I was having a conversation with a friend who only plays Modern (like will not even go to a prerelease for fun) and has a Jund Midrange deck that he brings out to the local FNM or other local scene. I was talking about the War of the Sparks and thinking about new brews, but he was like "I know other people will do more exciting things, but if I show up to anything Modern playing Jund, I may not have made the best choice, but I haven't made a bad choice."
Setting aside his pick of Jund as the ol' reliable (insert commentary), I did realize that you could probably be a casual, once in a "blue Moon" Modern player over the last few years (2016 to today) and either be:
- Fully invested in your one deck, whatever it is.
- GBx Midrange, splashing for either Jund or Abzan.
- UWx Control, splashing for either Jeskai or Esper.
And feel pretty happy.
Thinking about how the mana base can be the more expensive aspect of Modern, that means that a base UWx or GBx mana base can get you into the Modern deck you're comfortably playing for years. And both have wanted the option to splash Red, or the opposite of the Black/White that's not in their base.
But I also know that no one is stepping up to play:
- Sultai Midrange.
- Bant Control
For color-balance reasons should WOTC bail our these archetypes or not?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
----- "I cannot tune a harp or play a lyre, but I know how to make a small city great." - Themistocles
In short, no. For one, Modern doesnt lend itself to 'fair" decks (at least not currently). That's just not what the format is trying to do for the most part. Your friend's Jund is one of those "fair" decks. They also have to be careful (at least until Modern Horizons became a thing) because the cards they print have to be reasonable for both Limited & Standard play. I dont ever see a scenario where a design team says " x isnt being played in modern so we should rectify that". IMO it has to happen more organically
People have tried BUG (it is after all in the BGx family) and there is some success, but it doesnt get enough out of the 3rd colour, mostly because Blue is actually not good, dont let UW Terminus fool you.
Bant (notice the colour Blue again) is also not great, when you can either play Knightfall (Turn 3 wins are nice) or GW Counters (Turn 3 wins are nice) and thats that.
Playing a true reactive controlling game is just putting the game into hard mode.
No need at all to bail those colours out, just play them with appropriate expectations.
No format really has color balance, and that goes double for the idea that every single combination of colors. When you have a finite number of options, no matter how large, there will always be optimal combinations.
It looks like WOTC is doing that for White and Red in Commander, slowly over time, and with Modern Horizons I'm curious what approach they would take to designing specifically for Modern. You either could take the approach of looking at what people already play and add more utility, or you could take the approach of looking at what people aren't playing and finding cards to make those decks more viable. Who knows what WOTC comes up with.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
----- "I cannot tune a harp or play a lyre, but I know how to make a small city great." - Themistocles
Right now it’s impossible to play a fair deck without banking on white/black removal. Additionally, white and black have access to the best hate cards, the best graveyard hate, and the best sideboards overall. I’d say if you’re not using some sort of hyper synergy to win (faithless looting, tron lands, valakut, burn decks, etc) then you essentially have to be in white, black, or both. Blue Moon is the perfect example of a fair deck that will always be tier two because it can’t realistically dispatch the formats threats in a timely manner and the countermagic of the format isn’t good enough to cover every angle.
EDIT: @The Fluff, color identity is a part of the game for a reason. Players generally have a preferred association with certain colors or aspects of the color pie and want to encapsulate those in their style of play. While not everyone is like this, being able to play the colors you want competitively in every format would be a huge win for Magic overall. It’s pretty simple I think.
Ah, I see what you mean. But that's not really easy to balance things.. some colors would be stronger than others in a format. For example, blue is strong in legacy, while other colors are strong in modern.
Modern is fairly colour balanced. The number of playable decks in modern is completly nutters butters.
Mono blue: Merfolk, Blue Tron, Whir Prisson.
Mono White: Shows up once in a while, but is not really a thing outside White/Eldrazi Prison/Wheenie/Death and taxes.
Mono Green: Elves, some colourds might be added. Monogreen devotion. Green Tron, hardened scales affinaty.
Mono Red: 8 Whack. Also almost all Burn is just Red with splash for Boros Charm. Red Prison. Skred Red.
Mono Black: 8 rack. Some black devotion at tier 4.
Colourless: Eldrazi Tron.
Azorius: Controll. Spirits.
Dimir: No real dimir deck exists. Fairies is the closest one.
Rakdos: Hollow one.
Gruul: Valakut, Ponza.
Selesnya: Value Town, Hate Bears.
Izzet: Blue moon, Phoenix, Storm.
Golgari: Death Cloud, BG/Rock.
Boros: Burn, Boros control with Nahiri (last seen 2017.)
Simic: Infect.
Orzov: Tokens, Death and taxes.
Bant: Spirits.
Esper: Not really a thing. UW with splash for Tazigur.
Grixis: Grixis control.
Jund: BGX Jund.
Naya: Not really a thing. Zoo agro.
Sultai: Not really a thing. Wildernes BUG.
Mardu: Mardu midrange (look mon, no goyfs!)
Temur: Not really a thing.
Abzan: GBX Abzan.
Jeskai: Control.
Decks that are more then 3 colours or are hard to place due to colours not mattering that much:
Jeskai Ascendancy, Titan Amulet, varius Death Shadow, Dredge, Affinaty, Humans.
So the colours that are over representated is Izzet ,black midrange or Deaths Sadow decks. Colours that are under represented are Dimir, Esper, Sultai and Temur. Even colourless and several decks more then 4 colours are represented. Modern is very colour balanced.
I see come people cometing on fair decks vs unfairmdecks. That has nothing to do with colour balance. But the general thing is you either winn fast weenie or combo style. If you tap out you play black for discard spells to fight combo. If you want to go long you either play prison pieces (like chalice) or you play blue for cryptic command. If your deck does not fall within thise paremeters the deck will have a hard time in modern. (Not I count tron like a combo deck. Most decks have problem with a turn 3 Karn.) In adition you will often have an infavoured game vs Burn, Gravyeard based decks or Affinaty. So many sideboard slots are dedicated to fight Burn, Gravyeard decks or artifacts. The remaining slots are tuned for you meta or your decks weak spots.
So the colours that are over representated is Izzet ,black midrange or Deaths Sadow decks. Colours that are under represented are Dimir, Esper, Sultai and Temur. Even colourless and several decks more then 4 colours are represented. Modern is very colour balanced.
If you expand the list in terms of viability and chronology, you can include Mill in the Dimir category. Esper had a Gifts Ungiven reanimator deck some years back, and there are a number of players running black in Spirits for Fatal Push and Lingering Souls. Temur used to be Scapeshift's premiere color combination, and MTGS's Temur Delver thread is still very active. Outside of Teachings, though, Sultai very much remains as Modern's white whale.
There are many, many, many more decks. You can have Dimir Mill. You can do esper mill with path to exile and Archive Trap. But faries has been the hieghst peforming Dimir list, placing topp 16 and 32 in big competitions. Scapeshift used to be Temur. But then Scapeshift temur used to be 4 and 5 colour after Bring to Light came. There are temur eternal command decks etc. The list of colour combinations will leave quite a lot of decks out once you start listing them. The list is very exstensive. I gues it is the nature of internet communication to jump in and point out anything not mentioned.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have dyslexia, no I am not going to spell check for you, yes you have to live with the horrors of it.
Ah, I see what you mean. But that's not really easy to balance things.. some colors would be stronger than others in a format. For example, blue is strong in legacy, while other colors are strong in modern.
I think it's interesting to think about why certain colors are stronger than others in a format. Blue is strong in legacy because WOTC printed some absurd blue cards earlier on when they didn't do as much internally to balance cards, mana cost, etc. Red and white are weaker in Commander because the higher life total and multiplayer format, which isn't what most cards are designed for, skews the game.
When considering why some colors are stronger in Modern, one reason is that WOTC hasn't, until Horizons, been able to add tools to the Modern toolbox without going through Standard first, and for a variety of reasons they don't want to mess up Standard as their gateway Constructed format. So this is the first time that WOTC may address some perceived imbalances directly into Modern.
Of course that raises the question of what is Modern "missing" in other colors. Even if White and Black have the best removal and best hate cards, it's not like WOTC is going to violate their own color pie and print more Beast Within variants in a color like Green. But Green could get cheap, efficient utility creatures or more hate bears.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
----- "I cannot tune a harp or play a lyre, but I know how to make a small city great." - Themistocles
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Setting aside his pick of Jund as the ol' reliable (insert commentary), I did realize that you could probably be a casual, once in a "blue Moon" Modern player over the last few years (2016 to today) and either be:
- Fully invested in your one deck, whatever it is.
- GBx Midrange, splashing for either Jund or Abzan.
- UWx Control, splashing for either Jeskai or Esper.
And feel pretty happy.
Thinking about how the mana base can be the more expensive aspect of Modern, that means that a base UWx or GBx mana base can get you into the Modern deck you're comfortably playing for years. And both have wanted the option to splash Red, or the opposite of the Black/White that's not in their base.
But I also know that no one is stepping up to play:
- Sultai Midrange.
- Bant Control
For color-balance reasons should WOTC bail our these archetypes or not?
"I cannot tune a harp or play a lyre, but I know how to make a small city great." - Themistocles
Bant (notice the colour Blue again) is also not great, when you can either play Knightfall (Turn 3 wins are nice) or GW Counters (Turn 3 wins are nice) and thats that.
Playing a true reactive controlling game is just putting the game into hard mode.
No need at all to bail those colours out, just play them with appropriate expectations.
Spirits
and why should there be a "color balance"?
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
It looks like WOTC is doing that for White and Red in Commander, slowly over time, and with Modern Horizons I'm curious what approach they would take to designing specifically for Modern. You either could take the approach of looking at what people already play and add more utility, or you could take the approach of looking at what people aren't playing and finding cards to make those decks more viable. Who knows what WOTC comes up with.
"I cannot tune a harp or play a lyre, but I know how to make a small city great." - Themistocles
EDIT: @The Fluff, color identity is a part of the game for a reason. Players generally have a preferred association with certain colors or aspects of the color pie and want to encapsulate those in their style of play. While not everyone is like this, being able to play the colors you want competitively in every format would be a huge win for Magic overall. It’s pretty simple I think.
Ah, I see what you mean. But that's not really easy to balance things.. some colors would be stronger than others in a format. For example, blue is strong in legacy, while other colors are strong in modern.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Mono blue: Merfolk, Blue Tron, Whir Prisson.
Mono White: Shows up once in a while, but is not really a thing outside White/Eldrazi Prison/Wheenie/Death and taxes.
Mono Green: Elves, some colourds might be added. Monogreen devotion. Green Tron, hardened scales affinaty.
Mono Red: 8 Whack. Also almost all Burn is just Red with splash for Boros Charm. Red Prison. Skred Red.
Mono Black: 8 rack. Some black devotion at tier 4.
Colourless: Eldrazi Tron.
Azorius: Controll. Spirits.
Dimir: No real dimir deck exists. Fairies is the closest one.
Rakdos: Hollow one.
Gruul: Valakut, Ponza.
Selesnya: Value Town, Hate Bears.
Izzet: Blue moon, Phoenix, Storm.
Golgari: Death Cloud, BG/Rock.
Boros: Burn, Boros control with Nahiri (last seen 2017.)
Simic: Infect.
Orzov: Tokens, Death and taxes.
Bant: Spirits.
Esper: Not really a thing. UW with splash for Tazigur.
Grixis: Grixis control.
Jund: BGX Jund.
Naya: Not really a thing. Zoo agro.
Sultai: Not really a thing. Wildernes BUG.
Mardu: Mardu midrange (look mon, no goyfs!)
Temur: Not really a thing.
Abzan: GBX Abzan.
Jeskai: Control.
Decks that are more then 3 colours or are hard to place due to colours not mattering that much:
Jeskai Ascendancy, Titan Amulet, varius Death Shadow, Dredge, Affinaty, Humans.
So the colours that are over representated is Izzet ,black midrange or Deaths Sadow decks. Colours that are under represented are Dimir, Esper, Sultai and Temur. Even colourless and several decks more then 4 colours are represented. Modern is very colour balanced.
I see come people cometing on fair decks vs unfairmdecks. That has nothing to do with colour balance. But the general thing is you either winn fast weenie or combo style. If you tap out you play black for discard spells to fight combo. If you want to go long you either play prison pieces (like chalice) or you play blue for cryptic command. If your deck does not fall within thise paremeters the deck will have a hard time in modern. (Not I count tron like a combo deck. Most decks have problem with a turn 3 Karn.) In adition you will often have an infavoured game vs Burn, Gravyeard based decks or Affinaty. So many sideboard slots are dedicated to fight Burn, Gravyeard decks or artifacts. The remaining slots are tuned for you meta or your decks weak spots.
If you expand the list in terms of viability and chronology, you can include Mill in the Dimir category. Esper had a Gifts Ungiven reanimator deck some years back, and there are a number of players running black in Spirits for Fatal Push and Lingering Souls. Temur used to be Scapeshift's premiere color combination, and MTGS's Temur Delver thread is still very active. Outside of Teachings, though, Sultai very much remains as Modern's white whale.
I think it's interesting to think about why certain colors are stronger than others in a format. Blue is strong in legacy because WOTC printed some absurd blue cards earlier on when they didn't do as much internally to balance cards, mana cost, etc. Red and white are weaker in Commander because the higher life total and multiplayer format, which isn't what most cards are designed for, skews the game.
When considering why some colors are stronger in Modern, one reason is that WOTC hasn't, until Horizons, been able to add tools to the Modern toolbox without going through Standard first, and for a variety of reasons they don't want to mess up Standard as their gateway Constructed format. So this is the first time that WOTC may address some perceived imbalances directly into Modern.
Of course that raises the question of what is Modern "missing" in other colors. Even if White and Black have the best removal and best hate cards, it's not like WOTC is going to violate their own color pie and print more Beast Within variants in a color like Green. But Green could get cheap, efficient utility creatures or more hate bears.
"I cannot tune a harp or play a lyre, but I know how to make a small city great." - Themistocles