banned list update.

so as the title says... deathrite shaman banned, wild nacatl and bitterblossom unbanned. what now?

firstly, some rants.

why the hell did they ban deathrite shaman? this ban is very unusual as it doesnt follow the criteria for banning a card. to quote wizards themselves...

"Having a strong attrition-based deck as a large portion of the metagame makes it difficult for decks that are based on synergies between cards instead of individually powerful cards. We believe that removing Deathrite Shaman from the format will leave more room for future innovation."

it is neither about warping the format nor breaking the turn 4 rule anymore. they are banning it just for the sake of future innovation? what the fuck? then now what? are they going to ban the next most powerful card just so that it will leave more room for future innovation? this ban shatters the confidence of what people have for modern. its not like i dont know the power level of the 1 mana planeswalker, the prince of gbx. like for standard bans at least they stuck with the banning guidelines when they banned stoneforge mystic and jace the mind sculptor. perhaps at least let the format solve themselves first before banning anything. then if more people join them rather than beat them then you know you have a problem... when the solution isnt any better than the problem.

hopefully pod and snapcaster mage arent the next in line for the firing squad.

/end rants

now lets talk about what about rise up to the top tier and what will happen to the big brothers of the format, especially the biggest brother, Jund. already there are a couple of decks that will shake the pillars of modern. variants of zoo, be it small naya, big naya, gruul, big gruul, countercats etc. and variants of faeries, be it straight ub, u/x or 3color implementation

faeries

read this primer written by some of the good people over at mtgs modern section here

apparantly everybody is saying that this deck is going to be damn strong. the magical christmasland of
turn 1: inquisiton of kozilek/thoughtseize
turn 2: bitterblossom
turn 3: spellstutter sprite
turn 4: (opponent's upkeep) mistbind clique to timewalk the opponent

and there you have it the nut draw. while you might not get this kind of nut hands very often but roughly power level is there. i would say this is near to tier1 if it is really able to beat whatever flavor of UWR like what they say on the forums. basically bitterblossom is the card that makes all the difference. once you resolve a bitterblossom it'll eventually start gaining too much advantage for your opponent to overcome. sound like some other card? yes. dark confidant. just that its way harder to remove this time. once the faeries player got you to commit resources to their 1/1s they'll sweep you up with their countermagic and whatnot. dont underestimate a small 1/1 flying. the last time i played UWR it suffered to lingering souls. bitterblossom is like a angrier lingering souls

ALL faeries either have BOTH FLYING AND FLASH. so if either 1 or more of them slip through you then you are in for a good time. do read lantern's writeup on how his zoo is fighting against faerie. seems like ignoring the general plan is to go aggro rather than wait to answer the faerie deck. probably more testing will reveal...

zoo

"its so easy to play. decks like this which dont need to think one just puke your whole hand onto the table and push as much damage through as possible. but i dont like this feeling of not having cards in my hand" - qs, song of all, canto 10022014

i played domain zoo a while ago when i lent out my fetches and other cards to my good buddy cheewei. when the hand is good its good la. but when the hand is bad and your draw is lousy not even raphael levy or craig jones with his godly lightning helix topdeck would save you. i chose domain zoo because it has boros charm and the power of snapcaster mage and the number 1 ghost geist of saint traft. the idea goes like this. a fully powered might of alara on a Geist of saint traft and his angel token and boros charm double strike is just nice 20 damage.

but then this version will lose to those decks that tries to 1for1 you. jund and uwr of all flavors eat this deck alive. fast forward to the wild nacatl unban. qs played fast naya. laying down crits after crits and smashing hard. no longer 1for1 is a viable strategy. paying 2 mana to kill a 1 mana crit is tempo loss. moreover bolt/helix will not kill a ghorclan rampager-ed crit. if you hit crit A with path to exile they'll ghorclan rampager the crit B. fast and furious. i played junk that night and it was horrible. so many dead cards in my deck. dark confidant, liliana of the veil, discards are dead draw against loxodon smiter, abrupt decay on a kird ape feels... dumb. you get the idea.

but BUT... 2for1s and sweeps are becoming good again! removals in response to a rancor or a ghorclan rampager feels so value :) even killing a goblin guide after revealing a land feels so value :) clearing 3 creatures for the 1x 3cmc card feels so value :) you just have to hold them until you can fight back. remember there are no card advantage machine in zoo other than snapcaster mage, ghorclan rampager and ranger of eos. fortunately they cost a bit more to play and one of the most basic characteristics of zoo is that it seldom have more than 3 lands in play so if they play one of those then feel free to remand them if you are still hellbent on playing remand after reading this post. just dont get 2for1-ed by zoo and side in some life gain and you'll be fine.

post ban, this modern season is going to be very interesting and we shall continue to see which deck will be on top of the metagame.

lastly to end this... bitterblossom is 49.99usd out of stock, noble hierarch is 59.99usd out of stock, vendillion clique is 49.99usd out of stock for morningtide and MM dark confidant is 99.99usd while RAV dark confidant is 79.99usd. all prices are from starcitygames.