I guess those that dread it's return can rest easy.
Hmmm...I think my paranoia is showing, but my brain just couldn't look past the wording. Dread Return is something that should never see the light of day again. GY hate is stronger than ever, but that cards power is off the charts.
Let me ask you this, what decks is Cavern of Souls empowering to the point of degeneracy? I'm coming up blank. As to whether or not I'd be pissed at a Cavern type card that gave creatures hexproof, of course I would. Being hexproof vs being unable to be countered are two wildly different things. You mentioned that Cavern invalidates one avenue of interaction, but hexproof goes way beyond that. I find it difficult to believe that Cavern is a big factor in control decks not doing well when there are many others.
A lot of control players, including to an extent me, dislike Cavern of Souls because "muh interactin' on the stack!" Unfortunately, you can't play that style of Magic any more. You can't jam a deck with counterspells, one win condition, and expect to win.
I'll be honest, what annoys me more than Cavern of Souls is on-cast triggers like on Ulamog, especially since there are not very many good ways to actually interact with them.
I get that, especially the on-cast triggers. I'm not sure what kind of standard environment would be able to produce a Stifle reprint, especially considering the closest thing they've done is Disallow. Then again, Stifle in modern would hose an insane amount of stuff, and I'm not sure the impact on the meta would be altogether positive.
The format would be a lot better if we had Counterspell and Fact or Fiction. The former we're never going to get because "standard" and "unfun", and the latter I don't see as well because of all the "fixed" versions of the card they've tried over the years. They just seem reluctant to ever bring it back, and it's probably a no-go so long as Gearhulk is in the format. It's a sad day when Glimmer of Genius is one of the better draw spells in the format. Having an actual good control deck would do a lot to decrease the amount of shenanigans. Daze would be interesting, but I think GDS beats up on the unfair decks enough as is. Also, **** Cavern of Souls - that card should not exist.
LOL to anyone who thought WoTC would unban anything.
Well now...your post reminds me of one of the ETron players I encounter at my LGS, except his stance is the complete opposite of yours. However, you both present your arguments in a rather hostile format which makes it difficult to take seriously. So let's go over your points, because I'm trying to understand where you're coming from.
1) Counterspell and FoF in modern seems like overkill. I love blue as a color, but there is no way in hell we'd get both of those cards. The power level of standard would have to be through the roof to allow either one of those in, let alone both. Some players, myself included, love to play draw-go magic, but that's not what standard has been about for a long time.
2) Glimmer of Genius is good in standard, but to call that a good draw spell in modern is laughable.
3) Not certain how you define a good control deck. What's your ideal version, and how would that reduce shenanigans in Modern?
4) Cavern of Souls is pretty much a pillar in any tribal deck, and no tribe save Eldrazi is remotely close to needing the axe that badly. Why does that card grind your gears?
5) No unbans yet, but the fact that they said publicly they're discussing unbans for February is good news. We'll have to see how the Pro Tour goes.
I'm glad other users here addressed your rant as well, and identified the flaws in what you're saying. Not much more needs to be said, except to perhaps validate the above quote, which basically exposed this community as some sort of persecutory entity and players whose archetypes don't work in this meta as the wronged, innocent party who "knows better" or something. Well I'm glad to say that in this instance you'd be correct, since as long as our decks are fine we really don't care and calls for changes are invariably just noise to us.
And I am indeed crushing tron presently by playing an entire deck entirely. Haven't cast a cryptic command or tasigur in a long time. Could have gone GDS, but not willing to pay for street wraiths. Baral was a lot cheaper.
This is a state of the meta thread. If you're here to point out that my perspective is wrong, try not to prove me right in the process. Midrange without blood moon IS bad now. And the reason it is bad has led to a host of other problems, such as storm decks (like mine lol) being mostly free from the interactions like discard, removal that would so easily pick it apart in any interactive meta.
Well, so much for trying option 2 again. Fellow midrange players please take note: our opinions are entitled and whiny, go back to playing your un-interactive combo decks.
@Melkor: Crumble to dust costs 4. Tron is live on turn 3, etron typically casts TKS turn 3 or even 2. Yes it'll stop scapeshift, but so will blood moon, a turn earlier. So what was the point of bringing up a hate card that's weaker than the one I mentioned? Because you think I didn't think of it? Since you've called me entitled and whiny, don't be too angry if I call you out for being condescending and oppressive.
I'm going to respectfully disagree that mid-range sans blood moon is bad. Granted that opinion varies depending on what your metric of bad is; are you meaning bad against ETron and Scapeshift, or bad against the field? Again, our views are largely colored by our own experiences, but I've never struggled against ETron or Scapeshift overall. Sometimes ETron slams TKS turn 2 and that feels super bad, and sometimes Scapeshift goes nuts before you have interaction, but those instances are not the majority.
I recently had some folks at my LGS complain that I was using GDS too much. They felt it was unfair to be playing such a high tier deck when they didn't have the resources to match it. Far be it for me to tell them that several people thought their linear combo decks were the epitome of unfair, so I brewed up a UB Faeries list. It's my favorite deck I've made in the 22 years I've been playing magic. It cost, mostly because Snapcaster Mage, but it represents the kind of magic I find the most fun: heavy interaction/disruption, and it plays differently against almost every deck it plays. That being said, CoCo decks and Affinity tend to smash it into dust, but I knew that before I finished building it.
The point of all this is that you can play whatever kind of magic you want to, but you have to temper your expectations. I wouldn't take my faeries deck into a big tournament, because against the field it struggles, despite matching up very well against Storm, Titanshift, and ETron. I'm ok with that, and frankly I don't have any aspirations beyond my LGS, where I can play Modern three times a week against new and old decks.
as long as land-based combo decks exist, it doesn't matter what value card you unban for the midrange decks. They will still be crushed because lands are hard to interact with in modern outside of the sideboard (sometimes mainboard) blood moon. If you're a midrange deck that can't play blood moon well (grixis, abzan, tokens), then you have a few options:
1. Play another deck
2. Whine on MTGS and be labelled a "vocal minority"
3. Modify your deck into combo (URx - storm, GWx - counters) and ignore the tron lands/valakuts like how they ignore you
More than 1 option can be chosen. I've personally gone with all 3 previously, playing decks that can beat the land-based combo decks while also calling for change (i really like playing interaction outside of blood moon which isn't really interaction anyway), but lately I've dropped option 2 for the most part, since the people who aren't being owned by the land combo decks will label you minority. You just hope someday their main decks will be the ones wiped from feasibility and you can be there ready to label them a vocal minority.
You actually have another option, write off those matches as ones that your archetype of choice will never be favored against and move on. Midrange is in no way entitled to no weaknesses as an archetype, same as the rest of the format. That's just part of Modern, no matter which deck you play, there will be an archetype or sub-archetype that you just fundamentally don't have a good chance against, with no reasonable way to deal with it. Tron loses to faster combo, as a Tron player, I look at some sideboard options, but otherwise write off those games and accept that it's a meta deck. I seriously cannot understand why midrange players feel like they have the right to have a reasonable chance against everything in the format, and no crippling weaknesses, when that is not the case for any other archetype. It really just comes across as entitled and whiny. If you absolutely have to win against everything, and you refuse to play another deck better suited for the decks you see, I would remind you that your sideboard is also a part of your deck. Splash white, play Stony Silence, or play Crumble to Dust. As a Tron player, I assure you, it'll do wonders for your Tron matchup, and my LGS Scapeshift player hates Crumble more than any other card in the game. Midrange works on skill, part of being a good player is knowing strengths, weaknesses, how to adapt, and what to bother adapting to
This person gets it. No matter what you're playing, there are going to be weaknesses to your deck. Sure, I've got great matchups against ETron, Titanshift, and Storm while using GDS, but Affinity typically gives me a hard time. I've got a UB faeries list that's my favorite deck I've ever built, but it folds so hard to aggro it's ridiculous. Mid-range decks are fun, and are typically 'fair', but that doesn't mean they have to be the best decks around. GDS is very good against the field, but make no mistake it's got it's flaws, just like ETron, Titanshift, and Storm do.
My real hang-up with text driven conversation is that inflection and tone have to be spelled out, otherwise there's a good chance this happens. Granted I didn't do a great job of it, being at work and doing this via mobile aka I was in a hurry; my intent was to further build upon a previous post saying that people had freaked out over the possibility of BBE into Liliana. The chances of that are remote, and I thought I'd be hyperbolic and funny by suggesting that BBE could help Living End, which as some have pointed out, is absurd. I have successfully failed at presenting this point and have instead led other posters to believe I am simple and soft-headed, for which I apologise profusely.
fair play my friend. I too suffer at the hands of trying to access MTGS on a mobile, and all the nonsense that ensues.
Thanks for understanding. Back to talking about MTG, it'll be interesting to see how the PT goes next year. Is the sky falling, or is Modern in a decent place? Kind of weird to put all of that on a PT, but that seems to be the situation. One thing I think we can all agree on is that the top decks, while diverse among themselves, aren't what we want among the best decks.
I don't really have a problem with any one of the top decks except Titanshift, and that's just my personal bias, but having all of them be the best of their respective archetypes is problematic.
You raise an interesting point by talking about the top decks in this way:
Neither titanshift or eldrazi tron has placed well at a large tournament in a long time. This recent scg Charlotte event showed E-tron having one of the worst conversion rates I think I've seen, with a large number of total players on the deck, 15 making day two and then only one just barely scraping into the top 32. Titanshift is hardly any better (in fact to be brutally honest it's worse)
Both decks are suffering from "everyone says this deck is good but results aren't backing up this assertion", which is sort of weird!
We know that both decks have had a relatively recent spike in popularity, but this really isn't translating into actual results. Obviously there's a lot of factors playing into this. There's no one solution to the puzzle.
But the fact remains there's a lot of vocal individuals making themselves heard on streams, comments-sections and on forums to the effect that these two decks (specifically these decks) are like the death of modern or something, and the sky is falling and for some reason they need to be banned or it's all doom & gloom, and they are going to quit modern.
It's a specific kind of person that will persistently hang around these places online and just hammer a negative opinion over and over, rather than taking their leave or looking for positive alternatives. I don't think it's particularly helpful as a narrative (partly because it's so visible, these people take efforts to be seen) and I'm confused by the disconnect between actual results, modern metagame analysis, anecdotal local results and the persistent whining coming from this vocal minority.
Maybe there's something I'm missing, but I haven't seen any actual evidence that modern is in any kind of doldrums or bad way. Seems fine, like genuinely fine. You can pretty much play what you want, there's decent sideboard options in basically every colour, splashing for additional colours in your deck is easier than ever and no single deck is in a dominating format-warping position. Moreover, just like always, the metagame pendulum is constantly swinging and before long we'll see that familiar flux happening with decks rising and falling on the rankings. Everyone's so keen to take a snapshot of modern and cry foul, without acknowledging the changing nature that's always been part of the format.
Anyway that's not a dig at you personally, it just addresses a point echoed by your comment. I was addressing the community at-large not picking on you. Hope that's clear
No sweat. To clarify, I don't think Modern is really in trouble, it's just that the top decks (for the most part) are really polarizing. I mentioned before that I'm not a fan of Titanshift, but I've seen people that are scared to death of Eldrazi Tron. There are others who think that Storm is the signal of the apocalypse, and that Splinter Twin is the savior Modern needs. Because we have a severe lack of hard data, our own experiences are going to color our perception of the meta. I pilot GDS primarily, and it's a hell of a lot of fun, but even though a lot of people consider it the most 'fair' of the top tier decks, there are those that hate my guts when they sit across the table knowing what's coming. There's a particular Tron player at my LGS who thinks anyone playing blue is the anti-christ, but it just goes to show how much personal experience shapes our perspective.
I don't think BBE belongs on the banlist either, but I'm surprised no one has tried to make the argument that it could elevate Living End.
uh, because it wouldn't 0_0
My real hang-up with text driven conversation is that inflection and tone have to be spelled out, otherwise there's a good chance this happens. Granted I didn't do a great job of it, being at work and doing this via mobile aka I was in a hurry; my intent was to further build upon a previous post saying that people had freaked out over the possibility of BBE into Liliana. The chances of that are remote, and I thought I'd be hyperbolic and funny by suggesting that BBE could help Living End, which as some have pointed out, is absurd. I have successfully failed at presenting this point and have instead led other posters to believe I am simple and soft-headed, for which I apologise profusely.
fair play my friend. I too suffer at the hands of trying to access MTGS on a mobile, and all the nonsense that ensues.
Thanks for understanding. Back to talking about MTG, it'll be interesting to see how the PT goes next year. Is the sky falling, or is Modern in a decent place? Kind of weird to put all of that on a PT, but that seems to be the situation. One thing I think we can all agree on is that the top decks, while diverse among themselves, aren't what we want among the best decks.
I don't really have a problem with any one of the top decks except Titanshift, and that's just my personal bias, but having all of them be the best of their respective archetypes is problematic.
I don't think BBE belongs on the banlist either, but I'm surprised no one has tried to make the argument that it could elevate Living End.
uh, because it wouldn't 0_0
My real hang-up with text driven conversation is that inflection and tone have to be spelled out, otherwise there's a good chance this happens. Granted I didn't do a great job of it, being at work and doing this via mobile aka I was in a hurry; my intent was to further build upon a previous post saying that people had freaked out over the possibility of BBE into Liliana. The chances of that are remote, and I thought I'd be hyperbolic and funny by suggesting that BBE could help Living End, which as some have pointed out, is absurd. I have successfully failed at presenting this point and have instead led other posters to believe I am simple and soft-headed, for which I apologise profusely.
B-b-but... Bloodbraid Elf into Liliana! BLOODBRAID ELF INTO LILIANA!
As far as I can tell, that's the only argument people have for it being banned. Or at least it's what people try to bring up whenever I suggest the card should be unbanned.
I don't think BBE belongs on the banlist either, but I'm surprised no one has tried to make the argument that it could elevate Living End. There's also the possibility that it could bust something coming up in Rivals, but barring that I really don't see why it needs to remain banned.
Living in the UK I don't think we've seen a noticeable decrease in modern attendance at any of the stores that offer regular modern sanctioned tournaments.
In fact, recent modern events have broken attendance records in cities like Birmingham where larger stores operate.
I'm not disputing that some smaller stores may have seen a shift in format interest, but as is often the case, this can be swung just by a small group of friends trying something different, and suddenly it looks like a format has completely dropped off in your local shop. From my own experience, a group of modern aficionados in my small town decided on a whim to give legacy a try, selling their modern decks to buy into the format. As they quickly discovered, legacy events weren't popular and most people didn't follow them down the rabbit hole, so the experiment collapsed and a few of them ended up selling out of magic altogether. As a result, modern attendance dipped, but then we only had about 8-14 players max anyway for an average modern FNM so this one group jumping ship made a big difference. My point is that you could look at this example in a superficial way and come to all sorts of conclusions about how modern was dying and attendance was suffering, but in reality it was just a handful of guys deciding to try out legacy (with less than ideal results).
In aggregate, I don't think you can make those sorts of "modern is dying" claims based on anecdotal local evidence. It just doesn't work. It's a common facet of how people tend to think, but it's not factual or helpful.
Completely agree with you. We have three modern events a week at my LGS here in the US, and each one gets over a dozen people easily. That being said, the total number of people coming to play modern each week is only around 45-55, which isnt even close to a proper sample size to gauge the health of modern. We would need some kind of hard data from LGS owners across the globe to get a good idea of how often modern is being played at the local level, and I just can't see a scenario where that would happen.
How interesting that modern is in a bad state now after some of the regulars here were laughing about how bad standard was for years...
Go ahead and play standard, I have no interest in spending all that money on rotating metas where a tier 1 deck can literally become unplayable weeks later. I do think as a whole standard is more skill-testing and interactive, mainly because there's so much interaction and board-stalls.
I do feel as though people are beginning to say, "hey, modern is now too diverse, I can't meta as well"
I don't think that's completely untrue. The meta has become so open that you simply can't be prepared, and some matchups are so atrocious that the better player is really fighting uphill
There's no way to meta against Titanshift, Grixis Shadow, Storm and E-Tron while fighting through a slew of diverse decks in a long tournament.
At the same time, is it really a coincidence we see so many familiar big names do well in these modern tournaments?
Standard was a pile of garbage for years, it makes sense that modern is shrinking now that the format is decent again.
Not really sure how you guys think things will be fixed, but I don't think a BBE unban is going to do it.
I do think the death of infect hurt this format though, it kept decks like storm and titan shift in check
I called Infect a police deck and was corrected that it was a parameter deck. What do you guys think?
Infect being dead severely hurt jund. I actually think Jund is a straight up bad deck now, despite playing a pile of some of the best cards in the format.
There's not enough keeping combo in check while being reasonable against an open field---this is an issue.
I absolutely believe dredge was a toxic deck and believe GGT was one of the best bans modern has ever received.
But I am starting to doubt Probe's ban now, for the first time ever, along with Splinter Twin.
Would splinter twin really do well though? Shadow would eat it alive, and I'm trying to think if E-Tron would, too
I'm not sure how to fix Modern. Part of my issue is identifying what specifically needs fixing. Going by the very limited sample size here, the problems seem to be:
-fun factor (which is subjective as hell)
-top decks are boring to watch in action for the most part
-color pie imbalance
The issue of a deck being unable to compete against the field and the top decks (without being one of them) irks me. Isn't that how it's always been? What makes the current top tier different? Is it because people just have a massive hatred of them all except GDS? I get that playing against Titanshift and ETron can be frustrating, but tbh I'd rather face either one a dozen times before sitting across from pod or dredge again. Storm doesn't come close, I just don't get why some people treat that deck like the Boogeyman.
As far as colors, I've been a blue player since I started magic back in 1996. I've always enjoyed the idea of out playing my opponent through subterfuge and careful planning, which blue represented. That's changed a bit over the years, and frankly the way I like to play MTG is a) hard to win with and b) would be deemed unfun by a majority of players. Something that starts a lot of arguments is what does playing a color(s) mean? What is the accepted idea of what a blue deck should mean? For instance, GDS doesn't quite fulfill my ideal of a blue deck, but it is a damn good deck.
Maybe I'm just in the minority here, but Modern is going strong at my LGS. We have tournaments three days a week, and lately we've had some interesting decks start cropping up. I know there are problems with the top of the format, but it is difficult to come here and see it all being discussed when the tournaments I'm going to are some of the most fun I've had in Magic in quite awhile.
I agree that watching matches between Eldrazi Tron and Storm are boring as hell, and fighting Scapeshift can feel like banging your head against a wall. I've been piloting GDS for awhile now, and I enjoy the hell out of the deck. I've also got a Faeries deck that really upsets combo/big Mana decks, but loses hard to Robots and CoCo. I see people here talking about the meta, but it seems really difficult to pin down just what the meta is based on the information we have access to. I know the meta at my LGS, but Nationwide? Worldwide? Paper vs MTGO? How do we even aggregate the little bit of data we have access to?
Not too sure tbh. Storm would love the control he gives you over your draws, but that 4 cmc is likely too much for storm decks to swallow. There was a Jeskai superfriends build I saw years ago (before Jeskai was a thing) that JTMS slots into perfectly, but I'm not convinced that deck could be better than Jeskai Nahiri.
Hmmm...I think my paranoia is showing, but my brain just couldn't look past the wording. Dread Return is something that should never see the light of day again. GY hate is stronger than ever, but that cards power is off the charts.
I get that, especially the on-cast triggers. I'm not sure what kind of standard environment would be able to produce a Stifle reprint, especially considering the closest thing they've done is Disallow. Then again, Stifle in modern would hose an insane amount of stuff, and I'm not sure the impact on the meta would be altogether positive.
Well now...your post reminds me of one of the ETron players I encounter at my LGS, except his stance is the complete opposite of yours. However, you both present your arguments in a rather hostile format which makes it difficult to take seriously. So let's go over your points, because I'm trying to understand where you're coming from.
1) Counterspell and FoF in modern seems like overkill. I love blue as a color, but there is no way in hell we'd get both of those cards. The power level of standard would have to be through the roof to allow either one of those in, let alone both. Some players, myself included, love to play draw-go magic, but that's not what standard has been about for a long time.
2) Glimmer of Genius is good in standard, but to call that a good draw spell in modern is laughable.
3) Not certain how you define a good control deck. What's your ideal version, and how would that reduce shenanigans in Modern?
4) Cavern of Souls is pretty much a pillar in any tribal deck, and no tribe save Eldrazi is remotely close to needing the axe that badly. Why does that card grind your gears?
5) No unbans yet, but the fact that they said publicly they're discussing unbans for February is good news. We'll have to see how the Pro Tour goes.
I'm going to respectfully disagree that mid-range sans blood moon is bad. Granted that opinion varies depending on what your metric of bad is; are you meaning bad against ETron and Scapeshift, or bad against the field? Again, our views are largely colored by our own experiences, but I've never struggled against ETron or Scapeshift overall. Sometimes ETron slams TKS turn 2 and that feels super bad, and sometimes Scapeshift goes nuts before you have interaction, but those instances are not the majority.
I recently had some folks at my LGS complain that I was using GDS too much. They felt it was unfair to be playing such a high tier deck when they didn't have the resources to match it. Far be it for me to tell them that several people thought their linear combo decks were the epitome of unfair, so I brewed up a UB Faeries list. It's my favorite deck I've made in the 22 years I've been playing magic. It cost, mostly because Snapcaster Mage, but it represents the kind of magic I find the most fun: heavy interaction/disruption, and it plays differently against almost every deck it plays. That being said, CoCo decks and Affinity tend to smash it into dust, but I knew that before I finished building it.
The point of all this is that you can play whatever kind of magic you want to, but you have to temper your expectations. I wouldn't take my faeries deck into a big tournament, because against the field it struggles, despite matching up very well against Storm, Titanshift, and ETron. I'm ok with that, and frankly I don't have any aspirations beyond my LGS, where I can play Modern three times a week against new and old decks.
This person gets it. No matter what you're playing, there are going to be weaknesses to your deck. Sure, I've got great matchups against ETron, Titanshift, and Storm while using GDS, but Affinity typically gives me a hard time. I've got a UB faeries list that's my favorite deck I've ever built, but it folds so hard to aggro it's ridiculous. Mid-range decks are fun, and are typically 'fair', but that doesn't mean they have to be the best decks around. GDS is very good against the field, but make no mistake it's got it's flaws, just like ETron, Titanshift, and Storm do.
No sweat. To clarify, I don't think Modern is really in trouble, it's just that the top decks (for the most part) are really polarizing. I mentioned before that I'm not a fan of Titanshift, but I've seen people that are scared to death of Eldrazi Tron. There are others who think that Storm is the signal of the apocalypse, and that Splinter Twin is the savior Modern needs. Because we have a severe lack of hard data, our own experiences are going to color our perception of the meta. I pilot GDS primarily, and it's a hell of a lot of fun, but even though a lot of people consider it the most 'fair' of the top tier decks, there are those that hate my guts when they sit across the table knowing what's coming. There's a particular Tron player at my LGS who thinks anyone playing blue is the anti-christ, but it just goes to show how much personal experience shapes our perspective.
Thanks for understanding. Back to talking about MTG, it'll be interesting to see how the PT goes next year. Is the sky falling, or is Modern in a decent place? Kind of weird to put all of that on a PT, but that seems to be the situation. One thing I think we can all agree on is that the top decks, while diverse among themselves, aren't what we want among the best decks.
I don't really have a problem with any one of the top decks except Titanshift, and that's just my personal bias, but having all of them be the best of their respective archetypes is problematic.
My real hang-up with text driven conversation is that inflection and tone have to be spelled out, otherwise there's a good chance this happens. Granted I didn't do a great job of it, being at work and doing this via mobile aka I was in a hurry; my intent was to further build upon a previous post saying that people had freaked out over the possibility of BBE into Liliana. The chances of that are remote, and I thought I'd be hyperbolic and funny by suggesting that BBE could help Living End, which as some have pointed out, is absurd. I have successfully failed at presenting this point and have instead led other posters to believe I am simple and soft-headed, for which I apologise profusely.
I don't think BBE belongs on the banlist either, but I'm surprised no one has tried to make the argument that it could elevate Living End. There's also the possibility that it could bust something coming up in Rivals, but barring that I really don't see why it needs to remain banned.
Completely agree with you. We have three modern events a week at my LGS here in the US, and each one gets over a dozen people easily. That being said, the total number of people coming to play modern each week is only around 45-55, which isnt even close to a proper sample size to gauge the health of modern. We would need some kind of hard data from LGS owners across the globe to get a good idea of how often modern is being played at the local level, and I just can't see a scenario where that would happen.
I'm not sure how to fix Modern. Part of my issue is identifying what specifically needs fixing. Going by the very limited sample size here, the problems seem to be:
-fun factor (which is subjective as hell)
-top decks are boring to watch in action for the most part
-color pie imbalance
The issue of a deck being unable to compete against the field and the top decks (without being one of them) irks me. Isn't that how it's always been? What makes the current top tier different? Is it because people just have a massive hatred of them all except GDS? I get that playing against Titanshift and ETron can be frustrating, but tbh I'd rather face either one a dozen times before sitting across from pod or dredge again. Storm doesn't come close, I just don't get why some people treat that deck like the Boogeyman.
As far as colors, I've been a blue player since I started magic back in 1996. I've always enjoyed the idea of out playing my opponent through subterfuge and careful planning, which blue represented. That's changed a bit over the years, and frankly the way I like to play MTG is a) hard to win with and b) would be deemed unfun by a majority of players. Something that starts a lot of arguments is what does playing a color(s) mean? What is the accepted idea of what a blue deck should mean? For instance, GDS doesn't quite fulfill my ideal of a blue deck, but it is a damn good deck.
I agree that watching matches between Eldrazi Tron and Storm are boring as hell, and fighting Scapeshift can feel like banging your head against a wall. I've been piloting GDS for awhile now, and I enjoy the hell out of the deck. I've also got a Faeries deck that really upsets combo/big Mana decks, but loses hard to Robots and CoCo. I see people here talking about the meta, but it seems really difficult to pin down just what the meta is based on the information we have access to. I know the meta at my LGS, but Nationwide? Worldwide? Paper vs MTGO? How do we even aggregate the little bit of data we have access to?