MTG Salvation

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Quote from ktkenshinx »

It's outrageous to me that a small contingent of users in this thread (and the community overall: see Brad Nelson), as well as in the just-locked iteration of this thread, continue to talk about the format as if it is unhealthy, too linear, failing, broken, or some other unfounded criticism. I feel like this all started once those Day 1 Team PT numbers got posted and we never looked back. Or it's been continuing nonstop for years and it's more acute now in light of the Team PT numbers.

Over time I've come to realize a lot of people's complaints about Modern are, "Your deck does something that makes it hard for me to play my deck. So instead of accepting that the format has changed and my deck might no longer be good, I will instead complain about how the format is horrible, disgusting, degenerate, and these cards that make your deck possible need to be banned."

I've seen this multiple times. Every time some new deck pops up that makes it so people can't just pick up the exact same 75 they've been playing for 4 months we get the groans and moans about how Modern is "broken" or "degenerate" and that something needs to be banned to fix it. But it isn't. Modern is a non-rotating format yes, but the metagame is cyclical. What is a good deck today, might be a horrible deck tomorrow. Hell I have personal experience with this via Lantern Control. Before PT Rivals Lantern was in a good spot. You could do extremely well in Leagues or at tournaments, and the field wasn't overly hostile to you. Post PT Rivals things got a little more hostile, I mean the deck did win the PT, it's to be expected. But it ended up settling down a bit, but then KCI took off like a rocket, and all of the hate people have been packing for that deck has tangentially made Lantern almost unplayable right now. I'm sure we'll get to a point where the format calms down a bit and I can play my good ol' prison deck again, but until then I have adapted, and picked up a new deck. Now I get to throw V8's at people all day long.

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Quote from Niallplaysmagic »

I think this is pretty disingenuous, especially when they literally just had the largest pro tour payout they've ever had. No, it's not what League players or Hearthstone players get, but those games both have tens of millions of ad revenue and sponsorships pouring into their games as well.

Do they support the pro scene like pros or those dedicated to watching wish they would? Not really. That doesn't mean that they hate them, or don't care. They know tournaments are the lifeblood of the game, and they're financially incentivized to continue to care about that section of the game and community.

The largest Pro Tour Payout ever? Now that is disingenuous. Sure, the amount of money given away does seem much larger than usual. $850,000! Wow! That's a hell of a lot of money for a single Pro Tour! I mean, normal Pro Tours only have a payout of $250,000....and aren't team tournaments.

If you account for the fact that Pro Tour 25th Anniversary was a TEAM Pro Tour and the top prize needed to be paid out to THREE players, the prize pool for PT 25th Anniversary was only increased by $100,000. Honestly, that is pennies. In fact, there are very few people who actually see any of that prize increase. Let's go over every single prize metric to see who actually sees any increase in their prize payout.

Pro Tour Prizes. Standard Pro Tour Payout is bolded, PT 25th Anniversary Payout is in brackets.
1st: $50,000 ($50,000/player)
2nd: $20,000 ($24,000/player)
3rd: $15,000 ($15,000/player)
4th: $12,500 ($15,000/player)
5th: $10,000 ($9,000/player)
6th: $9,000 ($9,000/player)
7th: $7,500 ($9,000/player)
8th: $6,000 ($9,000/player)
9th - 16th: $5,000 ($5,000/player)
17th - 24th: $3,000 ($4,000/player)
25th - 32nd: $2,000 ($3,000/player)
33rd - 48th: $1,500 ($2,000/player)
49th - 64th: $1,000 ($1,000/player)

So yes, some placings made a little bit more money. The most pronounced is 2nd place where each player made $4,000 more than they would have at a regular PT if they had gotten the same placing. However the $850,000 isn't all that big of a number when you account for the fact that it was a team tournament. Of course they had to have a large payout! Do you think people are going to be excited for a Pro Tour where 3 people have to split the regular PT Winnings among all their team mates? Christ that's idiotic.

So WotC really only juiced the PT prize pool by $100,000. Or $33,333.33_/player for the team. Now let us shift over to the SILVER SHOWCASE!!! Where WotC paid $12,500 to HEARTHSTONE PLAYERS just to get them to show up! Please, you can't sit there and pretend like WotC actually gives a ***** about competitive players. The entire Silver Showcase Prize Pool was $150,000!! $50,000 MORE than what they added to the PT!!

Quote from Lav Dafka »

Ive always loathed the idea of planned obsolescence, and that’s the whole basis of standard. I’m not terribly attached to any standard deck because before even building it I’m thinking about it rotating and getting upset. Why even bother.

It’s hard to make money off someone playing a RTR deck forever, of course and that needs to be considered. But if you take his deck away, does he happily buy a new one every few months? Or does he quit? Wouldn’t it be better to keep him in the game, maybe paying entry fees at an LGS, maybe getting exposed to new decks and new products that he might eventually want to try out? Worst case, maybe he helps LGS events fire?

The argument for Standard (imho) is that it is an easier way to incentivize new players to join the game. Want to learn to play Magic? Cool, we'll be playing decks with these last few sets where you can easily get your hands on the cards no problem! Compare that to Modern. It took me 2 weeks to find a playset of Goblin Lores and that was before Hollow One took off as a deck. Yes the planned obsolescence can be a bit frustrating, but it has a purpose and a good reason for existing within a 25 year old game.

Quote from gkourou »

Look at dickman's list. He maindecked 4 leyline of the void.

Adding a little bit of context here. In BridgeVine the main reason to mainboard Leyline of the Void is so that in creature match-ups like Humans, you can just swing your creatures sideways without the fear of your opponent killing one of their creatures and exiling any Bridge from Below that are in your graveyard.

Does it help against other decks that make use of the graveyard? Of course, but that's honestly just gravy.

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Long time no see ladies and gentlemen. I come to you bearing the gift of a decklist. I saw this pop up on MTGGoldfish, having been posted as a 5-0 list in the Modern Leagues twice. The deck looks super sweet, and while it does eschew the Dredge cards, it definitely shows how Stitcher's Supplier may be the creature we've been wanting for Vengevine.



Enjoy

Quote from xBattleSpawnx »

Quote from Skitzafreak »

So I must say Stitcher's Supplier looks like one hell of a card, and has already earned some success in Modern.

Jund-Vine decks I think are probably one of the deck archetypes that can use Supplier do it's greatest point, and oh boy do these 5-0 League Lists look sweet.

God I love Magic sometimes.

That's the type of card that makes me want to dust off Abzan Rally / Aristocrats (or esper... would have to test that again). Once again, standard sets showing they are weak and have no impact on modern

I think that when people think of "Standard sets effecting Modern" they envision things like Eldrazi Winter, where the entire metagame was warped into an eldritch monstrosity.

However realistically, it's new sets providing some Modern decks with new cards for existing archetypes, or giving certain strategies a new card they need to become a break out deck.

I mean hell, look at some of the most recent 5-0 Humans lists running a full play set of Militia Bugler. New sets effects Modern, though usually only subtly

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Just bought into the BridgeVine version in paper after extensive playtesting. It's the most aggressive build at the moment, which already makes it strong, but still has room for improvement. It can get 8-12 power on board by turn 2 pretty consistently and doesn't auto-lose to a boardwipe.

Here's the 5-0 list I used.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1215496#paper

Even with a declaration of bias (that I attributed to it being the 'best deck in Modern'), saying people are not skilled enough is like...next level bias!

I fully admit its likely the most skill testing deck in the format, would be the hardest to play, and the hardest to pick up as its skills are less transferable, but I still think its a reach to say its not played because nobody has the skills to do so.

Most people are not even going to bother to learn it because like Tron, its simply impossible to stomach sitting down and playing, for many.

Either way, I think we agree that its the formats 'hard mode' I think we just put different emphasis on why it see's less play.

Me, 5:30 p.m.: "Hey Reddit, what can I put in my RUG Moon deck's board to give me extra game against Tron, Ad Nauseam, and Storm?"

Me, 6:30 p.m.: "Never mind."

Quote from Skitzafreak »

Welcome to why I play Lantern Control. Playing Lantern has done literally two things for me:

1) It has increased my technical play skill
2) It has made it so I can't really blame variance for my losses

Sure I could blame the 'match-up lottery' every time I play against Tron, but the truth is, because it is such a bad match-up, I've put the time in to learn how to beat it. And yes, I can definitely win games against Tron with Lantern. Outside of that, the perfect information you get from playing Lantern about both what you have access to, and what you don't want your opponent to have access to makes it so you remove variance from the equation.

You lost because you let your opponent draw a Blood Moon because you didn't count on needing to cast a Whir that you were going to have on top of your deck in a few turns.

You could have milled your opponent's Tireless Tracker if you have just let them have that Ancient Grudge. You have a Grafdigger's Cage, and you can Whir for a Welding Jar, so the Grudge wouldn't have done anything anyway.

If you had just cracked Bauble on your own turn, you could have drawn the Abrupt Decay on top of your deck on your opponent's turn before they ultimated Liliana of the Veil.

Lantern as a deck punishes it's pilots for small errors, but also lets you know exactly what those errors are. It's why I love the deck, despite all the hate it gets from the community.

Totally agreed. Incidentally, as I and a few other users posted earlier in this thread, I think Lantern Control is the closest to a true 50/50+ deck in Modern as you can get. Here's why. Note that I do not have hard numbers to back up these claims; they are just from personal play experience, reading articles/reports/posts, and watching Lantern on camera:

1. It has a very high performance and skill ceiling.
2. It seems to have fewer unfavorable/polarized-negative matchups than other top-tier decks.
3. The unfavorable/negative matchups are closer to 50/50 than other top-tier decks.
4. It has more matchups that are 50/50+ than other top-tier decks.
5. The distribution of good and bad matchups are normalized around 50/50 more than other top-tier decks.

It's no coincidence that a player like BBD is putting time and effort into this deck. He's a great barometer for the so-called best Modern deck and is known for playing strategies that are ultimately deemed too powerful. That's not to say Lantern is such a strategy. After all, BBD played GDS for a time when it was the likely best deck. But it is an indicator of possible strength.

If you are a player who wants to maximize their skill edge to pick up win percentage and mitigate bad matchups, Lantern is the deck for you.

I honestly think that most of the vocal online/article/stream/pro/etc. criticisms of Modern are largely due to two related factors:

1. The lack of a 50/50+ deck in Modern
2. The impact of this on players' win rates

Most, but not all, of the Modern criticisms are either explicitly related to these two related factors or implicitly related to then. Explicit examples are plentiful on this forum, in articles, on Reddit, in interviews, etc. Anytime someone complains about matchup lottery, this is basically what they are complaining about. Matchup lottery only becomes annoying when you are losing a lot (i.e. your win rate is impacted) and because you can't identify a deck to avoid it (i.e. a 50/50+ deck). It's particularly irksome in pro articles which go through a familiar cycle of complain about Modern (because the author is losing), talk about how they figured out Modern (because they just did well at a recent event), and a slow descent back into complaints (because they are struggling to replicate that success with the same approach). DeCandio is the worst offender here, but others include Brad Nelson, PVDR, Handy, and various authors.

When people are winning at Modern, their complaints tend to die down. The problem is for those very Spike-oriented players, it's hard to consistently win at Modern because there isn't a clear best deck. You will encounter bad matchups no matter what, and if you have a tilted, negative attitude, you will not take the small steps you need to pick up small edges in those matchups. This results in bad finishes, selection bias to blaming your bad matchups you remember, and the cycle of Modern criticisms continue. Your best bet to win is to take a Reid Duke approach and just play small variants of the same core strategy for years on end. Or read the metagame and pick the best deck for that expected scene.

lol we can do this dance forever folks. Yes, on cast triggers are bull...for the guy sitting with counter mana up. Yes, having your 'i play 1 fatty a turn' card countered sucks. Yes, having lands blown up sucks, so does having massive threats cast out of curve, so does getting killed via infect turn 2, so does Grishoal brand killling you on end step turn 3, blah blah blah blah.

This just in, MOST decks in this format, dont want you to do what you want to do, and try and stop that from happening.

Even in BGx vs URx games, you can see lines that are not a whole lot of fun for one side or the other.

The only Magic that is 'fair and interactive' is going to be Naya Zoo mirrors, or URW Control mirrors, and while I personally would watch UWR Mirrors forever, there are those who would rather drop a Karn down, or even worse, think TKS is a fair and balanced card on Turn 2.

Having read the article, I cannot imagine many (any?) scenarios where the marginal gains of using this strategy outweigh the marginal costs of a) using it incorrectly and giving opponents outs, b) mental fatigue, c) variance in your opponent's favor, d) lost time mastering other more important elements of the game. This completely ignores the ethical or rules reasons for not playing like this; I think it's a really inefficient way to play the game and practice the deck. All that time and effort you could invest in this extremely corner-case set of skills, or you could commit time to learning actual matchups and winning real games.

It's like the FNM Limited warriors who practice all the cool bluffing and pass-reading but can't even draft the right cards or play around common format combat tricks. I guess if you had put in thousands of hours on Lantern and had no other possible way to improve, then I suppose this is a skillset you can work on. Otherwise, it's a classic "danger of cool things" trap that results in wasted time and misspent energy.

@Duodenum, I have three videos to upload with the new meta, two Jace decks and a BBE Jund deck. I'll give a quick rundown on how they went for now, hopefully upload the videos to the Youtube channel here in the next 24 hours.

The first Jace matchup, my opponent was on UB Jace. I was able to win game one through a quick lock. The brainstorming makes me feel panicky every time, hoping they don't draw into something awesome. Game two my opponent brought in graveyard hate, in the form of Leyline of the Void. Not the first time this has happened, people seem to think that bringing in graveyard hate is a good thing to do. They also brought in Surgicals, if I recall correctly. Surgicals were more worrisome, but thanks to lots of discard, my own Leyline of Sanctity, and them having dead Leylines, I was able to win it. There was a turn where they drew a Cryptic on their last blind draw, and it was their only unknown, but I had too many cards for them to be able to Cryptic and bounce. They could try to bounce Needle and get one brainstorm out of Jace, but would have to lucksack and hope that the 2nd and 3rd cards of the brainstorm were good. They could have bounced one Bridge, but I had multiples. They could have tried to bounce a lock piece, but also had duplicates. So, I was fortunate to have built a boardstate in which Cryptic couldn't get there, and slowly whittled their library, being ever careful.

The match (game - they quit after game one) against BBE Jund felt much easier than regular Jund. Them cutting discard seems to help a huge amount. This allowed me to set up the lock extremely quickly after discarding their Decay. They have to get very lucky with their cascades, which they didn't. It also helps that we have semi-control over their cascades. This means that they have to hold BBE to hope for a good cascade, while we're setting up their top card(s) and controlling their draws, and they have to hope we don't just draw a Thoughtseize to get rid of it.

The 2nd match (game - again, they quit after game one) against a Jace deck was against a Miracles build. This deck just has a ridiculous amount of dead cards, as they need to focus on not losing to fast aggro decks. That meant a ton of Paths and Terminus. Their clock is super slow, with their only wincons being Entreat the Angels (which we control the miracle of), Celestial Colonnade, and Jace. I was never able to Needle Jace, just didn't draw into it fast enough. They got a ton of brainstorms, but I always made sure that the top card was a dead one and hoped for the best. On their first brainstorm, they were able to find a Detention Sphere, but I was able to dig to a Thoughtseize and get rid of it. We did have a fight over a Cryptic a little while into the game. Near the end, when they had around 12 cards left in library (them drawing two per turn thanks to Jace, plus my very carefully played mill), I was able to resolve a Whir of Invention. They had just flipped a Search for Azcanta into the Sunken Ruin, so they got one activation off of it, searching for a counter, but they didn't find one. I got Needle into play and was about to name Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin and they conceded. EDIT: Near the end of the game, my opponent mentioned that maybe they should have been using Jace to +2 me, but that would have allowed me to have much more control over their draws and mine, and I would have likely been able to Whir for Needle much sooner. Them brainstorming had drawn them a Clique at one point that was able to take a Whir out of my hand when I was stuck on two mana (my opp had used two Field of Ruins on me). If they hadn't, I could have just waited a turn, drawn a land, and Whir'd for Needle and won the game on the spot.

I'm still very worried about the metagame going forward. While I'm happy with Jund dropping so much discard, I worry about a resurgence in Gx Tron (which seems to have happened, at least on the Cockatrice meta) and nearly every blue deck going forward having a Jace to fight.

So let me get this straight.

After playing a few matches with a Whir list it seems to me that, for all intents and purposes of the deck, we have a functional Tinker... at instant speed... with no sacrifice requirement?

Im loving it!