Twin seems like a stretch to me. Wizard's doesn't seem to like combo decks in Modern and Twin makes people even saltier then Storm does. As a combo player at heart, I wouldn't mind seeing it unbanned as I'd pick it up right away. But health wise for the format? I don't know.
I don't know if I agree with that. Having spent a lot of time playing Twin and watching/playing against Storm and Storm-like combos, most people just shrug and go to the next game with Twin. You do your thing, and either they have an answer and Twin gets blown out, or they don't and you move on. You don't have to sit there and cycle through your deck casting card after card, taking 2-5 minutes (or more) to execute your combo and actually win. The salt usually came from watching someone go through their thing while you sit there and do nothing. If the salt is simply generated from a loss, possibly on turn 4 or possibly to a lucky top deck, well-- welcome to Modern.
The discussions about possible benefits/issues of Twin have been discussed quite a bit, but in terms of saltiness towards the deck, it likely comes from decks which wish to race or wish to interact as little with the opponent as possible. At which point I am not losing any sleep over their salt.
Twin seems like a stretch to me. Wizard's doesn't seem to like combo decks in Modern and Twin makes people even saltier then Storm does. As a combo player at heart, I wouldn't mind seeing it unbanned as I'd pick it up right away. But health wise for the format? I don't know.
I don't know if I agree with that. Having spent a lot of time playing Twin and watching/playing against Storm and Storm-like combos, most people just shrug and go to the next game with Twin. You do your thing, and either they have an answer and Twin gets blown out, or they don't and you move on. You don't have to sit there and cycle through your deck casting card after card, taking 2-5 minutes (or more) to execute your combo and actually win. The salt usually came from watching someone go through their thing while you sit there and do nothing. If the salt is simply generated from a loss, possibly on turn 4 or possibly to a lucky top deck, well-- welcome to Modern.
The discussions about possible benefits/issues of Twin have been discussed quite a bit, but in terms of saltiness towards the deck, it likely comes from decks which wish to race or wish to interact as little with the opponent as possible. At which point I am not losing any sleep over their salt.
You do realize that there's nothing wrong with wanting to play a linear deck? I don't lose sleep over salt of someone who wants another player paralyzed for six turns losing to pestermite attacks because any tapout means a loss to an INFINITE COMBO.
different players will just have different dispositions. i heard plenty of angry grumbling from both sides of the fence. i remember one pod player who after two games of losing to me just jamming the combo into, what i gathered, were weak hands; lay out his set of thoughtseizes, decays, and linvalas. then explain in great detail how good his twin matchup should be, all while implying that i sucked.
it just goes to show that people will complain about any good deck. all while ignoring the fact that decks are only good if they have something going on that is hard to beat. no one likes feeling helpless, and that is often the feeling that good decks will elicit; and as a wise man once said: haters gonna hate.
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You do realize that there's nothing wrong with wanting to play a linear deck? I don't lose sleep over salt of someone who wants another player paralyzed for six turns losing to pestermite attacks because any tapout means a loss to an INFINITE COMBO.
For what its worth, I never got salt over twin, and I get regularly cussed out online over Turns...
now, one topic that I really want to touch is the lack of a general meta game. Because of the deck dump I think modern is being hurt for not having a real meta game, it shows a great diversity but at the same time it makes to difficult to adjust the fair decks (midrange, control and maybe company decks) to the actual threats. It's a bit frustrating trying to brew or tune a deck without it.
Maybe I'm the only one feels this way.
Let me ask just one thing. Not counting scg opens, challenge tournaments and GPs, are there other BIG tournaments to keep an eye on? maybe hareruya or face to face games, any european stuff?
My observations in the "meta game" for Modern works like this:
It's hard to predict what you will face before top 16/32ish. That means you can play a bunch of different decks in the early rounds and actually lose to random jank. However, imo, if you are playing a good deck and are good at Modern, you shouldnt be losing to jank, but maybe lose to a hard MU from a tier 2-3ish deck that isnt well represented that your 75 might not be ready for.
However, if you look at each tourey, you can see trends that happen over the months of SCG opens. E.G. 'X' tourney had a good combo showing, 'Y' tourney had a good Humans showing, etc. If you can predict that type of meta, then you will do very good. But, like I said, its usually top 32 and better.
As for local tourneys, well thats the easiest to predict. Local will have nothing to do with larger tourney showings besides having the same type of decks, the percentage of them will vastly vary. There will be some people that play the same deck week in and week out for years straight, then there will be the guy that has 10 different tier decks, etc. Just gotta play a lot locally
That's the problem of my local meta, the same people who normally play jund one day (for example) play storm or mardu or humans in the next event, they just trend a bit depending on the last big tournament
I'd say then either keep up with big tourney trends, or tweek your deck against a general meta. Or change your deck that can handle a lot of threats, or change your deck so it doesnt care what opponent is doing, like combo
different players will just have different dispositions. i heard plenty of angry grumbling from both sides of the fence. i remember one pod player who after two games of losing to me just jamming the combo into, what i gathered, were weak hands; lay out his set of thoughtseizes, decays, and linvalas. then explain in great detail how good his twin matchup should be, all while implying that i sucked.
it just goes to show that people will complain about any good deck. all while ignoring the fact that decks are only good if they have something going on that is hard to beat. no one likes feeling helpless, and that is often the feeling that good decks will elicit; and as a wise man once said: haters gonna hate.
That, I can see. And I've had similar situations in which I sideboard in multiple cards for what should be a good matchup, but I draw 1 or none of them and end up losing. That's a pretty frustrating situation and can certainly generate salt (I admit I've done removed SB cards face up to show what "should have been," but usually don't say anything unless prompted). But for example, if I'm playing Slippery Boggle, main deck Leyline of Sanctity, and 0 removal, there's nothing inherently wrong about what I'm doing, but I have no one but myself to blame if I lose to a turn 4 Twin.
different players will just have different dispositions. i heard plenty of angry grumbling from both sides of the fence. i remember one pod player who after two games of losing to me just jamming the combo into, what i gathered, were weak hands; lay out his set of thoughtseizes, decays, and linvalas. then explain in great detail how good his twin matchup should be, all while implying that i sucked.
it just goes to show that people will complain about any good deck. all while ignoring the fact that decks are only good if they have something going on that is hard to beat. no one likes feeling helpless, and that is often the feeling that good decks will elicit; and as a wise man once said: haters gonna hate.
That, I can see. And I've had similar situations in which I sideboard in multiple cards for what should be a good matchup, but I draw 1 or none of them and end up losing. That's a pretty frustrating situation and can certainly generate salt (I admit I've done removed SB cards face up to show what "should have been," but usually don't say anything unless prompted). But for example, if I'm playing Slippery Boggle, main deck Leyline of Sanctity, and 0 removal, there's nothing inherently wrong about what I'm doing, but I have no one but myself to blame if I lose to a turn 4 Twin.
Precisely I think a bad example, playing slippery and leyline makes that as you lose against Twin in turn 4, there are also many decks that lose against Auras by the type of deck.
Twin had easy pairings, also has auras and also Storm. The metagame is open and that's fine, but it's impossible to fight all the strategies with 15 cards on the side.
Personally for my Twin I would do better the format. They banned Twin because it impeded that other decks of control were played more, everybody played grixis twin, tarmo twin, etc ... and now? How many Grixis control are played? RUG? UR with breach ... Jeskai and Uw are the only control decks that are played.
NBL Modern is a different format than Modern, so I don't think it has any use for predicting unbans.
Exactly.
As a NBL player and crafter, I get really mad on how bad most of the top 32 decks were designed. I'm also surprised that nobody played Tezzerator (arguably the strongest Control deck), Affinity(with Skullclamp, only one guy in day 2) and Dredge, however, I attribute this to the lack of knowledge about the format than anything else.
Though, the deck BBD played is REALLY good (from a deck design perspective), it's Eldrazi match-up is really good.
Also, something people need to realise about NBL Modern, the angst from Combo is an illusion, Control decks either play Chalice or Top + Counterbalance, the "Tempo" decks have enough disruption (be it Discard, Counters (MM, Spell Pierce, Leak), or hatebears (Thalia says hi)) and all other decks have either a combination of the last mentioned things, or can just race you.
So yeah, for me it was expected that the metagame will look something like this, cause it is the "lazy" approach (people knew what is obviously good so they played, for the next layer they didn't want to invest enough time).
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Personally for my Twin I would do better the format. They banned Twin because it impeded that other decks of control were played more, everybody played grixis twin, tarmo twin, etc ... and now? How many Grixis control are played? RUG? UR with breach ... Jeskai and Uw are the only control decks that are played.
This is the nature of the game. People talk about how deck diversity is stifled, blah blah blah, but its an illusion, thrown up to distract from what really takes place.
Good decks are played, poor decks are not. 'Diversity' within a given archetype (say URx Control) is....not real. Diversity simply means 'there is nothing really defined, or good enough, to see play'. Once people identified the correct ways to play control, URW = Blow up the dudes and UW = Mess up the lands, thats it. I see little to no Grixis, or Esper, online. I see little discussion for either (more so esper, people love that group) but the reality is once the best way to do it is found, the diversity disappears.
Why are there 15 different UR decks? Because no finisher is ACTUALLY good enough. Once the right one is found (or unbanned/printed) then it will instantly remove all those other options for people who are serious about success.
Deck suppression is not a thing within an archetype. Diversity is not a thing, within an archetype.
You are either a good deck, or you are just one more Tier 2/3 jank deck, good enough to win and 5-0 a league, but not an actual Tier 1 contender.
NBL Modern is a different format than Modern, so I don't think it has any use for predicting unbans.
Exactly.
As a NBL player and crafter, I get really mad on how bad most of the top 32 decks were designed. I'm also surprised that nobody played Tezzerator (arguably the strongest Control deck), Affinity(with Skullclamp, only one guy in day 2) and Dredge, however, I attribute this to the lack of knowledge about the format than anything else.
Though, the deck BBD played is REALLY good (from a deck design perspective), it's Eldrazi match-up is really good.
Also, something people need to realise about NBL Modern, the angst from Combo is an illusion, Control decks either play Chalice or Top + Counterbalance, the "Tempo" decks have enough disruption (be it Discard, Counters (MM, Spell Pierce, Leak), or hatebears (Thalia says hi)) and all other decks have either a combination of the last mentioned things, or can just race you.
So yeah, for me it was expected that the metagame will look something like this, cause it is the "lazy" approach (people knew what is obviously good so they played, for the next layer they didn't want to invest enough time).
Greetings,
Kathal
Well, in their defense, NBLM Tezz is probably about as punishing of poor play as Lantern Control. At this point it's pretty much the strongest control deck in the format thanks to its ability cheat on mana, but it's not an easy deck to pick up. Too many tutor effects. Honestly, I was more surprised at the lack of Pyroclamp. It's a pretty forgiving archetype, it does reasonably well against Eldrazi aggro, and you get to play Skullclamp, Treasure Cruise, Chrome Mox, Jitte, MM, and Probe. Ditto for Death and Taxes, pretty easy to play, reasonable matchups across the board.
I actually don't think Grixis is as bad as people make it out to be. There are at least 2 people at one of the LGS that I go to that run Grixis Control and they do pretty well with it. Grixis is also "blow up all the dudes," but they play 4 Field of Ruins too. It's kind of doing what Jeskai does, but not quite as well (although creature removal is insane) and half of what UW does with the mana denial. Maybe that's not good enough?
For what it's worth, the builds that I see are similar to Corey Burkhart's list. No Serum Visions, but 4 Thought Scour, they're odd lists, but work out fine.
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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)
nbl modern seems like something that would be great as one of the 'mtgo specific' formats like pauper. it certainly would be a good petri dish to test certain cards.
I actually don't think Grixis is as bad as people make it out to be. There are at least 2 people at one of the LGS that I go to that run Grixis Control and they do pretty well with it. Grixis is also "blow up all the dudes," but they play 4 Field of Ruins too. It's kind of doing what Jeskai does, but not quite as well (although creature removal is insane) and half of what UW does with the mana denial. Maybe that's not good enough?
For what it's worth, the builds that I see are similar to Corey Burkhart's list. No Serum Visions, but 4 Thought Scour, they're odd lists, but work out fine.
grixis gets held back by its piss poor burn matchup, a weaker walker suite (sorry jace), and generally weaker sideboard cards. it can certainly grind better than jeskai can, and has access to better midrange elements if you want to play that sort of game.
though i do tend to roll my eyes when i see the decks in the burkhart school of grixis. 4 fields, 4 k-commands, and 4 cryptics. what format do they think we are playing? aint nobody got time for that level of greed.
I don't entirely buy the argument that NBL is so different from Modern that we can't extrapolate at all from that format. It's closer to Modern than Legacy is, and we can definitely make extrapolations about card appropriateness and power level based on their Legacy performance. This isn't true for all cards but it is true for many of them, probably most of them. When it comes to conclusions from SCG Conn, here's where I'm at for NBL Modern consequences:
1. Eye of Ugin is really busted. That card will never be unbanned.
2. DRS is busted. A stock Jund list with +4 DRS and +1 MD Jitte/+1 SB Jitte got T16 in a field packed with Eldrazi. That's ridiculous.
3. Mox disproportionately benefits broken things. It won't be unbanned.
4. Hypergenesis is bad in a format packed with Chalices, but still another T2-T3 combo deck. Plus regular Modern has lower Chalice stock. Not getting unbanned.
Outside of that, it's hard to extrapolate a lot of "so whats" back to Modern. Obviously, SFM continues to be laughably safe, but I think Wizards will still wait until 2019 to unban because Standard is another hot mess that demands their attention. Twin is probably safe, but I don't see Wizards backpedaling on that one: too much ego, bad blood, and entrenchedness on all sides of the argument. GSZ is also probably safe, and Preordain would still probably benefit fair blue decks more than unfair ones.
elsik made some plays that could be construed as cheating and there was a controversial judge call when he pointed out that his opponents sleeves werent opaque. typical drama. nothing to do with modern.
as for nbl modern, one thing the tournament showed is how stupid chalice is when paired with simian spirit guide. those cards probably do just as much for nbl eldrazi as eye of ugin.
we may be able to extrapolate about some cards that shouldnt be unbanned, but it isnt helpful in determining cards that could be; which is what people are unsure about. its not like anyone here was on the fence about eye or chrome mox.
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I don't entirely buy the argument that NBL is so different from Modern that we can't extrapolate at all from that format. It's closer to Modern than Legacy is, and we can definitely make extrapolations about card appropriateness and power level based on their Legacy performance. This isn't true for all cards but it is true for many of them, probably most of them. When it comes to conclusions from SCG Conn, here's where I'm at for NBL Modern consequences:
1. Eye of Ugin is really busted. That card will never be unbanned.
2. DRS is busted. A stock Jund list with +4 DRS and +1 MD Jitte/+1 SB Jitte got T16 in a field packed with Eldrazi. That's ridiculous.
3. Mox disproportionately benefits broken things. It won't be unbanned.
4. Hypergenesis is bad in a format packed with Chalices, but still another T2-T3 combo deck. Plus regular Modern has lower Chalice stock. Not getting unbanned.
Outside of that, it's hard to extrapolate a lot of "so whats" back to Modern. Obviously, SFM continues to be laughably safe, but I think Wizards will still wait until 2019 to unban because Standard is another hot mess that demands their attention. Twin is probably safe, but I don't see Wizards backpedaling on that one: too much ego, bad blood, and entrenchedness on all sides of the argument. GSZ is also probably safe, and Preordain would still probably benefit fair blue decks more than unfair ones.
I can agree with all this statement. I don't think they want to unban Preordain, that is why we got opt reprinted recently. We want better cantrips and they want to give us better cantrips, but if they wanted us to have Preordain, legacy level cantrips, they could have given it to us at any point in the past.
I understand hypergenesis is not going to be unbanned and chalice played a big role in its poor performance at this event. On that I agree with you. But I really do believe modern has enough tools to deal with it, because modern uses chalice a lot too and there is a list of commonly used cards thst help fight this type of fragile combo deck. I look at it as a living end deck without cycling to find your combo pieces. Also no free counter spells to protect hypergenis like they use in legacy. It would be a deck, but a bad one. Again it won't get unbanned, but I just don't think it would be oppressive.
On the cantrip note, I think portent would be interro in modern. Not good in storm but good in other blue decks. Hopefully counterspell becomes legal too
elsik made some plays that could be construed as cheating and there was a controversial judge call when he pointed out that his opponents sleeves werent opaque. typical drama. nothing to do with modern.
as for nbl modern, one thing the tournament showed is how stupid chalice is when paired with simian spirit guide. those cards probably do just as much for nbl eldrazi as eye of ugin.
we may be able to extrapolate about some cards that shouldnt be unbanned, but it isnt helpful in determining cards that could be; which is what people are unsure about. its not like anyone here was on the fence about eye or chrome mox.
While I agree it has no bearing on the modern meta, I do think it is a mistake to simply call it drama and treat it like business as usual. Cheating is a huge problem in top-level magic, among other things, and WOTC still bugs me for treating these pros as if they were actual draws of attention (I have maintained for years that people care more about the decks than any player - they aren't very interesting). MTGArena will help for its presentation if it takes over as the digital platform for competitive play, but the average MtG pro has two qualities that just aren't very good for developing fanbases. First, a sense of entitlement, and second, way too much cringe humor.
Maybe that's why I like modern for competitive play over anything else - the wide diversity of the format stops most pros from dominating.
yeah im a fan of portent as well. if nothing else than to mess with the top of my opponents deck. still the barrier has been, and will continue to be, standard.
id also love a weaker brainstorm. U sorcery - draw 2, put 1 back on top.
While I agree it has no bearing on the modern meta, I do think it is a mistake to simply call it drama and treat it like business as usual. Cheating is a huge problem in top-level magic, among other things, and WOTC still bugs me for treating these pros as if they were actual draws of attention (I have maintained for years that people care more about the decks than any player - they aren't very interesting). MTGArena will help for its presentation if it takes over as the digital platform for competitive play, but the average MtG pro has two qualities that just aren't very good for developing fanbases. First, a sense of entitlement, and second, way too much cringe humor.
Maybe that's why I like modern for competitive play over anything else - the wide diversity of the format stops most pros from dominating.
well its not clear if he was actually cheating, and it wasnt ruled as such. given that, and the fact that i had no stake in the proceedings; it isnt worth more brainpower than it took to type this out. if the controversy surrounding the event is based on nothing more than speculation, and is subsequently used as a soapbox; then yes it is nothing more than typical internet drama.
should people be aware of cheating? yes. does this situation warrant special attention, including the defamation of a person who i know nothing about involving circumstances where no one has all the facts? no.
I can agree with all this statement. I don't think they want to unban Preordain, that is why we got opt reprinted recently. We want better cantrips and they want to give us better cantrips, but if they wanted us to have Preordain, legacy level cantrips, they could have given it to us at any point in the past.
Just as a side note, I don't play Legacy, but based on what I've seen people playing and the Goldfish "Format Staples" page, it seems most decks are running 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, and/or 4 Gitaxian Probe before even considering Preordain (something that averages only about 2 and a half copies). So I don't know if "Legacy level cantrip" is what I'd personally call Preordain, considering it's only in decks after they've filled up on all the "good" cantrips. Preordain is like their Sleight of Hand. Sure, some people play it, but it's not the first (or second, or sometimes third) choice.
yeah im a fan of portent as well. if nothing else than to mess with the top of my opponents deck. still the barrier has been, and will continue to be, standard.
I always thought that excuses like "it will break standard" or "is a oppressive card" is a lazy/poor excuse for not printing a card for modern. especially if we all talking about counterspells and cantrips. Too good of a creatures, free affects and "hate creatures" have been the oppressive cards in the format.
It's weird too me that wizards prints cards like reflector mage before printing man-o-war for example. Maybe counterspell can be to efficient but cancel is not good enough, that's my last taking on the counterspell not being printed in standard for modern.
I don't entirely buy the argument that NBL is so different from Modern that we can't extrapolate at all from that format. It's closer to Modern than Legacy is, and we can definitely make extrapolations about card appropriateness and power level based on their Legacy performance. This isn't true for all cards but it is true for many of them, probably most of them. When it comes to conclusions from SCG Conn, here's where I'm at for NBL Modern consequences:
1. Eye of Ugin is really busted. That card will never be unbanned.
2. DRS is busted. A stock Jund list with +4 DRS and +1 MD Jitte/+1 SB Jitte got T16 in a field packed with Eldrazi. That's ridiculous.
3. Mox disproportionately benefits broken things. It won't be unbanned.
4. Hypergenesis is bad in a format packed with Chalices, but still another T2-T3 combo deck. Plus regular Modern has lower Chalice stock. Not getting unbanned.
Outside of that, it's hard to extrapolate a lot of "so whats" back to Modern. Obviously, SFM continues to be laughably safe, but I think Wizards will still wait until 2019 to unban because Standard is another hot mess that demands their attention. Twin is probably safe, but I don't see Wizards backpedaling on that one: too much ego, bad blood, and entrenchedness on all sides of the argument. GSZ is also probably safe, and Preordain would still probably benefit fair blue decks more than unfair ones.
I think you are underestimating the raw power level of NBL Modern. I would rate it way closer to Legacy than Modern, since the answer in NBL Modern are not that high of an impact compared to Legacy (no FoW, Wasteland, Daze, Karakas, Hymn, Baleful Strix (that card is just bonkers vs Eldrazi) and co) and thus, while not having some of the more busted cards of Legacy (Brainstorm, LED, Tutors (Entomb, Wishes, Crop Rotation,...), it still has a really darn high powerlevel.
Either way, Hypergenesis would do close to nothing in Modern (it is just a bad combo deck), Mox would help several of the fair decks while also being an enabler for several combo decks, so I wouldn't unban it (although it makes Tezz finally playable ) and DRS is wonky card either way (I would be very careful about it). DRS would be a possible Unban target, if the powerlevel of Modern would be way higher (with Pod, Twin, STF, DTT, Artefact lands and GSZ). However, since this is very unlikely to happen, I would leave that fellow on the banlist.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I don't entirely buy the argument that NBL is so different from Modern that we can't extrapolate at all from that format. It's closer to Modern than Legacy is, and we can definitely make extrapolations about card appropriateness and power level based on their Legacy performance. This isn't true for all cards but it is true for many of them, probably most of them. When it comes to conclusions from SCG Conn, here's where I'm at for NBL Modern consequences:
No. It's pretty different from Modern or Legacy. The best comparison for meta considerations is Vintage, IMO. From my experience with the format, it's balanced around prison elements, much like Vintage. This tournament is very clearly skewed towards what the players already knew how to play. Why else would we see 4 color shadow ported into NBLM? It's not an effective set of tools for the meta.
2. DRS is busted. A stock Jund list with +4 DRS and +1 MD Jitte/+1 SB Jitte got T16 in a field packed with Eldrazi. That's ridiculous.
Not as ridiculous as you might think, actually. The Eldrazi decks were really poorly optimized for NBLM- shockingly so, even. Eldrazi isn't that consistent, either, and a DRS Jund deck is absolutely able to capitalize on a stumbling Eldrazi deck. It's also got multiple main deck answers to Chalice, while having beefy 5/6+ Tarmogoyfs. Plus, DRS Shaman speeds up Jund a lot.
3. Mox disproportionately benefits broken things. It won't be unbanned.
I'd say that Mox isn't going to be unbanned, but your reasoning is faulty. First of all, this sample is disproportionately skewed toward what worked in Modern. Jund, Shadow (which is really baffling to me- why on earth would you pick this over Pyroclamp?), and especially Eldrazi. The only deck with more than one copy in the t32 which looked like it had at least thought about the meta was BG Depths. I mean, it could have been improved by dropping down to a functional 56 card deck with Probe... Or going for a more hybrid midrange build with Grim Flayer and Tarmogoyf in the main... Or running a Loam/Crime package to punish slower deck archetypes like Eldrazi and give you some serious inevitability... or splashing blue for Stubborn Denial, Snapcaster Mage, and Mana Leak... or red for Bolt, Kolaghan's, and Punishing Fire...
However, I digress.
This t32 does hint at the actual problem with Chrome Mox quite well though- as long as your deck can deal with the CA hit, and has enough colored cards, it speeds you up a turn. That is a really, really low opportunity cost for so powerful an ability. There is no justification to not running it for fair or unfair decks. It enables everything, basically. Anyone can run it, so in essence, almost every deck starts with 4 Chrome Mox. That is why it's never, ever coming off the list- every top 8 would have 28-32 Chrome Mox regardless of the archetype spread.
4. Hypergenesis is bad in a format packed with Chalices, but still another T2-T3 combo deck. Plus regular Modern has lower Chalice stock. Not getting unbanned.
Chalice's stock would rapidly increase if Hypergenesis was unbanned. Hypergenesis being unbanned would speed up the format, reducing the viable CMC spread, thus making Chalice stronger. It's a huge reason why the meta in NBLM evolved the way it has. It wouldn't break modern in half though- it's a pretty garbage deck on its own merits. Frankly, Living End is a more consistent deck, that's better against most of the decks in Modern right now than Hypergenesis is. The funniest mismatch I've seen is Boggles vs Hypergenesis.
Outside of that, it's hard to extrapolate a lot of "so whats" back to Modern. Obviously, SFM continues to be laughably safe, but I think Wizards will still wait until 2019 to unban because Standard is another hot mess that demands their attention. Twin is probably safe, but I don't see Wizards backpedaling on that one: too much ego, bad blood, and entrenchedness on all sides of the argument. GSZ is also probably safe, and Preordain would still probably benefit fair blue decks more than unfair ones.
I honestly don't think this tournament provided enough data to show anything of note, other than that people will gravitate toward known quantities, even if the known quantities have fatal flaws. If someone had thought to bring 4x Ensnaring Bridge and/or 4x Blood Moon, they probably could have top 8'd.
If we superficially extrapolate NBL to Modern, we would conclude Hypergenesis is fine Chalice of the Void is not.
We don't need to extrapolate anything to figure out SFM is safe-ish, DRS and Eye of Ugin are too strong (they proved it by their existence in the format), etc...
Amongst banned cards, there are the ones we played in Modern and the ones we never did. We have data for the 1st category, nothing for the 2nd one, besides that one event.
If we start to compare the inexistence of Twin in one single NBL event VS its effect in an exhausted Modern metagame a few years ago, we can't extrapolate anything credible. Neither the data nor the format is comparable. If we do, then unban Pod and a few other cards we never had access to in Modern, since they didn't do anything in that one tourney.
At best it correlates when it comes to the more obvious options (SFM yes, DRS no, for instance), but doesn't bring much about the rest.
I mean, even about SFM, this event isn't an argument to unban it in Modern. It's a sophism at that point. If SFM gets unbanned, it's solely about the analysis of the Modern format and an overall better understanding of the card's power in nowadays standards.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
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I don't know if I agree with that. Having spent a lot of time playing Twin and watching/playing against Storm and Storm-like combos, most people just shrug and go to the next game with Twin. You do your thing, and either they have an answer and Twin gets blown out, or they don't and you move on. You don't have to sit there and cycle through your deck casting card after card, taking 2-5 minutes (or more) to execute your combo and actually win. The salt usually came from watching someone go through their thing while you sit there and do nothing. If the salt is simply generated from a loss, possibly on turn 4 or possibly to a lucky top deck, well-- welcome to Modern.
The discussions about possible benefits/issues of Twin have been discussed quite a bit, but in terms of saltiness towards the deck, it likely comes from decks which wish to race or wish to interact as little with the opponent as possible. At which point I am not losing any sleep over their salt.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
You do realize that there's nothing wrong with wanting to play a linear deck? I don't lose sleep over salt of someone who wants another player paralyzed for six turns losing to pestermite attacks because any tapout means a loss to an INFINITE COMBO.
it just goes to show that people will complain about any good deck. all while ignoring the fact that decks are only good if they have something going on that is hard to beat. no one likes feeling helpless, and that is often the feeling that good decks will elicit; and as a wise man once said: haters gonna hate.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)For what its worth, I never got salt over twin, and I get regularly cussed out online over Turns...
Spirits
I'd say then either keep up with big tourney trends, or tweek your deck against a general meta. Or change your deck that can handle a lot of threats, or change your deck so it doesnt care what opponent is doing, like combo
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
That, I can see. And I've had similar situations in which I sideboard in multiple cards for what should be a good matchup, but I draw 1 or none of them and end up losing. That's a pretty frustrating situation and can certainly generate salt (I admit I've done removed SB cards face up to show what "should have been," but usually don't say anything unless prompted). But for example, if I'm playing Slippery Boggle, main deck Leyline of Sanctity, and 0 removal, there's nothing inherently wrong about what I'm doing, but I have no one but myself to blame if I lose to a turn 4 Twin.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Precisely I think a bad example, playing slippery and leyline makes that as you lose against Twin in turn 4, there are also many decks that lose against Auras by the type of deck.
Twin had easy pairings, also has auras and also Storm. The metagame is open and that's fine, but it's impossible to fight all the strategies with 15 cards on the side.
Personally for my Twin I would do better the format. They banned Twin because it impeded that other decks of control were played more, everybody played grixis twin, tarmo twin, etc ... and now? How many Grixis control are played? RUG? UR with breach ... Jeskai and Uw are the only control decks that are played.
Exactly.
As a NBL player and crafter, I get really mad on how bad most of the top 32 decks were designed. I'm also surprised that nobody played Tezzerator (arguably the strongest Control deck), Affinity(with Skullclamp, only one guy in day 2) and Dredge, however, I attribute this to the lack of knowledge about the format than anything else.
Though, the deck BBD played is REALLY good (from a deck design perspective), it's Eldrazi match-up is really good.
Also, something people need to realise about NBL Modern, the angst from Combo is an illusion, Control decks either play Chalice or Top + Counterbalance, the "Tempo" decks have enough disruption (be it Discard, Counters (MM, Spell Pierce, Leak), or hatebears (Thalia says hi)) and all other decks have either a combination of the last mentioned things, or can just race you.
So yeah, for me it was expected that the metagame will look something like this, cause it is the "lazy" approach (people knew what is obviously good so they played, for the next layer they didn't want to invest enough time).
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
This is the nature of the game. People talk about how deck diversity is stifled, blah blah blah, but its an illusion, thrown up to distract from what really takes place.
Good decks are played, poor decks are not. 'Diversity' within a given archetype (say URx Control) is....not real. Diversity simply means 'there is nothing really defined, or good enough, to see play'. Once people identified the correct ways to play control, URW = Blow up the dudes and UW = Mess up the lands, thats it. I see little to no Grixis, or Esper, online. I see little discussion for either (more so esper, people love that group) but the reality is once the best way to do it is found, the diversity disappears.
Why are there 15 different UR decks? Because no finisher is ACTUALLY good enough. Once the right one is found (or unbanned/printed) then it will instantly remove all those other options for people who are serious about success.
Deck suppression is not a thing within an archetype. Diversity is not a thing, within an archetype.
You are either a good deck, or you are just one more Tier 2/3 jank deck, good enough to win and 5-0 a league, but not an actual Tier 1 contender.
Spirits
Well, in their defense, NBLM Tezz is probably about as punishing of poor play as Lantern Control. At this point it's pretty much the strongest control deck in the format thanks to its ability cheat on mana, but it's not an easy deck to pick up. Too many tutor effects. Honestly, I was more surprised at the lack of Pyroclamp. It's a pretty forgiving archetype, it does reasonably well against Eldrazi aggro, and you get to play Skullclamp, Treasure Cruise, Chrome Mox, Jitte, MM, and Probe. Ditto for Death and Taxes, pretty easy to play, reasonable matchups across the board.
For what it's worth, the builds that I see are similar to Corey Burkhart's list. No Serum Visions, but 4 Thought Scour, they're odd lists, but work out fine.
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)grixis gets held back by its piss poor burn matchup, a weaker walker suite (sorry jace), and generally weaker sideboard cards. it can certainly grind better than jeskai can, and has access to better midrange elements if you want to play that sort of game.
though i do tend to roll my eyes when i see the decks in the burkhart school of grixis. 4 fields, 4 k-commands, and 4 cryptics. what format do they think we are playing? aint nobody got time for that level of greed.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)1. Eye of Ugin is really busted. That card will never be unbanned.
2. DRS is busted. A stock Jund list with +4 DRS and +1 MD Jitte/+1 SB Jitte got T16 in a field packed with Eldrazi. That's ridiculous.
3. Mox disproportionately benefits broken things. It won't be unbanned.
4. Hypergenesis is bad in a format packed with Chalices, but still another T2-T3 combo deck. Plus regular Modern has lower Chalice stock. Not getting unbanned.
Outside of that, it's hard to extrapolate a lot of "so whats" back to Modern. Obviously, SFM continues to be laughably safe, but I think Wizards will still wait until 2019 to unban because Standard is another hot mess that demands their attention. Twin is probably safe, but I don't see Wizards backpedaling on that one: too much ego, bad blood, and entrenchedness on all sides of the argument. GSZ is also probably safe, and Preordain would still probably benefit fair blue decks more than unfair ones.
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
as for nbl modern, one thing the tournament showed is how stupid chalice is when paired with simian spirit guide. those cards probably do just as much for nbl eldrazi as eye of ugin.
we may be able to extrapolate about some cards that shouldnt be unbanned, but it isnt helpful in determining cards that could be; which is what people are unsure about. its not like anyone here was on the fence about eye or chrome mox.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I can agree with all this statement. I don't think they want to unban Preordain, that is why we got opt reprinted recently. We want better cantrips and they want to give us better cantrips, but if they wanted us to have Preordain, legacy level cantrips, they could have given it to us at any point in the past.
I understand hypergenesis is not going to be unbanned and chalice played a big role in its poor performance at this event. On that I agree with you. But I really do believe modern has enough tools to deal with it, because modern uses chalice a lot too and there is a list of commonly used cards thst help fight this type of fragile combo deck. I look at it as a living end deck without cycling to find your combo pieces. Also no free counter spells to protect hypergenis like they use in legacy. It would be a deck, but a bad one. Again it won't get unbanned, but I just don't think it would be oppressive.
While I agree it has no bearing on the modern meta, I do think it is a mistake to simply call it drama and treat it like business as usual. Cheating is a huge problem in top-level magic, among other things, and WOTC still bugs me for treating these pros as if they were actual draws of attention (I have maintained for years that people care more about the decks than any player - they aren't very interesting). MTGArena will help for its presentation if it takes over as the digital platform for competitive play, but the average MtG pro has two qualities that just aren't very good for developing fanbases. First, a sense of entitlement, and second, way too much cringe humor.
Maybe that's why I like modern for competitive play over anything else - the wide diversity of the format stops most pros from dominating.
id also love a weaker brainstorm. U sorcery - draw 2, put 1 back on top.
well its not clear if he was actually cheating, and it wasnt ruled as such. given that, and the fact that i had no stake in the proceedings; it isnt worth more brainpower than it took to type this out. if the controversy surrounding the event is based on nothing more than speculation, and is subsequently used as a soapbox; then yes it is nothing more than typical internet drama.
should people be aware of cheating? yes. does this situation warrant special attention, including the defamation of a person who i know nothing about involving circumstances where no one has all the facts? no.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Just as a side note, I don't play Legacy, but based on what I've seen people playing and the Goldfish "Format Staples" page, it seems most decks are running 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, and/or 4 Gitaxian Probe before even considering Preordain (something that averages only about 2 and a half copies). So I don't know if "Legacy level cantrip" is what I'd personally call Preordain, considering it's only in decks after they've filled up on all the "good" cantrips. Preordain is like their Sleight of Hand. Sure, some people play it, but it's not the first (or second, or sometimes third) choice.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I always thought that excuses like "it will break standard" or "is a oppressive card" is a lazy/poor excuse for not printing a card for modern. especially if we all talking about counterspells and cantrips. Too good of a creatures, free affects and "hate creatures" have been the oppressive cards in the format.
It's weird too me that wizards prints cards like reflector mage before printing man-o-war for example. Maybe counterspell can be to efficient but cancel is not good enough, that's my last taking on the counterspell not being printed in standard for modern.
Also prohibit could be interesting too.
I think you are underestimating the raw power level of NBL Modern. I would rate it way closer to Legacy than Modern, since the answer in NBL Modern are not that high of an impact compared to Legacy (no FoW, Wasteland, Daze, Karakas, Hymn, Baleful Strix (that card is just bonkers vs Eldrazi) and co) and thus, while not having some of the more busted cards of Legacy (Brainstorm, LED, Tutors (Entomb, Wishes, Crop Rotation,...), it still has a really darn high powerlevel.
Either way, Hypergenesis would do close to nothing in Modern (it is just a bad combo deck), Mox would help several of the fair decks while also being an enabler for several combo decks, so I wouldn't unban it (although it makes Tezz finally playable ) and DRS is wonky card either way (I would be very careful about it). DRS would be a possible Unban target, if the powerlevel of Modern would be way higher (with Pod, Twin, STF, DTT, Artefact lands and GSZ). However, since this is very unlikely to happen, I would leave that fellow on the banlist.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
No. It's pretty different from Modern or Legacy. The best comparison for meta considerations is Vintage, IMO. From my experience with the format, it's balanced around prison elements, much like Vintage. This tournament is very clearly skewed towards what the players already knew how to play. Why else would we see 4 color shadow ported into NBLM? It's not an effective set of tools for the meta.
Yeah. Eye is never going to be unbanned. It does way, way too much.
Not as ridiculous as you might think, actually. The Eldrazi decks were really poorly optimized for NBLM- shockingly so, even. Eldrazi isn't that consistent, either, and a DRS Jund deck is absolutely able to capitalize on a stumbling Eldrazi deck. It's also got multiple main deck answers to Chalice, while having beefy 5/6+ Tarmogoyfs. Plus, DRS Shaman speeds up Jund a lot.
I'd say that Mox isn't going to be unbanned, but your reasoning is faulty. First of all, this sample is disproportionately skewed toward what worked in Modern. Jund, Shadow (which is really baffling to me- why on earth would you pick this over Pyroclamp?), and especially Eldrazi. The only deck with more than one copy in the t32 which looked like it had at least thought about the meta was BG Depths. I mean, it could have been improved by dropping down to a functional 56 card deck with Probe... Or going for a more hybrid midrange build with Grim Flayer and Tarmogoyf in the main... Or running a Loam/Crime package to punish slower deck archetypes like Eldrazi and give you some serious inevitability... or splashing blue for Stubborn Denial, Snapcaster Mage, and Mana Leak... or red for Bolt, Kolaghan's, and Punishing Fire...
However, I digress.
This t32 does hint at the actual problem with Chrome Mox quite well though- as long as your deck can deal with the CA hit, and has enough colored cards, it speeds you up a turn. That is a really, really low opportunity cost for so powerful an ability. There is no justification to not running it for fair or unfair decks. It enables everything, basically. Anyone can run it, so in essence, almost every deck starts with 4 Chrome Mox. That is why it's never, ever coming off the list- every top 8 would have 28-32 Chrome Mox regardless of the archetype spread.
Chalice's stock would rapidly increase if Hypergenesis was unbanned. Hypergenesis being unbanned would speed up the format, reducing the viable CMC spread, thus making Chalice stronger. It's a huge reason why the meta in NBLM evolved the way it has. It wouldn't break modern in half though- it's a pretty garbage deck on its own merits. Frankly, Living End is a more consistent deck, that's better against most of the decks in Modern right now than Hypergenesis is. The funniest mismatch I've seen is Boggles vs Hypergenesis.
I honestly don't think this tournament provided enough data to show anything of note, other than that people will gravitate toward known quantities, even if the known quantities have fatal flaws. If someone had thought to bring 4x Ensnaring Bridge and/or 4x Blood Moon, they probably could have top 8'd.
We don't need to extrapolate anything to figure out SFM is safe-ish, DRS and Eye of Ugin are too strong (they proved it by their existence in the format), etc...
Amongst banned cards, there are the ones we played in Modern and the ones we never did. We have data for the 1st category, nothing for the 2nd one, besides that one event.
If we start to compare the inexistence of Twin in one single NBL event VS its effect in an exhausted Modern metagame a few years ago, we can't extrapolate anything credible. Neither the data nor the format is comparable. If we do, then unban Pod and a few other cards we never had access to in Modern, since they didn't do anything in that one tourney.
At best it correlates when it comes to the more obvious options (SFM yes, DRS no, for instance), but doesn't bring much about the rest.
I mean, even about SFM, this event isn't an argument to unban it in Modern. It's a sophism at that point. If SFM gets unbanned, it's solely about the analysis of the Modern format and an overall better understanding of the card's power in nowadays standards.