Re the idea that price spikes on sfm are part of a deliberate strategy.
I don't think they are that devious. But Modern being expensive to buy in keeps newer players in Standard for longer, it is not in Wotc's or their partner's interests to make a format that is cheap and near-eternal.
They won't try and shrink Modern, but they won't do anything intentionally to harm Standard, but they would not intentionally try to upset players.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
BBE is a case of "if it ain't broken, don't fix it". If you look at any of the unbans they've done in Modern so far, as well as the accompanying explanations, you'll notice a pattern. None of the decks that cards have been unbanned for have ever been tier 1. They even went so far as to spell this out in the announcements:
Scapeshift? Non-existent before Valakut. Zoo? Tier 2. Faeries? Even lower than Zoo. Dredge? Doesn't work without Dread Return, and Dredgevine doesn't play Grave-Troll despite the name.
Jund is tier 1 now. You should know where this is going.
If you think about it, really, why should they unban BBE? I always hear "why shouldn't it be unbanned", so let me ask you the opposite. Some flavor of BGx has always and forever been tier 1 (past PT Philiadelphia, of course - it's hard to take a tournament which resulted in the banning of 5 cards as a time when the format was well-balanced). "Good stuff" decks are remarkably resistant to bans - if the best card in your deck is banned, you just play the next N+1th best card available to you, where N is the number of unique cards in your deck. Somehow this always results in a tier 1 deck.
What happens if they don't unban BBE? Best case: BGx remains tier 1. Worst case: BGx remains tier 1. And if they unban BBE? Best case: BGx remains tier 1. Worst case: BGx becomes tier 0. Now put yourself in the shoes of a game developer - your goal is simple: don't screw up the format. Letting people play with their pet cards isn't a consideration. Which do you choose?
It's for this same reason that I don't think they'll unban SFM or Ancestral Vision. People who want AV unbanned have this vision where draw-go control magically becomes viable again, which I don't really understand. The last time a good draw spell for control decks was printed, it ended up in Twin and Scapeshift while the draw-go decks were left in the dust. Said draw spell got banned swiftly in Modern, while it hung on for a while in Legacy (proving another valuable point: it would have straight up replaced Treasure Cruise in Delver decks) before meeting the same fate.
In contrast Sword of the Meek is a lot more likely as an unban target. Where are the Sword decks now? Tezzeret is non-existent and UW Tron is about the same tier as Faeries.
For the record, I think BBE is a safe unban, in that it won't turn Jund into a tier 0 deck. Briefly speaking, it's a value 2-for-1 like Snapcaster Mage or Collected Company. Ultimately though, it doesn't matter what I think, or what anyone else here thinks. What matters is what WotC thinks, because they're the ones that decide what gets banned and unbanned, and they're the ones whose tournaments you play in. So it's in your best interests to think as WotC does. "Don't screw up the format."
tldr version: BBE is banned not because it would screw up the format if it was unbanned, but because it could screw up the format if it was unbanned.
Now, Bx Eldrazi is super hot. On Reddit/ModernMagic there are already 6 threads about it on the front page. Also here the Bx Eldrazi thread in the Deck Creation is the most visited thread. This is for WotC excellent as with such a deck in the spotlight the focus goes to the new block and this will push the sales. With an unban "to shake up the format" whatever old card is unbanned will steal the show. Goodbye BFZ commercial.
They've also said before (if I'm not mistaken, or at least implicitly implied by their actions) that fast mana is a no-go in Modern. The Bx Eldrazi deck is essentially a fast-mana deck playing 4 Ancient Tombs, and 3 Mishra's Workshops (that also tutor for you). The new Eldrazi are also more powerful than the old because of the on-cast effects which make counterspells against them pretty laughable (which is the traditional punisher for fast-mana/big spell decks). I'm not sold that they're going to let a deck playing essentially Workshops and Tombs to stay around for long...but we'll see.
I'll be honest, I find people comparing what you can do with Bx Eldrazi to decks running Mishra's Workshop or Ancient Tomb completely ridiculous.
Mishra's Workshop isn't a good card because you can play 3 of them to play Sundering Titan; Mishra's Workshop is good because you can use it to play a turn 1 Trinisphere, or a turn 1 Chalice on 1, or with some other fast mana a turn 1 Lodestone Golem. Ancient Tomb is a better comparison to the lands in the Bx Eldrazi deck, since you can use a turn 2 Ancient Tomb to play a Show and Tell and win the game, but overall the comparisons are ludicrous. The best play the Eldrazi deck gives you is turn 1 Urborg, Relic of Progenitus, turn 2 Eldrazi Temple or Eye of Ugin, Wasteland Strangler, killing their early creature.
That's an entirely different beast to being able to play a turn 1 Trinisphere or other taxing effect.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
It's for this same reason that I don't think they'll unban SFM or Ancestral Vision. People who want AV unbanned have this vision where draw-go control magically becomes viable again, which I don't really understand. The last time a good draw spell for control decks was printed, it ended up in Twin and Scapeshift while the draw-go decks were left in the dust. Said draw spell got banned swiftly in Modern, while it hung on for a while in Legacy (proving another valuable point: it would have straight up replaced Treasure Cruise in Delver decks) before meeting the same fate.
Actually, I'm kind of hoping for a AV unban in order to see if it will help Faeries relive it's glory days from the time it was The Standard deck. AV is the only card still missing that can help get it together. Don't play that deck in Modern right now, but I would be really surprised if Ancestral Vision doesn't do anything for Faeries in Modern in the grand scheme of things.
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In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
Herder requires two sol lands + any other land. Sower is a lot more restricted because only 3 Temples or Urborg + Temple + Eye will get the job done.
Actually, the ceiling on "best play" is a bit higher than that, because you can chain Herders into each other with Eye and enough exiled cards.
Yeah, I feel the deck is actually fairly competitive and just needs some tweaking to get optimized. The fact players don't have to splash for multi-color makes it fairly budget friendly as well (or it was budget friendly. Eye of Ugin exploded after I got my three...). Either way, seriously fun deck to play and I love the look on my confused coworkers face when he counter spells an eldrazi and I still tell him he has to exile the top four cards anyway.
Also, the fast mana is definitely not a problem in this specific situation. We do get workshops, but they take two cards to function as a workshop and only work on eldrazi. We also don't have any tribal spells so the only thing getting any acceleration are the big guys. It's really interesting.
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!
Now, Bx Eldrazi is super hot. On Reddit/ModernMagic there are already 6 threads about it on the front page. Also here the Bx Eldrazi thread in the Deck Creation is the most visited thread. This is for WotC excellent as with such a deck in the spotlight the focus goes to the new block and this will push the sales. With an unban "to shake up the format" whatever old card is unbanned will steal the show. Goodbye BFZ commercial. Think about that.
I still think they will unban Sword of the Meek as a way to incentivize new blue-based control decks and to attack linear, damage-based aggressive decks. Bx Eldrazi doesn't accomplish either of those things and we know that Wizards likes to enable new archetypes in unban announcements.
Siege Rhino is kind of obsolete creature though. You can not seriously compare him to BBE, because he is a big(but not huge or bomb) body with a Lightning Helix kind of effect.
You know Rhino's value. What you see is what you get.
But...
I...
Can you...
*face palm*
Yes, Goku, Siege Rhino is so bad I may just tare up my copies of it
Now, Bx Eldrazi is super hot. On Reddit/ModernMagic there are already 6 threads about it on the front page. Also here the Bx Eldrazi thread in the Deck Creation is the most visited thread. This is for WotC excellent as with such a deck in the spotlight the focus goes to the new block and this will push the sales. With an unban "to shake up the format" whatever old card is unbanned will steal the show. Goodbye BFZ commercial. Think about that.
I still think they will unban Sword of the Meek as a way to incentivize new blue-based control decks and to attack linear, damage-based aggressive decks. Bx Eldrazi doesn't accomplish either of those things and we know that Wizards likes to enable new archetypes in unban announcements.
I agree with this. In fact i think this will be the only change to the list. I would like more to come off obviously, but I think Sword is a step in the right direction. I don't think they will be anything from Amulet.
Now, Bx Eldrazi is super hot. On Reddit/ModernMagic there are already 6 threads about it on the front page. Also here the Bx Eldrazi thread in the Deck Creation is the most visited thread. This is for WotC excellent as with such a deck in the spotlight the focus goes to the new block and this will push the sales. With an unban "to shake up the format" whatever old card is unbanned will steal the show. Goodbye BFZ commercial. Think about that.
I still think they will unban Sword of the Meek as a way to incentivize new blue-based control decks and to attack linear, damage-based aggressive decks. Bx Eldrazi doesn't accomplish either of those things and we know that Wizards likes to enable new archetypes in unban announcements.
Yeah, the sword combo deck, because we need another stupid strong combo deck
Now, Bx Eldrazi is super hot. On Reddit/ModernMagic there are already 6 threads about it on the front page. Also here the Bx Eldrazi thread in the Deck Creation is the most visited thread. This is for WotC excellent as with such a deck in the spotlight the focus goes to the new block and this will push the sales. With an unban "to shake up the format" whatever old card is unbanned will steal the show. Goodbye BFZ commercial. Think about that.
I still think they will unban Sword of the Meek as a way to incentivize new blue-based control decks and to attack linear, damage-based aggressive decks. Bx Eldrazi doesn't accomplish either of those things and we know that Wizards likes to enable new archetypes in unban announcements.
Yeah, the sword combo deck, because we need another stupid strong combo deck
Do you have any evidence to suggest it would be "stupid strong"? That sounds pretty baseless to me, basically a rehash of the exact same arguments we heard around Valakut's unbanning. Looking over a selection of the old Thopter Combo decks that didn't use Depths (TCDecks link here), none of those would be problematic in Modern, especially with Mox out of the picture. Even thinking about some hypothetical Twin Sword or Grixis Sword decks, I've done a bit of testing with those decks and they are no stronger than any of the other Ux(x) decks in the format.
There's a lot of alarmism about new Modern cards, and it's often overblown because people have personal preferences unsupported by evidence, or they are just being overly conservative (/ignorant of the metagame or old decks). Modern is pretty powerful and can absorb many new strategies without too many issues.
I don't really see Thopter combo really being more than tier 2
I am slightly depressed about these new BW Eldrazi decks, it looks great against BGx and Twin
Yeas this new Eldrazi deck looks really problematic for some deck and thus pretty strong choice. I'm not happy when I think about Thopter combo but I agree that BGx Eldrazi deck seems like a bigger problem now.
Why should the Eldrazi deck be a problem? The only T1 deck that this deck is good against is Jund. It is bad against Affinity, Burn and Titan Bloom and mediocre against Twin and Tron.
Now, Bx Eldrazi is super hot. On Reddit/ModernMagic there are already 6 threads about it on the front page. Also here the Bx Eldrazi thread in the Deck Creation is the most visited thread. This is for WotC excellent as with such a deck in the spotlight the focus goes to the new block and this will push the sales. With an unban "to shake up the format" whatever old card is unbanned will steal the show. Goodbye BFZ commercial. Think about that.
They get to choose which decks to feature in coverage, so that's not a problem. They can show Eldrazi matches all day if they wanted to, as long as at least one person is playing Eldrazi.
Judging by the price spikes on Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin, I'd say the deck doesn't any need more hype than it's already getting.
I don't really see Thopter combo really being more than tier 2
I am slightly depressed about these new BW Eldrazi decks, it looks great against BGx and Twin
Yeas this new Eldrazi deck looks really problematic for some deck and thus pretty strong choice. I'm not happy when I think about Thopter combo but I agree that BGx Eldrazi deck seems like a bigger problem now.
WAY WAY WAY too early to call it a problem. Calm down people, my goodness. We don't need to take every single new deck to the banlist thread. There were at least four players on this deck over the SCG Open weekend at Cincinnati. Two fell out of contention on Day 1. There are currently two in contention on Day 2 with unknown standings, so we'll have to wait until the T32 results are posted to see if they made at least that cut, or maybe T8/T16. And even then it would still be too early to say anything about that deck in the banlist thread of all places.
For the Eldrazi deck: After having played it I feel it is just a slower, weaker version of Tron. It tries to do many of the same things but lacks bomby cards like Karn and Ugin. It's definitely a good deck, but without some stupid Eldrazi in Oath, it won't go anywhere and the hype train will crash. Remember, this is a deck who requires new cards with a very specific subtype which has so far only been on one plane. The deck will become stale quickly since it doesn't get new cards to play with. That said, if something does get hit from the deck it would likely be oblivion sower since it is possible to steal other people cards. Last game of the night at FNM, shuffle all lands back into your deck and take off. You just gained fetches/shocks/expeditions...If anything is banned it wont be for power level.
As for thopter: It is a combo deck to be sure, but the combo is much weaker than twin or amulet. The combo basically says, "Pay 1: you make a 1/1 flyer and gain 1 life." How is that OP when other combos say, "Create infinite hasty creatures" or "They lose on their next turn"? I would say thopter combo is very safe. Above all having abrupt decay be a maindeckable card in modern should keep the combo honest.
Did you just try to use "You can take peoples' cards" as a banning argument? Alriiiiiiight then. Also that deck isn't like Tron, it's a Midrange deck.
So "goes to time" is a valid reason to ban Top and Sunrise, and "diversity" is a good reason to ban Zenith, but the potential to steal cards is farfetched? I'm not saying there will be a ban, I'm just saying that if it were to start happening, it might get banned. It has the potential to be a PR mess. When someone walks out of FNM with your scalding tarn you'll be pissed. I honestly don't think eldrazi is OP and nothing will likely be banned, pretty much ever. But, Sower seems the most likely to get hit if its effect starts going south.
Eldrazi may be a midrange deck, but the phrase "uses lands that tap for 2+ to play out large effects" seems pretty spot on. You go play Eldrazi without Eye or temple and see, how well it works. I would say not very well. In that sense it is essentially tron's little brother. The difference is that it can only play cards with the Eldrazi subtype as it's finishers, so it is locked into a very specific subset of card effects.
Did you just try to use "You can take peoples' cards" as a banning argument? Alriiiiiiight then. Also that deck isn't like Tron, it's a Midrange deck.
So "goes to time" is a valid reason to ban Top and Sunrise, and "diversity" is a good reason to ban Zenith, but the potential to steal cards is farfetched? I'm not saying there will be a ban, I'm just saying that if it were to start happening, it might get banned. It has the potential to be a PR mess. When someone walks out of FNM with your scalding tarn you'll be pissed. I honestly don't think eldrazi is OP and nothing will likely be banned, pretty much ever. But, Sower seems the most likely to get hit if its effect starts going south.
I don't understand why we are even talking about talking about Bx Eldrazi bans. Chill out, you ban maniacs. There is zero metagame reason to even consider a discussion about banning cards from the deck (let alone consider bannings), and the so-called logistical reasons are just as ridiculous. There are no ban-worthy card ownership or logistical problems right now. People just want to invent issues with a new rampy deck, probably because it beats up on their own supposed 50-50 deck, because it has some similarities to Tron, and because it's new and Modern players are petrified of new things.
Can we just focus on the actual ban and unban candidates for January 18? There is so much interesting content there without fabricating Bx Eldrazi ban reasons under the veneer of "oh, well if we need a ban this is what we can do, but we don't need it yet (winky face)".
couldn't agree more. At this point there is not evidence that this deck even has consistent enough wins to have 50/50 matchups against any of the tier 1 decks.
There is nothing in this strategy that goes against wizards stated goals of the format ie turn 4 rule or time restrictions etc.
At its best this deck may turn into a police deck that can keep both blood moon decks and greedy mana base decks in check. (Bx eldrasi is at its best when opponent fetches turn one and eldrasi can exile a card turn 1) Which is the chief reason splinter twin is healthy for the format. Splinter Twin allows very powerful cards to exist in the format by keeping them in check.
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I don't think they are that devious. But Modern being expensive to buy in keeps newer players in Standard for longer, it is not in Wotc's or their partner's interests to make a format that is cheap and near-eternal.
They won't try and shrink Modern, but they won't do anything intentionally to harm Standard, but they would not intentionally try to upset players.
We wanted a card that would not easily slot into an existing top deck and also wanted to enable a deck with a different play pattern than the current top decks.
When cards are banned from a format, Wizards investigates whether there is a banned card that, if not banned, might add new decks to competitive play. We look for cards that are unlikely to add power to existing top decks, but instead add new strategies or augment decks that are not currently as successful.
Scapeshift? Non-existent before Valakut. Zoo? Tier 2. Faeries? Even lower than Zoo. Dredge? Doesn't work without Dread Return, and Dredgevine doesn't play Grave-Troll despite the name.
Jund is tier 1 now. You should know where this is going.
If you think about it, really, why should they unban BBE? I always hear "why shouldn't it be unbanned", so let me ask you the opposite. Some flavor of BGx has always and forever been tier 1 (past PT Philiadelphia, of course - it's hard to take a tournament which resulted in the banning of 5 cards as a time when the format was well-balanced). "Good stuff" decks are remarkably resistant to bans - if the best card in your deck is banned, you just play the next N+1th best card available to you, where N is the number of unique cards in your deck. Somehow this always results in a tier 1 deck.
What happens if they don't unban BBE? Best case: BGx remains tier 1. Worst case: BGx remains tier 1. And if they unban BBE? Best case: BGx remains tier 1. Worst case: BGx becomes tier 0. Now put yourself in the shoes of a game developer - your goal is simple: don't screw up the format. Letting people play with their pet cards isn't a consideration. Which do you choose?
It's for this same reason that I don't think they'll unban SFM or Ancestral Vision. People who want AV unbanned have this vision where draw-go control magically becomes viable again, which I don't really understand. The last time a good draw spell for control decks was printed, it ended up in Twin and Scapeshift while the draw-go decks were left in the dust. Said draw spell got banned swiftly in Modern, while it hung on for a while in Legacy (proving another valuable point: it would have straight up replaced Treasure Cruise in Delver decks) before meeting the same fate.
In contrast Sword of the Meek is a lot more likely as an unban target. Where are the Sword decks now? Tezzeret is non-existent and UW Tron is about the same tier as Faeries.
For the record, I think BBE is a safe unban, in that it won't turn Jund into a tier 0 deck. Briefly speaking, it's a value 2-for-1 like Snapcaster Mage or Collected Company. Ultimately though, it doesn't matter what I think, or what anyone else here thinks. What matters is what WotC thinks, because they're the ones that decide what gets banned and unbanned, and they're the ones whose tournaments you play in. So it's in your best interests to think as WotC does. "Don't screw up the format."
tldr version: BBE is banned not because it would screw up the format if it was unbanned, but because it could screw up the format if it was unbanned.
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Big Johnny.
They've also said before (if I'm not mistaken, or at least implicitly implied by their actions) that fast mana is a no-go in Modern. The Bx Eldrazi deck is essentially a fast-mana deck playing 4 Ancient Tombs, and 3 Mishra's Workshops (that also tutor for you). The new Eldrazi are also more powerful than the old because of the on-cast effects which make counterspells against them pretty laughable (which is the traditional punisher for fast-mana/big spell decks). I'm not sold that they're going to let a deck playing essentially Workshops and Tombs to stay around for long...but we'll see.
Mishra's Workshop isn't a good card because you can play 3 of them to play Sundering Titan; Mishra's Workshop is good because you can use it to play a turn 1 Trinisphere, or a turn 1 Chalice on 1, or with some other fast mana a turn 1 Lodestone Golem. Ancient Tomb is a better comparison to the lands in the Bx Eldrazi deck, since you can use a turn 2 Ancient Tomb to play a Show and Tell and win the game, but overall the comparisons are ludicrous. The best play the Eldrazi deck gives you is turn 1 Urborg, Relic of Progenitus, turn 2 Eldrazi Temple or Eye of Ugin, Wasteland Strangler, killing their early creature.
That's an entirely different beast to being able to play a turn 1 Trinisphere or other taxing effect.
Actually, I'm kind of hoping for a AV unban in order to see if it will help Faeries relive it's glory days from the time it was The Standard deck. AV is the only card still missing that can help get it together. Don't play that deck in Modern right now, but I would be really surprised if Ancestral Vision doesn't do anything for Faeries in Modern in the grand scheme of things.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
Herder requires two sol lands + any other land. Sower is a lot more restricted because only 3 Temples or Urborg + Temple + Eye will get the job done.
Actually, the ceiling on "best play" is a bit higher than that, because you can chain Herders into each other with Eye and enough exiled cards.
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Big Johnny.
Sorry, should have specified that I was talking about the best turn 2 play.
Yeah, I feel the deck is actually fairly competitive and just needs some tweaking to get optimized. The fact players don't have to splash for multi-color makes it fairly budget friendly as well (or it was budget friendly. Eye of Ugin exploded after I got my three...). Either way, seriously fun deck to play and I love the look on my confused coworkers face when he counter spells an eldrazi and I still tell him he has to exile the top four cards anyway.
Also, the fast mana is definitely not a problem in this specific situation. We do get workshops, but they take two cards to function as a workshop and only work on eldrazi. We also don't have any tribal spells so the only thing getting any acceleration are the big guys. It's really interesting.
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!
All is Dust is an extremely potent Eldrazi tribal sorcery.
I still think they will unban Sword of the Meek as a way to incentivize new blue-based control decks and to attack linear, damage-based aggressive decks. Bx Eldrazi doesn't accomplish either of those things and we know that Wizards likes to enable new archetypes in unban announcements.
But...
I...
Can you...
*face palm*
Yes, Goku, Siege Rhino is so bad I may just tare up my copies of it
SFM will ruin modern
BBE is too broken for modern
Yeah!
I agree with this. In fact i think this will be the only change to the list. I would like more to come off obviously, but I think Sword is a step in the right direction. I don't think they will be anything from Amulet.
Yeah, the sword combo deck, because we need another stupid strong combo deck
I am slightly depressed about these new BW Eldrazi decks, it looks great against BGx and Twin
Do you have any evidence to suggest it would be "stupid strong"? That sounds pretty baseless to me, basically a rehash of the exact same arguments we heard around Valakut's unbanning. Looking over a selection of the old Thopter Combo decks that didn't use Depths (TCDecks link here), none of those would be problematic in Modern, especially with Mox out of the picture. Even thinking about some hypothetical Twin Sword or Grixis Sword decks, I've done a bit of testing with those decks and they are no stronger than any of the other Ux(x) decks in the format.
There's a lot of alarmism about new Modern cards, and it's often overblown because people have personal preferences unsupported by evidence, or they are just being overly conservative (/ignorant of the metagame or old decks). Modern is pretty powerful and can absorb many new strategies without too many issues.
Why should the Eldrazi deck be a problem? The only T1 deck that this deck is good against is Jund. It is bad against Affinity, Burn and Titan Bloom and mediocre against Twin and Tron.
Judging by the price spikes on Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin, I'd say the deck doesn't any need more hype than it's already getting.
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Big Johnny.
WAY WAY WAY too early to call it a problem. Calm down people, my goodness. We don't need to take every single new deck to the banlist thread. There were at least four players on this deck over the SCG Open weekend at Cincinnati. Two fell out of contention on Day 1. There are currently two in contention on Day 2 with unknown standings, so we'll have to wait until the T32 results are posted to see if they made at least that cut, or maybe T8/T16. And even then it would still be too early to say anything about that deck in the banlist thread of all places.
As for thopter: It is a combo deck to be sure, but the combo is much weaker than twin or amulet. The combo basically says, "Pay 1: you make a 1/1 flyer and gain 1 life." How is that OP when other combos say, "Create infinite hasty creatures" or "They lose on their next turn"? I would say thopter combo is very safe. Above all having abrupt decay be a maindeckable card in modern should keep the combo honest.
Then again, Ancestral Vision would lose hard to Eldrazi as well.
Unban both and see what happens
So "goes to time" is a valid reason to ban Top and Sunrise, and "diversity" is a good reason to ban Zenith, but the potential to steal cards is farfetched? I'm not saying there will be a ban, I'm just saying that if it were to start happening, it might get banned. It has the potential to be a PR mess. When someone walks out of FNM with your scalding tarn you'll be pissed. I honestly don't think eldrazi is OP and nothing will likely be banned, pretty much ever. But, Sower seems the most likely to get hit if its effect starts going south.
Eldrazi may be a midrange deck, but the phrase "uses lands that tap for 2+ to play out large effects" seems pretty spot on. You go play Eldrazi without Eye or temple and see, how well it works. I would say not very well. In that sense it is essentially tron's little brother. The difference is that it can only play cards with the Eldrazi subtype as it's finishers, so it is locked into a very specific subset of card effects.
I don't understand why we are even talking about talking about Bx Eldrazi bans. Chill out, you ban maniacs. There is zero metagame reason to even consider a discussion about banning cards from the deck (let alone consider bannings), and the so-called logistical reasons are just as ridiculous. There are no ban-worthy card ownership or logistical problems right now. People just want to invent issues with a new rampy deck, probably because it beats up on their own supposed 50-50 deck, because it has some similarities to Tron, and because it's new and Modern players are petrified of new things.
Can we just focus on the actual ban and unban candidates for January 18? There is so much interesting content there without fabricating Bx Eldrazi ban reasons under the veneer of "oh, well if we need a ban this is what we can do, but we don't need it yet (winky face)".
Don't forget Cranial Plating. I would certainly test a few copies of SFM in Affinity if it got unbanned.
There is nothing in this strategy that goes against wizards stated goals of the format ie turn 4 rule or time restrictions etc.
At its best this deck may turn into a police deck that can keep both blood moon decks and greedy mana base decks in check. (Bx eldrasi is at its best when opponent fetches turn one and eldrasi can exile a card turn 1) Which is the chief reason splinter twin is healthy for the format. Splinter Twin allows very powerful cards to exist in the format by keeping them in check.