There are almost 30 cards on the Modern banned list.
My question is what would happen if all the banned cards were unbanned?
What deck would dominate?
What is the most powerful banned card?
What would be the best combo with all banned cards unbanned?
Good question and
I am not touching it with a 10-foot pole.
Good luck keeping this one on topic.
I personally want a bunch of cards off of the list for selfish reasons, but I am patient and can wait for cards to be released, interactions to be discovered, etc....
The format would consist of fast combo that could go off turn 1 with god hands, or turn 2 or 3 with 'normal' hands. Hypergenesis would rule tournies, followed by combo elves. Blazing shoal and pyro would be also rans. In other words the format would be die roll magic. Who ever won the die roll would win the match.. in like 7 minutes.
but yah, affinity would be BEAST, so would hypergenesis, and a few other combos would be tried.
aggro and control probably could not exist in that environment (calling affinity combo rather than aggro).
it wouldn't be much fun. i say bare minimum they would have to ban the clamp and hypergenesis and artifact lands. other stuff like golgari grave troll and jitte and mox would be really good, but don't fit on the bare minimum imo, whereas the "bare minimum" is what would need to be banned in order to have something you could actually call a format.
Gah, I cannot imagine Dredge...with Skullclamp. Seriously, Dredge a random guy, play a land, get Bloodghasts, equip a Ghast with a Clamp, draw Dredge two cards, and repeat...maybe stuff like Ideas Unbound may be better earlier, but Clamp in Dredge would be surprisingly good in Modern.
Would practically the only thing keeping the format in check be a CounterTop deck? (In this format, Sensei's Divining Top would be unbanned!)
Who really knows with skullclamp, SDT. disciple of the vault.
we have already seen that before except skullclamp, aether vial, SDT, and disciple of vault were banned.
It would look like something like this if you banned those 4 cards. I just think it is funny that zoo had so many list even though powerful combo and control decks still existed. The only deck that was really broken was DD, but hypergen would have been if it didn't have a bad MU with DD.
This does not include scars or ISD for obvious reasons. I could do a write up of how either blcok/set would change the format based on knowledge of each deck in the format.
Numbers indicate number of Top 8s during the season. Does not include MTGO DEs.
tier 1
115 Zoo
96 Dark Depths
76 Scapeshift Combo
29 UW Gifts control
rogue/tier 3
02 Ascension Combo
03 B/W Aggro
12 Boros Deck Wins
11 Death Cloud
10 Doran Rock
01 Dragonstorm
04 G/W Aggro(hateraid)
01 Gifts Rock
04 Hive Mind Combo
09 Idiot Life
09 Living End
05 Merfolk
02 Mono Red Aggro
10 Next Level Blue
01 Reveillark
11 Smallpox
12 Teachings
05 The Rock
3 U/W Control(faeries)
4 White Weenie
3 Tron
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
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Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
actually affinity and zoo would still be strong. Control would be the big loser because it would be impossible to be close to 50/50 with some of the aggro and combo decks without FoW, Daze, Mana drain....
Really the only cards that we haven't seen in the card pool are skullclamp, disciple of the vault, SDT, and aether vial.
We know what SDT would do, and aether vial would have very little effect. So it would be affinity with skullclamp, and zoo with skullclamp for aggro.
Both of those decks without skullclamp in the format were good enough to be viable vs dark depths and hypergen the first time around.
but yah, affinity would be BEAST, so would hypergenesis, and a few other combos would be tried.
aggro and control probably could not exist in that environment (calling affinity combo rather than aggro).
it wouldn't be much fun. i say bare minimum they would have to ban the clamp and hypergenesis and artifact lands. other stuff like golgari grave troll and jitte and mox would be really good, but don't fit on the bare minimum imo, whereas the "bare minimum" is what would need to be banned in order to have something you could actually call a format.
Zoo would still be good because hypergen can be hated out by faerie decks, and by DD.(both of which zoo has 5% on) Control would be mostly non-existent because disciple of the vault and skullclamp.
Also artifact lands don't make affinity broken by any means. It makes them weaker to hate, while making frogmite and myr enforcer playable which get laughed at by goyf and KotR anyways.
In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
Infecting Shoal can be really freaking fast. I don't think it had enough time to really sculpt itself into a practiced archtype. But yeah... how frustrating of a deck to face when it's "going well" for them. Affinity would be nuts as well, I agree.
so you only have 2 cards in your hand, and one permanent worth mentioning in play? I don't think you would be winning that one. It would slow the game down quite a bit though. I bet that game would go to time lol.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
Yea those 2 cards in hand would ideally be thirst for knowledge and anything else really.
That game would indeed be winnable. I win off hands like that in Classic all the time.
Honestly I wish lockdown control decks were viable in modern. It would make the format a lot more interesting if you could play 3 different kinda of control.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
I wish they were too. If chrome mox came off the ban list they would be.
But that would require banning trinisphere because theres no force of will to keep it in check. Theres a reason trinisphere is restricted in vintage but not in legacy.
Honestly I wish lockdown control decks were viable in modern. It would make the format a lot more interesting if you could play 3 different kinda of control.
go to D+T and look at the decklist "stax n tax". it sorta fits this strategy, and when i've piloted it i've been impressed.
It makes them weaker to hate, while making frogmite and myr enforcer playable which get laughed at by goyf and KotR anyways.
Wow, no. Artifact lands means an extra pump for Cranial Plating and Master of Etherium as well as more consistent, quick Thoughtcasts and galvanic blasts etc. Have you seen legacy Affinity lists? unbanning everything will just make Modern lists look pretty much the same.
Hypergenesis is a very beatable combo, which is something most people don't realize. It's incredibly fast, and roflstomps most aggro decks, but it can't play around hate all that well (unlike Elf combo or DDT, which are often quicker than Hypergenesis anyway)
Any counterspell, chalice set at 0, or anything that stops cascade (canonist, trickbind, rule of law) are all very strong against Hypergenesis. The other thing, is they can't board in too many cards that deal with hate, because that will leave them with hands without enough fatties to play with. Land hate also gives Hypergenesis a lot of problems, since most lists don't even play basic lands (so they're vulnerable to ghost quarter) not to mention blood moon.
I think the Three best decks would be DDT, Combo Elves (with skullclamp), and probably some Jace-based counter-top deck by a landslide. I think Zoo would certainly be playable, but I wouldn't want to play against Combo Elves if I was zoo... ever.. Counter-top would be a natural foil as a control deck in a combo meta, and it's a very strong deck against elves, while also strong against DDT. Combo Elves are a playable vintage deck when you add skullclamp to the equation. They would be winning turn 2 & 3 through hate almost every game. DDT is DDT... it doesn't have any particularly bad matchups, and plays 2 incredibly powerful combos, and has ways to fight other combo decks in the format.
Affinity with Skullclamp would be nuts, but it would still die to most of the combo decks before being able to swing for lethal. Clamp is a nuts card, especially in affinity, but it really doesn't make the deck all that much faster... maybe a turn faster at best. What clamp does offer affinity is a ridiculous amount of consistency, and an even more ridiculous late-game after turn 3-4.
I imagine UR storm variants would be pretty bonkers as well when you add in Rite of Flame, ponder, preordain, and Past in Flames to the eqation, but it's hard to say realistically. The main problem with depending on past in flames is that it would make the deck very much vulnerable to grave hate, which generally is a bad idea in a combo meta.
Wow, no. Artifact lands means an extra pump for Cranial Plating and Master of Etherium as well as more consistent, quick Thoughtcasts and galvanic blasts etc. Have you seen legacy Affinity lists? unbanning everything will just make Modern lists look pretty much the same.
Trust me I play the deck. It is pretty strong, but isn't much faster than the version we have in modern. removal still kills it, and almost every deck in modern can afford a bit of artifact hate in the sideboard. It would be a nice budget deck.
Hypergenesis is a very beatable combo, which is something most people don't realize. It's incredibly fast, and roflstomps most aggro decks, but it can't play around hate all that well (unlike Elf combo or DDT, which are often quicker than Hypergenesis anyway)
Any counterspell, chalice set at 0, or anything that stops cascade (canonist, trickbind, rule of law) are all very strong against Hypergenesis. The other thing, is they can't board in too many cards that deal with hate, because that will leave them with hands without enough fatties to play with. Land hate also gives Hypergenesis a lot of problems, since most lists don't even play basic lands (so they're vulnerable to ghost quarter) not to mention blood moon.
I don't really agree here. Chalice set at o is pretty good against them, but that didn't stop the deck from being good in extended. they do have ways around it. Beast within is a new way to get around chalice. Also you better how you have multiple counterspells because they can run up to 12(or more) cascade spells which means that you will probably have to counter every hypergen in their deck in the first 5-6 turns.
DD is a bit tougher because they are resilient and can act like a control deck, but pithing needle and stuff shuts them down a bit. It is also not like every color except for green doesn't have answers for the token. Not saying the deck isn't really good, because it was pretty format warping.
Elves is the most fair of the old extended combo decks. Turn 1 removal(like bolt, path, dismember, ect,ect) goes a long way to making sure that they can't win on turn 3. Pyroclasm, engineered explosives, ratchet bomb, Crime//punishiment, ect,ect. It is sort of like 1 drop zoo except it wins a little faster, but it is really easily hated out of a metagame. This has been proven twice in 2 different extended season. Although I will say like hypergen it is pretty good against zoo.
I think the Three best decks would be DDT, Combo Elves (with skullclamp), and probably some Jace-based counter-top deck by a landslide. I think Zoo would certainly be playable, but I wouldn't want to play against Combo Elves if I was zoo... ever.. Counter-top would be a natural foil as a control deck in a combo meta, and it's a very strong deck against elves, while also strong against DDT. Combo Elves are a playable vintage deck when you add skullclamp to the equation. They would be winning turn 2 & 3 through hate almost every game. DDT is DDT... it doesn't have any particularly bad matchups, and plays 2 incredibly powerful combos, and has ways to fight other combo decks in the format.
A lot of this is true, but elves would not be the best deck IMO. Any counter top control deck would have 15% on it. Zoo would struggle, but cards like Arc Trail would go a long way against that deck.
Also IMO thoper-sword is overrated. It was pretty fair in UW gifts as a turn 5-6 win con that wasn't weak to path like Baneslayer angel, ect. It was too strong in DD, but that was because DD was more than the sum of its parts. It could attack you from so many angles. Zoo still have more top 8s than dark depths did at the end of that season although that point is slightly nill vs no ban list.
Affinity with Skullclamp would be nuts, but it would still die to most of the combo decks before being able to swing for lethal. Clamp is a nuts card, especially in affinity, but it really doesn't make the deck all that much faster... maybe a turn faster at best. What clamp does offer affinity is a ridiculous amount of consistency, and an even more ridiculous late-game after turn 3-4.
I agree to this. Affinity without combo hate would not exist in this invented format. It has been stated mulitple times that clamp would break the format. I am more interested in a format with a small ban list not a non-existent ban list.
I imagine UR storm variants would be pretty bonkers as well when you add in Rite of Flame, ponder, preordain, and Past in Flames to the eqation, but it's hard to say realistically. The main problem with depending on past in flames is that it would make the deck very much vulnerable to grave hate, which generally is a bad idea in a combo meta.
Honestly I believe that storm would suck because of DD, and every other deck running spell pierce for hypergen. We didn't have past in flames, but storm wasn't even considered tier 2 in MRD-forward extended.
Which leads to a bit of wisdom about meta games.(from a mtg theory book or article can't remember which)
You could have 10000 powerful decks in a format, but only the best ones would be played at the top tables if budget wasn't concerned. Some of these powerful decks would cannibalize one another. Look at hypergen in MRD-forward extended. It was just as good then, and it had pretty good matchups except for DD which was pretty prevalent, almost as much as zoo.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
Trust me I play the deck. It is pretty strong, but isn't much faster than the version we have in modern. removal still kills it, and almost every deck in modern can afford a bit of artifact hate in the sideboard. It would be a nice budget deck.
I play the deck, too. I have a Legacy one I've been playing pretty since much Mirr-STD and I built one for Modern. Modern version is usually less consistent and Platings are less scarier (it's still scary though) and I can galvanic blast easy on T1. Huge difference from my decks is that neither run arcbound ravager.
sorry, going off topic.
yeah unbanning everything it would be like legacy, where a coin flip decides most wins... which is the opposite of what WOTC would have wanted.
Trust me I play the deck. It is pretty strong, but isn't much faster than the version we have in modern. removal still kills it, and almost every deck in modern can afford a bit of artifact hate in the sideboard. It would be a nice budget deck.
Honestly I believe that storm would suck because of DD, and every other deck running spell pierce for hypergen. We didn't have past in flames, but storm wasn't even considered tier 2 in MRD-forward extended.
Which leads to a bit of wisdom about meta games.(from a mtg theory book or article can't remember which)
You could have 10000 powerful decks in a format, but only the best ones would be played at the top tables if budget wasn't concerned. Some of these powerful decks would cannibalize one another. Look at hypergen in MRD-forward extended. It was just as good then, and it had pretty good matchups except for DD which was pretty prevalent, almost as much as zoo.
Turn 1 bolt is nice, but Combo elves (especially with clamp) can easily fight through removal spells, not to mention they play maindeck artifact hate (and tons of ways to fetch it up considering zenith would be legal).
Like I mentioned, Combo elves is a relatively competitive deck in Vintage with access to skullclamp, and the only card that they really miss from vintage is Symbiote, and perhaps Birchlore Rangers.
But like you said, it would probably just be ridiculously bonkers combo decks cannibilizing each other, while something like counter-top or Fae pick off the combo decks.
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I wish they were too. If chrome mox came off the ban list they would be.
But that would require banning trinisphere because theres no force of will to keep it in check. Theres a reason trinisphere is restricted in vintage but not in legacy.
Yeah because in vintage you can put it down on turn 1 and completely lock your opponent out for the rest of the game since most decks max out on moxen which doesn't play well when your opponent is rocking a trini. As long as trini can't be played turn 1 it isn't really even good. This was tested by several people in extended season past. you don't have some broken way to play around it yourself. so not only does your oppoent hate you but you hate your self. Also turn 1 loam lion then you go turn 1 trini they are actually in a better spot than you are.
Turn 1 bolt is nice, but Combo elves (especially with clamp) can easily fight through removal spells, not to mention they play maindeck artifact hate (and tons of ways to fetch it up considering zenith would be legal).
Like I mentioned, Combo elves is a relatively competitive deck in Vintage with access to skullclamp, and the only card that they really miss from vintage is Symbiote, and perhaps Birchlore Rangers.
But like you said, it would probably just be ridiculously bonkers combo decks cannibilizing each other, while something like counter-top or Fae pick off the combo decks.
Both of those and then a few. Skullclamp is a card that no one could disagree with. I have played probably 5 different decks extensivly against elves in 2 different extended formats and it was so bad. It is something that oyu have to prepare for and run hate for, but such is any deck. Your not going to beat zoo with a deck that is slower than it without dealing with their creatures. It is the same sort of thing.
Oh and It is far from inconceivable to thing that zoo can't deal with this card pool without the ban list. There would be times were it wasn't the best deck to run in the meta, but that is the definition of a balanced deck. A deck that is the best deck in the format(jund, faeries, caw, affinity(all examples were in the standard format of course)) is not balanced. Even as powerful as DDT was it had a terrible match up against UW gifts.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
Thomas Jefferson
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There are almost 30 cards on the Modern banned list.
My question is what would happen if all the banned cards were unbanned?
What deck would dominate?
What is the most powerful banned card?
What would be the best combo with all banned cards unbanned?
Good question and
I am not touching it with a 10-foot pole.
Good luck keeping this one on topic.
I personally want a bunch of cards off of the list for selfish reasons, but I am patient and can wait for cards to be released, interactions to be discovered, etc....
Modern: Jund, Wafo-Tapa UWR
Legacy: Witch-Maw Stoneblade
EDH: Ruhan of the Fomori, Hazezon Tamar, Maga, Traitor to Mortals
Hypergenesis would be the most borked. Then Elves. Then UR Pyromancer decks. Possibly coming in fourth would be Infecting Shoal decks.
2.) Skullclamp.
3.) Probably Affinity + artifact lands + Skullclamp. Or elves + Skullclamp. Or Hypergenesis.....with Skullclamp.
UWU/W BlinkUW
BMono-Black ControlB
Commander:
GWUJenaraGWU
BGeth MBCB
RGXenagosRG
WUBSharuumWUB (retired)
Modern:
xAffinityx (starting)
Standard:
Ha! That's a good one.
i don't see that happening....
but yah, affinity would be BEAST, so would hypergenesis, and a few other combos would be tried.
aggro and control probably could not exist in that environment (calling affinity combo rather than aggro).
it wouldn't be much fun. i say bare minimum they would have to ban the clamp and hypergenesis and artifact lands. other stuff like golgari grave troll and jitte and mox would be really good, but don't fit on the bare minimum imo, whereas the "bare minimum" is what would need to be banned in order to have something you could actually call a format.
drawDredge two cards, and repeat...maybe stuff like Ideas Unbound may be better earlier, but Clamp in Dredge would be surprisingly good in Modern.Would practically the only thing keeping the format in check be a CounterTop deck? (In this format, Sensei's Divining Top would be unbanned!)
And how about Stoneforge Mystics tutoring up Skullclamps?
we have already seen that before except skullclamp, aether vial, SDT, and disciple of vault were banned.
It would look like something like this if you banned those 4 cards. I just think it is funny that zoo had so many list even though powerful combo and control decks still existed. The only deck that was really broken was DD, but hypergen would have been if it didn't have a bad MU with DD.
This does not include scars or ISD for obvious reasons. I could do a write up of how either blcok/set would change the format based on knowledge of each deck in the format.
Numbers indicate number of Top 8s during the season. Does not include MTGO DEs.
tier 1
115 Zoo
96 Dark Depths
76 Scapeshift Combo
29 UW Gifts control
tier 2
29 Bant Aggro(some actually zoo)
16 Affinity
24 Burn
21 Combo Elves
27 Dredge
25 Faeries
18 Hypergenesis
17 Demigod Stompy
19 The Tezzerator
rogue/tier 3
02 Ascension Combo
03 B/W Aggro
12 Boros Deck Wins
11 Death Cloud
10 Doran Rock
01 Dragonstorm
04 G/W Aggro(hateraid)
01 Gifts Rock
04 Hive Mind Combo
09 Idiot Life
09 Living End
05 Merfolk
02 Mono Red Aggro
10 Next Level Blue
01 Reveillark
11 Smallpox
12 Teachings
05 The Rock
3 U/W Control(faeries)
4 White Weenie
3 Tron
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
Two words for this happening:
C-c-c-combo maker.
actually affinity and zoo would still be strong. Control would be the big loser because it would be impossible to be close to 50/50 with some of the aggro and combo decks without FoW, Daze, Mana drain....
Really the only cards that we haven't seen in the card pool are skullclamp, disciple of the vault, SDT, and aether vial.
We know what SDT would do, and aether vial would have very little effect. So it would be affinity with skullclamp, and zoo with skullclamp for aggro.
Both of those decks without skullclamp in the format were good enough to be viable vs dark depths and hypergen the first time around.
Zoo would still be good because hypergen can be hated out by faerie decks, and by DD.(both of which zoo has 5% on) Control would be mostly non-existent because disciple of the vault and skullclamp.
Also artifact lands don't make affinity broken by any means. It makes them weaker to hate, while making frogmite and myr enforcer playable which get laughed at by goyf and KotR anyways.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
Artifact Land, Chrome Mox, Mox Opal, Trinisphere
Go.
so you only have 2 cards in your hand, and one permanent worth mentioning in play? I don't think you would be winning that one. It would slow the game down quite a bit though. I bet that game would go to time lol.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
That game would indeed be winnable. I win off hands like that in Classic all the time.
edit especially if my next turn is something like land lodestone golem
or draw spell. Against most decks a turn 1 trinisphere gives you 3 free turns to get ahead.
Honestly I wish lockdown control decks were viable in modern. It would make the format a lot more interesting if you could play 3 different kinda of control.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
But that would require banning trinisphere because theres no force of will to keep it in check. Theres a reason trinisphere is restricted in vintage but not in legacy.
go to D+T and look at the decklist "stax n tax". it sorta fits this strategy, and when i've piloted it i've been impressed.
Wow, no. Artifact lands means an extra pump for Cranial Plating and Master of Etherium as well as more consistent, quick Thoughtcasts and galvanic blasts etc. Have you seen legacy Affinity lists? unbanning everything will just make Modern lists look pretty much the same.
:symwr:BorosBGR Living End(Primer) W Soul Sisters Tokens
UGrand Architect+Pili-Pala Infinite combo:symq::chaos:
Any counterspell, chalice set at 0, or anything that stops cascade (canonist, trickbind, rule of law) are all very strong against Hypergenesis. The other thing, is they can't board in too many cards that deal with hate, because that will leave them with hands without enough fatties to play with. Land hate also gives Hypergenesis a lot of problems, since most lists don't even play basic lands (so they're vulnerable to ghost quarter) not to mention blood moon.
I think the Three best decks would be DDT, Combo Elves (with skullclamp), and probably some Jace-based counter-top deck by a landslide. I think Zoo would certainly be playable, but I wouldn't want to play against Combo Elves if I was zoo... ever.. Counter-top would be a natural foil as a control deck in a combo meta, and it's a very strong deck against elves, while also strong against DDT. Combo Elves are a playable vintage deck when you add skullclamp to the equation. They would be winning turn 2 & 3 through hate almost every game. DDT is DDT... it doesn't have any particularly bad matchups, and plays 2 incredibly powerful combos, and has ways to fight other combo decks in the format.
Affinity with Skullclamp would be nuts, but it would still die to most of the combo decks before being able to swing for lethal. Clamp is a nuts card, especially in affinity, but it really doesn't make the deck all that much faster... maybe a turn faster at best. What clamp does offer affinity is a ridiculous amount of consistency, and an even more ridiculous late-game after turn 3-4.
I imagine UR storm variants would be pretty bonkers as well when you add in Rite of Flame, ponder, preordain, and Past in Flames to the eqation, but it's hard to say realistically. The main problem with depending on past in flames is that it would make the deck very much vulnerable to grave hate, which generally is a bad idea in a combo meta.
Trust me I play the deck. It is pretty strong, but isn't much faster than the version we have in modern. removal still kills it, and almost every deck in modern can afford a bit of artifact hate in the sideboard. It would be a nice budget deck.
Honestly I believe that storm would suck because of DD, and every other deck running spell pierce for hypergen. We didn't have past in flames, but storm wasn't even considered tier 2 in MRD-forward extended.
Which leads to a bit of wisdom about meta games.(from a mtg theory book or article can't remember which)
You could have 10000 powerful decks in a format, but only the best ones would be played at the top tables if budget wasn't concerned. Some of these powerful decks would cannibalize one another. Look at hypergen in MRD-forward extended. It was just as good then, and it had pretty good matchups except for DD which was pretty prevalent, almost as much as zoo.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
I play the deck, too. I have a Legacy one I've been playing pretty since much Mirr-STD and I built one for Modern. Modern version is usually less consistent and Platings are less scarier (it's still scary though) and I can galvanic blast easy on T1. Huge difference from my decks is that neither run arcbound ravager.
sorry, going off topic.
yeah unbanning everything it would be like legacy, where a coin flip decides most wins... which is the opposite of what WOTC would have wanted.
:symwr:BorosBGR Living End(Primer) W Soul Sisters Tokens
UGrand Architect+Pili-Pala Infinite combo:symq::chaos:
Turn 1 bolt is nice, but Combo elves (especially with clamp) can easily fight through removal spells, not to mention they play maindeck artifact hate (and tons of ways to fetch it up considering zenith would be legal).
Like I mentioned, Combo elves is a relatively competitive deck in Vintage with access to skullclamp, and the only card that they really miss from vintage is Symbiote, and perhaps Birchlore Rangers.
But like you said, it would probably just be ridiculously bonkers combo decks cannibilizing each other, while something like counter-top or Fae pick off the combo decks.
Yeah because in vintage you can put it down on turn 1 and completely lock your opponent out for the rest of the game since most decks max out on moxen which doesn't play well when your opponent is rocking a trini. As long as trini can't be played turn 1 it isn't really even good. This was tested by several people in extended season past. you don't have some broken way to play around it yourself. so not only does your oppoent hate you but you hate your self. Also turn 1 loam lion then you go turn 1 trini they are actually in a better spot than you are.
Both of those and then a few. Skullclamp is a card that no one could disagree with. I have played probably 5 different decks extensivly against elves in 2 different extended formats and it was so bad. It is something that oyu have to prepare for and run hate for, but such is any deck. Your not going to beat zoo with a deck that is slower than it without dealing with their creatures. It is the same sort of thing.
Oh and It is far from inconceivable to thing that zoo can't deal with this card pool without the ban list. There would be times were it wasn't the best deck to run in the meta, but that is the definition of a balanced deck. A deck that is the best deck in the format(jund, faeries, caw, affinity(all examples were in the standard format of course)) is not balanced. Even as powerful as DDT was it had a terrible match up against UW gifts.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson