tl;dr, if there were ever a time to speculate, now would be that time.
More players is a good thing for the format. More support, more tournaments, and in the long run more value on our cards and greater odds of re-printings happening to meet demands. Not to mention that every new pair of eyes in the format, is a new potential brewmaster who might come up with the next big thing to take down all the popular decks.
Does anyone have results based on deck type? I'm looking to see how Bogles fared. I know they didn't make top16 but they only made up a small proportion of total decks. Anyone know how many Bogles made day 2 vs how many total Bogles entered???
Nope, and we probably won't ever. As interesting as it would be to have data on the Day 1 meta, they're not going to manually go over 4500 decklists just to satisfy your curiosity.
It's not just a single person's curiosity. It's extremely useful information for balancing the game between bans and printings(and potential rules changes).
As far as "manually go[ing] over 4500 decklists", it's not as difficult as you may think. There's a box on the registration sheet for deck archetype, the vast majority of people know what they're playing. It wouldn't take that much effort to go through those boxes and uptick the corresponding deck count.
And this is all assuming that they don't already have the data digitally recorded, which they probably do, since the bracket is run by a computer that has more than just names in it.
But to look at the most diverse metagame numbers that any format has had in as long as I can remember, and saying "the format can be boiled down into two strategies" is...mindboggling.
First, I'd like to know where that claim is coming from. Second, even if that's true, you're taking one of the biggest, if not the biggest constructed tournament of all time and then saying it had the broadest variety of decks. That's not exactly newsworthy or groundbreaking. If it didn't have the biggest variety of decks, something would be seriously wrong with not just Modern, but Magic itself.
Are the public school systems so bad that people don't understand how population size has no bearing on percentages? Wouldn't matter if 100 people or a million showed up to the event, the distribution would still be largely the same.
And the percentage breakdowns have been posted in this thread several times. And they paint a pretty objective picture of 2 dozen different decks each making up over 1% of the day2(meaning they are viable) metagame, and no single deck being over 15%. Which is a diversity that has not been seen in any format, Standard, Modern, or Legacy, for a loooooooooooong time.
And the decks have had strategies ranging from draw-go, to combo-control, to midrange control, to tempo-control, to tempo-combo, to aggro, to suicide aggro, to aggro-combo, to aggro-control, to suicide combo, to lockdown. There's basically no type of strategy that doesn't have representation in those top 20-30 decks(which all have a relevant chunk of the metagame).
Want to play aggro? Hope you like Affinity, because Nacatyl & Friends won't get you there.
Big Zoo Specifically was over 3% of the day2 metagame. Little Zoo was also there at almost 2%. And that's to say nothing of Fish which was just shy of 5%(making it one of the top5 best performing decks in the tournament). And Burn stays consistent at 3%.
Want to play control? Hope you don't need any decent card draw.
Umm...what? Serum Visions is no Brainstorm, but it's not bad. Thirst is still around. Remand obviously sees no play T_T. Neither does Clique. Repeal? Compulsize Research? Electrolyze? And then there's Cryptic Command. Nope, no draw in the format at all.
Tempo your thing? Well, Bitterblossom put 2 decks into Day 2, so, uhh, there you go!
RUG* Twin is the definition of a tempo strategy, it just happens to have a combo-kill interwoven into it. But that doesn't stop it from being a tempo deck. Delver is still putting up okay numbers, between the different variants it surpassed 1%.
If you want to speak in the broadest terms, sure, those are all completely legitimate strategies. Unfortunately, none of them can really hang with the big boys in a field as big as we just saw. The tools just aren't there.
A vast majority of those decks had pilots end day2 with the same record as the pod players, just had worse tie breakers thanks primarily to luck.
There's a sliding scale. Speed v Resilience. There are extremely fast decks, like Storm and Affinity. These can win before the opponent has a chance to react, but will also immediately fold extremely hard to any amount of hate. Because they only try to do one thing but they try to do it very efficiently. The strengths of such a deck are obvious.
But as you spread yourself out to different strategies, you do none of them amazingly well, which means you do all of them reasonably slowly. It's a trade-off on how much you value speed. And the fact that Robots is still the #1 most played deck, and appearing in plenty of top8s, theres a lot of people demonstrating that going with a fast strategy that gets hard countered can work just fine.
But to look at the most diverse metagame numbers that any format has had in as long as I can remember, and saying "the format can be boiled down into two strategies" is...mindboggling.
what about WUR? What singular card makes that deck instantly scoop. Because I can't think of any. Just because there's not a single card that completely hoses a deck into forfeit situation, doesn't mean the deck can't be hated. Hate is supposed to do just that, which is the main difference between hate cards and hosers. Hate is meant to hurt a deck's gameplan and being inconvenient for them. Voice of Resurgence hates against control decks. But they just burn it out on their main phase. Loxodon Smiter gives you what is essentially 3 free mana if your opponent runs blind discard. That's how most hate has always been, minor advantages over specific opponents, that hurts them but doesn't shut them down completely(Cards that guaranteed victory if you draw it, and guarantee loss if you don't are things Wizards doesn't like when they can help it).
Pod has more points of interactions than decks like WUR. Which means its utilizing many different strategies. The whole design is to make it susceptible to lots of types of hate and be able to play through all of them at a limited capacity, that's kinda the point. That's the only reason to add multiple points of interaction. And it's because people are tired of hard hosers why decks like Blue Moon have come into existence.
Im not sure why Pod is "difficult to hate out" there's plenty of cards like Arbiter and Mindcensor to stop searching. Lots of creature exiling like Path and Anger. Lots of yard hate whether it be ooze, relic, grafdiggers, or a million others. And leans heavily on an artifact with literally every deck having hard artifact counters in the sideboard due to robots. It literally has more points of interaction than any other deck in the format. And while none of them completely hose the deck, they all put a major dent in it.
Huh, so Faeries made it into the Top 16? Interesting.
The meta sure does look more interesting when you expand to the Top 16...
I'm not all that familiar with Modern Faeries...is that a normal list? It seems really odd with cards like Tragic Slip and...not really many actual Faeries.
I was holding out for this weekend being fishes weekend to shine. I'm surprised Merfolk didn't top 8, it'll be interesting to see where it did place though.
I mean, the modern community had it right from the beginning, even here on mtgsal. If I wanna test against Hatebears I hit up Dol. If I want to test against Tokens, I talk to jango. If I have a question about 8 rack, I talk to memory lapse. When ever people want to know how to play, whats good against, or test against zoo, they ask me.
Well, if you ever need some help figuring out a matchup against R/W Ponza, let me know. I got that deck down
Boom//Bust Flagstones?
That's the one. It'll get its chance to shine someday
...someday.
As for people already complaining about Pod...people said the same last week about Twin. One event isn't enough of a sample. There's SO MUCH stuff that exiles creatures and prevents searching in the format, there's plenty to combat Pod if it were to remain a serious problem. Maybe D+T comes back, maybe hatebears, maybe we see something abusing cards like Cosi's. There's a reason Aven Mindcensor is worth $, and yet nobody is using it right now.
I mean, the modern community had it right from the beginning, even here on mtgsal. If I wanna test against Hatebears I hit up Dol. If I want to test against Tokens, I talk to jango. If I have a question about 8 rack, I talk to memory lapse. When ever people want to know how to play, whats good against, or test against zoo, they ask me.
Well, if you ever need some help figuring out a matchup against R/W Ponza, let me know. I got that deck down
Anyone else get the feeling modern is turning less into "Which pro/team do you like?" And more into "Cheer for your favorite sports team, aka Archetypes?"
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but hasn't it always been that way? I can't recall ever seeing someone cheering for someone they like who was playing a deck they hated. I always felt people gravitated far more towards decks than players. I like Dickmann, but I can't help but root against him because I hate his deck. I haven't heard of most of these Merfolk players, but I'm on their side because they're playing Merfolk. Was I in the minority on that?
Though keep in mind, as Chapin has been trying to push all weekend, "you should play what you know." Aggro players tend to keep playing aggro, Zoo players keep playing Zoo, combo players keep playing combo. So if you like a deck, you start to like the players playing it, and then you'll likely continue to like the decks those players are playing because they usually keep with similarly themed decks because that's the kind of player they are.
"Cursecatcher is a terrible card in Modern" Those...those are some words. Those are some STRONG words. I always had this feeling(which is why I always played Cosi's over it), but I didn't think I'd hear a pro agree with that since it's been a pretty unpopular opinion in the merfolk thread.
I'm not sure hes a pro to be honest with you, but Ive agreed to that for a long time. I also played trickster.
Didn't his record today guaranteed him an invite to the pro tour? And isn't that more or less the defining factor of a pro is being on the pro tour?
And regardless if he's technically a pro or not, putting up numbers like that in an event like this carries a lot of weight and will hopefully make people more willing to listen.
That's the point. If you print a bunch of 2-mana lords for elves, then...they will slot in aether vial and try to be "green fish." Instead of taking the different direction they are supposed to take that has been historically successful in every format. Look at Legacy elves, it does just fine without more lords. They use the same lords we do, and just use the elves' natural ramping power to get more out faster even though they cost 3 instead of 2(but they also have added benefits to offset that). And then use that ramping power for a big intimidating fatty.
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There's usually a cheap and easy entry point to the format. Just very limited options in that case.
More players is a good thing for the format. More support, more tournaments, and in the long run more value on our cards and greater odds of re-printings happening to meet demands. Not to mention that every new pair of eyes in the format, is a new potential brewmaster who might come up with the next big thing to take down all the popular decks.
It's not just a single person's curiosity. It's extremely useful information for balancing the game between bans and printings(and potential rules changes).
As far as "manually go[ing] over 4500 decklists", it's not as difficult as you may think. There's a box on the registration sheet for deck archetype, the vast majority of people know what they're playing. It wouldn't take that much effort to go through those boxes and uptick the corresponding deck count.
And this is all assuming that they don't already have the data digitally recorded, which they probably do, since the bracket is run by a computer that has more than just names in it.
Are the public school systems so bad that people don't understand how population size has no bearing on percentages? Wouldn't matter if 100 people or a million showed up to the event, the distribution would still be largely the same.
And the percentage breakdowns have been posted in this thread several times. And they paint a pretty objective picture of 2 dozen different decks each making up over 1% of the day2(meaning they are viable) metagame, and no single deck being over 15%. Which is a diversity that has not been seen in any format, Standard, Modern, or Legacy, for a loooooooooooong time.
And the decks have had strategies ranging from draw-go, to combo-control, to midrange control, to tempo-control, to tempo-combo, to aggro, to suicide aggro, to aggro-combo, to aggro-control, to suicide combo, to lockdown. There's basically no type of strategy that doesn't have representation in those top 20-30 decks(which all have a relevant chunk of the metagame).
Big Zoo Specifically was over 3% of the day2 metagame. Little Zoo was also there at almost 2%. And that's to say nothing of Fish which was just shy of 5%(making it one of the top5 best performing decks in the tournament). And Burn stays consistent at 3%.
Umm...what? Serum Visions is no Brainstorm, but it's not bad. Thirst is still around. Remand obviously sees no play T_T. Neither does Clique. Repeal? Compulsize Research? Electrolyze? And then there's Cryptic Command. Nope, no draw in the format at all.
RUG* Twin is the definition of a tempo strategy, it just happens to have a combo-kill interwoven into it. But that doesn't stop it from being a tempo deck. Delver is still putting up okay numbers, between the different variants it surpassed 1%.
A vast majority of those decks had pilots end day2 with the same record as the pod players, just had worse tie breakers thanks primarily to luck.
But as you spread yourself out to different strategies, you do none of them amazingly well, which means you do all of them reasonably slowly. It's a trade-off on how much you value speed. And the fact that Robots is still the #1 most played deck, and appearing in plenty of top8s, theres a lot of people demonstrating that going with a fast strategy that gets hard countered can work just fine.
But to look at the most diverse metagame numbers that any format has had in as long as I can remember, and saying "the format can be boiled down into two strategies" is...mindboggling.
Pod has more points of interactions than decks like WUR. Which means its utilizing many different strategies. The whole design is to make it susceptible to lots of types of hate and be able to play through all of them at a limited capacity, that's kinda the point. That's the only reason to add multiple points of interaction. And it's because people are tired of hard hosers why decks like Blue Moon have come into existence.
I'm not all that familiar with Modern Faeries...is that a normal list? It seems really odd with cards like Tragic Slip and...not really many actual Faeries.
/wrists.
I think the best was around...26th?
That's the one. It'll get its chance to shine someday
...someday.
As for people already complaining about Pod...people said the same last week about Twin. One event isn't enough of a sample. There's SO MUCH stuff that exiles creatures and prevents searching in the format, there's plenty to combat Pod if it were to remain a serious problem. Maybe D+T comes back, maybe hatebears, maybe we see something abusing cards like Cosi's. There's a reason Aven Mindcensor is worth $, and yet nobody is using it right now.
Well, if you ever need some help figuring out a matchup against R/W Ponza, let me know. I got that deck down
Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but hasn't it always been that way? I can't recall ever seeing someone cheering for someone they like who was playing a deck they hated. I always felt people gravitated far more towards decks than players. I like Dickmann, but I can't help but root against him because I hate his deck. I haven't heard of most of these Merfolk players, but I'm on their side because they're playing Merfolk. Was I in the minority on that?
Though keep in mind, as Chapin has been trying to push all weekend, "you should play what you know." Aggro players tend to keep playing aggro, Zoo players keep playing Zoo, combo players keep playing combo. So if you like a deck, you start to like the players playing it, and then you'll likely continue to like the decks those players are playing because they usually keep with similarly themed decks because that's the kind of player they are.
Didn't his record today guaranteed him an invite to the pro tour? And isn't that more or less the defining factor of a pro is being on the pro tour?
And regardless if he's technically a pro or not, putting up numbers like that in an event like this carries a lot of weight and will hopefully make people more willing to listen.
That's the point. If you print a bunch of 2-mana lords for elves, then...they will slot in aether vial and try to be "green fish." Instead of taking the different direction they are supposed to take that has been historically successful in every format. Look at Legacy elves, it does just fine without more lords. They use the same lords we do, and just use the elves' natural ramping power to get more out faster even though they cost 3 instead of 2(but they also have added benefits to offset that). And then use that ramping power for a big intimidating fatty.