I didn't play Jund or Grixis Control, so I didn't have a deck jammed full of instant speed removal, discard, and/or countermagic. Four Path to Exile in a deck often wasn't enough, especially after Dispel tech.
When I ran Bloom Titan, often the only way to beat them was to have a nut hand. If the game got to turn 3, Blood Moon was sure to rear it's ugly head. I'd try to go off quickly and hopefully have Pact of Negation for the Spell Snare that targeted Summer Bloom. Honestly, the best thing I could do against Twin with any deck I played was just jamming 3-4 Spellskite and hoping that they didn't have enough removal for those. Flame Slash and later Roast had something to say about that, but it still was a 1 of at most.
*And yes, I am going to remember the time when I was Bogling at a PPTQ and had a win-and-draw-in vs. Grixis Twin. The player had 0 cards in hand, a Deceiver Exarch in play, and 3 Splinter Twin in his graveyard. I was 1 turn away from winning, but his draw step produced Splinter Twin and the match was over. I mean, there could have been sequences where he drew the 3rd and 4th Cryptic Commands into the 3rd and 4th Snapcaster Mages to also get the Twin and win, but it just felt odd that there were 4 Twin at the top 30 or fewer cards in his deck. Other times playing against this deck were less dramatic, but whenever that creature was in play or even when you had a 2 turn clock, but they 0 cards in hand, but Exarch/Twin on top in that order, you knew they always had a chance.
I would order the decks that I had the worst win percentage vs. in Modern like this.
1. Infect - it doesn't matter what I play; they have ways around everything with the right draws and anyone that says that this deck is inconsistent is not going to be believed by me. I wouldn't be surprised if my win percentage vs. this deck is 10%.
2. Bloom Titan - this deck also was the bane of my existence, but less than Infect. I doubt I won more than 30% of my matches vs. this deck.
3. Splinter Twin - this deck also caused me a lot of problems. I probably won around 40% of the time, but the prevalence of this deck made the 60% losing much, much worse than nearly always losing to Infect, a deck that I saw at most 8% of the meta in its heyday.
4. Probably Tron at 50/50? Possibly Affinity at slightly less than 50%.
5. Most other decks were fine. Pod was fine for me. Treasure Delver was fine. Eldrazi was fine, but then I was playing it myself. Dredge was fine. I had positive win percentages vs. all these decks.
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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)
Less in the way that there isn't really a best deck anymore
I would counter this point with my (completely biased) opinion that Lantern Control is in fact the best deck in Modern. It has the most effective ways to disrupt and stop the largest number of decks in the format, and as it slowly gets more cards (like Whir and Sphere) the consistency of it's power slowly rises.
The problem with Lantern, and why it isn't played more, is simply the skill ceiling for the deck is just so damn high. Where your average Modern deck can yield you decent results with around 5ish hours of testing, in Lantern to do alright requires close to ten times that much preparation. I'd argue that to be a master with Lantern you need to put in 300 or more hours with the deck, and that isn't something many players would do. Specifically because of the type of deck Lantern is.
So Lantern is the best deck in Modern, that no one is playing in Modern, because no one knows how to play it in Modern.
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Less in the way that there isn't really a best deck anymore
I would counter this point with my (completely biased) opinion that Lantern Control is in fact the best deck in Modern. It has the most effective ways to disrupt and stop the largest number of decks in the format, and as it slowly gets more cards (like Whir and Sphere) the consistency of it's power slowly rises.
The problem with Lantern, and why it isn't played more, is simply the skill ceiling for the deck is just so damn high. Where your average Modern deck can yield you decent results with around 5ish hours of testing, in Lantern to do alright requires close to ten times that much preparation. I'd argue that to be a master with Lantern you need to put in 300 or more hours with the deck, and that isn't something many players would do. Specifically because of the type of deck Lantern is.
So Lantern is the best deck in Modern, that no one is playing in Modern, because no one knows how to play it in Modern.
While I do agree that the deck is very strong if you put in the effort to master it, I don't think this is the main reason people don't play it.
I'd say the fun factor plays a big role in this one. To me, and to most players I know, Lantern (and several other prison/permission style decks) is no fun to play and especially not to play against. It's also an expensive deck.
So, unless you are a proffessional grinder, I don't think it's wise to invest in a deck that nowone in your playgroup likes to play against and just scoops up.
While I do agree that the deck is very strong if you put in the effort to master it, I don't think this is the main reason people don't play it.
I'd say the fun factor plays a big role in this one. To me, and to most players I know, Lantern (and several other prison/permission style decks) is no fun to play and especially not to play against. It's also an expensive deck.
So, unless you are a proffessional grinder, I don't think it's wise to invest in a deck that nowone in your playgroup likes to play against and just scoops up.
Oh I completely agree that the playstyle of Lantern is a huge reason why so few people play it. Honestly, it is probably the biggest reason why more people do not play the deck.
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I think the main reason people get lost in modern is that it isn't really a designed format as much as a format of unintentional / organic design. When a format has a card pool as insanely deep as modern, it leads to significant amounts of decision paralysis and other types of logical short circuiting that make it difficult to build decks or come to a final decision. That's why so many people end up net decking or play follow the leader with deck brewers like Saf Olive.
I'm personally more a fan of intentional design over unintentional design. The primary reason is that it makes the game less time consuming in preparation and by extension, far more playable. Modern is actually very difficult to play or even understand. I highly doubt even the most experienced players on this forum even understand more than a third of the potentially playable permutations, and even if they did know them, could they even act upon and make use of them?
And this isn't a blow against modern: Every TCG has a non-rotating format that players promote because they don't like to spend more money than they have to. It's just that players should also realize the price to what they are asking for. I've seen people in their 40s playing legacy and EDH that are still finding out about wierd cards printed in the 90s. Modern is actually not much better off since there are more modern legal sets now than there are legacy only sets.
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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!
I think the main reason people get lost in modern is that it isn't really a designed format as much as a format of unintentional / organic design. When a format has a card pool as insanely deep as modern, it leads to significant amounts of decision paralysis and other types of logical short circuiting that make it difficult to build decks or come to a final decision. That's why so many people end up net decking or play follow the leader with deck brewers like Saf Olive.
Well that, and every deck I have heavily gravitated towards got banned for questionable reasons, or hit by collateral damage, and I have been floundering trying to fill that hole for 2+ years. The kind of deck I want to play doesn't exist and the viable options that are "close" lack several key elements I liked about those decks. So now I just play a deck I like, even though it's objectively not as good as other decks in the format. I no longer care about winning like I used to; I am just playing to enjoy myself and maybe sometimes win.
I think the main reason people get lost in modern is that it isn't really a designed format as much as a format of unintentional / organic design. When a format has a card pool as insanely deep as modern, it leads to significant amounts of decision paralysis and other types of logical short circuiting that make it difficult to build decks or come to a final decision. That's why so many people end up net decking or play follow the leader with deck brewers like Saf Olive.
Well that, and every deck I have heavily gravitated towards got banned for questionable reasons, or hit by collateral damage, and I have been floundering trying to fill that hole for 2+ years. The kind of deck I want to play doesn't exist and the viable options that are "close" lack several key elements I liked about those decks. So now I just play a deck I like, even though it's objectively not as good as other decks in the format. I no longer care about winning like I used to; I am just playing to enjoy myself and maybe sometimes win.
More than that, I don't like the rat race situation that happens with picking up needed cards for decks in modern. That feeling of "you better get it now or speculation will cause the price to go up" is tiring, but has been a truthful observation ever since I returned to the hobby four years ago. I've spent more money in the past four years on this game than I ever did prior all because of the lack of true support for the modern format. Given the companies behavior, I don't see EDH or even pauper escaping the same fate. Not being able to pick up a needed piece because of it's price is just the same as if the piece never existed in many cases.
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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!
I highly doubt even the most experienced players on this forum even understand more than a third of the potentially playable permutations, and even if they did know them, could they even act upon and make use of them?
This is certainly true. Very very few people that I'm exposed to, actually understand Modern, how it is played, and what makes the typical deck work. Very few are as invested as the most well read of this forums community, and even within those 'well read' people there are many who fundamentally dont understand Modern as it is played.
"Jace is going to take over the format."
Yeah, OK.
As to the 'chase the tiger' situation, thats a symptom of this being lost. As cfusionpm states, when decks are hit and there is NO replacement for that playstyle, it is very costly to look for a replacement, especially if you are in the paper realm only.
I spent literally thousands looking for a replacement over months and months, before Search for Azcanta freed up UWx as a meaningful option.
Now that we have Teferi, I cannot imagine anything but a functional reprint, or unban will cause me to look into any other deck.
Most spikes end up not being spike.
I used to be spike. I think most people go through it.
The glass trophy or money win, or even the stupid local dominance can be reward enough.
In the old days those chess style rankings could be a powerful motivator. With me the conversion was dramatic, practically Damascene. Nowadays when I run into long-since-quit spike buddies and tell them how my constructed crowds view me now as the guy with the brew they laugh, because they knew me as a ranking point win pc junkie. Ironically I don't think spike goes away, he gets sublimated. When ranking points went and real life commitments reduced the amount of practice I could put in anyway I swapped my focus. I started playing decks I wanted to play, something alien to me. At first I found it frustrating, and especially when I lost to players I would have often expected to beat, but I stuck with it, and quit Standard, buying and selling into nascent Modern and eventually Legacy. I built up a huge collection, when the grinder Spikes went on road trips I might treat myself to the odd RL card instead. I started building top tier decks not for me but for others to borrow. The freedom of not playing top tier gave me opportunity to acquire top tier decks after relevant reprints, and in particular to sell on draft winnings not caring about Standard. In the end I became the go to guy to borrow decks off, an evangelical for eternal formats, always able to loan decks at the drop of a hat. The spikiness never really went away, but for me winning mtg became winning at mtg finance whilst winning at Mtg took second fiddle, and in the mean time I could play whatever I liked. Literally. I still drafted competitively, I still played to the best I could but I could enter events with a brew or ancient build long past tiers and that felt so, so liberating. Even today locally the phrase "watch me lose to tier five jank" has been uttered by more than one player when pairings are announced. If I go 2-2 with a ten year old archetype most Legacy players will respect that, in a way most Standard players of spike tendency would be scornful.
I think the data of "he beat the field with a brew' are gone in Standard, long long gone. I think they only exist on the margins of Legacy and not much more in Modern. You can, every now and then, run a brew and top 8 a fifty player plus event. I don't think you can do that at 500 player events.
Fundamentally you have to ask do I want max win pc or not? Brewing is horribly ineffective in ratio of time put in to effective result. That time is better spent learning match ups. If you don't brew, learn two decks that are good at different times and be done with it. Don't worry about what someone thinks about your deck, respect varies from person to person, some respect skill, some respect innovation, some respect good manners, just learn two good ones, be it boggles or humans or whatever, just run with them. Forget leveraging skill or any such, just learn two solid decks, most decks do have some kind of skill anyway.
For what it is worth I would recommend not worrying too much about win pc, in five years half the people who you beat will be quit or playing commander, and those worrying about win pc the most tend to be those spending most to play mtg.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
Your post makes you sound a lot like myself, other than brewing. I literally have not brewed any decks since probably before Tempest. The closest I come to a brew was playing a deck that was super under the radar or by Travis Woo or S Olive before they became super popular. Many at my LGS thought that I came up with the deck, but I always told them that no, I literally don't have the time to do so.
I think for me it's mostly getting over the hump. When you're top 8ed around 25 PTQs and not won 1st place even 1 time, THAT gets in your head. I am a very cerebral person. At one time in my youth, my IQ was nearly 200, although I've probably self lowered that to around 150 by now, lol. Recently I've lost 3 times in the top 8, 4, and 2 of PPTQs. I've gotten some 1st place finishes before. I've won many GPTs and every Modern season, I've qualified for the RPTQ. But I have fallen short quite a bit! I don't want to be "that easy guy in the top 8." I want to be that guy that...once he gets to the top 8, he finishes it off. I don't think it's wrong to have high expectations of oneself. Sometimes when I read here that I should have lower expectations, I think "wow, I should just accept being a lousy player." Sorry, but I am NEVER going to ascribe to that. I know what I'm capable of and what I'm not.
There are many, many things that I need to work on. I am trying to work on being less salty because it has just recently happened in the past 2-3 years. Before that, it was super hard for me to get salty. Most people who know me don't even think I have been, but I know better. I don't want to be a douchebag just because somebody beat me. When I beat Pro Players or Grinders before, many made me feel horrible that I just beat them. I had to think in my head, do I want to beat them and feel like ***** or do I prefer just losing to them and they are pleasant? I realized that the former made ME feel better, so I kept trying. There's also many things that I need to work on as well, but I saw something that I hadn't seen in quite a while at a recent PPTQ this Saturday. A player that didn't know me got bluffed pretty hard (when we were both 3-0 at the time) that I had Lightning Strike in hand when I had a land. He asked me after the game, "did you have Lightning Strike?" I thought for a split second and since I figured I'd see him in the top 8, I lied and said, yes, I did. I hadn't done a bluff that badly in quite a while. Most people at my LGS know that I "just don't have it" because I told them that usually I "just don't have it." It sets it up for times when I do, but honestly it's much more likely that your opponent has drawn poorly than greatly, so it's better to just go for it quite often. Obviously you weigh Pros and Cons, but sometimes you just have to be, "okay you got it, you won."
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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 think for me it's mostly getting over the hump. When you're top 8ed around 25 PTQs and not won 1st place even 1 time, THAT gets in your head. I am a very cerebral person. At one time in my youth, my IQ was nearly 200, although I've probably self lowered that to around 150 by now, lol. Recently I've lost 3 times in the top 8, 4, and 2 of PPTQs. I've gotten some 1st place finishes before. I've won many GPTs and every Modern season, I've qualified for the RPTQ. But I have fallen short quite a bit! I don't want to be "that easy guy in the top 8." I want to be that guy that...once he gets to the top 8, he finishes it off. I don't think it's wrong to have high expectations of oneself. Sometimes when I read here that I should have lower expectations, I think "wow, I should just accept being a lousy player." Sorry, but I am NEVER going to ascribe to that. I know what I'm capable of and what I'm not.
What are your expectations? What do you think you are capable of? Some expectations are unrealistic and don't say anything about whether you are a lousy or great player. For instance, if you told me you expect to T8 every Modern GP/Open/1000+ player event you play in the next year, I would say that's an unrealistic expectation. My saying this would not mean I think you are a lousy player. Nor should you take that to mean you are a lousy player.
My concrete Modern goal is merely to be infinite on MTGO and average a Competitive League 4-1 record with 1-2 decks. My thematic/experiential goal is to pilot a deck I enjoy as well as I can in any given round and in any given stage of my Magic progress. Will Jonathan wrote an excellent article about goal-setting (https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/mental-mythbusters-you-have-to-set-goals-to-succeed/) that would help a lot of Magic players. My guess is that you have read it but if not, you should. If you have, you should do something with his advice. Same advice to anyone else in this thread. I also recommend you read the comments for more insights and nuances into this goal-setting approach.
Yes, I have read it. I was not initially a fan of Will Jonathan's content, but I have become so in the past 4 months.
My expectations are to qualify for the Pro Tour. Also I want to be on par or close to it with a local Pro Player that I know personally. When I grinded a lot back in the Lorwyn times, my results were similar to his. Nowadays, he still top 8s nearly every tournament he plays. And if he didn't, I assume he drew complete trash. He is a player who is naturally super good at the game, but also put in the time and is always near the top in PW points in California, so he plays quite often. I want to be close to his level and I believe that I can. I have done it for spurts at a time, but I want to be more consistent, even if there's a format that doesn't have a deck that I HAVE to play (like UW Delver in Standard or Eye of Ugin Eldrazi in E Winter).
I realize that I never really tried that hard. It's a big part of my problem; half assing stuff. Things usually came pretty easily. I originally loved playing at PTQs, GPs, and GPTs because I liked playing against that competition. Going to the Pro Tour was never the goal for me. I just loved playing against that competition that I did not get at that time at the LGS that I used to go to (closed down 7 years ago). Outside of 2-3 players that came intermittently, I never had that competition at my LGS. When they used to do Game Day, players took it seriously. All of the good players from the area came and it was actually very competitive, but PTQs, GPTs, and GPs were on another level once you got past the first few rounds. I enjoyed that.
*And to be quite honest, I expect to win every time I play an opponent. When I don't win, I believe that I usually can track it down to some sort of mistake, sideboarding, strategy, punt on board, shuffling mistakes, or mulligan decisions that made me lose the game. I should be good enough by now to avoid those for the most part. Recently in 5 of 7 Comp REL tournaments (1 was not, it was FNM), I made egregious mistakes in Round 1. In all of those events, I feel I played very well AFTER round 1, but what caused me to play like that in Round 1? I got to get over that.
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)
Once my favorite format I totally lost my fun in modern and I havo no faith it will change soon. it feels like there are no decks with a real interaction anymore. its like 2 people goldfishing vs each other totally ignoring what the other plays till one of them says "first, i am done"
switched to standard now and i kind of like the frequent changes, incentivice you to keep brewing, but i still miss the old modern times (there were non interactive decks too, but normal (&fair) decks had a chance to win, which is not really the case nowadays)
Well, to interact there has to be a set of archetypes that are designed together. The problem with the unintentional design of modern is that most of these sets were not designed together. Go for the Throat is really well balanced as removal with a downside when dealing with Scars block standard, but put it into modern where most things are not artifacts and it's now a 2 mana murder. Heck, in a really fast format Fatal Push is basically a one mana murder. And then if someone does try to play around Go for the throat with artifacts, there's Kolaghan's Command and Shattering Spree, which are two among several ways to kill artifacts. They could also just land a Stony Silence as well.
It's a format born from the desire to not have to spend money and to get to play with old cards, and I never really liked the idea of people basically playing for money or prizes in a format like that. If the format was supported officially as an expanding selection of cards crafted by the parent company and reprinted to support the community, it would have been different. But then, that would conflict with the goal of creating draft sets and standard sets.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I think for a large majority of people, this is what ktkenshinx was referring to when he mentioned an "unrealistic expectation". And to reiterate what he said, that isn't to say you're a bad player. From what you mentioned about getting to multiple PPTQ Top 8's, you obviously aren't.
However, you need to start by scaling back the goal. I was in the exact same boat as you. My goal was to make the PT. It doesn't seem that hard. I mean you just have to win a PPTQ, then Win an RTPQ. Or Top 8 a GP! The goals sound so simple, that it's really easy to envision "Make the Pro Tour" as a reasonable and realistic expectation. But it isn't. Because those are actually pretty big jumps.
GP Toronto wrecked my motivation to play Modern because I was in the exact same mindset as you. I dropped after Round 6 with my 3-3 record and was almost too dis-heartened to sign up for any side events. I wanted to quit Magic.
So I've scaled back my expectations. My goal right now is to Top 8 a PPTQ. That's it. Get Top 8 at a Modern PPTQ.
Once that's done, what will my next goal be? Well I suppose after that my next goal will be to WIN a Modern PPTQ. Not just Top 8, but first place. Qualify for the RPTQ!
And you just progress from there.
With the GP, my goal isn't to make Top 8. My goal for the next GP I play in is to do better than my last performance. To do better than 3-3 drop. If that means I get eliminated in Round 7 this time, cool! That's progress!
The steps are small, sure. But that is how you keep yourself motivated. You make it so each small step you get is a positive step in the right direction for you, as opposed to being disappointed every time you don't make that monumental leap.
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Yes, there are short term goals and long term goals. I have been on a team for a month now. We all have the goal and expectation to be on the Pro Tour. Several on the team HAVE been on the Pro Tour. I qualified for the Pro Tour twice many years ago on ELO rating, but didn't go. I figured it would always be easy to do it, so I can do it when I have more time and money for travel. I actually came super close to going to a Hawaii Pro Tour that I qualified for because it was pretty close, but I'd have to give up school and fail a class. That wasn't worth it!
I have won 4 PPTQs now, but not made the top 4 of an RPTQ yet (in fact, only got 11th once and failed pretty miserably the other 3 times). My short term goal is to top 4 the RPTQ so I am qualified. As for a GP, I know for a fact that playing 1-2 per year is not going to give me a reasonable chance to qualify that way, but I still expect myself to get 12-3 or better. I have a short term GP goal of starting 7-0 since I've never done better than starting 6-0 at a GP and also to do better than 4-2 on Day 2 or 11-4 overall. I don't think it's a monumental leap to do such things. Maybe I should set lower goals? Win vs. a grinder? No, I am not purposely setting my goals super low, lol.
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)
Once my favorite format I totally lost my fun in modern and I havo no faith it will change soon. it feels like there are no decks with a real interaction anymore. its like 2 people goldfishing vs each other totally ignoring what the other plays till one of them says "first, i am done"
switched to standard now and i kind of like the frequent changes, incentivice you to keep brewing, but i still miss the old modern times (there were non interactive decks too, but normal (&fair) decks had a chance to win, which is not really the case nowadays)
Well, to interact there has to be a set of archetypes that are designed together. The problem with the unintentional design of modern is that most of these sets were not designed together.
....
I should know better by now...but what?
Interaction in Modern has literally nothing to do with the fact the sets are not designed with eachother in mind. Current UWR, interacts a great deal with Jund, with Mardu, with Bant.
There is plenty of interaction, to the point where calling the format 'not interactive' at this point is comically wrong.
Maybe your LGS isnt interactive? Modern, right now, is.
Once my favorite format I totally lost my fun in modern and I havo no faith it will change soon. it feels like there are no decks with a real interaction anymore. its like 2 people goldfishing vs each other totally ignoring what the other plays till one of them says "first, i am done"
switched to standard now and i kind of like the frequent changes, incentivice you to keep brewing, but i still miss the old modern times (there were non interactive decks too, but normal (&fair) decks had a chance to win, which is not really the case nowadays)
Well, to interact there has to be a set of archetypes that are designed together. The problem with the unintentional design of modern is that most of these sets were not designed together.
....
I should know better by now...but what?
Interaction in Modern has literally nothing to do with the fact the sets are not designed with eachother in mind. Current UWR, interacts a great deal with Jund, with Mardu, with Bant.
There is plenty of interaction, to the point where calling the format 'not interactive' at this point is comically wrong.
Maybe your LGS isnt interactive? Modern, right now, is.
Maybe the last poster inferred there was no interaction to some peoples eyes, but the way I inferred his statement is that the interaction he observes isn't necessarily good. I know I lose on default with the statement that there is no interaction in modern as I just illustrated a bunch of examples that do interact with the field on a turn that is viable.
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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!
For me the ELO removal changed my motivation but it was probably not causal. I never went to a PT when I took it seriously (I only did 3 maybe, I top 8d one), I rarely travelled to GPs and the like anyway, (and when at a GP I found side events more profitable) but whenever you sat down with somebody you had a certain level of respect due to the ranking. I am fortunate to live in a tiny Mtg country, when we had the rankings I spent my time at the top of mine and pretty high up in the UK (I have printouts somewhere of me topping all the different rankings at one time), I have three county/territory/state champs, I won countless pre release events and have a few nice trophies, I helped design a couple of decks in the late nineties that won our tiny nationals and have played in the old Euros via our nationals (in the days when they paid flights and accommodation) and later in the UK nationals via Ranking and qualifiers. Nowadays even that has diminished, I have only entered one WMCQ and it was tiny, I got to the semis with a brew as it happened. But most of my contemporaries from back then do not play seriously now, and that will happen to all the current players, from casuals to Pro players from ten years ago some of whom are barely remembered from outside their circle. If people starting today want to be remembered as great players I think the time is basically gone for them to do that. The standard today is so, so high and the volume of reported events so huge that it barely matters who is very good and who is great, and the system to tell the difference probably does not really exist. There are masses of named players now generating content but it is so ephemeral.
When people start talking about doing X/Y/Z they have more opportunities to do massive events now, and some are pretty scornful of those who don't. Go big or go home and all that. It is a common mentality. Truth be told there are loads of great players out there who could be pros, people get good at the game quickly. But they spend a hell of a lot on Mtg to do so and when they are going and spending £100 to play an event every weeek and stay overnight with travel etc. I am sat at home, and have made that amount of money in trades and sales. I think in the end that sums it up for me. I don't want to pay for the game any more, I want it to be cost neutral and have an asset that grows, and if that means no RPTQs or PPTQs then so be it. That is my goal, and at the end of it I can live without the glory because I realise the emphemeral nature of it. I will be remembered by my current contemporaries and a source of decks and cards and my former ones as a spike, and in the end I don't really mind either way.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
I see a lot of YOU in me as well. I also have "changed" quite a bit as a player. I used to only play Control, but have learned to play other archetypes. I feel that as Wizards made Control NOT the best deck and changed UB to more of a Combo type color combination (or mill, which is terrible), I also changed with that.
But regarding the finance of MTG, I have gotten into that quite a bit in the past 5 years. I have always been doing that somewhat, ever since my brother and I saw our Revised dual lands go from $2.50 to $5, which was quite a spike at the time! We realized that our analysis of an underappreciated card could pay us dividends. My brother has long ago quit the game, but I continue to buy and sell cards like crazy. Many think I should do my own store or open a booth at a local card collector Swap Meet (Frank and Son's). I often think that if I didn't spend so many resources trying to make money off cards, I could make my game better. I want to be that player that...when he loses, others assume truly bad luck, because I play so well. I know players like that. Maybe it's just an unrealistic goal? Maybe nobody can be good at finance (ie. buying cheap Krark's Thumb for example) AND be good at the game as well? Who knows? But, I am going to try.
P.S. - I just looked up my win percentages at mtgstats.net. (kavu.ru has been closed, but this new site is not bad for 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)
Dude I'd hate to play a pro tour between the cringey commentary and the threat of cheating at every match. Hell I'd go with the idea of winning being secondary to cutting a Conor McGregor style promo on the "inner circle" of pro MtG.
If you have aspirations to cash in on a game, I'd say ditch this for hearthstone or another actual e-sport. Unless anybody has hope that MtG Arena gains some major demand for viewership.
I think I would enjoy a Pro Tour. The reason why I played at PPTQs in the first place was NOT to qualify for the Pro Tour. It was to play vs. players that are very good at the game. Where I played, I was a "Big fish in a small pond." I didn't get that competition Round after Round. I didn't get to play against only the strongest decks round after round. I played vs. some deck with some card that some guy liked. Sorry, it just doesn't appeal to me as much.
When I first played in my first SCG Invitational, do you know how I felt? I actually told people that it was my favorite MTG tournament that I had ever played in at the time. The competition was good, relatively of course, and I enjoyed that. Murderer's Row every round, guys who like me, were Big Fish in their small ponds and even some were Big Fish in Bigger Ponds.
I feel that the Pro Tour will give me even tougher rounds. Yes, I could get down on doing poorly. I know many people personally that it has happened to as well. But, they don't give up. It makes them want to be a better player. Also regarding cheating, I want to be better at identifying that. I am pretty sure that despite being VERY good at identifying that, I probably have been cheated around 500 times in my life. I want to get to that Pro Tour stage of pretty much hardly every letting it happen to me without me knowing.
*Also, I have played against someone who many players identify as "the best cheater ever" and I beat him. He didn't draw the nuts, although it was pretty close (but Humans does it more so than most decks) and I only mulliganed once and won the match 2-1. I felt some accomplishment at (probably) not getting cheated.
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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)
Being good at finance requires you to play not every format, but be aware of every format. It is tricky. You can't play Standard and finance games easily. Modern maybe.
It also needs you to actively not play the best deck. Ever. That is the hard part. I sold Infect, Tron x2 and Affinity in 18 months as complete entities near their price zeniths. I sold merfolk and boggles at their price height too. Such sales are essential, they generate masses of cash for buying collections or specific high value targets when many of the low value cards would be hard to shift on their own. I gave great deals and still made a ton. You also need to ruthlessly go through cards not in use time and time again, which is time consuming, and then do it with cards in use to ask what would happen to deck Y if card x were reprinted. You also need to know trends when going through trade and store binders, which takes yet more time.
Playing the best deck in Modern is normally a way to get the pointy end of the banhammer up where the sun does not shine with no vaseline to ease its path. Pod, Infect and Twin were to some extent predictable bans, I kept twin for example because I knew when the ban came the cards would keep value bar a couple, but I sold every spare for the deck.
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Either my opponent got bigger creatures, stack-interaction or a swarm-strategy that doesn't match my removal-suite.
So what's the consensus about the format in general? Is Reflector Mage teh best it gets?
Maybe i'm just tending towards one side singlehandily, but my guts tell me that there must be a piece of interaction that hits 75% or so of the format.
When I ran Bloom Titan, often the only way to beat them was to have a nut hand. If the game got to turn 3, Blood Moon was sure to rear it's ugly head. I'd try to go off quickly and hopefully have Pact of Negation for the Spell Snare that targeted Summer Bloom. Honestly, the best thing I could do against Twin with any deck I played was just jamming 3-4 Spellskite and hoping that they didn't have enough removal for those. Flame Slash and later Roast had something to say about that, but it still was a 1 of at most.
*And yes, I am going to remember the time when I was Bogling at a PPTQ and had a win-and-draw-in vs. Grixis Twin. The player had 0 cards in hand, a Deceiver Exarch in play, and 3 Splinter Twin in his graveyard. I was 1 turn away from winning, but his draw step produced Splinter Twin and the match was over. I mean, there could have been sequences where he drew the 3rd and 4th Cryptic Commands into the 3rd and 4th Snapcaster Mages to also get the Twin and win, but it just felt odd that there were 4 Twin at the top 30 or fewer cards in his deck. Other times playing against this deck were less dramatic, but whenever that creature was in play or even when you had a 2 turn clock, but they 0 cards in hand, but Exarch/Twin on top in that order, you knew they always had a chance.
I would order the decks that I had the worst win percentage vs. in Modern like this.
1. Infect - it doesn't matter what I play; they have ways around everything with the right draws and anyone that says that this deck is inconsistent is not going to be believed by me. I wouldn't be surprised if my win percentage vs. this deck is 10%.
2. Bloom Titan - this deck also was the bane of my existence, but less than Infect. I doubt I won more than 30% of my matches vs. this deck.
3. Splinter Twin - this deck also caused me a lot of problems. I probably won around 40% of the time, but the prevalence of this deck made the 60% losing much, much worse than nearly always losing to Infect, a deck that I saw at most 8% of the meta in its heyday.
4. Probably Tron at 50/50? Possibly Affinity at slightly less than 50%.
5. Most other decks were fine. Pod was fine for me. Treasure Delver was fine. Eldrazi was fine, but then I was playing it myself. Dredge was fine. I had positive win percentages vs. all these decks.
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 would counter this point with my (completely biased) opinion that Lantern Control is in fact the best deck in Modern. It has the most effective ways to disrupt and stop the largest number of decks in the format, and as it slowly gets more cards (like Whir and Sphere) the consistency of it's power slowly rises.
The problem with Lantern, and why it isn't played more, is simply the skill ceiling for the deck is just so damn high. Where your average Modern deck can yield you decent results with around 5ish hours of testing, in Lantern to do alright requires close to ten times that much preparation. I'd argue that to be a master with Lantern you need to put in 300 or more hours with the deck, and that isn't something many players would do. Specifically because of the type of deck Lantern is.
So Lantern is the best deck in Modern, that no one is playing in Modern, because no one knows how to play it in Modern.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
While I do agree that the deck is very strong if you put in the effort to master it, I don't think this is the main reason people don't play it.
I'd say the fun factor plays a big role in this one. To me, and to most players I know, Lantern (and several other prison/permission style decks) is no fun to play and especially not to play against. It's also an expensive deck.
So, unless you are a proffessional grinder, I don't think it's wise to invest in a deck that nowone in your playgroup likes to play against and just scoops up.
Modern: WUBRG Humans - GBW Traverse - GWU Knightfall - GRW Bushwhacker Zoo -
Oh I completely agree that the playstyle of Lantern is a huge reason why so few people play it. Honestly, it is probably the biggest reason why more people do not play the deck.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I'm personally more a fan of intentional design over unintentional design. The primary reason is that it makes the game less time consuming in preparation and by extension, far more playable. Modern is actually very difficult to play or even understand. I highly doubt even the most experienced players on this forum even understand more than a third of the potentially playable permutations, and even if they did know them, could they even act upon and make use of them?
And this isn't a blow against modern: Every TCG has a non-rotating format that players promote because they don't like to spend more money than they have to. It's just that players should also realize the price to what they are asking for. I've seen people in their 40s playing legacy and EDH that are still finding out about wierd cards printed in the 90s. Modern is actually not much better off since there are more modern legal sets now than there are legacy only sets.
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!
Well that, and every deck I have heavily gravitated towards got banned for questionable reasons, or hit by collateral damage, and I have been floundering trying to fill that hole for 2+ years. The kind of deck I want to play doesn't exist and the viable options that are "close" lack several key elements I liked about those decks. So now I just play a deck I like, even though it's objectively not as good as other decks in the format. I no longer care about winning like I used to; I am just playing to enjoy myself and maybe sometimes win.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
More than that, I don't like the rat race situation that happens with picking up needed cards for decks in modern. That feeling of "you better get it now or speculation will cause the price to go up" is tiring, but has been a truthful observation ever since I returned to the hobby four years ago. I've spent more money in the past four years on this game than I ever did prior all because of the lack of true support for the modern format. Given the companies behavior, I don't see EDH or even pauper escaping the same fate. Not being able to pick up a needed piece because of it's price is just the same as if the piece never existed in many cases.
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!
This is certainly true. Very very few people that I'm exposed to, actually understand Modern, how it is played, and what makes the typical deck work. Very few are as invested as the most well read of this forums community, and even within those 'well read' people there are many who fundamentally dont understand Modern as it is played.
"Jace is going to take over the format."
Yeah, OK.
As to the 'chase the tiger' situation, thats a symptom of this being lost. As cfusionpm states, when decks are hit and there is NO replacement for that playstyle, it is very costly to look for a replacement, especially if you are in the paper realm only.
I spent literally thousands looking for a replacement over months and months, before Search for Azcanta freed up UWx as a meaningful option.
Now that we have Teferi, I cannot imagine anything but a functional reprint, or unban will cause me to look into any other deck.
Spirits
Spirits
What I wouldn't give for a Kiki Jiki that cost 2RR and was a 1/1, or 3R and an 0/1.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I used to be spike. I think most people go through it.
The glass trophy or money win, or even the stupid local dominance can be reward enough.
In the old days those chess style rankings could be a powerful motivator. With me the conversion was dramatic, practically Damascene. Nowadays when I run into long-since-quit spike buddies and tell them how my constructed crowds view me now as the guy with the brew they laugh, because they knew me as a ranking point win pc junkie. Ironically I don't think spike goes away, he gets sublimated. When ranking points went and real life commitments reduced the amount of practice I could put in anyway I swapped my focus. I started playing decks I wanted to play, something alien to me. At first I found it frustrating, and especially when I lost to players I would have often expected to beat, but I stuck with it, and quit Standard, buying and selling into nascent Modern and eventually Legacy. I built up a huge collection, when the grinder Spikes went on road trips I might treat myself to the odd RL card instead. I started building top tier decks not for me but for others to borrow. The freedom of not playing top tier gave me opportunity to acquire top tier decks after relevant reprints, and in particular to sell on draft winnings not caring about Standard. In the end I became the go to guy to borrow decks off, an evangelical for eternal formats, always able to loan decks at the drop of a hat. The spikiness never really went away, but for me winning mtg became winning at mtg finance whilst winning at Mtg took second fiddle, and in the mean time I could play whatever I liked. Literally. I still drafted competitively, I still played to the best I could but I could enter events with a brew or ancient build long past tiers and that felt so, so liberating. Even today locally the phrase "watch me lose to tier five jank" has been uttered by more than one player when pairings are announced. If I go 2-2 with a ten year old archetype most Legacy players will respect that, in a way most Standard players of spike tendency would be scornful.
I think the data of "he beat the field with a brew' are gone in Standard, long long gone. I think they only exist on the margins of Legacy and not much more in Modern. You can, every now and then, run a brew and top 8 a fifty player plus event. I don't think you can do that at 500 player events.
Fundamentally you have to ask do I want max win pc or not? Brewing is horribly ineffective in ratio of time put in to effective result. That time is better spent learning match ups. If you don't brew, learn two decks that are good at different times and be done with it. Don't worry about what someone thinks about your deck, respect varies from person to person, some respect skill, some respect innovation, some respect good manners, just learn two good ones, be it boggles or humans or whatever, just run with them. Forget leveraging skill or any such, just learn two solid decks, most decks do have some kind of skill anyway.
For what it is worth I would recommend not worrying too much about win pc, in five years half the people who you beat will be quit or playing commander, and those worrying about win pc the most tend to be those spending most to play mtg.
I think for me it's mostly getting over the hump. When you're top 8ed around 25 PTQs and not won 1st place even 1 time, THAT gets in your head. I am a very cerebral person. At one time in my youth, my IQ was nearly 200, although I've probably self lowered that to around 150 by now, lol. Recently I've lost 3 times in the top 8, 4, and 2 of PPTQs. I've gotten some 1st place finishes before. I've won many GPTs and every Modern season, I've qualified for the RPTQ. But I have fallen short quite a bit! I don't want to be "that easy guy in the top 8." I want to be that guy that...once he gets to the top 8, he finishes it off. I don't think it's wrong to have high expectations of oneself. Sometimes when I read here that I should have lower expectations, I think "wow, I should just accept being a lousy player." Sorry, but I am NEVER going to ascribe to that. I know what I'm capable of and what I'm not.
There are many, many things that I need to work on. I am trying to work on being less salty because it has just recently happened in the past 2-3 years. Before that, it was super hard for me to get salty. Most people who know me don't even think I have been, but I know better. I don't want to be a douchebag just because somebody beat me. When I beat Pro Players or Grinders before, many made me feel horrible that I just beat them. I had to think in my head, do I want to beat them and feel like ***** or do I prefer just losing to them and they are pleasant? I realized that the former made ME feel better, so I kept trying. There's also many things that I need to work on as well, but I saw something that I hadn't seen in quite a while at a recent PPTQ this Saturday. A player that didn't know me got bluffed pretty hard (when we were both 3-0 at the time) that I had Lightning Strike in hand when I had a land. He asked me after the game, "did you have Lightning Strike?" I thought for a split second and since I figured I'd see him in the top 8, I lied and said, yes, I did. I hadn't done a bluff that badly in quite a while. Most people at my LGS know that I "just don't have it" because I told them that usually I "just don't have it." It sets it up for times when I do, but honestly it's much more likely that your opponent has drawn poorly than greatly, so it's better to just go for it quite often. Obviously you weigh Pros and Cons, but sometimes you just have to be, "okay you got it, you won."
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)What are your expectations? What do you think you are capable of? Some expectations are unrealistic and don't say anything about whether you are a lousy or great player. For instance, if you told me you expect to T8 every Modern GP/Open/1000+ player event you play in the next year, I would say that's an unrealistic expectation. My saying this would not mean I think you are a lousy player. Nor should you take that to mean you are a lousy player.
My concrete Modern goal is merely to be infinite on MTGO and average a Competitive League 4-1 record with 1-2 decks. My thematic/experiential goal is to pilot a deck I enjoy as well as I can in any given round and in any given stage of my Magic progress. Will Jonathan wrote an excellent article about goal-setting (https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/mental-mythbusters-you-have-to-set-goals-to-succeed/) that would help a lot of Magic players. My guess is that you have read it but if not, you should. If you have, you should do something with his advice. Same advice to anyone else in this thread. I also recommend you read the comments for more insights and nuances into this goal-setting approach.
My expectations are to qualify for the Pro Tour. Also I want to be on par or close to it with a local Pro Player that I know personally. When I grinded a lot back in the Lorwyn times, my results were similar to his. Nowadays, he still top 8s nearly every tournament he plays. And if he didn't, I assume he drew complete trash. He is a player who is naturally super good at the game, but also put in the time and is always near the top in PW points in California, so he plays quite often. I want to be close to his level and I believe that I can. I have done it for spurts at a time, but I want to be more consistent, even if there's a format that doesn't have a deck that I HAVE to play (like UW Delver in Standard or Eye of Ugin Eldrazi in E Winter).
I realize that I never really tried that hard. It's a big part of my problem; half assing stuff. Things usually came pretty easily. I originally loved playing at PTQs, GPs, and GPTs because I liked playing against that competition. Going to the Pro Tour was never the goal for me. I just loved playing against that competition that I did not get at that time at the LGS that I used to go to (closed down 7 years ago). Outside of 2-3 players that came intermittently, I never had that competition at my LGS. When they used to do Game Day, players took it seriously. All of the good players from the area came and it was actually very competitive, but PTQs, GPTs, and GPs were on another level once you got past the first few rounds. I enjoyed that.
*And to be quite honest, I expect to win every time I play an opponent. When I don't win, I believe that I usually can track it down to some sort of mistake, sideboarding, strategy, punt on board, shuffling mistakes, or mulligan decisions that made me lose the game. I should be good enough by now to avoid those for the most part. Recently in 5 of 7 Comp REL tournaments (1 was not, it was FNM), I made egregious mistakes in Round 1. In all of those events, I feel I played very well AFTER round 1, but what caused me to play like that in Round 1? I got to get over that.
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)Well, to interact there has to be a set of archetypes that are designed together. The problem with the unintentional design of modern is that most of these sets were not designed together. Go for the Throat is really well balanced as removal with a downside when dealing with Scars block standard, but put it into modern where most things are not artifacts and it's now a 2 mana murder. Heck, in a really fast format Fatal Push is basically a one mana murder. And then if someone does try to play around Go for the throat with artifacts, there's Kolaghan's Command and Shattering Spree, which are two among several ways to kill artifacts. They could also just land a Stony Silence as well.
It's a format born from the desire to not have to spend money and to get to play with old cards, and I never really liked the idea of people basically playing for money or prizes in a format like that. If the format was supported officially as an expanding selection of cards crafted by the parent company and reprinted to support the community, it would have been different. But then, that would conflict with the goal of creating draft sets and standard sets.
Now my biggest grievance with the format is the lack of Flametongue Kavu, CounterSpell, and Curse of Shallow Graves. Why no kavu?
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I think for a large majority of people, this is what ktkenshinx was referring to when he mentioned an "unrealistic expectation". And to reiterate what he said, that isn't to say you're a bad player. From what you mentioned about getting to multiple PPTQ Top 8's, you obviously aren't.
However, you need to start by scaling back the goal. I was in the exact same boat as you. My goal was to make the PT. It doesn't seem that hard. I mean you just have to win a PPTQ, then Win an RTPQ. Or Top 8 a GP! The goals sound so simple, that it's really easy to envision "Make the Pro Tour" as a reasonable and realistic expectation. But it isn't. Because those are actually pretty big jumps.
GP Toronto wrecked my motivation to play Modern because I was in the exact same mindset as you. I dropped after Round 6 with my 3-3 record and was almost too dis-heartened to sign up for any side events. I wanted to quit Magic.
So I've scaled back my expectations. My goal right now is to Top 8 a PPTQ. That's it. Get Top 8 at a Modern PPTQ.
Once that's done, what will my next goal be? Well I suppose after that my next goal will be to WIN a Modern PPTQ. Not just Top 8, but first place. Qualify for the RPTQ!
And you just progress from there.
With the GP, my goal isn't to make Top 8. My goal for the next GP I play in is to do better than my last performance. To do better than 3-3 drop. If that means I get eliminated in Round 7 this time, cool! That's progress!
The steps are small, sure. But that is how you keep yourself motivated. You make it so each small step you get is a positive step in the right direction for you, as opposed to being disappointed every time you don't make that monumental leap.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I have won 4 PPTQs now, but not made the top 4 of an RPTQ yet (in fact, only got 11th once and failed pretty miserably the other 3 times). My short term goal is to top 4 the RPTQ so I am qualified. As for a GP, I know for a fact that playing 1-2 per year is not going to give me a reasonable chance to qualify that way, but I still expect myself to get 12-3 or better. I have a short term GP goal of starting 7-0 since I've never done better than starting 6-0 at a GP and also to do better than 4-2 on Day 2 or 11-4 overall. I don't think it's a monumental leap to do such things. Maybe I should set lower goals? Win vs. a grinder? No, I am not purposely setting my goals super low, lol.
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 should know better by now...but what?
Interaction in Modern has literally nothing to do with the fact the sets are not designed with eachother in mind. Current UWR, interacts a great deal with Jund, with Mardu, with Bant.
There is plenty of interaction, to the point where calling the format 'not interactive' at this point is comically wrong.
Maybe your LGS isnt interactive? Modern, right now, is.
Spirits
Maybe the last poster inferred there was no interaction to some peoples eyes, but the way I inferred his statement is that the interaction he observes isn't necessarily good. I know I lose on default with the statement that there is no interaction in modern as I just illustrated a bunch of examples that do interact with the field on a turn that is viable.
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!
When people start talking about doing X/Y/Z they have more opportunities to do massive events now, and some are pretty scornful of those who don't. Go big or go home and all that. It is a common mentality. Truth be told there are loads of great players out there who could be pros, people get good at the game quickly. But they spend a hell of a lot on Mtg to do so and when they are going and spending £100 to play an event every weeek and stay overnight with travel etc. I am sat at home, and have made that amount of money in trades and sales. I think in the end that sums it up for me. I don't want to pay for the game any more, I want it to be cost neutral and have an asset that grows, and if that means no RPTQs or PPTQs then so be it. That is my goal, and at the end of it I can live without the glory because I realise the emphemeral nature of it. I will be remembered by my current contemporaries and a source of decks and cards and my former ones as a spike, and in the end I don't really mind either way.
But regarding the finance of MTG, I have gotten into that quite a bit in the past 5 years. I have always been doing that somewhat, ever since my brother and I saw our Revised dual lands go from $2.50 to $5, which was quite a spike at the time! We realized that our analysis of an underappreciated card could pay us dividends. My brother has long ago quit the game, but I continue to buy and sell cards like crazy. Many think I should do my own store or open a booth at a local card collector Swap Meet (Frank and Son's). I often think that if I didn't spend so many resources trying to make money off cards, I could make my game better. I want to be that player that...when he loses, others assume truly bad luck, because I play so well. I know players like that. Maybe it's just an unrealistic goal? Maybe nobody can be good at finance (ie. buying cheap Krark's Thumb for example) AND be good at the game as well? Who knows? But, I am going to try.
P.S. - I just looked up my win percentages at mtgstats.net. (kavu.ru has been closed, but this new site is not bad for 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)If you have aspirations to cash in on a game, I'd say ditch this for hearthstone or another actual e-sport. Unless anybody has hope that MtG Arena gains some major demand for viewership.
When I first played in my first SCG Invitational, do you know how I felt? I actually told people that it was my favorite MTG tournament that I had ever played in at the time. The competition was good, relatively of course, and I enjoyed that. Murderer's Row every round, guys who like me, were Big Fish in their small ponds and even some were Big Fish in Bigger Ponds.
I feel that the Pro Tour will give me even tougher rounds. Yes, I could get down on doing poorly. I know many people personally that it has happened to as well. But, they don't give up. It makes them want to be a better player. Also regarding cheating, I want to be better at identifying that. I am pretty sure that despite being VERY good at identifying that, I probably have been cheated around 500 times in my life. I want to get to that Pro Tour stage of pretty much hardly every letting it happen to me without me knowing.
*Also, I have played against someone who many players identify as "the best cheater ever" and I beat him. He didn't draw the nuts, although it was pretty close (but Humans does it more so than most decks) and I only mulliganed once and won the match 2-1. I felt some accomplishment at (probably) not getting cheated.
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)It also needs you to actively not play the best deck. Ever. That is the hard part. I sold Infect, Tron x2 and Affinity in 18 months as complete entities near their price zeniths. I sold merfolk and boggles at their price height too. Such sales are essential, they generate masses of cash for buying collections or specific high value targets when many of the low value cards would be hard to shift on their own. I gave great deals and still made a ton. You also need to ruthlessly go through cards not in use time and time again, which is time consuming, and then do it with cards in use to ask what would happen to deck Y if card x were reprinted. You also need to know trends when going through trade and store binders, which takes yet more time.
Playing the best deck in Modern is normally a way to get the pointy end of the banhammer up where the sun does not shine with no vaseline to ease its path. Pod, Infect and Twin were to some extent predictable bans, I kept twin for example because I knew when the ban came the cards would keep value bar a couple, but I sold every spare for the deck.
Is any kind of interaction superior to another? Like Thoughtseize over Stubborn Denial or Lightning Bolt over Fatal Push? I got the intention that none kind of interaction suites the metagame very well.
Either my opponent got bigger creatures, stack-interaction or a swarm-strategy that doesn't match my removal-suite.
So what's the consensus about the format in general? Is Reflector Mage teh best it gets?
Maybe i'm just tending towards one side singlehandily, but my guts tell me that there must be a piece of interaction that hits 75% or so of the format.
Green @ it's best