Just plucked from Jeff Hoogland's stream where he talks about how glad he is that Magic R&D has kept us safe from the tyranny that is Stoneforge Mystic. As he casually hardcasts a turn 3 Emrakul.
id agree that the idea of stoneforge tyranny is ludicrous. however decks already exist that can and do beat some of the absurd starts some other decks can present. is it so inconceivable that one such deck that isnt looking to win in the early turns could incorporate stoneforge and be better off for it?
a snapshot of what other decks can accomplish just isnt a reliable metric for how good one card may or may not be. hard casting a turn 3 emmy would beat skullclamp, and so would any number of plays that exist in modern; yet the thought of unbanning skullclamp is absurd.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Twitch isn't working on my phone. Did he use stoneforge mystic to hardcast the titan, or did he just talk about it while hardcasting it?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Twitch isn't working on my phone. Did he use stoneforge mystic to hardcast the titan, or did he just talk about it while hardcasting it?
He laughed while tapping lands (Amulet Titan vs someone with 2 untapped plains) with 2 Amulets on the board, and just hard cast the Emmy, and comment on how luck he was on turn 3 to not be staring down a SFM while he announced his trigger for casting Emmy.
Either way, nobody is going to change their minds on this stuff, and this thread won't change anything.
People want to get away with playing as little interaction as possible, a deck which forces one to do so, while presenting that interaction themselves, is simply a bridge too far.
As I noted last week, people already think Teferi is too good, maybe we just need to admit that people being told 'no that won't resolve' is just too much for them to accept.
As I noted last week, people already think Teferi is too good, maybe we just need to admit that people being told 'no that won't resolve' is just too much for them to accept.
Playing around counterspells is a thing of the past. No respect, no acknowledgement of the opponent. Just jam things, hope for the best, and usually kill them (or not care, since your graveyard is basically your hand). That's the Modern mantra.
There's a range in-between the hyperbolic fantasy you guys are describing and the "Everyone MUST BE MID-RANGE TO COMPETE!!!!" fantasy that you seem to want to exist (it's called Standard, go play that, FFS). Currently, Modern exists in that range, and though I currently feel it is a bit too close to the hyperbolic "Ships in the Night" reality that cFusion describes with KCI and BridgeVine, most of the other Tier 1 decks have 4-20 pieces of interaction Main Deck, and "countering things" is currently Tier 1.
There's a range in-between the hyperbolic fantasy you guys are describing and the "Everyone MUST BE MID-RANGE TO COMPETE!!!!" fantasy that you seem to want to exist (it's called Standard, go play that, FFS). Currently, Modern exists in that range, and though I currently feel it is a bit too close to the hyperbolic "Ships in the Night" reality that cFusion describes with KCI and BridgeVine, most of the other Tier 1 decks have 4-20 pieces of interaction Main Deck, and "countering things" is currently Tier 1.
You guys are being a bit ridiculous right now.
I'm not saying counterspells aren't being played, I'm saying they're bad because so many of the top decks simply don't care about them. They are either faster or wider than counters can deal with, or the decks simply don't care because going to the graveyard is not a bad thing for most top decks. Missing the point entirely. The finesse of playing around things is greatly diminished (or entirely gone) in nearly every top deck. The motivation is to play through or simply blank your opponent's attempts at interaction by playing cards that make the opponent's interaction meaningless.
I agree, though KCI certainly gets trumped by counterspells, as does Hollow One if you stop their discard spells, and even Storm gets hit hard if you counter them at the right time. Aggro and combo just generally never rely on finesse, no matter what; Mid-Range and Control do all of that, and those are already the highly interactive decks, so those are the ones you all prefer anyway.
It's just that Modern is an Aggro/Combo/Big Mana format in general. Control and Mid-Range reign in Standard. We don't need two Standard formats. So I don't see a massive problem.
Welp, took two months to go from "Mardu Pyromancer wins GP" to "midrange is going extinct." Wow. UW getting results and praise, but nooooooooo modern is awful because a handful of people don't have their infinite combo "fair deck."
There's a range in-between the hyperbolic fantasy you guys are describing and the "Everyone MUST BE MID-RANGE TO COMPETE!!!!" fantasy that you seem to want to exist (it's called Standard, go play that, FFS). Currently, Modern exists in that range, and though I currently feel it is a bit too close to the hyperbolic "Ships in the Night" reality that cFusion describes with KCI and BridgeVine, most of the other Tier 1 decks have 4-20 pieces of interaction Main Deck, and "countering things" is currently Tier 1.
You guys are being a bit ridiculous right now.
Who is saying you need to be midrange? Affinity competed just fine. Burn competed just fine. Infect competed just fine. Tron, Elves, GW Company, the concept that YOU are pushing is the false one.
Diversity with Twin = Diversity without Twin.
Nothing has changed except there was, until Teferi/Search/Field of Ruin, more aggro going on. This is not me making things up. This is reality.
The most tilting part of this whole discussion, is Amulet Titan is still a thing. Eldrzi decks are still a thing. Dredge, is still a thing, and Storm obviously, is still a thing.
Only Twin had to go up on the cross.
Free Twin, Ban Exarch, force the deck into RUG Twin with Bounding Krasis and Pestermite as the creatures.
THAT would be a fair nerf to Twin, and unlike the 'nuke from Orbit' that it took instead.
Just plucked from Jeff Hoogland's stream where he talks about how glad he is that Magic R&D has kept us safe from the tyranny that is Stoneforge Mystic. As he casually hardcasts a turn 3 Emrakul.
id agree that the idea of stoneforge tyranny is ludicrous. however decks already exist that can and do beat some of the absurd starts some other decks can present. is it so inconceivable that one such deck that isnt looking to win in the early turns could incorporate stoneforge and be better off for it?
a snapshot of what other decks can accomplish just isnt a reliable metric for how good one card may or may not be. hard casting a turn 3 emmy would beat skullclamp, and so would any number of plays that exist in modern; yet the thought of unbanning skullclamp is absurd.
The thing is SFM doesn’t fit easily into any current tier 1 deck. It isn’t a human, so humans can’t play it. Putting 4 SFMs and 3 equipments into Mardu pyromancer makes pyrocmaner and Bedlam Reveler worse, and means the deck can’t mainboard blood moon anymore. Putting 4 SFM and 3 equipments into UW control makes Snap and Supreme Verdict worse. It would make Deadguy Ale better, which is seeing no play.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
It's just that Modern is an Aggro/Combo/Big Mana format in general. Control and Mid-Range reign in Standard. We don't need two Standard formats. So I don't see a massive problem.
When we had Twin/Jund at the top AS WELL as Aggro/Combo/Big Mana, was Modern too like Standard then too?
People seem to ignore the upgrades that have been provided to Titan Breach, Tron (especially) and the creation of KCI, and the powering up of aggro with Hollow One, BridgeVine, and Humans.
Introducing Twin into that formula would simply increase diversity, as it would also give room to Jund again.
People want to get away with playing as little interaction as possible, a deck which forces one to do so, while presenting that interaction themselves, is simply a bridge too far.
As I noted last week, people already think Teferi is too good, maybe we just need to admit that people being told 'no that won't resolve' is just too much for them to accept.
Playing around counterspells is a thing of the past. No respect, no acknowledgement of the opponent.
As neither are indicative of the current Modern Meta. I've interacted plenty and seen lots of finesse and playing around things at the large events I've gone to this past year, and the Top Decks lately have had plenty of interaction (Humans, Control, Mardu, etc). I agree with this, though:
On Teferi, I've seen it more than once. Especially in (I know, I know...) Twitch chat. There are people who cannot handle facing a blue deck with the intent of casting counters.
Truthfully, I can admit to just being tilted. When I see Amulet able to still go off, or all those other decks that ate a ban, and kept on going, and they had to kill 'my' deck, completely? Its simply not just.
It's a card game. Talking about something being "just" is silly.
The hours most of us spend talking, playing, and thinking, about the game are silly.
Call it what you will, its unbelievable to me that they killed Twin, 3 years later, and I still have to witness Amulet going off on Turn 3, or natural Tron Turn 3, or even look at a Thought-knot Seer on Turn 3. I still have to play against Dredge and watch them 'draw 3' and fill their yard, I still have to look at my hand as I pass the turn off to a storm player with a Creature alive to untap Turn 3. I still have to try and remove that Goblin Guide, only to see a Eidolon come down Turn 2. I still have to have my hand destroyed, and see a 4/4+ for B get cast, with oh yes, a 1 mana counter spell for any response.
Yet it's Twin that had to be completely killed. Sure, call it whatever you want, but it feels pretty *****ty.
The most tilting part of this whole discussion, is Amulet Titan is still a thing. Eldrzi decks are still a thing. Dredge, is still a thing, and Storm obviously, is still a thing.
Only Twin had to go up on the cross.
Free Twin, Ban Exarch, force the deck into RUG Twin with Bounding Krasis and Pestermite as the creatures.
THAT would be a fair nerf to Twin, and unlike the 'nuke from Orbit' that it took instead.
^^^This. This is what most people who hate us "Twin Folk" are misunderstanding. It's not JUST that we lost a deck we loved and there was nothing like it and nothing to replace it. It's that we sit here day by day watching decks get broken left and right, watching other banned decks (which were arguably significantly more obnoxious to play against) thrive and maintain top tier status, while ours was "nuked from orbit." All the while presenting it as some unstoppable boogyman force on the level of Eldrazi Winter; blatantly making things up, misrepresenting, or retroactively changing opinions that they themselves wrote while Twin was legal. Never mind that EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. of the listed reasons for the ban have been demonstratively false, almost entirely ineffective, or laughably optimistic, and never came to fruition as a result of the ban, but through several years, multiple other bans & unbans, and dozens of new sets, blocks, and cards.
so besides not being able to play with a particular card from the ban list that you would like, what are the actual complaints about the current state of the format?
id just rather not see a disingenuous picture of the format painted; which is basically what most of this thread has been doing since the most recent announcement.
what has changed that makes things now so suddenly unbearable? wishing twin would come back because it might assimilate back into the format safely is fine and all, but lets inject some perspective into the conversation. the way i see things modern is pretty damn good at the moment. though i welcome attempts to convince me otherwise.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
I just want to close on this topic, because honestly it needs to be written and posted on SCG or something, this thread is not going to get any attention.
This is KTK's data.
2018 GP/PT T8 data
Unique decks: 26
Decks that made T8 in 2018: 9
Decks that did not T8 in 2018: 17
2015 GP/PT T8 data
Unique decks: 26
Decks that did T8 in 2015: 9
Decks that did not T8 in 2015: 17
This is why Twin was banned.
"We also look for decks that hold a large enough percentage of the competitive field to reduce the diversity of the format."
"In the interest of competitive diversity, Splinter Twin is banned from Modern."
The ban did not accomplish its goal of promoting Diversity. I'm not sure where the past discussion of suppressing Blue decks has come from as that was clearly a false narrative anyway.
This topic has likely worn out its welcome again, but let this stand as fact.
The premise behind the ban was wrong, or literally nothing changed and the ban was a failure.
so besides not being able to play with a particular card from the ban list that you would like, what are the actual complaints about the current state of the format?
id just rather not see a disingenuous picture of the format painted; which is basically what most of this thread has been doing since the most recent announcement.
what has changed that makes things now so suddenly unbearable? wishing twin would come back because it might assimilate back into the format safely is fine and all, but lets inject some perspective into the conversation. the way i see things modern is pretty damn good at the moment. though i welcome attempts to convince me otherwise.
I want more Jund, more UWR, more UW, and btw, way more Jund, being played.
I want less Hollow One, less Tron, less KCI, less BridgeVine, being played.
I want the meta to lean toward how things were being played when Jace/BBE were free. That next weekend was great.
I want decks that have to race combo, to lose to removal, like Infect and Burn, instead of just dredge their next draw step and play a land.
Mostly though, I just want to play Twin again. Modern is very good. I've settled into Blue Moon Thing, and am more than happy to durdle around with other Tier 2 decks, while I simply grit my teeth against any of the tier 1 stuff (hollow one/tron/kci/humans) and hope to hit the draws I need.
This is proof of a good, stable meta - nothing to talk about but twin.
Or that many people were hoping for something, anything, to happen at the last B&R. And the fact that they consider Hollow One, Dredgevine, KCI, and other miserable decks at the top of the format as A-OK, we question why and unpack their goals.
The only reason I enjoyed Modern the last 6 or 8 months was my local store was overwhelmingly full of BGx and Uxx people jamming those decks because they loved those decks. There was the occasional miserable matchup, but the majority of play was fun, engaging, and games were exciting back and forth battles. But with each passing week, more and more people are instead playing more and more miserable decks. These miserable decks create awful play experiences, but win a lot. And as more and more players moved to those decks, I have simply scaled back my play. Whether think about what to do to make experiences better while I spend my time playing other games (notably D&D and PC Racing Sims), I'm definitely not as excited to play Modern while all these miserable decks have the WOTC stamp of approval.
alright i can respect that. paper magic at a local level is slow as hell to catch up. i see more of the decks mentioned, but still a whole bunch of other stuff.
so what qualities of these decks makes them miserable to play against? a generalization about 'fun' is just going to be thrown out by others here. so maybe if we tried to identify something more concrete, there is something to talk about.
deck speed is one thing, but more than that something that stands out to me are decks with a substantial range in the power of their opening draws. is that more prevalent in decks now than usual? even UW miracles is a culprit; because ripping a terminus with no setup can just end games on the spot.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Personally, I love Hollow One. Lots of avenues of attack, fun combos to play with while putting down solid clocks, and a good amount of interaction and reach. Been playing it for a year now, and I've "cheated" an opponent into a non-game with Inquiry maybe twice in that time. The majority of the time, it acts as a discard spell of sorts that might give me a crazy fast start.
At the same time, I've had people shut me down with interaction PLENTY of times, despite having crazy fast starts, so I always feel like the hate for Hollow One is misplaced.
so what qualities of these decks makes them miserable to play against? a generalization about 'fun' is just going to be thrown out by others here. so maybe if we tried to identify something more concrete, there is something to talk about.
It's usually a combination of "I have no meaningful main-deck way to interact with this deck. Cross my fingers they draw poorly" and "I really, really hope I draw and cast this narrow sideboard hate card so I'm not just instantly dead/run over/locked out/etc."
I take time out of my schedule and other social obligations to sit down and play paper magic, sometimes twice a week, to enjoy actually playing the game. When I am playing a game in which I have no meaningful actions, I ask myself why I'm even here. When it's back to back to back rounds of this, that's usually when I take the next week off and go do something else.
Personally, I love Hollow One. Lots of avenues of attack, fun combos to play with while putting down solid clocks, and a good amount of interaction and reach. Been playing it for a year now, and I've "cheated" an opponent into a non-game with Inquiry maybe twice in that time. The majority of the time, it acts as a discard spell of sorts that might give me a crazy fast start.
At the same time, I've had people shut me down with interaction PLENTY of times, despite having crazy fast starts, so I always feel like the hate for Hollow One is misplaced.
I agree with you that the hate is misplaced. I've always found it a poor deck, I certainly have beat it more often than I have lost to it.
Remand, Spell Snare, Abrade, Snaps, Bolts, Anger for the recursive threats...thats a wrap. The hate for it comes from the RNG elements. It feels bad for a Burning Inquiry or Goblin Lore, to 'puke out' 2 or 3 threats.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
UW Spirits
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
id agree that the idea of stoneforge tyranny is ludicrous. however decks already exist that can and do beat some of the absurd starts some other decks can present. is it so inconceivable that one such deck that isnt looking to win in the early turns could incorporate stoneforge and be better off for it?
a snapshot of what other decks can accomplish just isnt a reliable metric for how good one card may or may not be. hard casting a turn 3 emmy would beat skullclamp, and so would any number of plays that exist in modern; yet the thought of unbanning skullclamp is absurd.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
He laughed while tapping lands (Amulet Titan vs someone with 2 untapped plains) with 2 Amulets on the board, and just hard cast the Emmy, and comment on how luck he was on turn 3 to not be staring down a SFM while he announced his trigger for casting Emmy.
Either way, nobody is going to change their minds on this stuff, and this thread won't change anything.
People want to get away with playing as little interaction as possible, a deck which forces one to do so, while presenting that interaction themselves, is simply a bridge too far.
As I noted last week, people already think Teferi is too good, maybe we just need to admit that people being told 'no that won't resolve' is just too much for them to accept.
Spirits
Playing around counterspells is a thing of the past. No respect, no acknowledgement of the opponent. Just jam things, hope for the best, and usually kill them (or not care, since your graveyard is basically your hand). That's the Modern mantra.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
You guys are being a bit ridiculous right now.
I'm not saying counterspells aren't being played, I'm saying they're bad because so many of the top decks simply don't care about them. They are either faster or wider than counters can deal with, or the decks simply don't care because going to the graveyard is not a bad thing for most top decks. Missing the point entirely. The finesse of playing around things is greatly diminished (or entirely gone) in nearly every top deck. The motivation is to play through or simply blank your opponent's attempts at interaction by playing cards that make the opponent's interaction meaningless.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
It's just that Modern is an Aggro/Combo/Big Mana format in general. Control and Mid-Range reign in Standard. We don't need two Standard formats. So I don't see a massive problem.
I'm considering buying into infect just to spite.
Who is saying you need to be midrange? Affinity competed just fine. Burn competed just fine. Infect competed just fine. Tron, Elves, GW Company, the concept that YOU are pushing is the false one.
Diversity with Twin = Diversity without Twin.
Nothing has changed except there was, until Teferi/Search/Field of Ruin, more aggro going on. This is not me making things up. This is reality.
The most tilting part of this whole discussion, is Amulet Titan is still a thing. Eldrzi decks are still a thing. Dredge, is still a thing, and Storm obviously, is still a thing.
Only Twin had to go up on the cross.
Free Twin, Ban Exarch, force the deck into RUG Twin with Bounding Krasis and Pestermite as the creatures.
THAT would be a fair nerf to Twin, and unlike the 'nuke from Orbit' that it took instead.
Spirits
The thing is SFM doesn’t fit easily into any current tier 1 deck. It isn’t a human, so humans can’t play it. Putting 4 SFMs and 3 equipments into Mardu pyromancer makes pyrocmaner and Bedlam Reveler worse, and means the deck can’t mainboard blood moon anymore. Putting 4 SFM and 3 equipments into UW control makes Snap and Supreme Verdict worse. It would make Deadguy Ale better, which is seeing no play.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
When we had Twin/Jund at the top AS WELL as Aggro/Combo/Big Mana, was Modern too like Standard then too?
People seem to ignore the upgrades that have been provided to Titan Breach, Tron (especially) and the creation of KCI, and the powering up of aggro with Hollow One, BridgeVine, and Humans.
Introducing Twin into that formula would simply increase diversity, as it would also give room to Jund again.
Spirits
And
As neither are indicative of the current Modern Meta. I've interacted plenty and seen lots of finesse and playing around things at the large events I've gone to this past year, and the Top Decks lately have had plenty of interaction (Humans, Control, Mardu, etc). I agree with this, though:
Making Sudden Shock a fantastic SB option on top of all of the available options, AND making Bolt a viable counter sounds great!
Truthfully, I can admit to just being tilted. When I see Amulet able to still go off, or all those other decks that ate a ban, and kept on going, and they had to kill 'my' deck, completely? Its simply not just.
Spirits
The hours most of us spend talking, playing, and thinking, about the game are silly.
Call it what you will, its unbelievable to me that they killed Twin, 3 years later, and I still have to witness Amulet going off on Turn 3, or natural Tron Turn 3, or even look at a Thought-knot Seer on Turn 3. I still have to play against Dredge and watch them 'draw 3' and fill their yard, I still have to look at my hand as I pass the turn off to a storm player with a Creature alive to untap Turn 3. I still have to try and remove that Goblin Guide, only to see a Eidolon come down Turn 2. I still have to have my hand destroyed, and see a 4/4+ for B get cast, with oh yes, a 1 mana counter spell for any response.
Yet it's Twin that had to be completely killed. Sure, call it whatever you want, but it feels pretty *****ty.
Spirits
^^^This. This is what most people who hate us "Twin Folk" are misunderstanding. It's not JUST that we lost a deck we loved and there was nothing like it and nothing to replace it. It's that we sit here day by day watching decks get broken left and right, watching other banned decks (which were arguably significantly more obnoxious to play against) thrive and maintain top tier status, while ours was "nuked from orbit." All the while presenting it as some unstoppable boogyman force on the level of Eldrazi Winter; blatantly making things up, misrepresenting, or retroactively changing opinions that they themselves wrote while Twin was legal. Never mind that EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. of the listed reasons for the ban have been demonstratively false, almost entirely ineffective, or laughably optimistic, and never came to fruition as a result of the ban, but through several years, multiple other bans & unbans, and dozens of new sets, blocks, and cards.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
id just rather not see a disingenuous picture of the format painted; which is basically what most of this thread has been doing since the most recent announcement.
what has changed that makes things now so suddenly unbearable? wishing twin would come back because it might assimilate back into the format safely is fine and all, but lets inject some perspective into the conversation. the way i see things modern is pretty damn good at the moment. though i welcome attempts to convince me otherwise.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)This is KTK's data.
This is why Twin was banned.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-18-2016-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2016-01-18
The ban did not accomplish its goal of promoting Diversity. I'm not sure where the past discussion of suppressing Blue decks has come from as that was clearly a false narrative anyway.
This topic has likely worn out its welcome again, but let this stand as fact.
The premise behind the ban was wrong, or literally nothing changed and the ban was a failure.
I want more Jund, more UWR, more UW, and btw, way more Jund, being played.
I want less Hollow One, less Tron, less KCI, less BridgeVine, being played.
I want the meta to lean toward how things were being played when Jace/BBE were free. That next weekend was great.
I want decks that have to race combo, to lose to removal, like Infect and Burn, instead of just dredge their next draw step and play a land.
Mostly though, I just want to play Twin again. Modern is very good. I've settled into Blue Moon Thing, and am more than happy to durdle around with other Tier 2 decks, while I simply grit my teeth against any of the tier 1 stuff (hollow one/tron/kci/humans) and hope to hit the draws I need.
I'm glad UW is doing well at least.
Spirits
Very much so. I dont consider KCI or Bridgevine an issue at all, both seem to struggle with Remand.
Spirits
The only reason I enjoyed Modern the last 6 or 8 months was my local store was overwhelmingly full of BGx and Uxx people jamming those decks because they loved those decks. There was the occasional miserable matchup, but the majority of play was fun, engaging, and games were exciting back and forth battles. But with each passing week, more and more people are instead playing more and more miserable decks. These miserable decks create awful play experiences, but win a lot. And as more and more players moved to those decks, I have simply scaled back my play. Whether think about what to do to make experiences better while I spend my time playing other games (notably D&D and PC Racing Sims), I'm definitely not as excited to play Modern while all these miserable decks have the WOTC stamp of approval.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
so what qualities of these decks makes them miserable to play against? a generalization about 'fun' is just going to be thrown out by others here. so maybe if we tried to identify something more concrete, there is something to talk about.
deck speed is one thing, but more than that something that stands out to me are decks with a substantial range in the power of their opening draws. is that more prevalent in decks now than usual? even UW miracles is a culprit; because ripping a terminus with no setup can just end games on the spot.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)At the same time, I've had people shut me down with interaction PLENTY of times, despite having crazy fast starts, so I always feel like the hate for Hollow One is misplaced.
It's usually a combination of "I have no meaningful main-deck way to interact with this deck. Cross my fingers they draw poorly" and "I really, really hope I draw and cast this narrow sideboard hate card so I'm not just instantly dead/run over/locked out/etc."
I take time out of my schedule and other social obligations to sit down and play paper magic, sometimes twice a week, to enjoy actually playing the game. When I am playing a game in which I have no meaningful actions, I ask myself why I'm even here. When it's back to back to back rounds of this, that's usually when I take the next week off and go do something else.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I agree with you that the hate is misplaced. I've always found it a poor deck, I certainly have beat it more often than I have lost to it.
Remand, Spell Snare, Abrade, Snaps, Bolts, Anger for the recursive threats...thats a wrap. The hate for it comes from the RNG elements. It feels bad for a Burning Inquiry or Goblin Lore, to 'puke out' 2 or 3 threats.
Spirits