BW, GW and even UW over the years.
-Jund is Jund. Even with BBE coming in, all that did was solidify its flex slots. The removal suite morphs by a card or two (e.g. 1 KC vs. 2, 2 abrupt decays vs 3, 1 vs 2 maelstrom pulse), but the deck is largely stable.
You can tell that no one has figured out the right build for D&T, and the reason they haven't is because it's a crappy deck that has a powerful set of glue cards that mask how bad it is as a whole -- that is Ghost quarter, Thalia, Leonin arbiter, Flickerwisp, Aether Vial. The fundamental issue with the deck is those cards are good and sometimes you draw them. When you don't you get wrecked and there's no real way to be even moderately competitive.
Seems like you don't want color diversity, you just want GW to be a viable color combo. You blatantly disregard G in Tron (multiple variants), Scapeshift(multiple variants), Jund, and Ponza. Boggles is still a deck choice, if you forget. You ignore that W is the shared color in Jeskai and UW decks, and is just as dominate in those control decks than blue is. Humans uses both G and W and is an amazing deck.
You want Pod and you want D&T to be a thing, and it just simply isnt the case. This doesnt mean that Modern is not diverse when it comes to colors
For me it'd probably some kind of creature toolbox deck rolling around closer to tier 1.5, and D&T being a stable part of the metagame instead of being constantly in flux.
....
Just to expand on that thesis a little, compare Jund to Death & Taxes.
-Death and Taxes has something like 5 variants, with a core of maybe 20 cards and as many as 18 or so that change not counting lands. Which deck places is inconsistent; it's had finishes with mono white, eldrazi, BW, GW and even UW over the years.
-Jund is Jund. Even with BBE coming in, all that did was solidify its flex slots. The removal suite morphs by a card or two (e.g. 1 KC vs. 2, 2 abrupt decays vs 3, 1 vs 2 maelstrom pulse), but the deck is largely stable.
This sounds a whole lot like what went on with UWR recently. Once Jund came back (and several of the UWR crowd was watching the Jund thread) it was interesting to see what happened.
As you note Jund was down to tweaking cards, like single digit number of cards, to tune.
The UWR Control folks, were in much the same boat, but we also had the UWR Flash/Geist/Queller side still dividing the conversation.
I think the Green toolbox type 'value town' decks have never been great (since Pod ban), and same with D&T, similar to Queller decks. Fine enough to win something now and again, but certainly not a solidified and refined deck like Jund and (on a lower power level) UWR Control.
at this point im starting to believe that peoples qualms are about the color pie itself, and not the format.
People who think having more variety in color representation is worth more than variety in strategy representation aren't worth your words mate. The strongest indicator of format health is how many different strategies are viable. Currently, modern is great.
You want aggro? Bogles, BR Hollow One, Humans
Aggro + Combo? Affinity, Infect
Ramp? Tron
Ramp + Combo? Valakut, Amulet
Combo? Storm, Griselydad, Ad Nauseam
Midrange? Jund, Eldrazi, Ponza, Mardu
Midrange + Combo? Dredge
Midrange + Aggro? Shadow
Control? Blue Moon, UWR, Lantern
Control + Combo? Breach
This is what matters. Not whether or not an abundance of purple or yellow cards see play.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
Now, I believe we are slowly sliding back to pure linearity. Jund seems to have lost numbers fast. All but those 3 guys have already realized that Jeskai sucks after the quarterly couple of weeks where we collectively act as if it doesn't suck.
Now, I believe we are slowly sliding back to pure linearity. Jund seems to have lost numbers fast. All but those 3 guys have already realized that Jeskai sucks after the quarterly couple of weeks where we collectively act as if it doesn't suck.
I laughed hard at this.
I personally haven't played UWR in years and when I did, it was just a couple of times. However, I have played Control AND even Counter Burn (Tempest Block with Shard Phoenix) in the past.
I think that UWR is a solid Tier 2. Do I think it's as good as Humans, Hollow One, Jund, or Lantern? No. Do I think it's better than Grixis Control? Yes, if ever so slightly. UWR has some rough matchups and some matchups that are around 45% to win, but there are some solid matchups.
I have had a tough time playing vs. UWR when I run Abzan Counters, Humans, and even Affinity (although some feel that's nearly 50/50). I think UWR slightly beats Jund, although I know people are going to disagree with this. I will admit that I have a bias in the "Control vs. Jund" matchup because of many factors, the biggest being most of those mtaches I've seen have a better UWR player.
P.S. - If HolyDiva thinks that Jeskai "sucks," what will she say about the UW Turns list that I play?
(it's okay to be brutally honest; I actually appreciate it)
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I don't like the format. That's well known so I won't go further into it.
Now, I believe we are slowly sliding back to pure linearity. Jund seems to have lost numbers fast. All but those 3 guys have already realized that Jeskai sucks after the quarterly couple of weeks where we collectively act as if it doesn't suck. Jace control decks suck mainly because control decks suck.
I see more and more people flocking to Humans, RB Hollow One, Tron and varied combo decks, and more and more fans of interactive decks frustrated at their experience playing.
EDIT: Mardu seems to be the one that is holding well though, I forgot
this very well may be the case. the online meta is usually a little ahead of the curve, outside of some skewing aspects like cheaper decks being overly represented or certain combo decks seeing less play because of the interface restrictions (ie. counters company).
what is important to point out though is that the state of affairs has nothing to do with the unbans. there were various claims that jace would push the format to be less interactive because jace decks would be so good that the only alternatives would be to go under or over.
well jace hasnt done much of anything, so if the format is truly moving in that direction then it was going to regardless. humans and hollow one are carving a path based on their own strength.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
My take is that Modern is basically in a place where all "Tier 1" decks have either been banned or fallen into irrelevance. One way or another, "Tier 1" is essentially gone, so we are left with the huge diversity we have had all along (in Tier 2+), but without the clear "top" of the format. Whether or not you see this as a positive is a matter of personal preference. It means there are tons more "viable" decks, but it also means it's extremely hard to plan, test, or make deck/sideboard choices without a little faith and luck when it comes to matchups. It's a great time in Modern, so long as you don't mind a massive increase in facing what used to be Tier 2 and 3 decks, and more or less a lack of a clear, "you will likely face these" kinds of decks.
I feel that Affinity has always been a Tier 1 deck or pretty close to it. There's been ebbs and flows where people are trying to hate out Affinity or it gets played less, and maybe the results don't always add up. But in the long run, if you were to choose 1 deck to master as soon as Modern came out, you could have chosen Affinity and (luckily) dodged bans.
You could have noticed that when people name the decks on top, they always end with ".....and oh yeah, Affinity too."
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Tiers had nothing to do directly with strength, but everything to do with prevalence. We have decks stronger and weaker than others, but going into just about any event (even 15 rounds), there is no guarantee to see any single deck in any event.
Tiers had nothing to do directly with strength, but everything to do with prevalence. We have decks stronger and weaker than others, but going into just about any event (even 15 rounds), there is no guarantee to see any single deck in any event.
I personally equate them with strength. It's how I do it, even if it's wrong to everyone else.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
it just means that format knowledge is that more relevant. it may be more difficult to plan and choose cards, but those choices are far from meaningless.
some people prefer formats with a very small set of best decks; however history shows that these formats are generally less popular. however this doesnt mean modern is all chaos, certain decks do better than others and show up more at the top tables. tiers, without explicit definitions, are just an abstract label that are appropriate to use because people know what you are talking about.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
I also feel that Seething Song is around 5 or 6 in the next cards to potentially be unbanned, but I rarely mention it because people here put it in the same category as Deathrite Shaman or Umezawa's Jitte.
@tronix - An unban doesn't have to make the format better. If Squire was banned, it SHOULD get unbanned. Does it help the format? Not even 0.00000000000000000001%. But it should be an option for players because it doesn't fit Wizard's criteria for banning. Other cards that may get unbanned are not quite at that level obviously, but should be legal options if they don't push the format towards degeneracy.
I don't know I am no Storm expert. On paper it seems like it will be effective but if it doesn't work then yeah if I was Storm Fan I be expecting for Grapeshot to get it.
Damping Sphere is just like any other hate card for Storm, and signifigantly worse than Rule of Law, Trinisphere or Eidolon of Rhetoric, which are the hardest things to deal with by far (in a vaccum). It is very medium against them and is only good because it also hits another meta deck.
An argument could probably be made for either of those options, but flat out saying they're all significantly better than Damping Sphere is hilarious. Despite the fact that they all do different *****, Damping Sphere costs less and can literally be played in any deck that wants to run it. I don't see how the card doesn't significantly impact the format once it's out in the wild.
So here's my thing from a color pie diversity perspective--
If your only good option to play a "blue" deck is to play a combo deck (storm), and your only real option to play green is to play big mana (tron or scapeshift), I don't consider that color diversity. I'd like to see a variety of different approaches for each color in an ideal world--say a midrange green deck and a big mana green deck, or an aggro white deck and a midrange white deck. Or a control and combo blue deck.
It's admittedly really hard to get there from a balancing perspective, to see multiple deck archetypes from each color. But what I think is we should gear our unbans to support this.
Unbanning GSZ would instantly create the possibility of a green based midrange strategy, whether it is a successful deck or not.
Unbanning Stoneforge would make it possible for there to be a white based midrange deck and might some aggro-control tax shells work, and might even make a UWx control deck a thing.
GSZ is not really playable as a splash in a non-green deck because it ramps you to XGG on turn 2, basically forcing you into a green core strategy -- so while it might theoretically decrease deck diversity in green, there is currently no real diversity in green currently so that's not a big deal The only top tier green deck right now is Tron (which is technically a Brown deck if you want to be accurate), and Scapeshift being not awful.
So not only do these cards not belong on the damned banlist in the first place (power level too low, reasons for banning questionable originally) they open up deckbuilding and potentially increase archetype diversity in colors.
There is really no color diversity in the midrange-control spectrum right now, which is probably the most frustrating thing to me. The only good midrange-control black based decks playing discard and then deciding what threats to play. Mardu, Jund, Junk whatever, it's a black midrange deck. Give me a green midrange critter deck with Teeg and Rec sage and such please. Or a white based midrange deck with Stoneforge and Flickerwisp.
I still enjoy playing humans, but I don't like how there're basically no white decks and green company decks have been completely edged out of the format by looting aggro decks and BBE.
The format's power is distributed in really weird ways where Black gets to be the police with discard and Red is the card selection color with wonky cards like looting. It's also crazy fast, which is possibly a feature but I find that the balance of decks I see are looking to kill you as fast as possible with whatever broken mechanic they happen to be using
I'd like to see several cards unbanned and Wizards to continue their aggressive modern printing to keep the format fresh and try to achieve some more color diversity.
I don't think the sky is falling at all because the format has a lot of fun, redeeming features--there are crazy cool decks and a lot of different ones that create engaging games. As long as you play black or red or big mana, or humans.
Honestly at this point I am close to thinking they should unban Pod. Creature toolbox midrange is basically trash right now, and I'm willing to consider that Felidar Guardian or Kiki Jiki should get the banhammer rather than Pod
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
This is a good way to look at unbans and format health. Does a proposed unban a) address a format problem that b) Wizards has identified as a problem c) without risking too many other problems arising? SFM easily checks off a and b (improves white decks which are unrepresented) leaving us to debate c. Cards like Twin and Jitte can't even fulfill a, let alone b and c.
Another way to think about an unbab is to envision the probability of a R&D meeting actually proposing the unban and agreeing that unban is the next best thing for Modern. This is where sonething like BBE was bound to pass, but T4 violators like Song when Storm is already top-tier will never, ever fly.
black being a dominant choice shouldnt be surprising. nothing can compete with cheap discard for disruption. no amount of unbans will ever change that.
outside of homogenizing the color pie im honestly not sure what people expect. SFM being unbanned doesnt mean people are going to stop playing other colors. if jund isnt green then jeskai/uw isnt white and neither is abzan or mardu.
ponza, infect, scapeshift, amulet titan, mono g tron, uw control, jeskai, counters company, rg eldrazi, bogles, zoo, etc. if none of these decks fit the bill of being green or white what does?
really. what would a satisfactory metagame look like for those who think green and white is utterly underpowered?
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I dunno, but I am still perplexed by people who seem to think that unless all five colors are equally represented in very slim definitions like wincons that the format is bad.
So Ponza, Elves, Abzan company, Tron and Scapeshift are all green decks. Unfortunately they're pretty bad choices excepting Tron and Scapeshift on occasion. And the decks are never remotely stable except Scapeshift/Tron. We're talking massive constant changes to composition. This is a sign that a deck is crap.
Just to expand on that thesis a little, compare Jund to Death & Taxes.
-Death and Taxes has something like 5 variants, with a core of maybe 20 cards and as many as 18 or so that change not counting lands. Which deck places is inconsistent; it's had finishes with mono white, eldrazi, BW, GW and even UW over the years.
-Jund is Jund. Even with BBE coming in, all that did was solidify its flex slots. The removal suite morphs by a card or two (e.g. 1 KC vs. 2, 2 abrupt decays vs 3, 1 vs 2 maelstrom pulse), but the deck is largely stable.
You can tell that no one has figured out the right build for D&T, and the reason they haven't is because it's a crappy deck that has a powerful set of glue cards that mask how bad it is as a whole -- that is Ghost quarter, Thalia, Leonin arbiter, Flickerwisp, Aether Vial. The fundamental issue with the deck is those cards are good and sometimes you draw them. When you don't you get wrecked and there's no real way to be even moderately competitive.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Seems like you don't want color diversity, you just want GW to be a viable color combo. You blatantly disregard G in Tron (multiple variants), Scapeshift(multiple variants), Jund, and Ponza. Boggles is still a deck choice, if you forget. You ignore that W is the shared color in Jeskai and UW decks, and is just as dominate in those control decks than blue is. Humans uses both G and W and is an amazing deck.
You want Pod and you want D&T to be a thing, and it just simply isnt the case. This doesnt mean that Modern is not diverse when it comes to colors
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
This sounds a whole lot like what went on with UWR recently. Once Jund came back (and several of the UWR crowd was watching the Jund thread) it was interesting to see what happened.
As you note Jund was down to tweaking cards, like single digit number of cards, to tune.
The UWR Control folks, were in much the same boat, but we also had the UWR Flash/Geist/Queller side still dividing the conversation.
I think the Green toolbox type 'value town' decks have never been great (since Pod ban), and same with D&T, similar to Queller decks. Fine enough to win something now and again, but certainly not a solidified and refined deck like Jund and (on a lower power level) UWR Control.
Spirits
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)People who think having more variety in color representation is worth more than variety in strategy representation aren't worth your words mate. The strongest indicator of format health is how many different strategies are viable. Currently, modern is great.
You want aggro? Bogles, BR Hollow One, Humans
Aggro + Combo? Affinity, Infect
Ramp? Tron
Ramp + Combo? Valakut, Amulet
Combo? Storm, Griselydad, Ad Nauseam
Midrange? Jund, Eldrazi, Ponza, Mardu
Midrange + Combo? Dredge
Midrange + Aggro? Shadow
Control? Blue Moon, UWR, Lantern
Control + Combo? Breach
This is what matters. Not whether or not an abundance of purple or yellow cards see play.
I laughed hard at this.
Spirits
I personally haven't played UWR in years and when I did, it was just a couple of times. However, I have played Control AND even Counter Burn (Tempest Block with Shard Phoenix) in the past.
I think that UWR is a solid Tier 2. Do I think it's as good as Humans, Hollow One, Jund, or Lantern? No. Do I think it's better than Grixis Control? Yes, if ever so slightly. UWR has some rough matchups and some matchups that are around 45% to win, but there are some solid matchups.
I have had a tough time playing vs. UWR when I run Abzan Counters, Humans, and even Affinity (although some feel that's nearly 50/50). I think UWR slightly beats Jund, although I know people are going to disagree with this. I will admit that I have a bias in the "Control vs. Jund" matchup because of many factors, the biggest being most of those mtaches I've seen have a better UWR player.
P.S. - If HolyDiva thinks that Jeskai "sucks," what will she say about the UW Turns list that I play?
(it's okay to be brutally honest; I actually appreciate it)
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)this very well may be the case. the online meta is usually a little ahead of the curve, outside of some skewing aspects like cheaper decks being overly represented or certain combo decks seeing less play because of the interface restrictions (ie. counters company).
what is important to point out though is that the state of affairs has nothing to do with the unbans. there were various claims that jace would push the format to be less interactive because jace decks would be so good that the only alternatives would be to go under or over.
well jace hasnt done much of anything, so if the format is truly moving in that direction then it was going to regardless. humans and hollow one are carving a path based on their own strength.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Jund beats up on 'Tier 2 Jank' and its not like Jund is weak anymore.
Spirits
You could have noticed that when people name the decks on top, they always end with ".....and oh yeah, Affinity too."
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)UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I personally equate them with strength. It's how I do it, even if it's wrong to everyone else.
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)some people prefer formats with a very small set of best decks; however history shows that these formats are generally less popular. however this doesnt mean modern is all chaos, certain decks do better than others and show up more at the top tables. tiers, without explicit definitions, are just an abstract label that are appropriate to use because people know what you are talking about.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I would have spent not a penny, on anything but Jund staples. Thats all I know for sure.
Spirits
True that. Buying into URx has brought nothing but pain and misery. Lol.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
An argument could probably be made for either of those options, but flat out saying they're all significantly better than Damping Sphere is hilarious. Despite the fact that they all do different *****, Damping Sphere costs less and can literally be played in any deck that wants to run it. I don't see how the card doesn't significantly impact the format once it's out in the wild.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
If your only good option to play a "blue" deck is to play a combo deck (storm), and your only real option to play green is to play big mana (tron or scapeshift), I don't consider that color diversity. I'd like to see a variety of different approaches for each color in an ideal world--say a midrange green deck and a big mana green deck, or an aggro white deck and a midrange white deck. Or a control and combo blue deck.
It's admittedly really hard to get there from a balancing perspective, to see multiple deck archetypes from each color. But what I think is we should gear our unbans to support this.
Unbanning GSZ would instantly create the possibility of a green based midrange strategy, whether it is a successful deck or not.
Unbanning Stoneforge would make it possible for there to be a white based midrange deck and might some aggro-control tax shells work, and might even make a UWx control deck a thing.
GSZ is not really playable as a splash in a non-green deck because it ramps you to XGG on turn 2, basically forcing you into a green core strategy -- so while it might theoretically decrease deck diversity in green, there is currently no real diversity in green currently so that's not a big deal
So not only do these cards not belong on the damned banlist in the first place (power level too low, reasons for banning questionable originally) they open up deckbuilding and potentially increase archetype diversity in colors.
There is really no color diversity in the midrange-control spectrum right now, which is probably the most frustrating thing to me. The only good midrange-control black based decks playing discard and then deciding what threats to play. Mardu, Jund, Junk whatever, it's a black midrange deck. Give me a green midrange critter deck with Teeg and Rec sage and such please. Or a white based midrange deck with Stoneforge and Flickerwisp.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall