Am I the only person that misses the modern where jund, twin, pod and tron kept each other in check? The format had clear checks and balances. The banning is getting excessive. Storm, pod, twin, bloom, dredge. Next year it'all be some other deck.
I want to start playing this game and format again but last night I looked through the blue cards being played in the format and it's basically serum visions. There's the occasion scm. I mean wtf..I want to play my snapcasters and cliques again. Celestial colonnade is getting depressed bc nobody wants to sleeve it up anymore.
In closing,the accumulation of bannings over the past 3 years have made this a worse format. Bring back twin, bring back the color blue.
I've been having an itch to come back to the game after about a 2 year hiatus. I completely shelved the game when the eldrazi sets came out (which apparently is now called eldrazi winter?).
So is this a good time to come back to the format/game? Whats happened with modern in the past 12ish months.
I used to mostly play and still have all my cards for a snapcaster/clique deck or some version that revolves around those but could theoretically get cards to fill out a similar type of deck
so card availability isnt a sticking point but trying to recreate a similar experience.
Looking through the state of the format thread also didn't tell me much as its just people arguing back and forth over cards i dont know anything about.
If it makes any difference i came back to mtg at the tail end of the first zendikar and played the modern format (ptqs and occasional fnms) roughly since it started so not a total noob.
I've completely stopped playing. I used to mostly play on a 5 year old laptop downstairs while my gf watched tv but v4 is completely unplayable on that computer. Between it being super old and having a 14inch screen (if that), i just lag endlessly and have a hard time clicking on stuff.
I guess i took it for granted that v3 was perfectly playable even if it was ugly.
I'll occasionally fire it up on my computer upstairs to see if there are flashback drafts up or something else exciting
but i havent gotten into a game of magic in a couple of months. And i used to play a modern daily almost every night on v3.
Planeswalkers:
1. Liliana of the veil - we all know how good she is.
2. Karn Liberated - a big drop from #1 in terms of playability/power.
3+ Chandra Pyromaster, Elspeth Knight Errant, Ajani Vengeant, Garruk Wildspeaker, gideon jura - none of these PW's are particularly game breaking.
They all do something relevant but i would say they're too fair.
Theres a huge drop in power from the first two walkers to all the other ones. LOTV and Karn are both petty unfair compared to all the other ones.
Any card that you have to cast on turn 4 and later has to be border line game winning.
I'd rather expand 6 drops to 6+ in which case it would be:
1. Wurmcoil Engine
2. Emrakul
3. Griselbrand
4. Primeval titan
5. Elesh Norn
Top ten cards for modern:
1-5 Fetchlands
6-10 in no particular order
Anafenza the foremost
abzan/sultai charm (one of these has got to be marginally playable)
Blood soaked champion (no deck, I know)
Mardu ascendancy (no deck, I know)
Murderous cut (I think people are over rating this quite a bit but it might get there).
If its real i actually like this guy. There aren't enough playable dudes with flash out there. I have a hard time seeing this making it to modern since it competes with batterskull as a five drop but uncounterable flash is still sweet.
You guys realize that they've already designed a set with a ton of constructed playables? It was called Modern Masters and its widely considered to have one of he best limited environments of all time and people were happily lining up to pay 3x msrp for packs.
And if you don't like that example then there's innistrad limited which also had one of the best limited environments of all time AND introduced a ton of cards that are in modern and legacy now.
So its not unreasonable to ask for these things considering they've done it in the past.
I dont think people in this thread are saying WOTC is killing magic.
People are coming in here and asking "is this set as good as other good sets they've made." Also, there's nothing "spoiled" about expecting good cards. I give you money, you give me good cards. If they're not good enough, i'm not giving you money. There's nothing spoiled about that concept. Its called a business transaction.
I'm a huge fan of Fivecolorsart mtg alters. The guy's name is Rafael Ortiz.
I've ordered about a dozen alters from this guy and they've all been exceptional.
I've ordered a bunch of alters from Yawg and had nothing but problems dealing with him so I absolutely do not recommend him.
See, the hilarious thing to me is that when Stormbreath Dragon was spoiled, bloody well everybody was complaining that it was a terrible mythic because it wasn't Thundermaw Hellkite.
Actually, I was saying that it is better than Hellkite and would replace him in Modern. So not everyone was saying that he was worse than Hellkite.
Not to derail the thread but stormbreath dragon sucks in any format with actually powerful cards. He's good in standard because the other cards in standard basically suck. I'm fairly certain that it has seen almost zero play in modern/legacy.
At least hellkite sees fringe play here and there but he's pretty bad too. And i'm not even hating on the poor guy. I wish he was actually good in modern because its a pretty cool card.
I feel like KTK is definitely better than theros so far. You cant really discount fetches since the best card in theros was a reprint too - Thoughtseize.
And with KTK we're getting 5 really good cards that actually matter in every format.
There's maybe 2 or 3 other cards that make me go "hmmm, maybe..." but everything else is just your typical stuff.
As a whole its probably somewhere between RTR and Theros in terms of powerlevel, closer to RTR. Its certainly not Innistrad.
The fetches are really a huge deal. Its way too easy to say "everything else but fetches sucks" but really a cycle of sweet eternal cards is great news.
As far as everything else in the set, if you don't care about super competitive play or eternal formats, you're probably perfectly happy with whatever gray ogre in mongolian armor that WOTC decides to give you. Its basically "this is what we're putting in standard so if you want to play standard, you're using our gray ogres!"
That doesnt really work in eternal formats so I totally understand people making these threads.
So i'm just buying all the fetches and sticking to modern.
Red gives you lightning bolt, electrolyze, lightning helix, Ajani, counterflux, pyroclasm/rain of the gods or whatever its called.
White gives you colonnade, resto/kiki jiki, the best sideboard cards in the format, PTE (maybe people are forgetting but this is still the second best removal spell in the format).
Black gives you:
discard. - You have no amazing turn 2 play to take advantage of a turn 1 IOK. The deck doesnt have bob/goyf so you just sit there doing nothing after taking something turn 1.
Lingering souls - the card is fine but tbh its a little too fair for turn 3.
creeping tar pit - actually pretty decent but i dont think its as good as colonnade as a finisher.
removal - nothing better than bolt/pte in your colors.
Liliana - bad in this deck.
I played esper briefly and the only decks that i had an obviously good MU against were UWR control decks where i could cast IOK, Snapcaster IOK and ride snapcaster and creeping tar pit to victory with counter mana.
What usually happened against other decks? I would IOK/Thoughtseize t1 against jund, trade 1 card and they would immediately make another "must answer play."
My black cards never did anything game breaking except for the one time i was able to iok SCM IOK something awesome and win because of it but it was extremely rare.
This isn't a format where you can just durdle for 6 turns while making fair plays.
I dont necessarily agree with every point made in the OP but i agree with the general premise that we've been in nerf mode for way too long.
I really hope this is temporary and part of the power level pendulum but the power level has gotten so low in standard sets that most of the time i dont even care about checking the spoilers.
This can't be a permanent power level decrease.
Every block cant be full of fetchlands and v. cliques and bobs. But people like me who've been playing for a million years and play eternal formats don't really buy underpowered sets. I'd be very happy to go buy a ton of sealed product and/or draft sets that had cards that were actually targeted at me. But there aren't any. So i dont buy anything at all and I don't draft because I don't enjoy opening bad stuff and leaving everything on the counter for the store before the night is over.
That can't be an accidental decision and I hope its just part of the patented power level swing that is about to get turned around.
Because otherwise this starts looking like brand mismanagement. You have people who want to give you lots and lots money today and you're telling them you can't print cards they like because it'll ruin the game forever. Every set doesn't have to be Zendikar. But some sets DO have to be at that power level.
I have to agree that modern is pretty stale as a format. We've had 1 new "real deck" in the past year and a half in the form of blue moon?
Every other deck is either very fringey (amulet) or just an offshoot of an existing deck (jund evolving into BG).
I'm not surprised that they feel like the format is stale. Top 8 is consistently dominated by BGx and decks that beat BGx. and POD.
With that said, they have no one to blame but themselves.
Theros is a constructed stinker and they've been riding the flavor train for way too long. People don't play with cards from theros because theros sucks.
And the vibe that i'm getting is that instead of printing better cards, they're just going to remove modern from the equation so bad sets don't get thrown into the format to be fed to the lions in front of the cameras.
Uh hello? Maybe just make better sets. I don't think anyone here is asking for GG Tarmogoyfs. I just want cards that do things. You know like pyromancer ascension, birthing pod, unburial rites. Cards that actually create archetypes.
I think this effectively kills any local PTQ's for me.
The time/$ commitment makes them super bad EV.
PPTQs are now going to be the equivalent of a GP Trial and I would only play the GP trials that have solid prizing (something along the lines of $25 entry, $400-ish payout top 8). Anything else wouldn't make sense since I'm probably not going to the GP Anyway.
So for me to continue playing PPTQ's is if the TOs dramatically increased their payout structure since I don't particularly care about winning first place and then having to travel to another location.
The people that really benefit from this change are the ones that were spending their entire weekend traveling around the state from one PTQ to the next.
The players who just played a couple of local PTQ's in a season due to time constraints are SOL.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I want to start playing this game and format again but last night I looked through the blue cards being played in the format and it's basically serum visions. There's the occasion scm. I mean wtf..I want to play my snapcasters and cliques again. Celestial colonnade is getting depressed bc nobody wants to sleeve it up anymore.
In closing,the accumulation of bannings over the past 3 years have made this a worse format. Bring back twin, bring back the color blue.
So is this a good time to come back to the format/game? Whats happened with modern in the past 12ish months.
I used to mostly play and still have all my cards for a snapcaster/clique deck or some version that revolves around those but could theoretically get cards to fill out a similar type of deck
so card availability isnt a sticking point but trying to recreate a similar experience.
Looking through the state of the format thread also didn't tell me much as its just people arguing back and forth over cards i dont know anything about.
If it makes any difference i came back to mtg at the tail end of the first zendikar and played the modern format (ptqs and occasional fnms) roughly since it started so not a total noob.
Thanks in advance.
I guess i took it for granted that v3 was perfectly playable even if it was ugly.
I'll occasionally fire it up on my computer upstairs to see if there are flashback drafts up or something else exciting
but i havent gotten into a game of magic in a couple of months. And i used to play a modern daily almost every night on v3.
1. Liliana of the veil - we all know how good she is.
2. Karn Liberated - a big drop from #1 in terms of playability/power.
3+ Chandra Pyromaster, Elspeth Knight Errant, Ajani Vengeant, Garruk Wildspeaker, gideon jura - none of these PW's are particularly game breaking.
They all do something relevant but i would say they're too fair.
Theres a huge drop in power from the first two walkers to all the other ones. LOTV and Karn are both petty unfair compared to all the other ones.
Any card that you have to cast on turn 4 and later has to be border line game winning.
I'd rather expand 6 drops to 6+ in which case it would be:
1. Wurmcoil Engine
2. Emrakul
3. Griselbrand
4. Primeval titan
5. Elesh Norn
1-5 Fetchlands
6-10 in no particular order
Anafenza the foremost
abzan/sultai charm (one of these has got to be marginally playable)
Blood soaked champion (no deck, I know)
Mardu ascendancy (no deck, I know)
Murderous cut (I think people are over rating this quite a bit but it might get there).
Honorable mention: your pet card
And if you don't like that example then there's innistrad limited which also had one of the best limited environments of all time AND introduced a ton of cards that are in modern and legacy now.
So its not unreasonable to ask for these things considering they've done it in the past.
I dont think people in this thread are saying WOTC is killing magic.
People are coming in here and asking "is this set as good as other good sets they've made." Also, there's nothing "spoiled" about expecting good cards. I give you money, you give me good cards. If they're not good enough, i'm not giving you money. There's nothing spoiled about that concept. Its called a business transaction.
I've ordered about a dozen alters from this guy and they've all been exceptional.
I've ordered a bunch of alters from Yawg and had nothing but problems dealing with him so I absolutely do not recommend him.
Not to derail the thread but stormbreath dragon sucks in any format with actually powerful cards. He's good in standard because the other cards in standard basically suck. I'm fairly certain that it has seen almost zero play in modern/legacy.
At least hellkite sees fringe play here and there but he's pretty bad too. And i'm not even hating on the poor guy. I wish he was actually good in modern because its a pretty cool card.
And with KTK we're getting 5 really good cards that actually matter in every format.
There's maybe 2 or 3 other cards that make me go "hmmm, maybe..." but everything else is just your typical stuff.
As a whole its probably somewhere between RTR and Theros in terms of powerlevel, closer to RTR. Its certainly not Innistrad.
The fetches are really a huge deal. Its way too easy to say "everything else but fetches sucks" but really a cycle of sweet eternal cards is great news.
As far as everything else in the set, if you don't care about super competitive play or eternal formats, you're probably perfectly happy with whatever gray ogre in mongolian armor that WOTC decides to give you. Its basically "this is what we're putting in standard so if you want to play standard, you're using our gray ogres!"
That doesnt really work in eternal formats so I totally understand people making these threads.
So i'm just buying all the fetches and sticking to modern.
So awesome
Red gives you lightning bolt, electrolyze, lightning helix, Ajani, counterflux, pyroclasm/rain of the gods or whatever its called.
White gives you colonnade, resto/kiki jiki, the best sideboard cards in the format, PTE (maybe people are forgetting but this is still the second best removal spell in the format).
Black gives you:
discard. - You have no amazing turn 2 play to take advantage of a turn 1 IOK. The deck doesnt have bob/goyf so you just sit there doing nothing after taking something turn 1.
Lingering souls - the card is fine but tbh its a little too fair for turn 3.
creeping tar pit - actually pretty decent but i dont think its as good as colonnade as a finisher.
removal - nothing better than bolt/pte in your colors.
Liliana - bad in this deck.
I played esper briefly and the only decks that i had an obviously good MU against were UWR control decks where i could cast IOK, Snapcaster IOK and ride snapcaster and creeping tar pit to victory with counter mana.
What usually happened against other decks? I would IOK/Thoughtseize t1 against jund, trade 1 card and they would immediately make another "must answer play."
My black cards never did anything game breaking except for the one time i was able to iok SCM IOK something awesome and win because of it but it was extremely rare.
This isn't a format where you can just durdle for 6 turns while making fair plays.
I really hope this is temporary and part of the power level pendulum but the power level has gotten so low in standard sets that most of the time i dont even care about checking the spoilers.
This can't be a permanent power level decrease.
Every block cant be full of fetchlands and v. cliques and bobs. But people like me who've been playing for a million years and play eternal formats don't really buy underpowered sets. I'd be very happy to go buy a ton of sealed product and/or draft sets that had cards that were actually targeted at me. But there aren't any. So i dont buy anything at all and I don't draft because I don't enjoy opening bad stuff and leaving everything on the counter for the store before the night is over.
That can't be an accidental decision and I hope its just part of the patented power level swing that is about to get turned around.
Because otherwise this starts looking like brand mismanagement. You have people who want to give you lots and lots money today and you're telling them you can't print cards they like because it'll ruin the game forever. Every set doesn't have to be Zendikar. But some sets DO have to be at that power level.
Every other deck is either very fringey (amulet) or just an offshoot of an existing deck (jund evolving into BG).
I'm not surprised that they feel like the format is stale. Top 8 is consistently dominated by BGx and decks that beat BGx. and POD.
With that said, they have no one to blame but themselves.
Theros is a constructed stinker and they've been riding the flavor train for way too long. People don't play with cards from theros because theros sucks.
And the vibe that i'm getting is that instead of printing better cards, they're just going to remove modern from the equation so bad sets don't get thrown into the format to be fed to the lions in front of the cameras.
Uh hello? Maybe just make better sets. I don't think anyone here is asking for GG Tarmogoyfs. I just want cards that do things. You know like pyromancer ascension, birthing pod, unburial rites. Cards that actually create archetypes.
/rant
I like modern.
The time/$ commitment makes them super bad EV.
PPTQs are now going to be the equivalent of a GP Trial and I would only play the GP trials that have solid prizing (something along the lines of $25 entry, $400-ish payout top 8). Anything else wouldn't make sense since I'm probably not going to the GP Anyway.
So for me to continue playing PPTQ's is if the TOs dramatically increased their payout structure since I don't particularly care about winning first place and then having to travel to another location.
The people that really benefit from this change are the ones that were spending their entire weekend traveling around the state from one PTQ to the next.
The players who just played a couple of local PTQ's in a season due to time constraints are SOL.