Don't be trolling. You serious?
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Don't be trolling. You serious?
Earthcraft still too strong for Legacy
Fuck, Lantern is harder to play now. Oh wait, Needle.
The unban has nothing to do with balancing. Modern was in a really good place right now. But since they have to sell M25 packs next month, they had to go and fuck it up in the quest for more money.
Maybe they would be better off if they got their shit together and printed new duals without any shitty disadvantages, considering how desperate they seem for revenue now.
I was already happy with modern and I think this is a great way to increase popularity of an already popular format. I'll be Jace-ing in modern for sure, maybe Bloodbraid-ing too. I certainly appreciate this over banning Lantern or some other nonsense because 'deck iz too guud, BAN!!!'
If you are complaining about losing to Jace fateseal, dude, Lantern is the fateseal fucking deck. The repeatable Brainstorm is really powerful of course, but one of the most played cards in the format just happens to deal 3 damage. Without free countermagic, Jace is a lot more fragile.
Bloodbraid Elf is a bit of a quandary. I think it will be powerful to play Bloodbraid into Kolaghan's Command, but I don't know if it's too powerful. Jace's presence in the format means a lot more counterspells will be played, and if that's the case KCommand will get countered and Bloodbraid becomes a 3/2 haste for 4, which is perfectly fair. I'm looking forward to jamming games in this new Modern format.
I'm really surprised at WOTC's reticence for unbanning cards in Legacy. It would be a way to keep the format from getting too stale, which honestly it is becoming for me. I'm not saying it's bad, I love the format, but it's getting predictable. I want the Wild West!
The recent Pro Tour and GP makes me want to try and sleeve up Modern again. But then I look at 9-32 of the GP and it's like 50% Tron and Burn decks.
Jace and BBE back is pretty cool, and I think Disrupting Shoal could make a push into Modern Jace decks.
Worth pointing out that wincons were never supposed to be anything but broken, team.
And yes, so is getting 15 1/1 tokens.
That's totally unrealistic!
You'd need at least 20 Squirrels, Wonder, and an Island.
Levitation also works.
Or Akroma's Memorial if you want to stay monocolor and have Cradle in play. Although in that case, it's questionable why you don't win on the spot with the divine fury of an angelic squirrel legion.
Pfft...I guess a lot of people here don't remember the Mercadian Masques ALL STAR that was Spidersilk Armor. Reach, toughness, everything you need. That's a card that could gum up casual boardstates like no other and would help our tree-rat friends eat some spaghetti with their acorns.
PS: With the Modern B&R Llist update we are officially in Yu Gi Oh territory ladies and germs. Next up, a Mana Drain unban in Legacy to gin up sales for Bubonic Masters in 2019.
It's concerning to see the ban list cynically managed to sell packs of a new product as opposed to make formats more interesting or healthy.
Sure, JTMS is very unlikely to destroy Modern. I doubt it will even put more than a dozen copies in the next few top 8s. Some U/W or U/W/r lists will slot in two to three Jaces instead of whatever other value/engines they were running and be somewhat stronger against slower, fairer matchups as a result (i.e. a minority of the Modern metagame). But I fail to see any upside to unbanning Jace.
Blue-based control doesn't need the help. U/x/y lists have had good tournament finishes without Jace in recent times. And the addition of the Walletsculptor to the format will serve only to push out a bunch of 4-drops that are drastically weaker than Jace in Blue decks interested in the long game that had seen play up to this point. Instead of seeing random Nahiris, Gideons, Elspeth's, Mom and Pop's Thopter Shop, or Jace, Architecht of Thought, we're probably just going to see a bunch of Mindsculptors in U/x/y Control and Midrange piles because he's on a much higher power level than any of those options.
And JTMS doesn't really enable anything interesting; he's simply an incredibly powerful and flexible goodstuff card. It's no Survival, or in Modern terms Twin or Pod, where you can build a unique strategy around it.
From a format health perspective, it seems like there's little-to-no upside, some likely downsides, and the scant risk of catastrophe. But the financial side looks great for WotC. Masters 25 now has a $100 chase Mythic, legal in one of the most popular constructed formats, for people to go nuts over; Jace is now a much more exciting spoiler than he was as $40-$50 Legacy and Cube staple and that's likely to be reflected in sales.
Ain't the end of the world by any means, but, just like the mass Standard bannings, this is a slippery slope we're headed down.
Lol. Jace is not good enough to be banned, so he is unbanned. I see nothing wrong with that. Shortening the banned list seems to be smart move. Also Jace and BBE are iconic and people like to cast them. Win-win. I approve this unbanning.
It occurred to me that its for the exact reason that the format is healthy that it's the time to take a risk with an unban. I know WOTC kind of alluded to this with their statement. If ever there was a time to take a chance it's when a format is diverse, which means the number of viable decks is likely to be its highest. The unbans removing decks from the format I think is a little hyberbolic; that's what bans do. Decks will change, new decks will emerge, some decks will get worse, some will get better. Wild Nacatl was basically unplayable before a Jace/BBE ban; now it's not a bad idea to load up on small dudes because control decks will have a clustered 4-mana slot (Cryptic, Jace, Wraths.) They have to have Wraths or Cryptic, otherwise they will get overrun. And even if they wipe, Bloodbraid into dude resets the board nicely to attack the follow-up jace.
I think the more interesting path for Bloodbraid is cascading into Stone Rain. The LD deck already has legs, if not a huge portion of the format. BBE into Blood Moon/Stone Rain/Molten Rain? This seems very good to me. I always felt that the GRx decks of the format would get a nice boost from Bloodbraid.
While some players will whine and say 'modern got ruined!' that same number, or more, will come into the format because they can port their Jaces from legacy. If ever there was a card to unban that would attract Legacy players into Modern, Jace is it.
Disgusting business practices from Wizards:
- Allow people to play their cards by unbanning cards people want to play with and aren't overpowered.
- Print those cards.
- Make money off that.
Anyone know the Best Business Bureau's phone number off hand? This is just abhorrent. Honestly I think an FTC complaint is in order too. How can we let them get away with this? What about our well-being? Don't they understand that bad 4-drops are people too? Who will think of the children?
#ThoughtsAndPrayersForNonJace4Drops
FUN? IN MODERN? WE CAN'T HAVE THAT!
Guys, in all seriousness, give it a few weeks; they'll ban BBE, the Wallet Sculptor, and 2-7 other things.
I, for one, am glad I bought my 4 Jaces on MTGO for a pittance and now can cash them out for 50+ tix a pop eventually.
Although if I were really smart I would have stockpiled foil and non-foil cardboard Jaces, knowing this day was coming at some point.
@ParkerLewis
People get invested in narratives and so are highly disinclined to abandon them, really no matter what. That investment doesn't have to be financial, emotional investment might even be more powerful as such. In any case, no one really wants to admit that the narrative they have constructed to explain away things might not really be a completely accurate representation of reality. But then again, that is a big part of the role narratives play for us: take something that isn't necessarily straight forward and make it so. It's far easier to understand "Wizards makes cash grab" than it is to understand the judgement call of "Unban Jace." Why?
Because a cash grab by Wizards is delightfully simply and rational. They are a business, so it is easy to see them as making only profit motivated decisions. Jace could have come off the list with EMA, for FTV20 for that matter, but he didn't. So, it wasn't purely a profit-driven move, even if almost certainly was part of the choice. Wizards makes Magic to make money, should they really be so stupid as to try not to?
Oddly enough, what Wizards just did in Modern is precisely what numerous people constantly look for them to do with Legacy. Jace was never legal in Modern, much like, say, Black Vise, Worldgorger, Earthcraft, etc. in Legacy. We all know those clarion calls. We even know how some of those worked out. And Bloodbraid? Once deemed too format constricting and diversity killing, now reinstated. Survival in Legacy sure comes to mind. Yet, we should shit on Wizards actually doing essentially what we have been calling for them to do, just not in the format we'd like them to do it in?
I don't understand. The sets are not designed by a third party. The same company decided to reprint Jace and to unban him. One could even argue that in order to unban Jace, you have to reprint him, due to the price tag.
It would be concerning if they only did one of the two and not both.
I see two viewpoints here. One side views this as insider trading. Wizards knew ahead of time X stock was going to be worth money so they moved to take advantage.
The other side sees it as helping with supply and demand.
My question is, at what point do we are players just stop bitching? This is an unregulated market. Pump and Dump happens all the time, shit spikes and people make a killing. Playing Magic less like a game and more like shares in a stock exchange. With that already established is it really fair to bitch that the only company that can effect supply (And hopefully stock price) decided to do what it could with what tools it has?
Fuck, I wish they would reprint shit more. Why is this an issue? Wizards print the game and make the game pieces, they don't control the stock exchange.
They probably get into diminishing returns eventually, and when your new Standard cards are overshadowed by old card popularity and reprints then it's not a great way to show Standard/push new packs. Largely it's probably unsustainable, especially if you lose consumer confidence with each reprint.
Seriously, why is anyone complaining about the reintroduction of powerful cards to Modern? If there's a format that needs it, look no further.
There are two reasons I quit Modern: constant ad hoc bans of cards I'd want to use there, and a lack of powerful cards generally. They're solving both of those problems.
Money.
They unbanned Bloodbraid? Alright, cool. Thirty to forty bucks gets you a playset at peak hype and you're good to go. Cascade into Ancestral Vision, lament that the Boom//Bust line doesn't work under current rules, whatever tickles your fancy. Shit, you might not even need to buy into Elves; it could very likely do jack in Modern because turn 3 Karn or Affinity kills make a value 4-drop look silly.
On the other hand, Jacey Boy is gonna run you a c-note per copy when everything shakes out, and is very likely to be an integral staple in U/x decks going forward. But wait...Wizards has our back! They're printing it at Mythic in $10 packs that just so happen to release in a month! What a coincidence.
I'd feel a little more secure in calling this a decision made with the format's health in mind, not just a cheap ploy to drive up Masters 25 sales, if I dunno, JTMS was the 2018 GP promo or more accessible by some other means.
Have you ever heard of a deck called Lands?
There is no way that it would ever be correct for everybody to play Gixis and Czech. The real spikes would attack that meta with Lands and a big belly laugh. Sure, the fair decks could pack some grave-hate. But Lands can also be tweaked to grind vs fair decks (RUG or Jund build with Boseiju main, etc).
Legacy cannot devolve into a 100% fair deck meta. The tools are there to hose that.
Also, your premises are out the window. If a deck did have a 50/50 match vs every deck in the field, it is mathematically impossible for that to be any better than an average deck. See, win-rates are collectively zero-sum in any meta. If Grixis has an average win-rates of 50%, it is not possible for every other deck to have an average win-rates bellow that (draws notwithstanding).
Furthermore, according to paper data, Czech is not the second best performing deck.
http://mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE&meta=72
TLDR - get a clue.
I'm sure this happens all the time. That doesn't mean Legacy becomes a 2-deck format if they don't!
In fact, Crisis and Czech thrive specially in the meta they play in; fun decks and all. You change that (guessing) 30% of the meta, and decks will thrive differently. Grixis and Czech are good because of the meta they play in - not because they are specially adept in mirror matches!
:laugh:
I'm sorry if you are getting worked up about a meta you apparently do not enjoy, but I don't know what to tell you there. Maybe take a break? Do they allow recreational marijuana on your side of the world? Here in Canada we are but a toke away from legalisation. For the most part we are a laid back bunch.
Peace.
:smile:
Is it really a coincidence when it's done with intent on purpose?
The reprint of Jace in Masters 25 will provide greater availability for our player base.
That's literally from the B&R announcement.
Like I get the appeal of an imaginary shadow government conspiracy set to pull the puppet strings of the industry for nefarious purposes; but it's just not the case.
How often does a company need to remind the public that they're not a charity before they can sell a product for profit without having cries of j'accuse leveled at them?
Here's the thing, though: I don't like their dicking with the secondary market any more than you do, but we don't know what's going to happen to the price of "dies to Lightning Bolt" and "dies to Lightning Bolt" once those cards actually see some play in the format again. They've spiked like crazy because people aren't perfect, but I'd rather have Benjamin cards in Modern than have Modern be terrible. I've left that format twice because it's so milquetoast. I also want to reiterate: there's a good chance they'll ban both of those cards within the next year.
Of course, the flip side of that is that Preordain—a D+ card—is still banned. I'm not happy about how their decision-making process works, but I am glad they're making good cards playable again.
You're almost definitely right about the timing.
I like you.
FWIW, some of the more hated cards / cards that are being called out as potential bans, are now being under- and overrepresented in the way MTGO decklists are now being selected:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/c...ecklist_rules/
Data set is small, but I think this is a trend we'll keep seeing anyway, hiding even more what decks/cards are dominant.