All B/R update speculation.

[Megadeus]

I really want to play wonky things in modern, but it is so difficult to take that format seriously with all of these bannings. I really thought Koby had done a good enough job killing people with griselbrand on Turn 2 in modern that they would have banned him...

[DragoFireheart]

lulz, another card banned in Modern. WotC is going to destroy Modern.

Though, Modern is a good experiment to show that you need a good control-like pillar to balance out combos without having to ban something every couple of months.

I think anyone who thinks of Brainstorm with an opinion different from mine should GTFO because I can't tolerate different opinions.

Fix'd.

[Mewens]

That brings up an interesting idea, though – a FoW reprint for Modern is probably straight-up off the table since it's so clumsy by modern design, but what could they reprint that would fly?

You guys think Flusterstorm's good enough? A Disrupting Shoal variant (perhaps one that read "X or less")?

[TsumiBand]

That brings up an interesting idea, though – a FoW reprint for Modern is probably straight-up off the table since it's so clumsy by modern design, but what could they reprint that would fly?

You guys think Flusterstorm's good enough? A Disrupting Shoal variant (perhaps one that read "X or less")?

I'd just as soon see Daze, Thwart or Foil, any counter that doesn't blatantly leave UU untapped. For that manner, um, actual Counterspell wouldn't be so bad. Blue's ability to redraw those cards has more to do IMO with their infamy than their ability to give a hard no to almost everything. Cabal Therapy wouldn't hurt either.

[Koby]

Oh god Cabal Therapy would be very much appreciated in Modern; moreso than The Counterspell. Something that could give Thoughtseize a run for it's effectiveness, and still promotes creature strategies is both useful.

But let's please keep this thread's discussions to Legacy format. There is an existing thread in the Modern forum for Modern related B&R discussions.

[xfxf]

lulz, another card banned in Modern. WotC is going to destroy Modern.

Though, Modern is a good experiment to show that you need a good control-like pillar to balance out combos without having to ban something every couple of months.



Fix'd.

Because I like my format and so does thousands of people, you're welcome to play the shitty format you like to play without sabotaging my format thank you very much.

Also, opinions which change within two days based on tournament results are not opinions.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

"Let's Stop Banning Things"
Instant
XU
You may exile a blue card with converted mana cost X from your hand rather than pay ~'s mana cost.
Counter target noncreature spell unless its controller pays X.

[xfxf]

1000 lashes to every resenting cry baby who calls for a ban. And a 5 years sentence playing only Modern.

Stop scaring people away with arguments following the logic:
Brainstorm and it's ilk is imba -> Brainstorm is blue -> You have to play blue to win -> Blue costs $$$ -> Therefore you can't play legacy unless you are Bruce Wayne.
Get better at magic.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

1000 lashes to every resenting cry baby who calls for a ban. And a 5 years sentence playing only Modern.

Stop scaring people away with arguments following the logic:
Brainstorm and it's ilk is imba -> Brainstorm is blue -> You have to play blue to win -> Blue costs $$$ -> Therefore you can't play legacy unless you are Bruce Wayne.
Get better at magic.

So I take it that you follow this logic through to its conclusion and want Tolarian Academy and Ancestral Recall unbanned, and are not simply finding justifications for your status quo bias.

[Gheizen64]

"Let's Stop Banning Things"
Instant
XU
You may exile a blue card with converted mana cost X from your hand rather than pay ~'s mana cost.
Counter target noncreature spell unless its controller pays X.

I'd rather have a white FoW variant or something to give another color some form of stack control.

Decree of Repel 1WW
Instant
Counter target spell. If that spell is countered this way, put it on top of its owner's library instead of into that player's graveyard.
You may exile a basic land from your hand instead of playing Idea Repel mana cost.

I think white should get the "delay" counterspells as they fit into white's flavor of banning/taxing things, but not outright destroying them. Lapse of certainty could have been pushed much more.

Also, Modern has already Force Spike, it's called Mana Tithe. The card isn't good in grindy formats, and was good only in extremely degenerate formats that won very early and didn't have FoW available, like Post-mirrodin extended Tinker Era where everyone casted Tinker T1 or T2.

EDIT: all colors should have some forms of ability to interact with people outside the battlefield/graveyard imho, at least for the kind of permanents they usually remove anyway. For example i'd like to see Black getting a one mana terror for creatures on the stack, like:

Unborn B
Instant
Counter target non-black creature spell.
When life refuse to bloom


Red could get more misdirection and forks, even while they don't feel very "red", but whatever. Or they could get a burn spell that can target spells too, something like:

Mana Sparks R
Instant
Deal 1 damage to any target or counter target non-creature spell with CMC 1 or less. (the non-creature clause is because it would feel wrong for it to burn 2 toughness creatures)
Some flames can burn even ideas

They don't have to be necessarily good they just have to give options. White should get "tax" counters, preferably ones that don't counter but only delay spells (a-la remand or Memory Lapse). The only color i'd like to not have anything to interact on the stack is green, because green is the more "earthly" and "creature, not spells" color and would make sense.

Then you'd have something like:

Spell interactivity (hand, stack, enemy library manipulation) level:

Blue: unconditional stack control, minor hand (vendilion clique) and enemy library manipulation (JTMS)
Black: alternative form of creature removal on stack, discard, they should get the good top of enemies' library manipulation as it fit perfectly into black imho
Red: fork effects, minor spell "burn", blasts effects
White: permanent tax effects, one-time tax effects on the stack
Green: none, better mana denial could work to make the color more interactive, a-la root maze

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I'd rather have a white FoW variant or something to give another color some form of stack control.

Decree of Repel 1WW
Instant
Counter target spell. If that spell is countered this way, put it on top of its owner's library instead of into that player's graveyard.
You may exile a basic land from your hand instead of playing Idea Repel mana cost.

I think white should get the "delay" counterspells as they fit into white's flavor of banning/taxing things, but not outright destroying them. Lapse of certainty could have been pushed much more.

Also, Modern has already Force Spike, it's called Mana Tithe. The card isn't good in grindy formats, and was good only in extremely degenerate formats that won very early and didn't have FoW available, like Post-mirrodin extended Tinker Era where everyone casted Tinker T1 or T2.

Well for a while now I've wanted this card printed for Legacy, might help Modern too:

Stop Hitting Yourself
2RR
Instant
You may exile a red card from your hand rather than pay ~'s mana cost.
Gain control of target instant or sorcery spell. You may choose new targets and new modes for that spell.

[Koby]

I'm still waiting for:

Burnspel
Instant, R
Copy target instant spell. You may choose new targets for the copied spell.

Gives Burn more fodder to keep decks honest.
Helps Red vs Blue in all formats. (mainly Modern, but here too)
Gives Red a Brainstorm of its own, since you know, everyone plays Brainstorm in Legacy. Even Burn decks.

[Gheizen64]

I'm still waiting for:

Burnspel
Instant, R
Copy target instant spell. You may choose new targets for the copied spell.

Gives Burn more fodder to keep decks honest.
Helps Red vs Blue in all formats. (mainly Modern, but here too)
Gives Red a Brainstorm of its own, since you know, everyone plays Brainstorm in Legacy. Even Burn decks.

This is such a lovely design. Copy Brainstorm, copy burn, copy swords (not as useful when you're burn lol), copy counters (not as useful, again, when you are a burn deck, but would surely help after you side in blasts). Too bad it wouldn't do much to keep combo honest, if anything, it would be pretty good in combo with the ability to be an additional Ritual or an additional draw spell/counter for only R.

[dunk]

Your ideas are nice, but it's definitely the opposite direction of what WotC wants.
Unless they change their mind, Mana Leak, Remand and Dispel are Modern's ways to keep combo "fair"...

[frogczar]

I'm still waiting for:

Burnspel
Instant, R
Copy target instant spell. You may choose new targets for the copied spell.

Gives Burn more fodder to keep decks honest.
Helps Red vs Blue in all formats. (mainly Modern, but here too)
Gives Red a Brainstorm of its own, since you know, everyone plays Brainstorm in Legacy. Even Burn decks.

Not that we want to turn this into a wish-listing thread, but how about "Copy target instant spell you don't control." instead?

[rufus]

I'm still waiting for:

Instant, R
Copy target instant spell . You may choose new targets for the copied spell.
....

Don't we already have a dedicated bad card thread? I think that would end up being OP if used by players to copy their own instant spells.

You may exile a red card from your hand rather than pay ~'s mana cost.
Gain control of target instant or sorcery spell. You may choose new targets and new modes for that spell.

The alternative cost means you're spending two cards to (effectively) net two spells. On the up side, I guess everyone would end up playing red.

Copy target instant spell you don't control.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Alternatively, I like this from a flavor perspective:

Randerp
Instant, R
A player, chosen at random, gains control of target instant. That player may select new targets for that spell.

[DragoFireheart]

Your ideas are nice, but it's definitely the opposite direction of what WotC wants.
Unless they change their mind, Mana Leak, Remand and Dispel are Modern's ways to keep combo "fair"...

Modern is proof that Wizards of the Coast doesn't know what it wants. Wizards of the Coast is like a 16 year old teenage girl in high school: passive aggressive and unsure of herself.

[Amon Amarth]

Modern is proof that Wizards of the Coast doesn't know what it wants. Wizards of the Coast is like a 16 year old teenage girl in high school: passive aggressive and unsure of herself.

I don't like the metaphor but that's basically what their actions suggest. Their management of any formats B/R list has been fairly lackluster. Modern is just worse than the rest because they have too many cooks in the kitchen.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I don't like the metaphor but that's basically what their actions suggest. Their management of any formats B/R list has been fairly lackluster. Modern is just worse than the rest because they have too many cooks in the kitchen.

Yeah they definitely decided early on what they wanted the format to be, and that's creatures swinging into creatures for the most part.
Add to the mix no real answers to keep fast combo in check and what options do they really have though?
It can either be combo.format or a bunch of people playing fair until they print something that mimics the role of Force of Will in real eternal and even then they'd probably rather go in the current direction.

Of course I'm fine with all of this, and anyone who likes Legacy should be too. It solidifies Modern's place as a replacement for Extended, where WotC had long bemoaned the fact that right before rotation Extended would be bloated with combo decks. It also clearly draws a line in the sand that loudly states "Modern is not in any way Legacy Lite" which was my main concern when the format was first announced. I think we all had that sick feeling that Modern would do everything Legacy did just slower and clunkier, but Modern and Legacy currently have as much separation as Legacy and Vintage. I mean over 1/2 of the Modern banned list are cards that I would be 0% shocked to see in any given Legacy top 8. Many of us worried that as more and more sets came out and the % difference between Modern and Legacy card pools grew more narrow Modern would be Legacy without X cards, but I think the current banned list shows that the formats are unlikely to converge as time marches on.

Like I said that's just fine by me. I play Legacy and I don't want to play Legacy-Lite under any circumstances. I'd rather play Modern when I want to play something more akin to Standard and still stay Eternal and not have to buy a whole new deck every time I need a fix and then play Legacy or Vintage when I want to play real eternal.

[joemauer]

Modern is proof that Wizards of the Coast doesn't know what it wants. Wizards of the Coast is like a 16 year old teenage girl in high school: passive aggressive and unsure of herself.

Not quite Drago.

Modern isn't a mess because Wizards doesn't know how to handle an eternal format. It is a mess because it is a eternal format designed to cater to standard players.

Imagine how many people who play standard must write to WotC saying stuff like:" I want to play Legacy but don't enjoy playing against Dredge/Storm/Free Counters." Wizards is just trying to create a format that makes the yu gi oh players happy while having a more permanent replacement format for old extended.