Format seems great. My LGS has been running weekly tournaments for about two months now. Control seems unplayable, red aggro decks seem really OP and midrange decks are all abzan, although nobody can seem to figure out which build is best. Its odd, I actually went down to 3 rhino in mine and trim them a lot in SB because there to slow.Flayer has been the best card in the deck by MILES. Rally and COCO are no where to be seen after the first few weeks, dig has been a liability and the only successful cruise decks weve had are U/R prowess and Temur Prowess. The formats removal all kind of seems to inefficient for the threats, theres like impulse, and then everything else just is like two CMC and then your behind. Languish decks seem like they could be great, but your still folding to threat efficient midrange decks. The format seems very very proactive, but you can't really turtle and durdle. Seems great.
That's why the new Fatal Push is needed in the format at the moment. I'm not sure if it will help balance out abzan, but it does give control a needed shot in the arm. Also really getting tired of people jumping on the ban fetches band wagon. It's not going to happen because too many people like them, they aren't format breaking even with revolt, and people are honestly thinking they aren't going to reprint zen fetches? What world do they live in? They are going to reprint the zen fetches fairly soonish.
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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!
What world do they live in? They are going to reprint the zen fetches fairly soonish.
[citation needed]
Stop spreading rumors based on personal preference.
Unless you are proposing that they are not going to reprint them in the next year, I fail to see an issue. Also big assumption on personal preferences there, as I've got no stake in the matter. If they print them again, frontier has them. If not, no big loss.
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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!
Format seems great. My LGS has been running weekly tournaments for about two months now. Control seems unplayable, red aggro decks seem really OP and midrange decks are all abzan, although nobody can seem to figure out which build is best. Its odd, I actually went down to 3 rhino in mine and trim them a lot in SB because there to slow.Flayer has been the best card in the deck by MILES. Rally and COCO are no where to be seen after the first few weeks, dig has been a liability and the only successful cruise decks weve had are U/R prowess and Temur Prowess. The formats removal all kind of seems to inefficient for the threats, theres like impulse, and then everything else just is like two CMC and then your behind. Languish decks seem like they could be great, but your still folding to threat efficient midrange decks. The format seems very very proactive, but you can't really turtle and durdle. Seems great.
That's why the new Fatal Push is needed in the format at the moment. I'm not sure if it will help balance out abzan, but it does give control a needed shot in the arm. Also really getting tired of people jumping on the ban fetches band wagon. It's not going to happen because too many people like them, they aren't format breaking even with revolt, and people are honestly thinking they aren't going to reprint zen fetches? What world do they live in? They are going to reprint the zen fetches fairly soonish.
Push is stil only one card, it helps, but unless your playing B/R most of your removal is still going to be clunky and two cmc. I think its fine though, nobody wants to play kill/counter/draw all day. The fetch things is a little weird, even in abzan most lists are playing 4-5 fetches only because the fastland+painland is better for curving out, I haven't seen many successful four color decks yet though that didn't look like hot garbage. I could see them being axed for time reasons though, it is pretty annoying.
Four color is just too slow. If control gets a little stronger we may see four color, but mid range and aggro are the better choices at the moment.
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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!
Four color is just too slow. If control gets a little stronger we may see four color, but mid range and aggro are the better choices at the moment.
I ran 4 colors and it seemed fine. I did Rally (every color except Red) at a ThNM and beat 2 Dark Jeskai and RG Aggro in the finals.
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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)
This format looks like "dont you dare to do something that i dont like" ****fest...it would be extremly expensive in long run cause everyone would mostly play goodstff midrange in 3/4 colours....if blood moon,smallpox and some other cards were legal it would be okay...threats are strong and removal sucks....no good counters,no good removal(ok there are some good removals), the best discard in format is duress...i mean i love duress but if that is the best discard in enternal format then **** that format.
How many expletives do you want to put in your post? Second, why do you have so much spite towards a format of Magic? Did the frontier format manifest into some kind of Demonic force that took you to the back room, pummel you to the inch of your life, and then run off with your wallet?
Four color is just too slow. If control gets a little stronger we may see four color, but mid range and aggro are the better choices at the moment.
I ran 4 colors and it seemed fine. I did Rally (every color except Red) at a ThNM and beat 2 Dark Jeskai and RG Aggro in the finals.
I guess I just haven't really had a lot of opponents that wanted to run 4 color good stuff. The few decks that did try to do four color seemed way too slow, and the last rally deck I played just got hosed way too much since everyone was expecting it. 4x Hallowed Moonlight, 3x Tormod's Crypt, and tons of burn / removal from Mardu decks basically destroyed rally even with Spell Queller. Not all in the same deck, mind you, just that it felt like 3/4s of the players were gunning for Rally the Ancestors and Collected Company along with G/B delirium.
Private Mod Note
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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!
I think what I like about this format is that there's still room to brew. If it ever becomes a real thing, that will evaporate. I guess it's good that Ive been lazy about unloading my standard stuff for the last few years.
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Can you name all of the creature types with at least 20 cards? Try my Sporcle Quiz! Last Updated: 6/29/20 (Core Set 2021).
well English is not my strongest side as you can see :P. Anyway i just wanted to point that as control player i am not happy with this format...also i think that format is going to be expensive cause people will mostly play just: goodstuff midrange,hyper aggro and ramp into big things decks...no real control or real combo...wizards are trying not to print any combos for standard and discard and counterspells are not that good...i mean they are okay but threats are much stronger...also...nothing is punishing greedy manabase...dont like it...it would be better with years(i hope so) but for now i dont rly see any reason to play it over modern
I think Aether Revolt and the following block will resolve the control issue. Yahenni's Expertise is actually pretty good at stopping most things worth worrying about that get played turn 3 or earlier unless they are playing something like Lightning Weaver while also letting you roll into a card like Read the Bones or liliana, Heretical healer. Also, the best control walker in the format is Ugin, the Spirit Dragon who is a bit restrictive because of costing eight generic mana to cast.
I am kind of curious, though, if WoTC is legitimately trying to prevent control from coming back. It's not a very popular strategy to play against because it makes the games long and no one likes playing a game of watching every move they make get disrupted.
Private Mod Note
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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!
Again, the price of modern staples is one of the reasons to create a new format. But, to really be worthwhile, that format needs some time and more sets to get interesting builds and a good metagame. But by then, the now-cheap-cards will be 10 years old and might become expensive themself, having solved nothing in the long run.
This.
I dont see what the point would be at starting at M15. Just seems like an excuse to use (see: Sell) cards that dont see play in Modern but are no longer Standard legal.
Again, the price of modern staples is one of the reasons to create a new format. But, to really be worthwhile, that format needs some time and more sets to get interesting builds and a good metagame. But by then, the now-cheap-cards will be 10 years old and might become expensive themself, having solved nothing in the long run.
This.
I dont see what the point would be at starting at M15. Just seems like an excuse to use (see: Sell) cards that dont see play in Modern but are no longer Standard legal.
Agree here. Starting a new format due to limited availability in a single country seems asinine. Not only does this come across as a ploy to sell cards that aren't legal in Standard, and yet aren't powerful enough for Modern. If Wizards would just properly reprint Modern staples through Standard and other products this wouldn't be an issue in the first places.
Also, if this becomes an regular thing, with a new format every x years, where does that leave us? Does Modern take Legacy's place, being largely forgotten by Wizards? Legacy become the new Vintage, with only a few diehards clinging to what they know as magic? What happens to Frontier when it gets to old and yet another non rotating format is born? Modern was created as a non rotating format that wasn't hamstrung by the Reserved List. Creating a new format is a band aid fix, and attempt to hide a much larger issue of poor reprint policies and poor format support. If these don't get addressed Frontier will only suffer from the same issues Modern does.
Again, the price of modern staples is one of the reasons to create a new format. But, to really be worthwhile, that format needs some time and more sets to get interesting builds and a good metagame. But by then, the now-cheap-cards will be 10 years old and might become expensive themself, having solved nothing in the long run.
This.
I dont see what the point would be at starting at M15. Just seems like an excuse to use (see: Sell) cards that dont see play in Modern but are no longer Standard legal.
Agree here. Starting a new format due to limited availability in a single country seems asinine. Not only does this come across as a ploy to sell cards that aren't legal in Standard, and yet aren't powerful enough for Modern. If Wizards would just properly reprint Modern staples through Standard and other products this wouldn't be an issue in the first places.
Also, if this becomes an regular thing, with a new format every x years, where does that leave us? Does Modern take Legacy's place, being largely forgotten by Wizards? Legacy become the new Vintage, with only a few diehards clinging to what they know as magic? What happens to Frontier when it gets to old and yet another non rotating format is born? Modern was created as a non rotating format that wasn't hamstrung by the Reserved List. Creating a new format is a band aid fix, and attempt to hide a much larger issue of poor reprint policies and poor format support. If these don't get addressed Frontier will only suffer from the same issues Modern does.
Modern was never going to be around forever and neither was Legacy or Vintage. Eventually that window has to move forward or the format will just be too much for any new player to break into. Also, people keep making the statement that the format will sell underplayed cards as some kind of negative to players. Hate to break it to you fellows, but that has nothing to do with the popularity of the format nor its viability. It's popular because it's unexplored and offers people a jumping off point into a cheaper non-rotating format. We as players could care less about the economics of the entire venture or if it's being capitalized on by local game stores as long as people are playing it and having fun.
Private Mod Note
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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!
With Eternal and Modern masters, those eternal formats certainly could be around 'forever'. Forever being as long as Wizards cares to support them.
Moving the goal posts is a short term solution to a problem that is down to localization, and a possible desire to shift stale product.
Allowing for unexplored space (I dont think so) may be a side benefit, but I sure dont see it that way, and its far easier to see 'cheaper non-rotating' as the lure.
With Eternal and Modern masters, those eternal formats certainly could be around 'forever'. Forever being as long as Wizards cares to support them.
Moving the goal posts is a short term solution to a problem that is down to localization, and a possible desire to shift stale product.
Allowing for unexplored space (I dont think so) may be a side benefit, but I sure dont see it that way, and its far easier to see 'cheaper non-rotating' as the lure.
Just pay up and play Modern.
There's more going on than what you might be thinking with why people are playing Frontier and not modern, actually. The fact is a lot of people just don't like many of the mechanics that flooded into the format over the years as sets got added, don't like hosing cards like blood moon and leylines, phyrexian mana, etc. This doesn't mean that Frontier wont have mechanics that will make annoying decks, but the ability to play with an expanding cardpool following the newer design principles wizards has is a godsend. As for the starting point, that is a lot more of a gray area. My own play group doesn't like that it starts at M15 because two players in particular are big on Theros block, so we sort of play an extended version of frontier that includes Theros in the mix. Unfortunately, our LGS runs frontier strictly at M15 and up so it's mostly home games with that rule set, but still.
Again, as much as I may be pushing frontier, I don't have anything against modern and I have a modern merfolk deck if you read the sig. I just vastly prefer playing frontier over modern because the decks just feel a lot more fair at the moment. When you don't have to stare down Ad Nauseum and Infect, you know you are in a good place.
Not aiming this comment at you, but Frontier is probably here to stay unless WoTC does something similar themselves and I seriously don't get the hate and dislike some folks have of a new format appearing. I'm not sure if it's just fear that Frontier will take away modern attendance and soon "Frontier night" will be the new modern night or what. There's a difference between criticism and just strait panic induced fear mongering, which has been traveling around quite a bit as of late thanks to a few people starting this "stores trying to cheat players on money" wagon.
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!
If we know that a non rotating format is only going to last for x amount of years, that kind of defeats the purpose of non rotating format. The whole point is to have cards and decks that you can play for the foreseeable future. If a non rotating format has an expiration date, what's the point? All it'll do is disenfranchise more long term players. Sure, it may retain a few unhappy Standard players, but at the risk of loosing a much larger portion of your player base.
Also the reason jumping into Modern is expensive to jump into is the piss poor reprinting strategy used by Wizards. We've had one event deck, and two dedicated supplemental sets. MM1 was near perfect, but was far too limited in it's print run. MM2 was a joke, with higher MSRP and worse commons and uncommons. As for brewing in Modern, you do have room to do that. Just look at the Deck Creation sub forum. There are a ton of good decks nestled in there, waiting for a card here or there, or simply more exposure. Brewing in Modern takes time and patience.
It's great that people are enjoying the new format. The issue I have is that is comes at the possible expense of Modern players. Also, as I stated before, if Wizards doesn't fix their reprinting policies to better support their non rotating formats, all the people who bought into Frontier will find themselves in this same position in a few years time. And then what? Yet another new format? Like I said, a new format is a band aid fix for a much deeper and more troubling issue that all non rotating formats will have to deal with until it is properly addressed.
If we know that a non rotating format is only going to last for x amount of years, that kind of defeats the purpose of non rotating format. The whole point is to have cards and decks that you can play for the foreseeable future. If a non rotating format has an expiration date, what's the point? All it'll do is disenfranchise more long term players. Sure, it may retain a few unhappy Standard players, but at the risk of loosing a much larger portion of your player base.
Also the reason jumping into Modern is expensive to jump into is the piss poor reprinting strategy used by Wizards. We've had one event deck, and two dedicated supplemental sets. MM1 was near perfect, but was far too limited in it's print run. MM2 was a joke, with higher MSRP and worse commons and uncommons. As for brewing in Modern, you do have room to do that. Just look at the Deck Creation sub forum. There are a ton of good decks nestled in there, waiting for a card here or there, or simply more exposure. Brewing in Modern takes time and patience.
It's great that people are enjoying the new format. The issue I have is that is comes at the possible expense of Modern players. Also, as I stated before, if Wizards doesn't fix their reprinting policies to better support their non rotating formats, all the people who bought into Frontier will find themselves in this same position in a few years time. And then what? Yet another new format? Like I said, a new format is a band aid fix for a much deeper and more troubling issue that all non rotating formats will have to deal with until it is properly addressed.
If someone is disenfranchised with modern and decides to play frontier, you want to take frontier away and force them to play a format they despise? If someone wants to play Frontier because they like the format better than modern they should play frontier. What you are saying is that you don't want your format to die and are willing to find any way possible, including forcing others into playing it, just so that you can be assured that your "investment" in modern is secure.
There is one simple fact that is hard for a lot of people to accept: Wizards can not fix modern. They'd have to warp it so significantly with ban lists and other archaic means that it would make no one happy. To top it all off, the year of 2016 was the year WoTC warped the MTG landscape forever and managed to do irreparable damage to both of their major formats to the point that people are now gravitating towards commander more than modern OR standard even during spoiler season of Aether Revolt.
Let me put it this way: Even if Hareyuya didn't start Frontier, someone was going to start something similar because a format that was supposed to be specifically for Japan ended up becoming a format that people in other countries decided to try out simply because everyone is so disenfranchised with how poorly managed modern and standard have been.
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!
In order for Modern to be fixed, it would need to be broken. If this most recent Modern season is any indication, it's doing better than it's ever been. Wizards does need to be more aggressive with the reprints though. I hope, though, that Fatal Push is an indication of their willingness to intentionally shake Modern up.
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Can you name all of the creature types with at least 20 cards? Try my Sporcle Quiz! Last Updated: 6/29/20 (Core Set 2021).
I'm not saying that you can't play Frontier, nor am I saying that all the Frontier players should switch to Modern. If that is all you are getting out of my posts, you are missing the points I am making.
1. Wizards poor reprinting policies is what have driven Modern prices up, pricing many out of the format.
2. Creating new formats to cope with card prices is not the way to fix card price/availability when the cards in question are not hampered by the RL.
3. If points 1 and 2 are not corrected, this same situation will happen to Frontier.
Get it now?
And yes, I do want to protect my "investment". I love modern as a format, and would like to continue to play decks for a long time. I've spent long hours crafting my brews, tweaking and perfecting them. It's been my go to format since original Innistrad. As far as protecting my cards pricing, I don't give a damn about that. If the chase cards where less expensive, I'd have more people to play with, and be able to build more decks. If that was what you where trying to get at, you'll need to step off of your high horse. You've always been hung up on card prices. I remember many posts of yours arguing for Fetches and duals at uncommon or common rarity. If you want to make assumptions about why people enjoy a format, I could easily say you enjoy this one because it's cheap. Instead, lets not do that, as it does us both a disservice, you know what they say about assuming.
Just as you don't want to see Frontier go down, I don't want to see Modern fail like Extended did. Wizards is actively weakening a cash cow of a format, with the removal of the PT, controversial banning policies, poor reprinting policies, and now the creating of a competing format. If you don't think this kind of behavior will find it's way to Frontier, you are mistaken. Just look at what has happened to Legacy and Extended. This will just be another format what Wizards has killed through mismanagement.
Hey, more power to it, if Wizards endorsed it (and maybe they have, I've been away from the game for most of year, completely away from it) so it sticks around as something official? Sure, then maybe it could be the 'eternal' format Maro hinted at months and months ago.
If its not and its just something being pushed by some vendors? I'll hold off on jumping in.
The concept of it is OK. I'm not sure I would care for it, as a lot of my favorite cards are pre M15, but I'll look into it. Like Oops said though, if Wizards fixes their reprint strategy (and makes MM worth it) we have no issue.
EDIT: And I saw some average event attendance numbers, whats this 'irreparable harm' done to modern? Numbers looked fine.
In order for Modern to be fixed, it would need to be broken. If this most recent Modern season is any indication, it's doing better than it's ever been. Wizards does need to be more aggressive with the reprints though. I hope, though, that Fatal Push is an indication of their willingness to intentionally shake Modern up.
My own thoughts are that they are going to start post modern with the coming of MTG Digital Next. They've been actively rebalancing things like Toughness and the power of burn and removal spells to make things more flexible at the lower CMCs over the last few sets. 2 is the new magic number for cheap burn and 3 requires at least 2 mana. Creature toughness has been rebalanced so that 4 is incredibly strong at anything under 5 cmc and 3 toughness is exceptional at 2-3 cmc. 4 cmc appears to be where they want 3 toughness as the standard average, as can be seen with Gisela, the Broken Blade and Rashmi, Eternities Crafter. Going forward, if this is the direction they are taking there's just no way they can add anything more to the current modern. Basically nothing they print would be playable in a format where lightning bolt and extremely fast threats exist that can end a game potentially on turn 3 sometimes.
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!
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That's why the new Fatal Push is needed in the format at the moment. I'm not sure if it will help balance out abzan, but it does give control a needed shot in the arm. Also really getting tired of people jumping on the ban fetches band wagon. It's not going to happen because too many people like them, they aren't format breaking even with revolt, and people are honestly thinking they aren't going to reprint zen fetches? What world do they live in? They are going to reprint the zen fetches fairly soonish.
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!
Unless you are proposing that they are not going to reprint them in the next year, I fail to see an issue. Also big assumption on personal preferences there, as I've got no stake in the matter. If they print them again, frontier has them. If not, no big loss.
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!
Push is stil only one card, it helps, but unless your playing B/R most of your removal is still going to be clunky and two cmc. I think its fine though, nobody wants to play kill/counter/draw all day. The fetch things is a little weird, even in abzan most lists are playing 4-5 fetches only because the fastland+painland is better for curving out, I haven't seen many successful four color decks yet though that didn't look like hot garbage. I could see them being axed for time reasons though, it is pretty annoying.
We will rebuild.
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!
I ran 4 colors and it seemed fine. I did Rally (every color except Red) at a ThNM and beat 2 Dark Jeskai and RG Aggro in the finals.
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)How many expletives do you want to put in your post? Second, why do you have so much spite towards a format of Magic? Did the frontier format manifest into some kind of Demonic force that took you to the back room, pummel you to the inch of your life, and then run off with your wallet?
I guess I just haven't really had a lot of opponents that wanted to run 4 color good stuff. The few decks that did try to do four color seemed way too slow, and the last rally deck I played just got hosed way too much since everyone was expecting it. 4x Hallowed Moonlight, 3x Tormod's Crypt, and tons of burn / removal from Mardu decks basically destroyed rally even with Spell Queller. Not all in the same deck, mind you, just that it felt like 3/4s of the players were gunning for Rally the Ancestors and Collected Company along with G/B delirium.
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!
My 720 Peasant Cube
I think Aether Revolt and the following block will resolve the control issue. Yahenni's Expertise is actually pretty good at stopping most things worth worrying about that get played turn 3 or earlier unless they are playing something like Lightning Weaver while also letting you roll into a card like Read the Bones or liliana, Heretical healer. Also, the best control walker in the format is Ugin, the Spirit Dragon who is a bit restrictive because of costing eight generic mana to cast.
I am kind of curious, though, if WoTC is legitimately trying to prevent control from coming back. It's not a very popular strategy to play against because it makes the games long and no one likes playing a game of watching every move they make get disrupted.
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!
This.
I dont see what the point would be at starting at M15. Just seems like an excuse to use (see: Sell) cards that dont see play in Modern but are no longer Standard legal.
Spirits
Agree here. Starting a new format due to limited availability in a single country seems asinine. Not only does this come across as a ploy to sell cards that aren't legal in Standard, and yet aren't powerful enough for Modern. If Wizards would just properly reprint Modern staples through Standard and other products this wouldn't be an issue in the first places.
Also, if this becomes an regular thing, with a new format every x years, where does that leave us? Does Modern take Legacy's place, being largely forgotten by Wizards? Legacy become the new Vintage, with only a few diehards clinging to what they know as magic? What happens to Frontier when it gets to old and yet another non rotating format is born? Modern was created as a non rotating format that wasn't hamstrung by the Reserved List. Creating a new format is a band aid fix, and attempt to hide a much larger issue of poor reprint policies and poor format support. If these don't get addressed Frontier will only suffer from the same issues Modern does.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
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Modern was never going to be around forever and neither was Legacy or Vintage. Eventually that window has to move forward or the format will just be too much for any new player to break into. Also, people keep making the statement that the format will sell underplayed cards as some kind of negative to players. Hate to break it to you fellows, but that has nothing to do with the popularity of the format nor its viability. It's popular because it's unexplored and offers people a jumping off point into a cheaper non-rotating format. We as players could care less about the economics of the entire venture or if it's being capitalized on by local game stores as long as people are playing it and having fun.
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!
With Eternal and Modern masters, those eternal formats certainly could be around 'forever'. Forever being as long as Wizards cares to support them.
Moving the goal posts is a short term solution to a problem that is down to localization, and a possible desire to shift stale product.
Allowing for unexplored space (I dont think so) may be a side benefit, but I sure dont see it that way, and its far easier to see 'cheaper non-rotating' as the lure.
Just pay up and play Modern.
Spirits
There's more going on than what you might be thinking with why people are playing Frontier and not modern, actually. The fact is a lot of people just don't like many of the mechanics that flooded into the format over the years as sets got added, don't like hosing cards like blood moon and leylines, phyrexian mana, etc. This doesn't mean that Frontier wont have mechanics that will make annoying decks, but the ability to play with an expanding cardpool following the newer design principles wizards has is a godsend. As for the starting point, that is a lot more of a gray area. My own play group doesn't like that it starts at M15 because two players in particular are big on Theros block, so we sort of play an extended version of frontier that includes Theros in the mix. Unfortunately, our LGS runs frontier strictly at M15 and up so it's mostly home games with that rule set, but still.
Again, as much as I may be pushing frontier, I don't have anything against modern and I have a modern merfolk deck if you read the sig. I just vastly prefer playing frontier over modern because the decks just feel a lot more fair at the moment. When you don't have to stare down Ad Nauseum and Infect, you know you are in a good place.
Not aiming this comment at you, but Frontier is probably here to stay unless WoTC does something similar themselves and I seriously don't get the hate and dislike some folks have of a new format appearing. I'm not sure if it's just fear that Frontier will take away modern attendance and soon "Frontier night" will be the new modern night or what. There's a difference between criticism and just strait panic induced fear mongering, which has been traveling around quite a bit as of late thanks to a few people starting this "stores trying to cheat players on money" wagon.
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!
Also the reason jumping into Modern is expensive to jump into is the piss poor reprinting strategy used by Wizards. We've had one event deck, and two dedicated supplemental sets. MM1 was near perfect, but was far too limited in it's print run. MM2 was a joke, with higher MSRP and worse commons and uncommons. As for brewing in Modern, you do have room to do that. Just look at the Deck Creation sub forum. There are a ton of good decks nestled in there, waiting for a card here or there, or simply more exposure. Brewing in Modern takes time and patience.
It's great that people are enjoying the new format. The issue I have is that is comes at the possible expense of Modern players. Also, as I stated before, if Wizards doesn't fix their reprinting policies to better support their non rotating formats, all the people who bought into Frontier will find themselves in this same position in a few years time. And then what? Yet another new format? Like I said, a new format is a band aid fix for a much deeper and more troubling issue that all non rotating formats will have to deal with until it is properly addressed.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
If someone is disenfranchised with modern and decides to play frontier, you want to take frontier away and force them to play a format they despise? If someone wants to play Frontier because they like the format better than modern they should play frontier. What you are saying is that you don't want your format to die and are willing to find any way possible, including forcing others into playing it, just so that you can be assured that your "investment" in modern is secure.
There is one simple fact that is hard for a lot of people to accept: Wizards can not fix modern. They'd have to warp it so significantly with ban lists and other archaic means that it would make no one happy. To top it all off, the year of 2016 was the year WoTC warped the MTG landscape forever and managed to do irreparable damage to both of their major formats to the point that people are now gravitating towards commander more than modern OR standard even during spoiler season of Aether Revolt.
Let me put it this way: Even if Hareyuya didn't start Frontier, someone was going to start something similar because a format that was supposed to be specifically for Japan ended up becoming a format that people in other countries decided to try out simply because everyone is so disenfranchised with how poorly managed modern and standard have been.
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!
My 720 Peasant Cube
1. Wizards poor reprinting policies is what have driven Modern prices up, pricing many out of the format.
2. Creating new formats to cope with card prices is not the way to fix card price/availability when the cards in question are not hampered by the RL.
3. If points 1 and 2 are not corrected, this same situation will happen to Frontier.
Get it now?
And yes, I do want to protect my "investment". I love modern as a format, and would like to continue to play decks for a long time. I've spent long hours crafting my brews, tweaking and perfecting them. It's been my go to format since original Innistrad. As far as protecting my cards pricing, I don't give a damn about that. If the chase cards where less expensive, I'd have more people to play with, and be able to build more decks. If that was what you where trying to get at, you'll need to step off of your high horse. You've always been hung up on card prices. I remember many posts of yours arguing for Fetches and duals at uncommon or common rarity. If you want to make assumptions about why people enjoy a format, I could easily say you enjoy this one because it's cheap. Instead, lets not do that, as it does us both a disservice, you know what they say about assuming.
Just as you don't want to see Frontier go down, I don't want to see Modern fail like Extended did. Wizards is actively weakening a cash cow of a format, with the removal of the PT, controversial banning policies, poor reprinting policies, and now the creating of a competing format. If you don't think this kind of behavior will find it's way to Frontier, you are mistaken. Just look at what has happened to Legacy and Extended. This will just be another format what Wizards has killed through mismanagement.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
If its not and its just something being pushed by some vendors? I'll hold off on jumping in.
The concept of it is OK. I'm not sure I would care for it, as a lot of my favorite cards are pre M15, but I'll look into it. Like Oops said though, if Wizards fixes their reprint strategy (and makes MM worth it) we have no issue.
EDIT: And I saw some average event attendance numbers, whats this 'irreparable harm' done to modern? Numbers looked fine.
Spirits
My own thoughts are that they are going to start post modern with the coming of MTG Digital Next. They've been actively rebalancing things like Toughness and the power of burn and removal spells to make things more flexible at the lower CMCs over the last few sets. 2 is the new magic number for cheap burn and 3 requires at least 2 mana. Creature toughness has been rebalanced so that 4 is incredibly strong at anything under 5 cmc and 3 toughness is exceptional at 2-3 cmc. 4 cmc appears to be where they want 3 toughness as the standard average, as can be seen with Gisela, the Broken Blade and Rashmi, Eternities Crafter. Going forward, if this is the direction they are taking there's just no way they can add anything more to the current modern. Basically nothing they print would be playable in a format where lightning bolt and extremely fast threats exist that can end a game potentially on turn 3 sometimes.
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!