gkourou wrote: ↑4 years ago
First off, I made a point that Opal decks had some limited turn 3 kills, and this, combined with Looting and Probe bans, slows the format down. Opal in a lesser degree(Cheerios are not viable now, but it was a Tier 4 deck anyway, but had Turn 2 kills, Paradoxical Outcome had some Turn 3 kills, I had lost to that, and also I had lost some times to Turn 1 emry toss SOTM, untap play mox foundry, turn 3 urza, essentially turn 3 kill, also had lost to some affinity and scales turn 3 nut draws, Phoenix turn 3 kills, Dredge putting me at 2 life at Turn 3 also, I had also lost to Goryos at turn 1 with SSG and the likes, Infect turn 3 kill'ed out of the game, Ur Kiln Fiend, DS Zoo). When you play modern for so many years and so much, and spend so much time, you get to see all broken periods. Also Turn 3 killed at lot with all of those cards.
Those were all turn 3 kills. All those decks can not kill anymore. This is a net positive in my eyes and certainly those 3 bans help the format slow down by a lot. It's basically a Turn 4 format now, except memeform and some other less played and less strong decks. It's fine having some Turn 3 kills at some relatively weak decks, that lose those cards.
Nut draws aren't relevant. All of what you described were nut draws. There are new and there are still old decks that can T3 kill. Infect got an easier T2 kill with Scale Up for example. Kiln Fiend can STILL kill on T3 just as easily. DS Zoo as well. Underworld Breach or Thassa's Oracle decks can kill on T3 (maybe T2). Druid/Vizier still kills on T3. If Wizards keeps printing new busted cards, but keep banning old cards that weren't a problem until they printed a card that broke that one, that doesn't mean that the old one was problematic.
How is that wrong? Why do old cards have to suffer for Wizard's desire to push threats ever stronger, while leaving answers to abysmal levels?
gkourou wrote: ↑4 years ago
Also, Dredge and Crabvine are there and Looting killed only Phoenix? This is wrong. Dredge would be bonkers with Ox now. The only thing that's making the deck worse is the looting ban. Looting nerfed Dredge as much as it was needed. And I am telling you that as a UR Phoenix lover.
Probe was "fine" from 2012 until 2016, this means 4 years, literally nobody played the card, but a Tier 2 infect. Then all hell breaks loose and it get's banned. It's a matter of how you define fine. If Looting was "fine" until they break it with various cards, same goes for Probe. Mox Opal is a special case, but it's a moxen in Modern.
Again, Probe was never fine. It just got to a point where it enabled too many broken decks to bypass interaction for virtually no costs.
I mean I didn't even write that Looting killed ONLY Phoenix and I didn't even write that Looting nerfed Dredge or Dredgevine decks appropriately. Since, they still exist and are close to T1 levels, while killing off other more midrange/weak to interaction or interactive themselves strategy the ban missed it's mark. That they decide to print another broken enabler in Ox of Agonas is another thing entirely, that circles back to what I was saying. Banning Chill, Vengevine or Stitcher's Supplier or Imp or, hel,l even Narcoamoeba would've been better while allowing the other decks to exist. If the printing of Ox would break that dredge, ban Ox, not a new card. Or ban a deck specific card since one specific strategy is the problem.
gkourou wrote: ↑4 years ago
Also disagree in the answers aspect. They printed answers. It's not an issue about answers anymore. We have nearly all the answers in the world(I guess we can take Daze and the likes in MH2 and we will certainly will). They could go on only one roard
1) Stop printing pushed cards/have lower power level, and this way Looting, Probe, Opal survives.
2) Have higher power level, and then those cards get the axe. We can't ban Underworld breach now though.
They chose the road no.1, that's why they are banning cards that will be problems for upcoming and future cards. Because if they go down this road and leave Opal, Stirrings, Looting, Probe intact and start banning newer cards like Urzas and Breaches and Astrolabes, the new sets will stop selling to the eternal players. So, what thing do they want more? Clearly to sell more. If that's the case, Mox Opal does not sell anymore. Thus, Mox Opal is banned in Modern.
They haven't printed answers. The best new answer they've printed was Trophy, followed by probably Force of Negation. Even Daze wouldn't do much since there is no deck to leverage that. And don't get me started on White, the color supposed to have the best answers, but somehow has never gotten a good one in years.
Meanwhile, you have -in just the past year and off the top of my head, in no particular order: Urza, Oko, Hogaak, Narset, Karn, Teferi, Emry, Questing Beast, Nissa, Creeping Chill, Stitcher's Supplier, Once Upon a Time and many others.
Stirrings has been supplanted by Once Upon a Time...
When you have that power level on threats leaving answers to Path and Push won't cut it and that will reduce the amount of interactive decks that get played.
As for sets not selling, what will happen if you ban out all the older players? Modern will lose a significant amount of its playerbase. If you want to sell boxes do what Ravnica (not War) did: It gave us new toys for linear/combo decks, created a new archetype (Phoenix), and it also gave us a high level playable answer in Trophy and a card that could've been playable in Mission Briefing.
Ravnica will have sold way more than M20 or Eldraine will have. Broken power level doesn't lead to higher sales, a better designed world in combination with a good power level does. They've missed that mark for the past 3 sets.
Modern Horizons was a good first attempt with 2 significant mistakes that should never have been printed.
Also, what will have a higher profit margin? Designing a new set by scratch with the inherent danger of screwing it up or designing a new "Masters" set and putting several chase cards like Mox Opal, Dark Confidant, Cryptic, Fetchlands etc in it?
Also it's not 0 or 100, there's a happy medium where those two can coexist and there's no need to ban longstanding staples of a format, like Opal and/or Looting.
In Opal's case, none of the newly printed cards really needed it to be broken, they were by themselves broken. Banning it just killed off 2 innocent by standers, while leaving the "offenders" relatively unharmed.
idSurge wrote: ↑4 years ago
This is a race to the bottom. I've mentioned it before but it just cannot work.
It definitely doesn't work now, so I don't see why not pushing on the other end of the spectrum (slowly) is a bad idea.
Cards like Counterspell, Daze, Force of Will, Toxic Deluge, Null Rod, Armageddon (bear with me on this one), Swords to Plowshares, Mystic/Fiery Confluence, the Monarch, are cards and mechanics that help a format regulate itself by either increasing the flexibility of answers or pushing fair strategies that need to be respected.
If you only push the threats then there's no point in playing interaction because the threats outvalue even your occasional 2 for 1. There's a balance there that Wizard's seems to have stopped caring about and just designs combo card after combo card while never giving interactive decks anything.