season 5 is minds eye

Better off messaging @helenebergeot and @mtgaaron

anyone know what alexb said in his stream/whatever to get the ban extension?

I heard they actually unbanned him a week early so that he could play in a Grand Prix. That is hilarious. Loud-mouthed cheating douche can't keep his mouth shut. I look forward to getting back on the PT so that I can trash sleazebag, SCG all-stars like that in person.

Ive been told SCG bought Cloudstone Curious, but a few hours AFTER the new glimpse got spoiled.

I had a week old sale list up with a set of Jaces. No one makes any offer until today and everyone floods my inbox asking to buy them at $80-$95.

It was only one guy brave enough to offer $95.

Jace has moved online too. People are speculating on an unban in Modern apparently.

Can't find anything more specific than "he was disparaging the players who were playing"

Huh, any evidence of this? Seems odd to me that they'd consider Jace before some of the other control-friendly cards like Ancestral Vision, especially given that he's the one who got banned in Standard.

It's not Modern unbanning speculation; Legacy cards have been ticking up as a whole, especially LED and FoW.

Well, I don't have any stats to access but I heard it moved online in like the last week and there is a banlist announcement next week. Legacy doesn't spike cards, it's just a gradual thing unless there is a MOCS people need stuff for.

Jace is not too powerful for Modern and hasn't been for a while (same with Ancestral Visions), although it is better with Bloodbraid banned.

His price tag is equally as important as his power level as far as reasons to keep him banned go.

It seems incredibly silly that people actually believe that there would ever be a format with Wild Nacatl banned and Jace, the Mind Sculptor legal given current policies, unless there is some official Wizards statement somewhere hinting at a giant ban list upheaval. In fact, the Modern ban policy actually seems pretty close to "Ban everything that would make Jace fair".

And while I don't agree that the price tag is "equally relevant", unbanning an expensive out-of-print card right when Modern Masters is about to hit seems like catastrophically bad timing.

Wizards is trying very hard to push Modern as a common format. Unbanning a $135 card that would certainly shape many, if not all of the post banning tier 1 decks would cripple the player base.

They could unban jace, print it in modern masters, and print a ton of boxes.

Not that they are going to do that, because they never want any players to be able to buy FTVs and the like.

Sure. My only point was that his price tag is a huge reason to keep him banned. Take that reason away and, well, it goes away.

I'm not buying that they care about that.

As long as they print mythics it will be an issue. You can't have $50+ in print rares. They made mythics to sell more boxes and that means $50+ mythics in standard and $100+ mythics in modern.

Come and see the mind's eye, we can find it if we try...

Modern Masters is not including any cards after Alara Block. Even if I'm completely wrong about any B&R changes JTMS has 0 chance of appearing in Modern Masters.

Just got into Modern, love the format.. esp since a lot of the decks are pretty similar to Mirrodin standard when I first started playing

Someone recommended making a 2 drop on the play and a 1 drop on the draw here, it surely makes for games with a little more descisions. But damnit is there many blanks at 1.

Anymore input on this strategy? Standard seems to make 3 first on the play and 2 on the draw.

I make a 2 on the play and skip 3 and just start at 2 on the draw.

2 has more mana creatures supposedly and a couple actual bombs.

Always skip 1.

0 has Dryad Arbor which makes it also worth considering.

My 2 on the play/one on the draw is definitely unorthodox and I don't have anywhere near the sample size to determine if it has a substantial effect on winrate either way. The question is whether the times you curve well or get a wall make up for the times you get hit by discard or something and can't catch back up because of it (it's generally possible to get caught up by skipping an early turn barring early disruption in my experience)

If you fail to get an amazing curve, you HAVE to skip a turn to get caught back up, and try to trade off creatures where possible.

Mana creatures are the nuts at 1, but they're not the only good thing that can happen. There are various walls that are better defensively than most two-drops, and even a Suntail Hawk or a Benalish Hero can do a surprising amount of damage. And if you get an Archivist/Ophidian effect you'll be glad for the extra body.

0 I haven't thought about a lot. Here are the 0-drops:

Phyrexian Marauder
Shifting Wall
Kobolds of Kher Keep
---
Ornithopter
Memnite
---
Phyrexian Walker
Shield Sphere
Dryad Arbor

I think that's a rough worst-to-best order. I also separated them into "total brick, worse or equal to nearly every one-drop, above average for a one-drop". I have to admit that this looks better than I originally thought, but then again if you brick that is nearly a death sentence. You can't afford to skip more early turns than your opponent and also not have blockers, and the longer you hold off on skipping a turn the bigger the attackers get and the less you can afford to let them hit you without getting in alpha strike range.

Results from round 2:

Cueballmania < ***
BoltYou < JOMO
Deorum > Cadaz
Trikkur v< speaksinlyrics

Round 3 pairings:
Cueballmania vs Deorum
BoltYou vs Speaksinlyrics

I'm waiting for JOMO vs *** until next round

Please use your same decks.
If you could have your matches done by Tuesday night 11:59 PM PDT, that'd be great!

that was so much better when it was 1/4 or 1/3 to hit iirc.