Thoughts on the Ban List Update
It's a mere 12 hours to the ban list update for 3rd February 2014. Modern is a format I am deeply in love with, and as a player who's been playing Modern since its inception in 2011, I couldn't be more happy to see the format growing, and evolving into the state it is currently is: deep, fun and vibrant.
Without repeating what plenty of other writers and pros have been saying regarding the ban list being a tool to introduce new vibrancy into what is essential an eternal format, I think there is a good chance that a ban list change would happen tomorrow to shake up the format prior to Pro Tour Born of the Gods (21 - 23 February). What may be unbanned or banned may be a topic of rife discussion, but I think we may have a consensus that Born of the Gods is an underwhelming set, and is unlikely to inject much new blood into the Modern format. Hence the need for a ban list change.
The easy one out first. I think it is highly unlikely that Birthing Pod would get the banhammer. It is a powerful engine card, but it fits the criteria for what WotC deems legit to do in Modern. It does not hamper diversity in the format, and indeed its presence allows for the existence of 2 extra midrange archetypes, if you consider Kiki-Pod and Melira-Pod to be distinct enough so as to be considered separate species.
I am not confident that Bitterblossom will get out of jail. Yes, Lingering Souls is already seeing play, but I think that is a pale comparison (they are spirits compared to faeries, get it? All right lame pun). Lingering Souls is an awesome value card, but no matter how hard you milk it, you will at most get 4 souls out of it. Bitterblossom however, is a whole different monster. The value it generates increases the longer games go. And BGx decks are pretty grindy. A turn 2 Bitterblossom would be able to generate way more than 4 faeries if left unchecked. Plus the life loss could be easily mitigated by Deathrite Shaman. Can you imagine what sort of monster BGx decks would be? Which brings us to the next card for consideration.
I think Deathrite Shaman's fate is binary. Scenario 1: Bitterblossom remains banned and Deathrite Shaman escapes the banhammer. Scenario 2: Bitterblossom is unbanned and Deathrite Shaman takes its place. I think Scenario 1 is more likely. Deathrite Shaman may be format-warping, BGx decks have not been as oppressive as it once was since Bloodbraid Elf took the bullet. Plus, the upcoming Jace vs. Vraska duel decks reek of an attempt to seed more Deathrite Shamans into the secondary market. I could be totally wrong on this, but I am sure as hell BG was chosen to be the other deck not to seed more Vraska.
My dark horse for unbanning is Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Here's why:
1. He was banned upon Modern's inception as we were living though a time where standard top 8s featuring 28-32 copies of JTMS were fresh in our memory. My personal opinion is that Modern has evolved to the level where JTMS would not be deemed too oppressive. In a format where turn 3 Karn, Liberace and turn 2 Liliana of the Veil are legit, JTMS seems fine.
2. The recent changes to the legend rule. Prior to the change, the first player to resolve JTMS would gain so much advantage it's difficult for the opponent to claw back. Now resolving your own JTMS means that you are not totally shut out of the game.
3. Spirit of Labyrinth is an obvious card designed to shake things up in eternal formats. Everyone knows Spirit of Labyrinth is going to do some interesting stuff in Legacy, but its impact on Modern is still overlooked. Perhaps WotC is preparing the format for a JTMS-legal era by preemptively printing an answer to JTMS?
4. Could the FTV:20 reprint be a way to safely seed more JTMS into the market? Perhaps JTMS was not deemed ready for parole when Modern Masters was finalised. Price-wise, If JTMS were to be unbanned in Modern, WotC could argue that they have already reprinted him (WotC is pretty serious about reprinting Modern staples to keep the format accessible). No qualms if they decided not to unban JTMS. It's still a bone threw to the Legacy and EDH crowd.
5. JTMS would introduce diversity in the format by making a few more archetypes viable. Contentious, I know. But I think there are a lot of unexplored space in Modern, especially in the direction of pure control (currently we only have UWR control as a pure control).