You'll notice higher and hgiher peaks for Extended, with the last event being at 711, the first modern GP was at 716 people, practically the same amount. It also continued to have higher peaks. The two basically have the same attendance, and it's not hard to imagine the Modern numbers being simple extensions of the Extended ones.
I'm all for graphs and quantitative analysis, but I really don't think that we can be making any conclusions from our dataset. All the attendance stats that I have seen for Modern comes from 9 datapoints over 12 months. You just can't reach meaningful conclusions with that population.
That said, I am totally willing to admit that the format needs room to grow from its early stages. The banlist needs to be ironed out, decks need to emerge, a playerbase needs to be established, etc. That's true of any new format, and it's definitely true of ours. But saying that Modern is declining while the rest of Magic is expanding using only a 9 point dataset? That's silly.
That said, I am totally willing to admit that the format needs room to grow from its early stages. The banlist needs to be ironed out, decks need to emerge, a playerbase needs to be established, etc. That's true of any new format, and it's definitely true of ours. But saying that Modern is declining while the rest of Magic is expanding using only a 9 point dataset? That's silly.
See all of your arguments are based on the fact that this stuff has yet to happen. My question to you is how long are you willing to give it before its taking too long? Many players believe that with the current structure the amount of time modern has had is sufficient.
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Currently Playing:
Modern: UWUW TronUW
Legacy: WDeath N TaxesW CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
You are confusing Magic growth with Format growth. Again. All magic is expanding, but guess what? Modern isn't.
This is a chart tracking attendance across the Grand Prix circuit for Legacy and Modern across the same time period.
We went over this already, how many PTQ's were on the same weekends as those GP's? Why travel across the country to a GP when you can play a PTQ in your back yard? You are comparing a very small percentage of Modern tournaments held on the same weekend, where usually its the only Legacy tournament. (unless you want to count SCG events.) Yopu keep pounding the same misinformation, which is irrelevant because you are missing data.
Quote from TheDarsuri »
See all of your arguments are based on the fact that this stuff has yet to happen. My question to you is how long are you willing to give it before its taking too long? Many players believe that with the current structure the amount of time modern has had is sufficient.
Define many? Most players I know understand its going to take time. The only people I hear complain are those on here.
Given time I could see no updates coming from the M13 B&R update (for Modern at least hoping to see another update for Vintage or Legacy, but that is for another thread)
As for the Modern lets you only play creature based decks argument, that isn't true WotC can't prevent mistakes they don't catch and even if some degenerate engine combo forms as a result, it could comply completely with the rules of the format (quick, turn 4) and be almost impossible to interact with without using the stack and neither dominate the meta nor be immune to hate.
All I know is if people start slacking on Stony Silences and Rest In Peaces I am going to back to either Restore Balance or Living End
As for an unbanning as I say almost every post "Free Golgari Grave-Troll!"
If they wanted to shake-up the format they could release Bitterblossom as well (which would be great for those who like to play Tempo)
If cycling does return in Theros we could see the cycle lands again in which we'll have a new engine deck again, it won't be a combo deck, but it will be pretty good and creatureless (save manlands)
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Modern:
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget I stream!
The ban list is very good right now, its only flaw was letting eggs be a deck.
The only thing you can do to maybe make it better is unban something that wouldn't hurt the format.
Define many? Most players I know understand its going to take time. The only people I hear complain are those on here.
At least 1/4th of the people who participate in the polls and such online here. As well as a bunch of friends I play with in my local group.
I'm sorry your local group is different than my local group so we see a different perspective. There have been many many polls here however, usually with at least 1/4th of the people arguing that modern has had adequate time.
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Currently Playing:
Modern: UWUW TronUW
Legacy: WDeath N TaxesW CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
GP Attendance #s from 2007-today:
(excluding Block and Limited)
2009 Chicago Legacy 1230
2010 Madrid Legacy 2228
2010 Columbus Legacy 1296
2011 Providence Legacy 1179
2011 Amsterdam Legacy 1878
2012 Indianapolis Legacy 1214
2012 Atlanta Legacy 905
2012 Ghent Legacy 1345
2013 Denver Legacy 700
2013 Strasbourg Legacy 1364
Legacy Average 1292.909091
2012 Lincoln Modern 716
2012 Turin Modern 1063
2012 Yokohama Modern 1523
2012 Columbus Modern 1046
2012 Lyon Modern 1326
2012 Chicago Modern 1115
2012 Toronto Modern 1051
2013 Bilbao Modern 988
2013 San Diego Modern 759
Modern Average 1065.222222
2007 Kyoto Standard 859
2007 Krakow Standard 848
2008 Shizuoka Standard 827
2008 Buenos Aires Standard 580
2008 Copenhagan Standard 610
2009 Barcelona Standard 1495
2009 Seattle Standard 1127
2009 Sao Paulo Standard 639
2010 Kuala Lumpur Standard 518
2010 Brussels Standard 1667
2010 DC Standard 1932
2010 Sendai Standard 907
2010 Manila Standard 1071
2011 Barcelona Standard 1201
2011 Dallas Standard 1189
2011 Singapore Standard 623
2011 Pittsburgh Standard 1435
2011 Brisbane Standard 389
2011 Hiroshima Standard 796
2012 Orlando Standard 926
2012 Baltimore Standard 1545
2012 Lille Standard 1505
2012 Kuala Lumpur Standard 612
2012 Salt Lake City Standard 1137
2012 Minneapolis Standard 1052
2012 Manila Standard 1108
2012 Auckland Standard 264
2012 Bochum Standard 1731
2012 Charleston Standard 661
2012 San Antonio Standard 807
2012 Nagoya Standard 1689
2013 Atlantic City Standard 1648
2013 Quebec City Standard 806
2013 Verona Standard 1208
2013 Rio De Janeiro Standard 709
Standard Average 1032.028571
Grand Average 1028.382353
and just the averages:
Extended Average 769.2307692
Legacy Average 1292.909091 Modern Average 1065.222222
Standard Average 1032.028571
Grand Average 1028.382353
On average, Modern is about even in popularity with Standard, slightly less than Legacy, and much higher than Extended.
There were several Extended GPs with <400 players. No Modern GP to date has dipped below 700 players. Another fun fact: The lowest attended Modern GP (Lincoln 2012 - 716) had 16 more players than the smallest Legacy GP (Denver 2013 - 700.)
If we are comparing Modern attendance to Legacy attendance, Legacy wins. However, if we compare Modern attendance to the format it actually replaced on the GP circuit, then it is a resounding success. It is also on par with Standard, which I expected to be the most popular format under Limited.
Charts:
Modern vs. Extended
Modern vs. Standard
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You can't always win, and just because you lose doesn't mean you played badly.
Even if you lose, it is important to remain confident in your ability to make good plays and decisions. Lose that and you are truly lost.
Testing is great, and the better the testing is, the better off you'll be.
It is impossible to tilt and play well.
It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose.
See all of your arguments are based on the fact that this stuff has yet to happen. My question to you is how long are you willing to give it before its taking too long? Many players believe that with the current structure the amount of time modern has had is sufficient.
It's tough to give a definitive answer, but I'll take a stab at it using some modeling from the Extended dataset. First, I'll give my answer. Then I'll go over how I got it:
MODERN TWO YEAR PERSPECTIVE - February, 2014 Highest tournament attendance to date: 1700
Lowest tournament attendance to date: 700
Expected turnout on February 2015 Grand Prix: 850
I would prefer to look at the Legacy Grand Prix attendance rolls, because Legacy is probably a closer comparison to Modern than is Extended. But I am hesitant to use a dataset with only 13 points. Since 1997, however, there have been 51 Extended Grand Prix events, and that's a dataset we can actually work with (sure, we would really want thousands of points, but we social scientists are less picky than mathematicians about our N).
I did a quick regression on the Extended dataset, looking at Grand Prix attendance as a function of days with Day 0 (the Y intercept) being defined as the first Extended Grand Prix (San Francisco, December 6 1997). I found decent T (t=4.5, DF=49, p=.05) and R^2 (.30) values, so the regression was worth extrapolating from. The line equation itself was Y=.105(x)+282.
Our first Modern Grand Prix had an attendance of 716 players and was held in February, 2012. Based on my extremely rough, paper-napkin analysis, here's what I would expect Modern to look like in 2 years in February 2014:
MODERN TWO YEAR PERSPECTIVE - February, 2014 Highest tournament attendance to date: 1700
Lowest tournament attendance to date: 700
Expected turnout on February 2015 Grand Prix: 850
These are very conservative and humble numbers based on the Extended attendance model. With more time we could do a much more nuanced multivariate to account for a huge range of other factors (event location, weather, ticket prices, competing PTQ events, weather, independent events, etc.), but I don't think that would be particularly valuable at this stage.
I should note that all of the above numbers are actually projections for 2015 and not 2014. I cut down the timeline to account for Wizards pushing the format, but I would not be surprised or displeased if those numbers weren't attained until 2015.
It is not fair to compare extended to modern where 1 existed when the game was significantly less popular than it was today.
The main crux of the attendance argument is whether modern is failing or succeeding at what it was intending to do, which is to improve the extended format. Extended was a format that was for the most part only played in season, and that is what modern is becoming because people don't like playing in unstable, constantly changing formats.
Modern has essentially become a more expensive to play Extended. If that's what you want then alright. Some people are arguing that Modern is failing because it is basically just a more expensive to play Extended and not something larger than that.
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Currently Playing:
Modern: UWUW TronUW
Legacy: WDeath N TaxesW CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Do we have PTQ attendance number compiled somewhere? I could run that against the GP numbers to see how many people were playing in PTQs for Modern year-over-year and compared to Extended PTQs.
I think comparing PTQ numbers will make for a more accurate depiction of a format's health. GPs are considered special events, and I know players will build decks for the tournament regardless of what format it is if the event is close by.
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You can't always win, and just because you lose doesn't mean you played badly.
Even if you lose, it is important to remain confident in your ability to make good plays and decisions. Lose that and you are truly lost.
Testing is great, and the better the testing is, the better off you'll be.
It is impossible to tilt and play well.
It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose.
It's tough to give a definitive answer, but I'll take a stab at it using some modeling from the Extended dataset. First, I'll give my answer. Then I'll go over how I got it:
MODERN TWO YEAR PERSPECTIVE - February, 2014 Highest tournament attendance to date: 1700
Lowest tournament attendance to date: 700
Expected turnout on February 2015 Grand Prix: 850
I would prefer to look at the Legacy Grand Prix attendance rolls, because Legacy is probably a closer comparison to Modern than is Extended. But I am hesitant to use a dataset with only 13 points. Since 1997, however, there have been 51 Extended Grand Prix events, and that's a dataset we can actually work with (sure, we would really want thousands of points, but we social scientists are less picky than mathematicians about our N).
I did a quick regression on the Extended dataset, looking at Grand Prix attendance as a function of days with Day 0 (the Y intercept) being defined as the first Extended Grand Prix (San Francisco, December 6 1997). I found decent T (t=4.5, DF=49, p=.05) and R^2 (.30) values, so the regression was worth extrapolating from. The line equation itself was Y=.105(x)+282.
Our first Modern Grand Prix had an attendance of 716 players and was held in February, 2012. Based on my extremely rough, paper-napkin analysis, here's what I would expect Modern to look like in 2 years in February 2014:
MODERN TWO YEAR PERSPECTIVE - February, 2014 Highest tournament attendance to date: 1700
Lowest tournament attendance to date: 700
Expected turnout on February 2015 Grand Prix: 850
These are very conservative and humble numbers based on the Extended attendance model. With more time we could do a much more nuanced multivariate to account for a huge range of other factors (event location, weather, ticket prices, competing PTQ events, weather, independent events, etc.), but I don't think that would be particularly valuable at this stage.
I should note that all of the above numbers are actually projections for 2015 and not 2014. I cut down the timeline to account for Wizards pushing the format, but I would not be surprised or displeased if those numbers weren't attained until 2015.
My question more had to deal with the format settling compared to attendance numbers. How long is an adequate amount of time for a format to settle?
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Currently Playing:
Modern: UWUW TronUW
Legacy: WDeath N TaxesW CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
It is not fair to compare extended to modern where 1 existed when the game was significantly less popular than it was today.
The main crux of the attendance argument is whether modern is failing or succeeding at what it was intending to do, which is to improve the extended format. Extended was a format that was for the most part only played in season, and that is what modern is becoming because people don't like playing in unstable, constantly changing formats.
Modern has essentially become a more expensive to play Extended. If that's what you want then alright. Some people are arguing that Modern is failing because it is basically just a more expensive to play Extended and not something larger than that.
It is not failing if attendance #s are higher. How is that NOT a success? That sounds like some Orwellian double-speak to say that increased numbers are not increased numbers?!?
Standard is an unstable, constantly changing format... but its also played by MILLIONS of people every weekend at all levels of competition.
Well horseshoe crab, you lost all credibility by using GPs from years ago because the player base was a lot smaller. The statistical comparison you are trying to make just doesn't make sense.
For the most part magic has been growing over the past few years so the overall growth in numbers should be reflected and over the past few years Magic has seen a large growth so I think 2007 is a good starting point for your data and yes it looks like Modern is doing a fine job replacing Extended some people just want it to feel closer in power level to Extended, while others don't.
Magic as a whole is growing, my hope is that Modern sticks around as "more than just a PTQ format" unfortunately that has yet to occur in my area
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Modern:
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget I stream!
It is not failing if attendance #s are higher. How is that NOT a success? That sounds like some Orwellian double-speak to say that increased numbers are not increased numbers?!?
The numbers are inherently higher because the game is more popular today than it was before, which is due to a large number of factors that I know Bocephus and I have argued about over and over again, (or in his case he believes it is solely due to the design philosophy changing) Everyone can agree that the game is more popular today than it was in any previous year, which means that naturally ALL tournament attendances are higher.
The question is, do people care about modern more than people cared about extended. By which I mean are modern events popular when it isn't modern PTQ season? So far the answer is no. I can give lots of anecdotal examples, like how my local game store hasn't had a single modern FNM ever because there is no interest, or I can point out to the fact that modern events are having trouble firing on MODO because less people care about the format.
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Currently Playing:
Modern: UWUW TronUW
Legacy: WDeath N TaxesW CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
It is not failing if attendance #s are higher. How is that NOT a success? That sounds like some Orwellian double-speak to say that increased numbers are not increased numbers?!?
Standard is an unstable, constantly changing format... but its also played by MILLIONS of people every weekend at all levels of competition.
If the game has a playerbase growing at 10%, Legacy has a playerbase growing at 6% a year, standard at 8% a year but Modern is only growing at 1% a year, it means Modern isn't doing well (numbers entirely made up, just to illustrate the point).
It is not failing if attendance #s are higher. How is that NOT a success? That sounds like some Orwellian double-speak to say that increased numbers are not increased numbers?!?
10 dollars went a lot further in 1900 than it goes today because inflation has reduced the value of the dollar. This is a somewhat analogous thing going on here. A few years ago there were a lot less magic players (by several orders of magnitude) which means that there were less players that any particular Grand Prix could attract. If you want to get a sense of how popular Modern is you need to evaluate it in terms of how many magic players in the current player base are willing to play it. The way to do that is to compare Modern events going on now to Standard and Limited events. GP numbers aren't really the best way to gauge this anyway given that a lot of players will go to any GP in their area. You would need to see data from local stores to perform real statistical analysis.
Well horseshoe crab, you lost all credibility by using GPs from years ago because the player base was a lot smaller. The statistical comparison you are trying to make just doesn't make sense.
I started the data at 2007 to account for Modern times.
Legacy players don't want to believe the data, because they want another Legacy format. I believe that those players are in the minority. They only look like a majority on this forum because they jump on the Modern threads and harass Modern players instead of sticking to their own forums.
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You can't always win, and just because you lose doesn't mean you played badly.
Even if you lose, it is important to remain confident in your ability to make good plays and decisions. Lose that and you are truly lost.
Testing is great, and the better the testing is, the better off you'll be.
It is impossible to tilt and play well.
It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose.
It is not failing if attendance #s are higher. How is that NOT a success? That sounds like some Orwellian double-speak to say that increased numbers are not increased numbers?!?
Standard is an unstable, constantly changing format... but its also played by MILLIONS of people every weekend at all levels of competition.
If the number of magic players playing goes from 6 million to 18 million doubling attendance at modern when it replaced extended may be a numerical increase but it isn't a good thing from a marketing perspective as it should have tripled.
If the game has a playerbase growing at 10%, Legacy has a playerbase growing at 6% a year, standard at 8% a year but Modern is only growing at 1% a year, it means Modern isn't doing well (numbers entirely made up, just to illustrate the point).
Based on my personal experience, PTQ attendance in my area increased by an average of 50-100% in 2013 over 2012. Once I get those numbers I'll do a chart on those as well.
Modern is growing. Why don't you leave us alone and go play what you want?
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You can't always win, and just because you lose doesn't mean you played badly.
Even if you lose, it is important to remain confident in your ability to make good plays and decisions. Lose that and you are truly lost.
Testing is great, and the better the testing is, the better off you'll be.
It is impossible to tilt and play well.
It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose.
If the tournament is a PTQ or a GP, less rounds means an easier chance of reaching the only prize that matters: The qualification. Why should I care if 2nd - 16th only get a few packs each? I'm only there for 1st place. The packs are just a consolation prize anyway. No one I know travels to PTQs to win boxes of product.
But that's my Devil's Advocate position. From Wizards view -> more players = more $ for them. They certainly want GPs to grow. They want PTQs to be swamped, and they certainly want all of the online events to fire. I bet WOTC knows what they're doing with the ban list, making the calculated risk of losing some Eggs and Legacy die-hards in exchange for getting greater customer retention from the Standard crowd.
Have you played Limited? Most of the Pros say that Limited is the most skill testing format... and its mostly creature combat. I also doubt Wizards would schedule half of each of their Pro Tour tournaments around a format like that if it had no skill.
Creature-based constructed formats take the Limited combat situations and streamline them. There are less varied types of creatures to deal with, but there are still plenty of creature battles to consider. You may not like this type of Magic, but to say it has no skill is insulting to every Limited expert and all of the best players in the game, who have to be experts at creatures in order to make money at this game.
And mirror matches take way more skill than "stick x and win." I suggest testing more with higher skilled players. Just like in 99% of your matches, if you lose it is your fault. It is better to look for mistakes and try to improve as a player than to blame anything of who drew what.
I prefer Limited to Constructed, but what you are saying here doesn't make any sense. Limited is skill intensive because neither player has huge blowout cards like Bonfire of the Damned, Sphinx's Revelation, Deathrite Shaman, whatever. That means that they have thing critically about how to deal with their opponent's creatures and so on. Thragtusk is not a card that you need skill to use. Gutter Skulk on the other hand......Additionally, limited requires better card evaluation and deck building skills because netdecking is impossible.
I started the data at 2007 to account for Modern times.
Legacy players don't want to believe the data, because they want another Legacy format. I believe that those players are in the minority. They only look like a majority on this forum because they jump on the Modern threads and harass Modern players instead of sticking to their own forums.
Then you failed because the player base has increased drastically since around 2011. Nice try though.
There are blowout cards in both formats. If you were lucky enough to win the Pack Rat lottery things went well for you.
Both formats are similar. The only major difference is that the creatures are going to be better on average in Standard, plus the deck building aspect is different between formats. You still have to figure out when to attack, block, how many to attack and block with, play around tricks and removal, anticipate additional creatures in opponents' hands, and work out a game plan several turns ahead. And yes, there are no net decks, but with a draft guide or common sense 99% of players are going to pick the same commons and uncommons first in their decks' colors. You will see the same small subsets of creatures in most of your limited games if you are playing with anyone with a minimum of skill.
I'm not going to explain the basics of Magic to you, but if you think even something as simple as Grizzly Bears takes no skill to play, you are sorely mistaken. The card itself may be simple, but its value will vary wildly based on tons of factors and smart players will absolutely get more value out of their 1G 2/2 than less experienced players. Better players will play Thragtusk at the correct time more often, will protect it better, will know when to attack or block with it, will know when to blink it, and will remember its triggers.
I could say that your cantrip artifacts from Eggs are simple to use, but I'll refrain from stirring any more tensions on that point.
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You can't always win, and just because you lose doesn't mean you played badly.
Even if you lose, it is important to remain confident in your ability to make good plays and decisions. Lose that and you are truly lost.
Testing is great, and the better the testing is, the better off you'll be.
It is impossible to tilt and play well.
It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose.
Then you failed because the player base has increased drastically since around 2011. Nice try though.
In 2011 there were two Extended GPs: Atlanta (1213 players) and Kobe (711 players.) Modern's smallest GP beat Kobe by 5 players, and has beaten or come within 200 players of the Atlanta GP 6 out of 9 times.
What percentage do you want me to adjust the Extended numbers by to project for increased overall player numbers? 10%? 20%? Modern beat Extended on average by 27.7%. Even accounting for a 20% increase in attendance Modern is STILL going to beat Extended at attendance.
Why can't you accept that a format is growing? Do you want Magic to fail? I want all forms of Magic to continue to grow. There's nothing wrong with playing a different format if you don't like this one, but a lot of you are coming very close to breaking this thread's rules. Re-read the OP before continuing to bash Modern. This is NOT a "hate on Modern" thread.
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You can't always win, and just because you lose doesn't mean you played badly.
Even if you lose, it is important to remain confident in your ability to make good plays and decisions. Lose that and you are truly lost.
Testing is great, and the better the testing is, the better off you'll be.
It is impossible to tilt and play well.
It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose.
~ Brian DeMars
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I'm all for graphs and quantitative analysis, but I really don't think that we can be making any conclusions from our dataset. All the attendance stats that I have seen for Modern comes from 9 datapoints over 12 months. You just can't reach meaningful conclusions with that population.
That said, I am totally willing to admit that the format needs room to grow from its early stages. The banlist needs to be ironed out, decks need to emerge, a playerbase needs to be established, etc. That's true of any new format, and it's definitely true of ours. But saying that Modern is declining while the rest of Magic is expanding using only a 9 point dataset? That's silly.
See all of your arguments are based on the fact that this stuff has yet to happen. My question to you is how long are you willing to give it before its taking too long? Many players believe that with the current structure the amount of time modern has had is sufficient.
Modern:
UWUW TronUW
Legacy:
WDeath N TaxesW
CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Vintage
WWhite Trash
We went over this already, how many PTQ's were on the same weekends as those GP's? Why travel across the country to a GP when you can play a PTQ in your back yard? You are comparing a very small percentage of Modern tournaments held on the same weekend, where usually its the only Legacy tournament. (unless you want to count SCG events.) Yopu keep pounding the same misinformation, which is irrelevant because you are missing data.
Define many? Most players I know understand its going to take time. The only people I hear complain are those on here.
As for the Modern lets you only play creature based decks argument, that isn't true WotC can't prevent mistakes they don't catch and even if some degenerate engine combo forms as a result, it could comply completely with the rules of the format (quick, turn 4) and be almost impossible to interact with without using the stack and neither dominate the meta nor be immune to hate.
All I know is if people start slacking on Stony Silences and Rest In Peaces I am going to back to either Restore Balance or Living End
As for an unbanning as I say almost every post "Free Golgari Grave-Troll!"
If they wanted to shake-up the format they could release Bitterblossom as well (which would be great for those who like to play Tempo)
If cycling does return in Theros we could see the cycle lands again in which we'll have a new engine deck again, it won't be a combo deck, but it will be pretty good and creatureless (save manlands)
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget
I stream!
Hermit Druid Combo:
The only thing you can do to maybe make it better is unban something that wouldn't hurt the format.
At least 1/4th of the people who participate in the polls and such online here. As well as a bunch of friends I play with in my local group.
I'm sorry your local group is different than my local group so we see a different perspective. There have been many many polls here however, usually with at least 1/4th of the people arguing that modern has had adequate time.
Modern:
UWUW TronUW
Legacy:
WDeath N TaxesW
CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Vintage
WWhite Trash
GP Attendance #s from 2007-today:
(excluding Block and Limited)
2009 Chicago Legacy 1230
2010 Madrid Legacy 2228
2010 Columbus Legacy 1296
2011 Providence Legacy 1179
2011 Amsterdam Legacy 1878
2012 Indianapolis Legacy 1214
2012 Atlanta Legacy 905
2012 Ghent Legacy 1345
2013 Denver Legacy 700
2013 Strasbourg Legacy 1364
Legacy Average 1292.909091
2012 Lincoln Modern 716
2012 Turin Modern 1063
2012 Yokohama Modern 1523
2012 Columbus Modern 1046
2012 Lyon Modern 1326
2012 Chicago Modern 1115
2012 Toronto Modern 1051
2013 Bilbao Modern 988
2013 San Diego Modern 759
Modern Average 1065.222222
2007 Kyoto Standard 859
2007 Krakow Standard 848
2008 Shizuoka Standard 827
2008 Buenos Aires Standard 580
2008 Copenhagan Standard 610
2009 Barcelona Standard 1495
2009 Seattle Standard 1127
2009 Sao Paulo Standard 639
2010 Kuala Lumpur Standard 518
2010 Brussels Standard 1667
2010 DC Standard 1932
2010 Sendai Standard 907
2010 Manila Standard 1071
2011 Barcelona Standard 1201
2011 Dallas Standard 1189
2011 Singapore Standard 623
2011 Pittsburgh Standard 1435
2011 Brisbane Standard 389
2011 Hiroshima Standard 796
2012 Orlando Standard 926
2012 Baltimore Standard 1545
2012 Lille Standard 1505
2012 Kuala Lumpur Standard 612
2012 Salt Lake City Standard 1137
2012 Minneapolis Standard 1052
2012 Manila Standard 1108
2012 Auckland Standard 264
2012 Bochum Standard 1731
2012 Charleston Standard 661
2012 San Antonio Standard 807
2012 Nagoya Standard 1689
2013 Atlantic City Standard 1648
2013 Quebec City Standard 806
2013 Verona Standard 1208
2013 Rio De Janeiro Standard 709
Standard Average 1032.028571
Grand Average 1028.382353
and just the averages:
Extended Average 769.2307692
Legacy Average 1292.909091
Modern Average 1065.222222
Standard Average 1032.028571
Grand Average 1028.382353
On average, Modern is about even in popularity with Standard, slightly less than Legacy, and much higher than Extended.
There were several Extended GPs with <400 players. No Modern GP to date has dipped below 700 players. Another fun fact: The lowest attended Modern GP (Lincoln 2012 - 716) had 16 more players than the smallest Legacy GP (Denver 2013 - 700.)
If we are comparing Modern attendance to Legacy attendance, Legacy wins. However, if we compare Modern attendance to the format it actually replaced on the GP circuit, then it is a resounding success. It is also on par with Standard, which I expected to be the most popular format under Limited.
Charts:
Modern vs. Extended
Modern vs. Standard
~ Brian DeMars
It's tough to give a definitive answer, but I'll take a stab at it using some modeling from the Extended dataset. First, I'll give my answer. Then I'll go over how I got it:
MODERN TWO YEAR PERSPECTIVE - February, 2014
Highest tournament attendance to date: 1700
Lowest tournament attendance to date: 700
Expected turnout on February 2015 Grand Prix: 850
I would prefer to look at the Legacy Grand Prix attendance rolls, because Legacy is probably a closer comparison to Modern than is Extended. But I am hesitant to use a dataset with only 13 points. Since 1997, however, there have been 51 Extended Grand Prix events, and that's a dataset we can actually work with (sure, we would really want thousands of points, but we social scientists are less picky than mathematicians about our N).
I did a quick regression on the Extended dataset, looking at Grand Prix attendance as a function of days with Day 0 (the Y intercept) being defined as the first Extended Grand Prix (San Francisco, December 6 1997). I found decent T (t=4.5, DF=49, p=.05) and R^2 (.30) values, so the regression was worth extrapolating from. The line equation itself was Y=.105(x)+282.
Our first Modern Grand Prix had an attendance of 716 players and was held in February, 2012. Based on my extremely rough, paper-napkin analysis, here's what I would expect Modern to look like in 2 years in February 2014:
MODERN TWO YEAR PERSPECTIVE - February, 2014
Highest tournament attendance to date: 1700
Lowest tournament attendance to date: 700
Expected turnout on February 2015 Grand Prix: 850
These are very conservative and humble numbers based on the Extended attendance model. With more time we could do a much more nuanced multivariate to account for a huge range of other factors (event location, weather, ticket prices, competing PTQ events, weather, independent events, etc.), but I don't think that would be particularly valuable at this stage.
I should note that all of the above numbers are actually projections for 2015 and not 2014. I cut down the timeline to account for Wizards pushing the format, but I would not be surprised or displeased if those numbers weren't attained until 2015.
It is not fair to compare extended to modern where 1 existed when the game was significantly less popular than it was today.
The main crux of the attendance argument is whether modern is failing or succeeding at what it was intending to do, which is to improve the extended format. Extended was a format that was for the most part only played in season, and that is what modern is becoming because people don't like playing in unstable, constantly changing formats.
Modern has essentially become a more expensive to play Extended. If that's what you want then alright. Some people are arguing that Modern is failing because it is basically just a more expensive to play Extended and not something larger than that.
Modern:
UWUW TronUW
Legacy:
WDeath N TaxesW
CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Vintage
WWhite Trash
I think comparing PTQ numbers will make for a more accurate depiction of a format's health. GPs are considered special events, and I know players will build decks for the tournament regardless of what format it is if the event is close by.
~ Brian DeMars
My question more had to deal with the format settling compared to attendance numbers. How long is an adequate amount of time for a format to settle?
Modern:
UWUW TronUW
Legacy:
WDeath N TaxesW
CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Vintage
WWhite Trash
It is not failing if attendance #s are higher. How is that NOT a success? That sounds like some Orwellian double-speak to say that increased numbers are not increased numbers?!?
Standard is an unstable, constantly changing format... but its also played by MILLIONS of people every weekend at all levels of competition.
~ Brian DeMars
For the most part magic has been growing over the past few years so the overall growth in numbers should be reflected and over the past few years Magic has seen a large growth so I think 2007 is a good starting point for your data and yes it looks like Modern is doing a fine job replacing Extended some people just want it to feel closer in power level to Extended, while others don't.
Magic as a whole is growing, my hope is that Modern sticks around as "more than just a PTQ format" unfortunately that has yet to occur in my area
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget
I stream!
Hermit Druid Combo:
The numbers are inherently higher because the game is more popular today than it was before, which is due to a large number of factors that I know Bocephus and I have argued about over and over again, (or in his case he believes it is solely due to the design philosophy changing) Everyone can agree that the game is more popular today than it was in any previous year, which means that naturally ALL tournament attendances are higher.
The question is, do people care about modern more than people cared about extended. By which I mean are modern events popular when it isn't modern PTQ season? So far the answer is no. I can give lots of anecdotal examples, like how my local game store hasn't had a single modern FNM ever because there is no interest, or I can point out to the fact that modern events are having trouble firing on MODO because less people care about the format.
Modern:
UWUW TronUW
Legacy:
WDeath N TaxesW
CEldrazi C
If you couldn't tell I hate greedy blue decks.
Vintage
WWhite Trash
If the game has a playerbase growing at 10%, Legacy has a playerbase growing at 6% a year, standard at 8% a year but Modern is only growing at 1% a year, it means Modern isn't doing well (numbers entirely made up, just to illustrate the point).
10 dollars went a lot further in 1900 than it goes today because inflation has reduced the value of the dollar. This is a somewhat analogous thing going on here. A few years ago there were a lot less magic players (by several orders of magnitude) which means that there were less players that any particular Grand Prix could attract. If you want to get a sense of how popular Modern is you need to evaluate it in terms of how many magic players in the current player base are willing to play it. The way to do that is to compare Modern events going on now to Standard and Limited events. GP numbers aren't really the best way to gauge this anyway given that a lot of players will go to any GP in their area. You would need to see data from local stores to perform real statistical analysis.
I started the data at 2007 to account for Modern times.
Legacy players don't want to believe the data, because they want another Legacy format. I believe that those players are in the minority. They only look like a majority on this forum because they jump on the Modern threads and harass Modern players instead of sticking to their own forums.
~ Brian DeMars
If the number of magic players playing goes from 6 million to 18 million doubling attendance at modern when it replaced extended may be a numerical increase but it isn't a good thing from a marketing perspective as it should have tripled.
Just saying.
Wizards in relation to modern.
"The bannings will continue until attendance improves."
Not sure if trolling or just very stupid.:fry:
Based on my personal experience, PTQ attendance in my area increased by an average of 50-100% in 2013 over 2012. Once I get those numbers I'll do a chart on those as well.
Modern is growing. Why don't you leave us alone and go play what you want?
~ Brian DeMars
I prefer Limited to Constructed, but what you are saying here doesn't make any sense. Limited is skill intensive because neither player has huge blowout cards like Bonfire of the Damned, Sphinx's Revelation, Deathrite Shaman, whatever. That means that they have thing critically about how to deal with their opponent's creatures and so on. Thragtusk is not a card that you need skill to use. Gutter Skulk on the other hand......Additionally, limited requires better card evaluation and deck building skills because netdecking is impossible.
Then you failed because the player base has increased drastically since around 2011. Nice try though.
Both formats are similar. The only major difference is that the creatures are going to be better on average in Standard, plus the deck building aspect is different between formats. You still have to figure out when to attack, block, how many to attack and block with, play around tricks and removal, anticipate additional creatures in opponents' hands, and work out a game plan several turns ahead. And yes, there are no net decks, but with a draft guide or common sense 99% of players are going to pick the same commons and uncommons first in their decks' colors. You will see the same small subsets of creatures in most of your limited games if you are playing with anyone with a minimum of skill.
I'm not going to explain the basics of Magic to you, but if you think even something as simple as Grizzly Bears takes no skill to play, you are sorely mistaken. The card itself may be simple, but its value will vary wildly based on tons of factors and smart players will absolutely get more value out of their 1G 2/2 than less experienced players. Better players will play Thragtusk at the correct time more often, will protect it better, will know when to attack or block with it, will know when to blink it, and will remember its triggers.
I could say that your cantrip artifacts from Eggs are simple to use, but I'll refrain from stirring any more tensions on that point.
~ Brian DeMars
In 2011 there were two Extended GPs: Atlanta (1213 players) and Kobe (711 players.) Modern's smallest GP beat Kobe by 5 players, and has beaten or come within 200 players of the Atlanta GP 6 out of 9 times.
What percentage do you want me to adjust the Extended numbers by to project for increased overall player numbers? 10%? 20%? Modern beat Extended on average by 27.7%. Even accounting for a 20% increase in attendance Modern is STILL going to beat Extended at attendance.
Why can't you accept that a format is growing? Do you want Magic to fail? I want all forms of Magic to continue to grow. There's nothing wrong with playing a different format if you don't like this one, but a lot of you are coming very close to breaking this thread's rules. Re-read the OP before continuing to bash Modern. This is NOT a "hate on Modern" thread.
~ Brian DeMars