So if cards that are less offensive banned, and cards more offensive on the spectrum legal in the format. Then yes, I think there is a logical inconsistency, and with most fair cards on the banned list, that's the exact case.
The issue here is the expectation that WotC should have foreseen that it was safe to unban Bloodbraid while simultaneously doing their previous changes. They have to be very careful about banning and unbanning too many cards at once, as they need to slowly adjust the gates. They are already working with a very complicated situation, and doing too many changes too quick can lead to simply being further criticized for not being careful. If it's safe to unban BBE, I wouldn't doubt that it'll be unbanned in the near future. But that's their job, not mine, and they have way more data on the situation that I do. Just as there was information that they had that we didn't concerning the banning of Gitaxian Probe (the impending printing of Baral), maybe there's some information that they have that we don't here as well? We are, at best, armchair developers. For them, it's their livelihood. I'm inclined to think that they are somewhat more competent than we think we are.
So that "logical inconsistency" may simply be a temporary state, for the sake of caution. It's not killing us to not be able to play Bloodbraid - it's simply a talking point for whiners like Hoogland to write articles about with zero data or testing.
The character writing this article is very headstrong and mathematically inclined, and since it's 2017 and we still cannot properly put most decks on some type of weird Venn Diagram based on levels of interaction, it's not difficult to see why Magic is hard to classify or even much less justify in specific areas as to what's "good" or "bad" for a format.
I agree that it's difficult to categorize decks, but a few pages back I pointed out that there exists methods for doing just that - it just requires work. I've been working on it (although I'm self-taught, so it's taking quite a while). It's a portion of game theory called expectimax. Understanding it also helps us understand that we've been using the term "interaction" completely wrong, preferring to define it based on a self-centered basis - "Does the deck interact with my deck in a way that I prefer?" If we consider this question for a bit, we can see how silly it is. When was the last time we built a deck for the purpose of interacting with the gamestate in a way that the opponent would prefer? The whole point of how a competitive deck is built is to minimize the opponent's ability to interact, and maximizing our own.
@Lohse20:
How do you know his bans wouldn't make modern any better?
Well, xxhellfirexx3, welcome back I suppose You've used this fallacybefore.
So if cards that are less offensive banned, and cards more offensive on the spectrum legal in the format. Then yes, I think there is a logical inconsistency, and with most fair cards on the banned list, that's the exact case.
The issue here is the expectation that WotC should have foreseen that it was safe to unban Bloodbraid while simultaneously doing their previous changes. They have to be very careful about banning and unbanning too many cards at once, as they need to slowly adjust the gates. They are already working with a very complicated situation, and doing too many changes too quick can lead to simply being further criticized for not being careful. If it's safe to unban BBE, I wouldn't doubt that it'll be unbanned in the near future. But that's their job, not mine, and they have way more data on the situation that I do. Just as there was information that they had that we didn't concerning the banning of Gitaxian Probe (the impending printing of Baral), maybe there's some information that they have that we don't here as well? We are, at best, armchair developers. For them, it's their livelihood. I'm inclined to think that they are somewhat more competent than we think we are.
So that "logical inconsistency" may simply be a temporary state, for the sake of caution. It's not killing us to not be able to play Bloodbraid - it's simply a talking point for whiners like Hoogland to write articles about with zero data or testing.
The character writing this article is very headstrong and mathematically inclined, and since it's 2017 and we still cannot properly put most decks on some type of weird Venn Diagram based on levels of interaction, it's not difficult to see why Magic is hard to classify or even much less justify in specific areas as to what's "good" or "bad" for a format.
I agree that it's difficult to categorize decks, but a few pages back I pointed out that there exists methods for doing just that - it just requires work. I've been working on it (although I'm self-taught, so it's taking quite a while). It's a portion of game theory called expectimax. Understanding it also helps us understand that we've been using the term "interaction" completely wrong, preferring to define it based on a self-centered basis - "Does the deck interact with my deck in a way that I prefer?" If we consider this question for a bit, we can see how silly it is. When was the last time we built a deck for the purpose of interacting with the gamestate in a way that the opponent would prefer? The whole point of how a competitive deck is built is to minimize the opponent's ability to interact, and maximizing our own.
@Lohse20:
How do you know his bans wouldn't make modern any better?
Well, xxhellfirexx3, welcome back I suppose You've used this fallacybefore.
It's a food for thought theory by hoogland. And one I agree with. You also cannot call something a fallacy unless your 100 percent certain.
You can tell there is a bias when people get in such arms about the words of a pro who is just theorizing.
Such the double standard. But I'm really not suprised hearing it come from one such as yourself.
So I actually went back and ran the GP Top8 numbers. These are from the 8 Modern GPs this year (not taking into account Team Modern ones):
Affinity - 9% (6/64)
Dredge - 8% (5/64)
Grixis Shadow - 8%
RG Scapeshift - 8%
4C Shadow - 6% (4/64)
Abzan Company - 6%
And the benchmark we're looking for is Twin's 19% from back then, so my prediction would be "No bans" for next announcement. However:
Shadow decks - 14% (9/64)
Tron decks - 11% (7/64)
Company decks - 11%
Here we should remember that they will wait for PT Rivals to reevaluate. That means the previously mentioned 19% benchmark would translate to 14 Top8s, so in theory these decks could still get there. It's unlikely, but possible nonetheless. Getting there would be outrageous on its own though, just imagine Shadow getting 5 Top8 spots at the PT, or Tron (7) or Company (7).
Calling it now, after PT Rivals: no bans in Modern. And hopefully 1 or 2 unbans as well
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern:WU WU Control | WBG Abzan Company Frontier:UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
The entirety of Hoogland's article is based on the premise of "If A then B" and that is not a correct mode of thought for format balance. Yes, Seething Song is fast mana. Yes Simian Spirit guide is fast mana. Are they the same? No. The ban lists serves to deal with problematic cards and decks, not whole subtypes card effects.
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.
Hes way more of a modern player than you are. And his feelings are that if the format where to be changed the most broken cards are the first culprits.
Hes spittballing and he knows it. He even admits he's alright with the format atm. It's just what he thinks would need to be changed if people wanted longer more skill intense back and forth.
There are a lot of things that ktkenshinx and I don't agree on. In fact, we're having an issue on Modern match variance right now. Still, I wouldn't go this far.
Now, firstly, I don't want this to come to a "who's got the bigger ***" contest. But, ktkenshinx has done a lot of super important Modern data and is probably the least biased person I've ever seen on these forums...no, scratch that, at all among Modern players. Just because everybody doesn't have the time to play as much Modern as Hoogland doesn't mean that their input doesn't matter. If I somehow won a lottery tomorrow, I would probably quit my job and potentially play as much Magic as someone like Hoogland does. As for now, 3-4 times per week is good for me.
*I should also state that I don't like someone discounting Hoogland's advice completely as well. To just dismiss him because his ideas don't line up (whose ideas do in Modern?) is not correct either. Jeff Hoogland's ideas are important. Ktkenshinx's ideas are important. The guy who believes that Umezawa's Jitte should be unbanned. His ideas are important. Everybody's ideas are important, at least if Wizards wants Modern to last as a format.
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)
How do you know his bans wouldn't make modern any better?
I basically never cite logical fallacies, but this burden of proof fallacy is so flagrant I have to call it. I also know that basically all the other authors on major sites call Modern "healthy" and have not pressed for bans, and I know Wizards called Modern "healthy" in October in a metagame that was virtually identical to this one.
Just because you don't like his suggestions doesn't mean he's wrong.
He's not wrong because I don't like his suggestions. He's wrong because his suggestions are inconsistent, out of dialogue with actual Modern data, out of dialogue with Wizards' statements on the formats, and because he makes no effort to cite any of those sources things despite many sources being available to him. He's wrong because he does the classic Magic argument of "well, it's just my opinion so I don't need any data to back it up." I can't think of any other serious writing where that happens. Even extremely politicized op-eds at least attempt to cite some sources, even if they cherrypick. Hoogland doesn't cite any. If you are a serious Modern player reaching out to a large audience, you have an obligation to at least attempt to support your assertions. You do not get a pass because you are giving your "opinion."
@FoodChainGoblins, I'd agree that it's probably best not to dismiss a claim outright based solely on who made it (that would be an ad hominem fallacy). "Even a broken clock can be right twice a day." Personally, I dismiss the statements in Hoogland's article, and similar statements, based on the lack of objectivity and work done to test the validity of the statements, and consideration of various alternate explanations for what is instead deemed "contradictions". His tendency to write and speak in that manner make me more skeptical to anything he does write, though I do make efforts to not dismiss his ideas outright.
So I actually went back and ran the GP Top8 numbers. These are from the 8 Modern GPs this year (not taking into account Team Modern ones):
Affinity - 9% (6/64)
Dredge - 8% (5/64)
Grixis Shadow - 8%
RG Scapeshift - 8%
4C Shadow - 6% (4/64)
Abzan Company - 6%
And the benchmark we're looking for is Twin's 19% from back then, so my prediction would be "No bans" for next announcement. However:
Shadow decks - 14% (9/64)
Tron decks - 11% (7/64)
Company decks - 11%
Here we should remember that they will wait for PT Rivals to reevaluate. That means the previously mentioned 19% benchmark would translate to 14 Top8s, so in theory these decks could still get there. It's unlikely, but possible nonetheless. Getting there would be outrageous on its own though, just imagine Shadow getting 5 Top8 spots at the PT, or Tron (7) or Company (7).
Calling it now, after PT Rivals: no bans in Modern. And hopefully 1 or 2 unbans as well
Thank you for a serious analytical post. I agree that barring a really unbalanced PT, bans seem extremely unlikely at this point. MTGO is a bit of a black box, but I don't think the GP picture suggests any major MTGO issues either. Often, if MTGO is a mess, paper events are also fairly messy.
@FoodChainGoblins, I'd agree that it's probably best not to dismiss a claim outright based solely on who made it (that would be an ad hominem fallacy). "Even a broken clock can be right twice a day." Personally, I dismiss the statements in Hoogland's article, and similar statements, based on the lack of objectivity and work done to test the validity of the statements, and consideration of various alternate explanations for what is instead deemed "contradictions". His tendency to write and speak in that manner make me more skeptical to anything he does write, though I do make efforts to not dismiss his ideas outright.
How could someone test a meta to know for sure? You'd need a supercomputer to test this. Just because his bans seem ridiculous doesn't mean they are. especially if they are in the context to making the format less linear.
I felt bloom needed to be banned long before data came out and buried it in the banlist. Was my opinion of no importance then?
Well a hunch feel is sometimes correct.
And I've got a hunch that big mana and fast mana cards are a part of why linearity dominates this format.
How do you know his bans wouldn't make modern any better?
I basically never cite logical fallacies, but this burden of proof fallacy is so flagrant I have to call it. I also know that basically all the other authors on major sites call Modern "healthy" and have not pressed for bans, and I know Wizards called Modern "healthy" in October in a metagame that was virtually identical to this one.
Just because you don't like his suggestions doesn't mean he's wrong.
He's not wrong because I don't like his suggestions. He's wrong because his suggestions are inconsistent, out of dialogue with actual Modern data, out of dialogue with Wizards' statements on the formats, and because he makes no effort to cite any of those sources things despite many sources being available to him. He's wrong because he does the classic Magic argument of "well, it's just my opinion so I don't need any data to back it up." I can't think of any other serious writing where that happens. Even extremely politicized op-eds at least attempt to cite some sources, even if they cherrypick. Hoogland doesn't cite any. If you are a serious Modern player reaching out to a large audience, you have an obligation to at least attempt to support your assertions. You do not get a pass because you are giving your "opinion."
he did make a statement as his reason for these changes. His statement was that modern could use to be less linear and more interactive.
And his ideas to fix this seem adequate even though extreme.
Crunch some stats and tell me he is wrong. if modern feels this way to him ? Humour me here...
Is modern truly as linear as people are claiming?
Maybe wizards idea of healthy is wrong?
Maybe our idea of healthy is wrong?
This is when personal opinion matters.
But one thing that I don't like in modern is that the linear to interactive scale is too far to one side. Doesn't that technically mean a form of imbalance?
@FoodChainGoblins, I'd agree that it's probably best not to dismiss a claim outright based solely on who made it (that would be an ad hominem fallacy). "Even a broken clock can be right twice a day." Personally, I dismiss the statements in Hoogland's article, and similar statements, based on the lack of objectivity and work done to test the validity of the statements, and consideration of various alternate explanations for what is instead deemed "contradictions". His tendency to write and speak in that manner make me more skeptical to anything he does write, though I do make efforts to not dismiss his ideas outright.
How could someone test a meta to know for sure? You'd need a supercomputer to test this. Just because his bans seem ridiculous doesn't mean they are. especially if they are in the context to making the format less linear.
It's not that his test is insufficient. It's that he doesn't even try to test it at all. He doesn't try to model it or discuss how the changes might play out in the context of the real metagame. He doesn't cite sources, he doesn't talk about possible objections to his argument, he doesn't discuss perceived inconsistencies. The writing reads as lazy and that makes me even less inclined to take the article seriously.
We are, at best, armchair developers. For them, it's their livelihood. I'm inclined to think that they are somewhat more competent than we think we are.
So that "logical inconsistency" may simply be a temporary state, for the sake of caution. It's not killing us to not be able to play Bloodbraid - it's simply a talking point for whiners like Hoogland to write articles about with zero data or testing.
So I've had a personal experience with Aaron Forscythe long ago at PTM15, and I would like to give credit to all of Wizards staff when it comes to managing the banned list in most situations, but they do not have enough ears to the ground.
Based on my memory, I began opening statements citing exactly some questions this very forum had (the PT event had computers people could publicly use, which was awesome), I then started mentally noting what I could, then I began deciphering the logic behind the bannings of specific cards.
What I didn't mention when the quote came to the discussion of Sword of the Meek, was that the conversation didn't start that way. (Just for reference Twin was Legal and Sword was not). It seemed that multiple people working for Wizards was under the impression that Twin was absolutely fine, but Sword of the Meek would destroy the Modern format in half if legal. I had a hard time explaining to them, the difference between a soft lock and a hard lock. Especially when the Soft lock is vulnerable to dozens more hate printed in the recent years.
To Wizards, it seemed like Sword of the Meek was a 15/10, and Twin was a 4/10. That's unacceptable, and that's too far out of touch. Now add in the timeline factor, it took them years to fix the situation.
People are complaining about each and every Magic format, and not the "good" kind of complaining either. There is no time to be "patient" they need to get in touch with the community, hard, not just say it, or post biased AMA's, or have some horrible and non-descriptive articles on a horrid looking website. They have needed some balancing action in the Modern format 3 months after Sword of the Meek got unbanned. They have had enough time. It took them years to figure out Wild Nacatl, Bitterblossom, Sword of the Meek, Ancestral Vision. Some of you may reference Golgari Grave-Troll, but I truly think that was also an out of touch issue with Wizards knowing they would print Cathartic Reunion, Insolent Neonate, and Prized Amalgam, by which GGT did jack-squat till they got a whole new dredge shell to work with.
Wizards shouldn't post messages such as "We are unlikely to do any changes!" But we allow it, we need to group together and put the sock in their mouth and tell them to unban the unjustified fair cards.
@FoodChainGoblins, I'd agree that it's probably best not to dismiss a claim outright based solely on who made it (that would be an ad hominem fallacy). "Even a broken clock can be right twice a day." Personally, I dismiss the statements in Hoogland's article, and similar statements, based on the lack of objectivity and work done to test the validity of the statements, and consideration of various alternate explanations for what is instead deemed "contradictions". His tendency to write and speak in that manner make me more skeptical to anything he does write, though I do make efforts to not dismiss his ideas outright.
How could someone test a meta to know for sure? You'd need a supercomputer to test this. Just because his bans seem ridiculous doesn't mean they are. especially if they are in the context to making the format less linear.
It's not that his test is insufficient. It's that he doesn't even try to test it at all. He doesn't try to model it or discuss how the changes might play out in the context of the real metagame. He doesn't cite sources, he doesn't talk about possible objections to his argument, he doesn't discuss perceived inconsistencies. The writing reads as lazy and that makes me even less inclined to take the article seriously.
he doesn't do these things because it's a theorizing article.
It's not meant to be a mathematical statistical article.
That's up to the modern community to discover and discuss.
Or at least to get wizards to test these theories.(which they probably won't)
If a person cannot even understand that there is a possibility to all of his main points, than how are they less Arrogant than him themselves?
he doesn't do these things because it's a theorizing article.
It's not meant to be a mathematical statistical article.
He doesn't need stats. He needs some evidence. There are lots of different types of evidence and he chooses to cite none of it. He needs to cite some sources, tournaments, other articles, etc. The last time I read a non-Magic op-ed that was purely opinion with zero cited sources was a high school newspaper. Unfortunately, this is all too common in the Magic world.
That's up to the modern community to discover and discuss.
We have discussed it and the overwhelming consensus online is that the article and its arguments are weak. We have already explained why; they fail both the theoretical and practical test.
If a person cannot even understand that there is a possibility to all of his main points, than how are they less Arrogant than him themselves?
I already said I like some of his unban suggestions. See the last page for a direct quote. I'm all for unbans to raise the stock of format decks. It's the ban suggestions and some of the unban suggestions that are ridiculous.
He doesn't need stats. He needs some evidence. There are lots of different types of evidence and he chooses to cite none of it. He needs to cite some sources, tournaments, other articles, etc. The last time I read a non-Magic op-ed that was purely opinion with zero cited sources was a high school newspaper. Unfortunately, this is all too common in the Magic world.
Can we all agree to put this in our signatures before posting in the Modern forums?
what is up with the new accounts popping up spouting the same (tired) arguments? I have a hard time believing that a slew of people who think and attempt to articulate their argument the same way just all of the sudden decided to join the forum and post in the state of modern thread.
what is up with the new accounts popping up spouting the same (tired) arguments? I have a hard time believing that a slew of people who think and attempt to articulate their argument the same way just all of the sudden decided to join the forum and post in the state of modern thread.
I assume socket puppets from accounts being reported, but who knows.
We are, at best, armchair developers. For them, it's their livelihood. I'm inclined to think that they are somewhat more competent than we think we are.
So that "logical inconsistency" may simply be a temporary state, for the sake of caution. It's not killing us to not be able to play Bloodbraid - it's simply a talking point for whiners like Hoogland to write articles about with zero data or testing.
So I've had a personal experience with Aaron Forscythe long ago at PTM15, and I would like to give credit to all of Wizards staff when it comes to managing the banned list in most situations, but they do not have enough ears to the ground.
Based on my memory, I began opening statements citing exactly some questions this very forum had (the PT event had computers people could publicly use, which was awesome), I then started mentally noting what I could, then I began deciphering the logic behind the bannings of specific cards.
What I didn't mention when the quote came to the discussion of Sword of the Meek, was that the conversation didn't start that way. (Just for reference Twin was Legal and Sword was not). It seemed that multiple people working for Wizards was under the impression that Twin was absolutely fine, but Sword of the Meek would destroy the Modern format in half if legal. I had a hard time explaining to them, the difference between a soft lock and a hard lock. Especially when the Soft lock is vulnerable to dozens more hate printed in the recent years.
To Wizards, it seemed like Sword of the Meek was a 15/10, and Twin was a 4/10. That's unacceptable, and that's too far out of touch. Now add in the timeline factor, it took them years to fix the situation.
People are complaining about each and every Magic format, and not the "good" kind of complaining either. There is no time to be "patient" they need to get in touch with the community, hard, not just say it, or post biased AMA's, or have some horrible and non-descriptive articles on a horrid looking website. They have needed some balancing action in the Modern format 3 months after Sword of the Meek got unbanned. They have had enough time. It took them years to figure out Wild Nacatl, Bitterblossom, Sword of the Meek, Ancestral Vision. Some of you may reference Golgari Grave-Troll, but I truly think that was also an out of touch issue with Wizards knowing they would print Cathartic Reunion, Insolent Neonate, and Prized Amalgam, by which GGT did jack-squat till they got a whole new dredge shell to work with.
Wizards shouldn't post messages such as "We are unlikely to do any changes!" But we allow it, we need to group together and put the sock in their mouth and tell them to unban the unjustified fair cards.
This is why I always take important stock of your posts.
Yes, Sword of the Meek was a card that I had originally wondered about in early Modern. At first, I thought there wasn't going to be any pre-ban list. I bought a lot of Hypergenesis on this speculation, but it was banned before seeing the light of day. Moving on... Then, I was playing against decks way better than what Sword of the Meek could do. Rite of Flame Storm was killing me on turn 2! I even wondered what made Rite of Flame okay, but Hypergenesis not. Sword of the Meek is way less broken than those or maybe even not broken at all from what we've seen in Modern so far. I played all of these cards before in Extended. I played Mono Blue Thopter Sword "toolbox" when it was the "best deck." I played something else when Thopter Depths was the best deck, but I played against it a bit. While I completely agree that most of the choices that Wizards did on the ban list were done very well, there are many that are not as well. I think people see this when they see feel that Wizards is being stubborn by not just unbanning the Elf, which has been fine for at least a year and arguably more.
Sometimes I just really wish that Wizards didn't have a starting ban list. Then whenever something got too good, they could just ban it. Players would KNOW why something got banned, other than "some dude didn't like losing to Caw Blade in Standard." Then later on with meta changes, certain cards could be analyzed to see if they can reenter the wild. Unfortunately, we are about 5 years past that. We just have to take what we can. When Wizards unbanned Sword of the Meek and Ancestral Vision, it was honestly one of my best days Magic-wise in my life. It wasn't just because I had horded them over the years, but mostly because I knew (through playing these cards in many formats, but not testing them in Modern at all) that these cards were okay and it was nice to see Wizards finally agree with that. I would love to have one of those moments again (yes, it felt better than winning a PPTQ or top 4ing an RPTQ). I'm sure top 8ing or winning a GP will be up there too, but those unbannings really brightened up my day, week, month.
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)
We are, at best, armchair developers. For them, it's their livelihood. I'm inclined to think that they are somewhat more competent than we think we are.
So that "logical inconsistency" may simply be a temporary state, for the sake of caution. It's not killing us to not be able to play Bloodbraid - it's simply a talking point for whiners like Hoogland to write articles about with zero data or testing.
So I've had a personal experience with Aaron Forscythe long ago at PTM15, and I would like to give credit to all of Wizards staff when it comes to managing the banned list in most situations, but they do not have enough ears to the ground.
Based on my memory, I began opening statements citing exactly some questions this very forum had (the PT event had computers people could publicly use, which was awesome), I then started mentally noting what I could, then I began deciphering the logic behind the bannings of specific cards.
What I didn't mention when the quote came to the discussion of Sword of the Meek, was that the conversation didn't start that way. (Just for reference Twin was Legal and Sword was not). It seemed that multiple people working for Wizards was under the impression that Twin was absolutely fine, but Sword of the Meek would destroy the Modern format in half if legal. I had a hard time explaining to them, the difference between a soft lock and a hard lock. Especially when the Soft lock is vulnerable to dozens more hate printed in the recent years.
To Wizards, it seemed like Sword of the Meek was a 15/10, and Twin was a 4/10. That's unacceptable, and that's too far out of touch. Now add in the timeline factor, it took them years to fix the situation.
People are complaining about each and every Magic format, and not the "good" kind of complaining either. There is no time to be "patient" they need to get in touch with the community, hard, not just say it, or post biased AMA's, or have some horrible and non-descriptive articles on a horrid looking website. They have needed some balancing action in the Modern format 3 months after Sword of the Meek got unbanned. They have had enough time. It took them years to figure out Wild Nacatl, Bitterblossom, Sword of the Meek, Ancestral Vision. Some of you may reference Golgari Grave-Troll, but I truly think that was also an out of touch issue with Wizards knowing they would print Cathartic Reunion, Insolent Neonate, and Prized Amalgam, by which GGT did jack-squat till they got a whole new dredge shell to work with.
Wizards shouldn't post messages such as "We are unlikely to do any changes!" But we allow it, we need to group together and put the sock in their mouth and tell them to unban the unjustified fair cards.
I could agree with you on some points here, but another view of the history since your post in 2014 and now is that they do question themselves and figure things out. Splinter Twin was banned just over a year later, and Sword of the Meek was unbanned shortly after that. Thus, it seems that they ended up looking at the evidence and agreeing with your assessment. I wouldn't blame them for worrying about Sword of the Meek and not worrying about Splinter Twin, especially considering that "pros" wrote articles about how "catastrophic" Sword being unbanned would be on decks like Jund.
I could be very wrong, but through hindsight, I'm starting to see a pattern in which it seems that WotC was originally using the same "metrics" of what was too good and what was okay (conjecture, appeal to authority, and the bandwagon fallacy) as the general Magic community, and that they changed that method some time just before the Twin ban to be more evidence-based. Again, this might just be an illusion.
Personally, when it comes to bans and unbans, I defer to WotC. I don't have the evidence or data to confidently state that my opinion is informed and correct. I doubt more than a single-digit amount in these entire forums and reddit do have the sort of evidence to make a valid claim. If they do, they're certainly not sharing it. Again, it's only conjecture from armchair developers. Even "pros" whose livelihood (assumedly) relies on the health of the game don't provide evidence for their claims. That amazes me. WotC, however, has evidence. Whether they use it or not is not something we have any way of knowing, but we do know they have it. So we can't even make a valid claim that WotC does or does not use that evidence, only conjecture on whether they do (as I point out above, my perception of how they've managed banlists might just be an illusion).
I can, however, say that they have been doing the right things recently with the banlists, or so the health of the metagame seems to show. Sure, there's plenty of complainers on the internet, but we will have those complainers no matter what happens. The best metric isn't the whining of a bunch of people who can't find the motivation to support their arguments with evidence, but with the evidence of viewership, participation, and variety of decks in the format.
So, sure, they didn't unban some cards that we think are fair when we wanted them to. But again, I prefer the company be cautious rather than be as impulsive and self-important as someone like Hoogland when it comes to a game this large. If it's truly fair, then I'd be inclined to think that it will be unbanned. We could point out where some of us might have publicly stated that some card is busted and needs banned, or some other card is fair and needs to be unbanned, and then few months to a year later that happens. Of course, we'd have to be careful that we're not falling to confirmation bias, because we could be forgetting the other claims that we made that were way off mark.
@FoodChainGoblins - Thank you for the reply, I definitely understand your level of frustration as well. Yet I do also understand Wizards side of the equation, and yes JTMS and Stoneforge were dominant in Standard, but the problem was the extended format started to become swollen with those cards as well in a flash. With PT Philedelphia originally being announced as Extended, most professional players were seriously unhappy with the format since GerryT essentially broke the format in half. Multiple professional players expressed their opinion that the format was ridiculously solved.
@Thnkr - The problem is we live in a world with instant satisfaction, but truthfully it's laughable that BBE has been banned for 4 years. This isn't a case of Wizards being cautious, it's a case of Wizards not managing properly at that point. That's how it simply boils down. Everything else you posted I can agree with. I was once advised, that the worst action is to do nothing. They have done nothing for far too long.
@FoodChainGoblins - Thank you for the reply, I definitely understand your level of frustration as well. Yet I do also understand Wizards side of the equation, and yes JTMS and Stoneforge were dominant in Standard, but the problem was the extended format started to become swollen with those cards as well in a flash. With PT Philedelphia originally being announced as Extended, most professional players were seriously unhappy with the format since GerryT essentially broke the format in half. Multiple professional players expressed their opinion that the format was ridiculously solved.
That was an interesting read! I never knew this...or maybe I forgot? Old man brain?
I don't actually remember seeing Stoneforge Mystic or Jace, the Mind Sculptor in Extended. I will admit that only since the Death's Shadow era have I thought that Stoneforge Mystic is okay for unbanning. Before that, I felt that it just gave too much to fair decks and fair decks will have to have some reason for not running it. It's a very powerful card when mixed with the equipment...yes, even without Jitte. I even was going to "prove a point" by putting the Stoneforge Mystic package into Bloom Titan and still winning. But, ever since the Death's Shadow era, I feel that Stoneforge Mystic is okay, even if DS is not doing so well. There are so many reasons why it is okay, albeit super strong, no doubt. Jace, on the other hand, I have felt was okay for quite a while. Although I was not super sure that Twin wouldn't put Jace in their deck, I felt that if Twin is legal, Jace should be as well. That was my reasoning. No stats, just my thoughts...
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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)
@Thnkr - The problem is we live in a world with instant satisfaction, but truthfully it's laughable that BBE has been banned for 4 years. This isn't a case of Wizards being cautious, it's a case of Wizards not managing properly at that point. That's how it simply boils down. Everything else you posted I can agree with. I was once advised, that the worst action is to do nothing. They have done nothing for far too long.
I wouldn't necessarily agree that it's laughable that BBE's been banned for 4 years. Many of the core cards that are used in current decks were only printed in the last four years, and during that time we could just as easily say that BBE would have been overpowered, since we have no actual evidence to base each argument on. I'm not saying BBE would have been too good, but likewise, to say that it's rediculous that it hasn't been removed from the banlist in the past four years seems to imply that it wouldn't have been too good. The truth is that we don't have the data to show for either one, if we ignore that Jund with BBE was one of the best decks at the origin of the Modern format.
I would disagree with the statement that "the worst action is to do nothing". While it sounds very wise, it's not accurate. I can provide some examples in which the best action is to do nothing if at all possible, if you would like. Besides, this would imply that WotC truly has done nothing, which is very far from the truth. They've put out how many staple cards that were adopted into the Modern format? And banned and unbanned how many cards? Simply because they've appeared to do nothing with the state of whether BBE was banned or not does not mean that they've truly done nothing at all.
Jund has pretty much been a tier 3 deck since push was printed, Shadow decks became more efficient, and combinations of E-Tron and ramp became fairly uncontested.
Jund is not leaving tier 3 until something huge and new is printed or BBE is unbanned. I don't think BBE would elevate it to tier 1, I imagine just tier 2.
If SFM is unbanned and BBE isn't, Jund easily replicates how infect died in most of 2017.
@LEH, that's a fair question, and I probably should have linked my evidence to begin with. But, we can see the trend of Jund from the inception of the Modern format, and it's presence.
Jund in the beginning was missing Abrupt Decay, as you mention, but was immediately one of the top contenders in Modern. The metagame consisted of Zoo, Tron, Twin, Affinity tied with Pod, and Storm tied with Jund for the top spots, in that order. There are articles about the deck, but since none of them offer any actual evidence, I'll forego those.
Being a Jund player since the start of Modern, I'd argue that Jund was a strong Tier 2 choice until DRS and Decay were printed then it blew up to Tier 0.5 until DRS finally got banned then it leveled out at Tier 1.
That timeframe between the beginning of Modern and the printing of DRS and Decay was all of about a year. That first year we had what we could call a "wild west" of broken decks, where in the matter of two months (September 2011 to December 2011) we saw eight cards banned to try to reign in the format.
Jund in the following year was gifted with both Abrupt Decay and Deathrite Shaman, as you mention. It could be argued that Deathrite Shaman was more important than Decay, as it was immediately played as a 3-4 of, rather than the 2-3 Decay that was adopted. It could also be said that maybe the Shaman was to blame for Jund's dominance at the time, rather than Bloodbraid Elf. Either way, Jund was a force to be reckoned with. Deathrite Shaman was banned the following February.
The year after that, WotC appeared to recognize how format warping Jund seemed to be:
JANUARY 2013
Banned: Bloodbraid Elf and Seething Song
Speaking of dominant, this was the time of Jund. A time when the midrangiest of midrange decks was considered by many to be the best deck in the format, and not easily addressed with other cards already in the format. Again, Erik Lauer summed it up nicely in the announcement.
"Since then, we have had four Modern Grands Prix. Jérémy Dezani won Grand Prix Lyon playing Jund. Jacob Wilson defeated Josh Utter-Leyton in a Jund-on-Jund finals to win Grand Prix Chicago. Willy Edel won Grand Prix Toronto, also playing Jund. And, finally, Lukas Jaklovsky came in 2nd, playing Jund, at Grand Prix Bilbao. Beyond that, Jund took six of the Top 16 decks at Bilbao."
Jund, Jund, Jundy, Jund, Jund. Bloodbraid Elf was the first card from Jund to get the axe, but not the last.
Thus, they banned Bloodbraid Elf early that year. We can speculate why they chose Bloodbraid over Deathrite Shaman, but I don't know that we can say for sure why they chose the one over the other that January.
In 2014 we see Jund start to normalize in numbers. It was still a top contender, even without Bloodbraid and DRS. Seeing as how dominant Jund had been the past two years, I could definitely see why they'd be apprehensive about re-releasing BBE into the mix.
2015 and 2016 both have Jund continuing to be one of the top tier decks of the format, again suggesting that maybe then was not the time to give Jund BBE.
Finally, in 2017, we see Jund's numbers start to drop. Thus, maybe now is a safe time to unban Bloodbraid. The best numbers I have to offer to support that argument is from the metagame numbers from MTGTop8. I don't know if there is any other data or evidence publicly available for us to make that call with confidence.
So I'm not saying that you're wrong. On the contrary, I think you're absolutely accurate in your statement about how dominant Jund was during the course of Modern history. However, with Jund as dominant as it was without Bloodbraid Elf, I think we can give WotC credit for not offering an already-dominant deck another demonstrably proven powerful card before other decks found a way to combat it.
What evidence do you have that this was the case? Being a Jund player since the start of Modern, I'd argue that Jund was a strong Tier 2 choice until DRS and Decay were printed then it blew up to Tier 0.5 until DRS finally got banned then it leveled out at Tier 1.
When I began Modern in late 2011, I believed the 3 best decks to be Jund, Affinity, and Twin. These were the decks that I actively set out to beat - the barometer of the format. I played a UW "Cawblade" deck that was 60/40 vs. Twin, 50/50 vs. Jund, and 40/60 vs. Affinity, roughly. I felt it was a solid choice, mostly because the deck that I actively set out to beat was Twin. Playing vs. Jund was super fun and had many decisions. I've always been that "UW dude" playing against my mortal enemy in Jund ever since Standard.
But, thinking back, maybe there were other decks to beat; like Storm or BreachPost. Infect also became super good at one point. It's just that I rarely ran into these decks, despite playing in a few Comp REL tournaments, along with Casual REL "fnm" type tournaments.
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)
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The issue here is the expectation that WotC should have foreseen that it was safe to unban Bloodbraid while simultaneously doing their previous changes. They have to be very careful about banning and unbanning too many cards at once, as they need to slowly adjust the gates. They are already working with a very complicated situation, and doing too many changes too quick can lead to simply being further criticized for not being careful. If it's safe to unban BBE, I wouldn't doubt that it'll be unbanned in the near future. But that's their job, not mine, and they have way more data on the situation that I do. Just as there was information that they had that we didn't concerning the banning of Gitaxian Probe (the impending printing of Baral), maybe there's some information that they have that we don't here as well? We are, at best, armchair developers. For them, it's their livelihood. I'm inclined to think that they are somewhat more competent than we think we are.
So that "logical inconsistency" may simply be a temporary state, for the sake of caution. It's not killing us to not be able to play Bloodbraid - it's simply a talking point for whiners like Hoogland to write articles about with zero data or testing.
I agree that it's difficult to categorize decks, but a few pages back I pointed out that there exists methods for doing just that - it just requires work. I've been working on it (although I'm self-taught, so it's taking quite a while). It's a portion of game theory called expectimax. Understanding it also helps us understand that we've been using the term "interaction" completely wrong, preferring to define it based on a self-centered basis - "Does the deck interact with my deck in a way that I prefer?" If we consider this question for a bit, we can see how silly it is. When was the last time we built a deck for the purpose of interacting with the gamestate in a way that the opponent would prefer? The whole point of how a competitive deck is built is to minimize the opponent's ability to interact, and maximizing our own.
@Lohse20:
Well, xxhellfirexx3, welcome back I suppose
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
You can tell there is a bias when people get in such arms about the words of a pro who is just theorizing.
Such the double standard. But I'm really not suprised hearing it come from one such as yourself.
- Affinity - 9% (6/64)
- Dredge - 8% (5/64)
- Grixis Shadow - 8%
- RG Scapeshift - 8%
- 4C Shadow - 6% (4/64)
- Abzan Company - 6%
And the benchmark we're looking for is Twin's 19% from back then, so my prediction would be "No bans" for next announcement. However:- Shadow decks - 14% (9/64)
- Tron decks - 11% (7/64)
- Company decks - 11%
Here we should remember that they will wait for PT Rivals to reevaluate. That means the previously mentioned 19% benchmark would translate to 14 Top8s, so in theory these decks could still get there. It's unlikely, but possible nonetheless. Getting there would be outrageous on its own though, just imagine Shadow getting 5 Top8 spots at the PT, or Tron (7) or Company (7).Calling it now, after PT Rivals: no bans in Modern. And hopefully 1 or 2 unbans as well
Frontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
There are a lot of things that ktkenshinx and I don't agree on. In fact, we're having an issue on Modern match variance right now. Still, I wouldn't go this far.
Now, firstly, I don't want this to come to a "who's got the bigger ***" contest. But, ktkenshinx has done a lot of super important Modern data and is probably the least biased person I've ever seen on these forums...no, scratch that, at all among Modern players. Just because everybody doesn't have the time to play as much Modern as Hoogland doesn't mean that their input doesn't matter. If I somehow won a lottery tomorrow, I would probably quit my job and potentially play as much Magic as someone like Hoogland does. As for now, 3-4 times per week is good for me.
*I should also state that I don't like someone discounting Hoogland's advice completely as well. To just dismiss him because his ideas don't line up (whose ideas do in Modern?) is not correct either. Jeff Hoogland's ideas are important. Ktkenshinx's ideas are important. The guy who believes that Umezawa's Jitte should be unbanned. His ideas are important. Everybody's ideas are important, at least if Wizards wants Modern to last as a format.
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)I basically never cite logical fallacies, but this burden of proof fallacy is so flagrant I have to call it. I also know that basically all the other authors on major sites call Modern "healthy" and have not pressed for bans, and I know Wizards called Modern "healthy" in October in a metagame that was virtually identical to this one.
He's not wrong because I don't like his suggestions. He's wrong because his suggestions are inconsistent, out of dialogue with actual Modern data, out of dialogue with Wizards' statements on the formats, and because he makes no effort to cite any of those sources things despite many sources being available to him. He's wrong because he does the classic Magic argument of "well, it's just my opinion so I don't need any data to back it up." I can't think of any other serious writing where that happens. Even extremely politicized op-eds at least attempt to cite some sources, even if they cherrypick. Hoogland doesn't cite any. If you are a serious Modern player reaching out to a large audience, you have an obligation to at least attempt to support your assertions. You do not get a pass because you are giving your "opinion."
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
Thank you for a serious analytical post. I agree that barring a really unbalanced PT, bans seem extremely unlikely at this point. MTGO is a bit of a black box, but I don't think the GP picture suggests any major MTGO issues either. Often, if MTGO is a mess, paper events are also fairly messy.
I felt bloom needed to be banned long before data came out and buried it in the banlist. Was my opinion of no importance then?
Well a hunch feel is sometimes correct.
And I've got a hunch that big mana and fast mana cards are a part of why linearity dominates this format.
And his ideas to fix this seem adequate even though extreme.
Crunch some stats and tell me he is wrong. if modern feels this way to him ? Humour me here...
Is modern truly as linear as people are claiming?
Maybe wizards idea of healthy is wrong?
Maybe our idea of healthy is wrong?
This is when personal opinion matters.
But one thing that I don't like in modern is that the linear to interactive scale is too far to one side. Doesn't that technically mean a form of imbalance?
It's not that his test is insufficient. It's that he doesn't even try to test it at all. He doesn't try to model it or discuss how the changes might play out in the context of the real metagame. He doesn't cite sources, he doesn't talk about possible objections to his argument, he doesn't discuss perceived inconsistencies. The writing reads as lazy and that makes me even less inclined to take the article seriously.
So I've had a personal experience with Aaron Forscythe long ago at PTM15, and I would like to give credit to all of Wizards staff when it comes to managing the banned list in most situations, but they do not have enough ears to the ground.
Based on my memory, I began opening statements citing exactly some questions this very forum had (the PT event had computers people could publicly use, which was awesome), I then started mentally noting what I could, then I began deciphering the logic behind the bannings of specific cards.
In summary, here is the thread I posted long ago http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/567422-i-just-personally-spoke-with-aaron-forsythe-at-pro
What I didn't mention when the quote came to the discussion of Sword of the Meek, was that the conversation didn't start that way. (Just for reference Twin was Legal and Sword was not). It seemed that multiple people working for Wizards was under the impression that Twin was absolutely fine, but Sword of the Meek would destroy the Modern format in half if legal. I had a hard time explaining to them, the difference between a soft lock and a hard lock. Especially when the Soft lock is vulnerable to dozens more hate printed in the recent years.
To Wizards, it seemed like Sword of the Meek was a 15/10, and Twin was a 4/10. That's unacceptable, and that's too far out of touch. Now add in the timeline factor, it took them years to fix the situation.
People are complaining about each and every Magic format, and not the "good" kind of complaining either. There is no time to be "patient" they need to get in touch with the community, hard, not just say it, or post biased AMA's, or have some horrible and non-descriptive articles on a horrid looking website. They have needed some balancing action in the Modern format 3 months after Sword of the Meek got unbanned. They have had enough time. It took them years to figure out Wild Nacatl, Bitterblossom, Sword of the Meek, Ancestral Vision. Some of you may reference Golgari Grave-Troll, but I truly think that was also an out of touch issue with Wizards knowing they would print Cathartic Reunion, Insolent Neonate, and Prized Amalgam, by which GGT did jack-squat till they got a whole new dredge shell to work with.
Wizards shouldn't post messages such as "We are unlikely to do any changes!" But we allow it, we need to group together and put the sock in their mouth and tell them to unban the unjustified fair cards.
It's not meant to be a mathematical statistical article.
That's up to the modern community to discover and discuss.
Or at least to get wizards to test these theories.(which they probably won't)
If a person cannot even understand that there is a possibility to all of his main points, than how are they less Arrogant than him themselves?
He doesn't need stats. He needs some evidence. There are lots of different types of evidence and he chooses to cite none of it. He needs to cite some sources, tournaments, other articles, etc. The last time I read a non-Magic op-ed that was purely opinion with zero cited sources was a high school newspaper. Unfortunately, this is all too common in the Magic world.
We have discussed it and the overwhelming consensus online is that the article and its arguments are weak. We have already explained why; they fail both the theoretical and practical test.
I already said I like some of his unban suggestions. See the last page for a direct quote. I'm all for unbans to raise the stock of format decks. It's the ban suggestions and some of the unban suggestions that are ridiculous.
Can we all agree to put this in our signatures before posting in the Modern forums?
I assume socket puppets from accounts being reported, but who knows.
This is why I always take important stock of your posts.
Yes, Sword of the Meek was a card that I had originally wondered about in early Modern. At first, I thought there wasn't going to be any pre-ban list. I bought a lot of Hypergenesis on this speculation, but it was banned before seeing the light of day. Moving on... Then, I was playing against decks way better than what Sword of the Meek could do. Rite of Flame Storm was killing me on turn 2! I even wondered what made Rite of Flame okay, but Hypergenesis not. Sword of the Meek is way less broken than those or maybe even not broken at all from what we've seen in Modern so far. I played all of these cards before in Extended. I played Mono Blue Thopter Sword "toolbox" when it was the "best deck." I played something else when Thopter Depths was the best deck, but I played against it a bit. While I completely agree that most of the choices that Wizards did on the ban list were done very well, there are many that are not as well. I think people see this when they see feel that Wizards is being stubborn by not just unbanning the Elf, which has been fine for at least a year and arguably more.
Sometimes I just really wish that Wizards didn't have a starting ban list. Then whenever something got too good, they could just ban it. Players would KNOW why something got banned, other than "some dude didn't like losing to Caw Blade in Standard." Then later on with meta changes, certain cards could be analyzed to see if they can reenter the wild. Unfortunately, we are about 5 years past that. We just have to take what we can. When Wizards unbanned Sword of the Meek and Ancestral Vision, it was honestly one of my best days Magic-wise in my life. It wasn't just because I had horded them over the years, but mostly because I knew (through playing these cards in many formats, but not testing them in Modern at all) that these cards were okay and it was nice to see Wizards finally agree with that. I would love to have one of those moments again (yes, it felt better than winning a PPTQ or top 4ing an RPTQ). I'm sure top 8ing or winning a GP will be up there too, but those unbannings really brightened up my day, week, month.
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)I could agree with you on some points here, but another view of the history since your post in 2014 and now is that they do question themselves and figure things out. Splinter Twin was banned just over a year later, and Sword of the Meek was unbanned shortly after that. Thus, it seems that they ended up looking at the evidence and agreeing with your assessment. I wouldn't blame them for worrying about Sword of the Meek and not worrying about Splinter Twin, especially considering that "pros" wrote articles about how "catastrophic" Sword being unbanned would be on decks like Jund.
I could be very wrong, but through hindsight, I'm starting to see a pattern in which it seems that WotC was originally using the same "metrics" of what was too good and what was okay (conjecture, appeal to authority, and the bandwagon fallacy) as the general Magic community, and that they changed that method some time just before the Twin ban to be more evidence-based. Again, this might just be an illusion.
Personally, when it comes to bans and unbans, I defer to WotC. I don't have the evidence or data to confidently state that my opinion is informed and correct. I doubt more than a single-digit amount in these entire forums and reddit do have the sort of evidence to make a valid claim. If they do, they're certainly not sharing it. Again, it's only conjecture from armchair developers. Even "pros" whose livelihood (assumedly) relies on the health of the game don't provide evidence for their claims. That amazes me. WotC, however, has evidence. Whether they use it or not is not something we have any way of knowing, but we do know they have it. So we can't even make a valid claim that WotC does or does not use that evidence, only conjecture on whether they do (as I point out above, my perception of how they've managed banlists might just be an illusion).
I can, however, say that they have been doing the right things recently with the banlists, or so the health of the metagame seems to show. Sure, there's plenty of complainers on the internet, but we will have those complainers no matter what happens. The best metric isn't the whining of a bunch of people who can't find the motivation to support their arguments with evidence, but with the evidence of viewership, participation, and variety of decks in the format.
So, sure, they didn't unban some cards that we think are fair when we wanted them to. But again, I prefer the company be cautious rather than be as impulsive and self-important as someone like Hoogland when it comes to a game this large. If it's truly fair, then I'd be inclined to think that it will be unbanned. We could point out where some of us might have publicly stated that some card is busted and needs banned, or some other card is fair and needs to be unbanned, and then few months to a year later that happens. Of course, we'd have to be careful that we're not falling to confirmation bias, because we could be forgetting the other claims that we made that were way off mark.
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
Based on the Community Cup 2011 they took the data from their team constructed decks with a small draft of a ban list.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/2011-magic-online-community-cup-details-2011-05-19
The decklists are here;
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/event-coverage/magic-online-community-cup-thursday-2011-06-16
@Thnkr - The problem is we live in a world with instant satisfaction, but truthfully it's laughable that BBE has been banned for 4 years. This isn't a case of Wizards being cautious, it's a case of Wizards not managing properly at that point. That's how it simply boils down. Everything else you posted I can agree with. I was once advised, that the worst action is to do nothing. They have done nothing for far too long.
That was an interesting read! I never knew this...or maybe I forgot? Old man brain?
I don't actually remember seeing Stoneforge Mystic or Jace, the Mind Sculptor in Extended. I will admit that only since the Death's Shadow era have I thought that Stoneforge Mystic is okay for unbanning. Before that, I felt that it just gave too much to fair decks and fair decks will have to have some reason for not running it. It's a very powerful card when mixed with the equipment...yes, even without Jitte. I even was going to "prove a point" by putting the Stoneforge Mystic package into Bloom Titan and still winning.
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)I wouldn't necessarily agree that it's laughable that BBE's been banned for 4 years. Many of the core cards that are used in current decks were only printed in the last four years, and during that time we could just as easily say that BBE would have been overpowered, since we have no actual evidence to base each argument on. I'm not saying BBE would have been too good, but likewise, to say that it's rediculous that it hasn't been removed from the banlist in the past four years seems to imply that it wouldn't have been too good. The truth is that we don't have the data to show for either one, if we ignore that Jund with BBE was one of the best decks at the origin of the Modern format.
I would disagree with the statement that "the worst action is to do nothing". While it sounds very wise, it's not accurate. I can provide some examples in which the best action is to do nothing if at all possible, if you would like. Besides, this would imply that WotC truly has done nothing, which is very far from the truth. They've put out how many staple cards that were adopted into the Modern format? And banned and unbanned how many cards? Simply because they've appeared to do nothing with the state of whether BBE was banned or not does not mean that they've truly done nothing at all.
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
Jund is not leaving tier 3 until something huge and new is printed or BBE is unbanned. I don't think BBE would elevate it to tier 1, I imagine just tier 2.
If SFM is unbanned and BBE isn't, Jund easily replicates how infect died in most of 2017.
Jund in the beginning was missing Abrupt Decay, as you mention, but was immediately one of the top contenders in Modern. The metagame consisted of Zoo, Tron, Twin, Affinity tied with Pod, and Storm tied with Jund for the top spots, in that order. There are articles about the deck, but since none of them offer any actual evidence, I'll forego those.
That timeframe between the beginning of Modern and the printing of DRS and Decay was all of about a year. That first year we had what we could call a "wild west" of broken decks, where in the matter of two months (September 2011 to December 2011) we saw eight cards banned to try to reign in the format.
Jund in the following year was gifted with both Abrupt Decay and Deathrite Shaman, as you mention. It could be argued that Deathrite Shaman was more important than Decay, as it was immediately played as a 3-4 of, rather than the 2-3 Decay that was adopted. It could also be said that maybe the Shaman was to blame for Jund's dominance at the time, rather than Bloodbraid Elf. Either way, Jund was a force to be reckoned with. Deathrite Shaman was banned the following February.
The year after that, WotC appeared to recognize how format warping Jund seemed to be:
Thus, they banned Bloodbraid Elf early that year. We can speculate why they chose Bloodbraid over Deathrite Shaman, but I don't know that we can say for sure why they chose the one over the other that January.
In 2014 we see Jund start to normalize in numbers. It was still a top contender, even without Bloodbraid and DRS. Seeing as how dominant Jund had been the past two years, I could definitely see why they'd be apprehensive about re-releasing BBE into the mix.
2015 and 2016 both have Jund continuing to be one of the top tier decks of the format, again suggesting that maybe then was not the time to give Jund BBE.
Finally, in 2017, we see Jund's numbers start to drop. Thus, maybe now is a safe time to unban Bloodbraid. The best numbers I have to offer to support that argument is from the metagame numbers from MTGTop8. I don't know if there is any other data or evidence publicly available for us to make that call with confidence.
So I'm not saying that you're wrong. On the contrary, I think you're absolutely accurate in your statement about how dominant Jund was during the course of Modern history. However, with Jund as dominant as it was without Bloodbraid Elf, I think we can give WotC credit for not offering an already-dominant deck another demonstrably proven powerful card before other decks found a way to combat it.
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 will try to search for some evidence, but in the meantime...Found something!https://magic.wizards.com/en/content/2012-players-championship
(From the looks of things, it seems that Tribal Zoo was the deck to beat, at least for this tournament.)
When I began Modern in late 2011, I believed the 3 best decks to be Jund, Affinity, and Twin. These were the decks that I actively set out to beat - the barometer of the format. I played a UW "Cawblade" deck that was 60/40 vs. Twin, 50/50 vs. Jund, and 40/60 vs. Affinity, roughly. I felt it was a solid choice, mostly because the deck that I actively set out to beat was Twin. Playing vs. Jund was super fun and had many decisions. I've always been that "UW dude" playing against my mortal enemy in Jund ever since Standard.
But, thinking back, maybe there were other decks to beat; like Storm or BreachPost. Infect also became super good at one point. It's just that I rarely ran into these decks, despite playing in a few Comp REL tournaments, along with Casual REL "fnm" type tournaments.
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)