Complex Bans in Modern?
Modern forum
Posted on Feb. 13, 2015, 8:33 p.m. by _Sinistar_
After the recent banning of Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time. I noticed that many control decks would use these card and make them viable. For example Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time gave a boon to decks that were tier 2 to tier 3 and brought them up to be more viable. I think this is a good thing seeing more decks in the format become more viable, or make completely new archetypes. However decks like delver and others would abuse this card too well, and I thought If we want a diverse metagame however we don't want overcentralization. We could just ban Delver of Secrets + Treasure Cruise and Delver of Secrets + Dig Through Time This would make more and new decks more viable that are not overpowered or overcentralize the format. I think this would be good. Remember other decks could use this card but they weren't broken or OP. Maybe they could use this with other cards and bring cards from the ban list back. Should Wizards start doing this? Thoughts.
If delver were banned in treasure cruise format UWR burn would be the absolute best deck.
February 13, 2015 8:58 p.m.
Grimgrinner says... #4
Delver abusing TC and DTT weren't the problem. TC and DTT really are overpowered. Calling Treasure Cruise Ancestral Recall junior in a format with fetch lands, 1-drop instants and sorceries, and free cantrips like Manamorphose and Gitaxian Probe was not an exaggeration. DTT didnt bring quite such a comparison, but it make scapeshift oppressively good, and provides amazing filtering for other combo decks as well. The cards are just broken.
February 13, 2015 9:10 p.m.
Banning delver at the same time as birthing pod effectively killing two decks? Let the riots begin!
February 13, 2015 9:13 p.m.
JexInfinite says... #6
Grimgrinner Do you know what oppression in Magic is? 30% of an event being a single deck. That deck winning every second event. The deck being unbeatably good.
Jund was oppressive. Scapeshift was not. Scapeshift was just a good deck.
February 13, 2015 9:27 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #7
People, please stop talking about stupid things Wizards could do to balance Modern. Believe it or not, they and the people they consult have a better understanding of the format than you or I. Just change your sideboard and deal.
February 13, 2015 9:33 p.m.
Grimgrinner says... #8
@JexInfinite Ok i'll give you that i perhaps mis-used the phrase "oppressively good". But scapeshift with DTT is still problematically good. Quite frankly I don't scapeshift to be that consistent. I don't want ANY combo deck to be that consistent, and I play storm. My point remains that too many decks become too powerful when given access to powerful draw and/or powerful draw filtering.
February 13, 2015 9:53 p.m.
JexInfinite says... #9
Grimgrinner So you don't want combo to be consistent, but it's perfectly alright for Midrange to be?
GlistenerAgent Agreed. Yeah, they made a mistake, but apart from that, they've been pretty good at keeping modern balanced. The DRS ban really did a lot of work.
February 13, 2015 9:59 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #10
I honestly say that DTT should have been kept unbanned. Combo decks are actually really fun to face, people complain about the lack of interaction, but that is because you aren't playing against them right. I like facing against combo control because it means learning how to bluff and how to bait. DTT made a lot of control and combo decks work. Bant Blink, Esper Gifts, Creatureless Near-Death Experience, and Jeskai control. Saying it would be in delver, so what? That was only 15% of the meta. And people liked delver. It was cheap. It was fun to play. It helped new comers get into modern really easily. That was probably the main reason why there was so much of it, was because of it's price. Second reason was most likely because of beginner players hating pod and getting a deck that was good against pod was awesome.
February 13, 2015 10 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #11
I feel like DTT might come off the list in a year or so with a "We banned in preemptively but we're willing to give it a try again."
Yes it's good but delver didn't really want to have to pay 
to net 2 cards. The reasoning was shaky at best so it may come off the list.
February 13, 2015 10:10 p.m.
Ohthenoises DDT actually only nets one card which is a larger part of the preemptive banning being bad is that we don't know if it would've been worth it because it only nets one(because you discard the ddt and then draw 2)
I also don't know how much the banning of pod helped i feel like siege rhino shouldve been banned not pod because it would've taken power from pod and defiantly have taken power from junk due to its suicidal land base
I could be wrong but i feel if wizards hadnt put rhino into the colors that pod is in now it wouldnt have needed to be banned personally i believe it was one of those things like we dont need to ban pod but then rhino put it over the edge
February 13, 2015 10:19 p.m.
Drawing 2 cards for 2 blue is massive when they're selected out of 7 cards. For decks with a lot of redundancy DTT was often just 2 mana tutor 2 cards from your deck
February 13, 2015 10:28 p.m.
DeletedNow4ever says... #14
Except if they did it that way then they could never print another good creature in pod's colors. Rhino didn't get pod banned, the fact that it stopped being a combo deck and started being a value creature deck is what got it banned. It used to have a core, once it went to value the core changed from combo cards to whatever the best creatures in color up to this point were. Imagine making a new set and having to keep saying, "will this creature be too good in pod?". Wizards had to ban it, and essentially it was the pod players themselves who got it banned.
February 13, 2015 10:29 p.m.
well yeah it was defiantly time for it to go even a number of pod players were saying pod needed to be banned
February 13, 2015 10:34 p.m.
I have to disagree with your idea _Sinistar_. I don't believe in banning an entire deck, just neutering it. Even as a delver player, I don't mind the banning's, I thought they were a little too early, except for pod, but they really made the format some air. Soon like with all new formats, agro will drop off once people know what to play and it will even out again. Delver players can still play delver or turn it into storm or twin, pod players can play the abzan list that Jacob Wilson was playing and your all good. People need to work with what they have not what try to get unrealistic things to change.
February 13, 2015 10:36 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #17
Okay does no one use the fucking search function? There are literally 2 or 3 threads exactly like this. We have discussed this extensively. You want to talk about it look through the forums, trust me you won't have to look far.
February 13, 2015 11 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #18
The search function is boinked yo.
And you should know very well that people never look around here on T/O. I mean, people ALWAYS post rules questions wherever they like.
February 13, 2015 11:03 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #19
@ Femme_Fatale True. But I'm always optimistic that my magical Christmas Land fantasy will come true. Clearly I need to adopt the T/O veteran drinking habits to stave off my disappointment.
February 13, 2015 11:50 p.m.
Not even coffee or tea? Yo, best MtG beverages right there!
February 14, 2015 12:07 a.m.
vampirelazarus says... #22
If I recall correctly, femme (who needs to get her butt down to America and have a girls night with me), likes the smell of coffee, but not the taste.
That could also be one of the other regulars, I'm a little intoxicated and can't remember :P
February 14, 2015 12:31 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #23
Nope and nope TheDevicer. Though vampirelazarus is right on all accounts ♥
February 14, 2015 1:36 a.m.
_Sinistar_ says... #25
I feel like my idea is being misunderstand. What I am saying is you can't have a deck with Delver of Secrets + Treasure Cruise So basicially a delver deck could use treasure cruise, but some other deck could. Also note I am using delver as an example I am not targeting it, I will admit it does sound like that. I like delver myself, and have played it in the past, though It was before Khan's. I hope this comment clarifies my idea.
February 14, 2015 3:41 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #26
Interesting. I actually like that idea. Card limitations in decks. You can have one, but you can't have the other. That is an ingenious idea.
February 14, 2015 5:16 a.m.
That's not a horrific idea. Bit complicated though.
February 14, 2015 5:55 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #28
I mean, it completely eliminates the need for out right bans. You can just effectively nerf decks or remove bullshit combos. I mean, there will still be cards that would require you to be perma-banned. Birthing Pod would still have been banned. Storm shit banned. Jace, the Mind Sculptor still banned. Skullclamp banned. But yet, there would be a lot of cards that could still see play.
February 14, 2015 7:13 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #29
There would have to be a limitation as to how many interactions you can ban though. I would say 2 would be the max for any given card. And if you hit the third one, the card should be outright banned entirely, as getting 3 broken combos would mean that there would be a lot more broken combos in the future.
February 14, 2015 7:15 a.m.
JexInfinite says... #30
It does sound like an interesting idea, but it's hard to justify it over a ban. Dig, for example, could have a banned interaction with Scapeshift and Splinter Twin, but is perfectly legal in Geist decks, or Jeskai Ascendancy. This would cause a lot of annoyance towards Wizards because they nerfed 2 decks, but 1 is allowed a good card.
It's like having your favourite toy taken away and given to that greedy kid in the corner. Not very pleasant, and probably wouldn't be good for social interaction.
February 14, 2015 7:32 a.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #31
It's too awkward. Banning a card for a specific deck means that it really shouldn't be legal if it would make that deck too powerful.
February 14, 2015 11:24 a.m.
_Sinistar_ says... #32
@Femme_Fatale You pretty much summed up my entire idea of this. Yeah cards will still be permentely banned, for example Jace, the Mind Sculptor. However we could see cards like Bloodbraid Elf for example, unbanned and if there is a deck that abuses the card too wel, just nerf the deck by doing a complex ban for it. However this does not outright ban the card, other decks could take advantage of banned cards and not be op. Basicially a complex ban is a nerf to a deck, by just not allowing it to use a specific card, however others can use it. I think this would balance out the meta and open more decks to become more viable in Fnm or in general.
Arvail says... #2
The problem with this is that an aggressive deck like delver could just opt to play Swiftspear, guide, or some other fantastic one drop instead. Yeah, you'd lose out on an evasive large body, but you still have that core. If these decks could sub delver for something else, then all of a sudden we'd need to ban Guide + Cruise and so on. It's better to ban it altogether.
February 13, 2015 8:42 p.m.