Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Michael Keller
The problem is that it could be played in blue decks, and it was played in blue decks. They even color-coded it red and green without so much as thinking about how easy that is to pull off in Legacy.
You can really say that about any card, though. Wrenn and Six did exist and it existed in a format where its abilities were incredibly relevant and powerful. The cards around Wrenn and Six made it more powerful, but that's true of just about every card because interaction and synergies makes the game what it is. You can't ban a card from being played in a given deck, you have to ban it all together.
Right. And in the case of a theoretical Deathrite ban there would be nothing stopping you from playing it alongside your own (theoretically legal) Wrenn and Six. Going turn 1 Shaman turn 2 W6 sounds absolutely insane imo, you wouldn't even need to exile a land half the time. Hell could even use it to power out then 2 Okos speaking of.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fox
-How does blue value pile keep fair decks out of the format: Hymn spam - we already saw it with Czech and Grixis.
-What does having DRS, Wrenn, and Oko as obligatory cards in blue value pile mean: you have have deep cuts to Kcomm and Strix and Snapcaster and Hymn to find slots (otherwise you lose the mirror b/c you were out-valued).
-What is the result: blue value pile can’t obliterate every zone/axis a fair deck (also using DRS and Wrenn) is going to compete on. Thus we have consistency vs a strategy that will be more powerful - a more even playing field.
Wrenn + DRS are dumb cards, but in combination their stupidy would balance eachother out and preferentially push out legacy’s biggest 2cmc problem cards.
Watch the slots disappear:
4x DRS
4x FoW
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Wrenn
3x Oko
4x single discard
2x SCM
2x flex (Leo/Gurmag)
1x Plague Engi
4x removals (2x Decay, 1x Trophy, 1x Kcomm probably. Still probably need to add ~2x Push)
— that’s already 36 slots + 20 lands. Enjoy the pointless mirrors.
Could maybe go down to 18 lands? You have 8 spells that produce mana in some way and 8 cantrips. EDIT: oh right fetchlands need actual lands in the deck to function. Might be a bit tight
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
the Thin White Duke
You mean elk.
I was hoping someone would catch that ;)
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Watersaw
Right. And in the case of a theoretical Deathrite ban there would be nothing stopping you from playing it alongside your own (theoretically legal) Wrenn and Six. Going turn 1 Shaman turn 2 W6 sounds absolutely insane imo, you wouldn't even need to exile a land half the time. Hell could even use it to power out then 2 Okos speaking of.
Turn 1 land into DRS; turn 2 Waste your land, eat it into W6, plus to return Wasteland. Absolutely disgusting.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
PirateKing
Turn 1 land into DRS; turn 2 Waste your land, eat it into W6, plus to return Wasteland. Absolutely disgusting.
And yet somehow fine b/c RUG can't really do a ton about that, even against a not-blue deck. It really was that easy to pull the proverbial rug out from under their deck with just 1 unban.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
If they ban fetch lands there will be nothing consistent for W6 to bring back, no consistent way to shuffle with Brainstorm, no consistent way to make mana with DRS, no messing about with Top, no easy way to play 3-4 colors in a deck, and Delve cards (all of them) come down much slower. I am sure I am missing a few but to me that sounds like fetches are the real culprit.
I would be pleasantly surprise to hear about some temporary 1 year ban on fetchlands combined with an unban of the cards that were enabled by them.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
so W6 is banned now. Indeed just another collateral hit because wotc doesnt ban the elephant in the room (fetches) we are close to the point where the banlist would be smaller if they exchange the fetches with the beneficiaries-
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fox
And yet somehow fine b/c RUG can't really do a ton about that, even against a not-blue deck. It really was that easy to pull the proverbial rug out from under their deck with just 1 unban.
Lol are you really trying to justify this sequence on the basis that it makes RUG worse? All this unban would do is shift the tier zero status from RUG to a similar UBgr deck that somehow has even worse gameplay because now you're pressured to answer a PW on both turn 1 and 2 or fall insanely far behind
Quote:
If they ban fetch lands there will be nothing consistent for W6 to bring back, no consistent way to shuffle with Brainstorm, no consistent way to make mana with DRS, no messing about with Top, no easy way to play 3-4 colors in a deck, and Delve cards (all of them) come down much slower. I am sure I am missing a few but to me that sounds like fetches are the real culprit.
Quote:
so W6 is banned now. Indeed just another collateral hit because wotc doesnt ban the elephant in the room (fetches) we are close to the point where the banlist would be smaller if they exchange the fetches with the beneficiaries-
The argument of "if fetches were banned many other cards would be less good, therefore we should ban fetchlands" is so worthless. It only makes sense if you think that the ultimate goal is to have the shortest banlist, in which case you are an idiot. Why not simply unban everything? Because the gameplay would suck. So does banning fetches lead to better gameplay?
- You lose a lot of flexibility in manabase construction so that multicolour decks potentially become less viable
- A lot of the gameplay around cantrips becomes less interesting
- The existing delve cards (angler etc) become much worse
- Mystic Sanctuary becomes worse
- Loam becomes worse
- Wasteland possibly becomes stronger because multicolour decks lose the option to fetch basics
etc
Of course maybe you think these changes improve the format or maybe they don't. But PLEASE make this argument. All I hear is this stupid "DRS and Dig are paying for the sins of Fetchlands", "Fetchlands are the real culprit". It's meaningless garbage
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kombatkiwi
Of course maybe you think these changes improve the format or maybe they don't. But PLEASE make this argument.
Personally I'd be down to experiment with NOT having to shuffle decks ~50 times a game.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Meekrab
Personally I'd be down to experiment with NOT having to shuffle decks ~50 times a game.
There is a format for you - standard!
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Well, even WOTC agrees, hence why fetchlands were the only cards preemptively banned from Pioneer when the format was announced. They won’t ban fetchlands though, they need to keep its reprint equity to sell some kind of master set or modern horizons set. Wotc’s monetization strategy is too damn obvious.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fox
That may be the part that felt bad, the more problematic thing about Oko for your deck is that Oko users can let turn 1 Chalice snap resolve. You lose your first real wincon to countermagic instead, then they get their wincon (Oko), and when convenient they will vindicate your first turn turning Oko against Chalice. You fell behind by ~2 turn equivalents.
-
The best part about this whole thing is how they banned it to "weaken RUG Delver." Maybe don't ban the wrong card [DRS], and wotc wouldn't have had to chain ban down the line on the back of that mistake. As you pointed out in previous post, it's always been a Fetchland problem.
Just wanted to say you are absolutely right. And it isn’t just chalice, it’s cards like ensnaring bridge, Trinisphere and Grindstone too. It invalidates the anti-cantrip strategies as well as burn. I’d play Oko if I didn’t believe they will ban in between now and 6 months. I don’t think the card should be banned, but it will, just like W6
Also, they should give a notice period of 1 month so that people who test for eternal tournaments don’t get all their testing invalidated over night right before a major tournament. People incur costs to attend tournaments, especially for eternal where travel and accommodation are necessary because the tournaments are few and far between.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Maybe I'm the only one but I'm happy with this. Screw one-sided prison effects.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Lord Seth
If they're going to nerf the Urza deck, and I am not sure they will, they will hit Urza or maybe Mox Opal. Oko isn't the problem, he's just a good card in the deck.
I guess you've never lost to Ensnaring Bridge locking the board down while the Oko player makes a bunch of 3/3 elks, then on their last turn of the game turns the Bridge into a 3/3 Elk and swings for lethal? It's actually a primary win condition for the deck. Urza is literally just another value card amongst other value cards. I predict Oko getting banned because it has happened in multiple other formats already.
Quote:
Burn is one of the most popular decks in the format right now, I believe. It hardly seems to be becoming "unplayable."
Burn is popular because of the Tron resurgence and the banning of Faithless Looting. It occupies the territory that Phoenix decks were claiming as an aggressive red deck that can beat the big mana decks. Time will tell whether this continues, which is all I meant.
Quote:
You realize that Oko can't hit planeswalkers, right?
I didn't, I completely missed it. My experience so far has been with Karn tGC + Lattice making everything an artifact, which allowed Oko to turn it into an Elk. I forgot that it only targets creatures/artifacts in the text.
Quote:
These aren't as popular as they were earlier this year but I don't think they were that big a force to begin with.
Popularity is one thing, competitiveness is another. UWx decks were at least passably competitive, now the Oko/Urza deck will push them into solidly t3 or lower territory.
Quote:
The rest of the Modern format seems to be doing a pretty good job containing it. Yes, Oko/Urza got half of the Top 8 at SCG Atlanta a few weeks ago but has never managed to do that spectacularly at any event before or since then, as far as I can tell. The current evidence is that that's an anomaly from being being unprepared for it.
I could buy that if the deck wasn't already twin-like in its nature. It is an incredible mid-range deck alongside being a broken artifact deck. You fight one half, lose to the other. I'm not arguing for a ban of Oko, I'm saying it will be watched closely to see if the trend continues. Krark-Clan Ironworks was *never* a highly represented deck in Modern, but that got banned. Say what you want about 'high skill threshold' or 'unique interactions that scared people away from the deck', but the final say came from WOTC when they banned KCI.
Quote:
Maybe future results will tell a different story--but the Urza/Oko deck doesn't seem to have a disproportionately high percentage of the metagame compared to anything else right now, as far as I can tell.
I'm just stating an opinion, one that is arguable (as we are respectfully doing here.) Time will tell. Decks like this are hard to predict, it could become the new dominant one or the metagame might adjust.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kombatkiwi
Lol are you really trying to justify this sequence on the basis that it makes RUG worse? All this unban would do is shift the tier zero status from RUG to a similar UBgr deck that somehow has even worse gameplay because now you're pressured to answer a PW on both turn 1 and 2 or fall insanely far behind
- You lose a lot of flexibility in manabase construction so that multicolour decks potentially become less viable
- A lot of the gameplay around cantrips becomes less interesting
- The existing delve cards (angler etc) become much worse
- Mystic Sanctuary becomes worse
- Loam becomes worse
- Wasteland possibly becomes stronger because multicolour decks lose the option to fetch basics
etc
I’m not saying it wouldn’t make for the most idiotic mirror matches to have them all be legal, but with DRS back around it’s tolerable (you would increase not-blue fair deck meta share since they’d have access to the most important pieces: the Wrenn/DRS subgame and Decay your Oko). RUG Delver would be positionally weakened, which would fulfill their stated B&R justification. They are releasing sets pretty quickly now, and they will power creep everyone else into ways to deal with this; in the meantime Wrenn + DRS is pretty easy to know how to address [yard hate].
Go back ~1 page to my “watch the slots disappear” post to see what 4c list pretty much has to be, and note how the deck really isn’t doing much, having traded SCM/Strix spam for must-include battlecruiser magic staples (DRS/Wrenn/Oko). That 4c deck you fear isn’t going to be able to hold down a not-blue deck doing much of the same thing.
We all know DRS is the best card ever printed when it comes to hating on Wrenn specifically. So when they banned the best policeman, we then had to ban Wrenn, and next we’re going to have to ban Oko and/or Astrolabe. The 4c list you fear should be the one around the corner with more Snapcasters, Strix, Hymns, and effortlessly casting MD Kcomm and the SB Oko-killin’ REBs on the back of Fetches + Astro.
On your Fetchland points:
-You would see more multicolor variety and strategy diversification as 2c decks have significantly different toolboxes
-Nerfing cantrips is fine. It’s also not like you can’t do the same thing that we do right now at slightly slower speeds (the game has plenty of slow Fetches)
-Mystic Sanctuary is not a meaninful card in the discussion of Fetches, it’s more of a strike against their tutor aspect.
-Loam becomes *better.* There are 4 ways to play legacy: [1]Sol Land/Chalice, [2]Cavern/Vial, [3]Loam/Mox, [4]Fetchlands/usually with cantrip cartel (this is the biggest group by far). If you weaken the Fetchland group, everything other way to play legacy gets *better.*
-Wasteland does get better, however there is no shortage of cards that find basics.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Qweerios
If they ban fetch lands there will be nothing consistent for W6 to bring back, no consistent way to shuffle with Brainstorm, no consistent way to make mana with DRS, no messing about with Top, no easy way to play 3-4 colors in a deck, and Delve cards (all of them) come down much slower. I am sure I am missing a few but to me that sounds like fetches are the real culprit.
I would be pleasantly surprise to hear about some temporary 1 year ban on fetchlands combined with an unban of the cards that were enabled by them.
One thing to keep in mind: if you ban fetches, that makes Wasteland infinitely better. It doesn't get marginally better, because you're streaming land drops based on what you have and that's it. You can't "stockpile" your mana for a two or three-drop when you think your opponent is sandbagging a Wasteland, so then it really makes Wasteland even more like Strip Mine in the format.
Or even if they just play Wasteland, you have no way of getting a basic to protect yourself. Unless Prismatic Vista is the only soft-counter to Wasteland if you ban all of the other fetches.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Michael Keller
One thing to keep in mind: if you ban fetches, that makes Wasteland infinitely better. It doesn't get marginally better, because you're streaming land drops based on what you have and that's it. You can't "stockpile" your mana for a two or three-drop when you think your opponent is sandbagging a Wasteland, so then it really makes Wasteland even more like Strip Mine in the format.
Or even if they just play Wasteland, you have no way of getting a basic to protect yourself.
So play 4 prismatic vista's and run basics. With decks limited to 4 fetch effects that cannot grab a dual land, we still have some of the brainstorming power and anti-wasteland mechanics going. What Wasteland does is punish greedy manabases which screws the concept of the color pie. The reason why Wren & Six got banned isn't because gruul is strong, it's because delver abuses the best gruul card, the way they will abuse the best seleysnya card, orzhov card, or any other guild, as long as it doesn't cost more than 2CC.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bruizar
So play 4 prismatic vista's and run basics. With decks limited to 4 fetch effects that cannot grab a dual land, we still have some of the brainstorming power and anti-wasteland mechanics going. What Wasteland does is punish greedy manabases which screws the concept of the color pie. The reason why Wren & Six got banned isn't because gruul is strong, it's because delver abuses the best gruul card, the way they will abuse the best seleysnya card, orzhov card, or any other guild, as long as it doesn't cost more than 2CC.
But if fetches go away, isn't every deck almost obligated to run that exact same configuration? That just seems wrong to build your mana base purposely to play around one card. (I get that some decks purposely play basics now, but this would be even more warped.)
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Oh you’d ban Vista so fast if Fetches were getting the axe. You can have Fabled Passage or w/e the fixed Vista is called. Other than that, you slow down and play either Evolving Wilds type cards, Mirage slow-Fetches, Land Grant, Ash Barrens, etc.
Zero percent chance you “ban Fetches” and leave in Vista -> Snow-Covered -> 4c AstroPile.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Fox
Oh you’d ban Vista so fast if Fetches were getting the axe. You can have Fabled Passage or w/e the fixed Vista is called. Other than that, you slow down and play either Evolving Wilds type cards, Mirage slow-Fetches, Land Grant, Ash Barrens, etc.
Zero percent chance you “ban Fetches” and leave in Vista -> Snow-Covered -> 4c AstroPile.
I just don't see a world where Wasteland would exist in this type of format. It would literally become Strip Mine, and Legacy would become a strange, futuristic version of old 1996 "Type II" without some of the other broken components.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Michael Keller
I just don't see a world where Wasteland would exist in this type of format. It would literally become Strip Mine, and Legacy would become a strange, futuristic version of old 1996 "Type II" without some of the other broken components.
Eh, it’s fine. There’s nothing stopping people from having access to mana security on turn 1 with 2c decks; but you do need to slow down. No more full-speed mana fixing (before 4 lands in play) with linear double mana b/c of delve/DRS.
You want to play into Wasteland for the option of grabbing duals with a Mirage slow-Fetch, that’s awesome - but you’re gonna need to open yourself up to this amazing thing called “interaction” b/c you made a choice to not play Evolving Wilds. Trade-offs like this are inherently healthy.
