How the format 'felt' doesn't mean anything. What matters is what really happened and as KTK showed with math the format is slightly faster and slightly slower for an overall no real change on average.
The exception being those example where a ban soon followed. Eldrazi Winter and dredge were probably faster on average (I haven't done the math) but since they were banned it shows that WotC saw a problem and got rid of it.
People want bans/unbans on how the format feels to them. Not on how it is. Data needs to be taken on how people feel about the format, not just on how fast the data says it is.
I find it interesting length of games are being measured in turns, not actions, and not actual time to complete a game. A turn takes longer if there are more things to do on it. Cheap spells, moxen, force, bainstorm, and fast mana (moxen, sol lands) mean that a t3 game of Vintage or Legacy takes longer than Modern t3 wins. Perhaps when esyablishing how fast games are should be measured on completed actions by each player.
Also the difference between game one and two needs to be noted. With hateful cards like RIP and Stony Silence about game twos often end up way longer than game one.
Perhaps not directly, but at least one of the things dozens of people were saying how much more playable 4-drops would be as a result of Twin being gone, implying that larger cost spells on curve were more viable due to not dying quickly.
I remember this vividly because people have been saying all sorts of stupid and untrue things related to Twin for at least 3 years. And I've been there the whole time listening to it and dealing with it.
The banning of Twin made CMC 4 or higher cards more viable (since the chance of simply flat out dying because of an combo on turn 4 went down), but that has little to no correlation to how fast the format is. If I play a Huntmaster on turn 4 I might get another turn against a lot of aggro decks, Huntmaster on turn 4 vs Twin would have been Suicide. However, just because Huntmaster sucks less now, it still doesn't help me against Storm, KCI, Griselbanned, Infect, Amulet Titan and co. Against those decks the card still sucks (somewhat). However, IIRC the share of those decks went slightly down compared to the 2015 time period.
Tl;dr: Cards with CMC 4 or higher in none mana ramp decks are more viable, but most of them are just bad cards so they do not see play to begin with.
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)
Format (or perhaps more specifically, match-up) feel is absolutely something to consider at least for Standard, because there is a precedent of Wizards doing so for a banning. I don't remember if it was for Marvel or The Promised End (or both?), but they specifically cited that even though the deck was not as out of control as people believed they decided to get rid of it anyway.
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Vorthos-y Johnny. All will be One
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
Since we can see the percentages of games that end on each turn, is there a way we could see this for each deck? It would sort of put numbers to Hoogland's chart but get there by using actual numbers. We could at least see how misinformed he was being. I guess I'm more curious what the 2015 meta looked like, to be completely honest. Is there a source people generally consider reliable? I did find a Modern Nexus meta breakdown for December 2015, but I don't know how people rate the accuracy of one source to the next.
In any case, I'd be interested to see which decks are causing the fast wins in 2018 vs 2015 (really, whatever past meta) and see how those decks compare. Even after a cursory glance at the Nexus breakdown of 2015 though, I think there may be a case that while the decks are not faster, they are now also leveraging more disruption, recursion, and resiliency than before (except for probably Bloom because lands). Though, I'm not sure how to quantify that claim other than counting cards in each deck that I feel fit one of those three categories, and I know how that will end.
I do have to say, after looking at some of this, I would pause pushing the above claim until I put some more thought into a more defined complaint and see the spread of turns certain decks have the majority of their wins on. But my initial thoughts are that Spirits winning T5 is very different than Merfolk winning T5, and both of them are/were considered "disruptive" for their time.
Yikes. This is exactly the reason I dislike a lot of Hoogland's content.
Assertion: "Most games of Modern end somewhere between turns 3 and 5."
Reality: 37.1% of 2018 games end between T3 and T5. This is not "most", i.e. >50%
In fact, in 2015, 38.5% of games ended between T3 and T5 too. So those who are arguing that Modern has only recently become this fast are generally wrong. The format is generally the same speed it was in the past.
Re: "feel" of the format
There is no indication that Wizards makes ban decisions in Modern based on the "feel" of the format. There are plenty of indications to the contrary, however, including 2 years of no bans despite numerous decks "feeling" too fast/broken to a subset of the community. Wizards is doing the right thing in Modern by not acting based on hyper-subjective feelings of players with radically different preferences, backgrounds, and motivations. We will enter a very dark and uncertain Modern era if this changes. Now, if we can put some numbers to "feel" so we're at least talking the same language and comparing apples to apples, that's another story. Thankfully, I believe this post might help accomplish that.
Re: speed of the format in practice
Using this 2018 data, you can do some probability calculations to see how format speed works out in practice. To start, let's assume an average 5 match MTGO League, assuming each match goes to 3 full rounds and you play a total of 15 games. In those 15 MTGO games, here's the probability that N games end on or before T3. This discounts the .5% of games that end on T0 due to mulligans to oblivion, as these don't really represent matchup play experience unless I suppose you are mulling to hate; there's simply not enough information to interpret them. I believe we'll find .079 to be a solid baseline for games ending on T1, T2, or T3.
MTGO League 15 Game Simulation: % of Leagues with games ending by Turn N 0 Games: 29.1% (29.1% cummulative) 1 Games: 37.4% (66.5% cummulative) 2 Games: 22.5% (89% cummulative) 3 Games: 8.4% (97.4% cummulative) 4 Games: 2.2% (99.5% cummulative) 5 Games: 0.4% (99.9% cummulative) 6+ Games: 0.1% (100% cummulative)
Here, we see that only 29.1% of players will have 0 games that end before T4. The majority, about 71%, will see at least one game end on or before T3. Using weighted averages, the average number of <T4 games an MTGO League grinder will see is about 1.2 games per League.
We can repeat this analysis for the average mid-size event or GP Day 1 (8 rounds, up to 24 matches):
24 Game Event Simulation: % of events with games ending by Turn N 0 Games: 13.9% (13.9% cummulative) 1 Games: 28.6% (42.4% cummulative) 2 Games: 28.2% (70.6% cummulative) 3 Games: 17.7% (88.3% cummulative) 4 Games: 8% (96.3% cummulative) 5 Games: 2.7% (99.1% cummulative) 6 Games: 0.7% (99.8% cummulative) 7 Games: 0.2% (100% cummulative) Weighted average: 1.9 games
Here, about half (46%) of all players will experience at least two games that end before T4 in a 24 round event. 16.5% will experience 3+ games that end before T4. What about a full GP?
45 Game GP Simulation: % of GP with games ending by Turn N 0 Games: 2.5% (2.5% cummulative) 1 Games: 9.5% (12% cummulative) 2 Games: 17.9% (29.9% cummulative) 3 Games: 22.1% (52% cummulative) 4 Games: 19.9% (71.9% cummulative) 5 Games: 14% (85.8% cummulative) 6 Games: 8% (93.8% cummulative) 7 Games: 3.8% (97.7% cummulative) 8 Games: 1.6% (99.2% cummulative) 9 Games: 0.5% (99.8% cummulative) 10 Games: 0.2% (99.9% cummulative) 11 Games: 0% (100% cummulative) Weighted Average: 3.6 games
This one is a little unrealistic because it assumes no Byes and no 2-0 matches. But assuming you played all 45 possible games at a GP, you'd average 3.6 games ending before T4. In fact, 70% of players would encounter at least 3 games that ended before T4, 48% of players would encounter at least 4 games, and 14% of players might encounter as many as 6 games that ended before T4.
This data does not discriminate between G1 vs. G2/G3. It also doesn't discriminate between matchups. But all other factors being equal, I can see how these numbers might quantify negative experiences for players. Imagine that you are in the 33% of MTGO players who will see at least 2 T1/T2/T3 games over 15 total rounds. Imagine that those were deciding games that lost you matches. This means that there are some players out there where this single game could be the difference between 5-0 and 4-1, or even 3-2. I can see how that's frustrating, but don't have the numbers to indicate how many players that is affecting.
Although you are right that 37.1% is not over 50%, it still is too fast for some people. Hoogland is certainly one of them. You probably looked at his ban suggestions in the past, ban suggestions that would make the format essentially Midrange.format or what I think Frontier is.
While I don't agree with most of the things he says, I do believe that something should be done to slow the format down some. AuroraAvalon suggested that Wizards prints some PUSHED answers like Fatal Push and that seems like a good suggestion to me.
As a Combo player myself, I don't want to play in Midrange.format, but I also don't want to play in a format where many players are just trying to out goldfish or out draw each other. That feels silly.
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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)
Although you are right that 37.1% is not over 50%, it still is too fast for some people. Hoogland is certainly one of them. You probably looked at his ban suggestions in the past, ban suggestions that would make the format essentially Midrange.format or what I think Frontier is.
I'm fine with people who say Modern as a format is too fast for their liking, as long as they acknowledge that has always been the case. I'm not fine with people who claim that Modern has significantly sped up in the past 6-12 months. This is patently untrue in the data. Discounting the T0 wins to mulligans and the like, only 1.9% more games end on T1, T2, or T3 in Modern now than in 2015. If people want to say that Modern as a whole has always been too fast, that's okay and a matter of debate/opinion. But if we're claiming Modern has become too fast recently on the basis of a mere 1.9% increase in game speed, that's not commensurate with the level of outrage I tend to see on Twitch, Twitter, Reddit, and here.
@ktkenshinx: while I may not always agree with your arguments, I want to say thanks (yet again) for the way you lay out relevant data. Always much appreciated to see your comparisons; they lead to some of the best discussion on the forum.
Worth noting that almost no individual would accurately notice (in real time) what we could loosely call a 2% speed up in format. The heuristics of the human mind aren't geared towards tracking incremental changes on that level. So if players feel the format is speeding up, what qualitative factors are causing those feelings?
Are "non-games" more "non-gamey" these days? Are there more of, and there's certainly a better expression for this, the BGx vs Tron type match-ups where losses are quick avalanches and wins are long hardscrabble?
@ktkenshinx: while I may not always agree with your arguments, I want to say thanks (yet again) for the way you lay out relevant data. Always much appreciated to see your comparisons; they lead to some of the best discussion on the forum.
Worth noting that almost no individual would accurately notice (in real time) what we could loosely call a 2% speed up in format. The heuristics of the human mind aren't geared towards tracking incremental changes on that level. So if players feel the format is speeding up, what qualitative factors are causing those feelings?
Are "non-games" more "non-gamey" these days? Are there more of, and there's certainly a better expression for this, the BGx vs Tron type match-ups where losses are quick avalanches and wins are long hardscrabble?
Behavioral economics has proven through repeated experiments over the years that people have a greater reaction to the disutility from loss than the utility of an equal gain. If you find a $100 bill on the ground, you are happy, but you are going to be noticeably more upset if you lose that $100 later that day. For this thread, people tend to focus less on when they steamroll an opponent than when they get steamrolled. It's basically the same thing.
@ktkenshinx: while I may not always agree with your arguments, I want to say thanks (yet again) for the way you lay out relevant data. Always much appreciated to see your comparisons; they lead to some of the best discussion on the forum.
I used to do this, but personally stopped doing most of them because it was disheartening to spend several hours on something that was ultimately dismissed, belittled, or ignored entirely. (and in the grand scheme of things, completely pointless to understanding or predicting anything Wizards did).
Re: "feel" of the format
There is no indication that Wizards makes ban decisions in Modern based on the "feel" of the format. There are plenty of indications to the contrary, however, including 2 years of no bans despite numerous decks "feeling" too fast/broken to a subset of the community. Wizards is doing the right thing in Modern by not acting based on hyper-subjective feelings of players with radically different preferences, backgrounds, and motivations. We will enter a very dark and uncertain Modern era if this changes. Now, if we can put some numbers to "feel" so we're at least talking the same language and comparing apples to apples, that's another story. Thankfully, I believe this post might help accomplish that.
Feel plays directly into their decision making. A synonym for "feel" w/r/t the meta is "fun." If not synonymous, then greatly overlapping in a Venn diagram. If someone says they feel the format is too fast, they're implying it's not fun for them. Fun is the #1 piece of criteria for what Modern "should be," according to Aaron Forsythe. See his article here,halfway down in the "What Modern Should Be" section: https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptsoi/where-modern-goes-from-here-2016-04-24. Another item listed there is that Modern should be at a power level to allow Standard cards to break through. Though attenuated, an argument can be made that if a format is too fast, or even feels too fast, it becomes more difficult for Standard cards to break through (Phoenix being a recent breakthrough, of course).
In my opinion "feel" has a direct correlation to at least one criteria for the format.
yeah standard sets have been making a huge impact. its just feeding more interactions and effects that are then integrated with the most powerful stuff in the format. its more likely something new and 'broken' is uncovered than some generic goodstuff card propelling a deck to new heights.
also of course 'feelings' matter to wotc. it all ties into design intent vs reality, perception, emotional response, etc. its a form of feedback that designers in a lot of fields have to take seriously, game design being a perfect example. why? because humans, which includes the actual people making decisions at wizards, arent machines. expecting users to provide deep insightful, and more importantly specific/accurate, feedback is delusional. they might have no idea what they are dissatisfied about, or point out one thing but really mean something different. people are ignorant. as in lacking knowledge to adequately express themselves, and not dumb or stupid.
its why ktkenshinx's type of response typically falls on deaf ears, because while a perfectly logical way to approach the issue its also the least helpful to someone trying to seriously express a negative response to the modern format.
'i dunno i havent been enjoying modern much, it feels like games are over quicker and i dont get to do anything'
'no youre wrong. look at these numbers proving youre wrong, therefore you cannot feel that way.'
of course that isnt literally what ktkenshinx or anyone else is saying, but there isnt much room for response without feeling like an idiot. so it just dead ends.
its unfortunate because there is a lot of bias and random unwarranted hate thrown around. like people who havent or dont play the format eating up and regurgitating one liners or other equally baseless remarks. however i guarantee that wizards cares about the genuine feedback when they can find it, and that it impacts their decisions. also i wouldnt be giving wizards too much credit about what 'data' they analyze and their handling of the ban list. dont forget its just a small group of actual people with their own set of biases and subjective viewpoints. the numerous inconsistencies in their statements and actions is proof of that.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
I would much rather have a Containment Priest reprint into modern than a Stoneforge Mystic unban. She would fit perfectly into Azorius flavor-wise as well.
Of course, Stoneforge should absolutely come back as well. Good generic non-tribal white cards are hard to find these days.
I would also like to see either Swords to Plowshares or another good, cheap, versatile white creature removal spell. Condemn and Blessed Alliance came close, but were ultimately both too narrow.
its why ktkenshinx's type of response typically falls on deaf ears, because while a perfectly logical way to approach the issue its also the least helpful to someone trying to seriously express a negative response to the modern format.
'i dunno i havent been enjoying modern much, it feels like games are over quicker and i dont get to do anything'
'no youre wrong. look at these numbers proving youre wrong, therefore you cannot feel that way.'
of course that isnt literally what ktkenshinx or anyone else is saying, but there isnt much room for response without feeling like an idiot. so it just dead ends.
My issue has never been that people feel one way or the other about the format. It's that they connect a personal feeling (e.g. "Modern doesn't have the kind of interaction I like") and often explode it into a format-wide criticism (e.g. "Modern is non-interactive"). This gets particularly problematic when they translate their personal feelings (e.g. "I disliked losing to that one deck") into format-wide policy decisions that affect everyone (e.g. "Ban Card X"). It doesn't take a lot of research on Reddit, Twitter, Twitch, and here to see that many negative Modern positions are neither researched cases about Modern's issues or personal issues framed with personal language. It's often just meme-storm sound bites.
That's not a feeling statement at all. That's just someone making sweeping generalizations about the format without any context or attempt to contextualize the data. Compare this to the much more measured and interesting responses on this very page:
Worth noting that almost no individual would accurately notice (in real time) what we could loosely call a 2% speed up in format. The heuristics of the human mind aren't geared towards tracking incremental changes on that level. So if players feel the format is speeding up, what qualitative factors are causing those feelings?
Are "non-games" more "non-gamey" these days? Are there more of, and there's certainly a better expression for this, the BGx vs Tron type match-ups where losses are quick avalanches and wins are long hardscrabble?
Here we have a user offering alternate explanations for why the format might feel faster even if the data does not appear to show that at first glance. This helps us dig deeper and unpack what's really going on in Modern. And another:
Re: "feel" of the format
There is no indication that Wizards makes ban decisions in Modern based on the "feel" of the format. There are plenty of indications to the contrary, however, including 2 years of no bans despite numerous decks "feeling" too fast/broken to a subset of the community. Wizards is doing the right thing in Modern by not acting based on hyper-subjective feelings of players with radically different preferences, backgrounds, and motivations. We will enter a very dark and uncertain Modern era if this changes. Now, if we can put some numbers to "feel" so we're at least talking the same language and comparing apples to apples, that's another story. Thankfully, I believe this post might help accomplish that.
Feel plays directly into their decision making. A synonym for "feel" w/r/t the meta is "fun." If not synonymous, then greatly overlapping in a Venn diagram. If someone says they feel the format is too fast, they're implying it's not fun for them. Fun is the #1 piece of criteria for what Modern "should be," according to Aaron Forsythe. See his article here,halfway down in the "What Modern Should Be" section: https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptsoi/where-modern-goes-from-here-2016-04-24. Another item listed there is that Modern should be at a power level to allow Standard cards to break through. Though attenuated, an argument can be made that if a format is too fast, or even feels too fast, it becomes more difficult for Standard cards to break through (Phoenix being a recent breakthrough, of course).
In my opinion "feel" has a direct correlation to at least one criteria for the format.
Here we have a user who cited actual Wizards material to show how "fun" does factor into Modern in some way. From there, we could figure out how to measure and operationalize "fun" in a meaningful way for a format that caters to tens of thousands of different players.
Those kinds of responses generate good discussion and generally enhance the quality of conversation. Stuff like "WOW," "Nice T4 format," or any of the other sound bites we see online do not promote this discussion. Nor do comments like this from another Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/abbcng/why_do_people_complain_about_the_modern_meta_so/ecyztyi
"...Modern is a t2-3 kill win wasteland right now, to a lot of people..."
Note that I'm hesitant to give these examples because there are countless other examples of better discussion, but it's helpful to illustrate the problem. Statements like that need a citation, a source, or some other kind of backing. Unfortunately, it is all too common in Modern discussion. I will consistently push back against these kinds of statements, as they lower quality of discussion and hurt our understanding of the format. If people want to express feelings, that's fine. But the moment people convert those feelings into format-wide characterizations or suggestions, the bar of proof dramatically increases.
It's also probably not helpful to continually project things that are said on other platforms onto users here.
I literally spent the last few pages arguing against specific quotes in your posts. I am not projecting anything. I also haven't really argued against anyone in this thread except you for a while, and I have been very deliberate in quoting precisely what I disagree with, so I'm not sure what you are talking about here. I'm not trying to convince you of anything at this point. I think you have a set view of Modern that aligns with your experience and aren't likely to change it, which is fine. I'm simply pointing out significant problems with your recent arguments in the hope that other readers don't buy into them. Modern criticism is great. Overstated, all-or-nothing criticism is generally not, whether of Modern or anything else.
You literally just spent all of your last post complaining about reddit and twitter, but ok.
As I said in that post, those are additional examples of the broader issues Modern conversation faces. Notably, I contrasted them with far more productive examples from this thread. I don't know why this needs to be explained a second time when I explained it in that post already.
(a) format event attendance, mapped over set releases and large events, and bans/unbans, over a five year period.
This would give us a clue as to what each ban or unban accomplishes from event attendance pov.
It may also enable us to see how much the health of one format affects the attendance of another, although disentangling the data to isolate the effects might be challenging. When modern attendance drops where does it go? When overall attendance goes down does it go down proportionally for each format?
(b) the wotc feedback data from survey, currently garnered after each set. Do a large pc of people moan about formats in the freeform section?
(c) pack sales per set, which could tell us if total event attendance is correlated in any way with pack sales, and again we could see the masters set effect on attendance, which I wager would be negligible. If a Std set sells well does it influence Modern uptake? I suspect that if a set sells especially well has little impact on Modern.
I would not be surprised if wotc made recent ban decisions that were more influenced by event attendance (and the need to sell masters sets in the one off case of Jace). Total supposition, of course, but the data is not out there.
(a) format event attendance, mapped over set releases and large events, and bans/unbans, over a five year period.
This would give us a clue as to what each ban or unban accomplishes from event attendance pov.
It may also enable us to see how much the health of one format affects the attendance of another, although disentangling the data to isolate the effects might be challenging. When modern attendance drops where does it go? When overall attendance goes down does it go down proportionally for each format?
(B) and (C) are probably hard to come by and likely out of our reach. For (A), we do have full attendance data for all Modern GP and SCG Open/Classic events basically for the existence of the format. I think we'd also have some Hareruya event attendance, at least for their bigger events, as well as some of the Italian events. It's definitely not FNM-level data, but it's something, and one could try and identify trends in that data as related to B&R decisions.
I would also like to see either Swords to Plowshares or another good, cheap, versatile white creature removal spell. Condemn and Blessed Alliance came close, but were ultimately both too narrow.
I expect Swords to Plowshares to replace Path to Exile in some decks, as giving someone extra life is less drawback than giving extra land. Although there was one legacy game I lost years ago.. had no choice except to swords a marit lage token, got overwhlemed because the 20 life gave opponent plenty of time to recover.
WoTC might just surprise us one day making this white removal modern legal.
Sword of plowshares would make shadow in modern unplayable
I think you guys took me saying I FEEL as too much. I specifically said feel because I have no data to back up my feelings.
I also dont think banning is a right call anything. The format does need a slow down and more interaction but printing good cards iz hopefully the answer
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The exception being those example where a ban soon followed. Eldrazi Winter and dredge were probably faster on average (I haven't done the math) but since they were banned it shows that WotC saw a problem and got rid of it.
I find it interesting length of games are being measured in turns, not actions, and not actual time to complete a game. A turn takes longer if there are more things to do on it. Cheap spells, moxen, force, bainstorm, and fast mana (moxen, sol lands) mean that a t3 game of Vintage or Legacy takes longer than Modern t3 wins. Perhaps when esyablishing how fast games are should be measured on completed actions by each player.
Also the difference between game one and two needs to be noted. With hateful cards like RIP and Stony Silence about game twos often end up way longer than game one.
Tl;dr: Cards with CMC 4 or higher in none mana ramp decks are more viable, but most of them are just bad cards so they do not see play to begin with.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
In any case, I'd be interested to see which decks are causing the fast wins in 2018 vs 2015 (really, whatever past meta) and see how those decks compare. Even after a cursory glance at the Nexus breakdown of 2015 though, I think there may be a case that while the decks are not faster, they are now also leveraging more disruption, recursion, and resiliency than before (except for probably Bloom because lands). Though, I'm not sure how to quantify that claim other than counting cards in each deck that I feel fit one of those three categories, and I know how that will end.
I do have to say, after looking at some of this, I would pause pushing the above claim until I put some more thought into a more defined complaint and see the spread of turns certain decks have the majority of their wins on. But my initial thoughts are that Spirits winning T5 is very different than Merfolk winning T5, and both of them are/were considered "disruptive" for their time.
"Reveal a Dragon"
Yikes. This is exactly the reason I dislike a lot of Hoogland's content.
Assertion: "Most games of Modern end somewhere between turns 3 and 5."
Reality: 37.1% of 2018 games end between T3 and T5. This is not "most", i.e. >50%
In fact, in 2015, 38.5% of games ended between T3 and T5 too. So those who are arguing that Modern has only recently become this fast are generally wrong. The format is generally the same speed it was in the past.
Re: "feel" of the format
There is no indication that Wizards makes ban decisions in Modern based on the "feel" of the format. There are plenty of indications to the contrary, however, including 2 years of no bans despite numerous decks "feeling" too fast/broken to a subset of the community. Wizards is doing the right thing in Modern by not acting based on hyper-subjective feelings of players with radically different preferences, backgrounds, and motivations. We will enter a very dark and uncertain Modern era if this changes. Now, if we can put some numbers to "feel" so we're at least talking the same language and comparing apples to apples, that's another story. Thankfully, I believe this post might help accomplish that.
Re: speed of the format in practice
Using this 2018 data, you can do some probability calculations to see how format speed works out in practice. To start, let's assume an average 5 match MTGO League, assuming each match goes to 3 full rounds and you play a total of 15 games. In those 15 MTGO games, here's the probability that N games end on or before T3. This discounts the .5% of games that end on T0 due to mulligans to oblivion, as these don't really represent matchup play experience unless I suppose you are mulling to hate; there's simply not enough information to interpret them. I believe we'll find .079 to be a solid baseline for games ending on T1, T2, or T3.
MTGO League 15 Game Simulation: % of Leagues with games ending by Turn N
0 Games: 29.1% (29.1% cummulative)
1 Games: 37.4% (66.5% cummulative)
2 Games: 22.5% (89% cummulative)
3 Games: 8.4% (97.4% cummulative)
4 Games: 2.2% (99.5% cummulative)
5 Games: 0.4% (99.9% cummulative)
6+ Games: 0.1% (100% cummulative)
Here, we see that only 29.1% of players will have 0 games that end before T4. The majority, about 71%, will see at least one game end on or before T3. Using weighted averages, the average number of <T4 games an MTGO League grinder will see is about 1.2 games per League.
We can repeat this analysis for the average mid-size event or GP Day 1 (8 rounds, up to 24 matches):
24 Game Event Simulation: % of events with games ending by Turn N
0 Games: 13.9% (13.9% cummulative)
1 Games: 28.6% (42.4% cummulative)
2 Games: 28.2% (70.6% cummulative)
3 Games: 17.7% (88.3% cummulative)
4 Games: 8% (96.3% cummulative)
5 Games: 2.7% (99.1% cummulative)
6 Games: 0.7% (99.8% cummulative)
7 Games: 0.2% (100% cummulative)
Weighted average: 1.9 games
Here, about half (46%) of all players will experience at least two games that end before T4 in a 24 round event. 16.5% will experience 3+ games that end before T4. What about a full GP?
45 Game GP Simulation: % of GP with games ending by Turn N
0 Games: 2.5% (2.5% cummulative)
1 Games: 9.5% (12% cummulative)
2 Games: 17.9% (29.9% cummulative)
3 Games: 22.1% (52% cummulative)
4 Games: 19.9% (71.9% cummulative)
5 Games: 14% (85.8% cummulative)
6 Games: 8% (93.8% cummulative)
7 Games: 3.8% (97.7% cummulative)
8 Games: 1.6% (99.2% cummulative)
9 Games: 0.5% (99.8% cummulative)
10 Games: 0.2% (99.9% cummulative)
11 Games: 0% (100% cummulative)
Weighted Average: 3.6 games
This one is a little unrealistic because it assumes no Byes and no 2-0 matches. But assuming you played all 45 possible games at a GP, you'd average 3.6 games ending before T4. In fact, 70% of players would encounter at least 3 games that ended before T4, 48% of players would encounter at least 4 games, and 14% of players might encounter as many as 6 games that ended before T4.
This data does not discriminate between G1 vs. G2/G3. It also doesn't discriminate between matchups. But all other factors being equal, I can see how these numbers might quantify negative experiences for players. Imagine that you are in the 33% of MTGO players who will see at least 2 T1/T2/T3 games over 15 total rounds. Imagine that those were deciding games that lost you matches. This means that there are some players out there where this single game could be the difference between 5-0 and 4-1, or even 3-2. I can see how that's frustrating, but don't have the numbers to indicate how many players that is affecting.
While I don't agree with most of the things he says, I do believe that something should be done to slow the format down some. AuroraAvalon suggested that Wizards prints some PUSHED answers like Fatal Push and that seems like a good suggestion to me.
As a Combo player myself, I don't want to play in Midrange.format, but I also don't want to play in a format where many players are just trying to out goldfish or out draw each other. That feels silly.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I'm fine with people who say Modern as a format is too fast for their liking, as long as they acknowledge that has always been the case. I'm not fine with people who claim that Modern has significantly sped up in the past 6-12 months. This is patently untrue in the data. Discounting the T0 wins to mulligans and the like, only 1.9% more games end on T1, T2, or T3 in Modern now than in 2015. If people want to say that Modern as a whole has always been too fast, that's okay and a matter of debate/opinion. But if we're claiming Modern has become too fast recently on the basis of a mere 1.9% increase in game speed, that's not commensurate with the level of outrage I tend to see on Twitch, Twitter, Reddit, and here.
Worth noting that almost no individual would accurately notice (in real time) what we could loosely call a 2% speed up in format. The heuristics of the human mind aren't geared towards tracking incremental changes on that level. So if players feel the format is speeding up, what qualitative factors are causing those feelings?
Are "non-games" more "non-gamey" these days? Are there more of, and there's certainly a better expression for this, the BGx vs Tron type match-ups where losses are quick avalanches and wins are long hardscrabble?
Behavioral economics has proven through repeated experiments over the years that people have a greater reaction to the disutility from loss than the utility of an equal gain. If you find a $100 bill on the ground, you are happy, but you are going to be noticeably more upset if you lose that $100 later that day. For this thread, people tend to focus less on when they steamroll an opponent than when they get steamrolled. It's basically the same thing.
I used to do this, but personally stopped doing most of them because it was disheartening to spend several hours on something that was ultimately dismissed, belittled, or ignored entirely. (and in the grand scheme of things, completely pointless to understanding or predicting anything Wizards did).
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
In my opinion "feel" has a direct correlation to at least one criteria for the format.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Spirits
also of course 'feelings' matter to wotc. it all ties into design intent vs reality, perception, emotional response, etc. its a form of feedback that designers in a lot of fields have to take seriously, game design being a perfect example. why? because humans, which includes the actual people making decisions at wizards, arent machines. expecting users to provide deep insightful, and more importantly specific/accurate, feedback is delusional. they might have no idea what they are dissatisfied about, or point out one thing but really mean something different. people are ignorant. as in lacking knowledge to adequately express themselves, and not dumb or stupid.
its why ktkenshinx's type of response typically falls on deaf ears, because while a perfectly logical way to approach the issue its also the least helpful to someone trying to seriously express a negative response to the modern format.
'i dunno i havent been enjoying modern much, it feels like games are over quicker and i dont get to do anything'
'no youre wrong. look at these numbers proving youre wrong, therefore you cannot feel that way.'
of course that isnt literally what ktkenshinx or anyone else is saying, but there isnt much room for response without feeling like an idiot. so it just dead ends.
its unfortunate because there is a lot of bias and random unwarranted hate thrown around. like people who havent or dont play the format eating up and regurgitating one liners or other equally baseless remarks. however i guarantee that wizards cares about the genuine feedback when they can find it, and that it impacts their decisions. also i wouldnt be giving wizards too much credit about what 'data' they analyze and their handling of the ban list. dont forget its just a small group of actual people with their own set of biases and subjective viewpoints. the numerous inconsistencies in their statements and actions is proof of that.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Of course, Stoneforge should absolutely come back as well. Good generic non-tribal white cards are hard to find these days.
I would also like to see either Swords to Plowshares or another good, cheap, versatile white creature removal spell. Condemn and Blessed Alliance came close, but were ultimately both too narrow.
My issue has never been that people feel one way or the other about the format. It's that they connect a personal feeling (e.g. "Modern doesn't have the kind of interaction I like") and often explode it into a format-wide criticism (e.g. "Modern is non-interactive"). This gets particularly problematic when they translate their personal feelings (e.g. "I disliked losing to that one deck") into format-wide policy decisions that affect everyone (e.g. "Ban Card X"). It doesn't take a lot of research on Reddit, Twitter, Twitch, and here to see that many negative Modern positions are neither researched cases about Modern's issues or personal issues framed with personal language. It's often just meme-storm sound bites.
As one of many possible examples, just look at the Modern Reddit thread on the MTGO data we just got. The top-rated comment up until earlier today was:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/aazife/how_long_games_last_in_modern_97674_mtgo_games/ecw9vuy
"Pretty fast format we've got here..."
That's not a feeling statement at all. That's just someone making sweeping generalizations about the format without any context or attempt to contextualize the data. Compare this to the much more measured and interesting responses on this very page:
Here we have a user offering alternate explanations for why the format might feel faster even if the data does not appear to show that at first glance. This helps us dig deeper and unpack what's really going on in Modern. And another:
Here we have a user who cited actual Wizards material to show how "fun" does factor into Modern in some way. From there, we could figure out how to measure and operationalize "fun" in a meaningful way for a format that caters to tens of thousands of different players.
Those kinds of responses generate good discussion and generally enhance the quality of conversation. Stuff like "WOW," "Nice T4 format," or any of the other sound bites we see online do not promote this discussion. Nor do comments like this from another Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/abbcng/why_do_people_complain_about_the_modern_meta_so/ecyztyi
"...Modern is a t2-3 kill win wasteland right now, to a lot of people..."
Note that I'm hesitant to give these examples because there are countless other examples of better discussion, but it's helpful to illustrate the problem. Statements like that need a citation, a source, or some other kind of backing. Unfortunately, it is all too common in Modern discussion. I will consistently push back against these kinds of statements, as they lower quality of discussion and hurt our understanding of the format. If people want to express feelings, that's fine. But the moment people convert those feelings into format-wide characterizations or suggestions, the bar of proof dramatically increases.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I literally spent the last few pages arguing against specific quotes in your posts. I am not projecting anything. I also haven't really argued against anyone in this thread except you for a while, and I have been very deliberate in quoting precisely what I disagree with, so I'm not sure what you are talking about here. I'm not trying to convince you of anything at this point. I think you have a set view of Modern that aligns with your experience and aren't likely to change it, which is fine. I'm simply pointing out significant problems with your recent arguments in the hope that other readers don't buy into them. Modern criticism is great. Overstated, all-or-nothing criticism is generally not, whether of Modern or anything else.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
As I said in that post, those are additional examples of the broader issues Modern conversation faces. Notably, I contrasted them with far more productive examples from this thread. I don't know why this needs to be explained a second time when I explained it in that post already.
(a) format event attendance, mapped over set releases and large events, and bans/unbans, over a five year period.
This would give us a clue as to what each ban or unban accomplishes from event attendance pov.
It may also enable us to see how much the health of one format affects the attendance of another, although disentangling the data to isolate the effects might be challenging. When modern attendance drops where does it go? When overall attendance goes down does it go down proportionally for each format?
(b) the wotc feedback data from survey, currently garnered after each set. Do a large pc of people moan about formats in the freeform section?
(c) pack sales per set, which could tell us if total event attendance is correlated in any way with pack sales, and again we could see the masters set effect on attendance, which I wager would be negligible. If a Std set sells well does it influence Modern uptake? I suspect that if a set sells especially well has little impact on Modern.
I would not be surprised if wotc made recent ban decisions that were more influenced by event attendance (and the need to sell masters sets in the one off case of Jace). Total supposition, of course, but the data is not out there.
(B) and (C) are probably hard to come by and likely out of our reach. For (A), we do have full attendance data for all Modern GP and SCG Open/Classic events basically for the existence of the format. I think we'd also have some Hareruya event attendance, at least for their bigger events, as well as some of the Italian events. It's definitely not FNM-level data, but it's something, and one could try and identify trends in that data as related to B&R decisions.
I expect Swords to Plowshares to replace Path to Exile in some decks, as giving someone extra life is less drawback than giving extra land. Although there was one legacy game I lost years ago.. had no choice except to swords a marit lage token, got overwhlemed because the 20 life gave opponent plenty of time to recover.
WoTC might just surprise us one day making this white removal modern legal.
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Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I think you guys took me saying I FEEL as too much. I specifically said feel because I have no data to back up my feelings.
I also dont think banning is a right call anything. The format does need a slow down and more interaction but printing good cards iz hopefully the answer