A lot of absurd cards can sound bad if you break them down like this. Deathrite Shaman is just a guy who has to tap to cast three spells you'd never play in a deck.
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I don't think Deathrite Shaman and Mystic are even comparable, considering how both work.
Shaman is a Manadork that is widely considered to be the best Mana Dork ever printed in fetch heavy formats. The card isn't dead even in the late game because of the second/third ability it has, unlike cards like Hierarch/Birds where they're just more Mana.
Mystic is the same body as Deathrite that gets progressively worse in Modern, because you're not going to run enough equipment that you'll always want to get your 3rd and 4th Mystic. In that case, it's a 2 Mana Squire with Upside.
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";232370812]You could also say that it's Demonic Tutor plus Black Lotus that comes with a body. These kinds of comparisons don't really sell your point.[/QUOTE]
Except it's not Demonic Tutor, because Tutor is any card. Like, I'm sorry, but that analogy is literally the dumbest I've heard. I'm not sure how this idea that tutoring up an Equipment(of which there is exactly three that see play in Modern, and only one of those in any deck that is above Tier 2) is somehow comparable to tutoring any card.
I'm saying this to both of you right now:
Mystic is, and I can't believe I'm having to state this:
a 2 Mana 1/2 Creature whose strength is defined by the equipment available within the format. In a format like Modern, which is both A) primarily creature dominated, meaning that cards that can kill a Mystic before it even gets to activate are plentiful B)Has 2 top tier decks that rely on Artifacts, meaning cards like Stoney Silence and Ancient Grudge are common sideboard card C) Has the best equipment either cost the exact cost as Mystic's ability or be a result of Wizards pushing a card much like Copter AND D) has several Tier 1/2 decks that laugh at a 4/4 Vigilance Lifelink that takes up 2 turns to get. Tron will just Nuke it, Eldrazi will Thought-Knot the Batterskull, Ad Nasaeum will combo off in spite of it, Merfolk will walk all over it, Jund/Abzan will destroy it, etc.
There's literally no evidence to suggest Mystic will warp Modern to the same extent as Dredge/Eldrazi/Twin/Pod/Delver did. If you're going to point towards Zendiscars Standard, Stoneforge Mystic had no appearances in any decks with Jace from Worldwake's release to the end of 2010, with every copy appearing in some White Weenie Variant* Furthermore, from 31-DEC-2010 to 31-MAR-2011, Caw-Blade/Decks with both Jace and Mystic comprised of 178/697 of decks. While that's 25% of the meta during that period(and is totally wonky), it's nothing as bad as the 450/956 Caw-Blade got later on. Given that Mystic was in 89/893 Decks from the data on MTGTop8 from Worldwake to End of 2010, and Jace's presence in 348 Decks during the same period, I think it's safe to say who the actual offender was. Since everyone in the this thread agrees that Jace deserves his rightful spot on the banlist, then why does Mystic need to stay when Jace is the clear problem?
*MTGTop8
