Modern Banned List

[kiblast]

Modern definitely has similar tiers, in that there's a tier 1, tier 1.5, then a swath of tier 2/3 decks. I really don't know what you're talking about when you say that Modern is nothing but "confusional, weird decks".

Well that's the way it is. I've seen small to medium sized tournaments won by Mill, mono blue turbo fog, Zur the Enchanter Auras, Unexpected Results.deck. How often do you see Enchantress or White Stax taking down a legacy tournament? Never. Modern is an undefined format mainly composed by a huge variety of fringe decks.

And you're advocating for "less strategies"?!? I thought the common complaint about Modern is that there aren't enough strategies, but you would have them unban cards to foster an environment where there are "less strategies"? Wow.

I've seen and heard the exact opposite. Everybody sees Modern as the format where everything is possible, where you can sleeve up your rogue homebrew and still have a decent shot- and this is happening all the time. All I'm advocating for is a more stable format, where there is a limited number of good decks and all I have to study and understand are the match ups between 3 or 4 major forces and few more other contestants. Not 45 different possible strategies. Probably I didn't express myself clearly.

[Arsenal]

Well that's the way it is. I've seen medium sized tournaments won by Mill, mono blue turbo fog, Zur the Enchanter Auras. How often do you see Enchantress or White Stax taking down a legacy tournament? Never.

I've looked at recent PTQ, PT, GPT, GP results for Modern and I do not see what you're talking about.

EDIT: Here's the listing of all winning Modern decks for tourneys that are 33+ players from Jan 1st through July 30th: http://tcdecks.net/busqueda.php?toke...ide=&strict=on

From that, there's exactly 1 Mill deck that won a 115 man tourney, but if you look at the rest of that Top 8, you'll see all 7 other decks are in the tier 1/1.5 category. I don't agree with you that this type of thing is "happening all of the time", the results clearly prove that you're wrong.

For fun, here's the same search, but for Legacy: http://tcdecks.net/busqueda.php?toke...ide=&strict=on

What's that I see? A Food Chain deck won a 72 man tourney? Oops All Spells took down a 92 man tourney? OMFG, this must be happening all of the time!!!!!

I've seen and heard the exact opposite. Everybody sees Modern as the format where everything is possible, where you can sleeve up your rogue homebrew and still have a decent shot- and this is happening all the time. All I'm advocating for is a more stable format, where there is a limited number of good decks and all I have to study and understand are the match ups versus between 3 or 4 major forces and few more other contestants. Not 45 different possible strategies. Probably I didn't express myself clearly.

This is not happening all of the time. Maybe at the local FNM level a deck like Millstone can win, but certainly not at the PTQ, PT, GPT, GP and even SCG's new Premier IQ series level. And there is a defined tier 1, tier 1.5, and tier 2/3 in Modern. You do have to focus on the 5 major decks (Twin variants, UWR variants, Pod variants, BGx variants, Affinity) and be aware of a few others (Tron, Storm, etc)... you definitely aren't studying 45 different decks as not all 45 decks are on the same level of competitiveness.

[Megadeus]

Even if that were the case, I don't see the problem. What's the issue with weird rogue strategies actually being playable? Like how is it possibly a bad thing if I can slap together a combination of cards that no-one has seen before and actually win a small tournament?

[bakofried]

I would like to know why Jace and/or Ancestral Visions would be too good for modern. Control decks aren't represented as an independent archetype: instead you have RUG Scapeshift, Twin Variants, and occasionally tron utilizing blue control elements, but only so long as it's ending in a combo finish. For instance - remand is an amazing card because it serves as protection/tempo. If proper control decks had an endgame, I believe more of them would play Rune Snag/Mana Leak.

Again, this is all coming from someone who plays exclusively with Savannahs at this point. I'm not a brainstorm thumper, I just think it'd be healthy to have a bit more archetypal diversity.

[kiblast]

Prrobably my point of view is flawed because it comes from local tournaments.But still I see a much greater variance in Modern vs Legacy.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Well that's the way it is. I've seen small to medium sized tournaments won by Mill, mono blue turbo fog, Zur the Enchanter Auras, Unexpected Results.deck. How often do you see Enchantress or White Stax taking down a legacy tournament? Never. Modern is an undefined format mainly composed by a huge variety of fringe decks.

Looks like I've finally made it!

Hi mom!!!

[Lord Seth]

Legacy is a diverse format. You have 3-4 established tier 1 decks, some highly competitive tier 1.5 decks and a shitload of semi competitive tier 2 decks. Modern is not diverse, modern is a confusional wild bunch of weird decks, and some tier 1.5 decks. You might think that not having tiers 1 in a format would be a good reason for calling that format diverse; but it's not. It's a good reason for calling that format a fucking mess. I say they should unban a lot of things, except the most degenerate ones such as Deathrite (because it is an automatic 4of in any deck, even burn was splashing black for it, obviously the reason was not bump in the night) or controversial ones such as Top. They should probably turn modern more into a ''legacy lite'' style.
The reason is that if you have strong (not broken, just the stronger modern-unbanwhorty-tools legacy has to offer) the format becomes more competitive, because less strategies become viable due to the presence of ''police cards'' that punish bad decks. Stoneforge could be an example.

Um... thing is, your description of Legacy, "3-4 established tier 1 decks, some highly competitive tier 1.5 decks and a shitload of semi competitive tier 2 decks," applies to Modern as well.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Alright I didn't want to have to do this, but maybe I should steer discussion towards non-bitching. GP Boston happened last weekend, with a top 8 that included 2 Junk, 1 Jund, 2 Affinity, 2 Infect and 1 Blue Moon.

Let's start out by saying clearly junk/jund is a deck (obvious for most non-me people). Here's the breakdown of the day 2 metagame:
Birthing Pod - 32
Affinity - 26
Splinter Twin Decks:
Basic Blue-Red - 21
Tarmo-Twin - 10
Splashing White - 4
Rock Decks:
Whiterock - 20
Classic Jund - 16
Straight Black-Green - 10
Blue-White-Red decks:
Without Geist of Saint Traft - 12
With Geist of Saint Traft - 10
Scapeshift - 22
Burn - 20
Tron - 12 (I think 11 GR, 1 Mono U)
RUG - 6
Delver/Young Pyromancer - 6
Merfolk - 5
Bogles - 5
Living End - 4
Infect - 4 (!)
Other- 33

And undefeated day 1 decks include:
Burn
Junk
Living End
martyr Life
2 Melira pod

It's really hard to find top 16 lists, but I heard somewhere that 2 pod made it there but not to top 8 due to tiebreakers.

Anyway, first off 2 of the 4 Infect decks that made day 2 were in the top 8, which suggests that deck is either in a really good position in today's metagame or some fluke happened. UR storm is apparently no longer a deck, and Tron has significantly declined (although people still sideboard a lot for it). Other than the resurgence of Infect and GBx strategies doing better than average, not too many things have changed.

[Lord Seth]

There was also a BUG Infect and a Monoblue Tron deck that went undefeated on Day 1.

By the way, I hate the way they did the metagame breakdown. They gave no distinction between the different kind of Pod or Tron decks, and they didn't bother to give you a complete list of the "Rogues Corners" decks and how many copies there were.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Agreed, I can't understand why there isn't a top 16 listed. Also, the new interface of listing the top 8 one by one is just terrible. They don't even give you a list of archetypes, you have to physically click each person's name to see their list (which isn't even accompanied by something that tells you how they finished in the top 8). Just complete horse shit, like only WotC could do with anything online.

It does mention that something like "most" of the tron decks were GR and one person had a Mono U.

[Arsenal]

When I think of the top tier in Modern (consistently winning tourneys), I am focusing on the following:

* Affinity

* Twin variants (RUG, UR, Turbo even)

* BGx variants (Rock, Jund, Junk)

* Pod variants (Kiki, Melira, Angel even)

* UWR variants (Control, Geist Midrange, Resto-Kiki)

Then there is a tier 1.5 class where Scapeshift, Tron, Storm exist. The decks in tier 1 and tier 1.5 sometimes will interchange depending on the ebb and flow of the meta (ie., Scapeshift may become tier 1, or Storm will become tier 1 while Twin slides down into tier 1.5, etc). Seeing one of these decks taking 1st isn't a big surprise at all.

After that, there is a tier 2 class where Living End, Ad Nauseam, Faeries, Infect, Boggles, Zoo, GW Hatebears, Burn, Tokens, etc exist. These decks tend to remain in tier 2 regardless of meta shifts as they lack a substantial amount of xxxx (consistency, power, whatever) to compete with tier 1 and tier 1.5 decks on a regular basis. You may see these decks take 1st at a tourney, but this is a rare occurrence indeed.

Then you have random rogue decks that are difficult to label and quantify due to it's very nature as a surprise, rogue strategy.

[YamiJoey]

How can you "laugh in (someone's) general direction" and then proceed to say that Sword of the meek is better than Jace?

People who want Jace unbanned: People who don't read text.

You don't make a deck good by unbanning the single most powerful card printed for that deck probably ever. (I didn't play the very old versions of a deck.)

LSV(?) recently wrote that Affinity, Twin, BG, and Pod are the T1 decks, and I see no reason to add UWR to that list any time soon. It's good, but just good. I think Infect is creeping up in both popularity, and position in the format. It's doing well every time I see it, even when the list isn't even great.

[bakofried]

See, you keep saying that, but you never say why.

[Arsenal]

Meh, UWR variants could be in tier 1.5 I suppose, but based off these results (2-7-14 through today): http://tcdecks.net/busqueda.php?toke...ide=&strict=on, I would personally include it in tier 1. It had a 1st place finish at PT Valencia, 3 decks in the top 8 of GP Minneapolis, and numerous top 8 finishes in many PTQs.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Pretty good article by Jeff Hoogland on why he's giving up Legacy for Modern. Great points in general about deck choice too (play the best thing, stop fooling yourself with worse decks).

[Arsenal]

bakofried -

Those cards may one day be unbanned in Modern, who knows. I'd say of those two cards, Ancestral Vision would be more likely to be unbanned first (if at all). A lot of the cards that are currently banned have ALWAYS been banned as they either were "inherited" from the Extended banned list, or were just banned from the jump.

Some cards are banned due to how dominant they were in their respective Standard environments. Although it's been shown that Modern likely can handle the unbanning of such a card (ie. Bitterblossom), I think Wizards is playing it safe and really paying attention to Modern's health. Having [INSERT BANNED CARD HERE] in Modern may do nothing, or it could push an established deck into the forefront, or it could prove to be completely busted in any deck able to support it. Who knows? Not me.

What I do know is that they've shown that they're willing to unbans cards, and they've been right for the most part. Unbanning Valakut, Wild Nacatl, and Bitterblossom hasn't broken the format, only added to it. I personally like that there is obvious attention paid to Modern unlike other formats that essentially have been left on their own to wither and die.

I personally believe Ancestral Vision would be fine to unban, but Jace may be a touch over the power level that they want Modern to have.

[Timber]

And undefeated day 1 decks include:
Burn
Junk
Living End
martyr Life
2 Melira pod

Isn't this what defines a tier 1 and tier 2 deck? Tier 1 decks put up consistent results on day 2 of GPs and Pro Tours. Tier 2 decks go undefeated day 1, but fizzle when they face a full gauntlet of the best decks with the best pilots on day 2.

[Timber]

It makes me a little sad that Birthing Pod didn't get any of its strategies hurt. Being able to throw in silver bullet answers is one of the reasons green sun's zenith got banned, it made it the overwhelmingly powerful strategy so that other midrange decks didn't have a reason not to also go that strategy. Also, having 2 card combos that do infinite damage allows the deck a quick avenue to beat stuff that can stop its midrange plan without diluting your deck too much makes it impossible to stop with just one strategy.

Honestly the best thing you can do to beat it is not care about it and just combo out yourself (splinter twin) or try to kill them in the first 2-3 turns before they can get their advantage going (affinity), but this has left modern in a pretty crappy place right now. Affinity is like the dragon stompy of legacy, where variance will bury you or allow you one to two big tournament wins.

I think the problem is pod isn't played enough for people to see why it's the reason for modern being a "slow combo" format. Even though it is the most played deck in the format, it doesn't necessarily comprise the majority of the top 8's (2/8 in that case, but 7 of the top 16 lists). The problem is that the card advantage it buries you under (if you don't just ignore it and combo yourself, like Scapeshift + Twin) makes it impossible for regular midrange style decks to handle in time to kill you. Only a single BGx list made top 8, 2 in the top 16.

To stop Pod without a combo, you have to go the UWR control strategy with upwards of 15 removal and additional countermagic.

I do think the deck is oppressive and banworthy. The worst thing is their ability to cast a turn 2 Birthing pod relatively easily, which makes it near uncounterable and being an artifact is almost impossible to kill. If they print an Abrupt Decay that hits 4 cmc cards or some better removal for artifacts that doesn't just suck without being in your deck, maybe pod would be more handle-able, but as it stands it's just too good.

Anyway, rant aside, the best card to fight that deck right now is Aven Mindcensor and hoping that they don't draw an abrupt decay. Aside from that I'm having fun with Damping Matrix, which also conveniently gets hit by Abrupt Decay (like Grafdigger's cage, Stony Silence, Rest in Peace, and just about every other card you'd hope would shut their strategy down).

I agree with most, if not all, of this. Regardless of how slow birthing pod is (compared to say survival) its still a repeatable source of tutoring. The "drawback" of sacrificing a creature is an obnoxious argument, along with the drawback of using it only on your turn. Repeatable tutoring is repeatable tutoring, and I feel its oppressive.

I second this. In my experience playing against Pod, I can handle 2-3 of the deck's threats, but several tutor-able cards can replace all that work I did very easily. Inexpensive, instant-speed tutoring in response to removal, available every turn is oppressive.

[Timber]

If nothing else, I'd like to see modern blue based control deck that has an endgame not reliant on some sort of combo kill. I don't quite feel that UWR Midrange satisfies that niche.

Celestial Colonnade, Restoration Angel, and Gideon Jura aren't enough? Shaun Mclaren added the Kiki combo to his deck after he won PT Born of the Gods.

[YamiJoey]

I second this. In my experience playing against Pod, I can handle 2-3 of the deck's threats, but several tutor-able cards can replace all that work I did very easily. Inexpensive, instant-speed tutoring in response to removal, available every turn is oppressive.

But that's not what it is. You have to spend the full mana to cast the Creature you're finding, plus a Green Phyrexian, plus the 3(G/p) to get Pod onto the table, plus keep the Pod around to untap, and then you can go and find your good cards, provided you have the correct card to use to go and get your good card. It's a super-powered Transmute. Pod is a full archetype that is not consistently putting up oppressive results, it is just a very powerful deck. It's like saying we should ban Chalice in Legacy.

The UWR control deck is very sketchy, and rarely a viable deck-choice.