I think the primary reason for the Eye ban was actually metagame share, not consistency—when the card was legal, it created the only Tier 0 deck in Modern’s history.

I dont see why let stirrings stay in the format and not unban preordain.

David you have all my support here.

Sorry but i dont think Stirrings dont fit in the 5 criteria Wizards has given us for banning cards from Modern.

Put preordain in homogenizing deck construction via consistency, and not stirrings because only apply to noncolored permanent is not fair. Eye of ugin its banned for consistency and have deckbuilding requirements. noncolored power has chane too much since eldrazi winter, and each noncolored card make stirring more strong, its time to cut his consistency, modern can be better IMO.

Sorry for my english, and ty David and Jordan for your articles 🙂

Sunrise was banned because it went to time too long. This is a purely logistical reason. As of yet, Wizards has not banned a card from Modern because it’s “unfun” or “boring.” The company seems to realize that these are highly subjective terms that are difficult to apply logically to such a decision.

Stirrings has a better effect than Visions or Preordain in the decks it’s played in, but its deckbuilding requirements (run a lot of colorless cards) are much more strict than a blue cantrip’s (splash blue). That’s why we’re not seeing an oppressive number of Stirrings decks and why Visions is alwatys played much more in the format than Stirrings. Even right now, with blue decks posting some of the worst numbers in their Modern history, Visions has a full 6% on Stirrings (mtggoldfish – Modern staples).

Stirrings still violates 0 out of their 5 listed criteria for banning cards, so I honestly don’t think you (or anyone) can make a convincing case for banning it.

newest amulet deck looks like this:
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=21374&iddeck=163799

Actually, thinking about it, there is a way that we could see a ban on Stirrings. Second Sunrise was played in a deck that was very boring to play against and watch on camera. Lantern Control is similar to Eggs in that regard. Wizards may decide that is unacceptable and weaken the deck. I cannot see a mill rock taking a hit nor Lantern itself, and banning Ensnaring Bridge would kill the deck, leaving Stirrings. It seems unlikely since Lantern doesn’t show up in GP coverage that often, but it isn’t impossible.

Exactly. The lack of variance in colorless decks is my concern and Stirrings is the keystone for all of them.

Which is why I note that Stirrings is limited to a few decks. It began seeing play in only one and now is a key card in three. The way Wizards has printed colorless cards and their tendency to try to revisit and “fix” mistakes suggests that more colorless spells will be printed in the future, which may allow more decks to use Stirrings. There is no evidence that a ban is needed now. But if the trend of Eldrazi gaining ground continues this is where I start to look for an explanation and solution.

My focus was on the apparent inconsistency in policy and the power differential between the banned Preordain and Ponder and the legal Ancient Stirrings. I only mentioned that Stirrings could be banned as a long term consequence, not something that will happen anytime soon. As I note at the top, there is no proven harm and that is the key criteria for a ban. I simply think that as time goes on this disparity will become more apparent and harmful.

Agree. David, for all the quoting of my article, why didn’t you mention the 5 criteria Wizards has given us for banning cards from Modern? Stirrings fits into zero of them.

That’s not accurate to what he is saying. He is saying ancient stirrings is even better than ponder in the decks it’s good with. Because of this in a consistency sort of way either preordained (which is weaker than stirrings or ponder) should be unbanned or stirrings should be banned.

Either raise the ability of other decks to compete on a consistency level or take away the dramatic gap by removing the one that’s making a pedestal. But leaning towards preordain being unbanned instead.

The cards would then police each other.
As they do in legacy.

Its also kind of disingenious to not draw out the fact the blue cards hit anything and thus impose pretty much no deckbuilding constraint whatsoever. You cant just put stirrings in any green deck but you can pretty legitimately put preordain in any blue deck.

And tron is incredibly frustrating because they hit turn 3 tron almost every single game. Te variance is close to zero

artfranc007,

First of all, this article only discusses unbanning preordain. It is clearly explained that Ponder is very good and should really stay on the banned list. Second, storm is a garbage deck right now, and the idea that a single unbanning (as opposed to two like you falsely described) will vault a deck from rogue deck to dominant force has never happened. Third, WOTC doesn’t test cards for modern. They may go “oh this would be good in modern too I bet,” but there isn’t any focus on it except for the overlap of standard testing where the power level is generally lower.

If true combo decks are improved upon a little bit, to where they goldfish a half turn faster than the aggro decks, control and midrange actually benefit because combo decks are more vulnerable to disruption in the form of discard and counters.

I just have to say… fatal push isn’t that important for draw go. They can safely use path, bolt, and heavier handed cards

It’s more for decks that require lean and rapid interaction. And to enable other color combinations.

For instance I have a very competitive sultai midrange deck. It’s biggest flaw was all it’s removal is 2 mana, creating really awkward spots against decks like delver and burn. Or infect.

Sultai now seems more of a valid choice. UB control. Monoblack, straight bg midrange.

But as far as esper goes it doesn’t matter allll that much really since all you’re doing is removal, your rent trying to drop threats between them

The point I’m trying to make is, I don’t understand how you can lead your article with: “I do understand why they’re not banned. A card needs to be proven problematic before Wizards will take action, and that hasn’t happened yet”, and then conclude it by suggesting we ban a card that hasn’t crossed any of the historical thresholds for cards that get banned in Modern.