MTG Salvation

It comes down to the playgroup and environment. Some playgroups do play heavily competitive and demand people purchase the proper "gear" to compete, but that's also one of the factors that I'd attribute to the downfall of the LGS and competitive magic. There's no one reason why the game of Magic is not what it used to be. It's as much a factor of sales tactics, choices by players, predatory distribution, and tournament organization as it is the secondary market. And I would say the second hand market in MTG is rarely predatory, it's sort of always trying to figure out where the money flows.

I will say that modern and legacy are both going to be dead though with the power creep Gavin and Co introduced with Modern Horizons and Throne. MH2 was a small scale apocalypse.

I'm just waiting to see what gets banned first: Oath of Nissa or Once Upon a Time.

It's like green is the new blue in this format.

they have fetches in the form of Fabled passage, but yeah, good point on that. I think you are right that DRS is safe.

I've been playing frontier for a long while.

Abrade, Fatal Push, Dreadbore, Kolaghan's Command, Assassin's Trophy, etc, are all really good answer cards. Also, the format has the Leylines, Rest in Peace, Tormod's Crypt, etc for dealing with other kinds of problems.

The only cards that I think need banning are probably Dig through time and Deathrite Shaman. There isn't a single format where those two cards should exist.

My own build...

https://deckstats.net/decks/50249/1428931-it-rides-as-one

I like the flipper knight. =p

I like living weapons from Mirrodin block, even the less used ones, largely because they come into play as a creature. That tends to make a big difference a lot of the time. Sword of Sinew and Steel is still a good way to protect against removal as it provides pro-black and red. The other one is sort of an odd ball thanks to the colors.

Also, Forebear's Blade and Godsend are good if you have some discounts for equipping them.

I'm still aiming for a more midrange build that uses Hero of Bladehold, as that was an old time favorite of mine when running in Scars Block standard. That decks tribe was actually human, with knights being sort of a secondary tribe in it. I think I had Lightning Greaves in that deck at one point.

I think the bans were all spot on, to be frank. As for tron, the Urza lands need to get banned, but that is a completely different subject.

I've actually played a game that has creature combat and has a lot of similarities to MTG called Force of Will. The problem with simply allowing creatures to be attacked is that it changes the dynamic entirely on how combat works. It also drags games out and makes them last longer by making match ups against other types of decks outside of control last longer.

Permeating Mass in my spirits deck works wonders at stopping people from doing non-interactive things. Comboing that with Reality Shift and I think someone who expects to just face roll will probably want to scream into space using a hogaak deck. Once that mass starts doing it's thing, it just doesn't stop. Best part is that since they released SoulHerder, I can actually undo the damage on my field if I really need to.

starting with a treasure token if you go 2nd helps a ton. It makes it way less a problem if someone has a turn 1 Thought Seize or other discard, which right now the only way to deal with is with a Force of Negation in modern. They probably wouldn't need a force cycle.

The thing that has me a bit worried with the ban and restricted list is that they almost never unban a card. Bridge from below will likely not come off the list, and if they add Hedron Crab to "weaken hogaak" decks I know a few people that will be rather ticked.

Keep in mind distributors and stores have a relationship that can vary in quality. Depending on the situation, he could be getting hosed hardcore and the product is funneled elsewhere, or the owners simply favor standard and are trying to push core 2020 out the door. Believe me, that set needs all the help it can get right now because it went off allocation super early and it still isn't selling well. I'm just waiting for people to start beating the drum that core sets are bad when the same situation happened with every summer set ever printed, regardless if it was a core set or not.

Wizards of the Coast never unbans a card to fix a meta. They almost always ban cards when a deck is taking up too much of the field, and the situation with Hogaak is pretty much a 100% death knell for the card. The mistake was banning Bridge from Below instead of Hogaak himself in order to keep modern horizons sales going.

Not sure what people are saying about supply being constrained on modern horizons. It seems like it is in stock at distributors.