[Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 07/13/2020)

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Tzoulis
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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
The sad thing is Emry was exclusively designed for Modern to go into this deck while Urza was already the best deck. This was a deliberated decision to what end?
Emry was designed at least 9 months before her release and in that period Thopter/Sword was just a random T2 prison deck.
She was designed to be playable in eternal formats in artifact decks, whether they include Urza or not.

While Emry might be annoying, it's slow and easily removable. It's a grindy card first and foremost and in no way the problem in the Simic Urza decks. Deal with Oko and Veil first, and then see if she still is so annoyingly powerful that normal playable removal can't deal with her.

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
Is it that, or is it that decks have different sideboard strategies? A less interactive deck primarily only needs to sideboard against the hate cards that will be brought in against them, and the range of effective hate cards in Modern is quite low. If we power down the artifact/enchantment destruction we're still going to wind up with something like Naturalize or Deglamer as the anti hate card.
Of course less interactive decks have different sideboard strategies. It's just that cards like Force and Claim disproportionately end up in those decks and not interactive decks because those decks can ignore the costs. Fair decks turn to other types of enchantment/artifact removal. Unfair decks use these cards to beat hate pieces, and a great way to trim the power of unfair decks at their margins is to make their G2/G3 win percentages worse. Removing cards like Claim/Vigor does just that. We're not saying unfair decks can't fight back against enchantments/artifacts. I'm just saying they shouldn't be so efficient in doing so, which means if they switch from Claim/Force to Naturalize/Deglamer, we're depowering the deck. This is the very essence of the nerf ban idea.
I'm curious how your numbers change if you pick a date range where decks like Amulet and Infect are the decks to beat. But, I'm not sure we've had that metagame since Force of Vigors printing to confirm that theory unless we look at Legacy/Vintage metas instead (and even then we might not have it). I will say though, and I've been saying this since it became apparent that Oko was very pushed, I really don't think it's a coincidence that he's the colors of the best Force cards.
Force of Vigor showed up in hundreds of decks before Oko. In a sample of 390 of those 600+ decks, 85% of the decks were decidedly unfair with the remaining 15% representing a mix of fair and unfair. Vigor decks included Amulet (16.5%), Infect (9%), Titanshift (27%), Bogles (5%), Hogaak (23%), and others. Oko has nothing to do with Vigor being played in unfair decks because Oko is allegedly shifting decks to green. Noninteractive green decks just play Vigor to beat hate pieces without losing tempo. Again, this is the kind of trim at the margins nerf ban which hurts top decks without destroying their identity. It's a great option going forward.
Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
By the way, I think we didn't talked about. Scg Player championchip has same results in paper like allways. Best 16 player, 3 of them played urza and all of them logically on top 8. Finals was urza versus urza. Their is a big difference between eldrazi Tron in paper and urza in paper, compared to urza and eldrazi on mtgo. No mtgo is not better in this case again, like on last gp this time the best players was there, so again real pros one more time. And please stop this : it was 3 formats and maybe they was good at standard and legacy talk. Urza is allways on paper far ahead test of field. Seems it have real problems in mtgo because maybe time and not because they adapted better. It's proofed again and again how strong urza in reality is
Urza is obviously the secret/not-so-secret best deck in paper, even if MTGO is lagging behind. But again, Wizards is never going to ban cards based on results from isolated events like the SCG PC. Nor should they, because smaller events are less likely than larger events to be representative of the metagame. Without good MTGO data, they can't even act on Urza because they simply don't have enough data points of meaning. Wizards will need a string of larger paper events to really allow Urza to prove its worth as the best deck. As I've said before, this was the secret cost of the egregiously stupid decision to not ban Hogaak earlier in the summer: we lost numerous GP to use to determine metagame health.
iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
I keep saying it, the problem is Emry. Getting to recycle EE, Mox, Bauble, Astrolabe puts you ahead in resources as soon as turn 2 and any attrition war. Emry potentially comes turn 1 and from there its a uphill battle for any deck trying to compete. As if weren't enough Emry also blocks any 2 power creature.
Emry is certainly a contributing problem to Urza decks and a great example of a potential nerf ban to trim decks at the margins without destroying their core identity.
The sad thing is Emry was exclusively designed for Modern to go into this deck while Urza was already the best deck. This was a deliberated decision to what end? To make Modern unpopular due to balance issues right before announcing Pioneer? Is this also the reason why they are withholding from bans until after the Pioneer GP's in January? I really feel the state of Modern is being sacrificed to push Pioneer because if Modern were in a good state and people were happy with it and enjoying the format there would be less need for a new eternal format like Pioneer. There is also a huge financial aspect. Standard has been in shambles for at least a year. Sales and attendance have dropped significantly. War of the Spark was a huge mistake. Wizards can take a financial loss but your LGS can't. A lot of LGS have struggled this year to sell their Standard stuff have taken a big financial loss. Introducing Pioneer instantly increased the price of many boosterboxes and cards that have been on the shelfs for many years and that really financially helped a lot of LGS's out this winter. Wizards inflated demand for Pioneer cards by making Modern as bad as possible. Modern has been the most popular format for years now so they think it can take a short-medium term hit like this. The question is where do they go from now? Will they start fixing Modern by the end of January or will they wait until Pioneer is more established or will they do nothing and just let the ship sink completely? Nobody knows. The truth is Modern has been amortized. There isn't much more money to make without fundamentally breaking the format. Decks become more streamlined, more consistent every year. Powercreep is real without the safety valves of Legacy. Modern has some serious design flaws and problems moving forward and I think we might have reached the end. In an ideal world with no Reserve List, Legacy and Modern would merge into 1 format and Pioneer would take its place.

This is not a tin-foil-hat theory. Wizards is a huge company with a lot of financial advisors etc. Decisions are not made randomly nor without a clear objective and thought. I worked in the financial world and this is how decisions are made. You look at benefits and compare them to short-long terms. And when it comes to corporates money is always the biggest factor when decision making so you always have to look for the financial aspect to understand where the decisions come from.
This theory connecting EMRY to Modern's current downfall so far off base I'm not even going to respond to every individual point. It's flagrantly wrong on even the most fundamental, factual levels. Most importantly, Emry was designed literally months in advance of Urza being played. Wizards can't even test for Standard, let alone Modern. It's beyond implausible that Wizards was able to design this synergy to deliberately empower a deck, and even more implausible that they did so to actively hurt the format. These kinds of outrageous conspiracy theories hurt the format and game just as much as Wizards' bad management decisions. Emry is just one of literally two dozen plus bad 2019 design decisions because Wizards wanted to push cards and sell packs.

Is Modern in trouble due to Pioneer? Yes. Does this have to do with financial decisions, MTG Arena, selling Standard packs, etc.? Probably. But the ELD rare Emry has absolutely nothing to do with any of that. Just because we're all anxious and unhappy with this current situation does not give us license to invent and peddle wild conspiracy theories to match the facts around those anxieties.
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Post by metalmusic_4 » 4 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
So let's unban hoogak, it was only less better as urza.
Whoa.... No. I loved playing with my hogaak deck and my eldrazi deck pre-banning but nothing will ever release cards of that power level into the format.
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
After a lot of though, I changed my mind on the Opal/Urza situation and I agree with ktkenshinx, in banning several targeted cards to nerf decks and then see where we go from there.

Ban
Oko, Thief of crowns
Veil of Summer
Mycosynth Lattice
Nature's claim

Unban
Splinter Twin
Birthing Pod
I generally side with unbans and against most bans, but if they wanted to nerf the format widely I may be ok with that now. However I don't think the list of cards above is the ideal list.

If we are nerfing the format I don't think we are getting powerful unbans at the same time. I do believe we should unban twin, but I don't think it is a realistic arguement that the format is too powerful, so let's ban a bunch of powerful cards, and oh yeah unban other powerful cards. And I don't think pod will ever come back regaurdless.

In my perfect world:
BAN
Mycosynth Lattice, the KTGC combo is just too dumb.
mox opal, it causes many problem in many decks imo.
Something else from urza, maybe urza himself or emry or oko.

Unban
Splinter Twin, imo this ban philosophy was wrong.
Bridge from below, imo this ban philosophy was wrong.

This is a ban targeted at urza. These bans would weaken urza dramaticly and straighten out the two most egregious errors on the ban list. If we are talking about nerfing the whole format I think we have to aim higher than Nature's claim.

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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
This theory connecting EMRY to Modern's current downfall so far off base I'm not even going to respond to every individual point. It's flagrantly wrong on even the most fundamental, factual levels. Most importantly, Emry was designed literally months in advance of Urza being played. Wizards can't even test for Standard, let alone Modern. It's beyond implausible that Wizards was able to design this synergy to deliberately empower a deck, and even more implausible that they did so to actively hurt the format. These kinds of outrageous conspiracy theories hurt the format and game just as much as Wizards' bad management decisions. Emry is just one of literally two dozen plus bad 2019 design decisions because Wizards wanted to push cards and sell packs.
Putting affinity on Emry is not a coincidence. When that mechanic is put on a card ALL ALARM BELLS should go off. Its a mechanic that has been proven problematic and unbalanced time and time again like delve. Right now there are only a handful of cards in Pioneer with affinity. What is the point of putting 1 single blue card with affinity in a Standard set when it doesn't have any synergy with the rest of the set or Standard in general? Besides Rosewater himself said Emry was supposed to be multicoloured and the card was targetted at eternal formats. Any experienced player who looks at Emry understands within 5 minutes how extremely powerful this card is with low mana artifacts. This doesn't need any extensive testing.

I very much believe Wizards is actively taking decisions to hurt Modern and Emry is only an example of the much bigger picture. The biggest proof is the financial theory and lack of bans the past months. I don't believe Wizards is too incompetent to balance Modern, its just unwillingness. It took 2 years to ban Faithless loothing. 2 years the meta was dominated by 'which is the best FL deck of the month'. They had just released MH so after 2 years we finally get some Modern B&R regulation to spike our interest to sell us the set. Again, I thus believe the decision to ban FL and Hogaak and unban Stoneforge was a purely financial one for the short term. After the dust settled and the first batch of MH sold they turned their back on Modern and let the ship sink. The decision to start with Pioneer was not taken overnight. This decision was taken months ago. The decision to not take any B&R actions since Hogaak and FL half a year ago coincides with this. Right now they need Modern to fail for all the reasons I already mentioned before.

They are using the carrot and stick method. They hit us with a stick to get us out of Modern and lure us to Pioneer with better format regulation.
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
[Modern]3. Modern has some inherent problems and some play patterns that many people just don't like.
This is it. You can look at the format and say its kinda diverse, its kinda balanced but its just not fun to play for the majority. Maybe from a balance point and looking at the data Modern is actually quite balanced. I might buy that but it doesn't change the fact currently most people don't want to play Modern because they don't like the gameplay it has to offer. These are more fundamental and complex problems than just 'ban card X because its clearly broken like Hogaak'. January will be essential for us to see what direction they are taking with Modern. They might say "This is what Modern has to offer and what makes it unique compared to other formats, we are not going to take drastic measurements to fundamentally change the format" and its an understandable and fair decision. They might also say "Modern has become too linear and uninteractive and player attendance is suffering because of it so we are going to fix Modern because its future looks very grim so there will be no more sacred cows regarding bans and unbans". Whatever they choose, January will be decisive for the future of the format.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
[Modern]3. Modern has some inherent problems and some play patterns that many people just don't like.
This is it. You can look at the format and say its kinda diverse, its kinda balanced but its just not fun to play for the majority. Maybe from a balance point and looking at the data Modern is actually quite balanced. I might buy that but it doesn't change the fact currently most people don't want to play Modern because they don't like the gameplay it has to offer.
To me, Modern has felt more and more like 50 shades of Bogles for years. Miserable linear decks that need to be attacked on a narrow axis that I may or may not have any reasonable main deck answer to. And the counteraction is usually to hope to draw hate cards while you race them. This is neither fun nor engaging on any level.

Ironically, the one big exception are the Urza decks, which almost do too many different things, and all of their game plans are all individually powerful, while also being backed by early turn, free acceleration, and access great defensive tools.

As I have said multiple times, if I felt like flushing a thousand dollars down the toilet in the face of an inevitable ban, I would love to pick up Okos and Urzas and Opals and go to town. Deck looks all kinds of fun with lots of varied play lines. The ultimate irony is that its continue existence seems to mock this viewpoint, while simultaneously spitting on the grave of Splinter Twin.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
As I have said multiple times, if I felt like flushing a thousand dollars down the toilet in the face of an inevitable ban, I would love to pick up Okos and Urzas and Opals and go to town. Deck looks all kinds of fun with lots of varied play lines. The ultimate irony is that its continue existence seems to mock this viewpoint, while simultaneously spitting on the grave of Splinter Twin.
100% this. I've also looked at the current Bant Snow that shares a ton of cards with decks I've played over the years, but am I going to buy Oko and the SFM package?

Not a chance.
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Post by metalmusic_4 » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
As I have said multiple times, if I felt like flushing a thousand dollars down the toilet in the face of an inevitable ban, I would love to pick up Okos and Urzas and Opals and go to town. Deck looks all kinds of fun with lots of varied play lines. The ultimate irony is that its continue existence seems to mock this viewpoint, while simultaneously spitting on the grave of Splinter Twin.
100% this. I've also looked at the current Bant Snow that shares a ton of cards with decks I've played over the years, but am I going to buy Oko and the SFM package?

Not a chance.
SFM is fine. Swords, batterskull or anythingelse directly related to SFM is fine. SFM as an archetype will live on in some form for years. Oko, mox opal and urza are a MUCH higher financial risk right now, but the SFM package will always find a home somewhere.

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
Most importantly, Emry was designed literally months in advance of Urza being played.
Given the timelines they've said in the past for the lead time on major sets, vs the lead time on summer sets, it's actually even more extreme than you just said. There's a very, very, high chance that Emry was designed before Urza, and even a chance that Emry was finalized before Urza was even designed if this iteration of Urza (or something similar) was only made near the tail end of MH design.

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
I would love to hear your opinion ktkenshinx
I think all of those issues you bring up are at play to varying degrees, especially the dissatisfying play patterns. But I also think those issues were ones players could ignore for years, or at least deal with, up until Pioneer's release and announcement of Arena support for Pioneer. Up until then, players were content to live with Modern's issues because it was the only way you could play a supported, nonrotating, diverse format where your cards held value and numerous archetypes were viable. Pioneer totally changes that calculus, and the fact that Wizards has vocalized support on Arena for Pioneer is backbreaking for Modern. If Modern came to Arena too, I actually think many players would continue to look past its alleged issues and just be fine with them in the long-term. But if Wizards is so laser-focused on bringing Pioneer to Arena and are conspicuously silent on Pioneer, that's a death sentence in combination with the existing Modern issues you bring up.
iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
Putting affinity on Emry is not a coincidence. When that mechanic is put on a card ALL ALARM BELLS should go off. Its a mechanic that has been proven problematic and unbalanced time and time again like delve. Right now there are only a handful of cards in Pioneer with affinity. What is the point of putting 1 single blue card with affinity in a Standard set when it doesn't have any synergy with the rest of the set or Standard in general? Besides Rosewater himself said Emry was supposed to be multicoloured and the card was targetted at eternal formats. Any experienced player who looks at Emry understands within 5 minutes how extremely powerful this card is with low mana artifacts. This doesn't need any extensive testing.
Wizards has banned over a dozen new cards this year. They suck at testing. They can't test for Standard in Standard products, they can't test for Modern in Modern products, and they can't get Limited right with bomb rares. This isn't new and it just got way worse in 2019. Just because they sucked at one more card does not indicate some broad conspiracy theory, especially when it makes no factual sense given the timetable of how card/set design works.
I very much believe Wizards is actively taking decisions to hurt Modern and Emry is only an example of the much bigger picture. The biggest proof is the financial theory and lack of bans the past months. I don't believe Wizards is too incompetent to balance Modern, its just unwillingness. It took 2 years to ban Faithless loothing. 2 years the meta was dominated by 'which is the best FL deck of the month'. They had just released MH so after 2 years we finally get some Modern B&R regulation to spike our interest to sell us the set. Again, I thus believe the decision to ban FL and Hogaak and unban Stoneforge was a purely financial one for the short term. After the dust settled and the first batch of MH sold they turned their back on Modern and let the ship sink. The decision to start with Pioneer was not taken overnight. This decision was taken months ago. The decision to not take any B&R actions since Hogaak and FL half a year ago coincides with this. Right now they need Modern to fail for all the reasons I already mentioned before.
Again, this theory is so patently untrue it's hard to seriously argue the point. Your facts are simply wrong. Modern has had more banlist changes in 2019 than any other year. They aren't banning/unbanning Modern cards since September because it's only been 3 months and they've been putting out the landfill inferno that is Standard.

To be totally clear, I fully, 100% believe they are willing to let Modern sink for Pioneer. But the theory that they are doing that with deliberately bad bans/unbans and sabotaged card design is ludicrous. They are doing it through the obvious, public means of putting Pioneer on Arena and leaving Modern on MTGO with Legacy. Pioneer is clearly the way of the future and I've said that the moment it was announced as the Arena nonrotating format. But that doesn't in any way connect to the insane allegation that Emry is a sabotaged plant card to torpedo Modern. That kind of tinfoil hattery does not advance discussion or elevate our understanding of what is happening to Modern.
Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
Most importantly, Emry was designed literally months in advance of Urza being played.
Given the timelines they've said in the past for the lead time on major sets, vs the lead time on summer sets, it's actually even more extreme than you just said. There's a very, very, high chance that Emry was designed before Urza, and even a chance that Emry was finalized before Urza was even designed if this iteration of Urza (or something similar) was only made near the tail end of MH design.
I couldn't have said it better, and I'm not sure why ITA thanked this post. This again points to the patent factual inaccuracies behind the outrageous claim that Emry was designed to hurt Modern. This refutes your point, not supports it.

To be very clear, I fully believe Modern is in serious trouble and players need to be treating this as a format crisis. But we have enough real problems to worry about without inventing bizarre conspiracy theories that don't match basic facts about Modern and set design/release schedules. Let's worry about the real problems and not the fabricated ones.
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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

It is so easy: they can ban a lot of busted cards in modern and fix it. People loosing decks can play Pioneer and should not be surprised. But they don't do it, they do this only in fixing Pioneer? Why? If I say it's easy why, we talk again about conspiracys... But really guys, we all knew why it happens. The choosen one is Pioneer, so let's wait till modern is near death till we try Reanimatin, if it's survive its good and if not it's good too. This is wotc now

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

metalmusic_4 wrote:
4 years ago
idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
As I have said multiple times, if I felt like flushing a thousand dollars down the toilet in the face of an inevitable ban, I would love to pick up Okos and Urzas and Opals and go to town. Deck looks all kinds of fun with lots of varied play lines. The ultimate irony is that its continue existence seems to mock this viewpoint, while simultaneously spitting on the grave of Splinter Twin.
100% this. I've also looked at the current Bant Snow that shares a ton of cards with decks I've played over the years, but am I going to buy Oko and the SFM package?

Not a chance.
SFM is fine. Swords, batterskull or anythingelse directly related to SFM is fine. SFM as an archetype will live on in some form for years. Oko, mox opal and urza are a MUCH higher financial risk right now, but the SFM package will always find a home somewhere.
agreed sfm is fine.

from the time she got unban, up to the present. Both in online forums and among our local community here,.. I have not seen anyone complain that they keep losing to sfm. Her power level is the acceptable kind, at least from our small local mtg community here. A bit surprising, as sfm was once hailed as the best white two drop of all time.. | guess since tarmogoyf has fallen, sfm strength has also fallen a notch.
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Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

Banphobia really is a big factor in Modern right now for me. I think the Urza decks are sweet but I don't want to buy into them because I think they should get a ban. And the fair decks I usually enjoy in Modern should all be playing Oko right now, which also should get banned.

Maybe ironically this fear of bans is what keeps modern look more healthy than it is, with people being more willing to buy into Etron or Death Shadow than Oko or Urza

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

Wanted to get at least one Oko, since today I put together a bant deck... since no one wants to buy my goyfs, why not use them for awhile? :dizzy: Then I realized my jank tarmo deck would be greatly improved if it also has an Oko or two. However... I shall have to wait for Oko to become 10 dollars before buying any copies, because it feels like this guy always has one foot stepped into the banlist... he only has to do a little more before wotc hammers him down.
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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

I've recently started playing Legacy after exclusively playing Modern for years and this has given me a very different perspective of how to manage overpowered/broken cards.

They could ban Urza and Oko OR they could print Red Elemental Blast into Modern.

Banning these cards (or the threat of a ban) weakens confidence in the market and simply pushes off the problem until they print the next breakable card in 6 months. Until that time, the people with Urza/Oko get to dominate and everyone else has to tolerate it. On the other hand, printing cards like REB allows people to keep their new cards and decks (also restoring confidence in the marketplace) and allows everyone else to interact with these decks in a reasonable manner (ie with a few dedicated sideboard cards rather than warping all non Urza/Oko decks simply to survive).

I can tell you that as a player who prefers interactive midrange decks, facing an Oko/Urza down with an REB somewhere in my library is much less disheartening even if I never draw it. At least there is the possibility of a comeback rather than being completely buried. If you do manage to pop an Oko/Urza for r then you get to punish the other player for over reliance on a single card.

I don't think there are any decks that would suddenly take over the meta if REB were printed. It's a super fair card in that it's a strict 1-for-1 trade off. No cantrips or weird turn long value attached (looking at you Veil of Summer). The same is true of Blue Elemental Blast, since they'd probably want to print both for continuities sake.

Does anyone here think that REB or similar would be too powerful for Modern? Alternatively, does anyone think that this wouldn't be a viable solution to balance Oko/Urza?

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Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

I'm not a fan of printing broken cards to fix broken cards, that's how Cavern of Souls was born. It also doesn't fix the homogenisation issue Oko brings; even if he is easier to answer he should still be in every fair deck.

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

Before we even think of it as an answer to oko and urza... we should first think that r.e.b would allow the color red to do so many things it should not be allowed to do here. There are more things I could say why this card should not be here.. but there's simply no need to write them. A card of this kind would never be allowed in modern by wotc.
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Post by pierreb » 4 years ago

Actually, I think the old color pie was much more intelligently setup than the current one. That red should hate on blue is better that putting a blanket interdiction that red should not counter spell or destroy enchantments. The old philosophy of enemy colors had good things going for it. I think boil is a much worse design than REB.

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
It is so easy: they can ban a lot of busted cards in modern and fix it. People loosing decks can play Pioneer and should not be surprised. But they don't do it, they do this only in fixing Pioneer? Why? If I say it's easy why, we talk again about conspiracys... But really guys, we all knew why it happens. The choosen one is Pioneer, so let's wait till modern is near death till we try Reanimatin, if it's survive its good and if not it's good too. This is wotc now
Again, stop fabricating strange theories. We have plenty of real problems in Modern right now without discussing the made up ones. Wizards banned more Modern cards in 2019 than in any other single year since 2011: KCI, Bridge, Hogaak, Looting. They also added in an unban in SFM and released their Modern-specific set. This represents the most upheaval in Modern since the format started. Wizards isn't just going to ban cards because you personally believe it is obvious those cards should be banned. Banning is more complicated than you make it out to be, and if more people realized this and we were able to have more critical conversations about bans, Modern would have one less factor working against it: the endless memey one-liner hot takes that bring down format confidence and hurt player buy-in.

Again, Modern is absolutely in trouble because of Pioneer. This even indirectly affects Modern bannings insofar as R&D's bandwidth is focused on Pioneer more than Modern. But that's an issue of incompetence and oversight, not deliberate malice. There's no universe where R&D is going into their meetings and saying "Should we change Modern today?" and someone is replying/the group agrees "No! Modern should suck as badly as possible so people switch to Pioneer!" Instead. R&D is just deciding to focus on Pioneer because it's the next big Arena-related project, which means other priorities are just incidentally pushed to the side. That's not a conspiracy to kill Modern. That's just top-down prioritization sapping Modern's support.
Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
Does anyone here think that REB or similar would be too powerful for Modern? Alternatively, does anyone think that this wouldn't be a viable solution to balance Oko/Urza?
Bearscape wrote:
4 years ago
I'm not a fan of printing broken cards to fix broken cards, that's how Cavern of Souls was born. It also doesn't fix the homogenisation issue Oko brings; even if he is easier to answer he should still be in every fair deck.
REB might not be the best example of how to address Oko and Urza, but I fully agree we wouldn't be in this current Modern problem (at least, from a metagame-health perspective) if we had better generic answers across colors. Oko is still problematic because he forces fair decks to play him in a way that other fair deck staples don't, but cards like REB or better countermagic/removal could definitely help Modern be a more attractive format. Sadly, this wouldn't solve the issue of Wizards wanting Pioneer to be the next big Arena/Magic thing, so it's less important in the format's grand scheme.
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Mtgthewary
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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

Modern is in problems because of modern itself and not Pioneer. Maybe you should stop searching for excuses?

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

pierreb wrote:
4 years ago
Actually, I think the old color pie was much more intelligently setup than the current one. That red should hate on blue is better that putting a blanket interdiction that red should not counter spell or destroy enchantments. The old philosophy of enemy colors had good things going for it. I think boil is a much worse design than REB.
Red can still hate on blue, but it does it instead through cards like Fry. Highly efficient damage to take out creatures/planeswalkers/players. In the case of Oko though, the loyalty is so ridiculously high that it still doesn't kill it. It can also occasionally play on the stack by changing the targets of spells, or copying spells.

Lots of hate like this can be printed, but it's really hard to hit the line where the card is playable, but not too good. Red/Blue Elemental Blast is too good, Pyroblast is too (and out of color pie). Veil of Summer was also too good. Most of the others don't really rise to being good enough.

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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

Why it's so good? Maybe in legacy where everyone plays blue, but maybe less in modern?

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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
Why it's so good? Maybe in legacy where everyone plays blue, but maybe less in modern?
In a format where the best generalized solutions are in Black (Decay, Trophy, Seize) and most combo decks are also weak to countermagic, then yes, Veil is too good for 1 mana.

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Post by pierreb » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago

Lots of hate like this can be printed, but it's really hard to hit the line where the card is playable, but not too good. Red/Blue Elemental Blast is too good, Pyroblast is too (and out of color pie).
I would not consider a 1-for-1 too good.

As REB flavor text says, when a color hates another, it should be able to go beyond what it is normally capable of.

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
Why it's so good? Maybe in legacy where everyone plays blue, but maybe less in modern?
I like Veil of Summer, I think it can exist in the format, but the fact that it has now had to be banned in Pioneer and Standard shows that it's above the power level that these sorts of cards are supposed to be. Which goes back to the issue that these sorts of cards are incredibly hard to tune properly.

I'm trying to think of a single one which has ever been just right rather than too good or too bad. Lifebane Zombie decimated Standard (probably more than Veil is doing now), Most others are too weak to really see play. The only one that I might be able to argue was just right is Rending Volley.

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

pierreb wrote:
4 years ago
Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago

Lots of hate like this can be printed, but it's really hard to hit the line where the card is playable, but not too good. Red/Blue Elemental Blast is too good, Pyroblast is too (and out of color pie).
I would not consider a 1-for-1 too good.

As REB flavor text says, when a color hates another, it should be able to go beyond what it is normally capable of.
What makes REB/BEB so powerful isn't that they're a 1 for 1, it's that they can answer literally anything of the opposing color. They interact not only on the stack, but on resolved cards. Red Elemental Blast can for example destroy a Counterbalance, a Jace the Mind Sculptor, and Oko, or several other things. Blue Elemental Blast works the same on red cards. It is very out of the color pie.

The real issue here though is that occasionally colors get out of color pie answers that are less efficient, and even then people will still typically play them because efficiency is less of a concern than adding another color. But these cards are out of pie and among the most efficient answers that can exist in the game. Legacy needs these cards, and others like it in order to keep the format just barely playable casually but that doesn't mean formats that are intended to still exist at a pro tour level should have these sorts of cards.

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