I want Dream Halls. It's slow enough at 5 mana that it won't wreck the format, but it gives Modern a Show and Tell style deck and another combo deck around. It also requires a lot of cards to build around it, and even with Omniscience and Enter the Infinite there's terrible card filtering to get the pieces to assemble the combo.
I think a bigger problem with getting Mother of Runes through Standard right now, rather than her effect on balance, is the issue of how they avoid using protection now. If we were to see a MoR like card entering through Standard, it would probably grant something like hexproof+indestructible instead.
I think this will even be better than Mom.
Dream halls is reserve list. Thank you, come again.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Sylvan library isn't a free brainstorm every turn. You can ONLY put back cards that were drawn that turn--so it's more like getting a free top activation, or having Mirri's Guile, every draw step, with the option to pay 4 life per card for extra cards. Given that the first card (4 life investment) puts you back at parity (one card invested, one card back), and by the time you get card advantage you're talking about having spent 8 life points, I think it's absolutely fine. This is a card at its weakest against the strongest part of the format, but that is a power level boost to the weaker archetypes.
I agree with you about impulse, but this isn't the thread for that discussion; based on their current design philosophy, preordain is not a card they can print in standard, while impulse is (Anticipate is literally strictly worse than impulse, by one card. Therefore, the design is fine, it's just a question of development approving the powerlevel for standard).
Back to Basics is powerful, but it's less oppressive to decks than blood moon--it doesn't punish players for having "good" mana, it just makes them pay more life for it. What it punishes are decks actively seeking to get a serious advantage from their mana, aka Tron and most of the valakut decks. In other words, you punish decks that spend spells to find lands by not letting them play magic, and you make other decks with greedy mana bases pay for that greed by having to take MORE damage, but you don't stop them from still actually PLAYING magic. It's powerful, but it's more effective as a hate piece, while less effective as a straight up prison card.
Although I still philosophically disagree with adding more land-hate to Modern, I think your argument for Back to Basics makes sense, and it would probably be okay.
However, you mention Sylvan Library as being a power boost to the weaker archtypes, and I don't agree with that at all. I think it would be a boon to nearly every green deck, including but not limited to Infect, Zooicide, B/G/x midrange, etc. In fact, it is such a powerful effect, I could see other decks splashing for it. Even being down a card, just getting to choose from your top three to draw for the turn, every turn, is huge, and that's even before we start using fetchlands to turn some of those looks into sudo-scrys. I'm not saying I know it's too good, because I haven't tested it at all, but I am saying that it is hugely powerful and should not be considered for Modern lightly.
It might be a boost to many green decks, but you have to understand that life points in modern are VALUABLE. To get +1 card from sylvan library, you have to take 8 damage. Let's put that in context. If you're playing a typical BGx deck, where you want to thoughtseize your opponent, let's be generous and say your mana works out almost perfectly. You fetch a basic swamp to thoughtseize on the first turn, on the second turn play a shockland and a goyf, third turn filter land and lilly, and fourth turn fetch another basic and play your library. On your 5th turn, if you draw two cards with library to put yourself ahead, you are down to SIX LIFE discounting any interaction from your opponent whatsoever.
If you instead only draw one, you are at card parity and at 10 life. Again, assuming your opponent is a ham sandwich by turn 4 in modern.
Let's say we're talking about zooicide-- let's play a turn one threat, turn two library. At this point, they only have ONE creature on the board. If they don't just want to die (remember, they took six damage off of lands in the first two turns, and probably 2 damage from street wraith/probe/mutagenic growth), they don't double draw this turn, they just set up and play their threats. On the fourth turn of the game, they can -4 or -8 themselves with it as appropriate to make death's shadow big. That's not anywhere near out-of-line with modern power level, and in fact likely slows the deck down.
Yes, sylvan library is a very powerful card in the abstract. The problem is, modern isn't a vacuum. Powerful cards exist in modern, and as a format it has constraints, the big one being the life-cost to playing good mana and casting efficient spells. Sylvan library being a VERY heavy tax on an already over-taxed resource means the actual powerlevel of the card is extremely constrained, contextually, and if you choose to try to build around it, you're giving up many of the most efficient parts of the modern cardpool to do it.
I'm actually most concerned that a sylvan library reprint would perhaps push dredge, but I don't think it's a realistic concern; the deck in its current form wouldn't be improved by library, and library is not as efficient as cathartic reunion as an enabler ever.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Cards that I think modern actually needs, from a somewhat objective "these colors/archetypes are under-supported" standpoint:
innocent blood Black has no removal to compare with bolt or path, and as the secondary color in strong removal spells, it should have it. This spell is perfectly balanced in a limited environment, and has obvious glaring weaknesses and downsides for constructed play. It would enable modern controlling decks to have a shot at running efficient removal without having to dedicate to white and red, or without turning off mana leak as a reasonable card.
counterspell (or some appropriately costed and modified modern counterpart, e.g. "abrupt counterspell"): Let's be real here. There is not an actual control deck in the format. There are grindy midrange decks, there are grindier midrange decks, and there's a glorified counter-burn deck called jeskai nahiri. Furthermore, it's not significantly more powerful than options already available. Most of the faster/velocity dependent decks would still play remand because the tempo matters more, and the faster three-color decks would prefer mana leak because of its easier mana costs. Counterspell is a reasonable answer card in that it is flexible for its cost, and is only significantly better than existing options when played in decks that ALREADY languish in tier 3 or lower, while arguably being WORSE in the decks that it could slot into that are currently tier 1/2.
impulse (or a cantrip unban): Combo decks and midrange decks get ancient stirrings. peer through depths can't hit lands, anticipate clearly isn't strong enough, and if you're too scared of storm or other linear combo getting a boost with a ponder or preordain unbanning, then making the cantrip cost two mana is a reasonable alternative. Part of Blue's color identity is card selection, and yet top 16's of late have frequently had more copies of ancient stirrings than serum visions. IT wouldn't break anything, but might help push back against the slew of linear decks the format has right now.
containment priest: This card is a 2/2 for 2 with flash. In no way, shape, or form does it break the format, but it gives white a powerlevel boost, and it gives the format a good, proactive answer to all of the broken reanimator/dredge/griselbrand shenanigans. This card does absolutely nothing wrong if people aren't trying to break the turn 4 rule and/or ignore their opponents.
back to basics: Like blood moon, this card punishes decks for playing greedy manabases. Unlike blood moon, this doesn't prevent your opponent from interacting--under blood moon, they either sit there and do nothing (most of the time), or they just continue to play lands and drop a threat you can't beat anyway (tron). With Back to Basics, there is still counterplay--decks with fetch-shock manabases can still cast their spells, but they have a much more resource constrained time of it, and it actually emphasizes the tradeoff they made with their manabase choice--it's going to hurt EVEN MORE than it already did, but at least counterplay exists. Against the truly degenerate land based decks of the format (tron, eldrazi, bloom titan), it is almost a stronger hate piece, because they have to have their lands to do their broken stuff, which means not having access to the mana more than once actually hurts them more than a blood moon would. It's just a better hate piece at actually policing decks that do broken things, while punishing the decks that are merely greedy on their lands without actually removing counterplay entirely.
Council's judgment: Don't tell me a sorcery speed 3 mana removal spell that can't hit lands is too good for modern. There's absolutely no world where that argument holds water, unless you think maelstrom pulse is also too strong for the modern format. This gives white a boost in modern, and slots into no existing decks that don't have a generally better option already (maelstrom pulse, and no, the existence of boggles as a deck does not invalidate this statement). Tricks involving hitting batterskull etc mostly don't matter--waaay too corner-case to be relevant to a discussion on the format at large.
Veteran Explorer: This card doesn't go in unfair linear decks at all, and also actively pushes back against the extremely good mana fixing in modern and the tendency of decks to not play basic lands. It absolutely wouldn't do anything bad to the format on its own, and since cabal therapy is never going to see print in modern because of what it does to dredge, I think veteran explorer is fine, and a good way to give fair decks (and even control decks!) an incentive to play more basic lands.
Baleful Strix: Yes, this card is really good against midrange decks, especially the tarmogoyf decks. Guess what? It's really bad against lingering souls. Any argument against this card about being too good against "already struggling" fair decks misses the point that this card is nothing more than a 2 for 1 in those matchups to begin with, one which gets invalidated by like a quarter of the BGx shells anyway. Beyond that, this is a card that provides a boost to fair, interactive decks (grixis, BUG, Esper, and UB control/midrange) that are not currently a strong part of the metagame, and does not slot into any deck that strongly abuses the speed limit of the format. This isn't making infect or affinity or burn better at killing people on turn three. It's adding another tool for fair decks to use against one another that happens to also not be unreasonable against the linear decks, which hopefully is a net increase in the strength of fair decks against the linear decks. Seems like something most people would agree is good for the modern format as it currently stands.
Cycling lands: either cycle would be fine, but having both wouldn't be busted. This would enable a loam based strategy--perfectly fine because it's still dependent on interactive permanents, and also vulnerable to graveyard interaction, but importantly these decks are good at suppressing linear creature strategies because of the repeatable shock-effects available.
Toxic Deluge--In general, I think this is a perfectly fair and reasonable wrath option for modern BECAUSE it taxes the same resource that the aggressive decks are already taxing--life total--and it does so proportionally to the strength of an opponent's board. It's super efficient against things like elves and goblins that are looking to go very wide behave in a very non-interactive fashion, but heavily taxes you against decks like Jund and Abzan that are playing more of a fair game. It also happens to be taxing life total, which is already heavily taxed in modern via the manabase, so it will act as something of a balancing effect on the powerlevel of this otherwise easily-splashed wrath effect. The problem is that 4 mana is just too much against decks like eldrazi, infect, and zoo. This is probably the best compromise for a <cmc4 wrath effect that isn't locked in to red.
Sylvan Library: See Toxic Deluge above--this card pretty much only helps fair strategies, not the linear ones, and seeing as how life total is already heavily taxed in modern, the broken-ness of library is severely limited because of the steep cost (-8 life to actually pull ahead on cards, -4 life just to maintain parity).
There are a ton of other cards that *could* enter the modern format, but I feel like these in particular are the ones that have something to actually offer as a net benefit to the format at large (not just one particular archetype) or are safe enough mechanically in modern that they actually couldn't cause a problem.
Land-hate is not something Wizards is too keen on printing, and for good reason. There are already tradeoffs for having a more painful/stretched mana base, and preventing people from playing does not promote a healthy game. On top of that, Back to Basics isn't even played much in the formats it is legal in from what I remember so the potential benefits don't seem, at least to me, to even come close to matching the potential costs.
I feel you are severely underplaying the strength of Sylvan Library. Even if you aren't getting extra cards, you are getting to basically Brainstorm for free every turn. There would have to be some serious testing done in order to convince me that this level of filtering/drawing wouldn't just homogenize every green deck.
Sylvan library isn't a free brainstorm every turn. You can ONLY put back cards that were drawn that turn--so it's more like getting a free top activation, or having Mirri's Guile, every draw step, with the option to pay 4 life per card for extra cards. Given that the first card (4 life investment) puts you back at parity (one card invested, one card back), and by the time you get card advantage you're talking about having spent 8 life points, I think it's absolutely fine. This is a card at its weakest against the strongest part of the format, but that is a power level boost to the weaker archetypes.
I agree with you about impulse, but this isn't the thread for that discussion; based on their current design philosophy, preordain is not a card they can print in standard, while impulse is (Anticipate is literally strictly worse than impulse, by one card. Therefore, the design is fine, it's just a question of development approving the powerlevel for standard).
Back to Basics is powerful, but it's less oppressive to decks than blood moon--it doesn't punish players for having "good" mana, it just makes them pay more life for it. What it punishes are decks actively seeking to get a serious advantage from their mana, aka Tron and most of the valakut decks. In other words, you punish decks that spend spells to find lands by not letting them play magic, and you make other decks with greedy mana bases pay for that greed by having to take MORE damage, but you don't stop them from still actually PLAYING magic. It's powerful, but it's more effective as a hate piece, while less effective as a straight up prison card.
Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Cards that I think modern actually needs, from a somewhat objective "these colors/archetypes are under-supported" standpoint:
innocent blood Black has no removal to compare with bolt or path, and as the secondary color in strong removal spells, it should have it. This spell is perfectly balanced in a limited environment, and has obvious glaring weaknesses and downsides for constructed play. It would enable modern controlling decks to have a shot at running efficient removal without having to dedicate to white and red, or without turning off mana leak as a reasonable card.
counterspell (or some appropriately costed and modified modern counterpart, e.g. "abrupt counterspell"): Let's be real here. There is not an actual control deck in the format. There are grindy midrange decks, there are grindier midrange decks, and there's a glorified counter-burn deck called jeskai nahiri. Furthermore, it's not significantly more powerful than options already available. Most of the faster/velocity dependent decks would still play remand because the tempo matters more, and the faster three-color decks would prefer mana leak because of its easier mana costs. Counterspell is a reasonable answer card in that it is flexible for its cost, and is only significantly better than existing options when played in decks that ALREADY languish in tier 3 or lower, while arguably being WORSE in the decks that it could slot into that are currently tier 1/2.
impulse (or a cantrip unban): Combo decks and midrange decks get ancient stirrings. peer through depths can't hit lands, anticipate clearly isn't strong enough, and if you're too scared of storm or other linear combo getting a boost with a ponder or preordain unbanning, then making the cantrip cost two mana is a reasonable alternative. Part of Blue's color identity is card selection, and yet top 16's of late have frequently had more copies of ancient stirrings than serum visions. IT wouldn't break anything, but might help push back against the slew of linear decks the format has right now.
containment priest: This card is a 2/2 for 2 with flash. In no way, shape, or form does it break the format, but it gives white a powerlevel boost, and it gives the format a good, proactive answer to all of the broken reanimator/dredge/griselbrand shenanigans. This card does absolutely nothing wrong if people aren't trying to break the turn 4 rule and/or ignore their opponents.
back to basics: Like blood moon, this card punishes decks for playing greedy manabases. Unlike blood moon, this doesn't prevent your opponent from interacting--under blood moon, they either sit there and do nothing (most of the time), or they just continue to play lands and drop a threat you can't beat anyway (tron). With Back to Basics, there is still counterplay--decks with fetch-shock manabases can still cast their spells, but they have a much more resource constrained time of it, and it actually emphasizes the tradeoff they made with their manabase choice--it's going to hurt EVEN MORE than it already did, but at least counterplay exists. Against the truly degenerate land based decks of the format (tron, eldrazi, bloom titan), it is almost a stronger hate piece, because they have to have their lands to do their broken stuff, which means not having access to the mana more than once actually hurts them more than a blood moon would. It's just a better hate piece at actually policing decks that do broken things, while punishing the decks that are merely greedy on their lands without actually removing counterplay entirely.
Council's judgment: Don't tell me a sorcery speed 3 mana removal spell that can't hit lands is too good for modern. There's absolutely no world where that argument holds water, unless you think maelstrom pulse is also too strong for the modern format. This gives white a boost in modern, and slots into no existing decks that don't have a generally better option already (maelstrom pulse, and no, the existence of boggles as a deck does not invalidate this statement). Tricks involving hitting batterskull etc mostly don't matter--waaay too corner-case to be relevant to a discussion on the format at large.
Veteran Explorer: This card doesn't go in unfair linear decks at all, and also actively pushes back against the extremely good mana fixing in modern and the tendency of decks to not play basic lands. It absolutely wouldn't do anything bad to the format on its own, and since cabal therapy is never going to see print in modern because of what it does to dredge, I think veteran explorer is fine, and a good way to give fair decks (and even control decks!) an incentive to play more basic lands.
Baleful Strix: Yes, this card is really good against midrange decks, especially the tarmogoyf decks. Guess what? It's really bad against lingering souls. Any argument against this card about being too good against "already struggling" fair decks misses the point that this card is nothing more than a 2 for 1 in those matchups to begin with, one which gets invalidated by like a quarter of the BGx shells anyway. Beyond that, this is a card that provides a boost to fair, interactive decks (grixis, BUG, Esper, and UB control/midrange) that are not currently a strong part of the metagame, and does not slot into any deck that strongly abuses the speed limit of the format. This isn't making infect or affinity or burn better at killing people on turn three. It's adding another tool for fair decks to use against one another that happens to also not be unreasonable against the linear decks, which hopefully is a net increase in the strength of fair decks against the linear decks. Seems like something most people would agree is good for the modern format as it currently stands.
Cycling lands: either cycle would be fine, but having both wouldn't be busted. This would enable a loam based strategy--perfectly fine because it's still dependent on interactive permanents, and also vulnerable to graveyard interaction, but importantly these decks are good at suppressing linear creature strategies because of the repeatable shock-effects available.
Toxic Deluge--In general, I think this is a perfectly fair and reasonable wrath option for modern BECAUSE it taxes the same resource that the aggressive decks are already taxing--life total--and it does so proportionally to the strength of an opponent's board. It's super efficient against things like elves and goblins that are looking to go very wide behave in a very non-interactive fashion, but heavily taxes you against decks like Jund and Abzan that are playing more of a fair game. It also happens to be taxing life total, which is already heavily taxed in modern via the manabase, so it will act as something of a balancing effect on the powerlevel of this otherwise easily-splashed wrath effect. The problem is that 4 mana is just too much against decks like eldrazi, infect, and zoo. This is probably the best compromise for a <cmc4 wrath effect that isn't locked in to red.
Sylvan Library: See Toxic Deluge above--this card pretty much only helps fair strategies, not the linear ones, and seeing as how life total is already heavily taxed in modern, the broken-ness of library is severely limited because of the steep cost (-8 life to actually pull ahead on cards, -4 life just to maintain parity).
There are a ton of other cards that *could* enter the modern format, but I feel like these in particular are the ones that have something to actually offer as a net benefit to the format at large (not just one particular archetype) or are safe enough mechanically in modern that they actually couldn't cause a problem.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I think cabal therapy is fine if you consider the probe/young pyromancer package. I think it's POTENTIALLY OK if you consider the ramifications for dredge. I think it's probably 100% fine in BW tokens/abzan midrange. I think if you consider all of these together, it becomes apparent why this card isn't really OK in modern--it promotes decks that already have a history of being borderline oppressive, and the only deck not in that category that it enables is doing fine on its own in tier two, and mostly suffers from problems endemic to controlling decks in modern in general.
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Primary Decks:
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Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I want Cabal Therapy in Modern. Card is so much fun.
Yes. I love playing combo dredge myself. Unfortunately, dredge.
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EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
you're missing the big downside to a counterspell--doom blade works against tarmogoyf if you're on the draw, while counterspell does not. More generally, removal spells work ALL the time, counterspells only work if you HAVE them AND MANA available WHEN your opponent casts a spell. The inherent strength of counterspells is that they generate tempo (opponent wasted mana and a turn for no value, you gained that as tempo towards a stronger late game or towards preserving your fast clock) while being terrible if you can't abuse the tempo (don't have a stronger late game/threat on board). Removal trades this tempo advantage for relevance--it's ALWAYS good to draw removal spells since they ALWAYS work, while counterspells off the top do nothing against a delver punching you in the face.
Final point: Removal lets YOU dictate the pace of the game. Counterspells let YOUR OPPONENT dictate the pace of the game. The nature of countermagic is such that it only comes into play when your opponent decides to pick a fight, which means it's super vulnerable to things like discard or sideboarded hate (Thrun, the last troll says hi), while removal can be fired off at your convenience. Anyone who plays legacy extensively and has experience playing with/around daze, force of will, flusterstorm, spell pierce, and possibly even counterspell understands that having countermagic doesn't mean you're in control of the game, and it doesn't let you dominate--because if you're holding up all that countermagic, you can't do anything proactive to try and WIN the game. In formats like modern where the mana base hurts a ton to start with, it doesn't take all that much pressure beyond what the countermagic shields can cover before you just lose the game.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Your argument ignores the fundamental problem with countermagic vs removal--Countermagic MUST be deployed before a threat can resolve; Removal can work at any point. In a deck with 40 counterspells and 20 lands, one resolved threat is good game. In a deck with 40 removal spells and 20 lands, it's unlikely to lose to any single creature.
Drawing counterspells on anything other than an empty board is as good as drawing nothing, which is why removal is more restrictive. There are no wrong threats, only wrong answers.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
This thread should not be surprised if mods close it and remake it with some ground rules, one of which could very well be treating RL suggestions as spam.
How likely is Mother of Runes te reappear ? Ist the only Card im interested in to convert over to Modern.
As long as she has to go through Standard, it's virtually impossible.
+1 for remaking the thread, slapping it with a sticky, and laying down some ground rules with an OP that contains all the reserved list cards. It'll make people actually think about what they're posting.
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EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I just want to point out that palinchron is reserved list. We're never getting a reprint of it.
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EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
What do they all have in common? They're strong ANSWER cards. Because modern needs some policing tools added.
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EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I don't like Counterspell to be reprinted and Modern legal because it's hard for slower fair decks to play against counter that can deal with everything. Combined with Snapcaster Mage it will make very hard to resolve anything relevant for the opponent which hits fair slower decks the most while doesn't do much against faster decks which are already very well positioned. I agree that we need wider, more generic answers for fair decks so they have easier time fighting with linear combo and aggro decks but I don't think counter without a drawback is the way to go.
That's exactly the point--control decks are SUPPOSED to be advantaged over slower midrange decks, because the idea is that the control deck goes bigger while the midrange decks typically don't put them under early pressure. It's exactly the same as the reason why midrange decks are supposed to be advantaged over linear agro decks (in general).
This is rock complaining that paper is too weak for its job! AKA, Maro's key for when a format is imbalanced.
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EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Dredge wouldn't be playable even with Cabal Therapy AND Dread Return.
None of the cards that make Vintage style Dredge are avaliable, Narcomoeba is not reliable at all.
Legacy style Dredge isn't supported either, Burn is much more powerful in Modern the modern meta than the Legacy meta and Dredge without Cephalid Colisseum and Careful Study just isn't fast enough. And Dredgevine really isn't a meaningful enough reason to negate us a card that would be so useful in the format.
The most benefit would be for Jund, Junk, BWTokens and Pox. Decks that actually try to apply early game control through discard and have expendable creatures to use it's flashback. 8Rack may or may not use it, it already has enough 1 for 1s and late-game Raven's Crime is better in most situations.
Dude, you are just wrong here. I tested Dread Return Dredge, Turn 3 kills are common and the turn 4 kill is the rule, while there is the possibility for turn 2 kills (Turn 1 pitch 2 Delve guys (GGT would be ideal) to Looting, turn 2 dredge for 6, loot (dredge for 12/11), get back Nacromoeba back, play land, get Bloodghasts back, cast another Looting (if you have one), dredge again for more, sac dudes for a win. Heck, even a Turn 1 Hedron Crab into turn 2 fetch "dredges" for 6 cards and gives you a high chance to hit a Dredger). You have enough ways to get creatures back from your grave (Bloodghast being the best one, Gravecrawler the second best one, but he needs some dedicated deckbuilding to get rolling).
Though, Therapy would push classic Dredge from the unplayable tier into semi-playable.
Greetings,
Kathal
Show your testing notebook with testing % vs tier 1 decks or I will just have to not believe you.
I've played Dredge in Vintage and Legacy, and the enviroment where those decks works just isn't there in Modern, not to mention the grievous lack of tools.
Dredge would need Cabal Therapy, Dread Return and AT LEAST Ichorid or Cephalid Colisseum to be a turn 4 deck in Modern. Therapy by itself is completely safe.
Dredge doesn't turn into a turn 3/4 deck in modern. That's not the problem. The problem is the OTHER THINGS the dredge deck gets to do INSTEAD OF PLAYING THE BAD CARDS DREDGEVINE PLAYS. Cabal therapy gives dredge-style decks a second set of discard spells beyond raven's crime to pack against unfair decks. This is obviously in addition to their potential to just dredge into and reanimate a bullet that the fair deck in question can't beat, and remember that turn one looting into turn two ANYTHING pretty much assures they see 18-20 cards from the top of their deck by turn 3, at which point narcomoeba's and bloodghasts DO actually relevantly power out dread return on grisselbrand which almost assuredly powers out dredging the rest of your deck and doing whatever the hell you want to. It's not elegant, but it doesn't have to beat the same hate that legacy dredge does, at least not in game one.
As far as testing notebooks, I have written down results from 37 matches of NBL modern involving dredge as one of the decks. I was not the dredge pilot, I was piloting my gauntlet decks against my friend's gauntlet dredge. I won 25 of those matches, but only 7 game 1's. I had 3-4x Rest in peace, or 4x leyline of the void, or 3x surgical extraction in every single one of those decks, in addition to cheap countermagic and disruption (like mainboarded thalia, mental misstep, grafdiger's cage). I was ONLY testing blue decks, and so the fact that I couldn't win game 1's effectively even with removal and countermagic is frightening. And this is without cabal therapy. I had excessive graveyard hate too, because I play dredge in legacy and I do in fact respect the power of the graveyard in a format with all the modern-era rituals and dredge cards. It came out to dredge having an overall 81% game one win percentage, a 33.5% match win percentage, and a combined 45% game win percentage with only about a 40% gwp in sideboarded games. I definitely had some serious luck to get some of those sideboard wins, drawing the hate card at the last second, etc, but bear in mind this is the results when a SERIOUS amount of hate is directed at the deck.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I don't think you understand the point. I'm not talking about dredgevine. I'm talking about DREDGE. Dredgevine is a tier 2.5/3 deck in modern that smashes fair decks pretty handily and struggles with anything fast and linear, while also being dead to any reasonable graveyard hate.
DREDGE is a deck that doesn't currently exist in modern because all of the cards in one key category--the graveyard-based sack outlet category--are banned or were never printed in modern. If you give it cabal therapy, I promise you that a dredge deck will emerge. Not dredgevine. An actual dredge deck. It will not be a turn 3 kill deck, and it will only kill on turn 4 with low consistency. But it WILL be much more disruptive than most people expect, and it WILL force people in the format to begin playing real graveyard hosers, not selective interaction like scavenging ooze and the like.
There's also the issue of possibly pushing dredgevine towards the top of tier 2 status, which I personally don't have a problem with, but WOTC clearly wants modern to at least be hospitable to real midrange decks, and dredgevine eats those alive, so I'm skeptical of it being a "safe" reprint from WOTC's perspective anyway, but that really isn't the point. The point is that they never want to experience making actual DREDGE a thing in the format--there's a reason dredge is high on the storm scale.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I've played legacy dredge for six years. I've playtested against modern dredgevine a good bit, with a guy who's T16'd at least one, maybe two opens with it. I've personally playtested NBL modern dredge a ton. Based on those experiences:
1. Most people who want cabal therapy in modern don't truly understand how that card operates for dredge. It's not just that it gives them a "free" sack outlet for bridge tokens, it's the fact that it only requires one actual dude in play to get that value.
2. Modern dredge is not legacy dredge. That being said, modern isn't legacy either. Players effectively start at 16-17 life most of the time, which means dredge can quite effectively kill you with either flame-kin zealot or 1-2 flayer of the hatebound triggers. It's quite reasonable to looting on the first turn, play a dork and a cabal therapy or second looting on the second turn (after dredging the draw step), and on the third turn flashback therapy with your dork (possibly after a gitaxian probe or street wraith cycle to dredge a ton more) netting 2-3 tokens, reanimating something dumb like grisselbrand with unburial rites, and effectively winning the game. Or you could slow it down by a turn and quite possibly hit a turn 4/5 kill with a flayer reanimation off unburial rites, on the back of 2-3 discard spells in the first 3-4 turns. That's midrange-level disruption with a combo kill. That's dangerous.
3. Modern dredgevine already has the ability to grind out midrange decks with little problem. For balance reasons, it would be bad to also give it a stronger twin and combo matchup. Shoring up the weaknesses of unfair decks is how you end up with tier 0 decks.
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Modern: Esper Draw-Go
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EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
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Dream halls is reserve list. Thank you, come again.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
It might be a boost to many green decks, but you have to understand that life points in modern are VALUABLE. To get +1 card from sylvan library, you have to take 8 damage. Let's put that in context. If you're playing a typical BGx deck, where you want to thoughtseize your opponent, let's be generous and say your mana works out almost perfectly. You fetch a basic swamp to thoughtseize on the first turn, on the second turn play a shockland and a goyf, third turn filter land and lilly, and fourth turn fetch another basic and play your library. On your 5th turn, if you draw two cards with library to put yourself ahead, you are down to SIX LIFE discounting any interaction from your opponent whatsoever.
If you instead only draw one, you are at card parity and at 10 life. Again, assuming your opponent is a ham sandwich by turn 4 in modern.
Let's say we're talking about zooicide-- let's play a turn one threat, turn two library. At this point, they only have ONE creature on the board. If they don't just want to die (remember, they took six damage off of lands in the first two turns, and probably 2 damage from street wraith/probe/mutagenic growth), they don't double draw this turn, they just set up and play their threats. On the fourth turn of the game, they can -4 or -8 themselves with it as appropriate to make death's shadow big. That's not anywhere near out-of-line with modern power level, and in fact likely slows the deck down.
Yes, sylvan library is a very powerful card in the abstract. The problem is, modern isn't a vacuum. Powerful cards exist in modern, and as a format it has constraints, the big one being the life-cost to playing good mana and casting efficient spells. Sylvan library being a VERY heavy tax on an already over-taxed resource means the actual powerlevel of the card is extremely constrained, contextually, and if you choose to try to build around it, you're giving up many of the most efficient parts of the modern cardpool to do it.
I'm actually most concerned that a sylvan library reprint would perhaps push dredge, but I don't think it's a realistic concern; the deck in its current form wouldn't be improved by library, and library is not as efficient as cathartic reunion as an enabler ever.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Sylvan library isn't a free brainstorm every turn. You can ONLY put back cards that were drawn that turn--so it's more like getting a free top activation, or having Mirri's Guile, every draw step, with the option to pay 4 life per card for extra cards. Given that the first card (4 life investment) puts you back at parity (one card invested, one card back), and by the time you get card advantage you're talking about having spent 8 life points, I think it's absolutely fine. This is a card at its weakest against the strongest part of the format, but that is a power level boost to the weaker archetypes.
I agree with you about impulse, but this isn't the thread for that discussion; based on their current design philosophy, preordain is not a card they can print in standard, while impulse is (Anticipate is literally strictly worse than impulse, by one card. Therefore, the design is fine, it's just a question of development approving the powerlevel for standard).
Back to Basics is powerful, but it's less oppressive to decks than blood moon--it doesn't punish players for having "good" mana, it just makes them pay more life for it. What it punishes are decks actively seeking to get a serious advantage from their mana, aka Tron and most of the valakut decks. In other words, you punish decks that spend spells to find lands by not letting them play magic, and you make other decks with greedy mana bases pay for that greed by having to take MORE damage, but you don't stop them from still actually PLAYING magic. It's powerful, but it's more effective as a hate piece, while less effective as a straight up prison card.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
innocent blood Black has no removal to compare with bolt or path, and as the secondary color in strong removal spells, it should have it. This spell is perfectly balanced in a limited environment, and has obvious glaring weaknesses and downsides for constructed play. It would enable modern controlling decks to have a shot at running efficient removal without having to dedicate to white and red, or without turning off mana leak as a reasonable card.
counterspell (or some appropriately costed and modified modern counterpart, e.g. "abrupt counterspell"): Let's be real here. There is not an actual control deck in the format. There are grindy midrange decks, there are grindier midrange decks, and there's a glorified counter-burn deck called jeskai nahiri. Furthermore, it's not significantly more powerful than options already available. Most of the faster/velocity dependent decks would still play remand because the tempo matters more, and the faster three-color decks would prefer mana leak because of its easier mana costs. Counterspell is a reasonable answer card in that it is flexible for its cost, and is only significantly better than existing options when played in decks that ALREADY languish in tier 3 or lower, while arguably being WORSE in the decks that it could slot into that are currently tier 1/2.
impulse (or a cantrip unban): Combo decks and midrange decks get ancient stirrings. peer through depths can't hit lands, anticipate clearly isn't strong enough, and if you're too scared of storm or other linear combo getting a boost with a ponder or preordain unbanning, then making the cantrip cost two mana is a reasonable alternative. Part of Blue's color identity is card selection, and yet top 16's of late have frequently had more copies of ancient stirrings than serum visions. IT wouldn't break anything, but might help push back against the slew of linear decks the format has right now.
containment priest: This card is a 2/2 for 2 with flash. In no way, shape, or form does it break the format, but it gives white a powerlevel boost, and it gives the format a good, proactive answer to all of the broken reanimator/dredge/griselbrand shenanigans. This card does absolutely nothing wrong if people aren't trying to break the turn 4 rule and/or ignore their opponents.
back to basics: Like blood moon, this card punishes decks for playing greedy manabases. Unlike blood moon, this doesn't prevent your opponent from interacting--under blood moon, they either sit there and do nothing (most of the time), or they just continue to play lands and drop a threat you can't beat anyway (tron). With Back to Basics, there is still counterplay--decks with fetch-shock manabases can still cast their spells, but they have a much more resource constrained time of it, and it actually emphasizes the tradeoff they made with their manabase choice--it's going to hurt EVEN MORE than it already did, but at least counterplay exists. Against the truly degenerate land based decks of the format (tron, eldrazi, bloom titan), it is almost a stronger hate piece, because they have to have their lands to do their broken stuff, which means not having access to the mana more than once actually hurts them more than a blood moon would. It's just a better hate piece at actually policing decks that do broken things, while punishing the decks that are merely greedy on their lands without actually removing counterplay entirely.
Council's judgment: Don't tell me a sorcery speed 3 mana removal spell that can't hit lands is too good for modern. There's absolutely no world where that argument holds water, unless you think maelstrom pulse is also too strong for the modern format. This gives white a boost in modern, and slots into no existing decks that don't have a generally better option already (maelstrom pulse, and no, the existence of boggles as a deck does not invalidate this statement). Tricks involving hitting batterskull etc mostly don't matter--waaay too corner-case to be relevant to a discussion on the format at large.
Veteran Explorer: This card doesn't go in unfair linear decks at all, and also actively pushes back against the extremely good mana fixing in modern and the tendency of decks to not play basic lands. It absolutely wouldn't do anything bad to the format on its own, and since cabal therapy is never going to see print in modern because of what it does to dredge, I think veteran explorer is fine, and a good way to give fair decks (and even control decks!) an incentive to play more basic lands.
Baleful Strix: Yes, this card is really good against midrange decks, especially the tarmogoyf decks. Guess what? It's really bad against lingering souls. Any argument against this card about being too good against "already struggling" fair decks misses the point that this card is nothing more than a 2 for 1 in those matchups to begin with, one which gets invalidated by like a quarter of the BGx shells anyway. Beyond that, this is a card that provides a boost to fair, interactive decks (grixis, BUG, Esper, and UB control/midrange) that are not currently a strong part of the metagame, and does not slot into any deck that strongly abuses the speed limit of the format. This isn't making infect or affinity or burn better at killing people on turn three. It's adding another tool for fair decks to use against one another that happens to also not be unreasonable against the linear decks, which hopefully is a net increase in the strength of fair decks against the linear decks. Seems like something most people would agree is good for the modern format as it currently stands.
Cycling lands: either cycle would be fine, but having both wouldn't be busted. This would enable a loam based strategy--perfectly fine because it's still dependent on interactive permanents, and also vulnerable to graveyard interaction, but importantly these decks are good at suppressing linear creature strategies because of the repeatable shock-effects available.
Toxic Deluge--In general, I think this is a perfectly fair and reasonable wrath option for modern BECAUSE it taxes the same resource that the aggressive decks are already taxing--life total--and it does so proportionally to the strength of an opponent's board. It's super efficient against things like elves and goblins that are looking to go very wide behave in a very non-interactive fashion, but heavily taxes you against decks like Jund and Abzan that are playing more of a fair game. It also happens to be taxing life total, which is already heavily taxed in modern via the manabase, so it will act as something of a balancing effect on the powerlevel of this otherwise easily-splashed wrath effect. The problem is that 4 mana is just too much against decks like eldrazi, infect, and zoo. This is probably the best compromise for a <cmc4 wrath effect that isn't locked in to red.
Sylvan Library: See Toxic Deluge above--this card pretty much only helps fair strategies, not the linear ones, and seeing as how life total is already heavily taxed in modern, the broken-ness of library is severely limited because of the steep cost (-8 life to actually pull ahead on cards, -4 life just to maintain parity).
There are a ton of other cards that *could* enter the modern format, but I feel like these in particular are the ones that have something to actually offer as a net benefit to the format at large (not just one particular archetype) or are safe enough mechanically in modern that they actually couldn't cause a problem.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I'd like to see counterspell to play alongside thoughtseize, birds of paradise, lightning bolt, path to exile, etc. Wizards clearly hates countermagic however.
I think cabal therapy is fine if you consider the probe/young pyromancer package. I think it's POTENTIALLY OK if you consider the ramifications for dredge. I think it's probably 100% fine in BW tokens/abzan midrange. I think if you consider all of these together, it becomes apparent why this card isn't really OK in modern--it promotes decks that already have a history of being borderline oppressive, and the only deck not in that category that it enables is doing fine on its own in tier two, and mostly suffers from problems endemic to controlling decks in modern in general.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Yes. I love playing combo dredge myself. Unfortunately, dredge.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Final point: Removal lets YOU dictate the pace of the game. Counterspells let YOUR OPPONENT dictate the pace of the game. The nature of countermagic is such that it only comes into play when your opponent decides to pick a fight, which means it's super vulnerable to things like discard or sideboarded hate (Thrun, the last troll says hi), while removal can be fired off at your convenience. Anyone who plays legacy extensively and has experience playing with/around daze, force of will, flusterstorm, spell pierce, and possibly even counterspell understands that having countermagic doesn't mean you're in control of the game, and it doesn't let you dominate--because if you're holding up all that countermagic, you can't do anything proactive to try and WIN the game. In formats like modern where the mana base hurts a ton to start with, it doesn't take all that much pressure beyond what the countermagic shields can cover before you just lose the game.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Drawing counterspells on anything other than an empty board is as good as drawing nothing, which is why removal is more restrictive. There are no wrong threats, only wrong answers.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
+1 for remaking the thread, slapping it with a sticky, and laying down some ground rules with an OP that contains all the reserved list cards. It'll make people actually think about what they're posting.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
counterspell
dromar's charm
innocent blood
impulse
mother of runes
Armageddon
toxic deluge
baleful strix
back to basics
swords to plowshares
What do they all have in common? They're strong ANSWER cards. Because modern needs some policing tools added.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
That's exactly the point--control decks are SUPPOSED to be advantaged over slower midrange decks, because the idea is that the control deck goes bigger while the midrange decks typically don't put them under early pressure. It's exactly the same as the reason why midrange decks are supposed to be advantaged over linear agro decks (in general).
This is rock complaining that paper is too weak for its job! AKA, Maro's key for when a format is imbalanced.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Dredge doesn't turn into a turn 3/4 deck in modern. That's not the problem. The problem is the OTHER THINGS the dredge deck gets to do INSTEAD OF PLAYING THE BAD CARDS DREDGEVINE PLAYS. Cabal therapy gives dredge-style decks a second set of discard spells beyond raven's crime to pack against unfair decks. This is obviously in addition to their potential to just dredge into and reanimate a bullet that the fair deck in question can't beat, and remember that turn one looting into turn two ANYTHING pretty much assures they see 18-20 cards from the top of their deck by turn 3, at which point narcomoeba's and bloodghasts DO actually relevantly power out dread return on grisselbrand which almost assuredly powers out dredging the rest of your deck and doing whatever the hell you want to. It's not elegant, but it doesn't have to beat the same hate that legacy dredge does, at least not in game one.
As far as testing notebooks, I have written down results from 37 matches of NBL modern involving dredge as one of the decks. I was not the dredge pilot, I was piloting my gauntlet decks against my friend's gauntlet dredge. I won 25 of those matches, but only 7 game 1's. I had 3-4x Rest in peace, or 4x leyline of the void, or 3x surgical extraction in every single one of those decks, in addition to cheap countermagic and disruption (like mainboarded thalia, mental misstep, grafdiger's cage). I was ONLY testing blue decks, and so the fact that I couldn't win game 1's effectively even with removal and countermagic is frightening. And this is without cabal therapy. I had excessive graveyard hate too, because I play dredge in legacy and I do in fact respect the power of the graveyard in a format with all the modern-era rituals and dredge cards. It came out to dredge having an overall 81% game one win percentage, a 33.5% match win percentage, and a combined 45% game win percentage with only about a 40% gwp in sideboarded games. I definitely had some serious luck to get some of those sideboard wins, drawing the hate card at the last second, etc, but bear in mind this is the results when a SERIOUS amount of hate is directed at the deck.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
DREDGE is a deck that doesn't currently exist in modern because all of the cards in one key category--the graveyard-based sack outlet category--are banned or were never printed in modern. If you give it cabal therapy, I promise you that a dredge deck will emerge. Not dredgevine. An actual dredge deck. It will not be a turn 3 kill deck, and it will only kill on turn 4 with low consistency. But it WILL be much more disruptive than most people expect, and it WILL force people in the format to begin playing real graveyard hosers, not selective interaction like scavenging ooze and the like.
There's also the issue of possibly pushing dredgevine towards the top of tier 2 status, which I personally don't have a problem with, but WOTC clearly wants modern to at least be hospitable to real midrange decks, and dredgevine eats those alive, so I'm skeptical of it being a "safe" reprint from WOTC's perspective anyway, but that really isn't the point. The point is that they never want to experience making actual DREDGE a thing in the format--there's a reason dredge is high on the storm scale.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
1. Most people who want cabal therapy in modern don't truly understand how that card operates for dredge. It's not just that it gives them a "free" sack outlet for bridge tokens, it's the fact that it only requires one actual dude in play to get that value.
2. Modern dredge is not legacy dredge. That being said, modern isn't legacy either. Players effectively start at 16-17 life most of the time, which means dredge can quite effectively kill you with either flame-kin zealot or 1-2 flayer of the hatebound triggers. It's quite reasonable to looting on the first turn, play a dork and a cabal therapy or second looting on the second turn (after dredging the draw step), and on the third turn flashback therapy with your dork (possibly after a gitaxian probe or street wraith cycle to dredge a ton more) netting 2-3 tokens, reanimating something dumb like grisselbrand with unburial rites, and effectively winning the game. Or you could slow it down by a turn and quite possibly hit a turn 4/5 kill with a flayer reanimation off unburial rites, on the back of 2-3 discard spells in the first 3-4 turns. That's midrange-level disruption with a combo kill. That's dangerous.
3. Modern dredgevine already has the ability to grind out midrange decks with little problem. For balance reasons, it would be bad to also give it a stronger twin and combo matchup. Shoring up the weaknesses of unfair decks is how you end up with tier 0 decks.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm