Another thought: "One factor we consider is that Ancient Stirrings, unlike more general card selection spells like Ponder and Preordain, brings deckbuilding restrictions."
At least half a dozen distinctly different decks that are routinely competitive and successful, one of which was powerful enough to be banned, and several others in consistent ban discussion. But "deck building restrictions".
I mean, technically it's the truth. The restriction is to lands, which make up a third of your deck, and Artifacts, the most broken card type, oh and certain Planeswalkers that you definitely shouldn't be able to cast on T3. You can't run Stirrings in a Green Stompy list, but technically Ponder/Preordain could be used in any deck that ran Blue.
I mean, technically it's the truth. The restriction is to lands, which make up a third of your deck, and Artifacts, the most broken card type, oh and certain Planeswalkers that you definitely shouldn't be able to cast on T3. You can't run Stirrings in a Green Stompy list, but technically Ponder/Preordain could be used in any deck that ran Blue.
Would you run Ponder and Preordain in Modern Merfolk?
*Why don't they just make a Ponder or Preordain that makes you reveal the cards kept on top and they can't be enchantments? Deck restrictions...
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)
Meerfolk is not a blue deck, they deceive you with their Islands but in reality they are just an aggro deck (a very uninteractive one, even burn is more interactive) with 30 creatures that ignores the opponent and smashes face.
I mean, technically it's the truth. The restriction is to lands, which make up a third of your deck, and Artifacts, the most broken card type, oh and certain Planeswalkers that you definitely shouldn't be able to cast on T3. You can't run Stirrings in a Green Stompy list, but technically Ponder/Preordain could be used in any deck that ran Blue.
In a non-rotating format, the restriction of Lands, Artifacts, some of the most pushed creatures of all time, spells (Devoid) and Walkers cast outside of curve?
Furthermore, Preordain and Ponder both have restrictions. They can only look at 3-4 cards.
Also I don't think many people are actually considering Ponder for an unbanning any time soon. Yes, if the Preordain "project" is successful, then yes, maybe we will look at Ponder in the future. But right now, I think many Modern players believe Preordain to be a less powerful card than Ancient Stirrings.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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)
I sometimes wish Wizards could patch cards without needing to ban them. I feel like KCI would be reasonably alright if either its ability was not a mana ability or if it had LEDs timing restriction of only being able to activate it when you could cast an instant. Oh well.
Furthermore, Preordain and Ponder both have restrictions. They can only look at 3-4 cards.
I don't think this is a defensible definition of a "restriction." It's also definitely not a "deck-building restriction" as Wizards used to describe Stirrings. We can disagree with whether or not Stirrings is actually as restricted as Wizards claims, but claiming that Preordain has either restrictions generally or deck-building restrictions specifically is incorrect.
I mean, technically it's the truth. The restriction is to lands, which make up a third of your deck, and Artifacts, the most broken card type, oh and certain Planeswalkers that you definitely shouldn't be able to cast on T3. You can't run Stirrings in a Green Stompy list, but technically Ponder/Preordain could be used in any deck that ran Blue.
In a non-rotating format, the restriction of Lands, Artifacts, some of the most pushed creatures of all time, spells (Devoid) and Walkers cast outside of curve?
Those are not meaningful restrictions.
On the other hand, this is a legitimate issue with the alleged deck-building restrictions of Stirrings. We've also talked about it before. Something like 30% of GP T8 decks in 2018 were Stirrings decks, spanning at six distinct decks: Amulet Titan, KCI, Gx Tron, RG Eldrazi, Lantern Control, and Hardened Scales. I'm all for defending Stirrings on various grounds, whether appropriate power level, overall diversity gain for Modern, lack of individually offensive decks, etc., but its so-called deck-building restrictions are not an axis on which I want to debate Stirrings.
Furthermore, Preordain and Ponder both have restrictions. They can only look at 3-4 cards.
Also I don't think many people are actually considering Ponder for an unbanning any time soon. Yes, if the Preordain "project" is successful, then yes, maybe we will look at Ponder in the future. But right now, I think many Modern players believe Preordain to be a less powerful card than Ancient Stirrings.
Based on 'SFM cannot come off, look at UW' from Wizards, I'll NEVER hold out for Preordain or Ponder, ever.
Furthermore, Preordain and Ponder both have restrictions. They can only look at 3-4 cards.
Also I don't think many people are actually considering Ponder for an unbanning any time soon. Yes, if the Preordain "project" is successful, then yes, maybe we will look at Ponder in the future. But right now, I think many Modern players believe Preordain to be a less powerful card than Ancient Stirrings.
Based on 'SFM cannot come off, look at UW' from Wizards, I'll NEVER hold out for Preordain or Ponder, ever.
Agreed. P&P has way too much to overcome. Wizards already noted their scrutiny of card selection spells in the KCI ban update and actually called out those cards as examples of more problematic cantrips: "One factor we consider is that Ancient Stirrings, unlike more general card selection spells like Ponder and Preordain, brings deckbuilding restrictions." That's pretty damning from my perspective.
P&P also go into far more than just UWx Control decks. If that factor alone is holding back SFM per Forsythe, that factor plus Storm, GDS, UR Phoenix, Ad Nauseam, and others is unquestionably too much weight for P&P to escape from. I'm going to stick with GSZ/SFM unban hype from now going forward.
Furthermore, Preordain and Ponder both have restrictions. They can only look at 3-4 cards.
Also I don't think many people are actually considering Ponder for an unbanning any time soon. Yes, if the Preordain "project" is successful, then yes, maybe we will look at Ponder in the future. But right now, I think many Modern players believe Preordain to be a less powerful card than Ancient Stirrings.
Based on 'SFM cannot come off, look at UW' from Wizards, I'll NEVER hold out for Preordain or Ponder, ever.
Which shouldn't be expected from anyone at all now IMO. Not only are there the UW/x decks but obviously Izzet Phoenix too. Unbanning cards that make already good decks even better is a real and obvious risk and I don't think Wizards is in for that.
so question for you all. if design produced a 1/1 body in blue for 1u that was basically preordain would it help the demand for accurate draw fixing? i think the cantrip utility creature is a risk but it is a risk that pays off safely compared to the fears of powering up izzet combo.
Decks I have in my bag of tricks- Needless to say, someone who wants to play will probably have a deck UB/x Faeries UR Storm XURWB Affinity G Elves UW control
That is actually a really nice idea. I doubt Combo decks would play that card, but Control decks looking for card selection definetely would.
But it is maybe too powerful for Standard.
Personally I think Ponder is way too powerful to be ever even considered for Modern. Ponder is restricted in Vintage, because it is much more powerful in a format with Fetchlands. Preordain seems more likely, but given the success of Serum Vision decks I doubt Wotc wants to boost them further.
I hate Serum Visions with passion, it is good when looking for lands and setting up for future turns. But when you are flooded drawing another land feels sooooo bad.
I mean, technically it's the truth. The restriction is to lands, which make up a third of your deck, and Artifacts, the most broken card type, oh and certain Planeswalkers that you definitely shouldn't be able to cast on T3. You can't run Stirrings in a Green Stompy list, but technically Ponder/Preordain could be used in any deck that ran Blue.
In a non-rotating format, the restriction of Lands, Artifacts, some of the most pushed creatures of all time, spells (Devoid) and Walkers cast outside of curve?
Those are not meaningful restrictions.
I have to say that Stirrings has restrictions on card colors, not types to make this conversation look sane.
I mean, technically it's the truth. The restriction is to lands, which make up a third of your deck, and Artifacts, the most broken card type, oh and certain Planeswalkers that you definitely shouldn't be able to cast on T3. You can't run Stirrings in a Green Stompy list, but technically Ponder/Preordain could be used in any deck that ran Blue.
In a non-rotating format, the restriction of Lands, Artifacts, some of the most pushed creatures of all time, spells (Devoid) and Walkers cast outside of curve?
Those are not meaningful restrictions.
I have to say that Stirrings has restrictions on card colors, not types to make this conversation look sane.
I also don't think this is much of a restriction. It's very easy to build Gx(x) decks in Modern with our manabase, and the fact that Stirrings decks at 30% make up more of the GP T8 dataset than any other pillar shows this isn't much of a restriction.
Again, I'm all for defending Stirrings as an acceptable and appropriate card in Modern. I think it's fine and I think it's okay that we have four pillars: Stirrings, Looting, SV/Opt, Hierarch. But the so-called "deck-building restrictions" are really not a good defense of Stirrings. I accept that Wizards stated it as an argument but it's a bad one, much like Forsythe's argument against SFM's unbanning is a bad one.
I have to say that Stirrings has restrictions on card colors, not types to make this conversation look sane.
Its not a relevant deck building restriction any more than CoCo or Azcanta have restrictions. Artifacts, Lands, Creatures, Spells and Planeswalkers. Stirrings can find those card types, based on a colourless restriction that is, based on its inclusion in multiple tier 1 archetypes, irrelevant.
Personally I think Ponder is way too powerful to be ever even considered for Modern. Ponder is restricted in Vintage, because it is much more powerful in a format with Fetchlands. Preordain seems more likely, but given the success of Serum Vision decks I doubt Wotc wants to boost them further.
Agreed. I think Ponder is too powerful for Modern, but I also think Ancient Stirrings is too powerful. These two need to be in the same place, either both banned or both unbanned.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
Glad that Faithless Looting is safe, and not being mentioned in the article.. it's not even in WoTC radar for possible banning. ^___^
I was pretty scarred honestly that Faithless Looting was on the radar due to Dredge going quite well lately and the new spice that is Izzet Phoenix. Thankfully, Dredge may continue on!
These last 12 hours of Wizards communication is arguably some of the best we have had in the last 3 to 4 years.
If Wizards keeps these channels open and consistent, while most of the community strikes when they see wrong and promotes when they see good, we can finally come to terms on more issues than simple format health.
Agreed. It's an encouraging sign, but we'll have to wait until March rolls around to see if they're making a genuine effort to communicate with the player base. A March announcement of no bans/unbans along with a similar explanation/summary of how they perceive the meta would go a long way in that endeavor. Then again, that lengthy announcement might've put WotC over their allotted amount of community engagement for 2019 and every B&R until 2020 will read "No bans. No unbans". I could see it going either way...
Also I don't think many people are actually considering Ponder for an unbanning any time soon. Yes, if the Preordain "project" is successful, then yes, maybe we will look at Ponder in the future. But right now, I think many Modern players believe Preordain to be a less powerful card than Ancient Stirrings.
Remember that Wizards also said that "Sword of the Meek would power up Lantern Control too much." If there's anything that players have learned from Wizards in the last 10 years, it's that they will change their minds regularly, quite often flipping back and forth. Would anyone be surprised to see the return of PPTQs in 2020? I seriously doubt it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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)
Anyway, I dont think anyone reasonable was afraid of ThopterSword. There are with Arclight, and UWx (supposedly) being good, reasons to consider Preordain and Ponder.
I would be amazed to see it, even though its simply not that great.
I have to say that Stirrings has restrictions on card colors, not types to make this conversation look sane.
Its not a relevant deck building restriction any more than CoCo or Azcanta have restrictions. Artifacts, Lands, Creatures, Spells and Planeswalkers. Stirrings can find those card types, based on a colourless restriction that is, based on its inclusion in multiple tier 1 archetypes, irrelevant.
CoCo and Azcanta can (not often, but can) Whiff and have hoops you have to get through (Getting to 4 Mana, flipping the thing) Stirrings is far cheaper for a far less chance of whiffing.
Meerfolk is not a blue deck, they deceive you with their Islands but in reality they are just an aggro deck (a very uninteractive one, even burn is more interactive) with 30 creatures that ignores the opponent and smashes face.
this is so wrong... So unbelievable wrong. Each creature in merfolk interact with your creatures or opponents boardstate. Rejeerey tap and untap permanents, trickster tap permanents and take away abilitys, Harbinger bounce, one drops there counter spells or flashed creatures like dredge... Vial... Coco. Please look at the creatures there next time bevore and let us not forget countermagic is in too
At least half a dozen distinctly different decks that are routinely competitive and successful, one of which was powerful enough to be banned, and several others in consistent ban discussion. But "deck building restrictions".
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Would you run Ponder and Preordain in Modern Merfolk?
*Why don't they just make a Ponder or Preordain that makes you reveal the cards kept on top and they can't be enchantments? Deck restrictions...
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I really dont like the 'restrictions' arguement.
Tron - Colourless Walkers, Creatures, Lands, Artifacts.
G Affinity - Creatures, Lands, Artifacts.
RG Eldrazi - Creatures, Lands, Spells!
Lantern - Lands, Artifacts
KCI - Lands, Artifacts
Colourless Eldrazi - Lands, Artifacts, Creatures
In a non-rotating format, the restriction of Lands, Artifacts, some of the most pushed creatures of all time, spells (Devoid) and Walkers cast outside of curve?
Those are not meaningful restrictions.
Spirits
Also I don't think many people are actually considering Ponder for an unbanning any time soon. Yes, if the Preordain "project" is successful, then yes, maybe we will look at Ponder in the future. But right now, I think many Modern players believe Preordain to be a less powerful card than Ancient Stirrings.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I don't think this is a defensible definition of a "restriction." It's also definitely not a "deck-building restriction" as Wizards used to describe Stirrings. We can disagree with whether or not Stirrings is actually as restricted as Wizards claims, but claiming that Preordain has either restrictions generally or deck-building restrictions specifically is incorrect.
On the other hand, this is a legitimate issue with the alleged deck-building restrictions of Stirrings. We've also talked about it before. Something like 30% of GP T8 decks in 2018 were Stirrings decks, spanning at six distinct decks: Amulet Titan, KCI, Gx Tron, RG Eldrazi, Lantern Control, and Hardened Scales. I'm all for defending Stirrings on various grounds, whether appropriate power level, overall diversity gain for Modern, lack of individually offensive decks, etc., but its so-called deck-building restrictions are not an axis on which I want to debate Stirrings.
Based on 'SFM cannot come off, look at UW' from Wizards, I'll NEVER hold out for Preordain or Ponder, ever.
Spirits
Agreed. P&P has way too much to overcome. Wizards already noted their scrutiny of card selection spells in the KCI ban update and actually called out those cards as examples of more problematic cantrips: "One factor we consider is that Ancient Stirrings, unlike more general card selection spells like Ponder and Preordain, brings deckbuilding restrictions." That's pretty damning from my perspective.
P&P also go into far more than just UWx Control decks. If that factor alone is holding back SFM per Forsythe, that factor plus Storm, GDS, UR Phoenix, Ad Nauseam, and others is unquestionably too much weight for P&P to escape from. I'm going to stick with GSZ/SFM unban hype from now going forward.
Which shouldn't be expected from anyone at all now IMO. Not only are there the UW/x decks but obviously Izzet Phoenix too. Unbanning cards that make already good decks even better is a real and obvious risk and I don't think Wizards is in for that.
Glad that Faithless Looting is safe, and not being mentioned in the article.. it's not even in WoTC radar for possible banning. ^___^
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
Spirits
But it is maybe too powerful for Standard.
Personally I think Ponder is way too powerful to be ever even considered for Modern. Ponder is restricted in Vintage, because it is much more powerful in a format with Fetchlands. Preordain seems more likely, but given the success of Serum Vision decks I doubt Wotc wants to boost them further.
I hate Serum Visions with passion, it is good when looking for lands and setting up for future turns. But when you are flooded drawing another land feels sooooo bad.
I have to say that Stirrings has restrictions on card colors, not types to make this conversation look sane.
G Green Stompy
RG Shamans
UB Mill
UG Infect
WUBRG Slivers!
I also don't think this is much of a restriction. It's very easy to build Gx(x) decks in Modern with our manabase, and the fact that Stirrings decks at 30% make up more of the GP T8 dataset than any other pillar shows this isn't much of a restriction.
Again, I'm all for defending Stirrings as an acceptable and appropriate card in Modern. I think it's fine and I think it's okay that we have four pillars: Stirrings, Looting, SV/Opt, Hierarch. But the so-called "deck-building restrictions" are really not a good defense of Stirrings. I accept that Wizards stated it as an argument but it's a bad one, much like Forsythe's argument against SFM's unbanning is a bad one.
Its not a relevant deck building restriction any more than CoCo or Azcanta have restrictions. Artifacts, Lands, Creatures, Spells and Planeswalkers. Stirrings can find those card types, based on a colourless restriction that is, based on its inclusion in multiple tier 1 archetypes, irrelevant.
Spirits
Agreed. I think Ponder is too powerful for Modern, but I also think Ancient Stirrings is too powerful. These two need to be in the same place, either both banned or both unbanned.
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 was pretty scarred honestly that Faithless Looting was on the radar due to Dredge going quite well lately and the new spice that is Izzet Phoenix. Thankfully, Dredge may continue on!
Agreed. It's an encouraging sign, but we'll have to wait until March rolls around to see if they're making a genuine effort to communicate with the player base. A March announcement of no bans/unbans along with a similar explanation/summary of how they perceive the meta would go a long way in that endeavor. Then again, that lengthy announcement might've put WotC over their allotted amount of community engagement for 2019 and every B&R until 2020 will read "No bans. No unbans". I could see it going either way...
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
Remember that Wizards also said that "Sword of the Meek would power up Lantern Control too much." If there's anything that players have learned from Wizards in the last 10 years, it's that they will change their minds regularly, quite often flipping back and forth. Would anyone be surprised to see the return of PPTQs in 2020? I seriously doubt it.
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)Anyway, I dont think anyone reasonable was afraid of ThopterSword. There are with Arclight, and UWx (supposedly) being good, reasons to consider Preordain and Ponder.
I would be amazed to see it, even though its simply not that great.
Spirits
CoCo and Azcanta can (not often, but can) Whiff and have hoops you have to get through (Getting to 4 Mana, flipping the thing) Stirrings is far cheaper for a far less chance of whiffing.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan