Post
by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago
Lots of great discussion here, even if the conversation moves so fast it's tough to respond to everything I'd like to. It takes enough time just multi-quoting and then editing posts with the quotes! But great to see all the discussion: a few higher-level responses to different posts/posters in the last pages.
Re: OUaT/Veil/and other ban ideas
I definitely want to explore these ideas more, but also am more interest personally in focusing on the unban question. To some extent, these issues overlap and can be discussed together, because the combination of bans/unbans is one way to curate a format. To a greater extent, however, the push for bans focuses on different arguments and format energies than unbans. I know we can view bans as an indirect way of "unbanning" suppressed cards, but this is still fundamentally different than banning a card that players now literally cannot legally use in Modern. Bans are an important topic but need to be treated separately from unbans prior to discussing both together. If nothing else, Wizards' history of bans proves that they tend to consider them this way; there are FAR more bans than unbans in Magic history, and many bans happen without any paired unbans. This is doubly true for Modern. Based on all that, I'm just tabling that discussion for now on my end.
Re: Unban Experiment
Based on different comments in the thread, I think the best way to present this is just as a spectrum of possible unban experiments without committing too heavily to one version. This allows me to list pros/cons of different unban experiment ideas which can help guide Wizards' decision-making and community preference. This also helps us avoid the weeds of unbanning a particular N cards vs. banning N+1 or N-3 cards, because we could spend multiple articles debating about whether we should unban Preordain vs. Ponder, or an entire series we could write on Twin or Pod alone. I'm really not interested in those details and think they are antithetical to the experiment itself, which is testing unbans with real-world data in real-world events, not in the crucible of rhetorical discussion. Unbans could be limited based on vision as in Pioneer, and different points along the spectrum could reflect this, but we shouldn't debate the individual cards too heavily. Based on that, here are some ideas for visions:
1. The "Modern is basically fine" vision
Very limited unbans. This is a short 3-5 card experiment that will take probably 1ish month to resolve. Possible unban targets could include artifact lands, Preordain, GSZ, and some other fringe cards that generally don't define decks but rather improve existing decks at their fringes. Stuff like Twin and Pod are probably not on this list.
2. The "uniquely powerful Modern deck" vision
Unban some of Modern's greatest old hits, especially cards that don't really see play in other formats, to see if they can reclaim an appropriate place in Modern. This is where we see Twin and Pod unbanned along with most things in the first vision and maybe even some banned Legacy cards like DRS. This is the closest to my original proposal for an unban experiment and resolves in that 1-3 month period depending on how many cards you unban.
3. The "T4 format" vision
Unban everything that doesn't violate the T4 rule and let the rest sort it out. This vision focuses on format speed more than anything else. Of course, this is a long list of cards which would probably include cards banned in Legacy like DRS/TC/DTT and cards banned in the last year like Oko. This experiment would take a long time to resolve, easily in the realm of 3-4 months and maybe longer.
4. The "Modern 2.0" vision
Unban literally everything and reban things based on format dominance and unfun play patterns. Embrace the fact that the format will be redefined overnight and see what is actually dominant vs. what balances out other strategies. This massive experiment would take the longest to resolve and I wouldn't be surprised if we pushed into that 5-6 month range.
There are certainly better names for these visions and probably lots of other visions in between. But the new idea would be to propose different points along the spectrum and argue the benefits and costs of those ideas. Wizards can support all of this on MTGO by providing players with full, non-tradeable/negotiable Modern playsets of either the unbanned cards or just all Modern cards period and allow them to play in regular events with awesome prize pools. Wizards would just continue the experiment until the dust settled and then "properly unban" the final cards at the end. For some of the smaller experiments, they could probably be done with real cards instead of non-negotiable MTGO cards people won't really own. This would minimize financial blowback and risk.
Over-Extended/Modern Since 2010