I'm a combo guy, but I couldn't fully follow the KCI in the finals. I don't expect a ban, I think the deck itself if fine enough. But I do expect some minor rules changes like WOTC does periodicly to fix things. Nass kept talking about taking advantage of some rules that no body initially understood to produce more mana. It reminded me of mogg fanatic killing two creatures or cascading into beck//call. This deck fine and would survive those small changes.
A bigger risk is the same thing that happened with second sunrise. New people playing it real slow and causing tournament problems could happen. I think the emrakul version we saw will be the version we see the most of moving forward because it's simpler and cleaner.
yeah that is what i referred to with part of the 'skill' required to play the deck is being able to navigate some of the more non-intuitive interactions. its mostly to do with mana abilities not technically dealing with the stack, but you can manipulate activations/triggers around when the mana enters your pool. i read a write-up about it on reddit a while back when i wanted to get some insight on how to play against the deck. it was complicated.
edit: for example here is a quote from an article on KCI by Nass not too long ago:
Myr Retriever + two 1-cost cards. This is the trickiest loop. It relies on the fact that when paying costs for something you can use mana abilities essentially simultaneously. Sacrificing Scrap Trawler and Retriever this way allows them to return each other. The trick here is to announce one of the 1-drops, sacrifice Retriever, Trawler, and the other one to cast it, and then loop this way, either sacrificing a Chromatic Star or Terrarion to draw cards or sacrificing a 0-cost card along with the loop to make mana.
I was going to check in with some GP lessons from the weekend, but we're missing the T9-T16 decks due to some technical error. This really limits our ability to see a full picture, because everyone from 3rd place to 14th place had 39 points. At the minimum, we need those lists to make any real conclusions. The only conclusion I am confident in drawing is that KCI is the secret best deck of Modern right now. The only reasons I'm not playing it are because a) it's a huge pain to play on MTGO and b) some of the best interactions in the deck don't function in the client as they do in paper.
From the T8 profiles, we saw 5 of the T8 players on decks they are experienced with, 2 on audibles, and 1 unknown. This largely supports the theory that Modern rewards players who stick with decks rather than those who jump around:
Unknown: Kassis - he did not say how long he had been playing KCI. Anyone know? Practiced deck: Tierny - " I wanted to play something wacky, but I have great friends and they made play the deck I have the most experience with." Practiced deck: Nass - playing KCI almost exclusively all year Audible: Juza - "I just figured I'd take it easy and play a good aggressive deck with no preparation. It worked out pretty well." Practiced deck:: Ramsey - "It is my favorite deck, and one I stick with most of the time." Audible: Mick - "I had finals and playing decks other than Tron is hard without testing." Practiced deck: Friedman - GDS is his baby and was his 8-2 PT deck
I think we've also buried the myth that Jeskai is a bad deck. I know people who don't like this deck will still find reasons not to like it (e.g. "it's just a meta call," "it's only good because of Humans," etc.), but the numbers no longer support these claims. The deck just has too many 2018 T8 placements.
Second consecutive ancient stirring final. It was KCI vs amulet then, its kci vs tron now.
Interesting stuff: 4 ancient stirrings deck into the top 8.
I sincerely believe the card is getting banned until february, for reasons i said yesterday.
Too much consistency into the deck it goes, logistic issues in lantern and kci.
Consistency never got a cantrip banned on its own. The only Modern cantrips cited alongside consistency issues (Ponder and Preordain) were part of a T4 rule-violating deck before they got targeted. Their consistency boost in UR decks was just the reason those cards got picked as the problems in T4 rule-violating deck. Tron, Lantern, and KCI do not appear to be violating any rules, including logistical ones, so Stirrings is unlikely to be in the same crosshairs. Does anyone have any information to show that KCI/Lantern create the same issues as Second Sunrise Eggs? I remember the Reddit post that showed Lantern went to time even less than UW Control at the Pro Tour, so clearly that deck isn't the issue. Did we see KCI go to extra rounds this weekend or in the past? If not, I don't see logistical issues with that deck either.
That said, I do think it is clear that Stirrings should not be legal while Preordain is banned. That hasn't made sense for a while, and it makes even less sense now. There are three top-tier, GP/PT-finishing decks that use Stirrings. The only scary deck that could use Preordain, Storm, is far less competitive now than it once was. The other decks that could use Preordain are eminently fair. I would much rather see Wizards open up Modern with an SFM and Preordain unban and just go from there.
man Juza's quote is so reminiscent of twin. pros would just audible to the deck because it was an easy option and had game against everything.
lazy pros are gonna get humans banned!
just kidding (probably...)
i wasnt aware that not all of the kci interactions worked on mtgo. interesting. i can understand decks not being played because of interface restrictions on 'infinite' combos, but a deck not functioning seems...wrong.
also if its clear that stirrings shouldnt be legal with preordain banned, doesnt that mean if they dont wanna unban preordain they should ban stirrings?
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the version of eggs with second sunrise (aka second breakfast) was way slower than kci is. like high tide level slow. it wasnt a deterministic loop that you could demonstrate, and thus shortcut.
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A reason to ban Ancient Stirrings is that the card gets stronger everytime new colorless cards get printed, it means lands, artifacts, other colorless spells. Considered this way, it follows the reasoning of Birthing Pod, i.e. power level, not consistency (becoming here the #2 pro-ban argument). Stirrings become better than blue cantrips over time, not because of consistency but because of raw power.
The Stirrings discussion isn't new, the first time it was considered was when Amulet Bloom was doing its KCI impression (complicated deck that may be secretly the best thing in the format). At the same era or maybe later, Gx Tron was sorta making waves (especially with the printing of Ugin and new eldrazis afterwards), I even remember people building Gx Eldrazi decks just prior the Eldrazi Winter. The card then strengthened the fairer Bant Eldrazi, then a new weirdo appeared : Lantern control.
It's clear the card has been on Wizards' watchlist for a long time, since it's mainly played in decks that wanna do broken things. Fact is other cards were banned from these archetypes instead (Summer Bloom, Eye of Ugin).
Let's note most of the Stirrings decks want to cheat on mana : Eldrazi Temple, Tron, Mox Opal, Amulet of Vigor, Simian Spirit Guide.
Imho, there's a problem that is not about KCI, but about decks that combine the high power level cards mentionned above. I don't care about KCI itself, like @tronix says, it's a way faster deck than Eggs and doesn't cause logistic issues so far. It's close to UR Storm, Jeskai Ascendancy or even Amulet Titan when the player goes off in a single turn.
Argument no.2: Even if you unban those two cantrips at the moment, no combo deck is going to violate the turn 4 rule criterion, at least not more than before.
This argument is misleading though. Many decks already violate the T4 rule, and better blue cantrips statistically increase their consistency to do so. The part of the sentence "no combo deck is going to violate the turn 4 criterion" is a lie to begin with, so I guess that argument should be re-worded to have any sort of relevance.
the fact that Preordain is banned is a hypocrisy from WOTC's side.
I don't know. There were more threatening cards in the eyes of Wizards, they took the bullet and covered Stirrings (and the other cards I mentionned above) so far. There was no chance to unban blue cantrips in the eras of Modern where some blue decks were very powerful, i.e. Ad Naus, Storm, Ascendancy, Twin, Delver at some point, etc... It's a cautious move first. By unbanning JtMS, they managed to give U fair decks a card that U unfair decks wouldn't take advantage of, so I believe they're doing their job in good faith overall.
I think Wizards is going to consider Stirrings more now, as they're witnessing the rise of Stirrings decks the same way we do. Modern has to suffer more KCI + Tron dominance before they make a move though.
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If I were anyone important at Wizards, I would look at the flashbacked Faithless Looting the turn before Matt Nass won game 3 of the semifinals and Karn and Oblivion Stone doing absolutely nothing in the game Matt Nass won in the finals, shrug, and move on. Eggs is fine, and opponents' bad decisions against it hold no bearing on its ban-worthiness.
powerful enablers, no matter how narrow, will naturally rise to the top as the card pool grows. i dont think there is sufficient evidence to take action right now, but stirrings continues to be brought up through the years; and its very unlikely to be solely based on blue mage bias.
so yeah i wouldnt be surprised if its on some watchlist alongside cards like opal, SSG, and street wraith. to be fair though a whole host of cards scale incredibly well. it just takes a powerful enabling effect at a great rate. mana acceleration, tutors, selection, generating a resource (GY), etc.
for example darksteel citadel. the sole remaining artifact land. not exactly a problem card, but as more cards that care about artifacts flow into the format it gains more and more utility.
so it comes down to whether enablers or the payoffs should be the target.
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I wouldn't be upset with a Stirrings ban. It doesn't flat-out kill any decks, but it does weaken a lot of the decks that people consider are unfun to play against (KCI, Lantern, Tron). It seems like a fine ban that wouldn't upset people to see go
Also, I have a feeling that we are not even getting the 9-16 decklists. Hopefully, I am wrong.
You're wrong but boy are they awful. Another KCI plus H1, Humans, an unknown deck, and 4 Tron.
Re: KCI logistics
Again, no one has actually showed KCI to create time problems in rounds. You said it like it was a fact but never cited anything. Did this happen at the GP? Did this happen at previous GP? Eggs had some highly visible round problems when it got banned and Stirrings decks, notably KCI, don't seem to share that problem. I'm totally open to this deck having logistical problems, but no one has proved it yet.
Re: KCI power
The deck is clearly very good, but it has a small metagame share so that shouldn't matter. Lantern had a similar run in 2017 and Wizards thought that was fine. No deck was banned for having strong finishes but an overall small share. Except Eggs, but as we just noted, no one has actually proven KCI has those logistical issues.
Re: Stirrings and Preordain
Rationale that keeps a card banned does not necessarily apply to a new card the way we think it should. Maybe Wizards thinks Preordain is more versatile and therefore a bigger consistency tool than Stirrings. Maybe Wizards just wants blue to be less powerful. Stirrings was a consistency tool for years and Wizards thought that was healthy, so clearly there are some standing contradictions in their logic.
Nobody wants to watch GP's like that. Literally 60% of the meta are colourless decks, and 70-80% of the meta are uninteractive decks.
This is not a ban criterion, so it doesn't really apply to a banlist discussion.
Decks liks Jund, Jeskai(albeit one copy), Abzan Midrange, Mardu Pyro(did well here), Grixis, Esper. Meaning fairer combinations. We need more of those.
Huge, huge problelms. W is going obsolete, colourless decks leading Modern's "colour pie", fair decks just represented with 1-2 mere copies in the top 16's, Ancient Stirrings being legal while Preordain is banned, Stoneforge Mystic looking like a joke in the Banlist.
This was the biggest Modern gp of the year. I waited so much for this to draw conclusions. And I have to say that Modern is looking ugly right now. We need some form of action, whether it being unbans, or an Ancient Stirrings ban. Prefer the first.
As you said, this is not an argument to ban anything, but it is an argument for unbans. I think we're all on the same page abut this. I'm sure they will unban SFM and maybe another card to help out those types of decks.
Maybe Wizards will ban the common denominator again: As they did with Gitaxian Probe while this was slotting into multiple creature based aggro decks(Infect, DSZoo, UR Prowess) they could ban Ancient Stirrings now, as it's the common denominator in Lantern(hateable deck, possibly logistics), KCI(turn 3 kill on cam, possibly logistic issues), Tron(3ple top 8, 6 copies in the top 16 are the numbers).
Probe got banned because it was contributing to T2-T3 kills in a variety of decks. That's a clear T4 rule violation. Stirrings is less clear. To my knowledge, Wizards has never banned a card in Modern because it was empowering multiple top-tier decks with different potential issues, especially when those issues are unproven. Lantern being hate-worthy is not a ban criterion, and Wizards said Modern was healthy after numerous cycles of Lantern appearance. KCI does not actually violate the T4 rule despite having a T3 kill on camera. I'm sure if we looked at all the KCI performances, we would see it wins in T3 in <10% of games. But it's up to the ban camp to prove this anyway, so go ahead and run the numbers if you disagree. I will say that KCI seems ridiculously good, but a low-share deck with top finishes does not lead to bans until it becomes a high share deck. As for logistical issues, "possible" logistical issues is also not a ban criterion. People who want this banned need to prove their case.
As for Tron, that's a potential metagame dominance issue, not T4 or logistics, and Tron saw very little play in the previous 2 GP and PT this year. This also doesn't seem like an issue. If Tron were to repeat this performance in the next 2 GP, that would be a different story. But as it stands, it just seems like a metagame cycle.
This is flat out wrong. There are no Modern decks that violate the T4 rule consistently(of course that's what's important). The most notable T4 rule violator, Storm, was calculated in ~12% region by KTKenshinx.
Yes so that's not what I meant, I meant that many decks can win on Turn 3 with acceptable consistency, and I can add some of them have been high-tier decks. I'll reword my own post then :
there's no data that demonstrates Preordain / Ponder would not increase the consistency of Turn 3 kills. It's actually pretty obvious it would, the same way Stirrings helps you dig for your Karn on Turn 3 better than Oath of Nissa. Unbanning those cards is a step towards turning that 12% number into a higher one, a potential deck that would violate the rule according to the extended definition. That's a risk that is denied in the "argument" :
no combo deck is going to violate the turn 4 rule criterion, at least not more than before.
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Man, how hard is it for them to publish a working/correct decklist article? I went to bed last night when it still said "access denied" which was an hour and a half after they posted it. Currently it says 2 lists got 9th, Joe Lossett's list has no name, James Vance's has the sideboard mixed into the maindeck, and the 12th place list was unobtainable. Did I miss anything? This is like 12 hours after they first published it. Comically bad. Also give us the damn top 32 ya jerks.
On topic though, it looks like this event made up for all the recent SCGs where Tron flopped, and finally more people are catching on to how busted KCI is.
Ancient Stirrings is extremely good in a deck built around it. Ad Nauseam is extremely good in a deck built around it. Slippery Bogle is extremely good in a deck built around it. Modern is filled with cards that are okay on their own, but become extremely good in a deck built to make them work. Which is the difference between Stirrings and Preordain/Ponder/Serum Visions. Stirrings is better in the decks it is good in than those cantrips, but Serum Visions is the 3rd most played card in modern (ahead of Thoughtseize even) for a reason.
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I think we've also buried the myth that Jeskai is a bad deck. I know people who don't like this deck will still find reasons not to like it (e.g. "it's just a meta call," "it's only good because of Humans," etc.), but the numbers no longer support these claims. The deck just has too many 2018 T8 placements.
I missed this. Did I piss in your cornflakes or something? I have said, UWR is a good deck, but if you remove it's prey in humans, and you honestly think that murderers row of a top 16 (and Mardu was just outside that top 16 from what I can see on twitter) is fine to run UWR into?
I'm of the opinion, and on record that UWR is good. Search and Teferi have gotten it to that point (a good 2+ years after Twin was banned for oppressing it right?) But Tron was the right call for this event. I was right on that too. Infraction issued for flaming. --CavalryWolfPack
Lyon T8 had 1 RG Eldrazi (winner) and 4 mono-green Tron. Everyone laughed it off at the time, but now there are 3 KCIs (incl. 1 winner) and 6 mono-green Trons in the T16 of this event.
It's easy to point the finger at Ancient Stirrings since it's the common card in these decks, but they also have other objectionable things, like lands that tap for 2+ mana (Eldrazi Temple, Urza's Mine) and a literal Mox. Also note how Damping Sphere failed to stop Tron and KCI.
Lyon T8 had 1 RG Eldrazi (winner) and 4 mono-green Tron. Everyone laughed it off at the time, but now there are 3 KCIs (incl. 1 winner) and 6 mono-green Trons in the T16 of this event.
It's easy to point the finger at Ancient Stirrings since it's the common card in these decks, but they also have other objectionable things, like lands that tap for 2+ mana (Eldrazi Temple, Urza's Mine) and a literal Mox. Also note how Damping Sphere failed to stop Tron and KCI.
The next two modern Grand Prix had one copy of tron and one copy of KCI between them. That's probably why people didn't think they were broken.
I missed this. Did I piss in your cornflakes or something? I have said, UWR is a good deck, but if you remove it's prey in humans, and you honestly think that murderers row of a top 16 (and Mardu was just outside that top 16 from what I can see on twitter) is fine to run UWR into?
No need to get so sharp in the comments. I wasn't referring to a specific post you made, rather a general sentiment that a number of critics in this thread keep mentioning. It's fine to suggest that Jeskai is doing well because Humans is a good target. But it's not fine to suggest that this makes Jeskai unusual relative to other top-tier Modern decks. I have seen more than a few comments in this thread that imply, or state, that Jeskai's positioning is a temporary factor without also acknowledging that other widely hated decks like Gx Tron, Affinity, Bogles, Titan Shift, etc. also benefit from metagame positioning. This is true of basically all Modern decks. Jeskai is right alongside all those other strategies and should not be treated as if it is somehow less worthy because it benefits from metagame positioning. If that wasn't your intent then I'm sorry for attributing that to your post (but it is definitely the intent of other users and still worth being called out).
At this point, I agree that Preordain either needs to be unbanned or Stirrings needs to be banned. There are just too many top-tier Stirrings decks with a high metagame profile. It's no longer just a niche dig spell. It's the cornerstone of a series of major decks. Other cantri-using decks either need a comparable tool or Stirrings needs to go. I also think, more importantly, that Wizards is going to start seeing things the same way as the year progresses. If we get another T16 like this one, it's going to be hard for R&D to ignore. That said, I don't think bans will be their first option. Modern has been in a great period for 1.5 years, which has been a ban-free time with 2 widely-desired unbans. I expect we will see SFM unbanned before, or alongside, either Preordain's unbanning/Stirrings' banning.
I agree with KTK here for the most part, but I really hope that they simply unban Preordain if they do anything at all. If there were a longer history of legitimate, unquestionable dominance in Stirrings decks (as opposed to simply having a decent number of T1 decks with no egregious meta shares) I might support a Stirrings ban, but I'd much rather boost the power level of other decks and save bans for truly broken decks like Pod or Eye of Ugin Eldrazi. I don't acknowledge that it's fair that Stirrings is OK but Preordain isn't when we have maybe 3 notable T1 decks that'd use it (UWx Control, GDS and Storm, add to the list if I'm wrong), but I also don't like the idea of removing options when we could just shorten the ban list and see if everyone else can catch up before crippling others.
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If you are going to paraphrase me, and I don't see anyone else on the UWR discussion around here call me out directly. I'm a big boy, I've been around the web awhile.
Otherwise it looks like a lot of passive aggressive shade.
I do feel that UWR benefits disproportionately than the other Tier 1 decks.
Without a target in Humans, is it going to see play against Tron? GDS? Mardu? KCI?
People say the Humans match is 55-45 for UWR, but if you build for it, in my experience it's better.
I said weeks ago that Humans consolidation of aggro would enable UWR, and it's either that or Teferi is a beast.
If Humans was less of a force, we would see less UWR, I don't think that's unfair.
Right now there are three widely played cantrips in Modern. Serum Visions goes into any blue deck, fair or unfair. Faithless Looting goes into red graveyard-based decks like Mardu Pyromancer or Hollow One (ok, this one is technically not a cantrip, but if we want to compare what consistency tools each color has, it's their best representative). And Ancient Stirrings goes into colorless decks splashing green, i.e. our beloved KCI and Tron.
IMO one overlooked component of KCI's success is its maindeck Engineered Explosives. It serves a whole bunch of purposes: 0-drop to return off any egg if you don't have Mox, 1-drop to go infinite in the deterministic loop, wiper of aggro boards, and killer of hate permanents. There is little opportunity cost to playing it in KCI: in matchups where it is good, you start with 3 of them maindeck and 4 Stirrings to grab them; in matchups where it is bad, it still works as a combo piece G1.
If you are going to paraphrase me, and I don't see anyone else on the UWR discussion around here call me out directly. I'm a big boy, I've been around the web awhile.
Otherwise it looks like a lot of passive aggressive shade.
You, CFP, Nyzzeh, and GK have all recently made disparaging remarks about Jeskai in the manner I described. You just happened to make the most recent comments of that group. Rather than find specific quotes for all four of you, plus other quotes from users who contribute less frequently, I just talked about the critics collectively.
I do feel that UWR benefits disproportionately than the other Tier 1 decks
Without a target in Humans, is it going to see play against Tron? GDS? Mardu? KCI?
Tron was basically absent for most of early 2018. Affinity, E-Tron, and Titan Shift also had major downshifts throughout 2017. Many decks get huge benefits from metagame positioning. It's not just Jeskai.
I said weeks ago that Humans consolidation of aggro would enable UWR, and it's either that or Teferi is a beast.
If Humans was less of a force, we would see less UWR, I don't think that's unfair.
We've seen Jeskai put up consistent performances all year and we've seen the same small group of users in this thread consistently dismiss those results for various reasons. Sure, if we saw less Human presence, we'd see less Jeskai presence too. But that's treated as some special exception where Jeskai is uniquely vulnerable to metagame shifts, when we know all top-tier Modern decks have similar weaknesses. See Tron for early 2018 for a glaring example of this, which no one mentions.
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yeah that is what i referred to with part of the 'skill' required to play the deck is being able to navigate some of the more non-intuitive interactions. its mostly to do with mana abilities not technically dealing with the stack, but you can manipulate activations/triggers around when the mana enters your pool. i read a write-up about it on reddit a while back when i wanted to get some insight on how to play against the deck. it was complicated.
edit: for example here is a quote from an article on KCI by Nass not too long ago:
reference: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/how-to-kci/
edit2: found the reddit article i referenced https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/8gfw7d/krarkclan_ironworks_by_the_rules/
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)From the T8 profiles, we saw 5 of the T8 players on decks they are experienced with, 2 on audibles, and 1 unknown. This largely supports the theory that Modern rewards players who stick with decks rather than those who jump around:
Unknown: Kassis - he did not say how long he had been playing KCI. Anyone know?
Practiced deck: Tierny - " I wanted to play something wacky, but I have great friends and they made play the deck I have the most experience with."
Practiced deck: Nass - playing KCI almost exclusively all year
Audible: Juza - "I just figured I'd take it easy and play a good aggressive deck with no preparation. It worked out pretty well."
Practiced deck:: Ramsey - "It is my favorite deck, and one I stick with most of the time."
Audible: Mick - "I had finals and playing decks other than Tron is hard without testing."
Practiced deck: Friedman - GDS is his baby and was his 8-2 PT deck
I think we've also buried the myth that Jeskai is a bad deck. I know people who don't like this deck will still find reasons not to like it (e.g. "it's just a meta call," "it's only good because of Humans," etc.), but the numbers no longer support these claims. The deck just has too many 2018 T8 placements.
Consistency never got a cantrip banned on its own. The only Modern cantrips cited alongside consistency issues (Ponder and Preordain) were part of a T4 rule-violating deck before they got targeted. Their consistency boost in UR decks was just the reason those cards got picked as the problems in T4 rule-violating deck. Tron, Lantern, and KCI do not appear to be violating any rules, including logistical ones, so Stirrings is unlikely to be in the same crosshairs. Does anyone have any information to show that KCI/Lantern create the same issues as Second Sunrise Eggs? I remember the Reddit post that showed Lantern went to time even less than UW Control at the Pro Tour, so clearly that deck isn't the issue. Did we see KCI go to extra rounds this weekend or in the past? If not, I don't see logistical issues with that deck either.
That said, I do think it is clear that Stirrings should not be legal while Preordain is banned. That hasn't made sense for a while, and it makes even less sense now. There are three top-tier, GP/PT-finishing decks that use Stirrings. The only scary deck that could use Preordain, Storm, is far less competitive now than it once was. The other decks that could use Preordain are eminently fair. I would much rather see Wizards open up Modern with an SFM and Preordain unban and just go from there.
lazy pros are gonna get humans banned!
just kidding (probably...)
i wasnt aware that not all of the kci interactions worked on mtgo. interesting. i can understand decks not being played because of interface restrictions on 'infinite' combos, but a deck not functioning seems...wrong.
also if its clear that stirrings shouldnt be legal with preordain banned, doesnt that mean if they dont wanna unban preordain they should ban stirrings?
UWGSnow-Bant Control
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WCDeath and Taxes(sold)UWGSnow-Bant Control
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WCDeath and Taxes(sold)The Stirrings discussion isn't new, the first time it was considered was when Amulet Bloom was doing its KCI impression (complicated deck that may be secretly the best thing in the format). At the same era or maybe later, Gx Tron was sorta making waves (especially with the printing of Ugin and new eldrazis afterwards), I even remember people building Gx Eldrazi decks just prior the Eldrazi Winter. The card then strengthened the fairer Bant Eldrazi, then a new weirdo appeared : Lantern control.
It's clear the card has been on Wizards' watchlist for a long time, since it's mainly played in decks that wanna do broken things. Fact is other cards were banned from these archetypes instead (Summer Bloom, Eye of Ugin).
Let's note most of the Stirrings decks want to cheat on mana : Eldrazi Temple, Tron, Mox Opal, Amulet of Vigor, Simian Spirit Guide.
Imho, there's a problem that is not about KCI, but about decks that combine the high power level cards mentionned above. I don't care about KCI itself, like @tronix says, it's a way faster deck than Eggs and doesn't cause logistic issues so far. It's close to UR Storm, Jeskai Ascendancy or even Amulet Titan when the player goes off in a single turn.
This argument is misleading though. Many decks already violate the T4 rule, and better blue cantrips statistically increase their consistency to do so. The part of the sentence "no combo deck is going to violate the turn 4 criterion" is a lie to begin with, so I guess that argument should be re-worded to have any sort of relevance.
I don't know. There were more threatening cards in the eyes of Wizards, they took the bullet and covered Stirrings (and the other cards I mentionned above) so far. There was no chance to unban blue cantrips in the eras of Modern where some blue decks were very powerful, i.e. Ad Naus, Storm, Ascendancy, Twin, Delver at some point, etc... It's a cautious move first. By unbanning JtMS, they managed to give U fair decks a card that U unfair decks wouldn't take advantage of, so I believe they're doing their job in good faith overall.
I think Wizards is going to consider Stirrings more now, as they're witnessing the rise of Stirrings decks the same way we do. Modern has to suffer more KCI + Tron dominance before they make a move though.
so yeah i wouldnt be surprised if its on some watchlist alongside cards like opal, SSG, and street wraith. to be fair though a whole host of cards scale incredibly well. it just takes a powerful enabling effect at a great rate. mana acceleration, tutors, selection, generating a resource (GY), etc.
for example darksteel citadel. the sole remaining artifact land. not exactly a problem card, but as more cards that care about artifacts flow into the format it gains more and more utility.
so it comes down to whether enablers or the payoffs should be the target.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I don't think anything from humans needs a ban.
You're wrong but boy are they awful. Another KCI plus H1, Humans, an unknown deck, and 4 Tron.
Re: KCI logistics
Again, no one has actually showed KCI to create time problems in rounds. You said it like it was a fact but never cited anything. Did this happen at the GP? Did this happen at previous GP? Eggs had some highly visible round problems when it got banned and Stirrings decks, notably KCI, don't seem to share that problem. I'm totally open to this deck having logistical problems, but no one has proved it yet.
Re: KCI power
The deck is clearly very good, but it has a small metagame share so that shouldn't matter. Lantern had a similar run in 2017 and Wizards thought that was fine. No deck was banned for having strong finishes but an overall small share. Except Eggs, but as we just noted, no one has actually proven KCI has those logistical issues.
Re: Stirrings and Preordain
Rationale that keeps a card banned does not necessarily apply to a new card the way we think it should. Maybe Wizards thinks Preordain is more versatile and therefore a bigger consistency tool than Stirrings. Maybe Wizards just wants blue to be less powerful. Stirrings was a consistency tool for years and Wizards thought that was healthy, so clearly there are some standing contradictions in their logic.
This is not a ban criterion, so it doesn't really apply to a banlist discussion.
As you said, this is not an argument to ban anything, but it is an argument for unbans. I think we're all on the same page abut this. I'm sure they will unban SFM and maybe another card to help out those types of decks.
Probe got banned because it was contributing to T2-T3 kills in a variety of decks. That's a clear T4 rule violation. Stirrings is less clear. To my knowledge, Wizards has never banned a card in Modern because it was empowering multiple top-tier decks with different potential issues, especially when those issues are unproven. Lantern being hate-worthy is not a ban criterion, and Wizards said Modern was healthy after numerous cycles of Lantern appearance. KCI does not actually violate the T4 rule despite having a T3 kill on camera. I'm sure if we looked at all the KCI performances, we would see it wins in T3 in <10% of games. But it's up to the ban camp to prove this anyway, so go ahead and run the numbers if you disagree. I will say that KCI seems ridiculously good, but a low-share deck with top finishes does not lead to bans until it becomes a high share deck. As for logistical issues, "possible" logistical issues is also not a ban criterion. People who want this banned need to prove their case.
As for Tron, that's a potential metagame dominance issue, not T4 or logistics, and Tron saw very little play in the previous 2 GP and PT this year. This also doesn't seem like an issue. If Tron were to repeat this performance in the next 2 GP, that would be a different story. But as it stands, it just seems like a metagame cycle.
Yes so that's not what I meant, I meant that many decks can win on Turn 3 with acceptable consistency, and I can add some of them have been high-tier decks. I'll reword my own post then :
there's no data that demonstrates Preordain / Ponder would not increase the consistency of Turn 3 kills. It's actually pretty obvious it would, the same way Stirrings helps you dig for your Karn on Turn 3 better than Oath of Nissa. Unbanning those cards is a step towards turning that 12% number into a higher one, a potential deck that would violate the rule according to the extended definition. That's a risk that is denied in the "argument" :
Hilariously bad.
Spirits
https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gplv18-modern/9-16-decklists-2018-06-16
On topic though, it looks like this event made up for all the recent SCGs where Tron flopped, and finally more people are catching on to how busted KCI is.
Spirits
I missed this. Did I piss in your cornflakes or something? I have said, UWR is a good deck, but if you remove it's prey in humans, and you honestly think that murderers row of a top 16 (and Mardu was just outside that top 16 from what I can see on twitter) is fine to run UWR into?
I'm of the opinion, and on record that UWR is good. Search and Teferi have gotten it to that point (a good 2+ years after Twin was banned for oppressing it right?) But Tron was the right call for this event. I was right on that too.
Infraction issued for flaming. --CavalryWolfPack
Spirits
It's easy to point the finger at Ancient Stirrings since it's the common card in these decks, but they also have other objectionable things, like lands that tap for 2+ mana (Eldrazi Temple, Urza's Mine) and a literal Mox. Also note how Damping Sphere failed to stop Tron and KCI.
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Big Johnny.
Tron and Storm can deal with hate.
Spirits
The next two modern Grand Prix had one copy of tron and one copy of KCI between them. That's probably why people didn't think they were broken.
No need to get so sharp in the comments. I wasn't referring to a specific post you made, rather a general sentiment that a number of critics in this thread keep mentioning. It's fine to suggest that Jeskai is doing well because Humans is a good target. But it's not fine to suggest that this makes Jeskai unusual relative to other top-tier Modern decks. I have seen more than a few comments in this thread that imply, or state, that Jeskai's positioning is a temporary factor without also acknowledging that other widely hated decks like Gx Tron, Affinity, Bogles, Titan Shift, etc. also benefit from metagame positioning. This is true of basically all Modern decks. Jeskai is right alongside all those other strategies and should not be treated as if it is somehow less worthy because it benefits from metagame positioning. If that wasn't your intent then I'm sorry for attributing that to your post (but it is definitely the intent of other users and still worth being called out).
At this point, I agree that Preordain either needs to be unbanned or Stirrings needs to be banned. There are just too many top-tier Stirrings decks with a high metagame profile. It's no longer just a niche dig spell. It's the cornerstone of a series of major decks. Other cantri-using decks either need a comparable tool or Stirrings needs to go. I also think, more importantly, that Wizards is going to start seeing things the same way as the year progresses. If we get another T16 like this one, it's going to be hard for R&D to ignore. That said, I don't think bans will be their first option. Modern has been in a great period for 1.5 years, which has been a ban-free time with 2 widely-desired unbans. I expect we will see SFM unbanned before, or alongside, either Preordain's unbanning/Stirrings' banning.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Modern:
UWUW Control
UBRGrixis Shadow
URIzzet Phoenix
Otherwise it looks like a lot of passive aggressive shade.
I do feel that UWR benefits disproportionately than the other Tier 1 decks.
Without a target in Humans, is it going to see play against Tron? GDS? Mardu? KCI?
People say the Humans match is 55-45 for UWR, but if you build for it, in my experience it's better.
I said weeks ago that Humans consolidation of aggro would enable UWR, and it's either that or Teferi is a beast.
If Humans was less of a force, we would see less UWR, I don't think that's unfair.
Spirits
IMO one overlooked component of KCI's success is its maindeck Engineered Explosives. It serves a whole bunch of purposes: 0-drop to return off any egg if you don't have Mox, 1-drop to go infinite in the deterministic loop, wiper of aggro boards, and killer of hate permanents. There is little opportunity cost to playing it in KCI: in matchups where it is good, you start with 3 of them maindeck and 4 Stirrings to grab them; in matchups where it is bad, it still works as a combo piece G1.
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Big Johnny.
You, CFP, Nyzzeh, and GK have all recently made disparaging remarks about Jeskai in the manner I described. You just happened to make the most recent comments of that group. Rather than find specific quotes for all four of you, plus other quotes from users who contribute less frequently, I just talked about the critics collectively.
Tron was basically absent for most of early 2018. Affinity, E-Tron, and Titan Shift also had major downshifts throughout 2017. Many decks get huge benefits from metagame positioning. It's not just Jeskai.
We've seen Jeskai put up consistent performances all year and we've seen the same small group of users in this thread consistently dismiss those results for various reasons. Sure, if we saw less Human presence, we'd see less Jeskai presence too. But that's treated as some special exception where Jeskai is uniquely vulnerable to metagame shifts, when we know all top-tier Modern decks have similar weaknesses. See Tron for early 2018 for a glaring example of this, which no one mentions.