With no changes in the banned announcement and no reprint of SFM in “the last masters set for a while,” it looks like SFM won’t be unbanned anytime in the near future. I guess I’m fine with it, but every other color gets their powerful 2 drop(Bob, Goyf, Young Pyromancer, Snapcaster Mage), Umezawa’s Jitte isn’t modern legal, SFM isn’t a human, and any deck that adds SFM has to cut 7 cards, which isn’t an easy thing to do.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
There are no top-tier 80/20 matchups in Modern. There haven't been for 3 years. I have debunked this outrageous claim numerous times. To reiterate, top players have the same MWP in Modern as in other formats. They also have the same MWP variance and MWP ceiling. Notably, they further have the same Modern MWP as they do in BOTH Legacy and Standard; the only outliers are player-specific (e.g. Reid Duke is better at Modern than Standard), but across the board, the averages and spread are identical. If Modern was packed with 80/20 matchups as you and hoards of Modern critics have alleged, this would not be the case.
80/20 is probably an exaggeration but I think there are some one-sided matchups like Tron being favored vs any BGx or Martyr Proc being a real pain for Burn. These matchups don't come that often, but when they do you know from turn 1 you are going to have a hard time no matter what you do.
Regarding the pros results, the data we have includes byes? Because I think byes have a lot more to do with the actual MWP than format health itself:
Imagine a pro going 3-3 (3 byes and 0-3), then drop, they still have a 50% MWP counting byes or 0% if we don't count them
Next GP, they go 12-3 (3 byes + 9-3) and their MWP is 80% or 75% if we don't count byes
They would have a total record of 15-6 (6 byes and 9-6) which is above 71% counting byes and 60% counting games where they actually had to play.
On the other hand, a player with just 1 bye with the same results for played games, would be 1-3 drop for GP#1 with a MWP of 25%
The results would be 10-3 having to play another 2 rounds for GP#2, MWP = 76,9%
In total this player has a WMP of 64,7% while the MWP of actually played games is 60% (same as the pro)
So with the same results of played games, the pro is always going to have that edge that comes only from byes.
Since pros play less rounds each GP and the format is so diverse, they are bound to play against a smaller variety of decks than a player with less byes, so if they are lucky enough to dodge the bad matchups, they are more likely to put a good result in a particular GP. This doesn't increase their global winrate since they are going to face those decks in the same percentage as the other players in the long run but it makes a bigger window for having "the good day" where they dodge them and make a good result.
the existence of burn or other hyper aggro decks does far more curbing of greedy mana bases than blood moon ever has. in fact blood moon asks the opponent to play more basics AND fetches, its all the other duals that really suffer. its pretty easy to lose to BM just playing a 2 color deck; especially ones that arent playing red.
ive never been a fan of blood moon, but ive accepted its place in the format (meaning ive never advocated for its ban). i just think its disingenuous to paint it in a light that is anything other than a free win generator that props up a lot of deck that would otherwise be underpowered.
Speaking as someone who plays a lot of Blood Moon in this format, it's a rather oddball card. There are three color decks that operate just fine against it, and some two color decks that are shutdown by it. The card does demand playing more basics and fetches, which is something a lot of people don't realize initially. Decks like Humans, where their answers or Meddling Mage or Vialing in something to destroy Moon, will always struggle with it. That's just basic Magic: You played a 4-5c manabase against the deck with Blood Moon, that happens. The weird ones are when it's a two color deck that just doesn't do much with Moon in play. UW Control, of all decks, can be completely shutdown by a resolved Moon on t3 (good luck doing that, but when it happens it can be backbreaking). A lot of times, you aren't winning the game with Blood Moon. More often than not it's a disruption piece. The only time you're beating someone with Blood Moon is when they're already on a greedy manabase and you exploited that singular weakness. In the UW Control example, while it does happen on occasion, it's usually due to their hand, not a deck construction issue, and that deck plays more than enough basics to have a reasonable chance of drawing one shortly after Moon hits play. It's doable, but it's not like they can't come back from it. Most decks can beat this card, it's a matter of choosing how you're going to beat it and understanding what those choices imply.
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"Don't believe everything you read on the internet." - Abraham Lincoln
Actually, Affi, Tron, Storm, Burn and Aggro decks have always been in the format, I don't see what's different since 2012. Coco instead of Pod ? Humans instead Merfolk ? Gifts instead of Ascension ?
Did you catch the one, single, and glaringly obvious format staple missing from your list? The one that never saw its replacement for 3+ years? That thousands of players have tried for years to replace, replicate, or find anything like it, and failed every time? Or did that one just slip your mind during this trip down memory lane?
Izzet phoenix, and blue moon are the only two current decks that play even vaguely similarly to twin, but they are realistically not viable. Blue moon is merely a remnant, and phoenix a slow, semi-linear deck in a metagame of faster, more linear decks that are harder to interact with.
Yeah, if you're playing pretty much any UR deck that's not Storm, you are actively choosing to play bad deck and hope that variance lines up in your favor. Because no matter what you are trying to do, other decks do it better, faster, more reliably, or more resiliently. Other UR decks without Twin are just bad. There's no ifs ands or buts about it.
I had three of my decks banned or made irrelevant by new cards (Stubborn Cyclops, MarytrProc, Bloom Titan). It sucks. But instead of whining and moaning for three straight years, I moved on and played something different. I didn't turn any of those bans into a self-centered crusade based around making everyone on a website miserable.
Completely missing the point of my post and the post I quoted, but that is to be expected at this point. Feel free to reread.
We all know that even if a U/R deck suddenly did well, you would undermine it.
Actually, I would play them, which is what I did with nearly every remotely viable UR strategy of the past 3 years; often spending hundreds of dollars to do so. I want so desperately to find something to enjoy in this format, and often, as soon as I find it, it's either banned, or some new broken deck makes it irrelevant. Right now, I caved and bought Arclight Phoenixs because I got sick of losing to horrid matchups with UW and GDS myself. I still don't think it's necessarily GOOD, especially since it is slower than the hyper linear decks, less resiliant than the awkward combo/aggro decks, and less reactive than old Delver decks. But it kills people, and that's what you need to be doing in Modern.
Nothing about this format will EVER satisfy you ever. Not unless the deck you have a dangerous obsession with comes back.
I've actually found personal satisfaction in a number of decks. What I particularly don't like is playing games and matches in which my decisions are ultimately meaningless and the game devolves into who can goldfish fastest or who can find their sideboard hate card first. Because the types of decks I really enjoy are downright awful in that kind of format. If you are conceding that Modern is mostly an awful, linear, high variance format, then sure, I will probably never be happy. I have hope it will not be like this forever.
Jace and BBE showed us that things we were deathly worried about breaking the format aren't just fine, they're not even that good. Their release gave us hope to right several of the other wrongs rotting on the banned list. That's why every B&R that comes and goes with no changes is such a soul-crushing disappointment.
Re: Blood Moon
This is a card I desperately want to be relevant as well. I own four foil copies and have jammed it in a number of decks that are also trying to cast Cryptic Command. I personally can't stand overt prison decks, so I never played Mono R, RW, or GR Moon variants, but the card itself is wildly swingy. It can be game-breaking or it can do nothing at all. Kind of sums up Modern in a nutshell all by itself.
It's funny to see modern in the light of an actually GOOD standard format for the first time in years, it really highlights how many decks in modern demand you to play obnoxious non-games of "stop the one thing I do".
After a long time of being mostly happy with the state of modern I'd now want several cards banned even though not much has really changed for modern since then other than having a good standard to conpare it to. So many matchups in modern end up being "can you beat my sideboardcard" now, and I've really started to see these matches as a chore I have to finish before I actually get to go have fun and play the game I went to FNM for. I've been an exclusive modern player for so many years it is an odd realisation to look at a good standard and think "wait a minute, insta-losing to blood moon actually doesn't have to be 'just how it goes' at all!".
I want WotC to return to the turn 4 rule with a vengeance. I would not mind seeing a large list of bans, just straight up ending storm, tron, dredge, KCI and the likes. There are so many decks and cards in modern that solely exist to create non-games where the pre-sideboard game is basically irrelevant. They are much, MUCH more obnoxious than twin ever was which, although powerful, at least was a matchup where both players got to play cards and interact with eachother without needing enchantments out of the sideboard.
you would not mind seeing bans that wipe out decks representing probably 30% of the meta, leaving thousands of players with no deck? I'm sorry, that kind of just sounds like a crappy person. 'I don't personally like your deck, so I want you and everyone else who has fun the same way you do to lose thousands of dollars'. not everyone wants to play Jeskai control matchups every day. ikf you had your way and a huge number of us just lost our decks, we wouldn't be able to recoup enough value to play midrange or control, we would be forced to play budget or get out of Modern. There are decks I don't like, some bans I would like, but not stuff that turns an expensive deck into a pile of worthless trash, much less doing it to multiple decks. That's a problem I see with too many midrange or control players, you want the whole format to look like your deck, and anyone who doesn't want to or can't play like that shouldn't get to play at all.
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There are decks I don't like, some bans I would like, but not stuff that turns an expensive deck into a pile of worthless trash, much less doing it to multiple decks.
Yeah..we sure wouldnt want that to happen...;)
Its not about the match up % to me. I dont believe for a second that there are any games which are literally (post board) 80-20. Not even close.
I do believe that the quality of matches, is unrelentingly poor, because the vast majority of decks are not playing against eachother, they are playing against themselves.
Many people (I saw it all day on Twitter) will tell you that is a feature of Modern. You do your thing, and they do their thing, and may the better Goldfish win.
If that's what you are into, awesome.
PS (since I saw it Quoted as I cannot see it normally): Amulet Titan is still a top level deck, it was not 'banned into oblivion' like Twin. Dredge, is still a top level deck. Infect, is still a top level deck. Eldrazi (used to see play) after the ban which targetted it, and KCI is Eggs.
Only Twin died as the result of a Modern Ban.
Carry on now, thread, with your mistaken views on what actually takes place in Modern.
As posted by Evart Moughon on Twitter "No Changes to any formats."
Matches where one deck does its thing and the other deck does its own thing is reliant on one large presupposition though.
Both players bringing that style of deck.
If you like interaction then bring an interactive style of deck. UW control is very good and very interactive. Humans/Spirits are both top tier and give interaction while still having a very much be answered game plan. Why does it matter what everyone else is playing, unless you are playing at a top tier level in which case if winning is all that matters then play the deck that wins.
There are no top-tier 80/20 matchups in Modern. There haven't been for 3 years. I have debunked this outrageous claim numerous times. To reiterate, top players have the same MWP in Modern as in other formats. They also have the same MWP variance and MWP ceiling. Notably, they further have the same Modern MWP as they do in BOTH Legacy and Standard; the only outliers are player-specific (e.g. Reid Duke is better at Modern than Standard), but across the board, the averages and spread are identical. If Modern was packed with 80/20 matchups as you and hoards of Modern critics have alleged, this would not be the case.
80/20 is probably an exaggeration but I think there are some one-sided matchups like Tron being favored vs any BGx or Martyr Proc being a real pain for Burn. These matchups don't come that often, but when they do you know from turn 1 you are going to have a hard time no matter what you do.
Regarding the pros results, the data we have includes byes? Because I think byes have a lot more to do with the actual MWP than format health itself:
Imagine a pro going 3-3 (3 byes and 0-3), then drop, they still have a 50% MWP counting byes or 0% if we don't count them
Next GP, they go 12-3 (3 byes + 9-3) and their MWP is 80% or 75% if we don't count byes
They would have a total record of 15-6 (6 byes and 9-6) which is above 71% counting byes and 60% counting games where they actually had to play.
On the other hand, a player with just 1 bye with the same results for played games, would be 1-3 drop for GP#1 with a MWP of 25%
The results would be 10-3 having to play another 2 rounds for GP#2, MWP = 76,9%
In total this player has a WMP of 64,7% while the MWP of actually played games is 60% (same as the pro)
So with the same results of played games, the pro is always going to have that edge that comes only from byes.
Since pros play less rounds each GP and the format is so diverse, they are bound to play against a smaller variety of decks than a player with less byes, so if they are lucky enough to dodge the bad matchups, they are more likely to put a good result in a particular GP. This doesn't increase their global winrate since they are going to face those decks in the same percentage as the other players in the long run but it makes a bigger window for having "the good day" where they dodge them and make a good result.
Byes are accounted for. No-bye players have the same MWP on average in Modern events as Standard and Legacy ones. This includes top players who start off the year with fewer byes, and everyday players who just don't have a lot of byes to begin with. Moreover, having byes is no more predictive of reaching top tables in Modern than in other formats.
Re: idSurge's post and the Twitter quote
Wizards did not intend to nuke Twin. They definitely did nuke the archetype when the dust settled, but it wasn't their intention. We can blame Wizards for failing to select the card that wouldn't nuke the archetype, but not for banning Twin in a different way than they handled subsequent bans that were themselves designed to not destroy decks.
As for the Twitter post, that's exactly the kind of pithy, clever, clickbaity, upvote-seeking meme that has dramatically lowered quality of conversation across all Magic mediums. It's rampant on Twitch, Reddit, and Twitter, and it has detracted from the community's ability to build meaningful, evidence-based arguments. Anyone can cherrypick examples from any period of Modern (or basically any format) to show how something is broken. Especially if we screenshot a deck performing at its absolute hottest. This doesn't build cases or advance our understanding of the format. It just generates outrage and upvotes. We should avoid this kind of harmful and trite posting style.
I typed up far too long a post, but in the end genini2, thats all I have left to play on MTGO, but against what the meta actually is, its not even fun games.
Just like they all goldfish, I'm playing solitaire interaction, and its just not fun.
Re: idSurge's post and the Twitter quote
Wizards did not intend to nuke Twin. They definitely did nuke the archetype when the dust settled, but it wasn't their intention. We can blame Wizards for failing to select the card that wouldn't nuke the archetype, but not for banning Twin in a different way than they handled subsequent bans that were themselves designed to not destroy decks.
Then their incompetence knows no bounds. Anyone and everyone who had even the most basic knowledge and understanding of the deck knew that it would cease to exist with Splinter Twin gone. And nearly everyone agreed that it could continue to exist, at a weaker level, in multipleotheriterations, with a ban of Deceiver Exarch instead. The fact they actually believed this wouldn't nuke the deck from orbit is infuriating in of itself. The fact they haven't fixed this in 3 years just adds fuel to that frustration.
I want WotC to return to the turn 4 rule with a vengeance. I would not mind seeing a large list of bans, just straight up ending storm, tron, dredge, KCI and the likes. There are so many decks and cards in modern that solely exist to create non-games where the pre-sideboard game is basically irrelevant. They are much, MUCH more obnoxious than twin ever was which, although powerful, at least was a matchup where both players got to play cards and interact with eachother without needing enchantments out of the sideboard.
The fact that people are arguing that Twin decks got completely neutered and turned into a pile of worthless trash despite still having Kiki-Jiki (as bad as he is, he's clearly not Twin and will never be) while also arguing that Infect is still top tier and functioning after the Probe ban or that Dredge did anything relevant before multiple broken printings in Standard sets is laughable.
As I said before, Twinposting should be a banned topic again IMO. So sick of it already.
The fact that people are arguing that Twin decks got completely neutered and turned into a pile of worthless trash despite still having Kiki-Jiki (as bad as he is, he's clearly not Twin and will never be) while also arguing that Infect is still top tier and functioning after the Probe ban or that Dredge did anything relevant before multiple broken printings in Standard sets is laughable.
As I said before, Twinposting should be a banned topic again IMO. So sick of it already.
Go ahead and ban Twin talk in this thread, I've asked for it many times. You are plainly wrong if you think post GGT-Dredge was on the same level as Kiki-Mite, or that Infect NOW is worse than Kiki-Mite.
Like, not opinion based, you are simply WRONG.
Oh, and Amulet is also better.
No deck took as hard a hit as Twin. To claim otherwise is ignorant.
+1 for banning Twin discussion, it feels like the same 2-3 people just run us around in circles with that topic. It's not even that there's nothing productive to be discussed, it just feels like anytime it comes up any suggestion that Twin shouldn't be unbanned is met with the same people foaming at the mouth about how only they truly understand how Twin would impact Modern and how anyone that doesn't want Twin unbanned, for any reason, is either uninformed, an idiot, or just "wrong".
The fact that people are arguing that Twin decks got completely neutered and turned into a pile of worthless trash despite still having Kiki-Jiki (as bad as he is, he's clearly not Twin and will never be) while also arguing that Infect is still top tier and functioning after the Probe ban or that Dredge did anything relevant before multiple broken printings in Standard sets is laughable.
As I said before, Twinposting should be a banned topic again IMO. So sick of it already.
Go ahead and ban Twin talk in this thread, I've asked for it many times. You are plainly wrong if you think post GGT-Dredge was on the same level as Kiki-Mite, or that Infect NOW is worse than Kiki-Mite.
Like, not opinion based, you are simply WRONG.
Oh, and Amulet is also better.
No deck took as hard a hit as Twin. To claim otherwise is ignorant.
Infect now is on par with Kiki-mite. Pre GGT Dredge was non-existent, and post GGT but before the Amalgam/Reunion debacle it was only a little bit above Kiki-Mite. Amulet Titan is as viable as Kiki-Mite in the sense that you can literally play it, but there are decks doing the same thing but better (Titanshift). Claiming otherwise is not only laughable, but highly opinionated, as is comparing Twin with MAYBE dropping 2-3 4/4 once in a blue moon with a god hand and without screwing myself in the process. Seriously, if you care about winning, UR Storm is your de facto combo deck. You have Jeskai if Bolt-Snap-Bolt is your jam. Miracles if you only care about the blue based control part. Grixis Shadow is a URx Tempo deck (although it straddles the line between Tempo and Midrange a bit). Hell even those new Phoenixes decks are putting up results. And if you don't care about winning or not playing above FNM level your options expand to Blue Moon / Breach, UR Wizards, and yes, Kiki-Mite.
Everyone serious about Modern that has been playing for a long enough amount of time has lost a pet decks to bannings. Like everyone else, you guys have a lot of options, but the fact is that you don't want any of them, you just want to play Twin and only Twin and masquerade it with several meme arguments, so if the goal is to garner some kind of sympathy, I have no pity. If at least you guys brought new arguments to the table instead of the same old ones that have been debunked thread after thread after thread at least we could have some kind of meaningful discussion, but alas.
Speaking as someone who plays a lot of Blood Moon in this format, it's a rather oddball card. There are three color decks that operate just fine against it, and some two color decks that are shutdown by it. The card does demand playing more basics and fetches, which is something a lot of people don't realize initially. Decks like Humans, where their answers or Meddling Mage or Vialing in something to destroy Moon, will always struggle with it. That's just basic Magic: You played a 4-5c manabase against the deck with Blood Moon, that happens. The weird ones are when it's a two color deck that just doesn't do much with Moon in play. UW Control, of all decks, can be completely shutdown by a resolved Moon on t3 (good luck doing that, but when it happens it can be backbreaking). A lot of times, you aren't winning the game with Blood Moon. More often than not it's a disruption piece. The only time you're beating someone with Blood Moon is when they're already on a greedy manabase and you exploited that singular weakness. In the UW Control example, while it does happen on occasion, it's usually due to their hand, not a deck construction issue, and that deck plays more than enough basics to have a reasonable chance of drawing one shortly after Moon hits play. It's doable, but it's not like they can't come back from it. Most decks can beat this card, it's a matter of choosing how you're going to beat it and understanding what those choices imply.
yeah i pretty much agree with you. i wasnt trying to make a case for blood moon being overpowered or anything, but rather that its just a crappy card design. people can debate the subjectivity of that claim, but in the context of game design and entertainment i believe its objectively bad to play with or against. i understand that modern is an outlet for such cards so im not going to make a big deal out of it.
it brings it back to bearscape's assertions on the format. i dont think a bunch of cards should be removed outright, but i genuinely believe the format would be a better place if less games were about 'well i didnt have that X so i guess i just lose'. a big part of that is that the format itself has speed up. so id like to see more generically powerful answer cards. wizards has shown their willingness to do this with various printings this year (damping sphere, etc), and i hope the trend continues with them pushing that lever more.
also, and this is mostly corollary to the format speeding up, i believe a systemic issue of the format is that there are just too many 'game 1' decks at or near the top of the format. perhaps instead of matchup percentages we should be looking at game 1 vs game 2/3 percentages. though i know unfortunately that kind of data isnt readily available.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
it brings it back to bearscape's assertions on the format. i dont think a bunch of cards should be removed outright, but i genuinely believe the format would be a better place if less games were about 'well i didnt have that X so i guess i just lose'. a big part of that is that the format itself has speed up. so id like to see more generically powerful answer cards. wizards has shown their willingness to do this with various printings this year (damping sphere, etc), and i hope the trend continues with them pushing that lever more.
also, and this is mostly corollary to the format speeding up, i believe a systemic issue of the format is that there are just too many 'game 1' decks at or near the top of the format. perhaps instead of matchup percentages we should be looking at game 1 vs game 2/3 percentages. though i know unfortunately that kind of data isnt readily available.
All more cards like Damping Sphere do, is push us into sideboard games even further. Like unless you ACTUALLY account for it in your main deck (aka warping) no fair deck has game against Dredge Game 1, yet are probably favoured Game 2 because of the massive amount of hate that can be directed at the GY or Exile zone.
Thats literally Modern design right now.
None of you want to hear it, or you can respond with 'thats curing Cancer with Ebola' as I have seen on Twitter but Twin, and the pressure it puts on the format to interact, leading to a rise in Jund/Junk/UW/GDS LITERALLY fixes this overnight.
I'd argue that Amulet is better than Titanshift and one of the best decks in modern
Eh... I have to disagree. The deck is significantly more vulnerable to common removal. Though it could just be my area, where several players maindeck artifact removal to get rid of Ensnaring Bridge, so Amulet tends to not stay as long.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
the existence of burn or other hyper aggro decks does far more curbing of greedy mana bases than blood moon ever has. in fact blood moon asks the opponent to play more basics AND fetches, its all the other duals that really suffer. its pretty easy to lose to BM just playing a 2 color deck; especially ones that arent playing red.
ive never been a fan of blood moon, but ive accepted its place in the format (meaning ive never advocated for its ban). i just think its disingenuous to paint it in a light that is anything other than a free win generator that props up a lot of deck that would otherwise be underpowered.
Speaking as someone who plays a lot of Blood Moon in this format, it's a rather oddball card. There are three color decks that operate just fine against it, and some two color decks that are shutdown by it. The card does demand playing more basics and fetches, which is something a lot of people don't realize initially. Decks like Humans, where their answers or Meddling Mage or Vialing in something to destroy Moon, will always struggle with it. That's just basic Magic: You played a 4-5c manabase against the deck with Blood Moon, that happens. The weird ones are when it's a two color deck that just doesn't do much with Moon in play. UW Control, of all decks, can be completely shutdown by a resolved Moon on t3 (good luck doing that, but when it happens it can be backbreaking). A lot of times, you aren't winning the game with Blood Moon. More often than not it's a disruption piece. The only time you're beating someone with Blood Moon is when they're already on a greedy manabase and you exploited that singular weakness. In the UW Control example, while it does happen on occasion, it's usually due to their hand, not a deck construction issue, and that deck plays more than enough basics to have a reasonable chance of drawing one shortly after Moon hits play. It's doable, but it's not like they can't come back from it. Most decks can beat this card, it's a matter of choosing how you're going to beat it and understanding what those choices imply.
Quite honestly I don't find Blood Moon to be that scary card because far too often people actually overestimate the effect. Blood Moon doesn't win games. I can't count how many times I have seen one player play a Blood Moon and then do absolutely nothing to actually win the game. What happens? Eventually the other player draws out of it and suddenly they are in trouble. This is especially true against Tron decks. The haymakers are all colorless so once enough lands are in play you are still getting wrecked. A turn 8 Ugin, The Spirit Dragon will still probably beat anything you are doing.
People really need to learn that. Blood Moon is not a threat unless it's against Amulet Titan. It's just an annoyance that buys an uncertain amount of time but depending on the deck you are playing against you are still on a clock.
dredge is a unique case, and its why people are so bothered by its presence. the mechanic itself is giving an aggro deck inevitability against anything looking to trade resources.
i mean if you look at it, has dredge been doing any better than when hollow one rose up in the weeks/months following the pro-tour? no, it hasnt. its just the dredge mechanic asks players 'are you faster than me?', if yes go about your business, if no have GY hate or you lose.
there are just too many cases right now with decks having large variability in the power of their opening draws. i sold my death and taxes deck specifically because aether vial presented this very problem. hey guess what, 2 freaking aether vial decks are at the top of the format!
i believe people deep down dont really want such decks to be disappear, it just a matter of dosage. ultimately it brings up something that people dont want to acknowledge or admit: that certain decks or strategies are more suited to being the 'better' things to be doing. it doesnt have to be all or nothing. being unhappy with the state of things doesnt have to mean you want modern to be some midrange/control grindfest; it could just mean you'd like to see more of that than there is right now.
as for your comment on damping sphere idsurge; yeah i agree. mostly the hate cards that wizards printed this year have been too narrow. great options in a known field. they just forgot or overlooked the fact that they purposely pushed modern to be a format that features 'diversity'; meaning a 'known field' isnt happening.
my hope is that wizards will push harder for generic answers; ones that dont seem ridiculous to play main deck. deathrite shaman is an example of the extreme, but i think scavenging ooze is an acceptable power level. get more modal cards floating around like abrade, or a catch all answers with a manageable downside like assassin's trophy (such as a decent cheap counterspell suited to non-rotating formats). a high enough density of such things might shift the format towards more interactivity and longer games.
banning stuff should be the absolute last recourse. if wizards isnt going to loosen their kung-fu grip on the banlist, then we can hope they print stuff in new sets so we buy packs.
Standard is bad- nochanges we need to fix standard.
Standard is good- no changes we want people to play standard.
Modern is bad- no changes we want people to play standard.
Modern is good- we should keep an eye on things so we can push people into playing standard.
This kind of pithy comment is all too common in the Twitch chat and Reddit age. It sounds good and garners upvotes, but it doesn't remotely describe what literally happened this year. See BBE and JTMS being unbanned when Modern was good and Standard was bad just to improve Modern more. When you have a literal counterexample to your allegation in the last 12 months, it's clearly an allegation that needs reworking.
Good point should have added we printed new cards that we can make money off modern - we'll unban that card and something that evens it out a bit.
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JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
80/20 is probably an exaggeration but I think there are some one-sided matchups like Tron being favored vs any BGx or Martyr Proc being a real pain for Burn. These matchups don't come that often, but when they do you know from turn 1 you are going to have a hard time no matter what you do.
Regarding the pros results, the data we have includes byes? Because I think byes have a lot more to do with the actual MWP than format health itself:
Imagine a pro going 3-3 (3 byes and 0-3), then drop, they still have a 50% MWP counting byes or 0% if we don't count them
Next GP, they go 12-3 (3 byes + 9-3) and their MWP is 80% or 75% if we don't count byes
They would have a total record of 15-6 (6 byes and 9-6) which is above 71% counting byes and 60% counting games where they actually had to play.
On the other hand, a player with just 1 bye with the same results for played games, would be 1-3 drop for GP#1 with a MWP of 25%
The results would be 10-3 having to play another 2 rounds for GP#2, MWP = 76,9%
In total this player has a WMP of 64,7% while the MWP of actually played games is 60% (same as the pro)
So with the same results of played games, the pro is always going to have that edge that comes only from byes.
Since pros play less rounds each GP and the format is so diverse, they are bound to play against a smaller variety of decks than a player with less byes, so if they are lucky enough to dodge the bad matchups, they are more likely to put a good result in a particular GP. This doesn't increase their global winrate since they are going to face those decks in the same percentage as the other players in the long run but it makes a bigger window for having "the good day" where they dodge them and make a good result.
Speaking as someone who plays a lot of Blood Moon in this format, it's a rather oddball card. There are three color decks that operate just fine against it, and some two color decks that are shutdown by it. The card does demand playing more basics and fetches, which is something a lot of people don't realize initially. Decks like Humans, where their answers or Meddling Mage or Vialing in something to destroy Moon, will always struggle with it. That's just basic Magic: You played a 4-5c manabase against the deck with Blood Moon, that happens. The weird ones are when it's a two color deck that just doesn't do much with Moon in play. UW Control, of all decks, can be completely shutdown by a resolved Moon on t3 (good luck doing that, but when it happens it can be backbreaking). A lot of times, you aren't winning the game with Blood Moon. More often than not it's a disruption piece. The only time you're beating someone with Blood Moon is when they're already on a greedy manabase and you exploited that singular weakness. In the UW Control example, while it does happen on occasion, it's usually due to their hand, not a deck construction issue, and that deck plays more than enough basics to have a reasonable chance of drawing one shortly after Moon hits play. It's doable, but it's not like they can't come back from it. Most decks can beat this card, it's a matter of choosing how you're going to beat it and understanding what those choices imply.
Completely missing the point of my post and the post I quoted, but that is to be expected at this point. Feel free to reread.
Actually, I would play them, which is what I did with nearly every remotely viable UR strategy of the past 3 years; often spending hundreds of dollars to do so. I want so desperately to find something to enjoy in this format, and often, as soon as I find it, it's either banned, or some new broken deck makes it irrelevant. Right now, I caved and bought Arclight Phoenixs because I got sick of losing to horrid matchups with UW and GDS myself. I still don't think it's necessarily GOOD, especially since it is slower than the hyper linear decks, less resiliant than the awkward combo/aggro decks, and less reactive than old Delver decks. But it kills people, and that's what you need to be doing in Modern.
I've actually found personal satisfaction in a number of decks. What I particularly don't like is playing games and matches in which my decisions are ultimately meaningless and the game devolves into who can goldfish fastest or who can find their sideboard hate card first. Because the types of decks I really enjoy are downright awful in that kind of format. If you are conceding that Modern is mostly an awful, linear, high variance format, then sure, I will probably never be happy. I have hope it will not be like this forever.
Jace and BBE showed us that things we were deathly worried about breaking the format aren't just fine, they're not even that good. Their release gave us hope to right several of the other wrongs rotting on the banned list. That's why every B&R that comes and goes with no changes is such a soul-crushing disappointment.
Re: Blood Moon
This is a card I desperately want to be relevant as well. I own four foil copies and have jammed it in a number of decks that are also trying to cast Cryptic Command. I personally can't stand overt prison decks, so I never played Mono R, RW, or GR Moon variants, but the card itself is wildly swingy. It can be game-breaking or it can do nothing at all. Kind of sums up Modern in a nutshell all by itself.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
you would not mind seeing bans that wipe out decks representing probably 30% of the meta, leaving thousands of players with no deck? I'm sorry, that kind of just sounds like a crappy person. 'I don't personally like your deck, so I want you and everyone else who has fun the same way you do to lose thousands of dollars'. not everyone wants to play Jeskai control matchups every day. ikf you had your way and a huge number of us just lost our decks, we wouldn't be able to recoup enough value to play midrange or control, we would be forced to play budget or get out of Modern. There are decks I don't like, some bans I would like, but not stuff that turns an expensive deck into a pile of worthless trash, much less doing it to multiple decks. That's a problem I see with too many midrange or control players, you want the whole format to look like your deck, and anyone who doesn't want to or can't play like that shouldn't get to play at all.
Yeah..we sure wouldnt want that to happen...;)
Its not about the match up % to me. I dont believe for a second that there are any games which are literally (post board) 80-20. Not even close.
I do believe that the quality of matches, is unrelentingly poor, because the vast majority of decks are not playing against eachother, they are playing against themselves.
Many people (I saw it all day on Twitter) will tell you that is a feature of Modern. You do your thing, and they do their thing, and may the better Goldfish win.
If that's what you are into, awesome.
PS (since I saw it Quoted as I cannot see it normally): Amulet Titan is still a top level deck, it was not 'banned into oblivion' like Twin. Dredge, is still a top level deck. Infect, is still a top level deck. Eldrazi (used to see play) after the ban which targetted it, and KCI is Eggs.
Only Twin died as the result of a Modern Ban.
Carry on now, thread, with your mistaken views on what actually takes place in Modern.
As posted by Evart Moughon on Twitter "No Changes to any formats."
Spirits
Both players bringing that style of deck.
If you like interaction then bring an interactive style of deck. UW control is very good and very interactive. Humans/Spirits are both top tier and give interaction while still having a very much be answered game plan. Why does it matter what everyone else is playing, unless you are playing at a top tier level in which case if winning is all that matters then play the deck that wins.
Byes are accounted for. No-bye players have the same MWP on average in Modern events as Standard and Legacy ones. This includes top players who start off the year with fewer byes, and everyday players who just don't have a lot of byes to begin with. Moreover, having byes is no more predictive of reaching top tables in Modern than in other formats.
Re: idSurge's post and the Twitter quote
Wizards did not intend to nuke Twin. They definitely did nuke the archetype when the dust settled, but it wasn't their intention. We can blame Wizards for failing to select the card that wouldn't nuke the archetype, but not for banning Twin in a different way than they handled subsequent bans that were themselves designed to not destroy decks.
As for the Twitter post, that's exactly the kind of pithy, clever, clickbaity, upvote-seeking meme that has dramatically lowered quality of conversation across all Magic mediums. It's rampant on Twitch, Reddit, and Twitter, and it has detracted from the community's ability to build meaningful, evidence-based arguments. Anyone can cherrypick examples from any period of Modern (or basically any format) to show how something is broken. Especially if we screenshot a deck performing at its absolute hottest. This doesn't build cases or advance our understanding of the format. It just generates outrage and upvotes. We should avoid this kind of harmful and trite posting style.
Just like they all goldfish, I'm playing solitaire interaction, and its just not fun.
Spirits
Then their incompetence knows no bounds. Anyone and everyone who had even the most basic knowledge and understanding of the deck knew that it would cease to exist with Splinter Twin gone. And nearly everyone agreed that it could continue to exist, at a weaker level, in multiple other iterations, with a ban of Deceiver Exarch instead. The fact they actually believed this wouldn't nuke the deck from orbit is infuriating in of itself. The fact they haven't fixed this in 3 years just adds fuel to that frustration.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
"I dont want combo to exist"
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
So tired of people making exaggerated or false statements about things. Or drum up fear and hysteria over complete misrepresentations of history.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
As I said before, Twinposting should be a banned topic again IMO. So sick of it already.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
Go ahead and ban Twin talk in this thread, I've asked for it many times. You are plainly wrong if you think post GGT-Dredge was on the same level as Kiki-Mite, or that Infect NOW is worse than Kiki-Mite.
Like, not opinion based, you are simply WRONG.
Oh, and Amulet is also better.
No deck took as hard a hit as Twin. To claim otherwise is ignorant.
Spirits
Infect now is on par with Kiki-mite. Pre GGT Dredge was non-existent, and post GGT but before the Amalgam/Reunion debacle it was only a little bit above Kiki-Mite. Amulet Titan is as viable as Kiki-Mite in the sense that you can literally play it, but there are decks doing the same thing but better (Titanshift). Claiming otherwise is not only laughable, but highly opinionated, as is comparing Twin with MAYBE dropping 2-3 4/4 once in a blue moon with a god hand and without screwing myself in the process. Seriously, if you care about winning, UR Storm is your de facto combo deck. You have Jeskai if Bolt-Snap-Bolt is your jam. Miracles if you only care about the blue based control part. Grixis Shadow is a URx Tempo deck (although it straddles the line between Tempo and Midrange a bit). Hell even those new Phoenixes decks are putting up results. And if you don't care about winning or not playing above FNM level your options expand to Blue Moon / Breach, UR Wizards, and yes, Kiki-Mite.
Everyone serious about Modern that has been playing for a long enough amount of time has lost a pet decks to bannings. Like everyone else, you guys have a lot of options, but the fact is that you don't want any of them, you just want to play Twin and only Twin and masquerade it with several meme arguments, so if the goal is to garner some kind of sympathy, I have no pity. If at least you guys brought new arguments to the table instead of the same old ones that have been debunked thread after thread after thread at least we could have some kind of meaningful discussion, but alas.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
Spirits
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
yeah i pretty much agree with you. i wasnt trying to make a case for blood moon being overpowered or anything, but rather that its just a crappy card design. people can debate the subjectivity of that claim, but in the context of game design and entertainment i believe its objectively bad to play with or against. i understand that modern is an outlet for such cards so im not going to make a big deal out of it.
it brings it back to bearscape's assertions on the format. i dont think a bunch of cards should be removed outright, but i genuinely believe the format would be a better place if less games were about 'well i didnt have that X so i guess i just lose'. a big part of that is that the format itself has speed up. so id like to see more generically powerful answer cards. wizards has shown their willingness to do this with various printings this year (damping sphere, etc), and i hope the trend continues with them pushing that lever more.
also, and this is mostly corollary to the format speeding up, i believe a systemic issue of the format is that there are just too many 'game 1' decks at or near the top of the format. perhaps instead of matchup percentages we should be looking at game 1 vs game 2/3 percentages. though i know unfortunately that kind of data isnt readily available.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)All more cards like Damping Sphere do, is push us into sideboard games even further. Like unless you ACTUALLY account for it in your main deck (aka warping) no fair deck has game against Dredge Game 1, yet are probably favoured Game 2 because of the massive amount of hate that can be directed at the GY or Exile zone.
Thats literally Modern design right now.
None of you want to hear it, or you can respond with 'thats curing Cancer with Ebola' as I have seen on Twitter but Twin, and the pressure it puts on the format to interact, leading to a rise in Jund/Junk/UW/GDS LITERALLY fixes this overnight.
I'm not wrong!
Spirits
Eh... I have to disagree. The deck is significantly more vulnerable to common removal. Though it could just be my area, where several players maindeck artifact removal to get rid of Ensnaring Bridge, so Amulet tends to not stay as long.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Quite honestly I don't find Blood Moon to be that scary card because far too often people actually overestimate the effect. Blood Moon doesn't win games. I can't count how many times I have seen one player play a Blood Moon and then do absolutely nothing to actually win the game. What happens? Eventually the other player draws out of it and suddenly they are in trouble. This is especially true against Tron decks. The haymakers are all colorless so once enough lands are in play you are still getting wrecked. A turn 8 Ugin, The Spirit Dragon will still probably beat anything you are doing.
People really need to learn that. Blood Moon is not a threat unless it's against Amulet Titan. It's just an annoyance that buys an uncertain amount of time but depending on the deck you are playing against you are still on a clock.
i mean if you look at it, has dredge been doing any better than when hollow one rose up in the weeks/months following the pro-tour? no, it hasnt. its just the dredge mechanic asks players 'are you faster than me?', if yes go about your business, if no have GY hate or you lose.
there are just too many cases right now with decks having large variability in the power of their opening draws. i sold my death and taxes deck specifically because aether vial presented this very problem. hey guess what, 2 freaking aether vial decks are at the top of the format!
i believe people deep down dont really want such decks to be disappear, it just a matter of dosage. ultimately it brings up something that people dont want to acknowledge or admit: that certain decks or strategies are more suited to being the 'better' things to be doing. it doesnt have to be all or nothing. being unhappy with the state of things doesnt have to mean you want modern to be some midrange/control grindfest; it could just mean you'd like to see more of that than there is right now.
as for your comment on damping sphere idsurge; yeah i agree. mostly the hate cards that wizards printed this year have been too narrow. great options in a known field. they just forgot or overlooked the fact that they purposely pushed modern to be a format that features 'diversity'; meaning a 'known field' isnt happening.
my hope is that wizards will push harder for generic answers; ones that dont seem ridiculous to play main deck. deathrite shaman is an example of the extreme, but i think scavenging ooze is an acceptable power level. get more modal cards floating around like abrade, or a catch all answers with a manageable downside like assassin's trophy (such as a decent cheap counterspell suited to non-rotating formats). a high enough density of such things might shift the format towards more interactivity and longer games.
banning stuff should be the absolute last recourse. if wizards isnt going to loosen their kung-fu grip on the banlist, then we can hope they print stuff in new sets so we buy packs.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Good point should have added we printed new cards that we can make money off modern - we'll unban that card and something that evens it out a bit.