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- TribalElfMage
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Member for 10 years, 8 months, and 3 days
Last active Fri, Apr, 12 2024 19:34:11
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Dec 1, 20176
LouCypher posted a message on Most Silver Border Cards are now Legal in Commander until January 15thSo what they're saying is that they're okay with me using Melek, Izzet Paragon to cast a The Countdown is at One from the top of my library, then copy it with an Increasing Vengeance cast from my grave using mana from Primal Wellspring and Pyromancer's Goggles. Gotcha.Posted in: Commander (EDH) -
Nov 1, 20171
Hellgrammite posted a message on Modern HumansI think against mirror your better playing Champion of Lambholt than Falconer. It gives you another growing creature in a stalled match, and eventually allows you to swing mostly unblocked. It makes your late one drops have some more value, a good target for exalted, and uses Mayor's boost well.Posted in: Aggro & Tempo -
Feb 22, 20174
Aaurra posted a message on State of Modern Thread: bans, format health, reprints, new cards, and more!Posted in: Modern ArchivesQuote from izzetmage »
And yet Serum Visions sees play in more decks than Ancient Stirrings or Oath of Nissa. So no matter how broken you try to make Stirrings sound, calling it a one-mana Impulse, SV is still better.Quote from TribalElfMage »People play Serum Visions in high quantities because it is the only way for blue decks to have any semblance of consistency while opponents are allowed to cast better Ponders and one-mana Impulses. Most people agree that Serum in a vacuum is a bad card that only sees play out of necessity.
SV in a vacuum is a bad card, if your "vacuum" transcends format boundaries and extends to the realm of Brainstorm or even Ancestral Recall. If your "vacuum" consists solely of what's in Modern, excluding the banned cards, it's a great card. It wouldn't be among the top 10 spells otherwise.
Do you think shocklands are bad cards that only see play out of necessity?
Look at it this way: Shocklands are on par with modern's power level, whereas the Alpha duals are too strong, and the BFZ Duals aren't strong enough (seriously, stop using this analogy).
Serum Visions is not powerful enough for Modern. Preordain is a much more "on-par" blue 1 mana cantrip for Modern's power level.
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Dec 12, 2016
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amalek0 posted a message on State of Modern Thread: bans, format health, reprints, new cards, and more!I'm going to drop this in here while the thread is young. Consider this my manifesto for what modern, in my mind, SHOULD be:Posted in: Modern Archives
Premise 1:
Modern exists as an alternative to legacy, where many different playstyles and every strategic deck archetype can exist in a viable form, which is not subject to the restrictions of the reserve list. In essence, it should fill the "ability to scratch any itch" status that legacy and vintage have, without the card availability issues.
Premise 2a:
Modern SHOULD exist as a format into which standard decks of rotating formats should be able to pass in spirit, if not in letter. If you enjoyed playing Mono Black Devotion or UW Elixir in RTR-Theros standard, there should be viable versions of those decks (grindy UW control with a late game backed by sphinx's revelation, or mono-black midrange powered by thoughtseize and efficient black removal and creatures). If your jam was more Jeskai-Black, there should be a four-color midrange deck capable of grinding from aggressive creatures to a hard control route. If you were an Atarka Red player, there should be a fast aggressive creature deck in Red and Green for you to play.
Premise 2b:
NOT EVERY DECK can port directly into modern from standard. The nature of modern is such that its power level will be very high, and that bar only continues to be set higher as time goes on. Decks based around block-mechanic synergy (think energy/aetherworks marvel) should probably port to modern with improved consistency and power level; decks based more around powerful individual cards and "goodstuff" strategies (like GB delirium in current standard) should have a much higher bar. Both decks are available as strategies in modern--GB delirium as either of the BGx midrange shells, aetherworks marvel as an actual aetherworks marvel deck, or any number of other spell-cheating mechanics (be it through the breach, goryo's vengeance, or pyretic ritual and friends).
Premise 2c:
The number of cards that enter "widespread" modern play from standard should reduce over time, as a general rule. This is because power creep in the game is slow but cyclical--in an ideal world, new cards would enter an already stable, balanced modern metagame on the basis of synergy between other card in the modern pool, or tools in modern enabling parasitic set mechanics (energy, soulshift, ninjitsu, morph) to become more synergistically powerful than they were during their standard formats, and not because these cards are general strict upgrades in power level to cards in existing decks. This is not to say that some sets introduce a lot of cards into modern (Oath of the Gatewatch) or that every set should have something for modern (looking at you, born of the gods).
Premise 3:
In the interest of providing a sustainable format, it is in the interest of everyone that the format be cyclical or self-correcting; periodically increasing the size of the ban list in response to increasing power level of individual archetypes and strategies is ineffective as a management tool for the format because it only delays the inevitable creep of powerlevel in various archetypes. Therefore, cards should only be on the banned list for extenuating circumstances: either the card is fundamentally a mistake of magic design (or functions in a synergistic way that behaves in a similar fashion to other design mistakes), the card is directly and solely enabling of an archetype or archetypes that infringe upon tournament mechanics and time constraints, the card is solely enabling of an archetype that absolutely and unavoidably inhibits format diversity in a manner that is either detrimental to overall tournament attendance or is resistant to natural metagame correction, or the card inhibits design space in a way that is limiting with regards to the previous three reasons.
Based on these premises, we can derive a few more pieces of information:
Derivation 1:
mental misstep, Skullclamp, and second sunrise absolutely must remain on the banlist for being known violators of tournament mechanics or design mistakes, and their unbanning should be taken only with extreme precaution, or as a publicized "test" to see if they are once again suitable for the evolved modern format.
umezzawa's Jitte deserves close scrutiny as a potential "design mistake" ban candidate or should remain banned as such
sensei's divining top should either remain banned or be watched carefully as a potential offender under the tournament mechanics clause,
dark depths and hypergenesis can conceivably remain banned or at least closely watched as potential offenders for infringing upon future design space
dread return, birthing pod, glimpse of nature, eye of ugin, and splinter twin should certainly be watchlisted as being potentially stifling of tournament attendance/metagame diversity, due to the resilience and speed these cards offer to their respective decks. Dread Return in particular may rapidly warrant re-banning.
Derivation 2:
Based on Premise 1, diversity of strategic archetype is important to a healthy modern format. Not every strategic archetype needs to have a tier one deck (tier one prison strategies don't make for good tournaments overall), but they should at least have viable tier 2 contenders, and a dedicated pilot of a given strategic archetype should have a reasonable chance of making Day 2 of large events and an expert pilot should be able to top 8 these events under favorable metagame conditions.
Derivation 3: Based on premise 1, modern should be a format which mirrors the skill-curve of legacy. What this means is that consistently powerful decks (regular tier 1 contenders) should more consistently reward tight play, good metagaming, and knowledge and preparedness for a matchup than they do variance of matchups and opening hands or the die roll. Decks which significantly benefit from favorable pairings, "lucky" variance with opening hands, or benefit more significantly than is normal from the advantage of being on the play should suffer in overall consistency or strength when on the draw. An extremely experienced pilot on a niche archetype should be favored in matchups he has metagamed and specifically prepared for when paired against less individually practiced opponents.
So where does modern stand on these points? Not very well.
In particular:
Modern has very little archetype diversity. At the time of writing, 32%+ of the metagame is fast, goldfishy agro decks, with varying levels of a combo quality--ranging from the all in combo of death's shadow + temur battle rage, the synergy machine of affinity, or the consistent pile that is naya burn, this is a third of the metagame that is essentially looking to goldfish you with fast creatures and a little bit of "reach". By the same numbers, a tad under 15% of the metagame is comprised of "traditional" midrange decks, including BGx and Bant Eldrazi, and then the next 8% or so are "big mana" decks (either of the tron or valakut-based varieties) and then we come in with prison archetypes at a measly 2.5%, and other controlling archetypes not even present enough to be recognized. Actual combo has a representation of one archetype as well (Ad Nauseum combo), and it also sits at about a 2.5% metagame share.
Based on the top 60% of the metagame, we see slightly over half of it (and a third of the overall metagame) comprised of decks filling every shade along the spectrum of aggressive linear creature decks. In an idealized, balanced metagame, we need some sort of cyclical balancing force, which tends to indicate at the very least a rock-paper-scissors trifecta, which would indicate at most a 20% strategic archetype share in the top 60% is healthy. Traditional midrange occupies a healthy portion of the metagame, "big mana" occupies a reasonable if slightly depressed portion of the metagame, and pure combo and prison are heavily under-represented, and actual control is absent entirely.
Takeaway: Modern is too linear, and needs some form of improvement to enable the prevalence and diversity of pure combo and controlling decks.
Takeaway: Professional players, and likely players in general, don't particularly care about *where* the powerlevel in the format is. What they want is the ability to leverage their personal time investment in the format and their own skill at metagaming and understanding specific matchups (things they have AGENCY over) more than the things they don't have agency over (like whether they win a die roll, get a favorable matchup, or draw their sideboard cards in their opening hand).
When it comes to the idea of a skill-curve, modern is woefully inadequate. Most of the complaints that come about modern from the professional community stem from the fact that there are too many different decks that require sideboard cards to consistently beat, or that there is no reasonable deck that can perform at a consistent 50-50 against the format at large. What most people take away from this complaint is the idea that Pro's either want there to be a narrow metagame (easy to attack, but boring for non-professional players who want a varied and diverse format), or that pro's want an OP deck (jund to be 55-45 or better against everything), or even that they just refuse to actually learn the intricacies of the format and that they refuse to invest the time to overcome these barriers to consistently performing well.
The disconnect here is that most people reading these commentaries mis-understand the intent of what these Pros mean. They don't care that a dedicated modern specialist can overcome bad matchups--in fact, most professional players would prefer if this were more strongly the case! They also don't want a deck that is universally better than 50-50 against the metagame at large--such a deck leads to very repetitive professional events, and increases the variance inherent in performance even among the pro's, which (they feel) takes away their own control over their professional livelihood.
What the professionals want is a format where the pool of competitive decks is diverse AND in which their personal skill (whether at magic in general, or in a specific archetype that they take the time investment to master) matters MORE in an individual matchup than luck of the die roll, archetype matchup, and variance in opening hands.
Conclusion:
It is my belief that the *best* solution for the long-term health and sustainability of the modern format is to release the large majority of the cards from the modern B&R list and see where things shake out after six months. Modern has already demonstrated that cards that are initially powerful or stifling of competitive diversity can, over time, be adjusted to by the available card pool and metagame. Since the initial banned list of the community cup, bitterblossom, wild nacatl, valakut, the molten pinnacle, and ancestral vision have been banned and subsequently unbanned. Additionally, sword of the meek, golgari grave-troll, both cards that don't really fit any of the ban description categories I listed, have come off of the banned list and not really been trouble for any real numerical reason.
The remaining cards on the current modern B&R list that haven't been discussed in the section on cards that have to stay banned or watched closely are as follows:
artifact lands
blazing shoal
bloodbraid elf
chrome mox
cloudpost
deathrite shaman
dig through time
green sun's zenith
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
ponder
preordain
punishing fire
rite of flame
seething song
stoneforge mystic
summer bloom
treasure cruise
Of these cards, we can lump them into a couple of groups:
This portion of the list includes the following cards:
dig through time
green sun's zenith
ponder
preordain
treasure cruise
At their core, what these cards do is allow decks to consistently execute their gameplan or locate narrow, matchup specific tools.
GSZ, dig through time, ponder, and to a lesser extent preordain allow decks to execute their gameplan by finding exactly what is needed in a slightly longer game, or the cantrips backed by treasure cruise ensure that faster decks (and some combo decks) can consistently churn through their decks without loosing too much velocity. In general, I believe that an unbanning of this entire set of cards ultimately favors fair decks, because the fast combo decks are all very soft to the 1 and 2 mana blue permission spells. Furthermore, grave hate actually is fairly strong against all of the combo decks involved with using treasure cruise, and the incentive to play strong grave hate also weakens other potentially-very-strong linear archetypes. Finally, most of the unfair combo decks that utilize these cards are very soft to certain individual hatebears, for which the presence of GSZ in the format is a huge step forward in playability, as an archetype or as part of a fair strategy.
Cards in this category include the following:
chrome mox
rite of flame
seething song
summer bloom
Cards in this category exclusively serve spell based non-interactive combo. Again, this is a category that is currently very under-represented in the modern metagame at the present time, and again, this category of deck is usually weak to grave hate. Also, these decks are universally soft to cheap permission and a fast clock. In other words, these decks are competitive with the other fast linear decks. Chrome mox in particular I think might open up some archetype space--only affinity actually gets a real mana accelerant in the format, and it may be interesting to see what shakes out when other decks get access to a mana dork (deathrite shaman) or a fast mana rock with a steep cost (chrome mox). The worry here in my mind is that summer bloom might be too strong given that it's a lot less soft to normal interaction, but at the same time it's still hard for it to deal with mana leak and spell pierce backed up by a clock. It also just loses to blood moon.
Cards in this category include:
bloodbraid elf
deathrite shaman
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
punishing fire
stoneforge mystic
With the majority of the cards being unbanned in current modern components of grindy fair decks, and the circumstances under which they were unbanned, it seems pretty reasonable that most of these cards return. Questions surround two of them in particular: Deathrite shaman, as potentially limiting diversity among fair decks, and Bloodbraid elf, because it would push Jund even harder than it already is. The obvious rebuttal here is that DRS is necessary to power up most of the fair decks to adequately compete with the newer, faster combo decks, and it provides a swiss army knife of interaction for dealing with the various non-fair decks in the format. Punishing fire is obviously important to deal with the fact that the new combo decks likely feature a version of elves, and they also provide an engine for the fair decks to compete with control decks going long.
artifact lands
blazing shoal
cloudpost
In all honesty, Blazing Shoal was banned before become immense was printed, and if you compare early builds of blazing infect to builds of today, I think you will quickly realize that newer builds, while a tad slower, are much more resilient and have a much better chance of interacting with their opponents enough to break serve and win from the back foot. It's a relic of Modern's past that it remains on the banned list. Gumming up your deck with four clunky uncastable cards and four very poor pump spells is not where modern infect wants to be.
Cloudpost is likely a stand-in for the urzatron decks, but it is worth noting that the speed with which emrakul mana can be hit is a concern, and this card might be too strong. Currently however, barring the absolute nut draw, it doesn't seem significantly better than tron's turn 3 plays, and it certainly outclasses on turns 5+. On the other hand, it's also fairly easy to profitably interact with the deck, as it's extremely slow and fast (er) mana is certainly a hallmark of this proposed reduction in the modern banlist.
The artifact lands no longer belong on the banned and restricted list. Yes, affinity might possibly become stronger with access to a multitude of sol lands, but remember that the artifact lands are also extremely weak. ancient grudge is now a 3 mana double-vindicate. many of the hate cards against affinity now also serve as complete land destruction spells. and Finally, affinity with artifact lands no longer gets the heavy creature-land manabase that is a huge part of its current flexibility and success--decks should be allowed to go slightly more linear at the cost of flexibility and robustness.
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Oct 18, 2016
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Wtfwhousesbbeony540 posted a message on UW ControlI keep seeing people saying that runed halo and leylines are good against ad nauseam. They aren't. Don't bring them in unless you think the ad nauseam pilot is brain-dead. They will just be dead cards at best and at worst they will trick you into thinking you're safe and then you just die anyways because they don't do anything.Posted in: Control -
Apr 28, 20162
Sentimental_Engine_Slayer posted a message on Modern Esper Draw-GoEverybody knows rg tron and Jund aren't control, I think he was just trying to prove some weird theoretical point bc he doesn't like the list. Which is fine, I readily admitted this wasn't the right place to put it, I just thought it was interesting bc I arrived there by tweaking the wafo list here and there over time over hundreds of matches and documenting what worked and what would have been better. I'm not trying to derail, I'm just saying think critically about the meta. Are are you really happy to see those remands against.... Well... ANY of the meta besides maybe grixis control or some weird non existent mirror? Maybe against AV decks , but even then you would have to acknowledge the overwhelming portion of the metagame is linear aggro of some sort, be it affinity, burn, or infect, or zoo, and gbx midrangePosted in: Control
Which brings us to the problem. Most of us have been building control decks BACKWARDS. Starting with one "golden list" that historically, nobody has really done that well with in a CONSISTENT FASHION, and then trying to rationalize the data to fit what we already believe: wafo list is untouchable and is the god-list of all control decks. Whereas even wafo himself would say in order to build a successful control deck, you have to look at the metagame you're supposedly controlling. That's control 101, and everybody here knows that. I'm speaking to myself as much as I'm speaking to any of you.
We can't build control decks like combo decks i.e.: start with a list that we assume is "correct" and then just hope the meta is favorable for us at any given point in the season. We are the police. Historically we are the people who have always said "oh, you willfully played a deck that folds to a single day of judgment? Neat. ". "You're entire strategy is to resolve inferno Titan? Sweet. Have a mana leak"
But anyways, at least we've got our shadow of doubts, right? Lol
TLDR; Not liking the list or not being a fan of the style is one thing, but to say it isn't control would be some pretty heavy mental gymnastics -
Apr 24, 20166
Lord Seth posted a message on No more Modern PTs: Modern guidelines revealedWell, Wizards of the Coast has successfully killed any interest I had in watching future Pro Tours as well as any interest I had in any PTQs that aren't in my home city (and possibly even those). It makes me feel like they're actively trying to push me away from the game (it's not for nothing I've taken up Force of Will).Posted in: Modern
I still don't know why they don't have at least some of the Pro Tours be split Standard/Modern. It just solves everything. It gives the Modern fans something interesting. It keeps the Pro Tour NEW AND EXCITING because you have the Standard portion, so even if the Modern part is a bit repetitive the Standard portion is NEW AND EXCITING. The only downside is that it drops the draft portion, and legitimate question: Is anyone actually that interested in watching that part? Most people I know just ignore the Pro Tour until the first three rounds are done. I can understand a desire for limited in order to 'challenge' people but that doesn't mean they have to do it every Pro Tour. They could easily have every other Pro Tour being Standard+Limited and the intervening ones being Standard+Modern.
Am I missing something? This just seems such an obvious solution to everything.
(I posted this in the banlist topic, but then noticed this one and realized it was more relevant here) -
Apr 24, 20165
AvalonAurora posted a message on No more Modern PTs: Modern guidelines revealed'Boo!'Posted in: Modern
Anyway, I think they are wrong about the 'problems' associated with an accelerated metagame figuring out-ness.
For one, I don't think it'll be as slow as they think it is going forward thanks to MTGO and various ways to figure out magic statistics. For another, I think figuring out potential problems that deserve bans faster is better.
I am also concerned with removing the Pro Tour without replacing it with something else Modern focused, because a reduced emphasis on Modern could also mean they are less motivated to give us needed reprints, especially with how many Modern staples they seem to have decided are too strong for Standard, or at least the vast majority of Standard environments. Even worse the ones that are perhaps too strong for limited so need to get bumped up a bunch in rarity even when they are reprinted.
I also think their diversity goals for Modern can't be met with their other guidelines and only current Standard balance levels for certain card types (particularly instant and sorcery spells), at least not for a very long time. There are certain areas of the Modern cardpool that are too weak compared to other areas of the card pool, which make certain deck archetypes hard to build at a comparable level to certain other ones, and those areas are generally not easily fulfilled with the kind of cards they seem willing to print in Standard (usually too high cmc for the effect to be playable in Modern). They really need, at least temporarily, or occasionally, a new way for more lots of more powerful cards designed for Modern power levels to enter the Modern card pool besides through Standard, or to power up Standard temporarily to Modern power levels on occasion if they want to hit their archetype diversity goals any time soon.
Current printing patterns of Standard heavily favor aggro and midrange decks in Modern getting continually better (with tempo rarely getting a scrap or two), while other types lag behind, except the occasional thing like a screwed up combo deck that slipped through the cracks due to interactions between older and new cards, and even that is becoming less likely as they print less in-Standard combo cards and be more excessively careful with exile clauses tacked onto anything that looks like it has a vague potential for abuse and such, along with often unplayable even in Standard mana costs. Control in particular seems to be being punished with counterspells, multi-card draw, and removal all tending to be much higher cmc in Standard than is playable in Modern, and becoming even more side-boardy and restrictive as of late to the point of being nearly unplayable in Modern's diverse metagame, even if it is vaugely playable in Standard or limited it was printed for. Not to mention 4 cmc solid board wipes being pushed out of the Standard meta, drastically reducing chances of reasonable reprints of cards like Damnation, or coming up with cool new variants like Supreme Verdict that can be Modern playable.
Simply put, it looks like they are changing things in a way that will lead to bad things for Modern, including steady or rapid price increases due to lack of reprints, slowly increasing dominance of aggro and midrange, and general stagnation and imbalance of the format for other archetypes that won't be getting comparable tools and card pool growth. They've learned too many lessons in Standard and Limited, and the results are hurting Modern, which has lots of pre-lesson cards, but not enough diversity of them across archetypes at that power level.
I'm sure they'll be able to keep banning broken stuff and keep the ban list minimal and allow a lot of different decks to be present, but I have my doubts about the number of archetypes that will be present among those decks, and the percentages of different archetypes, unless they drastically change things and allow some stronger stuff of certain archetype enablers to enter Modern than current Standard printing patterns allow.
It gives me poor hopes for the format, and is actually making me consider stopping investing in Modern entirely, due to poor hopes for the future of the format, and possibly Magic overall, because without a format like the ideal way I'd like them to manage Modern, it is hard for me to justify investing in cards, especially compared to other hobbies I could be having fun with, and the way they've begun going retcon crazy and relatively lazy with internal consistency with the lore. -
Apr 24, 2016
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Archanz posted a message on No more Modern PTs: Modern guidelines revealedFinally, now unban BBE birthing pod and twin to start, then all the other cards except the most broken (like skullclamp)Posted in: Modern -
Apr 4, 20167
CurdBros posted a message on Current Modern Banlist Discussion (4/4/2016 - Eye of Ugin banned, Ancestral Vision/Sword of the Meek unbanned)Posted in: Modern ArchivesQuote from MynameisHukos »Quote from Zortkiya »Interesting to say the least. Eye was expected and Visions was a sure makes sense by Sword shows that it is slow enough and beatable enough to be unbanned.
Where is the Bloodbraid Elf unban huh?
I would imagine that's next on the list.
With Ancestral Vision unbanned, I doubt Bloodbraid will come off any time soon. They mentioned it in the reasoning for ancestral coming off the ban list. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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I'm pretty sure Hostage Taker and two clones gives you infinite ETB triggers, right? Not sure what the payoff would be there barring adding something like Vela the Night-Clad, which while it would help the with making Niv-Mizzet unblockable for Voltron beats, as well as helping make sure your Lasav combo connects, I'm not sure if that alone makes it worthwhile.
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Also, Psychosis Crawler. Definitely run Psychosis Crawler. Other win conditions include token beatdown or just grinding people out of the game with your planeswalkers. The Nik dragons too, I suppose.
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40 lands feels like a couple too many, I could see trimming a couple for additional ramp spells like Explosive Vegetation. I'd also like to see some utility lands, like Karn's Bastion.
Karn, the Great Creator does shut off opposing mana rocks and artifact shenanigans, but would require some maneuvering to have his other abilities to be worthwhile
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You're a monster. I like you.
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Not sure what you mean concerning Authority of the Consuls, given that all the tokens they'd make off the Twin would enter the battlefield tapped and then fizzle away at the end step.
People play Serum Visions in high quantities because it is the only way for blue decks to have any semblance of consistency while opponents are allowed to cast better Ponders and one-mana Impulses. Most people agree that Serum in a vacuum is a bad card that only sees play out of necessity.
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As someone who plays the more midrange style of UW, I can take a stab at this too.
These kinds of UW lists don't try to sit back behind counters and resolve giant Sphinx's Revelations. It's all about one-for-one card advantage or using Supreme Verdict to put us ahead. In that respect, it's similar to BGx Midrange lists that try to just eek out advantage every step of the way. With things like Resto-blinking Walls, or cantripping with Cryptic, we usually have more cards than our opponent anyways.
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