I don't think modern was healthy on the course we were on. The META was "healthy" (kind of), but the way the format was shaking out I think the weight of increased pricing was going to crush the format underneath itself. This ban WILL cause people to not invest as heavily in modern staples and that's probably for the better. Speculation and panic purchasing is RAMPANT and I don't think Wizards is able to keep up with demand without cratering everything AND it's hard to even know what needs to get printed months ahead. If competitive decks become more affordable, then the ban of something doesn't complete block someone out of playing the game as pricing will be lower to the ground. My only wish is that they were more forthright sooner in the format as to this sort of ban reasoning so that players could have anticipated something like this a bit better. It's as if modern was an extremely large and beautiful rosebush that was completely overgrown. Sooner or later someone needed to prune the thing, but it shouldn't have gotten to the point that it did.
I love modern. I love my fringe decks and my competitive ones. I love the friends I've made from the format, and the competition I get to face on a weekly basis. To me, and MOST of you (unless you're planning on compete for a pro tour), this is a game. A game that has brought me countless hours of enjoyment over the past few years. Talking about metas, brewing, arguing, competing, playing, all of it. The best can absolutely be to come, but only if the playerbase wants it to be a good format. If Tron and Affinity DO take over everything (I don't think they will but whatever), then the next B/R announcement is only three months away.
I hope most of you stick around. It's been really fun. It really has.
So, Ponder and Preordain are bad for blue, but Ancient Stirrings and Oath of Nissa are fair for green? A few years from now Magic players won't even know what the blue color symbol looks like, let alone play blue in their decks.
Boycott PT OGW.
It's almost like grabbing any card and grabbing a colorless card/creature card are totally different effects....
For all intents and purposes, the green cantrips can or will be able, in case of Oath of Nissa, to pick nearly any card from their respective decks. How often does Ancient Stirrings fizzle in Tron for example? Sure the decks are crafted in such a way to maximize the effectiveness of those cards but that still doesn't explain why green has better card selection then blue in a "non-rotating" format.
Boycott PT OGW.
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In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
I think there are a few decks that are around the same power level as Twin, Pod being one of them, Tron, Burn, Affinity, Infect, Boggels, Instant reanimate... Maybe new Eldrazi
From theses, Ancient Stirrings/lightning bolt/Mox Opal/Glistner elf/(IDK)/Goro's/Temple... But I would prefer they just unban things like Twin now, Pod, Blood Braid, maybe jace. Then maybe they can print cards for the T2 decks that the T1 cant use as well...
Honestly, wizards needs to just let go and let the format handle its self. If they want to shake modern up, print cards that are not crap, and could add an interesting angle to the game.
For all those citing websites in regards to twin's metashare I'm pretty sure that wizards has way more data on the subject than those sites. On the twin banning I feel in my opinion it was right. I feel that infinite combos have no place in any tcg, not just magic. I also disliked the fact that the most efficient answers to the combo were very color specific.
the metagame could have easily adapted and changed that.
Where I understand this line of thinking, how long should Wotc wait for the meta to reign in Twin? Twin has been a top deck almost since the formats inception. Twin kept other blue decks down by making Wotc leary about unbanning cards that would also help Twin, keeping the distance it had on other decks. People keep talking about the meta adjusting, yet we never see it. We see the same old same old week in and week out.
Wotc has been very consistent in their thinking and their bans. Yet some find the announcement a surprise. We heard the same gripes when Pod was banned, we heard the same gripes when they hit Jund, and Storm. The format will survive.
Like I had said for weeks, Wotc has made a statement about SFM and there has been zero said to consider they have changed their minds on SFM. It didnt surprise me a bit SFM wasnt even mentioned about being looked at. All they are looking at is AV. SotM is considered to strong and would make a certain deck too strong at the moment.
Quote from paper2016 »
I'm a long time lurker and posts like these make it look you don't play Modern at all. Playing other U decks was only really possible because they beat Twin; there's so little reason to play them in a big mana based format. I'm not sure what you want Magic to look like besides removing the color blue. Also, WotC just posted that they only care about proxies in sanctioned events.
I play multiple times a week and play other blue decks other then Twin and do very well for myself. I think people are way too fast to give up on certain ideas or decks. High level players are lazy and want a catch all deck or a deck they are comfortable with and do very little innovating. We see the innovating coming from the local level from the players that play only Modern. You know the ones that dont give up after one bad week with a deck, they understand what didnt work and they keep tweaking until they have a playable versionof the deck.
As for Twin being gone, I fully expect Scapeshift to gain some ground on top decks, a blue deck. I wouldnt be surprised if UWR midrange or control comes back to playable, more blue decks. Blue Moon could come back (since there needs to be a way to hose Tron to win now). People are just mad now. Those that are indifferent to what happened will continue and the format will evolve from here. It has every other time something got banned, it will now too.
Honestly, wizards needs to just let go and let the format handle its self. If they want to shake modern up, print cards that are not crap, and could add an interesting angle to the game.
They do print interesting cards, all the time. The format has gained like 5 new great decks over the past year.
Honestly, wizards needs to just let go and let the format handle its self. If they want to shake modern up, print cards that are not crap, and could add an interesting angle to the game.
They do print cards that aren't crap and do impact the meta. But they definitely don't print good answer cards often anymore. You're right that they should let modern police itself, but they seem to have been bruised enough by forcing to retreat on dropping the modern PT to become almost vindictive towards the format.
"YOU WANT A MODERN PRO TOUR HUH? WELL GUESS WHAT WE'RE GONNA MAKE IT EXCITING BY BANNING FORMAT PILLARS EVERY YEAR... JUST TO SPICE THINGS UP!" -Aaron Forscythe
We never asked for this
They DO print good answer cards, but good solid answers are harder to develop without completely blowing out their respective formats. Kolaghan's Command is the main POWERFUL multipurpose answer of the past year.
The 'interesting PT' predicament has ALWAYS been a problem. Wizards isn't going to invest 1000s into a protour that could potentially end up as a twin mirror. It wasn't going to happen and we've heard as much from some of the format's creators. I don't like how this decision happened, I'm not sure about the precedent it sets, and I don't want to see people leave the format, but ultimately their reasoning should not come as a shock to anyone.
So, Ponder and Preordain are bad for blue, but Ancient Stirrings and Oath of Nissa are fair for green? A few years from now Magic players won't even know what the blue color symbol looks like, let alone play blue in their decks.
Boycott PT OGW.
It's almost like grabbing any card and grabbing a colorless card/creature card are totally different effects....
For all intents and purposes, the green cantrips can or will be able, in case of Oath of Nissa, to pick nearly any card from their respective decks. How often does Ancient Stirrings fizzle in Tron for example? Sure the decks are crafted in such a way to maximize the effectiveness of those cards but that still doesn't explain why green has better card selection then blue in a "non-rotating" format.
Boycott PT OGW.
Having to build your deck to make it not fizzle is its own cost.
Another year another deck banned yet again. This makes 7 bannings that have hit me and I just don't know anymore.
I could understand many of the bans up to this point but it's been too much at this point. I thought I would finally have one year in modern that a deck I owned wouldn't get banned but nope. Wizards really does like to kick it's player base where it hurts.
I could understand the Seething Song and Second Sunrise banning, and I moved on easily back then. Then they banned BBE and DRS when I was building Jund (which survived and is almost foiled out but not looking apt to a big mana meta). But then they banned Pod which made me sad because it was a deck I was finally getting comfortable with despite having it built for a couple of years. Along with that came the T.Cruise and DTT bans (which I saw coming kind of but still, that was 2 decks knocked out in one fell swoop) so I settled on going back to Twin and GBx because there was no way I thought they could get hit. I was interested in building Bloom since I had most of the cards just sitting in my collection but opted against it specifically because I didn't want yet another deck banned out from under me, while I was able to get over the other bans it still is disheartening to have to build and learn another deck and trade into it especially when a bunch of cards just instantly lose their value (though not always the case but the time and commitment is still a hassle).
Yet wizards somehow has managed to yet again ban a deck that I've put a lot of work into. It really feels like they don't want me to play this format. The format that I started trading for and collecting cards for before it was even a real thing. It was the format I always wanted to play the most and one that I helped foster the playerbase and community for. I used to be that guy that had 3-5 decks built and ready so that we could fire and let people try the format. Eventually it did and we would have nights where Modern just doubled the size of Standard and we could fire 2-3 nights/week at 2 different shops. Which was cool to see that other people enjoyed the format as much as I did. Because now I only am down to 2 decks sitting in my bag that are ready to go because of all the bannings and lost value and switching and trading of cards to be able to continually play what was once the most enjoyable format for me.
Oh well after I get the last 10 or so foils for Jund I am done with building new decks for this format. Like I said I could understand many of the bannings, but at this point I feel no will to continue building new decks and experimenting with decks in modern. I already have 1 Legacy deck built and ready to go and honestly I'm just going to convert every other non-cross format staple to reserved list legacy cards and a second set of Forces. If I can help build and foster a modern playerbase I sure as hell will do the same for Legacy. At least people won't get depressed or angry every year when their deck gets banned or the meta abruptly shifts because of wizards pandering. We can already fire Legacy 2-3 times a month with 8-12 players and I know there are players who are just some duals or a set of forces away from the legacy deck they want to play the most.
I know this sounds like whining and *****ing but it's super frustrating and disheartening to have yet one more banning that directly impacts a deck that I play and enjoyed. I know there are other players here who have had multiple decks banned and not cared, and I used to be one of them. But it's gone too far. I liked this format because I believed I could build a deck and then update it or change sideboard cards when new sets came out and metas changed, but when I feel like I'm building or tearing apart a deck every year because WotCs artificial forced rotation and meta shifting... That just completely betrays my trust in the format.
If Tron and Affinity DO take over everything (I don't think they will but whatever), then the next B/R announcement is only three months away.
What makes you so certain they will act to correct that in the next announcement if it is necessary? Couldn't they just wait for a year and then "shake up the format in order to promote competitive deck diversity"? They practically let Amulet Bloom run rampant for about a year or so, Splinter Twin has been around forever, so what makes you think they will do a corrective of the metagame after only three months?
On the boycott: The last B&R updates heavily deviated from the proposed ban criteria at the start of the format. This was done as a publicity stunt to motivate players to follow the coverage of the Modern PT and in an attempt to rig the tournament's outcome (bit of a stretch I know but the goal was to remove Twin from contention despite the fact that the deck did not meet any of the established criteria for a ban).
- By boycotting the PT you will be sending a signal that players confidence in a format amounts to something.
- A boycott is aimed at supporting transparent ban criteria in a non-rotating format that carries with itself a substantial financial investment.
I think a boycott of the PT coverage can be a relevant factor when it comes to influencing decision making for the format since most if not all the decisions relevant to it can be translated into viewer ratings. Simply put people are unlikely to spend money on something they are not interested in and the number of viewers following the coverage reflects the communities investment in the format as a whole.
- A successful boycott (provided it is large enough) could have one of three outcomes, each one a net gain in it's own way:
1) less bans since the ban criteria would be more thoroughly enforced
2) more unbans aimed to placate a visibly disgruntled player base
3) dropping of the Modern PT altogether which would save us from arbitrary interventions into the metagame. If legacy could have bloomed as much as it did without PT coverage and with less pressure to intervene "for the fun of it" who's to say that Modern can't follow in it's footsteps?
Boycott PT OGW.
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In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
If Tron and Affinity DO take over everything (I don't think they will but whatever), then the next B/R announcement is only three months away.
What makes you so certain they will act to correct that in the next announcement if it is necessary? Couldn't they just wait for a year and then "shake up the format in order to promote competitive deck diversity"? They practically let Amulet Bloom run rampant for about a year or so, Splinter Twin has been around forever, so what makes you think they will do a corrective of the metagame after only three months?
I don't have any idea - I don't work at Wizards. I'd guess if player dissatisfaction at the new meta is loud enough and format attendance is down they might consider something, but really, I don't know.
Like with every other issue that has come up regarding Wizards, I don't think they owe me anything. I didn't sign a contract with them, and they haven't promised me a thing. Transparency, honesty, all of that is nice, but it's not expected. They just produce a card game I like to play. That's it. I'm not going to not participate in that card game for any reason other than they personally walked up to me and ripped up cards in my decks. I'm not going to boycott the pro tour. I like the pro tour. I think this decision is EVENTUALLY good for modern but it should have probably happened sooner so as to have minimized damage from all of the salt that is currently pouring into wounds.
Seriously though, I have no interest in watching the PT at all. This isn't the modern I knew and enjoyed, if my fears pan out. It'll be, as I've said before, Magic the Goldfishing. Sounds like great fun to watch....
If Tron and Affinity DO take over everything (I don't think they will but whatever), then the next B/R announcement is only three months away.
What makes you so certain they will act to correct that in the next announcement if it is necessary? Couldn't they just wait for a year and then "shake up the format in order to promote competitive deck diversity"? They practically let Amulet Bloom run rampant for about a year or so, Splinter Twin has been around forever, so what makes you think they will do a corrective of the metagame after only three months?
On the boycott: The last B&R updates heavily deviated from the proposed ban criteria at the start of the format. This was done as a publicity stunt to motivate players to follow the coverage of the Modern PT and in an attempt to rig the tournament's outcome (bit of a stretch I know but the goal was to remove Twin from contention despite the fact that the deck did not meet any of the established criteria for a ban).
- By boycotting the PT you will be sending a signal that players confidence in a format amounts to something.
- A boycott is aimed at supporting transparent ban criteria in a non-rotating format that carries with itself a substantial financial investment.
I think a boycott of the PT coverage can be a relevant factor when it comes to influencing decision making for the format since most if not all the decisions relevant to it can be translated into viewer ratings. Simply put people are unlikely to spend money on something they are not interested in and the number of viewers following the coverage reflects the communities investment in the format as a whole.
- A successful boycott (provided it is large enough) could have one of three outcomes, each one a net gain in it's own way:
1) less bans since the ban criteria would be more thoroughly enforced
2) more unbans aimed to placate a visibly disgruntled player base
3) dropping of the Modern PT altogether which would save us from arbitrary interventions into the metagame. If legacy could have bloomed as much as it did without PT coverage and with less pressure to intervene "for the fun of it" who's to say that Modern can't follow in it's footsteps?
Boycott PT OGW.
Sounds like someone is unhappy with a format they choose to play. Wotc has been pretty consistent with bans. Some may not like it, but Wotc cannot please everyone, so they stick to the criteria they set forth in the inception of the format. Some just want Modern to be a different format then it is. Maybe us that dislike Legacy should ask Wotc to change Legacy to a format we like more so maybe we will play.
You have always had a choice to play or not, but dont expect everyone to see the bannings the same as you. I know just as many Modern players happy about the bans as I do that are upset. Other then on here, I have not heard anyone say they are upset enough to not play anymore, and I asked.
It may be an unpopular opinion but I don't mind these changes. It opens up new design space now that you can tap out on turn 3, certain cards just got a lot better. The terrible part of it is the distrust that Wizards has crated among the fanbase, there's no certainty knowing whether your deck gets banned and that's pretty rough. I played Bloom but luckily I sold out of it a few weeks ago because it was kinda obvious. All the doomdsdaying of tron/affinity/infect taking over doesn't seem reasonable to me. The decks can be beaten and are easy to interact with (Tron to a lesser degree). I don't know how the meta will shape up but people are often wrong. After the Pod/Cruise ban, everyone insisted scapeshift would be unbeatable. People also insisted Nacatl was too weak for Modern and Zoo is not a viable deck.
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Modern: Bant Company GWU Dredgevine GBR Affinity 0 Grixis Control UBR
Finally got a chance to sit down and share my thoughts on this (damn work).
First, I want to give a bit of background. Been playing twin and BGx for the past two years. Have played D&T and, funnily enough, just started playing merfolk as my main deck.
I have to say how incredibly disappointing this announcement is. Modern is my favorite competitive format. Am I upset that one of my decks got banned? Yea, kind of. But its more than that. I’m upset at the implications that it will have for future bannings. While I do not think that twin deserved a ban (affinity makes up just as much of the meta), I honestly didn’t think ANY deck deserved the axe (ok maybe lantern, that deck is annoying AF). I want to play in a format that has a huge card pool and that has a lot of strategies both to play and play against. I fervently hope that wizards is not moving towards a “standard” that just has a bigger card pool. I can’t think of anything as horrifying as having to pay 2 mana for a lightning strike or have to battle with megamorphs just to get value. I want to cast gigantic eldrazi off three lands into the biggest planeswalkers ever printed, I want to burn people out lightning fast of the back of goblin guides and bolts, I want to grind people down with Liliana of the Veil and tarmogoyf beats, I want to nickle and dime tempo people with a little blue fairy until I have an opportunity to proliferate it ad nauseum. I’m not asking for a format where I can lotus petal into LED into ad nausem kill you; I just want to play a powerful, balanced and fun format. I was upset when POD got banned (it was super powerful and though I never played it myself, I always had fun playing against it).
Now, I fear that slowly modern is going to be ripped apart by Wizards Thoughtseizing the best decks piecemeal. Do I play tron or affinity? No. Do I think they are super powerful decks that are borderline broken? Yes. Do I want them banned either? HELL NO. I want to play against these decks because they, while borderline busted, have their counters. Tron is sadface to LD after LD after LD and affinity almost can’t beat stony silence. Twin was in the same vein. Playing the deck I know the things that you had to watch out for, that were a direct counter to your combo: Abrupt Decay, Path, Slaughter Pact, Dismember, Rending Volley (use to be Combust), bolt (pestermite). “Yea well, Twin was broken because you have to hold up mana or lose to it” Bull****. How many times do you usually tap out against other decks? It really killing you to hold up that ONE RED for rending volley or dismember? If I go for the combo when you’re tapped out and I get 2-for-oned by your slaughter pact, is it unfair to pay the 2B the next turn?
I think that wizards made a huge mistake not just in banning a deck I love to play and fear playing against (still makes for a fun, intense, edge-of-my seat game), but in setting a precedence that if a deck rises up to a large percentage of the meta, it will be chopped down “for the sake of diversity.” And Aaron Forsythe? If you’re telling us, the player population as a whole, that this change was for the PRO TOUR, then you and the other people who share that line of thought can, and I say this in the best way possibly, P*** off. You’re going to make a decision for a small group of pros that affects the thousands and thousands of people who play this game? “Oh it’s not fun to be twinned to death” Yea? You know what’s not fun? Losing to a pact trigger. But it happens. I love playing a close game and, when all seems like its in the toilet, ripping a twin off the top. Those are the memorable games.
So, wizards. I thank you for continually driving this awesome game forward with new cards and awesome product. But I do have to say that for this game I, we, everyone loves…you made a mistake.
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EDH:ShatterStax, Only The Strong Survive
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Mono-U Control
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath
Sen Triplets
Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Derevi Stax
VolThrun
Marchesa, The Black Rose
Olivia Voldaren, Vampire Tribal
I just read through the first 15 or so pages of the Pod ban thread - the reactions were the same and the format is more popular than ever after that. Change is good, even if it hurts at first.
the metagame could have easily adapted and changed that.
Where I understand this line of thinking, how long should Wotc wait for the meta to reign in Twin? Twin has been a top deck almost since the formats inception. Twin kept other blue decks down by making Wotc leary about unbanning cards that would also help Twin, keeping the distance it had on other decks. People keep talking about the meta adjusting, yet we never see it. We see the same old same old week in and week out.
Wotc has been very consistent in their thinking and their bans. Yet some find the announcement a surprise. We heard the same gripes when Pod was banned, we heard the same gripes when they hit Jund, and Storm. The format will survive.
Like I had said for weeks, Wotc has made a statement about SFM and there has been zero said to consider they have changed their minds on SFM. It didnt surprise me a bit SFM wasnt even mentioned about being looked at. All they are looking at is AV. SotM is considered to strong and would make a certain deck too strong at the moment.
Quote from paper2016 »
I'm a long time lurker and posts like these make it look you don't play Modern at all. Playing other U decks was only really possible because they beat Twin; there's so little reason to play them in a big mana based format. I'm not sure what you want Magic to look like besides removing the color blue. Also, WotC just posted that they only care about proxies in sanctioned events.
I play multiple times a week and play other blue decks other then Twin and do very well for myself. I think people are way too fast to give up on certain ideas or decks. High level players are lazy and want a catch all deck or a deck they are comfortable with and do very little innovating. We see the innovating coming from the local level from the players that play only Modern. You know the ones that dont give up after one bad week with a deck, they understand what didnt work and they keep tweaking until they have a playable versionof the deck.
As for Twin being gone, I fully expect Scapeshift to gain some ground on top decks, a blue deck. I wouldnt be surprised if UWR midrange or control comes back to playable, more blue decks. Blue Moon could come back (since there needs to be a way to hose Tron to win now). People are just mad now. Those that are indifferent to what happened will continue and the format will evolve from here. It has every other time something got banned, it will now too.
Reign in Twin? It's like at 11% of the field, including all variants of the deck - seems pretty healthy. You're being completely dishonest about your argument. People are shocked because this ban goes against all the data/rules/etc WoTC has established when it comes to bans. Aaron literally admitted on Twitter that this ban was mostly for PT 'shake up' reasons. This alone invalidates your entire argument about the ban being balance related.
Now, as to whether or not this ban opens up potential unbans in the future, one can hope. I can see more powerful blue spells being unbanned as a result of Twin being banned since there is no longer the fear of potentially boosting Twin too much.
I have spent the last hour sending messages directly to WotC employees over facebook about the excessive banning and have actually gotten some responses from people who say they get input into the ban list. They are defending the ban list, but the are hearing my input and some are responding directly to me and if everyone messages them maybe they will get the point.
They do not read our thread or look at our polls, twitter and Facebook may be better ways to get our opinions heard.
Wotc has been pretty consistent with bans. Some may not like it, but Wotc cannot please everyone, so they stick to the criteria they set forth in the inception of the format.
I don't agree with that statement at all. See the following:
"Splinter Twin was the quintessential Modern deck. Not too powerful, not overly successful, wins on turn 4 on its best day, and highly interactive. Its banning is based on typical tier 1 success levels, and on the fact that Twin made it difficult to justify playing any other blue deck. Both of these reasonings seem artificial. ... Twin has been around since Modern's birth, and it really hasn't changed much. It hasn't been getting many new tools to make it better. It's still roughly the same deck as it was years ago. ... Twin is even directly in line with what Wizards has stated that they want for the format. They've said they want the combo decks to be interactive and not win before turn 4. Twin practically defines those constraints. ... Twin's metagame percentage had been unchanged. It's sat at around 10% for the longest time. It didn't suddenly get more popular and push out blue decks. ... Finally, Twin isn't holding anything out of the format. The reason that Twin is the only way to play blue in Modern is because blue kind of sucks in Modern. We don't have any truly good counter spells, and there's almost no playable card advantage. Cryptic Command is about all we've got. If we had real counter magic, I'm sure control would take its place in the format."
I'm not going to not participate in that card game for any reason other than they personally walked up to me and ripped up cards in my decks. I'm not going to boycott the pro tour. I like the pro tour. I think this decision is EVENTUALLY good for modern but it should have probably happened sooner so as to have minimized damage from all of the salt that is currently pouring into wounds.
Except the have kind of been doing exactly that, ripping up cards in Modern player's decks across the world, for quite some time now, more often then not their justification for that was irrational, kind of like this one referring to Splinter Twin was.
Don't get me wrong, I too enjoy the PT and have always been super interested in watching it, but I feel the need to send a strong enough message that I don't support an arbitrary ban policy in a non-rotating format. For all we know the ban itself might actually even be a good one but I don't think it's good enough to discard all semblance of credibility they've managed to scrape up since they've unbanned Wild Nacatl and Bitterblossom some years back. Dropping that down the gutter over night just to maybe spark additional interest in the PT, under the dumbfounding assumption that a whole new set didn't do that already, just isn't worth it.
Boycott PT OGW.
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In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
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I love modern. I love my fringe decks and my competitive ones. I love the friends I've made from the format, and the competition I get to face on a weekly basis. To me, and MOST of you (unless you're planning on compete for a pro tour), this is a game. A game that has brought me countless hours of enjoyment over the past few years. Talking about metas, brewing, arguing, competing, playing, all of it. The best can absolutely be to come, but only if the playerbase wants it to be a good format. If Tron and Affinity DO take over everything (I don't think they will but whatever), then the next B/R announcement is only three months away.
I hope most of you stick around. It's been really fun. It really has.
For all intents and purposes, the green cantrips can or will be able, in case of Oath of Nissa, to pick nearly any card from their respective decks. How often does Ancient Stirrings fizzle in Tron for example? Sure the decks are crafted in such a way to maximize the effectiveness of those cards but that still doesn't explain why green has better card selection then blue in a "non-rotating" format.
Boycott PT OGW.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
From theses, Ancient Stirrings/lightning bolt/Mox Opal/Glistner elf/(IDK)/Goro's/Temple... But I would prefer they just unban things like Twin now, Pod, Blood Braid, maybe jace. Then maybe they can print cards for the T2 decks that the T1 cant use as well...
Legacy: Dark Depths, Pox, Eldrazi Agro
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I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
My Peasant Cube (looking for feedback)
Where I understand this line of thinking, how long should Wotc wait for the meta to reign in Twin? Twin has been a top deck almost since the formats inception. Twin kept other blue decks down by making Wotc leary about unbanning cards that would also help Twin, keeping the distance it had on other decks. People keep talking about the meta adjusting, yet we never see it. We see the same old same old week in and week out.
Wotc has been very consistent in their thinking and their bans. Yet some find the announcement a surprise. We heard the same gripes when Pod was banned, we heard the same gripes when they hit Jund, and Storm. The format will survive.
Like I had said for weeks, Wotc has made a statement about SFM and there has been zero said to consider they have changed their minds on SFM. It didnt surprise me a bit SFM wasnt even mentioned about being looked at. All they are looking at is AV. SotM is considered to strong and would make a certain deck too strong at the moment.
I play multiple times a week and play other blue decks other then Twin and do very well for myself. I think people are way too fast to give up on certain ideas or decks. High level players are lazy and want a catch all deck or a deck they are comfortable with and do very little innovating. We see the innovating coming from the local level from the players that play only Modern. You know the ones that dont give up after one bad week with a deck, they understand what didnt work and they keep tweaking until they have a playable versionof the deck.
As for Twin being gone, I fully expect Scapeshift to gain some ground on top decks, a blue deck. I wouldnt be surprised if UWR midrange or control comes back to playable, more blue decks. Blue Moon could come back (since there needs to be a way to hose Tron to win now). People are just mad now. Those that are indifferent to what happened will continue and the format will evolve from here. It has every other time something got banned, it will now too.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
They do print interesting cards, all the time. The format has gained like 5 new great decks over the past year.
"Are you serious?" Chandra replied.
They DO print good answer cards, but good solid answers are harder to develop without completely blowing out their respective formats. Kolaghan's Command is the main POWERFUL multipurpose answer of the past year.
The 'interesting PT' predicament has ALWAYS been a problem. Wizards isn't going to invest 1000s into a protour that could potentially end up as a twin mirror. It wasn't going to happen and we've heard as much from some of the format's creators. I don't like how this decision happened, I'm not sure about the precedent it sets, and I don't want to see people leave the format, but ultimately their reasoning should not come as a shock to anyone.
Having to build your deck to make it not fizzle is its own cost.
I could understand many of the bans up to this point but it's been too much at this point. I thought I would finally have one year in modern that a deck I owned wouldn't get banned but nope. Wizards really does like to kick it's player base where it hurts.
I could understand the Seething Song and Second Sunrise banning, and I moved on easily back then. Then they banned BBE and DRS when I was building Jund (which survived and is almost foiled out but not looking apt to a big mana meta). But then they banned Pod which made me sad because it was a deck I was finally getting comfortable with despite having it built for a couple of years. Along with that came the T.Cruise and DTT bans (which I saw coming kind of but still, that was 2 decks knocked out in one fell swoop) so I settled on going back to Twin and GBx because there was no way I thought they could get hit. I was interested in building Bloom since I had most of the cards just sitting in my collection but opted against it specifically because I didn't want yet another deck banned out from under me, while I was able to get over the other bans it still is disheartening to have to build and learn another deck and trade into it especially when a bunch of cards just instantly lose their value (though not always the case but the time and commitment is still a hassle).
Yet wizards somehow has managed to yet again ban a deck that I've put a lot of work into. It really feels like they don't want me to play this format. The format that I started trading for and collecting cards for before it was even a real thing. It was the format I always wanted to play the most and one that I helped foster the playerbase and community for. I used to be that guy that had 3-5 decks built and ready so that we could fire and let people try the format. Eventually it did and we would have nights where Modern just doubled the size of Standard and we could fire 2-3 nights/week at 2 different shops. Which was cool to see that other people enjoyed the format as much as I did. Because now I only am down to 2 decks sitting in my bag that are ready to go because of all the bannings and lost value and switching and trading of cards to be able to continually play what was once the most enjoyable format for me.
Oh well after I get the last 10 or so foils for Jund I am done with building new decks for this format. Like I said I could understand many of the bannings, but at this point I feel no will to continue building new decks and experimenting with decks in modern. I already have 1 Legacy deck built and ready to go and honestly I'm just going to convert every other non-cross format staple to reserved list legacy cards and a second set of Forces. If I can help build and foster a modern playerbase I sure as hell will do the same for Legacy. At least people won't get depressed or angry every year when their deck gets banned or the meta abruptly shifts because of wizards pandering. We can already fire Legacy 2-3 times a month with 8-12 players and I know there are players who are just some duals or a set of forces away from the legacy deck they want to play the most.
I know this sounds like whining and *****ing but it's super frustrating and disheartening to have yet one more banning that directly impacts a deck that I play and enjoyed. I know there are other players here who have had multiple decks banned and not cared, and I used to be one of them. But it's gone too far. I liked this format because I believed I could build a deck and then update it or change sideboard cards when new sets came out and metas changed, but when I feel like I'm building or tearing apart a deck every year because WotCs artificial forced rotation and meta shifting... That just completely betrays my trust in the format.
What makes you so certain they will act to correct that in the next announcement if it is necessary? Couldn't they just wait for a year and then "shake up the format in order to promote competitive deck diversity"? They practically let Amulet Bloom run rampant for about a year or so, Splinter Twin has been around forever, so what makes you think they will do a corrective of the metagame after only three months?
On the boycott: The last B&R updates heavily deviated from the proposed ban criteria at the start of the format. This was done as a publicity stunt to motivate players to follow the coverage of the Modern PT and in an attempt to rig the tournament's outcome (bit of a stretch I know but the goal was to remove Twin from contention despite the fact that the deck did not meet any of the established criteria for a ban).
- By boycotting the PT you will be sending a signal that players confidence in a format amounts to something.
- A boycott is aimed at supporting transparent ban criteria in a non-rotating format that carries with itself a substantial financial investment.
I think a boycott of the PT coverage can be a relevant factor when it comes to influencing decision making for the format since most if not all the decisions relevant to it can be translated into viewer ratings. Simply put people are unlikely to spend money on something they are not interested in and the number of viewers following the coverage reflects the communities investment in the format as a whole.
- A successful boycott (provided it is large enough) could have one of three outcomes, each one a net gain in it's own way:
1) less bans since the ban criteria would be more thoroughly enforced
2) more unbans aimed to placate a visibly disgruntled player base
3) dropping of the Modern PT altogether which would save us from arbitrary interventions into the metagame. If legacy could have bloomed as much as it did without PT coverage and with less pressure to intervene "for the fun of it" who's to say that Modern can't follow in it's footsteps?
Boycott PT OGW.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
I don't have any idea - I don't work at Wizards. I'd guess if player dissatisfaction at the new meta is loud enough and format attendance is down they might consider something, but really, I don't know.
Like with every other issue that has come up regarding Wizards, I don't think they owe me anything. I didn't sign a contract with them, and they haven't promised me a thing. Transparency, honesty, all of that is nice, but it's not expected. They just produce a card game I like to play. That's it. I'm not going to not participate in that card game for any reason other than they personally walked up to me and ripped up cards in my decks. I'm not going to boycott the pro tour. I like the pro tour. I think this decision is EVENTUALLY good for modern but it should have probably happened sooner so as to have minimized damage from all of the salt that is currently pouring into wounds.
Seriously though, I have no interest in watching the PT at all. This isn't the modern I knew and enjoyed, if my fears pan out. It'll be, as I've said before, Magic the Goldfishing. Sounds like great fun to watch....
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
Sounds like someone is unhappy with a format they choose to play. Wotc has been pretty consistent with bans. Some may not like it, but Wotc cannot please everyone, so they stick to the criteria they set forth in the inception of the format. Some just want Modern to be a different format then it is. Maybe us that dislike Legacy should ask Wotc to change Legacy to a format we like more so maybe we will play.
You have always had a choice to play or not, but dont expect everyone to see the bannings the same as you. I know just as many Modern players happy about the bans as I do that are upset. Other then on here, I have not heard anyone say they are upset enough to not play anymore, and I asked.
First, I want to give a bit of background. Been playing twin and BGx for the past two years. Have played D&T and, funnily enough, just started playing merfolk as my main deck.
I have to say how incredibly disappointing this announcement is. Modern is my favorite competitive format. Am I upset that one of my decks got banned? Yea, kind of. But its more than that. I’m upset at the implications that it will have for future bannings. While I do not think that twin deserved a ban (affinity makes up just as much of the meta), I honestly didn’t think ANY deck deserved the axe (ok maybe lantern, that deck is annoying AF). I want to play in a format that has a huge card pool and that has a lot of strategies both to play and play against. I fervently hope that wizards is not moving towards a “standard” that just has a bigger card pool. I can’t think of anything as horrifying as having to pay 2 mana for a lightning strike or have to battle with megamorphs just to get value. I want to cast gigantic eldrazi off three lands into the biggest planeswalkers ever printed, I want to burn people out lightning fast of the back of goblin guides and bolts, I want to grind people down with Liliana of the Veil and tarmogoyf beats, I want to nickle and dime tempo people with a little blue fairy until I have an opportunity to proliferate it ad nauseum. I’m not asking for a format where I can lotus petal into LED into ad nausem kill you; I just want to play a powerful, balanced and fun format. I was upset when POD got banned (it was super powerful and though I never played it myself, I always had fun playing against it).
Now, I fear that slowly modern is going to be ripped apart by Wizards Thoughtseizing the best decks piecemeal. Do I play tron or affinity? No. Do I think they are super powerful decks that are borderline broken? Yes. Do I want them banned either? HELL NO. I want to play against these decks because they, while borderline busted, have their counters. Tron is sadface to LD after LD after LD and affinity almost can’t beat stony silence. Twin was in the same vein. Playing the deck I know the things that you had to watch out for, that were a direct counter to your combo: Abrupt Decay, Path, Slaughter Pact, Dismember, Rending Volley (use to be Combust), bolt (pestermite). “Yea well, Twin was broken because you have to hold up mana or lose to it” Bull****. How many times do you usually tap out against other decks? It really killing you to hold up that ONE RED for rending volley or dismember? If I go for the combo when you’re tapped out and I get 2-for-oned by your slaughter pact, is it unfair to pay the 2B the next turn?
I think that wizards made a huge mistake not just in banning a deck I love to play and fear playing against (still makes for a fun, intense, edge-of-my seat game), but in setting a precedence that if a deck rises up to a large percentage of the meta, it will be chopped down “for the sake of diversity.” And Aaron Forsythe? If you’re telling us, the player population as a whole, that this change was for the PRO TOUR, then you and the other people who share that line of thought can, and I say this in the best way possibly, P*** off. You’re going to make a decision for a small group of pros that affects the thousands and thousands of people who play this game? “Oh it’s not fun to be twinned to death” Yea? You know what’s not fun? Losing to a pact trigger. But it happens. I love playing a close game and, when all seems like its in the toilet, ripping a twin off the top. Those are the memorable games.
So, wizards. I thank you for continually driving this awesome game forward with new cards and awesome product. But I do have to say that for this game I, we, everyone loves…you made a mistake.
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Mono-U Control
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath
Sen Triplets
Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Derevi Stax
VolThrun
Marchesa, The Black Rose
Olivia Voldaren, Vampire Tribal
Modern: Fish, JUND/Junk
--------
RIP Twin
Spirits
Reign in Twin? It's like at 11% of the field, including all variants of the deck - seems pretty healthy. You're being completely dishonest about your argument. People are shocked because this ban goes against all the data/rules/etc WoTC has established when it comes to bans. Aaron literally admitted on Twitter that this ban was mostly for PT 'shake up' reasons. This alone invalidates your entire argument about the ban being balance related.
Now, as to whether or not this ban opens up potential unbans in the future, one can hope. I can see more powerful blue spells being unbanned as a result of Twin being banned since there is no longer the fear of potentially boosting Twin too much.
They do not read our thread or look at our polls, twitter and Facebook may be better ways to get our opinions heard.
I don't agree with that statement at all. See the following:
"Splinter Twin was the quintessential Modern deck. Not too powerful, not overly successful, wins on turn 4 on its best day, and highly interactive. Its banning is based on typical tier 1 success levels, and on the fact that Twin made it difficult to justify playing any other blue deck. Both of these reasonings seem artificial. ... Twin has been around since Modern's birth, and it really hasn't changed much. It hasn't been getting many new tools to make it better. It's still roughly the same deck as it was years ago. ... Twin is even directly in line with what Wizards has stated that they want for the format. They've said they want the combo decks to be interactive and not win before turn 4. Twin practically defines those constraints. ... Twin's metagame percentage had been unchanged. It's sat at around 10% for the longest time. It didn't suddenly get more popular and push out blue decks. ... Finally, Twin isn't holding anything out of the format. The reason that Twin is the only way to play blue in Modern is because blue kind of sucks in Modern. We don't have any truly good counter spells, and there's almost no playable card advantage. Cryptic Command is about all we've got. If we had real counter magic, I'm sure control would take its place in the format."
http://themeadery.org/b/ElvishJerricco/read/modern-is-now-a-rotating-format/
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Except the have kind of been doing exactly that, ripping up cards in Modern player's decks across the world, for quite some time now, more often then not their justification for that was irrational, kind of like this one referring to Splinter Twin was.
Don't get me wrong, I too enjoy the PT and have always been super interested in watching it, but I feel the need to send a strong enough message that I don't support an arbitrary ban policy in a non-rotating format. For all we know the ban itself might actually even be a good one but I don't think it's good enough to discard all semblance of credibility they've managed to scrape up since they've unbanned Wild Nacatl and Bitterblossom some years back. Dropping that down the gutter over night just to maybe spark additional interest in the PT, under the dumbfounding assumption that a whole new set didn't do that already, just isn't worth it.
Boycott PT OGW.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.