If you wish to see that being put in to practice...
Watch the stream of Gabriel Nassif. The mediumness of Jace is pretty astonishing.
Saw the article and watched the stream. I guess you can say I have a lot of time on my hands now, lol.
The article is interesting and enlightening for some. I think he's underestimating Jace a bit right now though.
The stream was fun to watch. I definitely have Nassif on my top 5 of all time list, so watching him "relearn" the meta nowadays is fun. I also love the lines he does. It would be interesting to see him AND Corey Burkhart play together and determine together what plays to make. I would pay for that.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Unless we blind pleb's are way off base and the pro's find a Jace deck that is unbeatable, no way Jace is banned in 3 months.
I think it's highly unlikely we're missing anything. Even with all the incentives of the PT on the line, they couldn't solve or break that Modern metagame either. We had some good performances by strong contenders such as Mardu and Hollow One, but nothing even close to format-solving. Everything else was basically a known entity, and the overall format diversity held up even under tremendous pro pressure. JTMS and BBE are unlikely to change that. If anything, it's even less likely the format is solvable with two new cards in the mix, especially when those new factors don't even impact some of the preexisting best decks. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has really been paying attention to Modern throughout 2017 and early 2018; the format is just so robust at this point.
I believe Hollow One is RNG garbage lol. I've faced that deck online a number of times and either it hits the lotto, or it falls on its face. I agree though, especially with some of the things which BBE is powering up, the format is even stronger now.
yeah these hollow one decks are powerful, but they are taking variance to the next level.
one thing i find annoying about them is resolving the random discard effects. online its automated so its whatever, but in paper magic its just awkward. shuffling your hand and then agreeing on a system to use. then having this repeated multiple times in the first few turns, and im considering conceding just to avoid the hassle.
and yeah that mike sigrist article on jace sorta rolls into my comment about jtms being overhyped and underhyped at the same time.
edit: and i gotta say that im sorta glad jund is looking like its old self. the modern format just didnt feel the same without the midrange kings clobbering you with their bags of money.
edit: and i gotta say that im sorta glad jund is looking like its old self. the modern format just didnt feel the same without the midrange kings clobbering you with their bags of money.
I will say one thing that I noticed and I could definitely be off-base since I've played against BBE Jund only twice recently. Although the late game is much stronger, the early game is slightly weaker. They have a bit less discard and Abrupt Decay. I really felt it when I played Bogles vs. it at a recent 1K, even if I admit that I got pretty lucky (damn before the game Leyline of Sanctity in game 1).
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Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I'm pretty sure that was an error by CFB. It was Channel Nassif; GFabs had nothing to do with it. Anyway, he seems to like BUG or RUG much better.
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Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Outside of Ancient Stirrings on the watchlist, there's nothing in the current format I would ban. Stirrings adds a bit too much consistency to Tron and lantern.
Jace and BBE are fine. Jace's main problem is his price, not his power level.
I personally love me some Chrome Mox but I can see why they would err on the side of caution with that one. It might make belcher finally playable though
Would Dread Return even do anything if it were unbanned? Again, like Blazing Shoal, it's probably better just to leave it banned. But I doubt if it would even impact the format at all
Twin is another level of good within the context of the format. I dont think it does anything remotely close to what Wizards wants to promote in the format.
1. It punishes wide swathes of decks for simply trying to play.
2. It is, contextually, an 'instant' win.
3. It would immediately be Tier 1.
Stoneforge, I think is probably closer to fine, than Twin.
Stoneforge Mystic is probably still a problem. There's still Batterskull in the format, and some of the Swords aren't that bad. I don't think it's safe when you can slot Stoneforge into good decks already (D&T, UWx Control).
Twin is also not a safe unban. It was strictly not about the power level but the diversity. It ruins blue because everyone just plays Twin. Especially if you're unbanning Stoneforge, you're just asking the format to devolve into Jeskai Stoneforge Twin. The deck basically builds itself.
Green Sun's was a problem before, and I think it's less safe of an unban than Birthing Pod is. The fact of the matter is, we already have replacements for both Pod and GSZ that are acceptable in the format. No need to unban things when those decks are perfectly fine.
Mox has to stay on, it will break the format. Fast mana is a problem and it's a really good fast mana card.
Dread Return is the sort of card that could go either way. It may not seem like it's broken but I'm positive there are good ways to abuse it. There are all sorts of ways to play Dredge and load up the board, at which point you're just straight asking for trouble.
Blazing Shoal might break the format, Infect was insane with this card. Sure no Probe, but that doesn't make enough of a difference. I'd play Infect if they unbanned it.
Twin punishes decks for not caring about what the other deck is doing, aka linear decks. This is a good thing, because it encourages decks to play against each other, instead of past each other.
Its more than this. Linear decks would still get to potentially do their thing, but anything that isnt top tier power, also gets pushed out if Twin is around, because its one thing to say 'encourage decks to play against eachother' but not every colour set can do that reasonably, and so those decks get pushed out.
Twin more than any other deck set a bar on the format of 'you must be this good of a deck to play'.
I have bemoaned Twin's passing for years, literally years, but looking at the format now, you can see the impact its void has left, and its not a net negative, to most people.
Stoneforge Mystic is IMO a perfect target for the next big unbanning, especially now that her "grave in Modern" has been upended by the Jace unbanning.
I think her effect on UW Control is greatly overestimated. The real coup would be to somewhat loosen the BG stranglehold on Midrange.
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WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
Outside of Ancient Stirrings on the watchlist, there's nothing in the current format I would ban. Stirrings adds a bit too much consistency to Tron and lantern.
Jace and BBE are fine. Jace's main problem is his price, not his power level.
I personally love me some Chrome Mox but I can see why they would err on the side of caution with that one. It might make belcher finally playable though
Would Dread Return even do anything if it were unbanned? Again, like Blazing Shoal, it's probably better just to leave it banned. But I doubt if it would even impact the format at all
Yes. Dread Return deserves its spot on the ban list. It turns combo dredge into a complete monster, especially in a format without Chrome Mox to allow most fair decks to compete. It's objectively too strong for Modern, speaking as someone who plays against it often enough. It's a design mistake nearly on par with Jitte, but not as ridiculous as Skullclamp.
Chrome Mox is an interesting card to unban because of how it affects fair decks. Giving Belcher Chrome Mox by itself isn't really going to make it that much stronger. Ultimately it's Rite of Flame that really pushes that 1 land build over the top. I could still see Chrome Mox causing problems because it allows fair decks to be a turn ahead of any combo deck, which might make combo unable to compete. That said, it would put Tezzerator on the map and make JtMS much easier to protect. I'd only suggest unbanning this if it becomes readily apparent that Value based midrange, Aggro, and control decks are clearly unable to compete.
As much as I think both SFM and Twin are fine for Modern, I doubt they'll come off soon. Too much baggage.
I don't think Stoneforge Mystic has any more baggage than Jace, the Mind Sculptor. They're both powerful cards that warped their format, but Jace had already been messing up Standard for a year with UB Control by the time people started jamming swords into their birds' beaks, and it wasn't until Batterskull over a year later that things went really off the walls.
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@idSurge, That sort of article is a great demonstration of something I've been saying for a bit now. An issue with what people are trying to do with Jace is to just jam Jace into a deck and hope it carries.
Let's take the Grixis list in that article, for example. I imagine we all understand that trying to play a game in which we want to play a 4cmc sorcery and hold up counters is counter-productive. I imagine we also all know that Jace seems to be particularly good on a stale gamestate and players are in topdeck mode. How does that Grixis list make this happen? Well, it doesn't really. It runs a total of three Thoughtseize as it's discard. It then hopes that their counters and removal line up with whatever the opponent is doing, and then hope to follow it up with a Jace to turn the corner. Does that seem more or less reasonable than just ripping apart the opponents' hands with maybe more than 3 Thoughtseize in the deck? And no Lili?
I suppose if we were to build sub-optimal lists, then sure, we could have sub-optimal results.
Yep, I agree, I think the fear was that Jace could be dropped into any number of decks, and make things happen, but thats simply not the case. Even still, discard alone is not always enough, or 8rack would be more of a thing, and Jund would have forever been unstoppable, or JDS/GDS or whatever.
Sub-optimal lists for sure are not showcasing the power of Jace, BUT unless somehow Lantern or something leverages him into a 'fateseal forever'...I dont know I just think the answer for now is that Jace is a find addition to the format.
I understand your comparison to 8rack, but the difference between an 8rack build with heavy discard and a Jace build with heavy discard is that the Jace build has control over topdecks. My whole foray into Lantern to begin with was my frustration with playing 8rack and losing to topdecks
Jace decks seem bad right now because everyone's experimenting. I think Jace will likely be best in UW Control, but probably most people feel the same. There's not a lot of value in just shoving him into the best deck / deck he slots into most naturally. Best to try him in situations where he looks like he has some potential but you're unsure. You learn more from failures than you do successes here, so it's better to try and fail.
I'd say in a month or so people will stop experimenting and we'll see where the dust settles.
Twin punishes decks for not caring about what the other deck is doing, aka linear decks. This is a good thing, because it encourages decks to play against each other, instead of past each other.
Its more than this. Linear decks would still get to potentially do their thing, but anything that isnt top tier power, also gets pushed out if Twin is around, because its one thing to say 'encourage decks to play against eachother' but not every colour set can do that reasonably, and so those decks get pushed out.
Twin more than any other deck set a bar on the format of 'you must be this good of a deck to play'.
I have bemoaned Twin's passing for years, literally years, but looking at the format now, you can see the impact its void has left, and its not a net negative, to most people.
You have grown so much, young Padawan.
I too was really upset when Twin got banned. I feel like it was a surprise to all people. Many bad things happened in Modern, but I don't think they were related to the Twin banning, which I truly have felt for at least a year if not more was a GOOD ban. I feel like if Twin got banned, Summer Bloom needed to as well and if Bloom got banned, then Twin needed it as well. Or else the one that didn't get banned would have dominated. They sort of kept each other in balance, but they warped the format. Summer Bloom needed to go (despite how sad I was) simply because 90% of Modern players believed that they won on turn 2 most of their games.
As much as I think both SFM and Twin are fine for Modern, I doubt they'll come off soon. Too much baggage.
I don't think Stoneforge Mystic has any more baggage than Jace, the Mind Sculptor. They're both powerful cards that warped their format, but Jace had already been messing up Standard for a year with UB Control by the time people started jamming swords into their birds' beaks, and it wasn't until Batterskull over a year later that things went really off the walls.
I agree here. I've played both cards in many formats for many, many, too many years. Stoneforge Mystic was the safer unban, but Jace, the Mind Sculptor sells packs and they need that in the short run. Well, they need that and a good set in Dominaria. Stoneforge Mystic will never be a more risky (have more baggage) unban than Jace in a format in which Umezawa's Jitte is not legal, Swords and Steelshaper's Gift see 0 play, and Batterskull itself is rarely found, even in a deck that has 7 mana on turn 3.
I feel that once Wizards can analyze the effect of Jace, the Mind Sculptor on Modern and realize it's okay, they can unban Stoneforge Mystic and wouldn't you know what would be a good way to sell the next Masters set, wink * wink. It's not as good a seller as Jace, but you'd be surprised the players that would like to try Stoneforge Mystic in Modern. Hopefully later they can try some other potentially "risky" unbans like Green Sun's Zenith, Preordain, and Seething Song.
Chrome Mox IMO speeds up Modern too much. It is one of the most played cards in NBL Modern from what I heard. I personally think it's close to okay, but I doubt it vibes with Wizard's philosophy, especially if they have ever considered a Mox Opal or Simian Spirit Guide ban. I also personally think that Dread Return is okay, but ktkenshinx has done testing years ago that showed turn 3s to be too consistent. I can get with that, much easier now that Wizards freed 2 cards that didn't deserve to be on the banlist. Everything's honky dory again for me (haven't felt like this since Vision/Sword got unbanned).
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Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
It honestly feels like with Jace and BBE off the list (and Sword and AV unbanned before them), we're at the point where the format's banlist nearly reflects my personal ideal scenario. Stoneforge Mystic seems good to go to me (has for years, honestly).
There are a few that I'd put in the "risky, but possibly" category. MaybeDig Through Time depending on the state of Blue-based reactive decks and how Storm/other uninteractive combo is fairing, with the concession that they may need to have a more narrow, more degenerate card banned to bring them back in line. Punshing Fire I guess maybe? Seems risky with a low upside. Artifact lands would be cool to help Tezzeret lists out (and I want to use my promo Thirst for Knowledges, dammit!), but giving Affinity access to a fully artifact land base opens up a lot of potential for them to run even faster, which is really dicey. Similar story with Gitaxian Probe. Maybe it could be OK, but Shadow would have a heyday with it and it's already format-defining archetype, and most of what Git Probe did in the past was increase the safety, consistency, and velocity of the turn-3-kill decks that Wizards is really cautious around. The cantrips would be cool, but I feel like anything that amps up Storm (and other linear, spell-based, non-interactive combo decks) that much is on really dangerous ground. Dig is also in this boat, but the fact that it can almost never enable turn-3 kills is a big point in its favor.
So yeah. At this point, it looks nearly idyllic to me. Just a little further to go.
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Twin punishes decks for not caring about what the other deck is doing, aka linear decks. This is a good thing, because it encourages decks to play against each other, instead of past each other.
Its more than this. Linear decks would still get to potentially do their thing, but anything that isnt top tier power, also gets pushed out if Twin is around, because its one thing to say 'encourage decks to play against eachother' but not every colour set can do that reasonably, and so those decks get pushed out.
Twin more than any other deck set a bar on the format of 'you must be this good of a deck to play'.
I have bemoaned Twin's passing for years, literally years, but looking at the format now, you can see the impact its void has left, and its not a net negative, to most people.
You have grown so much, young Padawan.
I too was really upset when Twin got banned. I feel like it was a surprise to all people. Many bad things happened in Modern, but I don't think they were related to the Twin banning, which I truly have felt for at least a year if not more was a GOOD ban. I feel like if Twin got banned, Summer Bloom needed to as well and if Bloom got banned, then Twin needed it as well. Or else the one that didn't get banned would have dominated. They sort of kept each other in balance, but they warped the format. Summer Bloom needed to go (despite how sad I was) simply because 90% of Modern players believed that they won on turn 2 most of their games.
This doesn't make any sense. There is absolutely no reason to believe Twin would have dominated after a Summer Bloom ban, because:
1) Before Amulet Bloom caught on, Twin didn't dominate (even if someone wants to adapt an extremely loose definition of "dominate" for Twin, it didn't "dominate" particularly worse after Amulet Bloom caught on).
2) Twin had (according to my understanding) a positive matchup against Amulet Bloom.
So it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to claim that Amulet Bloom was somehow keeping Twin in check when, if anything, Amulet Bloom being around was a good thing for Twin.
As for the general claim of Twin pushing out decks and that "Twin more than any other deck set a bar on the format of 'you must be this good of a deck to play'" there is no real proof of this claim. The decks that were bad when Twin was around were still bad when Twin was banned. Yes, there were a few decks that became noticeably better after the Twin banning... but those were decks that, not coincidentally, were made better by an unban or a new card being printed.
Whatever the circumstance around Splinter Twin, I personally feel better about the Modern format playing with and against Jace, the Mind Sculptor than I do Splinter Twin.
I understand games against Twin didn't end on Turn 4, but I was essentially double Stone Rained the entire match against that deck in order to hold up removal - which is something I didn't like about that gameplay.
I really don't see a future where Twin gets unbanned. I'm not even saying it would necessarily be broken or dominant. I just don't envision Wizards looking at the format, looking at the new cards introduced since Twin got unbanned (e.g. AV, JTMS), looking at the state of Modern diversity, and saying "You know what this format needs? Twin!" It doesn't pass even the most basic whiteboard risk/benefit analysis, and has so many variables involved in legitimate testing that you would never reach a firm or reliable conclusion. For Twin to be unbanned, Modern would need to have a huge popularity hit. I can't think of anything else that would justify the risk. Even a format imbalance that could be corrected by unbanning Twin would probably be corrected instead by banning an offending card. This dramatically reduces the number of possible scenarios were Twin gets unbanned. Twin wouldn't even generate additional revenue, unlike some power unban like JTMS!
Again, this has nothing to do with Twin's actual power level in a hypothetical metagame. It has everything to do with the probable risks outweighing the probable benefits in any analysis Wizards and/or the general public would make.
Amulet's worst matchup was Twin, and I've played both of those decks pre-bans. I was actively playing Amulet when Summer Bloom got banned. A deck that played counters and clocked you was problematic. The Twin banning was kind of awkward because Summer Bloom got banned, not the other way around. Twin had a slightly higher meta share as a result of Amulet being a thing.
I can regurgitate this statement until I go blue in the face: Twin hurt blue diversity in the format, that's why it got banned. It has nothing to do with a power level, though I'm sure Wizards probably justified it a little selling that it was a good deck and could win on turn 4. The biggest thing was that nobody cared to play other blue decks. It didn't matter if they were good or not, everyone defaulted to Twin because it was so obviously good. Even in the current meta, I'm not sure people would play Jeskai, Grixis, or even UW Control over a standard UR Twin. Twin just offers much of the slow, grindy gameplan they do with this option to win games immediately.
Twin also creates this awful gameplay pattern where the games devolve to leaving up mana every turn. As much as I like Twin, that's not fun to play against. You basically don't get to do whatever it was that you were planning to do, and if you decide that you don't care about Twin anymore, you could just lose the game on the spot. It's certainly a consideration when it pushes out decks that aren't blue as well. It kind of reminds me of DRS in that regard, although DRS was a significantly worse offender.
The only way we're ever getting Twin back is if: a) the diversity goes to hell among blue decks, and b) the reason isn't Jace. You'd need to convince people that Twin could live alongside at least one other blue deck (Delver, Storm, GDS, Control) and have them both be competitive. Good luck selling people on that, I think every blue player would play URx Twin.
If you wish to see that being put in to practice...
Watch the stream of Gabriel Nassif. The mediumness of Jace is pretty astonishing.
DECKS:
UB Faeries [Midrange/Tempo]
RWUGB Affinity[Aggro]
FAERIES TOO STRONK!!!1111
- Fae Prophecy, 201
5678Saw the article and watched the stream. I guess you can say I have a lot of time on my hands now, lol.
The article is interesting and enlightening for some. I think he's underestimating Jace a bit right now though.
The stream was fun to watch. I definitely have Nassif on my top 5 of all time list, so watching him "relearn" the meta nowadays is fun. I also love the lines he does. It would be interesting to see him AND Corey Burkhart play together and determine together what plays to make. I would pay for that.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I believe Hollow One is RNG garbage lol. I've faced that deck online a number of times and either it hits the lotto, or it falls on its face. I agree though, especially with some of the things which BBE is powering up, the format is even stronger now.
Spirits
one thing i find annoying about them is resolving the random discard effects. online its automated so its whatever, but in paper magic its just awkward. shuffling your hand and then agreeing on a system to use. then having this repeated multiple times in the first few turns, and im considering conceding just to avoid the hassle.
and yeah that mike sigrist article on jace sorta rolls into my comment about jtms being overhyped and underhyped at the same time.
edit: and i gotta say that im sorta glad jund is looking like its old self. the modern format just didnt feel the same without the midrange kings clobbering you with their bags of money.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I will say one thing that I noticed and I could definitely be off-base since I've played against BBE Jund only twice recently. Although the late game is much stronger, the early game is slightly weaker. They have a bit less discard and Abrupt Decay. I really felt it when I played Bogles vs. it at a recent 1K, even if I admit that I got pretty lucky (damn before the game Leyline of Sanctity in game 1).
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Hey,
it was in a different article.
Have fun!
DECKS:
UB Faeries [Midrange/Tempo]
RWUGB Affinity[Aggro]
FAERIES TOO STRONK!!!1111
- Fae Prophecy, 201
5678I'm pretty sure that was an error by CFB. It was Channel Nassif; GFabs had nothing to do with it. Anyway, he seems to like BUG or RUG much better.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Jace and BBE are fine. Jace's main problem is his price, not his power level.
I would unban Stoneforge Mystic and Splinter Twin next. After those two, maybe Green Sun's Zenith as the next safest unban.
I personally love me some Chrome Mox but I can see why they would err on the side of caution with that one. It might make belcher finally playable though
Would Dread Return even do anything if it were unbanned? Again, like Blazing Shoal, it's probably better just to leave it banned. But I doubt if it would even impact the format at all
1. It punishes wide swathes of decks for simply trying to play.
2. It is, contextually, an 'instant' win.
3. It would immediately be Tier 1.
Stoneforge, I think is probably closer to fine, than Twin.
Spirits
Twin is also not a safe unban. It was strictly not about the power level but the diversity. It ruins blue because everyone just plays Twin. Especially if you're unbanning Stoneforge, you're just asking the format to devolve into Jeskai Stoneforge Twin. The deck basically builds itself.
Green Sun's was a problem before, and I think it's less safe of an unban than Birthing Pod is. The fact of the matter is, we already have replacements for both Pod and GSZ that are acceptable in the format. No need to unban things when those decks are perfectly fine.
Mox has to stay on, it will break the format. Fast mana is a problem and it's a really good fast mana card.
Dread Return is the sort of card that could go either way. It may not seem like it's broken but I'm positive there are good ways to abuse it. There are all sorts of ways to play Dredge and load up the board, at which point you're just straight asking for trouble.
Blazing Shoal might break the format, Infect was insane with this card. Sure no Probe, but that doesn't make enough of a difference. I'd play Infect if they unbanned it.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
Its more than this. Linear decks would still get to potentially do their thing, but anything that isnt top tier power, also gets pushed out if Twin is around, because its one thing to say 'encourage decks to play against eachother' but not every colour set can do that reasonably, and so those decks get pushed out.
Twin more than any other deck set a bar on the format of 'you must be this good of a deck to play'.
I have bemoaned Twin's passing for years, literally years, but looking at the format now, you can see the impact its void has left, and its not a net negative, to most people.
Spirits
I think her effect on UW Control is greatly overestimated. The real coup would be to somewhat loosen the BG stranglehold on Midrange.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
As much as I think both SFM and Twin are fine for Modern, I doubt they'll come off soon. Too much baggage.
Yes. Dread Return deserves its spot on the ban list. It turns combo dredge into a complete monster, especially in a format without Chrome Mox to allow most fair decks to compete. It's objectively too strong for Modern, speaking as someone who plays against it often enough. It's a design mistake nearly on par with Jitte, but not as ridiculous as Skullclamp.
Chrome Mox is an interesting card to unban because of how it affects fair decks. Giving Belcher Chrome Mox by itself isn't really going to make it that much stronger. Ultimately it's Rite of Flame that really pushes that 1 land build over the top. I could still see Chrome Mox causing problems because it allows fair decks to be a turn ahead of any combo deck, which might make combo unable to compete. That said, it would put Tezzerator on the map and make JtMS much easier to protect. I'd only suggest unbanning this if it becomes readily apparent that Value based midrange, Aggro, and control decks are clearly unable to compete.
I don't think Stoneforge Mystic has any more baggage than Jace, the Mind Sculptor. They're both powerful cards that warped their format, but Jace had already been messing up Standard for a year with UB Control by the time people started jamming swords into their birds' beaks, and it wasn't until Batterskull over a year later that things went really off the walls.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
@idSurge, That sort of article is a great demonstration of something I've been saying for a bit now. An issue with what people are trying to do with Jace is to just jam Jace into a deck and hope it carries.
Let's take the Grixis list in that article, for example. I imagine we all understand that trying to play a game in which we want to play a 4cmc sorcery and hold up counters is counter-productive. I imagine we also all know that Jace seems to be particularly good on a stale gamestate and players are in topdeck mode. How does that Grixis list make this happen? Well, it doesn't really. It runs a total of three Thoughtseize as it's discard. It then hopes that their counters and removal line up with whatever the opponent is doing, and then hope to follow it up with a Jace to turn the corner. Does that seem more or less reasonable than just ripping apart the opponents' hands with maybe more than 3 Thoughtseize in the deck? And no Lili?
I suppose if we were to build sub-optimal lists, then sure, we could have sub-optimal results.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Sub-optimal lists for sure are not showcasing the power of Jace, BUT unless somehow Lantern or something leverages him into a 'fateseal forever'...I dont know I just think the answer for now is that Jace is a find addition to the format.
Spirits
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
I'd say in a month or so people will stop experimenting and we'll see where the dust settles.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
You have grown so much, young Padawan.
I too was really upset when Twin got banned. I feel like it was a surprise to all people. Many bad things happened in Modern, but I don't think they were related to the Twin banning, which I truly have felt for at least a year if not more was a GOOD ban. I feel like if Twin got banned, Summer Bloom needed to as well and if Bloom got banned, then Twin needed it as well. Or else the one that didn't get banned would have dominated. They sort of kept each other in balance, but they warped the format. Summer Bloom needed to go (despite how sad I was) simply because 90% of Modern players believed that they won on turn 2 most of their games.
I agree here. I've played both cards in many formats for many, many, too many years. Stoneforge Mystic was the safer unban, but Jace, the Mind Sculptor sells packs and they need that in the short run. Well, they need that and a good set in Dominaria. Stoneforge Mystic will never be a more risky (have more baggage) unban than Jace in a format in which Umezawa's Jitte is not legal, Swords and Steelshaper's Gift see 0 play, and Batterskull itself is rarely found, even in a deck that has 7 mana on turn 3.
I feel that once Wizards can analyze the effect of Jace, the Mind Sculptor on Modern and realize it's okay, they can unban Stoneforge Mystic and wouldn't you know what would be a good way to sell the next Masters set, wink * wink. It's not as good a seller as Jace, but you'd be surprised the players that would like to try Stoneforge Mystic in Modern. Hopefully later they can try some other potentially "risky" unbans like Green Sun's Zenith, Preordain, and Seething Song.
Chrome Mox IMO speeds up Modern too much. It is one of the most played cards in NBL Modern from what I heard. I personally think it's close to okay, but I doubt it vibes with Wizard's philosophy, especially if they have ever considered a Mox Opal or Simian Spirit Guide ban. I also personally think that Dread Return is okay, but ktkenshinx has done testing years ago that showed turn 3s to be too consistent. I can get with that, much easier now that Wizards freed 2 cards that didn't deserve to be on the banlist. Everything's honky dory again for me (haven't felt like this since Vision/Sword got unbanned).
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)There are a few that I'd put in the "risky, but possibly" category. Maybe Dig Through Time depending on the state of Blue-based reactive decks and how Storm/other uninteractive combo is fairing, with the concession that they may need to have a more narrow, more degenerate card banned to bring them back in line. Punshing Fire I guess maybe? Seems risky with a low upside. Artifact lands would be cool to help Tezzeret lists out (and I want to use my promo Thirst for Knowledges, dammit!), but giving Affinity access to a fully artifact land base opens up a lot of potential for them to run even faster, which is really dicey. Similar story with Gitaxian Probe. Maybe it could be OK, but Shadow would have a heyday with it and it's already format-defining archetype, and most of what Git Probe did in the past was increase the safety, consistency, and velocity of the turn-3-kill decks that Wizards is really cautious around. The cantrips would be cool, but I feel like anything that amps up Storm (and other linear, spell-based, non-interactive combo decks) that much is on really dangerous ground. Dig is also in this boat, but the fact that it can almost never enable turn-3 kills is a big point in its favor.
So yeah. At this point, it looks nearly idyllic to me. Just a little further to go.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
1) Before Amulet Bloom caught on, Twin didn't dominate (even if someone wants to adapt an extremely loose definition of "dominate" for Twin, it didn't "dominate" particularly worse after Amulet Bloom caught on).
2) Twin had (according to my understanding) a positive matchup against Amulet Bloom.
So it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to claim that Amulet Bloom was somehow keeping Twin in check when, if anything, Amulet Bloom being around was a good thing for Twin.
As for the general claim of Twin pushing out decks and that "Twin more than any other deck set a bar on the format of 'you must be this good of a deck to play'" there is no real proof of this claim. The decks that were bad when Twin was around were still bad when Twin was banned. Yes, there were a few decks that became noticeably better after the Twin banning... but those were decks that, not coincidentally, were made better by an unban or a new card being printed.
I understand games against Twin didn't end on Turn 4, but I was essentially double Stone Rained the entire match against that deck in order to hold up removal - which is something I didn't like about that gameplay.
Again, this has nothing to do with Twin's actual power level in a hypothetical metagame. It has everything to do with the probable risks outweighing the probable benefits in any analysis Wizards and/or the general public would make.
I can regurgitate this statement until I go blue in the face: Twin hurt blue diversity in the format, that's why it got banned. It has nothing to do with a power level, though I'm sure Wizards probably justified it a little selling that it was a good deck and could win on turn 4. The biggest thing was that nobody cared to play other blue decks. It didn't matter if they were good or not, everyone defaulted to Twin because it was so obviously good. Even in the current meta, I'm not sure people would play Jeskai, Grixis, or even UW Control over a standard UR Twin. Twin just offers much of the slow, grindy gameplan they do with this option to win games immediately.
Twin also creates this awful gameplay pattern where the games devolve to leaving up mana every turn. As much as I like Twin, that's not fun to play against. You basically don't get to do whatever it was that you were planning to do, and if you decide that you don't care about Twin anymore, you could just lose the game on the spot. It's certainly a consideration when it pushes out decks that aren't blue as well. It kind of reminds me of DRS in that regard, although DRS was a significantly worse offender.
The only way we're ever getting Twin back is if: a) the diversity goes to hell among blue decks, and b) the reason isn't Jace. You'd need to convince people that Twin could live alongside at least one other blue deck (Delver, Storm, GDS, Control) and have them both be competitive. Good luck selling people on that, I think every blue player would play URx Twin.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer