I won't say much about your other points, but this one here is a classic sign of burnout (as idSurge said). I can guarantee you this isn't a Modern-specific issue, as we have an extensive, large N dataset showing that neither grinders nor top pros nor average joes/janes do measurably better/worse from an MWP/standings perspective in Modern vs. Standard or Legacy (not sure about Limited). Anyone is capable of succeeding in any of these big Constructed formats. If you are suddenly experiencing significant difficulties with a format, there are probably a series of small to large issues with your format engagement that are leading to those difficulties. Possibilities include attitude, tunnelvision, autopilot, deck/card choices, lack of perspective, self-expectation, and many others. Goodness knows I've had most/all of those. In fact, I had a similar performance drop in the recent year and did take a break from both Modern and Standard before returning and feeling better. But I don't think any of us would be able to point to a specific thing to work on.
That said, from my own personal experience, the number one culprit for me and some friends/players I know tends to be attitude issues. This includes cynicism at formats/decks, unwillingness to self-analyze and admit mistakes, taking losses really hard, and general saltiness. Again, I don't know if that's at play with you, but I know it's a rampant issue in this game and community. That makes it a good starting point for self-diagnosis.
I know I've had issues with all of these things, but I've always had some of those issues at all times. Yes, success breeds a positive attitude, but part of that positive attitude can also be ignorance of why you've really been winning. I try to have no delusions about that.
I was 2-1 in a 6 round tournament with Dredge 2 weeks ago. I was facing Mono Red Phoenix. My first game went like this...
1. Creeping Chill, Narcomoeba, Prized Amalgam, land, land, Conflagrate, Golgari Thug - I mulligan the slow hand.
2. Creeping Chill, Narcomoeba, Prized Amalgam, Life from the Loam, Life from the Loam, Cathartic Reunion - I mulligan because I need 2 lands.
3. Creeping Chill, Narcomoeba, Prized Amalgam, land, Golgari Thug - Nonfunctional hand.
4. Creeping Chill, Narcomoeba, Prized Amalgam, Conflagrate - no land.
5. Creeping Chill, Narcomoeba, Prized Amalgam - I'm not kidding. I remember this hand like it was the back of my hand.
6. Narcomoeba, land - keep, I doubt I'll find a 1 card hand that has land and then draw Faithless Looting off the top. Scry Prized Amalgam to the bottom.
In Round 1, I drew just bad enough to not get there against a very strong Eldrazi Taxes draw in games 1 and 3 on the draw. In Rounds 2, 3, 5, and 6, I drew literally the absolute nuts. My tournament report is in "Dredge" for reference. I shuffled about the same way the whole tournament, outside of Round 4 when I tried different methods, including semi-riffle shuffling my deck. I nearly asked a Judge to shuffle my deck this round because no matter how I shuffled my deck, I knew it would do the same thing, but I assumed I'd draw differently in Games 2 and 3. Sure, this match was an extreme version of what I feel has been happening a bunch in Modern, to me AND to my opponents as well. I dredged 3 Creeping Chill on turn 2 against Burn; he scooped on the spot. I played a strong deck. I shuffled well in 5 rounds. I certainly didn't play perfectly. I feel if I had, it's possible that I could have just barely lost in Round 1, but after analyzing part of the match on Twitchtv, I actually didn't see anything differently I could have done, other than not shuffling my opponent to turn 2 Thought-Knot Seer on the play after a mediocre hand by me.
*You may have noticed I was able to utilize the copypasta option to describe my hands, despite intensive shuffling. I realize that part of this is playing 4 ofs, but the variance is real in that round. I have never, never mulliganed to 2 in my life and especially not rightfully so!
Those hands sound awful and I doubt there was much you could do to prevent those situations. I had a similar situation in Arena the other day where I had three back-to-back BO3 series with Simic Nexus (25 lands+4 Opt) where an opening 7 had either no lands or a single Forest with no playables, my 6 had literally all lands, and my 5 had a single land. Needless to say, I was very unhappy after those essentially free-win games for my opponent, and I was incredibly salty about the shuffler, variance, luck, etc. But, as with your case at the GP, these kinds of things are guaranteed to happen in a card game. Sometimes you can't win a game. Period. No amount of diagnosing will prevent a loss. That's why the absolute best players on earth tend to hover in the 60%-65% MWP for all formats across a large enough sample. They are going to lose games by no fault of their own, and that's on top of losses to misplays, getting straight outplayed, or tight games that come down to tiny edges where someone's eventually gotta win.
I've seen a lot of players online and those I know personally get frustrated when their performance doesn't meet an expected standard. For many of those players, the expect standard is unrealistic. Common scenario: someone wants to win 100% of games due to their own tight gameplay. Any deviation from that leads to attitude issues about variance, the shuffler, bad luck, bad matchups, lucksack opponents, opposing "nut draws", etc. But those deviations are natural and part of the game. The subsequent attitude issues, however, are not. They are natural to humans, yes, but not to Magic mechanics. Unfortunately, those human attitude issues tend to lead to later losses and gameplay shortcomings which could've been avoided with a more positive disposition. Indeed, this is where many (not all) pros have an advantage: they can pivot in major events after significant losses (like my Simic Nexus or your Dredge draws) that would turn the average player into a salt mine.
Pivoting from misfortune is a major Magic skill, but it's not a strict mechanical gameplay skill. Similarly, having realistic expectations is a skill, but also not a Magic mechanics skill. That means knowing and accepting you will lose games without recourse. It also means understanding that a 60%-65% MWP is good at major events. It also means knowing that a 65% MWP can go 2-4 drop at a GP and not be a bad player, or have a cold streak on Arena/MTGO/at an LGS and not be a scrub. If you want to see a Twitch streamer that has changed my own attitude towards Magic, watch Ben Stark. He is unerringly positive and realistic in games, he accepts losses with grace, he admits his own faults, and he's not afraid to admit when a game is simply lost when there is nothing he could do about it. And in those cases, he doesn't let it take his performance in subsequent games.
Last note. As idSurge has said, as izzetmage always reminds us, and as I have said in basically every combo/Ux control/Ux midrange thread I have ever posted in, PLAY CANTRIPS. Also, play decks that support cantrips! If Magic is a card game that revolves around variance, you are doing a disservice to yourself by not doing what you can to minimize variance. Cantrips are one way to do that and probably the best/most consistent way to do that. Modern has plenty of viable cantrip-heavy decks, and if variance is something that you know will tilt you into oblivion or just make you pissed, those decks are the way to go. But even there, you'll still just lose to things outside of your power and it's important to accept that, move on, and keep playing.
PS: Is this thread going to replace the Modern metagame/bans discussion? If yes, and if the mods think this is wrong, they should let us/me know, and we will stop it immediately
Not a mod anymore, but I doubt this thread is intended to replace State of Modern. That's why I am largely avoiding ban talk and primarily focusing on enjoyment issues, like FCG's situation above.
***The truth of the matter is that I can outplay mtg players in Limited when it's the first time I've seen the cards in the set, Standard when I know only what's highlighted online, and Legacy when I don't know updated deck lists or results, but I can literally outplay NO ONE in Modern. It's really sad. I probably play Modern 20-30 hours per week and other formats 20-30 hours a month at the very most. For others who outplay players with their Merfolk list and 5-0 every week, I am happy for you. I envy you. I wish I could be like that (again, because I was like that just 2 years ago).
I won't say much about your other points, but this one here is a classic sign of burnout (as idSurge said). I can guarantee you this isn't a Modern-specific issue, as we have an extensive, large N dataset showing that neither grinders nor top pros nor average joes/janes do measurably better/worse from an MWP/standings perspective in Modern vs. Standard or Legacy (not sure about Limited). Anyone is capable of succeeding in any of these big Constructed formats. If you are suddenly experiencing significant difficulties with a format, there are probably a series of small to large issues with your format engagement that are leading to those difficulties. Possibilities include attitude, tunnelvision, autopilot, deck/card choices, lack of perspective, self-expectation, and many others. Goodness knows I've had most/all of those. In fact, I had a similar performance drop in the recent year and did take a break from both Modern and Standard before returning and feeling better. But I don't think any of us would be able to point to a specific thing to work on.
That said, from my own personal experience, the number one culprit for me and some friends/players I know tends to be attitude issues. This includes cynicism at formats/decks, unwillingness to self-analyze and admit mistakes, taking losses really hard, and general saltiness. Again, I don't know if that's at play with you, but I know it's a rampant issue in this game and community. That makes it a good starting point for self-diagnosis.
Ok so that comment was mostly just an innocent jab but of course matchup lottery is a thing, that's just common sense. If there is a wide array of decks that people play, playing linear decks is a winning strategy. It's not even a complaint; without standard's limited cardpool or legacy and vintage's format warping cards, modern's wideness inherently promotes linear decks and I don't expect any banning, unbanning or new printing to change that
When the linear noninteractive decks then also become the most consistent and powerful strategies, giving little payoff for trying to beat the field, that is where I say modern is going wrong
On the one hand, it's almost necessarily true that a diverse field favors proactive strategies that don't try to react to a predicted set of threats. On the other hand, we still see major events like GP Toronto's February 2019 T8 with two unambiguously interactive decks (BG Rock). As I said in another thread, it's easy to find a major result example for most Modern narratives that one wants to see. That ultimately means the true Modern picture is probably somewhere in the middle of those views. Both the reddit and our poll appear to reflect this, with most people enjoying Modern but still identifying issues that need solving.
Yeah, thank GOD that deck lost favor at my store. But instead I have to deal with monumental disparity between streamlined tier decks and wacky random brews, or decks way out of favor. Just this last week, I lost a tight round 1 against Eldrazi Taxes (hi RIP and Leyline against GDS), so I go into the loser's bracket and play Bant Pile of Planeswalkers, then Grindstone combo, then Eldrazi Stopmpy. Awesome. Why do I even bother trying to pick my deck or tune my sideboard for anything. Meanwhile, the other half of the room was all Humans, Spirits, and Phoenix.
Man with such a matchup lottery, it almost sounds like you would've been better off playing something extremely linear that can mostly ignore the opponent's gameplan
For what feels like the two dozenth time, matchup lottery is not a real effect. There is no difference between top player MWP in Modern vs. other formats at either the SCG or GP level. The ceiling and spread are both statistically identical. Either so-called matchup lottery doesn't exist at all in Modern, or it has no impact on MWP for top players. This is true of both average grinders who attend lots of events and true of the top 50ish players in the world. Either way, it's not something to complain about. Philosophically, it's also not something to complain about because we know Modern will always be, and has always been, Wizards' diversity format. They want as many random, diverse decks viable as possible, which necessarily leads to less predictable fields. If one doesn't like diversity, Modern is not the format for that player. There are many legitimate things to complain about in Modern, and I have stayed largely silent in this thread and the State of Modern thread recently while people identify those legitimate areas of grievance. But matchup lottery is not one.
The biggest takeaway for me is that a whopping 75.8% of voters want to see changes in modern, only varying in their tolerance for linear combo
We should not assume that "tolerance for linear combo" is a factor. It is not mentioned in any polling options. I also don't think it's particularly relevant that people want some kind of change. People often want things changed, whether in Modern, Magic, or any other social issue. Their enjoyment is probably more important. Enjoyment also likely influences the degree and type of changes people want. If you like Modern but want a few changes, maybe that just means unbanning SFM and new answer cards (That's my case). If you dislike Modern and want changes, maybe that means 2-3 bans. Those changes are very different and we can't make too many assumptions about them from the poll.
Good lord, none of us EVER said anything about a silent MAJORITY of players who dislike modern. How far are you guys going to go with this false narrative.
I just said the numbers support a theory of a vocal minority. There's no false narrative, just a sample that supports the theory of a minority of players, relative to the majority of those who participated in the poll, who dislike Modern and are disprotionately vocal. I think I erroneously put in the "majority" bit, since edited, because I misread ym1r's post (not yours) and it was very early in the morning.
Let's not keep a narrative of a silent group that just dislikes the format but doesn't talk about it, doesn't want to talk about it, but is oppressed by the people who actually like the format. It doesn't make sense. I think the total N we have from both polls is enough to give a clear picture of the active playerbase.
What? There's maybe 5 people who are actively critical of Modern and there are 30 voters who do not enjoy Modern. It is indicative that there IS a silent group of people who are not enjoying Modern but are not actively posting about it.
And taking the results from the reddit poll. As of the time of this post there's almost 1000 voters. It's quite clear that a significant amount of players do not enjoy Modern, around 25% on both reddit and MTGS.
In this thread, there are 27 unique posters who have actually posted, and 106 total voters. Assuming people aren't up to anything shady with accounts, that means there are 79 people who voted but did not post.
Of those 27 who voted, here's the breakdown as a percent of posters (n=27) and total posts (n=55):
1s: 6 (22% of posters, 18% of total posts)
2s: 7 (26% of posters, 25% of total posts)
3s: 0 (0% of posters, 0% of total posts)
4s: 7 (26% of posters, 38% of total posts)
5s: 1 (4% of posters, 7% of total posts)
Unknowns: 6 (22% of posters, 11% of total posts)
Based on this thread, the most common group of posters are actually the 4s and the 2s, with the most vocal of those groups being the 4s. This makes sense to me because these are the groups that are still campaigning for changes. 1s love the format and don't want to defend or address issues (they don't see any), 3s are ambivalent or indifferent and don't post, and 5s might be so checked out of a format they just hate. If this breakdown was also true in the reddit thread (hard to know), it supports a theory of a vocal minority of players who dislike Modern. The 4s and 5s represent 45% of the total posts in this thread, despite comprising only 30% of total posters and 29% of the total vote. This also makes sense to me, as we often see this effect in polls.
(Note that the 5 shared poll options aren't exactly the same, but they line up well enough to compare)
1s ("Modern is in a great place right now"): 10% vs. 13.7% 2s ("Modern is in a good place right now but could be better"): 33% vs. 49% 3s ("Modern is in a fine/medium place"): 31% vs. 7.8% 4s ("Modern is in a bad place but could be worse"): 21% vs. 21.6% 5s ("Modern is in one of the worse places its been in"): 5% vs. 7.8%
The biggest difference is in the 2s and 3s, which makes sense because the options are phrased differently. It could also mean reddit voters are more ambivalent/indifferent to the format as a whole than MTGS users are. But the 1s, 4s, and 5s line up very well. This suggests to me that our poll + the reddit poll are actually a good snapshot of Modern player opinions, at least if we're talking about online, forum-going, more enfranchised players.
Small sample size disclaimers aside, it's interesting to note the breakdown of voters vs. the breakdown of commenters. There are 12 unique posters in this thread (13 counting me). Here's a general breakdown of how those commenters voted based on their posts:
When we look at number of total comments within the thread (18 in all) and divide them by the voting of the commenting user (e.g. GK, Fluff, and k0no collectively have 4 posts), we see the following breakdown:
Note that not all posts are represented because we don't know how all posters voted, as noted above. That said, this breakdown of posts does not at all reflect the breakdown of actual votes in the poll. If these 15 posts represent the known vote/poster combinations, we should expect to see a similar breakdown as we see in the poll itself, i.e. 12% of posts are from #1s, 45.8% are from #2s, etc. Instead, we see that 53% of our posts are from #4s and #5s, despite #4s and #5s only making up 33% of the actual polling results. The 3s don't post at all despite there being more 3s than 5s, and the 2s post less frequently than the 4s and 1s despite 2s being the most common result in the poll.
Again, all disclaimers of a small and limited N being in effect, this suggests to me that users who are unhappy with the format are more likely to post about it in a forum like ours. This can create a visible impression of Modern unhealth or distaste when the more silent majority are not defending or justifying the format because they are just playing it and/or enjoying it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Over-Extended/Modern Since 2010
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Those hands sound awful and I doubt there was much you could do to prevent those situations. I had a similar situation in Arena the other day where I had three back-to-back BO3 series with Simic Nexus (25 lands+4 Opt) where an opening 7 had either no lands or a single Forest with no playables, my 6 had literally all lands, and my 5 had a single land. Needless to say, I was very unhappy after those essentially free-win games for my opponent, and I was incredibly salty about the shuffler, variance, luck, etc. But, as with your case at the GP, these kinds of things are guaranteed to happen in a card game. Sometimes you can't win a game. Period. No amount of diagnosing will prevent a loss. That's why the absolute best players on earth tend to hover in the 60%-65% MWP for all formats across a large enough sample. They are going to lose games by no fault of their own, and that's on top of losses to misplays, getting straight outplayed, or tight games that come down to tiny edges where someone's eventually gotta win.
I've seen a lot of players online and those I know personally get frustrated when their performance doesn't meet an expected standard. For many of those players, the expect standard is unrealistic. Common scenario: someone wants to win 100% of games due to their own tight gameplay. Any deviation from that leads to attitude issues about variance, the shuffler, bad luck, bad matchups, lucksack opponents, opposing "nut draws", etc. But those deviations are natural and part of the game. The subsequent attitude issues, however, are not. They are natural to humans, yes, but not to Magic mechanics. Unfortunately, those human attitude issues tend to lead to later losses and gameplay shortcomings which could've been avoided with a more positive disposition. Indeed, this is where many (not all) pros have an advantage: they can pivot in major events after significant losses (like my Simic Nexus or your Dredge draws) that would turn the average player into a salt mine.
Pivoting from misfortune is a major Magic skill, but it's not a strict mechanical gameplay skill. Similarly, having realistic expectations is a skill, but also not a Magic mechanics skill. That means knowing and accepting you will lose games without recourse. It also means understanding that a 60%-65% MWP is good at major events. It also means knowing that a 65% MWP can go 2-4 drop at a GP and not be a bad player, or have a cold streak on Arena/MTGO/at an LGS and not be a scrub. If you want to see a Twitch streamer that has changed my own attitude towards Magic, watch Ben Stark. He is unerringly positive and realistic in games, he accepts losses with grace, he admits his own faults, and he's not afraid to admit when a game is simply lost when there is nothing he could do about it. And in those cases, he doesn't let it take his performance in subsequent games.
Last note. As idSurge has said, as izzetmage always reminds us, and as I have said in basically every combo/Ux control/Ux midrange thread I have ever posted in, PLAY CANTRIPS. Also, play decks that support cantrips! If Magic is a card game that revolves around variance, you are doing a disservice to yourself by not doing what you can to minimize variance. Cantrips are one way to do that and probably the best/most consistent way to do that. Modern has plenty of viable cantrip-heavy decks, and if variance is something that you know will tilt you into oblivion or just make you pissed, those decks are the way to go. But even there, you'll still just lose to things outside of your power and it's important to accept that, move on, and keep playing.
Not a mod anymore, but I doubt this thread is intended to replace State of Modern. That's why I am largely avoiding ban talk and primarily focusing on enjoyment issues, like FCG's situation above.
I won't say much about your other points, but this one here is a classic sign of burnout (as idSurge said). I can guarantee you this isn't a Modern-specific issue, as we have an extensive, large N dataset showing that neither grinders nor top pros nor average joes/janes do measurably better/worse from an MWP/standings perspective in Modern vs. Standard or Legacy (not sure about Limited). Anyone is capable of succeeding in any of these big Constructed formats. If you are suddenly experiencing significant difficulties with a format, there are probably a series of small to large issues with your format engagement that are leading to those difficulties. Possibilities include attitude, tunnelvision, autopilot, deck/card choices, lack of perspective, self-expectation, and many others. Goodness knows I've had most/all of those. In fact, I had a similar performance drop in the recent year and did take a break from both Modern and Standard before returning and feeling better. But I don't think any of us would be able to point to a specific thing to work on.
That said, from my own personal experience, the number one culprit for me and some friends/players I know tends to be attitude issues. This includes cynicism at formats/decks, unwillingness to self-analyze and admit mistakes, taking losses really hard, and general saltiness. Again, I don't know if that's at play with you, but I know it's a rampant issue in this game and community. That makes it a good starting point for self-diagnosis.
On the one hand, it's almost necessarily true that a diverse field favors proactive strategies that don't try to react to a predicted set of threats. On the other hand, we still see major events like GP Toronto's February 2019 T8 with two unambiguously interactive decks (BG Rock). As I said in another thread, it's easy to find a major result example for most Modern narratives that one wants to see. That ultimately means the true Modern picture is probably somewhere in the middle of those views. Both the reddit and our poll appear to reflect this, with most people enjoying Modern but still identifying issues that need solving.
For what feels like the two dozenth time, matchup lottery is not a real effect. There is no difference between top player MWP in Modern vs. other formats at either the SCG or GP level. The ceiling and spread are both statistically identical. Either so-called matchup lottery doesn't exist at all in Modern, or it has no impact on MWP for top players. This is true of both average grinders who attend lots of events and true of the top 50ish players in the world. Either way, it's not something to complain about. Philosophically, it's also not something to complain about because we know Modern will always be, and has always been, Wizards' diversity format. They want as many random, diverse decks viable as possible, which necessarily leads to less predictable fields. If one doesn't like diversity, Modern is not the format for that player. There are many legitimate things to complain about in Modern, and I have stayed largely silent in this thread and the State of Modern thread recently while people identify those legitimate areas of grievance. But matchup lottery is not one.
We should not assume that "tolerance for linear combo" is a factor. It is not mentioned in any polling options. I also don't think it's particularly relevant that people want some kind of change. People often want things changed, whether in Modern, Magic, or any other social issue. Their enjoyment is probably more important. Enjoyment also likely influences the degree and type of changes people want. If you like Modern but want a few changes, maybe that just means unbanning SFM and new answer cards (That's my case). If you dislike Modern and want changes, maybe that means 2-3 bans. Those changes are very different and we can't make too many assumptions about them from the poll.
I just said the numbers support a theory of a vocal minority. There's no false narrative, just a sample that supports the theory of a minority of players, relative to the majority of those who participated in the poll, who dislike Modern and are disprotionately vocal. I think I erroneously put in the "majority" bit, since edited, because I misread ym1r's post (not yours) and it was very early in the morning.
In this thread, there are 27 unique posters who have actually posted, and 106 total voters. Assuming people aren't up to anything shady with accounts, that means there are 79 people who voted but did not post.
Of those 27 who voted, here's the breakdown as a percent of posters (n=27) and total posts (n=55):
1s: 6 (22% of posters, 18% of total posts)
2s: 7 (26% of posters, 25% of total posts)
3s: 0 (0% of posters, 0% of total posts)
4s: 7 (26% of posters, 38% of total posts)
5s: 1 (4% of posters, 7% of total posts)
Unknowns: 6 (22% of posters, 11% of total posts)
Based on this thread, the most common group of posters are actually the 4s and the 2s, with the most vocal of those groups being the 4s. This makes sense to me because these are the groups that are still campaigning for changes. 1s love the format and don't want to defend or address issues (they don't see any), 3s are ambivalent or indifferent and don't post, and 5s might be so checked out of a format they just hate. If this breakdown was also true in the reddit thread (hard to know), it supports a theory of a vocal minority of players who dislike Modern. The 4s and 5s represent 45% of the total posts in this thread, despite comprising only 30% of total posters and 29% of the total vote. This also makes sense to me, as we often see this effect in polls.
EDIT: deleted an incorrect line.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/azj89x/before_the_br_i_wanted_to_make_this_poll_to_see/
https://www.strawpoll.me/17583432/r
(Note that the 5 shared poll options aren't exactly the same, but they line up well enough to compare)
1s ("Modern is in a great place right now"): 10% vs. 13.7%
2s ("Modern is in a good place right now but could be better"): 33% vs. 49%
3s ("Modern is in a fine/medium place"): 31% vs. 7.8%
4s ("Modern is in a bad place but could be worse"): 21% vs. 21.6%
5s ("Modern is in one of the worse places its been in"): 5% vs. 7.8%
The biggest difference is in the 2s and 3s, which makes sense because the options are phrased differently. It could also mean reddit voters are more ambivalent/indifferent to the format as a whole than MTGS users are. But the 1s, 4s, and 5s line up very well. This suggests to me that our poll + the reddit poll are actually a good snapshot of Modern player opinions, at least if we're talking about online, forum-going, more enfranchised players.
ym: unknown
GK: #1
Fluff: #1
idSurge: #5
CFP: #4
Arkmer: #2
login: #1 or #2
FCG: #4
pink: unclear
racer: #4
k0no: #1
whocansay: unclear
Me: #2
That represents 10 known votes in the thread:
#1: 3
#2: 3
#3: 0
#4: 3
#5: 1
When we look at number of total comments within the thread (18 in all) and divide them by the voting of the commenting user (e.g. GK, Fluff, and k0no collectively have 4 posts), we see the following breakdown:
#1 posts: 4
#2 posts: 3
#3 posts: 0
#4 posts: 6
#5 posts: 2
Note that not all posts are represented because we don't know how all posters voted, as noted above. That said, this breakdown of posts does not at all reflect the breakdown of actual votes in the poll. If these 15 posts represent the known vote/poster combinations, we should expect to see a similar breakdown as we see in the poll itself, i.e. 12% of posts are from #1s, 45.8% are from #2s, etc. Instead, we see that 53% of our posts are from #4s and #5s, despite #4s and #5s only making up 33% of the actual polling results. The 3s don't post at all despite there being more 3s than 5s, and the 2s post less frequently than the 4s and 1s despite 2s being the most common result in the poll.
Again, all disclaimers of a small and limited N being in effect, this suggests to me that users who are unhappy with the format are more likely to post about it in a forum like ours. This can create a visible impression of Modern unhealth or distaste when the more silent majority are not defending or justifying the format because they are just playing it and/or enjoying it.