Capture of JingzhouorTemporal Manipulation - I see them printing another Time Warp effect for U, and those two are the most likely. Leaning towards Capture, as it has never been reprinted and would be a "money card" without power level issues.
Final Fortune - same deal, this is an effect they like to revisit for R, and even though they've printed this card 3 times, none of those printings are in Modern. Given that the other two versions are sorceries (because Portal), FF seems the likeliest version for reprint.
Unexpectedly Absent - power level is right, and though W doesn't really get this effect anymore it would be a nice "call back" without brokenness concerns.
Goblin Sharpshooter, Goblin Ringleader, Goblin Matron, Gempalm Incenerator, Sparksmith - I see Goblin Tribal being a nice throwback mechanic, and these cards are the likeliest "power cards" to see print if they do that. Sharpshooter might make it in in any case, as just a really cool card without being overpowered.
My buddy said he saw a jeskai Nexus list in league yesterday. I think that sounds amazing. Who needs fogs when you have sweepers and board wipes. Anyone have any idea where to start?
Teferi, justice strike, essence scatter\surveil counterspell, search for azcanta, Probably clarion as well, sideboard disdainful stroke, and nexus
That's what he saw
Running a couple of Nexus in Jeskai control isn't unheard of - it is just a value card there - and there was a list from one of the first events that ran it.
Personally, I've been trying a bunch of different variations on the "Nexus + Teferi + Fog" list, and the most success came from a 4 color build (no R). Only run 4 Root Snare, but also ran Discovery over Chart, Assassin's Trophy, and a single Chromium as B cards. I'll spoiler the list below.
The main problems I've been running into (also hence some card choices) are that mono-R is a darn near impossible Game 1 and that UB decks with Disinformation Campaign eat the strategy alive. Also, UR decks can be difficult, but the sideboard for mono-R works rather well for them as well, and Carnage Tyrant out of the board is very hard for them to beat...
(a lot of my impressions are colored by the fact that I'm testing on Arena, which has a rather different meta than MTGO or the real world)
I'm going to revisit the R splash version at some other point, as it is very easy to do, but I'm not sure that Deafening Clarion is worth it. It doesn't seem to help your worst matchups - namely Dimir and RDW - and isn't really better (IMHO) than the ability to blow up enchantments and other annoying permanents!
on the off chance someone is still monitoring this thread i've recently had another go rehashing and playing this deck a FNM. Sideboard is still in development.
i tend to play extreme budget build (which this deck is with a slower land base). i have found this deck to be one of the most competitive extreme budget combo decks around...
Doesn't look too bad for a budget version, though I question the utility of Aether Hub over Gemstone Mine, even without Urborg(s).
Yes, I monitor this thread every few months, as this is still a pet deck of mine. I've moved back to a Gifts Ungiven version as of late, as the banning of Grave-Troll made the dredge version less palatable for a while. That build is probably still good (with Stinkweed), but I wanted to give the Gifts version another go. I've been tearing up my LGS with this build lately (4-0 or 3-1 in 15-35 player tourneys three times a week for a few months now, with build variations of course):
I've actually got to go to a tourney right now, but in summation: Cut//Ribbons is a wonderful addition to the deck, Ballista is the best secondary win con printed in a while (for instant speed), the Lilianas in the board are very good, and the deck is coming together. Worst matchups are Bogles (which is why LotV was added to the board in the first place), Abzan non-company (rare, but some around here play it), Jund (depending on build), and RW hate. Pretty much everything else is even to a cakewalk...
More details later, if anyone is curious enough to respond!
Still a different deck, with a very different method of play. No matter your opinion of it, this thread is about the combo build, not a midrange Eldrazi deck...
POST-TOURNEY EDIT: I went 4-0, again, in a 27 player tournament. Lost one game, to mana flood. Beat RG Scapeshift, Grishoalbrand, UW Control, and Grixis Death's Shadow (even got to kill a DS with a Grove - never actually had someone walk into that before). Don't want to change anything in the deck, really, but I'm still vacillating about some sideboard cards, specifically which counterspells (I know I want 4 with 3 different names, for Gifts) and how many/which anti-hate cards.
One change I'm specifically considering is cutting one Cut//Ribbons and the Ballista for a Tasigur and a Geth's Verdict. My MTGO version uses Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius still, for time's sake (a lot less clicks than Ballista), but the paper version doesn't actually care - the Tasigur kill may or may not be better than Ballista, specifically because there is an occasional need to recur enchantment/artifact removal. Just a thought, I'll try it at tomorrow's tourney...
Funny how 3 infinite comboes can be done with Jeski. Fumerole/ Crackdown, Felidar Saheeli, Virtuoso combo (much harder to do)
Virtuoso Combo gets a lot easier in a shell with the Felidar Saheeli combo, since you can use Felidar to replace one piece (Decoction) with Panharmonicon in play, or Saheeli to replace another (clone Module or Pan). Whether that deck is good or not is another thing entirely - I personally believe that the Saheeli/Felidar combo is going to go into one of two shells (Jeskai Tempo or Control), neither of which would really support running the second (or third, for that matter) combo, but I could easily be wrong there...
Someone else pointed out it's interaction with living end. If they tweak the mana to support double red, they can now cast it from hand for only 3 mana which seems like a worthwhile include. Drawing copies of living end has always been bad there, this would change that.
All the expertise cards do that. Actually makes me wonder what a cascade-less version of living end would look like.
I was messing around with this idea - Living End, Ancestral Vision (too greedy, but worth remembering), Boom/Bust, Goblin Dark-Dwellers, Looting and the usual, and the new "cast from hand" cards, and it seems to have promise. You could run it RW (for Flagstones of Trokair and Sram's Expertise) or RB or RBU or any other combination, and it can be surprisingly effective. It was the realization of how Boom/Bust interacts with them, along with Dark-Dwellers, that really got my mind working on something...
I don't have a list yet that really works, but the potential is there for a real nasty "Ernham-Geddon" style deck.
The new Atog + Key to the City is nothing to laugh at. It may even be worth throwing in Uncaged Fury, for the lolz...
Not kidding, it really is a powerful interaction. It also slots into a deck with Consulate Dreadnought pretty well - which also happens to work rather well with the Key (and Fury, for that matter, but that seems the epitome of greed)...
I wonder if the combo of Necrotic Ooze, and triskelion works now with a dumpable Trisk on hand instead of trying to find ways to get 2 cards in the graveyard, you now only need to find 1 way, and other just draw it.
Still need to find a way to get the +1+1 counters on the Ooze. Probably works better with an infinitemanacombo, but Tasigur + Collective Brutality does that job better in any case. I've been perusing potential combo cards for Ooze for a while, and still haven't found a more effective one than the infinite mana...
Worse than Reshape under most (but not all) circumstances. That deck is really tight for space, so I don't see what you cut that isn't essential - Chord of Calling it is not, because it will always cost you UUU...
That being said, it is better than Fabricate! No one plays Fabricate. For a reason.
I did explain, at length. You ignored, ad infinitum.
Clearly I have not, as you have yet to explain how it makes sense for a ban to be healthy when the resultant format is not healthy. Very strange set of logic to me.
Cognitive disconnect of the highest order. The two simply do not relate. An unhealthy format can occur after the banning of a card without the banning being the cause of the unhealthy format. This is basic cause and correlation stuff, grade-school logic. The ban was healthy. The format changed in an unhealthy direction. That doesn't make the ban unhealthy.
You say that it was "an unhealthy strategy for a number of reasons," but then never actually list these reasons.
I did in the other thread, but haven't here. It was unhealthy primarily because it was the best 2-card combo in the format, and always would be (barring another design f'up). It forced the question, "why aren't you just playing Twin". You simply couldn't play any other tempo-combo deck, because there was no way there would ever be one that was more efficient. It was by far the best thing UR could do, and would forever be unless they messed up with something worse. It also won too much at a high level, relative to its share of the metagame.
Then you openly admit to how unhealthy the current format is.
It isn't really that unhealthy yet, but it is rapidly approaching mutual solitaire. I didn't say what you are accusing me of saying.
Then say that it is trending in a direction which is even more unhealthy!
Indeed I did. This tracks from the previous actual statement. I think the format is in transition - of course I'm not going to make a concrete statement about its current health!
And finally, conclude that the Twin ban was healthy! Implying that it was good for the format?
There's that disconnect again - the Twin ban was healthy. The format is not going that way. These things are correlated, but there is no causation. Basic logical reasoning.
This is a logical disconnect like I have not seen in a loooong time. Please try and compose your arguments the next time you post here.
You need some schoolin' in logic, if you think I am the one with issues in my argument. You are trying to force a causative link that I didn't state the basis of your sorry excuse for an "argument", of which there is none. The Twin ban and the health of the format are simply different things. There is no causative link. As you can't seem to get that through your thick skull, I'll repeat what I said before: It simply isn’t worth the effort, as the goalposts will just keep moving…
I do believe that Twin was a healthy ban, regardless of the current state of the meta
How is it considered a healthy ban if the meta is not healthy? Or do you consider this current state healthy? If so, at what point did you consider this year "healthy"?
Willfully missing my point, or just cluelessly repeating the same logical fallacy over and over again? I’m not sure which, but it is one of them…
My point was that a ban can be healthy even if the following format is unhealthy. They really aren’t connected in that way. Twin was an unhealthy strategy for a number of reasons, and needed to go, regardless of the effect on the format. They didn’t ban it to “cure the format”, they banned it because it was a problem, and would continue to be so for the rest of the [non-rotating] format’s existence.
As to the current state, I think it is in transition. If things keep going the way they have been trending, it will be decidedly unhealthy in competitive environments very soon. Right now it is ok, to a point, but it is definitely on a precipice.
This year was really just the past six months, due to the obvious warping of the first six. In fact, the current metagame seems to be a direct result of Eldrazi Winter - the best way to fight Eldrazi was through super-linearity, leading to the sharp rise of DSA and Infect, and after the ban things have continued to evolve in that direction, helped along with the printing of Amalgam and Reunion.
Is it healthy now? At a competitive level, not really - it is effectively mutual solitaire in a disturbing number of matches. What could make it healthier? Reducing the viability of the super-linear strategies, with a particular emphasis on the one that ignores the cards that interact with the others (removal).
Artifact lands produce another turn 4 rule violator Chrome Mox produces another turn 1 "lock you out of the game" effect at best or another strong uninteractive deck that potentially breaks turn 4 rule at worst
Those are cards that won't ever be unbanned.
Artifact lands don’t produce T4 rule violators. Really, they don’t. What deck are you referring to? All-in AtogFling Affinity? Still a T4 deck. Eggs? Wouldn’t speed it up. Seriously, I have no idea what deck you are referring to there.
Chrome Mox is mainly a problem because Chalice of the Void and Blood Moon are still around. Outside of those two cards, both of which are problematic in their own right, it isn’t a problem. It is actively bad in most combo decks and wouldn’t actually speed up the one combo deck that could effectively run it at all (Ad Naus). Chrome Mox is worse than a ritual effect due to its inherent card disadvantage - it is rarely used in combos for that reason, even in formats where it is or was legal. Lotus Petal would be much worse for enabling combo decks…
Look, we all have cards we want banned(Personally i think Bant Eldrazi is too good). But in the end of the day, MODERN NEEDS NO BANS(Dredge being the exception) But UNBANS!
I am still baffled - utterly flummoxed, in fact - by your intense hatred of Ancient Stirrings. Those decks aren’t unfair in any sense of the word, with the possible exception of Lantern, which is a “glass cannon” design in any case, more like a combo deck than anything else.
I think the format needs some work to keep it from getting even more linear as time goes forward. A few bans could help with that. A few unbans are in order, as well, but not necessarily the ones you seem to advocate without much argument - JtMS has his own issues, for instance, and Twin is a no-go. On the other hand,Preordain is almost certainly OK, given the bans of Twin and Seething Song…
Can we just get Seething Song back so I can play all my favorite decks again?
I get ripped to shreds for suggesting Chrome Mox, yet someone comes on and suggests Seething Song and few protest. Typical…
Seething Song is just too dangerous. Ritual effects are like that - they look innocuous enough, but they lead to general degeneracy in ways that more disadvantageous ramp (situational moxen, for instance) do not. Song, in particular, is really dangerous with both Through the Breach and Grapeshot in the format. As much as I’d like to agree with you that it is harmless, it really doesn’t seem to be the case - two mana for one card has always been dangerous when a critical mass is possible.
Dent, I thought you did a great job explaining why dredge was unhealthy
Thanks, I try. I don’t think many people really think through what makes a deck healthy or unhealthy beyond either “I hate playing against that” or “is it broken”. The truth is far more nuanced, in my experience - Dredge isn’t broken, but it is unfair, and its presence in its current form is unhealthy. It is like Twin, in that way - not broken, a bit unfair (only mana-efficient 2-card “I Win” combo in the format), totally unhealthy.
Blood moon ensures mana bases don't get even more greedy. It can be a very annoying card, but I think it's good for the format in the grand scheme of things
I disagree, because it doesn’t actually do that. Blood Moon is more ubiquitous right now than it has ever been before in Modern, mainly because it is a one-card “I Win” in a lot of matchups. If it were “ensuring mana bases don’t get too greedy”, then that simply wouldn’t be the case - if it were doing its supposed job, people would be building mana bases that aren’t weak to it as it gets more popular. They aren’t. Why not?
Because they can’t afford to. The format’s power level is too high to both have a consistent mana base and play the cards necessary to keep up with the rest of the format. It isn’t just that these decks are being “greedy” by splashing for Path or Stony Silence or what have you, it is that they have no choice if they are to be powerful enough to compete. You only see 10-12 cards in your average game of Modern, barring cantrip effects (a tempo loss in and of themselves), which means you have to have very consistent lands (as you can’t afford to draw single-color sources too often), which means lots of duals and other multi-lands. That isn’t "greed”, that is necessity.
Blood Moon craps on that, by allowing a weak deck to run a single-card strategy to prevent their opponent from even playing the game. It is an enchantment that makes all non-basic lands produce one color of mana that simply cannot deal with enchantments - if it made them all Plains or Forests, it wouldn’t be so bad, but it doesn’t.
It is a one-card “I win combo” far too often, and unhealthy in the extreme. Do you know when Old Extended really started to get bad? I mean, before the DDT disaster. When All-In-Red popped up, and Blood Moon Affinity became common. Blood Moon is a great bellwether card for the health of large formats - if it is getting really good, the format is in trouble. The solution is to either fix the format - something that I don’t think is really possible with Modern, which is largely defined by its mana bases - or to get rid of the card.
Banning inkmoth would kill infect in modern. Infect is a very healthy deck for modern, believe it or not. It's the combo deck that preys upon other combo decks that don't interact. I think regulating infect to tier 3 would actually make the format more linear, as ironic as that sounds.
Yes, banning Inkmoth would kill Infect as it is now, reducing it to another variation on Kiln Fiend Aggro. Is that really such a bad thing? The UR pump deck is just as good at abusing non-interactive combos as a less-busted (minus Become Immense or Mutagenic Growth) Infect deck would be, just without the immunity to sorcery-speed interaction (and Abrupt Decay) that Inkmoth gives Infect…
I dunno. I think the card is a problem, because it makes Infect the hands-down best of the “Stompy” decks in the format, because it gets a manland. I also really don’t like how the card operates in Affinity. That being said, it may be a step too far to ban it, if some other step is taken against Infect instead.
I want to make it clear that I think that taking out both Muta/BI and Inkmoth is probably a step too far, but either would be a way to target Infect.
Growth isn't broken, I see no reason to ban this right now, the format isn't calling for this
Growth is the lynchpin that holds together the entire “stompy” set of decks - Infect, UR Pump, Death’s Shadow. It isn’t broken, it is just the enabler for everything else they are trying to do. Without it, none of those decks is nearly as strong.
Just like Summer Bloom, it is a card they could target to weaken the deck(s) significantly without outright neutering them. It isn’t that it is the most broken thing - in fact, quite the opposite - it is that it is what lets the broken things really work. They didn’t ban Amulet or Prime Time, they banned Summer Bloom. They won’t ban infect creatures (minus the very-far-outside-possibility of Nexus) or TITI, they’ll target one of the enablers. Growth just happens to be one of the two that would be the obvious ones to target, along with Become Immense.
Unbanning chrome would be insane. We don't need more fast mana for more linear decks
There we disagree vehemently. For one thing, the format has very little actual fast mana at the moment - a couple of rituals, SSG, and Mox Opal, along with the usual assortment of Mana Dude and Mana Rock varieties. The worst “fast mana” offender is actually a deck that spends very little - Dredge - because it cheats rather than actually spending mana.
Chrome Mox is pretty bad, in general, in fast combo decks. Go try to find a historical fast combo deck that uses it in a relevant format, like Old Extended. You’ll find that there aren’t many (DDT being the major exception). There is a good reason for that - it is far better in decks that can recover from the extreme negative card advantage than it is in decks trying to accelerate for immediate kills.
Do you know what decks do historically use the card? Prison decks and midrange decks. The former I will grant you could be a problem, as long as Blood Moon and Chalice are still around - I personally would love to see those two go and Chrome Mox come back, but I’d be willing to live through a format with all for a while just to see what really happens. The midrange decks that could use it would be the kind that simply do not compete right now - namely things like Faeries and Nahiri variants.
This is all colored by my opinion/perception that fast mana in and of itself isn’t a problem, as long as it has a sufficient drawback. I feel that Chrome Mox’s drawback - far more significant than the ones on the currently available fast mana cards - will keep it from being a problem, especially as long as a BGX deck is a major player in the format (discard and Decay are the card’s mortal enemy). Feel free to disagree, as I don’t think there’s much of a chance of them unbanning it - but to say that, say, Seething Song isn’t a problem and Chrome Mox is one is to fundamentally misunderstand how those cards actually act in real formats.
You know what decks historically beat linear aggro? fast combo. You know what decks aren't in modern?
This is actually a good point, but the truth is that the “linear aggro decks” you speak of in Modern are really combo decks. They assemble three or so cards, cast them in a particular order, and win. Just because they do it by attacking rather than playing 20 spells doesn’t make them any less combo decks!
Also, dented42ford, excellent writeup on the status of Dredge and its effect on the format. Like Spsiegel1987, I also disagree on your ban suggestions, but even so I'd say that was one of the best posts on this forum in a while.
Dredge is just a piece of the format. So is Eldrazi, Infect, Death's Shadow, and many other fast linear decks.
It makes no sense to call a ban healthy when the format has been nothing but unhealthy since the ban happened. If someone would like to explain this disconnect without sarcasm, I'm all ears. As far as I can tell, banning Twin has done nothing to make the format "healthier." And if it didn't directly have an impact on the format's health, and it was entirety other things, than banning it was completely pointless anyway.
I was going to try to respond to this, but the complete lack of sense makes that too trying…
Suffice it to say that cfusionpm doesn’t understand that there is a distinction between “a healthy ban” and “a healthy format after a ban”. As long as he doesn’t see that distinction, he will not and can not be reasoned with. It simply isn’t worth the effort, as the goalposts will just keep moving…
Did I mention Twin som where? Or is it just a hate post towards me? I guess thanks a lot for your time attacking me. I wont spend the same time attacking you and I will focus on more important matters. The only certain think is Twin ban didnt lead to any healthy meta game. If you think so, you belong in the minority. And Twin could stay banned, as long as they give us other toola in the form of preordain, sfm or JTMS. Personally I am happy with the Ancestral Visions unban.
There is a reason a card like Blood Moon ensures new Amulet Bloom kind of decks will stay in check and we URx players get to have a good answer for Tron, Bant Eldrazi, Valakut decks. It serves a higher purpose and one can only understand it only if he understands the nature of a non rotating format and Modern.
As far as Inkmoth, And Mutagenic on top of Become Immense this is just a troll suggestion that nooone will take serious, instead they will just laugh. A little bit of banmania and a little bit of bitterness with no solid arguments. Most people would cash out at the moment we had such idiotic bans. Passo on this as well.
Chrome Mox is another idea we have thorougly discussed and most agreed Modern does not need more fast mana decks, since SSG is borderline acceptable as it is right now.
It wasn't a "hate post" towards you - that was the earlier one, as it is clear you have thin skin and little of substance to say - merely a refutation of your non-arguments about the "silliness" of suggestions that may actually have merit...
(you mentioned Twin approximately 20 times in this thread, including once a couple of hours ago, by the way)
The Twin ban has little to do with the current metagame, as such. They are interdependent and can't be discussed in isolation. That being said, it wasn't the Twin ban itself that led to the current ultra-linear format, instead being the printing of numerous enabling cards in the intervening year. Prized Amalgam is the most egregious and notable, but Blossoming Defense, and Cathartic Reunion are all players as well. Who's to say where Twin would sit in the metagame, after those cards' printing - the decks simply wouldn't look the same.
I do believe that Twin was a healthy ban, regardless of the current state of the meta - and that is an important distinction. There is a big difference between a ban creating a healthy meta and a healthy ban. Do you see the distinction?
Blood Moon doesn't do what you say it does, in the majority of cases, and even if it did, it wouldn't be the "healthiest" way to do so. It isn't as if you can't interact with Tron and Amulet through other means, means that are more general in nature and less prone to locking your opponent out from the game. Lock cards are fine if they can be readily interacted with. Blood Moon cannot.
Inkmoth isn't a troll suggestion, it is a serious consideration given its role in both Infect and Affinity. The burden of proof is on the accuser, in this case - what makes it "laughable"? I've made an argument. Where is yours?
I said Muta or Become Immense, not both. Either one is enough to tone down DSZ and Infect a bit. I even made an argument as to why you would ban either over the other. Yours?
Lets get silly propositions like Inkmoth Nexus, Blood Moon out of the table, because they do the format a great favour, especially Blood Moon. Mutagenic growth is another silly proposition clearly and in the last few pages the reason why has been explained. Any ban on Blood Moon would now kill the format's confidence.
Become Immense could be a ban target, but only because we are all get used to banning delver cards.
I hope Wizards do the obvious thing: Unban something, because they wont reprint cards and we know it. Dredge nerf is the last obvious thing in my eyes because its warping the meta in a bad way and making it uninteractive and linear.
Blood Moon, Inkmoth, and Mutagenic are far less silly than unbanning Twin. FAR less silly, if we are talking about cards that stifle metagame diversity. Yet you and cfusionpm will continue to rant about that until, well, you won't stop ever, so what does that say?
A Mutagenic Growth ban is effectively the same thing as a Become Immense ban, as those two are effectively inseparable. They power each other up. Both would be far more effective bans than Probe, which is a "silly" idea. If you want to hit all the linear decks, Mutagenic is better option - Thing in the Ice decks run it, without Become Immense, for example.
Inkmoth Nexus isn't a silly suggestion at all, as it hits two of the super-linear strategies without outright killing them. Sure, Infect would likely be relegated to a fringe deck at best, but it wouldn't "kill the deck" in the literal sense. Banning it would track with previous deck-specific bans Wizards has made - it is the type of card they'd target, as it is going to be a persistent "problem" for the future of the format.
Blood Moon is another matter, and not worth the "argument". I feel it is a bad card to have around just due to how the format operates. Same goes for other persistent "griefer" cards that prevent interaction or lock out an opponent from casting spells (Chalice). Single-use effects are one thing, but persistent ones are not healthy, IMHO. Not worth getting into a dispute over, though, because there is literally (yes, again, proper usage) no way for me to present any argument in favor of such a ban that gkourou wouldn't find "absurd", and it is simply not going to happen. That doesn't mean a good argument can't be made, it just isn't worth the time in a thread such as this.
(PS: Blood Moon doesn't do the format a "great favor", because people simply cannot afford to build around it unless they plan to play it themselves. It isn't "policing mana bases", it is encouraging a toxic "do you have it NOW" dynamic that is just another form of linearization... Couldn't help myself...)
As far as unbans, I'd love to see a few - Chrome Mox (with BM ban, preferably, but it actually does a fair amount to negate BM by its presence), the Artifact Lands, Stoneforge, JtMS (though some arguments in this thread have disuaded me from having a strong view on him), and a few others would all be pretty cool to see in the format, IMHO. The likeliest of them is SFM, but I'd love to see them do something a bit edgier by unbanning a lot of cards that aren't actually all that dangerous, for various reasons. I don't think they will, but I'd like to see it...
Oh, and Twin should stay banned. That was a great ban. That card/strategy killed diversity like nothing else, except true brokenness. They didn't ban it to shake up the PT, they banned it for long-term health, and it was the right call, just like Pod, DRS, GSZ, and BBE were right calls...
Agreed. But because the deck is really not healthy for the format (forces SB slots too much, reduces GY strategy diversity), I do think Wizards bans something and then justifies it with a mix of crap and logic. That's why I lose a little faith in them but not a lot.
A non-Dredge ban, however, would make me buy out of Modern entirely. It would prove the PT change was lip service and show me Wizards isn't serious about truly fixing format problems. If they can't be bothered to commit resources and time to really help the format, I'm not wasting money or emotional energy on it.
The problem with Dredge as it is now, as opposed to "traditional" Dredge lists from before, is that it is format warping by nature - in this case, A) requiring specific answers that by their very number push out many other strategies, and that aren't actually all that effective against it and B) linearizing the format further by limiting the viability of traditional single-target interaction...
It is ok for an aggressive deck to go "big", because that generally means they have to devote a lot of resources to a single threat (Knight of the Reliquary comes to mind), both in terms of construction and mana investment. Due to that investment, single-target removal (Bolt, Path, Decay, etc) is very effective at interacting with these decks.
It is also ok for them to go "wide", because the threat of sweepers keeps them in check and leads to interesting interaction. In addition, those decks also traditionally have "key pieces" that can be removed to slow them down (Elves and Affinity are classic examples). Because those key pieces are generally far more impactful than the rest of the "engines", removal is again useful against them, and provides an interesting angle for control and midrange decks to attack.
Post-Amalgam Dredge does both at the same time, but better than pretty much any other deck because of the way it manipulates its resources (being front-loaded into construction, rather than mana cost). Dredge as it is now is effectively the best "fast mana" deck in the format, because it gets between 10-16 "free mana" a game from Amalgam and Bloodghast. 3/3 for 3 is fine, if you are actually paying 3 mana for it - but when you pay 0, even investing 1 into removing that card is mana inefficient for the interacting player. The deck goes "big" by spitting out 3/3's, yet removing those with non-exile removal is futile at best. It goes "wide" by flooding the board, but it has no "key pieces" to remove once it is in motion, once again negating single-target removal. Sweepers work OK, but only ones that exile (Anger of the Gods being the only one that costs less than 5) are actually effective.
Also, because it is an aggressive deck with persistent threats (unlike Ichorid Dredge, which was more of a combo kill and far more vulnerable to sweepers), you have a very narrow window to use graveyard hate cards to interact - if your Relic or Rest in Peace is your 10th card, the damage is likely already done. The actual most effective card against the deck is the aforementioned Anger for that reason...
Do these qualities merit a ban under the previous reasons for banning? Not really. It isn't tearing up Top 8's, it isn't an overwhelming share of the meta, it doesn't really limit design space (sorta - I'll get to that), and it doesn't violate the "Turn 4 rule" consistently. All that being said, it doeswarp the meta, and not in a good way. The best ways to fight the deck are to out-linear it (Infect, SuiBlu, DSA) or to run Anger of the Gods, a card that isn't particularly good against anything else (except the other "go wide" aggro decks, which Dredge is pushing out of the meta in any case - Elves, Affinity, etc). It pushes out any other graveyard strategy by overloading sideboards, it pushes out control by encouraging the types of linear decks that prey on them, it pushes out midrange by being immune to single target removal, and it pushes out traditional go wide decks by both being more efficient and encouraging SB hate that hits them harder than it does Dredge. It is also infuriating to try to interact with, due to the effective immunity to single-target removal that it uniquely has amongst "go wide" aggressive strategies.
Do those qualities merit a ban? I think they do, and so do many others. What to ban? I don't think banning Grave-Troll does anything, really - yes, it hurts the deck, but the basic strategy still stays strong and retains the qualities above. Same goes for Cathartic Reunion - it is just an enabler, and while it is better than any other, it isn't that much better (I could easily see Dredge going back to being RUB and running Ideas Unbound again if they banned Reunion, which isn't exactly a major downgrade, merely making them weaker to Blood Moon).
The only newly printed card that is truly "unique", and the single card that pushed Dredge from fringe to amazing is Prized Amalgam. Amalgam is the first card in 15 years to reanimate for free without a mana investment that also has an appreciable power stat - Ichorid is literally the last one, way back in Torment. Amalgam, like Ichorid, does not require you to spend resources to play, instead only requiring your deck to be constructed to utilize it. Literally (yes, literally literally) no other card printed in the Modern era does that that isn't a 1/1, Bloodghast being the closest but still requiring a card in hand (land) to activate. Amalgam is the outlier, the unreplaceable card in current Dredge builds, and the biggest offender in terms of power level in the deck. If they ban anything, it has to be (IMHO) the card to go, even if it kills the deck in its current form. The current form is unhealthy and format warping. That isn't good.
All that being said, the main complaint in Modern is over-linearization, and Dredge is far from the only offender. It is merely the one which cannot be interacted with in a traditional way - in other words, it is a deck where Bolt (and Mana Leak, and Decay, and Counterspell for that matter) is basically useless. I think if you got rid of [Amalgam] Dredge, midrange decks would have far more game again, which could suppress the other super-linear decks enough to give the format "room to breathe". That may not be one of the reasons they have used thus far to justify a banning, but it is a reasonable one, in my opinion.
Personally, I'd love to see other cards go as well - Inkmoth gives Infect and Affinity too much inevitability, Become Immense and/or Mutagenic Growth encourage toxic "do you have it" gameplay styles, Blood Moon is a relic that does more harm than good - but that is mostly just my preferences showing themselves. I'd also love to see Chrome Mox unbanned, but that is a matter for another post...
No, seriously, something like 70% of the posts are the same two guys demanding a Twin unban, in response to every single other statement made. What is particularly irritating (or entertaining, depending on your proclivities) is that their entire "argument" boils down to being annoyed at one part of a multi-part explanation for the ban. They didn't just ban Twin for the Pro Tour, and that won't be true no matter how many times those two [insert preferred descriptive noun here] repeat it!
Can we please get around to a discussion that is something other than "Hey, I have an idea", [cfusionpm] "Unban Twin", [gkourou] "Yeah, the ban was ridiculous", "Hey, what about my point", [in unison] "But TWIN!!!"
Capture of Jingzhou or Temporal Manipulation - I see them printing another Time Warp effect for U, and those two are the most likely. Leaning towards Capture, as it has never been reprinted and would be a "money card" without power level issues.
Final Fortune - same deal, this is an effect they like to revisit for R, and even though they've printed this card 3 times, none of those printings are in Modern. Given that the other two versions are sorceries (because Portal), FF seems the likeliest version for reprint.
Unexpectedly Absent - power level is right, and though W doesn't really get this effect anymore it would be a nice "call back" without brokenness concerns.
Goblin Sharpshooter, Goblin Ringleader, Goblin Matron, Gempalm Incenerator, Sparksmith - I see Goblin Tribal being a nice throwback mechanic, and these cards are the likeliest "power cards" to see print if they do that. Sharpshooter might make it in in any case, as just a really cool card without being overpowered.
Running a couple of Nexus in Jeskai control isn't unheard of - it is just a value card there - and there was a list from one of the first events that ran it.
Personally, I've been trying a bunch of different variations on the "Nexus + Teferi + Fog" list, and the most success came from a 4 color build (no R). Only run 4 Root Snare, but also ran Discovery over Chart, Assassin's Trophy, and a single Chromium as B cards. I'll spoiler the list below.
The main problems I've been running into (also hence some card choices) are that mono-R is a darn near impossible Game 1 and that UB decks with Disinformation Campaign eat the strategy alive. Also, UR decks can be difficult, but the sideboard for mono-R works rather well for them as well, and Carnage Tyrant out of the board is very hard for them to beat...
(a lot of my impressions are colored by the fact that I'm testing on Arena, which has a rather different meta than MTGO or the real world)
I'm going to revisit the R splash version at some other point, as it is very easy to do, but I'm not sure that Deafening Clarion is worth it. It doesn't seem to help your worst matchups - namely Dimir and RDW - and isn't really better (IMHO) than the ability to blow up enchantments and other annoying permanents!
4 Search for Azcanta
1 Nezahal, Primal Tide
4 Assassin's Trophy
4 Settle the Wreckage
3 Cleansing Nova
4 Root Snare
3 Discovery//Dispersal
3 Nexus of Fate
4 Chemister's Insight
4 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Isolated Chapel
3 Hinterland Harbor
3 Plains
2 Island
4 Shield Mare
2 Lyra Dawnbringer
3 Knight of Autumn
3 Negate
2 Carnage Tyrant
1 Chromium, The Mutable
Doesn't look too bad for a budget version, though I question the utility of Aether Hub over Gemstone Mine, even without Urborg(s).
Yes, I monitor this thread every few months, as this is still a pet deck of mine. I've moved back to a Gifts Ungiven version as of late, as the banning of Grave-Troll made the dredge version less palatable for a while. That build is probably still good (with Stinkweed), but I wanted to give the Gifts version another go. I've been tearing up my LGS with this build lately (4-0 or 3-1 in 15-35 player tourneys three times a week for a few months now, with build variations of course):
4 Morselhoarder
4 Devoted Druid
3 Griselbrand
1 Walking Ballista
4 Grisly Salvage
4 Faithless Looting
3 Gifts Ungiven
3 Izzet Charm
3 Cut//Ribbons
3 Unburial Rites
2 Collective Brutality
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Botanical Sanctum
1 Darkslick Shores
1 Forest
2 Swan Song
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Nature's Claim
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Negate
1 Delay
1 Collective Brutality
I've actually got to go to a tourney right now, but in summation: Cut//Ribbons is a wonderful addition to the deck, Ballista is the best secondary win con printed in a while (for instant speed), the Lilianas in the board are very good, and the deck is coming together. Worst matchups are Bogles (which is why LotV was added to the board in the first place), Abzan non-company (rare, but some around here play it), Jund (depending on build), and RW hate. Pretty much everything else is even to a cakewalk...
More details later, if anyone is curious enough to respond!
Still a different deck, with a very different method of play. No matter your opinion of it, this thread is about the combo build, not a midrange Eldrazi deck...
POST-TOURNEY EDIT: I went 4-0, again, in a 27 player tournament. Lost one game, to mana flood. Beat RG Scapeshift, Grishoalbrand, UW Control, and Grixis Death's Shadow (even got to kill a DS with a Grove - never actually had someone walk into that before). Don't want to change anything in the deck, really, but I'm still vacillating about some sideboard cards, specifically which counterspells (I know I want 4 with 3 different names, for Gifts) and how many/which anti-hate cards.
One change I'm specifically considering is cutting one Cut//Ribbons and the Ballista for a Tasigur and a Geth's Verdict. My MTGO version uses Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius still, for time's sake (a lot less clicks than Ballista), but the paper version doesn't actually care - the Tasigur kill may or may not be better than Ballista, specifically because there is an occasional need to recur enchantment/artifact removal. Just a thought, I'll try it at tomorrow's tourney...
I'm open to any suggestions!
Virtuoso Combo gets a lot easier in a shell with the Felidar Saheeli combo, since you can use Felidar to replace one piece (Decoction) with Panharmonicon in play, or Saheeli to replace another (clone Module or Pan). Whether that deck is good or not is another thing entirely - I personally believe that the Saheeli/Felidar combo is going to go into one of two shells (Jeskai Tempo or Control), neither of which would really support running the second (or third, for that matter) combo, but I could easily be wrong there...
I was messing around with this idea - Living End, Ancestral Vision (too greedy, but worth remembering), Boom/Bust, Goblin Dark-Dwellers, Looting and the usual, and the new "cast from hand" cards, and it seems to have promise. You could run it RW (for Flagstones of Trokair and Sram's Expertise) or RB or RBU or any other combination, and it can be surprisingly effective. It was the realization of how Boom/Bust interacts with them, along with Dark-Dwellers, that really got my mind working on something...
I don't have a list yet that really works, but the potential is there for a real nasty "Ernham-Geddon" style deck.
Not kidding, it really is a powerful interaction. It also slots into a deck with Consulate Dreadnought pretty well - which also happens to work rather well with the Key (and Fury, for that matter, but that seems the epitome of greed)...
How about a modicum of common sense?
Still need to find a way to get the +1+1 counters on the Ooze. Probably works better with an infinite mana combo, but Tasigur + Collective Brutality does that job better in any case. I've been perusing potential combo cards for Ooze for a while, and still haven't found a more effective one than the infinite mana...
Worse than Reshape under most (but not all) circumstances. That deck is really tight for space, so I don't see what you cut that isn't essential - Chord of Calling it is not, because it will always cost you UUU...
That being said, it is better than Fabricate! No one plays Fabricate. For a reason.
Cognitive disconnect of the highest order. The two simply do not relate. An unhealthy format can occur after the banning of a card without the banning being the cause of the unhealthy format. This is basic cause and correlation stuff, grade-school logic. The ban was healthy. The format changed in an unhealthy direction. That doesn't make the ban unhealthy.
I did in the other thread, but haven't here. It was unhealthy primarily because it was the best 2-card combo in the format, and always would be (barring another design f'up). It forced the question, "why aren't you just playing Twin". You simply couldn't play any other tempo-combo deck, because there was no way there would ever be one that was more efficient. It was by far the best thing UR could do, and would forever be unless they messed up with something worse. It also won too much at a high level, relative to its share of the metagame.
It isn't really that unhealthy yet, but it is rapidly approaching mutual solitaire. I didn't say what you are accusing me of saying.
Indeed I did. This tracks from the previous actual statement. I think the format is in transition - of course I'm not going to make a concrete statement about its current health!
There's that disconnect again - the Twin ban was healthy. The format is not going that way. These things are correlated, but there is no causation. Basic logical reasoning.
You need some schoolin' in logic, if you think I am the one with issues in my argument. You are trying to force a causative link that I didn't state the basis of your sorry excuse for an "argument", of which there is none. The Twin ban and the health of the format are simply different things. There is no causative link. As you can't seem to get that through your thick skull, I'll repeat what I said before: It simply isn’t worth the effort, as the goalposts will just keep moving…
Willfully missing my point, or just cluelessly repeating the same logical fallacy over and over again? I’m not sure which, but it is one of them…
My point was that a ban can be healthy even if the following format is unhealthy. They really aren’t connected in that way. Twin was an unhealthy strategy for a number of reasons, and needed to go, regardless of the effect on the format. They didn’t ban it to “cure the format”, they banned it because it was a problem, and would continue to be so for the rest of the [non-rotating] format’s existence.
As to the current state, I think it is in transition. If things keep going the way they have been trending, it will be decidedly unhealthy in competitive environments very soon. Right now it is ok, to a point, but it is definitely on a precipice.
This year was really just the past six months, due to the obvious warping of the first six. In fact, the current metagame seems to be a direct result of Eldrazi Winter - the best way to fight Eldrazi was through super-linearity, leading to the sharp rise of DSA and Infect, and after the ban things have continued to evolve in that direction, helped along with the printing of Amalgam and Reunion.
Is it healthy now? At a competitive level, not really - it is effectively mutual solitaire in a disturbing number of matches. What could make it healthier? Reducing the viability of the super-linear strategies, with a particular emphasis on the one that ignores the cards that interact with the others (removal).
I still don’t see an argument. I see a ton of outrage and flat denials, but no arguments…
Artifact lands don’t produce T4 rule violators. Really, they don’t. What deck are you referring to? All-in Atog Fling Affinity? Still a T4 deck. Eggs? Wouldn’t speed it up. Seriously, I have no idea what deck you are referring to there.
Chrome Mox is mainly a problem because Chalice of the Void and Blood Moon are still around. Outside of those two cards, both of which are problematic in their own right, it isn’t a problem. It is actively bad in most combo decks and wouldn’t actually speed up the one combo deck that could effectively run it at all (Ad Naus). Chrome Mox is worse than a ritual effect due to its inherent card disadvantage - it is rarely used in combos for that reason, even in formats where it is or was legal. Lotus Petal would be much worse for enabling combo decks…
I am still baffled - utterly flummoxed, in fact - by your intense hatred of Ancient Stirrings. Those decks aren’t unfair in any sense of the word, with the possible exception of Lantern, which is a “glass cannon” design in any case, more like a combo deck than anything else.
I think the format needs some work to keep it from getting even more linear as time goes forward. A few bans could help with that. A few unbans are in order, as well, but not necessarily the ones you seem to advocate without much argument - JtMS has his own issues, for instance, and Twin is a no-go. On the other hand,Preordain is almost certainly OK, given the bans of Twin and Seething Song…
I get ripped to shreds for suggesting Chrome Mox, yet someone comes on and suggests Seething Song and few protest. Typical…
Seething Song is just too dangerous. Ritual effects are like that - they look innocuous enough, but they lead to general degeneracy in ways that more disadvantageous ramp (situational moxen, for instance) do not. Song, in particular, is really dangerous with both Through the Breach and Grapeshot in the format. As much as I’d like to agree with you that it is harmless, it really doesn’t seem to be the case - two mana for one card has always been dangerous when a critical mass is possible.
Thanks, I try. I don’t think many people really think through what makes a deck healthy or unhealthy beyond either “I hate playing against that” or “is it broken”. The truth is far more nuanced, in my experience - Dredge isn’t broken, but it is unfair, and its presence in its current form is unhealthy. It is like Twin, in that way - not broken, a bit unfair (only mana-efficient 2-card “I Win” combo in the format), totally unhealthy.
Fair enough, and I did say it was my opinion! That being said, I do have arguments for each - whether they are good arguments is up for debate…
I disagree, because it doesn’t actually do that. Blood Moon is more ubiquitous right now than it has ever been before in Modern, mainly because it is a one-card “I Win” in a lot of matchups. If it were “ensuring mana bases don’t get too greedy”, then that simply wouldn’t be the case - if it were doing its supposed job, people would be building mana bases that aren’t weak to it as it gets more popular. They aren’t. Why not?
Because they can’t afford to. The format’s power level is too high to both have a consistent mana base and play the cards necessary to keep up with the rest of the format. It isn’t just that these decks are being “greedy” by splashing for Path or Stony Silence or what have you, it is that they have no choice if they are to be powerful enough to compete. You only see 10-12 cards in your average game of Modern, barring cantrip effects (a tempo loss in and of themselves), which means you have to have very consistent lands (as you can’t afford to draw single-color sources too often), which means lots of duals and other multi-lands. That isn’t "greed”, that is necessity.
Blood Moon craps on that, by allowing a weak deck to run a single-card strategy to prevent their opponent from even playing the game. It is an enchantment that makes all non-basic lands produce one color of mana that simply cannot deal with enchantments - if it made them all Plains or Forests, it wouldn’t be so bad, but it doesn’t.
It is a one-card “I win combo” far too often, and unhealthy in the extreme. Do you know when Old Extended really started to get bad? I mean, before the DDT disaster. When All-In-Red popped up, and Blood Moon Affinity became common. Blood Moon is a great bellwether card for the health of large formats - if it is getting really good, the format is in trouble. The solution is to either fix the format - something that I don’t think is really possible with Modern, which is largely defined by its mana bases - or to get rid of the card.
Yes, banning Inkmoth would kill Infect as it is now, reducing it to another variation on Kiln Fiend Aggro. Is that really such a bad thing? The UR pump deck is just as good at abusing non-interactive combos as a less-busted (minus Become Immense or Mutagenic Growth) Infect deck would be, just without the immunity to sorcery-speed interaction (and Abrupt Decay) that Inkmoth gives Infect…
I dunno. I think the card is a problem, because it makes Infect the hands-down best of the “Stompy” decks in the format, because it gets a manland. I also really don’t like how the card operates in Affinity. That being said, it may be a step too far to ban it, if some other step is taken against Infect instead.
I want to make it clear that I think that taking out both Muta/BI and Inkmoth is probably a step too far, but either would be a way to target Infect.
Growth is the lynchpin that holds together the entire “stompy” set of decks - Infect, UR Pump, Death’s Shadow. It isn’t broken, it is just the enabler for everything else they are trying to do. Without it, none of those decks is nearly as strong.
Just like Summer Bloom, it is a card they could target to weaken the deck(s) significantly without outright neutering them. It isn’t that it is the most broken thing - in fact, quite the opposite - it is that it is what lets the broken things really work. They didn’t ban Amulet or Prime Time, they banned Summer Bloom. They won’t ban infect creatures (minus the very-far-outside-possibility of Nexus) or TITI, they’ll target one of the enablers. Growth just happens to be one of the two that would be the obvious ones to target, along with Become Immense.
There we disagree vehemently. For one thing, the format has very little actual fast mana at the moment - a couple of rituals, SSG, and Mox Opal, along with the usual assortment of Mana Dude and Mana Rock varieties. The worst “fast mana” offender is actually a deck that spends very little - Dredge - because it cheats rather than actually spending mana.
Chrome Mox is pretty bad, in general, in fast combo decks. Go try to find a historical fast combo deck that uses it in a relevant format, like Old Extended. You’ll find that there aren’t many (DDT being the major exception). There is a good reason for that - it is far better in decks that can recover from the extreme negative card advantage than it is in decks trying to accelerate for immediate kills.
Do you know what decks do historically use the card? Prison decks and midrange decks. The former I will grant you could be a problem, as long as Blood Moon and Chalice are still around - I personally would love to see those two go and Chrome Mox come back, but I’d be willing to live through a format with all for a while just to see what really happens. The midrange decks that could use it would be the kind that simply do not compete right now - namely things like Faeries and Nahiri variants.
This is all colored by my opinion/perception that fast mana in and of itself isn’t a problem, as long as it has a sufficient drawback. I feel that Chrome Mox’s drawback - far more significant than the ones on the currently available fast mana cards - will keep it from being a problem, especially as long as a BGX deck is a major player in the format (discard and Decay are the card’s mortal enemy). Feel free to disagree, as I don’t think there’s much of a chance of them unbanning it - but to say that, say, Seething Song isn’t a problem and Chrome Mox is one is to fundamentally misunderstand how those cards actually act in real formats.
On that we are in agreement.
This is actually a good point, but the truth is that the “linear aggro decks” you speak of in Modern are really combo decks. They assemble three or so cards, cast them in a particular order, and win. Just because they do it by attacking rather than playing 20 spells doesn’t make them any less combo decks!
Thanks for the kind words!
I was going to try to respond to this, but the complete lack of sense makes that too trying…
Suffice it to say that cfusionpm doesn’t understand that there is a distinction between “a healthy ban” and “a healthy format after a ban”. As long as he doesn’t see that distinction, he will not and can not be reasoned with. It simply isn’t worth the effort, as the goalposts will just keep moving…
[Parsing...]
[Parsing...]
[Basic understanding reached...]
It wasn't a "hate post" towards you - that was the earlier one, as it is clear you have thin skin and little of substance to say - merely a refutation of your non-arguments about the "silliness" of suggestions that may actually have merit...
(you mentioned Twin approximately 20 times in this thread, including once a couple of hours ago, by the way)
The Twin ban has little to do with the current metagame, as such. They are interdependent and can't be discussed in isolation. That being said, it wasn't the Twin ban itself that led to the current ultra-linear format, instead being the printing of numerous enabling cards in the intervening year. Prized Amalgam is the most egregious and notable, but Blossoming Defense, and Cathartic Reunion are all players as well. Who's to say where Twin would sit in the metagame, after those cards' printing - the decks simply wouldn't look the same.
I do believe that Twin was a healthy ban, regardless of the current state of the meta - and that is an important distinction. There is a big difference between a ban creating a healthy meta and a healthy ban. Do you see the distinction?
Blood Moon doesn't do what you say it does, in the majority of cases, and even if it did, it wouldn't be the "healthiest" way to do so. It isn't as if you can't interact with Tron and Amulet through other means, means that are more general in nature and less prone to locking your opponent out from the game. Lock cards are fine if they can be readily interacted with. Blood Moon cannot.
Inkmoth isn't a troll suggestion, it is a serious consideration given its role in both Infect and Affinity. The burden of proof is on the accuser, in this case - what makes it "laughable"? I've made an argument. Where is yours?
I said Muta or Become Immense, not both. Either one is enough to tone down DSZ and Infect a bit. I even made an argument as to why you would ban either over the other. Yours?
CM is for another discussion...
Blood Moon, Inkmoth, and Mutagenic are far less silly than unbanning Twin. FAR less silly, if we are talking about cards that stifle metagame diversity. Yet you and cfusionpm will continue to rant about that until, well, you won't stop ever, so what does that say?
A Mutagenic Growth ban is effectively the same thing as a Become Immense ban, as those two are effectively inseparable. They power each other up. Both would be far more effective bans than Probe, which is a "silly" idea. If you want to hit all the linear decks, Mutagenic is better option - Thing in the Ice decks run it, without Become Immense, for example.
Inkmoth Nexus isn't a silly suggestion at all, as it hits two of the super-linear strategies without outright killing them. Sure, Infect would likely be relegated to a fringe deck at best, but it wouldn't "kill the deck" in the literal sense. Banning it would track with previous deck-specific bans Wizards has made - it is the type of card they'd target, as it is going to be a persistent "problem" for the future of the format.
Blood Moon is another matter, and not worth the "argument". I feel it is a bad card to have around just due to how the format operates. Same goes for other persistent "griefer" cards that prevent interaction or lock out an opponent from casting spells (Chalice). Single-use effects are one thing, but persistent ones are not healthy, IMHO. Not worth getting into a dispute over, though, because there is literally (yes, again, proper usage) no way for me to present any argument in favor of such a ban that gkourou wouldn't find "absurd", and it is simply not going to happen. That doesn't mean a good argument can't be made, it just isn't worth the time in a thread such as this.
(PS: Blood Moon doesn't do the format a "great favor", because people simply cannot afford to build around it unless they plan to play it themselves. It isn't "policing mana bases", it is encouraging a toxic "do you have it NOW" dynamic that is just another form of linearization... Couldn't help myself...)
As far as unbans, I'd love to see a few - Chrome Mox (with BM ban, preferably, but it actually does a fair amount to negate BM by its presence), the Artifact Lands, Stoneforge, JtMS (though some arguments in this thread have disuaded me from having a strong view on him), and a few others would all be pretty cool to see in the format, IMHO. The likeliest of them is SFM, but I'd love to see them do something a bit edgier by unbanning a lot of cards that aren't actually all that dangerous, for various reasons. I don't think they will, but I'd like to see it...
Oh, and Twin should stay banned. That was a great ban. That card/strategy killed diversity like nothing else, except true brokenness. They didn't ban it to shake up the PT, they banned it for long-term health, and it was the right call, just like Pod, DRS, GSZ, and BBE were right calls...
The problem with Dredge as it is now, as opposed to "traditional" Dredge lists from before, is that it is format warping by nature - in this case, A) requiring specific answers that by their very number push out many other strategies, and that aren't actually all that effective against it and B) linearizing the format further by limiting the viability of traditional single-target interaction...
It is ok for an aggressive deck to go "big", because that generally means they have to devote a lot of resources to a single threat (Knight of the Reliquary comes to mind), both in terms of construction and mana investment. Due to that investment, single-target removal (Bolt, Path, Decay, etc) is very effective at interacting with these decks.
It is also ok for them to go "wide", because the threat of sweepers keeps them in check and leads to interesting interaction. In addition, those decks also traditionally have "key pieces" that can be removed to slow them down (Elves and Affinity are classic examples). Because those key pieces are generally far more impactful than the rest of the "engines", removal is again useful against them, and provides an interesting angle for control and midrange decks to attack.
Post-Amalgam Dredge does both at the same time, but better than pretty much any other deck because of the way it manipulates its resources (being front-loaded into construction, rather than mana cost). Dredge as it is now is effectively the best "fast mana" deck in the format, because it gets between 10-16 "free mana" a game from Amalgam and Bloodghast. 3/3 for 3 is fine, if you are actually paying 3 mana for it - but when you pay 0, even investing 1 into removing that card is mana inefficient for the interacting player. The deck goes "big" by spitting out 3/3's, yet removing those with non-exile removal is futile at best. It goes "wide" by flooding the board, but it has no "key pieces" to remove once it is in motion, once again negating single-target removal. Sweepers work OK, but only ones that exile (Anger of the Gods being the only one that costs less than 5) are actually effective.
Also, because it is an aggressive deck with persistent threats (unlike Ichorid Dredge, which was more of a combo kill and far more vulnerable to sweepers), you have a very narrow window to use graveyard hate cards to interact - if your Relic or Rest in Peace is your 10th card, the damage is likely already done. The actual most effective card against the deck is the aforementioned Anger for that reason...
Do these qualities merit a ban under the previous reasons for banning? Not really. It isn't tearing up Top 8's, it isn't an overwhelming share of the meta, it doesn't really limit design space (sorta - I'll get to that), and it doesn't violate the "Turn 4 rule" consistently. All that being said, it does warp the meta, and not in a good way. The best ways to fight the deck are to out-linear it (Infect, SuiBlu, DSA) or to run Anger of the Gods, a card that isn't particularly good against anything else (except the other "go wide" aggro decks, which Dredge is pushing out of the meta in any case - Elves, Affinity, etc). It pushes out any other graveyard strategy by overloading sideboards, it pushes out control by encouraging the types of linear decks that prey on them, it pushes out midrange by being immune to single target removal, and it pushes out traditional go wide decks by both being more efficient and encouraging SB hate that hits them harder than it does Dredge. It is also infuriating to try to interact with, due to the effective immunity to single-target removal that it uniquely has amongst "go wide" aggressive strategies.
Do those qualities merit a ban? I think they do, and so do many others. What to ban? I don't think banning Grave-Troll does anything, really - yes, it hurts the deck, but the basic strategy still stays strong and retains the qualities above. Same goes for Cathartic Reunion - it is just an enabler, and while it is better than any other, it isn't that much better (I could easily see Dredge going back to being RUB and running Ideas Unbound again if they banned Reunion, which isn't exactly a major downgrade, merely making them weaker to Blood Moon).
The only newly printed card that is truly "unique", and the single card that pushed Dredge from fringe to amazing is Prized Amalgam. Amalgam is the first card in 15 years to reanimate for free without a mana investment that also has an appreciable power stat - Ichorid is literally the last one, way back in Torment. Amalgam, like Ichorid, does not require you to spend resources to play, instead only requiring your deck to be constructed to utilize it. Literally (yes, literally literally) no other card printed in the Modern era does that that isn't a 1/1, Bloodghast being the closest but still requiring a card in hand (land) to activate. Amalgam is the outlier, the unreplaceable card in current Dredge builds, and the biggest offender in terms of power level in the deck. If they ban anything, it has to be (IMHO) the card to go, even if it kills the deck in its current form. The current form is unhealthy and format warping. That isn't good.
All that being said, the main complaint in Modern is over-linearization, and Dredge is far from the only offender. It is merely the one which cannot be interacted with in a traditional way - in other words, it is a deck where Bolt (and Mana Leak, and Decay, and Counterspell for that matter) is basically useless. I think if you got rid of [Amalgam] Dredge, midrange decks would have far more game again, which could suppress the other super-linear decks enough to give the format "room to breathe". That may not be one of the reasons they have used thus far to justify a banning, but it is a reasonable one, in my opinion.
Personally, I'd love to see other cards go as well - Inkmoth gives Infect and Affinity too much inevitability, Become Immense and/or Mutagenic Growth encourage toxic "do you have it" gameplay styles, Blood Moon is a relic that does more harm than good - but that is mostly just my preferences showing themselves. I'd also love to see Chrome Mox unbanned, but that is a matter for another post...
No, seriously, something like 70% of the posts are the same two guys demanding a Twin unban, in response to every single other statement made. What is particularly irritating (or entertaining, depending on your proclivities) is that their entire "argument" boils down to being annoyed at one part of a multi-part explanation for the ban. They didn't just ban Twin for the Pro Tour, and that won't be true no matter how many times those two [insert preferred descriptive noun here] repeat it!
Can we please get around to a discussion that is something other than "Hey, I have an idea", [cfusionpm] "Unban Twin", [gkourou] "Yeah, the ban was ridiculous", "Hey, what about my point", [in unison] "But TWIN!!!"