Explaining All Banned Cards in Modern [Part 1] 

It's funny how Kamigawa was one of the lowest powered sets in modern magic, but it had some of the most broken individual cards hidden in it.

Dredge is a replacement effect, so when you dredge for your draw step, you do NOT draw a card. Also when people use Cathartic Reunion or any other card like it, they are using it to get dredgers in the yard and replace the draws with dredge effects. They are not using them to draw cards, but they can draw if they need it.

Just a side note, hypergenesis stops putting stuff on the board when all players stop putting stuff on the board, not just one. So if you don’t put something down on the board but your opponent does, it will still repeat until you both agree to stop (or can’t)

Loved your yugioh content back when I used to play, love the stuff you're making for magic, a game I've played for quite a while now. A lot of magic content assumes everyone already knows everything, I heavily enjoy your videos that revisit some seemingly basic concepts.

funny thing is glimpse of nature was considered a bulk rare when kamigawa first came out.

One thing that wasn't mentioned with Divining Top: with Counterbalance, the top ITSELF is a guaranteed counter for every one casting cost card. Even worse - you can pay one mana, use it, then tap it to draw (effectively a brainstorm) and it's still going to counter as well. Counterbalance/Top was pretty oppressive.

The easiest one to fix is Birthing Pod, so much that WotC already released FOUR versions of the same effect. But none of them with Phyrexian mana as part of their cost...

For Hypergenesis, just add the line "when you cast this card, if you cast it from anywhere other than exile, exile it with 3 time counters on it" Or have it be countered, exiled normally, or just flat "cannot be cast except from exile"

Interestingly enough recently Mengucci and Kanister did a match where one of them were using hypergenesis while the other used 4 modern decks that he would choose (Mengu chose uw hammer time, living end, 4 colours elemental combo and izzet murktide) and the hypergenesis deck didn't win a single game, it went 0-12. So probably it would be a safe and interesting ban. (Since the deck list could be slightly optimized)

I was listening to the video and asked myself “Is that TheDuelLogs?” Then checked the channel name! Pleasantly surprised to see your content for a game i have more experience in!

Well, this is going to be a long running show. Looking forward to the next episode.

11:02 "You can cast the top card of your library by paying life...rather than paying life" This typo made me double take and then chuckle x3

id love to see a video on alternate win conditions in mtg! triskaidekaphobia is a personal favorite card of mine

Something I find very informative when evaluating the power level of banned cards are the occasional no banlist tournaments that have been run over the years. Since so many cards have been banned years apart from each other and not touched the format after dozens of sets it can be difficult to estimate their power. No banlist tournaments, while too infrequent to establish a true meta, help demonstrate what is most broken. To that point I think dread return is not the most broken thing on the banlist at all. Even with dread return and grave troll both legal dredge decks get outclassed by dark depths, hypergenesis, and top control strategies. No banlist tournaments are super interesting because they show that while most of these cards are far too strong to come off the list in isolation, they duke it out with each other in a interesting way.

1. I find it interesting that just making the card multicolored at 2-mana is weaker than Glimpse, despite the instant speed and added synergy bonus. 2. Interesting how eight Dredge 5 can end up still being too strong. 3. If that's the case, I doubt exiling nontoken creatures or making it costs THIRTEEN creatures would fix it. 4. You can say, the Top is top at its game. 5. Ah yes. Costless cards. I always thought giving it an ability that states its mana value might actually fix it. Like say, "This card's mana value is its Suspend cost."

I can’t wait to see more, would be awesome for the series to continue

Just discovered your channel through this video and already put 3 more of your videos in my video queue. Awesome stuff so far!

One of the things with Modern is that when it was made, they explicitly chose to ban cards to make the format a "turn 4 format" instead of a "turn 3 format" like Legacy. Which is why cards that enable turn 3 kills like Glimpse of Nature are banned but cards like Splinter Twin weren't. Of course, this has slowly become less and less true as inconsistent but still viable turn 3 kills have begun to appear in Modern as the cardbase of that format grows. The old adage isn't really true anymore. (More reason as to why Splinter Twin should be unbanned)

I just found this channel and I have to say… excellent content! The best explanations for new mtg players and old!

Discovered your original channel as a person with casual interest in YGO, found your Hearthstone channel and that was also great! Now you're doing Magic content? Amazing! I love your passion for TCG games, keep it up!

I think the best way to fix hypergenesis would be "you can only cast this card from exile after removing a time counter" that way the only way to play it would only be castable through the suspend

Yes please do more, dear Manalogs! This is so interesting if you keep telling what is broken and whats is not

Just discovered your channel and I love it so far I am a really casual MTG player, but the way you talk about the cards, the meta, why they are good/bad, it is really interesting to watch 10/10 keep it up :D

I got recommended this video, and thought "Wow, this guy sounds exactly like hirumaredx... Oh shit it is!" Sweet to see you are doing MtG content now.

Interesting idea for a video series. I can't wait to see what's next!

Neat. Hope to see this for other formats as well

Great video, I would love to hear about some cards that could maybe be unbanned (twin, pod or the like) in the next one

Looking forward to the next installment as a modern only player. Great explanations and info! Ive always wondered myself why some cards see a ban but I cant understand why because I wasnt playing at the time the cards seen play!

Would love to see a similar examination for banned cards in Commander. I've heard quite a few people in my LGS still not understanding why *Golos, Tireless Pilgrim* got banned. Considering it was the Commander for so many decks that it homogenized the scene of Commanders to face against that it was beyond frustrating when you want to face different kinds of Commanders to get deck ideas

Glad you mentioned the time factor of SDT. I’ve always seen the tournament play concern (and just general negative play experience) as the overall reason it was banned. It was just a boring, miserable experience.

I believe the situation with dread return with dredge is its interaction with bridge from bellow and flame-kin zealot, where you create a giant board with haste and even if dread return is countered you would still have a huge board, since bridge is banned today the ops all spells is more menacing with dread than dredge.

Alright, i member watching your yugioh videos even tho ive never played it, still enjoyed them alot and now that youre doing mtg content well i can't help but smile

I was just looking at the banlist and was wondering why some things were there, great to find this series

This is totally wild I found your WOW videos when I started getting into that last year. But I’ve been into magic for years and just discovered your videos but I recognized your voice immediately. I was consistently wondering when you were going to tell me about Lillian voss instead of Liliana vess 😂

*gasp* the duel logs is doing more mtg content. I started watching you from the is the mtg card ‘good, bad, or broken’ series. Happy to see you do more mtg content

Can't wait until you talk about why Second Sunrise is banned. Dear Editor/Scriptwriter, please assign TheManaLogs some homework, and have him watch the Holiday/ Kibler match. Specifically, explain to him that from about the 15 minute mark, where the "F6" paper is placed, to when they cut back from the completly different game, that is the same TURN.

I had so much fun with my golgari deck when ravenica first came out

Itc cool seeing you do magic related content. Maybey we could see 10 alternative cost cards or something down the line.

With cascade its specifically until you reveal a nonland card that costs less. Lands have a mana value of zero but arent cast, only played or put onto the battlefield

Really like this series, hope you keep it up :) Also, I remember that it wasn't that long ago that you didn't really know anything about MtG (the YuGiOh player reacts to MtG card videos). Looks like you got to like the game :D

Dread Return: a card that describes exactly what everyone will feel is going on should it be unbanned.

Top was banned only because it slowed the game down considerably, especially when both players are using it. Everything else you mentioned was just incidental. If Top was kept, which its power level said it was fine, then Counterbalance would have been banned instead. Since it was only banned for slowing the game down too much *and* it happened to kick Counterbalance in the knees, it made the most sense to ban.

glimpse of nature is on cast rather then on etb like something like rite of harmony. It may not seem like a huge change but it does have effects. The main reason is if cast a creature with glimpse mean you can still draw in something that helps you continue your combo or at least replace the card in hand if it gets countered while with rite you don't get that card and lose you tempo

Dredge is so good that magic players joke about how the golgari grave troll would still be broken and banned if the only line of text it had was "dredge 6"

It's weird coming to this channel from your Yu-Gi-Oh! one, and hearing about how MTG not only balances around games lasting forever, but also explicitly explains that that is their rationale for a decision, 2 things Konami would never do.

My man went from being baffled that Golgari Grave-Troll was considered broken to explaining in one of the most concise ways I've ever seen just why it's so good. Character development.

Would enjoy seeing a similar series on banned cards in Legacy.

There's actually a third cascade deck in Modern around Glimpse of Tomorrow, which shuffles all permanents you own into your deck, and then reveals that many cards and puts all permanents revealed that way onto the battlefield. So the deck just runs a lot of permanents that create tokens when they enter. It can spit out a ton of permanents with powerful ETB effects. Notably drawing cards and generating mana and shuffling the graveyard back into the deck, so the deck can reliably loop Glimpse while generally trending up on number of permanents put into play off of Glimpse, and then repeated Omnath triggers can kill the opponent, where it does 4 damage to the opponent if at least 3 lands enter alongside it. Even if the combo sputters out somehow, there should be enough creatures put on the board to kill the opponent the next turn, as well as Fury triggers to clear the opponent's board. It's a possible turn 3 combo, and consistent turn 4 combo.

Glimpse of Nature doesn’t just boost Elf decks, it turns them into creature storm decks that cast elves to Court of Calling out a giant Creature like Craterhoof and win early. Also, something you didn’t mention about Hypergenesis. It’s cousin Living End is being played s lot more thanks to a cycle or elementals that can be played for free with Evoke, with the cost of exiling a card, and sacrificing the elemental. Living End turns that into them dying into an upside, leading to the deck putting out a huge board easily, while the elementals screw over your opponent. How powerful Living End is should show what HyperGenesis would be capable of.

If you want to be really inelegant, you could have something like "Hypergenesis can't be cast unless it was suspended."

The problem with the "how can they be unbanned" section is that Magic doesnt do erratas. At best they create a strictly worse version in a later set.

How am I just now finding this channel. I’ve been wanting to have a magic “logs” channel bc I’ve been wanting to get back into magic.

Oh man the Sensei’s Top craze was big when the set came out. Everyone at school was sticking them into random decks for consistency. CounterTopGoyf is always the first thing I think of when I see a Top. That deck name always made me laugh. 😂

It would be interesting to see all banned cards in commander or the other formats

Why haven't I heard of this channel sooner?? I love Duellogs!!!

Interesting you do that series on Magic cards, given how exceptionally rare errata are in that game. Let's see where that goes, could be fun.

You could fix sudden genesis by adding "If there was a time counter on this card during the previous turn:..." before the rest of the spell effect.

I disagree about Hypergenesis being better then Footfalls and Living End decks, mainly because Hyper requires you to run a lot of cards you'll basically never be able to cast naturally, meaning you can brick super easily Living End running lots of cycling cards helps the consistency a lot, no cycling card is a brick, they're basically cantrips that fuel your combo Honestly the closest comparison to Hypergenesis i think would be Through the Breach/Goryo's Vengeance, and it could push those decks out, but I think Living End will be fine, Footfalls maybe less so.

can you do a series explaining the storm scale and some of the mechanics on it?

Whats interesting is, the reason that Crashing Footfalls exists is because the design team wanted to make a card to basically "replace" Hypergenesis. There was no way the card was getting unbanned so they figured they wanted a green card that fit the Suspend only cycle from TSP.

One minor correction, Top wasn't banned solely due to its interaction with the miracles deck, but rather its interaction with fetchlands. The play pattern at the time was Top, fetch, top, fetch... and slowed games down at a time were magic was first starting to stream games on twitch. This play pattern was deemed uninteresting and now the only competetive format that has Top is the same one that doesn't hardly get airplay... Vintage.

Can't wait to see how you fix rite of flames and simian spirit guide, among others

Is that a command zone font/color scheme over the wording?

I think one way to fix hypergenesis would be by changing cascade itself. Just make it so cascade can only cast spells that actually have a mana cost, excluding suspend only cards from that rule.

I was thinking about Dread Return. What if you added the requirement "Flashback - Sacrifice Three Creatures, you may only activate this effect if no creatures have entered the battlefield this turn" so that it'd require an additional turn with Narcos, Ghasts and the like which would give opponents an opportunity to wrath the board?

Glimpse of Nature actually allows for rare turn 2 kills. T1 Forest and Nettle Sentinel, into T2 forest, Nettle Sentinel and Heritage Druid, activate Druid to play Glimpse and have 2 mana floating...

Dread Return- Actually I think flashback sac 6 could be a good way of nerfing it. Since you have to run at least two set of cards in order to hit the effect. You can't just run 4 Narcomoeba since you would never be able to hit the flashback cost. You would need to slot in another 4 cards to be able to pull off the effect which I think would hurt the deck consistency enough. The card was also really good at allowing jank decks to succeed like four horsemen so it is a shame it got banned. Top is an interesting proposition--Hard to add restrictions onto the card without keeping it simplistic enough. I think nerfing it from look at top three to top two would be good enough. And then you'd haev to nerf the tap effect as well I think.

Cards like Beck and Rite of Harmony are also 2 color, if they was mono-green then it would still work with heritage druid pretty easily.

A new hirumaredx channel about mtg? Sure I’ll subscribe.

About Hypergenesis, one thing that could be done would be a change to the rules, that would also break the other decks you show that use the same mechanic: if a card doesn't have a cost, instead of considering it zero, it should be considered an invalid analysis, this way, any time an effect looks at the cost of a card, those cards would be ignored as if they did not exist, or something like that.

What is to good mean in terms of win % . is it like 60% or higher or like 80%+

To fix #5 Could you not put text on it that says: "If this card was not cast from suspend, pay GGG or it is countered"?

Interesting thing about glimpse in elves, is that nettle sentinel also super powers the deck

beck and call is not only not viable due to the extra cost but the extra color it needs, think of heritage druid and most mana dork elves, they produce only green mana. MTG also doesn't see too many erratas to try to fix cards unless its online only cards. because what it says on the card is what it is on the card unless it was a typo like forgetting "until end of turn" clause.

What does ''X mana'' Actually mean? I see Entreat the Angels with 2 X's for its normal Mana Cost, does this mean 10? Or is it tied to something else like an x in maths?

I think you could reasonably fix Top without actually nerfing it, but through a sidegrade. Just make Top go to the top of your library at the end of turn, instead of immediately. This makes it vulnerable to removal, and it stops Mystic Forge loops, and in exchange it opens the door to untap synergies. Tap to draw 1, with no other cost, can still be very strong in the right deck. Maybe I'd add a once per turn on the look too, but Top is rarely activated twice anyway (mostly after a fetch shuffle, otherwise it's after a spin - meaning it's a new object anyway)

Probably your best video

Honestly, the real "fix" to top is to make the first ability a tap ability instead of costing 1. Locking you into sorting your cards only once per turn and making the top vulnerable when you do so would cut down on the dexterity issue (aka the thing about games going to time) and give it more potential counterplay, which is exactly what the card needs to be legal

I'd love to see explaining the commander ban list too lol

The mox should be sac'd, or have a withering function?

Divining Top is also really strong because of fetch lands. Don't like any of the three top cards? Just shuffle them away with your fetch land and take another look for one more mana. Like one of the cards? You can just draw it now with Divining Top. Next turn you draw Divining Top again, play it, potentially look at even more cards, etc. It's basically a Ponder that you can cast every turn, and Ponder is already banned in modern, because it's too good. You can just almost always get the cards you need, which is very powerful for control or combo decks.

The easiest way to fix hypergenesis (albeit by ruining both crashing footfalls and living end) is to rerule cascade to not hit spells without a mana cost.

Those vintagedecks are fast!

I’ve been playing magic since ‘96 and was a former JSS player. I remember using moxes in extended, the predecessor to modern. With the current meta in modern I think these cards could be unbanned safely or at least put on a trial period to see how abusive / non-abusive it could be. Dread return, the meta usually runs counterspells / hand disruption. I run graveyard hate main deck on two of my decks, has won me a few games with it. Living end is legal and considered the best deck in modern. Hyper genesis can be cast by cascade and still be countered once it’s on the stack. Just like living end. I think this card was banned preemptively. Umazawa’s jitte should also be on a trial to be unbanned, the meta is different from the affinity scare of 03-04. It cost 2 & 2 to equip, even with pure steel paladin’s ability to move it around; control is quite prevalent. I also think splinter twin should be on the trial list, I survived the chaos that it caused when it was created. Mengu & kannister have been doing trial runs for potential cards that could be unbanned & splinter twin was one. He lost the majority of his games with it. WoTC printing force of negation has shifted the format beyond what I’d ever thought I’d see. A new force of will in modern. For my last card(s) I’d make the compelling case to unban the artifact lands, Wotc already printed new artifact lands in the format. Affinity isn’t winning in every high level format. Chrome mox was banned & I use to love playing affinity in mirrodin block. I’ve personally play tested in modern with UW affinity with seat of the synod & still slow. UW control, omnath, living end, and murktide still roll over it. I’m just advocating for a trial run of older banned cards to be unbanned, selected on a card by card basis.

Fix Hypergenesis by modifying the Supspend mechanic where if a card that can only be cast from Suspension is cast from anywhere other than suspension it counters itself.

What if the ruling about no mana cost cards considered as "0 mana cost" toward cascade was changed? I mean if you consider the mana cost is "none" and therefore the card is ignored by cascade. When I first saw the Living End combo, it didn't make sense to me at first, I think it's not intuitive at all.

Fix top without destroying cb control is taking out a move from yu gi oh (and new magic sets) and make each ability only activate once each turn. That gets you out of the citadel problem but lets you keep the fair control deck utility.

With senseis top(from the wording and my understanding) it’s activation is to tap it. So couldn’t you instant speed interaction in response?(still should be banned)

Hi. Nice Video. A list why card x is banned in commander would be great. It is my favorite format

for glimpse, just use that new mechanic, "only once per turn" really would make that card powerful, but manageable

You could /sort of/ fix hypergenesis by not allowing it to be cast from the library "if this spell was cast from anywhere except exile, counter it"

What’s the music in the background? It’s wonderful.

randomly load the video from suggestions, hear the all to familiar voice of hirumaredx......instant sub

I would like to see cards removed from banlist that once were on the banlist. As well as standard and (extended a defunct format) bancards throughout the years.

On #10 that will kill the card. A very similar combo existed in a other card game (Elder Scrolls Legends) [mana system works like hearthstone but the default cap is 12] With Disciple of Namira(5 cost 3/3 when a friendly creature dies draw 1 card) and Thieves Guild Fence(3 cost 3/2 cards you draw cost 1 less) where your entire deck conists of cheap cards some so a 2 cost discount makes ever other creature in their deck cost 0, they'd also have a another card that dealt 1 damage and healed you for 1 when you play a 0 cost card so once they got their engine going it was near impossible to win being the game's only turn 3-4 OTK When they nerfed Disciple of Namira the use of that card went from use in that OTK and scattered use in token decks to none at all since it became too slow. Obviously the triggers are different but magic is a much faster game than TESL and an end of turn delay made the card unplayable which might also translate to Magic.

one thing id like to see is "top 5 worst cards that go +1" obviously card advantage is important, but stuff like mind rot doesnt really see play anywhere outside of limited or commander

I think there's a way to fix hypergenesis, it's a little unprecedented but in theory it should work perfectly well with the rules of MTG. Add a line of text that says something like: While not on the stack, the Mana Value of Hypergenesis is (however much it needs to be.)

I get that you have adopted the same structure as for yugioh. But keep in mind, there are almost no erratas in magic, except when they do an obvious mistake like Felidar Guardian. However, magic does like to release fixed versions of some cards. So you might wanna add a side note to the “how can this be fixed” part.

Can you make a top ten cards which banned in every single format please?

fix hypergenesis... 1. make the opponent place cards down first. - problem would be, he could just place 0, since he knows you gonna crush him, but maybe ... 2. + and force him to play at least 1 card. - he can choose to play more cards, and when he assumes, you only have one big Bossmonster in hand, he could profit from putting more than one card down. another idea... pick a random card in hand to put down. you must have at least 2 cards in hand.