Izzet thanks for the Revolt recap. Its always cool to see how peoples predictions are so often wrong. Clearly everyone caught push to be great, but not Walking Ballista to be the next played card. I see affinity's land. Unexiting, but stable, I always like that. Zoo and storm, and mel company did get a push too. and everything else more or less fell off.
Kari Zev's Expertise is clearly the best steal effect ever printed. I called that one a mile away. I tossed all my other steal effects from my storage when it was printed. 3 mana is too much for that effect to be "awesome" and 2 mana is broken. But that card in an aggro deck feels like its 2.5 mana, where it should be. Least for sideboards.
OK I made a mistake, Spire of Industry is actually more of a Lantern Control land. Using mtgtop8 data from 4/1/17 to 14/4/17, this is how much play Spire sees in the decks that it's been included in:
Affinity with Spire/Affinity without Spire: 41/90
KCI: 2/2
Lantern: 14/22
Hardened Scales: 1/6
Anyway, it's not a must-include in any deck, like Baral in Storm or Ballista in colorless Eldrazi. It's just another option you can use for artifact decks if the mood hits you.
Using the same time period, these are the stats for Kari Zev's Expertise:
Living End: 3/14
Revolt Zoo: 3/20
Fuse combo: 4/4
Goblins: 1/1
Given that Fuse combo is dead with the new split card CMC rule, I doubt it has much of a future.
I like bone picker the issue is against the 25-30% of the format that have no creatures to kill its not a maindeckable card. Just too awkward in a bunch of matchups unfortunately.
Bone Picker reminds me of Skin Invasion. 1 mana for an undercosted threat, but you need to kill something to unlock it. There's two problems with it. The first is that your opponent may be playing a creatureless deck. The second is that 1-drops with high power usually demand you be aggressive; ideally, you want to play your 3-power guy on turn 1 and start beating on turn 2 onwards, trying to get in as much damage as possible before it gets killed/walled by blockers. However, that's hard to do when Bone Picker and Skin Shedder won't be realistically attacking until turn 3.
You can try to get around problem 1 by playing creatures that sac themselves (e.g. Mogg Fanatic) in your deck, but that raises another problem (you're playing Mogg Fanatic in your deck). If you're in the market for 1-mana 3/2s, "play 4 Mogg Fanatics" seems like a much harsher restriction on your deck than "play 25 instants or sorceries".
But it doeant require a specific creature to die. Just one. Meaning you can cast removal or be blocked or have removal cast on you. Thats pretty easy for aggro. It naturally happens litterally every turn.
I still feel like they really pushed red in Amonkhet and that there are at least sideboard playable cards in the new set. I'm not part of the bandwagon group on reddit who thinks Glorious End will see play in modern outside of some deck that can play around the downside, but harsh mentor and soul-scar mage both look like they could see play. Aftermath cards look too weak to be modern playable outside of budget decks, though.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
We have a white force spike (mana tithe) that sees zero play(or nearly so). Also there are a couple sack creature force spikes that see very little play. The ability has been in the format and it hasn't gotten legs. Making it cost 1 more and adding cycle doesn't scream viable to me.
I mean, you do realize that mana leak costs the same and hits LotV or Karn just as easily right? In fact, mana leak takes care of LotV and Karn for like two more turns at least.
I'm not sure I follow. Are talking being able to cycle to topdeck another answer?
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
CC doesn't allow for anything broken to happen before turn 4, at least not with any consistency. It is also not a recurring threat like BP. And its not something that is prevalent like GSZ was or eating up meta numbers like it would need to be to make WotC notice it. It's a tier two deck at best right now and it's really well designed to be just specific enough to limit the viable creatures to a small enough demographic that it will likely never become ubiquitous. If we start seeing Abzan Company at 15% of the meta, maybe we can talk. Right now it's a ridiculous notion.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
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Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
We have a white force spike (mana tithe) that sees zero play(or nearly so). Also there are a couple sack creature force spikes that see very little play. The ability has been in the format and it hasn't gotten legs. Making it cost 1 more and adding cycle doesn't scream viable to me.
I mean, you do realize that mana leak costs the same and hits LotV or Karn just as easily right? In fact, mana leak takes care of LotV and Karn for like two more turns at least.
I'm not sure I follow. Are talking being able to cycle to topdeck another answer?
One of the interesting aspects of having both Censor and Mana leak as cards in the format is that opponents have to decide which card to play around, if any. If you see 1U open and want to resolve an important spell like Liliana of the Viel or Karn Liberated, are you really just holding the card for 3 turns to play around mana leak, or a single turn to play around Censor? What if you do wait the one turn to play around censor, and just eat a mana leak?
Let's take the scenario where a player plays off-curve to avoid Censor (delay one turn) - they pass with mana open and the player with 1U open can just cycle it - losing less tempo than the player who avoided playing into Censor. Moreover, this turn off will bridge the gap up to hard answers like Cryptic command - the place where draw-go control decks want to be.
I think Censor will be much harder to effectively play around than people are giving credit for. When it is played around (leaving 1 mana open), the cycling cost is the same tempo cost as playing around the card - meaning cycling it was a tempo neutral play (gaining more value than just the cycle in a cycle + tax 1). Censor has a very low cost to being in your hand, and plays very well with Logic Knot and even fairly well with snapcaster mage.
Why hasn't mana tithe been more of thing then? I mean, it's a mana less, off color, true, but still a viable option. UW still seems good as well. Is being in blue that important? IDK, it just seems less than impressive.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
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Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Why hasn't mana tithe been more of thing then? I mean, it's a mana less, off color, true, but still a viable option. UW still seems good as well. Is being in blue that important? IDK, it just seems less than impressive.
Because when it's played around you can't cycle it away at tempo parity. Once Mana Tithe is dead in your hand, it's dead in your hand. Off the top of the deck, the card is bad.
Ignoring the way the card plays differently with the addition of cycling isn't helping your evaluation.
Why hasn't mana tithe been more of thing then? I mean, it's a mana less, off color, true, but still a viable option. UW still seems good as well. Is being in blue that important? IDK, it just seems less than impressive.
Tithe is good for the first 2-3 turns and then it's really bad. Thereafter, it's a complete dead draw in most matchups. Censor is live on T2-T4 and then it cycles out if you topdeck it when it doesn't matter. In that regard, Censor is probably better than Tithe. That doesn't alone mean Censor will see substantial play, but it does put it in a better place than Tithe.
I get that. And agree that the cycling makes it more live late game. I just don't see the gap in turns 2-4 that its all that relevant. It essentially seems like mana leak 5-8, which doesn't necessarily seem that good past turn 4 or 5. I mean what happens the turns when you only have 1 mana left and could play Tithe but are only cycling this? IDK. Two mana is a substantial investment in any tempo deck and I guess pay U and draw a card isn't the worst thing you can do late game, but most times isn't remand just better? I mean you tie up their mana and cantrip. I mean situationally it could be better but if your playing control, your opponent is gonna know it and likely play mindful of mana leak. And if they are mindful of mana leak, they will be mindful of this. You can make the argument that they won't being playing for both but that touches the absurd. I mean I think the cycling is great, don't get me wrong, its just underwhelming with the 1 added on to it.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
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Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Truth is... most players arent old enough to remember how good cycling really is on the right effects. Time will tell if its aged well enough to make censor playable. I'm cool with letting the grinders figure that one out. Even with naysaying, people are going to test it.
We have a white force spike (mana tithe) that sees zero play(or nearly so). Also there are a couple sack creature force spikes that see very little play. The ability has been in the format and it hasn't gotten legs. Making it cost 1 more and adding cycle doesn't scream viable to me.
I mean, you do realize that mana leak costs the same and hits LotV or Karn just as easily right? In fact, mana leak takes care of LotV and Karn for like two more turns at least.
I'm not sure I follow. Are talking being able to cycle to topdeck another answer?
I don't think I am. I mean I know it's good but putting cycling at a very affordable rate while jacking up the card's playable cost when that cost historically has been shown to have to be low, IDK, it seems like people are over valuing it. Could it see play? There seem to be enough folks that think so, so why not. Is it gonna push Control enough, I kinda doubt it.
And I do remember cycling so I'm not doing that.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
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Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
To put a finer point on it, where has cycling cards been pushed in modern before? Answer is, almost in totality, Living End and now Street Wraith in DSJ. That's it, and they are there primarily for the cycling, not for the card they are without it. I mean you can pitch Censor for the cycle and then snag it again with SCM if the situation arises. IDK, that might be a thing I guess.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
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Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
I don't think I am. I mean I know it's good but putting cycling at a very affordable rate while jacking up the card's playable cost when that cost historically has been shown to have to be low, IDK, it seems like people are over valuing it. Could it see play? There seem to be enough folks that think so, so why not. Is it gonna push Control enough, I kinda doubt it.
And I do remember cycling so I'm not doing that.
Basically, the issue counterspells have in Modern is that out of what's playable you don't have any hard counters until you can spend 4 mana. Before that, they're all various forms of soft counters and while soft counters are generally good early in the game, they go dead after enough turns go by and lead to you losing the game because your deck draws dead.
Out of the current 2 CMC counters there's 4 options:
Mana Leak - Dead draw later in the game.
Remand - Only works when you have a clock in play.
Logic Knot - Delve means you can only play a couple.
Deprive - Casting this early, really screws your curve.
Censor avoids all four of these issues. It avoids the Mana Leak issue because when it's dead you can cycle it. It avoids the Remand issue because when it counters something, that spell is permanently gone. It avoids the Logic Knot issue because there are no external requirements on playing it. You can even splash it, and casting it never hurts your curve. If anything, in the situations where you're stuck on 3 mana and need to get to 4 to turn on Cryptic, or to 6 for Snap Cryptic you can cycle and help your curve.
It's not the most powerful counterspell ever, but I do think it's very playable in Modern. Given the cycling on it being only 1 mana, I think there's an argument that when combined with the other counters in the format it could be even stronger than Misdirection.
I think the problem with modern is it doesn't pay attention to the 3 mana hard counters given to the format. Disallow is a very viable card that receives very limited attention. Sure you probably don't want to run 4 but 2 or three seems reasonable.
You also forgot negate and countersquall, which, while not being as carte blanche as counterspell, are highly underutilized. Familiar's Ruse is another that could be viable if blue counter players were not so myopic.
Long story short, there is plenty of stuff out there. Censor is one more piece, whether it is a piece that actually does work, that remains to be seen. But hey, for $1.50 a ps I'll bite. Who knows.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Familiar's Ruse is an interesting one. It requires you to have a creature though, and most of these decks don't have creatures that curve well into it. Faerie's has played 1 or 2 on occasion but it was never stellar. Negate and Countersquall only hit spells, so they're a little more narrow. The 3 mana counters for the most part aren't playable. Spell Queller has made some strides in that area, but the rest just aren't good enough. Most 3 mana answer cards in Modern need to be 2 for 1's, or atleast very strong 1 for 1's. I think Dissolve is just shy of being good enough, scry 2 would have gotten it there. Soul Manipulation is another interesting one, but the right deck for it hasn't come along. A year ago I had some good results using it in a Grixis shell though alongside Rise/Fall.
Disallow could work as a 1 of, it's very broad which is a point in it's favor, but it's also 3 mana and is most often going to trade down in tempo. I think it's generally not going to work out well if you rely on too many of that effect.
Affinity with Spire/Affinity without Spire: 41/90
KCI: 2/2
Lantern: 14/22
Hardened Scales: 1/6
Anyway, it's not a must-include in any deck, like Baral in Storm or Ballista in colorless Eldrazi. It's just another option you can use for artifact decks if the mood hits you.
Using the same time period, these are the stats for Kari Zev's Expertise:
Living End: 3/14
Revolt Zoo: 3/20
Fuse combo: 4/4
Goblins: 1/1
Given that Fuse combo is dead with the new split card CMC rule, I doubt it has much of a future.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
You can try to get around problem 1 by playing creatures that sac themselves (e.g. Mogg Fanatic) in your deck, but that raises another problem (you're playing Mogg Fanatic in your deck). If you're in the market for 1-mana 3/2s, "play 4 Mogg Fanatics" seems like a much harsher restriction on your deck than "play 25 instants or sorceries".
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
RGTron
UGInfect
URStorm
WUBRAd Nauseam
BRGrishoalbrand
URGScapeshift
WBGAbzan Company
WUBRGAmulet Titan
BRGLiving End
WGBogles
This 3/2 cannot fly
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron
Maybe in the next set
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I mean, you do realize that mana leak costs the same and hits LotV or Karn just as easily right? In fact, mana leak takes care of LotV and Karn for like two more turns at least.
I'm not sure I follow. Are talking being able to cycle to topdeck another answer?
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Let's take the scenario where a player plays off-curve to avoid Censor (delay one turn) - they pass with mana open and the player with 1U open can just cycle it - losing less tempo than the player who avoided playing into Censor. Moreover, this turn off will bridge the gap up to hard answers like Cryptic command - the place where draw-go control decks want to be.
I think Censor will be much harder to effectively play around than people are giving credit for. When it is played around (leaving 1 mana open), the cycling cost is the same tempo cost as playing around the card - meaning cycling it was a tempo neutral play (gaining more value than just the cycle in a cycle + tax 1). Censor has a very low cost to being in your hand, and plays very well with Logic Knot and even fairly well with snapcaster mage.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Ignoring the way the card plays differently with the addition of cycling isn't helping your evaluation.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Tithe is good for the first 2-3 turns and then it's really bad. Thereafter, it's a complete dead draw in most matchups. Censor is live on T2-T4 and then it cycles out if you topdeck it when it doesn't matter. In that regard, Censor is probably better than Tithe. That doesn't alone mean Censor will see substantial play, but it does put it in a better place than Tithe.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
You are severely underestimating cycling.
And I do remember cycling so I'm not doing that.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Basically, the issue counterspells have in Modern is that out of what's playable you don't have any hard counters until you can spend 4 mana. Before that, they're all various forms of soft counters and while soft counters are generally good early in the game, they go dead after enough turns go by and lead to you losing the game because your deck draws dead.
Out of the current 2 CMC counters there's 4 options:
Mana Leak - Dead draw later in the game.
Remand - Only works when you have a clock in play.
Logic Knot - Delve means you can only play a couple.
Deprive - Casting this early, really screws your curve.
Censor avoids all four of these issues. It avoids the Mana Leak issue because when it's dead you can cycle it. It avoids the Remand issue because when it counters something, that spell is permanently gone. It avoids the Logic Knot issue because there are no external requirements on playing it. You can even splash it, and casting it never hurts your curve. If anything, in the situations where you're stuck on 3 mana and need to get to 4 to turn on Cryptic, or to 6 for Snap Cryptic you can cycle and help your curve.
It's not the most powerful counterspell ever, but I do think it's very playable in Modern. Given the cycling on it being only 1 mana, I think there's an argument that when combined with the other counters in the format it could be even stronger than Misdirection.
You also forgot negate and countersquall, which, while not being as carte blanche as counterspell, are highly underutilized. Familiar's Ruse is another that could be viable if blue counter players were not so myopic.
Long story short, there is plenty of stuff out there. Censor is one more piece, whether it is a piece that actually does work, that remains to be seen. But hey, for $1.50 a ps I'll bite. Who knows.
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Disallow could work as a 1 of, it's very broad which is a point in it's favor, but it's also 3 mana and is most often going to trade down in tempo. I think it's generally not going to work out well if you rely on too many of that effect.
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron
If Censor were a CMC of 1, it would be among the best counter magic ever printed.