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

Aazadan
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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

Spsiegel1987 wrote:
3 years ago
A little surprises veil isnt even mentioned. I only thought veil had a 50 percent chance of being banned.

The pioneer announcement is disastrous. I think wotc is actively sabotaging the format and focusing their time and resources on historic. Pioneer will be left for dead for historic. Just make historic legal in paper after covid isnt in effect and apologize for pioneering not working.
I don't think Historic will work well in paper. Tracking format legality is really difficult, and the price spikes would be awful when new cards are added. I don't think it would be particularly great on MTGO either, but with the card distribution system of Arena it works well. It's a really good format for that platform from what I've been hearing.

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Post by Mtgthewary » 3 years ago

Spikes are good for wotc. So they can be prepared reprinting, because they knew which cards will be added soon. That's great to them

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Post by blkdemonight » 3 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
Trumpet of sadness. And no indication that anything will change any time soon. Typical Wizards.

Inverter is fine in Pioneer, but f**k Twin, AMIRITE?
ktkenshinx wrote:
3 years ago
Wizards even acknowledged the community discontent about these formats but claims the MTGO win rates don't align with the dissatisfaction. Yikes.
Yikes indeed. It's almost like they have no idea how to evaluate formats, and then blindly landed on MWP (something we literally cannot track). What an excellent, clear, meaningful metric to decide whether or not to destroy decks or fix glaring mistakes.
Not being able to evaluate is part of the problem. It's difficult to say how much this has to say how much it has to do with lack of gameplay experience or personal bias with how games should play out,
I think the following post I'm quoting might be on the money:
Mtgthewary wrote:
3 years ago
Spikes are good for wotc. So they can be prepared reprinting, because they knew which cards will be added soon. That's great to them

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Post by th33l3x » 3 years ago

Not to take away from the Astrolabe-ban, which is correct, but it's really frustrating to me that they, once again, didn't even mention Veil of Summer. That's almost worse than the fact that they didn't ban it. It's like it's not even on their radar. Like it's nothing. They MUST be aware of the problem, after all, Veil of Summer is LITERALLY THE MOST PLAYED CARD IN MODERN.

The snow ban is a very good thing, but Veil of Summer sucks exactly as much without as it does with Astrolabe^^. Nothing's changed about that.

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Post by pierreb » 3 years ago

Well, at least they hit something that makes sense. They're still aboard the slow steering ship.

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Post by Wraithpk » 3 years ago

Astrolabe was expected. Really disappointed Veil is still legal, I mean, come on WotC... That card is rancid, get it out of the format!
Modern
ubr Grixis Shadow ubr
uwg Bant Stoneblade uwg
gbr Jund gbr

Pioneer
urIzzet Phoenixur
rMono-Red Aggror
uwAzorius Controluw

Commander
bg Meren of Clan Nel Toth bg

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

It feels like everyone was expecting "Astrolabe, and..." Like, Astrolabe was the lowest possible bar to hurdle, and they literally did nothing else. No other bans, no unbans. Reeks of the same combination of ignorance and laziness I have complained about for years.

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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

th33l3x wrote:
3 years ago
Not to take away from the Astrolabe-ban, which is correct, but it's really frustrating to me that they, once again, didn't even mention Veil of Summer. That's almost worse than the fact that they didn't ban it. It's like it's not even on their radar. Like it's nothing. They MUST be aware of the problem, after all, Veil of Summer is LITERALLY THE MOST PLAYED CARD IN MODERN.

The snow ban is a very good thing, but Veil of Summer sucks exactly as much without as it does with Astrolabe^^. Nothing's changed about that.
Veil is in the most decks, but it is nowhere near the most played card. At 43.5% as 2.5 copies per deck it is at an average of 1.09 copies per deck and a sideboard rather than mainboard for most of those copies. If mainboard it would be the second most played card in the format roughly equally between Lightning Bolt and Force of Negation for number of copies.

By the numbers it's good but hasn't yet risen to the point where they tend to ban for that which seems to be around the 1.75 to 2.0 mark based on when they've reacted to other cards in the past like Oko. And copies of cards per deck are far less these days than some cards have been in the format in the past. For example 2015 Serum Visions was 1.11 copies per deck, and Snapcaster Mage was about .9 copies. 1.1 or so typically signifies the card being very good, but I don't think any cards have ever been banned for warping the meta at that prevalence. 2013 Deathrite Shaman probably gets the closest at 1.11 copies, but it wasn't banned for homogenizing the format and rather for making specific decks too strong (though, as a counterpoint it is one of the few cards that had over a year of dominance, and years prior of high play to compare to).
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Post by metalmusic_4 » 3 years ago

I love the astrolabe ban!
I really expected an apology unban after companions, I really did.
I still believe twin and bridge will be unbanned one day, but not today.

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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

metalmusic_4 wrote:
3 years ago
I really expected an apology unban after companions, I really did.
I wouldn't mind one, but I don't think it's required right now either. Safe unbans are a finite resource and I don't see WotC using them without a very good reason. Given their new banning schedules, I suspect they'll save the few that are left for shakeups before major tournaments when the meta is healthy.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

metalmusic_4 wrote:
3 years ago
I love the astrolabe ban!
I really expected an apology unban after companions, I really did.
I still believe twin and bridge will be unbanned one day, but not today.
The time for an apology was honestly the last ban. This one was just "clean up on aisle 3," but all they did was toss away a broken jar and sweep the rest under the display case.

It was the laziest, least effort they could have possibly done. I know many here don't like Jeff Hoogland, but he seems to hit this one on the nose. While he is talking about Burning-Tree Emissary in Historic in the quote, I feel it is as spot on all around for B&R decisions:

"I think that banning [it] feels like a result of the people who are making the banlist decisions are doing it off of just looking at statistics, and not off of actually playing the games and understanding how the games are playing out that LEAD TO the statistics they are looking at."


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Post by drmarkb » 3 years ago

I have been arguing about the need for more nuanced use of statistics for years.
I also feel that historic is miles away from what I want.
Canlander is my non-format format.
Pioneer is just meh, Modern and it can have a competition for most unloved format by its players.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 3 years ago

Spsiegel1987 wrote:
3 years ago
A little surprises veil isnt even mentioned. I only thought veil had a 50 percent chance of being banned.

The pioneer announcement is disastrous. I think wotc is actively sabotaging the format and focusing their time and resources on historic. Pioneer will be left for dead for historic. Just make historic legal in paper after covid isnt in effect and apologize for pioneering not working.
My locals tell me that Historic is the Mythic Championship format, which I assume means online. WotC wants this to be competitive and the players to be well versed in the format. So they need to clean everything up right away and let players adjust to the new meta.
drmarkb wrote:
3 years ago
Pioneer is poorly served, they basically are telling the crowd that they are wrong. Same deal with Legacy, where labe hurts the things that make the format ten times better than Modern- Blood Moon and Wasteland being respected meaning good stuff.dec gets to be predated upon.

Dimir inverter would be fine in a world with meddling mage effects main board. A plus B combos can be fine in Legacy, but in Modern, and Pioneer especially they cannot be handled efficiently.
They are telling the Pioneer crowd a big %$#% YOU right now. Historic is more important than you right now.

Something that streamer h0lydiva brought up when we all talked on her stream 2 nights ago - Pioneer Leagues are played by bad players, so a 49% win rate with Inverter is not surprising. Also people play all kinds of garbage in Leagues. But the Challenges and the Showcases are where the Inverter decks come out in droves because it's negative EV to spend a lot to play a terrible deck or not practice ahead of time for these expensive tournaments that have a poor payout to anyone less than top 8.

I don't know how many of you remember h0lydiva. I remember her from one of the few that, with me, tried to not just dumpster fire talk about Summer Bloom. But she's better known for her work with Modern Bloo, even after Git Probe got banned. She has moved on to Standard and Pro Tour formats.
cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
I don't know how it ended up that I had zero expectations for this announcement, and still ended up disappointed. It's like the most low-effort thing they could have possibly done across the board. And they very clearly care about no format other than Historic. A fake format that doesn't even exist in paper.
Yes, it was very disappointing. I mean, I should be happy at least they banned Astrolabe, but there's so much more they can do. Just like you said, it took literally no effort. I assume they were going to do "no bans" and someone said at the last minute, "why not ban Astrolabe," so that's what they did. A 5 minute decision, at least for the people in this thread.
pierreb wrote:
3 years ago
Well, at least they hit something that makes sense. They're still aboard the slow steering ship.
Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuper slow. That gives off a vibe of not caring at all about the format. Can't you see that? There's so many safe unbans they could have done and shoved them into Double Masters at the last minute to profit. Why didn't this happen, as most people assumed it would?

It's the same reasoning that happened with Sword of the Meek and Stoneforge Mystic. So even though in my mind, I realize that there are about 5 cards that will get unbanned some day, it could literally be a month or 5 years. This also shows that they don't care about the format. Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and Veil of Summer being legal, but Green Sun's Zenith not being legal shows that they don't care. It's favoritism and we can't understand why.
Standard - Will pick up what's good when paper starts
Pre Modern - Do not own anymore
Pioneer - DEAD
Modern - Jund Sacrifice, Amulet, Elementals, Trollementals, BR Asmo/Goryo's, Yawmoth Chord
Legacy - No more cards, will rebuy Sneak Show when I can
Limited - Will start when paper starts
Commander - Nope

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Post by th33l3x » 3 years ago

You know what I really hope this ban accomplishes? That would actually bring me joy?

That all the UGxx 3-4c snow control piles fade, and make room for 1) a dedicated, no-nonsense Simic Uro Coatl Reclamation deck that basically carries the UG flag and the Snow flag and still makes Coatl and Uro work easily (already exists basically, my bet is that Thought Scour replaces Astrolabe and that's it), and 2) UW Miracles establishing a firm presence in the format instead of always being "worse than UGx Snow". I've never seriously played with UW Control myself, but I've always enjoyed facing it immensely and to be completely honest, I think it's a good thing Miracle-Cards have a potent enabler in Mystic Sanctuary now. It's kind of a classic deck in Magic imo.

Maybe I'm a bit narrow-minded about this, but I'll much prefer 2 very differnt control decks with a strong identity to 5 shades of the same UGx pile splashing whatever they like.

Btw, any preliminary feelings about wether Abundant Growth will keep Bant Snow or even 4c Snow Control decks alive, or even at the top? Because the Snow discord is all up in arms defending the deck against anybody who dare suggest snow control is dead. The sentiment is basically "we have COLLECTIVE YEARS of experience with this deck, we anticipated the ban over the weekend, we have saved the day with Abundant Growth, and we declare: The Astrolabe Ban is a hoot, everything is dandy". I'm not kidding, that's basically whats going on. Somebody had the gall to write a lengthy comment about how he thinks 4c Control is probably dead and can't make Coatl work anymore, and he got completely trashed^^.

I'm inclined to agree with the nay-sayer, but my experience with the deck is limited. Anybody full-time on it care to share their expertise?

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

th33l3x wrote:
3 years ago
2) UW Miracles establishing a firm presence in the format instead of always being "worse than UGx Snow". I've never seriously played with UW Control myself, but I've always enjoyed facing it immensely and to be completely honest, I think it's a good thing Miracle-Cards have a potent enabler in Mystic Sanctuary now. It's kind of a classic deck in Magic imo.
Shortly after Teferi, Master of Time was available on MTGO, I moved almost exclusively to playing tweaks of a Miracles list. I just assumed Uro or Astrolabe would be banned, and I wanted to see how this would do. Other than being EXTREMELY light on win conditions, it almost feels as powerful as Snow. Because it only really has Entreat the Angels and maybe a Jace Ultimate as a G1 win con, literally every other card in the deck is there to stabilize, answer threats, or accrue value.

And I can tell you that the interactions between Miracle cards, Mystic Sanctuary, fetchlands, and about a dozen instant speed draw effects are exactly as disgusting as you would imagine. It's also not uncommon at all to loop Terminus or Entreat multiple times if one wasn't enough. Honestly, the only shortcoming of the deck is finding Entreat in G1. In G2/3 it's easy to load up on Monastery Mentor without losing much in terms of interaction.

It's not uncommon at all to end step fetch a Mystic, put Entreat back on top, Opt into Entreat for X=3 or 4, and then uptap and swin for 12-16. In addition to fetch Mystic, Terminus on top, Te4ri +1 to draw at instant speed, and wipe the board during their attack step. Te4ri also helps by looting away Miracle cards, that are often better in the bin than anywhere else... Might try swapping the Frantic Inventorys for Jace, Vryn's Prodigy? Dunno. But either way, Bant Snow is deader than dead. If it continues on, it will need drastic redesign.
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Post by motleyslayer » 3 years ago

I'm super happy that they banned Arcum's Astrolabe but part of me thinks that it's the minimum they needed to do to make modern healthy again. I don't know how healthy it'll actually be but I guess it's a good start. I guess the stuff I was expecting to see unbanned isn't good for the format right now

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Post by Tzoulis » 3 years ago

th33l3x wrote:
3 years ago
You know what I really hope this ban accomplishes? That would actually bring me joy?

That all the UGxx 3-4c snow control piles fade, and make room for 1) a dedicated, no-nonsense Simic Uro Coatl Reclamation deck that basically carries the UG flag and the Snow flag and still makes Coatl and Uro work easily (already exists basically, my bet is that Thought Scour replaces Astrolabe and that's it), and 2) UW Miracles establishing a firm presence in the format instead of always being "worse than UGx Snow". I've never seriously played with UW Control myself, but I've always enjoyed facing it immensely and to be completely honest, I think it's a good thing Miracle-Cards have a potent enabler in Mystic Sanctuary now. It's kind of a classic deck in Magic imo.
Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
I think this announcement is close to perfect for me.
About Modern: Astrolabe was too strong, now Bant has some holes, and UW Miracles decks are much more weak as a whole and have the classic problem of all of the control decks: They just can't stabilize quickly enough.
In what universe is Miracles now better than UGx? As @cfusionpm said, and I've mentioned a few times before, their game 1 is extremely slow. Plus, they don't really have the haymaker that is Uro to close the door very fast in random decks or stabilize against aggro. As awesome as 1 mana wraths are, they are quite a bit random even with the amount of filtering that the deck got. You don't have the cushion of chumpblocking with your Snake (even if it hasn't deathtouch) or ramping and gaining life with Uro. You oftentimes, also, won;t find Entreat fast enough and you'll lose or force a draw. Moreover, the inevitable mirror will be in favor of UGx, just on the basis of Veil. They can force through their own T3feri and your Miracles (even in your own turn) are dead. They'll also be far more difficult to get rid off, since in order to accommodate 4 Mystic Sanctuaries, they stopped playing Celestial Colonnades -to be fair they were already cutting them down to 2, but now they're running 0.

The ONLY way Miracles is gonna be played above or as much as UGx Control is if Miracles has very good match ups against the field -better than UGx has, because it will lose the UGx one most of the time.

I mean, I am gonna play Miracles, because I hate green with a passion and I'm only playing in when I'm forced to (5C Niv Modern/Commander), but I'm not gonna be happy when I encounter any random green deck and get %$#% (still) by Veil.
th33l3x wrote:
3 years ago
Btw, any preliminary feelings about wether Abundant Growth will keep Bant Snow or even 4c Snow Control decks alive, or even at the top? Because the Snow discord is all up in arms defending the deck against anybody who dare suggest snow control is dead. The sentiment is basically "we have COLLECTIVE YEARS of experience with this deck, we anticipated the ban over the weekend, we have saved the day with Abundant Growth, and we declare: The Astrolabe Ban is a hoot, everything is dandy". I'm not kidding, that's basically whats going on. Somebody had the gall to write a lengthy comment about how he thinks 4c Control is probably dead and can't make Coatl work anymore, and he got completely trashed^^.

I'm inclined to agree with the nay-sayer, but my experience with the deck is limited. Anybody full-time on it care to share their expertise?
Not really hands on experience - thanks Coronavirus- but I'll offer you my expertise with playing against it before that. The deck won't lose much. Even 5C Niv doesn't lose much, and that deck is far more dependent in having perfect mana to play its spells. Sure, it will have to shock more and lose more life, but Snake is still a great card, and Uro mostly carries the deck from T3 and later, since it's a stabilization, CA, and wincon in one. They'll cut the Field of Ruins (or maybe keep 1-2) and add some more Breeding Pools or another Triome (for the Sultai version). The Yorion version may be even less impacted in its manabase, dunno about the rest of the deck. I don't know if Abundant Growth will be the go-to, but it's an option, they might go the Frantic Inventory way too, just for the absurd card advantage. Thought Scour is interesting (I even think it was tested in the early stages of the deck), but I think Opt will be superior for what the deck wants (it'll fill the GY for Uro faster than Astrolabe too).

Lastly, Blood Moon was always an afterthought in Modern for 3 color decks. Even UW, when it played 5 colorless lands (4 Fields, 1 GQ) and 4 Colonnades didn't even care about it. It can be destroyed, bounced and countered, so it never really mattered, so don't pay attention to those that say that Blood Moon is good again. It isn't, and it never was against control. It was mediocre at best.

So in essence, the UGx core doesn't lose much, since it still gets to play with the most busted cards in the format: Uro, Veil, Sanctuary. You'll see a slight reduction in their metagame prevalence for a couple of weeks till they pivot, but I don't think UW will ever overtake it, simply because of Veil.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
3 years ago
Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
I think this announcement is close to perfect for me.
About Modern: Astrolabe was too strong, now Bant has some holes, and UW Miracles decks are much more weak as a whole and have the classic problem of all of the control decks: They just can't stabilize quickly enough.
In what universe is Miracles now better than UGx? As @cfusionpm said, and I've mentioned a few times before, their game 1 is extremely slow. Plus, they don't really have the haymaker that is Uro to close the door very fast in random decks or stabilize against aggro. As awesome as 1 mana wraths are, they are quite a bit random even with the amount of filtering that the deck got. You don't have the cushion of chumpblocking with your Snake (even if it hasn't deathtouch) or ramping and gaining life with Uro. You oftentimes, also, won;t find Entreat fast enough and you'll lose or force a draw. Moreover, the inevitable mirror will be in favor of UGx, just on the basis of Veil. They can force through their own T3feri and your Miracles (even in your own turn) are dead. They'll also be far more difficult to get rid off, since in order to accommodate 4 Mystic Sanctuaries, they stopped playing Celestial Colonnades -to be fair they were already cutting them down to 2, but now they're running 0.

The ONLY way Miracles is gonna be played above or as much as UGx Control is if Miracles has very good match ups against the field -better than UGx has, because it will lose the UGx one most of the time.

I mean, I am gonna play Miracles, because I hate green with a passion and I'm only playing in when I'm forced to (5C Niv Modern/Commander), but I'm not gonna be happy when I encounter any random green deck and get %$#% (still) by Veil.
I'll edit my previous post, because I do not want to misrepresent the relative strength of UW Miracles. Like, it's good, but it's nowhere near "Bant Snow with Astrolabe" good. Its strengths are in its answers, but if its answers are irrelevant, the deck is painfully slow. Even playing quickly and with MTGO's player-specific clock, it's tough to get rounds in quickly. And you will likely be looking at a draw (or come to timing out) if your G1 is a control mirror of some kind and one of you doesn't just concede into G2.

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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
3 years ago
Not really hands on experience - thanks Coronavirus- but I'll offer you my expertise with playing against it before that. The deck won't lose much. Even 5C Niv doesn't lose much, and that deck is far more dependent in having perfect mana to play its spells. Sure, it will have to shock more and lose more life, but Snake is still a great card, and Uro mostly carries the deck from T3 and later, since it's a stabilization, CA, and wincon in one. They'll cut the Field of Ruins (or maybe keep 1-2) and add some more Breeding Pools or another Triome (for the Sultai version). The Yorion version may be even less impacted in its manabase, dunno about the rest of the deck. I don't know if Abundant Growth will be the go-to, but it's an option, they might go the Frantic Inventory way too, just for the absurd card advantage. Thought Scour is interesting (I even think it was tested in the early stages of the deck), but I think Opt will be superior for what the deck wants (it'll fill the GY for Uro faster than Astrolabe too).

Lastly, Blood Moon was always an afterthought in Modern for 3 color decks. Even UW, when it played 5 colorless lands (4 Fields, 1 GQ) and 4 Colonnades didn't even care about it. It can be destroyed, bounced and countered, so it never really mattered, so don't pay attention to those that say that Blood Moon is good again. It isn't, and it never was against control. It was mediocre at best.
Depending on how willing you are to play into GY hate, I'm thinking a Life from the Loam or two might be alright. I've seen Jund experiment with the card occasionally when it plays Kroxa. This deck can make a lot more use out of getting multiple lands out per turn. That still opens up the question of how viable a third color is. It's probably a choice between three colors or Field of Ruin, and even then Field plus titans seems like a hard sell.

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Post by th33l3x » 3 years ago

I disagree with alsmost ALL of those tbh.

Punishing Fire would still push small creatures out of the format.
Preordain? I guess, why not.
Green Sun's Zenith? Devoted Devastation and Elves have tons of tutors as it is. And having the option of Dryad-ramp is still busted.
Bridge from Below? Would indeed be interesting to see how CrabVine decks would fare with that, we never saw non-hogaak bridge decks.
Blazing Shoal? How are consistent T2 kills good for the format?
Mycosynth Lattice? I think Baby-Karn should have been banned instead of that, but both in the format would still be too dumb. Karn is one of the best cards in modern as it is.
Second Sunrise? The reason for banning that card wasn't its power, but the endless, boring F6-games it created. That hasen't changed.
Umezawa's Jitte? See Punishing Fire, only 10 times worse.
Splinter Twin is controversial, I won't comment on that for the sake of my mental health.

Mystic Sanctuary compares to NONE of those cards. Not even close. You can find it annoying and badly designed, but it doesn't hold a candle to them.

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Post by Simto » 3 years ago

Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago

On another matter, I do think that as of now(esp since Mystic Sanctuary is deemed to be fine), half of the Modern banlist is quite the joke.
Cards like Punishing fire, preordain, green sun's zenith, bridge from below, KCI, blazing shoal, Mycosynth Lattice(which I dislike, but the meta grew quite strong for 10 mana investment), Second Sunrise, all artifact lands but the blue one, Umezawa's Jitte and finally the polarizing Splinter Twin would be OK to unban, for different reasons. I know you may disagree with many of those, but if you think each one better, no card would threaten the meta's diversity. Oh, I just think Birthing Pod would be a one card combo(birds into coridor monitor into renegade rallier into resto into kiki), but you can also convince me about that one if you try that much. I also think the blue artifact land would break emry, but the other ones are fine. Finally, most of them are fine with the condition that Veil of summer is banned. Twin would also maybe requite the sub-condition of mystic sanctuary getting banned as well and not preordain and twin at the same time.

I'd definitely be up for unbanning Lattice :P

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Post by Tzoulis » 3 years ago

Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
I don't understand. Where did I say UW Miracles is now better than UGx? I don't believe this is true whatsoever. Or at least, I am not sure if it's that true. Also, I mostly agree with what you said. I just said Bant has some holes now. It's not going to be as good as it was. Will it be better than UW Miracles? Possibly.
Probably misread then, it was 5 in the morning. :P Apologies.
Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
The Banlist is a bad joke at this moment. I am happy WOTC acknowledged that in pioneer, but quite baffled that they did not in modern. Super baffled to say the least. How can you unban in Pioneer and not unban in Modern?
Most of the cards are good where they are, with a few exceptions. Though without Astrolabe I'd like my Opal back, they've butchered artifact decks enough.

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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

th33l3x wrote:
3 years ago
Punishing Fire would still push small creatures out of the format.
I don't think it would. Most small creatures are in aggro decks, midrange decks are defined these days by creatures that pass a bolt test, so they can also pass a Punishing Fire test. The card would certainly see play, but the only things I see it possibly pushing out are cards like Clique and Borrower, and even then maybe not. Also, I think the card could be a nice check on cards like Uro and other incidental lifegain at least to some extent as it wouldn't require Grove to be active.

I don't really want to discuss every unban, but I don't think any cards that have been banned because they've proven to be too much should be unbanned. The only two possible exceptions are Mox Opal and Bridge from Below as they were banned as failed attempts to bring decks in line that later necessitated other bans and even those two cards are incredibly dangerous to leave around. They're always going to enable the sorts of things that risk creating broken decks. Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly annoyed with Affinity getting taken out as collateral damage due to Mox Opal but I can also see where it could be better for the format long term if it's simply not around.

Other than those, the only cards that seem worth considering are the cards that were banned without getting a chance to prove themselves in the format, and out of those they exist on a risk spectrum. Jitte is at one end while something like Bitterblossom was at the other.

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Bearscape
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Post by Bearscape » 3 years ago

motleyslayer wrote:
3 years ago
I'm super happy that they banned Arcum's Astrolabe but part of me thinks that it's the minimum they needed to do to make modern healthy again. I don't know how healthy it'll actually be but I guess it's a good start. I guess the stuff I was expecting to see unbanned isn't good for the format right now
Isn't that a good thing? No kneejerk reaction but removing the obviously problematic card?

Honestly I was reluctant to see this ban happenin the first place since, although the 4c piles were of course offensive, at least a fair deck was at the top of Modern for once. I would've maybe liked to see some unbans, but other than that I think this was the best choice.

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cfusionpm
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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Can someone explain how Punishing Fire is more oppressive than Lurrus + Seal of Fire?

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