Just because at 1 GP where EVERYONE was ready for Delver and Burn doesn't mean the deck is ok, not warping, and poisonous for the format just like BG/x was at its dominance.
How about the fact that the last SCG Modern Premier IQ had a grand total of 1 Delver deck in the Top 16, and zero in the Top 8?
Certainly, someone can claim that Delver not putting up results in the last few weeks could just be an exception rather than a trend (more data is necessary), but there's more than a single Grand Prix result that's indicating Delver might not be quite as insane as people thought it was.
On an unrelated note, every time I play against Siege Rhino, I grow increasingly baffled that this card is legal but Bloodbraid Elf is still banned.
Disagree that Delver isn't as insane as people think. Agree we need more data and GPs.
Also after playing with and against Seige Rhino im on the same boat. Like, its the reason to be playing Junk right now much like BBE is the reason to play Jund except Rhino is still better.
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it did lead to two bannings, but currently, delver and burn are nowhere near as prevalent/dominant as jund during the jund era.
my history may be a little foggy, but Twin wasn't a thing (again) until Dickmann won that GP. It won the first PT, then went dormant for years before people realized it was good to play at flash speed vs GBx. and yeah, i may have overstated with "unplayable," but if you had to pick a deck that you would call the competitive pinnacle of modern, it would be BGx or Pod. only very recently could you call a blue deck the best deck (if you don't count that one period of time where everyone wanted twin banned..)
I agree, Delver and Burn aren't close to Jund during the dominant years. I also don't think either require a banning.
Twin has been one of the best performing Tier 1 decks since Modern was a format. Statistically, Affinity has been, by far, the "pinnacle of competitiveness" in Modern, then probably Malira Pod or Twin followed by Jund. Jund was problematic from RtR until DRS got banned then BGx decks splintered into 3 different decks: BG Rock, Junk and Jund. They've not been problematic since the DRS banning, just competitive. Since Journey both BG Rock and Jund have plummeted in numbers. To my knowledge, a Blue deck has always had a Tier 1 deck choice in Modern.
Pod is certainly not BGx. BGx typically refers to decks focused around the "BG core" (Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Abrupt Decay, Liliana of the Veil and Inquisition of Kozilek) - although admittedly Dark Confidant is unplayable currently. Pod decks focus around Birthing Pod and Toolbox and/or value creatures. There are basically 3 versions of each deck:
Pod = Melira, Kiki and Value.
BGx = Jund, Junk and BG Rock.
Also, BGx kept Twin in check, BGx decks are the decks that pray upon Twin heavy metas - Twin certainly was never "realized" to be good against BGx, quite the opposite actually.
So if Delver were 1.02% of the meta youre saying it would still be competitive? Because right now JUND is 1.02%, JUNK is 4% and BG is gone. Delver is still about 17% of the meta. The roles have been reversed. When Jund/Junk/BGx were dominant everyone was 17% or higher people were pissed off and up in arms. Delver was a "competitive" deck by your standards but never saw much play due to the popular deck. Same thing applies to now.
Just because at 1 GP where EVERYONE was ready for Delver and Burn doesn't mean the deck is ok, not warping, and poisonous for the format just like BG/x was at its dominance.
Where are you getting the 17% from? The only way I could see that is if you were lumping all delver variants together, in which case you should lump the BGx variants together in which case it comes out to 3.7% which is just fine competitively. (This is pure BGx shells, not true junk) and given delvers tournament showings, if this trend continues, you can't possibly support a ban to nerf delver. It's ALREADY less oppressive than BGx and that took some time for a ban.
Also I'm now convinced that literally everything wizards does is a sign that bloodbraid elf should be unbanned. Lay off guys, that cycle of stupidity has lasted even longer than usual. Let's discuss a different card alright?
Normal UR Delver (decks listed as such) are 14%, but if you include ALL Delver decks, it comes out to 17% but almost every single one is the same list, just misclassified as something else. So your claim is wrong.
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Also I'm now convinced that literally everything wizards does is a sign that bloodbraid elf should be unbanned. Lay off guys, that cycle of stupidity has lasted even longer than usual. Let's discuss a different card alright?
I'm not sure where this "everything wizard does is a sign that bloodbraid elf should be unbanned" is coming from, at least in reference to me. For quite a long time, I was opposed to an unban. While I think that Deathrite Shaman should have gotten the ban back then instead of Bloodbraid Elf, ultimately Jund was still good enough after it lost Bloodbraid Elf and Deathrite Shaman that I saw no need to give it back Bloodbraid Elf.
But things have shifted. Jund is on the decline considerably compared to Junk and even Rock. And a big reason Junk is so good is Siege Rhino.
Looking at Siege Rhino and Bloodbraid Elf, I can't really say I see why Siege Rhino is okay but Bloodbraid Elf isn't. They both seem to have a similar level of power. It is true that Bloodbraid Elf can pull off extremely powerful plays like cascading into a Liliana, but it can just as easily do something unimpressive like an Inquisition of Kozilek after it's become irrelevant. While I do think that on average whatever Bloodbraid Elf cascades into will be better than the Bump In The Night+Healing Salve that Siege Rhino provides, this is compensated for by the fact that Siege Rhino is far more impressive as a creature; a 4/5 with trample is better than a 3/2 with haste.
If Junk can get Siege Rhino, I have trouble figuring out why Jund can't get Bloodbraid Elf, especially while it's on such a downturn.
Also I'm now convinced that literally everything wizards does is a sign that bloodbraid elf should be unbanned. Lay off guys, that cycle of stupidity has lasted even longer than usual. Let's discuss a different card alright?
I'm not sure where this "everything wizard does is a sign that bloodbraid elf should be unbanned" is coming from, at least in reference to me. For quite a long time, I was opposed to an unban. While I think that Deathrite Shaman should have gotten the ban back then instead of Bloodbraid Elf, ultimately Jund was still good enough after it lost Bloodbraid Elf and Deathrite Shaman that I saw no need to give it back Bloodbraid Elf.
But things have shifted. Jund is on the decline considerably compared to Junk and even Rock. And a big reason Junk is so good is Siege Rhino.
Looking at Siege Rhino and Bloodbraid Elf, I can't really say I see why Siege Rhino is okay but Bloodbraid Elf isn't. They both seem to have a similar level of power. It is true that Bloodbraid Elf can pull off extremely powerful plays like cascading into a Liliana, but it can just as easily do something unimpressive like an Inquisition of Kozilek after it's become irrelevant. While I do think that on average whatever Bloodbraid Elf cascades into will be better than the Bump In The Night+Healing Salve that Siege Rhino provides, this is compensated for by the fact that Siege Rhino is far more impressive as a creature; a 4/5 with trample is better than a 3/2 with haste.
If Junk can get Siege Rhino, I have trouble figuring out why Jund can't get Bloodbraid Elf, especially while it's on such a downturn.
Bloodbraid elf is not equal to siege rhino. Siege rhino is a quality creature as BGx has always had. It does one thing and does it very well. Bloodbraid is a card advantage card. I've made many earlier points about how it's not really random as people say and how BGx by its nature is so broad you're highly unlikely to hit a dead card. So on average given the shell, if it weren't for the delver burn match ups being so relevant that the bloodbraid would be doing something more valuable I.e. Dropping another threat or undercosted removal. The fact is that BBE is a value card that drops a value card and on average the value card it spawns will be better than a healing salve bump in MOST match ups other than burn and delver.
My comment however wasn't actually directed at you. I'm just tired of seeing the same tired unconvincing arguments made for bloodbraid and feel it would be nice to take a break and discuss some other card that wouldn't buff a deck that's still in the proven section, no matter how tenuous.
Not true unless you're doing the stupid thing I suspected lumping all delver decks together but keeping all BGx decks separate for a dramatic effect. UR delver is 14. UWR is at 1. Other UWR is at 1. Grixis at .68. Yes they all run delver. No they are not the same. Don't separate out the BGx builds for smaller numbers and then lump the delver ones for a bigger one. It's disengious and/or lazy.
There's also the cost factor to explain meta shares; Delver is remarkably cheap to put together compared to BGx. In Delver, the power cards are Delver, Young Pyromancer, Monastery Swiftspear and Treasure Cruise. In a BG shell, the power cards are Tarmogoyf, Liliana and (less so now) Dark Confidant. A playset of Goyfs is $840 (SCG Prices) while a playset of Delvers, Treasure Cruises, Swiftspears and Young Pyromancers combined is less than $40; and since most of those cards are commons or uncommon, there's a much larger supply of them out there.
People are playing Delver because they've got a deck that they can afford to make that isn't automatically going to be crushed by the guy that dropped $1500 on BGx, or Pod, or whatever Tier 1 deck.
Does it really surprise you that people that are just getting into Modern will be playing Delver, or people that already have a Modern deck would be willing to throw some money together to put Delver together, for variety?
How much people are playing it doesn't specifically indicate that it's insane or broken- just that it's affordable. GP Madrid showed that Delver is easy to adapt too such that you can hate it out. If GP Milan has a top 8 that is 6 Treasure Cruise decks, then I'll consider whether a ban is necessary; until then, I think it's fine.
Also some people have argued that it's a bad feeling for people that spent a lot of money on a deck to have their deck easily beatable by a deck that as a whole costs less than the playset of Tarmogoyfs. My response is: suck it up.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
There's also the cost factor to explain meta shares; Delver is remarkably cheap to put together compared to BGx. In Delver, the power cards are Delver, Young Pyromancer, Monastery Swiftspear and Treasure Cruise. In a BG shell, the power cards are Tarmogoyf, Liliana and (less so now) Dark Confidant. A playset of Goyfs is $840 (SCG Prices) while a playset of Delvers, Treasure Cruises, Swiftspears and Young Pyromancers combined is less than $40; and since most of those cards are commons or uncommon, there's a much larger supply of them out there.
People are playing Delver because they've got a deck that they can afford to make that isn't automatically going to be crushed by the guy that dropped $1500 on BGx, or Pod, or whatever Tier 1 deck.
Does it really surprise you that people that are just getting into Modern will be playing Delver, or people that already have a Modern deck would be willing to throw some money together to put Delver together, for variety?
How much people are playing it doesn't specifically indicate that it's insane or broken- just that it's affordable. GP Madrid showed that Delver is easy to adapt too such that you can hate it out. If GP Milan has a top 8 that is 6 Treasure Cruise decks, then I'll consider whether a ban is necessary; until then, I think it's fine.
Also some people have argued that it's a bad feeling for people that spent a lot of money on a deck to have their deck easily beatable by a deck that as a whole costs less than the playset of Tarmogoyfs. My response is: suck it up.
Your opinion is biased, therefore none of this even matters.
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There's also the cost factor to explain meta shares; Delver is remarkably cheap to put together compared to BGx. In Delver, the power cards are Delver, Young Pyromancer, Monastery Swiftspear and Treasure Cruise. In a BG shell, the power cards are Tarmogoyf, Liliana and (less so now) Dark Confidant. A playset of Goyfs is $840 (SCG Prices) while a playset of Delvers, Treasure Cruises, Swiftspears and Young Pyromancers combined is less than $40; and since most of those cards are commons or uncommon, there's a much larger supply of them out there.
People are playing Delver because they've got a deck that they can afford to make that isn't automatically going to be crushed by the guy that dropped $1500 on BGx, or Pod, or whatever Tier 1 deck.
Does it really surprise you that people that are just getting into Modern will be playing Delver, or people that already have a Modern deck would be willing to throw some money together to put Delver together, for variety?
How much people are playing it doesn't specifically indicate that it's insane or broken- just that it's affordable. GP Madrid showed that Delver is easy to adapt too such that you can hate it out. If GP Milan has a top 8 that is 6 Treasure Cruise decks, then I'll consider whether a ban is necessary; until then, I think it's fine.
Also some people have argued that it's a bad feeling for people that spent a lot of money on a deck to have their deck easily beatable by a deck that as a whole costs less than the playset of Tarmogoyfs. My response is: suck it up.
Your opinion is biased, therefore none of this even matters.
Cost is absolutely relevant which is his point. Cheap good decks are gonna get thrown together by a lot of people.
Sure, there is a chance of spending $4 on a booster and getting the Mythic Rare $30 super card. There is also a chance of surviving putting your tongue in a light socket.
I don't doubt it. But just because a deck is cheap or affordable by nearly everyone doesn't mean its at all safe from a banning. Cost should have NOTHING to do with whether a deck is a certain percentage of the meta or not. If a deck is THAT popular because of its price then Wizards just needs to either ban something from it or needs to do some mass reprinting so most competitive decks are the same price. Because all this "Its cheap, don't ban it or new players will be sad!" ***** is getting ridiculous.
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Your opinion is biased, therefore none of this even matters.
First, you failed to demonstrate that his opinion was biased. Second, simply because a belief came about through bias, doesn't make the belief inherently wrong or ignorable.
The guy's point was that we can explain the prevalence of delver decks by their relatively low cost. Basically, because decks cost different amounts of money, you can't go straight from 'deck sees the most play' to 'deck is the most powerful'. Everything he said was perfectly reasonable, even if his tone wasn't ideal. What faults did you see in his argument?
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
[quote from="spawnofhastur »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/565050-current-modern-banlist-discussion-9-22-2014-update?comment=4540"]There's also the cost factor to explain meta shares; Delver is remarkably cheap to put together compared to BGx. In Delver, the power cards are Delver, Young Pyromancer, Monastery Swiftspear and Treasure Cruise. In a BG shell, the power cards are Tarmogoyf, Liliana and (less so now) Dark Confidant. A playset of Goyfs is $840 (SCG Prices) while a playset of Delvers, Treasure Cruises, Swiftspears and Young Pyromancers combined is less than $40; and since most of those cards are commons or uncommon, there's a much larger supply of them out there.
People are playing Delver because they've got a deck that they can afford to make that isn't automatically going to be crushed by the guy that dropped $1500 on BGx, or Pod, or whatever Tier 1 deck.
Does it really surprise you that people that are just getting into Modern will be playing Delver, or people that already have a Modern deck would be willing to throw some money together to put Delver together, for variety?
How much people are playing it doesn't specifically indicate that it's insane or broken- just that it's affordable. GP Madrid showed that Delver is easy to adapt too such that you can hate it out. If GP Milan has a top 8 that is 6 Treasure Cruise decks, then I'll consider whether a ban is necessary; until then, I think it's fine.
Also some people have argued that it's a bad feeling for people that spent a lot of money on a deck to have their deck easily beatable by a deck that as a whole costs less than the playset of Tarmogoyfs. My response is: suck it up.
Your opinion is biased, therefore none of this even matters.
No no, he's pretty right.
My favorite color combo in the game is Jund, but I pretty much had an Aneurysm when I saw the pricetag for the deck being $2000 non-foil. Settled on Delver because a friend of mine was making it and it was that much cheaper, and then went into Grixis just to do something different.
Cost is absolutely relevant which is his point. Cheap good decks are gonna get thrown together by a lot of people.
I don't doubt it. But just because a deck is cheap or affordable by nearly everyone doesn't mean its at all safe from a banning. Cost should have NOTHING to do with whether a deck is a certain percentage of the meta or not. If a deck is THAT popular because of its price then Wizards just needs to either ban something from it or needs to do some mass reprinting so most competitive decks are the same price. Because all this "Its cheap, don't ban it or new players will be sad!" ***** is getting ridiculous.
So we should leave Goyfs as the go-to staples, so everyone has to spend $200 on a single card to compete?
I agree, price shouldn't be a factor, but if you ban the Cheap decks out of usability, then the format becomes nothing more than pay-to-win. There's a reason Modern is more popular than Legacy/Vintage; it's cheaper and easier to get into.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
I don't doubt it. But just because a deck is cheap or affordable by nearly everyone doesn't mean its at all safe from a banning. Cost should have NOTHING to do with whether a deck is a certain percentage of the meta or not. If a deck is THAT popular because of its price then Wizards just needs to either ban something from it or needs to do some mass reprinting so most competitive decks are the same price. Because all this "Its cheap, don't ban it or new players will be sad!" ***** is getting ridiculous.
Doesn't matter how big meta share it is matters how much winning it's doin. And it's not winning enough to be oppressive. Yea it'd be annoying if delver was 40% of the meta but if it only gets one deck in the top eight on the regular it STILL doesn't need a banning. I think his point about it being cheap isn't that it's a good cheap deck that allows people to play competitively, it's more than its cheapness is inflating it's meta share that is not necessarily representative of how good the deck actually is. It's a good deck, but it isn't as good as you'd think looking at that share just cause everyone's bought in since it's so cheap.
Your opinion is biased, therefore none of this even matters.
First, you failed to demonstrate that his opinion was biased. Second, simply because a belief came about through bias, doesn't make the belief inherently wrong or ignorable.
The guy's point was that we can explain the prevalence of delver decks by their relatively low cost. Basically, because decks cost different amounts of money, you can't go straight from 'deck sees the most play' to 'deck is the most powerful'. Everything he said was perfectly reasonable, even if his tone wasn't ideal. What faults did you see in his argument?
The deck shouldn't be banned for its powerlevel, though is a good argument as Treasure Cruise is busted in those decks. It needs to be banned because of its metagame percentages. Its disgusting a deck is that cheap and that overwhelmingly represented.
[quote from="spawnofhastur »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/565050-current-modern-banlist-discussion-9-22-2014-update?comment=4540"]There's also the cost factor to explain meta shares; Delver is remarkably cheap to put together compared to BGx. In Delver, the power cards are Delver, Young Pyromancer, Monastery Swiftspear and Treasure Cruise. In a BG shell, the power cards are Tarmogoyf, Liliana and (less so now) Dark Confidant. A playset of Goyfs is $840 (SCG Prices) while a playset of Delvers, Treasure Cruises, Swiftspears and Young Pyromancers combined is less than $40; and since most of those cards are commons or uncommon, there's a much larger supply of them out there.
People are playing Delver because they've got a deck that they can afford to make that isn't automatically going to be crushed by the guy that dropped $1500 on BGx, or Pod, or whatever Tier 1 deck.
Does it really surprise you that people that are just getting into Modern will be playing Delver, or people that already have a Modern deck would be willing to throw some money together to put Delver together, for variety?
How much people are playing it doesn't specifically indicate that it's insane or broken- just that it's affordable. GP Madrid showed that Delver is easy to adapt too such that you can hate it out. If GP Milan has a top 8 that is 6 Treasure Cruise decks, then I'll consider whether a ban is necessary; until then, I think it's fine.
Also some people have argued that it's a bad feeling for people that spent a lot of money on a deck to have their deck easily beatable by a deck that as a whole costs less than the playset of Tarmogoyfs. My response is: suck it up.
Your opinion is biased, therefore none of this even matters.
No no, he's pretty right.
My favorite color combo in the game is Jund, but I pretty much had an Aneurysm when I saw the pricetag for the deck being $2000 non-foil. Settled on Delver because a friend of mine was making it and it was that much cheaper, and then went into Grixis just to do something different.
Cost is absolutely relevant which is his point. Cheap good decks are gonna get thrown together by a lot of people.
I don't doubt it. But just because a deck is cheap or affordable by nearly everyone doesn't mean its at all safe from a banning. Cost should have NOTHING to do with whether a deck is a certain percentage of the meta or not. If a deck is THAT popular because of its price then Wizards just needs to either ban something from it or needs to do some mass reprinting so most competitive decks are the same price. Because all this "Its cheap, don't ban it or new players will be sad!" ***** is getting ridiculous.
So we should leave Goyfs as the go-to staples, so everyone has to spend $200 on a single card to compete?
I agree, price shouldn't be a factor, but if you ban the Cheap decks out of usability, then the format becomes nothing more than pay-to-win. There's a reason Modern is more popular than Legacy/Vintage; it's cheaper and easier to get into.
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I agree in that I would totally play certain decks and colors if I could but I just don't wanna spend that kind of money on those decks. However just because anyone can pick it up and its cheap doesn't mean it all it should ever be treated any differently than a BG/x deck that costs $1500+.
Im not saying the deck should be banned out of playability, though that would be excellent! Im saying the cards that make it too good and too popular are what need to be banned. Treasure Cruise and Swiftspear give it such a huge advantage in the early/mid and late game. Something needs to go or the deck's percentages need to drop significantly.
There hasn't been a deck with 17%, or even 15% or more, of the metagame without it going back down right away or it being too good and requiring a ban. See Jund. With DRS it was like 23% of the meta, including all variations of the decks much like how I grouped Delver decks together. It isn't too far from Jund levels. Regardless of whether or not the meta can short it out, the format has been impacted in a negative way. It has also sped the format up way too much. Control is basically gone. Most creatures are unplayable unless they do something broken or gain you life. And with a format this fast its almost like PT Philly. Every other game ended before turn 4 or 5. Its like everyone playing Belcher, just everyone trying to do something super powerful super fast and its not good for the format.
I HATE control, I used to play it in both Modern and Standard. However, I like seeing it around. It makes for interesting and grindy games. With this new meta, control is basically gone. The closest thing to control right now is UWR and most UWR lists are just UR Delver decks splashing white for removal and sideboard stuff. That's NOT a healthy metagame in ANY sense.
You cant say that a format being this fast and completely lacking an entire archetype is a good format. And if you do then its because your opinion is biased or you are new to the game.
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I want TC banned, but right now the newer data from the last two weeks just doesn't support it. Despite its popularity, its no longer breaking through T8's very easily as it had right after KTK. Of course, we have to wait and see if its a lasting impressing to be 100% sure.
But you guys are bringing up a good point. Delver's obscenely overplayed in MTGO with a lot of it due to its price. In the possible scenario that the next months' data show that Delver is barely breaking T8/T16's yet still holds a 15+% of MTGO, what do you think Wizard should do? i.e. what do you do with a deck that is played way more than it should be?
The deck shouldn't be banned for its powerlevel, though is a good argument as Treasure Cruise is busted in those decks. It needs to be banned because of its metagame percentages. Its disgusting a deck is that cheap and that overwhelmingly represented.
According to your logic, if I pay half a million people to go online and play Mountain.deck, simply 60 mountains, then Mountain would need to be banned. It should be obvious to you that banning mountain is absurd, meaning your qualifications for what demands a ban are incorrect.
Basically, the amount of play a deck gets isn't the only factor in determining whether or not it gets a ban. It may not even be the most important factor.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
The deck shouldn't be banned for its powerlevel, though is a good argument as Treasure Cruise is busted in those decks. It needs to be banned because of its metagame percentages. Its disgusting a deck is that cheap and that overwhelmingly represented.
According to your logic, if I pay half a million people to go online and play Mountain.deck, simply 60 mountains, then Mountain would need to be banned. It should be obvious to you that banning mountain is absurd, meaning your qualifications for what demands a ban are incorrect.
Basically, the amount of play a deck gets isn't the only factor in determining whether or not it gets a ban. It may not even be the most important factor.
This is incredibly unrealistic so im not even going to argue with it. However a deck's metagame percentages have ALWAYS had a large role in bannings.
Your opinion is biased, therefore none of this even matters.
It is laughable that you call others view biased when it is clear your hatred for Delver is clouding your opinion significantly.
The data shows that Delver is not as powerful as anyone suggested.
It's numbers (especially on MTGO) are purely down to cost - but it's performance suggests a lack of relative power.
Jund got banned because it was 20%+ of the meta and then a final of a GP was between two Jund decks designed to beat other Jund decks (Spirit Jund). Delver is nowhere near this level of insanity.
Wizards will not nerf Delver for numbers, it will ban it for power - and the power is not there. When a deck is 20%+ of the meta and can only put one deck in the top 8, it's underpowered, not overpowered.
This is incredibly unrealistic so im not even going to argue with it. However a deck's metagame percentages have ALWAYS had a large role in bannings.
Your previous posts implied that you believed the only relevant thing to consider when talking about bans is Meta%. My post was designed to show that such a belief is false.
You act like there aren't other budget and cheap Modern decks. Honestly, everything in the format is pretty cheap short of BG decks and Control decks.
For reference, here are the costs of the Madrid top 8 decks and a normal UR delver list as determined by deckstats.net.
Kevin Pod : 426
Riccardo Trap : 363
Andrew Pod : 438
Jose Pod : 586
Immanuel RUG delver : 659
Steffen Martyr : 230
Till Scapeshift : 515
Marcio Rock : 872 UR delver : 284
I know no one was questioning that UR delver was cheap, but here are some actual numbers to think about. I don't think there exists a deck in modern that will give you a better (Matches Won)/(Dollar Spent)
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
I'm curious as to how my opinion is biased. I don't play Delver, or Treasure Cruise. I've never even cast the card. My main decks are Scapeshift, Amulet of Vigor, and Summoning Trap Valakut. I mean, I guess you could say I'm biased for Delver to stay in the format for the last one since it's a good matchup, but I honestly don't have any stake in Delver. I just don't think Treasure Cruise needs to be banned.
Also, considering that it hasn't even been three months since Treasure Cruise was released, AND that it's one of the cheapest gateways into Modern, don't you think a lot of people would be playing it? If the meta share is still 17% in 6 months time, then we can talk about banning it due to being overplayed. This stuff takes a while to equalize. I think Delver will continue to be a big part of the metagame because it's a cheap way into the format, but as people realize that it's not the insane tier 0 deck it's hyped to be (and it really isn't; the results show that Delver is not difficult to beat) they'll either move onto other decks, or to their old ones.
Also, you can't call me biased when your response to a thread about why Life From the Loam isn't played is, and I quote, "BECAUSE DELVER AND BURN EXIST". Loam has been a fringe strategy since way before the 'Delver menace' for a variety of reasons (a lack of cycling lands, for example)- which the metagame data supports. Delver is just your personal bogeyman that you blame everything wrong in the format on.
Not really. Life From the Loam decks cant exist when Burn and Delver have forced the format to speed up to such a degree where Life From the Loam strategies are completely useless.
I used to play UR Delver and RUG Delver when I first jumped into the format. I loved it however I hate the deck purely because of the linear deck strategy and the fact that its cheap. I can play any deck in the format short of Jund, I own a very big collection. I have UR Delver put together as we speak. However it is having a negative affect on the format.
Metagame percentages do matter. Look at Jund. @harlannowick
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I definitely agree with spawnofhastur on this one. You can't blame Delver for everything. Loam actually has a decent match-up vs delver, it is a deck full of Flame Jabs, Lightning Bolt, Seismic Assaults and Burning Vengeance. Other pre-existing decks have always been its down fall.
Another thing to consider is not only that the deck is cheap and decent but that it has more publicity then any deck in recent memory. Every magic site that publishes articles has basically been saying "You can have the best deck in modern for cheap: please insert credit card for singles". It popularity is only increased by the constant talk of bannings, everyone whats to play is so called "over powered" card before it is taken away from them entirely.
Finally if you were to look at recent showings in large tournaments it would seem that Pod needs banning, not TC.
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In play: Jund Death Shadow, Grixis Control, Eldrazi Stompy, Ponza
In the yard: RUG Delver, Kiki-Chord, Grixis Twin, Mardu Control, Smallpox, Jeskai Control, Jeskai Delver, Assault Loam, Elves, Deathcloud, Eggs, Storm
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Disagree that Delver isn't as insane as people think. Agree we need more data and GPs.
Also after playing with and against Seige Rhino im on the same boat. Like, its the reason to be playing Junk right now much like BBE is the reason to play Jund except Rhino is still better.
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Where are you getting the 17% from? The only way I could see that is if you were lumping all delver variants together, in which case you should lump the BGx variants together in which case it comes out to 3.7% which is just fine competitively. (This is pure BGx shells, not true junk) and given delvers tournament showings, if this trend continues, you can't possibly support a ban to nerf delver. It's ALREADY less oppressive than BGx and that took some time for a ban.
Also I'm now convinced that literally everything wizards does is a sign that bloodbraid elf should be unbanned. Lay off guys, that cycle of stupidity has lasted even longer than usual. Let's discuss a different card alright?
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But things have shifted. Jund is on the decline considerably compared to Junk and even Rock. And a big reason Junk is so good is Siege Rhino.
Looking at Siege Rhino and Bloodbraid Elf, I can't really say I see why Siege Rhino is okay but Bloodbraid Elf isn't. They both seem to have a similar level of power. It is true that Bloodbraid Elf can pull off extremely powerful plays like cascading into a Liliana, but it can just as easily do something unimpressive like an Inquisition of Kozilek after it's become irrelevant. While I do think that on average whatever Bloodbraid Elf cascades into will be better than the Bump In The Night+Healing Salve that Siege Rhino provides, this is compensated for by the fact that Siege Rhino is far more impressive as a creature; a 4/5 with trample is better than a 3/2 with haste.
If Junk can get Siege Rhino, I have trouble figuring out why Jund can't get Bloodbraid Elf, especially while it's on such a downturn.
MTG Goldfish.
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Bloodbraid elf is not equal to siege rhino. Siege rhino is a quality creature as BGx has always had. It does one thing and does it very well. Bloodbraid is a card advantage card. I've made many earlier points about how it's not really random as people say and how BGx by its nature is so broad you're highly unlikely to hit a dead card. So on average given the shell, if it weren't for the delver burn match ups being so relevant that the bloodbraid would be doing something more valuable I.e. Dropping another threat or undercosted removal. The fact is that BBE is a value card that drops a value card and on average the value card it spawns will be better than a healing salve bump in MOST match ups other than burn and delver.
My comment however wasn't actually directed at you. I'm just tired of seeing the same tired unconvincing arguments made for bloodbraid and feel it would be nice to take a break and discuss some other card that wouldn't buff a deck that's still in the proven section, no matter how tenuous.
Not true unless you're doing the stupid thing I suspected lumping all delver decks together but keeping all BGx decks separate for a dramatic effect. UR delver is 14. UWR is at 1. Other UWR is at 1. Grixis at .68. Yes they all run delver. No they are not the same. Don't separate out the BGx builds for smaller numbers and then lump the delver ones for a bigger one. It's disengious and/or lazy.
People are playing Delver because they've got a deck that they can afford to make that isn't automatically going to be crushed by the guy that dropped $1500 on BGx, or Pod, or whatever Tier 1 deck.
Does it really surprise you that people that are just getting into Modern will be playing Delver, or people that already have a Modern deck would be willing to throw some money together to put Delver together, for variety?
How much people are playing it doesn't specifically indicate that it's insane or broken- just that it's affordable. GP Madrid showed that Delver is easy to adapt too such that you can hate it out. If GP Milan has a top 8 that is 6 Treasure Cruise decks, then I'll consider whether a ban is necessary; until then, I think it's fine.
Also some people have argued that it's a bad feeling for people that spent a lot of money on a deck to have their deck easily beatable by a deck that as a whole costs less than the playset of Tarmogoyfs. My response is: suck it up.
Your opinion is biased, therefore none of this even matters.
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Cost is absolutely relevant which is his point. Cheap good decks are gonna get thrown together by a lot of people.
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The guy's point was that we can explain the prevalence of delver decks by their relatively low cost. Basically, because decks cost different amounts of money, you can't go straight from 'deck sees the most play' to 'deck is the most powerful'. Everything he said was perfectly reasonable, even if his tone wasn't ideal. What faults did you see in his argument?
- Manite
No no, he's pretty right.
My favorite color combo in the game is Jund, but I pretty much had an Aneurysm when I saw the pricetag for the deck being $2000 non-foil. Settled on Delver because a friend of mine was making it and it was that much cheaper, and then went into Grixis just to do something different.
Cost is absolutely relevant which is his point. Cheap good decks are gonna get thrown together by a lot of people.
So we should leave Goyfs as the go-to staples, so everyone has to spend $200 on a single card to compete?
I agree, price shouldn't be a factor, but if you ban the Cheap decks out of usability, then the format becomes nothing more than pay-to-win. There's a reason Modern is more popular than Legacy/Vintage; it's cheaper and easier to get into.
Doesn't matter how big meta share it is matters how much winning it's doin. And it's not winning enough to be oppressive. Yea it'd be annoying if delver was 40% of the meta but if it only gets one deck in the top eight on the regular it STILL doesn't need a banning. I think his point about it being cheap isn't that it's a good cheap deck that allows people to play competitively, it's more than its cheapness is inflating it's meta share that is not necessarily representative of how good the deck actually is. It's a good deck, but it isn't as good as you'd think looking at that share just cause everyone's bought in since it's so cheap.
The deck shouldn't be banned for its powerlevel, though is a good argument as Treasure Cruise is busted in those decks. It needs to be banned because of its metagame percentages. Its disgusting a deck is that cheap and that overwhelmingly represented.
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I agree in that I would totally play certain decks and colors if I could but I just don't wanna spend that kind of money on those decks. However just because anyone can pick it up and its cheap doesn't mean it all it should ever be treated any differently than a BG/x deck that costs $1500+.
Im not saying the deck should be banned out of playability, though that would be excellent! Im saying the cards that make it too good and too popular are what need to be banned. Treasure Cruise and Swiftspear give it such a huge advantage in the early/mid and late game. Something needs to go or the deck's percentages need to drop significantly.
There hasn't been a deck with 17%, or even 15% or more, of the metagame without it going back down right away or it being too good and requiring a ban. See Jund. With DRS it was like 23% of the meta, including all variations of the decks much like how I grouped Delver decks together. It isn't too far from Jund levels. Regardless of whether or not the meta can short it out, the format has been impacted in a negative way. It has also sped the format up way too much. Control is basically gone. Most creatures are unplayable unless they do something broken or gain you life. And with a format this fast its almost like PT Philly. Every other game ended before turn 4 or 5. Its like everyone playing Belcher, just everyone trying to do something super powerful super fast and its not good for the format.
I HATE control, I used to play it in both Modern and Standard. However, I like seeing it around. It makes for interesting and grindy games. With this new meta, control is basically gone. The closest thing to control right now is UWR and most UWR lists are just UR Delver decks splashing white for removal and sideboard stuff. That's NOT a healthy metagame in ANY sense.
You cant say that a format being this fast and completely lacking an entire archetype is a good format. And if you do then its because your opinion is biased or you are new to the game.
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But you guys are bringing up a good point. Delver's obscenely overplayed in MTGO with a lot of it due to its price. In the possible scenario that the next months' data show that Delver is barely breaking T8/T16's yet still holds a 15+% of MTGO, what do you think Wizard should do? i.e. what do you do with a deck that is played way more than it should be?
Pricing people out of a format is disgusting too.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
According to your logic, if I pay half a million people to go online and play Mountain.deck, simply 60 mountains, then Mountain would need to be banned. It should be obvious to you that banning mountain is absurd, meaning your qualifications for what demands a ban are incorrect.
Basically, the amount of play a deck gets isn't the only factor in determining whether or not it gets a ban. It may not even be the most important factor.
- Manite
This is incredibly unrealistic so im not even going to argue with it. However a deck's metagame percentages have ALWAYS had a large role in bannings.
Warping/bad metagame with an unhealthy amount of Delver < Telling people to play a different cheap deck.
You act like there aren't other budget and cheap Modern decks. Honestly, everything in the format is pretty cheap short of BG decks and Control decks.
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It is laughable that you call others view biased when it is clear your hatred for Delver is clouding your opinion significantly.
The data shows that Delver is not as powerful as anyone suggested.
It's numbers (especially on MTGO) are purely down to cost - but it's performance suggests a lack of relative power.
Jund got banned because it was 20%+ of the meta and then a final of a GP was between two Jund decks designed to beat other Jund decks (Spirit Jund). Delver is nowhere near this level of insanity.
Wizards will not nerf Delver for numbers, it will ban it for power - and the power is not there. When a deck is 20%+ of the meta and can only put one deck in the top 8, it's underpowered, not overpowered.
For reference, here are the costs of the Madrid top 8 decks and a normal UR delver list as determined by deckstats.net.
Kevin Pod : 426
Riccardo Trap : 363
Andrew Pod : 438
Jose Pod : 586
Immanuel RUG delver : 659
Steffen Martyr : 230
Till Scapeshift : 515
Marcio Rock : 872
UR delver : 284
I know no one was questioning that UR delver was cheap, but here are some actual numbers to think about. I don't think there exists a deck in modern that will give you a better (Matches Won)/(Dollar Spent)
- Manite
Also, considering that it hasn't even been three months since Treasure Cruise was released, AND that it's one of the cheapest gateways into Modern, don't you think a lot of people would be playing it? If the meta share is still 17% in 6 months time, then we can talk about banning it due to being overplayed. This stuff takes a while to equalize. I think Delver will continue to be a big part of the metagame because it's a cheap way into the format, but as people realize that it's not the insane tier 0 deck it's hyped to be (and it really isn't; the results show that Delver is not difficult to beat) they'll either move onto other decks, or to their old ones.
Also, you can't call me biased when your response to a thread about why Life From the Loam isn't played is, and I quote, "BECAUSE DELVER AND BURN EXIST". Loam has been a fringe strategy since way before the 'Delver menace' for a variety of reasons (a lack of cycling lands, for example)- which the metagame data supports. Delver is just your personal bogeyman that you blame everything wrong in the format on.
I used to play UR Delver and RUG Delver when I first jumped into the format. I loved it however I hate the deck purely because of the linear deck strategy and the fact that its cheap. I can play any deck in the format short of Jund, I own a very big collection. I have UR Delver put together as we speak. However it is having a negative affect on the format.
Metagame percentages do matter. Look at Jund. @harlannowick
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Another thing to consider is not only that the deck is cheap and decent but that it has more publicity then any deck in recent memory. Every magic site that publishes articles has basically been saying "You can have the best deck in modern for cheap: please insert credit card for singles". It popularity is only increased by the constant talk of bannings, everyone whats to play is so called "over powered" card before it is taken away from them entirely.
Finally if you were to look at recent showings in large tournaments it would seem that Pod needs banning, not TC.
In the yard: RUG Delver, Kiki-Chord, Grixis Twin, Mardu Control, Smallpox, Jeskai Control, Jeskai Delver, Assault Loam, Elves, Deathcloud, Eggs, Storm