Sounds like you're just defining interaction to be what you want it to be my dude. Interaction is a broad term as I've been saying recently all players are equal. A well built prison deck is interaction, you have to guess what you're opponent is going to show up with and what they have and proactively interact with it.
I would add a correction to that definition for the red zone. A creature cards that beats but can be blocked should have a higher score than a unblockable creature. Think Blighted Agent vs Glistener Elf. Against the second there are decision trees about blocking, the first one is pretty much direct damage equal to the card's power.
Anyway, to keep this going I'm going to analyze GDS since this seem fun:
4 Death's shadow 4 points
3 Gurmag Angler 3 points
4 Snapcaster Mage 8 points
4 Street Wraiths 0 points (how often do people bother to cast them?)
1 Tasigur, the golden Fang 2 points, if only because it gives opponents a choice
4 Fatal Push 4 points
4 Opt 0 points
3 Stubborn denial 3 points
4 Thought Scour 0 points
4 Thoughtseize 4 points
1 Temur Battle Rage 0 points
1 Terminate 1 point
2 Dismember 1 point
2 Kholagan's command 4 points (assuming the two choices are always 2 points)
Lands - 0 points
Total: 34 points
Now let's see Jund:
4 Dark Confidant 4 points
4 Tarmogoyf 4 points
3 Scavenging Ooze 6 points
4 Liliana of the Veil 10 points (discard + edict + 0,5 points for the ultimate)
4 Bloodbraid Elf - 8 points (4 + at least 4 for the second card)
2 Raging ravine 2 points
2 Treetop village 2 points
Total: 59 points
I do like the systems. Gives 0 points to the pointless durdling with cantrips and card digging as it should be while giving credit to creatures that crash into the red zone that can be blocked.
You know what I was thinking today? I was thinking about how minimal Bloodbraid Elf and Jace, the Mind Sculptor's effects have been on Modern so far and it made me a bit sad. I feel that Stoneforge Mystic and Green Sun's Zenith will go the same way as that of Elf and Jace. That is, I doubt they will see that much play in the competitive Tier 1 realm. That also makes me sad because I wanted to be able to play these in a strong deck; not one that has a good chance of losing.
Maybe all of us are overestimating the effects of certain cards on the ban list. I want to say that if there's anything I say about some cards that I don't think should be unbanned any time soon, like the artifact lands, Punishing Fire, or whatever else, I could definitely be wrong. It's hard to imagine a card that will topple over something like Humans and Hollow One, although Stoneforge Mystic and Green Sun's Zenith won't contribute to those decks and could possibly help against them.
The reason I thought of this is that I wanted to play Sword of the Meek. I wanted to play Ancestral Vision. I wanted to play Bitterblossom. I wanted to play Jace, the Mind Sculptor and even Bloodbraid Elf (in a sweet RUG deck!), but these cards have something in common. They don't make the cut for being among Modern's strongest cards. That's somewhat sad to me, although I DO love that Modern is a strong, quick format. I would hate to crash creatures into each other like how Standard is.
Just some random thoughts from someone who had the whole day off today...
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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)
It's funny that what drew me to modern was the possibility to play insane 'busted' stuff in any flavour you like but the downside of that is all the cool cards on the ban list just don't touch the sides of the format when reintroduced.
As someone who is currently using Bitterblossom, I agree it is a bit disheartening to realize that these cards aren't the best thing you can be doing in Modern. However, I wouldn't say they're all just wash outs just yet. Although Bitterblossom isn't the lynchpin of my Faeries deck, it definitely is a big part of it. Faeries itself is a big sleeper deck imo, and I'm hoping to prove it at a SCG event in Louisville next month (and ultimately at GP Atlanta this fall). The deck doesn't do anything crazy, it's not blatantly unfair, but it performs very well against the current meta. So yeah, it sucks that the powerhouses of yore can't do what they used to, but I still firmly believe that a lot of them hold a ton of value.
According to the system I proposed, all of these cards would score a point with the exception of leyline that would score zero. And yes, they are interaction. They care about what your opponent is doing. If you don't want to call those cards interaction, you're gonna need to present a new, workable definition that can be broadly applied. Not just 'I don't particularly like such cards, therefore I don't consider them interactive'.
I would add a correction to that definition for the red zone. A creature cards that beats but can be blocked should have a higher score than a unblockable creature. Think Blighted Agent vs Glistener Elf. Against the second there are decision trees about blocking, the first one is pretty much direct damage equal to the card's power.
Anyway, to keep this going I'm going to analyze GDS since this seem fun:
4 Death's shadow 4 points
3 Gurmag Angler 3 points
4 Snapcaster Mage 8 points
4 Street Wraiths 0 points (how often do people bother to cast them?)
1 Tasigur, the golden Fang 2 points, if only because it gives opponents a choice
4 Fatal Push 4 points
4 Opt 0 points
3 Stubborn denial 3 points
4 Thought Scour 0 points
4 Thoughtseize 4 points
1 Temur Battle Rage 0 points
1 Terminate 1 point
2 Dismember 1 point
2 Kholagan's command 4 points (assuming the two choices are always 2 points)
Lands - 0 points
Total: 34 points
Now let's see Jund:
4 Dark Confidant 4 points
4 Tarmogoyf 4 points
3 Scavenging Ooze 6 points
4 Liliana of the Veil 10 points (discard + edict + 0,5 points for the ultimate)
4 Bloodbraid Elf - 8 points (4 + at least 4 for the second card)
2 Raging ravine 2 points
2 Treetop village 2 points
Total: 59 points
I do like the systems. Gives 0 points to the pointless durdling with cantrips and card digging as it should be while giving credit to creatures that crash into the red zone that can be blocked.
I agree that there are problems with the system where creatures that can't block score the same as creatures that can, but to address this type of problem would further complicate the classification system. Also, I like that you used the system to score two decks, though you did some contextual scoring, in the sense that you didn't score the card in a vaccum, which I honestly think it is better to avoid subjectivity. Doing that way, here is the score for those two decks:
By that you still see that Jund is a more interactive deck than shadow, by a 50% margin, which is quite significant. Just for the sake of it, I will also do storm and bogles.
4 Ethereal Armor - 4 points (I know this seems bad, but auras can also target opposing creatures)
2 Gryff's Boon - 2 points
2 Hyena Umbra -2 points
4 Rancor - 4 points
4 Spider Umbra - 4 points
4 Daybreak Coronet - 4 points
2 Spirit Mantle - 2 points
4 Leyline of Sanctity - zero points
Total score - 47 points.
Curiously enough, bogles got basically the same amount as Death's Shadow. Some might say this is a problem for the scoring system. If you discount the auras in bogles (which realistically they wouldn't target another creature, if only in very corner cases), you would have they score 25, same as storm. I have problems with contextual scoring, but I think that you could, objectively, estimate how a card is used contextually. It just takes a lot of effort. You could say something like 'if 95% of the time a card is used in a particular way, then you can say the card is just used like that'. For instance, if Street Wraiths are cycled 95% of the time or more, you could say they score zero points, instead of 8. The issue is how to quantify that... you would need a good number of matchups.
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They might give us one but I'd be blown away if we ever got both. My money would be on Force Spike, since passing that through Standard seems more likely than Daze. Spell Pierce made it through, so I don't think Force Spike is out of the question. I'd personally love to have Daze, but it seems unlikely. Not sure we'd ever get anything better than Silumgar's Scorn, unless they completely do a 180 on how they feel about counter magic.
They might give us one but I'd be blown away if we ever got both. My money would be on Force Spike, since passing that through Standard seems more likely than Daze. Spell Pierce made it through, so I don't think Force Spike is out of the question. I'd personally love to have Daze, but it seems unlikely. Not sure we'd ever get anything better than Silumgar's Scorn, unless they completely do a 180 on how they feel about counter magic.
I don't see what impact Force Spike has when many reactive decks already have access to Mana Tithe, which is at best a cutesy fun-of run by a tiny fraction of reactive white decks.
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Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
They might give us one but I'd be blown away if we ever got both. My money would be on Force Spike, since passing that through Standard seems more likely than Daze. Spell Pierce made it through, so I don't think Force Spike is out of the question. I'd personally love to have Daze, but it seems unlikely. Not sure we'd ever get anything better than Silumgar's Scorn, unless they completely do a 180 on how they feel about counter magic.
I don't see what impact Force Spike has when many reactive decks already have access to Mana Tithe, which is at best a cutesy fun-of run by a tiny fraction of reactive white decks.
I think mana tithe is a very underrated card, but the problem is that it isn't blue. In modern it would only make sense to run it in jeskai flash or UW control, but some people prefer the hard counter aspect of spell snare. Force spike adds a new one-mana counterspell to blue moon, grixis control, hell even delver decks would probably improve. It's kind of like how burn sometimes splashes black for bump in the night or gonti's machinations - yeah they technically function the same as lava spikes but black isn't always the best splash color. Similarly, white isn't always the best secondary color in control.
Daze I think would make some sense in modern, because our dual lands deal two damage to come in untapped. A free daze means either a huge tempo loss or two more damage. Or it would make blue decks better, but they would need to run more islands, and thus you'd see it more in UR, UB and UW as opposed to three color goodstuff. The downside to Daze, though, is how it may improve infect, kiln fiend, and storm. I feel like the storm decklist is so tight it would still prefer remand over daze, though, due to its utility.
Force Spike would be good mostly on the play. I'd rather have a new free counter in order to be less dependant on being on the play.
Screw Daze, its place would be mostly the "I fully tapped my mana to deploy my threats feel free to play your answers into my tapped Breeding Pool" decks. Remand and Pact of Negation are enough permission spells for combo and tempo decks.
We need a Fatal Push equivalent regarding to sweepers. Push is still a 1 for 1 in a world where decks deploy multiples. A "destroy all creatures and artifacts with converted mana cost three or less" for 1WW, for example, would be balanced and Standard couldn't care.
They might give us one but I'd be blown away if we ever got both. My money would be on Force Spike, since passing that through Standard seems more likely than Daze. Spell Pierce made it through, so I don't think Force Spike is out of the question. I'd personally love to have Daze, but it seems unlikely. Not sure we'd ever get anything better than Silumgar's Scorn, unless they completely do a 180 on how they feel about counter magic.
I don't see what impact Force Spike has when many reactive decks already have access to Mana Tithe, which is at best a cutesy fun-of run by a tiny fraction of reactive white decks.
I think mana tithe is a very underrated card, but the problem is that it isn't blue. In modern it would only make sense to run it in jeskai flash or UW control, but some people prefer the hard counter aspect of spell snare. Force spike adds a new one-mana counterspell to blue moon, grixis control, hell even delver decks would probably improve. It's kind of like how burn sometimes splashes black for bump in the night or gonti's machinations - yeah they technically function the same as lava spikes but black isn't always the best splash color. Similarly, white isn't always the best secondary color in control.
Daze I think would make some sense in modern, because our dual lands deal two damage to come in untapped. A free daze means either a huge tempo loss or two more damage. Or it would make blue decks better, but they would need to run more islands, and thus you'd see it more in UR, UB and UW as opposed to three color goodstuff. The downside to Daze, though, is how it may improve infect, kiln fiend, and storm. I feel like the storm decklist is so tight it would still prefer remand over daze, though, due to its utility.
No. The "problem" with Mana Tithe, Daze, Force Spike, Mana Leak, and all other taxing permission spells, is that most threats only cost around 2-3 mana. Considering most games last longer than 3 turns, most decks can usually pay small taxes quite easily, or play multiple threats despite trading 1 for 1 with your interaction... You'll almost always have fewer answers than they've got threats. This is the reason Prison decks are so much more effective than traditional draw-go control decks.
Force Spike would be good mostly on the play. I'd rather have a new free counter in order to be less dependant on being on the play.
Screw Daze, its place would be mostly the "I fully tapped my mana to deploy my threats feel free to play your answers into my tapped Breeding Pool" decks. Remand and Pact of Negation are enough permission spells for combo and tempo decks.
Pretty much my thoughts too. Apart from just Counterspell or a close enough analog, I'd love to see a good Disrupting Shoal/Force of Will compromise. Same as Shoal, except XUUU, and the alternate cost counters a spell of any CMC at the cost of that much life. Fixes the narrowness problem that leads Shoal to see next-to-zero play, and adds a very relevant cost on top of the card disadvantage to keep it honest and make it rough on decks that ignore the board state and their life total.
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Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
@drop4unbans: Modern is accelerating as a format, while the power level grows up. This means that old cards like AV or jtms, even if they are strong cards on their own, are losing ground due to how fast and unforgiving modern is. In most of the cases, during the development of a match in the first three turns you can actually tell if a game is won or lost. In this scenario, "slower" (cmc 4+) cards need a consistent early support, or they just are almost completely unuseful, no matter how strong they are on their own. Cards do not exist in a vacuum, they always have a context (architects as me should know the importance of a given context to analyse and define relationships between objects - in this case, cards).
Personally, I think the only way to stop this process is a change in the card-design criteria (lower the cmc of generic answers spells - since they can actually slow down fast and proactive - or noninteractive - strategies). If modern gets a cmc2 or less solid counterspell effect, then jtms could actually become a pillar of the format (like lotv already is). Until then, it is just too slow to be significantly impactful. Any experienced control player could have easly foretlod this omg-jtms-actually-sucks scenario.
Speed does not affect cards like Jtms and AV. Those cards are made for card advantage and rely heavily what other cards surround them in the format. Jace is a heavily played card in Vintage and Legacy, which are significantly faster. They just have much more powerful cards surrounding them to increase the power level. In the same vein is why Brainstorm is restricted in Vintage.
If we look at Legacy, we can see that most control decks don't run many counterspells. They mainly just run a 4 of Force of Will. The reason for this is because there is no reason to play greater than 1 cmc interaction prices when you have efficient removal in Swords to Plowshares, Lightning Bolt, Fatal Push and efficient counter spells in FoW and Flusterstorm.
I am not saying we need any of these cards legal in Modern, but Im simply outlining why there's roughly 20% of linear deck meta share in legacy compared roughly 60% in Modern and how interactive strategies work so well in legacy
According to this post, linearity is roughly 60% of the metagame, which is probably a problem
Why is it a problem though? If 60% of the metagame is linear then 40% of the metagame is non linear which means if you want to play a non-linear deck you absolutely can. We aren't going to get 50/50 ratios in something as uncontrollable as MTG.
According to this post, linearity is roughly 60% of the metagame, which is probably a problem
Why is it a problem though? If 60% of the metagame is linear then 40% of the metagame is non linear which means if you want to play a non-linear deck you absolutely can. We aren't going to get 50/50 ratios in something as uncontrollable as MTG.
Actually nothing suggests we will or should be at 50/50. It actually suggests the contrary that interactivity dominates other formats
According to this post, linearity is roughly 60% of the metagame, which is probably a problem
Why is it a problem though? If 60% of the metagame is linear then 40% of the metagame is non linear which means if you want to play a non-linear deck you absolutely can. We aren't going to get 50/50 ratios in something as uncontrollable as MTG.
This is what I keep saying. Why should the metagame be required to be 50/50?
Even if you just divide between control, midrange, combo, aggro, and big mana, that's the meta (40% non-linear, 60% linear).
People are trying to force some kind of definition of format health on Modern when it is emphatically not what Wizards has stated. I can't recall exactly what they said but "lots of different decks, types of decks, and fun" or something to that effect.
I'm personally against the introduction of Daze into Modern, but that's mostly because I think it would make Grixis Shadow better. There are worst decks to be the best in the format, but being able to go fetch, shock, thoughtseize their best card, daze their one drop, shock, Death's Shadow etc etc in Magical Christmas Land kind of bothers me.
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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.
Introducing Daze into Modern would probably spike Disrupting Shoal, as those two cards are good together. Anyway, I think even if we have the real Force of Will card in Modern... draw go control decks still won't be good. With so many aggressive creature decks.. it won't be possible to counter all threats, and Cavern of Souls is also a real card.
According to this post, linearity is roughly 60% of the metagame, which is probably a problem
If the numbers from this are accurate, I think it is a bit concerning, not because of linearity, but because Humans might have become too good. It is 4 times more prevalent than the bottom deck on the tier 1 list (bogles), and I'm 100% sure humans will not stop being printed. In fact, I bet they're the most common creature type. I understand that their list is pretty tight, but they can only go upwards from here.
Decks like Hollow One, despite being scary to some people, I believe can be more effective dealt with. And even if they can't, you can ban one of their namesake cards (like Hollow One itself) and the deck crumbles. I do not believe that is the case for humans. You would need multiple bannings, and even then you would need to watch out for future printings. No clue how this will be sorted out.
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Do Counterspell and Thoughtseize still work if you F6 or literally stand up and walk away from the table?
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Chalice of the Void doesn't, it's a trigger you have to catch.
Errrr...no. Both of your examples only expend resources. They don't gain you any new ones.
Faithless Looting is using the graveyard akin to Brainstorm using the library to recycle old options and turn them into new ones.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
Anyway, to keep this going I'm going to analyze GDS since this seem fun:
4 Death's shadow 4 points
3 Gurmag Angler 3 points
4 Snapcaster Mage 8 points
4 Street Wraiths 0 points (how often do people bother to cast them?)
1 Tasigur, the golden Fang 2 points, if only because it gives opponents a choice
4 Fatal Push 4 points
4 Opt 0 points
3 Stubborn denial 3 points
4 Thought Scour 0 points
4 Thoughtseize 4 points
1 Temur Battle Rage 0 points
1 Terminate 1 point
2 Dismember 1 point
2 Kholagan's command 4 points (assuming the two choices are always 2 points)
Lands - 0 points
Total: 34 points
Now let's see Jund:
4 Dark Confidant 4 points
4 Tarmogoyf 4 points
3 Scavenging Ooze 6 points
4 Liliana of the Veil 10 points (discard + edict + 0,5 points for the ultimate)
4 Bloodbraid Elf - 8 points (4 + at least 4 for the second card)
2 Thoughtseize 2 points
4 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 points
3 Lighting bolt 6 points
1 Abrupt Decay 1 point
2 Fatal push 2 points
2 Maelstrom pulse 2 points
1 Terminate 2 points
2 Kholaghan's command 4 points
2 Raging ravine 2 points
2 Treetop village 2 points
Total: 59 points
I do like the systems. Gives 0 points to the pointless durdling with cantrips and card digging as it should be while giving credit to creatures that crash into the red zone that can be blocked.
Maybe all of us are overestimating the effects of certain cards on the ban list. I want to say that if there's anything I say about some cards that I don't think should be unbanned any time soon, like the artifact lands, Punishing Fire, or whatever else, I could definitely be wrong. It's hard to imagine a card that will topple over something like Humans and Hollow One, although Stoneforge Mystic and Green Sun's Zenith won't contribute to those decks and could possibly help against them.
The reason I thought of this is that I wanted to play Sword of the Meek. I wanted to play Ancestral Vision. I wanted to play Bitterblossom. I wanted to play Jace, the Mind Sculptor and even Bloodbraid Elf (in a sweet RUG deck!), but these cards have something in common. They don't make the cut for being among Modern's strongest cards. That's somewhat sad to me, although I DO love that Modern is a strong, quick format. I would hate to crash creatures into each other like how Standard is.
Just some random thoughts from someone who had the whole day off today...
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)Legacy - LED Dredge, ANT & WDnT
4 Death's shadow - 8 points
3 Gurmag Angler - 6 points
4 Snapcaster Mage - 8 points
4 Street Wraiths - 4 points
1 Tasigur, the golden Fang - 2 points
4 Fatal Push - 4 points
4 Opt - 0 points
3 Stubborn denial - 3 points
4 Thought Scour - 4 points (can target opponent's library)
4 Thoughtseize - 4 points
1 Temur Battle Rage - 0 points
1 Terminate - 1 point
2 Dismember - 2 points
2 Kholagan's command - 4 points
total score - 50 points
4 Dark Confidant - 8 points
4 Tarmogoyf - 8 points
3 Scavenging Ooze - 9 points
4 Liliana of the Veil - 8 points (discard + cares about the board)
4 Bloodbraid Elf - 8 points (but just because creatures score 2)
2 Thoughtseize - 2 points
4 Inquisition of Kozilek - 4 points
3 Lighting bolt - 6 points
1 Abrupt Decay - 1 point
2 Fatal push - 2 points
2 Maelstrom pulse - 2 points
1 Terminate - 1 point
2 Kholaghan's command - 4 points
2 Raging ravine - 4 points
2 Treetop village - 4 points
total score - 75 points
By that you still see that Jund is a more interactive deck than shadow, by a 50% margin, which is quite significant. Just for the sake of it, I will also do storm and bogles.
4 Baral, Chief of Compliance - 8 points
2 Goblin Electromancer - 4 points
1 Lightning Bolt - 2 points
1 Noxious Revival - 0 points
2 Opt - 0 points
1 Repeal - 1 point
4 Serum Visions - 0 points
4 Sleight of Hand - 0 points
4 Desperate Ritual - 0 points
3 Grapeshot - 6 points
4 Manamorphose - 0 points
4 Pyretic Ritual - 0 points
3 Remand - 3 points
4 Gifts Ungiven - 0 points
2 Past in Flames - 0 points
Total score - 22 points
1 Dryad Arbor - 1 point
4 Gladecover Scout - 8 points
4 Slippery Bogle - 8 points
4 Kor Spiritdancer - 8 points
2 Path to Exile - 2 points
4 Ethereal Armor - 4 points (I know this seems bad, but auras can also target opposing creatures)
2 Gryff's Boon - 2 points
2 Hyena Umbra -2 points
4 Rancor - 4 points
4 Spider Umbra - 4 points
4 Daybreak Coronet - 4 points
2 Spirit Mantle - 2 points
4 Leyline of Sanctity - zero points
Total score - 47 points.
Curiously enough, bogles got basically the same amount as Death's Shadow. Some might say this is a problem for the scoring system. If you discount the auras in bogles (which realistically they wouldn't target another creature, if only in very corner cases), you would have they score 25, same as storm. I have problems with contextual scoring, but I think that you could, objectively, estimate how a card is used contextually. It just takes a lot of effort. You could say something like 'if 95% of the time a card is used in a particular way, then you can say the card is just used like that'. For instance, if Street Wraiths are cycled 95% of the time or more, you could say they score zero points, instead of 8. The issue is how to quantify that... you would need a good number of matchups.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).
I don't see what impact Force Spike has when many reactive decks already have access to Mana Tithe, which is at best a cutesy fun-of run by a tiny fraction of reactive white decks.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
I think mana tithe is a very underrated card, but the problem is that it isn't blue. In modern it would only make sense to run it in jeskai flash or UW control, but some people prefer the hard counter aspect of spell snare. Force spike adds a new one-mana counterspell to blue moon, grixis control, hell even delver decks would probably improve. It's kind of like how burn sometimes splashes black for bump in the night or gonti's machinations - yeah they technically function the same as lava spikes but black isn't always the best splash color. Similarly, white isn't always the best secondary color in control.
Daze I think would make some sense in modern, because our dual lands deal two damage to come in untapped. A free daze means either a huge tempo loss or two more damage. Or it would make blue decks better, but they would need to run more islands, and thus you'd see it more in UR, UB and UW as opposed to three color goodstuff. The downside to Daze, though, is how it may improve infect, kiln fiend, and storm. I feel like the storm decklist is so tight it would still prefer remand over daze, though, due to its utility.
Screw Daze, its place would be mostly the "I fully tapped my mana to deploy my threats feel free to play your answers into my tapped Breeding Pool" decks. Remand and Pact of Negation are enough permission spells for combo and tempo decks.
We need a Fatal Push equivalent regarding to sweepers. Push is still a 1 for 1 in a world where decks deploy multiples. A "destroy all creatures and artifacts with converted mana cost three or less" for 1WW, for example, would be balanced and Standard couldn't care.
No. The "problem" with Mana Tithe, Daze, Force Spike, Mana Leak, and all other taxing permission spells, is that most threats only cost around 2-3 mana. Considering most games last longer than 3 turns, most decks can usually pay small taxes quite easily, or play multiple threats despite trading 1 for 1 with your interaction... You'll almost always have fewer answers than they've got threats. This is the reason Prison decks are so much more effective than traditional draw-go control decks.
If you want reactive "Blue" tempo and control decks to be stronger, give them more modal cards like Kolaghan's Command and Cryptic Command. Basically, better versions of Azorius Charm, Dimir Charm, Esper Charm, and Izzet Charm that are about as powerful as Atarka's Command would be ideal. The more efficient modal spells that are around, the less tight control lists become.
Pretty much my thoughts too. Apart from just Counterspell or a close enough analog, I'd love to see a good Disrupting Shoal/Force of Will compromise. Same as Shoal, except XUUU, and the alternate cost counters a spell of any CMC at the cost of that much life. Fixes the narrowness problem that leads Shoal to see next-to-zero play, and adds a very relevant cost on top of the card disadvantage to keep it honest and make it rough on decks that ignore the board state and their life total.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
Speed does not affect cards like Jtms and AV. Those cards are made for card advantage and rely heavily what other cards surround them in the format. Jace is a heavily played card in Vintage and Legacy, which are significantly faster. They just have much more powerful cards surrounding them to increase the power level. In the same vein is why Brainstorm is restricted in Vintage.
If we look at Legacy, we can see that most control decks don't run many counterspells. They mainly just run a 4 of Force of Will. The reason for this is because there is no reason to play greater than 1 cmc interaction prices when you have efficient removal in Swords to Plowshares, Lightning Bolt, Fatal Push and efficient counter spells in FoW and Flusterstorm.
I think interactive decks suffer in modern not because of a single "missing part" but from a combination of many: actual good cantrips (Ponder/ Preordain/ Brainstorm), Efficient universal removal (Swords to Plowshares), efficient counter magic (Force of Will/ Counterspell), and efficient low cost threats that can also be answers (Stoneforge Mystic + Umezawa's Jitte/ Deathrite Shaman ).
I am not saying we need any of these cards legal in Modern, but Im simply outlining why there's roughly 20% of linear deck meta share in legacy compared roughly 60% in Modern and how interactive strategies work so well in legacy
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Why is it a problem though? If 60% of the metagame is linear then 40% of the metagame is non linear which means if you want to play a non-linear deck you absolutely can. We aren't going to get 50/50 ratios in something as uncontrollable as MTG.
Actually nothing suggests we will or should be at 50/50. It actually suggests the contrary that interactivity dominates other formats
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
This is what I keep saying. Why should the metagame be required to be 50/50?
Even if you just divide between control, midrange, combo, aggro, and big mana, that's the meta (40% non-linear, 60% linear).
People are trying to force some kind of definition of format health on Modern when it is emphatically not what Wizards has stated. I can't recall exactly what they said but "lots of different decks, types of decks, and fun" or something to that effect.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Decks like Hollow One, despite being scary to some people, I believe can be more effective dealt with. And even if they can't, you can ban one of their namesake cards (like Hollow One itself) and the deck crumbles. I do not believe that is the case for humans. You would need multiple bannings, and even then you would need to watch out for future printings. No clue how this will be sorted out.
Read my other stories as well (some ongoing):
Reaper King (a horror story), Kaalia of the Vast (an origin story), Sequels for Innistrad (Alternative sequels for Inn), Grey Areas (Odric's fanfic), Royal Succession (goblins),The Tracker's Message (eldrazi on Innistrad) and Ugin and his Eye (the end of OGW).