Even if Karn hasn't broken affinity. WoTC still don't seem to have learned pushed colourless cards are going to cause issues unless they actually think about what they're doing.
I played around with it in Elves, and it can be funny. Not sure it makes anything better though by just getting dropped in, like Karn or Teferi.
Well its not like Elves needs help tapping for more mana. Seems win more for me. Its basically Ezuri's ability with suspend but you don't need vigilance cause they will be dead when you activate anyway. Indestructible is useful I guess but how many mass sweepers are in modern anyway? Trample is one for one. And you get two less counters which considering how small most elves are is probably a pretty significant loss.
well i dunno if karn improves affinity's consistency THAT much. more maindeck abrades might be appropriate. itll be interesting to see if karn is the proverbial straw that breaks the camels back. ive only played against it once so far so i cant really tell.
I don't think it will be. Karn, Scion of Urza does many things better than Master of Etherium. What it doesn't do is make 1/1s into 2/2s and that is also very important. Most people think that the ability of Karn is more important than Master's abilities, mostly because it puts out several "Masters." But they can be chumped. I do think that it IS very strong. Don't get me wrong. But Affinity is fine.
If anything, Affinity probably goes up from being the 3rd/4th best deck in Modern to being the 2nd best deck.
*Lastly, I have lost a lot to Affinity recently. Still, I feel that Affinity is fine in Modern. I saw a newer player on Monday watch as my friend on Karn Affinity dropped 5 permanents on turn 1. Newer players need some sort of barometer for the format and I think Affinity is good for that. Literally the only reason that I even mentioned Affinity before when people talked about bans was because I didn't want other decks to be banned (like Summer Bloom for example). I was very wrong in doing so.
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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)
well i dunno if karn improves affinity's consistency THAT much. more maindeck abrades might be appropriate. itll be interesting to see if karn is the proverbial straw that breaks the camels back. ive only played against it once so far so i cant really tell.
I don't think it will be. Karn, Scion of Urza does many things better than Master of Etherium. What it doesn't do is make 1/1s into 2/2s and that is also very important. Most people think that the ability of Karn is more important than Master's abilities, mostly because it puts out several "Masters." But they can be chumped. I do think that it IS very strong. Don't get me wrong. But Affinity is fine.
If anything, Affinity probably goes up from being the 3rd/4th best deck in Modern to being the 2nd best deck.
*Lastly, I have lost a lot to Affinity recently. Still, I feel that Affinity is fine in Modern. I saw a newer player on Monday watch as my friend on Karn Affinity dropped 5 permanents on turn 1. Newer players need some sort of barometer for the format and I think Affinity is good for that. Literally the only reason that I even mentioned Affinity before when people talked about bans was because I didn't want other decks to be banned (like Summer Bloom for example). I was very wrong in doing so.
I also think affinity is more or less fine. It's powerful when it gets to do its thing with strong hands, but it does have bad matchups. Jund, for example, is pretty good against them. I actually feel pretty comfortable playing against affinity with Bant spirits. Even though I have a losing record, none of the games felt like blow outs. There are other decks that feel much scarier to me (looking at you hollow one) even with a similar win rate when I pilot spirits. Spirits isn't exactly the epitome of a competitive T1 strategy right now.
For what it's worth I think colorless cards are inherently more problematic to balance than anything else. By nature they're going to violate the color pie, and when you are building a card for a historic story driven powerful character you want something that's going to resonate with the players. What's the best way to get people talking about karn to build hype? Make it playable. Mark Rosewater specifically gave a shout out to this during the shadows over innistrad block and what led to emrakul being overturned.
Karn gets significantly weaker in std after rotation (he loses all of kld...). Karn is slotting into modern as a 2-3 of in an established deck with a very high bar (affinity) and no where else yet, the format doesn't have enough fast mana to get him out before T3 reliably. He's seeing legacy play in decks that can drop him t2, but he's not anymore busted then me dropping a griselbrand on T1 with protection or a t2 dark depths. Karn is fine.
Just for the record, 2 of my friends that run Affinity feel very comfortable with the Jund matchup. They play 2 Welding Jar and 3 Memnite, so they have more ways to turn 1 Steel Overseer. It's basically a quicker version, but they run 2 Karn or 3 Karn on the top end. I've played vs. Jund a few times with Affinity and although I was 1-2, the Jund draws were exceptionally well (including 4 Fatal Push by turn 4, the last being top decked and SB Shatterstorm to name a few) Also, I actually don't think that Jund is very good.
Yesterday, I played against a Jund opponent with Elves and even without exploding (I did have good hands though), I dispatched him in 3 games. This guy had beaten me the previous 4 times we played (after I had been something like 9-1 vs. him in Modern before that). So it felt pretty good. When I played EoT Chord for Elvish Archdruid into playing 2 more, he literally needed Maelstrom Pulse (or as he said, another Green source to Abrupt Decay into Anger of the Gods). My point is that it's somewhat sad that Jund can't beat a creature based combo deck.
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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)
Jund is good against it like UWR is good against it.
Got your removal and hate in hand? Nice!
Dont? Shuffle em up big guy.
I remember almost feeling bad against Affinity players when I saw an opening hand of like bolt, bolt, helix, snap, 3 lands. Then I remember all those games I lost from not having enough removal or a quick enough clock. So I guess it evens out.
Yesterday, I played against a Jund opponent with Elves and even without exploding (I did have good hands though), I dispatched him in 3 games. This guy had beaten me the previous 4 times we played (after I had been something like 9-1 vs. him in Modern before that). So it felt pretty good. When I played EoT Chord for Elvish Archdruid into playing 2 more, he literally needed Maelstrom Pulse (or as he said, another Green source to Abrupt Decay into Anger of the Gods). My point is that it's somewhat sad that Jund can't beat a creature based combo deck.
Emphasis mine.
Pah, elves has so much card advantage that I don't think midrange decks *should* be able to beat it without reconfiguring. You're gonna need to main deck sweepers if you want to beat those kinds of decks, and Jund has for years tried to get by without doing that. If you scrimp and try to cheat by playing all 1-for-1s that apply in almost every matchup, you're gonna get got by decks that generate card advantage like elves and merfolk. Them's the breaks.
Run Anger, Damnation, or Drown, or even Languish if you wanna beat creature combo decks.
Pah, elves has so much card advantage that I don't think midrange decks *should* be able to beat it without reconfiguring
To be fair, Elves VS Jund is a close MU. Elves can rarely go off and needs superior draws (I've played Elves for 2 years and stopped last year, for what it's worth). That being said, Jund already needs to run wrath effects for Humans anyway.
Song of Freyalise is a sleeper in standard, I already have a blast with it in Merfolk and Tokens, but I don't know what can be done with it in Modern. Hardened Scales may be interested since the deck lacks evasion overall.
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
True. I do think it's a close matchup. I think it's easier for Elves before sideboarding, which ended up being the game I lost oddly enough. I think you attack mana dorks and try to keep Elves from having a huge turn. Often an Elvish Archdruid can be easily tempo answered with Bolt and a Tarmogoyf or Bloodbraid Elf into Bolt.
I guess it's not necessarily "sad" per se. Elves also has Visionary and a singleton E Witness to mitigate cards like Liliana of the Veil. But then again, Elves can get their "card advantage engines" plucked from their hands and have to rely on top decks. Card for card, a Heritage Druid just isn't beating a Tarmogoyf any time soon.
I feel like it's kind of like how IdSurge and CfusionPM said, "do I have my removal?" Nope. GG. Yes, then kill all the Elves. Kind of a simplistic, yet elegant way to put 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)
So...that mox opal ban may be a thing soon. I'd be cool with it. I'm a little concerned about humans from a diversity standpoint, as it seems like every major event has humans as one of the most successful decks if not the best. Still, its tough to root for a ban of a fair deck, especially one that keeps those spell combo decks everyone hates in check.
I always root for unbans or new cards over bans, which is why I would unban preordain in the next ban announcement and have no bans.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
Bannning a card like Mox Opal would be an obvious mistake.
Lets just say Affinity becomes broken. Lets look at what happened: new card comes into a format and breaks a deck that is a pillar of the format, has had Mox Opal in the deck since the beginning of Modern, yet they ban Opal instead of the new card? It will also kill many decks from tier 1 all the way to tier 100. Doesnt make any sense.
Bannning a card like Mox Opal would be an obvious mistake.
Lets just say Affinity becomes broken. Lets look at what happened: new card comes into a format and breaks a deck that is a pillar of the format, has had Mox Opal in the deck since the beginning of Modern, yet they ban Opal instead of the new card? It will also kill many decks from tier 1 all the way to tier 100. Doesnt make any sense.
When 'x' is broken, you fix 'x', not 'y'.
Golgari-Grave Troll spent a fair deal in the format being fine. By that logic we should have banned Prized Amalgam and Cathartic Reunion instead, because they were the “new” cards.
The fact is Mox Opal is fast mana, which always has the spotlight focused on it. It enables a lot of degenerate combos, so I can see a scenario where it gets banned in Modern. I don’t think anything right now suggests that it’s in need of a banning though. Affinity just got a new toy. People haven’t figured out how to deal with it yet. Either people learn how to adapt to the new tech, or we’re unable to… that’s when it becomes a problem.
The fact is, power and “brokenness” of specific cards are relative. New cards enter the pool that make older cards broken. Does that mean we always ban the new card, because the card was fine for a long time in the format? Should we have banned Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher instead of Eye of Ugin, a card that was fine in the format for a very long time?
Again, I don't think Mox Opal is in need of any regulation, but I wouldn't assume that it's not an offending card just because it's been in the format for ages without causing any real problems.
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)
Maybe too much at once but who knows. I haven't been following the discussion around GSZ, but if it promotes fair gameplay then i think it should be fine. I'm a hige advocate for SFM since it promotes fair gameplay and will help deviate from the very heavy Aggro meta we are currently in
i could see SFM being unbanned by itself then preordain and GSZ coming off together somewhere else down the line. they could justify giving out multiple consistency tools at once
or i could see SFM being unbanned, and that being the end of it
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Bannning a card like Mox Opal would be an obvious mistake.
Lets just say Affinity becomes broken. Lets look at what happened: new card comes into a format and breaks a deck that is a pillar of the format, has had Mox Opal in the deck since the beginning of Modern, yet they ban Opal instead of the new card? It will also kill many decks from tier 1 all the way to tier 100. Doesnt make any sense.
When 'x' is broken, you fix 'x', not 'y'.
Mox Opal has been a frequent target of "this may be a problem" discussions for years. Plus, "many" decks is actually one tier one deck - affinity. Sure, it kills cheerios and KCI, and I'm okay with that. It hurts ensnaring bridge a bit, too, but actually I imagine it could survive, as would affinity, btw.
Legacy - LED Dredge, ANT & WDnT
Well its not like Elves needs help tapping for more mana. Seems win more for me. Its basically Ezuri's ability with suspend but you don't need vigilance cause they will be dead when you activate anyway. Indestructible is useful I guess but how many mass sweepers are in modern anyway? Trample is one for one. And you get two less counters which considering how small most elves are is probably a pretty significant loss.
I don't think it will be. Karn, Scion of Urza does many things better than Master of Etherium. What it doesn't do is make 1/1s into 2/2s and that is also very important. Most people think that the ability of Karn is more important than Master's abilities, mostly because it puts out several "Masters." But they can be chumped. I do think that it IS very strong. Don't get me wrong. But Affinity is fine.
If anything, Affinity probably goes up from being the 3rd/4th best deck in Modern to being the 2nd best deck.
*Lastly, I have lost a lot to Affinity recently. Still, I feel that Affinity is fine in Modern. I saw a newer player on Monday watch as my friend on Karn Affinity dropped 5 permanents on turn 1. Newer players need some sort of barometer for the format and I think Affinity is good for that. Literally the only reason that I even mentioned Affinity before when people talked about bans was because I didn't want other decks to be banned (like Summer Bloom for example). I was very wrong in doing so.
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 also think affinity is more or less fine. It's powerful when it gets to do its thing with strong hands, but it does have bad matchups. Jund, for example, is pretty good against them. I actually feel pretty comfortable playing against affinity with Bant spirits. Even though I have a losing record, none of the games felt like blow outs. There are other decks that feel much scarier to me (looking at you hollow one) even with a similar win rate when I pilot spirits. Spirits isn't exactly the epitome of a competitive T1 strategy right now.
For what it's worth I think colorless cards are inherently more problematic to balance than anything else. By nature they're going to violate the color pie, and when you are building a card for a historic story driven powerful character you want something that's going to resonate with the players. What's the best way to get people talking about karn to build hype? Make it playable. Mark Rosewater specifically gave a shout out to this during the shadows over innistrad block and what led to emrakul being overturned.
Karn gets significantly weaker in std after rotation (he loses all of kld...). Karn is slotting into modern as a 2-3 of in an established deck with a very high bar (affinity) and no where else yet, the format doesn't have enough fast mana to get him out before T3 reliably. He's seeing legacy play in decks that can drop him t2, but he's not anymore busted then me dropping a griselbrand on T1 with protection or a t2 dark depths. Karn is fine.
Yesterday, I played against a Jund opponent with Elves and even without exploding (I did have good hands though), I dispatched him in 3 games. This guy had beaten me the previous 4 times we played (after I had been something like 9-1 vs. him in Modern before that). So it felt pretty good. When I played EoT Chord for Elvish Archdruid into playing 2 more, he literally needed Maelstrom Pulse (or as he said, another Green source to Abrupt Decay into Anger of the Gods). My point is that it's somewhat sad that Jund can't beat a creature based combo deck.
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)Got your removal and hate in hand? Nice!
Dont? Shuffle em up big guy.
Spirits
I remember almost feeling bad against Affinity players when I saw an opening hand of like bolt, bolt, helix, snap, 3 lands. Then I remember all those games I lost from not having enough removal or a quick enough clock. So I guess it evens out.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
The format just has a lot of threats coming down very quickly in a variety of card types.
Emphasis mine.
Pah, elves has so much card advantage that I don't think midrange decks *should* be able to beat it without reconfiguring. You're gonna need to main deck sweepers if you want to beat those kinds of decks, and Jund has for years tried to get by without doing that. If you scrimp and try to cheat by playing all 1-for-1s that apply in almost every matchup, you're gonna get got by decks that generate card advantage like elves and merfolk. Them's the breaks.
Run Anger, Damnation, or Drown, or even Languish if you wanna beat creature combo decks.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Eh Jund is mostly ]BR, most Jund fans can presumably be playing Hollow One.
Hollow One and Jund are completely different play styles?
Spirits
To be fair, Elves VS Jund is a close MU. Elves can rarely go off and needs superior draws (I've played Elves for 2 years and stopped last year, for what it's worth). That being said, Jund already needs to run wrath effects for Humans anyway.
Song of Freyalise is a sleeper in standard, I already have a blast with it in Merfolk and Tokens, but I don't know what can be done with it in Modern. Hardened Scales may be interested since the deck lacks evasion overall.
I guess it's not necessarily "sad" per se. Elves also has Visionary and a singleton E Witness to mitigate cards like Liliana of the Veil. But then again, Elves can get their "card advantage engines" plucked from their hands and have to rely on top decks. Card for card, a Heritage Druid just isn't beating a Tarmogoyf any time soon.
I feel like it's kind of like how IdSurge and CfusionPM said, "do I have my removal?" Nope. GG. Yes, then kill all the Elves. Kind of a simplistic, yet elegant way to put 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)I always root for unbans or new cards over bans, which is why I would unban preordain in the next ban announcement and have no bans.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
Lets just say Affinity becomes broken. Lets look at what happened: new card comes into a format and breaks a deck that is a pillar of the format, has had Mox Opal in the deck since the beginning of Modern, yet they ban Opal instead of the new card? It will also kill many decks from tier 1 all the way to tier 100. Doesnt make any sense.
When 'x' is broken, you fix 'x', not 'y'.
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Golgari-Grave Troll spent a fair deal in the format being fine. By that logic we should have banned Prized Amalgam and Cathartic Reunion instead, because they were the “new” cards.
The fact is Mox Opal is fast mana, which always has the spotlight focused on it. It enables a lot of degenerate combos, so I can see a scenario where it gets banned in Modern. I don’t think anything right now suggests that it’s in need of a banning though. Affinity just got a new toy. People haven’t figured out how to deal with it yet. Either people learn how to adapt to the new tech, or we’re unable to… that’s when it becomes a problem.
The fact is, power and “brokenness” of specific cards are relative. New cards enter the pool that make older cards broken. Does that mean we always ban the new card, because the card was fine for a long time in the format? Should we have banned Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher instead of Eye of Ugin, a card that was fine in the format for a very long time?
Again, I don't think Mox Opal is in need of any regulation, but I wouldn't assume that it's not an offending card just because it's been in the format for ages without causing any real problems.
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
In all seriousness though I don't want to ban anything.
Unban preordain, and SFM, and call it a day for a bit.
Spirits
...and Green Sun's Zenith! (or is that too much at once?)
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)URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
or i could see SFM being unbanned, and that being the end of it
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I'm biased against GSZ, sorry.
Spirits
Mox Opal has been a frequent target of "this may be a problem" discussions for years. Plus, "many" decks is actually one tier one deck - affinity. Sure, it kills cheerios and KCI, and I'm okay with that. It hurts ensnaring bridge a bit, too, but actually I imagine it could survive, as would affinity, btw.
I smell bias...
Wanna grind that axe a little harder there?
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon