MTG Salvation

You can always arrange casual play with friends, but this is a game aka a competition. The idea that people should not want to win to satisfy your sensibilities is foolish.

Quote from idSurge »

Quote from k0no »

Haha.

I just want to state, before the site gets archived forever, that the nonsense mental gymnastics people are doing, in order to get riled up and call for bans for a card that isn't even released yet are staggering.

....

Here's to a more positive discourse and the faint hope that the new website in the works curates spaces that engender positive, useful discussion instead of a blank slate for useless uninformed negativity to rule.

I think noting things that are new, and explosive, and can look absurd, is not an issue. I think calling for emergency ban's are hyperbolic certainly, but a lot of your post also boils down to people wanting different things.

For everyone that wants a churning, rotational meta, there is AT LEAST one person, that wants to play 'their deck' that for some is the only deck they could afford to build, to remain viable (if not optimal) and competitive.

People who are satisfied, by and large, do not go to forums to talk about things. They go there to complain about things, look for answers and help.

Personally, I find we can watch the trends of the online/high end meta unfold, and for that purpose this thread and twitter, have served me quite well over the years.

Oh I just wanna smack that guy. People are allowed to be negative.

Well that was fast. Enemy fastlands are all under $20 now, with all but the UR falling below $17.

Yes, take the censors off and let the forum end its days in glorious chaos! More blood for the blood gods!

I have been playing competitive modern for the past year and a half between burn and grixis shadow, and never felt like the format was garbage. I win some, I lose some. I am a pretty good player in that I started top 8'ing ptqs and cash events in the past year. My locals are very competitive, including names with GP and SCG top 8s, etc. A variety of decks put put up results, and in fact the last SCGQ on my side of the state was taken by UW control.

I think, and this is my opinion but I think it is a valid one, that people fixate on top 8s and championships of high level events to establish the best decks. In that case, grixis shadow and lantern control would be up towards the top, though I know shadow isn't the right type of blue.

The format is healthy because you can select a wide variety of decks with a real chance to win. Modern isn't the same as standard where you can metagame and pick a deck with an even or positive win% against the entire field.

Not to mention new karn is way worse against aggro than old karn...

Here's what new karn did: kicked up its inevitability to 11. I get that. However, the answer to tron has never been to try to outlast it. The answer is always to slide underneath and stick a lightning bolt or glistener elf where the sun don't shine.

Who cares about losing a card if you lose on turn three due to a lack of disruption? Force is a safety valve and should be viewed as such. It is a way to stave off a potentially backbreaking play, and card advantage can be accumulated later through any number of cards.

The only reason you can type those words on that screen is capitalism. Jim Sterling is another socialist punk, that's his problem not mine.

What does the mulligan fix, and why is it better than the old way? The point of playing a card game is dealing with what life gives you, for better or worse. The more something detracts from that aspect, the less card game like the game gets. To me, it sounds like wizards is giving in to the idea of letting people pick the starting hand with minimal repercussions.

The change isn't going to discourage cheating on the competitive circuit, so I'm really wondering what the long term plan is.

I have no issue with people complaining about Counterspell's absence in MH. That's a reasonable thing to complain about, much like it's reasonable to complain that SFM is still on the banlist.

The problem is that many people who are complaining about Counterspell's exclusion (a specific issue) or SFM's legality (a specific issue) translate this frustration into complaints about Wizards' competence, format knowledge, design ability, etc. (extremely general issues). The bar to indict Wizards on these counts is extremely high and almost certainly unmet. Look at how many Standard cards have reshaped Modern in the past few years. Look at how the format has naturally and consistently adapted to allegedly broken decks even as the community has shouted for dozens of bans. These are clear signs that Wizards knows how to manage Modern in a way that pleases many players and keeps the format popular. This is because, as I noted earlier, Wizards has a long view of the format and a deep understanding that Modern tends to self-correct and arc towards dozens of viable strategies. Wizards doesn't need to meddle and they know it.

I understand that some players are dissatisfied with Modern because it does not match their vision of non-rotating Magic. A the same time, Wizards has made Modern's vision and execution very clear. Complaining about the current state of Modern or the state of Modern for the last 3 years would be like Standard players complaining that they can't play T3 engine combos. Or a Legacy player that wants to be play tribal aggro. In these cases, the complainants want something that is fundamentally incompatible with a defined format they are playing. Thankfully, we can point them elsewhere. It's easy to direct these complainants to another supported format where their needs are met. When people complain about the usual Modern issues, however, it's hard to point them elsewhere because the other options either don't fulfill those desires, or are visibly under-supported. Wizards has sold Modern as the non-rotating format of choice, which necessarily needs to appeal to hundreds of competing desires, play-types, game experiences, etc. It's inevitable that some people feel excluded or unheard. This does not mean Wizards isn't listening; as I noted earlier, their online presence is massive. It just means they didn't adopt feedback in a way that some players wanted.

As for MH, the negativity remains unwarranted for the reasons I have discussed. First, we have less than half of the set. That alone should be a full-stop to negativity as it only takes 1-2 cards to make a set format-shaping. Second, players of all calibers are notoriously inconsistent at card evaluation. We don't know which revealed cards are sleeper hits, fool's gold, or legitimate homeruns. Even the best players in the world are notoriously variable as card evaluators. Finally, previews are curated experiences that appeal to multiple audiences. Our forum and much of the Reddit r/modernmagic community (i.e. places where complaints are vocal) represent only a small subset of that audience. Previews geared towards our audience aren't going to happen every day of the week. They will be interspersed throughout the season. Anyone is capable of understanding these reasons, but so many people are quick to jump to wild conspiracy theories, reckless accusations, and personal axe-grinding that this gets lost in the fray. We can do better.

Quote from cfusionpm »

Relevant things Force of Negation doesn't deal with:

• Hardcast Primeval Titan
• Dredging from natural draws
• Cast triggers for Phoenix
• Cast triggers to flip Thing
• Any creature put in with Vial
• Any creature with haste
• Any creature with relevant ETB/Cast triggers
• Flurry of small spells
• Spells cast on your own turn/upkeep/combat/end step, etc

I LOVE the idea of FoN and you better believe I am jamming some number of them into just about any blue based deck from now until the end of time. But I am under no delusion that it is anything other than a niche card (like Spell Snare or Dispel). This is not something you just jam 4 of into every blue deck. Even I probably won't ever have more than 1-2 main and 2-3 in the 75 of any deck at any time. And I play decks with 4 Remand and 4 Cryptic.

What card deals with that? Stifle meets FoW meets Flusterstorm, meets I don't even know what else. in the Modern cardpool, I don't think I could find a set of cards that could do all of those things. FoW itself or actual Counterspell don't deal with half of that list between them

Control has been mainboarding Negate for years now. Almost all the creature decks run some combination of Cavern of Souls/Aether Vial/Collected Company. Against creature decks, if your counterspells can counter creatures, there's a very big chance you side them out regardless.

Quote from cfusionpm »

Relevant things Force of Negation doesn't deal with:

• Hardcast Primeval Titan
• Dredging from natural draws
• Cast triggers for Phoenix
• Cast triggers to flip Thing
• Any creature put in with Vial
• Any creature with haste
• Any creature with relevant ETB/Cast triggers
• Flurry of small spells
• Spells cast on your own turn/upkeep/combat/end step, etc

What ungodly all-encompassing magic card are you comparing Force of Negation to now that can stop all of that? Cause I need like 4 playsets

I think the answer is probably 4, cutting 2 Vantage and 2 fetches.

If you cut fetches, you're trading life loss for life loss. You open yourself up too the new life loss being heavier, but you buy yourself card draw in a place that doesn't require you to alter your game plan.

Quote from Skitzafreak »

Quote from Niallplaysmagic »

Quote from AUTUMNTWILIGHT »

What is the typical Hearthstone payout look like?

Here's a start: https://www.esportsearnings.com/games/328-hearthstone

For Hearthstone being astronomically larger (competitively) than magic, Pro tours don't look too bad by comparison.

Some more info-
Hearthstone top paid pro - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Beltiukov
Magic top all-time earnings list - https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/top-players/statistics/top-200-money-leaders

Magic has definitely been around a lot longer so keep that in mind. With that said though, these numbers certainly aren't small.

The problem with Hearthstone is that the random elements of the game make it hard for players to consistently do well. Some people just lose tournaments literally because of die rolls. With that in mind, the fact that Pavel has won enough to put himself in 21st place if we place him on the MTG money leaders board is....just wow.

I think it's best not to talk about the "random Element" comparison, because part of the reason hearthstone seems less reliable on wins is because a lot of people cheat at the major MTG tournaments. It's gotten a little better from what I've heard, but there have been too many cases of cheating to make me feel comfortable in pushing a comparison and calling it accurate.

I care about a deck, or decks, infinitely more than some random pro, or 'team'. Its like in sports, do people follow players more than they follow teams? No. Decks are 'teams', in MTG. You follow that 'team' because its also what you play.

I couldnt name 5 pro's, and I watch/read/discuss/play Modern every.single.day.

Just be careful, everyone, to avoid a "holier than thou" attitude towards players who play other styles than you. If a deck has more linear decision trees than yours, that doesn't make it worse, or less fun, or whatever. There aren't wrong ways to play the game. That's what's great about magic. Don't let bias and superiority complexes poison your views of this game.

Quote from cfusionpm »

To me, it's all about decision trees. Picking a plan and sticking to it. Changing the plan if the circumstances change, etc. When I first got into Modern, I played BW Tokens, built from the Modern Event Deck. Then I built my first "real" deck: Burn. I loved it because it was simple and it won without too much trouble on my end. Attack with things, point burn to face, and win. Then I discovered Islands and never looked back. I actually still have Burn sleeved up and ready to go today, but I haven't touched it in years because the games were ALL one dimensional. I don't like the feeling that I've won as a result of the top 10 cards of my deck and not my choices and decisions within the game.

The idea that URx decks can produce non-games is true, but it is the tiny minority and the exception, not the rule. And when a matchup consistently involves multiple decision trees, changes of role from beatdown to control and back, and decisions that could win or lose you the game; those just feel more engaging and rewarding to play. And the games I've had with Snap Bolt decks over the past several years have been orders of magnitude more enjoyable and more complex than almost any of my matches with Burn.

This is simply not true, and a lot of fair players fall into this trap. Burn is one of the easier decks to be ok with but is extremely (I mean extremely) punishing on misplays. Just listen to Pat Sullivan commentate any burn match. In fact at the highest level I would claim that linear decks lose due to singular (often small) misplays more than fair decks. I used to grind gifts storm on MTGO, sadly my PhD has sucked up a lot of my time and I can't anymore, but what a lot of people don't understand is, that to play the linear decks correctly you have so limited options and you can often lose by 1 mana or 1 point of damage, you have a string of complex decisions to make with little to no information, ie they promote a different skill set. No matter what deck you are playing, to succeed at the highest level (assuming it is viable) takes an enormous amount of skill, but that skill might not be grinding incremental card advantage (which seems to be all fair players really care about deep down).

Seriously has no one noticed that Paul Muller and Caleb Scherer wreck with storm and thats about it? Linear decks can also be extremely rewarding to pilot just in different ways. I haven't played Tron for years but I would assume that it rewards different skills as well, and that just because it doesn't fit your idea of grinding out CA it's not 'worse' magic.

You guys sound like the most entitled magic players I've heard in a long time. Tron is not unbeatable with your fair decks, you have in no way the right to have a hate card that 100% of the time blows the deck out. Crumble to dust will blow them out in 90% of games and that is good enough. Yes sometimes there are non-games, but I honest to god hate this idea that by virtue of being fair your games are 'deeper'. They can be, but they also can be extremely shallow. I am a control player at heart but I've had my fair share of 'fair' non-games, if you've never been hit by the ole triple thoughtseize into LotV draw by Jund as a fair blue deck, let me tell you its just as bad as tron resolving turn 3 karn, which you have actually more chance of interacting against (you know with counterspells). Does no one remember the citrus assassin (Greg Orange) beating tron with UWR on camera at a PT (or GP I actually forget), through some of the tightest play I've seen (ambush viper into cryptic as a timewalk multiple times). Yes it's uphill but you're allowed to have bad matchups.

Moreover there are plenty of games against control where you're playing aggro, and they draw some variation of 3/4 removal spells and an azcanta or planeswalker. That's a complete non-game too. I like midrange mirrors, but often they are nowhere as deep as you're making out, you do the obvious one-for-ones (don't beat around the bush 90% of the time you just hit them with the correct removal spell it's not extremely hard) and then you topdeck until someone drops a bomb with no answer. Yes sometimes you have great interplay but often it plays out like that.

My final point is that you guys aren't the only magic players, I love tuning wacky control decks and playing long drawn out defensive games (I actually tuned 4c teachings for years in modern and top 8'd some PTQ's by myself) but one of the beauties of magic is that it's not just one dimensional play. The clash of different styles is what makes it unique and such a great game, I said this when people were complaining that aggro was over represented (which was guess what, not permanent anyway) but "aggro (big mana) players deserve to play too". Especially in a non-rotating format like modern. They deserve to have a deck to drop early bombs with and thats ok. Just like engine combo players, just like linear aggro players, just like midrange players