[MtG] Ponder & Preordain

[Resident Fascist]

 

So why are these still banned? Banned after GP Philadelphia, literally the first major Modern event. After their banning, Wizards proceeds to sheet on Blue constantly for the next 5 years. I always hear the argument of combo as to why these are banned. Well maybe if Control was an actual archetype in Modern except herpderpy below the curve threats like Death's Shadow. If bullshit like Collected Company and Tron are legal, why aren't two mostly benign draw cards? ...Other than the fact MaRo has a raging hate boner for Blue.

 

[Chaosix]

I haven't been playing for too long (only like 5 years) but i can't see why ponder would even be banned in the first place, seeing what else was out at the time.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Looking at how serum visions is used is a pretty good indicator of the power of a cantrip. It is easy to look at cards like this and interpret them as harmless, viewing their ban as just a matter of wotc shitting on blue.

 

Now, it is abundantly obvious that the game (particularly modern and standard) are heavily slanted against control. This has been acknowledged by wotc more recently, with them admitting that their threat/answer ratio is way off, and has been for years. That said, it isn't a matter of "wotc hates blue, x was banned for color profiling etc". Generally speaking, players have responded more positively to aggro-dominant metagames than control. Of course, this has now spiraled far out of control, with cards like Death's Shadow being as prolific as they are.

 

Yes. Modern needs more control. Desperately. But that isn't a matter of MAKE BLUE GREAT AGAIN, or how control is weak because it is deprived of hyper-efficient cantrips. The problem is that the threats are too good, and the answers are too weak, and these two cards do not change that.

[Flame Dragon]

The reason these two were banned is because of the prevalence of blue combo decks when Modern first started. Decks like Splinter Twin and Storm used these to insane affect and made going off MUCH simpler. Obviously Twin is dead and Storm has been getting kicked continuously for years, but that was the reasoning at the time and its much harder for them to unban cards than ban.

 

It is funny that you think WotC is going after Blue when bans since the format was made are

Blazing Shoal, Cloudpost, Green Sun's Zenith, Ponder, Preordain, and Rite of Flame

Punishing Fire and Wild Nacatl

Bloodbraid Elf and Seething Song

Second Sunrise

Deathrite Shaman

Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Birthing Pod

Splinter Twin and Summer Bloom

Eye of Ugin

Gitaxian Probe and Golgari Grave-Troll

 

20 cards and only 5 are actually Blue. Two of those three also happen to be some of the most powerful cards printed in recent memory. Honestly, Cruise and Dig are just stupid magic cards and just banning Cruise would have everyone sub in Dig instead. Also, they were mostly used in aggro decks, not control. Probe has been on EVERYONE'S list as a card that could go and seeing as how its helped aggro decks (death's shadow and infect) far more than control also not a big deal for the control player. Even if you look at the decks they were going after only Twin would really count as a control style Blue deck. Hell, they even tried to give the Blue control decks a lifeline by unbanning Ancestral Vision.

 

Not sure if the Maro shoot was a joke or not. Because you do realize Mark is a designer and has little to no control over what ends up being good or what gets banned right?

 

Also, if you want the exact reason they do something, just look for it.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/september-20-2011-dci-banned-restricted-list-announcement-2011-09-20

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/banned-and-restricted-announcement-2015-01-19

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-9-2017-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2017-01-09

[Simping For Hina]

Collected Company isn't an unfair Magic card. It is a value card that has a low floor and a high ceiling. It isn't consistent and it isn't doing anything that is overtly powerful in the format, other than putting creatures onto the battlefield. Any Company deck is solidly Tier 2, not a problem, and the card isn't helping anything. It doesn't add consistency. It is rolling of a dice and has a limit on how good the card can be. It requires a deck to be built around it with a lower curve and high creature count. You can just slap it into any deck.

 

Tron is a fine deck to have in the format. It is slow and wins agaisnt fair decks. I hate the deck, but it doesn't beat unfair decks and faster decks unless you design your deck to do just that. The cards aren't coming down faster than turn 3 and it doesn't win the game. It is a matchup that requires you to understand how it works and play it to win, not something that you can just win. The problem is fast mana, sure. There is nothing fun about fast mana, mostly because people do nothing fair with it. That still isn't enough to warrant a ban when the deck is just good, not powerful or unfun. It is just a pain for fair decks, and fair decks shouldn't have the ability to just /win/ any matchup. That is a shitty type of deck to have in a format.

 

These cards wouldn't help to make Control an archetype, they would alleviate some of the issues that control has. It doesn't add to the control archetype that doesn't add to combo decks, making each archetype stronger. That isn't a problem, but it also isn't needed. These cards don't help anything more than what cards already exist in the format. They aren't clean and sometimes can make things overly consistent. Control is a fine deck in the format. It is like Merfolk, you /have/ learn your deck. Put in the damn work. The only thing that will help control decks is a powerhouse that is good at any moment and stage of the game, being an engine. Jace, the Mind Sculptor is an example of this and that card can stay on the damn banned list.

 

Joe has the right idea about Control decks in Modern, weak answers and weak threats. These cards aren't going to fix that issue. They also don't add anything to the format except more consistency to combo decks, which doesn't need the help anyways. Give control a good engine and it will do just fine. These cards aren't needed and don't need to come off of the banned list. I am happy where they are.