By far the best part about the DRS and Probe bannings for me is that this all but confirms they are dead in Modern. Same with TC and DTT. I stand by my theory that any card banned in Modern that is also banned in Legacy is just a comically broken card period. Moreover, Wizards will view them this way and not risk their damage to Modern. These cards are Tier 1 broken in Wizards, eyes and will never, ever see Modern legality again.
I still think Probe was fine. The Probe ban in Legacy came as something of a shock to the playerbase since the ban cries for it weren't that loud. It was a bit out of nowhere in Modern too. I can accept that Wizards just doesn't like the card, but I think it was fine.
DRS is a whole different monster. DRS had effectively kept a bunch of cards down in Legacy. Some fair, some not so fair. In a way it was a good hate card, but in another way it was outright oppressive. After some adjustment I believe the format will improve with it gone. DRS should never be let back into Modern, I bet it would shrink the number of T1/T2 decks in the format by 1/3 to 1/2.
I still think Probe was fine. The Probe ban in Legacy came as something of a shock to the playerbase since the ban cries for it weren't that loud. It was a bit out of nowhere in Modern too. I can accept that Wizards just doesn't like the card, but I think it was fine.
Probe was totally fine for many, many years in Modern. It was not some ridiculously broken linchpin destroying the format (like Eldrazi was), but a convenient scapegoat for targeting the horrible linear metagame that they themselves created through bans and printings (and did so before letting Fatal Push deal with literally every single "problem deck"). It just happened to be backed by WOTC's personal hatred for the card, which is abundantly clear as of this announcement.
" we prefer to remove it from the format rather than needing to weaken the strategies it facilitates in other ways. "
While I agree that the format is in a better place than it was, the causal link to specifically Probe is extremely weak. Especially considering most of 2017 was still a pretty bad time anyway, and the current "health" of the format is derived from information withdrawal and new card printings.
Especially considering most of 2017 was still a pretty bad time anyway, and the current "health" of the format is derived from information withdrawal and new card printings.
2017 was just fine. Also, the idea that 2018 is "healthy" in quotation marks because of a data embargo is at best misinformed and at worst willfully misleading. We can agree that new card printings helped in ways Wizards probably didn't foresee. Who knows if those cards would have had room to flourish without earlier bans, but I also don't think we need to argue about that; it's an open question either way. Less of an open question is this notion that people don't know the top decks because of an MTGO data restriction. It is not a good argument. Pros figured out tons of top decks in the last 12-18 months even with the data embargo. Standouts include GDS, ETron, the return of Gx Tron, Jeskai, KCI, Hollow One, Mardu, and Humans. These decks were all emergent forces discovered by collective tuning and/or enterprising pilots bringing them or returning them to the limelight. Their success was verified in GP and PT numbers and confirmed through MTGO iteration. Stop pretending like there's some secret illness in Modern that we can't see because Wizards is deliberately obscuring it. We know what the Modern landscape looks like.
Look at the other formats that are even more affected by the data embargo: Legacy, Standard, Vintage, and Pauper. These formats have fewer events, just as much MTGO data restriction, and even less incentive to solve than the hyper-popular Modern (except Standard, which has more incentive). All of these formats got broken despite the data embargo and cards got banned as a result. Modern escaped this fate. This is not because Wizards is embargoing the data any harder. If anything, there's more Modern data out there than all the other formats. This is because Modern is legitimately healthy, not "healthy" like you are complaining about. We also have plenty of MTGO Challenges, MOCS, and PTQ events to draw from beyond the curated Leagues. There is more than enough data to solve the format, but it's not solved because the format is resistant to solving.
The only possible exception to this is Stirrings. That card is busted and should not be legal while Preordain is banned. One of those two things needs to change.
Considering that last year people were raving about Death's Shadow needing a ban, adding Probe would make it an auto top deck again.
Unlike my views on Twin (which also shouldn't have been banned), I don't think Probe should be unbanned, nor would unbanning it do anything positive for the format. Probe is gone and is never coming back, which is fine. But we don't know what would have happened if they picked something else (Street Wraith, Become Immense, etc) or just waited to see what Fatal Push would do. It would have been nice to see what would have happened and then act accordingly instead of obviously targeting a card they hated so openly and blatantly.
Remember that GDS/JDS/4cDS as it exists today did not exist then. It was an all-in aggro/combo kill deck and we don't know how it would have evolved with Probe. And we as a community are horrendously bad at evaluating decks, cards, and possibilities.
4 of the top 8 are uw control and u want to unban preordain? Claiming that the format is healthy? Yeah, okay dude.
Whoever said white is bad is smoking some serious koolaide. Its the very best color in the game. It has an answer for anything. Think about that for a second. Again uw control. GW elves arguably being the best variant. Do a quick color count on tier one decks. White has hate for creatures, lands, enchantments, artifacts, and planes walkers. Why do u suppose white splashes green or blue in just about every comp deck... Draw
Top IMO, was the wrong ban. It should have been Counter Balance. But WoTC likes to go after the enabler rather then end card so despite thinking it should have gone the other way, at least they were consistent with this choice.
Some reason for DRS and Probe. They're the enablers of silly things rather then the silly things themselves.
I've seen people playing TES where they swapped Probe for Thoughtseize and didn't miss a beat. I don't see why ANT can't do the same.
Said with no malice, sarcasm or anything else, but you don't play ANT do you? Most people don't understand what Probe does for the deck
A) Perfect information is the obvious one. What counters you have to play through, etc.
B) Here's what most people miss. The deck plays Cabal Ritual as one of it's main engine cards which requires getting to threshold. The margins of hitting threshold on Turn 3 (which is when you want to go off) is razor thin even with Probe. Without Probe, getting to Threshold on time is actually hard. It's forcing the deck to go slower to hit critical mana to Ad Naus. As a lover of ANT, I'm playing TES for the time being until we can get the engine going again. Not having Probe has been a big hit in practice even if it doesn't seem like it in theory. I really think Rain of Filth is going to become mandatory for the engine if Cabal Ritual remains part of the package which in turn will make it a more all-in combo deck. And if you're going that route, then you might as well play the better engine that can have a plan B in TES.
C) Cabal Therapy for the sweet 2 for 1 discards isn't a thing. Like most, I've actively switched them over to Thoughtseize. But that's a function of necessity rather then choice. Not having the sweet two or more for ones in a value format is sad. But I'll get over it. That one is just an over the time whinge.
I still think Probe was fine. The Probe ban in Legacy came as something of a shock to the playerbase since the ban cries for it weren't that loud.
Not to anyone paying attention. Multiple Dev's have been on record over the past year as not liking what Probe was doing to the format. Getting perfect information and replacing it's self for functionally no opportunity cost was not considered tickety. Everytime someone would bring up Deathrite to the Dev's, they'd shift the conversion to Probe.
But I'm also a sponge of information who lurks everywhere. So missing these discussions probably isn't too hard.
4 of the top 8 are uw control and u want to unban preordain? Claiming that the format is healthy? Yeah, okay dude.
Whoever said white is bad is smoking some serious koolaide. Its the very best color in the game. It has an answer for anything. Think about that for a second. Again uw control. GW elves arguably being the best variant. Do a quick color count on tier one decks. White has hate for creatures, lands, enchantments, artifacts, and planes walkers. Why do u suppose white splashes green or blue in just about every comp deck... Draw
You took a few words of my post out of context to offer this less than polite rebuttal. Plus it looks like you are extrapolating deck strength from a single GP T8. This overall seems like an ineffective way to make an argument.
The format is healthy. This can be true while we also identify an issue with the format, namely Stirrings. Stirrings and Preordain represent a notable banlist inconsistency. It doesn't matter to me how Wizards resolves this inconsistency. It should just be resolved either through an unban or a ban. Even with the disproportionate showing of blue decks in the Barcelona T8, Stirrings decks still remain far more prevalent than those that would use Preordain if unbanned. If Preordain is too strong, that's fine. Then get rid of Stirrings because it's having the exact same effect on a huge range of colorless strategies.
Considering that last year people were raving about Death's Shadow needing a ban, adding Probe would make it an auto top deck again.
Unlike my views on Twin (which also shouldn't have been banned), I don't think Probe should be unbanned, nor would unbanning it do anything positive for the format. Probe is gone and is never coming back, which is fine. But we don't know what would have happened if they picked something else (Street Wraith, Become Immense, etc) or just waited to see what Fatal Push would do. It would have been nice to see what would have happened and then act accordingly instead of obviously targeting a card they hated so openly and blatantly.
Remember that GDS/JDS/4cDS as it exists today did not exist then. It was an all-in aggro/combo kill deck and we don't know how it would have evolved with Probe. And we as a community are horrendously bad at evaluating decks, cards, and possibilities.
It would 100% be in the current iteration of the deck. Even it it was just in place of wraith. The info of your opponents hand is just way too good.
4 of the top 8 are uw control and u want to unban preordain? Claiming that the format is healthy? Yeah, okay dude.
Whoever said white is bad is smoking some serious koolaide. Its the very best color in the game. It has an answer for anything. Think about that for a second. Again uw control. GW elves arguably being the best variant. Do a quick color count on tier one decks. White has hate for creatures, lands, enchantments, artifacts, and planes walkers. Why do u suppose white splashes green or blue in just about every comp deck... Draw
You took a few words of my post out of context to offer this less than polite rebuttal. Plus it looks like you are extrapolating deck strength from a single GP T8. This overall seems like an ineffective way to make an argument.
The format is healthy. This can be true while we also identify an issue with the format, namely Stirrings. Stirrings and Preordain represent a notable banlist inconsistency. It doesn't matter to me how Wizards resolves this inconsistency. It should just be resolved either through an unban or a ban. Even with the disproportionate showing of blue decks in the Barcelona T8, Stirrings decks still remain far more prevalent than those that would use Preordain if unbanned. If Preordain is too strong, that's fine. Then get rid of Stirrings because it's having the exact same effect on a huge range of colorless strategies.
is inconsistency enough reason to take action though? you said it yourself that the format is healthy, which is the only thing that wizards needs to care about at the end of the day. if stirrings gets banned how can you be sure that the format would be better off? especially if you consider the format to be in a good place now.
so it comes down to something that you want to happen, but not necessarily something that needs to happen. which is fine, but i think there should be something pointing to stirrings decks either being too good or being too large a portion of the field. i havent seen either yet.
personally id hope that they free preordain someday, and i think your reasoning supports an unban while not being enough to warrant a ban.
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from what ive seen of the coverage so far there certainly has been alot of stirrings decks on camera. plenty of lootings with hollow one and mardu as well.
personally im low key hoping kci is actually too good. i got nothing against combo decks, but not only does the kci pilot have to take forever explaining every convoluted interaction but the opponent has to be versed enough in the nuances to know/check if anything is wrong. seems especially annoying in comp+ REL where it behooves players to be sticklers about rules. id imagine judges absolutely hate the deck.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
While I don't have the numbers, we saw on camera at least 2 KCI decks, at least 2 Tron decks, a Jeskai control, humans, Mardu Pyromancer, hollow one, affinity with stirrings, and I think hardened scales affinity (I am not sure about that). Overall KCI and Tron seem to be doing just great in this event (aka 2x stirrings decks).
Doesn't Tron have a horrible KCI matchup? With its rise it would be unwise to bring the Karns, KCI must have left a lot of Tron bodies in its wake this weekend.
How's the KCI-Infect matchup? Sounds like Infect has another free time just like against Tron so its position as a meta deck is probably warranted.
kci is fast enough to go under tron, and seems mostly like a coinflip against infect since both can have explosive draws to kill turns 2-4; both have minimal disruption from the board for the other (bolts/claims).
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
This GP might be on track for a really horrible T8. It's hard to extrapolate from coverage, but a) things look super linear and b) I feel like previous South American events preferenced lots of linear decks. This wouldn't make me question the format's overall health, but it could be another strike against Stirrings.
6 blue-based reactive decks in the T8 including 4 hard control lists. This reflects the Barcelona T8, which suggests to me these reactive decks are real contenders, not flashes in the pan. Continued MTGO and GP successes like these will undermine Wizards' chances of acting on an SFM unban, as well as the less likely Preordain unban. They also prove to me that blue has been more viable for a longer time than many gave it credit, and that the SCG circuit accurately predicted the rise and viability of these decks.
B) Here's what most people miss. The deck plays Cabal Ritual as one of it's main engine cards which requires getting to threshold. The margins of hitting threshold on Turn 3 (which is when you want to go off) is razor thin even with Probe. Without Probe, getting to Threshold on time is actually hard. It's forcing the deck to go slower to hit critical mana to Ad Naus. As a lover of ANT, I'm playing TES for the time being until we can get the engine going again. Not having Probe has been a big hit in practice even if it doesn't seem like it in theory. I really think Rain of Filth is going to become mandatory for the engine if Cabal Ritual remains part of the package which in turn will make it a more all-in combo deck. And if you're going that route, then you might as well play the better engine that can have a plan B in TES.
ANT played Cabal Ritual before Probe even existed and will continue to play it now that it's gone because its the 2nd best black ritual. Is it slightly worse? Sure, but it's not like Cabal Ritual was being propped up by Probe and it's not like banning Probe means reevaluating Cabal Ritual. That's such a silly thing of you to suggest.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
from what ive seen of the coverage so far there certainly has been alot of stirrings decks on camera. plenty of lootings with hollow one and mardu as well.
personally im low key hoping kci is actually too good. i got nothing against combo decks, but not only does the kci pilot have to take forever explaining every convoluted interaction but the opponent has to be versed enough in the nuances to know/check if anything is wrong. seems especially annoying in comp+ REL where it behooves players to be sticklers about rules. id imagine judges absolutely hate the deck.
All Judges have to do is know the rules, which is all we can ask from them. I personally think it's much scarier from the KCI player's standpoint because a particular Judge may not know the rules. Modern PPTQ season is starting too and I for one am strongly considering playing KCI myself. Although I personally feel unconvinced that it is the "best deck," some players on my team believe so and I want to see who's right.
I do understand that there could possibly be a lot of Judge calls at a tournament, but I for one hope that at a smaller (30-60 players) tournament that people will overhear some of the interactions and hopefully know them going into the tournament.
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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)
from what ive seen of the coverage so far there certainly has been alot of stirrings decks on camera. plenty of lootings with hollow one and mardu as well.
personally im low key hoping kci is actually too good. i got nothing against combo decks, but not only does the kci pilot have to take forever explaining every convoluted interaction but the opponent has to be versed enough in the nuances to know/check if anything is wrong. seems especially annoying in comp+ REL where it behooves players to be sticklers about rules. id imagine judges absolutely hate the deck.
All Judges have to do is know the rules, which is all we can ask from them. I personally think it's much scarier from the KCI player's standpoint because a particular Judge may not know the rules. Modern PPTQ season is starting too and I for one am strongly considering playing KCI myself. Although I personally feel unconvinced that it is the "best deck," some players on my team believe so and I want to see who's right.
I do understand that there could possibly be a lot of Judge calls at a tournament, but I for one hope that at a smaller (30-60 players) tournament that people will overhear some of the interactions and hopefully know them going into the tournament.
yeah i get that there is pressure on the kci player to properly announce or sequence. thats my point though. not only does the player need to get everything right lest they accumulate too many warninrgs, but the opponent is also forced to watch like a hawk to make sure that the kci player hasnt done anything illegal.
some may see that as some skill bar, because if you dont know how your opponents deck works you deserve to lose right? i would disagree because complexity doesnt equate to skill, and it means that some number of kci games are going to be decided by events that were actually illegal but never caught (with or without malicious intent).
every time ive seen the deck being played in person it involves the kci player explaining in great detail what is going on while the opponent is just staring on glassy eyed just sorta nodding their head until they eventually decide that 'well the opponent must know what theyre doing'. that is crappy gameplay imo.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
from what ive seen of the coverage so far there certainly has been alot of stirrings decks on camera. plenty of lootings with hollow one and mardu as well.
personally im low key hoping kci is actually too good. i got nothing against combo decks, but not only does the kci pilot have to take forever explaining every convoluted interaction but the opponent has to be versed enough in the nuances to know/check if anything is wrong. seems especially annoying in comp+ REL where it behooves players to be sticklers about rules. id imagine judges absolutely hate the deck.
All Judges have to do is know the rules, which is all we can ask from them. I personally think it's much scarier from the KCI player's standpoint because a particular Judge may not know the rules. Modern PPTQ season is starting too and I for one am strongly considering playing KCI myself. Although I personally feel unconvinced that it is the "best deck," some players on my team believe so and I want to see who's right.
I do understand that there could possibly be a lot of Judge calls at a tournament, but I for one hope that at a smaller (30-60 players) tournament that people will overhear some of the interactions and hopefully know them going into the tournament.
yeah i get that there is pressure on the kci player to properly announce or sequence. thats my point though. not only does the player need to get everything right lest they accumulate too many warninrgs, but the opponent is also forced to watch like a hawk to make sure that the kci player hasnt done anything illegal.
some may see that as some skill bar, because if you dont know how your opponents deck works you deserve to lose right? i would disagree because complexity doesnt equate to skill, and it means that some number of kci games are going to be decided by events that were actually illegal but never caught (with or without malicious intent).
every time ive seen the deck being played in person it involves the kci player explaining in great detail what is going on while the opponent is just staring on glassy eyed just sorta nodding their head until they eventually decide that 'well the opponent must know what theyre doing'. that is crappy gameplay imo.
I'm not sure that's worse gameplay than any Lantern win, honestly. I'm not sure about percentages, but there are always going to be games won because of misplays/accidents that don't get caught. In today's stream, there was a Humans/Merfolk matchup where the Merfolk player Echoing Truthed the Vials of the other player but didn't bounce his own Vial. He then used that Vial over two turns to amass a winning board state. This isn't an issue that's unique to KCI.
I'd be okay with a KCI ban from a logistical stance. Anyone who has attended a tournament where ***** went off the rails because people went to turns and took an extra fifteen minutes in most rounds understands the suffering.
I will admit that the very first time I played KCI at a Wednesday Night Modern, I was doing Scrap Trawler incorrectly. I believed that the artifact returned went back into play. Do you know how badly I felt when I tried that at the next tournament at another LGS on Monday? I felt damn badly. But that doesn't make up for the fact that I messed up. I actually apologized to 2 of the players from that WNM the next week. It actually didn't usually change being able to combo off, but that's definitely beside the point. I should have READ THE ******* CARD. Duh! I often play a different deck each week and sometimes don't even goldfish it first or shuffle it until that very Modern weekly tournament. I did that recently with Eternal Devote and actually didn't realize several interactions that I possibly could have done, had I been in those situations.
I feel that the actual game play is similar to Storm, other than some interactions may be tougher to explain. I think that if an opponent has a doubt, they should be asking about it (for example, an infinite loop displayed). Maybe I'm tougher on opponents knowing certain decks? I've played against opponents who barely knew their own deck, much less mine, and sometimes they ended up winning. It's pretty tilting, but I have done a pretty good job of keeping that to myself when it actually happens. I've played Modern for a long time, but I should be accepting of others trying it newly.
I often considered whether some of the players doing well with KCI at GPs were doing some incorrect stuff, intentionally or unintentionally. But when I thought about it more, it is really on opponents to make sure everything going is kosher. Sure, I do feel badly about someone who has never seen the card, Chromatic Star, before, but they're playing at Comp REL. They need to know interactions. As for Casual REL, sure I do feel badly (especially my own situation), but it would be impossible to enforce it other than for players to just know interactions more. I know quite a bit myself, but I know that I personally need to improve a lot, especially when I see less accomplished players than myself at local tournaments that sometimes know an interaction better than myself. It's somewhat embarrassing. I don't think it's crappy gameplay though, but I love Combo myself. Part of this is getting to do "all the things" while my opponent sits, drools, writes F6 on a napkin, and asks a Judge to go to the bathroom.
P.S. - Having a Judge do the wrong call and losing because of it is something that I take into consideration when choosing a deck during PPTQ season. I was cheated once by a Judge last Modern PPTQ season and also a few months later at another store by a different Judge who allowed 3 Game Rule Violations by an opponent during a win-and-draw-in to the top 8. You best believe that I will take into consideration anything and all things that could happen in a tournament where only 1st place matters. (Now, I realize it's different for those playing in other tournaments where 1st is not the only thing.)
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)
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DRS is a whole different monster. DRS had effectively kept a bunch of cards down in Legacy. Some fair, some not so fair. In a way it was a good hate card, but in another way it was outright oppressive. After some adjustment I believe the format will improve with it gone. DRS should never be let back into Modern, I bet it would shrink the number of T1/T2 decks in the format by 1/3 to 1/2.
Probe was totally fine for many, many years in Modern. It was not some ridiculously broken linchpin destroying the format (like Eldrazi was), but a convenient scapegoat for targeting the horrible linear metagame that they themselves created through bans and printings (and did so before letting Fatal Push deal with literally every single "problem deck"). It just happened to be backed by WOTC's personal hatred for the card, which is abundantly clear as of this announcement.
" we prefer to remove it from the format rather than needing to weaken the strategies it facilitates in other ways. "
While I agree that the format is in a better place than it was, the causal link to specifically Probe is extremely weak. Especially considering most of 2017 was still a pretty bad time anyway, and the current "health" of the format is derived from information withdrawal and new card printings.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
2017 was just fine. Also, the idea that 2018 is "healthy" in quotation marks because of a data embargo is at best misinformed and at worst willfully misleading. We can agree that new card printings helped in ways Wizards probably didn't foresee. Who knows if those cards would have had room to flourish without earlier bans, but I also don't think we need to argue about that; it's an open question either way. Less of an open question is this notion that people don't know the top decks because of an MTGO data restriction. It is not a good argument. Pros figured out tons of top decks in the last 12-18 months even with the data embargo. Standouts include GDS, ETron, the return of Gx Tron, Jeskai, KCI, Hollow One, Mardu, and Humans. These decks were all emergent forces discovered by collective tuning and/or enterprising pilots bringing them or returning them to the limelight. Their success was verified in GP and PT numbers and confirmed through MTGO iteration. Stop pretending like there's some secret illness in Modern that we can't see because Wizards is deliberately obscuring it. We know what the Modern landscape looks like.
Look at the other formats that are even more affected by the data embargo: Legacy, Standard, Vintage, and Pauper. These formats have fewer events, just as much MTGO data restriction, and even less incentive to solve than the hyper-popular Modern (except Standard, which has more incentive). All of these formats got broken despite the data embargo and cards got banned as a result. Modern escaped this fate. This is not because Wizards is embargoing the data any harder. If anything, there's more Modern data out there than all the other formats. This is because Modern is legitimately healthy, not "healthy" like you are complaining about. We also have plenty of MTGO Challenges, MOCS, and PTQ events to draw from beyond the curated Leagues. There is more than enough data to solve the format, but it's not solved because the format is resistant to solving.
The only possible exception to this is Stirrings. That card is busted and should not be legal while Preordain is banned. One of those two things needs to change.
Unlike my views on Twin (which also shouldn't have been banned), I don't think Probe should be unbanned, nor would unbanning it do anything positive for the format. Probe is gone and is never coming back, which is fine. But we don't know what would have happened if they picked something else (Street Wraith, Become Immense, etc) or just waited to see what Fatal Push would do. It would have been nice to see what would have happened and then act accordingly instead of obviously targeting a card they hated so openly and blatantly.
Remember that GDS/JDS/4cDS as it exists today did not exist then. It was an all-in aggro/combo kill deck and we don't know how it would have evolved with Probe. And we as a community are horrendously bad at evaluating decks, cards, and possibilities.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Whoever said white is bad is smoking some serious koolaide. Its the very best color in the game. It has an answer for anything. Think about that for a second. Again uw control. GW elves arguably being the best variant. Do a quick color count on tier one decks. White has hate for creatures, lands, enchantments, artifacts, and planes walkers. Why do u suppose white splashes green or blue in just about every comp deck... Draw
Top IMO, was the wrong ban. It should have been Counter Balance. But WoTC likes to go after the enabler rather then end card so despite thinking it should have gone the other way, at least they were consistent with this choice.
Some reason for DRS and Probe. They're the enablers of silly things rather then the silly things themselves.
Said with no malice, sarcasm or anything else, but you don't play ANT do you? Most people don't understand what Probe does for the deck
A) Perfect information is the obvious one. What counters you have to play through, etc.
B) Here's what most people miss. The deck plays Cabal Ritual as one of it's main engine cards which requires getting to threshold. The margins of hitting threshold on Turn 3 (which is when you want to go off) is razor thin even with Probe. Without Probe, getting to Threshold on time is actually hard. It's forcing the deck to go slower to hit critical mana to Ad Naus. As a lover of ANT, I'm playing TES for the time being until we can get the engine going again. Not having Probe has been a big hit in practice even if it doesn't seem like it in theory. I really think Rain of Filth is going to become mandatory for the engine if Cabal Ritual remains part of the package which in turn will make it a more all-in combo deck. And if you're going that route, then you might as well play the better engine that can have a plan B in TES.
C) Cabal Therapy for the sweet 2 for 1 discards isn't a thing. Like most, I've actively switched them over to Thoughtseize. But that's a function of necessity rather then choice. Not having the sweet two or more for ones in a value format is sad. But I'll get over it. That one is just an over the time whinge.
Not to anyone paying attention. Multiple Dev's have been on record over the past year as not liking what Probe was doing to the format. Getting perfect information and replacing it's self for functionally no opportunity cost was not considered tickety. Everytime someone would bring up Deathrite to the Dev's, they'd shift the conversion to Probe.
But I'm also a sponge of information who lurks everywhere. So missing these discussions probably isn't too hard.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
You took a few words of my post out of context to offer this less than polite rebuttal. Plus it looks like you are extrapolating deck strength from a single GP T8. This overall seems like an ineffective way to make an argument.
The format is healthy. This can be true while we also identify an issue with the format, namely Stirrings. Stirrings and Preordain represent a notable banlist inconsistency. It doesn't matter to me how Wizards resolves this inconsistency. It should just be resolved either through an unban or a ban. Even with the disproportionate showing of blue decks in the Barcelona T8, Stirrings decks still remain far more prevalent than those that would use Preordain if unbanned. If Preordain is too strong, that's fine. Then get rid of Stirrings because it's having the exact same effect on a huge range of colorless strategies.
It would 100% be in the current iteration of the deck. Even it it was just in place of wraith. The info of your opponents hand is just way too good.
is inconsistency enough reason to take action though? you said it yourself that the format is healthy, which is the only thing that wizards needs to care about at the end of the day. if stirrings gets banned how can you be sure that the format would be better off? especially if you consider the format to be in a good place now.
so it comes down to something that you want to happen, but not necessarily something that needs to happen. which is fine, but i think there should be something pointing to stirrings decks either being too good or being too large a portion of the field. i havent seen either yet.
personally id hope that they free preordain someday, and i think your reasoning supports an unban while not being enough to warrant a ban.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Spirits
personally im low key hoping kci is actually too good. i got nothing against combo decks, but not only does the kci pilot have to take forever explaining every convoluted interaction but the opponent has to be versed enough in the nuances to know/check if anything is wrong. seems especially annoying in comp+ REL where it behooves players to be sticklers about rules. id imagine judges absolutely hate the deck.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
How's the KCI-Infect matchup? Sounds like Infect has another free time just like against Tron so its position as a meta deck is probably warranted.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Interesting MTGO Challenge today:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-challenge-2018-07-08
6 blue-based reactive decks in the T8 including 4 hard control lists. This reflects the Barcelona T8, which suggests to me these reactive decks are real contenders, not flashes in the pan. Continued MTGO and GP successes like these will undermine Wizards' chances of acting on an SFM unban, as well as the less likely Preordain unban. They also prove to me that blue has been more viable for a longer time than many gave it credit, and that the SCG circuit accurately predicted the rise and viability of these decks.
ANT played Cabal Ritual before Probe even existed and will continue to play it now that it's gone because its the 2nd best black ritual. Is it slightly worse? Sure, but it's not like Cabal Ritual was being propped up by Probe and it's not like banning Probe means reevaluating Cabal Ritual. That's such a silly thing of you to suggest.
All Judges have to do is know the rules, which is all we can ask from them. I personally think it's much scarier from the KCI player's standpoint because a particular Judge may not know the rules. Modern PPTQ season is starting too and I for one am strongly considering playing KCI myself. Although I personally feel unconvinced that it is the "best deck," some players on my team believe so and I want to see who's right.
I do understand that there could possibly be a lot of Judge calls at a tournament, but I for one hope that at a smaller (30-60 players) tournament that people will overhear some of the interactions and hopefully know them going into the tournament.
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)yeah i get that there is pressure on the kci player to properly announce or sequence. thats my point though. not only does the player need to get everything right lest they accumulate too many warninrgs, but the opponent is also forced to watch like a hawk to make sure that the kci player hasnt done anything illegal.
some may see that as some skill bar, because if you dont know how your opponents deck works you deserve to lose right? i would disagree because complexity doesnt equate to skill, and it means that some number of kci games are going to be decided by events that were actually illegal but never caught (with or without malicious intent).
every time ive seen the deck being played in person it involves the kci player explaining in great detail what is going on while the opponent is just staring on glassy eyed just sorta nodding their head until they eventually decide that 'well the opponent must know what theyre doing'. that is crappy gameplay imo.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I'm not sure that's worse gameplay than any Lantern win, honestly. I'm not sure about percentages, but there are always going to be games won because of misplays/accidents that don't get caught. In today's stream, there was a Humans/Merfolk matchup where the Merfolk player Echoing Truthed the Vials of the other player but didn't bounce his own Vial. He then used that Vial over two turns to amass a winning board state. This isn't an issue that's unique to KCI.
Friendly reminder that Stirrings is SUPER busted and remains a laughable contradiction with Preordain.
I feel that the actual game play is similar to Storm, other than some interactions may be tougher to explain. I think that if an opponent has a doubt, they should be asking about it (for example, an infinite loop displayed). Maybe I'm tougher on opponents knowing certain decks? I've played against opponents who barely knew their own deck, much less mine, and sometimes they ended up winning. It's pretty tilting, but I have done a pretty good job of keeping that to myself when it actually happens. I've played Modern for a long time, but I should be accepting of others trying it newly.
I often considered whether some of the players doing well with KCI at GPs were doing some incorrect stuff, intentionally or unintentionally. But when I thought about it more, it is really on opponents to make sure everything going is kosher. Sure, I do feel badly about someone who has never seen the card, Chromatic Star, before, but they're playing at Comp REL. They need to know interactions. As for Casual REL, sure I do feel badly (especially my own situation), but it would be impossible to enforce it other than for players to just know interactions more. I know quite a bit myself, but I know that I personally need to improve a lot, especially when I see less accomplished players than myself at local tournaments that sometimes know an interaction better than myself. It's somewhat embarrassing. I don't think it's crappy gameplay though, but I love Combo myself. Part of this is getting to do "all the things" while my opponent sits, drools, writes F6 on a napkin, and asks a Judge to go to the bathroom.
P.S. - Having a Judge do the wrong call and losing because of it is something that I take into consideration when choosing a deck during PPTQ season. I was cheated once by a Judge last Modern PPTQ season and also a few months later at another store by a different Judge who allowed 3 Game Rule Violations by an opponent during a win-and-draw-in to the top 8. You best believe that I will take into consideration anything and all things that could happen in a tournament where only 1st place matters. (Now, I realize it's different for those playing in other tournaments where 1st is not the only thing.)
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)