why is treasure cruise banned

Card Advantage is Good: Treasure Cruise in Eternal Formats

Magic is a game about resources. Everything you do is in some way limited by resources, and you win the game by getting ahead on resources. The game is so heavily defined by them that if a card is too good at getting you ahead on a resource, it can completely warp a format around it.

The only way to win a game of magic is by gaining an advantage in one of three resources:

Life is the most easily understood resource. It’s difficult to gain an advantage by increasing your own life when creatures, which are repeatable sources of damage, are so common, but gaining an advantage by reducing your opponent’s life is a very powerful strategy.

Mana is the second resource. It’s the opposite of life - you start with none and get more each turn. However, it only matters if you can spend it usefully. Do nothing with your mana for a turn and it’s gone forever.

Cards are the final resource. Cards are the most important resource as you need them for absolutely everything you do in the game. However, they have one inherent flaw that prevents them from being the only thing that matters - they require other resources to use. An advantage in cards only matters if you can use them successfully.

It’s simple enough to understand how resources work, but understanding how they interact is what makes Magic such a complex game. Treasonous Ogre costs one card and four mana, simple enough. But what do we get? We have:

The ability to prevent your opponent from gaining an advantage in life by blocking attackers.

The ability to gain an advantage yourself in life (attacking), but only if you give up the first ability.

The ability to become better at the first two abilities by using the second when your opponent has a life advantage (Dethrone).

The ability to convert three life to one red mana, which also helps to activate the third ability and makes the first more relevant.

In Magic we don’t just convert one resource to another, we also convert resources into methods of converting other resources.

We also have to look at cards relative to the format. The best methods of gaining advantage in a resource are always playable. Take a look at Paul Sligh’s original aggro deck:

This deck was from a format where everyone was required to play at least five cards from each legal expansion. In that format, the most efficient way to gain an advantage in life was to play Goblins of the Flarg . That’s right, a 1/1 for 1 was one of the best red aggressive creatures available.

That brings us to a card that’s been very controversial recently.

With Treasure Cruise legal, control as we know it will never be viable in modern.

That’s a pretty bold statement to make of course. Why is it so broken? Well, it’s simply the most efficient way to trade-in mana for cards. One mana and one card for 3 cards is a better rate than any other spell in modern. A control deck needs to gain an advantage in cards to win. However, any deck playing blue now can easily keep up and even outpace them in terms of cards.

Treasure Cruise also affects decks that try to deny their opponents cards. Jund uses Thoughtseize and Liliana of the Veil in concert with various 1-for-1 trades to force the game into topdeck mode where they can win by drawing more live cards. They can also use Dark Confidant to slowly gain an advantage. All of that fails when your opponent can just draw 3 at any time and undo all that.

In short, Treasure Cruise completely redefines the format by outclassing every other card advantage engine legal in the format. Maybe the format actually comes out improved, but I doubt removing a huge selection of viable archetypes from the format is a good thing.

In Legacy and Vintage, the story is similar. Every comparable draw engine in the game is banned or restricted. However, the sheer power level of the formats means there's a better chance of non-curise decks being able to compete in life or mana well enough to overcome the card disadvantage.

Dig Through Time hasn't seen as much play, but it has the potential to similarly affect formats if Treasure Cruise is banned.

In short, Treasure Cruise is so fundamentally powerful that the only way to weaken it would be to print something even more powerful or change the rules of the game itself.

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Why is Treasure Cruise banned in modern?

by Admin · Published November 9, 2023 · Updated November 9, 2023

When was treasure cruise banned in modern?

What cards are banned in modern.

• Ancient Den.
• Arcum's Astrolabe.
• Birthing Pod.
• Blazing Shoal.
• Cerulean Wyvern.
• Chrome Mox.
• Dark Depths.

Why is ponder banned in modern?

Why is cloudpost banned in modern, eye of ugin vs treasure cruise - banned modern mtg gameplay.

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New MTG Ban List Update: Violent Outburst is Gone in Modern!

A violent change to Modern.

By Luis Scott-Vargas | @lsv | Published 3/11/2024 | 5 min read

The new Banned and Restricted announcement just dropped, and it's quite impactful on Modern, despite containing just one card (while finally freeing Ponder in Vintage). If you want to read the R&D notes on why they made (or didn't make) changes, take a look at the link above - I'll be breaking down what I think these changes will result in, alongside some thoughts on Pioneer.

Violent Outburst is banned.

The logic here is that instant-speed cascade was too difficult to answer, especially when combined with free spells like Force of Negation (which wasn't even intended as combo protection). That part I'm sympathetic too - cascade isn't the most fun play pattern, and being able to do it at the end of turn, with or without Force protection, then do it again on your turn makes it nearly impossible to stop without something like Chalice of the Void .

What This Does To Cascade Decks

It makes them weaker (and insight like that, my friends, is why I get to write articles).

It is important to note that this doesn't kill Rhinos or Living End, but it definitely takes them down a peg. Both decks have the option of Ardent Plea or Demonic Dread , which are serviceable replacements, even if much weaker than Outburst. I still think both decks will be viable, especially once the lists adjust, and don't mind them taking a hit. The cascade decks were a bit over the line, and this change is a solid one. I also really want to emphasize how little I like Force of Negation being combo protection instead of a reactive card, since giving these decks Force of Will straight up was really unnecessary.

https://infinite.tcgplayer.com/article/robot/de736c92-d98b-4f03-abee-a41ab4a73990

https://infinite.tcgplayer.com/article/robot/3910ee9b-b1ce-4fdb-b09f-84a038c19547

What This Does To The Format

This part is a bit trickier - as always, decks that didn't get cards banned can be assumed to get better, with a particular emphasis on decks that were soft to Cascade. On the flip side, decks with good Cascade matchups get a bit weaker, since their prey will be less numerous.

My main concern here is that Yawgmoth was already solidly tier one, and every B/R announcement hits other decks, leaving Yawg and his Plant Empire untouched. I think Yawgmoth is a clear number one now, and is the type of deck that is fairly resilient to hate, so it's not going to be easy to dethrone it. I'm not saying I think Yawgmoth needed a ban, but there's a good chance that Yawg becomes more obnoxious than we'd like. Cascade was fast enough to go over the top of Yawg, and now it got a fair amount weaker, so stocks in 2/4s should be on the rise.

https://infinite.tcgplayer.com/article/robot/30167420-fe47-47d8-bea2-526e5851276a

Azorius Control takes a hit here too, since my experience was that it was a good counter to Cascade, and this ban might weaken Cascade enough that it's a significantly lower part of the metagame. That said, Rakdos Scam still survived the Fury ban, so maybe Cascade sees plenty of play still (and at a weaker power level), which would be aces for Azorius enjoyers.

Would I Have Banned Anything Else?

There are no big changes I'm confident in, though I personally would have banned Grief over Fury some months ago, which would have weakened Living End and left plenty of play against Yawgmoth. However, that's not the world we are living in, and I'm happy enough to let this ride and see if Yawg truly becomes oppressive. The idea of banning a Yawg piece doesn't feel quite right to me (banning Yawg just kills the deck, and banning Grist, the Hunger Tide or Young Wolf just seems strange). I'm somewhat nervously okay with this world, but want to make it clear that I do think Yawg is now going to be over the line.

What I Wanted To See

Treasure Cruise is banned.

This is by far the biggest miss for me in this announcement. Izzet Phoenix delivered an absolutely crushing performance at Pro Tour MKM, and continues to dominate. Phoenix was ~18 percent of the field and still ended up with a 57.5 percent win rate, which is comically large. Keeping that high a win rate with that many pilots is an extraordinarily difficult feat, and the deck shows no signs of stopping. I just spent a ton of time playing Pioneer, and the Phoenix experience is not an ideal one.

Phoenix does the following things extremely well:

• Finds whatever it's looking for due to tons of cantrips plus Treasure Cruise .
• Sit on aggro decks by playing a bunch of Fiery Impulse and (effectively) Swords to Plowshares.
• Win any game that goes long by chaining a bunch of Cruises.
• Beat linear hate by siding in cards that get around graveyard hate.

Overall, Phoenix is resilient, powerful and, despite being linear, fairly adept at beating hate cards (against a deck like Lotus Field, which can actually struggle with sideboard options). Add to that how unfun it can be to just watch your opponent draw five cards a turn and Bolt or bounce everything you play and I think action being taken on Phoenix would have been the right move. The games just don't vary that much from each other, by design, and that's a recipe for people exiting the format.

Banning Cruise (or Arclight Phoenix if you really didn't want to touch Cruise) would have been my solution, and I think it was a big missed opportunity to not do so. Now Phoenix is just going to continue being the best and most-played deck, and I don't see why that's the scenario we have to live in.

Ponder is unbanned.

Hooray, Ponder is finally free. I remember thinking that it was ridiculous when it got restricted a million years ago, though I admit it was ultimately right, but the time has passed. I do think it's a bit better than Preordain , but it's not like you are going to play eight all that often, and this is clearly not so strong that it has to be on the list.

What I Would Have Done

Restrict Urza's Saga

Urza's Saga is too free to play and too powerful not to for most blue decks, which has made basically every blue spells deck into an Urza's Saga deck. That reduces deck diversity enough that I would rather open up the format by restricting it, though I don't think it's a disaster as is.

Fly Eagles Fly

At the end of all this, my predictions are Yawgmoth becomes a bit too good and Phoenix remains solidly too good, with Cascade and Azorius Control both losing ground in Modern. Amalia Combo does seem good against Phoenix, so that is one hope for Pioneer, and as always, we now have to see how this plays out. Good luck, and sorry if you were a Rhinos/Living End enjoyer.