Modern Banned List

[JDK]

...except for maintaining a decent speed and flexibility.

[kombatkiwi]

...because there's no reason not to.

I don't think you've made a compelling argument for why there needs to be a reason, though.
As outlined by previous posters, having a manabase made up of nearly all nonbasic lands is the backbone of many decks in modern, from midrange to control, combo to aggro etc.

By putting price of progress in the format burn gains a huge edge over essentially every modern DTB at the moment - your argument as I understand it is that it would be a good thing for the format by knocking off the top dog (Jund) and then allowing more scope for different decks that have mono- or two-color manabases.

The thing that I don't understand is that putting PoP in the format also obliterates many of the decks which already have favoured Jund matchups anyway. If your goal is not solely to weaken Jund then why hate on nonbasics in particular? They aren't necessarily a bad thing if they exist in a balanced metagame (which I believe they do at the moment).

If you make shock-fetch manabases actively bad then Modern becomes a very uninteresting format because having the ability to play lots of colours allows for more flexible deckbuilding and a wider variety of playable strategies. If you think that Jund is too good right now then fine, that's probably a valid opinion, but I don't think it warrants the massive metagame-warp that introducing PoP to the format would cause.

[DragoFireheart]

I don't think you've made a compelling argument for why there needs to be a reason, though.

You're correct, I haven't. Other than Burn, there is almost no reason to go mono-colored in Modern.

Hell, even Legacy has Goblins. Modern doesn't really have a powerful mono-colored deck. It's a flaw in the format atm.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Merfolk, elves, and soul sisters are all viable decks. Go ahead and say they aren't but like everyone else has said, you haven't made a compelling argument yet.

[DragoFireheart]

Merfolk, elves, and soul sisters are all viable decks. Go ahead and say they aren't but like everyone else has said, you haven't made a compelling argument yet.

I think I've made it quite clear that I was not attempting to make a compelling argument for why mono-colored decks are worthwhile in Modern.

Or, are you saying I haven't made a compelling argument for why mono-colored decks aren't viable? Which is it?

[alekill]

So BBE and seething song were just banned can someone explain this to me? I watch gp streams every once in a while but don't actually know the format so these bans don't make any sense to me.

[phonics]

Well they dont like combo, and if theres no combo everyone would just play jund.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Jund was too consistent with too many forms of card advantage that hating it out wasn't a possibility. I don't really know why they banned Seething Song, I don't think it's because less people will be playing Jund. UR storm was a decent deck but I don't think it was too good, and to my knowledge that's the only deck that was playing it.

[lordofthepit]

So BBE and seething song were just banned can someone explain this to me? I watch gp streams every once in a while but don't actually know the format so these bans don't make any sense to me.

There's an explanation attached to their announcement: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazin...ly/feature/232

That being said, I don't play the format at all and I don't know much about it, so I can't speak to the validity of those reasons.

Hope that helps! (And I hope it drops the cost of Legacy-crossover staples like Thoughtseize!)

[(nameless one)]

I can see the next B/R list update for modern:

Karn Liberated is now banned.

[morgan_coke]

Yeah, I don't really see how Tron doesn't get hit next. I'd almost lean more towards the urza lands themselves, except wotc loves them some timmy decks, so I dunno.

[Lt. Quattro]

If storm combo was so good to justify a banning why isn't it being played more than jund? Why not unban Ancestral Vision, Dread Return, Glimpse of Nature, Golgari Grave-Troll, Green Sun's Zenith, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Punishing Fire, Stoneforge Mystic and Wild Nacatl if wizards wants jund and storm to be played less.

[Phoenix Ignition]

If storm combo was so good to justify a banning why isn't it being played more than jund? Why not unban Ancestral Vision, Dread Return, Glimpse of Nature, Golgari Grave-Troll, Green Sun's Zenith, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Punishing Fire, Stoneforge Mystic and Wild Nacatl if wizards wants jund and storm to be played less.

As Lordofthepit pointed out, THEY EXPLAIN WHY JUST BELOW THE ANNOUNCEMENT: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazin...ly/feature/232

But, you know, why don't we just fly off the handle and make shit up instead.

[Opaco]

I thought that Storm is (was) not such a big deck and that Sheeting Song shouldn't been banned, but Wizards must know what they were doing so whatever. Then I come here, see the explanation link, read it and my heart fell.

Looking at the results of the recent tournaments, Storm is not the most played deck, but it is among the top tier of decks. Four of the players to get at least 18 points at Pro Tour Return to Ravnica were playing Storm, and Olivier Ruel had a Top 8 performance at Grand Prix Lyon playing Storm. On Magic Online, Storm is the second-most-frequent high-finishing deck in Modern events, at 11.42%, behind only Jund. These results indicate that, while far from dominant, Storm is a top tier deck.

It has a grand total of zero placement in the top 16 of the last two modern GPs and just two placements in the previous one. It only has a presence of tenth, and that's on MOL, where it's really cheap, so in paper it will probably be a lot less. And more important, they have admited that the deck is far from dominant, just a top tier deck, but hey, it can win on turn three (which is different to be a turn three combo, ANT could win on turn one, but it's not a turn one combo deck, modern PiF didn't have a consistent turn three win, but turn four), so we are crippling it regardless of results. The underlying statement: if a deck is fast, its results, dominance, interactivity or whatever other factors don't matter, it's gonna get it hit by the banhammer.

[JDK]

I hate it when Wizards bans a whole archetype with one key card just because they want to support the "HELP PLS, MY WHITE WEENIE DECK CANNOT DEAL WITH STORM!"-guys and their stupid plan to restrict turn 3 kills.

Banning Pyromancer Ascension would have made more sense with the given reasoning, as it enables those fast kills. Sure there are versions without it and even some with Gifts, but they are not as explosive. Fuck this, now I can bury my hopes of playing Dragonstorm one day again.

[nedleeds]

Wow. Nice format. 4 mana creature is banned. 3 mana dark ritual is banned. Tarmogoyf wasn't banned why? Oh that's right because it's the key selling point of your $7.00 a pack reprint set. Modern is a joke at this point.

Why play, practice and innovate in this format when anything approaching success just meets with banning?

[Megadeus]

Seething song ban is a fucking joke. BBE a bit less so, bit Wotc doesnt like T3 kills 20% of the time... Im afraid to build my modern deck. Theyy might ban stone rain seeing how much they hate efficient LD...

[nedleeds]

I mean what if some miserable pile like the Second Sunrise deck wins a GP? Why not unban some cards ... or are they waiting for the format to just become a combination of

tribal_mouth_breather.dec
rampant_cultivate_ramp_derp.dec
burn_wal_mart.dec

I had no problems beating any of the cited decks. You just had to you know ... build a deck instead of pasting a mtgo list into your tcg cart.

[Bionitech]

If you haven't noticed, Modern has been a joke for a while now because of its ridiculous B/R list.

[JDK]

I can understand the BBE ban, because it offers too much CA für an already great and dominating deck. But destroying an archetype because they don't want "Turn 3 Kills" is a fan service to White Weenie players...