Modern Banlist Update - 1/19/15
Modern forum
Posted on Jan. 19, 2015, 10:58 a.m. by GlistenerAgent
Banned: Birthing Pod, Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise
Unbanned: Golgari Grave-Troll
Holy shit.
So without Cruise or Dig the Delver decks are going to be dethroned, right?
January 19, 2015 11:37 a.m.
Yes! Finally Red Deck Wins will be real red decks! No god damn blue!
January 19, 2015 11:39 a.m.
slovakattack says... #5
I think I speak for all of us when I say: "uuuUUUUUUUUUUUGH, WAZAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRDZ!"
January 19, 2015 11:40 a.m.
Dalektable says... #6
Well, shit. I'm glad I hopped off of pod and decided to go towards building that later. I have to say, I seriously did not at all expect this. I am in shock. However, I along with many other people may be brewing with Golgari Grave-Troll since people have been screaming for it's unbanning.
January 19, 2015 11:40 a.m.
I mean. They could have banned Siege Rhino to make anger of the gods and drown in sorrow effective against Pod again. He's the only high toughness creature besides rest angel.
I'm happy that my favourite deck is now the top tier midrange deck but I'm sad that midrange decks in general have been hit hard.
I'm surprised also that they like promised to not ban treasure cruise but then did
January 19, 2015 11:40 a.m.
LOL@thatjunkmage
Interesting choices for sure.. Time to toss a few grim lavamancers in my UR delver deck and pretend cruise never happened lol...
January 19, 2015 11:42 a.m.
So I just looked at the whole banned liat. Why Sword of the Meek? I mean...I can see it cool in tokens maybe but...banned?
January 19, 2015 11:43 a.m.
To be fair ChiefBell, Aaron Forsythe said they wouldn't "emergency ban" TC. They did wait until the next B&R announcement to ban it and Dig, but nowhere did they say "Treasure Cruise is not getting banned during the next B&R announcement."
I'm a little bummed, but I can see why they did it.
January 19, 2015 11:43 a.m.
With the Cruise out of the picture, I expect buying snapcasters is now or never.
January 19, 2015 11:47 a.m.
JWiley129 - He said he wanted to collect more evidence - then he didn't haha.
January 19, 2015 11:47 a.m.
FatherLiir says... #14
I called Treasure Cruise being banned, but Birthing Pod got me by surprised, since its such a Modern Staple, an entire Archetype has been wiped, while I don't play modern I think that's exciting.
January 19, 2015 11:48 a.m.
Sword of the Meek + Thopter Foundry = For every 1 mana you gain 1 life and get a 1/1 flyer, that is also an artifact and the most recent one created is a 2/3 because of sword. That's a bit much, especially considering that without any ramp and only two colors, you can effectively start the combo turn 3 coming in with 1 activation.
January 19, 2015 11:48 a.m.
ChiefBell - He said that at PAX Australia, when the only data they had was anecdotal. There had been several GPs since then and daily Modern events on MTGO. While they could've collected more data, say at PT Fate Reforged, I don't think you're going to be able to get them on that logic alone.
January 19, 2015 11:51 a.m.
There have only been like 3 GPs. I would caution against using MTGO for a variety of reasons. I would prefer to let the format run for a bit before banning stuff. That's my personal opinion. I would let things run for a while.
January 19, 2015 11:52 a.m.
MurderHood says... #18
Who else thinks we are getting a new art Golgari Grave-Troll in MM2?
January 19, 2015 11:54 a.m.
golffore297 says... #19
The sad thing about Dig Through Time getting banned is that a lot of people playing combo decks were leaning on that card really hard, to the point the it makes it difficult to win without it. Seeing it banned in Modern means that combo decks are probably going to end up taking a back seat for now.
Could all this mean that Urzatron could finally become a Tier 1 deck? With the addition of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon to run along Karn Liberated seems like it may be able to push it over the edge with decks that got hit by the banlist pretty hard taking a back seat.
January 19, 2015 11:58 a.m.
AztekSnowman says... #20
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/banned-and-restricted-announcement-2015-01-19
January 19, 2015 11:59 a.m.
I'm actually pretty disappointed about this. Modern was pretty healthy in my opinion. Especially sad about pod; I was always a fan of that archetype. Time to take out my Auriok Champions. Tidehollow, you're back in.
January 19, 2015 12:03 p.m.
UrzaTron, and GB/x will become the prominent midrange decks.
Burn / RW burn, and RDW will become pretty much the only aggro decks.
Twin will become the only combo deck.
With a bit less aggro in the format Jeskai control might come back.
That'll be the format. We're back to pre khans, just without pod.
Dull.
January 19, 2015 12:04 p.m.
Ouch. Hurts my new UWR modern deck :(. -quickly buys a playset of Sphinx's Revelation before/in case price spikes-
So much less efficient though. Such a shame :(.
January 19, 2015 12:04 p.m.
slovakattack says... #26
Urglebagle....
I played with a friend's pod deck recently and had a lot of fun with it. He's... not going to be happy.
January 19, 2015 12:08 p.m.
golffore297, As much as I'd love that to be true, there are plenty of Tier1 decks that couldn't care less about this ban that will continue to hurt Tron a lot because Tron needs three turns to get going. There is even a couple Tier two decks that are bad Tron matchups. I feel Tron will continue to get significantly pummeled by affinity, scapeshift, storm, and dare I say it... gasp infect. I love Tron. But its not happening.
January 19, 2015 12:08 p.m.
slovakattack says... #28
What's broken, gets banned. And what's banned...
...Feeds the Tarmogoyf.
January 19, 2015 12:10 p.m.
PValBlanc - Tron usually makes up some significant portion of the meta. It's not that bad. With more midrange decks around it actually discourages aggro and tron does well. Without Pod though we may see aggro decks increase which would be bad. This is because there would be less challenging them. If they leave Tron is fine to come in.
At the moment though midrange is play tarmogoyf or get out.
January 19, 2015 12:16 p.m.
golffore297 says... #30
Just a hope, I've been thinking about building a solid Modern deck, but was waiting for the Banlist to come out. I'll probably start doing some research.
That being said I don't know what I'm going to do with all these Jeskai Ascendancys I've traded for now.
January 19, 2015 12:17 p.m.
I'm not going to pretend I called the ban on Birthing Pod because I've been out of it for long enough to not pay attention but I think all of these changes are fair and not ridiculous. Personally, I'm glad that Pod will pass off so that there less toolbox/beatdown/midrange Pod to crush my gimmicky themed aggro decks. :P
(I do think they should try to wean down the price on good ol' Tarmogoyf even if they have to pull some bizarre slow release plan to not piss everyone off.)
January 19, 2015 12:23 p.m.
Dalektable says... #33
Jeskai Tokens splashing black for Lingering Souls flashback and four Monastery Mentor and Young Pyromancer :)
January 19, 2015 12:24 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #34
Everything is bitches. Just... What the fuck? Dig and Pod? Yeah I can understand TC but seriously... I might have to revive jeskai control
January 19, 2015 12:25 p.m.
golffore297 says... #35
Y'know what? Fine, challenge accepted. I'll start brewing and we will see how it turns out.
January 19, 2015 12:29 p.m.
Well, I'm glad when I decided to build a Modern deck for casual fun I didn't pick any of these archetypes.
I'm not going to pretend to know enough about the format to even have an informed opinion on these bannings, just my inherent dislike of anything getting banned ever. I'll leave the squabbling to people who more-or-less know what they're talking about.
Off-topic, but I like that Gifts Ungiven is off the Vintage restricted list. On the surface it foesn't seem particularly better or worse than Intuition, which is unrestricted.
January 19, 2015 12:32 p.m.
golffore297 spirit tokens and goblins. splash a little black in for a flashbacked Lingering Souls. You can probably do it without actually needing any creatures, however, Snapcaster Mage you might want.
January 19, 2015 12:34 p.m.
Ohthenoises says... #39
As an 8 rack player: YAY!
As a modern player who liked the variety of the format: Kinda sketchy wizards...
January 19, 2015 12:37 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #42
Yep. I ain't buyin' no Tarmogoyfs. I feel ya. Let's go play commander everyone, WotC obviously doesn't want people to compete in Modern anymore.
-
Ya know those crime shows where the mother seems at first to show nothing but love and respect for their child, but then she turns around and stabs it in the face with a fucking icicle spear? Yeah, that's pretty much what I feel WotC did to Modern.
January 19, 2015 12:45 p.m.
I know how you feel. I finished building pod YESTERDAY at the prerelease.
January 19, 2015 12:46 p.m.
ChiefBell I don't disagree, even pre-ban, Tron was a strong deck, and pretty much the reason there was such a thing as a tier 1.5. I just don't think it'll be winning GPs anytime soon.
January 19, 2015 12:49 p.m.
Nigeltastic says... #48
Wizards could start their own brand of potato chips with how much salt this announcement has generated.
January 19, 2015 12:52 p.m.
"..and Pod players everywhere breathed a collective sigh before sacrificing themselves to the pod in search of a bigger, better deck."
GlistenerAgent says... #1
Hold onto your Digs people, they've got eternal value.
Yeah, I'm pissed. At least I get to go back to the OG version of Scapeshift with cantrips out the wazoo.
January 19, 2015 11:36 a.m.