No B&R Announcement Until August 26!? - WOTC Is Doubling Down

Blake @ WeeklyMTG uh we have received a number of comments about doing an off-cycle BNR announcement uh particularly in relation to nadu's performance at the pro tour coupled with the timing of the upcoming modern rcq season which kicks off in about two weeks is um but also in relation to grief and Legacy and the red white energy energy deck in historic uh on Arena now first I want to be very clear we are not changing our date or issuing any kind of off cycle ban our announced date for the next B&R is August 26th and we firmly believe that sticking to our announced date and not surprising people with random dates uh is the best for magic and the best for players we try I need to know if you Introduction actually are happy with that statement the announcement that was just made that we are sticking to another month of Nadu grief bow Masters the One Ring all that good stuff in modern and we're sticking to what is probably going to be at this point the death of the Legacy format considering the metagame percentages of what's going on in that format and I mean Pioneer continuing to be the combo sup that it is I don't really have great context for what's going on in like historic and Timeless and all that stuff but for the constructed formats that exist both in paper and in digital I think it's clear to see that the management of these formats are kind of going to the Wayside here with modern rcq season pretty much about to start here or starting based on when you're watching this video we do know that the season it's goes over like 10 plus weeks so there is going to be a portion of the Season where it kind of feels dead we have these formats that we know are probably going to get banned out a lot of attendance is going to be low in numbers local game stores are affected by this as well but I think this whole discussion around Banning dates and everything is a nuanced one there's a lot of good and bad to come out of a stance like this and that's what I wanted to break down today I wanted to take this from a community perspective break down what's further brought in the video down the line which I'm going to link down below I highly recommend you watch the whole thing from the horse's mouth get all the information there because it is really important for context so go watch that then come back to this one and really we're going to try and understand not only what the combos themselves are in the metag games I'm going to try and break down why they're broken provide some context for those of you that maybe more casual constructed players maybe play some more Commander or just don't have your eggs in a basket depending on the format itself so if you want to see more discussions like this leave a like on the video let me know what you want to hear more of in the comment section down below and of course give me your thoughts on the modern banded restricted uh lack of announcement I should say currently do you feel like natu is busted right now do you feel like you're playing a deck that is breaking or sorry busting nadu's eggs wide open cuz I mean hey it has never been a better time to be playing Modern Mill but hey my bias is aside let's hop right into just kind of a small tidbit of what it means from the community I I think many of you already know that this isn't a popular opinion natu has been relatively taking over the modern metag game for a while but it does feel like from a certain perspective that there is a level of diversity when combo's at the top generally speaking if the combo is highly disruptable and I'm taking this from my popper player perspective generally the mid-range decks can survive although the mid-range decks tend to be really done out by like top decking combos right like generally speaking the combo decks can beat the kind of mid-range decks but if they're highly interactable in the sense of like something like Nadu then you might be able to get through with a little bit of land destruction with a little bit of interaction on your end it's possible but I mean that also lends to the power of other things going on in the format it's a reason why Tron has become a person style deck it's a reason why Ruby storm is still at the top of the roost how grief scam decks can still get there because double scamming on turn one is absolutely still a busted play pattern and then when you combine that with necro dominance and the One Ring everything just really falls apart when you think about it from a metagame perspective so there's a lot going on in modern right now the percentages on websites may not fully paint the full picture but we're going to explore that and when it comes to Legacy we see one deck essentially take a third to potentially more than that of a percentage of the metag game itself one deck is essentially being played over any other deck by the vast majority and will also break down why and Pioneer we've been seeing ever since uh kind of big tournaments the pro tour just bringing up just real big bruise in the vampire deck Amalia still being a menace of the format for a very long time we're going to break it all down here and then go into some of the reasonings as to why this is a problem so let's hop into it from a quick combo explainer the Pioneer The Combos Breaking Constructed Magic metag game as you can very much see has been ruled by some of the more common stall warts of it right you got the hidden strain sack aorus combo nickos ramp I mean they've haven't been able to put a nail on this deck for a very long time nickos Shrine and nicks is just a de it's just a card that is very hard to deal with right is it Phoenix has been a really good deck in the format very very long time but the more recent additions of ratal vampires and Amalia combo are what what really rule the top of the roost tier now mardu vampires generally Works around two big cards I I should mention the third one Fable of the mirror breaker is actually one of the most insane red enchantments printed of all time um especially in terms of a card that provides value um in a mid-range mirror value to bring yourself back into the game but I digress the card is just generically good the mardu vampires deck Works around something like saurin imperious blood Lord and it's really the minus three here so the minus three reads you may put a vampire card from your hand onto the battlefield so it's kind of like a sneak attack definitely not like something that's instant speed you know it's coming on a a planes Walker so again that minus three you cheat out something like vein Ripper so instead of six you pay the low cost of three you get a plaines walker and a vein Ripper for a 65 with flying the ward is sacrifice a creature and whenever a creature dies Target opponent loses two life and you gain two life so the problem is that if you are creatureless on board you can't kill this you have to sacrifice a creature I I I believe maybe maybe you might be able to get around this I might be just be getting that wrong please let me know in the comment section down below regardless there's a big cost um you lose your own creature to kill this creature right so you're losing two cards you're you're losing the removal spell that you're spending on this and then you're losing the creature that you then have to pay for as part of the word cost then whenever a creature dies Target opponent loses two life and you gain to life so that is any creature not just you not just the creature that you're sacrificing um the creatures that are around vein Ripper the creatures that other creatures that you have that you are Beyond sacrificing when anything dies you um your opponent gains two life and you lose two you get drained for two the creature's insane it's got evasion it comes down on turn three this is a very hard threat to actually deal with especially in terms of damage numbers for red that generally deals with damage based removal especially for something like uh white and black and everything like the amount of advantage that your opponent gains from just having something like that out is insane so that's why something like vampires is around Amalia combo is a little bit simpler so Amalia Benevides uar I could be again completely butchering that name War 3 whenever you gain life Amalia explores then destroys all other creatures uh if its power is exactly uh equal to 20 so whenever you gain life you explore so exploring is you um reel the top card of your library put that card in your hand if it's a land otherwise you put a one- one counter on this creature then you put the card um then put that card back or put it into your graveyard so if you have uh if you essentially have a way to gain life and put uh infinitely here then you're going to be able to explore infinitely if you have a non-land card on top then you're going to be INF able to infinitely put uh amount of counters onto Amalia now necessarily it stops itself because when it hits 20 it destroys all other creatures so it kind of doesn't go infinite to that sense but it has a way to kind of Stop the Loop so while go Walker is the combo piece here so whenever a creature you control explores like Amalia you put a one- one counter on wild go Walker and you gain three life so whenever Amalia explores uh so whenever Amalia uh says that whenever you gain life you explore and wild gold Walker says whenever you explore you gain life I I I I think that's it's pretty easy to see how that works the thing is neither of them actually trigger life so what happens is you play something like lunar veneran whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control you gain more life you play that on one you play AAL on two then you play W go Rother Walker you go infinite blah BL you create a bunch of count is you destroy all the creatures and then you can generally swing in with the Malia with a giant 20 uh 2020 attacker there um but when it comes to something like wild go rocker generally the deck plays a lot of protection as well so you can give your creatures indestructible and then you can play around certain pieces of removal then you have multiple threats if your opponent is able to deal with one regardless of what it is you explore you go at it you create an infinite infinite um I mean you obviously have to pick it at some point but generally speaking the combo goes off it does a lot it's got tutors it works around this specifically destroys all other creatures so it's great I mean it gets around the vein Ripper situation because vein Ripper doesn't get targeted the W ability doesn't matter it destroys it that is great that is Pioneer when it comes to something like modern it's a little bit different here the modern metag game is a bit more spread out we don't see like 20% and 19% we don't see about like 50% of the metag game being like some type of value combo bod who is definitely at the top at around like kind of 13 to 14% just guy control is a way to deal with this stuff because the energy package is actually surprisingly insane but let's to be honest here modern J Sky control is like modern Horizon 2. deck it's got the one ring in there as well boros energy a more recent Edition playing things like amp Raptor and flag out of modern Horizon 3 monol black mid-range is just a culmination of modern Horizon through the one ring and modern Horizon's 3 Goro Vengeance a bit of a combo deck that comes back something like living end where decks aren't necessarily dealing with the graveyard so they are kind of two ships passing in the night and things being hypo aggro which is why the Tron deck is turned into a prison deck you have Ruby storm mardu energy playing BL for orcish bow Masters living and playing a reanimation strategy alrai Tron essentially playing like a close to Tron package with some prison elements but with like a more proactive plan again it feels like everyone is either playing Black for uh the grief package or orcish bow Masters or they're playing the one ring or they're playing some type of degenerate combo that that is where Modern is at right now again that is great environment for modern Mill by the way so just uh just a heads up to everyone paying attention here but B NAU the way this deck goes off is is it Cycles around NAU wi wisdom and it says whenever a creature um so creatures you control All Creatures you control have whenever a creature becomes a target of a spell or ability reveal the top card of your library if is a land card put it on the battlefield untapped by the way otherwise you put in your hand this ability only triggers one twice each turn the problem is the twice each turn is with every creature it is not just Nadu so what you do is you play shuko you get you can get this card out with osaga osaga cheats it out you quit for zero that is a way to Target each and every creature how do you get more creatures you play spring hard NCO that says whenever a len the battlefield then you control you create a one-1 green insect token you can imagine with Nadu when you start targeting things you take you reveal the top card of your library if it's a land put it into play un tapped that land then trickers in Spring hard n tuo you create another green insect token and then you get another Target that you can hit twice essentially you're telling me that pretty much one in every two to three cards in the top of your deck isn't a land you're lying to yourself there's plenty of ways to go off here this deck is absolutely insane and I'm pretty sure you can find a way to win this game by drawing out your whole deck and having a bunch of untapped Mana be for real folks let's get creative here this deck is absolutely insane the other deck that I want to highlight here is the grief scam package here so this is mono black this is essentially in my opinion the worst Parts about modern I actually this deck exemplifies the worst parts of modern to me I in my own bias for those of you that watch this channel I hate hand disruption I hate that play pattern but I do not want it banned I understand Why th and inquisition of klac need to exist but I'm still allowed to hate that play pattern okay I I genu like okay you know what I'm not going to get into the whole argument of what's where it's getting your hand thies or getting mil some of y'all actually believe mil I think you're losers Shield DD the apocalypse right absolutely busted top end card orcish bowm is one of the most broken black cards printed in Magic's history alongside grief another one of the most broken black cards ever printed in Magic's history necro dominance doing a good job of copying one of the most broken cards ever printed the one of the top five most broken black cards in magic syst copying that and then you have that alongside the one ring this is a collection of busted black magic cards lands go that's it this is a registration of some of the most busted cards in Magic's history register it with lands and go what is going on here who made this who made this colle I don't know you know what I just I hate the mono black decks the one ring is another kind of discussion around whether or not it should be banned so many people you know I recently did a video about whether not this should be restricted that was a popular opinion going around on Twitter and the One Ring itself I mean it does a lot right it's this value engine that you can replace on the turn that it comes down it gives you protection from everything so it's kind of like a soft you phase out and everything like the card does everything right your opponent could Exile the one ring and it still has its effect fortunately enough though it actually has to resolve and enter the battlefield so if you counter it you do get around it it's one of the many reasons why main board spell pierces are really good in the blue decks right now uh but one ring is the absolutely say and this is kind of why the eldrazi Tron decks or the eldrazi decks in general have turned into one- ring decks we aren't playing K liberated anymore in a world where Tron does not play car liberate anymore you're playing car the great creator with three mainboard one rings and a way to tutor out the fourth from your sideboard you're playing Chalice of the voids you are playing um trinisphere like you're doing all that good stuff actually this deck I don't believe is playing CH of the voids but I I believe there there were lists out there playing chales or that might just be the AL draitron decks but regardless trinis fear to stop the combo decks slow everyone down you can imagine how a deck like this can actually you know really uh do well in a format like this having answers like the stopping artifact activations uh which stops by the way shuko in terms of the car the great Creator and then you have the transfere to stop the Ruby storm decks you can imagine how something like this is absolutely insane but really at the end of the day in my opinion whether or not natu gets banned the card that needs to get ban his grief let's be completely honest here comment down below if comment grief down below if you think grief needs to get banned because this card is absolutely ridiculous this is one of the most poorly designed cards I've ever seen who didn't think that if you reanimated this card getting double grief wasn't good well I have been getting double grief for so long it makes me want to quit magic this card is so bad I hate this card if you think this card should be legal right now in current modern or should have been for a very long time you objectively don't know what you're talking about you you like objectively I will fight you to the end of the days this card sucks getting double griefed is not a good play pattern playing it and doing your own thing to win tournaments fine I don't blame you play the bless deck but if you genuinely do not believe grief needs needs to get banned you're wrong you're I'm sorry you're wrong you're wrong fight me in the comments give me a reason why grief shouldn't get banned alongside or before Nadu grief should have been banned for a very long time this card is dumb right losing your two best cards in your opening hand and then having to deal with a 32 menacing attacker sometimes a 43 menacing attacker is absolutely insane it's ridiculous no one should have to this card doesn't even easily get fatal pushed it gets solitude but then your opponent has lost two cards plus two more cards to Solitude and then pitch a card to the Solitude th this card is insane absolutely not ban it right now when it comes to Legacy things are a bit more clear-cut you can notice how percentage wise 30% of the metag game is being taken up by reanimator scammin nator and is based around one thing it's not it's not reanimator they're not calling it right because reanimator classically plays force of will it plays some free black spells to reanimate things like gristle brand to win the game and then attracts it to win the game like it it does all that good stuff right right now for 30% of the meta game it is just scammin nator it is literally the grief scam deck but in its best form it does not play Red for ragavan it does not play Red for mid-range pieces it does not pay red for for anything it plays blue because you now get to play the best packages in Legacy you get to play the blue package that plays brainstorm days and and force of will great you get free counter spells you get great card draw and filtering and just great value you then play Black for grief grief reanimate and inum you get to inum at trxas if you want to win the game you get to grief and uh reanimate uh very simply you get to also reanimate troll of kado Dooms as well and you then get to protect that on top of that with force of WS the most egregious card in this list in my opinion is actually psychic frog psychic frog shouldn't be banned but it's one of the reasons why this deck works because this card not only pitches to force of will it also pitches to grief it does everything and it also enables both of those cards Exile three cards from your graveyard you're going to be filtering your filling your graveyard pretty well this thing gains flying and then what it deals com damage to a player a play marer you draw cards you gain more cards and then you discard a card which is a great way to pull Cards into your graveyard to then reanimate hello look this card shouldn't be bad I get it psychic frog great card great enabler it just it perfectly it is one of the best inclusions in this deck because it pitches to force it pitches to grief grief has been a problem Legacy for a very long time a lot of the content creators will tell you that as well on the players of Legacy will tell you that as well it is a very hard deck to deal with because it plays the best threats right now it plays the best counter spells right now and it's just very hard to deal with now that is where we are at with our formats and generally speaking I think the only way to really solve this is Banning right you you need to ban grief out of Legacy you need to ban grief out of modern you need to ban grief out of every single format this card is legal in just just shut it down forget selling this card you've sold your modern prize and suit packs yes you have them in modern rizons 3 I believe as promos but we're done we're done with this card keep it in commander and that's it just just don't let anybody else play with it I mean goari guy puts The Community Sentiment it pretty well just kind of summarizing everything I talked about here honestly I don't know how wizard uh Wizard's magic is doing uh what they're doing managing its competitive formats Pioneers dominated by vampires and Amalia natu is clearly banned in modern or be alongside the one ring and grief and Legacy reanimator with griefs uh is like 30% of the meta and the modern rcq season is approaching we need bands we need them soon or before people stop playing these formats and this was actually done on July 23rd and then we had the announcement about 19 hours ago uh yesterday on the uh 24th today's the 25th do I have my dates wrong regardless so this is the video that you kind of watched in the beginning I'm going to link that tweet below uh with the kind of a clip from Magic the Gathering but Corbin uh highlights one of the things that was mentioned here this is a incredibly uh this actually reasonably stated position in regards to not changing the dates upending consumer trust in your schedule has long reaching consequences for Better or For Worse a rough rcq season won't be contentious 3 years from now but the expectation of emergency banss following social media pressure follows you and I think this is correct we can see this actually in a similar reasoning from the poer fora panel and how they didn't want to pre-ban um cranial Ram they didn't want to do that necessarily but they ultimately made that decision to not ruin the two biggest tournaments that happen in poer now poer is a bit of an interesting choice just because or a special case where there aren't like it's a cult following it's not like it's as big as modern or as big as Legacy so you need to really curate the type of tournaments that are happening you need to make sure people are going to these tournaments and showing face to a format that they love so they need to curate it a bit more if they couldn't like they don't need to necessar do that if it was as big as modern Legacy and that's what they're doing here they are going with actually what I think is a relatively good reason to not ban anything right now you have set a date you follow through with it from a corporate perspective people can trust you with that which is fine but they also mentioned in the video that they want to change the way they look at bandic maybe not put it around set releases but also work around competitive Seasons big events and things like that which I think is a good thing to look at and move forward right now unfortunately we will have to suffer the 2024 rcq season will have to suffer and let's be honest here modern is not dying anytime soon right we have the Marvel set coming out next year univers is beyond is skyrocketing magic as a IP introducing new IPS and just becoming the fortnite ification of the game the game is succeeding in so many ways and that is because the casuals are joining you see more and more people generally speaking playing Commander playing the game playing constructed from there and just enjoying the game that we all know and love it's not dying anytime soon so in rcq season a failed modern rcq season won't kill the game it'll just kill excitement for a little bit we'll have to gain consumer trust again whatever but I think ultimately speaking this probably is a net like positive decision if you really think about it yes modern is going to suffer I will wholeheartedly agree I if I could choose I would love it if something got banned this week last Monday today I I I I I hope today they make that change but they will not but I think here the reasoning for this is perfectly sound upending consumer trust because down the line people will have that expectation they're like oh they did it here why they why can't they do it now why can't they ban something last minute now cuz they did it here and that's why the PO per format panel was very scared to do that pre-ban on cranial Ram they didn't want to set a precedent and Gavin Verge said that specifically in his article he said that specifically in his video or don't quote me on that he he said it amongst one of the two he did not want to create the precedent and that is what's going on here they want to stick to the schedule that they set to not further the community distrust I mean like I think at this point the community they're feeling the memes here because they know they're stuck with it Brian from Bren roll says come feel something with him splitter twin what on Yo comments down below unbanned twin let me go let's go comment down below unbanned twin yo playing twin and what's what's beautiful about this is that he's playing against Legacy scammin nator he's playing against gaminator right like as far as I'm aware I I I didn't specifically recall if that deck was playing orcish Bull Master cuz that's where that orc Army is coming from but I'm assuming they're playing scam inator here or it's either that or Demir scam it's either that or Demir scam regardless of playing a scam Deck with uh the Frog force of will and scam and they're playing spinner twin against it unban twin and modern when let's feel something beating the black grief decks come on it's it's you know unbanned twin ban grief that would be crazy call it down below in the comment section are we unbanning twin doubt it this would single-handedly go down is the single craziest BNR announcement if they unban twin in modern and ban grief Nadu everything that would be absolutely insane they wouldn't do it they they would not do it but I think you know one of the one of the common things I agree with here especially with Phil at 3u after doubling down on no format changes the August B&R update needs to be literally perfect morale and faith in organized play are low and if the update does not truly fix formats and that might require more than just uh you know the low hanging fruit I expect permanent damage and we can kind of expect this from what's happened with pioner over the years there was you know the old inverter Decks that been for those of you that have been playing constructive magic for a while Tech Pioneer for a while you know what happened with inverter combo inverter combo and thosa Oracle was taking over the Pioneer metag game uh by storm it it was the single best deck for months and this was happening during the covid kind of lockdown area where not a lot of paper was being played so in combination with that and the inverter situation no one was playing Pioneer Pioneer was a dead format and over the years they've managed to revive it a lot of people are playing Pioneer it's an official rcq format we are just finishing the season for that so A lot of people are excited to play a format like that and we can see that repaired over time but there's going to be some long-term permanent damage especially for the Legacy Community which is really unfortunate a community that doesn't see you know we're not going to see an rcq format based around Legacy because the logistics are insane considering the fact that the Legacy has uh the Legacy format has the legality of the reserve list that would be a PR nightmare they would never do it but it's a format that has a lot of cult following it's big on mtgo and it's it's one of the most front-facing constructed formats out there second or third probably to modern pioneer whatever it might be so there is probably going to be some some lack of trust but I think a lot of the Legacy stalwarts out there they good at Legacy will continue to play it but maybe not as many casuals will continue to play it if they see these long-term play patterns play out and we'll see this mistrust go into Pioneer into modern and as mentioned uh into some of the Arena formats but I think in general something needs to be done if it was up to me I think something would be great it would be great if something was done soon but I think it's kind of unfortunate that they're pushing it out and they're standing down to their ground because it's look it's I understand why I I I I get you as someone who works in corporate as well uh for their full-time job I get it it's all about showing face you know being politically correct with your wording all all that business good stuff it's just kind of unfortunate that it has to affect the play experience for all of us