As always, we need to look at data in a broader sense. In the last major events, we've seen a rotation of GDS, E-Tron, and Affinity having strong showings. IMO, that shows people trying (and succeeding) in adapting to the meta and perceived deck strengths. I also agree that if affinity had won the e-tron MU in the top 8 (which honestly, it really should have - VERY big advantage), this conversation would most likely look very different. It seems like people are just going back to their instincts of arguing for a ban to whichever deck did well most recently rather than on any sort of timeline.
The day 2 breakdown looks very diverse and healthy and the top 8 seemed to reflect this as well. The numbers even suggest a level of self-regulation. Look at 4 of those most represented day 2 decks - affinity (11) GDS (8) E-tron (6) and jeskai control (4) for example; All strong decks with a rock/paper/scissors dynamic. Affinity favored over E-tron but faces uphill battles against removal-heavy GDS and Jeskai MU's. Jeskai can value-grind through affinity and GDS, but doesn't have a great card-suite for E-tron etc, etc.
In fact, of the 9 most played day 2 decks, only abzan and burn (any explanations on this one?) didn't push a representative through to the top 8. And these decks represent midrange, control, combo, aggro, and big mana - essentially every deck type. I honestly don't see how people are still arguing that the meta isn't healthy; that is unless of course their argument is that they want more tournament results before saying so on the matter. Instead, it's mainly back to knee-jerk ban ideas.
Edit: correction, scapehift (6) also didn't get a top 8 rep.
Pros complain because they may go up against someone on mono green stompy and get rolled as a burn player or something. But you know the thing about matchups, pairings and the inherent chaos thereof? Its fair. If you pick a decent deck and know what you are doing, the odds of you facing three awful matchups is about the same as LSV. I understand why the pros say it, every bit of variance lowers the odds of making Day 2, top 8, or winning a major event. I just don't really care, because the WOTC cartel of pro play bothers me on a fundamental level.
I don't actually care for pros either, but this is the crux of one of my main complaints about Modern: bringing a deck with positive matchups against a predicted metagame is significantly more beneficial than simply being skillful with any one particular deck. It would be nice to have the flexibility to switch on the fly between several $1,000+ decks that have virtually no crossover cards. As such, most players simply play what they have and deal with the matchups they are given. It leads to wildly swingy outcomes that are heavily influenced by things outside of your control.
So you believe that diversity is bad? Or is it just a matter of diminishing marginal returns? The standard comparison has already been made, and I can tell you if the entire format literally was Grixis Shadow, E-Tron, let's say Burn and Affinity, no other deck existed that had a shot at going X-2 at a GP, I'd quit the format. That's standard to me. Hell, add Valakut and call it five decks and not only is that standard but that's a healthy standard!
Still worth noting how there aren't a ton of 80/20 matchups in modern nonetheless.
From my point of view, if it is the main contributing factor to my win percentage decreasing, yes it is bad. There's no deck in Modern that has no bad matchups, that's normally how I would try to control variance in matchups, but due to how Modern is designed for the masses and not for people who want to play low variance mistake punishing magic, diversity is a big negative for me. I'd rather play Eldrazi winter mirrors than what we have now, only because I have to prepare for the mirror and that my deck will crush everything else that tries to stand in it's way naturally.
If your idea of a better format is eldrazi winter, you won't be finding that in modern. And if something on that level of toxicity were to appear again, it would promptly be banned into oblivion, and rightfully so. Having a deck with no bad matchups (let alone on the level of eldrazi winter) isn't just unhealthy for a format, it is going against literally everything Wiazrds has stated they want for modern.
It sort of boggles my mind people try to defend the esper charm move. The opponent is purposefully cutting off the opponent from announcing their mode in hopes that an appeal to a judge gains him an advantage on a technicality. It's not a skilled technical play, it's not conducive to growth of the game, and it might not even be legal if you consider angle shooting and intentionally slow play considering you clearly know you're opponent isn't actively trying to hurt themselves. Pretending otherwise is just wrong on every level.
Noob question here, since I'm an online player (never played on paper beyond kitchen table when young):
If I cast Esper Charm and say nothing, isn't it implied that there are no targets and thus the chosen mode is "I draw two"? If the opponent ask for targets, don't I just say "no targets"? Maybe it's scummy on their part, but I should know what my cards do. The situation really doesn't strike as some obscure rules technicality: it only requires targets for the enchantment and discard modes.
Correct, everything you say is accurate. The issue is that there isn't a need for the opponent to ask "target me or you" in any scenario. The person who casts esper charm would be declaring draw 2 (or discard 2) unless an opponent cuts them off and asks for a target before a mode is announced. The ONLY reason an opponent would do this is an attempt to trip the player up and make them discard on a technicality.
Yeah, I'm just saying if you aren't interacting in any way w/ esper charm (such as a counter) and they haven't announced the mode yet,wait for them to say the mode or ask which mode. Asking "target me or you" is trying to gain an advantage in the scummiest way possible. Sorry if unclear!
This may be a harsh stance to take, but IMO, anyone who uses angle shooting (which this example clearly is) deserves to lose every single game of magic they ever play again. If you're countering esper charm, announce it. If it resolves, wait for them to announce the mode. If you're trying to make them discard on a stupid technicality, then (and again, admittedly harsh) you're not good enough to win on your own. No, rules lawyering doesn't make you "good" at magic. While knowing unique interactions is very important to figure out niche effects and the sort, gaining an edge "by any means possible" with those rules and technicalities is one of the worst aspects of the competitive mtg community.
This is akin to the ketterson RiP scenario from a while back. You know what the opponent is doing, playing dumb just makes you look dumb.
How do we sideboard/play against the current tier 1 decks e.g. Grixis Shadow, Eldrazi Tron and Vizier Combo?
What are key-plays/cards to watch out for in post-board games?
E-tron we should be heavily favored, but take out the etched champions and bring in things like dispatch/blood moon or ancient grudge (wurmcoil/maps/ballista etc). Like I said, this is a great MU for us, but dispatch helps for their bigger eldrazi and BM slows them down since we can cheese it out.
For grixis, i like to bring in any champions from the board, blood moons, and dispatch if you're running them, taking out master of etheriums (don't want too much colored mana spells)and steel overseers (they're generally removal magnets and GDS has plenty of removal. If you're running a full set of galvanic blast, I like shaving one, maaayyyybee 2 of those since their creatures generally dodge it regardless. The GDS player is also generally (or should be) aware of potential 4 damage to not go too crazy hurting themselves. Their manabase is so fragile that BM reallllyyy shines here and they generally don't see it coming.
for the new CoCo combo, thoughtseize/ whipflares. TS helps take away major bombs/combo pieces and whipflare is a great board wipe against their small guys. Holding up spot removal for kataki is key, though. I would take out a memnite or 2, your basic if you're running one/ on the draw, and thoughtcast if you're running them, and maybe an overseer (in that order of priority). I try to keep this MU sideboard light.
Yes. They clearly 'manage Modern so well' when they have next to zero grasp on the format, its strengths, or its appeal (which is higher by far than standard!) to the average player who bothers to watch Twitch.
He actually said they feared people would be uninterested?
Like, gross man, just gross! Its ignorance bordering on negligence.
I may be extra salty because of a MTGO game (Natural Tron into land into Ugin? SEEMS LEGIT)
Oh man, I feel your pain. I've never had a problem with tron, but last night I'm fairly certain I experienced the most brutal All is Dust since the creation of the card - bar none.
On the one hand, I really do feel for the delicate balancing act wizards has to go through in regards to standard and modern. For financial reasons, they have to focus on limited/standard. Modern is priority #2 to them, as it should be. On the other hand, they have a format their community loves, is passionate about, and very active. They show up in droves to events and follow the company's moves closely, and in spite of all that, it's almost as if WotC is trying to spite the modern community at times. Don't get me wrong, they've done some great things with MM17 and certain printings and acknowledging mistakes, but at a certain point you should move past acknowledgement and towards action. And "action" isn't "hide possible deficiencies and data via MTGO", it's card design, communication during ban/unban announcements (not a single sentence or worse yet - nothing at all), and more effective answers being printed.
The most important (for us) is probably the first one, which refers specifically to Modern and cites the Pro-Tour's existence as directly causal to card bannings. Posting the others for completeness' sake. I know MaRo isn't the be-all end-all but it's not like we have anybody else to go to for additional info/perspective regarding things.
Thanks for the links and quotes!
The only way I an get behind this move in any way is if it directly leads to unbannings. Otherwise, this still looks like hiding info for appearances sake rather than an actual plan to help/slow down format solving. There has always been a gap between the mtgo and paper meta anyway, either due to some decks just not being as viable online due to interface logistics (combo decks) or grinders wanting something they can plow through a large number of games with in less time.
I'd really like them to prove me wrong come August and actually show a positive change from this move.
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh. Any system where you are hinging success on limiting information seems like a net loss.
The meta will always be perceived as stagnant by a portion of the player base, especially in a non-rotating format. People are going to be clamoring for stupid bans or unbans, regardless of whether or not you put 5,10, or 20 5-0 lists up. Now people are going to be asking for bans or unbans but not actually have ANY sort of numbers to back it up. People are going to cite pro's articles for anything related to formats. It's not like the mtgo numbers were statistically even close to relevant anyway, but if they weren't able to put up 10 different lists with 10 different cards for each format (hence reducing to 5) then the players deserve to know as much. They're wasting their time on the most mundane of issues now (players have too much information!), but it makes them look shadier and is just a bad PR move.
This is like having a cracked phone screen and complaining it won't fit in your case.
I know I said I would bow out of this but I just wanted to say I think the 10 card thing has more to do with standard than modern; they recently made a standard ban based on player perception (probably due to lots of 5-0s of 2-3 different standard decks and players snowballing towards them.) The larger arguments still apply mind you. I just don't think it would be nearly as hard to find decks with more than 10 different cards in modern as it would be in standard. (correct me if I'm wrong this change applies to all formats)
I don't know, they didn't reference any specific format in their article. But the new "10 card rule" preemptively allows them to hedge on any arguments regarding format health. Rather than having people say vehicles/shadow/legacy delver are too strong because they post three 5-0 lists one week, they now have a rule basically enforcing them to post 5 different decks. They're putting band-aids over a wound that may or may not even exist.
I agree, it wouldn't be hard to find different decks for modern, because we already know (or a majority does) modern is a healthy/diverse format. In that same vein, we already know standard is NOT healthy, even if they're posting 5 different 5-0 standard decks. All this does is limit information to the players to deal with format perception rather than format health.
If limiting information improves format health/perception, why bother posting any 5-0 list? By that logic, if going to 5 lists is good, wouldn't going to 0 be great? The only people that actually benefit from this are pros that already have access to data that we don't due to their extensive personal testing. They aren't relying on wizards' 5-0 lists, they'll already be able to determine what works and what doesn't. FNM's are FNM's and people will always exaggerate info from them, but this actually has a larger chance of effecting SCG's and GP's. And this isn't just modern, it's every format.
What's frustrating to me is that they're turning a non-issue into an issue, then even messing THAT up.
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh. Any system where you are hinging success on limiting information seems like a net loss.
The meta will always be perceived as stagnant by a portion of the player base, especially in a non-rotating format. People are going to be clamoring for stupid bans or unbans, regardless of whether or not you put 5,10, or 20 5-0 lists up. Now people are going to be asking for bans or unbans but not actually have ANY sort of numbers to back it up. People are going to cite pro's articles for anything related to formats. It's not like the mtgo numbers were statistically even close to relevant anyway, but if they weren't able to put up 10 different lists with 10 different cards for each format (hence reducing to 5) then the players deserve to know as much. They're wasting their time on the most mundane of issues now (players have too much information!), but it makes them look shadier and is just a bad PR move.
This is like having a cracked phone screen and complaining it won't fit in your case.
Heyo, I currently have 2 masterpiece aether vials. seeing the recent spike, I doubt I'll be getting the other 2 for my taxes deck any time soon. is this an unsustainable price point that is more artificial due to how hard some of the masterpieces have been spiking (steel overseer, explosives, opal) or is it likely to hold steady? It's one of those cards that is a 4-of and has great art, but the fact that it nearly doubled in value the last 2 days has me weary.
De Mars has some excellent new articles about assumptions like this, particularly the line of "this play is great if they don't have..." followed by them having exactly that card and the game spiraling into a loss. I see that in soooo many Modern games, immediately followed by people blaming topdecks or variance. Not saying you are doing this but it's rampant in Modern.
It's risk vs reward. Do you keep Thoughtseize effects in against Ad Naus? If they start with (or mulligan into) a Leyline of Sanctity, it's a horrible choice. If they don't, it's like a free win. Even if they have the Leyline though, TS facilitates DS's game plan of losing life and filling the yard (target yourself, pitch a card you don't need, cast Shadow or Tasigur or Angler). Saying that these decisions are so clearly black and white is a misrepresentation. Sure, many people choose the "easy" or "simple" route, but often that choice is made because it is correct more often than it is not. Is the juice worth the squeeze? Sometimes it is, especially if you don't have much else relevant to bring in for a specific matchup. After playing poker as long as I did before Magic, odds are odds. Sometimes they have it, sometimes they don't. You can't dilute your own game on the assumption that they always have "it" unless you can afford to make your own game worse off or slower.
If you're keeping in TS because you've already boarded out worse cards and have nothing left to board in, that's fine because it still has utility. The issue is people blindly keeping TS in because it's just a good card, or worse, keeping hands that rely on a resolved TS targeting an opponent. This isn't meant as a sidrboarding guide to the ins and outs of when TS is good/bad in various matchups. It's an indictment of people that keep hands with 2 TS and no other business against decks that are significantly more likely to beat the TS due to SB cards or gameplan. Those people then blame variance and that's the problem I'm pointing to. I'm specifically saying these decisions are not black and white and require an engaged analysis of the matchup, not a blind appeal to a card being good or losing to variance.
So what you are suggesting is mulliganing to oblivion which involves variance because I can't find the tools I need to beat a matchup because WOTC banned both Ponder and Preordain. You are literally pointing out why Modern is awful, it's like what Owen Turtenwald mentioned in an article a couple years ago, Modern is an exercise in mulliganing and keeping hands that deliver action, I might as well play Blackjack at a Casino since I'm probably more likely to win there than gambling with mulligans in Modern for appropriate hands for matchups.
Mods can take whatever action they feel appropriate, but this needs to be said.
Sisicat, you've never contributed anything to this forum or any discussion other than format bashing segues and complete misrepresentation of other people's arguments. Every one of your posts is either stating why modern is awful, why wizards is awful, why every other game or format is better, or how little ability it takes to play modern. Your personal anecdotes revolve around how all of your losses are due to variance. You clearly, unequivocally, HATE modern. You make that known in every one of your posts.
So what are you still posting in modern for? Solely for trolling? Congratulations, I guess. You've successfully annoyed people on an mtg forum. Legacy and standard sound way more what you should be playing. Too expensive? Sounds like you already have a solid plan to win big in blackjack.
De Mars has some excellent new articles about assumptions like this, particularly the line of "this play is great if they don't have..." followed by them having exactly that card and the game spiraling into a loss. I see that in soooo many Modern games, immediately followed by people blaming topdecks or variance. Not saying you are doing this but it's rampant in Modern.
It's risk vs reward. Do you keep Thoughtseize effects in against Ad Naus? If they start with (or mulligan into) a Leyline of Sanctity, it's a horrible choice. If they don't, it's like a free win. Even if they have the Leyline though, TS facilitates DS's game plan of losing life and filling the yard (target yourself, pitch a card you don't need, cast Shadow or Tasigur or Angler). Saying that these decisions are so clearly black and white is a misrepresentation. Sure, many people choose the "easy" or "simple" route, but often that choice is made because it is correct more often than it is not. Is the juice worth the squeeze? Sometimes it is, especially if you don't have much else relevant to bring in for a specific matchup. After playing poker as long as I did before Magic, odds are odds. Sometimes they have it, sometimes they don't. You can't dilute your own game on the assumption that they always have "it" unless you can afford to make your own game worse off or slower.
Essentially this is a pretty good answer that hits the nail on the head, so not pretty sure cfusion is an example of "a man that complains about variance because of wrong choices". He seems more like a man who rates his odds and acts accordingly
You can't dilute your own plan to side TS out in our deck, Sheridan. What you are proposing is 100% absurd and plain wrong in the matchup. And it seems like a plain hyperbole and me, in my turn, felt the need to push back this argument. If they don't have the Leyline though(which you can also Echoing Truth if you run one), the matchup is pretty much over. And from my experience, I value having semi-free wins vs R/W Prison or Ad Nauseam with TS in the deck. Even if they have the Leyline you can still win with 4 Denials/Kommands/pressure/etc.
Sheridan specifically mentioned siding out TS against r/w prison originally, as that was the example deck being used in the discussion. We're talking about a deck that maindecks leylines and chalice. When CF changed it to ask about ad naus., he then went on saying that he specifically wasn't describing a match-by-match guide on when to side in or out TS. I feel like people don't even read these posts. Considering how long he's been playing ad naus., I think it's fairly safe to say he understands opponents are keeping TS against him.
The day 2 breakdown looks very diverse and healthy and the top 8 seemed to reflect this as well. The numbers even suggest a level of self-regulation. Look at 4 of those most represented day 2 decks - affinity (11) GDS (8) E-tron (6) and jeskai control (4) for example; All strong decks with a rock/paper/scissors dynamic. Affinity favored over E-tron but faces uphill battles against removal-heavy GDS and Jeskai MU's. Jeskai can value-grind through affinity and GDS, but doesn't have a great card-suite for E-tron etc, etc.
In fact, of the 9 most played day 2 decks, only abzan and burn (any explanations on this one?) didn't push a representative through to the top 8. And these decks represent midrange, control, combo, aggro, and big mana - essentially every deck type. I honestly don't see how people are still arguing that the meta isn't healthy; that is unless of course their argument is that they want more tournament results before saying so on the matter. Instead, it's mainly back to knee-jerk ban ideas.
Edit: correction, scapehift (6) also didn't get a top 8 rep.
If your idea of a better format is eldrazi winter, you won't be finding that in modern. And if something on that level of toxicity were to appear again, it would promptly be banned into oblivion, and rightfully so. Having a deck with no bad matchups (let alone on the level of eldrazi winter) isn't just unhealthy for a format, it is going against literally everything Wiazrds has stated they want for modern.
Correct, everything you say is accurate. The issue is that there isn't a need for the opponent to ask "target me or you" in any scenario. The person who casts esper charm would be declaring draw 2 (or discard 2) unless an opponent cuts them off and asks for a target before a mode is announced. The ONLY reason an opponent would do this is an attempt to trip the player up and make them discard on a technicality.
This is akin to the ketterson RiP scenario from a while back. You know what the opponent is doing, playing dumb just makes you look dumb.
E-tron we should be heavily favored, but take out the etched champions and bring in things like dispatch/blood moon or ancient grudge (wurmcoil/maps/ballista etc). Like I said, this is a great MU for us, but dispatch helps for their bigger eldrazi and BM slows them down since we can cheese it out.
For grixis, i like to bring in any champions from the board, blood moons, and dispatch if you're running them, taking out master of etheriums (don't want too much colored mana spells)and steel overseers (they're generally removal magnets and GDS has plenty of removal. If you're running a full set of galvanic blast, I like shaving one, maaayyyybee 2 of those since their creatures generally dodge it regardless. The GDS player is also generally (or should be) aware of potential 4 damage to not go too crazy hurting themselves. Their manabase is so fragile that BM reallllyyy shines here and they generally don't see it coming.
for the new CoCo combo, thoughtseize/ whipflares. TS helps take away major bombs/combo pieces and whipflare is a great board wipe against their small guys. Holding up spot removal for kataki is key, though. I would take out a memnite or 2, your basic if you're running one/ on the draw, and thoughtcast if you're running them, and maybe an overseer (in that order of priority). I try to keep this MU sideboard light.
Oh man, I feel your pain. I've never had a problem with tron, but last night I'm fairly certain I experienced the most brutal All is Dust since the creation of the card - bar none.
On the one hand, I really do feel for the delicate balancing act wizards has to go through in regards to standard and modern. For financial reasons, they have to focus on limited/standard. Modern is priority #2 to them, as it should be. On the other hand, they have a format their community loves, is passionate about, and very active. They show up in droves to events and follow the company's moves closely, and in spite of all that, it's almost as if WotC is trying to spite the modern community at times. Don't get me wrong, they've done some great things with MM17 and certain printings and acknowledging mistakes, but at a certain point you should move past acknowledgement and towards action. And "action" isn't "hide possible deficiencies and data via MTGO", it's card design, communication during ban/unban announcements (not a single sentence or worse yet - nothing at all), and more effective answers being printed.
Thanks for the links and quotes!
The only way I an get behind this move in any way is if it directly leads to unbannings. Otherwise, this still looks like hiding info for appearances sake rather than an actual plan to help/slow down format solving. There has always been a gap between the mtgo and paper meta anyway, either due to some decks just not being as viable online due to interface logistics (combo decks) or grinders wanting something they can plow through a large number of games with in less time.
I'd really like them to prove me wrong come August and actually show a positive change from this move.
I don't know, they didn't reference any specific format in their article. But the new "10 card rule" preemptively allows them to hedge on any arguments regarding format health. Rather than having people say vehicles/shadow/legacy delver are too strong because they post three 5-0 lists one week, they now have a rule basically enforcing them to post 5 different decks. They're putting band-aids over a wound that may or may not even exist.
I agree, it wouldn't be hard to find different decks for modern, because we already know (or a majority does) modern is a healthy/diverse format. In that same vein, we already know standard is NOT healthy, even if they're posting 5 different 5-0 standard decks. All this does is limit information to the players to deal with format perception rather than format health.
What's frustrating to me is that they're turning a non-issue into an issue, then even messing THAT up.
The meta will always be perceived as stagnant by a portion of the player base, especially in a non-rotating format. People are going to be clamoring for stupid bans or unbans, regardless of whether or not you put 5,10, or 20 5-0 lists up. Now people are going to be asking for bans or unbans but not actually have ANY sort of numbers to back it up. People are going to cite pro's articles for anything related to formats. It's not like the mtgo numbers were statistically even close to relevant anyway, but if they weren't able to put up 10 different lists with 10 different cards for each format (hence reducing to 5) then the players deserve to know as much. They're wasting their time on the most mundane of issues now (players have too much information!), but it makes them look shadier and is just a bad PR move.
This is like having a cracked phone screen and complaining it won't fit in your case.
Thoughts?
Mods can take whatever action they feel appropriate, but this needs to be said.
Sisicat, you've never contributed anything to this forum or any discussion other than format bashing segues and complete misrepresentation of other people's arguments. Every one of your posts is either stating why modern is awful, why wizards is awful, why every other game or format is better, or how little ability it takes to play modern. Your personal anecdotes revolve around how all of your losses are due to variance. You clearly, unequivocally, HATE modern. You make that known in every one of your posts.
So what are you still posting in modern for? Solely for trolling? Congratulations, I guess. You've successfully annoyed people on an mtg forum. Legacy and standard sound way more what you should be playing. Too expensive? Sounds like you already have a solid plan to win big in blackjack.
Sheridan specifically mentioned siding out TS against r/w prison originally, as that was the example deck being used in the discussion. We're talking about a deck that maindecks leylines and chalice. When CF changed it to ask about ad naus., he then went on saying that he specifically wasn't describing a match-by-match guide on when to side in or out TS. I feel like people don't even read these posts. Considering how long he's been playing ad naus., I think it's fairly safe to say he understands opponents are keeping TS against him.