I'm pretty much in agreement with everything holydiva said.
I like games that require skill, requiring thinking, and require actually paying attention to what your opponent is doing.
IMO, valakut and eldrazi decks are the absolute opposite.
I have no problem with these decks existing, I just wish they weren't so good.
I like shadow as a deck, I'd just like it to be a little weaker (but I'm not sure how best to accomplish that. Ban streetwraith? or just ban shadow and print new cards to let delver style decks work)
Affinity is fine, IMO. Its a little too swingy in the sideboard department (games can be unrewarding, ie: i drew stony silence and a reasonable hand, so any mediocre plays I make win, or I didn't find what I needed, no plays I make will win, etc), but its still miles better than dredge.
Storm is also something I don't inherently mind, but I wish it was either a, a little bit worse, or b, we had better tools to deal with it in many different colors. The deck is good in legacy, but its somewhat rained in by the fact that people can play so many good answers to it main, and since the modern version has more dependence on creatures/graveyard (usually) its theoretically even healthier in this regard, but it still feels like to many decks have to just mull for their sideboard hate. Again I'm not sure the best way to fix this, but I'm sure its possible.
I'd honestly say modern is about a 4/10 for me right now. I do my damned best to cram as much interaction into each game as I can, but I'd like more meaningful decisions (and less stupid cards) on both sides of the table.
Other than GDS, those look to be the pretty typical 'ships passing in the night' match up decks. I'll do my thing, you do yours, lets see who finishes first kind of thing.
I do believe that that is what the Pro Tour will be composed of, unless something comes up (ban/unban) to shake it up. Maybe the next set if it releases on time?
And thats the crux of it. No format, no deck, can please everyone, and for some, its a very specific itch that needs to be scratched, and that may be the complete opposite of what someone else wants.
I hope these SCG regional players get out to the pro tour and prove that UWR is legit against the top decks played by the top players, because to me, thats the missing ingredient.
I would've preferred they waited on the Gitaxian Probe ban and seen what effect Fatal Push would have, as it was good against pretty much every single deck that ran Gitaxian Probe, except maybe Storm (which wasn't a big thing then).
Maybe it would've warranted banning anyway, but it is a little annoying to ban a card when pretty much every Tier 1 deck that ran it would be hurt by Fatal Push.
We 've got a format, in which ,for the first time, there is no clear cut best deck, but instead there are 4 or 5 best decks and you still claiming for further bans. There are always going to be some decks that are better than some of the rest.
What are you talking about? There's been plenty of times in Modern's history when there was no clear cut best deck.
I'm pretty sure IF Modern is great, then it's great in spite of those 5 decks and not thanks to them. Which has lead me to think more and more about this "just carpetbomb the freaking tier 1 and let us play with what's left after that" approach.
So, tell me: when does the bannings stop? When you (and only you) declare it to be good?
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
I'm pretty sure IF Modern is great, then it's great in spite of those 5 decks and not thanks to them. Which has lead me to think more and more about this "just carpetbomb the freaking tier 1 and let us play with what's left after that" approach.
So, tell me: when does the bannings stop? When you (and only you) declare it to be good?
I don't like dishonest, trolly questions, sorry. Try again!
Way to dodge the question, champ.
I'm gonna ask you again:
When do the bannings stop, in your opinion? Infraction issued for flaming. There are better ways to ask for someone's attention than saying they dodged the question. There are better ways to get someone's attention than being passive-aggressive. -- CavalryWolfPack
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
I'm pretty sure IF Modern is great, then it's great in spite of those 5 decks and not thanks to them. Which has lead me to think more and more about this "just carpetbomb the freaking tier 1 and let us play with what's left after that" approach.
So, tell me: when does the bannings stop? When you (and only you) declare it to be good?
I don't like dishonest, trolly questions, sorry. Try again!
Way to dodge the question, champ.
I'm gonna ask you again:
When do the bannings stop, in your opinion?
Well the bannings would stop when no more bans are estimated to make the format better.
And how do you judge that, exactly?
What would be your "ban or not ban" guidelines?
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
I guess I'm curious about what a good format is supposed to look like. I'd hate for a lock-down control or prison deck to dominate like miracles did in Legacy forever or hell workshop prison decks in Vintage. For a while Standard was a midrange grindfest, and I find battleship MtG totally boring. I like where we are at now. I know its subjective, but I'm curious as to what is missing?
And here's another thing: we either get a format with a lot of viable decks or top tier control. Control decks are good when they can properly attack a meta, so you won't have good blue based control unless we get banned down to like six playable decks. That's just the reality.
I think this really depends on just what you call (or refuse to call) Control. HolyDiva hits on an important thing here that I've not seen articulated well previously.
Its one thing to have variety, its another to have the games between all this variety be interesting. Put another way, many decks can be interesting, but what if the games between these various decks are not?
Is that a good format?
I think this is something that needed to be said, but like you said has never been articulated well. Something that drove me away from many decks is that they look cool on paper, and on camera, but when I sit down to play the games are just so boring. To me, that's an issue that does come down to personal preference, but the format does take some of the blame for that. If the format is diverse but uninteresting, what good is it all?
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"Don't believe everything you read on the internet." - Abraham Lincoln
Just walk away if the thread doesn't provide what you want.
Fact is, this thread is an outlet for venting steam. That's it. We do not shape policy. We do not present arguments based on fact (with 2 or 3 exceptions) and even people who are reasonable 99% of the time knee-jerk right off the deep end of someone dares to imply their pet deck is borderline too good.
TLDR: why so serious, the thread isn't.
Sorry for the double post, but I do want to address this. Understand that I am speaking for me, not the mod team, and while I will make reference to them, these are my observations, not a presentation of the moderator's views and opinions. Basically, I'm not speaking for them.
I will start by saying that the mod team does treat this thread as more serious than a vent for frustration. That's my fault. My understanding was the intention of the thread was to be a more serious discussion (and for a time, it arguably was), but the thread slowly shifted and I didn't exactly keep up with that. We started dishing out so many infractions that the amount of infractions we were giving out was absurd. We noticed that the issue came from Twin, and we decided to take action. Was it extreme? Absolutely, and perhaps it was mistake. While the Legacy subforum enjoyed success with a moratorium on discussion surrounding banning Brainstorm, what I failed to realize was that the community was universally sick of it. Here, there was a larger split of opinions on the topic, and that cost us dearly. I will say that we got significantly less reports out of this thread and we also gave out far less infractions (if possible, I want to compile the numbers for you to see, but it's pretty difficult given how the forum works). The intention wasn't to push away people who liked Twin. It's not a personal bias, or a hidden agenda of any kind. I don't ignore the reports concerning those I agree with. Similarly, I don't go out of my way to punish someone I disagree with if how the message is presented is fine. I like having different perspectives, and even if I disagree with them I at least respect their view. I also understand that this comes out of what I play. My pet deck is Skred Red -- a tier 3 deck at best, and my favorite card is Blood Moon, which is renowned for generating non-games. I also write budget Modern articles. Consequently, I appreciate diversity and interesting gameplay over absolute power level (I am well aware this sounds like a flat-out lie considering my love of Blood Moon, but I'm 100% serious).
StubbsMcAwesome described what I saw pretty well
The reason splinter twin talk was banned was because of the very scenario you mentioned: people re-routing every post, whether it was warranted or not, to splinter twin. No new ideas could be discussed in this thread for more than a page before someone shoehorned twin talk into the fray.
In hindsight, this ordeal feels like a delayed knee-jerk. The build up of the past few months of reports, on top of the amount of users asking us to do something about this thread, led to where we are now. I guess the real question is whether or not State of the Meta was better off without the moratorium?
I'm going to stop here because I realize I'm rambling a lot.
TLDR: Splinter Twin moratorium wasn't out of bias against user who like Twin, and this whole thing may have been a mistake.
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"Don't believe everything you read on the internet." - Abraham Lincoln
Yeah I've heard your Modern Sales Pitch 300 million times already because you spout it to anyone that might want to listen or without the need for that, like you get paid to do it or something.
Modern fanboys? In the modern subforum of all places?
CavalryWolfPack: I actually enjoyed the ban on Twin talk. I would actually expand on it potentially to the point where if X is banned and had once been not banned (Twin, Pod, things like that, not things which had never been Modern legal) then it cannot be discussed. Forces us to move on to the topic of the day for example "Is the Tier 1 of Modern HEALTHY".
Thats a conversation worth having. Not 'omg Opt is going to break Storm' and various other horrible posts.
Keep the Moratorium, and expand on it to include anything banned since Modern became a thing. Song, Elf, whatever, just move on and discuss what we have now, because I've yet to be given reason to believe that this forum has a voice that Wizards hears, let alone listens to.
As to the topic of the day. I do not believe that the top 5 or so true 'Tier 1' decks are healthy. I think holydiva is 100% on point, that if Modern was Tier 2 and below, that the format would be better, because that is actually what people mean when they discuss 'modern is in the best place ever'.
Its because their Tier 2 deck has a better chance, but not a great one, vs the field, than it did in the past.
The Tier 1 however? I think if we did some real soul searching, we would find its not that healthy.
I agree strongly. I'm pretty biased in the experience field because Skred does very well against those decks, but I watch other decks get rolled so often that it gets depressing. I don't like turning to bans, but rather innovation. Not that it gets us very far, because beating all the tier 1 decks isn't exactly viable in this format.
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"Don't believe everything you read on the internet." - Abraham Lincoln
As to the topic of the day. I do not believe that the top 5 or so true 'Tier 1' decks are healthy. I think holydiva is 100% on point, that if Modern was Tier 2 and below, that the format would be better, because that is actually what people mean when they discuss 'modern is in the best place ever'.
Its because their Tier 2 deck has a better chance, but not a great one, vs the field, than it did in the past.
The Tier 1 however? I think if we did some real soul searching, we would find its not that healthy.
Exactly. And also because most of that tier 2 is made of decks that are either fair, or the unfair ones are of a reasonable power level. Which would lead, in my estimation, to more interesting and fun Magic being played.
Which would mean what though (thought experiment)...
Temple, Wraith (I guess?), Manamorphose, I dont even know what you hit out of Titanshift. Honestly isnt it just a result of Twin being gone?
I still think that the best solution would be to allow cards from future Commander/Conspiracy/whatever sets into Modern. WotC originally intended Modern to be a repository of decks that were good in old Standards, apart from a few changes. This goal is largely a failure, because I can think of only one deck in the current Modern meta that fits that criteria, which is the Valakut deck, and even then there are a lot of differences.
Modern is never going to be a format where someone can take their favourite Standard deck of days past, make some changes, and expect to win with. Why even try to pretend that it is? Give us supplemental products that can include more powerful tools than they're willing to let into Standard and then maybe more "fair" decks can start to represent more of the meta.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
I think Eldrazi Tron is what's keeping people from playing less traditional Tron. Less Traditional Tron means more midrange, even if Scapeshift is still around.
I liked your analysis overall
I don't imagine chalice is going anywhere. I do believe Eldrazi Temple could eat a ban in the next few years.
I don't think UW Control is a good deck. I've seen it a ton around in paper at my FNM, it's just too slow, too grindy and too fatiguing in a long tournament. It always looks bad on camera and only seems to thrive on MTGO
I don't believe with moderns tools that you can be that reactive. I think Jeskai is better, the burn plan along with tempo creatures is so much more proactive
I think UW control is capable on going 5-0 on mtgo and maybe winning a GP, but overall, I think it's a bad deck, being that reactive will never be better than a proactive plan in this current format.
So no approach to unbanning, we just keep banning until we're playing midrange v midrange matchups? Seems a little absurd to unban when there are still targets to unban....
So no approach to unbanning, we just keep banning until we're playing midrange v midrange matchups? Seems a little absurd to unban when there are still targets to unban....
Except most of the cards frequently cited as potential unban targets are also designed to turn the format into a midrange grindfest. It doesn't matter that Skred Red wins a GP, or BW Eldrazi midrange does the same. It doesn't matter that an Open ends with a Jeskai flash mirror. I mean I thought it mattered, but it genuinely seems to me that since Twin's banning, a number of people will never be satisfied with modern unless that card returns.
For the sake of argument I would say we go full NUKE: Death's Shadow, Eldrazi Temple, Grapeshot and Valakut. This assuming Affinity can be reasonably controlled.
You'll notice that gkourou didn't even list Affinity in his long post, and there's a reason for that. I believe that the only reason Affinity is still considered Tier 1 is because it's one of the oldest good Modern decks and it feels wrong to demote it. As an Affinity player, I can say that Modern is a pretty treacherous place for the deck these days. Chalice and Stony Silence are basically game over and those two cards are everywhere now. Ultimately, I would say that Affinity has failed the test of Tier 1 for quite a long time. When is the last time Affinity has won a major event (PT, SCG Open, Grand Prix, I'll even give RPTQ as valid for a major event, but not PPTQ)? When is the last time it has had a dominating presence in the top 8 or top 16 of such an event? I thought these were the criteria for determining which decks are Tier 1.
It hasn't happened in a long time. The deck is Tier 2, maybe Tier 1.5. Definitely not Tier 1 anymore.
Affinity’s saving grace is that it can be hated out pretty easily. The other decks are designed to be difficult to hate out and have dual win-cons.
GDS – You can bring in grave hate… only to be torn apart by a Death’s Shadow. You can bring in a Chalice, just to have a Tasigur slip through and have it blown up by K-Command. No matter what piece of hate you bring in, your opponent might just end up hitting the other half of their deck.
E-Tron – You can bring in Blood Moon, but that’s such a high deckbuilding cost that it’s difficult to even fit that into the sideboard. Also, if you don’t have a strong enough clock to back up the Moon, they’ll just hit their cards eventually anyways (assuming they land a Mind Stone or an Expedition Map). You can bring in big removal and sweepers… only to have them stall the game into a Ulamog or Karn Liberated. You can bring in your Ceremonious Rejection, only to have them land a Cavern of Souls right off the bat.
TitanShift – Best option against this deck is Flashfreeze. You can bring in spells that stop Scapeshift from going off (Stubborn Denial, Negate, etc.) but sometimes the deck just beats down with a Prime Time. Blood Moon is another option, but it doesn’t stop fast ramping into an early Primeval Titan.
Storm – Grave hate hurts this deck pretty bad, but it doesn’t completely shut of its ability to put out a win. Creature removal can slow their game down as long as you have a decent clock.
Affinity? Bring in artifact and creature hate and it turns the matchup into an extreme uphill battle for them, since both types of cards hit pretty much everything in their deck. Etched Champion is their main hope to fight through hate. It’s why I think Affinity, even when it’s the strongest deck in the format, will never really be a problem.
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In hindsight, this ordeal feels like a delayed knee-jerk. The build up of the past few months of reports, on top of the amount of users asking us to do something about this thread, led to where we are now. I guess the real question is whether or not State of the Meta was better off without the moratorium?
I'm going to stop here because I realize I'm rambling a lot.
TLDR: Splinter Twin moratorium wasn't out of bias against user who like Twin, and this whole thing may have been a mistake.
Firstly, banning a topic because people don't like it is really dumb. There's always going to be topics that some people don't like. If certain users don't like seeing posts from other users about certain things, that's what the ignore function is for. Or like ktkenshin used to say, you could simply not engage the pro-twin crowd. It's not that difficult. If the complainers are not willing to do any of that then that's on them. We basically went from repeated twin discussion to seeing gkourou give his modern sales pitch once per page which is just as grating.
Secondly, this thread and all its predecessors were never productive and accomplished nothing. Banning twin discussion because it prevents the thread from accomplishing anything is hilarious. It's the same for almost every topic ever discussed in here - not productive and accomplishes nothing. There is no point in this thread if productive discussion is the aim. Like what another user said before - textual masturbation, going round and round in circles about diversity and nancying around with deck/archetypes definition and classification.
As far as we know, after so many years, this forum can influence nothing. Threads like these will never accomplish anything tangible so you might as well let people discuss whatever they want.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
Bannings lead to more bannings? Why? Bannings can lead to a situation like this where many people say no bannings are needed. The same people that say bannings lead to more bannings.
They contradict themselves. The phrase makes no sense at all.
No because as you continue down the road of witch hunting the best deck in the format something has to constantly be banned to keep this fresh. There will always be best decks and printings will come along that will push an archetype to the top. Modern will slowly creep up in power over time then certain things on the ban list will look silly just like wild nacatl and sword of the meek did.
This isnt about banning the best deck. This is more about curating the experience of Modern. Its a thought experiment nothing more (obviously) but a question of if the top 5 or 4 decks were Tier 2, would the format be more enjoyable
For the sake of argument I would say we go full NUKE: Death's Shadow, Eldrazi Temple, Grapeshot and Valakut. This assuming Affinity can be reasonably controlled.
You'll notice that gkourou didn't even list Affinity in his long post, and there's a reason for that. I believe that the only reason Affinity is still considered Tier 1 is because it's one of the oldest good Modern decks and it feels wrong to demote it. As an Affinity player, I can say that Modern is a pretty treacherous place for the deck these days. Chalice and Stony Silence are basically game over and those two cards are everywhere now. Ultimately, I would say that Affinity has failed the test of Tier 1 for quite a long time. When is the last time Affinity has won a major event (PT, SCG Open, Grand Prix, I'll even give RPTQ as valid for a major event, but not PPTQ)? When is the last time it has had a dominating presence in the top 8 or top 16 of such an event? I thought these were the criteria for determining which decks are Tier 1.
It hasn't happened in a long time. The deck is Tier 2, maybe Tier 1.5. Definitely not Tier 1 anymore.
Jund isn't even tier 2 anymore. I don't think people are all that nostalgic about affinity. The deck is still pretty good, even if it might not be quite on the same level as eldrazi or shadow.
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I like games that require skill, requiring thinking, and require actually paying attention to what your opponent is doing.
IMO, valakut and eldrazi decks are the absolute opposite.
I have no problem with these decks existing, I just wish they weren't so good.
I like shadow as a deck, I'd just like it to be a little weaker (but I'm not sure how best to accomplish that. Ban streetwraith? or just ban shadow and print new cards to let delver style decks work)
Affinity is fine, IMO. Its a little too swingy in the sideboard department (games can be unrewarding, ie: i drew stony silence and a reasonable hand, so any mediocre plays I make win, or I didn't find what I needed, no plays I make will win, etc), but its still miles better than dredge.
Storm is also something I don't inherently mind, but I wish it was either a, a little bit worse, or b, we had better tools to deal with it in many different colors. The deck is good in legacy, but its somewhat rained in by the fact that people can play so many good answers to it main, and since the modern version has more dependence on creatures/graveyard (usually) its theoretically even healthier in this regard, but it still feels like to many decks have to just mull for their sideboard hate. Again I'm not sure the best way to fix this, but I'm sure its possible.
I'd honestly say modern is about a 4/10 for me right now. I do my damned best to cram as much interaction into each game as I can, but I'd like more meaningful decisions (and less stupid cards) on both sides of the table.
I do believe that that is what the Pro Tour will be composed of, unless something comes up (ban/unban) to shake it up. Maybe the next set if it releases on time?
Spirits
I hope these SCG regional players get out to the pro tour and prove that UWR is legit against the top decks played by the top players, because to me, thats the missing ingredient.
I however could watch Jund and Twin play forever.
Spirits
Maybe it would've warranted banning anyway, but it is a little annoying to ban a card when pretty much every Tier 1 deck that ran it would be hurt by Fatal Push.
So, tell me: when does the bannings stop? When you (and only you) declare it to be good?
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Way to dodge the question, champ.
I'm gonna ask you again:
When do the bannings stop, in your opinion?
Infraction issued for flaming. There are better ways to ask for someone's attention than saying they dodged the question. There are better ways to get someone's attention than being passive-aggressive. -- CavalryWolfPack
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
And how do you judge that, exactly?
What would be your "ban or not ban" guidelines?
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
I think this is something that needed to be said, but like you said has never been articulated well. Something that drove me away from many decks is that they look cool on paper, and on camera, but when I sit down to play the games are just so boring. To me, that's an issue that does come down to personal preference, but the format does take some of the blame for that. If the format is diverse but uninteresting, what good is it all?
Sorry for the double post, but I do want to address this. Understand that I am speaking for me, not the mod team, and while I will make reference to them, these are my observations, not a presentation of the moderator's views and opinions. Basically, I'm not speaking for them.
I will start by saying that the mod team does treat this thread as more serious than a vent for frustration. That's my fault. My understanding was the intention of the thread was to be a more serious discussion (and for a time, it arguably was), but the thread slowly shifted and I didn't exactly keep up with that. We started dishing out so many infractions that the amount of infractions we were giving out was absurd. We noticed that the issue came from Twin, and we decided to take action. Was it extreme? Absolutely, and perhaps it was mistake. While the Legacy subforum enjoyed success with a moratorium on discussion surrounding banning Brainstorm, what I failed to realize was that the community was universally sick of it. Here, there was a larger split of opinions on the topic, and that cost us dearly. I will say that we got significantly less reports out of this thread and we also gave out far less infractions (if possible, I want to compile the numbers for you to see, but it's pretty difficult given how the forum works). The intention wasn't to push away people who liked Twin. It's not a personal bias, or a hidden agenda of any kind. I don't ignore the reports concerning those I agree with. Similarly, I don't go out of my way to punish someone I disagree with if how the message is presented is fine. I like having different perspectives, and even if I disagree with them I at least respect their view. I also understand that this comes out of what I play. My pet deck is Skred Red -- a tier 3 deck at best, and my favorite card is Blood Moon, which is renowned for generating non-games. I also write budget Modern articles. Consequently, I appreciate diversity and interesting gameplay over absolute power level (I am well aware this sounds like a flat-out lie considering my love of Blood Moon, but I'm 100% serious).
StubbsMcAwesome described what I saw pretty well
In hindsight, this ordeal feels like a delayed knee-jerk. The build up of the past few months of reports, on top of the amount of users asking us to do something about this thread, led to where we are now. I guess the real question is whether or not State of the Meta was better off without the moratorium?
I'm going to stop here because I realize I'm rambling a lot.
TLDR: Splinter Twin moratorium wasn't out of bias against user who like Twin, and this whole thing may have been a mistake.
Modern fanboys? In the modern subforum of all places?
Thats a conversation worth having. Not 'omg Opt is going to break Storm' and various other horrible posts.
Keep the Moratorium, and expand on it to include anything banned since Modern became a thing. Song, Elf, whatever, just move on and discuss what we have now, because I've yet to be given reason to believe that this forum has a voice that Wizards hears, let alone listens to.
As to the topic of the day. I do not believe that the top 5 or so true 'Tier 1' decks are healthy. I think holydiva is 100% on point, that if Modern was Tier 2 and below, that the format would be better, because that is actually what people mean when they discuss 'modern is in the best place ever'.
Its because their Tier 2 deck has a better chance, but not a great one, vs the field, than it did in the past.
The Tier 1 however? I think if we did some real soul searching, we would find its not that healthy.
Spirits
Which would mean what though (thought experiment)...
Temple, Wraith (I guess?), Manamorphose, I dont even know what you hit out of Titanshift. Honestly isnt it just a result of Twin being gone?
Spirits
Modern is never going to be a format where someone can take their favourite Standard deck of days past, make some changes, and expect to win with. Why even try to pretend that it is? Give us supplemental products that can include more powerful tools than they're willing to let into Standard and then maybe more "fair" decks can start to represent more of the meta.
I liked your analysis overall
I don't imagine chalice is going anywhere. I do believe Eldrazi Temple could eat a ban in the next few years.
I don't think UW Control is a good deck. I've seen it a ton around in paper at my FNM, it's just too slow, too grindy and too fatiguing in a long tournament. It always looks bad on camera and only seems to thrive on MTGO
I don't believe with moderns tools that you can be that reactive. I think Jeskai is better, the burn plan along with tempo creatures is so much more proactive
I think UW control is capable on going 5-0 on mtgo and maybe winning a GP, but overall, I think it's a bad deck, being that reactive will never be better than a proactive plan in this current format.
Except most of the cards frequently cited as potential unban targets are also designed to turn the format into a midrange grindfest. It doesn't matter that Skred Red wins a GP, or BW Eldrazi midrange does the same. It doesn't matter that an Open ends with a Jeskai flash mirror. I mean I thought it mattered, but it genuinely seems to me that since Twin's banning, a number of people will never be satisfied with modern unless that card returns.
You'll notice that gkourou didn't even list Affinity in his long post, and there's a reason for that. I believe that the only reason Affinity is still considered Tier 1 is because it's one of the oldest good Modern decks and it feels wrong to demote it. As an Affinity player, I can say that Modern is a pretty treacherous place for the deck these days. Chalice and Stony Silence are basically game over and those two cards are everywhere now. Ultimately, I would say that Affinity has failed the test of Tier 1 for quite a long time. When is the last time Affinity has won a major event (PT, SCG Open, Grand Prix, I'll even give RPTQ as valid for a major event, but not PPTQ)? When is the last time it has had a dominating presence in the top 8 or top 16 of such an event? I thought these were the criteria for determining which decks are Tier 1.
It hasn't happened in a long time. The deck is Tier 2, maybe Tier 1.5. Definitely not Tier 1 anymore.
GDS – You can bring in grave hate… only to be torn apart by a Death’s Shadow. You can bring in a Chalice, just to have a Tasigur slip through and have it blown up by K-Command. No matter what piece of hate you bring in, your opponent might just end up hitting the other half of their deck.
E-Tron – You can bring in Blood Moon, but that’s such a high deckbuilding cost that it’s difficult to even fit that into the sideboard. Also, if you don’t have a strong enough clock to back up the Moon, they’ll just hit their cards eventually anyways (assuming they land a Mind Stone or an Expedition Map). You can bring in big removal and sweepers… only to have them stall the game into a Ulamog or Karn Liberated. You can bring in your Ceremonious Rejection, only to have them land a Cavern of Souls right off the bat.
TitanShift – Best option against this deck is Flashfreeze. You can bring in spells that stop Scapeshift from going off (Stubborn Denial, Negate, etc.) but sometimes the deck just beats down with a Prime Time. Blood Moon is another option, but it doesn’t stop fast ramping into an early Primeval Titan.
Storm – Grave hate hurts this deck pretty bad, but it doesn’t completely shut of its ability to put out a win. Creature removal can slow their game down as long as you have a decent clock.
Affinity? Bring in artifact and creature hate and it turns the matchup into an extreme uphill battle for them, since both types of cards hit pretty much everything in their deck. Etched Champion is their main hope to fight through hate. It’s why I think Affinity, even when it’s the strongest deck in the format, will never really be a problem.
Firstly, banning a topic because people don't like it is really dumb. There's always going to be topics that some people don't like. If certain users don't like seeing posts from other users about certain things, that's what the ignore function is for. Or like ktkenshin used to say, you could simply not engage the pro-twin crowd. It's not that difficult. If the complainers are not willing to do any of that then that's on them. We basically went from repeated twin discussion to seeing gkourou give his modern sales pitch once per page which is just as grating.
Secondly, this thread and all its predecessors were never productive and accomplished nothing. Banning twin discussion because it prevents the thread from accomplishing anything is hilarious. It's the same for almost every topic ever discussed in here - not productive and accomplishes nothing. There is no point in this thread if productive discussion is the aim. Like what another user said before - textual masturbation, going round and round in circles about diversity and nancying around with deck/archetypes definition and classification.
As far as we know, after so many years, this forum can influence nothing. Threads like these will never accomplish anything tangible so you might as well let people discuss whatever they want.
No because as you continue down the road of witch hunting the best deck in the format something has to constantly be banned to keep this fresh. There will always be best decks and printings will come along that will push an archetype to the top. Modern will slowly creep up in power over time then certain things on the ban list will look silly just like wild nacatl and sword of the meek did.
Spirits
The last time Affinity won a Grand Prix was back in June of this year, so not that long ago at all: https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gplv17-modern/top-8-decklists-2017-06-18