Modern at least is not nearly as warped by its police cards. I have been grouchy at times about modern being policed by discard, but at least it's not literally >50% TS-Inquisition decks like legacy is with force-brainstorm.
It's really nice that modern's police cards/mechanics (discard spells) do not enable combo decks particularly in the same way as (some of) Legacy's police mechanics (improved card selection/free spells) do. Modern has some elements of that but serum visions is in general only good enough for some decks.
The fact that in legacy brainstorm is clutch for both the most powerful combo decks and the most powerful control deck, and the most powerful tempo deck, and the most powerful ramp deck, and the most powerful midrange decks is somewhat embarrassing when you think about it. That'd be like Inquisition of Kozilek being a 4-of in storm, shadow, jund, collected company and eldrazi tron or something ridiculous like that.
What all this does is open the format up. There are a lot more playable shells and decks tend to leverage wildly different glue.
Probably not, but it would be irritating to play against. People often dismiss it by saying that it's really only good against combo, but being able to tap out and have an answer waiting is still pretty powerful.
Edit: I should note that Force of Will has its own issues in that it is the color diversity killer. A large portion of why Legacy is almost all blue is attributable to Force of Will and Brainstorm. A necessary evil in legacy, but not exactly an answer for modern.
Force of Will has little to do with Blue's dominance in the format. Force of Will being so popular is a consequence of Blue's dominance in Legacy, not the cause. Brainstorm is the real culprit.
If the only way to achieve a low number of nongames is to jam an absurd consistency engine into one color I am fine with the level of variance in modern.
The only reason legacy has fewer nongames is that everyone is playing Uxx 40 card decks.
The variance for nonblue decks in legacy is nearly as bad as modern. Except now your opponent literally always finds their stupid overpowered hoser. Looking at you dread of night and massacre.
I think it's a feature not a bug that modern is higher variance
If the only way to achieve a low number of nongames is to jam an absurd consistency engine into one color I am fine with the level of variance in modern.
The only reason legacy has fewer nongames is that everyone is playing Uxx 40 card decks.
That's partially true. D&T has Stoneforge which is a consistency engine as well as Recruiter of the Guard. Green has GSZ, Natural Order, Sylvan Library, Crop Rotation, etc. Red has Gamble, Burning Wish, etc. Black is sort of the lone man out because a lot of its tutors are banned, but on the other hand, it does have cards like Baleful Strix, etc. (Plus, the discard spells are super powerful)
That's on top of the Modern legal consistency tools such as Horizon Canopy, Bob, Infernal Tutor, etc.
Plus, the answer's in Legacy are just a lot better than in Modern. All of that points to a lesser amount of non-games and less variance. Plus, the most underrated part of this is that your manabase deals you a lot less damage, but on the flipside Wasteland/Stifle is a thing. IOW, It's simply not entirely true to attribute the lower variance of legacy to solely Ux.
The consistency engines is legacy are not all that much better than modern outside of blue. Gamble and enlightened tutor are the only ridiculous upgrades. As good as gsz is it's not really as far from chord and traverse as brainstorm is from serum visions.
The general difference is that in modern most colors have things they find really well land there are real deckbuilding costs to achieve consistency. In legacy nonblue decks you see the same thing. Natural order and gsz have costs like Coco/chord and expedition map/scrying. You don't see a random deck jamming crop rotation packages very often.
In modern the cost of playing blue draw and scry as you're engine is playing trash cards like sleight and thought scour. As far from brainstorm as serum visions is consider ponder vs. sleight for a bit. And having to play more lands and more business spells and more threats because they are way harder to find.
Anyway the point of all that is that I think my point stands--the difference between nonblue legacy decks and their modern counterparts is vastly less than modern and legacy blue.
******"""""""
Re answers
The majority of best removal spells in legacy are played in modern. Threats vs answers are only particularly better in blue and white. Red black and green play the same crap.
Modern at least is not nearly as warped by its police cards. I have been grouchy at times about modern being policed by discard, but at least it's not literally >50% TS-Inquisition decks like legacy is with force-brainstorm.
It's really nice that modern's police cards/mechanics (discard spells) do not enable combo decks particularly in the same way as (some of) Legacy's police mechanics (improved card selection/free spells) do. Modern has some elements of that but serum visions is in general only good enough for some decks.
The fact that in legacy brainstorm is clutch for both the most powerful combo decks and the most powerful control deck, and the most powerful tempo deck, and the most powerful ramp deck, and the most powerful midrange decks is somewhat embarrassing when you think about it. That'd be like Inquisition of Kozilek being a 4-of in storm, shadow, jund, collected company and eldrazi tron or something ridiculous like that.
What all this does is open the format up. There are a lot more playable shells and decks tend to leverage wildly different glue.
I don't think that it is any way enlightening to point out that TS isn't at FoW level, it is in 40% of decks which unlike FoW demands a deck design commitment which is I think more warping than FoW as you can run FoW with no intent to actually hard cast a single U card.
Out of curiosity, where do people get their Modern fix? LGS? MTGO? SCG tournaments? Tournaments by other providers (Hareruya, Card Kingdom, CF, etc.)?
My LGS has monthly (sometimes semimonthly) modern tournaments on sundays. Between 20 and 35 people, mostly competitive. Yesterday, more than half the room was split between Grixis Shadow and Eldrazi Tron. Not the most healthy of metagames But I understand it can differ from MTGO and this is not necessarily a good representation of Modern as a whole.
Out of curiosity, where do people get their Modern fix? LGS? MTGO? SCG tournaments? Tournaments by other providers (Hareruya, Card Kingdom, CF, etc.)?
I ask because I'm almost exclusively an MTGO player, and I find Modern to be quite skill-testing and interactive even in some of the allegedly less interactive games. When I lose, I can often attribute that loss to at least one error I made, not just getting nut-drawn by an opponent or going second. Sometimes, I can't tell if people complaining about Modern are actually playing the format or if it's all theorycrafting based on articles/content they find. I know some of the critics do play and their criticism comes from experience, but I also know others who barely/don't play and still give Modern a hard time.
MTGO, my local store has a regular 30-40 people every Saturday and probably about 15-20 for FNM. I just don't have time like I used to with work etc.. to make it; I will mostly go for informal stuff like NBL Modern on Thursday as the Torney has a floating start time of "as soon as enough people show up". I go for drafts and sealed events because I don't have to pay but that is just because I'm personal friends with the owner and he knows that I am not going to crush a new player so hard that they will get a bad taste and that I will often help teach newer players how to play, what types of strategies exist and why they are competitive etc...
I prefer MTGO overall as the "talent pool" is much deeper, nearly everyone is a good sound player while at my LGS out of 40 people 4 other guys and myself would nearly always make the top 8 and not because we are great players but because the majority of other players are mediocre to poor or locked into a bad deck due to the cost of the cards.
I don't think that Modern is anymore or less interactive than it has been in the past, I think that what most people don't like is the consistent drive towards top deck wars and the forced mulligans because of the ubiquitous presence of TS/IoK
I can think of something real simple to help with linear degeneracy, promote interaction, and incentivize people to play control decks...
Jesus Christ. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a 2RR Enchantment Nail.
You got a better idea? Because Wizards sure doesn't.
And here we go again...
I remember why I stopped posting in here.
This is not a constructive post that offers any reasonable or doable solution. Unless your response is to continue and play the "wait and see" game like we have been, where linear degeneracy runs rampant until it is banned, then the next thing lines up until it's banned too. That's what happens when you remove the top "control" deck of the format and then leave all other control decks horrendously underpowered due to the massive boost in threats every set and leave the answers decks to struggle with poor filtering, poor draw, poor counters, and poor win conditions. But if you've got an easier fix than simply putting back a deck that didn't deserve a ban in the first place, I'm all ears. I don't think Shadow needs a ban, I don't think Affinity needs a ban, I think Modern either needs a premiere control deck with a threatening win condition to force people into respecting and interacting with their opponent ~OR~ they need lots and lots of good cantrips, counterspells, and some kind of new, reliable, and timely win condition. One of these options seems a lot more realistic and attainable than the other.
I can see a problem in today's Modern: It's too uninteractive.. And the problem is REAL. No DS in top 8 actually is bad, because it was a linear festival.
This extreme linearity needs to be resolved somehow. There are 2 ways IMO.
1) New, strong prints(which we are hoping for and we got 4 or 5 during the last 2 years)
2) Unban Splinter Twin.
We are getting to a point that this ban looks hilariously bad. It would be just fine, especially with Fatal Push.
Also, it could also make people run more interaction to fight it.
Just admit your mistake and unban it.
This top 8 is a classic showing of people reacting to a perceived shift in the meta. People saw that a ton of people were going to be running Grixis shadow so they smartly decided to show up with decks that are good against that. They also took advantage of the fact that with decks like Affinity not showing up for awhile the anti-artifact hate was at an all time low while anti-GY hate was at an all time high.
This is a perfect analysis. What we learned today is that there is no such thing as a "best deck" in Modern. You have to be a holistic player with good skill, good metagame reads, and good sideboard design. I can't imagine a format better than Modern right now. And if you don't think there's enough interaction, go re-watch that Wescoe vs. BBD match just before the top 8. There were tons of interactions.
I'd say Legacy is better, aside from the obvious detriment of the Reserved List.
But Modern is great right now, no doubt, and to me it seems to have hit that stride where it just keeps getting better.
Out of curiosity, where do people get their Modern fix? LGS? MTGO? SCG tournaments? Tournaments by other providers (Hareruya, Card Kingdom, CF, etc.)?
I ask because I'm almost exclusively an MTGO player, and I find Modern to be quite skill-testing and interactive even in some of the allegedly less interactive games. When I lose, I can often attribute that loss to at least one error I made, not just getting nut-drawn by an opponent or going second. Sometimes, I can't tell if people complaining about Modern are actually playing the format or if it's all theorycrafting based on articles/content they find. I know some of the critics do play and their criticism comes from experience, but I also know others who barely/don't play and still give Modern a hard time.
I play mostly FNMs (8-26 people) with occasional GPTs, Grand Prix side-events and maybe a GP a year or two.
I don't think modern is not skill intensive. I am not the best player in my area, but I am also not the worst. It is clear that people who are good do constantly well in modern events, even with fringe decks. People who stick to their strategy also do constantly well. Our AdNauseum player was not the best but now is constantly 3-1/4-1/4-0 with AdN, just because he has put so so much effort into it.
Sure, Modern doesn't have a brainstorm, but that doesn't say much. I think even the occasional GP winner, like our AFfinity GP Vegas winner now, who claim that they never test the format, are players who are good. They pick up lists which are already proven and they have a good sense of the game. You can't be a random timmy with 0 sense of magic/metagame and just grab a Tier 1 deck and do well in such a GP.
Out of curiosity, where do people get their Modern fix? LGS? MTGO? SCG tournaments? Tournaments by other providers (Hareruya, Card Kingdom, CF, etc.)?
I ask because I'm almost exclusively an MTGO player, and I find Modern to be quite skill-testing and interactive even in some of the allegedly less interactive games. When I lose, I can often attribute that loss to at least one error I made, not just getting nut-drawn by an opponent or going second. Sometimes, I can't tell if people complaining about Modern are actually playing the format or if it's all theorycrafting based on articles/content they find. I know some of the critics do play and their criticism comes from experience, but I also know others who barely/don't play and still give Modern a hard time.
I play mostly FNMs (8-26 people) with occasional GPTs, Grand Prix side-events and maybe a GP a year or two.
I don't think modern is not skill intensive. I am not the best player in my area, but I am also not the worst. It is clear that people who are good do constantly well in modern events, even with fringe decks. People who stick to their strategy also do constantly well. Our AdNauseum player was not the best but now is constantly 3-1/4-1/4-0 with AdN, just because he has put so so much effort into it.
Sure, Modern doesn't have a brainstorm, but that doesn't say much. I think even the occasional GP winner, like our AFfinity GP Vegas winner now, who claim that they never test the format, are players who are good. They pick up lists which are already proven and they have a good sense of the game. You can't be a random timmy with 0 sense of magic/metagame and just grab a Tier 1 deck and do well in such a GP.
no your right all you have to do is learn how to play solitaire and ignore and race your opponent. very skill intensive format.... probably explains why computer bots can play half of the top decks in modern(
Out of curiosity, where do people get their Modern fix? LGS? MTGO? SCG tournaments? Tournaments by other providers (Hareruya, Card Kingdom, CF, etc.)?
I ask because I'm almost exclusively an MTGO player, and I find Modern to be quite skill-testing and interactive even in some of the allegedly less interactive games. When I lose, I can often attribute that loss to at least one error I made, not just getting nut-drawn by an opponent or going second. Sometimes, I can't tell if people complaining about Modern are actually playing the format or if it's all theorycrafting based on articles/content they find. I know some of the critics do play and their criticism comes from experience, but I also know others who barely/don't play and still give Modern a hard time.
I play mostly FNMs (8-26 people) with occasional GPTs, Grand Prix side-events and maybe a GP a year or two.
I don't think modern is not skill intensive. I am not the best player in my area, but I am also not the worst. It is clear that people who are good do constantly well in modern events, even with fringe decks. People who stick to their strategy also do constantly well. Our AdNauseum player was not the best but now is constantly 3-1/4-1/4-0 with AdN, just because he has put so so much effort into it.
Sure, Modern doesn't have a brainstorm, but that doesn't say much. I think even the occasional GP winner, like our AFfinity GP Vegas winner now, who claim that they never test the format, are players who are good. They pick up lists which are already proven and they have a good sense of the game. You can't be a random timmy with 0 sense of magic/metagame and just grab a Tier 1 deck and do well in such a GP.
no your right all you have to do is learn how to play solitaire and ignore and race your opponent. very skill intensive format.... probably explains why computer bots can play half of the top decks in modern( and they are retarded)
Yeah I was going to say the last paragraph of his post points out the issue not the reason it's a good format. Fnm' are great but mean little to nothing about the health of a format. I go 3-1 or better every week and play a different deck/brew every week. That doesn't represent the meta it represents me being good enough to sometimes take a pile of garbage and get paired against people who are either new or on a budget and not playing a tuned deck. Large events are all about sb calls and slots imo.
Out of curiosity, where do people get their Modern fix? LGS? MTGO? SCG tournaments? Tournaments by other providers (Hareruya, Card Kingdom, CF, etc.)?
I ask because I'm almost exclusively an MTGO player, and I find Modern to be quite skill-testing and interactive even in some of the allegedly less interactive games. When I lose, I can often attribute that loss to at least one error I made, not just getting nut-drawn by an opponent or going second. Sometimes, I can't tell if people complaining about Modern are actually playing the format or if it's all theorycrafting based on articles/content they find. I know some of the critics do play and their criticism comes from experience, but I also know others who barely/don't play and still give Modern a hard time.
I play mostly FNMs (8-26 people) with occasional GPTs, Grand Prix side-events and maybe a GP a year or two.
I don't think modern is not skill intensive. I am not the best player in my area, but I am also not the worst. It is clear that people who are good do constantly well in modern events, even with fringe decks. People who stick to their strategy also do constantly well. Our AdNauseum player was not the best but now is constantly 3-1/4-1/4-0 with AdN, just because he has put so so much effort into it.
Sure, Modern doesn't have a brainstorm, but that doesn't say much. I think even the occasional GP winner, like our AFfinity GP Vegas winner now, who claim that they never test the format, are players who are good. They pick up lists which are already proven and they have a good sense of the game. You can't be a random timmy with 0 sense of magic/metagame and just grab a Tier 1 deck and do well in such a GP.
no your right all you have to do is learn how to play solitaire and ignore and race your opponent. very skill intensive format.... probably explains why computer bots can play half of the top decks in modern( and they are retarded)
This is not a very constructive comment No need to flame.
Personally, I play exclusively control decks (as you can see from my signature). From my experience, deck familiarity is very important. Sure, I have not GP top 8s to show for it, and people can claim that small local/cross-local level doesn't matter, but that is far from the reality. Magic is a game with millions of people. All levels matter and it shows, but for different reasons.
Your comment regarding computer bots is just plain untrue. Firstly because computer bots aren't retarded (AI can win against the best Go players in the world). Secondly, because it says absolutely nothing about the skill level required.
Even if gkourou comment though is 100% true and FNMs mean nothing and it is all about the big events and bringing the right pile of cards, it still means that the format is skill intensive and requires knowledge and insights into modern. Otherwise you both can't make the calls AND can't play them properly.
I think modern is in a great place, GP Vegas was a great tournament, we saw MANY different decks, Grixis shadow is the best deck and that is great, even control had representatives (Jeskai control and Faeries in top 32). Can it be better? Sure, but it is at its best since years. And this is fine.
I don't mean to come off as a whiny kid. I highly enjoy the Modern format for 4 months now after the bans and I praise it in every chance I get. I was not while Dredge was around in huge numbers though.
But! That does not mean it can not get more interactive. If you ask me, it certainly could and should. For a brief period I thought UW Control is the go to control deck, but this seems to be fading away into obscurity. I would love one or two Tier 2 mainstay control decks(at least).
Grixis Shadow is the best thing that has happened to Modern lately in my opinion and it's welcomed in Tier 1 IMO as a Snapcaster Mage deck. It makes all its games highly interactive, enjoyable and not repetitive. Most of the games play out differently to be honest. That's why I love the deck.
I won't post spoilers here, but there have been several cards revealed in HOUR and IXA that are clearly designed for Modern and very interactive. I don't know if they'll be tournament viable, but you can tell the dev team is trying.
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WoTC, thank you for finally announcing the Modern format, an eternal format where everyone can participate.
Affinity has had horrible results the last half year so I was not that upset to see 3 in the top 8. It's a boogeyman of the format that wavers in power.
Sometimes I wonder if burn is still tier 1 but it hit top 8. It always has to be respected.
We saw very little graveyard in the top 32, it most likely means people we're packing those spellbombs, voids, surgicals and cages and left out those artifact hate. I'll be honest, my personal lists have been heavy on GY hate and lighter on artifact hate.
These huge tournaments are crazy, over 3,000 people playing, and a bunch of people who were 14-2 (which is a fantastic record) and didn't make the top 8.
If you're going to play over 18 games and win it all, yes, chances are, you're better off playing a solitaire deck that doesn't want to interact. That's the awful truth, eventually a deck with answers is going to lose purely from variance or a bad match, whereas the solitaire deck will keep chugging along. Of course they have variance, but the chance of falling on your face twice in a row is lower than not having the answer or sideboard hate.
As long as modern is a 15 sideboard deck, I don't believe most interactive, control heavy decks can win consistently in modern GP's, the answers in modern aren't good enough like legacy, and it's super tight trying to fight off aggro, burn, gy hate and affinity, along with fair decks.
Gkoru, this isn't about a ban or unban topic, until modern gets the same safety valves and answers as legacy, you should expect to see more linear decks topping huge tournaments
I don't foresee any of that happening soon, brainstorm is a huge reason interactive decks can be so consistent, along with those FOW, Hyms to Tourach, Cabal Therapy, Daze, etc.
I might get a lot of hate for saying this on this subforum, but am I the only one who thinks blue is doing just fine? No matter how you slice it, Grixis shadow is definitely a blue deck. It plays countermagic, Snapcaster and 8 cantrips. People literally switched out tarmogoyfs and Traverse's (remember when people were asking for a traverse ban here?) in order to play Snapcasters, cantrips and countermagic. And the deck is definitely tier1.
And then we still have things like merfolk, Jeskai/Esper/U/W control, turns, U/R storm and probably more that I'm missing (like that blue steel deck), that might not be tier 1, but can definitely be competitive. If I would rank the colors by strength right now I would actually say 1. black 2. blue/green/red 3. white. Which is pretty good IMO. This doesn't have to be legacy where blue is in every deck. Personally I think that there is a certain elitism associated with blue as being the most skill-intensive color or something, so when it's not the best people automatically claim it's the worst or that the format sucks.
Anyway, I think blue is just fine.
It's something that's been discussed on here for the past couple months. Grixis Shadow isn't powerful because of its blue cards, it's powerful because of the black ones. Stubborn Denial is a legit great card, but it's not playable in most blue decks. Shadow just happens to be the perfect fit for it. Snapcaster is only as good as the spells he's flashing back, so he's really good in Shadow but less so elsewhere. The blue control decks have been doing ok recently, but that's largely because they're good against Shadow decks. They still struggle against a lot of the rest of the field. I think Grixis Shadow being as good as it is rules out Preordain being unbanned for blue decks, but the slower control and midrange decks need something to help them, maybe Jace or better counter spells.
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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
After watching this weekend's tournament, Grixis is definitely a blue deck, and I want people to stop whining that it's a black deck. Those snapcasters, snap+K Command combos, counters, serum visions and thoughtscours are all very blue.
Jeskai is bad, and has been bad
UW Control has faded away, it's not a good deck
U/R Storm is being thrown out of the meta by Grixis Shadow
Turns is a tier 3 deck that made one lucky push
Merfolk is a blue deck, on a technical level, but it's an aggro deck that uses no blue cards shared by other control decks
Grixis shadow's existence itself could be dangerous to unban tools for it to use. No one on this forum can really ask for a preordain/Jace unban anymore (Well, not that I hope Jace is unbanned, ever).
If not for Grixis Shadow, blue would be in an awful spot and a horrible color
The other decks you mentioned are not fine though, they're all tier 3 (Not counting Merfolk), and Merfolk really isn't a blue deck outside of a technical scale.
EDIT: U/R Storm is definitely tier 2, it's just being drowned out by Grixis. U/R Storm getting preordain would be scary though
I might get a lot of hate for saying this on this subforum, but am I the only one who thinks blue is doing just fine? No matter how you slice it, Grixis shadow is definitely a blue deck. It plays countermagic, Snapcaster and 8 cantrips. People literally switched out tarmogoyfs and Traverse's (remember when people were asking for a traverse ban here?) in order to play Snapcasters, cantrips and countermagic. And the deck is definitely tier1.
And then we still have things like merfolk, Jeskai/Esper/U/W control, turns, U/R storm and probably more that I'm missing (like that blue steel deck), that might not be tier 1, but can definitely be competitive. If I would rank the colors by strength right now I would actually say 1. black 2. blue/green/red 3. white. Which is pretty good IMO. This doesn't have to be legacy where blue is in every deck. Personally I think that there is a certain elitism associated with blue as being the most skill-intensive color or something, so when it's not the best people automatically claim it's the worst or that the format sucks.
Anyway, I think blue is just fine.
The main issue in this thread at least is people are making blue the same as reactive control. Blue as a color is doing okay and is comparable to red and probably better than white, but control specifically is lacking so people use the argument about blue being bad as a way to conflate the two arguments. Saying that color balance is not great sounds a lot more reasonable than the deck I want to play isn't tier 1.
After watching this weekend's tournament, Grixis is definitely a blue deck, and I want people to stop whining that it's a black deck. Those snapcasters, snap+K Command combos, counters, serum visions and thoughtscours are all very blue.
Jeskai is bad, and has been bad
UW Control has faded away, it's not a good deck
U/R Storm is being thrown out of the meta by Grixis Shadow
Turns is a tier 3 deck that made one lucky push
Merfolk is a blue deck, on a technical level, but it's an aggro deck that uses no blue cards shared by other control decks
Grixis shadow's existence itself could be dangerous to unban tools for it to use. No one on this forum can really ask for a preordain/Jace unban anymore (Well, not that I hope Jace is unbanned, ever).
If not for Grixis Shadow, blue would be in an awful spot and a horrible color
The other decks you mentioned are not fine though, they're all tier 3 (Not counting Merfolk), and Merfolk really isn't a blue deck outside of a technical scale.
EDIT: U/R Storm is definitely tier 2, it's just being drowned out by Grixis. U/R Storm getting preordain would be scary though
You realize that the point is the only reason for the blue cards is to get to/protect the black ones. This doesn't mean blue is strong it means black is strong and people will use whatever gets them to the strong cards.
Zak's blue steel deck was the only deck that showed the power of blue last weekend in modern. Then the blue deck couldn't handle t2/3 combos.
@ktkenshinx, locally, MKM tournaments and similar mid scale tournaments (at least till a year ago, I kinda lost the option to play atm, due to real life).
Regarding Grixis Death Shadow, while I general dislike the deck (cause it is for me the "it has everything" deck, which I generally dislike), I would be sad to see it gone. Though, I'm kinda surprised that nobody is playing Jund Shadow anymore o.O
While I'm pro unbans and would wish a generally revamped B&R list for Modern, I'm realistic enough, that the option for this is long gone. Hence, I'm always happy, when something comes off the B&R list, regardless if it hurts the decks I play or not. If something gets banned, I always have an iffy feeling about it, but can understand the position of wizards (for every single ban btw - this doesn't mean that I agree with those thou).
So yeah, I expect no unbans for a long time.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
You realize that the point is the only reason for the blue cards is to get to/protect the black ones. This doesn't mean blue is strong it means black is strong and people will use whatever gets them to the strong cards.
What's wrong with that? Being a strong enabler/supporting color is a perfectly valid argument for a color's strength.
You realize that the point is the only reason for the blue cards is to get to/protect the black ones. This doesn't mean blue is strong it means black is strong and people will use whatever gets them to the strong cards.
What's wrong with that? Being a strong enabler/supporting color is a perfectly valid argument for a color's strength.
Id says what is wrong is that in modern it's the enablers that get banned. Black threats/answers/discard are what make grixis ds the best deck. Let's say the deck is too good and they decide it needs a ban would you be ok with it being snapcaster, visions, scour, or denial? I hope not because those aren't the problem cards the powerful black cards are the issue. Snapcaster isn't good if not for push, ts, k command, and soon again to be bolt. Denial is horrible without a big creature fast, and filtering is already so watered down that those are the best options.
I did forget to mention taking turns too, though I don't actually think it's a good deck.
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It's really nice that modern's police cards/mechanics (discard spells) do not enable combo decks particularly in the same way as (some of) Legacy's police mechanics (improved card selection/free spells) do. Modern has some elements of that but serum visions is in general only good enough for some decks.
The fact that in legacy brainstorm is clutch for both the most powerful combo decks and the most powerful control deck, and the most powerful tempo deck, and the most powerful ramp deck, and the most powerful midrange decks is somewhat embarrassing when you think about it. That'd be like Inquisition of Kozilek being a 4-of in storm, shadow, jund, collected company and eldrazi tron or something ridiculous like that.
What all this does is open the format up. There are a lot more playable shells and decks tend to leverage wildly different glue.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Force of Will has little to do with Blue's dominance in the format. Force of Will being so popular is a consequence of Blue's dominance in Legacy, not the cause. Brainstorm is the real culprit.
The only reason legacy has fewer nongames is that everyone is playing Uxx 40 card decks.
The variance for nonblue decks in legacy is nearly as bad as modern. Except now your opponent literally always finds their stupid overpowered hoser. Looking at you dread of night and massacre.
I think it's a feature not a bug that modern is higher variance
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
That's partially true. D&T has Stoneforge which is a consistency engine as well as Recruiter of the Guard. Green has GSZ, Natural Order, Sylvan Library, Crop Rotation, etc. Red has Gamble, Burning Wish, etc. Black is sort of the lone man out because a lot of its tutors are banned, but on the other hand, it does have cards like Baleful Strix, etc. (Plus, the discard spells are super powerful)
That's on top of the Modern legal consistency tools such as Horizon Canopy, Bob, Infernal Tutor, etc.
Plus, the answer's in Legacy are just a lot better than in Modern. All of that points to a lesser amount of non-games and less variance. Plus, the most underrated part of this is that your manabase deals you a lot less damage, but on the flipside Wasteland/Stifle is a thing. IOW, It's simply not entirely true to attribute the lower variance of legacy to solely Ux.
A turns deck top8 a GP.
(Mtgo player primary here BTW)
Spirits
The general difference is that in modern most colors have things they find really well land there are real deckbuilding costs to achieve consistency. In legacy nonblue decks you see the same thing. Natural order and gsz have costs like Coco/chord and expedition map/scrying. You don't see a random deck jamming crop rotation packages very often.
In modern the cost of playing blue draw and scry as you're engine is playing trash cards like sleight and thought scour. As far from brainstorm as serum visions is consider ponder vs. sleight for a bit. And having to play more lands and more business spells and more threats because they are way harder to find.
Anyway the point of all that is that I think my point stands--the difference between nonblue legacy decks and their modern counterparts is vastly less than modern and legacy blue.
******"""""""
Re answers
The majority of best removal spells in legacy are played in modern. Threats vs answers are only particularly better in blue and white. Red black and green play the same crap.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I don't think that it is any way enlightening to point out that TS isn't at FoW level, it is in 40% of decks which unlike FoW demands a deck design commitment which is I think more warping than FoW as you can run FoW with no intent to actually hard cast a single U card.
My LGS has monthly (sometimes semimonthly) modern tournaments on sundays. Between 20 and 35 people, mostly competitive. Yesterday, more than half the room was split between Grixis Shadow and Eldrazi Tron. Not the most healthy of metagames But I understand it can differ from MTGO and this is not necessarily a good representation of Modern as a whole.
MTGO, my local store has a regular 30-40 people every Saturday and probably about 15-20 for FNM. I just don't have time like I used to with work etc.. to make it; I will mostly go for informal stuff like NBL Modern on Thursday as the Torney has a floating start time of "as soon as enough people show up". I go for drafts and sealed events because I don't have to pay but that is just because I'm personal friends with the owner and he knows that I am not going to crush a new player so hard that they will get a bad taste and that I will often help teach newer players how to play, what types of strategies exist and why they are competitive etc...
I prefer MTGO overall as the "talent pool" is much deeper, nearly everyone is a good sound player while at my LGS out of 40 people 4 other guys and myself would nearly always make the top 8 and not because we are great players but because the majority of other players are mediocre to poor or locked into a bad deck due to the cost of the cards.
I don't think that Modern is anymore or less interactive than it has been in the past, I think that what most people don't like is the consistent drive towards top deck wars and the forced mulligans because of the ubiquitous presence of TS/IoK
So new prints then?
I'd say Legacy is better, aside from the obvious detriment of the Reserved List.
But Modern is great right now, no doubt, and to me it seems to have hit that stride where it just keeps getting better.
I don't think modern is not skill intensive. I am not the best player in my area, but I am also not the worst. It is clear that people who are good do constantly well in modern events, even with fringe decks. People who stick to their strategy also do constantly well. Our AdNauseum player was not the best but now is constantly 3-1/4-1/4-0 with AdN, just because he has put so so much effort into it.
Sure, Modern doesn't have a brainstorm, but that doesn't say much. I think even the occasional GP winner, like our AFfinity GP Vegas winner now, who claim that they never test the format, are players who are good. They pick up lists which are already proven and they have a good sense of the game. You can't be a random timmy with 0 sense of magic/metagame and just grab a Tier 1 deck and do well in such a GP.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
no your right all you have to do is learn how to play solitaire and ignore and race your opponent. very skill intensive format.... probably explains why computer bots can play half of the top decks in modern(
decks playing:
none
Yeah I was going to say the last paragraph of his post points out the issue not the reason it's a good format. Fnm' are great but mean little to nothing about the health of a format. I go 3-1 or better every week and play a different deck/brew every week. That doesn't represent the meta it represents me being good enough to sometimes take a pile of garbage and get paired against people who are either new or on a budget and not playing a tuned deck. Large events are all about sb calls and slots imo.
Personally, I play exclusively control decks (as you can see from my signature). From my experience, deck familiarity is very important. Sure, I have not GP top 8s to show for it, and people can claim that small local/cross-local level doesn't matter, but that is far from the reality. Magic is a game with millions of people. All levels matter and it shows, but for different reasons.
Your comment regarding computer bots is just plain untrue. Firstly because computer bots aren't retarded (AI can win against the best Go players in the world). Secondly, because it says absolutely nothing about the skill level required.
Even if gkourou comment though is 100% true and FNMs mean nothing and it is all about the big events and bringing the right pile of cards, it still means that the format is skill intensive and requires knowledge and insights into modern. Otherwise you both can't make the calls AND can't play them properly.
I think modern is in a great place, GP Vegas was a great tournament, we saw MANY different decks, Grixis shadow is the best deck and that is great, even control had representatives (Jeskai control and Faeries in top 32). Can it be better? Sure, but it is at its best since years. And this is fine.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
I won't post spoilers here, but there have been several cards revealed in HOUR and IXA that are clearly designed for Modern and very interactive. I don't know if they'll be tournament viable, but you can tell the dev team is trying.
Affinity has had horrible results the last half year so I was not that upset to see 3 in the top 8. It's a boogeyman of the format that wavers in power.
Sometimes I wonder if burn is still tier 1 but it hit top 8. It always has to be respected.
We saw very little graveyard in the top 32, it most likely means people we're packing those spellbombs, voids, surgicals and cages and left out those artifact hate. I'll be honest, my personal lists have been heavy on GY hate and lighter on artifact hate.
These huge tournaments are crazy, over 3,000 people playing, and a bunch of people who were 14-2 (which is a fantastic record) and didn't make the top 8.
If you're going to play over 18 games and win it all, yes, chances are, you're better off playing a solitaire deck that doesn't want to interact. That's the awful truth, eventually a deck with answers is going to lose purely from variance or a bad match, whereas the solitaire deck will keep chugging along. Of course they have variance, but the chance of falling on your face twice in a row is lower than not having the answer or sideboard hate.
As long as modern is a 15 sideboard deck, I don't believe most interactive, control heavy decks can win consistently in modern GP's, the answers in modern aren't good enough like legacy, and it's super tight trying to fight off aggro, burn, gy hate and affinity, along with fair decks.
Gkoru, this isn't about a ban or unban topic, until modern gets the same safety valves and answers as legacy, you should expect to see more linear decks topping huge tournaments
I don't foresee any of that happening soon, brainstorm is a huge reason interactive decks can be so consistent, along with those FOW, Hyms to Tourach, Cabal Therapy, Daze, etc.
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
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
Jeskai is bad, and has been bad
UW Control has faded away, it's not a good deck
U/R Storm is being thrown out of the meta by Grixis Shadow
Turns is a tier 3 deck that made one lucky push
Merfolk is a blue deck, on a technical level, but it's an aggro deck that uses no blue cards shared by other control decks
Grixis shadow's existence itself could be dangerous to unban tools for it to use. No one on this forum can really ask for a preordain/Jace unban anymore (Well, not that I hope Jace is unbanned, ever).
If not for Grixis Shadow, blue would be in an awful spot and a horrible color
The other decks you mentioned are not fine though, they're all tier 3 (Not counting Merfolk), and Merfolk really isn't a blue deck outside of a technical scale.
EDIT: U/R Storm is definitely tier 2, it's just being drowned out by Grixis. U/R Storm getting preordain would be scary though
The main issue in this thread at least is people are making blue the same as reactive control. Blue as a color is doing okay and is comparable to red and probably better than white, but control specifically is lacking so people use the argument about blue being bad as a way to conflate the two arguments. Saying that color balance is not great sounds a lot more reasonable than the deck I want to play isn't tier 1.
Zak's blue steel deck was the only deck that showed the power of blue last weekend in modern. Then the blue deck couldn't handle t2/3 combos.
Regarding Grixis Death Shadow, while I general dislike the deck (cause it is for me the "it has everything" deck, which I generally dislike), I would be sad to see it gone. Though, I'm kinda surprised that nobody is playing Jund Shadow anymore o.O
While I'm pro unbans and would wish a generally revamped B&R list for Modern, I'm realistic enough, that the option for this is long gone. Hence, I'm always happy, when something comes off the B&R list, regardless if it hurts the decks I play or not. If something gets banned, I always have an iffy feeling about it, but can understand the position of wizards (for every single ban btw - this doesn't mean that I agree with those thou).
So yeah, I expect no unbans for a long time.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
What's wrong with that? Being a strong enabler/supporting color is a perfectly valid argument for a color's strength.
I did forget to mention taking turns too, though I don't actually think it's a good deck.