I'm curious if we can somehow come together and do an analysis of the claims that Modern is a turn-(three/four) format. If this were true, would the data not support it? I think we'd have to concisely define two scenarios, though. First, games that are literally over (as in the game is complete, not a player simply scooping up cards - the opponent achieved the condition(s) necessary to win) on turn three/four. Second, games that could be considered "over" (as in the gamestate is in such a way that one player has zero series of topdecks to regain necessary options to achieve a winning condition before the opponent does). This way we cannot fall to arguments in which moving the goalposts is possible, as we consider both goalposts.
There is the issue that we have to recognize of players making poor mulligan decisions, as gkourou pointed out. We would have to make sure that we plainly state that that is also a consideration not accounted for when the data is presented, or people who are motivated to interpret data to support their own preferred arguments may be otherwise inclined to ignore this fact. Unless, of course, someone smarter than me is able to account for that as well.
I play UW Control and that seemed awful and @Shmanka you are totally not fair to judge that. I think it's suspicious even he is a good Modern player(he won the Duke-Huey-Turtenwald in the Team Unified Modern even some months ago). When I know what the opponens is up to, I never keep a hand with no Seas-no Quarter(assuming on 4+(2-4)) post sideboard.
It's absolutely fair to judge that, most players simply concede in that exact situation whether they are UW control or not. Suppressing gameplay in Modern is a result of Fast Mana, or the lack of tools to combat it. The cards you mentioned simply delay the issue. They do not bode well past turn 5 for example.
It's not just Tron, it's Scapeshift, Goryo's Vengeance, Storm, Eldrazi, Breech, Ad Nauseam, Open The Vaults, and to the lesser extent Elves.
I'm not advocating a ban, but I want answers to this printed, like last year.
Oh my God, we are back to this. Ok, slow down people. Tron is fine and was always fine. Even if Tron proves out to be the breakout deck of this GP(which seems possible), it's fine. No need to tag the B-word on everything that's winning.
Are you watching the GP coverage? The deck has been absolutely dominating. Midrange, control, prison..none of these archetypes stood a chance in the feature matches
@Billiondegree, There is the concern that we would be taking a very small sample size for your arguments, concerning watching the GP coverage. Could you provide exactly how many matches of Gx Tron you've watched on the coverage, how many games per match, and what those matchups were? Are you willing to gather that data to support your argument?
I advocated for a Tron ban a long time ago, and nobody believed me
If they don't want to kill the deck, an Expedition Map ban might work as well to make the combo less consistent
Stop. This is a bad post and you have no real argument to stand on. Don't start this banmania hysteria just because we saw someone frustratingly scoop on turn 3
I appreciate it. To be fair, I absolutely hate playing against Gx Tron as well. I just accept that it is now a poor matchup for me, and requires that the cards line up near-perfectly for me to stand a chance with my favorite deck. Of course, I do also have Gx Tron built, and I do find piloting it fun, too. There are some bad matchups for it that I accept when I'm piloting it.
I do recognize that the Tron lands could pose a problem in the future, much in the same way that Birthing Pod did. As Birthing Pod made every creature printed a potential breaking point in the game, the Tron lands do the same with colorless spells. As colorless spells (particularly ones with high coverted mana costs) continue to be printed, there is the potential that they might be included a deck that uses the Tron lands to break the game. I don't think that I have enough data to say that we are already there, as Gx Tron decks should otherwise be dominating the format without mercy. I can imagine a future in which it does just this, however. I think a great way to combat this possibility is for WotC to print more cards like Spreading Seas, so that each color has access to some way to disrupt the Tron manabase, on curve and before Tron can be assembled. Then it would be up to the players to include those cards as necessary.
And I agree about Lantern, though I would be remiss if I didn't admit that I am very biased about that.
@thnkr, I feel like you are one of the people trying to push off unbiased, speculative arguments like " people are conceding to Tron, please ban it" and stuff. Thanks for the contribution and I 100% agree with what you are saying.
People saying Tron needs to be banned want to present arguments as to why this should be happening. What kind of rule does it bend? Is it Turn 3 kills because other people scoop? If yes, how often does that happen? Is it more than 10% of the times?
Also, about Lantern: Steve Rubin - "Lantern Prison is secretly the best deck in Modern". I honestly believe this, but again, this is just an opinion of mine.
I mean, we also had games where Amulet Titan didn't technically win on turn 3, but it basically created an unlosable boardstate by turn 2 or 3. I think a great example of this is when we saw this happen with Jeff Hoagland on camera. He path'd the chained Titans 3 times and definitely could not win despite that.
A turn 3 Karn is pretty unbeatable. If I'm on the draw and played 2 lands and you now eat my land while now alternating between shredding my hand and my mana base, I may not lose until turn 7 or 9, but the game was all but over.
I do wish we had better answers to some of the degenerate combos that isn't just thoughtseize.
I'm also still massively not convinced Lantern is "secretly the best deck". If Lantern hit Grixis Shadow's popularity from May that deck would be swatted down so hard we'd see it fall to tier 3 for months. That's just my speculation.
Oh come on! There is a ton of land hate, they just printed a new one, and I encourage them to keep printing more until I can play a land hate deck in Modern. Tron doesn't need a ban, it is slow, inconsistent, and it folds to fast combo, with very little room to stumble against aggro, maybe one turn slower than ideal. Tron has a great late game, but for a combo deck to be able to assemble a 4 card combo, for you to be able to win even through that, for most of the deck needing to be dedicated to making that combo work, I just don't understand what part of it people think is unfair? There are plenty of better combos in the format, ones that are faster, fewer cards, or actually win on the spot. And it's a tiny percentage of the meta. It's just midrange players with a grudge. If your targeted discard worked like it did on every other deck and it wasn't the one thing you actually got to experience the bad matchups every else has against, nobody would even look twice at those lands.
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I advocated for a Tron ban a long time ago, and nobody believed me
If they don't want to kill the deck, an Expedition Map ban might work as well to make the combo less consistent
Stop. This is a bad post and you have no real argument to stand on. Don't start this banmania hysteria just because we saw someone frustratingly scoop on turn 3
You don't need stats to prove what we saw on camera. Tron is a menace to control decks and its no wonder we have few in the format because of big mana decks. Not to mention control has to work hard just to beat any matchup.
Tron is even a menace to midrange. So I don't see why his post is foolish like you claim.
Oh come on! There is a ton of land hate, they just printed a new one
That isn't active until T3.. So either you're on the play and set them back a turn at the expense of your T3 play, or you're on the draw and they still have a chance to T3 Karn you away from the mana you need to Field of Ruin. No doubt, Ghost Quarter is a great card, does wonders against Tron, but not many decks will run 4x, and they have so many more ways to find lands than any other deck does. There just isn't consistent enough land destruction in Modern (probably for the best, having a top-tier land destruction deck would push way too many players away from the format), but Wizards needs to realize, if they're not going to add ways to deal with a super strong way to cheat on mana (play 3 lands, get 7 mana), they need to do something about the decks that abuse those lands, or at least be super super careful about what colorless threats they print in the future.
@Billiondegree, There is the concern that we would be taking a very small sample size for your arguments, concerning watching the GP coverage. Could you provide exactly how many matches of Gx Tron you've watched on the coverage, how many games per match, and what those matchups were? Are you willing to gather that data to support your argument?
tron is bad for that matchup. Like really bad. What data is needed to prove this. Nor is this a fair question to be asking anyone with our limited data on matchups.
Oh my God, we are back to this. Ok, slow down people. Tron is fine and was always fine. Even if Tron proves out to be the breakout deck of this GP(which seems possible), it's fine. No need to tag the B-word on everything that's winning.
Are you watching the GP coverage? The deck has been absolutely dominating. Midrange, control, prison..none of these archetypes stood a chance in the feature matches
I feel like tron is hurting control and midrange diversity in modern.
When matchups are this lopsided and a big enough part of the top tiers I think they need to be monitored.
@Stryker89, It is fair because a claim made without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. My point here is that they made a claim using limited data, and then expect others to consider that same claim, with no data provided and only a statement that there is (limited) data available.
If I made a claim here, then I would expect others to demand the same out of me, otherwise my claim could likewise be dismissed.
@Stryker89, It is fair because a claim made without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. My point here is that they made a claim using limited data, and then expect others to consider that same claim, with no data provided and only a statement that there is (limited) data available.
If I made a claim here, then I would expect others to demand the same out of me, otherwise my claim could likewise be dismissed.
again how can people make any claims at all hardly when there is very limited data to draw from?
A person could make a claim with some data and always be asked for more. It never ends.
With your logic your dismissal of a claim cannot then be said unless you can disprove it.
I think we've heard enough about how tron beats midrange and control after years. That we cannot ignore it. Especially when we witness it on camera aswell.
Are you arguing tron isn't a terrible matchup for control and slow midrange? Because if so, there is more claims against you on that one than not.
I think it is safe to say that the Through the Breach / Emrakul deck has supplanted Splinter Twin as the URx combo-control deck of choice in modern (storm would just be combo)
Patrick Tierney is currently 11-0 with a Jeskai version of this deck
@Stryker89, It is fair because a claim made without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. My point here is that they made a claim using limited data, and then expect others to consider that same claim, with no data provided and only a statement that there is (limited) data available.
If I made a claim here, then I would expect others to demand the same out of me, otherwise my claim could likewise be dismissed.
again how can people make any claims at all hardly when there is very limited data to draw from?
If there is limited data to draw from, then why did they make the claim and expect to be believed to begin with?
A person could make a claim with some data and always be asked for more. It never ends.
Yes, we can ask for more. But what sense would there be in making a claim with zero data at all? Should we equally believe all claims made without data? Should all unsupported or untested claims be equally trusted at face value?
With your logic your dismissal of a claim cannot then be said unless you can disprove it.
I think we've heard enough about how tron beats midrange and control after years. That we cannot ignore it. Especially when we witness it on camera aswell.
Are you arguing tron isn't a terrible matchup for control and slow midrange? Because if so, there is more claims against you on that one than not.
I at no point inferred that Gx Tron isn't a terrible matchup for control and/or slow midrange. I simply asked for the person's evidence that they claimed to have witnessed.
Sheridan: Thanks for the data and for the great scientific process. I feel that the latest discussions in this thread are of the highest calibre(as opposed to previous years' "omg Tron is oppressive ban it" kind of discussions).
Thanks! And yet, about 1.5 pages later, that's exactly where we are. In my experience, many Modern players aren't really interested in the data. They just have beliefs about the format that they want to believe, and some will ignore evidence against their beliefs and fixate on evidence that supports it. Evidence quality doesn't even matter.
One observation: How trustworthy do you think those data are?(meaning that of course we would prefer some GP data to go with)
Super trustworthy for SCG events and anything less involved than SCG (so basically any regional or local event). GP and PT picture might be different. MTGO might also be different. But for the kind of paper event that most of us plays regularly, it should be applicable.
One question(even if probably it's too difficult to be answered): When people talk about that "matchup lottery" myth, they typically refer to fair Modern decks(meaning decks like blue based attrition/control decks and/or Black based midrange decks). Those people, when they talk about that "myth", they never speak of players that go with unfair decks.
So, having that in mind, could we somehow calculate the "matchup lottery" factor in Modern vs Legacy events working ONLY with people that play fair decks in both Modern and in Legacy(meaning control or BGx in Modern and Delver/Pyromancer/Control/Death and Taxes variants in Legacy?
This would trim the players that play, let's say Amulet Bloom, Infect, Dredge or other unfair decks in Modern AND trim people that play BR Reanimator, Storm, or other unfair decks in Legacy.
In other words, if our sample is to be narrowed down only to people who play both formats and play exclusively fair decks in both formats, what's the "Approximate Game Win Percentage" in both of the formats?
We have Top 32s from these events, so if a player made it to the Top 32 we'd have their decklists and could check their AGWP on that list. But that's not the best method because if you flubbed out before even reaching T32, we wouldn't have the list. I think there has to be a better way to calculate this that wouldn't favor Top 32 players and/or would somehow account for it.
@Stryker89, It is fair because a claim made without evidence may be dismissed without evidence. My point here is that they made a claim using limited data, and then expect others to consider that same claim, with no data provided and only a statement that there is (limited) data available.
If I made a claim here, then I would expect others to demand the same out of me, otherwise my claim could likewise be dismissed.
again how can people make any claims at all hardly when there is very limited data to draw from?
If there is limited data to draw from, then why did they make the claim and expect to be believed to begin with?
A person could make a claim with some data and always be asked for more. It never ends.
Yes, we can ask for more. But what sense would there be in making a claim with zero data at all? Should we equally believe all claims made without data? Should all unsupported or untested claims be equally trusted at face value?
With your logic your dismissal of a claim cannot then be said unless you can disprove it.
I think we've heard enough about how tron beats midrange and control after years. That we cannot ignore it. Especially when we witness it on camera aswell.
Are you arguing tron isn't a terrible matchup for control and slow midrange? Because if so, there is more claims against you on that one than not.
I at no point inferred that Gx Tron isn't a terrible matchup for control and/or slow midrange. I simply asked for the person's evidence that they claimed to have witnessed.
if your admitting it's a terrible matchup than why are you defending its negative effect on midrange and control?
Also why are you asking for proof of such a thing in the first place if you admit to the matchups being terrible?
If someone says man that matchup is tough from my experience and you say prove it, how are you being productive in the argument at all.
All your doing is refuting everyone unless they have data? Anecdotal means zilch in this world does it? Because I disagree. And when enough pros and players have said it. It cannot be ignored. That in of itself, Is a form of data.
How many percent of players find tron unfun and polarizing. Investigate, then if its true act on it.
So yes to answer your question there is currently no data to prove such a claim. However that does not mean it doesn't have the potential to be true.
Sheridan: Thanks for the data and for the great scientific process. I feel that the latest discussions in this thread are of the highest calibre(as opposed to previous years' "omg Tron is oppressive ban it" kind of discussions).
Thanks! And yet, about 1.5 pages later, that's exactly where we are. In my experience, many Modern players aren't really interested in the data. They just have beliefs about the format that they want to believe, and some will ignore evidence against their beliefs and fixate on evidence that supports it. Evidence quality doesn't even matter.
One observation: How trustworthy do you think those data are?(meaning that of course we would prefer some GP data to go with)
Super trustworthy for SCG events and anything less involved than SCG (so basically any regional or local event). GP and PT picture might be different. MTGO might also be different. But for the kind of paper event that most of us plays regularly, it should be applicable.
One question(even if probably it's too difficult to be answered): When people talk about that "matchup lottery" myth, they typically refer to fair Modern decks(meaning decks like blue based attrition/control decks and/or Black based midrange decks). Those people, when they talk about that "myth", they never speak of players that go with unfair decks.
So, having that in mind, could we somehow calculate the "matchup lottery" factor in Modern vs Legacy events working ONLY with people that play fair decks in both Modern and in Legacy(meaning control or BGx in Modern and Delver/Pyromancer/Control/Death and Taxes variants in Legacy?
This would trim the players that play, let's say Amulet Bloom, Infect, Dredge or other unfair decks in Modern AND trim people that play BR Reanimator, Storm, or other unfair decks in Legacy.
In other words, if our sample is to be narrowed down only to people who play both formats and play exclusively fair decks in both formats, what's the "Approximate Game Win Percentage" in both of the formats?
We have Top 32s from these events, so if a player made it to the Top 32 we'd have their decklists and could check their AGWP on that list. But that's not the best method because if you flubbed out before even reaching T32, we wouldn't have the list. I think there has to be a better way to calculate this that wouldn't favor Top 32 players and/or would somehow account for it.
so basically what your saying is that "matchup lottery"cannot be proven or disproven at this point because of a lack of data?
if your admitting it's a terrible matchup than why are you defending its negative effect on midrange and control?
Also why are you asking for proof of such a thing in the first place if you admit to the matchups being terrible?
If someone says man that matchup is tough from my experience and you say prove it, how are you being productive in the argument at all.
All your doing is refuting everyone unless they have data? Anecdotal means zilch in this world does it?
Don't want to speak for thinkr, but here's my take on it.
a) There are bad matchups (40/60, 45/55) and there are BAD matchups (35/75 or worse). It's fine if decks have bad matchups against other decks. It's actually good for the format's health. Indeed, Wizards even said this is part of their format management for multiple formats. It's not fine if the bad matchups are just unwinnable and there is no way to pick up margins. This means we need to be clear about what kind of "bad" matchup we are talking about, hence the evidence.
b) Most Modern players are really bad at estimating their matchups. The classic example was in 2015 when people thought RG Tron vs. Jund was some unwinnable 30/70 nightmare. False; in a large MTGO dataset, it was closer to 45/55 (46/54 to be exact). Another example; people thought Twin vs. BGx was unfavored towards BGx in the 45/55 or 40/60 range. This was also false. The matchup was actually a straight 50/50. Because it's hard to guess/know the matchups, we need evidence to support our claims.
c) People make lots of claims in this thread without evidence. Some of them are so outrageous we don't even challenge them with data. I remember "ban Dispel," "ban Leyline of Sanctity," "ban Noble Hierarch." No one needed to challenge those with evidence because the claims were unsupported to begin with. But then we get claims that aren't supported but might "feel" reasonable, and we need to challenge those. A recent one I challenged: Affinity and Company have the same T3 win-rate as Storm. I checked this and it was not true. If we actually use evidence to support and challenge claims, we come closer to understanding Modern and speaking the same language.
so basically what your saying is that "matchup lottery"cannot be proven or disproven at this point because of a lack of data?
Re-read my analysis two pages back. If there is a matchup lottery in Modern, it doesn't lead to any changes in win-percentage and win-percentage variance relative to Legacy. Good players are consistently good in both Modern and Legacy. Their ceiling win-percentage is also the same. If matchup lottery was such a factor as people claim, we would expect the good players in Modern to be more inconsistent from event to event, and we would expect their top win-percentage to be much lower than Legacy's. Neither of these are the case.
The only thing we can't control for right now is deck choice. It's possible that fair decks are worse in Modern than in Legacy. But this doesn't mean there's a matchup lottery or high variance matchups. Good Modern players have overcome this to be consistently good and do just as well in Modern as the best players are doing in Legacy.
if your admitting it's a terrible matchup than why are you defending its negative effect on midrange and control?
Also why are you asking for proof of such a thing in the first place if you admit to the matchups being terrible?
If someone says man that matchup is tough from my experience and you say prove it, how are you being productive in the argument at all.
All your doing is refuting everyone unless they have data? Anecdotal means zilch in this world does it?
Don't want to speak for thinkr, but here's my take on it.
a) There are bad matchups (40/60, 45/55) and there are BAD matchups (35/75 or worse). It's fine if decks have bad matchups against other decks. It's actually good for the format's health. Indeed, Wizards even said this is part of their format management for multiple formats. It's not fine if the bad matchups are just unwinnable and there is no way to pick up margins. This means we need to be clear about what kind of "bad" matchup we are talking about, hence the evidence.
b) Most Modern players are really bad at estimating their matchups. The classic example was in 2015 when people thought RG Tron vs. Jund was some unwinnable 30/70 nightmare. False; in a large MTGO dataset, it was closer to 45/55 (46/54 to be exact). Another example; people thought Twin vs. BGx was unfavored towards BGx in the 45/55 or 40/60 range. This was also false. The matchup was actually a straight 50/50. Because it's hard to guess/know the matchups, we need evidence to support our claims.
c) People make lots of claims in this thread without evidence. Some of them are so outrageous we don't even challenge them with data. I remember "ban Dispel," "ban Leyline of Sanctity," "ban Noble Hierarch." No one needed to challenge those with evidence because the claims were unsupported to begin with. But then we get claims that aren't supported but might "feel" reasonable, and we need to challenge those. A recent one I challenged: Affinity and Company have the same T3 win-rate as Storm. I checked this and it was not true. If we actually use evidence to support and challenge claims, we come closer to understanding Modern and speaking the same language.
so basically what your saying is that "matchup lottery"cannot be proven or disproven at this point because of a lack of data?
Re-read my analysis two pages back. If there is a matchup lottery in Modern, it doesn't lead to any changes in win-percentage and win-percentage variance relative to Legacy. Good players are consistently good in both Modern and Legacy. Their ceiling win-percentage is also the same. If matchup lottery was such a factor as people claim, we would expect the good players in Modern to be more inconsistent from event to event, and we would expect their top win-percentage to be much lower than Legacy's. Neither of these are the case.
The only thing we can't control for right now is deck choice. It's possible that fair decks are worse in Modern than in Legacy. But this doesn't mean there's a matchup lottery or high variance matchups. Good Modern players have overcome this to be consistently good and do just as well in Modern as the best players are doing in Legacy.
but is it healthy if there are enough 45/55 matchups in the top tiers of the game? Enough to push out an entire archtype and even hurt another simultaneously?
Does that mean the archtype needs help or does this mean that the number of decks in the top tiers that beat this archtype/s is unhealthy?
What if they gave us say jtms and control still got crushed by big mana?
And people just kept Not playing
Control and instead played more of an aggressive strategy to race these big mana decks?
Wouldnt at that point wizards say: "ok we are trying to help an archtype and dispite us trying, big mana aren't letting it breathe. Therefore we need to ban something for diversity reasons"
Bad matchups will exist in big formats like this. But if it becomes too much of a part of the game, or one deck effects too broad of decks, isn't that unhealthy?
Affinity destroys Merfolk but doesn't also stomp all aggro matchups against it For example.
but is it healthy if there are enough 45/55 matchups in the top tiers of the game? Enough to push out an entire archtype and even hurt another simultaneously?
"The first, most obvious thing to look for is whether or not any deck has a positive matchup against every other major deck in the field. When your worst matchup is the mirror, chances are you are going to get banned. Even if, in the real world, the deck hasn't won a lot of tournaments, this is a clear sign that it is poised to take over at some point, and we should probably act sooner rather than later."
Does that mean the archtype needs help or does this mean that the number of decks in the top tiers that beat this archtype/s is unhealthy?
Sure. If fair decks aren't in the top-tier, Wizards should give them help. But helping those decks doesn't mean hurting other decks that aren't doing anything wrong.
And people just kept Not playing
Control and instead played more of an aggressive strategy to race these big mana decks?[/quote]
I believe people are playing lots of decks and doing well. This is something we can actually check in the dataset though, so I'll see what we find.
Wouldnt at that point wizards say: "ok we are trying to help an archtype and dispite us trying, big mana aren't letting it breathe. Therefore we need to ban something for diversity reasons"
It seems like the archetype is doing fine, even if it's losing to big mana. You may personally dislike big mana but that doesn't mean it is suffocating an archetype you like to play.
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A turn 3 Karn isn't something most decks can beat though.
If they don't want to kill the deck, an Expedition Map ban might work as well to make the combo less consistent
There is the issue that we have to recognize of players making poor mulligan decisions, as gkourou pointed out. We would have to make sure that we plainly state that that is also a consideration not accounted for when the data is presented, or people who are motivated to interpret data to support their own preferred arguments may be otherwise inclined to ignore this fact. Unless, of course, someone smarter than me is able to account for that as well.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
It's absolutely fair to judge that, most players simply concede in that exact situation whether they are UW control or not. Suppressing gameplay in Modern is a result of Fast Mana, or the lack of tools to combat it. The cards you mentioned simply delay the issue. They do not bode well past turn 5 for example.
It's not just Tron, it's Scapeshift, Goryo's Vengeance, Storm, Eldrazi, Breech, Ad Nauseam, Open The Vaults, and to the lesser extent Elves.
I'm not advocating a ban, but I want answers to this printed, like last year.
Are you watching the GP coverage? The deck has been absolutely dominating. Midrange, control, prison..none of these archetypes stood a chance in the feature matches
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Stop. This is a bad post and you have no real argument to stand on. Don't start this banmania hysteria just because we saw someone frustratingly scoop on turn 3
I do recognize that the Tron lands could pose a problem in the future, much in the same way that Birthing Pod did. As Birthing Pod made every creature printed a potential breaking point in the game, the Tron lands do the same with colorless spells. As colorless spells (particularly ones with high coverted mana costs) continue to be printed, there is the potential that they might be included a deck that uses the Tron lands to break the game. I don't think that I have enough data to say that we are already there, as Gx Tron decks should otherwise be dominating the format without mercy. I can imagine a future in which it does just this, however. I think a great way to combat this possibility is for WotC to print more cards like Spreading Seas, so that each color has access to some way to disrupt the Tron manabase, on curve and before Tron can be assembled. Then it would be up to the players to include those cards as necessary.
And I agree about Lantern, though I would be remiss if I didn't admit that I am very biased about that.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
I mean, we also had games where Amulet Titan didn't technically win on turn 3, but it basically created an unlosable boardstate by turn 2 or 3. I think a great example of this is when we saw this happen with Jeff Hoagland on camera. He path'd the chained Titans 3 times and definitely could not win despite that.
A turn 3 Karn is pretty unbeatable. If I'm on the draw and played 2 lands and you now eat my land while now alternating between shredding my hand and my mana base, I may not lose until turn 7 or 9, but the game was all but over.
I do wish we had better answers to some of the degenerate combos that isn't just thoughtseize.
I'm also still massively not convinced Lantern is "secretly the best deck". If Lantern hit Grixis Shadow's popularity from May that deck would be swatted down so hard we'd see it fall to tier 3 for months. That's just my speculation.
Tron is even a menace to midrange. So I don't see why his post is foolish like you claim.
That isn't active until T3.. So either you're on the play and set them back a turn at the expense of your T3 play, or you're on the draw and they still have a chance to T3 Karn you away from the mana you need to Field of Ruin. No doubt, Ghost Quarter is a great card, does wonders against Tron, but not many decks will run 4x, and they have so many more ways to find lands than any other deck does. There just isn't consistent enough land destruction in Modern (probably for the best, having a top-tier land destruction deck would push way too many players away from the format), but Wizards needs to realize, if they're not going to add ways to deal with a super strong way to cheat on mana (play 3 lands, get 7 mana), they need to do something about the decks that abuse those lands, or at least be super super careful about what colorless threats they print in the future.
When matchups are this lopsided and a big enough part of the top tiers I think they need to be monitored.
If I made a claim here, then I would expect others to demand the same out of me, otherwise my claim could likewise be dismissed.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
A person could make a claim with some data and always be asked for more. It never ends.
With your logic your dismissal of a claim cannot then be said unless you can disprove it.
I think we've heard enough about how tron beats midrange and control after years. That we cannot ignore it. Especially when we witness it on camera aswell.
Are you arguing tron isn't a terrible matchup for control and slow midrange? Because if so, there is more claims against you on that one than not.
How did storm manage to first place? With jund? Did storm somehow crush jund?
Patrick Tierney is currently 11-0 with a Jeskai version of this deck
If there is limited data to draw from, then why did they make the claim and expect to be believed to begin with?
Yes, we can ask for more. But what sense would there be in making a claim with zero data at all? Should we equally believe all claims made without data? Should all unsupported or untested claims be equally trusted at face value?
Negative. The burden of proof lies on the person making the claim.
I at no point inferred that Gx Tron isn't a terrible matchup for control and/or slow midrange. I simply asked for the person's evidence that they claimed to have witnessed.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Thanks! And yet, about 1.5 pages later, that's exactly where we are. In my experience, many Modern players aren't really interested in the data. They just have beliefs about the format that they want to believe, and some will ignore evidence against their beliefs and fixate on evidence that supports it. Evidence quality doesn't even matter.
Super trustworthy for SCG events and anything less involved than SCG (so basically any regional or local event). GP and PT picture might be different. MTGO might also be different. But for the kind of paper event that most of us plays regularly, it should be applicable.
We have Top 32s from these events, so if a player made it to the Top 32 we'd have their decklists and could check their AGWP on that list. But that's not the best method because if you flubbed out before even reaching T32, we wouldn't have the list. I think there has to be a better way to calculate this that wouldn't favor Top 32 players and/or would somehow account for it.
Also why are you asking for proof of such a thing in the first place if you admit to the matchups being terrible?
If someone says man that matchup is tough from my experience and you say prove it, how are you being productive in the argument at all.
All your doing is refuting everyone unless they have data? Anecdotal means zilch in this world does it? Because I disagree. And when enough pros and players have said it. It cannot be ignored. That in of itself, Is a form of data.
How many percent of players find tron unfun and polarizing. Investigate, then if its true act on it.
So yes to answer your question there is currently no data to prove such a claim. However that does not mean it doesn't have the potential to be true.
Don't want to speak for thinkr, but here's my take on it.
a) There are bad matchups (40/60, 45/55) and there are BAD matchups (35/75 or worse). It's fine if decks have bad matchups against other decks. It's actually good for the format's health. Indeed, Wizards even said this is part of their format management for multiple formats. It's not fine if the bad matchups are just unwinnable and there is no way to pick up margins. This means we need to be clear about what kind of "bad" matchup we are talking about, hence the evidence.
b) Most Modern players are really bad at estimating their matchups. The classic example was in 2015 when people thought RG Tron vs. Jund was some unwinnable 30/70 nightmare. False; in a large MTGO dataset, it was closer to 45/55 (46/54 to be exact). Another example; people thought Twin vs. BGx was unfavored towards BGx in the 45/55 or 40/60 range. This was also false. The matchup was actually a straight 50/50. Because it's hard to guess/know the matchups, we need evidence to support our claims.
c) People make lots of claims in this thread without evidence. Some of them are so outrageous we don't even challenge them with data. I remember "ban Dispel," "ban Leyline of Sanctity," "ban Noble Hierarch." No one needed to challenge those with evidence because the claims were unsupported to begin with. But then we get claims that aren't supported but might "feel" reasonable, and we need to challenge those. A recent one I challenged: Affinity and Company have the same T3 win-rate as Storm. I checked this and it was not true. If we actually use evidence to support and challenge claims, we come closer to understanding Modern and speaking the same language.
Re-read my analysis two pages back. If there is a matchup lottery in Modern, it doesn't lead to any changes in win-percentage and win-percentage variance relative to Legacy. Good players are consistently good in both Modern and Legacy. Their ceiling win-percentage is also the same. If matchup lottery was such a factor as people claim, we would expect the good players in Modern to be more inconsistent from event to event, and we would expect their top win-percentage to be much lower than Legacy's. Neither of these are the case.
The only thing we can't control for right now is deck choice. It's possible that fair decks are worse in Modern than in Legacy. But this doesn't mean there's a matchup lottery or high variance matchups. Good Modern players have overcome this to be consistently good and do just as well in Modern as the best players are doing in Legacy.
Does that mean the archtype needs help or does this mean that the number of decks in the top tiers that beat this archtype/s is unhealthy?
What if they gave us say jtms and control still got crushed by big mana?
And people just kept Not playing
Control and instead played more of an aggressive strategy to race these big mana decks?
Wouldnt at that point wizards say: "ok we are trying to help an archtype and dispite us trying, big mana aren't letting it breathe. Therefore we need to ban something for diversity reasons"
Bad matchups will exist in big formats like this. But if it becomes too much of a part of the game, or one deck effects too broad of decks, isn't that unhealthy?
Affinity destroys Merfolk but doesn't also stomp all aggro matchups against it For example.
Yes, that is healthy. Otherwise there is a 50/50 deck that is the de-facto best deck. Wizards tends to ban cards from those decks. See Stoddard's February 2016 article:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/using-real-world-data-2016-02-11
"The first, most obvious thing to look for is whether or not any deck has a positive matchup against every other major deck in the field. When your worst matchup is the mirror, chances are you are going to get banned. Even if, in the real world, the deck hasn't won a lot of tournaments, this is a clear sign that it is poised to take over at some point, and we should probably act sooner rather than later."
Sure. If fair decks aren't in the top-tier, Wizards should give them help. But helping those decks doesn't mean hurting other decks that aren't doing anything wrong.
And people just kept Not playing
Control and instead played more of an aggressive strategy to race these big mana decks?[/quote]
I believe people are playing lots of decks and doing well. This is something we can actually check in the dataset though, so I'll see what we find.
It seems like the archetype is doing fine, even if it's losing to big mana. You may personally dislike big mana but that doesn't mean it is suffocating an archetype you like to play.