Golgari Grave-Troll wouldn't make the format more interesting. It wouldn't make the format more anything because without Dread Return you can't really do much with Dredge.
The real reason it should be unbanned is simple principle: It's not overpowered. In fact, it's actually quite underpowered without Dread Return.
While it should be unbanned, it being unbanned is nothing to get excited over because it would, at best, elevate one or two Tier 3 decks to Tier 2.5.
I can get on board with your argument, too--without Dread Return, the card is very fair. I just think that some sort of dredge deck should exist in this format (and I don't mean Loam decks; I mean a full-blown graveyard deck). Taking GGT off might not allow that by itself, but it's a step in the right direction.
I'd love to see Nacatl unbanned to bring zoo back into tier 1. GSZ could be an okay choice if they got rid of Dryad Arbor, but it's still a little iffy. As for the switch of artifact lands for plating/disciple you have to think about how ridiculous that would make Tezz in that deck.
Bitterblossom is a safe card to unban now... the amount of MD removal for it is absurd, and fae can only run 4 copies of scion of oona... a 1/1 dies to pyroclasm as well as the rest of the deck. Fae is not nearly as strong as it would have been in standard/extended... Abrupt Decay says hello.
Who maindecks enchantment removal besides jund and pod?
It's extremely dangerous to unban bitterblossom. It will destroy tempo decks twin and delver have no way to remove it. It should not be unbanned. It will also slot directly into b/g decks.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If MTG is a part of your life, the formats are like relationships:
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
The only way I see bitterblossom being in the modern reprint is with a pseudo-functional reprint with a different creature type and maybe non-flying tokens. It would still be a very playable card in a variety of decks.
That being said I voted primarily for Sword of the Meek, but also GGT and AV.
The banhammer falling on DRS would also make me very happy.
Nacatl- Just for lantern
Hypergenesis- It cant be that bad..... can it? It can? Sweet, makes me want to go balls to the wall bonkers. Means it would be re-banned next update, but still allows me to take it to a tourney.
blossom- Fae was a nasty deck, but 'kut was as well. At least giving it a chance doesnt seem TOO harmful.
Decay, pulse, pridemate, beast within, etc all over the place theres alot more MD enchantment removal then people give credit for. Abrupt decay being the best.
That discard that they would run will be run against them as well. Iok/Duress/Thoughtseize all ping the card before its cast. There is plenty of answers to this card. Valkut is a 1 card "combo" and gets backed up by counters, WotC thought it was too powerful for the format as well... look where its at now. Just because BB was great in extended/Standard doesn't mean it will be broken here too... hell JTMS isnt broken enough for modern due to lack of other blue to back it up... but thats a different argument.
BB is safe, the people who think its not should do some testing. My playgroup has tested the piss out of BUG and UB Fae w/ BB... its not nearly as powerful as you all give it credit for. Any fast deck can outrace Fae. Affinity and infect are horrible matchups.
UNBAN:
Wild Nacatl- give aggro more FIYA POWAH!
Punishing Fire- because why not?
Sword of the Meek- see P. Fire.
Dread Return- Dredge is hated on along with graveyard strategies so let's give it a go?
BAN:
Nothing, or if we want to go crazy, Griselbrand or DRS. But I'm going with nothing on this.
In the same way you can tell someone is from the XVIII century because he is arroused by ankles, you can tell someone is from USA because he feels nipples disturbing.
Decay, pulse, pridemate, beast within, etc all over the place theres alot more MD enchantment removal then people give credit for. Abrupt decay being the best.
That discard that they would run will be run against them as well. Iok/Duress/Thoughtseize all ping the card before its cast. There is plenty of answers to this card. Valkut is a 1 card "combo" and gets backed up by counters, WotC thought it was too powerful for the format as well... look where its at now. Just because BB was great in extended/Standard doesn't mean it will be broken here too... hell JTMS isnt broken enough for modern due to lack of other blue to back it up... but thats a different argument.
BB is safe, the people who think its not should do some testing. My playgroup has tested the piss out of BUG and UB Fae w/ BB... its not nearly as powerful as you all give it credit for. Any fast deck can outrace Fae. Affinity and infect are horrible matchups.
Valkut is not a one card combo. Its a like a 10 card combo because you have to count it, scapeshift, and all the lands you fetch up to kill them.
Just because you have tested it and say affinity and infect are horrible matchups doesnt make it a safe unban. The card itself may not be "overpowered" but what it can accomplish and the decks it can create make it overpowered.
Valkut is not a one card combo. Its a like a 10 card combo because you have to count it, scapeshift, and all the lands you fetch up to kill them.
Just because you have tested it and say affinity and infect are horrible matchups doesnt make it a safe unban. The card itself may not be "overpowered" but what it can accomplish and the decks it can create make it overpowered.
At least they've done some testing. What is your reason for believing it's overpowered?
Valkut is not a one card combo. Its a like a 10 card combo because you have to count it, scapeshift, and all the lands you fetch up to kill them.
Just because you have tested it and say affinity and infect are horrible matchups doesnt make it a safe unban. The card itself may not be "overpowered" but what it can accomplish and the decks it can create make it overpowered.
The thing is, the majority of players that say "its too powerful" haven't tested it. I was stating the affinity/infect matchups because my playgroup has tested it and it is not as overpowered as we thought. We've even gone lengths to test is along side JTMS and AV in the same deck. Current itterations or decks w/ a few tweaks eaisly handle the Fae build.
We've tested BB in jund/junk/bw tokens as well. Jund its too slow for what it provides, junk its great with hero of bladehold version but otherwise proved to be more then a burden then what you get. BW tokens was nice to have, and frankly that deck deserves BB.
Please test the cards out yourself before claiming "the potential for it to be broken is too high." The potential for Valakut was too high, thats why it was originally on the banlist... and that is not dominating the format.
BB is no more broken then Birthing Pod or Kiki-Jiki
You played JESUS?!?! I heard none of his guys stay in the graveyard, and once you think you have him beat he ALWAYS comes back to win within three turns. I like...WORSHIP him.
Wild Nacatl
Preordain
Ponder
Jace, the Mind-Sculptor
Sword of the Meek
Stoneforge Mystic
Seething Song
Bitterblossom
Golgari Grave-Troll
Ancestral Vision
Green Sun's Zenith
Who maindecks enchantment removal besides jund and pod?
It's extremely dangerous to unban bitterblossom. It will destroy tempo decks twin and delver have no way to remove it. It should not be unbanned. It will also slot directly into b/g decks.
Faeries is a tempo deck last time I checked, so if it really was that powerful we'd be seeing more tempo in the format. Also, it won't slot into BGx decks. What are you taking out? It is a horrible topdeck, has no immediate benefit, and takes several turns to be better than Lingering Souls.
I disagree, the top tier decks that play decay only play 2 tops in the 75.
The deck would be very strong with IoKs Thoughtseizes, and then all the fae. Also Pryoclasm doesnt do much with a deck full of discard spells, Spellstutter Sprites, and V Cliques.
Once again, Fae has been tested. The tier 3 deck would not become tier 0 with just one unban. Also, if it was that powerful, the amount of decays in the 75 would become 4 to combat it.
I simply don't understand anyone who is so frightened of Deathrite Shaman that they think it breaks the format.
It gives midrange a ridiculous amount of reach, versatility, and improves every bad matchup midrange decks have traditionally had.
It doesn't single-handedly dominate every match, but the power and effect it provides is subtle and a bit warping with all things being considered. I will say, I've come around a bit on it not being banned, but that's only IF they don't unban other tools for control / tempo as well.
Overall I've playtested multiple variants of Bitterblossom, Sword of the Meek and Wild Nacatl. From my testing and impressions, I think it's too early to remove Nacatl. I goldfished a somewhat stock RGw Zoo variant with Experiment 1 & BTE, and the deck goldfished a kill that was consistently as fast as the format's primary combo decks, and had very few effective ways to be hated out the format's other really fast decks such as Affinity & Burn.
I've tested out blossom as well in multiple shells against multiple tier decks in the format, and I can more or less confirm what TittlieWinks mentioned. I believe it would be pretty similar to Scapeshift, where it would make it's presence known without dominating the format.
On Bitterblossom Findings From Testing
-Jund can handle it with discard effects, abrupt decays, pulses, or simply by smashing in with creatures. I had a hard time making any UB faerie deck favorable to Jund. Jund having a more aggressive, lower curve and being able to easily deal with blossom itself caused nightmares for Faeries, and UB fae without lightning bolt loses to Deathrite Shaman way too often.
-RDW / Burn destroys UB fae for most reasons that are blatantly obvious.
-Affinity just gets out way too fast for Fae's 1/1 tokens on turn 3 to start mattering. Etched champion causes bigtime problems as well if they resolve it. They also have no answer for a resolved plating in straight UB colors.
-Tron doesn't care too much, although it wasn't as favored as I thought if Fae can get out to a fast start and out-tempo tron (especially with Mistbind Cliques).
-A resolved birthing pod out-values fae by itself. With that said, faeries isn't a dog here since they have tons of disruption.
-Overall, as you would expect from Faeries, they thrive at beating combo decks & control decks. Right now, the format is very much midrange heavy with some combo thrown in (although that combo is more control/combo or midrange/combo).
On Sword Of the Meek Findings
-Sword isn't good on it's own, and Thopter Foundry isn't really either. This alone is highly relevant to consider when analyzing whether you would or wouldn't want to unban sword. What I did find is that sword is a decent card, but like Valakut (and Bitterblossom) it didn't seem like it would be format warping in any way.
-The best variant I played was an artifact-heavy control deck that played a bunch of copies of both sword & foundry for increased redundancy.
-Some games, unlike UWR control, you would get parts of the combo that you would wish were disruption (in all variants) since they did nothing on their own. Other games, you could get away with doing nothing then just drop the combo and go to town (mostly punishing slow draws). It's definitely powerful, but combo doesn't care about it, tron doesn't care about it too much, and most midrange decks can deal with it via maindeck cards such as pridemage, decay, pulse, or scavenging ooze.
-Very rarely did you get to activate it prior to turn 4. The fastest I found it getting online was turn 4-5, making it pretty "meh" especially with how important it was to the deck's plan, and how easy it was to find hate in your sideboard for.
I want to see bitterblossom unbanned but im yet to be conviced BUG (Goyf,abrupt,drs) or Grixis (bolt, terminate, electrolyse) fae couldnt/wouldnt be tier 1.
In recent printing of very good grave hate means I feel like all of the grave based stuff can return.
Sword of the meek, GGT, Dread return.
Perhaps I am underestimating dredge.
You can't bring back ponder and/or preordain as much as we would like because Twin is a top tier deck still.
I miss seething song.. I am kind of hoping for a similar but weaker super ritual to be printed. Four mana add 6 for example perfectly fair without consistently breaking the 4 turn rule. hey need the electromancer to do it. With seething song they only needed another ritual and they were off turn three. Even without electromancer which gave it too much consistency.
Necatl always seemed like an odd ban for a card that only attacked and died to everything.
I can get on board with your argument, too--without Dread Return, the card is very fair. I just think that some sort of dredge deck should exist in this format (and I don't mean Loam decks; I mean a full-blown graveyard deck). Taking GGT off might not allow that by itself, but it's a step in the right direction.
Who maindecks enchantment removal besides jund and pod?
It's extremely dangerous to unban bitterblossom. It will destroy tempo decks twin and delver have no way to remove it. It should not be unbanned. It will also slot directly into b/g decks.
Standard/Block = The on-again, off-again holiday fling
Modern/Vintage/Legacy = Stable, homely. A ***** after absence/misreading
Limited/Sealed = Heart breaking free spirit
Commander/Cube = Agreeable, needy and expensive
Pauper/Peasant = Sweet, kind, practical, but shy and boring
That being said I voted primarily for Sword of the Meek, but also GGT and AV.
The banhammer falling on DRS would also make me very happy.
Nacatl- Just for lantern
Hypergenesis- It cant be that bad..... can it? It can? Sweet, makes me want to go balls to the wall bonkers. Means it would be re-banned next update, but still allows me to take it to a tourney.
blossom- Fae was a nasty deck, but 'kut was as well. At least giving it a chance doesnt seem TOO harmful.
540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething SpicyI'd also like to see Wild Nacatl and Bitterblossom unbanned.
I have a very strong feeling we'll see something unbanned this time around.
That discard that they would run will be run against them as well. Iok/Duress/Thoughtseize all ping the card before its cast. There is plenty of answers to this card. Valkut is a 1 card "combo" and gets backed up by counters, WotC thought it was too powerful for the format as well... look where its at now. Just because BB was great in extended/Standard doesn't mean it will be broken here too... hell JTMS isnt broken enough for modern due to lack of other blue to back it up... but thats a different argument.
BB is safe, the people who think its not should do some testing. My playgroup has tested the piss out of BUG and UB Fae w/ BB... its not nearly as powerful as you all give it credit for. Any fast deck can outrace Fae. Affinity and infect are horrible matchups.
Wild Nacatl- give aggro more FIYA POWAH!
Punishing Fire- because why not?
Sword of the Meek- see P. Fire.
Dread Return- Dredge is hated on along with graveyard strategies so let's give it a go?
BAN:
Nothing, or if we want to go crazy, Griselbrand or DRS. But I'm going with nothing on this.
Living End plays Beast Within. GR Tron plays Oblivion Stone (which also wipes out the tokens) and Karn Liberated.
There's also a number of decks that play Cryptic Command, if you want to count that as removal.
Valkut is not a one card combo. Its a like a 10 card combo because you have to count it, scapeshift, and all the lands you fetch up to kill them.
Just because you have tested it and say affinity and infect are horrible matchups doesnt make it a safe unban. The card itself may not be "overpowered" but what it can accomplish and the decks it can create make it overpowered.
At least they've done some testing. What is your reason for believing it's overpowered?
Please, return Dread Return.
The thing is, the majority of players that say "its too powerful" haven't tested it. I was stating the affinity/infect matchups because my playgroup has tested it and it is not as overpowered as we thought. We've even gone lengths to test is along side JTMS and AV in the same deck. Current itterations or decks w/ a few tweaks eaisly handle the Fae build.
We've tested BB in jund/junk/bw tokens as well. Jund its too slow for what it provides, junk its great with hero of bladehold version but otherwise proved to be more then a burden then what you get. BW tokens was nice to have, and frankly that deck deserves BB.
Please test the cards out yourself before claiming "the potential for it to be broken is too high." The potential for Valakut was too high, thats why it was originally on the banlist... and that is not dominating the format.
BB is no more broken then Birthing Pod or Kiki-Jiki
Voted for Ponder, Preordain, Ancestral Vision, and Mental Misstep
But I think I want AV the most, since my UWR Control needs something more than Think Twice.
As for mental misstep, I really want to stop those dorks (Looking at you DRS).
Hope DRS get the banhammer. My SCM hate that guy.
But as for summary :
Please strengthen control in any way, since it's still a weak in modern compared to other (such as jund)
Above all, I expect some interesting twist (but not any-UWR-material-get-banned twist *sad*).
My 180 Modern Bordered Only Cube
Wild Nacatl
Preordain
Ponder
Jace, the Mind-Sculptor
Sword of the Meek
Stoneforge Mystic
Seething Song
Bitterblossom
Golgari Grave-Troll
Ancestral Vision
Green Sun's Zenith
Here is what I think will be unbanned
Nothing
Faeries is a tempo deck last time I checked, so if it really was that powerful we'd be seeing more tempo in the format. Also, it won't slot into BGx decks. What are you taking out? It is a horrible topdeck, has no immediate benefit, and takes several turns to be better than Lingering Souls.
Once again, Fae has been tested. The tier 3 deck would not become tier 0 with just one unban. Also, if it was that powerful, the amount of decays in the 75 would become 4 to combat it.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
It gives midrange a ridiculous amount of reach, versatility, and improves every bad matchup midrange decks have traditionally had.
It doesn't single-handedly dominate every match, but the power and effect it provides is subtle and a bit warping with all things being considered. I will say, I've come around a bit on it not being banned, but that's only IF they don't unban other tools for control / tempo as well.
Overall I've playtested multiple variants of Bitterblossom, Sword of the Meek and Wild Nacatl. From my testing and impressions, I think it's too early to remove Nacatl. I goldfished a somewhat stock RGw Zoo variant with Experiment 1 & BTE, and the deck goldfished a kill that was consistently as fast as the format's primary combo decks, and had very few effective ways to be hated out the format's other really fast decks such as Affinity & Burn.
I've tested out blossom as well in multiple shells against multiple tier decks in the format, and I can more or less confirm what TittlieWinks mentioned. I believe it would be pretty similar to Scapeshift, where it would make it's presence known without dominating the format.
On Bitterblossom Findings From Testing
-Jund can handle it with discard effects, abrupt decays, pulses, or simply by smashing in with creatures. I had a hard time making any UB faerie deck favorable to Jund. Jund having a more aggressive, lower curve and being able to easily deal with blossom itself caused nightmares for Faeries, and UB fae without lightning bolt loses to Deathrite Shaman way too often.
-RDW / Burn destroys UB fae for most reasons that are blatantly obvious.
-Affinity just gets out way too fast for Fae's 1/1 tokens on turn 3 to start mattering. Etched champion causes bigtime problems as well if they resolve it. They also have no answer for a resolved plating in straight UB colors.
-Tron doesn't care too much, although it wasn't as favored as I thought if Fae can get out to a fast start and out-tempo tron (especially with Mistbind Cliques).
-A resolved birthing pod out-values fae by itself. With that said, faeries isn't a dog here since they have tons of disruption.
-Overall, as you would expect from Faeries, they thrive at beating combo decks & control decks. Right now, the format is very much midrange heavy with some combo thrown in (although that combo is more control/combo or midrange/combo).
On Sword Of the Meek Findings
-Sword isn't good on it's own, and Thopter Foundry isn't really either. This alone is highly relevant to consider when analyzing whether you would or wouldn't want to unban sword. What I did find is that sword is a decent card, but like Valakut (and Bitterblossom) it didn't seem like it would be format warping in any way.
-The best variant I played was an artifact-heavy control deck that played a bunch of copies of both sword & foundry for increased redundancy.
-Some games, unlike UWR control, you would get parts of the combo that you would wish were disruption (in all variants) since they did nothing on their own. Other games, you could get away with doing nothing then just drop the combo and go to town (mostly punishing slow draws). It's definitely powerful, but combo doesn't care about it, tron doesn't care about it too much, and most midrange decks can deal with it via maindeck cards such as pridemage, decay, pulse, or scavenging ooze.
-Very rarely did you get to activate it prior to turn 4. The fastest I found it getting online was turn 4-5, making it pretty "meh" especially with how important it was to the deck's plan, and how easy it was to find hate in your sideboard for.
Player A - "Abrupt Decay your Bitterblossom EOT, untap --"
Player B - "Wait. I respond. I'm gonna counter that"
Player A - "You can't counter Abrupt Decay..."
Player B - "Watch me. Scion of Oona."
Player A - "Oh..."
Thanks to Rivenor for the signature and XenoNinja for the Avi!
Quotes:
The thing is, even if it was Tier 1, it wouldn't be Tier 0.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
That's why I voted for Sword of the Meek and Bitterblossom. These are the cards most likely to put new decks on the map, which sounds exciting to me.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
Sword of the meek, GGT, Dread return.
Perhaps I am underestimating dredge.
You can't bring back ponder and/or preordain as much as we would like because Twin is a top tier deck still.
I miss seething song.. I am kind of hoping for a similar but weaker super ritual to be printed. Four mana add 6 for example perfectly fair without consistently breaking the 4 turn rule. hey need the electromancer to do it. With seething song they only needed another ritual and they were off turn three. Even without electromancer which gave it too much consistency.
Necatl always seemed like an odd ban for a card that only attacked and died to everything.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
DRS
Scooze
Abrupt Decay
And somehow that makes it OK to be unbanned. Not everyone wants to play BGx.
Sword of the Meek has answers in basically every color.
Bitterblossom can be answered by all colors except mono-red, and they don't care cuz you're burning yourself.
Wild Nacatl is just a dude. Dies to any number of things.
Troll will do nothing.
Dread Return/Dredge can be answered by any deck/colors.
Anything I'm missing?
Talking about cards that can safely be unbanned.
Thanks to Rivenor for the signature and XenoNinja for the Avi!
Quotes: