Firstly, I think you are making some fairly sweeping generalisations.
For example, if you look at the Top 8 of SCG Atlanta Standard Open there are three white deck not playing Restoration Angel - Boros Aggro, Human Reanimator, and Four-Colour Tokens. Naya Humans won the tournament and is a green deck not running Thragtusk.
The Top 8 of the SCG Dallas Standard Open featured a Grixis Control deck. A control deck that didn't play Sphinx's Revelation.
Further, there will always be outstanding cards in a format and in a format as relatively small as Standard they're likely to come up often. There's always going to be some degree of overlap.
The reason Sphinx's Revelation appears in the majority of the Control decks is because it's the main reason Control is even an archetype in the format. I think without Sphinx's Revelation there wouldn't be much in the way of Control decks. Does that make the format better?
Perhaps I'm still missing your point but I'm struggling to fully understand what your point is beyond 'I don't like certain cards in Standard'.
I don't think Thragtusk is the big bad boogeyman people claim he is. I've won a lot of games when my opponent played one and thought he was safe. Sphinx's Revelation is a tougher card to beat, but if you can outrace it, you have a good chance.
The lack of removal means that creatures are not as fragile as they have been before. There are decks that are viable that normally would not. This also plays into the idea that you can play anything you want and still have a decent shot at winning at FNM. I came up with a deck I call Spiders with Guns that was based around deathtouch creatures and Lightning Prowess. It's janky, but I won a lot of packs with it pre-Gatecrash. I was only able to do that because a lot of decks run next to zero creature removal spells (Selesnya, for instance). A Deadly Recluse that's packin' a Lightning Prowess can shoot down virtually any critter in Standard.
Yeah, Executioner's Swing isn't really Dismember, but I thought it should be worth a mention, since you have pretty much named everything else that's available in Standard. :)
The Primordials should be all fairly cheap, budget-wise, right?
I really can't wait to play with Obzedat. I have already built a Modern deck with him and Deathbringer Liege as the top of the curve, and every card in the deck Orzhov-colored. I like that, in a pinch, Orzhov Charm can save my Edge of the Divinity too.
First, I said that the variety wasn't my main problem with Standard. I just find it bad that people use the "huge variety" has a reason Standard is good.
Second, this is way different than the usual formats. Let's compare this Standard to the Standard with Lorwyn. There were Kithkin, Elves, Merfolks and Monored (not sure if there were more) as the aggro decks and they were all very different from each other. In this Standard, monored and Rb are basically the same, Esper and Bant control are also very similar, Jund and Naya have their differences but the core of the deck is the same.
Every deck playing green except auras plays Thragtusk. Some more aggressive decks might not, but they probably want some in the sideboard. Every white deck but auras and decks that don't play creatures (most Esper and some Bant) play Restoration Angel. Every deck playing red and green plays Huntmaster. Every control deck has to play Sphinx's Revelations.
I want to play Standard because it is the format I have the cards for. I don't like Modern either because I hate what they do with the bans and it's way more expensive. In the big Extended most of those cards were unbanned and that format was way better. Block is just an even worse Standard.
I will keep playing because even a bad Standard is still Magic. I'd just wish the format was a little better.
it includes 4 x ponder, which is banned. in order to make the deck list, I was actually looking at the deck i have in paper, which is a classic version of the deck, so you should replace those with Mystic Speculation
So in Standard there a lot of different decks, which largely play different cards, but you can lump them into four different categories. Is that really a criticism? You can lump nearly every deck in any format into Aggro, Control, Combo and Midrange but I don't think it actually says anything about the format. Also, I think it's infinitely preferable to have multiple different types of deck than have one dominating deck or have a format where one type of deck is so good everyone has to play it (e.g. having Aggro be so powerful that everyone's deck has to be an Aggro deck).
Removal isn't great in Standard but if it was then Aggro decks would probably suffer to the benefit of Midrange and Control. Does that make the format better? If Aggro was dominating because removal is bad then that would be a problem with Standard. Removal is deliberately made so it doesn't hit everything because Wizards wants people to play creatures in Standard. Also, if Go for the Throat was in the format would that make it better? It doesn't help against Thragtusk or the Hexproof guys, which would just lead to more people playing those cards.
I can understand being frustrated by certain cards in Standard but frankly there will always be cards that players don't like. If you hate Miracles, Hexproof creatures, Sphinx's Revelation and Thragtusk then maybe you should think about playing a different format. Otherwise, maybe you should change your deck and start taking advantage of these cards rather than being on the receiving end.
I got to play with Deathpact Angel in sealed and it's incredible. They have to use two removal spells to get rid of it completely (or exile it). So for one creature, you've baited out two of their spells. If they can't get rid of your token, you can just, idk- populate? Even if you don't want to do that, a creature that always comes back is welcome in any format.
I'm not sure how she'll work in standard. Standard is a little too fast for a six-drop just now. In Commander, she should work just fine. Did you know that if you have training grounds in play, the reanimation cost is WBB? Three mana to get a 5/5 flier back?
Executioner's Swing; I'm not a fan of conditional removal effects and don't think that this card is good enough for constructing play. I prefer to use Orzhov Charm, Ultimate Price or Tragic Slip instead.
Deathpact Angel; I agree that D. Angel is not that that powerful, but I like it for the Orzhov flavor. As you mentioned; Necropolis Regent, Luminate Primordial or Sepulchral Primordial is also good replacement choices for D. Angel. I'm a big fan of WB multicolored Angels (like Selenia or Angel of Despair) and wanted to brew a deck with this new Deathpact Angel. Angel of Serenity is out of the loop due to budget criteria of this article series.
Obzedat, Ghost Council is really cool card. I hope it will also have a reasonable price. I don't know about how exactly the price range of Obzedat will shape, but expecting it to be between 4-6 tix range. But I can be totally wrong.
So, do you entirely dismiss Executioner’s Swing as an Orzhov removal?
I'm not completely sold on Deathpact Angel. Let's say you cast her, next turn you attack with her and they kill her. Then you have to spend the entire following turn to recast her. Then it's the 4th turn and you still haven't attacked with her. I don't know, it's not really like she had persist (or even something like Eternal Dragon's ability: the cleric token can indeed die easily, so you need to change it back asap.) I feel like in a deck with a lot of creatures you could get more punch by playing Necropolis Regent in that slot. Or reach 7-mana and play Angel of Serenity or one of the Primordials (the white and black ones are the most useful.)
High Priest of Penance is super-powerful, instead. It's strong for all the reasons Perilous Myr was strong, but it's actually way stronger.
And Obzedat is possibly one of the strongest creatures in the set.
Legacy manabases have to worry about Wasteland when they get too greedy, though. You have very few risks in Modern with a 4-color manabase, compared to either Legacy OR Standard.
I'm not sure what to make of the Seething Song vs. Grapeshot/ETW decision. When they banned Survival of the Fittest instead of Venegevine from legacy, and banned Mystical Tutor instead of Entomb or any of the reanimation spells, both times they said they prefer to ban the tutor effect and not the targets. They explained that if you ban the targets, some day new and equally-broken targets would end up being printed and they'd have to do it all over again, so they ban the tutor engine. If Pod were ever a problem, it would be a complete 180-degree turn to ban one of the combo pieces rather than the enabler. With Seething Song, you can probably view it as the "enabler" of storm, but since no storm card will ever be printed again you don't have the same problem down the line. Unless of course all fast mana is suspect to WotC development, which is likely.
There is certainly an issue in relation to a format as wide as Modern that banning cards just means that people jump to the next card of that type.
Wild Nacatl was banned but you still have Tarmogoyf (which I would argue is more powerful). Green Sun's Zenith was banned but you still have Birthing Pod. Ponder & Preordain are banned but Sleight of Hand and Serum Visions are still playable. However, I don't think that completely diminishes the impact of bans, as using less efficient cards impacts the power and viability of decks even if there is a valid replacement. Though I get your point that it makes bans less impactful overall.
The idea of banning fetchlands in Modern is an argument I recently came across on another site discussing the bans. I think the idea is interesting but I'm not sure how much it would actually help the format. I think one of the things people enjoy about eternal formats is having good mana. Weakening Modern manabases may lead to it feeling more like Standard when I think Wizards, and perhaps players more generally, want it to feel more like Legacy (to a degree).
As far the banning of Birthing Pod, I think I'm with Kuma on this one. I don't think they will ban Pod even though an argument for banning it can be made on the same basis that Green Sun's Zenith was banned (which was the point I was making in my earlier comment). In the same way Wizards directly avoided killing Storm by banning Seething Song rather than Grapeshot/Empty the Warrens, I reckon Wizards would ban the creatures in the deck over killing the whole archetype directly.
Power level of a format is very much linked to the ubiquity of certain cards in it.
In any format that is non-rotating and eternal, over time card selection will narrow in on a very small subset of cards. This is natural, because there are a certain number of effects (board sweeper, spot removal, draw spells, library manipulation and cantrips, tutoring, etc) that decks will want, and within those categories certain cards are the "outliers" at the top end of the power curve. For example, in legacy there are 20 years of cards but probably no more than 8-10 strictly creature-removal spells that would generally be considered for inclusion, maybe half a dozen blue cantrips, and about 3-4 board wipes. Everything else ever printed is just worse than those, except in a few fringe decks.
So larger card pools generally lead to only the most versatile and hyperefficient cards being played, which means over time we will see an increasing power level in any eternal format and greater uniformity of card selection for any "basic" card function. This will be especially true in Modern, where mana bases are ludicrously greedy and hardly bat an eye at splashing any color they like. If you ban the top outlier in any of those basic roles, the next one in line takes its place. That's why I think banning fetchlands would be the best thing to create diversity in Modern... forcing decks to commit more strongly to certain colors would definitely increase the variety of card selection, by making it harder to just splash for the best role player.
Of course, they have shown an inclination to kill all cards of a certain type that are above their preferred power curve (the best two cantrips are banned, the best rituals are banned, for example.) That still leaves one or two spells you could call the "best" in those categories, but the best ritual isn't actually good enough anymore compared to other things you could be doing. I think Pod is next up for the banhammer for this very reason. They historically have had problems with repeatable tutor effects, and tutor effects that shave mana off the cost of the spell are especially notorious. With GSZ gone, Pod has been the best of its kind in this format, and a clear outlier. It doesn't even have to be a "build around", it can be used just for value (last year's Zombie Pod decks in Standard, for example.) Any effect like that which is strong enough to see a lot of play is going to be suspect. At a bare minimum, I'm sure it's on some informal watch lists there at R&D.
I agree re: not having a problem with the current system but not denying it could be improved.
I don't think they would ever ban Birthing Pod. It's nowhere near a dominating archetype, and it's a popular card that, like we were saying, gives birth to a vast array of different builds (plus they never really shut off a key card like that, if not absolutely necessary: even Bridge from Below is still playable). However, they might ban some key combo pieces, like Melira or Kiki-Jiki. Still unlikely, though.
"FoW is able to change the meta in virtue of showing up more often, so once a player will face it a few times, they'll change their deckbuilding strategies, and this in turn will change the meta towards the safer fast aggro route."
And when the Meta shifts to fast aggro based creature then sweepers like pyroclasm/firespout and WoG become MUCH more useful and frankly control can easily adapt to that by using said sweepers.
I agree banning beyond reasons of pure power level is a valid method of shaping a format and keeping things fresh, which is probably what some people are missing. I think the concern people have is that if cards are not being banned based purely on power level and can be banned because 'they turn up too much', they are left with greater uncertainty about what will be banned.
For example, Birthing Pod has probably shown up in the Top 8 of nearly every Modern GP (that might be a mild exaggeration but definitely most). By that logic, Birthing Pod could be a card targeted for a ban in future, which leaves a whole archetype invalidated.
You might well be right about community involvement devolving into messy and incoherent arguing. To be honest, I don't have a massive problem with the current method of doing things. I just think it would be nice if we got a bit more advanced warning about what was being considered for a ban and why. However, I can see why they do things as they do.
I remember GSZ being defined as too ubiquitous, which it was. It's a concept I like and a vision of banning I share: banning not being about the power level (although, of course, all those cards aren't certainly weak), but about preventing the same card to be seen over and over again, which can cause a format to feel boring.
About discussing with the community, I don't feel it's viable, because it seems to me that the more vocal part of the community is often just a congregation of paranoid nutjobs. When I happen to read large forums like MTG Salvation's, after a while I'm split between facepalming and wanting to bash someone in the head. I agree with what gamemaster32 said in his interview a few week ago: people should just stop crying that the sky is fallen at every decision WotC makes or new development in the game. They should, but they won't, so the rational opinions will be always lost among all the angry background noise. I guess it's true that loving something too much makes you irrational and obsessive, but sometimes it looks like it makes you hate what you love too.
I did think about having a more considered look at the existing ban list and the reasoning behind the cards on it; but I don't want the article to become overly long.
I think your summary is pretty comprehensive and much more concise than I could have made it. I've read a number of different articles discussing the bans, and the most valid argument I have heard against the Modern ban list is that the criteria for what gets banned isn't very clear. For example, Wild Nacatl was banned (presumably because Wizards feared Zoo was too good) but is it really that much better than Tarmogoyf? Equally, Green Sun's Zenith was banned because every green deck was using it but without any clear explanation of why that was such a bad thing, particularly when the decks using it weren't all using it for the same thing.
Overall, I think the vast majority of the Modern banned list is sensible and logical. Also, I don't think anyone should be too surprised that sooner or later Jund was going to take a hit considering how long it's been the best deck. Whether Bloodbraid was the right guy to hit I guess is another matter. Seething Song on the other hand was a surprise and I find the logic a little shaky, at least from Erik Lauer's explanation.
In terms of cards I can see coming off the banned list. I wouldn't be surprised to see Ancestral Vision come off the list. I also wouldn't be surprised to see Golgari Grave-Troll come off the list as there's no real evidence that Dredge is a viable strategy in this format (at least no without Dread Return). Also, with Deathrite Shaman, Rest in Peace and the other graveyard hate cards I don't think Dredge would be hard to hate out if it ever became popular. Bitterblossom I'm less sure of but the printing of Illness in the Ranks might make it more likely.
Finally, I think there's a point to be made about communication from Wizards. I think that Wizards should actually discuss the bans it's considering with the community before just announcing them. Then I think we'd see fewer complaints from people claiming to be blindsided by the changes and how they can't trust investing in the format.
It does seem a little strange, I guess they're just trying to keep Storm players happy by leaving the deck just about playable but ultimately considerably weaker. Though I don't see a good reason for this and I agree that banning Seething Song kills a lot of fringe decks like Hive Mind, Through the Breach, Dragonstorm etc, while Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens are played almost solely in the traditional Storm decks.
I doubt we'll see Preordain and Ponder back soon as I don't think their ban was solely in relation to Storm. I think unbanning Preordain and Ponder also risks making other combo decks, like Scapeshift and Splinter Twin much more consistent, which I think Wizards sees as undesirable.
Firstly, I think you are making some fairly sweeping generalisations.
For example, if you look at the Top 8 of SCG Atlanta Standard Open there are three white deck not playing Restoration Angel - Boros Aggro, Human Reanimator, and Four-Colour Tokens. Naya Humans won the tournament and is a green deck not running Thragtusk.
The Top 8 of the SCG Dallas Standard Open featured a Grixis Control deck. A control deck that didn't play Sphinx's Revelation.
Further, there will always be outstanding cards in a format and in a format as relatively small as Standard they're likely to come up often. There's always going to be some degree of overlap.
The reason Sphinx's Revelation appears in the majority of the Control decks is because it's the main reason Control is even an archetype in the format. I think without Sphinx's Revelation there wouldn't be much in the way of Control decks. Does that make the format better?
Perhaps I'm still missing your point but I'm struggling to fully understand what your point is beyond 'I don't like certain cards in Standard'.
I don't think Thragtusk is the big bad boogeyman people claim he is. I've won a lot of games when my opponent played one and thought he was safe. Sphinx's Revelation is a tougher card to beat, but if you can outrace it, you have a good chance.
The lack of removal means that creatures are not as fragile as they have been before. There are decks that are viable that normally would not. This also plays into the idea that you can play anything you want and still have a decent shot at winning at FNM. I came up with a deck I call Spiders with Guns that was based around deathtouch creatures and Lightning Prowess. It's janky, but I won a lot of packs with it pre-Gatecrash. I was only able to do that because a lot of decks run next to zero creature removal spells (Selesnya, for instance). A Deadly Recluse that's packin' a Lightning Prowess can shoot down virtually any critter in Standard.
Yeah, Executioner's Swing isn't really Dismember, but I thought it should be worth a mention, since you have pretty much named everything else that's available in Standard. :)
The Primordials should be all fairly cheap, budget-wise, right?
I really can't wait to play with Obzedat. I have already built a Modern deck with him and Deathbringer Liege as the top of the curve, and every card in the deck Orzhov-colored. I like that, in a pinch, Orzhov Charm can save my Edge of the Divinity too.
I think you are missing my point.
First, I said that the variety wasn't my main problem with Standard. I just find it bad that people use the "huge variety" has a reason Standard is good.
Second, this is way different than the usual formats. Let's compare this Standard to the Standard with Lorwyn. There were Kithkin, Elves, Merfolks and Monored (not sure if there were more) as the aggro decks and they were all very different from each other. In this Standard, monored and Rb are basically the same, Esper and Bant control are also very similar, Jund and Naya have their differences but the core of the deck is the same.
Every deck playing green except auras plays Thragtusk. Some more aggressive decks might not, but they probably want some in the sideboard. Every white deck but auras and decks that don't play creatures (most Esper and some Bant) play Restoration Angel. Every deck playing red and green plays Huntmaster. Every control deck has to play Sphinx's Revelations.
I want to play Standard because it is the format I have the cards for. I don't like Modern either because I hate what they do with the bans and it's way more expensive. In the big Extended most of those cards were unbanned and that format was way better. Block is just an even worse Standard.
I will keep playing because even a bad Standard is still Magic. I'd just wish the format was a little better.
it includes 4 x ponder, which is banned. in order to make the deck list, I was actually looking at the deck i have in paper, which is a classic version of the deck, so you should replace those with Mystic Speculation
So in Standard there a lot of different decks, which largely play different cards, but you can lump them into four different categories. Is that really a criticism? You can lump nearly every deck in any format into Aggro, Control, Combo and Midrange but I don't think it actually says anything about the format. Also, I think it's infinitely preferable to have multiple different types of deck than have one dominating deck or have a format where one type of deck is so good everyone has to play it (e.g. having Aggro be so powerful that everyone's deck has to be an Aggro deck).
Removal isn't great in Standard but if it was then Aggro decks would probably suffer to the benefit of Midrange and Control. Does that make the format better? If Aggro was dominating because removal is bad then that would be a problem with Standard. Removal is deliberately made so it doesn't hit everything because Wizards wants people to play creatures in Standard. Also, if Go for the Throat was in the format would that make it better? It doesn't help against Thragtusk or the Hexproof guys, which would just lead to more people playing those cards.
I can understand being frustrated by certain cards in Standard but frankly there will always be cards that players don't like. If you hate Miracles, Hexproof creatures, Sphinx's Revelation and Thragtusk then maybe you should think about playing a different format. Otherwise, maybe you should change your deck and start taking advantage of these cards rather than being on the receiving end.
I got to play with Deathpact Angel in sealed and it's incredible. They have to use two removal spells to get rid of it completely (or exile it). So for one creature, you've baited out two of their spells. If they can't get rid of your token, you can just, idk- populate? Even if you don't want to do that, a creature that always comes back is welcome in any format.
I'm not sure how she'll work in standard. Standard is a little too fast for a six-drop just now. In Commander, she should work just fine. Did you know that if you have training grounds in play, the reanimation cost is WBB? Three mana to get a 5/5 flier back?
Kumagoro, thank you for your comments.
Executioner's Swing; I'm not a fan of conditional removal effects and don't think that this card is good enough for constructing play. I prefer to use Orzhov Charm, Ultimate Price or Tragic Slip instead.
Deathpact Angel; I agree that D. Angel is not that that powerful, but I like it for the Orzhov flavor. As you mentioned; Necropolis Regent, Luminate Primordial or Sepulchral Primordial is also good replacement choices for D. Angel. I'm a big fan of WB multicolored Angels (like Selenia or Angel of Despair) and wanted to brew a deck with this new Deathpact Angel. Angel of Serenity is out of the loop due to budget criteria of this article series.
Obzedat, Ghost Council is really cool card. I hope it will also have a reasonable price. I don't know about how exactly the price range of Obzedat will shape, but expecting it to be between 4-6 tix range. But I can be totally wrong.
So, do you entirely dismiss Executioner’s Swing as an Orzhov removal?
I'm not completely sold on Deathpact Angel. Let's say you cast her, next turn you attack with her and they kill her. Then you have to spend the entire following turn to recast her. Then it's the 4th turn and you still haven't attacked with her. I don't know, it's not really like she had persist (or even something like Eternal Dragon's ability: the cleric token can indeed die easily, so you need to change it back asap.) I feel like in a deck with a lot of creatures you could get more punch by playing Necropolis Regent in that slot. Or reach 7-mana and play Angel of Serenity or one of the Primordials (the white and black ones are the most useful.)
High Priest of Penance is super-powerful, instead. It's strong for all the reasons Perilous Myr was strong, but it's actually way stronger.
And Obzedat is possibly one of the strongest creatures in the set.
Legacy manabases have to worry about Wasteland when they get too greedy, though. You have very few risks in Modern with a 4-color manabase, compared to either Legacy OR Standard.
I'm not sure what to make of the Seething Song vs. Grapeshot/ETW decision. When they banned Survival of the Fittest instead of Venegevine from legacy, and banned Mystical Tutor instead of Entomb or any of the reanimation spells, both times they said they prefer to ban the tutor effect and not the targets. They explained that if you ban the targets, some day new and equally-broken targets would end up being printed and they'd have to do it all over again, so they ban the tutor engine. If Pod were ever a problem, it would be a complete 180-degree turn to ban one of the combo pieces rather than the enabler. With Seething Song, you can probably view it as the "enabler" of storm, but since no storm card will ever be printed again you don't have the same problem down the line. Unless of course all fast mana is suspect to WotC development, which is likely.
Thanks for the comment.
There is certainly an issue in relation to a format as wide as Modern that banning cards just means that people jump to the next card of that type.
Wild Nacatl was banned but you still have Tarmogoyf (which I would argue is more powerful). Green Sun's Zenith was banned but you still have Birthing Pod. Ponder & Preordain are banned but Sleight of Hand and Serum Visions are still playable. However, I don't think that completely diminishes the impact of bans, as using less efficient cards impacts the power and viability of decks even if there is a valid replacement. Though I get your point that it makes bans less impactful overall.
The idea of banning fetchlands in Modern is an argument I recently came across on another site discussing the bans. I think the idea is interesting but I'm not sure how much it would actually help the format. I think one of the things people enjoy about eternal formats is having good mana. Weakening Modern manabases may lead to it feeling more like Standard when I think Wizards, and perhaps players more generally, want it to feel more like Legacy (to a degree).
As far the banning of Birthing Pod, I think I'm with Kuma on this one. I don't think they will ban Pod even though an argument for banning it can be made on the same basis that Green Sun's Zenith was banned (which was the point I was making in my earlier comment). In the same way Wizards directly avoided killing Storm by banning Seething Song rather than Grapeshot/Empty the Warrens, I reckon Wizards would ban the creatures in the deck over killing the whole archetype directly.
Power level of a format is very much linked to the ubiquity of certain cards in it.
In any format that is non-rotating and eternal, over time card selection will narrow in on a very small subset of cards. This is natural, because there are a certain number of effects (board sweeper, spot removal, draw spells, library manipulation and cantrips, tutoring, etc) that decks will want, and within those categories certain cards are the "outliers" at the top end of the power curve. For example, in legacy there are 20 years of cards but probably no more than 8-10 strictly creature-removal spells that would generally be considered for inclusion, maybe half a dozen blue cantrips, and about 3-4 board wipes. Everything else ever printed is just worse than those, except in a few fringe decks.
So larger card pools generally lead to only the most versatile and hyperefficient cards being played, which means over time we will see an increasing power level in any eternal format and greater uniformity of card selection for any "basic" card function. This will be especially true in Modern, where mana bases are ludicrously greedy and hardly bat an eye at splashing any color they like. If you ban the top outlier in any of those basic roles, the next one in line takes its place. That's why I think banning fetchlands would be the best thing to create diversity in Modern... forcing decks to commit more strongly to certain colors would definitely increase the variety of card selection, by making it harder to just splash for the best role player.
Of course, they have shown an inclination to kill all cards of a certain type that are above their preferred power curve (the best two cantrips are banned, the best rituals are banned, for example.) That still leaves one or two spells you could call the "best" in those categories, but the best ritual isn't actually good enough anymore compared to other things you could be doing. I think Pod is next up for the banhammer for this very reason. They historically have had problems with repeatable tutor effects, and tutor effects that shave mana off the cost of the spell are especially notorious. With GSZ gone, Pod has been the best of its kind in this format, and a clear outlier. It doesn't even have to be a "build around", it can be used just for value (last year's Zombie Pod decks in Standard, for example.) Any effect like that which is strong enough to see a lot of play is going to be suspect. At a bare minimum, I'm sure it's on some informal watch lists there at R&D.
Standard SilverBlack is a great format, as its rapid rise to popularity can attest. Thanks for providing this coverage!
You should probably remove invigorate from the pauper list. I suggest adding ancestral mask.
...are the best deck. :(
And then,
"Do you really think Stax could beat this deck?"
"... {wheeze} No!"
I agree re: not having a problem with the current system but not denying it could be improved.
I don't think they would ever ban Birthing Pod. It's nowhere near a dominating archetype, and it's a popular card that, like we were saying, gives birth to a vast array of different builds (plus they never really shut off a key card like that, if not absolutely necessary: even Bridge from Below is still playable). However, they might ban some key combo pieces, like Melira or Kiki-Jiki. Still unlikely, though.
So confused, I should probably listen to the podcast now..
+2! :D Good call.
That deck needs Artifact Ward as anti-shop tech. It's a crime that card isn't online!
"FoW is able to change the meta in virtue of showing up more often, so once a player will face it a few times, they'll change their deckbuilding strategies, and this in turn will change the meta towards the safer fast aggro route."
And when the Meta shifts to fast aggro based creature then sweepers like pyroclasm/firespout and WoG become MUCH more useful and frankly control can easily adapt to that by using said sweepers.
I agree banning beyond reasons of pure power level is a valid method of shaping a format and keeping things fresh, which is probably what some people are missing. I think the concern people have is that if cards are not being banned based purely on power level and can be banned because 'they turn up too much', they are left with greater uncertainty about what will be banned.
For example, Birthing Pod has probably shown up in the Top 8 of nearly every Modern GP (that might be a mild exaggeration but definitely most). By that logic, Birthing Pod could be a card targeted for a ban in future, which leaves a whole archetype invalidated.
You might well be right about community involvement devolving into messy and incoherent arguing. To be honest, I don't have a massive problem with the current method of doing things. I just think it would be nice if we got a bit more advanced warning about what was being considered for a ban and why. However, I can see why they do things as they do.
Welcome aboard - good first effort :)
I remember GSZ being defined as too ubiquitous, which it was. It's a concept I like and a vision of banning I share: banning not being about the power level (although, of course, all those cards aren't certainly weak), but about preventing the same card to be seen over and over again, which can cause a format to feel boring.
About discussing with the community, I don't feel it's viable, because it seems to me that the more vocal part of the community is often just a congregation of paranoid nutjobs. When I happen to read large forums like MTG Salvation's, after a while I'm split between facepalming and wanting to bash someone in the head. I agree with what gamemaster32 said in his interview a few week ago: people should just stop crying that the sky is fallen at every decision WotC makes or new development in the game. They should, but they won't, so the rational opinions will be always lost among all the angry background noise. I guess it's true that loving something too much makes you irrational and obsessive, but sometimes it looks like it makes you hate what you love too.
Thanks for the comment Kuma!
I did think about having a more considered look at the existing ban list and the reasoning behind the cards on it; but I don't want the article to become overly long.
I think your summary is pretty comprehensive and much more concise than I could have made it. I've read a number of different articles discussing the bans, and the most valid argument I have heard against the Modern ban list is that the criteria for what gets banned isn't very clear. For example, Wild Nacatl was banned (presumably because Wizards feared Zoo was too good) but is it really that much better than Tarmogoyf? Equally, Green Sun's Zenith was banned because every green deck was using it but without any clear explanation of why that was such a bad thing, particularly when the decks using it weren't all using it for the same thing.
Overall, I think the vast majority of the Modern banned list is sensible and logical. Also, I don't think anyone should be too surprised that sooner or later Jund was going to take a hit considering how long it's been the best deck. Whether Bloodbraid was the right guy to hit I guess is another matter. Seething Song on the other hand was a surprise and I find the logic a little shaky, at least from Erik Lauer's explanation.
In terms of cards I can see coming off the banned list. I wouldn't be surprised to see Ancestral Vision come off the list. I also wouldn't be surprised to see Golgari Grave-Troll come off the list as there's no real evidence that Dredge is a viable strategy in this format (at least no without Dread Return). Also, with Deathrite Shaman, Rest in Peace and the other graveyard hate cards I don't think Dredge would be hard to hate out if it ever became popular. Bitterblossom I'm less sure of but the printing of Illness in the Ranks might make it more likely.
Finally, I think there's a point to be made about communication from Wizards. I think that Wizards should actually discuss the bans it's considering with the community before just announcing them. Then I think we'd see fewer complaints from people claiming to be blindsided by the changes and how they can't trust investing in the format.
It does seem a little strange, I guess they're just trying to keep Storm players happy by leaving the deck just about playable but ultimately considerably weaker. Though I don't see a good reason for this and I agree that banning Seething Song kills a lot of fringe decks like Hive Mind, Through the Breach, Dragonstorm etc, while Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens are played almost solely in the traditional Storm decks.
I doubt we'll see Preordain and Ponder back soon as I don't think their ban was solely in relation to Storm. I think unbanning Preordain and Ponder also risks making other combo decks, like Scapeshift and Splinter Twin much more consistent, which I think Wizards sees as undesirable.