Bbe isnt worse than company, its just very very comparable and not likely much better or worse either way.
You list these pros and omit the cons - a 3/2 haste is a hot pile of garbage on its own and thats always one of the two cards you get with bbe. Sure sometimes coco is a bird and something, but most of the time both cards you company into are stronger than a 3/2 haste.
I agree that is a huge con, and I said I'm OK with a BBE unban. My post was emphasizing that BBE is not "inferior collected company", and that there's a reason to play it
Which brings us to another omission: company gives you choices. Dont need spell queller? Take the knight. Dont need geist? Take the goyf. Unless you are chaining serum visions bbe is a pure crapshoot with no selection, and while it technically always hits something there are plenty of times a push or inquisition will be dead.
See above. Also, the "choice" factor is not high. The chances of hitting 3 creatures when you have at least 26 creatures in your deck is only ~30%. The chances that 2 of those creatures are a significant tradeoff is lower. And again, I was emphasizing the reason you use BBE, not saying it's better than CoCo
Deckbuilding constraints? Bbe needs 2 colours coco 1. Coco needs tonnes of creatures, but bbe sucks with situational cards like counterspells. Bbe presents two things to counter - but at sorcery speed. Bbe can be caverned (who cares) or vial'd. Bbe into ewit doesnt give you 2 more free dudes right away. Etc etc.
BBE is much better against counterspells. That's the main reason people ran it in legacy.
2 colors is a much lower deckbuilding constraint than 26+ creatures. Like its not even close. Playing Coco requires you shape your entire deck around coco. If CoCo was 2BR and said "spells" instead of "creatures", it would be banned, and it would not be even slightly controversial. Deckbuilding constraints are very important when comparing cards.
The pros and cons are more or less a wash. The cards do very similar things as 4 mana 2-for-1s with some deckbuilding constraints and some variance.
Everyone sees bbe going into jund, and I just ask is a 3/2 haste really going to push that deck over the edge? Come on. This is modern, not fnm draft.
By "some" you mean "enormous, deck-defining" constraints. They are completely different cards. It's like trying to compare Swiftspear to Dryad Militant. Yes they are both 1 mana aggressive creatures, they just aren't related to each other because you need a completely different deck to play Swiftspear. If you want to compare cards, and argue, based on their power levels, that one is totally safe to ban, you need to actually be comparing two cards which can replace each other.
Again, I don't think that it's necessarily even a better card in the meta, I already said I wouldn't mind an unbanning. My post was pointing out key differences that make it playable.
Also I personally think a 3/2 hasted body is fine. I think you're seriously underestimating the effects card advantage has on a game. It would certainly be a premier creature in Jund, not "FNM Draft" tier.
My issue when is when people come into this thread and spend a significant portion of the time complaining about the format. Yes, they might be invested, etc, but I don't see the need for people to reiterate the same opinion, over and over again... when it comes to the Modern critics, I generally know their opinions and posting as much as they do (or used to do) is remarkably redundant.
With regards to xxhellfirexx3: my main issue with you is that you speak about the format in objective terms. You say the format sucks, rather than that you don't personally enjoy the format or that the format doesn't fit your personal criteria. The fact that you then tell people who disagree with you that they're "missing the bigger picture" just makes it more obnoxious. You are allowed to dislike the format for whatever reason you want - but don't pretend that other people's opinions are any less valid than your own, or that your opinion is the Gospel when it comes to Modern. The majority of people here are enjoying the format right now; there's a lot of interactive games and decks for people that want to play them.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
My issue when is when people come into this thread and spend a significant portion of the time complaining about the format. Yes, they might be invested, etc, but I don't see the need for people to reiterate the same opinion, over and over again... when it comes to the Modern critics, I generally know their opinions and posting as much as they do (or used to do) is remarkably redundant.
With regards to xxhellfirexx3: my main issue with you is that you speak about the format in objective terms. You say the format sucks, rather than that you don't personally enjoy the format or that the format doesn't fit your personal criteria. The fact that you then tell people who disagree with you that they're "missing the bigger picture" just makes it more obnoxious. You are allowed to dislike the format for whatever reason you want - but don't pretend that other people's opinions are any less valid than your own, or that your opinion is the Gospel when it comes to Modern. The majority of people here are enjoying the format right now; there's a lot of interactive games and decks for people that want to play them.
I'm not asking people to agree with my dislike. But rather be aware of why that is.
For all who are in the conversation that are critical of the current Modern metagame, I have a question. I'll preface it with the statement that it takes minimal effort to complain about something without doing work to provide a solution, based on actual data that can be peer reviewed. An opinion without work isn't worthy of much respect - Anyone can post an opinion without evidence of work done to back it up.
So, my question is, what specific decks do you think should comprise the metagame, and at what exact percentages? And when I say specific decks, I'm looking for specific examples of a decklist. Being vague here only serves as a cop-out for doing actual work. Additionally, which of those decks would you be choosing to play? There is one more follow-up question, in the request that you actually playtest those decks against eachother, at least in double-digit numbers of matches, and provide the data (in a manner that everyone else can check), so that everyone can be sure that those percentages are realistic for each deck in the metagame.
If you cannot at least do that minimal amount of work to answer the very first question, then what entitles your opinion to any level of respect?
For all who are in the conversation that are critical of the current Modern metagame, I have a question. I'll preface it with the statement that it takes minimal effort to complain about something without doing work to provide a solution, based on actual data that can be peer reviewed. An opinion without work isn't worthy of much respect - Anyone can post an opinion without evidence of work done to back it up.
So, my question is, what specific decks do you think should comprise the metagame, and at what exact percentages? And when I say specific decks, I'm looking for specific examples of a decklist. Being vague here only serves as a cop-out for doing actual work. Additionally, which of those decks would you be choosing to play? There is one more follow-up question, in the request that you actually playtest those decks against eachother, at least in double-digit numbers of matches, and provide the data (in a manner that everyone else can check), so that everyone can be sure that those percentages are realistic for each deck in the metagame.
If you cannot at least do that minimal amount of work to answer the very first question, then what entitles your opinion to any level of respect?
I've already shown that 2/3 of 68 percent of modern is "linear". I also have limited data resources. And quite honestly I doubt you will accept any thing short of a perfect 100 percent accurate response in which noone with limited data could ever provide.
Am I the only fair player who tries to stay objective? Yes, I'm calling out Storm despite it being a good matchup for me.
This thread spent last year saying things like, "there's no good blue deck!" "We need a 2 cmc counter!" "The banning of the deck left a huge hole and now blue is struggling!"
Then 2017 came by and we didn't just get a top blue deck, we got two. Grixis Shadow FEELS like a blue deck, it's now playing 10 blue cantrips, the snaps, the counter plan. I think it's unfair to say, "yawn, it's a thoughtseize, shadow, push deck. If that were the case, Jund/Junk players would have easily adapted, it's a skill testing deck and it sank in numbers in terms of the casual players sticking to it.
We also have Jeskai, and Modern Nexus' new article today even sheds light on it's success.
So, now the argument has shifted into, "I can't control what my opponents are playing, it's too linear, this format is garbage".
I don't think a 1/3rd interactive meta is bad
1/3rd interactive by standard means
1/3rd combo
1/3rd aggro
That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I'm not sure aggro decks can afford to stay aggressive while packing the standard interactivity like bolt/push, etc. That had lukewarm results with the zoo decks from a couple of years ago.
It doesn't seem reasonable at all, what if the meta was 2/3rds of the typical point, click, removal and go draw counter? That would bore a lot of players to death, too.
That's not what I asked for. I asked for what you think the metagame should look like. You show your perfect metagame, as you would shape it, to fix it. I'm looking for actual effort on your behalf.
EDIT: Again, for your reference:
So, my question is, what specific decks do you think should comprise the metagame, and at what exact percentages? And when I say specific decks, I'm looking for specific examples of a decklist. Being vague here only serves as a cop-out for doing actual work. Additionally, which of those decks would you be choosing to play? There is one more follow-up question, in the request that you actually playtest those decks against eachother, at least in double-digit numbers of matches, and provide the data (in a manner that everyone else can check), so that everyone can be sure that those percentages are realistic for each deck in the metagame.
That's not what I asked for. I asked for what you think the metagame should look like. You show your perfect metagame, as you would shape it, to fix it. I'm looking for actual effort on your behalf.
EDIT: Again, for your reference:
So, my question is, what specific decks do you think should comprise the metagame, and at what exact percentages? And when I say specific decks, I'm looking for specific examples of a decklist. Being vague here only serves as a cop-out for doing actual work. Additionally, which of those decks would you be choosing to play? There is one more follow-up question, in the request that you actually playtest those decks against eachother, at least in double-digit numbers of matches, and provide the data (in a manner that everyone else can check), so that everyone can be sure that those percentages are realistic for each deck in the metagame.
I wasn't responding to you, unless I'm mistaken and you're talking to someone else?
If I could answer that I'd certainly be working for WOTC
My perfect world would have something like 1x Aggro, 1x Combo, 1x Midrange, 1x Blue deck that's either tempo/control
But then people would be upset by the rock paper scissor effect and there would be similar opinions in this thread. I really can't think of any meta in any game that achieves perfection.
I think the problem that we also have to be aware of is, again, being quick to define gamestate interactions in a self-centered way. Interactions can occur that affect the gamestate that do not immediately seem to affect a player.
And I’m saying we need to be aware of over estimating game states. All models have a give and take based on the parameters selected to create them. You cannot make a model without assumptions; it just becomes an equation. The thought process behind the selection of these assumptions is crucial to creating a useful model.
For instance, if I cast anticipate and all three cards are the same, then how many choices do I really have there? Or if my opponent has four 1/1’s but is at 3 life, tapped out, and empty handed and I have bolt, how many decisions are there really to be made? The anticipate changes the game state in this case, but if the cards were three islands then it didn’t actually change the game state or decision tree.
These assumptions make a huge difference on the outcome of the model. Decks with lots of cantrips but redundant parts otherwise, and decks with lots of tokens both have the potential of being misrepresented in such a model.
I get where you are coming from when you want a model with as little human influence and as much robustness as possible, but above all else the model needs to produce valid results. I’m beginning to think that straight average length of games over a large sample size may be one of the better descriptors for a deck.
Am I the only fair player who tries to stay objective? Yes, I'm calling out Storm despite it being a good matchup for me.
This thread spent last year saying things like, "there's no good blue deck!" "We need a 2 cmc counter!" "The banning of the deck left a huge hole and now blue is struggling!"
Then 2017 came by and we didn't just get a top blue deck, we got two. Grixis Shadow FEELS like a blue deck, it's now playing 10 blue cantrips, the snaps, the counter plan. I think it's unfair to say, "yawn, it's a thoughtseize, shadow, push deck. If that were the case, Jund/Junk players would have easily adapted, it's a skill testing deck and it sank in numbers in terms of the casual players sticking to it.
We also have Jeskai, and Modern Nexus' new article today even sheds light on it's success.
So, now the argument has shifted into, "I can't control what my opponents are playing, it's too linear, this format is garbage".
I don't think a 1/3rd interactive meta is bad
1/3rd interactive by standard means
1/3rd combo
1/3rd aggro
That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I'm not sure aggro decks can afford to stay aggressive while packing the standard interactivity like bolt/push, etc. That had lukewarm results with the zoo decks from a couple of years ago.
It doesn't seem reasonable at all, what if the meta was 2/3rds of the typical point, click, removal and go draw counter? That would bore a lot of players to death, too.
if you don't think 2/3 being linear is bad then there is no point disputing with me because I disagree.
And that scenario with draw go will never happen nor is it what I want.
But what I'm hearing is that you want the format to contort to your liking. I'm not sure that's fair or reasonable either.
I mean, what does a perfect meta look like to you? What would tier 1 and ti4r 2 look like? What decks are dictating the meta? You gotta give us something or there's no debate or data to go off, just opinions based off of something self serving
That's not what I asked for. I asked for what you think the metagame should look like. You show your perfect metagame, as you would shape it, to fix it. I'm looking for actual effort on your behalf.
EDIT: Again, for your reference:
So, my question is, what specific decks do you think should comprise the metagame, and at what exact percentages? And when I say specific decks, I'm looking for specific examples of a decklist. Being vague here only serves as a cop-out for doing actual work. Additionally, which of those decks would you be choosing to play? There is one more follow-up question, in the request that you actually playtest those decks against eachother, at least in double-digit numbers of matches, and provide the data (in a manner that everyone else can check), so that everyone can be sure that those percentages are realistic for each deck in the metagame.
I've put effort in for a long time. Repeating it to you is pointless..
But for your humour I'll give you a quick summary.
A better format would have 1/2 of it linear instead of 2/3
Which might involve bans of certain decks stifling this.
I believe those decks or should I say cards are:
Mox opal
Tron lands and or
Eldrazi temple
Valakut
Grapeshot
Death shadow
Problem here is this is a ban that matches no ban criteria nor can I prove these decks cause this.
But noone can prove it. Unless they had all the stats before them on matchups to see this.
That's not what I asked for. I asked for what you think the metagame should look like. You show your perfect metagame, as you would shape it, to fix it. I'm looking for actual effort on your behalf.
EDIT: Again, for your reference:
So, my question is, what specific decks do you think should comprise the metagame, and at what exact percentages? And when I say specific decks, I'm looking for specific examples of a decklist. Being vague here only serves as a cop-out for doing actual work. Additionally, which of those decks would you be choosing to play? There is one more follow-up question, in the request that you actually playtest those decks against eachother, at least in double-digit numbers of matches, and provide the data (in a manner that everyone else can check), so that everyone can be sure that those percentages are realistic for each deck in the metagame.
I've put effort in for a long time. Repeating it to you is pointless..
But for your humour I'll give you a quick summary.
A better format would have 1/2 of it linear instead of 2/3
Which might involve bans of certain decks stifling this.
I believe those decks or should I say cards are:
Mox opal
Tron lands and or
Eldrazi temple
Valakut
Grapeshot
Death shadow
Problem here is this is a ban that matches no ban criteria nor can I prove these decks cause this.
But noone can prove it. Unless they had all the stats before them on matchups to see this.
but when I experience such lopsided matchups in the top tiers to not only decks but entire archetypes where sideboard has to be leaned on so heavy I feel like it's not a healthy thing.
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Wouldn't that leave a meta with midrange decks having no predators? They could load up on mass removal and just prey on everything. I don't foresee a lot of combo decks doing well with so much discard and counters dominating the format
I don't like your vision at all, even if I hate tron and think valakut is a deck with lesser thought in sequencing than other top decks.
Wouldn't that leave a meta with midrange decks having no predators? They could load up on mass removal and just prey on everything. I don't foresee a lot of combo decks doing well with so much discard and counters dominating the format
I don't like your vision at all, even if I hate tron and think valakut is a deck with lesser thought in sequencing than other top decks.
mid range would be the top archtype possibly. But I doubt it would dominate.
I'd love to be a jund deck that can just focus on mirrors and small creature decks. I'll gladly play 4x leyline of the void if I don't need land destruction
I don't see this being fair to the base. I think combo and aggro would be very difficult to play. We are just turning modern into a standard format with a larger pool of fair cards.
What's going to prey on midrange? I don't see it without some kind or triangulation on making it difficult
I'd love to be a jund deck that can just focus on mirrors and small creature decks. I'll gladly play 4x leyline of the void if I don't need land destruction
I don't see this being fair to the base. I think combo and aggro would be very difficult to play. We are just turning modern into a standard format with a larger pool of fair cards.
What's going to prey on midrange? I don't see it without some kind or triangulation on making it difficult
I think midrange struggles to do well without big mana. Just because your on jund doesn't auto win a game vs Coco for example.
Those decks most certainly will if I can focus on them a lot more.
I'm a midrange player and what you're proposing isn't fair whatsoever to the base
the decks I mentioned isn't fair either. I feel that's a double standard statement. Also how do you know midrange would be so dominant to such an exaggerated state.
I love the idea of a weighted decision tree of actual matches. With enough information and data coding, you could assign a "decision" score to each deck. But I'm conflicted on whether that gives you interactivity or complexity. Decisions could be mild pivots based on an opponent's actions (do/don't attack) rather than interaction, although perhaps that's widely applicable enough to be canceled out in comparisons across decks.
All around good reply. In addition though, I'd like to point out that we were discussing linearity. We were using interaction as a beginning point to begin defining parameters and at least come to some common agreement to start with. Interaction is related to linearity so with some assumptions a valid model could be produced. A decision tree score as we both hinted at would be a more direct route to defining linear decks. Those deemed "linear" would literally be those with the most linear decision tree, or those with a decreasing decision tree.
To the bolded part, you are correct that it would be difficult to separate what we were actually seeing. If we continue to use lightning bolt and burn as an example: a hand of 3 mountains and 4 bolts would have a vastly different (less linear) decision tree than a hand of 3 mountains and 4 lava spikes, IF the opponent gives you additional bolt targets. But this seems disingenuous because very rarely will the hand play out differently for the burn player, and relies heavily on the opponent.
Repeated trials could allow us to smooth the decision trees of decks down to a more representative average as opposed to these unlikely chosen scenarios, but the number of trials needed to have some confidence that what you are seeing isn't random variation or based on inconsistent opponent data would be very large. Even then, I'm not sure we could separate the linearity aspect from the interactivity or complexity issue without making a ton of assumptions which may ultimately render the model useless anyway.
We could certainly do some regression for one deck against another deck and could obtain data, with minimal assumptions, that in a matchup one deck takes on the linear roll and the other takes on the less linear, reactive roll. But that isn't what we want. The complexity involved in extrapolating that throughout the meta is mind blowing.
You're right, that's my mistake. I meandered between 'linearity' and 'interactivity', using them interchangeably there. They're highly similar in my mind, but I think the difference actually helps clear up the scenario I'm pondering in my last paragraph. When looking at a decision tree of a match, the fewer the number of branches the greater the linearity. The decisions (represented by branches) can be an interactive responses -- e.g. Lightning Bolt a Dark Confidant -- or non-interactive responses -- e.g. the timing of a Lightning Bolt to face while an opponent is tapped out.
I'm in broad agreement with you. Not all branches on the decision tree are likely. We'd need weighted branches to accurately represent that Lightning Bolt and Lava Spike are, in practice, used very, very similarly (redundancy is one the strengths of Burn). You also won't see Grixis DS using Kolaghan's Command to damage themselves very often. Like you mention, putting together a full decision tree for every deck for every match-up pretty quickly becomes impractical. Really only useful as a way of thinking about the concepts, not actually creating a model unless you have a few spare thousand hours on your hands.
So, I had a pretty decent night with 5C Shadow at my FNM and played Storm. He made 11 Goblins on his turn 3 with me on the draw. I had staticaster in my opener so him going all in really backfired---but seriously, that deck is so broken and I can't wait until it's abused in the pro tour and eats a well deserved ban.
Last week I lost on my turn 2 to a game 1 grapeshot for over 20 damage, and game 3 he produced like 12 goblins on his turn 3 on the play. I was on Eldrazi and had a nut hand for turn 2 thought-knot and ratchet bomb which is the only reason I didn't lose on the spot. I whittled him down and he topdecked PIF to win that week.
Seriously, this deck is incredibly degenerate and I don't see how it survives in February, I'm seeing players of all skills levels do really broken things with the deck.
Yes, I absolutely crushed the Storm player tonight but witnessing this was absolutely insane, it's been consistent by different players.
Had I not had 3x discard game 1 I'm pretty sure the Storm player had the game on his turn 3.
This post is a meme right? *Playing Death's Shadow* "I'm playing a 1 mana 10/10 but storm is a broken deck. Drew a single sideboard card so I won". *Cast turn 2 TKS* "Wow I'd have lost pretty hard if I didn't play a turn 2 4/4 with thoughtseize attached off double ancient tomb. Drew a sideboard card and still lost in a grindy game, that's pretty unfair".
Just recognize that you're doing powerful things also but you clearly prefer them to storm. You can't win every game, but that doesn't make a strategy bannable. Well, unless you're playing GDS versus storm, then you'll win every game.
Eldrazi does absolutely broken things sometimes. I was definitely surprised that a hand with turn 2 thought-knot that curved into smashers wasn't enough to win, since most decks fold to that broken sequencing.
GDS is still a fair deck, I mean, we've gotten to the point where it's really difficult to play fair in modern that a 1 mana 10/10 is what you need, along with Jeskai Geist. Abzan had a good showing during the triple GP weekend, but overall I think Abzan has been a lukewarm to sub-par deck this year. The only fair decks that have really yielded good results this year are Jeskai and Shadow decks.
I do find it outrageous that BBE is still a banned card in modern.
Oh yeah I agree wholeheartedly, I was providing juxtaposition. It's easy for other people to make extravagant arguments against decks like DS or Etron. Like I play decks where thoughtseize feels like the most busted card every printed; it frustrates me but that's not reason enough to ban. Storm has some really horrid match ups and it's games against fair decks are frequently quite tight. For instance, I've been the victor in most of my games on either side of the storm/etron match up. Definitely helps when you know what you're doing. I don't think it's fair to say that when you interact with a deck like storm but it still wins that it is unfair because of that. If you automatically won by interacting, we'd have a pretty boring format as every combo deck would lose to a thoughtseize and every thoughtseize would get countered by big mana.
@Sheridan: I had always been of the mindset that I liked SSG in the format as a combo player. However, I had a friend make an argument that the worst part of modern is how many non games you lose. Stuff like turn 1 moon etc. Playing abzan versus turn 3 karn. I had an opponent play turn 1 moon off double spirit guide versus humans (surprisingly the game still played out reasonably since I had double vial) and normally this is lights out. Without having a card like FoW to help reduce games like this, maybe the correct ban targets are things like SSG. Sure a deck like storm can turn 3 you if you don't push their mana dork or thoughtseize them. There's not much any deck can do about random hands with double spirit guide locking you out before you've played a land.
Also, for what it's worth, I don't want to see moon removed as I feel it's a necessary evil for attacking big mana decks and greedy four color manabases. But locking out fair decks on turn 1 with some weird combination of cards isn't really something I like seeing in modern.
Did you see that part that I underlined where I asked you to give specific decklists and specific percentage points of the metagame you think those decklists should occupy?
EDIT:
So, my question is, what specific decks do you think should comprise the metagame, and at what exact percentages? And when I say specific decks, I'm looking for specific examples of a decklist. Being vague here only serves as a cop-out for doing actual work. Additionally, which of those decks would you be choosing to play? There is one more follow-up question, in the request that you actually playtest those decks against eachother, at least in double-digit numbers of matches, and provide the data (in a manner that everyone else can check), so that everyone can be sure that those percentages are realistic for each deck in the metagame.
Did you see that part that I underlined where I asked you to give specific decklists and specific percentage points of the metagame you think those decklists should occupy?
EDIT:
So, my question is, what specific decks do you think should comprise the metagame, and at what exact percentages? And when I say specific decks, I'm looking for specific examples of a decklist. Being vague here only serves as a cop-out for doing actual work. Additionally, which of those decks would you be choosing to play? There is one more follow-up question, in the request that you actually playtest those decks against eachother, at least in double-digit numbers of matches, and provide the data (in a manner that everyone else can check), so that everyone can be sure that those percentages are realistic for each deck in the metagame.
how the hell can I ask such a thing from a game?
Yea I want jund to be exactly 8 percent of the meta and burn 6 affinity 7.
No one cannot answer that. Noone can. I've provided you with my answer. I can't make it any clearer.
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I agree that is a huge con, and I said I'm OK with a BBE unban. My post was emphasizing that BBE is not "inferior collected company", and that there's a reason to play it
See above. Also, the "choice" factor is not high. The chances of hitting 3 creatures when you have at least 26 creatures in your deck is only ~30%. The chances that 2 of those creatures are a significant tradeoff is lower. And again, I was emphasizing the reason you use BBE, not saying it's better than CoCo
BBE is much better against counterspells. That's the main reason people ran it in legacy.
2 colors is a much lower deckbuilding constraint than 26+ creatures. Like its not even close. Playing Coco requires you shape your entire deck around coco. If CoCo was 2BR and said "spells" instead of "creatures", it would be banned, and it would not be even slightly controversial. Deckbuilding constraints are very important when comparing cards.
By "some" you mean "enormous, deck-defining" constraints. They are completely different cards. It's like trying to compare Swiftspear to Dryad Militant. Yes they are both 1 mana aggressive creatures, they just aren't related to each other because you need a completely different deck to play Swiftspear. If you want to compare cards, and argue, based on their power levels, that one is totally safe to ban, you need to actually be comparing two cards which can replace each other.
Again, I don't think that it's necessarily even a better card in the meta, I already said I wouldn't mind an unbanning. My post was pointing out key differences that make it playable.
Also I personally think a 3/2 hasted body is fine. I think you're seriously underestimating the effects card advantage has on a game. It would certainly be a premier creature in Jund, not "FNM Draft" tier.
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
With regards to xxhellfirexx3: my main issue with you is that you speak about the format in objective terms. You say the format sucks, rather than that you don't personally enjoy the format or that the format doesn't fit your personal criteria. The fact that you then tell people who disagree with you that they're "missing the bigger picture" just makes it more obnoxious. You are allowed to dislike the format for whatever reason you want - but don't pretend that other people's opinions are any less valid than your own, or that your opinion is the Gospel when it comes to Modern. The majority of people here are enjoying the format right now; there's a lot of interactive games and decks for people that want to play them.
And people keep disagreeing with my reasons.
Even though they have merit
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Am I the only fair player who tries to stay objective? Yes, I'm calling out Storm despite it being a good matchup for me.
This thread spent last year saying things like, "there's no good blue deck!" "We need a 2 cmc counter!" "The banning of the deck left a huge hole and now blue is struggling!"
Then 2017 came by and we didn't just get a top blue deck, we got two. Grixis Shadow FEELS like a blue deck, it's now playing 10 blue cantrips, the snaps, the counter plan. I think it's unfair to say, "yawn, it's a thoughtseize, shadow, push deck. If that were the case, Jund/Junk players would have easily adapted, it's a skill testing deck and it sank in numbers in terms of the casual players sticking to it.
We also have Jeskai, and Modern Nexus' new article today even sheds light on it's success.
So, now the argument has shifted into, "I can't control what my opponents are playing, it's too linear, this format is garbage".
I don't think a 1/3rd interactive meta is bad
1/3rd interactive by standard means
1/3rd combo
1/3rd aggro
That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. I'm not sure aggro decks can afford to stay aggressive while packing the standard interactivity like bolt/push, etc. That had lukewarm results with the zoo decks from a couple of years ago.
It doesn't seem reasonable at all, what if the meta was 2/3rds of the typical point, click, removal and go draw counter? That would bore a lot of players to death, too.
EDIT: Again, for your reference:
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
I wasn't responding to you, unless I'm mistaken and you're talking to someone else?
If I could answer that I'd certainly be working for WOTC
My perfect world would have something like 1x Aggro, 1x Combo, 1x Midrange, 1x Blue deck that's either tempo/control
But then people would be upset by the rock paper scissor effect and there would be similar opinions in this thread. I really can't think of any meta in any game that achieves perfection.
And I’m saying we need to be aware of over estimating game states. All models have a give and take based on the parameters selected to create them. You cannot make a model without assumptions; it just becomes an equation. The thought process behind the selection of these assumptions is crucial to creating a useful model.
For instance, if I cast anticipate and all three cards are the same, then how many choices do I really have there? Or if my opponent has four 1/1’s but is at 3 life, tapped out, and empty handed and I have bolt, how many decisions are there really to be made? The anticipate changes the game state in this case, but if the cards were three islands then it didn’t actually change the game state or decision tree.
These assumptions make a huge difference on the outcome of the model. Decks with lots of cantrips but redundant parts otherwise, and decks with lots of tokens both have the potential of being misrepresented in such a model.
I get where you are coming from when you want a model with as little human influence and as much robustness as possible, but above all else the model needs to produce valid results. I’m beginning to think that straight average length of games over a large sample size may be one of the better descriptors for a deck.
And that scenario with draw go will never happen nor is it what I want.
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But what I'm hearing is that you want the format to contort to your liking. I'm not sure that's fair or reasonable either.
I mean, what does a perfect meta look like to you? What would tier 1 and ti4r 2 look like? What decks are dictating the meta? You gotta give us something or there's no debate or data to go off, just opinions based off of something self serving
But for your humour I'll give you a quick summary.
A better format would have 1/2 of it linear instead of 2/3
Which might involve bans of certain decks stifling this.
I believe those decks or should I say cards are:
Mox opal
Tron lands and or
Eldrazi temple
Valakut
Grapeshot
Death shadow
Problem here is this is a ban that matches no ban criteria nor can I prove these decks cause this.
But noone can prove it. Unless they had all the stats before them on matchups to see this.
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I don't like your vision at all, even if I hate tron and think valakut is a deck with lesser thought in sequencing than other top decks.
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I'd love to be a jund deck that can just focus on mirrors and small creature decks. I'll gladly play 4x leyline of the void if I don't need land destruction
I don't see this being fair to the base. I think combo and aggro would be very difficult to play. We are just turning modern into a standard format with a larger pool of fair cards.
What's going to prey on midrange? I don't see it without some kind or triangulation on making it difficult
Nor merfolk, nor dredge, nor humans nor urx
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I'm a midrange player and what you're proposing isn't fair whatsoever to the base
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You're right, that's my mistake. I meandered between 'linearity' and 'interactivity', using them interchangeably there. They're highly similar in my mind, but I think the difference actually helps clear up the scenario I'm pondering in my last paragraph. When looking at a decision tree of a match, the fewer the number of branches the greater the linearity. The decisions (represented by branches) can be an interactive responses -- e.g. Lightning Bolt a Dark Confidant -- or non-interactive responses -- e.g. the timing of a Lightning Bolt to face while an opponent is tapped out.
I'm in broad agreement with you. Not all branches on the decision tree are likely. We'd need weighted branches to accurately represent that Lightning Bolt and Lava Spike are, in practice, used very, very similarly (redundancy is one the strengths of Burn). You also won't see Grixis DS using Kolaghan's Command to damage themselves very often. Like you mention, putting together a full decision tree for every deck for every match-up pretty quickly becomes impractical. Really only useful as a way of thinking about the concepts, not actually creating a model unless you have a few spare thousand hours on your hands.
Oh yeah I agree wholeheartedly, I was providing juxtaposition. It's easy for other people to make extravagant arguments against decks like DS or Etron. Like I play decks where thoughtseize feels like the most busted card every printed; it frustrates me but that's not reason enough to ban. Storm has some really horrid match ups and it's games against fair decks are frequently quite tight. For instance, I've been the victor in most of my games on either side of the storm/etron match up. Definitely helps when you know what you're doing. I don't think it's fair to say that when you interact with a deck like storm but it still wins that it is unfair because of that. If you automatically won by interacting, we'd have a pretty boring format as every combo deck would lose to a thoughtseize and every thoughtseize would get countered by big mana.
@Sheridan: I had always been of the mindset that I liked SSG in the format as a combo player. However, I had a friend make an argument that the worst part of modern is how many non games you lose. Stuff like turn 1 moon etc. Playing abzan versus turn 3 karn. I had an opponent play turn 1 moon off double spirit guide versus humans (surprisingly the game still played out reasonably since I had double vial) and normally this is lights out. Without having a card like FoW to help reduce games like this, maybe the correct ban targets are things like SSG. Sure a deck like storm can turn 3 you if you don't push their mana dork or thoughtseize them. There's not much any deck can do about random hands with double spirit guide locking you out before you've played a land.
Also, for what it's worth, I don't want to see moon removed as I feel it's a necessary evil for attacking big mana decks and greedy four color manabases. But locking out fair decks on turn 1 with some weird combination of cards isn't really something I like seeing in modern.
EDIT:
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Yea I want jund to be exactly 8 percent of the meta and burn 6 affinity 7.
No one cannot answer that. Noone can. I've provided you with my answer. I can't make it any clearer.
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