There is 0% chance that Wizards would ever import Modern Cards.
All it takes is a little bit of money for this to be completely incorrect.
This is an issue of this company having two different platforms. Which makes absolutely no sense, from a marketing, managerial or financial aspect. People need to realize we could demand for the Modern format to be on Magic Arena. Just tell Wizards in your next survey "Not Interested Modern cards not on platform" and see how fast Hasbro's shoves it downs WotC's throat to make it happen.
I personally believe it's an economic mistake to not include Modern Legal sets in Arena. How do you not want the hottest constructed format on your newest platform?
Sheridan, look at the lists you linked. Almost every one of the decks playing 4 SV were not 4 Terminus builds. Of course you play 4 SV if you're playing a Verdict/Wrath build, but if you're playing a Miracles build you don't want the sorcery speed cantrips. People realized this, and that's why you see some people in recent months going down to 1 or 2 SVs in Miracles, but I feel like that's still holding onto the old idea that you're supposed to play SV if you're playing a blue deck because it's always been the best cantrip. Except it's not the best cantrip in UW Miracles. Opt is. You play 4 Opt, and then if you want more cantrips you find a couple others that are instant speed, like Hieroglyphic Illuminations (which is going to become more popular, trust me), Censor, Remand, Thought Scour, Peek, etc.
I did look through them. Decks with 0 SV run 4 Terminus on average. For 1 SV, it's 4 as well. For 2 SV, it's 3.5 Terminus. For 4 SV, it's 2. Top performing UW Control decks are still playing both. Maybe it's the idea you are postulating that they are holding onto a bad piece of tech, or maybe it's just an optimal construction. Maybe it's a spectrum from 4 Terminus to 2 Terminus depending on the metagame. I don't know the dynamics and we don't know where they are heading, but we do know the deck would almost certainly play Preordain in some quantity. And that means my original statement continues to hold, which was not a particularly controversial statement to begin with: Preordain will range from a slight upgrade to a big one and it's more of an open question than you are framing it.
Moreover, we haven't even discussed Preordain's slight-to-major boost to other top-tier decks like Jeskai, GDS, and Storm. These would just be further strikes against the card. I was all for a Preordain unban discussion when blue decks were struggling but now they aren't. I doubt Wizards even looks twice at this card in unban discussions these days.
The problem I have with Preordain and this entire argument of "We only unban when X archetype/color is struggling" is that in essence the ban is still artificial. Bloodbraid Elfwas fine for years. This exact forum used the argument Jund is doing fine, don't need to unban is not the same argument as Other cards in the card pool have equal or greater value, we should have X unbanned for power level reasons. Every time I read these similar arguments, in the abstract I see something along the lines of "Shock is banned in the Modern format, so that Lightning Bolt doesn't get a boost"
Opt has superseded Serum Visions. Preordain doesn't replace Thought Scour in GDS, Storm is redundant anyway, and UW Control would run 6 cantrips at most, and to optimize Snapcaster Mage, they would need to maximize the Opt numbers.
Decks like Infect, Jeskai Ascendancy & UR Wizards would get a boost. It's hard to disagree that Preordain, Stoneforge Mystic, & Green Sun's Zenith are the least powerful cards on the banned list.
Issues such as archetype and color diversity need to be solved with new product, not the banned list. The banned list should be used for the grievous errors, and tournament disruptors. We need to stop viewing the banned list as a nerf to the metagame list.
Assassin's Trophy is a slight upgrade to Abrupt Decay. End of Story, stop exaggerating it. The enemy does gain tempo from it. You are not playing 4 copies in a deck unless you are the hardest of hard control which Modern probably couldn't benefit wisely being in BGx.
The real issue with this card is how it feels colorshifted. Your opponent benefiting doesn't suit Green or Black's Color pie at all. If it had the clause of losing X life it would seem to fit on flavor reasons.
Huntmaster of the Fells will have a place in some type of Midranged RUG deck that also uses Counter Magic with CMC 4 and Under. Unfortunately those decks don't currently exist in the competitive sense.
Im looking for another modern deck...again. So I've currently got Bant Knightfall with the Druid Combo and I love it. Its probably my favorite deck that ive ever played. I also recently made mardu pyromancer thinking that i would love the epitome of the fair decks. Unfortunately, the deck is too threat light for me and its very poorly positioned right now. I'm not super concerned about budget but i cant shell out for goyfs or snappys or opals. I think I want to play some sort of a non goldfishing combo deck. Storm/ad nauseam/Jeskai Ascendancy just goldfish and thats no fun for an opponent. I want to be competitive but maybe not a super duper common deck. Also the goryos as foretold deck looked sweet but grishoalbrand seems just better. Bring to light seems boring tbh. Ive got marsh flats, flooded strands, windsweapt heath, and bloodstained mires. But it doesnt have to be in those colors necesarily. Combo's not mandatory either but i want to feel like im doing something busted
sorry for the long post!
TL:DR
Combo deck thats not super boring for the opponent because we can both play magic. My dream scenario is we both play the game but i wind up with a victory because i get some sort of an "i win" scenario
Although not top performing at the moment, Scapeshift is dramatically cheaper now than it ever was before, and you can play many different variants. Naya, RUG, and RG with or without Bloodbraid Elf.
What's neat about Scapeshift is that it has the absurd matchup against fair decks, but somehow stuggles against more linear combo decks. So the splashes and sideboard are usually over dedicated to that notion.
That was a lot of terrible analogies, strawmen, and moving of goalposts. "This isn't a problem because this thing over here IS a problem!" Despite ownership of a play-set of both, I'd be very happy to see both Spirit Guide AND Stirrings hit the Ban List, but one of those cards is in three Tier 1 decks, and one of them is in ZERO Tier 1 decks.
I'd like to know what made the analogies terrible, I understand that they are difficult to accept at face-value. As a counter example, most posters on this forum (myself included) thought that Field of Ruin was going to be nothing but a bulk uncommon since we had access to both Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge. Those bad analogies we did as a community probably stifled the growth of UW Control for as long as it did. For some reason, most Magic players are bad with analogies. Which is why I constructed the article to have my philosophical stances as to how to manage banned lists.
Following, the Strawmen point was an interesting comment for the writing. For all the users of the forum, this is a term I find quite overused in this thread;
Quote from Google »
A straw man; is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man."
Although I directly have no opponent in my writing, I tried to make constructive ideas flow, perhaps I failed in that regard. If you could PM me specific examples of where you saw such things, I'd be appreciative. To quote the article I did address my specific thoughts about the rate at which non games occur (which I have shared on this forum a dozen of times).
Quote from Shmanka »
Modern in general has multiple decks that abuse mana. These include the suite of decks supported by Simian Spirit Guide such as Goryo’s Vengeance, Ad Nauseam, and Mono Red Prison. Any player invested in Modern has been killed by both Krark-Clan Ironworks, and Blood Moon before they have had a chance to react. I find it futile to attack the consistency of any deck before we address all of the non-games that exist within the format no matter how commonly or rarely they occur. Encouraging players to simply out chance an opponent does not create a healthy competitive environment. We saw this specifically in the past with large amounts of accusations towards cheating when it came to Amulet-Bloom. With such high variance decks that cannot be effectively interacted with, we can encourage the worst part of competitive play to show itself.
Quote from Crimson Lancer »
"Did you bring Stony? If not, concede to Mox Opal!" Jesus, what a terrible claim. Like a plethora of good answers to artifacts don't already exist (they do!), but there's nothing you can do about a KCI opponent digging 10 cards deep to find an EE to pop your Damping Sphere so that they still win on Turn 4 through multiple pieces of hate. Kek? Lul? Whatever the kids are saying these days to show extreme dismissal for an idea they find ridiculous; please apply it here!
I'm uncertain how to interpret this part of your post. The picture depicted of Mox Opal with the Stony Silence comment reflects a notion about how some decks need to play against KCI for the exact trolly reasons you posted afterwards.
Looking at the numbers only solidifies the "terrible claim" with direct notion that to beat KCI, you need a dramatic amount of Graveyard/Artifact hate and some threatening level of board presence to beat both Sai, Master Thopterist and the threat of dying to any awkward singleton they bring in their deck.
Quote from gkourou »
I also think that article was terrible on many fronts(my constructive criticism). Commune with Dinosaurs getting banned, if Wizards prints many good dinosaurs was my favourite worst argument. No, Commune with Stirrings is not comparable, because it will enable only a specific deck, and not too many, different decks.
I'd like to know what you thought was terrible, but I will take a moment to defend the Commune with Dinosaurs analogy. I believe that they are actually both fundamentally comparable. Each block will feature a new "Ancient Stirrings" which I directly mentioned in the article. So I find it a little backhanded that Wizards claims to hate consistency, but a 1 or 2 mana Green spell that helps the entire block synergism gets printed every 6 months. So yes, if Commune with Dinosaurs found a version of All is Dust of a different tribe, if it found a Dinosaur Temple if it found a Thought-Knot Dinosaur, we could honestly be having different discussions. I know it's all a different dimension type of talk, but with Wizards consistently printing more and more Green versions of Impulse, we can't ignore the possibilities of the precedents we set.
Although most of this list has not seen play, these are Modern legal cards costing 3 or less CMC that have a "top of library" Impulse-esque effect in Green.
It's not hard to see that Wizards prints many cards that increase the consistency of finding block related, or general resources in Green alone. The argument should stand, that Commune with Dinosaurs although obviously not on power level with Ancient Stirrings, has the same derived mechanics and Modern philosophy of design. Attacking Consistency with a banned list, but encouraging it with Set Design makes for a frustrating situation.
Bashing or not, constructive criticism or not, please PM me directly. I work Oilfield, nothing you type is going to hurt my feelings.
I for one am actually happy that the 6 Pro Tours a year schedule is back. Yes... back, I've been playing that long. I always hated the change from 6 to 4 years ago. 6 Pro Tours a year will mean Worlds is back in a regular schedule. Whether Modern gets more coverage or not matters only slightly, but the game itself will gain more coverage - which is the most important factor.
Shameless Plug for my new article - http://www.mtgcanada.com/modern/ban-ancient-stirrings/
After reading and replying to lots of posts on this forum I got the itch to write again, and here are my constructed philosophical thoughts about Ancient Stirrings.
I just had recent success with Jund Death's Shadow, and wrote an article about it and compared it consistently to Grixis. It may not sway you to play Jund Shadow like I did, but hopefully gives you perspective towards the current meta of Modern as a whole.
Can we talk about Gilt-Leaf Palace? Something is dramatically weird. It's a one printing, but very very specific card that only sees competitive play in one specific Modern deck, yet since Dominaria set release the price has Tripled. I own my very nice NM playset of the card, and I don't see a reprint happening in the near future, but multiple people in my community have expressed how difficult it is to find for upgrading their Modern deck.
What's the best suggestion here? Are we going to find this card hitting 50$? Will it become the new Blackcleave Cliffs?
I think this time, Emmara is scarily good. She enables Convoke all by herself as time goes along, but it wasn't long ago we saw Brimaz, King of Oreskos see play in Standard, and from what I can tell, this card is a better, two mana version of that exact card. She demands removal, or a large opposing board position, and that's more than what you can ask for from a two drop.
All it takes is a little bit of money for this to be completely incorrect.
This is an issue of this company having two different platforms. Which makes absolutely no sense, from a marketing, managerial or financial aspect. People need to realize we could demand for the Modern format to be on Magic Arena. Just tell Wizards in your next survey "Not Interested Modern cards not on platform" and see how fast Hasbro's shoves it downs WotC's throat to make it happen.
The problem I have with Preordain and this entire argument of "We only unban when X archetype/color is struggling" is that in essence the ban is still artificial. Bloodbraid Elf was fine for years. This exact forum used the argument Jund is doing fine, don't need to unban is not the same argument as Other cards in the card pool have equal or greater value, we should have X unbanned for power level reasons. Every time I read these similar arguments, in the abstract I see something along the lines of "Shock is banned in the Modern format, so that Lightning Bolt doesn't get a boost"
Opt has superseded Serum Visions. Preordain doesn't replace Thought Scour in GDS, Storm is redundant anyway, and UW Control would run 6 cantrips at most, and to optimize Snapcaster Mage, they would need to maximize the Opt numbers.
Decks like Infect, Jeskai Ascendancy & UR Wizards would get a boost. It's hard to disagree that Preordain, Stoneforge Mystic, & Green Sun's Zenith are the least powerful cards on the banned list.
Issues such as archetype and color diversity need to be solved with new product, not the banned list. The banned list should be used for the grievous errors, and tournament disruptors. We need to stop viewing the banned list as a nerf to the metagame list.
The real issue with this card is how it feels colorshifted. Your opponent benefiting doesn't suit Green or Black's Color pie at all. If it had the clause of losing X life it would seem to fit on flavor reasons.
Although not top performing at the moment, Scapeshift is dramatically cheaper now than it ever was before, and you can play many different variants. Naya, RUG, and RG with or without Bloodbraid Elf.
What's neat about Scapeshift is that it has the absurd matchup against fair decks, but somehow stuggles against more linear combo decks. So the splashes and sideboard are usually over dedicated to that notion.
Following, the Strawmen point was an interesting comment for the writing. For all the users of the forum, this is a term I find quite overused in this thread;
Although I directly have no opponent in my writing, I tried to make constructive ideas flow, perhaps I failed in that regard. If you could PM me specific examples of where you saw such things, I'd be appreciative. To quote the article I did address my specific thoughts about the rate at which non games occur (which I have shared on this forum a dozen of times).
I'm uncertain how to interpret this part of your post. The picture depicted of Mox Opal with the Stony Silence comment reflects a notion about how some decks need to play against KCI for the exact trolly reasons you posted afterwards.
Looking at the numbers only solidifies the "terrible claim" with direct notion that to beat KCI, you need a dramatic amount of Graveyard/Artifact hate and some threatening level of board presence to beat both Sai, Master Thopterist and the threat of dying to any awkward singleton they bring in their deck.
I'd like to know what you thought was terrible, but I will take a moment to defend the Commune with Dinosaurs analogy. I believe that they are actually both fundamentally comparable. Each block will feature a new "Ancient Stirrings" which I directly mentioned in the article. So I find it a little backhanded that Wizards claims to hate consistency, but a 1 or 2 mana Green spell that helps the entire block synergism gets printed every 6 months. So yes, if Commune with Dinosaurs found a version of All is Dust of a different tribe, if it found a Dinosaur Temple if it found a Thought-Knot Dinosaur, we could honestly be having different discussions. I know it's all a different dimension type of talk, but with Wizards consistently printing more and more Green versions of Impulse, we can't ignore the possibilities of the precedents we set.
Although most of this list has not seen play, these are Modern legal cards costing 3 or less CMC that have a "top of library" Impulse-esque effect in Green.
Satyr Wayfinder, Scout the Borders, Seek the Wilds, Trackers' Instincts, Adventurous Impulse, Ancient Stirrings, Benefaction of Rhonas, Commune with Dinosaurs, Commune with Nature, Commune with the Gods, Duskwatch Recruiter, Elvish Rejuvinator, Enter the Unknown, Foul Emissary, Gather the Pack, Gift of the Gargantuan, Grim Flayer, Grisly Salvage, Growing Rites of Itlamoc, Kruphix's Insight, Lair Delve, Lead the Stampede, Mulch, Oath of Nissa
It's not hard to see that Wizards prints many cards that increase the consistency of finding block related, or general resources in Green alone. The argument should stand, that Commune with Dinosaurs although obviously not on power level with Ancient Stirrings, has the same derived mechanics and Modern philosophy of design. Attacking Consistency with a banned list, but encouraging it with Set Design makes for a frustrating situation.
Bashing or not, constructive criticism or not, please PM me directly. I work Oilfield, nothing you type is going to hurt my feelings.
On the Topic of Ancient Stirrings;
Shameless Plug for my new article - http://www.mtgcanada.com/modern/ban-ancient-stirrings/
After reading and replying to lots of posts on this forum I got the itch to write again, and here are my constructed philosophical thoughts about Ancient Stirrings.
http://www.mtgcanada.com/modern/playing-jund-shadow-not-grixis/
What's the best suggestion here? Are we going to find this card hitting 50$? Will it become the new Blackcleave Cliffs?