Love the "it doesn't encourage removal, it demands removal" quote. I'm always happy to see Ragavan when I have a Young Wolf in my hand, but I can understand the arguments for the format as a whole. Quality video as always! 👏
I felt the same way about the Expressive Iteration ban in Pioneer/Explorer. It nerfed my favorite deck, destroying it in Explorer, but overall the format definitely needed it.
It's funny because the exile clause of Ragavan is exactly why it got banned in Legacy in the first place. More often than not, if it wasn't answered, you would be allowed to hit a ponder or brainstorm, essentially netting you a +1 just for hitting.
As somebody who uses them a lot (Living End) you are 100 percent correct. Solitude is basically Swords to Plowshares, Subtlety is fine, but pitch counterspells are never a fun thing to have to play against, Grief is a nightmare, Idk how it's not in every deck running black, Fury is too much value, being able to answer 2-3 different things is disgusting, and Endurance is just a must-have sideboard all-star as the current best answer to graveyard strategies. A few of these need the axe but tbh a lot of things in modern do.
I liked them initially, and I think if they purely functioned like Force of Will they'd be fine. The problem is pairing them with shenanigans like Ephemerate / Scam / Living End. That's why I think Endurance is the exception since you don't get extra value out of it and it's the worst out of the 5 from a stats/ability standpoint.
I've been suggesting among my friends the fact that evoke just needs a rules change. They are REALLY good cards, even without flickering shenanigans, but the fact that you can remove 2 creatures at instant speed, and then a third next turn, for one mana, and be ahead on board next turn with a 3/2 lifelinker? Evoke needs to change to represent what is supposed to happen when you pay evoke costs, so we brought up sacrifice the creature acting as a "state based action" or something, so there it can't be interacted with on the stack. It would solve a lot of issues.
Ragavan is just a typical example of power creep that comes with a new Modern Horizons set to get people to buy into that set in hopes that people will pull this overpowered monkey. The 5 main elementals that were printed in MH2 brought modern closer to a legacy style format with all these "free to play" spells. The problem is that Wizards will most likely keep making these insanely good cards to get people to buy into that set. My LGS constantly runs out of stock of MH2 boosters before boosters from any other set, which means that this strategy is working. I am pretty certain that once Modern Horizons 3 is released, we will notice another power creep in the form of new overpowered cards that will probably be on the same level as Ragavan, and this will change the whole modern format that has been more or less the same since 2021 when MH2 was released.
I definitely feel this. Modern used to be my favorite format by a longshot, and that slowly started slipping with War of the Spark and MH1. MH2 and the Ragavan-centric meta it created just weren't for me, and I sold out. Maybe someday we'll see the all-in-one monkey gone. One can hope, at least.
I cannot agree with this argument more. The fact that Ragavan demands turn 1 or turn 2 removal forces decks to play around the card and warps the format in such a way that decks need to run more cheap removal than necessary because of the high meta share of decks that run the card in the format. If Ragavan isn't answered, it can and will single-handedly snowball the game out of control, even if it only gets one hit in. Ragavan connecting means a few things: 1. Whoever gets hit is being denied a card, period. There's almost no way you can get that card Ragavan exiled back. 2. Whoever has the Ragavan gets a huge resource lead. "It's just one treasure" is not a good argument when games in the format are decided by turns 3~4 at the latest, where having a single extra mana for one turn is enough for many decks to do very powerful things, especially when considering decks in the format are super-charged for maximum efficiency. 3. Whoever has the Ragavan gets the "I play your deck" buff, which further widens the resource gap. Every hit by Ragavan is essentially a 3-for-1 for the player who has the card in play (denial of opponent's top card of library, the ability to cast said card, and the treasure generation). 4. Ragavan connecting is such a big threat that it severely punishes situations where, as mentioned in the video, the defending player has the unfortunate luck of not being able to have or draw into any relevant removal is literally the reason they lose the game. Even when Ragavan is answered, the defending player loses a removal spell that could have been used on the real threat of their opponent's deck (Murktide, Omnath, T3feri, Scion, etc.). The card creates way too many lose-lose scenarios for a one mana creature, just like DRS. So yes, the card should and needs to be banned. If DRS can get the banhammer, then so should Ragavan. But right now apparently WotC is still doing print runs of MH2 and banning Ragavan will hurt their bottom line, so as long as MH2 keeps staying in print the chances of the card getting banned is quite low.
I think the dominance of Ragavan and concentration of decks into the tempo/hammer archetypes is actually an unfortunate byproduct of banning Yorion since Elementals was one of the few decks that could answer it early with evoke elementals and still counteract that card disadvantage with Risen Reef, Omnath, etc.
@@AmmiO2 Although technically banning Yorion made the deck more consistent (at least that’s what some of the people who pilot Money Pile Control I’ve talked to have said). On the other hand, there technically isn’t anything stopping people from playing 80-card decks; banning Yorion merely removed the payoff/incentive to play 80-card decks. Yorion definitely gave Money Pile Control lots of power, and while it did warrant a ban, I feel that it wasn’t as high priority as Ragavan, W&6, or Saga.
I am personally not convinced that Ragavan needs to be banned. The card is very pushed and the ramp effect might very well be too much as it allows you to have insane 3 mana turn 3 in Izzet decks, so I wouldn't be surprised or mad that it gets banned as the card is definitely on the edge. However, I would like to argue that we need very strong 1 drops in modern now. With all the extremely powerful 1 or 0 mana removal (leyline, unholy heat, the pitch elementals), you need decks that will not take a tempo hit against those removals in order to not make them dominate. If you play a tarmogoyf turn 2 but your opponent can kill it instantly with a solitude by turning one of his other white cards into a white simian spirit guide, you end up super behind. Ragavan, DRC, and the hammer creatures prevent strategies that stall the early game to dominate because the 1 mana tempo loss hurts way less and they present a threat that can kill those deck fast enough. Perhaps Ragavan is too much or isn't enjoyable to play against, but if you get rid of it you need an alternative.
Actually. this is my argument but reversed for why modern would be healthier without Prismatic Ending/Leyline Binding, Fatal Push, Unholy Heat, and Solitude/Fury/Grief. Not only because it brings Thoughtseize and Bolt back (thought no Bolt would be interesting as well), it would make it obvious that cards like Ragavan/Darcy are too good. Without staple removal, the next best thing is 2 cmc or has a big restriction attached. I'm firmly of the opinion that the only reason these threats have gottne so pushed is because the removal got pushed first. For the longest time, Bolt was the best and singular 1 mana removal spell in Modern. The next closest might have been the 5 cmc delve spell. That was 5 years ago. I miss those days, even though I never got to play, because the games felt less defined by single powerful cards, and the format was a little slower. Modern isn't Legacy. Legacy is legacy.
So you're saying Ragavan is necessary because of how good the answers are. The problem is that your opponent's low cost removal doesn't win the game if you don't play a low cost threat, but your low cost threat does if they don't have the removal. This has always been the case. The arguably best creature in standard right now sheoldred at 4 mana, and she dies to pretty much all of the 2 mana removal. Low cost removal does not necessitate low cost threats. That said, low cost removal is a problem, but it's not solved by threats that force your opponent to have them, it's solved by threats that protect themselves or do additional things even if they die. Ward is a great mechanic to help deal with this issue. What if tarmagoyf for instance had ward 2? Forcing your opponent to spend mana on that removal is a much healthier way of dealing with it than saying you have to have it right now or else.
A Ragavan hit me and snagged my Thoughtseize when it was legal in Legacy and that one interaction made me want to have "friendly" "chat" with whoever design this monkey Being able to randomly get the benefit of having an extra color in your efficient tempo deck is too much. It's too good for Legacy and it is probably just as unhealthy for Modern Edit: At least give me the card to my hand if they don't use it so there is a choice if you decide to use it
I think saying Ragavan has no cost to activate it's ability is a bit disengenous. You don't just get the ability it ragavan survives to your turn or if you dash it out. It's activation is “dealing combat damage to an opponent”. I think it's about as much if not more of a restriction as having a land in the yard for DRS to make mana in a format defined by both players playing fetch lands. I also think think the removal argument and rebutle are weak. A similar argument is mare about all combo decks of any format “have interaction or lose”. I also think the type of interaction required is a deciding factor if a card is too good. Ragavan requires creature removal something that is expected of every deck to play. It not like hogaak that required mb gravehate or fotd that required land removal. I think incentivizing creature removal is fine. It's also something to take into account on your g2-3 mulligans. I think Ragavan is super pushes and maybe too good but there are 2 cards id like to see banned before it because the create much larger value differently (EI and breach). I think if UR decks are still the most dominant thing you could be doing post those 2 being banned then id be down for a rag ban.
I think modern is in a great spot, the meta is very diverse and interactive. The only cards I can honestly see being banned are underworld breach and Mishras bauble. Rag is not that big a problem imo.
yes but at what cost. In order for the format to be made healthy it was turned into a rotating format, which was the entire reason modern was made in the first place. The format is supposed to be diverse yes. But how is it diverse when every deck has MH2 cards.
@@vurtruvious5280 every deck also has non mh2 cards as well. Of course there are a lot of MH cards and they are quite powerful so of course a lot of them are run but I don't think it's as much of a problem as you think it is.
Anytime a card, or in fact any aspect of a game reaches a point where one has to argue why NOT to use it as part of your strategy, that option is probably too good.
I didn't play Modern in the "two ships passing in the night" years, but I've been really enjoying current modern, and I think it's largely because of the "remove me or die" threats. Many of my favorite games have been against hammer where I have the removal and I'm jockying around their spell pierces and givers and finding the right time to chump block with my premium creature vs. take one hit from a hammer. Demanding removal also isn't really that large of an ask, top modern decks are often running 10 removal spells, and some up to 16. I also think you are overestimating how often the card "draw" is relevant. The games where ragavan hits a teferi on turn 2 are memorable, but not actually that common, and when ragavan hits a land or uncastable/useless spell, he's really barely better than (ig)noble hierarch or llanowar elves.
Interesting take on the format. I personally don't run much removal, warping wails and dismember in my Tron deck; it's worth removing a couple sorcery speed board wipes for instant speed
top decks run that many removals because otherwise they wouldn't be top decks. Control decks have fallen behind due to cards like ragavan, since they can't add that many removals without changing their core.
@@2_albo UW control is 2.5% of the meta right on according to mtggoldfish, or 11th most popular. Maybe fallen from its peak, but still 2nd tier at least. Also another way of phrasing your reply is "in order to be a top deck, you have to run removal", which IMO is great for the format, interactive games with removal, blocking, and counterspells are more fun (for me) and skill testing.
I'm trying to get into modern recently, and this videos with you deck guides had helped me a ton! Keep up the good work! Also quick question for all of you, how would you consider bant eldrazi as a modern alternative with the state of modern today? That is my only "competitive" deck that I want to test but I am not sure if it would hold against the other powerhouses in the format, thanks in advance.
Bant Eldrazi is sadly no longer viable, at least not in its traditional form. Not sure which cards you have exactly, but other decks with some overlapping cards are the other Eldrazi or Tron decks, or you could try re-tooling the deck to be closer to the Bant CoCo/Value decks.
Do yourself a favor and don't play that unless you're literally just playing for fun and are ok with losing 3/4+ of your games. If you're just getting into modern, as sad as it sounds don't try to brew as you really need a deep understanding of what it is you're trying to beat before you can ever successfully make something that's your own, and have it hold up in a modern league. It's way too expensive to lose that much. If you're just looking for a fun LGS deck for FNMs though, play literally whatever you want and don't let anyone stop you. Just don't expect to compete in an rcq or anything haha. If you do want to win, play a couple different decks, see if you can borrow one from a friend, and really get a handle on what you like. Don't worry about a deck being hard to learn, if it's fun you will learn it.
I would argue its very disenguious to put Ragavan in the same category of "just remove it" alongside Lurrus and Uro. Often times when Lurrus was played, you immediately recuperated value by recasting a bauble or a threat from the yard. Not to mention it was effectively always in your opening hand thanks to companion, which I'd argue is the actual reason it got banned not the other text on the card. The problem with Uro is that you COULDN'T "just remove it" as most removal doesn't kill it and it can recur itself unless you Exile it. On top of that, it always drew a card and gained 3 life, regardless of what the boardstate was, which Ragavan cannot do. There are many boardstates in modern where Ragavan is at best a chumpblocker and pretending that everytime it hits the board the opposing player loses is just incorrect.
The problem isn't exactly about the value Ragavan immediately brings to the table but more about how ridiculously versatile this card is for R and how every deck that play red has almost no valid reason to not play it. That combined with the fact that many of the best decks in the meta do play it is an indicator that a format is heavily centered around one card. Same was true for Lurrus, maybe a bit less so for Uro since it's slightly more difficult to cast. In short, you have to build and play your deck around the existence of Ragavan, whether you play it or not. There is no way that this is healthy for the format. That being said, I also do think Hammer Time is a problematic deck atm and should have a card banned, probably Colossal Hammer itself.
@@ocyocyocy The problem isn't exactly about the value Lightning Bolt immediately brings to the table but more about how ridiculously versatile this card is for R and how every deck that play red has almost no valid reason to not play it. That combined with the fact that many of the best decks in the meta do play it is an indicator that a format is heavily centered around one card. Same was true for Lurrus, maybe a bit less so for Uro since it's slightly more difficult to cast. In short, you have to build and play your deck around the existence of Lightning Bolt, whether you play it or not. There is no way that this is healthy for the format.
@Ocy my point is that the argument of "its seeing play in all the best decks" isn't a real one and can be applied to any staple. There's always going to be cards that are better than others and ones that shape the format around them. Lightning Bolt IS a meta warping card, it makes the bar that x/3 creatures have to clear much higher to see play. In addition, it makes the fetch shock mana base worse by shortening the gap needed for red decks to finish the game, which promotes the other land cycles we see in modern such as the fast lands. But we have collectively decided that this impact is desirable. Similarly, I would argue that the warping that Ragavan does, promoting interaction and punishing decks that don't run creatures, is overall good for the format.
My argument isn't that Ragavan is always good in every situation, it's that it's too good too often and there aren't sufficient counterbalances to justify it.
You forgot to mention, that not only is it possible to not have removal for ragavan, your removal could also be countered ragavan can be given hexproof or indestructible
Ragavan definitely should've either just made treasure tokens or let you exile the top card of your own library The fact that you can just get rid of your opponent's threats with it is absurd, even without being able to cast them against said opponent
Having to hit your opponent with Ragavan it a major disadvantage over deathrite shaman. To say shaman ‘has a cost’ and ragavan doesn’t seems like an unfair comparison. To say players don’t want to lose games due to random chance seems unrealistic to me. Its a trading card game. Randomness is the foundation of the game. If I could consistently find my sideboard cards in my opener game 2, well it wouldn’t even be the same game anymore. I don’t think randomness at the level of exiling one card from the top of your opponents deck is really a mark against any card in magic. Ragavan being banned in legacy I feel is more due to overpowered cards like brainstorm being grandfathered into the format than the card being so broken in a vacuum. The whole format is 1 drops so it makes sense the card is broken. Modern is not as fast and makes Ragavan comparatively much weaker. I agree Ragavan and Hammer time makes it so that your opponent has to interact with your board quickly, but I don’t see that as a bad thing in modern. Personally, I don’t want a format where control/combo players can just ignore the aggro/midrange player’s board until turn 4, then popoff and win from there. Without very strong one drop creatures, control/combo players could leverage the power thats in modern to never have to interact with their opponents board, leaving the only viable creature based strategy to be staxx. Ragavan/hammertime being 1/3 of the meta is bad but not terrible in my opinion. In comparison to most other formats, modern seems pretty varied in terms of decks. I think your comparison of Ragavan to Hogaak/Uro/Lurrus is an unfair one in terms of removal. Each of those cards has strong effects that do not require them to make it to attack step with no summoning sickness. They benefit your deck without actually having to protect them. Ragavan has to hit the board and attack to be its strongest. The cards you named don’t have that restriction. If ragavan gets banned I feel it would be being banned for an entirety different reason than these cards. Ragavan does not demand removal, but it does demand interaction. Playing a creature to block ragavan works too. This is more so a problem for uninteractive decks. If you don’t run any cheap removal or cheap creatures to keep up in the early game, you’re playing a greedy deck and deserve to lose to aggro/burn. I understand you won’t always have the removal spell/creature in your hand for ragavan, but your opponent also won’t always have ragavan and a way to protect it. I wrote out these responses live as I listened to the video. You definitely touched on a lot of my points in the rebuttal section, but I do still hold the belief that ragavan, and modern as a whole right now, is good and I respectfully disagree with your conclusion. Love your videos man, keep up the great work.
I personally would've been satisfied with erasing all of Ragavan's current abilities, and replace the card text with one word: haste (a burn player's dream)
a 2/1 with legendary and haste is probably worse than goblin guide (a card that already exists) if that was the case it is unlikely to see play. I think a more interesting nerf to the card would be "Spells that target this card cost 0" that way you can doomblade it for free, but you can also target it with protection spells for free.
@@blightyfrogs that's true but it would also require you to run those cards which would be dead in any hand you don't have ragavan in, and also your opponent can two for one you by casting doomblade in response (or some other better kill spell)
banning Ragavan from Modern isn't going to fix anything. all it will do is kill Murktide's early game. keep in mind that the whole point of Modern Horizons sets is to change Modern to be all about those sets. Ragavan is full proof of that. but Ragavan isn't the biggest problem in the format; rather, it's far and away the pitch Elementals, especially Grief. Grief is just as much of a must-answer as Ragavan, and there are some forms of 1-mana removal that don't deal with Grief on turn 1 (Unholy Heat, Prismatic Ending, etc.). meanwhile, your hand is completely ruined and your opponent has a 4/3 with menace that will kill you quickly while you suddenly have nothing to do to stop it
You know, I used to think Modern was a format you had to have the best cards for, and that a viable Modern deck would raise the question of buying it or paying your mortgage for multiple months. MH2 feels like Wizards left their card in the gas pump and aimed the hose squarely at the dumpster fire, holy _hell_ !
8:10 thank God I see this argument so often unironically I'm glad we're getting people who are actually explaining why it's dumb instead of brushing it off without acknowledging it, leaving those people who use it thinking they've won. Dies to removal as an argument only has any kind of value if the threat requires multiple turns to make any impact, and even Sheoldred has proved that even that isn't always true. Ragavan is immediate value, so not having protection from removal is meaningless, plus it's so cheap that even just coming out for 1-2 mana and baiting out a bolt is worthwhile
Idk, we have the most interactive and also importantly long games in any modern meta I can think of. When games go long, yes people typically have snowballed by a certain point but it makes the play draw matter so little. Ragavan demanding a turn 1 answer is very nearly true but there are so many broken things in modern that are either way too free or way too strong and redundant as is. Living end can answer nearly any interactive spell without paying any mana, and then put 20 power onto the battlefield on like turn 3-4. Rhinos makes 10 power across 3 bodies for 3 mana. Creativity (my deck) can answer all the turn 1-2 nonsense and then stabilize and put an archon onto the battlefield with a 1 card combo. Ragavan is absurd for the format but at the same time it's ragavan's existence that really makes midrange decks in modern the powerhouse that they are, and in my opinion that's a really good thing. I'm enjoying the hell out of what mh1 and mh2 have done for modern and I don't even really play very many mh1/2 cards myself. The biggest lesson I've learned as a magic player the past few years is how to not cling desperately to one archetype and hope it works for 10 years, and instead adapt. I was an enduring ideal player and have the opposite problem - wotc printed so many free and flexible answers that my entire archetype is now almost literally unplayable. But I learned to try something new and shake things up, picked up creativity and am really enjoying all the interactions. Theres very rarely a game I feel I had no chance at winning and ragavan is rarely the driver of those in that category - but I have indeed adjusted my strategy accordingly. I do think you need 6 turn 1 reactive spells in any deck in modern that isnt pure spell combo trying to ignore the monke altogether. Modern feels the most fair and balanced it has in YEARS and I think that's evident by A.) the absurdly diverse league and challenge metas we have and B.) The best ragavan deck is murktide hands down, and their winrate fluctuates between less than 50, and something like 54 percent amongst the top tables of magic, so comparing lists only not really bad pilots. Ragavan decks are insanely beatable but yes they *Demand respect to do so. Run 4 lightning bolts, or 4 pending, or 4 1cmc blockers, or 4 pushes... running no early interaction would be a losing strategy against shredder, drc, or hammer in general anyways. If hammer becomes the best deck I think that's bad for modern - way more feels-bad having the cheap efficient kill you combo deck be unbeatable.
While I generally share your sentiment that Ragavan is way too pushed any bad for Modern, I think you underestimate the cost of requiring it to attack and deal damage to an opposing player for any of its real effects to happen. DRS can just sit back, block if necessary and still win the game on its own. Ragavan requires more things to go right. As such I think the ceiling on Ragavan is higher while the floor is lower. This increased variance is what makes it so frustrating in play and also the moments where it does something extraordinarily dumb are much more memorable. Is it possible to hit two Valakuts against PrimeTime? Sure but its extremely rare. I still would like it seeing banned just to shake things up
Shake things up? By banning Ragavan you effectively kill the only remaining mid-range decks in the format. You will see nothing but combo. Literally a joke.
@@Kayametra Yawgmoth is literally a combo deck. Footfalls is not a midrange deck. Hell, you can even call it Aggro. 5C is the only midrange deck that you've listed and it's tier 2.
While I agree that ragavan is pushed and most formats would be better off without it, I think randomness is almost never a fair argument in a TCG. Every time you shuffle your deck, you’re invoking randomness, that’s literally what you signed up for playing a card game. Saying ‘Ragavan hit a random card in my deck that just so happens to be my low count win con’ well annoying, and potentially game ending, is not fair to ascribe to specifically Raghavan as the problem as there are many more games that don’t involve Raghavan that you just lose to not hitting that had no fault of its own besides the fact that randomness is a key aspect of the genre.
My stance on the monkey is that modern as it is, is a turn 4 to 6 format, by that I mean the winner of the game is decided by then even If the loser isn't dead but they don't want to play through the grind. Modern was a very grindy format and not its hyper efficient that snowballing will win you the game but the verse is also true that with the card advantage and removal we have access to, there are more chances for comebacks and I believe the player base currently are made up of grinders who relish overcoming hard odds for a W. That's why hammer time and scam are popular, not just cause they win but they do is asap for shorter games of magic
UR murktide is still the best deck in legacy even after the ban... I don't think modern will change if you banned ragavan. Murktide would still be good, hammer would have even less competition, it wouldn't really move decks up or down. Maybe tron would come back but honestly I'd rather deal with ragavan than a turn 3 Karn
But the focus of the video wasn't that the metagame is in a bad spot. Even if ragavan decks are somewhere between 25-30% of the meta, its metagame share is not anywhere close to the main issue with the card.
Ur is the best deck in legacy for VARIOUS reasons, not just because of ragavan. Ur in modern would still be a deck without ragavan, it's just that t1 ragavan counter you for the rest of the game is its BEST play.
I think your rebutal to the "Encourages Interaction" argument downplays the positive effects Ragavan has on the format. I will concede that an unanswered Ragavan feels horrible to play against, but often the decks most afraid of taking a hit from it are the decks best suided to dealing with it (decks with efficient generically good cheap cards that are easy to fit into your mana curve). There are plenty of decks that don't mind taking a hit from Ragavan as eventhough the treasure is powerful the exile is often irrelevant. The pressure Ragavan applies to the format breeds ground for unique answers one might not otherwise expect, for example a rise in Young Wolf's playability. Ragavan is undeniably pushed and probably should not have been released in it's current state, and some of the alternative effects you mentioned would definitely lead to a healthier experience playing with/against the card, but I also think that Ragavan encourages interactive magic while keeping modern the fast format it always has been. Without Ragavan I feel Modern's meta would turn to slower decks or wholely uninteractive decks which would be even worse for the format. In the current format these decks are playable and powerful without dominating the meta. I see Ragavan as a necessary evil that emphasizes creature based interactive magic. It is Modern's current Boogeyman, but every format has it's Boogeymen and Ragavan is by far not the worst one we've seen. Metas will always be pushed by certain specific pushed cards and the meta will always centralize around the most efficient and powerful strategies.
@@AmmiO2 ty. I'm a big fan of the channel and love a lot of the advice and takes. I just wanted to weigh in as somebody who played a lot of Ragavan and has since switched to non-red strategies
Have not kept up with Modern, TIL Yawgmoth is a viable deck that I've hear of guess like I am going to check it out. What do you mean by maindeck four spell pierce? The monkey is a creature and can't be targeted? Are you talking about Ragavan players maindecking it to counter opposing removal?
I think players really need to reevaluate what makes a card truly banworthy. Cards that have been banned in the past either have aided in degenerate, hard to interact with combos(Twin, SSG), leads to oppressive near impossible to deal with board states(Hogaak) or gains an unfair amount of advantage, easily abusable, and or hard to deal with(Looting, Lurrus, Yorion, Oko, Uro.) Ragavan does none of these things and while it is clearly a very powerful card, seeing a T1 Ragavan on the board doesn’t guarantee an instant lost or anything really and honestly due to moderns power level even pre MH1 it would take a design like this for a 1 drop for it to keep up as most 1 drops were unplayable in Modern. If anything it’s helped keep R, fair, midrangey decks relevant and able to help police the format. The argument of “its not fun to play against” holds little weight to imo as there are so many cards and strategies that someone is going to find these things unfun to play against, including generically powerful and commonly played staple cards. This has always been true. Something being “unfun” shouldn’t be reason enough to warrant a banning as the “fun vs unfun” aspect is so subjective. Especially considering all the insane stuff that’s possible in Modern. Also another thing to keep in mind when evaluating this card is yes it got banned in legacy but this card was meant for Modern and in the context of the format there are a vast amount of options for decks to keep Ragavan in check or continue to power through despite Ragavan connecting. While it is true that an opponent isn’t guaranteed to have a removal spell and/or a blocker for a T1 Ragavan, the opponent isn’t guaranteed to have a T1 Ragavan and No ragavan deck to my knowledge is dependent on having one that early either. It’s even disadvantageous to see extra ragavans more often than one would think depending on the matchup/situation. I get the card can be annoying for some but the card I think does get an undeserved amount of flack.
The prevelance of monkey is why I enjoy playing Temur Electrobalance, since they can't suspend from exile. Lowers the amount of hits they can get (= Games I can't answer monkey quickly are often lost though, as after I wipe their lands they buy back into the game with the treasures they banked. Not impossible to win, but an uphill battle for sure. My personal preference would be for the Treasures to ETB tapped and exerted, and for the dash to be RR. Makes dashing a bit more mana restrictive, and the treasures cant be cracked to cast a bolt you just pulled. Late game I could care less about Raga winning, even if it'd still be a problem with this. My issue is the early turns where Murk doesn't need to fetch a 2nd R source to dash, can crack my bolt on me effectively making him 5 power that turn, while also denying my removal for him, etc.
@@MoarRainbows Oh really? That's great news! The sideboard is a WIP, I'm fine tuning it for an upcoming tourny, Creativity wasn't popular when I first started working on it so thats the main sideboard plan I've yet to work out. I can't post links, but its on moxfield under "Electrobalance (12-24-22)". If you're on discord I'd love to show you some wild lines in the deck!
I think people should just enjoy the format albeit this was a great video. The issue is modern horizons 3....or a crazy standard season. If I had to guess, I believe magic will be receiving more pushed creatures very soon. Particularly in green. It's better to create and invalidate from a business sense then constantly swinging the ban hammer around. To add- venerated rotpriest is not ragavan but an example of what I think is to come.
This is a very well thought out and demonstrated essay. Some small bits of hyperbole and lower odds scenarios. But the fact that even the removal of a key card with the exile effect is in fact a thing. Even if statistically rare, you see them way more often considering how everywhere the card is. What are your thoughts on the mh2 evoke cards? I personally find them also egregious but not to the same degree. Usually. But would be interested in a deep dive like this on their impact on the meta.
I think if they ONLY functioned like Force of Will/Negation they'd be fine, and I initially liked them as such. The problem comes when pairing them with shenanigans like Ephemerate / Scam spells / Living End, which is why Endurance is the only okay one among them since it doesn't benefit from those value plays.
I feel like what we need is a modern state of the union. We need to decide what we want modern to be, then tailor the ban list philosophy around that. If "two ships passing in then night" is a problem, then just ban the combo decks. Instead of asking if it's "fair" we should ask if it's fun for the format.
The onus is on the players. I've reached out to other players to see if there is interest in doing such a thing, but there isn't too much. Until then, we will be under wotc's thumb :3
Cool vid! Just after MH2 I remember saying that Ragavan was just as powerful as Deathrite Shaman and I was absolutely torn apart. Fast forward to now and I don’t necessarily still think that but I still think their power level is much closer than people give credit for! Modern is in a funny position right now. The card pool is available to build and play pretty much anything you want which is really cool! But these ideas are also challenged by these S tier decks. It’s like: if you want to play Stoneblade, you may as well play Murktide. If you want to play Affinity, you may as well play Hammer Time. I tried to build a Sulti tempo deck with Shardless Agent but no Rhinos and as fun as it was, it just wasn’t as good as the Rhinos deck. I also believe the Triomes are proving to be an issue as well. But I haven’t seen it talked about. Having super quick access to four or five colours of mana seems a little too easy and they’re pushing the already high power level of Omnath, Wrenn and Six and Leyline Binding.
ive been playing magic for 29 years. There is an argument that I've always made. When cards are clearly ban worthy you either are A) an early adopter that got it cheap and won for a while before it was on the radar and banned or B) willing to pay big bucks to win knowing it will be temporary. the problem with Ragavan and things like Jace in years passed is it has a is it too good or not argument that leaves players never knowing what they should do. IMO cards like this should be printed into oblivion, or banned.
I agree, Ragavan was a card that just had it's knobs pushed way to far in every possible direction. I like the flavor of a cheeky little monkey that sneaks in and steals your opponent's stuff because he's a pirate. There's so many ways this could have been fixed and I really think you highlighted a lot of really good ones. Fun extra thing, the fact that Ragavan and 99 lands is, while still not good, a deck that can actually win games in historic brawl is disgusting.
Creatures are legendary because they need a drawback - can't play too many of them or they'll end up as dead cards in hand. I feel this does not happen with Ragavan.
Well it has to be legendary since the original Ragavan token was. Also I could be wrong but it seems the decision on legendary seems to stem less from competitive formats and more to how it effects edh
If the new teched out, super pushed 1-drop didn't slot right into the fun police best deck, I don't think it would be such a problem. But it does, and it should be axed.
Getting hit by a Ragavan is not the end of the world nor the game. Too much is made from getting hit. Those times that you described sure does happen, but so does mana flood or mana screw. This is the random element of the game. You dont always have to answer it on turn 1 a turn 2 answer is still fine, so that argument is a fallacy. It surely can win you the game if left unchecked but like you said, thats true of any threat.
I can’t agree that it has haste. It has dash for one and a red which is simply not the same as one drop with haste. Saying it has haste is needlessly disingenuous
It has haste for 2 mana and if it connects it generates a treasure, so it sort of is 1 mana with haste. You could argue that it's still 2 mana and you have to keep dashing it so it's not overpowered, but it definitely has haste.
@@AmmiO2 I can agree with the sentiment and I do think it’s probably ban worthy, I just can’t say it truly has haste. I’d absolutely put it in my burn deck if it did.
Just remember, the Wotc design team is actually very good at their job, but their job ain't in balancing the game, it's helping sell artificially scarce pieces of cardboard.
as someone who has stepped away from 60 card constructed more in favor of cEDH, I can’t help but compare ragavan to mystic mine of all cards. to translate into magic terms as best as I can, mystic mine is a 0 cost enchant world that says “whichever player controls the most creatures cannot activate the activated effects of creatures they control, do not have the triggered abilities of creatures they control activate, and cannot attack. if both players have the same number of creatures, destroy mystic mine.” theres also a rules difference that allows each player to control a world enchantment rather than there just being one on the board. while mine is an unparalleled stax piece and the monkey is an unparalleled tempo piece, both of them are cards that can be dropped on turn one and require immediate answers else the other player is drowned in card advantage. even in formats where the card is bad, it leads to unhealthy and unfun play patterns. its worse in yugioh where there are no mulls, but when a quarter of decks play ragavan at 4 copies then it means you have to account for removal in your mulligans even in blind game 1 situations. I’m unsure about this part because my Mulligan skills are abysmal but it feels like something that would be true. in ygo if mine was a card with 25% play rate and we had London mull I would mull to 2 for a one card starter + cosmic cyclone basically every single game.) I genuinely fail to see how players see an overstated one drop that cheats both main resources of the game and go “this card is fair” while cards like drs and astrolabe, a one drop with an actual deckbuilding restriction and gives less card advantage at the upside of being an artifact in a format with 33% mainboard boseiju play rate according to mtgtop8 and only provides mana fixing and not ramp, are unequivocally too strong. theres a good chance I’m just out of touch but it just does not seem like a healthy card
My friends and I have stopped playing Modern for roughly a year, effectively the moment the MH2 cards began affecting the Modern format at large. We saw and experienced the power creep, the cards that made Magic... not feel like the Magic we knew. When discussing cards like Ragavan at the time, you would be absolutely blasted by those that claimed Ragavan "was the power they wanted to see" and that "you need to adapt or die," any argument that cards like Ragavan and the like were too powerful were vehemently debated, seemingly slowly forcing anyone who disagreed with the design out of the communities that spoke about it. And here we are, still discussing how busted Ragavan is. In a sad way, it's proven us right, the card was ridiculous, no matter how they want to defend it, because people, even now in the midst of the players that remain thinking the card is fine, still come to the conclusion it's too much. Modern has been ruined for my friends and I for a long time now, there is likely no coming back, but seeing the monkey go would give a final amount of solace that, no, we weren't wrong.
Excellent video essay on this monkey and the issues he has brought upon the formats he is legal in. He is currently the bane of modern, aside form the evoke-mentals (in my opinion). Trolls will troll. Those financially upper-handed may troll too or will be out of touch in regards to the average player's situation. WOTC is catering to these people with these sets. I have known people who have sold plasma to buy cards. This and many MANY problem cards of modern (MH2 in specific) are priced outside of the average person's price range/ ability to justify the cost. 1 Ragavan costs as much as: (American costs on this) 1. approximately 2 tanks of gas (vehicle and state/country depending) 2. the average internet bill 3. 1/2 or more of some utility bills someone has to pay for monthly (trash, electricity, water, etc.) 4. the average video game from a AAA company 5. about 1/4 of a car payment 6. someone's phone bill 7. 1/4 of a grocery run for a family 8. Etc. The list goes on. Especially considering the cost of a playset... This is not right. Yes, you could save for them, but is it worth it in the end? IS it savvy of you to do so? At the end of the day, it is a game and hobby. It should not be about how much money you spend on a game to be able to win. It should not be about who wins the die roll. This little cretin has caused far too many problems and has ruined a lot of peoples' enjoyment of the game and the format we love(d).
The "average triple-A video game" point hits hard; you can buy 90% of one monkey (which you'll need four of to actually play) OR Elden Ring and have infinitely more fun.
@@amberhernandez Like, seriously. In my experience, I've played legacy and had a hard time justifying the cost of a playset of duals before, or whatever expensive cards I was looking to buy or use for a deck. This monkey definitely takes more of an issue with me because at least those cards CAN BE (store depending) proxied and what not. Ragavan cannot be for a lot of stores likings, unless you talk to them in advance and ask.
If you're on the draw and your opponent has the potential to kill you with a turn 2 Blood Moon or snowballing advantage by ripping various cards off the top like W&6, DRC, 3feri, etc., then you need removal on turn 1.
Guys, Fractured Sanity is worse than Ragavan. You can block Ragavan easy. And he is removed easily. But if you cant counter or have a clever answer for Fractured Sanity, your deck is likely going to be in critical condition. Fractured Sanity has a CMC of 3... And Fractured sanity cost only a few dollars. When Ragavan for some reason has a $70 price tag. I go up against these cards almost ever FNM. Ragavan is not the problem. Its mill. Mill is the Modern problem. Mill has been giving too easy of direct access to the opponents library. For 3 mana..
I have 4 copies of Emrakul in my deck, why would I care about Fractured Sanity cause it will eventually hit the Emrakul and it all goes back into my library Tron cannot play around Ragavan at all, your lowest cost creature is most likely Wurmcoil Engine and that's 6 mana; and since Ragavan lets them blood moon on turn 2 you won't even begin to make a play until turn 6 if you land drop a tron land every play, by then the Ragavan player will already have Murktide and DRC out and enough mana to counter it Ragavan absolutely makes combo decks unviable
As a newer player who favors playing on a budget, I hate to think that I have to spend hundreds if dollars on literally fours pieces of cardboard because I want to play a good deck. I wanred to play Modern, but I believe I will stick to commander because it is cheaper and just as fun. Thank you for your insight, Ammi02
Not sure what you're budget is, but you can build Burn or Tron for $400-$500. Or, if you're only interested in playing more casual events e.g. FNM, lower tier decks are fine.
Unless you run like tron,, burn or merfolk pretty much any good deck, even the non ragavan decks, are gonn run you like 800-1200 dollars, even the "budget" decks like tron and burn will run you I'm the neighborhood of $500. Modern is just not cheap, and banning rag wouldn't help with that at all.
@@iankane3732 To be fair, if your local meta is very unprepared for it or just generally very casual, Gifts storm is 400 tops. The version I'm running and still putting up results with is just shy of 250 bucks just because of the shocks and fastlands. Besides that the only "expensive" cards are a playset of Baral, Pyretic Ritual and Manamorphose. The only way to go cheaper than that is probably some mono red goblins or blitz build.
It's interesting that you also bring up hammer because of the similar "demand interaction on turn 1". Something i agree with is not fun. Are there any cards in that deck you would like to see banned?
There's nothing I can see banning from Hammer other than the namesake card itself, but that would kill the deck. I think Hammer is a bit more fair though because of the numerous artifact hate cards e.g. Force of Vigor.
@@AmmiO2 but isn't a freespell that can destroy up to 2 artifacts or enchantments harmful to the format? Fury and Solitude? I think we hate Ragavan too much, and problematic and expressive cards like DRC are protected.
I recently played in a modern RCQ with a budget deck costing just shy of two ragavans. I was excited about the format after binging the ‘every deck in modern’ series and now… I feel a bit deflated. I think Ragavan is emblamatic of a larger issue, which is that modern is at a point now where the vast majority of matchups are decided by a dice roll, what you draw, and what’s in your deck. There is very little room to ‘pilot’ many decks. Scales, dice factory, and amulet seem to be exceptions, though amulet less so from what I’ve seen in FNMs and the RCQ. Certain cards either provide strictly better effects than others. The big ones are ragavan, thoughtseize, counterspell, and the fetch/shock lands. Ragavan isn’t interactive because he doesn’t provide a CHOICE to the opponent the vast majority of the time. The correct choice on turn one is effectively always to try to kill a T1 ragavan. On the draw it’s even worse and sometimes is less interactive despite more spells being cast in response to one another. Ex is T1 ragavan, then someone trying to bolt/fatal push/ etc… and getting force of negationed. Getting countered is already bad: you’ve lost your turn 1 without being able to play a threat or do any significant set up for future turns, and now your opponent is about to ‘draw’ one, making up for the protection spell, and get to 3 mana. You’re effectively 2 turns behind and have made no meaningful choices. Despite more spells being cast, there was effectively 0 interaction here. It having deck building restrictions is similarly laughable. Between fetch, shock, and triomes, deck building restrictions don’t really exist in any meaningful way in modern. The mana base of a 5c pile is stable enough to consistently pump out an omnath by turn 4 (sometimes T3 if you can… idk… make a treasure token). Ragavan is not a companion, he does not have a meaningful deck building restriction. The question is what other turn one play can you make that you might be sacrificing in order to run out a ragavan. The only comparably powerful effects are mana dorks/ramp, thoughtseize, and free counterspells to sink your opponent’s turn. It’s restrictive to try and run all those effects, but to choose 2-3 of them, despite competing colors, means that you will always have a consistent must answer threat on turn 1. Thoughtseize isn’t a threat, but it reveals information about the opponent’s hand, and can easily disrupt their turn 1 play. This puts you on turn 2 with clear knowledge of what your opponent can do, and cuts down on meaningful interaction because typically, you know what your best plays are. It also has a ‘answer everything’ problem where there are no restrictions on it, so if your opponent can’t answer because they lost a dice roll (or don’t have negation), there’s no way for them to play around it. Counterspells are, typically, 1 mana, and the 2 mana version is an answer anything card with the only restriction being 2 blue pips, but because the mana base is so stable, that really isn’t a problem. There’s even a pay 0 mana, pitch a card version for when mana gets too restrictive for you. The question as to whether to run ragavan, counters, or hand control is a question of what you have to sacrifice in order to run it. In modern, the current cost to run those cards is to expect to pay 2-3 life on turn 1.
If anyone is wondering why merfolk is running 4 dismember in the mainboard its largely bc of ragavan. When birds, noble and other previously “extremely good” one-drops were relevant, dismember was rarely in the 75. It’s just an example of how one deck had to warp around playing against this card, but it’s good evidence of ragavan’s power and oppression over modern. I’m sure connoisseurs of other decks can give endless examples of what they had to do to attempt to compete in modern again.
As someone who doesn't play modern, at least not on a level where people are playing 4 Ragavan, I wouldnt mind the card being banned in modern. As strange as it sounds ragavan is just one of the cards I want to have to play in a setting where he is not optimal (commander) but even then hes pretty unfair, so we shall see if he remains legal in commander as well. I get why people are upset, and while I think every single one of your arguments is sound, as a goblins player Im a fan of powerful one-drops. That said, this is an unprecedented level of power for something that costs one mana. Anyone whos played a goblin token based deck, knows how dangerous a good one drop is, even 4 of a slightly pushed one drop card is brutal in the right situation. On the other hand, nothing ruins magic for me more than people who shame people for not having good cards, (essentially for not having enough money) and magic is pay to win enough as is, even without a single card that a format practically demands you have 4 of. In the store I started (and for a time stopped) playing magic in, this was the overarching mentality, and as a 15 year old with 20 bucks to spend a week, it was only through lucky pulls and my friends that kept me even competitive enough to enjoy the game for any amount of time. It just makes me sad, coming back to the game, to see that this mentality is still so prominent, if not quite as bad as before. So I suppose after some thought, I would say that yes ragavan should be banned in modern, not because it ruins the meta but because it gives younger and newer players a chance to actually join in, in more competitive scenes. Having expensive cards isnt having a high skill ceiling, its having a high barrier to entry.
Ok, so let’s say we all agree. Ragavan too good and must be banned. The follow-up is what effect will this have on the meta? If the meta swings too wildly in an “unhealthy” direction (whatever that means), is Ragavan therefore a necessary evil and so the only answer is that we need to wait until something gets printed (in MH3?) to answer it effectively?
No one card should force every deck to have turn one removal. Now it is true that a turn one ragavan by itself doesn't win the game all the time. It's just the facts that it's a must answer turn one because if it lives it enables turn two blood moon and other degenerate stuff like playing your oppenents spells with your treasure that makes any mana color. As stated by plenty of other people responding.
I think something that I more personally dislike about the current state of things is cards that let you cast your opponents deck. In theory it's a cool idea but also skips a lot of deck building restrictions to someone who runs that sort of play. You are basically gathering and using the resources of another player and can ruin another deck build. But that is another personal preference and I'm not sure I'd have the math or theory to back it up as of right now.
I agree. These cards are letting you cast spells from your opponent's deck and bypassing color requirements. Also, like many mechanics such as counterspells and extra turns, having your cards taken away or used against you is a feel bad.
Last tuesday I was playing twiddle storm without wish Ragavan got my one copy of grape shot on turn two.. it was halarious But still dumb card tbh the worst part is being able to bank mana so murktide can hold up multiple counterspells
I was playing against Twiddle Storm once and hit them with Ragavan. I flipped over Wish and used it to grab and play Alpine Moon from my sideboard. GG.
I'm suprised people not using gutshot as a sideboard target with a majority of best cards in the format have one toughness or the walkers go to 1 toughness
Why would you run gutshot over something like solitude, lighting bolt, fata push, etc.? There's better removal in modern for only one mana or less lol. Gutshot being free isn't enough to compensate for the fact the only good target for it is ragavan, esper, and DRC and that's it.....
For people who still don't know why not every deck CAN have removal, just look to the combo decks in Legacy. Putting removal into a combo deck is diluting the combo, making it less powerful and quite possibly not powerful enough to compete with control, midrange and aggro. It just so happens that Modern was known to be the format with the most combodecks. I don't get why people still come up with 'dies to removal'. It's a uninformed viewpoint coming from people who should know better.
I personally don't own a set, but I agree with everything that is said here. 1 mana ramp/card advantage/loose the game on the spot is just so pushed, it's ridiculous. Plus it's not like U/R tempo needs more tool to be a dominant deck in the format... So much U/R Murktide in top 8 RN, it's just boring.
Hi, will you ever do a modern elves deck tech? I know its a tier 2 deck at best but its my favorite and it feels competitive in my hands. I semi regulary beat murktide or hammer or yawgmoth with it. The hardest matchup is living end or uw control or scam.
ragavand, scam and cascade make modern feel very shallow and completely unappealing to me. I prefer my legacy where even jank gets its day under the sun
I think opinion pieces get a bad rap because many people who engage in them do so either in bad faith or are just bad at making arguments; I think they're fine as long as you're fair and represent the opposing view respectfully.
If your future opinion pieces are this polite, frank and we’ll researched I don’t see any controversy with them moving forward (beyond disagreements ofc)
Well, that's one way to lose a subscriber. One would reckon a person would learn from their past mistakes. You were already ridiculed for your biased take on Burn. Now you make yet another biased video. "Ragavan dies to most removal spells", it literally dies to any removal spell, that's the whole point. You totally didn't try to skew the argument in your favor by twisting it like this. The whole video should be taken with a grain of salt because it is extremely biased and inaccurate.
Were you not paying attention? Most if not all ragavan decks play tons of removal to both answer an opposing t1 ragavan and to make sure that their monkey gets through.
Love the "it doesn't encourage removal, it demands removal" quote. I'm always happy to see Ragavan when I have a Young Wolf in my hand, but I can understand the arguments for the format as a whole. Quality video as always! 👏
I felt the same way about the Expressive Iteration ban in Pioneer/Explorer. It nerfed my favorite deck, destroying it in Explorer, but overall the format definitely needed it.
It's funny because the exile clause of Ragavan is exactly why it got banned in Legacy in the first place. More often than not, if it wasn't answered, you would be allowed to hit a ponder or brainstorm, essentially netting you a +1 just for hitting.
I personally think the Evoke Elementals are worse for the format tbh.
As somebody who uses them a lot (Living End) you are 100 percent correct. Solitude is basically Swords to Plowshares, Subtlety is fine, but pitch counterspells are never a fun thing to have to play against, Grief is a nightmare, Idk how it's not in every deck running black, Fury is too much value, being able to answer 2-3 different things is disgusting, and Endurance is just a must-have sideboard all-star as the current best answer to graveyard strategies. A few of these need the axe but tbh a lot of things in modern do.
I liked them initially, and I think if they purely functioned like Force of Will they'd be fine. The problem is pairing them with shenanigans like Ephemerate / Scam / Living End. That's why I think Endurance is the exception since you don't get extra value out of it and it's the worst out of the 5 from a stats/ability standpoint.
Agree
Endurance and Subtlety are great, the others should have never been printed.
I've been suggesting among my friends the fact that evoke just needs a rules change. They are REALLY good cards, even without flickering shenanigans, but the fact that you can remove 2 creatures at instant speed, and then a third next turn, for one mana, and be ahead on board next turn with a 3/2 lifelinker? Evoke needs to change to represent what is supposed to happen when you pay evoke costs, so we brought up sacrifice the creature acting as a "state based action" or something, so there it can't be interacted with on the stack. It would solve a lot of issues.
If ragavan doesn’t need to be banned then deathrite and punishing fire need to come off the ban list
Ragavan is just a typical example of power creep that comes with a new Modern Horizons set to get people to buy into that set in hopes that people will pull this overpowered monkey. The 5 main elementals that were printed in MH2 brought modern closer to a legacy style format with all these "free to play" spells. The problem is that Wizards will most likely keep making these insanely good cards to get people to buy into that set. My LGS constantly runs out of stock of MH2 boosters before boosters from any other set, which means that this strategy is working. I am pretty certain that once Modern Horizons 3 is released, we will notice another power creep in the form of new overpowered cards that will probably be on the same level as Ragavan, and this will change the whole modern format that has been more or less the same since 2021 when MH2 was released.
I myself hate the elementals more than I hate the monkey
I'm incredibly hesitant to get into the format for that reason, until it stabilizes I'm sticking to Pioneer.
Personally I think its time for a fan run 60 card format that wizards cannot just break in two whenever they want us to buy packs.
Really enjoying these single-card studies
I definitely feel this. Modern used to be my favorite format by a longshot, and that slowly started slipping with War of the Spark and MH1. MH2 and the Ragavan-centric meta it created just weren't for me, and I sold out. Maybe someday we'll see the all-in-one monkey gone. One can hope, at least.
I cannot agree with this argument more. The fact that Ragavan demands turn 1 or turn 2 removal forces decks to play around the card and warps the format in such a way that decks need to run more cheap removal than necessary because of the high meta share of decks that run the card in the format. If Ragavan isn't answered, it can and will single-handedly snowball the game out of control, even if it only gets one hit in.
Ragavan connecting means a few things:
1. Whoever gets hit is being denied a card, period. There's almost no way you can get that card Ragavan exiled back.
2. Whoever has the Ragavan gets a huge resource lead. "It's just one treasure" is not a good argument when games in the format are decided by turns 3~4 at the latest, where having a single extra mana for one turn is enough for many decks to do very powerful things, especially when considering decks in the format are super-charged for maximum efficiency.
3. Whoever has the Ragavan gets the "I play your deck" buff, which further widens the resource gap. Every hit by Ragavan is essentially a 3-for-1 for the player who has the card in play (denial of opponent's top card of library, the ability to cast said card, and the treasure generation).
4. Ragavan connecting is such a big threat that it severely punishes situations where, as mentioned in the video, the defending player has the unfortunate luck of not being able to have or draw into any relevant removal is literally the reason they lose the game. Even when Ragavan is answered, the defending player loses a removal spell that could have been used on the real threat of their opponent's deck (Murktide, Omnath, T3feri, Scion, etc.). The card creates way too many lose-lose scenarios for a one mana creature, just like DRS.
So yes, the card should and needs to be banned. If DRS can get the banhammer, then so should Ragavan. But right now apparently WotC is still doing print runs of MH2 and banning Ragavan will hurt their bottom line, so as long as MH2 keeps staying in print the chances of the card getting banned is quite low.
I think the dominance of Ragavan and concentration of decks into the tempo/hammer archetypes is actually an unfortunate byproduct of banning Yorion since Elementals was one of the few decks that could answer it early with evoke elementals and still counteract that card disadvantage with Risen Reef, Omnath, etc.
@@AmmiO2 Although technically banning Yorion made the deck more consistent (at least that’s what some of the people who pilot Money Pile Control I’ve talked to have said). On the other hand, there technically isn’t anything stopping people from playing 80-card decks; banning Yorion merely removed the payoff/incentive to play 80-card decks. Yorion definitely gave Money Pile Control lots of power, and while it did warrant a ban, I feel that it wasn’t as high priority as Ragavan, W&6, or Saga.
I am personally not convinced that Ragavan needs to be banned. The card is very pushed and the ramp effect might very well be too much as it allows you to have insane 3 mana turn 3 in Izzet decks, so I wouldn't be surprised or mad that it gets banned as the card is definitely on the edge.
However, I would like to argue that we need very strong 1 drops in modern now. With all the extremely powerful 1 or 0 mana removal (leyline, unholy heat, the pitch elementals), you need decks that will not take a tempo hit against those removals in order to not make them dominate. If you play a tarmogoyf turn 2 but your opponent can kill it instantly with a solitude by turning one of his other white cards into a white simian spirit guide, you end up super behind. Ragavan, DRC, and the hammer creatures prevent strategies that stall the early game to dominate because the 1 mana tempo loss hurts way less and they present a threat that can kill those deck fast enough. Perhaps Ragavan is too much or isn't enjoyable to play against, but if you get rid of it you need an alternative.
Actually. this is my argument but reversed for why modern would be healthier without Prismatic Ending/Leyline Binding, Fatal Push, Unholy Heat, and Solitude/Fury/Grief. Not only because it brings Thoughtseize and Bolt back (thought no Bolt would be interesting as well), it would make it obvious that cards like Ragavan/Darcy are too good. Without staple removal, the next best thing is 2 cmc or has a big restriction attached.
I'm firmly of the opinion that the only reason these threats have gottne so pushed is because the removal got pushed first. For the longest time, Bolt was the best and singular 1 mana removal spell in Modern. The next closest might have been the 5 cmc delve spell. That was 5 years ago. I miss those days, even though I never got to play, because the games felt less defined by single powerful cards, and the format was a little slower.
Modern isn't Legacy. Legacy is legacy.
So you're saying Ragavan is necessary because of how good the answers are. The problem is that your opponent's low cost removal doesn't win the game if you don't play a low cost threat, but your low cost threat does if they don't have the removal. This has always been the case. The arguably best creature in standard right now sheoldred at 4 mana, and she dies to pretty much all of the 2 mana removal. Low cost removal does not necessitate low cost threats.
That said, low cost removal is a problem, but it's not solved by threats that force your opponent to have them, it's solved by threats that protect themselves or do additional things even if they die. Ward is a great mechanic to help deal with this issue. What if tarmagoyf for instance had ward 2? Forcing your opponent to spend mana on that removal is a much healthier way of dealing with it than saying you have to have it right now or else.
A Ragavan hit me and snagged my Thoughtseize when it was legal in Legacy and that one interaction made me want to have "friendly" "chat" with whoever design this monkey
Being able to randomly get the benefit of having an extra color in your efficient tempo deck is too much. It's too good for Legacy and it is probably just as unhealthy for Modern
Edit: At least give me the card to my hand if they don't use it so there is a choice if you decide to use it
I think saying Ragavan has no cost to activate it's ability is a bit disengenous. You don't just get the ability it ragavan survives to your turn or if you dash it out. It's activation is “dealing combat damage to an opponent”. I think it's about as much if not more of a restriction as having a land in the yard for DRS to make mana in a format defined by both players playing fetch lands.
I also think think the removal argument and rebutle are weak. A similar argument is mare about all combo decks of any format “have interaction or lose”. I also think the type of interaction required is a deciding factor if a card is too good. Ragavan requires creature removal something that is expected of every deck to play. It not like hogaak that required mb gravehate or fotd that required land removal. I think incentivizing creature removal is fine. It's also something to take into account on your g2-3 mulligans.
I think Ragavan is super pushes and maybe too good but there are 2 cards id like to see banned before it because the create much larger value differently (EI and breach). I think if UR decks are still the most dominant thing you could be doing post those 2 being banned then id be down for a rag ban.
Ragavan is only the cover, Elementals are the nails in the coffin.
I think modern is in a great spot, the meta is very diverse and interactive. The only cards I can honestly see being banned are underworld breach and Mishras bauble. Rag is not that big a problem imo.
yes but at what cost. In order for the format to be made healthy it was turned into a rotating format, which was the entire reason modern was made in the first place. The format is supposed to be diverse yes. But how is it diverse when every deck has MH2 cards.
@@vurtruvious5280 every deck also has non mh2 cards as well. Of course there are a lot of MH cards and they are quite powerful so of course a lot of them are run but I don't think it's as much of a problem as you think it is.
Anytime a card, or in fact any aspect of a game reaches a point where one has to argue why NOT to use it as part of your strategy, that option is probably too good.
Exactly why basic island should be banned /s
@@AmiGorodzinsky you drive a hard bargain sir, but for the health of the game I'll consider it
@@AmiGorodzinsky Really? It feels like I have to argue with people about why they should play at least one basic.
I didn't play Modern in the "two ships passing in the night" years, but I've been really enjoying current modern, and I think it's largely because of the "remove me or die" threats. Many of my favorite games have been against hammer where I have the removal and I'm jockying around their spell pierces and givers and finding the right time to chump block with my premium creature vs. take one hit from a hammer. Demanding removal also isn't really that large of an ask, top modern decks are often running 10 removal spells, and some up to 16. I also think you are overestimating how often the card "draw" is relevant. The games where ragavan hits a teferi on turn 2 are memorable, but not actually that common, and when ragavan hits a land or uncastable/useless spell, he's really barely better than (ig)noble hierarch or llanowar elves.
Interesting take on the format. I personally don't run much removal, warping wails and dismember in my Tron deck; it's worth removing a couple sorcery speed board wipes for instant speed
top decks run that many removals because otherwise they wouldn't be top decks. Control decks have fallen behind due to cards like ragavan, since they can't add that many removals without changing their core.
@@2_albo UW control is 2.5% of the meta right on according to mtggoldfish, or 11th most popular. Maybe fallen from its peak, but still 2nd tier at least. Also another way of phrasing your reply is "in order to be a top deck, you have to run removal", which IMO is great for the format, interactive games with removal, blocking, and counterspells are more fun (for me) and skill testing.
I'm trying to get into modern recently, and this videos with you deck guides had helped me a ton! Keep up the good work!
Also quick question for all of you, how would you consider bant eldrazi as a modern alternative with the state of modern today? That is my only "competitive" deck that I want to test but I am not sure if it would hold against the other powerhouses in the format, thanks in advance.
Bant Eldrazi is sadly no longer viable, at least not in its traditional form. Not sure which cards you have exactly, but other decks with some overlapping cards are the other Eldrazi or Tron decks, or you could try re-tooling the deck to be closer to the Bant CoCo/Value decks.
Do yourself a favor and don't play that unless you're literally just playing for fun and are ok with losing 3/4+ of your games. If you're just getting into modern, as sad as it sounds don't try to brew as you really need a deep understanding of what it is you're trying to beat before you can ever successfully make something that's your own, and have it hold up in a modern league. It's way too expensive to lose that much. If you're just looking for a fun LGS deck for FNMs though, play literally whatever you want and don't let anyone stop you. Just don't expect to compete in an rcq or anything haha.
If you do want to win, play a couple different decks, see if you can borrow one from a friend, and really get a handle on what you like. Don't worry about a deck being hard to learn, if it's fun you will learn it.
The best eldrazi deck that isn't a tron deck is a redgreen variant with rag, Wrenn and Six, and fable if the mirror breaker, try that out
I would argue its very disenguious to put Ragavan in the same category of "just remove it" alongside Lurrus and Uro. Often times when Lurrus was played, you immediately recuperated value by recasting a bauble or a threat from the yard. Not to mention it was effectively always in your opening hand thanks to companion, which I'd argue is the actual reason it got banned not the other text on the card. The problem with Uro is that you COULDN'T "just remove it" as most removal doesn't kill it and it can recur itself unless you Exile it. On top of that, it always drew a card and gained 3 life, regardless of what the boardstate was, which Ragavan cannot do. There are many boardstates in modern where Ragavan is at best a chumpblocker and pretending that everytime it hits the board the opposing player loses is just incorrect.
The problem isn't exactly about the value Ragavan immediately brings to the table but more about how ridiculously versatile this card is for R and how every deck that play red has almost no valid reason to not play it. That combined with the fact that many of the best decks in the meta do play it is an indicator that a format is heavily centered around one card. Same was true for Lurrus, maybe a bit less so for Uro since it's slightly more difficult to cast. In short, you have to build and play your deck around the existence of Ragavan, whether you play it or not. There is no way that this is healthy for the format.
That being said, I also do think Hammer Time is a problematic deck atm and should have a card banned, probably Colossal Hammer itself.
@@ocyocyocy The problem isn't exactly about the value Lightning Bolt immediately brings to the table but more about how ridiculously versatile this card is for R and how every deck that play red has almost no valid reason to not play it. That combined with the fact that many of the best decks in the meta do play it is an indicator that a format is heavily centered around one card. Same was true for Lurrus, maybe a bit less so for Uro since it's slightly more difficult to cast. In short, you have to build and play your deck around the existence of Lightning Bolt, whether you play it or not. There is no way that this is healthy for the format.
@@MultiGameFreaker Yes because comparing a threat to removal is a fair and logical argument to make.
@Ocy my point is that the argument of "its seeing play in all the best decks" isn't a real one and can be applied to any staple. There's always going to be cards that are better than others and ones that shape the format around them. Lightning Bolt IS a meta warping card, it makes the bar that x/3 creatures have to clear much higher to see play. In addition, it makes the fetch shock mana base worse by shortening the gap needed for red decks to finish the game, which promotes the other land cycles we see in modern such as the fast lands. But we have collectively decided that this impact is desirable. Similarly, I would argue that the warping that Ragavan does, promoting interaction and punishing decks that don't run creatures, is overall good for the format.
My argument isn't that Ragavan is always good in every situation, it's that it's too good too often and there aren't sufficient counterbalances to justify it.
You forgot to mention, that not only is it possible to not have removal for ragavan, your removal could also be countered ragavan can be given hexproof or indestructible
I think the overabundance of free spells is the biggest problem with current Modern, with Wrenn & Six being a close second, followed by Ragavan
The evoke elementals (except for Endurance) and W&6 are indeed problems.
@@AmmiO2 I think Subtlety and Solitude are fine as well, but Grief and Fury are obnoxious.
Ragavan definitely should've either just made treasure tokens or let you exile the top card of your own library
The fact that you can just get rid of your opponent's threats with it is absurd, even without being able to cast them against said opponent
Having to hit your opponent with Ragavan it a major disadvantage over deathrite shaman. To say shaman ‘has a cost’ and ragavan doesn’t seems like an unfair comparison.
To say players don’t want to lose games due to random chance seems unrealistic to me. Its a trading card game. Randomness is the foundation of the game. If I could consistently find my sideboard cards in my opener game 2, well it wouldn’t even be the same game anymore. I don’t think randomness at the level of exiling one card from the top of your opponents deck is really a mark against any card in magic.
Ragavan being banned in legacy I feel is more due to overpowered cards like brainstorm being grandfathered into the format than the card being so broken in a vacuum. The whole format is 1 drops so it makes sense the card is broken. Modern is not as fast and makes Ragavan comparatively much weaker.
I agree Ragavan and Hammer time makes it so that your opponent has to interact with your board quickly, but I don’t see that as a bad thing in modern. Personally, I don’t want a format where control/combo players can just ignore the aggro/midrange player’s board until turn 4, then popoff and win from there. Without very strong one drop creatures, control/combo players could leverage the power thats in modern to never have to interact with their opponents board, leaving the only viable creature based strategy to be staxx.
Ragavan/hammertime being 1/3 of the meta is bad but not terrible in my opinion. In comparison to most other formats, modern seems pretty varied in terms of decks.
I think your comparison of Ragavan to Hogaak/Uro/Lurrus is an unfair one in terms of removal. Each of those cards has strong effects that do not require them to make it to attack step with no summoning sickness. They benefit your deck without actually having to protect them. Ragavan has to hit the board and attack to be its strongest. The cards you named don’t have that restriction. If ragavan gets banned I feel it would be being banned for an entirety different reason than these cards.
Ragavan does not demand removal, but it does demand interaction. Playing a creature to block ragavan works too. This is more so a problem for uninteractive decks. If you don’t run any cheap removal or cheap creatures to keep up in the early game, you’re playing a greedy deck and deserve to lose to aggro/burn. I understand you won’t always have the removal spell/creature in your hand for ragavan, but your opponent also won’t always have ragavan and a way to protect it.
I wrote out these responses live as I listened to the video. You definitely touched on a lot of my points in the rebuttal section, but I do still hold the belief that ragavan, and modern as a whole right now, is good and I respectfully disagree with your conclusion. Love your videos man, keep up the great work.
I personally would've been satisfied with erasing all of Ragavan's current abilities, and replace the card text with one word: haste (a burn player's dream)
that would still be amazing and super playable!
a 2/1 with legendary and haste is probably worse than goblin guide (a card that already exists) if that was the case it is unlikely to see play. I think a more interesting nerf to the card would be "Spells that target this card cost 0" that way you can doomblade it for free, but you can also target it with protection spells for free.
needs some tuning on the ability, otherwise Ragavan -> Eldrazi Conscription/Colossification, gg
@@blightyfrogs that's true but it would also require you to run those cards which would be dead in any hand you don't have ragavan in, and also your opponent can two for one you by casting doomblade in response (or some other better kill spell)
Bad card, just run Rabbit Battery instead.
banning Ragavan from Modern isn't going to fix anything. all it will do is kill Murktide's early game. keep in mind that the whole point of Modern Horizons sets is to change Modern to be all about those sets. Ragavan is full proof of that. but Ragavan isn't the biggest problem in the format; rather, it's far and away the pitch Elementals, especially Grief. Grief is just as much of a must-answer as Ragavan, and there are some forms of 1-mana removal that don't deal with Grief on turn 1 (Unholy Heat, Prismatic Ending, etc.). meanwhile, your hand is completely ruined and your opponent has a 4/3 with menace that will kill you quickly while you suddenly have nothing to do to stop it
You know, I used to think Modern was a format you had to have the best cards for, and that a viable Modern deck would raise the question of buying it or paying your mortgage for multiple months.
MH2 feels like Wizards left their card in the gas pump and aimed the hose squarely at the dumpster fire, holy _hell_ !
8:10 thank God I see this argument so often unironically I'm glad we're getting people who are actually explaining why it's dumb instead of brushing it off without acknowledging it, leaving those people who use it thinking they've won.
Dies to removal as an argument only has any kind of value if the threat requires multiple turns to make any impact, and even Sheoldred has proved that even that isn't always true. Ragavan is immediate value, so not having protection from removal is meaningless, plus it's so cheap that even just coming out for 1-2 mana and baiting out a bolt is worthwhile
Idk, we have the most interactive and also importantly long games in any modern meta I can think of. When games go long, yes people typically have snowballed by a certain point but it makes the play draw matter so little. Ragavan demanding a turn 1 answer is very nearly true but there are so many broken things in modern that are either way too free or way too strong and redundant as is. Living end can answer nearly any interactive spell without paying any mana, and then put 20 power onto the battlefield on like turn 3-4. Rhinos makes 10 power across 3 bodies for 3 mana. Creativity (my deck) can answer all the turn 1-2 nonsense and then stabilize and put an archon onto the battlefield with a 1 card combo. Ragavan is absurd for the format but at the same time it's ragavan's existence that really makes midrange decks in modern the powerhouse that they are, and in my opinion that's a really good thing. I'm enjoying the hell out of what mh1 and mh2 have done for modern and I don't even really play very many mh1/2 cards myself.
The biggest lesson I've learned as a magic player the past few years is how to not cling desperately to one archetype and hope it works for 10 years, and instead adapt. I was an enduring ideal player and have the opposite problem - wotc printed so many free and flexible answers that my entire archetype is now almost literally unplayable. But I learned to try something new and shake things up, picked up creativity and am really enjoying all the interactions. Theres very rarely a game I feel I had no chance at winning and ragavan is rarely the driver of those in that category - but I have indeed adjusted my strategy accordingly. I do think you need 6 turn 1 reactive spells in any deck in modern that isnt pure spell combo trying to ignore the monke altogether. Modern feels the most fair and balanced it has in YEARS and I think that's evident by A.) the absurdly diverse league and challenge metas we have and B.) The best ragavan deck is murktide hands down, and their winrate fluctuates between less than 50, and something like 54 percent amongst the top tables of magic, so comparing lists only not really bad pilots. Ragavan decks are insanely beatable but yes they *Demand respect to do so. Run 4 lightning bolts, or 4 pending, or 4 1cmc blockers, or 4 pushes... running no early interaction would be a losing strategy against shredder, drc, or hammer in general anyways.
If hammer becomes the best deck I think that's bad for modern - way more feels-bad having the cheap efficient kill you combo deck be unbeatable.
While I generally share your sentiment that Ragavan is way too pushed any bad for Modern, I think you underestimate the cost of requiring it to attack and deal damage to an opposing player for any of its real effects to happen.
DRS can just sit back, block if necessary and still win the game on its own. Ragavan requires more things to go right.
As such I think the ceiling on Ragavan is higher while the floor is lower. This increased variance is what makes it so frustrating in play and also the moments where it does something extraordinarily dumb are much more memorable.
Is it possible to hit two Valakuts against PrimeTime? Sure but its extremely rare.
I still would like it seeing banned just to shake things up
Shake things up? By banning Ragavan you effectively kill the only remaining mid-range decks in the format. You will see nothing but combo. Literally a joke.
@@Whoah7 uh
@@Whoah7 Footfalls, 4 and 5C, and Yawgmoth say hello
@@Kayametra Yawgmoth is literally a combo deck. Footfalls is not a midrange deck. Hell, you can even call it Aggro. 5C is the only midrange deck that you've listed and it's tier 2.
While I agree that ragavan is pushed and most formats would be better off without it, I think randomness is almost never a fair argument in a TCG. Every time you shuffle your deck, you’re invoking randomness, that’s literally what you signed up for playing a card game. Saying ‘Ragavan hit a random card in my deck that just so happens to be my low count win con’ well annoying, and potentially game ending, is not fair to ascribe to specifically Raghavan as the problem as there are many more games that don’t involve Raghavan that you just lose to not hitting that had no fault of its own besides the fact that randomness is a key aspect of the genre.
I think card games already have 'enough' randomness and that adding more is detrimental.
@@AmmiO2 Doesn't freespells also help to decrease randomness? For 3 years Ragavan has been the scapegoat of the format...
If they don't ban it I am moving to Solitaire
Laugh😊
If they ban it modern is going to become Solitaire so get your reps in now
My stance on the monkey is that modern as it is, is a turn 4 to 6 format, by that I mean the winner of the game is decided by then even If the loser isn't dead but they don't want to play through the grind.
Modern was a very grindy format and not its hyper efficient that snowballing will win you the game but the verse is also true that with the card advantage and removal we have access to, there are more chances for comebacks and I believe the player base currently are made up of grinders who relish overcoming hard odds for a W. That's why hammer time and scam are popular, not just cause they win but they do is asap for shorter games of magic
Been saying this for a while. I feel that, if Oko remained unbanned, we would be having the same discussion about it like we are around Ragavan.
There will always be those who argue in favor of ban-able cards, e.g. Splinter Twin.
As it was an underrated card in Spoilers, but by far it doesn't compare to Ragavan... far superior..
UR murktide is still the best deck in legacy even after the ban... I don't think modern will change if you banned ragavan. Murktide would still be good, hammer would have even less competition, it wouldn't really move decks up or down. Maybe tron would come back but honestly I'd rather deal with ragavan than a turn 3 Karn
But the focus of the video wasn't that the metagame is in a bad spot. Even if ragavan decks are somewhere between 25-30% of the meta, its metagame share is not anywhere close to the main issue with the card.
Ur is the best deck in legacy for VARIOUS reasons, not just because of ragavan.
Ur in modern would still be a deck without ragavan, it's just that t1 ragavan counter you for the rest of the game is its BEST play.
I think your rebutal to the "Encourages Interaction" argument downplays the positive effects Ragavan has on the format. I will concede that an unanswered Ragavan feels horrible to play against, but often the decks most afraid of taking a hit from it are the decks best suided to dealing with it (decks with efficient generically good cheap cards that are easy to fit into your mana curve). There are plenty of decks that don't mind taking a hit from Ragavan as eventhough the treasure is powerful the exile is often irrelevant. The pressure Ragavan applies to the format breeds ground for unique answers one might not otherwise expect, for example a rise in Young Wolf's playability. Ragavan is undeniably pushed and probably should not have been released in it's current state, and some of the alternative effects you mentioned would definitely lead to a healthier experience playing with/against the card, but I also think that Ragavan encourages interactive magic while keeping modern the fast format it always has been. Without Ragavan I feel Modern's meta would turn to slower decks or wholely uninteractive decks which would be even worse for the format. In the current format these decks are playable and powerful without dominating the meta. I see Ragavan as a necessary evil that emphasizes creature based interactive magic. It is Modern's current Boogeyman, but every format has it's Boogeymen and Ragavan is by far not the worst one we've seen. Metas will always be pushed by certain specific pushed cards and the meta will always centralize around the most efficient and powerful strategies.
This is my favorite comment thus far.
@@AmmiO2 ty. I'm a big fan of the channel and love a lot of the advice and takes. I just wanted to weigh in as somebody who played a lot of Ragavan and has since switched to non-red strategies
Man, that was an analysis! The community has adapted to the card and just look at the latest MOL challenges.
I think if a card produces too much value for Legacy it shouldn’t be legal in Modern.
Ive been shocked that Ragavan has been allowed to run rampant for this long. it needs to go. has needed to go for awhile.
Have not kept up with Modern, TIL Yawgmoth is a viable deck that I've hear of guess like I am going to check it out.
What do you mean by maindeck four spell pierce? The monkey is a creature and can't be targeted? Are you talking about Ragavan players maindecking it to counter opposing removal?
Spell Pierce counters opposing counters, removal, the Scam undying spells, and Hammer Time stuff, among many other things.
I think players really need to reevaluate what makes a card truly banworthy. Cards that have been banned in the past either have aided in degenerate, hard to interact with combos(Twin, SSG), leads to oppressive near impossible to deal with board states(Hogaak) or gains an unfair amount of advantage, easily abusable, and or hard to deal with(Looting, Lurrus, Yorion, Oko, Uro.) Ragavan does none of these things and while it is clearly a very powerful card, seeing a T1 Ragavan on the board doesn’t guarantee an instant lost or anything really and honestly due to moderns power level even pre MH1 it would take a design like this for a 1 drop for it to keep up as most 1 drops were unplayable in Modern. If anything it’s helped keep R, fair, midrangey decks relevant and able to help police the format.
The argument of “its not fun to play against” holds little weight to imo as there are so many cards and strategies that someone is going to find these things unfun to play against, including generically powerful and commonly played staple cards. This has always been true. Something being “unfun” shouldn’t be reason enough to warrant a banning as the “fun vs unfun” aspect is so subjective. Especially considering all the insane stuff that’s possible in Modern.
Also another thing to keep in mind when evaluating this card is yes it got banned in legacy but this card was meant for Modern and in the context of the format there are a vast amount of options for decks to keep Ragavan in check or continue to power through despite Ragavan connecting. While it is true that an opponent isn’t guaranteed to have a removal spell and/or a blocker for a T1 Ragavan, the opponent isn’t guaranteed to have a T1 Ragavan and No ragavan deck to my knowledge is dependent on having one that early either. It’s even disadvantageous to see extra ragavans more often than one would think depending on the matchup/situation. I get the card can be annoying for some but the card I think does get an undeserved amount of flack.
"gains an unfair amount of advantage"
Treasures and card advantage can be seen as unfair, but i agree with most of what you've said.
I totally agree with you in this man. What do you think about bloodmoon? Dont you think that it makes the game less fun too?
Blood Moon is the worst card for the game. I'll be making a video on it.
@@AmmiO2 Great! I will be waiting for it!
You missed "bUt ThEy WoN't BaN tRoN!" bad-faith argument, a.k.a. the SaffronOlive defense.
The prevelance of monkey is why I enjoy playing Temur Electrobalance, since they can't suspend from exile. Lowers the amount of hits they can get (=
Games I can't answer monkey quickly are often lost though, as after I wipe their lands they buy back into the game with the treasures they banked. Not impossible to win, but an uphill battle for sure.
My personal preference would be for the Treasures to ETB tapped and exerted, and for the dash to be RR. Makes dashing a bit more mana restrictive, and the treasures cant be cracked to cast a bolt you just pulled. Late game I could care less about Raga winning, even if it'd still be a problem with this. My issue is the early turns where Murk doesn't need to fetch a 2nd R source to dash, can crack my bolt on me effectively making him 5 power that turn, while also denying my removal for him, etc.
Yo i just started building electro balance myself! What's your list?
@@MoarRainbows Oh really? That's great news! The sideboard is a WIP, I'm fine tuning it for an upcoming tourny, Creativity wasn't popular when I first started working on it so thats the main sideboard plan I've yet to work out. I can't post links, but its on moxfield under "Electrobalance (12-24-22)". If you're on discord I'd love to show you some wild lines in the deck!
@@MoarRainbows were you able to find the list?
I think people should just enjoy the format albeit this was a great video. The issue is modern horizons 3....or a crazy standard season. If I had to guess, I believe magic will be receiving more pushed creatures very soon. Particularly in green. It's better to create and invalidate from a business sense then constantly swinging the ban hammer around.
To add- venerated rotpriest is not ragavan but an example of what I think is to come.
This is a very well thought out and demonstrated essay.
Some small bits of hyperbole and lower odds scenarios. But the fact that even the removal of a key card with the exile effect is in fact a thing. Even if statistically rare, you see them way more often considering how everywhere the card is.
What are your thoughts on the mh2 evoke cards? I personally find them also egregious but not to the same degree. Usually. But would be interested in a deep dive like this on their impact on the meta.
I think if they ONLY functioned like Force of Will/Negation they'd be fine, and I initially liked them as such. The problem comes when pairing them with shenanigans like Ephemerate / Scam spells / Living End, which is why Endurance is the only okay one among them since it doesn't benefit from those value plays.
I feel like what we need is a modern state of the union. We need to decide what we want modern to be, then tailor the ban list philosophy around that. If "two ships passing in then night" is a problem, then just ban the combo decks. Instead of asking if it's "fair" we should ask if it's fun for the format.
The onus is on the players. I've reached out to other players to see if there is interest in doing such a thing, but there isn't too much. Until then, we will be under wotc's thumb :3
But like why is it a one drop, you can’t even remove it at an advantage most of the time
Cool vid! Just after MH2 I remember saying that Ragavan was just as powerful as Deathrite Shaman and I was absolutely torn apart. Fast forward to now and I don’t necessarily still think that but I still think their power level is much closer than people give credit for!
Modern is in a funny position right now. The card pool is available to build and play pretty much anything you want which is really cool! But these ideas are also challenged by these S tier decks. It’s like: if you want to play Stoneblade, you may as well play Murktide. If you want to play Affinity, you may as well play Hammer Time. I tried to build a Sulti tempo deck with Shardless Agent but no Rhinos and as fun as it was, it just wasn’t as good as the Rhinos deck.
I also believe the Triomes are proving to be an issue as well. But I haven’t seen it talked about. Having super quick access to four or five colours of mana seems a little too easy and they’re pushing the already high power level of Omnath, Wrenn and Six and Leyline Binding.
I think that, while the triomes aren't the biggest problem, they are A problem, but there's no putting that toothpaste back in the tube.
ive been playing magic for 29 years. There is an argument that I've always made. When cards are clearly ban worthy you either are A) an early adopter that got it cheap and won for a while before it was on the radar and banned or B) willing to pay big bucks to win knowing it will be temporary.
the problem with Ragavan and things like Jace in years passed is it has a is it too good or not argument that leaves players never knowing what they should do. IMO cards like this should be printed into oblivion, or banned.
I agree, Ragavan was a card that just had it's knobs pushed way to far in every possible direction. I like the flavor of a cheeky little monkey that sneaks in and steals your opponent's stuff because he's a pirate. There's so many ways this could have been fixed and I really think you highlighted a lot of really good ones.
Fun extra thing, the fact that Ragavan and 99 lands is, while still not good, a deck that can actually win games in historic brawl is disgusting.
Creatures are legendary because they need a drawback - can't play too many of them or they'll end up as dead cards in hand. I feel this does not happen with Ragavan.
It always feels good bolting it once it's my turn and then they just play another one hahaha
Well it has to be legendary since the original Ragavan token was. Also I could be wrong but it seems the decision on legendary seems to stem less from competitive formats and more to how it effects edh
If the new teched out, super pushed 1-drop didn't slot right into the fun police best deck, I don't think it would be such a problem. But it does, and it should be axed.
Getting hit by a Ragavan is not the end of the world nor the game. Too much is made from getting hit. Those times that you described sure does happen, but so does mana flood or mana screw. This is the random element of the game. You dont always have to answer it on turn 1 a turn 2 answer is still fine, so that argument is a fallacy. It surely can win you the game if left unchecked but like you said, thats true of any threat.
I can’t agree that it has haste. It has dash for one and a red which is simply not the same as one drop with haste. Saying it has haste is needlessly disingenuous
It has haste for 2 mana and if it connects it generates a treasure, so it sort of is 1 mana with haste. You could argue that it's still 2 mana and you have to keep dashing it so it's not overpowered, but it definitely has haste.
@@AmmiO2 I can agree with the sentiment and I do think it’s probably ban worthy, I just can’t say it truly has haste. I’d absolutely put it in my burn deck if it did.
Just remember, the Wotc design team is actually very good at their job, but their job ain't in balancing the game, it's helping sell artificially scarce pieces of cardboard.
I am someone who played Standard all the way from Energy/Vehicles to Oko.
as someone who has stepped away from 60 card constructed more in favor of cEDH, I can’t help but compare ragavan to mystic mine of all cards. to translate into magic terms as best as I can, mystic mine is a 0 cost enchant world that says “whichever player controls the most creatures cannot activate the activated effects of creatures they control, do not have the triggered abilities of creatures they control activate, and cannot attack. if both players have the same number of creatures, destroy mystic mine.” theres also a rules difference that allows each player to control a world enchantment rather than there just being one on the board. while mine is an unparalleled stax piece and the monkey is an unparalleled tempo piece, both of them are cards that can be dropped on turn one and require immediate answers else the other player is drowned in card advantage. even in formats where the card is bad, it leads to unhealthy and unfun play patterns. its worse in yugioh where there are no mulls, but when a quarter of decks play ragavan at 4 copies then it means you have to account for removal in your mulligans even in blind game 1 situations. I’m unsure about this part because my Mulligan skills are abysmal but it feels like something that would be true. in ygo if mine was a card with 25% play rate and we had London mull I would mull to 2 for a one card starter + cosmic cyclone basically every single game.) I genuinely fail to see how players see an overstated one drop that cheats both main resources of the game and go “this card is fair” while cards like drs and astrolabe, a one drop with an actual deckbuilding restriction and gives less card advantage at the upside of being an artifact in a format with 33% mainboard boseiju play rate according to mtgtop8 and only provides mana fixing and not ramp, are unequivocally too strong. theres a good chance I’m just out of touch but it just does not seem like a healthy card
My friends and I have stopped playing Modern for roughly a year, effectively the moment the MH2 cards began affecting the Modern format at large. We saw and experienced the power creep, the cards that made Magic... not feel like the Magic we knew.
When discussing cards like Ragavan at the time, you would be absolutely blasted by those that claimed Ragavan "was the power they wanted to see" and that "you need to adapt or die," any argument that cards like Ragavan and the like were too powerful were vehemently debated, seemingly slowly forcing anyone who disagreed with the design out of the communities that spoke about it.
And here we are, still discussing how busted Ragavan is. In a sad way, it's proven us right, the card was ridiculous, no matter how they want to defend it, because people, even now in the midst of the players that remain thinking the card is fine, still come to the conclusion it's too much.
Modern has been ruined for my friends and I for a long time now, there is likely no coming back, but seeing the monkey go would give a final amount of solace that, no, we weren't wrong.
I'm sure the second they stop printing mh2 boxes they'll ban ragavan in modern
Excellent video essay on this monkey and the issues he has brought upon the formats he is legal in.
He is currently the bane of modern, aside form the evoke-mentals (in my opinion).
Trolls will troll. Those financially upper-handed may troll too or will be out of touch in regards to the average player's situation. WOTC is catering to these people with these sets. I have known people who have sold plasma to buy cards.
This and many MANY problem cards of modern (MH2 in specific) are priced outside of the average person's price range/ ability to justify the cost.
1 Ragavan costs as much as: (American costs on this)
1. approximately 2 tanks of gas (vehicle and state/country depending)
2. the average internet bill
3. 1/2 or more of some utility bills someone has to pay for monthly (trash, electricity, water, etc.)
4. the average video game from a AAA company
5. about 1/4 of a car payment
6. someone's phone bill
7. 1/4 of a grocery run for a family
8. Etc.
The list goes on. Especially considering the cost of a playset... This is not right. Yes, you could save for them, but is it worth it in the end? IS it savvy of you to do so? At the end of the day, it is a game and hobby. It should not be about how much money you spend on a game to be able to win. It should not be about who wins the die roll. This little cretin has caused far too many problems and has ruined a lot of peoples' enjoyment of the game and the format we love(d).
The "average triple-A video game" point hits hard; you can buy 90% of one monkey (which you'll need four of to actually play) OR Elden Ring and have infinitely more fun.
@@amberhernandez Like, seriously.
In my experience, I've played legacy and had a hard time justifying the cost of a playset of duals before, or whatever expensive cards I was looking to buy or use for a deck. This monkey definitely takes more of an issue with me because at least those cards CAN BE (store depending) proxied and what not. Ragavan cannot be for a lot of stores likings, unless you talk to them in advance and ask.
I was chuckling for a minute at the 20/1 1CMC
I hate Ragavan as much as the next guy but you don’t need removal on turn 1, you need it on turn 2, which is pretty different
If you're on the draw and your opponent has the potential to kill you with a turn 2 Blood Moon or snowballing advantage by ripping various cards off the top like W&6, DRC, 3feri, etc., then you need removal on turn 1.
Guys, Fractured Sanity is worse than Ragavan. You can block Ragavan easy. And he is removed easily. But if you cant counter or have a clever answer for Fractured Sanity, your deck is likely going to be in critical condition. Fractured Sanity has a CMC of 3... And Fractured sanity cost only a few dollars. When Ragavan for some reason has a $70 price tag. I go up against these cards almost ever FNM. Ragavan is not the problem. Its mill. Mill is the Modern problem. Mill has been giving too easy of direct access to the opponents library. For 3 mana..
I have 4 copies of Emrakul in my deck, why would I care about Fractured Sanity cause it will eventually hit the Emrakul and it all goes back into my library
Tron cannot play around Ragavan at all, your lowest cost creature is most likely Wurmcoil Engine and that's 6 mana; and since Ragavan lets them blood moon on turn 2 you won't even begin to make a play until turn 6 if you land drop a tron land every play, by then the Ragavan player will already have Murktide and DRC out and enough mana to counter it
Ragavan absolutely makes combo decks unviable
@Abacab Rencia good for you that you had $100 to buy 4 pieces of cardboard
@@earthone777 I mean you're the one that's crying about the easiest mechanic to beat lol
As a newer player who favors playing on a budget, I hate to think that I have to spend hundreds if dollars on literally fours pieces of cardboard because I want to play a good deck. I wanred to play Modern, but I believe I will stick to commander because it is cheaper and just as fun. Thank you for your insight, Ammi02
Not sure what you're budget is, but you can build Burn or Tron for $400-$500. Or, if you're only interested in playing more casual events e.g. FNM, lower tier decks are fine.
Unless you run like tron,, burn or merfolk pretty much any good deck, even the non ragavan decks, are gonn run you like 800-1200 dollars, even the "budget" decks like tron and burn will run you I'm the neighborhood of $500. Modern is just not cheap, and banning rag wouldn't help with that at all.
@@iankane3732 To be fair, if your local meta is very unprepared for it or just generally very casual, Gifts storm is 400 tops. The version I'm running and still putting up results with is just shy of 250 bucks just because of the shocks and fastlands. Besides that the only "expensive" cards are a playset of Baral, Pyretic Ritual and Manamorphose.
The only way to go cheaper than that is probably some mono red goblins or blitz build.
It's interesting that you also bring up hammer because of the similar "demand interaction on turn 1". Something i agree with is not fun. Are there any cards in that deck you would like to see banned?
There's nothing I can see banning from Hammer other than the namesake card itself, but that would kill the deck. I think Hammer is a bit more fair though because of the numerous artifact hate cards e.g. Force of Vigor.
@@AmmiO2 So, I think birthing pod should be unbaned because of the numerous artifact hate cards hh
@@AmmiO2 but isn't a freespell that can destroy up to 2 artifacts or enchantments harmful to the format? Fury and Solitude? I think we hate Ragavan too much, and problematic and expressive cards like DRC are protected.
Love the Imakuni reference in the example card
Objectively the best Pokemon card.
Objectively the best Pokémon: Trading Card Game (for the Game Boy) character!
I recently played in a modern RCQ with a budget deck costing just shy of two ragavans. I was excited about the format after binging the ‘every deck in modern’ series and now… I feel a bit deflated.
I think Ragavan is emblamatic of a larger issue, which is that modern is at a point now where the vast majority of matchups are decided by a dice roll, what you draw, and what’s in your deck. There is very little room to ‘pilot’ many decks. Scales, dice factory, and amulet seem to be exceptions, though amulet less so from what I’ve seen in FNMs and the RCQ. Certain cards either provide strictly better effects than others. The big ones are ragavan, thoughtseize, counterspell, and the fetch/shock lands.
Ragavan isn’t interactive because he doesn’t provide a CHOICE to the opponent the vast majority of the time. The correct choice on turn one is effectively always to try to kill a T1 ragavan. On the draw it’s even worse and sometimes is less interactive despite more spells being cast in response to one another. Ex is T1 ragavan, then someone trying to bolt/fatal push/ etc… and getting force of negationed. Getting countered is already bad: you’ve lost your turn 1 without being able to play a threat or do any significant set up for future turns, and now your opponent is about to ‘draw’ one, making up for the protection spell, and get to 3 mana. You’re effectively 2 turns behind and have made no meaningful choices. Despite more spells being cast, there was effectively 0 interaction here.
It having deck building restrictions is similarly laughable. Between fetch, shock, and triomes, deck building restrictions don’t really exist in any meaningful way in modern. The mana base of a 5c pile is stable enough to consistently pump out an omnath by turn 4 (sometimes T3 if you can… idk… make a treasure token). Ragavan is not a companion, he does not have a meaningful deck building restriction. The question is what other turn one play can you make that you might be sacrificing in order to run out a ragavan. The only comparably powerful effects are mana dorks/ramp, thoughtseize, and free counterspells to sink your opponent’s turn.
It’s restrictive to try and run all those effects, but to choose 2-3 of them, despite competing colors, means that you will always have a consistent must answer threat on turn 1.
Thoughtseize isn’t a threat, but it reveals information about the opponent’s hand, and can easily disrupt their turn 1 play. This puts you on turn 2 with clear knowledge of what your opponent can do, and cuts down on meaningful interaction because typically, you know what your best plays are. It also has a ‘answer everything’ problem where there are no restrictions on it, so if your opponent can’t answer because they lost a dice roll (or don’t have negation), there’s no way for them to play around it.
Counterspells are, typically, 1 mana, and the 2 mana version is an answer anything card with the only restriction being 2 blue pips, but because the mana base is so stable, that really isn’t a problem. There’s even a pay 0 mana, pitch a card version for when mana gets too restrictive for you.
The question as to whether to run ragavan, counters, or hand control is a question of what you have to sacrifice in order to run it. In modern, the current cost to run those cards is to expect to pay 2-3 life on turn 1.
If anyone is wondering why merfolk is running 4 dismember in the mainboard its largely bc of ragavan. When birds, noble and other previously “extremely good” one-drops were relevant, dismember was rarely in the 75. It’s just an example of how one deck had to warp around playing against this card, but it’s good evidence of ragavan’s power and oppression over modern. I’m sure connoisseurs of other decks can give endless examples of what they had to do to attempt to compete in modern again.
I can't belive that modern is so fucked that the modern set prints obligatory cards close to 100€...
As someone who doesn't play modern, at least not on a level where people are playing 4 Ragavan, I wouldnt mind the card being banned in modern. As strange as it sounds ragavan is just one of the cards I want to have to play in a setting where he is not optimal (commander) but even then hes pretty unfair, so we shall see if he remains legal in commander as well. I get why people are upset, and while I think every single one of your arguments is sound, as a goblins player Im a fan of powerful one-drops. That said, this is an unprecedented level of power for something that costs one mana. Anyone whos played a goblin token based deck, knows how dangerous a good one drop is, even 4 of a slightly pushed one drop card is brutal in the right situation. On the other hand, nothing ruins magic for me more than people who shame people for not having good cards, (essentially for not having enough money) and magic is pay to win enough as is, even without a single card that a format practically demands you have 4 of. In the store I started (and for a time stopped) playing magic in, this was the overarching mentality, and as a 15 year old with 20 bucks to spend a week, it was only through lucky pulls and my friends that kept me even competitive enough to enjoy the game for any amount of time. It just makes me sad, coming back to the game, to see that this mentality is still so prominent, if not quite as bad as before. So I suppose after some thought, I would say that yes ragavan should be banned in modern, not because it ruins the meta but because it gives younger and newer players a chance to actually join in, in more competitive scenes. Having expensive cards isnt having a high skill ceiling, its having a high barrier to entry.
Hear me out, I want more Ragavan-style cards printed; completely overstat'd 1 drops with way too much text - But I'm a commander player
Ragavan is fine. In fact I kind of like it because it forces people to play removal. I think Fury is the bigger problem.
Ok, so let’s say we all agree. Ragavan too good and must be banned. The follow-up is what effect will this have on the meta? If the meta swings too wildly in an “unhealthy” direction (whatever that means), is Ragavan therefore a necessary evil and so the only answer is that we need to wait until something gets printed (in MH3?) to answer it effectively?
No one card should force every deck to have turn one removal. Now it is true that a turn one ragavan by itself doesn't win the game all the time. It's just the facts that it's a must answer turn one because if it lives it enables turn two blood moon and other degenerate stuff like playing your oppenents spells with your treasure that makes any mana color. As stated by plenty of other people responding.
"ANSWER ME OR DIE" confirmed for MH3
I think something that I more personally dislike about the current state of things is cards that let you cast your opponents deck. In theory it's a cool idea but also skips a lot of deck building restrictions to someone who runs that sort of play. You are basically gathering and using the resources of another player and can ruin another deck build. But that is another personal preference and I'm not sure I'd have the math or theory to back it up as of right now.
I agree. These cards are letting you cast spells from your opponent's deck and bypassing color requirements. Also, like many mechanics such as counterspells and extra turns, having your cards taken away or used against you is a feel bad.
Bro had solid points before he attempted to pronounce mana, can't finish this
I play 4 copies of Ragavan in my deck and I played 4 copies of Shaman too... I agree with your video.
Most fun Commander= Ragavon
kkkkkkkkk bitch please
Last tuesday I was playing twiddle storm without wish
Ragavan got my one copy of grape shot on turn two.. it was halarious
But still dumb card tbh the worst part is being able to bank mana so murktide can hold up multiple counterspells
I was playing against Twiddle Storm once and hit them with Ragavan. I flipped over Wish and used it to grab and play Alpine Moon from my sideboard. GG.
I think Modern needs a proper re-do and new ban list that could make it more accessible and approachable.
Counterpoint: he's really fun to play as the commander in an EDH deck😁
I disagree tbh. The pitch elementals are a bigger problem. Ragavan is kept in check by wrenn, and a ton of removal in this format. Its fine
*laughs in dash*
Btw, @AmmiO2, i'd rather play against Burn than Ragavan anytime :D
This video was awesome, loved the "crank to 11" bit 🤣Funny enough though it made me want to abuse this guy even more because YUP I'm "that guy"
Wait, Deathrite Shaman is still banned? LOL. Why is Ragavan still legal in Modern while Deathrite is banned?
I'm suprised people not using gutshot as a sideboard target with a majority of best cards in the format have one toughness or the walkers go to 1 toughness
Why would you run gutshot over something like solitude, lighting bolt, fata push, etc.? There's better removal in modern for only one mana or less lol. Gutshot being free isn't enough to compensate for the fact the only good target for it is ragavan, esper, and DRC and that's it.....
still waiting for answer me or die to be printed
For people who still don't know why not every deck CAN have removal, just look to the combo decks in Legacy. Putting removal into a combo deck is diluting the combo, making it less powerful and quite possibly not powerful enough to compete with control, midrange and aggro. It just so happens that Modern was known to be the format with the most combodecks. I don't get why people still come up with 'dies to removal'. It's a uninformed viewpoint coming from people who should know better.
Just get good man.... lol jk, great video
I personally don't own a set, but I agree with everything that is said here. 1 mana ramp/card advantage/loose the game on the spot is just so pushed, it's ridiculous. Plus it's not like U/R tempo needs more tool to be a dominant deck in the format... So much U/R Murktide in top 8 RN, it's just boring.
The price on the monkey IS part of the reason i want it gone
Lol it hit my atraxa and they cast it with all their treasures. Monkey is more powerful than emrakul!
My argument. But monkey.
Ragavan would've been good if it had either of its two abilities, but both is far too pushed.
yeah ive lost many a games from not having removal for ragavan on turn 1
Get good, scub. Also, I loved the video. I thought it was a well reasoned argument.
Hi, will you ever do a modern elves deck tech? I know its a tier 2 deck at best but its my favorite and it feels competitive in my hands. I semi regulary beat murktide or hammer or yawgmoth with it. The hardest matchup is living end or uw control or scam.
Not only will I, I already have.
Not only ragavan, the free spells are a problem too
ragavand, scam and cascade make modern feel very shallow and completely unappealing to me. I prefer my legacy where even jank gets its day under the sun
Risky moving from neutral coverage to an opinion piece but I appreciate how well-verses and well spoken it is
I think opinion pieces get a bad rap because many people who engage in them do so either in bad faith or are just bad at making arguments; I think they're fine as long as you're fair and represent the opposing view respectfully.
If your future opinion pieces are this polite, frank and we’ll researched I don’t see any controversy with them moving forward (beyond disagreements ofc)
Well, that's one way to lose a subscriber. One would reckon a person would learn from their past mistakes. You were already ridiculed for your biased take on Burn. Now you make yet another biased video. "Ragavan dies to most removal spells", it literally dies to any removal spell, that's the whole point. You totally didn't try to skew the argument in your favor by twisting it like this. The whole video should be taken with a grain of salt because it is extremely biased and inaccurate.
It is still a 2/1 creature with no evasion. You just need to play basically any creature or instant removal. Even a memnite stops it.
Were you not paying attention? Most if not all ragavan decks play tons of removal to both answer an opposing t1 ragavan and to make sure that their monkey gets through.
I dig the Imakuni reference.