Humans is a good deck, but there will always be good decks in every format. There needs to be at least a little more to start a ban discussion.
Just to be clear, I don't think there should be a ban discussion. I'm just saying that if Wizards makes a pushed Human in Standard, we could be having that discussion soon. Direfleet Daredevil is not strong enough, but it's a sign that more could come. This is in contrast to Stoneforge Mystic, which we know there will never be equipment better than what we already have. Imagine Wizards doing another Skullclaamp or Umezawa's Jitte? There would be riots.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Humans is a good deck, but there will always be good decks in every format. There needs to be at least a little more to start a ban discussion.
Agreed
I have yet to see any issues with the format, least none that can back up by any substantial evidence. One month after the doomsday of BBE & Jace and Modern is still just as diverse and open.
Despite that, I have noticed quite a bit of chatter over Bloodbraid Elf recently but nothing too major.
Modern is easily the best format nowadays to play and spectate.
People have been warning against Cavern of Souls for a long time, and the consequences of that card is getting clearer. When the already mediocre counterspells we have in modern are stone dead cards in hand, snapcaster-decks have no choice but cutting down on them, and so many unfair decks have an easier time.
Legacy have Wasteland, so they can handle it, but to have large archetypes immune to counterspells in modern is a mistake.
I definitely don't think it needs a ban at this point. But I was just thinking about the question posed above, what deck would you build to beat Humans... I'm not sure there is one
I dont think it NEEDS a ban, but I would sure love to see it (Cavern that is) eat a ban. Its quite literally offensive to me when I see it played, especially in a deck where it is of no cost.
I just see it as the cowards way out, as unreasonable as that is.
I definitely don't think it needs a ban at this point. But I was just thinking about the question posed above, what deck would you build to beat Humans... I'm not sure there is one
Jeskai Control. Bolt, Path, Helix, Supreme Verdict, then Snapcaster Mages. The deck is very favored.
I definitely don't think it needs a ban at this point. But I was just thinking about the question posed above, what deck would you build to beat Humans... I'm not sure there is one
Jeskai Control. Bolt, Path, Helix, Supreme Verdict, then Snapcaster Mages. The deck is very favored.
This fallacy has been addressed by many pros (Hoogland more recently if I remember correctly). The fact of the matter is that Jeskai control vs humans is a 50-50 or 55-45 MU (in favor of Jeskai.
However, the perception that Jeskai has a very favored MU is because the games that it wins are usually by such a long margin that it feels like it is not even close. On the other hand, when Jeskai loses it is either close MUs, or because it drew "the wrong half of the deck", making the losses feel insignificant because "I didn't draw any of my 14 removal cards".
This feeling, that you win in a dominant fashion and you lose because you didn't draw well, creates an idea that Jeskai is very favored. Of course, among other control decks (i.e. Esper, UW, Grixis), Jeskai probably has indeed the best MU against humans. However, that doesn't make it very favored. It is closer than it seems.
The fact that Humans gets to play a good 12 Rainbow lands is vaguely frustrating to me, especially when the card that's supposed to "keep greedy manabases in check" also doesn't do anything since they're so fast and have Aether Vials...
The deck isn't too good or need a ban, but there are things I find frustrating about it.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
The GB matchup versus humans is excellent and I have to imagine Jund to be very good as well isn’t it? Drawing two cards a turn with dark confidant is extremely effective at letting you answer their threats while still being able to play your own. I’ve also played against elves from the humans side and that matchup is hopeless for the humans deck. I think the deck has game even in some of its unfavoured matchups but I wouldn’t even begin to consider it a deck where we should have to look particularly hard to find bad matchups for it.
I mean as a disclaimer, this is my own anecdotal evidence. I don't play online. I play 3-4 times during the weekdays and 1-2 days on weekends, including local 1Ks, but no recent GPs since Santa Clara Modern side events.
A good Humans player will have a positive matchup vs. Jund. The games can be very tempo oriented and outside of super early Fatal Pushes or sweepers after SB when the disrupting dudes are not drawn, Humans will get there before all those extra cards drawn matter. The Humans players that I know are mostly just above average, but most have had a positive Jund matchup. It is similar to how Affinity beats Jund, with brute speed, except Humans sacrifices some speed for disruption.
It can also be compared to Affinity vs. Jeskai. Some players feel like Jeskai is strongly favored, yet I know some super good Affinity players (I'm looking at you mtgs member, kodieyost) that have had a really good matchup vs. Jeskai. I'm personally not quite there yet on this matchup, but even I have had a positive matchup vs. Jund as a Humans' player.
I admit though, that Humans cannot beat Elves. That matchup is probably pretty close to 70/30 for Elves.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I mean as a disclaimer, this is my own anecdotal evidence. I don't play online. I play 3-4 times during the weekdays and 1-2 days on weekends, including local 1Ks, but no recent GPs since Santa Clara Modern side events.
A good Humans player will have a positive matchup vs. Jund. The games can be very tempo oriented and outside of super early Fatal Pushes or sweepers after SB when the disrupting dudes are not drawn, Humans will get there before all those extra cards drawn matter. The Humans players that I know are mostly just above average, but most have had a positive Jund matchup. It is similar to how Affinity beats Jund, with brute speed, except Humans sacrifices some speed for disruption.
It can also be compared to Affinity vs. Jeskai. Some players feel like Jeskai is strongly favored, yet I know some super good Affinity players (I'm looking at you mtgs member, kodieyost) that have had a really good matchup vs. Jeskai. I'm personally not quite there yet on this matchup, but even I have had a positive matchup vs. Jund as a Humans' player.
I admit though, that Humans cannot beat Elves. That matchup is probably pretty close to 70/30 for Elves.
Well, the card advantage from Bob isn’t huge in the matchup in the sense of having extra cards but the extra draw matters a lot when you’re digging for removal and only some of your cards are good. I don’t know, I’ve found the matchup to be fine from the GBx side and I actually think it’s quite good for straight GB which I’ve been on for a short while now and played the matchup a few times at 1Ks against competent players. I think humans is probably the best aggro deck in the format but I don’t think it has positive matchups across the board at all IMO
I'm always skeptical when we start speculating about whether Deck A has a good/bad matchup vs. Deck B. These speculations are almost always off-base. I think Ari Lax coined that as one of the cardinal sins of Modern. Unless someone has access to hundreds of game datapoints in a complete tournament/MTGO dataset, I don't think anyone here can speak to the MWP of any deck against any other deck. The exception would be if you track your own games and somehow account for possible influences that might skew your results negative or positive, and even that would only give us an idea of your personal deck's MWP.
Speaking of cardinal sins, holy ban mania. We're back to Cavern now? And Humans? What did Humans ever do to warrant this sudden uptick in ban talk in this thread? The deck has been eminently fair and healthy in Modern for months, without even any recent breakout performances to justify this. I feel like decks can't do well in Modern without people picking up the pitchforks. Look at Modern for the last 14 months. This was a ban-free period of Modern because the metagame adjusted to all allegedly broken decks, and because diversity was right where Wizards wanted it to be. If anyone thinks a deck is bannable, see if the deck's current profile matches the profile of that same deck/a comparable deck in that 14 month period. If it does, then it's almost definitely not bannable.
Are Humans likely to ever fall off without a serious disruption crashing meta diversity? I mean WOTC seems to love trying to make tribal work which will always help Humans more then any other race cause Humans appear in pretty much every Set and always have among the most diverse effects. You can pretty much always expect to see a few 1-3 CMC useful Humans in every set, its certainly more likely for Humans to get some useful then pretty much any other deck outside of general all purpose artifacts. Additionally, Humans are unlikely to get banned cause the Deck makes at least one tribe viable something WOTC loves and cannot 20-0 you in a single round.
I'm always skeptical when we start speculating about whether Deck A has a good/bad matchup vs. Deck B. These speculations are almost always off-base. I think Ari Lax coined that as one of the cardinal sins of Modern. Unless someone has access to hundreds of game datapoints in a complete tournament/MTGO dataset, I don't think anyone here can speak to the MWP of any deck against any other deck. The exception would be if you track your own games and somehow account for possible influences that might skew your results negative or positive, and even that would only give us an idea of your personal deck's MWP.
I don’t agree with this at all. Most people within playing a few matches between two decks can get a feel for the matchup and tell you whether it’s closer to Tron vs infect (incredibly lopsided) or humans vs jeskai (a winnable matchup for either side). Whether a deck is 45/55 or 40/60 is probably meaningless since variance in draws is going to affect win rates over small samples such as when you run into it in round 5 at a GP, but it’s absolutely reasonable and probably useful to speak about whether it’s a decent winnable matchup or not.
I'm always skeptical when we start speculating about whether Deck A has a good/bad matchup vs. Deck B. These speculations are almost always off-base. I think Ari Lax coined that as one of the cardinal sins of Modern. Unless someone has access to hundreds of game datapoints in a complete tournament/MTGO dataset, I don't think anyone here can speak to the MWP of any deck against any other deck. The exception would be if you track your own games and somehow account for possible influences that might skew your results negative or positive, and even that would only give us an idea of your personal deck's MWP.
I don’t agree with this at all. Most people within playing a few matches between two decks can get a feel for the matchup and tell you whether it’s closer to Tron vs infect (incredibly lopsided) or humans vs jeskai (a winnable matchup for either side). Whether a deck is 45/55 or 40/60 is probably meaningless since variance in draws is going to affect win rates over small samples such as when you run into it in round 5 at a GP, but it’s absolutely reasonable and probably useful to speak about whether it’s a decent winnable matchup or not.
We're not talking about the most obvious matchups like Infect vs. Ad Naus. We're talking about the majority of popular, high profile matchups that people just totally mischaracterize. The most obvious examples of this were Jund vs. Twin and Tron vs. Jund in 2015. The former was ruled as favorable to Jund but was actually 49/51 in Twin's favor. The latter was ruled as unwinnable for Jund and was actually a tight 46/54. Many people were totally wrong about this and I am confident they continue to be wrong about similar matchups today.
well tbh i think it takes quite a bit for any matchup to break the 60-40 mark in modern. various sideboard cards and there being a limit on the power level of things going on keeps it that way. it isnt like legacy where even the powerhouse that was miracles had a matchup that floated around 90-10 vs cloudpost.
while i think its appropriate to ask people to cool their jets; telling people they dont know what they are talking about so stop talking about it is as productive as people calling for bans with no rational argument outside of "i think its too good".
if we put aside the talk of bans, and look at the humans deck specifically i think people bring up points that are worth thinking about. for example:
-how do you attack the humans deck in a reliable way?
i havent seen a single answer that people agree on. foregoing naming percentages that we cant really support, looking at how a decks fundamental strategy lines up with another is absolutely a worthwhile exercise. it doesnt take mountains of data to see that the gameplan of tron is naturally good against the gameplan of jund.
i brought up jeskai control, because the deck is built to thwart creature aggression by having an insane density of removal spells. if people arent even sure jeskai is good against humans, then i see no harm in taking pause and thinking about what that could mean.
ban mania is a thing, a thing that happens probably more than it should. however there are also cases where discussions started just like this one where the deck in question eventually ate a ban.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
while i think its appropriate to ask people to cool their jets; telling people they dont know what they are talking about so stop talking about it is as productive as people calling for bans with no rational argument outside of "i think its too good".
I never said people can't/shouldn't talk about matchups. I simply said this conversation is often inaccurate. If someone wants to go about it in an objective, accurate way with some data to back it up, great! Let's have that conversation. But if we're making ban-related arguments based on speculations about what a matchup is or isn't (e.g. this idea that Humans doesn't have bad matchups and is secretly favorable/even with Jund/Jeskai) that's a problem.
ban mania is a thing, a thing that happens probably more than it should. however there are also cases where discussions started just like this one where the deck in question eventually ate a ban.
Every instance of ban mania for the last 14 months was proven to be totally off base. See Tron, Company, Lantern, GDS, Eldrazi, SSG, Goryo's, and probably a dozen other cards/decks. Wizards could not have been clearer this last year about format health. If a deck fits the pattern of other top decks over this last year, it's healthy in Modern. Period. This newest call for a Humans-focused ban seems pretty similar to all those previous ones.
We're not talking about the most obvious matchups like Infect vs. Ad Naus. We're talking about the majority of popular, high profile matchups that people just totally mischaracterize. The most obvious examples of this were Jund vs. Twin and Tron vs. Jund in 2015. The former was ruled as favorable to Jund but was actually 49/51 in Twin's favor. The latter was ruled as unwinnable for Jund and was actually a tight 46/54. Many people were totally wrong about this and I am confident they continue to be wrong about similar matchups today.
I'm sorry, but I will never buy into those matchups being that close. It won't happen. Sure, there are people that played some odd cards in Twin and may have had a stronger matchup vs. Jund, but they probably lost to everything else. Or they named their deck "Twin" when the deck list clearly showed a deck list of Tron. I have played enough matchups to get a feel for this. My Modern matches is actually over half of my Standard matches and I've played since 1994. I trust what I see in playing, more so in Comp REL tournaments than in Casual FNM type of tournaments.
Also, someone's "testing" is not infallible. I have tested Humans vs. Titanshift twice. Once, I had a matchup win percentage of 40/60 vs. Titanshift. The other testing session, it was 45/55. So there is some leeway and I understand that. I honestly don't know what to do other than toot my own horn to prove that I'm not just some Joe Shmoe who plays Dragonball Z, but is making hard comments about Modern. I could tell my Modern win percentage (thank you kavu.ru for crashing). I could tell my accomplishments, but outside of a Modern GP, which I've been to twice, both considered failures by me (6-3 and 11-4), or a Pro Tour, of which I've never gone to, I don't know what else to say. I could care less about who believes me. You could say I was bull*****ting about Sword of the Meek, Ancestral Vision, Bloodbraid Elf, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor being unbanned. You could say I'm wrong about Stoneforge Mystic, Preordain, and Green Sun's Zenith some day. I'll still buy them until I'm blue in the face.
Also, I take everything with a grain of salt and some theorycrafting as well. I am currently 18-0 vs. Junk with Titanshift. Do you see me come on here saying it's 100/0? Nope. I realize that some things have happened. Will I say it's a good matchup? Certainly. Will I argue with someone who says that Junk is favored? You bet! I played Bogles to nearly a 66.6% win percentage vs. Jund over the years. But in my testing, it was around 50/50. I beat the snot out of GR Tron with Bogles, but found the matchup to be nearly 50/50 as well (before Ula and Ugin). I realize that I had good draws.
Not everything is black and white. Many matchups are not as bad as someone thinks. But you bet if someone sits down to a 40/60 matchup across from them and they realize it, they will feel a bit helpless, especially against good draws from the opponent. Maybe if I was a trust fund baby, I would have the time to play literally thousands of matches with Humans to "prove" a certain win percentage. Maybe my eyes would even be opened? But if I was, I probably wouldn't have time for Magic. There's just so much else to do with your time (I'm not saying all testing is time wasted) that there are just more productive things to do.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Those MWPs came from literally thousands of MTGO matches over about a 5-6 month period. Those stats represent the gold standard of MWP data. I am comfortable saying that anyone who believes those matchups were anything else from January 2015 through June 2015 is a) wrong, b) not describing the broad metagame, and/or c) has an experience that isn't applicable for the majority of Modern players.
I don't know what matchups fall where in this current 2018 metagame. I do know that most people have been very wrong about matchups and metagame descriptions/conclusions in the past, so I am skeptical about strong statements today that are not made from transparent data. Especially when those statements are fundamentally about data (i.e. whether an MWP is 60/40 vs. 40/60) themselves.
Those MWPs came from literally thousands of MTGO matches over about a 5-6 month period. Those stats represent the gold standard of MWP data. I am comfortable saying that anyone who believes those matchups were anything else from January 2015 through June 2015 is a) wrong, b) not describing the broad metagame, and/or c) has an experience that isn't applicable for the majority of Modern players.
I don't know what matchups fall where in this current 2018 metagame. I do know that most people have been very wrong about matchups and metagame descriptions/conclusions in the past, so I am skeptical about strong statements today that are not made from transparent data. Especially when those statements are fundamentally about data (i.e. whether an MWP is 60/40 vs. 40/60) themselves.
How do you look it up? I forgot. Is it on mtggoldfish?
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
BR Hollow One is good VS Humans too.
In G1, Humans usually have a split of half good & half bad cards. When this happens, it's considered an unfavored G1 MU. According to what is dedicated in the SB, the MU becomes overall close or remains unfavored. What makes a good MU overall is whether G1 is already close / favored for Humans, because the SB can't turn a bad MU into a good one.
To take the Elves example, Humans can win the match because the SB can turn a bad G1 into a close G2-3. It's toss-dependant though, since Elves on the play G3 can goldfish pretty easily, and very few decks can stop or race a T3 explosion anyway.
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
i would hazard a guess and say what stands out to people isnt humans super fast draws, but its slightly slower but disruptive ones. getting some combination of thalia, freebooter, and meddling mage thrown at you can leave you scratching your head asking yourself "how do i even beat something like this?"
my personal experience with the matchup has been fine. if im at a place where my average draw should be good against their average draw then id consider myself favored. if they have some god draw and im sitting across the table pulling a bob ross impersonation, well that isnt really going to change my opinion.
i dont know what people were expecting with the unbans, but it wouldnt surprise me if people expected humans to hit a rough patch based on the types of decks that BBE and jace slot into becoming more popular. the fact that it just kept on truckin along winning as much as it was before might be what is raising some eyebrows.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
I swear if it isn't one of the 2014 "pillars of modern" people will complain. Humans is a fair aggro deck that gets a boost through tribal support. It barely cheats on mana via aether vial, has no infinite combo, and doesn't create a nigh unbeatable board on turn 2.
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Just to be clear, I don't think there should be a ban discussion. I'm just saying that if Wizards makes a pushed Human in Standard, we could be having that discussion soon. Direfleet Daredevil is not strong enough, but it's a sign that more could come. This is in contrast to Stoneforge Mystic, which we know there will never be equipment better than what we already have. Imagine Wizards doing another Skullclaamp or Umezawa's Jitte? There would be riots.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Agreed
I have yet to see any issues with the format, least none that can back up by any substantial evidence. One month after the doomsday of BBE & Jace and Modern is still just as diverse and open.
Despite that, I have noticed quite a bit of chatter over Bloodbraid Elf recently but nothing too major.
Modern is easily the best format nowadays to play and spectate.
Legacy have Wasteland, so they can handle it, but to have large archetypes immune to counterspells in modern is a mistake.
UWRUWR Delver/Lynx TempoUWR-------UWRUWR Midrange GeistUWR-------UWRUWR Nahiri ControlUWR-------UWRUWR SaheeliUWR
BGRJund / Jund ShadowBGR-------BGWAbzan / Abzan ShadowBGW
Commander (Leviathan/MTGO): UWGeist of Saint TraftUW
I just see it as the cowards way out, as unreasonable as that is.
Spirits
Jeskai Control. Bolt, Path, Helix, Supreme Verdict, then Snapcaster Mages. The deck is very favored.
However, the perception that Jeskai has a very favored MU is because the games that it wins are usually by such a long margin that it feels like it is not even close. On the other hand, when Jeskai loses it is either close MUs, or because it drew "the wrong half of the deck", making the losses feel insignificant because "I didn't draw any of my 14 removal cards".
This feeling, that you win in a dominant fashion and you lose because you didn't draw well, creates an idea that Jeskai is very favored. Of course, among other control decks (i.e. Esper, UW, Grixis), Jeskai probably has indeed the best MU against humans. However, that doesn't make it very favored. It is closer than it seems.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
The deck isn't too good or need a ban, but there are things I find frustrating about it.
A good Humans player will have a positive matchup vs. Jund. The games can be very tempo oriented and outside of super early Fatal Pushes or sweepers after SB when the disrupting dudes are not drawn, Humans will get there before all those extra cards drawn matter. The Humans players that I know are mostly just above average, but most have had a positive Jund matchup. It is similar to how Affinity beats Jund, with brute speed, except Humans sacrifices some speed for disruption.
It can also be compared to Affinity vs. Jeskai. Some players feel like Jeskai is strongly favored, yet I know some super good Affinity players (I'm looking at you mtgs member, kodieyost) that have had a really good matchup vs. Jeskai. I'm personally not quite there yet on this matchup, but even I have had a positive matchup vs. Jund as a Humans' player.
I admit though, that Humans cannot beat Elves. That matchup is probably pretty close to 70/30 for Elves.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Well, the card advantage from Bob isn’t huge in the matchup in the sense of having extra cards but the extra draw matters a lot when you’re digging for removal and only some of your cards are good. I don’t know, I’ve found the matchup to be fine from the GBx side and I actually think it’s quite good for straight GB which I’ve been on for a short while now and played the matchup a few times at 1Ks against competent players. I think humans is probably the best aggro deck in the format but I don’t think it has positive matchups across the board at all IMO
Speaking of cardinal sins, holy ban mania. We're back to Cavern now? And Humans? What did Humans ever do to warrant this sudden uptick in ban talk in this thread? The deck has been eminently fair and healthy in Modern for months, without even any recent breakout performances to justify this. I feel like decks can't do well in Modern without people picking up the pitchforks. Look at Modern for the last 14 months. This was a ban-free period of Modern because the metagame adjusted to all allegedly broken decks, and because diversity was right where Wizards wanted it to be. If anyone thinks a deck is bannable, see if the deck's current profile matches the profile of that same deck/a comparable deck in that 14 month period. If it does, then it's almost definitely not bannable.
I don’t agree with this at all. Most people within playing a few matches between two decks can get a feel for the matchup and tell you whether it’s closer to Tron vs infect (incredibly lopsided) or humans vs jeskai (a winnable matchup for either side). Whether a deck is 45/55 or 40/60 is probably meaningless since variance in draws is going to affect win rates over small samples such as when you run into it in round 5 at a GP, but it’s absolutely reasonable and probably useful to speak about whether it’s a decent winnable matchup or not.
We're not talking about the most obvious matchups like Infect vs. Ad Naus. We're talking about the majority of popular, high profile matchups that people just totally mischaracterize. The most obvious examples of this were Jund vs. Twin and Tron vs. Jund in 2015. The former was ruled as favorable to Jund but was actually 49/51 in Twin's favor. The latter was ruled as unwinnable for Jund and was actually a tight 46/54. Many people were totally wrong about this and I am confident they continue to be wrong about similar matchups today.
while i think its appropriate to ask people to cool their jets; telling people they dont know what they are talking about so stop talking about it is as productive as people calling for bans with no rational argument outside of "i think its too good".
if we put aside the talk of bans, and look at the humans deck specifically i think people bring up points that are worth thinking about. for example:
-how do you attack the humans deck in a reliable way?
i havent seen a single answer that people agree on. foregoing naming percentages that we cant really support, looking at how a decks fundamental strategy lines up with another is absolutely a worthwhile exercise. it doesnt take mountains of data to see that the gameplan of tron is naturally good against the gameplan of jund.
i brought up jeskai control, because the deck is built to thwart creature aggression by having an insane density of removal spells. if people arent even sure jeskai is good against humans, then i see no harm in taking pause and thinking about what that could mean.
ban mania is a thing, a thing that happens probably more than it should. however there are also cases where discussions started just like this one where the deck in question eventually ate a ban.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I never said people can't/shouldn't talk about matchups. I simply said this conversation is often inaccurate. If someone wants to go about it in an objective, accurate way with some data to back it up, great! Let's have that conversation. But if we're making ban-related arguments based on speculations about what a matchup is or isn't (e.g. this idea that Humans doesn't have bad matchups and is secretly favorable/even with Jund/Jeskai) that's a problem.
Every instance of ban mania for the last 14 months was proven to be totally off base. See Tron, Company, Lantern, GDS, Eldrazi, SSG, Goryo's, and probably a dozen other cards/decks. Wizards could not have been clearer this last year about format health. If a deck fits the pattern of other top decks over this last year, it's healthy in Modern. Period. This newest call for a Humans-focused ban seems pretty similar to all those previous ones.
I'm sorry, but I will never buy into those matchups being that close. It won't happen. Sure, there are people that played some odd cards in Twin and may have had a stronger matchup vs. Jund, but they probably lost to everything else. Or they named their deck "Twin" when the deck list clearly showed a deck list of Tron. I have played enough matchups to get a feel for this. My Modern matches is actually over half of my Standard matches and I've played since 1994. I trust what I see in playing, more so in Comp REL tournaments than in Casual FNM type of tournaments.
Also, someone's "testing" is not infallible. I have tested Humans vs. Titanshift twice. Once, I had a matchup win percentage of 40/60 vs. Titanshift. The other testing session, it was 45/55. So there is some leeway and I understand that. I honestly don't know what to do other than toot my own horn to prove that I'm not just some Joe Shmoe who plays Dragonball Z, but is making hard comments about Modern. I could tell my Modern win percentage (thank you kavu.ru for crashing). I could tell my accomplishments, but outside of a Modern GP, which I've been to twice, both considered failures by me (6-3 and 11-4), or a Pro Tour, of which I've never gone to, I don't know what else to say. I could care less about who believes me. You could say I was bull*****ting about Sword of the Meek, Ancestral Vision, Bloodbraid Elf, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor being unbanned. You could say I'm wrong about Stoneforge Mystic, Preordain, and Green Sun's Zenith some day. I'll still buy them until I'm blue in the face.
Also, I take everything with a grain of salt and some theorycrafting as well. I am currently 18-0 vs. Junk with Titanshift. Do you see me come on here saying it's 100/0? Nope. I realize that some things have happened. Will I say it's a good matchup? Certainly. Will I argue with someone who says that Junk is favored? You bet! I played Bogles to nearly a 66.6% win percentage vs. Jund over the years. But in my testing, it was around 50/50. I beat the snot out of GR Tron with Bogles, but found the matchup to be nearly 50/50 as well (before Ula and Ugin). I realize that I had good draws.
Not everything is black and white. Many matchups are not as bad as someone thinks. But you bet if someone sits down to a 40/60 matchup across from them and they realize it, they will feel a bit helpless, especially against good draws from the opponent. Maybe if I was a trust fund baby, I would have the time to play literally thousands of matches with Humans to "prove" a certain win percentage. Maybe my eyes would even be opened? But if I was, I probably wouldn't have time for Magic. There's just so much else to do with your time (I'm not saying all testing is time wasted) that there are just more productive things to do.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I don't know what matchups fall where in this current 2018 metagame. I do know that most people have been very wrong about matchups and metagame descriptions/conclusions in the past, so I am skeptical about strong statements today that are not made from transparent data. Especially when those statements are fundamentally about data (i.e. whether an MWP is 60/40 vs. 40/60) themselves.
How do you look it up? I forgot. Is it on mtggoldfish?
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)This is exactly what I was looking at.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)In G1, Humans usually have a split of half good & half bad cards. When this happens, it's considered an unfavored G1 MU. According to what is dedicated in the SB, the MU becomes overall close or remains unfavored. What makes a good MU overall is whether G1 is already close / favored for Humans, because the SB can't turn a bad MU into a good one.
To take the Elves example, Humans can win the match because the SB can turn a bad G1 into a close G2-3. It's toss-dependant though, since Elves on the play G3 can goldfish pretty easily, and very few decks can stop or race a T3 explosion anyway.
my personal experience with the matchup has been fine. if im at a place where my average draw should be good against their average draw then id consider myself favored. if they have some god draw and im sitting across the table pulling a bob ross impersonation, well that isnt really going to change my opinion.
i dont know what people were expecting with the unbans, but it wouldnt surprise me if people expected humans to hit a rough patch based on the types of decks that BBE and jace slot into becoming more popular. the fact that it just kept on truckin along winning as much as it was before might be what is raising some eyebrows.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)