I appreciate your analysis but I find several of your points either weak or misguided (no offense).
1. It's not as fast as the godhands from various decks.
Things like t3 breach are not comparable and not useful to bring up in the conversation. T3 breach is also faster and more broken than esper charm if it had a -5/-5 option, or a hexproof dark confidant. Comparing a single card to an undisrupted godhand that requires the entire deck be constructed around said godhand is silly.
It is not about comparing it to crazy godhands. Through the Breach can pretty consistently be casted T4 in GR titan decks. Storm can pretty consistently kill T4. There are several broken things in modern which don't require god hands. The comparison with the fictional cards is irrelevant because these are not cards.
You can compare SFM to say, a T3-4 7/7 Death's Shadow. It doesn't really require a god hand to do that and the building resctricitons are pretty minimal (fetch lands and shock lands which you would play anyway, thoughtseizes which are already great cards and wraiths which make for a 56 card deck). Yyes you put your life at risk but the payout is so huge that it doesn't matter.
SFM needs some dedicated space in the deck (4 slots for SFM + 3-4 equipments) and creates dead draws if you draw your equipments without SFM. It is not an all out answer and, comparing it with average draws of broken things is pretty much on the same level.
2. It doesn't slot directly into any of the current t1 decks
True enough, and it would certainly be true that stoneforge would create new decks. However, that doesn't mean it's safe. If you banned prized amalgalm, dredge would be tier 3. Does that mean that dread return is ok? Of course not.
No indeed but your dredge comparison is irrelevant. Dread return promotes a single unfair strategy, SFM promotes fair AND diverse strategies.
3. Ok but it's not good enough to be broken.
This is the most complex one to answer. I think people are fixating too much on trying to imagine overwhelming kill turns. That is very much not what stoneforge mystic does. Stoneforge mystic is strong because it is a cheap, efficient win-con, which significantly alleviates deck-building constraints. The ability to include a 7 card package with a 2 drop which wins the game by itself, no matter the actual clock, is extremely significant.
7 card package is not insignificant.
It is a 2 drop indeed, it requires tap out for 2 turns however and absolutely no interaction by the opponent. You will rarely just slam T2 Mystic, T3 Sword and T4 attack and win. Besides batterskull, swords don't promote that big of a lead. Plus, 2x Tier 1 decks mainboard Kholagan's command and 2-4 Fatal Pushes. It is not a combo that is hard to disrupt.
Your legacy deck assessment is also a bit misguided. That is a death and taxes deck. It doesn't have a weak creature package. Maybe each individual creature looks unique in a vacuum but their effects add up so much that they create heavily imbalanced boards. It is a VERY tight deck, not just a random white weenie aggro deck. The deck is good exactly because it has a whole game plan which denies opponent resources in order to make SFM effective. It doesn't win because it plays SFM. That is true because similar strategies are viable in modern, without SFM and they can still win. Resource denying plans are very effective. Plus, SFM works good because even if killed, the equipments are not dead since they can be worn by other creature which often have evasion and/or protection.
As such I don't think it is a good example to prove that SFM doesn't require any deck building constrains.
Finally, if yo agree that it wouldn't be broken, and if you think that the dead would not be unbeatable, how do you come to the conclusion that it would have a 55% win rate against almost everything? How would it fix control's issues against Eldrazi? T3 TKS into Reality Smasher would still crash it (which is not a god hand draw). Also, the problem against aggro is not stabilizing at T5 and then winning from there, that is something that control decks can already do, is actually surviving to T5 that is the problem.
All in all, I think you are underplaying too much the format's strength and assessing the wrong aspects of SFM.
Sorry if I come across as offensive, I don't mean to be offensive, just arguing.
not to mention the best card in the dnt list is jitte. Please stop evaluating sfm' power off of legacy!
Honestly I fee like some of the arguments on stoneforge mystic are disingenuous at best.
1. It's not as fast as the godhands from various decks.
Things like t3 breach are not comparable and not useful to bring up in the conversation. T3 breach is also faster and more broken than esper charm if it had a -5/-5 option, or a hexproof dark confidant. Comparing a single card to an undisrupted godhand that requires the entire deck be constructed around said godhand is silly.
2. It doesn't slot directly into any of the current t1 decks
True enough, and it would certainly be true that stoneforge would create new decks. However, that doesn't mean it's safe. If you banned prized amalgalm, dredge would be tier 3. Does that mean that dread return is ok? Of course not.
3. Ok but it's not good enough to be broken.
This is the most complex one to answer. I think people are fixating too much on trying to imagine overwhelming kill turns. That is very much not what stoneforge mystic does. Stoneforge mystic is strong because it is a cheap, efficient win-con, which significantly alleviates deck-building constraints. The ability to include a 7 card package with a 2 drop which wins the game by itself, no matter the actual clock, is extremely significant.
I realize legacy is not modern, but check out the following:
Notice that a lot of the creature inclusions are actually very weak when it comes to board presence. There's a lot of random bears and 3 drop hate creatures. Why is this deck good? It doesn't do anything that broken right? Sometimes it blinks a 4 drop with flickerwisp to exile something. How's that better than Eldrazi with eye of ugin, eldrazi temple, ancient tomb, city of traitors, and wasteland in its mana base? Surely ACTUAL CONSISTENT t2 thought-knot is better than t3 batterskull right? How's that better than Burn with Price of Progress and Fireblast? Surely burn having access to 8 damage spells is stronger?
This entire deck is only good because the Stoneforge package provides enough winning potential for the rest of the deck to be devoted to disruption. You can play cards like phyrexian revoker and thalia, heretic cathar mainboard, the deck was even running 4 vryn wingmare at one point (now it's 1-2). This is what I mean by freeing up deck-building constraints.
Similarly, if you conceptualize stoneforge as part of UW, you don't say "oh, I'm not racing affinity, so it's bad kappa". You never raced affinity as UW. If you could race affinity as UW, nobody would play anything but UW. Instead, you ask:
Can UW include more spells because of the stoneforge package's win con?
Can UW significantly lower its curve because of stoneforge's mana efficiency?
Can UW get run currently non-viable spell packages because of the turn on which stoneforge stabilizes the board?
Does the addition of stoneforge patch a significant portion of the weaknesses of a given UW build?
Do any of these changes make UW too good?
It is unlikely that stoneforge ever makes a deck unbeatable. The risk we need to think about is the creation of a deck which has a 55% win rate against almost everything. For example, imagine if a UW list found that it could lose a lot of its "survive vs. aggro" stuff like lightning helix and electrolyze because stoneforge is stabilizing the early game and focus on other matchups. Also all of you who don't think stoneforge is good against affinity are trippin. Like, they cast it turn 4 or 5 while holding up removal. It's insanely strong to be able to continue removing/countering things while threatening to poop out a 4/4 lifelinker at instant speed.
Would it actually be broken? Difficult to say. Its CERTAINLY not "super safe". Unfortunately, I haven't tested anything with stoneforge since before the eldrazi winter.
What makes DnT so strong has little to do with stoneforge mystic. It has more to do with legacy being a hyper-streamlined format, as well as using a lot of cantrips. Thalia does a lot more in legacy in modern, and you have at least 7 cards that protect her, unlike in modern. Adding an additional colorless to a brainstorm can ruin a deck that plays a very low land count, and uses those cantrips to hit said lands.
Legacy DnT also has a much, much stronger unfair plan than the modern version does, thanks to vial letting you abuse the living hell out of port and wasteland. I've won far more games off vial+port/wasteland and thalia beats than I have off stoneforge. Heck, generally I don't even feel safe playing the stoneforge unless I can vial it in or protect it with mana disruption or mom, and that sort of gameplan is much weaker in modern.
Also, I don't know why that list isn't playing recruiter of the guard, but that card is bonkers.
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Legacy
Death and Taxes Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
Honestly I fee like some of the arguments on stoneforge mystic are disingenuous at best.
1. It's not as fast as the godhands from various decks.
Things like t3 breach are not comparable and not useful to bring up in the conversation. T3 breach is also faster and more broken than esper charm if it had a -5/-5 option, or a hexproof dark confidant. Comparing a single card to an undisrupted godhand that requires the entire deck be constructed around said godhand is silly.
2. It doesn't slot directly into any of the current t1 decks
True enough, and it would certainly be true that stoneforge would create new decks. However, that doesn't mean it's safe. If you banned prized amalgalm, dredge would be tier 3. Does that mean that dread return is ok? Of course not.
3. Ok but it's not good enough to be broken.
This is the most complex one to answer. I think people are fixating too much on trying to imagine overwhelming kill turns. That is very much not what stoneforge mystic does. Stoneforge mystic is strong because it is a cheap, efficient win-con, which significantly alleviates deck-building constraints. The ability to include a 7 card package with a 2 drop which wins the game by itself, no matter the actual clock, is extremely significant.
I realize legacy is not modern, but check out the following:
Notice that a lot of the creature inclusions are actually very weak when it comes to board presence. There's a lot of random bears and 3 drop hate creatures. Why is this deck good? It doesn't do anything that broken right? Sometimes it blinks a 4 drop with flickerwisp to exile something. How's that better than Eldrazi with eye of ugin, eldrazi temple, ancient tomb, city of traitors, and wasteland in its mana base? Surely ACTUAL CONSISTENT t2 thought-knot is better than t3 batterskull right? How's that better than Burn with Price of Progress and Fireblast? Surely burn having access to 8 damage spells is stronger?
This entire deck is only good because the Stoneforge package provides enough winning potential for the rest of the deck to be devoted to disruption. You can play cards like phyrexian revoker and thalia, heretic cathar mainboard, the deck was even running 4 vryn wingmare at one point (now it's 1-2). This is what I mean by freeing up deck-building constraints.
Similarly, if you conceptualize stoneforge as part of UW, you don't say "oh, I'm not racing affinity, so it's bad kappa". You never raced affinity as UW. If you could race affinity as UW, nobody would play anything but UW. Instead, you ask:
Can UW include more spells because of the stoneforge package's win con?
Can UW significantly lower its curve because of stoneforge's mana efficiency?
Can UW get run currently non-viable spell packages because of the turn on which stoneforge stabilizes the board?
Does the addition of stoneforge patch a significant portion of the weaknesses of a given UW build?
Do any of these changes make UW too good?
It is unlikely that stoneforge ever makes a deck unbeatable. The risk we need to think about is the creation of a deck which has a 55% win rate against almost everything. For example, imagine if a UW list found that it could lose a lot of its "survive vs. aggro" stuff like lightning helix and electrolyze because stoneforge is stabilizing the early game and focus on other matchups. Also all of you who don't think stoneforge is good against affinity are trippin. Like, they cast it turn 4 or 5 while holding up removal. It's insanely strong to be able to continue removing/countering things while threatening to poop out a 4/4 lifelinker at instant speed.
Would it actually be broken? Difficult to say. Its CERTAINLY not "super safe". Unfortunately, I haven't tested anything with stoneforge since before the eldrazi winter.
You don't suppose the the banned-in-modern Umezawa's Jitte has any impact on DnT's ability to beat burn, win creature matchups such as eldrazi and generally interact better with the opponent, do you? Jitte was a notable omission from your analysis, yet it plays a central role in SFM's inclusion in the deck.
Your argument reminds me of players saying Ancestral Vision was too strong because it is played in Shardless sultai in legacy, while overlooking the synergies that allow it to be played. They might have had a point if we had Shardless agent in the format, just as you might if we had Jitte.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Without [card=force of will]Force[/c], daze, stifle, wasteland, and Brainstorm to protect it, I'm not really worried about a 1/2 tutor-for-batterskull. Modern lacks the control elements that allow players to tap-out turn two and slam down their Mystic hopping to get that batterskull online as soon as possible. In modern when I go to kill your stoneforge the only thing that happens is it dies. Also, this is a format where I keep seeing Kolaghan's Command which kills your mystic and your batterskull. I'm not seeing the lines of play where I say to myself "This is why the card needs to stay away forever" but instead I find myself going "Oh that's it? Fine."
So much this. In my own personal testing in anticipation of it's release, even burn - the deck most directly challenged by SFM-Bskull, doesn't seem to care. Searing Blaze loves it when SFM is slammed turn 2. From turn 3+, it's pretty common to have access to Skullcrack and/Atarka's command to tempo out the SFM deck for a turn or two. Even worse post-board when Destructive Revelry handily answers the 4 mana investment towards Bskull.
If/when SFM ever sees play in the format, I suspect it will be more of a flop than many people are anticipating. Fatal Push / Lightning bolt are everywhere, and even just those cards preclude Bskull from coming down until turn 5. Kolaghan's Command in a significant % of top decks is likely to prevent SFM from seeing tier 1 play.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Turn 2 vs turn four is a significant difference. Even vs turn 3. Ontop of that, BBE has an element of randomness to it, SFM does not. The two color restriction in modern is like no restriction at all.
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Turn 2 vs turn four is a significant difference. Even vs turn 3. Ontop of that, BBE has an element of randomness to it, SFM does not. The two color restriction in modern is like no restriction at all.
Bbe doesn't alleviate any current color diversity issues there are, it just makes them worse.
They need to plan unbannings around doing a reprint first
Or better yet, do the opposite, and specifically ban cards after a recentreprint in order to maximize the feel-bads of people who invest in the deck as a result!
...a reprint that was planned long before each ban was decided. But nice job finding an excuse to bring up the Twin feelbads again.
You are aware it wasn't just twin right? Nice job finding an excuse to make everything about twin though.
I understand that color balance is a good thing, but I think reprinting cards like Mother of Runes or Counterspell would be a much safer option than unbanning super powerful cards like JTMS or SFM.
I fail to see how sfm is a super powerful card. If t3 batterskull was SOOO powerful decks like titan breach that already ramp to 5 on t3 would be playing it.
Summoner's Pact and Through the Breach can't be used with batterskull. It doesn't fit the deck.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
I understand that color balance is a good thing, but I think reprinting cards like Mother of Runes or Counterspell would be a much safer option than unbanning super powerful cards like JTMS or SFM.
I fail to see how sfm is a super powerful card. If t3 batterskull was SOOO powerful decks like titan breach that already ramp to 5 on t3 would be playing it.
Summoner's Pact and Through the Breach can't be used with batterskull. It doesn't fit the deck.
nope they can be used with titan I already explained all this keep reading.
I understand that color balance is a good thing, but I think reprinting cards like Mother of Runes or Counterspell would be a much safer option than unbanning super powerful cards like JTMS or SFM.
I fail to see how sfm is a super powerful card. If t3 batterskull was SOOO powerful decks like titan breach that already ramp to 5 on t3 would be playing it.
Summoner's Pact and Through the Breach can't be used with batterskull. It doesn't fit the deck.
nope they can be used with titan I already explained all this keep reading.
Let me start out by saying I like magic content and the people that create it.
I listened to last weeks magic tv this am and I feel exposure from those types of sources can be bad for the format. For example Ben states that he has his own brew, its a mono blue taking turns deck, something that's been around for a long time now (maybe he didn't know it's been around?). He then goes on to talk later about unbans/bans and what he sees is most possible/ok. BBE being the only card he thinks is possible for unban and the most likely ban in the next year or 2 being coco. Now I don't have an issue with people's opinions but when they openly admit they don't play the format too much or don't fully see it in action often (Ben also states cage works vs LE) its hard to have them be a voice that gets heard. He stated some reasons for things that people stated on here like how jtms can't be unbanned because it's not fun as well as the price of the card (I don't think either of those are real reasons but ok) and how sfm shouldn't be unbanned because it forces wotc to no longer print powerful equipment (again imo a none point because they already don't print good equipment much less powerful ones). Some more insight about it is how he promotes people to go play the legacy gp in vegas even if they go borrow a deck from a friend, well if you go borrow a deck and don't understand the format you will not have a good time I promise you that lol!
Look I know they just promote the things they do and I love magic tv but the fact that they have the platform to talk about magic formats and what's best from them without playing them much seems like it could hurt the format more than help it. In his defense he does state it's clearly a better format than standard at the moment and that obviously the player base loves it. He also wondered what it would look like if wotc cared more about it because the players love it so much. He's very correct here we love our modern and that's why we're passionate about it!
Just wanted to get other peoples opinions on pros (not that hes a top pro) that don't play modern too much being heard the loudest?
I watched that last night and sat largely disgusted that they basically knew zero about how the modern format really plays out. Seriously their unban suggestion was BBE alone and nothing else.
Only good thing from this week's episode was that modern is better than standard (but IMO that's always true, even when standard doesn't suck).
Overall yes. Extremely concerned that pros who (as a community said they) don't like modern spout nonsense and the wotc staff (who also barely play modern) listen to them.
Blind leading the blind.
Just wanted to get other peoples opinions on pros (not that hes a top pro) that don't play modern too much being heard the loudest?
The show wasn't too bad when Cheon was there, but with just Moshi and random swap-outs, it seems more like a bunch of old guys reminiscing about the good old days than people who actually play and follow the current format. I feel like I get better and more accurate opinions from MTG Goldfish's podcast than I do from these "Pros," who spend more of their time hyping events and selling singles than providing meaningful insight and commentary. I found it especially ironic to hear them praise the Splinter Twin ban as being correct and good for the format, then later made the "Top 8 Instants in Modern" section with literally 5 removal spells, 2 uninteractive combo-enablers, a cheat-cost-cheat-into-play card, and bragged about there being no good blue cards "by design."
Errors and poorly formed opinions like this are probably how we end up with many of the decisions Wizards makes, because THESE are the people they actually listen to.
Overall yes. Extremely concerned that pros who (as a community said they) don't like modern spout nonsense and the wotc staff (who also barely play modern) listen to them. Blind leading the blind.
Exactly. This is why we can't have nice things. They listen to dingbats like this instead of people intimately familiar with the format.
It's not even just the pros who don't play Modern much, even the pros who do play a lot of Modern can have some really strange opinions. On his stream last night, Todd Stevens in all seriousness said that the 3 best decks in Modern were Grixis Shadow, Jund Shadow, and Esper Shadow. Biased much? Esper Shadow has done literally nothing to give evidence of it being the third best deck in the format. Todd's also said that Jace is too powerful for Modern and would destroy the format, which even most people that don't want him unbanned know isn't true, and he's said that if Twin were ever to be unbanned he would cash out of Modern. Michael Majors in a recent article said that Shadow decks were problematic because they break deck building constraints by turning life loss from your land base into a positive, but every good deck in Modern does something like that, getting some advantage by bypassing usual constraints. Just look at Dredge. Discarding cards is usually a bad thing, but Dredge turns self discard into a positive.
The craziest thing to me was how after the Modern weekend 2 weeks ago, we got statistical proof that Death's Shadow is fine in the meta right now, and yet several writers have tried to point to the weekend and say the Shadow decks dominated. Combining the numbers for all Shadow decks and then comparing that to single decks is so intellectually dishonest, and I've had to call numerous writers out for it. The actual numbers show that Grixis Shadow was one of the top decks of the weekend, along with Dredge, Company, and Burn, but it was not dominant. Jund Shadow actually underperformed everyone's expectations.
I think all we can really do is be vocal in the comment sections of writers who are saying things like this. Show good counter-arguments for why they're wrong, and maybe we can convince some of these pros.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
There have been a lot of good (and some not so good) statements these past few pages on what should be banned/unbanned in the coming weeks. It seems like the most logical arguments are advocating for either Stoneforge Mystic or nothing to be unbanned, and for either nothing or Street Wraith to be banned.
SFM doesn't do anything more powerful than what is already being done, and in a lot of ways is less powerful then what many of the top decks are doing if you agree with Seth Manfield's most recent article to outline the best Modern decks, which I do.
SW is the kind of card that really seems out of place in modern considering WOTCs stance on card draw / filtering, and wouldn't at all surprise me to leave.
That being said, the logical members of this forum aren't the ones managing the B&R list, so my real guess as to what's going to happen is probably more like: Ban Collected Company (which is honestly very, very good), Unban Bloodbraid Elf. Kappa
Let me start out by saying I like magic content and the people that create it.
I listened to last weeks magic tv this am and I feel exposure from those types of sources can be bad for the format. For example Ben states that he has his own brew, its a mono blue taking turns deck, something that's been around for a long time now (maybe he didn't know it's been around?). He then goes on to talk later about unbans/bans and what he sees is most possible/ok. BBE being the only card he thinks is possible for unban and the most likely ban in the next year or 2 being coco. Now I don't have an issue with people's opinions but when they openly admit they don't play the format too much or don't fully see it in action often (Ben also states cage works vs LE) its hard to have them be a voice that gets heard. He stated some reasons for things that people stated on here like how jtms can't be unbanned because it's not fun as well as the price of the card (I don't think either of those are real reasons but ok) and how sfm shouldn't be unbanned because it forces wotc to no longer print powerful equipment (again imo a none point because they already don't print good equipment much less powerful ones). Some more insight about it is how he promotes people to go play the legacy gp in vegas even if they go borrow a deck from a friend, well if you go borrow a deck and don't understand the format you will not have a good time I promise you that lol!
Look I know they just promote the things they do and I love magic tv but the fact that they have the platform to talk about magic formats and what's best from them without playing them much seems like it could hurt the format more than help it. In his defense he does state it's clearly a better format than standard at the moment and that obviously the player base loves it. He also wondered what it would look like if wotc cared more about it because the players love it so much. He's very correct here we love our modern and that's why we're passionate about it!
Just wanted to get other peoples opinions on pros (not that hes a top pro) that don't play modern too much being heard the loudest?
I like how they slobbered over legacy for a good part of their discussion of modern vs standard.
It's not even just the pros who don't play Modern much, even the pros who do play a lot of Modern can have some really strange opinions. On his stream last night, Todd Stevens in all seriousness said that the 3 best decks in Modern were Grixis Shadow, Jund Shadow, and Esper Shadow. Biased much? Esper Shadow has done literally nothing to give evidence of it being the third best deck in the format. Todd's also said that Jace is too powerful for Modern and would destroy the format, which even most people that don't want him unbanned know isn't true, and he's said that if Twin were ever to be unbanned he would cash out of Modern. Michael Majors in a recent article said that Shadow decks were problematic because they break deck building constraints by turning life loss from your land base into a positive, but every good deck in Modern does something like that, getting some advantage by bypassing usual constraints. Just look at Dredge. Discarding cards is usually a bad thing, but Dredge turns self discard into a positive.
The craziest thing to me was how after the Modern weekend 2 weeks ago, we got statistical proof that Death's Shadow is fine in the meta right now, and yet several writers have tried to point to the weekend and say the Shadow decks dominated. Combining the numbers for all Shadow decks and then comparing that to single decks is so intellectually dishonest, and I've had to call numerous writers out for it. The actual numbers show that Grixis Shadow was one of the top decks of the weekend, along with Dredge, Company, and Burn, but it was not dominant. Jund Shadow actually underperformed everyone's expectations.
I think all we can really do is be vocal in the comment sections of writers who are saying things like this. Show good counter-arguments for why they're wrong, and maybe we can convince some of these pros.
I have ZERO doubt, like absolute zero, that Jund DS, Grixis DS and whatever other DS deck you build are the 3 best decks in the format levels above the rest. Yeah, even that third undetermined purely hypothetical "bad" DS deck.
To say a deck, that really isn't even a current deck, is 3rd best kind of proves my point about content creators. I enjoy your stream sometimes but to say any deck that runs ds is the best after grixis and jund is just useless imo.
Even tj when asked about sfm said it's absolutely too powerful for modern. He plays and commentates a lot of modern so part of me was shocked he'd have such a strong feeling about it, but then again he's a burn player so maybe that has a lot to do with it idk.
I'm dying. "This deck doesn't exist, but I think it's Tier 1" "This deck is on the downswing, but I still think it's head and shoulders above everything else". I LOVE it. Zero mention of Eldrazi Tron or Affinity, which have both put up more numbers than DSJ or DSE.
On that note: This mardu list keeps popping up piloted by the same individual. Is this person onto something, or just really good, or both? Does Young Peezy need a ban? Kappa
So you disregard pro's opinions when you don't like them but Manfield's one is fine because you like that one. I'm not going deeper into that.
The idea that Dredge and Eldrazi Tron are better decks than Jund DS is straight hilarious. Like, with all respect I say this, I literally laughed sitting here when I read it.
There's a HUGE difference between Seth Manfield and Todd Stevens. There was a recent time when Seth Manfield was probably the "best" (if you can even give a label like that, but just based purely on stats) in the whole world. There was a time when Todd Stevens was probably the 5,000th best player in the world, which isn't bad, but just not comparable, especially since Seth is still up there.
So, if someone trusts Manfield, but not Stevens, it isn't based purely on what they agree with. Furthermore, most people here would agree that they trust Pros who say something that they agree with. I know I do. When I hear a Pro say that Blood Moon or 9th Edition should be banned, do you really think I'm going to agree with them, even if they are aeons better a player than myself?
*For others, if you want to see a video for the lulz - watch when Todd Stevens played Modern Cheerios with Sram. It proves that not every Pro can play every archetype better than the average player.
**And if Collected Company gets banned, I'm literally sending a bag of ***** to the Seattle WotC location.
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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)
So you disregard pro's opinions when you don't like them but Manfield's one is fine because you like that one. I'm not going deeper into that.
The idea that Dredge and Eldrazi Tron are better decks than Jund DS is straight hilarious. Like, with all respect I say this, I literally laughed sitting here when I read it.
I certainly respect some pros' opinions more than others. I love Todd as a streamer, but I don't trust his opinions on Modern because he's said a lot of outlandish stuff like that. On the other hand, if Caleb started saying Shadow should be banned, it would make me pause. Caleb is usually a lot more level-headed about these things than Todd is.
I agree that Eldrazi Tron isn't better than Grixis or Jund Shadow, but I think Dredge is still one of the best decks in Modern, so I don't think it's laughable to put it in the same ballpark.
*For others, if you want to see a video for the lulz - watch when Todd Stevens played Modern Cheerios with Sram. It proves that not every Pro can play every archetype better than the average player.
Oh God, I remember that. It was so painful to watch. He was making mistakes left and right and not realizing it, and at the end of the league he's like, "This deck doesn't seem very consistent." The deck is super consistent if you play it correctly, the reason it's not doing anything right now is all the removal and discard flying around the format.
Come on, death shadow is now 13% and some guys talking its fine. Last 2 weeks meta is 19%. Combining numbers is ok, like it was in splinter twin. Its all the same plan.
First of all, Jund Shadow and Grixis Shadow are entirely different decks and don't play that similarly. Jund is closer to an aggro deck, while Grixis is closer to a control deck. Besides that, they add up to 12% at the moment. If you think that level is problematic for two decks to combine for, then I have to ask you where were you when traditional Jund and Abzan were combining for ~15% of the meta for years? Those two decks are way more similar to each other than Jund DS and Grixis DS are. And do you want Delver banned from Legacy? Delver decks combine for over 20% of the Legacy meta. If you think it's right to combine the Modern Shadow decks together, then surely you must think it's also correct to combine all the Delver decks in Legacy, right? And btw, don't use mtgtop8's numbers as a reference, they're famously inaccurate.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
State of M-O-D-E-R-N. Who cares legacy? Handdisruption, take selfdamage, a lot of pointremoval and cycling...big creatures. It is realy similar. some counter in grixis and snapcaster changes nothing in real life. Splinter twin was splinter twin was splinter twin and death shadow is death shadow is death shadow...
Aggressive creatures, some burn spells, aggroing your opponent out. I guess Revolt Zoo, Affinity, and Burn are all the same deck, they combine for about 14%. Put creatures into your graveyard and cheat them out? Oops, better combine Dredge, Living End, and Grishoalbrand, they're clearly the same decks too.
And you didn't answer any of my questions. Why was it ok for Jund and Abzan to combine for ~15% of the meta for years, but it's not ok for Grixis Shadow and Jund Shadow to combine for 13% now? Why is it ok for Delver to combine for over 20% in Legacy?
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Ok, you think its not true 5 of top 16 in copenhagen was death shadow? Or baltimore 6 of top 16? It was wrong they even win both GP on the same day? Wrong it was only 2 weeks ago? Sorry if this was fake news on mtg top 8 because i read it there. Was my mistake...dam fake news
Sure, if you want to cherry pick your data to match your narrative. If you looked at the combined top 32s of all three tournaments that weekend, Grixis Shadow was 9%, Jund Shadow was 4%, Sultai was 1%, and Esper 1%. And a Shadow deck wasn't even the top deck of the weekend, Dredge was 10% and also made the finals of 2 of the tournaments. Would you be saying something different if Ben Friedman hadn't drawn abysmally against Brad Nelson in what should be a great matchup for him?
And the reason why nobody uses mtgtop8 is because their classification is very suspect. They combine Eldrazi Tron with Bant Eldrazi, UW with Jeskai and Esper Control, Bant Spirits with Knightfall and Humans, etc. MTGGoldfish is a better source.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
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What makes DnT so strong has little to do with stoneforge mystic. It has more to do with legacy being a hyper-streamlined format, as well as using a lot of cantrips. Thalia does a lot more in legacy in modern, and you have at least 7 cards that protect her, unlike in modern. Adding an additional colorless to a brainstorm can ruin a deck that plays a very low land count, and uses those cantrips to hit said lands.
Legacy DnT also has a much, much stronger unfair plan than the modern version does, thanks to vial letting you abuse the living hell out of port and wasteland. I've won far more games off vial+port/wasteland and thalia beats than I have off stoneforge. Heck, generally I don't even feel safe playing the stoneforge unless I can vial it in or protect it with mana disruption or mom, and that sort of gameplan is much weaker in modern.
Also, I don't know why that list isn't playing recruiter of the guard, but that card is bonkers.
Death and Taxes
Pauper
UB Teachings
Tortured Existence
Murasa Tron
Modern
Pod (RIP)
Bloom(RIP)
Merfolk
Your argument reminds me of players saying Ancestral Vision was too strong because it is played in Shardless sultai in legacy, while overlooking the synergies that allow it to be played. They might have had a point if we had Shardless agent in the format, just as you might if we had Jitte.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
If/when SFM ever sees play in the format, I suspect it will be more of a flop than many people are anticipating. Fatal Push / Lightning bolt are everywhere, and even just those cards preclude Bskull from coming down until turn 5. Kolaghan's Command in a significant % of top decks is likely to prevent SFM from seeing tier 1 play.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
Bbe doesn't alleviate any current color diversity issues there are, it just makes them worse.
Yes. That's why I said 'each' ban. Good job.
Summoner's Pact and Through the Breach can't be used with batterskull. It doesn't fit the deck.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
You did? I'll admit I only saw the latest page.
I listened to last weeks magic tv this am and I feel exposure from those types of sources can be bad for the format. For example Ben states that he has his own brew, its a mono blue taking turns deck, something that's been around for a long time now (maybe he didn't know it's been around?). He then goes on to talk later about unbans/bans and what he sees is most possible/ok. BBE being the only card he thinks is possible for unban and the most likely ban in the next year or 2 being coco. Now I don't have an issue with people's opinions but when they openly admit they don't play the format too much or don't fully see it in action often (Ben also states cage works vs LE) its hard to have them be a voice that gets heard. He stated some reasons for things that people stated on here like how jtms can't be unbanned because it's not fun as well as the price of the card (I don't think either of those are real reasons but ok) and how sfm shouldn't be unbanned because it forces wotc to no longer print powerful equipment (again imo a none point because they already don't print good equipment much less powerful ones). Some more insight about it is how he promotes people to go play the legacy gp in vegas even if they go borrow a deck from a friend, well if you go borrow a deck and don't understand the format you will not have a good time I promise you that lol!
Look I know they just promote the things they do and I love magic tv but the fact that they have the platform to talk about magic formats and what's best from them without playing them much seems like it could hurt the format more than help it. In his defense he does state it's clearly a better format than standard at the moment and that obviously the player base loves it. He also wondered what it would look like if wotc cared more about it because the players love it so much. He's very correct here we love our modern and that's why we're passionate about it!
Just wanted to get other peoples opinions on pros (not that hes a top pro) that don't play modern too much being heard the loudest?
Only good thing from this week's episode was that modern is better than standard (but IMO that's always true, even when standard doesn't suck).
Overall yes. Extremely concerned that pros who (as a community said they) don't like modern spout nonsense and the wotc staff (who also barely play modern) listen to them.
Blind leading the blind.
The show wasn't too bad when Cheon was there, but with just Moshi and random swap-outs, it seems more like a bunch of old guys reminiscing about the good old days than people who actually play and follow the current format. I feel like I get better and more accurate opinions from MTG Goldfish's podcast than I do from these "Pros," who spend more of their time hyping events and selling singles than providing meaningful insight and commentary. I found it especially ironic to hear them praise the Splinter Twin ban as being correct and good for the format, then later made the "Top 8 Instants in Modern" section with literally 5 removal spells, 2 uninteractive combo-enablers, a cheat-cost-cheat-into-play card, and bragged about there being no good blue cards "by design."
Errors and poorly formed opinions like this are probably how we end up with many of the decisions Wizards makes, because THESE are the people they actually listen to.
Edit:
Exactly. This is why we can't have nice things. They listen to dingbats like this instead of people intimately familiar with the format.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
The craziest thing to me was how after the Modern weekend 2 weeks ago, we got statistical proof that Death's Shadow is fine in the meta right now, and yet several writers have tried to point to the weekend and say the Shadow decks dominated. Combining the numbers for all Shadow decks and then comparing that to single decks is so intellectually dishonest, and I've had to call numerous writers out for it. The actual numbers show that Grixis Shadow was one of the top decks of the weekend, along with Dredge, Company, and Burn, but it was not dominant. Jund Shadow actually underperformed everyone's expectations.
I think all we can really do is be vocal in the comment sections of writers who are saying things like this. Show good counter-arguments for why they're wrong, and maybe we can convince some of these pros.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
SFM doesn't do anything more powerful than what is already being done, and in a lot of ways is less powerful then what many of the top decks are doing if you agree with Seth Manfield's most recent article to outline the best Modern decks, which I do.
SW is the kind of card that really seems out of place in modern considering WOTCs stance on card draw / filtering, and wouldn't at all surprise me to leave.
That being said, the logical members of this forum aren't the ones managing the B&R list, so my real guess as to what's going to happen is probably more like: Ban Collected Company (which is honestly very, very good), Unban Bloodbraid Elf. Kappa
I like how they slobbered over legacy for a good part of their discussion of modern vs standard.
To say a deck, that really isn't even a current deck, is 3rd best kind of proves my point about content creators. I enjoy your stream sometimes but to say any deck that runs ds is the best after grixis and jund is just useless imo.
Even tj when asked about sfm said it's absolutely too powerful for modern. He plays and commentates a lot of modern so part of me was shocked he'd have such a strong feeling about it, but then again he's a burn player so maybe that has a lot to do with it idk.
On that note: This mardu list keeps popping up piloted by the same individual. Is this person onto something, or just really good, or both? Does Young Peezy need a ban? Kappa
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/competitive-modern-constructed-league-2017-06-08
My H/W list
There's a HUGE difference between Seth Manfield and Todd Stevens. There was a recent time when Seth Manfield was probably the "best" (if you can even give a label like that, but just based purely on stats) in the whole world. There was a time when Todd Stevens was probably the 5,000th best player in the world, which isn't bad, but just not comparable, especially since Seth is still up there.
So, if someone trusts Manfield, but not Stevens, it isn't based purely on what they agree with. Furthermore, most people here would agree that they trust Pros who say something that they agree with. I know I do. When I hear a Pro say that Blood Moon or 9th Edition should be banned, do you really think I'm going to agree with them, even if they are aeons better a player than myself?
*For others, if you want to see a video for the lulz - watch when Todd Stevens played Modern Cheerios with Sram. It proves that not every Pro can play every archetype better than the average player.
**And if Collected Company gets banned, I'm literally sending a bag of ***** to the Seattle WotC location.
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 agree that Eldrazi Tron isn't better than Grixis or Jund Shadow, but I think Dredge is still one of the best decks in Modern, so I don't think it's laughable to put it in the same ballpark.
Oh God, I remember that. It was so painful to watch. He was making mistakes left and right and not realizing it, and at the end of the league he's like, "This deck doesn't seem very consistent." The deck is super consistent if you play it correctly, the reason it's not doing anything right now is all the removal and discard flying around the format.
First of all, Jund Shadow and Grixis Shadow are entirely different decks and don't play that similarly. Jund is closer to an aggro deck, while Grixis is closer to a control deck. Besides that, they add up to 12% at the moment. If you think that level is problematic for two decks to combine for, then I have to ask you where were you when traditional Jund and Abzan were combining for ~15% of the meta for years? Those two decks are way more similar to each other than Jund DS and Grixis DS are. And do you want Delver banned from Legacy? Delver decks combine for over 20% of the Legacy meta. If you think it's right to combine the Modern Shadow decks together, then surely you must think it's also correct to combine all the Delver decks in Legacy, right? And btw, don't use mtgtop8's numbers as a reference, they're famously inaccurate.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
And you didn't answer any of my questions. Why was it ok for Jund and Abzan to combine for ~15% of the meta for years, but it's not ok for Grixis Shadow and Jund Shadow to combine for 13% now? Why is it ok for Delver to combine for over 20% in Legacy?
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
And the reason why nobody uses mtgtop8 is because their classification is very suspect. They combine Eldrazi Tron with Bant Eldrazi, UW with Jeskai and Esper Control, Bant Spirits with Knightfall and Humans, etc. MTGGoldfish is a better source.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW