I'm not debating the term "linear" or level of interaction for the most part, I'm asking how are you defining "aggro/combo" as you put it. Calling the entire top 8 "aggro/combo" and then saying "we lack strategy diversity" seems to be a bit of a dishonest way to frame the discussion. Calling Grixis Goryo's, Bant Eldrazi, Scapeshift (titanshift in this case), and 8-rack aggro is laughable.
If you want to decry the top 8 as "linear" fine, make that argument.
Same here I prefer unban a and new cards then bans.
I think and hope that that will happen so we don't have to worry so much about our decks becoming useless.
Yes that is also one of my concerns and everyone's concern because this game is not cheap.
Also I noticed that a lot of banhammer screaming is mostly personal opinions from people who don't like to play against a certain deck or type.
Also your FNM is a lot different then what we see on twitch. In my local FNM we got a Merfolk and Elf player that have been playing their decks for a long time and are ripping up the place.
So shall I scream Merfolk and Elf ban?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy - Reanimator
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
I do believe he was using the slash to represent aggro and/or combo? Besides, scapeshift and grixis goryos are combo decks, and bant eldrazi is midrange-leaning aggro at best. Not sure what the argument is really.
I have no idea how to classify lantern control, prison maybe?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"What does MtheW stand for? The world may never know."
I do believe he was using the slash to represent aggro and/or combo? Besides, scapeshift and grixis goryos are combo decks, and bant eldrazi is midrange-leaning aggro at best. Not sure what the argument is really.
I have no idea how to classify lantern control, prison maybe?
That was the clarification I initially sought and he answered with a statement about linearity and lack of interaction. As I said, make that argument then. I'd hardly define that top 8 as decks that are doing the same thing though which is why trying to lump them all into one category seems disingenuous.
Ah my bad guess I should have looked for that, seemed a little too obvious. Sorry. The top 8 is at least a little diverse, what with scapeshift and lantern control in there.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"What does MtheW stand for? The world may never know."
We don't want diversity of literal decklists, we want diversity of strategy. Can you not see the difference? Diversity of decklists is what we have here - a top 8 full of linear aggro/combo decks. Diversity of strategy would be something like seeing some aggro, some combo, some midrange, and some control decks all in the top 8.
Sorry, didn't mean to ruin your whole day like that.
To me those decks are different enough. It would have been nice to see perhaps Tron or Jeskai Nahiri in there too, but I'm not upset about a top 8 with diversity of deck lists personally.
Maybe I'm one of the few not mired in abject misery with the format right meow.
Excuse me? There's no need to be snippy. I was trying to elaborate on a point, and you think that people disagreeing with me on the internet is somehow going to life tilt me? I don't understand where this whole "ruin my day" thing is coming from.
Now for something actually constructive, what you are asking for is diversity of appearances, not diversity of ideas. There is an enormous difference between those two things. I apologize for using a somewhat political example here, but it's the best way I can think to explain this.
Imagine if you have a board room filled with people of all different ethnicities, financial standing, and religions, but they all have nearly identical opinions on whatever topic it is you are discussing. That's diversity of appearance. Everyone there superficially appears to be different, but at the end of the day, nothing of interest is going to happen in that room because everyone agrees on the main point being debated. That's what we have right now with this top 8. Each deck looks different, but at the end of the day, they're all linear aggro/combo decks that operate on basically the same premises - interact as little as possible and just do something broken as quickly as possible.
Now, imagine that the room is filled with people who have differing ideologies, and they are having the same conversation. Well, that's the discussion I'd be interested in listening to, as things are going to get challenged and claims will have to be backed up. This is diversity of ideas. This is what we should be aiming for with Modern. For instance, UR Delver may superficially look similar to a Jeskai Nahiri deck, but they're operating on completely different fundamental strategies that makes it much more interesting to play and watch.
I'd rather see a top 8 that has a variety of strategies even if they look somewhat similar than a top 8 filled with superficially different linear aggro/combo decks. I think that most people would probably prefer that too. If you don't, then that's your choice, but personally, I think that's boring as hell and not mentally stimulating, which is one of the main draws of Magic to me. I want to be challenged intellectually with my deck building and play, so that when I lose, I can say with confidence it was my fault (at least most of the time), and not just my opponents winning the die roll more often / having nut draw hands.
I was trying to be silly with the "ruin your day" comment. Jesus...
I get your point; I actually got it before the description (which was a good one, so cheers to you), but I guess my feeling was that it doesn't bother me too much, and it feels like the number of, as you said ideologies, in Modern is relatively narrow right now so I'll settle for what we're getting.
I've never felt like Modern was a particularly broad format when it comes to that level of diversity in general, so to me a top 8 that isn't 3 decks (as it often was in the past) is something I'm reasonably happy about in.
I'd like to see the format improve in the ways you've talked about, I'm just not sure when/if it's going to happen so I'm settling for what's around now.
I wonder what is worse? A top 8 like we saw today or a top 8 that consists of...
1 Grixis Twin
1 UR Twin
2 Jund
1 GR Tron
1 Burn
1 Affinity
1 random Tier 2 deck
Although I am not completely sure of where I stand, I think the people posting in this thread can be segmented very clearly into one of these 2 groups.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Become Immense is not even the problem because Infect was around before the card and was doing good.
Most of my wins with the deck don't even come from Become Immense but from a lot of other pump cards in the deck.
But like I said a couple weeks ago you see this complaining over and over again every time there is a big tournament.
It is always the same *****, ban this, ban that, unban this, unban that, I want Splinter Twin back, I want Counterspell.
If you want to beat certain decks load up for it, fill up your sideboard with hate and go for it.
I never hear Legacy players complain after tournaments about banning, this is really a Modern format thing. I love the format but the constant complaining about it is just horrible. If you don't like it play something else instead of trying to ruin it for the people who like it.
You are not a world level pro, you are an amature Magic playing who is playing at a local FNM and will never show up at a Pro Tour of Worlds or things like that.
Grow up and just play the game.
Your analysis competely leaves out the differences in format. Legacy has TONS of police cards in: FOW, Miracles as a deck, Daze, therapy, Decay, D-Shaman, wasteland, blood moon, Death and Taxes just existing, etc. Modern doesn't have any great police cards for unfair decks. You have to hope that you have the counterspell when they are doing their combo or hope you have the kill spell when they are casting their flood of creatures. While that plan works out enough to create two tier 1 decks that attempt police the format; in the end the format stays a turn 3 format rather than the "turn 4 format" that wizards used to talk about. The reality is: if you don't have the interaction that you have to tap out for to beat them then you will lose. Legacy doesn't have such realities because FOW/wasteland do a great job of policing their format.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
Become Immense is not even the problem because Infect was around before the card and was doing good.
Most of my wins with the deck don't even come from Become Immense but from a lot of other pump cards in the deck.
But like I said a couple weeks ago you see this complaining over and over again every time there is a big tournament.
It is always the same *****, ban this, ban that, unban this, unban that, I want Splinter Twin back, I want Counterspell.
If you want to beat certain decks load up for it, fill up your sideboard with hate and go for it.
I never hear Legacy players complain after tournaments about banning, this is really a Modern format thing. I love the format but the constant complaining about it is just horrible. If you don't like it play something else instead of trying to ruin it for the people who like it.
You are not a world level pro, you are an amature Magic playing who is playing at a local FNM and will never show up at a Pro Tour of Worlds or things like that.
Grow up and just play the game.
Your analysis competely leaves out the differences in format. Legacy has TONS of police cards in: FOW, Miracles as a deck, Daze, therapy, Decay, D-Shaman, wasteland, blood moon, Death and Taxes just existing, etc. Modern doesn't have any great police cards for unfair decks. You have to hope that you have the counterspell when they are doing their combo or hope you have the kill spell when they are casting their flood of creatures. While that plan works out enough to create two tier 1 decks that attempt police the format; in the end the format stays a turn 3 format rather than the "turn 4 format" that wizards used to talk about. The reality is: if you don't have the interaction that you have to tap out for to beat them then you will lose. Legacy doesn't have such realities because FOW/wasteland do a great job of policing their format.
I don't care about police cards and all that stuff in other formats that is not my point.
My point is that always after every big tournament the sky is falling, people are screaming for all sort of bans and that mostly happens in the Modern format.
After last Pro Tour when Burn won I said, just to copy most people here, Burn is OP let's ban Bolt.
You know what some people even agreed. That is how sad it is.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy - Reanimator
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
Become Immense is not even the problem because Infect was around before the card and was doing good.
Most of my wins with the deck don't even come from Become Immense but from a lot of other pump cards in the deck.
But like I said a couple weeks ago you see this complaining over and over again every time there is a big tournament.
It is always the same *****, ban this, ban that, unban this, unban that, I want Splinter Twin back, I want Counterspell.
If you want to beat certain decks load up for it, fill up your sideboard with hate and go for it.
I never hear Legacy players complain after tournaments about banning, this is really a Modern format thing. I love the format but the constant complaining about it is just horrible. If you don't like it play something else instead of trying to ruin it for the people who like it.
You are not a world level pro, you are an amature Magic playing who is playing at a local FNM and will never show up at a Pro Tour of Worlds or things like that.
Grow up and just play the game.
Your analysis competely leaves out the differences in format. Legacy has TONS of police cards in: FOW, Miracles as a deck, Daze, therapy, Decay, D-Shaman, wasteland, blood moon, Death and Taxes just existing, etc. Modern doesn't have any great police cards for unfair decks. You have to hope that you have the counterspell when they are doing their combo or hope you have the kill spell when they are casting their flood of creatures. While that plan works out enough to create two tier 1 decks that attempt police the format; in the end the format stays a turn 3 format rather than the "turn 4 format" that wizards used to talk about. The reality is: if you don't have the interaction that you have to tap out for to beat them then you will lose. Legacy doesn't have such realities because FOW/wasteland do a great job of policing their format.
I don't care about police cards and all that stuff in other formats that is not my point.
My point is that always after every big tournament the sky is falling, people are screaming for all sort of bans and that mostly happens in the Modern format.
After last Pro Tour when Burn won I said, just to copy most people here, Burn is OP let's ban Bolt.
You know what some people even agreed. That is how sad it is.
You not talking about police cards is what I'm talking about and what you are missing. People are complaining because THERE aren't police cards that can make you play modern as interactive as legacy is. It's a good complaint. It's not just mtgsalvation that complains, pros complain about it, patrick/cedric said that the format has police cards that aren't good enough, etc. The main reason why people want twin back is because it was the police deck of the format that slowed things down like how miracles does this in legacy. (not advocating for a twin unban but there is some truth to it) Judging by your sig, you seem to LOVE this format because it's non interactive.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
Become Immense is not even the problem because Infect was around before the card and was doing good.
Most of my wins with the deck don't even come from Become Immense but from a lot of other pump cards in the deck.
But like I said a couple weeks ago you see this complaining over and over again every time there is a big tournament.
It is always the same *****, ban this, ban that, unban this, unban that, I want Splinter Twin back, I want Counterspell.
If you want to beat certain decks load up for it, fill up your sideboard with hate and go for it.
I never hear Legacy players complain after tournaments about banning, this is really a Modern format thing. I love the format but the constant complaining about it is just horrible. If you don't like it play something else instead of trying to ruin it for the people who like it.
You are not a world level pro, you are an amature Magic playing who is playing at a local FNM and will never show up at a Pro Tour of Worlds or things like that.
Grow up and just play the game.
Your analysis competely leaves out the differences in format. Legacy has TONS of police cards in: FOW, Miracles as a deck, Daze, therapy, Decay, D-Shaman, wasteland, blood moon, Death and Taxes just existing, etc. Modern doesn't have any great police cards for unfair decks. You have to hope that you have the counterspell when they are doing their combo or hope you have the kill spell when they are casting their flood of creatures. While that plan works out enough to create two tier 1 decks that attempt police the format; in the end the format stays a turn 3 format rather than the "turn 4 format" that wizards used to talk about. The reality is: if you don't have the interaction that you have to tap out for to beat them then you will lose. Legacy doesn't have such realities because FOW/wasteland do a great job of policing their format.
I don't care about police cards and all that stuff in other formats that is not my point.
My point is that always after every big tournament the sky is falling, people are screaming for all sort of bans and that mostly happens in the Modern format.
After last Pro Tour when Burn won I said, just to copy most people here, Burn is OP let's ban Bolt.
You know what some people even agreed. That is how sad it is.
Well when WOTC kills your deck that you paid a significant amount of cash for, you no longer have the deck that you always wanted to play and the replacement is obviously not good enough so then they will complain the loudest. Bannings in this format ACTUALLY KILL DECKS. There's no banning in recent memory in Legacy that KILLED A DECK INTO UNPLAYABALITY.
Become Immense is not even the problem because Infect was around before the card and was doing good.
Most of my wins with the deck don't even come from Become Immense but from a lot of other pump cards in the deck.
But like I said a couple weeks ago you see this complaining over and over again every time there is a big tournament.
It is always the same *****, ban this, ban that, unban this, unban that, I want Splinter Twin back, I want Counterspell.
If you want to beat certain decks load up for it, fill up your sideboard with hate and go for it.
I never hear Legacy players complain after tournaments about banning, this is really a Modern format thing. I love the format but the constant complaining about it is just horrible. If you don't like it play something else instead of trying to ruin it for the people who like it.
You are not a world level pro, you are an amature Magic playing who is playing at a local FNM and will never show up at a Pro Tour of Worlds or things like that.
Grow up and just play the game.
Your analysis competely leaves out the differences in format. Legacy has TONS of police cards in: FOW, Miracles as a deck, Daze, therapy, Decay, D-Shaman, wasteland, blood moon, Death and Taxes just existing, etc. Modern doesn't have any great police cards for unfair decks. You have to hope that you have the counterspell when they are doing their combo or hope you have the kill spell when they are casting their flood of creatures. While that plan works out enough to create two tier 1 decks that attempt police the format; in the end the format stays a turn 3 format rather than the "turn 4 format" that wizards used to talk about. The reality is: if you don't have the interaction that you have to tap out for to beat them then you will lose. Legacy doesn't have such realities because FOW/wasteland do a great job of policing their format.
I don't care about police cards and all that stuff in other formats that is not my point.
My point is that always after every big tournament the sky is falling, people are screaming for all sort of bans and that mostly happens in the Modern format.
After last Pro Tour when Burn won I said, just to copy most people here, Burn is OP let's ban Bolt.
You know what some people even agreed. That is how sad it is.
Well when WOTC kills your deck that you paid a significant amount of cash for, you no longer have the deck that you always wanted to play and the replacement is obviously not good enough so then they will complain the loudest. Bannings in this format ACTUALLY KILL DECKS. There's no banning in recent memory in Legacy that KILLED A DECK INTO UNPLAYABALITY.
This isn't true whatsoever. Toolbox green decks are still around despite pod/Green sun ban, affinity is around despite it's tons of bans, jund is around despite it's 3 bans, bant eldrazi/tron are both around despite losing Eye of ugin. There is a way to do bans without nuking a deck. The issue is that one ban won't fix things. The format is super linear because all the good police cards are only in jund's colors.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
On mtgsalvation people don't want to discuss ideas, so I give people something else to discuss: my controversial opinions.
Become Immense is not even the problem because Infect was around before the card and was doing good.
Most of my wins with the deck don't even come from Become Immense but from a lot of other pump cards in the deck.
But like I said a couple weeks ago you see this complaining over and over again every time there is a big tournament.
It is always the same *****, ban this, ban that, unban this, unban that, I want Splinter Twin back, I want Counterspell.
If you want to beat certain decks load up for it, fill up your sideboard with hate and go for it.
I never hear Legacy players complain after tournaments about banning, this is really a Modern format thing. I love the format but the constant complaining about it is just horrible. If you don't like it play something else instead of trying to ruin it for the people who like it.
You are not a world level pro, you are an amature Magic playing who is playing at a local FNM and will never show up at a Pro Tour of Worlds or things like that.
Grow up and just play the game.
Your analysis competely leaves out the differences in format. Legacy has TONS of police cards in: FOW, Miracles as a deck, Daze, therapy, Decay, D-Shaman, wasteland, blood moon, Death and Taxes just existing, etc. Modern doesn't have any great police cards for unfair decks. You have to hope that you have the counterspell when they are doing their combo or hope you have the kill spell when they are casting their flood of creatures. While that plan works out enough to create two tier 1 decks that attempt police the format; in the end the format stays a turn 3 format rather than the "turn 4 format" that wizards used to talk about. The reality is: if you don't have the interaction that you have to tap out for to beat them then you will lose. Legacy doesn't have such realities because FOW/wasteland do a great job of policing their format.
I don't care about police cards and all that stuff in other formats that is not my point.
My point is that always after every big tournament the sky is falling, people are screaming for all sort of bans and that mostly happens in the Modern format.
After last Pro Tour when Burn won I said, just to copy most people here, Burn is OP let's ban Bolt.
You know what some people even agreed. That is how sad it is.
Well when WOTC kills your deck that you paid a significant amount of cash for, you no longer have the deck that you always wanted to play and the replacement is obviously not good enough so then they will complain the loudest. Bannings in this format ACTUALLY KILL DECKS. There's no banning in recent memory in Legacy that KILLED A DECK INTO UNPLAYABALITY.
This isn't true whatsoever. Toolbox green decks are still around despite pod/Green sun ban, affinity is around despite it's tons of bans, jund is around despite it's 3 bans, bant eldrazi/tron are both around despite losing Eye of ugin. There is a way to do bans without nuking a deck. The issue is that one ban won't fix things. The format is super linear because all the good police cards are only in jund's colors.
Maybe there are people out there that are happy that they had their Birthing Pod deck downgraded to Company, I personally don't know any of them. I also don't know anyone who is especially happy that their deck got downgraded by a banning. As far as I know, anyone I knew who was comfortable with Birthing Pod and got it banned moved out of the format and sold their stuff. I can say the same with Twin/Bloom/TC Delver, they didn't have faith in WOTC's ways of running the format. You tell someone that Modern is a format that you can play a deck and keep it, and if their deck gets banned it's betrayal and I argue that there is still that feeling of resentment from the Twin ban even today.
Become Immense is not even the problem because Infect was around before the card and was doing good.
Most of my wins with the deck don't even come from Become Immense but from a lot of other pump cards in the deck.
But like I said a couple weeks ago you see this complaining over and over again every time there is a big tournament.
It is always the same *****, ban this, ban that, unban this, unban that, I want Splinter Twin back, I want Counterspell.
If you want to beat certain decks load up for it, fill up your sideboard with hate and go for it.
I never hear Legacy players complain after tournaments about banning, this is really a Modern format thing. I love the format but the constant complaining about it is just horrible. If you don't like it play something else instead of trying to ruin it for the people who like it.
You are not a world level pro, you are an amature Magic playing who is playing at a local FNM and will never show up at a Pro Tour of Worlds or things like that.
Grow up and just play the game.
Your analysis competely leaves out the differences in format. Legacy has TONS of police cards in: FOW, Miracles as a deck, Daze, therapy, Decay, D-Shaman, wasteland, blood moon, Death and Taxes just existing, etc. Modern doesn't have any great police cards for unfair decks. You have to hope that you have the counterspell when they are doing their combo or hope you have the kill spell when they are casting their flood of creatures. While that plan works out enough to create two tier 1 decks that attempt police the format; in the end the format stays a turn 3 format rather than the "turn 4 format" that wizards used to talk about. The reality is: if you don't have the interaction that you have to tap out for to beat them then you will lose. Legacy doesn't have such realities because FOW/wasteland do a great job of policing their format.
I don't care about police cards and all that stuff in other formats that is not my point.
My point is that always after every big tournament the sky is falling, people are screaming for all sort of bans and that mostly happens in the Modern format.
After last Pro Tour when Burn won I said, just to copy most people here, Burn is OP let's ban Bolt.
You know what some people even agreed. That is how sad it is.
Well when WOTC kills your deck that you paid a significant amount of cash for, you no longer have the deck that you always wanted to play and the replacement is obviously not good enough so then they will complain the loudest. Bannings in this format ACTUALLY KILL DECKS. There's no banning in recent memory in Legacy that KILLED A DECK INTO UNPLAYABALITY.
I am the last one that will scream ban because of the reasons you stated, it kills decks and people pay their hard earned money for it. Ok Elsrazi winter was a bit to excessive but I was never for a Twin ban. If they want to shake up the format do it with new cards or unbans.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy - Reanimator
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
Become Immense is not even the problem because Infect was around before the card and was doing good.
Most of my wins with the deck don't even come from Become Immense but from a lot of other pump cards in the deck.
But like I said a couple weeks ago you see this complaining over and over again every time there is a big tournament.
It is always the same *****, ban this, ban that, unban this, unban that, I want Splinter Twin back, I want Counterspell.
If you want to beat certain decks load up for it, fill up your sideboard with hate and go for it.
I never hear Legacy players complain after tournaments about banning, this is really a Modern format thing. I love the format but the constant complaining about it is just horrible. If you don't like it play something else instead of trying to ruin it for the people who like it.
You are not a world level pro, you are an amature Magic playing who is playing at a local FNM and will never show up at a Pro Tour of Worlds or things like that.
Grow up and just play the game.
Your analysis competely leaves out the differences in format. Legacy has TONS of police cards in: FOW, Miracles as a deck, Daze, therapy, Decay, D-Shaman, wasteland, blood moon, Death and Taxes just existing, etc. Modern doesn't have any great police cards for unfair decks. You have to hope that you have the counterspell when they are doing their combo or hope you have the kill spell when they are casting their flood of creatures. While that plan works out enough to create two tier 1 decks that attempt police the format; in the end the format stays a turn 3 format rather than the "turn 4 format" that wizards used to talk about. The reality is: if you don't have the interaction that you have to tap out for to beat them then you will lose. Legacy doesn't have such realities because FOW/wasteland do a great job of policing their format.
I don't care about police cards and all that stuff in other formats that is not my point.
My point is that always after every big tournament the sky is falling, people are screaming for all sort of bans and that mostly happens in the Modern format.
After last Pro Tour when Burn won I said, just to copy most people here, Burn is OP let's ban Bolt.
You know what some people even agreed. That is how sad it is.
Well when WOTC kills your deck that you paid a significant amount of cash for, you no longer have the deck that you always wanted to play and the replacement is obviously not good enough so then they will complain the loudest. Bannings in this format ACTUALLY KILL DECKS. There's no banning in recent memory in Legacy that KILLED A DECK INTO UNPLAYABALITY.
This isn't true whatsoever. Toolbox green decks are still around despite pod/Green sun ban, affinity is around despite it's tons of bans, jund is around despite it's 3 bans, bant eldrazi/tron are both around despite losing Eye of ugin. There is a way to do bans without nuking a deck. The issue is that one ban won't fix things. The format is super linear because all the good police cards are only in jund's colors.
And yet, instead of slowing down Twin by banning something like Exarch (or better yet, not banning anything from it at all, since it was nowhere near as oppressive as every other banned deck), they nuke it out of existence and then follow it up with 9 months of URx decks fighting for scraps at the kid's table with absolutely no help in sight.
Also, I wonder how much more of this we can take before we admit that Twin served as great police deck, forcing people to slow down, play interaction, and helped deal with a lot of the linear stuff that is currently making up 75%+ of top tables.
I've been saying it for a while now. Long game control; draw-go type decks do not exist in standard anymore why would they exist in modern? The only viable control strategies are mid-range and BG/x leads the pack by strides. "Rock" decks used to be a joke and WotC R&D dedicated itself to making sure that mid-range creatures would see play in standard. How was that achieved? By nerfing counterspells and card draw spells; and favoring the opposite in targeted discard and creatures that demand answers.
It would be nice if WotC could just add Seventh Edition to the modern card pool.
Never could understand the Twin hate. It feels like the only people who hated Twin are people who want to play absurdly degenerate aggro/combo. Twin wasn't actually that favored against any fair decks and those were some of the best games of magic I've played. Long, grindy, lots of posturing and bluffing. Fun magic. But then someone kills you with an EoT Deceiver and oh no, it's the most unfun thing in the format. Let's die on turn 3 to linear aggro instead.
All jokes aside, Twin ban was wrong and anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves. They did it for the pro tour and the Eldrazi sales. Personally (I may get a lot of flack for this) I think Treasure Delver was one of the better metas we've seen in modern. Pod was a strong deck, skill intensive and could compete. Delver was aggressive but had some deep lines. BGx still existed and was a bit of a rough match up for delver. There were cool combo decks popping up to fight these decks. Twin was on a downswing but Dig never really got fleshed out in the format and I think we'd have seen a return. They never let this meta breathe and see where it landed. They don't let modern sort itself out enough. Now they've gone and banned all cards that did a good job keeping things in check and here we are. Would infect gaining cards every set and burn gaining cards every set have pushed them to compete with Pod/twin/BGx etc? Probably. The meta probably would have seen some of these aggressive decks pop up. Maybe Bloom Titan could have stayed around. I don't get the "power down" mentality when all that replaces it is efficient ways to deal 20.
Anyway, I was pretty surprised by Patricks comments about Infect being the best deck in the format. I really don't know where I stand on it. As someone who owns a nearly foiled Infect deck, I've played it a lot for a few years now and I've seen its ups and downs. I played it at a tournament last weekend and was surprised at how good it felt (I normally found the hyper aggro decks to be not so fun, so I didn't think I was going to have a good time). However, I ended up play 7 different decks over 7 rounds and went 5-2 and the range was pretty wide from burn to lantern I played the modern spectrum.
Infect is the least problematic of the aggro decks I think. It's certainly one of the more enjoyable ones to play, largely related to having blue/instants in it. Now, there was a time (with twin and pod around) that infects unique lines with Vines, protection spells, pump sequencing and counterspells led to some very interactive and interesting games. Unfortunately, those match ups are mostly gone and the deck has largely reverted to killing you ASAP (the nature of the format). Essentially what I'm saying is that the deck is capable of some interesting gameplay and it's a shame that the way they've shaped modern with bans has lead the deck to become linear aggro just like burn and deathshadow and zoo and whatever else.
An aside: I think burn is the biggest offender in modern. It's the formats most 50/50 of decks, is literally no fun to play against ever and only gets more and more efficient as more and more efficient spells slip into print.
Can we nip this "all the deck's are linear" comment in the bud right now, please?
1. 8-rack. Described by the guy playing it as "colourless Jund", the definition of interactive, it aims to remove both players' hands (just like Jund) and win with a combination of manlands and "rack" effects. This isn't and can't be called a "linear aggro" deck. Games often last 10 turns or more and it's a resource denial game not an aggro game.
2. Bant Eldrazi. This is a midrange deck, with some aggressive creatures and a controlling endgame. It plays hard-to-answer threats as a way of slimming down on filtering or discard, and its premier creature interacts with the board. It favours games where it can leverage its removal to clear blockers and gain advantage on the board. Not linear and not aggro.
3. Knightfall. Probably the closest analogue to RUG Splinter Twin in modern, it's a creature-value maybe even 'tempo' style deck with a helpful combo win to close out difficult games. Sometimes (just like twin) it gets there early, but most of the time it's a normal midrangey affair. Another close comparison could be the kiki-chord deck. Not linear, not aggro.
See my point? People are losing their minds over absolutely nothing. They are bandying words around like they mean something and claiming the sky is falling.
Also, i shouldn't need to remind everyone, but a top 8 is a precarious result. It doesn't mean a whole lot to the wider game, because any number of luck-based or outside-the-game factors could mean a deck does/doesn't make it to top 8. A wrong topdeck in round 1, a distraction in the room in round 3, a player error in round 9, heck- a noisy air conditioner at the hotel you stayed in overnight, can all make the difference and it becomes an exercise in who's luckiest/makes the least mistakes, before the actual decks people are playing make any difference at all. The top 32 or even top 64 are much better indications of general format health or "what's good", and I shouldn't have to be reminding you all of this, but the mad comments here are honestly a bit worrying. What made all the modern players into ban-manic knee-jerkers?
Well when WOTC kills your deck that you paid a significant amount of cash for, you no longer have the deck that you always wanted to play and the replacement is obviously not good enough so then they will complain the loudest. Bannings in this format ACTUALLY KILL DECKS. There's no banning in recent memory in Legacy that KILLED A DECK INTO UNPLAYABALITY.
This is just untrue. Pod was banned and now we have Company/Chord decks; Eye was banned and now we have Bant Eldrazi; Deathrite and Bloodbraid were banned and we still have Jund; Cruise was banned and now we have Grixis Delver; Post was banned and we still have Tron; etc.
I like this Top 8 btw. Less linear than what we saw at the GP weekend, for sure.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
I do not know, who posted the comment regarding an addition of 7th Edition (couldn't find that post anymore), but those cards would see play in Modern to some extent from that set, which are not legal yet:
Northern Paladin (SB card vs Jund and Grixis (can kill Lillies btw)) Southern Paladin (somewhat usable, but I doubt, it would see play tbh) Ancestral Memories (would be somewhat usable, but doubt it would see much play) Arcane Laboratory (Rule of Law in U and Rule of Law sees already play) Counterspell (the big one here) Force Spike (original Mana Tithe, would probably see fringe play since it is U and not W) Memory Lapse (better Remand in Combo/Control decks) Opposition (generates a whole deck on it's own) Tolarian Winds (Dredge, and disgusting too) Engineered Plague (B SB card vs Tribal Swarm decks (Elves, Goblins, Slivers, Allies, BW Tokens, D&T (Humans),...) Infernal Contract (maybe ADN? The draw 4 for 3 mana is just so good I had to mention it) Strands of Night (new take on Reanimator?) Æther Flash (R SB cards vs anything small (Elves, Goblins, Slivers, Allies, D&T, BW Tokens,...) Final Fortune (Combo card + nice interaction with Sundial of Infinite) Goblin Matron (might even push Goblins towards playable) Pillage (RG Ponza, R SB card, might be better than Fulmi in several decks/shells) Nature's Resurgence (SB tech for sweepers in Swarm decks) Wild Growth (Arbor Elf decks, Twiddle Storm, Green Suns Zenith (the deck, not the card), fourth most important card from this list) Meekstone (Delver SB, could act as another Bridge) Static Orb ("Stasis" decks)
Greetings,
Kathal
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Can we nip this "all the deck's are linear" comment in the bud right now, please?
1. 8-rack. Described by the guy playing it as "colourless Jund", the definition of interactive, it aims to remove both players' hands (just like Jund) and win with a combination of manlands and "rack" effects. This isn't and can't be called a "linear aggro" deck. Games often last 10 turns or more and it's a resource denial game not an aggro game.
2. Bant Eldrazi. This is a midrange deck, with some aggressive creatures and a controlling endgame. It plays hard-to-answer threats as a way of slimming down on filtering or discard, and its premier creature interacts with the board. It favours games where it can leverage its removal to clear blockers and gain advantage on the board. Not linear and not aggro.
3. Knightfall. Probably the closest analogue to RUG Splinter Twin in modern, it's a creature-value maybe even 'tempo' style deck with a helpful combo win to close out difficult games. Sometimes (just like twin) it gets there early, but most of the time it's a normal midrangey affair. Another close comparison could be the kiki-chord deck. Not linear, not aggro.
See my point? People are losing their minds over absolutely nothing. They are bandying words around like they mean something and claiming the sky is falling.
Also, i shouldn't need to remind everyone, but a top 8 is a precarious result. It doesn't mean a whole lot to the wider game, because any number of luck-based or outside-the-game factors could mean a deck does/doesn't make it to top 8. A wrong topdeck in round 1, a distraction in the room in round 3, a player error in round 9, heck- a noisy air conditioner at the hotel you stayed in overnight, can all make the difference and it becomes an exercise in who's luckiest/makes the least mistakes, before the actual decks people are playing make any difference at all. The top 32 or even top 64 are much better indications of general format health or "what's good", and I shouldn't have to be reminding you all of this, but the mad comments here are honestly a bit worrying. What made all the modern players into ban-manic knee-jerkers?
I think the main take away here is that the decks that exist are simply not decks people actually enjoy playing against. For instance, when I sit down at a standard tournament and my opponent plays X card, it doesn't make me groan and say "ugh, not this match up". You could maybe argue "collected company does" but essentially what I'm getting at is it feels like I will have the opportunity to make meaningful decisions that impact the game and allow for swings in either players favor. Now I'm not going to say legacy is a perfect example of this. I think realistically if anyone could play any deck in legacy and tournaments were a lot more prevalent that people would complain about infinite boring, frustrating matches against miracles and storm. However, even in those matches, there's a ton of deep gameplay. Miracles matches are long if you're trying to dig yourself out (usually you dont, but sometimes you do) and when you do, it feels fantastic. This just doesn't feel like it's the case in modern.
Burn/Zoo: So I'm sure very few to almost no one will say they want to play against burn/zoo decks. They're extremely linear and you're basically playing a time trial, that's not enjoyable. Infect is lining up to feel similar the way its built lately. Death shadow is the same deal. Half the games you win will simply be because they killed themselves before killing you. Tron either casts Karn on 3 or loses. Merfolk doesn't really present meaningful gameplay. You might have to think about what could come off a vial, but mostly you're getting beat down by 4/4s on turn 3. Dredge was cool the first few times you saw it going off but now it's just once again, a bunch of 3/3s and 2/1s in play on turn 3. Bant Eldrazi? Casting 4/4s with thoughtseize attached on turn 2/3 and then hitting you with a 5/5 haster after that. Ad Naus is just trying to goldfish ASAP BreachTitan, etc sadly probably some of the more interesting match ups. They sometimes have sideboard hate and you have to figure out which plan they're trying to cobble together.
That leaves us with out two "reactive" decks and a bunch of really fringe stuff.
Jund really begs the question: do you actually like playing against this deck? Jeskai asks the same question but really honestly just doesn't feel strong enough.
See I wanted to pause on that point because I expect people to say yes. Jund vs jund, that's fun. Jund vs Jeskai, also a decent match. Jund vs pod, jund vs twin, jund vs Grixis. Slot in Jeskai there as well. The point is these decks are fun to play against only when both decks are on the same level. When both decks are interacting with eachother, playing threats and removing threats and drawing cards and there are decisions to be made. When all of those other decks listed above play Jund or Jeskai, it's not fun for either player. It's a game of the linear deck hoping you don't have it and you hoping you have it enough times to eventually win. That's just stressful. I won a game to take the match against Jund while playing infect where I saw Night of Souls Betrayal in hand and my chance to win the game was "hope he doesn't draw a land to cast that before I kill him". He didn't and I won. If he did, I lost. That's not fun for either player.
I understand a lot of this is subjective but really the problem I see and the reason no discussions ever progress is because people do talk in absolutes a lot. No, not every deck is linear. No, there isn't zero interaction. The problem is though that the interactions that do exist aren't fun, they're just stressful and the decisions are fairly obvious and not necessarily meaningful. Modern reminds me a lot of hearthstone. Two decks trying to curve out where the slower deck hopes to draw the cards it needs to kill things and live long enough to be the "bigger" deck. Don't get me wrong, I play hearthstone a lot and find aspects of it enjoyable but not that aspect of it.
Even legacy, with its flaws, has things like DnT where the game is played on a different level and it requires you to think about how you play your turns in a different manner. Even fast combo decks like Painted Stone have a really cool back up control plan blasting things and using synergies. Yeah there's belcher and there's storm and whatnot, but force and wasteland help out there.
TL;DR Fun is subjective yes, but I think when people say linear they mean "not fun" and "the decisions aren't meaningful enough"
I think you made the correct statement when you said it's subjective, because I don't personally have any issues with any of the current tiered modern decks. They all do something a bit different, all require a different strategy to beat, and use different cards or combos to get there.
A lot of the complaining about "linear" decks comes from people who are themselves playing them. They don't have any interaction themselves, so they struggle to deal with a deck that can goldfish quickly.
In that instance, I think the correct response is "tough luck". Lol.
I haven't had this much fun playing the meta in a long time. Twin metas were always really narrow, pod was fun but shortlived, the "bloom meta" was interesting because of high prevalence of blood moon, but again shortlived. The whole thing shifts around in Waves, so there's no reason to freak out about one week's particular winners.
And besides, the top 64 of that tournament looked great.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
So 8-rack, Bant Eldrazi, Grixis Goryo's, and Scapeshift are aggro/combo? If so that is a new definition of aggro/combo (usually a reference to Infect or Death's Shadow style strategies) or are we just lumping "aggro" and "combo" together? Even the 4c Knightfall deck was running a fair amount of interaction (path plus interactive creatures), so I'm not even confident if it should get slapped with the "linear" moniker.
They are a type of deck that wants to interact with the opponent at little as possible while doing "unfair" things. Sometimes that is via the combat step, and sometimes that is via a single game ending spell, but ultimately it's about ignoring your opponent and just playing cards that do unfair things. Knightfall/Bant Eldrazi are a bit less linear than the rest, but only by a little. The other end of the spectrum is decks like the older Jeskai Control decks or even Jund to an extent, that try to interact a lot with the opponent and beat them fairly. I find it quite telling that for Jeskai to be remotely playable, it's had to become more linear / unfair in nature by using Nahiri. This is not the direction we should be pushing decks in. I'd like to see more cards like Kolaghan's Command in the format that reward players for playing interactive strategies over linear ones.
This is ridiculous nonsense. 8-Rack interacts with the opponent as little as possible? The entire deck does NOTHING BUT interact with the opponent's hand or board. Just so you know, a deck like Eggs or Storm is an example of a non interactive deck. The rest of your claim is just as crazy I'm afraid. I don't know what kind of format you'd prefer, but neither do you since you don't even know what the decks in the current meta do.
Well when WOTC kills your deck that you paid a significant amount of cash for, you no longer have the deck that you always wanted to play and the replacement is obviously not good enough so then they will complain the loudest. Bannings in this format ACTUALLY KILL DECKS. There's no banning in recent memory in Legacy that KILLED A DECK INTO UNPLAYABALITY.
This is just untrue. Pod was banned and now we have Company/Chord decks; Eye was banned and now we have Bant Eldrazi; Deathrite and Bloodbraid were banned and we still have Jund; Cruise was banned and now we have Grixis Delver; Post was banned and we still have Tron; etc.
I like this Top 8 btw. Less linear than what we saw at the GP weekend, for sure.
What did Twin players get? I mean besides 9 months of frustration and misery as well as the complete removal of an entire archetype from competitive Modern? Or are you deliberately missing the point of these comments?
If you want to decry the top 8 as "linear" fine, make that argument.
I think and hope that that will happen so we don't have to worry so much about our decks becoming useless.
Yes that is also one of my concerns and everyone's concern because this game is not cheap.
Also I noticed that a lot of banhammer screaming is mostly personal opinions from people who don't like to play against a certain deck or type.
Also your FNM is a lot different then what we see on twitch. In my local FNM we got a Merfolk and Elf player that have been playing their decks for a long time and are ripping up the place.
So shall I scream Merfolk and Elf ban?
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
I have no idea how to classify lantern control, prison maybe?
"What does MtheW stand for? The world may never know."
That was the clarification I initially sought and he answered with a statement about linearity and lack of interaction. As I said, make that argument then. I'd hardly define that top 8 as decks that are doing the same thing though which is why trying to lump them all into one category seems disingenuous.
"What does MtheW stand for? The world may never know."
I wonder what is worse? A top 8 like we saw today or a top 8 that consists of...
1 Grixis Twin
1 UR Twin
2 Jund
1 GR Tron
1 Burn
1 Affinity
1 random Tier 2 deck
Although I am not completely sure of where I stand, I think the people posting in this thread can be segmented very clearly into one of these 2 groups.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Your analysis competely leaves out the differences in format. Legacy has TONS of police cards in: FOW, Miracles as a deck, Daze, therapy, Decay, D-Shaman, wasteland, blood moon, Death and Taxes just existing, etc. Modern doesn't have any great police cards for unfair decks. You have to hope that you have the counterspell when they are doing their combo or hope you have the kill spell when they are casting their flood of creatures. While that plan works out enough to create two tier 1 decks that attempt police the format; in the end the format stays a turn 3 format rather than the "turn 4 format" that wizards used to talk about. The reality is: if you don't have the interaction that you have to tap out for to beat them then you will lose. Legacy doesn't have such realities because FOW/wasteland do a great job of policing their format.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
I don't care about police cards and all that stuff in other formats that is not my point.
My point is that always after every big tournament the sky is falling, people are screaming for all sort of bans and that mostly happens in the Modern format.
After last Pro Tour when Burn won I said, just to copy most people here, Burn is OP let's ban Bolt.
You know what some people even agreed. That is how sad it is.
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
You not talking about police cards is what I'm talking about and what you are missing. People are complaining because THERE aren't police cards that can make you play modern as interactive as legacy is. It's a good complaint. It's not just mtgsalvation that complains, pros complain about it, patrick/cedric said that the format has police cards that aren't good enough, etc. The main reason why people want twin back is because it was the police deck of the format that slowed things down like how miracles does this in legacy. (not advocating for a twin unban but there is some truth to it) Judging by your sig, you seem to LOVE this format because it's non interactive.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Well when WOTC kills your deck that you paid a significant amount of cash for, you no longer have the deck that you always wanted to play and the replacement is obviously not good enough so then they will complain the loudest. Bannings in this format ACTUALLY KILL DECKS. There's no banning in recent memory in Legacy that KILLED A DECK INTO UNPLAYABALITY.
This isn't true whatsoever. Toolbox green decks are still around despite pod/Green sun ban, affinity is around despite it's tons of bans, jund is around despite it's 3 bans, bant eldrazi/tron are both around despite losing Eye of ugin. There is a way to do bans without nuking a deck. The issue is that one ban won't fix things. The format is super linear because all the good police cards are only in jund's colors.
Decks I'm playing in Modern right now:
URB Grixis Reveler (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-grixis-reveler/)
UB Faeries (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/ub-fae-2/)
UW Azorious Control (http://www.mtgvault.com/supast4r7/decks/modern-ojutai-control-2/)
Maybe there are people out there that are happy that they had their Birthing Pod deck downgraded to Company, I personally don't know any of them. I also don't know anyone who is especially happy that their deck got downgraded by a banning. As far as I know, anyone I knew who was comfortable with Birthing Pod and got it banned moved out of the format and sold their stuff. I can say the same with Twin/Bloom/TC Delver, they didn't have faith in WOTC's ways of running the format. You tell someone that Modern is a format that you can play a deck and keep it, and if their deck gets banned it's betrayal and I argue that there is still that feeling of resentment from the Twin ban even today.
I am the last one that will scream ban because of the reasons you stated, it kills decks and people pay their hard earned money for it. Ok Elsrazi winter was a bit to excessive but I was never for a Twin ban. If they want to shake up the format do it with new cards or unbans.
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
And yet, instead of slowing down Twin by banning something like Exarch (or better yet, not banning anything from it at all, since it was nowhere near as oppressive as every other banned deck), they nuke it out of existence and then follow it up with 9 months of URx decks fighting for scraps at the kid's table with absolutely no help in sight.
Also, I wonder how much more of this we can take before we admit that Twin served as great police deck, forcing people to slow down, play interaction, and helped deal with a lot of the linear stuff that is currently making up 75%+ of top tables.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Best Post out of the page for sure.
I've been saying it for a while now. Long game control; draw-go type decks do not exist in standard anymore why would they exist in modern? The only viable control strategies are mid-range and BG/x leads the pack by strides. "Rock" decks used to be a joke and WotC R&D dedicated itself to making sure that mid-range creatures would see play in standard. How was that achieved? By nerfing counterspells and card draw spells; and favoring the opposite in targeted discard and creatures that demand answers.
It would be nice if WotC could just add Seventh Edition to the modern card pool.
All jokes aside, Twin ban was wrong and anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves. They did it for the pro tour and the Eldrazi sales. Personally (I may get a lot of flack for this) I think Treasure Delver was one of the better metas we've seen in modern. Pod was a strong deck, skill intensive and could compete. Delver was aggressive but had some deep lines. BGx still existed and was a bit of a rough match up for delver. There were cool combo decks popping up to fight these decks. Twin was on a downswing but Dig never really got fleshed out in the format and I think we'd have seen a return. They never let this meta breathe and see where it landed. They don't let modern sort itself out enough. Now they've gone and banned all cards that did a good job keeping things in check and here we are. Would infect gaining cards every set and burn gaining cards every set have pushed them to compete with Pod/twin/BGx etc? Probably. The meta probably would have seen some of these aggressive decks pop up. Maybe Bloom Titan could have stayed around. I don't get the "power down" mentality when all that replaces it is efficient ways to deal 20.
Anyway, I was pretty surprised by Patricks comments about Infect being the best deck in the format. I really don't know where I stand on it. As someone who owns a nearly foiled Infect deck, I've played it a lot for a few years now and I've seen its ups and downs. I played it at a tournament last weekend and was surprised at how good it felt (I normally found the hyper aggro decks to be not so fun, so I didn't think I was going to have a good time). However, I ended up play 7 different decks over 7 rounds and went 5-2 and the range was pretty wide from burn to lantern I played the modern spectrum.
Infect is the least problematic of the aggro decks I think. It's certainly one of the more enjoyable ones to play, largely related to having blue/instants in it. Now, there was a time (with twin and pod around) that infects unique lines with Vines, protection spells, pump sequencing and counterspells led to some very interactive and interesting games. Unfortunately, those match ups are mostly gone and the deck has largely reverted to killing you ASAP (the nature of the format). Essentially what I'm saying is that the deck is capable of some interesting gameplay and it's a shame that the way they've shaped modern with bans has lead the deck to become linear aggro just like burn and deathshadow and zoo and whatever else.
An aside: I think burn is the biggest offender in modern. It's the formats most 50/50 of decks, is literally no fun to play against ever and only gets more and more efficient as more and more efficient spells slip into print.
1. 8-rack. Described by the guy playing it as "colourless Jund", the definition of interactive, it aims to remove both players' hands (just like Jund) and win with a combination of manlands and "rack" effects. This isn't and can't be called a "linear aggro" deck. Games often last 10 turns or more and it's a resource denial game not an aggro game.
2. Bant Eldrazi. This is a midrange deck, with some aggressive creatures and a controlling endgame. It plays hard-to-answer threats as a way of slimming down on filtering or discard, and its premier creature interacts with the board. It favours games where it can leverage its removal to clear blockers and gain advantage on the board. Not linear and not aggro.
3. Knightfall. Probably the closest analogue to RUG Splinter Twin in modern, it's a creature-value maybe even 'tempo' style deck with a helpful combo win to close out difficult games. Sometimes (just like twin) it gets there early, but most of the time it's a normal midrangey affair. Another close comparison could be the kiki-chord deck. Not linear, not aggro.
See my point? People are losing their minds over absolutely nothing. They are bandying words around like they mean something and claiming the sky is falling.
Also, i shouldn't need to remind everyone, but a top 8 is a precarious result. It doesn't mean a whole lot to the wider game, because any number of luck-based or outside-the-game factors could mean a deck does/doesn't make it to top 8. A wrong topdeck in round 1, a distraction in the room in round 3, a player error in round 9, heck- a noisy air conditioner at the hotel you stayed in overnight, can all make the difference and it becomes an exercise in who's luckiest/makes the least mistakes, before the actual decks people are playing make any difference at all. The top 32 or even top 64 are much better indications of general format health or "what's good", and I shouldn't have to be reminding you all of this, but the mad comments here are honestly a bit worrying. What made all the modern players into ban-manic knee-jerkers?
I like this Top 8 btw. Less linear than what we saw at the GP weekend, for sure.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Northern Paladin (SB card vs Jund and Grixis (can kill Lillies btw))
Southern Paladin (somewhat usable, but I doubt, it would see play tbh)
Ancestral Memories (would be somewhat usable, but doubt it would see much play)
Arcane Laboratory (Rule of Law in U and Rule of Law sees already play)
Counterspell (the big one here)
Force Spike (original Mana Tithe, would probably see fringe play since it is U and not W)
Memory Lapse (better Remand in Combo/Control decks)
Opposition (generates a whole deck on it's own)
Tolarian Winds (Dredge, and disgusting too)
Engineered Plague (B SB card vs Tribal Swarm decks (Elves, Goblins, Slivers, Allies, BW Tokens, D&T (Humans),...)
Infernal Contract (maybe ADN? The draw 4 for 3 mana is just so good I had to mention it)
Strands of Night (new take on Reanimator?)
Æther Flash (R SB cards vs anything small (Elves, Goblins, Slivers, Allies, D&T, BW Tokens,...)
Final Fortune (Combo card + nice interaction with Sundial of Infinite)
Goblin Matron (might even push Goblins towards playable)
Pillage (RG Ponza, R SB card, might be better than Fulmi in several decks/shells)
Nature's Resurgence (SB tech for sweepers in Swarm decks)
Wild Growth (Arbor Elf decks, Twiddle Storm, Green Suns Zenith (the deck, not the card), fourth most important card from this list)
Meekstone (Delver SB, could act as another Bridge)
Static Orb ("Stasis" decks)
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Burn/Zoo: So I'm sure very few to almost no one will say they want to play against burn/zoo decks. They're extremely linear and you're basically playing a time trial, that's not enjoyable.
Infect is lining up to feel similar the way its built lately.
Death shadow is the same deal. Half the games you win will simply be because they killed themselves before killing you.
Tron either casts Karn on 3 or loses.
Merfolk doesn't really present meaningful gameplay. You might have to think about what could come off a vial, but mostly you're getting beat down by 4/4s on turn 3.
Dredge was cool the first few times you saw it going off but now it's just once again, a bunch of 3/3s and 2/1s in play on turn 3.
Bant Eldrazi? Casting 4/4s with thoughtseize attached on turn 2/3 and then hitting you with a 5/5 haster after that.
Ad Naus is just trying to goldfish ASAP
BreachTitan, etc sadly probably some of the more interesting match ups. They sometimes have sideboard hate and you have to figure out which plan they're trying to cobble together.
That leaves us with out two "reactive" decks and a bunch of really fringe stuff.
Jund really begs the question: do you actually like playing against this deck?
Jeskai asks the same question but really honestly just doesn't feel strong enough.
See I wanted to pause on that point because I expect people to say yes. Jund vs jund, that's fun. Jund vs Jeskai, also a decent match. Jund vs pod, jund vs twin, jund vs Grixis. Slot in Jeskai there as well. The point is these decks are fun to play against only when both decks are on the same level. When both decks are interacting with eachother, playing threats and removing threats and drawing cards and there are decisions to be made. When all of those other decks listed above play Jund or Jeskai, it's not fun for either player. It's a game of the linear deck hoping you don't have it and you hoping you have it enough times to eventually win. That's just stressful. I won a game to take the match against Jund while playing infect where I saw Night of Souls Betrayal in hand and my chance to win the game was "hope he doesn't draw a land to cast that before I kill him". He didn't and I won. If he did, I lost. That's not fun for either player.
I understand a lot of this is subjective but really the problem I see and the reason no discussions ever progress is because people do talk in absolutes a lot. No, not every deck is linear. No, there isn't zero interaction. The problem is though that the interactions that do exist aren't fun, they're just stressful and the decisions are fairly obvious and not necessarily meaningful. Modern reminds me a lot of hearthstone. Two decks trying to curve out where the slower deck hopes to draw the cards it needs to kill things and live long enough to be the "bigger" deck. Don't get me wrong, I play hearthstone a lot and find aspects of it enjoyable but not that aspect of it.
Even legacy, with its flaws, has things like DnT where the game is played on a different level and it requires you to think about how you play your turns in a different manner. Even fast combo decks like Painted Stone have a really cool back up control plan blasting things and using synergies. Yeah there's belcher and there's storm and whatnot, but force and wasteland help out there.
TL;DR Fun is subjective yes, but I think when people say linear they mean "not fun" and "the decisions aren't meaningful enough"
A lot of the complaining about "linear" decks comes from people who are themselves playing them. They don't have any interaction themselves, so they struggle to deal with a deck that can goldfish quickly.
In that instance, I think the correct response is "tough luck". Lol.
I haven't had this much fun playing the meta in a long time. Twin metas were always really narrow, pod was fun but shortlived, the "bloom meta" was interesting because of high prevalence of blood moon, but again shortlived. The whole thing shifts around in Waves, so there's no reason to freak out about one week's particular winners.
And besides, the top 64 of that tournament looked great.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate