MTG Salvation

I would like too see the ban list shrink. So other than obvious cards people have been talking about (BBE, GSZ, SFM, Jace, Ponder, Preordain). I have been thinking about other cards. I don't see some of these happening as wizards tends be pretty conservative with unbanning cards.

Artifact Land Cycle (Verdict atleast 2, but perhaps 3)
Lets start off Tree of Tales. There is not really any thing that this one land would enable that is broken. Ancient Den, can see a little more play and maybe enable some cool cards like Tempered Steel or a white equipment deck. Vault of Whispers this does match up with cranial plating attach cost. So I am on the fence on this one, but maybe. However, Seat of the Synod and Great Furnace are the big players here. There are a lot of red and blue cards that interact with artifacts. The riskiest of these two would the seat, but I would put furnace not too far behind. However, there is no reason for the entire cycle to be on the ban list.

Gixtaxian Probe (Verdict: Yes)
I know this was just recently banned, and is unlikely to change. However, I still felt the reasoning was pretty weak, and will add this ban surprised me.

Chrome Mox (Verdict uncertain, but perhaps)
I will say Chrome mox seems to be in a weird spot. It might push some decks fast than we or wizards would want or it might not. However, we don't really have any data points on if it would be bad for the meta. Afinity really does not want it. You have to pitch a colored card. Storm would prefer to pitch a land, but it is not a mox diamond so it would have to pitch a can-trip or ritual. The only deck that worries me is Ad Nauseam, and I would rather just ban Ad nauseam. I did try proxing up some belcher lists and concluded that there is not enough fast mana to make it consistently explosive. I don't really see Chrome Mox breaking the meta though. I could be wrong. However, I see it more like Goryo's Vengeance, and would probably not push the meta in bad direction. However, the plus side is that other interesting brews could use potentially use it.

Punishing Fire (Verdict Probably Not)
I really like punishing jund in legacy. It would be cool to see that in modern, but I feel it might push creatures with less than 2 toughness out of the meta that don't have an immediate pay off. I am not sure we need more people playing tasigurs and gurmag anglers, and goyfs. It would also probably affect affinity quite a bit. However, graveyard hate dose stop the engine so I am hesitant to just say no. However, modern sadly does not have wasteland and that gives other decks in legacy a different avenue of interaction with punishing fire.

Glimpse of Nature. (Verdict probably too risky)
So wizards printed beck // call a few years ago. The card see marginal/fringe play at best in modern. Glimpse of Nature while being the same effect. (besides cast vs enter for the effect) I am not sure what deck it would go right into other than elves. Perhaps Cheerios, but they are pretty much a blue/red storm deck with a different engine. It would also loose a lot of the zero drops. They have to be creatures. So cards like Burning-tree emissary would be needed instead. Cheerios in legacy is not that great of a deck, and further we don't have as many cards like land grant and elvish spirit guide. Legacy cheerios also looses to it's self quite few times. So I guess it's probably not that large of a threat in cheerios. However, how big of a monster would elves become with glimpse? Especially with cards like pyroclasm being legal. However, Shaman of the Pack could be a problem then, and make it even more unlikely. Is there an other decks that I missing?

The only cards after these that I feel could also merit discussion are Umezawa's Jitte, Seething Song, Deathrite Shaman, Dig Through Time and redacted. Past that we start getting into cards that modern can't really deal with and probably never will have the tools to do so. I will say depending on how modern evolves we should hopefully be able trim the ban list down. The riskiest of the cards I mentioned in my opinion is probably glimpse, but I could be wrong. However, some these cards we just don't have great data for so it makes hard to really know.


~edit~ it's 2:00 am please bear with any typos, and lack of proof reading.

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

Quote from MemoryLapse »

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

Quote from MemoryLapse »

Quote from guntius »

Legend said it perfectly about the balance of the urza lands.

Memory lapse made a good point too about what people think when they hear "tron" deck, I agree that I don't think of e.tron or mono U tron either even though they both use the tron lands. I played mono U for a long time and assembling tron isn't top priority,its much slower.

Would tron be so hated if it wasn't for turn 3 karn? For the most part I feel that's what the issue is, not the lands themselves. Ugin, ulamog, emmy, all these huge threats are turn four or more.

Ban Karn and the deck changes from a polarized nightmare to a perfectly fair deck.
End result of this thread = BAN KARN!

I'll do it with a concurrent ban of Liliana of the Veil. Sounds good right? (I already know your answer)

Why bring up Liliana? We aren't even talking about that. Spam.

No need to play coy, you know what I'm asking. Would you agree to ban both Karn and LotV at the same time? If Karn is too oppressive as a possible turn 3 play then why isn't Lily too oppressive at a DEFINITE turn 3 play? Simple question and definitely in the bounds of the thread. I'm genuinely curious. Remember I LIKE 8rack and all its variants and still play my 8Rackdos deck on certain occasions. I hate Affinity but I'm not calling for a ban of anything in it. Heck Black has answers to planes walkers as well as discard. Try finding an answer to planeswalkers in colorless and about the only real answer are 7 cmc cards. We are just going to have to agree to disagree on Karn and move on.

Give us a colorless stripmine

Its called Ghost Quarter. If Strip Mine was in Modern every deck under the Sun would probably run a full playset. I'm going to have to leave it at that, I don't feel like getting worked up about it. See ya' around the boards.

I would hardly call Liliana oppressive.

Quote from Spsiegel1987 »

Quote from Yonekura »

Quote from Melkor »

As a Burn player, I beg you not to reprint that card. It would be absolutely glorious to play...for about a week until Burn would be hit with multiple emergency bans, followed by Price a few months later. It would be in the context of the format, way worse than a legitimate Mox.

I don't think it would be too much. I have played burn quite a bit myself. It would probably be too sudden though for the current meta. Most decks are 3 color. However, it's easy to adapt too. Just play 2 color or mono color. However, considering how many people would have to change decks up because of it. I could see quite an unhappy player base. Drastic changes generally are not good, but when I look at the card alone, and have played, and played against it in legacy. I don't see it as too much. Just a sudden meta shift, but a pretty simple shift too mostly two color.

I think the big issue is that Price of Progress was never in the format, and modern evolved without it. Price of Progress would cause the meta to shift to less greedy mana bases, but people have come to expect a 3 color deck being normal. Playing 3 colors is pretty low risk short of Blood Moon. I think that's why Price of Progress was brought up. There just is not much policing what lands people play in modern. I think Price of Progress would do a great job. If we want less greedy mana bases, and I don't see a problem with it. However, some people like playing with greedy mana bases. Greedy has been the norm so a shift to the other direction would upset some players. Also it's difficult to shift gradually in this regard. Although, a wasteland variant is certainly a step in the right direction. However, modern has evolved without Price of Progress. Consequently, peoples have the perception of greedy mana bases being normal, and something that punishes that choice is perceived abnormal.

We have people complain about Blood Moon. Their reason is general it stops me from playing the game or cuts me off a color. The fact is people perceive perfect mana as normal, and don't have to worry about color screw. If they were that worried about blood moon though they would stop playing 3 color decks. However, blood moon only sees play in a handful of decks, and mostly sits in sideboards the other times. It's also generally easy to play around with fetch-lands, and instant speed removal.

I stopped reading this wall of text after a few sentences

The fact you can even argue for a single card destroying half the decks in the format and forcing them to become 2 colors is insane and absurd, no single card should warp an entire format that much, even blood moon and burn at their piques never did that.

Every deck would pack the most burn hate centric sideboard slot that burn would be invalidated as a deck all while destroying everyones sideboard slot. The card would literally devolve modern into Eldrazi Winter proportions of bad

Only three color/tron decks would have to dedicate more seriously to burn then. However, I was going on saying that 3 color/ perfect mana has been the norm in modern. A sudden shift to less greedy mana bases would seem abnormal to what has been the norm. It's not necessarily bad, but depends on what you want out the format.

~Edit~
Also another point in that "wall of text" was the a sudden shift like that would probably lead to a lot unhappy players.

While a lot of you think Price of Progress is too much. It's something the meta would quickly adapt too. A two color deck generally only needs to fetch one non-basic. Price of Progress becomes a shock for 2 mana in a mostly 2 color meta. It makes three color decks a risky proposal. I am fine with that. However, I could see the case that would cause too sudden of a meta shift. That doesn't mean it's necessarily broken, but a lot decks in modern are 3 color.

Quote from NZB2323 »

Grafdigger's Cage is an incredible SB card. It only costs 1 colorless mana and shuts down:

• Collected Company
  
• Chord of calling
  
• Lingering Souls
  
• Kitchen finks
  
• Murderous redcap
  
• Nahiri, the harbinger
  
• Snapcaster mage
  
• Past in flames
  
• Bloodghast
  
• Prized amalgam
  
• Gravecrawler
  
• Faithless looting

However, the card does absolutely nothing against Living End. So that means you'd need additional GY hate against living end, and then you'd have too much GY hate in your SB. If you run Cage as your only GY hate, then you'd have a hard time with Living End. What's the solution?

I don't see that as problem. While cage is good, I normal would rather run other graveyard hosers. I like cage against collected company, but if you have a lot graveyard based decks in your meta. I feel there are better cards mainly since Grafdigger's Cage does not exile the graveyard. While it's a bit more multi-purpose, but nothing beats just exiling the problem cards. Grafdigger's is vulnerable also to any artifact hate so I like enchantments more. Beast within can deal with a lot of hate cards so they may still sidestep your board cards.

• Rest in Peace
• Leyline of The Void
• Relic of Progenitus
• Nihil Spellbomb
• Rakdos Charm
• Bojuka Bog
• Surgical Extraction
• Extirpate
• Savaging Ooze

Also cards like these cards slow the deck down.

• Spirit of the Labyrinth (Slows the amount cycling they can do.
• Chalice of The Void
• Eidolon of Rhetoric
• Rule of Law

Quote from Lilijuana »

Quote from Karokk »

Considering 90% of this thread is some kind of legal discussion, has there been any post with better pictures of the cards?

You won't get one, most likely. WotC's leak has run its course.

Instead of looking at what the leak spoiled, look at what it didn't spoil. That will tell you clearly that WotC was behind it.

'WOTC's leak'?!? Why would wizards do this? They would never do something like during the spoilers seasons of an other set, and even if it was not spoiler season I see no reason they would do this. This affects wizards 3rd party partners which they share spoilers with during spoiler season, ect...

The complaints boil down these things:

• Modern Land Hate Sucks
• Cast Triggers
• Fast Mana

Note:
Play burn or RW LD make them cry.

Quote from Ryperior74 »

Even though the rare hype will be gone when spoiler season for this starts

One other hype will still be there and that's how the art looks.

And a few of those cards are still impossible to make out.

I still find it annoying the quality of the images the leaker posted.

Quote from sisicat »

All the people on the play won their matches, this GP just showed how important it is to win the dice roll.

I don't like the die roll. I think tournaments should just assign who goes first during a round. So for an 8 round event everyone goes first 4 times, and second 4 times. They assign who has the first move in chess for instance.

Quote from Gutterstorm »

People need to chiiiiiiilllllll about this. What does it matter? Internal. External. So what? When the set comes out buy it if you like it don't if you don't. If you dont like leaks that, at the very least, appear to be unauthorized then don't look at them. Just scroll on. Its not important. If its actually WotC then so be it. If its not then so be it, they will handle it with probably no fan fare or very little. An angry post from Trick on the mothership at the most. But whats the point of arguing about it? Enjoy the foresight, speculate about the upcoming standard, about dinosaur commander decks etc. etc. Or don't and keep scrolling. Instead of arguing here go watch the GP. At 8PMish theyre going to start dropping real previews. Ones that we know are legit.

I have not seen many post in this thread thinking wizards did. I think that's a little ludicrous. I think that mainly is the other thread, stemming mainly from the initial picture of sorceress spyglass. The fact wizards also was directly talking about pithing needle that day. It could be seen as: "hey we were going to try, but it's too little too late." So we banned marvel. However, when the same person went oh here is the whole sheet by the way. I would consider either such statement from someone not fully update to date on the situation or just trolling to implicate WOTC now.

However, just chill? This is pretty big news. Nothing like this has happened in a long time. It's definitely interesting to see how this will play out. The ball is WOTC's court right now. How will they act is what interest me the most.

Yes some people don't like looking at leaks, but I feel you just putting yourself at disadvantage if you don't. People are going to brewing for next next standard. Considering how certain rares might be auto picks for draft ect... There is no going back at the moment unless you have time a machine.

The big problem with the Gitaxian Probe ban is that basically every single deck at the time that got usage out of that card was weak to Fatal Push. Death's Shadow Zoo? Infect? Kiln Fiend? Pyromancer Delver? Fatal Push is stellar against all of those decks. Banning Gitaxian Probe without first observing Fatal Push's impact does seem questionable in retrospect.

Ixalan is leaking like a sinking ship.

I just want Wizards to abolish the reserved list so we can all play Legacy instead. Then we can play all the Jaces, Preordains, Ponders, Stoneforges, Bloodbraid Elves ect we like

Reserved list is the only reason we have modern anyways

WotC just banned Preordain, Ponder and Brainstorm in 1v1 Commander. Note that this is a format where Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor are legal.

Their hatred for blue cantrips still seems to be very much a thing, I wouldn't expect a Preordain unban anytime soon.

Out of all blue cards Jace, the Mind Sculptor is probably the most likely card to get unbanned, but that probably doesn't mean much.

Quote from Lilijuana »

Quote from Karokk »

Considering 90% of this thread is some kind of legal discussion, has there been any post with better pictures of the cards?

You won't get one, most likely. WotC's leak has run its course.

Instead of looking at what the leak spoiled, look at what it didn't spoil. That will tell you clearly that WotC was behind it.

That tinfoil hat looks uncomfortable, maybe you should take it off.

Hero's Downfall could have had really great art of the Gatewatch suffering before Bolas on it if it had been reprinted here

No, Open Fire cost 3 cmc. Burn is still overcosted mostly sorcery speed that can't target an opponent. Abrade can only target creatures which is sad.

STOP RUINING FLAVOR TEXT WITH UNINSPIRED "STORY" JUNK!! C'mon, Wizards!

I find your lack of enemy cycling dual lands disturbing.

Now where's my Three Visits reprint?!?