I think you’re just biased on the BBE topic. You acknowledge that nothing changed after the banning of BBE because Jund could lose BBE but then don’t acknowledge the massive fall in metagame percentage after DRS finally gets banned. Hmm, maybe Jund could survive the banning of BBE unscathed because BBE was never the real problem? I mean, Jund was fine with BBE before DRS showed up and was fine after but it must have been BBE that was the problem – not because, as the ban announcement suggests: “We wanted a card that top players consistently played four copies of in Jund, but ideally was less played in other top Modern decks”.

*grabs popcorn*

I can understand all those points, but in each instance, Twin has the upper hand over Storm. I think those advantages are enough to add up to a deck that might be too good, esp. considering how well Storm is performing right now.

At the end of the day, though, Wizards likes diversity, and Modern is very diverse right now. They last thing they are going to want to do is unban a card that is sure to shake things up significantly.

“Abuses the T4 Rule” refers to my theory on Twin’s Turn Four Rule abuse. I’m not saying Twin was a T4 Rule violator. Check out my Twin article for more on this principle: http://quietspeculation.com/a-defense-of-the-splinter-twin-ban/
Basically, having a deck that reliably combos on T4 while also interacting serviceably on turns 1-3 invalidates all other combo decks unless they themselves violate the T4 rule (and will therefore be banned). In this way, Twin cannibalizes not just diversity among URx decks (debatable, as you pointed out) but among combo decks in general.

And as for “T4 Rule is a binary,” you’re correct, but oversimplifying the rule. The rule is not “does/can the deck kill before turn four,” but “does it do so CONSISTENTLY and is it also a TOP-TIER DECK.” We know a lot about the latter metric (cutoffs seem to be around 5%), but lack Wizards’ data to solve for “consistently.” Sheridan makes some reasonable guesses in this article: http://quietspeculation.com/the-case-for-an-amulet-bloom-banning/

1. Storm is also very capable of playing their bear on turn 3 and killing you if you don’t have instant speed removal. You aren’t always going to get a turn to use sorcery speed spells to get rid of them. In these cases, Storm is violating the turn 4 rule for Modern, while Twin can not possibly kill before turn 4.

2. Storm does attack from different angles. Storming into a Grapeshot is plan A, Empty is plan B, locking your opponent down with Blood Moon is another angle, and a strategy that some Storm players use against GDS in particular is to board out their bears and board in Bolts, and try to kill the GDS player with a flurry of Bolts and a small Grapeshot after the GDS player has already dealt themselves damage.

3. Storm can still kill through graveyard hate, it just makes it harder. As for Twin, it’s true that the combo doesn’t rely on the graveyard, but the deck itself still used it. Snapcaster Mage is the best card in the deck, and the Grixis versions ran delve threats. Graveyard hate definitely would hurt Twin, it just didn’t shut it down.

4. You’re making a fundamental mistake with this argument. The Storm mechanic itself is difficult to interact with, so you have to use some kind of hoser to stop Storm. You never were required to use a Twin hoser like Torpor Orb to win against them. All you needed was instant speed creature or enchantment removal, something that just about every deck runs in some numbers in their 75 anyway. Now, you could improve your odds against them by siding cards like Torpor Orb or Rending Volley, but it wasn’t required to win games against them.

5. And this argument has been proven false over time. Twin didn’t homogenize URx decks because it was the best one, it did so because it was the only viable URx deck at the time. Banning Twin didn’t just suddenly open up the floodgates on blue decks, they were all unplayable. So, people just stopped playing blue decks. It wasn’t until Grixis Shadow emerged as a legit top tier deck that blue became playable again. The meta shift that GDS caused also brought Jeskai Tempo back into good standing, that and the printing of some new cards like Spell Queller. If Twin were unbanned right now, I could gaurantee that Grixis Shadow and some Jeskai shell with Queller would still be played and see success.

“Twin’s two biggest offenses are how it hinders turn-three plays and abuses the Turn-Four Rule.”

The turn 4 rule is binary. It’s either a yes or a no. There is no, “Well, the deck never kills before turn 4, but it kills on turn 4 too frequently, so it’s abusing the turn 4 rule.” Twin never killed before turn 4. It’s a straight 0 on the turn 4 warning meter.

The deck already exists, google it. Except it doesn’t run unplayable creatures like Brawler.

Flamewake Pheonix and Bloodghast provide resilient threats which often have haste, and when there is so much cycling in the main deck, the gameplan is quite resilient…

I agree with that, @Jordan! However, I hope in a BBE unban soon and I am looking forward to read your article on a Temur deck brew, using BBE, if you’ll decide to write one! Keep up the good work!
Best regards!

The reason Jund was still the best after the Bloodbraid ban is because the deck was so far ahead of everyone else it could afford to lose a core component (Elf was a staple at 4 in every Jund deck). Sure, DRS was a more direct offender, but I think just banning the Shaman would have yielded a similar result. Jund was just an insane deck at that time and needed a significant nerf for Modern to meet Wizards’s diversity standards. After all, the deck remained Tier 1 after both of those bans until Shadow came around (barring hiccups like Eldrazi Winter or the Rhino-fueled month of Abzan). I think the fact that Elf is just a little bit more reliable and better in more situations than the other four-drops available to Jund is reason enough to scrutinize it more carefully considering the deck dominated the format for so long.

As I said in the article, I’m not super optimistic about an Elf unban, but I can see the card coming off. I’m just more medium on Elf than I am on Jace or SFM. It definitely works in Elf’s favor that Jund was the only deck playing it, which is a great point. Thanks for the comment.

I think you may have missed a trick regarding bloodbraid elf, insofar as you make a couple of assertions which don’t ring true, and they underpin your argument.

First; the banning of elf was a “what card is jund playing that no other deck is playing” ban rather than a “this is too good” ban.
Second; the banning of elf didn’t actually hurt the deck or reduce its meta share. The impact of the elf in jund was effectively neutral, and there’s no logical reason to assume that the effect would be any different now.

Other curve-toppers in jund perform an equivalent duty in the deck I.e. Card advantage. The deck needs something in the 60 to tap out for that provides more than one card’s worth of effect, whether it’s the recently tested goblin rabblemaster (which I think is a nice inclusion) or Kalitas, which was (for a very long time) Played alongside a singleton Seal of Fire to gain immediate effect from the zombie ability (not to mention the useful exile clause). Jund even flaunted with Huntmaster of the Fells.

Elf doesn’t do anything particularly different to these advantage-driven three and four drops, it just has a different way of going about it.

In short the card was never too good, its ban was made with good intentions but didn’t have the desired effect, Elf constitutes a neutral utilitarian addition to the deck rather than a “powering up”, and the fact that it’s still on the banlist is kind of a joke. I’m honestly surprised you see it as any kind of risk at all.

@Dragos: Perhaps you are not pessimistic about BBE’s chances, but I am, which is why I wrote that I am pessimistic about its chances. This is an opinion piece, after all! I never claimed to be “objective” or “non-biased,” as I don’t believe engaging in banlist discussion that way is even possible.

Except it’s not “even worse” because Jund played 4 of each card for years and was good enough to earn multiple bans. There’s a precedent for it being very powerful.

I agree that Jund would run BBE if unbaned. But that is no reason to place it in the “pessimistic about unban” zone…at least not in an objective, non-biased aproach. As previously stated, it is in no way better than collected company and would slot in TIER 3 decks. No one said that BGx should be tier 1 (and sincerly, Jund won’t be tier 1 even with BBE) but a BBE unbann could help other strategies that always needed a little bump to become viable. I’m thinking about a Temur Midrange deck, for example. Also, keep in mind that, more than BBE, a SFM unban would slot into BGx on the spot. Actually, Junk would probably run 4 SFM alongside a couple of Batterskulls on the spot. So what’s more scary? Turn 4 “whatever comes from the top” or a turn 3 Batterskull? But I still think SFM should be unbaned. About JtMS, I also think it’s a safe card to unban but it may be keeped on the list, given the fact that it would fit in an already TIER 1 deck. So, in my opinion, the best candidates for february are BBE and SFM, in this order, followed at some distance by JtMS.
Best regards!

Here’s that unprecedented and unjustified “swap ban” I mentioned in the last section…

Jund decks were running Bob alongside BBE prior to the banning. Heck, I remember a time when a pro ran Hit // Run with Bob at a GP. The damage just isn’t that relevant compared to the extra cards you get. Jund wants to swamp you with cards and Bob and BBE are the best options.

I mean I guess its all speculation but the fact siege rhino, collected company, and thought knot seer exist without even delving into things like Kalitas and chandra torch of defiance that jund actually plays in the 4 slot makes BBE look laughably tame. From what I have seen people have moved back onto dark confidant instead of grim flayer and that limits how many 4s you want in your deck. Abzan used to avoid bob like the plague just because of lingering souls and siege rhino – a jund with a set of BBEs is even worse, at least rhino gave you back 3 of the 4 life you lost.

I’ll see it when I believe it. Dragonstorm is a zero in No Banlist Modern and I doubt it would be good here. I think Song’s primary application if the Storm cards were gone would be in All-In Red variants, which haven’t seen Modern play since the card was banned (turn-two Deus of Calamity here we go!).

To reinforce what I said in the article, though, I don’t think we’re anywhere close to a Song unban. I was just using the card as an example of an unlikely predicament that might change my mind about Wizards not touching the other cards on the banlist.

As much as I’m personally against such notions of “good” and “bad” gameplay, this. Wizards doesn’t want to unban a card whose sole purpose is enabling a deck that tries to break its rules. It’s just risk for no reason. Same sort of deal with Hypergenesis, although I tend to think this card is garbage—it just exists to create non-games that functionally end on turn two or three, which is the opposite of what Modern strives to do. These card are obviously less powerful and warping than others on the banlist, but they don’t have a future in Modern.

BBE’s just a very powerful, very generic, all-purpose card-advantage creature that also gives Jund an aspect it lacks: haste. I’m convinced that it would run BBE right away over the myriad of flex spots that generally house a tickling variety of 3- and 4-drop slots.