powerful enablers, no matter how narrow, will naturally rise to the top as the card pool grows. i dont think there is sufficient evidence to take action right now, but stirrings continues to be brought up through the years; and its very unlikely to be solely based on blue mage bias.
so yeah i wouldnt be surprised if its on some watchlist alongside cards like opal, SSG, and street wraith. to be fair though a whole host of cards scale incredibly well. it just takes a powerful enabling effect at a great rate. mana acceleration, tutors, selection, generating a resource (GY), etc.
for example darksteel citadel. the sole remaining artifact land. not exactly a problem card, but as more cards that care about artifacts flow into the format it gains more and more utility.
so it comes down to whether enablers or the payoffs should be the target.
the version of eggs with second sunrise (aka second breakfast) was way slower than kci is. like high tide level slow. it wasnt a deterministic loop that you could demonstrate, and thus shortcut.
man Juza's quote is so reminiscent of twin. pros would just audible to the deck because it was an easy option and had game against everything.
lazy pros are gonna get humans banned!
just kidding (probably...)
i wasnt aware that not all of the kci interactions worked on mtgo. interesting. i can understand decks not being played because of interface restrictions on 'infinite' combos, but a deck not functioning seems...wrong.
also if its clear that stirrings shouldnt be legal with preordain banned, doesnt that mean if they dont wanna unban preordain they should ban stirrings?
I'm a combo guy, but I couldn't fully follow the KCI in the finals. I don't expect a ban, I think the deck itself if fine enough. But I do expect some minor rules changes like WOTC does periodicly to fix things. Nass kept talking about taking advantage of some rules that no body initially understood to produce more mana. It reminded me of mogg fanatic killing two creatures or cascading into beck//call. This deck fine and would survive those small changes.
A bigger risk is the same thing that happened with second sunrise. New people playing it real slow and causing tournament problems could happen. I think the emrakul version we saw will be the version we see the most of moving forward because it's simpler and cleaner.
yeah that is what i referred to with part of the 'skill' required to play the deck is being able to navigate some of the more non-intuitive interactions. its mostly to do with mana abilities not technically dealing with the stack, but you can manipulate activations/triggers around when the mana enters your pool. i read a write-up about it on reddit a while back when i wanted to get some insight on how to play against the deck. it was complicated.
edit: for example here is a quote from an article on KCI by Nass not too long ago:
Myr Retriever + two 1-cost cards. This is the trickiest loop. It relies on the fact that when paying costs for something you can use mana abilities essentially simultaneously. Sacrificing Scrap Trawler and Retriever this way allows them to return each other. The trick here is to announce one of the 1-drops, sacrifice Retriever, Trawler, and the other one to cast it, and then loop this way, either sacrificing a Chromatic Star or Terrarion to draw cards or sacrificing a 0-cost card along with the loop to make mana.
both you and sicsmoo pointed it out. thats the 'thing' with humans. its disruption is potent against almost any strategy conceivable, so even its presumably bad matchups arent that bad. it may or may not be too good, but its the closest thing we've seen to a 50/50 deck in a while.
edit: what i mean by 'too good' is when a deck is heavily favored against most things, but with maybe a few fringe bad matchups (such as eldrazi pre-ban). humans certainly isnt doing that.
why are you guys saying UWx. its jeskai control doing good. decks like UW, or even UR variants, are doing alright; but it isnt on the same level.
most every deck will wax and wane depending on whats going on. some decks are less affected than others. humans is an example of a deck that is proving to be very resilient; which isnt surprising given the near universal application of its disruption.
id consider jeskai control a tier 1 deck right now, but that may not be true a few months from now. past that there just isnt enough information on matchup win percentages to determine which decks have more bad matchups, therefore making them more susceptible to changes in the format.
yeah cage is weird, but its hitting problem cards like dredge/hollow one creatures and can hit stuff like chord. it limits the usage of souls and looting from mardu. i guess it works like a weird rest in peace that only shuts off snapcaster but leaves azcanta and logic knot online.
KCI certainly has the power and speed. i wasnt kidding about mox opal and stirrings. they are outliers in power level within the format, and a deck that can use them both gets a considerable edge (ie lantern). the 'egg's let it dig through its deck and it has a tutor and methods to recur pieces from the GY. the fact that it gets to exploit EE being a 0 cost artifact is a factor as well.
it does take some skill to play though, but probably not as much as lantern might. there are just a lot of weird, non-intuitive interactions such as the timing of sphere and star adding mana/drawing cards and the stacking of triggers.
i still tend to favor clique over geist in that sort of role since geist can get roadblocked by TKS and thragtusk post board, obviously not as fast though. hexproof is still great. karn, ulamog, and ballista cant tag it.
people know when to scoop with lantern? we must be thinking of different decks. it has way worse of a problem with people not identifying when they are beat. kci is just newer(ish).
damn thats 3 GP top8s in a row. dude is playing 5D chess while everyone else is on checkers.
kci is playing on two of the most hated on axes in modern - artifacts and the GY. guess with enough skill and playing two of the most busted cards in the format (opal/stirrings) you can get around that. hard to argue the deck is too strong when its just one guy doing all the winning with it.
a card that i dont like, which isnt enough reason to ban it, is horizon canopy. ive always found it off putting that GW randomly has access to land like that (this is coming from someone who runs 2 in elves).
future sight had some pretty wonky lands in general (grove, tolaria west, arbor, dakmor salvage), but canopy is just...value. its no surprise the card has ballooned in price over the years, even with reprints. humans just happens to be one of the best kinds of decks to take advantage of it (ie aggro with alternative mana sources).
so yeah i wouldnt be surprised if its on some watchlist alongside cards like opal, SSG, and street wraith. to be fair though a whole host of cards scale incredibly well. it just takes a powerful enabling effect at a great rate. mana acceleration, tutors, selection, generating a resource (GY), etc.
for example darksteel citadel. the sole remaining artifact land. not exactly a problem card, but as more cards that care about artifacts flow into the format it gains more and more utility.
so it comes down to whether enablers or the payoffs should be the target.
lazy pros are gonna get humans banned!
just kidding (probably...)
i wasnt aware that not all of the kci interactions worked on mtgo. interesting. i can understand decks not being played because of interface restrictions on 'infinite' combos, but a deck not functioning seems...wrong.
also if its clear that stirrings shouldnt be legal with preordain banned, doesnt that mean if they dont wanna unban preordain they should ban stirrings?
yeah that is what i referred to with part of the 'skill' required to play the deck is being able to navigate some of the more non-intuitive interactions. its mostly to do with mana abilities not technically dealing with the stack, but you can manipulate activations/triggers around when the mana enters your pool. i read a write-up about it on reddit a while back when i wanted to get some insight on how to play against the deck. it was complicated.
edit: for example here is a quote from an article on KCI by Nass not too long ago:
reference: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/how-to-kci/
edit2: found the reddit article i referenced https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/8gfw7d/krarkclan_ironworks_by_the_rules/
edit: what i mean by 'too good' is when a deck is heavily favored against most things, but with maybe a few fringe bad matchups (such as eldrazi pre-ban). humans certainly isnt doing that.
most every deck will wax and wane depending on whats going on. some decks are less affected than others. humans is an example of a deck that is proving to be very resilient; which isnt surprising given the near universal application of its disruption.
id consider jeskai control a tier 1 deck right now, but that may not be true a few months from now. past that there just isnt enough information on matchup win percentages to determine which decks have more bad matchups, therefore making them more susceptible to changes in the format.
yeah cage is weird, but its hitting problem cards like dredge/hollow one creatures and can hit stuff like chord. it limits the usage of souls and looting from mardu. i guess it works like a weird rest in peace that only shuts off snapcaster but leaves azcanta and logic knot online.
maybe its worth considering.
it does take some skill to play though, but probably not as much as lantern might. there are just a lot of weird, non-intuitive interactions such as the timing of sphere and star adding mana/drawing cards and the stacking of triggers.
i still tend to favor clique over geist in that sort of role since geist can get roadblocked by TKS and thragtusk post board, obviously not as fast though. hexproof is still great. karn, ulamog, and ballista cant tag it.
4 Snapcaster Mage
Sorcery (6)
4 Serum Visions
2 Supreme Verdict
Instant (22)
4 Cryptic Command
2 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
2 Logic Knot
2 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
1 Spell Snare
2 Search for Azcanta
Land (24)
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Field of Ruin
4 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
1 Blood Moon
1 Celestial Purge
1 Damping Sphere
2 Disdainful Stroke
2 Dispel
2 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Negate
1 Runed Halo
1 Settle the Wreckage
1 Wear // Tear
mostly stock. sideboard is kinda odd. d-stroke over negate, geists over cliques, cage, and moon. the last 2 are the strangest, but whatever works.
oh nice didnt know jeskai was in the running. /cheer
kci is playing on two of the most hated on axes in modern - artifacts and the GY. guess with enough skill and playing two of the most busted cards in the format (opal/stirrings) you can get around that. hard to argue the deck is too strong when its just one guy doing all the winning with it.
future sight had some pretty wonky lands in general (grove, tolaria west, arbor, dakmor salvage), but canopy is just...value. its no surprise the card has ballooned in price over the years, even with reprints. humans just happens to be one of the best kinds of decks to take advantage of it (ie aggro with alternative mana sources).