Well, Izzet phoenix is overperforming. Just too good. UR spells was nothing without phoenix 8 months ago. Dredge was a shady mediocre T2.5 deck without Creeping Chill. Looting was not a problem card. The problem are the busted cards they print sometimes, that make unfair decks too damn powerfull. But oh well, let's go with the Looting ban and hit like 5 other archetipes of decks. If we follow the logic of the KCI ban, what has to go is the Chill and the Phoenix. The banning paranoia and the insuficient answears in the format are tiresome in Modern, I hope for better cards in Modern Horizons instead of again banning cards. I slightly prefer Legacy because of stability over modern.
Maybe they should stop printing things that get busted free or extremely cheap effects?
Well, all these cards had minimal to zero effect in Standard, and they are pretty interesting and creative designs. So no, there is no way they will stop printing interesting cards for the sake of Modern, and that is a good thing.
Because Modern can be fixed with a ban/unban or with the printing of specific cards. If they stop printing interesting cards neither modern nor standard will move forward. It is specific cards that were/are borderline anyway (i.e. gitaxian probe or faithless looting), that get pushed when they get a critical mass of interesting cards. These are the problems, and that is why wizards is banning them. Because even if they ban creeping chill now, there will be another GY related cards printed that will make Looting broken again. Hence you ban Looting. The design process should not stop being exploratory and creative.
Everything I and others have said about Phoenix for months still holds true (e.g. low variance, high ceiling, low floor, proactive w reactive elements, strong MWP spread, etc.), but I actually think there's another reason for Phoenix's success. This is the success of Arena. When Standard sucked, there was little reason to play it instead of Modern, and I theorize we had more Modern diehards sticking to their same rotation of 1-3 decks and/or casual Modern players who avoided Standard entirely. But with Arena being so successful, partially due to an awesome Standard, people aren't spending as much time in Modern MTGO or FNM venues as they used to. This is especially true for highly visible pros who need to double down on Arena and Standard testing on Twitch. As such, if you suddenly need to play Modern at a GP, you might have less testing, less time, and less investment in the format now than you once did.
All of this makes a deck like Izzet Phoenix even more appealing because it's a consensus best-deck that overlaps with a familiar Standard play style and doesn't take a lot of money or play investment to get going. Add in the echo chamber effect of pros and grinders and regular players all repeating the same sentiment for the same reasons, and you have yet another element of the perfect storm of Phoenix dominance.
Yeah, I am surprised at others' surprise that there are that many Phoenix players. Sooner or later, some people will gravitate towards a strong deck, especially when they are on a Points Leader scoreboard. There is a lot of pressure.
I do think that Phoenix and Dredge are #1 and #2 right now, but I think Whir Prison may even be a better overall deck right now. It seemingly doesn't do well vs. Cryptic Command, which players (hoping to succeed) wouldn't dare play right now. The match vs. BG Midrange on Camera looked pretty bad too, but Phoenix and Dredge are favored preboard and postboard, it only gets better for Dredge; slightly.
*It will be a bit sad to see Faithless Looting go if it does. I just used $62 of store credit 2 months ago for 3 IDW Lootings. It's the one card I own the most of, outside of speculating. Ancient Stirrings is close at 12 copies, but 16 copies of Looting takes the cake.
**Then there is Bob Huang trucking along with Hollow One. I predict he wins vs. whatever in the finals - predicting Amulit, Tron, Dredge, and H. One in the Top 4. You read it here first boys (and girls).
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)
Since Printing Phoenix on 10/5/18
Total GPs: 7
Total copies of Phoenix in T8: 13
Avg copies per GP: 1.86 (4, 2*, 2*, 2, 1*, 2, 0) *Win
Winners: 3* (Don't know Tampa results yet)
Twin in all of 2015
Total GPs: 8
Total copies of Twin in T8: 10
Avg copies per GP: 1.25 (3*, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1*, 0) *Win
Winners: 2 (vastly different builds, nearly a year apart)
Yep. Either Phoenix gets banned or WOTC are massive hypocrites.
Philadelphia is looking a bit more diverse but not that much. One significantly interactive deck in top 8. Seven aggro, aggro-combo or straight up combo decks.
My opinion on Horizons is changing, in some ways I'm looking forward to a hard shakeup of the format.
Day 2 metagame breakdown of GP Bilbao - 22.2% Phoenix. Second most played deck: Humans at 7.6%. Ew.
This is why I didn't completely understand the Krark-Clan Ironworks ban. Everyone knew that KCI as a deck was just a bit better than UR Phoenix overall. Eli Kassis kind of proved this by winning a GP in a top 8 of 4 KCI with his UR Phoenix, but more so by CRUUUSHING them in the Swiss. Sure, KCI was better overall vs. the rest of the meta on a whole, but it was pretty close.
Banning KCI took some percentage of KCI and planted it firmly into the UR Phoenix category. Is a meta with 20.2% better than 9.5% and 10.7% at the top? Who knows? Banning KCI made the format a bit more interactive, but the effect wore off quickly. If you can't beat what Phoenix is bringing to the table, you better beat every other deck you face. Even then...
Now we are on that slope. Faithless Looting gets banned probably so that Dredge doesn't just become the de facto BEST deck. What is going to come of the format after that? I truly hope that Modern Horizons shakes things up at least mediumly. I want to see all fair things printed, no matter how powerful they are - Shardless Agent, Baleful Strix, Leovold, Counterspell, maybe even Swords to Plowshares (but I don't actually want that), Fact or Fiction, Containment Priest, Recruiter of the Guard, Planar Void, etc. etc. Something drastic has to be done so that the format doesn't devolve into "ban the best deck" until there's another, then ban that one too. I felt that way before in Modern and I haaaaated it!
Regarding Phoenix vs. Twin - Twin was around since late 2011, even if it did have Preordain and Ponder before. We have to give Phoenix a bit of a longer run to tell if the meta can autocorrect itself. My guess is that it can IF and only IF Wizards is willing to print risky cards in Modern Horizons and also unban risky fair cards, releasing them back into the Modern meta. We'll see. (yes, the numbers are way worse than Twin, which I believe was 15% at most at any time; that always made me mad, that 15% for a deck is enough to get it banned
*P.S. - I thought Wizards was supposed to hide all the info? Then we could have most players not knowing how good Phoenix is. Some players would know, but they would have no way to prove it. Outside of some players remarking on their Twitter or other social media that they saw a plethora of Phoenix near the top tables of Day 2, nobody would actually have real proof. What happened to that? Is it another failed Wizard's experiment?
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)
KCI was banned because of the gameplay it produced, not just the power level. If it won quickly, it would have been tolerated for much longer.
I can see that. A player sitting around drooling or using the restroom while his opponent maneuvers half of a crucial turn is very bad game play, especially when watched on stream. I just think that sometimes, some people get caught up with thinking they have a chance against 3-4 creatures, but not against 1 recurring artifact. But that's too bad. I am one of those players that takes joy in my opponent's brain going into nowhere land while I draw my deck.
Private Mod Note
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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)
KCI was banned because of the gameplay it produced, not just the power level. If it won quickly, it would have been tolerated for much longer.
I can see that. A player sitting around drooling or using the restroom while his opponent maneuvers half of a crucial turn is very bad game play, especially when watched on stream. I just think that sometimes, some people get caught up with thinking they have a chance against 3-4 creatures, but not against 1 recurring artifact. But that's too bad. I am one of those players that takes joy in my opponent's brain going into nowhere land while I draw my deck.
Specifically, Wizards cited the following reasons:
1. KCI was "...posting more individual-play Modern Grand Prix Top 8 finishes than any other archetype, despite being only a modest portion of the field."
2. KCI showed "...no signs of the Ironworks deck's dominance at the GP level slowing down..."
3. (MOST IMPORTANT) "...the primary reasons for banning a card from the Ironworks deck are its raw win rate and high GP Top 8 conversion rate..."
4. (ALSO IMPORTANT) KCI was banned for a "...highly polarized Game 1 (pre-sideboard) win rate, sometimes long turn length, and difficult rules interactions as secondary factors."
Phoenix and KCI aren't exactly comparable. Phoenix is by FAR the most-played deck at these recent events, so its T8 conversion is close to expected and not particularly surprising. A better comparison for a possible Phoenix ban would be Pod, TC, DRS, or BBE, examples that included a deck with 20%+ Day 2 metagame shares that also had 20%+ GP/PT T8 shares. Phoenix does not seem to be overperforming relative to its prevalence, unlike KCI. It's just a known best-deck that everyone seems to agree is a best deck and as a result it is wildly overrepresented relative to other strategies. This brings us back to the classic Pod/TC/DRS/BBE ban scenarios of past years.
Oh great, more Twin comparisons. Like Drowsy said, KCI wasn't banned to increase metagame diversity.
It's not unwarranted. Literally every justification WOTC gave against Twin can be levied against Phoenix. Every, single, one. Either Phoenix is fine, and the criteria for banning Twin was a load of crap. Or Phoenix will be banned at the next announcement.
Oh great, more Twin comparisons. Like Drowsy said, KCI wasn't banned to increase metagame diversity.
It's not unwarranted. Literally every justification WOTC gave against Twin can be levied against Phoenix. Every, single, one. Either Phoenix is fine, and the criteria for banning Twin was a load of crap. Or Phoenix will be banned at the next announcement.
Many of us already know that the Twin ban was in part a load of crap Wizards packaged to justify a PT shakeup ban. That's why they changed their ban timing in the future, made some public statements about Modern goals, and have been more conservative with bans ever since. Bringing Twin into this current conversation doesn't really have bearing on the Phoenix situation. TC Delver, DRS BGx, and Pod are all much better examples, given the level of Phoenix performance we are seeing now. The ban announcement is also after the MC, so the shakeup factor isn't even on the table.
Oh great, more Twin comparisons. Like Drowsy said, KCI wasn't banned to increase metagame diversity.
It's not unwarranted. Literally every justification WOTC gave against Twin can be levied against Phoenix. Every, single, one. Either Phoenix is fine, and the criteria for banning Twin was a load of crap. Or Phoenix will be banned at the next announcement.
Many of us already know that the Twin ban was in part a load of crap Wizards packaged to justify a PT shakeup ban. That's why they changed their ban timing in the future, made some public statements about Modern goals, and have been more conservative with bans ever since. Bringing Twin into this current conversation doesn't really have bearing on the Phoenix situation. TC Delver, DRS BGx, and Pod are all much better examples, given the level of Phoenix performance we are seeing now. The ban announcement is also after the MC, so the shakeup factor isn't even on the table.
All that does is further support a ban. Do you feel Phoenix should be banned?
what do you think about an emergency ban? i dont want it, dont get me wrong... but modern seems awful
I think like GKourou said, there should be no bannings until after we see the effects of Modern Horizons. There's no point banning a card before then when Horizons could actually make that card palateable.
Private Mod Note
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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)
what do you think about an emergency ban? i dont want it, dont get me wrong... but modern seems awful
I think like GKourou said, there should be no bannings until after we see the effects of Modern Horizons. There's no point banning a card before then when Horizons could actually make that card palateable.
I guess we just suffer through Eldrazi Winter 2.0 then. Except this time we have a bunch of people telling us this is somehow healthy and great.
I think these discussions will seem quaint six months down the line. WotC is aiming to hijack the format and if Horizons makes a strong impact and is a commercial success, it will set a precedent through which they can easily grow into the role of dictating the meta by the way of yearly releases.
Note that every time they made format specific products, the results were absolutely busted. Almost all of the strongest commanders in EDH are from Commander products, and the cards designed for Legacy had a tremendous and lasting impact on the format. Even Pauper is feeling the effects through intentional downshifts.
Modern has been their sore spot for a long time, being much more dictated by players and other companies than WotC itself while not providing them revenue to scale with the format's popularity.
This is not quite Eldrazi winter. Let's not exaggerate. If you want to beat Phoenix or Dredge, there are ways. Just play an interactive deck(for Phoenix, not Dredge). Otherwise, just play a combo or prison and race them and win them. All of those are good strategies against them.
We heard similar comments during Eldrazi Winter, about how you could just play UW Control and everything is fine!
This not Eldrazi Winter 2.0. C'mon, dude. It's comparable to BBE Jund, Rhino Pod or TC Delver but not to the most busted deck we've ever had in the format.
Players are trying to consistently beat both Dredge and Phoenix, it doesn't seem to be working. Phoenix has won 3 Gp's in a row, and we are waiting on the SCG results. It may be that more players need to play GB Midrange, but as of right now GB has failed to follow through with a "win". There is a consistency issue that these fair decks suffer from, the UR decks do not have this problem, as their cantrips allow them to churn through their deck and find the answers. The other midrange decks have to rely on Bob, or Tracker. We would need something like Sylvan Library but of course it's too powerful and breaks the modern concept of the color pie.
I don't think I've seen 1 deck win every major tournament in 1 weekend, we might see Izzet take it all down within a few hours. I'm hoping to see GB win the SCG open, as I'm eyeing the deck since I enjoy G/x midrnage. With MH coming, I see 0 reason to invest in any modern cards outside of beta lands for pretty mana bases.
Edite to Add:
If the worst does happen and Pheonix wins well everything this weekend, I'd like wizards to reveal some more cards from MH's. I want to see the so called cards that are going to reshape modern and beat Dredge/Phoenix.
Relevant post, buried on the previous page:
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Because Modern can be fixed with a ban/unban or with the printing of specific cards. If they stop printing interesting cards neither modern nor standard will move forward. It is specific cards that were/are borderline anyway (i.e. gitaxian probe or faithless looting), that get pushed when they get a critical mass of interesting cards. These are the problems, and that is why wizards is banning them. Because even if they ban creeping chill now, there will be another GY related cards printed that will make Looting broken again. Hence you ban Looting. The design process should not stop being exploratory and creative.
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
All of this makes a deck like Izzet Phoenix even more appealing because it's a consensus best-deck that overlaps with a familiar Standard play style and doesn't take a lot of money or play investment to get going. Add in the echo chamber effect of pros and grinders and regular players all repeating the same sentiment for the same reasons, and you have yet another element of the perfect storm of Phoenix dominance.
Only...?
Joking of course, this is ridiculous... (not surprising though).
Modern:
Mardu Pyromancer
Grixis Shadow
Traverse Shadow
Jund
Abzan
The Rock
I do think that Phoenix and Dredge are #1 and #2 right now, but I think Whir Prison may even be a better overall deck right now. It seemingly doesn't do well vs. Cryptic Command, which players (hoping to succeed) wouldn't dare play right now. The match vs. BG Midrange on Camera looked pretty bad too, but Phoenix and Dredge are favored preboard and postboard, it only gets better for Dredge; slightly.
*It will be a bit sad to see Faithless Looting go if it does. I just used $62 of store credit 2 months ago for 3 IDW Lootings. It's the one card I own the most of, outside of speculating. Ancient Stirrings is close at 12 copies, but 16 copies of Looting takes the cake.
**Then there is Bob Huang trucking along with Hollow One. I predict he wins vs. whatever in the finals - predicting Amulit, Tron, Dredge, and H. One in the Top 4. You read it here first boys (and girls).
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)So this gets updated, again:
Since Printing Phoenix on 10/5/18
Total GPs: 7
Total copies of Phoenix in T8: 13
Avg copies per GP: 1.86 (4, 2*, 2*, 2, 1*, 2, 0) *Win
Winners: 3* (Don't know Tampa results yet)
Twin in all of 2015
Total GPs: 8
Total copies of Twin in T8: 10
Avg copies per GP: 1.25 (3*, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1*, 0) *Win
Winners: 2 (vastly different builds, nearly a year apart)
Yep. Either Phoenix gets banned or WOTC are massive hypocrites.
I know what you mean. I literally just got my foils signed at GP LA two weeks ago.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
My opinion on Horizons is changing, in some ways I'm looking forward to a hard shakeup of the format.
Either way, we have the potential for a clean sweep of Birds for this weekend...
https://twitter.com/ChannelFireball/status/1107396705459286021
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
This is why I didn't completely understand the Krark-Clan Ironworks ban. Everyone knew that KCI as a deck was just a bit better than UR Phoenix overall. Eli Kassis kind of proved this by winning a GP in a top 8 of 4 KCI with his UR Phoenix, but more so by CRUUUSHING them in the Swiss. Sure, KCI was better overall vs. the rest of the meta on a whole, but it was pretty close.
Banning KCI took some percentage of KCI and planted it firmly into the UR Phoenix category. Is a meta with 20.2% better than 9.5% and 10.7% at the top? Who knows? Banning KCI made the format a bit more interactive, but the effect wore off quickly. If you can't beat what Phoenix is bringing to the table, you better beat every other deck you face. Even then...
Now we are on that slope. Faithless Looting gets banned probably so that Dredge doesn't just become the de facto BEST deck. What is going to come of the format after that? I truly hope that Modern Horizons shakes things up at least mediumly. I want to see all fair things printed, no matter how powerful they are - Shardless Agent, Baleful Strix, Leovold, Counterspell, maybe even Swords to Plowshares (but I don't actually want that), Fact or Fiction, Containment Priest, Recruiter of the Guard, Planar Void, etc. etc. Something drastic has to be done so that the format doesn't devolve into "ban the best deck" until there's another, then ban that one too. I felt that way before in Modern and I haaaaated it!
Regarding Phoenix vs. Twin - Twin was around since late 2011, even if it did have Preordain and Ponder before. We have to give Phoenix a bit of a longer run to tell if the meta can autocorrect itself. My guess is that it can IF and only IF Wizards is willing to print risky cards in Modern Horizons and also unban risky fair cards, releasing them back into the Modern meta. We'll see. (yes, the numbers are way worse than Twin, which I believe was 15% at most at any time; that always made me mad, that 15% for a deck is enough to get it banned
*P.S. - I thought Wizards was supposed to hide all the info? Then we could have most players not knowing how good Phoenix is. Some players would know, but they would have no way to prove it. Outside of some players remarking on their Twitter or other social media that they saw a plethora of Phoenix near the top tables of Day 2, nobody would actually have real proof. What happened to that? Is it another failed Wizard's experiment?
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)Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
I can see that. A player sitting around drooling or using the restroom while his opponent maneuvers half of a crucial turn is very bad game play, especially when watched on stream. I just think that sometimes, some people get caught up with thinking they have a chance against 3-4 creatures, but not against 1 recurring artifact. But that's too bad. I am one of those players that takes joy in my opponent's brain going into nowhere land while I draw my deck.
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)We know exactly why KCI was banned. There's no need to speculate. The reasons are explicitly stated in a Wizards article that is less than 2 months old: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-21-2019-banned-and-restricted-announcement
Specifically, Wizards cited the following reasons:
1. KCI was "...posting more individual-play Modern Grand Prix Top 8 finishes than any other archetype, despite being only a modest portion of the field."
2. KCI showed "...no signs of the Ironworks deck's dominance at the GP level slowing down..."
3. (MOST IMPORTANT) "...the primary reasons for banning a card from the Ironworks deck are its raw win rate and high GP Top 8 conversion rate..."
4. (ALSO IMPORTANT) KCI was banned for a "...highly polarized Game 1 (pre-sideboard) win rate, sometimes long turn length, and difficult rules interactions as secondary factors."
Phoenix and KCI aren't exactly comparable. Phoenix is by FAR the most-played deck at these recent events, so its T8 conversion is close to expected and not particularly surprising. A better comparison for a possible Phoenix ban would be Pod, TC, DRS, or BBE, examples that included a deck with 20%+ Day 2 metagame shares that also had 20%+ GP/PT T8 shares. Phoenix does not seem to be overperforming relative to its prevalence, unlike KCI. It's just a known best-deck that everyone seems to agree is a best deck and as a result it is wildly overrepresented relative to other strategies. This brings us back to the classic Pod/TC/DRS/BBE ban scenarios of past years.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Many of us already know that the Twin ban was in part a load of crap Wizards packaged to justify a PT shakeup ban. That's why they changed their ban timing in the future, made some public statements about Modern goals, and have been more conservative with bans ever since. Bringing Twin into this current conversation doesn't really have bearing on the Phoenix situation. TC Delver, DRS BGx, and Pod are all much better examples, given the level of Phoenix performance we are seeing now. The ban announcement is also after the MC, so the shakeup factor isn't even on the table.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I think like GKourou said, there should be no bannings until after we see the effects of Modern Horizons. There's no point banning a card before then when Horizons could actually make that card palateable.
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)UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Note that every time they made format specific products, the results were absolutely busted. Almost all of the strongest commanders in EDH are from Commander products, and the cards designed for Legacy had a tremendous and lasting impact on the format. Even Pauper is feeling the effects through intentional downshifts.
Modern has been their sore spot for a long time, being much more dictated by players and other companies than WotC itself while not providing them revenue to scale with the format's popularity.
We heard similar comments during Eldrazi Winter, about how you could just play UW Control and everything is fine!
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Legacy: UWR Miracles [https://deckstats.net/decks/44442/1092831-uwr-miracles-2]
I don't think I've seen 1 deck win every major tournament in 1 weekend, we might see Izzet take it all down within a few hours. I'm hoping to see GB win the SCG open, as I'm eyeing the deck since I enjoy G/x midrnage. With MH coming, I see 0 reason to invest in any modern cards outside of beta lands for pretty mana bases.
Edite to Add:
If the worst does happen and Pheonix wins well everything this weekend, I'd like wizards to reveal some more cards from MH's. I want to see the so called cards that are going to reshape modern and beat Dredge/Phoenix.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn