That's not to say those events aren't a product of poor data, and create incredibly slow-evolving formats. Essentially, Wizards is achieving exactly what they want with this silly data restriction: nobody really knows what's going on, and the muddled picture is not convincingly solid by any means. Any growth or change is extremely slow, as people react to paper events and actual results. They likely love this (even if it can lead to feelbad moments for people who prepared for the "wrong" decks, or get blown out by someone "next-leveling" the field by guessing correctly) because it means the format isn't stale and nobody "knows" what the best decks are (though TONS of people THINK they do).
That's precisely why Wizards does this. There's an idea in game design that it's impossible to balance a game. As a result, rather than actual balance, which players may not even like... what game creators seek to do is to create the illusion of balance. That's what Wizards is doing with the data they release.
In a way that's actually a good thing for the players, because if a deck is too good, or a card is too powerful, if the community hasn't figured it out, they don't need to ban it. They only have to ban things that have been correctly identified as too good. And usually, by the time such a card is identified, Wizards has had enough lead time that they can print a few hate cards to act as a safety valve.
why people keep comparing stirrings with preordain in terms of power level when it feels even more powerful than ponder?
if stirrings is legal, both blue cantrips should be in our format
why people keep comparing stirrings with preordain in terms of power level when it feels even more powerful than ponder?
if stirrings is legal, both blue cantrips should be in our format
Eh, I don't know about that. Let's not go too crazy with the Preordain/Ponder and Stirrings comparison. There's a real argument to be made about Stirrings being banned or Preordain being unbanned in lieu of a ban. But both? Why does blue now get twice the Stirrings effects? Because 4 copies of Stirrings somehow match 8 copies of P&P collectively? That doesn't track at all.
Re: data restrictions
It's true that Wizards does deliberately restrict data to prevent formats from being solved. And yet, they get solved anyway. Even with the data embargo, Legacy, Standard, Vintage, and Pauper all homogenized towards a few top decks and got "solved" at various points. Outside of the obviously busted Eldrazi Winter, Modern has not yet been solved despite many people trying. Modern also creates as much, if not more, incentive to solve it than in most of those other formats that were still solved sans incentives. In my experience, I'm guessing this is because Modern is actually healthier than those other formats. This is because there aren't top-tier decks that can do to Modern what decks based around Top, DRS, Probe, Gush, Drake, and energy did for their respective formats. This isn't because of data embargoes. This is because Modern is extremely resilient to solving, because all decks have bad matchups and dozens of decks are viable. People who want this to change have wishes that do not align with how Wizards envisions competitive formats, especially their flagship format.
why people keep comparing stirrings with preordain in terms of power level when it feels even more powerful than ponder?
if stirrings is legal, both blue cantrips should be in our format
Eh, I don't know about that. Let's not go too crazy with the Preordain/Ponder and Stirrings comparison. There's a real argument to be made about Stirrings being banned or Preordain being unbanned in lieu of a ban. But both? Why does blue now get twice the Stirrings effects? Because 4 copies of Stirrings somehow match 8 copies of P&P collectively? That doesn't track at all.
Re: data restrictions
It's true that Wizards does deliberately restrict data to prevent formats from being solved. And yet, they get solved anyway. Even with the data embargo, Legacy, Standard, Vintage, and Pauper all homogenized towards a few top decks and got "solved" at various points. Outside of the obviously busted Eldrazi Winter, Modern has not yet been solved despite many people trying. Modern also creates as much, if not more, incentive to solve it than in most of those other formats that were still solved sans incentives. In my experience, I'm guessing this is because Modern is actually healthier than those other formats. This is because there aren't top-tier decks that can do to Modern what decks based around Top, DRS, Probe, Gush, Drake, and energy did for their respective formats. This isn't because of data embargoes. This is because Modern is extremely resilient to solving, because all decks have bad matchups and dozens of decks are viable. People who want this to change have wishes that do not align with how Wizards envisions competitive formats, especially their flagship format.
Blue is the colour of filtering and card selection/draw, so... green should have better tools than blue?
Blue is the colour of filtering and card selection/draw, so... green should have better tools than blue?
Green is actually #1 in card draw, in tutoring lands, and in tutoring creatures. Things that Oath of Nissa and Ancient Stirrings both do. Color pie wise, both of those cards make perfect sense in green.
Can anybody explain me why Gitaxian Probe was banned, please ?
mostly the same reason it was banned in legacy this week. its a free effect easily used by anything caring about moving cards between zones and or spells mattering. the reveal is also particularly useful for certain strategies since it took away the skill component of appropriately discerning hidden information. add on top of this that it could functionally be played in any color and the card just did too much for its 'cost'.
the deck that abused it best was infect, since it facilitated early kills with become immense while also showing if it was safe to move all in.
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Please tell me that you see the difference. Stirring is very good, it digs deep, but look at the decks it goes in. The blue cantrips go in STORM. How fast is the fastest Storm can go off in MCL? With both of those, it does that more than half of the time. I want Preordain, but unbanning it quite simply has to mean that Ponder has a grave in this format forever. It is like the opposite of Tron, Tron wants the game to go long, Stirring helps it look for tools, but it's not a seat of their pants glass cannon. The blue cantrips look for any card, they are a lot more flexible.
And I haven't seen it mentioned, but if Stirring is banned and the proper cantrips are unbanned, I am splashing blue and putting them in Tron.
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Blue is the colour of filtering and card selection/draw, so... green should have better tools than blue?
The argument is that Stirrings is doing the same thing as Preordain would do in Blue decks. At some point, the Color Pie is irrelevant for banlist discussions. The cards are similar enough to warrant a discussion about inconsistency regarding the banlist. It is not about the fact that Blue *should* be better at this type of effect.
You can't look at an inconsistency and attempt to make the resolution to that inconsistency be an over-correction. That is, Preordain and Stirrings should either both be banned or unbanned. But you can't use that argument to then say that Ponder should also be unbanned. That doesn't make sense.
Please tell me that you see the difference. Stirring is very good, it digs deep, but look at the decks it goes in. The blue cantrips go in STORM. How fast is the fastest Storm can go off in MCL? With both of those, it does that more than half of the time. I want Preordain, but unbanning it quite simply has to mean that Ponder has a grave in this format forever. It is like the opposite of Tron, Tron wants the game to go long, Stirring helps it look for tools, but it's not a seat of their pants glass cannon. The blue cantrips look for any card, they are a lot more flexible.
And I haven't seen it mentioned, but if Stirring is banned and the proper cantrips are unbanned, I am splashing blue and putting them in Tron.
'Land, Land, Land, Karn, Land, Ulamog.'
Long.
Put all the cantrips you want into Storm, it still wont ever go off before Turn 3, like it does now.
Blue is the colour of filtering and card selection/draw, so... green should have better tools than blue?
This is too subjective to argue about. Stirrings is obviously different from Preordain and Ponder for so many reason and you can't actually compare them measure for measure. The only reason this is even on the table is a single Stoddard quote from years ago, and that quote is the only metric on which we can argue about Preordain/Stirrings at all. Everything else is just speculative. Specifically: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/development-risks-modern-2015-05-22 "Part of the reason that Ponder and Preordain are banned and Sleight of Hand and Serum Visions aren't, is that the latter two are just weaker and don't do as good of a job of letting people set up their draws quickly. The problem with putting too much card filtering in a format is that it drives too many of the games to play out exactly the same. There is some novelty in this, but I think it is less fun for a format that we want to be highly re-playable."
If this quote didn't exist, a Stirrings ban wouldn't even be on the table. So the only question is, does Stirrings set up draws too quickly and drive too many games to play out exactly the same? I'd say so, but Wizards doesn't seem to agree at this juncture. Moreover, Stoddard is super clear that this is only "PART OF THE REASON" that the cards are banned. So maybe the other part of the reason (e.g. that they power up blue-based combo decks) doesn't apply to Stirrings and therefore Stirrings wouldn't be banned.
I'm all for comparing Preordain and Stirrings. But we need to move past the pithy, rhetorical comparisons that make for good Twitter posts and actually analyze the information we have. It's easy for certain pros and players to make edgy, catchy memes on Twitter and Twitch about these cards. Thankfully, R&D is more nuanced than that and we need to try and see where those nuances will show up. For now, that means Stirrings is safe and there's basically no way or reason for P&P to be unbanned together.
Probe increased T3 kills in the format past some threshold that Wizards found unacceptable. It accomplished this through a few avenues (free cards, free info, deck thinning, etc), but those avenues themselves didn't get Probe banned. It was the combination of those avenues that also led to sizable T4 rule violations.
If this quote didn't exist, a Stirrings ban wouldn't even be on the table. So the only question is, does Stirrings set up draws too quickly and drive too many games to play out exactly the same? I'd say so, but Wizards doesn't seem to agree at this juncture. Moreover, Stoddard is super clear that this is only "PART OF THE REASON" that the cards are banned. So maybe the other part of the reason (e.g. that they power up blue-based combo decks) doesn't apply to Stirrings and therefore Stirrings wouldn't be banned.
Let me offer a counterpoint on that. Both Stirrings and even Oath of Nissa, while being cantrips do not draw into additional cantrips. In that sense, they don't stall a game and encourage durdling, chaining multiple cantrips together. They specifically find non cantrips, which in turn puts action of some form into your hand, which leads to a resolution of the game.
If this quote didn't exist, a Stirrings ban wouldn't even be on the table. So the only question is, does Stirrings set up draws too quickly and drive too many games to play out exactly the same? I'd say so, but Wizards doesn't seem to agree at this juncture. Moreover, Stoddard is super clear that this is only "PART OF THE REASON" that the cards are banned. So maybe the other part of the reason (e.g. that they power up blue-based combo decks) doesn't apply to Stirrings and therefore Stirrings wouldn't be banned.
Let me offer a counterpoint on that. Both Stirrings and even Oath of Nissa, while being cantrips do not draw into additional cantrips. In that sense, they don't stall a game and encourage durdling, chaining multiple cantrips together. They specifically find non cantrips, which in turn puts action of some form into your hand, which leads to a resolution of the game.
That is a reasonable rebuttal which Wizards may be thinking about in one form or another. They may also like the various Stirrings decks and how Stirrings enables these different play patterns, even if it's fairly consistent.
I'll also add that Stoddard is very clear that P&P are not banned solely because of the consistency issue. He points to other reasons and explicitly states that only "PART" of the reason they are banned is consistency. Perhaps Stirrings simply doesn't fulfill other criteria like P&P did.
at the end of the day its about having a healthy format. the difference between stirrings and other cantrips is only relevant if it is doing something counter to that.
nearly every archetype is represented at the competitive level (ie more that just 'viable'). no one deck is over performing as far as we can see, and wizards has confirmed they arent seeing anything with their data set that contradicts that. we just witnessed four control decks and one midrange deck playing inferior blue cantrips to a GP top 8.
tempo decks have been hurting for a while, but tbh it seems more a function of the format more than anything else. efficient aggro is a natural counter to it, and modern has that in spades.
my guess for a deck that wizards is keeping an eye on is KCI, but mostly because of mox opal. it hasnt done anything more than pretty much any new good deck, but its walking a tightrope using the best piece of fast mana in the format to facilitate kills before turn 4. it reminds me of amulet bloom, but possibly just 1 step short of crossing the line. it deserves the benefit of the doubt until it proves otherwise though.
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Hey, we even got a new deck in KCI that it even ignores artifact destruction, that's funny!
In what way does it ignore artifact destruction? The fact it can sacrifice stuff to KCI in response? If KCI is out your target should be Krark-Clan Ironworks, as that shuts off the entire shebang. I've found the deck to be extremely vulnerable to having their Krark-Clan Ironworks destroyed.
Hey, we even got a new deck in KCI that it even ignores artifact destruction, that's funny!
In what way does it ignore artifact destruction? The fact it can sacrifice stuff to KCI in response? If KCI is out your target should be Krark-Clan Ironworks, as that shuts off the entire shebang. I've found the deck to be extremely vulnerable to having their Krark-Clan Ironworks destroyed.
If you have an instant you can cast, and a Retriever Myr out you can announce the spell, sac both the artifacts to "pay" for part of the spell, then use the Retriever ability to return the KCI to your hand. Usually you're just a mana or two short of replaying KCI and continuing. I don't think the deck is broken, but it is incredibly resilient in the hands of a skilled pilot.
Honestly I think it would be worse if we did know. I believe with SCG/GP level events it is easy enough to see what decks are good, what decks are tier 2 'good' and what is really jank.
In combination with that Tron article, its not too far to claim we have a pretty good idea of what is going on in terms of the higher end meta.
If we KNEW the win rates of some decks, it would probably make for some uncomfortable realizations and feel bad bans.
Damping Sphere has been the best card to come out of Dominaria. Most decks are running 2+ and it's making a ton of combo and tron decks play honest. Otherwise I am sure we would have seen upwards of 15% of the meta being shared with both Storm and KCI.
Even based on MTGGoldfish Data, its the 7th most played spell in Modern. Link
I don't think we have ever seen a card climb in the ranks of playability so fast in Modern's History. Treasure Cruise didn't even climb up that fast.
Honestly I think it would be worse if we did know. I believe with SCG/GP level events it is easy enough to see what decks are good, what decks are tier 2 'good' and what is really jank.
In combination with that Tron article, its not too far to claim we have a pretty good idea of what is going on in terms of the higher end meta.
If we KNEW the win rates of some decks, it would probably make for some uncomfortable realizations and feel bad bans.
Damping Sphere has been the best card to come out of Dominaria. Most decks are running 2+ and it's making a ton of combo and tron decks play honest. Otherwise I am sure we would have seen upwards of 15% of the meta being shared with both Storm and KCI.
Even based on MTGGoldfish Data, its the 7th most played spell in Modern. Link
I don't think we have ever seen a card climb in the ranks of playability so fast in Modern's History. Treasure Cruise didn't even climb up that fast.
There are a lot of people desperate to make a few decks (Storm, Tron in particular) play on their terms, which are certainly closer to the fair spectrum, than those two.
Even based on MTGGoldfish Data, its the 7th most played spell in Modern. Link
Again, we don't actually know this for sure. What we do know is of the decks reported, xx% of them run that card. Of the different archetypes that have data, xx% of those archetypes play it. Actual copies and actual percentage of meta is a complete guess and mystery.
And it would make sense that a lot of people are playing Damping Sphere, as it's a hate card for multiple popular decks that can go into any deck with no color restrictions.
I would actually love to talk to MTG Goldfish themselves to reword their pages like this. Because these percentages no longer represent the number of copies played in Modern. They represent the number of different decks playing that card. So cards that see widespread use across multiple decks will inevitably place higher than any card that sees tons of play in only 1 or 2 decks (even if those multiple decks hold significantly less meta share).
I would actually love to talk to MTG Goldfish themselves to reword their pages like this. Because these percentages no longer represent the number of copies played in Modern. They represent the number of different decks playing that card. So cards that see widespread use across multiple decks will inevitably place higher than any card that sees tons of play in only 1 or 2 decks (even if those multiple decks hold significantly less meta share).
mtgtop8 provides two numbers, one is the percentage of decks playing the card, the other is the average number of copies of that card in the decks that do play it. Thus you get cards like Springleaf Drum in 4% of decks but 4.0 copies, and you get cards like Field of Ruin at 18% of decks but 2.3 copies.
Even based on MTGGoldfish Data, its the 7th most played spell in Modern. Link
Again, we don't actually know this for sure. What we do know is of the decks reported, xx% of them run that card. Of the different archetypes that have data, xx% of those archetypes play it. Actual copies and actual percentage of meta is a complete guess and mystery.
I wouldn't word it quite so extremely but yeah, it's certainly not showing the whole picture. I'm working on something comparing my own data to theirs to try to make a little more sense of it.
Even based on MTGGoldfish Data, its the 7th most played spell in Modern. Link
Again, we don't actually know this for sure. What we do know is of the decks reported, xx% of them run that card. Of the different archetypes that have data, xx% of those archetypes play it. Actual copies and actual percentage of meta is a complete guess and mystery.
And it would make sense that a lot of people are playing Damping Sphere, as it's a hate card for multiple popular decks that can go into any deck with no color restrictions.
I would actually love to talk to MTG Goldfish themselves to reword their pages like this. Because these percentages no longer represent the number of copies played in Modern. They represent the number of different decks playing that card. So cards that see widespread use across multiple decks will inevitably place higher than any card that sees tons of play in only 1 or 2 decks (even if those multiple decks hold significantly less meta share).
Even if it's a segment, isn't the data still representative when taken over a long enough period of time and enough N?
Even based on MTGGoldfish Data, its the 7th most played spell in Modern. Link
Again, we don't actually know this for sure. What we do know is of the decks reported, xx% of them run that card. Of the different archetypes that have data, xx% of those archetypes play it. Actual copies and actual percentage of meta is a complete guess and mystery.
And it would make sense that a lot of people are playing Damping Sphere, as it's a hate card for multiple popular decks that can go into any deck with no color restrictions.
I would actually love to talk to MTG Goldfish themselves to reword their pages like this. Because these percentages no longer represent the number of copies played in Modern. They represent the number of different decks playing that card. So cards that see widespread use across multiple decks will inevitably place higher than any card that sees tons of play in only 1 or 2 decks (even if those multiple decks hold significantly less meta share).
Even if it's a segment, isn't the data still representative when taken over a long enough period of time and enough N?
It's possible, but again, has totally different meaning than "there are xx% of these in the format."
If we use the simplified example of Random Deck XYZ, the info we have now basically tells us "there is at least 1 this deck showing up that has been reported x number of weeks." Over enough weeks, we will know which decks have "at least one result reported" and those without results reported.
But again, this smooths out the curve by over-representing small cases and under-representing large cases. Even over time, if there is at least one example showing up with any consistency, it carries the same weight as decks with hundreds of 5-0s a week. The only time the numbers will actually rise/drop is if absolutely nobody has a 5-0 with it, or if there are dozens and dozens of paper results to push something up. Almost anything can 5-0 a non-Swiss League and it often takes months of paper results (each of which are fairly chaotic in makeup and results) to generate any meaningful data.
I don't necessarily mind the current system in place, it just gets under my skin that we're still using old terms and assumptions for data that in no way represents those old terms and assumptions.
I still think its largely good enough. Look at the GP Top 8-32, look at MTGO Comp Leagues and Events, and look at yes, SCG Open Top 8-32.
From that picture alone, you can make very reasonable choices, especially if one of those 3, are 'your' meta. Are we going to argue that the top cards in the format are not Bolt, Path, Stirrings, Snaps, Thalia and so on?
I dont think so. Just looking at the top 5-10 creatures/spells, I bet everyone on this forum (since we are all way more invested than your average person) could name the decks they go in. Thats the meta, right there.
Its irrelevant if Wizards is hiding the data by posting h0lydiva's Bloo 5-0's. I dont see Thing in the Ice in the Top 50 Creatures.
Yes, it sucks (in certain arguments) to not have the data but you all know we dont actually make ban list choices anyway, this past announcement just put another nail into that topic. So who cares? We cannot predict unbans, we cannot predict bans, and we dont need to.
We can however get a general idea of the flow of the meta, several of us have shown this over the past 2+ months.
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That's precisely why Wizards does this. There's an idea in game design that it's impossible to balance a game. As a result, rather than actual balance, which players may not even like... what game creators seek to do is to create the illusion of balance. That's what Wizards is doing with the data they release.
In a way that's actually a good thing for the players, because if a deck is too good, or a card is too powerful, if the community hasn't figured it out, they don't need to ban it. They only have to ban things that have been correctly identified as too good. And usually, by the time such a card is identified, Wizards has had enough lead time that they can print a few hate cards to act as a safety valve.
if stirrings is legal, both blue cantrips should be in our format
Eh, I don't know about that. Let's not go too crazy with the Preordain/Ponder and Stirrings comparison. There's a real argument to be made about Stirrings being banned or Preordain being unbanned in lieu of a ban. But both? Why does blue now get twice the Stirrings effects? Because 4 copies of Stirrings somehow match 8 copies of P&P collectively? That doesn't track at all.
Re: data restrictions
It's true that Wizards does deliberately restrict data to prevent formats from being solved. And yet, they get solved anyway. Even with the data embargo, Legacy, Standard, Vintage, and Pauper all homogenized towards a few top decks and got "solved" at various points. Outside of the obviously busted Eldrazi Winter, Modern has not yet been solved despite many people trying. Modern also creates as much, if not more, incentive to solve it than in most of those other formats that were still solved sans incentives. In my experience, I'm guessing this is because Modern is actually healthier than those other formats. This is because there aren't top-tier decks that can do to Modern what decks based around Top, DRS, Probe, Gush, Drake, and energy did for their respective formats. This isn't because of data embargoes. This is because Modern is extremely resilient to solving, because all decks have bad matchups and dozens of decks are viable. People who want this to change have wishes that do not align with how Wizards envisions competitive formats, especially their flagship format.
UR Faeries Modern
Blue is the colour of filtering and card selection/draw, so... green should have better tools than blue?
'Free' Information
'Free' GY Filling
'Free' Cantrip
'Free' Prowess Trigger
Let decks go all in, without fear of getting blown out.
Spirits
Green is actually #1 in card draw, in tutoring lands, and in tutoring creatures. Things that Oath of Nissa and Ancient Stirrings both do. Color pie wise, both of those cards make perfect sense in green.
mostly the same reason it was banned in legacy this week. its a free effect easily used by anything caring about moving cards between zones and or spells mattering. the reveal is also particularly useful for certain strategies since it took away the skill component of appropriately discerning hidden information. add on top of this that it could functionally be played in any color and the card just did too much for its 'cost'.
the deck that abused it best was infect, since it facilitated early kills with become immense while also showing if it was safe to move all in.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)And I haven't seen it mentioned, but if Stirring is banned and the proper cantrips are unbanned, I am splashing blue and putting them in Tron.
You can't look at an inconsistency and attempt to make the resolution to that inconsistency be an over-correction. That is, Preordain and Stirrings should either both be banned or unbanned. But you can't use that argument to then say that Ponder should also be unbanned. That doesn't make sense.
'Land, Land, Land, Karn, Land, Ulamog.'
Long.
Put all the cantrips you want into Storm, it still wont ever go off before Turn 3, like it does now.
Spirits
This is too subjective to argue about. Stirrings is obviously different from Preordain and Ponder for so many reason and you can't actually compare them measure for measure. The only reason this is even on the table is a single Stoddard quote from years ago, and that quote is the only metric on which we can argue about Preordain/Stirrings at all. Everything else is just speculative. Specifically:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/development-risks-modern-2015-05-22
"Part of the reason that Ponder and Preordain are banned and Sleight of Hand and Serum Visions aren't, is that the latter two are just weaker and don't do as good of a job of letting people set up their draws quickly. The problem with putting too much card filtering in a format is that it drives too many of the games to play out exactly the same. There is some novelty in this, but I think it is less fun for a format that we want to be highly re-playable."
If this quote didn't exist, a Stirrings ban wouldn't even be on the table. So the only question is, does Stirrings set up draws too quickly and drive too many games to play out exactly the same? I'd say so, but Wizards doesn't seem to agree at this juncture. Moreover, Stoddard is super clear that this is only "PART OF THE REASON" that the cards are banned. So maybe the other part of the reason (e.g. that they power up blue-based combo decks) doesn't apply to Stirrings and therefore Stirrings wouldn't be banned.
I'm all for comparing Preordain and Stirrings. But we need to move past the pithy, rhetorical comparisons that make for good Twitter posts and actually analyze the information we have. It's easy for certain pros and players to make edgy, catchy memes on Twitter and Twitch about these cards. Thankfully, R&D is more nuanced than that and we need to try and see where those nuances will show up. For now, that means Stirrings is safe and there's basically no way or reason for P&P to be unbanned together.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-9-2017-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2017-01-09
"Gitaxian Probe increased the number of third-turn kills in a few ways, but particularly by giving perfect information (and a card) to decks that often have to make strategic decisions about going "all-in."
Probe increased T3 kills in the format past some threshold that Wizards found unacceptable. It accomplished this through a few avenues (free cards, free info, deck thinning, etc), but those avenues themselves didn't get Probe banned. It was the combination of those avenues that also led to sizable T4 rule violations.
Let me offer a counterpoint on that. Both Stirrings and even Oath of Nissa, while being cantrips do not draw into additional cantrips. In that sense, they don't stall a game and encourage durdling, chaining multiple cantrips together. They specifically find non cantrips, which in turn puts action of some form into your hand, which leads to a resolution of the game.
That is a reasonable rebuttal which Wizards may be thinking about in one form or another. They may also like the various Stirrings decks and how Stirrings enables these different play patterns, even if it's fairly consistent.
I'll also add that Stoddard is very clear that P&P are not banned solely because of the consistency issue. He points to other reasons and explicitly states that only "PART" of the reason they are banned is consistency. Perhaps Stirrings simply doesn't fulfill other criteria like P&P did.
nearly every archetype is represented at the competitive level (ie more that just 'viable'). no one deck is over performing as far as we can see, and wizards has confirmed they arent seeing anything with their data set that contradicts that. we just witnessed four control decks and one midrange deck playing inferior blue cantrips to a GP top 8.
tempo decks have been hurting for a while, but tbh it seems more a function of the format more than anything else. efficient aggro is a natural counter to it, and modern has that in spades.
my guess for a deck that wizards is keeping an eye on is KCI, but mostly because of mox opal. it hasnt done anything more than pretty much any new good deck, but its walking a tightrope using the best piece of fast mana in the format to facilitate kills before turn 4. it reminds me of amulet bloom, but possibly just 1 step short of crossing the line. it deserves the benefit of the doubt until it proves otherwise though.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)If you have an instant you can cast, and a Retriever Myr out you can announce the spell, sac both the artifacts to "pay" for part of the spell, then use the Retriever ability to return the KCI to your hand. Usually you're just a mana or two short of replaying KCI and continuing. I don't think the deck is broken, but it is incredibly resilient in the hands of a skilled pilot.
Damping Sphere has been the best card to come out of Dominaria. Most decks are running 2+ and it's making a ton of combo and tron decks play honest. Otherwise I am sure we would have seen upwards of 15% of the meta being shared with both Storm and KCI.
Even based on MTGGoldfish Data, its the 7th most played spell in Modern. Link
I don't think we have ever seen a card climb in the ranks of playability so fast in Modern's History. Treasure Cruise didn't even climb up that fast.
There are a lot of people desperate to make a few decks (Storm, Tron in particular) play on their terms, which are certainly closer to the fair spectrum, than those two.
I have it in my side I think still, in UR Breach.
EDIT: Claim at 5 and Stirrings at 6...lol.
Spirits
Again, we don't actually know this for sure. What we do know is of the decks reported, xx% of them run that card. Of the different archetypes that have data, xx% of those archetypes play it. Actual copies and actual percentage of meta is a complete guess and mystery.
And it would make sense that a lot of people are playing Damping Sphere, as it's a hate card for multiple popular decks that can go into any deck with no color restrictions.
I would actually love to talk to MTG Goldfish themselves to reword their pages like this. Because these percentages no longer represent the number of copies played in Modern. They represent the number of different decks playing that card. So cards that see widespread use across multiple decks will inevitably place higher than any card that sees tons of play in only 1 or 2 decks (even if those multiple decks hold significantly less meta share).
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
mtgtop8 provides two numbers, one is the percentage of decks playing the card, the other is the average number of copies of that card in the decks that do play it. Thus you get cards like Springleaf Drum in 4% of decks but 4.0 copies, and you get cards like Field of Ruin at 18% of decks but 2.3 copies.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
It's possible, but again, has totally different meaning than "there are xx% of these in the format."
If we use the simplified example of Random Deck XYZ, the info we have now basically tells us "there is at least 1 this deck showing up that has been reported x number of weeks." Over enough weeks, we will know which decks have "at least one result reported" and those without results reported.
But again, this smooths out the curve by over-representing small cases and under-representing large cases. Even over time, if there is at least one example showing up with any consistency, it carries the same weight as decks with hundreds of 5-0s a week. The only time the numbers will actually rise/drop is if absolutely nobody has a 5-0 with it, or if there are dozens and dozens of paper results to push something up. Almost anything can 5-0 a non-Swiss League and it often takes months of paper results (each of which are fairly chaotic in makeup and results) to generate any meaningful data.
I don't necessarily mind the current system in place, it just gets under my skin that we're still using old terms and assumptions for data that in no way represents those old terms and assumptions.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
From that picture alone, you can make very reasonable choices, especially if one of those 3, are 'your' meta. Are we going to argue that the top cards in the format are not Bolt, Path, Stirrings, Snaps, Thalia and so on?
I dont think so. Just looking at the top 5-10 creatures/spells, I bet everyone on this forum (since we are all way more invested than your average person) could name the decks they go in. Thats the meta, right there.
Its irrelevant if Wizards is hiding the data by posting h0lydiva's Bloo 5-0's. I dont see Thing in the Ice in the Top 50 Creatures.
Yes, it sucks (in certain arguments) to not have the data but you all know we dont actually make ban list choices anyway, this past announcement just put another nail into that topic. So who cares? We cannot predict unbans, we cannot predict bans, and we dont need to.
We can however get a general idea of the flow of the meta, several of us have shown this over the past 2+ months.
Spirits