gkourou wrote: ↑4 years ago
Tzoulis, I am open to discussion and I am really having an open discussion, with mostly anyone(but you). Sorry for saying this one, but you have to correct your tone if you want an open discussion and me answering most of your posts. I hope this is a clean, good start.
I second this. Moving on.
Veil: The thing with Veil is that it isn't broken in the sense of just directly winning games because its an answer to an answer, thus only facilitating wins. It's kind of hard to directly link wins to Veil, even if upon closer inspection, it was absolutely Veil that won that game. And yes I do think Veil is part of the reason DS has all but disappeared. It's not the only reason. Path and T3feri are played a ton, and another card that hurts DS badly is Icefang Coatl. Probably no deck in the history of modern has beaten up so hard on DS as a deck with 4 Path, 4 Coatl, and 2-4 Veils does. Thats just a lost cause for DS.
Another point worth repeating/stressing is that there seems to be very broad concensus that Veil of Summer should not be in the format. Veil alone will not destroy modern, but it's part of the problem and will help drag the format down if left legal.
Big mana: there are 3 parts to big mana: the ramp itself (a. tron and b. bounce-lands + multiple landdrops), the consistency tools (Expedition Map/Scrying for Tron, Stirrings/sheer, hard to disrupt, massive redundancy for Titan that only really emerged with Dryad post OuaT ban) and the threats themselves.
Now, I don't think anybody will argue to nerf the manabases by banning them because just killing those decks is not a viable option. And printing hate that nerfs ramp-mana bases (read: Dampening Sphere) is hardly a viable option either, because a) it has been historically bad despite seemingly good options existing, b) it takes up a card that usually nerfs mana and does literally nothing else. Land destruction is similarly flawed, unless you dedicate your entire deck to that (see Gruul Ramp).
They went after consistency with Titan decks by banning OuaT, but the result was Titan going from completely busted to a tad less busted but still absurd. I see 2 reasons for that: a) if wanted, Ancient Stirrings is no OuaT but still a very potent consistency tool in Amulet titan and b) Dryad is just a busted magic card. Like, insanely much better than Azousa. Only adding 1 landdrop instead of 2 is a pretty small downside because it doesnt actually set back Titan by a turn a lot of the time. But there are so many upsides to Dryad: it gives perfect mana, it blocks well, is much harder to kill than Azousa and even a better clock, AND it provides another win condition that is just as viable as the other ones, as if Titan decks didnt have enough of those with Field of the Dead. Getting an astronomical upgrade for a core card of the strategy with Dryad and now being able to functionally run 5-6 copies was just a game changer. Of course, Amulet also is one of the decks that can take full advantage of Veil of Summer. Which is another strike against Veil. Decks like Titan or any Uro deck absolutely do not need the help, but on top of everything they get access to Veil of summer which just pushes them WAY out of reach for any non-white interaction (read: everything but path)
I don't know what, if anything, to do "about" Titan decks themselves, I think their gameplan has its weaknesses, but banning Veil would go a long way towards making Titan decks more accessible to disruption, which is absolutely necessary.
With ETron, they went.. I actually don't really know what they hoped to accomplish with the Lattice Ban. Yes, Lattice closed the door on some games that other cards might have lost, but the overwhelming majority of games where Karn 1) resolves, 2) gets Lattice and then 3) resolves Lattice and survives itself are won games for ETron anyway. In other words, when I face ETron, I don't feel that they were "nerfed" even the tiniest bit. The deck is just as strong as it was. TLDR: the ban did nothing.
ETron has its busted starts with Temple Temple TKS, T3 tron vomit out their hand etc. And they should have those: They build a very specific deck, it Etron wasnt able to do that it would not exist as a modern deck at all. The problem is how consistently they are able to do that. In other words, an ETron ban should have gone after their consistency, because banning a) threats is not a viable path (where would you even start^^), b) as we have established, banning either Tron lands or Eldrazi Temple would most certainly just kill the deck dead.
Tbh, by now, I could really see an Expedition Map ban as a good way to nerf both GTron and Etron. Would it kill them? I honestly don't know, but I have to imagine there are enough other cards to make them consistent. GTron still has 4x Stirrings, 4x Scrying and 8 eggs (up to 12 with Relic) to churn through their deck and tutor up Tron. And ETron can much more easily naturally curve into very powerful threats, especially with Temple. The really really busted starts just wouldn't happen every second game.
I could see both decks still being good, just not as brutally, inescapeably consistent. And again, Veil of Summer is GTron's favourite tool to shut down any meaningful interaction (Thoughtseize, counter magic). Another strike against the Card.
Companion: tbh that mechanic just weirds me out. I haven't wrapped my head around it fully yet, wether the companion restrictions exclude some key parts of strategies that we havent thought of yet, etc. As you have pointed out, some of those exclusions just might not be worth it. I don't like the angle it brings to the game tbh. Having to show the card at the beginning, thus giving your opp a very good idea of what's in your deck, but also just getting a free card for no cost other than the deck-building restrictions. Just seems like unwarrented, dumb value. I can't gauge how good any of em will be yet, but my gut hates the whole thing with a vengeance. Maybe i'm just afraid of new things, but... nah.