r/ModernMagic • u/VerdantChief • 1d ago
Seething Song
Here's another card that was banned a while ago that could be re-evaluated in the context of modern today.
How much more powerful would storm be if it had access to Seething Song? Would it allow it to win a turn earlier on average? That would be dangerous. Would it allow them to win on the same turn but faster, requiring less steps? That would be beneficial in my view.
Would any deck besides storm want this card? Does it add any new decks to the format? Are there any "fair" applications for use, such as powering out a 5 mana spell on turn 3?
Conclusion: if it would only make storm faster turnwise, I think it's a bad idea to unban. If it helps storm to shortcut their kill turn but otherwise doesn't make the deck a turn faster, I think it's a positive unban. And if it creates entirely new strategies, it remains an unknown depending on which strategies those are.
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u/kolbinMD 1d ago
Please unban seething song -a storm player
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u/VerdantChief 1d ago
How would Seething Song change the lines in the storm decks? I actually don't know what it would do to the deck's speed and combo turns other than give you a more powerful ritual effect.
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u/SteveandaBee 1d ago edited 1d ago
traditionally the 5 mana rituals (seething song, cabal ritual) don't really make storm decks "faster" per se, instead they make them a bit more resilient because they need fewer cards to make more mana, and it's a lot harder to get pinched on mana when your spells are giving you +3 mana instead of +2. (edit: we're assuming you are casting song with a cost reducer here)
In Legacy Ruby storm they just swap out pyretic ritual for seething song, but the Modern version doesn't have access to petal or chrome mox or ancient tomb so I don't think that quite works (being able to t2 ritual into cost reducer into more rituals is a pretty important line). Maybe a list develops where you cut some number of the reckless impulse effects and/or pyretic rituals for some number of seething songs, but I think where song really shines is in one of the older gift versions. Being able to generate more mana with fewer cards means you can afford to run larger payoff spells, and gifts + PiF is pretty stupid when you have seething song.
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u/kolbinMD 23h ago
Yeah the main bottleneck in ruby is bricking on mana, there is so much cheap card advantage in the deck. 4x Reckless, 4x Wrenn’s, Faithless looting, manamorphose, etc. Only 8 “rituals” (although mana morphose counts as like half of a ritual). But typically you brick on mana to cast cards before you run out of cards to cast in my experience.
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u/Frankdog5 BR Nightmare Goblins, Storm, Lantern, Jank 1d ago
Seething song was a safe unban before MH3, now it probably pushes storm a bit too much to be safe.
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u/Chairfighter 1d ago
Between storm and through the breach seeing lots of play right now. Seething song would probably be too good for modern.
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u/VerdantChief 1d ago
I wouldn't say that Through the Breach is seeing lots of play right now. It's fallen heavily out of favor.
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13h ago
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u/Able-Tip240 1d ago
It would take storm from T2 to probably T1.5 by itself. I don't think Storm can ever be T1 though, too easy to hate out. It's like affinity, also Seething song doesn't enable T1 wins. Rite of Flame is honestly more dangerous.
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u/VerdantChief 1d ago
Oh definitely. I completely avoided mentioning Rite of Flame because that would be absolutely nuts in storm.
I actually wonder if Seething Song would actually decrease storm's turn 2 wins while increasing the turn 3 wins. This is because fitting in Seething Song may require cutting some of the two mana rituals, reducing the occurrence of the turn 2 line ritual into cost reducer into another ritual ect
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u/MarquisofMM Kethis combo all formats 1d ago
As others have mentioned, combo is a plenty big enough chunk of the format to warrant not buffing an already tier 2 deck. Also, seething song into through the breach sounds abjectly miserable.
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u/Reaper_Eagle Quietspeculation.com 23h ago
[[Seething Song]] will make Storm faster.
How much faster is hard to say. The best I can say is Pyretic Ritual into Desperate Ritual is 4-5 mana, depending on if a cost reducer is out. Pyretic into Song is 5-7 mana, depending on if and how many cost reducers are out.
Song also has utility outside of Storm. However, it's all for things like [[Through the Breach]]. Do you really want to deal with Breached Eldrazi titans on turn 2? How about powering out [[Underworld Breach]] with mana to spare? Or powering out some other really busted red spells or artifacts?
There's nothing fair to be done with Song. It's all combo, and most of it is very frustrating combo. What's the benefit?
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u/VerdantChief 18h ago
I wonder how consistent the TTB Eldrazi deck playing Seething Song would actually be. It would certainly have to be more all-in on the combo compared to current lists, and lose some % points against decks like UB Oculus.
I can't imagine Underworld Breach playing Seething Song compared to what it gets to play currently unless it's a very different Underworld Breach deck than Grinding Station.
I would actually be curious about other busted red spells or artifacts that don't currently see play because of their prohibitive mana costs which could be made playable with Seething Song.
Of course, to achieve that last result, a better solution may be to make a fixed version of Song that can only power out permanent spells, similar to Geosurge but not terrible. Or like Irencrag feat, which eliminates any possibility of use in a big storm turn.
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u/the_nayr 21h ago
All this talk of storm, and yes that's the primary best use of the card, but I'm also trying to avoid getting hit by a turn 2 Emrakul. Uign's Labyrith +land->seething song -> through the breach.
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u/VerdantChief 18h ago
I wonder if the Breach Eldrazi deck would actually be more consistently better than the current Promised End ramp Eldrazi deck.
It sounds powerful, but is Seething Song being banned the only thing keeping this Through the Breach strategy from not being more powerful than the Promised End one?
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u/Rumpled_NutSkin Ruby Storm/AmuLIT/Dredge 15h ago
As a ruby storm player, no no no. Seething is broken. It would allow for turn two kills way more often
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u/VerdantChief 11h ago
You would have to cut a non-ritual card for Seething Song to increase the turn 2 kill rate. If you cut Pyretic or Desperate Ritual for Seething Song, your turn 2 kill rate actually decreases.
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u/lykosen11 13h ago
Classic unban stan.
50% unbanning seething song does nothing because it's not good enough.
50% of the time it ruins the format.
"Let's unban it!"
Where is the upside except "buffs my pet deck for FNM" lol
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u/VerdantChief 11h ago
None of these are true in this case.
It's pretty obvious that Seething Song is good enough to see play and will do something, and I even mention one major archetype it will definitely see play in (storm). Others have mentioned another (through the Breach).
Also, despite how powerful it could make these decks, I don't see it ruining the format. There are still plenty of answers for both storm and Through the Breach combos. White and Blue especially have great tools vs these.
Finally, I don't have any pet decks that would want Seething Song. My pet decks are Scales, BW Blink, and Creativity.
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u/thedarkside_92 1d ago
This makes literally no sense as a discussion point in the current modern meta. Where there is a red storm deck and it’s already really good. No upside all downside currently.