gkourou wrote: ↑4 years ago
DRS is dying to bolt, while astrolabe does not and redraws a card. Listen, i would be perfectly fine if they banned Astrolabe and then reprinting it in MH, without it drawing a card off of it.
"Dies to removal" is not in any way a reasonable counter argument to the viability of a creature. We've said multiple times that DRS is way more powerful than AA and is actually a color pie break, since it can slot in non-Green decks. Its nickname of "1 mana Planeswalker" is a testament to how absurdly powerful it is.
Astrolabe enables
fair decks, by letting them answer a broader metagame spectrum. It also makes Blood Moon weaker. That's it. Astrolabe is almost 1 year old and the only non-fair decks that played it were Whirza, Breach and Paradoxical lists.
There's no reasonable comparison to be done between them, other than maybe popularity.
gkourou wrote: ↑4 years ago
That's why Modern is so bad for 2 years now. And that wasn't the case during 2015, for example. I was on jeskai Control for several years and I wasn't complaining at all. I wasn't complaining either with Amulet titan, when it was so bad of a choice. You possibly remember me defending Modern from 20-30 people that went in mtgs and said "format is garbage".
It's the first, literally the first time(second one, sorry, the first one was during Eldrazi Winter) I think Modern just won't allow you to play decks like Grixis Control, or Jeskai control, or UR Control, because that's my kind of poison. Those decks are literally unplayable right now. All of them have been outshadowed by Bant Snow and temur Urza.
Personally, that's drew me away from the format and it's a reason why I am into Pioneer. I can play my Jeskai control, or bant control or whatever there and have a chance vs Mono Black, Spirits, Inverter, breach, Mono white, Sultai midrange delirium and other decks.
Your argument would have merit if Jeskai was viable during the times were Humans/Zoo/Company/Spirits decks were plentiful, namely 2018. Yet it never happened, and it wasn't because Bolt was bad. It happened because Miracles and/or Field of Ruin were better overall, while still keeping a reasonable match up against aggro. Hell, it wasn't viable even in 2015, the only control deck viable then was Twin and Grixis for 2 months. Nothing's changed on their viability, they were always T2 or less and that's mostly to do with how stable the manabase is and how easily you can cast Verdict.
Zoo hasn't really been viable for years. There's a new Naya Midrange that's making the rounds, but there's still room for improvement there.
No-one's stopping you from playing Jeskai, just don't expect to be 100% competitive and that's from someone that (almost) Top 8'd nationals and the PTQ the day before with Jeskai Midrange in 2016.
gkourou wrote: ↑4 years ago
Really? Then why is Jeskai control nowhere and Jund is on a free fall at serious events? Why isn't some amount of UW players splashing for Red and everybody is choosing Green? I know the obvious answer. But what's the real one?
Well, the real one, is creatures are extinct. What are Bolt's targets now? During the past years, Bolt had so many of them. And now what?
Thought knot seer, reality smasher, primeval titan, dryad of the illysian grove, Uro, Tron, dredge recurring creatures, walkers. That's the main creatures people play. Sure, there is a monastery swiftspear every now and then, and that's it.
Humans is Tier 2, that's why Jeskai control is nowhere to be seen and Jund is on a free fall. Creatures are going extinct. Affinity(that's the opal ban effect allright), Merfolk, Spirits, Zoo decks, where are those kind of decks?
So, this is not under-researched at all. As a Jeskai control player through and through, I know Bolt is not being played at fair decks, like Jeskai control, because Jeskai control (and Jund) used to prey on fair creatures decks. A format with no fair creature based aggro deck, is not a strategically diverse format. Simple as that.
And modern at the moment is not diverse at all, as some people are making it to be. You can choose one of 6-7 decks, and no creature based, Zoo-style deck is available. Everything else, is on you.
Some people like playing a busted fair deck that only folds to Green Tron and Dredge and pretty much wins vs everything else.
I don't like that kind of pseudo diversity, I don't like the fact that if I want to play Jeskai control I have to face boils, chokes, veil of summers. I don't like the fact that Tier 1 decks are overpowered and well tuned, and neither the fact that all decks are creating unfun games, in my opinion.
Again, Jeskai Control was never T1. First it was overshadowed by Twin and Grixis, then UW control and now Bant. It has nothing to do with how relevant Bolt is. Even now, looking at the past week of Challenges/Prelims/Qualifiers Bolt is consistently in the Top 5 most played spells and often times the most played spell. It has to do with the shell and the manabases. Burn is useless against Big Mana, it's nearly a dead card against the mirror. You lose counters and/or planeswalkers to play 5-7 burn spells. However, a large number of decks that play Bolt play it because it's an extremely versatile spell, in that can control the battlefield, pressure planeswalkers and also go to the face. Those decks being: Jund, RG Midrange, UR Breach/Polymorph, Mardu/RB Pyromancers and Temur Snow. Some of them are T2, some of them are between T1 and T2 and Bolt is an integral part of them, because they use it much more effectively than Jeskai Control ever would.
Burn in a Control deck goes contrary to its intended gameplan: to go long. Burn is inherently an aggro and or tempo spell/plan. That's why Jeskai Control will never be above Esper/Bant/UW.
gkourou wrote: ↑4 years ago
it's making lightning bolt a lava spike. You know that bolt has so few targets for some months now, you know that this ponza deck is using bolt to try to race in combination with klothys, you know that if bolt was relevant, people would play jeskai to try to win vs humans/spirits and that would be healthier. You know it's not healthy for one to have to play Green at all costs. You probably understand my frustration when I want to play Jeskai control and run into boils/chokes/blood moons/veil of summers/trons/dredges/infinite uro value decks I can't win/T3 smashers and no good matchup to prey upon. So, you understand all of those non games this creates. You probably understand me saying "screw it, i am going to build bant snow, because I want to win". You know it's unnatural for me to get veil of summered off of Field of ruin.
I also don't like that new cards make such a low impact. MH made half of the card pool irrelevant.
Again, Bolt is played in plenty of decks that need it more for battlefield control than just straight up racing. Namely Jund, Temur Snow and RG Midrange. You reducing it to a "glorified lava spike" is dishonest.
If you wanna force decks off of Green, 2 things must happen first:
1. Ban Veil, which is the major reason to play Green (Combo decks are splashing Green to hose their worse match ups).
2. UG spells have to stop being so heavily pushed.
Now, these 2 run contrary to 2 of your main arguments in the above quote.
1. that new cards don't have any or very little impact. I mean, the last 2 standard sets have had a tremendous impact not only in Modern, but also Legacy. (Breach, Oko, Uro, OUaT, Emry, Klothys, Murderous Rider etc.)
2. It has nothing to do with Astrolabe. Green is prominent (dominant really) because of Green cards like Veil, Uro and Coatl. Not because of Astrolabe.
We've said the main problems of Astrolabe, but you're acknowledge that banning it won't save Modern. That it will lead to many more bans. How is that helping Modern, when Pioneer and Arena are siphoning players away from it? Especially when prices are creeping up so much that it's even more difficult to enter Modern. Such a move will just blow up Modern and effectively discourage players from even considering playing it.
Once more for the end, Jeskai Control is an inherently flawed concept. It has nothing to do with what has been printed lately or what the meta was in every period. It was always "bad". In some metagames it was "less bad", but still bad. The nature of the colors push the deck to more Tempo/Aggro/Midrange combinations than control.
gkourou wrote: ↑4 years ago
Look, Modern is not healthy. It needs a lot of change. It has so much potential and a vast cardpool and right now, if all of us wanted to win a GP, what deck would we choose? It's one out of 6 decks. In a 20,000 card pool. That's sad. And I could overlook this if games were fun!
Anyways, it seems that Modern is not the format for me anymore. It looks busted and creates too many non games and if you aren't on Snow, every other option in the fair department is a bad choice overall. Oh, and Dredge and Boils/Chokes/Veils are Tier 1 things now. Great time to play Jeskai or Esper!!!!
Look, we agree that Modern can change for the better, but you could only every feasibly choose between 6-7 decks. Even in the glorified period of Twin you only had 6-7 options if you wanted to have the best chances to win any big open event.
It's ok if it's not fun for you. It wasn't for me when Twin was legal, but I played my %$#% Delver/Jeskai Midrange-Control decks and I had fun. The vast majority of everyone's local metagame is very different than the "winners meta" of GP's or other prolific events.
Lastly, Astrolabe isn't the one thing that forces you to play Green. I've seen most Esper control lists run 4 Astrolabes so they can run their color hungry spells and 4 Field of Ruins. It's definitely not T1 but it certainly pressures opposing control decks with a combination of main deck hand disruption and GY hate, along with the usual counter suite. Also, there's plenty of
fair non snow decks. It's that they're not Blue or are more aggressive Midrange strategies. That's Veil's doing, though not Astrolabe's. If they lose Veil, hand disruption becomes relevant again, ergo Shadow and UBx decks also increase in value.