I really haven't been able to get into the set, from a play or design standpoint. Vehicles just seem so dumb. If vehicles is such a great idea, where has it been the last 20 years? We didn't know how to word such a thing? I call BS on that. As much as they like to say they aren't out of ideas and design space, they're out of ideas and design space. Power creep and silly ideas are basically the only "design space" left, and they're exploiting both to the maximum already. Making limited good (while making the rest of the game worse) is how the company is managing to make profits now, IMO.
But I'm sure this will continue for at least a few more years. Magic's not done yet.
That's the thing- They've got so many ideas that the overflow is enough to fill entire sets. Kaladesh is basically overflow from Mirrodin (I know energy started as the E-Mechanic in Mirrodin, and Vehicles are also an old design that has been kicking around the pit for a while, that they just fixed up). Going down to the two set blocks bought them a good twenty years, easily, because you don't need to fill three sets and stretch ideas thin.
Furthermore, I doubt one can really call this set "powercreep". We have a situationally better Kird Ape, a situationally better Ardent Recruit, some really quirky stuff... This honestly reminds me more of say, Ravnica block, with a ton of quirky build around cards just begging to be optimized.
So, you're against banning one of the cards that would slow infect and Eldrazi down by a turn (arguably the best Linear and Midrange decks in the format, respectively), but you insist Faithless Looting is the most bannable card because it slows Dredge down by a turn?
So many hyperboles and wrong lines of thinking here, I do not know where to start off. Noble Hierarch is the kind of ramp WOTC wants to exist in the format(and they do want ramp to exist). This card promotes interactivity as it is highly interactable. T1 bird(hierarch), URx goes t1 bolt your hierarch, 20 years and counting. If we were to write a handbook, this would be the first perfect example of how a perfect interactive game should begin(blue mage bolting doing his thing, meaning bolting green mage's mana dork). This is perfectly acceptable and in no circumstances neither WOTC or me is going to discuss such a laughable proposition in a serious tone.
You know what else slows Dredge down by a turn? Noxious Revival. Surgical Extraction is just plain nasty, and can kill entire decks when you're tapped out (namely, Grishoalbrand folds hard, and taking Harbinger's Emrakul or one of their burn pieces can shoot their whole plan). If you ban Faithless, you're just going to see Dredge replace them with a playset of Tormenting Voice, and emphasize mulliganing into a Voice/Embrace hand with a Simian Spirit Guide instead, or slamming Neonate. Maybe they'd run Bomat Courier instead, which technically operates at roughly the same speed and feeds Grave Troll, even if it costs 1 more overall.
Noxious Revival is a card Dredge is not even interested in or playing in the 75. This card sees occasional play at Grishoalbrand(battlespawn should expand on this), but it is just irrelevant concerning Dredge. Ok. This is the plan. Ban Faithless Looting IF NEED BE(which there is NOT), let them run Tormenting Voice. Let them have only occasional t1 play, meaning some games they will go t1 go. This slows them down just enough to not get t4 kills(goryos) or to let the opponent finds the hate(for dredge).
(Not to mention that Dredge is one of the least bannable strategies. It follows a cycle. Dredge sees play, people play more hate, Dredge decreases, people play less Dredge hate, Dredge sees more play, rinse and repeat)
Ok, we agree, Goryos and Dredge are perfectly fine for now and may be for ever. IT's just that they throw URx interaction into the abyss.
As for Hierarch, powering down Infect is a feature, not a bug. Infect and Eldrazi are the two decks most needing to be brought into line with the rest of the format, since Eldrazi right now is so much better at out-bulking and outvaluing any other midrange strategy, and Infect is on the cusp of being a too-fast kill and forces the rest of the format to go faster to compensate.
Powering down Infect is not a feature, as I said it is a bug, because this deck promotes interaction and makes Bolt/Seizes/Kozileks/Terminates/Electrolyzes/Dipels/Mana Leaks/Path To Exiles valid and stronger answers. Infect when facing against Kozilek, Bolt, Terminate and lands is with the back against the wall. Or vs early double path/bolt as well.
Ban Noble Hierarch vs ban Eldrazi temple: mark 2. WOTC's logic, always prefer to ban the uninteractable piece(even if temple might not be the optimal ban if there is a need-which is not)
-Ban Temple: URx bolts Eldrazi's hierarchs, so that Eldrazi player plays a T4 TKS. No real problems there. By turn 4, Jeskai could play Nahiri and move on.
-Ban Hierarch, he is still able to play it on turn 3 and bolt remains useless. This should not be happening. Even if you spend a Path on TKS, and they take your Nahiri, they take an extra land and they move on having a GREAT ADVANTAGE. Thus, this whole logic of yours is flawed concerning Wizards.
Kiki-Chord loses a dork that taps for W, but I'm sure that slot can be replaced or filled somehow. Abzan Company loses a respectable dork,
. They cant. They go half(or a full) tier down, maybe they are considered unplayable. I am playing enough of Kiki Chord to know that without Hierarch, we would have real problems.
I'm not saying to ban Hierarch, but I am saying as far as fixing the format goes, she's one of the biggest targets to achieve a more evenly balanced format.
I dont mean to sound hostile, because I am not. It's just that Noble Hierarch will never be a ban target and this is right. Let me be able to play my Abzan Coco/Kiki Chord/Bant Company/Eldritch Evolution/Dredgevine/Infect/ramp decks without having a problem. Literally every favourite deck of mine,
has this card as its best t1 play. And for the last time, Hierarch ramp is the kind of ramp we want because it is easily as hell interactable. If WOTC ever wants to target ramp hard, they will go for Temple/Tronlands.
PS: Again, I am against any ban. This is something more of a thought exercise.
My apologies if I didn't state it clearly enough- I was meaning that Noxious Revival is a card that's main-deckable hate *against* Dredge, as is Surgical Extraction. If you take their best Dredge card or slap a key combo piece on top of their deck, it throws a giant wrench in their plans. And Noxious/Surgical are both very strong options for a lot of decks, since Noxious basically soft counters t1 Discard plays and reanimator strategies and lets you do a budget Bolt-Snap-Bolt in some decks (at the cost of a draw step, and only on your own turn), and Surgical can turn "answer one card" into "answer a whole deck" (e.g. GQ a Tron land into extraction, shut down the tron engine, or Extract any one win condition from Jeskai Harbinger, or Extract G-brand when a Goryo's is coming down).
My argument isn't against interacting with Hierarch. Yes, it can be interacted with, but you're failing to see the invisible costs of it. If you remove Hierarch, that's one less removal card to stop Infect, and there's no way to remove Hierarch at better than parity (basically Bolt, Gut Shot, Dark Blast, and Tarfire are the only cards I see played a lot that can do it). Path just ramps them like Hierarch never went away at all, Dismember puts you down a whopping four life(tho admittedly irrelevant against infect), Pyroclasm only works if they haven't sandbagged a mutagenic growth for their kill turn... Basically, unless you're directly answering with Bolt, Darkblast, or Gut Shot, you're falling behind to answer it. And against Eldrazi/Infect, you need every piece of removal you can get. (Don't forget that all the stuff that could answer Hierarch at parity is completely useless in the face of a spellskite and garbage against Eldrazi, too, so you're using removal that's generally bad against the rest of the deck if you're trying to answer Hierarch)
And Infect, I'd argue, does promote interaction, but I believe without Hierarch, the deck is still going to easily be strong enough to remain Tier 1. Losing Hierarch instead slows the deck down enough for more interaction to come online. As it is, if you tap out vs. Infect, even for a blocker, you're likely to just get straight up blown out. Having an extra turn gives you more time to stabilize, more time dig for answers, more time to get your own board presence going. It turns it into a back and forth instead of "answer all my questions in the first two or three turns, or lose".
I will take your word on Kiki Chord, and it would be a shame if that deck took a major hit, but I feel like it'd still be viable. You lose some velocity, but you'd pick up points vs. Burn and better fixing with Hierarch, which are not negligible factors. It would admittedly slip slightly in the tiering though, as you say.
On the other hand, the more I think about it, the more I think Abzan wouldn't lose all that much. They'd gain a solid blocker that also synergizes better with the colors of their deck (since Caryatid fixes for Black, it boosts Rhino and Souls, and it gives them another early blocker to help stabilize). It would slow them down, but I think almost everybody in this thread agrees that we WANT a slightly slower metagame. It would further pronounce the differences in gameplay between Abzan and Jund, because it would make Abzan's defensive/grindy slant more pronounced.
You don't think that for every deck you play, Hierarch being your key turn 1 play isn't an indication that something might be amiss with its balance? I don't think it's a bad card, but I feel it's a fairly innocuous looking factor that's responsible for a lot of the speed in the format.
Banning Temple is bad- it's the closest thing you can do to killing Eldrazi. And we don't kill decks here.
Agreed.
If you're aiming to power down Eldrazi, you want to either ban Hierarch, or ban Cavern of Souls, since banning Hierarch also depowers infect (thus depowering two of the four most often whinged about strategies, and Zooicide and Dredge fold to hate). Forcing Eldrazi into a slightly worse mana dork would only weaken the deck a little, as opposed to "there's no point to it any more". (It would also hurt Abzan coco, but I'm sure they'd have the easiest time filling the slot)
This is laughable. Noble Hierarch is the only kind of ramp that it perfectly fine and the only ramp that is interactable. Besides, with banning Hierarch you power down Bant Company, Abzan Company, possibly Abzan Midrange, Kiki Chord, Infect, Dredgevine and a ton of other mono green decks-brews that are going around, thus decrease diversity as well. Banning the uninteractable ramp piece is 100% more of a right solution intead of banning the bolt-able one. This is wrong and unjust(I will admit Hierarch is my fav Modern legal card of all times, as well)
Banning Faithless Looting also fixes nothing- Sure, it's a T1 play for Dredge or Grishoalbrand, but that's not the broken card. If dredge is too strong, simply ban one of the better dredgers. If Grishoalbrand is too strong, get rid of either Simian or Goryo's, since both are basically just waiting to be banned anyways.
I disagree with that as well. Banning Faithless Looting is the right way to depowering all of the UNINTERACTABLE decks, whether they try to reanimate a Griselbrand on turn 2 or trying to start dredging. This card creates all of the strategies that makes counters, and most of the spot removal look irrelevant(I believe this should not be happening in the first place, but I get it we are in a non rotating, possibly unfair format. In addition, this card would make Dredge deck look highly inconsistent. I do not care if we are going to get stronger Lootings, I only care that we are not going to get stronger or even Lootings on 1 mana. If Dredge's t1 play was nothing or Neonate and t2 Cathartic Reunion, the deck would be a lot less consistent and slower and could be hated even more easil by cards like Relic Of Progenitus, which is really a mediocre-simply good hate card vs Dredge now. That way, URx decks would have a real shot at winning Dredge decks if they would find the right hate, because they take a t1 serum visions and t2 countering the enabler or shooting the hate.
I am not advocating for a Dredge ban(even if I think that Dredge is 50% of the problems that URx decks face-the other 50 being big mana decks: I am saying that if Cavern Of Souls+Faithless Looting+Tronlands did not exist URx would really be a wise choice and strong t1 competetors), I am just saying that if we were to go down this path, Looting would be better than rebanning GGT, because they will just replace that with worst Dredgers. Ross Meriam said that Looting would be the best card as well.
Banning Looting just gets rid of the fastest one, and even then, it'd slow them down by a turn, some games.
This is what we would be after.
I REPEAT, No bans needed at this point and I hope that the next 3 announcements will be without bannings, as most of the people agree in here from what I have seen. And, finally I am convined by a Preordain unban because the arguments for it seem solid, even if I have no idea if its going to happen.
Note: Preordain unbanned and Ancetral Vision legal=> Splinter Twin has a tombstone in it(IMO it already has with AV).
So, you're against banning one of the cards that would slow infect and Eldrazi down by a turn (arguably the best Linear and Midrange decks in the format, respectively), but you insist Faithless Looting is the most bannable card because it slows Dredge down by a turn? You know what else slows Dredge down by a turn? Noxious Revival. Surgical Extraction is just plain nasty, and can kill entire decks when you're tapped out (namely, Grishoalbrand folds hard, and taking Harbinger's Emrakul or one of their burn pieces can shoot their whole plan). If you ban Faithless, you're just going to see Dredge replace them with a playset of Tormenting Voice, and emphasize mulliganing into a Voice/Embrace hand with a Simian Spirit Guide instead, or slamming Neonate. Maybe they'd run Bomat Courier instead, which technically operates at roughly the same speed and feeds Grave Troll, even if it costs 1 more overall. Dredge can adapt to losing looting pieces, easily. It's losing Dredge pieces that actually would hurt them. (Not to mention that Dredge is one of the least bannable strategies. It follows a cycle. Dredge sees play, people play more hate, Dredge decreases, people play less Dredge hate, Dredge sees more play, rinse and repeat)
As for Hierarch, powering down Infect is a feature, not a bug. Infect and Eldrazi are the two decks most needing to be brought into line with the rest of the format, since Eldrazi right now is so much better at out-bulking and outvaluing any other midrange strategy, and Infect is on the cusp of being a too-fast kill and forces the rest of the format to go faster to compensate. And what do mono-green builds lose from losing Hierarch? If you're in Mono-green, Utopia Sprawl is probably doing just as good of a job. Kiki-Chord loses a dork that taps for W, but I'm sure that slot can be replaced or filled somehow. Abzan Company loses a respectable dork, but on the other hand, they're also dealing with Infect being powered down, and that makes their infinite life combo a LOT stronger (I mean, infect can still kill them, but if you slow both decks down, you'll find Abzan is much better once it gets to mid-game). Heck, if we just got a dork that tapped for G or W and had a CMC of 1, it'd fill Hierarch's spot effortlessly in the fair decks. (Of course, that would be a ban and a new card to fill the slot, but then again, Wizards likes to give us tools to fill in for bannings. Thus Eldritch Evolution and Evolutionary Leap on the heels of Pod being banned) Basically, ask yourself, how much would fair decks lose if you just swapped in Sylvan Caryatid for Noble Hierarch in their lists? It might be substantial, but it's a heck of a lot less than in Infect where it speeds their kills up by a full turn and Eldrazi where it makes their Thought Knots and Smashers big enough fair decks simply can't compete.
I'm not saying to ban Hierarch, but I am saying as far as fixing the format goes, she's one of the biggest targets to achieve a more evenly balanced format.
Do you remember Khans-BFZ standard, with four color decks running amuck? That is Modern without Blood Moon. People are WAY too greedy on their mana bases, running bare minimum lands and almost no basics. One of my back-pocket decks is WR Land Destruction, and any deck besides Merfolk or Elves has a really hard time with even one or two lands getting nuked. (Well, Affinity is just affinity sometimes, and goes straight under it, and Infect can sometimes too, which is why Boros Prison isn't a tiered deck, I'm guessing.) Blood Moon is literally the definition of a police card- It's one of the biggest forces pushing towards less splashing and more basic lands.
Landhate is a very tenuous balance, akin to the power level of Twin before the ban. If they give us much stronger, it could become a format boogeyman, but as is, it's not quite there (to a degree where people are complaining about it needing a power up). Even a functional reprint of GQ could actually put Land Destruction over the top.
I think a key thing for people to understand is cards are additive, not a zero sum game. If you give me an improved Ghost Quarter (like say, GQ without the mana cost to activate), sure, it'll slot into decks that ran GQ before... But you're running into players running 8Quarters.dec Hell, maybe even players using Noxious Revival, Boom//Bust, Blood Moon, and Flagstones of Trokair along with Crucible of Worlds, for something that plays more like 20 Ghost Quarters.
It's in an obnoxious position where it's either useless or dominatingly strong. But I think Blood Moon isn't the criminal, it's a necessary evil for the format ecosystem. Banning it would just make Modern go more off the rails.
Banning Temple is bad- it's the closest thing you can do to killing Eldrazi. And we don't kill decks here. If you're aiming to power down Eldrazi, you want to either ban Hierarch, or ban Cavern of Souls, since banning Hierarch also depowers infect (thus depowering two of the four most often whinged about strategies, and Zooicide and Dredge fold to hate). Forcing Eldrazi into a slightly worse mana dork would only weaken the deck a little, as opposed to "there's no point to it any more". (It would also hurt Abzan coco, but I'm sure they'd have the easiest time filling the slot)
Banning Faithless Looting also fixes nothing- Sure, it's a T1 play for Dredge or Grishoalbrand, but that's not the broken card. If dredge is too strong, simply ban one of the better dredgers. If Grishoalbrand is too strong, get rid of either Simian or Goryo's, since both are basically just waiting to be banned anyways. And this all is neglecting the fact that you should be running a buttload of graveyard hate in any competent deck. You should have four sideboard slots, and ideally, one or two mainboard hate cards too (Noxious Revival and Scooze come to mind) The new Cathartic Embrace card from Kaladesh shows we'll keep seeing pushed Faithless Looting effects, period. Banning Looting just gets rid of the fastest one, and even then, it'd slow them down by a turn, some games.
I honestly feel like Preordain is pretty much safe. It's potent, yes, and more potent when you're running 4x Serum Visions 4x Preordain since you're almost guaranteed to get some good dig/filtering in your opening hand... But these days, the killer decks in modern have evolved to the point where spending a turn durdling can get you blown out pretty dang easily. Right now, the slower decks are the swordsman from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Infect/Burn/Zooicide are Indy with a gun. Giving the swordsman a slightly bigger sword isn't going to change that, even if he has an array of smaller swords, too.
I mean, the one marginal concern is that it possibly makes Grishoalbrand reliable enough that it's ban worthy. I don't think many tears would be shed if that happens. I mean, last I checked, Grishoalbrand's fast kill dies to almost any graveyard hate, and can lead to massive blowouts.
I think Preordain is fine now. It might not have been when it had the possibility of boosting Twin (which I think we all can agree while never broken was EXACTLY on the bubble for being "as good as a Modern deck should be allowed to be"), but Modern's grown, and the Blue decks now need the help a lot more.
-----
I still stand by Cavern of Souls being fundamentally unhealthy for the format- I wouldn't ever say its broken, but you've got a card that does exactly two things- 1: Prevents interaction. and 2. Hurts a uniquely Blue mechanic, since ONLY blue cares about countering spells. So it hurts two things we want to see more of in the format, and at a minuscule opportunity cost. I mean, if it ONLY gave mana for creatures, that's one thing, but you've got a card that Merfolk and Eldrazi players seriously discuss as being possible mainboard, just because the cost is so low for deckbuilding. In Merfolk it reads "Your merfolk are uncounterable. This can only pay 1 towards Kira or Spreading Seas."
As others have said, it's fundamentally a bad card for diversity (it hurts strategies we should be promoting, and while it marginally incentivizes tribal play, it in and of itself is a marginal factor in favor of tribal play that doesn't do enough to promote it), but not degenerate enough to get banned. But if we ever want to see reactive blue NOT suck, I think it's got to go. Otherwise, reactive Blue decks are up against a situation akin to Dredge facing a meta where 15% (e.g. something you're almost guaranteed to see in a 6 round tourney) of decks are MAINBOARDING Leyline of the Void.
Just wondering, does anybody have the latest percentages for Merfolk+Eldrazi+Elves (and if there's any Tier 1-3 decks that run Cavern besides, them too)? (a brief check puts Merfolk around 5% and Eldrazi around 6.5%. Just guessing, but I'm spitballing elves as around 1.5-2%)
I wouldn't mind seeing Cavern go, since it artificially inflates the price of some of the most affordable "ins" to the format by $150-$200, and getting rid of it would give countermagic a lot more "balls" in the format. As it is, you've got a 15%ish (assuming Eldrazi/Merfolk/Elves makes up 15% meta) chance any countermagic is completely dead against the threats you need to worry about. That's the thing- It's not that our land answers are BAD, but our land answers are SLOW. If you can get lategame, we're gold, but you have no way of stopping uncounterable early threats (against Eldrazi it's especially backbreaking, because it means their Reality Smasher is uncounterable and will take at least two cards to stop, instantly swinging the grindfest against you)
I am going to be totally blunt with you- The problem with Mental Misstep is that it counters itself. If it was two Phyrexian Blue, this wouldn't be an issue, but it means it CAN'T be an answer for Infect/Death's Shadow, because they'll be running it as well and they'll make even better use of it. It loads the graveyard for Become Immense, lowers life total for Death's Shadow, and hard counters Path to Exile, which is the best answer for their decks (and has a hidden mode of redirecting and reducing damage from bolts)
I was just mulling over this yesterday, and realized Force of Will wouldn't HELP against Infect- It'd give Infect an out to removal, for free, so they have shields up the turn they combo out. Do you really want to try facing infect when they're coming in at you with a Blighted Agent with Spellskite AND Force of Will for protection? You're going to need like, an instant speed uncounterable wrath or something.
In short, we don't want free counterspells in the format (barring Shoal, which is a very balanced but clunky option), because it just makes the degenerate decks maintain their prior speed and gain even better resiliency.
What we need is some sort of countermagic that deliberately slows the game down, not something that can be effortlessly splashed into any deck. Hell, something like "1U Instant: Counter target spell. Its controller puts a 0/3 Wall token with defender into play" would be a huge boon. (Though speaking of which, Swan Song is really close to what we need, but a bit too narrow)
Yeah, Counterspell would be one of those "one or two ofs only in the hardest control lists" sort of things. We've already got Mana Leak and Remand for two mana counters that are arguably good enough to be played instead of Counterspell in a lot of decks, and a whole PILE of niche "almost as goods". Would it find a slot? Sure, maybe a few, but it'd hardly change the metagame. It's not going to come down early vs. Aggro unless you're in Mono-Blue. Otherwise, you're likely using Fetch-Shocks to meet the UU requirement, and are down 4-6 life to set up a counterspell that doesn't provide any card advantage. It'd hurt the go big decks like Tron, but they're the decks least needing to be hurt right now.
You'd have to use Quicken or that one dragon from RTR.
I don't get people clamoring for it, because it's pretty dang close to:
Just Another Counterspell UU
Instant
As an additional cost to cast this card, discard a card.
Counter target spell. Draw a card.
Except for the fact that the spell you discard MUST be named Quicken. I guess it could create a Leyline of Anticipation based control deck, but that seems an awfully narrow thing? It'd basically be "If you have leyline, this deck is bonkers. If you don't have leyline, half the cards in your deck are terrible, and you're running a playset of uncastable cards" And adding more quicken effects hurts the deck, because they're empty cantrips if you did get leyline. Still, it could be an interesting archetype, I suppose.
Right now, Frontier is too young to actually be an effective format. Right now it's "last year's standard". If they were smarter about how they did it, they'd say RTR block and Theros block are part of it ATM, and will permanently rotate out after a year for RTR and two for Theros, and then rotation stops. That way, we'd actually have a substantial card pool that never existed, instead of "M15, Khans block, stuff in standard". People are trying way too hard to get ahead of the curve on that one. But hey, if it bolsters the price of junk rares from Khans, I'm not going to complain. (In all seriousness, they should look into banning CoCo and Rhino, because otherwise you just have a format where players get to face the most aggravating cards from the last two standards.)
As for the modern ban list, I think we are actually fairly well positioned, but it depends on the meta game swinging back towards a more balanced point. People are starting to build expecting Infect, Zooicide, and Dredge, and once you're positioned to handle those (or pull the rug out from under their all-in kill) the whole format can slow down again. It's a predator-prey cycle: Format slows down and gets grindy, fast linear decks go bonkers. People answer the fast linear decks, the format slows down again. And because the format slows down, the fast linear decks rise again... It seems like Merfolk/Affinity are the only Tier 1 deck that are largely untouched by this cycle, because they fluctuate between "grindy inevitability" and "fast kill" depending on game and can fit into either meta.
Emissary of Frugality W
Creature-Human Cleric
Players can't cast spells if that spell's converted mana cost is higher than the number of lands they control.
0/2
Comes down early and polices about 80% of the broken decks in the format. Become Immense kills are out, Tron and Bant Eldrazi need to slow down and play Magic like normal... I don't like how much this hurts Tron and Elves, tbh, but I think it'd be worth it because it does a huge number on the "unfair kill out of nowhere" decks (And hurting Infect's become immense kill actually boosts tron a lot)
What would we lose via shelving Batterskull? Serious question- Does it even show up on a list of the 500 most played cards in modern? I know it's not in the top 100, by a long shot. I mean, I'd wager odd corner case tier 3 cards likely sneak in more than it does. I'd almost bet Nivmagus Elemental sees more play. For Pete's sakes, I wouldn't be surprised if Devastating Summons was seeing more use. And pointing to that research, Batterskull was the sole reason Mystic made linear decks even stronger- The lifegain impeded fair decks a lot more than it did Infect. If she's instead playing with any other equipment, you get an interesting roleplayer with nothing "broken" who gives White a much needed bump in the format. It might even create some sort of new archetype, which would open up a lot of interesting options. (Heck, just off the top of my head, Sigarda's Aid, Stoneforge, Argentum Armor seems like a really spicy way to close out a game fast in a control deck)(I'm also kinda intrigued by the option of cheating in an Elbrus, since in the right deck, it basically gives you a 13/13 out of the blue- Could lead to a mini-Harbinger style deck)
Basically, for me it comes down to "What does Batterskull enable?" vs "What does Stoneforge enable?"
Without Batterskull, it's really hard to justify her being on the ban list at all, whereas with it, she's *JUST* potent enough that cautious people have doubts about her. I don't think unbanning her would hurt the format too badly, but it does move it in a negative direction unless we do something to balance things.
As for Twin/Exarch, correct me if I'm wrong, but when Twin got banned, there actually was a substantial number of twin players (IIRC, somewhere between 10 and 20%) who actually were of the sentiment that Exarch should have been banned instead, since it would keep the deck intact but depower it a bit. That's been my personal sentiment the whole time. It's a lot better to have Twin be a thing (and by its nature, an interactive combo deck) than having no twin at all. I think it would actually create a deck that's right in that perfect sweet spot where it doesn't force sideboard slots (as opposed to Affinity/Burn/Dredge, which do), but still has sufficient oomph to act as a police force.
Serious question, what does our metagame gain from having Exarch/Batterskull legal without Mystic/Splinter Twin? Because I don't think I've seen either in serious use in any shell out there (Though I suppose Exarch could be interesting in some flavors of control)
Leyline of the Void is a simple piece of sideboard tech for this deck, and has legs against Dredge (BACKBREAKING!) and a few other matchups. Not to mention the Reshuffle Eldrazi are virtually extinct except a singleton Emrakul in Jeskai Harbinger and maybe a playset in Grishoalbrand/Breach, which you'll probably be turning into counterburn against.
May I recommend a playset of Gitaxian Probe? Lets you know if it's safe to combo out, and thins the deck.
How would we all feel about doing some unban/ban swaps? Namely, unban Stoneforge, ban Batterskull, so that we have Stoneforge in format but she doesn't completely destroy Burn. Instead, people who want a living weapon card will lead to interesting experiments (maybe Lashwrithe or Bonehoard?) and leads to much more "altered" deck compositions, instead of 4x Mystic, 2x Batterskull, swords to taste.
I'd also be in favor of unbanning Splinter Twin and banning Deceiver Exarch. We'd have Twin back, but instead of the standard twin package usurping any UR deck , it would have to go into Temur for Bounding Krasis. We've have Twin again, but it would have a specific color range it was viable in, and that wedge is probably the most lacking three color combination, bar maybe Sultai. (Jund, Abzan, and Jeskai are all tier 1, Bant has Eldrazi, Grixis control/delver is always going up and down in ranking, Naya has Burn and the occasional Zoo list, Mardu is actually REALLY good (arguably better than Jeskai) but sees little play due to inertia, Esper has control lists that get results on occasion... So really, it's just Sultai and Temur that need some loving. I mean, what does Temur have, Monkey grow?) If you have Temur Twin, it gives Temur a set identity, and avoids "why don't you just play twin?" for all URx decks. Not to mention Bounding Krais is bolt-able, which means it takes less specific hate than Exarch, forcing Twin into a slightly slower gameplan (either you're using Leyline of Vitality for bolt-proofing and infinite life, or you're trying to Twin with countermagic up).
So I guess my stance is "remove the enabler cards, unban the fun stuff".
That's the thing- They've got so many ideas that the overflow is enough to fill entire sets. Kaladesh is basically overflow from Mirrodin (I know energy started as the E-Mechanic in Mirrodin, and Vehicles are also an old design that has been kicking around the pit for a while, that they just fixed up). Going down to the two set blocks bought them a good twenty years, easily, because you don't need to fill three sets and stretch ideas thin.
Furthermore, I doubt one can really call this set "powercreep". We have a situationally better Kird Ape, a situationally better Ardent Recruit, some really quirky stuff... This honestly reminds me more of say, Ravnica block, with a ton of quirky build around cards just begging to be optimized.
My apologies if I didn't state it clearly enough- I was meaning that Noxious Revival is a card that's main-deckable hate *against* Dredge, as is Surgical Extraction. If you take their best Dredge card or slap a key combo piece on top of their deck, it throws a giant wrench in their plans. And Noxious/Surgical are both very strong options for a lot of decks, since Noxious basically soft counters t1 Discard plays and reanimator strategies and lets you do a budget Bolt-Snap-Bolt in some decks (at the cost of a draw step, and only on your own turn), and Surgical can turn "answer one card" into "answer a whole deck" (e.g. GQ a Tron land into extraction, shut down the tron engine, or Extract any one win condition from Jeskai Harbinger, or Extract G-brand when a Goryo's is coming down).
My argument isn't against interacting with Hierarch. Yes, it can be interacted with, but you're failing to see the invisible costs of it. If you remove Hierarch, that's one less removal card to stop Infect, and there's no way to remove Hierarch at better than parity (basically Bolt, Gut Shot, Dark Blast, and Tarfire are the only cards I see played a lot that can do it). Path just ramps them like Hierarch never went away at all, Dismember puts you down a whopping four life(tho admittedly irrelevant against infect), Pyroclasm only works if they haven't sandbagged a mutagenic growth for their kill turn... Basically, unless you're directly answering with Bolt, Darkblast, or Gut Shot, you're falling behind to answer it. And against Eldrazi/Infect, you need every piece of removal you can get. (Don't forget that all the stuff that could answer Hierarch at parity is completely useless in the face of a spellskite and garbage against Eldrazi, too, so you're using removal that's generally bad against the rest of the deck if you're trying to answer Hierarch)
And Infect, I'd argue, does promote interaction, but I believe without Hierarch, the deck is still going to easily be strong enough to remain Tier 1. Losing Hierarch instead slows the deck down enough for more interaction to come online. As it is, if you tap out vs. Infect, even for a blocker, you're likely to just get straight up blown out. Having an extra turn gives you more time to stabilize, more time dig for answers, more time to get your own board presence going. It turns it into a back and forth instead of "answer all my questions in the first two or three turns, or lose".
I will take your word on Kiki Chord, and it would be a shame if that deck took a major hit, but I feel like it'd still be viable. You lose some velocity, but you'd pick up points vs. Burn and better fixing with Hierarch, which are not negligible factors. It would admittedly slip slightly in the tiering though, as you say.
On the other hand, the more I think about it, the more I think Abzan wouldn't lose all that much. They'd gain a solid blocker that also synergizes better with the colors of their deck (since Caryatid fixes for Black, it boosts Rhino and Souls, and it gives them another early blocker to help stabilize). It would slow them down, but I think almost everybody in this thread agrees that we WANT a slightly slower metagame. It would further pronounce the differences in gameplay between Abzan and Jund, because it would make Abzan's defensive/grindy slant more pronounced.
You don't think that for every deck you play, Hierarch being your key turn 1 play isn't an indication that something might be amiss with its balance? I don't think it's a bad card, but I feel it's a fairly innocuous looking factor that's responsible for a lot of the speed in the format.
So, you're against banning one of the cards that would slow infect and Eldrazi down by a turn (arguably the best Linear and Midrange decks in the format, respectively), but you insist Faithless Looting is the most bannable card because it slows Dredge down by a turn? You know what else slows Dredge down by a turn? Noxious Revival. Surgical Extraction is just plain nasty, and can kill entire decks when you're tapped out (namely, Grishoalbrand folds hard, and taking Harbinger's Emrakul or one of their burn pieces can shoot their whole plan). If you ban Faithless, you're just going to see Dredge replace them with a playset of Tormenting Voice, and emphasize mulliganing into a Voice/Embrace hand with a Simian Spirit Guide instead, or slamming Neonate. Maybe they'd run Bomat Courier instead, which technically operates at roughly the same speed and feeds Grave Troll, even if it costs 1 more overall. Dredge can adapt to losing looting pieces, easily. It's losing Dredge pieces that actually would hurt them. (Not to mention that Dredge is one of the least bannable strategies. It follows a cycle. Dredge sees play, people play more hate, Dredge decreases, people play less Dredge hate, Dredge sees more play, rinse and repeat)
As for Hierarch, powering down Infect is a feature, not a bug. Infect and Eldrazi are the two decks most needing to be brought into line with the rest of the format, since Eldrazi right now is so much better at out-bulking and outvaluing any other midrange strategy, and Infect is on the cusp of being a too-fast kill and forces the rest of the format to go faster to compensate. And what do mono-green builds lose from losing Hierarch? If you're in Mono-green, Utopia Sprawl is probably doing just as good of a job. Kiki-Chord loses a dork that taps for W, but I'm sure that slot can be replaced or filled somehow. Abzan Company loses a respectable dork, but on the other hand, they're also dealing with Infect being powered down, and that makes their infinite life combo a LOT stronger (I mean, infect can still kill them, but if you slow both decks down, you'll find Abzan is much better once it gets to mid-game). Heck, if we just got a dork that tapped for G or W and had a CMC of 1, it'd fill Hierarch's spot effortlessly in the fair decks. (Of course, that would be a ban and a new card to fill the slot, but then again, Wizards likes to give us tools to fill in for bannings. Thus Eldritch Evolution and Evolutionary Leap on the heels of Pod being banned) Basically, ask yourself, how much would fair decks lose if you just swapped in Sylvan Caryatid for Noble Hierarch in their lists? It might be substantial, but it's a heck of a lot less than in Infect where it speeds their kills up by a full turn and Eldrazi where it makes their Thought Knots and Smashers big enough fair decks simply can't compete.
I'm not saying to ban Hierarch, but I am saying as far as fixing the format goes, she's one of the biggest targets to achieve a more evenly balanced format.
Landhate is a very tenuous balance, akin to the power level of Twin before the ban. If they give us much stronger, it could become a format boogeyman, but as is, it's not quite there (to a degree where people are complaining about it needing a power up). Even a functional reprint of GQ could actually put Land Destruction over the top.
I think a key thing for people to understand is cards are additive, not a zero sum game. If you give me an improved Ghost Quarter (like say, GQ without the mana cost to activate), sure, it'll slot into decks that ran GQ before... But you're running into players running 8Quarters.dec Hell, maybe even players using Noxious Revival, Boom//Bust, Blood Moon, and Flagstones of Trokair along with Crucible of Worlds, for something that plays more like 20 Ghost Quarters.
It's in an obnoxious position where it's either useless or dominatingly strong. But I think Blood Moon isn't the criminal, it's a necessary evil for the format ecosystem. Banning it would just make Modern go more off the rails.
Banning Faithless Looting also fixes nothing- Sure, it's a T1 play for Dredge or Grishoalbrand, but that's not the broken card. If dredge is too strong, simply ban one of the better dredgers. If Grishoalbrand is too strong, get rid of either Simian or Goryo's, since both are basically just waiting to be banned anyways. And this all is neglecting the fact that you should be running a buttload of graveyard hate in any competent deck. You should have four sideboard slots, and ideally, one or two mainboard hate cards too (Noxious Revival and Scooze come to mind) The new Cathartic Embrace card from Kaladesh shows we'll keep seeing pushed Faithless Looting effects, period. Banning Looting just gets rid of the fastest one, and even then, it'd slow them down by a turn, some games.
I mean, the one marginal concern is that it possibly makes Grishoalbrand reliable enough that it's ban worthy. I don't think many tears would be shed if that happens. I mean, last I checked, Grishoalbrand's fast kill dies to almost any graveyard hate, and can lead to massive blowouts.
I think Preordain is fine now. It might not have been when it had the possibility of boosting Twin (which I think we all can agree while never broken was EXACTLY on the bubble for being "as good as a Modern deck should be allowed to be"), but Modern's grown, and the Blue decks now need the help a lot more.
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I still stand by Cavern of Souls being fundamentally unhealthy for the format- I wouldn't ever say its broken, but you've got a card that does exactly two things- 1: Prevents interaction. and 2. Hurts a uniquely Blue mechanic, since ONLY blue cares about countering spells. So it hurts two things we want to see more of in the format, and at a minuscule opportunity cost. I mean, if it ONLY gave mana for creatures, that's one thing, but you've got a card that Merfolk and Eldrazi players seriously discuss as being possible mainboard, just because the cost is so low for deckbuilding. In Merfolk it reads "Your merfolk are uncounterable. This can only pay 1 towards Kira or Spreading Seas."
As others have said, it's fundamentally a bad card for diversity (it hurts strategies we should be promoting, and while it marginally incentivizes tribal play, it in and of itself is a marginal factor in favor of tribal play that doesn't do enough to promote it), but not degenerate enough to get banned. But if we ever want to see reactive blue NOT suck, I think it's got to go. Otherwise, reactive Blue decks are up against a situation akin to Dredge facing a meta where 15% (e.g. something you're almost guaranteed to see in a 6 round tourney) of decks are MAINBOARDING Leyline of the Void.
I wouldn't mind seeing Cavern go, since it artificially inflates the price of some of the most affordable "ins" to the format by $150-$200, and getting rid of it would give countermagic a lot more "balls" in the format. As it is, you've got a 15%ish (assuming Eldrazi/Merfolk/Elves makes up 15% meta) chance any countermagic is completely dead against the threats you need to worry about. That's the thing- It's not that our land answers are BAD, but our land answers are SLOW. If you can get lategame, we're gold, but you have no way of stopping uncounterable early threats (against Eldrazi it's especially backbreaking, because it means their Reality Smasher is uncounterable and will take at least two cards to stop, instantly swinging the grindfest against you)
I was just mulling over this yesterday, and realized Force of Will wouldn't HELP against Infect- It'd give Infect an out to removal, for free, so they have shields up the turn they combo out. Do you really want to try facing infect when they're coming in at you with a Blighted Agent with Spellskite AND Force of Will for protection? You're going to need like, an instant speed uncounterable wrath or something.
In short, we don't want free counterspells in the format (barring Shoal, which is a very balanced but clunky option), because it just makes the degenerate decks maintain their prior speed and gain even better resiliency.
What we need is some sort of countermagic that deliberately slows the game down, not something that can be effortlessly splashed into any deck. Hell, something like "1U Instant: Counter target spell. Its controller puts a 0/3 Wall token with defender into play" would be a huge boon. (Though speaking of which, Swan Song is really close to what we need, but a bit too narrow)
I don't get people clamoring for it, because it's pretty dang close to:
Just Another Counterspell UU
Instant
As an additional cost to cast this card, discard a card.
Counter target spell. Draw a card.
Except for the fact that the spell you discard MUST be named Quicken. I guess it could create a Leyline of Anticipation based control deck, but that seems an awfully narrow thing? It'd basically be "If you have leyline, this deck is bonkers. If you don't have leyline, half the cards in your deck are terrible, and you're running a playset of uncastable cards" And adding more quicken effects hurts the deck, because they're empty cantrips if you did get leyline. Still, it could be an interesting archetype, I suppose.
As for the modern ban list, I think we are actually fairly well positioned, but it depends on the meta game swinging back towards a more balanced point. People are starting to build expecting Infect, Zooicide, and Dredge, and once you're positioned to handle those (or pull the rug out from under their all-in kill) the whole format can slow down again. It's a predator-prey cycle: Format slows down and gets grindy, fast linear decks go bonkers. People answer the fast linear decks, the format slows down again. And because the format slows down, the fast linear decks rise again... It seems like Merfolk/Affinity are the only Tier 1 deck that are largely untouched by this cycle, because they fluctuate between "grindy inevitability" and "fast kill" depending on game and can fit into either meta.
Emissary of Frugality W
Creature-Human Cleric
Players can't cast spells if that spell's converted mana cost is higher than the number of lands they control.
0/2
Comes down early and polices about 80% of the broken decks in the format. Become Immense kills are out, Tron and Bant Eldrazi need to slow down and play Magic like normal... I don't like how much this hurts Tron and Elves, tbh, but I think it'd be worth it because it does a huge number on the "unfair kill out of nowhere" decks (And hurting Infect's become immense kill actually boosts tron a lot)
Basically, for me it comes down to "What does Batterskull enable?" vs "What does Stoneforge enable?"
Without Batterskull, it's really hard to justify her being on the ban list at all, whereas with it, she's *JUST* potent enough that cautious people have doubts about her. I don't think unbanning her would hurt the format too badly, but it does move it in a negative direction unless we do something to balance things.
As for Twin/Exarch, correct me if I'm wrong, but when Twin got banned, there actually was a substantial number of twin players (IIRC, somewhere between 10 and 20%) who actually were of the sentiment that Exarch should have been banned instead, since it would keep the deck intact but depower it a bit. That's been my personal sentiment the whole time. It's a lot better to have Twin be a thing (and by its nature, an interactive combo deck) than having no twin at all. I think it would actually create a deck that's right in that perfect sweet spot where it doesn't force sideboard slots (as opposed to Affinity/Burn/Dredge, which do), but still has sufficient oomph to act as a police force.
Serious question, what does our metagame gain from having Exarch/Batterskull legal without Mystic/Splinter Twin? Because I don't think I've seen either in serious use in any shell out there (Though I suppose Exarch could be interesting in some flavors of control)
May I recommend a playset of Gitaxian Probe? Lets you know if it's safe to combo out, and thins the deck.
I'd also be in favor of unbanning Splinter Twin and banning Deceiver Exarch. We'd have Twin back, but instead of the standard twin package usurping any UR deck , it would have to go into Temur for Bounding Krasis. We've have Twin again, but it would have a specific color range it was viable in, and that wedge is probably the most lacking three color combination, bar maybe Sultai. (Jund, Abzan, and Jeskai are all tier 1, Bant has Eldrazi, Grixis control/delver is always going up and down in ranking, Naya has Burn and the occasional Zoo list, Mardu is actually REALLY good (arguably better than Jeskai) but sees little play due to inertia, Esper has control lists that get results on occasion... So really, it's just Sultai and Temur that need some loving. I mean, what does Temur have, Monkey grow?) If you have Temur Twin, it gives Temur a set identity, and avoids "why don't you just play twin?" for all URx decks. Not to mention Bounding Krais is bolt-able, which means it takes less specific hate than Exarch, forcing Twin into a slightly slower gameplan (either you're using Leyline of Vitality for bolt-proofing and infinite life, or you're trying to Twin with countermagic up).
So I guess my stance is "remove the enabler cards, unban the fun stuff".