Yeah, I'm not entirely sure what Marc is arguing; the deck can consistently go off on turn 4, and definitely can noticeably go off on turn 3 to an extent that edges WOTC's rules.
Arguing that you need these certain amount of cards and this curvature isn't compelling, Sheridan says the numbers are 12%(ish), and who knows what WOTC's numbers are. The card is at risk, it doesn't have to dominate the meta, WOTC states it just has to be a tier 1 deck and break the turn 3 rule.
And the argument about banning mox opal, SSG and all of that right now is absurd, it's a bad argument. Period.
GK already said it, people thought cards would be a problem years ago and they're still fine
What is being argued DEFINITELY feeds into banmania which is surprising given how he wants the Big 3 unbanned.
Mox opal has been fine for years, it could be fine for another five years.
Street Wraith may need to be banned five years from now, but saying, "well, it could be broken one day, ban it now" is a wild thing to say.
Because people like playing with those cards and like playing those decks that aren't dominating the format at all. Affinity is not a problem, Ad Nauseam is not a problem, Grishoalbrand is not a problem, RW Prison is not a problem, Living End is not a problem Lantern Prison is not a problem although it's a unwanted deck amongst Modern players is not a problem.
If you kill those cards, you kill certain strategies, you kill certain decks, heavily nerf others for no apparent reason, destroy player base confidence since those decks are not breaking any rule now.
What you don't understand, is that they will be problems. Look at Golgari Grave-Troll, it was legal for over a year. Then in one block we got Cathartic Reunion, Insolent Neonate, and Prized Amalgam, then poof, GGT is now overpowered. By the way, just randomly losing turn 2 to Grishoalbrand is still just as stupid as turn 3 storm. They may not happen often, but these high variance decks can make 8-12 round tournaments completely frustrating, by simple luck of the draw. In Legacy, we have aggressive methods to find reactive tools. in Modern you simply just pray. It's not fun specifically against some decks.
It's not the majority of cases, but the fact remains that some people are still out there saying they will play decks exactly like Grishoalbrand until Wizards just bans them.
Thank god for the return of the Modern PT, where lots of complaints which cannot be quantified with selective MTGO Data, will actually be put on the spotlight and be abused for everyone to see. I want another episode where Brian Kibler just simply walks away from his match and gets food while his combo player just plays a whole round. Modern is still in that exact bullcrap state, it's just that we have a balanced metagame of it.
I want to see pro's tilt on turn 3 tron, turn 3 storm, turn 5 Scapeshift, and turn 4 burn. We need way better cards than Fatal Push to make this format somewhat navigable for competitive play.
Dredge was never even dominant with GGT legal. That ban was almost as silly as the Twin ban. Twin, GGT, Stoneforge and BBE are ALL super safe to unban imo. None of them are part of degenerate strategies.
Dredge is just too easy to hate on to be 'broken' in modern. The meta will adjust and quickly with GY hate.
Because people like playing with those cards and like playing those decks that aren't dominating the format at all. Affinity is not a problem, Ad Nauseam is not a problem, Grishoalbrand is not a problem, RW Prison is not a problem, Living End is not a problem Lantern Prison is not a problem although it's a unwanted deck amongst Modern players is not a problem.
If you kill those cards, you kill certain strategies, you kill certain decks, heavily nerf others for no apparent reason, destroy player base confidence since those decks are not breaking any rule now.
What you don't understand, is that they will be problems. Look at Golgari Grave-Troll, it was legal for over a year. Then in one block we got Cathartic Reunion, Insolent Neonate, and Prized Amalgam, then poof, GGT is now overpowered. By the way, just randomly losing turn 2 to Grishoalbrand is still just as stupid as turn 3 storm. They may not happen often, but these high variance decks can make 8-12 round tournaments completely frustrating, by simple luck of the draw. In Legacy, we have aggressive methods to find reactive tools. in Modern you simply just pray. It's not fun specifically against some decks.
It's not the majority of cases, but the fact remains that some people are still out there saying they will play decks exactly like Grishoalbrand until Wizards just bans them.
Thank god for the return of the Modern PT, where lots of complaints which cannot be quantified with selective MTGO Data, will actually be put on the spotlight and be abused for everyone to see. I want another episode where Brian Kibler just simply walks away from his match and gets food while his combo player just plays a whole round. Modern is still in that exact bullcrap state, it's just that we have a balanced metagame of it.
I want to see pro's tilt on turn 3 tron, turn 3 storm, turn 5 Scapeshift, and turn 4 burn. We need way better cards than Fatal Push to make this format somewhat navigable for competitive play.
Dredge was never even dominant with GGT legal. That ban was almost as silly as the Twin ban. Twin, GGT, Stoneforge and BBE are ALL super safe to unban imo. None of them are part of degenerate strategies.
Dredge is just too easy to hate on to be 'broken' in modern. The meta will adjust and quickly with GY hate.
dredge was banned not because of dominance. But it created games being to heavily relied on sideboards against It.
The only thing iffy about the Golgari Grave-Troll ban that seems odd to me is their reasoning. I played Dredge in paper for a while, right about the time that it started taking its stride in MTGO. The deck was one of the few decks that I’ve had my hands on that truly “felt” ban-worthy. The only other deck that I’ve played that felt as broken as that was Treasure Cruise Delver.
WotC stated that it created a battle of the sideboards style of gameplay, which they didn’t like. It’s true. Maindeck removal outside of Path was largely pointless against the deck and it had a level of speed which made it hard to keep pace, but they failed to provide any real data on Dredge beyond that. It didn’t eat a large metashare of the game and although I’d suspect it had a higher than acceptable win-rate, especially game 1’s, WotC never released a statement suggesting that.
Although I agree on some instinctual level the ban was correct, I wish they had released some sort of data to back up their reasoning, because it relies a bit on subjective reasoning.
Sideboards are meant to help with bad matchups or problem decks, but at what point is it too much? If you have 6 cards in the board the come in against Affinity, does it mean that Affinity is a problem, or is it just shoring up a bad matchup?
WotC other ban choices have generally contributed to creating a better format though. The format is pretty great right now. There’s a solid competitive option for basically every archetype right now. I still think there are a handful of cards and decks that need to be watched—a few decks are really just one card away from being broken as heck. Storm is the obvious one right now, as many posters here have been discussing turn 3 win-rates.
I still think E-Tron is one to watch too. It’s been perfectly fine in the format, but the Sol Lands, which provide accelerated tempo and are difficult to interact with in a meaningful way, make it a potential risk in the future.
Dredge didn't have massive shares because people literally began packing 6 graveyard hate cards for it. In that process, it pushed out all graveyard decks in modern. I remember looking at the tier 2 status of modern, and tier looked slim with a lot of it being regulated to tier 3. The splash damage was too great. Affinity was too slow to deal with dredge and infect so it really retreated in shares as well. Meanwhile, Jund over prepared for it without having to worry about Affinity and had an ok game postboard because of the absurd amount of hate. Even Junk started to main Anafenza.
Dredge was a massive problem and so unhealthy for the format.
My only issue with the Dredge ban was the opaque definition of "battle of sideboards." I'm not really sure we know what that means in practice. I suspect it means Dredge games were too heavily decided by whether or not someone draws hate, but am not sure. Otherwise, the ban was fine.
I'm excited to see the GP OKC landscape this weekend. I wonder if the bleak PT prediction GK and I and others made, that Modern is secretly dominated by a few best decks, will surface. If it does, I'm going to be super worried for the PT. If not, I'll feel a bit better but will still have some nerves.
Dredge didn't have massive shares because people literally began packing 6 graveyard hate cards for it. In that process, it pushed out all graveyard decks in modern. I remember looking at the tier 2 status of modern, and tier looked slim with a lot of it being regulated to tier 3. The splash damage was too great. Affinity was too slow to deal with dredge and infect so it really retreated in shares as well. Meanwhile, Jund over prepared for it without having to worry about Affinity and had an ok game postboard because of the absurd amount of hate. Even Junk started to main Anafenza.
Dredge was a massive problem and so unhealthy for the format.
I think most Modern players would agree that Dredge needed to go. Strictly anecdotal, but even the people that were playing Dredge around my area were pretty quick to admit that the deck needed a ban.
I still dislike their reasoning for banning it. As Ktkenshin said, it’s an explanation that's wide open to interpretation.
I played Dredge with Golgari Grave-Troll. It wasn't quite Tier 0 in power level, like I felt Eye of Ugin Eldrazi was. It felt just right in between Tier 0 and Tier 1 - Tier 0.5 as some people call it. Infect was also at that same level at the time, with no other deck in the "Tier 0.5."
This is strictly on my feel of the deck, playing it a bunch when I identified it as the "best deck."
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I played Dredge with Golgari Grave-Troll. It wasn't quite Tier 0 in power level, like I felt Eye of Ugin Eldrazi was. It felt just right in between Tier 0 and Tier 1 - Tier 0.5 as some people call it. Infect was also at that same level at the time, with no other deck in the "Tier 0.5."
This is strictly on my feel of the deck, playing it a bunch when I identified it as the "best deck."
I dunno. It's prevalence was a bit too low to be Tier .5. It wasn't even the most-played deck at the time. Solidly Tier 1 though; Tier .5 decks are more like Pod, TC Delver, DRS BGx, etc.
I think the big issue with Dredge with Golgari Grave Troll was specifically that it was very resilient to the best generic dredge hate, which is Grafdigger's Cage - eventually, they'd just start casting their dude and then start looping trolls. It was a little more explosive, too.
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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 the big issue with Dredge with Golgari Grave Troll was specifically that it was very resilient to the best generic dredge hate, which is Grafdigger's Cage - eventually, they'd just start casting their dude and then start looping trolls. It was a little more explosive, too.
This aspect of the deck specifically is what caused players to dip heavily into Surgical Extraction and Ravenous Trap as Dredge hate, which created the sideboards Wizards specifically alluded to in their banlist announcement. I agree that Troll was a great hit compared with, say, Amalgam, as I think Dredge is a healthy deck to have around in some capacity.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
I think Whir Lantern is a very good deck, but the deck is so massively unpleasant to play with and against for the general public that I'm actually willing to bet against you that it doesn't reach the levels of Storm, GDS or E-Tron, and if it does, not for a sustainable time.
Even though Sam Black barely plays modern he has an eye for it and I believe him
I'd also like to see a format where Lantern isn't a top deck, it would actually really make this format less fun to me. It's not fun even when I beat it down mercilessly.
FoodChains is a combo player so of course he'd enjoy it. It's a challenging deck and people love that it is, there's a ton of decision making---on one side.
I wouldn't go so far as call Lantern a top 5 deck. Possibly tier 1, but until I see otherwise I'm gonna say 1.5 to 2.0.
Definitely waiting to see Azcanta do something. It's really only meant to be a 2 of for the fair decks. I bought 1x foil copy just in case it's good.
GP's coverage is good so far, no long gaps in-between games and they're showing a large variety of decks. Glad they're doing that instead of showing the same 1 or 2 decks, save that for day 2.
I've been working with a dataset of 2016 and 2017 SCG events to figure out difference between Legacy and Modern points earned per tournament, as this is a decent proxy for GWP. I'll call it AGWP for "Approximate Game Win Percentage," i.e. the total number of player points divided by the total number of possible points in that Open. So if you had 40 points in a 15 round event, your AGWP is 40/45 or 88.88%. I'm doing a bunch of stuff with the numbers, but here are some findings so far.
First, similarities. There is VERY little difference between overall performance in these formats. Here were the AGWPs for players who played 1 event each, 2 events each, and 3 events each of 2016/17 Legacy Opens and 2017 Modern Opens. For example, a "2+ player" would have played in 2+ Legacy Opens and 2+ Modern events.
So, if you were one of those 36 players who played in 3+ Legacy Opens and 3+ Modern Opens, you averaged 41.8% AGWP in the Legacy events and 44.1% in the Modern ones. That's a minuscule 2%-3% difference in AGWP, and it actually means you won more in Modern than Legacy.
The big difference is between the "good/great" Legacy players and the "good/great" Modern players. I define a "good" player as someone who is +1 standard deviation over the average AGWP of all Legacy/Modern players. "Great" means +2 standard deviations. Here are those cutoffs:
"Good" Legacy player cutoff: 41.9% (290 players) "Great" Legacy player cutoff: 58.7% (141 players) "Good" Modern player cutoff: 42.4% (641 players) "Great" Modern player cutoff: 59.7% (371 players)
As I found, good/great players in one format are typically pretty bad at the other format. The best Modern players are bad at Legacy. The best Legacy players are bad at Modern. See below for a comparison:
Good Legacy players - Legacy vs. Modern: 58.5% vs. 37% Great Legacy players - Legacy vs. Modern: 68.4% vs. 36.4% Good Modern players - Legacy vs. Modern: 37% vs. 60.7% Great Modern players - Legacy vs. Modern: 34.9% vs. 68.2%
So, if you are a great Legacy player, you average an excellent 68.4% AGWP in Legacy but only 36.4% in Modern. For a great Modern player, it's 34.9% in Legacy (eww) vs. 68.2% in Modern (yay!). Notice that the ceilings are the same - the best Modern and Legacy players both have the same AGWP average of 68.4%/68.2%.
Last number for now: there was basically no difference between Legacy and Modern in terms of AGWP variance. That is to say, players who performed a certain way in one event tended to perform the same way in other events. Here was the average variance for the players who attended 1+, 2+, and 3+ Modern/Legacy events.
1+ variance Legacy vs. Modern: .9% vs. 1% 2+ variance Legacy vs. Modern: 2.8% vs. 3.1% 3+ variance Legacy vs. Modern: 3.8% vs. 3.6%
This means players who are good/bad at Modern tend to be consistently good/bad at Modern in all their events. That is also true for Legacy.
Overall, I think this dispels some myths about the two formats but also raises some questions. It shows that there are consistent players in both formats and it shows that "matchup lottery" in Modern doesn't actually lead to any real differences in performance at Modern vs. Legacy events. The best Modern players do just as well at Modern as the best Legacy players do at Legacy. That said, there is a HUGE difference between format specialists when they cross formats. The best Legacy players suck at Modern and the best Modern players suck at Legacy. We should ask why; I'm not sure. Naturally, there are some limitations here: we're only looking at SCG Opens, the Legacy Opens are from 2016/2017 and the Modern ones are just from 2017, we have more Modern Opens than Legacy opens overall, AGWP is not quite GWP or MWP, etc. If you have questions about those limitations or others I haven't listed here, let me know and I'll see if we can address them.
I don't play Legacy, but my sense about Modern in its current state is that the format is so wide that you really need excellent knowledge of many--like, dozens--different decks' game plans and how they match up against your own deck. It's hard to have the breadth and depth of knowledge that you need to succeed at such a high level, without a major and ongoing time investment. If you have your fingers in various format-pies you might not have the time for this.
I am our resident Blood Moon mage... Feyd did up the avatar. I love it!
That's actually a fairly large deviation. For those who don't know, a standard deviation is a way to measure how far away a data point is from the mean -- the average value in the data, with the average being the total (in this case, I'm going to assume matches won) divided by the number of players in the sample. Essentially, ~86% of all data points in a sample should be within 1 deviation, 95% within 2, and 99.7% within 3. Anything past 3 deviations is considered an outlier. If anything, this sample says the matchup lottery isn't a big factor in determining success in Modern. While this does not completely destroy the idea (one sample would have a hard time proving that), it does point towards the matchup lottery not being the monster so many people believe it to be.
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"Don't believe everything you read on the internet." - Abraham Lincoln
I don't expect all experiences in modern to be the same, but I'm approaching this from the position that burn/sligh themed decks/strategies over saturate and dominate modern.
games with unanswered turn 1 monastery swiftspear, goblin guide, delver of secrets and maybe a few other types of 1 drops whens supported with the right strategy really dominate a game. answers to such starts are expensive and slow depending on the match up. Because of efficiency I see a lot of people choosing to play such strategies. Simplicity may also be a factor as well.
Answers are expensive is my point, most decks that counter such strategies well, play Kitchen finks, obstinate baloth, tarmogoyf, walls, etc. things costsing at minimum 2 mana. better luck goes to decks that run red or black, maybe white for cheap answers like lightning bolt, fatal push, and path to exile. which in a sense forces people into white black or red for cheap answers to very cheap strategies. (cheap as in casting cost)
1. For a meta that goes back and forth between, decks gambling for 1ccs to go unanswered and decks splashing for a 1cc to answer a 1cc that is devastating if unchecked! why not unleash Mental Misstep!
this is a format that is said to be a turn 4 format. Unleashing mental misstep would aid wizards goal of it being a turn 4 and longer format.
another card lightning bolt and other 1cc 3 damage. a lot of decks run this, regardless of being purely burn strategy or not. it would be kind of nice to have something that can counter this or atleast reduce its effectiveness with a card that is 1cc. any deck with blue benefits the most of course. all the same though, to counter or repair a life total harmed by lightning bolt is expensive. most strategies seems to be playing cards that are 3cc or more to undo the early losses to a lightning bolt/lava spike and reach the tenative state of "stablize". particularly if it is either multiple 1cc bolt spells or 1cc bolt spells being reused by snapcaster mage
2. my next point, lets look at the reverse. I bashed efficient 1cc creatures and lighting bolt type spells. but for the strategies that run those, unleashing Mental Misstep may help them as much as it stops them. If mental misstep doesn't push them into 2cc creatures that do just as good. It helps in that it shuts off path to exile, fatal push and lightning bolt which is right now the most common answers to the burn/sligh strategies. As I said earlier, I think cheap 1cc burn/sligh makes up a large porportion of the meta game, so unleashing Mental Misstep would make the shoot outs of their mirror matches interesting in the immediate unbanning.
3. take a look at tron for instance, this one is neither burn nor sligh which i've ripped on, but a top performer in recent meta game, mental misstep hitting an expedition map can delay those turn 3 karns that are so devastating, or even a turn 3 worldbreaker. even if the game is pushed into later turns, they still play big stuff that swings games which when it happens in later turns seems fair.
A couple other decks would be drastically devastated by mental misstep's availability. if its anything like bogles, it falls under my same criticism of burn/sligh. a strategy thats runs a person down and probably wins turn 4/5 thanks to something that is 1cc doing a lot of work.
As I rip on 1cc's that do a lot of work in this modern meta game, I believe we see a lot of people pushed into JunD and JunK decks as these strategies by design has strong resilience to 1cc strategies that gamble for a strong turn 1, 1cc that will do a lot of of the work. I think with Mental Misstep being available, people couple play more jank without the fear of being over run by turn 1, 1cc as mental misstepp can be the 1 card that answers that over saturating strategy.
3. tell me why i'm wrong............... or support my argument for unleashing mental misstep!
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The biggest reason why it was banned is because... why would you not run a 2-4 of main deck regardless of what you're playing? It slows merfolk, can potentially slow affinity (not a lot, but some), delver, would be brutal for lantern control, would trash boggles, could really screw with red burn, messes with sisters, even okay vs Jund and such. Really, you would also be running them.. to counter OTHER mental misteps. At that point it begins to be format warping in a negative way as you suddenly begin to need 2-4 in every deck and get to watch them sky rocket in price. Nope, fine as is
Arguing that you need these certain amount of cards and this curvature isn't compelling, Sheridan says the numbers are 12%(ish), and who knows what WOTC's numbers are. The card is at risk, it doesn't have to dominate the meta, WOTC states it just has to be a tier 1 deck and break the turn 3 rule.
And the argument about banning mox opal, SSG and all of that right now is absurd, it's a bad argument. Period.
GK already said it, people thought cards would be a problem years ago and they're still fine
What is being argued DEFINITELY feeds into banmania which is surprising given how he wants the Big 3 unbanned.
Mox opal has been fine for years, it could be fine for another five years.
Street Wraith may need to be banned five years from now, but saying, "well, it could be broken one day, ban it now" is a wild thing to say.
Dredge was never even dominant with GGT legal. That ban was almost as silly as the Twin ban. Twin, GGT, Stoneforge and BBE are ALL super safe to unban imo. None of them are part of degenerate strategies.
Dredge is just too easy to hate on to be 'broken' in modern. The meta will adjust and quickly with GY hate.
It was not a silly ban
The deck was ruining modern.
Dredge in combination ruined the second half of 2016, you want to talk about linear look at that time period
WotC stated that it created a battle of the sideboards style of gameplay, which they didn’t like. It’s true. Maindeck removal outside of Path was largely pointless against the deck and it had a level of speed which made it hard to keep pace, but they failed to provide any real data on Dredge beyond that. It didn’t eat a large metashare of the game and although I’d suspect it had a higher than acceptable win-rate, especially game 1’s, WotC never released a statement suggesting that.
Although I agree on some instinctual level the ban was correct, I wish they had released some sort of data to back up their reasoning, because it relies a bit on subjective reasoning.
Sideboards are meant to help with bad matchups or problem decks, but at what point is it too much? If you have 6 cards in the board the come in against Affinity, does it mean that Affinity is a problem, or is it just shoring up a bad matchup?
WotC other ban choices have generally contributed to creating a better format though. The format is pretty great right now. There’s a solid competitive option for basically every archetype right now. I still think there are a handful of cards and decks that need to be watched—a few decks are really just one card away from being broken as heck. Storm is the obvious one right now, as many posters here have been discussing turn 3 win-rates.
I still think E-Tron is one to watch too. It’s been perfectly fine in the format, but the Sol Lands, which provide accelerated tempo and are difficult to interact with in a meaningful way, make it a potential risk in the future.
Dredge was a massive problem and so unhealthy for the format.
I'm excited to see the GP OKC landscape this weekend. I wonder if the bleak PT prediction GK and I and others made, that Modern is secretly dominated by a few best decks, will surface. If it does, I'm going to be super worried for the PT. If not, I'll feel a bit better but will still have some nerves.
I think most Modern players would agree that Dredge needed to go. Strictly anecdotal, but even the people that were playing Dredge around my area were pretty quick to admit that the deck needed a ban.
I still dislike their reasoning for banning it. As Ktkenshin said, it’s an explanation that's wide open to interpretation.
This is strictly on my feel of the deck, playing it a bunch when I identified it as the "best deck."
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I dunno. It's prevalence was a bit too low to be Tier .5. It wasn't even the most-played deck at the time. Solidly Tier 1 though; Tier .5 decks are more like Pod, TC Delver, DRS BGx, etc.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Even though Sam Black barely plays modern he has an eye for it and I believe him
I'd also like to see a format where Lantern isn't a top deck, it would actually really make this format less fun to me. It's not fun even when I beat it down mercilessly.
I wouldn't go so far as call Lantern a top 5 deck. Possibly tier 1, but until I see otherwise I'm gonna say 1.5 to 2.0.
Definitely waiting to see Azcanta do something. It's really only meant to be a 2 of for the fair decks. I bought 1x foil copy just in case it's good.
GP's coverage is good so far, no long gaps in-between games and they're showing a large variety of decks. Glad they're doing that instead of showing the same 1 or 2 decks, save that for day 2.
First, similarities. There is VERY little difference between overall performance in these formats. Here were the AGWPs for players who played 1 event each, 2 events each, and 3 events each of 2016/17 Legacy Opens and 2017 Modern Opens. For example, a "2+ player" would have played in 2+ Legacy Opens and 2+ Modern events.
1+ players Legacy AGWP: 29.8% (536 players)
1+ players Modern AGWP: 30.9% (536 players)
2+ players Legacy AGWP: 36.2% (118 players)
2+ players Modern AGWP: 37.6% (118 players)
3+ players Legacy AGWP: 41.8% (36 players)
3+ players Modern AGWP: 44.1% (36 players)
So, if you were one of those 36 players who played in 3+ Legacy Opens and 3+ Modern Opens, you averaged 41.8% AGWP in the Legacy events and 44.1% in the Modern ones. That's a minuscule 2%-3% difference in AGWP, and it actually means you won more in Modern than Legacy.
The big difference is between the "good/great" Legacy players and the "good/great" Modern players. I define a "good" player as someone who is +1 standard deviation over the average AGWP of all Legacy/Modern players. "Great" means +2 standard deviations. Here are those cutoffs:
"Good" Legacy player cutoff: 41.9% (290 players)
"Great" Legacy player cutoff: 58.7% (141 players)
"Good" Modern player cutoff: 42.4% (641 players)
"Great" Modern player cutoff: 59.7% (371 players)
As I found, good/great players in one format are typically pretty bad at the other format. The best Modern players are bad at Legacy. The best Legacy players are bad at Modern. See below for a comparison:
Good Legacy players - Legacy vs. Modern: 58.5% vs. 37%
Great Legacy players - Legacy vs. Modern: 68.4% vs. 36.4%
Good Modern players - Legacy vs. Modern: 37% vs. 60.7%
Great Modern players - Legacy vs. Modern: 34.9% vs. 68.2%
So, if you are a great Legacy player, you average an excellent 68.4% AGWP in Legacy but only 36.4% in Modern. For a great Modern player, it's 34.9% in Legacy (eww) vs. 68.2% in Modern (yay!). Notice that the ceilings are the same - the best Modern and Legacy players both have the same AGWP average of 68.4%/68.2%.
Last number for now: there was basically no difference between Legacy and Modern in terms of AGWP variance. That is to say, players who performed a certain way in one event tended to perform the same way in other events. Here was the average variance for the players who attended 1+, 2+, and 3+ Modern/Legacy events.
1+ variance Legacy vs. Modern: .9% vs. 1%
2+ variance Legacy vs. Modern: 2.8% vs. 3.1%
3+ variance Legacy vs. Modern: 3.8% vs. 3.6%
This means players who are good/bad at Modern tend to be consistently good/bad at Modern in all their events. That is also true for Legacy.
Overall, I think this dispels some myths about the two formats but also raises some questions. It shows that there are consistent players in both formats and it shows that "matchup lottery" in Modern doesn't actually lead to any real differences in performance at Modern vs. Legacy events. The best Modern players do just as well at Modern as the best Legacy players do at Legacy. That said, there is a HUGE difference between format specialists when they cross formats. The best Legacy players suck at Modern and the best Modern players suck at Legacy. We should ask why; I'm not sure. Naturally, there are some limitations here: we're only looking at SCG Opens, the Legacy Opens are from 2016/2017 and the Modern ones are just from 2017, we have more Modern Opens than Legacy opens overall, AGWP is not quite GWP or MWP, etc. If you have questions about those limitations or others I haven't listed here, let me know and I'll see if we can address them.
a) Sweet avatar upgrade.
b) Here are the numbers from the spreadsheet:
Legacy Avg: 25%
Legacy Stdev: 16.9%
Avg+1: 41.9%
Avg+2: 58.7%
Modern Avg: 25.1%
Modern Stdev: 17.3%
Avg+1: 42.4%
Avg+2: 59.7%
That's actually a fairly large deviation. For those who don't know, a standard deviation is a way to measure how far away a data point is from the mean -- the average value in the data, with the average being the total (in this case, I'm going to assume matches won) divided by the number of players in the sample. Essentially, ~86% of all data points in a sample should be within 1 deviation, 95% within 2, and 99.7% within 3. Anything past 3 deviations is considered an outlier. If anything, this sample says the matchup lottery isn't a big factor in determining success in Modern. While this does not completely destroy the idea (one sample would have a hard time proving that), it does point towards the matchup lottery not being the monster so many people believe it to be.
I don't expect all experiences in modern to be the same, but I'm approaching this from the position that burn/sligh themed decks/strategies over saturate and dominate modern.
games with unanswered turn 1 monastery swiftspear, goblin guide, delver of secrets and maybe a few other types of 1 drops whens supported with the right strategy really dominate a game. answers to such starts are expensive and slow depending on the match up. Because of efficiency I see a lot of people choosing to play such strategies. Simplicity may also be a factor as well.
Answers are expensive is my point, most decks that counter such strategies well, play Kitchen finks, obstinate baloth, tarmogoyf, walls, etc. things costsing at minimum 2 mana. better luck goes to decks that run red or black, maybe white for cheap answers like lightning bolt, fatal push, and path to exile. which in a sense forces people into white black or red for cheap answers to very cheap strategies. (cheap as in casting cost)
1. For a meta that goes back and forth between, decks gambling for 1ccs to go unanswered and decks splashing for a 1cc to answer a 1cc that is devastating if unchecked! why not unleash Mental Misstep!
this is a format that is said to be a turn 4 format. Unleashing mental misstep would aid wizards goal of it being a turn 4 and longer format.
another card lightning bolt and other 1cc 3 damage. a lot of decks run this, regardless of being purely burn strategy or not. it would be kind of nice to have something that can counter this or atleast reduce its effectiveness with a card that is 1cc. any deck with blue benefits the most of course. all the same though, to counter or repair a life total harmed by lightning bolt is expensive. most strategies seems to be playing cards that are 3cc or more to undo the early losses to a lightning bolt/lava spike and reach the tenative state of "stablize". particularly if it is either multiple 1cc bolt spells or 1cc bolt spells being reused by snapcaster mage
2. my next point, lets look at the reverse. I bashed efficient 1cc creatures and lighting bolt type spells. but for the strategies that run those, unleashing Mental Misstep may help them as much as it stops them. If mental misstep doesn't push them into 2cc creatures that do just as good. It helps in that it shuts off path to exile, fatal push and lightning bolt which is right now the most common answers to the burn/sligh strategies. As I said earlier, I think cheap 1cc burn/sligh makes up a large porportion of the meta game, so unleashing Mental Misstep would make the shoot outs of their mirror matches interesting in the immediate unbanning.
3. take a look at tron for instance, this one is neither burn nor sligh which i've ripped on, but a top performer in recent meta game, mental misstep hitting an expedition map can delay those turn 3 karns that are so devastating, or even a turn 3 worldbreaker. even if the game is pushed into later turns, they still play big stuff that swings games which when it happens in later turns seems fair.
A couple other decks would be drastically devastated by mental misstep's availability. if its anything like bogles, it falls under my same criticism of burn/sligh. a strategy thats runs a person down and probably wins turn 4/5 thanks to something that is 1cc doing a lot of work.
As I rip on 1cc's that do a lot of work in this modern meta game, I believe we see a lot of people pushed into JunD and JunK decks as these strategies by design has strong resilience to 1cc strategies that gamble for a strong turn 1, 1cc that will do a lot of of the work. I think with Mental Misstep being available, people couple play more jank without the fear of being over run by turn 1, 1cc as mental misstepp can be the 1 card that answers that over saturating strategy.
3. tell me why i'm wrong............... or support my argument for unleashing mental misstep!
No.