Are we sure about Treasure Cruise?
Modern forum
Posted on Nov. 17, 2014, 8:47 a.m. by JWiley129
After that Madrid GP we have a better idea of the meta. Only 4 copies of Treasure Cruise were in the Top 8, in the winning decklist. There were some Birthing Pod decks, 2 Scapeshift decks, and a Martyr of Sands deck. Oh, and Tarmogoyf was in a Temur (RUG) Delver deck, alongside the 4 copies of Treasure Cruise.
And what was the argument for banning Treasure Cruise? It's too easily splashed? What about Tarmogoyf? Can we get back on the "ban Tarmogoyf" train, despite how wrong that is?
I completely agree with ChiefBell. What GP Mardrid taught us is that Treasure Cruise is a legitimate card that has brought a new archetype into tier 1. The meta is much less stale now. People should just adjust their sideboards accordingly, and it absolutely doesn't have to be graveyard hate. delver still operates on small creatures so find a way to dispose of them. Cough cough Pyroclasm or Abrupt Decay.
November 17, 2014 9:06 a.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #4
Honestly, I'm not sure it really warrants banning. The actual power level of it is highly dependent on the quality of your cards. This means that this card is exponentially better the higher up you go in the format tree. In Standard it's meh, in Modern it's pretty good, in Legacy it's really good and in Vintage it's insane. I have seen Delver decks in Modern Cruise four times and still lose via blowout. That being said, it's not exactly the same in all decks. In Delver or Burn you're likely to be drawing all gas as that's 75% of those decks, I've switched over to running Dig Through Time in my more tempo oriented build in both Modern and Legacy.
November 17, 2014 9:49 a.m.
While it didn't make the top 8 wizards coverage even said how most of the players at Madrid elected to use Dig Through Time before cruise because it can fetch out combo pieces. Also I played against a UR delver recently with my fish and cruise wasn't that back breaking for me. It really depends if they rip gas off the top or not. I think dig will over time be better since you almost guarantee hitting a relevant card in that 7.
November 17, 2014 9:54 a.m.
Servo_Token says... #6
Hey guys, Jeskai Ascendancy needs to be banned, right?
No, but seriously, people in modern just hate new things. There is zero reason for Treasure Cruise to be banned. It doesn't break anything, it just adds some better card draw to some decks that needed it to become tier one.
Though I will say that it gives burn some games that it had no business winning, but even with that in mind, I would still say that it isn't degenerate enough to be considered ban-able.
November 17, 2014 9:58 a.m.
The top 8 of an event is not really indicative of the whole meta. While not everyone and their mother is running TC, people are either running it or running countermeasures or running decks that do not care about it. It warps the meta around itself, even in decks that are not running. That is a reason for banning. Cards were banned for less important reasons than that.
And TC being legal while Ancestral Vision is banned seems nonsensical.
Also, one GP is not nearly relevant enough of a sample size to declare anything.
Final point: a surprising lack of Ascendancy combos is what struck me the most.
November 17, 2014 10:17 a.m.
@Boza: The same could be said for Tarmogoyf. When building/playing a modern deck, you have to be able to answer a goyf, or you're going to lose. That being said, there's nothing degenerate about the card. We might groan at the sight of it, and I'm sure many of us grown when a TC resolves, but nothing about it is back-breaking. It's certainly no Brainstorm. There is already plenty of hate for this type of card, people may just need to prepare for it better. Additionally, a Remand is enough to ruin the TC player's day
November 17, 2014 10:34 a.m.
Boza - I agree that 1 GP is not nearly enough data to determine the meta, I still think this Top 8 is indicative of the fact that Treasure Cruise is not as dominating as some members of T/O thought it'd be. I'm a little bitter that Tarmogoyf is being splashed in yet ANOTHER deck, but I'd rather ole 'goyfy be everywhere than TC.
And ChiefBell is right, I forgot about the Abzan (junk) deck with Siege Rhino in it. That was an interesting deck as well.
November 17, 2014 11:51 a.m.
@Boza Is the meta warping or simply changing? If Modern can adapt to Treasure Cruise - and the first GP even where it's legal certainly points to just that - then why does it need to be banned? We could use more data, of course, but so far it looks like the outcry against the card was a bit premature.
November 17, 2014 11:52 a.m.
People aren't running things that stop treasure cruise. No one cares about treasure cruise. People are running cards that stop creature based aggro decks - this includes UR delver, goblins, affinity, some forms of RDW etc. Seeing Pyroclasm or Volcanic Fallout main board is not indicative of treasure cruise warping the format, it's indicative of aggro decks in a general sense being really strong.
November 17, 2014 12:03 p.m.
There are no good cascade creatures in blue. Shardless Agent isn't legal in modern.
November 17, 2014 12:04 p.m.
APPLE01DOJ says... #14
There is a blue white cascade spell that gives exalted.
November 17, 2014 12:18 p.m.
stop saying ancestral vision is banned because of cascade. it's not.
i think Ancestral Vision and Treasure Cruise fill different roles.
cruise is better in the tempo oriented u/r delver/pyromancer decks that want to play a million spells to achieve delve.
vision does not care about cascade except of course for Living End decks that may or may not want it. vision is better in a true control build that wants to suspend it on t1, then spend the next 4 turns on one-for-one or mass removal spells and then refill their hand on t5. i don't think it being unbanned would kill modern.
i could see them both being banned, or both being legal. a 50/50 split doesn't make too much sense to me. after the first few weeks of Treasure Cruise being in the format, it seems healthy enough, so my vote would be for both to be legal.
November 17, 2014 12:20 p.m.
APPLE01DOJ says... #16
Right, I'm glad Blue got a new Draw source. Think Twice & Sphinx's Revelation are pretty damn good in the right shell but this & Dig is kinda what blue needed....
I'm for unbanning Ancestral Vision. I'd love to use the card in Control.
November 17, 2014 12:37 p.m.
APPLE01DOJ says... #17
As it is... we have a new deck and a revitalized deck in the format from KTK.
I think these are good things...
November 17, 2014 12:39 p.m.
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #18
If Ancestral Vision is banned because drawing 3 cards for one mana is OP, then Treasure Cruise should also be banned. Treasure Cruise is easily the stronger card. After turn 1, the second copy of Ancestral Vision can get pretty bad. That's not true for extra copies of Cruise.
The reason nobody cares about Treasure Cruise right now is because U/R Delver, its flagship deck, is actually kind of bad. Drawing 3 means nothing in that deck because all you draw are more cantrips and maybe a Monastery Swiftspear.
November 17, 2014 12:49 p.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #19
Suspending Ancestral Vision on turn one is a really powerful play in Modern. I'm still not sure it entirely warrants a banning, but it is fairly reasonable to assume that a suspended visions on turn one may be impossible for aggro decks to get out from under since they rely running control out of answers to win.
November 17, 2014 1:31 p.m.
Guess I was wrong, but yeah, drawing 3 that early does seem pretty powerful. I wouldn't say that cruise is just better though, they fit different roles. While Vision actually costs just 1 mana, Cruise costs a lot more. Vision can fit in any deck running blue, whereas Cruise only fits well in certain ones.
November 17, 2014 2:10 p.m.
I run U/W fish and I've been trying to fit cruise in and it just doesn't work there visions on the other hand i'd just throw a playset into my list and it gives me a way to refill my hand and probably win almost instantly when it resolves.
November 17, 2014 2:30 p.m.
I don't think Treasure Cruise should be banned. Rather, I think we should start unbanning things in Modern. Right off the bat, we could unban Deathrite Shaman and Ancestral Vision because it'd make for more options regarding Treasure Cruise. They should also unban Golgari Grave-Troll, among other things.
November 17, 2014 4:06 p.m.
WovenNebula says... #24
@sylvannos I agree with most of your statements, but with cruise legal it wouldn't be a good idea to unban the grave-troll because of its dredge six. That would create interesting BUG decks but may cause concern. Prior to cruises print the troll would of been a great unban.
November 17, 2014 7:16 p.m.
JexInfinite says... #25
It's so satisfying to see Cruise have a small impact on T1 compared to what it did to T2. As it turns out, MTGO was basically wrong, even though UR Delver was taking up the majority of positions in daily events.
Banning it now probably wouldn't change anything in T1, but change the T2 metagame a lot, again. It's still a broken card, even if it doesn't need banning now.
November 18, 2014 5:50 p.m.
I love how a great deal of people argue that MTGO is representative of the metagame in general, when time and again its been shown to be nothing more than a sleazy hypetrain.
November 19, 2014 4:34 a.m.
JexInfinite says... #27
ChiefBell I generally don't use MTGO as an example for actual metagame, except I know a lot of people who will just buy the 'best' deck, which 'was' UR Delver. Sure, it's a powerful deck, but everyone adapted to it really quickly, and even too much, in some cases.
UR Delver had over 25% of the metagame on MTGO, which is somewhat indicative of what paper meta could be, but I guess nobody wants to sell their B/G/x or Pod decks.
November 19, 2014 7:03 a.m.
@ChiefBell: MODO is representative of the metagame for the majority of players. It's not, however, representative of the professional metagame. Storm saw very little play at the competitive level (pretty much Jon Finkel was the only person using it) with even fewer top 8s. However, the DCI still banned Seething Song because it was dominating so much of the Online and FNM level metagame.
On the other hand, just look at GP Prague 2014, which took place right before the Deathrite Shaman ban. While 6 of the top 16 were Jund, 5 of the top 16 were some type of U/R/x deck with 3+ copies of Snapcaster Mage and 4 copies of Lightning Bolt, including the winning deck list. This was really close to the metagame being played on MODO at the time. The only thing different was the larger presence of Affinity on MODO, which was almost absent from the GP.
tl;dr-- It's not some "sleazy hypetrain." WotC has banned things based on how they perform on MODO. The professional metagame is different than what most people experience at their local FNM or playing online.
November 19, 2014 8:46 p.m.
JexInfinite says... #30
sylvannos That's true. I remember not too long ago when people were calling for an Arcbound Ravager ban, but instead of banning it, they just made every other deck better.
Cruise is in a similar situation. I think that instead of banning it, they are going to make everything better, or print a card which makes Cruise worse, like a playaable Spirit of the Labyrinth.
Honestly, seeing how Wizards REALLY hates banning things, that seems more likely, but I don't think it's wrong to want it banned. If UR Delver was made slightly worse, not Cruise, I'd be very happy with that. RUG Delver, BUG, 8-Rack and other decks that use Cruise fairly are fun to play against, it's just specifically UR Delver which tries to break Cruise the most.
I don't know what would come along to nerf straight UR Delver without killing the deck entirely, but otherwise, a ban is still fine. As long as something happens so that the deck isn't as good.
November 19, 2014 11:26 p.m.
@JexInfinite: If they made a better version of Spirit of the Labyrinth Legacy Death and Taxes would go bananas. Spirit of the Labyrinth is already highly playable, it just needs a deck.
November 19, 2014 11:30 p.m.
GPs aren't a "professional metagame". You'll find maybe a handful of actual professionals, out of a total crowd of thousands. To think of MODO as made up of 'normal guys' and GPs as made up 'professional guys' is laughable, given that its estimated that less than 2% of them are, on average, actually professional players.
Regardless of previous showings; in this specific case, right now, it WAS a sleazy hypetrain of delver love. Which isn't representative of what everyone else actually decided to do. Maybe sometimes MODO can be a mirror, but often enough it's totally not. Certainly in this particular case it wasn't. You can't really argue with that because it's all down on paper.
I'm really, really surprised that people are still panicking about UR delver even after its been demonstrated that it's really no where near as strong as people say.......
November 20, 2014 3:22 a.m.
@ChiefBell: But how many people that are part of the FNM and MODO metagame are professional? Maybe a handful out of a crowd of millions.
When you go to a GP, money isn't a factor for what deck people play. If the best deck in the format has four Tarmogoyf, four Cryptic Command, four Dark Confidant, and four of each fetchland, people are going to play it. That's not the case on MODO or for the rest of the metagame, where people may only be able to play the deck with four Lightning Bolt and 56 Mountains.
I'm not really concerned over Treasure Cruise warping the format, but I'm not convinced of your arguments, either.
November 20, 2014 5:39 a.m.
Well this has nothing relevant to actually add to the original topic anyway. But in short: I give no shit about cut price budget decks in the top tier of modern. Hatebears winning a MODO event made me laugh heartily. MODO does not appear to represent what serious players are thinking.
November 20, 2014 6:54 a.m.
@ChiefBell: Sure it's relevant. Wizards has banned a card (Seething Song) for doing well on MODO, despite it only having 3 top 8 appearances at a Pro Tour or Grand Prix in the 6 months prior to it being banned.
The argument can be made that drawing three cards for 1 mana before turn four is too strong in Modern. I'd see WotC's reasoning if they decided to ban it because of this. I don't know how they can keep Ancestral Vision banned but Treasure Cruise unbanned. I vote for no bannings in the next go around and for cards to start coming off. Regardless of my opinion, if WotC decides to ban Treasure Cruise, it's consistent for how they feel with cantrips and draw spells in Modern.
November 20, 2014 7:21 a.m.
Something for everyone to remember, Aaron Forsythe has said that there are no changes to the FRF ban list changes as of now. So Jeskai Ascendancy and Treasure Cruise will be legal in Modern for PT Fate Reforged. This is something that most people forget, but we need to remember that for the future.
November 20, 2014 8:36 a.m.
sylvannos - but they didn't bane Seething Song because the deck it was in did too well. They did it because they just didn't want the deck to exist at all.
You're comparing a banning based on the power of a deck (TreasureC in delver) to a banning based on the 'no 3rd turn wins' philosophy (SSong in storm).
Banning based on power requires a great deal of time and many results to decide. Banning based on a general policy of 'we don't want this deck to even exist' is completely different.
November 20, 2014 8:52 a.m.
ChiefBell, they banned Seething Song because they didn't want the deck to exist at all... because it did too well.... I just don't follow your logic there.
Delver has shot up to take 16% of the meta game, and Red Deck Wins has taken 11% of it. The next closest is Birthing Pod, which has fallen to 9%. They banned Deathrite Shaman primarily because Pod and Jund decks each took up about 10% of the meta game at the time, just to even out the format. I wouldn't be surprised if they pulled the trigger on TC
November 20, 2014 9:39 a.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #39
It wasn't necessarily that they were taking up that much of the meta, it's that it allowed attrition decks to have mana acceleration without negatively effecting their late game and it found it's way into decks that had no actual business running it because it had exactly 0 downside.
November 20, 2014 11:02 a.m.
fluffybunnypants, that's a good point. TC is bad in the early game but still powerful. I guess we'll see if people find a way to slow down Burn and Delver decks.
November 20, 2014 11:20 a.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #41
Staring at a Treasure Cruise in your opening 7 in Delver is the actual worst.
November 20, 2014 11:29 a.m.
vishnarg - Actually the storm decks, according to the original wizards statement WEREN'T oppressive in the meta. I don't play MTGO so I can't tell but wizards specifically note that storm wasn't too ridiculous in terms of results - they just didn't like the deck in general.
Deathrite Shaman was banned because Jund took first place in like 5 events in a row, or something, which is completely different to our current situation. I'm not sure Jund was even the most played deck, but in the official statement it says that the banning was due to a successive round of GPs all being won by exactly the same deck. UR delver has won a GP one time.
November 20, 2014 12:14 p.m.
JexInfinite says... #44
ChiefBell I feel like Wizards just wanted to nerf Jund a lot, because even after the DRS ban, it was still really good. 'Goyf is now hosable with Delve, and Jund is not that oppressive. Junk, on the other hand, is doing as well as ever.
I think Wizards should be happy with the current meta. It seems reasonably balanced, and nothing is too oppressive.
ChiefBell says... #2
And a junk deck was in there.
The meta actually looks quite good. As much as we were worried about cruise, nothing actually happened.
Now some people are arguing that UR delver is too strong because people have to react to it (ie. devote main or sideboard space to delver hating cards), which is pathetic. We sideboard against many decks. I sideboard to beat tron, pod, tokens. Many others. They're not all too strong just because I have to think about their presence. This new attack is laughable and weak. Any deck that becomes remotely prevalent in any way deserves sideboarding against.
I have no complaints about the modern meta at all. We're doing fine.
Also can I point out that I predicted that simic delver running Tarmogoyf and Delver of Secrets Flip would probably be awesome. Lo and behold we see a delver deck splashing G. Delver decks want to devote as little mana as possible to large threats. Tarmogoyf fits that role. It's a natural fit. Tarmogoyf is an affordable (at just 2 mana) threat for ANY deck. It won't become too irritating though because removal and counterspells are easy.
November 17, 2014 8:53 a.m.