I played against Esper Dragons standard with my Jund deck and I was getting thrashed. DDT let him give 7 cards deep at the end of my turn for 2 cards advantage for any perfect answer or threat, now let's think about that in a format thats nothing but efficient piles of cards. 2 Mana for all that, then we start snap casting it back, Dank Dweller or whatever the hell it is, Scapeshift tutoring for anything they want
Yeah, no, no thank you. DDT was too powerful for legacy, for different reasons, but I think that's because DDT is not, "oh! it's modern fun broken" it's a broken ass card, period.
I can't provide you in what context DDT will be used, I'm just most certainly sure it's too powerful
Well first of all, Dark Dwellers can't cast DTT. Second, if you're worried about going DTT and then Snapping it back, we're talking about needing 13 cards in your graveyard to do that for 2 mana each time. That's a hell of a lot of graveyard filling, and then that means that you don't have a graveyard left for things like Tasigur or Snapcaster Mage. And again, you can't really compare decks from different formats like you're doing. Your Jund deck was tuned to fight the Modern metagame, not a Standard deck. I beat a kid's Modern Tooth & Nail with my Standard Temur aggro deck from THS/KTK Standard. That doesn't mean that deck was too powerful.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Blue doesn't need help. It is still the strongest color in modern. No unbannings are needed. Modern is supposed to be diverse enough that most deck concepts can compete. Accept storm ,Wizards hates combo.
Well first of all, Dark Dwellers can't cast DTT. Second, if you're worried about going DTT and then Snapping it back, we're talking about needing 13 cards in your graveyard to do that for 2 mana each time.
Blue doesn't need help. It is still the strongest color in modern. No unbannings are needed. Modern is supposed to be diverse enough that most deck concepts can compete. Accept storm ,Wizards hates combo.
Blue is the strongest colour in modern? Hmm, I thought that was black or green. I don't think your opinion is shared by most.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Yea blue is down with white and red for worst color in modern. Which one is actually the worst depends on the week, but all 3 are leagues behind black and green
Blue doesn't need help. It is still the strongest color in modern. No unbannings are needed. Modern is supposed to be diverse enough that most deck concepts can compete. Accept storm ,Wizards hates combo.
Blue is the strongest colour in modern? Hmm, I thought that was black or green. I don't think your opinion is shared by most.
Yeah, that is laughable. Black, then colorless, then green, then red, then blue with white not that far behind it. Blue has Snapcaster and not a whole lot else.
I honestly think that both Delve cards should be unbanned. Cruise Delver really wasn't that bad, it was just a meta thing. With Pod (which I also think should come back) gone the bad matchups for Delver would come back and I don't see it being any worse than any other deck. I played against it quite a bit and I wasn't impressed. It was strong, but if it becomes a problem, Tron lays waste to it. The meta just wasn't given time to fix itself
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Blue is a support color, more than anything else. Maybe thats not a bad thing? I enjoy the way I use blue right now. Sure, it could be better to help me out more, but I dont think any of us are talking about blue being able to stand on its own two feet, are we? Isnt the whole point of the color pie that colors have strengths and weaknesses? Isnt the whole point of color mixing that what you give up in mana consistency issues, you make-up for in having more powerful tools at your disposal?
Blue doesn't need help. It is still the strongest color in modern. No unbannings are needed. Modern is supposed to be diverse enough that most deck concepts can compete. Accept storm ,Wizards hates combo.
Blue is the strongest colour in modern? Hmm, I thought that was black or green. I don't think your opinion is shared by most.
Yeah, that is laughable. Black, then colorless, then green, then red, then blue with white not that far behind it. Blue has Snapcaster and not a whole lot else.
I honestly think that both Delve cards should be unbanned. Cruise Delver really wasn't that bad, it was just a meta thing. With Pod (which I also think should come back) gone the bad matchups for Delver would come back and I don't see it being any worse than any other deck. I played against it quite a bit and I wasn't impressed. It was strong, but if it becomes a problem, Tron lays waste to it. The meta just wasn't given time to fix itself
Dude, stop.
Every single deck would splash blue to play Treasure cruise.
Blue doesn't need help. It is still the strongest color in modern. No unbannings are needed. Modern is supposed to be diverse enough that most deck concepts can compete. Accept storm ,Wizards hates combo.
Blue is the strongest colour in modern? Hmm, I thought that was black or green. I don't think your opinion is shared by most.
Yeah, that is laughable. Black, then colorless, then green, then red, then blue with white not that far behind it. Blue has Snapcaster and not a whole lot else.
I honestly think that both Delve cards should be unbanned. Cruise Delver really wasn't that bad, it was just a meta thing. With Pod (which I also think should come back) gone the bad matchups for Delver would come back and I don't see it being any worse than any other deck. I played against it quite a bit and I wasn't impressed. It was strong, but if it becomes a problem, Tron lays waste to it. The meta just wasn't given time to fix itself
Dude, stop.
Every single deck would splash blue to play Treasure cruise.
Stahp.
Every single deck didn't though. I certainly wouldn't play it in anything with Bob, and my only deck that I want him for is majority blue! The card is obviously good, but p9 it is not.
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Blue doesn't need help. It is still the strongest color in modern. No unbannings are needed. Modern is supposed to be diverse enough that most deck concepts can compete. Accept storm ,Wizards hates combo.
Blue is the strongest colour in modern? Hmm, I thought that was black or green. I don't think your opinion is shared by most.
Yeah, that is laughable. Black, then colorless, then green, then red, then blue with white not that far behind it. Blue has Snapcaster and not a whole lot else.
I honestly think that both Delve cards should be unbanned. Cruise Delver really wasn't that bad, it was just a meta thing. With Pod (which I also think should come back) gone the bad matchups for Delver would come back and I don't see it being any worse than any other deck. I played against it quite a bit and I wasn't impressed. It was strong, but if it becomes a problem, Tron lays waste to it. The meta just wasn't given time to fix itself
Dude, stop.
Every single deck would splash blue to play Treasure cruise.
Stahp.
Every single deck didn't though. I certainly wouldn't play it in anything with Bob, and my only deck that I want him for is majority blue! The card is obviously good, but p9 it is not.
How were you even able to play Bob competitively in that format?
I for one welcome our BUG midrange Treasure cruise overlords. Does anyone really want to play against a deck with snapcaster, fatal push and cruise? Woof.
I think Dig would likely be fine, but it would mean we'd never see another good cantrip, and it's highly likely it'd eventually get banned again. I do think they were overly aggressive banning dig with cruise, and should have let it shakes itself out. That said, DIG Twin would likely have been oppressive eventually.
Dig through at the very least 13% of your deck (it gets progressively better for each card you draw before casting DTT), and then choose 29% of those cards and put them into your hand? All for UU? Yea, its not coming off the ban list.
(Funny enough MM is not "that" big of an player in Modern NBL, which is quite surprising, when you think about how broken that card is).
Regarding DTT and what influence it will have:
There are three primary winners, and a lot of secondary ones. Primary ones are obvious Jeskai Ascendency (the UWR Tempo/Combo version), RUG Scapeshift (the secretly "best" deck in the TC/DTT area, since it had both a good Delver as Pod match-up) and Control (especially Esper Control would love that card). For the secondary ones only Delver decks have to get noticed, since it would allow the deck to be a solid Tier 2 deck, even though it struggles with a lot of things.
Jeskai Ascendency was a good deck, especially since it was not an all in combo deck + played a relative high amount of interaction (6-8 removal spells and 4-6 counters). The earliest win was on turn 3 thanks to Probe, which is now no longer possible. Hence, the earliest kill would be a turn 4 kill which is more than okay (Modern is a turn 4 format), especially since you can interact quite easily with the combo elements (Bolt/Path vs Fatesticher, Decay/Remand vs Ascendency). Would develop into a solid Tier 2 deck, sometimes dipping into the Tier 1 scene, when the Meta is soft to it, sometimes going down to Tier 3.
RUG Scapeshift would be the real winner. Everybody who followed the deck back in the DTT times knew, how good it was. However, the main reason, why it was so good was mainly of how the interaction from the deck aligned with the current meta. Anger was MVP (both against Delver as Pod), especially when you were able to cast it on turn 3 with counter back up. It still had a decent clock and the goldfish with a perfect draw was at turn 4 (needs a perfect hand and you cannot play anything else but ramp spells basically). Again, no problem with the Turn 4 rule. However, what the deck CAN do is, that when correctly build it can offer a decent choice against both big mana decks (as long as they do not sling Caverns and Ulamogs at you) due to the counter suite and have a decent match-up vs midrange esque decks. However, on the other side the control (lots of air) and aggro (again lots of air) match-ups are not great, this is especially true in the current RUG version. Hence, would establish as a solid Tier 1.5, sometimes dipping down to Tier 2 when there is more aggro and control and being at Tier 1 when there are more targets for multifunctional interaction spells (like Anger back in the days).
Last but not least Control. I can only speak from my personal experience with UW Control back with DTT, have not played Jeskai or Esper Control with that card, so if somebody, who has played with DTT in the respective deck, can correct me if I'm wrong, please go ahead.
In UW Control Dig was a okay-ish card. The problem was, that filling up the Graveyard was an actual problem. Due to the nature of the deck of playing more board based interaction spells (Wall of Omens, Detention Sphere, Vedillion Clique, Runed Halo,...) and the low number of Fetchlands (5 is the max you usually want to run) you had problems to get a "early" Dig off. Most of the times Turn 4 was a realistic Dig for 4 mana turn, which was nice but not close to game breaking. Hence, you had to build the UW Control deck still with the early game in mind hand had the Digs as a late game tutor for the silver win con bullets (be it WSZ or Rev in the more draw and go version or the Planeswalkers in the more tapout version).
However, Dig would improve both Esper and Jeskai a great deal and would give them a real shot of beating things like the ramp decks or something like Cavern of Souls.
Overall, while Dig is a broken good card (as most of the modern powerhouses) it would be INTERESTING to have it in the current Modern format and look, how it would develop from there. I honestly doubt, it would result into huge problems, it would just force a shift in the comfort levels from the players.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: And totally agree, MM3 is absolutely bonkers ^^
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
"It doesn't actually matter for the big mana question. "
but it does, without soo much big mana reactive blue will have more of a reason to be played, it can also focus more on beating bg/x which in turn can keep it in check.
It feels like you aren't reading my posts. I already agreed that reactive blue decks are struggling against big mana decks, so removing those big mana options would improve the reactive blue decks. HOWEVER, big mana decks are ALSO keeping down the BGx share and BGx is performing much better than reactive blue decks. If you remove big mana decks, BGx strategies benefit far more than reactive blue strategies. This will lead to a situation where BGx has no bad matchups and is just the best deck, whereas reactive blue has one fewer bad matchup but is still worse than BGx.
Do you see how risky and unsupportable your argument is? You want to ban four top-tier decks (Valakut, Gx Tron, Edlrazi Tron, Bant Eldrazi) so you can maybe improve reactive blue. But in reality, banning those decks would benefit BGx more than URx, so now we're gambling not only on reactive blue improving, but also that reactive blue can somehow check a newly empower BGx? It's an incredibly bad argument. This statement is particularly groundless:
"it can also focus more on beating bg/x which in turn can keep it in check."
Obviously, even if this did happen, BGx would now be able to focus more on beating reactive blue decks because it didn't need slots for big mana. So again, we find ourselves in a position where BGx is the best deck, reactive blue is still struggling, plus we've lost four top-tier decks AND there are no more checks against BGx.
The alternative? IMPROVE THE BLUE DECKS! Then the blue decks can compete against big mana, big mana can still check BGx, BGx doesn't become the de-facto best deck, and we don't wantonly eliminate four top-tier decks from the format.
"This will lead to a situation where BGx has no bad matchups and is just the best deck, whereas reactive blue has one fewer bad matchup but is still worse than BGx"
I feel like urx could accomodate this change and keep in check bg/x from dominating
"You want to ban four top-tier decks"
atm I atually only think a temple ban is what we need, as I feel there are too many of these decks in the tops tiers. this would improve reactive blue a little while not making bg/x break he game.
"This statement is particularly groundless:"
ever play av blue decks vs bg/x?
"Obviously, even if this did happen, BGx would now be able to focus more on beating reactive blue decks because it didn't need slots for big mana"
as stated above i only think 1 should go, so i dont think sideboards would change much
"The alternative? IMPROVE THE BLUE DECKS! Then the blue decks can compete against big mana"
again, the whole reason I started this argument, what unbans improve this enough?
Saying that Uxx decks would be enough to police the BGx decks while the BGx lose a bad match-up at the same time is a circle argument. The only time period where something like this happened (pre RTR) both were able to coexist but mainly because of the Snappy print for the UWR Control deck.
Temple, while generating two mana for a specific subtype of cards, is not the problem for Uxx decks, the playset of Cavern of Souls is. Turn 3 TKS casted by Cavern is the problem, since the Mana Leak/Remand in your hand looks really sad. A turn 3 Smasher is no problem, as long as not half of your interaction suit is shut down. That is also a reason, why turn 3 Tron is not as backbreaking for Control-ish decks compared with Midrange decks, your whole interaction suit can handle it. Only when there comes a slur of high power plays, than you get into problems, since you are running out of your interaction + it gets worse every turn (Leak/Remand).
What card to unban to power up U based decks? Dig would be a good but controversial.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I'm writing an article assessing the effectiveness of the Twin ban and the Sword/AV unbans at achieving their overlapping goals. Did the ban free up space for non-Twin blue decks? Did the unbans improve controlling blue decks? After analyzing the 2015 data during the Twin era and the 2016 and early 2017 data from after the ban/unbans, I now have enough information to answer this question. I'll publish the full results and numbers in the article itself, but here's the summary:
1. Non-Twin blue decks performed slightly better at the GP/SCG T8 and T16 level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
2. Non-Twin blue decks performed worse at the GP/SCG Day 2 level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
3. Non-Twin blue decks performed worse at the MTGO level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
4. Non-Twin blue decks performed slightly worse at the overall aggregated metagame level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
5. The total share of blue decks (non-Twin and Twin) plummeted by roughly 50% in all categories from 2015 to 2016-17.
Here's an example of how I came to these findings. In 2015, non-Twin decks averaged an 8.2% share at the T8 level and a 9% share at the T16 level. In 2016-17, that share is up to 12.1% and 11.2% respectively. That's just one example of how the comparison plays out, but there's obviously a lot of detail and depth to explore. I'm posting this here to see what questions you all have and other feedback you can provide on this kind of analysis.
Blue is the strongest colour in modern? Hmm, I thought that was black or green. I don't think your opinion is shared by most.
Yeah, that is laughable. Black, then colorless, then green, then red, then blue with white not that far behind it. Blue has Snapcaster and not a whole lot else.
I honestly think that both Delve cards should be unbanned. Cruise Delver really wasn't that bad, it was just a meta thing. With Pod (which I also think should come back) gone the bad matchups for Delver would come back and I don't see it being any worse than any other deck. I played against it quite a bit and I wasn't impressed. It was strong, but if it becomes a problem, Tron lays waste to it. The meta just wasn't given time to fix itself
Dude, stop.
Every single deck would splash blue to play Treasure cruise.
Stahp.
Every single deck didn't though. I certainly wouldn't play it in anything with Bob, and my only deck that I want him for is majority blue! The card is obviously good, but p9 it is not.
How were you even able to play Bob competitively in that format?
I didn't play Bob back then, I only built the deck in the last few months and actually proxy that to test, but it definitely values CA plus attacker over raw draw
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I'm writing an article assessing the effectiveness of the Twin ban and the Sword/AV unbans at achieving their overlapping goals. Did the ban free up space for non-Twin blue decks? Did the unbans improve controlling blue decks? After analyzing the 2015 data during the Twin era and the 2016 and early 2017 data from after the ban/unbans, I now have enough information to answer this question. I'll publish the full results and numbers in the article itself, but here's the summary:
1. Non-Twin blue decks performed slightly better at the GP/SCG T8 and T16 level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
2. Non-Twin blue decks performed worse at the GP/SCG Day 2 level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
3. Non-Twin blue decks performed worse at the MTGO level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
4. Non-Twin blue decks performed slightly worse at the overall aggregated metagame level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
5. The total share of blue decks (non-Twin and Twin) plummeted by roughly 50% in all categories from 2015 to 2016-17.
Here's an example of how I came to these findings. In 2015, non-Twin decks averaged an 8.2% share at the T8 level and a 9% share at the T16 level. In 2016-17, that share is up to 12.1% and 11.2% respectively. That's just one example of how the comparison plays out, but there's obviously a lot of detail and depth to explore. I'm posting this here to see what questions you all have and other feedback you can provide on this kind of analysis.
Minor issue, but I think you should take top 32 into account even if the numbers only change slightly. In most cases the difference between 9-16 and 17-32 are tiebreakers, especially for bigger events. If you look at points scored or matches won. They'll almost always have the same record.
An example. The recent GP Vancouver, 11th place to 33rd place ALL have 36 points, which is a 12-3 record.
Even in smaller GPs such as GP Brisbane, which was about 2/3 the size of Vancouver, 8th place to 21st place are on 36 points.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
I'm writing an article assessing the effectiveness of the Twin ban and the Sword/AV unbans at achieving their overlapping goals. Did the ban free up space for non-Twin blue decks? Did the unbans improve controlling blue decks? After analyzing the 2015 data during the Twin era and the 2016 and early 2017 data from after the ban/unbans, I now have enough information to answer this question. I'll publish the full results and numbers in the article itself, but here's the summary:
1. Non-Twin blue decks performed slightly better at the GP/SCG T8 and T16 level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
2. Non-Twin blue decks performed worse at the GP/SCG Day 2 level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
3. Non-Twin blue decks performed worse at the MTGO level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
4. Non-Twin blue decks performed slightly worse at the overall aggregated metagame level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
5. The total share of blue decks (non-Twin and Twin) plummeted by roughly 50% in all categories from 2015 to 2016-17.
Here's an example of how I came to these findings. In 2015, non-Twin decks averaged an 8.2% share at the T8 level and a 9% share at the T16 level. In 2016-17, that share is up to 12.1% and 11.2% respectively. That's just one example of how the comparison plays out, but there's obviously a lot of detail and depth to explore. I'm posting this here to see what questions you all have and other feedback you can provide on this kind of analysis.
This is simply great. As a blue player this was the "feeling" I had from browsing events on a weekly/almostdaily basis to keep up with all the deckslists and different builds of all things control. The amount of time I had to browse 3-4 different events to basically find 1 list is insane. Indeed a list would pop here and there on top8/16 but OVERALL it just felt downhill all the way.
I also still think that this means we need fixing IN COLOR. Twin and/or SFM just won't patch, they don't fix. At this point I am convinced that JTMS is the best possible answer to our problems. It will provide a stable win conditions, he is beatable although hard to manage, gives blue decks SOME inevitability and is in color.
Minor issue, but I think you should take top 32 into account even if the numbers only change slightly. In most cases the difference between 9-16 and 17-32 are tiebreakers, especially for bigger events. If you look at points scored or matches won. They'll almost always have the same record.
An example. The recent GP Vancouver, 11th place to 33rd place ALL have 36 points, which is a 12-3 record.
Even in smaller GPs such as GP Brisbane, which was about 2/3 the size of Vancouver, 8th place to 21st place are on 36 points.
Honestly, I'm hesitant to even include T9-16! Wizards almost exclusively mentions T8 performances in banlist updates, so we really don't know how T16 vs. T32 vs. T64 etc. numbers factor into their decisions. Logistically, I don't actually have that data compiled, so it's a lot of extra work that I don't think would substantially alter the picture.
This is simply great. As a blue player this was the "feeling" I had from browsing events on a weekly/almostdaily basis to keep up with all the deckslists and different builds of all things control. The amount of time I had to browse 3-4 different events to basically find 1 list is insane. Indeed a list would pop here and there on top8/16 but OVERALL it just felt downhill all the way.
I also still think that this means we need fixing IN COLOR. Twin and/or SFM just won't patch, they don't fix. At this point I am convinced that JTMS is the best possible answer to our problems. It will provide a stable win conditions, he is beatable although hard to manage, gives blue decks SOME inevitability and is in color.
I agree that this analysis supports the feeling many blue players have. I also agree it suggests we need an in-color fix for blue.
If you want the article to be a little less confusing you have to address the following question:
Are we to consider Splinter Twin 100% decks control decks or not? In other words, they are in the same category as non-Twin control decks? IMO, yes.
Are we to consider non Twin control decks "purer" control decks than Twin? IMO, no.
I am asking this because you confused me. You said that
KTK:In 2015, non-Twin decks averaged an 8.2% share at the T8 level and a 9% share at the T16 level. In 2016-17, that share is up to 12.1% and 11.2% respectively.
Are we happy with this? Shouldn't we consider the Twin decks as control decks as well and say that since all the 12% metashare from the Twin decks were vanished, and the meta from the non Twin decks increased 2%, we lost a total of 12-2=10% control decks of the format?
Maybe I was wrongly confused. I feel this should be clearer though. Thanks for the article, sounds a great idea.
I'm looking at all Twin decks in one category and basically every blue-based control, control/combo, midrange, and tempo variant in the other category. In 2015, that was about 40 distinct deck classifications. In 2016, it was 55.
I'm not getting into the archetype definition battle in the article. I'll be leaving your question as an open one: should we be "replacing" the Twin deck share with another deck share? Or is there somewhere we should aim in the middle?
How are you addressing the issue of hostile metas? There's obviously Eldrazi Winter, but also Dredge and DSZ rising to prominence alongside big-mana decks like Bant Eldrazi, TitanShift, and others.
There was simply never a time for a blue tempo/control/midrange deck to shine in 2016/17 with the meta the way it was. Saying that Twin would have held or did hold in similarly hostile metas is disingenuous because of the fundamentally unfair nature of the Twin combo, which no other deck you're comparing Twin against can boast.
How are you addressing the issue of hostile metas? There's obviously Eldrazi Winter, but also Dredge and DSZ rising to prominence alongside big-mana decks like Bant Eldrazi, TitanShift, and others.
There was simply never a time for a blue tempo/control/midrange deck to shine in 2016/17 with the meta the way it was. Saying that Twin would have held or did hold in similarly hostile metas is disingenuous because of the fundamentally unfair nature of the Twin combo, which no other deck you're comparing Twin against can boast.
I never made any of those claims. I just observed the declining shares in certain areas and the increasing shares in others. There are plenty of narratives we can construct to say the declines were fine or not fine, and I'll save some of those options for a concluding section.
That said, I do think it would be disingenuous for someone to suggest that the format was hostile to blue for the entire 2016-17 period and this is why blue didn't succeed. The non-Twin blue had pretty stable shares from 2015 all the way to 2017, with only some small drops and jumps. We would expect the non-Twin shares to really drop off in hostile metagames, but they didn't; they were fairly steady throughout the entire two year period. But the share the Twin decks once occupied completely vanished with no other blue decks picking up its slack.
This strongly points away from a hostile metagame theory. Instead, we must consider a theory that no blue deck was good enough to claim any of Twin's old share.
Minor issue, but I think you should take top 32 into account even if the numbers only change slightly. In most cases the difference between 9-16 and 17-32 are tiebreakers, especially for bigger events. If you look at points scored or matches won. They'll almost always have the same record.
An example. The recent GP Vancouver, 11th place to 33rd place ALL have 36 points, which is a 12-3 record.
Even in smaller GPs such as GP Brisbane, which was about 2/3 the size of Vancouver, 8th place to 21st place are on 36 points.
Honestly, I'm hesitant to even include T9-16! Wizards almost exclusively mentions T8 performances in banlist updates, so we really don't know how T16 vs. T32 vs. T64 etc. numbers factor into their decisions. Logistically, I don't actually have that data compiled, so it's a lot of extra work that I don't think would substantially alter the picture.
Oh alright I'm mistaken then, I thought it was an overall metagame health thing rather than just regarding banlist decisions.
But I still think it's worth looking at a few more lists. If not top 32, then at the very least all 36 point decks for the large (>1000) events, or another threshold for a sub-1k event.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
Oh alright I'm mistaken then, I thought it was an overall metagame health thing rather than just regarding banlist decisions.
But I still think it's worth looking at a few more lists. If not top 32, then at the very least all 36 point decks for the large (>1000) events, or another threshold for a sub-1k event.
It's worth looking into. The issue is complicated and controversial enough that more data will likely help.
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Well first of all, Dark Dwellers can't cast DTT. Second, if you're worried about going DTT and then Snapping it back, we're talking about needing 13 cards in your graveyard to do that for 2 mana each time. That's a hell of a lot of graveyard filling, and then that means that you don't have a graveyard left for things like Tasigur or Snapcaster Mage. And again, you can't really compare decks from different formats like you're doing. Your Jund deck was tuned to fight the Modern metagame, not a Standard deck. I beat a kid's Modern Tooth & Nail with my Standard Temur aggro deck from THS/KTK Standard. That doesn't mean that deck was too powerful.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
Yeah, that is laughable. Black, then colorless, then green, then red, then blue with white not that far behind it. Blue has Snapcaster and not a whole lot else.
I honestly think that both Delve cards should be unbanned. Cruise Delver really wasn't that bad, it was just a meta thing. With Pod (which I also think should come back) gone the bad matchups for Delver would come back and I don't see it being any worse than any other deck. I played against it quite a bit and I wasn't impressed. It was strong, but if it becomes a problem, Tron lays waste to it. The meta just wasn't given time to fix itself
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Dude, stop.
Every single deck would splash blue to play Treasure cruise.
Stahp.
Every single deck didn't though. I certainly wouldn't play it in anything with Bob, and my only deck that I want him for is majority blue! The card is obviously good, but p9 it is not.
How were you even able to play Bob competitively in that format?
I think Dig would likely be fine, but it would mean we'd never see another good cantrip, and it's highly likely it'd eventually get banned again. I do think they were overly aggressive banning dig with cruise, and should have let it shakes itself out. That said, DIG Twin would likely have been oppressive eventually.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Spirits
Good joke man
(Funny enough MM is not "that" big of an player in Modern NBL, which is quite surprising, when you think about how broken that card is).
Regarding DTT and what influence it will have:
There are three primary winners, and a lot of secondary ones. Primary ones are obvious Jeskai Ascendency (the UWR Tempo/Combo version), RUG Scapeshift (the secretly "best" deck in the TC/DTT area, since it had both a good Delver as Pod match-up) and Control (especially Esper Control would love that card). For the secondary ones only Delver decks have to get noticed, since it would allow the deck to be a solid Tier 2 deck, even though it struggles with a lot of things.
Jeskai Ascendency was a good deck, especially since it was not an all in combo deck + played a relative high amount of interaction (6-8 removal spells and 4-6 counters). The earliest win was on turn 3 thanks to Probe, which is now no longer possible. Hence, the earliest kill would be a turn 4 kill which is more than okay (Modern is a turn 4 format), especially since you can interact quite easily with the combo elements (Bolt/Path vs Fatesticher, Decay/Remand vs Ascendency). Would develop into a solid Tier 2 deck, sometimes dipping into the Tier 1 scene, when the Meta is soft to it, sometimes going down to Tier 3.
RUG Scapeshift would be the real winner. Everybody who followed the deck back in the DTT times knew, how good it was. However, the main reason, why it was so good was mainly of how the interaction from the deck aligned with the current meta. Anger was MVP (both against Delver as Pod), especially when you were able to cast it on turn 3 with counter back up. It still had a decent clock and the goldfish with a perfect draw was at turn 4 (needs a perfect hand and you cannot play anything else but ramp spells basically). Again, no problem with the Turn 4 rule. However, what the deck CAN do is, that when correctly build it can offer a decent choice against both big mana decks (as long as they do not sling Caverns and Ulamogs at you) due to the counter suite and have a decent match-up vs midrange esque decks. However, on the other side the control (lots of air) and aggro (again lots of air) match-ups are not great, this is especially true in the current RUG version. Hence, would establish as a solid Tier 1.5, sometimes dipping down to Tier 2 when there is more aggro and control and being at Tier 1 when there are more targets for multifunctional interaction spells (like Anger back in the days).
Last but not least Control. I can only speak from my personal experience with UW Control back with DTT, have not played Jeskai or Esper Control with that card, so if somebody, who has played with DTT in the respective deck, can correct me if I'm wrong, please go ahead.
In UW Control Dig was a okay-ish card. The problem was, that filling up the Graveyard was an actual problem. Due to the nature of the deck of playing more board based interaction spells (Wall of Omens, Detention Sphere, Vedillion Clique, Runed Halo,...) and the low number of Fetchlands (5 is the max you usually want to run) you had problems to get a "early" Dig off. Most of the times Turn 4 was a realistic Dig for 4 mana turn, which was nice but not close to game breaking. Hence, you had to build the UW Control deck still with the early game in mind hand had the Digs as a late game tutor for the silver win con bullets (be it WSZ or Rev in the more draw and go version or the Planeswalkers in the more tapout version).
However, Dig would improve both Esper and Jeskai a great deal and would give them a real shot of beating things like the ramp decks or something like Cavern of Souls.
Overall, while Dig is a broken good card (as most of the modern powerhouses) it would be INTERESTING to have it in the current Modern format and look, how it would develop from there. I honestly doubt, it would result into huge problems, it would just force a shift in the comfort levels from the players.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: And totally agree, MM3 is absolutely bonkers ^^
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
"This will lead to a situation where BGx has no bad matchups and is just the best deck, whereas reactive blue has one fewer bad matchup but is still worse than BGx"
I feel like urx could accomodate this change and keep in check bg/x from dominating
"You want to ban four top-tier decks"
atm I atually only think a temple ban is what we need, as I feel there are too many of these decks in the tops tiers. this would improve reactive blue a little while not making bg/x break he game.
"This statement is particularly groundless:"
ever play av blue decks vs bg/x?
"Obviously, even if this did happen, BGx would now be able to focus more on beating reactive blue decks because it didn't need slots for big mana"
as stated above i only think 1 should go, so i dont think sideboards would change much
"The alternative? IMPROVE THE BLUE DECKS! Then the blue decks can compete against big mana"
again, the whole reason I started this argument, what unbans improve this enough?
decks playing:
none
Temple, while generating two mana for a specific subtype of cards, is not the problem for Uxx decks, the playset of Cavern of Souls is. Turn 3 TKS casted by Cavern is the problem, since the Mana Leak/Remand in your hand looks really sad. A turn 3 Smasher is no problem, as long as not half of your interaction suit is shut down. That is also a reason, why turn 3 Tron is not as backbreaking for Control-ish decks compared with Midrange decks, your whole interaction suit can handle it. Only when there comes a slur of high power plays, than you get into problems, since you are running out of your interaction + it gets worse every turn (Leak/Remand).
What card to unban to power up U based decks? Dig would be a good but controversial.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
1. Non-Twin blue decks performed slightly better at the GP/SCG T8 and T16 level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
2. Non-Twin blue decks performed worse at the GP/SCG Day 2 level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
3. Non-Twin blue decks performed worse at the MTGO level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
4. Non-Twin blue decks performed slightly worse at the overall aggregated metagame level in 2016-17 than in 2015.
5. The total share of blue decks (non-Twin and Twin) plummeted by roughly 50% in all categories from 2015 to 2016-17.
Here's an example of how I came to these findings. In 2015, non-Twin decks averaged an 8.2% share at the T8 level and a 9% share at the T16 level. In 2016-17, that share is up to 12.1% and 11.2% respectively. That's just one example of how the comparison plays out, but there's obviously a lot of detail and depth to explore. I'm posting this here to see what questions you all have and other feedback you can provide on this kind of analysis.
I didn't play Bob back then, I only built the deck in the last few months and actually proxy that to test, but it definitely values CA plus attacker over raw draw
Minor issue, but I think you should take top 32 into account even if the numbers only change slightly. In most cases the difference between 9-16 and 17-32 are tiebreakers, especially for bigger events. If you look at points scored or matches won. They'll almost always have the same record.
An example. The recent GP Vancouver, 11th place to 33rd place ALL have 36 points, which is a 12-3 record.
Even in smaller GPs such as GP Brisbane, which was about 2/3 the size of Vancouver, 8th place to 21st place are on 36 points.
I also still think that this means we need fixing IN COLOR. Twin and/or SFM just won't patch, they don't fix. At this point I am convinced that JTMS is the best possible answer to our problems. It will provide a stable win conditions, he is beatable although hard to manage, gives blue decks SOME inevitability and is in color.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
Honestly, I'm hesitant to even include T9-16! Wizards almost exclusively mentions T8 performances in banlist updates, so we really don't know how T16 vs. T32 vs. T64 etc. numbers factor into their decisions. Logistically, I don't actually have that data compiled, so it's a lot of extra work that I don't think would substantially alter the picture.
I agree that this analysis supports the feeling many blue players have. I also agree it suggests we need an in-color fix for blue.
I'm looking at all Twin decks in one category and basically every blue-based control, control/combo, midrange, and tempo variant in the other category. In 2015, that was about 40 distinct deck classifications. In 2016, it was 55.
I'm not getting into the archetype definition battle in the article. I'll be leaving your question as an open one: should we be "replacing" the Twin deck share with another deck share? Or is there somewhere we should aim in the middle?
There was simply never a time for a blue tempo/control/midrange deck to shine in 2016/17 with the meta the way it was. Saying that Twin would have held or did hold in similarly hostile metas is disingenuous because of the fundamentally unfair nature of the Twin combo, which no other deck you're comparing Twin against can boast.
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
I never made any of those claims. I just observed the declining shares in certain areas and the increasing shares in others. There are plenty of narratives we can construct to say the declines were fine or not fine, and I'll save some of those options for a concluding section.
That said, I do think it would be disingenuous for someone to suggest that the format was hostile to blue for the entire 2016-17 period and this is why blue didn't succeed. The non-Twin blue had pretty stable shares from 2015 all the way to 2017, with only some small drops and jumps. We would expect the non-Twin shares to really drop off in hostile metagames, but they didn't; they were fairly steady throughout the entire two year period. But the share the Twin decks once occupied completely vanished with no other blue decks picking up its slack.
This strongly points away from a hostile metagame theory. Instead, we must consider a theory that no blue deck was good enough to claim any of Twin's old share.
Oh alright I'm mistaken then, I thought it was an overall metagame health thing rather than just regarding banlist decisions.
But I still think it's worth looking at a few more lists. If not top 32, then at the very least all 36 point decks for the large (>1000) events, or another threshold for a sub-1k event.
It's worth looking into. The issue is complicated and controversial enough that more data will likely help.