If people bring in arguments of how there are many players who have "completely been driven out of the format", then these people might as well come with some data to back this up, because just claiming it is not enough.
Again, for the people in THIS forum, the result is rather clear. Attendance in events has not dropped as well, so I am not sure where this narrative is coming from, but I guess personal experience is a strong feeling.
This is a metric we can objectively measure and is well documented. I just took the numbers from season 2014-2015 onwards, excluded team events and the results seem to indicate that the average attendance for Modern GPs is going down in the last seasons.
If we are going to use this data as an indicative of how much people enjoy the format, attendance numbers would reinforce the idea that people are being driven out of the format.
If people bring in arguments of how there are many players who have "completely been driven out of the format", then these people might as well come with some data to back this up, because just claiming it is not enough.
Again, for the people in THIS forum, the result is rather clear. Attendance in events has not dropped as well, so I am not sure where this narrative is coming from, but I guess personal experience is a strong feeling.
This is a metric we can objectively measure and is well documented. I just took the numbers from season 2014-2015 onwards, excluded team events and the results seem to indicate that the average attendance for Modern GPs is going down in the last seasons.
If we are going to use this data as an indicative of how much people enjoy the format, attendance numbers would reinforce the idea that people are being driven out of the format.
Doesn't this have a bit of a correlation doesn't equal causation problem? Changes in incentives, prize payouts, number of modern GPs, CFB getting a monopoly on event hosting, etc could all attribute to a decline in attendance.
To kind of reinforce my point, Golgari Grave Troll was banned January 9th 2017 and the "result" was an 18% drop in GP attendance from the previous year
If people bring in arguments of how there are many players who have "completely been driven out of the format", then these people might as well come with some data to back this up, because just claiming it is not enough.
Again, for the people in THIS forum, the result is rather clear. Attendance in events has not dropped as well, so I am not sure where this narrative is coming from, but I guess personal experience is a strong feeling.
This is a metric we can objectively measure and is well documented. I just took the numbers from season 2014-2015 onwards, excluded team events and the results seem to indicate that the average attendance for Modern GPs is going down in the last seasons.
If we are going to use this data as an indicative of how much people enjoy the format, attendance numbers would reinforce the idea that people are being driven out of the format.
Doesn't this have a bit of a correlation doesn't equal causation problem? Changes in incentives, prize payouts, number of modern GPs, CFB getting a monopoly on event hosting, etc could all attribute to a decline in attendance.
To kind of reinforce my point, Golgari Grave Troll was banned January 9th 2017 and the "result" was an 18% drop in GP attendance from the previous year
If you're assuming that GGT was banned at the start of 2017, therefore resulting in attendance drop of 18% for the year Jan 2017 - Jan 2018, then you would be wrong.
Depian mentioned that he counted by seasons and not the actual year. Seasons don't start in Jan and end in Dec. 2016-2017 season started on 13th August 2016 and ended on 30th July 2017. The banning happened right smack in the middle of that particular season. The attendance drop in the next season (2017-2018)can't be attributed to the banning.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
Sure, there could be many reasons affecting GP attendance like the ones you name but before I ran the numbers, all we had is the claim that GP attendance was not dropping and I was curious to know if that was true or not.
Now we have the numbers and we know attendance is actually dropping. The reasons? I don't know, but attendance is dropping and that's a fact. I didn't say we should use GP attendance as correlation of how much players enjoy the format (Ymir said that attendance is not dropping as an indicator of people happiness with the format), but if we were to do so, the results would indicate that people are not engaging with Modern GPs as they did in previous years.
I don't know how you calculated that 18% drop, if we were to compare 2016 vs 2017, these are the numbers I get:
2016 Modern GP average attendance = 1916 players
2017 Modern GP average attendance = 1871 players
So, average attendance from 2016 to 2017 dropped, but only 2%
2018 and 2019 on the other hand, have a significant drop in attendance:
2018 Modern GP average attendance = 1685 players (10% drop vs 2017)
2019 Modern GP average attendance = 1325 players (21% drop vs 2018)
I also noticed that some large GPs (looking at you Vegas), have a great impact on averages, it also happens the other way around with small GPs (there is one in Brazil with less than 800 players), so maybe it would be more interesting to exclude those when analysing averages.
Here is the excel file I am using in case anyone else wants to dig into it and wants to segment by seasons, years, months, etc
I don't know how to attach a file here, so I uploaded to Drive and made it public, let me know if there is a better way to share this file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SOPtFxnbwiUfc5BjOP_e1gmSh3wAvqd2/view?usp=sharing
EDIT: There were some GPs that started one month and were finished in the next month, for the sake of simplicity I have grouped all GPs based on the month of the first date (a GP starting the 31st of March and ending the 2nd of April would be counted in March)
Doesn't really discount my fundamental point. There are a lot of factors that the data Depian is presenting doesn't account for. Even with GGT being banned mid season, the "dredge era" was more popular according to the chart and I think that would be a hard position to support. Similarly Eldrazi winter was a more "popular" format than current.
Regardless, here is some potential issues with the data as presented from the outset:
2015-16 Modern GP #s: 8
2016-17 GPs: 9 *Team modern introduced: +1 if included
2017-18 GPs: 11 *Team modern: +2 **Team Modern Unified: +1 *** Team Trios Constructed: +4
2018-19 GPs: 11 to date with 4 more to go **Team Modern Unified: +1 to date
This excludes team events, but I'm not sure if team events should be excluded necessarily. More modern events could potentially mean lower avg numbers. There are many factors that go into attending a GP for the average player (travel, accommodations, cost to register, etc). More frequent events may not necessarily mean more attendance by the average player, but more events means they can be more selective of what GP they attend.
Total attendance (still excluding team events):
2015-16: 13,945
2016-17: 17,338
2017-18: 21,247
2018-19 td: 9,992 (4 events still to go)
Just comparing the "decline" shown in the avg numbers to total attendance paints a different picture of the format with rising popularity, possibly peaking last season (to be determined).
Agreed, if happenings outside playing the game affecting attendance is your fundamental point, then yes, there are a lot of factors that are frankly impossible to account for.
But using the GGT banning to 'reinforce' your fundamental point is disingenuous at best.
Adding to that, I think 2017/2018 with Modern Masters 3 and fetchland reprints has made Modern far more accessible, which is a great thing, and a huge factor in bringing players in to the format.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
"No I don't enjoy it but I still play, could do with significant changes"
I love modern, I get to play my favorite cards from past standards together its sweet. Except I can't. the format is warped arround some decks that make most other strategies flat out unplayable. How many threads you enter and see it's a autoloss to tron? Way to many.
Modern is set up in a way the that we can't really be creative. Phoenix, Tron, Titan and maybe dredge make everything follow some kind of rules when deckbuilding and yet theres not much one can do against it. When it was the last time we saw some midrange deck have some solid runs? Whats a sweet token build people are running? we have the same decks doing the same things
My take is : Tron was a mistake, actually messing with mana in unfair ways usually is. WOTC has printed way too many 1 collor/free cantrips that let you filter your deck way too much, letting izzet get away with playing so few lands, shaping their hands and fueling the yard and by extention allowing some degenerate things happen. Modern isn't healthy right now,I feel I could pop on standard and have a higher variery of decks be viable.
This is neither friendly to new users, nor respectful to other people's opinions.
Do you think that there is this minor possibility that some people have invested thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of their life into a format they once loved, only to see it transform in to an amalgamation of trash and frustration that bares no resemblance to what it once was?
I don't really understand this argument, although I do see it a lot. The cards from Twin held their value, and are in fact more valuable now than they ever have been. If you hate Modern, feel free to cash out for a profit!
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
This is neither friendly to new users, nor respectful to other people's opinions.
Do you think that there is this minor possibility that some people have invested thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of their life into a format they once loved, only to see it transform in to an amalgamation of trash and frustration that bares no resemblance to what it once was?
I don't really understand this argument, although I do see it a lot. The cards from Twin held their value, and are in fact more valuable now than they ever have been. If you hate Modern, feel free to cash out for a profit!
It only took 3 years to get there! (and I did cash out on MTGO, my LGS is small, couldnt absorb my collection a few weeks back when I went to sell out.)
So I voted ''Indifferent, I just play the format whatever it is''. But I'd like to see Phoenix and Hollow decks going away. Twin was the best dominant deck when it was played. After, GDS was a good top contender, but not a tier-zero deck. Right now, graveyard decks are too prevalent to my taste. Just my two cents.
All of the bans are called for. If any deck has a meta share of over 5%, it needs to get banned. Likewise for any deck that takes a long time to play or archetypes that nobody likes. This has been an amazing innovation of Modern and the reason why people LOVE Modern so much. What will get banned next?
Gitaxian Probe was also way too good. It saw play in every single Modern deck, as "pay 2 life" can be done by any colored or non colored deck in Modern. There literally would not be enough copies for all of the Modern players to play in all of their decks. We have no need for that. We play more fair cards, like Faithless Looting and Ancient Stirrings, the last of which has serious deck building restraints. You have to put crap like lands or Arcbound Ravager in your deck.
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There is always some new deck for people to complain about. Some new card. You can modify your deck or play a different one. Once this set drops most current decks are probably going to be made lower tier. Granted I do disagree with a lot of their bannings. They essentially ban combo every chance they get. Anything they want to label "Unfun" is banned. Well that's super lame. I don't even like combo but it is part of the game. That new Serra the Benevolent they are printing is stupid oppressive having a permanent emblem worship. They have gotten worse at designing magic sets over the years with the colors not being balanced at all. Blue now does everything with other colors lagging behind in design space. The banning of Gitaxian Probe is uncalled for. I'm looking at the ban list now. I see a lot of killed decks that I used to play against.
While I agree with the basic sentiment, it is always sad to see decks get pushed out of a format by a ban, I think playing some NBLM might give you some perspective on why certain certain cards need to be on the ban list. Gitaxian Probe is honestly worthy of a ban. It's less about it fitting into every deck (because it really, really doesn't) and more about how it makes "all in" decks way too safe. While there are some questionables on the list right now, by and large it's a pretty decent pick of the cards that break, warp, or make the format toxic to play in for most players. Sure, Stoneforge Mystic and Preordain really have no business on the banned list, and Green Sun's Zenith, Splinter Twin, Hypergensis, Birthing Pod, and Punishing Fire are all pretty in line with the current levels of power in Modern. However, even though Ascendancy Combo died because of Treasure Cruise's banning, it's definitely for the best.
Tunneling in on the decks that have been banned away without thinking about how those decks affected the format as a whole is a bit disingenuous.
There is always some new deck for people to complain about. Some new card. You can modify your deck or play a different one. Once this set drops most current decks are probably going to be made lower tier. Granted I do disagree with a lot of their bannings. They essentially ban combo every chance they get. Anything they want to label "Unfun" is banned. Well that's super lame. I don't even like combo but it is part of the game. That new Serra the Benevolent they are printing is stupid oppressive having a permanent emblem worship. They have gotten worse at designing magic sets over the years with the colors not being balanced at all. Blue now does everything with other colors lagging behind in design space. The banning of Gitaxian Probe is uncalled for. I'm looking at the ban list now. I see a lot of killed decks that I used to play against.
While I agree with the basic sentiment, it is always sad to see decks get pushed out of a format by a ban, I think playing some NBLM might give you some perspective on why certain certain cards need to be on the ban list. Gitaxian Probe is honestly worthy of a ban. It's less about it fitting into every deck (because it really, really doesn't) and more about how it makes "all in" decks way too safe. While there are some questionables on the list right now, by and large it's a pretty decent pick of the cards that break, warp, or make the format toxic to play in for most players. Sure, Stoneforge Mystic and Preordain really have no business on the banned list, and Green Sun's Zenith, Splinter Twin, Hypergensis, Birthing Pod, and Punishing Fire are all pretty in line with the current levels of power in Modern. However, even though Ascendancy Combo died because of Treasure Cruise's banning, it's definitely for the best.
Tunneling in on the decks that have been banned away without thinking about how those decks affected the format as a whole is a bit disingenuous.
I am curious since you commented on the Treasure Cruise ban, do you think Dig Through Time would be in line with the current power levels in Modern? When TC and DTT were banned, WotC assumed they had to ban both as TC would be replaced by DTT in every deck (which I disagree). It would be interesting to have an idea on how powerful the card is perceived by someone who has a chance to play NBLM as I think it would be in the same group as Birthing Pod, Green Sun's Zenith or Punishing Fire
I've always thought that Dig through Time's banning was way too premature. Treasure Cruise was absurd enough that burn started splashing for it, but DTT costing UU made it much less universal. However it would have been no surprise to me if DTT would have turned out too powerful if it had been given a chance.
WotC assumed they had to ban both as TC would be replaced by DTT in every deck
It's not quite what they said, and they'd probably have a refined judgement if the community asked them today. DTT is one of the best in its category (i.e. "blue tutors"), it doesn't go in every deck but the decks where it goes suddenly get a huge boost. It's in the same vein as Faithless Looting or Gitaxian Probe in that regard : it's not a wincon but a card that tremendously helps you win by adding consistency to your game plan. If the card was in Modern, players would keep complaining about it and it would constantly be on our "watchlist", which is certainly not a spot where players like to be when we take a look at how much we've been talking about Looting and Stirrings these last couple years.
I've always thought that Dig through Time's banning was way too premature. Treasure Cruise was absurd enough that burn started splashing for it, but DTT costing UU made it much less universal. However it would be no surprise to me if DTT would have turned out too powerful.
Combo decks were already quite threatening with DTT. It's the card that actually pushed Twin to the top for good (even though Twin always were Tier 1 in Modern anyway). Even banned, Twin stayed on top, I think it rings a bell. Jeskai Ascendancy, Storm, Scapeshift, ... let's say the combo decks were already taking advantage of the card and showing up results, so I don't think it was prematured, with a step back.
However, even though Ascendancy Combo died because of Treasure Cruise's banning, it's definitely for the best.
Anyway, I doubt we see changes unless Phoenix makes like 4 out of the top 8 of MC London.
Surely they will print some answers on Horizons.
Bold assumption there, considering Horizons has been in the works since long before Phoenix's reign.
Yes and no. There obviously won't be 'Exile and Surgical Extract all copies of Arclight Phoenix' but we don't need that. Recursive creatures and graveyard abusers have been a plague on Modern since day 1. They probably didn't have Phoenix in mind when they were making the set, but there will almost certainly be something to answer that range of decks that should as almost be their own archetype.
WotC assumed they had to ban both as TC would be replaced by DTT in every deck
It's not quite what they said, and they'd probably have a refined judgement if the community asked them today. DTT is one of the best in its category (i.e. "blue tutors"), it doesn't go in every deck but the decks where it goes suddenly get a huge boost. It's in the same vein as Faithless Looting or Gitaxian Probe in that regard : it's not a wincon but a card that tremendously helps you win by adding consistency to your game plan. If the card was in Modern, players would keep complaining about it and it would constantly be on our "watchlist", which is certainly not a spot where players like to be when we take a look at how much we've been talking about Looting and Stirrings these last couple years.
I have to disagree:
They call it card draw and mention how efficient it is throughout the whole announcement, no mention to hand sculpting or any other usual term for card selection.
They mention Delver, Burn and Jeskai Ascendancy, no mention to Twin or Scapeshift, the only decks that played DTT over TC.
They state how replaceable they are with one another, I will explain below why I think this isn't true.
In Modern, these cards are easy replacements for one another—while a Delver deck might use Treasure Cruise over Dig Through Time, banning one but not the other would do little to change the deck. Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are banned.
Why I think DTT and TC are not replaceable with one another:
Treasure Cruise is insane in decks that play 4 copies of many replaceable effects, as these decks can make a much better use of raw draw than any other deck (Burn and Storm fit very well in this category).
Dig Through Time is more useful in decks where you have more diversity between threats and answers, in those decks, card selection becomes much more useful (drawing counterspells vs aggro is not great), this applies very well to combo decks that rely on 1 or 2 specific cards to go off (RUG Scapeshifft and Twin come to mind).
These 2 cards are different and are not replaceable with one another in every deck (they can in some specific decks like Jeskai Ascendancy where paying extra blue is not a problem and drawing 2 nonlands + 1 land is basically the same as drawing those 2 nonlands, but this is not the norm)
Jeskai Ascendancy is a bit different from everything else, it's the only deck to have played both TC and DTT, even then, pros didn't agree on what was best, DTT was either 4 or 0 but all decks played at least 1 copy of TC, sometimes 4 (check Worlds 2014 decklists).
I think DTT could be fair enough for Modern and is a fun card to play with, you can't play it in the early turns and requires double blue so it's not easily splashable. It also works as an incentive to play reactive decks instead of proactive ones and I feel like the current metagame has too many proactive decks so is a card that would make me enjoy Modern a bit more.
I'm not going to say that it's the norm, but I had a different experience.
When I saw the Jeskai Ascendancy deck, I fell in LOOOVE. As a Combo player that has switched around quite a bit, I literally found a deck that I told myself I will play until the end of Modern. Then people started playing Eidolon of the Great Revel (Burn) and that brought my dreams to a halt. Anyway, the Jeskai Ascendancy list ran 4 Treasure Cruise. You did not care what cards you got; you just wanted 3 of them. I mean, you did care, but what were the chances in hitting 3 lands in a 16 land deck?
You really needed the "draw 3" to cost U, which made Treasure Cruise ideal. You may be mixing it up with the newer versions of Ascendancy that run Ideas Unbound, which looks to be gone from the deck now. Dig Through Time WAS played in Twin. The problem? Twin was very, very bad during the Treasure Cruise Delver meta. It just could not beat any of the decks and I noticed this in my area. Twin players did 3 things - adapted to Treasure Cruise Delver, lost, or stopped playing. The lack of attendance is a main factor in banning the 2 cards. Dig Through Time was played in RUG Scapeshift and the deck was actually pretty good. I argued against this many times because I did not see it at a local level, but LordSeth and others provided links that proved it. I am convinced now.
Dig Through Time possibly shouldn't have been banned so early, but it would most likely have caused a problem pretty soon after Cruise and Pod were banned. It is almost 100% certain. So in my honest opinion, I think it was premature, but Dig definitely would have earned its spot on the Ban List eventually (sooner, not later, lol)
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Thanks to both of you for the replies, and fair enough.
Jeskai Ascendancy is a bit different from everything else, it's the only deck to have played both TC and DTT, even then, pros didn't agree on what was best, DTT was either 4 or 0 but all decks played at least 1 copy of TC, sometimes 4 (check Worlds 2014 decklists).
The way you put it is weird, three decks played 4 DTT and one 4 TC amongst the top 12. The 1-of TC has to be seen as a 5th DTT, i.e. a worse DTT in their eye at that time. Maybe TC was considered the best card afterwards, I don't remember, I was in the Pod crew back then !
My point stands that DTT wouldn't be enjoyable because it has the same role as the cards I compared it to. Only it would be even better in the current metagame. Hard to tell whether control or combo would benefit the most, but it's not a tool that would stop the dreaded linear strategies, so people would complain all the time.
The question I like to ask is what does it bring to the format ? I don't see anything good off the top of my head. Before we see how beneficial it would be in a Tier 3 deck (like U-Tron or Pili-Palol), we can clearly see it would warp the battle up there in the Tier 1 sky.
If the card was unbanned, I could imagine players goggle big, real big !
UU for an instant that digs the top 7 is not happening, but it was fun to exhume that card for a few posts.
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
Dig Through Time possibly shouldn't have been banned so early, but it would most likely have caused a problem pretty soon after Cruise and Pod were banned. It is almost 100% certain. So in my honest opinion, I think it was premature, but Dig definitely would have earned its spot on the Ban List eventually (sooner, not later, lol)
Yeah, that was exactly my point. We didn't have a chance to see it in action without the shadow of Treasure Cruise. The card is very strong and it could have been broken to the point of getting banned but it didn't even have the chance to do so.
This discussion about DTT being fair is kind of puzzling to me. Can anyone think of how bloody powerful UR Phoenix would be with DTT?!
I think this is a good example to showcase the difference between the cards.
I am pretty sure DTT would be tried in Phoenix but I don't think it would be as good as you say, and I am pretty sure nobody would play 4 copies, paying UU to get 2 cards (1 spell) could be worse than playing 2 U cantrips like Serum Visions both for triggering Phoenix or to flip TiTi. Yes, the card is powerful but its nature doesn't really help with the Phoenix or TiTi plan of casting many spells per turn.
Treasure Cruise on the other hand would be insane in Phoenix and most likely 4 copies would be played, from turns 3+ it is the replacement for any cantrip, same cost (U) but you draw 3, doesn't slow you down regarding spells/mana spent and it nets better card advantage, it's exactly the kind of card any Xerox deck wants
@headminerve Yeah, in Jeskai Ascendancy both cards were replaceable but as I said , this is something special about that deck that doesn't apply to any other deck as no other deck could make the switch so easily, Burn was never going to be able to play Dig and I doubt it would even do it if it could (I think I would rather have Light up the Stage for 1 mana than DTT for 2 in burn).
As I said, I think the card promotes decks that are not seeing much play now as I believe it doesn't fit that well in proactive strategies like Phoenix. I know it probably won't be unbanned anytime soon but I wanted to ask what was the perception for someone who plays no banlist modern. There are other cards in the banlist that I think could help slowing down the overall format speed and I would welcome in Modern (SFM and Punishing Fire mainly).
Overall I think Modern would be more enjoyable if it slowed down a bit as right now it feels like there are too many archetypes trying to goldfish, fortunately some decks like BG are trying to slow them down, but these decks are a minority.
Yeah, that was exactly my point. We didn't have a chance to see it in action without the shadow of Treasure Cruise. The card is very strong and it could have been broken to the point of getting banned but it didn't even have the chance to do so.
The only thing I can say is that I presume that Wizards saw how good RUG Scapeshift was, even in the shadow of Treasure Cruise Delver, and Rhino Pod and made the presumptuous ban in order to prevent that. I guess the deck showed enough promise to make short work of that.
But I can also understand that it hadn't been PROVEN and outside of a Delver/Pod meta, things could change. Dig Through Time never really got a chance, but seeing it banned later on in Legacy kind of proved Wizard's point about its power level. But then again, Wizards controlled that ban and they are different formats. It is similar to Gitaxian Probe, although that card proved strong in Infect. Fatal Push was printed and they could have waited to see the effects of that card. But the preemptively banned it, alluding to the fact that it's too strong and they were trying to hurt multiple strategies on a card that they didn't like the card design of for many years.
*So I can see it both ways. You are right that Dig Through Time did not PROVE too good in Modern, so that right there is a slap in the face to many. I can definitely see that. I felt the same way about it, but kind of gave up on supporting it through the years. You gotta pick and choose and your own biases help you do that, right?
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I am curious since you commented on the Treasure Cruise ban, do you think Dig Through Time would be in line with the current power levels in Modern? When TC and DTT were banned, WotC assumed they had to ban both as TC would be replaced by DTT in every deck (which I disagree). It would be interesting to have an idea on how powerful the card is perceived by someone who has a chance to play NBLM as I think it would be in the same group as Birthing Pod, Green Sun's Zenith or Punishing Fire
No. Of the two cards, I would say that DTT is the more problematic card over all, even if it didn't get its time in the lime light. I would be in favor of allowing Treasure Cruise back in Modern before I'd ever consider DTT. Treasure Cruise's issue is how splashable it is. It's usually correct, or at least a reasonable choice, to run 2-4 TC in most fair decks and splash blue. Cruise could have been printed at a fair cost even with Delve, though. UU7 would have been good, but not overly splashable, I think. Having run both in a variety decks in NBLM, I'd say that if a deck can support UU, it should be running 2-3 DTT- though it just breaks combo decks in half. Honestly, Dig is almost worth its normal CMC. Look at the top 7, take 2 at instant speed is way too good for 2 card combo decks. Twin with DTT is absurdly consistent, and if you know they have DTT, you have to treat them as having the combo in hand. Yes, it's really expensive, but that effect is hard to argue with. With Delve, DTT is probably a better card than Impulse at finding combo pieces for 2 mana, just to put this discussion in perspective. In my experience, the only deck where there's even a discussion over which is better, is UR Storm. If you're playing Swathstorm, then objectively DTT is just better, but if you're playing any list that runs PiF then Cruise is probably a little easier to support since it's less reliant on its Delve Cost in practice.
All of that said, bear in mind that a lot of this is based on what the Meta pressures of NBLM are: Chalice of the Void, Counterbalance, and Mental Misstep are the main "counters." Fast Mana through Chrome Mox is way more common.
Everyone jumped on the Delver bandwagon because the deck was dirt cheap for an Eternal Format, but Twin was probably the deck which would have broken Dig once Pod was banned.
Twin was inferior to Scapeshift and Jeskai Ascendancy as Dig decks. The Jeskai Ascendancy deck abusing Dig Through Time came out very late. It played like a Jeskai Control deck in the early game, but instead of killing you with Celestial Colonnade and Snapcaster Mage+Lightning Bolt, it used Jeskai Ascendancy and Fatestitcher with plenty of cantrips, including Gitaxian Probe. It felt like an improved version of Scapeshift, as it could interact more with the opponent in the early game yet it could kill faster. Once Dig Through Time was banned, the deck disappeared, as there is no other card capable of refilling your hand for so few mana that allows you to play a grindy game. Since then, Wizards has done a good job, unbanning Ancestral Vision and Jace and printing Teferi and Search for Azcanta as card advantage engines that can't be abused by combo or aggro decks.
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Twin was inferior to Scapeshift and Jeskai Ascendancy as Dig decks. The Jeskai Ascendancy deck abusing Dig Through Time came out very late. It played like a Jeskai Control deck in the early game, but instead of killing you with Celestial Colonnade and Snapcaster Mage+Lightning Bolt, it used Jeskai Ascendancy and Fatestitcher with plenty of cantrips, including Gitaxian Probe. It felt like an improved version of Scapeshift, as it could interact more with the opponent in the early game yet it could kill faster. Once Dig Through Time was banned, the deck disappeared, as there is no other card capable of refilling your hand for so few mana that allows you to play a grindy game. Since then, Wizards has done a good job, unbanning Ancestral Vision and Jace and printing Teferi and Search for Azcanta as card advantage engines that can't be abused by combo or aggro decks.
I would say that the Twin lists I saw around in the TC meta weren't well optimized for Dig, rather than that its objectively worse than Jeskai Ascendency combo or Scapeshift. No Probe, No Bauble, no looting, and more of a focus on being able to grind it out with Snapcasters were the hallmarks of that era of Twin. When you run Dig in Twin, you're not playing the control game at all. It's an all in combo deck with a few pieces of interaction to protect your combo or stall for a turn or two. It's pretty good, too. Based on how that performs in NBLM, I'm pretty convinced that even without Chrome Mox it would have performed quite well in Modern.
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If we are going to use this data as an indicative of how much people enjoy the format, attendance numbers would reinforce the idea that people are being driven out of the format.
Doesn't this have a bit of a correlation doesn't equal causation problem? Changes in incentives, prize payouts, number of modern GPs, CFB getting a monopoly on event hosting, etc could all attribute to a decline in attendance.
To kind of reinforce my point, Golgari Grave Troll was banned January 9th 2017 and the "result" was an 18% drop in GP attendance from the previous year
If you're assuming that GGT was banned at the start of 2017, therefore resulting in attendance drop of 18% for the year Jan 2017 - Jan 2018, then you would be wrong.
Depian mentioned that he counted by seasons and not the actual year. Seasons don't start in Jan and end in Dec. 2016-2017 season started on 13th August 2016 and ended on 30th July 2017. The banning happened right smack in the middle of that particular season. The attendance drop in the next season (2017-2018)can't be attributed to the banning.
Now we have the numbers and we know attendance is actually dropping. The reasons? I don't know, but attendance is dropping and that's a fact. I didn't say we should use GP attendance as correlation of how much players enjoy the format (Ymir said that attendance is not dropping as an indicator of people happiness with the format), but if we were to do so, the results would indicate that people are not engaging with Modern GPs as they did in previous years.
I don't know how you calculated that 18% drop, if we were to compare 2016 vs 2017, these are the numbers I get:
2016 Modern GP average attendance = 1916 players
2017 Modern GP average attendance = 1871 players
So, average attendance from 2016 to 2017 dropped, but only 2%
2018 and 2019 on the other hand, have a significant drop in attendance:
2018 Modern GP average attendance = 1685 players (10% drop vs 2017)
2019 Modern GP average attendance = 1325 players (21% drop vs 2018)
I also noticed that some large GPs (looking at you Vegas), have a great impact on averages, it also happens the other way around with small GPs (there is one in Brazil with less than 800 players), so maybe it would be more interesting to exclude those when analysing averages.
Here is the excel file I am using in case anyone else wants to dig into it and wants to segment by seasons, years, months, etc
I don't know how to attach a file here, so I uploaded to Drive and made it public, let me know if there is a better way to share this file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SOPtFxnbwiUfc5BjOP_e1gmSh3wAvqd2/view?usp=sharing
EDIT: There were some GPs that started one month and were finished in the next month, for the sake of simplicity I have grouped all GPs based on the month of the first date (a GP starting the 31st of March and ending the 2nd of April would be counted in March)
Regardless, here is some potential issues with the data as presented from the outset:
2015-16 Modern GP #s: 8
2016-17 GPs: 9 *Team modern introduced: +1 if included
2017-18 GPs: 11 *Team modern: +2 **Team Modern Unified: +1 *** Team Trios Constructed: +4
2018-19 GPs: 11 to date with 4 more to go **Team Modern Unified: +1 to date
This excludes team events, but I'm not sure if team events should be excluded necessarily. More modern events could potentially mean lower avg numbers. There are many factors that go into attending a GP for the average player (travel, accommodations, cost to register, etc). More frequent events may not necessarily mean more attendance by the average player, but more events means they can be more selective of what GP they attend.
Total attendance (still excluding team events):
2015-16: 13,945
2016-17: 17,338
2017-18: 21,247
2018-19 td: 9,992 (4 events still to go)
Just comparing the "decline" shown in the avg numbers to total attendance paints a different picture of the format with rising popularity, possibly peaking last season (to be determined).
But using the GGT banning to 'reinforce' your fundamental point is disingenuous at best.
Adding to that, I think 2017/2018 with Modern Masters 3 and fetchland reprints has made Modern far more accessible, which is a great thing, and a huge factor in bringing players in to the format.
I love modern, I get to play my favorite cards from past standards together its sweet. Except I can't. the format is warped arround some decks that make most other strategies flat out unplayable. How many threads you enter and see it's a autoloss to tron? Way to many.
Modern is set up in a way the that we can't really be creative. Phoenix, Tron, Titan and maybe dredge make everything follow some kind of rules when deckbuilding and yet theres not much one can do against it. When it was the last time we saw some midrange deck have some solid runs? Whats a sweet token build people are running? we have the same decks doing the same things
My take is : Tron was a mistake, actually messing with mana in unfair ways usually is. WOTC has printed way too many 1 collor/free cantrips that let you filter your deck way too much, letting izzet get away with playing so few lands, shaping their hands and fueling the yard and by extention allowing some degenerate things happen. Modern isn't healthy right now,I feel I could pop on standard and have a higher variery of decks be viable.
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Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
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Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
Gitaxian Probe was also way too good. It saw play in every single Modern deck, as "pay 2 life" can be done by any colored or non colored deck in Modern. There literally would not be enough copies for all of the Modern players to play in all of their decks. We have no need for that. We play more fair cards, like Faithless Looting and Ancient Stirrings, the last of which has serious deck building restraints. You have to put crap like lands or Arcbound Ravager in your deck.
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)While I agree with the basic sentiment, it is always sad to see decks get pushed out of a format by a ban, I think playing some NBLM might give you some perspective on why certain certain cards need to be on the ban list. Gitaxian Probe is honestly worthy of a ban. It's less about it fitting into every deck (because it really, really doesn't) and more about how it makes "all in" decks way too safe. While there are some questionables on the list right now, by and large it's a pretty decent pick of the cards that break, warp, or make the format toxic to play in for most players. Sure, Stoneforge Mystic and Preordain really have no business on the banned list, and Green Sun's Zenith, Splinter Twin, Hypergensis, Birthing Pod, and Punishing Fire are all pretty in line with the current levels of power in Modern. However, even though Ascendancy Combo died because of Treasure Cruise's banning, it's definitely for the best.
Tunneling in on the decks that have been banned away without thinking about how those decks affected the format as a whole is a bit disingenuous.
I am curious since you commented on the Treasure Cruise ban, do you think Dig Through Time would be in line with the current power levels in Modern? When TC and DTT were banned, WotC assumed they had to ban both as TC would be replaced by DTT in every deck (which I disagree). It would be interesting to have an idea on how powerful the card is perceived by someone who has a chance to play NBLM as I think it would be in the same group as Birthing Pod, Green Sun's Zenith or Punishing Fire
It's not quite what they said, and they'd probably have a refined judgement if the community asked them today. DTT is one of the best in its category (i.e. "blue tutors"), it doesn't go in every deck but the decks where it goes suddenly get a huge boost. It's in the same vein as Faithless Looting or Gitaxian Probe in that regard : it's not a wincon but a card that tremendously helps you win by adding consistency to your game plan. If the card was in Modern, players would keep complaining about it and it would constantly be on our "watchlist", which is certainly not a spot where players like to be when we take a look at how much we've been talking about Looting and Stirrings these last couple years.
Combo decks were already quite threatening with DTT. It's the card that actually pushed Twin to the top for good (even though Twin always were Tier 1 in Modern anyway). Even banned, Twin stayed on top, I think it rings a bell. Jeskai Ascendancy, Storm, Scapeshift, ... let's say the combo decks were already taking advantage of the card and showing up results, so I don't think it was prematured, with a step back.
Ascendancy played 4 DTTs but only 1 TC. FYI.
Yes and no. There obviously won't be 'Exile and Surgical Extract all copies of Arclight Phoenix' but we don't need that. Recursive creatures and graveyard abusers have been a plague on Modern since day 1. They probably didn't have Phoenix in mind when they were making the set, but there will almost certainly be something to answer that range of decks that should as almost be their own archetype.
I have to disagree:
Why I think DTT and TC are not replaceable with one another:
Jeskai Ascendancy is a bit different from everything else, it's the only deck to have played both TC and DTT, even then, pros didn't agree on what was best, DTT was either 4 or 0 but all decks played at least 1 copy of TC, sometimes 4 (check Worlds 2014 decklists).
I think DTT could be fair enough for Modern and is a fun card to play with, you can't play it in the early turns and requires double blue so it's not easily splashable. It also works as an incentive to play reactive decks instead of proactive ones and I feel like the current metagame has too many proactive decks so is a card that would make me enjoy Modern a bit more.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
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I'm not going to say that it's the norm, but I had a different experience.
When I saw the Jeskai Ascendancy deck, I fell in LOOOVE. As a Combo player that has switched around quite a bit, I literally found a deck that I told myself I will play until the end of Modern. Then people started playing Eidolon of the Great Revel (Burn) and that brought my dreams to a halt. Anyway, the Jeskai Ascendancy list ran 4 Treasure Cruise. You did not care what cards you got; you just wanted 3 of them. I mean, you did care, but what were the chances in hitting 3 lands in a 16 land deck?
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=12183
Sorry, Sam Pardee's list is halfway down the article. I couldn't find one that focused on the deck in my super quick search.
You really needed the "draw 3" to cost U, which made Treasure Cruise ideal. You may be mixing it up with the newer versions of Ascendancy that run Ideas Unbound, which looks to be gone from the deck now. Dig Through Time WAS played in Twin. The problem? Twin was very, very bad during the Treasure Cruise Delver meta. It just could not beat any of the decks and I noticed this in my area. Twin players did 3 things - adapted to Treasure Cruise Delver, lost, or stopped playing. The lack of attendance is a main factor in banning the 2 cards. Dig Through Time was played in RUG Scapeshift and the deck was actually pretty good. I argued against this many times because I did not see it at a local level, but LordSeth and others provided links that proved it. I am convinced now.
Dig Through Time possibly shouldn't have been banned so early, but it would most likely have caused a problem pretty soon after Cruise and Pod were banned. It is almost 100% certain. So in my honest opinion, I think it was premature, but Dig definitely would have earned its spot on the Ban List eventually (sooner, not later, lol)
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)The way you put it is weird, three decks played 4 DTT and one 4 TC amongst the top 12. The 1-of TC has to be seen as a 5th DTT, i.e. a worse DTT in their eye at that time. Maybe TC was considered the best card afterwards, I don't remember, I was in the Pod crew back then !
My point stands that DTT wouldn't be enjoyable because it has the same role as the cards I compared it to. Only it would be even better in the current metagame. Hard to tell whether control or combo would benefit the most, but it's not a tool that would stop the dreaded linear strategies, so people would complain all the time.
The question I like to ask is what does it bring to the format ? I don't see anything good off the top of my head. Before we see how beneficial it would be in a Tier 3 deck (like U-Tron or Pili-Palol), we can clearly see it would warp the battle up there in the Tier 1 sky.
If the card was unbanned, I could imagine players goggle big, real big !
UU for an instant that digs the top 7 is not happening, but it was fun to exhume that card for a few posts.
Yeah, that was exactly my point. We didn't have a chance to see it in action without the shadow of Treasure Cruise. The card is very strong and it could have been broken to the point of getting banned but it didn't even have the chance to do so.
I think this is a good example to showcase the difference between the cards.
I am pretty sure DTT would be tried in Phoenix but I don't think it would be as good as you say, and I am pretty sure nobody would play 4 copies, paying UU to get 2 cards (1 spell) could be worse than playing 2 U cantrips like Serum Visions both for triggering Phoenix or to flip TiTi. Yes, the card is powerful but its nature doesn't really help with the Phoenix or TiTi plan of casting many spells per turn.
Treasure Cruise on the other hand would be insane in Phoenix and most likely 4 copies would be played, from turns 3+ it is the replacement for any cantrip, same cost (U) but you draw 3, doesn't slow you down regarding spells/mana spent and it nets better card advantage, it's exactly the kind of card any Xerox deck wants
@headminerve Yeah, in Jeskai Ascendancy both cards were replaceable but as I said , this is something special about that deck that doesn't apply to any other deck as no other deck could make the switch so easily, Burn was never going to be able to play Dig and I doubt it would even do it if it could (I think I would rather have Light up the Stage for 1 mana than DTT for 2 in burn).
As I said, I think the card promotes decks that are not seeing much play now as I believe it doesn't fit that well in proactive strategies like Phoenix. I know it probably won't be unbanned anytime soon but I wanted to ask what was the perception for someone who plays no banlist modern. There are other cards in the banlist that I think could help slowing down the overall format speed and I would welcome in Modern (SFM and Punishing Fire mainly).
Overall I think Modern would be more enjoyable if it slowed down a bit as right now it feels like there are too many archetypes trying to goldfish, fortunately some decks like BG are trying to slow them down, but these decks are a minority.
The only thing I can say is that I presume that Wizards saw how good RUG Scapeshift was, even in the shadow of Treasure Cruise Delver, and Rhino Pod and made the presumptuous ban in order to prevent that. I guess the deck showed enough promise to make short work of that.
But I can also understand that it hadn't been PROVEN and outside of a Delver/Pod meta, things could change. Dig Through Time never really got a chance, but seeing it banned later on in Legacy kind of proved Wizard's point about its power level. But then again, Wizards controlled that ban and they are different formats. It is similar to Gitaxian Probe, although that card proved strong in Infect. Fatal Push was printed and they could have waited to see the effects of that card. But the preemptively banned it, alluding to the fact that it's too strong and they were trying to hurt multiple strategies on a card that they didn't like the card design of for many years.
*So I can see it both ways. You are right that Dig Through Time did not PROVE too good in Modern, so that right there is a slap in the face to many. I can definitely see that. I felt the same way about it, but kind of gave up on supporting it through the years. You gotta pick and choose and your own biases help you do that, right?
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)No. Of the two cards, I would say that DTT is the more problematic card over all, even if it didn't get its time in the lime light. I would be in favor of allowing Treasure Cruise back in Modern before I'd ever consider DTT. Treasure Cruise's issue is how splashable it is. It's usually correct, or at least a reasonable choice, to run 2-4 TC in most fair decks and splash blue. Cruise could have been printed at a fair cost even with Delve, though. UU7 would have been good, but not overly splashable, I think. Having run both in a variety decks in NBLM, I'd say that if a deck can support UU, it should be running 2-3 DTT- though it just breaks combo decks in half. Honestly, Dig is almost worth its normal CMC. Look at the top 7, take 2 at instant speed is way too good for 2 card combo decks. Twin with DTT is absurdly consistent, and if you know they have DTT, you have to treat them as having the combo in hand. Yes, it's really expensive, but that effect is hard to argue with. With Delve, DTT is probably a better card than Impulse at finding combo pieces for 2 mana, just to put this discussion in perspective. In my experience, the only deck where there's even a discussion over which is better, is UR Storm. If you're playing Swathstorm, then objectively DTT is just better, but if you're playing any list that runs PiF then Cruise is probably a little easier to support since it's less reliant on its Delve Cost in practice.
All of that said, bear in mind that a lot of this is based on what the Meta pressures of NBLM are: Chalice of the Void, Counterbalance, and Mental Misstep are the main "counters." Fast Mana through Chrome Mox is way more common.
Everyone jumped on the Delver bandwagon because the deck was dirt cheap for an Eternal Format, but Twin was probably the deck which would have broken Dig once Pod was banned.
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I would say that the Twin lists I saw around in the TC meta weren't well optimized for Dig, rather than that its objectively worse than Jeskai Ascendency combo or Scapeshift. No Probe, No Bauble, no looting, and more of a focus on being able to grind it out with Snapcasters were the hallmarks of that era of Twin. When you run Dig in Twin, you're not playing the control game at all. It's an all in combo deck with a few pieces of interaction to protect your combo or stall for a turn or two. It's pretty good, too. Based on how that performs in NBLM, I'm pretty convinced that even without Chrome Mox it would have performed quite well in Modern.