[Discussion] Current Modern Ban List (12/20/2011 Update)

[dementia55372]

I really think that Herbal Poultice needs the axe. I mean come on, it's called Herbal Poultice Deck Wins for a reason!

I personally have a pretty big distaste for Tron as a deck myself, maybe it stems from my hatred of Eldrazi and the shameless fanservice of the Karn planeswalker (and how ridiculous his abilities are) but as much as it irks me it's not an unbeatable deck.

[Nyzzeh]

UW and UR Tron... they are not my favorite type of tron (I liked the old extended ones) but they are okay IMO.
RG Tron is stupid but not bannable.
Hey yo, a little star over here, a stirrings over there, and oh! Karn! Here comes dah maainnnnzlaverz!

[NidStyles]

I've only lost to Tron when I keep bad hands with no disruption. A Ghost Quarter and Extirpate is usually enough to clock that deck. Often enough that deck just loses to itself though.

[Mikeageddon]

The only version of tron that I've had trouble with is the one that goes turn 3 gifts into rites/iona. Other than that I find tron isn't able to stabilize fast enough, unless I draw a bad hand.

[NidStyles]

Originally Posted by Mikeageddon

The only version of tron that I've had trouble with is the one that goes turn 3 gifts into rites/iona. Other than that I find tron isn't able to stabilize fast enough, unless I draw a bad hand.

Even that is easy to hate out with Tormod's Crypt and Relic.

[bocephus]

Originally Posted by DrWorm

I am not saying you are right or wrong, but doesn't that smack of terrible design? Lets print some cards (have not counted how many miracle cards there are) who's presence means we will surely have to ban as many or more cards to keep the new cards from warping a meta. That makes me think that in their testing they found that there was not as much of a broken interaction as people anticipate, but I also look at some of them and are shocked at the power-level. I am waiting till they get some wider testing to make a final judgment, but they worry me.

The way I see it is they make new sets for limited and Standard. They can ban or more or less adjust older formats to the power level they wish. Whats perfectly fine in Standard can be totally broken in older formats. So, if the miracle cards work fine in Standard (especially since ponder could get the axe in the rotation) they can ban or adjust Modern or Legacy as they feel fit. If they were going to try and make cards work in all formats, Standard would be the slowest, most boring format of them all and it would be hard to keep the masses interested in it.

By the way, all its going to take is 1 of the miracle cards to be completely busted in some way and they will ban something IMHO.

[Chromatone]

I think its just too easy to see the best case scenario with miracles. At the end of the day they are just spells like any other, just potentially mana saving not even free! If you build your deck to set them up to get value congratulations you made a deck, just like others that set up to take advantage of Splinter Twin, Gifts, Loam, BBE or even Delver. Time walk is powerful but if you dont have pressure or planes walkers on the board its not as good, its that second attack step that makes it amazing and not just explore. Lots of durdeling to set up just for some value not even to win the game outright.

Edit: Oh yes and I wanted to comment on graveyard hate, I was super hoping for a land that did this. "Tap add 1 Tap 1 Exile target card from a graveyard" is not to powerful, card advantage from yard abilities are mostly incidental any how. The problem is all these narrow slotted artifacts even if they cantrip you need them at the right time, and otherwise do nothing. Its so easy to get massive value from the yard it should be just as easy to thwart it.

[DrWorm]

Originally Posted by bocephus

The way I see it is they make new sets for limited and Standard. They can ban or more or less adjust older formats to the power level they wish.

They have that philosophy with regard to eternal formats, but MaRo has said that Modern is part of their balancing process. Sure, they have shown themselves as quick to ban in Modern, but so far only in the case of cards from previous sets.

ID+A, however, was designed without knowledge of Modern, now that I think about it, so it actually falls outside that paradigm.

Originally Posted by Chromatone

The problem is all these narrow slotted artifacts even if they cantrip you need them at the right time, and otherwise do nothing. Its so easy to get massive value from the yard it should be just as easy to thwart it.

Most reactive or prophylactic cards have to be available at the right time, Doom Blade does not do much good against a BW deck unless you draw it when your opponent has a white creature in play, that does not make them bad or unplayable. Grave hate artifacts are narrow, in that they only deal with graveyard decks, but there are so many flavors of them in the metagame that they become much less narrow.

[Ignithas]

Originally Posted by DrWorm

They have that philosophy with regard to eternal formats, but MaRo has said that Modern is part of their balancing process. Sure, they have shown themselves as quick to ban in Modern, but so far only in the case of cards from previous sets.

ID+A, however, was designed without knowledge of Modern, now that I think about it, so it actually falls outside that paradigm.
Most reactive or prophylactic cards have to be available at the right time, Doom Blade does not do much good against a BW deck unless you draw it when your opponent has a white creature in play, that does not make them bad or unplayable. Grave hate artifacts are narrow, in that they only deal with graveyard decks, but there are so many flavors of them in the metagame that they become much less narrow.

I see it like that: Everything that isn't played MB is narrow. There aren't enough decks that utilise graveyard to a great extend, to justify gy hate MB, especially because the gy hate doesn't do much against other decks.

[DrWorm]

Originally Posted by Ignithas

I see it like that: Everything that isn't played MB is narrow. There aren't enough decks that utilise graveyard to a great extend, to justify gy hate MB, especially because the gy hate doesn't do much against other decks.

For most metas you are correct- GY hate is something you put in the SB, but I have also run 4x Void MD, and have been very pleased with the results. I built with it in mind, so it was rarely a dead card game one, and if I don't need it I have other toys in my SB. I think that if you are looking at decks tier 2 and better you have a significant percentage of the general metagame that relies in the grave, but I will say agian that it is probably safer to put the hate in the SB.

[Mikeageddon]

Relic's cantrip ability makes it not so painful to throw in your md. with all the goyfs/knights running around, as well as decks that interact with the graveyard it seems like gy hate isnt that ridiculous to have in the main.

[Infallible]

I've tested with the miracle card in Legacy and temporal mastery isn't all that fantastic. Seriously.

Reforge the Soul on the other hand is really, really good. But, if you can barely abuse these cards in Legacy then there's virtually no possibility of it being done consistently in modern with Ponder, Preordain, Jace and Sen's Top being banned. That's just silly to assume. Plus, it takes two turns to set these cards up anyway, and with the speed of modern's aggro deck's setting two turns up just to take an extra turn is counter productive and pretty awful imo. There will be occasions where your opponent will sack you and just top deck into one of the powerful miracle cards, namely Reforge the Soul and Terminus, and this will be frustrating; but so is Bloodbraid Elf into Blightning or Snapcaster Mage into Cryptic Command and other annoying two card interactions.

[Ignithas]

Originally Posted by Infallible

I've tested with the miracle card in Legacy and temporal mastery isn't all that fantastic. Seriously.

Reforge the Soul on the other hand is really, really good. But, if you can barely abuse these cards in Legacy then there's virtually no possibility of it being done consistently in modern with Ponder, Preordain, Jace and Sen's Top being banned. That's just silly to assume. Plus, it takes two turns to set these cards up anyway, and with the speed of modern's aggro deck's setting two turns up just to take an extra turn is counter productive and pretty awful imo. There will be occasions where your opponent will sack you and just top deck into one of the powerful miracle cards, namely Reforge the Soul and Terminus, and this will be frustrating; but so is Bloodbraid Elf into Blightning or Snapcaster Mage into Cryptic Command and other annoying two card interactions.

I'm very unexcited about the miracle cards in Modern. That said, Reforge the Soul isn't strong because of its miracle cost, it's strong because you can cast it mid combo to get your storm count higher. But it's currently not that strong, that I would waste any thought on it.

[Infallible]

a 5cmc Wheel of Fortune is good regardless of you getting the miracle cost for it or not.

[Rubin]

Originally Posted by dementia55372

I really think that Herbal Poultice needs the axe. I mean come on, it's called Herbal Poultice Deck Wins for a reason!

Man, I remember that whole thing. It has to be my favourite MTGS joke. Was it 56 Herbal Poultice and 4 Tarmogoyf, which always won because it was running 4 goyf? I think it was, and in theory it could not get dqed because it by definition won every game as it played 4 goyf

I think there's a lesson to be learned from that: Tarmogoyf is not too good for modern. There are plenty of very efficient creatures in modern. There has to be one that's the best (and you could even put forward a case for some of the other creatures in modern over it). It doesn't deserve a ban, it's not making any single deck degenerate.