All B/R update speculation.

[Gheizen64]

Earthcraft can't be considered and flash can? Ok. Time spiral not even considered. Recruiter too good? Lol. Vise not even considered. What's next? Gush is fine for unbans? Please what about no.

The most amazing part has to be the fact that he consider Druid and Survival "unbannable" when they are both much better combo than Earthcraft in the same color, even.

[kiblast]

Turn one Ancient Tomb into Grim Monolith, turn 2 Mind Twist for 5. Oh, now I understand why they keep it banned. Clearly a broken strategy.

[Lemnear]

What a crap. I expected a better article from caleb tbh. I don't know where to start but ...

4x Imperial Seal + Ad Nauseam?
Unban Survival hinting at DRS but consider DRS to be banned

[Amon Amarth]

I was trying to make sure I wasn't going crazy. Sanity intact, it seems. I was surprised Caleb wrote this since I disagree with basically everything he wrote.

[Jamaican Zombie Legend]

Some of those Legacy suggestions are hilarious. I love how Imperial Seal is potentially okay because topdeck tutors have plenty of countermeasures, but then Earthcraft is suddenly broken because it is part of a two-card combo that can be found by two topdeck tutors, both of which require white mana and one of which is Sterling Grove. Flash being okay because Rest in Peace exists is hilarious as well. It's not like Flash can kill far before one can make two land drops or anything.

Just a really poor article in general, unless of course it is some ChannelFireball shadow-ops trolling mission to try and direct a lot of traffic to the site via threads like this. But I think it's more likely the author had an off day, some stress in their lives, wasn't feeling well, or something else that's no fun. Shit like that happens to everybody. You can't always be batting a thousand.

[(nameless one)]

This article has a hidden agenda. I wouldn't be surprised if Earthcraft gets unbanned next week.

[dave8]

When is the next list update?

[Gheizen64]

This article has a hidden agenda. I wouldn't be surprised if Earthcraft gets unbanned next week.

Yeah, something seems fishy to me too. Some reasoning seems way too much "out there" to be actual reasoning from a smart person and not a PR move. I'm calling Earthcraft unbanned on February 1.

[Barook]

Yeah, something seems fishy to me too. Some reasoning seems way too much "out there" to be actual reasoning from a smart person and not a PR move. I'm calling Earthcraft unbanned on February 1.

Considering the Illness in the Ranks print, maybe.

Has there been a price surge in Earthcraft yet?

[Amon Amarth]

Not as far as I know. It's been sitting at the same price for a long time.

[FieryBalrog]

may as well repost my on Caleb's article here

Wow, this article is completely laughable. Earthcraft shouldn't be unbanned because "green decks shouldn't have [bad] combos", but apparently Flash is fair (because hey, blue! bluuuueee! keep in mind Flash-Hulk is widely considered the most degenerate deck Legacy has ever seen). As for hate, I wasn't aware that the hate for instants and sorceries like Flash and Show & Tell (which Caleb claims is "very answerable", as if Earthcraft wasn't) was somehow more severe than the ease of hating on enchantments.

Meanwhile every single card he mentions as "hating"on Flash folds to a simple Echoing Truth or, gee, nearly any bounce spell ever made, which happen to conveniently be in color. Storm decks learned that trick years ago. I'd like to see Enchantress Squirrel combo laugh at Reverent Silence, Deed, Ray of Revelation, Phyrexian Revoker or even Pithing Needle in the same easy catch-all manner. What are they going to do, chalice @ 1 to shut down Ray? lol.

Quote:
They’re both green. Does green really need a two-card combo, costing two and three, that generates infinite 1/1s? Think about it for a second. Every green deck in the format could sideboard this, or maindeck it, or tutor for it randomly. I don’t want my control opponents combo killing me turn four.

Someone get this man a copy of Helm of Obedience and Rest in Peace, because he may just have a heart attack. Infinite 1/1s take a full turn cycle to win and are stopped by anything which stops people from attacking for damage (so, lots of things). Energy Field (in the same deck that runs Helm-RIP combo, for extra irony).

Newly spoiled Illness in the Ranks does the job for a whopping cost of B, not that anyone needs it to stop the non-juggernaut that is Squirrel combo.

Quote:
Earthcraft might make a fine inclusion in the deck even without Squirrel Nest, as the deck already wants to Wild Growth a land and play a pile of untargetable 0/1s.

I wasn't aware that "four" constituted a "pile"of untargetable 0/1s. Gee, Enchantress runs no other creatures. A card that is dead for mana without Argothian (which is a card you don't want even more of your deck to depend on) is a "fine inclusion" comparable to Wild Growth? You mean the Wild Growth that costs 2 mana, & does nothing without one other specific card?

[Malakai]

Calm down, people.

He had a deadline and no ideas. What's the fastest Magic article to write? A B&R "review." Ignore it and move on, else all you'll be doing all year is reading and then ranting/raving about these articles.

Also Earthcraft is damn good in Enchantress as 1G Timewalk that reads "this cannot be played on turns 1 or 2."

[FieryBalrog]

Calm down, people.

He had a deadline and no ideas. What's the fastest Magic article to write? A B&R "review." Ignore it and move on, else all you'll be doing all year is reading and then ranting/raving about these articles.

Also Earthcraft is damn good in Enchantress as 1G Timewalk that reads "this cannot be played on turns 1 or 2."

If you think of it like that, Wildgrowth is like a G Timewalk that reads some similar BS
Utopia Sprawl too, Enchantress is the best deck ever it has 20 time walks

Or maybe this isn't the best analogy to a Timewalk.

Earthcraft isn't great in Enchantress outside the combo. It's useless without Argothian and usually worse than Wild Growth with it. Outside of the combo it would never be played ever, and it's frankly not one of the scarier things I can imagine in Legacy. Enchantress would still be a Tier 2 deck, albeit a slightly better one that shoved some combo pieces instead of silver bullets. The combo loses to many more things than Emrakul does, and Emrakul isn't unstoppable itself.

i'd be more worried about Earthcraft in Elves and I still wouldn't be very worried. Both Enchantress and Elves are narrow decks that are easy to hate out. Contrary to what Caleb thinks, other green decks (which ones, the imaginary ones?) don't just start randomly shoving in 1-of combo pieces that are terrible on their own. Neither piece is remotely good in BUG, the only real control deck that runs green.

Deadlines or no deadlines, you don't really have to think about it very hard to realize something's amiss when you're calling Flash a "possible unban" and Earthcraft a "keep banned". With the logic "do we want green decks to have combos? Think about it for a second."

[lordofthepit]

No changes!

[Wanderlust]

How disappointing. There are numerous cards on the banned list that could have come off.

[UnsungHero]

I hope people realize now that they banned Bloodbraid Elf in modern, that Jace, the Mind Sculptor is never ever going to be unbanned in Modern. Maybe the price on JtMS will drop.
Hopefully they urban Ancestral Vision sometime soon in modern too.

[Vacrix]

There are quite a few cards they COULD take off.. like Mindtwist, Mind's Desire, Earthcraft...

But I think the card that ought to come off cause it might actually do something relevant in Legacy is.. Survival of the Fittest.

We have more recently acquired cards such as Scavenging Ooze and Deathrite Shaman, which are quite good against Survival. Even if it tries to dump a bunch of Vengevines into the yard, there are answers. Pithing Needle, QPM, GSZ --> QPM, Rest in Peace, Cage... I really don't think it would be nearly as dangerous as it was.

[.dk]

Completely agree about Survival. Surgical Extraction wasn't a card yet when that deck was running rampant - feels like the format has plenty of tools to combat it now.

But, at the same time, it is a 1 card combo engine and Wizards has shown that they don't like those very much when they aren't overly complicated (Doomsday).

I don't understand why more cards aren't coming off in general though - mind twist and earthcraft seem ridiculously tame in legacy these days. I mean, they just printed an answer to squirrel tokens in Gatecrash even - what's the big deal?

[Aggro_zombies]

Completely agree about Survival. Surgical Extraction wasn't a card yet when that deck was running rampant - feels like the format has plenty of tools to combat it now.

But, at the same time, it is a 1 card combo engine and Wizards has shown that they don't like those very much when they aren't overly complicated (Doomsday).

I don't understand why more cards aren't coming off in general though - mind twist and earthcraft seem ridiculously tame in legacy these days. I mean, they just printed an answer to squirrel tokens in Gatecrash even - what's the big deal?

Inertia, probably. Yes, there are cards that probably aren't an issue if they come off, but the other side of that is that there isn't a particular need to take them off; things like that can be unbanned whenever. Wizards is presumably happy with Legacy as-is and doesn't see a need to fix what isn't broke.

[Darkenslight]

I'm still tickled that the Modern Grapeshot deck is pretty much dead because of the banning of Seething Song.

Still, there are at least two cards that have been considered for unbanning of late.