Modern Banned list
Modern forum
Posted on Jan. 14, 2015, 9:29 p.m. by bijschjdbcd
For those that didn't know, the next update for the Modern B&R List will be released on January 19th, What's everyone's predictions on what will be banned if anything, and if anything will be unbanned.
DRS doesn't help much with delve. It requires tapping and therefore can only exile one card per turn. The main decks that run treasure cruise can throw 5+ things into the graveyard every turn. The exile that DRS provides is like a single drop in the ocean to those decks. Scavenging Ooze actually exiles better than he does, but the mana cost is a problem. Everyone knew that DRS was not a problem against graveyard strategies from the time when both it was legal and Living End was a popular deck. In those games DRS couldn't keep up with the sheer volume of creatures that Living End threw in the GY. Likewise, it couldn't in this meta either. However, it would crush the slower decks that rely on Dig Through Time. They're not as oppressive though.
DRS won't be unbanned though. He's super oppressive - and I readily admit that even as a BG/x player.
Aaron Forscythe has already said that Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time will not be banned this time around, so that should be left out of the discussion.
The real question is what will be unbanned. Protip: not DRS.
January 15, 2015 3:50 a.m.
Rhino isn't a problem because the damage it does only hits players which isn't that much of a big deal. Bloodbraid Elf was banend because cascading into another creature or, god forbid, Liliana of the Veil just gave you way too much value and was able to seal wins on the spot. Siege Rhino is definitely weaker than Bloodbraid Elf.
ChiefWannaHacka - Ancestral Vision won't be unbanned if TCruise stays unbanned. The reason for this is that having 4 copies of a card that's really good is fine, but having 8 copies of that card is oppressive. For an analogy: if wizards printed another 1 mana spell that did 3 damage to a creature or player completely unconditionally (no downsides) it would probably be banned. Decks that could run 8 copies of Lightning Bolt would be super broken, in the same way that decks that could run 8 copies of a card that lets you draw 3 from 1 are broken. 4 copies is ok and balanced but raising the power level even further isn't. Sometimes you have to ban functional reprints just to stop consistency levels becoming ridiculous.
January 15, 2015 3:56 a.m.
JexInfinite says... #4
ChiefBell There has to be a way for Wizards to no make Abzan the default best B/G/x deck. Bloodbraid Elf uses a broken mechanic, even though it was DRS making the deck oppressive. I'm pretty sure that if BBE was unbanned, attrition based decks would become very oppressive again, so the only way to make the non-Abzan decks better is to print a new card which can fill the empty slot in modern, but isn't oppressive in standard.
The only thing I can see being unbanned at this point is GGT, and there will likely be no bans.
January 15, 2015 4:06 a.m.
Do we REALLY think that WotC wants us to have THAT much fun with Dredge again?
January 15, 2015 4:30 a.m.
JexInfinite says... #6
-MisterJ- We've only had fun with dredge because of broken enablers, of which GGT is not. Sure, Wizards hates dredge, but there is currently no reason for GGT to remain banned. It's sort of like when Wild Nacatl was banned. Nothing changed.
January 15, 2015 4:38 a.m.
Not really. That's like saying wizards also need to buff up Grixis control because it's underplayed when compared to Jeskai. They don't. Some colour combinations just aren't as effective as others, and that's the way that magic works. Not everything can be as good as everything else.
BGR has had its day, and BGW is more suited to the current meta. BGW isn't played more because it's all around the better deck it's played more because it's the better deck in this current meta. White gives access to lifegain, red doesn't. It's that simple. Siege Rhino, Kitchen Finks and others are too good to pass up.
BGR is actually a very different deck to BGW, and has two main flaws. 1) The manabase is extremely suicidal. A BGR deck wants to be capable of producing BB, GG, and RR on T3 to enable it to cast Courser of Kruphix, Liliana of the Veil or Anger of the Gods. The only way to do this is with one of each shockland (BR, BG, RG). This necessitates a very high number of fetchlands and shocklands which makes for a very painful manabase. If you compare this to current BGW deck you see that those decks are cutting back on shocks and fetches and are upping the number of basics. A suicidal manabase is not acceptable in this meta.
2) BGR has fewer attrition mechanics than BGW. White gives you access to Siege Rhino and persist on Kitchen Finks. Your creatures are resistant to removal and help you with lifegain. Red on the other hand gives you Lightning Bolt and Anger of the Gods. Whilst these are fantastic cards, they're minimally effective without support against aggro. Lightning Bolt is minimally effective when it's killing creatures that cost only 1 or 2 mana. The aggro deck can stabilise quickly and doesn't care. Anger of the Gods is fantastic but when you couple it with a poor manabase and the ability that most aggro decks have of winning without a board presence it becomes useless. By T3 it's reasonable to suggest that an aggro deck will have done over 8 damage to you. Couple that with around 5 damage from your own manabase, you're looking at about 75% of your health gone. Delver at this point is happy to Lightning Bolt or otherwise burn you. Anger of the Gods can't stop them. Affinity is happy to use Inkmoth Nexus. Anger of the Gods doesn't help. Other red decks are happy to burn you. Anger of the Gods doesn't help.
BGR is an outdated deck that's most effective against either fragile aggro decks (like zoo or perhaps tokens), and is also very good against midrange (due to midrange decks inability to stabilise quickly after a board wipe). In this current meta it is simply poorly suited to react to the plays that the opponent makes, and therefore it is not a successful archetype. Wizards have no obligation to make all decks as effective as each other. That's how competitive magic works - things come and go. BGR has gone for now. It might come back, it might not. But what we certainly mustn't do is force it back with artificial bannings and other manipulation.
January 15, 2015 4:40 a.m.
That comment was in reference to the idea that wizards need to supprot BGR. My argument is that BGR is just naturally in a poor position, and basically; they don't.
January 15, 2015 4:41 a.m.
With GGT unbanned we might actually have a chance at a decent Dredge deck though... It would be rough around the edges for a while, but I think it could be done.
January 15, 2015 4:41 a.m.
I don't think GGT will come back or dredge at all. I see shenanigans between delve and dredge. GGT basically says 'dredge almost free Treasure Cruise'. That could perhaps become oppressive. I mean, obviously that's just speculation - but it would be fairly strong. Although considering GGT is a 5-drop maybe not. It's worth thinking about though.
I'm not a fan of putting a 5-drop into the meta that basically never dies - it only gets bigger. Between dredge and having regenerate, that card is really stupid. I'm wary of it.
January 15, 2015 4:48 a.m.
GGT being unbanned would help pod more than rock decks. Pod plays more creatures - way fewer instants and sorceries. GGT only counts creatures. Pod can also easily find it with, you know, Birthing Pod. I think GGT would help rock a bit but pod way too much.
Sorry for multiposting. Things are coming to me after I post.
January 15, 2015 4:50 a.m.
nutellaisgreaterthanlife says... #12
My friend is convinced that Ancestral Vision will be unbanned
January 15, 2015 6:17 a.m.
I personally would love to see BBE unbanned. It'd give a much needed boost to GR/ BGR strategies that have fallen out of favor. But i dont think it'd put them over the top.
January 15, 2015 7:31 a.m.
My god, this was just posted last night. I will not comment on this any more. Were just a few days away from it happening, so everyone should probably shut up, settle the steers, and just wait n see.
Or we could squeeze in like 82370512984741023987450 more threads on this topic before it actually happens, and we can all post on all of them about how Tomcruise needs to get on his boat and leave.
January 15, 2015 7:44 a.m.
Some people like to postulate bro lol go grab your popcorn
January 15, 2015 7:54 a.m.
This ones about the banlist in general, not just TC. It's more tolerable than old ones.
January 15, 2015 8:25 a.m.
Agreed, ChiefBell... What about Mental Misstep? It seems like a great anti-delver card... Of course, would this make delver too good?
January 15, 2015 10:15 a.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #18
Mental Misstep will never be unbanned in Modern... ever.
January 15, 2015 10:17 a.m.
JexInfinite says... #20
Golgari Grave-Troll + Treasure Cruise is a nonbo, but I definitely did not think about it in pod. That could be very scary very quickly, especially with a Reveillark.
One thing that Wizards dislikes is removing decks from the format. As you said, Jund and Abzan are different decks. Even when Jund was oppressive, Abzan was still a thing, but it was more White Jund than what it is now. I do still see potential for Jund with Fulminator Mage and its hybrid cost, but that potential is poor compared to the array of great Abyan cards.
One of the reasons Wizards doesn't want to ban Cruise is because then Delver will be a T2 deck again. They don't want that. They like variety of T1 decks, and they like Magic to be fun for everyone.
January 15, 2015 10:30 a.m.
MagicalHacker says... #21
Honestly, I feel like modern has too big of a banlist. When it's this big, you have to wonder if some of the cards, if unbanned, would add more variety now that new cards with their respective power are available.
I'm not going to pretend that I'm very knowledgable about modern, but by banning lots of cards, you bottleneck the players into needing specifically powerful cards to win, which drives the prices even higher. I will be happier the more cards they unban.
I know they won't unban Mental Misstep, Sensei's Divining Top, or Skullclamp, but they need to trim this unsightly beast called the banlist.
January 15, 2015 11:56 a.m.
ChiefWannaHacka says... #22
@ChiefBell MY reasoning for unbanning BBE and Ancestral Vision are not because we need Jund to come back in to flavor. WoTC has stated they want a diverse meta with about 3-4 options of decks per archetype. Currently under the midrange archetype you can either play Abzan, Pod, or nothing. This is due to the power of Siege Rhino. Hell Siege Rhino is even being played in Zoo decks. Bloodbraid Elf offers an alternative 4 drop for midrange and Zoo decks, that offers different value from Siege Rhino by giving you another card and a smaller more aggressive body. It opens up the midrange archetype for Jund or maybe even Temur variants.
Ancestral Vision also fills a different role than Treasure Cruise. The suspend is too costly for Delver decks, as time is the thing they are trying to take away from you. Treasure Cruise is efficient in the same way Tarmogoyf is, it takes little investment in deckbuilding to make it a great card. By virtue of playing the game it will cost 1 mana. Does Delver play crappy cards like Thoughtscour now? Sure, but they don't necessarily need to. Vision would theoretically open up control decks, by giving them a low cost draw 3. They want the game to go long anyway so time is no issue to them.
January 15, 2015 12:03 p.m.
The problem is really that wizards makes mistakes and prints cards that are too powerful. Theyve made multiple statements saying that they only design cards for standard and therefore sometimes when they make it to modern they are oppressive - because wizards doesn't design for modern at all. The banlist will only grow - and that's not necessarily a bad thing. In many respects if the banlist wasn't there the meta would contain fewer decks, not more. I think the banlist actually encourages variety by essentially making it so that not everyone is playing esper deathblade and skullclamp elves.
January 15, 2015 12:03 p.m.
ChiefWannaHacka - but then control decks get 8 cards that draw you 3 cards for 1 mana. That's problematic. It might not affect delver tempo but it sure does affect jeskai control.
I can understand why you want BBE unbanned, it does make sense. It's just that it's too good. It gives you way too much value for 4 mana and is pretty stifling for other decks. Ive tested decks out with him and it does become a case of casting bloodbraid elf and either instantly winning OR completely flipping the game from being not in your favor at all to even. She's/he/it is very, very good. Perhaps too good. If she had an ETB instead she'd be pretty crap actually, but it's just the fact that you put her in with liliana and suddenly you have this really degenerate interaction.
January 15, 2015 12:07 p.m.
Mental Misstep was very good in legacy's meta, but would certainly be less good in modern than in legacy.
January 15, 2015 1:28 p.m.
JexInfinite says... #27
ChiefBell The banlist attempts to promote variety, but a lot of cards brought more variety once removed, like Bitterblossom and Wild Nacatl. We need more options per archetype, so the BBE argument has at least some validity. Even with BBE, Jund would still drive itself into the ground in terms of life, making what would be oppression into a winnable state.
I see the BBE into Liliana as the only real danger of BBE being unbanned, and I don't think it would be as bad as we think. Like Cruise, we would just have to adapt by playing good cards like Loxodon Smiter more. BBE -> Liliana is not necessarily the most likely thing to happen, as you could hit Abrupt Decay, Bolt, Thoughtseize or Tarmogoyf. Actually, now that I've written that down, it does sound really broken.
Ok, I agree, BBE is good, even though Jund would lose to aggro decks. If it were unbanned, I wouldn't be unhappy, because it would make more decks playable. Jund has the fatal flaw of dying to early damage, whereas Abzan will basically last forever. Having a risk/reward deck in the format would make it spicy.
Sam_I_am, in legacy, basically every deck ran Mental Misstep to counter the opponent's Mental Misstep. No matter how you interpret that, it's really bad and unhealthy play environment.
January 15, 2015 2:43 p.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #28
It also gave every single color combo access to counter magic. Bad news bears.
January 15, 2015 2:47 p.m.
bijschjdbcd says... #29
An interesting point Jeff Hoogland made, Unban SFM and ban Batterskull.
January 16, 2015 8:40 a.m.
That would make control decks pretty clunky and bad, which is the last thing we need. Jeskai control for example is nonexistent. It would also wipe out most hopes of running grixis control. Batterskull in many respects is good for the meta because its a creature that all control decks can run to stabilise but also isn't impossibly hard to remove (difficult yes but not impossible).
January 16, 2015 8:44 a.m.
bijschjdbcd says... #31
I'm not sure if I agree, But it was very interesting as he suggested the possibility of a Esper Stone Blade deck which sounds interesting.
January 16, 2015 8:59 a.m.
That would be quite interesting but perhaps somewhat degenerate.
I feel that the problem with that (running SFM instead of batterskull) for real control decks is that SFM isn't a wincon on her own; she has to go and fetch a wincon. Pure control decks don't want to waste any more slots on wincons than is necessary. This is why you'll typically see 1-2 Keranos, God of Storms and 1-2 Batterskull. If they had to run Keranos as a wincon and then SFM AND then on top of that equipment to give to her it would become a lot harder. All SFM is is an equipment tutor. A really powerful equipment tutor. She doesn't do enough on her own to be worth including in a pure control deck that only wants to run counterspells etc. Without batterskull things would get very hard for them.
January 16, 2015 9:40 a.m.
@JexInfinite
You can't assume that Mental Misstep or any other card will warp other formats if it warped legacy.
If you want a prime example of this, consider the card Mental Misstep
Mental Misstep was also played in almost every deck in legacy, exactly as much as Mental Misstep was.
However, Mental Misstep only saw fringe play in standard. Even after it was banned in legacy(and not standard). It wasn't as significant in standard because standard wasn't so based on 1 mana cards.
January 16, 2015 3:29 p.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #34
There are quite a few cards I would be inclined to agree with you on... that is not one of them.
January 16, 2015 3:43 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #35
@Sam_I_am Nah, but literally everyone would play Mental Misstep in Modern. It makes Affinity a nearly unplayable deck, and in general reduces the diversity of reasonable aggressive decks available to players.
Dammit, I got myself involved in this thread again.
January 16, 2015 4:08 p.m.
selesvyaloverer8 says... #36
literally every deck in modern plays 1 drops and being able to counter ur opponent's first play for free with Mental Misstep is busted. furthermore, 1 drop spells like Path to Exile, Serum Visions, Thoughtseize, Delver of Secrets Flip, etc. are played throughout the game and being able to counter these crucial spells for free is not something that wizards wants in modern. also Mental Misstep would have to be an auto 4-of in any deck with a 1-drop which as previously stated is all of them. Wizards does not want a card like that. They also dont want the nut open of Delver of Secrets Flip, countered with mms, countered with mms, countered with mms, countered with mms, countered with mms, countered with mms, countered with mms, countered with mms, pass turn both players are at 12
January 16, 2015 4:21 p.m.
ChiefWannaHacka says... #37
@selesvyaloverer8 If both players kept a hand with 4 mental misstep, we have a different problem lol.
January 16, 2015 5:50 p.m.
whiledpayne says... #38
i dont see whats wrong with treasure cruise to make it worth being banned. by turn 3 or 4 is about the time you can cast it and by then the board is getting set so alot of what you draw will be retaliation
January 16, 2015 10:47 p.m.
bijschjdbcd says... #39
Surprisingly no one has suggested that it even needs to be banned yet.
January 17, 2015 12:59 a.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #40
So I'm not going to touch the Mental Misstep in logic that was applied to the notion of unbanning Mental Misstep.
Anyway, I personally don't see anything changing. I'm always "watch and wait". Right now I don't see anything that needs a ban or an unban. Really, if I had to stretch it I wouldn't be completely surprised if Sword of the Meek was unbanned. But that's stretching the limits of my imagination.
January 17, 2015 1 a.m.
Hjaltrohir says... #41
I agree with @CanadianShinobi, I am not sure wizards are actually going to ban/unban anything.
January 17, 2015 2:13 a.m.
bijschjdbcd says... #42
I recall them stating that they don't like banning cards so I feel Cruise is of the table.
Is the banned list up for assessment on a schedule? Or do they only make announcements when something warrants it.
January 17, 2015 2:24 a.m.
julianjmoss says... #45
I feel like they may unban one or two cards as they could justifiably unban a few but doubt they will or need to ban anything
January 18, 2015 2:25 a.m.
So to the people who want Bloodbraid Elf and Ancestral Vision unbanned: What happens when someone starts playing RUG with the both of them in it and someone Cascades into Visions?
January 18, 2015 5:48 a.m.
bijschjdbcd says... #47
Seems worse than Cascading into Liliana of the Veil.
January 18, 2015 6:12 a.m.
Both are ouch.
Honestly BBElf is just insane; there is no way she should be unbanned. The prospective value you can get is so huge it would likely make Jund automatically the strongest midrange deck.
January 18, 2015 6:19 a.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #49
If you leave Visions out and bring BBE back, Jund would see a resurgence but would certainly still be beatable. Jund was still dominant when the banned Bloodbraid Elf, which probably means that Deathrite Shaman was the real problem. I think it would be fine, but I'm not sure if I'm on board yet.
January 18, 2015 8:05 a.m.
SpartanCEL says... #50
Bloodbraid Elf is unbanned it doesn't do what they wanted drastically enough
cheers and sobs
Skullclamp is unbanned
Prices goes from 2$ to 200$
bijschjdbcd says... #1
Level the playing field? As in make everything nice and even or demolish it? I honestly have no idea.
January 15, 2015 2:22 a.m.