I'm sure Modern not being supported on Arena will change eventually regardless of what statement they put out. It's been established that Modern is the most popular format, it seems silly for them to keep it off Arena. It also seems like the easiest way to monetize the format if they put their heads to it. I say give it time, Modern Arena will happen.
I personally will never move to online magic, I'm sure many feel the same way for different reasons. I personally like sitting face to face with people, it's a big draw for me that goes beyond why the game pulls me in. Until they stop printing paper cards, I'll be a paper player. When that day comes, I will likely not play magic anymore.
I think modern is in a very difficult position in terms of online support in arena. The thing that butchered standard was not necessarily bad design, but a design that was about a player executing a game plan without concern for what the opponent was doing. Approach of the Second Sun, the negation of the ability to block with Ramunap red, indestructable creatures that were neigh unanswerable, energy having no way to be interacted with, and value creatures such as Phoenix and the scarab god were just brutal.
To a massive casual audience, is there even a way to play something in modern other than strait aggro without having a ton of cards backlogged? If not would the environment really be different from kaladesh standard?
I'm playing Arena, and its just bad decks playing against bad decks at this point. Those bombs you mention are just replaced with other bombs, that render the game over well before someone hits 0.
I'm sure Wizards could hand out new, bad, Modern decks daily just as well as they can hand out bad Standard decks daily. I'm not sure how that would be difficult to do when you have, what, 16,000+ cards possible?
Hell, just replace many of the cards with their Modern replacements its not like they are not recycling design constantly.
The issue in my eyes, is good luck putting together a 'real' Modern deck in any time reasonable. My Knightfall deck is at a glance, outside basics, and 7 cards, Rare or Mythic in the main deck. Thats a lot of Wildcards...
Many Twin players in this thread belittled Jeskai's early 2018 success on the SCG circuit and then doubted UW's success in Summer 2018. It's just another historical example of the same small cohort of Twin players that has consistently posted in this thread since 2016 (idsurge, cfp, the late hellfire, recently yourself, etc.) and wanted this card unbanned regardless of what the format looked like.
BTW, this wasnt me. I've said UWR, UW (both Mana Denial when it was needed, and Miracles after) UW and Bant Spirits, and even recently (not GP level) UR Moon, have all been 'viable'.
I said well before it was 'known' that UWR could be tuned to be successful when the meta was Humans and Hollow One.
we, as players, are only in a capacity to use the information at hand. deck too good? its winning too much. format diverse? archetype and color representation in event results. format popular? tournament attendance, viewership. might wizards do X? yes/no because they have/haven't done it before.
for example if you are basing your arguments on the assumption that modern would be 'better' (by whatever metric) if the banlist were curated so any card that doesnt explicitly break anything should be unbanned. great, a fine opinion to have. the issue is that wizards doesnt do this. we see they dont do this. so why would you make a case for unbanning based on it? it includes all sorts of subjectivity, such as what people enjoy (ie fun) or what players want. so no meaningful way to logically conclude that such a banlist philosophy would reach such a state; even if wizards magically decided to throw off the shackles of conservatism. its a dead end beyond letting others know, and seeing if they believe the same.
so we are left with diversity, because that is the only thing afaik that wizards has implicitly or explicitly acknowledged in ban/unban annoucements (outside of the broken stuff). no one here is going to do extensive testing, which wouldnt even be very credible; nor are people willing to delve deeply enough to account for format complexity that cant be examined by listing a few cards or decks.
i believe that wizards believes that modern is really good right now. meaning the bar to make it better is quite high. breaking even is a piss poor incentive to rock the boat.
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As I said in the quoted post, the ineffectiveness of a ban is not SUFFICIENT to justify an unban. I.e. the ineffectiveness cannot solely be the reason. The unban must ALSO increase diversity.
You keep saying this, but it's not always true. Sure, most of the recent unbans have been to help struggling archetypes, but there is precedent for unbans that were for other reasons:
Recent Modern tournaments have been diverse, with no deck dominating the metagame. Since Modern is a non-rotating format, banned cards never rotate out. The DCI is unbanning a card to see how that affects the format. We looked for cards that were on the initial banned list for Pro Tour Philadelphia. We wanted a card that would not easily slot into an existing top deck and also wanted to enable a deck with a different play pattern than the current top decks. After examining the options, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle was selected as the card to unban.
Valakut was not unbanned because they thought it would increase diversity. They thought the format was healthy and diverse, so they wanted to release a banned card that would perhaps create a new deck with different play to it than other decks in the format.
At the time of Modern's inception, the dominance of Faeries in Standard was at the front of our minds. Therefore, we took the conservative approach of including Bitterblossom in the initial banned list. After observing the evolution of the Modern format, we feel that it is of an appropriate power level to compete with the other powerful strategies in the format.
Bitterblossom was also not unbanned to increase diversity, it was unbanned because WotC felt like it was at an appropriate power level for the format.
So this thing you keep saying that any unban MUST increase diversity is simply not true. It's often a major reason why they unban cards, but it's not the only reason. In fact, the reasons given for Valakut and Bitterblossom can apply to Twin. Twin has a unique play style to it that doesn't really exist in Modern anymore, being combo/control, and those of us arguing for an unban obviously believe it's at an appropriate power level for the format. There is precedent for things being unbanned for these reasons.
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[quote from="ktkenshinx »" url="/forums/the-game/modern/799362-the-state-of-modern-thread-b-r-01-10-2018?comment=316"]
As I said in the quoted post, the ineffectiveness of a ban is not SUFFICIENT to justify an unban. I.e. the ineffectiveness cannot solely be the reason. The unban must ALSO increase diversity.
You keep saying this, but it's not always true. Sure, most of the recent unbans have been to help struggling archetypes, but there is precedent for unbans that were for other reasons:
Recent Modern tournaments have been diverse, with no deck dominating the metagame. Since Modern is a non-rotating format, banned cards never rotate out. The DCI is unbanning a card to see how that affects the format. We looked for cards that were on the initial banned list for Pro Tour Philadelphia. We wanted a card that would not easily slot into an existing top deck and also wanted to enable a deck with a different play pattern than the current top decks. After examining the options, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle was selected as the card to unban.
The Valakut verbiage is clearly just synonymous wording with increasing diversity. They want a new deck with new play patterns to exist alongside top decks, I.e. a net diversity increase.
The BB unban does not mention diversity, merely a power level concern. This is the closest analog to the desired Twin unban, and up until now I don't believe anyone cited this update and wording. They instead, you included, used the Nacatl precedent, which we already know was directly diversity driven. I think it's totally reasonable to use the BB precedent and think this is the first real development in the Twin unban debate since I posted those GP stats in August.
So would you agree, then, that if Twin could come back and no longer be dominant, but just be another good Modern deck without actually increasing diversity beyond just the addition of itself, that it would be a good unban target?
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Which were the same I posted showing no appreciable difference in Diversity, especially in terms of Blue decks, and that Affinity has many many top 8s?
Bitterblossom was also not unbanned to increase diversity, it was unbanned because WotC felt like it was at an appropriate power level for the format.
I do remember WoTC saying something like that, although it was sometime ago.. can't remember the link to the article anymore.
BB unban is my most favorite unban.. using it as a single in my BG. Discarding it to escalate Collective Brutality turns a 4/5 goyf into a 6/7, also helps Grim to reach delirium faster. And if cast early against the right decks, it puts out blockers each turn.
Only complaint I have with the card is the MM15 faerie token is almost impossible to find.. have been trying for more than a year and still don't have even one. Always out of stock at SCG. -____-
I'm sure Modern not being supported on Arena will change eventually regardless of what statement they put out. It's been established that Modern is the most popular format, it seems silly for them to keep it off Arena. It also seems like the easiest way to monetize the format if they put their heads to it. I say give it time, Modern Arena will happen.
I personally will never move to online magic, I'm sure many feel the same way for different reasons. I personally like sitting face to face with people, it's a big draw for me that goes beyond why the game pulls me in. Until they stop printing paper cards, I'll be a paper player. When that day comes, I will likely not play magic anymore.
I think modern is in a very difficult position in terms of online support in arena. The thing that butchered standard was not necessarily bad design, but a design that was about a player executing a game plan without concern for what the opponent was doing. Approach of the Second Sun, the negation of the ability to block with Ramunap red, indestructable creatures that were neigh unanswerable, energy having no way to be interacted with, and value creatures such as Phoenix and the scarab god were just brutal.
To a massive casual audience, is there even a way to play something in modern other than strait aggro without having a ton of cards backlogged? If not would the environment really be different from kaladesh standard?
I'm playing Arena, and its just bad decks playing against bad decks at this point. Those bombs you mention are just replaced with other bombs, that render the game over well before someone hits 0.
I'm sure Wizards could hand out new, bad, Modern decks daily just as well as they can hand out bad Standard decks daily. I'm not sure how that would be difficult to do when you have, what, 16,000+ cards possible?
Hell, just replace many of the cards with their Modern replacements its not like they are not recycling design constantly.
The issue in my eyes, is good luck putting together a 'real' Modern deck in any time reasonable. My Knightfall deck is at a glance, outside basics, and 7 cards, Rare or Mythic in the main deck. Thats a lot of Wildcards...
The problem with modern on arena is the same issue that happened in ladder based fighting games in the early to mid 2000s. It wasn't about playing what gave the best chance at winning as much as what could somewhat reliably win and do so as quickly as possible. We're talking about people that if they see a control deck, they will forfeit and go to the next game just because it's a better use of their time for making the daily achievements. I put over a hundred hours into soul calibur IV, and I can tell you I swapped almost entirely to private games because all I could find in the tier games was Mitsurugi, Kilik, and Cervantes. I got so good at killing them because they would spam the same moves and just flop over. However, the reason they were playing them is because they could just spam the ladder fights to boost their rankings out of sheer attrition.
Basically, imagine playing online and everyone plays storm, burn, and maybe humans. You could build a deck that just annihilates those three match ups, but if it is all you play against after a while it can wear you down. They did make it so that it punishes people who play the same deck too much, but someone could just swap out between three or four decks and reset the system every other day by playing some jank deck. If the developers worked around this with a learning system that permanently punishes people from playing the same group of cards together on a long term basis that would probably just kill modern in Arena outright.
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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!
What you describe is already MTGO, most don't care to play the decks that go to the clock near every game. It's a huge part of why aggro is so popular, we even discussed this in this thread when UWR started getting camera time.
Every game was a grind, and a lot of people had never understood how long and grinding the games were.
Teferi turning the corner was a godsend.
The only thing really hurting Modern is there are a number of cards that would be a programming issue as far as limiting clicks go.
If you have ever played Aristocrats or Shaman online you'll know what I mean.
That's probably true in the ladders, but you don't get any rewards for ladder wins. The constructed events reward actually winning, so if you play a fast deck you're not necessarily getting rewarded for it unless it's actually good and you're breaking above even with it.
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That's probably true in the ladders, but you don't get any rewards for ladder wins. The constructed events reward actually winning, so if you play a fast deck you're not necessarily getting rewarded for it unless it's actually good and you're breaking above even with it.
Did MTGO also have dailies, though? I know that the MMO like grind to complete dailies is the one reason I do not think that modern would work in Arena outside of the punishment system.
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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!
That's probably true in the ladders, but you don't get any rewards for ladder wins. The constructed events reward actually winning, so if you play a fast deck you're not necessarily getting rewarded for it unless it's actually good and you're breaking above even with it.
Did MTGO also have dailies, though? I know that the MMO like grind to complete dailies is the one reason I do not think that modern would work in Arena outside of the punishment system.
The dailies are super easy to do just by playing the game normally. It's stuff like "Cast 30 red spells," or "Attack with 20 creatures." And you can complete them in the constructed events or even draft, you don't have to do them in the free play ladder.
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That's probably true in the ladders, but you don't get any rewards for ladder wins. The constructed events reward actually winning, so if you play a fast deck you're not necessarily getting rewarded for it unless it's actually good and you're breaking above even with it.
Did MTGO also have dailies, though? I know that the MMO like grind to complete dailies is the one reason I do not think that modern would work in Arena outside of the punishment system.
The dailies are super easy to do just by playing the game normally. It's stuff like "Cast 30 red spells," or "Attack with 20 creatures." And you can complete them in the constructed events or even draft, you don't have to do them in the free play ladder.
Yeah, and the big one so far is 'play a game, get a new deck' once a day...not win, simply play a game.
So would you agree, then, that if Twin could come back and no longer be dominant, but just be another good Modern deck without actually increasing diversity beyond just the addition of itself, that it would be a good unban target?
If it didn't decrease diversity then yes. I'm just not convinced it wouldn't decrease it. And yes, I agree that the citation of the BB unbanning reason and linking it to Twin represents progress on the unban case. If someone has done this before and deserves the credit, feel free to mention them.
Which were the same I posted showing no appreciable difference in Diversity, especially in terms of Blue decks, and that Affinity has many many top 8s?
I'm not sure what analysis you're referring to. I do know that UR Twin alone had more 2015 T8s than Affinity if you count both GP alone (7 UR Twin vs. 5 Affinity) and GP plus the PT (9 UR Twin vs. 7 Affinity). Once you add in the Grixis, Jeskai, and Temur Twin wins, the gap is even larger. But I really don't want to debate the justness of the ban at the time. It's simply not material to the current argument.
Re: Arena
It's super easy to grind in the game. You just get free gold for doing everything with virtually no meaningful penalties for losing in Constructed. You can definitely lose games in Limited and feel like you're losing out on prizes, but even a semi-competent Guilds drafter will turn a profit from the 5000 gold entry fee. I'm not a great drafter and consider myself an above average player; I am routinely going 5-3 or better in Limited just drafting Dimir and Grixis and am totally infinite with 2 viable Constructed decks (Golgari and Burn). I even have WCs to spare. The Arena model will completely revolutionize MTG and will likely have major implications for Modern in the midterm future.
At this point I dont even know how Wizards is going to make money, because yeah, there is nothing hard about grinding up some Gold/Decks/Wildcards, and you can just Draft or play. A free draft every what, couple of hours over a few days of casual play? OK...
At this point I dont even know how Wizards is going to make money, because yeah, there is nothing hard about grinding up some Gold/Decks/Wildcards, and you can just Draft or play. A free draft every what, couple of hours over a few days of casual play? OK...
convenience. its a commonly successful model in free to play or similar games with micro-transactions. hearthstone is the closest analog. you can easily play the game from scratch and build into any and all decks, yet the game makes money hand over fist because people value convenience. hide it under the guise of a bunch of small seemingly innocuous transactions and suddenly people are paying hundreds of dollars while others play for free.
people will buy packs/gems or whatever. once wizards recoups the cost of development, relatively low overhead for maintenance means nice profit margins.
i also heard an offhand comment about physical packs containing codes for arena packs. not sure if its confirmed, and or if and when that will roll out.
as for the gameplay, its like you said about mtgo. the system incentivizes aggro because at some point quantity outweighs quality over a similar time period. mtgo has always had it, hearthstone has it, and arena will be no different. i remember grinding hearthstone ladders was always a chore, especially when the season restarted. you had to wade through non-stop face decks before you got to the ranks where it started to slow down and a real meta developed.
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If it didn't decrease diversity then yes. I'm just not convinced it wouldn't decrease it.
So what's our definition of decreasing diversity? Let's say Twin comes back, and it usurps both the Blue Moon decks and UR Wizards decks, all of whom are tier ~3 or 4 strategies, but it itself is a competitively viable deck without being dominant. Is that considered decreasing diversity? Yeah, we lose a couple fringe decks, but we gain another competitive option in the format. I personally would view that as an increase to diversity. I don't think the diversity of tier "playable" decks is what really matters. What matters is the diversity at the top levels of competitive play.
So now we should discuss how Twin looks against the current top tier meta game. Here's the top decks on mtggoldfish right now: Burn, UW Control, Tron, Jund, Humans, Dredge, Spirits, Jeskai, Hollow One, GDS, Mardu Pyro, Hardened Scales. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on these matchups, I'll give my impressions as a former Twin player:
Burn: Toss up. Burn vs. Twin was always close IMO, and neither deck has changed much since 2015. UW Control: UW is favored. Blue control was always a bad matchup for Twin, and these decks are WAY stronger now than they were in 2015. An interesting thing, too, is that UW can safely tap out for Teferi and plus him. Tron: I'm honestly not sure, but I think it would be close to even, if not maybe slightly in Tron's favor now. This was traditionally a good matchup for Twin, but it had gotten much closer after the printing of Ulamog in BFZ. Now Tron has things like World Breaker, Walking Ballista, and Thought-knot Seer. I'd like to hear other opinions here. Jund: Was always a rough matchup. They now have BBE and Trophy, and Last Hope is brutal against our tempo plan, as she kills all of our creatures except Exarch. Even with Twin getting JTMS post board, I feel like this would still be in Jund's favor. Humans: I think the Humans deck would have to change to incorporate more instant speed interaction, but I could see Humans being favored if it did. They have a lot of troublesome creatures for Twin. Freebooter looks at our hand and can take Twins or removal spells, Meddling Mage can name removal or combo pieces, little Thalia taxes our spells, big Thalia hoses our combo unless we kill her, Vial + Reflector Mage blows us out if we try and combo into it, all while applying a fast clock that Twin will struggle to contain. But this shouldn't surprise anyone, Humans does this to every combo synergy deck, that's why it's so good. Dredge: Twin is almost certainly favored. This is the type of deck Twin used to beat up on. Dredge has good tools they're already playing in their sideboard, though, like Thoughtseize, Lightning Axe, Nature's Claim, and Trophy. It's possible Dredge could be favored post-board. Spirits: This one is interesting to think about. Spell Queller can delay your attempt to combo, and then Drogskol Captains can come down and protect the Queller. They do play a full playset of Path main, as well. I'm not sure about this matchup, I feel like it could go either way. Jeskai: Blue control, would probably be favored. Hollow One: Twin would probably be favored here against anything but their most busted draws. GDS: I think GDS would be a pretty strong favorite. It's a deck full of everything that was good against Twin: discard spells, removal, permission, and a fast clock. Mardu Pyro: Ugh, this one looks like it would be miserable. This matchup was a bloodbath when SCG did their video. Pretty solidly in Mardu's favor. Hardened Scales: Probably in Twin's favor. Twin always beat Affinity, but I think Scales would actually be better against Twin. Twin still probably favored, though.
So by my count, that's 3 of the top 12 decks that I'm pretty sure Twin would be good against, 5 where I'm pretty sure it would be unfavored, and the remaining 4 are either even or I'm not sure. What's everyone else's opinions on these?
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for sure. arena is going to be a big change for the game, for better or worse.
personally, as digital card games go, artifact is grabbing my attention more than arena. especially since im already established in mtg and get my fill of the game from currently existing outlets. as the saying goes; there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. that and i want to see what richard garfield cooked up, though i suspect his input might be ultimately minimal since you only really gotta pay the dude to throw his name around. the whole steam marketplace thing for trading might be genius or just blow up in valves face.
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If it didn't decrease diversity then yes. I'm just not convinced it wouldn't decrease it.
So what's our definition of decreasing diversity? Let's say Twin comes back, and it usurps both the Blue Moon decks and UR Wizards decks, all of whom are tier ~3 or 4 strategies, but it itself is a competitively viable deck without being dominant. Is that considered decreasing diversity? Yeah, we lose a couple fringe decks, but we gain another competitive option in the format. I personally would view that as an increase to diversity. I don't think the diversity of tier "playable" decks is what really matters. What matters is the diversity at the top levels of competitive play.
So now we should discuss how Twin looks against the current top tier meta game. Here's the top decks on mtggoldfish right now: Burn, UW Control, Tron, Jund, Humans, Dredge, Spirits, Jeskai, Hollow One, GDS, Mardu Pyro, Hardened Scales. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on these matchups, I'll give my impressions as a former Twin player:
Burn: Toss up. Burn vs. Twin was always close IMO, and neither deck has changed much since 2015. UW Control: UW is favored. Blue control was always a bad matchup for Twin, and these decks are WAY stronger now than they were in 2015. An interesting thing, too, is that UW can safely tap out for Teferi and plus him. Tron: I'm honestly not sure, but I think it would be close to even, if not maybe slightly in Tron's favor now. This was traditionally a good matchup for Twin, but it had gotten much closer after the printing of Ulamog in BFZ. Now Tron has things like World Breaker, Walking Ballista, and Thought-knot Seer. I'd like to hear other opinions here. Jund: Was always a rough matchup. They now have BBE and Trophy, and Last Hope is brutal against our tempo plan, as she kills all of our creatures except Exarch. Even with Twin getting JTMS post board, I feel like this would still be in Jund's favor. Humans: I think the Humans deck would have to change to incorporate more instant speed interaction, but I could see Humans being favored if it did. They have a lot of troublesome creatures for Twin. Freebooter looks at our hand and can take Twins or removal spells, Meddling Mage can name removal or combo pieces, little Thalia taxes our spells, big Thalia hoses our combo unless we kill her, Vial + Reflector Mage blows us out if we try and combo into it, all while applying a fast clock that Twin will struggle to contain. But this shouldn't surprise anyone, Humans does this to every combo synergy deck, that's why it's so good. Dredge: Twin is almost certainly favored. This is the type of deck Twin used to beat up on. Dredge has good tools they're already playing in their sideboard, though, like Thoughtseize, Lightning Axe, Nature's Claim, and Trophy. It's possible Dredge could be favored post-board. Spirits: This one is interesting to think about. Spell Queller can delay your attempt to combo, and then Drogskol Captains can come down and protect the Queller. They do play a full playset of Path main, as well. I'm not sure about this matchup, I feel like it could go either way. Jeskai: Blue control, would probably be favored. Hollow One: Twin would probably be favored here against anything but their most busted draws. GDS: I think GDS would be a pretty strong favorite. It's a deck full of everything that was good against Twin: discard spells, removal, permission, and a fast clock. Mardu Pyro: Ugh, this one looks like it would be miserable. This matchup was a bloodbath when SCG did their video. Pretty solidly in Mardu's favor. Hardened Scales: Probably in Twin's favor. Twin always beat Affinity, but I think Scales would actually be better against Twin. Twin still probably favored, though.
So by my count, that's 3 of the top 12 decks that I'm pretty sure Twin would be good against, 5 where I'm pretty sure it would be unfavored, and the remaining 4 are either even or I'm not sure. What's everyone else's opinions on these?
I believe that the "diversity" that they refer to is not necessarily just at the very top levels. Twin brought back would do that by 1 deck, or 3-4 depending on how you separate Grixis, RUG, and UR (or JEskai). But it would decrease diversity potentially at other levels. Some decks just wouldn't be playable if many players play Twin. But then some have the argument that those decks are actually not playable right now. So I really don't know how to appease both sides.
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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)
The more I think about it, the more I feel like Humans, after a small tweak to account for the presence of Twin, would be a bad matchup. If they have a vial on 3, you can't ever go for the combo unless you're staring down lethal. Reflector Mage or big Thalia vialed in absolutely blow you out, as does Staticaster if your combo creature is Pestermite, or Auriok Champion if it's Exarch.
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Agree on what you said about Pod. BP has so many new toys to play with, it's power level would certainly be much higher if unbanned now.
Although it feels nostalgic in a nice way. Remembering those good old days when people are talking about what to put into their pod decks.
Oh, and sorry to hear you experienced a lot of bannings.
I mean, that happens when you play a lot of "broken" cards ^^
Also, while a card can be pretty "garbage" on its own it is always the setting which matters. This means, that something like Seething Song on it's own would be fine, but couple it with the other acceleration and synergy cards (Electromancer, Ascension, newly Baral) the card gets busted. Hence, context is important.
~stuff~ No Banlist Modern at SCG happened, and no Twin were in there.
I believe Twin would be weaker than before. Which would make it an unban competitor again.
I agree with @Wraithpk, cards should not be unbanned only if they increase diversity, they should be unbanned if there is no reason to be held into the prison. Now, there are various people believing Twin would be fine again.
Also, in the positive side, it means even more interactive Modern and with Dredge potentially becoming tier 1 again, it means even less bannings.
Just my views.
Dude, never ever compare NBL Modern to normal Modern, it would be the same as comparing Legacy with Modern. Those are two completely different formats while sharing 99,9999% of the cards.
Most busted deck in NBL Modern? Tezzerator. The deck is hot garbage in Modern.
Most consistent and probably the best tempo deck? UW Death and Taxes, again, Death and Taxes is at best Tier 2, on most occasion Tier 4+, in Modern.
Just because Twin had basically no showing in NBL (which mainly stems from a really bad deck building and not knowing how to play the format) does not allow the conclusion, that it would be fine in normal Modern...
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
You are right. Unless they tap your vial end of your turn. Then go for the combo. The way Todd Stevens was deprived of his win by Todd Anderson.
Overall, given that Humans beats on all combo mathups(KCI is even, because it plays 3 Explosives in the mainboard), I feel that it would be favourable vs Twin. But not sure.
I think Todd misplayed that match, too. First of all, Humans almost certainly swaps Bugler for big Thalia if Twin is legal, a lot of people think they should do that anyway. Todd kept naming Lightning Bolt with his Meddling Mages, though, which can't be correct. Twin can just ignore a Mage on Bolt and kill you through it. If you name Splinter Twin, you force them to have both pieces of the combo and a way to remove the Mage, effectively turning them into a 3 card combo. That is probably enough to buy Humans the time it needs to kill the Twin player.
Dude, never ever compare NBL Modern to normal Modern, it would be the same as comparing Legacy with Modern. Those are two completely different formats while sharing 99,9999% of the cards.
Most busted deck in NBL Modern? Tezzerator. The deck is hot garbage in Modern.
Most consistent and probably the best tempo deck? UW Death and Taxes, again, Death and Taxes is at best Tier 2, on most occasion Tier 4+, in Modern.
Just because Twin had basically no showing in NBL (which mainly stems from a really bad deck building and not knowing how to play the format) does not allow the conclusion, that it would be fine in normal Modern...
Greetings,
Kathal
Most busted deck in NBL Modern is Eldrazi, and it's not very close. That deck completely dominated the SCG NBL Modern tournament they did. Next best thing was Dark Depths. Those two decks were 19 out of the top 25 of the tournament.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
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I'm playing Arena, and its just bad decks playing against bad decks at this point. Those bombs you mention are just replaced with other bombs, that render the game over well before someone hits 0.
I'm sure Wizards could hand out new, bad, Modern decks daily just as well as they can hand out bad Standard decks daily. I'm not sure how that would be difficult to do when you have, what, 16,000+ cards possible?
Hell, just replace many of the cards with their Modern replacements its not like they are not recycling design constantly.
The issue in my eyes, is good luck putting together a 'real' Modern deck in any time reasonable. My Knightfall deck is at a glance, outside basics, and 7 cards, Rare or Mythic in the main deck. Thats a lot of Wildcards...
Spirits
BTW, this wasnt me. I've said UWR, UW (both Mana Denial when it was needed, and Miracles after) UW and Bant Spirits, and even recently (not GP level) UR Moon, have all been 'viable'.
I said well before it was 'known' that UWR could be tuned to be successful when the meta was Humans and Hollow One.
Spirits
for example if you are basing your arguments on the assumption that modern would be 'better' (by whatever metric) if the banlist were curated so any card that doesnt explicitly break anything should be unbanned. great, a fine opinion to have. the issue is that wizards doesnt do this. we see they dont do this. so why would you make a case for unbanning based on it? it includes all sorts of subjectivity, such as what people enjoy (ie fun) or what players want. so no meaningful way to logically conclude that such a banlist philosophy would reach such a state; even if wizards magically decided to throw off the shackles of conservatism. its a dead end beyond letting others know, and seeing if they believe the same.
so we are left with diversity, because that is the only thing afaik that wizards has implicitly or explicitly acknowledged in ban/unban annoucements (outside of the broken stuff). no one here is going to do extensive testing, which wouldnt even be very credible; nor are people willing to delve deeply enough to account for format complexity that cant be examined by listing a few cards or decks.
i believe that wizards believes that modern is really good right now. meaning the bar to make it better is quite high. breaking even is a piss poor incentive to rock the boat.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Valakut was not unbanned because they thought it would increase diversity. They thought the format was healthy and diverse, so they wanted to release a banned card that would perhaps create a new deck with different play to it than other decks in the format.
Bitterblossom was also not unbanned to increase diversity, it was unbanned because WotC felt like it was at an appropriate power level for the format.
So this thing you keep saying that any unban MUST increase diversity is simply not true. It's often a major reason why they unban cards, but it's not the only reason. In fact, the reasons given for Valakut and Bitterblossom can apply to Twin. Twin has a unique play style to it that doesn't really exist in Modern anymore, being combo/control, and those of us arguing for an unban obviously believe it's at an appropriate power level for the format. There is precedent for things being unbanned for these reasons.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
The Valakut verbiage is clearly just synonymous wording with increasing diversity. They want a new deck with new play patterns to exist alongside top decks, I.e. a net diversity increase.
The BB unban does not mention diversity, merely a power level concern. This is the closest analog to the desired Twin unban, and up until now I don't believe anyone cited this update and wording. They instead, you included, used the Nacatl precedent, which we already know was directly diversity driven. I think it's totally reasonable to use the BB precedent and think this is the first real development in the Twin unban debate since I posted those GP stats in August.
So would you agree, then, that if Twin could come back and no longer be dominant, but just be another good Modern deck without actually increasing diversity beyond just the addition of itself, that it would be a good unban target?
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Spirits
I do remember WoTC saying something like that, although it was sometime ago.. can't remember the link to the article anymore.
BB unban is my most favorite unban.. using it as a single in my BG. Discarding it to escalate Collective Brutality turns a 4/5 goyf into a 6/7, also helps Grim to reach delirium faster. And if cast early against the right decks, it puts out blockers each turn.
Only complaint I have with the card is the MM15 faerie token is almost impossible to find.. have been trying for more than a year and still don't have even one. Always out of stock at SCG. -____-
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
The problem with modern on arena is the same issue that happened in ladder based fighting games in the early to mid 2000s. It wasn't about playing what gave the best chance at winning as much as what could somewhat reliably win and do so as quickly as possible. We're talking about people that if they see a control deck, they will forfeit and go to the next game just because it's a better use of their time for making the daily achievements. I put over a hundred hours into soul calibur IV, and I can tell you I swapped almost entirely to private games because all I could find in the tier games was Mitsurugi, Kilik, and Cervantes. I got so good at killing them because they would spam the same moves and just flop over. However, the reason they were playing them is because they could just spam the ladder fights to boost their rankings out of sheer attrition.
Basically, imagine playing online and everyone plays storm, burn, and maybe humans. You could build a deck that just annihilates those three match ups, but if it is all you play against after a while it can wear you down. They did make it so that it punishes people who play the same deck too much, but someone could just swap out between three or four decks and reset the system every other day by playing some jank deck. If the developers worked around this with a learning system that permanently punishes people from playing the same group of cards together on a long term basis that would probably just kill modern in Arena outright.
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!
Every game was a grind, and a lot of people had never understood how long and grinding the games were.
Teferi turning the corner was a godsend.
The only thing really hurting Modern is there are a number of cards that would be a programming issue as far as limiting clicks go.
If you have ever played Aristocrats or Shaman online you'll know what I mean.
Edit: I may have those Fluff, I'll look.
Spirits
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Did MTGO also have dailies, though? I know that the MMO like grind to complete dailies is the one reason I do not think that modern would work in Arena outside of the punishment system.
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!
If that was Burn, or Storm, or ...whatever, what difference does it make?
Spirits
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Yeah, and the big one so far is 'play a game, get a new deck' once a day...not win, simply play a game.
Spirits
If it didn't decrease diversity then yes. I'm just not convinced it wouldn't decrease it. And yes, I agree that the citation of the BB unbanning reason and linking it to Twin represents progress on the unban case. If someone has done this before and deserves the credit, feel free to mention them.
I'm not sure what analysis you're referring to. I do know that UR Twin alone had more 2015 T8s than Affinity if you count both GP alone (7 UR Twin vs. 5 Affinity) and GP plus the PT (9 UR Twin vs. 7 Affinity). Once you add in the Grixis, Jeskai, and Temur Twin wins, the gap is even larger. But I really don't want to debate the justness of the ban at the time. It's simply not material to the current argument.
Re: Arena
It's super easy to grind in the game. You just get free gold for doing everything with virtually no meaningful penalties for losing in Constructed. You can definitely lose games in Limited and feel like you're losing out on prizes, but even a semi-competent Guilds drafter will turn a profit from the 5000 gold entry fee. I'm not a great drafter and consider myself an above average player; I am routinely going 5-3 or better in Limited just drafting Dimir and Grixis and am totally infinite with 2 viable Constructed decks (Golgari and Burn). I even have WCs to spare. The Arena model will completely revolutionize MTG and will likely have major implications for Modern in the midterm future.
Spirits
convenience. its a commonly successful model in free to play or similar games with micro-transactions. hearthstone is the closest analog. you can easily play the game from scratch and build into any and all decks, yet the game makes money hand over fist because people value convenience. hide it under the guise of a bunch of small seemingly innocuous transactions and suddenly people are paying hundreds of dollars while others play for free.
people will buy packs/gems or whatever. once wizards recoups the cost of development, relatively low overhead for maintenance means nice profit margins.
i also heard an offhand comment about physical packs containing codes for arena packs. not sure if its confirmed, and or if and when that will roll out.
as for the gameplay, its like you said about mtgo. the system incentivizes aggro because at some point quantity outweighs quality over a similar time period. mtgo has always had it, hearthstone has it, and arena will be no different. i remember grinding hearthstone ladders was always a chore, especially when the season restarted. you had to wade through non-stop face decks before you got to the ranks where it started to slow down and a real meta developed.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Spirits
So now we should discuss how Twin looks against the current top tier meta game. Here's the top decks on mtggoldfish right now: Burn, UW Control, Tron, Jund, Humans, Dredge, Spirits, Jeskai, Hollow One, GDS, Mardu Pyro, Hardened Scales. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on these matchups, I'll give my impressions as a former Twin player:
Burn: Toss up. Burn vs. Twin was always close IMO, and neither deck has changed much since 2015.
UW Control: UW is favored. Blue control was always a bad matchup for Twin, and these decks are WAY stronger now than they were in 2015. An interesting thing, too, is that UW can safely tap out for Teferi and plus him.
Tron: I'm honestly not sure, but I think it would be close to even, if not maybe slightly in Tron's favor now. This was traditionally a good matchup for Twin, but it had gotten much closer after the printing of Ulamog in BFZ. Now Tron has things like World Breaker, Walking Ballista, and Thought-knot Seer. I'd like to hear other opinions here.
Jund: Was always a rough matchup. They now have BBE and Trophy, and Last Hope is brutal against our tempo plan, as she kills all of our creatures except Exarch. Even with Twin getting JTMS post board, I feel like this would still be in Jund's favor.
Humans: I think the Humans deck would have to change to incorporate more instant speed interaction, but I could see Humans being favored if it did. They have a lot of troublesome creatures for Twin. Freebooter looks at our hand and can take Twins or removal spells, Meddling Mage can name removal or combo pieces, little Thalia taxes our spells, big Thalia hoses our combo unless we kill her, Vial + Reflector Mage blows us out if we try and combo into it, all while applying a fast clock that Twin will struggle to contain. But this shouldn't surprise anyone, Humans does this to every combo synergy deck, that's why it's so good.
Dredge: Twin is almost certainly favored. This is the type of deck Twin used to beat up on. Dredge has good tools they're already playing in their sideboard, though, like Thoughtseize, Lightning Axe, Nature's Claim, and Trophy. It's possible Dredge could be favored post-board.
Spirits: This one is interesting to think about. Spell Queller can delay your attempt to combo, and then Drogskol Captains can come down and protect the Queller. They do play a full playset of Path main, as well. I'm not sure about this matchup, I feel like it could go either way.
Jeskai: Blue control, would probably be favored.
Hollow One: Twin would probably be favored here against anything but their most busted draws.
GDS: I think GDS would be a pretty strong favorite. It's a deck full of everything that was good against Twin: discard spells, removal, permission, and a fast clock.
Mardu Pyro: Ugh, this one looks like it would be miserable. This matchup was a bloodbath when SCG did their video. Pretty solidly in Mardu's favor.
Hardened Scales: Probably in Twin's favor. Twin always beat Affinity, but I think Scales would actually be better against Twin. Twin still probably favored, though.
So by my count, that's 3 of the top 12 decks that I'm pretty sure Twin would be good against, 5 where I'm pretty sure it would be unfavored, and the remaining 4 are either even or I'm not sure. What's everyone else's opinions on these?
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
personally, as digital card games go, artifact is grabbing my attention more than arena. especially since im already established in mtg and get my fill of the game from currently existing outlets. as the saying goes; there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. that and i want to see what richard garfield cooked up, though i suspect his input might be ultimately minimal since you only really gotta pay the dude to throw his name around. the whole steam marketplace thing for trading might be genius or just blow up in valves face.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I believe that the "diversity" that they refer to is not necessarily just at the very top levels. Twin brought back would do that by 1 deck, or 3-4 depending on how you separate Grixis, RUG, and UR (or JEskai). But it would decrease diversity potentially at other levels. Some decks just wouldn't be playable if many players play Twin. But then some have the argument that those decks are actually not playable right now. So I really don't know how to appease both sides.
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)UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I mean, that happens when you play a lot of "broken" cards ^^
Also, while a card can be pretty "garbage" on its own it is always the setting which matters. This means, that something like Seething Song on it's own would be fine, but couple it with the other acceleration and synergy cards (Electromancer, Ascension, newly Baral) the card gets busted. Hence, context is important.
Dude, never ever compare NBL Modern to normal Modern, it would be the same as comparing Legacy with Modern. Those are two completely different formats while sharing 99,9999% of the cards.
Most busted deck in NBL Modern? Tezzerator. The deck is hot garbage in Modern.
Most consistent and probably the best tempo deck? UW Death and Taxes, again, Death and Taxes is at best Tier 2, on most occasion Tier 4+, in Modern.
Just because Twin had basically no showing in NBL (which mainly stems from a really bad deck building and not knowing how to play the format) does not allow the conclusion, that it would be fine in normal Modern...
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Most busted deck in NBL Modern is Eldrazi, and it's not very close. That deck completely dominated the SCG NBL Modern tournament they did. Next best thing was Dark Depths. Those two decks were 19 out of the top 25 of the tournament.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW