Unless unbanned, Dig would be useless. Its banned in any format that matters, and restricted in vintage...
Which should also make it clear that that card won't ever be unbanned. It's not a fine card. It along with its sibling Treasure Cruise were fine for the Standard environment they were created in but became obscenely powerful in all non-rotating formats. Format-warping so.
I think I'm starting to lean more towards the ancient stirrings ban. If the argument against preordain and ponder is that those single-mana cantrips make decks using them too powerful, stirrings is definitely doing the same thing. I don't want any stirrings decks to fall off the face of the planet, but if nerfing them a bit buffs control and midrange options, I am okay with that. I simply don't want to see things turn into an absolute crawl. I like a faster-paced format. Then you still have storm, infect, hell tron survives that ban I think.
I think dig is super powerful but idk if its fast enough in the current modern meta. I played modern when dtt was legal and i think splinter twin was the bigger issue when it came to warping the overall meta. My thoughts on any unban start with, what deck would use this? Dtt probably wouldn't fit into any of the combo shells currently being played. Well maybe storm. Spirits wouldn't want it, ad naus, titan,infect. The obvious 3 are uw and jeskai and maybe shadow. But is giving those decks dtt going to break the meta? Idk tbh. Dig isnt like treasure cruise, it doesnt just just give you 3 free cards. I dont have any data to back it up but i think dig might be fine without twin legal. As fast as modern is does dig fix uw(x)s bad matchups? Whats the earliest you can fire off dig in those decks? Turn 4+ maybe? Maybe giving blue decks a solid card advantage tool would slow the format. Im pretty sure blue decks wouldnt play more than 2 maybe 3. I will admit fully i am biased. I think moderns too fast/unfair and would love to see control decks get a sweet toy.
Gx Tron does not survive an Ancient Stirrings ban as a competitive deck, as the card is instrumental in fixing mana early, and hitting payoffs later. Cards like Oath of Nissa are worse enough at this job that they wouldn't be able to keep this deck in the running.
On a related note...I get that many of you aren't huge fans of the decks running Ancient Stirrings, but it feels disingenuous to aggregate everything playing it to determine unhealthy percentages for ban criteria. KCI, Gx Tron, Scales, Amulet, Lantern, and RG Eldrazi all play differently to a significant enough degree that banning Stiirings would likely have an adverse effect on format diversity, and player (ie customer) confidence. Although several of these decks are top tier, none of them seem to be suppressing overall format diversity. You shouldn't hold your breath waiting for Wizards to ban it, or anything else as the format currently stands.
Gx Tron does not survive an Ancient Stirrings ban as a competitive deck, as the card is instrumental in fixing mana early, and hitting payoffs later. Cards like Oath of Nissa are worse enough at this job that they wouldn't be able to keep this deck in the running.
Ancient Stirrings hits something like 90% of the main deck of Tron; missing only additional copies of Ancient Stirrings and Sylvan Scrying. I'm not going to shed any tear if that card is removed while we're over here casting Opt and Serum Visions like a bunch of peasants.
That is quite the interesting theory. I don't know what their justification for new arts is, but with the next announcement on the 26th, and this set being rushed for a December release, it is suspicious. I was more thinking SFM might be the big-ticket-item, as DTT isn't really worth much. SFM still isn't quite JtMS, but it at least has some secondary market value. I don't think unbanning DTT would boost sales as much as the JtMS unban did, but maybe Hasbro can't quite figure that out?
The problem is that people are jumping into hopes and dreams territory without looking at the kind of things the cards they spoiled support. The only two colors that didn't seem to get a clear path are red and white. It's still possible that they could shoehorn in Stoneforge Mystic and then pack some swords or something crazy into this sets remaining rare slots, but I don't really like to speculate on that kind of thing given the last two masters sets. The Box topper is there for a reason: To make sure the boxes do not crash to the ground like the last two did. They even upped the MSRP so that the minimum price the box can be sold for is higher on the distributor level.
I'd like to think this means they will have to downshift a lot of cards to fit into the uncommon slot and buff the EV per pack, but I'm extremely doubtful. What I'm more so hoping for is seeing something like Runed Halo as a counter against all the big splashy threats. We might also see Bubbling Muck in the set as a way to help give black more ramp. Path to Exile might be in the set given that they have reprinted it's brother in arms Swords to Plowshares to death recently and it seems to have a good draw back in the kind of limited environment they are pushing.
No matter what I put up to speculate on, though, the fact remains they chose to make lavaclaw reaches and Tasigur, the golden fang part of the extended art specialty cards. If Stoneforge mystic was present in the set, why would they not choose to put her as one of the cards?
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I think dig is super powerful but idk if its fast enough in the current modern meta. I played modern when dtt was legal and i think splinter twin was the bigger issue when it came to warping the overall meta. My thoughts on any unban start with, what deck would use this? Dtt probably wouldn't fit into any of the combo shells currently being played. Well maybe storm. Spirits wouldn't want it, ad naus, titan,infect. The obvious 3 are uw and jeskai and maybe shadow. But is giving those decks dtt going to break the meta? Idk tbh. Dig isnt like treasure cruise, it doesnt just just give you 3 free cards. I dont have any data to back it up but i think dig might be fine without twin legal. As fast as modern is does dig fix uw(x)s bad matchups? Whats the earliest you can fire off dig in those decks? Turn 4+ maybe? Maybe giving blue decks a solid card advantage tool would slow the format. Im pretty sure blue decks wouldnt play more than 2 maybe 3. I will admit fully i am biased. I think moderns too fast/unfair and would love to see control decks get a sweet toy.
Storm wouldn't play DTT. They use their graveyard as a resource, so they don't want something that nukes their own yard. Gifts basically fills the same purpose that DTT would, but is much much better at it in that deck.
It would be difficult for GDS to play it, as well. You can only play so many delve cards, and GDS is already leaning hard into the delve fatties, so they would probably have to cut some Anglers and Tasigurs to squeeze a copy or two of DTT in the list. The deck is already pretty threat-light, so cutting threats is probably not the right choice unless you have a good replacement for them.
It's an interesting idea for UW. It would be amazingly good in UW, but it does come at a cost. You probably can't support both DTT and Logic Knot. Knot is the best 2-mana counter in Modern, so you'll have to play something sub-par like Mana Leak in its place. UW also doesn't fill its graveyard quickly, so they can't really go off chaining DTTs.
So... I dunno. I personally feel like DTT would probably be fine, despite how strong of a card it is. I can't think of a blue combo deck that would become busted with it. Maybe it makes blue Scapeshift variants relevant again. It probably makes decks like Blue Moon and Grixis Control a lot better, maybe even making them legit players. I would rather get SFM and Twin back, though.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I think I'm more on the train that dif through time is getting unbanned. The face card of UMA arguably looks a lot like dtt. Ya dig could be in the set and still not get unbanned but why commission a new art for card that's banned in modern and legacy? With twin out of the format dtt doesn't seem to be nearly as powerful. Its probably to slow for the combo shells to want it so the only decka that would probably jam it are the uw(x) onea. Maybe im wrong dig ia super powerful but ia it better than scapeshift or w/e trons casting on t3.
As izzetmage likes to remind us, SFM got issued as the GP promo in 2016 and everyone thought this meant an SFM unban had to be coming. Fast forward to 2018 and she's still banned. See also Twin in Modern Masters prior to its banning. I would not read too much into the connection between a reprint and banlist decisions. JTMS is the only example I know where Wizards even officially connected the two in an announcement.
Gx Tron does not survive an Ancient Stirrings ban as a competitive deck, as the card is instrumental in fixing mana early, and hitting payoffs later. Cards like Oath of Nissa are worse enough at this job that they wouldn't be able to keep this deck in the running.
On a related note...I get that many of you aren't huge fans of the decks running Ancient Stirrings, but it feels disingenuous to aggregate everything playing it to determine unhealthy percentages for ban criteria. KCI, Gx Tron, Scales, Amulet, Lantern, and RG Eldrazi all play differently to a significant enough degree that banning Stiirings would likely have an adverse effect on format diversity, and player (ie customer) confidence. Although several of these decks are top tier, none of them seem to be suppressing overall format diversity. You shouldn't hold your breath waiting for Wizards to ban it, or anything else as the format currently stands.
Probe, Ponder, and Preordain were banned not for offending in any individual deck, but for going into multiple decks that collectively violated format rules. Yes, those cards were banned for contributing to T4 rules violators, not format diversity violators. But it sets the precedent of one card violating across multiple decks. TC is another example that is perhaps more telling. Treasure Cruise was banned because "Decks playing the powerful card drawers have been winning a lot, and pushing a lot of other decks down in competitive play." If Stirrings met that same benchmark of going into decks that in turn were pushing other decks down in competitive play, it too could be banned under that precedent. It doesn't matter if all the Stirrings decks have different play styles, just as it didn't matter that TC enabled different Delver variants, Burn, and combo decks. All that matters is the overall effect on diversity.
Out of curiosity, I checked the 2014 GP environment to see what percentage of GP T8s were TC decks. This only comprises 3 GP overall (Madrid, Milan, and Omaha), so N is a little small. But it's still a worthwhile comparison as a baseline, even if MTGO data was also likely included. Just from the GP perspective, 7 of the 24 T8 decks had TC. That's 29%, which is right where Stirrings is currently (30% for 2018 GP T8s). Also notably, TC was shared between a few different decks in those T8s: Temur Delver, Burn, Jeskai Ascendancy (two variants), and UR Delver.
As I said earlier, it's an orange flag issue for me now, not a red one. But if we get another GP like ATL, it will become a red one in a hurry.
I think we need to take a look at the only piece of audio evidence we have before we step further into theorhetical discussion about reasoning of specific bans, the direction of the format, and the original banned list at the inception.
This should almost be a biblical audio to anyone invested in the Modern format. It may not be the whole truth, but it should in large part direct a lot of the absolutely misguided posts I have seen over the last few pages.
I think we need to take a look at the only piece of audio evidence we have before we step further into theorhetical discussion about reasoning of specific bans, the direction of the format, and the original banned list at the inception.
This should almost be a biblical audio to anyone invested in the Modern format. It may not be the whole truth, but it should in large part direct a lot of the absolutely misguided posts I have seen over the last few pages.
What "misguided posts" should this inform? I like that interview a lot, but a) some of it is a bit dated today, and b) I think most people aren't too out of alignment with his points.
To compare and contrast the few bannings of blue consistency cards against Ancient Stirrings:
Ponder and Preordain were banned specifically to limit blue red combo decks, which were making the format less diverse. Stirrings enables two very different styles of ramp, a combo deck, a unique control deck, and several flavors of aggro. Even if you lumped the categories together (Amulet and Tron as one, or Scales, Affinity, and heck, RG Eldrazi as another), none of them are suppressing diversity to a significant degree.
Look at Storm, the quintessential blue red combo deck, which has redundancy in both its rituals and cantrips. It has weathered the numerous bannings largely because of the critical mass of these card types. Compare this to Tron, which plays exactly one spell that filters multiple cards. Banning such a card in a deck like this is a much greater risk. In other words, a Stirrings ban risks more diversity by adversely affecting more archetypes, and does so in a way that has a chance of taking a good number of those decks completely out of competitive viability due to a lack of redundancy for such an effect.
This brings us to Treasure Cruise (and DTT, but since it was banned on the potential for directly supplanting TC, let's consider it redundant here). Jeskai Ascendancy, blue-based burn decks, and tempo decks were clearly warping the format. When a card is good enough for decks to splash a color they never would otherwise for a single spell...yeah, that's ban worthy. No Stirrings deck does this, or likely ever will, since the colorless restriction makes it unable to slot into decks not dedicated to it. And again, despite some solid conversion rates, these decks are not suppressing the rest of the format.
Lastly, we'll consider Gitaxian Probe, a card now banned in Legacy as well as Modern. According to Wizards, it was banned for enabling numerous turn three kills, while giving pilots perfect information (and a card) to set up or dodge as necessary...and for basically free (or better, as with delve and Death's Shadow). It's also perfectly splashable. Stirrings enables better turn three plays, including some kills from very lucky draws, but every other comparison here goes out the window.
At least the Stirrings ban talk has been relatively reasonable, and some support, even if it's a bit thin, has been presented as well. Anyone clamoring for any other bans at this point simply isn't paying attention.
On the flip side...in a hypothetical Twin unban, what existing competitive decks might lose enough ground to not be viable? What archetypes would be most likely to be cannibalized into Twin's share instead? UR Twin packing Remand and Blood Moon would certainly stuff Valakut and Amulet decks, but GDS, UWx Control, and possibly GBx would welcome it back with open arms. It shouldn't surprise anyone at this point that I'm primarily a Tron player, but I'd personally be totally okay with Twin decks being back, especially over any bans.
On the flip side...in a hypothetical Twin unban, what existing competitive decks might lose enough ground to not be viable? What archetypes would be most likely to be cannibalized into Twin's share instead? UR Twin packing Remand and Blood Moon would certainly stuff Valakut and Amulet decks, but GDS, UWx Control, and possibly GBx would welcome it back with open arms. It shouldn't surprise anyone at this point that I'm primarily a Tron player, but I'd personally be totally okay with Twin decks being back, especially over any bans.
Twin would cannibalize all the tier 3 and lower UR decks in the format, like Blue Moon and UR Wizards. You would probably see some players of other blue decks go back to Twin as well, but not as much as there used to be. UW and Jeskai would still exist and be powerful, as would GDS. In the end, we would lose some fringe blue decks and gain a new competitive blue deck that would even out some of the meta share of UW most likely.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
On the flip side...in a hypothetical Twin unban, what existing competitive decks might lose enough ground to not be viable? What archetypes would be most likely to be cannibalized into Twin's share instead? UR Twin packing Remand and Blood Moon would certainly stuff Valakut and Amulet decks, but GDS, UWx Control, and possibly GBx would welcome it back with open arms. It shouldn't surprise anyone at this point that I'm primarily a Tron player, but I'd personally be totally okay with Twin decks being back, especially over any bans.
Twin would cannibalize all the tier 3 and lower UR decks in the format, like Blue Moon and UR Wizards. You would probably see some players of other blue decks go back to Twin as well, but not as much as there used to be. UW and Jeskai would still exist and be powerful, as would GDS. In the end, we would lose some fringe blue decks and gain a new competitive blue deck that would even out some of the meta share of UW most likely.
I think it would be nearly insane to sleeve up Teferi if Splinter Twin existed as a Win Condition.
On the flip side...in a hypothetical Twin unban, what existing competitive decks might lose enough ground to not be viable? What archetypes would be most likely to be cannibalized into Twin's share instead? UR Twin packing Remand and Blood Moon would certainly stuff Valakut and Amulet decks, but GDS, UWx Control, and possibly GBx would welcome it back with open arms. It shouldn't surprise anyone at this point that I'm primarily a Tron player, but I'd personally be totally okay with Twin decks being back, especially over any bans.
Twin would cannibalize all the tier 3 and lower UR decks in the format, like Blue Moon and UR Wizards. You would probably see some players of other blue decks go back to Twin as well, but not as much as there used to be. UW and Jeskai would still exist and be powerful, as would GDS. In the end, we would lose some fringe blue decks and gain a new competitive blue deck that would even out some of the meta share of UW most likely.
Not true. When twin was legal, Blue moon and UR Delver for example were in a better position than now. As twin was good against many decks that preyed on those decks.
As izzetmage likes to remind us, SFM got issued as the GP promo in 2016 and everyone thought this meant an SFM unban had to be coming. Fast forward to 2018 and she's still banned. See also Twin in Modern Masters prior to its banning. I would not read too much into the connection between a reprint and banlist decisions. JTMS is the only example I know where Wizards even officially connected the two in an announcement.
Ah yes, #banlistlogic, the only logic you will ever need.
#banlistlogic is very simple and can be described in just 2 sentences:
1) If a card is currently banned and has a reprint in a supplemental set, it will be unbanned. E.g. our boi SFM
2) If a card is currently not banned and does not have a reprint, it will be banned. E.g. Serum Visions in 2015
Now it's Dig Through Time's turn. Frankly, I can't treat anyone who thinks DTT or TC is safe to unban seriously. Those cards have broken Modern, Legacy and Vintage, which is quite the hat-trick. None of the cards that enable DTT/TC are exclusive to Vintage - this isn't like the lock artifacts which gain a huge boost in Vintage because of Mishra's Workshop, or Monastery Mentor with lots of Moxen to ramp it out. Fetchlands, Thought Scour and cantrips are all available in Modern to help feed DTT/TC.
In the interest of providing a balanced argument, there is one card which is no longer available to enable DTT/TC, and that's Gitaxian Probe. In all 3 formats, their respective Probe bans happened after their Dig/TC bans, which may fool some into thinking "well, maybe they aren't so bad as long as Probe isn't in the same format..." To that I counter:
1) Delve spells continue to see play even without Probe. Hollow One has its Gurmag Anglers. Infect, still with Become Immense from Probe days, T8ed the most recent GP, along with GP Prague a few months back. The other BI+Probe favorite, Death's Shadow, changed colors and lost its aggressive 1-drops, but it's still casting delve spells and T8ing GPs (Las Vegas, Barcelona) without Probe. Only that the delve spell is Gurmag Angler instead of Become Immense.
2) A Probe-less DTT Scapeshift list T8ed GP Madrid 2014.
DTT without Probe is far from a wet noodle.
To compare and contrast the few bannings of blue consistency cards against Ancient Stirrings:
Ponder and Preordain were banned specifically to limit blue red combo decks, which were making the format less diverse. Stirrings enables two very different styles of ramp, a combo deck, a unique control deck, and several flavors of aggro. Even if you lumped the categories together (Amulet and Tron as one, or Scales, Affinity, and heck, RG Eldrazi as another), none of them are suppressing diversity to a significant degree.
Look at Storm, the quintessential blue red combo deck, which has redundancy in both its rituals and cantrips. It has weathered the numerous bannings largely because of the critical mass of these card types. Compare this to Tron, which plays exactly one spell that filters multiple cards. Banning such a card in a deck like this is a much greater risk. In other words, a Stirrings ban risks more diversity by adversely affecting more archetypes, and does so in a way that has a chance of taking a good number of those decks completely out of competitive viability due to a lack of redundancy for such an effect.
This brings us to Treasure Cruise (and DTT, but since it was banned on the potential for directly supplanting TC, let's consider it redundant here). Jeskai Ascendancy, blue-based burn decks, and tempo decks were clearly warping the format. When a card is good enough for decks to splash a color they never would otherwise for a single spell...yeah, that's ban worthy. No Stirrings deck does this, or likely ever will, since the colorless restriction makes it unable to slot into decks not dedicated to it. And again, despite some solid conversion rates, these decks are not suppressing the rest of the format.
Lastly, we'll consider Gitaxian Probe, a card now banned in Legacy as well as Modern. According to Wizards, it was banned for enabling numerous turn three kills, while giving pilots perfect information (and a card) to set up or dodge as necessary...and for basically free (or better, as with delve and Death's Shadow). It's also perfectly splashable. Stirrings enables better turn three plays, including some kills from very lucky draws, but every other comparison here goes out the window.
There are a few issues here. First of all, neither Probe nor P&P are potential Stirrings-ban precedents due to being T4 rules violators. I already acknowledged that in my earlier post. Rather, they are potential precedents because they show that Wizards is willing to ban a card that violates some format rule across multiple decks collectively, not just a single deck. This is the difference between a Probe ban (multiple decks that collectively violated the T4 rule) and a Bloom ban (a single deck that violated the T4 rule on its own). No one is alleging, to my knowledge, that Stirrings decks are T4 rules violators. But we are saying that they are breaking a different format rule, i.e. the so-called format diversity rule, and doing so in the collective, just like P&P&P were doing so in the collective (albeit with a different rule). That's why I focused on the TC case, because although TC is almost definitely more broken than Stirrings, it's a clearer example. The following TC ban quotes could readily apply to a Stirrings ban:
-"Decks playing the powerful card drawers have been winning a lot, and pushing a lot of other decks down in competitive play"
-"However, as these decks have occupied a large portion of the competitive metagame, the overall variety of successful decks has been suppressed."
Those quotes are exactly what many players are alleging about Stirrings decks: that these decks are suppressing other strategies. TC fell under the exact same premise and I believe Stirrings could find itself in similar crosshairs. This brings me to my second issue with your post. Throughout your post, you claim statements such as "these decks [i.e. Stirrings decks] are not suppressing the rest of the format" and that "none of them are suppressing diversity to a significant degree." This is by no means a proven case. In fact, the opposite is likely true. There is currently no single card in Modern that sees play in 30% of GP T8 decks. I think the second closest is probably SV at 15%. If we were to take 15% as our single-card baseline for GP T8, we have to ask what non-Stirrings decks would be showing up in the T8 if colorless strategies only comprised 15% of the T8s (like SV decks) and not 30%. That 15% addition is almost necessarily taking share away from other decks. This might include BGx, Ux, Mardu, and other decks with documented weak matchups against various Stirrings decks.
As I see it, the alleged benefit of banning Stirrings is that Wizards weakens a broad set of decks without making them unplayable, thereby freeing up top tables for decks that are underrepresented. The counter-argument for this would be that a Stirrings bans would outright kill those decks and that no new decks would fill the void. For instance, if we saw all the Stirrings decks plunge to 10% after a ban and the Ux decks spike to 30%, that might not be a net diversity gain. I'm not sure what the outcome would be, but I am sure it's not as closed as you make it with your quotes like "none of them are suppressing diversity to a significant degree." That statement needs to be analyzed on both sides of the issue.
Spirits
Which should also make it clear that that card won't ever be unbanned. It's not a fine card. It along with its sibling Treasure Cruise were fine for the Standard environment they were created in but became obscenely powerful in all non-rotating formats. Format-warping so.
Spirits
Dig for counter, play ugin. go.
Dont the huge announcements for unnans usually happen in December or January?
I think I'm starting to lean more towards the ancient stirrings ban. If the argument against preordain and ponder is that those single-mana cantrips make decks using them too powerful, stirrings is definitely doing the same thing. I don't want any stirrings decks to fall off the face of the planet, but if nerfing them a bit buffs control and midrange options, I am okay with that. I simply don't want to see things turn into an absolute crawl. I like a faster-paced format. Then you still have storm, infect, hell tron survives that ban I think.
Next one is (how convenient) end of November.
Spirits
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
On a related note...I get that many of you aren't huge fans of the decks running Ancient Stirrings, but it feels disingenuous to aggregate everything playing it to determine unhealthy percentages for ban criteria. KCI, Gx Tron, Scales, Amulet, Lantern, and RG Eldrazi all play differently to a significant enough degree that banning Stiirings would likely have an adverse effect on format diversity, and player (ie customer) confidence. Although several of these decks are top tier, none of them seem to be suppressing overall format diversity. You shouldn't hold your breath waiting for Wizards to ban it, or anything else as the format currently stands.
Ancient Stirrings hits something like 90% of the main deck of Tron; missing only additional copies of Ancient Stirrings and Sylvan Scrying. I'm not going to shed any tear if that card is removed while we're over here casting Opt and Serum Visions like a bunch of peasants.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
The problem is that people are jumping into hopes and dreams territory without looking at the kind of things the cards they spoiled support. The only two colors that didn't seem to get a clear path are red and white. It's still possible that they could shoehorn in Stoneforge Mystic and then pack some swords or something crazy into this sets remaining rare slots, but I don't really like to speculate on that kind of thing given the last two masters sets. The Box topper is there for a reason: To make sure the boxes do not crash to the ground like the last two did. They even upped the MSRP so that the minimum price the box can be sold for is higher on the distributor level.
I'd like to think this means they will have to downshift a lot of cards to fit into the uncommon slot and buff the EV per pack, but I'm extremely doubtful. What I'm more so hoping for is seeing something like Runed Halo as a counter against all the big splashy threats. We might also see Bubbling Muck in the set as a way to help give black more ramp. Path to Exile might be in the set given that they have reprinted it's brother in arms Swords to Plowshares to death recently and it seems to have a good draw back in the kind of limited environment they are pushing.
No matter what I put up to speculate on, though, the fact remains they chose to make lavaclaw reaches and Tasigur, the golden fang part of the extended art specialty cards. If Stoneforge mystic was present in the set, why would they not choose to put her as one of the cards?
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
It would be difficult for GDS to play it, as well. You can only play so many delve cards, and GDS is already leaning hard into the delve fatties, so they would probably have to cut some Anglers and Tasigurs to squeeze a copy or two of DTT in the list. The deck is already pretty threat-light, so cutting threats is probably not the right choice unless you have a good replacement for them.
It's an interesting idea for UW. It would be amazingly good in UW, but it does come at a cost. You probably can't support both DTT and Logic Knot. Knot is the best 2-mana counter in Modern, so you'll have to play something sub-par like Mana Leak in its place. UW also doesn't fill its graveyard quickly, so they can't really go off chaining DTTs.
So... I dunno. I personally feel like DTT would probably be fine, despite how strong of a card it is. I can't think of a blue combo deck that would become busted with it. Maybe it makes blue Scapeshift variants relevant again. It probably makes decks like Blue Moon and Grixis Control a lot better, maybe even making them legit players. I would rather get SFM and Twin back, though.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
As izzetmage likes to remind us, SFM got issued as the GP promo in 2016 and everyone thought this meant an SFM unban had to be coming. Fast forward to 2018 and she's still banned. See also Twin in Modern Masters prior to its banning. I would not read too much into the connection between a reprint and banlist decisions. JTMS is the only example I know where Wizards even officially connected the two in an announcement.
Probe, Ponder, and Preordain were banned not for offending in any individual deck, but for going into multiple decks that collectively violated format rules. Yes, those cards were banned for contributing to T4 rules violators, not format diversity violators. But it sets the precedent of one card violating across multiple decks. TC is another example that is perhaps more telling. Treasure Cruise was banned because "Decks playing the powerful card drawers have been winning a lot, and pushing a lot of other decks down in competitive play." If Stirrings met that same benchmark of going into decks that in turn were pushing other decks down in competitive play, it too could be banned under that precedent. It doesn't matter if all the Stirrings decks have different play styles, just as it didn't matter that TC enabled different Delver variants, Burn, and combo decks. All that matters is the overall effect on diversity.
Out of curiosity, I checked the 2014 GP environment to see what percentage of GP T8s were TC decks. This only comprises 3 GP overall (Madrid, Milan, and Omaha), so N is a little small. But it's still a worthwhile comparison as a baseline, even if MTGO data was also likely included. Just from the GP perspective, 7 of the 24 T8 decks had TC. That's 29%, which is right where Stirrings is currently (30% for 2018 GP T8s). Also notably, TC was shared between a few different decks in those T8s: Temur Delver, Burn, Jeskai Ascendancy (two variants), and UR Delver.
As I said earlier, it's an orange flag issue for me now, not a red one. But if we get another GP like ATL, it will become a red one in a hurry.
http://www.rocketjump.com/listen/the-problem-with-modern-pro-tours-with-tom-lapille
This should almost be a biblical audio to anyone invested in the Modern format. It may not be the whole truth, but it should in large part direct a lot of the absolutely misguided posts I have seen over the last few pages.
What "misguided posts" should this inform? I like that interview a lot, but a) some of it is a bit dated today, and b) I think most people aren't too out of alignment with his points.
Spirits
Ponder and Preordain were banned specifically to limit blue red combo decks, which were making the format less diverse. Stirrings enables two very different styles of ramp, a combo deck, a unique control deck, and several flavors of aggro. Even if you lumped the categories together (Amulet and Tron as one, or Scales, Affinity, and heck, RG Eldrazi as another), none of them are suppressing diversity to a significant degree.
Look at Storm, the quintessential blue red combo deck, which has redundancy in both its rituals and cantrips. It has weathered the numerous bannings largely because of the critical mass of these card types. Compare this to Tron, which plays exactly one spell that filters multiple cards. Banning such a card in a deck like this is a much greater risk. In other words, a Stirrings ban risks more diversity by adversely affecting more archetypes, and does so in a way that has a chance of taking a good number of those decks completely out of competitive viability due to a lack of redundancy for such an effect.
This brings us to Treasure Cruise (and DTT, but since it was banned on the potential for directly supplanting TC, let's consider it redundant here). Jeskai Ascendancy, blue-based burn decks, and tempo decks were clearly warping the format. When a card is good enough for decks to splash a color they never would otherwise for a single spell...yeah, that's ban worthy. No Stirrings deck does this, or likely ever will, since the colorless restriction makes it unable to slot into decks not dedicated to it. And again, despite some solid conversion rates, these decks are not suppressing the rest of the format.
Lastly, we'll consider Gitaxian Probe, a card now banned in Legacy as well as Modern. According to Wizards, it was banned for enabling numerous turn three kills, while giving pilots perfect information (and a card) to set up or dodge as necessary...and for basically free (or better, as with delve and Death's Shadow). It's also perfectly splashable. Stirrings enables better turn three plays, including some kills from very lucky draws, but every other comparison here goes out the window.
At least the Stirrings ban talk has been relatively reasonable, and some support, even if it's a bit thin, has been presented as well. Anyone clamoring for any other bans at this point simply isn't paying attention.
On the flip side...in a hypothetical Twin unban, what existing competitive decks might lose enough ground to not be viable? What archetypes would be most likely to be cannibalized into Twin's share instead? UR Twin packing Remand and Blood Moon would certainly stuff Valakut and Amulet decks, but GDS, UWx Control, and possibly GBx would welcome it back with open arms. It shouldn't surprise anyone at this point that I'm primarily a Tron player, but I'd personally be totally okay with Twin decks being back, especially over any bans.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I think it would be nearly insane to sleeve up Teferi if Splinter Twin existed as a Win Condition.
Not true. When twin was legal, Blue moon and UR Delver for example were in a better position than now. As twin was good against many decks that preyed on those decks.
#banlistlogic is very simple and can be described in just 2 sentences:
1) If a card is currently banned and has a reprint in a supplemental set, it will be unbanned. E.g. our boi SFM
2) If a card is currently not banned and does not have a reprint, it will be banned. E.g. Serum Visions in 2015
Now it's Dig Through Time's turn. Frankly, I can't treat anyone who thinks DTT or TC is safe to unban seriously. Those cards have broken Modern, Legacy and Vintage, which is quite the hat-trick. None of the cards that enable DTT/TC are exclusive to Vintage - this isn't like the lock artifacts which gain a huge boost in Vintage because of Mishra's Workshop, or Monastery Mentor with lots of Moxen to ramp it out. Fetchlands, Thought Scour and cantrips are all available in Modern to help feed DTT/TC.
In the interest of providing a balanced argument, there is one card which is no longer available to enable DTT/TC, and that's Gitaxian Probe. In all 3 formats, their respective Probe bans happened after their Dig/TC bans, which may fool some into thinking "well, maybe they aren't so bad as long as Probe isn't in the same format..." To that I counter:
1) Delve spells continue to see play even without Probe. Hollow One has its Gurmag Anglers. Infect, still with Become Immense from Probe days, T8ed the most recent GP, along with GP Prague a few months back. The other BI+Probe favorite, Death's Shadow, changed colors and lost its aggressive 1-drops, but it's still casting delve spells and T8ing GPs (Las Vegas, Barcelona) without Probe. Only that the delve spell is Gurmag Angler instead of Become Immense.
2) A Probe-less DTT Scapeshift list T8ed GP Madrid 2014.
DTT without Probe is far from a wet noodle.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
There are a few issues here. First of all, neither Probe nor P&P are potential Stirrings-ban precedents due to being T4 rules violators. I already acknowledged that in my earlier post. Rather, they are potential precedents because they show that Wizards is willing to ban a card that violates some format rule across multiple decks collectively, not just a single deck. This is the difference between a Probe ban (multiple decks that collectively violated the T4 rule) and a Bloom ban (a single deck that violated the T4 rule on its own). No one is alleging, to my knowledge, that Stirrings decks are T4 rules violators. But we are saying that they are breaking a different format rule, i.e. the so-called format diversity rule, and doing so in the collective, just like P&P&P were doing so in the collective (albeit with a different rule). That's why I focused on the TC case, because although TC is almost definitely more broken than Stirrings, it's a clearer example. The following TC ban quotes could readily apply to a Stirrings ban:
-"Decks playing the powerful card drawers have been winning a lot, and pushing a lot of other decks down in competitive play"
-"However, as these decks have occupied a large portion of the competitive metagame, the overall variety of successful decks has been suppressed."
Those quotes are exactly what many players are alleging about Stirrings decks: that these decks are suppressing other strategies. TC fell under the exact same premise and I believe Stirrings could find itself in similar crosshairs. This brings me to my second issue with your post. Throughout your post, you claim statements such as "these decks [i.e. Stirrings decks] are not suppressing the rest of the format" and that "none of them are suppressing diversity to a significant degree." This is by no means a proven case. In fact, the opposite is likely true. There is currently no single card in Modern that sees play in 30% of GP T8 decks. I think the second closest is probably SV at 15%. If we were to take 15% as our single-card baseline for GP T8, we have to ask what non-Stirrings decks would be showing up in the T8 if colorless strategies only comprised 15% of the T8s (like SV decks) and not 30%. That 15% addition is almost necessarily taking share away from other decks. This might include BGx, Ux, Mardu, and other decks with documented weak matchups against various Stirrings decks.
As I see it, the alleged benefit of banning Stirrings is that Wizards weakens a broad set of decks without making them unplayable, thereby freeing up top tables for decks that are underrepresented. The counter-argument for this would be that a Stirrings bans would outright kill those decks and that no new decks would fill the void. For instance, if we saw all the Stirrings decks plunge to 10% after a ban and the Ux decks spike to 30%, that might not be a net diversity gain. I'm not sure what the outcome would be, but I am sure it's not as closed as you make it with your quotes like "none of them are suppressing diversity to a significant degree." That statement needs to be analyzed on both sides of the issue.
Twin unban.
Like multiple people said before, the Stirrings decks dont warp the format
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]