robertleva wrote: ↑4 years ago
If they emergency banned Hogaak, for the next 20 years, EVERY busted card will get the "but they did it for Hogaak" threads. It's worth waiting, trust me. Plus my theory is that they will be highly motivated to unban something fun that will instantly make us forget about all this Hogaak nonsense.
This kind of ban mania is already happening in Modern and has been happening for years. It will be even worse this year with three bans before the year is even over, and we haven't even addressed some of the community's biggest and recurring issues (Looting/Stirrings). An emergency ban may have increased that, but the on-schedule ban is also going to increase it. Between this and Eldrazi Winter, there are going to be more calls for emergency bans than ever before over emerging issues, which the online community will continue to cite whenever new breakout decks emerge. I can appreciate many complicated reasons for not e-banning Hogaak, especially the cost to players who attend events and planned to play Hogaak. But that's an economical weighting we can maybe calculcate. The ban mania issue is not economical and is already at a fever pitch regardless of how Wizards handled this issue.
The Fluff wrote: ↑4 years ago
referring to the part I put in bold. Hopefully, something like that happens. Maybe it SFM will be freed at last?
Unbans are completely unpredictable. If history is a good indicator, we should see an unban coincide with a ban after a particularly warped period of Modern (Pod/TC/DTT and Eldrazi Winter), but we've also seen unbans in a vacuum (JTMS/BBE), and we've seen big bans with no unbans to pair with them (Twin/GGT). Personally, I've given up on predicting unbans, and can just as easily see Wizards unbanning SFM or something as an "apology" as I can see them letting the post-Hogaak metagame evolve naturally with WAR/MH1/M20 and Throne.
Simto wrote: ↑4 years ago
I'm going to my local FNM on Friday and I'm wondering which tron variation I should play.
Which do you guys think is strongest?
Green Tron without Karn Liberated and Ugin The Spirit Dragon? or Eldrazi Tron without 4 Chalice and no Leyline in the side (both with Creator Karn + wishboard package)
I don't have any of the big Karn, Ugins, Chalice or leyline, but I've done alright with the green tron deck considering I don't have the big planeswalkers. I'll eventually buy the planeswalkers and chalices, but I just haven't gotten around to it yet. It's hard for me to justify spending so much money on cardboard.
Just curious to hear what you guys think would kick the most ass. (my local FNM meta is pretty friendly, a lot of homebrew stuff. only a few top tier decks. It's usually a lot of fun)
Definitely Eldrazi Tron without Chalice. G Tron isn't worth it without Ugin or Karn Liberated, but Eldrazi Tron is viable in certain metagames without Chalice. If you have a lot of GY decks in your home metagame, replace the Chalices with Relics.
iTaLenTZ wrote: ↑4 years ago
I am pretty sure Wrenn will also be banned within 3 months in at least 1 format. The more I play with and against this card in Legacy and Modern the more obviously busted he becomes. He simply comes too soon with too many loyalty counters and starts generating too much CA every turn without using any resources while also building up to his ultimate. And if it wasn't enough he completely hoses any deck relying on X/1 creatures like mana dorks and even things like Phantasmal Image. He can even finish of PW's or ping players. His cost/efficiency is off the chart and imo way too powerful. The card isn't sustainable in the mid-long run unless they print very strong generic undercost flexible PW answers. In the end if will come down to the question: Ban Wrenn or add more powercreep to counter the powercreep and continue this vicious circle.
W6 could be an issue in Legacy. The Wasteland lock is really not good form for that format, but I also don't play enough Legacy to weigh in seriously on that issue. I'll defer to the Legacy regulars and experts.
As for Modern, this is clinical ban mania in a year that is only going to foster more ban mania. To be clear, ban mania is not calling for a card to be banned. Ban mania is calling for cards to be banned a) in the utter absence of data, b) without citing data even if it's out there, and/or c) when the "issues/effects" they pose for the format are not bannable offenses. Ban mania is also framing an issue in terms of bans that doesn't need to be framed that way. In this case, your anti W6 stance is squarely in the realm of (a) and probably also in the realm of (c). Regarding (a), there is simply no way to assess any element of format health or balance while Hogaak is still around. It's too warping and creates too many secondary effects on the format to see how the format "truly" looks. Obviously, Jund's shares and performances aren't even remotely bannable with the current data we have, which suggests you are speculating about a post-Hogaak world we don't have any real data for. We have no clue how the combination of Humans/G-Tron/E-Tron/Phoenix/Jund/UW Control/Dredge/Urza ThopterSword, and other top-tier decks will play out in a post-Hogaak world.
(C) gets more at the experiential dimensions of a deck, which is fine to discuss as long as we acknowledge it's very subjective. It seems your criticism of W6 is that it generates too much CA, is hard to remove, invalidates X/1 strategies, and is overall too powerful. Modern is an insanely powerful format. In order to hang at the top-tier of Modern, you need to be doing powerful things. Humans/G-Tron/E-Tron/Phoenix/Dredge/Urza ThopterSword are all doing just as powerful things on T2-T3 as Jund, and with the exception of Humans, those decks don't really even care much about anything W6 is doing. UW Control is in a similar position as Jund where it needs regular sources of proactive pressure, and it gets that from the equally powerful Narset/T3feri. Fair decks need this in order to compete with unfair decks (I define fair/unfair as cheating on resources/curves). Without these planeswalkers, Jund and UW Control would not be very good in Modern and they would be unable to hang with the top-tier strategies listed above.
W6 would be a problem in Modern if it gave Jund too many 50/50+ matchups. As it stands, however, Jund appears to have just as many bad matchups as other top-tier decks. It's terrible against Burn, unfavored against E-Tron, and even worse against Urza ThopterSword than against Burn. It's also terrible against Hogaak, which suggests it will struggle against Dredge (but probably not to the same extent because Hogaak is busted). All of this suggests W6 Jund in Modern is not nearly as problematic as you make it out to be.
Re: ban mania
I can't emphasize this enough: ban mania is when we assess a deck/card in banning terms when it's not warranted. It's a mindframe we see whenever a breakout strategy/card emerges, and it will only get worse after the Hogaak fears proved to be more than warranted. This creates a vicious confirmation bias for people who want cards banned quickly and are quick to frame issues in terms of bans. Rather than remember all the failed ban predictions/suggestions (Stirrings, Tron lands, Moon, Opal, GDS, Company, Griselbrand, etc.), ban hawks can fixate on the one time Wizards should have acted decisively to ban a demonstrably broken deck after a month of play (Hogaak in July, NOT Bridge). This vindicates future ban talk and empowers them to discuss every single emerging deck/card in ban terms. As a whole, this effect is extremely negative for the format. It scares away new players, embitters old players, discourages innovation (why evolve when you can ban your problems!), encourages echo chambers/hive mind thinking, etc. Imagine new players going to an LGS and the bitter Modern veteran complaining about bans to everyone. That harm ripples across the format and ultimately imperils our growth.
It is imperative we push against this if we are to recover from Hogaak Summer, but I fear the ban mania will be at its highest ever and not decrease any time soon.