While I can respect someone who takes the time to master one of those kinds of decks, my personal experience with Burn made linear decks feel very off-putting. It did the same thing nearly every game to the point of becoming stale and boring. I'm sure there are plenty of people who absolutely love maximizing play lines of linear decks; I'm just not one of them. I was never motivated to master it because the games weren't as fun as the constant changing decision trees found in many reactive Snap-Bolt decks. But that's the beauty of the game: for the most part, you can play pretty much anything you want.
If we want to take the price trend as signal enough, can we expect 2 unbans then? Similar to Jace and the surprise BBE? My fingers are certainly crossed.
The problem is, Jace was unbanned because he might be ok for Modern. They took a chance. To lessen that chance, they also unbanned one of the premier T4 Jace killers. Haste, drops the same turn cycle, exact power to kill if they Brainstorm. BBE was unbanned with Jace to smooth his arrival to the format. I don't think anyone believes there's a similar card for SFM, let alone thinks that it would need it.
ive seen some say that punishing fire could be a counter weight to stoneforge. it kills SFM, and RG are colors that are the best at dealing with artifacts. they cant really be played together because naya is lacking the disruption needed to play such a slow and fair gameplan.
/shrug
i wouldnt put much stock into the price spike. unban mania has been rampant since wizards opened the floodgates with jace. we even see it here in this forum. i do think stoneforges glamorous entrance into the format will happen at some point, but i dont see anything that makes now better than some other time. it only makes sense that they would leverage the timing. maybe with a reprint and or after the next pro-tour.
the 25th anniversary pro-tour will contain some amount of modern though, so i guess thats something.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
SFM spikes once or twice a year for an unban announcement. BBE does too, hell that's part of why that card is an uncommon in half a dozen sets that isn't ubiquitous yet costs $6-7 per copy. It kept spiking by speculators.
My last statement on Tron for a while: don't slight someone for playing a deck that you think is easy. You see that attitude in all sorts of games. Try playing League of Legends or another MOBA for a week, you'll see salty players go "well ur jst winning cuz u played an EZ champ LOLZ." It is an ego-defensive technique. The problem is A) you are often wrong about the skill needed and B) even if you are right, there's no rule requiring someone actively make the game more difficult. Let's say, gkourou, that you are right and tron is super simple compared to every other deck. So what? That's no an argument that it should face a ban, or even an argument that it is unhealthy for the meta. Playing a simpler, linear deck reduces the possibilities of mistakes, and thereby raises your win %.
I bought a playset of preordain and ponder for *****s and giggles. At worst I get some stuff for pauper, at best I have a playset of cantrips that will double in price monday.
Abrade deserves mention here, as well. It can answer Batterskull at instant speed, which is the most worrying card Stoneforge can interact with in Modern currently, and it can kill SFM while being maindeckable.
As a long time Tron (and basically every other deck) player, I don't recognise what you're saying. You've taken the stance that Tron is somehow less meaningful to play with and against, citing complexity?
Let me tell you, just like any deck in modern, Tron can be simple enough to pick up the rudiments but to play it well it's as complex as anything else.
As complex as anything else? You cannot possibly believe this, can you?
All decks have some degree of complexity, sure. All decks have at least some distance between their skill floor and their skill ceiling. No one disputes this. I, like other posters, respect players who are dedicated enough to strive for utter mastery of any deck deck, including linear ones, seeking to maximize the percentage points available from relatively few decisions. More power to them!
But to assert that Tron, of all things, is “as complex as anything else” boggles the mind. If we take this subjectivism to its logical conclusion, you would be forced to defend the claim that a deck with twenty Plains and forty vanilla 2/2s for 2 is just as difficult to pilot and master as Amulet Titan.
It may be very light on combat maths and thoughtseize-esque choices but what it lacks it makes up for in nuanced sequencing, just like burn or elves or KCI.
99% of complaints I see to the effect of "Tron is autopilot blah" come from people who haven't really learnt the deck beyond a cursory glance or borrowing it from their mate that one time. Those comments are invalid.
Just like when someone tries to tell you burn is an autopilot deck, you can just switch off from the rest of whatever they say because you know it's rubbish.
Every deck needs a slightly different kind of play pattern but all of them are complex once you get to the high-tier levels of play. Mediocre players complaining about their opponent and his deck full of fatties is a complaint as old as magic, and it's been invalid the whole time. I played some games in 1995 with a juggernaut in my deck as a win condition. It was a sweet deck with lots of disruption and interaction, and the win condition itself was interchangeable for more or less anything beefy, but i had complaints from opponents that my deck was 'easy mode' and of course they waxed lyrical about their complex superior deck choices and play patterns. It was kind of funny even at the time but the fact that this mentality still exists implies that it's less about any one deck and more about a human need to blame failures on some vague scapegoat by making a load of dissonant assumptions about what opponents are playing. Losing a matchup? Of course! My opponent couldn't possibly outclass my skill as a player, so they must be playing a simple deck that can win without thinking! It all makes sense now!
That's a real psychological effect btw. What's frustrating is that most of the time, it's not a conscious decision to create blame in this way and challenging that sort of dumb pseudo-logic can be a non-starter. Most people aren't open to analysing their own behaviours and biases, and can get very defensive and angry if you expose the weaknesses in their evaluation of the world around them (even if you do it in a very tactful and considerate way)
“Invalid”, “rubbish”, “mediocre”, “complaining”, “waxed lyrical”, “blame failures on some vague scapegoat”, “dissonant assumptions”, “dumb pseudo-logic”, “biases”, “defensive and angry”...if this is the sort of rhetoric you consider “tactful and considerate”, I’d hate to see ya really let somebody have it.
Linear decks are a great and valued part of Modern; I play one myself! But fair decks on average lead to more complex decision trees, and complex decision trees for both players are what most people prefer as participants and spectators. This is the gist of the argument put forth by fair deck players, and I don’t see how these statements are at all controversial.
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In regards to the discussion from cfusion and refuted by others:
I think what cf is saying (not to put words in anyone's mouth, so please correct me if I'm incorrect) is that, sure, every deck can be misplayed, and at high levels, every misplay is often very punishing. But with a deck like burn, your decisions are fairly norrow: attack and hit face. There's definitely more to it than that, but the variance in decisions is pretty narrow. Snap based control or midrange decks often evaluate their position in the moment, which leads to more decision variations, and thus feel more rewarding when you win (that is, more rewarding for us blue mages, everyone's tastes are different). When I played Scapeshift (BtL and RUG), you often won the same way, with a resolved scape, but how you got to that point always felt interesting. I'd say that type of deck (I'd consider Ad Naus, UR Storm, and the like) to fall in to that category, and is sort of a stop-gap between something like a control or rock deck, and something more linear like burn or zoo. Every deck has it's decision trees and points for misplays, but like cfusion, I've found blue to offer the more interesting and varied decisions, vs something more linear.
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Modern: UWR Breach, UWB Esper control
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
As a long time Tron (and basically every other deck) player, I don't recognise what you're saying. You've taken the stance that Tron is somehow less meaningful to play with and against, citing complexity?
Let me tell you, just like any deck in modern, Tron can be simple enough to pick up the rudiments but to play it well it's as complex as anything else.
As complex as anything else? You cannot possibly believe this, can you?
All decks have some degree of complexity, sure. All decks have at least some distance between their skill floor and their skill ceiling. No one disputes this. I, like other posters, respect players who are dedicated enough to strive for utter mastery of any deck deck, including linear ones, seeking to maximize the percentage points available from relatively few decisions. More power to them!
But to assert that Tron, of all things, is “as complex as anything else” boggles the mind. If we take this subjectivism to its logical conclusion, you would be forced to defend the claim that a deck with twenty Plains and forty vanilla 2/2s for 2 is just as difficult to pilot and master as Amulet Titan.
It may be very light on combat maths and thoughtseize-esque choices but what it lacks it makes up for in nuanced sequencing, just like burn or elves or KCI.
99% of complaints I see to the effect of "Tron is autopilot blah" come from people who haven't really learnt the deck beyond a cursory glance or borrowing it from their mate that one time. Those comments are invalid.
Just like when someone tries to tell you burn is an autopilot deck, you can just switch off from the rest of whatever they say because you know it's rubbish.
Every deck needs a slightly different kind of play pattern but all of them are complex once you get to the high-tier levels of play. Mediocre players complaining about their opponent and his deck full of fatties is a complaint as old as magic, and it's been invalid the whole time. I played some games in 1995 with a juggernaut in my deck as a win condition. It was a sweet deck with lots of disruption and interaction, and the win condition itself was interchangeable for more or less anything beefy, but i had complaints from opponents that my deck was 'easy mode' and of course they waxed lyrical about their complex superior deck choices and play patterns. It was kind of funny even at the time but the fact that this mentality still exists implies that it's less about any one deck and more about a human need to blame failures on some vague scapegoat by making a load of dissonant assumptions about what opponents are playing. Losing a matchup? Of course! My opponent couldn't possibly outclass my skill as a player, so they must be playing a simple deck that can win without thinking! It all makes sense now!
That's a real psychological effect btw. What's frustrating is that most of the time, it's not a conscious decision to create blame in this way and challenging that sort of dumb pseudo-logic can be a non-starter. Most people aren't open to analysing their own behaviours and biases, and can get very defensive and angry if you expose the weaknesses in their evaluation of the world around them (even if you do it in a very tactful and considerate way)
“Invalid”, “rubbish”, “mediocre”, “complaining”, “waxed lyrical”, “blame failures on some vague scapegoat”, “dissonant assumptions”, “dumb pseudo-logic”, “biases”, “defensive and angry”...if this is the sort of rhetoric you consider “tactful and considerate”, I’d hate to see ya really let somebody have it.
Linear decks are a great and valued part of Modern; I play one myself! But fair decks on average lead to more complex decision trees, and complex decision trees for both players are what most people prefer as participants and spectators. This is the gist of the argument put forth by fair deck players, and I don’t see how these statements are at all controversial.
I think it's a little unfair to paint broad strokes in regards to what most players like and what most people want to watch. I'm a big fan of the complexities of creature to creature combat, but there are also a ton of people who range from bored to tears to downright hatred of that flavor of Magic, both playing and spectating. That being said, I don't watch MTG nearly as much as I play it, so I'm going to refrain from anymore speculation regarding what people want to see.
As far as Tron goes, Ive seen firsthand how complex a Tron player's decision tree can become, and it mostly happens when you force them to care about what you're doing. I've been playing Faeries for the better part of a year now, and played GDS before that; both of those decks do great work disrupting the opponent and presenting a clock. I've had Tron players play around counter magic, removal, and my board state instead of just trying to slam the biggest threat they can, which seems to be the assumed line of play. Is Tron as complex as KCI or Lantern? Nope. It has a low floor, but it's ceiling is respectably high.
Just be careful, everyone, to avoid a "holier than thou" attitude towards players who play other styles than you. If a deck has more linear decision trees than yours, that doesn't make it worse, or less fun, or whatever. There aren't wrong ways to play the game. That's what's great about magic. Don't let bias and superiority complexes poison your views of this game.
In regards to the discussion from cfusion and refuted by others:
I think what cf is saying (not to put words in anyone's mouth, so please correct me if I'm incorrect) is that, sure, every deck can be misplayed, and at high levels, every misplay is often very punishing. But with a deck like burn, your decisions are fairly norrow: attack and hit face. There's definitely more to it than that, but the variance in decisions is pretty narrow. Snap based control or midrange decks often evaluate their position in the moment, which leads to more decision variations, and thus feel more rewarding when you win (that is, more rewarding for us blue mages, everyone's tastes are different). When I played Scapeshift (BtL and RUG), you often won the same way, with a resolved scape, but how you got to that point always felt interesting. I'd say that type of deck (I'd consider Ad Naus, UR Storm, and the like) to fall in to that category, and is sort of a stop-gap between something like a control or rock deck, and something more linear like burn or zoo. Every deck has it's decision trees and points for misplays, but like cfusion, I've found blue to offer the more interesting and varied decisions, vs something more linear.
On the one hand, I agree that if we are speaking purely in terms of interaction and interaction-based decision trees, blue-based decks probably have more decisions. This was the case when I graded decks based on interactiveness and I'm sure it's true regardless of what evaluation system you use. For instance, if an opponent casts a single creature spell and you have a Cryptic Command and Path to Exile in hand, you are immediately confronted with dozens of decisions about what to do with those two cards. By contrast, if your only cards in hand are KCI and Trawler, you have zero decisions to make. In that regard, I and others will probably be 100% willing to admit that blue-based decks, or other commonly-understood "interactive" decks, will offer the most decision trees.
Unfortunately, users like CFP don't stop there. They take it a few steps further and suggest, or outright state, that this type of Magic is more skillful, more worthy, purer, and otherwise better than other types of Magic. That's where their argument falls off the rails. Just because they don't enjoy the type of skill in other decks, that does not mean those decks are less skillful. It's just a different type of decisionmaking and skill. A deck like KCI or Storm may not present as many interactive decisions, but it presents tons of combo decision trees with the requirement to plan contingencies based on an opponent's represented resources. Your cards may not interact but your gameplan must consider their interaction, just as it must consider probabilities in your own deck. It is misleading, at best, to say one type of such skill is better than another. At worst, it's arrogant or willfully biased. 13055 had a great response to this issue, quoted below:
Just be careful, everyone, to avoid a "holier than thou" attitude towards players who play other styles than you. If a deck has more linear decision trees than yours, that doesn't make it worse, or less fun, or whatever. There aren't wrong ways to play the game. That's what's great about magic. Don't let bias and superiority complexes poison your views of this game.
I and others would be much more willing to hear points like those made by CFP if they weren't loaded with explicit and implicit judgments about other types of Magic. This is not to say that CFP always oversells his case! He had a great post earlier on this page where he acknowledged different types of Magic and their value to different players. But when these arguments get mired in judgment, they tend to fall apart. Particularly because we have absolutely zero way to objectively evaluate which type of skill could be better, better for Modern, more engaging for viewers, etc. Or, if we do have such methods, we aren't using them and it's all subjective opinion. Given that, it's better to just make the subjective admission that we probably can't decide one is better than the other at all.
Fair, I think that was the point I was making: there are decks that have objectively more decision variations, but to each their own. I enjoy those decisions, and lean towards blue, but everyone can play what they want. I think the problem lies in when the format leans too hard in one direction or another. Linear decks can often survive when the format is interactive heavy, however when too many people are on linear decks, the format just seems not fun, for me at least. I think we have been there in the past, but I don't think we are there right now, even if the format favors linear a little more than I like, I can still have fun/successful playing control, or breach, or what have you.
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Modern: UWR Breach, UWB Esper control
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
complex decision trees for both players are what most people prefer as participants and spectators. This is the gist of the argument put forth by fair deck players, and I don’t see how these statements are at all controversial.
Citation needed. I think that claim is only made by the fair deck players because duh, they like winning and like seeing their deck win.
Thats kind of the rub. There are people who like Bogles. You could code a script to play Bogles, and I do not mean that dismissively. Especially the leyline version.
Is liking Bogles wrong? Of course not. Burn? Tron? Storm? Jund? UWR? No, its all just magic.
Near every successful deck is going to have a linear line to victory. I'm playing UR Breach this week, I'm at 75% win rate over 8 matches, and I would be a liar if I said every game was 'many choices on my part, all contributing to victory'.
More than one game has been watching my opponent fetch a few, play a shock, get to 15, watch them tap out turn 4 (I literally do nothing but cantrip and hold up remand for a few turns) and then I breach Emrakul and win.
'Wow, what depth of gameplay!'
Thats Modern. Near every deck can just do its thing, while SOME can also react, and switch gears to a different plan. That isnt for everyone. Some actually enjoy watching GW Value Town by Todd Stevens. I switch off the stream when he is playing, or watch to hopefully see him lose. I loathe creature decks, and am bored to tears watching that deck play out. He also created I believe the ETron deck. I suppose in the end he is my mortal enemy...but either way.
Part of the joy of Modern is seeing all these decks that should not and could not have coexisted, fight it out. Its like MMA, 'what style wins' and that is a huge part of why it succeeds. The other major portion being able to identify with 'your' deck and follow it through the years, tune it, and enjoy it.
I dont begrudge anyone for liking what they like, even if I find it the exact worst kind of Magic.
They take it a few steps further and suggest, or outright state, that this type of Magic is more skillful, more worthy, purer, and otherwise better than other types of Magic. That's where their argument falls off the rails.
I don't think I said that at all. I merely reflected on my personal experience with a deck I built and played. And yes, the deck did get stale and boring because it played out the same way the vast majority of the time. I personally don't find that enjoyable, but never said either was somehow inherently better or more skillful.
you see this in a whole lot of games (mmorpgs, mobas, RTS, fighting, etc). you have multiple options to play at a competitive level, and each will contain elements suited to different play styles. however the output is balanced (relatively), so you run into situations where one player might be putting in significantly more effort than another for the same results. players dont think this is 'right', but fail to realize that at the highest levels of play 'skill' is mostly taken out of the equation. if results were directly proportional it functionally removes the choice because there will always be players who have mastered the more difficult option; forcing you to do the same.
magic is no different. some decks reward skill more than others, but it can never be to a large degree. not to mention the term 'skill' only loosely describes a whole slew of qualities that can be found in such a complex game.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
you see this in a whole lot of games (mmorpgs, mobas, RTS, fighting, etc). you have multiple options to play at a competitive level, and each will contain elements suited to different play styles. however the output is balanced (relatively), so you run into situations where one player might be putting in significantly more effort than another for the same results. players dont think this is 'right', but fail to realize that at the highest levels of play 'skill' is mostly taken out of the equation. if results were directly proportional it functionally removes the choice because there will always be players who have mastered the more difficult option; forcing you to do the same.
magic is no different. some decks reward skill more than others, but it can never be to a large degree. not to mention the term 'skill' only loosely describes a whole slew of qualities that can be found in such a complex game.
It seems a similar thing happened in the Call of Duty games. I played hardcore from CoD2 through Advance Warfare, with the most time spent in 4:MW and MW2 (logging hundreds of hours and in each). I loved playing stealthy, invisible roles or snipers. Either way, there was a fundamental shift in map construction around MW3/Ghosts. Maps had fewer sneaking areas, fewer good vantage points, and fewer large open areas. They had more blind tunnels/corridors, mazes, blocked or narrow views, and it heavily encouraged the popular sprint/speed/SMG classes. Sure, you could still play stealthy or sniper classes, but you were often just fundamentally worse than running around with SMGs and quickdraw, especially since many stealth perks weren't nearly as good as they used to be, and there were fewer and fewer maps where this was an advantageous strategy. I'm not saying this is a perfect analogy to Magic, but it's not too far off, IMO. And while I personally didn't like the style of gameplay being pushed by the devs with each new iteration, plenty of different variants were still possible, even if not nearly as good anymore. It was an interesting parallel to realize.
Hot take: SFM gets unbanned, and gets reprinted in one of the upcoming Ravnica sets. Not too crazy to see Boros colors caring about equipment.
Except Kor are not native to Ravnica..
Ravnica has this Star Wars like cosmopolitan vibe where almost any scene features individuals from different species so it wouldn't be completely out of the blue to put a Kor into it and declare Kor are there but were never featured before. It's not like its Lorwyn where even humans are out of the question.
Hot take: SFM gets unbanned, and gets reprinted in one of the upcoming Ravnica sets. Not too crazy to see Boros colors caring about equipment.
Except Kor are not native to Ravnica..
Ravnica has this Star Wars like cosmopolitan vibe where almost any scene features individuals from different species so it wouldn't be completely out of the blue to put a Kor into it and declare Kor are there but were never featured before. It's not like its Lorwyn where even humans are out of the question.
I don't think we had RtR introduce any totally new species to Ravnica. Iirc, Merfolk were mentioned in the first go around, even though they didn't get any cards.
I'm also pretty sure Zendikar is the only (currently known) plane to feature Kor, minus Rath, and Creative has said that Rath's Kor population was transplanted from Zendikar.
They could just retcon all this to put Kor on Ravnica, but if the only reason to do so is to reprint a card that they might not have been considering two years ago when they started exploration for Ravnica Mk.3, then I still think it is highly unlikely, approaching 0% chance.
That just be poor planning granted the Third Ravnica set is suppose be not tied to the Guilds so that could be a chance but that is still like a year between unbanning and reprinting way too long if you ask me. Maybe the goose the sales of Signature Decks by putting in one of those?
the unique artwork alone should be enough to push the sales of the signature spellbooks. though im interested to see what they choose for gideon (assuming he gets the white spellbook).
stoneforge showing up in ravnica would just be weird, if they were going to do it anywhere it would likely be in a core set.
i do think wizards would want to line up the unban with a reprint though; which is the primary reason i dont believe its going to be unbanned in a few days. the second reason is that an unban can be used to churn interest in the format; which isnt particularly important right now. no reason to leave that sort of equity on the table.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
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UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
"Reveal a Dragon"
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
/shrug
i wouldnt put much stock into the price spike. unban mania has been rampant since wizards opened the floodgates with jace. we even see it here in this forum. i do think stoneforges glamorous entrance into the format will happen at some point, but i dont see anything that makes now better than some other time. it only makes sense that they would leverage the timing. maybe with a reprint and or after the next pro-tour.
the 25th anniversary pro-tour will contain some amount of modern though, so i guess thats something.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)My last statement on Tron for a while: don't slight someone for playing a deck that you think is easy. You see that attitude in all sorts of games. Try playing League of Legends or another MOBA for a week, you'll see salty players go "well ur jst winning cuz u played an EZ champ LOLZ." It is an ego-defensive technique. The problem is A) you are often wrong about the skill needed and B) even if you are right, there's no rule requiring someone actively make the game more difficult. Let's say, gkourou, that you are right and tron is super simple compared to every other deck. So what? That's no an argument that it should face a ban, or even an argument that it is unhealthy for the meta. Playing a simpler, linear deck reduces the possibilities of mistakes, and thereby raises your win %.
I bought a playset of preordain and ponder for *****s and giggles. At worst I get some stuff for pauper, at best I have a playset of cantrips that will double in price monday.
Abrade deserves mention here, as well. It can answer Batterskull at instant speed, which is the most worrying card Stoneforge can interact with in Modern currently, and it can kill SFM while being maindeckable.
As complex as anything else? You cannot possibly believe this, can you?
All decks have some degree of complexity, sure. All decks have at least some distance between their skill floor and their skill ceiling. No one disputes this. I, like other posters, respect players who are dedicated enough to strive for utter mastery of any deck deck, including linear ones, seeking to maximize the percentage points available from relatively few decisions. More power to them!
But to assert that Tron, of all things, is “as complex as anything else” boggles the mind. If we take this subjectivism to its logical conclusion, you would be forced to defend the claim that a deck with twenty Plains and forty vanilla 2/2s for 2 is just as difficult to pilot and master as Amulet Titan.
“Invalid”, “rubbish”, “mediocre”, “complaining”, “waxed lyrical”, “blame failures on some vague scapegoat”, “dissonant assumptions”, “dumb pseudo-logic”, “biases”, “defensive and angry”...if this is the sort of rhetoric you consider “tactful and considerate”, I’d hate to see ya really let somebody have it.
Linear decks are a great and valued part of Modern; I play one myself! But fair decks on average lead to more complex decision trees, and complex decision trees for both players are what most people prefer as participants and spectators. This is the gist of the argument put forth by fair deck players, and I don’t see how these statements are at all controversial.
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UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I think what cf is saying (not to put words in anyone's mouth, so please correct me if I'm incorrect) is that, sure, every deck can be misplayed, and at high levels, every misplay is often very punishing. But with a deck like burn, your decisions are fairly norrow: attack and hit face. There's definitely more to it than that, but the variance in decisions is pretty narrow. Snap based control or midrange decks often evaluate their position in the moment, which leads to more decision variations, and thus feel more rewarding when you win (that is, more rewarding for us blue mages, everyone's tastes are different). When I played Scapeshift (BtL and RUG), you often won the same way, with a resolved scape, but how you got to that point always felt interesting. I'd say that type of deck (I'd consider Ad Naus, UR Storm, and the like) to fall in to that category, and is sort of a stop-gap between something like a control or rock deck, and something more linear like burn or zoo. Every deck has it's decision trees and points for misplays, but like cfusion, I've found blue to offer the more interesting and varied decisions, vs something more linear.
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
I think it's a little unfair to paint broad strokes in regards to what most players like and what most people want to watch. I'm a big fan of the complexities of creature to creature combat, but there are also a ton of people who range from bored to tears to downright hatred of that flavor of Magic, both playing and spectating. That being said, I don't watch MTG nearly as much as I play it, so I'm going to refrain from anymore speculation regarding what people want to see.
As far as Tron goes, Ive seen firsthand how complex a Tron player's decision tree can become, and it mostly happens when you force them to care about what you're doing. I've been playing Faeries for the better part of a year now, and played GDS before that; both of those decks do great work disrupting the opponent and presenting a clock. I've had Tron players play around counter magic, removal, and my board state instead of just trying to slam the biggest threat they can, which seems to be the assumed line of play. Is Tron as complex as KCI or Lantern? Nope. It has a low floor, but it's ceiling is respectably high.
On the one hand, I agree that if we are speaking purely in terms of interaction and interaction-based decision trees, blue-based decks probably have more decisions. This was the case when I graded decks based on interactiveness and I'm sure it's true regardless of what evaluation system you use. For instance, if an opponent casts a single creature spell and you have a Cryptic Command and Path to Exile in hand, you are immediately confronted with dozens of decisions about what to do with those two cards. By contrast, if your only cards in hand are KCI and Trawler, you have zero decisions to make. In that regard, I and others will probably be 100% willing to admit that blue-based decks, or other commonly-understood "interactive" decks, will offer the most decision trees.
Unfortunately, users like CFP don't stop there. They take it a few steps further and suggest, or outright state, that this type of Magic is more skillful, more worthy, purer, and otherwise better than other types of Magic. That's where their argument falls off the rails. Just because they don't enjoy the type of skill in other decks, that does not mean those decks are less skillful. It's just a different type of decisionmaking and skill. A deck like KCI or Storm may not present as many interactive decisions, but it presents tons of combo decision trees with the requirement to plan contingencies based on an opponent's represented resources. Your cards may not interact but your gameplan must consider their interaction, just as it must consider probabilities in your own deck. It is misleading, at best, to say one type of such skill is better than another. At worst, it's arrogant or willfully biased. 13055 had a great response to this issue, quoted below:
I and others would be much more willing to hear points like those made by CFP if they weren't loaded with explicit and implicit judgments about other types of Magic. This is not to say that CFP always oversells his case! He had a great post earlier on this page where he acknowledged different types of Magic and their value to different players. But when these arguments get mired in judgment, they tend to fall apart. Particularly because we have absolutely zero way to objectively evaluate which type of skill could be better, better for Modern, more engaging for viewers, etc. Or, if we do have such methods, we aren't using them and it's all subjective opinion. Given that, it's better to just make the subjective admission that we probably can't decide one is better than the other at all.
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
Citation needed. I think that claim is only made by the fair deck players because duh, they like winning and like seeing their deck win.
Is liking Bogles wrong? Of course not. Burn? Tron? Storm? Jund? UWR? No, its all just magic.
Near every successful deck is going to have a linear line to victory. I'm playing UR Breach this week, I'm at 75% win rate over 8 matches, and I would be a liar if I said every game was 'many choices on my part, all contributing to victory'.
More than one game has been watching my opponent fetch a few, play a shock, get to 15, watch them tap out turn 4 (I literally do nothing but cantrip and hold up remand for a few turns) and then I breach Emrakul and win.
'Wow, what depth of gameplay!'
Thats Modern. Near every deck can just do its thing, while SOME can also react, and switch gears to a different plan. That isnt for everyone. Some actually enjoy watching GW Value Town by Todd Stevens. I switch off the stream when he is playing, or watch to hopefully see him lose. I loathe creature decks, and am bored to tears watching that deck play out. He also created I believe the ETron deck. I suppose in the end he is my mortal enemy...but either way.
Part of the joy of Modern is seeing all these decks that should not and could not have coexisted, fight it out. Its like MMA, 'what style wins' and that is a huge part of why it succeeds. The other major portion being able to identify with 'your' deck and follow it through the years, tune it, and enjoy it.
I dont begrudge anyone for liking what they like, even if I find it the exact worst kind of Magic.
Spirits
I don't think I said that at all. I merely reflected on my personal experience with a deck I built and played. And yes, the deck did get stale and boring because it played out the same way the vast majority of the time. I personally don't find that enjoyable, but never said either was somehow inherently better or more skillful.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
magic is no different. some decks reward skill more than others, but it can never be to a large degree. not to mention the term 'skill' only loosely describes a whole slew of qualities that can be found in such a complex game.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)It seems a similar thing happened in the Call of Duty games. I played hardcore from CoD2 through Advance Warfare, with the most time spent in 4:MW and MW2 (logging hundreds of hours and in each). I loved playing stealthy, invisible roles or snipers. Either way, there was a fundamental shift in map construction around MW3/Ghosts. Maps had fewer sneaking areas, fewer good vantage points, and fewer large open areas. They had more blind tunnels/corridors, mazes, blocked or narrow views, and it heavily encouraged the popular sprint/speed/SMG classes. Sure, you could still play stealthy or sniper classes, but you were often just fundamentally worse than running around with SMGs and quickdraw, especially since many stealth perks weren't nearly as good as they used to be, and there were fewer and fewer maps where this was an advantageous strategy. I'm not saying this is a perfect analogy to Magic, but it's not too far off, IMO. And while I personally didn't like the style of gameplay being pushed by the devs with each new iteration, plenty of different variants were still possible, even if not nearly as good anymore. It was an interesting parallel to realize.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Except Kor are not native to Ravnica..
Ravnica has this Star Wars like cosmopolitan vibe where almost any scene features individuals from different species so it wouldn't be completely out of the blue to put a Kor into it and declare Kor are there but were never featured before. It's not like its Lorwyn where even humans are out of the question.
I don't think we had RtR introduce any totally new species to Ravnica. Iirc, Merfolk were mentioned in the first go around, even though they didn't get any cards.
I'm also pretty sure Zendikar is the only (currently known) plane to feature Kor, minus Rath, and Creative has said that Rath's Kor population was transplanted from Zendikar.
They could just retcon all this to put Kor on Ravnica, but if the only reason to do so is to reprint a card that they might not have been considering two years ago when they started exploration for Ravnica Mk.3, then I still think it is highly unlikely, approaching 0% chance.
stoneforge showing up in ravnica would just be weird, if they were going to do it anywhere it would likely be in a core set.
i do think wizards would want to line up the unban with a reprint though; which is the primary reason i dont believe its going to be unbanned in a few days. the second reason is that an unban can be used to churn interest in the format; which isnt particularly important right now. no reason to leave that sort of equity on the table.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)