I think Burn has a closer to 50/50 than most, but its not faster than Infect. The cyclical nature of the format is fine and all, but I'm not convinced that it actually is.
Meanwhile Chapin on Matt Nass
"You know, because 36-6 in his last three Modern events is totally normally, perfectly reasonable..."
Thats not including byes either I believe, as I saw that stat on Twitter too.
4 Gx Tron
4 Burn
3 Dredge
3 Affinity
3 UW Control (2 Miracles, 1 Traditional)
2 Infect
2 Mardu Pyromancer
2 Jeskai Control
2 Hollow One
1 Goblins
1 Grixis Shadow
1 4-Color Shadow
1 Blue Moon
1 Amulet
1 Storm
1 White Eldrazi
Well this looks a bit better than the GP. Not surprising at all to see 2 Infect in the top 8. I didn't even play yesterday because I knew people would be using that deck to gun for Tron after the GP results.
Dredge and Burn with another strong weekend on MTGO. Dredge continuing to outperform Hollow One on the platform.
Other notes:
The 5th place Affinity deck actually embraced its namesake, playing Frogmites and Myr Enforcers.
The 10th place Tron list had 0 Karn Liberated and 4 World Breaker in the 75 (WTF!)
I see more Miracles UW than traditional these days (or the Mana Denial version as coined by idsurge, which I think is apt).
I dont think I invented the name for mana denial, but yeah that is what it's doing for sure. I hope you dont mind me chatting up your Tron sheet (that I'm going to steal and repurpose btw!) I think people are sleeping on Tron's real win rates, or you are way way way above the curve.
I think Burn has a closer to 50/50 than most, but its not faster than Infect. The cyclical nature of the format is fine and all, but I'm not convinced that it actually is.
Meanwhile Chapin on Matt Nass
"You know, because 36-6 in his last three Modern events is totally normally, perfectly reasonable..."
Thats not including byes either I believe, as I saw that stat on Twitter too.
As to when people talk about 8th/9th, they mostly just mean Moon, Tron Lands, and the harshest Hate cards that kill lands.
I would like a citation for these matchup numbers, if only because I am unfamiliar with them. Anyways...
I refuse to give SCG any money to read articles, let alone theoretical ones lol. That beinig said, I would love to see daze in modern. I mean Storm is already running Remand, and I believe that would be the counterspell of choice. #1 though, I think a daze reprint would immediately make delver of secrets one of the best cards in modern. I think Death's Shadow would love to be able to bounce a watery grave back and replay it. Merfolk immediately gets entrenched to tier two status and Nikachu would probably spend an hour on youtube raving about how great this is. I'm 100% in on Daze.
Seeds of Innocence? Meh, there are a lot of good hate options for artifacts. I'd rather see ancient stirrings eat a ban.
Vindicate is an interesting one.
The really sadistic side of me wants orim's chant lol.
You want matt's numbers, or Tron numbers? If you want Tron's numbers you have to look/ask around we have sicsmoo's numbers (and they are impressive if you are a tron fan, horrific if not!) and I have seen another sheet that is similar.
Unfortunatly its in Wizards best interests to hide the data, we dont 'know' how good Tron is now however if you look at what was added since one of the very few 'real' predators for Tron was removed from the format...
I dont think I invented the name for mana denial, but yeah that is what it's doing for sure. I hope you dont mind me chatting up your Tron sheet (that I'm going to steal and repurpose btw!) I think people are sleeping on Tron's real win rates, or you are way way way above the curve.
It's all good, I put it out there to be shared and discussed.
I think there's a couple elements to it regarding win rates. Firstly, the common adage about learning one deck and its matchups and sideboarding inside and out is just very true and important. I do not play perfectly by any means - I make mistakes all the time, but I still have an edge against the majority of my opponents due to the experience factor, and I pick up points in "bad" matchups this way. For example, recently we were discussing the Turns matchup and that it was surprising that I had a 4-1 record against it. Now, this is a really small sample size and you could just chalk it up to variance, but as a thought experiment, how many of my Turns opponents had been grinding the deck and knew how to play it optimally? I'm guessing not many. There apparently was 1 according to the discussion. But I think you see the point - an experienced player picks up points against players with less experience and wins more "bad" matchups.
To add to this, not long ago we were discussing popular streamer and Affinity aficionado Zyrnak. I don't have his data on hand, but I recall that his winrate was about 62.5%, with even to positive matchups against the vast majority of decks in the format, with close to 2000 matches played. This is very much in line with my experience, and is telling because I think popular perception would say that Affinity has plenty of "bad" matchups, as Tron supposedly does. I'm sure Caleb Scherer's experience with Storm has been similar, as has Nass's with KCI. Again, strong deck + experienced player = lots of wins.
The other factor is simply that a well-constructed Tron 75 has solid game against almost everything. The main chink in the armor right now being Infect, which the current lists are woefully ill-equipped to deal with. I was cringing this past weekend when Gaby was describing Storm and Burn as terrible matchups for Tron, even going as far as to say they felt unwinnable. The fact is that these are now memes of a bygone era, when the deck didn't have access to such versatile and powerful answers such as Thought-Knot Seer and Thragtusk, and that the metagame at large is positioned such that cards like these are good.
You want matt's numbers, or Tron numbers? If you want Tron's numbers you have to look/ask around we have sicsmoo's numbers (and they are impressive if you are a tron fan, horrific if not!) and I have seen another sheet that is similar.
That makes more sense.
I'd bet Corey Burkeheart's numbers aren't too far off on Grixis, nor is Hoogland on Kikichord. Using a single player's numbers can create huge skews in the data, based on their luck or play skill.
Unfortunatly its in Wizards best interests to hide the data, we dont 'know' how good Tron is now however if you look at what was added since one of the very few 'real' predators for Tron was removed from the format...
Infect wasn't removed from the format. It's still around. It's just way more difficult to play without Probe, so a lot of the deck of the month crowd dropped it.
What you should be complaining about is why are cards on the same power level as those decks banned unfairly.
I am one of the most, perhaps the most, vocal critic of ban mania and its associated mentality on this forum. It's bad for the format, it's lazy, it's uncritical, it rarely aligns with Wizards' thinking, and it has been flat out wrong for 1.5 years now. In this particular case, however, there is an actual argument to be made for a Stirrings ban OR a Preordain unban. These cards have been a longtime target of ban/unban talk in this thread but, until recently, it has not really been a legitimate target.
So we agree on an unban at least and I think we're mostly on the same page. I still don't believe any deck with Stirrings is near being broken or dominant, and just listing how many decks it beefs up certain archetypes that would be worse off (if not unplayable) if it was banned makes me continue to think that more bans aren't the answer. This is still banmania.
That's a creative narrative, considering that various posters have discussed an Ancient Stirrings ban well before GP Vegas.
Various posters and pro players also loathed the idea of a Jace unban for years. Posters can be wrong, the length of time they make their argument doesn't give it merit. There is not one deck that Ancient Stirrings currently slots into that is oppressive or bad for the format.
Posters can be wrong, the length of time they make their argument doesn't give it merit.
The fact that Ancient Stirrings has been in the discussion over and over again, justified or not, still contradicts your previous statement on people "crying" because a deck finished top 8.
Recent metagame developments have showed that Stirrings is no longer just a niche enabler. This card has powered up a host of top-tier colorless decks: KCI, Lantern, Gx Tron, and Amulet Titan. We can no longer say it's a limited enabler when it is a core engine of all of these powerful, consistent performers. Meanwhile, blue decks are stuck with Serum Visions and consistently have lower shares and lower overall performances than these top decks. This is particularly true at the GP and PT level, and likely true of MTGO, which is where Wizards derives their ban data from more than anywhere else.
How can the Blue decks running Serum Visions have a lower metagame share than decks running Ancient Stirrings when (according to MTG Top 8 and MTG Goldfish) a higher percentage of decks are running Serum Visions than Ancient Stirrings?
Edited, my mistake as I was just scanning through and saw the Guide picture!
I think people need to start looking at Tron's game against the tier 1/2 field. They would probably not like what they see.
Other than Infect, is it a dog to really anything?
Let "Tier 1/2 field" mean "2% or better on MTG Top 8 based on the last 2 months of results." Let Tron be Mono-Green Tron, currently the most popular version. In that case... Burn/8Whack, Hollow One, Hatebears, Boggles, Ponza, Valakut, Storm, and KCI are all less-than-positive matchups. Affinity can be good or bad depending on your sideboard.
I've heard GW Valuetown is a poor matchup also, but I lack direct experience against it and cannot really weigh in on that.
Recent metagame developments have showed that Stirrings is no longer just a niche enabler. This card has powered up a host of top-tier colorless decks: KCI, Lantern, Gx Tron, and Amulet Titan. We can no longer say it's a limited enabler when it is a core engine of all of these powerful, consistent performers. Meanwhile, blue decks are stuck with Serum Visions and consistently have lower shares and lower overall performances than these top decks. This is particularly true at the GP and PT level, and likely true of MTGO, which is where Wizards derives their ban data from more than anywhere else.
How can the Blue decks running Serum Visions have a lower metagame share than decks running Ancient Stirrings when (according to MTG Top 8 and MTG Goldfish) a higher percentage of decks are running Serum Visions than Ancient Stirrings?
I only mean on MTGO (especially non-curated #s) and at the PT and GP levels. I don't think it's true when you include SCG events. Metagame sites have a warped pool of events and listing of successful decks, so I wouldn't trust those numbers. Especially any site that aggregates the weekly League dumps, which are deliberately curated for diversity.
i looked at the events on mtggoldfish going back to the start of april, excluding the league dumps. so challenges, mocs, ptqs, scg classics, opens, IQs, regionals, GPs, and i think 1 face2face tournament.
i counted 193 decks running visions and 130 running stirrings. stirrings decks included gx tron, lantern, gr/bant eldrazi, kci, and amulet. visions decks included ur storm, grixis DS, UR control/combo, jeskai, UW, grixis delver/control, UR pyromancer/ascension/prowess, ad naus, UB control/shadow, temur moon, sultai midrange, and mono-blue living end.
im sure i missed some, but just wanted to get a sense of how much more serum was being played than stirrings.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
I don't believe there is any chance we are going to get twin back with Preordain or DTT. It's just not going to happen. Unbanning the card draw spells will raise the power and consistency of the whole format slightly, which I do support, but there will be no twin if you are making it more consistent. I really want twin back and I don't think we can get twin and a card draw spell at the same time or even close to the same time.
well as ktkenshinx put it, wizards is just unlikely to backpedal on their judgement of twin. there is just too much controversy surrounding the card. it may seem petty on their part, but the community also played a role. the pushback against the ban focused too heavily on making them look incompetent, with too few acknowledgements that twin wasnt this purely beneficial force in the format. stuff like that just makes them more likely to dig in their heels.
so i agree that an unban like preordain makes it less likely that twin comes off, but its also is a step that wizards can take to help blue decks across the board while also saving face by taking twin off the table for good.
of course that is only if you assume that wizards is out to help blue decks (more) in the first place. maybe they see them as fine at the moment, or that preordain AND twin pushes the format in a direction they dont like. even in this forum there is hardly a consensus on either card or the state of things.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
I really don’t think the new moon effect is for modern. I’m guessing it’s for standard and if it sees play elsewhere that’s fine with them. It does allow decks to keep up in modern though and sure if the tron player happens to have claim they can still assemble t3 but if you draw your sb card they should be able to too imo.
One thought worth keeping for the Alpine Moon spoiler: it disables cavern of souls uncounterable effect. I look at it less as a good tron answer (may as well run damping sphere) but it could be viable for URx control to shut down cavern turn 1 and enable all countermagic.
One thought worth keeping for the Alpine Moon spoiler: it disables cavern of souls uncounterable effect. I look at it less as a good tron answer (may as well run damping sphere) but it could be viable for URx control to shut down cavern turn 1 and enable all countermagic.
I don't think you want to set yourself up in the position where you have to draw your Moon AND your counters for both of them to not be blank, on top of them having to draw their Cavern.
If they don't draw Cavern, your Moon is blank.
If they draw Cavern and you don't draw Moon, your counters are blank.
If they draw Cavern and you don't draw counters, your Moon is blank.
Cavern decks are nearly always creature-heavy and aggressive. Keeping in counters isn't a great idea against them, Cavern or not, since they will beat you down with creatures while you hold mana open for counters. Some of them even play Aether Vial, which bypasses counters in a different way.
Question about how Alpine Moon works in regards to tron: The card says it loses abilities and type, but it doesn't mention name. If I name Urza's Tower, do mine and power plant still generate 2 mana since they are checking for card names?
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Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
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Most people just want cards like Blood Moon, Boil, and Flashfires out of the format, so the answer I'd think is usually "no."
Meanwhile Chapin on Matt Nass
"You know, because 36-6 in his last three Modern events is totally normally, perfectly reasonable..."
Thats not including byes either I believe, as I saw that stat on Twitter too.
http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/37278_Would-Daze-Vindicate-Or-Seeds-Of-Innocence-Play-Well-In-Modern.html
As to when people talk about 8th/9th, they mostly just mean Moon, Tron Lands, and the harshest Hate cards that kill lands.
Spirits
4 Gx Tron
4 Burn
3 Dredge
3 Affinity
3 UW Control (2 Miracles, 1 Traditional)
2 Infect
2 Mardu Pyromancer
2 Jeskai Control
2 Hollow One
1 Goblins
1 Grixis Shadow
1 4-Color Shadow
1 Blue Moon
1 Amulet
1 Storm
1 White Eldrazi
Well this looks a bit better than the GP. Not surprising at all to see 2 Infect in the top 8. I didn't even play yesterday because I knew people would be using that deck to gun for Tron after the GP results.
Dredge and Burn with another strong weekend on MTGO. Dredge continuing to outperform Hollow One on the platform.
Other notes:
The 5th place Affinity deck actually embraced its namesake, playing Frogmites and Myr Enforcers.
The 10th place Tron list had 0 Karn Liberated and 4 World Breaker in the 75 (WTF!)
I see more Miracles UW than traditional these days (or the Mana Denial version as coined by idsurge, which I think is apt).
Zero KCI is pretty noteworthy.
Goblins/8Whack winning is pretty lulzy.
Spirits
I would like a citation for these matchup numbers, if only because I am unfamiliar with them. Anyways...
I refuse to give SCG any money to read articles, let alone theoretical ones lol. That beinig said, I would love to see daze in modern. I mean Storm is already running Remand, and I believe that would be the counterspell of choice. #1 though, I think a daze reprint would immediately make delver of secrets one of the best cards in modern. I think Death's Shadow would love to be able to bounce a watery grave back and replay it. Merfolk immediately gets entrenched to tier two status and Nikachu would probably spend an hour on youtube raving about how great this is. I'm 100% in on Daze.
Seeds of Innocence? Meh, there are a lot of good hate options for artifacts. I'd rather see ancient stirrings eat a ban.
Vindicate is an interesting one.
The really sadistic side of me wants orim's chant lol.
Unfortunatly its in Wizards best interests to hide the data, we dont 'know' how good Tron is now however if you look at what was added since one of the very few 'real' predators for Tron was removed from the format...
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
World Breaker
Walking Ballista
Well, those are some powerful cards.
Spirits
I think there's a couple elements to it regarding win rates. Firstly, the common adage about learning one deck and its matchups and sideboarding inside and out is just very true and important. I do not play perfectly by any means - I make mistakes all the time, but I still have an edge against the majority of my opponents due to the experience factor, and I pick up points in "bad" matchups this way. For example, recently we were discussing the Turns matchup and that it was surprising that I had a 4-1 record against it. Now, this is a really small sample size and you could just chalk it up to variance, but as a thought experiment, how many of my Turns opponents had been grinding the deck and knew how to play it optimally? I'm guessing not many. There apparently was 1 according to the discussion. But I think you see the point - an experienced player picks up points against players with less experience and wins more "bad" matchups.
To add to this, not long ago we were discussing popular streamer and Affinity aficionado Zyrnak. I don't have his data on hand, but I recall that his winrate was about 62.5%, with even to positive matchups against the vast majority of decks in the format, with close to 2000 matches played. This is very much in line with my experience, and is telling because I think popular perception would say that Affinity has plenty of "bad" matchups, as Tron supposedly does. I'm sure Caleb Scherer's experience with Storm has been similar, as has Nass's with KCI. Again, strong deck + experienced player = lots of wins.
The other factor is simply that a well-constructed Tron 75 has solid game against almost everything. The main chink in the armor right now being Infect, which the current lists are woefully ill-equipped to deal with. I was cringing this past weekend when Gaby was describing Storm and Burn as terrible matchups for Tron, even going as far as to say they felt unwinnable. The fact is that these are now memes of a bygone era, when the deck didn't have access to such versatile and powerful answers such as Thought-Knot Seer and Thragtusk, and that the metagame at large is positioned such that cards like these are good.
And what exactly are you basing this on? Just a gut feeling?
That makes more sense.
I'd bet Corey Burkeheart's numbers aren't too far off on Grixis, nor is Hoogland on Kikichord. Using a single player's numbers can create huge skews in the data, based on their luck or play skill.
Infect wasn't removed from the format. It's still around. It's just way more difficult to play without Probe, so a lot of the deck of the month crowd dropped it.
Spirits
So we agree on an unban at least and I think we're mostly on the same page. I still don't believe any deck with Stirrings is near being broken or dominant, and just listing how many decks it beefs up certain archetypes that would be worse off (if not unplayable) if it was banned makes me continue to think that more bans aren't the answer. This is still banmania.
Various posters and pro players also loathed the idea of a Jace unban for years. Posters can be wrong, the length of time they make their argument doesn't give it merit. There is not one deck that Ancient Stirrings currently slots into that is oppressive or bad for the format.
I've heard GW Valuetown is a poor matchup also, but I lack direct experience against it and cannot really weigh in on that.
I only mean on MTGO (especially non-curated #s) and at the PT and GP levels. I don't think it's true when you include SCG events. Metagame sites have a warped pool of events and listing of successful decks, so I wouldn't trust those numbers. Especially any site that aggregates the weekly League dumps, which are deliberately curated for diversity.
i counted 193 decks running visions and 130 running stirrings. stirrings decks included gx tron, lantern, gr/bant eldrazi, kci, and amulet. visions decks included ur storm, grixis DS, UR control/combo, jeskai, UW, grixis delver/control, UR pyromancer/ascension/prowess, ad naus, UB control/shadow, temur moon, sultai midrange, and mono-blue living end.
im sure i missed some, but just wanted to get a sense of how much more serum was being played than stirrings.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)so i agree that an unban like preordain makes it less likely that twin comes off, but its also is a step that wizards can take to help blue decks across the board while also saving face by taking twin off the table for good.
of course that is only if you assume that wizards is out to help blue decks (more) in the first place. maybe they see them as fine at the moment, or that preordain AND twin pushes the format in a direction they dont like. even in this forum there is hardly a consensus on either card or the state of things.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Spirits
If they don't draw Cavern, your Moon is blank.
If they draw Cavern and you don't draw Moon, your counters are blank.
If they draw Cavern and you don't draw counters, your Moon is blank.
Cavern decks are nearly always creature-heavy and aggressive. Keeping in counters isn't a great idea against them, Cavern or not, since they will beat you down with creatures while you hold mana open for counters. Some of them even play Aether Vial, which bypasses counters in a different way.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show