It also gets back to the perceived entitlement of fair deck players. No other deck pilots regularly come into this thread and complain about an allegedly unwinnable or disheartening matchup. And when they do, they are rightfully dismissed. If you play combo and opponent opens on T1 TS, that typically signals a pending loss. The Affinity mage doesn't whine about losing to Bolt, Helix, Electrolyze. Or to Stony Silence. The Titan Shift player doesn't complain about losing to a T2 Kitesail into T3 Meddling Mage. The Dredge player does not come here to condemn format fun when Leylines and RiPs crash their MWP in events. The 30/70 dogs to Twin never came in here either. It's always just the fair deck players who present as wanting to remove their bad matchups and complain that they can't have a 50/50+ deck.
The reason non-fair players dont complain is because they know that they are doing things 'against the rules'.
Decks that can win on Turn 3 cannot complain, they break the rules.
Decks that make a million mana cannot complain, they break the rules.
And so on and so on.
Only 'fair' decks complain, because for unfair decks to complain is hilarious as you can just point out that they are cheating at the game anyway.
EDIT: And I say this as a guy who wants nothing more than for you to do nothing when I have 4 mana, so I can cast Dictate of Kruphix, and prevent you from getting to play again until I win.
I really don't buy this and find it highly biased. Everyone is trying to do unfair, goldfishy things in their own ways. The Jeskai player wants nothing more than to kill every threat and counter every spell in a goldfishy game where the opponent doesn't get to stick a single card for more than a turn. The Jund player wants to prevent you from even casting cards, shut down your topdecks with one-for-one removal and hand disruption, and beat you to death with an efficient creature that you can't profitably block or remove. The Twin player wanted to win on T4 after invalidating or ignoring the opponents first 3-4 turns. Everyone is trying to advance their own gameplan and in an ideal world wants as little interplay as possible. Everyone is trying to get ahead of the mana curve and power curve to do something better, including the midrange and control players. If they had a free counter ala FoW instead of Shoal, I guarantee you they would play it and not talk about how free countermagic is fundamentally unfair and against the curve.
This comparison falls apart further when we apply it to the so-called blue format of allegedly interactive, high-skill blue decks. Many of those cards are extremely unfair and feel like they are against the so-called rules. Daze and FoW are free counters. Wasteland strips away the manabase. Brainstorm gives one of the best cantrip exchanges in the history of the game. All of these cards feel like they are against some kind of rule, whether they are too efficient, violate mana curves, or disrupt without the opportunity for interplay.
This concept of "cheating" at the game or breaking "rules" is ridiculous in non-rotating formats. It's related to the equally ridiculous meme of "Magic as Garfield intended." If you want Magic at its most basic attacking, blocking, mana curving roots, play Standard or Limited. If you want powerful effects where every deck is trying to get ahead of the basic Grey Ogre limitations of Magic, play non-rotating formats. Fair mages are just unhappy that their decks are worse-positioned in Modern than they would like. They want their tools to be more ahead of the curve than they are and, when they can't get this, many of them try to knock down the tools of other strategies.
If you are going to position UWR or Jund as unfair, then the conversation is pointless.
They are fundamentally fair, seeking to answer on a card by card basis.
I'm not saying its the only valid approach.
I'm not saying is true Magic.
I'm not saying is the only skilled magic.
It is however FAIR magic. That is not cheating on resources, card costs, or abusing an axis of the game which is not typical to most decks.
Killing your man's, counting your spells, is not the same as dropping a Turn 3 Karn, Storming you out for 20 on Turn 3, putting 8+ power on the board Turn ONE or taking 5+ turns after Turn 4, killing you with an animated 6/6 waterfall.
I think your position is cracking here in your desire to defend the format.
I like Modern. I've liked playing UWR since Search, Jace, and Teferi, and now that Tron is coming back I'm enjoying taking multiple turns in a row after tapping all your lands.
That doesn't mean Fair/Unfair are not easy concepts to grasp.
UWR and Jund are fair. Most else in Modern, is not.
I've read very interesting points from all of you since I brought up the Tron problem, but I still think the reason control is just a 5-10% of the field is Tron. I don't think it's because control cards suck. Yes, they could reprint counterspell and other controlish cards in other colors and control decks would be better, but ultimately, Tron got too good and I don't think there can be a new card that could make the MU not as horrible as it is now.
My guess is they tried to fix this with the sphere, but I don't personally like the sideboard lotto as a fix. Like with dredge, I prefer bans. People are so afraid of bans! Well, they shouldn't, specially if the ban just weaknens a deck instead of completely destroying it.
#ban stirrings.
I don't like Lantern, and that is as a Tron player who beats it without effort. I don't like Turns either, imho, it's a stupid deck that is trying to have as little fun as possible. should it be banned? of course not! you don't like SB lottery? tough. that's why we have a SB, so any deck can have the chance to win that lottery and shore up their bad matches. if you don't accept that you can't just pick up the recognized best deck, go play Standard, they even ban cards for you. A Stirrings ban turns Tron into a casual deck, it would be worse than Kiki decks, and I'm sure you would agree that the Twin ban knocked Twin style decks out of being viable. You can't just take away the only deck a player might have because you don't 'like' to use your sideboard. think about how ridiculous that is. without sideboard lottery, how many decks would be able to beat Storm? basically only forgettable midrange decks, with no synergy and just a pile of good, overly expensive cards.
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If you are going to position UWR or Jund as unfair, then the conversation is pointless.
They are fundamentally fair, seeking to answer on a card by card basis.
I'm not saying its the only valid approach.
I'm not saying is true Magic.
I'm not saying is the only skilled magic.
It is however FAIR magic. That is not cheating on resources, card costs, or abusing an axis of the game which is not typical to most decks.
Killing your man's, counting your spells, is not the same as dropping a Turn 3 Karn, Storming you out for 20 on Turn 3, putting 8+ power on the board Turn ONE or taking 5+ turns after Turn 4, killing you with an animated 6/6 waterfall.
I think your position is cracking here in your desire to defend the format.
I like Modern. I've liked playing UWR since Search, Jace, and Teferi, and now that Tron is coming back I'm enjoying taking multiple turns in a row after tapping all your lands.
That doesn't mean Fair/Unfair are not easy concepts to grasp.
UWR and Jund are fair. Most else in Modern, is not.
I'm not saying Jund or Jeskai are unfair. Twin yes, but not the other two. I am definitely saying that your previous post, in which you state that certain rules are getting broken by certain decks, and therefore those decks cannot or should not complain. I am saying that Jund and Jeskai are trying to break other so-called "rules" to keep competitive. E.g. card advantage, blanking removal, two-for-one exchanges, efficient lands, breaking parity on disruption, etc. Everyone in nonrotating formats is trying to get ahead of the typical boundaries of normal Limited, kitchen table, and Standard Magic, The related notion that there is a right way to play Magic and Modern, I.e. the meme "as Garfield intended", is equally ridiculous in nonrotating formats.
I am also alluding to a stigma, particularly by midrange/control players and particularly those who complain about Modern, that unfair decks are a worse/less skillful/less worthy kind of Magic. Although this argument is not always explicitly stated, it's often suggested and even stated outright at times. This is itself related to the thoroughly debunked myth of a matchup lottery that is somehow exclusive to Modern. We've both been on this forum and played this game long enough to know many/all of those suggestions are implicitly underlying and/or explicitly stated in posts such as "Tron isn't fun and is holding back fair decks." Especially when such statements are made with willful disregard for metagame shares.
Ah ok, then I misunderstood your argument. I agree, Twin is unfair, same as Turns is unfair. Everyone can complain, I was just making a case that we see LESS complaints from unfair decks because...they know whats up. They know they are 'pulling a fast one' on the format so to speak, and so they dont complain when decks beat up on them.
I dont buy into 'stigmas' we all have our biases. I've just had 3 people quit on me in MTGO, because they dont like playing against turns.
1. Whacker Zoo.
2. BW Walkers.
3. G-Tron.
I wont shed tears over it, but its just how it is. I wonder what the most hated deck is...
Of the popular decks, the three decks I like to play the least against are Tron, Bogles and Mardu Pyromancer. The games against them feel same-y, probably because the decks are highly redundant and stick to a singular plan. Dishonorable mentions: Elves and Ponza.
The decks I currently enjoy playing against the most are Jund, Jeskai Control (the Teferi version) and Affinity. These decks have multiple angles of attack and feel almost elegant in comparison to many of the other decks in their respective categories. Honorable mentions: Various Shadow decks and Storm.
I'm unsure about Humans. After playing against it a lot recently, my feeling is that the deck's super-convenient access to rainbow mana might be a little bit too good for the format.
Turns seems fine to me. As far as I can tell from my limited experience of playing against it, it's actually quite interactive in its attempts to take over the game.
Related to GK's post, Play Design really struck out on Chainwhirler. PT is a MESS. 7 of 8 decks in the T8 are Chainwhirler Rx aggressive strategies. 15/20 of the 24+ point decks are Rx Chainwhirler. It had the highest Day 1 share, the highest Day 2 share, and somehow also the best Day 1 to Day 2 conversion rate. It feels like Eldrazi levels of success. The card and deck is totally busted and Play Design will likely be in the crosshairs. I don't think that's entirely fair as they are working with a pre-existing busted set of problem cards, but Chainwhirler should have been caught. I expect, without hard evidence, that this will limit their ability to influence Modern, as their attention will likely be refocused on Standard to avoid more Chainwhirlers.
Its the Pro Tour though, how much of that Top 8 is influenced by draft records?
6 of the 16 matches. But read the other stats and put them all together in context. This is a really dominant deck, not just a draft anomaly. Chainwhirler is clearly to blame, insofar as any one card can be blamed for an unusually dominant PT deck.
Its the Pro Tour though, how much of that Top 8 is influenced by draft records?
6 of the 16 matches. But read the other stats and put them all together in context. This is a really dominant deck, not just a draft anomaly. Chainwhirler is clearly to blame, insofar as any one card can be blamed for an unusually dominant PT deck.
And all this in a format with Ferocidon, Looter Scooter, and Ramunap Ruins already banned. Someone in design really liked Mono-red the last year or two.
I've read very interesting points from all of you since I brought up the Tron problem, but I still think the reason control is just a 5-10% of the field is Tron. I don't think it's because control cards suck. Yes, they could reprint counterspell and other controlish cards in other colors and control decks would be better, but ultimately, Tron got too good and I don't think there can be a new card that could make the MU not as horrible as it is now.
My guess is they tried to fix this with the sphere, but I don't personally like the sideboard lotto as a fix. Like with dredge, I prefer bans. People are so afraid of bans! Well, they shouldn't, specially if the ban just weaknens a deck instead of completely destroying it.
#ban stirrings.
Those control decks can't compete because of Tron? Gx Tron is like 5% of the format. Even in a 15-round event, about half of the time you won't even face it once. With its metagame share, Gx Tron is simply incapable of having the kind of metagame effect you claim it is.
Not to mention, one need only look at Humans to further disprove your point. I've had multiple Humans players tell me they think Tron is their worst matchup, and yet that deck's considered one of the best in the format.
Can we please stop this nonsensical argument that the reason control decks are struggling (which they aren't, by the way, making the argument even sillier) is Tron? Both common sense and actual data disprove it.
I'm an aggro-control player who likes to brew and Tron has been the one deck that has made me give up on my creations again and again. It's very common to run into Tron on MTGO, so I have lots of practice playing against it. Which doesn't really help most of the time when I'm on control, because the available means of land destruction are so much worse than the available means of land tutoring. The ability of getting Sanctum of Ugin with the same engine as the Tron pieces is nuts against control.
not too surprised by the PT. RB chainwhirler decks are a known quantity that have been around card-for-card for over a month. the last standard grand prix had 6 copies in the top 8. honestly what i think happened is that people went too deep on trying to meta, then the best teams showed up with an obvious powerful aggressive midrange deck. its hard to cover that while also expecting to play UWx: The Durdling.
though i personally have the unrealistically high expectation that new decks are the main feature of standard pro-tours. i like to believe that pros have some extra insight not afforded to plebs like myself, and that when they collectively put their minds to it they can discover cool and powerful stuff. therefore every time this doesnt happen im disappointed more than i should be.
less so for modern, because that usually means something snapped in half. though ill admit that the pro-tour that launched eldrazi winter was interesting to watch.
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@Nyzzeh
well i hope you can see how its difficult to find your argument compelling in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. tron has ups and downs just like a bunch of fair/midrange/control decks.
i can understand wanting control and midrange decks to be more of a presence in the format because the gameplay may be more interesting. also tbh i dont buy into the notion that the modern ecosystem is this fragile thing that would collapse if tron was no longer around.
that said i subscribe to the mentality of letting people do what they want as long as it isnt oppressive. especially in a format like modern, which is supposed to showcase the breadth of what magic has to offer. its one of the primary reasons to play it over something like standard, which has its own identity of offering rich gameplay (at least it should be) but with less dimensions (ie little to no combo, prison, etc).
if i had to guess, i would say that many of the people that complain about some of the more degenerate aspects of modern are seeking a format that plays like standard, but is non-rotating. im not sure if you fall into this category Nyzzeh, but it might be worth examining your feelings on the subject to see if you do.
What I hate is starting a game and knowing after their first tron land that my chances of winning are very small. And that happens with any kind of slow deck, not just a handful of decks. Entire archetypes are at an almost guaranteed loss since turn1 against Tron.
That is of course compensated by the more or less same feeling Tron players have when they see they got paired against aggro. But it's just plainly unfun. Fun is as important as format balance, and there is one deck making the format boring.
PD: sorry I said earlier that mardu had a decent MU against tron. Have never played that deck and didn't know it still has a horrible MU against tron even with blood moon MD. But it also does not surprise me one bit. Sad, and boring.
By all measures, the majority do not find the format "boring." It's both the most-viewed and most-played format. It's also the most diverse. I understand that you personally don't like Tron, but that isn't exactly something to craft a format-wide policy around. Nor something to generalize around regarding format-wide fun.
It also gets back to the perceived entitlement of fair deck players. No other deck pilots regularly come into this thread and complain about an allegedly unwinnable or disheartening matchup. And when they do, they are rightfully dismissed. If you play combo and opponent opens on T1 TS, that typically signals a pending loss. The Affinity mage doesn't whine about losing to Bolt, Helix, Electrolyze. Or to Stony Silence. The Titan Shift player doesn't complain about losing to a T2 Kitesail into T3 Meddling Mage. The Dredge player does not come here to condemn format fun when Leylines and RiPs crash their MWP in events. The 30/70 dogs to Twin never came in here either. It's always just the fair deck players who present as wanting to remove their bad matchups and complain that they can't have a 50/50+ deck.
Some fair deck players make more nuanced arguments than this, so don't take this as a categorical swipe against all who pilot the archetype. But if you're in Nyzz's camp and truly believe the presence of something like Tron genuinely makes the format less fun, I encourage you to reevaluate your beliefs from another perspective.
You didn't fully get my point over the last posts.
My point is that a couple years ago, Tron already existed and did pretty much the same thing as it does now, but it was waaaaaay lighter. It was way more beatable with "fair" decks than it is now.
The problem IMO is that wizards doesn't handle the ban list properly. IMO, more bans and unbans should be done, more frequently. The ban list should be treated as a balance patch like they do in online games. Let's ban stirrings and see how the meta evolves etc.
But it's not wizards fault IMO, it's the players fault, because most of them are super anti ban list changes. It's like every ban is gonna make the sky fall...
And I say this because I'm worried. I'm worried about the format. I am too someone who started with the whole overextended thing and even wrote a letter to wizards asking them to create this format.
But my enjoyment of the format is dropping. Dropping because of things like tron. And I know the format could be much better than it is now, that's why I complain. If I knew the format couldn't be better, I'd say nothing and quit.
Oh and about the SFM unban, I actually think now that it'd be bad for the format. It essencially makes aggro worse, which in turn makes Tron even better.
I have fond memories of playing against the old Tron decks. I lost against those quite often, but it always felt as if all I needed to keep up with them was tweaking my sideboard. Nowadays literally half of my sideboard is anti-Tron and it still feels like an uphill battle when I'm on control or just about any interactive deck that I enjoy playing.
Most of the the time it seems as if the Tron player doesn't really care about my deck and all. They just jam something every turn, not playing around counter-magic or anything. They know they have the redundancy in 12 land tutors and the inevitability in Sanctum of Ughin and the big Eldrazi. So all I do is merrily a nuisance to them.
As a side note, I also noticed that some of the Tron players I face on MTGO make very bad decisions when they are forced to play "normal" Magic. So, one good thing about Tron might actually be that it enables inexperienced and below average players to have some success in Modern. I don't mean this as an insult. It can actually help make a format as diverse as Modern more accessible if you can win a good share of matches without profound knowledge of the other decks in the format.
Two questions:
a) What deck are you playing?
b) Which version of Tron is offending you? I'm thinking Gx, but I want to be sure before saying anything else.
@Nyzzeh
well i hope you can see how its difficult to find your argument compelling in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. tron has ups and downs just like a bunch of fair/midrange/control decks.
i can understand wanting control and midrange decks to be more of a presence in the format because the gameplay may be more interesting. also tbh i dont buy into the notion that the modern ecosystem is this fragile thing that would collapse if tron was no longer around.
that said i subscribe to the mentality of letting people do what they want as long as it isnt oppressive. especially in a format like modern, which is supposed to showcase the breadth of what magic has to offer. its one of the primary reasons to play it over something like standard, which has its own identity of offering rich gameplay (at least it should be) but with less dimensions (ie little to no combo, prison, etc).
if i had to guess, i would say that many of the people that complain about some of the more degenerate aspects of modern are seeking a format that plays like standard, but is non-rotating. im not sure if you fall into this category Nyzzeh, but it might be worth examining your feelings on the subject to see if you do.
What I hate is starting a game and knowing after their first tron land that my chances of winning are very small. And that happens with any kind of slow deck, not just a handful of decks. Entire archetypes are at an almost guaranteed loss since turn1 against Tron.
That is of course compensated by the more or less same feeling Tron players have when they see they got paired against aggro. But it's just plainly unfun. Fun is as important as format balance, and there is one deck making the format boring.
PD: sorry I said earlier that mardu had a decent MU against tron. Have never played that deck and didn't know it still has a horrible MU against tron even with blood moon MD. But it also does not surprise me one bit. Sad, and boring.
By all measures, the majority do not find the format "boring." It's both the most-viewed and most-played format. It's also the most diverse. I understand that you personally don't like Tron, but that isn't exactly something to craft a format-wide policy around. Nor something to generalize around regarding format-wide fun.
It also gets back to the perceived entitlement of fair deck players. No other deck pilots regularly come into this thread and complain about an allegedly unwinnable or disheartening matchup. And when they do, they are rightfully dismissed. If you play combo and opponent opens on T1 TS, that typically signals a pending loss. The Affinity mage doesn't whine about losing to Bolt, Helix, Electrolyze. Or to Stony Silence. The Titan Shift player doesn't complain about losing to a T2 Kitesail into T3 Meddling Mage. The Dredge player does not come here to condemn format fun when Leylines and RiPs crash their MWP in events. The 30/70 dogs to Twin never came in here either. It's always just the fair deck players who present as wanting to remove their bad matchups and complain that they can't have a 50/50+ deck.
Some fair deck players make more nuanced arguments than this, so don't take this as a categorical swipe against all who pilot the archetype. But if you're in Nyzz's camp and truly believe the presence of something like Tron genuinely makes the format less fun, I encourage you to reevaluate your beliefs from another perspective.
You didn't fully get my point over the last posts.
My point is that a couple years ago, Tron already existed and did pretty much the same thing as it does now, but it was waaaaaay lighter. It was way more beatable with "fair" decks than it is now.
The problem IMO is that wizards doesn't handle the ban list properly. IMO, more bans and unbans should be done, more frequently. The ban list should be treated as a balance patch like they do in online games. Let's ban stirrings and see how the meta evolves etc.
But it's not wizards fault IMO, it's the players fault, because most of them are super anti ban list changes. It's like every ban is gonna make the sky fall...
And I say this because I'm worried. I'm worried about the format. I am too someone who started with the whole overextended thing and even wrote a letter to wizards asking them to create this format.
But my enjoyment of the format is dropping. Dropping because of things like tron. And I know the format could be much better than it is now, that's why I complain. If I knew the format couldn't be better, I'd say nothing and quit.
Oh and about the SFM unban, I actually think now that it'd be bad for the format. It essencially makes aggro worse, which in turn makes Tron even better.
The difference between a balance patch for an online game and this is that people have a lot of money invested into a relatively difficult to change item. If a certain class gets a nerf or buff online people can easily (most of the time) change. In addition the results are fairly straight forward in terms of results for most of these buffs/nerfs.
In magic because we are talking about physical items that come with costs we cannot just ban Stirrings for a month and see what happens. People have to sell a deck (which is no worth less) then buy into a new deck which takes time/money and people just aren't interested in doing that continuously. It would ruin the playerbase of the format.
Two questions:
a) What deck are you playing?
b) Which version of Tron is offending you? I'm thinking Gx, but I want to be sure before saying anything else.
a) I play mostly three-color Snapcaster decks (Grixis, Esper, Jeskai), usually with 12+ creatures in them. It's the kind of deck that I personally enjoy most because there are so many decisions to be made in the course of a game. I used to play chess competitively at school, so that's where I come from.
b) I'm talking about Gx Tron. I never had an issue with blue Tron.
Back in the day in wow you had 1 class at max level and if your class got nerfed, you had to stick with the nerfs, because leveling and equipiing the fotm class would take months.
If they banned cards that didn't delete the decks from existence and just banned cards that make them be over the top, like banning stirrings, no one loses their deck.
Tron without stirrings loses consistency. The deck doesn't stop being viable. They go back to 2 years ago power level. That, or ban ulamog.
Ulamog and world breakers cast clauses of destroying lands and ugin's destroy everthing ability are mainly what put Tron over the top against slow decks. Need to fix that ****. Revert back when the only thing they could do with lots of mana was wurmcoil engines, karns -3, and 15 mana emrakuls. Those were pathable, boltable, counterable cards until they got to 15 mana. Waaaaaaaaaay more fair than the uncounterable/destroy everything things they are casting now. Plus sanctum is probably even better than eye of ugin, really.
If nothing gets changed from tron I believe the format will be trapped between aggro decks that beat Tron, and Tron decks preying on decks designed to beat those aggro decks but that miserably lose to Tron. A rock papers scissors format where every game is a 70-30 that you know are gonna win or lose from turn 1.
It's also a common misconception that Gx Tron won't be able to keep up with the rest of the format if one of its enablers is banned. If most decks in the format have a fighting chance against Tron without resorting to silver bullets like Damping Sphere or cards that are mostly played because of Tron like Ceremonious Rejection or Fulminator Mage, then those sideboard slots can be used for something else. I have heard Tron players complain more than once that every deck they face has so many Tron hate cards in the sideboard. It's a myth that only the players of the fair decks ever complain.
Affinity is a good example of a deck that could be hated out but isn't because most decks have a fighting chance against it without resorting to multiple dedicated hate cards in the sideboard. If Affinity had access to Mirodin artifact lands, many different deck archetypes would be forced make major adjustments to their sideboards, probably even their maindeck. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to directly compare Mirrodin artifact lands to anything in Tron, but the general principle is the same: If many decks in the format have to dedicate 5+ sideboard slots to be able to compete with a single archetype, there is less room for innovation and the most narrow and linear decks benefit the most from the situation - decks, that don't really need a sideboard and would benefit greatly if sideboards didn't exist.
alright this is getting ridiculous. nothing tron is doing is oppressive by basically any metric you could possibly think of. i have to consider tron when i make card choices for my deck, but i am also considering any number of other good decks. that is just how the game works.
I wouldn't blame chainwhirler. The card will likely be fine once Amonkhet and Kaladesh rotate this fall.
Red/red-black just has a critical mass of great cards right now.
I do think the Ferocidon ban was a joke, however. I also wish Temur energy was still around to give players another deck option in this current field
you know, that actually would be a slick move by wizards. a standard UNban. the worst that would happen is another deck becoming dominant, in which case you just break even.
I really don't buy this and find it highly biased. Everyone is trying to do unfair, goldfishy things in their own ways. The Jeskai player wants nothing more than to kill every threat and counter every spell in a goldfishy game where the opponent doesn't get to stick a single card for more than a turn. The Jund player wants to prevent you from even casting cards, shut down your topdecks with one-for-one removal and hand disruption, and beat you to death with an efficient creature that you can't profitably block or remove. The Twin player wanted to win on T4 after invalidating or ignoring the opponents first 3-4 turns. Everyone is trying to advance their own gameplan and in an ideal world wants as little interplay as possible. Everyone is trying to get ahead of the mana curve and power curve to do something better, including the midrange and control players. If they had a free counter ala FoW instead of Shoal, I guarantee you they would play it and not talk about how free countermagic is fundamentally unfair and against the curve.
This comparison falls apart further when we apply it to the so-called blue format of allegedly interactive, high-skill blue decks. Many of those cards are extremely unfair and feel like they are against the so-called rules. Daze and FoW are free counters. Wasteland strips away the manabase. Brainstorm gives one of the best cantrip exchanges in the history of the game. All of these cards feel like they are against some kind of rule, whether they are too efficient, violate mana curves, or disrupt without the opportunity for interplay.
This concept of "cheating" at the game or breaking "rules" is ridiculous in non-rotating formats. It's related to the equally ridiculous meme of "Magic as Garfield intended." If you want Magic at its most basic attacking, blocking, mana curving roots, play Standard or Limited. If you want powerful effects where every deck is trying to get ahead of the basic Grey Ogre limitations of Magic, play non-rotating formats. Fair mages are just unhappy that their decks are worse-positioned in Modern than they would like. They want their tools to be more ahead of the curve than they are and, when they can't get this, many of them try to knock down the tools of other strategies.
They are fundamentally fair, seeking to answer on a card by card basis.
I'm not saying its the only valid approach.
I'm not saying is true Magic.
I'm not saying is the only skilled magic.
It is however FAIR magic. That is not cheating on resources, card costs, or abusing an axis of the game which is not typical to most decks.
Killing your man's, counting your spells, is not the same as dropping a Turn 3 Karn, Storming you out for 20 on Turn 3, putting 8+ power on the board Turn ONE or taking 5+ turns after Turn 4, killing you with an animated 6/6 waterfall.
I think your position is cracking here in your desire to defend the format.
I like Modern. I've liked playing UWR since Search, Jace, and Teferi, and now that Tron is coming back I'm enjoying taking multiple turns in a row after tapping all your lands.
That doesn't mean Fair/Unfair are not easy concepts to grasp.
UWR and Jund are fair. Most else in Modern, is not.
Spirits
I don't like Lantern, and that is as a Tron player who beats it without effort. I don't like Turns either, imho, it's a stupid deck that is trying to have as little fun as possible. should it be banned? of course not! you don't like SB lottery? tough. that's why we have a SB, so any deck can have the chance to win that lottery and shore up their bad matches. if you don't accept that you can't just pick up the recognized best deck, go play Standard, they even ban cards for you. A Stirrings ban turns Tron into a casual deck, it would be worse than Kiki decks, and I'm sure you would agree that the Twin ban knocked Twin style decks out of being viable. You can't just take away the only deck a player might have because you don't 'like' to use your sideboard. think about how ridiculous that is. without sideboard lottery, how many decks would be able to beat Storm? basically only forgettable midrange decks, with no synergy and just a pile of good, overly expensive cards.
And calling Turns stupid is RICH coming from a Turn 3 Karn player.
Spirits
I'm not saying Jund or Jeskai are unfair. Twin yes, but not the other two. I am definitely saying that your previous post, in which you state that certain rules are getting broken by certain decks, and therefore those decks cannot or should not complain. I am saying that Jund and Jeskai are trying to break other so-called "rules" to keep competitive. E.g. card advantage, blanking removal, two-for-one exchanges, efficient lands, breaking parity on disruption, etc. Everyone in nonrotating formats is trying to get ahead of the typical boundaries of normal Limited, kitchen table, and Standard Magic, The related notion that there is a right way to play Magic and Modern, I.e. the meme "as Garfield intended", is equally ridiculous in nonrotating formats.
I am also alluding to a stigma, particularly by midrange/control players and particularly those who complain about Modern, that unfair decks are a worse/less skillful/less worthy kind of Magic. Although this argument is not always explicitly stated, it's often suggested and even stated outright at times. This is itself related to the thoroughly debunked myth of a matchup lottery that is somehow exclusive to Modern. We've both been on this forum and played this game long enough to know many/all of those suggestions are implicitly underlying and/or explicitly stated in posts such as "Tron isn't fun and is holding back fair decks." Especially when such statements are made with willful disregard for metagame shares.
I dont buy into 'stigmas' we all have our biases. I've just had 3 people quit on me in MTGO, because they dont like playing against turns.
1. Whacker Zoo.
2. BW Walkers.
3. G-Tron.
I wont shed tears over it, but its just how it is. I wonder what the most hated deck is...
Spirits
I play Storm and have been mucking with Tron lately. Yet the deck hate I get is no where near the local Lantern players. Not even close.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
The decks I currently enjoy playing against the most are Jund, Jeskai Control (the Teferi version) and Affinity. These decks have multiple angles of attack and feel almost elegant in comparison to many of the other decks in their respective categories. Honorable mentions: Various Shadow decks and Storm.
I'm unsure about Humans. After playing against it a lot recently, my feeling is that the deck's super-convenient access to rainbow mana might be a little bit too good for the format.
Turns seems fine to me. As far as I can tell from my limited experience of playing against it, it's actually quite interactive in its attempts to take over the game.
Not sure the order.
Spirits
Spirits
6 of the 16 matches. But read the other stats and put them all together in context. This is a really dominant deck, not just a draft anomaly. Chainwhirler is clearly to blame, insofar as any one card can be blamed for an unusually dominant PT deck.
And all this in a format with Ferocidon, Looter Scooter, and Ramunap Ruins already banned. Someone in design really liked Mono-red the last year or two.
Not to mention, one need only look at Humans to further disprove your point. I've had multiple Humans players tell me they think Tron is their worst matchup, and yet that deck's considered one of the best in the format.
Can we please stop this nonsensical argument that the reason control decks are struggling (which they aren't, by the way, making the argument even sillier) is Tron? Both common sense and actual data disprove it.
though i personally have the unrealistically high expectation that new decks are the main feature of standard pro-tours. i like to believe that pros have some extra insight not afforded to plebs like myself, and that when they collectively put their minds to it they can discover cool and powerful stuff. therefore every time this doesnt happen im disappointed more than i should be.
less so for modern, because that usually means something snapped in half. though ill admit that the pro-tour that launched eldrazi winter was interesting to watch.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)You didn't fully get my point over the last posts.
My point is that a couple years ago, Tron already existed and did pretty much the same thing as it does now, but it was waaaaaay lighter. It was way more beatable with "fair" decks than it is now.
The problem IMO is that wizards doesn't handle the ban list properly. IMO, more bans and unbans should be done, more frequently. The ban list should be treated as a balance patch like they do in online games. Let's ban stirrings and see how the meta evolves etc.
But it's not wizards fault IMO, it's the players fault, because most of them are super anti ban list changes. It's like every ban is gonna make the sky fall...
And I say this because I'm worried. I'm worried about the format. I am too someone who started with the whole overextended thing and even wrote a letter to wizards asking them to create this format.
But my enjoyment of the format is dropping. Dropping because of things like tron. And I know the format could be much better than it is now, that's why I complain. If I knew the format couldn't be better, I'd say nothing and quit.
Oh and about the SFM unban, I actually think now that it'd be bad for the format. It essencially makes aggro worse, which in turn makes Tron even better.
Most of the the time it seems as if the Tron player doesn't really care about my deck and all. They just jam something every turn, not playing around counter-magic or anything. They know they have the redundancy in 12 land tutors and the inevitability in Sanctum of Ughin and the big Eldrazi. So all I do is merrily a nuisance to them.
As a side note, I also noticed that some of the Tron players I face on MTGO make very bad decisions when they are forced to play "normal" Magic. So, one good thing about Tron might actually be that it enables inexperienced and below average players to have some success in Modern. I don't mean this as an insult. It can actually help make a format as diverse as Modern more accessible if you can win a good share of matches without profound knowledge of the other decks in the format.
a) What deck are you playing?
b) Which version of Tron is offending you? I'm thinking Gx, but I want to be sure before saying anything else.
The difference between a balance patch for an online game and this is that people have a lot of money invested into a relatively difficult to change item. If a certain class gets a nerf or buff online people can easily (most of the time) change. In addition the results are fairly straight forward in terms of results for most of these buffs/nerfs.
In magic because we are talking about physical items that come with costs we cannot just ban Stirrings for a month and see what happens. People have to sell a deck (which is no worth less) then buy into a new deck which takes time/money and people just aren't interested in doing that continuously. It would ruin the playerbase of the format.
b) I'm talking about Gx Tron. I never had an issue with blue Tron.
If they banned cards that didn't delete the decks from existence and just banned cards that make them be over the top, like banning stirrings, no one loses their deck.
Tron without stirrings loses consistency. The deck doesn't stop being viable. They go back to 2 years ago power level. That, or ban ulamog.
Ulamog and world breakers cast clauses of destroying lands and ugin's destroy everthing ability are mainly what put Tron over the top against slow decks. Need to fix that ****. Revert back when the only thing they could do with lots of mana was wurmcoil engines, karns -3, and 15 mana emrakuls. Those were pathable, boltable, counterable cards until they got to 15 mana. Waaaaaaaaaay more fair than the uncounterable/destroy everything things they are casting now. Plus sanctum is probably even better than eye of ugin, really.
If nothing gets changed from tron I believe the format will be trapped between aggro decks that beat Tron, and Tron decks preying on decks designed to beat those aggro decks but that miserably lose to Tron. A rock papers scissors format where every game is a 70-30 that you know are gonna win or lose from turn 1.
Red/red-black just has a critical mass of great cards right now.
I do think the Ferocidon ban was a joke, however. I also wish Temur energy was still around to give players another deck option in this current field
Affinity is a good example of a deck that could be hated out but isn't because most decks have a fighting chance against it without resorting to multiple dedicated hate cards in the sideboard. If Affinity had access to Mirodin artifact lands, many different deck archetypes would be forced make major adjustments to their sideboards, probably even their maindeck. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to directly compare Mirrodin artifact lands to anything in Tron, but the general principle is the same: If many decks in the format have to dedicate 5+ sideboard slots to be able to compete with a single archetype, there is less room for innovation and the most narrow and linear decks benefit the most from the situation - decks, that don't really need a sideboard and would benefit greatly if sideboards didn't exist.
you know, that actually would be a slick move by wizards. a standard UNban. the worst that would happen is another deck becoming dominant, in which case you just break even.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)