Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die

[mythmonster2]

Ho boy, speaking of Modern, Jace the Mind Sculptor and Bloodbraid Elf unbanned. This'll be interesting.

[The_Admiral]

Lantern Control with Jace

UW Control with Jace.

[Bucky]

I think there's about a 50-50 chance Jace is rebanned by the end of 2020.

[Tvtyrant]

Jace is only a little over powered. It is about on par with splinter twin, trading not being an instant win for being a 1 card combo. Modern's lack of good counterspells makes it vulnerable, and it is slow.

I reckon UR Bloodmoon/Jace is going to be big for a while.

[Lord Seth]

About time Bloodbraid Elf is unbanned.

Jace was a bit of a surprise to me, though. I figured he was a possible unbanning, but I thought that Stoneforge Mystic was the most likely after Bloodbraid Elf.

[LastCenturion]

Storm with Jace.
Death's Shadow with Jace.
U-Tron with Jace.
Temur Zoo with Jace.
Bant Company with Jace.
UW Miracles with Jace.
Turns with Jace.
Uxx Delver with Jace.
Spirits with Jace.

Jund with Bloodbraid.
Naya Zoo with potential Bloodbraid.
Uh... Living End with Bloodbraid.

[Lord Seth]

Storm with Jace.
Death's Shadow with Jace.
U-Tron with Jace.
Temur Zoo with Jace.
Bant Company with Jace.
UW Miracles with Jace.
Turns with Jace.
Uxx Delver with Jace.
Spirits with Jace.

Jund with Bloodbraid.
Naya Zoo with potential Bloodbraid.
Uh... Living End with Bloodbraid.

I can't tell, is this post supposed to be sarcastic or not? Jace doesn't work in most of those decks you listed, and Bloodbraid Elf is terrible in Living End.

[Tvtyrant]

Storm with Jace.
Death's Shadow with Jace.
U-Tron with Jace.
Temur Zoo with Jace.
Bant Company with Jace.
UW Miracles with Jace.
Turns with Jace.
Uxx Delver with Jace.
Spirits with Jace.

Jund with Bloodbraid.
Naya Zoo with potential Bloodbraid.
Uh... Living End with Bloodbraid.

Jace is too slow and fragile for most of those decks.

Basically UW Miracles and Turns is accurate.

[LastCenturion]

I can't tell, is this post supposed to be sarcastic or not? Jace doesn't work in most of those decks you listed, and Bloodbraid Elf is terrible in Living End.

Partially. I know a guy I play with thinks it'll fit into his Storm deck, but Jace isn't a good fit for most of those decks. I agree that BBE isn't good in most decks.

[The_Admiral]

A friend of mine has been considering putting Jace in his Lantern control build. It's eerily like the one that went took first place in the modern GP, he's been playing the Whirs since they came out in Kaladesh.

[Tvtyrant]

On MTGsalvation there is a thread about what changes players would make to the game to improve it.

I personally think the biggest problem is the link between limited and constructed. Limited requires very precise percentages of cards based on rarity, while standard requires a more even card availability where limited bombs aren't priced out by being mythics. That tension is fundamental to the two games, a good standard usually involves a bad limited and the inverse.

Personally I would make it so MR cards can't be used in standard at all, and make cheap removal that doesn't effect them. Fatal Push is great for both limited and a standard where indestructible hexproof haste trample creatures aren't dominant. Dismember is good for standard, and fine in a limited where bombs can protect themselves.

[unseenmage]

On MTGsalvation there is a thread about what changes players would make to the game to improve it.

I personally think the biggest problem is the link between limited and constructed. Limited requires very precise percentages of cards based on rarity, while standard requires a more even card availability where limited bombs aren't priced out by being mythics. That tension is fundamental to the two games, a good standard usually involves a bad limited and the inverse.

I would do away with 'Eldrazi design'. The design principle behind stacking multiple abilities on a single card until that card becomes an auto include in every even remotely related deck.

Second, I'd either hyper reprint or just straight ban the Rav duals and fetch lands. That or print a 0 drop enchantment that made all land abilities that cost life cost 5 more life.

Magic feels awful pay-to-win nowadays. And as an old (poor) gamer, I don't like that

[The_Admiral]

I would do away with 'Eldrazi design'. The design principle behind stacking multiple abilities on a single card until that card becomes an auto include in every even remotely related deck.

Second, I'd either hyper reprint or just straight ban the Rav duals and fetch lands. That or print a 0 drop enchantment that made all land abilities that cost life cost 5 more life.

Magic feels awful pay-to-win nowadays. And as an old (poor) gamer, I don't like that

rav duals are fine? Like they're cheap as chips and kinda weak anyway. Fetchlands are good and that zero mana enchantment will just mean Mono Red Burn has a spicy mainboard that might make it ascendent.

[Techwarrior]

Fetchlands are a wee bit expensive right now (especially Tarn), but I think shocks aren't ridiculously priced right now. Banning shocklands just makes a lot of decks a lot worse off, and incredibly more vulnerable to Blood Moon. If you can't get shocks with your fetches you're incentivized to run less fetches, which decreases your ability to get your basics out. Let's not make modern more Blood Moon friendly.

I think honestly, in a no-shock modern, I'd be playing Affinity with main-deck moon.

[Tvtyrant]

I always like the idea of a set of "etb opponent gains 4 life" fetches, but I think they would kill aggro. Basically a dual land for a control deck and worse then a shock for an aggro deck.

[mythmonster2]

Mini announcement day!
Highlights:

• Official MTG companion app
• Signature Spellbooks, replacing FTV and focusing on a single planeswalker. First one is Jace.
• Battlebond, a Limited Two-Headed Giant set from a new plane focused on sports
• Commander Anthology II
• Commander 2018 (with possible Planeswalker focus, going by the description)
• Chinese-specific Planeswalker decks, with two new planeswalkers.

[The_Admiral]

Fetchlands are a wee bit expensive right now (especially Tarn), but I think shocks aren't ridiculously priced right now. Banning shocklands just makes a lot of decks a lot worse off, and incredibly more vulnerable to Blood Moon. If you can't get shocks with your fetches you're incentivized to run less fetches, which decreases your ability to get your basics out. Let's not make modern more Blood Moon friendly.

I think honestly, in a no-shock modern, I'd be playing Affinity with main-deck moon.

I still think Monored Burn might have a ascendent place in no-shock modern.

[Techwarrior]

Burning from full 20 is a lot harder than with fetch-shocks. That's part of what makes fish and robots a bad-feels matchup.

[Ninjaman]

I always like the idea of a set of "etb opponent gains 4 life" fetches, but I think they would kill aggro. Basically a dual land for a control deck and worse then a shock for an aggro deck.

That would just be so breakable. Imagine it with tainted remedy.

I would do away with 'Eldrazi design'. The design principle behind stacking multiple abilities on a single card until that card becomes an auto include in every even remotely related deck.

What about that design is Eldrazi, and how many cards do you think fits that?

Second, I'd either hyper reprint or just straight ban the Rav duals and fetch lands. That or print a 0 drop enchantment that made all land abilities that cost life cost 5 more life.

This seems like an awful solution. As others have explained Shocks and Fetches enable modern manabases, removing them would be awful for the format.

Magic feels awful pay-to-win nowadays. And as an old (poor) gamer, I don't like that

Magic isn't pay to win, it's just that a good deck costs money, just like being good at cycling requires you to have a good bike. If you're not willing to put that many money into playing competitively, don't, but that doesn't make it pay to win.

Burning from full 20 is a lot harder than with fetch-shocks. That's part of what makes fish and robots a bad-feels matchup.

Agreed. I play zoo, and the only reason burn is a bad matchup is because zoo takes 6 damage from their own lands every game, that's 3 more than the average deck, and three less than fish and robots.
People sometimes think the life doesn't matter, but every time you fetch a shock that's a free bolt for the burn deck.

[Gauntlet]

Magic isn't Pay to Win. It's Pay to Compete. There's a minimum bar of monetary buy-in (which depends on deck, format, etc) below which you probably aren't going to be competitive at a tournament, but once you've crossed that bar investing any more money doesn't really make a difference, and it doesn't guarantee you're going to win anything, so much as get you to the point where player skill becomes the deciding factor.

In casual Magic (including Commander) things are a bit more P2W, since neither has a major competitive scene and the average deck probably isn't at the 'top tier' price barrier above, and once you start looking at reaching that barrier you're just playing a Vintage deck.

[Zombimode]

In casual Magic (including Commander) things are a bit more P2W, since neither has a major competitive scene and the average deck probably isn't at the 'top tier' price barrier above, and once you start looking at reaching that barrier you're just playing a Vintage deck.

And it's also a mindset-issue. If you're a casual Player and you go like "man, I will shell out 1000$ for expensive tournament staples. Then I will crush my opposition of My-First-Magic-Deck(TM) and Rigger-Tribal" maybe you should rethink your perspective.

Sure, there are people like this. They are just wrong

[The_Admiral]

Magic isn't Pay to Win. It's Pay to Compete. There's a minimum bar of monetary buy-in (which depends on deck, format, etc) below which you probably aren't going to be competitive at a tournament, but once you've crossed that bar investing any more money doesn't really make a difference, and it doesn't guarantee you're going to win anything, so much as get you to the point where player skill becomes the deciding factor.

In casual Magic (including Commander) things are a bit more P2W, since neither has a major competitive scene and the average deck probably isn't at the 'top tier' price barrier above, and once you start looking at reaching that barrier you're just playing a Vintage deck.

I mean have you seen the EDH meta I play in?

[unseenmage]

...
What about that design is Eldrazi, and how many cards do you think fits that?
...

Guess I should have said 'Eldrazi titan design'.

Eldrazi titans warp whatever deck they're in by sheer virtue of doing more work than every other card in the deck.

Dude in our playgroup built Sheoldred Commander. A commander that is graveyard centric in a deck that was graveyard centric. He tossed in an eldrazi titan because why not, right? Guess which card kept winning him games? Even though it had counter synergy to the whole deck AND the commander?
If you guessed the eldrazi titan then you win the prize.

Once, a long long time ago, power creep was resisted by the magic creative teams as a destructive force to tge game itself.
Now its been accepted as some sort of unavoidable consequence, part of the cost of doing the business of gaming.

They literally offloaded the blame for overpowered card design onto the playerbase claiming that we won't buy cards unless they print strictly-better-than versions of old cards.
Have they never met non-competitive players? We buy cards even when they're garbage (sometimes especially so just for the challenge!) We call it 'cardboard crack', we won't stop buying just because they don't print Eldrazi titan style cards.

TLDR: Strictly-better-than combined with too-many-anilities is what I would describe 'Eldrazi titan design' to be.

But hey, I'm old and poor. What do I know about anything. WotC surely is posting record profits every year as a global entity and they DO have access to data I do not. In my aged poverty I am literally not their market playerbase. The game will assuredly continue without me or my input because it better, right? Cuz imma just a mortal. The game and its parent company are looking to outlast me by generations, right?

[Binks]

...The Eldrazi titans are not very powerful cards. And this is coming from the perspective of a guy who has a Kozilek Commander deck (for fun :) ) and plays commander primarily. If some random titan in a Shelodred deck is continually winning someone games in your group, then your group lacks something to deal with that card and just needs to adapt. What part of the titan card is so hard for everyone else to deal with?

Honestly not trying to sound rude or anything, but while there can be a lot of complaints about power creep in MtG, the titans don't even rank on that list. The most powerful one (old Emrakul) is banned in commander anyway, and the rest, while strong, as extremely expensive for what they bring to the table and can be gotten rid of with 2-3 mana cards from one of your many opponents.

(and yeah, "it dies to removal" is a silly argument when discussing a creature's power, but in commander when talking about a single card taking down an entire group it's a valid point. The eldrazi die to removal, so why is your group not able to remove them when/if they show up?)

[Tvtyrant]

...The Eldrazi titans are not very powerful cards. And this is coming from the perspective of a guy who has a Kozilek Commander deck (for fun :) ) and plays commander primarily. If some random titan in a Shelodred deck is continually winning someone games in your group, then your group lacks something to deal with that card and just needs to adapt. What part of the titan card is so hard for everyone else to deal with?

Honestly not trying to sound rude or anything, but while there can be a lot of complaints about power creep in MtG, the titans don't even rank on that list. The most powerful one (old Emrakul) is banned in commander anyway, and the rest, while strong, as extremely expensive for what they bring to the table and can be gotten rid of with 2-3 mana cards from one of your many opponents.

(and yeah, "it dies to removal" is a silly argument when discussing a creature's power, but in commander when talking about a single card taking down an entire group it's a valid point. The eldrazi die to removal, so why is your group not able to remove them when/if they show up?)

They are swiss army knives though. Cast triggers mean they always do something even if countered, they turn off mill decks for free, and they are big beefy beaters.

Ceaseless hunger glues two uncounterable vindicates onto a darksteel colossus, then gives it a deck exiling power for essentially free.

[unseenmage]

...

(and yeah, "it dies to removal" is a silly argument when discussing a creature's power, but in commander when talking about a single card taking down an entire group it's a valid point. The eldrazi die to removal, so why is your group not able to remove them when/if they show up?)

I could ask you why your group hasn't had Eldrazi titans in search/sacrifice shells wreck face? But I won't because as you said, 'Dies to removal' arguements are silly.

The Eldrazi titans were an example. The earliest major example (aside from what? JMS and Blightsteel?) of just infuriatingly overpowered, over-abilitied cards.

Don't get me wrong, there are much simpler, more overpowered, undercosted, and newer cards.
There are a couple of Kaladesh block artifacts that, though they were fun for a while, our group will be mainboarding Tranquility and similar to deal with in the near future.
But those are a mana cost issue, a simpler miscalculation than dumping a bunch of superpowers on a single card and calling it a day.

[Androgeus]

The Eldrazi that actually work with Sheoldred look like big beaters with some form of protection and evasion to me, nothing that isn't insurmountable.

[The_Admiral]

Guess I should have said 'Eldrazi titan design'.

Eldrazi titans warp whatever deck they're in by sheer virtue of doing more work than every other card in the deck.

Dude in our playgroup built Sheoldred Commander. A commander that is graveyard centric in a deck that was graveyard centric. He tossed in an eldrazi titan because why not, right? Guess which card kept winning him games? Even though it had counter synergy to the whole deck AND the commander?
If you guessed the eldrazi titan then you win the prize.

Once, a long long time ago, power creep was resisted by the magic creative teams as a destructive force to tge game itself.
Now its been accepted as some sort of unavoidable consequence, part of the cost of doing the business of gaming.

They literally offloaded the blame for overpowered card design onto the playerbase claiming that we won't buy cards unless they print strictly-better-than versions of old cards.
Have they never met non-competitive players? We buy cards even when they're garbage (sometimes especially so just for the challenge!) We call it 'cardboard crack', we won't stop buying just because they don't print Eldrazi titan style cards.

TLDR: Strictly-better-than combined with too-many-anilities is what I would describe 'Eldrazi titan design' to be.

But hey, I'm old and poor. What do I know about anything. WotC surely is posting record profits every year as a global entity and they DO have access to data I do not. In my aged poverty I am literally not their market playerbase. The game will assuredly continue without me or my input because it better, right? Cuz imma just a mortal. The game and its parent company are looking to outlast me by generations, right?

Titans aren't all that powerful IMO? Like they're big expensive fancy beaters with powerful cast and attack triggers but they still aren't all that powerful. Even in commander

[Binks]

They are swiss army knives though. Cast triggers mean they always do something even if countered, they turn off mill decks for free, and they are big beefy beaters.

Ceaseless hunger glues two uncounterable vindicates onto a darksteel colossus, then gives it a deck exiling power for essentially free.

Who plays mill in commander :P? I kid, but they only 'turn off' mill decks who have no means to instant-speed exile cards from graveyards and those decks are basically dead weight anyways. If someone runs a mill deck against me that can't remove my cards from GY at instant speed, I win regardless of whether I have a titan in my deck or not, because there's so many shuffle effects out there now, many with other reasons for running them.

New Ulamog is certainly a powerful card, that I will agree with. But commander is a multiplayer format. In a 2 player format, 2 vindicates and a darksteel colossus is great. Of course in a 2 player format, good luck getting to 10 mana to cast that :P. In multiplayer though, you've spent 1 of your cards to remove 2 of your opponents and you force one of them to use a good removal spell on it. You're down one card, your opponents are down 3 of high quality (presumably). That's good, but it's hardly impressive compared to the other shenanigans you can pull in commander. Ulamog is basically a 1-for-1 in a 4 player game. Nothing wrong with 1-for-1s, but you can do a lot better (especially for that much mana).

I run New Ulamog in my Eldrazi deck. He's good, but I don't expect to win any game I cast him in. He'll come down, get answered by an opponent, and we'll move one with me having gained a slight advantage. Or my opponents will be so worn down by other threats that they won't be able to answer Ulamog and I'll win, in which case literally any threat would have done the job, he just happened to be the last one.

I could ask you why your group hasn't had Eldrazi titans in search/sacrifice shells wreck face? But I won't because as you said, 'Dies to removal' arguements are silly.

The Eldrazi titans were an example. The earliest major example (aside from what? JMS and Blightsteel?) of just infuriatingly overpowered, over-abilitied cards.

Don't get me wrong, there are much simpler, more overpowered, undercosted, and newer cards.
There are a couple of Kaladesh block artifacts that, though they were fun for a while, our group will be mainboarding Tranquility and similar to deal with in the near future.
But those are a mana cost issue, a simpler miscalculation than dumping a bunch of superpowers on a single card and calling it a day.

Here's the thing. Dump all the abilities you want onto a creature, literally, and cost it high enough, and it's a bad creature. Cards with a ton of abilities are not some new thing Wizards is trying out, Akroma was printed in Legions, Morphling in Urza's saga. They're a bit more common these days (where "these days" means post new world order, ie >2010ish) because Wizards caters to all three psychographics more carefully, and Timmies love big creatures with tons of abilities, but they're not some brand new thing.

JMS is absolutely OP (hence being banned in commander and, until recently, several other places >.>) but so is ancestral and time walk. And JMS isn't broken because he has so many abilities, he's broken because he ridiculously cheap for those abilities (free repeatable brainstorm for 4 should never has been printed). Take away his ult and the card doesn't change in power. Heck, take away his + and with only the middle two abilities he'd still be OP.

The OG titans are not very powerful cards, and the new ones really aren't either. If your group can't deal with a titan getting brought out in commander...well, I'm going to be bluntly honest here, but you probably can't deal with a lot of threats in that format. You're probably playing at a very low power level than my group, hence the different opinions on PL. Nothing wrong with that, it can be quite fun, but if you want to stay at the power level you're going to have to ban strong cards like Ulamog. And strong cards are not unique to new sets.

Ban the titans in your play group and move on if they really bother you, but if you're trying to prove power creep, picking the titans is a serious uphill battle...

[Mystic Muse]

Jace the Mind Sculptor isn't banned in commander. At least, not Rules committee commander.