New Format: Modern

[Norm4eva]

One thing I will say that I hate about this new format is the 'bubble' it's already created.  There's a TON of speculation driving the prices of what appear to be the pillars of Modern right now.  This is one of those times where I don't like the fact that the first C in CCG is 'collectible'.  People are either trying to horde cards or make some money right now, it's kind of disgusting if you ask me.  Blood Crypt was a $5 card like six weeks ago - the cheapest playset I've seen is $80 now.  For demand to go up is natural, I get that aspect of it.  I just need to see someone like Forsythe come forward and concretely say that with no Reprint Policy to stifle the supply of cards, defining cards are going to see at least one more print run; otherwise this format will have every problem the other Eternal ones have, given time.

[DubDub]

Building my planned Damia, Sage of Stones commander deck, I was at a card store this past weekend where my options were:
Breeding Pool - ~$36
Breeding Pool (FOIL) - ~$68 (which has since sold, according to their online store)
Bayou (REV, NM) - ~$68

Guess which I walked away with?

It's getting to the point where I'm considering trading in or selling the various shocklands I have in my EDH decks.  (And Bob's too.  Bought a playset for $80, they're worth twice that?  That takes a chunk out of the cost of a Mox Jet...)

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

I agree with this 100%. I was going to give this format a shot assuming shock lands didn't do something stupid like triple in price over night. Other than the shock lands I’ve got all the stuff for the format that seems obvious...which is pretty weird to me.
i wouldn't sell my bobs though. That’s a card you always are going to want to play at some point in the vintage future. You’re going to ended up losing money on buying and trading a card that is on the way up like bob, unless you know someone stupid. So unless you make a commitment right now to never play bob again or always be the obnoxious guy asking to borrow you might as well wait on the jet.

[DubDub]

...

Unless Bobs get reprinted.  Getting in at $20, out at $40 and back in at $20 after a reprint = free cards.

IDK, you're probably right that I should take the wait and see approach with Confidants.  Worse comes to worse I 'lose value' that they didn't have in the first place.

[honestabe]

Now's a bad time to buy Shocks; without a doubt they're getting reprinted.

It's also a bad time to buy Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf and Jace, the Mind Sculptor; they're all getting reprinted in some way or banned from modern.  Wizards won't allow the new format they're trying to push be bossed around by $100 staples. 

[Troy_Costisick]

It's getting to the point where I'm considering trading in or selling the various shocklands I have in my EDH decks.  (And Bob's too.  Bought a playset for $80, they're worth twice that?  That takes a chunk out of the cost of a Mox Jet...)

Holy crap!  This never dawned on me.  Here's just a sample of what Modern staples I've got:

40 Shocklands
20 Zen Fetches
4x Bobs
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Bitterblossom
3x Vendilion Clique
4x Vesuva

I have no idea how much that adds up to, but I'm sure I could get several peices of power with that.  I never thought I'd see that day...

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

...

Unless Bobs get reprinted.  Getting in at $20, out at $40 and back in at $20 after a reprint = free cards.

IDK, you're probably right that I should take the wait and see approach with Confidants.  Worse comes to worse I 'lose value' that they didn't have in the first place.

obviously if you know something we don't then yes.
if you get wind of a reprint let me know. i'd like to follow suit 

[Norm4eva]

...

Unless Bobs get reprinted.  Getting in at $20, out at $40 and back in at $20 after a reprint = free cards.

IDK, you're probably right that I should take the wait and see approach with Confidants.  Worse comes to worse I 'lose value' that they didn't have in the first place.

obviously if you know something we don't then yes.
if you get wind of a reprint let me know. i'd like to follow suit 

Yeah, just the way prices are trending right now, I know there's been lots of speculation as to how WotC will support Modern's card supply and what they'll do to keep prices in check - but even all of that is based off extrapolating from comments and hints they've dropped.  I've done it too, so I see it as being a logical assumption to say they'll go there, but now I really need them to actually say "We're doing X, Y and Z to make sure this format doesn't suffer from lack of supply and high entry barriers."  Honestly everything I've seen so far just has them saying, "We CAN do X Y and Z." but not "We WILL do X Y and Z."

[DubDub]

There are unsubstantiated (my understanding), but persistent, rumors that the block after Innistrad will be a 'return to Ravnica' which could contain Shockland reprints (if they're not in M13).  It's not too far fetched to think, in my opinion, that if they reprint the lands as part of a support Modern initiative that reprinting Dark Confidant at the same time makes sense.

Of course the issue is getting value out of Bobs/Shocks before such reprints are announced/spoiled, otherwise the market should take the reprints into account.

[Troy_Costisick]

The thing that worries or dismays me when it comes to reprints is not that they will do them it's that they won't.  They could have reprinted Mana Drain, Force of Will, Wasteland, Maze of Ith, Karakas, Grim Tutor, and so on and so on for years now.  But they haven't.  Instead of lowering the barrier to enter Vintage and Legacy like they could have, they chose not to.  Why?  I have no idea.  My concern is that sort of philosophy will apply to Modern as well.  What if they never reprint Tarmogoyf, Bitterblossom, Vesuva, Vedalkan Shackles, Noble Hierarch, or Ancestral Vision and they hit mega bucks?  What if they do reprint it, and the card still stays in the $20+ range like Crucible of Worlds?

[DubDub]

The thing that worries or dismays me when it comes to reprints is not that they will do them it's that they won't.  They could have reprinted Mana Drain, Force of Will, Wasteland, Maze of Ith, Karakas, Grim Tutor, and so on and so on for years now.  But they haven't.  Instead of lowering the barrier to enter Vintage and Legacy like they could have, they chose not to.  Why?  I have no idea.  My concern is that sort of philosophy will apply to Modern as well.  What if they never reprint Tarmogoyf, Bitterblossom, Vesuva, Vedalkan Shackles, Noble Hierarch, or Ancestral Vision and they hit mega bucks?  What if they do reprint it, and the card still stays in the $20+ range like Crucible of Worlds?

I think they could argue, although this argument may not be genuine, that reprinting some of what you said above would encourage and grow the formats, eventually putting greater expense and pressure on cards they can't reprint like Duals (actually, more available Wasteland would likely have a different effect, but it's true generally).  They might ask, if making this argument, "What's the point of reprinting Force of Will as an uncommon in a wide printing, so that it's available for 15 bucks, if the market will compensate by making revised Underground Seas $300?"  'New' players, and even just those who were missing USeas are still locked out of playing competitive  decks in Legacy/Vintage.  And they look even worse for sticking with the Reserve List.

If they actually adopted a policy of reprinting to handle the expense of Modern cards then they wouldn't be shackled whatsoever with respect to the cards legal in that format.  (The question of how you reprint Jace2.0 aside.)

[honestabe]

The thing that worries or dismays me when it comes to reprints is not that they will do them it's that they won't.  They could have reprinted Mana Drain, Force of Will, Wasteland, Maze of Ith, Karakas, Grim Tutor, and so on and so on for years now.  But they haven't.  Instead of lowering the barrier to enter Vintage and Legacy like they could have, they chose not to.  Why?  I have no idea.  My concern is that sort of philosophy will apply to Modern as well.  What if they never reprint Tarmogoyf, Bitterblossom, Vesuva, Vedalkan Shackles, Noble Hierarch, or Ancestral Vision and they hit mega bucks?  What if they do reprint it, and the card still stays in the $20+ range like Crucible of Worlds?

Because they said they want Modern to be their eternal format instead of legacy because they can support it with reprints.

[dangerlinto]

The thing that worries or dismays me when it comes to reprints is not that they will do them it's that they won't.  They could have reprinted Mana Drain, Force of Will, Wasteland, Maze of Ith, Karakas, Grim Tutor, and so on and so on for years now.  But they haven't.  Instead of lowering the barrier to enter Vintage and Legacy like they could have, they chose not to.  Why?  I have no idea.  My concern is that sort of philosophy will apply to Modern as well.  What if they never reprint Tarmogoyf, Bitterblossom, Vesuva, Vedalkan Shackles, Noble Hierarch, or Ancestral Vision and they hit mega bucks?  What if they do reprint it, and the card still stays in the $20+ range like Crucible of Worlds?

Because they said they want Modern to be their eternal format instead of legacy because they can support it with reprints.

"They" said that?  I must have missed that tidbit from Aaron...

[Norm4eva]

The thing that worries or dismays me when it comes to reprints is not that they will do them it's that they won't.  They could have reprinted Mana Drain, Force of Will, Wasteland, Maze of Ith, Karakas, Grim Tutor, and so on and so on for years now.  But they haven't.  Instead of lowering the barrier to enter Vintage and Legacy like they could have, they chose not to.  Why?  I have no idea.  My concern is that sort of philosophy will apply to Modern as well.  What if they never reprint Tarmogoyf, Bitterblossom, Vesuva, Vedalkan Shackles, Noble Hierarch, or Ancestral Vision and they hit mega bucks?  What if they do reprint it, and the card still stays in the $20+ range like Crucible of Worlds?

Because they said they want Modern to be their eternal format instead of legacy because they can support it with reprints.

"They" said that?  I must have missed that tidbit from Aaron...

Yeah, this is what I'm saying.  'They' haven't explicitly said a thing.  I've attempted being a douche and Tweeting to Aaron Forsythe about it but naturally I've had zero response, heh.  No use talking to me about Modern when there's m12 Drafts to talk up, amirite?

At any rate, all 'they' have said is that there's a large amount of appeal in an Eternal format that isn't bound to a Reprint Policy.  That has implications involving reprints, but it's not like anyone's come out and said, "Guess what's gonna be in m13 kids?"  The block after Innistrad is Ravnica, but that doesn't mean shit; IIRC when they went back to Mirrodin there were no functional reprints of anything from the first Mirrodin Block, they didn't even make so much as an artifact land (which, honestly, rightly so).

What's worse is that, even without a Reprint Policy to bog down the format, you can already hear the people using Modern to make a quick buck doing the whole "let the free market decide" thing.  None of those people want reprints; they start sounding like people who bought Beanie Babies in the 90s and comic books in the 80s.  If one more guy starts pissing and moaning about his collection losing value over an issue of reprints, I swear to fuck... srsly, it's a GAME meant to be PLAYED and as Vintage/Legacy are starting to prove, you CAN in fact charge too much at the door.

[DubDub]

IIRC when they went back to Mirrodin there were no functional reprints of anything from the first Mirrodin Block, they didn't even make so much as an artifact land (which, honestly, rightly so).

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&format=+["Mirrodin%20Block"]+["Scars%20of%20Mirrodin%20Block"]
*You'll have to copy-paste.

Confirms that there were no reprints, although they did complete the "Sword of" cycle, and reprint Solemn Simulacrum in M12.  Plus we got a new Mox (Opal) instead of reprinting the old Mox (Chrome, which is banned in Modern anyway right?).

[Troy_Costisick]

Well.  Mindslaver was reprinted, but that's only one card out of hundreds they could have done.  The point is well taken.  People counting on reprints are taking a risk.

[DubDub]

Well.  Mindslaver was reprinted, but that's only one card out of hundreds they could have done.  The point is well taken.  People counting on reprints are taking a risk.

Huh, good point.  I wonder what I did wrong with my gatherer search?

[Norm4eva]

Well.  Mindslaver was reprinted, but that's only one card out of hundreds they could have done.

My nightly meditations include wiping my memory of every time I've lost in the past to a Slaver lock, so ...yeah   

People counting on reprints are taking a risk.

All they have to do is say, "We're going to reprint important things for the sake of Modern."  At this point with prices on the up and people clearly engaged in testing the format, it's the nice guy thing to do.  Honestly they should have done it sooner, rather than let the secondary market get bloated on speculation - they could have made that money themselves, by announcing intent to print moar shocklands.

[Troy_Costisick]

I'm not sure they would want to telegraff their moves like that, though.  According to the ComicCon panel, Snow Duals were in the initial playtest set of cards for the Commander sets.  What if they had said, "Hey, we're thinking of printing Snow Duals in the Commander set for next year, so you might want to think about that you eternal players."  And then as testing showed that the cards didn't work for the set, they decide to take them out.  But oops, they said that the Snow Duals were going to be in there.  Now what? 

I really don't think they're going to forecast what their plans are based on the secondary market.  WotC is not the Federal Reserve.  They'll reprint the various important cards to Modern if and when they feel it's right and in whatever product they feel will generate the best effect for the format.

[Diakonov]

They'll reprint the various important cards to Modern if and when they feel it's right and in whatever product they feel will generate the best effect for the format.

That is the key.  Since there is no Reserve List, they can--and will--reprint cards if it's beneficial to one of their formats, such that people will buy more product.  They have no reason not to.

[Troy_Costisick]

They'll reprint the various important cards to Modern if and when they feel it's right and in whatever product they feel will generate the best effect for the format.

That is the key.  Since there is no Reserve List, they can--and will--reprint cards if it's beneficial to one of their formats, such that people will buy more product.  They have no reason not to.

They make their own reasons not to, though.  How come Force of Will hasn't been reprinted on MTGO now that it's like $130 each?  There's no reserve list.  They want Legacy players to migrate to MTGO.  Why not reprint the most important card?

[DubDub]

Well, the reprint issue wasn't addressed at all, but it looks like Modern is happening on paper, starting with Pro Tour Philly.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/155

LaPille lives up to his 'Gentleman's Agreement' past with some knockout logic in this one, highlights include:

We used two criteria to guide us in choosing what cards to ban. First, we have a rule of thumb about Legacy that we don't like consistent turn-two combination decks, but that turn-three combination decks are okay. We modified that rule for Modern by adding a turn to each side: we are going to allow turn-four combination decks, but not decks that consistently win the game on turn three.

+

Another strong combination deck we found in Modern was Scapeshift with Prismatic Omen and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. Although Scapeshift is not a turn-three combination deck, it prospered in a field full of such decks, many of which are not at full strength in Modern due to other cards. It also shares many characteristics of the strongest combination decks in Magic's history, as it is almost entirely lands, mana acceleration, and card drawing. We felt that an unhindered Scapeshift-Valakut deck would be clearly one of the very best decks.

Make Counterspell legal => Scapeshift problem solved.  And that's only if you consider Scapeshift, "not a turn-three" combo deck, a problem in a format where "we are going to allow turn-four combo decks."

You'll notice that we haven't touched a blue card yet. When we got to this point and realized that blue was escaping unscathed, we knew we had to ban something, or a very powerful blue control deck would likely be the best thing left.

JACE
MENTAL MISSTEP
ANCESTRAL VISIONS

I just want to point out that the 'green' card they banned was Glimpse of Nature, which is a card that just goes in one deck.  To balance it out so that 'green' and 'blue' both got additional cards banned they additionally banned Jace, Misstep, AND Visions, which would support a whole archetype of control decks, not just one deck like Glimpse.

Also, I'll just point out that they didn't ban any red cards in this announcement.  Valakut is not red.  The Scapeshift deck plays Prismatic Omen so that it doesn't have to actually play Mountains.

If they wanted to use logic around balancing the colors' bans then the 'green' card that matches Jace+Misstep+Visions is Tarmogoyf, not Glimpse.

Of blue cards that are legal in Modern, Mental Misstep is the most played in Legacy, and it also has one of the more damaging effects on Modern by sitting on beatdown decks that want to start on turn one. We chose to ban it rather than put that much pressure on beatdown decks.

This has got to be a joke, right?  Question: Why is Mental Misstep so played in Legacy?  Answer: Because of powerful  CMC plays coming from almost every deck.  Aggro: Vial, Nacatl, etc.  Control: ITSELF, Spell Pierce, Brainstorm, etc.  Combo: Dark Ritual, Brainstorm, High Tide, etc.

Yet the justification for banning it in Modern is that it beats up on beatdown decks too well....  First off, I think turning Nacatl into  ": Target player loses two life and discards a card." is not putting too much pressure on beatdown decks.  C'mon.  Secondly, if you are going to power up linear Aggro decks like zoo (which has been done through power-creep of creatures in recent years, and by the fetch-shock based nature of the lands in the format), you can't simultaneously take out all three of its predators: tempo decks lose Misstep and Visions and Blossom, Combo decks all lose key cards, and true-control loses Jace.

Enjoy 28 Tarmogoyfs in the top-8 of Pro Tour Philly.

[honestabe]

Dub dub, I question your math.  4 tarmogoyfs x 8 top 8 slots = 32 Tarmogoyfs

[DubDub]

Dub dub, I question your math.  4 tarmogoyfs x 8 top 8 slots = 32 Tarmogoyfs

I didn't want to be hyperbolic, so I allowed for the possibility of a rogue deck making the top 8 that isn't (Untouched_Legacy_Zoo - Duals + Shocks + Worse Competition + no_predators_except_Big_Zoo_w hich_also_plays_Tarmogoyf).dec .

[honestabe]

I'm not being hyperbolic either, I truly think we're going to see Caw-Blade levels zoo dominance.  Goyf is the new Jace, except he turns sideways and doesn't require skill to use so he'll never get banned.

[Commandant]

I was really hoping Modern would be a bridge format into Vintage replacing extended and slowly choking the life out of Legacy. Seems as though they neutered Modern to the point where it will only be applicable for hyper casuals who want a "free" hobby.

[Norm4eva]

I was just about to go all-in on a set of Glimpses too.  Bah!  Fuckin Elves, how do they work?   I mean after the banning of Glimpse.

Tarmogoyf has been as ubiquitous as cards like SFM and Jace for a long, long time.  The fact that it's just a beater shouldn't matter, apparently, since the goal seems to be to have the least number of must-haves, not the greatest.  In fact I was sort of hoping that Goyf's protection from banning as well as the presence of Mental Misstep was going to keep SFM off the block - cuz I'm greedy like that I guess.  Oh well.  Let the Legacy WW beatings continue; I can still play Deadguy *somewhere*, for some reason, so whatever.

I do find MM's banning super strange.  Blue got punched in the breakfast big time and I'm not positive that it's for the best.  I do think the printing of MM was silly, in that it genuinely gives everyone a counter and quite often it's a critical counterspell; it was the last nail in Goblins' coffin in Legacy.  However, now that it and SFM aren't around, I see no reason not to play a ton of Zoo.  And probably, neither does anyone else.

[DubDub]

I guess I should clarify: as someone who's not going to play Modern, and doesn't really care about the management of the format except that it's indicative of their management of formats generally (which at times I disagree with, see my signature), this ban list is good for me:
-Jace is banned, keeps his price from surging again, maybe I'll get some for Legacy/Vintage/COMM play.
-SFM is banned, keeps her price from surging again, maybe I'll get some for Legacy/Vintage/COMM play.
-SFM is banned, keeps Swords'/Batterskull's price from surging again, maybe I'll get some for Legacy/COMM play.
-Shocklands are skyrocketing in value, I'll probably dump mine (just in COMM decks) for cash/Legacy/Vintage/COMM cards.

Tarmogoyf is going to go crazy again, and I don't have any, which is sad for me, but by trying to 'differentiate' Modern from Legacy they keep the demand for some of these cards from effectively doubling.  The last thing I want is for Legacy to 'die', but if SCG did relax their support of Legacy to support Modern some as well that would also have a calming effect on prices (of Legacy-but-not-Modern cards).

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

the swords will still see play.

[DubDub]

the swords will still see play.

True, but not as much as if SFM were in the format, right?