Magic the Gathering Appreciation Station

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Sickening: Jul 16, 2007; Black summer was the best summer.

PhyrexianLibrarian posted:

That is a very aggressive format shift if true, two never-before-seen cards into the pool at the same time? We still haven't even seen what Modern would've been like without Twin.

There is no "if true" , it has happened.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 15:48

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 20:53

LifeLynx: Feb 27, 2001; Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time; Grimey Drawer

Also, Lodestone Golem is restricted in Vintage.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 15:49

mandatory lesbian: Dec 18, 2012

Sickening posted:

Eye of Ugin is banned.

Ancestral Vision is unbanned.

Sword of the Meek is unbanned.

i'm okay with this, sword of the meek is a cool card

# ? Apr 4, 2016 15:50

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Modern changes look good. They also restricted Lodestone Golem in Vintage, which seems like a pretty weird one.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 15:51

Count Bleck: Apr 5, 2010; DISPEL MAGIC!

TCGPlayer is dying right now lmao

Edit: LMAO everyone just took their Swords of the Meek down to put them up at 15 bucks a pop. Ridiculous.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 15:52

Attorney at Funk: Jun 3, 2008; ...the person who says honestly that he despairs is closer to being cured than all those who are not regarded as despairing by themselves or others.

This is the B&R rationale, for people who don't want to click through.

quote:

EXPLANATION OF CHANGES
As we approach the release of a new set, Wizards of the Coast examines tournament results from each competitive format. If a format becomes very imbalanced, or too many games are not interactive, we examine the cause.

Here are our changes:

Modern

Since Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch, Eldrazi decks have been dominating the Modern tournament environment. At the Pro Tour, Eldrazi were represented in six of the Top 8 decks, including Jiachen Tao's winning deck. On the weekend of March 6, three Modern Grand Prix were held, in Melbourne, Bologna, and Detroit. There were 24 players who had Top 8 performances, fourteen of whom were playing Eldrazi, including two of the three winning decks.

Results on Magic Online are quite similar. Eldrazi decks are running rampant. The format is very imbalanced, and far from a healthy mix of competitive decks.

While the Eldrazi decks have a lot of powerful cards, the powerful draws are generally based on the mana acceleration from Eldrazi Temple and Eye of Ugin. Rather than ban multiple creatures, we find it preferable to ban a single land. We made our choice by examining how one would build a deck, and how it would play, with the land that remains legal.

If Eldrazi Temple is banned and Eye of Ugin is legal, the deck focuses on playing multiple lower-casting-cost Eldrazi per turn. A discount of two mana for each Eldrazi becomes a discount of four or more over the course of a turn. The deck becomes more explosive, more focused on a single build, and the powerful draws are still not interactive.

If Eye of Ugin is banned and Eldrazi Temple is legal, the mana supports a more diverse set of builds. There still is a small percentage of games with two Eldrazi Temples powering out huge plays. However, there are more games where only one Temple is drawn, and the deck is powerful yet beatable.

We also considered that Eye of Ugin is played in other decks, most notably "Tron" decks using Urza's Power Plant and similar lands. While the Eye does add a lot of late game power to the deck, the core gameplay of the deck�casting large threats with the Tron lands�remains intact. It is regrettable that banning Eye of Ugin also impacts these Tron decks, but weighing everything in consideration, we feel this is the correct solution to the Eldrazi menace and makes Modern the most fun overall.

For these reasons, Eye of Ugin is banned in Modern.

When Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch were in development, the development team knew that all the Eldrazi creatures in the block would be more powerful in Modern because of these two-mana lands. While there was some risk that Eldrazi decks could be too strong, there was also the possibility that a fun new competitive deck would emerge. At the Pro tour, only about eight percent of the field played Eldrazi deck�the same amount played Infect, and more played Burn or Affinity. It was not clear to most professional players that the Eldrazi deck was too strong, or even as strong as the alternatives. In such a big format, it is very difficult to know how strong a deck will turn out before holding high-level tournaments, and much of the enjoyment of Magic for many players is seeing that play out. Ultimately, as the results of the Pro Tour and Grand Prix have shown, the Eldrazi deck has proven to be too strong and has had an unhealthy effect on the format.

We also looked at our banned lists for cards that could increase the richness of the format. Currently, the format tends to favor aggressive decks and quick-kill combo decks. We looked for cards that tend to work best in slower decks.

When the initial banned list was made for Modern, we looked at decks that had dominated similar formats and used those to guide our process. While there is some risk that these cards will cause further problems, we think that risk is small. Sometimes unbanning these cards doesn't create any change in the competitive metagame. In that case, players who love playing that deck now have a new deck to work with.

Ancestral Vision is a very efficient card-drawer. Historically it has been strong in decks using the cascade mechanic, which immediately casts Ancestral Vision from the deck to draw three cards. It has also been strong in blue-based decks that are playing a longer, attrition-style game. With the current banned list, including Bloodbraid Elf, the types of cascade cards usually played with Ancestral Vision are not available. While there are some control decks that would use Ancestral Vision, it is an underplayed portion of the metagame. To allow for an increase in the number of blue-based control or attrition decks, we are unbanning Ancestral Vision.

Sword of the Meek makes a powerful, but slow, combination with Thopter Foundry. This combination was part of a format-dominating deck in the Extended format that Modern replaced. However, another element of that deck (Dark Depths, used with Vampire Hexmage) is also banned. Sword of the Meek might enable some slower combo decks, perhaps of the combo-control variety. It could be used as an alternate win condition in Lantern Control, which is powerful when unexpected but not currently a large part of the metagame. To allow for an increase in the number of controlling combo decks in the format, we are unbanning Sword of the Meek.

Vintage

We continue to see an imbalanced metagame. In particular, Mishra's Workshop�based decks continue to be significantly overrepresented, reducing the competitive metagame. While this issue could be solved by restricting the namesake card, if possible we would like to keep the deck at a competitive level, but played to an extent that the format is more diverse overall. Lodestone Golem leads to some of the less-interactive games. We are hopeful that limiting Workshop decks to one copy of the card leaves the deck at an appropriate strength. For that reason, Lodestone Golem is restricted.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 15:53

Molybdenum: Jun 25, 2007; Melting Point ~2622C

I have a set of foil thopter foundries and a foil sword of the meek. :hellyeah:

# ? Apr 4, 2016 15:53

Sickening: Jul 16, 2007; Black summer was the best summer.

Count Bleck posted:

TCGPlayer is dying right now lmao

Edit: LMAO everyone just took their Swords of the Meek down to put them up at 15 bucks a pop. Ridiculous.

I bought a set at 3-4. Probably won't use them but it is a fun card and I might want to.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 15:53

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

Count Bleck posted:

Holy poo poo let's make Thopter Sword real again.

The Visions unban might bring about some more blue decks. Hopefully.

Edit: lol SCG is already sold out of Sword of the Meek.

I don't think so though I might be wrong. There is nothing good to cascade into it with in Blue and it's a miserable late game draw.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 15:54

Angry Grimace: Jul 29, 2010; ACTUALLY IT IS VERY GOOD THAT THE SHOW IS BAD AND ANYONE WHO DOESN'T REALIZE WHY THAT'S GOOD IS AN IDIOT. JUST ENJOY THE BAD SHOW INSTEAD OF THINKING.

Holy poo poo Thopter Sword are you kidding me

# ? Apr 4, 2016 15:54

Count Bleck: Apr 5, 2010; DISPEL MAGIC!

Angry Grimace posted:

Holy poo poo Thopter Sword are you kidding me

I hope you had swords already because everyone just restocked at 10-15 each.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 15:56

Molybdenum: Jun 25, 2007; Melting Point ~2622C

I'm going to play esper tezz this Wednesday man I can't wait

Edit: doh it doesn't go into effect until Friday.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 15:58

Zoness: Jul 24, 2011; Talk to the hand.; Grimey Drawer

This gives me hope for a dread return unban

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:01

Count Bleck: Apr 5, 2010; DISPEL MAGIC!

TCGPlayer is making GBS threads the bed so hard right now it's asking me to be using javascript :laffo:

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:02

MiddleEastBeast: Jan 19, 2003; Forum Bully

This B&R announcement was cool and good

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:02

PhyrexianLibrarian: Feb 21, 2004; Compleat silence, please

mcmagic posted:

I don't think so though I might be wrong. There is nothing good to cascade into it with in Blue and it's a miserable late game draw.

I guess it's an alternate T1 play for blue decks that want to go long, if you're playing Delver or blue combo you probably still want Serum Visions anyways.

Here's a rough list of cards that mention not paying the mana cost for a spell:

http://magiccards.info/query?q=o%3A...v=olist&s=cname

Edit: Bring to Light, Epic Experiment, Unexpected Results, and cascade spells seem like the really only useful ones.

PhyrexianLibrarian fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Apr 4, 2016

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:03

Frozen_flame: Feb 14, 2012; Press A to Protect Earth!

Not even Europe is safe, Ancestral Visions being sold out across the board.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:05

Attorney at Funk: Jun 3, 2008; ...the person who says honestly that he despairs is closer to being cured than all those who are not regarded as despairing by themselves or others.

Lodestone Golem is now the only creature on the Vintage Restricted List. Has there ever been a creature on there before?

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:06

Count Bleck: Apr 5, 2010; DISPEL MAGIC!

I got my Swords and Foundries.

Time to brew a bad deck!

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:06

Bread Set Jettison: Jan 8, 2009

Liking these changes to modern

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:08

Samael: Oct 16, 2012

Frozen_flame posted:

Not even Europe is safe, Ancestral Visions being sold out across the board.

Wow, I'm surprised people are buying into the hype so much. Ancestral Visions is good but it was banned because of the broken cascade mechanic and upwards of �30-40 is crazy for this thing. :psyduck:

As a jund player, I'm annoyed that BBE wasn't unbanned, but glad I don't have to buy into any cards and remove anything from my deck. Also, any sword/thopter deck would probably be a easy match up against someone who runs mainboard K Commands and abrupt decays, hopefully.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:10

jassi007: Aug 9, 2006; mmmmm.. burger...

So just a thought for everyone going bananas over sword and foundry. When it was good in extended, like Faeries (which made zero impact in modern) there were not things like abrupt decay, ancient grudge, khologan's command. Sure its powerful, but whether an esper thopter deck can beat Jund (which just got a SHITLOAD better) is going to be a fight. I'd be happy to help anyone test on cockatrice or whatever, I play a lot of Jund.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:12

TheKingofSprings: Oct 9, 2012

Bread Set Jettison posted:

Liking these changes to modern

This is the best ban list I've seen for a long time, I'm going to have to look around for the pieces to that UB thopter deck I played in the McModern.

For the record the combo is very real, very strong and is easily the best combo in Modern now that Twin is gone. Pick up some Tezzeret AoB now.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:13

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

TheKingofSprings posted:

This is the best ban list I've seen for a long time, I'm going to have to look around for the pieces to that UB thopter deck I played in the McModern.

For the record the combo is very real, very strong and is easily the best combo in Modern now that Twin is gone. Pick up some Tezzeret AoB now.

I highly doubt that this will be true.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:15

Syphilis Fish: Apr 27, 2006

I have been playing Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas in modern for a year and a half, two years now. This unban is amazing.

How many swords and thopter foundries should I jam in my deck?

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:16

odiv: Jan 12, 2003

Frozen_flame posted:

Not even Europe is safe, Ancestral Visions being sold out across the board.

Maybe I'm stupid, but don't a lot of vendors yank their copies from sale until things shake out a bit? Or are they selling out at super high prices?

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:17

Frozen_flame: Feb 14, 2012; Press A to Protect Earth!

odiv posted:

Maybe I'm stupid, but don't a lot of vendors yank their copies from sale until things shake out a bit? Or are they selling out at super high prices?

That could also be happening, yeah. With demand so high though they could easily guess at like �30-40 (Thanks Samael) and still make a fair bit. The card price trend was �11 yesterday.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:21

mcmagic: Jul 1, 2004; If you see this avatar while scrolling the succ zone, you have been visited by the mcmagic of shitty lib takes! Good luck and prosperity will come to you, but only if you reply "shut the fuck up mcmagic" to this post!

The Sword combo doesn't even just win the game on the spot. It's bad. If I'm playing combo in modern I still want to be on Scapeshift, Living End or Grisohlbrand.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:22

Jenx: Oct 17, 2012; Behold the Bull of Heaven!

A question to other European goons, mostly out of interest. When you're trading/selling/buying with/to/from someone else, not just a store, what do you use to compare prices? I have a very serious suspicion that Magic where I live is actually way more expensive than it should be, simply because, for some reason, the most accepted site for comparing and checking prices is cardkingdom.com.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:22

Serperoth: Feb 21, 2013

Jenx posted:

A question to other European goons, mostly out of interest. When you're trading/selling/buying with/to/from someone else, not just a store, what do you use to compare prices? I have a very serious suspicion that Magic where I live is actually way more expensive than it should be, simply because, for some reason, the most accepted site for comparing and checking prices is cardkingdom.com.

My local community generally does magiccardmarket prices. Don't know how local it is or how much it helps, but that's the one we use.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:23

Frozen_flame: Feb 14, 2012; Press A to Protect Earth!

Yeah until recently I've just used tcg-mid out of convenience with Magic apps. mkm makes more sense though tbh.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:25

The Lord of Hats: Aug 22, 2010; Hello, yes! Is being very good day for posting, no?

A Good Banlist Update. Sword of the Meek was something I'd been hoping for for quite a while; I've already got my Tezzerets, maybe I'll give modern a shot.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:25

jassi007: Aug 9, 2006; mmmmm.. burger...

TheKingofSprings posted:

This is the best ban list I've seen for a long time, I'm going to have to look around for the pieces to that UB thopter deck I played in the McModern.

For the record the combo is very real, very strong and is easily the best combo in Modern now that Twin is gone. Pick up some Tezzeret AoB now.

When you say combo, do you mean a type of instant win combo that there are additional cards involved? or do you mean "these two cards that combine to become a grindy attrition engine that gets wrecked by abrupt decay instantly."

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:27

MiddleEastBeast: Jan 19, 2003; Forum Bully

jassi007 posted:

When you say combo, do you mean a type of instant win combo that there are additional cards involved? or do you mean "these two cards that combine to become a grindy attrition engine that gets wrecked by abrupt decay instantly."

the second one

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:28

Jenx: Oct 17, 2012; Behold the Bull of Heaven!

Serperoth posted:

My local community generally does magiccardmarket prices. Don't know how local it is or how much it helps, but that's the one we use.

See, I figured it's probably cardmarket stuff, but that still begs the question - how do you generally go about it? Like, if you have an Abrupt Decay that's excellent condition and in english you just search for the lowest offer on there meeting that criteria and go with that?

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:32

Emerson Cod: Apr 14, 2004; by Pragmatica

As an Eldrazi player I'm sad to see Eye go but it was absolutely the best card to ban without completely killing the deck. I'm actually interested in running a U/R build in Legacy so I don't even regret not dropping Eye when it peaked. Of course I can't afford Volcanic Islands but at least Force of Will will probably drop a bit when EMA comes out.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:32

Samael: Oct 16, 2012

Frozen_flame posted:

Yeah until recently I've just used tcg-mid out of convenience with Magic apps. mkm makes more sense though tbh.

I use SCG for trading / TCG MID if OOS.

For selling, I generally use Half SCG or MCM- the first SP/NM English Condition for much higher end purchases.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:32

Molybdenum: Jun 25, 2007; Melting Point ~2622C

Welding Jar and academy ruins both get the foundry back and you've still got the blockers.

Edit: versus abrupt decay I mean

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:32

Count Bleck: Apr 5, 2010; DISPEL MAGIC!

We should start figuring out how we're going to play Thopter Sword, and in what colors.

Esper or U W/B?

Can we get away with just UW? It loses Agent of Bolas but it doesn't seem like there's much in black this kind of deck wants.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:37

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 20:53

Sickening: Jul 16, 2007; Black summer was the best summer.

Does thopter foundry/sword of the meek fit in a bad faeries deck? Damnation instead of wrath.

# ? Apr 4, 2016 16:37

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