SFM won't happen where is WOTC going to print it? No Kor on Ravnica. So that means Summer at the earliest?
There's no good evidence to assume that Wizards only unbans cards because a reprint is pending. This is a bizarre conspiracy theory based on JTMS alone, and proves more how distrustful some community members have become than any clear reprint policy. The alternative was to not reprint JTMS and face uproar over prices and availability. Wizards chose to reprint the card and now faces some distrust over that decision: it's a lose-lose for them in the eyes of conspiracy-theory minded community members.
There has been a lot of Legacy going/first second talk.
I don't think it matters as much in legacy. I play a lot of Legacy and track the decks I play going first and second, there are not many decks I play where the play draw really matters, although my data is patchy in that the format is vast and the sample size is relatively tiny, being the result of my events and my testing sessions with test partners. That said I don't play tempo decks.
There are a few balls-out fragile force checker decks in the format, they to win t1, an example is Belcher, and going first is a significant advantage as you negate the prospect of Daze on the play and the opponent only has a 39 or whatever % chance of a Force in hand on your game-winning T1 . (If the opposing blue deck is on the play they get access to Brainstorm et al., meaning they can see more cards to see the game saving Force, if it is a non blue deck they will probably rip cards from your hand or drop a taxing card like Chalice/3 sphere). So for those decks first is key, which is why those decks are rare in the format.
Leylines of Sanctity and, more importantly in the format, of the Void, which is a wincon with Helm of Obedience in some shells, are both common and can enable you to get the jump on some degenerate strategies t0. Maze of ith and Karakas can often do work too against cheated threats, and are uncounterable. Dark ritual and many other sources of fast mana (mox, sol lands, spirit G effects) mean that you can really catch up going second and do whatever your deck does, and selection of cards means that you can access catch up cards. Other pitch spells also exist and have limited use- you might see Pyrokinesis in Goblins, for example. Daze and Wasteland get stronger on the play, sure, but the decks that run them only generate one mana per turn, plenty of other decks in the format generate more on turn 1, making daze weaker. The only tempo deck in the format that breaks this rule does not run Daze (small Eldrazi), whilst the one deck in Legacy that wants to go second, manaless dredge, is immune to Wasteland and to Daze, to a large extent.
There has been a lot of Legacy going/first second talk.
I don't think it matters as much in legacy. I play a lot of Legacy and track the decks I play going first and second, there are not many decks I play where the play draw really matters, although my data is patchy in that the format is vast and the sample size is relatively tiny, being the result of my events and my testing sessions with test partners. That said I don't play tempo decks.
There are a few balls-out fragile force checker decks in the format, they to win t1, an example is Belcher, and going first is a significant advantage as you negate the prospect of Daze on the play and the opponent only has a 39 or whatever % chance of a Force in hand on your game-winning T1 . (If the opposing blue deck is on the play they get access to Brainstorm et al., meaning they can see more cards to see the game saving Force, if it is a non blue deck they will probably rip cards from your hand or drop a taxing card like Chalice/3 sphere). So for those decks first is key, which is why those decks are rare in the format.
Leylines of Sanctity and, more importantly in the format, of the Void, which is a wincon with Helm of Obedience in some shells, are both common and can enable you to get the jump on some degenerate strategies t0. Maze of ith and Karakas can often do work too against cheated threats, and are uncounterable. Dark ritual and many other sources of fast mana (mox, sol lands, spirit G effects) mean that you can really catch up going second and do whatever your deck does, and selection of cards means that you can access catch up cards. Other pitch spells also exist and have limited use- you might see Pyrokinesis in Goblins, for example. Daze and Wasteland get stronger on the play, sure, but the decks that run them only generate one mana per turn, plenty of other decks in the format generate more on turn 1, making daze weaker. The only tempo deck in the format that breaks this rule does not run Daze (small Eldrazi), whilst the one deck in Legacy that wants to go second, manaless dredge, is immune to Wasteland and to Daze, to a large extent.
Interesting observations. I would still really love to see the actual statistical data on legacy vs modern. I would do it myself but I am not really sure how to go about finding this information, if it even exists anywhere currently.
What you mention about the fast mana allowing you to play catch-up on the draw is one of the reasons I proposed a possible Chrome Mox unban in modern. But I am actually unsure if the existence of fast mana does contribute towards this or if this is only an illusion. That is why seeing the actual data is important.
Electrodominance is a net positive for Modern's diversity. I bet it will make A TON of garbage decks into tier 3, maybe tier 2 as well, archetypes.
Personally, I can't wait to test it out in UR tempo builds. But, Living End is the real deck now.
Ponza, UR control builds,cascade decks, Grixis stuff(at your draw step, stop, instant speed thoughtseize you), Grixis Goryo's Kiki, and God knows what else.
Scapeshift maybe?
Can't wait for it! Johnny players, rejoice!
This is terrible in LE. Why would you want to cascade into this if you don’t have LE in hand. And ideally you don’t have LE in hand.
Exactly this. I've tested Living End and Restore Balance decks, and cascading into anything that isn't the titular card is a huge non-bo.
It doesn`t fit in the normal Living End shell but it makes the As Foretold deck much more consistent serving as copies 5-8 of AF. With up to 4 LE, 4 Restore Balance and 4 Ancestral Vision it definitely seems worth it. The rest of your deck are mostly cyclers for LE so you have enough discard fodder for your own Balance. I reckon that deck will be very solid with Electrodominance.
That depends on each individual event's venue and attendance cap. Huge GPs can go over 2000, smaller ones less than 1000.
Edit: Cedric Phillips says its a new SCG attendance record. So that's a good thing. I can definitely see the draw of playing Modern with your friends with no restrictions.
Can't find any info on the GP attendance cap though.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
Is that good numbers? I dont pay attention to or look for attendance numbers at all.
We would need to know the Oakland venue attendance cap and whether or not it was met. Preregistration #s would also be important.
Edit: forgot that SCG was team Modern. That definitely pulls some people away from a GP, even accounting for coast to coast geography. Overall, looks like slightly weaker GP numbers than probably were expected, but way stronger SCG numbers.
It was not lucky, because humanplayer made a big mistake which gived him several more turns till he draw his path. You can't give your opponent 4 extraturns and say he is lucky after he draw his needed card 4 turns later
It was not lucky, because humanplayer made a big mistake which gived him several more turns till he draw his path. You can't give your opponent 4 extraturns and say he is lucky after he draw his needed card 4 turns later
Sure you can, just because he shouldnt have gotten that far, doesnt mean 1 of his 2 outs before he loses isnt lucky.
It was not lucky, because humanplayer made a big mistake which gived him several more turns till he draw his path. You can't give your opponent 4 extraturns and say he is lucky after he draw his needed card 4 turns later
Sure you can, just because he shouldnt have gotten that far, doesnt mean 1 of his 2 outs before he loses isnt lucky.
To be fair he had about 4/5 draw steps prior to the path topdeck where more than half his deck would have won him the game and iirc he drew 2 uncastable CoCos and awkwardly lands off the canopys. But it was a real nailbiter until the end, definitely a sweet game.
magic is about probabilities, and each player is playing with percentages. so a lot of what's 'lucky' and what isnt changes with perspective. like if the humans player judges he is more likely to win with one line based on general knowledge of deck composition, the prior plays and sequencing indicating a higher likelihood of cards in hand, and the actual cards shown. no matter the outcome its still ultimately probabilistic, some chance, or in other words luck; however it doesnt abolish the fact that at each decision point there is an 'optimal' choice for a better shot at what you want to happen and that there are ways to determine it - therefore also making it about skill.
so yeh its both
edit: oh yeah as far as SCGs attendance, it isnt surprising. columbus always has great attendance since its well positioned geographically for both the east coasters and mid easters to travel to. oakland on the other hand is not so convenient. i havent checked if anything has changed structurally for 'magicfests', but it would make sense if there were more side events and distractions - which might pull players from the main event.
It was not lucky, because humanplayer made a big mistake which gived him several more turns till he draw his path. You can't give your opponent 4 extraturns and say he is lucky after he draw his needed card 4 turns later
Sure you can, just because he shouldnt have gotten that far, doesnt mean 1 of his 2 outs before he loses isnt lucky.
To be fair he had about 4/5 draw steps prior to the path topdeck where more than half his deck would have won him the game and iirc he drew 2 uncastable CoCos and awkwardly lands off the canopys. But it was a real nailbiter until the end, definitely a sweet game.
this I mean. It is not lucky to give him with a great mistake so much time and say he is lucky because he draw a card he is playing in his deck. He draws a lot of dead cards bevor his path comes. Not luck... Bad play of opponent
Can we just realistically look at this KCI deck and realize Mox Opal is the most broken card out of the whole deck? Sam Black didn't even loop and just returned Mox Opal 4x to just destroy all of the opponents lands with Spine of Ish Sah.
Is that good numbers? I dont pay attention to or look for attendance numbers at all.
We would need to know the Oakland venue attendance cap and whether or not it was met. Preregistration #s would also be important.
Edit: forgot that SCG was team Modern. That definitely pulls some people away from a GP, even accounting for coast to coast geography. Overall, looks like slightly weaker GP numbers than probably were expected, but way stronger SCG numbers.
For what it's worth, past Oakland GPs have been fairly high above average for attendance. 2013's Limited GP was +19% the year's average (1631 vs 1370) and 2016's Standard GP was +16.4% for the year's average (1929 vs 1657).
But yes, SCG's Team Modern event is syphoning a lot of players. It's straight team with no restrictions. Any player can play any deck or any combination of cards; all Modern.
Dunno if it's indicative of anything meaningful in terms of GPs, given the SCG tournament, but that's a total of 2265 players for both, which is great.
Can we just realistically look at this KCI deck and realize Mox Opal is the most broken card out of the whole deck? Sam Black didn't even loop and just returned Mox Opal 4x to just destroy all of the opponents lands with Spine of Ish Sah.
It's definitely one of the, if not the single, most powerful cards in the deck. But so what? That acknowledgement doesn't really get us anywhere. This just doesn't translate into any applicable banlist or format health considerations. If KCI is bannable, Wizards will likely isolate a KCI specific problem and ban that, as they did with Bloom. Opal has significant splash to inoffensive decks. If KCI is not bannable, us acknowledging Opal as a powerful card doesn't get us anywhere except maybe guiding us to attack Opal in games or prioritize Opal as a KCI pilot.
KCI is also a miserable, cancerous deck that creates horrible gameplay patterns and often causes awful experiences for both players, win or lose.
How does this relate to Mox Opal? Or is this a separate topic? Is this just a general frustration or a veiled ban suggestion? If the latter, no Modern deck has been banned for allegations of a bad, unpopular, or otherwise "miserable" game experience. Lantern notably avoided such a fate despite similar complaints. That doesn't mean it can't happen in the future, it just makes it much less likely.
I'll also add, in reference to an exchange you, Tronix, and I had, this quoted post is the exact kind of categorical judgment I will always push back against. It is not a feeling statement of personal experience. It is a sweeping, format-wide indictment without any evidence to make the claim on such a broad scale. This kind of assertion does not really improve our Modern understanding.
Agreed cfusion.. And even winning a sideboardwar doesn't help often. This is my personally problem. If you win sideboardwar VS example dredge, you win the game... But not against Kci. Your hatecards are not hate enough
I'll also add, in reference to an exchange you, Tronix, and I had, this quoted post is the exact kind of categorical judgment I will always push back against. It is not a feeling statement of personal experience. It is a sweeping, format-wide indictment without any evidence to make the claim on such a broad scale. This kind of assertion does not really improve our Modern understanding.
Feel free to find me anyone who enjoys playing against the deck, or defends it as a healthy addition to the format.
Existing as some random Tier 2+ pile is fine (which is what Lantern is now), but existing as one of the most competitively successful decks of 2018, AND creates horrible gameplay, AND is highly resilient to targeted, narrow hate, AND creates long, uninteractive turns, AND makes for horrible coverage...
Agreed cfusion.. And even winning a sideboardwar doesn't help often. This is my personally problem. If you win sideboardwar VS example dredge, you win the game... But not against Kci. Your hatecards are not hate enough
To be clear, I agree KCI is extremely powerful. In fact, I am on record multiple times stating that KCI is the best deck in Modern. It's not even close from a results perspective. But those results have not, as far as I have seen, risen to the level of bannable criteria. The only question mark would be tournament logistics if KCI is prolonging rounds. Or a truly above average Oakland showing. Otherwise, the deck does not appear to be widely played enough to warrant a ban from a diversity perspective, nor fast enough to violate the T4 rule precedents we have. As with CFP, I'm not sure if you're merely venting or making veiled ban suggestions, so if the former then disregard the ban objections.
Just watching matches at the GP and SCG events. Nothing about them is good or healthy for the format. It is the quintecential posterchild of the main aspect people complain about with regards to Modern: goldfishing a win, as fast as possible, through multiple levels of narrow hate. Taking 10-minute turns and "do nothing then win" gameplay is just a bonus. Call it venting, call it whatever you want. As the recipient of multiple deck bans much less miserable than this, it sickens me seeing it win over and over and over. It doesn't help that two local players have picked it up. When paired with them, if I can't steal game 1, I generally sign the slip and go next door for a beer. I hate the deck and make no bones about it.
Even Zac-Mr.-Lantern-Elsik doesn't want to play it.
There's no good evidence to assume that Wizards only unbans cards because a reprint is pending. This is a bizarre conspiracy theory based on JTMS alone, and proves more how distrustful some community members have become than any clear reprint policy. The alternative was to not reprint JTMS and face uproar over prices and availability. Wizards chose to reprint the card and now faces some distrust over that decision: it's a lose-lose for them in the eyes of conspiracy-theory minded community members.
I don't think it matters as much in legacy. I play a lot of Legacy and track the decks I play going first and second, there are not many decks I play where the play draw really matters, although my data is patchy in that the format is vast and the sample size is relatively tiny, being the result of my events and my testing sessions with test partners. That said I don't play tempo decks.
There are a few balls-out fragile force checker decks in the format, they to win t1, an example is Belcher, and going first is a significant advantage as you negate the prospect of Daze on the play and the opponent only has a 39 or whatever % chance of a Force in hand on your game-winning T1 . (If the opposing blue deck is on the play they get access to Brainstorm et al., meaning they can see more cards to see the game saving Force, if it is a non blue deck they will probably rip cards from your hand or drop a taxing card like Chalice/3 sphere). So for those decks first is key, which is why those decks are rare in the format.
Leylines of Sanctity and, more importantly in the format, of the Void, which is a wincon with Helm of Obedience in some shells, are both common and can enable you to get the jump on some degenerate strategies t0. Maze of ith and Karakas can often do work too against cheated threats, and are uncounterable. Dark ritual and many other sources of fast mana (mox, sol lands, spirit G effects) mean that you can really catch up going second and do whatever your deck does, and selection of cards means that you can access catch up cards. Other pitch spells also exist and have limited use- you might see Pyrokinesis in Goblins, for example. Daze and Wasteland get stronger on the play, sure, but the decks that run them only generate one mana per turn, plenty of other decks in the format generate more on turn 1, making daze weaker. The only tempo deck in the format that breaks this rule does not run Daze (small Eldrazi), whilst the one deck in Legacy that wants to go second, manaless dredge, is immune to Wasteland and to Daze, to a large extent.
Interesting observations. I would still really love to see the actual statistical data on legacy vs modern. I would do it myself but I am not really sure how to go about finding this information, if it even exists anywhere currently.
What you mention about the fast mana allowing you to play catch-up on the draw is one of the reasons I proposed a possible Chrome Mox unban in modern. But I am actually unsure if the existence of fast mana does contribute towards this or if this is only an illusion. That is why seeing the actual data is important.
It doesn`t fit in the normal Living End shell but it makes the As Foretold deck much more consistent serving as copies 5-8 of AF. With up to 4 LE, 4 Restore Balance and 4 Ancestral Vision it definitely seems worth it. The rest of your deck are mostly cyclers for LE so you have enough discard fodder for your own Balance. I reckon that deck will be very solid with Electrodominance.
Is that good numbers? I dont pay attention to or look for attendance numbers at all.
Spirits
Edit: Cedric Phillips says its a new SCG attendance record. So that's a good thing. I can definitely see the draw of playing Modern with your friends with no restrictions.
Can't find any info on the GP attendance cap though.
We would need to know the Oakland venue attendance cap and whether or not it was met. Preregistration #s would also be important.
Edit: forgot that SCG was team Modern. That definitely pulls some people away from a GP, even accounting for coast to coast geography. Overall, looks like slightly weaker GP numbers than probably were expected, but way stronger SCG numbers.
Now we are at Living End vs Elves? love it lol
Spirits
Sure you can, just because he shouldnt have gotten that far, doesnt mean 1 of his 2 outs before he loses isnt lucky.
Spirits
To be fair he had about 4/5 draw steps prior to the path topdeck where more than half his deck would have won him the game and iirc he drew 2 uncastable CoCos and awkwardly lands off the canopys. But it was a real nailbiter until the end, definitely a sweet game.
so yeh its both
edit: oh yeah as far as SCGs attendance, it isnt surprising. columbus always has great attendance since its well positioned geographically for both the east coasters and mid easters to travel to. oakland on the other hand is not so convenient. i havent checked if anything has changed structurally for 'magicfests', but it would make sense if there were more side events and distractions - which might pull players from the main event.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)For what it's worth, past Oakland GPs have been fairly high above average for attendance. 2013's Limited GP was +19% the year's average (1631 vs 1370) and 2016's Standard GP was +16.4% for the year's average (1929 vs 1657).
But yes, SCG's Team Modern event is syphoning a lot of players. It's straight team with no restrictions. Any player can play any deck or any combination of cards; all Modern.
Dunno if it's indicative of anything meaningful in terms of GPs, given the SCG tournament, but that's a total of 2265 players for both, which is great.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
It's definitely one of the, if not the single, most powerful cards in the deck. But so what? That acknowledgement doesn't really get us anywhere. This just doesn't translate into any applicable banlist or format health considerations. If KCI is bannable, Wizards will likely isolate a KCI specific problem and ban that, as they did with Bloom. Opal has significant splash to inoffensive decks. If KCI is not bannable, us acknowledging Opal as a powerful card doesn't get us anywhere except maybe guiding us to attack Opal in games or prioritize Opal as a KCI pilot.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
How does this relate to Mox Opal? Or is this a separate topic? Is this just a general frustration or a veiled ban suggestion? If the latter, no Modern deck has been banned for allegations of a bad, unpopular, or otherwise "miserable" game experience. Lantern notably avoided such a fate despite similar complaints. That doesn't mean it can't happen in the future, it just makes it much less likely.
I'll also add, in reference to an exchange you, Tronix, and I had, this quoted post is the exact kind of categorical judgment I will always push back against. It is not a feeling statement of personal experience. It is a sweeping, format-wide indictment without any evidence to make the claim on such a broad scale. This kind of assertion does not really improve our Modern understanding.
Feel free to find me anyone who enjoys playing against the deck, or defends it as a healthy addition to the format.
Existing as some random Tier 2+ pile is fine (which is what Lantern is now), but existing as one of the most competitively successful decks of 2018, AND creates horrible gameplay, AND is highly resilient to targeted, narrow hate, AND creates long, uninteractive turns, AND makes for horrible coverage...
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
To be clear, I agree KCI is extremely powerful. In fact, I am on record multiple times stating that KCI is the best deck in Modern. It's not even close from a results perspective. But those results have not, as far as I have seen, risen to the level of bannable criteria. The only question mark would be tournament logistics if KCI is prolonging rounds. Or a truly above average Oakland showing. Otherwise, the deck does not appear to be widely played enough to warrant a ban from a diversity perspective, nor fast enough to violate the T4 rule precedents we have. As with CFP, I'm not sure if you're merely venting or making veiled ban suggestions, so if the former then disregard the ban objections.
Even Zac-Mr.-Lantern-Elsik doesn't want to play it.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate