Punishing Fire

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Punishing Fire

Instant

Punishing Fire deals 2 damage to target creature or player.

Whenever an opponent gains life, you may pay {{R}}. If you do, return Punishing Fire from your graveyard to your hand.

nbarry223 on Dec 4th 2023 Ban announcement

3 months ago

I second that free mana like SSG is deserving of its ban.

I’d like to see some further unbans as well, but only the “safe” ones. Honestly a lot of the dominating cards previously wouldn’t be nearly as problematic in today’s modern, due to how efficient removal has become. A card like Splinter Twin would probably be safe to unban in today’s format, but I am not expecting to see it unbanned because of how dominant it once was (I don’t think its counterpart, Birthing Pod is safe to unban yet, since there’s not enough crazy powerful artifact hate).

Cards I would be happy to see unbanned are:

All the artifact lands
Deathrite Shaman
Ponder
Punishing Fire
Umezawa's Jitte

nbarry223 on Ban list day!

7 months ago

I'm disappointed, but not surprised by the announcement.

They had a lot of opportunity to make the format healthier in my opinion, and definitely missed on it. Clearly the replaying of The One Ring is the "unforeseen loophole" that makes the card too powerful and unfun to play against. It was a huge missed opportunity to make it the first restricted card of the format (yes, it's unprecedented I know, but I think it would make sense, since the opportunity to die to your ring instantly becomes very real).

I also feel like they could have hurt the MH2 elementals a bit by limiting them to 2 copies, removing the unhealthy consistency of a turn 1 overpowered beater that decimates your opponents resources in the process. Anything under 7 copies is a little difficult to reliably get in an opener, especially if it's only half of the combo. 3 colored elemental decks like that aren't super viable, since you need the correct colored card to exile for them.

A semi-restriction like this would eliminate the abuse of the MH2 elementals, while keeping them as powerful tools, instead of just outright banning them. I think it would help to keep the cards' initial intent while removing the consistency of what many (including myself) see as the degenerate side of them. Pitching 2 cards for the effect is fair enough to me, but then getting a beater for an extra mana is just absurd value. This turn one play often ends games, especially with a card like Grief which trades 2 cards (their worst card) for 2 (your 2 best cards) and gives a 4 power beater with evasion for 1 mana. In that context, the card sounds insanely broken, and it really is, that's why Scam is the #1 played deck.

As far as unbans go, lots of missed opportunities there I think. I feel that the artifact lands could be safely removed if we had a "restricted" slot, since having access to 20, enough to make your entire manabase artifacts was the problem. 5 total would be fine, and a fair trade-off to being more susceptible to hate cards.

If the goal is to really move to a more interactive format, why not unban Deathrite Shaman? the "1 CMC Planeswalker" would definitely help in making the format more interactive, giving those midrange control type of decks a much needed tool.

Punishing Fire is another slower toolbox card that could probably be unbanned. The modern of today is far too fast, and giving some tools back to control players may actually shift us away from the Aggro/Combo meta to a bit of a slower format with a more equal spread between Aggro/Combo/Control.

Splinter Twin is potentially safe enough to unban in today's modern. Modern has become such a removal heavy format, that Splinter Twin could probably be policed well enough to not completely dominate the format. There are cards like Force of Negation that keep me hesitant of unbanning it though, so not sure if I would actually unban this particular option, but it is getting close to a reasonable power level in today's meta. If Force of Negation wasn't a card, I think this would be able to be unbanned, but with Force of Negation + Subtlety existing, I just can't get completely behind it. If they were limited down to less than 4 copies, I think it would be reasonable to unban.

Umezawa's Jitte is another option that could potentially be unbanned, but I'm also not sure about it. There's not too much it brings to the metagame, so it may be better to just leave it banned. It may give the smaller creature decks too much of a toolbox that it becomes a jitte vs. jitte format, that pushes other creatures out of the format. There's already enough aggro decks running around, so I don't think we need to give them more tools currently.

StopShot on Dual Land Cycles that You …

1 year ago

Grove of the Burnwillows 100%.

My infinite combo EDH deck would love a spammable Punishing Fire to use against hate bears and deny planeswalker ultimates.

nbarry223 on Best Fae of Wishes Targets?

1 year ago

If only Punishing Fire got unbanned, I could see some value plays becoming possible with Grove of the Burnwillows. Right now, all I can think of are cards with cheaper unearth or flashback abilities, or something that benefits from specific cards hitting the graveyard like The Gitrog Monster, a reanimation package, or maybe even some wonky control shell with Haakon, Stromgald Scourge + Nameless Inversion.

Thanks for the interesting suggestion, I'll have to keep playing around with the idea.

legendofa on Banlist Open Discussion

2 years ago

Punishing Fire isn't a significant threat any more, in my opinion. I only remember it being used in Kird Ape/Wild Nacatl Naya Zoo decks alongside Grove of the Burnwillows, and Wild Nacatl spent some time on the banned list, too. Now it's a non-entity in tournaments.

I think Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is much more banworthy than Faithless Looting, but that might be the salt talking. Pretty much every tiered deck that Faithless Looting was in saw further bans, so I don't think Looting was the problem.

Oof_Magic on Banlist Open Discussion

2 years ago

SynergyBuild I’d sooner see KCI than Second Sunrise unbanned. Most are aware of how infamously long Eggs turns we’re back in the day (when Eggs didn’t even run KCI). Many forget that it wasn’t uncommon to be going off on turn 2-3 with Sunrise.

Safe unbans would include:

Blazing Shoal

Field of the Dead

Mycosynth Lattice

Punishing Fire

Splinter Twin

Tibalt's Trickery

After that you have the tier of discussion, cards which are probably not safe but warrant investigation and testing. These would be:

Birthing Pod

Golgari Grave-Troll OR Bridge from Below

Oko, Thief of Crowns

Umezawa's Jitte

I’m not saying this second listed section is safe to unban. I am saying that I could see the format work it’s way to a point where these could be unbanned.

sergiodelrio on Banlist Open Discussion

2 years ago

Hello fellow Planeswalkers. I made this thread so we can discuss the cards currently on the Modern banlist (SEE BOTTOM OF POST) and look if there may be candidates for unbanning, since it has been a while since something moved off the list.

I'm one of those crazy people that wants to live in a world where Mental Misstep and Gitaxian Probe are legal, but I see how that's not realistic whatsoever, so I won't talk about here. Let's have this discussion to be about REALISTIC, reasonable and safe unbannings.

Here are my candidates:

Deathrite Shaman - With all the easy cheap removal and grave hate in the format plus the general push of power level in the recent years, is this really a big deal anymore? Not even sure Jund wants it anymore. Since this doesn't enable a game winning combo or lockout on the spot, I think it deserves a second chance.

Artifact land cycle ala Ancient Den. So, they even injected another 10 artifact lands - are those even being played much competitively? My gut is this was a probe to see if they indeed could unban the old artifact lands. Artifact removal is much more available these days and the old artifact lands don't even come with indestructible sooo...

Rite of Flame - but Sergio! Fast mana is broken. Yes indeed. But they did ban Simian Spirit Guide and hear my out why Rite of Flame is weaker. SSG does not require you to play or a mountain to activate, Rite does and even costs a mana to begin with. SSG has a secondary feature being a creature and can be cast at a reasonable cost of 3 mana. Rite doesn't have that. Since they took Mox Opal and SSG, I think Rite of Flame might deserve a chance as a weaker substitution.

Please tell me what you think about that and/or show me your argumenst for other unbannings that you can see happening.


Ancient Den

Arcum's Astrolabe

Birthing Pod

Blazing Shoal

Bridge from Below

Chrome Mox

Cloudpost

Dark Depths

Deathrite Shaman

Dig Through Time

Dread Return

Eye of Ugin

Faithless Looting

Field of the Dead

Gitaxian Probe

Glimpse of Nature

Golgari Grave-Troll

Great Furnace

Green Sun's Zenith

Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

Hypergenesis

Krark-Clan Ironworks

Mental Misstep

Mox Opal

Mycosynth Lattice

Mystic Sanctuary

Oko, Thief of Crowns

Once Upon a Time

Ponder

Preordain

Punishing Fire

Rite of Flame

Seat of the Synod

Second Sunrise

Seething Song

Sensei's Divining Top

Simian Spirit Guide

Skullclamp

Splinter Twin

Summer Bloom

Tibalt's Trickery

Treasure Cruise

Tree of Tales

Umezawa's Jitte

Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath

Vault of Whispers

A55Destroyer69 on The Marit Lage Life

2 years ago

honestly going RG base with a WU splash is what I find to be the best. You have access to things like Academy Ruins and Hall of Heliod's Generosity to get back your milled moxen or Exploration s as you need.

Anyway, I would argue that, even with no black mana in the deck, that Smokestack is much less powerful than Nether Void in most matchups. Dredge will still function, of course, but will not be able to cast too many spells. Even something like Sphere of Resistance is a better alternative. The worst matchup for lands is Storm, so making them have to start sacrificing their lands after they've probably already gone off and killed you seems pretty impractical. Sphere of Resistance makes them need to deal with it before even thinking of going off, since the entire power of storm bases itself around making enough mana to go off, rather than making overly excessive amounts, so leeching 1 mana per spell seems really strong (and it is in practise, too)

I also find that 4 Dark Depths and 4 Thespian's Stage are both sort of overkill, as when you're functioning fully you're effectively drawing 3 cards per turn with loam putting the top 3 cards of your deck into your bin. I do find that Field of the Dead is a really good alternative too, and even against 1 lands spy or manaless dredge or whatnot you can still make a board with it - wasteland your own things and replay them through the power of loam. It's really sketchy, but if that's all you can do then so be it. It does give you quite a boardstate quite quickly in any case.

Propaganda is a much worse version of Glacial Chasm , and yes glacial chasm has a cumulative upkeep cost, but if you have loam and Exploration available then you can just sit and control the board with Punishing Fire s to chip down your opponent and their boardstate. If you have another exploration out then you can advance your own boardstate althewhile too.

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