First off, modern is my favorite format and I only want the format to keep getting better and stronger. With that in mind, people claiming the format isn't stale need to look at Grand Prix Boston's day 2...
46 G/B/x
35 Twin
32 Pod
26 Affinity
22 U/W/R (12 w/o geist, 10 with geist)
22 Scapeshift
20 Burn
12 Tron
6 RUG
5 Merfolk
5 Bogles
4 Living End
4 Infect
33 Other
That is 272 decks, and Twin+Pod+G/B/x+Affinity make up 51.1% of that, so over half...
More importantly, Infect, Living End, Bogles, Tron, Scapeshift, Pod, and Twin are all combo decks or have lots of combo elements to them. Excluding the "other" decks, that means that almost half the decks played are combo or have strong combo elements...
The main issue IMO is that modern lacks a Force of Will type effect to provide a definitive answer to combo. As such, it has to rely on Thoughtseize/IoK which will always keep G/B/x at the forefront as green provides the necessary beater (Goyf) to win games fast enough from this strategy. I think giving non-combo decks faster/more powerful cards will help with this issue. DRS and BBE both sped up the Jund decks, so combo was less effective. At the same time, they need to spread the love or give more combo hate I think to truly diversify the format. They could also always boost control, but they have made it clear they don't want modern headed in a control-based direction.
How does Bogles have strong combo elements? While I can understand (but disagree) with Infect being combo, I don't understand how Bogles can be combo.
Tron isn't combo either. Urza's Tower, Urza's Mine and Urza's Power Plant are supposed to give you that much mana. It says so right on the cards. There is no unintended interaction going on there.
As to Bogles well Wizards counts hexproof strategies as combos. Just putting it out there. I won't argue about it.
Yeah, tron was the one I included on that list that I felt was the weakest, but mono blue tron is definitely more on the fence of every type since they can mindslaver combo you.
Still, I would argue that combo is currently in control of modern, and that isn't the best place for any format to be. From playing modern, unless one player is playing G/B/x or U/W/R the games don't seem interactive enough to me, but when those decks are involved it is the exact opposite feeling. This is obviously just my opinion/experience.
Yeah, tron was the one I included on that list that I felt was the weakest, but mono blue tron is definitely more on the fence of every type since they can mindslaver combo you.
Still, I would argue that combo is currently in control of modern, and that isn't the best place for any format to be. From playing modern, unless one player is playing G/B/x or U/W/R the games don't seem interactive enough to me, but when those decks are involved it is the exact opposite feeling. This is obviously just my opinion/experience.
You are definitely right about that. UWR and BG/x are the only fair decks in a sea full of combo. But that is Wizards own fault I guess. They made control cards weaker over the last years and that is what happens.
I have to respectfully disagree; the Urzatron lands explicitly state they give you that much mana. Aura cards explicitly state that they go on creatures.
Naturally you use Urzatron lands to generate mana to power out big things. That's not a combo.
Naturally you put Auras on creatures that are less likely to die, and Hexproof creatures just so happen to be tough to kill.
I know it's WotC definition and not yours, but that doesn't change the fact that WotC is wrong in that regard. (yes, I do presume to tell them that).
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
The big silver lining to all this is that wizards may try harder to improve modern's diversity as a format. I personally would love to see greater diversity coming out of aggro and control decks.
I have to respectfully disagree; the Urzatron lands explicitly state they give you that much mana. Aura cards explicitly state that they go on creatures.
Naturally you use Urzatron lands to generate mana to power out big things. That's not a combo.
Naturally you put Auras on creatures that are less likely to die, and Hexproof creatures just so happen to be tough to kill.
I know it's WotC definition and not yours, but that doesn't change the fact that WotC is wrong in that regard. (yes, I do presume to tell them that).
You can say that "naturally" bit about twin as well. You "naturally" attach it to the creature that will untap with copies. You're not wrong but you're not right for the reasons you said. Bogles isn't quite combo because nothing it does is unfair, just very resilient, and tron is ramp which is a whole different mindset and play style from combo IMO.
Saying Modern is stale at the moment has to be a cop out. It's not even logical. Modern being an eternal format with over 800 cards is always going to be an evolving meta game. Decks are always going to be updated because new sets are introduced every three months, and archetypes are going to take turns winning tournaments causing people to change tech, which shifts the positioning of each archetype. There's always going to be your consensus top tiered decks. Finally, the attendance for Modern events is breaking records. Modern being stale at the moment is obviously complete nonsense.
Also, these ban list discussions are always subjective, and it cracks me up. BBE is a strong card that makes an already strong archetype stronger. It's important to honor a threshold for deck representation in order to preserve diversity, which BBE apparently wouldn't do. Besides, card advantage should be more generic.
If the price is the reason why JTMS won't be unbanned then that's their fault for not regulating the secondary market. JTMS should be in Modern Masters 2.0 and the packs should be capped at a reasonable price. The cost to play a tier 1 Modern deck is one of the deterring factors for players coming from Standard or just new to MTG in general. Affinity doesn't count because the cards can only be played in the same deck. I'm also in favor of Sword of the Meek to be unbanned to encourage more diversity in combo and control type decks. I don't think either cards are nearly as good in Modern as they are in Legacy.
If JTMS was a 4-of in a Tier 1 deck, JTMS would cost at least five times as much as any other Modern card except Tarmogoyf, and would be between 2 and 3 times its price. Four Jaces alone would be more expensive than pretty much every Modern deck.
Seriously, the sky's the limit on JTMS price if it's legal in Modern. There are less Jaces in existence than there are Underground Seas, and Modern has a hell of a lot more people playing it than Legacy does.
I think bogles does a lot that is unfair...hexproof creautures that are resilient to board wipes via totem armor that after 2-3 turns are far too big for anything to block and probably have lifelink.
Second, the check to combo is control, which is clearly the weakest archetype in modern. They have kept control weak enough to the point where they instituted that artificial turn 3 rule. Aggro outside of affinity is played all that much because there is no control for it to dominate and combo just wrecks it. Because of the weakness of control, aggro is slowly phasing out and combo is growing out of control. The only real solution is to buff control to restore balance.
The main issue IMO is that modern lacks a Force of Will type effect to provide a definitive answer to combo. As such, it has to rely on Thoughtseize/IoK which will always keep G/B/x at the forefront as green provides the necessary beater (Goyf) to win games fast enough from this strategy.
So, wait, your problem is that it needs a Force of Will type effect... and then you mention Thoughtseize, which does exactly what you just said. Now your complaint is apparently that Thoughtseize forces you into Black decks... and Force of Will doesn't force you into Blue decks?
More to the point, Force of Will is not a definitive answer to combo any more than any hard counterspell is. A freaking Dissolve beats a combo just as easily as a Force of Will does (as does Mana Leak if it's not late in the game). What Force of Will is a definitive answer to combo decks that want to win on like turn 1 or 2, at which point you can't cast a Dissolve or Mana Leak. That is, decks that don't exist in Modern because they're banned (and they don't exist that much in Legacy because Force of Will, among other cards, beat them). It's like saying we need Gilded Drake in Modern as a way to beat Show and Tell; we don't need cards to beat decks that don't exist.
Not to mention, what deck would benefit hugely from Force of Will? Why, it's Splinter Twin, the best combo deck in the format! I'm not sure how powering up the best combo deck would make combo worse.
Not to mention, what deck would benefit hugely from Force of Will? Why, it's Splinter Twin, the best combo deck in the format! I'm not sure how powering up the best combo deck would make combo worse.
I notice people saying that Modern needs the same policing cards as Legacy does a lot. But the more I look at Twin's deck lists, the more I see a deck that would benefit immensely from FoW entering the format. Since Twin is over 10% of the metagame, I think that would be a mistake.
I would go as far as to say that whoever thinks that BBE being banned is a good thing is just plain silly. When a lot of jund players were already trimming and/or cutting them entirely, it was clearly not the thing that was pushing it over the top. Good stuff decks do have their "center piece" but that doesn't mean that they NEED it to be just as good. And if BBE were to come back, I doubt it would have much of an impact other than people wondering about the 4 color jund lists being back in vogue, or as I like to call them, turbo greed. If you really want to kick jund in the teeth get rid of bob or thoughtseize, BBE is 90% irrelevant to the deck's viability as has been proven many times.
Then explain why once BBE was banned, the BGx decks branched out in different directions? We went from a single tight build of 75 in BGR (Jund), to the ban of BBE and now we have straight BG decks, BGw (Junk) decks, BGR (Jund) decks, and multiple builds of all the decks. This is not theory crafting, but actual results from the banning.
I dont see how powering up BGx decks at the moment, let alone narrowing the builds, is a wise thing to do at the moment.
as it was said the format has changed a lot and that had little to do with BBE being banned.
DRS was the correct ban to weaken jund properly, it just had not had enough time in the format for that to be apparent.
the deck had only about 6 weeks of accepting DRS as a guaranteed core 4-of in the deck.
and now, considering the meta sees Anger of the Gods as the favoured mass removal, BBE becomes that much riskier. playing BBE into your own board of bob is a good way to 2 for 1 yourself. BBE is still a very good card, but jund is far from the only archetype that benefits from it.
GR aggro can afford to play the card, improving one of the archetypes that WotC sees as weak. and RUG midrange also benefits from the card.
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Standard:
Nothing Modern:
Cruel Control, UR Delver, RUG midrange, Akroma's Elfmorial EDH:
Animar, Chainer, Derevi the Stonehewer Mystic, Nekusar
Modern doesn't need Force of Will. Personally I would like to see Mental Misstep though. I don't think the card is nearly as degenerate here.
Mental Misstep I believe should never even be considered. Daze would be fine I think, Force of Will a bit worse but maybe okay. Mental Misstep should always be banned in this format and was, in my opinion, a bigger mistake than DRS....
Mental Misstep I believe should never even be considered. Daze would be fine I think, Force of Will a bit worse but maybe okay. Mental Misstep should always be banned in this format and was, in my opinion, a bigger mistake than DRS....
I don't think Daze does what the format needs. Provided they can continue to design/develop in such a way that keeps t1 and t2 combo out of the format Daze doesn't really do a whole lot. Force of Will is the same deal, it answers a problem that they're trying to keep out of the format to begin with.
I honestly don't understand the problem with Mental Misstep though, I know what happened in Legacy when it released but I was brand new to Magic at the time and didn't really get it. Is the format really so 1 drop centric that Mental Misstep would be as format warping again?
Mental Misstep I believe should never even be considered. Daze would be fine I think, Force of Will a bit worse but maybe okay. Mental Misstep should always be banned in this format and was, in my opinion, a bigger mistake than DRS....
I don't think Daze does what the format needs. Provided they can continue to design/develop in such a way that keeps t1 and t2 combo out of the format Daze doesn't really do a whole lot. Force of Will is the same deal, it answers a problem that they're trying to keep out of the format to begin with.
I honestly don't understand the problem with Mental Misstep though, I know what happened in Legacy when it released but I was brand new to Magic at the time and didn't really get it. Is the format really so 1 drop centric that Mental Misstep would be as format warping again?
1cmc spells are really relevant in this format, so yeah MM would pretty much cause the whole thing to implode.
It'd not be so bad if it were any other point of the curve, IMO. 1cmc is just way too important for a lot of decks.
I think bogles does a lot that is unfair...hexproof creautures that are resilient to board wipes via totem armor that after 2-3 turns are far too big for anything to block and probably have lifelink.
Unfair? Yes. But a deck doing unfair things does not make it a combo deck.
I know 1 CMC is relevant but it's not as relevant as Legacy. Aside from maybe Delver virtually every deck runs good 1 drops that it wants to resolve but none of those 1 drops are so important that the best defense is to run your own Missteps at the cost of other cards. That's where the entire problem was right?
I know 1 CMC is relevant but it's not as relevant as Legacy. Aside from maybe Delver virtually every deck runs good 1 drops that it wants to resolve but none of those 1 drops are so important that the best defense is to run your own Missteps at the cost of other cards. That's where the entire problem was right?
As I understand it, that was the problem in Legacy, yes.
The problem with Mental Misstep in Modern, IMHO, is, again, Twin and other such combo decks. Right now, Thoughtsieze has a balancing effect. Being able to counter it for 2 life (and thus prevent them from taking your important combo piece) would make combo decks even more dominant than they are already.
I would go as far as to say that whoever thinks that BBE being banned is a good thing is just plain silly. When a lot of jund players were already trimming and/or cutting them entirely, it was clearly not the thing that was pushing it over the top. Good stuff decks do have their "center piece" but that doesn't mean that they NEED it to be just as good. And if BBE were to come back, I doubt it would have much of an impact other than people wondering about the 4 color jund lists being back in vogue, or as I like to call them, turbo greed. If you really want to kick jund in the teeth get rid of bob or thoughtseize, BBE is 90% irrelevant to the deck's viability as has been proven many times.
Then explain why once BBE was banned, the BGx decks branched out in different directions? We went from a single tight build of 75 in BGR (Jund), to the ban of BBE and now we have straight BG decks, BGw (Junk) decks, BGR (Jund) decks, and multiple builds of all the decks. This is not theory crafting, but actual results from the banning.
I dont see how powering up BGx decks at the moment, let alone narrowing the builds, is a wise thing to do at the moment.
as it was said the format has changed a lot and that had little to do with BBE being banned.
DRS was the correct ban to weaken jund properly, it just had not had enough time in the format for that to be apparent.
the deck had only about 6 weeks of accepting DRS as a guaranteed core 4-of in the deck.
and now, considering the meta sees Anger of the Gods as the favoured mass removal, BBE becomes that much riskier. playing BBE into your own board of bob is a good way to 2 for 1 yourself. BBE is still a very good card, but jund is far from the only archetype that benefits from it.
GR aggro can afford to play the card, improving one of the archetypes that WotC sees as weak. and RUG midrange also benefits from the card.
The question becomes, would BBE help those fringe decks enough to over come the help it would give Jund? I dont think pushing Jund up to the top of the heap, just to allow a few fringe decks is the answer to the problems of the format.
The BBE ban was to help diversity of the type of deck.
DRS ban was to lower the power level of the deck type.
I know 1 CMC is relevant but it's not as relevant as Legacy. Aside from maybe Delver virtually every deck runs good 1 drops that it wants to resolve but none of those 1 drops are so important that the best defense is to run your own Missteps at the cost of other cards. That's where the entire problem was right?
its actually more relevant in modern than it is in legacy.
the only deck that plays an obscenely high concentration of 1 cmc spells in legacy is RUG delver.
the rest either play efficient 2 cmc cards, or much higher cmc cards and find ways around casting them fairly.
MM has far too much relevance in modern. every deck would run 4 MM and make cuts elsewhere.
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Standard:
Nothing Modern:
Cruel Control, UR Delver, RUG midrange, Akroma's Elfmorial EDH:
Animar, Chainer, Derevi the Stonehewer Mystic, Nekusar
Thoughtseize, Inquistion, Bolt, Birds, Noble Hierarch, Path, Spell Snare, Serum Visions, Expedition Map, Goblin Guide, Delver, Wild Nactl, Springleaf Drum... yeah it'd be format warping. Mental Misstep is broken.
On Control. Is control actually bad? And why? I mean UWR does fine. WafoTapo did well with Esper, but he's him and that's that. A Teachings Control Deck top 32'd the GP. I don't necessarily think it's bad. People probably just aren't playing it enough. Could definitely be a hidden vein in Modern to be explored.
control isn't in the place it should be in modern, definitely under-represented and the reason is that basically, it's not quite good enough most of the times. Uwr does decently and uw too, but they lack some more tools to be solid enough to attract crowds. Also there's not really variety, esper is definitely a wafo-tapa deck through and through and I don't believe the casual joe can put out decent results with that build. Honestly I don't see any more control style decks high up.
A big issue is that some toolbox of control bleeds over into combo, and well, some colors in modern have just the right tools to hit hard on control generally. It's viable but not perfect, and wizards is out of their mind if they believe modern can improve if they keep printing unplayables. I mean, I still find it silly them saying modern didn't change much and isn't PT worthy because of decks variety just after theros print... Maybe hidden gems will pop in the future, but c'mon, what they were expecting here?
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Vintage nostalgic, WUB Fish control/aggro addicted.
Legacy:RUG Temur Delver
Modern: ??? undecided.
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Tron isn't combo either. Urza's Tower, Urza's Mine and Urza's Power Plant are supposed to give you that much mana. It says so right on the cards. There is no unintended interaction going on there.
As to Bogles well Wizards counts hexproof strategies as combos. Just putting it out there. I won't argue about it.
Still, I would argue that combo is currently in control of modern, and that isn't the best place for any format to be. From playing modern, unless one player is playing G/B/x or U/W/R the games don't seem interactive enough to me, but when those decks are involved it is the exact opposite feeling. This is obviously just my opinion/experience.
You are definitely right about that. UWR and BG/x are the only fair decks in a sea full of combo. But that is Wizards own fault I guess. They made control cards weaker over the last years and that is what happens.
Naturally you use Urzatron lands to generate mana to power out big things. That's not a combo.
Naturally you put Auras on creatures that are less likely to die, and Hexproof creatures just so happen to be tough to kill.
I know it's WotC definition and not yours, but that doesn't change the fact that WotC is wrong in that regard. (yes, I do presume to tell them that).
You can say that "naturally" bit about twin as well. You "naturally" attach it to the creature that will untap with copies. You're not wrong but you're not right for the reasons you said. Bogles isn't quite combo because nothing it does is unfair, just very resilient, and tron is ramp which is a whole different mindset and play style from combo IMO.
Also, these ban list discussions are always subjective, and it cracks me up. BBE is a strong card that makes an already strong archetype stronger. It's important to honor a threshold for deck representation in order to preserve diversity, which BBE apparently wouldn't do. Besides, card advantage should be more generic.
If JTMS was a 4-of in a Tier 1 deck, JTMS would cost at least five times as much as any other Modern card except Tarmogoyf, and would be between 2 and 3 times its price. Four Jaces alone would be more expensive than pretty much every Modern deck.
Seriously, the sky's the limit on JTMS price if it's legal in Modern. There are less Jaces in existence than there are Underground Seas, and Modern has a hell of a lot more people playing it than Legacy does.
Second, the check to combo is control, which is clearly the weakest archetype in modern. They have kept control weak enough to the point where they instituted that artificial turn 3 rule. Aggro outside of affinity is played all that much because there is no control for it to dominate and combo just wrecks it. Because of the weakness of control, aggro is slowly phasing out and combo is growing out of control. The only real solution is to buff control to restore balance.
More to the point, Force of Will is not a definitive answer to combo any more than any hard counterspell is. A freaking Dissolve beats a combo just as easily as a Force of Will does (as does Mana Leak if it's not late in the game). What Force of Will is a definitive answer to combo decks that want to win on like turn 1 or 2, at which point you can't cast a Dissolve or Mana Leak. That is, decks that don't exist in Modern because they're banned (and they don't exist that much in Legacy because Force of Will, among other cards, beat them). It's like saying we need Gilded Drake in Modern as a way to beat Show and Tell; we don't need cards to beat decks that don't exist.
Not to mention, what deck would benefit hugely from Force of Will? Why, it's Splinter Twin, the best combo deck in the format! I'm not sure how powering up the best combo deck would make combo worse.
I notice people saying that Modern needs the same policing cards as Legacy does a lot. But the more I look at Twin's deck lists, the more I see a deck that would benefit immensely from FoW entering the format. Since Twin is over 10% of the metagame, I think that would be a mistake.
as it was said the format has changed a lot and that had little to do with BBE being banned.
DRS was the correct ban to weaken jund properly, it just had not had enough time in the format for that to be apparent.
the deck had only about 6 weeks of accepting DRS as a guaranteed core 4-of in the deck.
and now, considering the meta sees Anger of the Gods as the favoured mass removal, BBE becomes that much riskier. playing BBE into your own board of bob is a good way to 2 for 1 yourself. BBE is still a very good card, but jund is far from the only archetype that benefits from it.
GR aggro can afford to play the card, improving one of the archetypes that WotC sees as weak. and RUG midrange also benefits from the card.
Nothing
Modern:
Cruel Control, UR Delver, RUG midrange, Akroma's Elfmorial
EDH:
Animar, Chainer, Derevi the Stonehewer Mystic, Nekusar
Mental Misstep I believe should never even be considered. Daze would be fine I think, Force of Will a bit worse but maybe okay. Mental Misstep should always be banned in this format and was, in my opinion, a bigger mistake than DRS....
I don't think Daze does what the format needs. Provided they can continue to design/develop in such a way that keeps t1 and t2 combo out of the format Daze doesn't really do a whole lot. Force of Will is the same deal, it answers a problem that they're trying to keep out of the format to begin with.
I honestly don't understand the problem with Mental Misstep though, I know what happened in Legacy when it released but I was brand new to Magic at the time and didn't really get it. Is the format really so 1 drop centric that Mental Misstep would be as format warping again?
1cmc spells are really relevant in this format, so yeah MM would pretty much cause the whole thing to implode.
It'd not be so bad if it were any other point of the curve, IMO. 1cmc is just way too important for a lot of decks.
Unfair? Yes. But a deck doing unfair things does not make it a combo deck.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
As I understand it, that was the problem in Legacy, yes.
The problem with Mental Misstep in Modern, IMHO, is, again, Twin and other such combo decks. Right now, Thoughtsieze has a balancing effect. Being able to counter it for 2 life (and thus prevent them from taking your important combo piece) would make combo decks even more dominant than they are already.
The question becomes, would BBE help those fringe decks enough to over come the help it would give Jund? I dont think pushing Jund up to the top of the heap, just to allow a few fringe decks is the answer to the problems of the format.
The BBE ban was to help diversity of the type of deck.
DRS ban was to lower the power level of the deck type.
I believe both bans were correct.
Its not like BGx decks are hurting at the moment.
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
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its actually more relevant in modern than it is in legacy.
the only deck that plays an obscenely high concentration of 1 cmc spells in legacy is RUG delver.
the rest either play efficient 2 cmc cards, or much higher cmc cards and find ways around casting them fairly.
MM has far too much relevance in modern. every deck would run 4 MM and make cuts elsewhere.
Nothing
Modern:
Cruel Control, UR Delver, RUG midrange, Akroma's Elfmorial
EDH:
Animar, Chainer, Derevi the Stonehewer Mystic, Nekusar
control isn't in the place it should be in modern, definitely under-represented and the reason is that basically, it's not quite good enough most of the times. Uwr does decently and uw too, but they lack some more tools to be solid enough to attract crowds. Also there's not really variety, esper is definitely a wafo-tapa deck through and through and I don't believe the casual joe can put out decent results with that build. Honestly I don't see any more control style decks high up.
A big issue is that some toolbox of control bleeds over into combo, and well, some colors in modern have just the right tools to hit hard on control generally. It's viable but not perfect, and wizards is out of their mind if they believe modern can improve if they keep printing unplayables. I mean, I still find it silly them saying modern didn't change much and isn't PT worthy because of decks variety just after theros print... Maybe hidden gems will pop in the future, but c'mon, what they were expecting here?
Legacy:RUG Temur Delver
Modern: ??? undecided.