Sad people want Storm banned after it has survived through so much. Just because you dont like playing against it doesnt mean it should be banned. Some people enjoy that style of pure engine combo that almost no other deck really brings to the table.
This feels like 2016 again when people were defending dredge
This isn't about not liking a deck, or hating the new hotness. In fact, I have a great record against storm in paper and mtgo.
The issue is that it's edging on being a turn 3 violator. It absolutely ruins other combo decks. I cannot possibly justify playing other combo decks over storm
No one cares if storm has had it rough; wotc admits the mechanic is one of the hugest mistakes of all time, across all formats.
Honestly, the only reason death shadow decks are safe from a ban is because it's massively skill testing and punishing. If people could play that deck to perfection it would be beyond busted and banned.
Storm is the first deck ive felt adamant about being dangerous to the format. I had my radar on temple and street wraith, but that ended up being regulated.
People are way too quick to assume someone wants something banned because it beats them. I have tons of wins over them between all the midrange decks I play and when e tron was jamming 7 or 8 graveyard hate cards in the 75
Storm can win on turn 3 easily against people who don't interact. In this format that happens pretty often. Can you count the number of turn 3 wins that storm has eked out against you? Since you midrange a lot, that number is probably really low. The turn 3 kill isn't based on 2 cards but at least 7 (3 lands, 1 reducer, 1 gifts, 2 rits, 1 manamorphose). Strip or answer ANY one of those before turn 3 and it no longer happens. The turn 3 storm kill is actually as fragile as a turn 3 affinity kill (you know, the deck that has been tier 1 forever THROUGH hate, and was still tier 1 during eldrazi winter LOL).
Its strange that something so easily disrupted and just as easily hated out but has an equivalent resistance earns a lot more flak. I guess people much prefer to be killed by creatures than spells because it somehow feels more "fair". Nobody seems to complain when I combo off with vizier turn 3.
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BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Storm can win on turn 3 easily against people who don't interact. In this format that happens pretty often. Can you count the number of turn 3 wins that storm has eked out against you? Since you midrange a lot, that number is probably really low. The turn 3 kill isn't based on 2 cards but at least 7 (3 lands, 1 reducer, 1 gifts, 2 rits, 1 manamorphose). Strip or answer ANY one of those before turn 3 and it no longer happens. The turn 3 storm kill is actually as fragile as a turn 3 affinity kill (you know, the deck that has been tier 1 forever THROUGH hate, and was still tier 1 during eldrazi winter LOL).
Its strange that something so easily disrupted and just as easily hated out but has an equivalent resistance earns a lot more flak. I guess people much prefer to be killed by creatures than spells because it somehow feels more "fair". Nobody seems to complain when I combo off with vizier turn 3.
That is actually not true at all. I respect your personal struggle through the bans, but it also contains a number of poor choices, which we also have made. I also bought twins when grixis twin was a thing and the a little later it got banned. I bought pyromancer ascension to play the Thing Ascension and the probe got banned. It happens, however, as you have said (and thankfully) it is easy to make transitions in modern.
But regarding storm and affinity you are wrong. Again you are bringing in personal stories (about Spsiegel playing BGx for example) which is not relevant, wizards doesn't work on anecdotal stories.
Yes storm can win easily T3 against people who don't interact. This doesn't happen all that often in this format and, if it does, decks get banned.
You are saying that all a midrange deck has to do it strip one part and that nullifies storm. As you probably know if you do play storm that's absolutely not the case. Yes, it stops the T3 kill, but then storm can easily go off T4 if you tap out to apply pressure.
This is the most important difference between storm and affinity (which you bring as an example). With affinity, you can play a creature and stonewall them for a couple of turns. Play a removal and actually get 2-4 turns that you can do things other than disrupting, e.g. casting creatures. In the case of storm, if you stop disrupting and make the mistake of tapping out to play a threat, you probably lost.
Bro, you gotta drop the not fun criteria, it's not relevant.
Ym1r said it already
-You can't just bring up my midrange choice as an example to the deck being fragile (when midrange is struggling anyway)
-Vizier is incredibly fragile and creature dependent; vizier combo has not been as stellar as Storm in results either
-Affinity can be wrecked with just plain old removal, with the most devastating hate cards in the entire format
You can stop it from going off turn 3, but then if you apply pressure on turn 4 you can lose. The deck isn't that fragile at all, it sculpts hands very well. And no, leyline of the void is not to what is Storm as is to Stony Silence Affinity.
Just want to say I'm really interested in metagames and understanding the nuances and changes in the game we play.
But that's not what people are talking about in this thread. It's almost entirely the same small group of people cyclically talking about bans, which is something else entirely and not a helpful discussion.
I mean I hardly believed it as I read it but someone actually advocated a humans ban a few posts earlier....???
Anyway like I said, I check this thread fairly often because actually I like to read and talk about metagames and new developments (I know right? Shock horror!), but that's not what happens here so I'm bowing out. At times its felt like reading a flat-earth forum in the way arguments are presented or re-hashed, and I can't be doing with it. I'll look elsewhere for my metagame discussion. Who knows, maybe even reddit can oblige.
Later peeps. Enjoy the ban talk.
The banning of cards are an important part of the meta game.
I agree that some of the discussion is stupid, but it is important to talk about bannings because of the implications on the meta.
What I find annoying is when people are trying to discuss wether Grapeshot should be banned over Past in Flames, or whatever. Thats annoying.
At the end of the day, a lot of players want things banned that seem too powerful. Storm is a super powerful mechanic on its own, but when there are several cards printed to directly combat graveyard and storm strategies, then at the end, the deck is balanced. People will argue about how consistently the deck kills on turn 3 or 4, but I think the important part is how much of the meta share a deck is getting, or how much of "anti" decks there are. After years of playing modern, I've seen specifically on this board, how much people hate just hate losing to combo decks in general.
From my anecdotal experience with this board and playing people in real life, most of these complaints about combo come from people who like playing "fair" strategies, usually coming from people who like midrange strategies like Jund or GBx decks. They see winning a game as Storm does, unfair and unfun, and I understand why they do. I feel that certain other mechanics are unfun, like getting your hand stripped from you by Thoughtseize.
What everyone needs to understand that there is different ways that people like playing the game. There is different ways of skill expression. This is why I am against a lot of the bannings that have been in the past, because I believe that Engine Combo is a great and interesting deck archetype and I want this option to be available for players when they look at the Modern format.
Ban the card if it has an overwhelming meta share or just too damn powerful. Dont ban the card if it feels bad to lose against
In other news, Standard is looking super awful again. 50% of the collective GP T8 was energy. Energy won two of the GP and won the recent PT, which itself had 50% of the T8 on energy and 40%+ of the Day 1, Day 2, and similar conversions into 18+, 21+, and 24+ brackets. I don't know how Wizards will react to this, especially if they receive negative feedback from TOs and LGS owners about attendance. But I do know R&D will dedicate resources to analyzing this situation.
How does that relate to Modern? I expect it means there's an even lower chance we see any changes in the January 2018 update. This was already unlikely per the last B&R update, and Standard's state probably makes it less likely still. I also think it will challenge the ridiculous Wizards platform of "less data, less format solving." Despite players having limited data (the MTGO changes took effect over the summer), Standard still got solved. This will hopefully serve as an indictment of that absurd stance and lead to more data release, not less. At the least, I think it will lead to more internal Wizards conversations.
I can't see standard having more bans.
Sure energy decks make up a huge % of the meta, but there are at least a few different variants of the deck (Temur, 4-color, Sultai)
In addition, there are other tier 1 decks that one can use and do well with (God pharaoh gift, Approach, Ramunap Red, Mardu Vehicles, UBx control)
This standard format is much, much better than what we saw for most of 2017
In other news, Standard is looking super awful again. 50% of the collective GP T8 was energy. Energy won two of the GP and won the recent PT, which itself had 50% of the T8 on energy and 40%+ of the Day 1, Day 2, and similar conversions into 18+, 21+, and 24+ brackets. I don't know how Wizards will react to this, especially if they receive negative feedback from TOs and LGS owners about attendance. But I do know R&D will dedicate resources to analyzing this situation.
How does that relate to Modern? I expect it means there's an even lower chance we see any changes in the January 2018 update. This was already unlikely per the last B&R update, and Standard's state probably makes it less likely still. I also think it will challenge the ridiculous Wizards platform of "less data, less format solving." Despite players having limited data (the MTGO changes took effect over the summer), Standard still got solved. This will hopefully serve as an indictment of that absurd stance and lead to more data release, not less. At the least, I think it will lead to more internal Wizards conversations.
I can't see standard having more bans.
Sure energy decks make up a huge % of the meta, but there are at least a few different variants of the deck (Temur, 4-color, Sultai)
In addition, there are other tier 1 decks that one can use and do well with (God pharaoh gift, Approach, Ramunap Red, Mardu Vehicles, UBx control)
This standard format is much, much better than what we saw for most of 2017
As long as players are filling seats and pros are reporting it is a fun format, I agree bans won't happen. But if the format feels stuck, attendance/sales drops, and/or there's vocal backlash about an unfun format, I expect Standard to see more bans. Whatever happens, Wizards will undoubtedly invest more resources into assessing/fixing Standard than they will into Modern. I also think that Energy's dominance, whether or not it leads to a ban, is proof that data restrictions don't unsolve formats.
Re: Storm
Sadly, the Storm ban discussion appears to be spiraling out of control from a measured discussion about actual data to a more rhetorical conversation about abstract ways Storm is better/worse than we think. Here are some stats to reground the conversation:
In the updated N=135 Caleb Scherer dataset, here's Storm's win %
Overall GWP: 57% T3 win%: 12.9% Avg win turn: 5.2 Bootstrapped (n=10k) win% interval: 7.4% - 18.1% 95% confidence interval: 7% - 18.2% Chance that Bloom and Storm have same T3 win %: 23%
So there's still a 23% chance that Storm has the same T3 win% as Amulet Bloom, but that is down from the upper 30%s from the other week.
So there's still a 23% chance that Storm has the same T3 win% as Amulet Bloom, but that is down from the upper 30%s from the other week.
Can you explain what some of these mean. Like what does bootstrapped mean? The last part about having a turn 3 kill "as Amulet Bloom." Does this mean it has a turn 3 kill, and what is the relationship with Bloom in this set of data?
I'm not good at stats so I just need an explanation
So there's still a 23% chance that Storm has the same T3 win% as Amulet Bloom, but that is down from the upper 30%s from the other week.
Can you explain what some of these mean. Like what does bootstrapped mean? The last part about having a turn 3 kill "as Amulet Bloom." Does this mean it has a turn 3 kill, and what is the relationship with Bloom in this set of data?
I'm not good at stats so I just need an explanation
Amulet Bloom was a previous combo deck that was banned specifically due to its frequency breaking the turn four rule. Sheridan's post is basically taking into account an imperfect data set to try to present the most accurate odds that storm is also a violator. This is a better way to observe than to say, take a poster saying they lost to storm on turn 3 four times in the last ten games.
I think too many people rely on feelings to determine bans vs unbans out of a desire to have a certain deck at the top of the format, and this sort of math is very helpful.
Yeah I played Bloom, so I know that it was very fast
But what I dont get is that it says Avg Turn is 5.2 and that it has only a 23% chance to kill Turn 3. IS this goldfishing or vs an opponent? Is 23% enough to call for a ban? Has Wizards ever said a specific percentage range?
Yeah I played Bloom, so I know that it was very fast
But what I dont get is that it says Avg Turn is 5.2 and that it has only a 23% chance to kill Turn 3. IS this goldfishing or vs an opponent? Is 23% enough to call for a ban? Has Wizards ever said a specific percentage range?
Read man, he is using Caleb Scherer's matches as a dataset (one of the most experienced storm players). In the games that he wins, his avg win turn is 5.2.
Based on his data and interpretation, the possibility that storm overlaps with bloom's % of T3 wins is only 23%. That doesn't mean that storm wins on T3 on 23% of the time. It means that, compared to bloom, it has a 23% chance to have similar T3 win %.
Yeah I played Bloom, so I know that it was very fast
But what I dont get is that it says Avg Turn is 5.2 and that it has only a 23% chance to kill Turn 3. IS this goldfishing or vs an opponent? Is 23% enough to call for a ban? Has Wizards ever said a specific percentage range?
Read man, he is using Caleb Scherer's matches as a dataset (one of the most experienced storm players). In the games that he wins, his avg win turn is 5.2.
Based on his data and interpretation, the possibility that storm overlaps with bloom's % of T3 wins is only 23%. That doesn't mean that storm wins on T3 on 23% of the time. It means that, compared to bloom, it has a 23% chance to have similar T3 win %.
Correct me if I am wrong Sheridan
Correct! Storm's T3 win% is 12.9% in the sample, which means its true T3 win% across MTGO is probably somewhere between 7% and 18%. There's a 23% chance this win% is the same as Bloom's (which I estimated 2 years ago), and we know Bloom was banned for winning too frequently before T4, so there is around a 23% chance (at most) that Storm is also a T4 rule violator like Bloom.
Just want to say I'm really interested in metagames and understanding the nuances and changes in the game we play.
But that's not what people are talking about in this thread. It's almost entirely the same small group of people cyclically talking about bans, which is something else entirely and not a helpful discussion.
I mean I hardly believed it as I read it but someone actually advocated a humans ban a few posts earlier....???
Anyway like I said, I check this thread fairly often because actually I like to read and talk about metagames and new developments (I know right? Shock horror!), but that's not what happens here so I'm bowing out. At times its felt like reading a flat-earth forum in the way arguments are presented or re-hashed, and I can't be doing with it. I'll look elsewhere for my metagame discussion. Who knows, maybe even reddit can oblige.
Later peeps. Enjoy the ban talk.
The banning of cards are an important part of the meta game.
I agree that some of the discussion is stupid, but it is important to talk about bannings because of the implications on the meta.
What I find annoying is when people are trying to discuss wether Grapeshot should be banned over Past in Flames, or whatever. Thats annoying.
At the end of the day, a lot of players want things banned that seem too powerful. Storm is a super powerful mechanic on its own, but when there are several cards printed to directly combat graveyard and storm strategies, then at the end, the deck is balanced. People will argue about how consistently the deck kills on turn 3 or 4, but I think the important part is how much of the meta share a deck is getting, or how much of "anti" decks there are. After years of playing modern, I've seen specifically on this board, how much people hate just hate losing to combo decks in general.
From my anecdotal experience with this board and playing people in real life, most of these complaints about combo come from people who like playing "fair" strategies, usually coming from people who like midrange strategies like Jund or GBx decks. They see winning a game as Storm does, unfair and unfun, and I understand why they do. I feel that certain other mechanics are unfun, like getting your hand stripped from you by Thoughtseize.
What everyone needs to understand that there is different ways that people like playing the game. There is different ways of skill expression. This is why I am against a lot of the bannings that have been in the past, because I believe that Engine Combo is a great and interesting deck archetype and I want this option to be available for players when they look at the Modern format.
Ban the card if it has an overwhelming meta share or just too damn powerful. Dont ban the card if it feels bad to lose against
We're just talking in circles. You're opinion won't change. You're just assuming I'm a bitter gbx player that's jealous of free wins. If anything, decks like valakut and tron make me salty, especially when I find decks that aren't midrange that fold to that. I have no clue where I ever infered that losses to decks like storm made me feel bad
People defended dredge to the death and they were incredibly wrong, it's often the people on the deck, defensive by the prospect of losing out on their investment.
Just want to say I'm really interested in metagames and understanding the nuances and changes in the game we play.
But that's not what people are talking about in this thread. It's almost entirely the same small group of people cyclically talking about bans, which is something else entirely and not a helpful discussion.
I mean I hardly believed it as I read it but someone actually advocated a humans ban a few posts earlier....???
Anyway like I said, I check this thread fairly often because actually I like to read and talk about metagames and new developments (I know right? Shock horror!), but that's not what happens here so I'm bowing out. At times its felt like reading a flat-earth forum in the way arguments are presented or re-hashed, and I can't be doing with it. I'll look elsewhere for my metagame discussion. Who knows, maybe even reddit can oblige.
Later peeps. Enjoy the ban talk.
The banning of cards are an important part of the meta game.
I agree that some of the discussion is stupid, but it is important to talk about bannings because of the implications on the meta.
What I find annoying is when people are trying to discuss wether Grapeshot should be banned over Past in Flames, or whatever. Thats annoying.
At the end of the day, a lot of players want things banned that seem too powerful. Storm is a super powerful mechanic on its own, but when there are several cards printed to directly combat graveyard and storm strategies, then at the end, the deck is balanced. People will argue about how consistently the deck kills on turn 3 or 4, but I think the important part is how much of the meta share a deck is getting, or how much of "anti" decks there are. After years of playing modern, I've seen specifically on this board, how much people hate just hate losing to combo decks in general.
From my anecdotal experience with this board and playing people in real life, most of these complaints about combo come from people who like playing "fair" strategies, usually coming from people who like midrange strategies like Jund or GBx decks. They see winning a game as Storm does, unfair and unfun, and I understand why they do. I feel that certain other mechanics are unfun, like getting your hand stripped from you by Thoughtseize.
What everyone needs to understand that there is different ways that people like playing the game. There is different ways of skill expression. This is why I am against a lot of the bannings that have been in the past, because I believe that Engine Combo is a great and interesting deck archetype and I want this option to be available for players when they look at the Modern format.
Ban the card if it has an overwhelming meta share or just too damn powerful. Dont ban the card if it feels bad to lose against
We're just talking in circles. You're opinion won't change. You're just assuming I'm a bitter gbx player that's jealous of free wins. If anything, decks like valakut and tron make me salty, especially when I find decks that aren't midrange that fold to that. I have no clue where I ever infered that losses to decks like storm made me feel bad
People defended dredge to the death and they were incredibly wrong, it's often the people on the deck, defensive by the prospect of losing out on their investment.
I wasnt replying to you, but the person you actually replied to about "not having fun" in your previous post.
I was using the bitter BGx player argument as an example to show that different people like different parts of the game and have differing opinions on what they dont like as well
I am defensive about the fact that Pure Engine Combo, once it hits tier 1, the ban talk comes in. No other deck archtype gets the same treatment
Just want to say I'm really interested in metagames and understanding the nuances and changes in the game we play.
But that's not what people are talking about in this thread. It's almost entirely the same small group of people cyclically talking about bans, which is something else entirely and not a helpful discussion.
I mean I hardly believed it as I read it but someone actually advocated a humans ban a few posts earlier....???
Anyway like I said, I check this thread fairly often because actually I like to read and talk about metagames and new developments (I know right? Shock horror!), but that's not what happens here so I'm bowing out. At times its felt like reading a flat-earth forum in the way arguments are presented or re-hashed, and I can't be doing with it. I'll look elsewhere for my metagame discussion. Who knows, maybe even reddit can oblige.
Later peeps. Enjoy the ban talk.
The banning of cards are an important part of the meta game.
I agree that some of the discussion is stupid, but it is important to talk about bannings because of the implications on the meta.
What I find annoying is when people are trying to discuss wether Grapeshot should be banned over Past in Flames, or whatever. Thats annoying.
At the end of the day, a lot of players want things banned that seem too powerful. Storm is a super powerful mechanic on its own, but when there are several cards printed to directly combat graveyard and storm strategies, then at the end, the deck is balanced. People will argue about how consistently the deck kills on turn 3 or 4, but I think the important part is how much of the meta share a deck is getting, or how much of "anti" decks there are. After years of playing modern, I've seen specifically on this board, how much people hate just hate losing to combo decks in general.
From my anecdotal experience with this board and playing people in real life, most of these complaints about combo come from people who like playing "fair" strategies, usually coming from people who like midrange strategies like Jund or GBx decks. They see winning a game as Storm does, unfair and unfun, and I understand why they do. I feel that certain other mechanics are unfun, like getting your hand stripped from you by Thoughtseize.
What everyone needs to understand that there is different ways that people like playing the game. There is different ways of skill expression. This is why I am against a lot of the bannings that have been in the past, because I believe that Engine Combo is a great and interesting deck archetype and I want this option to be available for players when they look at the Modern format.
Ban the card if it has an overwhelming meta share or just too damn powerful. Dont ban the card if it feels bad to lose against
We're just talking in circles. You're opinion won't change. You're just assuming I'm a bitter gbx player that's jealous of free wins. If anything, decks like valakut and tron make me salty, especially when I find decks that aren't midrange that fold to that. I have no clue where I ever infered that losses to decks like storm made me feel bad
People defended dredge to the death and they were incredibly wrong, it's often the people on the deck, defensive by the prospect of losing out on their investment.
I wasnt replying to you, but the person you actually replied to about "not having fun" in your previous post.
I was using the bitter BGx player argument as an example to show that different people like different parts of the game and have differing opinions on what they dont like as well
I am defensive about the fact that Pure Engine Combo, once it hits tier 1, the ban talk comes in. No other deck archtype gets the same treatment
Honestly, this isn't just engine combo. It's all Tier 1 decks. And some Tier 2 and 3 decks for good measure. This year alone, we've seen serious ban discussion from multiple segments of the community aimed at DS, Temple, Chalice, Tron lands, Valakut, Titan, Mox Opal, CoCo, Cavern of Souls, Blood Moon, Puresteel Paladin, SSG, Street Wraith, and probably another dozen cards I don't remember. Ban mania is endless. Unfortunately, Storm may actually violate the T4 rule, so this ban talk is far more justified than most of the other 2017 ban talk.
Honestly, this isn't just engine combo. It's all Tier 1 decks. And some Tier 2 and 3 decks for good measure. This year alone, we've seen serious ban discussion from multiple segments of the community aimed at DS, Temple, Chalice, Tron lands, Valakut, Titan, Mox Opal, CoCo, Cavern of Souls, Blood Moon, Puresteel Paladin, SSG, Street Wraith, and probably another dozen cards I don't remember. Ban mania is endless. Unfortunately, Storm may actually violate the T4 rule, so this ban talk is far more justified than most of the other 2017 ban talk.
TW: semantics
What about your last sentence is unfortunate? That Storm perhaps violates the T4 rule? Aren't decks springing up occasionally that do violate the T4 rule an inevitability of positive factors, such as new cards printed and strategy discovered? In that case there's nothing unfortunate about Storm gunning for a ban, it's just a fact of Modern life. Or are you saying it's unfortunate that players also clamor for more unjustified bans?
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 agree with Sheridan when it comes to ban talk rising in the midst of combo. I don't understand why a combo deck in tier 1 in terms of success and popularity IMMEDIATELY leads to calls for a ban, even if that deck has clear bad matchups against many decks in the format. This is the life cycle of the past year-ish:
Phase 1: Aether Revolt gets printed, bringing us Baral and Fatal Push
Phase 2: ramp decks gain popularity by dodging FP
Phase 3: GP Vancouver reveals shadow jund
Phase 4: shadow variants reach the optimal version in an open meta - grixis shadow which both abuses and dodges FP, right around here is when storm just started to gain popularity
Phase 5: people figure out storm beats some of shadows more difficult matchups in valakut and affinity
Phase 6: storm rises up a bit more and gets some visible victories at SCG events
Phase 7: mtgsalvation's most polarizing pinned topic sees more claims of banning storm, among other things
Push lead to jund shadow, which lead to grixis shadow, which lead to valakut, which lead to storm, which honestly lead to humans. The format is literally gaining new decks every couple months that are seeing success with new cards AND some clever design. The calls for storm's ban are literally a combination of some salty players, some feel bad moments, and general dislike of combo. There isn't enough actual evidence yet based on previous cases. I hate jund. I've said it before. I am not calling for a ban on LOTV to make me feel better though.
Has Wizards ever given a concrete answer to what they mean by the turn 4 rule. Like if a deck needs a certain percentage to win on or before turn 4? Because if the average game win for storm is 5.2, then how is this a violation? On the other end, Summer Bloom did get banned with similar stats, so idk what grounds Wizards even uses
What about your last sentence is unfortunate? That Storm perhaps violates the T4 rule? Aren't decks springing up occasionally that do violate the T4 rule an inevitability of positive factors, such as new cards printed and strategy discovered? In that case there's nothing unfortunate about Storm gunning for a ban, it's just a fact of Modern life. Or are you saying it's unfortunate that players also clamor for more unjustified bans?
Sorry, was unclear. The latter. Previous ban talk wasn't justified. Storm ban talk is much more justified. Unfortunately, many of us are so tired and annoyed by ban talk that Storm ban discussion feels less credible than it actually is.
What about your last sentence is unfortunate? That Storm perhaps violates the T4 rule? Aren't decks springing up occasionally that do violate the T4 rule an inevitability of positive factors, such as new cards printed and strategy discovered? In that case there's nothing unfortunate about Storm gunning for a ban, it's just a fact of Modern life. Or are you saying it's unfortunate that players also clamor for more unjustified bans?
Sorry, was unclear. The latter. Previous ban talk wasn't justified. Storm ban talk is much more justified. Unfortunately, many of us are so tired and annoyed by ban talk that Storm ban discussion feels less credible than it actually is.
It's credible, just people here are very passionate about the decks they choose to play. Also the environment we play in can give people different perspectives when it comes to the meta. Case in point my earlier slivers story despite the fact it wasn't a tier 1 deck at the time slivers were introduced.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
What about your last sentence is unfortunate? That Storm perhaps violates the T4 rule? Aren't decks springing up occasionally that do violate the T4 rule an inevitability of positive factors, such as new cards printed and strategy discovered? In that case there's nothing unfortunate about Storm gunning for a ban, it's just a fact of Modern life. Or are you saying it's unfortunate that players also clamor for more unjustified bans?
Sorry, was unclear. The latter. Previous ban talk wasn't justified. Storm ban talk is much more justified. Unfortunately, many of us are so tired and annoyed by ban talk that Storm ban discussion feels less credible than it actually is.
It's credible, just people here are very passionate about the decks they choose to play. Also the environment we play in can give people different perspectives when it comes to the meta. Case in point my earlier slivers story despite the fact it wasn't a tier 1 deck at the time slivers were introduced.
Your "point" is nearly the exact opposite of credibility. *****ing about how oppressive Slivers were in your local meta nearly 20 years ago, and using it to argue for a 5c Humans ban, is completely asinine and doesn't even serve as anecdotal evidence. This sort of rhetoric is what leads to baseless speculation for ban concerns that don't really exist. The Humans deck put up its first big tournament results when, like 3 weeks ago? Give me a break, dude.
I could ask the question, "Which mana symbol is the least ascetically pleasing?", and even if it generated hundreds of arguments for/against one in particular, it doesn't mean there's a correct answer or indicate that there was a problem in the first place.
Re: Storm
Sadly, the Storm ban discussion appears to be spiraling out of control from a measured discussion about actual data to a more rhetorical conversation about abstract ways Storm is better/worse than we think. Here are some stats to reground the conversation:
In the updated N=135 Caleb Scherer dataset, here's Storm's win %
Overall GWP: 57% T3 win%: 12.9% Avg win turn: 5.2 Bootstrapped (n=10k) win% interval: 7.4% - 18.1% 95% confidence interval: 7% - 18.2% Chance that Bloom and Storm have same T3 win %: 23%
So there's still a 23% chance that Storm has the same T3 win% as Amulet Bloom, but that is down from the upper 30%s from the other week.
Thanks very much, Sheridan, for following this deck and crunching the numbers around it so we can have an informed discussion. I appreciate your ongoing efforts to make the complicated Modern format intelligible. Wish you were still writing full-fledged content weekly, I gotta say.
Has Wizards ever given a concrete answer to what they mean by the turn 4 rule. Like if a deck needs a certain percentage to win on or before turn 4? Because if the average game win for storm is 5.2, then how is this a violation? On the other end, Summer Bloom did get banned with similar stats, so idk what grounds Wizards even uses
Average game wins don’t tell you everything.
Imagine a set of 5 hypothetical games, where Storm wins every single game (extreme values for better exemplification):
Storm wins on T2 + T2 + T2 + T2 + T22 —> average win on T6
This wouldn‘t be very satisfying, right?
There is some sort of definition for the T4 rule, but I‘m sitting on the toilet right now.
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Modern: Death&Taxes / U Tron / G Tron / Goblins
Legacy: Death&Taxes (almost there)
EDH: Squee, Goblin Nabob / Phelddagrif
Has Wizards ever given a concrete answer to what they mean by the turn 4 rule. Like if a deck needs a certain percentage to win on or before turn 4? Because if the average game win for storm is 5.2, then how is this a violation? On the other end, Summer Bloom did get banned with similar stats, so idk what grounds Wizards even uses
We have had two new bans under the T4 rule since then (Probe and Bloom), which further refine our understanding. From the Bloom ban: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-18-2016-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2016-01-18
"We look for competitively viable decks that frequently win before the fourth turn."
"This deck frequently wins before the fourth turn."
"We looked into which card could be banned to reduce the frequency of the very early wins."
So we're looking at COMPETITIVE decks that FREQUENTLY (or "consistently" in earlier B&R updates) win before T4. To me, "frequency" suggests the number of total T1-T3 wins relative to the total number of wins/games. Just because a deck CAN win on T2-T3, doesn't mean it is doing so "frequently." Affinity can win on T3 but evidently doesn't do so frequently as it has never received a ban.
Here, we see that Wizards really is looking at the raw number of T3 kills, not whether they happen at all and not whether a top-tier deck is capable of them.
Based on this, we need to ask if Storm is a) competitive/top-tier and b) if it frequently/consistently wins pre-T4. We know it is competitive/top-tier, so that's an easy checkmark. We don't know if it frequently/consistently wins pre-T4 in violation of a Wizards cutoff, but we can estimate its current T3 win% (7%-18%) and compare it to a previous violator that received a ban. Hence, the 23% chance that Storm and Bloom share a T3 win%. If those win %s overlap, this would result in a Storm banning.
I'm a bit bummed that my LGS owner wasn't amenable to my request for deck usage data, but I was able to convince the modern players I play against each week to let me catalog what decks they use each event. So for the past two weeks I've been keeping track of what decks show up and how well they perform. I know this is a blip on the map regarding the overall meta, but would anyone here be interested in my findings once I've compiled a months worth of data? We hold modern events three times a week: FNM, a tournament on Saturday, and one on Sunday. Saturday is round robin, Sunday is Swiss. Saturday tournaments see the most attendance, averaging about 40 players, but I've been tracking all three events each week.
On a different note, and possibly a super unpopular opinion, I have a real disdain for mtgo and how it skews the perception of how well decks perform. One example is Counters Company, which sees almost zero play online because of how MODO handles that particular combo. I'm also not a huge fan of misclicks screwing up a game.
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Storm can win on turn 3 easily against people who don't interact. In this format that happens pretty often. Can you count the number of turn 3 wins that storm has eked out against you? Since you midrange a lot, that number is probably really low. The turn 3 kill isn't based on 2 cards but at least 7 (3 lands, 1 reducer, 1 gifts, 2 rits, 1 manamorphose). Strip or answer ANY one of those before turn 3 and it no longer happens. The turn 3 storm kill is actually as fragile as a turn 3 affinity kill (you know, the deck that has been tier 1 forever THROUGH hate, and was still tier 1 during eldrazi winter LOL).
Its strange that something so easily disrupted and just as easily hated out but has an equivalent resistance earns a lot more flak. I guess people much prefer to be killed by creatures than spells because it somehow feels more "fair". Nobody seems to complain when I combo off with vizier turn 3.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
But regarding storm and affinity you are wrong. Again you are bringing in personal stories (about Spsiegel playing BGx for example) which is not relevant, wizards doesn't work on anecdotal stories.
Yes storm can win easily T3 against people who don't interact. This doesn't happen all that often in this format and, if it does, decks get banned.
You are saying that all a midrange deck has to do it strip one part and that nullifies storm. As you probably know if you do play storm that's absolutely not the case. Yes, it stops the T3 kill, but then storm can easily go off T4 if you tap out to apply pressure.
This is the most important difference between storm and affinity (which you bring as an example). With affinity, you can play a creature and stonewall them for a couple of turns. Play a removal and actually get 2-4 turns that you can do things other than disrupting, e.g. casting creatures. In the case of storm, if you stop disrupting and make the mistake of tapping out to play a threat, you probably lost.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
Ym1r said it already
-You can't just bring up my midrange choice as an example to the deck being fragile (when midrange is struggling anyway)
-Vizier is incredibly fragile and creature dependent; vizier combo has not been as stellar as Storm in results either
-Affinity can be wrecked with just plain old removal, with the most devastating hate cards in the entire format
You can stop it from going off turn 3, but then if you apply pressure on turn 4 you can lose. The deck isn't that fragile at all, it sculpts hands very well. And no, leyline of the void is not to what is Storm as is to Stony Silence Affinity.
The banning of cards are an important part of the meta game.
I agree that some of the discussion is stupid, but it is important to talk about bannings because of the implications on the meta.
What I find annoying is when people are trying to discuss wether Grapeshot should be banned over Past in Flames, or whatever. Thats annoying.
At the end of the day, a lot of players want things banned that seem too powerful. Storm is a super powerful mechanic on its own, but when there are several cards printed to directly combat graveyard and storm strategies, then at the end, the deck is balanced. People will argue about how consistently the deck kills on turn 3 or 4, but I think the important part is how much of the meta share a deck is getting, or how much of "anti" decks there are. After years of playing modern, I've seen specifically on this board, how much people hate just hate losing to combo decks in general.
From my anecdotal experience with this board and playing people in real life, most of these complaints about combo come from people who like playing "fair" strategies, usually coming from people who like midrange strategies like Jund or GBx decks. They see winning a game as Storm does, unfair and unfun, and I understand why they do. I feel that certain other mechanics are unfun, like getting your hand stripped from you by Thoughtseize.
What everyone needs to understand that there is different ways that people like playing the game. There is different ways of skill expression. This is why I am against a lot of the bannings that have been in the past, because I believe that Engine Combo is a great and interesting deck archetype and I want this option to be available for players when they look at the Modern format.
Ban the card if it has an overwhelming meta share or just too damn powerful. Dont ban the card if it feels bad to lose against
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
I can't see standard having more bans.
Sure energy decks make up a huge % of the meta, but there are at least a few different variants of the deck (Temur, 4-color, Sultai)
In addition, there are other tier 1 decks that one can use and do well with (God pharaoh gift, Approach, Ramunap Red, Mardu Vehicles, UBx control)
This standard format is much, much better than what we saw for most of 2017
As long as players are filling seats and pros are reporting it is a fun format, I agree bans won't happen. But if the format feels stuck, attendance/sales drops, and/or there's vocal backlash about an unfun format, I expect Standard to see more bans. Whatever happens, Wizards will undoubtedly invest more resources into assessing/fixing Standard than they will into Modern. I also think that Energy's dominance, whether or not it leads to a ban, is proof that data restrictions don't unsolve formats.
Re: Storm
Sadly, the Storm ban discussion appears to be spiraling out of control from a measured discussion about actual data to a more rhetorical conversation about abstract ways Storm is better/worse than we think. Here are some stats to reground the conversation:
In the updated N=135 Caleb Scherer dataset, here's Storm's win %
Overall GWP: 57%
T3 win%: 12.9%
Avg win turn: 5.2
Bootstrapped (n=10k) win% interval: 7.4% - 18.1%
95% confidence interval: 7% - 18.2%
Chance that Bloom and Storm have same T3 win %: 23%
So there's still a 23% chance that Storm has the same T3 win% as Amulet Bloom, but that is down from the upper 30%s from the other week.
Can you explain what some of these mean. Like what does bootstrapped mean? The last part about having a turn 3 kill "as Amulet Bloom." Does this mean it has a turn 3 kill, and what is the relationship with Bloom in this set of data?
I'm not good at stats so I just need an explanation
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Amulet Bloom was a previous combo deck that was banned specifically due to its frequency breaking the turn four rule. Sheridan's post is basically taking into account an imperfect data set to try to present the most accurate odds that storm is also a violator. This is a better way to observe than to say, take a poster saying they lost to storm on turn 3 four times in the last ten games.
I think too many people rely on feelings to determine bans vs unbans out of a desire to have a certain deck at the top of the format, and this sort of math is very helpful.
But what I dont get is that it says Avg Turn is 5.2 and that it has only a 23% chance to kill Turn 3. IS this goldfishing or vs an opponent? Is 23% enough to call for a ban? Has Wizards ever said a specific percentage range?
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Based on his data and interpretation, the possibility that storm overlaps with bloom's % of T3 wins is only 23%. That doesn't mean that storm wins on T3 on 23% of the time. It means that, compared to bloom, it has a 23% chance to have similar T3 win %.
Correct me if I am wrong Sheridan
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
Correct! Storm's T3 win% is 12.9% in the sample, which means its true T3 win% across MTGO is probably somewhere between 7% and 18%. There's a 23% chance this win% is the same as Bloom's (which I estimated 2 years ago), and we know Bloom was banned for winning too frequently before T4, so there is around a 23% chance (at most) that Storm is also a T4 rule violator like Bloom.
We're just talking in circles. You're opinion won't change. You're just assuming I'm a bitter gbx player that's jealous of free wins. If anything, decks like valakut and tron make me salty, especially when I find decks that aren't midrange that fold to that. I have no clue where I ever infered that losses to decks like storm made me feel bad
People defended dredge to the death and they were incredibly wrong, it's often the people on the deck, defensive by the prospect of losing out on their investment.
I wasnt replying to you, but the person you actually replied to about "not having fun" in your previous post.
I was using the bitter BGx player argument as an example to show that different people like different parts of the game and have differing opinions on what they dont like as well
I am defensive about the fact that Pure Engine Combo, once it hits tier 1, the ban talk comes in. No other deck archtype gets the same treatment
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Honestly, this isn't just engine combo. It's all Tier 1 decks. And some Tier 2 and 3 decks for good measure. This year alone, we've seen serious ban discussion from multiple segments of the community aimed at DS, Temple, Chalice, Tron lands, Valakut, Titan, Mox Opal, CoCo, Cavern of Souls, Blood Moon, Puresteel Paladin, SSG, Street Wraith, and probably another dozen cards I don't remember. Ban mania is endless. Unfortunately, Storm may actually violate the T4 rule, so this ban talk is far more justified than most of the other 2017 ban talk.
What about your last sentence is unfortunate? That Storm perhaps violates the T4 rule? Aren't decks springing up occasionally that do violate the T4 rule an inevitability of positive factors, such as new cards printed and strategy discovered? In that case there's nothing unfortunate about Storm gunning for a ban, it's just a fact of Modern life. Or are you saying it's unfortunate that players also clamor for more unjustified bans?
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
Phase 1: Aether Revolt gets printed, bringing us Baral and Fatal Push
Phase 2: ramp decks gain popularity by dodging FP
Phase 3: GP Vancouver reveals shadow jund
Phase 4: shadow variants reach the optimal version in an open meta - grixis shadow which both abuses and dodges FP, right around here is when storm just started to gain popularity
Phase 5: people figure out storm beats some of shadows more difficult matchups in valakut and affinity
Phase 6: storm rises up a bit more and gets some visible victories at SCG events
Phase 7: mtgsalvation's most polarizing pinned topic sees more claims of banning storm, among other things
Push lead to jund shadow, which lead to grixis shadow, which lead to valakut, which lead to storm, which honestly lead to humans. The format is literally gaining new decks every couple months that are seeing success with new cards AND some clever design. The calls for storm's ban are literally a combination of some salty players, some feel bad moments, and general dislike of combo. There isn't enough actual evidence yet based on previous cases. I hate jund. I've said it before. I am not calling for a ban on LOTV to make me feel better though.
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Sorry, was unclear. The latter. Previous ban talk wasn't justified. Storm ban talk is much more justified. Unfortunately, many of us are so tired and annoyed by ban talk that Storm ban discussion feels less credible than it actually is.
It's credible, just people here are very passionate about the decks they choose to play. Also the environment we play in can give people different perspectives when it comes to the meta. Case in point my earlier slivers story despite the fact it wasn't a tier 1 deck at the time slivers were introduced.
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!
Your "point" is nearly the exact opposite of credibility. *****ing about how oppressive Slivers were in your local meta nearly 20 years ago, and using it to argue for a 5c Humans ban, is completely asinine and doesn't even serve as anecdotal evidence. This sort of rhetoric is what leads to baseless speculation for ban concerns that don't really exist. The Humans deck put up its first big tournament results when, like 3 weeks ago? Give me a break, dude.
I could ask the question, "Which mana symbol is the least ascetically pleasing?", and even if it generated hundreds of arguments for/against one in particular, it doesn't mean there's a correct answer or indicate that there was a problem in the first place.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
Average game wins don’t tell you everything.
Imagine a set of 5 hypothetical games, where Storm wins every single game (extreme values for better exemplification):
Storm wins on T2 + T2 + T2 + T2 + T22 —> average win on T6
This wouldn‘t be very satisfying, right?
There is some sort of definition for the T4 rule, but I‘m sitting on the toilet right now.
Legacy: Death&Taxes (almost there)
EDH: Squee, Goblin Nabob / Phelddagrif
I feel like the median turn to win the turn is probably a more important metric.
We don't actually know the precise criteria, but we can guess. Here was my last analysis of this rule in December 2015:
http://modernnexus.com/understanding-the-turn-four-rule/
We have had two new bans under the T4 rule since then (Probe and Bloom), which further refine our understanding. From the Bloom ban:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-18-2016-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2016-01-18
"We look for competitively viable decks that frequently win before the fourth turn."
"This deck frequently wins before the fourth turn."
"We looked into which card could be banned to reduce the frequency of the very early wins."
So we're looking at COMPETITIVE decks that FREQUENTLY (or "consistently" in earlier B&R updates) win before T4. To me, "frequency" suggests the number of total T1-T3 wins relative to the total number of wins/games. Just because a deck CAN win on T2-T3, doesn't mean it is doing so "frequently." Affinity can win on T3 but evidently doesn't do so frequently as it has never received a ban.
Probe's ban further solidifies this understanding of the T4 rule, especially our definition of "frequency"/"frequently":
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-9-2017-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2017-01-09
"Gitaxian Probe increased the number of third-turn kills in a few ways..." (emphasis added)
Here, we see that Wizards really is looking at the raw number of T3 kills, not whether they happen at all and not whether a top-tier deck is capable of them.
Based on this, we need to ask if Storm is a) competitive/top-tier and b) if it frequently/consistently wins pre-T4. We know it is competitive/top-tier, so that's an easy checkmark. We don't know if it frequently/consistently wins pre-T4 in violation of a Wizards cutoff, but we can estimate its current T3 win% (7%-18%) and compare it to a previous violator that received a ban. Hence, the 23% chance that Storm and Bloom share a T3 win%. If those win %s overlap, this would result in a Storm banning.
On a different note, and possibly a super unpopular opinion, I have a real disdain for mtgo and how it skews the perception of how well decks perform. One example is Counters Company, which sees almost zero play online because of how MODO handles that particular combo. I'm also not a huge fan of misclicks screwing up a game.