Modern | Thoughts for August Ban Announcement

Intro what's up everybody hope you're having an awesome Sunday so far uh so as you can tell from the title of the video as well as the lovely image you see on your screen here we have got a ban announcement tomorrow ban and restricted announcement now we don't have any sort of confirmation on if anything's getting banned uh what could be banned nothing of the sort so I thought we would have a little fun and make some predictions talk about um the things that I think need to be adjusted specifically in the modern format if you're looking for opinions on like pioneer and Legacy other formats like that uh I have not played enough gameplay of those to have a truly informed decision but modern I feel like is an area that I do have a good bit of gam playay in uh do keep up with results fairly regularly so hopefully I can give some some reasoning here give some um some insight is to my thoughts and who knows maybe you agree maybe you disagree either way as always I hope you uh let me know in the comments what you you are thinking before we hop into the video as always uh down in the description below we have link to the Twitter uh so if you want to catch a live stream of death Shadow or something else Twitter is the first place that gets updated with notifications that we going live we'll have a link to the twitch so you can come check out one of those live streams and link to the Discord so you can come talk about uh anything from Death Shadow to other modern decks other formats or just complain that my tier lists and my band list predictions are terrible and yeah so we'll go from there either way let's go ahead and get rolling so I got uh nine cards cards for you and I got them breaking down into three categories and we'll go over them individually the first category is cards that I think are at the top of the band watch list these are the cards that I think will either be banned maybe not this ban announcement maybe in the near future um and I'll give an explanation because at least one of them is very off the beaten path the second is Dex or cards that I believe should be banned and this is more from a balancing perspective than it is from necessarily a uh promotes G bad gameplay perspective and then the third is three cards that I think should be looked at to be unbanned uh and obviously that's always got some some hot takes but I think these are three actually reasonable cards and I will give my My reasonings for them when we get to them so first off we've got cards that are likely to get banned these are the the three cards that I think are at the top of the list and more than likely Cards I Think Could Be Banned need to go sooner rather than later first off natu winged wisdom everybody knows this card you've seen it a million times you've probably played against it a million times you've probably sat there and either F6 or made your opponent click it out a million times either way uh I think that natu winged wisdom even though it's a fairly new addition to the format just coming out in modern Horizons 3 has been a detriment not only to uh game play in person but coverage of game play it's been a big question mark in the format since the the pro tour modern Horizon 3 three when nobody knew if this card was going to get an emergency ban if they were going to stick it out they said they were going to wait until the ban announcement window which is coming up tomorrow but this has been the thing that's thrown everything up in the air um from a power level perspective I don't necessarily think that Nadu is a deck that can't be hated out to a certain degree the the problem is uh the deck itself has got so many ways to fight against that hate that there is a good number of games that even if you've got the surgical extraction on Nadu you lose to the spring har and nuko making an army of tokens and the bristly bill pumping it up uh even if you've got the the counter spells and the removal spells for the naus there's a chance that you lose to the U the shifting Woodland and copying natu from the yard and allowing your opponent to go off even if you've got the uh the artifact hate for the Sho the Stony silence the anything of the sort then you still run the risk of your opponent cord of calling for a Riders and being able to combo off with that or even getting a u a silven safekeeper something to that effect there's just so many avenues for the deck to get around the things that should be doing the job of policing it and for that reason uh as well as the time commitment we're seeing more and more tournaments with Nadu turns going to time um it becomes a dexterity issue to get through with the the deck in the allotted time period for rounds and events like RC Qs uh big invitationals you have have to physically move these tokens along your your conveyor belt at a specific rate and if you play the optimal version of the deck the deck or the version that showed up at the pro tour without the th's Oracle you run into these issues twofold because as soon as you start having to Loop your library back in with or your graveyard back in with endurance now time is gone now you're getting to matches that are decided in the first game because you can't get to a second uh and you can't really push your opponent for a Time violation because during this whole process they are presenting a sometimes deterministic sometimes non-deterministic Loop and as long as they're progressing T luck so for a lot of those reasons as well as being like the most or the highest win percentage in the format I do think natu winged wisdom probably needs to go ahead and uh take the the bird shot of of the ban just clip its wings get it out of the format move on to the next one uh so next up on the list another card that I think is probably a pretty uh pretty popular choice for going on the band list and that is of course the one ring from our our favorite Lord of the Ring set direct to Modern so the One Ring four Mana indestructible artifact that allows you to blank your opponent's next turn allows you to give yourself protection draw some cards um the big argument I think you can give to the one ring is the fact that it's the most played card in modern by a mile um so I did look it up before this the one ring is averaging 3.2 copies in 48% of decks to put that in comparison the second most popular card the second most played card uh in modern is Sun cleanser at 1.8 copies in about every 30 to 35% of decks that is a huge huge jump from number one to number two and obviously the ring uh has this colorless cost requirement or this generic cost requirement that allows it to be slotted into every deck Under the Sun we've seen natu with the One Ring Tron mono black we've seen Jess guy controll we've seen Demir control um we've seen twiddle storm with the One Ring we've seen every deck Under the Sun with the one ring and you'll hear this argument a lot of the times of hey this deck uh is only playable because of the one ring and I don't think that's an argument we should be leaning into because it kind of prevents us from taking action against the things in the format that could allow a more balanced experience and give more decks an opportunity to naturally become present whereas the one ring right now is oh uh scape shift is playable because you have the one ring and at the end of the day if you've got four copies of the One Ring the rest of your game plan A lot of the times doesn't matter that much you're kind of winning with whatever stuff you can jam together in a modern leag [Music] deck so uh I don't think that's necessarily A A positive for a lot of these um lower tier decks or a lot of these kind of obscure Decks that aren't seeing as much play I think it's more of a a crutch that the entire format is kind of leaning on because the best way to combat your opponent's one ring is you having a one ring and keeping up with cards that way so for a lot of those reasons for the fact that it's the most played card in the format by mile uh the requirements to play it are non-existent and it does this job of prolonging games or um creating swings that I don't necessarily think are healthy for the format for those reasons I am saying adios to the One Ring casting it off into the fires of Mount Doom and uh letting Gollum go down with it so the third card on I likely to ban list I really have to preface this one by saying I don't think this is anywhere near the tier of the first two I don't think this third one should be touched until the first two are taken care of until natu and the One Ring are taken care of uh but what I don't want to create is a next ManUp cycle where we're saying hey we banned one we banned two now three just becomes the de facto thing to do I don't think that's a healthy way of approaching Bannings so if it were up to me I would attack this third card as well because I do think that boros and mardu energy are two of the Decks that not only only are extraordinarily popular but have the most to gain if cards like the one ring and Nadu are no longer in the format so the third card I'm throwing on my my needs to be ban list is guide of souls uh so we'll talk about this one a little bit I know this is I'm G to get absolutely torn apart in the comments like why gu of souls gu of souls is so fair gu of souls is so good uh it's because I think gu of Souls is the card that really works to push energy over the top so guide of souls allows play patterns like turn one guide into turn two amp Raptor or Johnny with something like an Aether Hub that allows you to go ahead and get counters on your guide of souls uh so you so go ahead and start attacking with a three four flyer as soon as turn two and fairly consistently it allows you to start building up extra energy so that cards like static prison become one Mana Exile nonland permanent never get it or never give it back cuz you just have the supply of energy forming it's a LIF gain trigger for your ocelot Prides so as soon as you play your ocelot Pride on turn two you know you're going to get to make a cat at the end of turn it creates a a series of patterns where your opponent can no longer interact on the ground because you're guide of souls is able to start jumping your ocelot Prides your Raptors your other guide of souls whatever into the air uh making it more difficult to interact with uh with the deck from a blocking standpoint it's just a lot of value packed into a one Mana card it's completely pushed like Soul Sisters out of the the format like why I play Soul Sisters when I can play a soul sister SS that has the chance of just making my things giant flying attackers when you get gu of souls working in multiples with a lot of these two for one cards so ocelot Prides a johnes things like that you run the risk of like just an extraordinarily fast clock that a lot of decks in modern don't have the capability of catching up with uh I also don't necessarily want to hit some of the the value two for one cards out of the deck so like amp draptor I think is a really cool card um but dial back the amount that amped Raptor can do on turn two I think that a Johnny is a cool card but when you a Johnny like I said with an Aether Hub after a guide of Souls and now all of a sudden you have to deal with this a Johnny or you threaten it flipping but you have to deal with this guy of souls because it's just going to kill kill you you can't kill the guide on turn one because then the aani resolves and you have to have more stuff it's just a card that I believe snowballs better than anything else in the boros and mardu energy decks and it's also a card that I don't think is any less than a four of in any of those builds so it is a very integral part but I don't think it's a card that uh necessarily makes it so that you're unable to play that archetype I just think it knocks back the consistency a reasonable enough amount like maybe you can replace it with ragavan or uh another one drop that has been shown to be less impactful but I think guide of souls for a one drop is just doing too much for this particular archetype and so if you ban natu and you ban the one ring I would like to see guy to souls go in that same breath just so like I said we don't have that next ManUp scenario uh so that's my three cards that I think should be on the chopping block and I don't necessarily think it's all or none I think you can ban Nadu ban the one ring uh and watch gu of souls but I think you have to at least watch something out of the energy deck um but thankfully we might have another one on the list so the second tier of cards the cards I think should be banned for balancing purposes these are cards three cards that I do not believe by any stretch of the imagination are powerful enough to Warrant a ban right this second but but they are cards that similar cards have been band and these promote the same play patterns the same uh game patterns and we'll talk about what the those are so first up on this list Cards to Ban for Format Balance grief I don't think grief is a card that is surprising too many people being on here I think that it is an extremely valuable uh enabler or protection for unfair decks for things like Necro dominance uh living in gorio Vengeance things like that but it's a card that reminds me a lot of um uh what am I it reminds me a lot of birthing pod where birthing pod got band with the um the argument of the more like reprint creatures with ETB abilities the better birthing pod gets grief in that same idea the better the things are that if you resolve it wins you the game the better grief gets because it's the free thought season it is the free check to make sure the coast is clear and then just resolve my hay maker immediately after so the better those Haymakers are the better grief becomes and for that reason I think that uh grief's time should be fairly limited um it's not a card I think is in need of an immediate ban but we've seen decks like mono black again Goro's Vengeance Living End that have really us utilized grief to great success being able to protect the turn that they want to go off uh as well disrupt their opponent's game plan for little to no investment early on so I would like to see grief at least get a a big look if not an actual ban but if like the first three get hit the Nadu the One Ring gu of souls then I think grief starts getting up on that list of hey next man up maybe we just want to ax it to help kind of level out the playing field if these other decks aren't getting to do something unfair then the unfair decks shouldn't get to do something unfair uh next up orcish bow Masters which I hate because I like orcish bow Masters I play orcish bow Masters but if the One Ring doesn't exist in the format I would like to see orcish bow Masters go I don't think that this is a card that is necessarily healthy or needs to be around I think gets a check to necro dominance and uh the one ring but I just don't feel like it's a card that should be an auto include because those decks exist in the format so if those decks don't exist in the format I would rather just bow Master get out uh I do think there are a decent number of cool X1 creatures that bow Master keeps in check like ragavan like esper Sentinel decks like elves uh Affinity that have a really tough time with bow Master you don't think of affinity but when your thought monitor thought cast get cast and bow Master just gets to have a field day pinging dudes off it's uh it's a pretty big deal so I think that bow Master being out of the format would allow a few more of those cheap creature decks to have a chance I wouldn't necessarily say they'll be good but I would rather them have a chance than just be pushed out of the format alog together so bow Masters again if the one Ring's gone just take out the bow Masters too I understand that the one ring and orish bow Masters especially are two very big price point cards uh a lot of people invested a lot of money into having access to them but personally I don't take that into account when I come up with a a card that I believe needs to be removed from the format so if your argument for for like bow Master is oh I spent a bunch well tough luck I don't know what to tell you on that one outside of get wrecked I guess not really don't don't actually think I'm getting wrecked uh so finally third card that I think should be looked at and this one has such obvious comparisons to something that's already on the band list and it really goes along with that next man up mentality uh as well as takes away from format diversity and that card is flag Titan of fires Fury so if you can't figure it out the obvious comparison is oo uh I do believe oo is better I think drawing cards playing extra lands uh is better than the dam damage but we're seeing more flag decks with cards like Arena of glory be able to really close the game out of nowhere I think that the Lightning Helix effect has made decks like burn completely unplayable we've seen a lot of cheap creature Decks that have just left entirely because they cannot fight a flag we've seen prowess builds get knocked down into Oblivion because as soon as that first creature gets flaged it's probably just game over um and then you you double up on that with ideas of oh I'll surgical the flages and that's just an awful strategy um if you're plan is to let them kill your dude gain life and then pay more life to surgical fled and then just like leave the rest of the guards in their deck so flag I think is uh is a card that's a little too versatile for current modern if we had some better answers to it then maybe I'd be a little on board again I do put it in that list below the Defcon four bands uh the natu One Ring then the GU of Souls and then flag I don't want to just like Go destroy mardu and boros energy but or just guy energy J Sky control but fled is a card that I do think is very much stifling deck diversity in modern and if you want to truly bring back a bit of a balanced format then I think it's a card that is going to have to uh to meet its maker at some point before you're able to get that rolling so that's my three should be banned for the sake of uh evening out the format we hit the three that are likely or I would think would be likely to get banned and now we've got the fun part we've got the unbanned we got the things people always want to hear about um I will start this section off by saying this is a very very conservative list I am only looking at cards that I think can actually safely be unbanned and not cards that I just want to see if they'd be okay like the the cards everybody jumps to Splinter twin everybody wants Splinter twin everybody argues Splinter twin would be fine nowadays there's so much interaction uh personally I don't think that's the case I think Splinter twin with cards like force and negation sounds like an absolute nightmare that people just are not ready for um I wish it could do a little bit better right now um or the format could do a little bit better against Splinter twin but I just don't think it's a deck that we need in the format or people actively want I shouldn't say people actively want there's plenty of insane people out there that want Splinter twin I don't think it's a a deck that the format as a whole actively wants uh if you're already worrying about stifling deck diversity then Splinter yeah Splinter twin just like personifies that to the next level like oh if you don't kill me by turn four or you aren't playing a hard hard control mid-range deck then you run the risk of just being out of it so no Splinter twin on this list what we do have however probably one of my favorite ones on the band list at least at the current moment hyper Genesis I think hyper Genesis is completely fine and the Safe to Unban reason for that is Simeon spirit guide is no longer in the format violent Outburst is no longer in the format we've got uh we've got like living in is the best Cascade deck we've got rhinos but hypergenesis runs into the fact that if you are able to interact with the hand you can make the deck worse because it's not like rhinos are living in where you Cascade into the thing and you get to just go off hypergenesis requires you to have the stuff in hand when the hypergenesis resolves so it gets more into an argument of uh can you find the stuff are you keeping the stuff in hand you can't cycle to find your Cascade spells you have to have this naturally drawn balance there's more waves of dealing with these Cascade spells than there were before so I think hyper Genesis would be a card that we can afford to take off the band list give Cascade decks a little bit of a chance here and there because Lord knows at the moment they need it but I'd love to put in like a under City sewers off of hyper Genesis and just be like oh you got me you got an imle it also give us another reason to sideboard imle the aons torn like right now we're we're sideboarding emerle occasionally for decks like mill let's play emerle for hyper Genesis let me put in an emerle off of their stuff and then untap and attack with a big Annihilator 155 flyer I feel like that's well deserved at this point so hyper Genesis I think is on the the list of cards that I would feel safe on Banning I don't think has any big um big impact on the format the second one Ponder uh this one's probably a little bit more on the maybe too good uh train of thought in Legacy a lot of times you have this uh Ponder verse pre-ordained argument like which is better pre-ordained little bit better for digging for combo pieces Ponder's a little bit better of like a value uh can trip I think Ponder is a perfectly reasonable card to unban when Ponder was banned you were looking at cryptic command decks and unfair decks like crazy that were really taking advantage now we've got pre- orane unbanned that is doing next to nothing in the format we've got some psychic frog decks running it and that's about it like the premier control deck in the format J Sky control isn't even running pre-ordained they're running tune The Narrative tune The Narrative think about that not playing the unbanned can Trip playing the one Mana make two energy draw card so I would like to see Ponder maybe it gives a little bit more to a lot of the aggressive Tempo style decks The Merc tide decks uh potentially some of the control decks play it but probably not give some combo decks a few more elements to help out which they'll need if cards like grief and the One Ring get banned so Ponder I think's like a a really cool can trip I would like to see in the format or at least try it out um if pre-ordained it had more of an impact if it was like this auto four of in every blue deck I wouldn't even consider Ponder but because pre-ordained has clearly very clearly been power crept to a reasonable level in modern if not under a reasonable level uh then I think Ponder might be the kind of card we need to get things back into an even balance and then finally the third card on the unbanned list and this one I know is going to get some moans and groans so I am super excited to read the comments on it but the card is mental misstep no it's it's death thre Shaman don't worry I'm I make all my commentary about mental misstep I still personally think the card would be reasonable but no I'm I'm talking about death right Shaman uh man talk about a card that people are extraordinarily polarized on so first I want to bring up the fact that you have to go 20 20 20 cards deep or 20 de X deep in the Goldfish metag game before you find a black green X mid-range deck and I'm not talking about like grief necro dominance the one ring that kind of mid-range I'm talking about like a true value oriented mid-range deck and it's yog moth yog moth 20 card or 20 decks deep so decks like Jun mid-range Jun Saga abzan mid-range The Rock uh just completely pushed out of the format death right Shaman I think would give a fantastic not only shot in the butt to those decks to maybe help them get up a little bit more but would be a great uh great reinvigorator for players in the format to potentially come back back try to brw try to get involved try to play with a card that's really exciting really interesting uh obviously having this card that gives some sort of main deck hate to things like flag is really nice little main deck life gain against the boros energy decks little uh main deck life loss against some of the control decks uh I think it it offers a lot of potential you do run the risk of decks that could play Death right deciding to play it it is a very good card but we also live in a format where cards like galvanic discharge and fatal push and Unholy heat are the standards Solitude Prismatic ending layline binding uh cards that didn't exist When Death right Shaman initially got the axe and I don't see uh a world where death right Shaman is more impactful at least to the modern format then other one drops like guide of Souls and ocelot pride and ragavan and I'd like to see what what that looked like um what kind of decks death right Shaman could potentially find at home in is it able to give some of those mid-range Black based mid-range decks some more tools to get back into a metagame share I don't know maybe youall have some uh some stronger opinions on it maybe youall have some thoughts maybe you've tried out no band list with death right Shaman but obviously I'm not suggesting unbanning things like I ofan that clearly outshine uh our favorite little elf Shaman here but I do think it's a card that would have some interesting possibilities uh main deck hate for opposing Merc tides for the graveyard um main deck hate for some opposing spell decks flag all that stuff Wrap Up I'd like to see it tried so that is my list of cards so just a recap the three I would like to see band natu one ring gu soul in that order the three I'd like to see looked at for balance considerations fled Titan to Fire's Fury grief and orcish bow Masters and then the three that I think would be safe to unban uh hyper Genesis Ponder and death right Shaman so if you enjoyed this video please uh please consider giving a like come check out some of the other stuff we have up as always I hope youall all have a fantastic rest of your day stay safe enjoy some good food and Company I will catch y'all back live later adios for now