I agree we should not ban cards based on how unfun they are (Blood Moon, Chalice), but only how often they show up in high level play (Ancient Stirrings, Faithless Looting)
Enough answers exist to these lockdown strategies which keeps them from ever attaining too high of a meta percentage. Lantern came close after the modern Pro Tour but died off quickly afterwards. Now there is Grixis Whir but it has yet to prove itself in GPs.
I could see a Stirrings and maybe Looting ban in November, followed by a Stoneforge Mystic and maybe somethign else unban in the spring.
I believe we finally have enough data at this point to implicate Ancient Stirrings, and I see no reason why it should remain legal for any longer.
Faithless Looting is not quite at the same level results-wise, so I could see this going either way. Its banning would make Dredge, Hollow One, and Bridge-vine much less consistent which would overall be a net positive (IMO) for the format as a whole. However, it also makes Mardu Pyromancer less consistent which would be a net negative. It may be best to leave this one alone for the time being.
Stoneforge Mystic is the obvious unban. Apart from her, there is really nothing that jumps out as a shoe-in for next spring's announcement. Green Sun's Zenith and Splinter Twin are probably the next most likely, however.
I get the idea of what he's saying. He's not saying just to unban those cards in the context of current Modern. The context is that he was talking about purposely reshaping the format to remove the "feel bad" parts of Modern and super charge the fair decks. It's a controversial opinion. Honestly, the format almost definitely would be better if you did that, but people don't like bans, so banning a bunch of cards at once wouldn't be palatable to tha player base, even if it made the format better in the long run.
It's funny reading this after looking at the top decks of the GP day 2. That opinion is not only controversial but hasn't even that much to stand on.
Completely agree with @Galerion here. I don't understand your comment. It makes no sense at all.
Faithless Looting is probably a card they are keeping an eye on. Anytime we have a powerful graveyard-based deck there's a very chance that looting is helping to enable it, whether this be dredge, bridgevine, hollow one, goryo's vengeance, and now the new Arclight Phoenix deck.
Chamber Sentry will be a 3/3 with 5 +1/+1 counters on it. Since the ability only asks that you remove counters, you can still remove up to 5. Afterwards it will be a -2/-2 and be put into the graveyard due to state based actions.
It reached the finals in 3 recent SCG opens, winning 2 of them.
We know wizards regrets printing storm much like how they regret dredge.
Now they should probably just ban Grapeshot instead of beating around the bush and banning more cantrips and rituals.
Reason being: if a grapeshot-based deck is ever viable, it makes for a miserable play experience for the opponent.
Enough answers exist to these lockdown strategies which keeps them from ever attaining too high of a meta percentage. Lantern came close after the modern Pro Tour but died off quickly afterwards. Now there is Grixis Whir but it has yet to prove itself in GPs.
Do we finally have enough data to remove this card from the format? I think so
I believe we finally have enough data at this point to implicate Ancient Stirrings, and I see no reason why it should remain legal for any longer.
Faithless Looting is not quite at the same level results-wise, so I could see this going either way. Its banning would make Dredge, Hollow One, and Bridge-vine much less consistent which would overall be a net positive (IMO) for the format as a whole. However, it also makes Mardu Pyromancer less consistent which would be a net negative. It may be best to leave this one alone for the time being.
Stoneforge Mystic is the obvious unban. Apart from her, there is really nothing that jumps out as a shoe-in for next spring's announcement. Green Sun's Zenith and Splinter Twin are probably the next most likely, however.
4 ancient stirrings decks, 2 faithless looting decks, 2 noble hierarch decks
Ancient Stirrings decks continue to overperform in Grand Prix. I wonder what else in the top 16/32
KCI, Tron, Affinity, Hardened Scales, Grixis Shadow, storm, burn, infect, dredge, hollow one - obviously wouldn't play it
Jeskai/UW - might play it, although would change how the deck operates
Humans - can't since its not a human. Too hard to produce white mana. Would need to change its mana base to fit it
Mardu - Possibly, but mardu likes to play a lot of instant/sorceries to fuel Reveler so adding creatures and equipment is not the smartest thing
Lesser tier decks:
Death and Taxes - would snap include it
Abzan - Sure
Everything else would be new brews. The point is that the tier 1 decks right now would not play her, making her a perfect unban candidate
They are obviously waiting for the results from these before banning / unbanning anything.
If Stirrings decks continue to overperform relative to other archetypes, we will likely see a banning in October.
It reached the finals in 3 recent SCG opens, winning 2 of them.
We know wizards regrets printing storm much like how they regret dredge.
Now they should probably just ban Grapeshot instead of beating around the bush and banning more cantrips and rituals.
Reason being: if a grapeshot-based deck is ever viable, it makes for a miserable play experience for the opponent.