- spidernova
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Member for 11 years, 8 months, and 5 days
Last active Tue, Jan, 30 2018 08:10:06
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Braxton the Dragon Lord posted a message on Remember when bans in standard were a rare occurrence?The problem with the last several sets is that Wizards is refusing to print good, cheap spot removal and counterspells. These are essential to the game. People whined about getting their things countered and now this is the mess we're in. Where is Doomblade? Go for the Throat? Color hate cards? They have been so intent on making creatures stronger that they put aside all the instant and sorcery counters/hate cards that keep things in check that the current situation bred from those terrible decisions. Just my opinion on why things are the way they are right now.Posted in: Magic General -
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crimhead posted a message on Is Magic Attendance and Sales dropping?Posted in: Magic General
Modern needs Wasteland.Quote from Colt47 »Modern itself is actually too far the other way, but that's a different subject
It would simultaneously curb the greedy mana and allow for some spicy unbans like Cloudpost, Eye, and (possibly) Dark Depths and the artifact lands. -
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ktkenshinx posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (Rules Update 27/10/17)Re: luck vs. skill argumentPosted in: Modern Archives
Just going to quote/summarize an analysis I did on this in July 217.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/779266-how-much-luck-is-involved-in-magic?page=3#c70
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I compared the 50 players with the highest format win percentages in Legacy and Modern, seeing where they ranked on a list of 150 players with the highest MTG-wide win percentages. Of those top 150 winningest players, 16 appeared in the Legacy top 50. For Modern, 18 of that top 150 appeared in the Modern top 50. This means that if we look at the winningest 150 players in the game, there is no statistical difference between how many appear in the bracket of top 50 winningest Modern players vs. the bracket of top 50 winningest Legacy players.
Taking it a step further, I checked the overall win percentage across MTG for all of those top 50 players in both Modern and Legacy, averaging the final results. In the end, the average MTG-wide win rate of a top 50 Legacy player is 63%. The average MTG-wide win percentage of a top 50 Modern player is 61%. This is a statistically significant difference, so there is something about Modern which accounts for a 2% lower win-rate than in Legacy.
I took this yet another step further and only looked at top 50 Modern/Legacy players who were also top 150 overall players. In essence, we’re narrowing down the Modern and Legacy lists only to big name top pros. This removes many players who just don’t have a lot of events in their portfolio, and those who aren’t in that elite top 150 overall subset. Looking at those top players (16 in Legacy, 18 in Modern), we find their average MTG-wide win % in all formats is identical: 63.8%. This, despite there being only two elite top 150 players overlapping in the Modern and Legacy subsets (BBD and Royce Walter). But their win rates within those formats are not identical. In Legacy, those players averaged a 71.8% win rate. In Modern, they averaged a 68% win rate. This magnifies the number above, suggesting that for top players, there’s legitimately something about Modern which is translating to a 3.8% lower win rate.
When we look at those players who aren’t top 150, there is a bigger difference between the Modern and Legacy win-rates. In Legacy, it’s 70.4%. In Modern, it’s 67.3%. So for the non-pro players, Modern is also affecting win rates, but less so than for pros: 3.1% for the regular players, 3.8% for the big names.
If we assume the sample is big enough, and if we assume that skill should generally average out to decide matchups over many datapoints, we can conclude that there’s something about Modern which accounts for between a 2% and 4% drop in your win rate that would otherwise be expected in Legacy. I believe this is the variance that people cite as being present in Modern and not in Legacy, but I don’t actually know if variance causes it. I don't know what causes it. I just know it’s a real difference. And, again, it doesn’t actually affect how many top players appear at the top in Modern events.
TLDR: There's no difference between "skill-testing" Legacy and a "high-variance" Modern when it comes to the number of top players winning events. But there is a difference when it comes to the GWP of those players. In Modern, the average GWP is between 2%-4% lower than in Legacy. This suggests there is something about Modern which causes players to lose 2%-4% more games than a similar segment of players would in Legacy. -
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Lord Seth posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (Rules Update 27/10/17)Posted in: Modern Archives
Is it? It seems to barely enter Legacy banning discussions. It's certainly nowhere near Deathrite Shaman when it comes to frequency of banning suggestions.Quote from Spsiegel1987 »At this point probe is one of the front runners for getting banned from legacy. Stop saying it was banned unfairly, it was a perfectly reasonable ban. It takes away one of the most important aspects of this game--bluffing. You can cast it for free, no danger, no worry, in any deck. -
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cfusionpm posted a message on Hello guys, thoughts on why "blade" variant non existent in modern?Because without Stoneforge Mystic, even the best of equipment is slow, clunky, and fragile.Posted in: Modern -
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Billiondegree posted a message on Temporary State of the Meta Thread (Rules Update 7/17/17)All of these aggro decks makes me wish Toxic Deluge was legal in modern.Posted in: Modern Archives
That, or some sort of miracles-like deck was viable -
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idSurge posted a message on Temporary State of the Meta Thread (Rules Update 7/17/17)If Twin is not 'safe' then this format is busted. How Twin could even potentially be oppressive in this format is beyond comprehension.Posted in: Modern Archives -
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cfusionpm posted a message on Temporary State of the Meta Thread (Rules Update 7/17/17)Posted in: Modern ArchivesQuote from BlueTronFTW »It may be worth pointing out that arguments for less variance means reducing the number of viable decks. That's reality. While WOTC may pretend the secondary market doesn't exist, any attempt to streamline the format so that some players feel like it is no longer so "matchup dependent" means invalidating the time, money and effort of a sizable chunk of the playerbase. I mean...guys...quad sleeved taking turns!
They have no issue invalidating strategies people have spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours investing in. In the past two years, Modern has lost nearly all of the "faces" and "pillars" of the format. Some through bannings, some through evolving irrelevance. Either way, WOTC has no problem with this happening. -
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Pokken posted a message on Temporary State of the Meta Thread (Rules Update 7/17/17)I think tec edge without the 4 land rider is what they ought to print. Try 2+{T} first to test the waters. Or reprint Dust Bowl and see if that does the trick.Posted in: Modern Archives
Why? Because Ghost Quarter sucks and manabases are a bit excessively powerful, particularly with Shadow.
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Modern is in a pretty good state right now, I would agree, but trying to put blinders on a community that is very invested and enthusiastic? Doesn't seem right to me. It's your job to balance and design the format Wizards, don't blame a networked community of people who are good at game theory and stats for breaking it, or at least hire some of them.
I'm also little confused about the potential for CnD. Is it the collection of data, or the publication of said data that's problematic? I don't use MODO, and am just wondering here.
And, I can very much understand something like that being in the TOS for a digital game, but can they do something related for a website that just tracks the paper meta? Is there a TOS equivalent for paper magic as well?
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What makes DnT so strong has little to do with stoneforge mystic. It has more to do with legacy being a hyper-streamlined format, as well as using a lot of cantrips. Thalia does a lot more in legacy in modern, and you have at least 7 cards that protect her, unlike in modern. Adding an additional colorless to a brainstorm can ruin a deck that plays a very low land count, and uses those cantrips to hit said lands.
Legacy DnT also has a much, much stronger unfair plan than the modern version does, thanks to vial letting you abuse the living hell out of port and wasteland. I've won far more games off vial+port/wasteland and thalia beats than I have off stoneforge. Heck, generally I don't even feel safe playing the stoneforge unless I can vial it in or protect it with mana disruption or mom, and that sort of gameplan is much weaker in modern.
Also, I don't know why that list isn't playing recruiter of the guard, but that card is bonkers.
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Can't get store credit if you can't win though. And if you're playing a deck with a sub-50% winrate, like most budget decks, you aren't going to be breaking even. And this might be a personal experience thing, but most of the stores around me that offer store credit are quite heavy slanted toward top heavy payouts.
At least where I play, entry is 6 dollars, and payouts go to a 3-1 or better finish. 3-0 gets 12, 4-0 gets 24. In that sort of setup you need to maintain a pretty high winrate over time, and that naturally slants the payouts toward people with the strictly best version of the deck or cards.
Even if you are a fantastic player, there are going to be cases where you just lose games because your LOTV has been replaced with a necrogen mists, or you can't afford a 2 mana 4/5.
I would actually argue that strong cards are even more important when players are skilled.
And no you don't "need" LoTV, Goyf, Blood moon and the other top 10 most played cards in the format to play modern. If you want to win consistently, which is the most important part of grinding out store credit, you absolutely do. Take any budget deck you can throw together, and then run it though the modern gauntlet, with 10 or so games with every tier 1 or 2 deck. I've done this multiple times with my friends brews.Unless you managed to break the format wide open, which does happen, that deck is going to have a horrendous aggregate winrate, and might not even be high enough to break even on entry fees. It's just a numbers game.
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Are we playing different games? As far as I'm aware, traditional draw-go control is pretty much dead in every big format, and midrange or tempo has taken over it's role. Aggressive strategies don't need help, wizards has been pushing them for years. Control is what needs help to compete with on-cast, undercosted creatures, with way too much value per card.
It's not a matter of that plainswakers are "easier to draw" It's that control decks see more cards in a game. And further, plainswalkers are 1 card engines, it just makes more sense for value midrange and control decks to play them. An aggro deck doesn't want to tap out on t5 for some value machine, it wants to just kill you there. Walkers are just better in midrange and control decks that draw the game out and hope to win over the long haul, as any single walker will generate value for free. Gee, I wonder why this deck that that aims to win on t9+ is more likely to play 6 mana walkers.
It's a matter of deck construction, aggro doesn't generally play walkers as a result of that, unless it's a walker that can win the game fast, like gideon, 4 mana elspeth, and a couple otherwise.
Your proposed walker tutor is also the kind of card that would see play in midrange and control, and not aggro. How much do you think that tutor effect is worth? I would bet that wizards would value it at 2 or 3 mana. Even if you have a 1/1/ or 2/2 body, that's still a 3/4 value drop. Not really where a deck that wants to win on t4-t5 wants to be.
I mean, i'm leery of 1-card engines in general, and most of those are pretty easy to deal with or remove. Walkers are exactly that, and really hard to deal with, so in my mind, I think they need to be treated with far more caution than wizards has been doing.
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I've been playing legacy for a couple years now, and I don't think I've ever seen "battles of counterspells", Most of the time it's minusing yourself off a FOW to just not lose on the spot, or using countermagic as an attrition tool.
I highly doubt that unbanning one decent cantrip is going to turn the format into a blue hell.
There are also plenty of really strong decks that don't need to play countermagic, thanks to every color getting strong answers, you get tools to keep combo in check like wasteland.
Elves, 43 lands, Death and Taxes, Aggro Loam, the new sweet RB reanimator list, Eldrazi stompy(Which is terrifying to play against), are all really good decks. Sure, meta may be skewed blue, but the difference between a tier 1 and a tier 2, or even tier 3 deck in legacy is a lot smaller than it is in modern, and every color gets to do broken stuff.
And honestly, yeah, I do think that modern could do to be more like legacy. At the very least, you don't need to ban the best deck in legacy every 6 months.
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Nah, Top's fine. Miracles got the ban it needed when DTT got the axe.
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Of those three cards, DTT is the most busted by quite a long shot. It's pretty much always 7 cards deep at instant speed for UU. And even more egregiously, it doesn't even draw the cards, it just puts em right in your hand.
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What about Jund, Maverick,DnT, Merfolk?
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In terms of other non-40k tabletop hobbies, it absolutely is.
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