Honestly, WOTC could have made Teferi just fine and not such a problem with drawing out games if they made his Ultimate a Harder Finish. It takes 5 turns to hit anyway and he cost 5 CMC, they could have tacked on Sphinx's Revelation on the end to make it more likely your opponent just gives in. Get Emblem then Draw 7, Gain 7 Life. So you know a burn player doesn't think they have a chance if they hit enough remaining bolts and haste creatures.
3 UW and 1 Jeskai. That's awkward for the unban SFM crowd...
Interestingly, I think their unban/ban decisions were made before this event, so it might not affect how things shake out Monday. That will probably be "No Changes" anyway, but it's worth noting in case SFM is on the table.
As for the T8, that's a great set of decks and it is a bit awkward for that unban SFM crowd, myself included. Blue and white-based decks are increasingly viable, and it's simply indefensible anymore to talk about these decks being bad. There is just too much tournament presence.
I may be misremembering, but I believe decisions are always finalized before taking into account any results from the weekend prior to a Monday announcement. It would be way too chaotic and last minute to make Sunday night decisions for a B&R.
I think Seth nailed the response below, so I'll just defer to his post.
GP Barcelona is also interesting because the Spanish MTG scene always feels very linear. This T8 makes me feel a lot better about the global metagame.
3 UW and 1 Jeskai. That's awkward for the unban SFM crowd...
Interestingly, I think their unban/ban decisions were made before this event, so it might not affect how things shake out Monday. That will probably be "No Changes" anyway, but it's worth noting in case SFM is on the table.
As for the T8, that's a great set of decks and it is a bit awkward for that unban SFM crowd, myself included. Blue and white-based decks are increasingly viable, and it's simply indefensible anymore to talk about these decks being bad. There is just too much tournament presence.
I may be misremembering, but I believe decisions are always finalized before taking into account any results from the weekend prior to a Monday announcement. It would be way too chaotic and last minute to make Sunday night decisions for a B&R.
I think Seth nailed the response below, so I'll just defer to his post.
GP Barcelona is also interesting because the Spanish MTG scene always feels very linear. This T8 makes me feel a lot better about the global metagame.
If only we had MTGO data, something WOTC has available to them to inform decisions, but we can't see.
Ancient Stirrings in the new Scales Affinity is ridiculous. I just don't understand why colorless based decks get a "Preordain" when blue-based decks don't, even though blue-based combo decks (The decks that are allegedly scary with Preordain) comprise a significantly lower metagame share. That said, I don't think blue decks necessarily need the card. They have been doing just fine for all of 2018. So it might be the sort of thing where it's a little "unjust" to keep it banned, but not exactly necessary to unban it. It's an interesting situation.
The problem is mixed messages, there should be consistency and I don't think "colorless and lands only" is enough of a restriction to justify Pay G to dig 5 then Pick 1. Whereas Serum Visions lets you draw anything and see two for U or Opt letting you see one then draw one. The restriction on Stirring does not justify getting to see 5 cards in my book.
For anyone worried about Preordain somehow breaking Storm or some other combo deck, remember that when Preordain was legal, so was Rite of Flame, Seething Song, and Ponder. So... of all of those, Preordain is likely one of the weakest cards.
Nice to see green fairly represented with a few loams in someone's deck. Even ancient stirrings isn't a green card. This just shows failure on the part of wizards card design team... To have pretty much the same deck own half the board. How you gonna stop snapcaster? Deathrite
Personally Id like to see a snapcaster ban. It be interesting to see how modern blue would shake out if they couldn't stall out and double use a bunch of utility spells.
Taking stoneforge off the banlist would be interesting as well. But the corralary to it is the banning of batterskull at the same time. Stoneforge by itself isnt that bad as seen by the zendikar standard before mirroden dropped. Used ALOT yes, but living weapon is what pushed it over the top especially batterskull. Letting u/w players get that combo on turn 3 and dropping it on 4 with protection is just too broken. Adding the tool box that is JTMS pushes it too far. You really dont need to see a quickban in modern if it just goes into cawblade folks.
Personally Id like to see a snapcaster ban. It be interesting to see how modern blue would shake out if they couldn't stall out and double use a bunch of utility spells.
Because nothing says "overwhelming dominance" or "problem of the format" like the last 3 years of blue Snapcaster decks.
Edit: also T8 for SCG is up:
Hollow One
Mono G Tron (x2)
Titanshift
Infect
Burn
KCI
UW Control
Interesting mix.... How any individual deck does likely has everything to do with who they are paired with.
Hey some of those Looms were Main board for Dredge.
Meh isn't Grixis Devler the dominate deck in Legacy? Deathrite is as Green as Stirrings.
Turns out WOTC recent (relatively) switch to pushing creatures and walkers cannot make up for Greens historical weakness. Green mostly chips in Mana be it via Dorks or getting your lands. Big Creatures don't work cause paying fair price for them is for fools or to put it nicer requires significant dedication ala RG Ponza.
And as for Walkers hahahaa the last green walker was Huatli or Vraska? Or Vivian if we count Core Set. Now Teferi is a classic character and an ex Oldwalker so he probably deserves a better card but still its not pretty and he wasn't even 4 Ability Pushed. From lets say from Kaladesh to now who wants to take a Gx Walker over any Ux Walker? Honestly I think every color has at least one walker with their color better then the best green Walker but I have to check on that. Not counting Walker Decks. Be interesting to see the best Walkers across Vintage, Legacy and Modern mostly the latter.
But don't worry Green fans there is a place where Green truly shines EDH. As long as we don't mean cEDH.
Personally Id like to see a snapcaster ban. It be interesting to see how modern blue would shake out if they couldn't stall out and double use a bunch of utility spells.
Yikes. I can't really parse the last 2.5 years of Modern in any way that could possibly justify a Snapcaster ban. This was a deck type that was outright bad for 2016-2017, struggling but solidly Tier 2 for 2017-2018, and only verifiably Tier 1 for 3-4 months of this year. And even there, it has far less metagame presence than other top-tier regulars and all-stars like Gx Tron, Burn, Humans, Affinity, etc. I just can't see where this suggestion comes from.
Personally Id like to see a snapcaster ban. It be interesting to see how modern blue would shake out if they couldn't stall out and double use a bunch of utility spells.
Taking stoneforge off the banlist would be interesting as well. But the corralary to it is the banning of batterskull at the same time. Stoneforge by itself isnt that bad as seen by the zendikar standard before mirroden dropped. Used ALOT yes, but living weapon is what pushed it over the top especially batterskull. Letting u/w players get that combo on turn 3 and dropping it on 4 with protection is just too broken. Adding the tool box that is JTMS pushes it too far. You really dont need to see a quickban in modern if it just goes into cawblade folks.
A Snapcaster Mage ban is ridiculous. As far as SFM goes, it's a much lower power level card than Thought Knot Seer, which is also a 4/4 on turn 3, and TKS comes with it's own protection.
Personally Id like to see a snapcaster ban. It be interesting to see how modern blue would shake out if they couldn't stall out and double use a bunch of utility spells.
Yikes. I can't really parse the last 2.5 years of Modern in any way that could possibly justify a Snapcaster ban. This was a deck type that was outright bad for 2016-2017, struggling but solidly Tier 2 for 2017-2018, and only verifiably Tier 1 for 3-4 months of this year. And even there, it has far less metagame presence than other top-tier regulars and all-stars like Gx Tron, Burn, Humans, Affinity, etc. I just can't see where this suggestion comes from.
Mostly from seeing too many shenanigans with snapcaster from over the years, not just in modern. It is a broken card in some respects in that it allows you to use things twice, yes you usually cant cheat the play from yard cmc cost much but its still aggressively played in anything that has a lot of instants and sorceries with cheap value and access to blue. Add in stoneforge and you pretty much have what caw blade was back in the day with even more and better removal options.
Also recently for me U/W/? within two matches cryptic commanded me 7 times with snapcaster backup, if you don't find THAT obnoxious well.... Admittedly also that was in a match that top decked terminus twice on turn three naturally ugh. Still shows how with the correct build of U/W it can get oppressive.
A Snapcaster Mage ban is ridiculous. As far as SFM goes, it's a much lower power level card than Thought Knot Seer, which is also a 4/4 on turn 3, and TKS comes with it's own protection.
In a vacuum its less powerful yes. Without batterskull its decently fair. WITH batterskull that's what made it broken. Make u/w control with stoneforge and not play batterskull with it, only use the swords of and such. It's not nearly oppressive.
With JTMS now that he's back why not test a meta without snapcaster and see if its jace that's more powerfull or snapcaster/jace together. I mean they nuked Naya with nactal for a few years to see how the meta shook out. Then they brought back nactal. Do the same with snappy. Blue doesn't always have to have all the tools twice with snap if it has good filtering with Jace.
Wow looking at the GP lists... Modern is so healthy right now, don't change anything. The only impediment to the rate at which it self corrects is the financial investment required to switch decks.
in light of the previous GPs results and subsequent complaints im sure some will think there is a double standard, and i would somewhat agree. fair decks are just evaluated differently; partially due to gameplay considerations.
it is an interesting thought experiment to consider what would need to get the axe if control ever got out of hand. ive made my opinion known that i believe snapcaster mage holds a spot in the top 3 most objectively powerful cards in the format; if not the outright most. it was a mistake that never should have been printed (similar to other cards that see lots of play), and scales exceptionally well as the card pool grows.
banning it would be pretty ridiculous though.
as for the notion that stoneforge would be too good with batterskull around, id have to disagree. not because hollow one can play cheaper 4/4s, which is a poor comparison to make because that deck is playing upwards of 16 enablers to do it. rather because the context of the format. jace is a shining example of that in practice.
A Snapcaster Mage ban is ridiculous. As far as SFM goes, it's a much lower power level card than Thought Knot Seer, which is also a 4/4 on turn 3, and TKS comes with it's own protection.
In a vacuum its less powerful yes. Without batterskull its decently fair. WITH batterskull that's what made it broken. Make u/w control with stoneforge and not play batterskull with it, only use the swords of and such. It's not nearly oppressive.
its not anything at all, because its never been in the format. also you are assuming UW would even be the best shell for stoneforge, which is highly debatable.
Realistically what are the majority of w/x decks going to play if they put stoneforge back in? The only logical choice that gives the most power to weight ratio is batterskull which needs no other creature and can save itself decently. Like you said hollow one needs 16 enablers, stoneforge really only needs itself and one other card. Other than a weird voltron swords of deck what other equipment are you truely going to play with stoneforge.
Realistically what are the majority of w/x decks going to play if they put stoneforge back in? The only logical choice that gives the most power to weight ratio is batterskull which needs no other creature and can save itself decently. Like you said hollow one needs 16 enablers, stoneforge really only needs itself and one other card. Other than a weird voltron swords of deck what other equipment are you truely going to play with stoneforge.
Who cares if they put in primarily BSkull with maybe 1-2 bullets in the SB for key matchups? If this boosts the presence of different white decks, great! If this challenges aggro deck shares, great! White-based reactive decks have just enough metagame share to be top-tier but not even close to the share of other major archetypes and competitors. If SFM balances that field more, all the better.
Also, T2 SFM into T3 Skull is nowhere near as powerful as most things people are doing in this format. Many decks literally don't care about this card and, on the draw, a T2 SFM will likely result in a T3 kill or unsalvageable board state in many matchups. The anti-SFM fear is going to be remembered the same way as the anti-JTMS fears: hyperbole and bad format/card evaluation.
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And pretty awkward for the "Ban Stirrings" crowd.
I think Seth nailed the response below, so I'll just defer to his post.
GP Barcelona is also interesting because the Spanish MTG scene always feels very linear. This T8 makes me feel a lot better about the global metagame.
If only we had MTGO data, something WOTC has available to them to inform decisions, but we can't see.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I'm surprised by that. Is 4 field really enough?
I would love to see what missed the top8.
Spirits
Apparently the only thing that can stop the Artifact Infinite Mana Menace is everyone's favorite balanced mechanic, Dredge.
Anyone watching SCG? I have been busy and couldnt follow it today.
Spirits
https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpbar18/9-16-decklists-2018-07-01
Ancient Stirrings in the new Scales Affinity is ridiculous. I just don't understand why colorless based decks get a "Preordain" when blue-based decks don't, even though blue-based combo decks (The decks that are allegedly scary with Preordain) comprise a significantly lower metagame share. That said, I don't think blue decks necessarily need the card. They have been doing just fine for all of 2018. So it might be the sort of thing where it's a little "unjust" to keep it banned, but not exactly necessary to unban it. It's an interesting situation.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Taking stoneforge off the banlist would be interesting as well. But the corralary to it is the banning of batterskull at the same time. Stoneforge by itself isnt that bad as seen by the zendikar standard before mirroden dropped. Used ALOT yes, but living weapon is what pushed it over the top especially batterskull. Letting u/w players get that combo on turn 3 and dropping it on 4 with protection is just too broken. Adding the tool box that is JTMS pushes it too far. You really dont need to see a quickban in modern if it just goes into cawblade folks.
Because nothing says "overwhelming dominance" or "problem of the format" like the last 3 years of blue Snapcaster decks.
Edit: also T8 for SCG is up:
Hollow One
Mono G Tron (x2)
Titanshift
Infect
Burn
KCI
UW Control
Interesting mix.... How any individual deck does likely has everything to do with who they are paired with.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Meh isn't Grixis Devler the dominate deck in Legacy? Deathrite is as Green as Stirrings.
Turns out WOTC recent (relatively) switch to pushing creatures and walkers cannot make up for Greens historical weakness. Green mostly chips in Mana be it via Dorks or getting your lands. Big Creatures don't work cause paying fair price for them is for fools or to put it nicer requires significant dedication ala RG Ponza.
And as for Walkers hahahaa the last green walker was Huatli or Vraska? Or Vivian if we count Core Set. Now Teferi is a classic character and an ex Oldwalker so he probably deserves a better card but still its not pretty and he wasn't even 4 Ability Pushed. From lets say from Kaladesh to now who wants to take a Gx Walker over any Ux Walker? Honestly I think every color has at least one walker with their color better then the best green Walker but I have to check on that. Not counting Walker Decks. Be interesting to see the best Walkers across Vintage, Legacy and Modern mostly the latter.
But don't worry Green fans there is a place where Green truly shines EDH. As long as we don't mean cEDH.
Yikes. I can't really parse the last 2.5 years of Modern in any way that could possibly justify a Snapcaster ban. This was a deck type that was outright bad for 2016-2017, struggling but solidly Tier 2 for 2017-2018, and only verifiably Tier 1 for 3-4 months of this year. And even there, it has far less metagame presence than other top-tier regulars and all-stars like Gx Tron, Burn, Humans, Affinity, etc. I just can't see where this suggestion comes from.
A Snapcaster Mage ban is ridiculous. As far as SFM goes, it's a much lower power level card than Thought Knot Seer, which is also a 4/4 on turn 3, and TKS comes with it's own protection.
Mostly from seeing too many shenanigans with snapcaster from over the years, not just in modern. It is a broken card in some respects in that it allows you to use things twice, yes you usually cant cheat the play from yard cmc cost much but its still aggressively played in anything that has a lot of instants and sorceries with cheap value and access to blue. Add in stoneforge and you pretty much have what caw blade was back in the day with even more and better removal options.
Also recently for me U/W/? within two matches cryptic commanded me 7 times with snapcaster backup, if you don't find THAT obnoxious well.... Admittedly also that was in a match that top decked terminus twice on turn three naturally ugh. Still shows how with the correct build of U/W it can get oppressive.
Spirits
With JTMS now that he's back why not test a meta without snapcaster and see if its jace that's more powerfull or snapcaster/jace together. I mean they nuked Naya with nactal for a few years to see how the meta shook out. Then they brought back nactal. Do the same with snappy. Blue doesn't always have to have all the tools twice with snap if it has good filtering with Jace.
in light of the previous GPs results and subsequent complaints im sure some will think there is a double standard, and i would somewhat agree. fair decks are just evaluated differently; partially due to gameplay considerations.
it is an interesting thought experiment to consider what would need to get the axe if control ever got out of hand. ive made my opinion known that i believe snapcaster mage holds a spot in the top 3 most objectively powerful cards in the format; if not the outright most. it was a mistake that never should have been printed (similar to other cards that see lots of play), and scales exceptionally well as the card pool grows.
banning it would be pretty ridiculous though.
as for the notion that stoneforge would be too good with batterskull around, id have to disagree. not because hollow one can play cheaper 4/4s, which is a poor comparison to make because that deck is playing upwards of 16 enablers to do it. rather because the context of the format. jace is a shining example of that in practice.
its not anything at all, because its never been in the format. also you are assuming UW would even be the best shell for stoneforge, which is highly debatable.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Who cares if they put in primarily BSkull with maybe 1-2 bullets in the SB for key matchups? If this boosts the presence of different white decks, great! If this challenges aggro deck shares, great! White-based reactive decks have just enough metagame share to be top-tier but not even close to the share of other major archetypes and competitors. If SFM balances that field more, all the better.
Also, T2 SFM into T3 Skull is nowhere near as powerful as most things people are doing in this format. Many decks literally don't care about this card and, on the draw, a T2 SFM will likely result in a T3 kill or unsalvageable board state in many matchups. The anti-SFM fear is going to be remembered the same way as the anti-JTMS fears: hyperbole and bad format/card evaluation.