Somehow, there are only 4 decks on the 7-1 or better list in the entire event (a Jund, a Burn, a 20-creature Jeskai Prowess, and an Amulet Titan Azusa). None of which made Top 8. There were 15 Standard decks 7-1 or better. Take that as you will for format consistency and competitiveness.
Then you look at the top 8 for Standard and see 5 Aetherwork decks, and 3 aggro decks. I'm sure that's the type of consistency we should be aiming for.
Top 8s are irrelevant because it's made up of 8 rounds each of two different formats. It's even less meaningful since they aren't even playing Modern in the finals rounds. I'm referencing specifically the lists of 7-1 decks. There were 4 in Modern and 15 in Standard, meaning there is way more volatility and variance luck in Modern than there is in Standard. Doesn't matter how good you are if you don't draw well or are paired up with an unwinnable matchup. The four 7-1 or better records in Modern were Jund and 3 linear aggressive decks, which is a pretty good snapshot to describe the format.
Than you have no idea regarding the current standard format. It is the prime example of a rock-paper-scissor format, which is just unhealthy and no fun at all. You either play BG Delirium and beat up UW Flash but lose to Aetherworks, or you play UW Flash to beat up Aetherwork but lost to BG Delirium.
And we are talking about 65-35 win percentages here...
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Being able to run Anger MD while not screwing up your own win cons (Nahiri) is great. It looks like, that from the tier 1 decks only Burn and Eldrazi are not that great but otherwise? Might be something worth exploring imo.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Most notably: Only 3 Infect decks made it into the top 12 and thus underperform hard. Otherwise (discounting top 8 and only counting from 9-32 place) 9 linear decks (Dredge, Infect, Affinity, Amulet Bloom (I will stick to this name, even though Bloom is banned) but no Burn), only 3 semi fair decks (Eldrazi Tron, UWR Aggro) and the rest are all interactive decks (Meerfolk, Jund, Kiki Chord, Grixis Control, Jeskai Flash, Blue Moon,...).
Kinda surprised at that turn out, after seeing the day 2 metagame.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
How exactly do the numbers 3.9% (paper %) and 2.2% (mtgo %) combine to get 4.2% (overall meta)?
But you were certain Jeskai is tier 2, and this means it's such a bad deck. I think you are just bitter for this, and now you can not say "unban Twin" because all control decks are tier 2. Instead of being happy that a control deck is tier 1. This is so bad. Guess you have to wait for another month.
It's still not a great deck. I'm guessing a lot of people are still playing it out of stubbornness. Either because they feel it is stronger than it is, or they spent hundreds of dollars buying into it last spring and want to justify continuing to play it. It has been trending downward every update.
Than why did Tom Ross play it if it is just garbage? I mean, if he wants he can play any deck in the format cause cards should be no problem for him (especially on a SCG tournament). So why did he play the deck than?
Greetings,
kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
When one does not know about a deck, one must not speak. 8rack is a discard/control deck and it's trying to do pretty much the same thing as Jund. No big differences here. If you take, whatever card, because they are all the same, much like Jund it can be the difference between winning and losing the game. 8rcak needs a lot of skill especially when discarding the first card. 8rack might be a topdeck deck, but Jund is as well. It is NOT a linear deck. Please, magicman, stop insulting decks if you have no idea what they are about.
Totally agree here.
Furthermore, 8Rack is basically a Mono Black Jund deck, both in design and how it plays. It wants to interact first (Discard), remove stuff (Jund has Terminate/Bolt/Decay, 8Rack has Smallpox, Dismember and Funeral Charm) and than maybe land a beater (Jund = Goyf/Confi, 8Rack = Rack effects and Creas post board).
Sure, 8Rack has more cards in the first two categories (interaction and removal) than actual win cons, but this makes the deck not more linear but more controlling.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: Btw I love to play against 8Rack with my Delver decks, since it is always a interesting game and balance act
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I play grixis ALOT And it certainly doesn't feel tier 2 to me.
Since tiers are based on metagame representation, they aren't subjective. Grixis is definitively Tier 2.
I will second this. I am certain that, judging from power level alone, Grixis IS a tier 2 deck. Unless you are doing something wrong.
Totally agree here.
In 2015 metagame I said, that Grixis Delver is by far the worst Grixis deck, since the format is so slow, that you do not need the early pressure. Now, in a more linear metagame, you want those turn 1/2 Delver/Tasigur to get a early clock going. Hence, my opinion shifted from: "Grixis Control is the best Grixis deck" towards "Grixis Delver is the best one, since it can play a decent value game vs Midrange but is aggressive enough to threaten linear strategies".
I can confirm Jeskai is Tier 2 for August. Tier 1 has the usual suspects like Jund, Burn, Affinity, and Infect, plus Bant Eldrazi, Dredge, Death's Shadow Zoo, and Merfolk. I would have to check the spreadsheet to be sure, but I'm pretty sure that's what it will look like.
Just looked it up in the spread sheet. As long as it is correct (should be, since it should still use the same methods as you used them), Jeskai Nahiri is currently at 4.2% metagame share and has a Score of 8, which is just within tier 1.
~block quote~
I phrased it that way because your "examples" conveniently neglected to mention the only deck that is at the focus of frustration caused by these bans without any suitable choice for previous players to gravitate to. Jeskai Nahiri is a joke, a flash in the pan that has done nothing but fall since its inaugural weekend. UW control isn't even Tier 2.
Maybe former Twin players are "furious and hostile," as you say, because not only has there been no suitable replacement for the deck, it has produced the OPPOSITE effect set out by the ban itself. It was supposed to make blue better and instead has only made it worse. Even with two targeted apology unbans, blue reactivate decks have essentially disappeared.
And on top of it all, when people who made the argument nearly a year ago that banning Twin would result in an explosion of linear decks, we were mocked and insulted; labeled as a bunch of whining complainers who have nothing better to do than cry about losing their pet deck. Now we get to say I told you so, and we're still mocked and insulted.
Banning Twin is possibly the worst thing Wizards could have done and the format is considerably worse off because of it. We collectively praised 2015 as one of the best, healthiest, most fun and diverse year Modern had ever had. Now, in 2016, it has been nothing but complaints and frustrations all year long. From Eldrazi Winter to "the situation" we have now, 2016 has been several steps backwards. And that first step was removing the only Tier 1 control deck that served to keep the format in check while NEVER representing an oppressive hold on the meta.
I do not know, from where you got your last paragraph but it is simply not true. The whining done by the Modern community is such a big problem, that regardless of which result the tournament(s) show, people will whine, cause it is not X/Y/Z.
For me, 2015 was the worst year of Modern, I loved modern back in the days between Avacan Resorted and RTR, the best 6 months Modern I could ever enjoy. In tier 1 we had back then 1 Midrange deck (Jund), 1 Control deck (Jeskai Control), 1 Tempo deck (UWR Delver), 1 Combo/value deck (Kiki Pod) and one dedicated combo deck (Storm) while the tier 2 decks were only marginally worse than the tier 1 decks.
THOSE 6 months I want back, not that boring 2015 metagame. Heck, I even preferred Eldrazi Winter over 2015 metagame and that says a lot.
Because if I don't express my point with "frustration" you will say that there is nothing wrong and ignore the problem, which is why attacking someone personally is the only way to get a point across. Like if we tried to present this information to you nicely, you're gonna say "nothing's wrong" but no you're brushing away the frustration which leads to these personal attacks. If someone has glasses on that show Modern is sunshine and rainbows, telling them nicely that there is something wrong isn't going to get their attention, you have to be extremely forceful in your approach and that involves attacking said person in such a way that they cannot ignore it.
Actually, you expressing yourself that way has made me much more likely to not take you seriously. I'm sure I speak for multiple other users when I say I find civil discourse much more effective at convincing someone of a standpoint than personal attacks and scare quotes.
While I'm hesitant to use the "hate" word, I pretty much share Kathal's viewpoint that most frustration in this format comes from lazy players who are unwilling to adapt to format change. Modern is a format that, by its very nature, is prone to change. (While one stated goal of the format is to have a relatively stable pool of decks, we have seen now that in practice it changes quite frequently between new introductions via Standard sets and diversity bans.) I have not seen this issue present among competent brewers or players who devote lots of time to learning Modern's subtleties (Jeff Hoogland, Kevin Jones, Eli Kassis, Joe Losset, etc.).
I hate this assumption that players are just upset because they can't adapt, as if it's beyond the realm of possibility that they've already tried really hard to adapt their archetype to the meta and found that their archetype simply isn't viable.
It took me 1 year to get the Shoal Griselbanned deck running and functioning, it took me roughly the same amount of time to get Counter Cat remotely playable (thanks again @Ashton for the great work you put in there ^^ ) and it took me 2 years to finally find a good Ritual Gifts list again WHILE I KNOW, that I have at least 1 year of work before me to get it where I want.
What most people I know understand with: "I tried everything but nothing works" is, that they create a list, test it a couple of games, change stuff again, test again, change stuff again test again and than say: "Nope, doesn't work". The big problem with such an approach is, that you need to get first a feeling WHAT is wrong. By doing a couple of quick matches you won't get the feeling. You need to grind those problems out, make changes, test again, analyse and than maybe revert back, cause you went into the wrong direction.
To properly test a new brew (or version of an already existing deck) you need to do A LOT of games before even changing a single card, we are talking about several dozens here. THAN you exactly know, where the problems are and how to fix them. Than you come up with a solution, implement it, test it again vs the gauntlet decks you have, analyse it, change it again and repeat this several iteration before you can finally say: "That deck sucks because of reason X/Y/Z" or "It works, but has some small problems, which we might be able to fix."
Yes, it takes a lot of time, but this is exactly the reason, why so few new decks are cropping up in Modern, since brewing and developing decks take just soooooooo long.
Hence, when somebody comes with: "I tried everything but nothing works" I can just shake my head, since I exactly know, how they "tested" it.
I phrased it that way because your "examples" conveniently neglected to mention the only deck that is at the focus of frustration caused by these bans without any suitable choice for previous players to gravitate to. Jeskai Nahiri is a joke, a flash in the pan that has done nothing but fall since its inaugural weekend. UW control isn't even Tier 2.
I just checked the top decks on MTGTop8 to verify your statement.
URx control decks (Jeskai and Grixis) combine for a 6% metagame share. UWx control decks combine for a 4% metagame share. Before the Twin ban, this 10% of the metagame was made up of Twin decks, and there were no other viable blue-based midrange decks in the format.
You can check the numbers yourself if you don't believe me, but really I think you should check them before making false claims that are so easily debunked. Otherwise it really hurts the credibility of your argument. http://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=MO
If you're interested in more holistic data, MN's Top Decks page lists Jeskai Control at 5.2% (firmly Tier 1), with Esper, UW, Grixis, and Blue Moon all in Tier 3. How was Jeskai Nahiri a "flash in the pan" if it's still a top-tier archetype?
you cannot combine all snappy decks and then say look they are fine!. each different deck is different in its game plan for the most part. maybe ill bunch all bg/x decks together to find that they are oppressive? lol
The initial statement was: The Twin ban was bad cause now Uxx sucks.
Wizard stated with the Twin ban, that this is mostly done to enable other URx strategies, since you have no reason to run those, if the best strategy is Twin. Yes, they succeeded with this. The former URx Twin metagame share is now spread up in multiple different strategies, be it Jeskai Nahiri, UW Midrange/Control, Esper Control, or even Uxx Delver.
So yes, for this statement, you can simply group all those Uxx decks together.
To be exact 14-0-1. He drew in the last round into the top 8.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Top 32: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t[C1]=28&start_date=02/24/2017&end_date=02/26/2017&start=1&finish=32&event_ID=47&city=Indianapolis&limit=50
Day 2 Metagame breakdown: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/4017_day_2_metagame_breakdown_.html
Modern Classic: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t[C1]=28&start_date=02/26/2017&end_date=02/26/2017&event_ID=36&city=Indianapolis&state=IN
Lots of Death Shadow Jund, high number of Griselbanned decks (1 in the main event, 2 in the Classic), rest is roughly the same as always.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Than you have no idea regarding the current standard format. It is the prime example of a rock-paper-scissor format, which is just unhealthy and no fun at all. You either play BG Delirium and beat up UW Flash but lose to Aetherworks, or you play UW Flash to beat up Aetherwork but lost to BG Delirium.
And we are talking about 65-35 win percentages here...
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Being able to run Anger MD while not screwing up your own win cons (Nahiri) is great. It looks like, that from the tier 1 decks only Burn and Eldrazi are not that great but otherwise? Might be something worth exploring imo.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Besides this, interesting top 8. 2 "fair" decks, 2 semi fair decks and 4 rather linear decks.
Btw. top 32 are up: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t%5BC1%5D=28&start_date=11/11/2016&end_date=11/13/2016&start=1&finish=32&city=Columbus&state=OH&limit=50
Most notably: Only 3 Infect decks made it into the top 12 and thus underperform hard. Otherwise (discounting top 8 and only counting from 9-32 place) 9 linear decks (Dredge, Infect, Affinity, Amulet Bloom (I will stick to this name, even though Bloom is banned) but no Burn), only 3 semi fair decks (Eldrazi Tron, UWR Aggro) and the rest are all interactive decks (Meerfolk, Jund, Kiki Chord, Grixis Control, Jeskai Flash, Blue Moon,...).
Kinda surprised at that turn out, after seeing the day 2 metagame.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Infect has a 16,43% metagame share (12 players out of 73), 4 Lantern Control decks (surprisingly high), some other decks are under-represented.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Than why did Tom Ross play it if it is just garbage? I mean, if he wants he can play any deck in the format cause cards should be no problem for him (especially on a SCG tournament). So why did he play the deck than?
Greetings,
kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Totally agree here.
Furthermore, 8Rack is basically a Mono Black Jund deck, both in design and how it plays. It wants to interact first (Discard), remove stuff (Jund has Terminate/Bolt/Decay, 8Rack has Smallpox, Dismember and Funeral Charm) and than maybe land a beater (Jund = Goyf/Confi, 8Rack = Rack effects and Creas post board).
Sure, 8Rack has more cards in the first two categories (interaction and removal) than actual win cons, but this makes the deck not more linear but more controlling.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: Btw I love to play against 8Rack with my Delver decks, since it is always a interesting game and balance act
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Totally agree here.
In 2015 metagame I said, that Grixis Delver is by far the worst Grixis deck, since the format is so slow, that you do not need the early pressure. Now, in a more linear metagame, you want those turn 1/2 Delver/Tasigur to get a early clock going. Hence, my opinion shifted from: "Grixis Control is the best Grixis deck" towards "Grixis Delver is the best one, since it can play a decent value game vs Midrange but is aggressive enough to threaten linear strategies".
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Just looked it up in the spread sheet. As long as it is correct (should be, since it should still use the same methods as you used them), Jeskai Nahiri is currently at 4.2% metagame share and has a Score of 8, which is just within tier 1.
I do not know, from where you got your last paragraph but it is simply not true. The whining done by the Modern community is such a big problem, that regardless of which result the tournament(s) show, people will whine, cause it is not X/Y/Z.
For me, 2015 was the worst year of Modern, I loved modern back in the days between Avacan Resorted and RTR, the best 6 months Modern I could ever enjoy. In tier 1 we had back then 1 Midrange deck (Jund), 1 Control deck (Jeskai Control), 1 Tempo deck (UWR Delver), 1 Combo/value deck (Kiki Pod) and one dedicated combo deck (Storm) while the tier 2 decks were only marginally worse than the tier 1 decks.
THOSE 6 months I want back, not that boring 2015 metagame. Heck, I even preferred Eldrazi Winter over 2015 metagame and that says a lot.
It took me 1 year to get the Shoal Griselbanned deck running and functioning, it took me roughly the same amount of time to get Counter Cat remotely playable (thanks again @Ashton for the great work you put in there ^^ ) and it took me 2 years to finally find a good Ritual Gifts list again WHILE I KNOW, that I have at least 1 year of work before me to get it where I want.
What most people I know understand with: "I tried everything but nothing works" is, that they create a list, test it a couple of games, change stuff again, test again, change stuff again test again and than say: "Nope, doesn't work". The big problem with such an approach is, that you need to get first a feeling WHAT is wrong. By doing a couple of quick matches you won't get the feeling. You need to grind those problems out, make changes, test again, analyse and than maybe revert back, cause you went into the wrong direction.
To properly test a new brew (or version of an already existing deck) you need to do A LOT of games before even changing a single card, we are talking about several dozens here. THAN you exactly know, where the problems are and how to fix them. Than you come up with a solution, implement it, test it again vs the gauntlet decks you have, analyse it, change it again and repeat this several iteration before you can finally say: "That deck sucks because of reason X/Y/Z" or "It works, but has some small problems, which we might be able to fix."
Yes, it takes a lot of time, but this is exactly the reason, why so few new decks are cropping up in Modern, since brewing and developing decks take just soooooooo long.
Hence, when somebody comes with: "I tried everything but nothing works" I can just shake my head, since I exactly know, how they "tested" it.
The initial statement was: The Twin ban was bad cause now Uxx sucks.
Wizard stated with the Twin ban, that this is mostly done to enable other URx strategies, since you have no reason to run those, if the best strategy is Twin. Yes, they succeeded with this. The former URx Twin metagame share is now spread up in multiple different strategies, be it Jeskai Nahiri, UW Midrange/Control, Esper Control, or even Uxx Delver.
So yes, for this statement, you can simply group all those Uxx decks together.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)