Modern Banned List

[Lord Seth]

You say Nacatl wasn't banned because it was too good, then go on to give reasons why it was too good.

No, I gave reasons why it was good and why it wasn't just good, it was actually warping the format.

Admittedly, perhaps we are operating under different definitions of "too good." To me, "too good" means it's just flat-out too powerful. A card can be good but not "too good" but restricts archetypes and thus needs to be banned.

Regardless, the point is, it isn't just power alone that got it banned. Thus trying to appeal to Delver on that basis is ignoring the reason it was banned, because the other reasons don't apply to Delver of Secrets.

Players were forced into Zoo because the best creature fits perfectly into it. Yes, this hurts diversity because you can follow up the best 1-drop with the best 2-drop or 2 more 1-drops and ride them to victory while holding Bolt/Path/Helix to clean up blockers and life total. That fact is--it restricted the diversity of the format because it was too good.

All right, this is pretty similar to what I said...

Delver has efficiently jumped into the driver's seat and may eventually be as oppressive as Nacatl.

Those are some pretty key words there, and again a major thing that separates them. Wild Nacatl was oppressive and warping. Delver of Secrets is just a really good card. In other words, you're agreeing with me.

Again, if someone thinks that Wild Nacatl wasn't really that warping or didn't deserve banning, that's one thing. But, again, trying to make the Delver of Secrets comparison is just missing a key reason it was banned.

[Fizzeler]

Not exactly what it was supposed to do for the decks that needed it. It could swing past everything but Mutavault, which was good. At least until they chumped with Mutavault then flashed in Scion and killed the Stag. I played UB Faeries during that Standard.

As far as the B&R list goes, I think Visions can probably come off but Bitterblossom can never be unbanned. Ever.

I kinda agree, maybe if there were better hard counters available Bitterblossom would be safe, but Spell Snare and Spell Pierce do see quite a bit of play, on the flip side Bitterblossom does just out tempo your opponent fairly quickly

I would argue unbanning Sword Of The Meek for reasons such as the combo being slow, disruptable, and harder to tutor for, the combo also gives control decks a viable win condition and helps them stabilize

Ponder/Preordain were banned because of combo decks, look at the format before those cards (and Rite Of Flame) were banned

Blame Sam Black for getting Blazing Shoal banned

[DragoFireheart]

4. I think it's terrible that a GR deck has the most inevitability in Modern. Tron is very tough to interact with, very fast (T3 Karn being about as fast as it gets) and goes bigger than any fair deck can hope to go. In my opinion, this warps the format. They banned Cloudpost earlier because of this, but Tron stays? This fact along with #3 above wipe Control as an archetype right out of the format, basically making Modern a bunch of decks that turn creatures sideways, and a random assortment of combo/combo-ish decks that attempt to race them. That's boring as hell. I love that Magic provides players a huge number of ways to express themselves, but to me, Modern lacks this.

Perhaps it's just me, but the above list really reduces my interest in the format by a lot.

- You're kidding, right?

Show me the number of Tier 1 Legacy decks that win without turning a creature sideways.

[TonyRo]

No need to get so fired up. Perhaps I should rephrase:

When I look at the top decks, or even popular decks in Legacy, there are a very large number of decks that have incredible identity to them. The decks resonate with me, and all of them are very interesting. The mana denial and card advantage engines in Goblins, turn two Griselbrands, Show and Tell/Omniscience, the CounterTop engine with Miracles or Thopters, BUG Control grinding people out with Liliana/Jace/Life From the Loam/Deed, Dredge being....Dredge.

Yes, Dredge, Goblins, Reanimator, and possibly Miracles win by turning creatures sideways, but it doesn't feel boring like Modern does. Maybe it's just me, but Modern feels like a powerful standard environment, like it's Delver vs. Zombies every game. The lack of grindy control decks feels weird to me as well.

That's all I meant.

[JDK]

Yeah, Show and Tell, Dredge and miracling are super interesting...right. It seems you didn't even take a closer look at Modern and mentioning some of the most boring and straight-forwarded decks in legacy makes this even more weird.

The DTBs are pretty diverse (Jund, Tron, RUG, UWR, Storm, Affinity). Some of the decks are similar to legacy decks, like Splinter Twin / Tron and SnT (2-Card Combo, cheating fatties in play), Storm and, well, Storm etc.

Of course the format is more limited than Legacy. That is the fucking idea behind it, which makes it more accessible, while still enabling decks with "identity" (as you put it).

[TonyRo]

I've played the format extensively - I have (or have had depending on the list) a very large # of the decks built on MODO, including RUG & UWR Delver, UW Tron, Storm, Loam, Tezzerator, Soul Sisters, and so forth. This is a discussion about the banned list, which was how my post started. Everyone is going to have an opinion on the format and the decks that are in it. I don't find Jund, Tron, or any of the Delver lists interesting, and I'm not going to take that back. You apparently do, and that's okay with me too - an opinion is an opinion.

BTW, a deck can be straightforward but can still be interesting and have identity. I think most great Dredge players would ardently disagree that it's an easy deck to play. I'll concede that Show and Tell probably isn't the hardest combo deck to play. I simply chose a few of the decks in Legacy that I thought were the best. I've played Reanimator, Elves, Goblins, UWr Miracles and BUG Control on MODO quite a bit, and I don't find any of them particularly boring - maaayyybe Goblins.

Let's let this rest - sorry to upset a few people here with my comments, that wasn't the idea. I mostly just wanted to talk about the bullet points in my original post. I'll refrain from any further opinions on anything here, as apparently Modern is a particularly touchy subject!

[DragoFireheart]

- I'm not upset at you. That's just the way I argue (aggressively). If i was upset at you, you'd see MANY more profanities.

BTW, a deck can be straightforward but can still be interesting and have identity. I think most great Dredge players would ardently disagree that it's an easy deck to play. I'll concede that Show and Tell probably isn't the hardest combo deck to play. I simply chose a few of the decks in Legacy that I thought were the best. I've played Reanimator, Elves, Goblins, UWr Miracles and BUG Control on MODO quite a bit, and I don't find any of them particularly boring - maaayyybe Goblins.

Let's let this rest - sorry to upset a few people here with my comments, that wasn't the idea. I mostly just wanted to talk about the bullet points in my original post. I'll refrain from any further opinions on anything here, as apparently Modern is a particularly touchy subject!

- You keep using that word, but it seems meaningless to me.

Other than decks like Storm and Dredge, I see a lot of deck crossover from Legacy to Modern. I do agree with you on one point: Control in modern is shit and the control archtype as a whole is too weak.

[TonyRo]

Yeah, perhaps the word is vague to those not in my head. I mostly just mean that when I see those decks, they feel unique to me, like they're doing special things no other deck does - they feel interesting and awesome. UWR, RUG Delver, Jund, MonoRed, the UW Midrange decks - that's a large portion of Modern, and they don't feel special to me - they're all basically just list with a bunch of sweet creatures that beat down. It all feels mostly interchangeable. That's just my perception, my opinion. I understand that Jund fans would take offense to that, I just don't get excited by any of those options. Modern missing Control is also a big miss for me, as I love the Rock Paper Scissors type feel of Legacy's metagame, which Modern lacks. This is a separate topic, but while we're there, in my opinion Control is missing for a few reasons:

1. Filtering and card draw in Modern is garbage.

2. Jace and Sword of the Meek (this is more niche of course, but in Extended UW Gifts/Tezzeret the Seeker decks were quite good if I recall) are banned.

3. It's impossible to beat Tron with any Control deck that people are trying these days. Perhaps Grixis has a chance with Thoughtseize, Counterspells, and Sowing Salts, but you're still likely fighting for only games 2 & 3. I don't think I've seen more lopsided games of MTG than a deck like Gifts or Mystical Teachings of any sort vs. GR Tron. It's just completely unwinnable - it's just way to hard to interact, and Tron has the inevitability. Mystical Teachings/Gifts decks can't switch roles to be the beatdown all that easily.

[heathen]

Guys, remember that Modern is still a fairly new format. There are new, innovative decks still being brewed. Just because there isn't a top-shelf control deck at the moment doesn't mean it won't/can't be created.

Also, GR Tron isn't that good. Even if you end up playing for games two and three against them, that's the way it is against Dredge for a lot of decks in Legacy. GR Tron is "doing special things no other deck does" in Modern, like casting a turn three Karn. Kinda' like how Dredge does "special" things no other Legacy deck does.

I'm confident there is a good, competitive control deck possible in Modern. It may just not be popular yet, or it may be in a form that doesn't fit what you expect.

[JDK]

Just because you reduce Modern and its decks to "tapping creatures sideways" doesn't make them less unique or give them little "identity".
Your posts seem like rants about how Tron is mean because you think your control MU sucks (guess what, there are unbeatable MU with almost any competitive deck in any format) and how Modern decks are all the same (if they don't have an identity, they must feel the same, right?).

I just don't get your point. You don't like the format. That's okay, but "lack of control decks" was the only reasonable argument for that. The rest was just "I don't like it, because...it's not special to me". If your message was to unban Ancestral Visions and Ponder/Preordain, I can just scratch my head, because it would make some decks pretty much unbeatable.

Sorry, if this sounds aggressive, but that's like posting into the Legacy B&R thread about how broken Goblins are and that you want Ancestral Recall back, because your Miracle MU sucks.

[TonyRo]

To me, it does. I've repeatedly stated it's my opinion - relax. People play the game for all different reasons, and I was stating mine. I'm going to leave it at that, as this is a Banned List discussion. My post started off that way, but we've veered way off. Let's call it quits.

[Mr. Safety]

I think the banned list is decent right now, but not perfect. The format is still growing despite the banned list, which means its probably ok to leave it alone for a little while.

I've been thinking about the lack of viable control decks in modern, and I think I have the answer:

1) In the absence of good permission and filter cards, control by neccessity must become a tap-out type of control. High-cost, high-impact control bombs need to be a focus. This is why U/W Tron is such a great deck in modern.

2) Be patient...the dig spells from recent sets has been really bad (the best ones being Grisly Salvage and Forbidden Alchemy.) I am hopeful, possibly overly optimistic, for a decent dig spell for modern that costs 2 mana in the next couple of Return to Ravnica sets.

3) Gifts Ungiven is still one of the best engines in modern, easily replacing the lack of decent filter spells (for now.) Gifts will only get BETTER with decent dig spells.

In a nutshell, if you want to play control in modern, sleeve up some mana acceleration and bombs. If you run into the tempo decks (U/R/W Delver et al) sideboard Spell Pierce or Mana Leak, and consider G/B for Abrupt Decay.

To put it in specific terms, I think Umezawa's Jitte and Stoneforge Mystic could possibly be un-banned. Reasoning? Jitte fights aggro decks really well and provides a utility source of life-gain against Grapeshot/Storm decks. If Aggro decks play jitte, just play your jitte and kill it. Mystic provides control decks with a great dig-spell along with an equip target, a nice card advantage package that isn't overpowered now that Abrupt Decay is in the format. Modern has a premium focus on removal anyways with it being so aggro driven, so I think Mystic could be a good inclusion. If Mystic were to really take off, Spell Snare becomes a decent option for Modern (one more relevant target for the one-mana hit-or-miss counterspell.)

Any other thoughts? I know this is a banned list discussion, which I think I'm on track fairly well, and I think this control hole in the meta-game is what really needs to be addressed in order to view the banned list appropriately.

[SpikeyMikey]

Yeah, perhaps the word is vague to those not in my head. I mostly just mean that when I see those decks, they feel unique to me, like they're doing special things no other deck does - they feel interesting and awesome. UWR, RUG Delver, Jund, MonoRed, the UW Midrange decks - that's a large portion of Modern, and they don't feel special to me - they're all basically just list with a bunch of sweet creatures that beat down. It all feels mostly interchangeable. That's just my perception, my opinion. I understand that Jund fans would take offense to that, I just don't get excited by any of those options. Modern missing Control is also a big miss for me, as I love the Rock Paper Scissors type feel of Legacy's metagame, which Modern lacks. This is a separate topic, but while we're there, in my opinion Control is missing for a few reasons:

1. Filtering and card draw in Modern is garbage.

2. Jace and Sword of the Meek (this is more niche of course, but in Extended UW Gifts/Tezzeret the Seeker decks were quite good if I recall) are banned.

3. It's impossible to beat Tron with any Control deck that people are trying these days. Perhaps Grixis has a chance with Thoughtseize, Counterspells, and Sowing Salts, but you're still likely fighting for only games 2 & 3. I don't think I've seen more lopsided games of MTG than a deck like Gifts or Mystical Teachings of any sort vs. GR Tron. It's just completely unwinnable - it's just way to hard to interact, and Tron has the inevitability. Mystical Teachings/Gifts decks can't switch roles to be the beatdown all that easily.

B/W Tokens autoloses to Tron as well. U/W or R/G. It happens, it's part of the format. Without Force/Waste, Modern is going to continue to be a format where there will be decks you just cannot profitably interact with. It's just a bigger Standard. The last Modern GP I went to, *both* of my D1 losses were to UW Tron. You just shuffle up and play the next round. At the same time, however, Jund and Affinity were byes for me. Their matchup vs. me was as bad as my matchup vs. Tron.

[Mr. Safety]

3. It's impossible to beat Tron with any Control deck that people are trying these days. Perhaps Grixis has a chance with Thoughtseize, Counterspells, and Sowing Salts, but you're still likely fighting for only games 2 & 3. I don't think I've seen more lopsided games of MTG than a deck like Gifts or Mystical Teachings of any sort vs. GR Tron. It's just completely unwinnable - it's just way to hard to interact, and Tron has the inevitability. Mystical Teachings/Gifts decks can't switch roles to be the beatdown all that easily.

Ghost Quarter should be in a control decks starting 60, if only for Tron decks and man-lands. Targeted grave hate goes a long way g2 for blowing them out, such as Extirpate or Surgical Extraction. I even think Cranial Extraction and Memoricide are good enough to fight the Tron decks. They also happen to be good against decks like Splinter Twin and Restore Balance (especially Surgical Extraction!)

If you have a matchup that is unwinnable, wouldn't the logical first step with your sideboard be to address that particular matchup? Also, depending on how popular that matchup is in the meta-game, you may want to accept that one or two matchups are unwinnable while most others are favorable. Most legacy decks need to do that because of the incredible depth of the format. I don't see why modern is that much different; it has enough depth to neccessitate that sort of approach (I think.)

[(nameless one)]

I know Jace the Mindsculptor is the hallmark Jace, but wouldn't Jace, Architect of Thought help when it comes to card filtering? Is he that terrible at protecting himself?

What about Tezzerator decks? Are they that terrible in doing anything? To my understanding, they biggest thing they lack is card filter. But wouldn't Thirst for Knowledge be okay in doing so?

Is the format that fast for true control decks to be established?

[Mr. Safety]

I know Jace the Mindsculptor is the hallmark Jace, but wouldn't Jace, Architect of Thought help when it comes to card filtering? Is he that terrible at protecting himself?

What about Tezzerator decks? Are they that terrible in doing anything? To my understanding, they biggest thing they lack is card filter. But wouldn't Thirst for Knowledge be okay in doing so?

Is the format that fast for true control decks to be established?

I don't think the format is too fast...and Tezzerator with Thirst sounds good. In fact, Tezz himself is a great filter card. What hurts him the most is the lack of artifact lands. Getting a Seat of the Synod to be a 5/5 threat is great technology, for sure. Darksteel Citadel can be used, but for the most part the deck has to be full of artifacts taking up space rather than the lands being the available threats (like Seat.) If I were to do Tezzerator I'd be playing Trinket Mage, Engineered Explosives, Pithing Needle, and Academy Ruins. Has anyone posted/seen a toolbox Tezzerator deck like that?

Regarding the new Jace...I hate Jace AoT...modern has MORE ways of dealing with him than standard. I know everyone thinks he's the shit and all, but I'm not convinced. For four mana you can have an easier to cast and more productive Gifts Ungiven. Just my opinion...

[ahg113]

3. It's impossible to beat Tron with any Control deck that people are trying these days. Perhaps Grixis has a chance with Thoughtseize, Counterspells, and Sowing Salts, but you're still likely fighting for only games 2 & 3. I don't think I've seen more lopsided games of MTG than a deck like Gifts or Mystical Teachings of any sort vs. GR Tron. It's just completely unwinnable - it's just way to hard to interact, and Tron has the inevitability. Mystical Teachings/Gifts decks can't switch roles to be the beatdown all that easily.

Playing with a Mono-B Discard/Small Pox deck, I think Tron is an easy matchup. Between small pox and Tectonic Edge, killing lands isn't that difficult. Without Tron assembled, the decks falter. Surgical Extraction or Extirpate also just wreck shop, kill a land, remove all of them from the game... finished.

The desire to play a draw-go, counter-tempo isn't available in Modern. That doesn't mean control is dead. There is more to control in the game than just the stack.

[JDK]

If you pack 4-Mana Hate against Combo-Decks like Storm, Twin or Tron (yep, it's basically a combo deck), you just get laughed at and lose horribly.

[Mr. Safety]

If you pack 4-Mana Hate against Combo-Decks like Storm, Twin or Tron (yep, it's basically a combo deck), you just get laughed at and lose horribly.

In a vacuum, yes. If all you're counting on to keep you in the game is a 4-mana sorcery like Cranial Extraction you're foolish. BUT, if you can use discard/permission/removal to get you to turn 4, along with land drops or acceleration, it basically reads "tap 4 mana, win the game." It can also come down turn 3 with acceleration, which is one of my main points about viable control in modern: you need acceleration. Counterspells cost mana in modern, plan accordingly.

[ahg113]

In a vacuum, yes. If all you're counting on to keep you in the game is a 4-mana sorcery like Cranial Extraction you're foolish. BUT, if you can use discard/permission/removal to get you to turn 4, along with land drops or acceleration, it basically reads "tap 4 mana, win the game." It can also come down turn 3 with acceleration, which is one of my main points about viable control in modern: you need acceleration. Counterspells cost mana in modern, plan accordingly.

Totally off topic- but expected given the Legacy-first environment... it seems like a lot of people dislike Modern because it is not Legacy. The most grievous offense, that there is a serious lack of cantrip-filters, and counterspells aren't free, basically, the tenets of blue have been de-emphasized. Well, isn't that the way it is for every other color, all-day every-day?

The Modern Ban List specifically nuked those type cards in order for Modern to be it's own format, and not Legacy-lite, "Now with new card frames!"