Re: fun
I'm pretty sure "fun" is just operationalized in all the other ban criteria. Most diversity, T4 rule, logistical, and sideboard violators were also not fun to have around. Fun is not its own criterion.
Be a fun way to play Magic (first, and easy to forget, but very important!)
Those metrics are not based on objective data alone, for sure. And they show that T4 rule violation, diversity stifling are not the only factors.
To be frank, based on the first tweet we should be getting player feedback more seriously than data. That's fine by me and I deem it to be right. (Of course data matter a ton as well as they should be)
Name a a single Modern ban that happened solely because a deck wasn't fun.
Every ban I can think of is for one of those four criteria I listed above, and the vast majority never even mention the word "fun." If I missed one I am happy to revise my statement, but from what I remember this is not a real criterion Wizards has ever acted on. I don't know why you are suddenly pushing this so hard when Wizards has never banned a Modern card for being unfun on its own.
Marvel was banned because it was an egregious diversity violator. "Catalyst" does not mean a ban criterion. It just means that feedback may precipitate or launch a Wizards investigation, after which they will see if the feedback is related to actual violations of known format rules. Again, feedback and fun is not the criterion. Feedback might prompt Wizards to see if criteria are being violated, but it is not a criterion on its own.
Marvel was banned because it was an egregious diversity violator. "Catalyst" does not mean a ban criterion. It just means that feedback may precipitate or launch a Wizards investigation, after which they will see if the feedback is related to actual violations of known format rules. Again, feedback and fun is not the criterion. Feedback might prompt Wizards to see if criteria are being violated, but it is not a criterion on its own.
SO what's the excuse for not banning Energy? It's like 50% of the meta across basic Temur + splash, and much higher than that if you include Sultai. In a recent podcast (I think MTGGoldfish), they were talking about people being more OK with it because Energy is at its heart, a mostly fair, interactive, midrange deck. It's a deck that produces fun and interactive gameplay, which is something Marvel did not. They also cited Caw-Blade as another mostly fair, interactive, midrange deck that wasn't really a problem until people stopped showing up to play Standard.
It appears the main catalyst for ban decisions is attendance first and foremost. Everything else is secondary. They do not care what the meta looks like whatsoever as long as people are showing up to play. Since Wizards has access to the tracking data of every DCI number playing in any sanctioned event all over the world, they know exactly how popular each format is at any time in any place. It seems as though outside action is never taken unless it is proceeded by a drop in attendance, at which point THEN they will look for player feedback, have internal discussions and THEN ban something. This is of course not counting the Modern Pro Tour, which was a catalyst for bannings in of itself. Either way though, it will be very interesting to see what Wizards does moving forward in Standard. With Energy as dominant as it is, how they act with it will tell us a lot about how and why they ban something. As long as people keep showing up to play, nothing will happen. As soon as attendance drops, I fully expect something banned. These same kinds of rules seem to apply to Modern as well, but of course without access to inside data, we will never know for sure.
Marvel was banned because it was an egregious diversity violator. "Catalyst" does not mean a ban criterion. It just means that feedback may precipitate or launch a Wizards investigation, after which they will see if the feedback is related to actual violations of known format rules. Again, feedback and fun is not the criterion. Feedback might prompt Wizards to see if criteria are being violated, but it is not a criterion on its own.
Aetherworks Marvel was no more of an "egregious diversity violator" than UW Delver, Monoblack Devotion, Siege Rhino Abzan, or Collected Company, none of which received any bans during their tenure in Standard (also note that most of those were the dominant deck for a longer period of time than Aetherworks Marvel), so I find this to be a dubious statement.
Marvel was banned because it was an egregious diversity violator. "Catalyst" does not mean a ban criterion. It just means that feedback may precipitate or launch a Wizards investigation, after which they will see if the feedback is related to actual violations of known format rules. Again, feedback and fun is not the criterion. Feedback might prompt Wizards to see if criteria are being violated, but it is not a criterion on its own.
Aetherworks Marvel was no more of an "egregious diversity violator" than UW Delver, Monoblack Devotion, Siege Rhino Abzan, or Collected Company, none of which received any bans during their tenure in Standard (also note that most of those were the dominant deck for a longer period of time than Aetherworks Marvel), so I find this to be a dubious statement.
It was banned for metagame share, win rate, and player feedback, presented in that order. It's another example of a ban that was probably influenced by feedback, but that feedback was not the primary criterion with Marvel, same as with Return.
I have no idea how Wizards bans cards in Standard and how that process differs from, overlaps with, and/or informs Modern, so I'm not going to speak much to Energy or Marvel. I just don't know the format well enough to speak about it or its policies.
The primary difference between standard bans and modern bans is that the policy for modern is largely hands off and the cards of different tiers will sort themselves out. For example, in one generation of standard it may have been common to have high powered burn spells and support spells at 1 cmc and 2 cmc, while another generation swapped things around and put stronger creatures at 1 cmc and 2 cmc, leaving support spells largely at 2 and 3 cmc. What wizards is watching for in modern is if any of the cards from a prior generation interact poorly with cards from another generation. So, case in point, a 1 cmc creature in gen 13 standard may have some powerful synergy with some card from gen 3 standard at a lower mana cost than expected, leading to decks that run the gen 3 and gen 13 card having a major edge over other decks.
In standard wizards has full control over the cards as they are all composed of only one or two generations, and even then there is only a brief period where the prior generation of cards has an opportunity to interact with a new generation. Instead, bannings in standard are almost always due to a card not being properly tested, so things tend to be far more hands on in standard than in modern. Wizards is also much less likely to ban something in standard for marketing reasons. Banning anything from a currently opened set greatly impacts sales as players now essentially have a chance of opening a dead card, where in modern most people buy singles, so there isn't a huge loss in sales if a ban happens hypothetically.
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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!
Marvel was banned because it was an egregious diversity violator. "Catalyst" does not mean a ban criterion. It just means that feedback may precipitate or launch a Wizards investigation, after which they will see if the feedback is related to actual violations of known format rules. Again, feedback and fun is not the criterion. Feedback might prompt Wizards to see if criteria are being violated, but it is not a criterion on its own.
Aetherworks Marvel was no more of an "egregious diversity violator" than UW Delver, Monoblack Devotion, Siege Rhino Abzan, or Collected Company, none of which received any bans during their tenure in Standard (also note that most of those were the dominant deck for a longer period of time than Aetherworks Marvel), so I find this to be a dubious statement.
It was banned for metagame share, win rate, and player feedback, presented in that order. It's another example of a ban that was probably influenced by feedback, but that feedback was not the primary criterion with Marvel, same as with Return.
As noted, its metagame share was about the usual amount for the top deck in Standard. All those decks I cited had a metagame share about equal to Aetherworks Marvel. Heck, the top deck in Standard right now is close to it. So that doesn't work.
You also claim it was banned for "win rate" despite the fact the banning announcement explicitly admits that all but two of the top decks had an even or favorable matchup against Aetherworks Marvel. The article is fairly clear that, far from being banned for win rate, it was banned in spite of its win rate.
It's really hard to justify the banning as anything more than "players don't like the format." Indeed, the same is true for the original trifecta of bans (CopyCat was in fact a problem metagame wise). I've noted this before, but if you look at the metagame numbers, the metagame before the Copter/Emrakul/Mage ban was actually reasonably diverse. Sure, Smuggler's Copter was overplayed, but it went into a variety of strategies and it's not like Mutavault wasn't everywhere in RTR-Theros. Those bannings didn't occur due to problematic metagame share (except for possibly Smuggler's Copter), but because players just weren't liking the format due to various questionable design decisions, and Wizards of the Coast opted for bannings as an attempt to lure players back.
It doesn't seem likely that the deck would maintain its dominance post rotation, as the deck's all-star (Ulamog) was rotating out, and Duress and Sorcerous Spyglass were rotating in to help fight it (interestingly, they cite duress and Pithing Needle as cards they wish had been in Standard to combat Aetherworks Marvel). I believe their reasoning for the banning was that they had lost a lot of player confidence due to the previous bannings and the formats people didn't like, and they would just accept pre-rotation Standard as a lost cause and banned it just to be sure that it wouldn't be a problem after rotation, unlikely as it seemed, because they were hoping to rebuild after rotation and a ban afterwards would obviously go straight against that.
Re: Marvel
Like I said before, I don't play Standard now, didn't play Marvel Standard, don't know Standard prevalence/decks, and only know what Wizards wrote in their banlist update. I already acknowledged they banned the deck for a bunch of reasons, at least one of which was feedback. But more to the point of this Modern thread, I have no idea how that Standard ban rationale relates to Modern bans or ban policy. For all we know, the conversation is entirely different with Standard. It certainly doesn't see bans for logistics or T4 rule violations. Its diversity cutoff seems very different from Modern by even the most liberal interpretations. This is clearly true of both Legacy and Vintage, which have seen changes for different reasons and with different timing than Modern.
That said, I do know Modern, and I know no card in Modern has ever been banned for being unfun alone. I've said this at least a half dozen times over the past pages and people are still arguing but have yet to provide a format-specific counter-example. Cards are banned for violating other rules. Feedback may be an indicator of those violations, but the violation is what gets the card banned, not the feedback that launches the Wizards investigation.
If having required slots for sideboard is part of their banning, then why has affinity (the dredge of modern) had no bans for so long?
Id venture a guess and say that its because those answers are very effective against affinity
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Decks I have in my bag of tricks- Needless to say, someone who wants to play will probably have a deck UB/x Faeries UR Storm XURWB Affinity G Elves UW control
Wizards literally invented a new criterion here and now we have to include it in our list. I am not that close minded to claim it is the unfun criterion; sideboard battles works fine for me. But in my opinion, it was greatly unfun and oppressive that I had to dedicate 5 sideboard slots to fight Dredge off.
I'm actually not sure if Wizards invented a criterion here. The GGT justification has a lot of overlap with part of the Dread Return justification. It seems more likely we just missed that criterion when considering Dread Return's old ban. I used to think they invented the criterion, but after re-reading the Return justification, I'm not so sure.
GGT: "Dredge, the mechanic and the deck, has a negative impact on Modern by pushing the format too far toward a battle of sideboards. "
DR: "Although games against it are often interesting, the larger game of deciding whether to dedicate enough sideboard slots to defeat it or ignore it completely and hope not to play against it is one that is not very satisfying for most tournament players."
DR was unquestionably banned for being a T4 rule violator. The article literally says so by including Return on that list of T4 rule violators with Hypergenesis and Glimpse. But I also think DR had an additional criterion in its justification, which is that bolded bit about sideboards above. When it came time to assess GGT, they just used that old DR criterion to ban GGT. We just didn't realize that for years.
@Sheridan, we may have reached an agreement: Some times a bad player feedback or bad attendance launches a Wizards investigation, then they have to choose among the 3 criteria they use(diversity stifling, turn 4 rule violation, logistics), or update the list with a new one("sideboard battles), or now choose one of the 4 existing ones. (ps. it's highly unlikely that there will be a need for a new criterion to be invented now, the list is probably fully updated now)
I agree that feedback and bad attendance launches investigations, and then Wizards sees if cards are violating format rules during those investigations.
If having required slots for sideboard is part of their banning, then why has affinity (the dredge of modern) had no bans for so long?
Interestingly, I did an analysis (never published it) about the average # of anti-Affinity cards vs. anti-Dredge cards during different times in Modern. There's virtually no difference even during the height of Dredge. In an n=300 sample of MTGO decks, decks averaged 2.3 anti-Affinity SB cards and 2.7 anti-Dredge SB cards. There is a statistical difference between those samples (p=.03), but there isn't much of an absolute difference between them; just .4 cards. So I don't think this is what killed Dredge.
Instead, I think the ban really meant that in order to beat Dredge, you needed to draw those sideboard cards. Whereas in order to beat Affinity, you did not need to draw your SB cards, but it helped if you did. Wizards could have operationalized this by looking at the GWP against Dredge when you drew SB hate and saw a huge increase. In theory, it could look like this:
Overall GWP vs. Dredge: 50%
GWP vs. Dredge w/ SB hate: 70%
GWP vs. Dredge w/ no SB hate: 30%
Overall GWP vs. Affinity: 50%
GWP vs. Affinity w/ SB hate: 55%
GWP vs. Affinity w/ no SB hate: 45%
This totally theoretical model would show Dredge being perfectly beatable and not broken in the aggregate, but also heavily dependent on drawing SB cards. Affinity, by contrast, wouldn't be as swingy. Again, I have no idea if this is actually what Wizards did, but it could explain why Affinity is fine and Dredge is not.
Affinity probably did not get banned, because it's not such a miserable experience if you are playing against it. Maindeck spot removals work wonders. Lightning Bolt vs Dredge for example, was nothing like it is vs Affinity. This means you have game against it, if you play spells like Push, Bolt, path, k command, etc, meaning spells you would play either way in your Maindeck. Even counterspells vs the payoff spells are great.
Pla
Even if I can't quantify why Golgari Grave-Troll should have been banned, I realize that it was better off that way. Wizards doesn't want Dredge to be "the deck to beat" in Modern. It's simply not the way to attract players.
I do somewhat agree with you on the "fun factor." But I have to at least point out that playing against Affinity can be very fun or unfun as well. Being dead on turn 3 when you found no hate can be disconcerting. Having to mulligan perfectly playable (vs. any other deck) hands because they don't beat Affinity can be rough. Playing a turn 2 Stony Silence on the play and then basically goldfishing your opponent with a somewhat slow deck can be satisfying to win, but perhaps not as satisfying in another respect.
Playing against Tron decks is like this too. When I run Bogles, they often leave me with 0 permanents in play, only to sit looking at a Gaddock Teeg and Stony Silence in game 2. Yes, Collective Brutality kills Gaddock Teeg, but otherwise the card's bad and often Gaddock Teeg can come down turn 3 with an Aura to make him bigger than 2/2. I don't know how satisfying or "fun" these games are. For me at this point, I'm just happy to win.
This is my opinion of all-time non-fun decks to play against in Modern since the beginning.
1. Infect
2. Lantern Control
3. Eggs
4. Affinity
5. Ad Nauseam
6. Living End
I'm pretty sure that nobody agrees with these 6 in this order, so fun is very subjective. I personally found Birthing Pod super fun to play against, but Collected Company is not quite as fun to me. But then I do enjoy playing Collected Company myself than I did for Birthing Pod. I liked playing against Twin when they had Preordain and Ponder more than after they got banned.
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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 always thought Infect was tremendous fun to play against. It was like a huge game cat & mouse, seeing who would flinch first. But then again, I play interactive URx shells. Even Affinity was never miserable to play against because of the level of interaction I usually want to play with. The others are fairly miserable though. Whether I win or lose, games against decks like Lantern or ad nauseam or Storm are so unbelievably unsatisfying to actually play.
I always thought Infect was tremendous fun to play against. It was like a huge game cat & mouse, seeing who would flinch first. But then again, I play interactive URx shells. Even Affinity was never miserable to play against because of the level of interaction I usually want to play with. The others are fairly miserable though. Whether I win or lose, games against decks like Lantern or ad nauseam or Storm are so unbelievably unsatisfying to actually play.
See, I played Combo decks usually and decks like Infect and Affinity always have a place in my heart for destroying me when I played those decks. Turn 2 and 3s were not uncommon for Infect and it was closer to turn 3 and 4 for Affinity (although admittedly turn 4 is a bit slow).
This is why peoples' definitions of fun vary sooo much. I'm sure we can find some sicko who just LOVES to play against Lantern. (actually I know 2 Tron players that like it)
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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 always thought Infect was tremendous fun to play against. It was like a huge game cat & mouse, seeing who would flinch first. But then again, I play interactive URx shells. Even Affinity was never miserable to play against because of the level of interaction I usually want to play with. The others are fairly miserable though. Whether I win or lose, games against decks like Lantern or ad nauseam or Storm are so unbelievably unsatisfying to actually play.
See, I played Combo decks usually and decks like Infect and Affinity always have a place in my heart for destroying me when I played those decks. Turn 2 and 3s were not uncommon for Infect and it was closer to turn 3 and 4 for Affinity (although admittedly turn 4 is a bit slow).
This is why peoples' definitions of fun vary sooo much. I'm sure we can find some sicko who just LOVES to play against Lantern. (actually I know 2 Tron players that like it)
Exactly, fun is subjective
Unless you play lantern, then everyone is ******* miserable except you
Infect was a fun deck to play against if you weren't a degenerate deck
Infect is what combo was to modern what Dexter was to other serial killers.
Why affinity is less annoying to play against than dredge: if I bolt or push a threat from Affinity, it's more or less gone for good. If I wipe the board, they have to rebuilt. With dredge, that's more like flickerwisping them for a turn.
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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.
Unless you play lantern, then everyone is ******* miserable except you
I actually have a lot of fun playing against Lantern.
Zomg, did you look through a profile of me in my past life and just decide have every opposite opinion on every matter?!
Aren't you a tron player? It should be fun, they're miserable against you
I don't think the decks remotely fun, they're stopping you from playing and once they lock it in you just slowly draw your cards hoping for a punt. I have a good record against the deck, I just find it some of the most unfun magic
Dredge was never fast like affinity and you could block his creatures too
Uhhhh, dredge was plenty fast like affinity
Block their creatures? You have fun blocking three 3/3s and 2 2/1s, along with some 1/1 flyers every round while your removal become fogs as they return those creatures back from the gy every turn
You knew what people meant. Dredge was too resilient to beat game 1 with GGT around.
I honestly really wouldn't be upset if the dredge mechanic in general were banned in modern, it's some of the most awful, degenerate playing.
Overall GWP vs. Dredge: 50%
GWP vs. Dredge w/ SB hate: 70%
GWP vs. Dredge w/ no SB hate: 30%
Overall GWP vs. Affinity: 50%
GWP vs. Affinity w/ SB hate: 55%
GWP vs. Affinity w/ no SB hate: 45%
Affinity is more resilient to hate and also quick enough for it not to matter. How many times have you dropped a Stony Silence on turn 2 right after a creature was suited up with Cranial Plating. Trust me, it feels bad.
The bottom line for Dredge is that you have to run grave hate (or have a deck that beats it like Bogles) in order to beat it. This forces you to run 4-6 grave hate pieces in your SB. Those slots have been dedicated to Affinity from the start of Modern. There simply isn't room to allow Dredge to stretch your SB as well, and Affinity has been in Modern since 2011.
*Anyway, on another topic, has anyone read Brian Demars' article at CFB? Although it wasn't presented as well as I would have liked, it had a good message in my opinion. Magic was never meant to be balanced. Honestly, no one would play if everyone was 50/50 vs. everything. https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/magic-has-never-been-balanced/
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)
*Anyway, on another topic, has anyone read Brian Demars' article at CFB? Although it wasn't presented as well as I would have liked, it had a good message in my opinion. Magic was never meant to be balanced. Honestly, no one would play if everyone was 50/50 vs. everything. https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/magic-has-never-been-balanced/
I think his conclusion flies in the face of a contradicting conclusion many make for modern, which is: "If you pick a deck and get good with it, you'll be successful." His conclusion basically says that a large part of being successful means picking the right deck at the right time. This can be interpreted to mean that deck choice is more important than player skill (which is mostly true in most cases, especially in Modern).
He goes on to say, specifically about Modern:
"Most players would consider a format with lots of viable decks to be fairly balanced. Is it really? Modern has 30 playable decks, but when has it ever been balanced? There are always 4 or 5 decks that are pretty clearly ahead of the pack for a given tournament. Just because you have viable options doesn’t mean that those options are equal, all things considered." Which I agree with. However, the content and makeup of those top decks (as pointed out by a previous article) are mostly linear, miserable decks that promote terrible gameplay. All are quick clocks that require specific narrow answers to deal with and create lots of feelbad games and matchups.
We have this illusion of other, lower decks doing disproportionately better because we no longer have any reliable data to compare it to. By contrast, this is basically how it has always been forever. Other than a few brief periods, we have seen all sorts of T2 and T3 decks do well over the years and had massive diversity among all events since basically the beginning of Modern. But because of the lack of data and incomplete pictures, so many people are collectively praising the current state of the format as "healthy" when the top decks and the face of the format are anything but. When the best decks are Storm, Valakut, Affinity, GDS, and ETron, that does not paint the picture of a format I would call "healthy." We're just blinded by a lack of meaningful data while we continually put small and statistically irrelevant paper tournament samples on a pedestal to claim everything is hunky dory.
*Anyway, on another topic, has anyone read Brian Demars' article at CFB? Although it wasn't presented as well as I would have liked, it had a good message in my opinion. Magic was never meant to be balanced. Honestly, no one would play if everyone was 50/50 vs. everything. https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/magic-has-never-been-balanced/
I think his conclusion flies in the face of a contradicting conclusion many make for modern, which is: "If you pick a deck and get good with it, you'll be successful." His conclusion basically says that a large part of being successful means picking the right deck at the right time. This can be interpreted to mean that deck choice is more important than player skill (which is mostly true in most cases, especially in Modern).
He goes on to say, specifically about Modern:
"Most players would consider a format with lots of viable decks to be fairly balanced. Is it really? Modern has 30 playable decks, but when has it ever been balanced? There are always 4 or 5 decks that are pretty clearly ahead of the pack for a given tournament. Just because you have viable options doesn’t mean that those options are equal, all things considered." Which I agree with. However, the content and makeup of those top decks (as pointed out by a previous article) are mostly linear, miserable decks that promote terrible gameplay. All are quick clocks that require specific narrow answers to deal with and create lots of feelbad games and matchups.
We have this illusion of other, lower decks doing disproportionately better because we no longer have any reliable data to compare it to. By contrast, this is basically how it has always been forever. Other than a few brief periods, we have seen all sorts of T2 and T3 decks do well over the years and had massive diversity among all events since basically the beginning of Modern. But because of the lack of data and incomplete pictures, so many people are collectively praising the current state of the format as "healthy" when the top decks and the face of the format are anything but. When the best decks are Storm, Valakut, Affinity, GDS, and ETron, that does not paint the picture of a format I would call "healthy." We're just blinded by a lack of meaningful data while we continually put small and statistically irrelevant paper tournament samples on a pedestal to claim everything is hunky dory.
This is Modern in a nutshell - "picking the right deck at the right time." The main problem is that nobody knows what deck to choose for a particular tournament. Metagaming is SUPER hard, outside of you and the 5 buddies you (not directed at anybody, just overstated to show that anyone can metagame in a small setting) play with every Friday night. You could be like me and face 4 U/UW Tron decks in the past 4 months, only facing E Tron once during that same time. You could be like me and run Titanshift at the Las Vegas Grand Prix because of E Tron in the face of Todd Stevens' recent success at the time and have 15 rounds of no E Tron. One PPTQ I played in, I played against Ad Nauseam and Ponza nut draws in the first 2 rounds (while on Titanshift). This also shapes our VIEWS. I don't see E Tron as being a threat since I never face it. Why would I see E Tron as a threat when I've faced it 1 time in the past 300 matches? But I should be considerate of others that always run into it, right?
The data hiding is pretty bad; I agree. I think it gives Wizards no reason to consider unbans because "Modern is wonderful right now." Then it will just become stale as **** until the next Modern card pushes Aggro even more.
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)
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I'm pretty sure "fun" is just operationalized in all the other ban criteria. Most diversity, T4 rule, logistical, and sideboard violators were also not fun to have around. Fun is not its own criterion.
Name a a single Modern ban that happened solely because a deck wasn't fun.
Every ban I can think of is for one of those four criteria I listed above, and the vast majority never even mention the word "fun." If I missed one I am happy to revise my statement, but from what I remember this is not a real criterion Wizards has ever acted on. I don't know why you are suddenly pushing this so hard when Wizards has never banned a Modern card for being unfun on its own.
It appears the main catalyst for ban decisions is attendance first and foremost. Everything else is secondary. They do not care what the meta looks like whatsoever as long as people are showing up to play. Since Wizards has access to the tracking data of every DCI number playing in any sanctioned event all over the world, they know exactly how popular each format is at any time in any place. It seems as though outside action is never taken unless it is proceeded by a drop in attendance, at which point THEN they will look for player feedback, have internal discussions and THEN ban something. This is of course not counting the Modern Pro Tour, which was a catalyst for bannings in of itself. Either way though, it will be very interesting to see what Wizards does moving forward in Standard. With Energy as dominant as it is, how they act with it will tell us a lot about how and why they ban something. As long as people keep showing up to play, nothing will happen. As soon as attendance drops, I fully expect something banned. These same kinds of rules seem to apply to Modern as well, but of course without access to inside data, we will never know for sure.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
It was banned for metagame share, win rate, and player feedback, presented in that order. It's another example of a ban that was probably influenced by feedback, but that feedback was not the primary criterion with Marvel, same as with Return.
I have no idea how Wizards bans cards in Standard and how that process differs from, overlaps with, and/or informs Modern, so I'm not going to speak much to Energy or Marvel. I just don't know the format well enough to speak about it or its policies.
In standard wizards has full control over the cards as they are all composed of only one or two generations, and even then there is only a brief period where the prior generation of cards has an opportunity to interact with a new generation. Instead, bannings in standard are almost always due to a card not being properly tested, so things tend to be far more hands on in standard than in modern. Wizards is also much less likely to ban something in standard for marketing reasons. Banning anything from a currently opened set greatly impacts sales as players now essentially have a chance of opening a dead card, where in modern most people buy singles, so there isn't a huge loss in sales if a ban happens hypothetically.
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!
As noted, its metagame share was about the usual amount for the top deck in Standard. All those decks I cited had a metagame share about equal to Aetherworks Marvel. Heck, the top deck in Standard right now is close to it. So that doesn't work.
You also claim it was banned for "win rate" despite the fact the banning announcement explicitly admits that all but two of the top decks had an even or favorable matchup against Aetherworks Marvel. The article is fairly clear that, far from being banned for win rate, it was banned in spite of its win rate.
It's really hard to justify the banning as anything more than "players don't like the format." Indeed, the same is true for the original trifecta of bans (CopyCat was in fact a problem metagame wise). I've noted this before, but if you look at the metagame numbers, the metagame before the Copter/Emrakul/Mage ban was actually reasonably diverse. Sure, Smuggler's Copter was overplayed, but it went into a variety of strategies and it's not like Mutavault wasn't everywhere in RTR-Theros. Those bannings didn't occur due to problematic metagame share (except for possibly Smuggler's Copter), but because players just weren't liking the format due to various questionable design decisions, and Wizards of the Coast opted for bannings as an attempt to lure players back.
It doesn't seem likely that the deck would maintain its dominance post rotation, as the deck's all-star (Ulamog) was rotating out, and Duress and Sorcerous Spyglass were rotating in to help fight it (interestingly, they cite duress and Pithing Needle as cards they wish had been in Standard to combat Aetherworks Marvel). I believe their reasoning for the banning was that they had lost a lot of player confidence due to the previous bannings and the formats people didn't like, and they would just accept pre-rotation Standard as a lost cause and banned it just to be sure that it wouldn't be a problem after rotation, unlikely as it seemed, because they were hoping to rebuild after rotation and a ban afterwards would obviously go straight against that.
Like I said before, I don't play Standard now, didn't play Marvel Standard, don't know Standard prevalence/decks, and only know what Wizards wrote in their banlist update. I already acknowledged they banned the deck for a bunch of reasons, at least one of which was feedback. But more to the point of this Modern thread, I have no idea how that Standard ban rationale relates to Modern bans or ban policy. For all we know, the conversation is entirely different with Standard. It certainly doesn't see bans for logistics or T4 rule violations. Its diversity cutoff seems very different from Modern by even the most liberal interpretations. This is clearly true of both Legacy and Vintage, which have seen changes for different reasons and with different timing than Modern.
That said, I do know Modern, and I know no card in Modern has ever been banned for being unfun alone. I've said this at least a half dozen times over the past pages and people are still arguing but have yet to provide a format-specific counter-example. Cards are banned for violating other rules. Feedback may be an indicator of those violations, but the violation is what gets the card banned, not the feedback that launches the Wizards investigation.
Id venture a guess and say that its because those answers are very effective against affinity
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
I'm actually not sure if Wizards invented a criterion here. The GGT justification has a lot of overlap with part of the Dread Return justification. It seems more likely we just missed that criterion when considering Dread Return's old ban. I used to think they invented the criterion, but after re-reading the Return justification, I'm not so sure.
GGT: "Dredge, the mechanic and the deck, has a negative impact on Modern by pushing the format too far toward a battle of sideboards. "
DR: "Although games against it are often interesting, the larger game of deciding whether to dedicate enough sideboard slots to defeat it or ignore it completely and hope not to play against it is one that is not very satisfying for most tournament players."
DR was unquestionably banned for being a T4 rule violator. The article literally says so by including Return on that list of T4 rule violators with Hypergenesis and Glimpse. But I also think DR had an additional criterion in its justification, which is that bolded bit about sideboards above. When it came time to assess GGT, they just used that old DR criterion to ban GGT. We just didn't realize that for years.
I agree that feedback and bad attendance launches investigations, and then Wizards sees if cards are violating format rules during those investigations.
Interestingly, I did an analysis (never published it) about the average # of anti-Affinity cards vs. anti-Dredge cards during different times in Modern. There's virtually no difference even during the height of Dredge. In an n=300 sample of MTGO decks, decks averaged 2.3 anti-Affinity SB cards and 2.7 anti-Dredge SB cards. There is a statistical difference between those samples (p=.03), but there isn't much of an absolute difference between them; just .4 cards. So I don't think this is what killed Dredge.
Instead, I think the ban really meant that in order to beat Dredge, you needed to draw those sideboard cards. Whereas in order to beat Affinity, you did not need to draw your SB cards, but it helped if you did. Wizards could have operationalized this by looking at the GWP against Dredge when you drew SB hate and saw a huge increase. In theory, it could look like this:
Overall GWP vs. Dredge: 50%
GWP vs. Dredge w/ SB hate: 70%
GWP vs. Dredge w/ no SB hate: 30%
Overall GWP vs. Affinity: 50%
GWP vs. Affinity w/ SB hate: 55%
GWP vs. Affinity w/ no SB hate: 45%
This totally theoretical model would show Dredge being perfectly beatable and not broken in the aggregate, but also heavily dependent on drawing SB cards. Affinity, by contrast, wouldn't be as swingy. Again, I have no idea if this is actually what Wizards did, but it could explain why Affinity is fine and Dredge is not.
Even if I can't quantify why Golgari Grave-Troll should have been banned, I realize that it was better off that way. Wizards doesn't want Dredge to be "the deck to beat" in Modern. It's simply not the way to attract players.
I do somewhat agree with you on the "fun factor." But I have to at least point out that playing against Affinity can be very fun or unfun as well. Being dead on turn 3 when you found no hate can be disconcerting. Having to mulligan perfectly playable (vs. any other deck) hands because they don't beat Affinity can be rough. Playing a turn 2 Stony Silence on the play and then basically goldfishing your opponent with a somewhat slow deck can be satisfying to win, but perhaps not as satisfying in another respect.
Playing against Tron decks is like this too. When I run Bogles, they often leave me with 0 permanents in play, only to sit looking at a Gaddock Teeg and Stony Silence in game 2. Yes, Collective Brutality kills Gaddock Teeg, but otherwise the card's bad and often Gaddock Teeg can come down turn 3 with an Aura to make him bigger than 2/2. I don't know how satisfying or "fun" these games are. For me at this point, I'm just happy to win.
This is my opinion of all-time non-fun decks to play against in Modern since the beginning.
1. Infect
2. Lantern Control
3. Eggs
4. Affinity
5. Ad Nauseam
6. Living End
I'm pretty sure that nobody agrees with these 6 in this order, so fun is very subjective. I personally found Birthing Pod super fun to play against, but Collected Company is not quite as fun to me. But then I do enjoy playing Collected Company myself than I did for Birthing Pod. I liked playing against Twin when they had Preordain and Ponder more than after they got banned.
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)UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
See, I played Combo decks usually and decks like Infect and Affinity always have a place in my heart for destroying me when I played those decks. Turn 2 and 3s were not uncommon for Infect and it was closer to turn 3 and 4 for Affinity (although admittedly turn 4 is a bit slow).
This is why peoples' definitions of fun vary sooo much. I'm sure we can find some sicko who just LOVES to play against Lantern. (actually I know 2 Tron players that like it)
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)Exactly, fun is subjective
Unless you play lantern, then everyone is ******* miserable except you
Infect was a fun deck to play against if you weren't a degenerate deck
Infect is what combo was to modern what Dexter was to other serial killers.
I don't know if you ever played against GGT Dredge, but that deck could regularly kill you on turn 3 or 4.
Zomg, did you look through a profile of me in my past life and just decide have every opposite opinion on every matter?!
Aren't you a tron player? It should be fun, they're miserable against you
I don't think the decks remotely fun, they're stopping you from playing and once they lock it in you just slowly draw your cards hoping for a punt. I have a good record against the deck, I just find it some of the most unfun magic
Uhhhh, dredge was plenty fast like affinity
Block their creatures? You have fun blocking three 3/3s and 2 2/1s, along with some 1/1 flyers every round while your removal become fogs as they return those creatures back from the gy every turn
You knew what people meant. Dredge was too resilient to beat game 1 with GGT around.
I honestly really wouldn't be upset if the dredge mechanic in general were banned in modern, it's some of the most awful, degenerate playing.
I'd mourn for my beloved Loam, but it's not that great in Modern anyway. It's just my favourite card in the game.
Affinity is more resilient to hate and also quick enough for it not to matter. How many times have you dropped a Stony Silence on turn 2 right after a creature was suited up with Cranial Plating. Trust me, it feels bad.
The bottom line for Dredge is that you have to run grave hate (or have a deck that beats it like Bogles) in order to beat it. This forces you to run 4-6 grave hate pieces in your SB. Those slots have been dedicated to Affinity from the start of Modern. There simply isn't room to allow Dredge to stretch your SB as well, and Affinity has been in Modern since 2011.
*Anyway, on another topic, has anyone read Brian Demars' article at CFB? Although it wasn't presented as well as I would have liked, it had a good message in my opinion. Magic was never meant to be balanced. Honestly, no one would play if everyone was 50/50 vs. everything.
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/magic-has-never-been-balanced/
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 think his conclusion flies in the face of a contradicting conclusion many make for modern, which is: "If you pick a deck and get good with it, you'll be successful." His conclusion basically says that a large part of being successful means picking the right deck at the right time. This can be interpreted to mean that deck choice is more important than player skill (which is mostly true in most cases, especially in Modern).
He goes on to say, specifically about Modern:
"Most players would consider a format with lots of viable decks to be fairly balanced. Is it really? Modern has 30 playable decks, but when has it ever been balanced? There are always 4 or 5 decks that are pretty clearly ahead of the pack for a given tournament. Just because you have viable options doesn’t mean that those options are equal, all things considered." Which I agree with. However, the content and makeup of those top decks (as pointed out by a previous article) are mostly linear, miserable decks that promote terrible gameplay. All are quick clocks that require specific narrow answers to deal with and create lots of feelbad games and matchups.
We have this illusion of other, lower decks doing disproportionately better because we no longer have any reliable data to compare it to. By contrast, this is basically how it has always been forever. Other than a few brief periods, we have seen all sorts of T2 and T3 decks do well over the years and had massive diversity among all events since basically the beginning of Modern. But because of the lack of data and incomplete pictures, so many people are collectively praising the current state of the format as "healthy" when the top decks and the face of the format are anything but. When the best decks are Storm, Valakut, Affinity, GDS, and ETron, that does not paint the picture of a format I would call "healthy." We're just blinded by a lack of meaningful data while we continually put small and statistically irrelevant paper tournament samples on a pedestal to claim everything is hunky dory.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
This is Modern in a nutshell - "picking the right deck at the right time." The main problem is that nobody knows what deck to choose for a particular tournament. Metagaming is SUPER hard, outside of you and the 5 buddies you (not directed at anybody, just overstated to show that anyone can metagame in a small setting) play with every Friday night. You could be like me and face 4 U/UW Tron decks in the past 4 months, only facing E Tron once during that same time. You could be like me and run Titanshift at the Las Vegas Grand Prix because of E Tron in the face of Todd Stevens' recent success at the time and have 15 rounds of no E Tron. One PPTQ I played in, I played against Ad Nauseam and Ponza nut draws in the first 2 rounds (while on Titanshift). This also shapes our VIEWS. I don't see E Tron as being a threat since I never face it. Why would I see E Tron as a threat when I've faced it 1 time in the past 300 matches? But I should be considerate of others that always run into it, right?
The data hiding is pretty bad; I agree. I think it gives Wizards no reason to consider unbans because "Modern is wonderful right now." Then it will just become stale as **** until the next Modern card pushes Aggro even more.
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)