This is the real world and prices impact how people play the game how many people play the game, and the rate at which the meta changes. So although money is immaterial to you when it comes to this Hobby I can say with great confidence that that is not the case for the majority of players. I'm noticing a common theme in my posts that I have to plea for people to not be so rude and dismissive towards players who do not share their viewpoints or Financial income brackets.
I am not living in poverty, but it has taken me years to assemble the decks that I want to play, not even Tier 1 decks. I feel like this could be improved without any detrimental effects. All I'm saying is that this does have an impact on format accessibility and should be considered in the discussions in this forum.
Yes, prices often dictate what people play because it is prohibitively expensive for most players to switch decks week to week depending on whatever the best deck is. This is likely precisely why stuff like Grixis and Jeskai are holding the numbers they are, despite embarrassingly bad results numbers for at least the last 8 months (or well over a year if you discount the blip of Jeskai Nahiri). People like me are so heavily invested that we just keep playing them, even though they are a relatively terrible choice for competitive play. I spent well over a thousand building Twin two summers ago, and hundreds beginning to foil it before it was banned. Since then, I have transferred over as much as I could and continued the investment completing and foiling Delver. If I had the choice to freely switch to any other deck at the drop of a hat, you better believe I'd be playing something like Bant Eldrazi or DS Jund. But I can't because of the cost to switch (or massive loss in value selling/buying). This is a reality of the game for all players, and likely what contributes to the illusion of "health and diversity" in the format. Players are "forced" to play sub-optimal decks by financial constraint, not necessarily by choice. However, I happen to also greatly enjoy the way these URx decks tend to play, so I choose to continue suffering. The same could be said about players who enjoy building and playing budget decks or Tier 3 stuff.
What really lost value from twin though other than Splinter Twin itself. Remand is still a $5 card, lands remained the same or went up, Kiki-jiki rose then fell, Vendillion clique is on a steady decline which started well before the banning, Snapcaster and Serum Visions didn't start to drop for months after the banning.
Cryptic and Clique have lost more than 50% of their value. Steam Vents and Sulfur Falls have both fallen 20-30%, sideboard cards like Keranos and Spellskite have lost 50% or more. Even the small ones like Remand have lost 30-40% and Exarch lost nearly 75% even before the reprints. But these aren't as important as the more intangible losses the deck faced: the fact that almost all the leftover pieces are not used in any Tier 1 strategy and the remaining decks that CAN be made with these pieces are very poorly positioned against all the top tier decks.
Going by the MTGGoldfish price tracker since I can't remember all the prices honestly. Cryptic was worth $30 when Twin was banned and it's worth $25 now. Clique was $43 and is now $28. But it was in the upper 30's for 6 months after the ban. Spellskite was $20 in december before the ban and it's $20 now. Splinter Twin and Exarch were the two that actually crashed. Everything else is experiencing normal flux.
We can go back and forth on specifics all day. I prefer to use TCG Low and eBay Buy it Now Low to accurately judge value of a card (more representative for what it actually sells for, not just what it's listed for). But even if we go through all those numbers (which I actually did a while back, using MTG Goldfish numbers to make a comparison chart), the cards from Twin saw about a 10-25% larger depreciation in value compared to other cards commonly used in the format in 2015 and today, including those reprinted in MM sets. But the bigger point is: Even if I sold my cards at a considerable loss (In addition to the price tanks, it would still be below TCG Low or eBay BIN Low, due to fees and shipping), I would have to then pay top dollar to get my hands on another deck built from scratch in order to be competitive. So the financial "loss" to Twin players who want to remain competitive would be the price of a new deck + the % loss of individual card value + the cost of fees and shipping.
But even all that aside, it doesn't address the elephant in the room that, in addition to losing monetary value (or presenting large additional costs), the loss of a competitive deck with no replacement is fairly demoralizing for those who had invested thousands into the cards of that deck and staples of those colors. It was addressed specifically in the Twin ban as to what players could do with their leftovers, and then addressed again 4 months later with two unbans. But we've taken a back seat to linear aggro and big mana for over a year now, and we're still sitting at the kid's table getting beat up on by all the Tier 1 decks.
But sure, I guess the only thing we really lost was a couple bucks on one or two cards.
Fair enough, taking the other pieces into consideration:
Yes, prices often dictate what people play because it is prohibitively expensive for most players to switch decks week to week depending on whatever the best deck is. This is likely precisely why stuff like Grixis and Jeskai are holding the numbers they are, despite embarrassingly bad results numbers for at least the last 8 months (or well over a year if you discount the blip of Jeskai Nahiri). People like me are so heavily invested that we just keep playing them, even though they are a relatively terrible choice for competitive play. I spent well over a thousand building Twin two summers ago, and hundreds beginning to foil it before it was banned. Since then, I have transferred over as much as I could and continued the investment completing and foiling Delver. If I had the choice to freely switch to any other deck at the drop of a hat, you better believe I'd be playing something like Bant Eldrazi or DS Jund. But I can't because of the cost to switch (or massive loss in value selling/buying). This is a reality of the game for all players, and likely what contributes to the illusion of "health and diversity" in the format. Players are "forced" to play sub-optimal decks by financial constraint, not necessarily by choice. However, I happen to also greatly enjoy the way these URx decks tend to play, so I choose to continue suffering. The same could be said about players who enjoy building and playing budget decks or Tier 3 stuff.
What really lost value from twin though other than Splinter Twin itself. Remand is still a $5 card, lands remained the same or went up, Kiki-jiki rose then fell, Vendillion clique is on a steady decline which started well before the banning, Snapcaster and Serum Visions didn't start to drop for months after the banning.
Cryptic and Clique have lost more than 50% of their value. Steam Vents and Sulfur Falls have both fallen 20-30%, sideboard cards like Keranos and Spellskite have lost 50% or more. Even the small ones like Remand have lost 30-40% and Exarch lost nearly 75% even before the reprints. But these aren't as important as the more intangible losses the deck faced: the fact that almost all the leftover pieces are not used in any Tier 1 strategy and the remaining decks that CAN be made with these pieces are very poorly positioned against all the top tier decks.
Going by the MTGGoldfish price tracker since I can't remember all the prices honestly. Cryptic was worth $30 when Twin was banned and it's worth $25 now. Clique was $43 and is now $28. But it was in the upper 30's for 6 months after the ban. Spellskite was $20 in december before the ban and it's $20 now. Splinter Twin and Exarch were the two that actually crashed. Everything else is experiencing normal flux.
We can go back and forth on specifics all day. I prefer to use TCG Low and eBay Buy it Now Low to accurately judge value of a card (more representative for what it actually sells for, not just what it's listed for). But even if we go through all those numbers (which I actually did a while back, using MTG Goldfish numbers to make a comparison chart), the cards from Twin saw about a 10-25% larger depreciation in value compared to other cards commonly used in the format in 2015 and today, including those reprinted in MM sets. But the bigger point is: Even if I sold my cards at a considerable loss (In addition to the price tanks, it would still be below TCG Low or eBay BIN Low, due to fees and shipping), I would have to then pay top dollar to get my hands on another deck built from scratch in order to be competitive. So the financial "loss" to Twin players who want to remain competitive would be the price of a new deck + the % loss of individual card value + the cost of fees and shipping.
But even all that aside, it doesn't address the elephant in the room that, in addition to losing monetary value (or presenting large additional costs), the loss of a competitive deck with no replacement is fairly demoralizing for those who had invested thousands into the cards of that deck and staples of those colors. It was addressed specifically in the Twin ban as to what players could do with their leftovers, and then addressed again 4 months later with two unbans. But we've taken a back seat to linear aggro and big mana for over a year now, and we're still sitting at the kid's table getting beat up on by all the Tier 1 decks.
But sure, I guess the only thing we really lost was a couple bucks on one or two cards.
I agree with everything you're saying here but I also have the perspective that the ban was for the greater good of the format and that although the efforts have not been substantial enough yet Wizards has your issues on their radar and has been/will continue to try to improve the situation for reactive blue while keeping in mind the greater goals for the format. It just takes longer than anyone would like do to the nature of r&d plus the standard gate
I agree with everything you're saying here but I also have the perspective that the ban was for the greater good of the format and that although the efforts have not been substantial enough yet Wizards has your issues on their radar and has been/will continue to try to improve the situation for reactive blue while keeping in mind the greater goals for the format. It just takes longer than anyone would like do to the nature of r&d plus the standard gate
Considering this "greater good" didn't manifest itself until after the Probe/GGT ban, I would say it has more to do with the current downturn in linear aggro decks than anything else. Besides, keeping linear aggro decks in check without needlessly banning them was something Twin did nicely, so removing it actually helped cause (or at least accelerated the process of creating) a really disgusting, fast, linear metagame that had to be "fixed" with bans. I'm happy that it's on their mind, but given their track record in dealing with blue, my confidence is not exactly high that they will actually do anything of value to help.
Bottom line, is there are budget options that will 100% get the job done. I just threw together online an RG Heroic deck to prove a point to myself (that even without fetch lands, its GG if you are facing a fast RG Deck) and smashed a guy, with THEROS HEROIC CARDS.
Dont tell me Modern is too expensive to play. I just wont accept it and it makes any other statement/opinion questionable.
I'm not saying modern is too expensive to play, I've been playing it for years on a modest budget and I really enjoy it. All I'm saying is that the accessibility could be improved. Your example is exactly why I'm in favor of the Splinter twin Banning.
I'm also hoping to cut down on the number of comments that reek of classist attitudes.
What does my RG deck have to do with Twin? I would have beat Twin before turn 4 in both games I just played, and could easily have a sideboard of answers like Warping Wail and Rending Volley.
I also have to question if decks like mine are exactly where we want the format to be (I dont, its brainless to cast creature, pump, pump, pump, I win).
Even if you think your deck would beat twin or have a positive match up against twin, these are the type of decks that are seen to have been given more space to exist since the banning, do you not agree?
In the second part of your post you fall back into the twin superiority complex of thinking these decks are too simple to deserve to exist(as a viable option) Diva made a compelling argument as to why these decks take more skill than is perceived by the community at Large. It's arrogant to classify entire archetypes and to some extent the Mages who pilot them as "brainless"
I've played Bloo, and its a LOT more thinking intensive then what I'm talking about with this RG deck. :]
I am literally playing dude, pump, pump, pump, done. It's not like bloo with deck manipulation and cantrips and card selection. It is literally "I play my dude, and if you dont answer it in 2 turns you will be dead."
I've won every game before by turn 5, playing against other random non-tier decks.
Its not elitist, its not arrogant, its my deck, I made it lol! Compared to anything with Blue in it, yes, this is brainless.
EDIT: And yes, decks like this are 'bad' imo for the meta, and format in general. Its fine to have a few kicking around but if the meta was Revolt/Bushwhacker Zoo, Infect, Burn, Bloo, and this weak pile I have, I would be alarmed and this thread would be SCREAMING over how terrible the meta is.
I like your deck, especially with the rad flavour text from Brute Force :)! No sarcasm at all I've come around on the brainless thing as it fits with the jive of that card and the deck (sucker for flavour here)
I agree with everything you're saying here but I also have the perspective that the ban was for the greater good of the format and that although the efforts have not been substantial enough yet Wizards has your issues on their radar and has been/will continue to try to improve the situation for reactive blue while keeping in mind the greater goals for the format. It just takes longer than anyone would like do to the nature of r&d plus the standard gate
My biggest issue with the ban is that even if you're right and it was better for the format in the long run, which is debatable but possibly true, I think it was a terrible time to actually enact it because they were killing the only top tier deck that represented an entire macro-archetype. There were no top tier blue decks after Twin was gone, and there still aren't over a year later. I think keeping each of the macro-archetypes well represented in the top tiers of the format is FAR more important than diversity of decks.
What they should have done was ban Exarch to weaken the deck instead of outright killing it, or waited until the blue shell itself could stand on its own. It's likely that if Twin had a better blue shell it would have become obviously too good at that point, which would have made the ban decision much less controversial than it was. It's too late to walk back on the decision now, though, so I really hope Forscythe's forthcoming article will give us blue players some hope for good things to come.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
My biggest issue with the ban is that even if you're right and it was better for the format in the long run, which is debatable but possibly true, I think it was a terrible time to actually enact it because they were killing the only top tier deck that represented an entire macro-archetype. There were no top tier blue decks after Twin was gone, and there still aren't over a year later. I think keeping each of the macro-archetypes well represented in the top tiers of the format is FAR more important than diversity of decks.
Although your position is reasonable and I even agree to a point, I'd still like to push against certain "fact" presented here and in other posts. As usual, you are far away from the hyperbolic "blue control has been trash for over a year now" comments I'm sadly getting used to read here, which is why I respect you and like to engage here. However, there have certainly been top tier blue decks after Twin was gone. More importantly, there have been top tier blue control decks too. At least online, which I have the data for, Jeskai got there in April (4.7%), May (5.0%) and July (5.3%) last year. It was even last year's 8th-9th most successful deck online since the Eye ban (~9 months averaging 3.7%), tied with the Gx Tron decks and ahead Taxes, Abzan, Ad Nauseam, Breach and Merfolk, to name a few. This year, we had UW Control as high as 3.5% (Jan) and Grixis as high as 2.9% (Feb), while the GP numbers are concerning. Point is, blue control has at least three Tier 2 decks and even had a ~5% Tier 1 representative for some months, if you don't deem Tier 2 decks good enough for "top tier". To be clear, not claiming the Twin ban made it happen, just stating that there was top tier blue control after Twin, at least some months online. Also, on paper (ModernNexus) and at the GP Top8 level.
Moving to another topic, why do you think "keeping each of the macro-archetypes well represented in the top tiers of the format is FAR more important than diversity of decks"? First of all, what macro-archetypes are we going with? I've seen classifications ranging from 3 (aggro-combo-control) to 16 (Chapin) archetypes, all with varying degrees of acceptance. Regardless of the number we choose, I think we can agree on the huge effort that goes into make any format, particularly Modern, perfectly and evenly balanced, both in card design and banlist management. And this is assuming that the playerbase's arcehtype preference divides the same, evenly way. The way I see it, deck diversity in the top tiers (read: ability to have relative success) is the best way to handle this, giving more choice to the playerbase instead of molding the format into something the playerbase may not like given the playerbase inherent preferences (ie. even macro archetype distribution). Deck diversity certainly addresses a problem macro archetype diversity doesn't: an aggro player may like going wide (Affinity), big (Boggles), aggro-combo (Infect, Prowess), spell-heavy (Burn) or else. Control players may like going draw-go (Esper), tap-out (UW), control-combo (Twin, Temur Scapeshift) or may not even like blue (WR, Lantern, Skred). Some generalizations here, but I think my point is clear.
What they should have done was ban Exarch to weaken the deck instead of outright killing it, or waited until the blue shell itself could stand on its own. It's likely that if Twin had a better blue shell it would have become obviously too good at that point, which would have made the ban decision much less controversial than it was. It's too late to walk back on the decision now, though, so I really hope Forscythe's forthcoming article will give us blue players some hope for good things to come.
Here we totally agree. Back when I correctly identified that the Twin deck was a possible ban target one month before the Twin ban, I thought Exarch was the card, if anything. Improving blue in general, and particulary Twin, with an unban wasn't an option, I think even back then we knew they don't unban cards that go into top tier decks, let alone the best perfoming deck at the GP level back then. If Twin hadn't been overperforming/underplayed back then, it wouldn't certainly have been that controversial, that's for sure. Forsythe's words give me hope that, if anything, we'll get an the official blue state in the format. At least, that would give us more insight in their ban/unban criteria and methods.
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Modern:WU WU Control | WBG Abzan Company Frontier:UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
My biggest issue with the ban is that even if you're right and it was better for the format in the long run, which is debatable but possibly true, I think it was a terrible time to actually enact it because they were killing the only top tier deck that represented an entire macro-archetype. There were no top tier blue decks after Twin was gone, and there still aren't over a year later. I think keeping each of the macro-archetypes well represented in the top tiers of the format is FAR more important than diversity of decks.
Although your position is reasonable and I even agree to a point, I'd still like to push against certain "fact" presented here and in other posts. As usual, you are far away from the hyperbolic "blue control has been trash for over a year now" comments I'm sadly getting used to read here, which is why I respect you and like to engage here. However, there have certainly been top tier blue decks after Twin was gone. More importantly, there have been top tier blue control decks too. At least online, which I have the data for, Jeskai got there in April (4.7%), May (5.0%) and July (5.3%) last year. It was even last year's 8th-9th most successful deck online since the Eye ban (~9 months averaging 3.7%), tied with the Gx Tron decks and ahead Taxes, Abzan, Ad Nauseam, Breach and Merfolk, to name a few. This year, we had UW Control as high as 3.5% (Jan) and Grixis as high as 2.9% (Feb), while the GP numbers are concerning. Point is, blue control has at least three Tier 2 decks and even had a ~5% Tier 1 representative for some months, if you don't deem Tier 2 decks good enough for "top tier". To be clear, not claiming the Twin ban made it happen, just stating that there was top tier blue control after Twin, at least some months online. Also, on paper (ModernNexus) and at the GP Top8 level.
Those metagame percentage numbers are fairly well explained away by a post I made on the previous page about how players are unwilling or unable switch switch away from these decks, so their numbers maintain without any results to back it up. The absolutely horrid Top 32 results from the past six months tell us that these are terrible decks to bring to competitive events, unless your name is Cory Burkhart or you have unbelievable matchups and positive variance luck. A similar thing happened to regular Jund much of last year, when it was holding something like 10% of the meta, despite no real results (~15% if you combined Abzan+Jund). Stubborn people continue to play their decks whether they're good or not, especially if they were expensive. Also, Jeskai Nahiri was a flash in the pan that got snuffed out of existence once people could prepare for it. To be fair, most URx decks are fine at the FNM level because losing a couple matches here and there doesn't really matter. But against every Tier 1 deck, if it's not massively unfavorable, it's a coin flip at best.
Back when I correctly identified that the Twin deck was a possible ban target one month before the Twin ban[/url], I thought Exarch was the card, if anything. Improving blue in general, and particulary Twin, with an unban wasn't an option, I think even back then we knew they don't unban cards that go into top tier decks, let alone the best perfoming deck at the GP level back then. If Twin hadn't been overperforming/underplayed back then, it wouldn't certainly have been that controversial, that's for sure. Forsythe's words give me hope that, if anything, we'll get an the official blue state in the format. At least, that would give us more insight in their ban/unban criteria and methods.
I agree. And I hope help is on the way. I don't even care what it is at this point.
Instead of improving blue's counters or card selection, what about giving the color a proper finisher/clock to work with the tools it already has?
Is something like True Name Nemesis too strong for the format?
Yes, TNN is almost definitely too strong for Modern. Besides that, I'm not convinced that the finisher is what blue decks need. Twin was a great finisher, but it just obfuscated the problem with the blue shell itself being weak. Whatever finisher you give blue, if it's actually the best thing to be doing, like Twin was, it'll become just as ubiquitous as Twin was among the blue decks. As it is, blue decks have several good finisher already. Things like tempo and delve creatures for decks that want early pressure, or Colonnade and Secure the Wastes for decks that want to go longer. They just need ways to survive until either their tempo threats finish the game or their card advantage pulls them ahead, and to do that they either need better, more general answers, or better ways to find their more narrow ones.
However, there have certainly been top tier blue decks after Twin was gone. More importantly, there have been top tier blue control decks too. At least online, which I have the data for, Jeskai got there in April (4.7%), May (5.0%) and July (5.3%) last year. It was even last year's 8th-9th most successful deck online since the Eye ban (~9 months averaging 3.7%), tied with the Gx Tron decks and ahead Taxes, Abzan, Ad Nauseam, Breach and Merfolk, to name a few. This year, we had UW Control as high as 3.5% (Jan) and Grixis as high as 2.9% (Feb), while the GP numbers are concerning.
While that's true that a couple decks have dipped in and out of tier 1, each of them proved to be a flash in the pan that couldn't stick around. I'll be honest, I thought Jeskai Nahiri was good enough to stick around in tier 1, but it turned out I was wrong. I was never as bullish on the other two you mentioned, though.
Moving to another topic, why do you think "keeping each of the macro-archetypes well represented in the top tiers of the format is FAR more important than diversity of decks"? First of all, what macro-archetypes are we going with? I've seen classifications ranging from 3 (aggro-combo-control) to 16 (Chapin) archetypes, all with varying degrees of acceptance.
Ok, this is a good topic to discuss. Aggro, Combo, and Control are the base 3, but it's not useful to group decks like that, as MTGTop8 does, because the majority of decks are some combination of those 3. I like to begin with Aggro (which includes creature aggro/combo and faster aggro/control), fair reactive Blue Decks (tempo, midrange, and control), non-blue Midrange/Control (includes things like GBx, Company decks, Bant Eldrazi, and prison decks), Ramp/Big Mana (Tron, Valakut, Tooth & Nail, etc.), and Combo (Storm, Goryo's, Cheeri0s, etc.). I feel like these 5 are the most generalized buckets that are inclusive of everything with little confusion as to where decks fit it. Just to give an example, with the classic 3 bucket approach, where do you put Infect? Is it aggro or combo? The true answer, of course, is that it's both, so it doesn't clearly fit in one or the other, but I personally make the distinction between creature combo decks like Infect or UR Prowess and combos that don't rely on the attack step, like Storm, Cheeri0s, and Goryo's. And to be fair, almost every aggro deck in Modern is actually aggro/combo other than Burn and maybe a couple other exceptions.
But yes, those are the Big Five for me, and the strategies that I feel need to always be supported in Modern. Among tier 1 and 2 decks in Modern from MN's newest update, 38% are Aggro, 27% are non-U Midrange/Control, 18% are Ramp/Big Mana, 8.8% are Blue Decks, and 7.7% are Combo. For the Ramp/Big Mana decks, I think the strategy just doesn't lend itself well to a lot of diversity. The best ramping in the format is Tron lands and Prime Time, so the best ramp decks are almost always abusing one of those two things. Besides that, these decks are usually unhealthy for the format if they occupy too much space, as they incentivize linearity and uninteractivity. As for Combo, the best Combo decks always get banned; WotC really doesn't seem to want Tier 1 pure Combo decks, so it's kind of a losing battle to argue that they should be more represented (although I believe better Blue Decks allows for better Combo to exist).
So that leaves the Blue Decks as the big straggler here. It's one of the macro-archetypes that you would want to be most represented in a format to promote interactivity, along with most Aggro and non-blue Midrange/Control decks. So the fact that it's only barely beating the archetype that's been repeatedly banned into the ground is not ideal if we want an interactive format. If I had to ideally divide up the metashare of the format, I would want Aggro at about 30%, non-U Midrange/Control at about 25%, Blue Decks at about 20%, Ramp/Big Mana at about 15%, and Combo at about 10%. Beyond the reasons I stated above, Aggro and non-U fair decks just lend themselves to a large number of diverse build possibilities, which is why I have them slightly higher. This aspect is obviously debatable, but I think my numbers are pretty reasonable and would make for an interactive and healthy format if ever achieved.
As for why I prefer archetype diversity over sheer number of competitive decks: it's so that everyone has something top tier to play in their prefered playstyle. It's meaningless to have 30 top tier decks when half of them do pretty much the same exact thing. That's not real diversity, it's just the illusion of diversity. To be clear, though, I do want diversity of decks too, but I think that's secondary behind making sure each major style of play is being supported to the right extent.
Back when I correctly identified that the Twin deck was a possible ban target one month before the Twin ban[/url], I thought Exarch was the card, if anything. Improving blue in general, and particulary Twin, with an unban wasn't an option, I think even back then we knew they don't unban cards that go into top tier decks, let alone the best perfoming deck at the GP level back then. If Twin hadn't been overperforming/underplayed back then, it wouldn't certainly have been that controversial, that's for sure.
Yeah, they definitely made a mistake with how they handled it, that's for sure. I think they knew they were banning Twin prematurely too, as I remember AF responding to a Tweet saying that the PT did not necessitate bans, it only dictated when they would happen. I took that to mean that Twin didn't quite meet their criteria for a ban just yet, but they knew it would eventually, plus it tied their hands to unbanning any blue cards, so they bumped it forward on the schedule.
I think the Twin/Exarch swap ban might still work at this point. To be fair, I'm not sure if the resulting Temur Twin deck would be ok or not, but my gut tells me it would slot in somewhere high Tier 2 or low Tier 1 in the current Modern. But I'm willing to wait. If AF has some good news for blue as a whole in his coming article, I'm ready to completely forget about Twin.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
My biggest issue with the ban is that even if you're right and it was better for the format in the long run, which is debatable but possibly true, I think it was a terrible time to actually enact it because they were killing the only top tier deck that represented an entire macro-archetype. There were no top tier blue decks after Twin was gone, and there still aren't over a year later. I think keeping each of the macro-archetypes well represented in the top tiers of the format is FAR more important than diversity of decks.
Although your position is reasonable and I even agree to a point, I'd still like to push against certain "fact" presented here and in other posts. As usual, you are far away from the hyperbolic "blue control has been trash for over a year now" comments I'm sadly getting used to read here, which is why I respect you and like to engage here. However, there have certainly been top tier blue decks after Twin was gone. More importantly, there have been top tier blue control decks too. At least online, which I have the data for, Jeskai got there in April (4.7%), May (5.0%) and July (5.3%) last year. It was even last year's 8th-9th most successful deck online since the Eye ban (~9 months averaging 3.7%), tied with the Gx Tron decks and ahead Taxes, Abzan, Ad Nauseam, Breach and Merfolk, to name a few. This year, we had UW Control as high as 3.5% (Jan) and Grixis as high as 2.9% (Feb), while the GP numbers are concerning. Point is, blue control has at least three Tier 2 decks and even had a ~5% Tier 1 representative for some months, if you don't deem Tier 2 decks good enough for "top tier". To be clear, not claiming the Twin ban made it happen, just stating that there was top tier blue control after Twin, at least some months online. Also, on paper (ModernNexus) and at the GP Top8 level.
Those metagame percentage numbers are fairly well explained away by a post I made on the previous page about how players are unwilling or unable switch switch away from these decks, so their numbers maintain without any results to back it up. The absolutely horrid Top 32 results from the past six months tell us that these are terrible decks to bring to competitive events, unless your name is Cory Burkhart or you have unbelievable matchups and positive variance luck. A similar thing happened to regular Jund much of last year, when it was holding something like 10% of the meta, despite no real results (~15% if you combined Abzan+Jund). Stubborn people continue to play their decks whether they're good or not, especially if they were expensive. Also, Jeskai Nahiri was a flash in the pan that got snuffed out of existence once people could prepare for it. To be fair, most URx decks are fine at the FNM level because losing a couple matches here and there doesn't really matter. But against every Tier 1 deck, if it's not massively unfavorable, it's a coin flip at best.
Indeed, power level non-related aspects such as player income, preferences, information and card availiability certainly affect a deck's popularity. However, the online numbers reflect the deck's ability to succeed (read: going undefeated), not its popularity. In other words, those numbers are based on results, not out of air, theory crafting and polls. The numbers maintain because there are results in the first place, which already back them up. And this is true for all decks, not only blue control ones. Moving on to the Top32, I won't deny that the last 2 GPs weren't wat I expected.
Right now, I only have the data of the last 2 at hand, so I'll work with that: Grixis and Esper had 3.1% each in the combined Top32s (including Top8s), that's as much as Amulet Titan, Jund Midrange, Lantern Control, Naya Burn and Affinity. Are these decks horrid for competitive events too? It's easy to dimiss +77% win rates over 15 rounds just because the tiebreakers weren't there that weekend. It's not only Corey Burkhart either: Andy Wilson went 12-3 last month too, Alex Mitas Top8d GP Dallas too. Albertus Law won GP Guangzhou and Daniel Ballestin Top8d GP Lille, all this since last August. I get it, blue control decks aren't the best and they also aren't on Twin's level, which got it banned in the first place. But please stop pretending like literally nothing happened.
Last year, Jund Midrange was 6.6% online since the Eye ban, being the 2nd best behind Dredge (7.8%) and flowing in the 4%-9% range. In this same, post Eye ban, period there wer3 6 GPs, 48 Top8s, with 5 Jund ones: that's 10.4% GP Top8s. Those are your "real" results proving you wrong. You still calling Jeskai a flash in the pan, huh? One month, sure. If three months being ~5% online, nine months averaging 3.7% online, being the 8th most successful deck since the Eye ban and a November GP Top8 can't convince you the deck was a solid Tier 2 deck for most of 2016, rather than a "flash in the pan", then I don't know what else.
Again, blue control decks aren't the best and they also aren't on Twin's level, but don't be so quick to dismiss Jeskai just to further push your narrative. I guess if Sheridan couldn't convince you back then when we discussed the Nexus articles here, then I'm done with this topic. Regarding the Tier 1 matchup, there are certainly bad ones, but if you seriously think Grixis or Jeskai matchups against Affinity and Jund are 50/50 at best, then I kindly recommend you to practice those matchups more. And if you go from URx to UWx, I assure you you'll have better matchups against Valakut and Eldrazi decks.
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However, there have certainly been top tier blue decks after Twin was gone. More importantly, there have been top tier blue control decks too. At least online, which I have the data for, Jeskai got there in April (4.7%), May (5.0%) and July (5.3%) last year. It was even last year's 8th-9th most successful deck online since the Eye ban (~9 months averaging 3.7%), tied with the Gx Tron decks and ahead Taxes, Abzan, Ad Nauseam, Breach and Merfolk, to name a few. This year, we had UW Control as high as 3.5% (Jan) and Grixis as high as 2.9% (Feb), while the GP numbers are concerning.
While that's true that a couple decks have dipped in and out of tier 1, each of them proved to be a flash in the pan that couldn't stick around. I'll be honest, I thought Jeskai Nahiri was good enough to stick around in tier 1, but it turned out I was wrong. I was never as bullish on the other two you mentioned, though.
I was directly addressing "There were no top tier blue decks after Twin was gone, and there still aren't over a year later." statement, which I think we can agree was at least misleading. Nothing personal, I just don't want this kind of statements to stick around so other posters take it as truth and move their own agendas. There were, in fact, top tier blue deck after Twin, even in Tier 1. I also disagree with the extensive use of "flash in the pan", because Jeskai saw continued success, even at the Tier 1 level, for several months. In the end, the underlying problem is that in such a diverse format as Modern we can't expect a single blue control deck having a continued Tier 1 status. The general answers just aren't there, Twin just by-passed this going combo-control. As I argued with Sheridan, multiple blue control decks dipping in and out of Tier 1 would be the best solution, but we aren't quite there: whether it's Preordain, Jace, Dig or a new card. But first let's see what Aaron has to say.
Moving to another topic, why do you think "keeping each of the macro-archetypes well represented in the top tiers of the format is FAR more important than diversity of decks"? First of all, what macro-archetypes are we going with? I've seen classifications ranging from 3 (aggro-combo-control) to 16 (Chapin) archetypes, all with varying degrees of acceptance.
Ok, this is a good topic to discuss. Aggro, Combo, and Control are the base 3, but it's not useful to group decks like that, as MTGTop8 does, because the majority of decks are some combination of those 3. I like to begin with Aggro (which includes creature aggro/combo and faster aggro/control), fair reactive Blue Decks (tempo, midrange, and control), non-blue Midrange/Control (includes things like GBx, Company decks, Bant Eldrazi, and prison decks), Ramp/Big Mana (Tron, Valakut, Tooth & Nail, etc.), and Combo (Storm, Goryo's, Cheeri0s, etc.). I feel like these 5 are the most generalized buckets that are inclusive of everything with little confusion as to where decks fit it. Just to give an example, with the classic 3 bucket approach, where do you put Infect? Is it aggro or combo? The true answer, of course, is that it's both, so it doesn't clearly fit in one or the other, but I personally make the distinction between creature combo decks like Infect or UR Prowess and combos that don't rely on the attack step, like Storm, Cheeri0s, and Goryo's. And to be fair, almost every aggro deck in Modern is actually aggro/combo other than Burn and maybe a couple other exceptions.
But yes, those are the Big Five for me, and the strategies that I feel need to always be supported in Modern. Among tier 1 and 2 decks in Modern from MN's newest update, 38% are Aggro, 27% are non-U Midrange/Control, 18% are Ramp/Big Mana, 8.8% are Blue Decks, and 7.7% are Combo. For the Ramp/Big Mana decks, I think the strategy just doesn't lend itself well to a lot of diversity. The best ramping in the format is Tron lands and Prime Time, so the best ramp decks are almost always abusing one of those two things. Besides that, these decks are usually unhealthy for the format if they occupy too much space, as they incentivize linearity and uninteractivity. As for Combo, the best Combo decks always get banned; WotC really doesn't seem to want Tier 1 pure Combo decks, so it's kind of a losing battle to argue that they should be more represented (although I believe better Blue Decks allows for better Combo to exist).
So that leaves the Blue Decks as the big straggler here. It's one of the macro-archetypes that you would want to be most represented in a format to promote interactivity, along with most Aggro and non-blue Midrange/Control decks. So the fact that it's only barely beating the archetype that's been repeatedly banned into the ground is not ideal if we want an interactive format. If I had to ideally divide up the metashare of the format, I would want Aggro at about 30%, non-U Midrange/Control at about 25%, Blue Decks at about 20%, Ramp/Big Mana at about 15%, and Combo at about 10%. Beyond the reasons I stated above, Aggro and non-U fair decks just lend themselves to a large number of diverse build possibilities, which is why I have them slightly higher. This aspect is obviously debatable, but I think my numbers are pretty reasonable and would make for an interactive and healthy format if ever achieved.
Even if we go with your Big 5, why not 20% each? As I noted in my previous comment, regardless of the X archetypes you go by, and even if we agree the %'s are reasonable and fair, the effort required to reach the desired metagame numbers is huge, I'd even say impractical and virtually impossible, from a card design and banlist management standapoint. I believe such thing is not feasible, and even if we reach it eventually, the format will invariably adapt and continue evolving beyond the goals we set. And all this is even assuming the playerbase archetype preferences naturally split the same way we want the macro archetypes to be represented, which may not be and probaby don't. I believe the easiest, most practical way, is to promote deck diversity. Remember that different aggro, non-blue midrange, blue control, ramp/big mana and combo players want/like different things out of their macro archetypes: strategy, difficulty, interaction, colors, cards... So we try and have as many different decks as we can, all with varying degrees of competitiveness, which would be fine as long as most of them have a reasonable chance to success while also ensuring no single deck dominates, right?
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Oh sorry, thought I explained this better, I'll be more specific.
Combo: combo can never occupy as much of the meta as the others because the best combo decks always get banned. For a pure combo deck to be good it either has to be faster than the aggro decks, meaning turn 2 and 3 kills, or attack from a different angle like Living End. If a fast combo deck starts to pick up in popularity and hits tier 1... banhammer. WotC seems to not want tier 1 fast combo in Modern, so it's an archetype they are purposely suppressing in the format.
Ramp/Big Mana: the big mana decks are good to have around in some numbers, but are unhealthy for a format if they're dominant. If a format is all Tron, the best way to win is be as aggressive and uninteractive as possible, and this isn't the pressure we want exerted on the format. That said, these decks need to exist to check the slower fair decks.
As for the other 3 archetypes, they would ideally be equal, but Aggro is a diverse archetype that lends itself to many different possible builds, so it makes sense that Aggro would be the highest represented archetype in Modern, as it is. As for the non-blue Midrange/Control decks, it's just a bit broader of an umbrella than the blue decks, so I feel it should be a little more represented than them. Hopefully that clears up my reasoning. The actual numbers I stated were mostly arbitrary, of course, but what's important is the general ratios.
As I noted in my previous comment, regardless of the X archetypes you go by, and even if we agree the %'s are reasonable and fair, the effort required to reach the desired metagame numbers is huge, I'd even say impractical and virtually impossible, from a card design and banlist management standapoint. I believe such thing is not feasible, and even if we reach it eventually, the format will invariably adapt and continue evolving beyond the goals we set.
Yes, of course. Actually reaching such an idealized scenario is impossible because Modern will never be perfect. That doesn't mean we can't set guidelines to aim for, though. If we decided to go with the numbers I mentioned and all the macro-archetypes were within 5% of those numbers, that's probably close enough. If one is 10 or 15% away from the desired goal, that might be when we would want to begin looking at what is suppressing that archetype, or if it just needs a little push to help.
I believe the easiest, most practical way, is to promote deck diversity. Remember that different aggro, non-blue midrange, blue control, ramp/big mana and combo players want/like different things out of their macro archetypes: strategy, difficulty, interaction, colors, cards... So we try and have as many different decks as we can, all with varying degrees of competitiveness, which would be fine as long as most of them have a reasonable chance to success while also ensuring no single deck dominates, right?
That's certainly another important piece to the puzzle. I think whether having more unique decks or better balanced macro-archetypes is more important is certainly up for debate, but I think they're both important factors. I believe WotC does care about both of these things, going by AF's state of Modern article he did last year and by some of their actions in the past. Either way, I think it's bad if you only have one of these things and not the other. A 5 deck format with each macro-archetype represented by one deck and nothing else viable outside those 5 decks would be awful, but a 100 deck format that was entirely different flavors of uninteractive aggro would be equally as awful.
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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
Because MTGO goldfish stats are crap for me, since they mix paper game and MTGO and I only play MTGO, I have to isolate the 5-0s. Long story told short, just sayin, but since the first published league from the 1st of March Death Shadow decks are now around 14%. If you add the grixis shadow decks, they combine for around 20%...
So blue gets its own archetype? Sorry but archetypes shouldn't be color based. I know blue players seem to have a lot of pull but that's a little silly. Its also the reason, or at least partly so, that counterspell can't be allowed in the format. For every one saying counterspell is fine in modern, how many cards can cause someone to consider their play an archetype?
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Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
So blue gets its own archetype? Sorry but archetypes shouldn't be color based. I know blue players seem to have a lot of pull but that's a little silly. Its also the reason, or at least partly so, that counterspell can't be allowed in the format. For every one saying counterspell is fine in modern, how many cards can cause someone to consider their play an archetype?
I think is's better said as "reactive Control/Midrange" as opposed to "Proactice Midrange." If we parse it that way, does it still seem like an illegitimate category to you, or is that valid? (Not being snarky; honest question.)
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Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
IMO, one of the problem in the modern format is that the natural prey of the blue control deck is abnormal: the combo deck. I think it's abnormal due to the existence of pact of negation. It's a card only combo can play and that nullifies the normal control advantage. (In legacy, FoW exists for all decks and casting it does not lead to losing the game for non-combo decks.) Thus the normal aggro/mid-range/combo/control circle is broken.
Get rid of the pack would be one step toward bringing classic control back. The only other choice would be a a FoW-like card to replace the pact, in case losing the pact would be to severe for the continued existence of combo.
IMO, one of the problem in the modern format is that the natural prey of the blue control deck is abnormal: the combo deck. I think it's abnormal due to the existence of pact of negation. It's a card only combo can play and that nullifies the normal control advantage. (In legacy, FoW exists for all decks and casting it does not lead to losing the game for non-combo decks.) Thus the normal aggro/mid-range/combo/control circle is broken.
Get rid of the pack would be one step toward bringing classic control back. The only other choice would be a a FoW-like card to replace the pact, in case losing the pact would be to severe for the continued existence of combo.
Oh sorry, thought I explained this better, I'll be more specific.
Combo: combo can never occupy as much of the meta as the others because the best combo decks always get banned. For a pure combo deck to be good it either has to be faster than the aggro decks, meaning turn 2 and 3 kills, or attack from a different angle like Living End. If a fast combo deck starts to pick up in popularity and hits tier 1... banhammer. WotC seems to not want tier 1 fast combo in Modern, so it's an archetype they are purposely suppressing in the format.
Ramp/Big Mana: the big mana decks are good to have around in some numbers, but are unhealthy for a format if they're dominant. If a format is all Tron, the best way to win is be as aggressive and uninteractive as possible, and this isn't the pressure we want exerted on the format. That said, these decks need to exist to check the slower fair decks.
As for the other 3 archetypes, they would ideally be equal, but Aggro is a diverse archetype that lends itself to many different possible builds, so it makes sense that Aggro would be the highest represented archetype in Modern, as it is. As for the non-blue Midrange/Control decks, it's just a bit broader of an umbrella than the blue decks, so I feel it should be a little more represented than them. Hopefully that clears up my reasoning. The actual numbers I stated were mostly arbitrary, of course, but what's important is the general ratios.
It's alright, I got it the first time and the reasoning is sound. I mostly agree with you. Still, those numbers are both arbitrary and debatable. However...
As I noted in my previous comment, regardless of the X archetypes you go by, and even if we agree the %'s are reasonable and fair, the effort required to reach the desired metagame numbers is huge, I'd even say impractical and virtually impossible, from a card design and banlist management standapoint. I believe such thing is not feasible, and even if we reach it eventually, the format will invariably adapt and continue evolving beyond the goals we set.
Yes, of course. Actually reaching such an idealized scenario is impossible because Modern will never be perfect. That doesn't mean we can't set guidelines to aim for, though. If we decided to go with the numbers I mentioned and all the macro-archetypes were within 5% of those numbers, that's probably close enough. If one is 10 or 15% away from the desired goal, that might be when we would want to begin looking at what is suppressing that archetype, or if it just needs a little push to help.
This is the approach I like the most. In the end, my point is that regardless of the number of macro archetypes, perfect and constant balance isn't possible. Having guidelines and work with acceptable and unacceptable margins is a much more reasonable position indeed.
I believe the easiest, most practical way, is to promote deck diversity. Remember that different aggro, non-blue midrange, blue control, ramp/big mana and combo players want/like different things out of their macro archetypes: strategy, difficulty, interaction, colors, cards... So we try and have as many different decks as we can, all with varying degrees of competitiveness, which would be fine as long as most of them have a reasonable chance to success while also ensuring no single deck dominates, right?
That's certainly another important piece to the puzzle. I think whether having more unique decks or better balanced macro-archetypes is more important is certainly up for debate, but I think they're both important factors. I believe WotC does care about both of these things, going by AF's state of Modern article he did last year and by some of their actions in the past. Either way, I think it's bad if you only have one of these things and not the other. A 5 deck format with each macro-archetype represented by one deck and nothing else viable outside those 5 decks would be awful, but a 100 deck format that was entirely different flavors of uninteractive aggro would be equally as awful.
This is totally on point, you need both to have a healthy metagame, since the absence of one leads to an awful format. The way I see it, both archetype balance and deck diversity are as important, that's why I disagreed that one was far more important than the other. However, I still believe achieving deck diversity is both more pratical and easier than achieving archetype balance, again from a card design and banlist management standpoint . Now that you mention Aaron Forsythe's article, I think the most relevant format guidelines to our current discussion are that Modern should:
Let you tap into your collection to expand upon established decks and familiar strategies from Magic's recent past.
Offer different types of decks and gameplay than what you typically see in Standard.
Have a diverse top-tier metagame featuring over a dozen archetypes.
Not be dominated by fast, non-interactive decks.
And don't worry, the fact that these are much more connected to deck diversity doesn't mean at all that they do not care about macro archetype balance, else we wouldn't have statements like these:
December 2011:"We also have the goal of maintaining a diverse format. While there were aggressive decks, control decks, attrition decks, and combination decks that succeeded, the diversity was not ideal. In particular, the heavy majority of all aggressive decks were "Zoo" decks."
February 2016:"We also look at the rest of the decks in the format and make sure there is a good amount of diversity. If the top ten decks, by percentage of people playing them, all use the same basic strategy, then we probably need to either ban something or look at unbanning something."
April 2016:"We also looked at our banned lists for cards that could increase the richness of the format. Currently, the format tends to favor aggressive decks and quick-kill combo decks. We looked for cards that tend to work best in slower decks[...] While there are some control decks that would use Ancestral Vision, it is an underplayed portion of the metagame."
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Modern:WU WU Control | WBG Abzan Company Frontier:UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
IMO, one of the problem in the modern format is that the natural prey of the blue control deck is abnormal: the combo deck. I think it's abnormal due to the existence of pact of negation. It's a card only combo can play and that nullifies the normal control advantage. (In legacy, FoW exists for all decks and casting it does not lead to losing the game for non-combo decks.) Thus the normal aggro/mid-range/combo/control circle is broken.
Get rid of the pack would be one step toward bringing classic control back. The only other choice would be a a FoW-like card to replace the pact, in case losing the pact would be to severe for the continued existence of combo.
Proactive and Reactive control generally translates to Black and Blue in practice, at least so far as I've seen; personally, I prefer the following categories:
Control: Disrupt the opponent's strategy with instants and sorceries; card advantage
Prison: Disrupt the opponent's strategy with non-creature permanents; card advantage
Midrange: Play bigger threats than aggro, and broad answers as needed; card quality
Aggro: Fast threats, answers only as needed; goldfish speed
Tempo: Mana-efficient threats with answers; board advantage
Combo: Card A requires card B/C to be worth playing at all; degeneracy
Ramp: Significant non-land slots are devoted to having more mana; inevitability
You can add "synergistic", "Reactive", and "Proactive" in front of many of these categories for more specificity. They can also usually be combined. As far as metagames are concerned, and how wizards has tried to shape standard, would imagine the ideal metagame shares is Midrange > Aggro > Control > Ramp > Combo, with tempo and prison basically dropped.
Proactive and Reactive control generally translates to Black and Blue in practice, at least so far as I've seen; personally, I prefer the following categories:
Control: Disrupt the opponent's strategy with instants and sorceries; card advantage
Prison: Disrupt the opponent's strategy with non-creature permanents; card advantage
Midrange: Play bigger threats than aggro, and broad answers as needed; card quality
Aggro: Fast threats, answers only as needed; goldfish speed
Tempo: Mana-efficient threats with answers; board advantage
Combo: Card A requires card B/C to be worth playing at all; degeneracy
Ramp: Significant non-land slots are devoted to having more mana; inevitability
I really like this categorization. One minor thing though: I'd argue prison decks disrupt with permanents in general, not just non-creature ones, or at least that there are prison elements that go beyond the non-creature permanents realm. Hatebears, land-based land hate and interactions like Venser-Karakas in Legacy come to mind.
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Proactive and Reactive control generally translates to Black and Blue in practice, at least so far as I've seen; personally, I prefer the following categories:
Control: Disrupt the opponent's strategy with instants and sorceries; card advantage
Prison: Disrupt the opponent's strategy with non-creature permanents; card advantage
Midrange: Play bigger threats than aggro, and broad answers as needed; card quality
Aggro: Fast threats, answers only as needed; goldfish speed
Tempo: Mana-efficient threats with answers; board advantage
Combo: Card A requires card B/C to be worth playing at all; degeneracy
Ramp: Significant non-land slots are devoted to having more mana; inevitability
I really like this categorization. One minor thing though: I'd argue prison decks disrupt with permanents in general, not just non-creature ones, or at least that there are prison elements that go beyond the non-creature permanents realm. Hatebears, land-based land hate and interactions like Venser-Karakas in Legacy come to mind.
You really start running into some weird problems with classification in modern (which is actually pretty neat I think). Prison using non-creature permanents to control the game makes sense and aggro-control seems more apt for say death and taxes. The goal of the former is to deny you full access to your resources before you cannot do anything and then win with anything really. The latter seeks to deny you access to your resources similarly, but the effects are on the creatures you are using to win the game. Prison is seeking to stop you completely whereas aggro-control is seeking to delay your ability to use your resources.
You really start running into some weird problems with classification in modern (which is actually pretty neat I think). Prison using non-creature permanents to control the game makes sense and aggro-control seems more apt for say death and taxes. The goal of the former is to deny you full access to your resources before you cannot do anything and then win with anything really. The latter seeks to deny you access to your resources similarly, but the effects are on the creatures you are using to win the game. Prison is seeking to stop you completely whereas aggro-control is seeking to delay your ability to use your resources.
Hey, I'm probably wrong here. But to me land-based land hate (such as Wasteland, or Arbiter + Quarter) is a prison staple. Hatebears such as Gaddock Teeg and Meddling Mage also deny you access proactively, and are usually hard locks against certain decks. Repeatedly blinking Thought-Knot Seer and other certain ETB creatures also does that against decks with no interaction (or instant speed interaction). There's also interactions like Venser + Karakas, mana taxing creatures like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben or Lodestone Golem, and stuff like Magus of the Moon, Magus of the Moat, Silent Arbiter, et al. Like I said, these cards may not be what an actual prison deck plays, but at least we can agree that prison elements certainly go beyond the non-creature permanents realm.
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Modern:WU WU Control | WBG Abzan Company Frontier:UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
Proactive and Reactive control generally translates to Black and Blue in practice, at least so far as I've seen; personally, I prefer the following categories:
Control: Disrupt the opponent's strategy with instants and sorceries; card advantage
Prison: Disrupt the opponent's strategy with non-creature permanents; card advantage
Midrange: Play bigger threats than aggro, and broad answers as needed; card quality
Aggro: Fast threats, answers only as needed; goldfish speed
Tempo: Mana-efficient threats with answers; board advantage
Combo: Card A requires card B/C to be worth playing at all; degeneracy
Ramp: Significant non-land slots are devoted to having more mana; inevitability
You can add "synergistic", "Reactive", and "Proactive" in front of many of these categories for more specificity. They can also usually be combined. As far as metagames are concerned, and how wizards has tried to shape standard, would imagine the ideal metagame shares is Midrange > Aggro > Control > Ramp > Combo, with tempo and prison basically dropped.
I feel like I forgot something... oh well.
I get the rock paper scissors appeal. but right now its rock rock rock paper paper sciccors in the top tiers
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-Modern-
decks playing:
none
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We can go back and forth on specifics all day. I prefer to use TCG Low and eBay Buy it Now Low to accurately judge value of a card (more representative for what it actually sells for, not just what it's listed for). But even if we go through all those numbers (which I actually did a while back, using MTG Goldfish numbers to make a comparison chart), the cards from Twin saw about a 10-25% larger depreciation in value compared to other cards commonly used in the format in 2015 and today, including those reprinted in MM sets. But the bigger point is: Even if I sold my cards at a considerable loss (In addition to the price tanks, it would still be below TCG Low or eBay BIN Low, due to fees and shipping), I would have to then pay top dollar to get my hands on another deck built from scratch in order to be competitive. So the financial "loss" to Twin players who want to remain competitive would be the price of a new deck + the % loss of individual card value + the cost of fees and shipping.
But even all that aside, it doesn't address the elephant in the room that, in addition to losing monetary value (or presenting large additional costs), the loss of a competitive deck with no replacement is fairly demoralizing for those who had invested thousands into the cards of that deck and staples of those colors. It was addressed specifically in the Twin ban as to what players could do with their leftovers, and then addressed again 4 months later with two unbans. But we've taken a back seat to linear aggro and big mana for over a year now, and we're still sitting at the kid's table getting beat up on by all the Tier 1 decks.
But sure, I guess the only thing we really lost was a couple bucks on one or two cards.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I agree with everything you're saying here but I also have the perspective that the ban was for the greater good of the format and that although the efforts have not been substantial enough yet Wizards has your issues on their radar and has been/will continue to try to improve the situation for reactive blue while keeping in mind the greater goals for the format. It just takes longer than anyone would like do to the nature of r&d plus the standard gate
U Merfolk
UB Tezzerator
UB Mill
Considering this "greater good" didn't manifest itself until after the Probe/GGT ban, I would say it has more to do with the current downturn in linear aggro decks than anything else. Besides, keeping linear aggro decks in check without needlessly banning them was something Twin did nicely, so removing it actually helped cause (or at least accelerated the process of creating) a really disgusting, fast, linear metagame that had to be "fixed" with bans. I'm happy that it's on their mind, but given their track record in dealing with blue, my confidence is not exactly high that they will actually do anything of value to help.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I like your deck, especially with the rad flavour text from Brute Force :)! No sarcasm at all I've come around on the brainless thing as it fits with the jive of that card and the deck (sucker for flavour here)
U Merfolk
UB Tezzerator
UB Mill
My biggest issue with the ban is that even if you're right and it was better for the format in the long run, which is debatable but possibly true, I think it was a terrible time to actually enact it because they were killing the only top tier deck that represented an entire macro-archetype. There were no top tier blue decks after Twin was gone, and there still aren't over a year later. I think keeping each of the macro-archetypes well represented in the top tiers of the format is FAR more important than diversity of decks.
What they should have done was ban Exarch to weaken the deck instead of outright killing it, or waited until the blue shell itself could stand on its own. It's likely that if Twin had a better blue shell it would have become obviously too good at that point, which would have made the ban decision much less controversial than it was. It's too late to walk back on the decision now, though, so I really hope Forscythe's forthcoming article will give us blue players some hope for good things to come.
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
Is something like True Name Nemesis too strong for the format?
David Ochoa: "Mono-bacon!..."
Moving to another topic, why do you think "keeping each of the macro-archetypes well represented in the top tiers of the format is FAR more important than diversity of decks"? First of all, what macro-archetypes are we going with? I've seen classifications ranging from 3 (aggro-combo-control) to 16 (Chapin) archetypes, all with varying degrees of acceptance. Regardless of the number we choose, I think we can agree on the huge effort that goes into make any format, particularly Modern, perfectly and evenly balanced, both in card design and banlist management. And this is assuming that the playerbase's arcehtype preference divides the same, evenly way. The way I see it, deck diversity in the top tiers (read: ability to have relative success) is the best way to handle this, giving more choice to the playerbase instead of molding the format into something the playerbase may not like given the playerbase inherent preferences (ie. even macro archetype distribution). Deck diversity certainly addresses a problem macro archetype diversity doesn't: an aggro player may like going wide (Affinity), big (Boggles), aggro-combo (Infect, Prowess), spell-heavy (Burn) or else. Control players may like going draw-go (Esper), tap-out (UW), control-combo (Twin, Temur Scapeshift) or may not even like blue (WR, Lantern, Skred). Some generalizations here, but I think my point is clear.
Here we totally agree. Back when I correctly identified that the Twin deck was a possible ban target one month before the Twin ban, I thought Exarch was the card, if anything. Improving blue in general, and particulary Twin, with an unban wasn't an option, I think even back then we knew they don't unban cards that go into top tier decks, let alone the best perfoming deck at the GP level back then. If Twin hadn't been overperforming/underplayed back then, it wouldn't certainly have been that controversial, that's for sure. Forsythe's words give me hope that, if anything, we'll get an the official blue state in the format. At least, that would give us more insight in their ban/unban criteria and methods.
Frontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
Those metagame percentage numbers are fairly well explained away by a post I made on the previous page about how players are unwilling or unable switch switch away from these decks, so their numbers maintain without any results to back it up. The absolutely horrid Top 32 results from the past six months tell us that these are terrible decks to bring to competitive events, unless your name is Cory Burkhart or you have unbelievable matchups and positive variance luck. A similar thing happened to regular Jund much of last year, when it was holding something like 10% of the meta, despite no real results (~15% if you combined Abzan+Jund). Stubborn people continue to play their decks whether they're good or not, especially if they were expensive. Also, Jeskai Nahiri was a flash in the pan that got snuffed out of existence once people could prepare for it. To be fair, most URx decks are fine at the FNM level because losing a couple matches here and there doesn't really matter. But against every Tier 1 deck, if it's not massively unfavorable, it's a coin flip at best.
I agree. And I hope help is on the way. I don't even care what it is at this point.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Yes, TNN is almost definitely too strong for Modern. Besides that, I'm not convinced that the finisher is what blue decks need. Twin was a great finisher, but it just obfuscated the problem with the blue shell itself being weak. Whatever finisher you give blue, if it's actually the best thing to be doing, like Twin was, it'll become just as ubiquitous as Twin was among the blue decks. As it is, blue decks have several good finisher already. Things like tempo and delve creatures for decks that want early pressure, or Colonnade and Secure the Wastes for decks that want to go longer. They just need ways to survive until either their tempo threats finish the game or their card advantage pulls them ahead, and to do that they either need better, more general answers, or better ways to find their more narrow ones.
While that's true that a couple decks have dipped in and out of tier 1, each of them proved to be a flash in the pan that couldn't stick around. I'll be honest, I thought Jeskai Nahiri was good enough to stick around in tier 1, but it turned out I was wrong. I was never as bullish on the other two you mentioned, though.
Ok, this is a good topic to discuss. Aggro, Combo, and Control are the base 3, but it's not useful to group decks like that, as MTGTop8 does, because the majority of decks are some combination of those 3. I like to begin with Aggro (which includes creature aggro/combo and faster aggro/control), fair reactive Blue Decks (tempo, midrange, and control), non-blue Midrange/Control (includes things like GBx, Company decks, Bant Eldrazi, and prison decks), Ramp/Big Mana (Tron, Valakut, Tooth & Nail, etc.), and Combo (Storm, Goryo's, Cheeri0s, etc.). I feel like these 5 are the most generalized buckets that are inclusive of everything with little confusion as to where decks fit it. Just to give an example, with the classic 3 bucket approach, where do you put Infect? Is it aggro or combo? The true answer, of course, is that it's both, so it doesn't clearly fit in one or the other, but I personally make the distinction between creature combo decks like Infect or UR Prowess and combos that don't rely on the attack step, like Storm, Cheeri0s, and Goryo's. And to be fair, almost every aggro deck in Modern is actually aggro/combo other than Burn and maybe a couple other exceptions.
But yes, those are the Big Five for me, and the strategies that I feel need to always be supported in Modern. Among tier 1 and 2 decks in Modern from MN's newest update, 38% are Aggro, 27% are non-U Midrange/Control, 18% are Ramp/Big Mana, 8.8% are Blue Decks, and 7.7% are Combo. For the Ramp/Big Mana decks, I think the strategy just doesn't lend itself well to a lot of diversity. The best ramping in the format is Tron lands and Prime Time, so the best ramp decks are almost always abusing one of those two things. Besides that, these decks are usually unhealthy for the format if they occupy too much space, as they incentivize linearity and uninteractivity. As for Combo, the best Combo decks always get banned; WotC really doesn't seem to want Tier 1 pure Combo decks, so it's kind of a losing battle to argue that they should be more represented (although I believe better Blue Decks allows for better Combo to exist).
So that leaves the Blue Decks as the big straggler here. It's one of the macro-archetypes that you would want to be most represented in a format to promote interactivity, along with most Aggro and non-blue Midrange/Control decks. So the fact that it's only barely beating the archetype that's been repeatedly banned into the ground is not ideal if we want an interactive format. If I had to ideally divide up the metashare of the format, I would want Aggro at about 30%, non-U Midrange/Control at about 25%, Blue Decks at about 20%, Ramp/Big Mana at about 15%, and Combo at about 10%. Beyond the reasons I stated above, Aggro and non-U fair decks just lend themselves to a large number of diverse build possibilities, which is why I have them slightly higher. This aspect is obviously debatable, but I think my numbers are pretty reasonable and would make for an interactive and healthy format if ever achieved.
As for why I prefer archetype diversity over sheer number of competitive decks: it's so that everyone has something top tier to play in their prefered playstyle. It's meaningless to have 30 top tier decks when half of them do pretty much the same exact thing. That's not real diversity, it's just the illusion of diversity. To be clear, though, I do want diversity of decks too, but I think that's secondary behind making sure each major style of play is being supported to the right extent.
Yeah, they definitely made a mistake with how they handled it, that's for sure. I think they knew they were banning Twin prematurely too, as I remember AF responding to a Tweet saying that the PT did not necessitate bans, it only dictated when they would happen. I took that to mean that Twin didn't quite meet their criteria for a ban just yet, but they knew it would eventually, plus it tied their hands to unbanning any blue cards, so they bumped it forward on the schedule.
I think the Twin/Exarch swap ban might still work at this point. To be fair, I'm not sure if the resulting Temur Twin deck would be ok or not, but my gut tells me it would slot in somewhere high Tier 2 or low Tier 1 in the current Modern. But I'm willing to wait. If AF has some good news for blue as a whole in his coming article, I'm ready to completely forget about Twin.
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
Right now, I only have the data of the last 2 at hand, so I'll work with that: Grixis and Esper had 3.1% each in the combined Top32s (including Top8s), that's as much as Amulet Titan, Jund Midrange, Lantern Control, Naya Burn and Affinity. Are these decks horrid for competitive events too? It's easy to dimiss +77% win rates over 15 rounds just because the tiebreakers weren't there that weekend. It's not only Corey Burkhart either: Andy Wilson went 12-3 last month too, Alex Mitas Top8d GP Dallas too. Albertus Law won GP Guangzhou and Daniel Ballestin Top8d GP Lille, all this since last August. I get it, blue control decks aren't the best and they also aren't on Twin's level, which got it banned in the first place. But please stop pretending like literally nothing happened.
Last year, Jund Midrange was 6.6% online since the Eye ban, being the 2nd best behind Dredge (7.8%) and flowing in the 4%-9% range. In this same, post Eye ban, period there wer3 6 GPs, 48 Top8s, with 5 Jund ones: that's 10.4% GP Top8s. Those are your "real" results proving you wrong. You still calling Jeskai a flash in the pan, huh? One month, sure. If three months being ~5% online, nine months averaging 3.7% online, being the 8th most successful deck since the Eye ban and a November GP Top8 can't convince you the deck was a solid Tier 2 deck for most of 2016, rather than a "flash in the pan", then I don't know what else.
Again, blue control decks aren't the best and they also aren't on Twin's level, but don't be so quick to dismiss Jeskai just to further push your narrative. I guess if Sheridan couldn't convince you back then when we discussed the Nexus articles here, then I'm done with this topic. Regarding the Tier 1 matchup, there are certainly bad ones, but if you seriously think Grixis or Jeskai matchups against Affinity and Jund are 50/50 at best, then I kindly recommend you to practice those matchups more. And if you go from URx to UWx, I assure you you'll have better matchups against Valakut and Eldrazi decks.
Frontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
Even if we go with your Big 5, why not 20% each? As I noted in my previous comment, regardless of the X archetypes you go by, and even if we agree the %'s are reasonable and fair, the effort required to reach the desired metagame numbers is huge, I'd even say impractical and virtually impossible, from a card design and banlist management standapoint. I believe such thing is not feasible, and even if we reach it eventually, the format will invariably adapt and continue evolving beyond the goals we set. And all this is even assuming the playerbase archetype preferences naturally split the same way we want the macro archetypes to be represented, which may not be and probaby don't. I believe the easiest, most practical way, is to promote deck diversity. Remember that different aggro, non-blue midrange, blue control, ramp/big mana and combo players want/like different things out of their macro archetypes: strategy, difficulty, interaction, colors, cards... So we try and have as many different decks as we can, all with varying degrees of competitiveness, which would be fine as long as most of them have a reasonable chance to success while also ensuring no single deck dominates, right?
Frontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
Oh sorry, thought I explained this better, I'll be more specific.
Combo: combo can never occupy as much of the meta as the others because the best combo decks always get banned. For a pure combo deck to be good it either has to be faster than the aggro decks, meaning turn 2 and 3 kills, or attack from a different angle like Living End. If a fast combo deck starts to pick up in popularity and hits tier 1... banhammer. WotC seems to not want tier 1 fast combo in Modern, so it's an archetype they are purposely suppressing in the format.
Ramp/Big Mana: the big mana decks are good to have around in some numbers, but are unhealthy for a format if they're dominant. If a format is all Tron, the best way to win is be as aggressive and uninteractive as possible, and this isn't the pressure we want exerted on the format. That said, these decks need to exist to check the slower fair decks.
As for the other 3 archetypes, they would ideally be equal, but Aggro is a diverse archetype that lends itself to many different possible builds, so it makes sense that Aggro would be the highest represented archetype in Modern, as it is. As for the non-blue Midrange/Control decks, it's just a bit broader of an umbrella than the blue decks, so I feel it should be a little more represented than them. Hopefully that clears up my reasoning. The actual numbers I stated were mostly arbitrary, of course, but what's important is the general ratios.
Yes, of course. Actually reaching such an idealized scenario is impossible because Modern will never be perfect. That doesn't mean we can't set guidelines to aim for, though. If we decided to go with the numbers I mentioned and all the macro-archetypes were within 5% of those numbers, that's probably close enough. If one is 10 or 15% away from the desired goal, that might be when we would want to begin looking at what is suppressing that archetype, or if it just needs a little push to help.
That's certainly another important piece to the puzzle. I think whether having more unique decks or better balanced macro-archetypes is more important is certainly up for debate, but I think they're both important factors. I believe WotC does care about both of these things, going by AF's state of Modern article he did last year and by some of their actions in the past. Either way, I think it's bad if you only have one of these things and not the other. A 5 deck format with each macro-archetype represented by one deck and nothing else viable outside those 5 decks would be awful, but a 100 deck format that was entirely different flavors of uninteractive aggro would be equally as awful.
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
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
I think is's better said as "reactive Control/Midrange" as opposed to "Proactice Midrange." If we parse it that way, does it still seem like an illegitimate category to you, or is that valid? (Not being snarky; honest question.)
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
Get rid of the pack would be one step toward bringing classic control back. The only other choice would be a a FoW-like card to replace the pact, in case losing the pact would be to severe for the continued existence of combo.
U Merfolk
UB Tezzerator
UB Mill
Only ad nauseam and amulet play it though.
This is the approach I like the most. In the end, my point is that regardless of the number of macro archetypes, perfect and constant balance isn't possible. Having guidelines and work with acceptable and unacceptable margins is a much more reasonable position indeed.
This is totally on point, you need both to have a healthy metagame, since the absence of one leads to an awful format. The way I see it, both archetype balance and deck diversity are as important, that's why I disagreed that one was far more important than the other. However, I still believe achieving deck diversity is both more pratical and easier than achieving archetype balance, again from a card design and banlist management standpoint . Now that you mention Aaron Forsythe's article, I think the most relevant format guidelines to our current discussion are that Modern should:
Frontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
Goryo's Vengeance use it in the SB as well.
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
Control: Disrupt the opponent's strategy with instants and sorceries; card advantage
Prison: Disrupt the opponent's strategy with non-creature permanents; card advantage
Midrange: Play bigger threats than aggro, and broad answers as needed; card quality
Aggro: Fast threats, answers only as needed; goldfish speed
Tempo: Mana-efficient threats with answers; board advantage
Combo: Card A requires card B/C to be worth playing at all; degeneracy
Ramp: Significant non-land slots are devoted to having more mana; inevitability
You can add "synergistic", "Reactive", and "Proactive" in front of many of these categories for more specificity. They can also usually be combined. As far as metagames are concerned, and how wizards has tried to shape standard, would imagine the ideal metagame shares is Midrange > Aggro > Control > Ramp > Combo, with tempo and prison basically dropped.
I feel like I forgot something... oh well.
Frontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
You really start running into some weird problems with classification in modern (which is actually pretty neat I think). Prison using non-creature permanents to control the game makes sense and aggro-control seems more apt for say death and taxes. The goal of the former is to deny you full access to your resources before you cannot do anything and then win with anything really. The latter seeks to deny you access to your resources similarly, but the effects are on the creatures you are using to win the game. Prison is seeking to stop you completely whereas aggro-control is seeking to delay your ability to use your resources.
Frontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
I get the rock paper scissors appeal. but right now its rock rock rock paper paper sciccors in the top tiers
decks playing:
none