I know its not a really good reason, but one concern for having both Preordain and Serum Visions legal in modern is that a lot of decks would end up playing both and since the effects are the same except for doing things in a different order, players could mix up the order when playing one of the two.
For example, cast Serum Visions scry first then draw. Or the opposite.
Might happen or might not, but it could lead to many judge calls.
If R&D thinks this is a reason to keep Preordain banned, none of them should be working on R&D. I appreciate logistical issues being a good reason to ban cards, but the bar for that should be tournament-wrecking logistical issues like those surrounding Sunrise and Top. Judge calls because players can't read their cards should never be an issue.
Also, that issue would self-resolve quickly. Nothing helps people learn the rules like getting punished by a judge for errors. That is a feature, not a bug imo.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Some thoughts about control while MTGO is down. I came back from the holidays yesterday so I picked my UW Expertise deck for some leagues (1 off stream, 2 on). The thing with control (one of them, rather) is that it's freaking exhausting to play. Like, how fresh and focused you are is so critical to getting results. Yes, if we go to the very highest level of players, the kind that can play 9 rounds in a day, high stakes and then not make mistakes, ok. But regular players like me, who get tired, lose focus and start punting, it's complicated.
I could see it yesterday, I arrived home, fired a league, got a very easy 5-0. How cool. Then some time later on stream I play another one, played decently, 4-1, didn't 5-0 because of a single Burn hellish opener. And then I was getting tired and it went downhill from there in the 3rd one. I basically punted 3 matches away, or not punted but generally played badly, or slowly, or had silly plans. This is all a bit to come back to what I said at some point about control being actually powerful when properly built and played. I'm at around 70 matches played (which is a very low sample) and my winrate moves between 65% and 70% depending on how the last few matches went. The deck IS actually powerful, and I'm close to believing it's a legit tournament contender.
But then... if I'm punting matches away in the 3rd league because of being tired and distracted by chat, how on Earth can I expect to play that deck seriously in a GP? When I play Bloo, in addition to games being much faster (fewer chances to screw up), the nature of the deck made it so you could still overcome punting and bad lines (ok I did this silly thing and instead of killing you with this Thing now I lost it... nvm I instead kill you with this Fiend next turn). It was complicated to play, yes, and punting happened. But more often than not I just played "well enough". And yes, with control, playing "well enough" is playing almost perfectly. And then, if you do play perfectly, you will crush and have top winrates. But if you don't play "well enough", meaning perfectly, you just lose.
So where am I going with these random thoughts? Well, first, I know if they give me something really relevant for that deck I will crush with it, I know it for a fact. Even 4 Counterspells would push it so hard. And secondly, that would be really dangerous in the hands of really good players.
It's a very complicated balance, but I can tell you with certainty that a deck like the one I'm playing, with some real boost they give it, in the hands of a real, good player, would be rocking 70% winrate on MTGO and top tier power-wise in any GP.
EDIT: So yes, if this sounds like that thing some people don't like to hear ("just learn to play better"), I'm sorry, but in the end it's the way it is. You can have a deck that is easier to play and say, its performance moves between 45% and 65% depending on your skill, and then you can have another one and its performance moves between 30% and 70%. Which one is the best deck? Well it depends where you set the threshold, what skill level you judge? At low skill levels deck A is better. At medium skill levels they are close. And at very high skill levels deck B is better, even if the skill it takes for that, only a fraction of players have.
EDIT2: Also, I'm getting those results myself, a random normal mtgo player, with a, let's say, unorthodox list which is surely suboptimal. I don't need to imagine how good control players with solid lists do, because I know a couple of them.
EDIT3: Yes, MTGO, it's low level, ok. But it's not like it's 10 yo newbies. I beat Todd Stevens and Sam Black yesterday. You also get good players there.
I made part of this argument several pages back when people tried to lynch me. To play control (or tempo), requires a high degree of patience, focus, and understanding. I don't think you can have control and not have a higher skill requirement. It wont be a walk in the park like some existing tier 1 decks (I got turn 4 Ulamoged, twice last night. It doesnt take a lot of skill to do that and win shortly after).
Blue requires you to understand your deck intimately. It requires you to have a very good understanding of the format and the meta. It requires you to know Magic very well, in general. And you need to be a good player in general. The better you are, the better you will do with the right control or tempo deck.
Its not an easy-win color. Im not sure if it needs to be.
I've also often argued that blue decks are underrepresented, at least in part, because of a much bigger spread in the skill ceiling vs skill floor for the decks. It's a really nuanced part of the discussion, and frequently online its not the lowest hanging fruit and is therefore passed over for more binary arguments that are easily supported/rejected.
The fact that some people have said stuff like 'only cory burkhart' can play grixis demonstrates that people are even aware of this, and yet ignore it when discussing the decks.
No one is going to argue that burn is harder to play than Uxx reactive decks. However, most people just equate 'harder to play' with 'worse' - which is a mistake and lacks nuance. Sometimes 'harder to play' does mean 'worse', but not always. Some decks just have many more decisions, which is a big part of it.
It's a challenging topic because we really don't have a way to incorporate how challenging a deck is to pilot with its tiering. I think amulet bloom is the most obvious example of deck that is hard to play, but has a very high skill ceiling that only the most dedicated and talented pilots can ever see.
I've also often argued that blue decks are underrepresented, at least in part, because of a much bigger spread in the skill ceiling vs skill floor for the decks. It's a really nuanced part of the discussion, and frequently online its not the lowest hanging fruit and is therefore passed over for more binary arguments that are easily supported/rejected.
The fact that some people have said stuff like 'only cory burkhart' can play grixis demonstrates that people are even aware of this, and yet ignore it when discussing the decks.
No one is going to argue that burn is harder to play than Uxx reactive decks. However, most people just equate 'harder to play' with 'worse' - which is a mistake and lacks nuance. Sometimes 'harder to play' does mean 'worse', but not always. Some decks just have many more decisions, which is a big part of it.
It's a challenging topic because we really don't have a way to incorporate how challenging a deck is to pilot with its tiering. I think amulet bloom is the most obvious example of deck that is hard to play, but has a very high skill ceiling that only the most dedicated and talented pilots can ever see.
Again, an argument I made that people summed up to some form of elitism. Its either a deck is good because it shows-up, or a deck is bad because it doesn't show-up. A weak argument that I don't have the patience unfolding online, because of the understanding gap.
Blue can use some cool tools. But you can play blue properly now, and win, a lot. You need to be dedicated, though. Most people just want it easy. I can respect that. But it does not conclude that what isn't easy is bad.
I'm sorry but at this point I don't take metagame numbers any seriously when discussing the strenght of a deck. I know people, some here, put a lot of good work at it, and I respect it and enjoy it. But Amulet Bloom, Lantern, DS, even Bloo and others were strong decks before they started to see shares, and in the case of my own deck, Bloo, I know for a fact that it was stronger than metagame shares even showed. In its case, many people thought it was a joke brainless deck, in Amulet Bloom's, hard to play, in Lantern's case, janky and hard to play. In DS's case, we just ignored it while it was already busted until Sam Black decided we were not ignoring it any longer.
For every Amulet Bloom and Lantern Control, there are a dozen Faeries, RG Ponzas, Goblins, Allies, Tezzerators, Mono U Trons, 4C Gifts, Slivers, Eggs, and many, many other decks that are just as poorly positioned and sub-optimal as their standings indicate. As I said in a previous post, I suspect about 90%-95% of Tier 3 decks are exactly where they belong. 5%-10% are better.
Now, if you know your metagame and can choose a deck to beat that known metagame, tiers matter a lot less. There's this guy in Japan who gets T8 in 1-2 Modern events every week with Nykthos Green, and he's been doing it for at least 2 years. But in open fields and large events full of unknown opponents, they matter a lot more.
EDIT: I'll also say that some Tier 2 decks are potentially as viable as some Tier 1 decks, but just haven't caught on. That's not true for all Tier 2 decks, but it does apply to some.
So no, metagame numbers are fine to see, well, how a metagame looks. But to say a deck is bad because it doesn't show doesn't fly to me. And the opposite. Jund has been an awful choice for I don't know how many months, and only now has finally dropped out of tier 1. I guess a lot of people that straight refused to believe Jund wasn't good have finally accepted it. And there are a lot of examples like these.
This isn't quite right. Traditional Jund was actually really good for most of 2016 but isn't as good now when you have DS Jund competing for spots. I suspect Traditional Jund is still better than many give credit, just as DS Jund isn't quite as good as its standings show, but this is the new BGx equilibrium for now. And again, it's not because Jund was secretly bad in 2016. It's that DS Jund has taken old Jund's share.
DS jund got a fairly big boost with Fatal push to give it more play against traditional jund, so I think Fatal Push is the best explanation for the timing of that particular shift.
edit: The space between the skill ceiling and skill floor for a given deck is only one of the attributes that helps describe/predict how popular it is/will be, not the sole or salient attribute.
For every Amulet Bloom and Lantern Control, there are a dozen Faeries, RG Ponzas, Goblins, Allies, Tezzerators, Mono U Trons, 4C Gifts, Slivers, Eggs, and many, many other decks that are just as poorly positioned and sub-optimal as their standings indicate. As I said in a previous post, I suspect about 90%-95% of Tier 3 decks are exactly where they belong. 5%-10% are better.
This might be the case, but how would we ever know whether its 1% or 25%? Especially given just how long a deck like amulet bloom or lantern control hung around until multiple good performances forced pros to practice the deck and show what the skill ceiling looked like. Until a pro demonstrates the skill ceiling, we just won't know which decks are underperforming their skill ceiling.
I don't have a good way of analyzing which decks have a potentially undemonstratedly higher skill ceiling than their ranking implies, anyone got ideas on this? What attributes or features in decks like amulet bloom and lantern control can we use to help identify other decks whose skill ceiling has not been reached?
For every Amulet Bloom and Lantern Control, there are a dozen Faeries, RG Ponzas, Goblins, Allies, Tezzerators, Mono U Trons, 4C Gifts, Slivers, Eggs, and many, many other decks that are just as poorly positioned and sub-optimal as their standings indicate. As I said in a previous post, I suspect about 90%-95% of Tier 3 decks are exactly where they belong. 5%-10% are better.
This might be the case, but how would we ever know whether its 1% or 25%? Especially given just how long a deck like amulet bloom or lantern control hung around until multiple good performances forced pros to practice the deck and show what the skill ceiling looked like. Until a pro demonstrates the skill ceiling, we just won't know which decks are underperforming their skill ceiling.
I don't have a good way of analyzing which decks have a potentially undemonstratedly higher skill ceiling than their ranking implies, anyone got ideas on this? What attributes or features in decks like amulet bloom and lantern control can we use to help identify other decks whose skill ceiling has not been reached?
I back-of-the-napkinned 5%-10% based on a quick breakdown of previous Tier 1, 2, and 3 listings, identifying Tier 3 (or untiered) decks that ultimately breached Tier 1 or Tier 2 after "discovery." I then took that number as a percentage of all the decks that didn't breach those tiers, excluding any deck that didn't hit a baseline metagame percentage in the first place. If I include those bottom-of-the-barrel options, it's actually about 1% or less of decks. Excluding those, it's about 5%-10%, depending on where you set the cutoff.
Of course, there's no way to know this with certainty. IN THEORY, it is true that ANY of those untiered decks could be secretly Tier 2, 1, or even 0! But that's a nonsense approach which leaves us with nowhere to go. If instead you use historic data to make an estimate, it's in that range. A more accurate estimate would be between <1% and 10% of Tier 3 or lower decks, if you really want to look at every single deck in Modern circulation.
EDIT: I'll also say that people put WAY too much weight on Bloom as some breakout deck. We tracked this as Tier 2 as early as 2014; its MTGO performance was impressive. If anything, this is a testament to the tiering system, which caught Bloom as Tier 2 before most people acknowledged it. The only real stunner was Lantern Control. Bloo was also a breakout hit.
I think the system of tiering is fine. People put too much stock into the system. If a deck feels Tier 1 in play strength, but isn't in metagame numbers, then by all means it is Tier 1 to you. That's what matters. I had felt for a long time that Bloom Titan should be in Tier 1 here at mtgsalvation, but people told me that it didn't have the metagame percentages. After a bit, I accepted it, but realized that from playing the deck and against it, that it was just as strong as any of the other Tier 1 decks. (Although admittedly, I never felt it was better than Tier 1.) Personally I have never thought that Lantern was Tier 1, but that is only my own opinion and I am free to have it.
In the case of Jund, a lot of players are going to play the deck because foiling it is expensive and it may be one of the few decks that they own. Not to mention, many Jund players have adapted to playing in many different metagames. Remember, they even did fairly well during the Pod era (well, not with Siege Rhino, but before). I won't mention the Eldrazi era since I faced maybe 2 Junds in over 100 matches played at the time at Comp REL. I personally feel that Jund is slightly better than HolyDiva gives it credit for. A good Jund player can beat the Burns, Infects, Bloos, and Death's Shadows of the world - it just isn't past 55/45 for them. And I also have changed my opinion on the Eldrazi matchup, which isn't as bad as I had initially seen and read about. Tron and Titan Shift, I'll give you.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I know Jund offers room for skill, though. I was amazed at Jaberwocki's results with it every time he played Modern for a couple of weeks.
My point of view is mostly shaped by the players I know who are good players who run Jund. It also shapes how I feel about decks like Affinity and Merfolk.
You've been doing super well with UW Control. What would you care if someone tells you that it is Tier 3? I have won close to 70% of my matches with Bogles. I don't care if someone calls it Tier 4. It just makes me look better for doing well with a Tier 4 deck, lol.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Well I think Jund was actually pretty bad for most of 2016. And the only real reason we are even talking about it is the sheer amount of people that played it nonetheless. Jund was garbage during Eldrazi Winter, obviously, but that doesn't count. And then, after it, when all those linear decks were dominating Modern, it wasn't even that good. Jund didn't have great matchups vs Burn, Infect, Zooicide or Bloo despite what people might want to believe. It got done good by any blue deck that happened to appear in front of it, such as Grixis. And it got nicely brutalized by Tron, Valakut, Bant Eldrazi. I'm not saying it was TERRIBLE, it could still beat up on crappy decks and some specific good ones like say Affinity, Ad Nauseam... but generally speaking, the last time Jund was truly WELL positioned was before Eldrazi Winter.
Now, if you have those numbers of people playing it, you get results. Mediocre, mostly, Jund hasn't been seen heavily in top8s for a long time. And again, if 15% of the field is on Merfolk well, you will see Merfolk up there, to name a random deck.
What happened recently was that the people that didn't or couldn't react to the reality that Jund wasn't that good, had to react when they saw a deck that does basically the same, just better and harder in every possible way.
The thing is jund put more decks in the top 8 post eldrazi winter than any other deck, in fact it had a higher top 8% than its metashare, indicating to me that the deck was over performing. The deck is really good, it is still good, but currently there is a better Version of it to play, which is why the numbers are so deflated
It's pretty difficult to see that the color that seeks to perfect itself (as per Rosewater's recent article) has access to these tools when compared to Oath of Nissa, Traverse the Ulvenwald, and Ancient Stirrings and unless I'm mistaken, the last time a cantrip (no filtering) was printed for U it was when M14 was released. The card did see standard play but it was usually a 2 or 3 of in decks that wanted to run the effect.
It looks like the last time blue was given access to a one mana effect that filtered in standard was in 2005. 12 years ago.
Edit -- Another theme is the concept of Blue needing more proactive threats. I agree. One of the major problems is that blue does not have access to a Grizzly Bears effect. In all the printing of Magic there hasn't been a 1U 2/2. Other colors have them readily, often with upside. The exception here is red but they do at least have a vanilla 2/2 for 1R. I think blue really struggles from an identity perspective in that much of what it did traditionally with card advantage/quality is being done better and more consistently in green. It does still have better ability to interact on the stack than other colors but there has been a big push for interacting with the battlefield, not the stack. I don't know how Wizards can fix this issue without 1) only printing tempo cards that sneak into sets that don't really work that clearly towards their color identity goal for blue, 2) making playable blue creatures be very synergistic to make them more playable (or make them multicolor so you get better effects), or 3) diluting part of green's color pie and making blue have appropriate threats. The problem with 3 is that blue and green become too similar with that.
I'm sorry but at this point I don't take metagame numbers any seriously when discussing the strenght of a deck.
Look, Holydiva... This exact notion you state, is the reason why some people can't take people like you seriously. You can't claim the counter-position is false because there is an extreme that exists. More or less, what you are describing is that there are exceptions to the rule.
If you don't take metagame numbers seriously, I truly believe you are disrupting your own potential as a player in the game.
Oh of course I don't care what people call good or bad or tier whatever. We all have our opinions, wrong or right. Mine change a lot, too.
A decks power has a relation to its tier only when its held that tier for an extended period of time. when a deck performs well for a short period and then falls to tier 3(nahiri jeskai) it was only hype and played alot because people wanted blue to be good since the twin ban.
but burn for example is undeniably one of the best decks in the game as it has held Strong for much longer than a couple months.
people can be stubborn and play tier 3-4 decks and play/build their deck very tightly, perform well, and argue its fine. but compared to the power level of the top dogs it really isnt.
this is what blue players want, a top dog, not a dominating one, but a format pillar like it once had with twin.
Sorry, but UR Twin was basically a combo deck with counterspells, and an alt win-condition in the sideboard. If that is "blue" to you, then ok. Even UR storm can durdle its way to a win if it doesn't hit Grapeshot (at least the newer builds).
Sorry, but UR Twin was basically a combo deck with counterspells, and an alt win-condition in the sideboard. If that is "blue" to you, then ok. Even UR storm can durdle its way to a win if it doesn't hit Grapeshot (at least the newer builds).
Sorry, but UR Twin was basically a combo deck with counterspells, and an alt win-condition in the sideboard. If that is "blue" to you, then ok. Even UR storm can durdle its way to a win if it doesn't hit Grapeshot (at least the newer builds).
It seems no one can define "blue". Its basically a feeling. Playing blue for Tempo and X color for beatdown seems fun and how blue was intended to be played at least to me (as a support color). And if that is the case, then you have a good tier 2 deck called Grixis Delver (or Control Variants). Heck, even Merfolk! Twin was combo. At least the UR version.
So there you go. You have your blue deck. And if people play it more, I assure you itll end up Tier 1 at some point through sheer numbers (like many Tier 1 decks). No easy wins there, but its blue, and it has counter spells.
You play Grixis, dont you? So there is nothing to complain about.
You play Grixis, dont you? So there is nothing to complain about.
You're right, because I think it's the least boring creature beatdown deck and most viable Snapcastger deck. I find winning by playing a creature and attacking with it is the most mundane way to play the game. I relish in alternate win conditions, combos, backup plans, bolt-snap-bolt, and multiple forms of attack. That's why Twin was so appealing: it could play multiple roles and pretty much all of them were interesting because of the psychological effects of the combo. It allowed a lot of lines of play that really don't exist anymore because there's no threat I can present (or bluff) that causes opponents to hold back.
Regardless, your initial comment was snarky and unnecessary. Added nothing to the conversation other than stirring the pot with other people who hate Twin.
You play Grixis, dont you? So there is nothing to complain about.
You're right, because I think it's the least boring creature beatdown deck and most viable Snapcastger deck. I find winning by playing a creature and attacking with it is the most mundane way to play the game. I relish in alternate win conditions, combos, backup plans, bolt-snap-bolt, and multiple forms of attack. That's why Twin was so appealing: it could play multiple roles and pretty much all of them were interesting because of the psychological effects of the combo. It allowed a lot of lines of play that really don't exist anymore because there's no threat I can present (or bluff) that causes opponents to hold back.
Regardless, your initial comment was snarky and unnecessary. Added nothing to the conversation other than stirring the pot with other people who hate Twin.
I dont hate Twin. I own foil play-sets of the main pieces. Id probably play a Temur version of it if it came back.
The fact that it will not come back (or isnt here atm) does not vex me at all. You seem to be over simplifying your current options. Zoo is a creature beat-down deck. It numbingly casts small creatures and swings.
Grixis Delver (or control), or Temur Delver, are not straight up creature beat-downs. If thats how you play them, then there may be something wrong there.
Im not being snarky. Sorry if you perceive it that way.
"No changes" for Modern was expected. An unban would have been nice. A ban would have been outrageous.
I'll be pushing hard for controlling/reactive blue decks to get their unban soon. Lots of numbers to publish and discussion to spark!
What card do you think would change things if unbanned? You can't possibly mean jtms.
I'm still on team Preordain. It helps blue decks find generic answers, it helps them find specialized answers, and it helps them find win conditions. It also does this in the early stages of the game, avoiding many non-games that cause many blue decks to be so weak in Modern. There are more Tier 2 controlling blue decks (Grixis Delver, Grixis Control, Jeskai Control) than Tier 2 combo decks (Ad Nauseam, Gifts Storm), and those controlling decks have higher average shares and more consistent appearance in the top-tier. This leads me to believe their benefit from Preordain would outweigh the combo decks' benefit from Preordain.
It would help but not enough to change anything. Basically it replaces the 4x Serum Visions people are using now. That's good but no decks become viable that weren't before with Serum taking that spot. Meanwhile Combo decks get a free upgrade. We need a new card for blue to really make progress. Counterspell would be a good start. A 3cc planeswalker that can finish the game would be excellent. THe only card on the banlist that would make the kind of impact you are talking about is jtms.
Sorry, but UR Twin was basically a combo deck with counterspells, and an alt win-condition in the sideboard. If that is "blue" to you, then ok. Even UR storm can durdle its way to a win if it doesn't hit Grapeshot (at least the newer builds).
It seems no one can define "blue". Its basically a feeling. Playing blue for Tempo and X color for beatdown seems fun and how blue was intended to be played at least to me (as a support color). And if that is the case, then you have a good tier 2 deck called Grixis Delver (or Control Variants). Heck, even Merfolk! Twin was combo. At least the UR version.
So there you go. You have your blue deck. And if people play it more, I assure you itll end up Tier 1 at some point through sheer numbers (like many Tier 1 decks). No easy wins there, but its blue, and it has counter spells.
You play Grixis, dont you? So there is nothing to complain about.
"if people play it more, I assure you itll end up Tier 1 at some point through sheer numbers (like many Tier 1 decks). No easy wins there, but its blue, and it has counter spells."
"You play Grixis, dont you? So there is nothing to complain about."
I doubt it will get tier 1 in this current meta. and also, people who play grixis have plenty to complain about, especially if they are playing the control version. why? because control simply isnt good right now.
'Meanwhile combo gets a free upgrade'. Pretty much sums up my feelings towards Preordain. It is an upgrade for all blue decks yes. But it does more for combo than reactive decks. Reactive decks already have few flex slots due to poor answers and win conditions in general. Preordain+Serum could help mitigate that, but the deck building cost is real. Then you have Nauseam and Storm where they get to happily trade their Sleight of Hands for Preordain. They might be safe but it is unnecesary considering combo decks are always in the brink of being broken.
PS EDIT: You have to understand(ktk especially) that i'm not afraid of Preordain, i just don't want them to feed that to us come banlist changes time, and end up here again complaining.
"No changes" for Modern was expected. An unban would have been nice. A ban would have been outrageous.
I'll be pushing hard for controlling/reactive blue decks to get their unban soon. Lots of numbers to publish and discussion to spark!
What card do you think would change things if unbanned? You can't possibly mean jtms.
I'm still on team Preordain. It helps blue decks find generic answers, it helps them find specialized answers, and it helps them find win conditions. It also does this in the early stages of the game, avoiding many non-games that cause many blue decks to be so weak in Modern. There are more Tier 2 controlling blue decks (Grixis Delver, Grixis Control, Jeskai Control) than Tier 2 combo decks (Ad Nauseam, Gifts Storm), and those controlling decks have higher average shares and more consistent appearance in the top-tier. This leads me to believe their benefit from Preordain would outweigh the combo decks' benefit from Preordain.
It would help but not enough to change anything. Basically it replaces the 4x Serum Visions people are using now. That's good but no decks become viable that weren't before with Serum taking that spot. Meanwhile Combo decks get a free upgrade. We need a new card for blue to really make progress. Counterspell would be a good start. A 3cc planeswalker that can finish the game would be excellent. THe only card on the banlist that would make the kind of impact you are talking about is jtms.
We need multiple things to be better. counter spell preordain AND jace. maybe even sfm would help uwr.
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If R&D thinks this is a reason to keep Preordain banned, none of them should be working on R&D. I appreciate logistical issues being a good reason to ban cards, but the bar for that should be tournament-wrecking logistical issues like those surrounding Sunrise and Top. Judge calls because players can't read their cards should never be an issue.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I made part of this argument several pages back when people tried to lynch me. To play control (or tempo), requires a high degree of patience, focus, and understanding. I don't think you can have control and not have a higher skill requirement. It wont be a walk in the park like some existing tier 1 decks (I got turn 4 Ulamoged, twice last night. It doesnt take a lot of skill to do that and win shortly after).
Blue requires you to understand your deck intimately. It requires you to have a very good understanding of the format and the meta. It requires you to know Magic very well, in general. And you need to be a good player in general. The better you are, the better you will do with the right control or tempo deck.
Its not an easy-win color. Im not sure if it needs to be.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
The fact that some people have said stuff like 'only cory burkhart' can play grixis demonstrates that people are even aware of this, and yet ignore it when discussing the decks.
No one is going to argue that burn is harder to play than Uxx reactive decks. However, most people just equate 'harder to play' with 'worse' - which is a mistake and lacks nuance. Sometimes 'harder to play' does mean 'worse', but not always. Some decks just have many more decisions, which is a big part of it.
It's a challenging topic because we really don't have a way to incorporate how challenging a deck is to pilot with its tiering. I think amulet bloom is the most obvious example of deck that is hard to play, but has a very high skill ceiling that only the most dedicated and talented pilots can ever see.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Again, an argument I made that people summed up to some form of elitism. Its either a deck is good because it shows-up, or a deck is bad because it doesn't show-up. A weak argument that I don't have the patience unfolding online, because of the understanding gap.
Blue can use some cool tools. But you can play blue properly now, and win, a lot. You need to be dedicated, though. Most people just want it easy. I can respect that. But it does not conclude that what isn't easy is bad.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
For every Amulet Bloom and Lantern Control, there are a dozen Faeries, RG Ponzas, Goblins, Allies, Tezzerators, Mono U Trons, 4C Gifts, Slivers, Eggs, and many, many other decks that are just as poorly positioned and sub-optimal as their standings indicate. As I said in a previous post, I suspect about 90%-95% of Tier 3 decks are exactly where they belong. 5%-10% are better.
Now, if you know your metagame and can choose a deck to beat that known metagame, tiers matter a lot less. There's this guy in Japan who gets T8 in 1-2 Modern events every week with Nykthos Green, and he's been doing it for at least 2 years. But in open fields and large events full of unknown opponents, they matter a lot more.
EDIT: I'll also say that some Tier 2 decks are potentially as viable as some Tier 1 decks, but just haven't caught on. That's not true for all Tier 2 decks, but it does apply to some.
This isn't quite right. Traditional Jund was actually really good for most of 2016 but isn't as good now when you have DS Jund competing for spots. I suspect Traditional Jund is still better than many give credit, just as DS Jund isn't quite as good as its standings show, but this is the new BGx equilibrium for now. And again, it's not because Jund was secretly bad in 2016. It's that DS Jund has taken old Jund's share.
edit: The space between the skill ceiling and skill floor for a given deck is only one of the attributes that helps describe/predict how popular it is/will be, not the sole or salient attribute.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I don't have a good way of analyzing which decks have a potentially undemonstratedly higher skill ceiling than their ranking implies, anyone got ideas on this? What attributes or features in decks like amulet bloom and lantern control can we use to help identify other decks whose skill ceiling has not been reached?
Remember, everything is just a pile of cards until someone wins a gp/scg open with it.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I back-of-the-napkinned 5%-10% based on a quick breakdown of previous Tier 1, 2, and 3 listings, identifying Tier 3 (or untiered) decks that ultimately breached Tier 1 or Tier 2 after "discovery." I then took that number as a percentage of all the decks that didn't breach those tiers, excluding any deck that didn't hit a baseline metagame percentage in the first place. If I include those bottom-of-the-barrel options, it's actually about 1% or less of decks. Excluding those, it's about 5%-10%, depending on where you set the cutoff.
Of course, there's no way to know this with certainty. IN THEORY, it is true that ANY of those untiered decks could be secretly Tier 2, 1, or even 0! But that's a nonsense approach which leaves us with nowhere to go. If instead you use historic data to make an estimate, it's in that range. A more accurate estimate would be between <1% and 10% of Tier 3 or lower decks, if you really want to look at every single deck in Modern circulation.
EDIT: I'll also say that people put WAY too much weight on Bloom as some breakout deck. We tracked this as Tier 2 as early as 2014; its MTGO performance was impressive. If anything, this is a testament to the tiering system, which caught Bloom as Tier 2 before most people acknowledged it. The only real stunner was Lantern Control. Bloo was also a breakout hit.
In the case of Jund, a lot of players are going to play the deck because foiling it is expensive and it may be one of the few decks that they own. Not to mention, many Jund players have adapted to playing in many different metagames. Remember, they even did fairly well during the Pod era (well, not with Siege Rhino, but before). I won't mention the Eldrazi era since I faced maybe 2 Junds in over 100 matches played at the time at Comp REL. I personally feel that Jund is slightly better than HolyDiva gives it credit for. A good Jund player can beat the Burns, Infects, Bloos, and Death's Shadows of the world - it just isn't past 55/45 for them. And I also have changed my opinion on the Eldrazi matchup, which isn't as bad as I had initially seen and read about. Tron and Titan Shift, I'll give you.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)My point of view is mostly shaped by the players I know who are good players who run Jund. It also shapes how I feel about decks like Affinity and Merfolk.
You've been doing super well with UW Control. What would you care if someone tells you that it is Tier 3? I have won close to 70% of my matches with Bogles. I don't care if someone calls it Tier 4. It just makes me look better for doing well with a Tier 4 deck, lol.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)The thing is jund put more decks in the top 8 post eldrazi winter than any other deck, in fact it had a higher top 8% than its metashare, indicating to me that the deck was over performing. The deck is really good, it is still good, but currently there is a better Version of it to play, which is why the numbers are so deflated
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
It's pretty difficult to see that the color that seeks to perfect itself (as per Rosewater's recent article) has access to these tools when compared to Oath of Nissa, Traverse the Ulvenwald, and Ancient Stirrings and unless I'm mistaken, the last time a cantrip (no filtering) was printed for U it was when M14 was released. The card did see standard play but it was usually a 2 or 3 of in decks that wanted to run the effect.
It looks like the last time blue was given access to a one mana effect that filtered in standard was in 2005. 12 years ago.
Edit -- Another theme is the concept of Blue needing more proactive threats. I agree. One of the major problems is that blue does not have access to a Grizzly Bears effect. In all the printing of Magic there hasn't been a 1U 2/2. Other colors have them readily, often with upside. The exception here is red but they do at least have a vanilla 2/2 for 1R. I think blue really struggles from an identity perspective in that much of what it did traditionally with card advantage/quality is being done better and more consistently in green. It does still have better ability to interact on the stack than other colors but there has been a big push for interacting with the battlefield, not the stack. I don't know how Wizards can fix this issue without 1) only printing tempo cards that sneak into sets that don't really work that clearly towards their color identity goal for blue, 2) making playable blue creatures be very synergistic to make them more playable (or make them multicolor so you get better effects), or 3) diluting part of green's color pie and making blue have appropriate threats. The problem with 3 is that blue and green become too similar with that.
Any ideas?
Look, Holydiva... This exact notion you state, is the reason why some people can't take people like you seriously. You can't claim the counter-position is false because there is an extreme that exists. More or less, what you are describing is that there are exceptions to the rule.
If you don't take metagame numbers seriously, I truly believe you are disrupting your own potential as a player in the game.
A decks power has a relation to its tier only when its held that tier for an extended period of time. when a deck performs well for a short period and then falls to tier 3(nahiri jeskai) it was only hype and played alot because people wanted blue to be good since the twin ban.
but burn for example is undeniably one of the best decks in the game as it has held Strong for much longer than a couple months.
people can be stubborn and play tier 3-4 decks and play/build their deck very tightly, perform well, and argue its fine. but compared to the power level of the top dogs it really isnt.
this is what blue players want, a top dog, not a dominating one, but a format pillar like it once had with twin.
decks playing:
none
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Remand, Cryptic Command, Vendilion Clique, Serum Visions, Snapcaster Mage, Electrolyze, Jace, Architect of Thought. Sounds a lot more "blue" than your Goyf/Mandrils beatdown deck. But if that's "blue" to you, then OK.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
It seems no one can define "blue". Its basically a feeling. Playing blue for Tempo and X color for beatdown seems fun and how blue was intended to be played at least to me (as a support color). And if that is the case, then you have a good tier 2 deck called Grixis Delver (or Control Variants). Heck, even Merfolk! Twin was combo. At least the UR version.
So there you go. You have your blue deck. And if people play it more, I assure you itll end up Tier 1 at some point through sheer numbers (like many Tier 1 decks). No easy wins there, but its blue, and it has counter spells.
You play Grixis, dont you? So there is nothing to complain about.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
You're right, because I think it's the least boring creature beatdown deck and most viable Snapcastger deck. I find winning by playing a creature and attacking with it is the most mundane way to play the game. I relish in alternate win conditions, combos, backup plans, bolt-snap-bolt, and multiple forms of attack. That's why Twin was so appealing: it could play multiple roles and pretty much all of them were interesting because of the psychological effects of the combo. It allowed a lot of lines of play that really don't exist anymore because there's no threat I can present (or bluff) that causes opponents to hold back.
Regardless, your initial comment was snarky and unnecessary. Added nothing to the conversation other than stirring the pot with other people who hate Twin.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I dont hate Twin. I own foil play-sets of the main pieces. Id probably play a Temur version of it if it came back.
The fact that it will not come back (or isnt here atm) does not vex me at all. You seem to be over simplifying your current options. Zoo is a creature beat-down deck. It numbingly casts small creatures and swings.
Grixis Delver (or control), or Temur Delver, are not straight up creature beat-downs. If thats how you play them, then there may be something wrong there.
Im not being snarky. Sorry if you perceive it that way.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
"if people play it more, I assure you itll end up Tier 1 at some point through sheer numbers (like many Tier 1 decks). No easy wins there, but its blue, and it has counter spells."
"You play Grixis, dont you? So there is nothing to complain about."
I doubt it will get tier 1 in this current meta. and also, people who play grixis have plenty to complain about, especially if they are playing the control version. why? because control simply isnt good right now.
decks playing:
none
PS EDIT: You have to understand(ktk especially) that i'm not afraid of Preordain, i just don't want them to feed that to us come banlist changes time, and end up here again complaining.
We need multiple things to be better. counter spell preordain AND jace. maybe even sfm would help uwr.
decks playing:
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