MTGNexus

I like it, good bans

Opal was next after Twin, it dodged a lot of bullets. I disagree with the ban, but it was always a risk.
Oko. Nothing needs to be said.
Lattice. Well..its Tron. I'm glad they nerfed it.

That said, this format is not remotely interesting to me. You will still play Green. You will play Titans, or Druids, or Infect, as you have the best Dig (OuaT) and the best Counter (Veil) in the game. There is the Yawgmoth combo deck also sitting out there, playing Green.

Maybe, MAYBE, I could be pulled into some kind of Whirza, but I feel we are in store for a lot of green decks that laugh at your attempts to interact.

Enjoy your battlecruisers.

Mtgthewary wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Like I sayed here, start with mox. I am happy wotc see this like me, even amalgam kept saying to me I have no clue about this deck... Another right prediction. If urza is still to strong, ban him too

And this is why they (and I) said you're either trolling or you want to ban a whole macro archetype because you don't like some cards. There are no artifact decks without Opal, there are only Urza decks. Ban him as well and you've just deleted a whole macro archetype.

Banning Mox is silly, as is leaving Veil untouched.

I guess they want to see how things develop before acting on veil, OuaT or astrolabe.

Diversity will go up now is my prediction. (Duh)

PS: the correct wording is: "there are no mox opal decks without artifacts". If you can't see why a zero-mana mana-rock is problematic, that's on you. If you don't ban mox, then urza can still play urza on turn 2 and get between 6 to 9 permanent in play by turn 2. (Mox, bauble, land, goose (making food) token), emry (off opal), followed by urza + his construct on turn 2. This happened repeatedly this week-end. (Emry being optional, that' s the 6-9 variation.)

PS2: yeah, add Emry to the list. Looping EE is not fun.

Not too happy with the Opal ban, but I can't really argue against it either. Opal would mean 10 more things need banned over the next few years. In the interest of a smaller ban list Opal is right, even though it sucks I lost Affinity as a fun deck and the decks that needed a ban that were using Opal, still needed bans.

I feel like this ban plus leaving Emry in, leaves Mox Amber in a significantly stronger position and it was already being adopted by those decks.

Still think Astrolabe should have been nuked.

Overjoyed that Lattice was killed, though Karn is still the real problem side of that combo.

Tzoulis wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Like I sayed here, start with mox. I am happy wotc see this like me, even amalgam kept saying to me I have no clue about this deck... Another right prediction. If urza is still to strong, ban him too

And this is why they (and I) said you're either trolling or you want to ban a whole macro archetype because you don't like some cards. There are no artifact decks without Opal, there are only Urza decks. Ban him as well and you've just deleted a whole macro archetype.

Banning Mox is silly, as is leaving Veil untouched.

it's still trolling after wotc think same with same reasons I called here? Yeah, whatever... I can't force people seeing reality and only because some wouldn't accept it, it's not trolling

pierreb wrote: ↑

4 years ago

I guess they want to see how things develop before acting on veil, OuaT or astrolabe.

Diversity will go up now is my prediction. (Duh)

PS: the correct wording is: "there are no mox opal decks without artifacts". If you can't see why a zero-mana mana-rock is problematic, that's on you. If you don't ban mox, then urza can still play urza on turn 2 and get between 6 to 9 permanent in play by turn 2. (Mox, bauble, land, goose (making food) token), emry (off opal), followed by urza + his construct on turn 2. This happened repeatedly this week-end. (Emry being optional, that' s the 6-9 variation.)

thx, ecactly this. Mox Was on a watch list since Kci without urza in this meta or oko. Everyone knew this. People should really not be surprised even they don't agree

Mikefon wrote: ↑

4 years ago

th33l3x wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Not a peep about Veil of Summer. Very surprised that they didn't just not ban it, but didn't even mention it as a problematic card...

Y'all think it would be ok to unban Ironworks now?

Why unban a card that has already proven itself toxic? No thank you...

I mean you're totally correct, especially with Astrolabe, Metallic Rebuke and Veil it in the mix it would most probably still be stupid, but my spontaneous reaction was "its a turn slower, no, muhbee? Hated it too when it was around, so it's fine where it is.

I still absolutely do not understand how Veil could stay. Imo that card is at least as powerful as Oko and Opal, and just as widely played. EXCUSE ME, Veil of Summer was played in MORE decks than Oko, 47% on Goldfish. Holy effing sheesh.

Amulet Titan now seems to be the best deck in the format by a mile. A number of the latest winning lists didn't run Oko, so the deck obviously doenst need the pw, and they got to keep both OupAT AND veil of Summer. I'm so not looking foward to facing that monster of a deck

No Twin is sad, but good riddance to everything else. Still not super motivated to play (especially with with Amulet Titan remaining a popular, annoying threat), but good step in the right direction.

It's a good step in the right direction, but this isn't the total reboot of Modern. They had a shot, in my opinion, to reboot the whole damn thing and reboot interest in the format as well. That ship may have sailed now.

cfusionpm wrote: ↑

4 years ago

No Twin is sad, but good riddance to everything else. Still not super motivated to play (especially with with Amulet Titan remaining a popular, annoying threat), but good step in the right direction.

The format is absolutely going to revolve around Veil, OuaT, Urza still. If you do not play Green, you will be at a hilarious disadvantage.

I agree [mention]cfusionpm[/mention] . The bans were great, but I still think Veil needed to go and I would have liked to see an unban. I do have a feeling that they possibly wanted to "patch things up" during this announcement and then save an unban or two for a later date if needed. I still can't understand two things:

Why the heck did they leave veil in modern? It makes no sense to me. I guess it hasn't "broken" anything, but it does fit the criteria of "unfun gameplay"

Why is preordain still banned? OUAT is ok, but not preordain? I don't get it.

pierreb wrote: ↑

4 years ago

PS: the correct wording is: "there are no mox opal decks without artifacts". If you can't see why a zero-mana mana-rock is problematic, that's on you. If you don't ban mox, then urza can still play urza on turn 2 and get between 6 to 9 permanent in play by turn 2. (Mox, bauble, land, goose (making food) token), emry (off opal), followed by urza + his construct on turn 2. This happened repeatedly this week-end. (Emry being optional, that' s the 6-9 variation.)

I can see how Opal can be problematic, but now the only way artifact decks are going to be able to compete is by playing Urza. There will be non-Urza artifact decks, since they can't be fast or consistent enough for Modern (hell they're not for Legacy where Mox Diamond and Sol lands exist). Without Oko, the Goose loses it's value and if you're worried about the scenario that you descried either ban Urza or Emry/Astrolabe, don't kill 2 different archetypes for the sins of Urza and/or Emry/Astrolabe.

You of all people should understand this, being a Twin player and all.

The Opal ban is even more frustrating when they didn't even mention Once upon a Time or Veil, which are even bigger problems than Opal.

comment board on mtg goldfish isn't as happy, lots of people still unhappy with faithless looting ban. losing affinity doesn't help either. i don't expect attendance numbers to grow at all.

idSurge wrote: ↑

4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote: ↑

4 years ago

No Twin is sad, but good riddance to everything else. Still not super motivated to play (especially with with Amulet Titan remaining a popular, annoying threat), but good step in the right direction.

The format is absolutely going to revolve around Veil, OuaT, Urza still. If you do not play Green, you will be at a hilarious disadvantage.

I hate how true this is. I'm in my prep., and my evaluations, and thoughts, have been fairly brief and surface-level so far. But I am surprised after some reflection, how little this actually changes anything. Maybe it's because Oko was a clear mistake, but Urza is still going to Urza, Titan is still going to Titan, all the decks that were good still remain good, and all the decks struggling will still struggle.

Lastly, on second/third reading of the article, I am struck by this part of the Pioneer part:

We're also aware of the community buzz around the combination of Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista in Pioneer. In keeping with our philosophy of letting the Pioneer metagame prove itself through play results, our plan is not to take any preemptive action against this combination. If, after the Pioneer Players Tour and Grand Prix tournaments, the results of league and tournament play bear out that this combination is a long-term threat to the health of the format, we'll consider changes at that time

Based on this interpretation of not wanting to act hastily, and letting something like this develop, I wonder if Twin comes back on the table if Ballista/Heliod proves to be OK? Not that this should make sense by any means, but clearly the people at WOTC just have this deathly aversion to things like that (but no problem with the piles of other terrible gameplay experiences) and perhaps if Ballista could be contained in Pioneer, they could make the leap that Modern, in its current state, could contain Twin (which every bit of testing done by players has shown to be the case). Maybe it means Veil and Once are banned, but those cards should probably be banned anyway.

Just some rambling thoughts.

robertleva wrote: ↑

4 years ago

It's a good step in the right direction, but this isn't the total reboot of Modern. They had a shot, in my opinion, to reboot the whole damn thing and reboot interest in the format as well. That ship may have sailed now.

They wouldn't do something that extreme just yet.

So how do I exactly interact with Amulet Titan, Devoted and any other green deck now since Veil is still legal? Even without Mox Opal, Urza is still the strongest deck looping baubles and EE with Emry and they might go deeper into Mox Amber and combine it with Ascendancy. Astrolabe still legal so snowdecks can play more powerful cards without the downside of being color restricted.

In other words, Modern still looks like %$#% and I won't be playing it. These baboons at Wizards are completely clueless about the format.

*Also too little too late. These decisions could have been taken months ago. Sick of the incompetence of R&D

Ed06288 wrote: ↑

4 years ago

comment board on mtg goldfish isn't as happy, lots of people still unhappy with faithless looting ban. losing affinity doesn't help either. i don't expect attendance numbers to grow at all.

I'm sorry but if you're unhappy about the Looting Ban, you're probably one of those people not interested in a healthy format at all. Dredge/Vine IS STILL among the 10 most played archetypes in modern. Lamenting the looting ban is just being an ignorant tw..iddling my thumbs.

I'm really sad about Affinity being definitly gone though. That deck was annoying at times, but overall a very fun matchup and one of the linear decks that could actually be interacted with easily and effectively.

I'm concerned as hell about Amulet tbh. it got Castle Garenbrig not too long ago, AND Field of the Dead, AND Veil of Summer. It's basically the deck that plays all the cards people wanted banned that didnt get banned. Wouldn't be surprised if the archetype shoots up above 10%. It can't be consistently beaten with control (see veil) or Midrange (see veil and generally the deck), and it has an easy t4 kill in peto for linear decks.

cfusionpm wrote: ↑

4 years ago

idSurge wrote: ↑

4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote: ↑

4 years ago

No Twin is sad, but good riddance to everything else. Still not super motivated to play (especially with with Amulet Titan remaining a popular, annoying threat), but good step in the right direction.

The format is absolutely going to revolve around Veil, OuaT, Urza still. If you do not play Green, you will be at a hilarious disadvantage.

I hate how true this is. I'm in my prep., and my evaluations, and thoughts, have been fairly brief and surface-level so far. But I am surprised after some reflection, how little this actually changes anything. Maybe it's because Oko was a clear mistake, but Urza is still going to Urza, Titan is still going to Titan, all the decks that were good still remain good, and all the decks struggling will still struggle.

Lastly, on second/third reading of the article, I am struck by this part of the Pioneer part:

We're also aware of the community buzz around the combination of Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista in Pioneer. In keeping with our philosophy of letting the Pioneer metagame prove itself through play results, our plan is not to take any preemptive action against this combination. If, after the Pioneer Players Tour and Grand Prix tournaments, the results of league and tournament play bear out that this combination is a long-term threat to the health of the format, we'll consider changes at that time

Based on this interpretation of not wanting to act hastily, and letting something like this develop, I wonder if Twin comes back on the table if Ballista/Heliod proves to be OK? Not that this should make sense by any means, but clearly the people at WOTC just have this deathly aversion to things like that (but no problem with the piles of other terrible gameplay experiences) and perhaps if Ballista could be contained in Pioneer, they could make the leap that Modern, in its current state, could contain Twin (which every bit of testing done by players has shown to be the case). Maybe it means Veil and Once are banned, but those cards should probably be banned anyway.

Just some rambling thoughts.

The pioneer quote is interesting because in this case I think the community has absolutely and correctly identified a combo that fits very neatly with previously stated ban philosophy excluding only results at this point. I would rather see preemptive bans when this is really a spiritual successor to twin in modern or copycat in pioneer. Them calling it out doesn't mean it's not going to absolutely dominate the first couple months it's legal if it proves that strong. Pioneer doesn't have any playable answers for heliod aide from blightbeetle and you have a brief window to have removal up for ballista. It's basically stopping your opp from tapping out. Same awful play style we've seen time and again.

Where I think this pertains to modern is we're going to see continued delayed reaction. We saw oko run roughshod over how many formats and tournaments before finally pulling the plug? I think they're waiting too long honestly...they didn't even point to GP data in the article. The decision was made before this weekend in my eyes. At least forecast the ban and say heads up, this is gone in a month.

Now that opal is gone you gotta wonder...why did it take this long. It was such an important engine in sooo many decks that clearly the card was punching above what one card should do. Affinity, lantern, KCI, urza, and a few home brews have all relied on this card for the most busted starts and some of these decks have seen other bans.

FWIW I think urza can live on with mox amber honestly. It still does a lot of what the deck wants with it's more busted starts and comes online just a turn later and offers the same loop capability. I'm not convinced we're in a better place just yet. Losing oko stops urza opponents from eating their artifacts turn after turn as well.

iTaLenTZ wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Sick of the incompetence of R&D

This sort of sticks out to me. I've seen this and similar sentiments a few times in more than a few places and I don't think it's overly warranted after watching the completely different mentality for bans in Pioneer. Whether you think that method of banning was good or bad, it shows that they can operate totally differently than they do in Modern. I think overall WotC is happy with how that experiment has gone and they may consider being more aggressive here in Modern because of it. So they certainly have the capacity to do better, they just choose to follow a different path here.

I'm not ecstatic about R&D either, their willingness to print things like Oko really tests my desire to continue playing this game. For the time being, I'll stick to the format they seem interested in regulating with some aggression and leave Modern to those who enjoy this style of the game (however you would describe it).

From what I can tell, everyone approves of most of the bans. Some still say they should have gone further. I think I know the reception this question will get but would Modern benefit from a few months of Monday bans? Or is the consensus that we need to wait and see the format settle after this recent wave (aka, the status quo for post-bans)?

so selling of my opals in 2017 was the right direction.

glad that lattice combo is gone now.

Theese bans are almost as "No changes". Wizards didn't change anything in general, keeping Urza, Big mana and other combo decks playing around in tier1-2. Looks like no way I will ever return to this format.
RIP Modern. Hello Pioneer.

As I continue to stew about this game, its a few things that really kill me.

1. This format is not the Modern 'we' (aka many of us here) grew up with, and that is ultimately just unfortunate as it WAS the best format in the game.



2. Whoever run's the ban's has a completely different vision for Modern than Pioneer, its obvious. One is nuanced and care is show, the other is 'whats best and/or obnoxious? ban it'. There is no depth of thought applied to Modern, its clear.as.day.

3. The reboot some of us desire is not coming. Modern will remain in this rancid state for the rest of it's life cycle.

4. I gotta dump my paper. Its just not worth retaining any further.

5. Nothing REALLY changed with this ban. Oko obviously will dent a few decks, but they can just revert to Titan/Eldrazi/Tron filth. And I am sorry I do not mean to offend anyone personally, but if your idea of good magic is Tron, we cannot come to an accord on what is good Magic.

That said, Tron should exist, see point 1.

No way in hell will I play into Veil of Summer, and no way should anyone play anything without Green cards.

6. 2019 ruined Eternal Magic.

Lear_the_cat wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Theese bans are almost as "No changes". Wizards didn't change anything in general, keeping Urza, Big mana and other combo decks playing around in tier1-2. Looks like no way I will ever return to this format.
RIP Modern. Hello Pioneer.

I think this is just an absurd take. I mean, not being fully satisfied with the bans is one thing, but saying that it is "almost as no changes" is just uninformed. We have been discussing for literally YEARS about Mox Opal going, and now that it is we say "it's as if nothing changed"? Something HAS changed, the fact that artifact decks are now significantly less powerful, decks that have been ranging from Tier 1 to dominating (from Lantern, to KCI to Urza). You can't say it's almost no changes.

Oko, as per statement, was by far the most played card. Now decks won't have to splash for it or be damned. That is a huge metagame change.

Lattice being banned is also significant, as it was a big draw especially to Eldrazi Tron, but also to a bunch of random decks just jamming it for the combo.

Say what you want, but these changes will have impact. Will it be the desired or will it be enough? We have to see, and you can argue about it, but you can't argue that they will have no impact.

Ym1r wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Say what you want, but these changes will have impact. Will it be the desired or will it be enough? We have to see, and you can argue about it, but you can't argue that they will have no impact.

Fair, I suppose I look at it from a more high level perspective.

I dont believe this ban set improves Modern dramatically, it just changes what is busted.