Unrelated to SFM, someone asked Sam Stoddard on reddit (AMA thread on r/magictcg) about the turn 4 rule (mostly as a way of trying to advocate for a counterspell reprint in modern). His answer seems to address the often complained about Infect.
Question:
Modern has a soft Turn 4 Rule, and we see that some decks have been allowed to stay in the format despite potential Turn 3 kills (e.g. Grishoalbrand, Pump Infect, etc) while others have received bans to key pieces to slow them down after being deemed too consistent (e.g. several ritual Storm iterations, Amulet Bloom). How consistent is 'too consistent' and what is the process WotC uses to make that determination?
Answer:
On the turn 4 rule, a lot of it comes down to how interactable it is. Infect, for example, can kill on turn 2 with a god draw, but it can still lose to a Path to Exile. Basically, people are naturally running cards that can interact with that deck, while we don't require that all decks have main deck answers to Storm. We don't have a drop-dead rule on win percentages, but Grishoalbrand hasn't put up the kind of results for us to believe it is consistent enough to be a problem.
That's great to read, but this isn't really news, is it? Isn't this what we'd concluded long ago?
No it isn't news, but as ktkenshinx already pointed out, there are a lot of players who need to hear that often.
@cfusion: sounds like you are trying to kill Infect critters on the opponent's turn. Bad idea. Sorcery speed casting is often the better line.
I am happy to hear Sam's response. It suggests Wizards has a more nuanced T4 rule understanding than most players, which bodes well for format health.
I'm used to killing in response to a pump or on their end step if they don't pump. But that's a very URx way of thinking. If I keep playing Burn, I'll definitely keep that in mind. This was the first time I had seen Infect be so fast and robust, since it's never really an issue with Jeskai or Grixis.
@cfusion: sounds like you are trying to kill Infect critters on the opponent's turn. Bad idea. Sorcery speed casting is often the better line.
I am happy to hear Sam's response. It suggests Wizards has a more nuanced T4 rule understanding than most players, which bodes well for format health.
I'm used to killing in response to a pump or on their end step if they don't pump. But that's a very URx way of thinking. If I keep playing Burn, I'll definitely keep that in mind. This was the first time I had seen Infect be so fast and robust, since it's never really an issue with Jeskai or Grixis.
Even in URx the only spells you can potentially get away with using during combat are Path or Terminate, but you're still opening yourself up to a Vines blowout. No matter what deck you're playing, the CORRECT way to play against Infect is to kill in their end step or on your turn.
EDIT: Additionally, the only times you should even be using Path or Terminate during their combat step is if you're facing a lethal attack (you're already at 9 poison or they've pumped enough for lethal), but it still begs the question of whey you didn't kill it during your turn.
@cfusion: sounds like you are trying to kill Infect critters on the opponent's turn. Bad idea. Sorcery speed casting is often the better line.
I am happy to hear Sam's response. It suggests Wizards has a more nuanced T4 rule understanding than most players, which bodes well for format health.
I'm used to killing in response to a pump or on their end step if they don't pump. But that's a very URx way of thinking. If I keep playing Burn, I'll definitely keep that in mind. This was the first time I had seen Infect be so fast and robust, since it's never really an issue with Jeskai or Grixis.
Even in URx the only spells you can potentially get away with using during combat are Path or Terminate, but you're still opening yourself up to a Vines blowout. No matter what deck you're playing, the CORRECT way to play against Infect is to kill in their end step or on your turn.
EDIT: Additionally, the only times you should even be using Path or Terminate during their combat step is if you're facing a lethal attack (you're already at 9 poison or they've pumped enough for lethal), but it still begs the question of whey you didn't kill it during your turn.
He had Pendelhaven available and all I had was Lavamancer activation (2 damage). The rest of the hand was something like command, charm, spike, Eidolon. Game 2 swapped out 4 spikes 2 rift bolt for 4 path 2 forked bolt and just couldn't kill through another pendelhaven + multiple pump spells.
This matchup is usually a walk in the park, and its the first time I've lost to it in months. Just caught me off guard because I'm used to being able to back up my removal with counters.
The key to beating infect is simply to memorize the following words: "End of turn, kill your guy."
If the key to beating infect is so simple then how is it so successful?
Because it's cheap and over represented? No idea, but I don't think I've lost more than maybe two matches against it in all the time I've played modern, which is from the very beginning. It's combo deck that dies to removal, even more fragile than the goblin charbelcher deck that scares people out of legacy.
The key to beating infect is simply to memorize the following words: "End of turn, kill your guy."
If the key to beating infect is so simple then how is it so successful?
Because a surprising number of the Modern community still don't know that's the correct approach to beating Infect. The play pattern against Legacy Infect is the very similar to Modern Infect. If you are losing to Infect with removal in your hand, it means you picked incorrect spots to kill creatures, not because the deck is overpowered. I would argue Death's Shadow is harder to interact with than Infect, damage based removal is very poor against that deck.
Did you just miss Sam Stoddard's quote on the last page? The deck is currently fine.
On the turn 4 rule, a lot of it comes down to how interactable it is. Infect, for example, can kill on turn 2 with a god draw, but it can still lose to a Path to Exile. Basically, people are naturally running cards that can interact with that deck, while we don't require that all decks have main deck answers to Storm. We don't have a drop-dead rule on win percentages, but Grishoalbrand hasn't put up the kind of results for us to believe it is consistent enough to be a problem.
You mean that quote? He never actually said the words "Infect is currently fine". All he said is that the turn 4 rule isn't static and that they take into consideration how reasonably you can interact with it without packing specific hate for the deck and then gave the example of Infect is "easy" to interact with and Storm is not given the cards people commonly play.
What's more likely? That Stoddard mentioned Infect's weaknesses and how "people are naturally running cards that can interact with that deck" as an example of a problematic deck? Or that he thinks the deck is fine? Remember that he already used Infect as an example of a less problematic deck in an earlier article. Given Infect surviving so many ban announcements since Become Immense got introduced, it seems much more likely that the deck is actually just fine.
Infect surviving for 1.5 years without anything out of it getting banned since it last got a new toy to play with isn't much of an argument that the deck is fine.
Twin survived how many ban announcements without really ever getting new cards? Chances are that Twin wouldn't even have been banned when it was if the pro tour hadn't accelerated the pace of bans. It was supposedly already a card on their radar back when the FFL was making KTK which was more than 2 years before it was eventually banned. We want WotC not to make rash decisions when banning decks and take a conservative route.
Twin didn't get banned for T4 rule violations. Infect would, if it did get banned. That criterion mismatch means we can't really compare the Twin case to Infect. The bottom line is Stoddard is making basically the same analysis of Infect today that he made in May 2015. This strongly suggests the deck is currently (and was back then) safe in R&D's eyes.
I'm sure if you go back through the archives you can find plenty of modern promotional material where Splinter Twin was used in the years after it came on their radar as well.
And the 7-8 reprinted staples from MM15 less than 8 months before banning it. Quality decision making right there.
Dredge, Death's Shadow Aggro & Bant Eldrazi into tier 1.
Abzan Company & RG Tron into tier 2.
(Affinity back where it belongs- I never believed it is not one of the two or three best Modern decks)
Although I think this is because those decks are highly underrepresented on MODO, those are the data. (How can RG Tron be 0.0% on MODO?)
So, fair decks won't have so much Tron to fight off but they will have the Tron v2.0 (in terms of unwinnability) as I said before.
Playing Tron is miserable on MTGO right now. So many random linear decks! You can still 3-2 or 4-1 events, but it's much harder and even more matchup dependant than it used to be. This has caused many Tron players to drop out of the 5-0 League finishes.
Banlist-wise, it underscores the cyclical nature of the format, which is good for formar health.
With that said, I have 4 questions for you:
1) Why is Top banned?
2) Do you believe that Top will not cause the problems that caused it to be banned in the first place?
3) One other card on the ban list is banned for the same reason as Top. What is it?
4) The card in 3) does not currently fit into any tier 1 deck. Do you believe it should be unbanned?
With that said, I have 4 questions for you:
1) Why is Top banned?
2) Do you believe that Top will not cause the problems that caused it to be banned in the first place?
3) One other card on the ban list is banned for the same reason as Top. What is it?
4) The card in 3) does not currently fit into any tier 1 deck. Do you believe it should be unbanned?
Since there is no more Modern PT, the issue is less serious than before. This is what I thought.
Besides, Top and 2nd Sunrise is not directly comparable. Egg might win a match-up using 30~60 minutes, but will Miracle spend that much time in the Legacy tournament?
I know everyone thinks modern is in great shape right now, but I got the feeling it was never as boring and skill-less as these days.
Sure you can bring any deck and might take the crown of any given tournament you play - but that has nothing to do with skill or good preparation. It is pure luck. Luck is, from my experience the most deciding factor for winning or loosing. And that makes games really boring.
On top of that: The amount of decks which purly try to goldfish as fast as possible without any meaningful interaction is from my point of view "to damn high". Additionally games are in 75% decided by turn 3 - so luck does get even more important and the amount of decisions you can make in one game (read: the skill-factor which is involved)is so low, that it just does not matter.
I am so tiered of playing on game after another vs dredge, burn, sooicide, zoo, living end, ad nauseam...cos all of these games follow the same pattern: Am I lucky enough to draw my counters/removal or have my opponent stumble on their plan. I play Jeskai Harbringer and even after sideboard my deck is not hard to play. The deck is played by the matchup I get, not the decisions I make. And any of my friends would have won or lost 75% of the matches I played without ever having playing the deck or modern at all.
I dont know what can be done to slow down this format, but from my point of view something has to be done. I dont even get, what you get from playing a deck lik burn or zoo. These decks dont involve any really meaningful decision-making and play the same everygame. You can also sit all by yourself, slam some cards onto the table and call it a game. Dredge is just the cherry on the cream of a big bowl of ice of non-interactive decks which is called a healthy meta-game for modern.
It might be healthy from a numbers and diversity points of view, but as long as gameplay and skill is concerned it comes down to these rare matches vs Jund/Harbringer where the game leaves enough space (read:time) to make great decisions and being rewarded for it.
PLS wizard find a way to slow down the formart and take away the incredible luck-factor of sideboard/silver bullet roulette. In my opinion modern is nothing more than playing poker, but without the posibility of using skill (bluffing) cos after turn 1-2 everyone knows what cards you are playing with and by that time a game is in auto-pilot.
I would disagree with the luck factor being paramount. But lets not forget that it is the narrowing of difference in skill that can cause variance to become a greater factor than the difference in skill. That is not to say that the game has no skill, but just that there is a notable variance at play which will be more present in contests between closely skilled players. In my experience, skill is more important than luck in most matches. That being said, knockout blows off the top of the deck will be a thing as long as strong sideboard cards exist.
Now I'm not sure why that post is in the banlist thread.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
I know everyone thinks modern is in great shape right now, but I got the feeling it was never as boring and skill-less as these days.
Sure you can bring any deck and might take the crown of any given tournament you play - but that has nothing to do with skill or good preparation. It is pure luck. Luck is, from my experience the most deciding factor for winning or loosing. And that makes games really boring.
On top of that: The amount of decks which purly try to goldfish as fast as possible without any meaningful interaction is from my point of view "to damn high". Additionally games are in 75% decided by turn 3 - so luck does get even more important and the amount of decisions you can make in one game (read: the skill-factor which is involved)is so low, that it just does not matter.
I am so tiered of playing on game after another vs dredge, burn, sooicide, zoo, living end, ad nauseam...cos all of these games follow the same pattern: Am I lucky enough to draw my counters/removal or have my opponent stumble on their plan. I play Jeskai Harbringer and even after sideboard my deck is not hard to play. The deck is played by the matchup I get, not the decisions I make. And any of my friends would have won or lost 75% of the matches I played without ever having playing the deck or modern at all.
I dont know what can be done to slow down this format, but from my point of view something has to be done. I dont even get, what you get from playing a deck lik burn or zoo. These decks dont involve any really meaningful decision-making and play the same everygame. You can also sit all by yourself, slam some cards onto the table and call it a game. Dredge is just the cherry on the cream of a big bowl of ice of non-interactive decks which is called a healthy meta-game for modern.
It might be healthy from a numbers and diversity points of view, but as long as gameplay and skill is concerned it comes down to these rare matches vs Jund/Harbringer where the game leaves enough space (read:time) to make great decisions and being rewarded for it.
PLS wizard find a way to slow down the formart and take away the incredible luck-factor of sideboard/silver bullet roulette. In my opinion modern is nothing more than playing poker, but without the posibility of using skill (bluffing) cos after turn 1-2 everyone knows what cards you are playing with and by that time a game is in auto-pilot.
Same verbal warning I gave to two other users: do not use this thread to voice your personal problems or grievances with Modern. Keep it on bans or unbans in this thread.
I think with out a modern pro tour there will likely never be a need to ban anything else in modern. I think the format is in the best shape it's been in a long time, if anything they should unban more things.
Kinda surprising to see "there will likely never be a need to ban anything else in modern" as a statement made so soon after Eldrazi Winter. Am I wrong in my recollection that the change to the PT preceded that ban? What makes it likely that there will "never" be another mistake made on that scale again?
I feel like I'm missing the basis of such a claim. I admire your optimism though - I hope they never make another mistake on that scale again.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Kinda surprising to see "there will likely never be a need to ban anything else in modern" as a statement made so soon after Eldrazi Winter. Am I wrong in my recollection that the change to the PT preceded that ban? What makes it likely that there will "never" be another mistake made on that scale again?
I feel like I'm missing the basis of such a claim. I admire your optimism though - I hope they never make another mistake on that scale again.
It's inevitable that something will eventually break the format again. The card pool is deep and there are thousands of interactions that might be a bit too strong if a new card came along. Such is life.
Kinda surprising to see "there will likely never be a need to ban anything else in modern" as a statement made so soon after Eldrazi Winter. Am I wrong in my recollection that the change to the PT preceded that ban? What makes it likely that there will "never" be another mistake made on that scale again?
I feel like I'm missing the basis of such a claim. I admire your optimism though - I hope they never make another mistake on that scale again.
The pro players are the one who broke Eldrazi . Eldrazi was a tier 2 deck at best before the tourney granted somebody would have figured it out eventually. I think with out a pro tour, modern is less visible and less important as a format.
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No it isn't news, but as ktkenshinx already pointed out, there are a lot of players who need to hear that often.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
EDIT: Additionally, the only times you should even be using Path or Terminate during their combat step is if you're facing a lethal attack (you're already at 9 poison or they've pumped enough for lethal), but it still begs the question of whey you didn't kill it during your turn.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
He had Pendelhaven available and all I had was Lavamancer activation (2 damage). The rest of the hand was something like command, charm, spike, Eidolon. Game 2 swapped out 4 spikes 2 rift bolt for 4 path 2 forked bolt and just couldn't kill through another pendelhaven + multiple pump spells.
This matchup is usually a walk in the park, and its the first time I've lost to it in months. Just caught me off guard because I'm used to being able to back up my removal with counters.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Did you just miss Sam Stoddard's quote on the last page? The deck is currently fine.
Because it's cheap and over represented? No idea, but I don't think I've lost more than maybe two matches against it in all the time I've played modern, which is from the very beginning. It's combo deck that dies to removal, even more fragile than the goblin charbelcher deck that scares people out of legacy.
Because a surprising number of the Modern community still don't know that's the correct approach to beating Infect. The play pattern against Legacy Infect is the very similar to Modern Infect. If you are losing to Infect with removal in your hand, it means you picked incorrect spots to kill creatures, not because the deck is overpowered. I would argue Death's Shadow is harder to interact with than Infect, damage based removal is very poor against that deck.
What's more likely? That Stoddard mentioned Infect's weaknesses and how "people are naturally running cards that can interact with that deck" as an example of a problematic deck? Or that he thinks the deck is fine? Remember that he already used Infect as an example of a less problematic deck in an earlier article. Given Infect surviving so many ban announcements since Become Immense got introduced, it seems much more likely that the deck is actually just fine.
Twin didn't get banned for T4 rule violations. Infect would, if it did get banned. That criterion mismatch means we can't really compare the Twin case to Infect. The bottom line is Stoddard is making basically the same analysis of Infect today that he made in May 2015. This strongly suggests the deck is currently (and was back then) safe in R&D's eyes.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Playing Tron is miserable on MTGO right now. So many random linear decks! You can still 3-2 or 4-1 events, but it's much harder and even more matchup dependant than it used to be. This has caused many Tron players to drop out of the 5-0 League finishes.
Banlist-wise, it underscores the cyclical nature of the format, which is good for formar health.
Incidentally, under the MTGO metagame tab it's listed as "RG Tron". That might be the cause of the problem.
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Big Johnny.
I'll let Jason know; I'm no longer the metagame update guy.
EDIT: Tron is going to be 3.1% of MTGO.
How about removing Sensei's Divining Top from the banlist?
In terms of power level, this guy should not dominate the current META. On the other hand, it can not be used directly into any tier-1 Modern deck.
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron
With that said, I have 4 questions for you:
1) Why is Top banned?
2) Do you believe that Top will not cause the problems that caused it to be banned in the first place?
3) One other card on the ban list is banned for the same reason as Top. What is it?
4) The card in 3) does not currently fit into any tier 1 deck. Do you believe it should be unbanned?
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Big Johnny.
Since there is no more Modern PT, the issue is less serious than before. This is what I thought.
Besides, Top and 2nd Sunrise is not directly comparable. Egg might win a match-up using 30~60 minutes, but will Miracle spend that much time in the Legacy tournament?
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron
I know everyone thinks modern is in great shape right now, but I got the feeling it was never as boring and skill-less as these days.
Sure you can bring any deck and might take the crown of any given tournament you play - but that has nothing to do with skill or good preparation. It is pure luck. Luck is, from my experience the most deciding factor for winning or loosing. And that makes games really boring.
On top of that: The amount of decks which purly try to goldfish as fast as possible without any meaningful interaction is from my point of view "to damn high". Additionally games are in 75% decided by turn 3 - so luck does get even more important and the amount of decisions you can make in one game (read: the skill-factor which is involved)is so low, that it just does not matter.
I am so tiered of playing on game after another vs dredge, burn, sooicide, zoo, living end, ad nauseam...cos all of these games follow the same pattern: Am I lucky enough to draw my counters/removal or have my opponent stumble on their plan. I play Jeskai Harbringer and even after sideboard my deck is not hard to play. The deck is played by the matchup I get, not the decisions I make. And any of my friends would have won or lost 75% of the matches I played without ever having playing the deck or modern at all.
I dont know what can be done to slow down this format, but from my point of view something has to be done. I dont even get, what you get from playing a deck lik burn or zoo. These decks dont involve any really meaningful decision-making and play the same everygame. You can also sit all by yourself, slam some cards onto the table and call it a game. Dredge is just the cherry on the cream of a big bowl of ice of non-interactive decks which is called a healthy meta-game for modern.
It might be healthy from a numbers and diversity points of view, but as long as gameplay and skill is concerned it comes down to these rare matches vs Jund/Harbringer where the game leaves enough space (read:time) to make great decisions and being rewarded for it.
PLS wizard find a way to slow down the formart and take away the incredible luck-factor of sideboard/silver bullet roulette. In my opinion modern is nothing more than playing poker, but without the posibility of using skill (bluffing) cos after turn 1-2 everyone knows what cards you are playing with and by that time a game is in auto-pilot.
Now I'm not sure why that post is in the banlist thread.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Same verbal warning I gave to two other users: do not use this thread to voice your personal problems or grievances with Modern. Keep it on bans or unbans in this thread.
I feel like I'm missing the basis of such a claim. I admire your optimism though - I hope they never make another mistake on that scale again.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
It's inevitable that something will eventually break the format again. The card pool is deep and there are thousands of interactions that might be a bit too strong if a new card came along. Such is life.
I never thought the format would get to a point we'd get to a sfm unban but we are getting there..