Well that all sounds positive so far but with risk from the pros breaking it in the future. That is a good review so far IMO, but I also still worry about a few decks getting broken in the future.
Also, did everyone see the new GSZ, finale of devastation?
I've been busy with life for a week or two. How is the London muligan rule turning out on line? Rumors I hear at work make it sound like it is not going well so far, but a very cursory web search I did seemed like things were mostly ok.
As an almost exclusivity combo player I love the muligan rule but would not be a fan of the deck list rule. The surprise factor and using cards people aren't expecting or extremly familiar with account for half my wins. Turn one serum visions could be one of a large number of decks and they have to figure out what you are on. Making the opponent unsure of what you're game plan is has always been important. Idk, they are making lots of changes so we'll just have to see how it goes.
Just give me any of those cards(or similar ones), in that order(first are more important), and Modern will be a lot better than it already is!
You know I like all those choices honestly. Great List.
I'm fine with those choices too. Some of those may not even see much play but could be good in the right deck. Generally I think those are about the right power level, or some could even be a bit stronger.
Which of the new walkers are you planning to try to use?
As I am a combo player, I am looking forward to brewing with the new self mill jace with the lab maniac ability.
The Ral storm walker looks cool too.
I watched a deck tech with ross merrium a while back and he sait UR pheonix will be well posioned as long as thing in the ice is well positioned. It is used as board control and a big threat so it is pulling double duty here.
The four possible ban targets IMO are pheonix, thing in the ice, manamorphose or faithless looting. An arguemwnt can be made against any of these, but looting seems to have the most people against it right now.
Ktkenshinx, I agree with most everything you just said except for at the very end you said to not look at.twin for comparison. I understand what happened with twin very well. (with the pt shack up, it had won two pt before and their were several varients taking up descent Meta game share and so on.) I think we should compare this to twin as much as those others. The two cant help but draw comparisons. Pheonix is a resilient UR shell that kills quickly, cantrips a lot, controls the board (with bolt, lightning axe and thing in the ice instead of bolt, remand and cryptics) before winning with a difficult to deal with threat and is generally called the best deck in the format during its time. That sounds alot like twin to me. Twins meta game share was lower than this however, but I see enough similarities and minor enough differences that make me think it makes for a decent enough comparison. I agree the other decks you named are good comparisons (except TC delver, TC was broken and deserved what it got. DTT we could discuss), but I think twin fits in this discussion too. The probe ban also fits here if we are targeting faithless looting.
My question boils down to: I see enough to compare pheonix to twin as well as those other decks, so would you please expand on why twin is not a good enough comparison on par with the other decks you named?
Oh great, more Twin comparisons. Like Drowsy said, KCI wasn't banned to increase metagame diversity.
It's not unwarranted. Literally every justification WOTC gave against Twin can be levied against Phoenix. Every, single, one. Either Phoenix is fine, and the criteria for banning Twin was a load of crap. Or Phoenix will be banned at the next announcement.
Many of us already know that the Twin ban was in part a load of crap Wizards packaged to justify a PT shakeup ban. That's why they changed their ban timing in the future, made some public statements about Modern goals, and have been more conservative with bans ever since. Bringing Twin into this current conversation doesn't really have bearing on the Phoenix situation. TC Delver, DRS BGx, and Pod are all much better examples, given the level of Phoenix performance we are seeing now. The ban announcement is also after the MC, so the shakeup factor isn't even on the table.
THANK YOU! As a twin unban supporter that is really all I am looking for. Just acknowledgment that it was not completely justified.
Separate note: I see lots of twin / Phoenix comparison personally, but I named 3 of the 4 decks you named for comparison too. Only the probe ban supports a faithless looting ban. Many other bannings suggest a narrower banning like Phoenix itself, thing or manamorphose. Probably we'll see a banning in May but we may see nothing until after MH is released.
Also, this is not eldrazi winter, but it could become something like that if it gets much bigger. I agree right now the percentage of the field discussion is closer to what ktkenshink listed above, all of which got a ban.
I do not agree with everything I'm reading on here right now. I'm not sold on a looting ban yet. Something WILL be done about these numbers soon but with several new variables, ike MH possible new powerful hate cards and 36 new planeswalkers coming soon, I'm not ready to say that banning is immenant because there are other otions. And there are other cards they could ban to hurt Phoenix which is really the problem, dredge is just a side show, it's real good but is clearly not what Phoenix is.
Again, these numbers are not comparable with WOTC standard for the format and something can, should and will be done about it, but let's be careful to to not over simplify this to just one problem or solution.
Kci instead of mox opal, BBE instead of DRS, summer bloom instead of primeval titan.
This is the idea of tailoring bans to a specific deck with out affecting the rest of the format as much as possible.
The only ban IMO that flies in the face of this idea is probe because there were a few decks using it to verify they could go for the kill that turn. If we look at the original modern ban list we find some other cards that are staying banned because so many decks would use them, GSZ and a few others. The cantrips like ponder were banned specifically to make combos less consistent, but i think they kinda fit into this too. There is a president for hitting something like faithless looting but I expect that to be WOTC's next move.
From the ChannelFireball twitter (link). These numbers are pretty alarming unfortunately. Combining with how the SCG Open looked (don't know numbers) Phoenix right now shows really high performance.
Please don't call anyone a toxic twin player for pointing out there is no twin data that looks like this. I agree this is bigger than twin was, by a good margin.
From the ChannelFireball twitter (link). These numbers are pretty alarming unfortunately. Combining with how the SCG Open looked (don't know numbers) Phoenix right now shows really high performance.
This will be addressed by WOTC with a banning or special printings to curb this deck, or both. With twin they first printed hate cards like rending volly and when that didn't help they banned twin. With eldrazi and birthing pod they went strait to banning eye of ugin and pod itself, even though those were very different circumstances from each other. I see probe and KCI in a different category from what we see here and are not very good comparisons. IMO the closest direct comparison is twin or eldrazi. This looks worse than twin did but not as bad as eldrazi winter.
Looking at history a faithless looting ban looks less likely than a phoenix, thing in the ice or manamorphose ban. They try to tailor the banning to the specific offender and not affect a wide swath of decks. There is a long history of examples for this including BBE, eye, twin, pod, KCI, GGT, summer bloom and on and on. However, probe is an example of a wider ranging ban that hit multiple offending decks. They may end up banning faithless looting, but due to how many decks that would effect I expect something different to be tried first.
Every time I see a Twin apology post not-so-subtly masqueraded as "Control needs a tool to beat all things at all times just because" I feel tempted to just copy and paste substituting the Twin apology parts for ThopterSword / Death & Taxes / Delver / whatever random Tier 2-3 deck I feel like at the moment, but then I remember that I would get infracted for trolling while the endless Twin drivel with the same old arguments that have been dismantled several times throughout countless threads we've had to endure for 3 years straight would still go unpunished.
Personally I think that post qualifies as trolling as it doesn't add anything to any topic of conversation, it just sounds like you attacking twin supporters. The twin points being repeatedly dismantled is your opinion, I support a twin unban still and with them uping the power level a bit with new cards from MH I think the twin conversation will get even hotter in the future. It was a good deck, but not at all lile teir zero eldrazi winter. It was one top deck among many others and would be fine today. Oh it would be good and win a lot of games, but it would not forever be known as splinter twin summer. I didn't bring up twin, you did.
Ya, i know PW's are slow and there is no serious PW deck but if we get the right new catd it may become a deck at least for a little while. Cheerios, dredge, spirits, and KCI were all very fringe decks until a new card(s) was printed and the deck took off. I know these are not perfect examples, but I think it is worth keeping in mind.
Also, did everyone see the new GSZ, finale of devastation?
I'm fine with those choices too. Some of those may not even see much play but could be good in the right deck. Generally I think those are about the right power level, or some could even be a bit stronger.
As I am a combo player, I am looking forward to brewing with the new self mill jace with the lab maniac ability.
The Ral storm walker looks cool too.
The four possible ban targets IMO are pheonix, thing in the ice, manamorphose or faithless looting. An arguemwnt can be made against any of these, but looting seems to have the most people against it right now.
My question boils down to: I see enough to compare pheonix to twin as well as those other decks, so would you please expand on why twin is not a good enough comparison on par with the other decks you named?
THANK YOU! As a twin unban supporter that is really all I am looking for. Just acknowledgment that it was not completely justified.
Separate note: I see lots of twin / Phoenix comparison personally, but I named 3 of the 4 decks you named for comparison too. Only the probe ban supports a faithless looting ban. Many other bannings suggest a narrower banning like Phoenix itself, thing or manamorphose. Probably we'll see a banning in May but we may see nothing until after MH is released.
Also, this is not eldrazi winter, but it could become something like that if it gets much bigger. I agree right now the percentage of the field discussion is closer to what ktkenshink listed above, all of which got a ban.
Again, these numbers are not comparable with WOTC standard for the format and something can, should and will be done about it, but let's be careful to to not over simplify this to just one problem or solution.
This is the idea of tailoring bans to a specific deck with out affecting the rest of the format as much as possible.
The only ban IMO that flies in the face of this idea is probe because there were a few decks using it to verify they could go for the kill that turn. If we look at the original modern ban list we find some other cards that are staying banned because so many decks would use them, GSZ and a few others. The cantrips like ponder were banned specifically to make combos less consistent, but i think they kinda fit into this too. There is a president for hitting something like faithless looting but I expect that to be WOTC's next move.
Please don't call anyone a toxic twin player for pointing out there is no twin data that looks like this. I agree this is bigger than twin was, by a good margin.
This will be addressed by WOTC with a banning or special printings to curb this deck, or both. With twin they first printed hate cards like rending volly and when that didn't help they banned twin. With eldrazi and birthing pod they went strait to banning eye of ugin and pod itself, even though those were very different circumstances from each other. I see probe and KCI in a different category from what we see here and are not very good comparisons. IMO the closest direct comparison is twin or eldrazi. This looks worse than twin did but not as bad as eldrazi winter.
Looking at history a faithless looting ban looks less likely than a phoenix, thing in the ice or manamorphose ban. They try to tailor the banning to the specific offender and not affect a wide swath of decks. There is a long history of examples for this including BBE, eye, twin, pod, KCI, GGT, summer bloom and on and on. However, probe is an example of a wider ranging ban that hit multiple offending decks. They may end up banning faithless looting, but due to how many decks that would effect I expect something different to be tried first.
Personally I think that post qualifies as trolling as it doesn't add anything to any topic of conversation, it just sounds like you attacking twin supporters. The twin points being repeatedly dismantled is your opinion, I support a twin unban still and with them uping the power level a bit with new cards from MH I think the twin conversation will get even hotter in the future. It was a good deck, but not at all lile teir zero eldrazi winter. It was one top deck among many others and would be fine today. Oh it would be good and win a lot of games, but it would not forever be known as splinter twin summer. I didn't bring up twin, you did.