Modern Banned List

[Meekrab]

So basically every fun card is banned in Modern? Cool format, bro.

[menace13]

So basically every fun card is banned in Modern? Cool format, bro.

Lol, everyone of my friends says the same thing. Like, I mean at this point if they are banning zoo pieces WOTC has lost all direction they thought they had.

Is Jund now the best deck or Gifts something?

[honestabe]

Aaaand, Modern is 2 cards closer to being a completely dead format

[4eak]

I'm fine with the banning (for Legacy, I'd be in favor of unbanning a large number of cards - so don't count me a whiner). Large shifts early, in the infancy of a format, are easiest to handle. Zoo was retarded good. It isn't the fact that there is a 'best' card, but also how disproportionately 'best' the card is. Wild Nacatl especially deserved it. I still have my eye on a few cards which aren't just good, but too good.

EDIT: I should add that I'm glad they are willing to ban creatures and neuter aggro decks when necessary. For a while there, I thought this was simply going to be Zoo.format (it sounded like they would allow strict dominance), which would bore me to tears.

I also like the wild-west this format presents.

For those who are worried about what to invest in (assuming more bans are possible), invest in the mana-base of the format. Lands are highly unlikely to be banned, and highly likely to remain relevant regardless of future bannings.


peace,
4eak

[Phoenix Ignition]

I still don't understand why people who have no affiliation with Modern whatsoever like to come to the Modern forums and say "Banning cards is stupid, that's why Modern is going to fail." and then leave.

If you don't want to play Modern, don't! The banning in my eyes is a very good thing, zoo was a bit ridiculous, and Modern is still in its infancy. It's going to need bans to get it to where WotC thinks it should be at. Nacatl was the best creature and needed to go. Punishing fire was too good and was abuse-able by zoo. Happy to see it happen.

[hi-val]

1. WotC has banned more cards in Modern than it has with any other format history with the exception of the creation of Legacy (which banned some 60 odd cards). Additionally, WotC has banned at least two cards with every update since the creation of the format; with the exception of this latest banning, previous announcements have banned at least four cards. It would appear that WotC has some very defined ideas about what this format is supposed to look like. However, the way they're shaping these ideas is a very liberal use of the ban hammer. WotC has not given the format time to "settle" so it can begin the process of developing a metagame as the basis for future deck designing. The constant additions to the B&R list makes it a very unstable format which leads me to # two....

2. The instability of the format makes investment unappealing. Some cards like the dual lands are fairly safe investments because even if they're reprinted will still command a decent price since they will obviously see play in Standard. However, one has a disincentive to purchasing the powerful cards in the format because they're likely to get banned; Grove of the Burnwillows being the obvious example since its price will likely drop by as much as +60% with the banning of Punishing Fires. Even though the cards are not as expensive as Legacy or Vintage staples, a hallmark of eternal formats is the investment you make in format staples is one which will keep value over time. I can't reliably conclude that such an investment will hold overtime because of the tendency to ban the best apparent deck.

The problem is that we haven't gotten many tournament results yet. I have a feeling that when PTQ season comes around, you'll see Modern blowing up in articles and on forums. Remember, we'll get 2 or more PTQs each week! That's a heck of a lot of data.

I agree that it's a little silly to see two cards on the list after each update. I think this will slow down and we won't see anything banned in March. The added advantage is that you'll get to see dominant decks get answered, week by week. I loved Extended season before and I know I'm going to love Modern season. I love every last bit of tech that comes out!

As far as not playing with fun cards, I can cast Cruel Ultimatum in this format. That's unreal.

[pippo84]

This ban made my day! Really, when I read about it I started laughing so hard!

This format is total nonsense.

[SpikeyMikey]

I'm disappointed. I'm not shocked, since Wizards hasn't shown any common sense in years. But disappointed. Banning Wild Nacatl doesn't stop this from being an aggro-driven format. It simply moves the crown down the road a bit to Affinity. The thing is, Affinity is far less fun to play against because it's faster and more swingy. But Affinity had a poor Zoo matchup, so it wasn't going to be a huge factor in the metagame.

Any reasonable banning committee would've learned from the mistakes they made prior to PT: Philly and realized that when they ban things based on conjecture, they don't take the theory craft far enough and end up with a format that looks nothing like they think it would. In essence, they're thinking 0 levels ahead, playing whack-a-mole and banning symptoms instead of looking at how the format as a whole fits together. And these are the people who decide what's balanced for play.

[Admiral_Arzar]

This ban made my day! Really, when I read about it I started laughing so hard!

This format is total nonsense.

I'm actually very happy with Nactatl getting the axe, and equally happy that they realized the problem wasn't actually Tarmogoyf. I don't expect anyone who didn't play control in early modern to understand why this ban is a good thing.

[honestabe]

I'm actually very happy with Nactatl getting the axe, and equally happy that they realized the problem wasn't actually Tarmogoyf. I don't expect anyone who didn't play control in early modern to understand why this ban is a good thing.

I played control. I just think it's stupid to ban a vanilla 3/3. Zoo wasn't too good, the rest of the format was too weak. If I were suddenly put in charge, I'd have unbanned Ancestral Vision and Chrome Mox to give control and midrange some balls, and waited to see what happened. There were already a lot of people who weren't playing the format because of how big the banned list was, last night only made things worse.

I live in RI, where there are 2 major stores that run tournaments, and are DCI sanctioned. Both of them have tried running Modern, but have stopped, since literally nobody was showing up for them. The biggest complaint they were getting was the banned list. One of the workers in one of the stores showed me one of his decks, and when I had to tell him his deck was illegal because preordain is "too good" he laughed at me, and didn't believe me until I showed him on his iPhone. A friend of mine from Vintage asked me "Isn't that the format where all the fun cards are banned?" I'm no design expert, but I can't help but feel like when people are literally laughing at your banned list, it's not good for the format.

I don't know what WoTC's end game is for this format, but I garuntee that people will only be playing this format because they have to for PTQs unless they unban a lot of cards.

[GtF]

I'm disappointed. I'm not shocked, since Wizards hasn't shown any common sense in years. But disappointed. Banning Wild Nacatl doesn't stop this from being an aggro-driven format. It simply moves the crown down the road a bit to Affinity. The thing is, Affinity is far less fun to play against because it's faster and more swingy. But Affinity had a poor Zoo matchup, so it wasn't going to be a huge factor in the metagame.

Any reasonable banning committee would've learned from the mistakes they made prior to PT: Philly and realized that when they ban things based on conjecture, they don't take the theory craft far enough and end up with a format that looks nothing like they think it would. In essence, they're thinking 0 levels ahead, playing whack-a-mole and banning symptoms instead of looking at how the format as a whole fits together. And these are the people who decide what's balanced for play.

They weren't playing whack a mole, they were going off years of data about what was good and what has been "too good" in various formats. In Philly, they didn't go far enough, then they tried to fix it and the worlds format looked a lot better. They have an idea of a format that people will want to play, and they are trying to make that format. This format is completely new, the fact that they are banning a lot of cards at the beginning is good, because they are trying to make it a fun format by the time PTQ season rolls around instead of waiting until a PTQ season is essentially ruined by a deck that is too dominant, which they have done, oh, a million times before (See thepths/hypergenesis extended, stoneforge mystic standard, affinity in block for just a few examples of the data clearly show that a deck was busted and had cards banned, but only after the season was over or almost over). I am glad they are learning from their mistakes.
If you read Erik Lauer's reasoning, it makes sense - both nacatl and fire/grove vastly reduced the number of viable strategies by just trumping them.

[SpikeyMikey]

They weren't playing whack a mole, they were going off years of data about what was good and what has been "too good" in various formats. In Philly, they didn't go far enough, then they tried to fix it and the worlds format looked a lot better. They have an idea of a format that people will want to play, and they are trying to make that format. This format is completely new, the fact that they are banning a lot of cards at the beginning is good, because they are trying to make it a fun format by the time PTQ season rolls around instead of waiting until a PTQ season is essentially ruined by a deck that is too dominant, which they have done, oh, a million times before (See thepths/hypergenesis extended, stoneforge mystic standard, affinity in block for just a few examples of the data clearly show that a deck was busted and had cards banned, but only after the season was over or almost over). I am glad they are learning from their mistakes.
If you read Erik Lauer's reasoning, it makes sense - both nacatl and fire/grove vastly reduced the number of viable strategies by just trumping them.

You know how the easiest way to beat an aggro deck is to play an aggro deck one size up? Like how regular Zoo beats Cat Sligh and how Big Zoo with Baneslayer/Gideon/Elspeth and extra KotRs beats regular Zoo? Well Zoo in general was like that with Affinity. It was fast enough that it didn't lose to the fast Affinity draws, but enough bigger that it could grind them out when Affinity started drawing irrelevant cards (Memnite, Ornithopter, Vault Skirge, etc. vs. 4/5 Tarmogoyf or Knight). If you take Zoo out of the format, what you get is a format that's even *more* aggro-centric and even harder to deal with for midrange or control decks because you've just sped the format's aggro up between 1/2 a turn and a full turn.

Was Zoo incredibly strong? Yes. But there were decks out there that smacked it around, like Martyr Proc. The format would've stabilized with Zoo accounting for somewhere around half the field saturation that it had at Worlds (so roughly Legacy Merfolk levels) at which point it wouldn't be a threat to the format's health. The banned list they had going into Worlds wasn't ideal, but at least it had the potential to become a stable iteration of Modern. The current changes have destabilized things.

Affinity is going to warp the format around itself. The way every deck has to run Combust or have issues with Twin every deck is now going to need Ancient Grudge or Nature's Claim or have issues with Affinity. This may even put Twin back in the driver's seat.

Eric Lauer's reasoning can pretty much suck my left nut. The last time there was a brand new Eternal format, I designed two tier 1 decks while everyone else was worrying about phantom threats that just didn't materialize (Long.dec, Full English Breakfast, a dominance of Survival). One of those decks was - wait for it - Zoo. You know, the deck that became so widespread that it became a catchall name for every RGW aggro? So while it may sound cocky, the fact of the matter is I understand new formats in a way that few other people can claim. Because I'm not just looking at what cards or decks are performing well, I look at how various meta-strategies fit together and what holes that leaves for exploitation. That's how I could tell everyone that Splinter Twin was going to win Philly a week before it happened. I'm not always right, but I'm right often enough to be confident in my assertions.

Wizards had already proved that they aren't capable of predicting what the results of their bannings are going to be. They've proven that they have no idea what this format actually looks like. Saying "x is good in another format" is absolutely fucking meaningless. Dark Confidant is amazing in Legacy and fantastic in Vintage. It's complete and total fucking ass in Modern. Mystic Remora. Primeval Titan. Dark Depths. All cards that are/were incredibly strong in 1 or more formats that are unplayable in other formats. Those "years of data" you're talking about? Useless as tits on a nun. There has been exactly 1 major relevant Modern tournament, and that was Philly. Since there were half a dozen bannings in the wake of that tournament, we essentially have no real metagame data to go off of.

Worlds, with Modern as the last format of a multi-format event was incredibly skewed (moreso than Philly was with its two formats) by position going into day 3. Additionally, the decks that were played at Worlds were primarily last-minute piles thrown together. That kind of environment naturally favors aggro and Zoo is, as I mentioned before, pretty ubiquitous.

[GtF]

Your assumption that wizards has "taken zoo out of the format" is just wrong, or at least we don't know for sure that it's right. But many people, including LSV in his modern video, think zoo will still be very good, even with wild nacatl banned. So there's an unwarranted assumption right off the bat.
I think you are way overestimating affinity. Also not every deck has to run combust to fight twin - it did pretty badly at worlds overall.
I am not even sure what your argument is. Are you saying they shouldn't have banned these two cards? They shouldn't have banned anything in modern to start out with? That you should be in charge of the b/r list because you designed so many good decks?
For my part, I wasn't saying "these cards were good in these formats, so that's why they banned them." I was saying, it makes sense to try and get a good, balanced format that people want to play BEFORE the PTQ season happens, not after it's already happened and been ruined by a degenerate deck.

[Dreg]

I'm thinking about modern just like a "competitive casual". It is the format of the tuned pet decks and such. With the frenzied banning policy wizard is carrying on, you cannot rely on anithing really competitive nowadays.

[SpikeyMikey]

Your assumption that wizards has "taken zoo out of the format" is just wrong, or at least we don't know for sure that it's right. But many people, including LSV in his modern video, think zoo will still be very good, even with wild nacatl banned. So there's an unwarranted assumption right off the bat.
I think you are way overestimating affinity. Also not every deck has to run combust to fight twin - it did pretty badly at worlds overall.
I am not even sure what your argument is. Are you saying they shouldn't have banned these two cards? They shouldn't have banned anything in modern to start out with? That you should be in charge of the b/r list because you designed so many good decks?
For my part, I wasn't saying "these cards were good in these formats, so that's why they banned them." I was saying, it makes sense to try and get a good, balanced format that people want to play BEFORE the PTQ season happens, not after it's already happened and been ruined by a degenerate deck.

There are two important factors in a deck's impact. One is actual performance and one is perceived performance. Of the two, perceived performance is often the more important. Take Mental Misstep for example. The perception was that it dominated Legacy while it was legal and that only the banning prevented it from completely destabilizing the format. But if you look at the two most oppressive decks of the Misstep era, you see that Misstep was *bad* against them. NO RUG had 3 spells it had to resolve, Tarmogoyf, Green Sun's Zenith and Natural Order. The spells Misstep hit were largely irrelevant; Hierarch, Lightning Bolt and GSZ for Arbor. Misstep could provide some limited tempo against NO RUG but it could not affect their actual strategy. It was the same for U/W Stoneblade. Here, the relevant spells were Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Again, Misstep could provide a little tempo against them, stopping StP or Brainstorm, but it did nothing against the underlying strategy of the deck. Running Misstep vs. those two decks was like running Tormod's Crypt to beat CounterTop because it makes their 'goyfs smaller. Yet every other deck in the format insisted on running Misstep when Pierce or Snare was a clearly superior choice because the perception was that Misstep was god's gift to Magic. Perception of Mental Misstep being an unbeatable force lead to the fulfillment of that self-same prophecy. In a similar fashion, the loss of Nacatl will cause people to drop Zoo. Less saturation of Zoo will further hamper its results causing more people to drop it. Whether or not losing Nacatl actually kills Zoo, the perception will be that it does and that will be enough.

I would argue that because Wizards track record with Modern is so poor, they should've sought out experts on the format before making any changes. I'm not saying that I should be in charge of the B&R list. I AM saying that someone like myself or a Doug Linn or a Gavin Verehy should've been consulted. Just because you don't think that what's happening is ideal doesn't mean you should change it if the most likely possibility is that you'll make it worse...

[Mr. Safety]

I don't like the bannings...but I can see how they will allow more freedom to develop other options. In the short run, disappointing...in the long run, probably a good decision. I think the real 'downer' of modern is that the theoretical card pool allows for some insanely powerful interactions and decks...but all of those powerful interactions have been banned. In light of no unbans, these bans make sense. However...I'd rather have unbans rather than more bans.

1) I wouldn't ban Wild Nacatl...I'd unban Bitterblossom, Sword of the Meek, or Jace.

2) I wouldn't ban Punishing Fire...I'd unban Glimpse of Nature or Ancestral Vision.

That's just my opinion.

Rather than worry about an overly-efficient beater like Wild Nacatl, let Sword of the Meek loose on the format and have zoo worry about continual life gain. All of a sudden Qasali Pridemage is just as important in modern zoo as it is in legacy zoo.

Rather than worry about a recurring removal engine with Punishing Fire, let Ancestral Vision loose on the format so decks can at least attempt to match the card advantage that Punishing Fire gives with a good draw option. Jace would be similarly advantageous by also providing a manipulation option, but one that doesn't appear until turn 4 at the earliest. Hell, Jace seems pretty fragile in a format where Punishing Fire can be recurred a couple times to kill him off.

Glimpse of Nature would put a lot of pressure on decks trying to slow-roll Punishing Fire as a removal engine. It becomes too mana-intensive when a ton of elves can get on the table earlier than P-Fire gets online. All of a sudden Engineered Explosives is powerful again and fringe control options like Ratchet Bomb, Crime//Punishment, and Pyroclasm are playable again, and even neccessary.

I know folks won't agree with me entirely, but I think unbanning is more profitable than banning.

[GGoober]

I think the ban is a fair one IF AND ONLY IF WotC is approaching Modern to be a relatively unpowered and balanced format without strategies that win with powerful cards i.e. Legacy/Vintage. From that standpoint, Nacatl and PFires seem a natural fit to join the crew.

PFire ban was great because the engine single-handedly kills many possible archetype: Faeries/Elves/Merfolk. Sure, you have Volcanic Fallout etc, but it is much easier to pack the PFire engine and win with it, than it is to win with 4 Volcanic fallouts taking up maindeck slots that don't do much against other matchups.

Nacatl ban may seem weird at first, but this to me is a direct response that Zoo is overpowered right now, and hitting Tarmogoyf will weaken other possible decks such as Rock/GWb/GW/UG-aggro-control/Next-level.deck. Therefore Nacatl ban makes sense to me.

But from a side point of view, the banlist is only going to make sense if Modern is built on the basis that you don't get to play broken/powerful strategies. That for myself, is a deterrent to playing the format, but I'm sure there are many others who enjoy that kind of format. So instead of whining about the huge banlist and growing banlist, maybe the people who don't understand Modern's situation (this includes myself in the past), should just not bother with the format :P

[GtF]

There are two important factors in a deck's impact. One is actual performance and one is perceived performance. Of the two, perceived performance is often the more important. Take Mental Misstep for example. The perception was that it dominated Legacy while it was legal and that only the banning prevented it from completely destabilizing the format. But if you look at the two most oppressive decks of the Misstep era, you see that Misstep was *bad* against them. NO RUG had 3 spells it had to resolve, Tarmogoyf, Green Sun's Zenith and Natural Order. The spells Misstep hit were largely irrelevant; Hierarch, Lightning Bolt and GSZ for Arbor. Misstep could provide some limited tempo against NO RUG but it could not affect their actual strategy. It was the same for U/W Stoneblade. Here, the relevant spells were Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Again, Misstep could provide a little tempo against them, stopping StP or Brainstorm, but it did nothing against the underlying strategy of the deck. Running Misstep vs. those two decks was like running Tormod's Crypt to beat CounterTop because it makes their 'goyfs smaller. Yet every other deck in the format insisted on running Misstep when Pierce or Snare was a clearly superior choice because the perception was that Misstep was god's gift to Magic. Perception of Mental Misstep being an unbeatable force lead to the fulfillment of that self-same prophecy. In a similar fashion, the loss of Nacatl will cause people to drop Zoo. Less saturation of Zoo will further hamper its results causing more people to drop it. Whether or not losing Nacatl actually kills Zoo, the perception will be that it does and that will be enough.

I would argue that because Wizards track record with Modern is so poor, they should've sought out experts on the format before making any changes. I'm not saying that I should be in charge of the B&R list. I AM saying that someone like myself or a Doug Linn or a Gavin Verehy should've been consulted. Just because you don't think that what's happening is ideal doesn't mean you should change it if the most likely possibility is that you'll make it worse...

Doesn't Gavin Verhey work for wizards now? Is it possible he was consulted about these most recent changes?
I thought the reasoning behind misstep wasn't that it was good against those top two decks, but that it was so good in them against all the other fringe strategies that it made the format extremely stale, and exterminated a lot of deck archetypes.
The comparison of crypt for goyf with misstep for swords/brainstorm/bolt/hierarch is a stretch. One actually counters a spell, even if it's an unimportant spell - the other does basically nothing. I do agree that misstep was overhyped and overvalued, but I still think it was fine to ban because of the reasons given above.
You're changing your story from "zoo is unplayable" to "people will think zoo is unplayable." But setting that aside, is that really what we know people will think? Isn't it a bit premature to say that? I mean yes, zoo lost wild nacatl but control decks also lost punishing fire. It might not be a wash but it's not completely one-sided either.
"Just because you don't think that what's happening is ideal doesn't mean you should change it if the most likely possibility is that you'll make it worse..."
You still haven't really given a reason why it will be worse, or why it's the most likely possibility. Do you really think affinity will dominate the upcoming PTQ season? Do you think they should have started out the format without banning anything?
Basically I'm asking, if you think they've done such a terrible job with a brand new format, what would have been the ideal approach to take?
My .2 cents is that if they hadn't banned anything, PT Philly still would have been full of degenerate combo decks. Then they would have either had to suck it up and say "this is what the format will be like" and watch everyone walk away, reprint force of will, which is what prevents legacy from being like modern, or ban a bunch of cards. Except they probably would have missed something, and modern from worlds would have been like philly was. Then by the time PTQ season rolled around, they wouldn't have had a format in the best state it could be. By doing it before the PT, they gave themselves extra tournaments to achieve their stated goal: An interactive format with an average turn 4 goldfish kill/win at the earliest.

[honestabe]

Doesn't Gavin Verhey work for wizards now? Is it possible he was consulted about these most recent changes?
I thought the reasoning behind misstep wasn't that it was good against those top two decks, but that it was so good in them against all the other fringe strategies that it made the format extremely stale, and exterminated a lot of deck archetypes.
The comparison of crypt for goyf with misstep for swords/brainstorm/bolt/hierarch is a stretch. One actually counters a spell, even if it's an unimportant spell - the other does basically nothing. I do agree that misstep was overhyped and overvalued, but I still think it was fine to ban because of the reasons given above.
You're changing your story from "zoo is unplayable" to "people will think zoo is unplayable." But setting that aside, is that really what we know people will think? Isn't it a bit premature to say that? I mean yes, zoo lost wild nacatl but control decks also lost punishing fire. It might not be a wash but it's not completely one-sided either.
"Just because you don't think that what's happening is ideal doesn't mean you should change it if the most likely possibility is that you'll make it worse..."
You still haven't really given a reason why it will be worse, or why it's the most likely possibility. Do you really think affinity will dominate the upcoming PTQ season? Do you think they should have started out the format without banning anything?
Basically I'm asking, if you think they've done such a terrible job with a brand new format, what would have been the ideal approach to take?
My .2 cents is that if they hadn't banned anything, PT Philly still would have been full of degenerate combo decks. Then they would have either had to suck it up and say "this is what the format will be like" and watch everyone walk away, reprint force of will, which is what prevents legacy from being like modern, or ban a bunch of cards. Except they probably would have missed something, and modern from worlds would have been like philly was. Then by the time PTQ season rolled around, they wouldn't have had a format in the best state it could be. By doing it before the PT, they gave themselves extra tournaments to achieve their stated goal: An interactive format with an average turn 4 goldfish kill/win at the earliest.

If they didn't ban Ancestral Vision, Bitterblossom, Jace and Misstep, I really, really doubt combo would have done so well.

I mean, they banned control, so combo dominated, so they banned combo, so aggro dominated, so they banned aggro (though aggro definitely got off easier than control and combo). I was really hoping to see some unbannings to raise the power level of the other decks to beat Zoo, than some banning of Zoo cards that in actuality isn't going to do too much to the deck. Zoo is still top dog by a long shot.

[Phoenix Ignition]

I would argue that because Wizards track record with Modern is so poor, they should've sought out experts on the format before making any changes. I'm not saying that I should be in charge of the B&R list. I AM saying that someone like myself or a Doug Linn or a Gavin Verehy should've been consulted.

The last time there was a brand new Eternal format, I designed two tier 1 decks while everyone else was worrying about phantom threats that just didn't materialize (Long.dec, Full English Breakfast, a dominance of Survival). One of those decks was - wait for it - Zoo. You know, the deck that became so widespread that it became a catchall name for every RGW aggro? So while it may sound cocky, the fact of the matter is I understand new formats in a way that few other people can claim. Because I'm not just looking at what cards or decks are performing well, I look at how various meta-strategies fit together and what holes that leaves for exploitation. That's how I could tell everyone that Splinter Twin was going to win Philly a week before it happened. I'm not always right, but I'm right often enough to be confident in my assertions.

Wow... you seem like kind of a big deal!

If I ever meet you in real life... can I... can I have an autograph?