I don’t have a hard date for the next update, it depends on how quickly I can actually do the testing and then compile the data. I’ve gotten started on Jace, the Mindsculptor but March is the earliest possible, April is more likely. It takes a long time to play 500+ games of Magic when you also have to record everything.

I don’t think Jace is the right unban, since it only punishes the few remaining fair decks, anything degenerate or fairly unfair(?) just goes under it or ignores it.

First some info about me…

I joined magic at the end of unlimited, and introduced it to friends.
At one point I was told by a friend that I was the worlds worst registered player, so I started using computer simulations during the end of “ice age”, and got better as a result.
Fastforward 10 years spent on manasimulations.

I now refrain from calling any simulated manasolution a manacurve, because they really aren’t all curving. I also realized that fixing the mana alone wasn’t enough to win, but I had become a player that occasionally beat the pro’s.

Fastforward 5 years.

My computer broke down, and at that time I had started using paperstrips to answer simple stuff on deck-behavior (Is 4 raging goblins better than 3 raging goblins and a swords to plowshares)

Fastforward 5 years.

I never replaced my computer as no simulation can play magic like a pro, instead I use paperstrips as a computational tool to solve anything involving deckbuilding.

It takes some time to learn the process, but let me give an example:

Looking over modern naya-burn, one could actually wonder why noone uses the R/G attackland in it. Arguably it slows down the mana, and can only be of use lategame, so it might be scorned for these reasons.

In many games where I used burn, it would eventually run out of gas, so against some matchups it might be an idea to use attacklands. After all it’s three colors so there will be three types of attacklands available.

The whole trouble is how to test this in as fast a way as possible.

The way I would do it with paperstrips is that I would slip down a paperstrip in each dual land, and then play against goldfishes to see if it is actually affordable to have some lands turn into taplands. During each game such a land would be drawn I would note down on the paperstrips if it was possible to use it as an attackland without slowing down the deck. (It’s rather easy to do this) I would use a simple strip with the words “slowed” and “good” and write a smiley at the one that worked. Once a word would have 5 smileys more than the other word I would replace the strip and card within with the solution the strips came up with and I would know if it was possible to replace a dual with an attackland at that exact moment. If it worked I would continue the process to see how many more lands could be exchanged.

That’s the essence of the method, and I’ve used it to build some moderndecks.
The process can be used to test a multiple of cards at the same time (for example testing if ghost quarter is better than an attackland) which allows the paperstrips to actually work out an evolutionary process, where you just ride along and the paperstrips build the deck for you. (That’s the advanced use of it)

Since you are ready to do 500 games to get answer, I can tell you that this process will be VERY fast once you’ve learned it and understood it. You take the role as a programmer, and statistical processes and evolution takes over to answer any question.

It has to be said that when I built simulations I once tested the fastest solution of how to kill a goldsfish with only mountains and lightning bolts. My computer calculated that it would be 16 lands and 44 bolts. I’ve later used paperstrips to solve the exact same problem, and it came up with 15 lands and 45 bolts. There is a slight disagreement there, but it can be due to the difference between a perfectly randomized hand in a computer versus the not really perfect shuffle of playing the deck out physically.

If you are still interrested I could link you to my two current modern builds that use this process (Be aware that they are really weird, because they weren’t really built by human intelligence. I let the process take over)

One deck I’ve tested against the 43 most played decks at that time, and it works good during tests, but I fail at tournaments because I haven’t got the same timeframe to think every move over, so I make rash stupid decisions, usually regretted seconds later.

Paperstrips can be used alone, but the speed will be improved by having live players to use the process against, they can be let in on the progress and come with suggestions, and whenever you get in disagreement over a cardpick, paperstrips can show who is mostly right of you.

Regards, wickeddarkman.

Having said that, I would love to see jace because he goes into one archetype, blue control, and the results would be much more justifiable.

Thanks for revisiting this!

I’m open to constructive suggestions.

Whichever gives the best/most interesting result,

The reason for this is that Dark Depths is relatively easy to interact with, and has a number of drawbacks. As a land that doesn’t tap for mana, playing it effectively sets you back one turn. Ghost Quarter is a card all decks could use in response to the sacrifice trigger, and Marit Lage dies to Path to Exile, the most common removal spell in the format. Without assistance, Marit Lage still has summoning sickness and can be chumped by spirit tokens or Birds, making it a less resilient version of creature-based combo like Infect or Suicide Bloo.

As far as the other cards go, I would be interested to see if Preordain or Dig Through Time can boost Storm to Tier 1 status. I suspect either one alone would be fine, and both cards would also be a boon to blue-based control. Preordain would simply replace Serum Visions in most decks, and the only real impact would be in decks that run lots of cantrips, like Storm and Ad Nauseam.

The artifact lands are definitely not useful for affinity, and I would like to see what types of shells they might fit in. I could see them used with Tezzeret, Thopter/Sword, or Krark Clan Ironworks decks, but I get the feeling that they would just make those decks more vulnerable to SB artifact hate, especially Stony Silence. Another thing to consider, as others have said, the artifact lands are not equal in power level. I can’t think of any deck that would want to use Tree of Tales.

Green Sun’s Zenith is the only other card I think has a chance at becoming unbanned soon. The most obvious deck to benefit would be Elves, and as an Elves player I would love to have GSZ, but I think it would give the deck a level of consistency and explosiveness that would make it tough to handle, even with Pyroclasm and Anger of the Gods.

Unfortunately, as fun as I think it would be to have Chrome Mox unbanned, another T1 mana accelerant would most benefit decks with Chalice of the Void and Blood Moon – we already see these decks down around tier 3 with just Simian Spirit Guide, and locking your opponent out of the game is not Wizards’ or most players’ idea of fun. Ad Nauseam could also easily slot this card in, moving its critical turn back enough to outrace any decks without countermagic.

Seething Song needs 3 mana to do anything and only makes red, but I believe Storm would become too fast for fair decks to deal with. I can’t think of other decks that would really make use of Seething Song, so I see no reason to unban it.

I think that covers all of the cards on the list that could possibly come off the list, along with Stoneforge Mystic, which I actually think might be the safest of them all.

I would really like to see is this card actually deserved is banning or whether it was just collateral damage from Treasure Cruise. I don’t think it was ever given a fair shake, and I don’t believe it is as powerful in modern as it was in the eternal formats, but I’m open to being wrong. I think at this point most delver variants also have a lot of competing options for their graveyard resources in Tasigur, Angler, Snapcaster, Reveler (doesn’t actualy eat cards, but needs them in the yard to be playable), Grim Lavamancer, so at the very least, I would think they would have to choose between these options.

As already stated, Dig was viewed as the obvious alternative to Treasure Cruise, and was banned because it appeared to offer similar degeneracy. I wouldn’t be surprised if the intent of banning Dig alongside Cruise was to aggressively shift the meta away from the powered delver deck.

Now that the meta has so heavily shifted, I think Dig is likely to return to the modern format. It seems like it would be a powerful card to bring blue combo and control back into the format.

Modern isn’t a weak format. From my perspective, Dig Through Time is comparable in power level to Collected Company, Become Immense, and other powerful spells currently legal and seeing play in modern. I would like you to test Dig Through Time so I can see how wrong or right I am.

Yes, i have the same feeling about Jace vs DTT, but i think that Jace is more safe for control decks.

DTT can help some combo decks to be more consistent searching his pieces.

I doubt that a 4 mana sorcery brainstorm can help them.

When i play DTT in control i love it, but i understand the power of search a combo (and maybe a way to protect the combo) in 7 cards.

Sorry for my english 🙂

The only artifact land possibility that is anywhere near “safe” to unban is Tree of Tales. Affinity is rarely white now, but given the land Affinity can very easily shift into a Tempered Steel build without having to worry about the WW casting cost. That may or may not be better than the current affinity, but the tools it gains easier access to are extremely significant. Look at Dispatch, or the new non artifact 3/2 first strike dwarf for W.

But we don’t know what would happen if Seething Song were unbanned?