Lately, Modern community members have expressed interest in talking holistically about the challenges and problems facing Modern. Whether or not Modern has "challenges" or "problems" is up for debate, but what is clear is that people want to talk about all of these issues in one unified setting.
As such, Modern staff are opening this thread as a replacement for the old "Banlist Discussion" thread and the "State of the Meta thread." You can use this thread to talk about any and all of these varied Modern issues and their intersection. This thread will be heavily moderated, so be sure to read the rules before posting; anyone who posts in this thread is assumed to have read and understood these rules.
Allowed topics
Bans, unbans, and all things related to the banlist and banlist policy
Metagame health and diversity
Reprint suggestions and reprint philosophy
New cards and design philosophy
Prices and Modern finance
Archetype definitions
Format health, successes, and challenges
Anything that constructively relates to these different issues
Some cards enable a top tier deck to consistently win on turn 3 or earlier. Because this violates the "turn 4" rule of the format, the following cards have been banned:
Other cards have been banned because they make certain decks too consistent/reliable and thus stagnate the format. Here are some examples of these cards:
Some cards, currently only one, are banned because they were just mistakes. This card is one of the most broken cards of all time and has been banned in almost every format where it was or is legal:
There are also some cards that were banned for logistical reasons. These cards made tournaments last too long and were banned to make events run smoother. They were not necessarily banned for power reasons.
Welcome to the new banlist/State of the Meta thread on MTGS! Please use this thread to discuss all things banlist-related, as well as the intersection between these banlist issues and reprints, new cards, format health, etc. Review the thread rules, PM the staff or reply to this post if you have any questions, and enjoy the new discussion format. We think this new format will allow freer conversation of Modern issues in a heavily moderated, but hopefully constructive, space.
Can we first, before bans are returned to the immediate discussion, discuss concepts that can be related to as a collective idea of modern's identity? I feel like this question of what is modern keeps popping up in articles, but people cant go "it is whatever you want it to be" and expect a healthy format discussion.
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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
I think so too that Jace TMS can be unbanned, even if as a test. Also, I don't like catch-all silver bullets any deck can play, but that's my personal preference (Chalice of the Void, Ensnaring Bridge, Relic of Progenitus,...)
Looking at the numbers, dredge has the same issue as affinity. Hate works, but doesn't always work. If anything is banned from dredge, I would rather see conflagerate. It would weaken the current version of dredge against creature based Aggro decks while still preying on control and midrange decks. Substitutions are weaker and more fair on the whole. The recurring creatures plus easy interaction make it difficult.
On the whole, I think modern is very diverse and where nobody can brew and win in FNM, small tournaments, and even large tournaments is a testament to that. I do agree though that it isn't great for trying to gain edges through "player skill" in standard or even such games as poker. It does reward though to some extent luck, deck tuning, and knowing the field.
I like it. I recently topped 8 at a small event with Slivers. Beating a variety of decks and losing to burn twice as I didn't respect it enough and probably didn't know my deck enough. I like the fact that you have to know your deck so well.
I think so too that Jace TMS can be unbanned, even if as a test. Also, I don't like catch-all silver bullets any deck can play, but that's my personal preference (Chalice of the Void, Ensnaring Bridge, Relic of Progenitus,...)
To reply to some posts that were made before the previous thread was locked:
Well I think if standard were doing well they wouldn't need so much promo junk just to sell product/get people to play it. I don't personally play it but I do know a lot of people at my lgs have gotten out of it because it's 3 decks and that's about it.
It's basically a Rock Paper Scissors format.
So much promo junk? What promo junk? FNM promos go for all the FNM formats, not just Standard (in fact, I could be wrong, but I expect Limited is more popular than Standard at FNMs). If we're talking about the Expeditions/Masterpieces, those cards for the most part aren't even Standard legal. They're an incentive to get booster packs, not play Standard.
That said, I've heard negative things about the current Standard format, but then again as far as I can remember, people had something to complain about in most Standard formats. In the current format it's the rock-paper-scissors format (which some people like in nonrotating formats because it prevents anything from getting too good, but it's painfully literal in the current Standard format). Before that it was Collected Company, before than it was the crazy greedy manabases, before that it was Abzan being everywhere, before that it was Monoblack Devotion ruling the format, before that... actually, Innistrad-RTR was generally liked, I think, though it was a little overly biased towards midrange deck and Supreme Verdict was kind of annoying. Before that people hated Delver, before that there was the infamous Caw-Blade, before that Jund was king, before that Faeries was everywhere, before that... was RTR-Time Spiral, considered by some to be one of the best Standard formats to ever exist. I don't really know much about Kamigawa-RTR, but Mirrodin-Kamigawa of course had Affinity (so did Onslaught-Mirrodin, but Onslaught was much more powerful than Kamigawa so it was able to sort of keep Affinity in check, though you did have the ridiculousness that was Skullclamp for a little while).
So in all that time, you've had maybe 2 or 3 Standard formats people didn't seem to have big complaints about.
I don't think blood moon keeps anything in check. Infect runs 2 basics, Jund runs 3 (out of 24-25, GW Tron has 1, Dredge 2, Naya Burn 1, Affinity 1, Bant Eldrazi 2 (though it gets destroyed by Blood Moon which it's mitigated by mana dorks). Mana bases are as greedy as they can be , and the pnly reason we don't have 4-color goodstuff in Modern is because is so fast that these decks would have to have each land entering untapped, meaning lots of damage from shocklands. In Frontier people can fetch battlelands that enter tapped and not lose the game; they also run more basics so battlelands enter untapped.
The Blood Moon effect is that sometimes just recks the opponent and wins the game by itself, and that in games 2 and 3 opponent will fetch its few basics and then use red mana to pay colorless or red if they run it.
Blood Moon doesn't keep greedy mana bases at check rather than punish them, and people just risk it unless their meta is filled with them.
Kovo already answered this to some extent, but I wanted to respond too. Saying "Infect runs only two basics" is silly because the reason that Infect runs the basics it does is largely because of Blood Moon. They might still run one if not for Blood Moon due to Path to Exile, but I'd be unsurprised if it went into three colors if Blood Moon wasn't around. As for Jund, that thing would probably be in 4 colors if not for Blood Moon. You're missing the point that manabases are already a bit greedy with Blood Moon, and would be even more so if not for it.
It's like saying Force of Will could be banned in Legacy and fast combo wouldn't overtake the format. After all, look at how fast Storm can be, and Force of Will is around. That's ignoring the fact that Force of Will forces Storm to slow down a little bit to include disruption to handle the card, and it not for Force of Will it would just abandon that and go for even faster kills.
I'd be ok with a Blood Moon ban if they gave us Price of Progress instead
No. No way. Price of Progress isn't a hate card; it's just an amazing card for Burn. A card really isn't a hate card if only one deck can play it. And if there's something Burn doesn't need, it's a 2-mana Instant speed spell that hits for 6+ damage. It'd "hate on" nonbasics in the way Burn would probably drop down to being 2 or even 1 colors more regularly (after all, part of the reason for the splashes is because there's great burn spells in those colors, but Price of Progress, even if it didn't hurt the Burn player for those nonbasics, reduces the need for those because it's so amazing and completely in Red).
Right now, interacting with your opponent starts you off on the back foot.
The fast decks tend to be very fast (to the extent that many believe wizards is no longer enforcing the t-4 rule) and on top of that, tend to have a decent amount of resilience built in (though this can vary), eg: dredge ignores thoughtseize and terminate, infect plays a pile of protection spells, etc.
While the occasional results for interactive decks do pop up, especially in regards to g/b/x, the format as a whole feels very unbalanced.
Even the popular "control" decks, like lantern or skred, are primarily prison decks that also aim to be uninteractive.
While I'm a very biased person here, I feel that modern have a whole lot of decks that are problematic in some degree. I'm not necessarily advocating for bans of these decks, simply that they're effective in pressing down fairer decks. Meta shifts could easily balance the format with only a small number of changes, however.
When I talk about fair interactive decks here, I'm primarily focusing on decks like jund, U-based control, tokens, delver, etc. Generally most of the control/midrange/tempo style decks that were more common in the past.
Dredge: Public enemy number one. Its fairly high variance, as its explosiveness is reliant on milling certain cards in certain orders. Its resilient against discard spells, and non-exiling removal. The use of conflagrate and life from the loam allows it to have incredible reach. It essentially demands a good amount of sideboard hate cards to reliably beat. It should come as no surprise to say that it does quite well at keeping fairer, interactive decks down.
Infect: not nearly as offensive as dredge, it does still have a powerful combination of both incredible speed, being perhaps the most consistent deck to kill t3 currently in the format, and a good amount of resilience. Vines of vastwood, blossoming defense, spell pierce, apostle's blessing, and more stop any targeted removal spells, and even damaged based spells can be beaten by pump spells. Most fair decks have a reasonable infect matchup, but those without access to lightning bolt tend to struggle quite a bit. Death's shadow aggro and suicide bloo present some of the same problems, but to a much lesser extent. As far as many control and midrange decks go, these are infinitely preferable to infect.
Burn: Most three color decks in modern, especially decks playing thoughtseize, are going to struggle quite a bit against burn. Burn, in my own opinion, is in an unfortunate spot, because I don't really want (or feel that it would be appropriate) to ban anything, but I wish it were a little bit weaker. Burn as a mainstay in tier 1 means another matchup that fair decks absolutely have to be prepared for, but one they're unfavored in anyways.
Bant Eldrazi: cast triggers, cavern of souls, creatures that are immune to bolt, the list goes on. Bant eldrazi heavily prays upon any decks trying to play fairly. Like burn, I don't think I would want to ban anything from the deck, I simply wish it were weaker.
R/G Valakut: Modern has a very small number of ways to interact with lands, and a deck that wins by turning all of its lands into lightning bolts is very difficult for slower, more control-oriented decks to beat. I firmly feel this deck is fine, it has its place in the meta, but it is another nail in the coffin for fair decks.
Tron: This should come as no surprise to anyone, land based "go big" decks are always going to be strong against control and midrange. Unfortunately, if many of the unfair linear aggro decks get banned/lose popularity/disappear, then tron is likely coming back with a vengeance to meet all the control and midrange decks that poke their heads out.
Lantern and Skred (and other prison decks): These decks' midrange/control matchups vary heavily depending on the exact matchups, but few fair decks have good matchups against all of them. Like other decks, these decks very much have their place in the meta, its just a shame that they add to the pile against fairer decks.
Simply put, modern is such a matchup lottery in terms of how you build your sideboard, and who you end up playing against.
Many fair decks have a much harder time in this field than noninteractive decks do.
I would love to see modern as a diverse place, where you can play any style of deck that you'd like, and have just as good (give or take) of a shot as the person the next seat over.
Many people claim that modern is diverse right now, but I feel thats only true if you look at the number of decks, and not the archtypes.
Midrange currently exists as jund or abzan, and nothing else. Control exists in its small numbers as grixis or nahiri.
Plenty of people disagree on where to draw the line between combo and aggro in regards to infect, dredge, etc, but decks that attack with creatures to win, do so quickly, and intend to be resiliant to interaction exist in much higher numbers.
MTGTop8 currently says: (for more represented archtypes)
Jund: 6%
Abzan: 5%
Midrange: 11%
Scapeshift: 2%
Ad nauseum: 2%
Spellbased combo: 4%
Total 84%
16% others.
IMO, how ever much fun you have playing modern, the meta is simply not balanced.
Whether that should be fixed by reprints, new cards, bannings, unbannings, restructuring, or something else, is difficult to speculate on, but I think that even a little bit of balancing would improve the format for everyone.
I don't want every bad matchup for fair decks banned out of the format, but I would love to go to FNM and not see 50% of the people their on pump spells.dec.
For the original post, mental misstep is banned because its simply a mistake (like clamp) more than anything else.
I've said this before a number of months prior but it was met with backlash, modern has too many different angles of attack to defend against for fair decks to the point where you almost feel stupid for even trying. And even when you play a deck with interaction, what happens when you drive out to an event and in round 1 you just die on turn 2 to goryos, I know that has happened to me a lot, like it or not this format needs bans, alot of them, I'm not saying all unfair decks need to die, but some should, and others should be nerfed down to size.
Just off the top of my head, I would ban:
Skullcrak/Atarka's Command (1 or the other would be fine, having access to counter the defining weakness of your own deck for 2 mana at instant speed makes no sense)
Narcomeba (this card is the unsung hero that holds the dredge deck together since it lets you bring back amalgams literally for free, whereas otherwise you may instead have to make a land drop to bring back bloodghasts first which is actually a much bigger deal for the deck then many people think, this change would also ensure that dredgevine remains untouched)
Goryo's vengeance (dying on t2 is unacceptable in a turn 4 format)
glistener elf (dying on t2 is unacceptable in a turn 4 format, and the only way that happens is with elf.)
tron lands/ugin (this one is a bit more controversial but its simply the fact that if the meta becomes fair again, tron will just go back to farming free wins off of people with t4 ugin that most decks in the format literally fold to instantly, this ban would be more of a long term minded ban, if you want to solve the problem, ban tron lands, if you want to give tron another chance, then just ban ugin and see what comes of it.)
unbans;
stoneforge mystic (helps fair midrange, slows down format, opens the door for a viable equipment archytpe in modern, helps white become more of a main color)
I think overall these changes would make the format overall much fairer while also freeing up a lot more sideboard space which that in of itself would help the format further.
Right now, interacting with your opponent starts you off on the back foot.
The fast decks tend to be very fast (to the extent that many believe wizards is no longer enforcing the t-4 rule) and on top of that, tend to have a decent amount of resilience built in (though this can vary), eg: dredge ignores thoughtseize and terminate, infect plays a pile of protection spells, etc.
While the occasional results for interactive decks do pop up, especially in regards to g/b/x, the format as a whole feels very unbalanced.
Even the popular "control" decks, like lantern or skred, are primarily prison decks that also aim to be uninteractive.
While I'm a very biased person here, I feel that modern have a whole lot of decks that are problematic in some degree. I'm not necessarily advocating for bans of these decks, simply that they're effective in pressing down fairer decks. Meta shifts could easily balance the format with only a small number of changes, however.
When I talk about fair interactive decks here, I'm primarily focusing on decks like jund, U-based control, tokens, delver, etc. Generally most of the control/midrange/tempo style decks that were more common in the past.
Dredge: Public enemy number one. Its fairly high variance, as its explosiveness is reliant on milling certain cards in certain orders. Its resilient against discard spells, and non-exiling removal. The use of conflagrate and life from the loam allows it to have incredible reach. It essentially demands a good amount of sideboard hate cards to reliably beat. It should come as no surprise to say that it does quite well at keeping fairer, interactive decks down.
Infect: not nearly as offensive as dredge, it does still have a powerful combination of both incredible speed, being perhaps the most consistent deck to kill t3 currently in the format, and a good amount of resilience. Vines of vastwood, blossoming defense, spell pierce, apostle's blessing, and more stop any targeted removal spells, and even damaged based spells can be beaten by pump spells. Most fair decks have a reasonable infect matchup, but those without access to lightning bolt tend to struggle quite a bit. Death's shadow aggro and suicide bloo present some of the same problems, but to a much lesser extent. As far as many control and midrange decks go, these are infinitely preferable to infect.
Burn: Most three color decks in modern, especially decks playing thoughtseize, are going to struggle quite a bit against burn. Burn, in my own opinion, is in an unfortunate spot, because I don't really want (or feel that it would be appropriate) to ban anything, but I wish it were a little bit weaker. Burn as a mainstay in tier 1 means another matchup that fair decks absolutely have to be prepared for, but one they're unfavored in anyways.
Bant Eldrazi: cast triggers, cavern of souls, creatures that are immune to bolt, the list goes on. Bant eldrazi heavily prays upon any decks trying to play fairly. Like burn, I don't think I would want to ban anything from the deck, I simply wish it were weaker.
R/G Valakut: Modern has a very small number of ways to interact with lands, and a deck that wins by turning all of its lands into lightning bolts is very difficult for slower, more control-oriented decks to beat. I firmly feel this deck is fine, it has its place in the meta, but it is another nail in the coffin for fair decks.
Tron: This should come as no surprise to anyone, land based "go big" decks are always going to be strong against control and midrange. Unfortunately, if many of the unfair linear aggro decks get banned/lose popularity/disappear, then tron is likely coming back with a vengeance to meet all the control and midrange decks that poke their heads out.
Lantern and Skred (and other prison decks): These decks' midrange/control matchups vary heavily depending on the exact matchups, but few fair decks have good matchups against all of them. Like other decks, these decks very much have their place in the meta, its just a shame that they add to the pile against fairer decks.
Simply put, modern is such a matchup lottery in terms of how you build your sideboard, and who you end up playing against.
Many fair decks have a much harder time in this field than noninteractive decks do.
I would love to see modern as a diverse place, where you can play any style of deck that you'd like, and have just as good (give or take) of a shot as the person the next seat over.
Many people claim that modern is diverse right now, but I feel thats only true if you look at the number of decks, and not the archtypes.
Midrange currently exists as jund or abzan, and nothing else. Control exists in its small numbers as grixis or nahiri.
Plenty of people disagree on where to draw the line between combo and aggro in regards to infect, dredge, etc, but decks that attack with creatures to win, do so quickly, and intend to be resiliant to interaction exist in much higher numbers.
MTGTop8 currently says: (for more represented archtypes)
Jund: 6%
Abzan: 5%
Midrange: 11%
Scapeshift: 2%
Ad nauseum: 2%
Spellbased combo: 4%
Total 84%
16% others.
IMO, how ever much fun you have playing modern, the meta is simply not balanced.
Whether that should be fixed by reprints, new cards, bannings, unbannings, restructuring, or something else, is difficult to speculate on, but I think that even a little bit of balancing would improve the format for everyone.
I don't want every bad matchup for fair decks banned out of the format, but I would love to go to FNM and not see 50% of the people their on pump spells.dec.
For the original post, mental misstep is banned because its simply a mistake (like clamp) more than anything else.
Maybe its just me, but the meta you posted looks very balanced to me, with a 35% fair, 35% linear aggro, 14% combo/big mana, 16% other split. To me, aggro will always be the majority of any meta, it is always easier to ask the questions than to answer them. That being said, a 35/35 split seems balanced to me, especially considering 20% of that is traditional control/midrange. I also believe the stigma that modern is largely unfair contributes to that, as we see fair decks putting up a disproportionate amount of top 8s to their meta shares. Heck, compare modern to current standard where you have 72% in the aggro slot on top8! Even removing the UW deck from those shares and you still have over half the field linnear aggro!
For these reasons i always scoff at those asking for massive changes. Modern needs fine tuning, not a top-down remodel. Something as simple as a dredge ban accompanied by a Preordain unban would do huge things for the format. Things like banning 5+ cards from linnear aggro and unbanning 5+ fair cards would completely destroy the balance we have now
Is a match lottery really that big of a deal? It seems players either complain about lack of diversity, or too much diversity. What is the happy medium?
Variance is a built-in lottery anyways, and we dont try to fix variance in any way (apart from better deck construction). Diversity is better than a small pool of dominant decks, and everything else is just rogue.
As for bans/unbans, JMS is probably more plausible than Preordain, simply because a lot of people will start splashing for Preordain. Its power is hard to ignore. JMS cant be splashed for, comes down turn 4 minimum most of the time, and then helps you win the game (it does not win the game for you).
Though, a Modern with JMS legal is a modern without SFM. Which one is less oppressive?
Is a match lottery really that big of a deal? It seems players either complain about lack of diversity, or too much diversity. What is the happy medium?
Variance is a built-in lottery anyways, and we dont try to fix variance in any way (apart from better deck construction). Diversity is better than a small pool of dominant decks, and everything else is just rogue.
As for bans/unbans, JMS is probably more plausible than Preordain, simply because a lot of people will start splashing for Preordain. Its power is hard to ignore. JMS cant be splashed for, comes down turn 4 minimum most of the time, and then helps you win the game (it does not win the game for you).
Though, a Modern with JMS legal is a modern without SFM. Which one is less oppressive?
When your dying on t2 to stupid decks the format is no longer fun, in any objective sense of the word.
The only version of Goryo's that can kill on Turn 2 is Shoal, and it doesn't do so with enough consistency to be an issue. It also is an incredibly small % of the meta hasn't put up any notable results (2nd place at 1 SCG Open being the highest profile finish for the deck). Bans have to have better supporting data than "it occasionally wins early." More often than not, my turn 2 win loses to a grafdigger's cage, thoughtseize, Dispel, Spell Pierce, etc.
Magic Christmasland happens on occasion, but thankfully WotC has shown little to no indication that they'll manage the format based on such scenarios.
There is no meta where the possibility of winning on t2 is a bad thing. not even path stops it.
Remember that Modern is a T4 format in the same way that Legacy is a T3 format. In Legacy, decks can win on T1/T2, but don't often succeed because of the interaction present in the format. It's the same in Modern: decks can win on T2/T3, but don't often succeed because of the interaction. present in the format. It's only a problem if decks are CONSISTENTLY winning on T2/T3 AND are also top-tier. It's not an absolute cutoff that "all decks that can possibly win on T1 or T2 are banned" because that leads to an absurd banlist and doesn't fit the Legacy pattern (which, again, is the origin of the T4 rule).
There is no meta where the possibility of winning on t2 is a bad thing. not even path stops it.
Remember that Modern is a T4 format in the same way that Legacy is a T3 format. In Legacy, decks can win on T1/T2, but don't often succeed because of the interaction present in the format. It's the same in Modern: decks can win on T2/T3, but don't often succeed because of the interaction. present in the format. It's only a problem if decks are CONSISTENTLY winning on T2/T3 AND are also top-tier. It's not an absolute cutoff that "all decks that can possibly win on T1 or T2 are banned" because that leads to an absurd banlist and doesn't fit the Legacy pattern (which, again, is the origin of the T4 rule).
Your correct, but my "ideal" modern doesn't rely solely on treating players as statistics, it looks at whether the format is fun and fair while still having a good, yet reasonable power level to it. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who is riding out for an hour to an FNM and round 1 he dies on t3 to infect even through removal, or dies on t2 to goryo's. Its fine and dandy to say, well those things don't necessarily happen consistently so clearly its irrelevant but maybe that just isn't my way of looking at things.
Perhaps its more trouble then it worth to look at the lowest common denominator at all times, but for me, I believe if thats what we do then we ensure a much fairer format with a larger viable card pool without so much strain on sideboard space and whether or not you draw or mulligan into sideboard cards, especially on tight timetables that some decks demand.
There is no meta where the possibility of winning on t2 is a bad thing. not even path stops it.
Remember that Modern is a T4 format in the same way that Legacy is a T3 format. In Legacy, decks can win on T1/T2, but don't often succeed because of the interaction present in the format. It's the same in Modern: decks can win on T2/T3, but don't often succeed because of the interaction. present in the format. It's only a problem if decks are CONSISTENTLY winning on T2/T3 AND are also top-tier. It's not an absolute cutoff that "all decks that can possibly win on T1 or T2 are banned" because that leads to an absurd banlist and doesn't fit the Legacy pattern (which, again, is the origin of the T4 rule).
Your correct, but my "ideal" modern doesn't rely solely on treating players as statistics, it looks at whether the format is fun and fair while still having a good, yet reasonable power level to it. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who is riding out for an hour to an FNM and round 1 he dies on t3 to infect even through removal, or dies on t2 to goryo's. Its fine and dandy to say, well those things don't necessarily happen consistently so clearly its irrelevant but maybe that just isn't my way of looking at things.
Perhaps its more trouble then it worth to look at the lowest common denominator at all times, but for me, I believe if thats what we do then we ensure a much fairer format with a larger viable card pool without so much strain on sideboard space and whether or not you draw or mulligan into sideboard cards, especially on tight timetables that some decks demand.
It's just such a subjective definition. You don't have fun dying to those decks, but a) some people have fun playing those decks, b) some people have fun playing to beat those decks, and c) some people prefer short banlists and high degrees of diversity. Statistics gives us a more objective moderator of that subjective issue, so it's not just your personal sense of fun vs. another's personal sense of fun.
A much better solution, even if it's long game and not a short fix, is to print 1-2 more generic answers into Modern. This would increase interactivity while not requiring more bans. For players who want to play certain decks, they still could but those decks would face harder matches. For players that hate those decks, they could pack better tools to fight them. That's a much better solution than just throwing around our personal definitions of what is fun and what is not. The short-term solution to this is unbanning Preordain to help blue decks dig for answers.
There is no meta where the possibility of winning on t2 is a bad thing. not even path stops it.
Remember that Modern is a T4 format in the same way that Legacy is a T3 format. In Legacy, decks can win on T1/T2, but don't often succeed because of the interaction present in the format. It's the same in Modern: decks can win on T2/T3, but don't often succeed because of the interaction. present in the format. It's only a problem if decks are CONSISTENTLY winning on T2/T3 AND are also top-tier. It's not an absolute cutoff that "all decks that can possibly win on T1 or T2 are banned" because that leads to an absurd banlist and doesn't fit the Legacy pattern (which, again, is the origin of the T4 rule).
Your correct, but my "ideal" modern doesn't rely solely on treating players as statistics, it looks at whether the format is fun and fair while still having a good, yet reasonable power level to it. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who is riding out for an hour to an FNM and round 1 he dies on t3 to infect even through removal, or dies on t2 to goryo's. Its fine and dandy to say, well those things don't necessarily happen consistently so clearly its irrelevant but maybe that just isn't my way of looking at things.
Perhaps its more trouble then it worth to look at the lowest common denominator at all times, but for me, I believe if thats what we do then we ensure a much fairer format with a larger viable card pool without so much strain on sideboard space and whether or not you draw or mulligan into sideboard cards, especially on tight timetables that some decks demand.
It's just such a subjective definition. You don't have fun dying to those decks, but a) some people have fun playing those decks, b) some people have fun playing to beat those decks, and c) some people prefer short banlists and high degrees of diversity. Statistics gives us a more objective moderator of that subjective issue, so it's not just your personal sense of fun vs. another's personal sense of fun.
A much better solution, even if it's long game and not a short fix, is to print 1-2 more generic answers into Modern. This would increase interactivity while not requiring more bans. For players who want to play certain decks, they still could but those decks would face harder matches. For players that hate those decks, they could pack better tools to fight them. That's a much better solution than just throwing around our personal definitions of what is fun and what is not. The short-term solution to this is unbanning Preordain to help blue decks dig for answers.
I agree printing better answers would potentially solve this, but people have been saying that for years. People don't understand the fact that the lead time required for this is literally years, and thats only if wotc agrees with doing it. Also statistics may be a good objective way to judge the format, but so is the actual stated guidelines of the format that wotc stated, Wotc specifically said this was to be a turn 4 format, we shouldn't have to feel guilty about banning or nerfing decks that break that simple rule.
Unfortunately it seems like wotc has simply neglected enforcing this rule for so long that it just becomes harder and harder to do it as time goes on, they should just rip the band aid off. Just my 2 cents.
Tron: This should come as no surprise to anyone, land based "go big" decks are always going to be strong against control and midrange. Unfortunately, if many of the unfair linear aggro decks get banned/lose popularity/disappear, then tron is likely coming back with a vengeance to meet all the control and midrange decks that poke their heads out.
...and Tron wouldn't actually suppress them. People always love to claim that Tron is the reason midrange/control decks aren't that good, which is funny considering the lack of any real correlation between those archetypes being bad and Tron being good.
Indeed, it's fundamentally impossible for Tron to suppress control and midrange on a consistent basis because if it did, then it'd have nothing it's good against and wouldn't be any good. In other words, for Tron to be actually suppress control and midrange strategies, those strategies would have to be good, in which case it can't suppress them because they're good. It's practically paradoxical to claim Tron could keep fair decks down. And all this is ignoring the fact Tron's never been at a high enough metagame percentage to do this supposed suppression.
Tron doesn't suppress control and midrange. It's suppressed by aggro and combo.
I agree printing better answers would potentially solve this, but people have been saying that for years. People don't understand the fact that the lead time required for this is literally years, and thats only if wotc agrees with doing it. Also statistics may be a good objective way to judge the format, but so is the actual stated guidelines of the format that wotc stated, Wotc specifically said this was to be a turn 4 format, we shouldn't have to feel guilty about banning or nerfing decks that break that simple rule.
Unfortunately it seems like wotc has simply neglected enforcing this rule for so long that it just becomes harder and harder to do it as time goes on, they should just rip the band aid off. Just my 2 cents.
First, the short-term fix is to unban Preordain. There are plenty of interactive blue decks which would use this to great effect in combating linear and non-interactive decks. The opportunity cost of this is powering up one Tier 2 combo deck (Ad Nauseam) and a bunch of Tier 3 or lower decks (Storm, Grishoalbrand, Cheeri0s, etc.). That's a tiny risk to run given how many Tier 1 and Tier 2 interactive decks would benefit.
Second, those decks you don't like are not actually violating the T4 rule. They are either NOT consistently winning pre-T4, NOT top-tier, and/or NOT doing either of those things. When decks legitimately violate the rule, they do get banned (see Bloom and Storm). If any decks are currently violating that rule, we'll learn about it in January or April, after Wizards has amassed a year of data to either prove or disprove their T4 violator status. Wizards thankfully doesn't have kneejerk banning reactions like the rest of the community wants, or we'd see a format with bans every month.
agree with @ktkenshinx in fact i even put this to my own trial a month or so back, the most obvious potential t4 violator in the format is infect, i watched 100 matches of infect piloted exclusively by pros. the result was around 12% t4 wins, which is half the amount previous t4 violators showed. no other deck has the consistent speed of infect in the format, and if infect doesn't break it, its hard to say any other deck does. if someone has the numbers to show one does, id be glad to listen however. i have no interest in calling goryo's a violator with no numbers, and no results to back it up. "i got t2'd at fnm" is neither enough data nor significant results in order to justify the deck being banned
When I played Infect in early 2015, I found it was quite possible to win Turn 2 or 3. Not consistent, but possible. That lack of consistency has shrunk ever since that time. Today, Infect has much better odds at winning turn 2 if a sufficient answer is not found. If you dont have a blocker, removal, or permission, Infect can and will kill you turn 2, often enough.
I wouldnt say its offending T4 enough, yet, but it'll get there. One more tool in its toolbox would probably seal its fate.
I think so too that Jace TMS can be unbanned, even if as a test. Also, I don't like catch-all silver bullets any deck can play, but that's my personal preference (Chalice of the Void, Ensnaring Bridge, Relic of Progenitus,...)
To reply to some posts that were made before the previous thread was locked:
Well I think if standard were doing well they wouldn't need so much promo junk just to sell product/get people to play it. I don't personally play it but I do know a lot of people at my lgs have gotten out of it because it's 3 decks and that's about it.
It's basically a Rock Paper Scissors format.
So much promo junk? What promo junk? FNM promos go for all the FNM formats, not just Standard (in fact, I could be wrong, but I expect Limited is more popular than Standard at FNMs). If we're talking about the Expeditions/Masterpieces, those cards for the most part aren't even Standard legal. They're an incentive to get booster packs, not play Standard.
That said, I've heard negative things about the current Standard format, but then again as far as I can remember, people had something to complain about in most Standard formats. In the current format it's the rock-paper-scissors format (which some people like in nonrotating formats because it prevents anything from getting too good, but it's painfully literal in the current Standard format). Before that it was Collected Company, before than it was the crazy greedy manabases, before that it was Abzan being everywhere, before that it was Monoblack Devotion ruling the format, before that... actually, Innistrad-RTR was generally liked, I think, though it was a little overly biased towards midrange deck and Supreme Verdict was kind of annoying. Before that people hated Delver, before that there was the infamous Caw-Blade, before that Jund was king, before that Faeries was everywhere, before that... was RTR-Time Spiral, considered by some to be one of the best Standard formats to ever exist. I don't really know much about Kamigawa-RTR, but Mirrodin-Kamigawa of course had Affinity (so did Onslaught-Mirrodin, but Onslaught was much more powerful than Kamigawa so it was able to sort of keep Affinity in check, though you did have the ridiculousness that was Skullclamp for a little while).
So in all that time, you've had maybe 2 or 3 Standard formats people didn't seem to have big complaints about
That's my point that's why they have expeditions/masterpieces and these treasure chest, to be sure packs sell because modern is a more popular format now. Just ask streamers, have you noticed most don't stream std? They (the big ones) stream cube, limited, and modern unless they need to prep for a big tourney because those interest people and standard doesn't.
Hey guys, with the rise of Lantern Control on MODO, if it starts picking up IRL, should we be worried about it getting hit similar to Eggs? I know Lantern isn't that slow but it's still not fast and is a playing style that WotC despises...
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Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
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Lately, Modern community members have expressed interest in talking holistically about the challenges and problems facing Modern. Whether or not Modern has "challenges" or "problems" is up for debate, but what is clear is that people want to talk about all of these issues in one unified setting.
As such, Modern staff are opening this thread as a replacement for the old "Banlist Discussion" thread and the "State of the Meta thread." You can use this thread to talk about any and all of these varied Modern issues and their intersection. This thread will be heavily moderated, so be sure to read the rules before posting; anyone who posts in this thread is assumed to have read and understood these rules.
Allowed topics
Prohibited topics and behavior
The mod team will strictly enforce these rules. Please make this a place where people are unafraid to post constructive thoughts.
Update from the 1/9/2017 B&R Announcement:
Gitaxian Probe is banned
Golgari Grave-Troll is banned
Next B&R Announcement:
March 13, 2017
Current DCI Modern Banned List
Here are some reasons that cards are banned in Modern:
Skullclamp
Second Sunrise
The following are links to WotC's in-depth explanations as to why cards have gotten banned since the beginning of the format:
Gitaxian Probe and Golgari Grave-Troll are banned
Eye of Ugin banned, Ancestral Vision and Sword of the Meek unbanned
Summer Bloom and Splinter Twin banned.
Birthing Pod/Treasure Cruise/Dig Through Time banned, Golgari Grave-Troll unbanned
Bitterblossom/Nacatl unbanned. DRS banned
Addition of Second Sunrise
Addition of Bloodbraid Elf and Seething Song
Removal of Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
3rd Banned List change with explanations
2nd Banned List change with explanations
1st Banned List change with explanations
Community Cup Announcement with the Initial Ban List.
Old threads:
9/28/2016 - 12/10/2016
7/18/2016 - 9/30/2016
4/4/2016 - 7/18/2016
1/16/2016 - 4/4/2016
7/13/2015 - 1/16/2016
1/19/2015 - 7/13/2015
7/14/2014 - 1/19/2015
2/9/2014 - 7/14/2014
1/20/2014 - 2/10/2014
6/23/2014 - 1/20/2014
4/22/2013 - 6/23/213
1/27/2013 - 4/22/13
9/20/2012 - 1/27/2013
7/19/2012 - 9/20/2012
1/9/17
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
On the whole, I think modern is very diverse and where nobody can brew and win in FNM, small tournaments, and even large tournaments is a testament to that. I do agree though that it isn't great for trying to gain edges through "player skill" in standard or even such games as poker. It does reward though to some extent luck, deck tuning, and knowing the field.
I like it. I recently topped 8 at a small event with Slivers. Beating a variety of decks and losing to burn twice as I didn't respect it enough and probably didn't know my deck enough. I like the fact that you have to know your deck so well.
To reply to some posts that were made before the previous thread was locked:
So much promo junk? What promo junk? FNM promos go for all the FNM formats, not just Standard (in fact, I could be wrong, but I expect Limited is more popular than Standard at FNMs). If we're talking about the Expeditions/Masterpieces, those cards for the most part aren't even Standard legal. They're an incentive to get booster packs, not play Standard.
That said, I've heard negative things about the current Standard format, but then again as far as I can remember, people had something to complain about in most Standard formats. In the current format it's the rock-paper-scissors format (which some people like in nonrotating formats because it prevents anything from getting too good, but it's painfully literal in the current Standard format). Before that it was Collected Company, before than it was the crazy greedy manabases, before that it was Abzan being everywhere, before that it was Monoblack Devotion ruling the format, before that... actually, Innistrad-RTR was generally liked, I think, though it was a little overly biased towards midrange deck and Supreme Verdict was kind of annoying. Before that people hated Delver, before that there was the infamous Caw-Blade, before that Jund was king, before that Faeries was everywhere, before that... was RTR-Time Spiral, considered by some to be one of the best Standard formats to ever exist. I don't really know much about Kamigawa-RTR, but Mirrodin-Kamigawa of course had Affinity (so did Onslaught-Mirrodin, but Onslaught was much more powerful than Kamigawa so it was able to sort of keep Affinity in check, though you did have the ridiculousness that was Skullclamp for a little while).
So in all that time, you've had maybe 2 or 3 Standard formats people didn't seem to have big complaints about.
Kovo already answered this to some extent, but I wanted to respond too. Saying "Infect runs only two basics" is silly because the reason that Infect runs the basics it does is largely because of Blood Moon. They might still run one if not for Blood Moon due to Path to Exile, but I'd be unsurprised if it went into three colors if Blood Moon wasn't around. As for Jund, that thing would probably be in 4 colors if not for Blood Moon. You're missing the point that manabases are already a bit greedy with Blood Moon, and would be even more so if not for it.
It's like saying Force of Will could be banned in Legacy and fast combo wouldn't overtake the format. After all, look at how fast Storm can be, and Force of Will is around. That's ignoring the fact that Force of Will forces Storm to slow down a little bit to include disruption to handle the card, and it not for Force of Will it would just abandon that and go for even faster kills.
No. No way. Price of Progress isn't a hate card; it's just an amazing card for Burn. A card really isn't a hate card if only one deck can play it. And if there's something Burn doesn't need, it's a 2-mana Instant speed spell that hits for 6+ damage. It'd "hate on" nonbasics in the way Burn would probably drop down to being 2 or even 1 colors more regularly (after all, part of the reason for the splashes is because there's great burn spells in those colors, but Price of Progress, even if it didn't hurt the Burn player for those nonbasics, reduces the need for those because it's so amazing and completely in Red).
Right now, interacting with your opponent starts you off on the back foot.
The fast decks tend to be very fast (to the extent that many believe wizards is no longer enforcing the t-4 rule) and on top of that, tend to have a decent amount of resilience built in (though this can vary), eg: dredge ignores thoughtseize and terminate, infect plays a pile of protection spells, etc.
While the occasional results for interactive decks do pop up, especially in regards to g/b/x, the format as a whole feels very unbalanced.
Even the popular "control" decks, like lantern or skred, are primarily prison decks that also aim to be uninteractive.
While I'm a very biased person here, I feel that modern have a whole lot of decks that are problematic in some degree. I'm not necessarily advocating for bans of these decks, simply that they're effective in pressing down fairer decks. Meta shifts could easily balance the format with only a small number of changes, however.
When I talk about fair interactive decks here, I'm primarily focusing on decks like jund, U-based control, tokens, delver, etc. Generally most of the control/midrange/tempo style decks that were more common in the past.
Dredge: Public enemy number one. Its fairly high variance, as its explosiveness is reliant on milling certain cards in certain orders. Its resilient against discard spells, and non-exiling removal. The use of conflagrate and life from the loam allows it to have incredible reach. It essentially demands a good amount of sideboard hate cards to reliably beat. It should come as no surprise to say that it does quite well at keeping fairer, interactive decks down.
Infect: not nearly as offensive as dredge, it does still have a powerful combination of both incredible speed, being perhaps the most consistent deck to kill t3 currently in the format, and a good amount of resilience. Vines of vastwood, blossoming defense, spell pierce, apostle's blessing, and more stop any targeted removal spells, and even damaged based spells can be beaten by pump spells. Most fair decks have a reasonable infect matchup, but those without access to lightning bolt tend to struggle quite a bit. Death's shadow aggro and suicide bloo present some of the same problems, but to a much lesser extent. As far as many control and midrange decks go, these are infinitely preferable to infect.
Burn: Most three color decks in modern, especially decks playing thoughtseize, are going to struggle quite a bit against burn. Burn, in my own opinion, is in an unfortunate spot, because I don't really want (or feel that it would be appropriate) to ban anything, but I wish it were a little bit weaker. Burn as a mainstay in tier 1 means another matchup that fair decks absolutely have to be prepared for, but one they're unfavored in anyways.
Bant Eldrazi: cast triggers, cavern of souls, creatures that are immune to bolt, the list goes on. Bant eldrazi heavily prays upon any decks trying to play fairly. Like burn, I don't think I would want to ban anything from the deck, I simply wish it were weaker.
R/G Valakut: Modern has a very small number of ways to interact with lands, and a deck that wins by turning all of its lands into lightning bolts is very difficult for slower, more control-oriented decks to beat. I firmly feel this deck is fine, it has its place in the meta, but it is another nail in the coffin for fair decks.
Tron: This should come as no surprise to anyone, land based "go big" decks are always going to be strong against control and midrange. Unfortunately, if many of the unfair linear aggro decks get banned/lose popularity/disappear, then tron is likely coming back with a vengeance to meet all the control and midrange decks that poke their heads out.
Lantern and Skred (and other prison decks): These decks' midrange/control matchups vary heavily depending on the exact matchups, but few fair decks have good matchups against all of them. Like other decks, these decks very much have their place in the meta, its just a shame that they add to the pile against fairer decks.
Simply put, modern is such a matchup lottery in terms of how you build your sideboard, and who you end up playing against.
Many fair decks have a much harder time in this field than noninteractive decks do.
I would love to see modern as a diverse place, where you can play any style of deck that you'd like, and have just as good (give or take) of a shot as the person the next seat over.
Many people claim that modern is diverse right now, but I feel thats only true if you look at the number of decks, and not the archtypes.
Midrange currently exists as jund or abzan, and nothing else. Control exists in its small numbers as grixis or nahiri.
Plenty of people disagree on where to draw the line between combo and aggro in regards to infect, dredge, etc, but decks that attack with creatures to win, do so quickly, and intend to be resiliant to interaction exist in much higher numbers.
MTGTop8 currently says: (for more represented archtypes)
Jund: 6%
Abzan: 5%
Midrange: 11%
Affinity: 6%
Burn: 5%
Suicide bloo: 5%
Zoo (primarily DSA): 3%
Dresge: 9%
Infect: 7%
Linear aggro: 35%
Lantern: 4%
Prison: 4%
Tron: 6%
Valakut: 4%
Big Mana: 10%
Grixis: 4%
Nahiri (jeskai/mardu): 3%
UW Control (inc jeskai w/o nahiri): 2%
Control: 9%
Eldrazi (prmarily bant) : 6%
Hatebears: 3%
Chord: 2%
Misc (semi-fair): 11%
Scapeshift: 2%
Ad nauseum: 2%
Spellbased combo: 4%
Total 84%
16% others.
IMO, how ever much fun you have playing modern, the meta is simply not balanced.
Whether that should be fixed by reprints, new cards, bannings, unbannings, restructuring, or something else, is difficult to speculate on, but I think that even a little bit of balancing would improve the format for everyone.
I don't want every bad matchup for fair decks banned out of the format, but I would love to go to FNM and not see 50% of the people their on pump spells.dec.
For the original post, mental misstep is banned because its simply a mistake (like clamp) more than anything else.
Just off the top of my head, I would ban:
Skullcrak/Atarka's Command (1 or the other would be fine, having access to counter the defining weakness of your own deck for 2 mana at instant speed makes no sense)
Narcomeba (this card is the unsung hero that holds the dredge deck together since it lets you bring back amalgams literally for free, whereas otherwise you may instead have to make a land drop to bring back bloodghasts first which is actually a much bigger deal for the deck then many people think, this change would also ensure that dredgevine remains untouched)
Goryo's vengeance (dying on t2 is unacceptable in a turn 4 format)
glistener elf (dying on t2 is unacceptable in a turn 4 format, and the only way that happens is with elf.)
tron lands/ugin (this one is a bit more controversial but its simply the fact that if the meta becomes fair again, tron will just go back to farming free wins off of people with t4 ugin that most decks in the format literally fold to instantly, this ban would be more of a long term minded ban, if you want to solve the problem, ban tron lands, if you want to give tron another chance, then just ban ugin and see what comes of it.)
unbans;
stoneforge mystic (helps fair midrange, slows down format, opens the door for a viable equipment archytpe in modern, helps white become more of a main color)
I think overall these changes would make the format overall much fairer while also freeing up a lot more sideboard space which that in of itself would help the format further.
Maybe its just me, but the meta you posted looks very balanced to me, with a 35% fair, 35% linear aggro, 14% combo/big mana, 16% other split. To me, aggro will always be the majority of any meta, it is always easier to ask the questions than to answer them. That being said, a 35/35 split seems balanced to me, especially considering 20% of that is traditional control/midrange. I also believe the stigma that modern is largely unfair contributes to that, as we see fair decks putting up a disproportionate amount of top 8s to their meta shares. Heck, compare modern to current standard where you have 72% in the aggro slot on top8! Even removing the UW deck from those shares and you still have over half the field linnear aggro!
For these reasons i always scoff at those asking for massive changes. Modern needs fine tuning, not a top-down remodel. Something as simple as a dredge ban accompanied by a Preordain unban would do huge things for the format. Things like banning 5+ cards from linnear aggro and unbanning 5+ fair cards would completely destroy the balance we have now
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
Variance is a built-in lottery anyways, and we dont try to fix variance in any way (apart from better deck construction). Diversity is better than a small pool of dominant decks, and everything else is just rogue.
As for bans/unbans, JMS is probably more plausible than Preordain, simply because a lot of people will start splashing for Preordain. Its power is hard to ignore. JMS cant be splashed for, comes down turn 4 minimum most of the time, and then helps you win the game (it does not win the game for you).
Though, a Modern with JMS legal is a modern without SFM. Which one is less oppressive?
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
When your dying on t2 to stupid decks the format is no longer fun, in any objective sense of the word.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Magic Christmasland happens on occasion, but thankfully WotC has shown little to no indication that they'll manage the format based on such scenarios.
Remember that Modern is a T4 format in the same way that Legacy is a T3 format. In Legacy, decks can win on T1/T2, but don't often succeed because of the interaction present in the format. It's the same in Modern: decks can win on T2/T3, but don't often succeed because of the interaction. present in the format. It's only a problem if decks are CONSISTENTLY winning on T2/T3 AND are also top-tier. It's not an absolute cutoff that "all decks that can possibly win on T1 or T2 are banned" because that leads to an absurd banlist and doesn't fit the Legacy pattern (which, again, is the origin of the T4 rule).
Your correct, but my "ideal" modern doesn't rely solely on treating players as statistics, it looks at whether the format is fun and fair while still having a good, yet reasonable power level to it. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who is riding out for an hour to an FNM and round 1 he dies on t3 to infect even through removal, or dies on t2 to goryo's. Its fine and dandy to say, well those things don't necessarily happen consistently so clearly its irrelevant but maybe that just isn't my way of looking at things.
Perhaps its more trouble then it worth to look at the lowest common denominator at all times, but for me, I believe if thats what we do then we ensure a much fairer format with a larger viable card pool without so much strain on sideboard space and whether or not you draw or mulligan into sideboard cards, especially on tight timetables that some decks demand.
It's just such a subjective definition. You don't have fun dying to those decks, but a) some people have fun playing those decks, b) some people have fun playing to beat those decks, and c) some people prefer short banlists and high degrees of diversity. Statistics gives us a more objective moderator of that subjective issue, so it's not just your personal sense of fun vs. another's personal sense of fun.
A much better solution, even if it's long game and not a short fix, is to print 1-2 more generic answers into Modern. This would increase interactivity while not requiring more bans. For players who want to play certain decks, they still could but those decks would face harder matches. For players that hate those decks, they could pack better tools to fight them. That's a much better solution than just throwing around our personal definitions of what is fun and what is not. The short-term solution to this is unbanning Preordain to help blue decks dig for answers.
I agree printing better answers would potentially solve this, but people have been saying that for years. People don't understand the fact that the lead time required for this is literally years, and thats only if wotc agrees with doing it. Also statistics may be a good objective way to judge the format, but so is the actual stated guidelines of the format that wotc stated, Wotc specifically said this was to be a turn 4 format, we shouldn't have to feel guilty about banning or nerfing decks that break that simple rule.
Unfortunately it seems like wotc has simply neglected enforcing this rule for so long that it just becomes harder and harder to do it as time goes on, they should just rip the band aid off. Just my 2 cents.
...and Tron wouldn't actually suppress them. People always love to claim that Tron is the reason midrange/control decks aren't that good, which is funny considering the lack of any real correlation between those archetypes being bad and Tron being good.
Indeed, it's fundamentally impossible for Tron to suppress control and midrange on a consistent basis because if it did, then it'd have nothing it's good against and wouldn't be any good. In other words, for Tron to be actually suppress control and midrange strategies, those strategies would have to be good, in which case it can't suppress them because they're good. It's practically paradoxical to claim Tron could keep fair decks down. And all this is ignoring the fact Tron's never been at a high enough metagame percentage to do this supposed suppression.
Tron doesn't suppress control and midrange. It's suppressed by aggro and combo.
First, the short-term fix is to unban Preordain. There are plenty of interactive blue decks which would use this to great effect in combating linear and non-interactive decks. The opportunity cost of this is powering up one Tier 2 combo deck (Ad Nauseam) and a bunch of Tier 3 or lower decks (Storm, Grishoalbrand, Cheeri0s, etc.). That's a tiny risk to run given how many Tier 1 and Tier 2 interactive decks would benefit.
Second, those decks you don't like are not actually violating the T4 rule. They are either NOT consistently winning pre-T4, NOT top-tier, and/or NOT doing either of those things. When decks legitimately violate the rule, they do get banned (see Bloom and Storm). If any decks are currently violating that rule, we'll learn about it in January or April, after Wizards has amassed a year of data to either prove or disprove their T4 violator status. Wizards thankfully doesn't have kneejerk banning reactions like the rest of the community wants, or we'd see a format with bans every month.
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
I wouldnt say its offending T4 enough, yet, but it'll get there. One more tool in its toolbox would probably seal its fate.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
That's my point that's why they have expeditions/masterpieces and these treasure chest, to be sure packs sell because modern is a more popular format now. Just ask streamers, have you noticed most don't stream std? They (the big ones) stream cube, limited, and modern unless they need to prep for a big tourney because those interest people and standard doesn't.
I think you meant "Standard".
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.