Hi, you seem to be confused about what it means to "police" other decks. There are no real universal police decks in the format.
Please consult this fantastic analysis from the ban thread:
Jund kept Twin in check, which kept Affinity/Infect/Tron in check, etc. Everything balances everything else. And now WotC have absolutely messed it up and there will be some awful consequences.
Also, this will be locked. Why did you think your opinion was so important it deserved its own thread instead of just posting in the 2-3 available threads already up about the Twin ban?
How exactly did Jund keep Twin in check? Even with Jund in the format, Twin was still considered a policing deck, which meant that even though a deck or 2 (jund/junk) had decent chances against it, it's status as a policing deck constrained many other decks.
So what happens when Tron gets banned, then another deck rises as some sort of "policing" deck. Perhaps [insertDeckHere] rises up and starts "policing" all the new hyper-aggro decks that show up since every other strategy has been banned out of existence because some people don't like strategies that keep other strategies from being dominant and running wild. Does [insertDeckHere] get banned into the ground to allow all the hyper-aggro decks to continue their thing?
Or, to be more realistic, what happens to Jund now that they have to deal with both Tron and hyper-aggressive decks? They're going to be kept down by all of that, in effect making these aggressive decks into the very "police" that you seem to dislike so much. What then, do we just ban a couple of the "police" to let Jund show up again? We'll have a ban-list a mile long eventually, because there will always bee some sort of "police" deck in the format. Always. Some new strategy will arise to try and take advantage of the meta, and to keep a certain other strategy from becoming dominant.
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So what happens when Tron gets banned, then another deck rises as some sort of "policing" deck. Perhaps [insertDeckHere] rises up and starts "policing" all the new hyper-aggro decks that show up since every other strategy has been banned out of existence because some people don't like strategies that keep other strategies from being dominant and running wild. Does [insertDeckHere] get banned into the ground to allow all the hyper-aggro decks to continue their thing?
Or, to be more realistic, what happens to Jund now that they have to deal with both Tron and hyper-aggressive decks? They're going to be kept down by all of that, in effect making these aggressive decks into the very "police" that you seem to dislike so much. What then, do we just ban a couple of the "police" to let Jund show up again? We'll have a ban-list a mile long eventually, because there will always bee some sort of "police" deck in the format. Always. Some new strategy will arise to try and take advantage of the meta, and to keep a certain other strategy from becoming dominant.
Well I suppose a lot of this relies on very arbitrary stances taken by Wotc. Also, it should be noted, that just because Tron will get banned doesn't mean another policing deck will rise to take it's place. Just because a deck is Tier 1 does not mean it is a policing deck, it could just be strong. The problem with tron is that it is disproportionately stronger then midrange decks which creates a bit of a problem.
As for aggro decks, its hard to say, I'm not scared of affinity, not when Wotc has given us such complete overkill sideboard options for it, infect on the other hand could end up being a huge problem, some would say that it is already.
I want to say that this thread isn't necessarily about complete specifics, its about discussing the concept and apparent requirement of policing decks. Ultimately, just because there is always going to be a best deck, does not necessarily mean there will always be a policing deck, not in the extreme sense that we currently perceive them at least.
A police deck isn't what the opener claims, but just a deck (or a card, like Force of Will in Legacy) that keeps unfair decks that try to win as soon as possible with as less interaction as possible with the opponent in check. Tron only polices Tarmogoyf and Sphinx's Revelation; that's bullying and not policing.
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Well I suppose a lot of this relies on very arbitrary stances taken by Wotc. Also, it should be noted, that just because Tron will get banned doesn't mean another policing deck will rise to take it's place. Just because a deck is Tier 1 does not mean it is a policing deck, it could just be strong. The problem with tron is that it is disproportionately stronger then midrange decks which creates a bit of a problem.
As for aggro decks, its hard to say, I'm not scared of affinity, not when Wotc has given us such complete overkill sideboard options for it, infect on the other hand could end up being a huge problem, some would say that it is already.
I want to say that this thread isn't necessarily about complete specifics, its about discussing the concept and apparent requirement of policing decks. Ultimately, just because there is always going to be a best deck, does not necessarily mean there will always be a policing deck, not in the extreme sense that we currently perceive them at least.
I'm curious. What is your ideal meta? The way your posts sound is that you dislike having decks that keep other strategies in check (Twin keeping aggressive/greedy decks in check, midrange keeping combo such as Twin in check with its hand disruption, aggressive decks keeping midrange in check, etc). I'm not trying to come across as rude here, it just seems that you have a problem with the rock/paper/scissors aspect of the game. That's where the feeling of having "policing" decks comes from, most likely.
Edit: Essentially, banning twin is the Magic equivalent of banning Paper in R/P/S. That's my overall point.
How exactly did Jund keep Twin in check? Even with Jund in the format, Twin was still considered a policing deck, which meant that even though a deck or 2 (jund/junk) had decent chances against it, it's status as a policing deck constrained many other decks.
You're getting too hung up on this idea of "a policing deck". Every deck "polices" every other deck in a small way. Think of it more as a complex natural ecosystem.
Jund kept Twin from having more success and popularity by beating it and having a good matchup against it. If Jund magically disappeared, then without its main predator Twin's metashare would have bubbled up rapidly. In fact, Jund's decline in 2015 compared to previous years is probably a large reason of why Twin was the best performing deck in 2015. Jund, while still policing Twin, was just *that little bit* less good at doing it.
So now Twin has disappeared magically, and that means all the decks it was the main predator of (Tron, Affinity, Infect, etc) will initially increase in numbers, like in a biological ecosystem. All the decks that preyed on Twin (fair control deck, fair midrange decks) will now starve because they have no food and the decks that prey on THEM that Twin "policed" will increase.
Do you see?
I understand the point you are trying to make, my point is that you view the ever freeing of the metagame as the problem, I view it as the incremental solution. You see the existence of policing decks as stabilizing factors, I view them as deck building suppressors. Mind you there are certain examples where our beliefs probably overlap to some extent, the aggro decks that people whine about nowadays weren't nearly as prevalent back when Pod was legal, it really did hold them back, the question is whether it was holding them was a good or bad thing, and why?
Also, to run with the ever crippling narrative of "aggro decks will ***** on all midrange" I fundamentally disagree, If mid range decks wanted to build for affinity or infect, it could more or less crush them under foot. They have a whole armory of removal spells: Bolt, Abrupt Decay, Maelstrom Pulse, Go for the Throat, Sudden Shock, Helix, etc. And they also have access to great midrange creatures that Pod used to play which can help them against aggro, the decks simply cannot utilize those creatures in the effective way that Pod could, but it could still work out fine enough.
The problem is that Tron represents the actual policing threat, which mid range or control decks for instance have no consistent viable tools for stopping.
Well I suppose a lot of this relies on very arbitrary stances taken by Wotc. Also, it should be noted, that just because Tron will get banned doesn't mean another policing deck will rise to take it's place. Just because a deck is Tier 1 does not mean it is a policing deck, it could just be strong. The problem with tron is that it is disproportionately stronger then midrange decks which creates a bit of a problem.
As for aggro decks, its hard to say, I'm not scared of affinity, not when Wotc has given us such complete overkill sideboard options for it, infect on the other hand could end up being a huge problem, some would say that it is already.
I want to say that this thread isn't necessarily about complete specifics, its about discussing the concept and apparent requirement of policing decks. Ultimately, just because there is always going to be a best deck, does not necessarily mean there will always be a policing deck, not in the extreme sense that we currently perceive them at least.
I'm curious. What is your ideal meta? The way your posts sound is that you dislike having decks that keep other strategies in check (Twin keeping aggressive/greedy decks in check, midrange keeping combo such as Twin in check with its hand disruption, aggressive decks keeping midrange in check, etc). I'm not trying to come across as rude here, it just seems that you have a problem with the rock/paper/scissors aspect of the game. That's where the feeling of having "policing" decks comes from, most likely.
Edit: Essentially, banning twin is the Magic equivalent of banning Paper in R/P/S. That's my overall point.
No offense taken. Honestly a lot of people's opinion on this tends to be more or less arbitrary, some say that mid range should always be the best option for the format, others say that combo being the best option (which Twin was) was better, you also have others that would say Control should be better. For me myself, the only reason I originally got into Modern was when I left standard in the INN/RTR to RTR/THS era where Sphinx's Revelation ruled over the format which an iron fist, it was the quintessential policing deck, so because of that experience I will always be apprehensive of wanting control to be overly powerful but thats just my preference.
Also I don't think aggro should be the best option, I think aggro is meant to be a less consistent but having volatile power that other types of decks don't have access to.
And I think that you could always make the argument that having a combo deck being the centre of the metagame is problematic and potentially degenerate, especially if that deck happens to be something resembling amulet bloom.
Because of this, for me personally I would want mid range to be the "best" option overall available to the format, while not policing it, which I think is where mid range is currently at right now, its okay, its going to get worse because of Tron. But if Tron was magically not in the picture, mid range would be just good, not overbearing if you ask me, a lot of that is because they haven't given mid range anything truly oppressively powerful to turn it into a policing deck, and anything that did so in the past has been banned.
If we wanted to come up with a concrete definition of what a "police deck" is, we can try. What do the real life police do? They stop crime and arrest criminals. So what would a police deck do? It would stop decks that break the rules and are "criminals". What does that mean in modern? Well, it means deck that do broken, unfair things. Like try and break the turn 4 rule. The police deck forces interaction and makes the criminal deck interact with it, no matter how hard it tries to squirm away and play its linear goldfish game.
What's that? You want to get me to 10 infect counters by turn 3 you say? Too bad, I discarded your Glistener Elf, and I'm sitting here behind a wall of lightning bolts, terminates and I have a Liliana of the Veil in play for good measure.
Whats that? You wanted to make infinite copies of Deceiver Exarch with Splinter Twin and kill me on turn 4? Too bad I ruined your early disruption with Thoughtseize, then Abrupt Decay'd your Exarch when you tried to combo me.
You wanted to make your Slippery Bogle into an unbeatable 15/13 lifelink, first strike trampling threat by turn 3-4? Well, I managed to slow you down with Inquisition of Kozilek and Abrupt Decay long enough to find my Liliana of the Veil and make you sacrifice your dude.
So a police deck is one that is highly reactive to what the other deck is doing, and employs a large range of versatile answer cards. It plays a fair game with fair cards.
So when the format's policeman can't do his job, things get lawless and degenerate, just like in real life. Of course, if the police become too powerful, then you get a 1984 orwellian police state, which is also bad. So the police deck should be strong but not too strong Our format's police department has had its funding cut pretty badly over the years sadly, and the gangs are about to try and take over the town.
Honestly I think a lot of our disagreement is simply stemming from a difference in defining the term policing deck. To use your example of Jund/Junk vs the world I do somewhat agree but to extent I don't. Take Kolaghan's Command, it is a good, versatile answer, but it doesn't really Police anything, its just a good card. The same goes for other things you mentioned like Terminate or Abrupt Decay, I wouldn't necessarily say that strong answers are policing cards, at least not by my own definition of policing cards.
Also, you mentioned that policing decks exist to stop other decks from doing unfair things, well what about if the policing deck is itself unfair? Twin stops players from being able to play a "proper" game of magic after Turn 3 and forces them to perpetually hold up removal mana, it also wins out of no where with an infinite combo. What about Tron, a Turn 3 Karn kills a lot of decks, and a Turn 4 Ugin even moreso which it is able to cast by having a combo system in place to assemble a massive mana ramp system.
So where does that put the concept of policing decks? If the policing decks that are there to stop unfair things are doing unfair things themselves it doesn't seem like a fair system, it just seems like overpowered decks to me.
Damn I was hoping they wouldn't move this thread, it wasn't a thread made for the specific purpose of talking about bans or metagames, it was to discuss the overarching concept of police decks. Well whatever then.
Jund clearly isnt good enough at policing to stay relevant in the format. Unless top pros are on it i expect it to get crushed by either faster or big mana decks st the pt. It doesnt have enough hate especially g1 to beat them all. Junk is much better situated since it has souls for infect and affinity as well as stony silence
Jund clearly isnt good enough at policing to stay relevant in the format. Unless top pros are on it i expect it to get crushed by either faster or big mana decks st the pt. It doesnt have enough hate especially g1 to beat them all. Junk is much better situated since it has souls for infect and affinity as well as stony silence
Alot of the stuff up above talking about policing was from a thread that was merged. Just to clarify since it probably all showed up randomly at once. I believe they were talking about Jund policing Twin before the ban.
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Jund is too slow without Deathrite Shaman and BBE to combat the big mana decks.
The new Bx Eldrazi deck feels like its specifically crafted to screw Jund, with maindeck relic and value cards. Personally I'm not sure if it's a healthy format where a deck can cast 5 drops on turn 2-3 and 7 drops on turn 3-4 without even needing to cast mana ramp spells, just doing it by playing lands alone.
This is why I always cringe when people say Cloudpost should be unbanned.
How exactly did Jund keep Twin in check? Even with Jund in the format, Twin was still considered a policing deck, which meant that even though a deck or 2 (jund/junk) had decent chances against it, it's status as a policing deck constrained many other decks.
You're getting too hung up on this idea of "a policing deck". Every deck "polices" every other deck in a small way. Think of it more as a complex natural ecosystem.
Jund kept Twin from having more success and popularity by beating it and having a good matchup against it. If Jund magically disappeared, then without its main predator Twin's metashare would have bubbled up rapidly. In fact, Jund's decline in 2015 compared to previous years is probably a large reason of why Twin was the best performing deck in 2015. Jund, while still policing Twin, was just *that little bit* less good at doing it.
So now Twin has disappeared magically, and that means all the decks it was the main predator of (Tron, Affinity, Infect, etc) will initially increase in numbers, like in a biological ecosystem. All the decks that preyed on Twin (fair control deck, fair midrange decks) will now starve because they have no food and the decks that prey on THEM that Twin "policed" will increase.
Do you see?
I understand the point you are trying to make, my point is that you view the ever freeing of the metagame as the problem, I view it as the incremental solution. You see the existence of policing decks as stabilizing factors, I view them as deck building suppressors.
Explain what you mean by freeing of metagame
The way I and many others see it, Twin WAS keeping the metagame free by keeping a certain group of undesirable decks at bay. The amount of interaction and fair magic going on in modern has steadily dropped over the years, until we arrive at today.
Tron, Affinity, Burn and Infect are linear and not very interactive. Twin was interactive, it relied on creatures with enchantments on them to win that is a very interactable card type, and Twin tried to interact with its opponent by countering their stuff, tapping their stuff with exarch/cryptic, bouncing stuff with cryptic, etc
Tron basically solitaires until it just casting as many Wurmcoils and Karns as possible and the most interaction they have to do is deciding what to exile with karn.
Affinity is easy to interact with, it's just so fast that you often don't have time, and the only way it wants to interact with you is by reducing your life from 20 to 0 as fast as possible. Vast majority of their threats have evasion so you can't block. They basically don't run any cards that try and care about what the opponent is doing.
Burn is basically the same as affinity except you can block its creatures, it just tried to lava spike you 7 times and call it a day
Infect is the same as last 2, but they try to make their creature unblockable and prevent you from interacting with vines of the vastwood and apostle's blessing
We used to have more decks that actively tried to interact with their opponent and played slower, longer games with more points for interaction. Jeskai Control/Midrange, Melira/Kiki Pod, even Delver... not so much anymore.
Twin was what was keeping the above monsters at bay. RIP.
I define the freeing of the metagame as the increasing of our viable card pool, and banning twin definitively does this. And to say that twin was keeping undesirable decks at bay is presumptuous, after all, it was just a couple weeks back that amulet crushed the GP. I think your theory rests on the old Samurai saying "One sword keeps the other sheathed", the problem with this line of thought is that relies on the "good" guy always have a sword or else the "bad" guy will kill him, and whenever the good guy doesn't have a sword there is nothing keeping the other sheathed. An alternative to this is to get rid of the swords so to speak.
Swords in this case being policing decks, the overpowered decks that are apparently needed to keep unfair and other overpowered decks in check,even though they only sometimes manage to do it.
Also I wouldn`t say that Twin was keeping those `monsters` at bay, since they have been overunning this metagame since Pod got the axe, it would be much more accurate to say it was Pod that was doing the heavy lifting in that regard. But that isnt to say that other decks somehow cant handle infect, burn, or affinity, I think adequate sideboard and some mainboard cards to handle them or at least give even ish matchups for some. Tron though is a problem since it is a full fledged policing deck that crushes mid range into the ground.
Well I suppose a lot of this relies on very arbitrary stances taken by Wotc. Also, it should be noted, that just because Tron will get banned doesn't mean another policing deck will rise to take it's place. Just because a deck is Tier 1 does not mean it is a policing deck, it could just be strong. The problem with tron is that it is disproportionately stronger then midrange decks which creates a bit of a problem.
As for aggro decks, its hard to say, I'm not scared of affinity, not when Wotc has given us such complete overkill sideboard options for it, infect on the other hand could end up being a huge problem, some would say that it is already.
I want to say that this thread isn't necessarily about complete specifics, its about discussing the concept and apparent requirement of policing decks. Ultimately, just because there is always going to be a best deck, does not necessarily mean there will always be a policing deck, not in the extreme sense that we currently perceive them at least.
I'm curious. What is your ideal meta? The way your posts sound is that you dislike having decks that keep other strategies in check (Twin keeping aggressive/greedy decks in check, midrange keeping combo such as Twin in check with its hand disruption, aggressive decks keeping midrange in check, etc). I'm not trying to come across as rude here, it just seems that you have a problem with the rock/paper/scissors aspect of the game. That's where the feeling of having "policing" decks comes from, most likely.
Edit: Essentially, banning twin is the Magic equivalent of banning Paper in R/P/S. That's my overall point.
No offense taken. Honestly a lot of people's opinion on this tends to be more or less arbitrary, some say that mid range should always be the best option for the format, others say that combo being the best option (which Twin was) was better, you also have others that would say Control should be better. For me myself, the only reason I originally got into Modern was when I left standard in the INN/RTR to RTR/THS era where Sphinx's Revelation ruled over the format which an iron fist, it was the quintessential policing deck, so because of that experience I will always be apprehensive of wanting control to be overly powerful but thats just my preference.
Also I don't think aggro should be the best option, I think aggro is meant to be a less consistent but having volatile power that other types of decks don't have access to.
And I think that you could always make the argument that having a combo deck being the centre of the metagame is problematic and potentially degenerate, especially if that deck happens to be something resembling amulet bloom.
Because of this, for me personally I would want mid range to be the "best" option overall available to the format, while not policing it, which I think is where mid range is currently at right now, its okay, its going to get worse because of Tron. But if Tron was magically not in the picture, mid range would be just good, not overbearing if you ask me, a lot of that is because they haven't given mid range anything truly oppressively powerful to turn it into a policing deck, and anything that did so in the past has been banned.
Well you might be in luck, wizards direction seems be midrange on midrange on midrange.
How exactly did Jund keep Twin in check? Even with Jund in the format, Twin was still considered a policing deck, which meant that even though a deck or 2 (jund/junk) had decent chances against it, it's status as a policing deck constrained many other decks.
You're getting too hung up on this idea of "a policing deck". Every deck "polices" every other deck in a small way. Think of it more as a complex natural ecosystem.
Jund kept Twin from having more success and popularity by beating it and having a good matchup against it. If Jund magically disappeared, then without its main predator Twin's metashare would have bubbled up rapidly. In fact, Jund's decline in 2015 compared to previous years is probably a large reason of why Twin was the best performing deck in 2015. Jund, while still policing Twin, was just *that little bit* less good at doing it.
So now Twin has disappeared magically, and that means all the decks it was the main predator of (Tron, Affinity, Infect, etc) will initially increase in numbers, like in a biological ecosystem. All the decks that preyed on Twin (fair control deck, fair midrange decks) will now starve because they have no food and the decks that prey on THEM that Twin "policed" will increase.
Do you see?
I understand the point you are trying to make, my point is that you view the ever freeing of the metagame as the problem, I view it as the incremental solution. You see the existence of policing decks as stabilizing factors, I view them as deck building suppressors.
Explain what you mean by freeing of metagame
The way I and many others see it, Twin WAS keeping the metagame free by keeping a certain group of undesirable decks at bay. The amount of interaction and fair magic going on in modern has steadily dropped over the years, until we arrive at today.
Tron, Affinity, Burn and Infect are linear and not very interactive. Twin was interactive, it relied on creatures with enchantments on them to win that is a very interactable card type, and Twin tried to interact with its opponent by countering their stuff, tapping their stuff with exarch/cryptic, bouncing stuff with cryptic, etc
Tron basically solitaires until it just casting as many Wurmcoils and Karns as possible and the most interaction they have to do is deciding what to exile with karn.
Affinity is easy to interact with, it's just so fast that you often don't have time, and the only way it wants to interact with you is by reducing your life from 20 to 0 as fast as possible. Vast majority of their threats have evasion so you can't block. They basically don't run any cards that try and care about what the opponent is doing.
Burn is basically the same as affinity except you can block its creatures, it just tried to lava spike you 7 times and call it a day
Infect is the same as last 2, but they try to make their creature unblockable and prevent you from interacting with vines of the vastwood and apostle's blessing
We used to have more decks that actively tried to interact with their opponent and played slower, longer games with more points for interaction. Jeskai Control/Midrange, Melira/Kiki Pod, even Delver... not so much anymore.
Twin was what was keeping the above monsters at bay. RIP.
I define the freeing of the metagame as the increasing of our viable card pool, and banning twin definitively does this. And to say that twin was keeping undesirable decks at bay is presumptuous, after all, it was just a couple weeks back that amulet crushed the GP. I think your theory rests on the old Samurai saying "One sword keeps the other sheathed", the problem with this line of thought is that relies on the "good" guy always have a sword or else the "bad" guy will kill him, and whenever the good guy doesn't have a sword there is nothing keeping the other sheathed. An alternative to this is to get rid of the swords so to speak.
Swords in this case being policing decks, the overpowered decks that are apparently needed to keep unfair and other overpowered decks in check,even though they only sometimes manage to do it.
Also I wouldn`t say that Twin was keeping those `monsters` at bay, since they have been overunning this metagame since Pod got the axe, it would be much more accurate to say it was Pod that was doing the heavy lifting in that regard. But that isnt to say that other decks somehow cant handle infect, burn, or affinity, I think adequate sideboard and some mainboard cards to handle them or at least give even ish matchups for some. Tron though is a problem since it is a full fledged policing deck that crushes mid range into the ground.
But freeing the meta by bans just lowers the power level of the format. Sure you have more decks, but they all are lower power decks. You can free the meta by unbans and printing new cards, but that would involve planning for the format.
I want a healthy meta where the best cards from moderns sets compete, not the middling cards because the best got banned. Maybe modern isn't the format for this? Then wizards please give us something closer to Legacy without the constraints of the reserved list, and modern can be whatever midrange and burn fest you desire.
You're getting too hung up on this idea of "a policing deck". Every deck "polices" every other deck in a small way. Think of it more as a complex natural ecosystem.
Jund kept Twin from having more success and popularity by beating it and having a good matchup against it. If Jund magically disappeared, then without its main predator Twin's metashare would have bubbled up rapidly. In fact, Jund's decline in 2015 compared to previous years is probably a large reason of why Twin was the best performing deck in 2015. Jund, while still policing Twin, was just *that little bit* less good at doing it.
So now Twin has disappeared magically, and that means all the decks it was the main predator of (Tron, Affinity, Infect, etc) will initially increase in numbers, like in a biological ecosystem. All the decks that preyed on Twin (fair control deck, fair midrange decks) will now starve because they have no food and the decks that prey on THEM that Twin "policed" will increase.
Do you see?
I understand the point you are trying to make, my point is that you view the ever freeing of the metagame as the problem, I view it as the incremental solution. You see the existence of policing decks as stabilizing factors, I view them as deck building suppressors.
Explain what you mean by freeing of metagame
The way I and many others see it, Twin WAS keeping the metagame free by keeping a certain group of undesirable decks at bay. The amount of interaction and fair magic going on in modern has steadily dropped over the years, until we arrive at today.
Tron, Affinity, Burn and Infect are linear and not very interactive. Twin was interactive, it relied on creatures with enchantments on them to win that is a very interactable card type, and Twin tried to interact with its opponent by countering their stuff, tapping their stuff with exarch/cryptic, bouncing stuff with cryptic, etc
Tron basically solitaires until it just casting as many Wurmcoils and Karns as possible and the most interaction they have to do is deciding what to exile with karn.
Affinity is easy to interact with, it's just so fast that you often don't have time, and the only way it wants to interact with you is by reducing your life from 20 to 0 as fast as possible. Vast majority of their threats have evasion so you can't block. They basically don't run any cards that try and care about what the opponent is doing.
Burn is basically the same as affinity except you can block its creatures, it just tried to lava spike you 7 times and call it a day
Infect is the same as last 2, but they try to make their creature unblockable and prevent you from interacting with vines of the vastwood and apostle's blessing
We used to have more decks that actively tried to interact with their opponent and played slower, longer games with more points for interaction. Jeskai Control/Midrange, Melira/Kiki Pod, even Delver... not so much anymore.
Twin was what was keeping the above monsters at bay. RIP.
I define the freeing of the metagame as the increasing of our viable card pool, and banning twin definitively does this. And to say that twin was keeping undesirable decks at bay is presumptuous, after all, it was just a couple weeks back that amulet crushed the GP. I think your theory rests on the old Samurai saying "One sword keeps the other sheathed", the problem with this line of thought is that relies on the "good" guy always have a sword or else the "bad" guy will kill him, and whenever the good guy doesn't have a sword there is nothing keeping the other sheathed. An alternative to this is to get rid of the swords so to speak.
Swords in this case being policing decks, the overpowered decks that are apparently needed to keep unfair and other overpowered decks in check,even though they only sometimes manage to do it.
Also I wouldn`t say that Twin was keeping those `monsters` at bay, since they have been overunning this metagame since Pod got the axe, it would be much more accurate to say it was Pod that was doing the heavy lifting in that regard. But that isnt to say that other decks somehow cant handle infect, burn, or affinity, I think adequate sideboard and some mainboard cards to handle them or at least give even ish matchups for some. Tron though is a problem since it is a full fledged policing deck that crushes mid range into the ground.
But freeing the meta by bans just lowers the power level of the format. Sure you have more decks, but they all are lower power decks. You can free the meta by unbans and printing new cards, but that would involve planning for the format.
I want a healthy meta where the best cards from moderns sets compete, not the middling cards because the best got banned. Maybe modern isn't the format for this? Then wizards please give us something closer to Legacy without the constraints of the reserved list, and modern can be whatever midrange and burn fest you desire.
Well this is the problem, Modern is also the victim of a type of perpetual identity crisis, is it supposed to Big Standard, or Legacy Lite, and to what extent. Everyone has slightly different opinions that are neither correct nor wrong, as ultimately it is wotc who will make that decision.
One thing that puzzles me about the meta predictions is that Jund, and to a lesser extent, Junk are being talked about as if their only good matchup was Twin. Sure, it was a good matchup, but certainly having a favorable matchup against 10% of the meta and losing to everything else isn't the formula for swinging just over either side of the Tier-1/Tier-2 fence. So clearly there's something being left by the wayside in this argument.
That aside, with the cardpool that archetype has access to, including pretty much the best removal and some stellar card advantage, I'd be very surprised if GBx midrange is really just dead in the water as some people claim. Yeah, the one-two punch of the format losing Twin and gaining Eldrazi will hurt, and even after adapting to the new meta they'll still be the underdog in big mana matchups. But doesn't that analysis leave out that as those decks gain popularity, we'll see decks that go under like (potentially) Elves, Merfolk, Affinity, Infect, and Boggles step up to prey upon the new deck/s-to-beat? Incidentally, aren't those some of GBx's best matchups? That's an honest question – I've never played Jund and only recently taken up a very unusual Abzan deck, so I don't know from first-hand experience. But my impression is that GBx's superior value and top-notch removal grinds out and locks down aggro pretty solidly.
I realize my premise about GBx doing well against aggro may just be wrong, but also consider this: with Twin gone, GBx is going to be retooling. I fully expect to see Jund running sweepers and maybe a couple Sudden Shocks. Abzan for its part has easy access to lifegain creatures, a stellar Path/Decay/Pulse removal suite, a strong and flexible (and sometimes main-deckable) hate package, and Lingering Souls to go over, or flood the board and drag aggro into fighting a losing late-game slogfest. There's also new angles to consider like Painful Truths, which was already gaining some following before the Twin ban boosted its profile.
If that's the case, wouldn't that just mean that we'll see a re-ordering in which all the current decks are still contenders? Formerly, Twin is the deck to beat, GBx preys on Twin, Ramp preys on GBx, Aggro preys on Ramp, GBx also moonlights preying on Aggro. Now, Ramp is the deck to beat, preying on GBx, Aggro preys on Ramp, and GBx takes up a full-time job preying on Aggro with benefits and a pension.
So I guess the question is: doesn't GBx Midrange just adapt to the new meta, preying on largely the same decks it preyed on before, as those decks rise up to take down the big mana strategies? If not, is that because 1) aggro just decides to sit it out while Karn and Ugin fight off the Eldrazi until Eye of Ugin gets banned out from under them, or 2) GBx really didn't prey on anything except Twin, and just maintained a tiered status by beating one deck that was 10% of the format?
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Jund is billed as a 50/50 deck. Meaning, if you played against infect, some random rogue brew, etc. didn't matter, you had a fighting shot as long as you had some kind of skill to back it up.
However, Eldrazi and Tron are nearly impossible matchups for Jund, so its like, what's the appeal of playing Jund now? Well, it was the deck's positive Twin matchup. You could just one for one twin into oblivion. Some people felt like it was worth accepting really bad Tron/Eldrazi matchups for the sake of being good against Twin. That's no longer relevant, so the question is, why would you play Jund when you can just goldfish on turn 3? Give me a good reason to play it with this in mind.
rogue_LOVE, Elves generally stomps on Jund pre-board because it generates dudes faster than Jund can kill them, especially after Ezuri, Renegade Leader lands. (Post-board, things get tricky.)
Jund can be easily tuned to beat aggro decks. They've main boarded Anger of the Gods in the past, and can do it again if needed to. I'm not worried about BGx VS aggro/midrange, it's BGx VS Ramp that's always been an issue. I just don't see how BGx can get better at hating on mana bases than it already is. Jund can be built to run both Fulminator Mage and Blood Moon in the side, especially if they are building with Anger of the Gods in the main board. I would make their deck rely more on fetching correctly each turn, and I think it would make the land base a little less greedy overall.
Now this would all help against Tron, but still doesn't help against Bx Eldrazi, who can ramp off of Heartless Summoning and Conduit of Ruin if you start hating on their land too hard. If only one of these decks if tier one, than maybe BGx can stay tier one, but if both Tron and Bx Eldrazi hit tier one, I don't see how BGx could stay tier one. Sad day for us Golgari players.
If hyper aggro gets too popular, I expect a resurgence in midrange decks with some of the best match-ups against aggro: UWR and Mardu. I remember that Humans Mardu deck performing decently on MTGO.
Humans Mardu at least has serviceable match-ups against both Eldrazi and RG Tron, but sadly, UWR is unfavoured against Eldrazi and is increasingly cold against RG Tron.
I don't have the money to change decks so I'll stick with BWr Tokens. Luckily I think it's better positioned in the upcoming meta, Affinity, Infect, and Burn are all 50/50 or better, BGx is downright favorable. Yes the deck pretty much folds to Tron. But if the main 6 decks are Tron, Eldrazi, 3 decks that beat those 2, and BGx then I think I'm pretty good.
Now slightly off topic but could someone please explain how Twin was an interactive matchup yet people complain that BGx and similar strategies aren't? I get that Affinity, Infect, Bogles, and Tron, etc avoid interacting and just try to play as fast and direct as possible. But in my experience that was the same goal of Twin at least for game 1. As for BGx it seems to be one of the most interactive decks in modern, it might be linear as most aggro/midrange decks can be but it spends a lot of time interacting.
Hamlin- I feel that many players are under the impression you must play blue to be interactive. That is some logic I have seen which I don't agree with. Another reason people think b/g isn't interactive is because it's proactive not reactive.
I feel that b/g is a proactive interactive deck but others want Interactive reactive decks
Im wondering if Skred could be a good match for this meta. It folds to turn 3 tron but can power out a turn 2 Bloodmoon on the play and can even land turn one with SSG or power out a early sowing salt post board.
It's also very well placed vs. Creature agrro decks with tons of sweepers and burn.
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How exactly did Jund keep Twin in check? Even with Jund in the format, Twin was still considered a policing deck, which meant that even though a deck or 2 (jund/junk) had decent chances against it, it's status as a policing deck constrained many other decks.
Or, to be more realistic, what happens to Jund now that they have to deal with both Tron and hyper-aggressive decks? They're going to be kept down by all of that, in effect making these aggressive decks into the very "police" that you seem to dislike so much. What then, do we just ban a couple of the "police" to let Jund show up again? We'll have a ban-list a mile long eventually, because there will always bee some sort of "police" deck in the format. Always. Some new strategy will arise to try and take advantage of the meta, and to keep a certain other strategy from becoming dominant.
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Well I suppose a lot of this relies on very arbitrary stances taken by Wotc. Also, it should be noted, that just because Tron will get banned doesn't mean another policing deck will rise to take it's place. Just because a deck is Tier 1 does not mean it is a policing deck, it could just be strong. The problem with tron is that it is disproportionately stronger then midrange decks which creates a bit of a problem.
As for aggro decks, its hard to say, I'm not scared of affinity, not when Wotc has given us such complete overkill sideboard options for it, infect on the other hand could end up being a huge problem, some would say that it is already.
I want to say that this thread isn't necessarily about complete specifics, its about discussing the concept and apparent requirement of policing decks. Ultimately, just because there is always going to be a best deck, does not necessarily mean there will always be a policing deck, not in the extreme sense that we currently perceive them at least.
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I'm curious. What is your ideal meta? The way your posts sound is that you dislike having decks that keep other strategies in check (Twin keeping aggressive/greedy decks in check, midrange keeping combo such as Twin in check with its hand disruption, aggressive decks keeping midrange in check, etc). I'm not trying to come across as rude here, it just seems that you have a problem with the rock/paper/scissors aspect of the game. That's where the feeling of having "policing" decks comes from, most likely.
Edit: Essentially, banning twin is the Magic equivalent of banning Paper in R/P/S. That's my overall point.
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I understand the point you are trying to make, my point is that you view the ever freeing of the metagame as the problem, I view it as the incremental solution. You see the existence of policing decks as stabilizing factors, I view them as deck building suppressors. Mind you there are certain examples where our beliefs probably overlap to some extent, the aggro decks that people whine about nowadays weren't nearly as prevalent back when Pod was legal, it really did hold them back, the question is whether it was holding them was a good or bad thing, and why?
Also, to run with the ever crippling narrative of "aggro decks will ***** on all midrange" I fundamentally disagree, If mid range decks wanted to build for affinity or infect, it could more or less crush them under foot. They have a whole armory of removal spells: Bolt, Abrupt Decay, Maelstrom Pulse, Go for the Throat, Sudden Shock, Helix, etc. And they also have access to great midrange creatures that Pod used to play which can help them against aggro, the decks simply cannot utilize those creatures in the effective way that Pod could, but it could still work out fine enough.
The problem is that Tron represents the actual policing threat, which mid range or control decks for instance have no consistent viable tools for stopping.
No offense taken. Honestly a lot of people's opinion on this tends to be more or less arbitrary, some say that mid range should always be the best option for the format, others say that combo being the best option (which Twin was) was better, you also have others that would say Control should be better. For me myself, the only reason I originally got into Modern was when I left standard in the INN/RTR to RTR/THS era where Sphinx's Revelation ruled over the format which an iron fist, it was the quintessential policing deck, so because of that experience I will always be apprehensive of wanting control to be overly powerful but thats just my preference.
Also I don't think aggro should be the best option, I think aggro is meant to be a less consistent but having volatile power that other types of decks don't have access to.
And I think that you could always make the argument that having a combo deck being the centre of the metagame is problematic and potentially degenerate, especially if that deck happens to be something resembling amulet bloom.
Because of this, for me personally I would want mid range to be the "best" option overall available to the format, while not policing it, which I think is where mid range is currently at right now, its okay, its going to get worse because of Tron. But if Tron was magically not in the picture, mid range would be just good, not overbearing if you ask me, a lot of that is because they haven't given mid range anything truly oppressively powerful to turn it into a policing deck, and anything that did so in the past has been banned.
Honestly I think a lot of our disagreement is simply stemming from a difference in defining the term policing deck. To use your example of Jund/Junk vs the world I do somewhat agree but to extent I don't. Take Kolaghan's Command, it is a good, versatile answer, but it doesn't really Police anything, its just a good card. The same goes for other things you mentioned like Terminate or Abrupt Decay, I wouldn't necessarily say that strong answers are policing cards, at least not by my own definition of policing cards.
Also, you mentioned that policing decks exist to stop other decks from doing unfair things, well what about if the policing deck is itself unfair? Twin stops players from being able to play a "proper" game of magic after Turn 3 and forces them to perpetually hold up removal mana, it also wins out of no where with an infinite combo. What about Tron, a Turn 3 Karn kills a lot of decks, and a Turn 4 Ugin even moreso which it is able to cast by having a combo system in place to assemble a massive mana ramp system.
So where does that put the concept of policing decks? If the policing decks that are there to stop unfair things are doing unfair things themselves it doesn't seem like a fair system, it just seems like overpowered decks to me.
Alot of the stuff up above talking about policing was from a thread that was merged. Just to clarify since it probably all showed up randomly at once. I believe they were talking about Jund policing Twin before the ban.
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This is why I always cringe when people say Cloudpost should be unbanned.
I define the freeing of the metagame as the increasing of our viable card pool, and banning twin definitively does this. And to say that twin was keeping undesirable decks at bay is presumptuous, after all, it was just a couple weeks back that amulet crushed the GP. I think your theory rests on the old Samurai saying "One sword keeps the other sheathed", the problem with this line of thought is that relies on the "good" guy always have a sword or else the "bad" guy will kill him, and whenever the good guy doesn't have a sword there is nothing keeping the other sheathed. An alternative to this is to get rid of the swords so to speak.
Swords in this case being policing decks, the overpowered decks that are apparently needed to keep unfair and other overpowered decks in check,even though they only sometimes manage to do it.
Also I wouldn`t say that Twin was keeping those `monsters` at bay, since they have been overunning this metagame since Pod got the axe, it would be much more accurate to say it was Pod that was doing the heavy lifting in that regard. But that isnt to say that other decks somehow cant handle infect, burn, or affinity, I think adequate sideboard and some mainboard cards to handle them or at least give even ish matchups for some. Tron though is a problem since it is a full fledged policing deck that crushes mid range into the ground.
Well you might be in luck, wizards direction seems be midrange on midrange on midrange.
But freeing the meta by bans just lowers the power level of the format. Sure you have more decks, but they all are lower power decks. You can free the meta by unbans and printing new cards, but that would involve planning for the format.
I want a healthy meta where the best cards from moderns sets compete, not the middling cards because the best got banned. Maybe modern isn't the format for this? Then wizards please give us something closer to Legacy without the constraints of the reserved list, and modern can be whatever midrange and burn fest you desire.
Well this is the problem, Modern is also the victim of a type of perpetual identity crisis, is it supposed to Big Standard, or Legacy Lite, and to what extent. Everyone has slightly different opinions that are neither correct nor wrong, as ultimately it is wotc who will make that decision.
That aside, with the cardpool that archetype has access to, including pretty much the best removal and some stellar card advantage, I'd be very surprised if GBx midrange is really just dead in the water as some people claim. Yeah, the one-two punch of the format losing Twin and gaining Eldrazi will hurt, and even after adapting to the new meta they'll still be the underdog in big mana matchups. But doesn't that analysis leave out that as those decks gain popularity, we'll see decks that go under like (potentially) Elves, Merfolk, Affinity, Infect, and Boggles step up to prey upon the new deck/s-to-beat? Incidentally, aren't those some of GBx's best matchups? That's an honest question – I've never played Jund and only recently taken up a very unusual Abzan deck, so I don't know from first-hand experience. But my impression is that GBx's superior value and top-notch removal grinds out and locks down aggro pretty solidly.
I realize my premise about GBx doing well against aggro may just be wrong, but also consider this: with Twin gone, GBx is going to be retooling. I fully expect to see Jund running sweepers and maybe a couple Sudden Shocks. Abzan for its part has easy access to lifegain creatures, a stellar Path/Decay/Pulse removal suite, a strong and flexible (and sometimes main-deckable) hate package, and Lingering Souls to go over, or flood the board and drag aggro into fighting a losing late-game slogfest. There's also new angles to consider like Painful Truths, which was already gaining some following before the Twin ban boosted its profile.
If that's the case, wouldn't that just mean that we'll see a re-ordering in which all the current decks are still contenders? Formerly, Twin is the deck to beat, GBx preys on Twin, Ramp preys on GBx, Aggro preys on Ramp, GBx also moonlights preying on Aggro. Now, Ramp is the deck to beat, preying on GBx, Aggro preys on Ramp, and GBx takes up a full-time job preying on Aggro with benefits and a pension.
So I guess the question is: doesn't GBx Midrange just adapt to the new meta, preying on largely the same decks it preyed on before, as those decks rise up to take down the big mana strategies? If not, is that because 1) aggro just decides to sit it out while Karn and Ugin fight off the Eldrazi until Eye of Ugin gets banned out from under them, or 2) GBx really didn't prey on anything except Twin, and just maintained a tiered status by beating one deck that was 10% of the format?
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However, Eldrazi and Tron are nearly impossible matchups for Jund, so its like, what's the appeal of playing Jund now? Well, it was the deck's positive Twin matchup. You could just one for one twin into oblivion. Some people felt like it was worth accepting really bad Tron/Eldrazi matchups for the sake of being good against Twin. That's no longer relevant, so the question is, why would you play Jund when you can just goldfish on turn 3? Give me a good reason to play it with this in mind.
Now this would all help against Tron, but still doesn't help against Bx Eldrazi, who can ramp off of Heartless Summoning and Conduit of Ruin if you start hating on their land too hard. If only one of these decks if tier one, than maybe BGx can stay tier one, but if both Tron and Bx Eldrazi hit tier one, I don't see how BGx could stay tier one. Sad day for us Golgari players.
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Humans Mardu at least has serviceable match-ups against both Eldrazi and RG Tron, but sadly, UWR is unfavoured against Eldrazi and is increasingly cold against RG Tron.
Now slightly off topic but could someone please explain how Twin was an interactive matchup yet people complain that BGx and similar strategies aren't? I get that Affinity, Infect, Bogles, and Tron, etc avoid interacting and just try to play as fast and direct as possible. But in my experience that was the same goal of Twin at least for game 1. As for BGx it seems to be one of the most interactive decks in modern, it might be linear as most aggro/midrange decks can be but it spends a lot of time interacting.
I feel that b/g is a proactive interactive deck but others want Interactive reactive decks
It's also very well placed vs. Creature agrro decks with tons of sweepers and burn.