MTGNexus

Did they play out the Top 8 yet? I couldnt find who won?

Hogaak won the GP, taking 3 out of the top 4 spots.

And it would be all Hogaak in the semifinals if it wasn't for a misplay, Hogaak player had Force of Vigor in hand, opponent has Karn + Ensnaring Bridge in play and casts Lattice, the Hogaak player thought he could let it resolve and destroy both Bridge and Lattice with FoV but then was pointed out that the Vengevine he was trying to exile to pay the cost was no longer green so he no longer had a chance to win

I'm glad a fellow Dane won the GP even though he was using The Big Ho Nice to see some Eldrazi there too.

Also, I'm looking forward to the ban today (and hopefully some unbans too), but a little part of me kinda wants to see "No changes to the ban list" just to watch people explode hehe.
But I'm excited to have forums go back to regular scheduling (hopefully) yelling about Faithless Looting, Ancient Stirrings, Tron lands and Mox Opal

I want to disagree about Twin ban being something only bad players predicted. I saw plenty of speculation in regards to it. Just most of that speculation wasn't going to far as to ban Splinter Twin itself, but targeting things likeDeceiver Exarch so that Twin would be more vulnerable to opposing Lightning Bolts. I had speculated that Wizards wouldn't target exarch, because it doesn't do anything broken on it's own, and the design of it is a simple enough blue card basis that they'd want freedom to print similar cards into Standard in the future without having to do pre-emptive bans, which would force them to target Twin itself if they wanted to weaken it without complicating card design standards in dumb ways.

It wasn't seen as likely of course, twin wasn't really getting the numbers to be that much of a threat, but that was at least partly because it was a very well known deck and a lot of people designed their sideboards to accommodate it specifically, sometimes even affecting main-board choices, like what types of creature removal were worthwhile for non-Red colors (since Bolt has a backup 'to the face' mode).

There was also the known issue of tons of decks popping up in UR and being tested at the time, which would then fall apart when people would prove that the deck gets better when twin is put into it rather than their other win-cons, and then later proving that the base twin shell was better than the various tweaked variations, which was the thing Wizards was claiming to address, and was a known aspect of the format. It's a mis-diagnosis on Wizards' part under the assumption that they wouldn't be adding more cards and new strategies to the format that might be competitive with twin... which, given their printing policies at the time, might have been a reasonable assumption that barely anything from Standard would make it into Modern (without being promptly banned), but it's clear they've since learned this is a bad idea, and that Modern needs more stuff.

The reasons for the twin ban are bad, but Twin had an issue that none of the targets to nerf it were viable ban targets, so even if Wizards wanted to nerf it just a little, there weren't really good choices to do so that wouldn't be constantly under threat from even low level Standard stuff leaking through.

I think what proves Twin is about the right power level for Modern is the fact that Felidar Guardian/Saheeli Rai combo hasn't taken off in it's place. Being able to flash in the turn 3 piece was very important to making a deck like twin work in Modern.

I think the Twin ban was effectively indirectly predicted due to speculation about various potential nerfing ban suggestions like Exarch or regular requests for more and better sideboard cards good against it, because too little in it was a weird/powerful enough card to avoid Standard re-creations besides Twin itself, so it's ultimate banning was a factor of Wizards being lazy. Wizards had no tools to police it if it did truly get out of control besides targeting Twin itself, so I suspect they decided to pre-emptively ban it sooner rather than later once they realized it truly become a problem, and they had no way of dealing with it in such a case besides killing it outright or doing crazy things to Standard design principles for the sake of Modern. The longer they took to ban it, the more players are likely to get chances to invest in it and then later get mad if it's banned as Modern grows, and without other ban targets to merely nerf it that seemed reasonable...

They then gave dumb excuses of course.

Good morning everyone and HAPPY HOGAAK BANNING DAY!

metalmusic_4 wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Good morning everyone and HAPPY HOGAAK BANNING DAY!

The hours don't pass fast enough!

gkourou wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Avalon, I agree to all of those stuff. But, question, didn't the MH reprint and the 4 years of existence of it made people invest on it?
I mean, i bought a twin playset for 100$ after the MH reprint, only to see it getting the axe later.
Now, i could be a disgruntled twin player saying it was wrong and all that, but i understand that people changed their maindecks to be able to fight twin and thats not right for any deck to do.
Basically, using the same logic, wizards won't ban looting because there are too many players playing with the card. Thats what you are saying?
I dont criticize it, its a hypothesis, it could be right.

I'm assuming you mean Masters (forget which one, but it wasn't a Horizons) reprint? Yeah, that was a problem, and sent seriously horrible mixed signals. The logic would indeed dictate that wizards would be more reluctant to ban looting. It doesn't mean they won't, just that they'll be more afraid to, but also that if they consider it a potential serious threat they'll have to eventually ban, they might be motivated to ban it sooner rather than later, to minimize the future growth of the decks involved from turning off even more players after they get their stuff banned.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was internal panicking at Wizards right now in terms of the format getting too hard to control while also still doing minimal bans and bans with minimal impact.

gkourou wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Now, i could be a disgruntled twin player saying it was wrong and all that, but i understand that people changed their maindecks to be able to fight twin and thats not right for any deck to do.

Ah man I remember back on MTGS when main deck surgical extractions was widely considered a reasonable adaptation for combating UR Phoenix. But it was completely fine as this was the evolution of Modern.

But somehow, people having to change their maindeck to fight Twin is abominable.

Unfortunate? In what way? Please elaborate.

Is there an unspoken rule somewhere or a need for me to quote an entire post when I only intend to address a single point? What's unfortunate about me not including the parts about MH or Looting when those portions are of no concern to me?

Yes we know what WoTC claimed for the twin got banning, and?

Why make the assertion that changing cards main deck to combat a deck is not right then? Since it wasn't part of the ban rationale, what was the purpose in YOU making this assertion about Twin?

Are you trying to somehow make twin seem more oppressive than it actually was by bringing up some irrelevant point that was not made in the ban rationale?

Banned and restricted has sfm on the front page but I can't read it yet.... Getting excited!!!

gkourou wrote: ↑

4 years ago

There is not a rule, its just that when somebody's says some things there is a whole context. Leaving the whole context out in order to promote your ideas is unfortunate at best.

The rest of your post adds no context to the portion I quoted.

Please tell me how investment in MH and Faithless Looting add any context to the part I quoted about how people had to change their main decks to combat twin.

Unfortunate how you are intent on pretending to be a self-made victim of misrepresentation.

gkourou wrote: ↑

4 years ago

I dont think twin would be oppressive, never said that.
You keep naming things i never said. Thats also unfortunate.

Show me where I named things you never said. Or are you going to avoid this again like all the other times?

I simply asked you a question about what your purpose was in bringing up Twin forcing people to change their main decks. I am curious why you brought this up as it was not cited in the ban rationale. As such there is no reason to believe that this would influence any unban decision.

I know what WoTC and your stand on diversity is, you've parroted it enough. This has nothing to do with that.

gkourou wrote: ↑

4 years ago

All i said is wizards is keeping twin banned because they might be afraid that it reduces modern s overall diversity.
Would it really? It might not. But thats a speculation and thats up for a debate. If you want to prove that it would not, its not enough that you say "it does not". You should playtest and give us some numbers against the gauntlet in order for us to take this seriously.
I could say the same. Twin would not reduce Diversity. Now, does that carry out any significance? No, it does not.

I volunteer to playtest against everybody to make those numbers work. There is a single clause though: i get to play twin.

I literally have no idea what this portion about diversity is about? I never mentioned a single thing about diversity in this recent exchange.

Edinburgerboulder53 wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Banned and restricted has sfm on the front page but I can't read it yet.... Getting excited!!!

Do it Wizards!

Hogaak banned
Looting banned
SFM unbanned

LOOOOL

link: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... -26?querys

Holy. I may be drawn back in.

Goodbye Looting, you'll not be missed.

True-Name Nemesis wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Hogaak banned
Looting banned
SFM unbanned

LOOOOL

link: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... -26?querys

holy %$#% don't even know what to do. MADNESS. I'll just say, that's the shot in the arm we needed to recover from this horrible year.

Oh wow. That's quite the move by WotC. Definitely the right move, but I hadn't expected them to do it.

Looking forward to see where modern will go from here!

Well, that's some great news right there! Let's see what this does to the meta game. We are not talking about a post Hogaak world any more, not a post MH1/WAR world anymore, but at a completely different field. Phoenix and Dredge won't be half as strong (especially the first one might go all-together). Urza will become a prime enemy for sure. I believe Jund will sky-rocket, and we are finally going to see some nice SFM action!

Wow, just wow I did not expect lootings to go. So I immediately have two thoughts first is ancient stirrings is now the best cantrip by a long long way and where does this leave urza thopter sword combo.

Both seem like obviously strong cards unlikely to be easily matched in the new meta.

Good!

How is that "Faithless Looting is Modern's Brainstorm" working out for everyone? :^)

It finally feels like Modern is going in the right direction.

This is totally unexpected, but is awesome! They even hinted that SFM was a "trail period" which I think is a great way for them to see if cards work in the future. I am super excited to see where modern goes from here.

Well look at that, Looting got banned.

mikej wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Good!

How is that "Faithless Looting is Modern's Brainstorm" working out for everyone? :^)

It finally feels like Modern is going in the right direction.

Well thats just it. They openly admit that the format had become a GY format (as some wise and handsome individuals had been saying for some time) and they decided to change course.

Will be interesting what comes of it. I lament DEEPLY that we couldnt have had THIS format for the last 2 GPs, Vegas would have been HYPE.

Finally Loothing banned and SFM unbanned.

Also there should be a rule to ban any discussion about Twin. Everything has been said 100 times already and the format has moved one without it. Period. Stop discussing a card that was banned 4 years ago and will not be unbanned in the foreseeable future.

VINDICATION!!

That's some powerful B&R move right there. I think now is a good time to stretch our legs and walk about the format's lesser traveled cards to find the new meta. It's great to see WotC talk directly about shifting things back towards the hard and battlefield and away from the yard. It has clearly been a real issue over the past year. However, their quote about shifting leaves to to wonder how much of an impact they think banning Looting will have.

WotC B&R 26AUG19 wrote:We'd like to shift gameplay a little bit away from the graveyard and back toward the hand and battlefield.

Bold as emphasis. Is there a chance they may realize this hurts yard decks too much and they move to give them more things?

And SFM is here! How do we quantify this? Apology? Or timely decision? I am excited either way.