MTG Salvation

Quote from ktkenshinx »

Quote from Aazadan »

Quote from ktkenshinx »

I literally acknowledged GGT as a ban with minimal GP data, I.e. the battle of sideboards reference you are making, in the post I assume you are responding to. So I don't know why you are framing this as a no GP result = no ban scenario. As I posted on this same page and will repost now, GGT was banned with very few GP results, likely based off MTGO data. Hogaak could be the same case regardless of how the GP plays out. I know you are exceedingly skeptical of Wizards and routinely negative towards Modern over a good chunk of the last 3 years, but that doesn't mean you need to indict Wizards' handling of the current situation. At least, not until after the 8th.

They knew what was going to happen with Eldrazi Winter but that PT still happened.

What do you think the chances are that Wizards leaves Hogaak in with the express purpose of making it the level 0 deck at the Pro Tour, and seeing if the PT can define a new metagame first?

The Eldrazi Winter timeline was a little different. The deck was largely off the radar until the PT. Then it broke out big at the PT, but Wizards didn't act immediately. There was significant cause for concern for a month or so, and then a triple GP weekend where Eldrazi ran absolutely rampant. Eye died at the next ban update, and there was no scheduled ban update between the PT and the GP weekend.

With Hogaak, we actually have a B&R update scheduled before the PT, which gives Wizards an opportunity to act. I think this is largely dependent on the results this weekend. If it's a Hogaak fest, we'll probably see a ban based on GP and MTGO performance. If Hogaak falls flat on Day 2 and into the T32/16/8, or just matches performance with other top decks like Izzet Phoenix, Humans, and others, Wizards will probably wait until after the PT. I'm unwilling to make a final prediction until we have the results from this weekend.

While I agree I still think it is too broken in its current state given the ability to straight up win on turn 2. It's like an 80%+ game one deck vs the regular field and even postboard it's probably still in reasonable shape even vs someone with 4 leylines.

I've never been one for bannings, I've always liked the idea of modern being left alone unless absolutely necessary. While I agreed that ancient stirrings was very powerful I was never onboard with ban stirrings when it was the dominate card a while ago fueling KCI, Tron etc. Likewise when Pheonix burst on the scene and people starting going crazy over looting I was again against the idea of banning it (also just to note I didn't play a stirrings deck or a looting deck so I didn't have a vested interest).

I do not want wizards to ban multiple cards and kill the deck. It's so completely different to dredge that I consider it an entirely different style of deck so I'm more than fine with multiple graveyard based decks existing. It does need taking down in power though. Banning Altar and seeing how the deck does would be my preferred choice. With Altar gone the deck would be a lot slower to fill the graveyard and would lose the ability to straight up win on turn 2. I have to imagine that Hogaak and Carrion feeder alone are enough of an addition to the deck that it would still be a solid T1 choice.

Haha, Hoogak swings for 17 on turn 2 against burn, and Reid Duke on commentary says that wasn't even the best hand.


This is definitely worthy of an emergency ban.

I don't even know what should be banned, I think it'll honestly take both pieces of something.

Hoogak was an extremely horribly designed mistake, and they printed this for modern so there's no excuse to say it slipped their radar.

What was the hand/line? I'm positive that would take a Bridge+Hogaak self milling a few times.

Bridge in GY off neonate self-sac, getting a 2/2, 2nd neonate on turn ditching vengevine, getting another 2/2, then a stitcher (IIRC), bring back vengevine, then play hogaak.

Something like that.

IN 2nd round, hogaak vs UW control. Hoggak 1st turn bridge in GY, UW immediately surgical extration (1st game, extraction in MD). Few turns later UW wipe 4 or 5 creatures on turn 4 with supreme verdict. Hoogak untaps and put 17 power on the board off 1 mana. (involving a gravecrawler, the black vampire that comes back from GY on land drop, double vengevines jumping back then hoogak.)

Comical really.

arclight phoenix still doing well, is phoenix a quiet offender?

Quote from ed06288 »

arclight phoenix still doing well, is phoenix a quiet offender?

Depends on your definition of quiet. There is no deck, in as short a frame other than Eldrazi that matches its Top 8 performances.

I will say watching this Hogaak deck, its amazing.

Hogaak
Bridge from Below
Vengevine
Bloodghast
Carrion Feeder
Altar
Sticher's Supplier

The angles, and path's this deck can take, is there really anything like it ever? I dont know.

Funny comment just now from Patrick on SCG "Hogaak generates better games than Phoenix" and as someone who played a TON of phoenix, and quickly burns out on it? He's not wrong.

Quote from Spsiegel1987 »

Haha, Hoogak swings for 17 on turn 2 against burn, and Reid Duke on commentary says that wasn't even the best hand.


This is definitely worthy of an emergency ban.

I don't even know what should be banned, I think it'll honestly take both pieces of something.

Hoogak was an extremely horribly designed mistake, and they printed this for modern so there's no excuse to say it slipped their radar.

I missed that game on channel fireball, I was watching the SCG broscast. Over on SCG hogaak was prevalent, but looked no more prevalent than humans or izzet pheonix. At the begining of the day the commentators were openly talking how how broken it was and which cards would be the most likely ban/bans to nerf it. But by the end of the broadcast they were saying things like, "This meta didn't look to bad."

It is explosive, is a top teir deck, and may still dominate these and other tournaments, but we should really hold judgement on a ban unroll we get a few more results than what we have. People at different times sought bans on goyf, deaths shadow, mox opal, not to mention more recent ones like looting or ancient stirrings. Does everyone remember when cheerios was new and everyone was worked up? Hogaak has only been legal about 2 weeks, we will see what WOTC does at the B&R but we as a community have to be more patient than this short amount of time.

Edit: Here is a legacy example: mental misstep was released May 13th 2011 and wasn't banned until Sept 20th 2011. I think most of us agree mental misstep should certainly be banned in legacy and it was very oppressive, but even for thar egregious card it was legal for FOUR MONTHS. I just don't feel 2-3 weeks is enough time to force deck evolutions and determine long lasting decisions like a ban.

Quote from idSurge »

Comical really.

havnet seen any of the coverage yet, but comical sounds good to me. i hope bridgevine is hilarious in its performance. lets put this to bed sooner rather than later so the format can move on.

Quote from tronix »

Quote from idSurge »

Comical really.

havnet seen any of the coverage yet, but comical sounds good to me. i hope bridgevine is hilarious in its performance. lets put this to bed sooner rather than later so the format can move on.

Funny thing is I don't know we have seen the ceiling on the deck in terms of its potential lines. Kind of like how Amulet has weird lines, Hogaak can go from a modest board to 'wait what happened' insanely fast.

We have only seen the first iterations on this.

Quote from Aazadan »

Quote from ktkenshinx »

I literally acknowledged GGT as a ban with minimal GP data, I.e. the battle of sideboards reference you are making, in the post I assume you are responding to. So I don't know why you are framing this as a no GP result = no ban scenario. As I posted on this same page and will repost now, GGT was banned with very few GP results, likely based off MTGO data. Hogaak could be the same case regardless of how the GP plays out. I know you are exceedingly skeptical of Wizards and routinely negative towards Modern over a good chunk of the last 3 years, but that doesn't mean you need to indict Wizards' handling of the current situation. At least, not until after the 8th.

They knew what was going to happen with Eldrazi Winter but that PT still happened.

What do you think the chances are that Wizards leaves Hogaak in with the express purpose of making it the level 0 deck at the Pro Tour, and seeing if the PT can define a new metagame first?

On what do you base the idea that "they knew what was going to happen with Eldrazi Winter"? That deck made its debut on the Pro Tour and was a big shock to pretty much everyone.

You really think that the same Wizards of the Coast that missed a 2-card infinite combo in Standard (CopyCat) that the playerbase noticed immediately was somehow so prescient that they were able to see a deck coming in Modern that 99.999% of the playerbase didn't?

They made a statement noting that they thought the new Eldrazi could be an issue with Eye/Temple, but didn't want to be held back in Standard design for a potential issue in Modern.

You can’t find me anywhere because I gave up on feeding the trolls.

Hogaak is perfectly fine, imho, and the problem are players that desperately want to run their Midrange decks or go without proper sideboard in such an environment. Hogaak is certainly strong, a Tier 1, but non ‘busted’. As recent results confirm. I can definitely see a Bridge ban if it’s going to become oppressive, but the conversion rate is nowhere near a Tier 0 for the moment.

I’ll remember that in Vintage 6-7 pieces of Grave hate is the norm. But in Modern, no, this is oppression!

I could say the same, the players that don't complain are the ones profitting because they play the decks that beat hogaak like hyper aggressive decks. If all we are going to have is hogaak vs antihogaak decks, the format is going to be so fun.

Quote from BloodyRabbit_01 »

You can’t find me anywhere because I gave up on feeding the trolls.

Hogaak is perfectly fine, imho, and the problem are players that desperately want to run their Midrange decks or go without proper sideboard in such an environment. Hogaak is certainly strong, a Tier 1, but non ‘busted’. As recent results confirm. I can definitely see a Bridge ban if it’s going to become oppressive, but the conversion rate is nowhere near a Tier 0 for the moment.

I’ll remember that in Vintage 6-7 pieces of Grave hate is the norm. But in Modern, no, this is oppression!

"Hogaak is perfectly fine", hehe, I love that quote. Just love those words put together, so beautiful.

Claiming that something is fine in Modern because the same practice is fine in vintage.

In case you didn't know. Things don't needed to be tier 0 to be banned. They just need to be too good or if WOTC just feels like coming up with some arbitrary BS reason to remove it.

DRS Jund, Twin, Pod, TC Delver, GGT Dredge, Probe Infect, Titan with summer bloom where never Tier 0 decks.

these assertions about what may or may not end up happening to bridgevine are well and good. ive been around long enough to know that pretty much everyone, including myself, are severely limited in our capacity to know what the hell we are talking about nor separate ourselves from our biases.

what im genuinely curious about though is who actually WANTS bridgevine to stick around as yet another 'top deck'?

i just dont see how anyone could be content with it being a thing influencing what modern is about on top of the direction the format has noticeably been moving in

should Hogaak stick around at it's current power level, then I guess the amount of maindeck grave removal will also stick around. If that happens I hope WoTC prints more cards like Kaya's Guile that remove yards in addition to doing something else.

JUst to illustrate why GY hate against hogaak is not the simple answer some may think, here is what happened in a UW control vs Hoogak yesterday in Dallas. UW player sided in multiple RiP. What happened is that the hogaak deck simply hardcasted two vengevines, one on turn 4 and turn 5 and rode them to victory. 4 power with haste for 4 is a fine rate. A UW deck can only hold so many answers: the RiP were taking place in hand instead of removal and hogaak can pivot into being a mid-range deck when its graveyard is gone. It's nicely resilient. (TBH, the UW player made a mistake in not blowing up the 2nd green source right away with its field of ruins which let the hogaak player play the 2nd vengevine. He should have known there were no forest in the deck because in a previous game the hogaak player did not search for no basic when a land was blown up with e fidled of ruins.)

So, just filling up with GY hate is a first step, but you still need to hold off the mid-range component.

The question is now if just bridge will be unbanned or if hogaak will get the axe too.
And the second question is if SFM is finally leaving the list she should have left many announcements ago, but I guess they prefer to do that before a PT. So hoping it will be this time. Me myself cos I'd like to play the card and my wallet, who has many copies on modo lol.

Just won a 81 person tournament in the Philippines with Hogaak. Here's how my matches went - my opponent draws hate and it slows them down. I eek out a win. They don't draw hate and they get smushed to the ground. I did lose a round to UW Control (LMAO) when I mulled to 4, then he turn 4 Vendilion Clique into Timely Reinforcements into Cryptic Command AND Surgical Extraction. I lost on turn 7 to a swinging Colonnade and that Vendilion Clique. Then I lost game 2 to Celestial Purge into Rest in Peace into Supreme Verdict into Cryptic Command into 4 turns of Colonnade swinging. That was my worst round. This deck is certainly unacceptable.

BTW, 3 Hogaak in the top 9. This is what I remembered.

1. Hogaak
2. Amulet with Karn
3. Dredge
4. UR Phoenix
5. Humans
6. RG Loam
7. Hogaak
8. UW Control
9. Hogaak at 5-1-1 on breakers (I played him in Round 3)

congrats on your victory Foodchain. so you were able to attend the large tourney.

3 hogaak in top 9. still not very many.

Quote from Lord Seth »

On what do you base the idea that "they knew what was going to happen with Eldrazi Winter"? That deck made its debut on the Pro Tour and was a big shock to pretty much everyone.

You really think that the same Wizards of the Coast that missed a 2-card infinite combo in Standard (CopyCat) that the playerbase noticed immediately was somehow so prescient that they were able to see a deck coming in Modern that 99.999% of the playerbase didn't?

In their banning justification they said they were aware of how much Eye of Ugin broke the new Eldrazi they printed. It was a known quantity, the deck did end up being more dominant than they originally thought it would be, largely due to them not actually testing the format, but it's not like the deck appeared out of nowhere, they knew it would be a real deck in the format.

Quote from The Fluff »

congrats on your victory Foodchain. so you were able to attend the large tourney.

3 hogaak in top 9. still not very many.

Yep, Regran. 81 players.

I think players were ready for Hogaak. Opponents showed me the grave hate that they had. Also there weren't as many Hogaaks as a friend of mine (from beating me with Cheerios yesterday at Concealed Courtyard) thought there would be.

I literally wanted to run Humans, as I think it has a good matchup vs. Hogaak, but I think Hogaak's days are numbered and I want to jam as much of it as I can before it gets banned. It's a bit sad, as there are many other Horizons cards I want to try - W6 Jund, Seasoned Pyromancer decks, Unearth, Urza, and more. But I will be able to play those later on; Hogaak won't be around too long. It will dodge the next ban announcement. They can't ban it quicker than they did Eye of Ugin. That would be hilarious. But it should come some time after that, most likely the next one or definitely not more than 3 announcements.

The scg modern team event day two meta:

Izzet Phoenix – 24
Bridgevine – 19
Humans – 7
Grixis Urza – 5
Mono-Red Phoenix – 4
Eldrazi Tron – 3
Infect – 2
Azorius Control – 2
Devoted Devastation – 2
Bant Infect – 1
Burn – 1
NeoBrand – 1
Mardu Death’s Shadow – 1
Mono-Green Tron – 1
Urza – 1
Jeskai Flash – 1

Hogaak is clearly doing well. Pheonix is on top due to thing in the ice returning hogaak's board state. Everything else is FAR behind. Humans is next with meddling mage being the mb card that is fighting hogaak.

This does not look particularly health right now and I doubt anyone will argue with that. But again, it's only been legal 2 weeks. I definitely see weakening diversity and format warping, but I just can't get on board with a ban after 2 weeks. Maybe I'll feel differently if this trend continues.

Separate topic: something that does need a ban in vintage is Karn the great creator. That card is completly out of control in that format IMO.