honeslty the biggest take away from this data is that eldrazi is still very strong after its nerf, and i dont feel its a healthy deck to have in the meta game at this level as it just plays creatures better than any other deck.
since blue is in fact need of help. I feel an eldrazi temple ban would help if we are not going the twin route.
STOP
SUGGESTING
ARTIFICIAL
BANS
If blue needs help, give blue what it needs. We are in this complete mess because of the trash Wizards has put down our throats. Stop doing this, stop making ridiculous claims and excuses and analogies. Stop, everyone seriously stop. Look where we are right now, do you think all of your aggressive banning ideas leads down a better road after we have been on this crazy train for 5 years. Do you all honestly believe banning Golgari Grave-Troll and Gitaxian Probe actually did anything? Or did it just shift the problems away in another direction?
Fight back, make the Modern banned list reasonable. Fight and tell Wizards how the current tactics about the banned list isn't working.
claiming that bans dont help is simply incorrect. they have for the most part helped this game
ARE YOU FOR REAL? WHEN THE HELL HAVE THEY EVER HELPED?
DEAR GOD WHAT GAME ARE YOU PLAYING?
We have been on this crazy train since the banning of Seething Song and Bloodbraid Elf, and you are gonna sit there and claim that Modern has gotten better with bannings?
so the summer bloom ban didnt help the game? nor did the dredge ban? or the storm ban? these bans are to nerf the decks so that the unfun factor is not too prevalent. so yea i feel they have helped in that way. even though the game is still crap now imo
While I think it's unfair to say bans never help, it's blatantly wrong and/or misleading to say that these bans were to stop the "unfun factor". Dredge was banned due to the severe sideboard issues and the rest of the bans you listed were to stop decks breaking the Turn 4 rule, which is a far less subjective criteria than the "fun" or "fair" factor you've mentioned in the last few posts, neither of which should ever come up in a serious discussion about bans in Modern due to how subjective they are.
In my opinion, all the bans did help Modern in my opinion (even Twin, if only to show just how bad all the other Blue-based strategies were), but bans only help by potentially gutting decks that are either too fast or too prevalent. Attempting to use bans to shape the meta in a way such that deck A/play style A is stronger is nearly impossible because of how hard it is to accurately predict what fills the void after removing the biggest power(s). I believe the Twin ban speaks volumes about what happens when you try and gut a deck to power up other decks
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Decks
Modern: UWUW Control UBRGrixis Shadow URIzzet Phoenix
How is Bant Eldrazi "anti-fair"? It plays creatures and swings with them and it's not that difficult to interact with them.
how well does it do vs jund? thats what I mean by anti fair.
So any deck that has a good Jund matchup is anti-fair and deserves to be banned? At least you're open about your bias.
Did God descend from the clouds and hand us a stone tablet that reads YE AND JUNDE SHALL HAVE A FIFTY-FIFTY MATCHUP AGAINST ALL OF YE FIELD OF MODERNE?
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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.
honeslty the biggest take away from this data is that eldrazi is still very strong after its nerf, and i dont feel its a healthy deck to have in the meta game at this level as it just plays creatures better than any other deck.
since blue is in fact need of help. I feel an eldrazi temple ban would help if we are not going the twin route.
STOP
SUGGESTING
ARTIFICIAL
BANS
If blue needs help, give blue what it needs. We are in this complete mess because of the trash Wizards has put down our throats. Stop doing this, stop making ridiculous claims and excuses and analogies. Stop, everyone seriously stop. Look where we are right now, do you think all of your aggressive banning ideas leads down a better road after we have been on this crazy train for 5 years. Do you all honestly believe banning Golgari Grave-Troll and Gitaxian Probe actually did anything? Or did it just shift the problems away in another direction?
Fight back, make the Modern banned list reasonable. Fight and tell Wizards how the current tactics about the banned list isn't working.
claiming that bans dont help is simply incorrect. they have for the most part helped this game
ARE YOU FOR REAL? WHEN THE HELL HAVE THEY EVER HELPED?
DEAR GOD WHAT GAME ARE YOU PLAYING?
We have been on this crazy train since the banning of Seething Song and Bloodbraid Elf, and you are gonna sit there and claim that Modern has gotten better with bannings?
some of the bans have probably (definitely) not been good things, I honestly disagree with most of the bans since the original list and some of them. I am pretty radical in terms of the cards I want unbanned, there are solidly 14 that would come off tomorrow if it were my call, but some of them I feel had to be banned just because without literal FoW they would just be too busted and would ruin the diversity of the format. the biggest for me are the Storm cards and Jitte. I have played against NBL Storm, and that was incredibly unpleasant. I tried half a dozen decks in every archetype and never felt like i had a chance, the deck is just entirely too powerful. Jitte isn't as bad, but it does make Zoo-type decks too powerful, they are supposed to run out of steam and it gives them a long game better than anything that isn't running Jitte or named Tron. I agree with you that most of the recent bans especially (from BBE on) minus Bloom were not needed, but it isn't even about bannings helping Modern stay healthy, it couldn't existas a format with some of the more busted decks and cards
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Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
I'm not going to go too much into it, but aside some hyperbolic statements, Hellfire's statement is undestandable. There are too many cards on the card pool that can be banned with a good and reasonable explanation attached to them. That doens't mean those bans need to happen. Answers prevent bans, that's the driection we need to be heading, powerful answers for a super powerful and diverse cardpool full of different threats that attack from different angles from T3 on.
Also, isn't it too obvious that the best Preordain deck would be a combo deck?. I mean, you might like combo decks and all, but that's not the direction WOTC wants Modern to be headed. After Ad Nauseam's strong performances over the years, UR Storm still on its legs, and Griselbrand making some waves, i think everybody should agree that banned blue cantrips have a grave in Modern UNLESS the direction of the format changes.
Well, outside of unbans and bans the best thing for the formats health has happened with the reprinting of the enemy fetch lands. With those reprinted, it will open a lot of doors to players who couldn't afford to step into modern due to the mana base price barrier. Not to mention they finally printed Goblin guide again.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm convinced that Wizards is increasingly unlikely to consider a Preordain unban. Between the Ad Naus win, the insane spike of ban mania around Cheeri0s, performances by decks like Grixis Delver and Storm, and historical fears of blue-based combo, Preordain is looking very unlikely. JTMS, however, is looking safer and safer by the day. When I read the JTMS objections, all I see are the same objections to Sword and AV that we saw a year ago. This format is so powerful that it is unreasonable to believe JTMS in blue is any more powerful than all the other top-tier synergies and strategies. JTMS will certainly pass the Wizards unbanning test of a few MTGO trials plus gut instinct.
If indeed blue is going to get help from Wizards, which it still badly needs, the most likely unban (but not the best) is still JTMS.
Restricting information will never have the desired effect that people pushing for it think it will. People will still be able to get decklists from SCG/GPs/etc. , so the people who are inclined to just copy will still just copy. However, it's harder for people who want to attack the meta to do so effectively with less information, which usually means that a meta stays "solved" instead.
honeslty the biggest take away from this data is that eldrazi is still very strong after its nerf, and i dont feel its a healthy deck to have in the meta game at this level as it just plays creatures better than any other deck.
since blue is in fact need of help. I feel an eldrazi temple ban would help if we are not going the twin route.
That's your takeaway from the data? Yikes. Seems like a pretty selective and narrow reading.
Banning Eldrazi Temple makes absolutely no sense. For the twentieth time; the only decks struggling with Eldrazi decks are reactive blue ones. Everyone else is doing just fine. Clearly the problem is with the reactive blue cards themselves, not everything else around those cards. The solution is to improve the reactive blue decks.
There continues to be a tiny subset of players in this thread and the community at large that just want to ban everything they personally deem unfair and unfun. These players typically play a small selection of traditionally fair decks that they feel should have 50-50 matchups across the board. They also have very narrow definitions about what is fun, fair, and appropriate for Magic. Quite honestly, these players shouldn't play Modern. Not every format can appeal to every person, and Modern is clearly in the direction of a format where these strategies are appropriate and part of the game.
how well does it do vs jund? thats what I mean by anti fair.
Jund dumps on a lot of unfair decks and loses hard to many fair decks; I'm rather confused by this statement, and whatever point it's attempting to make.
Modern is not a fair format, there is a reason it got moved away from the Pro Tour. If you like going through fast games where you just execute your own gameplan, Modern is a great format and it appeals to alot of people.
Modern is not a fair format, there is a reason it got moved away from the Pro Tour. If you like going through fast games where you just execute your own gameplan, Modern is a great format and it appeals to alot of people.
you can't make statements like that. it's too reductive & not helpful for discussion. you are exaggerating your opinion for effect but it just makes your argument untenable.
looking back at modern over the years, it's predominantly been the "GBx format", with Jund often being the unquestionable best deck in the format (or Abzan, they switch occasionally). even taking a current snapshot, we've got midrange decks like Bant Eldrazi and Shadow Jund seeing an uptick right now. close on their heels are Abzan, Abzan Company, Grixis Control (doing well currently), and a whole slew of others.
Modern is diverse. you can't just select one kind of deck you don't particularly like very much, form a biased opinion and then make a bizarre logical leap to where the whole format is just unfair decks, because it simply isn't the case.
i'm not saying unfair decks don't exist - obviously it's one facet to Modern, but it's not the defining characteristic as you have tried to assert.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
honeslty the biggest take away from this data is that eldrazi is still very strong after its nerf, and i dont feel its a healthy deck to have in the meta game at this level as it just plays creatures better than any other deck.
since blue is in fact need of help. I feel an eldrazi temple ban would help if we are not going the twin route.
.
There continues to be a tiny subset of players in this thread and the community at large that just want to ban everything they personally deem unfair and unfun. These players typically play a small selection of traditionally fair decks that they feel should have 50-50 matchups across the board. They also have very narrow definitions about what is fun, fair, and appropriate for Magic. Quite honestly, these players shouldn't play Modern. Not every format can appeal to every person, and Modern is clearly in the direction of a format where these strategies are appropriate and part of the game.
Blasphemy. As a Bogles player, I take offense to these accusations. I don't want everything that's unfair/unfun banned, just Back to Nature, Nature's Claim, chalice of the void, Simian Spirit Guide, Mox Opal, Infect mechanic altogether, and every combo that can win before turn 4. I really don't think that's asking for much, ya?
The issue fundamentally with Blue in Modern is two fold: Blue can make it to the late game on the back of perfect sequencing, but what can Blue do in the late game? Red can get you there and threaten lethal(Burn reaches a point where it's Topdeck Bolt), Green can get Goyf, Black has the endgames of Tasigur, and White, which is still weak, can give you an endgame play of Elesh Born/Secure the Wastes. Blue can draw cards, but the best threats in Blue aren't really that good by themselves.
The other issue is that Reactive Blue can stumble hard. As in, you think the coasts are clear for you to tap out and play a threat, only for your opponent to go off in the turn after. Following Turn 2/3, Reactive Blue has to always hold up Mana for the Answers, because is they don't then they can automatically lose. You tap out against Abzan Company on turn 4 to resolve a Verdict, when they've got nothing on board but 4 lands and they can go "End Step Chord for Viscera Seer, My turn CoCo for any combo pieces."
Hell, I'd be fine if we got something like "Anguished Banishment 2UU"
You may Exile a blue card and pay 3 life to cast this without paying it's Mana Cost
Counter Target Spell unless it's controller pays 3.
Why would Jace, The Mind Sculptor push everyone out of BGx? For once, I think U based control decks are supposed to at least have a 50-50 if not favorable MU against Jund like strategies, because they are doing similar thing but slightly bigger, with more value. It would only make sense to have BGx decks with a 50-50 MU against more or less everyone, control being slightly bigger and Tron being much bigger. All these strategies have other strategies which punish them and that is fine.
I see people saying it is Splinter Twin or bust. ST is NOT a way to fix blue based control decks because it doesn't fix the fundamental problem which is that blue cards are just not good enough besides snapcaster mage. The reason ST decks worked was because of the threat to die if you ever tapped out, not because it was able to play an excellent control game. On the contrary, ST would lose to control decks, exactly because it couldn't play that game. It had enough tools to slow aggro decks and win by T4 and enough end-the-game potential to threated BGx. These are all fine things, but are not related to the level of blue. Unbanning ST will do nothing to solve Us issues, it will just create a blue based combo deck on T1 and none will be playing control still.
Jace, The Mind Sculptor on the other hand actually GIVES blue decks a way to close the game, in color, and fight the long game they are supposed to be able to fight. We all saw the grixis control matches at the latest events (and many of us experience it week in week out). There was almost no way to capitalize to gained value because there was no proper way to close the game. It always seemed a path to exile away for the opposing decks to destroy grixis' massive lead. JTMS will help tri-colored U based decks have a decent win condition which plays along with their game plan. In what way does that make things linear?
im a jund player through and through, and i think its about time jace gets time in the format. i dont like chipping in on talks of bans and unbans because i dont know enough about the meta in any way. but it would be nice to see jace give blue decks some help. i dont think it would make them much better however. so i see no reason not to have jace in the format.
Also, isn't it too obvious that the best Preordain deck would be a combo deck?. I mean, you might like combo decks and all, but that's not the direction WOTC wants Modern to be headed. After Ad Nauseam's strong performances over the years, UR Storm still on its legs, and Griselbrand making some waves, i think everybody should agree that banned blue cantrips have a grave in Modern UNLESS the direction of the format changes.
It isn't obvious at all lol. Ad Nauseam's strong performances over the years? Don't make everyone laugh pls. It has always been a fringe deck, which never raised above tier 2. Just look at the current metagame:
Fast decks, big mana decks and green-based decks with Ancient Stirrings and Traverse the Ulvenwald as premium card selection. Where are reactive decks? Where is combo? I'll show:
Now tell me, you definitely believe that unbanning of the cantrip which is a bit better than Serum Visions will push these decks over the top? And another question to everyone: are you sure that exactly Jace himself will help blue to combat those top tier strategies? I have serious doubts.
But yeah, good cherrypicking. I wrote a big and my main point was the state of modern nowadays, only to get your answer on the DS which it isn't even our main concern.
I'm so sorry I only addressed one of your panicked claims.
A lot of people on here need to go play standard if those are games you like. This format will always be fast. They ban GGT so decks didn't have to have so much sb hate yet look at gp Brisbane and breaking/entering getting popular. They ban probe and all it did was hurt infect a little and push prowess decks out. Now because of ad naus people are talking about finally hitting mox/ssg push a lot of t2 decks that people invested in because they didn't want to invest in t1 out. Just stop bans unban some things and everyone wait for wotc to reprint needed things and print the answers they say they're going to print.
Yes blue has late game cards but that's not the kind of blue people are trying to play I went 7-2 yesterday with u/r skred mostly killing with blue creatures so....
Gkourou is completely right, there is ZERO reason to be playing regular Jund right now, and I think Junk is kind of an inferior to DS Shadow right now, too.
Why on earth would I play a turn 4 Huntmaster/Kalitas, when I turn 4 I could play a 6/7 for 2 mana, or 2 10/10's for 1 mana a piece?
DS is too efficient, I can kill things at 4 mana or less with fatal push, on turn 4 I could play a LOTV/K-Command and drop a giant 1 mana body. My Goyfs are huge and now just 4/5's
Like, seriously, if you are not playing DS Shadow, you're being stubborn and too attached. I would usually say, "but that costs a little money", but that argument goes out the window for anyone who owns a fully stock jund deck, the shadow pieces did not cost THAT much money.
Modern is definitely becoming a format of, "why do fair things?" Why should I play regular jund when Death Shadow is a thing? I expect Jund and Junk both to hit 2% on mtgo if DS continues to stay legal.
Now, what scares me is Jessup writing a recent article, which is mainly a garbage, nonsense article, but it scared me when he wrote that he thinks DS Shadow Jund is better than infect ever was, and let's face it, he was the face of Infect in modern.
I'm kind of caught in an awkward position, I think DS Shadow can help regulate all these ridiculous ramp/tron decks, which like it or not, is becoming HUGE in this format since the probe ban, but at the same time, if DS Shadow continues posting these results, it will definitely have something like wraith/bauble banned.
I'm not saying Shadow, at this moment, deserves a ban, only if it keeps posting crazy good results like it has the past few weeks. If that happens, Eldrazi decks, Tron decks, and Titanshift decks will oppress the format, I was seeing it happen at my LGS, and I was also seeing it happen at Red Cap in Philly, which I think is a pretty cut-throat store full of modern players.
Brisbane was rife with ramp decks, and we were seeing large numbers of it at Vancouver, until Team Channelfireball wrecked kids.
Also, isn't it too obvious that the best Preordain deck would be a combo deck?. I mean, you might like combo decks and all, but that's not the direction WOTC wants Modern to be headed. After Ad Nauseam's strong performances over the years, UR Storm still on its legs, and Griselbrand making some waves, i think everybody should agree that banned blue cantrips have a grave in Modern UNLESS the direction of the format changes.
It isn't obvious at all lol. Ad Nauseam's strong performances over the years? Don't make everyone laugh pls. It has always been a fringe deck, which never raised above tier 2. Just look at the current metagame:
Fast decks, big mana decks and green-based decks with Ancient Stirrings and Traverse the Ulvenwald as premium card selection. Where are reactive decks? Where is combo? I'll show:
Now tell me, you definitely believe that unbanning of the cantrip which is a bit better than Serum Visions will push these decks over the top? And another question to everyone: are you sure that exactly Jace himself will help blue to combat those top tier strategies? I have serious doubts.
MTGGoldfish is not a reliable source of accurate Metagame info, they've constantly got duplicate listings of the same decks, and/or have the same decks divided across multi listings, both of which result in rather inaccurate or misleading info.
Why would Jace, The Mind Sculptor push everyone out of BGx? For once, I think U based control decks are supposed to at least have a 50-50 if not favorable MU against Jund like strategies, because they are doing similar thing but slightly bigger, with more value. It would only make sense to have BGx decks with a 50-50 MU against more or less everyone, control being slightly bigger and Tron being much bigger. All these strategies have other strategies which punish them and that is fine.
I see people saying it is Splinter Twin or bust. ST is NOT a way to fix blue based control decks because it doesn't fix the fundamental problem which is that blue cards are just not good enough besides snapcaster mage. The reason ST decks worked was because of the threat to die if you ever tapped out, not because it was able to play an excellent control game. On the contrary, ST would lose to control decks, exactly because it couldn't play that game. It had enough tools to slow aggro decks and win by T4 and enough end-the-game potential to threated BGx. These are all fine things, but are not related to the level of blue. Unbanning ST will do nothing to solve Us issues, it will just create a blue based combo deck on T1 and none will be playing control still.
Jace, The Mind Sculptor on the other hand actually GIVES blue decks a way to close the game, in color, and fight the long game they are supposed to be able to fight. We all saw the grixis control matches at the latest events (and many of us experience it week in week out). There was almost no way to capitalize to gained value because there was no proper way to close the game. It always seemed a path to exile away for the opposing decks to destroy grixis' massive lead. JTMS will help tri-colored U based decks have a decent win condition which plays along with their game plan. In what way does that make things linear?
Jace doesn't solve anything
Were you not watching that one game against Eldrazi in the top 8 last weekend? He had all those cards in his hands, if he dropped Jace at any point it wouldn't have solved anything
And the Grixis player who list to Majors in the semi-finals? Well, he beat himself, he shouldn't have dropped the EE period, but when he chose to drop EE, he punted so incredibly hard I thought he was ******* Janikowski
Jace doesn't solve anything against aggro, I don't think it'd help against Death Shadow Zoo, although I do think it would make Jund a tier 2 deck (Junk could possibly handle it), and Titanshift, Scapeshift, Bloom Titan, Tron, Bant Eldrazi, Eldrazi Tron would absolutely laugh at it.
I truly, truly think Twin needs to come back. Blue needs a win con, you can't keep doing fair things in modern. I am convinced at this point that even something like counterspell isn't good enough.
If we see DS Shadow eat a ban, I really think ramp decks will be the best archetype in the format, and then people will demand for things like Temple to be banned, then something like Ancient Stirrings
Unban Twin and I think we will prevent a large amount of possible future bans
if death shadow eats a ban, i think that it would be the last nail in the coffin, i mean, i see shadow jund like bant eldrazi, they are really efficient "midrange" decks that can race non interactive decks with raw power (a common complain about modern is the power of non interactive strategies). You just cant ban things because they are good decks. It's like the old cardboard crack comic when the people were cheering for their deck to lose at the pro tour afraid of bannings
If Death Shadow keeps getting all these top 8s, it's a reasonable ban. It has to keep doing that for a while though, on a consistent basis, or warp the entire meta to unhealthy levels.
I think the fact it's interactive and helps police some of these non-interactive decks is something WOTC likes, but they won't allow a deck that keeps winning to stay legal. Besides for monopolizing blue, WOTC stated that Twin got top 8's too consistently in too many tournaments in their data.
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While I think it's unfair to say bans never help, it's blatantly wrong and/or misleading to say that these bans were to stop the "unfun factor". Dredge was banned due to the severe sideboard issues and the rest of the bans you listed were to stop decks breaking the Turn 4 rule, which is a far less subjective criteria than the "fun" or "fair" factor you've mentioned in the last few posts, neither of which should ever come up in a serious discussion about bans in Modern due to how subjective they are.
In my opinion, all the bans did help Modern in my opinion (even Twin, if only to show just how bad all the other Blue-based strategies were), but bans only help by potentially gutting decks that are either too fast or too prevalent. Attempting to use bans to shape the meta in a way such that deck A/play style A is stronger is nearly impossible because of how hard it is to accurately predict what fills the void after removing the biggest power(s). I believe the Twin ban speaks volumes about what happens when you try and gut a deck to power up other decks
Modern:
UWUW Control
UBRGrixis Shadow
URIzzet Phoenix
So any deck that has a good Jund matchup is anti-fair and deserves to be banned? At least you're open about your bias.
Did God descend from the clouds and hand us a stone tablet that reads YE AND JUNDE SHALL HAVE A FIFTY-FIFTY MATCHUP AGAINST ALL OF YE FIELD OF MODERNE?
some of the bans have probably (definitely) not been good things, I honestly disagree with most of the bans since the original list and some of them. I am pretty radical in terms of the cards I want unbanned, there are solidly 14 that would come off tomorrow if it were my call, but some of them I feel had to be banned just because without literal FoW they would just be too busted and would ruin the diversity of the format. the biggest for me are the Storm cards and Jitte. I have played against NBL Storm, and that was incredibly unpleasant. I tried half a dozen decks in every archetype and never felt like i had a chance, the deck is just entirely too powerful. Jitte isn't as bad, but it does make Zoo-type decks too powerful, they are supposed to run out of steam and it gives them a long game better than anything that isn't running Jitte or named Tron. I agree with you that most of the recent bans especially (from BBE on) minus Bloom were not needed, but it isn't even about bannings helping Modern stay healthy, it couldn't existas a format with some of the more busted decks and cards
Also, isn't it too obvious that the best Preordain deck would be a combo deck?. I mean, you might like combo decks and all, but that's not the direction WOTC wants Modern to be headed. After Ad Nauseam's strong performances over the years, UR Storm still on its legs, and Griselbrand making some waves, i think everybody should agree that banned blue cantrips have a grave in Modern UNLESS the direction of the format changes.
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!
Spirits
Restricting information will never have the desired effect that people pushing for it think it will. People will still be able to get decklists from SCG/GPs/etc. , so the people who are inclined to just copy will still just copy. However, it's harder for people who want to attack the meta to do so effectively with less information, which usually means that a meta stays "solved" instead.
That's your takeaway from the data? Yikes. Seems like a pretty selective and narrow reading.
Banning Eldrazi Temple makes absolutely no sense. For the twentieth time; the only decks struggling with Eldrazi decks are reactive blue ones. Everyone else is doing just fine. Clearly the problem is with the reactive blue cards themselves, not everything else around those cards. The solution is to improve the reactive blue decks.
There continues to be a tiny subset of players in this thread and the community at large that just want to ban everything they personally deem unfair and unfun. These players typically play a small selection of traditionally fair decks that they feel should have 50-50 matchups across the board. They also have very narrow definitions about what is fun, fair, and appropriate for Magic. Quite honestly, these players shouldn't play Modern. Not every format can appeal to every person, and Modern is clearly in the direction of a format where these strategies are appropriate and part of the game.
Jund dumps on a lot of unfair decks and loses hard to many fair decks; I'm rather confused by this statement, and whatever point it's attempting to make.
"There haven't been any decisions, and I'm not going to tease results. We have a good communication policy for these things."
Which means the mailboy is still throwing darts at a spinning wheel zoned out ban/unban on it.
In all seriousness, it would be cool to see what that process was and how they arrived at their conclusion.
David Ochoa: "Mono-bacon!..."
you can't make statements like that. it's too reductive & not helpful for discussion. you are exaggerating your opinion for effect but it just makes your argument untenable.
looking back at modern over the years, it's predominantly been the "GBx format", with Jund often being the unquestionable best deck in the format (or Abzan, they switch occasionally). even taking a current snapshot, we've got midrange decks like Bant Eldrazi and Shadow Jund seeing an uptick right now. close on their heels are Abzan, Abzan Company, Grixis Control (doing well currently), and a whole slew of others.
Modern is diverse. you can't just select one kind of deck you don't particularly like very much, form a biased opinion and then make a bizarre logical leap to where the whole format is just unfair decks, because it simply isn't the case.
i'm not saying unfair decks don't exist - obviously it's one facet to Modern, but it's not the defining characteristic as you have tried to assert.
Blasphemy. As a Bogles player, I take offense to these accusations. I don't want everything that's unfair/unfun banned, just Back to Nature, Nature's Claim, chalice of the void, Simian Spirit Guide, Mox Opal, Infect mechanic altogether, and every combo that can win before turn 4. I really don't think that's asking for much, ya?
/sarcasm
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
The other issue is that Reactive Blue can stumble hard. As in, you think the coasts are clear for you to tap out and play a threat, only for your opponent to go off in the turn after. Following Turn 2/3, Reactive Blue has to always hold up Mana for the Answers, because is they don't then they can automatically lose. You tap out against Abzan Company on turn 4 to resolve a Verdict, when they've got nothing on board but 4 lands and they can go "End Step Chord for Viscera Seer, My turn CoCo for any combo pieces."
Hell, I'd be fine if we got something like "Anguished Banishment 2UU"
You may Exile a blue card and pay 3 life to cast this without paying it's Mana Cost
Counter Target Spell unless it's controller pays 3.
I see people saying it is Splinter Twin or bust. ST is NOT a way to fix blue based control decks because it doesn't fix the fundamental problem which is that blue cards are just not good enough besides snapcaster mage. The reason ST decks worked was because of the threat to die if you ever tapped out, not because it was able to play an excellent control game. On the contrary, ST would lose to control decks, exactly because it couldn't play that game. It had enough tools to slow aggro decks and win by T4 and enough end-the-game potential to threated BGx. These are all fine things, but are not related to the level of blue. Unbanning ST will do nothing to solve Us issues, it will just create a blue based combo deck on T1 and none will be playing control still.
Jace, The Mind Sculptor on the other hand actually GIVES blue decks a way to close the game, in color, and fight the long game they are supposed to be able to fight. We all saw the grixis control matches at the latest events (and many of us experience it week in week out). There was almost no way to capitalize to gained value because there was no proper way to close the game. It always seemed a path to exile away for the opposing decks to destroy grixis' massive lead. JTMS will help tri-colored U based decks have a decent win condition which plays along with their game plan. In what way does that make things linear?
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
Three pro players kick ass at a GP and EVERYONE IS LEAVING JUND, do get a grip.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
It isn't obvious at all lol. Ad Nauseam's strong performances over the years? Don't make everyone laugh pls. It has always been a fringe deck, which never raised above tier 2. Just look at the current metagame:
I'm so sorry I only addressed one of your panicked claims.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Yes blue has late game cards but that's not the kind of blue people are trying to play I went 7-2 yesterday with u/r skred mostly killing with blue creatures so....
Why on earth would I play a turn 4 Huntmaster/Kalitas, when I turn 4 I could play a 6/7 for 2 mana, or 2 10/10's for 1 mana a piece?
DS is too efficient, I can kill things at 4 mana or less with fatal push, on turn 4 I could play a LOTV/K-Command and drop a giant 1 mana body. My Goyfs are huge and now just 4/5's
Like, seriously, if you are not playing DS Shadow, you're being stubborn and too attached. I would usually say, "but that costs a little money", but that argument goes out the window for anyone who owns a fully stock jund deck, the shadow pieces did not cost THAT much money.
Modern is definitely becoming a format of, "why do fair things?" Why should I play regular jund when Death Shadow is a thing? I expect Jund and Junk both to hit 2% on mtgo if DS continues to stay legal.
Now, what scares me is Jessup writing a recent article, which is mainly a garbage, nonsense article, but it scared me when he wrote that he thinks DS Shadow Jund is better than infect ever was, and let's face it, he was the face of Infect in modern.
I'm kind of caught in an awkward position, I think DS Shadow can help regulate all these ridiculous ramp/tron decks, which like it or not, is becoming HUGE in this format since the probe ban, but at the same time, if DS Shadow continues posting these results, it will definitely have something like wraith/bauble banned.
I'm not saying Shadow, at this moment, deserves a ban, only if it keeps posting crazy good results like it has the past few weeks. If that happens, Eldrazi decks, Tron decks, and Titanshift decks will oppress the format, I was seeing it happen at my LGS, and I was also seeing it happen at Red Cap in Philly, which I think is a pretty cut-throat store full of modern players.
Brisbane was rife with ramp decks, and we were seeing large numbers of it at Vancouver, until Team Channelfireball wrecked kids.
MTGGoldfish is not a reliable source of accurate Metagame info, they've constantly got duplicate listings of the same decks, and/or have the same decks divided across multi listings, both of which result in rather inaccurate or misleading info.
Jace doesn't solve anything
Were you not watching that one game against Eldrazi in the top 8 last weekend? He had all those cards in his hands, if he dropped Jace at any point it wouldn't have solved anything
And the Grixis player who list to Majors in the semi-finals? Well, he beat himself, he shouldn't have dropped the EE period, but when he chose to drop EE, he punted so incredibly hard I thought he was ******* Janikowski
Jace doesn't solve anything against aggro, I don't think it'd help against Death Shadow Zoo, although I do think it would make Jund a tier 2 deck (Junk could possibly handle it), and Titanshift, Scapeshift, Bloom Titan, Tron, Bant Eldrazi, Eldrazi Tron would absolutely laugh at it.
I truly, truly think Twin needs to come back. Blue needs a win con, you can't keep doing fair things in modern. I am convinced at this point that even something like counterspell isn't good enough.
If we see DS Shadow eat a ban, I really think ramp decks will be the best archetype in the format, and then people will demand for things like Temple to be banned, then something like Ancient Stirrings
Unban Twin and I think we will prevent a large amount of possible future bans
I think the fact it's interactive and helps police some of these non-interactive decks is something WOTC likes, but they won't allow a deck that keeps winning to stay legal. Besides for monopolizing blue, WOTC stated that Twin got top 8's too consistently in too many tournaments in their data.