I think you are misunderstanding me. If Twin and Pod were around, Eldrazi would not have been nearly as format warping. The preponderance of Eldrazi was caused as much by its timing as its power.
I would also appreciate it if you didn't dismiss me out of hand for not phrasing a single line of my argument perfectly, but you are of course free to do as you wish.
Twin and pod wouldnt stand a chance against eldrazi, during eldrazi winter all decks that werent specifically tuned to beat eldrazi disappeared, jund especially. The only real other choice during the time was living end, another bad matchup for pod/twin/jund
I never really voice my opinion in this thread, because it generally gets lost in the noise, but why is it everyone says blue decks are terrible, blue is a bad color in modern? Looking solely at the color blue, it is used in:
Affinity
eldrazi
Infect
Merfolk
Dredge
Nahiri control
Scapeshift
Grixis Delver
Ad Nauseam
Id hardly call 9/19 decks in modern nexus tier 1/2 a bad color... You all should be clear... CONTROL isnt a great option, sans nahiri which is still putting in work.
Secondly, I know there are die hards out there, but the banning of pod DID help the meta become more diverse. I know treasure cruise was on everyones mind, but the siege rhino pod WAS killing off aggro in the whole format. Is there too much aggro now, sure, but lets not kid ourselves, aggro was not even worth mentioning during that time. I'd gladdly trade a single deck that wasnt a police man deck, it was a murderer of a playstyle. Twin wasnt a policeman deck either. It was the best deck you could play, so the gimmick decks werent worth playing. It didnt police those gimmicks fairly, it did it by comboing a better combo than you.
I'm all for a better control deck in modern (note: I said control, blue is doing fine supplementing aggro and tempo strats.) with all around better main board answer cards, but anything that helped control, helped twin continue to say no to control diversity, and aggro would be dead in a format with pod. The answer is helping out control strats, not unbanning either of those two decks... and pods doing fine right now with company and evolution... its a deck that is fair to play against, not one that blows you out turn by turn.
Just gotta get this out of the way, dredge and affinity cannot be considered blue. Dredge has absolutely no plans of casting prized amalgam, the only blue card in the deck. Affinity sometimes runs a spell pierce in the side and sometimes thoughtcast. The important thing to look at is both of these decks run a bunch of ways to produce rainbow mana and oftentimes have cards of every color, but are in no way blue or white or really any color
Ok now that i got that out of the way, thank you for pointing this out to everyone. People really need to get in the habit of saying what they mean in here, when they say "blue" they mean control, not literally blue. Merfolk and infect are extremely blue decks, yet get dismissed because they run creatures
I think you are misunderstanding me. If Twin and Pod were around, Eldrazi would not have been nearly as format warping. The preponderance of Eldrazi was caused as much by its timing as its power.
I would also appreciate it if you didn't dismiss me out of hand for not phrasing a single line of my argument perfectly, but you are of course free to do as you wish.
I disagree with any possible interpretation of what you said that leads someone to believe that Eldrazi wasn't the most broken Modern deck in the history of the format and completely deserved a ban on its own merits. You're right in so far as you say that the Eldrazi deck came about after Pod and Twin were both banned, but that was simply a coincidence since the deck didn't exist in its most dominant form until the second set of the new Zen block, at which point both decks had already been banned. The deck was not dominant because of some mythical vacuum. It was dominant because it abused the color pie with strong threats that came down far too early thanks to broken mana accelerants. That would be true no matter which point in Modern's history those cards had been printed.
I never really voice my opinion in this thread, because it generally gets lost in the noise, but why is it everyone says blue decks are terrible, blue is a bad color in modern? Looking solely at the color blue, it is used in:
Affinity
eldrazi
Infect
Merfolk
Dredge
Nahiri control
Scapeshift
Grixis Delver
Ad Nauseam
Id hardly call 9/19 decks in modern nexus tier 1/2 a bad color... You all should be clear... CONTROL isnt a great option, sans nahiri which is still putting in work.
Secondly, I know there are die hards out there, but the banning of pod DID help the meta become more diverse. I know treasure cruise was on everyones mind, but the siege rhino pod WAS killing off aggro in the whole format. Is there too much aggro now, sure, but lets not kid ourselves, aggro was not even worth mentioning during that time. I'd gladdly trade a single deck that wasnt a police man deck, it was a murderer of a playstyle. Twin wasnt a policeman deck either. It was the best deck you could play, so the gimmick decks werent worth playing. It didnt police those gimmicks fairly, it did it by comboing a better combo than you.
I'm all for a better control deck in modern (note: I said control, blue is doing fine supplementing aggro and tempo strats.) with all around better main board answer cards, but anything that helped control, helped twin continue to say no to control diversity, and aggro would be dead in a format with pod. The answer is helping out control strats, not unbanning either of those two decks... and pods doing fine right now with company and evolution... its a deck that is fair to play against, not one that blows you out turn by turn.
Just gotta get this out of the way, dredge and affinity cannot be considered blue. Dredge has absolutely no plans of casting prized amalgam, the only blue card in the deck. Affinity sometimes runs a spell pierce in the side and sometimes thoughtcast. The important thing to look at is both of these decks run a bunch of ways to produce rainbow mana and oftentimes have cards of every color, but are in no way blue or white or really any color
Ok now that i got that out of the way, thank you for pointing this out to everyone. People really need to get in the habit of saying what they mean in here, when they say "blue" they mean control, not literally blue. Merfolk and infect are extremely blue decks, yet get dismissed because they run creatures
When people say 'blue' don't mean literally decks running blue mana, they mean decks doing 'blue' things - playing counter spells, drawing cards, making tempo focused blue plays. This doesn't just mean control decks, but also tempo decks like Delver and blue-based midrange decks like Jeskai flash. If you want to do the things blue normally gets to do, modern doesn't have much to offer you. If you want to play blue aggro, or sideboard blue cards to protect your Glistner Elfs, then that's viable.
If there were no red-based aggro strategies, but decks like Jund were still around, and people were complaining about the lack of a viable red aggressive deck, I think they'd have a valid complaint.
I agree. There is no real reason that Preordain and Ponder are a "package." Wizards may have attempted to make it that way by banning both of them at the same time (similar to Treasure Cruise/Dig Through Time), but they are individual cards, like stated by others.
Also, as someone who played Eldrazi extensively during Eldrazi winter, there is really nothing in Modern that can be compared with it. It was just stupid broken and when I first heard someone talk about playing Eldrazi for no-banned list Modern, I though he was crazy. Surely this deck could not compete with the likes of Mental Misstep and Skullclamp. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that Eldrazi could very easily run away with the title of "best deck in no-banned list Modern." That says something, as well as my 90% win ratio with Eldrazi in the format with only 65% win ratio otherwise (I looked on kavu.ru).
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Blue has fine answers and win conditions. See Jeskai sustaining Tier 1 status despite an extremely hostile metagame. I know you personally are on a crusade to get Twin back, but don't just dismiss alternate options because they don't fit your view of the format. Preordain, although not an answer/win itself, patently improves a reactive deck's ability to find those cards, especially in the early turns of the game. That is where Wizards should start, not with Twin, a card that just moves the format backwards.
I wholeheartedly disagree, but mostly due to the nature with which Jeskai needs to win: it NEEDS to stabilize then resolve a 4 mana walker and ultimate it without dying. That is a recipe that only pushes people to want faster and more reliable quick kills; the OPPOSITE that Twin encouraged. And Preordain does nothing to address the problem that bad answers are still bad answers. When will UR ever get something as glorious as Abrupt Decay or Maelstrom Pulse?
Ok now that i got that out of the way, thank you for pointing this out to everyone. People really need to get in the habit of saying what they mean in here, when they say "blue" they mean control, not literally blue. Merfolk and infect are extremely blue decks, yet get dismissed because they run creatures
I try to clarify most of my statements by saying "blue reactive decks," and often I am referring specifically to "Snapcaster"-style decks. Infect only runs blue for Blighted Agent and Merfolk might as well be color-shifted Elves. Neither of them (nor any of the decks on that list, except Nahiri) represent blue reactive decks. Even Scapeshift has moved away from blue, since it is much more successful to run the RG Titanshift versions.
I would want Splinter Twin back, but it's case closed with Ancestral Vision. Twin + AV is NEVER happening. The only solution is to reban AV but this would be a joke really.
AV does complicate things and I certainly think AV would be played in some fashion. Since it would definitely be out of the board though, it means cutting something else to make room. Taking out Jace and the second Keranos reduces redundancy and a single Thoughtseize can ruin your day, especially when you are getting clocked by 5/6 Goyfs.
But I think the moral of the story (with regards to AV or to power levels in general) is that we don't really know. Most players are horrendously wrong about predicting power levels of cards or decks, and before Twin, Wizards has only banned decks that have an obvious and demonstrated problem. (Well I guess Twin's was obvious if the only thing you care about is coverage of big events). But let's face it, Twin was not a problem when it was banned, and that's really the beef of my anger with the issue. Only after manufacturing reasons based solely around PT/GP Top 8 presence (which STILL isn't bad at all once you remove PTs) do we try and justify the ban. It made no sense at the time because the deck wasn't oppressive.
But now Wizards is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Unbanning it MAY result in it becoming oppressive at some point in the future, but it sure as heck wasn't an oppressive deck when banned. So do they risk looking stupid by rereleasing a safe deck that MIGHT become broken? Or do they stick to their guns and decide that banning a safe deck at the time was the right call? Well you know how I stand, and while AV does complicate things, I don't think it makes it broken by any means. Especially since Eldrazi in its current state would be a horrendous Twin matchup, and Jund has done nothing but gotten stronger the past year.
I would like more long term solutions for the format. I am already seeing fastlands helping the fair decks of the format for once, Collective Brutality and Blessed Alliance. Let's see.
Sort of on the fast lands. While I am thrilled at the inclusion, they really only help decks with an average CMC of 3 or less. Trying to cast a 4 drop with a bunch of fastlands is painfully awkward (like when I stupidly ran 2x each Blackcleave Cliffs and Darkslick Shores alongside Kalitas and P&K for exactly one FNM). Absolutely looking forward to running 3 Spirebluff Canal in Grixis Delver though. Got my foils already ordered and one of them arrived today; very pretty.
Collective Brutality is pretty cool, but I'd love to see better help at instant speed. As a true blue mage at heart, I want to play most of my game on your turn. As I have said many times before though, I'm not horribly optimistic about the future of reactive or answer cards, given the trend is more towards crowded board states and creature combat in Standard. And considering all these sets we are seeing now (and for the next year) were designed after Hearthstone started CRUSHING Magic in popularity, it's no wonder they have shifted focus so heavily to creatures.
My major issue with the idea that StoneForge will somehow make White less diverse in terms of creatures is that Tarmogoyf is basically run in every Green deck that wants him(only exceptions I can think of is Elves). I think SFM would end up occupying that same space for White, and I'm of the belief that Death and Taxes/Hatebears in Modern wouldn't want her(at least in the current iteration of the decks that have 4-6 Search Hate effects). Would I gladly test out Mystic? Yes, yes I would, but the core of Modern D&T can't support her as well as Legacy can due to Arbiters we have to run.
The data in the Modern Nexus test was great, except for the fact that the Burn player took out a card that you 100% keep in against Abzan(Eidolon of the Great Revel).Burn was the only matchup that was heavily impacted by Mystic being added to the list, and I don't think one pilot should be used as an example of the overall impact that a card would have.
Equipment is pretty much non-functional as a card type in Modern without her. Batterskull sees fringe play in some Blue Moon lists, but I think that's functionally it(Minus Cheerios decks, which basically just want 0 mana equipment to get Storm count way up there). Adding StoneForge back to the format would hopefully allow for not just Batterskull to see play, but also other Equipment Oddities like Auriok Steelshaper.
I mean, it's just my opinion, but I do think that StoneForge wouldn't hurt the format. She gives what is the second weakest color in Modern a new toy to experiment with.
Arbiter is a dead card in so many situations, many of which are where you'd want to SFM up a Batterskull. We control when Arbiter hits the table, and in the late game we can just pay the tax without disrupting anything else we want to do, thanks to our very low curve and Vials. Frankly, in any game where we want him to stick around, the opp. is usually gunning for him so hard his lifespan is measured in seconds not turns.
I don't see SFM bringing much to Modern besides an increase in Batterskulls and more Swords in sideboards. Jitte is still banned in Modern and likely will be forever, and equipment remains a clunky thing to use effectively.
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GW Hatebears more like HateBROS BWR THE ARISTAHCRATZ!
Blue has fine answers and win conditions. See Jeskai sustaining Tier 1 status despite an extremely hostile metagame. I know you personally are on a crusade to get Twin back, but don't just dismiss alternate options because they don't fit your view of the format. Preordain, although not an answer/win itself, patently improves a reactive deck's ability to find those cards, especially in the early turns of the game. That is where Wizards should start, not with Twin, a card that just moves the format backwards.
I wholeheartedly disagree, but mostly due to the nature with which Jeskai needs to win: it NEEDS to stabilize then resolve a 4 mana walker and ultimate it without dying. That is a recipe that only pushes people to want faster and more reliable quick kills; the OPPOSITE that Twin encouraged. And Preordain does nothing to address the problem that bad answers are still bad answers. When will UR ever get something as glorious as Abrupt Decay or Maelstrom Pulse?
Ok now that i got that out of the way, thank you for pointing this out to everyone. People really need to get in the habit of saying what they mean in here, when they say "blue" they mean control, not literally blue. Merfolk and infect are extremely blue decks, yet get dismissed because they run creatures
I try to clarify most of my statements by saying "blue reactive decks," and often I am referring specifically to "Snapcaster"-style decks. Infect only runs blue for Blighted Agent and Merfolk might as well be color-shifted Elves. Neither of them (nor any of the decks on that list, except Nahiri) represent blue reactive decks. Even Scapeshift has moved away from blue, since it is much more successful to run the RG Titanshift versions.
I would want Splinter Twin back, but it's case closed with Ancestral Vision. Twin + AV is NEVER happening. The only solution is to reban AV but this would be a joke really.
AV does complicate things and I certainly think AV would be played in some fashion. Since it would definitely be out of the board though, it means cutting something else to make room. Taking out Jace and the second Keranos reduces redundancy and a single Thoughtseize can ruin your day, especially when you are getting clocked by 5/6 Goyfs.
But I think the moral of the story (with regards to AV or to power levels in general) is that we don't really know. Most players are horrendously wrong about predicting power levels of cards or decks, and before Twin, Wizards has only banned decks that have an obvious and demonstrated problem. (Well I guess Twin's was obvious if the only thing you care about is coverage of big events). But let's face it, Twin was not a problem when it was banned, and that's really the beef of my anger with the issue. Only after manufacturing reasons based solely around PT/GP Top 8 presence (which STILL isn't bad at all once you remove PTs) do we try and justify the ban. It made no sense at the time because the deck wasn't oppressive.
But now Wizards is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Unbanning it MAY result in it becoming oppressive at some point in the future, but it sure as heck wasn't an oppressive deck when banned. So do they risk looking stupid by rereleasing a safe deck that MIGHT become broken? Or do they stick to their guns and decide that banning a safe deck at the time was the right call? Well you know how I stand, and while AV does complicate things, I don't think it makes it broken by any means. Especially since Eldrazi in its current state would be a horrendous Twin matchup, and Jund has done nothing but gotten stronger the past year.
I would like more long term solutions for the format. I am already seeing fastlands helping the fair decks of the format for once, Collective Brutality and Blessed Alliance. Let's see.
Sort of on the fast lands. While I am thrilled at the inclusion, they really only help decks with an average CMC of 3 or less. Trying to cast a 4 drop with a bunch of fastlands is painfully awkward (like when I stupidly ran 2x each Blackcleave Cliffs and Darkslick Shores alongside Kalitas and P&K for exactly one FNM). Absolutely looking forward to running 3 Spirebluff Canal in Grixis Delver though. Got my foils already ordered and one of them arrived today; very pretty.
Collective Brutality is pretty cool, but I'd love to see better help at instant speed. As a true blue mage at heart, I want to play most of my game on your turn. As I have said many times before though, I'm not horribly optimistic about the future of reactive or answer cards, given the trend is more towards crowded board states and creature combat in Standard. And considering all these sets we are seeing now (and for the next year) were designed after Hearthstone started CRUSHING Magic in popularity, it's no wonder they have shifted focus so heavily to creatures.
I think they made a huge mistake banning twin and the pro-tours got removed as a result to save the format from shaking things up, and ruining peoples 1k-plus, top tier investment in modern. heck id go as far as to say pod was good for this format too in a policing sense. when the format was twin, pod, and jund at the top it was at its best in interactivity and grindyness. the top decks weren't burn infect and affinity like it is now. I think wizards screwed this format up by hitting the cure to this formats problems instead of giving better tools to combat them, and balance the prevalence levels. it was lazy and stupid the way they managed this format and now everyone's paying.
"given the trend is more towards crowded board states and creature combat in Standard. And considering all these sets we are seeing now (and for the next year) were designed after Hearthstone started CRUSHING Magic in popularity, it's no wonder they have shifted focus so heavily to creatures."
Hearthstone is awesome and a better game than magic. you dont get mana screwed, if you run creature hate its viable vs every deck, and blizzard does constant nerfs to balance archetypes and decks. they also HATE combo and they are right to hate a strategy that doesn't play the game the way it was intended to be played; with creatures, removal and board clears.
Twin completely warped the Modern control archetype around itself. The ball is in WotC's court to print new answer cards or reprint old ones (if they want to). Twin will not be unbanned anytime soon. The end.
Twin completely warped the Modern control archetype around itself. The ball is in WotC's court to print new answer cards or reprint old ones (if they want to). Twin will not be unbanned anytime soon. The end.
its pretty obvious at this point to anyone who does a little research to see that without nahiri twin was the ONLY strong choice for blue/control players at the time. I wouldn't consider that warping to other blue control decks, but rather our only tier 1 option.
as long as this is the ban-list thread, twin conversation will never end
Twin completely warped the Modern control archetype around itself. The ball is in WotC's court to print new answer cards or reprint old ones (if they want to). Twin will not be unbanned anytime soon. The end.
its pretty obvious at this point to anyone who does a little research to see that without nahiri twin was the ONLY strong choice for blue/control players at the time. I wouldn't consider that warping to other blue control decks, but rather our only tier 1 option.
It was warping because the only Blue Control decks you could play besides Twin while it was in the format were the ones that beat Twin. This is the reason people like ktkenshinx and others see the Twin as something that covered up the problem with Blue Control in this format rather than being its saviour.
and look at blue now without nahiri, if anything the twin ban removed a decent matchup for other blue decks, I recall grixis control and delver being better with twin around. with that argument you could argue that bg/x is stifling green black decks.
I'm not sure Uxx "blue" decks are really that small a part of the meta.
Metagame
Jeskai Control 4.2%
Grixis Delver 1.5%
Grixis Control/Midrange 1.2%
Jeskai Midrange 1.2%
UW Control 1.2%
Blue Moon 0.5%
Total: 9.8% Uxx tempo/control decks. It could be higher I guess, but at what point do we start questioning how high it needs to be? How much player preference is factoring into this?
I wholeheartedly disagree, but mostly due to the nature with which Jeskai needs to win: it NEEDS to stabilize then resolve a 4 mana walker and ultimate it without dying. That is a recipe that only pushes people to want faster and more reliable quick kills; the OPPOSITE that Twin encouraged.
I'm not going to get into all the other stuff you wrote, despite disagreeing with the vast majority of it, but what you write here is completely incorrect and may be a clue as to why you don't do well when you pilot this deck. Like any other Jeskai deck before it, Jeskai Nahiri gets most of its wins off bolt, helix, snapcaster, and Colonnade but has an "oops, I win" interaction built in.
I wholeheartedly disagree, but mostly due to the nature with which Jeskai needs to win: it NEEDS to stabilize then resolve a 4 mana walker and ultimate it without dying. That is a recipe that only pushes people to want faster and more reliable quick kills; the OPPOSITE that Twin encouraged.
I'm not going to get into all the other stuff you wrote, despite disagreeing with the vast majority of it, but what you write here is completely incorrect and may be a clue as to why you don't do well when you pilot this deck. Like any other Jeskai deck before it, Jeskai Nahiri gets most of its wins off bolt, helix, snapcaster, and Colonnade but has an "oops, I win" interaction built in.
That may have been the case many years ago, but Jeskai without Nahiri had been a sub-1% deck with no notable results for quite a while. The weaknesses it has in closing speed and answer quality have not changed. The only thing that changed was the capability of Nahiri winning the game for you.
I wholeheartedly disagree, but mostly due to the nature with which Jeskai needs to win: it NEEDS to stabilize then resolve a 4 mana walker and ultimate it without dying. That is a recipe that only pushes people to want faster and more reliable quick kills; the OPPOSITE that Twin encouraged.
I'm not going to get into all the other stuff you wrote, despite disagreeing with the vast majority of it, but what you write here is completely incorrect and may be a clue as to why you don't do well when you pilot this deck. Like any other Jeskai deck before it, Jeskai Nahiri gets most of its wins off bolt, helix, snapcaster, and Colonnade but has an "oops, I win" interaction built in.
That may have been the case many years ago, but Jeskai without Nahiri had been a sub-1% deck with no notable results for quite a while. The weaknesses it has in closing speed and answer quality have not changed. The only thing that changed was the capability of Nahiri winning the game for you.
I'm talking about the current Jeskai Nahiri deck. You said that it "NEEDS to stabilize then resolve a 4 mana walker and ultimate without dying." I'm saying that's only 1 of its paths to victory and not even the most common one.
I'm not sure Uxx "blue" decks are really that small a part of the meta.
Metagame
Jeskai Control 4.2%
Grixis Delver 1.5%
Grixis Control/Midrange 1.2%
Jeskai Midrange 1.2%
UW Control 1.2%
Blue Moon 0.5%
Total: 9.8% Uxx tempo/control decks. It could be higher I guess, but at what point do we start questioning how high it needs to be? How much player preference is factoring into this?
This seems good to me. It's not spectacular but definitely shows that blue is in a fine place.
I don't necessarily agree that blue is in a fine space given these numbers. Barely 10% when in a perfect world 20% would be acquired. I have no doubts in my mind this percentage should at least increase to 15%, given adjustments to the banned list.
We will never get 20/20/20/20/20 for all the colors of Magic, but to accept something along the lines of 40/20/20/10/10 is not reasonable.
I'm not sure Uxx "blue" decks are really that small a part of the meta.
Metagame
Jeskai Control 4.2%
Grixis Delver 1.5%
Grixis Control/Midrange 1.2%
Jeskai Midrange 1.2%
UW Control 1.2%
Blue Moon 0.5%
Total: 9.8% Uxx tempo/control decks. It could be higher I guess, but at what point do we start questioning how high it needs to be? How much player preference is factoring into this?
This seems good to me. It's not spectacular but definitely shows that blue is in a fine place.
I don't necessarily agree that blue is in a fine space given these numbers. Barely 10% when in a perfect world 20% would be acquired. I have no doubts in my mind this percentage should at least increase to 15%, given adjustments to the banned list.
We will never get 20/20/20/20/20 for all the colors of Magic, but to accept something along the lines of 40/20/20/10/10 is not reasonable.
I guess it's personal factor more than anything. For me it's fine, for you not but I think that at least it shows that it's not as bad as some people make it to bad although it's not in a perfect spot.
I can say that if I had bought into Jund instead of Twin when I started in Modern, I would probably think things are fine right now too. But looking at an expensive pile of URx staples collecting dust in piles of mediocrity without a backup deck, it's not exactly amazing.
Yeah, Delver didn't just win a GP or anything. Watch as I shed a single tear for your poor pile of useless Lightning Bolts, Spell Snares, Serum Visions, the list goes on...
OH WOE IS THE EX-TWIN PLAYER
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Yeah, Delver didn't just win a GP or anything. Watch as I shed a single tear for your poor pile of useless Lightning Bolts, Spell Snares, Serum Visions, the list goes on...
OH WOE IS THE EX-TWIN PLAYER
Yep, that 1 copy in the entire top 32 of all three events combined had an extremely good weekend in terms of variance and matchups. Kudos to him. If only that luck and success translated to the rest of us.
But the bigger point was of perspective. If my deck were doing fine (or excelling) then my perspective of the format and its health would be vastly different than if my deck were doing relatively poorly. It's an attitude displayed by many, and most of those people are playing decks that are powerful and successful. If I had the option to just pick up and play Jund or Affinity or Eldrazi or Infect without spending thousands of dollars, I would, and then I could feel the format is fine too.
I'm not sure Uxx "blue" decks are really that small a part of the meta.
Metagame
Jeskai Control 4.2%
Grixis Delver 1.5%
Grixis Control/Midrange 1.2%
Jeskai Midrange 1.2%
UW Control 1.2%
Blue Moon 0.5%
Total: 9.8% Uxx tempo/control decks. It could be higher I guess, but at what point do we start questioning how high it needs to be? How much player preference is factoring into this?
Uxx Tempo/Control is a pretty large spectrum that includes several different decks. Thats like grouping all Gxx Aggro decks together, which in comparison, looks like this:
(Stats are from Modern Nexus for the month of August)
Burn 6.6%
Eldrazi 6.3%
Death's Shadow Aggro 3.8%
Elves 1.5%
Gruul Zoo 1.4%
Bogles 1.1%
This adds up to 20.7% of the metagame if my math is correct. I'm sure some people will disagree about some of the deck choices, but my point is that color and spectrum is a wide net to cast, and so its less than desirable that all Uxx Control decks are only 9.8% of the metagame. Player preference can only explain ao much.
I'm not sure Uxx "blue" decks are really that small a part of the meta.
Metagame
Jeskai Control 4.2%
Grixis Delver 1.5%
Grixis Control/Midrange 1.2%
Jeskai Midrange 1.2%
UW Control 1.2%
Blue Moon 0.5%
Total: 9.8% Uxx tempo/control decks. It could be higher I guess, but at what point do we start questioning how high it needs to be? How much player preference is factoring into this?
This seems good to me. It's not spectacular but definitely shows that blue is in a fine place.
I don't necessarily agree that blue is in a fine space given these numbers. Barely 10% when in a perfect world 20% would be acquired. I have no doubts in my mind this percentage should at least increase to 15%, given adjustments to the banned list.
We will never get 20/20/20/20/20 for all the colors of Magic, but to accept something along the lines of 40/20/20/10/10 is not reasonable.
I guess it's personal factor more than anything. For me it's fine, for you not but I think that at least it shows that it's not as bad as some people make it to bad although it's not in a perfect spot.
I can say that if I had bought into Jund instead of Twin when I started in Modern, I would probably think things are fine right now too. But looking at an expensive pile of URx staples collecting dust in piles of mediocrity without a backup deck, it's not exactly amazing.
It's not too late. Your URx cards have retained all their value, with the exception of the 4x Twin themselves. If you want to buy into Jund you have the capital in your URx cards to do it. That said, I have a sneaky suspicion it won't serve you well...
Burn is not a Gxx Aggro deck, but then I don't think you got them all either. We could probably include Infect 5.9%, Abzan Company 2.4%, Knightfall 0.3%
I'm not saying that Uxx tempo/control is dominating, right now Gxx Aggro decks have the upperhand. Not decidedly though, by about a 2-1 margin. It would be nice to see it closer to balance, but I'm not sure drastic action is really needed to force it. A card like preordain might be an incremental improvement that will make them slightly better, which is a low risk move likely to have only a positive impact. More risky action, like SFM, JTMS, BBE, etc, don't seem necessary with the relatively small challenge in archtype disparity.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
This seems good to me. It's not spectacular but definitely shows that blue is in a fine place.
I don't necessarily agree that blue is in a fine space given these numbers. Barely 10% when in a perfect world 20% would be acquired. I have no doubts in my mind this percentage should at least increase to 15%, given adjustments to the banned list.
We will never get 20/20/20/20/20 for all the colors of Magic, but to accept something along the lines of 40/20/20/10/10 is not reasonable.
I guess it's personal factor more than anything. For me it's fine, for you not but I think that at least it shows that it's not as bad as some people make it to bad although it's not in a perfect spot.
I can say that if I had bought into Jund instead of Twin when I started in Modern, I would probably think things are fine right now too. But looking at an expensive pile of URx staples collecting dust in piles of mediocrity without a backup deck, it's not exactly amazing.
It's not too late. Your URx cards have retained all their value, with the exception of the 4x Twin themselves. If you want to buy into Jund you have the capital in your URx cards to do it. That said, I have a sneaky suspicion it won't serve you well...
Yeah, that would be an absolutely terrible financial decision.
Twin and pod wouldnt stand a chance against eldrazi, during eldrazi winter all decks that werent specifically tuned to beat eldrazi disappeared, jund especially. The only real other choice during the time was living end, another bad matchup for pod/twin/jund
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
Just gotta get this out of the way, dredge and affinity cannot be considered blue. Dredge has absolutely no plans of casting prized amalgam, the only blue card in the deck. Affinity sometimes runs a spell pierce in the side and sometimes thoughtcast. The important thing to look at is both of these decks run a bunch of ways to produce rainbow mana and oftentimes have cards of every color, but are in no way blue or white or really any color
Ok now that i got that out of the way, thank you for pointing this out to everyone. People really need to get in the habit of saying what they mean in here, when they say "blue" they mean control, not literally blue. Merfolk and infect are extremely blue decks, yet get dismissed because they run creatures
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
When people say 'blue' don't mean literally decks running blue mana, they mean decks doing 'blue' things - playing counter spells, drawing cards, making tempo focused blue plays. This doesn't just mean control decks, but also tempo decks like Delver and blue-based midrange decks like Jeskai flash. If you want to do the things blue normally gets to do, modern doesn't have much to offer you. If you want to play blue aggro, or sideboard blue cards to protect your Glistner Elfs, then that's viable.
If there were no red-based aggro strategies, but decks like Jund were still around, and people were complaining about the lack of a viable red aggressive deck, I think they'd have a valid complaint.
Also, as someone who played Eldrazi extensively during Eldrazi winter, there is really nothing in Modern that can be compared with it. It was just stupid broken and when I first heard someone talk about playing Eldrazi for no-banned list Modern, I though he was crazy. Surely this deck could not compete with the likes of Mental Misstep and Skullclamp. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that Eldrazi could very easily run away with the title of "best deck in no-banned list Modern." That says something, as well as my 90% win ratio with Eldrazi in the format with only 65% win ratio otherwise (I looked on kavu.ru).
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I wholeheartedly disagree, but mostly due to the nature with which Jeskai needs to win: it NEEDS to stabilize then resolve a 4 mana walker and ultimate it without dying. That is a recipe that only pushes people to want faster and more reliable quick kills; the OPPOSITE that Twin encouraged. And Preordain does nothing to address the problem that bad answers are still bad answers. When will UR ever get something as glorious as Abrupt Decay or Maelstrom Pulse?
I try to clarify most of my statements by saying "blue reactive decks," and often I am referring specifically to "Snapcaster"-style decks. Infect only runs blue for Blighted Agent and Merfolk might as well be color-shifted Elves. Neither of them (nor any of the decks on that list, except Nahiri) represent blue reactive decks. Even Scapeshift has moved away from blue, since it is much more successful to run the RG Titanshift versions.
AV does complicate things and I certainly think AV would be played in some fashion. Since it would definitely be out of the board though, it means cutting something else to make room. Taking out Jace and the second Keranos reduces redundancy and a single Thoughtseize can ruin your day, especially when you are getting clocked by 5/6 Goyfs.
But I think the moral of the story (with regards to AV or to power levels in general) is that we don't really know. Most players are horrendously wrong about predicting power levels of cards or decks, and before Twin, Wizards has only banned decks that have an obvious and demonstrated problem. (Well I guess Twin's was obvious if the only thing you care about is coverage of big events). But let's face it, Twin was not a problem when it was banned, and that's really the beef of my anger with the issue. Only after manufacturing reasons based solely around PT/GP Top 8 presence (which STILL isn't bad at all once you remove PTs) do we try and justify the ban. It made no sense at the time because the deck wasn't oppressive.
But now Wizards is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Unbanning it MAY result in it becoming oppressive at some point in the future, but it sure as heck wasn't an oppressive deck when banned. So do they risk looking stupid by rereleasing a safe deck that MIGHT become broken? Or do they stick to their guns and decide that banning a safe deck at the time was the right call? Well you know how I stand, and while AV does complicate things, I don't think it makes it broken by any means. Especially since Eldrazi in its current state would be a horrendous Twin matchup, and Jund has done nothing but gotten stronger the past year.
Sort of on the fast lands. While I am thrilled at the inclusion, they really only help decks with an average CMC of 3 or less. Trying to cast a 4 drop with a bunch of fastlands is painfully awkward (like when I stupidly ran 2x each Blackcleave Cliffs and Darkslick Shores alongside Kalitas and P&K for exactly one FNM). Absolutely looking forward to running 3 Spirebluff Canal in Grixis Delver though. Got my foils already ordered and one of them arrived today; very pretty.
Collective Brutality is pretty cool, but I'd love to see better help at instant speed. As a true blue mage at heart, I want to play most of my game on your turn. As I have said many times before though, I'm not horribly optimistic about the future of reactive or answer cards, given the trend is more towards crowded board states and creature combat in Standard. And considering all these sets we are seeing now (and for the next year) were designed after Hearthstone started CRUSHING Magic in popularity, it's no wonder they have shifted focus so heavily to creatures.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Arbiter is a dead card in so many situations, many of which are where you'd want to SFM up a Batterskull. We control when Arbiter hits the table, and in the late game we can just pay the tax without disrupting anything else we want to do, thanks to our very low curve and Vials. Frankly, in any game where we want him to stick around, the opp. is usually gunning for him so hard his lifespan is measured in seconds not turns.
I don't see SFM bringing much to Modern besides an increase in Batterskulls and more Swords in sideboards. Jitte is still banned in Modern and likely will be forever, and equipment remains a clunky thing to use effectively.
BWR THE ARISTAHCRATZ!
I think they made a huge mistake banning twin and the pro-tours got removed as a result to save the format from shaking things up, and ruining peoples 1k-plus, top tier investment in modern. heck id go as far as to say pod was good for this format too in a policing sense. when the format was twin, pod, and jund at the top it was at its best in interactivity and grindyness. the top decks weren't burn infect and affinity like it is now. I think wizards screwed this format up by hitting the cure to this formats problems instead of giving better tools to combat them, and balance the prevalence levels. it was lazy and stupid the way they managed this format and now everyone's paying.
"given the trend is more towards crowded board states and creature combat in Standard. And considering all these sets we are seeing now (and for the next year) were designed after Hearthstone started CRUSHING Magic in popularity, it's no wonder they have shifted focus so heavily to creatures."
Hearthstone is awesome and a better game than magic. you dont get mana screwed, if you run creature hate its viable vs every deck, and blizzard does constant nerfs to balance archetypes and decks. they also HATE combo and they are right to hate a strategy that doesn't play the game the way it was intended to be played; with creatures, removal and board clears.
decks playing:
none
its pretty obvious at this point to anyone who does a little research to see that without nahiri twin was the ONLY strong choice for blue/control players at the time. I wouldn't consider that warping to other blue control decks, but rather our only tier 1 option.
as long as this is the ban-list thread, twin conversation will never end
decks playing:
none
It was warping because the only Blue Control decks you could play besides Twin while it was in the format were the ones that beat Twin. This is the reason people like ktkenshinx and others see the Twin as something that covered up the problem with Blue Control in this format rather than being its saviour.
A man can dream...
decks playing:
none
Metagame
Jeskai Control 4.2%
Grixis Delver 1.5%
Grixis Control/Midrange 1.2%
Jeskai Midrange 1.2%
UW Control 1.2%
Blue Moon 0.5%
Total: 9.8% Uxx tempo/control decks. It could be higher I guess, but at what point do we start questioning how high it needs to be? How much player preference is factoring into this?
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
That may have been the case many years ago, but Jeskai without Nahiri had been a sub-1% deck with no notable results for quite a while. The weaknesses it has in closing speed and answer quality have not changed. The only thing that changed was the capability of Nahiri winning the game for you.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
I don't necessarily agree that blue is in a fine space given these numbers. Barely 10% when in a perfect world 20% would be acquired. I have no doubts in my mind this percentage should at least increase to 15%, given adjustments to the banned list.
We will never get 20/20/20/20/20 for all the colors of Magic, but to accept something along the lines of 40/20/20/10/10 is not reasonable.
I can say that if I had bought into Jund instead of Twin when I started in Modern, I would probably think things are fine right now too. But looking at an expensive pile of URx staples collecting dust in piles of mediocrity without a backup deck, it's not exactly amazing.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
OH WOE IS THE EX-TWIN PLAYER
Yep, that 1 copy in the entire top 32 of all three events combined had an extremely good weekend in terms of variance and matchups. Kudos to him. If only that luck and success translated to the rest of us.
But the bigger point was of perspective. If my deck were doing fine (or excelling) then my perspective of the format and its health would be vastly different than if my deck were doing relatively poorly. It's an attitude displayed by many, and most of those people are playing decks that are powerful and successful. If I had the option to just pick up and play Jund or Affinity or Eldrazi or Infect without spending thousands of dollars, I would, and then I could feel the format is fine too.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Uxx Tempo/Control is a pretty large spectrum that includes several different decks. Thats like grouping all Gxx Aggro decks together, which in comparison, looks like this:
(Stats are from Modern Nexus for the month of August)
Burn 6.6%
Eldrazi 6.3%
Death's Shadow Aggro 3.8%
Elves 1.5%
Gruul Zoo 1.4%
Bogles 1.1%
This adds up to 20.7% of the metagame if my math is correct. I'm sure some people will disagree about some of the deck choices, but my point is that color and spectrum is a wide net to cast, and so its less than desirable that all Uxx Control decks are only 9.8% of the metagame. Player preference can only explain ao much.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
I'm not saying that Uxx tempo/control is dominating, right now Gxx Aggro decks have the upperhand. Not decidedly though, by about a 2-1 margin. It would be nice to see it closer to balance, but I'm not sure drastic action is really needed to force it. A card like preordain might be an incremental improvement that will make them slightly better, which is a low risk move likely to have only a positive impact. More risky action, like SFM, JTMS, BBE, etc, don't seem necessary with the relatively small challenge in archtype disparity.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Yeah, that would be an absolutely terrible financial decision.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate