Ok. Say goodbye to Metagame Analysis. This is a bad WOTC move.
That was my instinctual reaction too. But it's fairly obvious that by taking away the PT and making this change, they simply want the format to stay fresh, diverse, and "unsolved" for as long as possible. I actually think in the grand scheme of things it's a good sign that WOTC wants a format that isn't solved for players to land and enjoy. It demonstrates a desire to continue to support the format.
A lot of us who post here fancy ourselves "competitive" Modern players to various degrees so we always want as much information as possible, but if you take a step back this can be seen as a positive.
When games in Modern are often decided by the top 10 cards of each player's library or the huge impact of specific sideboard cards in limited capacity, I can't see how this is in any way a good thing. Unless you REALLY want to try and make Horse Tribal happen at your local FNM.
You're failing to understand his point. I fail to see how spouting the same format bashing rhetoric about the top 10 cards of your deck in any way relates to this decision. How does this affect the variant nature of modern? I feel like it's a weak segue to sandwich in a jab at modern and dodge an infraction.
Guess what? Wizards DOES want horse tribal to happen at FNM and that's why twin is banned. Wizards cares about the format because it doesn't want the spike driven online feedback loop to push a decks metashares into a noxious and bannable range, when they know the true winrate is acceptable. And they don't want us to know everything because it will lead to solved format more quickly and then it will be harder or impossible to achieve their goal of having standard cards impact modern regularly and ultimately lead to more bans so they can achieve the aforementioned goal. You don't like it but that is the truth.
You know how you avoid solved formats? By printing cards to impact those formats every 3 months, NOT by artificially concealing information. This is an exercise in laziness on their part, not insight. They should instead by innovating more cards to impact eternal formats than simply shutting the door on information-gathering. We get hundreds of new cards every three months, and if more of them were actually playable, and not trashy limited fodder or overpriced, underpowered Standard fodder, we would never have solved formats. We don't have the luxury of Legacy and Vintage, who have access to supplemental products, we have to and can only get new cards through Standard. So instead of helping us with new cards, they simply shut off our information valve. It doesn't actually solve anything, it just slows down our progress enough to make it seem like they've done something positive for our format.
This is typical of their lazy and disconnected management style.
They do print cards that impact every 3 months. I'm not going tit for tat with lists but if you don't want to believe that fine. It does solve something, the spike-feedback-loop and over reliance on info they won't give us (whether you agree with that or not.) And it IS positive for our format, it will lead to less bans.
Go start a "WotC sucks and I am smarter than them" thread, it's so tiresome hearing you go on. No respect for the devoted people who create and manage a game that you love, all because you lost your pet card.
Go start a "WotC sucks and I am smarter than them" thread, it's so tiresome hearing you go on. No respect for the devoted people who create and manage a game that you love, all because you lost your pet card.
Are you talking about the same company who managed to destroy both of their premiere flagship formats (Modern in 2016 and Standard for the past 2 years) as a result of their own design choices and actions?
And as pointed out, our feedback loop moving forward will just be driven by pros and articles instead oodles of data (which is even WORSE). With data, we can see what the picture is and then find a way to innovate to beat it. Cycles continue as decks rise and fall because people are able to observe and plan accordingly (and those who DO want to innovate outside of the box have a massive early advantage). Throw in new cards every 3 months and there should be no issue in terms of innovation and growth as a format.
This choice to conceal information is simply lazy.
WotC wrote a mea culpa acknowledging their mistake with threats (based on market research to INCREASE ENJOYMENT of the game, they aren't evil.) They then took a risky and controversial approach with bans to fix their mistakes in standard. People are saying good things about standard these days! These are the actions of a good company, not the bumbling oafs you've dreamt up to justify your crusade.
It's worse than lazy, it's willful obfuscation of data, it's misrepresentation at best, or lies at worst.
It's 2017, and it's embarrassing to see.
Yes, by doing what they are doing now, they are actively and purposely publishing nonrepresentational and downright misleading information about the game.
This feels akin to the hissy fit that musicians and artists threw when the internet became a thing and they still wanted CD sales to be relevant. We live in the information age. It's not 1993 anymore.
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh. Any system where you are hinging success on limiting information seems like a net loss.
The meta will always be perceived as stagnant by a portion of the player base, especially in a non-rotating format. People are going to be clamoring for stupid bans or unbans, regardless of whether or not you put 5,10, or 20 5-0 lists up. Now people are going to be asking for bans or unbans but not actually have ANY sort of numbers to back it up. People are going to cite pro's articles for anything related to formats. It's not like the mtgo numbers were statistically even close to relevant anyway, but if they weren't able to put up 10 different lists with 10 different cards for each format (hence reducing to 5) then the players deserve to know as much. They're wasting their time on the most mundane of issues now (players have too much information!), but it makes them look shadier and is just a bad PR move.
This is like having a cracked phone screen and complaining it won't fit in your case.
Ok, so your imperfect sampling of an imperfect metric (5-0 in MTGO) got smaller. So the incorrect conclusions that were being drawn from this limited data set are now even less correct.
I actually agree with WotC on this ...
Play the deck you love to play and that you know you can win with and also accept that you have no idea what you are going to face in such a diverse and competitively flat meta.
I've been going into events big and small lately hearing everyone saying "it's all GDS and ET now" then proceeded to face Elves, Burn, Pack Rat, Jeskai Saheeli, Titanshift, Bogles, Gifts Storm, Ad Nauseam, Knightfall, Grishoalbrand, Abzan, Mill, 8-Rack, Kiki Chord, Bant Eldrazi, 8-Whack, Breach Titan, Dredge, UW Control, Stompy, Aristocrats, Affinity, Faeries, Jeskai Naheeri, Skred ... all in the last month or so and all were very competitive. I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
People will literally say anything about stoneforge. Last week it was a danger if making coco decks tier zero.
No way does any ten build have room for sfm. Maybe as a sb package. Please learn to understand deck construction before making statements of certainty regarding deck building.
Because decks never change to accommodate new more powerful options. This is the same things people said about LotH, about Grim Flayer, about Baral, etc....
I'm not saying that SFM couldn't come off the list, I'm saying that this argument really has no founding in Magic. Newer more powerful options will always find room in a deck at the expense of the less powerful current options that is just a fundamental truth of Mtg. You seem to be advocating a position of non-deck building where lists are set in stone instead of reevaluated consistently and potentially consisting of very different counts and potentially cards included. Is it crazy to say that SFM would make CoCo decks T0? yes, but it isn't crazy to assume a card on the power level of SFM wouldn't find its way into almost every deck with access to W.
What I'm saying is that decks do not often warp to include strategies that don't mesh well with their gameplans and if you understand how decks like twin and company are constructed you won't be worried about them warping to include sfm.
If limiting information improves format health/perception, why bother posting any 5-0 list? By that logic, if going to 5 lists is good, wouldn't going to 0 be great? The only people that actually benefit from this are pros that already have access to data that we don't due to their extensive personal testing. They aren't relying on wizards' 5-0 lists, they'll already be able to determine what works and what doesn't. FNM's are FNM's and people will always exaggerate info from them, but this actually has a larger chance of effecting SCG's and GP's. And this isn't just modern, it's every format.
What's frustrating to me is that they're turning a non-issue into an issue, then even messing THAT up.
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh. Any system where you are hinging success on limiting information seems like a net loss.
The meta will always be perceived as stagnant by a portion of the player base, especially in a non-rotating format. People are going to be clamoring for stupid bans or unbans, regardless of whether or not you put 5,10, or 20 5-0 lists up. Now people are going to be asking for bans or unbans but not actually have ANY sort of numbers to back it up. People are going to cite pro's articles for anything related to formats. It's not like the mtgo numbers were statistically even close to relevant anyway, but if they weren't able to put up 10 different lists with 10 different cards for each format (hence reducing to 5) then the players deserve to know as much. They're wasting their time on the most mundane of issues now (players have too much information!), but it makes them look shadier and is just a bad PR move.
This is like having a cracked phone screen and complaining it won't fit in your case.
I know I said I would bow out of this but I just wanted to say I think the 10 card thing has more to do with standard than modern; they recently made a standard ban based on player perception (probably due to lots of 5-0s of 2-3 different standard decks and players snowballing towards them.) The larger arguments still apply mind you. I just don't think it would be nearly as hard to find decks with more than 10 different cards in modern as it would be in standard. (correct me if I'm wrong this change applies to all formats)
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh. Any system where you are hinging success on limiting information seems like a net loss.
The meta will always be perceived as stagnant by a portion of the player base, especially in a non-rotating format. People are going to be clamoring for stupid bans or unbans, regardless of whether or not you put 5,10, or 20 5-0 lists up. Now people are going to be asking for bans or unbans but not actually have ANY sort of numbers to back it up. People are going to cite pro's articles for anything related to formats. It's not like the mtgo numbers were statistically even close to relevant anyway, but if they weren't able to put up 10 different lists with 10 different cards for each format (hence reducing to 5) then the players deserve to know as much. They're wasting their time on the most mundane of issues now (players have too much information!), but it makes them look shadier and is just a bad PR move.
This is like having a cracked phone screen and complaining it won't fit in your case.
I know I said I would bow out of this but I just wanted to say I think the 10 card thing has more to do with standard than modern; they recently made a standard ban based on player perception (probably due to lots of 5-0s of 2-3 different standard decks and players snowballing towards them.) The larger arguments still apply mind you. I just don't think it would be nearly as hard to find decks with more than 10 different cards in modern as it would be in standard. (correct me if I'm wrong this change applies to all formats)
I don't know, they didn't reference any specific format in their article. But the new "10 card rule" preemptively allows them to hedge on any arguments regarding format health. Rather than having people say vehicles/shadow/legacy delver are too strong because they post three 5-0 lists one week, they now have a rule basically enforcing them to post 5 different decks. They're putting band-aids over a wound that may or may not even exist.
I agree, it wouldn't be hard to find different decks for modern, because we already know (or a majority does) modern is a healthy/diverse format. In that same vein, we already know standard is NOT healthy, even if they're posting 5 different 5-0 standard decks. All this does is limit information to the players to deal with format perception rather than format health.
Thinking on it, its still hilariously dishonest to hide the data, but if its only 5-0 lists...well those 5-0 lists still have to beat someone 5 times right? If people continue to use paper results as a benchmark and reference point, they can still have some kind of educated assumptions around the format.
It really speaks to their lack of confidence in their own abilities however to manage the format.
'Our current method for presenting decklists for Magic Online Leagues is to randomly select ten of the top-performing decklists per format per day. Starting July 10, we will be reducing the total number of top decklists being presented per day from ten to five, and each of these decklists will be randomly selected with the caveat that each list will be at least ten cards different from every other list.'
'With all that said, the way we've been presenting decklists from Magic Online is particularly prone to pushing metagames toward becoming homogenous or "solved" extremely quickly. Since we have been presenting a random selection of top-performing decks, even if a deck doesn't have a particularly high win rate, it can appear to be extremely dominant if it's widely played. With only this information, it's not possible to disentangle win percentage and metagame percentage. This can lead, and at times has led, to feedback cycles where a deck appears more dominant than it would otherwise, which leads to an even greater percentage of play.'
I'm so sick of them. I don't think they understand what real people do.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
WoTC, thank you for finally announcing the Modern format, an eternal format where everyone can participate.
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh. Any system where you are hinging success on limiting information seems like a net loss.
The meta will always be perceived as stagnant by a portion of the player base, especially in a non-rotating format. People are going to be clamoring for stupid bans or unbans, regardless of whether or not you put 5,10, or 20 5-0 lists up. Now people are going to be asking for bans or unbans but not actually have ANY sort of numbers to back it up. People are going to cite pro's articles for anything related to formats. It's not like the mtgo numbers were statistically even close to relevant anyway, but if they weren't able to put up 10 different lists with 10 different cards for each format (hence reducing to 5) then the players deserve to know as much. They're wasting their time on the most mundane of issues now (players have too much information!), but it makes them look shadier and is just a bad PR move.
This is like having a cracked phone screen and complaining it won't fit in your case.
This decision screams unintended consequences if you consider the two bold sentences in conjunction. WoTC is removing any objective way to understand the metagame. So what are people going to do? Rely even more heavily on anyone who has a public platform, whether they're accurate or not. How are people going to select a deck in the face of less information? Netdeck the results from the latest GP even harder because some information is better than none.
I can understand wanting a format to avoid becoming redundant and stale, but this will only more heavily weight the concentrated opinions of pros or writers. That can result in an incestuous metagame that's exactly the thing they're trying to avoid. And then there's the increased volatility in card value that's introduced by removing information.
If you want to stop the appearance of an overly dominant deck leading to over-representation, release more information not less. Show that GDS was 50% of decks on a given day but only 10% of the 5-0s. Occasionally show numbers on its match-ups like they did with Aetherworks Marvel in Standard. That will encourage your "spikes" to try something different, keeping the metagame moving. More information means more metagaming, which in turns prevents stagnation instead of a focus on just playing "the best" deck.
I still think this is a net positive. The echo chamber of MTGO has never been healthy for the game, and for various reasons the MTGO meta has never really matched the paper meta. If you play primarily online, then this sucks. But I don't play online (much) and have always taken MTGO stats with a HUGE grain of salt. I've also never fully bought into the idea that the paper meta follows the MTGO meta - because it often simply doesn't.
Now in preparation for paper tournaments people will be forced to only look at the real data and not harm their preparation by looking at MTGO results. Net gain in my book.
This does not get rid of the echo chamber; it simply makes it even less accurate by making some voices louder.
It should reinforce, or for some people introduce, the idea that the echo chamber simply shouldn't be listened to. Some people will never learn that, but it's still progress.
Now in preparation for paper tournaments people will be forced to only look at the real data and not harm their preparation by looking at MTGO results. Net gain in my book.
While I agree with you, I think there is more to it than that. It seems clear to me that conclusions that people were drawing from the subset of 5-0 winners being released was creating a picture of the Modern meta that just wasn't accurate. So now WotC is being even clear in saying "Hey guys, don't rely on this data to evaluate the meta because it's not complete enough".
WotC really only has two choices - release all the data about MTGO, including every competitive league deck list and tournament record, or release basically nothing. I really can't blame them for going the "nothing" route. It's their data, they can guard it if they want. Also, I can understand why they would not want to give a competitive advantage to the data hounds.
Before this change, I always felt like the posted paper results were a better gauge of the paper meta anyway. I'd compile all the GP/Open/Classic stats in a database and build some analytics if I actually gave a crap, but I don't so I won't. Maybe someone will though, and I think that would be better than the incomplete MTGO data that folks were relying on anyway.
This does not get rid of the echo chamber; it simply makes it even less accurate by making some voices louder.
It should reinforce, or for some people introduce, the idea that the echo chamber simply shouldn't be listened to. Some people will never learn that, but it's still progress.
At the risk of going down the rabbit hole explaining cognitive biases, that's not at all how we're wired as humans. We'll inherently look for heuristics to fill in missing information based on what's available; all this does is increase the reliance on fewer (and less accurate) sources.
Put another way -- despite their obvious pitfalls you can't make echo chambers go away. They happen everywhere, from high finance to firehouses. The best way to combat them is the introduction of more information from more sources, not less from fewer.
Very typical response from him, and full disclosure I like Maro as a designer and think some of his cards are exactly what is right with magic.
That said, why does one choose a deck 0.5% worse? Because its the style of deck one wants, because it fits them, because of financial constraints, because there is this thing called a META GAME which makes that 0.5% meaningless.
Its more and more concerning to me that Wizards treats MTGO numbers as if they came down from God. "This deck had a lot of 50-50 match ups, BANNED."
As someone in the comments said.
"Maybe design better environments than hide behind an iron curtain?"
Thats what this is really about. Wizards doesnt have the guts to stand behind their product with a spotlight on it, plain as that.
This does not get rid of the echo chamber; it simply makes it even less accurate by making some voices louder.
It should reinforce, or for some people introduce, the idea that the echo chamber simply shouldn't be listened to. Some people will never learn that, but it's still progress.
At the risk of going down the rabbit hole explaining cognitive biases, that's not at all how we're wired as humans. We'll inherently look for heuristics to fill in missing information based on what's available; all this does is increase the reliance on fewer (and less accurate) sources.
Put another way -- despite their obvious pitfalls you can't make echo chambers go away. They happen everywhere, from high finance to firehouses. The best way to combat them is the introduction of more information from more sources, not less from fewer.
I generally agree. I'm just sticking with MY bias that anything MTGO related is bad mojo :-p
It's their data, they can guard it if they want. Also, I can understand why they would not want to give a competitive advantage to the data hounds.
I'm not sure it is a wise business move to prevent people from engaging in your product in a way they enjoy. If it gives them an advantage they had to work for then do be it.
WotC haven't done the best job in the last two years of design or PR so (minor) changes like this are much more likely to result in a negative 'tin foil hat' reaction than a positive one.
Specifically for modern though I think we have to ignore mtgo data now as it'll always say affinity, burn, big mana, bgx and a combo or control deck. Boring and provides no actual data any longer even over a long time period. Random is better than selected.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern - E-Tron & UWControl
Legacy - LED Dredge, ANT & WDnT
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They do print cards that impact every 3 months. I'm not going tit for tat with lists but if you don't want to believe that fine. It does solve something, the spike-feedback-loop and over reliance on info they won't give us (whether you agree with that or not.) And it IS positive for our format, it will lead to less bans.
Go start a "WotC sucks and I am smarter than them" thread, it's so tiresome hearing you go on. No respect for the devoted people who create and manage a game that you love, all because you lost your pet card.
U Merfolk
UB Tezzerator
UB Mill
You sir, are a prophet!
I had accused them of similar things (only sort of joking) the past few months, but they just confirmed it.
Are you talking about the same company who managed to destroy both of their premiere flagship formats (Modern in 2016 and Standard for the past 2 years) as a result of their own design choices and actions?
And as pointed out, our feedback loop moving forward will just be driven by pros and articles instead oodles of data (which is even WORSE). With data, we can see what the picture is and then find a way to innovate to beat it. Cycles continue as decks rise and fall because people are able to observe and plan accordingly (and those who DO want to innovate outside of the box have a massive early advantage). Throw in new cards every 3 months and there should be no issue in terms of innovation and growth as a format.
This choice to conceal information is simply lazy.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
It's 2017, and it's embarrassing to see.
Spirits
U Merfolk
UB Tezzerator
UB Mill
Yes, by doing what they are doing now, they are actively and purposely publishing nonrepresentational and downright misleading information about the game.
This feels akin to the hissy fit that musicians and artists threw when the internet became a thing and they still wanted CD sales to be relevant. We live in the information age. It's not 1993 anymore.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
U Merfolk
UB Tezzerator
UB Mill
The meta will always be perceived as stagnant by a portion of the player base, especially in a non-rotating format. People are going to be clamoring for stupid bans or unbans, regardless of whether or not you put 5,10, or 20 5-0 lists up. Now people are going to be asking for bans or unbans but not actually have ANY sort of numbers to back it up. People are going to cite pro's articles for anything related to formats. It's not like the mtgo numbers were statistically even close to relevant anyway, but if they weren't able to put up 10 different lists with 10 different cards for each format (hence reducing to 5) then the players deserve to know as much. They're wasting their time on the most mundane of issues now (players have too much information!), but it makes them look shadier and is just a bad PR move.
This is like having a cracked phone screen and complaining it won't fit in your case.
Affinity
Death & Taxes
Mardu Nahiri
Forcing people to merge with twitch is stupid
I actually agree with WotC on this ...
Play the deck you love to play and that you know you can win with and also accept that you have no idea what you are going to face in such a diverse and competitively flat meta.
I've been going into events big and small lately hearing everyone saying "it's all GDS and ET now" then proceeded to face Elves, Burn, Pack Rat, Jeskai Saheeli, Titanshift, Bogles, Gifts Storm, Ad Nauseam, Knightfall, Grishoalbrand, Abzan, Mill, 8-Rack, Kiki Chord, Bant Eldrazi, 8-Whack, Breach Titan, Dredge, UW Control, Stompy, Aristocrats, Affinity, Faeries, Jeskai Naheeri, Skred ... all in the last month or so and all were very competitive. I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
What I'm saying is that decks do not often warp to include strategies that don't mesh well with their gameplans and if you understand how decks like twin and company are constructed you won't be worried about them warping to include sfm.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
What's frustrating to me is that they're turning a non-issue into an issue, then even messing THAT up.
Affinity
Death & Taxes
Mardu Nahiri
Forcing people to merge with twitch is stupid
I know I said I would bow out of this but I just wanted to say I think the 10 card thing has more to do with standard than modern; they recently made a standard ban based on player perception (probably due to lots of 5-0s of 2-3 different standard decks and players snowballing towards them.) The larger arguments still apply mind you. I just don't think it would be nearly as hard to find decks with more than 10 different cards in modern as it would be in standard. (correct me if I'm wrong this change applies to all formats)
U Merfolk
UB Tezzerator
UB Mill
I don't know, they didn't reference any specific format in their article. But the new "10 card rule" preemptively allows them to hedge on any arguments regarding format health. Rather than having people say vehicles/shadow/legacy delver are too strong because they post three 5-0 lists one week, they now have a rule basically enforcing them to post 5 different decks. They're putting band-aids over a wound that may or may not even exist.
I agree, it wouldn't be hard to find different decks for modern, because we already know (or a majority does) modern is a healthy/diverse format. In that same vein, we already know standard is NOT healthy, even if they're posting 5 different 5-0 standard decks. All this does is limit information to the players to deal with format perception rather than format health.
Affinity
Death & Taxes
Mardu Nahiri
Forcing people to merge with twitch is stupid
It really speaks to their lack of confidence in their own abilities however to manage the format.
"Trust us guys, its fine!"
Spirits
I'm so sick of them. I don't think they understand what real people do.
This decision screams unintended consequences if you consider the two bold sentences in conjunction. WoTC is removing any objective way to understand the metagame. So what are people going to do? Rely even more heavily on anyone who has a public platform, whether they're accurate or not. How are people going to select a deck in the face of less information? Netdeck the results from the latest GP even harder because some information is better than none.
I can understand wanting a format to avoid becoming redundant and stale, but this will only more heavily weight the concentrated opinions of pros or writers. That can result in an incestuous metagame that's exactly the thing they're trying to avoid. And then there's the increased volatility in card value that's introduced by removing information.
If you want to stop the appearance of an overly dominant deck leading to over-representation, release more information not less. Show that GDS was 50% of decks on a given day but only 10% of the 5-0s. Occasionally show numbers on its match-ups like they did with Aetherworks Marvel in Standard. That will encourage your "spikes" to try something different, keeping the metagame moving. More information means more metagaming, which in turns prevents stagnation instead of a focus on just playing "the best" deck.
Now in preparation for paper tournaments people will be forced to only look at the real data and not harm their preparation by looking at MTGO results. Net gain in my book.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
While I agree with you, I think there is more to it than that. It seems clear to me that conclusions that people were drawing from the subset of 5-0 winners being released was creating a picture of the Modern meta that just wasn't accurate. So now WotC is being even clear in saying "Hey guys, don't rely on this data to evaluate the meta because it's not complete enough".
WotC really only has two choices - release all the data about MTGO, including every competitive league deck list and tournament record, or release basically nothing. I really can't blame them for going the "nothing" route. It's their data, they can guard it if they want. Also, I can understand why they would not want to give a competitive advantage to the data hounds.
Before this change, I always felt like the posted paper results were a better gauge of the paper meta anyway. I'd compile all the GP/Open/Classic stats in a database and build some analytics if I actually gave a crap, but I don't so I won't. Maybe someone will though, and I think that would be better than the incomplete MTGO data that folks were relying on anyway.
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
At the risk of going down the rabbit hole explaining cognitive biases, that's not at all how we're wired as humans. We'll inherently look for heuristics to fill in missing information based on what's available; all this does is increase the reliance on fewer (and less accurate) sources.
Put another way -- despite their obvious pitfalls you can't make echo chambers go away. They happen everywhere, from high finance to firehouses. The best way to combat them is the introduction of more information from more sources, not less from fewer.
Very typical response from him, and full disclosure I like Maro as a designer and think some of his cards are exactly what is right with magic.
That said, why does one choose a deck 0.5% worse? Because its the style of deck one wants, because it fits them, because of financial constraints, because there is this thing called a META GAME which makes that 0.5% meaningless.
Its more and more concerning to me that Wizards treats MTGO numbers as if they came down from God. "This deck had a lot of 50-50 match ups, BANNED."
As someone in the comments said.
"Maybe design better environments than hide behind an iron curtain?"
Thats what this is really about. Wizards doesnt have the guts to stand behind their product with a spotlight on it, plain as that.
Spirits
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
I'm not sure it is a wise business move to prevent people from engaging in your product in a way they enjoy. If it gives them an advantage they had to work for then do be it.
WotC haven't done the best job in the last two years of design or PR so (minor) changes like this are much more likely to result in a negative 'tin foil hat' reaction than a positive one.
Specifically for modern though I think we have to ignore mtgo data now as it'll always say affinity, burn, big mana, bgx and a combo or control deck. Boring and provides no actual data any longer even over a long time period. Random is better than selected.
Legacy - LED Dredge, ANT & WDnT