Hell, lets get a set with FoW, Bob, Goyf and... maybe some fetches? Bamn, instant accessibility of the older formats. Maybe mix in Wasteland, Sinkhole and Mind twist to go with it. You'd need a bit more to keep aggro ballanced, but it'd be glorious, if hellaciously messy. People would cry, cards would seesaw in value, people wouldn't know what to do with themselves when they finally rotated out.
There are already several cards that shouldn't have been banned in the first place, and now you are suggesting we ban more? Seriously people, grow up and stop asking for cards to be banned whenever a deck that uses them beats you. Banning cards is a fundamentally bad thing, and should be avoided at all costs. Wizards has already been too trigger-happy with banning cards, and suggesting more nonsense isn't going to help the problem. Stop complaining, and start trying to find answers to threats rather than crying. The card pool is huge. The solutions are there.
For all the complaining you do now, you would find Magic really boring if the best 2-drop actually was Squire .
Well, I wouldn't. I *like* control duels. They're, like fighting. With your brain. It's even less fun to watch than Chess, but to play! Oh, to play them!
I love control mirrors as well. Most of those cards I linked to are for control decks. I left out some other cards that I'd really love to see back because I knew people would react immaturely to them. I agree with all the stuff Cyklown and DrWorm have said about control mirrors. You have no idea how long you've been playing and your brain is fried, but it's all great fun.
And on the subject of unbanning Ponder and/or Preordain: Legacy is great fun because you're basically playing with all the best cards from Magic's history, save for a few HUGE mistakes (seriously, what the hell were they thinking?); but playing with Brainstorm is actually the biggest appeal of Legacy for me. BY FAR. Modern got a lot less fun with the new ban list (and that's saying something, given infect combo and 12 x Post in the format), because Serum Visions just isn't doing it for me.
It's just way more fun to play when you actually have some measure of control over what cards you draw; Serum Visions just isn't doing it for me. My fondest memories of playing Legacy are turns where I cast Brainstorm , crack a fetch, cast Ponder , Brainstorm off Jace , crack another fetch, cast Brainstorm , cast Ponder .
So I'm hoping to get back at least one functional cantrip soon.
Sadly far too many of my games end (or are lengthened) by my play mistakes. I get distracted easily and it tends to draw my focus away, so I miss a trigger or forget to play an instant at the right time. I still like trying, though, and I figure one day I might improve.
Well, sure. I'm not half the player I'd like to be... which is why I keep pushing my friends to get better. If they'd just leapfrog over me the way I keep expecting them to, I'd be in a position to learn a lot faster. I mean, if we're going to play magic fairly frequently anyways, the least they could do is humble me so hard that I have to improve noticably or else ragequit, right?
That's what I want magic to be, honestly. I'm a Spike... but the joy comes from trying as hard as I can and knowing it's up to me to win.
I love control mirrors as well. Most of those cards I linked to are for control decks. I left out some other cards that I'd really love to see back because I knew people would react immaturely to them. I agree with all the stuff Cyklown and DrWorm have said about control mirrors. You have no idea how long you've been playing and your brain is fried, but it's all great fun.
It's just way more fun to play when you actually have some measure of control over what cards you draw; Serum Visions just isn't doing it for me. My fondest memories of playing Legacy are turns where I cast Brainstorm , crack a fetch, cast Ponder , Brainstorm off Jace , crack another fetch, cast Brainstorm , cast Ponder .
So I'm hoping to get back at least one functional cantrip soon.
I can see what they mean about too much reliability ruining stuff. Between the time it takes to shuffle (card savers. each player averages a shuffle a turn, DOOM!) and aggro's advantage in terms of reliability (y'know, what with there being no wrong threats, unlike answers, etc.), but I agree. For that matter, I'd rather have Bstorm over ponder. It fits better with draw-go, fights discard, makes you more reactive.
As far as unbannings go... yeah, Fae is the one I want to see. I'm down to one Bitterblossom (I forgot I'd dumped them right before Lorwyn rotated, but thank goodness I did), but it was... well, the perfect fish archetype. Aside from that one Portal drake we don't really get anything quite like the "touch ground once" draw-go. I'd love to see laboratory-vision powered Fae competing with the best power-free decks of all time. That'd be my primary impetus to play legacy directly. Granted, once I was in blue and black I'd probably find myself trying to assemble Stiflenaught and Ichorid since I'd have some of the manabase of one and the other one just seems so nice to have as a dark horse (since, y'know, it seems to win every tournament where "hate" isn't the word of the day), but... yeah. Dayum.
Plus, like, there's my Jittes and all that. So many old rares found in bargain-rate booster box's on ebay, drafted with some friends once (y'know, when I was convincing them all to play magic again. There's something about various drafting formats and limited that just reminds people of that "back in the day" feel) and then tradestocked never to see play... until modern showed up...
Luckily, we have stop-having-fun guys to remind us that having anything more than 60 cards in your deck is tantamount to being a rapist and anyone considering it should be strung up by their **** .
We'd all rather have Brainstorm than Ponder. But really, Preordain really needs to be unbanned. It's significantly less powerful than either Ponder or Brainstorm, which is why it's not restricted in Type I and why in Legacy it's always 3rd choice (I only run in it ANT and High Tide, when I really need twelve cantrips). Plus it doesn't involve shuffling, if games taking too long is an issue. And the most important point: the format is more fun when it's around.
I really don't think Goyf, Bob or Shocklands need to be banned. But, for the health of the format, I DO think they are in dire need of a reprint. They are all perfectly fair, just strong enough cards that, due to their scarcity (and in the case of Bob and Goyf, demand across formats) have a ridiculously high price tag. And there -is- a marked difference in decks with or without them. The strong perception is that you either play them, or don't play modern. Just this weekend, my LGS was holding a Modern Tournament, and I was the only one who showed up. Most of hte people I know who would play Modern don't because they can't afford, or indeed even find, Bob, Goyf, or Shocklands. The same reasons they don't play Legacy.
The cards I do think could do with being looked at are: Kird Ape, Loam Lion, Wild Nacatl and Punishing Fire. The reason for all them is pretty simple: right now, there is no reason, from a competitive standpoint, to play any aggro deck in modern that isn't Zoo. It's too much better, too efficient. You can make a synergistic cool aggro deck, but Zoo is just more reliable. Sure, you COULD try to play Boros, but Punishing Fire/Grove of the BUrnwillows makes that dead in the Water.
Loam Lion, Kird Ape and Wild Nacatl are the problem. It wouldn't make sense to just ban one and not the other two, so I think they should all go. They weren't a problem in their respective original printings, because, with the exception of Kird Ape, they never had Shocklands to play alongside (and I remember back when Kird Ape was the best creature in standard, when Zoo and Gruul dominated because of being the only deck whose early drops didn't die to Shock). But now, they make the perfect storm of efficient beaters. 4 Nacatls and any combination of 4-6 Apes/Lions gives you a consistent 1 drop that can't be traded with unless your opponent is also playing Zoo. So, sure, I could try Boros, but I'll inevitable have creautres just slightly weaker than Zoo, so I might as well play Zoo.
Punishing Fire/Grove of the Burnwillows is the other half of the reason nothing is better than Zoo. Because of the X/3 creatures of Zoo, they are relatively safe from this engine, because it takes 2 fires to kill one of their creatures. But Boros, Elves, Merfolk, etc. all rely on early drops with 1 or 2 toughness, and few creatures with higher, so this engine shuts it down. Now, Grove is an interesting and fun card in a vacuum, and there are lots of fun things you can do with it in decks with things like Kavu Predator and Tamanoa, while Punishing Fire is just another burn spell with a recursion effect that had unintended consequences. So I think Punishing Fire should be banned.
I really do believe that banning the check weenies (Ape, Lion, Nacatl) and Punishing Fire would open up the field and let other aggro decks be on par with Zoo. Hell, opening things up might drop the price of some of the above mentioned cards (though probably not).
I also think a few cards need unbanning, as they were banned in anticipation of a slower format that modern really isn't shaping up to be, and would not be nearly as opporessive as they were anticipated to be (Jace, Ancestal Visions, etc.).
Ashinto, you have no idea what you are talking about. You are literally advocating the banning of vanilla creatures because they are too efficient? If we really need to go that far in Magic, then the game is broken beyond repair. I really can't emphasize enough that you are talking about banning VANILLA CREATURES.
You want reality? Here's some quick predictions.
1. There will be a successful control deck in Modern by the time the Modern PTQ season rolls around. Why? Because I've already seen incarnations of the list on Cockatrice, and it's essentially a Modern snapcaster control shell.
2. PLENTY of decks can poop all over Zoo. Kavu Justice, Splintertwin, Jund, and Big Naya all have great matchups against zoo.
3. Zoo's status as a deck-to-beat is shaky. It takes very little to nudge Zoo's win percentages from 50%+ to 50%-.
Ashinto, you have no idea what you are talking about. You are literally advocating the banning of vanilla creatures because they are too efficient? If we really need to go that far in Magic, then the game is broken beyond repair. I really can't emphasize enough that you are talking about banning VANILLA CREATURES.
You want reality? Here's some quick predictions.
1. There will be a successful control deck in Modern by the time the Modern PTQ season rolls around. Why? Because I've already seen incarnations of the list on Cockatrice, and it's essentially a Modern snapcaster control shell.
2. PLENTY of decks can poop all over Zoo. Kavu Justice, Splintertwin, Jund, and Big Naya all have great matchups against zoo.
3. Zoo's status as a deck-to-beat is shaky. It takes very little to nudge Zoo's win percentages from 50%+ to 50%-.
Surprisingly I find myself agreeing with you. I test on MTGO daily, trying to get in at least 4-5 matches a day, and I have not been seeing Zoo, Twin, or Affinity much at all. What I do see are several blue based control builds that use Snapcaster Mage (I knew the community was crazy for not giving this card it's props) to counter everything you cast then ping you to death with Snappy, Fae, and to a smaller extent Manlands. It is a VERY difficult matchup, for me at least, especially since I have been building with an aggro meta in mind. My guess, at this point, is that a Snappy Fae deck will be the top control (BUG, or even UBR) deck and that it will start to put control on the map. I will not admit to Control being truely viable until I see the matches or results of a large tournament, but I am anticipating that I will have to admit it soon
That does not mean that I support the ban-list. I still disagree with GSZ, and still feel that the list is bloated with cards that do not belong there- heck, I would not even use some of the cards on the list if they were unbanned, but I think that a ban-list needs to be as lean as possible.
Shalom! ------------------------------ "That's the trouble with the Multiverse: the inability to easily make holes."- "Marky" Mark Rosewater
Ashinto, you have no idea what you are talking about. You are literally advocating the banning of vanilla creatures because they are too efficient? If we really need to go that far in Magic, then the game is broken beyond repair. I really can't emphasize enough that you are talking about banning VANILLA CREATURES.
You want reality? Here's some quick predictions.
1. There will be a successful control deck in Modern by the time the Modern PTQ season rolls around. Why? Because I've already seen incarnations of the list on Cockatrice, and it's essentially a Modern snapcaster control shell.
2. PLENTY of decks can poop all over Zoo. Kavu Justice, Splintertwin, Jund, and Big Naya all have great matchups against zoo.
3. Zoo's status as a deck-to-beat is shaky. It takes very little to nudge Zoo's win percentages from 50%+ to 50%-.
Ah the internet, where civility and manners take a vacation and anonymity breeds douchebaggery...
They're not vanilla creatures. See that non-italicized text? That's called an ability. Incidentally, it is that ability to have 3 toughness on an aggressive 1 drop that invalidates any other aggro deck that could be built. The only way to get that 3 toughness is play Mountains, Forests and PLains. ie.: to play Zoo.
Tarmogoyf is splashable, but Nacatl, Lion and Ape are NOT. That is the problem. If I want to make Boros, it takes about 5 minutes to realize that the best way for me to make the deck competitive is to play Zoo instead. Best way to improve a Bant deck? Add Mountains for Bolt, Nacatl and Helix. Oh wait, that's Zoo.
That's why I advocate the banning of these creatures. They do invalidate every other aggro deck in the format. If you can't see that, I'm sorry, but don't be an ass and accuse people of having no idea what they are talking about, especially when they spell it out for you line by line. It's crass, rude, and doesn't make you cool.
Ashinto, you have no idea what you are talking about. You are literally advocating the banning of vanilla creatures because they are too efficient? If we really need to go that far in Magic, then the game is broken beyond repair. I really can't emphasize enough that you are talking about banning VANILLA CREATURES.
You want reality? Here's some quick predictions.
1. There will be a successful control deck in Modern by the time the Modern PTQ season rolls around. Why? Because I've already seen incarnations of the list on Cockatrice, and it's essentially a Modern snapcaster control shell.
2. PLENTY of decks can poop all over Zoo. Kavu Justice, Splintertwin, Jund, and Big Naya all have great matchups against zoo.
3. Zoo's status as a deck-to-beat is shaky. It takes very little to nudge Zoo's win percentages from 50%+ to 50%-.
Ah the internet, where civility and manners take a vacation and anonymity breeds douchebaggery...
They're not vanilla creatures. See that non-italicized text? That's called an ability. Incidentally, it is that ability to have 3 toughness on an aggressive 1 drop that invalidates any other aggro deck that could be built. The only way to get that 3 toughness is play Mountains, Forests and PLains. ie.: to play Zoo.
Tarmogoyf is splashable, but Nacatl, Lion and Ape are NOT. That is the problem. If I want to make Boros, it takes about 5 minutes to realize that the best way for me to make the deck competitive is to play Zoo instead. Best way to improve a Bant deck? Add Mountains for Bolt, Nacatl and Helix. Oh wait, that's Zoo.
That's why I advocate the banning of these creatures. They do invalidate every other aggro deck in the format. If you can't see that, I'm sorry, but don't be an ass and accuse people of having no idea what they are talking about, especially when they spell it out for you line by line. It's crass, rude, and doesn't make you cool.
You CAN'T ban the "best" aggro deck when the best aggro deck is struggling to keep up with more controlling decks. It's not just the Zoo-Vs-Other-Aggro matchup that obsoletes bad aggro. You get some awesome board control options in Modern. You think a deck that doesn't have a t1, t2 play that forces the other player to wrath is going to get you anywhere? Good lord. Zoo is going to be the best aggro if you're looking to pure aggro. Any format with good dual lands has three options. Weeny related aggro decks that are actually red-zone based combo decks win (gobbies, generally. See also: the days of clamp-bidding gobbos), super-curve decks that aim to get the game over with, like, yesterday with a stupid amount of reliability and the deliberate tactic of moving the principle turn of the game forward(nine land stompy, sligh) or zoo. You get those three. That's it. All other aggro can't be pure aggro and win with any decent cardpool. That's the pie. If the mana base supports it, the three colors that do aggresive "best" will win at pure aggro. In a world where you can support three colors reliably (albiet painfully) then cutting a color simply cuts your ability to keep up. Expecting anything else is why the squire jokes are out there.
The stronger aggro is at it's theoretical "what it can do", the more control has to be warry of it (ie, it prevents control from getting sloppy) and the more diversity in the cardpool with reguards to combo is out there.
Additionally, you don't entirely seem to understand vanilla as it gets used. It doesn't mean "nothing but flavor text". It means "it's just a beater. It beats".
Luckily, we have stop-having-fun guys to remind us that having anything more than 60 cards in your deck is tantamount to being a rapist and anyone considering it should be strung up by their **** .
@Ashinto - You have no idea what Vanilla means in reference to creatures. You're also complaining that aggro doesn't have enough variety in the format, which is clearly false. Want to know what doesn't have enough options? Control and Ramp. Control right now is forced into gifts/snapcaster/removal. The only variety that exists in that shell is whether you're running the academy ruins win-conditions or the teferi win-conditions. Ramp is just way out of luck. The only archetype with real options right now is combo. You have living end, splintertwin, melira, breach/goryo's vengeance, storm/belcher/swath, time sieve, and an EXTREMELY JANKY (but fun) reanimator build.
The bottom line is that your argument holds no water. RDW exists and is more than viable. Zoo exists. Doran Zoo exists. Just because you can't play boros doesn't mean your point is valid.
@Ashinto - You have no idea what Vanilla means in reference to creatures. You're also complaining that aggro doesn't have enough variety in the format, which is clearly false. Want to know what doesn't have enough options? Control and Ramp. Control right now is forced into gifts/snapcaster/removal. The only variety that exists in that shell is whether you're running the academy ruins win-conditions or the teferi win-conditions. Ramp is just way out of luck. The only archetype with real options right now is combo. You have living end, splintertwin, melira, breach/goryo's vengeance, storm/belcher/swath, time sieve, and an EXTREMELY JANKY (but fun) reanimator build.
The bottom line is that your argument holds no water. RDW exists and is more than viable. Zoo exists. Doran Zoo exists. Just because you can't play boros doesn't mean your point is valid.
So... you're saying that Kird Ape, Loam Lion and Wild Nacatl are NOT the only non-defender creatures with 3 toughness for 1 mana? Because that is the only way my argument wouldn't "hold water" as you say, since that is my contention. But please, if you can demonstrate how I'm wrong, do sir, do.
How exactly is RDW viable? What magical red cards are they conjuring that allows them to compete with Zoo's better creatures and burn suite (thanks Lightning Helix)? And the second part of "Doran Zoo" demonstrates how much you thought about what you were typing as you were typing it.
As far as Vanilla, I use the term the way the developers use it: to refer to creatures with no abilties. If it doesn't benefit from Muraganda Petroglyphs, then it's not vanilla, whatever modified defnition you folks have adopted around here.
