Hello everyone and welcome back to Petals of Insight. It's Thursday at the time of this writing and the talk on the ban and restricted list is as ardent as ever. Because the next Modern Pro Tour is after a new set release and the update to the list, almost everyone is on the edge waiting to see what will happen to Modern. What will Wizards of the Coast do to shake up the format? What cards will be banned or unbanned, if any? And if there are any changes, what will Born of the Gods bring to the table. What strides will players have to go through to gain an advantage on the tournament? How can you prepare for a tournament of a format that was turned on its head by bannings and/or unbannings? Sadly, we don't have the answers right now. We don't even know if there are going to be any changes to the B&R list at all. However, we can speculate.
As of September 27th, 2013, this is how the list looks like:
- AncestralVision
- Ancient Den
- Bitterblossom
- Blazing Shoal
- Bloodbraid Elf
- Chrome Mox
- Cloudpost
- Dark Depths
- Dread Return
- Glimpse of Nature
- Golgari Grave-Troll
- Great Furnance
- Green Sun's Zenith
- Hypergenesis
- Jace, the Mind Sculptor
- Mental Misstep
- Ponder
- Preordain
- Punishing Fire
- Rite of Flame
- Seat of the Synod
- Second Sunrise
- Seething Song
- Sensei's Divining Top
- Stoneforge Mystic
- Skullclamp
- Sword of the Meek
- Tree Tales
- Umezawa's Jitte
- Vault of Whispers
- Wild Nacatl
It's a rather extensive list, so why don't we start with what's not coming out of that list.*
*
This is a long and a rather exhausting article to read. If anything, you can always ctrl+F for the card you want to read about. I have divided the post in two parts. The first will detail the cards that probably won't be unbanned for a while and the second lists the cards that may find their way outside of B&R life.
I. The Life Sentence
Artifacts lands will never see the light of day for as long as Affinity (or Robots) is a deck. If today you fear giant Arcbound Ravages rumbling down the field or 10/2 Ornithopters flying towards your head carrying Cranial Platings, imagine how much bigger they would be if they had these lands on the field instead of Glimmervoids, Inkmoth Nexuses, and Blinkmoth Nexuses. It's for this deck alone that the lands are in this list in the first place. Wizards didn't even give them a chance. They were banned the moment Modern as a format was created. If the Robot Men didn't patrol tournaments, these lands could have seen some play and even in Blue decks powering Thirst for Knowledges, Tezzerets, Gifts Ungiven, and so forth. Unfortunately, that's not the case.
Verdict: Thus, for now, don't expect to see these lands around.
The almighty "free" card drawing spell, Ancestral Visions, has also been banned since the format was first conceived. Afraid that it was too strong, Wizards preemptively tied it to the list to keep Blue from dominating. This is a card that many, many players want unbanned because they think that it will make Control decks better. And believe me, their hearts are in a good place, but they don't stop to think what other repercussions this card could have on the rest of the Metagame. If Visions comes out, players will immediately shove it into Control decks. But savvy players will shove it in Aggro-Control decks. Aggro-Control preys on Control for a living, so now you have Aggro-Control invalidating the archetype that Visions was meant to enable. As soon as Aggro-Control decks emerge to fight the Control decks, Jund and Junk will do their best to keep Aggro-Control in check, but these two archetypes are so good that Control doesn't even see play right now because of these two (among other factors). In the end, we are back to where we started. That's without mentioning that Ancestral Vision will probably enable more Delver decks than Control variants.
Verdict: No. Just no. Not yet, at least.
Verdict: No.
Hypergenesis can't see the light of day yet... if ever. Remember that Hypergenesis goes into decks with three mana cascade spells and Simian Spirit Guides to power them out much faster than turn 3. Playing a turn 2 or a, very possible, turn 1 Hypergenesis, is so filthy as the permanents that usually come down from the 'Genesis are Emrakul, the Aeons Torn levels of power. If Legacy is any indication, Omniscience and Griselbrand coming means you can draw a bunch of cards with Griselbrand and play them with Omniscience, especially Emrakul which will give you extra turns.
Even if we do have some amount of disruption for the combo in this format, it becomes way too dependent on whether or not you've drawn said disruption. Additionally, it doesn't share the weakness to Remand that Living End decks have. The cost to suspending a Hypergenesis is relatively low compared to Living End, it's easier to set up, and it takes only three turns for it to resolve. Chalice of the Void, Countermagic, and a certain amount of discard is not enough to keep the deck from getting out of hand. Altough, that's without questioning Hypergenesis's consistency. There's always the possibility that they just can't combo you out. Anyway, verdict? Already said no.
Blazing Shoal is another card that won't come out of the void that is the Banned list, because 1) it's too recent and 2) it enables one-shot kills with Infect. Banned as recent as 2011, right after Pro Tour Philadelphia, the prospect of one-shot kills with just one card (well, three counting the card you pitched to it and the targeted creature), is just too much for Modern. Blighted Agent and Inkmoth Nexus, the creature and land used to deliver these kills, didn't make things easier, because one is unblockable and another has flying.
Verdict: From 2011 to 2014, not much has changed. Expect this to retain its retirement status for the time being.
Aside from being a colossal mistake from Wizards, there is a lot of wrong this card can do to a format. For Modern, however, I'm not sure how much wrong. In Legacy, Mental Misstep fights Brainstorm, Deathrite Shaman, Nimble Mongoose, one-drop Goblins, Delver, Ponders, Preordains, Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and much more. Hence it is easy to see how the games can easily devolve into Misstep fights, and it did. As for Modern? We do have the same discard spells, the Deathrite Shamans, Lightning Bolts, Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand, and Delvers, and all make up a considerable portion of the format. Though, the rest of the Modern pie contains Cryptic Commands, Supreme Verdicts and Wrath of Gods, Geist of Saint Trafts, Vendilion Cliques, Liliana of the Veils, and more. Unbanning Misstep might just kill Burn decks entirely as 70% of their deck costs one, Melira Pod's mana dorks (namely Birds of Paradise) and Viscera Seers are threatened, Delvers are threatened... I guess, Burn decks picking up Misstep to fight Misstep is enough incentive to not see this card out of the list.
Verdict: You can bet this card will remain hidden from the format until further notice--possibly never.
I'm not even going to get into this one. Just reading it should tell you why this will never see play again.
Verdict: Hell, no.
Top is the one card that got the Ban Hammer, not just for power level, but how long it made tournaments run. In the years 2007 and 2008, Sensei's Divining Top was being spun on almost every table in Extended tournaments. It was the go-to artifact to fix any consistency issues your deck might have. It also made games longer than they should, as people would Top, Fetch, Shuffle, and Top again. Or end of turn Top... Every. Single. Time. Having your opponent ponder on every Top activation was taxing the format too much. Not to mention that dominant Top deck was CounterTop, which was a base-Blue control deck featuring Counterbalance. With the artifact, you could respond to the 'Balance's trigger to an opponent's spell, look at the top three cards of your deck for a spell whose cost aligned with that of the opponent's spell. Done successfully, your opponent's attempt would be countered. Each activation took so long that it eventually secured a place in this list of all-stars. Naturally, Wizards decided to keep it this way in the conception of Modern.
Bill Stark had this to say for the infamous Top:
"The constant activating of Divining Top
bogs games down, which ultimately leads to an increase in the number of
matches that go to time and beyond, which in turn leads to tournaments
running much longer than they have historically. Furthermore, the Top
encourages players to maximize the number of shuffle effects they play
in a deck and the constant shuffling, cutting, presenting to an opponent
to repeat the process, and then continuation of a turn exacerbated the
situation. In the past the DCI has banned such cards on those grounds
alone (Shahrazad is a good example of this, with Land Tax and Thawing Glaciers
also having been banned for similar reasons) but in conjunction with
the Top’s popularity during the last Extended PTQ season, the decision
was to ban the card from the format it was harming."*
*
Source here.
Verdict: Although, easy to unban, it will surely remain here for the sake of tournament organization.
There are actual people asking for the unbanning of Stoneforge only if Batterskull is banned as well. People are acting as if Batterskull was the reason Stoneforge Mystic was banned. I will concede that it was the card that pushed it farther, but Standard at the time was having problems with the Equipment-weilding menance since before Batterskull even came into the picture. Stoneforge only became a real threat when it started searching out Swords of Feast and Famine. Games degenerated so much into Sword on Sword fights that the pitchforks were being raised along with outcries for Stoneforge's hanging. Today, we barely play with the Swords at all. Rarely we see Sword of Light and Shadow from Jund or Sword of Fire and Ice, and even Feast and Famine, yet they see play if only for some niche effect they may have on the field like generating incremental advantages from time to time. Batterskull shares the same fate as the Swords, as the one that can be played as just a 5-mana 4/4 with Lifelink that gives creature and burn decks headaches.
Verdict: Stoneforge Mystic will certainly keep meditating in the list for the foreseeable future. Modern may need a shake-up, but releasing Mystic into the field is not the way to go.
Along with our Mystical Equipment-fetcher, Jace, the Mind Sculptor was banned for being insane. Those two, may have been the first time since Affinity that cards were banned in Standard. Wizards even went on record saying that they pushed Jaces to be very competitive. It was a job well done. As a result, it was preemptively banned when Modern as a new format was announced. By 2014, players seem to be convinced that unbanning Jace will surely see a renaissance of Control decks. I'm inclined to agree. Unfortunately, unbanning Jace, is like a bargain with the devil. Four-of Jace in Control decks is just the beginning. You'll have UW Control, UB Control, UWR Control, Esper Control, etc. Then, we'll have BUG Control with Deathrite Shamans and Goyfs and the like. Afterwards, Delvers will show up. With the current Legend rules, it won't be long until everyone and their mother are having Jace races across the format.
Verdict: The Modern world is still not ready for Mind Sculpting.
Doing away with Rite of Flame and Seething Song form part of Wizards initiative to cripple combo decks that rely on fast mana, like UR Storm. At a personal level, seeing these rituals leave the format pained me the most. I have quite a fondness for Storm-based decks or those that can use the rituals accelerate into turn 2 and 3 Through the Breach, or even turn 3-4 Enduring Ideals. The moment Seething Song waved good bye, I saw Enduring Ideal, a deck at the fringe of play, drop from the face of the format. Such a We saw Breach Hulk disappear, and our hopes of making Goblin Charbelcher work were dashed. To this day, I still feel like the card to ban was Past in Flames, so that we could still have access to some forms of Combo.
Verdict: Despite wanting the aforementioned Combo decks to exist, I can get behind the rituals being banned.
"Cascade into Terminate, destroy your Baneslayer, swing for three." Chances are you haven't heard those words for a long time now, have you? There's a reason for that. Jund decks with Bloodbraid Elf dominated Standard when it was legal, it dominated the New Extended before the format was scrapped, it sometimes shows up in Legacy, and, finally, it dominated Modern. To be fair, unlike the other formats, Bloodbraid itself wasn't the sole factor for Jund's dominance. It's the fact that Red, Green, Black have access to so many powerful cards in the format that make this deck such a force. It's a essentially an archetype that gathers the best cards in its colors, thus it's nearly impossible to ban a card to cripple that deck. Even if Wizards manages to neuter the current iteration of Jund, the deck will only mutate and become something we'll despise once again. Having Bloodbraid legal, might just exacerbate it with the potential to create a new breed of RG/x Midrange/Aggro deck. Though, we all know Jund will only get better.
Verdict: Cascading into Liliana of the Veil is not something the should be happening in Modern. The Red/Green Elf looks better in B&R prison.
Second Sunrise saw it's banning during the Spring update of the list last year, so no chance of seeing it off the list.
Here's the explanation.
Verdict: Too soon.
Marit Lage. Stuck in a double prison between the ban list
and the… well, Dark Depths. The land that killed so many back in Extended
2009-10, was another preemptive ban during Modern’s inception. Dark Depths, in
itself, is card no one is really talking about. Did it deserve a ban? Wizards
didn’t want the same decks dominating as they did at the time, but in this new
format, did it warrant its status as Most Wanted? The deck that sported Dark
Depths and relied on it for the kill was good, yes, but it was quite an easy
question to answer in the format. It’s a deck that if you really wanted to beat
it, the tools were there. Everything from Spell Snare for Vampire
Hexmage, Path to Exile and Repeal for the token, Beast from
Within for the land, Pithing Needle for the Hexmage or the Dark Depths, and
more.
Furthermore, the deck achieved it's full potential when the Thopter
Foundry/Sword of the Meek combo found its way into the deck. It had an extra
win-condition that was incidentally good against the Aggro decks, without needing
to go all-in on the Marit Lage plan. And Sword of the Meek is another card also
in this list. So, could we handle an indestructible 20/20 Flyer patrolling the
skies of Modern? I’d like to think so. Dark Depths really only goes in one
deck, maybe more if we pair Thespian Stage with the Depths. This would only
really work if Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth was involved in that mana base.
Verdict: Having
Thespian Stage providing back-up in case the Hexmage plan fizzles and
vice-versa, may become an issue. How much of an issue? That remains to be seen,
and I don’t believe we’ll be seeing it for a while.
The infamous Jitte is hurt basically by the same notion keeping Jace, the Mind Sculptor in the list. Jitte fights is not what we want in creature-centric decks to revolve around. With the new Legend rule, both players can have an active Jitte, and the board-states this interaction can create will not be favorable for the health of the format. Maybe I'm overvaluing or overestimating Umezawa's Legendary weapon. Regardless, I'm not looking forward to the type of games that may revolve around the Jitte.
Bannings and unbannings are double-edge swords (or Jittes in this instance). You can't expect to unban a card hoping to affect a specific archetype. Players will try to play them in other molds, potentially making other archetypes better in the process. In no time at all, the deck you were trying to push gets lost in the hustle and bustle of an ever-evolving Metagame. At the end of the day, you'll end up with a completely different than what it was intended. Presently, we have a decent amount of removal for Jitte, even a few that can't be countered like Abrupt Decay and Krosan Grip, but if there's potential to avoid a Modern metldown, then it's better to not take the risk.
Verdict: Umezawa's Jitte is too big a risk to take in Modern--may as well keep it locked up.
Mana acceleration attached to card disadvantage already seems like an average deal. Which begs the question, what are its merits to not unban it? Upon looking on Tom LaPille's introduction of Modern as a new format, he never goes into detail of why Chrome Mox was preemptively banned. The obvious explanation is that fast mana in general is a hot button issue with Wizards as we saw with Rite of Flame and Seething Song. They don't want decks to jump curves with Chrome Mox. Most of the time the loss of a card is offset by the fact that you can play cards that are higher up on the curve faster. Most of the time, the jump will mitigate that clause of exiling a card. And I think the Mox might be the missing piece to making Goblin Charbelcher an actual deck in Modern... or not.
Verdict: Taking Wizards's stance against fast mana to heart, there's no way we'll see Chrome Mox back soon. In the future? Certainly plausible. Who knows, maybe another year.
It's fascinating how Cloudpost looks so innocuous and had to be banned because the deck it had created was more fearsome than our current Big Mana Standout--RG Tron. Part of the banned class of Philadephia (along with Green Sun's Zenith and Blazing Shoal), Cloudpost was casting Eldrazi monsters left and right, either by hard-casting them or with the help of Through the Breach. Clearly, the decision to ban it was not entirely based on its performance in the Pro Tour as only one copy of a BreachPost made it to the Top 8, piloted by Jesse Hampton, and fell prey to Sam Black's innovative Infect deck with the aforementioned Blazing Shoal as its one-shot kill enabler. Great performance or not, it was the boogeyman of the format for weeks leading up to the tournament and made up 19.66% of the field and a win percentage of 40.26%.* That's not very impressive. However, the existence of Cloudpost in Modern was invalidating certain strategies like Control and Aggro, hence the need for a ban.
*Source found here.
Verdict: Even with sideboards currently packing Sowing Salts and Fulminator Mages to combat Tron decks, Cloudpost's plan was much more consistent and powerful against more strategies than Tron's. The latter is the lesser of two evils, so let's keep it that way.
A one-mana cantrip never seems to be more than that, a cantrip. When said cantrip gives you the option to Scry 2 (before drawing a card), rearrange the top three cards, or shuffle your library to draw a random card, it becomes a concern for Wizards. The majority of their Ban policy in Modern consists on banning cards that would make any Combo deck that stands out in the format, not stand out. It's why they took away Seething Song and Rite of Flame from Storm decks. They could create too much mana, play Past in Flames and use all that mana to replay every instant and sorcery in the graveyard for a massive Grapeshot. Preordain and Ponder, on the other hand, ensured that you could pulled that off consistently, and they were so efficient at what they did, that you could not just combo out, but Combo
faster. Of course, this became a problem. And as we've done many, many times already over the course of this compendium, we've looked at the options available in the Modern card pool that would answer the banned cards. You know, as a way to justify unbanning any of them. The fact of the matter is even if a format provides the tools to contain certain strategies, sometimes those strategies are persistent enough that the format then warps and begins to revolve around the persistent strategies and the strategies that prey on the persistent ones.
On the surface, every card seems to help an archetype, but those cards can go in multiple decks. Returning to Jace, the Mind Sculptor, even when it was in Standard, Control wasn't the only archetype to make heavy use of it. Aggro-Control decks were, in fact, the dominant strategies. And before Scars of Mirrodin came into the picture, around the Spring and Summers of 2010, Brian Kibler's Next Level Bant was making strides on the Metagame, making Top 8's left and right. Maybe Next Level wasn't oppressive, however, that's not the point. The point is that unbanning Jace or even Ancestral Visions, does not necessarily mean that Control decks will get better. It means that Blue gets to play with very powerful cards again and you can have a smattering of different strategies that play with Blue and, thus, will try to abuse these cards whether or not the deck itself is Control.
We have to avoid looking at cards as a sole entity and for specific purposes. Cards don't exist in a vacuum. They all have varying degrees of interaction in correlation with each other whether in the format or the deck itself.
Verdict: For the sake of keeping Combo decks at their current power level, they will stay banned. There IS a possibility of Wizards wanting to test the waters and unban Ponder sometime in the future. How long 'til then? I can't say.
Having a Life Sentence doesn't mean that they won't be seen again. With the right lawyers and their best behavior, there's a chance they will get released. Don't lose hope. As for the cards I didn't mention, they are part of the Unbannable with Parole list.
II. The Unbannables with Parole
Usually in the same discussion as Wild Nacatl, Green Sun's Zenith's banning was met with strong opposition. The curious thing about Zenith was that it was only as good as what it was searching for and back in Philadelphia it was mostly searching for Dryad Arbors, Wild Nacatl, Knights of the Reliquary, Primeval Titans, Overgrown Battlements, plus Elves and their mascot, Craterhoof Behemoth, from the Elf decks. Interestingly, Cloudpost was banned, so the Battlements and Titans were no longer needed, Wild Nacatl was banned so that left the Reliquary and Arbors to fend for themselves (which see next to no play in Modern), and without Green Sun's Zenith, Elves is hardly as powerful as it used to be. Granted, the last straw came with the constant searching of Dray Arbors on turn one with the Zenith. Wizards felt that having a card that could fetch for mana producers so early in the game and still be relevant later on was something that decks shouldn't have access to. In fact, here's the explanation by Eric Lauer:
"On turn one, this can give the acceleration of a Llanowar Elves by getting a Dryad Arbor. On later turns, it can get a large creature or a one-of "toolbox" creature such as Gaddock Teeg. While this is interesting, it is also too efficient. If one intends to build a deck that has turn-one accelerants, Green Sun's Zenith is a great choice. If one wants to more access to utility green creatures, Green Sun's Zenith is a great choice. If one wants to more reliably get a large green creature, such as a Primeval Titan, onto the battlefield, Green Sun's Zenith is a great choice. However, this ends up with fewer different decks being played in practice, as Green Sun's Zenith is such a good choice that there are fewer green decks that do anything else. The DCI hopes that banning Green Sun's Zenith increases diversity among Modern green decks."*
*Source
here.
Verdict: Currently, the pool of Green decks the seem to be viable, right now, all seem to be Rock decks (ala GB Rock, Jund, and Junk) and the two Pod variants. Could unbanning Green Sun's Zenith fix that? Or just make Melira Pod and GWRu Pod that much better? Maybe if Birthing Pod took the axe, we could see Zenith make a come back, and this can be done as early as next week's update.
If there's a single person crying for Glimpse to be unbanned clearly has not seen it action. Though Glimpse wouldn't occupy much of the Metagame being relegated to certain creature decks like Elves, the impact it has in those decks are enough to warrant its stay in the Banned list. Glimpse gives you the ability to chain through creatures spells over and over until you draw most of your deck, or your win-condition. And these decks? Can get oppressive real quickly.
At first glance, having Combo Elves in Modern as a viable deck may not seem like a threat. I mean, we have removal-filled Jund and Junk decks making their rounds keeping creature decks in check. We also have UWR Midrange that has more burn than that Deep Purple song. Electrolyze is certainly a beating when you are popping Heritage Druids and Elvish Visionaries while netting a card.
Well, now that I think about it, unbanning Glimpse may not be as bad as I previously shot. Glimpse only really goes into one deck and it's a deck highly reliant on x/1s and x/2s, which judging by the pedigree of Modern's removal, they should be easy to handle. However, these decks do gain a lot of consistency with Chord of Callings and they can splash for Thoughtseize (common practice back in old Extended) and other forms of protection.
Verdict: Glimpse of Nature could potentially see the light of day. However, Wizard's stance on such decks existing in Modern will keep it in the dark--for now. Though, highly unbannable, especially with the Zenith banned, UWR decks on the rise, and Jund hammering creature decks down. Elves can also have problems with Splinter Twin decks. With Modern's high saturation of removal, it seems safe to have Elves be a deck.
Boy, has it been ages since I last saw you Mr. Dread Return. How's it hanging in retirement? Your name certainly inspires a pretty good pun which I'll shamelessly write: Your return will only bring dread to Modern.
In all seriousness, Dread Return's unbanning will find their way into a new breed of Dredge decks that can still be viable even without the Golgari Grave-Troll (which also happens to be in the list--more on him later). Hedron Crabs, Vengevines, Golgari Thugs, Stinkweed Imps, Bridge from Belows, Narcomeabas, among others, all exist in the format. Perhaps it won't have the same consistency it had in the old days, yet it is still a fearsome monster. Also, we should take into account that Modern has Deathrite Shaman, Leyline of the Void, Relic of Progenistus, Grafdigger's Cage, Scavenging Ooze, Rest in Peace, etc. to keep the deck in check. Maybe Dread Return's return isn't so dreadful after all (had to go for it again).
Verdict: With a new set on the horizon and a desire to shake up Modern for the upcoming Pro Tour, unbanning Dread Return may provide the results they are looking for. It's definitely easier to hate out than Elves (not that Elves needs to be hated out that much, anyway).
Sword of the Meek is a strange one. Since it was preemptively banned, it is a card we don't really know much about in Modern. For those who don't know, Sword of the Meek made a pretty resilient combo with Thopter Foundry, a synergy that rocketed Control decks into the driver's seat for some time in the now-defunct Extended format. Combined with the Foundry, you could sacrifice the Sword to gain one life and place a flying 1/1 token. The token, then, triggers the Sword from the grave, which will cause it to come back attached to that token. This engine single-handedly kept Aggro decks of all kinds at bay. The life gain would further pad your life while the tokens would block incoming attackers. Henceforth, you'd amass tokens until they could attack to finish the game in short order.
Its easy to see why Wizards wants to keep something this oppressive away from tournament tables be it at FNM level or at the Pro Tour. Yet today, it begs the question, does it really need to be banned? Right now, we don't really have no Aggro aside from the occasional Domain Zoo that pops up now and then at Daily Events on Magic Online. The decks we have to worry about are Splinter Twin whose win-condition ignores the Sword all together, GB/x variants that have access to very efficient answers in Abrupt Decay, the same hate for Dredge can also be used for this deck as it stops the combo and Snapcaster Mages, and so forth. If Wizards wanted to reinstate Aggro, then we won't see Sword of the Meek back unless some other changes were made. Players do want to play Control again and unbanning the Sword might push that strategy to viability. Unlike Jace and Ancestral Visions, the Foundry/Sword combo is easier to contain, doesn't win on the spot, and takes longer to generate the card advantage that the other two cards can provide on one activation.
Verdict: Completely unbannable. Sword of the Meek may be the answer to Control players' prayers. It's exactly what they are looking for. It's the combo that can also play the same grind-y game as Jund, so why not? Besides the possibility of seeing play in Junk and BW Token decks (which I doubt), it's only real application is in UW/x Control decks.
While highly unbannable, it won't see the sun for a very long time. If the current Metagame is any indication, Wizards could conceivably unban Punishing Fire and everything stays the same, other than Jund getting slightly more powerful (which we don't need) and Pod becomes easier to beat since Fires can repeatedly kill mana dorks, Melira, Viscera Seers, Phantasmal Images, Kitchen Finks, Murderous Redcaps, etc. The other archetype it invalidated (Aggro) barely exists anymore. It can possibly another tool for GR Tron as well. There isn't much to say about Punishing Fire that hasn't been said already. It's just a recurring burn spell.
Verdict: Easily unbannable. It'll remain banned, however, due to this need to see variety in Modern--Punishing Fires limits that.
The oft-forgotten Dredger for 6, is another decent consideration for unbannings. Without Dread Return, calling the shots, Grave-Troll will be relegated to work with Vengevines, Bloodghasts, and a host of other monsters of the grave. Does it have any other applications? Maybe a Necrotic Ooze combo deck could be a thing. As it stands, we only have Dredge-a-Vine as a concern and having Golgari Grave-Troll off the shelf would go a long way to put that deck on competitive tables. Makes for a good experiment.
Verdict: Grave-Troll in Modern won't break anything. If anything, Dredge-a-Vine will be just like Dredge in Legacy. Too much hate, and it won't be played; too little, and it might win a tournament or two.
We are almost at the end of the road, so before we part we have two more cards to discuss: Bitterblossom and Wild Nacatl. Bitterblossom is a very interesting card considering that the only two decks this card ever showed up in was BW Tokens in Standard of 2009, and Faeries, also the culprit responsible for the 'Blossom's current state. Faeries is easily one of the most feared decks in recent memory. It displaced Affinity and Jund, mainly because there's no way around Jund (any GRB Midrange deck can be called Jund), and Affinity (sometimes referred to as Robots) is a popular player in the Modern field. What we have left is Faeries. Unlike Affinity and Jund, which are not the same decks as the ancestors that made them so fearsome, Faeries will always be Faeries. Faeries will always have Spellstutter Sprite and Vendilion Clique, perhaps Mistbind Cliques, and associated with them, banned or not, is Bitterblossom. The moment it comes off that list, the first deck to materialize itself will be a Faerie deck with 4 Spell Stutters, 3 Vendilion Cliques, 4 Bitterblossoms, and 4 Thoughtseize. The rest is subjective to each builder until it wins a few tournaments and the ideal build is established.
If there was one card Wizards would unban, it would be Bitterblossom. Consequently, it's my believe that to do so, they would have to ban Deathrite Shaman. Deathrite Shaman fits in quite beautifully in Faeries. It's a card that will provide reach when racing an opponent. It will provide acceleration for turn 2 Bitterblossom plus Thoughtseize, or turn 2 Vendilion Clique, or turn 3 Mistbind Clique, even accelerate into Cryptic Commands if need be. Actually, what about turn 3 Bitterblossom and mana open for Spellstutter Sprite? Finally, Shaman gains you two lives. Those two lives means two more Bitterblossom tokens. It may mean two more turns. It means more time. Even if you kill the Shaman, you still have to worry about an increasingly powerful enchantment that blocks or attacks every turn, a two-mana flash creature that can counter nearly every spell, a 3/1 flyer that functions as hand destruction--especially when accompanied by discard spells--, a potential 4/4 that Mana Shorts you, and on and on and on.
Access to Shaman will pretty much restore Faeries's scary reputation and probably regain its grip on a Metagame. For this reason, Deathrite Shaman can not exist alongside Bitterblossom.
Verdict: Unbanning Bitterblossom would be fantastic, only if Deathrite Shaman gets an early retirement.
Finally, we reach the end of our gargantuan compendium, and to the most unfair banning of all time. Once again, I'll let Eric Lauer have the honors of explaining why Nacatl was banned:
"Wild Nacatl
is a creature that simply attacks and blocks very efficiently. It is
very unusual to ban such a card. We looked at our Modern tournaments and
previous Extended tournaments to find when the attacking decks were
fairly diverse, and when they were dominated by Zoo. At Pro Tour Austin
2009, won by Brian Kibler playing Zoo, most attack decks were of the Zoo variety. Next year, at Pro Tour Amsterdam 2010, won by Paul Rietzl playing white weenie, the Top 8 had a variety of attacking decks:
Brad Nelson and Brian Kibler played Doran decks, Paul Rietzl and Kai
Budde played White Weenie, and Marijn Lybaert played Merfolk. The format
was different but, other than the lands, the only cards in Brian's main
deck that could not be played were two copies of Lightning Helix. The lands were the big change, and a very important difference was that the mana base in Austin meant Wild Nacatl was a very reliable 3/3, but would not be so reliable in Amsterdam."*
*Source here.
The goal was noble. A lot of Wizards's goals are. Remember when they banned Mystical Tutor from Legacy, because Reanimator wasn't a fair deck when testing in the Casual Room in Magic Online. I'll be frank and say that the reasoning was horrendous, but in the end, it did power down Reanimator considerably and rarely sees play these days (though, that's Deathrite Shaman's fault). It was a terrible excuse, because in the Casual Room almost any competitive deck you bring will be unfair to them. I can't count the times I played against opponents trying to beat me down with Suntail Hawks or what-have-you.
I digress.
In the end, Wild Nacatl has no reason to stay in the shackled to the Most Wanted list. Between the random Domain Zoo decks (that ALSO play Deathrite Shaman... Wild Nacatl would fix that), and Affinity decks, there's a gap of potential Aggro decks that are waiting for Wild Nacatl to come back and pressure all these Midrange monters praying on everything else. As Brian Kibler wrote on his Blog:
"The result of the Wild Nacatl banning was not a flourishing of Merfolk
and Treefolk and Kithkin decks, but rather aggressive decks almost
vanishing from the Modern metagame altogether. Wild Nacatl was never
really what pushed the decks out of the metagame – it was always
Lightning Bolt and Tarmogoyf."
Verdict: Unban Wild Nacatl. There's no reason to keep it on the bench.
So, Wizards? Want to shake up Modern? I suggest you ban Deathrite Shaman and bring back our feline friend. You know something is wrong when the one-drop of choice for a Zoo deck is a G/B mana accelerator that 89% of the time does not see the red zone. Ban Deathrite Shaman and unban Wild Nacatl. The other cards in this list are up for debate since I haven't done the required testing to be sure how much of an impact each and every card would have if they were released into the wild.
So, at last, the Compendium is at an end. I hope you have enjoyed the journey and hope to see you guys again soon!
Always affectionately,
Chris
PS: The following are links to all of the Modern bannings and unbannings throughout its short history, beginning with its creation. Their explanations on the preemptive bans are interesting. Additionally, you'll find links to arguments by Conley Woods and Brian Kibler.
*This episode of Petals of Insight was brought to you by Oskar Koch and his very nice electronic mixes. Take a listen as you go through the article! 
1 Tectonic Edge
1) The Fifties - As you may have noticed, unlike the other two lists, I opted for a three-three split 
2) Sleighting of the Hand - No Twin deck out there (except for the All-In Twin version) is playing 
