Just for the record no one was calling for a humans ban. Someone said it might be the best deck in the format, and I pondered what a humans ban if it were warranted might even look like since it's such a weird deck.
It's easy to jump in on a discussion and assume banmania but it was a pretty measured discussion about envisioning what such a ban might look like if it were necessary--so far as I know they have never banned a hatebear and so it was an interesting thought exercise.
I don't know how others define ban mania, so I won't speak for them. For me, ban mania has always been: framing an issue in terms of bans when ban talk isn't warranted by any known Wizards metric. Jumping from one user opining "Humans might be the best deck" (reasonable) to "what would a Humans ban look like?" (why discuss this?) makes a number of assumptions that are all fundamentally ban mania-driven. I am of the opinion that we should reserve ban discussion only for demonstrable format issues under known Wizards criteria with objective evidence supporting those claims. Humans is not a demonstrable issue by any measure, doesn't meet any of the known Wizards criteria, and none of the ban talk has any objective/evidentiary basis. The very existence of Modern ban mania is what makes inquiries like that okay in the first place to many users. Bans beget bans beget ban mania, and that's what has happened in Modern discussion.
You are well and truly entitled to your opinion but I don't think the thing this forum needs is less discussion. Considering things from the angle of "What would be banned if this deck proved to be a problem?" has been useful to me in the past and I'm sure some people like to think about it. Anticipating what Wizards might ban (or unban) is one of the reasons I come here.
Personally, I just picked up humans and have found it pretty interesting--I do think it could easily prove to be too much of a 50/50 deck which we know is a problem (see Twin) in Wizards' eyes. Yes, it's way too early to be *calling for* a ban, but anticipating it is how I keep from losing my shirt on decks (I outed all my extraneous Bloom stuff for example and avoided buying in on the remainder of the deck).
The discussion was fairly productive honestly, with people offering some pretty good guesses as to what might be viewed by wizards as problem cards in Humans.
What I meant when I gave the overly verbose spiel was that people hate seeing their decks banned.
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Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
well as far as i know no comprehensive set of criteria has ever been established nor widely accepted by the community. its partially the reason ban mania exists.
over the years wotc has given only limited glimpses into their reasoning, both with B&R announcements themselves and in other instances when they talked about the format. everything else has been a process of extrapolation, ultimately making it the subject of continued debate even to this day.
i remember the discussions back when the series of high profile bans happened. there were definitely some clear cut cases, but a lot of it revolved around 2 central questions:
-what constitutes actually breaking the 'turn 4' rule?
well obviously they arent banning everything that can possibly win before turn 4. does it mean outright winning the game? or just gaining an insurmountable advantage? how consistently does a deck need to be able to do this?
-what is the threshold for a deck going from a good tier 1 option to too good?
metagame percentage? day 2 appearances? top 8 appearances? number of tournament wins? GPs and Pro-tours only, or does other stuff count?
hell ktkenshinx i specifically remember you expressing no small amount of shock and confusion when twin was banned. it didnt meet the criteria for any bans before it, and wasnt outpacing other tier 1 decks in metagame share. then add on top of this the stigma about forced rotations for the pro-tour. which is why many of us breathed a collective sigh of relief when modern was no longer going to be a pro-tour format. guess what, even that has changed again.
even with that we absorbed the blow with twin and try to look wise in hindsight saying things like "ah yes. the twin ban was a foregone conclusion. it was obviously hurting the diversity of the format. it just had to go."
so while logically you have a point with statements like "if it was acceptable during X-Y period, then it should be acceptable now." im not sure if its safe to assume anything about what wotc might do.
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well as far as i know no comprehensive set of criteria has ever been established nor widely accepted by the community. its partially the reason ban mania exists.
It's really not that unclear. This is why many people were able to predict "no changes" for all of the last year when everyone else clamored for bans every announcement. We don't need Wizards' exact criteria to predict bans. I don't even think they have exact criteria. We just need to compare previous cases and previous periods of "no changes" to the current metagame. In most cases, this produces accurate predictions. Also in most cases, these produce decisive arguments against the endless talk of "what do we ban in Deck X."
hell ktkenshinx i specifically remember you expressing no small amount of shock and confusion when twin was banned. it didnt meet the criteria for any bans before it, and wasnt outpacing other tier 1 decks in metagame share. then add on top of this the stigma about forced rotations for the pro-tour. which is why many of us breathed a collective sigh of relief when modern was no longer going to be a pro-tour format. guess what, even that has changed again.
I admit being totally surprised by the Twin ban. Given that almost everyone (everyone?) was surprised by that ban, I'm okay writing that one off as a missed prediction. But one major wrench in our understanding of bans does not mean we need to assume bans are always around the corner and all bans are totally opaque.
By a similar token, there are SO MANY TOPICS we can be discussing in this thread. Unbans, reprints, new cards, metagame diversity, identifying best decks (through good methods), attendance, definitions of fair/unfair/interactive/noninteractive, etc. This is especially true given the health of the format and Wizards extremely clear position that the format is healthy. I just do not understand how in this healthy period of Modern we are still talking about banning cards. It's clinical ban mania. People are injecting ban talk when no ban talk is warranted because they have been heavily conditioned to frame/think about things in terms of bans. It's only an interesting thought experiment to some people because the ban mania culture is so heavily entrenched in Modern. This is a norm we need to challenge and not participate in.
yeah i can agree with that. a couple cases of illogical things happening doesnt mean logic is useless. humans ban talk is most definitely jumping the gun, even if people are only posing it as a hypothetical. i would still consider it in the honeymoon stage, and people sure love new things.
moving forward - what do people think about hollow one? not about it being too good or whatever, but what decks are poised to capitalize if it becomes more popular? does it supplant dredge as the GY strategy of choice?
does dredge have a good hollow one matchup? thatd be some irony.
i know one things for sure, grave hate is going to be on the rise.
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Twin was banned for a new addition to the list. No other ban matched it, and we STILL simply have to guess that it was because it was a 50/50 deck.
we don't have to guess anything. if not for the PT, Twin would still be alive and well.
But there's no ban criteria that says the most played deck on the Pro Tour will be banned. Pros test in large teams, so there's always going to be something that they gravitate towards. Yes, there will be meta calls in the "warped" Pro Tour metagame, but overall there are simply going to be some decks that Pro Players gravitate towards.
I'm always surprised that more Pros don't run Affinity, but I think it's mostly because the best of 5 allows for 4 games of sideboarding and that's too risky for a super quick linear deck that has vulnerabilities.
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Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
pros gravitate toward safe choices. outside of the few that work to become specialists.
it isnt difficult to see why they prefer when the set of safe decks is smaller and more clearly defined. standard can be an absolute dumster fire with temur energy, but pros ate it up because the mirror was pretty intricate in its own right. the same was true for caw blade standard.
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Dredge probably has quite a bit of game against Hollow One, but I don't think it can match the explosiveness. Dredge is probably more resilient, and more consistent, but it won't blow people out like Hollow One can. It'd be a great matchup to see. I actually haven't faced Dredge in quite some time, the players in my local meta moved on from it months ago. There's two guys locally that play Hollow One, so I see it regularly. Remand has tons of game against that deck, as well as almost any kind of recursion. My personal favorite is Cyclonic Rift, but objectively Echoing Truth is the better choice.
I'm always surprised that more Pros don't run Affinity, but I think it's mostly because the best of 5 allows for 4 games of sideboarding and that's too risky for a super quick linear deck that has vulnerabilities.
You know what's weird right now? Eldrazi don't seem to be a dominant option. I mean yeah they can spike an event due to the sheer power of turn 2-3 TKS, but I'm looking at meta numbers right now on goldfish and eldrazi tron is the first one to appear at #12. Granted the difference between the top deck of jund and that is under three percentage points, but it is still interesting to note that they appear to have been supplanted by hollow one and humans for aggro options and regular green tron for ramp.
Do eldrazi have really bad matchups against the new meta or are people just sleeping on them playing with new toys like BBE, Jace and human tribal?
Twin was banned for a new addition to the list. No other ban matched it, and we STILL simply have to guess that it was because it was a 50/50 deck.
we don't have to guess anything. if not for the PT, Twin would still be alive and well.
But there's no ban criteria that says the most played deck on the Pro Tour will be banned. Pros test in large teams, so there's always going to be something that they gravitate towards. Yes, there will be meta calls in the "warped" Pro Tour metagame, but overall there are simply going to be some decks that Pro Players gravitate towards.
The image of the PT was enough to get them to look for (or flat-out make up) enough reasons to justify a ban. Even if nearly all of the goals and desired outcomes stated were laughably incorrect or ineffective.
It was about image. A month earlier, Twin took three T8 spots in a GP; never mind that it was a reaction to Summer Bloom. But the optics of the GP (which was nearly universally heralded as a wondrous display of format health) as it lead into a PT (in addition to hoping/wanting Eldrazi to have an impact on the Modern), likely tipped the scales in favor of a ban.
Twin was banned for a new addition to the list. No other ban matched it, and we STILL simply have to guess that it was because it was a 50/50 deck.
we don't have to guess anything. if not for the PT, Twin would still be alive and well.
But there's no ban criteria that says the most played deck on the Pro Tour will be banned. Pros test in large teams, so there's always going to be something that they gravitate towards. Yes, there will be meta calls in the "warped" Pro Tour metagame, but overall there are simply going to be some decks that Pro Players gravitate towards.
I'm always surprised that more Pros don't run Affinity, but I think it's mostly because the best of 5 allows for 4 games of sideboarding and that's too risky for a super quick linear deck that has vulnerabilities.
there is no criteria for that because Modern would die immediately if they said it. Wizards knew it would be the most played deck because it was powerful and fun, and they didn't want it to be predictable. it's like Kaladesh, Amonkhet block was gonna suck, so they banned Kaladesh cards to make sure the new ones would be played. rotation at any cost.
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Twin was banned for a new addition to the list. No other ban matched it, and we STILL simply have to guess that it was because it was a 50/50 deck.
I disagree with Tronix and idSurge comes closer. If you had said it din't "match" other bans before it then I could agree. But to say it didn't "meet the criteria" for any bans before it is something we don't have enough information to justify. We knew that DRS Jund and Pod and TC Delver had too high a meta share - and Eldrazi of course, after Twin - but we never knew, and still don't know, the exact metrics used or the full bracket. We know if something gets to 20% and higher it's a problem. But we don't know the floor there. Is 14% also a problem? 14% of certain categories? Twin could have met that criteria simply because we don't know that floor.
Meh, I'm not doing this. Could have been. In the end it was for 'competitive diversity' and in 2 years, it finally accomplished its goal so...ok.
This is true and I'm sorry for bringing it up. (It was my fault and I'll take a warning or even infraction for it.)
My point was essentially this - nobody, and I mean not a single person in the whole world, has predicted every single ban and unban (with the exact day that it was banned or unbanned). Talking about it is a solid exercise because it helps give people who don't want to be stuck with a banned deck (like me with Cat Combo and Marvel in Standard) some options. I wish that when the announcement that didn't ban Cat Combo came out, I sold the deck, expecting it to be emergency banned 2 days later. But, I guess I was stupid for not doing so...
The reason why I say this is that it seemed that ktkenshinx alluded to every ban being expected. This brings back memories of people who lost out because of a ban and others here basically calling them "stupid" for keeping the deck.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
One example I'll give is Amulet bloom. Lots of people suspected Amulet of Vigor or Ancient Stirrings could potentially get the ban there, not summer bloom.
Anticipating what cards Wizards will ban when they do is a very useful exercise IMHO.
Twin was another good one; they could easily have banned Deceiver Exarch to incrementally weaken the deck, and many folks anticipated that as well.
Many people expect a ban, but it's difficult to predict what exactly will be banned.
If that's Ban Mania then whatever. I'm a Ban Maniac I guess.
I'm also an Unban maniac and would love to have an actual serious discussion on Green Sun's Zenith at some point instead of the old talking points.
I'm also an Unban maniac and would love to have an actual serious discussion on Green Sun's Zenith at some point instead of the old talking points.
Admittedly, I am an Unban maniac too and I think Green Sun's Zenith is fine. It has been fine for a while now and possibly shouldn't have even been banned. However, it is a consistency tool (similar to Preordain, which I think could also be unbanned just by power level) and Wizards doesn't want those in Modern. That takes away the variance too much and better players will win more often than they do. It could even get to the point where every decision matters, so some Modern players could easily have a 90% win percentage at their local LGS, whereas nowadays with variance (outside of cheating), I don't see it happening.
People say that "every Green deck will play it." That's not quite right. These are the decks that are contenders to play the card - Bogles, Titanshift, and Elves. All of these decks are considered for the most part Tier 2 or lower by many Modern players. I honestly think Elves is what gets pushed the most (but people also have to realize that GSZ can't get something like Deathrite Shaman because it's not legal in Modern). I don't think it pushes any of these decks too far. I actually think it could make Elves Tier 1, but is that such a bad thing?
I hope people read Green Sun's Zenith and Chord of Calling. Some people believe that GSZ is strictly better, which it certainly is not. It is a Sorcery. Yes, it cost 2 less, but it doesn't have Convoke. Chord can also get NON-GREEN creatures. That is a much bigger tool box. If I have to name every non-Green creature that is played in Modern, it is an exercise in futility.
All in all, Green Sun's Zenith is fine in my opinion. I respect others' opinions as well, but I just want to at least give the reasons why I think that it should be unbanned. If I argue with someone, it's only because I believe that the card is fine.
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Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
WOTC seems to be really happy with modern, to the point that they were willing to unban two cards acknowledging that one never got to testing and the other "died for DRS sins." A lot of people like myself concur, and modern events routinely get massive views. The Pro Tour this year was a rousing success.
Even pro player ********s who naysay the format because they can't try to metagame a deck with a 60% line against the entire field were generally happy about the event.
Like...we JUST got those back, and this thread has several people who aren't even willing to let the dust settle before talking about GSZ, SFM, and continue complaints about twin. If somebody talked about an ex gf the way twin is discussed here we'd have people being labeled stalkers lol.
Is there any reason we can't discuss the current meta, and how to adapt and evolve to maintain a competitive edge? Or is this solely ban/unban talk?
Well crap I guess we can't talk about anything. No discussion of unbans because we haven't let the dust settle, no discussion of bans because it's ban mania.
Is there any reason we can't discuss the current meta, and how to adapt and evolve to maintain a competitive edge? Or is this solely ban/unban talk?
Many players have been doing that for years; adapting and evolving; and implying they aren't is basically calling them lazy. Many of these players are trying to rebuild after one or more of their decks have received bans, and it can be extremely difficult to "evolve to maintain a competitive edge" when critical pieces are either stripped away or refused to be printed. It's really nice when some of those decks get new toys or reunited with old ones, which is why that is a continued point of discussion here.
I have found if someone wants to move discussion on a forum, they are better off actually moving the discussion in the direction they prefer instead of saying why can't we go back to the good old days.
yeah i say we lay the mangled body of this dead horse to rest. bans in the past, and somewhat random unbans when the metagame we are in is still in its formative stages are just dead end topics. only so many ways you can repeat the same thing.
we have 2 relatively new powerful decks in humans and hollow one carving their own place in the format, two major unbans that people have still yet to fully process, and a new set on the horizon that will at the very least bring a serious hate card against two of the most popular decks in the format: storm and tron.
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You are well and truly entitled to your opinion but I don't think the thing this forum needs is less discussion. Considering things from the angle of "What would be banned if this deck proved to be a problem?" has been useful to me in the past and I'm sure some people like to think about it. Anticipating what Wizards might ban (or unban) is one of the reasons I come here.
Personally, I just picked up humans and have found it pretty interesting--I do think it could easily prove to be too much of a 50/50 deck which we know is a problem (see Twin) in Wizards' eyes. Yes, it's way too early to be *calling for* a ban, but anticipating it is how I keep from losing my shirt on decks (I outed all my extraneous Bloom stuff for example and avoided buying in on the remainder of the deck).
The discussion was fairly productive honestly, with people offering some pretty good guesses as to what might be viewed by wizards as problem cards in Humans.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)over the years wotc has given only limited glimpses into their reasoning, both with B&R announcements themselves and in other instances when they talked about the format. everything else has been a process of extrapolation, ultimately making it the subject of continued debate even to this day.
i remember the discussions back when the series of high profile bans happened. there were definitely some clear cut cases, but a lot of it revolved around 2 central questions:
-what constitutes actually breaking the 'turn 4' rule?
well obviously they arent banning everything that can possibly win before turn 4. does it mean outright winning the game? or just gaining an insurmountable advantage? how consistently does a deck need to be able to do this?
-what is the threshold for a deck going from a good tier 1 option to too good?
metagame percentage? day 2 appearances? top 8 appearances? number of tournament wins? GPs and Pro-tours only, or does other stuff count?
hell ktkenshinx i specifically remember you expressing no small amount of shock and confusion when twin was banned. it didnt meet the criteria for any bans before it, and wasnt outpacing other tier 1 decks in metagame share. then add on top of this the stigma about forced rotations for the pro-tour. which is why many of us breathed a collective sigh of relief when modern was no longer going to be a pro-tour format. guess what, even that has changed again.
even with that we absorbed the blow with twin and try to look wise in hindsight saying things like "ah yes. the twin ban was a foregone conclusion. it was obviously hurting the diversity of the format. it just had to go."
so while logically you have a point with statements like "if it was acceptable during X-Y period, then it should be acceptable now." im not sure if its safe to assume anything about what wotc might do.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
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we don't have to guess anything. if not for the PT, Twin would still be alive and well.
It's really not that unclear. This is why many people were able to predict "no changes" for all of the last year when everyone else clamored for bans every announcement. We don't need Wizards' exact criteria to predict bans. I don't even think they have exact criteria. We just need to compare previous cases and previous periods of "no changes" to the current metagame. In most cases, this produces accurate predictions. Also in most cases, these produce decisive arguments against the endless talk of "what do we ban in Deck X."
I admit being totally surprised by the Twin ban. Given that almost everyone (everyone?) was surprised by that ban, I'm okay writing that one off as a missed prediction. But one major wrench in our understanding of bans does not mean we need to assume bans are always around the corner and all bans are totally opaque.
By a similar token, there are SO MANY TOPICS we can be discussing in this thread. Unbans, reprints, new cards, metagame diversity, identifying best decks (through good methods), attendance, definitions of fair/unfair/interactive/noninteractive, etc. This is especially true given the health of the format and Wizards extremely clear position that the format is healthy. I just do not understand how in this healthy period of Modern we are still talking about banning cards. It's clinical ban mania. People are injecting ban talk when no ban talk is warranted because they have been heavily conditioned to frame/think about things in terms of bans. It's only an interesting thought experiment to some people because the ban mania culture is so heavily entrenched in Modern. This is a norm we need to challenge and not participate in.
moving forward - what do people think about hollow one? not about it being too good or whatever, but what decks are poised to capitalize if it becomes more popular? does it supplant dredge as the GY strategy of choice?
does dredge have a good hollow one matchup? thatd be some irony.
i know one things for sure, grave hate is going to be on the rise.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)But there's no ban criteria that says the most played deck on the Pro Tour will be banned. Pros test in large teams, so there's always going to be something that they gravitate towards. Yes, there will be meta calls in the "warped" Pro Tour metagame, but overall there are simply going to be some decks that Pro Players gravitate towards.
I'm always surprised that more Pros don't run Affinity, but I think it's mostly because the best of 5 allows for 4 games of sideboarding and that's too risky for a super quick linear deck that has vulnerabilities.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)it isnt difficult to see why they prefer when the set of safe decks is smaller and more clearly defined. standard can be an absolute dumster fire with temur energy, but pros ate it up because the mirror was pretty intricate in its own right. the same was true for caw blade standard.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Just for clarity: When the match is "best of 5" there are always 2 match pre side and up to 3 post side.
Modern:
Do eldrazi have really bad matchups against the new meta or are people just sleeping on them playing with new toys like BBE, Jace and human tribal?
The image of the PT was enough to get them to look for (or flat-out make up) enough reasons to justify a ban. Even if nearly all of the goals and desired outcomes stated were laughably incorrect or ineffective.
It was about image. A month earlier, Twin took three T8 spots in a GP; never mind that it was a reaction to Summer Bloom. But the optics of the GP (which was nearly universally heralded as a wondrous display of format health) as it lead into a PT (in addition to hoping/wanting Eldrazi to have an impact on the Modern), likely tipped the scales in favor of a ban.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
there is no criteria for that because Modern would die immediately if they said it. Wizards knew it would be the most played deck because it was powerful and fun, and they didn't want it to be predictable. it's like Kaladesh, Amonkhet block was gonna suck, so they banned Kaladesh cards to make sure the new ones would be played. rotation at any cost.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Spirits
And that had nothing to do with Twin, and nearly everything to do with new printings, other B&R changes, and meta shifts. So...
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
This is true and I'm sorry for bringing it up. (It was my fault and I'll take a warning or even infraction for it.)
My point was essentially this - nobody, and I mean not a single person in the whole world, has predicted every single ban and unban (with the exact day that it was banned or unbanned). Talking about it is a solid exercise because it helps give people who don't want to be stuck with a banned deck (like me with Cat Combo and Marvel in Standard) some options. I wish that when the announcement that didn't ban Cat Combo came out, I sold the deck, expecting it to be emergency banned 2 days later. But, I guess I was stupid for not doing so...
The reason why I say this is that it seemed that ktkenshinx alluded to every ban being expected. This brings back memories of people who lost out because of a ban and others here basically calling them "stupid" for keeping the deck.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Anticipating what cards Wizards will ban when they do is a very useful exercise IMHO.
Twin was another good one; they could easily have banned Deceiver Exarch to incrementally weaken the deck, and many folks anticipated that as well.
Many people expect a ban, but it's difficult to predict what exactly will be banned.
If that's Ban Mania then whatever. I'm a Ban Maniac I guess.
I'm also an Unban maniac and would love to have an actual serious discussion on Green Sun's Zenith at some point instead of the old talking points.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Admittedly, I am an Unban maniac too and I think Green Sun's Zenith is fine. It has been fine for a while now and possibly shouldn't have even been banned. However, it is a consistency tool (similar to Preordain, which I think could also be unbanned just by power level) and Wizards doesn't want those in Modern. That takes away the variance too much and better players will win more often than they do. It could even get to the point where every decision matters, so some Modern players could easily have a 90% win percentage at their local LGS, whereas nowadays with variance (outside of cheating), I don't see it happening.
People say that "every Green deck will play it." That's not quite right. These are the decks that are contenders to play the card - Bogles, Titanshift, and Elves. All of these decks are considered for the most part Tier 2 or lower by many Modern players. I honestly think Elves is what gets pushed the most (but people also have to realize that GSZ can't get something like Deathrite Shaman because it's not legal in Modern). I don't think it pushes any of these decks too far. I actually think it could make Elves Tier 1, but is that such a bad thing?
I hope people read Green Sun's Zenith and Chord of Calling. Some people believe that GSZ is strictly better, which it certainly is not. It is a Sorcery. Yes, it cost 2 less, but it doesn't have Convoke. Chord can also get NON-GREEN creatures. That is a much bigger tool box. If I have to name every non-Green creature that is played in Modern, it is an exercise in futility.
All in all, Green Sun's Zenith is fine in my opinion. I respect others' opinions as well, but I just want to at least give the reasons why I think that it should be unbanned. If I argue with someone, it's only because I believe that the card is fine.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Even pro player ********s who naysay the format because they can't try to metagame a deck with a 60% line against the entire field were generally happy about the event.
Like...we JUST got those back, and this thread has several people who aren't even willing to let the dust settle before talking about GSZ, SFM, and continue complaints about twin. If somebody talked about an ex gf the way twin is discussed here we'd have people being labeled stalkers lol.
Is there any reason we can't discuss the current meta, and how to adapt and evolve to maintain a competitive edge? Or is this solely ban/unban talk?
I'll see myself out.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Many players have been doing that for years; adapting and evolving; and implying they aren't is basically calling them lazy. Many of these players are trying to rebuild after one or more of their decks have received bans, and it can be extremely difficult to "evolve to maintain a competitive edge" when critical pieces are either stripped away or refused to be printed. It's really nice when some of those decks get new toys or reunited with old ones, which is why that is a continued point of discussion here.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
we have 2 relatively new powerful decks in humans and hollow one carving their own place in the format, two major unbans that people have still yet to fully process, and a new set on the horizon that will at the very least bring a serious hate card against two of the most popular decks in the format: storm and tron.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)