You're actually fairly wrong about Jund v. Tron. HIstorically while it felt lopsided the numbers over a large pool suggested it was fairly closer to even than people thought (maybe slightly favored tron, like 54/46? It might even have been closer than that, but I cannot recall for sure).
Most matchups are way closer than people think.
how old are those stats? tron has changed alot since fatal push and eldrazi..
But doesn't then, the conclusion that in Modern you have a tendency to win more if you choose the right deck to bring to an event, seem to indicate that there may be a "match up lottery" type effect present in Modern? Granted the numbers are small, however, to me that seems to support what a lot of people are saying here from their personal experience.
Again, N is really small and there is actually no statistical difference between those samples. It could be the case that in Legacy and in Modern, the top players are both averaging 1.75 decks. We'd need a bigger N to confirm.
Let's say that the previous analysis holds up over a bigger N, that Legacy top players tend to "main" on 1 deck and Modern top playesr tend to "main" on 2 decks. That just echoes what Ashton said earlier; metagame analysis is a skill that is rewarded in Modern. It's not a lottery because the same players are consistently reading the metagame correctly. It would be a lottery if top players bounced around between many decks and there was no consistent performance among those players. That would confirm what many are saying. But those players are consistently choosing the correct deck between their 2 main options and then piloting it to success. This shows it isn't random; the top players have a skill they are capitalizing on to enjoy consistent success.
So to sum up the last page.
1.) There is no matchup lottery in modern. Pick any deck out of 30 and you have a reasonable chance to win.
2.) Reading the metagame is important. You have to pick the right deck to succeed.
It's both. You have a reasonable chance to win with all the top decks but you have the best chance to win if you pick the right one. This should not come as any surprise in a diverse format. Also, it's not like the top players bounce between 6 decks. They averaged 2 decks and just bounced between those two. Indeed, some of the top players only had one deck: Benjamin Nikolich played Jeskai Control exclusively in 2017. That was the same for Caleb Scherer in Storm and Zan Syed on Infect. Dan Jessup played only GDS in all events but one, in which he played JDS. Jonathan Rosum was all Jeskai Control except the one event where he decided to bring GDS instead.
I'll keep increasing N and see what I find. But the key to remember is that there is no lottery effect on those top players. They are not getting to the top based on luck. A consistent and regular contingent of players experiences consistent and regular success in Modern on whatever decks they are piloting at the time. They do just as well in Modern as the best players do in Legacy with the same variance as those top Legacy finishers. So whatever skills they have mastered are real skills that have real benefits in events.
"It's both. You have a reasonable chance to win with all the top decks but you have the best chance to win if you pick the right one."
( and most of the top decks are linear)<---ill add this in here....because its very relevant.
"there is no lottery effect on those top players"
so basically your admiting there is "some" matchup lottery? amd then saying there isnt in the same post? wut?
@Foodchains, I don't think you are too unreasonable here.
My decks of choice are Jeskai Queller and GDS. I consistently go great and X-0 with Jeskai Queller when I don't face Tron, Eldra Tron, Dredge, Bogles, or Ad nauseam. Those are some bad, bad matchups and I have recently experienced a night where I did play 3 out of 4 rounds with a combination of those. That night didn't end well.
It also happened that I play against UW Control twice in the same night and then faced off Bant Eldrazi and Burn in the same night when I was on GDS. Those things happened. For those who don't know, those are some ultra bad matchups for the deck. There's not even the slightest chance of someone going x-0 when playing against those decks with GDS.
I am not saying matchup lottery is as bad as some people say it is. But it is worse than Standard. Way worse.
For example, in Standard you can play with Temur Energy or the RDW deck and have 50-50 vs any matchup basically in the format.
the difference is; is your can interact with those decks, and beat them if you wanted to tweak your list. with big mana/fair killers this is not a thing because we have inadequate hosers, and even then its still a lottery to draw the hate.
lopsided matchups are fine as long as they can be interacted with and hated upon effectively( see affinity) (see burn) ( see infect)
maindeck these matchups arent dreadful to highly interactive decks but they are rough. after sideboard they can be hosed. as anything linear top tier and powerful should be.
@Sheridan, what about Standard vs Modern? There is a strong possibility players in Standard are performing better in Standard than good players in Modern perform in Modern.
I haven't run Standard numbers so it is possible. But if Standard has better performance stats than Modern, it also has better performance stats than Legacy because Modern's and Legacy's are identical.
@Sheridan, Forgive me if you covered this, but I didn't go back to read the past few pages. When you ran your numbers and whatnot, did you consider that many of those "professional" players might have some increased percentage of chances to win simply because they participate more often, and if so, made any attempt to account for this increased chance?
I haven't controlled for participation yet, but I think it shouldn't be too hard to add. I'll get back to you.
"It's both. You have a reasonable chance to win with all the top decks but you have the best chance to win if you pick the right one."
( and most of the top decks are linear)<---ill add this in here....because its very relevant.
"there is no lottery effect on those top players"
so basically your admiting there is "some" matchup lottery? amd then saying there isnt in the same post? wut?
I really don't understand how people keep misunderstanding this argument. I've explained it so many times that I no longer think it's me failing to explain it well. Let's try a new approach!
There is either (a) no matchup lottery effect period, or (b) a matchup lottery effect that bad players fall prey to but good players have overcome. I don't know if it's (a) or (b) because the data doesn't have enough matchups for us to know, but I do know that (a) and (b) have the same end result. If (a), there's no matchup lottery and we don't need to worry about it. If (b), people who are still losing to a matchup lottery need to examine their own skillset to see why they fall prey to it but better players do not, and we shouldn't worry about matchup lottery and should instead examine skill deficits. Either way, we shouldn't worry about the matchup lottery.
This would be totally different if there was a matchup lottery that also prevented top players from winning. THAT would be a problem. But either there isn't a matchup lottery at all, or there is one that top players have beaten to attain consistent success. Either way, we need to stop talking about matchup lottery. It's either not real or players are lacking the skill to beat it.
So, what you're saying is that there are no truly bad MUs, they're all around 50/50 if you are a good player? If you lose to a "bad MU" it's because you're a bad player not because it's a bad MU.
Nope, that is also not what I'm saying. I don't even know where that one could come from.
Matchups run the range from good to bad: we saw some in the 35-65 range at the GP. Matchups will naturally change if you're better or worse, but a good player isn't going to magically get 50/50 matchups from bad ones. The matchups are what they are and we still don't quite know what they are.
I'm saying that regardless of what the matchups are, good players are able to consistently navigate that matchup spectrum and consistently perform well at major events. I do not yet know why this is. I just know that there is a contingent of good players in Modern who have some skill that enables them to perform just as well as the contingent of good players in Legacy. So whatever those matchups are, the good players are managing them just fine and having consistent results.
@Sheridan, Forgive me if you covered this, but I didn't go back to read the past few pages. When you ran your numbers and whatnot, did you consider that many of those "professional" players might have some increased percentage of chances to win simply because they participate more often, and if so, made any attempt to account for this increased chance?
I haven't controlled for participation yet, but I think it shouldn't be too hard to add. I'll get back to you.
How would you go about adjusting for participation? I tried to imagine a way to do it, but wouldn't we have to have some data on the the average participation rates of the average player(s) (after defining what an average player is) as well as below average players (and after defining who should fall into this category)? Do we have a way to obtain that data?
EDIT: I would like to be clear, I'm not trying to say that there is or is not a matchup lottery. I do have a bias in the subject that I have to admit: I am inclined to think that "professional" players are more inclined to do well simply due to increased opportunity to participate (privilege). My justification for this is from observing the nature of the average article put out by pros - They seem more like clickbait than anything to me, and I have rarely, if ever, actually seen data to support any claims made. Of course, maybe they're just better at playing the game than they are at writing truly informative articles.
How would you go about adjusting for participation? I tried to imagine a way to do it, but wouldn't we have to have some data on the the average participation rates of the average player(s) (after defining what an average player is) as well as below average players (and after defining who should fall into this category)? Do we have a way to obtain that data?
I'm looking at SCG events, and I know how many events each player played plus how many they actually did well in. So we can check and see if MWP is influenced by how many events a player was in through a simple regression.
So, what you're saying is that there are no truly bad MUs, they're all around 50/50 if you are a good player? If you lose to a "bad MU" it's because you're a bad player not because it's a bad MU.
Nope, that is also not what I'm saying. I don't even know where that one could come from.
There we go, Sheridan I would like to point out that you are correct in the notion that you never explicitly have said this, but I also felt this impression after summarizing in my own mind what you posted earlier.
This is now where I stand on the situation, which is why I posted my personal results earlier.
Matchup Lottery, with a theoretical example in the smallest of situations Tron vs Jund let's say is 65-35.
To be specific, what I believe you are claiming, is that over the long term, the better players still hit above 60% win rate in the Modern format, even though small examples exist like this in the multi-spectrum we have of individual results.
Previously, I feel like I can speak for most of us, we believed you told us that a matchup like Tron vs Jund is ACTUALLY 50/50. So all of us midrange players are just garbage because we lost out on a perceived 15% win percentage in a specific game. Compared to missing 8-12% overall in the comparative format.
Right, I think we need a clear definition of what match up lottery actually means, this is getting very confusing now.
I read two definitions here.
Literally speaking, "matchup lottery" means (1) you don't know what deck you will face and (2) there is no guarantee where it falls on the matchup spectrum. Maybe you play Tron. Maybe you play Eggs. Maybe you play Blue Moon. Maybe you play Nykthos Green. You really have no idea. This is contrasted with a narrower format like Legacy or Standard, where most players have a pretty good idea about what they will face. I believe this is probably true in many Modern events; there is really no way to know what you're going to face from matchup to matchup.
Practically speaking, however, there is another pejorative level to the "matchup lottery." This adds a third part to the above definition, and it is this definition most Modern critics are secretly implying: (1) you don't know what deck you will face, (2) there is no guarantee where it falls on the matchup spectrum, and (3) as a result of 1 and 2, you have no/little control over how well you can perform at a given event and it's largely/entirely based on luck of the matchup draw. This is what I believe most people are talking about when they discuss Modern's matchup lottery.
My previous analyses do not say anything about (1) and (2). I actually think those are probably true: you don't always know what you will face in Modern and you really could face a deck that is anywhere on your matchup spectrum. But my analyses say a lot about (3). Good players do have significant control over their event-to-event performance. In fact, the best Modern players have the same consistency and quality of Modern performance as the best Legacy players do in Legacy. This means one of two things. Either (3) isn't true at all because it isn't affecting players, OR that (3) is true for worse players but good players have some skill to overcome (3). I don't know which it is.
There we go, Sheridan I would like to point out that you are correct in the notion that you never explicitly have said this, but I also felt this impression after summarizing in my own mind what you posted earlier.
This is now where I stand on the situation, which is why I posted my personal results earlier.
Matchup Lottery, with a theoretical example in the smallest of situations Tron vs Jund let's say is 65-35.
To be specific, what I believe you are claiming, is that over the long term, the better players still hit above 60% win rate in the Modern format, even though small examples exist like this in the multi-spectrum we have of individual results.
That's mostly correct. Better players are able to leverage some kind of skill to have consistent performance in Modern. BUT this doesn't mean their MWP fluctuates dramatically from event to event. It actually fluctuates the same in Modern as in Legacy.
Previously, I feel like I can speak for most of us, we believed you told us that a matchup like Tron vs Jund is ACTUALLY 50/50. So all of us midrange players are just garbage because we lost out on a perceived 15% win percentage in a specific game. Compared to missing 8-12% overall in the comparative format.
That matchup was actually 46/54 in 2015. I can confirm this from a giant N dataset of MTGO games. But I don't know what it is today; Jund and Tron have changed since 2015. I was simply saying that, in 2015, many people said it was 30/70 when it was actually 46/54. I expect people are still over/underestimating matchups today.
So, what you're saying is that there are no truly bad MUs, they're all around 50/50 if you are a good player? If you lose to a "bad MU" it's because you're a bad player not because it's a bad MU.
Nope, that is also not what I'm saying. I don't even know where that one could come from.
There we go, Sheridan I would like to point out that you are correct in the notion that you never explicitly have said this, but I also felt this impression after summarizing in my own mind what you posted earlier.
This is now where I stand on the situation, which is why I posted my personal results earlier.
Matchup Lottery, with a theoretical example in the smallest of situations Tron vs Jund let's say is 65-35.
To be specific, what I believe you are claiming, is that over the long term, the better players still hit above 60% win rate in the Modern format, even though small examples exist like this in the multi-spectrum we have of individual results.
Previously, I feel like I can speak for most of us, we believed you told us that a matchup like Tron vs Jund is ACTUALLY 50/50. So all of us midrange players are just garbage because we lost out on a perceived 15% win percentage in a specific game. Compared to missing 8-12% overall in the comparative format.
The exact claim he makes, and backed up with math, is: "Overall, I think this dispels some myths about the two formats but also raises some questions. It shows that there are consistent players in both formats and it shows that "matchup lottery" in Modern doesn't actually lead to any real differences in performance at Modern vs. Legacy events."
Which has nothing to do with any particular deck vs any particular other deck. Sheridan's entire point is that, on average, some one like Todd Stevens (an example) does consistently well in Modern regardless of what deck he plays, or what deck he plays against. ON AVERAGE. With this knowledge in hand, we can say that IF 'matchup lottery' existed it would prevent a player like Todd Stevens from CONSISTENTLY doing well and the people doing well in Modern would be a smattering of random players. Since we know that the winners are not a random smattering, 'matchup lottery' cannot be true.
Pretty straight forward logic.
Anyone who thinks this has anything to do with a deck vs deck matchup percentage are entirely off point and would do well to rediscover the original assertion and evidence.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
Earthbound is correct. That is a good summary of my post.
As an addition, I looked at a pool of top Legacy and top Modern players. These top Legacy players had >1 standard deviation over the average MWP and 4+ Legacy events under their belt. For top Modern players, it was also >1 standard deviation over average MWP but the cutoff was 5+ events because the sample is bigger. This creates two comparable pools of big-name players in their respective formats. I then calculated their average MWP and the average variance of that MWP over all their events. Variance is the spread of MWP values across the average. In a high variance format, we would probably see high matchup variance. For example, a high variance format would see a players MWP go 25%, 50%, 50%, 75% across four events. A low variance format would see 45%, 50%, 50%, 55%. Both formats have an average MWP of 50%, but the high variance format has a .04 variance and the low variance format has a .002 variance. That's a huge difference in spread!
Here's how this looked for those pools of Modern and Legacy players. Note that this pool is slightly different than the pool I analyzed for some of my earlier analysis, but it's still an apples-to-apples comparison because both the Modern and Legacy pool has had the same changes applied.
Top Modern player average MWP: 53.63% Top Legacy player average MWP: 53.74% Top Modern player average variance: 4.68% Top Legacy player average variance: 4.53%
This again supports the previous analysis I made. When looking at these SCG events, the top Modern players and top Legacy players have identical performances in their respective formats. There isn't even a difference in the MWP spread across all their events. This is either because (a) Modern is not a high variance format at all, or (b) top players have figured out a way to leverage some skill(s) to overcome that variance.
Just wondering if you had any way of accounting for byes in tournaments? Common sense would say players without byes would experience more players and therefore a greater opportunity to play against a wider set of decks, maybe exasperating the perceived match up lottery.
Just wondering if you had any way of accounting for byes in tournaments? Common sense would say players without byes would experience more players and therefore a greater opportunity to play against a wider set of decks, maybe exasperating the perceived match up lottery.
I don't think it matters. I have 2 Byes at many events that I attend (like Grand Prix), but I still see variance. I will admit that at the GP level, there is much, much less variance because you are playing against people that paid at least $100 in tournament fees, hotel, and travel. It takes more guts to run a deck that they know has no chance of winning.
But at every other level, at least in my experience, including PPTQs and RPTQs where players metagame pretty hard, there is a lot of variance. Who knows if the Team is going to all be running Humans or Tron next week?
*When I won the first PPTQ that I played in with Bogles, I realized that there would have to be some winning of the lottery for me to do well during a Twin meta. I lucksacked the first round against a Twin player, winning 2-0 and then dodged it all the way to beating Affinity in the finals. Did I play well? No, I played exactly the same as I did the very next season with Bogles when I lost 3 rounds in a row at 3-0 and finished 4-3. That was somewhat a lottery then and I've played a LOT of Modern mostly since then, but I think the lottery is way more real nowadays.
Now I am going to be open to the possibility that I am completely wrong. It's happened before. There's still players who have played since late 2011 who believe that Mental Misstep should be unbanned.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
@ktk, I respect the work you have done. It's excellent. And you were right to calculate the Modern vs Legacy comparison, because people make this particular comparison in here.
But, truth be told, the right comparison concerning matchup lottery and MWP of top players should always be a "Modern vs Standard" one. I am almost certain that Standard rewards you more as a player and takes more the skill aspect than Modern. Now, I could be wrong, but that's my "complaint" about Modern. I still love it, but I watch tons of friends at the Standard FNM portion having a "50-50 matchup" everywhere with their Temur or Ramunap decks. On the other hand, some times I get paired against Eldra Tron, Big Tron, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Boggles or some other weird deck build to win vs a Jeskai Control deck and I question all of my life choices at this very moment.
It's so sad that we have no tools to fight big mana decks, other than "change you deck, play an aggro deck or a Turn 3 deck like Storm to win it instead".
Still, I highly enjoy Modern and I think it's the best format of all, because of the reasons Shmanka mainly explained in a recent post of his.
It should not be Modern vs Standard because the two are incomparable. How do you compare a format with 5 decks tops and no combo to a format of 15+ decks with combo? Legacy is by far the better comparison metric to use.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
@ktk, I respect the work you have done. It's excellent. And you were right to calculate the Modern vs Legacy comparison, because people make this particular comparison in here.
But, truth be told, the right comparison concerning matchup lottery and MWP of top players should always be a "Modern vs Standard" one. I am almost certain that Standard rewards you more as a player and takes more the skill aspect than Modern. Now, I could be wrong, but that's my "complaint" about Modern. I still love it, but I watch tons of friends at the Standard FNM portion having a "50-50 matchup" everywhere with their Temur or Ramunap decks. On the other hand, some times I get paired against Eldra Tron, Big Tron, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Boggles or some other weird deck build to win vs a Jeskai Control deck and I question all of my life choices at this very moment.
It's so sad that we have no tools to fight big mana decks, other than "change you deck, play an aggro deck or a Turn 3 deck like Storm to win it instead".
Still, I highly enjoy Modern and I think it's the best format of all, because of the reasons Shmanka mainly explained in a recent post of his.
It should not be Modern vs Standard because the two are incomparable. How do you compare a format with 5 decks tops and no combo to a format of 15+ decks with combo? Legacy is by far the better comparison metric to use.
Technically, you are right. And I don't deny that. I am not even complaining about a matchup lottery in Modern. But the technicalities do not matter here, because PROS and people complain anyway. We have heard so many Standard pros complaining about Modern being a "matchup and sideboard" lottery format and them saying this is the reason they prefer playing Standard instead. Their argument is exactly this, meaning that in Standard you don't get to "draw" your 3 almost unwinnable matchups in a 15 round tournament, which probably means you are eliminated from the competition not based on the in game skill. If you lose in Standard, there is a higher chance you lost, because you were the worst player out of the 2.
That's why we need to see if this is holding ground.
Well, two things really. First, Sheridan should really publish his work somewhere where it can garner attention and disprove the nonsense. Second, while it sucks that some pro players have platforms to voice their opinions that paint a negative picture of Modern (Jeff Hoogland, PVD, etc,), their voices are inconsequential because Modern is the biggest draw in viewers and event turnout. They can shat their pants all they want, but they can't argue with the money. Hoogland can spout "Ban Tron! Ban Grapeshot! Ban whatever!" but Modern (via Twitch and Youtube) buys his kids diapers and puts mushy bananas in their mouths.
The biggest issue you're addressing is the influence or weight these pros have on certain player opinions, which goes back to the first point. If people like Sheridan (or really just Sheridan, because he's smart and handsome and does math and asks good questions) had the same platforms (articles on major MTG websites, Youtube, whatever) to showcase his findings and present his research, I'm certain that both ban mania and all these wild negative perceptions of Modern would diminish in strength. Can you point us to a pro player who has done the research and math to prove Sheridan wrong? Or are they all just scapegoating for their lack of success in Modern?
We hear things like "I didn't place well in this event because I got paired against Tron while I played Jund. I played Jund because I wanted to be as close to 50/50 as possible" instead of trying to read the meta or "I didn't draw my two of narrow sideboard hoser. I need more sideboard slots." instead of trying to cast a wider net. You can't just assume they have proof to what they say or aren't just making excuses like any other magic player does when they do poorly. Pros that do well in Modern espouse its virtues up and down every chance they get. See Todd Stevens for an example.
Also, Legacy has many of the same match up problems. The classic example being Miracles vs 12 Post. Completely unwinnable for Miracles. That's how big formats are and that's not inherently bad in and of itself. If anyone wants a format with 5 decks to meta game against, and 40/60 at worst matchups, there is a format for that. That format is currently dwarfed in popularity by Modern, but why does that matter? Play what you want. Not directly at you, GK, but I don't understand why people who want those always 50/50, only a few decks to worry about environments play Modern. If you really want a hamburger, why did you get pizza instead?
As an aside, I think part of the issue is pro player relevancy. They are aware what articles/streams/events generate the most hits. And if they can't find the same success in Modern they can in Standard, are they even pros? You can be the best naked yodel hula hooper, but if there are only five naked hula hooping yodelers, what good is it? If they aren't relevant either as as top players or a community voice to what the player base wants, they aren't making money. That's why you see so many low quality articles about bans and unbans and *****ing about sideboards and lottery matchups. Seriously, Andrea Menagucci's last article about Modern was complete effortless trash. But it was on CFB and he got paid for it. They have to stay relevant in the community eye to make money. If they aren't making money, they have to do something else besides play games for a living. And growing up sucks.
Do you think Jon Finkel's boss hired him because he is an ace magic player? No. He got hired because he went to college and got job experience in something tangible. What do you suppose PVD's back up plan is if the pro magic thing doesn't work out? Status is at stake for some of them, so they lash out. Part of this negativity stems from either this perceived threat to their pro status or their financial standing.
Final edit to this post that grew longer than I wanted: You can make the argument that pro players have Wizard's ear and therefore their opinions matter more than yours or mine. And there may or may not be truth to that. Wizards holds the key to a lot of data we don't have. But we know, and Wizards knows, that 800 people show up to random Modern SCG events and GP Vegas is always crazy packed and they know their Youtube and Twitch channels get more hits when Modern content is played. But to think pro player negativity is the only thing Wizards recognizes would be an untruth.
There, six edits later, I feel I have adequately addressed your concerns.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
@ktk, I respect the work you have done. It's excellent. And you were right to calculate the Modern vs Legacy comparison, because people make this particular comparison in here.
But, truth be told, the right comparison concerning matchup lottery and MWP of top players should always be a "Modern vs Standard" one. I am almost certain that Standard rewards you more as a player and takes more the skill aspect than Modern. Now, I could be wrong, but that's my "complaint" about Modern. I still love it, but I watch tons of friends at the Standard FNM portion having a "50-50 matchup" everywhere with their Temur or Ramunap decks. On the other hand, some times I get paired against Eldra Tron, Big Tron, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Boggles or some other weird deck build to win vs a Jeskai Control deck and I question all of my life choices at this very moment.
It's so sad that we have no tools to fight big mana decks, other than "change you deck, play an aggro deck or a Turn 3 deck like Storm to win it instead".
Still, I highly enjoy Modern and I think it's the best format of all, because of the reasons Shmanka mainly explained in a recent post of his.
It should not be Modern vs Standard because the two are incomparable. How do you compare a format with 5 decks tops and no combo to a format of 15+ decks with combo? Legacy is by far the better comparison metric to use.
Technically, you are right. And I don't deny that. I am not even complaining about a matchup lottery in Modern. But the technicalities do not matter here, because PROS and people complain anyway. We have heard so many Standard pros complaining about Modern being a "matchup and sideboard" lottery format and them saying this is the reason they prefer playing Standard instead. Their argument is exactly this, meaning that in Standard you don't get to "draw" your 3 almost unwinnable matchups in a 15 round tournament, which probably means you are eliminated from the competition not based on the in game skill. If you lose in Standard, there is a higher chance you lost, because you were the worst player out of the 2.
That's why we need to see if this is holding ground.
Well, two things really. First, Sheridan should really publish his work somewhere where it can garner attention and disprove the nonsense. Second, while it sucks that some pro players have platforms to voice their opinions that paint a negative picture of Modern (Jeff Hoogland, PVD, etc,), their voices are inconsequential because Modern is the biggest draw in viewers and event turnout. They can shat their pants all they want, but they can't argue with the money. Hoogland can spout "Ban Tron! Ban Grapeshot! Ban whatever!" but Modern (via Twitch and Youtube) buys his kids diapers and puts mushy bananas in their mouths.
The biggest issue you're addressing is the influence or weight these pros have on certain player opinions, which goes back to the first point. If people like Sheridan (or really just Sheridan, because he's smart and handsome and does math and asks good questions) had the same platforms (articles on major MTG websites, Youtube, whatever) to showcase his findings and present his research, I'm certain that both ban mania and all these wild negative perceptions of Modern would diminish in strength. Can you point us to a pro player who has done the research and math to prove Sheridan wrong? Or are they all just scapegoating for their lack of success in Modern?
We hear things like "I didn't place well in this event because I got paired against Tron while I played Jund. I played Jund because I wanted to be as close to 50/50 as possible" instead of trying to read the meta or "I didn't draw my two of narrow sideboard hoser. I need more sideboard slots." instead of trying to cast a wider net. You can't just assume they have proof to what they say or aren't just making excuses like any other magic player does when they do poorly. Pros that do well in Modern espouse its virtues up and down every chance they get. See Todd Stevens for an example.
Also, Legacy has many of the same match up problems. The classic example being Miracles vs 12 Post. Completely unwinnable for Miracles. That's how big formats are and that's not inherently bad in and of itself. If anyone wants a format with 5 decks to meta game against, and 40/60 at worst matchups, there is a format for that. That format is currently dwarfed in popularity by Modern, but why does that matter? Play what you want. Not directly at you, GK, but I don't understand why people who want those always 50/50, only a few decks to worry about environments play Modern. If you really want a hamburger, why did you get pizza instead?
As an aside, I think part of the issue is pro player relevancy. They are aware what articles/streams/events generate the most hits. And if they can't find the same success in Modern they can in Standard, are they even pros? You can be the best naked yodel hula hooper, but if there are only five naked hula hooping yodelers, what good is it? If they aren't relevant either as as top players or a community voice to what the player base wants, they aren't making money. That's why you see so many low quality articles about bans and unbans and *****ing about sideboards and lottery matchups. Seriously, Andrea Menagucci's last article about Modern was complete effortless trash. But it was on CFB and he got paid for it. They have to stay relevant in the community eye to make money. If they aren't making money, they have to do something else besides play games for a living. And growing up sucks.
Do you think Jon Finkel's boss hired him because he is an ace magic player? No. He got hired because he went to college and got job experience in something tangible. What do you suppose PVD's back up plan is if the pro magic thing doesn't work out? Status is at stake for some of them, so they lash out. Part of this negativity stems from either this perceived threat to their pro status or their financial standing.
Final edit to this post that grew longer than I wanted: You can make the argument that pro players have Wizard's ear and therefore their opinions matter more than yours or mine. And there may or may not be truth to that. Wizards holds the key to a lot of data we don't have. But we know, and Wizards knows, that 800 people show up to random Modern SCG events and GP Vegas is always crazy packed and they know their Youtube and Twitch channels get more hits when Modern content is played. But to think pro player negativity is the only thing Wizards recognizes would be an untruth.
There, six edits later, I feel I have adequately addressed your concerns.
just because modern has alot of viewers doesn't mean pros opinions are wrong.
But you shouldn't need 4 narrow cards in your sideboard to beat one matchup. That is exactly sideboard lottery.... Jund gets crushed by tron variabts and the 2015 matchup stats are out of date.
People have brought up excellent argument backed up with good stats here and Sheridan has completely pushed them aside to favor his own bias loving view of the game.
And enough brown nosing. Calling someone handsome and smart shows a huge bias. What are you his undercover wife?
And the go play another format argument is getting old. No, people want changes and aren't completely happy. The customer is always right. And the complains whether moot or valid will never stop. And Beleive it or not there are issues with modern. Anyone who says modern is perfect is a fool who has Thier head in the ground.
People complained alot of dredge and it got banned under new criteria for bannings.this shows that wizards listens if enough people show frustration. And if the game becomes a sideboard battle.
A battle of sideboards and a battle of rock paper scissors is not a good skill factor in a game where people devote Thier lives to playing and making a living.
Imagine if sports where rock paper scissors(they are not) Or a player could grow Wing's and fly to the touchdown without being interacted?
It would be fixed some quick I'll tell ya. Because it is not competitively healthy.
A deck causing a couple bad matchups is expected yea. But a deck crushing entire major archetypes game one so the losing deck can hope to draw Thier sideboard? Because game one they laugh at interaction and grindyness and encourage fast and linear strategies? Not healthy.
I'm afraid it may be slightly off topic, but I think you hit the nail on the head when you note that a good deal of ban talk, matchup analysis, "matchup lottery" claims, etc., seems influenced by articles on CFB, SCG, and their ilk, by people who are presumably authorities on the subject but provide zero data or evidence to back up their claims. More than anything, I feel that conversations about the state of Modern and suggested changes are largely knee-jerk reactions by people whose motives, judging by their methods of providing zero data, is to excuse away their lack of success that they somehow feel entitled to. It's a self-appointed feeling of superiority, which seems to say more about the character of the person than they may care to admit.
Thus, while the state of Modern is probably (but I could be wrong) extremely healthy, the state of the character of many who play it may be demonstrated best by the entitlement that those players feel: For not being awarded the wins they feel entitled to, or that people respect and agree with entitled opinions with no work done or shown to support those opinions, etc. I am often disappointed with the amount of cognitive bias that I see from many players (even some pros!), who will justify their victories by their tight play and correct deck choice, but will excuse their losses by whatever external source they can point a finger at, and vice versa when they view the wins and losses of others.
I do very much wish that there were an alternative to CFB, CSG, etc., that provided hard numbers and thorough research. The only reason I go to those sites any more is for a minigame I've created for myself (counting the daily number of "!"'s on SCG's homepage and keeping track of high scores). I do recognize that such an alternative would require dedicated authors who are actually skilled in writing, but also motivated to do the work I mention. I do a ton of work for my deck, keeping track of all sorts of statistics and whatnot, but that's only for my deck, and it takes up a huge amount of time and effort. I imagine for someone to try to keep track of all statistics it would be an absurd amount of work. But, with a few volunteer contributors who don't care to be authors, maybe it would be possible.
Either way, I feel that the state of Modern is fine, but the state of Magic the Gathering informative media is abysmal.
Are we talking about the state of modern on the competitive level or the average player level? Are the “best modern players” playing weekly modern in lgs? If so I’m really courious to see how those matches go. Are they playing the first three rounds at bigger tournaments where there is more “jank”. Annalitics only gets you so many answers, just ask the Cleveland Browns. Go to a lgs where modern events hit 20 plus people a night or play leagues online and you can clearly see a very wide variety of matchups that aren’t just the better player wins. Look at the guy who top 8’d with living end and scooped because he didn’t even know how known cards in the format work. That guy doesn’t make that mistake it’s very possible he wins the whole thing while not knowing the intricacies of the deck he’s playing but just having the right deck randomly.
Are we talking about the state of modern on the competitive level or the average player level? Are the “best modern players” playing weekly modern in lgs? If so I’m really courious to see how those matches go. Are they playing the first three rounds at bigger tournaments where there is more “jank”. Annalitics only gets you so many answers just just the Cleveland Browns. Go to a lgs where modern events hit 20 plus people a night or play leagues online and you can clearly see a very wide variety of matchups that aren’t just the better player wins. Look at the guy who top 8’d with living end and scooped because he didn’t even know how known cards in the format work. That guy doesn’t make that mistake it’s very possible he wins the whole thing while not knowing the intricacies of the deck he’s playing but just having the right deck randomly.
Now this is largely a mean comment towards a player who succeeded in a very rough tournament. There is no way we know his actual skill level, but getting to a top 8 GP tells me that he is at least a good player. Not a pro by any stretch, but you can't top 8 a GP of 1500 players just with luck.
Plus, it's not like he didn't know the intricacies of his deck. The interaction is indeed hard to understand and it really depends on how many games you had against Scapeshift. Living End is not a deck you can randomly do well with. It is a rather hard deck to pilot properly, know when to go off and how to interact with the board.
The same bashing happened to the Skred Red guy, because he made a mistake with a trap at the finals of that GP. Sure, he wasn't the best of players. Yes, he made a mistake. But again, you don't get there by just being lucky. After 15 round of tournaments and a top 8, being there for the first time, under the spotlight, with the excitement of the top 8, anyone can do a mistake. Bashing players for mistakes and calling them bad/lucky is just mean.
Furthermore, people making some mistakes doesn't really prove much. We have seen great pros making mistakes on camera after long tournaments. Even silly mistakes. It is what it is, they are human after all. A mistake in 1 match doesn't prove anything for the format.
Are we talking about the state of modern on the competitive level or the average player level? Are the “best modern players” playing weekly modern in lgs? If so I’m really courious to see how those matches go. Are they playing the first three rounds at bigger tournaments where there is more “jank”. Annalitics only gets you so many answers just just the Cleveland Browns. Go to a lgs where modern events hit 20 plus people a night or play leagues online and you can clearly see a very wide variety of matchups that aren’t just the better player wins. Look at the guy who top 8’d with living end and scooped because he didn’t even know how known cards in the format work. That guy doesn’t make that mistake it’s very possible he wins the whole thing while not knowing the intricacies of the deck he’s playing but just having the right deck randomly.
Now this is largely a mean comment towards a player who succeeded in a very rough tournament. There is no way we know his actual skill level, but getting to a top 8 GP tells me that he is at least a good player. Not a pro by any stretch, but you can't top 8 a GP of 1500 players just with luck.
Plus, it's not like he didn't know the intricacies of his deck. The interaction is indeed hard to understand and it really depends on how many games you had against Scapeshift. Living End is not a deck you can randomly do well with. It is a rather hard deck to pilot properly, know when to go off and how to interact with the board.
The same bashing happened to the Skred Red guy, because he made a mistake with a trap at the finals of that GP. Sure, he wasn't the best of players. Yes, he made a mistake. But again, you don't get there by just being lucky. After 15 round of tournaments and a top 8, being there for the first time, under the spotlight, with the excitement of the top 8, anyone can do a mistake. Bashing players for mistakes and calling them bad/lucky is just mean.
Furthermore, people making some mistakes doesn't really prove much. We have seen great pros making mistakes on camera after long tournaments. Even silly mistakes. It is what it is, they are human after all. A mistake in 1 match doesn't prove anything for the format.
Don’t see how that was a mean statement at all but ok. So not understanding how your deck works vs other top decks means nothing huh.
People have brought up excellent argument backed up with good stats here and Sheridan has completely pushed them aside to favor his own bias loving view of the game.
Where on earth are these "good stats" and "excellent arguments"? I'm legitimately wondering where they are in this thread, because I don't think I've seen them. If I've missed them, please point them out. This goes to anyone who still believes in the matchup lottery or thinks Modern is high variance: just post the evidence and let us look it over.
There's zero bias in my analysis other than a bias towards quantitative data. But I don't think that's what you're accusing me of here. I just go where the data takes me, and right now, the SCG event dataset is extremely clear that there is no difference in variance and MWP in Legacy and Modern. I've sliced it up four different ways and the result is the same every time. There is no matchup lottery OR there is a matchup lottery and good players overcome it. Either way, we need to stop talking about the matchup lottery because it's either not real OR people who lose to it have a skill deficit they need to examine.
The only thing the SCG dataset does not speak to is Modern linearity. This may be a legitimate complaint. But it does not impact player performance for good players, so it cannot be a complaint about how hard it is to succeed in Modern.
Are we talking about the state of modern on the competitive level or the average player level? Are the “best modern players” playing weekly modern in lgs? If so I’m really courious to see how those matches go. Are they playing the first three rounds at bigger tournaments where there is more “jank”. Annalitics only gets you so many answers, just ask the Cleveland Browns. Go to a lgs where modern events hit 20 plus people a night or play leagues online and you can clearly see a very wide variety of matchups that aren’t just the better player wins. Look at the guy who top 8’d with living end and scooped because he didn’t even know how known cards in the format work. That guy doesn’t make that mistake it’s very possible he wins the whole thing while not knowing the intricacies of the deck he’s playing but just having the right deck randomly.
I have no clue if this effect is true in smaller tournaments. The analysis is limited to SCG Opens. It's very clear in those particular events.
@Howwish/duplicate account person: So wait, you say that Sheridan ignored when other people posted data, and instead of linking to the data that was posted previously and ignored, you post a link to an article that is over two years old that is analyzing a metagame from over two years ago, that has a significantly different metagame? Yes, it's 28k games of outdated data.
Are we talking about the state of modern on the competitive level or the average player level? Are the “best modern players” playing weekly modern in lgs? If so I’m really courious to see how those matches go. Are they playing the first three rounds at bigger tournaments where there is more “jank”. Annalitics only gets you so many answers just just the Cleveland Browns. Go to a lgs where modern events hit 20 plus people a night or play leagues online and you can clearly see a very wide variety of matchups that aren’t just the better player wins. Look at the guy who top 8’d with living end and scooped because he didn’t even know how known cards in the format work. That guy doesn’t make that mistake it’s very possible he wins the whole thing while not knowing the intricacies of the deck he’s playing but just having the right deck randomly.
Now this is largely a mean comment towards a player who succeeded in a very rough tournament. There is no way we know his actual skill level, but getting to a top 8 GP tells me that he is at least a good player. Not a pro by any stretch, but you can't top 8 a GP of 1500 players just with luck.
Plus, it's not like he didn't know the intricacies of his deck. The interaction is indeed hard to understand and it really depends on how many games you had against Scapeshift. Living End is not a deck you can randomly do well with. It is a rather hard deck to pilot properly, know when to go off and how to interact with the board.
The same bashing happened to the Skred Red guy, because he made a mistake with a trap at the finals of that GP. Sure, he wasn't the best of players. Yes, he made a mistake. But again, you don't get there by just being lucky. After 15 round of tournaments and a top 8, being there for the first time, under the spotlight, with the excitement of the top 8, anyone can do a mistake. Bashing players for mistakes and calling them bad/lucky is just mean.
Furthermore, people making some mistakes doesn't really prove much. We have seen great pros making mistakes on camera after long tournaments. Even silly mistakes. It is what it is, they are human after all. A mistake in 1 match doesn't prove anything for the format.
Don’t see how that was a mean statement at all but ok. So not understanding how your deck works vs other top decks means nothing huh.
You don't know that. You have but one mistake to make a case for a player who managed to top 8. There was one interaction he didn't understand. You can't judge an entire performance, and based on that, an entire format, just by pointing out one mistake by a guy who top 8ed.
how old are those stats? tron has changed alot since fatal push and eldrazi..
"It's both. You have a reasonable chance to win with all the top decks but you have the best chance to win if you pick the right one."
( and most of the top decks are linear)<---ill add this in here....because its very relevant.
"there is no lottery effect on those top players"
so basically your admiting there is "some" matchup lottery? amd then saying there isnt in the same post? wut?
the difference is; is your can interact with those decks, and beat them if you wanted to tweak your list. with big mana/fair killers this is not a thing because we have inadequate hosers, and even then its still a lottery to draw the hate.
lopsided matchups are fine as long as they can be interacted with and hated upon effectively( see affinity) (see burn) ( see infect)
maindeck these matchups arent dreadful to highly interactive decks but they are rough. after sideboard they can be hosed. as anything linear top tier and powerful should be.
I haven't run Standard numbers so it is possible. But if Standard has better performance stats than Modern, it also has better performance stats than Legacy because Modern's and Legacy's are identical.
I haven't controlled for participation yet, but I think it shouldn't be too hard to add. I'll get back to you.
I really don't understand how people keep misunderstanding this argument. I've explained it so many times that I no longer think it's me failing to explain it well. Let's try a new approach!
There is either (a) no matchup lottery effect period, or (b) a matchup lottery effect that bad players fall prey to but good players have overcome. I don't know if it's (a) or (b) because the data doesn't have enough matchups for us to know, but I do know that (a) and (b) have the same end result. If (a), there's no matchup lottery and we don't need to worry about it. If (b), people who are still losing to a matchup lottery need to examine their own skillset to see why they fall prey to it but better players do not, and we shouldn't worry about matchup lottery and should instead examine skill deficits. Either way, we shouldn't worry about the matchup lottery.
This would be totally different if there was a matchup lottery that also prevented top players from winning. THAT would be a problem. But either there isn't a matchup lottery at all, or there is one that top players have beaten to attain consistent success. Either way, we need to stop talking about matchup lottery. It's either not real or players are lacking the skill to beat it.
Nope, that is also not what I'm saying. I don't even know where that one could come from.
Matchups run the range from good to bad: we saw some in the 35-65 range at the GP. Matchups will naturally change if you're better or worse, but a good player isn't going to magically get 50/50 matchups from bad ones. The matchups are what they are and we still don't quite know what they are.
I'm saying that regardless of what the matchups are, good players are able to consistently navigate that matchup spectrum and consistently perform well at major events. I do not yet know why this is. I just know that there is a contingent of good players in Modern who have some skill that enables them to perform just as well as the contingent of good players in Legacy. So whatever those matchups are, the good players are managing them just fine and having consistent results.
How would you go about adjusting for participation? I tried to imagine a way to do it, but wouldn't we have to have some data on the the average participation rates of the average player(s) (after defining what an average player is) as well as below average players (and after defining who should fall into this category)? Do we have a way to obtain that data?
EDIT: I would like to be clear, I'm not trying to say that there is or is not a matchup lottery. I do have a bias in the subject that I have to admit: I am inclined to think that "professional" players are more inclined to do well simply due to increased opportunity to participate (privilege). My justification for this is from observing the nature of the average article put out by pros - They seem more like clickbait than anything to me, and I have rarely, if ever, actually seen data to support any claims made. Of course, maybe they're just better at playing the game than they are at writing truly informative articles.
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'm looking at SCG events, and I know how many events each player played plus how many they actually did well in. So we can check and see if MWP is influenced by how many events a player was in through a simple regression.
There we go, Sheridan I would like to point out that you are correct in the notion that you never explicitly have said this, but I also felt this impression after summarizing in my own mind what you posted earlier.
This is now where I stand on the situation, which is why I posted my personal results earlier.
Matchup Lottery, with a theoretical example in the smallest of situations Tron vs Jund let's say is 65-35.
To be specific, what I believe you are claiming, is that over the long term, the better players still hit above 60% win rate in the Modern format, even though small examples exist like this in the multi-spectrum we have of individual results.
Previously, I feel like I can speak for most of us, we believed you told us that a matchup like Tron vs Jund is ACTUALLY 50/50. So all of us midrange players are just garbage because we lost out on a perceived 15% win percentage in a specific game. Compared to missing 8-12% overall in the comparative format.
I read two definitions here.
Literally speaking, "matchup lottery" means (1) you don't know what deck you will face and (2) there is no guarantee where it falls on the matchup spectrum. Maybe you play Tron. Maybe you play Eggs. Maybe you play Blue Moon. Maybe you play Nykthos Green. You really have no idea. This is contrasted with a narrower format like Legacy or Standard, where most players have a pretty good idea about what they will face. I believe this is probably true in many Modern events; there is really no way to know what you're going to face from matchup to matchup.
Practically speaking, however, there is another pejorative level to the "matchup lottery." This adds a third part to the above definition, and it is this definition most Modern critics are secretly implying: (1) you don't know what deck you will face, (2) there is no guarantee where it falls on the matchup spectrum, and (3) as a result of 1 and 2, you have no/little control over how well you can perform at a given event and it's largely/entirely based on luck of the matchup draw. This is what I believe most people are talking about when they discuss Modern's matchup lottery.
My previous analyses do not say anything about (1) and (2). I actually think those are probably true: you don't always know what you will face in Modern and you really could face a deck that is anywhere on your matchup spectrum. But my analyses say a lot about (3). Good players do have significant control over their event-to-event performance. In fact, the best Modern players have the same consistency and quality of Modern performance as the best Legacy players do in Legacy. This means one of two things. Either (3) isn't true at all because it isn't affecting players, OR that (3) is true for worse players but good players have some skill to overcome (3). I don't know which it is.
That's mostly correct. Better players are able to leverage some kind of skill to have consistent performance in Modern. BUT this doesn't mean their MWP fluctuates dramatically from event to event. It actually fluctuates the same in Modern as in Legacy.
That matchup was actually 46/54 in 2015. I can confirm this from a giant N dataset of MTGO games. But I don't know what it is today; Jund and Tron have changed since 2015. I was simply saying that, in 2015, many people said it was 30/70 when it was actually 46/54. I expect people are still over/underestimating matchups today.
Go back and reread Sheridan's original post. (http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/785096-the-state-of-modern-thread-rules-update-27-10-17?page=45#c1125)
The exact claim he makes, and backed up with math, is: "Overall, I think this dispels some myths about the two formats but also raises some questions. It shows that there are consistent players in both formats and it shows that "matchup lottery" in Modern doesn't actually lead to any real differences in performance at Modern vs. Legacy events."
Which has nothing to do with any particular deck vs any particular other deck. Sheridan's entire point is that, on average, some one like Todd Stevens (an example) does consistently well in Modern regardless of what deck he plays, or what deck he plays against. ON AVERAGE. With this knowledge in hand, we can say that IF 'matchup lottery' existed it would prevent a player like Todd Stevens from CONSISTENTLY doing well and the people doing well in Modern would be a smattering of random players. Since we know that the winners are not a random smattering, 'matchup lottery' cannot be true.
Pretty straight forward logic.
Anyone who thinks this has anything to do with a deck vs deck matchup percentage are entirely off point and would do well to rediscover the original assertion and evidence.
Capslock for emphasis, not yelling.
As an addition, I looked at a pool of top Legacy and top Modern players. These top Legacy players had >1 standard deviation over the average MWP and 4+ Legacy events under their belt. For top Modern players, it was also >1 standard deviation over average MWP but the cutoff was 5+ events because the sample is bigger. This creates two comparable pools of big-name players in their respective formats. I then calculated their average MWP and the average variance of that MWP over all their events. Variance is the spread of MWP values across the average. In a high variance format, we would probably see high matchup variance. For example, a high variance format would see a players MWP go 25%, 50%, 50%, 75% across four events. A low variance format would see 45%, 50%, 50%, 55%. Both formats have an average MWP of 50%, but the high variance format has a .04 variance and the low variance format has a .002 variance. That's a huge difference in spread!
Here's how this looked for those pools of Modern and Legacy players. Note that this pool is slightly different than the pool I analyzed for some of my earlier analysis, but it's still an apples-to-apples comparison because both the Modern and Legacy pool has had the same changes applied.
Top Modern player average MWP: 53.63%
Top Legacy player average MWP: 53.74%
Top Modern player average variance: 4.68%
Top Legacy player average variance: 4.53%
This again supports the previous analysis I made. When looking at these SCG events, the top Modern players and top Legacy players have identical performances in their respective formats. There isn't even a difference in the MWP spread across all their events. This is either because (a) Modern is not a high variance format at all, or (b) top players have figured out a way to leverage some skill(s) to overcome that variance.
Legacy - LED Dredge, ANT & WDnT
I don't think it matters. I have 2 Byes at many events that I attend (like Grand Prix), but I still see variance. I will admit that at the GP level, there is much, much less variance because you are playing against people that paid at least $100 in tournament fees, hotel, and travel. It takes more guts to run a deck that they know has no chance of winning.
But at every other level, at least in my experience, including PPTQs and RPTQs where players metagame pretty hard, there is a lot of variance. Who knows if the Team is going to all be running Humans or Tron next week?
*When I won the first PPTQ that I played in with Bogles, I realized that there would have to be some winning of the lottery for me to do well during a Twin meta. I lucksacked the first round against a Twin player, winning 2-0 and then dodged it all the way to beating Affinity in the finals. Did I play well? No, I played exactly the same as I did the very next season with Bogles when I lost 3 rounds in a row at 3-0 and finished 4-3. That was somewhat a lottery then and I've played a LOT of Modern mostly since then, but I think the lottery is way more real nowadays.
Now I am going to be open to the possibility that I am completely wrong. It's happened before. There's still players who have played since late 2011 who believe that Mental Misstep should be unbanned.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)It should not be Modern vs Standard because the two are incomparable. How do you compare a format with 5 decks tops and no combo to a format of 15+ decks with combo? Legacy is by far the better comparison metric to use.
Well, two things really. First, Sheridan should really publish his work somewhere where it can garner attention and disprove the nonsense. Second, while it sucks that some pro players have platforms to voice their opinions that paint a negative picture of Modern (Jeff Hoogland, PVD, etc,), their voices are inconsequential because Modern is the biggest draw in viewers and event turnout. They can shat their pants all they want, but they can't argue with the money. Hoogland can spout "Ban Tron! Ban Grapeshot! Ban whatever!" but Modern (via Twitch and Youtube) buys his kids diapers and puts mushy bananas in their mouths.
The biggest issue you're addressing is the influence or weight these pros have on certain player opinions, which goes back to the first point. If people like Sheridan (or really just Sheridan, because he's smart and handsome and does math and asks good questions) had the same platforms (articles on major MTG websites, Youtube, whatever) to showcase his findings and present his research, I'm certain that both ban mania and all these wild negative perceptions of Modern would diminish in strength. Can you point us to a pro player who has done the research and math to prove Sheridan wrong? Or are they all just scapegoating for their lack of success in Modern?
We hear things like "I didn't place well in this event because I got paired against Tron while I played Jund. I played Jund because I wanted to be as close to 50/50 as possible" instead of trying to read the meta or "I didn't draw my two of narrow sideboard hoser. I need more sideboard slots." instead of trying to cast a wider net. You can't just assume they have proof to what they say or aren't just making excuses like any other magic player does when they do poorly. Pros that do well in Modern espouse its virtues up and down every chance they get. See Todd Stevens for an example.
Also, Legacy has many of the same match up problems. The classic example being Miracles vs 12 Post. Completely unwinnable for Miracles. That's how big formats are and that's not inherently bad in and of itself. If anyone wants a format with 5 decks to meta game against, and 40/60 at worst matchups, there is a format for that. That format is currently dwarfed in popularity by Modern, but why does that matter? Play what you want. Not directly at you, GK, but I don't understand why people who want those always 50/50, only a few decks to worry about environments play Modern. If you really want a hamburger, why did you get pizza instead?
As an aside, I think part of the issue is pro player relevancy. They are aware what articles/streams/events generate the most hits. And if they can't find the same success in Modern they can in Standard, are they even pros? You can be the best naked yodel hula hooper, but if there are only five naked hula hooping yodelers, what good is it? If they aren't relevant either as as top players or a community voice to what the player base wants, they aren't making money. That's why you see so many low quality articles about bans and unbans and *****ing about sideboards and lottery matchups. Seriously, Andrea Menagucci's last article about Modern was complete effortless trash. But it was on CFB and he got paid for it. They have to stay relevant in the community eye to make money. If they aren't making money, they have to do something else besides play games for a living. And growing up sucks.
Do you think Jon Finkel's boss hired him because he is an ace magic player? No. He got hired because he went to college and got job experience in something tangible. What do you suppose PVD's back up plan is if the pro magic thing doesn't work out? Status is at stake for some of them, so they lash out. Part of this negativity stems from either this perceived threat to their pro status or their financial standing.
Final edit to this post that grew longer than I wanted: You can make the argument that pro players have Wizard's ear and therefore their opinions matter more than yours or mine. And there may or may not be truth to that. Wizards holds the key to a lot of data we don't have. But we know, and Wizards knows, that 800 people show up to random Modern SCG events and GP Vegas is always crazy packed and they know their Youtube and Twitch channels get more hits when Modern content is played. But to think pro player negativity is the only thing Wizards recognizes would be an untruth.
There, six edits later, I feel I have adequately addressed your concerns.
But you shouldn't need 4 narrow cards in your sideboard to beat one matchup. That is exactly sideboard lottery.... Jund gets crushed by tron variabts and the 2015 matchup stats are out of date.
People have brought up excellent argument backed up with good stats here and Sheridan has completely pushed them aside to favor his own bias loving view of the game.
And enough brown nosing. Calling someone handsome and smart shows a huge bias. What are you his undercover wife?
And the go play another format argument is getting old. No, people want changes and aren't completely happy. The customer is always right. And the complains whether moot or valid will never stop. And Beleive it or not there are issues with modern. Anyone who says modern is perfect is a fool who has Thier head in the ground.
People complained alot of dredge and it got banned under new criteria for bannings.this shows that wizards listens if enough people show frustration. And if the game becomes a sideboard battle.
A battle of sideboards and a battle of rock paper scissors is not a good skill factor in a game where people devote Thier lives to playing and making a living.
Imagine if sports where rock paper scissors(they are not) Or a player could grow Wing's and fly to the touchdown without being interacted?
It would be fixed some quick I'll tell ya. Because it is not competitively healthy.
A deck causing a couple bad matchups is expected yea. But a deck crushing entire major archetypes game one so the losing deck can hope to draw Thier sideboard? Because game one they laugh at interaction and grindyness and encourage fast and linear strategies? Not healthy.
I'm afraid it may be slightly off topic, but I think you hit the nail on the head when you note that a good deal of ban talk, matchup analysis, "matchup lottery" claims, etc., seems influenced by articles on CFB, SCG, and their ilk, by people who are presumably authorities on the subject but provide zero data or evidence to back up their claims. More than anything, I feel that conversations about the state of Modern and suggested changes are largely knee-jerk reactions by people whose motives, judging by their methods of providing zero data, is to excuse away their lack of success that they somehow feel entitled to. It's a self-appointed feeling of superiority, which seems to say more about the character of the person than they may care to admit.
Thus, while the state of Modern is probably (but I could be wrong) extremely healthy, the state of the character of many who play it may be demonstrated best by the entitlement that those players feel: For not being awarded the wins they feel entitled to, or that people respect and agree with entitled opinions with no work done or shown to support those opinions, etc. I am often disappointed with the amount of cognitive bias that I see from many players (even some pros!), who will justify their victories by their tight play and correct deck choice, but will excuse their losses by whatever external source they can point a finger at, and vice versa when they view the wins and losses of others.
I do very much wish that there were an alternative to CFB, CSG, etc., that provided hard numbers and thorough research. The only reason I go to those sites any more is for a minigame I've created for myself (counting the daily number of "!"'s on SCG's homepage and keeping track of high scores). I do recognize that such an alternative would require dedicated authors who are actually skilled in writing, but also motivated to do the work I mention. I do a ton of work for my deck, keeping track of all sorts of statistics and whatnot, but that's only for my deck, and it takes up a huge amount of time and effort. I imagine for someone to try to keep track of all statistics it would be an absurd amount of work. But, with a few volunteer contributors who don't care to be authors, maybe it would be possible.
Either way, I feel that the state of Modern is fine, but the state of Magic the Gathering informative media is abysmal.
EDIT: 44 !'s today. High score was 69.
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
Plus, it's not like he didn't know the intricacies of his deck. The interaction is indeed hard to understand and it really depends on how many games you had against Scapeshift. Living End is not a deck you can randomly do well with. It is a rather hard deck to pilot properly, know when to go off and how to interact with the board.
The same bashing happened to the Skred Red guy, because he made a mistake with a trap at the finals of that GP. Sure, he wasn't the best of players. Yes, he made a mistake. But again, you don't get there by just being lucky. After 15 round of tournaments and a top 8, being there for the first time, under the spotlight, with the excitement of the top 8, anyone can do a mistake. Bashing players for mistakes and calling them bad/lucky is just mean.
Furthermore, people making some mistakes doesn't really prove much. We have seen great pros making mistakes on camera after long tournaments. Even silly mistakes. It is what it is, they are human after all. A mistake in 1 match doesn't prove anything for the format.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
Don’t see how that was a mean statement at all but ok. So not understanding how your deck works vs other top decks means nothing huh.
Where on earth are these "good stats" and "excellent arguments"? I'm legitimately wondering where they are in this thread, because I don't think I've seen them. If I've missed them, please point them out. This goes to anyone who still believes in the matchup lottery or thinks Modern is high variance: just post the evidence and let us look it over.
There's zero bias in my analysis other than a bias towards quantitative data. But I don't think that's what you're accusing me of here. I just go where the data takes me, and right now, the SCG event dataset is extremely clear that there is no difference in variance and MWP in Legacy and Modern. I've sliced it up four different ways and the result is the same every time. There is no matchup lottery OR there is a matchup lottery and good players overcome it. Either way, we need to stop talking about the matchup lottery because it's either not real OR people who lose to it have a skill deficit they need to examine.
The only thing the SCG dataset does not speak to is Modern linearity. This may be a legitimate complaint. But it does not impact player performance for good players, so it cannot be a complaint about how hard it is to succeed in Modern.
I have no clue if this effect is true in smaller tournaments. The analysis is limited to SCG Opens. It's very clear in those particular events.
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
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past