That's two in a row that paradox engine dodged the ban bullet in edh.
You actually have to craft a deck to abuse Paradox engine, and most ways you can beat it easily enough. K Grip, counterspell, a number of exile or tuck effects, gaddock teeg, rule of law, etc.... exist. And because these cards exist Paradox Engine isn't too powerful. Hell, even things like Linvalla, null rod, stony silence, etc... works. Trinisphere wrecks eggs style decks. And that's just to name a few ways to deal with the engine. Don't get me wrong, it's powerful. But it's not broken.
I don't think it's a coincidence that standard started going downhill the moment they decided that one-drop mana creatures made the format "too fast". Hopefully things have gotten bad enough that they are forced to realize their mistakes and they can start to undo all the "environment-crafting" they've done.
To be clear... you think this standard would be better if it was T2 Saheeli into T3 Felidar, rather than T3 and T4?
It's because WotC has been catering to the people who cry about losing to ghost quarter, tec edge, counterspell, null rod, doom blade, hexproof, wrath of god, blood moon, beast within, sinkhole, wasteland, rest in peace, suppression field, damping matrix, pro color, etc... That standard is in the biggest *****ake boat of fried rocky mountain oysters the history of Magic is seeing. It's worse than Caw Blade vs Valakut, it's rivaling Mirrodin and Urza blocks.
Because people keep crying over spilled milk about how unfair the above cards are WotC is catering to them and not the people who's been playing since Alpha who knows that there needs to be efficient answers to problem cards in the format. Shadowmage Infiltrator was a great card but it never shined because of flametongue kavu. If you look in the past post ice age and Necro Summer, you will see there's been answers to everything and people could sideboard answers for everything. Hell, it wasn't that long ago when enchantment based decks died to Back to Nature and Innistraad had Rest in Peace in the same rotation as the graveyard matters decks and stony silence in the same rotation as artifacts matter, etc...
What happened?
Cry babies who cried, pissed, and moaned about how their lives were so unfair and WotC caters to them. And here we are, today, reaping what the babies have sown.
Standard being solved doesn't make it unhealthy. Think about Theros standard, we had 3 decks to play, 2 of which were tier 1.
Actually, Theros had much more than 3 decks.
Mono Green Devotion
Mono Black Devotion
GB Constellations
GW Hexproof
RW Aggro
UW Control
Esper Control
Mono White
RDW
Rally
Dark Jeskai
And those name a few off the top of the list.
Theros/Khans had Rug, Bug, and several others.
Looking back just 2 years we had 10-14 deck archetypes and all were valid, including Jeskai Prowess. We had more diversity during Eldritch Moon. Kaladesh Standard is Mirrodin lite where only 3 decks dominate everything. What makes it worse is that there's no useful hate to keep those three decks in check, where two years ago the checks were there. Return to Ravnica/Theros/Khans were all together more diverse and no one deck was a total dominator.
First off: let me state that i am not in magic for collection or finance purposes, I love to play it and i play exclusively EDH. During the last six months, I sold a lot of my collection or older cards that acquired dust and value in my binders. Even after getting a lot of commander staples I am left with quite some cash on my MCM account. Now I am planning to get the enememy fetches once MM17 hits the shelves to complete my wanted lands collection. A friend of mine recommended to me to instead buy a box of MM17, and sell the stuff I don't want. Big chance I already get one or more of the fetches I want. I wouldn't mind if I don't get ALL my invested cash out of it, since my collection will increase with some good cards but I don't want to spend 200 euro on a box and end up with only 100 euro in play value/cards and another 100 euro to gather dust in my binders again. So given all this, do you think a box of MM17 would be a good investment for me as a commander player or not?
All advice is very appreciated
It's a better investment than anything in standard right now.
You know what would go a long way into fixing the issues without bans? You won't like my answers......
heh...
The problem I've seen with Magic Standard over the years is the same... No answers or lack of answers. Mana bases are too good? Why not Blood Moon or something close to it? Ghost Quarter and Tec Edge is fine... Efficient land destruction.... Reprint Wasteland, it'd be an instant success.
Oh? no grave hate? Well, all these decks can prosper. Rest in Peace, Relic, and Crypt are wonderful answers.
ETB B Gone with Torpor Orb.
How bout better board wipes? Better hand disruption. Reprints of small pox? It's easy to make sets with the sole function of disrupting each other.
This is why I play EDH, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage. There's diversity and no deck stays on top for long and the formats have a way to fix themselves without a need for stupid bans like Splinter Twin. There's a reason why I stopped playing Standard religiously about two years ago, lack of diversity. What used to be 8-10 decks has turned into 3-4 decks and if you weren't playing them you were losing.
Stop catering to the babies who don't want cards that break their toys and print the cards that answer the problems that Standard is having. I guarantee it will fix the issues.
The problem with cards like Blood Moon, Rest in Peace, etc, is that they are too good against some decks. Blood Moon can win games on resolution. Rest in Peace forces players to splash colors for enchantment hate. They are very efficient, and format warping. They do not make standard more fun.
I would be in favour of more answers in Standard. Pithing Needle, Relic of Progenitus, Ghost Quarter, and Torpor Orb are good at slowing down strategies without beating them entirely. They are available to all decks. I wish these cards would be reprinted regularly. Or similar hate cards that slow down strategies without killing them. I think Stony Silence would be too good in current standard, but Pithing Needle would be great.
As I said, something close to it. Thalia almost succeeds, but it has a host of problems on its own simply by the fact she's a creature. Authority of the Consuls is Blind Obedience lite.
Phyrexian Revoker deals with as many things as Needle without needing to print Stony Silence but Stony in and of itself is the real answer with these other two.
As for Blood Moon? It kills greedy manabases for a time. But even when I play GR Tron, I barrel through a blood moon by playing a land every turn until I get to the point where I win anyway if they don't have a good followup to the Moon. It does not win games on the spot and I've been playing even before Blood Moon was first printed in the Dark. And I think that's the problem with today's magic players, they don't have the experience, nor do they have the ideas what to do besides being butthurt over efficient answers. Personally, I'd jump at the chance to play hatebears in standard again, but the format is so narrow...
If Blood Moon is too powerful, why not print a Blue Moon where all nonbasics become wastes and has a cumulative upkeep of something like each opponent draws a card...
During Khans Standard we had over 10 different deck archetypes. Standard was actually fairly healthy and was repairing itself over time. Heck, we had more diversity in Eldritch Moon Standard. It wasn't until Kaladesh we saw it turn into another Mirrodin block where cards are inherently broken. Vehicles are broken and a bad concept altogether. Aetherworks Marvel is busted as all can be. Energy is an odd mechanic that's neat, but in standard it's borderline. Outside of Standard it doesn't exist.
Walking Ballista vs Stony Silence. I played a modern game and I had simply made big Ballistas and went for beatdown and won because my creatures were bigger and better than theirs. These answers do nothing in and of themselves, they just buy time and space to breathe. Oddly enough, there were only half a dozen times when I dropped from the Magic scene for a time. Type 2 during Necro Summer and Enduring Winter. Type 2 during Urza block. Type 2 during Prophecy era. Type everything during Mirrodin. Type 2 and Extended during the New Phyrexia set. Standard again after Khans rotated out.
You know what would go a long way into fixing the issues without bans? You won't like my answers......
heh...
The problem I've seen with Magic Standard over the years is the same... No answers or lack of answers. Mana bases are too good? Why not Blood Moon or something close to it? Ghost Quarter and Tec Edge is fine... Efficient land destruction.... Reprint Wasteland, it'd be an instant success.
Oh? no grave hate? Well, all these decks can prosper. Rest in Peace, Relic, and Crypt are wonderful answers.
ETB B Gone with Torpor Orb.
How bout better board wipes? Better hand disruption. Reprints of small pox? It's easy to make sets with the sole function of disrupting each other.
This is why I play EDH, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage. There's diversity and no deck stays on top for long and the formats have a way to fix themselves without a need for stupid bans like Splinter Twin. There's a reason why I stopped playing Standard religiously about two years ago, lack of diversity. What used to be 8-10 decks has turned into 3-4 decks and if you weren't playing them you were losing.
Stop catering to the babies who don't want cards that break their toys and print the cards that answer the problems that Standard is having. I guarantee it will fix the issues.
Frontier sounds like people want to bring back extended.
We want a format that is open to more brewing than rigid Modern or Eternal formats. For the record, I have no problem with fetches so long as this format does not contain Shocks as well. The biggest problem with Modern is not that fetches are accessible but more so great mana fixing in shocks allow degenerate mana bases.
Sounds like you're describing Standard with only 3 decks worth playing and if you're not playing them then you will lose..... There's over 30 different deck types in Modern alone and that doesn't include all the crazy things that has even seen top 8s like 8 rack and even Suicide Zoo got a slot. Even a new deck type running Walking Ballistas and Rite of Passage combo. Kari Zev's Expertise is breaking things... Sram in Puresteel Cheerios. The list gets bonkers, I've even seen arcbound workers in a green based deck followed buy Ravagers with Hardened Scales and other crazy things.
The list gets even zanier with Legacy, because there's several decks, archetypes, and not all of them run blue or green or whatever else...
Narnam Renegade and Renegade Rallier are cool pieces... I went 5-0-1 with the Walking Rite because of things...
Modern has Blood Moon which keeps greedy manabases in check. It also has Ghost Quarter, Tec Edge, and Surgical Extraction which tears apart combo decks.
Modern has Stony Silence which keeps artifact decks in check. It also has Leyline of the Void, and many other things.
I play Modern at least 4 times a week, Frontier once or twice a week, Legacy twice a month, Vintage once a month, and Standard, I sometimes play it and then I give it up because it never changes because it's always been the same thing over and over with only a few decks dominating because the hate isn't there and it's less and less interactive than ever.
Frontier is a bridge between Modern and Standard. Haruya even stated this as the reason he created the format because it was very difficult to get modern staples.
Frontier also has no need to ban anything because anything is possible. With Tormod's Crypt as the only viable graveyard removal I am against Khans and M15 being removed. Even Anafenza helps slow down graveyard decks.
Frontier has 12 viable decks, and a bunch of ideas that just doesn't work. With the perfect manabase that can't be disrupted there's no reason why you should have even a single basic land in your deck.
Standard has 3 deck types, vehicles break things. Marvel breaks things. Cat Lady breaks every standard rule. And not enough can stop the insanity of Delirium either...
Modern Master 2017 will be lowering many barriers to people who want to migrate into Modern.
Legacy? Know the difference between Modern and Legacy infect? 6 cards. You don't need Trops to play Legacy infect.
D&T is easy to get into, all the cards are there and easily obtainable. Hatebears is fun to play. Eldrazi is nasty.
Legacy Dredge costs less than the best standard decks. Legacy Burn costs slightly more. The only difference with legacy Jund and Zoo are mana bases. Elves are nasty, but you can get away with only 1 or 2 Cradles. The list goes on and on.
I have a vintage deck that costs less than a grand, course with 15 proxies for tournaments I can literally play anything. But my less than 1k vintage? Hatebears. I prefer Oath, Eldrazi, Burn, and Goblins.
Again, Standard does not have the diversity of any of these formats. It's so bad right now there's a card shop in Sacramento that only hosts FNM Modern which fires with over 30 people on average (and they all run different styles of decks and I own 4 different Modern decks) every week, 2-3 Drafts, and Legacy is played on weekends there. Standard as far as Great Escapes is concerned, is dead because it's been the same nonsense for the past 5 years where only a few decks dominate.
It would have all the needed hate cards to make perfect mana bases less appealing and force more than 1 basic land and all the needed cards to trip up things like Aetherworks Marvel and Walking Ballista...
I think that frontier should start at Magi Ori. and avoid fetchlands. This could be a clean start for a more skilled and grindier game. In the future, maybe 10 years from now, they have the need to create a new one because this one can become busted. At this point, modern became a super fast format (faster than legacy), with "low" interactions between players, with some impossible MU on game one and with lottery tickets after sideboarding. For me this is the main question about modern, not just the price tags.
New sets have few impact on modern because many of the cards are not fast enough, so to improve modern cards they need to print even more busted cards in new standard sets, a thing that seems to busted to do.
Frontier would accomodate recently rotated cards from standard, creating a nice brewer format for the next years, until it becomes like modern.
Sorry for my english, im not a native
Very true on many points, except the format has slowed down again and there's so many ways to disrupt a turn 3 win. There's virtually no turn 2 wins.... It has become a format once again where decks like GR Tron actually has a chance to top 8 again. It was knocked out of being competitive due to the entire format being hostile to slower decks.
As for Frontier being grindy, I can agree on that. I cannot agree about no Khans, because then it's Standard lite. You also lose several key sideboard cards. The format would be like Standard was before January and nobody here really likes that format. If you remove m15 and Khans you will destroy the format as surely as the creator of Tiny Leaders pulled the trigger on his own format...
this was an early build. i have since then taken out the swamps for birchlore rangers. this was a g/b cimbo deck for modern b4 i transitioned it into a legacy deck. as for the cradles i cant currently afford them. however i do have a line on a couple bayous at a really good price and plan on picking them up.
You can get along without Cradles. Just slow roll them. All Cradles does is turn the deck from 10 to 11 and it can win without Cradles on turn 3.
Here's the thing....People will ALWAYS play Magic. Forever. No matter what happens to WotC, as long as there are physical cards in existence, people will play. If the game dies off, demand will likely tank... but, as the others said, it's kind of impossible to determine how that will impact value of individual cards. Magic cards, in general, will always have *some* value, because people will want to play, but that is all you can say with any certainty.
I reject the OP's premise that Modern is in trouble at all. Standard is a *****show, of course, but what others may see as Wizards distancing themselves from Modern, is really just them acknowledging that the format no longer needs to be pushed. It's now very, very popular, despite the OP's assertions to the contrary. Standard, though, is having a problem with the strength of its answers versus that of its threats, but others have already covered that.
Aye... Last week for instance, 30 people played Modern, they had 6 people for Standard FNM... 12 for Game Day Saturday, and Game Day Sunday was 4 people. A year ago, there'd be 20-30 people for Standard FNMs, Game Days would have 20+ people... And prereleases here have dropped off a lot. If you want to know what Store this is? War Torn Front. And yes, they're not a little place. Even Channel Fireball in Santa Clara has seen numbers dropping while Modern and Legacy interests run high. I'm going to Galaxy on Sunday for a Legacy tournament and there will be around 20 people who will show for it. Great Expectations in Sacramento has a huge Legacy and Modern scene... Grape Vine in Lodi and Stockton, standard is dead, hardly anyone drafts, and it's only Modern and EDH. Don't believe me? Call these places up. In a 100 mile radius from where I live I know if I pick up an EDH, Modern, or Legacy deck and take it to any of these stores, there will be a few people playing. Standard? Not so much. Even Frontier is beginning to take off at a majority of these places. And I know a few vintage players here and I even have a vintage deck myself....
However, you are right and wrong. Without support, the scenes might die off.
What WotC could do?
1. Offer better prize support, bring back player rewards and offer better FNM promos. Since Path to Exile there really hasn't been anything....
2. Print less product. I mean, look at how many things were printed last year alone... Oath, Shadows, EM, EMN, FTV, Conspiracy 2, Kaladesh, C2017, and that only names a few items. There's way too many things coming out and this year the first half of the year we have 6 product being released? This is too much by far. Just my personal opinion.
3. Stop banning/unbanning things just to shake up the format. When WotC did that, attendance at the FNM dropped to an all time low. While Git Probe was expected, and GGT was expected, the standard bans sets a precedent we haven't seen for a decade... And GGT, they banned it because they don't like dredge as a mechanic. Which sets an even bigger precedent than anything else. What WotC has done is show that they're going to make bans whenever they like now. I have never played Twin, but I had no issue with Twin... But it wasn't banned because of power level, it was banned to shake things up and it opened the floodgates for hyper aggro decks to cut loose for a while.
People are afraid to invest time, money, and energy in a game where people don't know what's going to happen next.
Or they're moving over to Legacy/Modern for competitiveness, or EDH for casual, or Frontier to play. The only safe format is EDH though...
Hi everyone I'm curious about the long long term value of Mtg cards (especially out of print ones/vintage/p9/chase rares etc) and how much value these cards will have say in 30 years if they remain in Mint condition.
If mtg were to god forbid die off do you expect cards like say Zendikar Jace, tarmagof, Liliana, dual lands, p9 etc to retain value or will they become worthless since nobody plays the game anymore? What are your thoughts? Aside from sentimental value do MTG cards have good money value (Collector wise) in the distant future?
People are still paying premium prices for Star Wars CCG and Star Trek CCG even though both games failed over 18 years ago...
Translation: Something different happens once in a blue-moon. Exciting.
All I see most of the time is: "new card doesn't fit in an already established deck. Modern can't use it." "It has less than four toughness with no immediate effect. Modern can't use it." "It's cost five+ mana with no way to cheat on mana. Modern can't use it."
eh... Narnam Renegade is making its rounds and there's a new deck idea out there using counters for a different strategy.
Everything dies to Bolt/Path/Push/Decay/Dismember/etc... People have to think outside the box. Mono white blink works. and few things are 4 toughness.
Over here with around 70-80 modern players who play every week in 3 different shops I have seen everything from Eggs to Lantern Control. My Bant Eldrazi deck dies to Blood Moon. Tron used to die to land destruction. Expertise cards are making an impact. With two cards being banned, the hyper aggro decks like Suicide Zoo and Infect took a hit. Storm no longer exists. People are going back to a Bloomless Titan build.
So, here begs the question: Why so Salty? Moden is fine for the moment, but it won't be if WotC doesn't support it properly. And this latest debacle has several Modern players here thinking that either they should quit, go to Legacy, or stop playing for a while.
Unbans:
Jace doesn't look like he's really that bad in Modern, especially after how much of a non-event Ancestral Vision turned out. I have a hard time justifying Bloodbraid Elf while stuff like the Expertises are legal, and it doesn't appear to actually be that powerful in Modern, I recall it's ban was more related to Jund, which turned out to be more the fault of things like DShaman, plus there are a bunch of other cards related to the deck it was causing trouble in that are getting banned here, so I doubt it's as much of a threat anymore. While I can see Ponder being an issue, I have trouble justifying keeping Preordain banned, it's powerful, but it seems like it is safe and in color.
Adds: Various adds have different reasons, some of them probably aren't really neccesary for the format, some of them are intended to help with missing spots in the format, some are supposed to help with making up for newly banned things, and some are meant to open up some new strategic options. Counterspell in particular was added because of the need to be able to allow control decks to grow, and enable a real 'turn 4 format' where combo can grow under the policing of control, rather than policing of bans.
Bans:Some cards are just too strong for the decks they turn up in and too flexible, turning up potentially in too many decks across multiple archetypes, and too hard to counter-play for their mana costs for too many decks, like Tarmogoyf. Some are extremely unfriendly to counter-play for their mana costs or effective costs of play in the format, like TS, IoK, Eidolon, Skullcrack, A's Command, and such. Some hate too strongly on basic lands in ways that disrupts format potential, like Boil, Boiling Seas, Choke, and Flashfires. Some slow down the game too much with regular use and complicate interactions with land bases too much, like the fetchlands. Some break fundamental aspects of the game's math and interactions with various card types like pump spells to the point that every new pump spell threatens to put them over the edge like some of the efficient infect creatures I included. Some shut down games too hard for their mana costs (or card types) like BMoon and EBridge. Some overly empower decks that aren't really paying for it, or are rivals for the banned Ponder yet mysteriously get a pass, like Ancient Stirrings and Oath of Nissa. Some shut down fringe strategies too hard like IoK, TS, and Abrupt Decay, shrinking the format too much. Some are too much power for too easy in Modern to pay costs in the right decks, like Cranial Plating, Tasigur, or Become Immense and the other delve cards. Surgical is too close to the banned Gitprobe, less reliable, sure, but too much potential for what is essentially strategic insurance + card advantage with no mana costs. Burnwillows is too good a land in general, and has suspiciously dangerous potential for weird fringe combos turning up in the future. Canopy is too easy to turn into card advantage after using it as a land when you no longer need it, and when one of it's colors is supposed to be bad at card draw. Opal and Simian are too easy of sources for Fast Mana. Snapcaster potentially breaks otherwise fair instant and sorcery spells, and I believe would be too much more dangerous with how many rival stuff got hit by other bans, plus I know some people's concern about him combined with the added to the format counterspell, it's also just a bit too much card advantage-ishness at 2 cmc, both cheaply letting you reccur something from the graveyard quickly, which was thus likely already useful in the game, and putting down a flash body with relatively decent power for blue. Gifts sets up graveyard play too easily, and seems a bit off-color when used that way on top of that. DConfidant is too cheap and reliable for what it does, it's got better drawbacks than goyf, but it still edges into the danger zone, and has a nice benefit that a lot of 'lite' versions that fit into different potential decks have been printed lately to make it a safer ban than it perhaps used to be, but need to be built around more.
TS and IoK and the Moon pair are some of the ones I'm most concerned about banning, I'm hoping that things like Duress can pick up the needed slack for discard, and that getting rid of Moon won't cause Tron to become too much of a problem, because there wasn't cards I could really think of that seemed like they'd effectively help with tron in the right mana cost range and such that weren't also too powerful to add that already exist, but I'm hoping stuff still in the format that is a bit more single-target and the addition of Skyshroud critters and From the Ashes can make up for it.
I'd want to see how this format shakes out before adding or removing things from the new lists. I'd be also willing to be relatively generous in adding things that look safe in big chunks from supplementary products, so long as they aren't on the reserved list and aren't things like un-cards, I only added a relatively small list of them to start off, since it would take too long to make a much bigger list and go through all the relevant cards at once (which is basically anything that I think would be safe and follows some of the above noted rules, like not on the reserved list, although I might hold off on some things extremely unlikely to be reprinted that already have supply problems, like ones using dead/dying mechanics WotC avoids now, like Shroud, Protection, and landwalk).
Moon should never be banned. And Counterspell would render control to the top. Most of the other cards would be too strong. Jace, sure, unban him. But seriously, that list? Would kill every deck there is. Sorry, but no. No.... Just hell no.
You actually have to craft a deck to abuse Paradox engine, and most ways you can beat it easily enough. K Grip, counterspell, a number of exile or tuck effects, gaddock teeg, rule of law, etc.... exist. And because these cards exist Paradox Engine isn't too powerful. Hell, even things like Linvalla, null rod, stony silence, etc... works. Trinisphere wrecks eggs style decks. And that's just to name a few ways to deal with the engine. Don't get me wrong, it's powerful. But it's not broken.
It's because WotC has been catering to the people who cry about losing to ghost quarter, tec edge, counterspell, null rod, doom blade, hexproof, wrath of god, blood moon, beast within, sinkhole, wasteland, rest in peace, suppression field, damping matrix, pro color, etc... That standard is in the biggest *****ake boat of fried rocky mountain oysters the history of Magic is seeing. It's worse than Caw Blade vs Valakut, it's rivaling Mirrodin and Urza blocks.
Because people keep crying over spilled milk about how unfair the above cards are WotC is catering to them and not the people who's been playing since Alpha who knows that there needs to be efficient answers to problem cards in the format. Shadowmage Infiltrator was a great card but it never shined because of flametongue kavu. If you look in the past post ice age and Necro Summer, you will see there's been answers to everything and people could sideboard answers for everything. Hell, it wasn't that long ago when enchantment based decks died to Back to Nature and Innistraad had Rest in Peace in the same rotation as the graveyard matters decks and stony silence in the same rotation as artifacts matter, etc...
What happened?
Cry babies who cried, pissed, and moaned about how their lives were so unfair and WotC caters to them. And here we are, today, reaping what the babies have sown.
Actually, Theros had much more than 3 decks.
Mono Green Devotion
Mono Black Devotion
GB Constellations
GW Hexproof
RW Aggro
UW Control
Esper Control
Mono White
RDW
Rally
Dark Jeskai
And those name a few off the top of the list.
Theros/Khans had Rug, Bug, and several others.
Looking back just 2 years we had 10-14 deck archetypes and all were valid, including Jeskai Prowess. We had more diversity during Eldritch Moon. Kaladesh Standard is Mirrodin lite where only 3 decks dominate everything. What makes it worse is that there's no useful hate to keep those three decks in check, where two years ago the checks were there. Return to Ravnica/Theros/Khans were all together more diverse and no one deck was a total dominator.
It's a better investment than anything in standard right now.
As I said, something close to it. Thalia almost succeeds, but it has a host of problems on its own simply by the fact she's a creature. Authority of the Consuls is Blind Obedience lite.
In my opinion bans like Emrakul, Reflector Mage, and Copter were not needed if there were efficient counters to these strategies. Torpor Orb, Hushwing Gryff, Vryn Wingmare, Damping Matrix, Suppression Field, and others are excellent answers.
Phyrexian Revoker deals with as many things as Needle without needing to print Stony Silence but Stony in and of itself is the real answer with these other two.
As for Blood Moon? It kills greedy manabases for a time. But even when I play GR Tron, I barrel through a blood moon by playing a land every turn until I get to the point where I win anyway if they don't have a good followup to the Moon. It does not win games on the spot and I've been playing even before Blood Moon was first printed in the Dark. And I think that's the problem with today's magic players, they don't have the experience, nor do they have the ideas what to do besides being butthurt over efficient answers. Personally, I'd jump at the chance to play hatebears in standard again, but the format is so narrow...
If Blood Moon is too powerful, why not print a Blue Moon where all nonbasics become wastes and has a cumulative upkeep of something like each opponent draws a card...
During Khans Standard we had over 10 different deck archetypes. Standard was actually fairly healthy and was repairing itself over time. Heck, we had more diversity in Eldritch Moon Standard. It wasn't until Kaladesh we saw it turn into another Mirrodin block where cards are inherently broken. Vehicles are broken and a bad concept altogether. Aetherworks Marvel is busted as all can be. Energy is an odd mechanic that's neat, but in standard it's borderline. Outside of Standard it doesn't exist.
Walking Ballista vs Stony Silence. I played a modern game and I had simply made big Ballistas and went for beatdown and won because my creatures were bigger and better than theirs. These answers do nothing in and of themselves, they just buy time and space to breathe. Oddly enough, there were only half a dozen times when I dropped from the Magic scene for a time. Type 2 during Necro Summer and Enduring Winter. Type 2 during Urza block. Type 2 during Prophecy era. Type everything during Mirrodin. Type 2 and Extended during the New Phyrexia set. Standard again after Khans rotated out.
heh...
The problem I've seen with Magic Standard over the years is the same... No answers or lack of answers. Mana bases are too good? Why not Blood Moon or something close to it? Ghost Quarter and Tec Edge is fine... Efficient land destruction.... Reprint Wasteland, it'd be an instant success.
Oh? no grave hate? Well, all these decks can prosper. Rest in Peace, Relic, and Crypt are wonderful answers.
ETB B Gone with Torpor Orb.
How bout better board wipes? Better hand disruption. Reprints of small pox? It's easy to make sets with the sole function of disrupting each other.
This is why I play EDH, Modern, Legacy, and Vintage. There's diversity and no deck stays on top for long and the formats have a way to fix themselves without a need for stupid bans like Splinter Twin. There's a reason why I stopped playing Standard religiously about two years ago, lack of diversity. What used to be 8-10 decks has turned into 3-4 decks and if you weren't playing them you were losing.
Stop catering to the babies who don't want cards that break their toys and print the cards that answer the problems that Standard is having. I guarantee it will fix the issues.
Sounds like you're describing Standard with only 3 decks worth playing and if you're not playing them then you will lose..... There's over 30 different deck types in Modern alone and that doesn't include all the crazy things that has even seen top 8s like 8 rack and even Suicide Zoo got a slot. Even a new deck type running Walking Ballistas and Rite of Passage combo. Kari Zev's Expertise is breaking things... Sram in Puresteel Cheerios. The list gets bonkers, I've even seen arcbound workers in a green based deck followed buy Ravagers with Hardened Scales and other crazy things.
The list gets even zanier with Legacy, because there's several decks, archetypes, and not all of them run blue or green or whatever else...
Narnam Renegade and Renegade Rallier are cool pieces... I went 5-0-1 with the Walking Rite because of things...
Modern has Blood Moon which keeps greedy manabases in check. It also has Ghost Quarter, Tec Edge, and Surgical Extraction which tears apart combo decks.
Modern has Stony Silence which keeps artifact decks in check. It also has Leyline of the Void, and many other things.
I play Modern at least 4 times a week, Frontier once or twice a week, Legacy twice a month, Vintage once a month, and Standard, I sometimes play it and then I give it up because it never changes because it's always been the same thing over and over with only a few decks dominating because the hate isn't there and it's less and less interactive than ever.
Frontier is a bridge between Modern and Standard. Haruya even stated this as the reason he created the format because it was very difficult to get modern staples.
Frontier also has no need to ban anything because anything is possible. With Tormod's Crypt as the only viable graveyard removal I am against Khans and M15 being removed. Even Anafenza helps slow down graveyard decks.
Frontier has 12 viable decks, and a bunch of ideas that just doesn't work. With the perfect manabase that can't be disrupted there's no reason why you should have even a single basic land in your deck.
Standard has 3 deck types, vehicles break things. Marvel breaks things. Cat Lady breaks every standard rule. And not enough can stop the insanity of Delirium either...
Modern Master 2017 will be lowering many barriers to people who want to migrate into Modern.
Legacy? Know the difference between Modern and Legacy infect? 6 cards. You don't need Trops to play Legacy infect.
D&T is easy to get into, all the cards are there and easily obtainable. Hatebears is fun to play. Eldrazi is nasty.
Legacy Dredge costs less than the best standard decks. Legacy Burn costs slightly more. The only difference with legacy Jund and Zoo are mana bases. Elves are nasty, but you can get away with only 1 or 2 Cradles. The list goes on and on.
I have a vintage deck that costs less than a grand, course with 15 proxies for tournaments I can literally play anything. But my less than 1k vintage? Hatebears. I prefer Oath, Eldrazi, Burn, and Goblins.
Again, Standard does not have the diversity of any of these formats. It's so bad right now there's a card shop in Sacramento that only hosts FNM Modern which fires with over 30 people on average (and they all run different styles of decks and I own 4 different Modern decks) every week, 2-3 Drafts, and Legacy is played on weekends there. Standard as far as Great Escapes is concerned, is dead because it's been the same nonsense for the past 5 years where only a few decks dominate.
Very true on many points, except the format has slowed down again and there's so many ways to disrupt a turn 3 win. There's virtually no turn 2 wins.... It has become a format once again where decks like GR Tron actually has a chance to top 8 again. It was knocked out of being competitive due to the entire format being hostile to slower decks.
As for Frontier being grindy, I can agree on that. I cannot agree about no Khans, because then it's Standard lite. You also lose several key sideboard cards. The format would be like Standard was before January and nobody here really likes that format. If you remove m15 and Khans you will destroy the format as surely as the creator of Tiny Leaders pulled the trigger on his own format...
You can get along without Cradles. Just slow roll them. All Cradles does is turn the deck from 10 to 11 and it can win without Cradles on turn 3.
People still play AniMayhem with DBZ banned...
Aye... Last week for instance, 30 people played Modern, they had 6 people for Standard FNM... 12 for Game Day Saturday, and Game Day Sunday was 4 people. A year ago, there'd be 20-30 people for Standard FNMs, Game Days would have 20+ people... And prereleases here have dropped off a lot. If you want to know what Store this is? War Torn Front. And yes, they're not a little place. Even Channel Fireball in Santa Clara has seen numbers dropping while Modern and Legacy interests run high. I'm going to Galaxy on Sunday for a Legacy tournament and there will be around 20 people who will show for it. Great Expectations in Sacramento has a huge Legacy and Modern scene... Grape Vine in Lodi and Stockton, standard is dead, hardly anyone drafts, and it's only Modern and EDH. Don't believe me? Call these places up. In a 100 mile radius from where I live I know if I pick up an EDH, Modern, or Legacy deck and take it to any of these stores, there will be a few people playing. Standard? Not so much. Even Frontier is beginning to take off at a majority of these places. And I know a few vintage players here and I even have a vintage deck myself....
However, you are right and wrong. Without support, the scenes might die off.
What WotC could do?
1. Offer better prize support, bring back player rewards and offer better FNM promos. Since Path to Exile there really hasn't been anything....
2. Print less product. I mean, look at how many things were printed last year alone... Oath, Shadows, EM, EMN, FTV, Conspiracy 2, Kaladesh, C2017, and that only names a few items. There's way too many things coming out and this year the first half of the year we have 6 product being released? This is too much by far. Just my personal opinion.
3. Stop banning/unbanning things just to shake up the format. When WotC did that, attendance at the FNM dropped to an all time low. While Git Probe was expected, and GGT was expected, the standard bans sets a precedent we haven't seen for a decade... And GGT, they banned it because they don't like dredge as a mechanic. Which sets an even bigger precedent than anything else. What WotC has done is show that they're going to make bans whenever they like now. I have never played Twin, but I had no issue with Twin... But it wasn't banned because of power level, it was banned to shake things up and it opened the floodgates for hyper aggro decks to cut loose for a while.
People are afraid to invest time, money, and energy in a game where people don't know what's going to happen next.
Or they're moving over to Legacy/Modern for competitiveness, or EDH for casual, or Frontier to play. The only safe format is EDH though...
People are still paying premium prices for Star Wars CCG and Star Trek CCG even though both games failed over 18 years ago...
eh... Narnam Renegade is making its rounds and there's a new deck idea out there using counters for a different strategy.
Everything dies to Bolt/Path/Push/Decay/Dismember/etc... People have to think outside the box. Mono white blink works. and few things are 4 toughness.
Over here with around 70-80 modern players who play every week in 3 different shops I have seen everything from Eggs to Lantern Control. My Bant Eldrazi deck dies to Blood Moon. Tron used to die to land destruction. Expertise cards are making an impact. With two cards being banned, the hyper aggro decks like Suicide Zoo and Infect took a hit. Storm no longer exists. People are going back to a Bloomless Titan build.
So, here begs the question: Why so Salty? Moden is fine for the moment, but it won't be if WotC doesn't support it properly. And this latest debacle has several Modern players here thinking that either they should quit, go to Legacy, or stop playing for a while.
Moon should never be banned. And Counterspell would render control to the top. Most of the other cards would be too strong. Jace, sure, unban him. But seriously, that list? Would kill every deck there is. Sorry, but no. No.... Just hell no.