All B/R update speculation.

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Originally Posted by maharis

The problem with "just play TNN answers" is that those cards are narrow, often symmetrical (so you lose some of your own board presence to answer their guy) and a dice roll as to if they will even be effective. For example, edicts don't work if they have another creature, EE for 3 kills all your 3 drops, -1/-1 effects kill your x/1s and are useless if the thing is suited up, etc etc.

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Sure, all fair points as well, but if the thrust of the argument is, "I just can't ever beat this guy once he's in play!" that's not necessarily true, it's just that people don't want to adjust to it - it'd be wonderful if no one played counterspells and I could just cut all the discard spells from my ANT deck for things that helped me combo, but sometimes you have to make deckbuilding concessions that make your main weaker so that you can have outs to things that beat your deck. If the choice is "I can kill my own x/1 and their otherwise unkillable guy and still have a chance" versus "I'm just dead to mini progenitus" why not try option 1?

Plus, sometimes it isn't actually worth it, and you have to acknowledge sometimes they're going to get you - generally people don't play a bounce spell in ANT and just end up losing to Gaddock Teeg game 1. You could add one, as there are flex slots, but in general people have decided it's not worth it. Maybe TNN is the Gaddock Teeg of "play some green duders and get in there" decks.

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Originally Posted by maharis

It's also a small point but the fact that TNN doesn't get hit by red damage-based sweepers cuts off a lot of answers that might be otherwise good. A deck like Czech Pile should get cleaned out by Pyroclasm, but no one can play that card because it's dead vs. TNN. (And spare me the "der it showed up in X sideboard." People still play Knight despite it sucking against TNN, what I mean is that these cards have less room to breathe.)

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Yeah, when I was coming up with my response earlier I was actually super surprised that there isn't a three mana pyroclasm variant with "damage can't be prevented" on it - I thought volcanic fallout did that, but it is uncounterable, as it turns out. That would be a nice printing, especially at like RR or something, but I doubt that makes it into a standard-legal set.

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Originally Posted by maharis

And yes Chalice and 3ball are uninteractive as well, but they have real deckbuilding considerations. TNN asks nothing of its owner other than playing U. Even NO -> Progenitus requires you to have another creature in play and resolve a 4 mana sorcery that costs 2 green mana. (There's no Spell Pierce for creatures.)

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I personally don't think that having deckbuilding considerations absolves any particular card of its miserableness, and miserableness isn't a reasonable banning criteria for the most part.

"Spell Pierce for creatures" got me really excited to read, not gonna lie. In this particular case, you can actually play red blasts to pierce their TNNs, though, too, as another option.

My 1,000th post, make a wish!

unban Survival

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Originally Posted by taconaut

Yeah, when I was coming up with my response earlier I was actually super surprised that there isn't a three mana pyroclasm variant with "damage can't be prevented" on it - I thought volcanic fallout did that, but it is uncounterable, as it turns out. That would be a nice printing, especially at like RR or something, but I doubt that makes it into a standard-legal set.

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Yeah I've always said if they did :r::r: Pyroclasm for 1 damage but it can't be prevented, people would still play Pyroclasm but this would have it's own spot in decks.
Especially around the time they were printing Skullcrack I was thinking this would be right around the corner, but I guess it's a big corner...

Don't worry, they'll eventually print "For each creature, move it into its owner's graveyard if 1 damage would be lethal to it." for 1U.

Just print a card that says "Blue creatures can't attack."

Solves half the real problems in the format.

Make it a blue card, too.

I would murder for an earthquake that can't be prevented. It's really miserable that you really need to be playing black or those bad white edicts to effectively have good answers to resolved Skill Name Nemesis

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

Just print a card that says "Blue creatures can't attack."

Solves half the real problems in the format.

Make it a blue card, too.

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Llawan, Cephalid Empress with a casting cost power creep.

At this point I want either a power-creeped Fallout with "damage can't be prevented" as mentioned earlier, or a Sulfur Elemental for blue. Better yet, both of these cards. I would maindeck both of them in red stompy.

I just want them to print Slide in Modern or make some decently costed cycling cards.

While TNN is linear and format warping I don't think it is to an extent that it breaks the format. There are answers in a variety of colors and decks that ignore him completely

Personally I'm fine with the format, but I am solidly in the #banprobe camp. No matter what deck you're playing it feels pretty bad when your opponent has perfect information to start cantripping into a hand tailored to beat yours from turn 1 at essentially no cost. It doesn't really stifle the meta or shut down anything though so I don't know if we'll see a ban but it is just an un-fun card.

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Originally Posted by morgan_coke

I just want them to print Slide in Modern or make some decently costed cycling cards.

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We are on the same wavelength my friend. Slide is my #1 wanted reprint in Modern, and would make me want to play that format again.

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Originally Posted by pinkfrosting

While TNN is linear and format warping I don't think it is to an extent that it breaks the format. There are answers in a variety of colors and decks that ignore him completely

Personally I'm fine with the format, but I am solidly in the #banprobe camp. No matter what deck you're playing it feels pretty bad when your opponent has perfect information to start cantripping into a hand tailored to beat yours from turn 1 at essentially no cost. It doesn't really stifle the meta or shut down anything though so I don't know if we'll see a ban but it is just an un-fun card.

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Perfect information for no mana has always been broke. I also want Cabal Therapy to actually be a fun and skill-intensive card again, which it most definitely is not with Probe available. Creatures that you can't interact with at all aren't necessarily format breaking but are miserable and should be undone.

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Originally Posted by Jander78

Llawan, Cephalid Empress with a casting cost power creep.

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Believe me, I'm at the point that I'm so fed up with the fucking card that I play multiple Llawan in any fair blue deck I play at this point.

The problem with most of the removal for the card is that it's narrow and generally bad. Ever stared down a turn 2 True Name off of Deathrite with a Diabolic Edict in your hand?

Never had a big issue with TNN, but I'd be cool with a linear card like:

Fish Fry 1R
Sorcery

Fish Fry cannot be countered.
Fish Fry deals 2 damage to each blue creature.
This damage cannot be prevented.

Fred wanted his friends to think he liked the taste,
but he truly just wanted to watch the scaly bastards suffer.
Suffer as he had.

Seems fair and balanced to me. BRB, stuffing face with fried fish.

Yes, it is obviously not done with just exchanging a few slots with cards that could handle TNN theoretically. Instead you might have to make bigger concessions and play strategies that these blue midrange goodstuff decks are lackluster against. You cannot just continue to play one's petdeck for years without adaption.

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

I think after tonight I'm done with this format as long as true name exists. The card is fucking miserable. I realize it's never going to be banned so fuck it. I can't do it anymore. I just dropped at 1-1 at local because the card kills any interesting interaction that exists in a fair game of Magic for little cost.

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Jesus what deck are you playing thats so cold to TNN?

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Originally Posted by MorphBerlin

Jesus what deck are you playing thats so cold to TNN?

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Maverick.

I mean we're at a point of the game where a blue 3 drop out classes every green playable creature in the format. Sick format. Oh also blues aggro one drop is better than any green aggro 1 drop, or red. Or white. Or black. Blue gets the best creatures now is what I'm saying. Oh also the best eternal witness ever printed too. So yeah. All held together by the most retarded draw spell not named ancestral that gets to be almost 2/3 of this shit format but it's okay because #SkillIntensive while fucking squirrel combo is too powerful for the format for reasons completely fucking unknown

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Originally Posted by Megadeus

I mean we're at a point of the game where a blue 3 drop out classes every green playable creature in the format. Sick format. Oh also blues aggro one drop is better than any green aggro 1 drop, or red. Or white. Or black. Blue gets the best creatures now is what I'm saying. Oh also the best eternal witness ever printed too. So yeah. All held together by the most retarded draw spell not named ancestral that gets to be almost 2/3 of this shit format but it's okay because #SkillIntensive while fucking squirrel combo is too powerful for the format for reasons completely fucking unknown

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If you're going to make "waaah waaaah color pie" arguments then I have to remind you that DRS is green

I mean I get that the color pie is essentially irrelevant. The bigger issue is that the same color has the best creatures, best answers, best draw spells, best walkers best combo pieces. At some point it's like can we get a fucking bone to maybe discourage playing blue? Leovold being one sided chains in blue was the last fucking nail

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Originally Posted by kombatkiwi

If you're going to make "waaah waaaah color pie" arguments then I have to remind you that DRS is green

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There is nothing wrong with DRS from a color pie standpoint except for MAYBE being able to make mana of any color off a creature by only tapping B instead of G. However, Black does get GY interaction and mana acceleration so that can at least be justified.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that DRS isn’t overpowered. But it also has nothing to do with what Megadeus is saying, which is that a sequence of printings have injected one very particular kind of deck with rocket fuel while other kinds of decks get nothing (or what they do get is so cold to the blue stew that it’s irrelevant.

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Originally Posted by taconaut

Sure, all fair points as well, but if the thrust of the argument is, "I just can't ever beat this guy once he's in play!" that's not necessarily true, it's just that people don't want to adjust to it - it'd be wonderful if no one played counterspells and I could just cut all the discard spells from my ANT deck for things that helped me combo, but sometimes you have to make deckbuilding concessions that make your main weaker so that you can have outs to things that beat your deck. If the choice is "I can kill my own x/1 and their otherwise unkillable guy and still have a chance" versus "I'm just dead to mini progenitus" why not try option 1?

Plus, sometimes it isn't actually worth it, and you have to acknowledge sometimes they're going to get you - generally people don't play a bounce spell in ANT and just end up losing to Gaddock Teeg game 1. You could add one, as there are flex slots, but in general people have decided it's not worth it. Maybe TNN is the Gaddock Teeg of "play some green duders and get in there" decks.

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The difference between TNN to a fair deck and Chalice/Thalia/Teeg to a combo deck is that the latter only need to be off the table for one turn for the combo player to win. The dynamic with TNN in a fair matchup is such that even if you deal with the first one, you are too far behind to come back... and nothing stops them from just having another before you can turn around because the deck-construction cost is so low.

Hey now guys, let's not look a gift Great Sable Stag in the mouth. Format's saved!