In almost no other format do people complain about playing combo or super linear decks and then complain about getting stomped by sideboard cards, and then get taken seriously.
"Hey guys I played affinity, a super fast game-1 deck, and got stomped by sideboard hate". His friend on affinity was the example used in the article. Well no ***** you got hit by sideboard hate.
If someone walked into a legacy tournament playing dredge and got stomped by Leyline of the Void you would think they would be certifiably insane to use that as an example of legacy being a match-up and sideboard lottery.
I guess that 10 people are going to take his article 10 different ways.
Sure, you can choose super interactive decks in today's current Modern. I think that by doing so, you're doing yourself a HUGE disservice. It's much better to be proactive in this format and goldfish your opponents out of the game. In some tournaments, you dodge hate and do well. In some tournaments, they all have Stony Silence. Or you could slog through a Modern tournament with something like UW Control and pray that after all that work, everything has pretty much lined up perfectly for you. You have drawn Rest in Peace every time you needed it. You have mulliganed 0 times. You have drawn Stony Silence or Snapcaster Mage with a million removal spells. Your draws have lined up perfectly with all 15 of your opponents in every round, give or take a round or 2. Meanwhile, someone like Mani Davoudi has spent much less time, running through the competition at Grand Prix Las Vegas, capped off by winning on a mull to 4.
Grixis Shadow is pretty much the last "glue" that is keeping the format from being extremely noninteractive. Jund and Junk aren't really contenders. Jeskai is in a good place right now, but can easily get pushed out, defaulting something else in that shaky spot. CoCo is okay. I play many of these decks. But simply put, competitively, I would be doing myself a (slight) disservice by using one of those, compared with something like E Tron, Storm, GDS, or Titanshift. Don't get me wrong. They're terribly fun to play and I believe that they are nearly as good as the very top 4 decks, but competitively, being close to good enough is not good enough unless you're finding an empty spot in the metagame to slide through.
Todd Stevens plays E Tron or a deck that tries to Ghost Quarter you out of the game. Jeff Hoogland plays GB Tron. Bringing up Hoogland actually goes against your statement. He used to top 8 twelve tournaments in a row with a Tier 2-3 deck in Kiki Chord during a meta of Twin and Bloom Titan. Since those have been banned, the guy is nearly nonexistent. Remember, this is a player who was at the top of the Leaderboard for SCG by a big margin. I don't think he even has 30 points currently. I do also realize that family obligations come into play too, but the HUGE difference says something. Shahar hasn't even played Modern too much recently, has he? I'm guessing he's on Jeskai Queller if he does, which I admit is in a good place...right now.
Splinter Twin was banned at the time Hoogland made many (not all) of those finishes with Kiki-Chord. Look at the dates...
He made the meta-game transition. He dedicated the time to knowing the ins and outs of the match-ups and it showed. Why has he not been showing up recently? He's openly stated that he's focusing less on magic to focus on family.
And what about Tom Ross tearing up modern on multiple occasions with his 8-rack? DeCandio talks about modern meta-game issues but it seems people that are not him have done the hard work of poking holes in the meta game.
In fact the recent rise in Storm are reactions to the downturn in DS decks. It used to be they were everywhere, and nothing chomps down on storm as hard as DS, but then people adjusted to DS by running more affinity, valkut, ect... (decks favored against DS). So naturally Storm crept back up while those decks were keeping DS down. This is the churning of a meta-game.
It think many people are misunderstanding his article. He seems to be saying that Modern is super good for those who enjoy diversity. But he says it's bad for players trying to be competitive in it - aka the return of Modern to the Pro Tour. I don't particularly think he's incorrect. I agree with most of what he said.
He said that he tried Modern without playing much and did super well. Later on, he tested like a mad man and did poorly. That is Modern right now for a lot of players, myself included. I think the title is misleading and is more clickbait, or a way to get someone to read his article.
*On another note, I don't understand why so many people are quick to jump all over him for something they misunderstand - most players not even wanting to play Modern competitively. (Now, if you want to jump on him because he thinks JTMS shouldn't be banned, that's another thing altogether. )
(try not assuming other people's reading comprehensions skills). He's wrong about the diversity factor because if modern was truly a match-up and sideboard lottery then we should see an almost random smattering of players at the top tables. We don't. Stevens, Hoogland, Shehar, ect... have all had consistent success in modern.
And players *choose* to opt into the match-up lottery. Jund, DS, Junk, Coco, UWx, are all decks that have very few 60-40 matchups. His friend in the article could have chosen UWx if he didn't want to get smashed by hate.
I'm jumping on him because modern is a great format for competitive. We've seen it be such. But many pros seem to drop all that pro stuff and complain when a format doesn't converge on 3-5 decks. Adapt, I know they can, it's part of being a pro or should be anyways.
Eh, still not convinced on it's effectiveness. Sometimes you need a card later in the game, but not at the time, so you scry it to the bottom and fetch later. No fetches means fewer ways of getting it off the bottom. That being said I think in the end it's un-resolvable.
We need at least 8 one-mana cantrips and we know that because there's a significant number of game where we need to dig for a second land. And we don't need to do a statistical analysis to figure it out. We can do a statistical analysis on mana costs to know that the deck should be running 17-18 lands. But the fetch less issue?
I don't think there is a practical way to get the data for "how many times would shuffling to get cards off the bottom won me the game?" versus "how many times would have keeping dead card on the bottom won me game?". And the effect of each is so subtle that without definitive stats it's impossible to know.
Supreme Will
I think almost all of us agree that remand has helped us win games that were almost unwinnable otherwise. Maybe you snagged their turn 3 Karn on the draw, maybe you stop the other combo deck from going off, maybe you kept control from killing your bear on a critical turn.
90% of the time I would not run Supreme Will, but... If it's a meta full of opposing combo decks and removal heavy decks, would the ability to counter and dig deep be worth running it?
Since these were topics one or two pages back and I thought I would offer some thoughts:
Noxious Revival
I feel like deserves the one-of slot it gets. The upside are just about even with the downsides, but I feel one fact tips it in favor of the inclusion. There are a lot of hands that include no one-mana cantrips, and one land, but would be amazing if you hit the second land. We run a high number of fetch lands, so if the one land is a fetch land then we can crack it, put it back on top with revival, and have the needed second land. (imagine your opener is something similar to: Baral, Gifts, Ritual, Ritual, Remand, Fetch, Revival. I feel like, but I might be wrong on this, that the one fetchland + no cantrip issue comes up enough to justify taking this function of Revival into consideration. Also the classic Gifts into Baral, Electromancer, Past in Flames, Noxious,
In meta games that include a lot of burn, affinity, storm, elves, ect... (basically fast decks that don't give you much time), then Peer is the clear winner for it's mana efficiency.
In meta's full of control, death's shadow, jund, ect.. (decks that don't have an extrely fast clock and like to play disruption, then peices is the clear winner for it's ability to help you recover from discard and counters, card advantage and what not.
Apostle's Blessing
I feel like this would require a meta-game full of jund, junk, death's shadow, and other decks that run lots of removal to be any good. If that's your meta go for it. Otherwise it seems like you're wasting a perfectly good slot by being overly cautious about your reduction bears.
"Hey guys I played affinity, a super fast game-1 deck, and got stomped by sideboard hate". His friend on affinity was the example used in the article. Well no ***** you got hit by sideboard hate.
If someone walked into a legacy tournament playing dredge and got stomped by Leyline of the Void you would think they would be certifiably insane to use that as an example of legacy being a match-up and sideboard lottery.
Splinter Twin was banned at the time Hoogland made many (not all) of those finishes with Kiki-Chord. Look at the dates...
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-18-2016-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2016-01-18
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/player/Jeff Hoogland
He made the meta-game transition. He dedicated the time to knowing the ins and outs of the match-ups and it showed. Why has he not been showing up recently? He's openly stated that he's focusing less on magic to focus on family.
And what about Tom Ross tearing up modern on multiple occasions with his 8-rack? DeCandio talks about modern meta-game issues but it seems people that are not him have done the hard work of poking holes in the meta game.
In fact the recent rise in Storm are reactions to the downturn in DS decks. It used to be they were everywhere, and nothing chomps down on storm as hard as DS, but then people adjusted to DS by running more affinity, valkut, ect... (decks favored against DS). So naturally Storm crept back up while those decks were keeping DS down. This is the churning of a meta-game.
(try not assuming other people's reading comprehensions skills). He's wrong about the diversity factor because if modern was truly a match-up and sideboard lottery then we should see an almost random smattering of players at the top tables. We don't. Stevens, Hoogland, Shehar, ect... have all had consistent success in modern.
And players *choose* to opt into the match-up lottery. Jund, DS, Junk, Coco, UWx, are all decks that have very few 60-40 matchups. His friend in the article could have chosen UWx if he didn't want to get smashed by hate.
I'm jumping on him because modern is a great format for competitive. We've seen it be such. But many pros seem to drop all that pro stuff and complain when a format doesn't converge on 3-5 decks. Adapt, I know they can, it's part of being a pro or should be anyways.
I've got my own thoughts as to why he's wrong, but what about ya'll?
We need at least 8 one-mana cantrips and we know that because there's a significant number of game where we need to dig for a second land. And we don't need to do a statistical analysis to figure it out. We can do a statistical analysis on mana costs to know that the deck should be running 17-18 lands. But the fetch less issue?
I don't think there is a practical way to get the data for "how many times would shuffling to get cards off the bottom won me the game?" versus "how many times would have keeping dead card on the bottom won me game?". And the effect of each is so subtle that without definitive stats it's impossible to know.
Supreme Will
I think almost all of us agree that remand has helped us win games that were almost unwinnable otherwise. Maybe you snagged their turn 3 Karn on the draw, maybe you stop the other combo deck from going off, maybe you kept control from killing your bear on a critical turn.
90% of the time I would not run Supreme Will, but... If it's a meta full of opposing combo decks and removal heavy decks, would the ability to counter and dig deep be worth running it?
Noxious Revival
I feel like deserves the one-of slot it gets. The upside are just about even with the downsides, but I feel one fact tips it in favor of the inclusion. There are a lot of hands that include no one-mana cantrips, and one land, but would be amazing if you hit the second land. We run a high number of fetch lands, so if the one land is a fetch land then we can crack it, put it back on top with revival, and have the needed second land. (imagine your opener is something similar to: Baral, Gifts, Ritual, Ritual, Remand, Fetch, Revival. I feel like, but I might be wrong on this, that the one fetchland + no cantrip issue comes up enough to justify taking this function of Revival into consideration. Also the classic Gifts into Baral, Electromancer, Past in Flames, Noxious,
Pieces of the Puzzle vs. Peer Through Depths in the flex slots. This might sound arrogant but I'm 100% sure this is a meta call.
In meta games that include a lot of burn, affinity, storm, elves, ect... (basically fast decks that don't give you much time), then Peer is the clear winner for it's mana efficiency.
In meta's full of control, death's shadow, jund, ect.. (decks that don't have an extrely fast clock and like to play disruption, then peices is the clear winner for it's ability to help you recover from discard and counters, card advantage and what not.
Apostle's Blessing
I feel like this would require a meta-game full of jund, junk, death's shadow, and other decks that run lots of removal to be any good. If that's your meta go for it. Otherwise it seems like you're wasting a perfectly good slot by being overly cautious about your reduction bears.