MTG Salvation

This blog was written a couple months ago, pretty much right after PT:RTR. In fact, I had been writing the draft of it up for awhile before that. You can look though my post history and see where I initially proposed such a list before PT:RTR as well.

I did have access to the RTR spoiler though, so maybe I should have caught DRS. But plenty of people missed seeing how powerful he was.

If I redrafted the list today, I probably would include him.

As for Liliana, I think she was fine before DRS. She would very much be a staple of the format, but I think WotC likes planeswalkers being somewhat relevant in modern.


All that said, this plan was very much a "lets get it all out of the way plan". It looks like even if WotC is looking to get to the same endpoint, they are doing so in a slower approach: banning only a couple cards at a time. That can get to the same end point, just a bit more gradually.

I was advocating to ban like crazy, and then scale back. They appear to be banning slowly so they don't need to scale back as much.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see some more cards from this list banned in the future. I would reckon WotC has a list of cards they don't think fit in their ideal environment, and will be looking for opportunities to ban them that the playerbase won't pitch a fit over.

Their list may not be the same as mine, but there is probably some significant overlap.

(some of this is from a comment responding to a comment on an earlier blog entry, but I wanted to put it here for anyone who stumbles on the blog for the first time.)

Jund


This one seems like a fairly direct evolution of the current Jund reacting initially to my proposed bans. This is a collection of cards that all msotly stand on their own. The biggest question I think comes in to whether you want to go for a different 2 drop and build the strategy around that. There are lots of 2 drop options like Fauna Shaman or Lotus Cobra that encourage you to choose other things differently.



Badd Bussiness Bant Gifts


This loses 2 snapcasters and a 1 of Vedalken shackles. I slotted in a few cards I thought were reasonable replacements.



Infect


Admittedly, my knowledge on the archetype is a little loose. With that in mind, I completely understand that hitting Apostle's Blessing seems very odd. I think Infect is a product of its environment though, and given time, the rest of the environment will keep it in check. As we saw in GP Chicago, Spellskite is a major headache for the deck. Banning AB may not even be needed, but I like that it forces the deck to decide whether it wants the creature protection or if it wants the "can't block" effect they sometimes got from AB. I think Mizzium Skin and Rangers Guile are going to step up as likely replacements, which means people will more often be able to chump block and save themselves from lethal infect.


GWb Hatebears


Kibler's GP Chicago deck is entirely legal, and I don't see a problem with that.

We have some benefit here, as we mostly just have to look at current modern viable decks and ask ourselves who lost the least.

Living End
WB Tokens
Splinter Twin
Infect Aggro
Niv Magus Elemental

Next we have the midrange strategies that can be updated quick enough to be competitive.
UW Control
Jund

They both lose a not insignificant amount of cards, so the decklists are unlikely to be ideal. You should be able to slap together a version that feels reasonably competitive in about 15 minutes.

I am going to go through many archetypes, and catalog what they lost, and what immediate replacements they may move to.

Also, I will mention occasionally a card that was in the list of bannings that would be on the table for unbanning once the format stabilized. I have gone for a better safe than sorry approach, with full intent to re-evaluate once things have settled.

Jund/Junk/GBx Midrange Losses

Affinity Losses


Tempo Decks

Ramp Decks (Tron and Valakut)

Birthing Pod Decks

Infect/Niv Magus

Storm

UW Resto

Burn

Twin

BW Tokens

Aggro Loam

Living End

Control Decks

The allowed sets are the same as Modern. The only difference is the banned list is much larger.

These bans do not follow the normal rationalizations used to justify a ban. I am not worried about the reasons we would need to give to ban right now. I am only concerned with what the effects would be, because I think many people would be surprised and pleased with where we end up. If we could only get over the shock of what it takes to get there.


The following cards are banned in Nuclear Wasteland Modern

If you'd like me to expound upon the reasons for a particular banning, I can, and have done so a number of times in the Ban thread of the Modern forums.

The main thrust is that these cards, or the decks they enable, push out a large number of other cards. Often these other cards are still much beloved by the Magic community, we just tend to not even think about them in the context of modern, because they are not currently viable.

Up Next: Surveying the Fallout

I have been advocating for awhile that being more aggressive with bannings would be beneficial for modern. For many reasons, aggressive banning is looked down upon by the community. That is a major hurdle to overcome, but the best way to do so is information.

I think the biggest hurdle is that when we see a card get banned, it is easy to see what we lost, and difficult to see what we may have gained. Banning a card usually opens up other cards to being playable. But we don't know which cards those are, or if we would even care about those cards becoming viable. If we banned enough for Grizzly Bears to be playable for instance, people would not in any way think that is positive. For control players though, seeing something like Teferi suddenly become playable could have them dancing in the streets.

In hopes of making what we have to gain more clear, and to show that it is actually worth the pain of banning, I am going to make an effort to thoroughly explore the implications of what I propose and post the results to this blog.

If you read something here you have a strong opinion on, let me know. But I'll expect the data to back it up.

If you think I am missing an obvious deck that would be totally overpowered and ruin the environment, don't just say a deck name. Give me a deck list. I'll run it against some of the other decks and let you know how it turns out.

The shuttle has launched, its reached orbit, and its preparing to open the bay doors. Brace yourself, the bomb is about to drop.