Lansdaal: Despite there being no video coverage of the actual event, last weekend’s Modern GP in Detroit caused a lot of buzz all over the internet. Due to a small mis-posting (Ben Stark’s deck was listed twice), it seemed like Jund was in the top 8 of the event seven(!) times. A closer inspection showed that it wasn’t quite that bad. There was an Affinity deck, a Melira-Pod deck, and six Jund-variants (two BG versions and an “Ajundi” version besides three more usual Jund decks).

As happens often when a deck seemingly dominates a tournament, people started shouting something had to be done. Ban [card]Thoughtseize[/card]! Ban [card]Dark Confidant[/card]! Ban [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card]!

Then Melira-Pod took down the tournament, and people had to take a step back from hating on just Jund. Melira-Pod also won the most recent Modern MOCS, and this isn’t the first GP the deck has won in recent history either. So, should we ban [card]Dark Confidant[/card] and [card]Birthing Pod[/card], then? Or should we just ban [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card]? That bans something from both Jund and Melira-Pod. We can add it right next too [card]Wild Nacatl[/card] as a one-drop that is too powerful for our eternal format.

Does that sound crazy to you? It does to me. I think we are much better served by a banning that is probably much more controversial, but which I believe to be much better for Modern overall: Ban the Zendikar fetchlands. All of them.

For those of you who think that’s even more insane than banning [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card]; you are not alone. Travis Hall is right there with you, and while I will try to convince you in this article that we should ban the fetchlands, he will try to convince you that no such thing is necessary, and that it might actually be bad for Modern if we do.

Let’s kick it off with my first argument: banning fetches will help weaken the currently most dominant decks in the format in Jund (and variations) and Pod (both Melira- and Kiki- versions), without destroying any deck in the format aside from that [card]Archive Trap[/card] deck someone somewhere was brewing. [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] won’t be casting turn two Liliana’s anymore while disrupting combo later, and [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] will be just a tad smaller more often. The mana for Pod decks won’t be automatically perfect regardless of how many colors we decided to play. Judging from how well Jund and Pod have been doing in the last few events, this seems like a good thing. What do you say, Travis?

Hall: First, I don’t think we need to ban anything in Modern. I think that the format is still evolving (it’s barely a todler at this point) and may be better served by unbanning a few cards.

And, before we look at actually pushing the Big Red Button and detonating the format with the Nuclear option, let’s look at what Wizards wants Modern to be. Wizards painted themselves into a corner with the Reprint Policy and their declaration that they WILL NOT reprint certain cards. They even went as far as locking down the sly, “we’ll reprint it as a foil so that it’s not the same!” loophole. Because of this, Legacy can never be the sanctioned Eternal format they would like it to be. The numbers will not allow it to be so without massive bannings to the point where the format is no longer Legacy. So, Modern is THE Eternal format that we get, whether it is the one we deserve or need (sorry, Batman/KYT). Since its inception, Modern has had a tough fight establishing legitimacy, as it doesn’t have many of the cards that people love playing with in Legacy. Legacy feels powerful. It’s the format of [card]Brainstorm[/card] and [card]Force of Will[/card] and [card]Wasteland[/card]. Modern has had to fight and claw to establish itself as something other than “Legacy-lite”. Any banning in general seems to have a much stronger effect on the perception of the health of Modern as a viable format (just look at the number of “Wizards is just going to ban the good cards!” tweets we get after every tournament). Banning the fetches, the most powerful lands in the format, could have a very serious effect on player interest. It would be Wizards’ way of saying, “This format is about as stable as a bull in a china shop. On roller skates. After having a few too many beers.” Modern gained a lot from Modern Masters this summer, and I think banning the fetches would undo every bit of good will that awesome set earned.

And, I don’t think banning the fetches would fix the problem. BG Jund put players in the top 16. It doesn’t need fetches to be dominant. All you’d be doing is neutering [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card], in which case… just ban [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card]. [card]Scavenging Ooze[/card] should do a good job of weakening Melira Pod decks and [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]s going forwards (this was his first time to shine, give him a bit more).

Do you think there is a chance that banning fetches could hurt player confidence in the format?

L: I am more than ready to admit that this might be the major downside to banning fetches: changing people’s perception about a “major” change is hard. And, like you said, every banning in Modern feels like something “major”. Even if banning fetches could be proven to be right (the fun factor of the format goes up by 7,462%, just so you know), to many Magic players it “feels” wrong. Why would you ever want to make manabases worse? Why would you ban one of the few things we have left that reminds us of Legacy?

Well, this isn’t Legacy, and it won’t be unless we unban a bunch of things, reprint [card]Force of Will[/card] and [card]Wasteland[/card], and probably some other stuff, which I admit is possible, but less likely given the path Wizards has been on up until now. Yes, the format is still in its infancy, so please let’s correct its behaviour before it turns into an uncontrollable teenager.

Also, we’re not making it impossible to make good manabases: playing four or five colors just won’t be 10-12 fetchlands, 6-8 shocks, some basics and or utility lands; done. You might have to consider Shards of Alara Tri lands, or maybe Vivids plus [card]Reflecting Pool[/card]. Perhaps those lands don’t fit your aggressive deck, so might I suggest playing more Scars of Mirrodin fastlands or painlands? I remember a 4-color aggro deck by Shouta Yasooka from the beginning of the format that used mainly Scars lands to prevent the amount of lifeloss he would take from fetching shock duals. You will have to make more decisions, which makes the game more interesting. Aren’t we also all complaining about the game being dumbed down? Let’s make our Eternal format a bit more complex then, shall we?

Perhaps we could indeed “just” ban [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card]. That would weaken Jund, BG and Pod too. And perhaps we can rely on [card]Scavenging Ooze[/card] to keep [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] and Melira in check. However, when some of the best players in the world were only playing a couple in their Jund decks, despite the online norm seemingly being three or four, I wonder if it is as good as advertised. Even if it is a wash between banning [card]Deathrite Shaman[/card] and fetches, banning fetches has more advantages. For example, it would lead to giving every magic player an hour of his life back at every Modern tournament for the incessant shuffling that comes with everyone playing eight to twelve fetches. Or do you not think that is much of a concern for Wizards?

H: I will admit there’s a good chance that banning the fetches would shorten tournaments. While I think this would be a valid concern if it was one card, or one deck that extended tournaments, at some point we just have to allow Wizards to print cards that require us to take actions that extend the game. I wish [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card] were legal, but I totally understand why it isn’t. Peaking every turn, after every action, and spending a legitimate 30 seconds considering your plan of action was excessive. Fetches aren’t nearly that bad. Not even close. If this is a concern, we should get a “fetch land etiquette” or rules guide. Things like “if possible, shuffle while your opponent takes their turn” or “only complete tools pile shuffle after each fetch”.

Gonna have to dispute the complexity issue. Building mana bases may seem to get “harder,” but I think the format will see a very diminished number of three-color+ decks. Two-color decks will become the norm (maybe with a small splash), and the mana will be just as good, and probably as easy to build, as it is now.

Hypothetical 2-color Modern deck manabase*:

4 Shocklands
3-4 Manlands
1-2 Tech Edge
4 utility dual colored land (think [card]Grove of the Burnwillows[/card], filter lands, [card]Horizon Canopy[/card], etc)
3-4 basics
2-3 Scars-block fastlands (if available)

You’ve sacrificed THE preeminent lands in the format, the lands that truly differentiate the manabase power levels in Modern from those in Standard, to open up 4-6 deck spots for cards like [card]Reflecting Pool[/card] (which should already be seeing more play; it’s been fantastic in my Kiki-Pod list as a 1-of), Tri-lands (ick), and Vivids? That’s a big risk.

In addition, taking fetch lands out of the format actively hurts aggro decks, burn decks, and random creature match-ups. The life lost on the 2-3 times you fetch each game matters! There are many close games where fetching a shock untapped on turn 2-3 decides the outcome. It just feels like taking fetches out of the format simplifies the decisions you make, and there has been a steady outcry that Magic is already being “dumbed down.” Taking these decisions away seem like another step in the simplification of the game. Eternal formats should feature more decisions, when deckbuilding and playing (how many times have you seen someone lose for taking the wrong shockland when fetching in the early game). I cannot see how removing fetches makes the format more complex. Don’t you think that fetches add complexity to games, a complexity that should be represented in the Eternal format?

*Discalimer: I admittedly suck at building mana bases. Feel free to rip me to shreds here.

L: Fetches, in short, take away decisions. Like in your example, see how many different type of lands you are considering! Yes, most of those are iffy in a two-color deck, but Vivids and [card]Reflecting Pool[/card], or perhaps [card]Gemstone Mine[/card] and [card]City of Brass[/card] are fine options for four- or even five-color decks. You also forgot painlands, and the “MX” checkduals. All these options open up when you don’t go for the now always right 10-12 fetchlands and fetchable shocks, plus whatever utility you can fit after that. Now, you’ll have to decide what’s more important for your deck: lifetotal? (can I afford to play more than eight shocks? How about [card]Brushland[/card]s?) tempo? (do I need my black mana on turn one, or later? Should I play [card]Darkslick Shores[/card], or [card]Drowned Catacomb[/card] with my [card]Watery Grave[/card]s?) coluor requirements? (I need B into GG, I guess I’m playing [card]Twilight Mire[/card]s with my [card]Overgrown Tomb[/card]s).

More decisions lead to complexity, and to rewards for building your manabase better. I can see why you wouldn’t want that 😉 , but for the rest of us, I think that’s a good thing. You might learn something from it too.

Honestly, and this is going on a tangent, I feel like a lot of people now are so used to the mana we have in Standard, that they feel like in Modern it has to be so much better to feel like an Eternal format. They have, understandably, Standard as a reference point when they make the comparison. I’ve played in Standards where you played [card]Tarnished Citadel[/card] as a fixer in your two-color deck, because there was nothing better. Standard mana right now feels like an Eternal format’s mana to me! Modern’s mana really doesn’t have to be that much better to be “Eternal worthy”.

Going back to the main program, in your reply to your [card]Sensei’s Divining Top[/card] comparison: Top was a definite problem mostly because if even one player was playing it, it was an issue for time. Fetchlands are a lot less severe per card, but just about everyone is playing them! A couple minutes here, a couple minutes there, it simply adds up.

There’s another advantage to banning fetches though, and to explain it, I will tell you about how we run Modern at my local game store. Ever since Modern Masters, there has been a surge of interest in the format. Everybody wants to see the turn two [card]Primeval Titan[/card]s, the [card]Through the Breach[/card] into Emrakul, the infinite Twin tokens, etc. They want to play, but one of the problems I keep hearing from them is that almost every deck plays 8-10 fetchlands! Every other week, the core group in my LGS actually pools the fetches we have, just so people can play mostly optimal decks. We all cut down on our own fetchland count, just so we can share and have as many decks as possible. Now I know people can play without fetches, but come on. Nobody likes to be the guy with the under-powered deck, when everybody has powered decks. Before we started this whole “pool the fetches”-deal, we couldn’t even get Modern tournaments to fire!

Of course, Wizards could reprint the fetches, and maybe that’ll solve this particular issue. It might not though. Modern Masters definitely created hype for the format (and got us to think of a solution so we could actually play), but it did little to actually supply the locals with staples. Yes, if everybody puts all the cards together, we can just build a single copy of Jund out of the Modern Masters cards, but once again: 8-10 fetches. Per person.

And we could do away with that problem, and the other ones, if Wizards would only…

H: … reprint the fetch lands!

Come on, the “barrier to entry” argument is probably the weakest one. Wizards has shone a proclivity for reprinting Modern staples (hello Modern Masters, you sexy beast you). We will definitely be getting fetch land reprints and at rare instead of mythic. I would be willing to wager that we will see them (and maybe the Onslaught fetch lands too) in an upcoming block. Maybe in a return to Zendikar. Regardless, if Wizards doesn’t go crazy and listen to the premature calls for the fetches to be banned, we will be getting them reprinted down the line.

“Back in my day, when we had to gather around the fireplace and clear a space on the clean, dirt floor, we played with [card]Tarnished Citadel[/card], and we were lucky to have it” Yeah, and I used to be able to play with squirrel cards 🙁

Again, banning the fetches may (may!) increase some deck building decisions (though, your life total, tempo, and color requirement scenarios are all available for players using fetch lands too), but fetches provide deeper game play and more in-game decisions. More in-game decisions via fetches lead to greater game complexity and a higher reward for players making the correct play choices.

Honestly, playing without fetchlands has so many fewer in-game decisions that it would be like playing chess without the pawns. I’m willing to sacrifice a little extra time and deal with decks like Jund occasionally putting six copies in a top 8 to get to play Modern with cards that are powerful enough to make me think on levels that no other game can present. Fetches are the type of cards that make Magic the best game on earth. If Wizards is seriously contemplating banning the fetch lands, I think Walter White said it best, “maybe the best course would be to tread lightly.”

What do you think? Sound off in the comment section!

In order of appearance: Jay Lansdaal (@iLansdaal on Twitter) and Travis Hall (@Travishall456 on Twitter)