I am not convinced there was an implied agreement to preserve secondary market prices outside of the Reserved List, at least for cards which are Modern legal. As you mention in the article, one of Wizards' stated reasons for establishing the Modern format was to have a non-rotating format that wouldn't present a significant price barrier to entry. I think it's pretty clear that this constitutes an announcement by Wizards that there is no promise of value retention in Modern-legal cards, that what has been true for cards before Modern is no longer true. In this case, there isn't merely an omission of a verbal/written contract; there is a stated rejection of such a contract. Wizards essentially said, with the Modern format, "We are providing these cards but you are hereafter warned that they are open to reprint at any time."
That being said, I can't help but wonder if there is a point where enough time has gone by, much like a statute of limitations, where that original statement becomes invalid. Even though Wizards appeared to intend this to be the rule for Modern, they have not really lived up to that. Personally, I consider the low price barrier concept an essential point of having the format. However, we now live in a time when certain cards in Modern cost more than the expensive cards did in Legacy at the time when Modern was created.
I honestly think Wizards should consider banning cards from Modern purely based on their price having risen too high. Either that or do a real reprint of these cards (Modern Masters doesn't count because the price per pack still presents a significant price barrier).
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- tchntm43
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This is an old combo for generating infinite mana as early as turn 3. Usually Walking Ballista is given as a win condition. I also suspect that a "best" version of this deck might use Mox Opal.
However, my Mox Opals are already spoken for in Affinity (And I'm definitely not buying 4 more), and Walking Ballista is a bit pricey as well. What else can this deck do with infinite mana of any color? I'm thinking the goal is to draw as many cards as necessary to get to Banefire, which the deck only needs a single copy of. The rest of the deck should be card draw (and a lot of it, I'm actually wondering if this might be the Modern deck that can use Enter the Infinite, although it might just be better to use Pull from Tomorrow and Mind Spring, or use all of them), and counter magic.
I don't agree with this, and I'll explain why. Counterspell doesn't have a home. It's not good enough to see play in Legacy or Vintage, where instead cards like Force of Will, Mana Drain, Daze, and Mental Misstep rule. This is very sad for one of the defining cards of the entire game. A card that isn't strong enough to see play in Legacy should, I argue, be playable in Modern. And if that isn't the case, then Modern should adjust for that to be true.
Standard already has the unstated rule that hard counters always cost 3 mana. Standard is supposed to be lower power level than Modern. We're basing the notion that Counterspell is too good for Modern simply on the fact that it has never been a part of Modern. I would suggest that when we consider "Is this card too powerful for Modern?" a way of answering that is to consider instead "Had this card been last printed in 8th Edition, would it be on Modern's current ban list?" In the case of Counterspell, I think it is extremely unlikely.
I was talking to my brother about the new Surveil cards, and it rekindled an idea I had about a deck that uses Dredge mechanics to dump cards in the graveyard, in order to cast cards with Delve quickly. Cards with Surveil would help that even more. Cards with Cycling might also be good there. Also potentially self-milling cards (Thought Scour seems like an automatic include). I'm thinking the typical Delve creatures like Tasigur and Gurmag Angler as win conditions. Since I'm on No-Ban, I can play Treasure Cruise/Dig Through Time, which seems pretty good, but I'm not sure I want both. Would it be worth playing Murderous Cut if I know I'm stocking the graveyard, or is it better just to play Fatal Push anyway?
I'd be totally fine if the result is only Tier 2-3 (I know the powerhouse version of the deck plays green), this is for casual play with friends only. I just need some ideas since I have no experience playing with Dredge and I'm not really sure what's good in this kind of deck.
This could just be a straight-up triple Regrowth with no exile effect and it still wouldn't be broken (although maybe at least playable).
Actual prices on TCGplayer "market value":
Elspeth, Knight-Errant: $15.50
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria: $44.50
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker: $4.50
Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast: $9.00
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas: $20.00
Liliana, the Last Hope: $34.50
Ral, Izzet Viceroy: ?
Plus one more unknown
Total: $128.00
So Ral and the other unknown planeswalker would only need to total $22 to make it break even. This ignores that these are special versions that are likely worth more than the normal versions.
So it seems like a financially good deal to me.
I feel like this could be made far less broken if it instead said "Each sorcery and instant you cast this turn has Storm, and each sorcery and instant you control this turn has "This spell deals 1 damage to you." This would put the 1 damage on all storm copies, too. I mean, it's probably still problematic, but if you're trying to go through mana ramping and card drawing effects, those are all going to hurt you considerably before you get to the kill spell.
This basically a damage-free City of Brass that gives you an extra attacker as an alternative to adding mana. Maybe add a clause saying "Does not untap as normal during your untap phase" and give it a second ability where you can tap an untapped creature to untap the land (only once per turn of course).
This is an idea i had earlier...
A Will for Peace GW
Legendary Enchantment
Skip your attack phase.
0: If you control at least three creatures and all creatures you control are tapped, add X mana of any combination of colors to your mana pool, where X is the number of creatures you control. Activate this ability only once during each of your turns.
1. No-Ban Modern. This is not our invention, actually I kinda think this format should have a subforum here since SCG actually had a recent major tournament in this format. In this format, we're looking forward to upgrading Affinity to having Disciple of the Vault, colored artifact lands, and Skullclamp, and Eldrazi Tron will be getting Eye of Ugin.
2. "Legacy 2.0", for lack of a better name. This is the existing Legacy banned list, except that any card which is not restricted in Vintage is not banned in Legacy 2.0 (with two exceptions, which I will mention in a sec). This allows: Deathrite Shaman, Earthcraft, Frantic Search, Goblin Recruiter, Hermit Druid, Mana Drain, Mental Misstep, Mind Twist, Oath of Druids, Skullclamp, Survival of the Fittest, and Yawgmoth's Bargain. The exceptions to this are Mishra's Workshop and Sensei's Divining Top, which we're keeping banned. This is not really an exception, though, because of the changes we made to the Vintage restricted list. Our Legacy decks are Burn and mono-green Elves, and I believe both are unaffected by these changes.
3. Vintage changes: Mishra's Workshop restricted. Lodestone Golem, Thorn of Amethyst, and Trinisphere all unrestricted. We all know which of these cards was really the problem all along, but WotC didn't want to destroy one of the pillars of the format. Since none of us have this deck anyway, we don't really care, and we're making this change in case one of us decides to make it some day. Voltaic Key restricted. Combo with Time Vault is grossly easy to pull off. With both cards restricted, it makes games with this combo present in one or both decks much more interesting. Sensei's Divining Top restricted. Mox Opal restricted, because in any Vintage deck that plays it, it's the best mox ever printed. The deck of ours that this affects the most is a blue/artifact deck that tries to combo out with Magistrate Scepter, Core Tappers, and Voltaic Keys. I've been doing this instead of the much easier Time Vault combo because nobody wants to play against a combo that reliably locks down a win that easily. With these changes, I can switch to Time Vault, only play one Voltaic Key, and it opens up a lot of room for other cards in the deck.
Open to suggestions... We'll never really have the truly degenerate decks that made these bans exist, and even if we do, our playing skills are not on the same level as the people who broke these decks (I'm the only one with significant tournament experience, and my best record was 2nd place at a PPTQ which is really nothing to brag about). We love when our decks pull off something absolutely gross and disgusting (like a first-turn win) as long as they don't do it often.