Yes, most definitely. I did not say that skill doesn't matter at all. It does. It just appears to matter less than I've ever seen in Modern since starting in 2011.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Why do we still have people coming with anecdotal or theoretical evidence about skill? Didn't KTK disprove all myths regarding skill many pages okay? Like, okay Foodchains, you can think what you like, but it's been disproven. If a skilled pilot plays his deck skillfully, he will do well. Fact. Mathematically proven to be truth. I don't understand why you and others continue to assert that skill is irrelevant after being factually proven wrong.
I guess I'm just wrong then. Even Todd Stevens said that he's had some "horrible" nights online with his decks.
The reason I don't cite those matchups is because they are not that prevalent at my LGS or I just seem to avoid them. But those are not the ones seen on a national level. The ones seen are the 13-2s or starting 9-0, so "Todd's play skill is so much above any other player, that he always top 8s." This is what is seen by us.
I'll come back to this - at the Grand Prix Santa Clara in the $100 6 event Constructed Package, of which I chose Modern for all of them, 2 events per day, I ran into 17 decks in 18 rounds (Jeskai Queller twice). How do you metagame for that? Bocephus would tell me to metagame harder. What is the deck that does well in that metagame? The deck that I played the most in Modern, I went 1-2. The deck that I played almost never in tournament, I had a 3-0 before Skred and Jund with Shatterstorm SB took me down. I did the best at 5-1 with Grishoalbrand, a deck that I played the 2nd most in Modern.
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Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I know how to play most decks fairly well. It just doesn't matter. I've run decks I've played for years and bombed and I've run decks that I just barely tried and 4-0ed. (like Affinity) I tried Affinity 2-3 years ago and went 1-2, losing to Bloom Titan and Affinity. I tried it now a month ago and started 11-0 before Skred Red and Jund with a SB Shatterstorm took me down. For me, the correlation between playing a deck for a long time and doing well just hasn't mattered much.
Most of the fair deck Magic players have left our LGS or moved on to other decks. A guy who I've seen only run Junk for at least 2 years straight has been trying Dredge. There are a lot of "unfair" decks at our LGS. Why? Because people want to win and that's what has been putting up results. There are some Shadow players, but even they have a pretty rough time sometimes. This says nothing about the 17 different decks I faced in Santa Clara in 18 rounds (only Jeskai Queller twice).
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Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
So, you go to your local 20-30 person FNM with Jeskai Queller, pretty confident in recent results.
Round 1 you run into Dredge. He wins the die roll. He goldfishes the kill by his turn 4. You go to the SB. You try to find some early grave hate and even mulligan a weak hand to try to find it. You don't. You rely on Serum Visions, which doesn't find you RIP in time. You lose this round 0-2, with a feeling that there's not much you could have done. 0-2.
Round 2 you are matched against Mono G Tron. You lose the die roll. The first game, you counter and exile (SQ) some stuff, but in the end, he finds what he needs to basically exile everything you have except a single land. In the next game, you feel confident because you have your 2 Ceremonious Rejection and 2 Disdainful Stroke that you put in. But he plays a bunch of threats, landing the exile triggers from Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, which enables him to resolve his 3rd cast Karn Liberated of the game. You lose, feeling there's not much you could have done. 0-2.
Round 3 you are matched vs. Affinity. You WIN the die orll. You basically kill anything of importance that he has and get lucky with a Logic Knot on his Cranial Plating. This is essentially a breeze of a round because A - you didn't mulligan and B - everything was right in front of you. I mean, you're not going to just sit there and not cast your removal spells. Also you didn't see an Etched Champion in the games. Easy 2-0.
Round 4 you are matched vs. Bogles. I'm not going to say how this goes. Let's just say that this was the ugliest round by far. 0-2.
You end up 1-3 on the night, the worst record you've had in years. Did you have fun though? Not really.
*You may ask, "why are people playing so many noninteractive decks?" Because that's what is doing well right now and the format is WIIIIIDE open. There's no such thing as a "gentleman's agreement" where you all agree to not play certain decks. I personally feel that some players had that type of mentality during Eldrazi Winter and honestly, they were my easiest wins. Yes, winning appeals to players. It's not just 4 rounds of grindy Magic where I finished 2-2, but felt like I made 12123444 correct decisions. (whether I'm correct about making the right decisions is another story...)
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I do think that if the Burn player is skilled and experienced, he should be favoured against GDS.
This is what I thought after the first time I did extensive testing.
But...after the 2nd time extensive testing a couple of months later, I felt like the Burn player could literally play spells in nearly any order and still win or come very close. GDS needed some super good draws after board and some land light or land heavy draws by the Burn player (3-4 lands is a death sentence). It's just my experience and I'll admit that I haven't played it in a tournament scene, so there's that.
*Remember, in his latest articles, Reid Duke has said that he feels Jund is favored vs. UWR Queller. I have seen many results that do not agree with this. I think Reid Duke's skill level just pushes over a matchup that probably should be 55/45 toward Jeskai Queller. (which I also realize goes against my own belief that play skill doesn't matter much in this format)
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Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I just want to say - I appreciate seeing the Modern Challenge results. I don't have MTGO, nor want to do it, but the data is something I am interested in.
Kind of glad to see Burn beat GDS in the finals, lol. People keep telling me that GDS is favored in that matchup and I just don't buy it. (I do realize that it's one match though and even Burn has beaten Soul Sisters in a match before.)
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Modern has always been like this, but it is getting more extreme. Tron always beat Pod. Bloom always beat Tron and Burn. But nowadays, it's nearly getting to the point where matchups are decided before the die roll. Sometimes it's worth trying because your opponent can always mull to 4, miss land drops, get mana flooded, or make a huge egregious mistake. But if these things don't happen, you literally have no chance. And yes, I'm exaggerating. But me being 4-23 lifetime vs. Infect with Grishoalbrand is just not acceptable to me. (just an example)
If you're asking for a magical way for your powerful but somewhat inconsistent combo deck - which can play through graveyard hate, mind - to stop losing versus another powerful combo deck that tends to be more consistent, I don't know what to tell you.
You are literally choosing to play a deck with minimal removal which is offset by the fact it can win very quickly. Of course you're going to lose to another combo deck that is just as fast, but more consistent. That's the trade-off you made when you chose that deck.
You could say that about any deck. So, someone chooses to play Jund. Their tradeoff is that they get destroyed by Titanshift and Big Tron. I'm not asking for every matchup to be positive. I'm just hoping (pretty futile here) that not every matchup will be 70/30 or 30/70 or worse as you see here.
I can literally say something like that about every deck. Why did someone choose Dredge? Because they expected to lose to Bogles around 80% of the time. I could go on and on, literally, because this is what the meta is comprised of. There simply are VERY FEW matchups like Jund vs. Pod used to be or Twin vs. Pod used to be (for what it's worth, I always hear that Pod beat Twin, but I personally disagree. I actually think it's close to 60/40 for Twin)
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Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
For good players, I can see this being true. Not so much for other players, who may try to avoid those decks because those 50/50 matchups turn slightly lower when they can't leverage their play skill to gain the small edges.
For Pro Players that can leverage their play skill to gain those small edges, having a lot of 50/50 matchups is good for them and they kind of deserve to win more by using their play skill. It can be balanced out by there being very few polarized matchups, but players knowing they have an advantage against at least the 50/50 deck if they need to beat that. I just personally feel that these polarized matchups lead to a lot of feelsbad in the current Modern. For what it's worth, I'm not saying that a deck needs to have ALL 50/50 matchups; just a lot of them.
Modern has always been like this, but it is getting more extreme. Tron always beat Pod. Bloom always beat Tron and Burn. But nowadays, it's nearly getting to the point where matchups are decided before the die roll. Sometimes it's worth trying because your opponent can always mull to 4, miss land drops, get mana flooded, or make a huge egregious mistake. But if these things don't happen, you literally have no chance. And yes, I'm exaggerating. But me being 4-23 lifetime vs. Infect with Grishoalbrand is just not acceptable to me. (just an example)
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Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I don't think that "Blue players" and I use the term loosely because it can have many connotations (I personally played Blue exclusively for 8 years straight, but now I shy away from it in Modern) need to have FoW, Counterspell, and Preordain.
It's just that none of the Blue decks compare to the Blue deck that many players had before. I personally LOOOOVED playing Bloom Titan. Yet, I have rarely played the deck since the banning of Summer Bloom. It just isn't the same to me and no substitute is "close enough" in my eyes. Sorry. Everyone's different.
Now, with something like Birthing Pod vs. Collected Company, I will be honest here. I didn't enjoy Pod all that much, but just adore playing Company decks of all kinds, including Abzan Counters, Knightfall, Elves, and even Slivers. These are much more fun to me, even though with my Spike-like attitude, the variance of Company gets tiring at times.
I don't believe that you can just tell people that loved a deck before to adapt and everything's fine in Modern because there is a deck that you personally find to be similar. You can't be in their shoes until you actually are (just like Bloom players felt when Pod got banned, yet their deck remained).
I am getting a bit too wordy here, so I will leave this, going off on another tangent - I still don't understand what's wrong with a deck in Modern having a bunch of nearly 50% win percentages, give or take? I don't see why a deck NEEDS to have polarized matchups.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
If I chose an interactive deck, would I be guaranteed the 4-0?
*Also, I have to at least laugh a little inside that Abzan Company is a non-interactive deck.
If you are guaranteed a 4-0 at any given event, the deck is broken and should be banned.
I just do not understand this logic or its underlying premises. It flatly does not consider the game from the opponent's perspective. Is everyone supposed to bring this deck that goes 4-0 at every/most events? What does that format look like where everyone is bringing the same crazy 4-0 deck? Seems like a picture of every horrible Modern/Standard that resulted in bans and unhappy players. Or is only the one skillful player supposed to discover and use this deck with no one else figuring it out? It just dones't make any sense.
I still believe the core of this for most players is that their winning is the most important thing and the implications for the wider format don't matter. And the reason I think they want to win regardless of the format cost is, among other reasons, because they exhibit this psychological profile where winning is a personal validation. This isn't true of all players who complain about these things. But I am sure we would find it is true of many, probably most, of them.
I'm not asking for a deck that is guaranteed to go 4-0. There has never been a deck like that in the history of Magic. No, not even when Eldrazi Winter happened. My win percentage during that time was close to 85%. Not 100%.
My response was that the person who quoted me said that I "lost" because I played a non interactive deck. My record was 3-1, so I assumed that he meant that I would do better than that if I had played an interactive deck. (My feel is that if I ran Jund, I'd be 1-3 at best that night.) 4-0 is better than 3-1, but I'm sorry if he actually meant 3-0-1.
I'm going to rephrase my question so it could be received less aggressively:
Can someone describe this ideal interactive deck to me? What do its matchups look like? How does it fit in the format?
I'm not sure what that type of deck looks like, nor do I care. But I should say something that I don't particularly agree with. You previously mentioned that no deck should have nearly all 50% win percentages vs. most of the field. That type of deck is guaranteed to get banned. You used Splinter Twin as an example. You may very well be right; maybe that is one of Wizard's criteria. But I do actually think that such a deck is all right for Modern. It is all right to have a deck with a few 40/60 matchups, as many 60/40 matchups, and very few other (worse) matchups. I don't see a problem with that. And I'm not saying that a deck should be at least 51% any deck in the field either. I just don't think that a deck HAS to have some 30/70 matchups in order to be "free" from the ban list.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I literally barely cared about what I play on Wednesday because I felt it was more about the matchups. So I ran a deck (Abzan Company) that seemed poor against the decks I knew people were playing. Sure enough, I got roflstomped by GB Tron. The games were ... not close. But I lucksacked against RG Eldrazi, Storm, and Grixis Shadow. Do I feel that I outplayed my opponents? Certainly not. They drew like crap or pretty close to it. Did my Tron opponent outplay me? No, he found Oblivion Stone on turn 3 to use on turn 4, which I scooped with it on the stack.
This is just anecdotal evidence, but I can give these 4-5 times a week, as that's how often I'm currently playing.
You picked a non-interactive deck and lost when your opponent interacted with you. It seems like what everyone wants so whats the problem?
If I chose an interactive deck, would I be guaranteed the 4-0?
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I literally barely cared about what I play on Wednesday because I felt it was more about the matchups. So I ran a deck (Abzan Company) that seemed poor against the decks I knew people were playing. Sure enough, I got roflstomped by GB Tron. The games were ... not close. But I lucksacked against RG Eldrazi, Storm, and Grixis Shadow. Do I feel that I outplayed my opponents? Certainly not. They drew like crap or pretty close to it. Did my Tron opponent outplay me? No, he found Oblivion Stone on turn 3 to use on turn 4, which I scooped with it on the stack.
This is just anecdotal evidence, but I can give these 4-5 times a week, as that's how often I'm currently playing.
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Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I believe Sam Pardee is completely right about how he structured his Eldrazi Deck.
It was a MAJOR mistake to start cramming in Ulamogs and Wurmcoils and cutting the Mindstones. When Musser made his worse version of E-Tron good for the mirror, the decks results drove off a cliff. I tried bringing this up in the community and they thought it was the superior version from when Todd Stevens championed the deck.
I think E-Tron players really screwed up. To be fair, I'm a part of their Facebook group and they as a whole make me cringe, they seem less aware of everything modern and common sense compared to here, reddit or the other Facebook groups.
Mardu is pretty good, I think it's under the radar, I absolutely have not been able to beat that deck at all with any form of GBx.
Holiday's 4C Shadow deck looked a little inbred, I doubt his list will be completely adopted but 4C may be the way to go if you aren't on the grixis plan.
I wouldn't pay attention to UW, that Jeskai Ben deck is where I'd look.
Dredge is like Affinity, it goes from godly to garbage.
The player that played UW "Gideon" in the Modern portion of the Santa Clara GP has played UW type decks at a top level for at least 15 years. He is a player local to me, but he gets around to a lot of different events, so he is not at 1 particular store any time of the week. He literally can win with a ham sandwich.
While I think that UW is solid, you really have to know your deck and get some luck go your way obviously (Modern, right?) to do super well with it.
I mean in order to do well in any format you need to really know your deck and have some luck go your way. Even if you had a 70% win chance against every opponent over 15 rounds that doesn't make an auto win to the end.
Yes, but my point (that I didn't express too well) is that he knows UW Control decks very well. Think of him as an advanced version of Corey Burkhart/Grixis Control. This player was also one of the very few players to beat me during Eldrazi Winter (I ran UR Eldrazi) with ... UW Control.
I also do realize that it being a team event, I'm not sure what his individual record was. I may ask him next time after I congratulate him on 2nd place.
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Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I believe Sam Pardee is completely right about how he structured his Eldrazi Deck.
It was a MAJOR mistake to start cramming in Ulamogs and Wurmcoils and cutting the Mindstones. When Musser made his worse version of E-Tron good for the mirror, the decks results drove off a cliff. I tried bringing this up in the community and they thought it was the superior version from when Todd Stevens championed the deck.
I think E-Tron players really screwed up. To be fair, I'm a part of their Facebook group and they as a whole make me cringe, they seem less aware of everything modern and common sense compared to here, reddit or the other Facebook groups.
Mardu is pretty good, I think it's under the radar, I absolutely have not been able to beat that deck at all with any form of GBx.
Holiday's 4C Shadow deck looked a little inbred, I doubt his list will be completely adopted but 4C may be the way to go if you aren't on the grixis plan.
I wouldn't pay attention to UW, that Jeskai Ben deck is where I'd look.
Dredge is like Affinity, it goes from godly to garbage.
The player that played UW "Gideon" in the Modern portion of the Santa Clara GP has played UW type decks at a top level for at least 15 years. He is a player local to me, but he gets around to a lot of different events, so he is not at 1 particular store any time of the week. He literally can win with a ham sandwich.
While I think that UW is solid, you really have to know your deck and get some luck go your way obviously (Modern, right?) to do super well with it.
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Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
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Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I guess I'm just wrong then. Even Todd Stevens said that he's had some "horrible" nights online with his decks.
The reason I don't cite those matchups is because they are not that prevalent at my LGS or I just seem to avoid them. But those are not the ones seen on a national level. The ones seen are the 13-2s or starting 9-0, so "Todd's play skill is so much above any other player, that he always top 8s." This is what is seen by us.
I'll come back to this - at the Grand Prix Santa Clara in the $100 6 event Constructed Package, of which I chose Modern for all of them, 2 events per day, I ran into 17 decks in 18 rounds (Jeskai Queller twice). How do you metagame for that? Bocephus would tell me to metagame harder. What is the deck that does well in that metagame? The deck that I played the most in Modern, I went 1-2. The deck that I played almost never in tournament, I had a 3-0 before Skred and Jund with Shatterstorm SB took me down. I did the best at 5-1 with Grishoalbrand, a deck that I played the 2nd most in Modern.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Most of the fair deck Magic players have left our LGS or moved on to other decks. A guy who I've seen only run Junk for at least 2 years straight has been trying Dredge. There are a lot of "unfair" decks at our LGS. Why? Because people want to win and that's what has been putting up results. There are some Shadow players, but even they have a pretty rough time sometimes. This says nothing about the 17 different decks I faced in Santa Clara in 18 rounds (only Jeskai Queller twice).
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Round 1 you run into Dredge. He wins the die roll. He goldfishes the kill by his turn 4. You go to the SB. You try to find some early grave hate and even mulligan a weak hand to try to find it. You don't. You rely on Serum Visions, which doesn't find you RIP in time. You lose this round 0-2, with a feeling that there's not much you could have done. 0-2.
Round 2 you are matched against Mono G Tron. You lose the die roll. The first game, you counter and exile (SQ) some stuff, but in the end, he finds what he needs to basically exile everything you have except a single land. In the next game, you feel confident because you have your 2 Ceremonious Rejection and 2 Disdainful Stroke that you put in. But he plays a bunch of threats, landing the exile triggers from Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, which enables him to resolve his 3rd cast Karn Liberated of the game. You lose, feeling there's not much you could have done. 0-2.
Round 3 you are matched vs. Affinity. You WIN the die orll. You basically kill anything of importance that he has and get lucky with a Logic Knot on his Cranial Plating. This is essentially a breeze of a round because A - you didn't mulligan and B - everything was right in front of you. I mean, you're not going to just sit there and not cast your removal spells. Also you didn't see an Etched Champion in the games. Easy 2-0.
Round 4 you are matched vs. Bogles. I'm not going to say how this goes. Let's just say that this was the ugliest round by far. 0-2.
You end up 1-3 on the night, the worst record you've had in years. Did you have fun though? Not really.
*You may ask, "why are people playing so many noninteractive decks?" Because that's what is doing well right now and the format is WIIIIIDE open. There's no such thing as a "gentleman's agreement" where you all agree to not play certain decks. I personally feel that some players had that type of mentality during Eldrazi Winter and honestly, they were my easiest wins. Yes, winning appeals to players. It's not just 4 rounds of grindy Magic where I finished 2-2, but felt like I made 12123444 correct decisions. (whether I'm correct about making the right decisions is another story...)
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)This is what I thought after the first time I did extensive testing.
But...after the 2nd time extensive testing a couple of months later, I felt like the Burn player could literally play spells in nearly any order and still win or come very close. GDS needed some super good draws after board and some land light or land heavy draws by the Burn player (3-4 lands is a death sentence). It's just my experience and I'll admit that I haven't played it in a tournament scene, so there's that.
*Remember, in his latest articles, Reid Duke has said that he feels Jund is favored vs. UWR Queller. I have seen many results that do not agree with this. I think Reid Duke's skill level just pushes over a matchup that probably should be 55/45 toward Jeskai Queller. (which I also realize goes against my own belief that play skill doesn't matter much in this format)
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Kind of glad to see Burn beat GDS in the finals, lol. People keep telling me that GDS is favored in that matchup and I just don't buy it. (I do realize that it's one match though and even Burn has beaten Soul Sisters in a match before.)
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)You could say that about any deck. So, someone chooses to play Jund. Their tradeoff is that they get destroyed by Titanshift and Big Tron. I'm not asking for every matchup to be positive. I'm just hoping (pretty futile here) that not every matchup will be 70/30 or 30/70 or worse as you see here.
I can literally say something like that about every deck. Why did someone choose Dredge? Because they expected to lose to Bogles around 80% of the time. I could go on and on, literally, because this is what the meta is comprised of. There simply are VERY FEW matchups like Jund vs. Pod used to be or Twin vs. Pod used to be (for what it's worth, I always hear that Pod beat Twin, but I personally disagree. I actually think it's close to 60/40 for Twin)
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Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)For good players, I can see this being true. Not so much for other players, who may try to avoid those decks because those 50/50 matchups turn slightly lower when they can't leverage their play skill to gain the small edges.
For Pro Players that can leverage their play skill to gain those small edges, having a lot of 50/50 matchups is good for them and they kind of deserve to win more by using their play skill. It can be balanced out by there being very few polarized matchups, but players knowing they have an advantage against at least the 50/50 deck if they need to beat that. I just personally feel that these polarized matchups lead to a lot of feelsbad in the current Modern. For what it's worth, I'm not saying that a deck needs to have ALL 50/50 matchups; just a lot of them.
Modern has always been like this, but it is getting more extreme. Tron always beat Pod. Bloom always beat Tron and Burn. But nowadays, it's nearly getting to the point where matchups are decided before the die roll. Sometimes it's worth trying because your opponent can always mull to 4, miss land drops, get mana flooded, or make a huge egregious mistake. But if these things don't happen, you literally have no chance. And yes, I'm exaggerating. But me being 4-23 lifetime vs. Infect with Grishoalbrand is just not acceptable to me. (just an example)
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)It's just that none of the Blue decks compare to the Blue deck that many players had before. I personally LOOOOVED playing Bloom Titan. Yet, I have rarely played the deck since the banning of Summer Bloom. It just isn't the same to me and no substitute is "close enough" in my eyes. Sorry. Everyone's different.
Now, with something like Birthing Pod vs. Collected Company, I will be honest here. I didn't enjoy Pod all that much, but just adore playing Company decks of all kinds, including Abzan Counters, Knightfall, Elves, and even Slivers. These are much more fun to me, even though with my Spike-like attitude, the variance of Company gets tiring at times.
I don't believe that you can just tell people that loved a deck before to adapt and everything's fine in Modern because there is a deck that you personally find to be similar. You can't be in their shoes until you actually are (just like Bloom players felt when Pod got banned, yet their deck remained).
I am getting a bit too wordy here, so I will leave this, going off on another tangent - I still don't understand what's wrong with a deck in Modern having a bunch of nearly 50% win percentages, give or take? I don't see why a deck NEEDS to have polarized matchups.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I'm not asking for a deck that is guaranteed to go 4-0. There has never been a deck like that in the history of Magic. No, not even when Eldrazi Winter happened. My win percentage during that time was close to 85%. Not 100%.
My response was that the person who quoted me said that I "lost" because I played a non interactive deck. My record was 3-1, so I assumed that he meant that I would do better than that if I had played an interactive deck. (My feel is that if I ran Jund, I'd be 1-3 at best that night.) 4-0 is better than 3-1, but I'm sorry if he actually meant 3-0-1.
I'm not sure what that type of deck looks like, nor do I care. But I should say something that I don't particularly agree with. You previously mentioned that no deck should have nearly all 50% win percentages vs. most of the field. That type of deck is guaranteed to get banned. You used Splinter Twin as an example. You may very well be right; maybe that is one of Wizard's criteria. But I do actually think that such a deck is all right for Modern. It is all right to have a deck with a few 40/60 matchups, as many 60/40 matchups, and very few other (worse) matchups. I don't see a problem with that. And I'm not saying that a deck should be at least 51% any deck in the field either. I just don't think that a deck HAS to have some 30/70 matchups in order to be "free" from the ban list.
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Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)If I chose an interactive deck, would I be guaranteed the 4-0?
*Also, I have to at least laugh a little inside that Abzan Company is a non-interactive deck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVSi3V0GGCA
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I literally barely cared about what I play on Wednesday because I felt it was more about the matchups. So I ran a deck (Abzan Company) that seemed poor against the decks I knew people were playing. Sure enough, I got roflstomped by GB Tron. The games were ... not close. But I lucksacked against RG Eldrazi, Storm, and Grixis Shadow. Do I feel that I outplayed my opponents? Certainly not. They drew like crap or pretty close to it. Did my Tron opponent outplay me? No, he found Oblivion Stone on turn 3 to use on turn 4, which I scooped with it on the stack.
This is just anecdotal evidence, but I can give these 4-5 times a week, as that's how often I'm currently playing.
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Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Yes, but my point (that I didn't express too well) is that he knows UW Control decks very well. Think of him as an advanced version of Corey Burkhart/Grixis Control. This player was also one of the very few players to beat me during Eldrazi Winter (I ran UR Eldrazi) with ... UW Control.
I also do realize that it being a team event, I'm not sure what his individual record was. I may ask him next time after I congratulate him on 2nd place.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)The player that played UW "Gideon" in the Modern portion of the Santa Clara GP has played UW type decks at a top level for at least 15 years. He is a player local to me, but he gets around to a lot of different events, so he is not at 1 particular store any time of the week. He literally can win with a ham sandwich.
While I think that UW is solid, you really have to know your deck and get some luck go your way obviously (Modern, right?) to do super well with it.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)