Modern is more diverse than ever indeed. I repost my previous post, because this so called certain minority does try to ignore my valid points and arguments.
Modern is vastly different than other times, it's more diverse and it's got no 3ple top 8's. For example, in the past years, if you did want to play:
A ramp deck, you had to go Tron. You can go with Eldra Tron, Gx Tron, Titanshift, Titanbreach now.
An aggro deck, sure, you could play plenty. But there's plenty more now(5c humans, Elves, Dredge, etc)
Midrange, you had to play Jund(or maybe Abzan). There's Grixis Shadow, Jund Shadow in addition to them(some people count Eldra Tron as midrange-y as well) meaning decks like Jund or Abzan. Even BG Rock is back on the map.
Toolbox decks, well you could play Pod. That was it. There's Bant Knightall, Abzan Company, GW company, the Todd Stevens GW Value Town deck, etc.
Control decks, you should play a certain deck. You can play UW with great success now, Jeskai Queller or Jeskai Control seems to be in a great position
Combo decks, well, there were many at times. There is Storm, Ad Nauseam, Amulet Titan, various Reanimator decks, Taking Turns decks, etc atm.)
White-Based Death and Taxes decks or White-based decks in general. You just could not. Now, you can. At various forms also. May it be Eldrazi and Taxes, Mono W Death and Taxes, GW Hatebears
Prison decks. Well, there were not any. There is Lantern Control and RW Prison now.
New strategies are popping up to catch up with the meta, decks like BW Smallpox and others.
Modern is MORE DIVERSE than any other time, it's not even comparable to an era where we used to see "2 Jund, 2 redacted, 2 Affinity, 2 random decks" or older where we used to see "2-3 Pod, 2 Affinity, 2 Jund, 1 Control deck".
It's like "1 Bant Knightfall, 1 grixis Shadow, 1 BG Rock, 1 Affinity, 1 Jeskai Control, 1 Lantern Prison, 1 Burn, 1 Junk" now. And it's much, much better.
Oh, and every time a new deck is winning a certain event.
Just look at the past GP Top8's or SCG Top 8's or Modern Challenges.
It's just like how you ignore our what's wrong with Modern comments too. I already see forum favoritism in effect from the mods, the post that's flamed me still has not received a warning which just confirms my theory that there is favoritism. I'm very surprised the mods have not revised the rules that anything negative about Modern is banned from discussion. You cannot criticize Modern in any way without sounding remotely negative at all because if you are positive, your point does not come across as intended. Just look at ktkenshin's post about generic answers, he posted it in a positive way and it got brushed off like it wasn't a problem in the format.
Sorry, I don't see anything wrong with this format right now. It might not be what you like, but that doesn't mean there's something wrong here. People have freedom to choose so many different decks and all of them can do well at small and large tourneys. This is as close to ideal as Magic has ever been.
Sure, that may be a selling point for you. As a result of that, players that play poorly in game, are beating Platinum level pros with poor play on a regular basis which leads me to believe that in-game skill is not rewarded often enough. That's how I get my perception that in-game playskill has little to no impact in Modern when a Platinum level Pro is capable of losing so easily to a person who just go their DCI number on the day of the tournament.
It's just like how you ignore our what's wrong with Modern comments too. I already see forum favoritism in effect from the mods, the post that's flamed me still has not received a warning which just confirms my theory that there is favoritism. I'm very surprised the mods have not revised the rules that anything negative about Modern is banned from discussion. You cannot criticize Modern in any way without sounding remotely negative at all because if you are positive, your point does not come across as intended. Just look at ktkenshin's post about generic answers, he posted it in a positive way and it got brushed off like it wasn't a problem in the format.
We don't have a problem with people critiquing the format. What we have an issue with is that people will avoid looking at a lot of what is good with the format - such as the deck diversity - just to focus on their personal pet peeves, and will also ignore the results. The Modern Challenges have been described as "basically just a big FNM" and as such aren't worth considering because it doesn't fit some people's narrative of Modern.
Also, you have to personally recognize that what you want out of the format is not what the majority of players, WotC, or even the Hasbro shareholders want. You want a format to be solvable so that you can have a high win percentage. At that point why are you even playing Magic when there are other games without the inherent variance, and that also provide a decent prize? You seem like you're trying to treat Magic as if it's a job and then blaming WotC because your margins are down, rather than take responsibility for the fact that choosing Magic as your career is a super dumb thing to do.
If diversity is a "good" thing, I can't find anything positive about the format because diversity is the reason I hate the format. If Magic is supposed to be just a "game", it certainly isn't priced appropriately to be sold in such a fashion. You literally have to spend an amount of money that the large majority of people really cannot afford and wealth redistribution is a complete joke and why MTG cannot be considered an e-sport. That's why if you have to make profit, the only path to doing that is winning all your matches. Any result that isn't first place in a lot of tournaments means you are losing money and time, especially when the format you are forced to play in PPTQs for 3 months of the year is a format you hate. I think if I was going to start liking Modern again, you'd would need to begin with needing better answers to everything. Anything that would reduce the amount of non-games you have to play. As it stands, any deck I choose to register, I am at the mercy of a poor pairing which is completely out of my control. I want to play games of Magic in Modern, but I cannot when the tools are not available to help with that purpose. I have no problem losing to someone who is head and shoulders better than me at playing Magic, I do however have a problem when I am losing to someone who just happened to have the perfect counter deck to my deck of choice and plays like garbage and I chose not to prepare for it because I didn't have room in my 75 to try and beat it. That's what diversity does, you have to gamble and coinflip your matchups that you have no control over.
Modern is more diverse than ever indeed. I repost my previous post, because this so called certain minority does try to ignore my valid points and arguments.
Modern is vastly different than other times, it's more diverse and it's got no 3ple top 8's. For example, in the past years, if you did want to play:
A ramp deck, you had to go Tron. You can go with Eldra Tron, Gx Tron, Titanshift, Titanbreach now.
An aggro deck, sure, you could play plenty. But there's plenty more now(5c humans, Elves, Dredge, etc)
Midrange, you had to play Jund(or maybe Abzan). There's Grixis Shadow, Jund Shadow in addition to them(some people count Eldra Tron as midrange-y as well) meaning decks like Jund or Abzan. Even BG Rock is back on the map.
Toolbox decks, well you could play Pod. That was it. There's Bant Knightall, Abzan Company, GW company, the Todd Stevens GW Value Town deck, etc.
Control decks, you should play a certain deck. You can play UW with great success now, Jeskai Queller or Jeskai Control seems to be in a great position
Combo decks, well, there were many at times. There is Storm, Ad Nauseam, Amulet Titan, various Reanimator decks, Taking Turns decks, etc atm.)
White-Based Death and Taxes decks or White-based decks in general. You just could not. Now, you can. At various forms also. May it be Eldrazi and Taxes, Mono W Death and Taxes, GW Hatebears
Prison decks. Well, there were not any. There is Lantern Control and RW Prison now.
New strategies are popping up to catch up with the meta, decks like BW Smallpox and others.
Modern is MORE DIVERSE than any other time, it's not even comparable to an era where we used to see "2 Jund, 2 redacted, 2 Affinity, 2 random decks" or older where we used to see "2-3 Pod, 2 Affinity, 2 Jund, 1 Control deck".
It's like "1 Bant Knightfall, 1 grixis Shadow, 1 BG Rock, 1 Affinity, 1 Jeskai Control, 1 Lantern Prison, 1 Burn, 1 Junk" now. And it's much, much better.
Oh, and every time a new deck is winning a certain event.
Just look at the past GP Top8's or SCG Top 8's or Modern Challenges.
It's just like how you ignore our what's wrong with Modern comments too. I already see forum favoritism in effect from the mods, the post that's flamed me still has not received a warning which just confirms my theory that there is favoritism. I'm very surprised the mods have not revised the rules that anything negative about Modern is banned from discussion. You cannot criticize Modern in any way without sounding remotely negative at all because if you are positive, your point does not come across as intended. Just look at ktkenshin's post about generic answers, he posted it in a positive way and it got brushed off like it wasn't a problem in the format.
Maybe sisicat is going about it the wrong way, but there's no doubt in my mind that it's easier to be more consistent in other formats than Modern. Modern does take a lot of work and sometimes it's not going to be your day.
This really has hit home for me recently with my current PPTQ grind with Titan Shift. I've now played in 7 PPTQs this season, the last one ending when a Judge made a horrible call in the top 4, allowing my opponent to go back at Comp REL to not put in his Hallowed Fountain untapped after he had already put a spell on the stack after the land drop. The finals would have been a great matchup for me (there's that word that is SO important in Modern); matchup) in Knightfall. Now, I know a Judge call doesn't have any bearing on the difficulty of Modern, but after previously winning 3 PPTQs fairly easily in 3 other seasons, I've fallen on hard times. It's been pretty rough because even though I am playing a Tier 1 deck, know the deck inside and out, and have played thousands of matches with it (and previous Standard and Extended versions), I can't leverage play skill to win one of these PPTQs. So far, there have been no PPTQs that I've been afraid of any player, other than just being afraid of certain matchups.
Now, I do think that sisicat is overexaggerating. A lot of people ADORE, just LOVE Modern because of its diversity. But there is no doubt in my mind that the matchup roulette is a big part of Modern. Ask anyone trying to do Midrange or Control in a Tron meta.
Matchup roulette is a part of any format ever though. Not sure what you're getting at with this post. You made it to top 4 and lost from a judge call, don't see how that is the fault of matchups. And winning 3 PPTQs in 3 seasons could've just been a good streak, now followed by a not so good one in this season. After all, I'm sure there are other players nearly or more prepared than you are in attendance also. You can't all win first place.
Matchup roulette is part of all formats, yes. But not to the extent that Modern has, in Legacy you have access to the entire cardpool, but you don't need to build your deck with redundancy because you get very good card selection, something Modern loves to actively ban as soon as it becomes oppressive. In Modern, you have to play more copies of a card to draw it to increase your chances of finding it, which is why you mulligan a lot in Modern for sideboard cards as opposed to relying on card selection tools to find them. That coupled with the fact that there are more viable decks in Modern than there are in both Standard and Legacy combined, you have a formula where whatever deck you choose to register, you are automatically at the mercy of a certain subset of decks that just beat you because you hit the 1% of the field matchup you don't want to face. That's how you get a metagame where goldfishing past your opponent is better than trying to interact with all your opponents, you simply cannot interact with every deck and still pull out wins consistently.
See, that's what I'm talking about, you are dismissing my argument that Modern is high variance because it doesn't fit your narrative. You just proved it right there with your ignorant comment.
Umm...no. I am literally asking you the point you are trying to prove with the data you have given me. I am not dismissing anything. In fact I am giving you the opportunity to better explain your point so that it is heard and understood.
Now who is putting words is whose mouth?
Well I am trying to prove that no one is replicating their success on the GP level in Modern. Since now that we've established according to you that I'm presenting the fact that GPs are harder than SCGs. You're bending the argument to make me look stupid because of your forum favoritism. Just watch, your comment about me won't get warned because of calling me a spoiled child. I'm so sure of it because of forum favoritism.
If you're trying to prove GP's are harder than SCG's, a poor way of demonstrating that is to show people consistently top 8'ing GP's. Your argument really looks to be that modern is more difficult than legacy and standard, which it very well may be. Formats shouldn't be nerfed to suit the needs of the incredibly vocal minority.
All you are doing is format bashing. Which IIRC, is against forum rules. If anyone is receiving favoritism, it's you and the length of leash you've been given to continually de-rail discussions.
Ok, well how do you present my perceived problem with Modern without being negative and putting the point across? Under these rules, you cannot. If you sound optimistic about a problem with Modern, you will get brushed off as it's not a problem. The only discussion allowed under the current rules, is praising how good Modern is (it's not for me) and how awesome it is. The moment you bring up anything resembling a problem with Modern, you get a warning for format bashing. So you might as well ban the discussion of resembling anything negative about the format altogether. I think Modern has problem of not having a pay to win option in a best deck that beats all, I present that argument and all I get is spoiled child, entitled brat etc and there is no reprocussion for them to say that. Which leads me to believe forum favoritism is in effect.
See, that's what I'm talking about, you are dismissing my argument that Modern is high variance because it doesn't fit your narrative. You just proved it right there with your ignorant comment.
It's just that your argument isn't very sound. You're posting links to examples of people winning bad MU's in other formats like that doesn't happen regularly in modern. You're showing examples of people doing well regularly in formats, again, as if that doesn't happen in modern. Pros have by and large chosen not to focus on modern because it is easier to predict more well known meta's (like in standard and legacy where significantly less decks are viable). However, we've seen repeatedly that players who make an effort to understand modern (todd stevens, BBD, burkhardt) can consistently do well.
It doesn't happen at a level that is visible enough to recognize, no one remembers people's top 16s at a Pro Tour. I can only remember Todd Steven's finishes because it's very visible and hard to ignore. Less people generally care about 9th-16th finishes.
See, that's what I'm talking about, you are dismissing my argument that Modern is high variance because it doesn't fit your narrative. You just proved it right there with your ignorant comment.
Umm...no. I am literally asking you the point you are trying to prove with the data you have given me. I am not dismissing anything. In fact I am giving you the opportunity to better explain your point so that it is heard and understood.
Now who is putting words is whose mouth?
Well I am trying to prove that no one is replicating their success on the GP level in Modern. Since now that we've established according to you that I'm presenting the fact that GPs are harder than SCGs. You're bending the argument to make me look stupid because of your forum favoritism. Just watch, your comment about me won't get warned because of calling me a spoiled child. I'm so sure of it because of forum favoritism.
See, that's what I'm talking about, you are dismissing my argument that Modern is high variance because it doesn't fit your narrative. You just proved it right there with your ignorant comment.
Well I flip the handle, because when I present you with facts that you don't want to hear, you dismiss it because it doesn't fit your narrative. I'm presenting you data straight from the coverage page, you choose to ignore my interpretation because it doesn't suit your views or your narrative. Instead you put words in my mouth in such a manner that flags a mod so they interpret my comments as not valid and therefore gets me a ban because you have forum favoritism.
Please tell me what facts you have presented me with. You've presented a hell of a lot of opinion but that's about it.
Back to back top 8's in Standard GPs from Brad Nelson and Corey Baumeister, Rodrigo Togores overcoming a bad matchup with playskill in Legacy. Jarvis Yu top 8-ing back to back Legacy GPs. Is that not facts? Do you want links too?
Where did I say that SCG Opens are not as competitive as GP? I only said SCG Opens are not harder than GP. You're putting words in my mouth just like the rest of this forum loves to do. We're just going to have to agree to disagree because you're just going to employ your forum favoritism to get me banned because what I say does not fit your narrative.
I mean...when most people say an event isn't as difficult, I take that as them meaning it isn't as competitive. Like FNMs are not as hard as PPTQs.
Also why do you flip off the handle every time is able to confront your argument with this wonderful thing called facts?
Knowing your deck, and knowing the field aren't the only skills required for Modern. No one is putting that forward. They are however two very important skills required to do well.
A lot of Jund's fallout has to do with the fact that Lightning Bolt just isn't the format staple it used to be. The meta has evolved past the point where you can control the board for the first 1-3 turns of the game with Bolts and discard.
Like seriously, to both of you (more sisicat right now) if you hate Modern so much, then why are you spending hours online arguing about it? Why not focus on something else you actually give a ***** about?
Well I flip the handle, because when I present you with facts that you don't want to hear, you dismiss it because it doesn't fit your narrative. I'm presenting you data straight from the coverage page, you choose to ignore my interpretation because it doesn't suit your views or your narrative. Instead you put words in my mouth in such a manner that flags a mod so they interpret my comments as not valid and therefore gets me a ban because you have forum favoritism.
Yet where is Jund lately? im sure many out there want it to do well and know it intimately. BUT, if a meta is too hostile to a certain archetype or deck it will fail/underperform no matter how hard you prepare.
funny how some say pros words mean nothing, all the way up until one says something that matches their rhetoric.
there are many factors to a deck doing well. skill and preparation with your deck is big, but I would argue in a huuge playing field its only half the story, especially in modern.
of course I blame this on maindeckable better answers to the vast amount of linear POWERFUL strategies that exist in this format.
it simply doesn't make sense in this game to play fair( for the most part), and its the reason my lgs has faded into pokemon.
and the: "leave things be" attitude wizards has is not helping confidence of some players. unfortunately there are even more players who enjoy this kind of format as it currently is. I don't get it, but to each there own I guess.
Jund has no right to always be a Tier 1 deck.
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
I wouldn't be able to comment on the difficulty unless I had a large sample size of both tournaments. Unfortunately being on the West Coast and in Canada, it's not economically feasible for me to try and find out. I would think in theory, GP players would be more serious players because of the prizing involved, you get a PT invite, flight to the PT and more prize money than what SCG would give you. SCG is basically just an extremely large cash tournament with a points leaderboard in both the Opens and Invitationals.
Top 8 of the SCG Opens pay out something that honestly isn't too far off from what the GPs pay out. Here, we'll do a side by side, and we'll assume maximum (3,000+) attendance for the GP:
1st Place:
GP - $10,000
SCG - $5,000
2nd Place:
GP - $5,000
SCG - $2,000
3/4th Place:
GP - $2,500
SCG - $1,000
5-8th Place:
GP - $1,500
SCG - $500
9-16th Place:
GP - $1,000
SCG - $325
17-32nd Place:
GP - $500
SCG - $200
33-64th Place:
GP - $250
SCG - $100
65-100th Place:
GP - $250
SCG - No Prize Money
101-180th Place:
GP - $200
SCG - No Prize Money
Now you see the important thing to note is the HUGE attendance difference between the SCG Opens and GPs. SCG Richmond, which was their last Modern Open, had a maximum capacity of 900 players. The GP prize pool we just compared is for over 3,000 players. So think about that. If you go to an SCG Open, you are playing against a field that at maximum is 1/3 the size of a GP, with prizes that as essentially comparable, when you consider the size of the event. Add to that the fact that every player in the Top 8 gets an invite to to SCG Invitational, which has an even bigger prize pool, with a small field, and I believe offer PT invites to 1st place, it's a pretty damn competitive event.
Honestly I feel you're just arguing semantics when arguing SCG Opens aren't as competitive as a GP.
Where did I say that SCG Opens are not as competitive as GP? I only said SCG Opens are not harder than GP. You're putting words in my mouth just like the rest of this forum loves to do. We're just going to have to agree to disagree because you're just going to employ your forum favoritism to get me banned because what I say does not fit your narrative.
Unless I'm wrong, there isn't a player to my knowledge who has back to back top 8'ed Modern GPs that I can remember in recent memory. Even in Legacy, Jarvis Yu has top 8'ed back to back Legacy GPs with Lands. Just watch the finals of GP Prague, Rodrigo Togores beats a Miracles player with ANT, his worst matchup because he is better than his opponent.
Todd Stevens has iirc on multiple occassions back to back Top8'd multiple SCG Modern Opens. And their competition is on the level of GPs.
Whether the competition at SCGs is as strong as GPs is another debate, but you don't require a 13-2 to make top 8 of an SCG open. 12-3 usually gets the job done just due to the size of an SCG Open. Not to take anything away from his achievements but the path to top 8 isn't harder than say a GP.
This is a really interesting topic that's come up in my playgroup a few times.
GP vs. SCG open, what are the differences?
Metagame variation and spread in the two stylea of tournament seems to be a little different, just from my own observation. My take is that GPs tend to favour a more stable, midrangey view into modern whereas at SCG events I've seen more of a proliferation of various "cheese" style decks such as cheerios. Not to say that they always reach the top tables, but that seems to be the case with the starting field.
Of course this could also be down to coverage! I'm at the whims of whatever the coverage team deems worthy of note.
In terms of "difficulty" that's another tricky question. I'd say, based on number of rounds, the two styles of tournament are approximately on par. Whether or not (on the day) you need a 13-2 or a 12-3 record is mostly arbitrary. The field of players and how competitive they are is another factor, but again I'd assume that both style of tournament were on par here as well.
On a side note, I enjoy watching both. SCG have good coverage which matters not to the players but it draws me in as a viewer.
I wouldn't be able to comment on the difficulty unless I had a large sample size of both tournaments. Unfortunately being on the West Coast and in Canada, it's not economically feasible for me to try and find out. I would think in theory, GP players would be more serious players because of the prizing involved, you get a PT invite, flight to the PT and more prize money than what SCG would give you. SCG is basically just an extremely large cash tournament with a points leaderboard in both the Opens and Invitationals.
Unless I'm wrong, there isn't a player to my knowledge who has back to back top 8'ed Modern GPs that I can remember in recent memory. Even in Legacy, Jarvis Yu has top 8'ed back to back Legacy GPs with Lands. Just watch the finals of GP Prague, Rodrigo Togores beats a Miracles player with ANT, his worst matchup because he is better than his opponent.
Todd Stevens has iirc on multiple occassions back to back Top8'd multiple SCG Modern Opens. And their competition is on the level of GPs.
Whether the competition at SCGs is as strong as GPs is another debate, but you don't require a 13-2 to make top 8 of an SCG open. 12-3 usually gets the job done just due to the size of an SCG Open. Not to take anything away from his achievements but the path to top 8 isn't harder than say a GP.
What metagame? You mean your 100+ different deck metagame in a GP? How do you metagame that? How do I achieve the 90% win rate needed to top 8 the GP I need for the weekend? If I could play against Eldrazi Tron 15 times with Affinity in a GP, I wouldn't be having this discussion about Modern being too diverse. It's not like those MTGGoldfish metagame representation numbers are accurate, they base it mostly on MTGO decklists from comp leagues that are cherry picked. This EVOLUTION OF THE METAGAMEdoes not happen in practice the way you say it does. Unless I deliberately sink excessive amounts of cash to cleanout the community of certain cards that are favorable against my deck of choice, I cannot reliably predict what I play against in a large tournament when there are 100+ different decks that are viable and capable of winning a tournament of any size. This diversity is beneficial to the replayability of the format, but it is very detrimental to people who must win at all costs.
So first off, one of the necessary skills for Modern is knowing your deck, and the decks being played. Let's dive into that a little deeper.
Knowing Your Deck
It seems pretty self explanatory. You need to know how your deck functions, what it's strengths and weaknesses are, all that jazz. But it's not as simple as "I'm playing Eldrazi Tron and that's weak to Affinity." No, you need to delve further into why it's a weakness. Eldrazi Tron is weak to Affinity for two reasons. The first, is that Affinity is a fast aggro deck that can go extremely wide, so E-Tron has trouble disrupting that. The second reason, is E-Tron's premier sweeper, All is Dust, does literally nothing against Affinity. SO by examining the deck's weakness a little further we have improved the information we have. Eldrazi Tron can be weak to deck that are fast and go wide, and decks that invalidate All is Dust. This is a gross oversimplification of what knowing your deck entails, but if you are switching what you play in Modern every week, you aren't going to gain this necessary skill, and as such, it will effect your performance and make you do worse at tournaments.
Knowing What You're Playing Against
First, I'll mention that I am not saying you need to know the exact 75 cards every opponent you play against is using. As you said, the metagame can be 100+ decks in size, and expecting that is ludicrous. But you need to be able to know the format well enough, that you can make good assumptions about what your opponent's deck does if you face something you aren't use to. Opponent start by fetching and shocking a Watery Grave to Thoughtseize you? Most likely you're against Grixis Death's Shadow, though it could possibly be an Esper Control opponent trying to find out what they're playing against. Island into an Aether Vial? Well I suppose it's time to go Fishing this round. Just a Wooded Foothills? Well my first guess would be on Burn, since the green decks would rather be running Windswept Heath, though whatever land they fetch will definitely give you more information. Do you Thoughtseize your opponent and see a Ghostly Prison? Well I guess we're deal with some Prison style deck. Or it could be a strategy using Enduring Ideal. Better play towards me being against both until I have better confirmation on one or the other.
Modern rewards players who aren't lazy. Modern rewards players who put the time into knowing their deck, and knowing the decks they can play against.
People who succeed in Modern are those who have mastered their deck and know the field, i.e. format experts and specialists. People who fail are those that don't take the time to learn their deck and its matchups, i.e. format dabblers and, incidentally, many pros who don't have the time to commit to Modern.
Always refreshing when a top level player like BBD just restates and affirms an argument many of us have made for years.
Well, it also reinforces the point that it's the least time efficient to getting to a certain level of mastery to make profit at GPs. Modern GPs don't pay the appropriate amount of money for the amount of work you need to get top 8s consistently at GPs. There is no Modern master in the format that is the equivalent of Brad Nelson and Corey Baumeister's recent performance at back to back GP top 8s with a win in Standard. That indicates to me that no matter how much you work at being good at Modern, you cannot achieve that level of dominance just due to the high variance nature of the format because you CANNOT plug the weaknesses of your deck with playskill. Unless I'm wrong, there isn't a player to my knowledge who has back to back top 8'ed Modern GPs that I can remember in recent memory. Even in Legacy, Jarvis Yu has top 8'ed back to back Legacy GPs with Lands. Just watch the finals of GP Prague, Rodrigo Togores beats a Miracles player with ANT, his worst matchup because he is better than his opponent.
Sure, that may be a selling point for you. As a result of that, players that play poorly in game, are beating Platinum level pros with poor play on a regular basis which leads me to believe that in-game skill is not rewarded often enough. That's how I get my perception that in-game playskill has little to no impact in Modern when a Platinum level Pro is capable of losing so easily to a person who just go their DCI number on the day of the tournament.
If diversity is a "good" thing, I can't find anything positive about the format because diversity is the reason I hate the format. If Magic is supposed to be just a "game", it certainly isn't priced appropriately to be sold in such a fashion. You literally have to spend an amount of money that the large majority of people really cannot afford and wealth redistribution is a complete joke and why MTG cannot be considered an e-sport. That's why if you have to make profit, the only path to doing that is winning all your matches. Any result that isn't first place in a lot of tournaments means you are losing money and time, especially when the format you are forced to play in PPTQs for 3 months of the year is a format you hate. I think if I was going to start liking Modern again, you'd would need to begin with needing better answers to everything. Anything that would reduce the amount of non-games you have to play. As it stands, any deck I choose to register, I am at the mercy of a poor pairing which is completely out of my control. I want to play games of Magic in Modern, but I cannot when the tools are not available to help with that purpose. I have no problem losing to someone who is head and shoulders better than me at playing Magic, I do however have a problem when I am losing to someone who just happened to have the perfect counter deck to my deck of choice and plays like garbage and I chose not to prepare for it because I didn't have room in my 75 to try and beat it. That's what diversity does, you have to gamble and coinflip your matchups that you have no control over.
It's just like how you ignore our what's wrong with Modern comments too. I already see forum favoritism in effect from the mods, the post that's flamed me still has not received a warning which just confirms my theory that there is favoritism. I'm very surprised the mods have not revised the rules that anything negative about Modern is banned from discussion. You cannot criticize Modern in any way without sounding remotely negative at all because if you are positive, your point does not come across as intended. Just look at ktkenshin's post about generic answers, he posted it in a positive way and it got brushed off like it wasn't a problem in the format.
Matchup roulette is part of all formats, yes. But not to the extent that Modern has, in Legacy you have access to the entire cardpool, but you don't need to build your deck with redundancy because you get very good card selection, something Modern loves to actively ban as soon as it becomes oppressive. In Modern, you have to play more copies of a card to draw it to increase your chances of finding it, which is why you mulligan a lot in Modern for sideboard cards as opposed to relying on card selection tools to find them. That coupled with the fact that there are more viable decks in Modern than there are in both Standard and Legacy combined, you have a formula where whatever deck you choose to register, you are automatically at the mercy of a certain subset of decks that just beat you because you hit the 1% of the field matchup you don't want to face. That's how you get a metagame where goldfishing past your opponent is better than trying to interact with all your opponents, you simply cannot interact with every deck and still pull out wins consistently.
Ok, well how do you present my perceived problem with Modern without being negative and putting the point across? Under these rules, you cannot. If you sound optimistic about a problem with Modern, you will get brushed off as it's not a problem. The only discussion allowed under the current rules, is praising how good Modern is (it's not for me) and how awesome it is. The moment you bring up anything resembling a problem with Modern, you get a warning for format bashing. So you might as well ban the discussion of resembling anything negative about the format altogether. I think Modern has problem of not having a pay to win option in a best deck that beats all, I present that argument and all I get is spoiled child, entitled brat etc and there is no reprocussion for them to say that. Which leads me to believe forum favoritism is in effect.
It doesn't happen at a level that is visible enough to recognize, no one remembers people's top 16s at a Pro Tour. I can only remember Todd Steven's finishes because it's very visible and hard to ignore. Less people generally care about 9th-16th finishes.
Well I am trying to prove that no one is replicating their success on the GP level in Modern. Since now that we've established according to you that I'm presenting the fact that GPs are harder than SCGs. You're bending the argument to make me look stupid because of your forum favoritism. Just watch, your comment about me won't get warned because of calling me a spoiled child. I'm so sure of it because of forum favoritism.
See, that's what I'm talking about, you are dismissing my argument that Modern is high variance because it doesn't fit your narrative. You just proved it right there with your ignorant comment.
Back to back top 8's in Standard GPs from Brad Nelson and Corey Baumeister, Rodrigo Togores overcoming a bad matchup with playskill in Legacy. Jarvis Yu top 8-ing back to back Legacy GPs. Is that not facts? Do you want links too?
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpden17/top-moments-2017-08-20
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gppra16/finals-tholance-vs-togores-2016-06-12
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpsea15/top-8-decklists-2015-11-08
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpcol16/top-8-decks-2016-06-12
Well I flip the handle, because when I present you with facts that you don't want to hear, you dismiss it because it doesn't fit your narrative. I'm presenting you data straight from the coverage page, you choose to ignore my interpretation because it doesn't suit your views or your narrative. Instead you put words in my mouth in such a manner that flags a mod so they interpret my comments as not valid and therefore gets me a ban because you have forum favoritism.
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
Where did I say that SCG Opens are not as competitive as GP? I only said SCG Opens are not harder than GP. You're putting words in my mouth just like the rest of this forum loves to do. We're just going to have to agree to disagree because you're just going to employ your forum favoritism to get me banned because what I say does not fit your narrative.
I wouldn't be able to comment on the difficulty unless I had a large sample size of both tournaments. Unfortunately being on the West Coast and in Canada, it's not economically feasible for me to try and find out. I would think in theory, GP players would be more serious players because of the prizing involved, you get a PT invite, flight to the PT and more prize money than what SCG would give you. SCG is basically just an extremely large cash tournament with a points leaderboard in both the Opens and Invitationals.
Whether the competition at SCGs is as strong as GPs is another debate, but you don't require a 13-2 to make top 8 of an SCG open. 12-3 usually gets the job done just due to the size of an SCG Open. Not to take anything away from his achievements but the path to top 8 isn't harder than say a GP.
Well, it also reinforces the point that it's the least time efficient to getting to a certain level of mastery to make profit at GPs. Modern GPs don't pay the appropriate amount of money for the amount of work you need to get top 8s consistently at GPs. There is no Modern master in the format that is the equivalent of Brad Nelson and Corey Baumeister's recent performance at back to back GP top 8s with a win in Standard. That indicates to me that no matter how much you work at being good at Modern, you cannot achieve that level of dominance just due to the high variance nature of the format because you CANNOT plug the weaknesses of your deck with playskill. Unless I'm wrong, there isn't a player to my knowledge who has back to back top 8'ed Modern GPs that I can remember in recent memory. Even in Legacy, Jarvis Yu has top 8'ed back to back Legacy GPs with Lands. Just watch the finals of GP Prague, Rodrigo Togores beats a Miracles player with ANT, his worst matchup because he is better than his opponent.