Banlist reboot viable?
Modern forum
Posted on Jan. 19, 2015, 4:06 p.m. by MagicalHacker
Many users, myself included, have theorized that rebooting the modern ban list to start from zero and then re-adding cards as they appear to be problems could be a viable way to increase diversity among the format and keep the ban list number down to a minimum.
Why? Well there's a few reasons:
It may be that the answer to one broken card on the ban list is another card on the banlist. Maybe one deck empowered by that unbanning is kept in check by another deck in the format and vice versa.
It may be that deck popularity is not solely a sign of deck strength but of other qualities of the deck too, such as its piloting easiness or its inherent fun. By mass unbanning, people would be forced to pick decks, and there's no way that all decks will all be all-popular. (The reason for Birthing Pod's banning was that it was too popular.)
By banning powerful cards, you narrow the pool of powerful cards without narrowing the player base, which causes those few powerful cards to increase in price, inhibiting the growth of the format, causing detrimental impact on the game as a whole. If modern wasn't so expensive, imagine how many other players would also play!
Do you have any additional reasons why this would be a good idea?
Do you have any reasons why this would be a waste of time or a simply bad idea?
NOTE: Please! If you want to talk about the recent banlist changes, there is a separate forum post for that (hint: it's featured).
"(The reason for Birthing Pod's banning was that it was too popular.)"
- The high percentage of the field playing Pod suppresses decks, especially other creature decks, that have an unfavorable matchup. In the interest of supporting a diverse format, Birthing Pod is banned.
Which I kind of agree, You want to play a creature deck? You'd have to play pod.
January 19, 2015 4:10 p.m.
But at the same time I disagree, because unbanning makes more sense than banning.
January 19, 2015 4:10 p.m.
Might be a bad idea for the financial aspect. Cards would get unbanned, sending their prices way up. People would be encouraged to buy them up to make new, powerful decks, but also discouraged since they know that if their build does too well, all those cards they bought up with just get rebanned for the same reason as before and plummet. Seeing as this type of thing really aggravates people(see the several posts by Pod users who had hundreds of dollars invalidated) I don't think it would work out to well for the popularity of modern.
While trying to keep the banlist down to a minimum sounds nice in theory, it is probably impossible in practice. The cards that were banned were banned for a reason and chances are Wizards will see the exact same reason emerge following the mass unbanning. Just seems like quite a big risk considering that it would be entirely possible for Wizards to just deem a majority of the cards still banworthy and ban them after a few months.
January 19, 2015 4:17 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #6
JWiley129, that's a fair point. Basically, such a huge change to the banlist would not be able to influence the format quickly enough to spot issues with it until it has been rebooted for a while, which may take too much time, and thus kill the format outright. I can see that being a theoretical issue with a reboot.
January 19, 2015 4:19 p.m.
I think your 3rd reason is spot on.. people whose decks just became irrelevant are more than likely going to split off and just make more of the (now) most relevant decks which is exactly why they killed pod. Still have to wait and see but there's not much reason to believe otherwise
January 19, 2015 4:21 p.m.
As for the timing MagicalHacker, remember that R&D spends roughly 1 year testing Standard. It would take at LEAST that long to test a fully unbanned Modern, if not longer.
January 19, 2015 4:23 p.m.
It just seems too risky, both to Wizards and to the players. What seems more plausible is Wizards could implement a new format(probably on MTGO) that acts as a rebooted Modern to test the viability. Making such a drastic change to actual modern could potentially kill the format.
January 19, 2015 4:23 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #10
Necrotize, What I am saying is that once the dust settles, there may be less cards to ban. However, the more I think about it, the more I realize that no banlist and the current state are both equally bad. Maybe the modern format is inevitably headed towards death, regardless of what actions are taken.
January 19, 2015 4:23 p.m.
I don't agree with JWiley129 on this. Jace, the Mindsculptor is not the best card in the current meta. With so many consistent turn 3 and 4 win decks, he won't make such a big difference in modern. I think that it might be unbanned. If it is, it can be MM2's Tarmogoyf.
January 19, 2015 4:24 p.m.
ThisIsBullshit says... #13
Hopfully the modern format isn't headed towards death, it's nice to have a format where you can have playsets of cards (unlike Commander), it's not super duper expensive (Legacy/Vintage) and your $500 deck doesn't lose 90% of it's value after two years.
January 19, 2015 4:26 p.m.
Rebooted MTGO modern is a really clever idea. While I know next to nothing about Modern, I do know that it would require months of testing if you were gonna revamp the entire ban-list.
January 19, 2015 4:30 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #15
Someone close the tag, as I don't know how.
Maybe this is requires cooperation from R&D and the banlist committee. Say that the newest set contains a hoser/answer to every banned card WHILE the banlist is undone. If modern's only answer to a deck getting too powerful is a card that will hose it, maybe that way we can get all the benefits of having a small banlist (fun, price) without any of the downsides (balance).
Is that viable?
January 19, 2015 4:32 p.m.
Cobthecobbler says... #18
Rebooting the banlist sounds like a really good learning experience.
January 19, 2015 4:39 p.m.
You still run into the problem of testing. R&D would have to test the older formats as well as Standard. While I think we all love the current standard format, we have to put a lot of that on the amount of testing R&D does. If you make them test Modern as well, you might be spreading them too thin. And I'm not sure how much money they have to hire an entire other team to help test this "Open Modern" format, as I'll begin calling it. Plus, printing cards to hose banned cards isn't the best way to stop strategies. And adding cards could always make other cards stronger, which creates a system where cards that were normally fine become busted. Just like the current system. I don't feel like Open Modern is a good idea.
Jayfeather - Jace, the Mind Sculptor is still the strongest planeswalker ever printed, and should stay banned regardless. He offers too much power for too little mana. No one cares that Modern is a Turn 4 format, as there aren't that many games that end on Turn 4 (outside of combo decks).
January 19, 2015 4:39 p.m.
ThisIsBullshit says... #21
How does one close tags? Just for future reference.
January 19, 2015 4:41 p.m.
Cobthecobbler Thanks.
MagicalHacker As JWiley129 stated, it would affect more than just modern if you printed out hosers for all those potential powercards.
Testing this would be a really pickle, but I would love a reduced banlist. The idea of modern is to have a diverse meta game, and I believe a diverse meta game could still be maintained with a smaller banlist.
January 19, 2015 4:44 p.m.
Cobthecobbler says... #23
HTML closing tags are the same as opening tags, but with a backslash in front of the tagline. For example, the tag < b > was opened up, so I put a < / b > before my post to close it.
January 19, 2015 4:45 p.m.
Jayfeather Brainstorming for free every turn is something that WotC will never allow in Modern.
Best planeswalker hands down and he would certainly put a few decks over the top.
January 19, 2015 4:46 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #25
Well, here's an idea that I thought of that may or may not be helpful. Instead of placing those hoser/answer cards in a standard set, put them in a set only designed for modern. The Modern Masters set could be a perfect place for them. Now these cards would have to be designed to be amazing when a previously banned card is part of the opponents deck, but not so broken on its own that it creates a bigger problem than it solves. Here's a good example. Imagine a 1-drop sorcery that says, "Gain control of target Jace. Draw a card." (See Goatnapper for verification that a spell can specify it's target only by its subtype.) Suddenly, Jace, the Mind Sculptor seems like a risky card choice, because your opponent can steal all the value you made.
Does THIS sound like a viable strategy?
January 19, 2015 4:52 p.m.
But then you get around the fact that the sets legal in Modern are "All expert expansions and core sets since Mirrodin and 8th Edition." You don't want to expose Modern to the issue of "Well they reprinted Fireblast in a duel deck, that makes it Modern legal." It's the "best" solution if you don't want to expose cards to Standard, but it's still worse than banning cards when they become too oppressive.
January 19, 2015 4:54 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #27
What about "All core sets since mirrodin and eight edition and all modern masters"? That's what I was talking about.
January 19, 2015 5:19 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #28
Next time you need a tag closed, tell me. I can go in and directly edit the comment.
I didn't read most of the conversation, but I'll step in to mention that WOTC does think about the possibility that some banned cards are answers to some legal cards. Sometimes, WOTC does an experimental unban (as is the case with Golgari Grave-Troll). Sometimes, they do a responsive unban (as was the case with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle) when they feel that the introduction (or reintroduction) of that card into the meta would create new options and help remove some of the pressure felt from other decks.
January 19, 2015 5:27 p.m.
Birthing Pod was also popular because it was fun to pilot, cheap for a creature deck ($1000 for Tarmogoyf playset? Ain't nobody got time for that!) and good against the popular decks. I think that completely resetting the banlist is a really bad idea since you will have 3 months of total degeneracy before the update. I would really like to see them introduce a semi-restricted list to Modern or even just Restricted.
JWiley129 says... #2
In order for this to be a worthwhile endeavor, you'd need a large amount of time for the metagame to solidify and reveal all the interactions. Sure, reseting the banned list would still reveal that some cards are broken, and they could be banned fairly quickly (e.g. Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Stoneforge Mystic), but the rest will take a lot of time. Plus you have to consider that there are 4 new sets a year adding to the Modern card pool. In order for this to work the way you want it, you'd need to finish all the testing necessary to rebuild the banned list between set releases. Which I feel like isn't a ton of time to ensure you're making the "correct" decisions.
January 19, 2015 4:10 p.m.