"The cards where we are wrong and that ended up much more powerful than we had expected are some of the most iconic cards from the last decade—Primeval Titan; Jace, the Mind Sculptor; Stoneforge Mystic; Bitterblossom; Bridge from Below; Tarmogoyf; etc. These cards are not always the most fun to play with or against, and we have subsequently had to ban them from some formats, but the cards still exist in the same form they did when we printed them."
Prime Time - Fine in Modern.
Jace - Fine in Modern
Bitterblossom - Not Good in Modern.
Bridge - Not Good in Modern.
Goyf - Fatal Pushed in Modern.
If thats the metric, SFM comes off next announcement.
"The cards where we are wrong and that ended up much more powerful than we had expected are some of the most iconic cards from the last decade—Primeval Titan; Jace, the Mind Sculptor; Stoneforge Mystic; Bitterblossom; Bridge from Below; Tarmogoyf; etc. These cards are not always the most fun to play with or against, and we have subsequently had to ban them from some formats, but the cards still exist in the same form they did when we printed them."
Prime Time - Fine in Modern.
Jace - Fine in Modern
Bitterblossom - Not Good in Modern.
Bridge - Not Good in Modern.
Goyf - Fatal Pushed in Modern.
If thats the metric, SFM comes off next announcement.
Dude, they're not unbanning SFM. UW being this good makes WOTC too hesitant to do so. SFM will be banned for several more years, they've made this very clear, whether you agree with their logic or not
"The cards where we are wrong and that ended up much more powerful than we had expected are some of the most iconic cards from the last decade—Primeval Titan; Jace, the Mind Sculptor; Stoneforge Mystic; Bitterblossom; Bridge from Below; Tarmogoyf; etc. These cards are not always the most fun to play with or against, and we have subsequently had to ban them from some formats, but the cards still exist in the same form they did when we printed them."
Prime Time - Fine in Modern.
Jace - Fine in Modern
Bitterblossom - Not Good in Modern.
Bridge - Not Good in Modern.
Goyf - Fatal Pushed in Modern.
If thats the metric, SFM comes off next announcement.
Dude, they're not unbanning SFM. UW being this good makes WOTC too hesitant to do so. SFM will be banned for several more years, they've made this very clear, whether you agree with their logic or not
The hope that there was continuity between what WOTC "should do" and what they "will do" sailed long ago. I don't think any of us are under the delusion that WOTC will do anything other than exactly what they want to do, for whatever irrational reason they make up each time they do it. SFM is just the perfect shining example of their stubborn disconnect with even the most basic understandings about Modern.
I am attacking the design space because it is often the main justification for Stoneforge, and was a justification for Pod. I honestly was not around much when Pod was legal, so I don't really know specifics or player feelings, just that "design space" was often a talking point, in addition to its dominance.
I cannot say exactly, how the playerbase felt like back than (cause it was in a time period with drastic shifts of power), but I can say the following quite confident: Pod was broken, which was showcased the best in that specific time period, where we had goodies like DTT and TC in the format.
Besides that, close to no one said back than, that Pod might limit design space (since that argument was felt as a lackluster to say it this way), the common sense was rather, that Pod will get continuously better due to the shift from a spell based system towards a creature based system (talking not about the last 4-6 years, but the last 12+ years). Sure, there were people arguing along that line, but given the information we (as the playerbase) had back than, it seemed foolish. Why? Since we knew, that Wizards disregards Modern regarding printing of new cards (as we have seen with TC and DTT), at least back than. Only with the B&R announcement, that train of thought really "took off", since it was "indirectly" mentioned to say it this way.
People mainly talked about the oppressiveness of the Pod shells, we had the Melira shells, than the Kiki Summer into the Rhino Winter into the Pod Ban, and each iteration felt worse to play against basically. But than again, back than I had the feeling, that the playerbase was overall more "relaxed" regarding bans, aka no echo chamber outcries 24/7 basically (what we witness since the Summer Bloom/Splinter Twin bans) and that is imo the biggest difference from back than to today.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: Only talking about Pod, not Stoneforge.
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
Carrion feeder, nimble mongoose, and spore frog are all really good one drops in modern. Sometimes, the problem is more so one of perception than mechanical superiority.
The issue with modern competitive tier one is a touch complicated, though. Some people are viva la freedom and think the problem is card costs, but I'm of the mind set it is one of perception and greed.
Wizards wants to have super expensive listed cards because if they stay there at that price, it creates a self fulfilling prophecy that can be milked in specialty sets. If they were to print the cards to death to drop the price, they may shatter the competitive illusionary advantages as more people get the cards, and we might even see more deck building, but then wizards loses their cash cow. Not to mention, there is the possibility the masses find a format where a deck can be shut down with a leyline or chalice bad, which would lead to more people pushing the company to ban these cards.
We already got people that want fast mana banned from modern.
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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!
Re: Pod
I did play in that era, and Pod was definitely too prevalent. That's why I was unsurprised to see almost all of the ban rationale point to prevalence and dominance, with design space limitation as a distant, secondary factor. It's annoying to see prominent Magic personalities, most recently Hoogland, citing that reason as a strike against the Pod ban when it was clearly not as influential as the meta/T8 dominance factor.
I'm kind of wondering if there is a shell that would want Spellskite + Giver of Runes. Basically, the two together work like mother of runes, in that you can just redirect whatever targets giver to spellskite, then give spellskite the protection.
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():
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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!
MTG got WAY better with Sam gone. Standard was a hot garbage mess for years thanks to him.
Nothing against Sam as a person, but he was an absolutely horrible developer. I still remember his article where he claimed the problem with Mirrodin standard was that there was too much removal in the format (especially Shatter), and that kept all the cool decks from being able to do anything.
He’s the reason there was a span of about 5 years in Standard where there was almost zero playable removal. From all accounts, he seems to have been very good at getting power level right, but his views of what made for a good format were completely warped. Magic is a much better game without him.
"The cards where we are wrong and that ended up much more powerful than we had expected are some of the most iconic cards from the last decade—Primeval Titan; Jace, the Mind Sculptor; Stoneforge Mystic; Bitterblossom; Bridge from Below; Tarmogoyf; etc. These cards are not always the most fun to play with or against, and we have subsequently had to ban them from some formats, but the cards still exist in the same form they did when we printed them."
Prime Time - Fine in Modern.
Jace - Fine in Modern
Bitterblossom - Not Good in Modern.
Bridge - Not Good in Modern.
Goyf - Fatal Pushed in Modern.
If thats the metric, SFM comes off next announcement.
Dude, they're not unbanning SFM. UW being this good makes WOTC too hesitant to do so. SFM will be banned for several more years, they've made this very clear, whether you agree with their logic or not
Ya I have about given up hope on SFM or Twin any time soon. Both those pair with blue, and we can all agree blue has gotten some upgrades recently in various forms. That does not fair well for those unbans until the meta settles out.
London mulligan will come to paper magic on July 5.
The next B&R update will be on July 8.
Since there is little to no time in between those two dates and WotC considered the format at the MC healthy, it will most likely be a "no changes" announcement
EDIT: At least from the ban side of things, maybe they decide it's time to unban something but I think it's very unlikely with so many changes being processed
London Mulligan is a bliss for Modern. Let's be real, it will favor actual games instead of mulligans into Oblivion.
From my experience playing with it on MTGO and a couple of Cube events IRL I've been loving it.
Freaking hate the non-games mulligans cause.
Don't really enjoy the overreaction there is about this new rule when people have 0 factual experience with the mulligan being legal. There are a couple of corner-cases where people do mulligan to oblivion to find that one sideboard card but most of the time it backfires big time. It can lead into some situations where we need to adjust our sideboard plans by having some kind of transformational plan but it won't be as bad as people think it will.
(BTW I'm not refering to anyone in this thread... Most of my friends/people that play on my LGS went nuts with the announcement)
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Currently Playing: WUMiracles ControlUW RUBGrixis Death's ShadowBUR
1) I think this is a wonderful addition to the format. I hope it continues the march toward preventing non-games.
2) If combo becomes degenerate and they do ban it out of existence, then I default back to #1.
3) If combo does become degenerate and they do nothing about it, then this is the exact reason I was very against a Force of Will type card originally. While I am happy to see the whole cycle, I do fear that it has paved the way for it to be a requirement and for more degenerate things to be printed.
Overall I think the rule change is good. While I can see that it probably pushes some decks harder than it pushes other decks, I do think there were other steps taken have a more direct impact on the allowance of such combo to exist. While I have nothing against combo, I do have thoughts about the T4 rule.
London Mulligan is a bliss for Modern. Let's be real, it will favor actual games instead of mulligans into Oblivion.
Enjoy the combo's my friend.
Yes, so many Combo are Tier 1 sheet in Modern.
Anyway, it adds consistency. Not just to Combo, but to every fair deck who has trouble recovering from missing multiple landrops or drawing the wrong half of the deck in the initial sixty.
DaveJacinto, we do have experience, it was on MTGO. I dislike the fact that my opponents will 'always have it'. I dislike what it does for Tron, and ETron. I dislike how it makes Neoform even a thing.
The number of 'nongames' I had from the current rule was negligible, but then I play Blue.
Again, I don't know what are you talking about. I only played Blue (in all forms, Delver, Shadow, hard Control, Counterburn, Combo) since Modern's inception, and London's Mulligan has helped a lot with consistency issues. It isn't one sided, man.
DaveJacinto, we do have experience, it was on MTGO. I dislike the fact that my opponents will 'always have it'. I dislike what it does for Tron, and ETron. I dislike how it makes Neoform even a thing.
The number of 'nongames' I had from the current rule was negligible, but then I play Blue.
I wasn't referring you in particular. But I do play blue only since 2015 and I appreciate the change.
I didn't feel that Neoform was actually a thing. It made some waves more due to hype than anything. There was a couple of crazy dudes that tried the deck on some event but it didn't prove to be anything reasonable. It loses to itself a lot. Truth be told I do think that the new GW spell could help in the consistency and make the deck something worrisome. I somewhat share your worry about Tron, but I think we are way better suited since WAR came out that I don't really mind the slight boost they get from it.
The number of non-games for me was far from negligible. Maybe I mulligan way more aggressively than you in order to find a better suited hand for the matchup and that has caused me some games where I get super punished for trying to find a more functional 6 and end up having a one-lander...
This is a decision that you have to make and is part of the mulligan game and it should reward better decision making and preparation and there are a lot of times that we are punished for being "bold". Instead of losing from having a hardly functional 7hand you lose because you try to get a better hand and end up with a non-hand, and then you have to keep a 5.
Force of Negation and the rest of the new Force Cycle (Mostly just Force of Despair and Force of Vigor), are what allow the London Mulligan rule to stick. Yes, Combo decks get a huge boost with this rule. But that just means reactive and interactive decks can now mull more efficiently for their Forces to counter Turn 1 plays.
The only deck I feel bad for is Burn, since Leylines will be so much more efficient to counteract its strategy. Looks like Wear//Tear might get replaced by Destructive Revelry again...
"The cards where we are wrong and that ended up much more powerful than we had expected are some of the most iconic cards from the last decade—Primeval Titan; Jace, the Mind Sculptor; Stoneforge Mystic; Bitterblossom; Bridge from Below; Tarmogoyf; etc. These cards are not always the most fun to play with or against, and we have subsequently had to ban them from some formats, but the cards still exist in the same form they did when we printed them."
Prime Time - Fine in Modern.
Jace - Fine in Modern
Bitterblossom - Not Good in Modern.
Bridge - Not Good in Modern.
Goyf - Fatal Pushed in Modern.
If thats the metric, SFM comes off next announcement.
Spirits
Dude, they're not unbanning SFM. UW being this good makes WOTC too hesitant to do so. SFM will be banned for several more years, they've made this very clear, whether you agree with their logic or not
Point was obviously, that if X, Y, Z are all fine (at best) then so would have been SFM.
Spirits
The hope that there was continuity between what WOTC "should do" and what they "will do" sailed long ago. I don't think any of us are under the delusion that WOTC will do anything other than exactly what they want to do, for whatever irrational reason they make up each time they do it. SFM is just the perfect shining example of their stubborn disconnect with even the most basic understandings about Modern.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Besides that, close to no one said back than, that Pod might limit design space (since that argument was felt as a lackluster to say it this way), the common sense was rather, that Pod will get continuously better due to the shift from a spell based system towards a creature based system (talking not about the last 4-6 years, but the last 12+ years). Sure, there were people arguing along that line, but given the information we (as the playerbase) had back than, it seemed foolish. Why? Since we knew, that Wizards disregards Modern regarding printing of new cards (as we have seen with TC and DTT), at least back than. Only with the B&R announcement, that train of thought really "took off", since it was "indirectly" mentioned to say it this way.
People mainly talked about the oppressiveness of the Pod shells, we had the Melira shells, than the Kiki Summer into the Rhino Winter into the Pod Ban, and each iteration felt worse to play against basically. But than again, back than I had the feeling, that the playerbase was overall more "relaxed" regarding bans, aka no echo chamber outcries 24/7 basically (what we witness since the Summer Bloom/Splinter Twin bans) and that is imo the biggest difference from back than to today.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: Only talking about Pod, not Stoneforge.
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
The issue with modern competitive tier one is a touch complicated, though. Some people are viva la freedom and think the problem is card costs, but I'm of the mind set it is one of perception and greed.
Wizards wants to have super expensive listed cards because if they stay there at that price, it creates a self fulfilling prophecy that can be milked in specialty sets. If they were to print the cards to death to drop the price, they may shatter the competitive illusionary advantages as more people get the cards, and we might even see more deck building, but then wizards loses their cash cow. Not to mention, there is the possibility the masses find a format where a deck can be shut down with a leyline or chalice bad, which would lead to more people pushing the company to ban these cards.
We already got people that want fast mana banned from modern.
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 am bad and feel bad.
Re: Pod
I did play in that era, and Pod was definitely too prevalent. That's why I was unsurprised to see almost all of the ban rationale point to prevalence and dominance, with design space limitation as a distant, secondary factor. It's annoying to see prominent Magic personalities, most recently Hoogland, citing that reason as a strike against the Pod ban when it was clearly not as influential as the meta/T8 dominance factor.
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!
Nothing against Sam as a person, but he was an absolutely horrible developer. I still remember his article where he claimed the problem with Mirrodin standard was that there was too much removal in the format (especially Shatter), and that kept all the cool decks from being able to do anything.
He’s the reason there was a span of about 5 years in Standard where there was almost zero playable removal. From all accounts, he seems to have been very good at getting power level right, but his views of what made for a good format were completely warped. Magic is a much better game without him.
Ya I have about given up hope on SFM or Twin any time soon. Both those pair with blue, and we can all agree blue has gotten some upgrades recently in various forms. That does not fair well for those unbans until the meta settles out.
The next B&R update will be on July 8.
Since there is little to no time in between those two dates and WotC considered the format at the MC healthy, it will most likely be a "no changes" announcement
EDIT: At least from the ban side of things, maybe they decide it's time to unban something but I think it's very unlikely with so many changes being processed
Spirits
Enjoy the combo's my friend.
Spirits
Freaking hate the non-games mulligans cause.
Don't really enjoy the overreaction there is about this new rule when people have 0 factual experience with the mulligan being legal. There are a couple of corner-cases where people do mulligan to oblivion to find that one sideboard card but most of the time it backfires big time. It can lead into some situations where we need to adjust our sideboard plans by having some kind of transformational plan but it won't be as bad as people think it will.
(BTW I'm not refering to anyone in this thread... Most of my friends/people that play on my LGS went nuts with the announcement)
WUMiracles ControlUW
RUBGrixis Death's ShadowBUR
1) I think this is a wonderful addition to the format. I hope it continues the march toward preventing non-games.
2) If combo becomes degenerate and they do ban it out of existence, then I default back to #1.
3) If combo does become degenerate and they do nothing about it, then this is the exact reason I was very against a Force of Will type card originally. While I am happy to see the whole cycle, I do fear that it has paved the way for it to be a requirement and for more degenerate things to be printed.
Overall I think the rule change is good. While I can see that it probably pushes some decks harder than it pushes other decks, I do think there were other steps taken have a more direct impact on the allowance of such combo to exist. While I have nothing against combo, I do have thoughts about the T4 rule.
"Reveal a Dragon"
Yes, so many Combo are Tier 1 sheet in Modern.
Anyway, it adds consistency. Not just to Combo, but to every fair deck who has trouble recovering from missing multiple landrops or drawing the wrong half of the deck in the initial sixty.
The number of 'nongames' I had from the current rule was negligible, but then I play Blue.
Spirits
I didn't feel that Neoform was actually a thing. It made some waves more due to hype than anything. There was a couple of crazy dudes that tried the deck on some event but it didn't prove to be anything reasonable. It loses to itself a lot. Truth be told I do think that the new GW spell could help in the consistency and make the deck something worrisome. I somewhat share your worry about Tron, but I think we are way better suited since WAR came out that I don't really mind the slight boost they get from it.
The number of non-games for me was far from negligible. Maybe I mulligan way more aggressively than you in order to find a better suited hand for the matchup and that has caused me some games where I get super punished for trying to find a more functional 6 and end up having a one-lander...
This is a decision that you have to make and is part of the mulligan game and it should reward better decision making and preparation and there are a lot of times that we are punished for being "bold". Instead of losing from having a hardly functional 7hand you lose because you try to get a better hand and end up with a non-hand, and then you have to keep a 5.
WUMiracles ControlUW
RUBGrixis Death's ShadowBUR
The only deck I feel bad for is Burn, since Leylines will be so much more efficient to counteract its strategy. Looks like Wear//Tear might get replaced by Destructive Revelry again...
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG