The MageLaughlin Group, s1e8

{The Baneslayer Test itself}
As quoted from here:


Baneslayer Angel, back in the day, was fairly infamous for blatantly dwarfing out Serra Angel when it first came out. However, as a companion talk by Patrick Sullivan on Ravenous Chupacabra notes, power and toughness only do so much - Gigantosaurus and Scaled Wurm both die to Doom Blade at the end of the day. While there are limits to the "dies to removal argument" in balancing, I think it's fair to point out that a vanilla/pseudo-vanilla finisher has the inherent risk of always being a high mana commitment that could end up being a total blowout if your opponent has removal.

I think the real problem we're seeing emerge is that previously, creatures existed in a pick-two of cheap cost, great abilities, or large P/T. Nowadays, we get cards like Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath that are all three without any restraint. A common note about Uro is that a lot of people would have found him more reasonable if he was like Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger and you could only pick one option per trigger instead of getting all of them. To a lesser degree, I think a lot of people found Omnath, Locus of Creation's ability to cantrip and replace himself the straw that broke the camel's back for "pushed way too hard". In older design, it would've been simply enough to give him the Landfall effect and encourage the players to figure out how to keep him relevant on the board (something that isn't even that hard), but as is, he provides so much obvious value that it's a no-brainer to run him in any midrange value pile - something that likely contributed to his banning in Standard.

In that sense, I agree there is powercreep, but I would argue it is more like that WoTC's FIRE design logic results in them being too forward with very specific chase rares. We have to keep in mind that cards like Arcum's Astrolabe still exist that aren't "conventionally" overpowered but can result in an oppressive deck taking over the metagame once people figure out how to use it. Likewise people might say Once Upon a Time or Veil of Summer was obviously busted, but I think a lot of the design draws parallels to Thassa's Oracle - making a rare exciting and flashy by giving it a very powerful additional effect. If we take away those sorts of cards I think there's more nuance to how WoTC handles power than we might assume, even in this day and age.

{Re Daij and Sylvan Advocate}
Pretty odd stance for you to take when your entire Ugin essay was about WoTC overruning the game with UGx value.

That is true, but I've been giving this question a lot of thought precisely because of the examples ArkiThe7th and Daij_Djan brought up for cards.

I remember bits of the Sylvan Advocate discussion when it was released too, Daij - a lot of people felt that it was a ridiculous amount of value for the cost, yet five years later it doesn't even cost 1 USD and sees play in Penny Dreadful, which is a great indicator of how strong it actually has been. Coming from the perspective of a Modern or Legacy player, Sylvan Advocate is actually quite laughable for a card design - for six lands, there are payoffs like Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and Primeval Titan that will fit into a much nastier and more effective gameplan, and for a cheap beater, it's got nothing on the likes of Tarmogoyf or even later imitators like Grim Flayer that come online faster and more efficiently. The truth is, Sylvan Advocate wasn't a very good or strong card at all in the larger picture of Magic - it was just good within the context of the Standard of the time, and unlike many of the cards that came after it, it wasn't oppressively strong - in fact, Standard would go on to get a much better two-drop in the form of Smuggler's Copter, which did get banned for overrunning Standard with Copter decks. if you want a BFZ block comparison, consider Reflector Mage, which was also banned alongside Copter for similar reasons. The differences are pretty stark - Copter, Mage, Goyf, and Flayer all create an immediate or near-immediate value gain that's far more than their mana cost should allow them to get, and decks run them because of that sheer value provided, be it through P/T advantage early game or immediate card advantage.

{Re Cards Mentioned by Arki}
Taking the cards you highlighted Arki:

For Jorn, I feel like he's ultimately not doing anything Seedborn Muse and Wilderness Reclamation (cards arguably on the opposite ends of the power spectrum here, relative to Standard) decks couldn't have done, and while he seems to be picked up fairly often as a Commander, with mtgtop8 only listing him top8-ing two smaller Standard events and his only real 'hit' appearance as far as I know being on an Against the Odds snow pile with Narfi. While Seth did go 4-1, he notes that his loss was to something he expected the deck to be bad against - spell-based combos that the deck can't race fast enough, and there's enough of those in Modern that I don't think that 4-1 would continue to hold water in the long run.

Varragoth is incredibly slow, especially when the competition is Wishclaw Talisman and Grim Tutor. While the body might seem good, it's not all that much better than a Grimdancer especially in the face of a meta rocking Ugin, The Spirit Dragon and various other efficient payoffs like Baneslayer Angel. I think WoTC tried to give it a somewhat memorable body in hope that it'd be relatively useful to compared to other tutors, but I actually think this card isn't very impactful (and his lack of competitive standard presence on various sites like mtgtop8 and mtggoldfish seems to support this.), because at the end of the day it's clearly going to be designed and assessed as a tutor, and the body simply isn't pushed enough to overtake any of the competition.

With that all in mind, I decided to look at Lightning Angel vs Mantis Rider before saying anything about Arni, which is more a sidegrade on paper (but Mantis Rider being a Human actually causes it to slot into very different shells). Both were relatively remarkable creatures for their time (Mantis Rider moreso, if we're talking competitvely), but again, nothing particularly crazy. In the era of Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch and Bloodbraid Elf, I agree I could see Arni costing 4. With the the perspective of the previous two cards in mind though, I think this is actually an example of a reasonable push to make the card more notable in general play. Arni seems like he gets played fairly often in competitive successful Gruul decks, but unlike Uro or similar, he doesn't become an oppressive deck that will leave a black mark on Magic's competitive history to come.

Of the cards mentioned so far, I think Bonecrusher Giant is the only card that actually comes within range of being thought of as a rare that suggests actual evidence of powercreep via P/T, finding its way into Modern decks as a card advantage burn spell that could turn into a creature. A 4/3 creature for 2R with no restrictions is almost unheard of in Red, being a lot less difficult to pull off than Savage Knuckleblade or Loxodon Smiter which were several sets before it. That said - is it the 2R for 4/3 that makes it good, is it the fact that it's a burn spell that can be recast as a 4/3? At what point would I rather run Flametongue Kavu for a straight up 4 mana for 4 damage and a 4/2 instead, or Wasteland Strangler for a comparable 3 for -3/-3? Just something to think about.

{Guess the Color}Red

{Guess the Type}Creature

{Guess the Set}Ice Age, Time Spiral

{Guess the Card}Orcish Librarian