Blood Moon is the best card ever printed in Magic, because its the only card single-handedly carrying an entire format on its shoulders. Moon is the sole reason that you don't match up against a 4+ color money pile 15 games in a row in Modern. Blood Moon is the glue holding Modern together, and you are a beneficiary of its existence even if you've never put it in a deck.
It should time itself out so that you have to repay for it atleast. I agree with you/disagree with the video on the principal, it is perfectly find to have hard counter cards that act as deterrents against unintended play routes.
I wouldn't say it's holding the format together but it's definitely keeping away any competitive money pile from tournament play, non basic hate sounds fair as a necessary evil knowing how greedy are mana bases today on any format
There is nothing more satisfying than playing a Blood Moon that turns a bunch of expensive lands into mountains. I play Blood Moon in every deck I can (notable exceptions being refined modern decks). Just play basics people. The only thing more satisfying than slamming a crippling Moon down is playing around a Blood moon a turn in advance of it coming down.
7:45, Card draw does not add to variance, it reduces it since you are increasing the sample size of cards you see in a finite deck and therefore increasing your chance of seeing any given card as a factor of how many cards you draw. If you theoretically drew out your whole deck, you would reach minimum variance because you have perfect access to every card.
I think a better way of framing that point is “While drawing cards lowers variance, the value of drawing a card is highly variable”. You’re right, the more you draw the less variance you face, but there is a wide range of value one single card can have.
The amount of possible combinations of cards you could draw starts at 1 possibility for 0 cards, then goes up the more cards you draw, then back down to 1 when you've drawn your entire deck. Card draw increases variance most of the time.
Lifegain isn’t the only way to beat burn. The deck struggles to keep going if it runs out of gas, so Inquisition of Kozilek is also really good against it
@@nonlamesniper That's true, but lifegain isn't the only way to preserve them. Lifegain essentially just negates one of their bolts, which can also be accomplished by taking it out of their hand before they cast it
This. I'm playing Prowess in standard, and Discard is the most effective tool against decks that want to flood out their entire hand. Losing just a single spell, especially Lightning Helix or Twinferno, can completely change who wins the match when you don't have long term threats or game plans you can invest in later.
I do agree that stax pieces and hate cards are unfun, but I do think that if WoTC continues print ways to do increasingly busted things (specifically with mana, I.e 5 colour piles and the triomes) then it becomes overly difficult to beat those decks without cards like bloodmoon. For me it’s a situation like; yeah it’s bad, but without it I’d hate this other archetype more.
Exactly my thought process, the card shouldn't be evaluated in a vacuum but in how it effects the metagame at large, and I think generally it has a positive impact regardless of how toxic its base design is
@@proxidize5738 could not agree more. It's regrettable how harsh the effect can be but what is the next best option to keep the meta from ceaselessly devolving into 4c "pushed card" tribal. The cyclical rise and fall of Blue Moon over the years has been a positive for the format.
This is based and I love it. As a CEDH player, I want to be able to play with the most busted cards in a healthy and conducive way. If Stax as a whole disappears, the game becomes legit unplayable because it devolves into turn 1/0 nonsense. If Ammi hates slow games, Flash Hulk would be a format they might like only for a while before absolutely finding that obnoxious.
As someone who mostly plays Yu-Gi-Oh, it's always interesting to see how discussions like this both mirror and diverge from the conversations we have about our card game
I've had this conversation with yugioh players before because I find it interesting. Per design we tend to agree that the design of Thalia Guardian of Thraben is better than Jinzo. Goes right along with the Ward being better than hexproof. We actually agree that the best design flood gates are tax based. But taxing in yugioh isn't as simple as magic. You can have a life tax or something like a discard or tribute tax. Perhaps the most interesting tax we thought up was banishing cards from either extra deck or grave.
Burn/Red Deck Wins is not poorly designed perse. In fact I would argue more decks should have red's flexibility in that regard. It ALWAYS has something to do. The archetype has no filler or fat. Every card pushes towards its win con either conditionally or directly. That's great design. The trouble is the game has never seemed to find an identity outside of red thats as good as red at staying in its lane.
To me, Blood Moon punishing people for greedily moving away from basics makes perfect sense, as it matches the idea of highly specialized decks coming with great risks. It's been just too easy to have perfect mana of any and all colors in Modern.
I can't remember the last time I was more than slightly inconvenienced by Blood Moon. Then again, I do run mostly basics... even in 5c. Way I see it... if you build a deck that can get blown out by a single card, you haven't done a good job building it.
@@9forMortalMen Yeah, and a lot of people disagreed with his reasoning due to not having the same value system he does. You should probably have read the comment section before posting a reply.
wrong, blood moon causes non games. Playing 3 color decks where you fetch and shock yourself is already a punishment there does not need to be a bloodmoon to "keep that in check" the fact that you bolt yourself already keeps it in check and aggro decks are the decks that punish fetching + shocking yourself as it's even easier to kill you than someone who doesn't. The broken land cards like Urza's saga should be banned alongside bloodmoon, having bloodmoon legal is just a cancerous card to answer cancerous cards and punish decks that do not need more punishing.
Mana bases being perfect in modern now due to triomes should carry a lot more weight in this video besides “oh no yorion/omnath goodstuff piles fold to a single blood moon” You shouldn’t be able to easily play 3+ color decks in any constructed format, but when domain is putting up numbers because there’s no viable land checks in the format, there’s something that needs to be done. Blood moon only locks out decks that prioritize overly greedy mana bases, and is literally a card that does nothing once the player base starts playing more basics in their lists. (Kind of like how you mentioned in the previous video in the series regarding dredge and GY hate.)
Dude complains about blood moon, but ruination was always a card to punish these that abuse of non-basics in extended. In any format in MTG you should have a way to deal with land basic combos and strategies without putting yourself into a loss.
Exactly. There's no such thing as a format where every deck is viable, if you make a bad one, you're going to have times where there's nothing you can do to win against your opponent.
I enjoy the video’s thesis about Wizards trying to move away from non-game mechanics over the years, but I think your argument against burn is wanting. As I see it, you’re basically saying “burn is too powerful because it has no singular card or cards the deck relies on but nevertheless demands interaction due to its damage per turn.” While these make burn frustrating to combat, I think it’s wholly divorced from the “unfair” decks because of burn’s weaknesses, such as being hard-countered by large blockers, board wipes, life gain, etc. I started playing magic in RTR standard and fought against numerous mill and pack rat decks. As a response, I had to change my deck to adapt more broadly than putting in silver-bullet cards into my deck (though I did that too.)
Burn isn't countered by boardwipes. Its why everybody hates it, no matter how much removal you're running, if it isn't instant speed/counterspells, you'll eventually just die a slow and agonizing death to their topdecked haste crap or bolts. Burn is cancerous as fuck because its pretty much a deck check, either you're playing a turn 3 combo deck, a deck with specific counters to burn, or you lose.
@@MetalHev you’ve exaggerated how bad it is but Burn definitely does tell decks to get their game on by t4 or be burned out. This is semi desirable but I also understand where ammio is coming from.
I agree, but you have to also think about the player experience. This is an example of the "wasting time" annoying situation discussed in the video. If the idea is that this card punishes people for being too greedy with mana base, then the card should read "kill your opponent if they have more than X number of non-basic land in their deck" or something.
Not gonna argue about the inherent hateability of some of these cards (tho i agree that stax is unbearable especially in casual settings) but I will say that these problematic and toxic designs are part of what makes magic magic. Its such a deep and conplex game and the only type of game where cards that push the line of whag should be allowed can exist without causing entire formats to crumble. Blood Moon may be annoying and toxic, but in plenty of other games it would take over formats. I hate getting mooned but you can hardly say that it is ruining modern. Magic is really one of the only games where such deviations from what a deck "should do" are both allowed and encouraged and a large part of that lies in these toxic hatable cards.
Yup. It's the only card game that breaks its rules so frequently and so hard. Blood moon and field of the dead are far from common. If you want jund mirrors to be the only type of gameplay go play standard, there's no reason to hate on the things that make the eternal formats of magic actually unique
can't agree with this more. Magic IS the weird designs, quirks and mistakes that have developed over 30 years. If you'd remove those quirks you might end up with a game that is less bad, but also one that is less interesting and fundamentally less fun.
@ThePepperskate You can improve the future without altering the past. Something that Yu-Gi-Oh! didn't learn by completely altering some oldschool card effects so that they no longer did what they did in the past. Nobody was suggesting burning all of the old cards or altering them in this way.
The tricky thing with stax effects like Blood Moon is that they're annoying to play against, but also kinda serve as a really important niche in their metagame ecosystems. Blood Moon is probably the best example of that, ironically enough--it's basically Modern's only check to its greedy mana bases, which are heavily enabled by W6. It's basically the only card that stops every deck from splashing for basically any card they want. But because it's a restriction that's so major on the deckbuilding level, it ends up just feeling bad to play against. But still, even if it's annoying, it's basically the sole floodgate stopping an even worse format from happening.
Same with commander as well. If Blood moon and Back to Basics weren't in the format 5 mana commanders wouldn't run a single basic land and run rampant. Land hate are like the natural predators keeping an eco system in check.
@@souckz I don't think you're wrong, if Moon and Basics didn't exist than I'd 100% agree. I think anything in Magic should be allowed as long as there is a counter or downside to it.
As much as I dislike the fun police (which for Modern is Burn and Blood Moon) I agree that if they're bad in a format, that format is probably too degenerate. For example, it was kind of ridiculous back when 5c Pile was running Abundant Growth and Magus of the Moon.
@@AmmiO2"burn is fun police" serious question: when did you start playing Magic? I'm ambivalent towards burn, and it's barely smarter cousin: mill, but being put on a high tempo clock is the opposite of "fun police"
21:33 I think players fetching basics because there's more effects that hose non-basics in legacy means we should have more Blood Moon effects in modern and that the problem is that it's only for red decks
you're right, we need back to basics in modern. earnestly, too easy mana breaks the color pie restrictions and isn't a healthy directions, the inability to really punish greedy is why boseiju is imo such a terrible design. it doesn't have to be hard to interact with permanents either we can play a version of price of progress more appropriate for modern. examples of bad color breaks yorion 4 color that got to play magus of the moon in the sb.
Actually, we should ban fetchlands in modern. You can't play 5-color-money-pile without consistent 5 colors. They're a core part of the Legacy identity with brainstorm, and commander players still want them, so they won't lose too much value. Modern doesn't need them to be great.
@@Joker22593 absolutely not. One, they are as much a part of moderns identity as legacy. Two, we're pretty far past fetched being THE issue, the mana in modern even without fetches is so good you're just punishing stray decks for the issues of a few offenders. Three, you have pioneer if you want a format without fetches.
As usual you articulate the your positions very well, and I'm in disagreement with a number of them. Blood Moon and Burn slap. Just because a lot of spikes want to play B/G/x mirrors to the end of time because of interaction doesn't mean Midrange "pile of rares and mythics" should be actively pushed as the preferred archetype. Lots of magic players enjoy different types of decks and while there are obviously limits in terms of both power and physically distorting the game that doesn't inherently invalidate archetypes.
I am in disagreement with almost ALL of them. From every argument I've heard him present, and the examples he even shows on screen, it seems to me he wants the only decks to be fun are Jund Midrange grindfests where each person just tries to out value the other. Blood Moon and Back to Basics literally both keep legacy in check. I'm not seeing the major issues with stax pieces in general. I played Lantern Control in Modern when that was a deck. That was a very slow, long, grindfest that made people question if I enjoyed the game. This entire video seems to not realize that what keeps this game alive is its cards that others view as "unfun" because ultimately, those are the cards that are punishing players for their deck. As a lands player in legacy do I enjoy being Blood Moon/Sun'd? Nope. Do I respect it everytime and go yeah, sure, gg game two? Yes. Same thing when back to basics is brought in. I'm expecting this. I'm building around it. All I'm hearing from this video is, Modern no longer has answers to cards of XYZ and I want my Jund 1800$ deck to do better. Even his argument against burn seemed odd and weird.
As someone who wants nothing but midrange and aggro games, id also say blood moon isnt an example of bad design. Maybe in edh, but certainly not in 60 card formats. If you lose to moon, you reaaaaally deserve to lose to moon
I very much agree that his bias for card design is whether it's an issue for midrange and control. Chalice of the Void itself is not a problematic design. It becomes a problem for FORMATS when those formats seek to play only the most efficient one and maybe two mana spells. If you're playing a deck that curves, Chalice is completely irrelevant, as it was when the card was in Standard. T3feri, while moderately annoying, is not a major issue for aggro decks and whenever I hear someone complain about that card, it's almost always someone who wants the format to be full of UW control mirrors that go to time every round. Same with Narset. I think she actually punishes the right decks and is a fine enough cards because so many decks ignore her effect. It's when, again, you have UW control mirrors that want to turn the game into a contest to see who can draw the most cards that she becomes an issue. (I've starting adding her to almost all my EDH decks that can support her because she tends to keep the game in check while she's out there, actually makes people play more fair. She isn't hard to remove so she doesn't ruin the game but while she's out there, she prevents people from going hog wild.)
This video turned out to be a lot more polarizing than I anticipated. A lot of detractor comments brought up good points and even those who disagreed mostly kept things civil. Keep the feedback coming.
i would now like to see a "platonic ideal of MTG"...not a video on "fair" magic...but a video that outline what "could" satisfy timmy, johnny, and spike without catering to any of them specifically
The "ideal" version of Magic can't really exist because the most exciting cards for one demographic piss off other demographics the most. Add the fact that almost all of the really exciting cards are mistakes that turned out way more powerful than ever intended and you'd have to completely sand off that excitement aswell. But that would essentially only leave you with boring, milktoast designs.
Totally agree with you about Eidolon, but disagree about Blood Moon. Basic lands are the heart and soul of magic, why shouldn't there be a punishment for overextending away from that?
imho playing more colors should come at a price of speed/consistency rather than being unable to play at all. fetchlands finding untapped duals are what's broken and makes blood moon effects a sort of necessity for eternal format balance
@@selkokieli843 If you build a 2 or 3-colour deck it is very easy to include enough basic lands to play the deck consistently and still be safe from Blood Moon. The problem is that players are much too greedy with their mana bases and want to play even more colours than that - even with the existence of Bloodmoon. Non-basic lands are too efficient and we actually need more ways to punish them. I agree that playing more colours should come at the cost of speed (not consistency because why would you want your opponents deck to sometimes do nothing in a game. That isn't fun.) but currently the lands in many formats are much too efficient and so more cards need to be printed to answer them. Blood Moon is a good card in the formats it exists in.
I enjoyed your video and appreciate the well explained points you have. This video and the companion to it taken as a whole though, it almost seems that you are complaining about playing against or piloting anything that isn't Jund midrange. I'm not sure you mean to come off this way, but I wanted to mention this. You do an excellent job of going through many annoying parts of a number of decks. Another thing, your take about blood moon is a bit odd. If anything the problem is that there isn't more nonbasic hate, e.g. wasteland. Blood Moon is one of modern's few ways to actually enforce the color pie by answering the power of many-color piles. It doesn't even do that good of a job of it at that, since many of the best decks are 3+ color even so. Getting locked under a bloodmoon and never casting a spell isn't a game design problem, it is a problem of the deck builder bringing a deck which poorly matched in the meta formed by the competitors present. I understand that your counter point about "What do 4c players do? Just not play 4c?" My response is yes, the color pie deserves more respect in deck choice. I also think that the comparison about that 2c hose is unfair here. That card is an "or" meaning that mono color decks also get hit by it. Blood moon gets worse with the fewer colors it is matched against, where as Lifebane Zombie may be a viable choice against all decks in a meta containing green or white.
Playing four or five colors in modern simply isn’t such an unfair strategy that a 3 mana “I win the game against you” enchantment isn’t justified. Against Titan or Tron? Sure. Punishment can exist, but it shouldn’t be this high variance with such an absurd ceiling AND such a low floor. That’s the other problem with moon, remember when Yorion piles were on abundant growth and literally didn’t care about moon and ran it themselves? The card sometimes does nothing into multicolored decks occasionally. Wasteland is a better design if we want color hate.
@@9forMortalMen I agree that Wasteland would be better. I would welcome it getting shifted into the format with MH3. I also agree on the point that Moon doesn't necessarily kill a multicolor pile. What moon actually does is force the respect for basic lands. It isn't that player can't play 3c or 4c in the face of moon. It is just that player needs to be careful about the pip count in their mana costs and put basics in their deck. I know that what I am saying here is a bit different than my points above, but I do think that if a deck folds to blood moon easily, it is a deck construction problem. If a deck requires many duals and triomes to function, then the pilot of the deck should understand that blood moon is a silver bullet to their mana. I wouldn't get tilted because a silver bullet exists. It would be like complaining about Pithing Needle. The world is a better place because Pithing Needle is in it.
Personally i like that there is hate cards, it forces one to build around it. For example shroud is an amazing mechanic. it is symetric and forces creative deckbuilding and creative game play. Maybe what is needed is cards that dissenchant effects. A card that nullifies other effects.
While i agree that hate cards are good in general, the idea of "building around" the good ones doesn't exist for some matchups. His big example of blood moon vs land decks. If I'm on tron, I can't "build around" blood moon. I either draw the answer or don't play the game.
@SymmetricalDocking I guess I wouldn't consider slotting 2 or 4 cards in a sideboard as building around it. More like having a plan that operates around the hate piece.
As a longtime Burn player, I disagree with the assessment on Eidolon. It’s a symmetrical effect that also punishes the Burn player for going all out if it get played too early. And it can be answered with plenty of cheap removal spells (Push, Bolt, Prismatic Ending, Path, etc.), but there are even more expensive spells that also remove it, like you said in the video. I do agree with the awkward sideboard problem though, it sucks to have to waste sideboard slots on life gain.
The perception of the various strategies has changed over time, with Wotc pivoting to address those preferences, the community believing stax to be bad for the game typically don't have a firm enough basis in the games history to lead informed discussion regarding the various archetypes. Players who are deeply invested in the eternal formats often play through degenerate decks by choice. Veterans who were around prior to the Strip Mine ban in 1996 recall a time when Pox was a t1 strategy with glee, when sticking a Knight of Stromgald and following up with Strip Mine or Hymn to Tourach was enough to close out games. Are they wrong for playing in that environment? Is their idea of fun less relevant than the majorities? The majority of the community has been playing the game for less than two years, 80% of the overall community plays only casually, 70% of the community only plays commander and yet the same majority is inclined to have opinions about what "Good" design is and what "Bad" design is. This same majority that doesn't know what a planeswalker is. The issue threatening formats outside of Commander, is Commander and the insistence on designing the game around an inherently broken format. Additionally, Wotc changing their design philosophy to cater to the casual community is not good design, it's good for business.
While Delve in general can be fair I don't think there's any version of Hogak's design that isn't either unplayable or broken. He encourages an uninterattractive game plan that turbos him out as quickly as possible.
Agree. I don't think there's anyway you can fairly cost that card and make it reasonable. The "play from your graveyard" clause has to be removed to make the card ok and that drastically changes the way it works.
@@iduumb3062 not necessarily bad, just takes from the perspective of the stereotypical "spike" player who want to play control or Midrange mirrors all day.
@@jakewalters3951 The video basically boils down to "anything that isn't a completely fair strategy is bad". If we do anything outside of fair costed creatures and interaction then apparently that's bad. Well, that's not magic. Doing unfair things and building around cards that force opponents to have specific answers is a big part of magic. I think the only part I truly agreed with was planeswalker loyalty numbers, but even the rest of the planeswalker discussion I disagree with.
I think you're totally justified in hating Moon (it can be very annoying to run into) but the argument of "What is a greedy mana deck supposed to do against Blood Moon, thats just how its built" is a pretty weak one. Multicolor decks have a lot of advantages afforded to them with access to other colors and strategies; the deck having an Achilles Heel is not a bad thing, it's balance. Having greedy and multicolor lands go completely unchecked would be bad for Modern as 4/5 color decks are still dominant in the format in spite of Moon being a popular answer to them. Running Moon can also have a very big drawback as its a near dead card against some of the most popular decks in the format like Burn and Izzet. I get the card not being fun but personally I find it even more unfun when my opponent is able to effortlessly play every color in the game with no real drawbacks
While I agree with some of the takes in the video, I find the overall approach somewhat distasteful. On the one hand, not every single deck NEEDS to be a Jund-esque fair mix of cheap/midrange threats and answers. On the other hand, I'd argue some cards ARE supposed to feel frustrating at least to some extent. Frustration CAN be part of a game, at least as long as it's not wholly unbalanced or incur in other problems (such as, say, taking too long to win for face-to-face tournaments etc). Also, it's kinda weird that, on the one hand, this video seems to hate on soft locks, and on the other hand it seems to hate on "unanswerable finishers" like PW ultimates and strong uninteractive creatures. For example, while I CAN agree that cheap hexproof creatures can be seen as an issue (despite my love for Bogles), cards like Chromium or Sphinx of the Last Word are absolutely fine. You shouldn't ask yourself "gods, why can't I interact with those". Your goal is to beat the opponent BEFORE they deploy such devastating threats. These such cards are especially crucial to have in a meta for control vs control matchup - without those, such matchups could go on for seemingly forever, which is bad for reasons you touched upon. And as for burn... I can SORT of see the point in some Standard environments, but in eternal formats Burn is not as problematic as you suggest. On the one hand, it's not true that you NEED lifegain to hose burn decks - aside from Chalice of the Void, Leyline of Sanctity, anti-red hate and other cards can slow down (even if not straight-up hose) burn to the point where you can prevail. On the other hand, older formats have access to quality lifegain cards that do more than just, well, gaining you life, which can be good against more than just Burn.
Remember kids, if your deck cant beat burn, its not viable. Its the most honest deck in Modern, and the more prevalent it is, the healthier the format. Also, Eidolon is just a red Chalice thats easier to remove and more flexible to play around. Modern isnt the only format either, so a lot of these gripes dont even really apply.
Me personally, I LOVE Blood Moon. I think it’s a fun, 3 mana, sorcery speed card that creates the best reactions from players. 🙃 But I will agree that Eidolon is goofy.
Your argument against Blood Moon makes NO SENSE. "This is a how their decks are build." NO, IT'S NOT. It was THEIR CHOICE to play 5c and bring the best stuff of every color, you play more color you are already at a MASSIVE advantage in resources available. If anything Modern needs is MORE Blood Moon type of effects. Ruination, Price of Progress and Back to Basics should have been printed in Modern looooong ago.
Way too many "absolute" statements that are ignoring the designed role of the cards. Karn is designed to go over the top of control strategies. If you go to 7 manas to drop him, you are entitled to victory. You also assume that a game should last forever. Some cards are printed so the game ends in a timely manner. Tournaments where everybody had to wait because some players went to additional turns every round. (Not only in constructed (KCI) but also in limited and casual. Some prereleases in my LGS had the majority of players ending with one game played or 1-1 with no time for the third in Dominaria) You quote Chapin, yet you fail to realize that 'there are no bad threats, only bad answers'. Complaining about eidolon in modern burn or blood moon seem very strange when you actually miss cards that were hated and banned on the randomness part. Aetherwork Marvel was much more an issue than CoCo, and CoCo wasn't banned, Reflector Mage was.
Not only have I played Chess, I took group Chess classes when I was younger, competed, and won Chess tournaments. To put it in MTG terms, Chess feels like a format where there's only 1 deck, no new cards are printed, and the games never change.
@@AmmiO2 Like i said i am very surprised. i also play chess, and compete in tournaments and played on my highschool chess team, so there's no need to put in mtg terms. i am then confused by the opinion presented that "less skilled players will never beat better players" Both as a statement of fact, and also that the video seems to present that as undesirable? in your play you've certainly lost to people worse than you and beaten people better than you, thats why we play the games out. To address the reply directly, i don't usually compare mtg to chess, but I think the analogy isn't great. I'd argue openings are like decks (both on a strategic level, and with regard to matchups). New cards are both novelties discovered by high level players, and new information obtained from your lessons. learning the importance of bishop color in rook pawn endgames is a lot like adding a new card to my deck that will help in some matchups. The game absolutely changes as you improve. Not in the same way as magic (which is why i hesitate to compare the two) but if you compare how a 1000 and 2000 talk about the game you'd think they were playing different games.
The only issue I take with the burn argument is that all top performing burn decks have cut all copies of eidolon so the argument that it’s the best card in the deck is flat at wrong as it is not in the deck anymore
You're definitely off on blood moon. Blood moon is a known quantity. If your deck is indirectly hosed by blood moon because you didn't pack enough basics, your deck is at fault, not the card. The value that the moon existing adds to a format keeping greedy mana bases and degenerate land combos in check far outweighs the price of dedicating 5-10 slots of your manabase to basics. And most decks can pack answers to the moon. At instant speed too letting them combo off next turn. Meaning it generally only buys time for you to win, it does not win the game itself
Yeah, thank god for Modern Horizons adding all those free spells to the format so Eidolon can now finally be efficiently answered. I do find it weird that you would leave out something like cheating on mana and bypassing the turn cycles. I'd rather be burnt out by Eidolon or locked out by Blood Moon over being combo'd out by Titan on turn 2.
Blood Moon is great and I would even say there should be more cards like it. The color pie is the most important aspect of Magic's design. There should be a real cost to running a 4-5 color deck or else the meta ends up with too many "good stuff" decks that are all extremely similar. In the early days of the game the cost of playing 4+ colors was getting color screwed but with fetches plus shocks and triomes that cost simply is not there in Modern any more. Sure, color screw still happens sometimes but even mono-color decks get land screwed occasionally, it's not enough of a reason to not play 4+ colors. Blood Moon makes it so that there is a real cost to playing these decks again.
What is actually does is cause red to be a required color but only when 4 color decks are popular. Even Omnath decks could be running moon and fetching basics.
@@Joker22593 That's why there should be more cards like it. Each color should have a way to punish greedy mana bases. The only similar effect in another color is Back to Basics, which is not legal in Modern but should be.
Blood Moon is so fair and so easy to play around in nearly any deck, that I was surprised when "Void Moon {C}{2} All non-basic lands are wastes" wasn't printed in eldritch moon.
Love blood moon. Its a built in limiter complained about by players who don't compensate for it. Playing more colors was always ment to be more difficult and blood moon enforces this.
fetching + shocking yourself is already a high enough cost there does not need to be bloodmoon in the format, and for the other broken lands just ban them
I can't agree with your argument against burn. I think there are many other ways to defeat burn than just lifegain. Leyline of Sanctity makes the game almost unplayable for the burn player, its the same level as blood moon and there isn't really anything that can be done about it other than just hoping you draw all your creatures, which most lists have been cutting eidilon because of all the easy ways to remove it like you said. Lightning bolt is a very common answer and I think its very fine against it, Sure if you don't have removal it gets out of hand, but that also goes for almost any 1 or 2 CMC creatures in the format such as Thalia, Ragavan, Esper Sentinal, Dauthi Voidwalker, Tarmogoyf, Puresteel Paladin, Stoneforge Mystic. I think burn is currently completely fine and many decks have options that make them live against burn. Countermagic is loaded in many of these formats and that is a way to live against it. I think a lot of the frustrations you bring up about eidolon are similar for other creatures, what is the difference between using stoneforge to cheat in a Kaldra compleat and most of the time on the spot winning? There are many games where threats need immediate answers and I think that in itself should be the issue, not in the lack of removal.
I personally think it’s beautiful that burn as a deck can exist in every eternal format. It’s generally a cheaper buy in, and allows people to hit the ground running without completely breaking the bank. I do also see your side, and have been frustrated losing to a quick and efficient mono red deck many times before.
Pauper is such a great format, but I'm disappointed by the lack of cards printed for it. It seems like only Masters sets introduce new cards to the format unless a mechanic like Venture Into is printed. A pauper set would be fantastic to see and make for a really fun limited environment.
I think a big aspect of modern it you’re a super linear deck (I.e dredge, living end, etc.) is the metagame you play with your opponent. Your entire sideboard is dedicated to stopping their graveyard hate so you have to gamble on what they are most likely using to hose you. Do I bring in my force of vigor for chalice of the void, or do I need subtlety for the Dauthi Voidwalker?
You say bad, but then front and center you posted the most fair card of them all. I'm sorry you can't just windmill slam every card to make five color goodstuff midrange every game. If you expect to be greedy beyond two colors, you should expect to suffer. If anything, there should be more moon effects.
I think you're missing the big cost of planeswalkers... Creatures can remove them. Imagine you play, say, a Teferi, Master of time, comes in with 3 loyalty, quickly up to 5, and you have a single blocker up. Opponent has 5 mana, and can choose between playing a big threat to the board, attacking your Teferi and leaving your life total up a bit, or using Lithomantic Barrage to blow Teferi open, and then hitting you with their creatures, holding up interaction. That's a significant, fun choice.
I find your three reasons for why Blood Moon is good more compelling than "but it forces certain decks to run removal for it." That's part of the back and forth of Magic and it starts in the deckbuilding phase. People playing Tron should accept Hate cards as part of their deckbuilding. Especially when you say that alpine moon, field of ruin, and ghost quarter just aren't good enough and follow it up by saying that one reason is people run more basics in formats other than modern. Maybe it's time to run more basics in Modern and less Good Stuff piles? Probably not since every top deck except burn is one that blood moon would theoretically hose and they still persist at the top of the meta due to the obscene power of fetchlands. Part of why WotC thinks that hexproof or protection are okay is because of their rare land economy and promoting the ease of splashing. "Just buy lots of rare lands and splash black for edicts or board wipes" That's why they think it's okay for Blood Moon. How else would you even interact with the Hexproof lotus field otherwise? Also fantastic discussion on Planeswalkers! I think 10% is conservative, even. There are slightly lower tier and rogue decks that still use other PW's. It's a good bet that any new Planeswalker in any of the recent sets is far more powerful than equivalent cards in its set, and their prices usually only rise. They can raise decks an entire tier by themselves through pure value. I absolutely share your hatred of Burn. Unlike blood moon it creates a vast play/draw difference in winrate and many non-game losses **even when** you draw your counters to it.
I disagree with you on blood moon. If you run more than 2 colours the trade off for that should be that your manna base is far less consistent. And u should be prepared for something like blood moon. You shouldn't have access to the whole colour pie that easily
I, as many other players in the comment section have also said, love blood moon. And to me personally it doesn't feel like as stonewally of a stax piece. The strategy that it shuts down isn't one that particularly desirable; that being four/five colour money piles. With how ridiculously good manabases have become with triomes, I feel like we need more cards like blood moon not less. Maybe we one in another colour? Idk
I think Blood Moon, while incredibly oppressive, is balanced by the fact that it is symmetrical, which also forces you into very restrictive deckbuilding. The reason why Moon isn't hated as much as 3feri or Narset or Karn is that those aren't symmetrical. Personally, asymetrical Stax pieces are a MUCH bigger issue than symmetrical ones like the ones you mentioned, because symmetrical Stax also forces you to sacrifice something in deckbuilding (usually), while something like 3feri or Narset or as a more recent example, Sheoldred the Apocalypse and Elesh Norn Mommy, you can just play those without cost in deckbuilding. You get to hose your opponent at no cost, that should not be a thing. On this topic, one thing I REALLY hate in modern design are cards that are already good but also provide hate to certain things; Migloz didn't need to have a disenchant ON TOP of being a 3 mana 4/4, Trespasser and Dennick didn't need GY hate or lifegain ON TOP of being good creatures. They make every strategy that isn't Midrange valuepiles obsolete because Midrange decks now get to out every deck at 0 deckbuilding cost while not conceding ground to aggro or control. Hatepieces should come at a cost.
Skipped straight to the Blood Moon section just to hear that it was Modern specific, which like yeah. It looks really bad. I'd argue Chalice is a meaner card in Legacy thanks to the wide range of great 1mv spells, and the waning popularity of mainboard artifact hate. I love Blood Moon more than anything in the world and would be sad if it didn't exist, but I don't mind non-games as much as the next guy and it makes total sense it's disliked
Also if anything his arguments seem to benefit printing more nonbasic land hate into modern as much as it does banning blood moon after all the issue with blood moon is that it is a rare enough sight you don't really prep for it. You might only have A sigular basic in which case mono red prison is often a non game if you're playing a 3 or 4 color decks. It becomes more common due to more places to fit it besides mono red prison and b/r murktide and well people will start running more basics which makes blood moon less of a problem and it becomes harder to impossible to run 4 color good stuff piles
I don't agree with this idea that half of this list is 'bad' design, even if some cards feel bad to play against. Stax cards are very important to the longevity of the game; look at Thalia, a card that forces greedy spell decks to slow down, or meekstone, a card that stops aggro from taking a clean win. What you're proposing would mean fewer answers and less diverse options.
9:13 three fairies i wasnt watching the screen so when i heard that i wondered why getting a basic land untapped would win the game but then i realized im thinking of Three Visits... lol
I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how blood moon punishes the same decks it always does, and that we’re lucky to have it to keep these decks in check, and I have to wonder if people like this have ever actually seen modern as a format. blood moon doesn’t dissuade people from playing titan, elementals, saga decks, rhinos, or any other number of decks that either do or could get hosed by bmoon. as it turns out, suddenly losing to a card in only 10% of decks according to mtgtop8 doesn’t suddenly mean that the decks are bad, just that games between bmoon decks and bmoon vulnerable decks are extremely sacky and are often complete non-games. I cant help but be reminded of cards like maxx c or formats like current kashtira or pandemic format in yugioh, where games often devolved into “did you draw your targeted hate card? if you did, did they draw the out?” as essentially the only questions players would ask each other in game. I can’t believe you could look at the impact a card like blood moon has and go “this is good for the format” when it doesn’t tangibly change deckbuilding choices but it does tanglibly change the interactivity and fun of games
Man, Blood moon is obly the most important card printed. It is amazing and simples design and punishes exactly what it supposed to, in modern magic it keeps basic lands relevant, the cheap power we get feom lands now is insane and there is no risk besides blood moon to it. Going triple or more colors in a deck means you get bigger pool of staples and your deck is more good stuff, blood moon punishes that, it has to be punishable otherwise people just play same 5c good stuff decks like early 2021. If anything they should releace 2mana blood moon
If you were to remove all the things you consider to be bad design then i think you would be left with a very boring game, but not in the same way that chess is boring. Instead the game would be boring in the way that nascar is boring.
I think the fact that Wotc decided 30 years ago that only blue should have counterspells was a big mistake. Force of Will should have been a red card: sacrificing card advantage for tempo should be a red effect, not blue. It's only blue becauer wotc arbitrarily decided that only their favorite color (at the time) should be allowed to interact with the stack. Mana leak should have been a white spell because taxes is a white mechanic. I could go on forever with this but you get the point. Interacting with the stack should be like drawing cards: an integral part of the game that every colour has access to. I think if they had not so obviously had a favourite colour in the 90s, the game would be much better right now. Also, the cross-over sets are the cringiest thing on earth and I can't believe they printed The One Ring without cringing to death.
listing stax as a bad design is one of the most casual player mind sets ive ever heard considering how stax is seen as healthy for the game since it stops problematic decks from just taking over entire formats as often
Ultimately Stax is only good in a competitive format, and the vast majority of players ARE casual. Whether it's modern or EDH, most casual players don't want to play against stax not because it hoses their decks, but because they came to play, not necessarily win. And on top of that it's a waste of everyone's time, which is frankly disrespectful unless they agreed to play against it.
@@Metrosoda if you enter a modern fnm/tournament you have agreed to plsy against any deck your opponent may be playing. I understand people dont like it but its a playstyle some people enjoy playing. You cant tell me that those players dont desreve to have fun too.
What's crazy, is that fetch-lands are both the best mana fixing lands AND the best lands against Blood Moon. If fetches did not exist, Blood Moon would shut down colored decks even harder. I'd be scared to even run three colors...
Fetchlands are terrible designs that Wizards has gone on record saying were mistakes, but unfortunately, too much financial value and reprint equity are tied up in them, i.e. can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.
Fetchlands should be banned from modern. Players won't take off turn three to play blood moon against the kinds of decks that would exist after fetchlands are gone (except against tron, where bloodmoon is only marginally good anyway). Fetchlands have a stronger format identity in legacy and commander players will easily buy them up after a banning, so not too much value will be lost.
I was with this until the nonsense about using an opponents cards against them. By that logic counter spells are bad card design since everyone hates having their cards countered. You have to be familiar with a wider array of cards and how a deck operates when using an opponent's card against them. That takes way more skill than just saying NO! with a counter spell.
So…my man made an entire (well explained might I add) video detailing why certain MTG cards/mechs makes him salty lol? THIS is YT is great (and hilarious) my guys lol. This video made me laugh too hard. Brighten my entire day inadvertently lol.
I can’t understand why modern horizons is not the main topic here. WoC basically printed Modern with that collection which makes the format “Legacy like” with free counters for combos.
This Burn slander is for the birds. The thing about competitive formats (I'll just speak to Modern) is that the meta is inherently defined by its most degenerate aspects: decks that flood the board too fast (Yawgmoth), go over the top (big mana), establish tempo too effectively (Murktide), or deal in absurd synergies (Scam). Competitive MtG is not chess: it's a pendulum of the format's most powerful strategies. Within that, you either maximize Strategy X or Y or not: and within that, games can take on a Chess-esque structure. But Burn only seems unfair because it can't be unfairly hated. But that's competitive Magic for you - you're either swinging with a powerful strategy, or not. I'm not a Burn player (although I do play a lot of Obosh), but Burn has good, bad, and 50/50 matchups just like any other competitive deck. That's what makes it "fair."
Where is Companions on the list? All of'em. And Burn is fine. The joke is that Modern players start at 14 life. (Turn 1 Fetch + Shock, turn 2 same thing). If burn ever ran the format players can gain 6 life to start the game by running 1 or 2 colors with less self harm lands.
Exactly. Mana-fixing, especially after the printing of triomes, is absurdly good now. Without cards like Blood Moon decks would effectively be a bunch of 5-color "colorless" decks of the best cards in the format.
Blood moon is needed for modern. I tried getting into modern with a cheap mono white tokens deck and would get stomped on by 5 color domain decks and other money piles. They'd fetch and have full domain by turn 2 and got beat down by kavu's and sion of dracos and there was literally just no chance for me. It's probably the most helpless I've felt in magic and I kinda hate the format as a whole now.
We need more blood moon effects, not less. (We also need cards to be printed with heavier colored-mana requirements. It feels like every pushed card these days as only one pip per mana color in its color identity) It is far too easy to play 4 or 5 color decks these days with next-to-no drawback. And as much as cards like blood moon do to try and combat this in formats where it's legal, frankly it simply isn't enough. This is important because without there being increasingly steep costs associated with adding colors to your deck, color identity matters less and less. Which is hopefully a core enough aspect of the game that i shouldnt need to explain why it is important to maintain. Maybe a blood moon style of card is too "swingy", in that it tends to either all-but-single-handidly win games, or it does nothing at all. But we _desperately_ are in need of more cards that punish players for just playing WUBRG-anything-goes.
I'm fine with anti-greed/ramp cards, but I think Blood Moon is too over the line. I think designs like Archon of Emeria and Thalia, Heretic Cathar are more appropriate.
@@AmmiO2 the problem with those cards is how minimal their impact can be, and they tend to only really work in aggressive archetypes. furthermore, I dislike the fact that their non-basic land punish effects are inherently asymmetrical. and they both have very low color-cost to boot. in other words, they don't require the person playing them to worry about what their own land base looks like. so they don't do as much as a card like blood moon does to encourage simpler mana bases.
@@nonya_bidness They wouldn't have to specifically be Archon or big Thalia. Rather, I'm saying I like soft locks, taxing effects, and one-off answers more than "game over" Blood Moon style effects.
@@AmmiO2 in 60 card formats, all but the greediest decks can typically just fetch basics in the first couple turns in order to ensure blood moon isn't an instant "game over". yes, this is a powerful effect in its own right. and yes, blood moon will still do some damage even when one fetches basics. but suddenly its merely "powerful", as opposed to "game over". unless one can't play fetchlands, for whatever reason, players that lose to blood moon really have nobody to blame but themselves. I say all this as someone that played into bloodmoon regularly, and as someone who played with bloodmoon for years in the early modern format. and let me tell you, when you spend the first 2 turns playing snow-covered mountains, and your opponent decides to fetch 2 shock lands... it becomes very difficult to sympathize when they lose to the turn 3 moon.
Im sorry. But youre just flat wrong about ultimates. Ultimates are FUN. "Extraneous text" is also completely wrong. Just because the text isnt relevant most of the time doesnt mean the card shouldnt have it. Niche interactions are what this game is built on. Scrambleverse is an incredibly fun card.
Talking of uninteractable stuff, shroud is balanced because the opponent can't buff the shrouded stuff os it evens out. Hexproof is simply dumb and unfun. Color protection can be balanced. Protection from everything, or worse, protection from the opponent is as dumb as hexproof.
As a Red player i do agree with these arguments, but if you check the leader boards, even though Burn and Bloodmoon decks are in the meta right now, it doesn't consistently win tournaments, why? Because those decks have their own play style and strats, their own good and bad match ups, it's part of the complexity of the game, that's why i like modern. BTW, have you tried mastering Burn? You might be surprised at how complex Burn decks are. Let me put it this way, because the clock of Burn decks are fast, you need to play as efficiently as possible while playing around your opponent's deck. Opening hand is also more important than in control decks since you need to do something on every turn because of how fast the clock is.
Interesting Take, question, what is YOUR preferred cards to deal with things that Blood Moon "Answers", if you got your desires to either write out Blood Moon or errata it? Are you going to suggest "Dingus Egg?" As a serious contenter?
Idea for blood moon When blood moon enters the battlefield, each player chooses a basic land type. Nonbasic lands are the type chosen by their current owner.
13:25 Damage can't be prevented this turn exists because fog exsists. They are forced to respond with fog so it resolves first, or face the next stack of storm/ burn. Stealing things has its place. I think red does it well, where its a one turn thing. Though, I think I prefer goad over theft. Now I haven't played modern. I almost exclusively play commander with a tad bit of arena for when I want to feel like a villian. But I built an edh burn deck that was incredibly fun to play with. I think the biggest problem with burn isn't burn. Burn is actually perfect. In most cases, there is nothinf stopping you from stopping burn. White has damage prevention cards for when the big storm cards are played. Blue can counter them. Green has life gain, and some decent blockers with high toughness. Black struggles as life is a critical tool for black, but it can run hand denial forcing wheels, and with cards like Sheoldred and Orcish Bowmasters thats near impossible (black needs an archetype to put it in its place), and with red vs red, its just a race.
Honestly the Bonecrusher Giant ‘damage can’t be prevented’ thing feels like flavor, the hero of the story cannot survive the Bonecrusher without divine intervention (you) saving them (countering, hexproof, making the hero bigger, etc)
That's unfortunately how it is. Aaron Forsythe gave a great Magic design talk on the Magic cruise many years ago in which he pointed out how, among other things, Worldwake was a well designed set but was mostly remembered for Jace the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic.
Blood Moon is the best card ever printed in Magic, because its the only card single-handedly carrying an entire format on its shoulders. Moon is the sole reason that you don't match up against a 4+ color money pile 15 games in a row in Modern. Blood Moon is the glue holding Modern together, and you are a beneficiary of its existence even if you've never put it in a deck.
It should time itself out so that you have to repay for it atleast. I agree with you/disagree with the video on the principal, it is perfectly find to have hard counter cards that act as deterrents against unintended play routes.
I wouldn't say it's holding the format together but it's definitely keeping away any competitive money pile from tournament play, non basic hate sounds fair as a necessary evil knowing how greedy are mana bases today on any format
There is nothing more satisfying than playing a Blood Moon that turns a bunch of expensive lands into mountains. I play Blood Moon in every deck I can (notable exceptions being refined modern decks).
Just play basics people. The only thing more satisfying than slamming a crippling Moon down is playing around a Blood moon a turn in advance of it coming down.
This
Or- it existing allows wizards to print the insane mana base that allows for 4c money. Chicken, or egg?
7:45, Card draw does not add to variance, it reduces it since you are increasing the sample size of cards you see in a finite deck and therefore increasing your chance of seeing any given card as a factor of how many cards you draw.
If you theoretically drew out your whole deck, you would reach minimum variance because you have perfect access to every card.
I was gonna say somthing akin to this, glad someone else understands this too
Good catch, reminds me of ikoria draft, where you could VERY consistently get to your zenith flares due to every card cycling.
I think a better way of framing that point is “While drawing cards lowers variance, the value of drawing a card is highly variable”. You’re right, the more you draw the less variance you face, but there is a wide range of value one single card can have.
The amount of possible combinations of cards you could draw starts at 1 possibility for 0 cards, then goes up the more cards you draw, then back down to 1 when you've drawn your entire deck. Card draw increases variance most of the time.
Lifegain isn’t the only way to beat burn. The deck struggles to keep going if it runs out of gas, so Inquisition of Kozilek is also really good against it
Against burn, life points are the most important ressource youlhave.
@@nonlamesniper That's true, but lifegain isn't the only way to preserve them. Lifegain essentially just negates one of their bolts, which can also be accomplished by taking it out of their hand before they cast it
This. I'm playing Prowess in standard, and Discard is the most effective tool against decks that want to flood out their entire hand. Losing just a single spell, especially Lightning Helix or Twinferno, can completely change who wins the match when you don't have long term threats or game plans you can invest in later.
I do agree that stax pieces and hate cards are unfun, but I do think that if WoTC continues print ways to do increasingly busted things (specifically with mana, I.e 5 colour piles and the triomes) then it becomes overly difficult to beat those decks without cards like bloodmoon.
For me it’s a situation like; yeah it’s bad, but without it I’d hate this other archetype more.
Exactly my thought process, the card shouldn't be evaluated in a vacuum but in how it effects the metagame at large, and I think generally it has a positive impact regardless of how toxic its base design is
@@proxidize5738 could not agree more. It's regrettable how harsh the effect can be but what is the next best option to keep the meta from ceaselessly devolving into 4c "pushed card" tribal. The cyclical rise and fall of Blue Moon over the years has been a positive for the format.
@@jakewalters3951
Facts
Ammi's opinion on Blood Moon is ass tier lol
This is based and I love it.
As a CEDH player, I want to be able to play with the most busted cards in a healthy and conducive way. If Stax as a whole disappears, the game becomes legit unplayable because it devolves into turn 1/0 nonsense. If Ammi hates slow games, Flash Hulk would be a format they might like only for a while before absolutely finding that obnoxious.
I run a 5 pile with nothing but basic lands and fast mana for that reason.
As someone who mostly plays Yu-Gi-Oh, it's always interesting to see how discussions like this both mirror and diverge from the conversations we have about our card game
Do you have an equivalent video about yugioh you'd recommend? I'd love to see how this discussion goes over there 🙂
@mattdennis6845 see any video ever made talking about floodgates
@@mattdennis6845 there is a video by the duel logs called "Top 10 most toxic cards in YGO" and it showcases most of YGO's problem cards
I've had this conversation with yugioh players before because I find it interesting. Per design we tend to agree that the design of Thalia Guardian of Thraben is better than Jinzo. Goes right along with the Ward being better than hexproof.
We actually agree that the best design flood gates are tax based. But taxing in yugioh isn't as simple as magic. You can have a life tax or something like a discard or tribute tax. Perhaps the most interesting tax we thought up was banishing cards from either extra deck or grave.
The fact “pot of Greed” is banned in Yugioh while magic has cards that can draw numerous cards speaks to how different the two games are
Burn/Red Deck Wins is not poorly designed perse. In fact I would argue more decks should have red's flexibility in that regard. It ALWAYS has something to do. The archetype has no filler or fat. Every card pushes towards its win con either conditionally or directly.
That's great design. The trouble is the game has never seemed to find an identity outside of red thats as good as red at staying in its lane.
You forgot about mill.
Yeah, too great design, which is called "overpowered to absolute shit" in other games.
To me, Blood Moon punishing people for greedily moving away from basics makes perfect sense, as it matches the idea of highly specialized decks coming with great risks. It's been just too easy to have perfect mana of any and all colors in Modern.
The real bad card design was printing the Triomes
He adressed that point in the video, and I think that there are ways to nerf nonbasic lands without locking the game as bad as blood moon does
I can't remember the last time I was more than slightly inconvenienced by Blood Moon. Then again, I do run mostly basics... even in 5c.
Way I see it... if you build a deck that can get blown out by a single card, you haven't done a good job building it.
He literally addresses this idea in the video. Watching before commenting is cool.
@@9forMortalMen Yeah, and a lot of people disagreed with his reasoning due to not having the same value system he does. You should probably have read the comment section before posting a reply.
Blood moon is so not a problem it hurts to see a take like this. If your deck folds to blood moon you got greedy during deck building, get got
wrong, blood moon causes non games.
Playing 3 color decks where you fetch and shock yourself is already a punishment there does not need to be a bloodmoon to "keep that in check" the fact that you bolt yourself already keeps it in check and aggro decks are the decks that punish fetching + shocking yourself as it's even easier to kill you than someone who doesn't.
The broken land cards like Urza's saga should be banned alongside bloodmoon, having bloodmoon legal is just a cancerous card to answer cancerous cards and punish decks that do not need more punishing.
Tell me you are a control player without telling me you are a control player
Mana bases being perfect in modern now due to triomes should carry a lot more weight in this video besides “oh no yorion/omnath goodstuff piles fold to a single blood moon”
You shouldn’t be able to easily play 3+ color decks in any constructed format, but when domain is putting up numbers because there’s no viable land checks in the format, there’s something that needs to be done. Blood moon only locks out decks that prioritize overly greedy mana bases, and is literally a card that does nothing once the player base starts playing more basics in their lists. (Kind of like how you mentioned in the previous video in the series regarding dredge and GY hate.)
I would even go as far as to we need a Moon that costs 2 generic and 2 phyrexian red.
Agreed. It's the triomes and W6 that are the problem. If Wizards don't ban them, I even think that other colors should get moon effects too.
Dude complains about blood moon, but ruination was always a card to punish these that abuse of non-basics in extended. In any format in MTG you should have a way to deal with land basic combos and strategies without putting yourself into a loss.
Especially because one of magics strength are the color identities and restrictions. Fetchland should be banned and not blood moon.
Exactly. There's no such thing as a format where every deck is viable, if you make a bad one, you're going to have times where there's nothing you can do to win against your opponent.
I enjoy the video’s thesis about Wizards trying to move away from non-game mechanics over the years, but I think your argument against burn is wanting. As I see it, you’re basically saying “burn is too powerful because it has no singular card or cards the deck relies on but nevertheless demands interaction due to its damage per turn.”
While these make burn frustrating to combat, I think it’s wholly divorced from the “unfair” decks because of burn’s weaknesses, such as being hard-countered by large blockers, board wipes, life gain, etc. I started playing magic in RTR standard and fought against numerous mill and pack rat decks. As a response, I had to change my deck to adapt more broadly than putting in silver-bullet cards into my deck (though I did that too.)
Burn isn't countered by boardwipes. Its why everybody hates it, no matter how much removal you're running, if it isn't instant speed/counterspells, you'll eventually just die a slow and agonizing death to their topdecked haste crap or bolts. Burn is cancerous as fuck because its pretty much a deck check, either you're playing a turn 3 combo deck, a deck with specific counters to burn, or you lose.
@@MetalHev you’ve exaggerated how bad it is but Burn definitely does tell decks to get their game on by t4 or be burned out. This is semi desirable but I also understand where ammio is coming from.
If your deck insta-folds to blood moon, your mana base is too greedy and you should be paying for it at the table.
That's what I always thought too
this was addressed in the video lmao
I agree, but you have to also think about the player experience. This is an example of the "wasting time" annoying situation discussed in the video. If the idea is that this card punishes people for being too greedy with mana base, then the card should read "kill your opponent if they have more than X number of non-basic land in their deck" or something.
Three mana I win the game is a tad too efficient for modern.
@@9forMortalMen Run basics. It's literally that simple. Run some basics so you don't insta-brick
Not gonna argue about the inherent hateability of some of these cards (tho i agree that stax is unbearable especially in casual settings) but I will say that these problematic and toxic designs are part of what makes magic magic. Its such a deep and conplex game and the only type of game where cards that push the line of whag should be allowed can exist without causing entire formats to crumble. Blood Moon may be annoying and toxic, but in plenty of other games it would take over formats. I hate getting mooned but you can hardly say that it is ruining modern. Magic is really one of the only games where such deviations from what a deck "should do" are both allowed and encouraged and a large part of that lies in these toxic hatable cards.
Yup. It's the only card game that breaks its rules so frequently and so hard. Blood moon and field of the dead are far from common. If you want jund mirrors to be the only type of gameplay go play standard, there's no reason to hate on the things that make the eternal formats of magic actually unique
Very strange take
can't agree with this more. Magic IS the weird designs, quirks and mistakes that have developed over 30 years. If you'd remove those quirks you might end up with a game that is less bad, but also one that is less interesting and fundamentally less fun.
Just so you know, Magic is not the only rotating card game.
@ThePepperskate You can improve the future without altering the past. Something that Yu-Gi-Oh! didn't learn by completely altering some oldschool card effects so that they no longer did what they did in the past. Nobody was suggesting burning all of the old cards or altering them in this way.
The tricky thing with stax effects like Blood Moon is that they're annoying to play against, but also kinda serve as a really important niche in their metagame ecosystems. Blood Moon is probably the best example of that, ironically enough--it's basically Modern's only check to its greedy mana bases, which are heavily enabled by W6. It's basically the only card that stops every deck from splashing for basically any card they want. But because it's a restriction that's so major on the deckbuilding level, it ends up just feeling bad to play against. But still, even if it's annoying, it's basically the sole floodgate stopping an even worse format from happening.
Same with commander as well. If Blood moon and Back to Basics weren't in the format 5 mana commanders wouldn't run a single basic land and run rampant. Land hate are like the natural predators keeping an eco system in check.
I'd actually argue that lands that allow decks to be as greedy as they are are a more toxic design choice than blood moon.
@@souckz I don't think you're wrong, if Moon and Basics didn't exist than I'd 100% agree. I think anything in Magic should be allowed as long as there is a counter or downside to it.
As much as I dislike the fun police (which for Modern is Burn and Blood Moon) I agree that if they're bad in a format, that format is probably too degenerate. For example, it was kind of ridiculous back when 5c Pile was running Abundant Growth and Magus of the Moon.
@@AmmiO2"burn is fun police" serious question: when did you start playing Magic? I'm ambivalent towards burn, and it's barely smarter cousin: mill, but being put on a high tempo clock is the opposite of "fun police"
21:33 I think players fetching basics because there's more effects that hose non-basics in legacy means we should have more Blood Moon effects in modern and that the problem is that it's only for red decks
you're right, we need back to basics in modern. earnestly, too easy mana breaks the color pie restrictions and isn't a healthy directions, the inability to really punish greedy is why boseiju is imo such a terrible design. it doesn't have to be hard to interact with permanents either we can play a version of price of progress more appropriate for modern. examples of bad color breaks yorion 4 color that got to play magus of the moon in the sb.
Actually, we should ban fetchlands in modern. You can't play 5-color-money-pile without consistent 5 colors. They're a core part of the Legacy identity with brainstorm, and commander players still want them, so they won't lose too much value. Modern doesn't need them to be great.
@@Joker22593 absolutely not. One, they are as much a part of moderns identity as legacy. Two, we're pretty far past fetched being THE issue, the mana in modern even without fetches is so good you're just punishing stray decks for the issues of a few offenders. Three, you have pioneer if you want a format without fetches.
As usual you articulate the your positions very well, and I'm in disagreement with a number of them. Blood Moon and Burn slap. Just because a lot of spikes want to play B/G/x mirrors to the end of time because of interaction doesn't mean Midrange "pile of rares and mythics" should be actively pushed as the preferred archetype.
Lots of magic players enjoy different types of decks and while there are obviously limits in terms of both power and physically distorting the game that doesn't inherently invalidate archetypes.
Your comment is very well put. I couldn't agree more, I have the exact same takeaway from this video. Especially the sentiment about mirror matches.
I am in disagreement with almost ALL of them. From every argument I've heard him present, and the examples he even shows on screen, it seems to me he wants the only decks to be fun are Jund Midrange grindfests where each person just tries to out value the other. Blood Moon and Back to Basics literally both keep legacy in check. I'm not seeing the major issues with stax pieces in general. I played Lantern Control in Modern when that was a deck. That was a very slow, long, grindfest that made people question if I enjoyed the game.
This entire video seems to not realize that what keeps this game alive is its cards that others view as "unfun" because ultimately, those are the cards that are punishing players for their deck. As a lands player in legacy do I enjoy being Blood Moon/Sun'd? Nope. Do I respect it everytime and go yeah, sure, gg game two? Yes. Same thing when back to basics is brought in. I'm expecting this. I'm building around it.
All I'm hearing from this video is, Modern no longer has answers to cards of XYZ and I want my Jund 1800$ deck to do better. Even his argument against burn seemed odd and weird.
As someone who wants nothing but midrange and aggro games, id also say blood moon isnt an example of bad design.
Maybe in edh, but certainly not in 60 card formats.
If you lose to moon, you reaaaaally deserve to lose to moon
I very much agree that his bias for card design is whether it's an issue for midrange and control. Chalice of the Void itself is not a problematic design. It becomes a problem for FORMATS when those formats seek to play only the most efficient one and maybe two mana spells. If you're playing a deck that curves, Chalice is completely irrelevant, as it was when the card was in Standard. T3feri, while moderately annoying, is not a major issue for aggro decks and whenever I hear someone complain about that card, it's almost always someone who wants the format to be full of UW control mirrors that go to time every round. Same with Narset. I think she actually punishes the right decks and is a fine enough cards because so many decks ignore her effect. It's when, again, you have UW control mirrors that want to turn the game into a contest to see who can draw the most cards that she becomes an issue. (I've starting adding her to almost all my EDH decks that can support her because she tends to keep the game in check while she's out there, actually makes people play more fair. She isn't hard to remove so she doesn't ruin the game but while she's out there, she prevents people from going hog wild.)
Blood Moon is one of the best cards in Modern.
5 color decks are wrecking everything in my local.
In fact they should print 1 for every color.
This video turned out to be a lot more polarizing than I anticipated. A lot of detractor comments brought up good points and even those who disagreed mostly kept things civil. Keep the feedback coming.
i would now like to see a "platonic ideal of MTG"...not a video on "fair" magic...but a video that outline what "could" satisfy timmy, johnny, and spike without catering to any of them specifically
you propose an impossible video there is no such game
This is death and taxes lol
he only wants to play jund mirrors we lost him
See that's what we call formats and ban lists :D
The "ideal" version of Magic can't really exist because the most exciting cards for one demographic piss off other demographics the most. Add the fact that almost all of the really exciting cards are mistakes that turned out way more powerful than ever intended and you'd have to completely sand off that excitement aswell. But that would essentially only leave you with boring, milktoast designs.
Totally agree with you about Eidolon, but disagree about Blood Moon. Basic lands are the heart and soul of magic, why shouldn't there be a punishment for overextending away from that?
imho playing more colors should come at a price of speed/consistency rather than being unable to play at all.
fetchlands finding untapped duals are what's broken and makes blood moon effects a sort of necessity for eternal format balance
@@selkokieli843 If you build a 2 or 3-colour deck it is very easy to include enough basic lands to play the deck consistently and still be safe from Blood Moon. The problem is that players are much too greedy with their mana bases and want to play even more colours than that - even with the existence of Bloodmoon. Non-basic lands are too efficient and we actually need more ways to punish them.
I agree that playing more colours should come at the cost of speed (not consistency because why would you want your opponents deck to sometimes do nothing in a game. That isn't fun.) but currently the lands in many formats are much too efficient and so more cards need to be printed to answer them. Blood Moon is a good card in the formats it exists in.
I enjoyed your video and appreciate the well explained points you have. This video and the companion to it taken as a whole though, it almost seems that you are complaining about playing against or piloting anything that isn't Jund midrange. I'm not sure you mean to come off this way, but I wanted to mention this. You do an excellent job of going through many annoying parts of a number of decks.
Another thing, your take about blood moon is a bit odd. If anything the problem is that there isn't more nonbasic hate, e.g. wasteland.
Blood Moon is one of modern's few ways to actually enforce the color pie by answering the power of many-color piles. It doesn't even do that good of a job of it at that, since many of the best decks are 3+ color even so. Getting locked under a bloodmoon and never casting a spell isn't a game design problem, it is a problem of the deck builder bringing a deck which poorly matched in the meta formed by the competitors present. I understand that your counter point about "What do 4c players do? Just not play 4c?" My response is yes, the color pie deserves more respect in deck choice. I also think that the comparison about that 2c hose is unfair here. That card is an "or" meaning that mono color decks also get hit by it. Blood moon gets worse with the fewer colors it is matched against, where as Lifebane Zombie may be a viable choice against all decks in a meta containing green or white.
Playing four or five colors in modern simply isn’t such an unfair strategy that a 3 mana “I win the game against you” enchantment isn’t justified. Against Titan or Tron? Sure. Punishment can exist, but it shouldn’t be this high variance with such an absurd ceiling AND such a low floor. That’s the other problem with moon, remember when Yorion piles were on abundant growth and literally didn’t care about moon and ran it themselves? The card sometimes does nothing into multicolored decks occasionally. Wasteland is a better design if we want color hate.
@@9forMortalMen I agree that Wasteland would be better. I would welcome it getting shifted into the format with MH3. I also agree on the point that Moon doesn't necessarily kill a multicolor pile. What moon actually does is force the respect for basic lands. It isn't that player can't play 3c or 4c in the face of moon. It is just that player needs to be careful about the pip count in their mana costs and put basics in their deck. I know that what I am saying here is a bit different than my points above, but I do think that if a deck folds to blood moon easily, it is a deck construction problem. If a deck requires many duals and triomes to function, then the pilot of the deck should understand that blood moon is a silver bullet to their mana. I wouldn't get tilted because a silver bullet exists. It would be like complaining about Pithing Needle. The world is a better place because Pithing Needle is in it.
all i'm gonna say is blood moon is a good balancing card that fills a specific and necessary role.
Burn is the most fair aggro deck in modern and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar.
Personally i like that there is hate cards, it forces one to build around it. For example shroud is an amazing mechanic. it is symetric and forces creative deckbuilding and creative game play. Maybe what is needed is cards that dissenchant effects. A card that nullifies other effects.
While i agree that hate cards are good in general, the idea of "building around" the good ones doesn't exist for some matchups. His big example of blood moon vs land decks. If I'm on tron, I can't "build around" blood moon. I either draw the answer or don't play the game.
@@apoiio Putting those answers in your deck is definitionally "building around" it.
@SymmetricalDocking I guess I wouldn't consider slotting 2 or 4 cards in a sideboard as building around it. More like having a plan that operates around the hate piece.
As a longtime Burn player, I disagree with the assessment on Eidolon. It’s a symmetrical effect that also punishes the Burn player for going all out if it get played too early. And it can be answered with plenty of cheap removal spells (Push, Bolt, Prismatic Ending, Path, etc.), but there are even more expensive spells that also remove it, like you said in the video. I do agree with the awkward sideboard problem though, it sucks to have to waste sideboard slots on life gain.
This was just an overly long way of crying "But it dies to removal!" Lmao good argument. /s 🙄
The perception of the various strategies has changed over time, with Wotc pivoting to address those preferences, the community believing stax to be bad for the game typically don't have a firm enough basis in the games history to lead informed discussion regarding the various archetypes.
Players who are deeply invested in the eternal formats often play through degenerate decks by choice. Veterans who were around prior to the Strip Mine ban in 1996 recall a time when Pox was a t1 strategy with glee, when sticking a Knight of Stromgald and following up with Strip Mine or Hymn to Tourach was enough to close out games. Are they wrong for playing in that environment? Is their idea of fun less relevant than the majorities?
The majority of the community has been playing the game for less than two years, 80% of the overall community plays only casually, 70% of the community only plays commander and yet the same majority is inclined to have opinions about what "Good" design is and what "Bad" design is. This same majority that doesn't know what a planeswalker is.
The issue threatening formats outside of Commander, is Commander and the insistence on designing the game around an inherently broken format. Additionally, Wotc changing their design philosophy to cater to the casual community is not good design, it's good for business.
Especially in modern playing around bloodmoon with your fetches is important, going slower in order to be able to play is a decision.
While Delve in general can be fair I don't think there's any version of Hogak's design that isn't either unplayable or broken. He encourages an uninterattractive game plan that turbos him out as quickly as possible.
Agree. I don't think there's anyway you can fairly cost that card and make it reasonable. The "play from your graveyard" clause has to be removed to make the card ok and that drastically changes the way it works.
7:09 "chess is boring because theres no randomness" LMAO bad take
Chess took a stray hit LMAO. Absolutely abominable take
The whole video is bad takes honestly
@@iduumb3062 not necessarily bad, just takes from the perspective of the stereotypical "spike" player who want to play control or Midrange mirrors all day.
@@jakewalters3951 The video basically boils down to "anything that isn't a completely fair strategy is bad". If we do anything outside of fair costed creatures and interaction then apparently that's bad. Well, that's not magic. Doing unfair things and building around cards that force opponents to have specific answers is a big part of magic. I think the only part I truly agreed with was planeswalker loyalty numbers, but even the rest of the planeswalker discussion I disagree with.
I think you're totally justified in hating Moon (it can be very annoying to run into) but the argument of "What is a greedy mana deck supposed to do against Blood Moon, thats just how its built" is a pretty weak one. Multicolor decks have a lot of advantages afforded to them with access to other colors and strategies; the deck having an Achilles Heel is not a bad thing, it's balance. Having greedy and multicolor lands go completely unchecked would be bad for Modern as 4/5 color decks are still dominant in the format in spite of Moon being a popular answer to them. Running Moon can also have a very big drawback as its a near dead card against some of the most popular decks in the format like Burn and Izzet. I get the card not being fun but personally I find it even more unfun when my opponent is able to effortlessly play every color in the game with no real drawbacks
Although I will say I still really enjoyed the video, keep it up!
While I agree with some of the takes in the video, I find the overall approach somewhat distasteful. On the one hand, not every single deck NEEDS to be a Jund-esque fair mix of cheap/midrange threats and answers. On the other hand, I'd argue some cards ARE supposed to feel frustrating at least to some extent. Frustration CAN be part of a game, at least as long as it's not wholly unbalanced or incur in other problems (such as, say, taking too long to win for face-to-face tournaments etc).
Also, it's kinda weird that, on the one hand, this video seems to hate on soft locks, and on the other hand it seems to hate on "unanswerable finishers" like PW ultimates and strong uninteractive creatures. For example, while I CAN agree that cheap hexproof creatures can be seen as an issue (despite my love for Bogles), cards like Chromium or Sphinx of the Last Word are absolutely fine. You shouldn't ask yourself "gods, why can't I interact with those". Your goal is to beat the opponent BEFORE they deploy such devastating threats. These such cards are especially crucial to have in a meta for control vs control matchup - without those, such matchups could go on for seemingly forever, which is bad for reasons you touched upon.
And as for burn... I can SORT of see the point in some Standard environments, but in eternal formats Burn is not as problematic as you suggest. On the one hand, it's not true that you NEED lifegain to hose burn decks - aside from Chalice of the Void, Leyline of Sanctity, anti-red hate and other cards can slow down (even if not straight-up hose) burn to the point where you can prevail. On the other hand, older formats have access to quality lifegain cards that do more than just, well, gaining you life, which can be good against more than just Burn.
Remember kids, if your deck cant beat burn, its not viable.
Its the most honest deck in Modern, and the more prevalent it is, the healthier the format.
Also, Eidolon is just a red Chalice thats easier to remove and more flexible to play around.
Modern isnt the only format either, so a lot of these gripes dont even really apply.
this guy really just named like every deck type
Me personally, I LOVE Blood Moon. I think it’s a fun, 3 mana, sorcery speed card that creates the best reactions from players. 🙃 But I will agree that Eidolon is goofy.
Your argument against Blood Moon makes NO SENSE. "This is a how their decks are build." NO, IT'S NOT.
It was THEIR CHOICE to play 5c and bring the best stuff of every color, you play more color you are already at a MASSIVE advantage in resources available. If anything Modern needs is MORE Blood Moon type of effects. Ruination, Price of Progress and Back to Basics should have been printed in Modern looooong ago.
Way too many "absolute" statements that are ignoring the designed role of the cards.
Karn is designed to go over the top of control strategies. If you go to 7 manas to drop him, you are entitled to victory.
You also assume that a game should last forever. Some cards are printed so the game ends in a timely manner. Tournaments where everybody had to wait because some players went to additional turns every round. (Not only in constructed (KCI) but also in limited and casual. Some prereleases in my LGS had the majority of players ending with one game played or 1-1 with no time for the third in Dominaria)
You quote Chapin, yet you fail to realize that 'there are no bad threats, only bad answers'. Complaining about eidolon in modern burn or blood moon seem very strange when you actually miss cards that were hated and banned on the randomness part. Aetherwork Marvel was much more an issue than CoCo, and CoCo wasn't banned, Reflector Mage was.
The chess opinion strongly sounds like someone who doesn't play chess, i would be very surprised to learn that you play chess if you do.
Not only have I played Chess, I took group Chess classes when I was younger, competed, and won Chess tournaments.
To put it in MTG terms, Chess feels like a format where there's only 1 deck, no new cards are printed, and the games never change.
@@AmmiO2 Like i said i am very surprised. i also play chess, and compete in tournaments and played on my highschool chess team, so there's no need to put in mtg terms.
i am then confused by the opinion presented that "less skilled players will never beat better players" Both as a statement of fact, and also that the video seems to present that as undesirable?
in your play you've certainly lost to people worse than you and beaten people better than you, thats why we play the games out.
To address the reply directly, i don't usually compare mtg to chess, but I think the analogy isn't great. I'd argue openings are like decks (both on a strategic level, and with regard to matchups). New cards are both novelties discovered by high level players, and new information obtained from your lessons. learning the importance of bishop color in rook pawn endgames is a lot like adding a new card to my deck that will help in some matchups. The game absolutely changes as you improve. Not in the same way as magic (which is why i hesitate to compare the two) but if you compare how a 1000 and 2000 talk about the game you'd think they were playing different games.
"Chess is boring..." It's funny how when someone is bad at chess, they always try to delegitimize the game rather than admit to their shortcomings.
The only issue I take with the burn argument is that all top performing burn decks have cut all copies of eidolon so the argument that it’s the best card in the deck is flat at wrong as it is not in the deck anymore
You're definitely off on blood moon.
Blood moon is a known quantity. If your deck is indirectly hosed by blood moon because you didn't pack enough basics, your deck is at fault, not the card.
The value that the moon existing adds to a format keeping greedy mana bases and degenerate land combos in check far outweighs the price of dedicating 5-10 slots of your manabase to basics.
And most decks can pack answers to the moon. At instant speed too letting them combo off next turn. Meaning it generally only buys time for you to win, it does not win the game itself
Yeah, thank god for Modern Horizons adding all those free spells to the format so Eidolon can now finally be efficiently answered. I do find it weird that you would leave out something like cheating on mana and bypassing the turn cycles.
I'd rather be burnt out by Eidolon or locked out by Blood Moon over being combo'd out by Titan on turn 2.
Leyline binding and solitude are also clean answers for eidolon.
People even consider cutting it or relegating it to the sideboard.
Those mana bases are out of control though, decks can do anything basically, there's very little color pie limitations anymore.
Blood Moon is great and I would even say there should be more cards like it. The color pie is the most important aspect of Magic's design. There should be a real cost to running a 4-5 color deck or else the meta ends up with too many "good stuff" decks that are all extremely similar.
In the early days of the game the cost of playing 4+ colors was getting color screwed but with fetches plus shocks and triomes that cost simply is not there in Modern any more. Sure, color screw still happens sometimes but even mono-color decks get land screwed occasionally, it's not enough of a reason to not play 4+ colors. Blood Moon makes it so that there is a real cost to playing these decks again.
What is actually does is cause red to be a required color but only when 4 color decks are popular. Even Omnath decks could be running moon and fetching basics.
@@Joker22593 That's why there should be more cards like it. Each color should have a way to punish greedy mana bases. The only similar effect in another color is Back to Basics, which is not legal in Modern but should be.
Blood Moon is so fair and so easy to play around in nearly any deck, that I was surprised when "Void Moon {C}{2} All non-basic lands are wastes" wasn't printed in eldritch moon.
This video series really goes to show you editing skills and gameplay opinions are not a fruitful venn diagram.
Love blood moon. Its a built in limiter complained about by players who don't compensate for it.
Playing more colors was always ment to be more difficult and blood moon enforces this.
fetching + shocking yourself is already a high enough cost there does not need to be bloodmoon in the format, and for the other broken lands just ban them
Very odd to make a video about bad card design and then talk about the MH2 evoke elementals exclusively in positive terms
I can't agree with your argument against burn. I think there are many other ways to defeat burn than just lifegain. Leyline of Sanctity makes the game almost unplayable for the burn player, its the same level as blood moon and there isn't really anything that can be done about it other than just hoping you draw all your creatures, which most lists have been cutting eidilon because of all the easy ways to remove it like you said. Lightning bolt is a very common answer and I think its very fine against it, Sure if you don't have removal it gets out of hand, but that also goes for almost any 1 or 2 CMC creatures in the format such as Thalia, Ragavan, Esper Sentinal, Dauthi Voidwalker, Tarmogoyf, Puresteel Paladin, Stoneforge Mystic. I think burn is currently completely fine and many decks have options that make them live against burn. Countermagic is loaded in many of these formats and that is a way to live against it. I think a lot of the frustrations you bring up about eidolon are similar for other creatures, what is the difference between using stoneforge to cheat in a Kaldra compleat and most of the time on the spot winning? There are many games where threats need immediate answers and I think that in itself should be the issue, not in the lack of removal.
I still get flashbacks to the days when i played grixis shadow and my opponent would go land, simian spirit guide, chalice on 1 on the play.
I personally think it’s beautiful that burn as a deck can exist in every eternal format. It’s generally a cheaper buy in, and allows people to hit the ground running without completely breaking the bank. I do also see your side, and have been frustrated losing to a quick and efficient mono red deck many times before.
The name of this video should have been Bad Arbitrary Personal Opinions
One of the reasons I love the state of Pauper right now is because it's currently the best format for burn
Pauper is such a great format, but I'm disappointed by the lack of cards printed for it. It seems like only Masters sets introduce new cards to the format unless a mechanic like Venture Into is printed. A pauper set would be fantastic to see and make for a really fun limited environment.
@@Vesdus they could maybe print some starter decks or something but I doubt it would ever be profitable for wotc to make a pauper set proper
I think a big aspect of modern it you’re a super linear deck (I.e dredge, living end, etc.) is the metagame you play with your opponent. Your entire sideboard is dedicated to stopping their graveyard hate so you have to gamble on what they are most likely using to hose you. Do I bring in my force of vigor for chalice of the void, or do I need subtlety for the Dauthi Voidwalker?
You say bad, but then front and center you posted the most fair card of them all. I'm sorry you can't just windmill slam every card to make five color goodstuff midrange every game. If you expect to be greedy beyond two colors, you should expect to suffer. If anything, there should be more moon effects.
I think you're missing the big cost of planeswalkers... Creatures can remove them. Imagine you play, say, a Teferi, Master of time, comes in with 3 loyalty, quickly up to 5, and you have a single blocker up. Opponent has 5 mana, and can choose between playing a big threat to the board, attacking your Teferi and leaving your life total up a bit, or using Lithomantic Barrage to blow Teferi open, and then hitting you with their creatures, holding up interaction. That's a significant, fun choice.
I find your three reasons for why Blood Moon is good more compelling than "but it forces certain decks to run removal for it." That's part of the back and forth of Magic and it starts in the deckbuilding phase. People playing Tron should accept Hate cards as part of their deckbuilding.
Especially when you say that alpine moon, field of ruin, and ghost quarter just aren't good enough and follow it up by saying that one reason is people run more basics in formats other than modern. Maybe it's time to run more basics in Modern and less Good Stuff piles? Probably not since every top deck except burn is one that blood moon would theoretically hose and they still persist at the top of the meta due to the obscene power of fetchlands.
Part of why WotC thinks that hexproof or protection are okay is because of their rare land economy and promoting the ease of splashing.
"Just buy lots of rare lands and splash black for edicts or board wipes"
That's why they think it's okay for Blood Moon. How else would you even interact with the Hexproof lotus field otherwise?
Also fantastic discussion on Planeswalkers! I think 10% is conservative, even. There are slightly lower tier and rogue decks that still use other PW's. It's a good bet that any new Planeswalker in any of the recent sets is far more powerful than equivalent cards in its set, and their prices usually only rise. They can raise decks an entire tier by themselves through pure value.
I absolutely share your hatred of Burn. Unlike blood moon it creates a vast play/draw difference in winrate and many non-game losses **even when** you draw your counters to it.
This man just wants mono green creature decks
I disagree with you on blood moon. If you run more than 2 colours the trade off for that should be that your manna base is far less consistent. And u should be prepared for something like blood moon.
You shouldn't have access to the whole colour pie that easily
wrong no one should be forced to "prepare for bloodmoon" you dip****
I, as many other players in the comment section have also said, love blood moon. And to me personally it doesn't feel like as stonewally of a stax piece. The strategy that it shuts down isn't one that particularly desirable; that being four/five colour money piles. With how ridiculously good manabases have become with triomes, I feel like we need more cards like blood moon not less. Maybe we one in another colour? Idk
I think Blood Moon, while incredibly oppressive, is balanced by the fact that it is symmetrical, which also forces you into very restrictive deckbuilding. The reason why Moon isn't hated as much as 3feri or Narset or Karn is that those aren't symmetrical.
Personally, asymetrical Stax pieces are a MUCH bigger issue than symmetrical ones like the ones you mentioned, because symmetrical Stax also forces you to sacrifice something in deckbuilding (usually), while something like 3feri or Narset or as a more recent example, Sheoldred the Apocalypse and Elesh Norn Mommy, you can just play those without cost in deckbuilding. You get to hose your opponent at no cost, that should not be a thing.
On this topic, one thing I REALLY hate in modern design are cards that are already good but also provide hate to certain things; Migloz didn't need to have a disenchant ON TOP of being a 3 mana 4/4, Trespasser and Dennick didn't need GY hate or lifegain ON TOP of being good creatures. They make every strategy that isn't Midrange valuepiles obsolete because Midrange decks now get to out every deck at 0 deckbuilding cost while not conceding ground to aggro or control. Hatepieces should come at a cost.
Skipped straight to the Blood Moon section just to hear that it was Modern specific, which like yeah. It looks really bad. I'd argue Chalice is a meaner card in Legacy thanks to the wide range of great 1mv spells, and the waning popularity of mainboard artifact hate.
I love Blood Moon more than anything in the world and would be sad if it didn't exist, but I don't mind non-games as much as the next guy and it makes total sense it's disliked
Also if anything his arguments seem to benefit printing more nonbasic land hate into modern as much as it does banning blood moon after all the issue with blood moon is that it is a rare enough sight you don't really prep for it. You might only have A sigular basic in which case mono red prison is often a non game if you're playing a 3 or 4 color decks. It becomes more common due to more places to fit it besides mono red prison and b/r murktide and well people will start running more basics which makes blood moon less of a problem and it becomes harder to impossible to run 4 color good stuff piles
I don't agree with this idea that half of this list is 'bad' design, even if some cards feel bad to play against. Stax cards are very important to the longevity of the game; look at Thalia, a card that forces greedy spell decks to slow down, or meekstone, a card that stops aggro from taking a clean win.
What you're proposing would mean fewer answers and less diverse options.
9:13 three fairies
i wasnt watching the screen so when i heard that i wondered why getting a basic land untapped would win the game
but then i realized im thinking of Three Visits... lol
I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how blood moon punishes the same decks it always does, and that we’re lucky to have it to keep these decks in check, and I have to wonder if people like this have ever actually seen modern as a format. blood moon doesn’t dissuade people from playing titan, elementals, saga decks, rhinos, or any other number of decks that either do or could get hosed by bmoon. as it turns out, suddenly losing to a card in only 10% of decks according to mtgtop8 doesn’t suddenly mean that the decks are bad, just that games between bmoon decks and bmoon vulnerable decks are extremely sacky and are often complete non-games. I cant help but be reminded of cards like maxx c or formats like current kashtira or pandemic format in yugioh, where games often devolved into “did you draw your targeted hate card? if you did, did they draw the out?” as essentially the only questions players would ask each other in game. I can’t believe you could look at the impact a card like blood moon has and go “this is good for the format” when it doesn’t tangibly change deckbuilding choices but it does tanglibly change the interactivity and fun of games
Man, Blood moon is obly the most important card printed. It is amazing and simples design and punishes exactly what it supposed to, in modern magic it keeps basic lands relevant, the cheap power we get feom lands now is insane and there is no risk besides blood moon to it. Going triple or more colors in a deck means you get bigger pool of staples and your deck is more good stuff, blood moon punishes that, it has to be punishable otherwise people just play same 5c good stuff decks like early 2021. If anything they should releace 2mana blood moon
If we aren't going to get good land destruction then Blood Moon is an absolute necessity. Your hatred of this card is unfounded I think
Blood moon is the budget answer to pay to win man bases.
Easy 4-5 color mana bases may be a problem, but the solution isn't locking one player out of the game. The cure is worse than the disease.
If you were to remove all the things you consider to be bad design then i think you would be left with a very boring game, but not in the same way that chess is boring. Instead the game would be boring in the way that nascar is boring.
This video really just feels like you dont like these cards so they're bad designs
I think the fact that Wotc decided 30 years ago that only blue should have counterspells was a big mistake.
Force of Will should have been a red card: sacrificing card advantage for tempo should be a red effect, not blue. It's only blue becauer wotc arbitrarily decided that only their favorite color (at the time) should be allowed to interact with the stack.
Mana leak should have been a white spell because taxes is a white mechanic.
I could go on forever with this but you get the point. Interacting with the stack should be like drawing cards: an integral part of the game that every colour has access to. I think if they had not so obviously had a favourite colour in the 90s, the game would be much better right now.
Also, the cross-over sets are the cringiest thing on earth and I can't believe they printed The One Ring without cringing to death.
listing stax as a bad design is one of the most casual player mind sets ive ever heard considering how stax is seen as healthy for the game since it stops problematic decks from just taking over entire formats as often
there are a lot of problems i have with this video
Ultimately Stax is only good in a competitive format, and the vast majority of players ARE casual. Whether it's modern or EDH, most casual players don't want to play against stax not because it hoses their decks, but because they came to play, not necessarily win. And on top of that it's a waste of everyone's time, which is frankly disrespectful unless they agreed to play against it.
@@Metrosoda if you enter a modern fnm/tournament you have agreed to plsy against any deck your opponent may be playing. I understand people dont like it but its a playstyle some people enjoy playing. You cant tell me that those players dont desreve to have fun too.
What's crazy, is that fetch-lands are both the best mana fixing lands AND the best lands against Blood Moon.
If fetches did not exist, Blood Moon would shut down colored decks even harder. I'd be scared to even run three colors...
Fetchlands are terrible designs that Wizards has gone on record saying were mistakes, but unfortunately, too much financial value and reprint equity are tied up in them, i.e. can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.
Fetchlands should be banned from modern. Players won't take off turn three to play blood moon against the kinds of decks that would exist after fetchlands are gone (except against tron, where bloodmoon is only marginally good anyway). Fetchlands have a stronger format identity in legacy and commander players will easily buy them up after a banning, so not too much value will be lost.
I was with this until the nonsense about using an opponents cards against them.
By that logic counter spells are bad card design since everyone hates having their cards countered.
You have to be familiar with a wider array of cards and how a deck operates when using an opponent's card against them.
That takes way more skill than just saying NO! with a counter spell.
Calling chess boring is certainly an interesting take
So…my man made an entire (well explained might I add) video detailing why certain MTG cards/mechs makes him salty lol? THIS is YT is great (and hilarious) my guys lol. This video made me laugh too hard. Brighten my entire day inadvertently lol.
I can’t understand why modern horizons is not the main topic here. WoC basically printed Modern with that collection which makes the format “Legacy like” with free counters for combos.
"Stax and hate are unfun"
Casual scrub giving their opinion lol
This Burn slander is for the birds. The thing about competitive formats (I'll just speak to Modern) is that the meta is inherently defined by its most degenerate aspects: decks that flood the board too fast (Yawgmoth), go over the top (big mana), establish tempo too effectively (Murktide), or deal in absurd synergies (Scam). Competitive MtG is not chess: it's a pendulum of the format's most powerful strategies. Within that, you either maximize Strategy X or Y or not: and within that, games can take on a Chess-esque structure. But Burn only seems unfair because it can't be unfairly hated. But that's competitive Magic for you - you're either swinging with a powerful strategy, or not. I'm not a Burn player (although I do play a lot of Obosh), but Burn has good, bad, and 50/50 matchups just like any other competitive deck. That's what makes it "fair."
Where is Companions on the list? All of'em.
And Burn is fine. The joke is that Modern players start at 14 life. (Turn 1 Fetch + Shock, turn 2 same thing). If burn ever ran the format players can gain 6 life to start the game by running 1 or 2 colors with less self harm lands.
I didn't include mechanics. In other news, the Professor just released a Worst Mechanics video
no blood moon in modern means every deck is a 5 color pile
Exactly. Mana-fixing, especially after the printing of triomes, is absurdly good now. Without cards like Blood Moon decks would effectively be a bunch of 5-color "colorless" decks of the best cards in the format.
Blood moon is needed for modern. I tried getting into modern with a cheap mono white tokens deck and would get stomped on by 5 color domain decks and other money piles. They'd fetch and have full domain by turn 2 and got beat down by kavu's and sion of dracos and there was literally just no chance for me. It's probably the most helpless I've felt in magic and I kinda hate the format as a whole now.
We need more blood moon effects, not less.
(We also need cards to be printed with heavier colored-mana requirements. It feels like every pushed card these days as only one pip per mana color in its color identity)
It is far too easy to play 4 or 5 color decks these days with next-to-no drawback. And as much as cards like blood moon do to try and combat this in formats where it's legal, frankly it simply isn't enough.
This is important because without there being increasingly steep costs associated with adding colors to your deck, color identity matters less and less. Which is hopefully a core enough aspect of the game that i shouldnt need to explain why it is important to maintain.
Maybe a blood moon style of card is too "swingy", in that it tends to either all-but-single-handidly win games, or it does nothing at all. But we _desperately_ are in need of more cards that punish players for just playing WUBRG-anything-goes.
I'm fine with anti-greed/ramp cards, but I think Blood Moon is too over the line. I think designs like Archon of Emeria and Thalia, Heretic Cathar are more appropriate.
@@AmmiO2 the problem with those cards is how minimal their impact can be, and they tend to only really work in aggressive archetypes.
furthermore, I dislike the fact that their non-basic land punish effects are inherently asymmetrical. and they both have very low color-cost to boot.
in other words, they don't require the person playing them to worry about what their own land base looks like. so they don't do as much as a card like blood moon does to encourage simpler mana bases.
@@nonya_bidness They wouldn't have to specifically be Archon or big Thalia. Rather, I'm saying I like soft locks, taxing effects, and one-off answers more than "game over" Blood Moon style effects.
@@AmmiO2 in 60 card formats, all but the greediest decks can typically just fetch basics in the first couple turns in order to ensure blood moon isn't an instant "game over".
yes, this is a powerful effect in its own right. and yes, blood moon will still do some damage even when one fetches basics. but suddenly its merely "powerful", as opposed to "game over".
unless one can't play fetchlands, for whatever reason, players that lose to blood moon really have nobody to blame but themselves.
I say all this as someone that played into bloodmoon regularly, and as someone who played with bloodmoon for years in the early modern format.
and let me tell you, when you spend the first 2 turns playing snow-covered mountains, and your opponent decides to fetch 2 shock lands... it becomes very difficult to sympathize when they lose to the turn 3 moon.
Im sorry. But youre just flat wrong about ultimates. Ultimates are FUN.
"Extraneous text" is also completely wrong. Just because the text isnt relevant most of the time doesnt mean the card shouldnt have it. Niche interactions are what this game is built on.
Scrambleverse is an incredibly fun card.
Talking of uninteractable stuff, shroud is balanced because the opponent can't buff the shrouded stuff os it evens out. Hexproof is simply dumb and unfun. Color protection can be balanced. Protection from everything, or worse, protection from the opponent is as dumb as hexproof.
As a Red player i do agree with these arguments, but if you check the leader boards, even though Burn and Bloodmoon decks are in the meta right now, it doesn't consistently win tournaments, why? Because those decks have their own play style and strats, their own good and bad match ups, it's part of the complexity of the game, that's why i like modern. BTW, have you tried mastering Burn? You might be surprised at how complex Burn decks are. Let me put it this way, because the clock of Burn decks are fast, you need to play as efficiently as possible while playing around your opponent's deck. Opening hand is also more important than in control decks since you need to do something on every turn because of how fast the clock is.
It's funny to use Kiora as an example of a balanced planeswalker but as someone who plays GDevotion, I've heard so many people call for her banning
the problem with kiora is that basically no clean answer for her exists in pioneer, but thats more of a problem with pioneer design than it is kiora's
from this video it feels like magic players hate everything
The gist is that it's better to encourage or discourage certain interactions than to outright shut them out.
Interesting Take, question, what is YOUR preferred cards to deal with things that Blood Moon "Answers", if you got your desires to either write out Blood Moon or errata it?
Are you going to suggest "Dingus Egg?" As a serious contenter?
Idea for blood moon
When blood moon enters the battlefield, each player chooses a basic land type. Nonbasic lands are the type chosen by their current owner.
That would be a much better design; I like it.
13:25 Damage can't be prevented this turn exists because fog exsists. They are forced to respond with fog so it resolves first, or face the next stack of storm/ burn.
Stealing things has its place. I think red does it well, where its a one turn thing. Though, I think I prefer goad over theft.
Now I haven't played modern. I almost exclusively play commander with a tad bit of arena for when I want to feel like a villian.
But I built an edh burn deck that was incredibly fun to play with.
I think the biggest problem with burn isn't burn. Burn is actually perfect. In most cases, there is nothinf stopping you from stopping burn. White has damage prevention cards for when the big storm cards are played. Blue can counter them. Green has life gain, and some decent blockers with high toughness. Black struggles as life is a critical tool for black, but it can run hand denial forcing wheels, and with cards like Sheoldred and Orcish Bowmasters thats near impossible (black needs an archetype to put it in its place), and with red vs red, its just a race.
"Blood Moon" is anything but a bad design.
I don't think I've ever seen anybody hate on burn so much lol. Good video regardless.
Honestly the Bonecrusher Giant ‘damage can’t be prevented’ thing feels like flavor, the hero of the story cannot survive the Bonecrusher without divine intervention (you) saving them (countering, hexproof, making the hero bigger, etc)
" not decided by majority of good design, but poor outliers"
Sad when people focus on few bad things and ignore the good 😭
That's unfortunately how it is. Aaron Forsythe gave a great Magic design talk on the Magic cruise many years ago in which he pointed out how, among other things, Worldwake was a well designed set but was mostly remembered for Jace the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic.
7:03 “Chess is boring” ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
It’s ok to have opinions but I heavily disagree with almost everything said in this video
Kind of funny that "chess is boring because it's not random" is one of the less hot takes in this video.
This was a very good video, keep up the good work
I disagree about the theft effect. They are so inneficient that it's irelevant