"Like Legacy, Vintage is very challenging. It can be difficult to dive straight into the Eternal formats, so I recommend trying Modern first in order to bridge the gap between Standard and Legacy or Vintage."
Quite happy I'm not the only one with this viewpoint.
BUT... for sake of argument, are there any Modern enthusiasts around to provide counter-arguments?
It might also be a card pool thing rather than a skill thing. The Eternal cardpool is almost twice as big as the Modern cardpool (but that's changing with every new set that comes out).
I do agree with the argument that Eternal formats are more skill-testing than Modern in general, but there are a few aspects of Modern that I think take more skill than in Eternal:
1. Mana bases - In Eternal, the vast majority of decks use the fetchland/dual land configuration because it is so easy and pain-free. In Modern, the 2 damage from shocklands is a real thing and manabases often have to use checklands, fastlands, or filterlands in addition to fetches and shocks.
2. Sideboarding - Sideboard slots in Modern are more taxed than in Eternal because hate is necessary against almost everything and catchall answers like Force of Will don't exist. Your extra 15 cards are huge in this format.
3. Engine-based combo - Combo decks like this are way harder to play in Modern. The cards either aren't there or are banned.
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Legacy:UR Sneak and Show IUBG Team America IX Metalworker MUD Modern:UBR Blue Jund IWBX Eldrazi Processors IX Affinity IWRG Nacatl Burn IGR Tron IUBR Grishoalbrand
I think definitionally legacy is more challenging. The reason is simple: there is a larger selection of possible actions by an opponent to take into consideration for any given board state. This is true by definition as legacy contains all possibilities that modern does, with additional complexity.
edit: The idea that legacy is more challenging should be uncontroversial. Whether or not an individual will notice or appreciate the difference is another topic - and likely related to whether the difference in levels of challenge has any meaningful consequences.
I've tried some Vintage decks on Cockatrice, and even the tempo lists can be tricky to pilot. The controlling lists get even worse. Combo decks get similarly really hard. I don't know whether I should mulligan a no-land, 2+-Mox hand blind, assuming it has at least one Turn 1 play that's not a mana rock. Null Rod and Stony Silence (and Chalice on X = 0) really put the screws on Mox-heavy hands.
When I can Vampiric Tutor or Demonic Tutor for anything, the decision trees get extremely large. Too often, blindly tutoring for a threat is not the correct call.
Legacy is thankfully easier than Vintage, but even Legacy is hard. Some decks, such as Lands, Dredge, and Belcher, have extremely strange play styles compared to Modern decks. It's also tricker to play combo when any blue deck can be holding Force of Will (and some of them Daze) at all times. Figuring out your mana fixing and fetching gets more complex with Wasteland (punishes nonbasics hard) and Rishadan Port (disproportionately punishes basics) in the mix. Legacy having about as many rogue decks as Modern doesn't help.
Vintage is quite fun--I've followed it (loosely) for a decade now, and it's always sweet to see the tech people come up with. That being said, the number of decisions made in vintage is so huge that I feel like, given an even matchup, it's almost impossible for the better player to lose. The shops/dredge/blue control/combo metagame means that sometimes, you get these epic 70-30 matchups that are nail biters BECAUSE the players are so skilled despite the matchup disadvantage. The other thing is that vintage, more than any other format, rewards player knowledge--the number of times I've seen a Menendian game streamed or read a recap, and the analysis goes straight back to something like "three turns ago, he took the force of will instead of the mana drain so his opponent was able to set up a turn to force through a win con while holding up enough countermagic to stop his opponent for a turn, so the game was over" be the reason people lose vintage games, it gets crazy. I remember reading at one point that the sequencing of which order somebody hardcast mental misstep vs paying the phyrexian cost within a counter-war actually cost them a game--if he'd paid the costs in a different order he'd have won.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I think Reid Duke was very fair, all he's really saying is once you decide to add more competitive decks past Standard, go to Modern next. The financial implications are un-said but definitely are a factor. I'm pretty sure 99% of mtg players would tell their friends the same thing when they get started in mtg, go play some standard and then try Modern.
I personally prefer Modern over all other formats so i'm biased. I think the difference between the best deck, say Twin, and a 'tier 2.5' deck like green stompy or whatever is minor enough, for example a pauper deck 4-0'd a Modo daily a few weeks ago in modern.
Obviously in a 10 plus round tourney these differences are multiplied and I wouldn't expect to see stompy or cheerios winning any GP's but for about $70 bucks you can have a lot of fun and success on Modo in the practice room and even dailies. Plus, you can do it for years since you will not have your deck rotated out of existence. In fact it will probably get a few good pieces out of the new sets from time to time.
Now as far as the whole is Legacy/vintage more difficult i.e skill cap argument... I think you have to say yes, there probably is, but it's not like rain man stuff or anything. It's more knowing the many interrelations from a much larger card pool. Really the same skill set as any other format but multiplied by the huge card pools.
But, and this is just my humble opinion, when I look at legacy and see that the starting point of so many competitive deck is, brainstorm, force of will, islands.... I just can't get too excited about it. For all the potential those massive card pools have, they degenerate into similar blue shells.
That being said I wish wizards would push legacy and vintage better on modo because at the end of the day more formats is always better. I don't see why they don't' have a vintage or legacy draft set up all the time. Get the prices down! The online prices are almost sane save for like 1 or 2 cards per deck.
I'm actually leaning towards control decks being harder to construct and play in Modern than in Legacy. Without Force of Will, much more thought needs to made about tapping out during ones own turn to avoid losing to a turn 3-4 combo or a dire threat like a Batterskull or a Keranos, God of Storms. Decks need to be designed from the ground up regarding how much sorcery speed spells they want to play due to this consideration.
In addition, the quality of removal, counters, and library manipulation are lower. One cannot simply jam 4 Swords to Plowshares in every control deck running white, so the type and number of each removal spell or counterspell needs to be finely tuned.
I have played a lot of formats. I would say that a Legacy match is less likely to be decided by variance than Modern. And Standard is the most likely to be determined by variance. This is just my point of view.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I'm actually leaning towards control decks being harder to construct and play in Modern than in Legacy. Without Force of Will, much more thought needs to made about tapping out during ones own turn to avoid losing to a turn 3-4 combo or a dire threat like a Batterskull or a Keranos, God of Storms. Decks need to be designed from the ground up regarding how much sorcery speed spells they want to play due to this consideration.
In addition, the quality of removal, counters, and library manipulation are lower. One cannot simply jam 4 Swords to Plowshares in every control deck running white, so the type and number of each removal spell or counterspell needs to be finely tuned.
Most control decks in Modern are designed to never tap out though + people playing UW Miracles also has to make those tough decisions (you won't always have FoW in hand and even if you do, it might not be enough to win a counter war or you can't afford to 2 for 1 yourself at that stage of the game). Once you bring stuff like Brainstorm, Top, Jace and Counterbalance into the equation your decision tree grows exponentially. Without playing Legacy myself (only watched), I'd say that some of those decisions are a lot more complicated than deciding to Leak or Helix something.
The second paragraph I agree with though, but from a deck building perspective, not a play skill perspective.
I was never really impressed with so called skill testing cards in legacy like brainstorm. Yes there is less variance. That means in modern your starting hand and board matter a lot more, so calling when to mulligan is much harder (not to mention the lack of card advantage in modern as well). As far as the board goes, I'd MUCH rather have to construct a legacy board than modern since probabilities are a mug less big deal.
I have played a lot of formats. I would say that a Legacy match is less likely to be decided by variance than Modern. And Standard is the most likely to be determined by variance. This is just my point of view.
Are you including pairing variance? Standard has the least variance at the time pairings are assigned, Modern the most, with Vintage just behind Modern.
I consider Modern the highest variance format because there are so many early game "I Win" plays that work against specific matchups (most are sideboard cards but some, like Splinter Twin, are maindeck and decks revolve around them). Stony Silence being the poster child of sideboard "haha, I win" cards.
Pretty sure the article refers to the number of strategies possible, however (not necessarily viable, just possible). Food Chain Goblins isn't a tier deck in Legacy, but it's something that you could take to a 16 person tournament and catch anyone new to Legacy completely off guard with it - there's less rogue strategies like that in the smaller formats, and even less that have had historic success.
I'm actually leaning towards control decks being harder to construct and play in Modern than in Legacy. Without Force of Will, much more thought needs to made about tapping out during ones own turn to avoid losing to a turn 3-4 combo or a dire threat like a Batterskull or a Keranos, God of Storms. Decks need to be designed from the ground up regarding how much sorcery speed spells they want to play due to this consideration.
This is a strange argument. Of course it's hard to play control in Modern. Unlike Legacy, all of the control elements in Modern are proactive (weaker), as opposed to reactive (stronger).
That's like saying it would be really skill intensive to pilot a land destruction deck in Modern. Given there aren't enough competitive cards to make it feasible, somehow piloting a land destruction deck to victory would be impressive.
None of that makes Modern "more challenging" than Legacy or Vintage. You've intentionally picked a deck archetype that's hard to play (like tribal squirrels), and used that as evidence that Modern can be considered more challenging than Legacy or Vintage.
In addition, the quality of removal, counters, and library manipulation are lower. One cannot simply jam 4 Swords to Plowshares in every control deck running white, so the type and number of each removal spell or counterspell needs to be finely tuned.
Actually, quality of removal in Modern is higher than in Legacy, because although much of the removal is the same, not all Legacy decks play creatures. You're much likely to create virtual card advantage for your opponent by running 4x Swords to Plowshares in Legacy than you are by running 4x Path to Exile in Modern. No one that plays a white control deck in Legacy runs four copies of StP without thinking about it.
The qualities of counterspells and library manipulation are lower in Modern than in Legacy. And although you're using that as evidence that Modern is "more challenging", it actually makes Modern rely more heavily on the topdeck. It might be harder to build a consistent deck in Modern, but it's much harder to pilot a deck in Legacy. In Legacy, you can lose by casting Brainstorm at the wrong time. Not many players lose in Modern by casting a Serum Visions at the wrong time.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
The only specific reference I see to him saying Modern is "easier" than Legacy/Vintage is simply because of the sheer umber of cards to learn. A completely new player (whihc this article is directed at) has to learn over 15,000 cards to get into Legacy. Modern reduces thaat number specificly. As for skill required I do not think it is a fair comparison. Yes Brainstorm is a very skill testing card, but at the same time it sure makes playing alot easier. The whole point to play blue is that it allows you to recover from bad draws and mistakes other decks would fold to. Modern does not have this. I think it is fair to say Modern is equally as challenging a format in it's own way.
In addition, the quality of removal, counters, and library manipulation are lower. One cannot simply jam 4 Swords to Plowshares in every control deck running white, so the type and number of each removal spell or counterspell needs to be finely tuned.
Actually, quality of removal in Modern is higher than in Legacy, because although much of the removal is the same, not all Legacy decks play creatures. You're much likely to create virtual card advantage for your opponent by running 4x Swords to Plowshares in Legacy than you are by running 4x Path to Exile in Modern. No one that plays a white control deck in Legacy runs four copies of StP without thinking about it.
I take "quality of removal" to mean a combination of what percentage of creatures (or maybe even permanents) in the format the removal can hit, how easy it is to cast/use the removal, and how often your opponent loses after you resolve the removal. Swords to Plowshares backfires a lot less often than Path to Exile does in Legacy (we have to consider that PtE really does not play nice with Legacy's Wasteland, though). Even the Legacy decks with fat creatures tend to rely on those fat creatures so much that losing the fat creature and gaining 7 life is still devastating for the fat creature guy (see Reanimator, Dark Depths).
StP would also probably backfire less often in Modern than PtE already does. PtE'ing a mana dork feels absolutely yucky. StP'ing a mana dork is pretty golden.
(StP and PtE can hit the exact same creatures.)
Sadly, there aren't many other removal spells that are playable in Legacy but not in Modern. I guess there's Council's Judgment (hits ANY nonland permanent you want, even un-targetable ones), Umezawa's Jitte (Plague Wind on a stick with bonuses that Stoneforge Mystic can tutor for), Punishing Fire (needs Grove of the Burnwillows, but the two make a nasty board-wiping pair), Terminus (basically only playable in Sensei's Divining Top decks, but 1-mana instant-speed tuck board wipes are unreal), Snuff Out (free, costs quite a lot of life, wants you to play Swamps, can't hit Deathrite Shaman/Griselbrand/Bob/Tasigur/Baleful Strix/etc.), Pernicious Deed (mostly fallen out of favour, rather expensive to use), Vindicate (mostly fallen out of favour, but can hit lands), Pyroblast (can destroy only blue stuff, but can counter blue spells)...
...well, I guess Modern would kill for Council's Judgment, warp around Jitte, and apparently be unable to stand Punishing Fire (+ Grove).
You've never played legacy. Brainstorm enables unskilled legacy players to dig themselves into an irrecoverable hole much faster than is possible in any other format. I've played a TON of brainstorms in legacy, and I've played a good amount of modern in the 6 months or so since I started taking it seriously--I promise you several things:
1. Modern has more DIFFERENT cards that see consistent play in tier 1 and 2 decks than legacy does. Despite a higher number of options, the power level of the legacy shells means there's a lot of homogeneity in deck construction, even if the strategies are wildly divergent (RUG delver and miracles are poster child opposites; both lists often start with 4 ponder, 4 brainstorm, 4 force of will, and 8-10 blue fetches, alongside some cliques and red blasts, and flusterstorms in the sideboard)
2. It is significantly harder to recover from a mis-play in legacy than it is in modern--if you crack a fetchland at the wrong time in legacy, you can suddenly find yourself with no lands in play and no lands in hand with nothing on the board. In modern, the worst that happens is a shadow of doubt (rare) or you taking an extra couple points of damage (less rare, but avoidable). If you counter the wrong spell against a combo deck in modern, likely you still have another turn to interact because you slowed them down. In legacy, if you counter the wrong spell against a storm deck, you could find out that you lose immediately, or even wouldn't have lost if you'd not-countered the spell.
3. Blue does not let you recover from bad opening hands "better" than other formats--if anything, blue is a trap to keep risky hands. I can't count the number of times I've seen a delver or combo pilot keep a loose hand with brainstorm and/or ponder, have their first library manipulation spell countered, and be stuck drawing dead for an entire turn or more just because they banked on that library manipulation.
4. Casting brainstorm correctly is just about the hardest skill in magic. Maybe we can argue that finding the correct doomsday pile is harder, but let's be realistic, the only people who can actually do that in a tournament are Jean-Marie Accart and company. Playing with brainstorm does not make the game easier--it makes it much more skill-testing. You may perceive this as being "easier" because brainstorm decks in legacy are universally more consistent than their similar counterparts in modern or standard, but let's be clear here--the other decks ALSO have that consistency boost, which makes the matchup that much more skill-testing. Decks in legacy that don't play brainstorm and/or ponder? Those decks have a reason, and it's usually that the raw power level of whatever they're doing can be obscene.
Modern is probably more challenging with respect to sideboarding and metagaming, but that's more a function of "strong generic answers are uncommon in the format outside of black" and less a function of "modern has a more diverse metagame and/or is harder to predict". Ergo, choosing what matches to give up on and which to sideboard adequately for is a much more skill-testing decision than the actual games, also because they hinge much more on the random drawing or finding of hate cards.
I agree with the above posters--Legacy games are more likely to be decided by skill than variance, and exceedingly more likely than standard to be decided by skill. You have some of the best legacy players making the top 8 of more than one GP in a year--amazing when you consider that there's only 3-4 legacy GP's a year that an individual can realistically get to. Someone starts rattling off that kind of win streak in standard or modern? We start looking for "palm 7's" and "shady shuffling". In legacy? Most of the time we watch these guys play on camera, analyze their plays to death, decide they're dead wrong, then see a few turns later that they took the only line possible to survive/win the game and that everyone else watching missed it.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
One of the primary differences between Modern and Legacy is the availability of consistency tools. Legacy has powerfulones, while Modern doesnot.
Because Modern lacks consistency tools, it's harder to build a consistent deck in Modern than in Legacy. This should be obvious. Consistency tools reduce variance, and Modern is higher variance than Legacy. Because of a lack of efficient digging spells and tutors, deck construction is more complicated in Modern than in Legacy. Legacy decks have fewer flexible slots, and they're much more likely to find answers to problems. From a deck building perspective, Modern is more challenging.
But once the game starts, Legacy becomes much more challenging than Modern. Not only does Legacy have an enormous cardpool, but the card interactions can get extremelycomplicated. And while it's tempting to think that consistency tools make playing Legacy easier, the opposite is true. Consistency tools create more lines of play, and proper sequencing becomes the difference between winning and losing the game. Although it's not legal in Legacy, a whole book was written about properly playing Gush. By contrast, Modern decks are much more linear, because for the most part, the only cards that you have access to, are the ones that come off the top of your library. That greatly limits the number of cards that you see, and consequently the number of options that you have. While I won't say that sequencing is unimportant in Modern, it is certainly less important in Modern than in Legacy. From a deck playing perspective, Legacy is more challenging.
The difference between Modern and Legacy is that Modern is more likely to reward good deck builders, while Legacy is more likely to reward good deck pilots.
Playing millions of cards every turn... Slowly and systematically obliterating any chance my opponent has of winning... Clicking the multitude of locking mechanisms into place... Not even trying to win myself until turn 10+ once I have nigh absolute control... Watching my opponent desperately trying to navigate the labyrinthine prison that I've constructed... Seeing the light of hope fade and ultimately extinguished in an excruciatingly slow manner... THAT'S fun Magic.
We have 2-3 users that are dramatically making this thread incomprehensible and non-productive for anyone else to possibly join in the discussion. This needs to change.
Every time I see [ktkenshinx] post in here, I get the impression of a stern dad walking in on a bunch of kids trying to do something dumb and just shaking his head in disappointment.
Near Mint: The same as Slightly Played, but we threw some Altoids in the box we stored it in to cover up the scent of dead mice. Slightly Played: The base condition for all MTG cards. This card looks OK, but there’s one minor annoying ding in it that will always irritate and distract you whenever you draw it. Moderately Played: This card looks like it survived the Tet Offensive tucked inside the waistband of GI underwear. It may smell like it, too. Heavily Played: This card looks like the remains of Mohammed Atta’s passport after 9/11. It may be playable if you double-sleeve it to stop the chunks from falling out. The condition formerly known as "Washing Machine Grade" Damaged: This card is the unfortunate victim of a Mirrorweave/March of the Machines/Chaos Confetti/Mindslaver combo.
[M]aking counterfeit cards is the absolute height of dishonesty. Ask yourself this question: Since most people...are totally cool with the use of proxies...what purpose do [high] quality counterfeit cards serve?
eehrmagherd... You're making me go dig up my vintage lists to proxy out gush-bond gifts for our vintage night tomorrow. I already had shops sleeved up and now you're making me ache to cast some gushes.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Kind of off topic but its pretty bad to see a judge accusing anyone of doing well in a Modern tournament as potentially cheating. I highly recommend re-evaluating your stance on this topic.
A completely new player (which this article is directed at) has to learn over 15,000 cards to get into Legacy.
I really dislike the have to learn a lot of cards argument. generally only a fraction of the cards available in a format will be played. Modern has 9081 cards in the card pool and about 1000 or so see play most likely. so while legacy has 14665 cards available probably only 20%(maybe less) of those are being played. For legacy and modern you can probably learn less then that as you can probably start by learning what are the best decks and learn what cards they run and learn the rest as you go along.
You are saying this from a relatively experienced player's standpoint though. For a new player who wants to move into a bigger format the cardpool size is daunting to say the least. You absolutely CAN start out only learning the top ~5% of cards, but in my experience (and obviously Reed's as he is the one I was paraphrasing) this is not what actually happens. And even then, the number of tournament worthy cards in Modern is less than tournament worthy cards in Legacy in general.
I'm not accusing anyone doing well of cheating--I'm referring to the community tendency for "witch hunts" and the recent slew of players doing "too well" in modern only to later have been shown as straight up cheaters.
Jon Finkel, arguably the greatest and certainly one of the greatest magic players of all time, has a career win rate of 66.08% in constructed according to the hall of fame stats. LSV has a 63.69% constructed win percentage. Kai Budde has a 61.8% constructed win rate. PVDDR has a 65.58% constructed win percentage.
To put things in perspective, most of the recent cheaters were pushing 80% win rates or higher. Are we saying that everyone who puts up a consistent 80%+ winrate at GP's is cheating? No. Are we saying that they're blowing statistical variance out of the water and playing tighter than ANY of the aforementioned hall of famers even at their best seasons in history? Well, that sounds a little more suspect, but that's essentially what we're saying.
I haven't *actually* crunched the numbers, but I'm certain if we crunched a large dataset of pro's performance rates, we would find significance significantly past the .05 level that those players were playing better than these professionals by a significant amount, which just seems to be an absurd claim to make. 70% is the "spike" level win percentage for professionals in a given season, with 60% being closer to the norm. Winning 33% MORE matches than an average hall of famer on the pro tour seems highly suspect in a game with as much variance as magic.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Modern is generally more about matchups and drawing specific hate cards than any other format. In this respect, you can argue that it requires less "skill" than other formats. THat doesn't mean that Modern doesn't require skill at all - but it requires less than Legacy, Standard, or even Vintage, in which skilled players have access to more powerful generic answers to threats than they do in Modern.
Modern is generally more about matchups and drawing specific hate cards than any other format. In this respect, you can argue that it requires less "skill" than other formats. THat doesn't mean that Modern doesn't require skill at all - but it requires less than Legacy, Standard, or even Vintage, in which skilled players have access to more powerful generic answers to threats than they do in Modern.
Less skill than Standard is maybe pushing it. Granted I haven't played Standard since Return to Ravnica, but the current meta game doesn't look much different from it back then (Mono Red, Esper Control, 1 or 2 other aggro/midrange decks). In standard your head doesn't explode when you're trying to do combat math with or against Affinity, you're not forced to go through 100 different lines with or against Pod (RIP), you don't see a pro spend 5 minutes on camera on each decision with Bloom Titan (a deck he even knows in and out). Etc. etc.
I would argue that Modern is less skill-based than Legacy/Vintage because of something others have said. It has a lot less card draw/manipulation than the other two and therefore you are more a prisoner to variance than in other formats (excluding Standard).
Yes, it does encourage better deck design but even the best designed deck is still a slave to randomness. I feel like I get way more punished in Modern than Legacy (never played Vintage) with mana-screw/flood.
Yes, Brainstorm is not perfect and people can become over reliant on the card to fix otherwise bad hands. But Modern seems a lot more hit-or-miss with variance. This also ties into the "silver" bullet nature of the sideboard; just adding more reliance on the top of your deck instead of rewarding strong skill/meta-gaming.
I am not saying I want Brainstorm in Modern, i just wish there was something that would help to smooth out the variance and make the format a bit more skill-based.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/level-one/introduction-popular-constructed-formats-2015-04-27
"Like Legacy, Vintage is very challenging. It can be difficult to dive straight into the Eternal formats, so I recommend trying Modern first in order to bridge the gap between Standard and Legacy or Vintage."
Quite happy I'm not the only one with this viewpoint.
BUT... for sake of argument, are there any Modern enthusiasts around to provide counter-arguments?
I do agree with the argument that Eternal formats are more skill-testing than Modern in general, but there are a few aspects of Modern that I think take more skill than in Eternal:
1. Mana bases - In Eternal, the vast majority of decks use the fetchland/dual land configuration because it is so easy and pain-free. In Modern, the 2 damage from shocklands is a real thing and manabases often have to use checklands, fastlands, or filterlands in addition to fetches and shocks.
2. Sideboarding - Sideboard slots in Modern are more taxed than in Eternal because hate is necessary against almost everything and catchall answers like Force of Will don't exist. Your extra 15 cards are huge in this format.
3. Engine-based combo - Combo decks like this are way harder to play in Modern. The cards either aren't there or are banned.
Special thanks to Hakai Studios and SushiOtter for the sig!
Legacy: UR Sneak and Show I UBG Team America I X Metalworker MUD
Modern: UBR Blue Jund I WBX Eldrazi Processors I X Affinity I WRG Nacatl Burn I GR Tron I UBR Grishoalbrand
edit: The idea that legacy is more challenging should be uncontroversial. Whether or not an individual will notice or appreciate the difference is another topic - and likely related to whether the difference in levels of challenge has any meaningful consequences.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
When I can Vampiric Tutor or Demonic Tutor for anything, the decision trees get extremely large. Too often, blindly tutoring for a threat is not the correct call.
Legacy is thankfully easier than Vintage, but even Legacy is hard. Some decks, such as Lands, Dredge, and Belcher, have extremely strange play styles compared to Modern decks. It's also tricker to play combo when any blue deck can be holding Force of Will (and some of them Daze) at all times. Figuring out your mana fixing and fetching gets more complex with Wasteland (punishes nonbasics hard) and Rishadan Port (disproportionately punishes basics) in the mix. Legacy having about as many rogue decks as Modern doesn't help.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I personally prefer Modern over all other formats so i'm biased. I think the difference between the best deck, say Twin, and a 'tier 2.5' deck like green stompy or whatever is minor enough, for example a pauper deck 4-0'd a Modo daily a few weeks ago in modern.
Obviously in a 10 plus round tourney these differences are multiplied and I wouldn't expect to see stompy or cheerios winning any GP's but for about $70 bucks you can have a lot of fun and success on Modo in the practice room and even dailies. Plus, you can do it for years since you will not have your deck rotated out of existence. In fact it will probably get a few good pieces out of the new sets from time to time.
Now as far as the whole is Legacy/vintage more difficult i.e skill cap argument... I think you have to say yes, there probably is, but it's not like rain man stuff or anything. It's more knowing the many interrelations from a much larger card pool. Really the same skill set as any other format but multiplied by the huge card pools.
But, and this is just my humble opinion, when I look at legacy and see that the starting point of so many competitive deck is, brainstorm, force of will, islands.... I just can't get too excited about it. For all the potential those massive card pools have, they degenerate into similar blue shells.
That being said I wish wizards would push legacy and vintage better on modo because at the end of the day more formats is always better. I don't see why they don't' have a vintage or legacy draft set up all the time. Get the prices down! The online prices are almost sane save for like 1 or 2 cards per deck.
Just my poorly worded 2 cents
In addition, the quality of removal, counters, and library manipulation are lower. One cannot simply jam 4 Swords to Plowshares in every control deck running white, so the type and number of each removal spell or counterspell needs to be finely tuned.
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Modern
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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)Most control decks in Modern are designed to never tap out though + people playing UW Miracles also has to make those tough decisions (you won't always have FoW in hand and even if you do, it might not be enough to win a counter war or you can't afford to 2 for 1 yourself at that stage of the game). Once you bring stuff like Brainstorm, Top, Jace and Counterbalance into the equation your decision tree grows exponentially. Without playing Legacy myself (only watched), I'd say that some of those decisions are a lot more complicated than deciding to Leak or Helix something.
The second paragraph I agree with though, but from a deck building perspective, not a play skill perspective.
Are you including pairing variance? Standard has the least variance at the time pairings are assigned, Modern the most, with Vintage just behind Modern.
I consider Modern the highest variance format because there are so many early game "I Win" plays that work against specific matchups (most are sideboard cards but some, like Splinter Twin, are maindeck and decks revolve around them). Stony Silence being the poster child of sideboard "haha, I win" cards.
Pretty sure the article refers to the number of strategies possible, however (not necessarily viable, just possible). Food Chain Goblins isn't a tier deck in Legacy, but it's something that you could take to a 16 person tournament and catch anyone new to Legacy completely off guard with it - there's less rogue strategies like that in the smaller formats, and even less that have had historic success.
This is a strange argument. Of course it's hard to play control in Modern. Unlike Legacy, all of the control elements in Modern are proactive (weaker), as opposed to reactive (stronger).
That's like saying it would be really skill intensive to pilot a land destruction deck in Modern. Given there aren't enough competitive cards to make it feasible, somehow piloting a land destruction deck to victory would be impressive.
None of that makes Modern "more challenging" than Legacy or Vintage. You've intentionally picked a deck archetype that's hard to play (like tribal squirrels), and used that as evidence that Modern can be considered more challenging than Legacy or Vintage.
Actually, quality of removal in Modern is higher than in Legacy, because although much of the removal is the same, not all Legacy decks play creatures. You're much likely to create virtual card advantage for your opponent by running 4x Swords to Plowshares in Legacy than you are by running 4x Path to Exile in Modern. No one that plays a white control deck in Legacy runs four copies of StP without thinking about it.
The qualities of counterspells and library manipulation are lower in Modern than in Legacy. And although you're using that as evidence that Modern is "more challenging", it actually makes Modern rely more heavily on the topdeck. It might be harder to build a consistent deck in Modern, but it's much harder to pilot a deck in Legacy. In Legacy, you can lose by casting Brainstorm at the wrong time. Not many players lose in Modern by casting a Serum Visions at the wrong time.
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Legacy
UBRGDredgeUBRG
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WR Card Choice List
WUR American D&T
WUB Esper D&T
The Reserved List
Heat Maps
I take "quality of removal" to mean a combination of what percentage of creatures (or maybe even permanents) in the format the removal can hit, how easy it is to cast/use the removal, and how often your opponent loses after you resolve the removal. Swords to Plowshares backfires a lot less often than Path to Exile does in Legacy (we have to consider that PtE really does not play nice with Legacy's Wasteland, though). Even the Legacy decks with fat creatures tend to rely on those fat creatures so much that losing the fat creature and gaining 7 life is still devastating for the fat creature guy (see Reanimator, Dark Depths).
StP would also probably backfire less often in Modern than PtE already does. PtE'ing a mana dork feels absolutely yucky. StP'ing a mana dork is pretty golden.
(StP and PtE can hit the exact same creatures.)
Sadly, there aren't many other removal spells that are playable in Legacy but not in Modern. I guess there's Council's Judgment (hits ANY nonland permanent you want, even un-targetable ones), Umezawa's Jitte (Plague Wind on a stick with bonuses that Stoneforge Mystic can tutor for), Punishing Fire (needs Grove of the Burnwillows, but the two make a nasty board-wiping pair), Terminus (basically only playable in Sensei's Divining Top decks, but 1-mana instant-speed tuck board wipes are unreal), Snuff Out (free, costs quite a lot of life, wants you to play Swamps, can't hit Deathrite Shaman/Griselbrand/Bob/Tasigur/Baleful Strix/etc.), Pernicious Deed (mostly fallen out of favour, rather expensive to use), Vindicate (mostly fallen out of favour, but can hit lands), Pyroblast (can destroy only blue stuff, but can counter blue spells)...
...well, I guess Modern would kill for Council's Judgment, warp around Jitte, and apparently be unable to stand Punishing Fire (+ Grove).
1. Modern has more DIFFERENT cards that see consistent play in tier 1 and 2 decks than legacy does. Despite a higher number of options, the power level of the legacy shells means there's a lot of homogeneity in deck construction, even if the strategies are wildly divergent (RUG delver and miracles are poster child opposites; both lists often start with 4 ponder, 4 brainstorm, 4 force of will, and 8-10 blue fetches, alongside some cliques and red blasts, and flusterstorms in the sideboard)
2. It is significantly harder to recover from a mis-play in legacy than it is in modern--if you crack a fetchland at the wrong time in legacy, you can suddenly find yourself with no lands in play and no lands in hand with nothing on the board. In modern, the worst that happens is a shadow of doubt (rare) or you taking an extra couple points of damage (less rare, but avoidable). If you counter the wrong spell against a combo deck in modern, likely you still have another turn to interact because you slowed them down. In legacy, if you counter the wrong spell against a storm deck, you could find out that you lose immediately, or even wouldn't have lost if you'd not-countered the spell.
3. Blue does not let you recover from bad opening hands "better" than other formats--if anything, blue is a trap to keep risky hands. I can't count the number of times I've seen a delver or combo pilot keep a loose hand with brainstorm and/or ponder, have their first library manipulation spell countered, and be stuck drawing dead for an entire turn or more just because they banked on that library manipulation.
4. Casting brainstorm correctly is just about the hardest skill in magic. Maybe we can argue that finding the correct doomsday pile is harder, but let's be realistic, the only people who can actually do that in a tournament are Jean-Marie Accart and company. Playing with brainstorm does not make the game easier--it makes it much more skill-testing. You may perceive this as being "easier" because brainstorm decks in legacy are universally more consistent than their similar counterparts in modern or standard, but let's be clear here--the other decks ALSO have that consistency boost, which makes the matchup that much more skill-testing. Decks in legacy that don't play brainstorm and/or ponder? Those decks have a reason, and it's usually that the raw power level of whatever they're doing can be obscene.
Modern is probably more challenging with respect to sideboarding and metagaming, but that's more a function of "strong generic answers are uncommon in the format outside of black" and less a function of "modern has a more diverse metagame and/or is harder to predict". Ergo, choosing what matches to give up on and which to sideboard adequately for is a much more skill-testing decision than the actual games, also because they hinge much more on the random drawing or finding of hate cards.
I agree with the above posters--Legacy games are more likely to be decided by skill than variance, and exceedingly more likely than standard to be decided by skill. You have some of the best legacy players making the top 8 of more than one GP in a year--amazing when you consider that there's only 3-4 legacy GP's a year that an individual can realistically get to. Someone starts rattling off that kind of win streak in standard or modern? We start looking for "palm 7's" and "shady shuffling". In legacy? Most of the time we watch these guys play on camera, analyze their plays to death, decide they're dead wrong, then see a few turns later that they took the only line possible to survive/win the game and that everyone else watching missed it.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Because Modern lacks consistency tools, it's harder to build a consistent deck in Modern than in Legacy. This should be obvious. Consistency tools reduce variance, and Modern is higher variance than Legacy. Because of a lack of efficient digging spells and tutors, deck construction is more complicated in Modern than in Legacy. Legacy decks have fewer flexible slots, and they're much more likely to find answers to problems. From a deck building perspective, Modern is more challenging.
But once the game starts, Legacy becomes much more challenging than Modern. Not only does Legacy have an enormous cardpool, but the card interactions can get extremely complicated. And while it's tempting to think that consistency tools make playing Legacy easier, the opposite is true. Consistency tools create more lines of play, and proper sequencing becomes the difference between winning and losing the game. Although it's not legal in Legacy, a whole book was written about properly playing Gush. By contrast, Modern decks are much more linear, because for the most part, the only cards that you have access to, are the ones that come off the top of your library. That greatly limits the number of cards that you see, and consequently the number of options that you have. While I won't say that sequencing is unimportant in Modern, it is certainly less important in Modern than in Legacy. From a deck playing perspective, Legacy is more challenging.
The difference between Modern and Legacy is that Modern is more likely to reward good deck builders, while Legacy is more likely to reward good deck pilots.
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Legacy
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UHigh TideU
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The Reserved List
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Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I really dislike the have to learn a lot of cards argument. generally only a fraction of the cards available in a format will be played. Modern has 9081 cards in the card pool and about 1000 or so see play most likely. so while legacy has 14665 cards available probably only 20%(maybe less) of those are being played. For legacy and modern you can probably learn less then that as you can probably start by learning what are the best decks and learn what cards they run and learn the rest as you go along.
Jon Finkel, arguably the greatest and certainly one of the greatest magic players of all time, has a career win rate of 66.08% in constructed according to the hall of fame stats. LSV has a 63.69% constructed win percentage. Kai Budde has a 61.8% constructed win rate. PVDDR has a 65.58% constructed win percentage.
To put things in perspective, most of the recent cheaters were pushing 80% win rates or higher. Are we saying that everyone who puts up a consistent 80%+ winrate at GP's is cheating? No. Are we saying that they're blowing statistical variance out of the water and playing tighter than ANY of the aforementioned hall of famers even at their best seasons in history? Well, that sounds a little more suspect, but that's essentially what we're saying.
I haven't *actually* crunched the numbers, but I'm certain if we crunched a large dataset of pro's performance rates, we would find significance significantly past the .05 level that those players were playing better than these professionals by a significant amount, which just seems to be an absurd claim to make. 70% is the "spike" level win percentage for professionals in a given season, with 60% being closer to the norm. Winning 33% MORE matches than an average hall of famer on the pro tour seems highly suspect in a game with as much variance as magic.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Less skill than Standard is maybe pushing it. Granted I haven't played Standard since Return to Ravnica, but the current meta game doesn't look much different from it back then (Mono Red, Esper Control, 1 or 2 other aggro/midrange decks). In standard your head doesn't explode when you're trying to do combat math with or against Affinity, you're not forced to go through 100 different lines with or against Pod (RIP), you don't see a pro spend 5 minutes on camera on each decision with Bloom Titan (a deck he even knows in and out). Etc. etc.
Yes, it does encourage better deck design but even the best designed deck is still a slave to randomness. I feel like I get way more punished in Modern than Legacy (never played Vintage) with mana-screw/flood.
Yes, Brainstorm is not perfect and people can become over reliant on the card to fix otherwise bad hands. But Modern seems a lot more hit-or-miss with variance. This also ties into the "silver" bullet nature of the sideboard; just adding more reliance on the top of your deck instead of rewarding strong skill/meta-gaming.
I am not saying I want Brainstorm in Modern, i just wish there was something that would help to smooth out the variance and make the format a bit more skill-based.