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There are many who would contend that the most surprising part of this week's B&R announcement was the banning of Birthing Pod in Modern. Personally, I found it more odd that Dig Through Time was considered too good for Modern using a guilty by association argument with Treasure Cruise while not being part of the discussion of Legacy's Treasure Cruise ban.
Treasure Cruise was cited as increasing the power of Delver, Burn and, Jeskai Ascendancy Combo to the point where they pushed other decks out of the format. Their decision to also ban Dig Through Time was made because, "—while a Delver deck might use Treasure Cruise over Dig Through Time, banning one but not the other would do little to change the deck."
Meanwhile, Treasure Cruise was also banned in Legacy due to hyper-powering Delver decks and decreasing format diversity, however no mention was made about whether Dig Through Time could have similar effects on the eternal format.
I imagine that this decision was largely rooted in the fact that the difference between one mana and two mana is dramatically more pronounced in Legacy than in Modern. That said, Dig Through Time provides card selection much stronger than other options available at two mana.
Dig Through Time might not be great in Legacy Delver, but isn't it possible that another strategy such as Sneak and Show or Stoneblade could exploit it to the point of warping the format? Perhaps something akin to the deck Korey Mcduffie Top 32'd Grand Prix New Jersey with:
Korey Mcduffie's Jeskai Stoneblade
Time will tell whether Dig Through Time is safe for Legacy. For now, I'm left wondering why take the chance in Legacy that they weren't willing to take with Modern?
Think Dig Through Time is too good for Legacy? Think it would have been fine in Modern? Chime in in the comments!
Isn’t the obvious answer that in Legacy a higher power level is acceptable? In Modern both cards go above the acceptable power level while in Legacy only Cruise does? I’m no tournament player, but that would make sense to me. I don’t think anyone would disagree with Cruise being the stronger card.
I agree that Cruise is stronger. What I’m asking is shy there isn’t even a footnote for Dig. I provide a reason why it might be fine in this post, but I’m not entirely convinced that Cruise and Dig sit exactly on the line with one being too good and the other being fine.
Guess we’ll find out and see if SnT, Solidarity, and Omniscience decks start running rampant in the new meta…
I’d imagine a bg/x deck like Shardless could fight the uwr list well, it has the card advantage to keep up and I’m not huge on SFM as it’s incredibly fragile vs them. Miracles, too, since it has a potential lock/simply just goes bigger and can keep up on the attrition front. I also think the Rug matchup is probably worse than it is on paper since the cards that deal with Goose cost three mana and Bolt matches up poorly against two thirds of the threats.
I’m not big on Dig in Sneak and Show as there simply isn’t a ton of room for it; against fast decks with Wastes and Stifles I prefer more 1cc cantrips. Something like Omnitell has the room for 12+ cantrips and Digs since the kill takes up less slots.
I think the main reason lies in the underlying philosophies behind each format’s banlist. Legacy is allowed to be “unfun” or busted for a short while, and then modified reactively after they learn something is problematic. In Modern they refuse to risk a degenerate environment that drives people away from tournaments, so they ban proactively, and often.
This is definitely agreeable. It’s also possible that we’d see a similar approach for Modern if there were no Modern PT.