"Free" to Cast Cards - Explaining All Banned Cards in Modern [Part 2] 

Metal misstep also can be played with decks that dont even run blue. Phyrexian mana is broken in general. Two cards that have it are in this list.

There's something really funny about half the Magic banlist being effectively made of Yugioh cards. So much stuff that dodges the mana system.

The thing about blazing shoal wasn't that it amounts to a two card combo with glistener elf, allowing for a turn 2 kill, but that it does so for 0 mana, allowing you to get your turn 2 kill with countermagic up.

Don't underestimate just how much "enters the battlefield tapped" can nerf a card. Among other outside factors, that single line of text is the only difference between a cycle of $.05 cards that see no competitive play, and a cycle of $500+ ones that are format staples.

I love Mental Misstep. Not for what the card does but the flavour text is one of my favourites

Misstep made Legacy so miserable for a while. The fact that every deck could run it and that Misstep was by far the best counterplay for Misstep meant that you had decks like Goblins, Elves, and Death and Taxes packing a playset. I think even costing 2 Physician blue would go a long way to balancing it. Countering itself is such a big part of why it warps formats so badly.

"Wizards doesn't like it when cards get too homogeneous in a format" *Insert Modern Horizon's 2 Ragavahn, Elementals, Urza's Saga, etc.*

With Gitaxian Probe, there's also the interaction it has with Death's Shadow decks, where dropping your life total as quickly as possible is actually a positive, because it just makes your Shadow's bigger and bigger. With minimal effort, you could -Probe the opponent to check their hand -Put a shock land into play untapped -And case a Thoughtsieze, dropping your life total to 14. And this is all while your opponent is still assembling their win con

Infect has actually been struggling in the format for a while now, despite having multiple ways to win on turn 2. The main thing holding it back is the amount of efficient removal the format has now (e.g. Fury, Solitude, Unholy Heat, etc.) While Shoal does pump your creatures, it doesn't actually protect them.

The discussion around Misstep made me think of YGO Hand trap meta.

Gitaxian probe is also great in combo decks because if you play it at 4 copies, you're effectively just running a 56-card deck, making it more likely that you draw into your combo pieces. I really don't know how anyone thought that card would be ok

For Mox Opal, I would add, "Use this mana to only cast artifacts or activate abilities of artifacts." May end up fixing it, though I'm not entirely sure it will.

I'm so happy you started making MtG content, I love your Yu-Gi-Oh videos but have more of a love for Magic as a game, thank you so much for all the hard work you do and making such good videos!

Biggest thing I remember about probe is it's essentially a free spell that gives you information on what your opponents playing and cantrips which in a format like modern is really good

Hey, just wanted to say you're one of my newest favorite magic content creators and I'm glad there's some good content coming out for Modern format related topics (:

How can you log the mana if it doesn't cost any mana?

Once Upon a Time is also noteworthy in that it boosts specific decks like Tron, Primeval Titan, and Urza’s Saga decks, which are all already top tier and would have even more consistent nut draws with said card.

Mental misstep would probably be fair if it cost 4-5 phyrexian mana. It would still be “free” but you can only really ever use one in a game, and it accelerates the clock against you by a very large margin.

Love everything. Especially the editing and the legality text. But also your narration!

love these vids as a yugioh player, i feel like i understand nothing lol, but thats the fun part to me

Just wanted to say I love this series on magic and hope you keep it going

I just really like your videos. Lays things out very nicely.

The Mox artifacts are pretty much just extra basic lands you can play as many of as you can draw, needless to say they are a bit broken at a base concept level

great video very informative but 1 thing I think should be mentioned in the Once Upon A Time entry is how Wizards changed the mulligan rule a few sets before it was released originally if you decided to mulligan you just went down 1 card so if you started with 7 cards mulliganed you started with 6 and that was it then they changed to where you now also look at the top card of your deck and decide if you want it on the top or the bottom of your deck this was a small change but it just made the card even better

There was a standard or extended event that had 128 missteps being played in the top 32 decks. Pretty much the reason it got prebanned in modern.

I have never played a game of magic and most of my knowledge of cards comes from this channel and a brief look at some magic channels. So I think it says something of how obviously broken Mental Misstep is that I realized it was extremely broken before his explanation.

The other thing about Blazing Shoal is that you could tutor it with Muddle the Mixture. Once you were on the Muddle train you could tutor for your threat in Blighted Agent or free interaction in Snapback or Disrupting Shoal. That said, back then you could play Preordain, Ponder, and Probe and IIRC those were the main culprits of the deck's consistency, not the Muddle package. ETA: Personally I think unbanning Shoal could be interesting. Infect isn't much of a player in the meta and a combo focused version might play better. And I think Force of Negation really checks how dominant spell based combos can be these days.

Mox Opal fix? Untap cost: Tap 1 land card in play/Keep 1 land card tapped in play. Trade a specified Mana color for any mana color, makes it not entirely free to play. Best thing I could think of. Loving the MTG content just like everything else you put out!

"Mental Misstep is banned because it lets you counter things when you are tapped out.... Good thing Modern Horizons 2 came out"

Love this series ❤

A good way to fix Phyrexian mana is to errata the entire mechanic so that it requires you to control a land with a basic land type of that color (so you need to be playing blue to play these blue cards even if they are free).

Can we get a list featuring UN cards? P.S.A. If your opponent puts gloves on before the game starts, DO NOT TOUCH THEIR DECK. There is a good chance there is 1 or more Vile Biles in it. Vile Bile states that if someone touches the card with skin nail, or hair; they lose 2 life. Vile Bile can also turn Magic in to a game of tag. This all applies to casual games.

I feel like if you gave Mox opal cumulative upkeep it would make it more balanced because you mana positive positive at first but the longer you keep it out the more of a liability it is so it would function a lot closer to a Lotus pedal than to a mocks while still keeping its design intact

For Mox Opal, honestly having it enter tapped would probably be good enough, yeah? The fact that it's legendary means you can't have multiple on the board to untap with, and entering tapped now means that you can't just replace one with another once you've used the first. It would do a lot to slow it down beyond just "you can't use it turn one". Opal is usually featured in fast or combo artifact decks, so it would be interesting to see how it transitions into a more traditional ramp card. Edit: honestly the more I think about this, it's still too much advantage on one card in affinity.

This serie is amazing Thank you

For Once apon a time perhaps making you pay it’s mana cost in a few turns rather than never might help

I randomly clicked on this video for listening and I thought I missclicked on a duellogs vid. Didn't knew you do mtg vid too pog

Re: Mox Opal It's crazy hard to "fix" moxes (which is part of why they're so rarely printed) but I'd probably start with something like what's worked for the fair lotus cards. -Suspend 1 (like Lotus Bloom) -Mana cost of (2) (like Gilded Lotus) -Mana can only be used on artifact spells (like Jeweled Lotus)

I have an idea that will fix once upon a time - add a clause stating that if it's the first spell, scry 1 (look at the top card, then put it on top or bottom. Being able to dig that deep for 0 mana shouldn't be allowed. Interesting fact - throne of eldraine is the set where people started meme-ing that green is the best color in all of magic

They could probably fix mox opal by requiring the artifacts to be ones that cost at least 2 mana each. That would at least slow it down enough to ensure it doesn't just pop up with its effect right away.

After stop playing wow i never though that i would hear hirumaredx voice agai , good to know that you are a magic player too. Just sub to the Chanel.

I think if Mox Opal didn't also color fix for you then it would be okay-ish. I honestly just hate how Wizards is just never able to make a not-broken artifact set.

My thought for fixing Mox Opal would be increasing the number of artifacts it requires, possibly to 5 or 7. I don't know anything about MTG though, as all I know about it is what I've seen in ManaLogs videos, so I cannot guarantee this would solve it.

Can't wait for the incarnations to join this list

Could Mox Opal also tap for colorless mana? That combined with entering the battlefield tapped would be card worth considering an add back into the format

(5:48) Whoops, Scale Up makes a creature become 6/4, not 6/5.

Making Mox Opal only tap for 1 colorless mana would "help" and be the only way I could see fixing it without fundamental changes... or maybe sac'ing like a Lotus Petal could be a thing as well, but it would still fulfill most of its duties in both cases. RIP to one of my favorite cards in Modern! I don't actively play anymore, and it was banned shortly after I sold mine... the ban still hurt me when I heard about it!

And thus we now have MINOR MISSTEP

For mox opal, what about changing the metalcraft to require three artifacts with mana abilities? Theoretically that would require more of an investment in deck building instead of being an auto-include.

For opal you could *maybe* make it only produce colorless, but even then it's probably too good

i recognize your voice, did you do world of warcraft content in the past? loved the video :)

Looking at how to balance Mental Misstep, there's actually a pretty clear solution by looking at other "free" counterspells. They're all tempo negative or card disadvantage. Force of Will and Force of Negation require you to exile a blue card from your hand, while Daze requires you to return an island to hand. In either case, you're down resources. So there's a few ways Misstep could be tweaked to also put you down resources. It could just require exiling another card if you pay the life so that it's card disadvantage, though that would make it significantly worse, as there are far fewer situations where a one mana spell is worth two cards out of your hand. Another way would be to give your opponent resources. Such as having them draw a card, or perhaps being a Remand effect where the spell goes back to their hand instead of to the graveyard. Just making the opponent draw a card makes it a lot less of an auto include. Even if there are a lot of targets for countering a 1 mana spell, you need to further narrow that to 1 mana spells where the average spell drawn is worse than it resolving, or situations where giving them a card is unlikely to matter. As for Mox Opal, I think it could be unbanned... if Urza's Saga gets banned. I feel Urza's Saga is in much the same position Opal was in, in that it's a borderline too good card that sees play in way too many decks to make them way too good. But, much like Opal, it's the only reason some more fringe decks in the format can be good enough to survive. When Opal got banned, Affinity just fell out of the metagame, and it came back with Urza's Saga and a new cycle of artifact lands, but its pretty much agreed that Saga is what's really propping the deck up. Additionally, a lot of the other decks after MH2 got pretty juiced up by cards other than Saga, and I don't think the decks that did run Opal would be too strong trading Saga for Opal against the current metagame. However, I think there's a safer unbanning that could prop up Affinity in a hypothetical post Saga ban modern, and that's the original artifact lands from Mirrodin. The format has increased dramatically in power since they were banned (or since the beginning, since I think they might have been on the initial ban list). Additionally, some of the cards that really abused them, like KCI have been gone for years. Not to mention, without Saga, the main deck they would see play is almost certainly going to fall out of the metagame. Unbanning this lands after that would likely bring Affinity back into relevance, but not much more than that.

The visual of two wizards casting mental misstep against each other is funny. One wizard starts to chant an incantation and another wizard makes him stumble on his words by chanting so the wizard stumbling on his words causes the other wizard to stumble on his words so he can continue his original incantation lol

Seems like a huge problem with cards that can be cast for free (even ignoring what an innate upside in and of itself that is) is that you can play cards without regard for their colour. You can play mental misstep even if your deck isn't blue. You could play once upon a time even in a deck that wasn't green (though this would incur a different deck building cost where you'd need to find a way to make it useful if it's not your first card, like pitching it). Maybe some kind of condition going forward for new releases could be something where to play a coloured card for "free" you at least need any mana of its colours even though you don't pay that mana.

I dont think that any fast mana should be unbanned ever since it allows for way too fast plays. However, if we were to speculate how to fix it, I would probably remove the metalcraft rule and add some affinity-esque ability such as "5, tap: Add one mana of any color. This ability cost 1 less for each artifact you control". Another solution would be to add the line "This mana can only be used to cast non-creature aftifacts" to the opals tap ability. That way you would keep the theme of it being an artifact mox and you wouldnt be able to push out a lot of things in affinity. In hammertime you would be able to play hammers so it would probably not even be played in hammer.

Cant wait for the update of this that includes the mh2 elementals

including thought monitor in the discussion around mox opal feels strange to me, considering thought monitor came out in MH2 - almost 18 months after opal was banned

For Mox Opal, it probably would be sufficiently nerfed if it came in tapped and the mana can only be spent on artifacts. It would still be powerful, but it would highly limit the utility of it.

Maybe changing what colors Mox Opal can make would be enough. Something like "Add one mana of any color to your mana pool that another artifact you control could produce" that way it keeps the metalcraft/artifact theme and makes you play something like a multi color mana rock to get it online

long term magic player here, and for probe you missed the main deck that got it banned finally, deaths shadow. and for mox opal, just make it tap for colourless mana, itll get rid of a lot of the combo decks that ran it but keep it good in affinity style aggro decks.

Metalcraft is the problem with Mox Opal, and the solution would be make it total Mana Value 3 instead of count 3. Fixes all the 0 mana interactions maybe makes it a cool part of actual affinity and also does something about treasure.

Opal mox was for a long time my most expensive card. I remember it was worth about 80€ back when it was legal in modern.

if mox opal tapped for colorless and made you sacrifice an artifact on entry that might balance it out

Idea to make a "fair" mox opal: - doesn't untap in your untap step - in your upkeep you may sacrifice an artifact, if you do, untap mox The other way is to limit the amount of times it can be used, e.g. have it enter with 3 counters and make removing one of them part of the cost.

Gitaxian Probe is also just a card that in modern there's just no reason not to play it. It's free card advantage with a really powerful effect as a bonus. If your opponent counters it, then you're not down that much and if they don't you can see they have that counter

14:58 "Wizards doesn't really like it when cards become too homogenous in the format" unless of course they're cards from the new set like Ragavan and all the other MH2 cards ruining the format. Then they're allowed to run rampart without any restrictions 🙃

for the mox opal making it so you have to qualify for threshold and delirium before the metalcraft would balance it better

Nerf idea for Mox Opal, keeps the same effects but it gets: After it gets tapped for mana put a charge counter on it. After it gets three charge counters sacrifice Mox Opal. Would it be a bit more balanced then?

What about if for Opal, you had to choose a color when it came into play, and could only tap for the chosen type

I understand Once Upon a Time was meant to reduce mana screw but it really needed a downside. Such as "Lands you control enter tapped this turn", or it's only free if you don't go first, or you have to reveal your hand... there was just no reason NOT to play it

I think there can be better way to fix Misstep in two *steps*: it no longer costs Phyrexian mana, just 1 blue, and it counters only spells with converted mana cost 4. Then it will be incredibly good for sideboarding, because cmc 4 is also in most control and midrange decks, but it crushes against many aggro decks and some combo decks. Or maybe giving it 2 blue and it counters only cmc 3, now it becomes kind of Counterspell, but unlike Counterspell it has limited targets (as it was with cards like Negate or Annul, or Disdainful Stroke, or Ceremonious Rejection,)

Ty 💙 💙 💙

For mox opal, maybe also add a life point cost? Like 2 each time it’s tapped or something?

Opal usually helped u flood the board with cheap shit on the first turn or 2, but was hard to even get 2 mana to be floating on turn 1 since a lot of the time that flood was a chain of 0 n 1 mana spells, n if it did cast a 2 drop on turn 1 like Ravager or Overseer, then they didn't have the board presence to make it worth playing them on turn 1. So it wasn't pushing big plays. Now it make u get a a turn 1 Emry who can combo with other stuff to drop Urza on turn 2 n that was when the power of Opal became toxic. It was always super strong but it helped make midrange artifact decks feel like aggro n gave aggro decks a payoff for weak but free creatures like Memnite n Ornithopter, it was only when it became a facilitator of tons of fast instant kill combo decks. Combos that kill with combat damage r easier to stop than a blue deck protecting itself with counters while it plays out every card in its deck

For Mox Opal, I would maybe have it only tap for colors of mana that artifacts you control have. Granted, I’m not sure if colored artifacts existed when it was printed, but it would get around cheating the restriction with cheap artifacts since I don’t think many cheap artifacts are colored.

What about making Mox Opal only activateable if you control 6 or more artifacts? Seems like this could slow it down to make it more fair

Mox Opal died for the sins of Modern Horizons and the FIRE mentality they had (flashy, eternal warping power creep). Mox Opal was part of the few surviving modern archetypes that lasted since its creation. Unfortunately, we get stuck with playing Modern Horizons block.

Mox Opal: Have it make only colorless mana, and give it the text "Use this mana only to X" where X is maybe "cast artifact spells," "cast creature artifacts," etc.

The way to fix mox opal is to do something with the legendary rule. Something along the lines of it not being able to tap for mana if mox opal was already used once this turn or you cant cast it if you already control one - that would nerf PW's and legendary creatures a bit too which would be in line with the idea of legendry's anyways. That would nerf it enough. What made mox opal really strong was being able to play several in one turn and just stack the mana. IF that were eliminated the card would be safer but I still dont believe it needed to be banned. I think Urzas Saga is gonna prove to be stronger its only a matter of time before they claim it is restricting design space like they did with Mox Opal - unless of course they have vowed to stop making 1 and 0 mana artifacts. There are many many more sideboard cards that would stop mox opal decks today. I also dont believe its that good with urzas saga, its strong no doubt, but it would be just like Jace the mind sculptor - looks better than it is. It sucks that affinity is gone it was certainly a pillar of modern.

could you make mox opal take like 5-7 artifacts? or would that not count as metalcraft

Maybe if the Mox only counted 2+ cost artifacts instead of one-or-two, and you have to sacrifice an artifact to gain that mana? If you can generate 0-cost artifacts easy enough could use it effectively, but it would still be much harder and have a much higher cost associated with it.

Mox opal could tap for colorless only, that would support its metal craft synergy lore wise at least, and maybe it burns you for 2 when you tap it but idk

Mox opal simply being a filter instead of a free mana would do it. Make it slightly stronger as tap any land so utility lands might get extra utility if making it a filter weakens it too much.

Wait, you started doing magic content? I remember seeing your vod about reacting to mtg cards a few months ago

What if mox opal required you to sacrifice or remove from play artifacts to untap as well as coming in to play tapped.

whirza is one of my favorite deck names

Mental misstep - I would change it from 1 phyrexian mana to 1 blue mana in addition to paying 2 life. I think that would place it in an ok place.

Give me Blazing Shoal for my CMC matters U/R deck! Seems awesome

So, this list is outstanding. It goes over the proper reason for everything Modern Banned. Mental misstep, Git Probe, OUaT (Once Upon a Time), and Mox Opal are completely honest bans. Misstep, and Probe are banned in Legacy. That's a MUCH STRONGER format for those who don't know. Hearing about Probe, Ragavan, Oko Thief of Crowns, and Misstep being banned over all this time is just understandable. They are FORMAT warping power houses. Misstep is limited to a single copy in Vintage (Unhinged turn 1 wins at times) where all of the most powerful cards are legal. Probe being able to give you free information turn 1 before a land drop is just to much even for a legacy player. Chrome Mox being banned is a simple thing. If a mana rock gets banned in anyway, shape, or for. Just think this. Free Mana for Faster Plays. If this phrase confuses you. I'll explain here -- If I can turn 1 win. There's There's issue. There needs to be a balance. If I can dump my hand, draw my library, or do anything that you cannot interact with. The format is not longer aggro, it's warped and beyond broken. Can try to argue these, but I've played much more legacy, and I like to see these opened to legacy (minus Ragavan, and Oko). Balance is needed. And can we all agree that Phyrexian Mana was a mistake (but an okay one with a few cards like Metamorph). Love the videos man. Keep it up.

0 Mox Opal Artifact M Metalcraft - T: Add one mana of any color. Spend this only to cast artifact spells or activate abilities of artifacts.

MTG: We banned once upon a time to avoid an homogenous format YGO: DPEs and Adventurers for all!!

i think you could mostly fix Mental Misstep by making it one more Phyrexian mana and only playable if you control a island or maybe even just a land.

I think your once opon a time fix is definitely not the way to go. We already have Abundant Harvest, which sees essentially no play, and has no chance to wiff. A better solution would be to adjust the number of cards seen, so that there is a real risk of seeing only non-creature spells without major deck building restrictions. Something like "look at the top X cards of your library, where X is the twice the mana spent to cast this spell plus 2." Most decks in the format run enough non-creatures that the chance of finding 2 of them off the top and discarding the once opon a time for nothing would be an unacceptable risk. The decks that ARE willing to cut non-creatures to the point that they always hit still lose significant consistency by seeing 3 fewer cards, but that might be fine for creature based combo decks which just want to churn through their decks as quickly as possible.

Would a mental misstep just for 1 blue be playable?

You could probably fix Mox Opal by having it cost 2 Colorless Mana. There are already lots of cards that cost 3/4 mana to give you 1 mana of any color so it'd be one that's a mana cheaper with the Metalcraft restrictions

Mox Opal got banned in modern because Urza's Sage was already designed, there is zero ways to have both of those cards in modern at the same time. Makes Urza Saga just become a rainbow land at worse. And between the two mox opal is clearly going to be the one banned. WoTC greed alone would require it, if you wanted to make and sell Urza's Saga in a modern set without banning it in modern, you have to ban mox opal. Also mox opal is the correct choice because any artifact strategy will always break it. Mox Opal died because of Urza's Saga, but to be honest had to die anyway. Sadly Urza's Saga is even worse and is played OUTSIDE of artifact decks, which at least was super rare with Mox Opal. I am actually tired of seeing Urza's Saga everywhere.

Maybe if mox opal produced colorless? On top of entering tapped probably.

To fix Mox Opal I would have it exile a card the same way as chrome Mox would and have it etb tapped

For Mox Opal, I would add two lines above Metalcraft: "Mox Opal doesn't untap during your untap step. At the beginning of your upkeep, you may sacrifice an artifact. If you do, untap Mox Opal."

Misstep is a handtrap in a game not designed for handtraps to exist. That last one sounds like a good really stupid ban when Magic has a mulligan system to do basically the same thing without even using a card. Sure you loose 1 card from your hand if you do that, but it's almost always worth it anyway.