Let me know if you approve of the quality on the rest of the articles from this week. If you have any other comments, please let me know!

Artcile…

Well, that’s great.

There are a lot of reasons that people want to take cards off the banlist, and if you attribute them all to me it’s easy to ignore what I actually said. The specific argument “Save unbans for a stagnant format” was presented, and that’s what I was responding to. That argument seems inherently flawed, because if WOTC can’t keep the format dynamic with new cards why would we think they could manage the unbans well enough to fix the mistake?

My question to you: why do you want cards to come off the banlist if the format is diverse, fun, and evolving already? As long as Wizards continues releasing gems like Eidolon and CoCo, there’s no reason to risk the format’s health for the sake of having a shorter banlist, which doesn’t do anything to improve Modern gameplay on its own. For me, the goal isn’t to have the “best-looking banlist” (even there, shorter is not necessarily better), it’s to have the most enjoyable format.

I’d assume you either have a pet card on the list, which I can understand but I don’t think is a good reason to unban something that ALL Modern players will then have to potentially be oppressed by, or that you feel there aren’t enough viable, interesting cards in Modern to brew. If you do feel that way, check out my sleepers article from two weeks ago and take a second look at some sets like Darksteel, Innistrad, and even Origins; there are plenty of powerful, unplayed cards in Modern begging to be broken open!

I don’t know what your talking about? I didn’t see any thing wrong with this artcile. I just think your being picky! 😀

We just onboarded an editor actually! The only reason this one evaded the editor was because I was on vacation last week which caused all sorts of scheduling craziness. But starting tomorrow, every article will be edited by our new guy.

Isn’t the counterpoint to this that almost every set now basically has at least one or two cards with major Modern impact? Just over the past few we’ve had Eidolon of the Great Revel, then the whole blue delve fiasco, then Tasigur, then CoCo and the commands, not to mention Nykthos, Swiftspear, and of course this website’s favorite, Day’s Undoing. Obviously not all those cards have rewritten the format equally, but I think waiting for stagnation to unban is basically saying “we only get cards back if R&D stops doing their jobs.”

Sorry, that was meant more as a joke/comment in the tone of those who believe unbans are tied to the Pro Tour. Didn’t mean it as an actual quote or source (hence no link or citation), so apologies if it came off that way!

Agree. I would also add that Wizards has a limited supply of unbans they can do to shake up a format, so those should be saved for when the shakeup is needed. To some extent, this is a bit of a marketing and management gimmick, but it also serves an important metagame function. It’s hard to predict what unbans will do in an unstable metagame, and impossible to isolate an unban’s effect from the metagame’s natural evolution. Wizards probably wants to avoid this, which is another reason they hold off from unbanning cards.

I think that’s a great comparison. Wizards will be more likely to play some “Topple” with Modern if the format is either too stagnant or if a deck is too dominant and an unban can potentially address that. But for now, as you said, we are at a good equilibrium point.

Now, Modern isn’t going to “topple” over, but it a good thing for the format when everything is nice and even, and I think this is what we have today (as you are saying). I can see how adding or removing cards from the format could perhaps create an imbalance. Wizard’s doesn’t want to intentionally make the game any less fun for anyone. I see no changes currently as a good thing!