Can you imagine how dead of a format Modern would be if the pillars were constant? If the format was so glacially unmoving that you could always pinpoint exactly that decks A, B, C, & D were the best? The format would be DEAD. No one would play it.
Legacy quite handily disproves your claim.
I wouldn't use Legacy as a positive example. Participation in that format is dropping like a stone.
Legacy's problems have nothing to do meta diversity and everything to do with the Reserve List making decks prohibitively expensive for new players. Those that do play Legacy, consistently praise it for the quality and depth of nearly every match.
At least there is no worry that wizards will make that mistake again. Modern prices are already pretty aggressive just from demand and the poor mode of card distribution for constructed formats. On the subject of a pillar format not being interesting, that goes back to the whole discussion of "does a solved meta mean a stale format?" As long as there are enough decks to for people to have to dynamically shift what they are main-decking and have to think on their feet, it really doesn't matter if the meta is solved. Chess is a really good example of this.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Nikachu's youtube channel once showed the win percentages of the top pros in organized play. The only player who broke the 60% mark I believe was LSV. Everyone else was like 56-59th percentile. These were platinum pros. The claim of 70% win rate all the time is either a lie or a case of a player only competing against significantly lesser-skilled players.
sisicat is an example of a spike player taken to what I consider it's illogical extreme. He wants to win. Doesn't care about playing the game, specifically, he just wants to win.
Now, if he was grinding as his main source of income, I guess I'd forgive him, but he hasn't indicated that he is. As such, I'd say the following:
For the vast majority of players, Magic is a game. It is not a means of making an income and it is not a means of getting your jollies off by winning.
I'm personally a spike; I get frustrated if I'm not winning, especially if it's due to making play mistakes. But I'm not so much of a spike that I get to the point where I think that deck diversity is bad because I am, personally, not getting a 70% winrate.
Also, I'd like to personally say that while I don't necessarily think his point of view is invalid for him personally, his sanctimonious complaints about how he's "focusing on leveraging play skill" and how Modern is "designed for the masses" are super annoying. You're playing a collectable card game. If you want skill focused play a game without any random factors, or games in which the random factors can be significantly diminished like Poker.
I'm in the same boat. I am definitely a spike; ask anyone I know and they will tell you how ridiculously competitive I am. That said, I understand MTG is a GAME and a lot of the fun of it is the deck building aspect of it and I love to brew unknown decks to beat people with. And more often than not it works. The modern card pool is so large there are a ton of viable options even beyond the top 30ish decks that don't drop off all that much in terms of power level and you can make up for that drop off or more with practice. If your opponent doesn't know for sure what you are playing and hasn't tested the match, but you know what they are playing and have tested it then that gives you a huge advantage even if the deck is objectively worse.
Sisicat just sounds like he doesn't enjoy MTG, he just wants to win with as little effort as possible and that just isn't how games work. Also as others have noted his bloated number of 70% isn't sustainable by any player in any meta so he literally can't be happy. If he was getting that then he was either playing against bad opponents or had an extremely small sample size.
Theoretically here: If a deck could get 70+% wins against the field, then everyone would play that deck and then every match would be a mirror and the deck would be back at 50% win percentage.
Theoretically here: If a deck could get 70+% wins against the field, then everyone would play that deck and then every match would be a mirror and the deck would be back at 50% win percentage.
To be fair, he's correct there. A format where there's a definitively best deck with nothing close to it IS a format in which individual play skill and metagaming are of tantamount importance. Since deck choice and matchup lottery is mostly nullified in such a format, things like specific sideboard tech and having excellent decision making are what can give you high percentage points over other players. Pros and grinders like those formats, or formats in which there's a definitively cyclical meta - RTR-Theros Standard had 3 decks, which were each mainly a rock paper scissors sort of thing. Brad Nelson figured out a spreadsheet so he could always know which deck would be most prominent due to how the meta would cycle and so he could play the counter to that deck.
So, he's correct about that, and I'm not arguing. What I am arguing is that a format that is nothing but Cawblade mirrors or Eye of Ugin Eldrazi mirrors is also boring as hell, unfun, and not something that any game dev should aim towards.
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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.
Theoretically here: If a deck could get 70+% wins against the field, then everyone would play that deck and then every match would be a mirror and the deck would be back at 50% win percentage.
To be fair, he's correct there. A format where there's a definitively best deck with nothing close to it IS a format in which individual play skill and metagaming are of tantamount importance. Since deck choice and matchup lottery is mostly nullified in such a format, things like specific sideboard tech and having excellent decision making are what can give you high percentage points over other players. Pros and grinders like those formats, or formats in which there's a definitively cyclical meta - RTR-Theros Standard had 3 decks, which were each mainly a rock paper scissors sort of thing. Brad Nelson figured out a spreadsheet so he could always know which deck would be most prominent due to how the meta would cycle and so he could play the counter to that deck.
So, he's correct about that, and I'm not arguing. What I am arguing is that a format that is nothing but Cawblade mirrors or Eye of Ugin Eldrazi mirrors is also boring as hell, unfun, and not something that any game dev should aim towards.
I'm not arguing that point either; but I will argue that there is still tons of luck involved in the coin flip and opening hands of mirror matches and that playing against the best of the best he would never maintain a 70+% win rate in mirror matches.
There is an emotional factor tied into the logic of what makes a good game. We need to understand that Modern is a format that will always grow closer to Legacy, no matter what Wizards says or does. I know that's weird for people to understand, but as long as they keep printing cards, thousands upon thousands of interactions will breed Modern into a powerful format. Take a look at the downturn of Tarmogoyf for example over the past two years. Cards with individual raw power generally don't find homes in Eternal formats unless they are more than above average. Take Grixis Delver in Legacy, it has some raw power, but it has lots of intricate synergies and it's the only deck that has a general consensus of being fair.
Grixis Shadow has a lot of similarities in Modern (besides the color factor), it has intricate synergies, with a few raw power cards. Besides the debate of Eldrazi Tron, it's difficult to label more than 4 fair decks in the Modern format that have a huge impact. This number of decks in the Modern format will reduce over time, decks like Elves and Collected Company variants will devolve into the fastest synergy decks and cards will eventually evolve to become more like Vizier of Remedies and Heritage Druid instead of Murderous Redcap and Kitchen Finks.
This format will have limited top tier decks, that will take time. Right now, simply enjoy the Chaos, and help the community navigate through it so that when we do reach that pinnacle of skill for the Modern format, we have learnt all the right lessons.
Can you imagine how dead of a format Modern would be if the pillars were constant? If the format was so glacially unmoving that you could always pinpoint exactly that decks A, B, C, & D were the best? The format would be DEAD. No one would play it.
Legacy quite handily disproves your claim.
I wouldn't use Legacy as a positive example. Participation in that format is dropping like a stone.
Legacy's problems have nothing to do meta diversity and everything to do with the Reserve List making decks prohibitively expensive for new players. Those that do play Legacy, consistently praise it for the quality and depth of nearly every match.
Legacy has severe colour diversity and overall diversity problems. There are cards that you "must play them, or you have severe disadvantage over anything else". If Legacy had more traction, many cards would be surely banned. We know Wizards; Ponder, Deathrite Shaman, Show and Tell and more cards would be under scrutiny, and by Wizard's criteria, rightly so. Those cards are super warping. I won'n talk about Brainstorm which is a formt pillar and can't be banned, because chaos will follow(as is the case for DRS actually), but Wizards don't care about this. But I could see a universe that they could go and ban this as well, on the basis of being a warping card for the format.
Legacy has other problems as well. Decks turn 2 killing you unless you run FOW; For example, if you play Death and Taxes and play against a Belcher deck, it's a horrible matchup. They will turn 2 kill you an awful lot of times. Going by Wizards criteria, turn 3 kills might be OK in Legacy, but Turn 2 would not be I think.
Modern is a lot more colour diverse and interesting format, and personally I enjoy it more(even if I play Legacy at times-favourite deck: Elves)
This is like a dog-whistle for the Legacy Defense squad: As exemplified by your Belcher Matchup post.
D&T has many options against Belcher including: Eathersworn Cannonist, Thalia Guardian of Thraben, or Leyline of Sanctity. Hell, even a Mana Tithe can shut everything down. This is a myth about legacy, as any deck can deal with any matchup based on 24 years of magic. Red can burn, destroy, or wish up anything. Blue can filter and counter. Black attacks the hand. White offers the best set-and-forget protection and spot removal. Green...well green is a little weak in this regard so I guess you're 20% right?
Beating belcher with 2-drops seems...improbable. T1 discard is usually not enough to beat belcher. Belcher doesn't even play lands to get wastelanded My experience playing D&T vs. Belcher was pretty much "did they kill me t1 or t2? k, gg."
At this point I am ready for the admins to ban talking about legacy in this thread. Thus far it has never proven fruitful.
GK is 100% right that Legacy has an ABSURD power balance problem with Blue being twice as strong as the next color if not more. It's much, much worse than Modern's problem with Black and Green. so much that most legacy discussions become unprofitable very quickly.
The difference between Modern and Legacy, with regards to Beltcher (and Belther-like decks) is that Legacy has the tools to deal with them and Modern does not. In Legacy, many decks play blue in order to combat the huge variety of fast and broken things that can happen as early as turn 1. In Modern, the only way we have to attack fast and broken things is to ban them. I don't understand how that is a better solution...
If we had better tools and answers available in Modern or the filtering we did have wasn't all banned so we could find the extremely narrow tools we do have access to, perhaps things would be different.
The difference between Modern and Legacy, with regards to Beltcher (and Belther-like decks) is that Legacy has the tools to deal with them and Modern does not. In Legacy, many decks play blue in order to combat the huge variety of fast and broken things that can happen as early as turn 1. In Modern, the only way we have to attack fast and broken things is to ban them. I don't understand how that is a better solution...
If we had better tools and answers available in Modern or the filtering we did have wasn't all banned so we could find the extremely narrow tools we do have access to, perhaps things would be different.
This is a slippery slope because once you start going down it, Modern starts sliding toward becoming Legacy, and I for one don't want that. I'm not against reasonable answers, but the occasional ban is necessary to enforce the turn 4 rule or reign in an oppressive deck. If the answer converges to "every deck has to run FoW or lose to combo", then that's not really an answer, it's a necessity just to exist.
This disappoints me so much. If anything game quality had been undervalued at due to this diversity at any cost attitude. I'm starting to think that people that the reason people are accepting of current modern is that in the recent past modern was terrible and people are just happy to have a not terrible but far from perfect modern format back
I've been saying that for nearly a year. Things only seem great now because we still have scars and PTSD from how utterly horrible basically all of 2016 was. We should have higher standards than "well, it's better than the worst time in Modern's history!"
I started to dislike Modern as soon as Birthing Pod got banned. It literally allowed Burn and Infect to become viable decks and also meant that there were very few oppurtunities to leverage playskill when both of those decks let you take very few game actions in a given game. When Modern was Affinity, Jund, Splinter Twin and Birthing Pod, I won a lot more during that period of time than I do now just because those were 4 decks that you knew was really good in the format and everything else was basically several levels below them. And it wasn't like one deck was an overwhelming favorite over another, you literally had to know how to approach each matchup with each deck.
So what I am gathering.....is that the format and metagame changed and you couldn't keep up and now you're whining about it. Okay then.
Okay then, how do you sustain a 70+% win percentage when you introduce 30+ new decks into the format and no extra sideboard slots to compensate. You have the nerve to call me out so clearly you know better than I do. I won't accept 70+% win rate is unreasonable as an answer, that's what I had during the time Birthing Pod, Splinter Twin, Jund and Affinity were top tier pillars of the format.
You're not entitled to a 70% win rate, and I doubt you could have maintained that win % in past metas with newer players improving, players adjusting to your deck, and your sample size of games increasing.
You may not like modern right now, but it's incredibly diverse and the best deck right now is incredibly skill intensive and doesn't really have any terrible, terrible matchups.
It seems to me that you want Modern to be easy enough for you to be able to figure out how to own the meta. This is something I deal with also when brewing decks, but that's the fun of the challenge and Wizards doesn't create formats for them to be "figured out."
Modern is incredibly diverse and skill intensive right now, and if it's too hard for you to get a 70% win rate, that's your problem. If you want to play a game that involves no luck and the same matchup every time then play chess.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
This is a slippery slope because once you start going down it, Modern starts sliding toward becoming Legacy, and I for one don't want that. I'm not against reasonable answers, but the occasional ban is necessary to enforce the turn 4 rule or reign in an oppressive deck. If the answer converges to "every deck has to run FoW or lose to combo", then that's not really an answer, it's a necessity just to exist.
This is not a matter of "if" but a matter of "when," because of how and why Modern exists in the first place. You will never see a decrease of power over time in a non-rotating format that accumulates several hundred new cards every three months. The only way to control Modern is through bans, and Wizards has demonstrated that over the history of the format. Power levels will continue to rise and bans will continue to happen because our format is incapable of dealing with powerful decks beyond simply racing them.
As a recent example of "dealing with speed/power through bans," look at Gitaxian Probe. This card was exclusively targeted for its use in decks that won too quickly and relied on small creatures and pump spells to do so. Rather than see the effects of Fatal Push, a card that so utterly obviously wrecks these decks, they ban Probe anyway. Modern is a "ban first, ask questions later" format because they know we don't have the tools to deal with it. And even when we get one (Push) they still make the ban anyway (Probe) which nukes several decks from existence (something AF is supposedly adamantly against).
I would LOVE better answers in the format because it would mean less decks have to needlessly get banned.
To be fair Gitaxian Probe was also banned partially because it is an insanely powerful card. In all honestly if it had stayed legal I feel like in the future Modern would have devolved into every deck starting out with 4 Probe in the mainboard. It's a way to draw a card and get perfect information on your opponent's hand for exactly 0. The fact that everyone wasn't already running a playset of it in every deck ever still baffles me to this day.
Probe wasn't banned just because of it's use in decks like Infect. It was banned because it lets every person running the card essentially run a 56 card deck as opposed to 60, on top of what I just mentioned above.
I do agree about you wanting Modern to have better answer cards however. I feel one way Wizards could introduce more powerful cards to Modern without having to have them go through Standard would be to use supplemental sets like Modern Masters, where instead of just being 100% reprints, they could maybe make 10 or so new cards to let us play with.
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I do agree about you wanting Modern to have better answer cards however. I feel one way Wizards could introduce more powerful cards to Modern without having to have them go through Standard would be to use supplemental sets like Modern Masters, where instead of just being 100% reprints, they could maybe make 10 or so new cards to let us play with.
Yeah, they have the means to do whatever they want. It's not like anyone's going to complain if a set isn't all reprints. Even so I think it's definitely possible to push Modern-playable cards through Standard.
Regarding FoW in the format, I have an even more extreme stance than most; I'd be fine if the rules of the games were altered to say: "once per full turn (i.e. between two of your upkeeps) you can exile two non-land cards from your hand to counter a target spell."
Like FoW, but without it warping everyone to play blue cards to pitch to it. The weaker alternative would be Force of Not: FoW, but you can pitch a card of any color to it instead of only blue
Once everyone can say no at the price of card disadvantage, we can move on from not having answers.
I do agree about you wanting Modern to have better answer cards however. I feel one way Wizards could introduce more powerful cards to Modern without having to have them go through Standard would be to use supplemental sets like Modern Masters, where instead of just being 100% reprints, they could maybe make 10 or so new cards to let us play with.
Yeah, they have the means to do whatever they want. It's not like anyone's going to complain if a set isn't all reprints. Even so I think it's definitely possible to push Modern-playable cards through Standard.
Oh it definitely is. I mean look at just the past year.
It isn't hard for Wizards to make cards for Standard that will see play in Modern. I think the problem is that people want entire new Modern archetypes to jump out of every Standard set.
Sometimes we get lucky with a card like Vizier of Remedies and it opens up a new deck for us. Other time we get something like Ceremonious Rejection that is only a sideboard card, though a really good sideboard card.
I think we just need to stop being greedy and accept what we get. While at the same time Wizards needs to not be too afraid to throw us something a little powerful every now and again.
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
To be fair Gitaxian Probe was also banned partially because it is an insanely powerful card. In all honestly if it had stayed legal I feel like in the future Modern would have devolved into every deck starting out with 4 Probe in the mainboard. It's a way to draw a card and get perfect information on your opponent's hand for exactly 0. The fact that everyone wasn't already running a playset of it in every deck ever still baffles me to this day.
I didn't even run it as a 4-of in the deck it was probably best in, delver w/ young pyromancer. The life loss was real when combined with the fetch shock mana base we have in modern and the fact that so many decks are aggro decks looking to end the game very quickly. Against combo it is a little different because once they have the combo they don't care if you are at 14 or 16 life most of the time, but against burn or affinity or merfolk that could be the difference between winning and losing. I played 3 main deck and they were sided out quite a bit.
To be fair Gitaxian Probe was also banned partially because it is an insanely powerful card. In all honestly if it had stayed legal I feel like in the future Modern would have devolved into every deck starting out with 4 Probe in the mainboard. It's a way to draw a card and get perfect information on your opponent's hand for exactly 0. The fact that everyone wasn't already running a playset of it in every deck ever still baffles me to this day.
Probe wasn't banned just because of it's use in decks like Infect. It was banned because it lets every person running the card essentially run a 56 card deck as opposed to 60, on top of what I just mentioned above.
We can say it was because it "did too much" for "free" but let's not forget that the card had been in the format literally since the dawn of Modern and had never been a problem until specifically fast, small creature pump aggro decks were taking over the format and breaking turn 4 rules left and right. So to claim that the reason for banning was anything other than targeting decks like Infect, Zooicide, and Bloo is incredibly naive. It was an extremely fair and reasonable card in decks like Grixis Control and Delver and outside of the pump aggro craze of late 2016, was never anywhere near the most played cards in the format. The myth of "56 card decks" is just as ridiculous as other myths I am no longer allowed to talk about.
Fatal Push was literally the perfect answer for Inkmoth Nexus, Blighted Agent, Thing in the Ice, Kiln Fiend, Death's Shadow, and Tarmogoyf. But instead of just banning Dredge and letting the meta adjust to arguably the most powerful and useful removal spell in the format's history, they ban Probe and pat themselves on the back for a job well done; outright killing multiple decks in the process.
Modern is a ban-first format. It always has been, and as long as all our cards have to come through Standard, it always will be.
No. No I'm sorry but this is a ridiculous statement on its face. Countermagic is firmly blue in the color pie, and that comes at the expense of not really having anything to destroy permanents once they actually do resolve. That's blue - the ability to answer most things, but only within the window of that thing being a spell on the stack. The color pie has been tweaked over time, but part of deck design and testing is to see if a given color combination's weaknesses are easily exploited. If every color had every answer to every spell or permanent, then there would be no reason to have five colors of magic...unless you just like the artwork of mountains over swamps.
The only weakness of diversity is that you can't walk into an event with, as sisi wanted, a guaranteed 70% winrate (which again is bs). If you know you are playing a deck with a significant weakness, you can prepare accordingly or take the risk of facing that deck or archetype.
Sometimes we get lucky with a card like Vizier of Remedies and it opens up a new deck for us.
Not the best analogy as Counters Company is literally a direct replacement (or one could say improvement) for "Abzan Company", which occupied the same meta space as Counters does now, except Counters is better.
I think we just need to stop being greedy and accept what we get. While at the same time Wizards needs to not be too afraid to throw us something a little powerful every now and again.
That seems to be happening. The power creep needs to happen at a slow trickle, IMHO. It's a tough balancing act, yet Modern is in a really great place right now.
There is one thing from that article that I will not be bringing up. If you don't know what it is, read the first post of this thread.
The "Speed" section states that combo mustn't be faster than aggro, or it devolves into a race that aggro can't win. In the context of Modern, this isn't exactly true, because Burn has Eidolon of the Great Revel. That card hurts cantrip chaining (which is alluded to in the "Consistency" section) and flat out makes it impossible to "storm". Burn gets a lot of ***** for being a brainless deck, but it does have an underappreciated role in keeping storm decks in check.
This old Stoddard article hasn't changed in 2 years. Ponder and Preordain are yet again singled out as problematic cards (read: won't be unbanned). You can add GSZ to that list too.
Pyromancer Ascension is surprisingly considered a "healthy" combo card. In retrospect, it's actually fine, given that Storm doesn't play it now. It was carried by Probe, much like how Jeskai Ascendancy was carried by TC/Dig.
There is one thing from that article that I will not be bringing up. If you don't know what it is, read the first post of this thread.
Wish we could, because I have significant issue with a specific claim made with regards to consistency and double full playsets of things.
Regardless, it's nice to see conversations happening within the PD team. Hopefully this means good things will come, because WOTC has made dozens of boneheaded and seemingly uninformed blunders of decisions the past two years.
I thought that article was hilarious in how the mentioned Marvel being a bad combo card, but didn't go anywhere near mentioning how the printed Felidar Guardian and Saheeli Rai in the same block. Not even that they were both printed in Standard, they were printed one set apart and no one in development caught the combo
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
There was quite a bit I disagreed with in that article, but I suppose that is the way they have been pushing things anyway. Zoo not being able to interact with combo is fine IMO. In fact I'd say that is exactly how it should be, but it certainly isn't in modern. Decks like burn, zoo, infect (not as much anymore), and affinity, have always been my toughest matches when playing combo.
At least there is no worry that wizards will make that mistake again. Modern prices are already pretty aggressive just from demand and the poor mode of card distribution for constructed formats. On the subject of a pillar format not being interesting, that goes back to the whole discussion of "does a solved meta mean a stale format?" As long as there are enough decks to for people to have to dynamically shift what they are main-decking and have to think on their feet, it really doesn't matter if the meta is solved. Chess is a really good example of this.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm in the same boat. I am definitely a spike; ask anyone I know and they will tell you how ridiculously competitive I am. That said, I understand MTG is a GAME and a lot of the fun of it is the deck building aspect of it and I love to brew unknown decks to beat people with. And more often than not it works. The modern card pool is so large there are a ton of viable options even beyond the top 30ish decks that don't drop off all that much in terms of power level and you can make up for that drop off or more with practice. If your opponent doesn't know for sure what you are playing and hasn't tested the match, but you know what they are playing and have tested it then that gives you a huge advantage even if the deck is objectively worse.
Sisicat just sounds like he doesn't enjoy MTG, he just wants to win with as little effort as possible and that just isn't how games work. Also as others have noted his bloated number of 70% isn't sustainable by any player in any meta so he literally can't be happy. If he was getting that then he was either playing against bad opponents or had an extremely small sample size.
Theoretically here: If a deck could get 70+% wins against the field, then everyone would play that deck and then every match would be a mirror and the deck would be back at 50% win percentage.
To be fair, he's correct there. A format where there's a definitively best deck with nothing close to it IS a format in which individual play skill and metagaming are of tantamount importance. Since deck choice and matchup lottery is mostly nullified in such a format, things like specific sideboard tech and having excellent decision making are what can give you high percentage points over other players. Pros and grinders like those formats, or formats in which there's a definitively cyclical meta - RTR-Theros Standard had 3 decks, which were each mainly a rock paper scissors sort of thing. Brad Nelson figured out a spreadsheet so he could always know which deck would be most prominent due to how the meta would cycle and so he could play the counter to that deck.
So, he's correct about that, and I'm not arguing. What I am arguing is that a format that is nothing but Cawblade mirrors or Eye of Ugin Eldrazi mirrors is also boring as hell, unfun, and not something that any game dev should aim towards.
I'm not arguing that point either; but I will argue that there is still tons of luck involved in the coin flip and opening hands of mirror matches and that playing against the best of the best he would never maintain a 70+% win rate in mirror matches.
Grixis Shadow has a lot of similarities in Modern (besides the color factor), it has intricate synergies, with a few raw power cards. Besides the debate of Eldrazi Tron, it's difficult to label more than 4 fair decks in the Modern format that have a huge impact. This number of decks in the Modern format will reduce over time, decks like Elves and Collected Company variants will devolve into the fastest synergy decks and cards will eventually evolve to become more like Vizier of Remedies and Heritage Druid instead of Murderous Redcap and Kitchen Finks.
This format will have limited top tier decks, that will take time. Right now, simply enjoy the Chaos, and help the community navigate through it so that when we do reach that pinnacle of skill for the Modern format, we have learnt all the right lessons.
This is like a dog-whistle for the Legacy Defense squad: As exemplified by your Belcher Matchup post.
D&T has many options against Belcher including: Eathersworn Cannonist, Thalia Guardian of Thraben, or Leyline of Sanctity. Hell, even a Mana Tithe can shut everything down. This is a myth about legacy, as any deck can deal with any matchup based on 24 years of magic. Red can burn, destroy, or wish up anything. Blue can filter and counter. Black attacks the hand. White offers the best set-and-forget protection and spot removal. Green...well green is a little weak in this regard so I guess you're 20% right?
At this point I am ready for the admins to ban talking about legacy in this thread. Thus far it has never proven fruitful.
GK is 100% right that Legacy has an ABSURD power balance problem with Blue being twice as strong as the next color if not more. It's much, much worse than Modern's problem with Black and Green. so much that most legacy discussions become unprofitable very quickly.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
If we had better tools and answers available in Modern or the filtering we did have wasn't all banned so we could find the extremely narrow tools we do have access to, perhaps things would be different.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
This is a slippery slope because once you start going down it, Modern starts sliding toward becoming Legacy, and I for one don't want that. I'm not against reasonable answers, but the occasional ban is necessary to enforce the turn 4 rule or reign in an oppressive deck. If the answer converges to "every deck has to run FoW or lose to combo", then that's not really an answer, it's a necessity just to exist.
You're not entitled to a 70% win rate, and I doubt you could have maintained that win % in past metas with newer players improving, players adjusting to your deck, and your sample size of games increasing.
You may not like modern right now, but it's incredibly diverse and the best deck right now is incredibly skill intensive and doesn't really have any terrible, terrible matchups.
It seems to me that you want Modern to be easy enough for you to be able to figure out how to own the meta. This is something I deal with also when brewing decks, but that's the fun of the challenge and Wizards doesn't create formats for them to be "figured out."
Modern is incredibly diverse and skill intensive right now, and if it's too hard for you to get a 70% win rate, that's your problem. If you want to play a game that involves no luck and the same matchup every time then play chess.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
This is not a matter of "if" but a matter of "when," because of how and why Modern exists in the first place. You will never see a decrease of power over time in a non-rotating format that accumulates several hundred new cards every three months. The only way to control Modern is through bans, and Wizards has demonstrated that over the history of the format. Power levels will continue to rise and bans will continue to happen because our format is incapable of dealing with powerful decks beyond simply racing them.
As a recent example of "dealing with speed/power through bans," look at Gitaxian Probe. This card was exclusively targeted for its use in decks that won too quickly and relied on small creatures and pump spells to do so. Rather than see the effects of Fatal Push, a card that so utterly obviously wrecks these decks, they ban Probe anyway. Modern is a "ban first, ask questions later" format because they know we don't have the tools to deal with it. And even when we get one (Push) they still make the ban anyway (Probe) which nukes several decks from existence (something AF is supposedly adamantly against).
I would LOVE better answers in the format because it would mean less decks have to needlessly get banned.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Probe wasn't banned just because of it's use in decks like Infect. It was banned because it lets every person running the card essentially run a 56 card deck as opposed to 60, on top of what I just mentioned above.
I do agree about you wanting Modern to have better answer cards however. I feel one way Wizards could introduce more powerful cards to Modern without having to have them go through Standard would be to use supplemental sets like Modern Masters, where instead of just being 100% reprints, they could maybe make 10 or so new cards to let us play with.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Yeah, they have the means to do whatever they want. It's not like anyone's going to complain if a set isn't all reprints. Even so I think it's definitely possible to push Modern-playable cards through Standard.
Like FoW, but without it warping everyone to play blue cards to pitch to it. The weaker alternative would be Force of Not: FoW, but you can pitch a card of any color to it instead of only blue
Once everyone can say no at the price of card disadvantage, we can move on from not having answers.
Spirits
Oh it definitely is. I mean look at just the past year.
Fatal Push, Ceremonious Rejection, Cathartic Reunion, Prized Amalgam, Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, etc.
It isn't hard for Wizards to make cards for Standard that will see play in Modern. I think the problem is that people want entire new Modern archetypes to jump out of every Standard set.
Sometimes we get lucky with a card like Vizier of Remedies and it opens up a new deck for us. Other time we get something like Ceremonious Rejection that is only a sideboard card, though a really good sideboard card.
I think we just need to stop being greedy and accept what we get. While at the same time Wizards needs to not be too afraid to throw us something a little powerful every now and again.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I didn't even run it as a 4-of in the deck it was probably best in, delver w/ young pyromancer. The life loss was real when combined with the fetch shock mana base we have in modern and the fact that so many decks are aggro decks looking to end the game very quickly. Against combo it is a little different because once they have the combo they don't care if you are at 14 or 16 life most of the time, but against burn or affinity or merfolk that could be the difference between winning and losing. I played 3 main deck and they were sided out quite a bit.
We can say it was because it "did too much" for "free" but let's not forget that the card had been in the format literally since the dawn of Modern and had never been a problem until specifically fast, small creature pump aggro decks were taking over the format and breaking turn 4 rules left and right. So to claim that the reason for banning was anything other than targeting decks like Infect, Zooicide, and Bloo is incredibly naive. It was an extremely fair and reasonable card in decks like Grixis Control and Delver and outside of the pump aggro craze of late 2016, was never anywhere near the most played cards in the format. The myth of "56 card decks" is just as ridiculous as other myths I am no longer allowed to talk about.
Fatal Push was literally the perfect answer for Inkmoth Nexus, Blighted Agent, Thing in the Ice, Kiln Fiend, Death's Shadow, and Tarmogoyf. But instead of just banning Dredge and letting the meta adjust to arguably the most powerful and useful removal spell in the format's history, they ban Probe and pat themselves on the back for a job well done; outright killing multiple decks in the process.
Modern is a ban-first format. It always has been, and as long as all our cards have to come through Standard, it always will be.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
The only weakness of diversity is that you can't walk into an event with, as sisi wanted, a guaranteed 70% winrate (which again is bs). If you know you are playing a deck with a significant weakness, you can prepare accordingly or take the risk of facing that deck or archetype.
Right, and Walking Ballista.
Not the best analogy as Counters Company is literally a direct replacement (or one could say improvement) for "Abzan Company", which occupied the same meta space as Counters does now, except Counters is better.
That seems to be happening. The power creep needs to happen at a slow trickle, IMHO. It's a tough balancing act, yet Modern is in a really great place right now.
There is one thing from that article that I will not be bringing up. If you don't know what it is, read the first post of this thread.
The "Speed" section states that combo mustn't be faster than aggro, or it devolves into a race that aggro can't win. In the context of Modern, this isn't exactly true, because Burn has Eidolon of the Great Revel. That card hurts cantrip chaining (which is alluded to in the "Consistency" section) and flat out makes it impossible to "storm". Burn gets a lot of ***** for being a brainless deck, but it does have an underappreciated role in keeping storm decks in check.
This old Stoddard article hasn't changed in 2 years. Ponder and Preordain are yet again singled out as problematic cards (read: won't be unbanned). You can add GSZ to that list too.
Pyromancer Ascension is surprisingly considered a "healthy" combo card. In retrospect, it's actually fine, given that Storm doesn't play it now. It was carried by Probe, much like how Jeskai Ascendancy was carried by TC/Dig.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Wish we could, because I have significant issue with a specific claim made with regards to consistency and double full playsets of things.
Regardless, it's nice to see conversations happening within the PD team. Hopefully this means good things will come, because WOTC has made dozens of boneheaded and seemingly uninformed blunders of decisions the past two years.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros