The only actually safe unban is Bitterblossom. Abrupt Decay exists, and plenty of 1/1 sweepers are readily available, so it would likely not be oppressive.
Ari Lax had some good points for not unbanning Nacatl, though. While the format certainly lacks many, or any, viable agro decks besides affinity, that is fine, because it's a unique format with numerous strategies that aren't just carbon copies of Legacy, or Legacy-lite decks. And Nacatl doesn't actually make for interesting game states.
I would be surprised if anything was banned in Modern or Legacy at this point, and anyone whining about Deathrite in Modern probably doesn't play the format much. It's powerful, absolutely, but completely reasonable, and it can be interacted with, and does not just take over games in any unreasonable sense.
Considering he was a 4 of in half the winning decklists in the most recent Modern GP, and he will likely never be reprinted (barring future inclusion of Flashback in a set, which is slim), and every good instant or sorcery printed makes him just that much better, I would keep a playset like I would keep Vendilion Cliques or Tarmogoyfs. When the card is good, it's absurd, and when its bad, it's often still pretty good.
Sort of disappointed because I rather liked Monstrosity (even if it only managed to produce 2 constructed playable cards with the ability). Tribute, like other punisher mechanics really needs to be pushed to be any kind of good.
While true, I would be very surprised if this isn't a reasonable substitute which could cut into the amount of frequency Bob sees in Modern decks. In a very remedial breakdown, Pain Seer is worse than Dark Confidant because if it lives a turn you are guaranteed a card, where the Seer requires 2 full turns without outside help (and not dying) to get a return, in extra for 1 extra toughness (which does and does not matter). He gets better with anything that let you on demand tap or untap creatures, and what is possibly the most overlooked ability: a Pain Seer cannot voluntarily kill you, where Bob can and has.
I'm sure people will complain this card is just another bad Confidant impersonator and opt to only play the original, but I think people willing to give it a go will see a surprisingly viable option.
The deck which just won GP Prague I think happened to play Vendilion Clique, but did not feature Goyf or Bob. Also I watched a match the other day where a RUG deck played a turn 2 Tarmogoyf (a 3/4 at the time), and his opponent cast a Primeval Titan and attacked with it on his second turn. These 2 drops are not necessarily the most powerful thing you can be doing in Modern.
And make no mistake, Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant are incredibly powerful cards, so much so they push out a lot of other things. But at this point if you don't have those cards, seriously, play something else because it is viable. Be the deck that beats Goyfs and Bobs. Play Tron or blue Tron, play Storm or Lightning Storm (seriously, have you checked this deck out?), play Zur, play the Fist of Suns deck, Merfolk, U/R Delver (or Pyromancer, whatever it is), Birthing Pod, Splinter Twin, the Genesis Wave deck, or a slew of others. Every one of those decks has a plan which invalids the ~$800 those cards represent.
Food for thought, Snapcaster Mage was equally represented compared to Bob or Goyf in that top 8. There are far more Snapcasters than either Bobs or Goyfs, if you are interested in playing a fair deck. Otherwise the format is filled with unfair and completely playable decks. This format is more Legacy than people give it credit for, and rather than whining about being unable to get certain cards, actually get good at the decks you are playing, learn the match ups, and learn how to beat them.
Seriously, can there be a ban on discussion whining about Goyf and Bob, and by extension Clique? This horse is seriously stomped to death.
I own playsets of Bob, Goyf and Cliques. I don't play them, and I would argue there are infinitely cheaper cards you could be playing in Modern which actually are just better positioned in the format. There is a fair bit of inexpensive combo you can play instead which is very effective, and a fraction of the price.
The only true statement in this thread is a need for fetch reprints. That is the only real barrier to entry, but again there are a lot of super excellent decks you can play in the format which don't even require those.
Been playing with this card for the last 2 weeks. Here is the thing about Master of Waves: it pairs so well with other cards which incidentally take it from decent to a massive threat for just 4 mana, and it initially is pretty innocuous. I knew there was something to it when I killed an opponent on turn 6 with a rather unspectacular draw. Even if you have just a Thassa out, its still 6 power over 3 dudes, and that is a pretty modest board state. They have to have the Doom Blade/Hero's Downfall/Last Breath/Ratchet Bomb/Supreme Verdict or lose to this in a short order. On the flip side, it just is not hard for a sea of 2/1s to stave off many ground forces. I've played against Obzedat's which were grinding me out 2 life a turn only to resolve a second Master and just deal be able to deal 20-30 damage in a swing.
The card is real. People currently aren't building decks which suppress it, but it doesn't require a lot of effort to be good.
Wizards frequently misses the boat on how to advertise their product properly. People should be watching the coverage waiting to hear about something cool coming out, but instead they announce it at completely arbitrary times.
Then again, their viewership as a percentage of people who play the game is pretty anemic and needs to be worked on before it could be a truly viable platform for spoiling new product.
They kind of do need a kick back because most stores are terrible business people who don't know how to grow their business, yet they still have space to play for people who (frequently) buy nothing.
But there is no one that just collects and never, ever plays this game. That unicorn simply does not exist.
My point is, this is an example of WOTC having a very poor grasp of the secondary market and its effect on the game. The secondary market does some good, as the ability to trade collectible product actually lets a lot of people get a lot of utility they otherwise would not have if they always had to pony up money, and then turn that stuff into stores for credit to get new decks and so on. Foils and limited editions again are for the player who has to have it all and has to pimp their stuff out. The problem has been, and this has been true with every FTV, is the product line is simply underprinted. It is rare for the sake of rare. When stuff is underprinted, the hoarders swoop in and make it rarer. That is actually not good for anybody, and the product serves no purpose.
Except its not just my opinion, its the opinion of many players of the game. At the root of it, next to no one has a Magic collection for the expressed purpose of not actually ever playing it. The diversity comes in the formats people play. I can concede I will never be a kitchen table only guy, or play EDH frequently, or only Legacy or Modern or Limited, but there are people who do that. At the end of the day, those people play the game.
Printing product that will never be used does not serve the needs of the variety of people who play the game. You can't draft it, it's too rare to open really, and even the most die hard of people who want to pimp their decks will probably pass on it. So who is this product line for? Its a poor gift to stores due to the scarcity, and again, it is not actually serving any real market of people who play the game.
I didn't say you couldn't afford them. I said you couldn't afford them OR you didn't want to spend that kind of money on them.
What you think Magic: the Gathering is is not what everyone thinks Magic: the Gathering is. Some people like to collect the cards or collect sealed product. Just because you don't think that is what Magic is about does not mean you are right and they are wrong. It is just two different ideas about Magic is. You seem to have this idea that you are right, and everyone who wants to be a collector is wrong. In reality, you are both right, and WOTC prints products for everyone. This product just happens to have the upside of helping LGSs and providing pimp for EDH players as well who have the money to buy them.
Yea, what an outlandish thought that cards for a collectible card game are meant to be played in that card game. How completely absurd of me.
I don't expect FTV to move the needle and suddenly make it possible for everyone who ever wanted a JTMS to suddenly get a playset, or anything to that effect. But it should be feasible. How many of these do you really think there will be? These are printed money, that don't benefit stores, that actively discourage you from opening them due to their built in high value. I would make an argument that buying in at $500 is probably cheap if you can get it, because the print runs are in fact that anemic.
They shouldn't be called collectors, they are hoarders. They are the sorts of people who buy out Bobs and Goyfs at GP Vegas in order to ensure the next Modern season will see them at $150 and $250 or more respectively. It's the sort of people who likely grabbed up the black on black stuff at Comic Con (and likely paid other people to grab as much too as cheaply as possible) who will just sit on it and it will never be seen in public.
Its awesome when they make new artwork or cool versions of cards. Everyone likes it. But when you make it so prohibitively impossible for most players to get, it serves no useful purpose. It might as well have not been printed. This is Nalathni Dragon all over again, except the card isn't terrible and a relevant amount of people actually play the game these days.
Your entire premise is built on the idea that WOTC should print more Commander or Planechase like products and not do these special gifts. However, you are failing to take into account that WOTC is doing more Commander products (1 per year starting this year), and they are going to continue the FTV line.
You can't say that you should cancel the FTV line and replace it with something else when that something else is already being done. The FTV is something entirely separate, and there is 0 reason to change or eliminate it when it is serving the exact purpose for which is what was created.
Just because you can't afford a product or you don't want to spend the money you are spending does not mean a product should not exist. It just means that that particular product was not meant for you.
It has nothing to do with my ability to afford it, I can afford it. But its absurd to print product which has no reason to be opened, which is what FTV *is*. They are still cards. This is still a game. People should want FTV because they want to pimp out their decks to play the game, not get a stack of them and have them sit in their closet accumulating value til they can eBay them in 5 years.
There is this completely backwards mentality going on. What will grow the game is increasingly availability. There is a very real problem with multiple formats where availability is an issue - that does not encourage skillful play, it actively deters people from playing formats. It actively deters people from playing certain archetypes. This increased availability will actually help support prices as well. Demand goes up, prices go up or stabilize, which helps players maintain their collections' value.
FTV is basically the annual center piece that highlights the fact that WOTC does not understand this problem. Yes, the product is sweet, it has really sweet cards. And they will be real sweet remaining sealed in shops and peoples personal collections.
Every year is a disappointment for the people who can't afford the product. That does not make it a disappointment overall. Overall, I would call these products a success. They are doing what they were designed to do, provide LGSs with a product that they can mark up as much as they want and sell to their customers. Not sure how you can call something a disappointment when it is doing exactly what it is designed to do.
Here is why this product is a failure: every store gets like a handful at best. Smaller stores, this will amount to a few hundred dollars. In your annual revenue, this is a drop in the bucket. You can't tell me any store is happy to only have a small bit of free revenue. They are ultra limited to the point a store cannot reliably ever order enough to meet the demand. So the only way to get it is to rebuy them and resell them to cover your costs.
A real gift to the store would be limited run like Planechase or the Commander decks did so you can at least stock your store a reasonable amount with them and people can actually buy them. At least they are around for a short time instead of just being a pittance. Really, does any LGS store care that much about something that probably just covers their electric bill? Granted, this one will be worth more, but if your store only gets 2 or 4 total, would you rather have 2-4 things you can sell for $500 a piece or 100 (or more) things you can sell for $100 a piece? It would have the side benefit of the cards actually seeing play, and the push to actually meet the demand would help buoy the price anyway, retaining that collectible factor. The current model meets no demands. You have to remember these are limited print run with 1 copy of each card. There are going to be thousands of these printed, ever, in total. So a few thousand JTMS, alt art Gilded Lotus', Venser, etc, and they are only in English.
Oh, and you can just get it back with Life from the Loam. Card must be pretty bad.
Ari Lax had some good points for not unbanning Nacatl, though. While the format certainly lacks many, or any, viable agro decks besides affinity, that is fine, because it's a unique format with numerous strategies that aren't just carbon copies of Legacy, or Legacy-lite decks. And Nacatl doesn't actually make for interesting game states.
I would be surprised if anything was banned in Modern or Legacy at this point, and anyone whining about Deathrite in Modern probably doesn't play the format much. It's powerful, absolutely, but completely reasonable, and it can be interacted with, and does not just take over games in any unreasonable sense.
While true, I would be very surprised if this isn't a reasonable substitute which could cut into the amount of frequency Bob sees in Modern decks. In a very remedial breakdown, Pain Seer is worse than Dark Confidant because if it lives a turn you are guaranteed a card, where the Seer requires 2 full turns without outside help (and not dying) to get a return, in extra for 1 extra toughness (which does and does not matter). He gets better with anything that let you on demand tap or untap creatures, and what is possibly the most overlooked ability: a Pain Seer cannot voluntarily kill you, where Bob can and has.
I'm sure people will complain this card is just another bad Confidant impersonator and opt to only play the original, but I think people willing to give it a go will see a surprisingly viable option.
And make no mistake, Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant are incredibly powerful cards, so much so they push out a lot of other things. But at this point if you don't have those cards, seriously, play something else because it is viable. Be the deck that beats Goyfs and Bobs. Play Tron or blue Tron, play Storm or Lightning Storm (seriously, have you checked this deck out?), play Zur, play the Fist of Suns deck, Merfolk, U/R Delver (or Pyromancer, whatever it is), Birthing Pod, Splinter Twin, the Genesis Wave deck, or a slew of others. Every one of those decks has a plan which invalids the ~$800 those cards represent.
Food for thought, Snapcaster Mage was equally represented compared to Bob or Goyf in that top 8. There are far more Snapcasters than either Bobs or Goyfs, if you are interested in playing a fair deck. Otherwise the format is filled with unfair and completely playable decks. This format is more Legacy than people give it credit for, and rather than whining about being unable to get certain cards, actually get good at the decks you are playing, learn the match ups, and learn how to beat them.
Seriously, can there be a ban on discussion whining about Goyf and Bob, and by extension Clique? This horse is seriously stomped to death.
The only true statement in this thread is a need for fetch reprints. That is the only real barrier to entry, but again there are a lot of super excellent decks you can play in the format which don't even require those.
The card is real. People currently aren't building decks which suppress it, but it doesn't require a lot of effort to be good.
Then again, their viewership as a percentage of people who play the game is pretty anemic and needs to be worked on before it could be a truly viable platform for spoiling new product.
Imperfect system is imperfect.
My point is, this is an example of WOTC having a very poor grasp of the secondary market and its effect on the game. The secondary market does some good, as the ability to trade collectible product actually lets a lot of people get a lot of utility they otherwise would not have if they always had to pony up money, and then turn that stuff into stores for credit to get new decks and so on. Foils and limited editions again are for the player who has to have it all and has to pimp their stuff out. The problem has been, and this has been true with every FTV, is the product line is simply underprinted. It is rare for the sake of rare. When stuff is underprinted, the hoarders swoop in and make it rarer. That is actually not good for anybody, and the product serves no purpose.
Printing product that will never be used does not serve the needs of the variety of people who play the game. You can't draft it, it's too rare to open really, and even the most die hard of people who want to pimp their decks will probably pass on it. So who is this product line for? Its a poor gift to stores due to the scarcity, and again, it is not actually serving any real market of people who play the game.
Yea, what an outlandish thought that cards for a collectible card game are meant to be played in that card game. How completely absurd of me.
I don't expect FTV to move the needle and suddenly make it possible for everyone who ever wanted a JTMS to suddenly get a playset, or anything to that effect. But it should be feasible. How many of these do you really think there will be? These are printed money, that don't benefit stores, that actively discourage you from opening them due to their built in high value. I would make an argument that buying in at $500 is probably cheap if you can get it, because the print runs are in fact that anemic.
They shouldn't be called collectors, they are hoarders. They are the sorts of people who buy out Bobs and Goyfs at GP Vegas in order to ensure the next Modern season will see them at $150 and $250 or more respectively. It's the sort of people who likely grabbed up the black on black stuff at Comic Con (and likely paid other people to grab as much too as cheaply as possible) who will just sit on it and it will never be seen in public.
Its awesome when they make new artwork or cool versions of cards. Everyone likes it. But when you make it so prohibitively impossible for most players to get, it serves no useful purpose. It might as well have not been printed. This is Nalathni Dragon all over again, except the card isn't terrible and a relevant amount of people actually play the game these days.
It has nothing to do with my ability to afford it, I can afford it. But its absurd to print product which has no reason to be opened, which is what FTV *is*. They are still cards. This is still a game. People should want FTV because they want to pimp out their decks to play the game, not get a stack of them and have them sit in their closet accumulating value til they can eBay them in 5 years.
There is this completely backwards mentality going on. What will grow the game is increasingly availability. There is a very real problem with multiple formats where availability is an issue - that does not encourage skillful play, it actively deters people from playing formats. It actively deters people from playing certain archetypes. This increased availability will actually help support prices as well. Demand goes up, prices go up or stabilize, which helps players maintain their collections' value.
FTV is basically the annual center piece that highlights the fact that WOTC does not understand this problem. Yes, the product is sweet, it has really sweet cards. And they will be real sweet remaining sealed in shops and peoples personal collections.
How does this make any sense?
Here is why this product is a failure: every store gets like a handful at best. Smaller stores, this will amount to a few hundred dollars. In your annual revenue, this is a drop in the bucket. You can't tell me any store is happy to only have a small bit of free revenue. They are ultra limited to the point a store cannot reliably ever order enough to meet the demand. So the only way to get it is to rebuy them and resell them to cover your costs.
A real gift to the store would be limited run like Planechase or the Commander decks did so you can at least stock your store a reasonable amount with them and people can actually buy them. At least they are around for a short time instead of just being a pittance. Really, does any LGS store care that much about something that probably just covers their electric bill? Granted, this one will be worth more, but if your store only gets 2 or 4 total, would you rather have 2-4 things you can sell for $500 a piece or 100 (or more) things you can sell for $100 a piece? It would have the side benefit of the cards actually seeing play, and the push to actually meet the demand would help buoy the price anyway, retaining that collectible factor. The current model meets no demands. You have to remember these are limited print run with 1 copy of each card. There are going to be thousands of these printed, ever, in total. So a few thousand JTMS, alt art Gilded Lotus', Venser, etc, and they are only in English.