You can't have good combo decks in a format where Force of Will doesn't exist. Even then, you can't have good combo decks if you want blue to be the only good color. With a restricted card pool, this gets exaggerated.
I'd beg to differ. All of Pauper's powerful combo decks almost never went off before turn 3 or 4 (barring Infect's occasional god hand, which could still be disrupted with a well placed Lightning Bolt or any other 1-2 CMC removal spell) and that gave blue players penty of time to prepare a Counterspell, Rune Snag, Mana Leak, Prohibit, Spellstutter Sprite, Spell Pierce, or any number of other efficient counterspells with Daze backup. Force of Will is really only necessary in formats with combo decks that can consistently kill on turn 1 or 2, which is not Pauper.
And blue isn't the only color to be able to interact with Pauper's combo decks throughout history. White has loads of cheap efficient hate for combos of all kinds, red has creature sweepers and Pyroblast, black has an abundance of discard, and even green has cards like Sandstorm and damage prevention creatures/spells. There is no color in Pauper that can't fight a good combo deck post board, which is why there's no reason that combo should have been excised from the format as Wizards has done.
And as far as combo goes, it's bad for coverage too. Now people can say "simple, don't cover those playing combo", but what if most of the top players are playing combo at the point of time?
Coverage definitely plays a factor; albeit a very small one. Expect this PT coverage to have more interaction, and something the reporters and commentators can discuss.
Kinda dumb right when Wizards releases Warping Wail which has its uses against Twin and isn't tied to a specific color which would make splashing it in other decks easier.
I really wish Wizards would stop being scared pansies about power creep and just make cards that are powerful enough to deal with Twin and other "troublesome" cards. And, if anything, it would help them as it would sell people to standard and get people to buy new product. It's one thing to ban cards that are clearly too powerful, but this seems more like a business decision than anything, and I feel like they're being ridiculous with all of this.
Everyone needs to stop complain about the banning of twin. When it holds enough top 8 places withing so many events, they will Co side it. You guys want things to stop getting banned then stop playing only 1 deck all the time. I have like 6 decks and I rotate playing them. If ppl only play the best deck in the format and it reaches over 30% of the meta or 3-5 places in the top 8 at a few events in a row, then what do you expect to happen? They want diversity. Same thing happened when caw-blade was the only deck playing in standard. They neutered it due to how much it was placing in top 8. It's no surprise to me. It's just time to move on to other decks and get use to how things work in the world I stead of crying about things like little kids.
Everyone needs to stop complain about the banning of twin. When it holds enough top 8 places withing so many events, they will Co side it. You guys want things to stop getting banned then stop playing only 1 deck all the time. I have like 6 decks and I rotate playing them. If ppl only play the best deck in the format and it reaches over 30% of the meta or 3-5 places in the top 8 at a few events in a row, then what do you expect to happen? They want diversity. Same thing happened when caw-blade was the only deck playing in standard. They neutered it due to how much it was placing in top 8. It's no surprise to me. It's just time to move on to other decks and get use to how things work in the world I stead of crying about things like little kids.
The whole point of a non-rotating format is to pick your deck and run with it. Add a card here or there and maybe collect some extra that gives you a variation of it. That is the big appeal of Legacy. Sure, you can pick up a different deck for fun but a lot of player have "their deck".
WotC isn't proactively doing anything to help diversity except kick the can a year down the road. We're going to be in the same spot next year except Tron, Eldrazis or something else is getting axed. If they're adjusting every year why not try and unban some cards that could push the envelope a little more? Grave Troll does nothing when GY hate is powerful and easy accessible. Nactal doesn't do jack when Lightning Bolt and a lesser extent Path are so common. Bitterblossom wasn't an issue so let's try something else!
Trying to draw any correlation between Twin and Caw-Blade is silly. Caw-Blade era boiled down to CB beat Valkut, random rogue decks built specially to beat CB beat CB and Valkut beat those decks. There is still deck diversity in Modern even when WotC doesn't want to admit it. Sure, Twin is a good deck and is great in the right hands but there is other decks. I would go even further and say Bloom Titan did more to curb diversity then Twin.
Everyone needs to stop complain about the banning of twin. When it holds enough top 8 places withing so many events, they will Co side it. You guys want things to stop getting banned then stop playing only 1 deck all the time. I have like 6 decks and I rotate playing them. If ppl only play the best deck in the format and it reaches over 30% of the meta or 3-5 places in the top 8 at a few events in a row, then what do you expect to happen? They want diversity. Same thing happened when caw-blade was the only deck playing in standard. They neutered it due to how much it was placing in top 8. It's no surprise to me. It's just time to move on to other decks and get use to how things work in the world I stead of crying about things like little kids.
Looking at MTGGoldfishes meta estimation on % of decks played the format is extremely diverse, the most played deck is affinity at like 8-9% of the meta everything else falls below that. People act like the format is just 1-2 decks but this is clearly not the case.
Hmmmm I wonder if after banning every combo piece, would they be willing to bring cantrips back. Control suffered due to the lack of good cantrips, the cantrips which were shared by the broken combo decks.
My daughter plays Modern every week (RG Tron and Affinity), and she was literally dancing with joy over the Splinter Twin banning.
If you don't mind me asking, how old is your daughter? At age 13, I have fond memories of my mother trekking me around the Los Angeles area for tourneys (costa mesa's women's club, gencons - circa '94). Eventually she grew tired of waiting on me and learned to play. We'd enter the same tourneys, occasionally face each other, and talk ***** about the same arrogant opponents =D. I vividly recall Mark Rosewater hitting on her a handful of times after she'd sit thru his tedious combo decks. lol.
I love the thought of mom and daughter spending time together thru MTG. It's wonderful. It's why I had to share my similar experience of playing Magic with mom. Some of my best memories as a child.
Hmmmm I wonder if after banning every combo piece, would they be willing to bring cantrips back. Control suffered due to the lack of good cantrips, the cantrips which were shared by the broken combo decks.
Storm
Edit: I'm all for making the PT easier for Finkel to win, but he's already the best player in the world, he doesn't need more advantages.
My daughter plays Modern every week (RG Tron and Affinity), and she was literally dancing with joy over the Splinter Twin banning.
If you don't mind me asking, how old is your daughter? At age 13, I have fond memories of my mother trekking me around the Los Angeles area for tourneys (costa mesa's women's club, gencons - circa '94). Eventually she grew tired of waiting on me and learned to play. We'd enter the same tourneys, occasionally face each other, and talk ***** about the same arrogant opponents =D. I vividly recall Mark Rosewater hitting on her a handful of times after she'd sit thru his tedious combo decks. lol.
I love the thought of mom and daughter spending time together thru MTG. It's wonderful. It's why I had to share my similar experience of playing Magic with mom. Some of my best memories as a child.
(Sorry everyone for interrupting!)
She just turned 13. She's been playing Modern for about a year. Before that, she was primarily a Commander player (like me ).
Magic is quite a big deal in our family, with even the ones too small to play having favorite characters. When the Grand Prix was in Chiba last year, my husband and I took two of our daughters out there for a whole day of Magic. It's an amazing game for families!
Why do people think that Modern can only be changed by banning or unbanning cards. WotC literally prints hundreds of BRAND NEW cards EVERY year. What little thought any of the complainers have put towards these bans is nothing in comparison to the hours of work the highly skilled and intelligent people working at WotC have done. They don't hire dumb people, we give them too much money for them to waste it paying dumb people.
Why do people think that Modern can only be changed by banning or unbanning cards. WotC literally prints hundreds of BRAND NEW cards EVERY year. What little thought any of the complainers have put towards these bans is nothing in comparison to the hours of work the highly skilled and intelligent people working at WotC have done. They don't hire dumb people, we give them too much money for them to waste it paying dumb people.
WotC themselves will tell you a large part of those hundreds of cards are reprints/filler/average power cards. Eldrazi decks are the exception and not the rule. I personally think they're being very lazy and/or overly conservative and not dumb.
Why do people think that Modern can only be changed by banning or unbanning cards. WotC literally prints hundreds of BRAND NEW cards EVERY year.
Because of the fact that one of those "hundreds of brand new cards" always fails to be some type of Modern Force of Will-esque card, banning and unbanning cards practically IS the only way Modern can be changed in any significant way.
Why do people think that Modern can only be changed by banning or unbanning cards. WotC literally prints hundreds of BRAND NEW cards EVERY year.
Because of the fact that one of those "hundreds of brand new cards" always fails to be some type of Modern Force of Will-esque card, banning and unbanning cards practically IS the only way Modern can be changed in any significant way.
well then there's a problem with design and maybe these people don't deserve quite so much of our money.
Why do people think that Modern can only be changed by banning or unbanning cards. WotC literally prints hundreds of BRAND NEW cards EVERY year.
Because of the fact that one of those "hundreds of brand new cards" always fails to be some type of Modern Force of Will-esque card, banning and unbanning cards practically IS the only way Modern can be changed in any significant way.
Well, it sounds like MS does not support any updates to force users upgrade the Windows from XP to 7...
Hmmmm I wonder if after banning every combo piece, would they be willing to bring cantrips back. Control suffered due to the lack of good cantrips, the cantrips which were shared by the broken combo decks.
Not unless they ban grapeshot too. And maybe scapeshift. Well, not those cards exactly, I guess, but something to nerf those still very powerful and very blue combo decks. I expect both of those decks to have a bit of a resurgence after the Twin ban (well, probably storm more than scapeshift) and I think giving them a better cantrip will just make them more powerful rather than control.
That said, I would love to see control get some more love. Unfortunately a lot of the things control decks need, combo decks can use just as well (if not better).
Everyone needs to stop complain about the banning of twin. When it holds enough top 8 places withing so many events, they will Co side it. You guys want things to stop getting banned then stop playing only 1 deck all the time. I have like 6 decks and I rotate playing them. If ppl only play the best deck in the format and it reaches over 30% of the meta or 3-5 places in the top 8 at a few events in a row, then what do you expect to happen? They want diversity. Same thing happened when caw-blade was the only deck playing in standard. They neutered it due to how much it was placing in top 8. It's no surprise to me. It's just time to move on to other decks and get use to how things work in the world I stead of crying about things like little kids.
We should in fact be more up in arms over this banning than we already are. Twin was the definition of fair play by Wizard's guidelines in modern, a turn 4 deck, that is fragile enough that most decks that run interaction can actually disrupt it. Banning it means there is no actual guideline for what constitutes a fair deck in Modern, and instead bannings are decided upon based on popularity of a deck, and whatever is the most popular deck will be banned, regardless of power level.
You want people to stop playing a single deck at the same time? Then give us alternatives to play, due to the ban list composition there is no way to develop a good deck in the format, they keep banning all the utility cards that would allow you to theorycraft new decks, because they could "make a deck too consistent or strong", you think people are going to play a competitive format and invest such ludicrous amounts of money on decks if they are not strong or consistent?
Trying to restrict the way the game is played for a stupid reason like T4 win makes it so the only way to play the format is to either break it by finding a combo that wins earlier, or having a highly oppressive deck which effectively wins the game on the table for you before T4, even if the opponent is still alive on that turn. At least now that having a fair standard T4 win is considered too strong, which was the other option before.
Playing such a diverse format without consistency or power is plain stupid, which is why everyone uses the strongest decks, specially when Wizards intentionally bans 1 deck each year so that only 1 other deck remains dominant the next one.
Caw blade was banned due to the fact that it was unbeatable by any other deck that was not specifically tailored to beat it, and even then it wasn't that good of a match up. And it was in fact a stupid banning because they banned Stoneforge and JTMS, when the deck was absolute ***** against the existing meta at the time without Batterskull.
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I'd beg to differ. All of Pauper's powerful combo decks almost never went off before turn 3 or 4 (barring Infect's occasional god hand, which could still be disrupted with a well placed Lightning Bolt or any other 1-2 CMC removal spell) and that gave blue players penty of time to prepare a Counterspell, Rune Snag, Mana Leak, Prohibit, Spellstutter Sprite, Spell Pierce, or any number of other efficient counterspells with Daze backup. Force of Will is really only necessary in formats with combo decks that can consistently kill on turn 1 or 2, which is not Pauper.
And blue isn't the only color to be able to interact with Pauper's combo decks throughout history. White has loads of cheap efficient hate for combos of all kinds, red has creature sweepers and Pyroblast, black has an abundance of discard, and even green has cards like Sandstorm and damage prevention creatures/spells. There is no color in Pauper that can't fight a good combo deck post board, which is why there's no reason that combo should have been excised from the format as Wizards has done.
And as far as combo goes, it's bad for coverage too. Now people can say "simple, don't cover those playing combo", but what if most of the top players are playing combo at the point of time?
Coverage definitely plays a factor; albeit a very small one. Expect this PT coverage to have more interaction, and something the reporters and commentators can discuss.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
I really wish Wizards would stop being scared pansies about power creep and just make cards that are powerful enough to deal with Twin and other "troublesome" cards. And, if anything, it would help them as it would sell people to standard and get people to buy new product. It's one thing to ban cards that are clearly too powerful, but this seems more like a business decision than anything, and I feel like they're being ridiculous with all of this.
Nope, they weren't kidding. The article is on the main page now: http://magic.wizards.com/en/content/articles
GG, Twin, and RIP.
Rest in Peace isn't on the banlist.
I'll see myself out.
The whole point of a non-rotating format is to pick your deck and run with it. Add a card here or there and maybe collect some extra that gives you a variation of it. That is the big appeal of Legacy. Sure, you can pick up a different deck for fun but a lot of player have "their deck".
WotC isn't proactively doing anything to help diversity except kick the can a year down the road. We're going to be in the same spot next year except Tron, Eldrazis or something else is getting axed. If they're adjusting every year why not try and unban some cards that could push the envelope a little more? Grave Troll does nothing when GY hate is powerful and easy accessible. Nactal doesn't do jack when Lightning Bolt and a lesser extent Path are so common. Bitterblossom wasn't an issue so let's try something else!
Trying to draw any correlation between Twin and Caw-Blade is silly. Caw-Blade era boiled down to CB beat Valkut, random rogue decks built specially to beat CB beat CB and Valkut beat those decks. There is still deck diversity in Modern even when WotC doesn't want to admit it. Sure, Twin is a good deck and is great in the right hands but there is other decks. I would go even further and say Bloom Titan did more to curb diversity then Twin.
Standard
W.I.P.
EDH
WNorn Tokens
Feel free to bid on my cards here!
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
If you don't mind me asking, how old is your daughter? At age 13, I have fond memories of my mother trekking me around the Los Angeles area for tourneys (costa mesa's women's club, gencons - circa '94). Eventually she grew tired of waiting on me and learned to play. We'd enter the same tourneys, occasionally face each other, and talk ***** about the same arrogant opponents =D. I vividly recall Mark Rosewater hitting on her a handful of times after she'd sit thru his tedious combo decks. lol.
I love the thought of mom and daughter spending time together thru MTG. It's wonderful. It's why I had to share my similar experience of playing Magic with mom. Some of my best memories as a child.
(Sorry everyone for interrupting!)
Storm
Edit: I'm all for making the PT easier for Finkel to win, but he's already the best player in the world, he doesn't need more advantages.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
looks like this is a format i just won't be playing.
She just turned 13. She's been playing Modern for about a year. Before that, she was primarily a Commander player (like me ).
Magic is quite a big deal in our family, with even the ones too small to play having favorite characters. When the Grand Prix was in Chiba last year, my husband and I took two of our daughters out there for a whole day of Magic. It's an amazing game for families!
WotC themselves will tell you a large part of those hundreds of cards are reprints/filler/average power cards. Eldrazi decks are the exception and not the rule. I personally think they're being very lazy and/or overly conservative and not dumb.
Standard
W.I.P.
EDH
WNorn Tokens
Because of the fact that one of those "hundreds of brand new cards" always fails to be some type of Modern Force of Will-esque card, banning and unbanning cards practically IS the only way Modern can be changed in any significant way.
well then there's a problem with design and maybe these people don't deserve quite so much of our money.
Well, it sounds like MS does not support any updates to force users upgrade the Windows from XP to 7...
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron
Not unless they ban grapeshot too. And maybe scapeshift. Well, not those cards exactly, I guess, but something to nerf those still very powerful and very blue combo decks. I expect both of those decks to have a bit of a resurgence after the Twin ban (well, probably storm more than scapeshift) and I think giving them a better cantrip will just make them more powerful rather than control.
That said, I would love to see control get some more love. Unfortunately a lot of the things control decks need, combo decks can use just as well (if not better).
We should in fact be more up in arms over this banning than we already are. Twin was the definition of fair play by Wizard's guidelines in modern, a turn 4 deck, that is fragile enough that most decks that run interaction can actually disrupt it. Banning it means there is no actual guideline for what constitutes a fair deck in Modern, and instead bannings are decided upon based on popularity of a deck, and whatever is the most popular deck will be banned, regardless of power level.
You want people to stop playing a single deck at the same time? Then give us alternatives to play, due to the ban list composition there is no way to develop a good deck in the format, they keep banning all the utility cards that would allow you to theorycraft new decks, because they could "make a deck too consistent or strong", you think people are going to play a competitive format and invest such ludicrous amounts of money on decks if they are not strong or consistent?
Trying to restrict the way the game is played for a stupid reason like T4 win makes it so the only way to play the format is to either break it by finding a combo that wins earlier, or having a highly oppressive deck which effectively wins the game on the table for you before T4, even if the opponent is still alive on that turn. At least now that having a fair standard T4 win is considered too strong, which was the other option before.
Playing such a diverse format without consistency or power is plain stupid, which is why everyone uses the strongest decks, specially when Wizards intentionally bans 1 deck each year so that only 1 other deck remains dominant the next one.
Caw blade was banned due to the fact that it was unbeatable by any other deck that was not specifically tailored to beat it, and even then it wasn't that good of a match up. And it was in fact a stupid banning because they banned Stoneforge and JTMS, when the deck was absolute ***** against the existing meta at the time without Batterskull.