My personal, non-alarmist promise is that I'm done with Modern if we get to 2018 and 2 of the following 4 scenarios have happened:
1. Another ban due to bad internal policing cards.
2. No unbans.
3. Failure to publish at least two articles on the format's overall health, direction, and regulation.
4. Failure to print or reprint at least one more Modern answer like Push.
If Wizards does any 2 of those 4 things by 2018, let alone 3 or 4, it just means thr format isn't for me and I can't have confidence in it. Maybe it's still good for others, but I couldn't enjoy a format that was handled in those regards.
Out of curiosity, where would you go, if that were the case? Legacy? Or more of an "I'm out, screw Magic" kinda thing?
As I said earlier and will keep arguing, the problem with the update was not the bans. It was the communication. It CONTINUES to be the communication, or lack thereof, at the core of almost all Standard and Modern issues. Especially Modern issues. Because Wizards is so insistent on opaque format management, players have no idea what to expect. Of course, bans are the primary problem on everyone's minds. Looking over this thread, I've seen ban suggestions for most top and low tier decks with previously reasonable users plunging into Wizards-induced ban mania. If Wizards gave better information about bans, Modern direction, their view of format health, etc., then this would be mitigated.
Instead, the last major format update/article we got was last April. It was a good article, yes, but it's inexcusable that Magic's second largest constructed format has gone without a public health check-in since April 2016. This is also to say nothing of Wizards' inability to get generic answers into the format so we can internally regulate instead of depending on bans. But regular communication would presumably address even that. Of course, communication isn't the only problem with Modern. It just starts there. Ban policy, reprint policy, testing policy, etc. are all major, ongoing problems too.
My personal, non-alarmist promise is that I'm done with Modern if we get to 2018 and 2 of the following 4 scenarios have happened:
1. Another ban due to bad internal policing cards.
2. No unbans.
3. Failure to publish at least two articles on the format's overall health, direction, and regulation.
4. Failure to print or reprint at least one more Modern answer like Push.
If Wizards does any 2 of those 4 things by 2018, let alone 3 or 4, it just means thr format isn't for me and I can't have confidence in it. Maybe it's still good for others, but I couldn't enjoy a format that was handled in those regards.
Careful, sheridan, living under an ultimatum is a terrible way to operate, and a slippery slope for many reasons.
It can lead to you trying to find reasons for something not working out, and undermining your enjoyment.
With a game that's changing and evolving, it can put you in tough spots where the situation moves beyond your current assessment and you still love it, but the criteria of your ultimatum are still fulfilled, so people expect you to act on it.
It can force you down a path of denial or overthinking an aspect of the game in order to break or fulfil the criteria.
To be glib, being a part of a game like magic is a little akin to being in a relationship. It's always bad to give ultimatums in a relationship context (it's a trap) so I'd extend that thought here as well. Don't box yourself into a binary situation which might bite you in the ass later on.
I definitely agree that ultimatums are bad in relationships. That said, my relationship to Modern is a different kind of relationship than the one you are talking about. It's much more instrumental because Modern is just a preferred format in a hobby; if anything, the real relationship (as you define) I have is with Magic as a game, not Modern as a format. Having played Modern since 2011, been a mod since 2014, and done Nexus since 2015, I now know what I like and dislike about Modern and what attracts me and pushes me away from the format. Those four criteria represent the four major issues I have with the format and I can't enjoy myself in a format where those continue to be problems. None of those things would push me away from Magic, an enjoyable game I still recommend to anyone interested in a gaming hobby. They would just reduce my interest in the Modern format enough to find Magic enjoyment elsewhere.
I'm hoping for at least some explanation of these updates this coming Friday. Or even next week. That would be a good start to repairing some of the damage done in the announcement, and sets us of on a good foot for the rest of the year.
My personal, non-alarmist promise is that I'm done with Modern if we get to 2018 and 2 of the following 4 scenarios have happened:
1. Another ban due to bad internal policing cards.
2. No unbans.
3. Failure to publish at least two articles on the format's overall health, direction, and regulation.
4. Failure to print or reprint at least one more Modern answer like Push.
If Wizards does any 2 of those 4 things by 2018, let alone 3 or 4, it just means thr format isn't for me and I can't have confidence in it. Maybe it's still good for others, but I couldn't enjoy a format that was handled in those regards.
Out of curiosity, where would you go, if that were the case? Legacy? Or more of an "I'm out, screw Magic" kinda thing?
Likely Legacy. Or some grassroots foray into a post-Modern "Origins" format. I can't get behind Frontier because the cutoff doesn't make sense to me (Khans is almost certainly more powerful than what Wizards would want the successor to be). Also, the format has too much private, secondary-market interest in its creation.
Fair enough. In my opinion everyone should get into Legacy, so if you ever get the chance I'd recommend it. I particularly like the way that Wizards only steps in when things are grossly degenerate.
[/quote]Out of curiosity, where would you go, if that were the case? Legacy? Or more of an "I'm out, screw Magic" kinda thing?[/quote]
[/quote]
Likely Legacy. Or some grassroots foray into a post-Modern "Origins" format. I can't get behind Frontier because the cutoff doesn't make sense to me (Khans is almost certainly more powerful than what Wizards would want the successor to be) to me. Also, the format has too much private, secondary-market interest in its creation.[/quote]
Good take on Frontier...I would go as far as using the word "scam" to raise the prices of certain cards, like the Khan's fetches. The private, secondary-market influence, which is what is pushing the format, should be a red flag to everybody.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
FREE MODERN. Break the Standard link.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Things like "policing" a format and "police" decks sound like things people say b/c they sound fancy and in the know.
I'd like somebody to define both terms, please.
Police decks are (or where) defined as Decks like Jund and UR Twin. Decks which had the means to say no to many of the fringe strategies or abusive interactions present in the card pool, to prevent things from getting out of hand.
Most GBx and Twin varients where 'police' decks under that definition.
Policing a format, involves setting a standard within the format 'you must be able to deal with X, or not fold to Y' types of arguments. Many many janky combo's that depended on things which could be countered easily, or bolted, for example are 'policed' by Jund and URx control style decks.
I play Shape Anew, just messing around really these last few days and when you come up against a police deck, it falls apart a bit. When you come up against non-interactive decks, you can just go off and win T4, like Twin.
In short.
Police decks push interaction to the point where if your strategy folds to interaction, you lose. Midrange, Tempo/Combo/Control, and Control decks would all fall under that definition. Right now, in T1, we expect GBx to do all the policing, and those are the most expensive decks...
A lot of people seem to be confused about what people are arguing here.
On one side people are saying "Modern format was bad and needed these bans!"
The other side is saying "The modern format was bad BECAUSE IT CAN'T POLICE ITSELF and thus wizards keeps having to ban stuff, and we dont like that ban everything mentality."
Yes, and I've heard those "police" people complaining for a long time and keep asking them what is this special card (or cards) that they want wizards to make or insert into the card pool. No takers on what that card is exactly. Just random complaining that the police cards aren't there. Tell us what they are and perhaps we can discuss them?
It's not like Counterspell would have policed these decks. Mana Leak is countering all the same cards at an easier mana cost on T2-T3 so it wouldn't be policing any of these fast kills.
Preytell what are these specific police cards that would have stopped the T2-4 kill decks?
These cards have been discussed dozens of times. If you haven't seen them then you simply haven't been looking.
They include many things. For a while Innocent Blood was chief among them. But now we have Fatal Push, which likely answers that space.
Better non-basic land hate. Something between the power levels of what we currently have in Modern and Wasteland.
And yes, Counterspell and other cheaper and efficient counters. The fact that Counterspell and Mana Leak hit the same things in the fast aggressive decks is completely irrelevant. Control and Midrange decks already have positive matchups against those fast linear decks so it doesn't matter whatsoever there. But control and midrange decks have HORRID matchups against the big-mana decks like RG Breach/Valakut, Eldrazi, and Tron. Those decks can pay for Mana Leak multiple times over but Counterspell would be a huge positive for fair control and midrange decks to have a fighting chance there.
When fast linear decks are dominant that means they're preying on slower, rampy decks. Not midrange and control.
Good take on Frontier...I would go as far as using the word "scam" to raise the prices of certain cards, like the Khan's fetches. The private, secondary-market influence, which is what is pushing the format, should be a red flag to everybody.
I'd hesitate to call it a scam. A friend of mine is from Japan and was telling me that there isn't a particularly large Modern scene there because the price of certain cards is too much for the average Japanese player to afford (since the older sets were not printed in Japanese very much). While they do have a very invested Legacy scene and Standard is popular, Modern has trouble. Apparently Hareyua created Frontier for those who want a non-rotating format but who can't afford the inflated price of Modern cards. They put it at KTK because it had a lot of decks that the younger players wanted to keep playing.
So yes, it is, in a way, entirely corporate since it was created specifically by one card shop. That being said, I can see where they're coming from and I don't think Frontier deserves as much hate as it gets.
Fair enough. In my opinion everyone should get into Legacy, so if you ever get the chance I'd recommend it. I particularly like the way that Wizards only steps in when things are grossly degenerate.
Legacy is a great format i just don't think it can support that many more players. The reserved list is a real problem for the formats growth. The more people are interested the more the dual lands price goes up. (among other reserved list cards for specific decks such as LED, mox diamond, and aluren)
To be fair i also think now is a poor time to be making decisions about shifting formats. Tempers are flared and the wounds are fresh. Let's see what happens to the format before we decide that this format is getting worse.
As I said earlier and will keep arguing, the problem with the update was not the bans. It was the communication. It CONTINUES to be the communication, or lack thereof, at the core of almost all Standard and Modern issues. Especially Modern issues. Because Wizards is so insistent on opaque format management, players have no idea what to expect. Of course, bans are the primary problem on everyone's minds. Looking over this thread, I've seen ban suggestions for most top and low tier decks with previously reasonable users plunging into Wizards-induced ban mania. If Wizards gave better information about bans, Modern direction, their view of format health, etc., then this would be mitigated.
Instead, the last major format update/article we got was last April. It was a good article, yes, but it's inexcusable that Magic's second largest constructed format has gone without a public health check-in since April 2016. This is also to say nothing of Wizards' inability to get generic answers into the format so we can internally regulate instead of depending on bans. But regular communication would presumably address even that. Of course, communication isn't the only problem with Modern. It just starts there. Ban policy, reprint policy, testing policy, etc. are all major, ongoing problems too.
My personal, non-alarmist promise is that I'm done with Modern if we get to 2018 and 2 of the following 4 scenarios have happened:
1. Another ban due to bad internal policing cards.
2. No unbans.
3. Failure to publish at least two articles on the format's overall health, direction, and regulation.
4. Failure to print or reprint at least one more Modern answer like Push.
If Wizards does any 2 of those 4 things by 2018, let alone 3 or 4, it just means thr format isn't for me and I can't have confidence in it. Maybe it's still good for others, but I couldn't enjoy a format that was handled in those regards.
Unfortunately, the only way I can see us getting 3 or 4 is if we, as a community, loudly and clearly state this is something we want and need to have confidence in the company. If the community doesn't rally together and request to demand more communication from wotc we will never get it. it's not in their financial interest to so from their perspective, why take the time. For standard their cash cow sure, but for us who care about modern a format wotc doesn't seem to care about except for the fact it's popular, so they only pay attention to it when something they don't like is happening or something is taking away from standard their favorite child so to say.
Wizards is trying to destroy Modern so Frontier or something Similar can be a thing. I believe the card pool in modern is so vast and with out rotation(adding new cards with the printing of every new set) It's impossible to keep balance of modern with out bans. I love Modern, I just wish wizards would get their nose out of the format, since there is no pro tour wizards really doesn't have a stake in the format anymore. I really believe wizards is actively working to tear down modern to boost sells of standard. If you don't like the moves wizards is making in modern don't reward them by buying into standard or playing limited. You don't have to play sanctioned formats to have fun, Table top magic is still a lot of fun and you can play whatever you find enjoyable. I know this sounds like a tin foil Conspiracy but wizards cares more about money than the health of a beloved format like modern.
Fair enough. In my opinion everyone should get into Legacy, so if you ever get the chance I'd recommend it. I particularly like the way that Wizards only steps in when things are grossly degenerate.
Legacy is a great format i just don't think it can support that many more players. The reserved list is a real problem for the formats growth. The more people are interested the more the dual lands price goes up. (among other reserved list cards for specific decks such as LED, mox diamond, and aluren)
To be fair i also think now is a poor time to be making decisions about shifting formats. Tempers are flared and the wounds are fresh. Let's see what happens to the format before we decide that this format is getting worse.
Legacy has a pretty good scene online too. They can reprint cards on MODO because the Reserve List does not extend to digital products, so duals are usually a couple bucks or so. Jace is like $10 and Force is like $30.
And I don't know. The banning of Twin pushed me out of proxying Legacy into finally building Miracles and I've been pretty happy about it. Sometimes people need that extra push to jump into a format with higher prices.
Fair enough. In my opinion everyone should get into Legacy, so if you ever get the chance I'd recommend it. I particularly like the way that Wizards only steps in when things are grossly degenerate.
Legacy is a great format i just don't think it can support that many more players. The reserved list is a real problem for the formats growth. The more people are interested the more the dual lands price goes up. (among other reserved list cards for specific decks such as LED, mox diamond, and aluren)
To be fair i also think now is a poor time to be making decisions about shifting formats. Tempers are flared and the wounds are fresh. Let's see what happens to the format before we decide that this format is getting worse.
Legacy has a pretty good scene online too. They can reprint cards on MODO because the Reserve List does not extend to digital products, so duals are usually a couple bucks or so. Jace is like $10 and Force is like $30.
And I don't know. The banning of Twin pushed me out of proxying Legacy into finally building Miracles and I've been pretty happy about it. Sometimes people need that extra push to jump into a format with higher prices.
Sure that is fair but I (and i may be alone in this) HATE MODO. I play Magic in paper and only in paper. When i play with friends and family across the country we use google+ so maybe legacy is an answer for Digital players but it is not an answer for the majority of paper modern players.
And yes, Counterspell and other cheaper and efficient counters. The fact that Counterspell and Mana Leak hit the same things in the fast aggressive decks is completely irrelevant. Control and Midrange decks already have positive matchups against those fast linear decks so it doesn't matter whatsoever there. But control and midrange decks have HORRID matchups against the big-mana decks like RG Breach/Valakut, Eldrazi, and Tron. Those decks can pay for Mana Leak multiple times over but Counterspell would be a huge positive for fair control and midrange decks to have a fighting chance there.
When fast linear decks are dominant that means they're preying on slower, rampy decks. Not midrange and control.
This idea ( not you personally ) is something I take issue with. There would be no reason to play anything other than control/midrange if they had counterspell to answer almost everything unconditionally for the low cost of 2 mana.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
Fair enough. In my opinion everyone should get into Legacy, so if you ever get the chance I'd recommend it. I particularly like the way that Wizards only steps in when things are grossly degenerate.
My main concern, is that if this is how they handle the future, I could see them screwing up anything they touch in the future. If they don't restore my confidence in Modern, I'm selling quite a chunk of my Legacy as well. I'd be reducing my collection by about 80%.
It's pretty bad when people are posting and joking around saying "Where's my Dust?" (Hearthstone Reference) after all these bannings to Wizards employees. You can't ban your way into a good format, and we know this about Modern, now they have doubled down on their banning announcements every year (which I think is good), but with the same announcement remove 5 cards from Constructed play makes it seem like we have huge problems on the horizon.
It's hard to defend Magic, let alone Modern. I've said for years the PR/Communication from this company is absolutely horrid, and most users on this forum criticized me for it. Do you believe me now? I hate to be a doomsayer, but this company needs half its staff fired or we all won't be playing Magic in 5 years. Look at how ridiculously desperate Wizards has been with their products. Who cares about Masterpieces and Expeditions if the set just completely sucks? Why are commander cards in my Standard Products? Why can't you put something in for Modern players? Why does removal have to be so horrible? There are hundreds, and hundreds of basic questions that no one ever gets a clear cut answer. All they have done over the past 10 years is remove more and more in-game mechanics such as Land Destruction and Counter Magic, and added extra resources like Energy, Infect, and ETB triggers.
Instead of embracing what makes Magic different than any other game on the market, they just turned it into a sub-par game where other options excel.
Things like "policing" a format and "police" decks sound like things people say b/c they sound fancy and in the know.
I'd like somebody to define both terms, please.
Police decks are (or where) defined as Decks like Jund and UR Twin. Decks which had the means to say no to many of the fringe strategies or abusive interactions present in the card pool, to prevent things from getting out of hand.
Most GBx and Twin varients where 'police' decks under that definition.
Policing a format, involves setting a standard within the format 'you must be able to deal with X, or not fold to Y' types of arguments. Many many janky combo's that depended on things which could be countered easily, or bolted, for example are 'policed' by Jund and URx control style decks.
I play Shape Anew, just messing around really these last few days and when you come up against a police deck, it falls apart a bit. When you come up against non-interactive decks, you can just go off and win T4, like Twin.
In short.
Police decks push interaction to the point where if your strategy folds to interaction, you lose. Midrange, Tempo/Combo/Control, and Control decks would all fall under that definition. Right now, in T1, we expect GBx to do all the policing, and those are the most expensive decks...
Thank you...that is helpful. I wonder why though we don't simply say we all want a BALANCED format with a DIVERSITY in deck types so that aggro, combo, mid-range, and control all become viable, competitive options in the format for the player base and no one of those archetypes is allowed to run roughshod over the rest b/c each archetype has advantages and disadvantages in a format in which all the deck types can live and breath together. Lack of diversity is what drove me out of Standard more than the dumb-down of power level. I see the potential for balance in the Modern card pool but after playing for a year now I also see it too suffers from a lack of diverse options for players to choose from.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
FREE MODERN. Break the Standard link.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Good take on Frontier...I would go as far as using the word "scam" to raise the prices of certain cards, like the Khan's fetches. The private, secondary-market influence, which is what is pushing the format, should be a red flag to everybody.
I'd hesitate to call it a scam. A friend of mine is from Japan and was telling me that there isn't a particularly large Modern scene there because the price of certain cards is too much for the average Japanese player to afford (since the older sets were not printed in Japanese very much). While they do have a very invested Legacy scene and Standard is popular, Modern has trouble. Apparently Hareyua created Frontier for those who want a non-rotating format but who can't afford the inflated price of Modern cards. They put it at KTK because it had a lot of decks that the younger players wanted to keep playing.
So yes, it is, in a way, entirely corporate since it was created specifically by one card shop. That being said, I can see where they're coming from and I don't think Frontier deserves as much hate as it gets.
I think a scam is anything in which a customer is not getting what they are being sold. Frontier is being sold as a "cheap" alternative to Modern but if it became a thing and was supported by WotC it would no longer be cheap. Therein, I believe, lies the scam.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
FREE MODERN. Break the Standard link.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
I wouldn't call it a scam, but to say that the idea of frontier being not partially financially motivated would be a lie. Besides "cheap" or "expensive" are relative.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
And yes, Counterspell and other cheaper and efficient counters. The fact that Counterspell and Mana Leak hit the same things in the fast aggressive decks is completely irrelevant. Control and Midrange decks already have positive matchups against those fast linear decks so it doesn't matter whatsoever there. But control and midrange decks have HORRID matchups against the big-mana decks like RG Breach/Valakut, Eldrazi, and Tron. Those decks can pay for Mana Leak multiple times over but Counterspell would be a huge positive for fair control and midrange decks to have a fighting chance there.
When fast linear decks are dominant that means they're preying on slower, rampy decks. Not midrange and control.
This idea ( not you personally ) is something I take issue with. There would be no reason to play anything other than control/midrange if they had counterspell to answer almost everything unconditionally for the low cost of 2 mana.
I understand that sentiment, but I don't think that a 4-of would have quite that impact. For one thing, BG/x likely wouldn't play it (unless BUG really exploded in power and popularity). For another, Eldrazi already uses Cavern of Souls and others could start doing so as well. There are multiple ways to play around or negate (no pun intended) a counter spell, but giving the card to Control would go a long way toward making it viable when currently the big mana decks simply dominate those matchups.
Fair enough. In my opinion everyone should get into Legacy, so if you ever get the chance I'd recommend it. I particularly like the way that Wizards only steps in when things are grossly degenerate.
It would be nice if they would treat Modern that way, so we had a format that was open and hands-off that didn't include the reserved list.
As for Frontier, players who have a bunch of leftover Standard staples aren't being scammed. Or anyone who bought in before it got popular. There is demand for a place to use newer, high-print run cards that doesn't have such a huge pool of rarely-reprinted things. So I think it's fine for now; I see the economic issues being the same down the line as for Modern, of course.
Structurally, it does irk me that they add M15 & Origins, as these sets are full of reprints and risk bringing with them the same problems 8th & 9th Ed does for Modern... random cards from old sets where things didn't work the way they do now tends to throw a wrench in the works.
Good take on Frontier...I would go as far as using the word "scam" to raise the prices of certain cards, like the Khan's fetches. The private, secondary-market influence, which is what is pushing the format, should be a red flag to everybody.
I'd hesitate to call it a scam. A friend of mine is from Japan and was telling me that there isn't a particularly large Modern scene there because the price of certain cards is too much for the average Japanese player to afford (since the older sets were not printed in Japanese very much). While they do have a very invested Legacy scene and Standard is popular, Modern has trouble. Apparently Hareyua created Frontier for those who want a non-rotating format but who can't afford the inflated price of Modern cards. They put it at KTK because it had a lot of decks that the younger players wanted to keep playing.
So yes, it is, in a way, entirely corporate since it was created specifically by one card shop. That being said, I can see where they're coming from and I don't think Frontier deserves as much hate as it gets.
I think a scam is anything in which a customer is not getting what they are being sold. Frontier is being sold as a "cheap" alternative to Modern but if it became a thing and was supported by WotC it would no longer be cheap. Therein, I believe, lies the scam.
Well, cheap is relative. For some people a $50 deck is cheap, for others $200 is cheap. The price of Frontier cards is definitely going up, I agree. However, is it actually being sold as a cheap alternative by the people who are making it? Last I saw they were marketing it as a format for Standard players (such as the younger Japanese audience who don't have access to Modern cards) to play their decks in a non-rotating environment. It seems like it was the internet mob (particularly reddit) that latched onto it being cheap and tout that as an example of it being a scam.
I wouldn't call it a scam, but to say that the idea of frontier being not partially financially motivated would be a lie.
Which I specifically addressed in my first post about it?
Edit: in response to Shmanka, rest assured that I disagree thoroughly. If Modern is mismanaged, why should you sell off Legacy, which has been stable and well managed for quite some time?
People also seem to latch on to the idea that the sets are bad, when they're created for a different audience. Triple SoI, EMN and Triple Kaladesh have all been great draft formats. Kaladesh in particular is one of the best we've had since Khans. They've been smashing Limited play time and again.
Yes, this means that Constructed takes a hit and yes, that is a bad thing. They need to balance Limited and Constructed. But some people seem to think that the entire game is going down the drain when things aren't as bad as they appear. The Standard bannings and recent articles show that Wizards is aware that the recent sets might not have been crafted particularly well and that more answers need to be printed. I say give them time to do that and see how it goes.
Frontier wont be cheap for long, I mentioned this elsewhere, but speculation is already taking place, and several vendors are dry of some of the cards folks would expect to find.
The day it becomes an 'official' format, is he day it ceases to be anything but a mirror to moderns price issues.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
Frontier wont be cheap for long, I mentioned this elsewhere, but speculation is already taking place, and several vendors are dry of some of the cards folks would expect to find.
The day it becomes an 'official' format, is he day it ceases to be anything but a mirror to moderns price issues.
Out of curiosity, where would you go, if that were the case? Legacy? Or more of an "I'm out, screw Magic" kinda thing?
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
I definitely agree that ultimatums are bad in relationships. That said, my relationship to Modern is a different kind of relationship than the one you are talking about. It's much more instrumental because Modern is just a preferred format in a hobby; if anything, the real relationship (as you define) I have is with Magic as a game, not Modern as a format. Having played Modern since 2011, been a mod since 2014, and done Nexus since 2015, I now know what I like and dislike about Modern and what attracts me and pushes me away from the format. Those four criteria represent the four major issues I have with the format and I can't enjoy myself in a format where those continue to be problems. None of those things would push me away from Magic, an enjoyable game I still recommend to anyone interested in a gaming hobby. They would just reduce my interest in the Modern format enough to find Magic enjoyment elsewhere.
I'm hoping for at least some explanation of these updates this coming Friday. Or even next week. That would be a good start to repairing some of the damage done in the announcement, and sets us of on a good foot for the rest of the year.
Likely Legacy. Or some grassroots foray into a post-Modern "Origins" format. I can't get behind Frontier because the cutoff doesn't make sense to me (Khans is almost certainly more powerful than what Wizards would want the successor to be). Also, the format has too much private, secondary-market interest in its creation.
I'd like somebody to define both terms, please.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
[/quote]
Likely Legacy. Or some grassroots foray into a post-Modern "Origins" format. I can't get behind Frontier because the cutoff doesn't make sense to me (Khans is almost certainly more powerful than what Wizards would want the successor to be) to me. Also, the format has too much private, secondary-market interest in its creation.[/quote]
Good take on Frontier...I would go as far as using the word "scam" to raise the prices of certain cards, like the Khan's fetches. The private, secondary-market influence, which is what is pushing the format, should be a red flag to everybody.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Police decks are (or where) defined as Decks like Jund and UR Twin. Decks which had the means to say no to many of the fringe strategies or abusive interactions present in the card pool, to prevent things from getting out of hand.
Most GBx and Twin varients where 'police' decks under that definition.
Policing a format, involves setting a standard within the format 'you must be able to deal with X, or not fold to Y' types of arguments. Many many janky combo's that depended on things which could be countered easily, or bolted, for example are 'policed' by Jund and URx control style decks.
I play Shape Anew, just messing around really these last few days and when you come up against a police deck, it falls apart a bit. When you come up against non-interactive decks, you can just go off and win T4, like Twin.
In short.
Police decks push interaction to the point where if your strategy folds to interaction, you lose. Midrange, Tempo/Combo/Control, and Control decks would all fall under that definition. Right now, in T1, we expect GBx to do all the policing, and those are the most expensive decks...
Spirits
They include many things. For a while Innocent Blood was chief among them. But now we have Fatal Push, which likely answers that space.
Better non-basic land hate. Something between the power levels of what we currently have in Modern and Wasteland.
And yes, Counterspell and other cheaper and efficient counters. The fact that Counterspell and Mana Leak hit the same things in the fast aggressive decks is completely irrelevant. Control and Midrange decks already have positive matchups against those fast linear decks so it doesn't matter whatsoever there. But control and midrange decks have HORRID matchups against the big-mana decks like RG Breach/Valakut, Eldrazi, and Tron. Those decks can pay for Mana Leak multiple times over but Counterspell would be a huge positive for fair control and midrange decks to have a fighting chance there.
When fast linear decks are dominant that means they're preying on slower, rampy decks. Not midrange and control.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
I'd hesitate to call it a scam. A friend of mine is from Japan and was telling me that there isn't a particularly large Modern scene there because the price of certain cards is too much for the average Japanese player to afford (since the older sets were not printed in Japanese very much). While they do have a very invested Legacy scene and Standard is popular, Modern has trouble. Apparently Hareyua created Frontier for those who want a non-rotating format but who can't afford the inflated price of Modern cards. They put it at KTK because it had a lot of decks that the younger players wanted to keep playing.
So yes, it is, in a way, entirely corporate since it was created specifically by one card shop. That being said, I can see where they're coming from and I don't think Frontier deserves as much hate as it gets.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
Legacy is a great format i just don't think it can support that many more players. The reserved list is a real problem for the formats growth. The more people are interested the more the dual lands price goes up. (among other reserved list cards for specific decks such as LED, mox diamond, and aluren)
To be fair i also think now is a poor time to be making decisions about shifting formats. Tempers are flared and the wounds are fresh. Let's see what happens to the format before we decide that this format is getting worse.
Unfortunately, the only way I can see us getting 3 or 4 is if we, as a community, loudly and clearly state this is something we want and need to have confidence in the company. If the community doesn't rally together and request to demand more communication from wotc we will never get it. it's not in their financial interest to so from their perspective, why take the time. For standard their cash cow sure, but for us who care about modern a format wotc doesn't seem to care about except for the fact it's popular, so they only pay attention to it when something they don't like is happening or something is taking away from standard their favorite child so to say.
Legacy has a pretty good scene online too. They can reprint cards on MODO because the Reserve List does not extend to digital products, so duals are usually a couple bucks or so. Jace is like $10 and Force is like $30.
And I don't know. The banning of Twin pushed me out of proxying Legacy into finally building Miracles and I've been pretty happy about it. Sometimes people need that extra push to jump into a format with higher prices.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
Sure that is fair but I (and i may be alone in this) HATE MODO. I play Magic in paper and only in paper. When i play with friends and family across the country we use google+ so maybe legacy is an answer for Digital players but it is not an answer for the majority of paper modern players.
This idea ( not you personally ) is something I take issue with. There would be no reason to play anything other than control/midrange if they had counterspell to answer almost everything unconditionally for the low cost of 2 mana.
My main concern, is that if this is how they handle the future, I could see them screwing up anything they touch in the future. If they don't restore my confidence in Modern, I'm selling quite a chunk of my Legacy as well. I'd be reducing my collection by about 80%.
It's pretty bad when people are posting and joking around saying "Where's my Dust?" (Hearthstone Reference) after all these bannings to Wizards employees. You can't ban your way into a good format, and we know this about Modern, now they have doubled down on their banning announcements every year (which I think is good), but with the same announcement remove 5 cards from Constructed play makes it seem like we have huge problems on the horizon.
It's hard to defend Magic, let alone Modern. I've said for years the PR/Communication from this company is absolutely horrid, and most users on this forum criticized me for it. Do you believe me now? I hate to be a doomsayer, but this company needs half its staff fired or we all won't be playing Magic in 5 years. Look at how ridiculously desperate Wizards has been with their products. Who cares about Masterpieces and Expeditions if the set just completely sucks? Why are commander cards in my Standard Products? Why can't you put something in for Modern players? Why does removal have to be so horrible? There are hundreds, and hundreds of basic questions that no one ever gets a clear cut answer. All they have done over the past 10 years is remove more and more in-game mechanics such as Land Destruction and Counter Magic, and added extra resources like Energy, Infect, and ETB triggers.
Instead of embracing what makes Magic different than any other game on the market, they just turned it into a sub-par game where other options excel.
Thank you...that is helpful. I wonder why though we don't simply say we all want a BALANCED format with a DIVERSITY in deck types so that aggro, combo, mid-range, and control all become viable, competitive options in the format for the player base and no one of those archetypes is allowed to run roughshod over the rest b/c each archetype has advantages and disadvantages in a format in which all the deck types can live and breath together. Lack of diversity is what drove me out of Standard more than the dumb-down of power level. I see the potential for balance in the Modern card pool but after playing for a year now I also see it too suffers from a lack of diverse options for players to choose from.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
I think a scam is anything in which a customer is not getting what they are being sold. Frontier is being sold as a "cheap" alternative to Modern but if it became a thing and was supported by WotC it would no longer be cheap. Therein, I believe, lies the scam.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
It would be nice if they would treat Modern that way, so we had a format that was open and hands-off that didn't include the reserved list.
As for Frontier, players who have a bunch of leftover Standard staples aren't being scammed. Or anyone who bought in before it got popular. There is demand for a place to use newer, high-print run cards that doesn't have such a huge pool of rarely-reprinted things. So I think it's fine for now; I see the economic issues being the same down the line as for Modern, of course.
Structurally, it does irk me that they add M15 & Origins, as these sets are full of reprints and risk bringing with them the same problems 8th & 9th Ed does for Modern... random cards from old sets where things didn't work the way they do now tends to throw a wrench in the works.
Well, cheap is relative. For some people a $50 deck is cheap, for others $200 is cheap. The price of Frontier cards is definitely going up, I agree. However, is it actually being sold as a cheap alternative by the people who are making it? Last I saw they were marketing it as a format for Standard players (such as the younger Japanese audience who don't have access to Modern cards) to play their decks in a non-rotating environment. It seems like it was the internet mob (particularly reddit) that latched onto it being cheap and tout that as an example of it being a scam.
Which I specifically addressed in my first post about it?
Edit: in response to Shmanka, rest assured that I disagree thoroughly. If Modern is mismanaged, why should you sell off Legacy, which has been stable and well managed for quite some time?
People also seem to latch on to the idea that the sets are bad, when they're created for a different audience. Triple SoI, EMN and Triple Kaladesh have all been great draft formats. Kaladesh in particular is one of the best we've had since Khans. They've been smashing Limited play time and again.
Yes, this means that Constructed takes a hit and yes, that is a bad thing. They need to balance Limited and Constructed. But some people seem to think that the entire game is going down the drain when things aren't as bad as they appear. The Standard bannings and recent articles show that Wizards is aware that the recent sets might not have been crafted particularly well and that more answers need to be printed. I say give them time to do that and see how it goes.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
The day it becomes an 'official' format, is he day it ceases to be anything but a mirror to moderns price issues.
Spirits
And ? Am I not allowed to express my thoughts to the post before mine just because something along the same line has been said previously ?
source: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/54jyvl/postmodern_has_begun_hareruya_and_bigmagic_team/
Note the third bullet point.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.