On another topic, the presence of 2 Jund decks in the top8 is even weirder than the absence of Hollow One what kind of decks they ran through? No self respecting deck should be losing to Jund now that has been confirmed bad...
The bigger thing to look at will be Vegas in a few weeks. Opens rarely ever have the same makeup as GPs, and we'll know if there are legs if Jund (and Jeskai) show up for GP Vegas.
Thing is, I just dont see it. I see this as a 'perfect storm' scenario. All the data was pointing to it, as was my gut feel based on what I was seeing out of MTGO.
Jund and UWR at half of the Top 8? No Tron to be found in the top 16?
There is correlation there.
I'm trying to take the optimistic route, but I'm sure this is accurate. Still haven't registered for Vegas main event myself yet (though already booked my stay). If I decide to throw money away on the main event, it's still going to be Blue Moon, since I'm more familiar with it than playing Jeskai without a clock like Delver or Geist. And Jeskai-crushing decks will probably be out in full force.
this is wrong wrong and wrong again....modern is diverse and this means DIVERSE because you can choose a lot of decks.
Nobody's arguing that Modern is not diverse. But if you honestly think that every deck has an equal chance of winning in a Competitive environment, that in fact is wrong.
you dont talked abot equal chances and you argued a little different let me explain....you cant say deck XY is good and have more chances so take it without context of the meta. Means if you choose Tron in a meta full of burn and storm, your deck has a higher chance to be garbage. If you do this in a meta with midrange and control a lot, your garbage deck will shine. So you dont can say take the best deck,because this change so fast
The way things are going for Aggro right now, I'm nearly on the Punishing Fire and Seething Song trains as well, although I have to admit what Pokken said about the potential for Tron with Punishing Fire is nausea inducing.
Why do you guys fear Punishing Fire from Tron? For Fire to be put to good use, additional red sources are needed besides Grove of the Burnwillows, at least 1 more to regrow and cast it in the same turn and more in order to juggle several Fires and start punishing bigger or more creatures. With the colorless lands, I doubt Tron would be able to do much better than having a single Grove out and then limiting itself to cast Fire every second turn, which is clearly underwhelming.
On another topic, the presence of 2 Jund decks in the top8 is even weirder than the absence of Hollow One what kind of decks they ran through? No self respecting deck should be losing to Jund now that has been confirmed bad...
I have considered a punishing fire unban, I am not sure it should be unbanned. First, the legacy version of jund often runs punishing fire and is called punishing jund. I think jund would become really good after this unban. Second I'm not sure it would actually fight aggro, I think aggro would just change. Remember which deck caused punishing fire to be banned in the first place? It was zoo! It was pretty close to eldrazi winter levels of dominance at that time and it had two cards banned from it at the same time to stop it. I'm not against this unban, but I'm not sure it's a good thing either. Honestly, I think the creature decks would change, but most would still exist or others would take their place.
honestly i dont put much stock into what the format looked like at that time. the initial creation of the ban list, the purging of combo decks, and the punishing fire/nacatl bans all happened within a 6 month period when wizards was still fleshing out what they wanted the format to be. i think its just as likely that the punishing fire ban was a kneejerk reaction as it was actually having the effect they thought it was. the format, how it develops, and the game in general is just way different than it was back then. modern is much better at self correcting thanks to a larger pool of cards/decks. every new set injects more power into the format, which makes it increasingly unlikely that what a card was doing years ago would do the same thing now.
i do however think they wont revisit their decision on punishing fire any time soon. just seems like too much of a high risk, low reward option.
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Which decks does SFM benefit most? Two-colored (or mono-colored in the case of D&T), non-red, fair decks. It lines up well against the hyperaggro decks that rule the roost without coming anywhere near to invalidating them. Again, I freely admit to bias here. I play UW control and also have been working on brewing and testing the best shell for Orzhov Stoneblade in Modern, in order to be ready when her (hopefully inevitable) unban takes place.
Anyway, apologies for preaching to the choir; I haven’t seen anyone here suggest that SFM should remain on the ban list. It’s just that the case for her release seems to grow stronger and stronger with each passing day.
I don't think there is any real argument left for SFM to stay on the ban list from a gameplay perspective. IMO the reason Wizards won't release her in the next couple ban/unban dates is that they want to grab some money off of it by printing it in a future set like they did with Jace. So no SFM for 2018 I think, although I would love to brew some Orzhov or Esper list, too!
Awwww yeah, Esper could be sweet. Feel free to hit me up with any ideas!
I hope that you’re wrong, but fear that you’re right, so far as the SFM unban coinciding with a Masters reprint goes. Maybe things would be different if the meta was extremely stagnant and linear, but for now I suppose they might not feel an urgent need to unban her. Still, we can hope!
Fire is a very unlikely urban target. All unbans to this point have been about opening up unplayed or underplayed decks. Fire does not enable any deck except maybe Aggro Loam. Rather, Fire polices aggro decks, I.e. makes many of them worse. Why is Wizards going to look at the healthiest stretch of Modern in the format's history, suddenly identify a problem in that healthy stretch that Fire needs to solve, and then unban the card that threatens to homogenize or limit aggro decks? There isn't even a problem in their eyes because the single most important aspect of Modern is diversity and the format has that in abundance. Aggro diversity is a part of that. Because of this, a Fire unban is extremely unlikely.
Fire is a very unlikely urban target. All unbans to this point have been about opening up unplayed or underplayed decks. Fire does not enable any deck except maybe Aggro Loam. Rather, Fire polices aggro decks, I.e. makes many of them worse. Why is Wizards going to look at the healthiest stretch of Modern in the format's history, suddenly identify a problem in that healthy stretch that Fire needs to solve, and then unban the card that threatens to homogenize or limit aggro decks? There isn't even a problem in their eyes because the single most important aspect of Modern is diversity and the format has that in abundance. Aggro diversity is a part of that. Because of this, a Fire unban is extremely unlikely.
Modern may be the most diverse of all times; but to say it's gameplays are the healthiest is ambitious. I am not saying it isn't. I am just holding off a bit, because this is a very strong suggestion to make.
There is a tier 1 lantern deck that's obnoxious to play against; there are possible hollow one openers that one can't just win, although rare. There is too much aggro at certain occasions, GP results aren't diverse(even if SCG's results are satisfying). This is to say Modern, is still facing big issues, even it's highly playable.
If you want to put numbers on it, I would put Modern's current diversity very very high; and it's gameplay patterns just good.
2014-2015 Modern was low on diversity, but it's gameplay patterns were better for sure.
Again, I am not dismissing current the current modern format. Maybe overall it's the healthiest(tbh, I like Modern atm a lot), it surely is close enough. But it isn't that much clear.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. It's the healthiest by Wizards' standards and definitions. The most objective measure of this is the lack of bans for about 16 months and one of the few times Wizards published a B&R update where they said Modern was "healthy." We may believe there were healthier times in Modern history, but Wizards probably doesn't. That's why I am not weighing in on the healthiness of a Fire unban. Rather, I am weighing in on its likelihood. That likelihood is very low given Wizards' stance towards this format right now.
Also, before someone counters with "We don't know whether Wizards believes the format is healthy right now," I encourage you to compare the tournament and MTGO finishes now to those in October 2017 (i.e. when they did say Modern was healthy). All considered, there is minimal if any difference in overall diversity. I know the conspiracy theorists will accuse Wizards of deliberately hiding data to obscure that picture, but this tinfoil hattery is significantly less likely than the format just being healthy.
The likeliest unban remains SFM. The likeliest scenario remains that Modern is actually very diverse and Wizards actually believes it is healthy. That's where we need to start.
I do think that the possibility of a Punishing Fire unban is low, but I also think that if Aggro continues to take up higher than 40% of the meta, it should be something looked into in the future. I'm not even so sure it would help. Aggro is just too resilient. It is too fast. It is too resilient and hard to disrupt. It just is in a good place right now. It is in such a good place that people like LSV are calling Infect "Combo" just so Aggro doesn't have too many slots. Burn is "Combo" to Patrick Chapin (Ugh, sorry that one gives me shivers.). Affinity is Combo to many. I guess if we put enough Aggro decks (into the Combo category), decks that attack with creatures and kill you with creatures over some number of turns, then Aggro won't have that 40%. I'm just waiting for that person to say, "Humans, Hollow One, Affinity, Burn, and Infect are running Modern. Combo has to die!!!" Preordain will certainly help those Combo decks further.
My feeling is that any card that is not associated with Aggro should be "on the table" for discussion of unbans.
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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)
On another topic, the presence of 2 Jund decks in the top8 is even weirder than the absence of Hollow One what kind of decks they ran through? No self respecting deck should be losing to Jund now that has been confirmed bad...
The bigger thing to look at will be Vegas in a few weeks. Opens rarely ever have the same makeup as GPs, and we'll know if there are legs if Jund (and Jeskai) show up for GP Vegas.
Thing is, I just dont see it. I see this as a 'perfect storm' scenario. All the data was pointing to it, as was my gut feel based on what I was seeing out of MTGO.
Jund and UWR at half of the Top 8? No Tron to be found in the top 16?
There is correlation there.
I'm trying to take the optimistic route, but I'm sure this is accurate. Still haven't registered for Vegas main event myself yet (though already booked my stay). If I decide to throw money away on the main event, it's still going to be Blue Moon, since I'm more familiar with it than playing Jeskai without a clock like Delver or Geist. And Jeskai-crushing decks will probably be out in full force.
I feel this guy must be following the same people I talk to on Twitter, and on this board, or, is reading my mind.
yeah that article echos most of my own sentiments. for example these two quotes:
What strikes me most about these decks is how stock they are. Substitute Teferi for any other planeswalker and these decks could be from last year. To an extant his is to be expected. The core of Jeskai is the removal package and Cryptic Command, but that begs the question of why it fell off so severely in the first place.
My theory is that perception drove the Jeskai downtick. Players thought that Jund would be much bigger than it currently is and subsequently thought that Tron would be a bigger presence to feed on Jund. This hasn’t really happened thanks to Humans, and given enough time between events, players came to realize this and go back to their old lists.
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Based on recent tournaments of all sizes (SCG Opens, Classics, regional events, MTGO Challenges, etc.), I am confident saying that any archetype is viable and Modern's diversity is truly at a high point. Aggro, combo, disruptive aggro, big mana, control, midrange etc. All of them can take down any of these tournaments. Yes, this includes Ux control for those that continue to disparage the archetype. I am reasonably confident saying that anyone who disagrees with this is just plainly wrong, at this particular level of event.
The real question is, will this translate to the elusive GP level? We've seen previously healthy periods of Modern culminate in ugly GP T8s, and it's possible this could happen again. There are different dynamics at this level, especially around groupthink and testing time, that steer the format's appearance in a certain direction. As an example, I think the average pro doesn't have time to specialize in Modern or put in as many reps as a Kanister or Shoktroopa. Those pros also need to rep out Limited and Standard, which have more events and a greater ROI. This makes it easier to audible to a perceived best deck in Modern and just grind it out on MTGO for a few weeks. This is just one possible explanation for the difference, but I think it's a plausible one.
That said, I think GP results actually matter much less than people give credit. For some reason, people across the internet place an inordinate weight on GP finishes when they are the rarest kind of Modern event and, I'd wager, the event that most of the internet commentators aren't actually playing in (or are playing the least frequently). I don't play in GP and play almost exclusively on MTGO. As long as I am 3-2 or better in all my Leagues, I'm satisfied with my performance and can eagerly push for 4-1/5-0 improvements. GP T8s generally don't affect my ability to do that. Case in point, 2017's GP OKC had a horrendous T8 packed with big mana. But it took all of 3-4 months for the format to totally shift away from that; clearly, the GP didn't dictate anything. The PT also wasn't dictated by those GP results, with big mana conspicuously absent. All of this is to say the GP T8 isn't as important as many make it to be.
Of course, we'd all love a great GP T8. For me, however, as long as the rest of the tournaments and format events are diverse and showcase all archetypes, that's a much more important indicator.
I have my reservations on SFM being unbanned. I believe Affinity will play it. It represents a 2-for-1 in a deck that generally lacks 2-for-1s, and a way to beat Stony Silence without removing it. Affinity has the flexibility of grabbing Cranial Plating if you need speed, or the usual Batterskull if you need to grind. Hardcasting Batterskull when SFM dies is not as far-fetched as you might expect; the deck has 25 mana sources.
A less worrying observation is that Sword of the Meek can be fetched by SFM. I say "less worrying" because a deck with SFM, Batterskull, Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek doesn't sound like one to be doing aggro, combo (in the "kill you on the spot" sense, not the "these 2 cards work well together" sense), or ramp things.
Well sure but again how viable was Control (Ux) before Teferi arrived cause sure recently it looks strong but it seems Teferi has done most of the carrying on that front of UWx. Unless you can point to another key difference? Like I don't Humans with assist from Affinity and Hollow One is choking out most of the problems for Control.
Well sure but again how viable was Control (Ux) before Teferi arrived cause sure recently it looks strong but it seems Teferi has done most of the carrying on that front of UWx. Unless you can point to another key difference? Like I don't Humans with assist from Affinity and Hollow One is choking out most of the problems for Control.
Teferi gave the deck a reason for people to try it again which increased its popularity which increased the number of finishes. UWx control was viable for a long time, but now that it's popular people get the misconception that it is a lot more powerful which is why talking about tiers in terms of power level when we are actually ranking popularity is bad.
So your argument is Teferi brought the hardcore fans back and made them more interested in playing the deck and trying to make it workable. So then has the power of the deck increased? the perception changed? or both?
So your argument is Teferi brought the hardcore fans back and made them more interested in playing the deck and trying to make it workable. So then has the power of the deck increased? the perception changed? or both?
It's hard to say, but the easy way out is to say both.
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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)
So your argument is Teferi brought the hardcore fans back and made them more interested in playing the deck and trying to make it workable. So then has the power of the deck increased? the perception changed? or both?
Both. It's not just drawing attention to the deck (which the unbanning of Jace did) and it's not just the power level increase (it is better), but a combination of the two. After Jace was unbanned people began tooling with UWx control a lot more and refining the lists, but it just didn't get there. Teferi came in with lists that were mostly set up with a planeswalker spot open and with mostly tuned lists in a reasonably favorable meta (Humans, Affinity, Elves being even to good match ups depending on the list) meant immediate results which meant people jumping on the bandwagon and with a lot more people playing you get a lot more results, if not a higher percentage, which means people assume it is a lot better.
yeah teferi may be an upgrade, but their is going to be a ceiling on what a 5 mana sorcery speed play can do. its the core of cheaper cards that do all the heavy lifting.
this all ties into how much perception drives the format. certain decks fall in and out of favor for reasons that are separate from the strength of a deck itself. for instance humans may be classified as the best deck by some, and there may be some truth to that; however i think it is overrated as such. grixis death shadow, as far as i know, still holds more accolades than humans; but the deck fell off quicker and to a degree that cant easily be explained.
its ultimately why GPs and the pro-tour are important. they are the face of competitive play for magic, and that matters regardless of how closely it matches the truth of things. this is the case for any number of competitive games. people care about balance at the highest levels of play even if they dont play at that level themselves, for better or for worse.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Fair Enough but the core didn't seem to be doing much of note before Jace got off the ban list and Teferi arrived fresh out of Dominaria.
I think what makes the difference is Teferi synergies quite well with said core by untapping two lands.
The core of UWR has not changed since Search really. You are right that Jace didnt do much, but the list is nearly the same as it was pre-Jace, its just powered up by Teferi.
The Untap 2 is huge, people still downplay his impact.
Fair Enough but the core didn't seem to be doing much of note before Jace got off the ban list and Teferi arrived fresh out of Dominaria.
I think what makes the difference is Teferi synergies quite well with said core by untapping two lands.
The core of UWR has not changed since Search really. You are right that Jace didnt do much, but the list is nearly the same as it was pre-Jace, its just powered up by Teferi.
The Untap 2 is huge, people still downplay his impact.
I am not sure it is being downplayed anywhere at this point. Still, this is a format where broken synergies happen, and now control has found a broken synergy option of sorts. It will be interesting to see if this continues or if the control players collectively throw up their hands in surrender again if some more tron and valakut decks arrive in response.
Nah, more Tron/Valakut decks should come into play now. It would be silly not to see that kind of reaction.
Control cannot get a positive (or should NOT) win rate against what we call Big Mana. Those decks should beat Control, thats just how it is.
Honestly at this point I'm at peace with Modern. I predicted how this meta should shape up for last weekend, was validated and thats it. If/When people fight against UWx with Tron, thats just the fact of a working meta ecosystem.
Aggro did its job, and got good enough that UWR/Jund came in and punished them. Working as intended at this point, should be Modern's catch line.
What did happen Tron anyway? Are Humans and Hollow Ones just that good against Tron that Tron simply cannot reliably get to the right combination of 3 tron lands before being dead or almost dead?
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I'm trying to take the optimistic route, but I'm sure this is accurate. Still haven't registered for Vegas main event myself yet (though already booked my stay). If I decide to throw money away on the main event, it's still going to be Blue Moon, since I'm more familiar with it than playing Jeskai without a clock like Delver or Geist. And Jeskai-crushing decks will probably be out in full force.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I have considered a punishing fire unban, I am not sure it should be unbanned. First, the legacy version of jund often runs punishing fire and is called punishing jund. I think jund would become really good after this unban. Second I'm not sure it would actually fight aggro, I think aggro would just change. Remember which deck caused punishing fire to be banned in the first place? It was zoo! It was pretty close to eldrazi winter levels of dominance at that time and it had two cards banned from it at the same time to stop it. I'm not against this unban, but I'm not sure it's a good thing either. Honestly, I think the creature decks would change, but most would still exist or others would take their place.
Edit: check out this meta break down if you think punishing fire would keep aggro under control or kill it. Obviously things have changed a lot and new cards are printed and such, but the idea is aggro is not dramaticly held back by punishing fire.
https://web.archive.org/web/20141216013521/http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/worlds11/modmetagame
i do however think they wont revisit their decision on punishing fire any time soon. just seems like too much of a high risk, low reward option.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Awwww yeah, Esper could be sweet. Feel free to hit me up with any ideas!
I hope that you’re wrong, but fear that you’re right, so far as the SFM unban coinciding with a Masters reprint goes. Maybe things would be different if the meta was extremely stagnant and linear, but for now I suppose they might not feel an urgent need to unban her. Still, we can hope!
Sorry, I should have been more clear. It's the healthiest by Wizards' standards and definitions. The most objective measure of this is the lack of bans for about 16 months and one of the few times Wizards published a B&R update where they said Modern was "healthy." We may believe there were healthier times in Modern history, but Wizards probably doesn't. That's why I am not weighing in on the healthiness of a Fire unban. Rather, I am weighing in on its likelihood. That likelihood is very low given Wizards' stance towards this format right now.
Also, before someone counters with "We don't know whether Wizards believes the format is healthy right now," I encourage you to compare the tournament and MTGO finishes now to those in October 2017 (i.e. when they did say Modern was healthy). All considered, there is minimal if any difference in overall diversity. I know the conspiracy theorists will accuse Wizards of deliberately hiding data to obscure that picture, but this tinfoil hattery is significantly less likely than the format just being healthy.
The likeliest unban remains SFM. The likeliest scenario remains that Modern is actually very diverse and Wizards actually believes it is healthy. That's where we need to start.
My feeling is that any card that is not associated with Aggro should be "on the table" for discussion of unbans.
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 feel this guy must be following the same people I talk to on Twitter, and on this board, or, is reading my mind.
http://modernnexus.com/it-was-foretold-jeskai-controls-return/
Spirits
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)The real question is, will this translate to the elusive GP level? We've seen previously healthy periods of Modern culminate in ugly GP T8s, and it's possible this could happen again. There are different dynamics at this level, especially around groupthink and testing time, that steer the format's appearance in a certain direction. As an example, I think the average pro doesn't have time to specialize in Modern or put in as many reps as a Kanister or Shoktroopa. Those pros also need to rep out Limited and Standard, which have more events and a greater ROI. This makes it easier to audible to a perceived best deck in Modern and just grind it out on MTGO for a few weeks. This is just one possible explanation for the difference, but I think it's a plausible one.
That said, I think GP results actually matter much less than people give credit. For some reason, people across the internet place an inordinate weight on GP finishes when they are the rarest kind of Modern event and, I'd wager, the event that most of the internet commentators aren't actually playing in (or are playing the least frequently). I don't play in GP and play almost exclusively on MTGO. As long as I am 3-2 or better in all my Leagues, I'm satisfied with my performance and can eagerly push for 4-1/5-0 improvements. GP T8s generally don't affect my ability to do that. Case in point, 2017's GP OKC had a horrendous T8 packed with big mana. But it took all of 3-4 months for the format to totally shift away from that; clearly, the GP didn't dictate anything. The PT also wasn't dictated by those GP results, with big mana conspicuously absent. All of this is to say the GP T8 isn't as important as many make it to be.
Of course, we'd all love a great GP T8. For me, however, as long as the rest of the tournaments and format events are diverse and showcase all archetypes, that's a much more important indicator.
A less worrying observation is that Sword of the Meek can be fetched by SFM. I say "less worrying" because a deck with SFM, Batterskull, Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek doesn't sound like one to be doing aggro, combo (in the "kill you on the spot" sense, not the "these 2 cards work well together" sense), or ramp things.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Teferi gave the deck a reason for people to try it again which increased its popularity which increased the number of finishes. UWx control was viable for a long time, but now that it's popular people get the misconception that it is a lot more powerful which is why talking about tiers in terms of power level when we are actually ranking popularity is bad.
It's hard to say, but the easy way out is to say both.
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)Both. It's not just drawing attention to the deck (which the unbanning of Jace did) and it's not just the power level increase (it is better), but a combination of the two. After Jace was unbanned people began tooling with UWx control a lot more and refining the lists, but it just didn't get there. Teferi came in with lists that were mostly set up with a planeswalker spot open and with mostly tuned lists in a reasonably favorable meta (Humans, Affinity, Elves being even to good match ups depending on the list) meant immediate results which meant people jumping on the bandwagon and with a lot more people playing you get a lot more results, if not a higher percentage, which means people assume it is a lot better.
this all ties into how much perception drives the format. certain decks fall in and out of favor for reasons that are separate from the strength of a deck itself. for instance humans may be classified as the best deck by some, and there may be some truth to that; however i think it is overrated as such. grixis death shadow, as far as i know, still holds more accolades than humans; but the deck fell off quicker and to a degree that cant easily be explained.
its ultimately why GPs and the pro-tour are important. they are the face of competitive play for magic, and that matters regardless of how closely it matches the truth of things. this is the case for any number of competitive games. people care about balance at the highest levels of play even if they dont play at that level themselves, for better or for worse.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I think what makes the difference is Teferi synergies quite well with said core by untapping two lands.
The core of UWR has not changed since Search really. You are right that Jace didnt do much, but the list is nearly the same as it was pre-Jace, its just powered up by Teferi.
The Untap 2 is huge, people still downplay his impact.
Spirits
I am not sure it is being downplayed anywhere at this point. Still, this is a format where broken synergies happen, and now control has found a broken synergy option of sorts. It will be interesting to see if this continues or if the control players collectively throw up their hands in surrender again if some more tron and valakut decks arrive in response.
Control cannot get a positive (or should NOT) win rate against what we call Big Mana. Those decks should beat Control, thats just how it is.
Honestly at this point I'm at peace with Modern. I predicted how this meta should shape up for last weekend, was validated and thats it. If/When people fight against UWx with Tron, thats just the fact of a working meta ecosystem.
Aggro did its job, and got good enough that UWR/Jund came in and punished them. Working as intended at this point, should be Modern's catch line.
Spirits