Without going on data, but if I had to guess, the top 2 combo decks, KCI and Storm, are probably on average more consistently faster than the best aggro decks, Burn, Hallow One, and Humans. Hallow One is hard to say and potentially consistently faster than combo. since I personally haven't played with the deck, and while I have played against it a lot online, the range of explosiveness the deck has is so wide that I cant really get a good read. I've been 4 Hallow One'd turn 1 but I've also seen do nothing till turn 3 before. The main thing I want to get from that deck is the average, which I really have a hard time seeing.
The thing with the aggro decks of Modern right now is that its so hard to stabilize. The draw to combo traditionally is usually two fold: the speed and the inevitability. If left unchecked and undisturbed, the combo deck will eventually go off without their opponent being able to do anything about it. This is usually not the case for aggro. Aggro tries to dominate the board super early on and pressure your life total that it becomes very hard to overcome. Eventually the opponent will stabilize and turn the advantage, but this seems no the case in Modern. Humans is super disruptive and because they don't run any burn to get over the top, every card they draw is straight gas and a threat that must be dealt with. Hallow one has Blood Gasts and phoenixs coming back every turn.
You do have a point about the turn 4 rule. I am very much against it being a hard rule, and it should really only be a soft guideline. The way in which the Storm deck works with its decently high turn 3 percentage kills is totally fine (if I had to guess, 30-40% to turn 3 kill goldfishing). The only thing I'd like to see is people to hold the turn 4 rule standard to any deck and not just combo especially now that combo is easier to slow down than aggro in the current meta
Agree just scrap the t4 mantra already. This format has gotten to the point where that can just go along with a bunch of the ban list imo. Let people play cards in modern and see how it goes. I’m getting to the point where I’m fine with ggt, probe, twin, sfm, bloom, cantrips... just bring it all back and let people play what they want. Sure the big oppressive cards should stay banned but geez just let us have all these cards back and open the format up. It’s been proven no matter what is legal people will just play what they like.
Champion of Parish-> Champion, Champion -> Thalia's Lieutenant, Any 1 Drop Human
You end up with a 6/6 a 5/5, and a 4/4 plus 3 damage on t2 for 18 damage so if the opponent fetched twice, shocked themselves, or thoughtseized they'd be dead. I think that's the max damage on t3 though, but I'm not positive.
You do have a point about the turn 4 rule. I am very much against it being a hard rule, and it should really only be a soft guideline. The way in which the Storm deck works with its decently high turn 3 percentage kills is totally fine (if I had to guess, 30-40% to turn 3 kill goldfishing). The only thing I'd like to see is people to hold the turn 4 rule standard to any deck and not just combo especially now that combo is easier to slow down than aggro in the current meta
It already isn't a hard rule, though. The B&R committee considers the percentage of the time a deck can execute a turn-3 kill and how easy it is to disrupt.
Although you could be saying that you think it should just be looser than it is now, which is valid. Can't quite tell with how you phrased it.
The point about top aggro being slower than top combo right now is pretty much spot-on. I think the reason for this is because Midrange and URx are always waiting in the wings to prey on creature-based decks. The two responses to that are a) go under them, or b) blank their interaction. The latter has proven to be the better strategy now. That lengthens their clock by a few turns, but with the benefit of pushing back hard against the forces that usually keep them in check - either by disrupting the interaction (Humans) or overtaxing it with numerous angles of attack (Hollow One).
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WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
I think that the turn 4 rule should only come into consideration when a combo deck begins to threaten a good amount of meta share. The turn 4 rule severely restricts deck construction when it coms to combo decks. And i mean it restricts decks that plan to become a viable tier 1 or 2 deck
I know there is some anti-Human sentiment in here but let's try and stay honest with our criticisms of the deck. Humans winning on T3 is a particularly disingenuous allegation. Here's the line that was identified:
So this T3 "kill" requires 3 Champion, 3 Lands, a Lieutenant, and then either the remaining 4th Champion or Hierarch. So that's 9 or 10 cards seen to draw 8 specific cards. This is an EXTREMELY unlikely draw. It's also the only draw in the entire deck that gets there. Oh, and it also doesn't actually kill the opponent if they didn't play an untapped shock or didn't fetch twice, so it's not even a goldfish T3 kill. I'm calling shenanigans on this entire accusation of Humans being able to kill T3. There may be legitimate issues with Humans, but it's ability to kill on T3 is not one of those issues.
Speaking of which, Humans is exactly the kind of close-to 50/50+ deck that pros want to play in Modern. It's also the kind of 50/50+ policing deck many of this thread's most vocal Modern critics always want to play. It has a proactive game plan, a matchup spectrum right around 50/50, inherent disruption that hits multiple decks, a few flex slots to tailor to metagames, and is relatively easy to pick up but also relatively hard to play "perfectly" due to stuff like Mage and appropriate Vial usage. This is the exact same kind of deck many of the pro-blue mages want. Except it's not blue combo/control, it's a type of rainbow aggro. It's basically doing what Twin would be doing in Modern, just not in Twin colors or with a Twin theme. And for some people, that's unacceptable and "broken." So if people don't want Humans around because of its impact on the metagame, that's fine, but then let's not also argue for a policing blue deck that has the same effect. Humans IS the current policing deck of Modern. If you don't like policing decks, then be genuine and don't like ALL of them, not just Humans because of its aggro nature. If you do purport to like policing decks, great! But don't apply a double standard to Humans when you would be happy with a blue deck (or UR combo/control deck) in its place.
I know there is some anti-Human sentiment in here but let's try and stay honest with our criticisms of the deck. Humans winning on T3 is a particularly disingenuous allegation. Here's the line that was identified:
So this T3 "kill" requires 3 Champion, 3 Lands, a Lieutenant, and then either the remaining 4th Champion or Hierarch. So that's 9 or 10 cards seen to draw 8 specific cards. This is an EXTREMELY unlikely draw. It's also the only draw in the entire deck that gets there. Oh, and it also doesn't actually kill the opponent if they didn't play an untapped shock or didn't fetch twice, so it's not even a goldfish T3 kill. I'm calling shenanigans on this entire accusation of Humans being able to kill T3. There may be legitimate issues with Humans, but it's ability to kill on T3 is not one of those issues.
Speaking of which, Humans is exactly the kind of close-to 50/50+ deck that pros want to play in Modern. It's also the kind of 50/50+ policing deck many of this thread's most vocal Modern critics always want to play. It has a proactive game plan, a matchup spectrum right around 50/50, inherent disruption that hits multiple decks, a few flex slots to tailor to metagames, and is relatively easy to pick up but also relatively hard to play "perfectly" due to stuff like Mage and appropriate Vial usage. This is the exact same kind of deck many of the pro-blue mages want. Except it's not blue combo/control, it's a type of rainbow aggro. It's basically doing what Twin would be doing in Modern, just not in Twin colors or with a Twin theme. And for some people, that's unacceptable and "broken." So if people don't want Humans around because of its impact on the metagame, that's fine, but then let's not also argue for a policing blue deck that has the same effect. Humans IS the current policing deck of Modern. If you don't like policing decks, then be genuine and don't like ALL of them, not just Humans because of its aggro nature. If you do purport to like policing decks, great! But don't apply a double standard to Humans when you would be happy with a blue deck (or UR combo/control deck) in its place.
I think the problem people have is that when the police deck is aggro, it's unfair because now you have a deck that is consistently good against combo, which naturally should pray on aggro, while also still being good or at least fair against control, and also simultaneously be the best aggro deck against other aggro decks. It's just a weird wedge to put a police deck because its not only insanely versatile, but the conditions for it to be made better (human subtype creatures) are also assumed overwhelmingly abundant in the future.
Just to clarify, before some accuses me of otherwise, I don't play Humans and I think the deck is fine/not ban worthy (and I also could care less about Twin), but I am not going to go as far as pretending like other peoples criticisms aren't valid here.
Stop thinking about it as just aggro. Think of it more like Delver, except instead of protecting Delver (Champion of the Parish) with wastelands and counterspells and removal it does it with meddling mage, thalia, reflector mage and kitesail freebooter. Instead of turbo xerox it plays redundant cards.
Humans is so close to the midrange spectrum that it's just a matter of format relative perspective to be thinking of it as an aggro deck.
The best deck in any "category" always gets that way by making sacrifices. Humans is the "midrangiest" of the current aggro decks and beats them by a midrange gameplan of killing them while disrupting their threats. In much the same way that Junk historically beat Jund by being the midrangiest of the midrange decks, but sacrificed some points vs. most aggro decks.
And in the same way Esper beats most control decks by being the controlliest of the control decks (except U-tron which goes one step further ;)).
I know there is some anti-Human sentiment in here but let's try and stay honest with our criticisms of the deck. Humans winning on T3 is a particularly disingenuous allegation. Here's the line that was identified:
So this T3 "kill" requires 3 Champion, 3 Lands, a Lieutenant, and then either the remaining 4th Champion or Hierarch. So that's 9 or 10 cards seen to draw 8 specific cards. This is an EXTREMELY unlikely draw. It's also the only draw in the entire deck that gets there. Oh, and it also doesn't actually kill the opponent if they didn't play an untapped shock or didn't fetch twice, so it's not even a goldfish T3 kill. I'm calling shenanigans on this entire accusation of Humans being able to kill T3. There may be legitimate issues with Humans, but it's ability to kill on T3 is not one of those issues.
Speaking of which, Humans is exactly the kind of close-to 50/50+ deck that pros want to play in Modern. It's also the kind of 50/50+ policing deck many of this thread's most vocal Modern critics always want to play. It has a proactive game plan, a matchup spectrum right around 50/50, inherent disruption that hits multiple decks, a few flex slots to tailor to metagames, and is relatively easy to pick up but also relatively hard to play "perfectly" due to stuff like Mage and appropriate Vial usage. This is the exact same kind of deck many of the pro-blue mages want. Except it's not blue combo/control, it's a type of rainbow aggro. It's basically doing what Twin would be doing in Modern, just not in Twin colors or with a Twin theme. And for some people, that's unacceptable and "broken." So if people don't want Humans around because of its impact on the metagame, that's fine, but then let's not also argue for a policing blue deck that has the same effect. Humans IS the current policing deck of Modern. If you don't like policing decks, then be genuine and don't like ALL of them, not just Humans because of its aggro nature. If you do purport to like policing decks, great! But don't apply a double standard to Humans when you would be happy with a blue deck (or UR combo/control deck) in its place.
I think the problem people have is that when the police deck is aggro, it's unfair because now you have a deck that is consistently good against combo, which naturally should pray on aggro, while also still being good or at least fair against control, and also simultaneously be the best aggro deck against other aggro decks. It's just a weird wedge to put a police deck because its not only insanely versatile, but the conditions for it to be made better (human subtype creatures) are also assumed overwhelmingly abundant in the future.
Just to clarify, before some accuses me of otherwise, I don't play Humans and I think the deck is fine/not ban worthy (and I also could care less about Twin), but I am not going to go as far as pretending like other peoples criticisms aren't valid here.
Some criticisms are not valid. Humans violating the T4 rule would be an invalid criticism. Humans being hypothetically "too good" is invalid without stats to back that claim up. Humans beating combo and therefore being a problem is invalid as well. Because if we're talking about the deck being "problematic" we're really just speaking in thinly-coded terms about its bannability. Some people will pretend that's not their intent, but most of us have been around Modern and this thread long enough to know otherwise. Given that intent, we need to remember that decks only get hit with bans when they meet certain criteria, which no deck has met in 15 months. So unless someone can specify which criteria is being violated, back that up with numbers, and then show how no previous deck over 15 months met those same numbers, then the "Humans is problematic" (I.e. bankable or potentially bankable) claim is invalid.
I know there is some anti-Human sentiment in here but let's try and stay honest with our criticisms of the deck. Humans winning on T3 is a particularly disingenuous allegation. Here's the line that was identified:
So this T3 "kill" requires 3 Champion, 3 Lands, a Lieutenant, and then either the remaining 4th Champion or Hierarch. So that's 9 or 10 cards seen to draw 8 specific cards. This is an EXTREMELY unlikely draw. It's also the only draw in the entire deck that gets there. Oh, and it also doesn't actually kill the opponent if they didn't play an untapped shock or didn't fetch twice, so it's not even a goldfish T3 kill. I'm calling shenanigans on this entire accusation of Humans being able to kill T3. There may be legitimate issues with Humans, but it's ability to kill on T3 is not one of those issues.
Speaking of which, Humans is exactly the kind of close-to 50/50+ deck that pros want to play in Modern. It's also the kind of 50/50+ policing deck many of this thread's most vocal Modern critics always want to play. It has a proactive game plan, a matchup spectrum right around 50/50, inherent disruption that hits multiple decks, a few flex slots to tailor to metagames, and is relatively easy to pick up but also relatively hard to play "perfectly" due to stuff like Mage and appropriate Vial usage. This is the exact same kind of deck many of the pro-blue mages want. Except it's not blue combo/control, it's a type of rainbow aggro. It's basically doing what Twin would be doing in Modern, just not in Twin colors or with a Twin theme. And for some people, that's unacceptable and "broken." So if people don't want Humans around because of its impact on the metagame, that's fine, but then let's not also argue for a policing blue deck that has the same effect. Humans IS the current policing deck of Modern. If you don't like policing decks, then be genuine and don't like ALL of them, not just Humans because of its aggro nature. If you do purport to like policing decks, great! But don't apply a double standard to Humans when you would be happy with a blue deck (or UR combo/control deck) in its place.
I don't think anyone called out humans in particular and the post giving an example of T3 humans kill was specifically asked for from another user.
I have no anti humans sentiment (if it my my comment you were referring to, if not sorry) as I'm about to pick up the rainbow lands to finish off the deck.
Edit - hoping it is moderns delver and is good when grixis shadow isn't so can play 2 decks instead of the nearly double figures of decks I'm currently playing.
I think with the t4 rule, archetype has to be taken into consideration, and how it is winning. during Eldrazi Winter, that deck was as sturdy as any midrange, but put you in a hopeless position with Storm or Affinity speed. it's fine if some fragile deck can win fast. I think Damping Sphere in particular is a very real nail in the coffin for Storm, it doesn't matter if it can win turn 2-3 unopposed because it is so easy to be ready for. they could unban Ponder itself and we would never have a Storm Winter. I think speed only matters if the payoff is something that is hard to respond to properly. Wipes are the only thing I have found that really hose Eldrazi, and stuff like Karn. those decks having 8-10 power on deck and your hand shredded by t3 can't happen, but Affinity sitting there with a t2 empty hand, ready to fold to any hate at all is fine.
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In my experience:
Moderately favored vs. any spell based combo deck (goryo's, storm, ad naus)
Slightly Favored vs. burn, hollow one, tron
The cool thing about the deck is you don't have any dog matchups you can't win except Elves and maybe Bogles. Bogles feels super awful, though I know it can be won. Elves and Merfolk both feel basically unwinnable to me. But you can get on the "get lucky and draw your staticaster g2 and g3" vs. elves.
Being a deck that beats most aggro and most combo and most big mana decks but also having a passable matchup vs. midrange/control is very special.
But it's also literally exactly what it's supposed to be doing; it beats most combo/aggro and loses to most midrange/control exactly as one would expect for a deck positioned in between aggro and midrange on the chart People are mostly whining about the fact that the midrange/control matchup is closer than they'd like.
Well, welcome to Splinter Twin my friends. That's the exact same thing people complained about for that deck, except it could sideboard into a nearly hard control deck but humans cannot due to the lack of cantrips.
I dunno. Jund seems like it should be great vs aggro-the-gathering. My guess is that the people playing humans instead of jund are doing so because of the big mana matchups, especially online. There's still a lot of primetime and expedition map decks online from what I've seen.
I actually suspect (though haven't tested) that humans has a losing matchup vs. primetime decks, but I think Jund is a much bigger dog to those decks (at least to hear my Jund friend tell it).
I've been playing valakut with tons of sweepers, and relics in the sideboard. It beats humans with the sweepers and the relics have been great against hollow one. I can also see tron still being good in this meta especially if it goes back to splashing red for sweepers.
Getting bored of big mana though and looking to move on to a fair deck that is good in the meta. Maybe it's just jund because its got scavenging ooze.
Why isn't midrange/control doing better then? I guess jund is doing okay, but I'm expecting its metagame share to be higher.
Probably because even if they're okay against Humans, Midrange and Traditional Control is definitely at a disadvantage against the rest of the field. Hollow One is a terrible match up for non-white decks, Tron is usually favored against slower fair decks, Bogles is fantastic against value decks... Prison decks on the other hand, like Lantern and UR Prison, are doing fine- though Humans is usually a tougher matchup for those decks.
I haven't played enough humans/valakut matchups to say one is favored. On the surface it appears that valakut should be favored.
Can infect make a comeback or is there too much midrange in the room?
I'd like to preface by saying I play a ton of modern. I don't look at stats often online, just my own personal experience playing 3-5 leagues per week and 2 competitive events at my LGS.
Modern is a very fast format. I'm seeing a lot of people complaining in this format that combo is going obsolete because aggro is faster/more consistent. Also combo is pretty clearly easier to hate out. A few Rest in peaces hate out most combo decks, hand disruption is always good etc. I'll get back to modern, but I'd like to reference a parallel in legacy really quick. Legacy has some very fast goldfish kills. If you are a combo deck in legacy, your Goldfish kill should be t2 at least. And yet, combo is still rarely seen at GPS. Why? Because good players tend to dislike inconsistency. The same is true in modern. U/R storm is the biggest combo deck right now because gifts adds more consistency/inevitability than a combo deck that can just fold to 2 discard spells. Humans is pretty clearly a tempo deck. Freebooters plus Meddling mage are much more tempoesque cards. Sure it has a turn 3 kill, and U/R storm can turn 2, but that doesn't make it absurdly unlikely. Humans is pretty clearly a turn 4 deck.
Now onto the "turn 4" rule. This is pretty clearly garbage. Anyone who has played against any dedicated aggro deck can testify that turn 3 kills are common. And sometimes, just because the game lasts until turn 5 doesn't mean that the game didn't end on turn 3. If you stabilize at 2 life against a burn deck, sure it might take them a few turns to draw well, but the game is all but over. Yet, even with all the speed in modern, I'm playing a midrange deck, and I find most of my games go until turn 10-11. So by the format getting faster, it's created an interesting rift from my observation. Really fast kills, and really slow kills. I can't remember the last time I saw a turn 5-6 kill. I'm sure it happens, but it fells like the format has created 2 decks--super fast and super slow. Just what I've seen. Interaction seems to be at an all time low. Thats my 2 cents.
Being a deck that beats most aggro and most combo and most big mana decks but also having a passable matchup vs. midrange/control is very special.
But it's also literally exactly what it's supposed to be doing; it beats most combo/aggro and loses to most midrange/control exactly as one would expect for a deck positioned in between aggro and midrange on the chart People are mostly whining about the fact that the midrange/control matchup is closer than they'd like.
'Special' is a word I guess. Just like the pillars of the format were 'special' when they ruled the format.
I think (speculation) that the issue is Humans have not, even now, gotten enough press as the best thing to be doing. If we still had MTGO numbers, and we KNEW it was a 50/50, I think we would have seen an explosion of it, and at that point, Control would stop messing around, and tune to beat it.
UWR is on the 'favourable' side of the coin flip, especially if it gears up to beat it, in my experience.
Humans is certainly far and away better than Hollow One, that deck is RNG "please let me win", in all my experience playing against it, and is a more adaptable Affinity.
Yeah I don't think the problem is Humans can win on Turn 3 more so that by Turn 3 it can be in a position that cannot be gotten out of without perfect to use a different TCG, "Heart of the Cards" level topdecking.
But I think what grinds most peoples gears is the knowledge that hell will freeze over before WOTC bans anything that would hurt Humans. Humans represents everything WOTC loves in Tribal Aggro. The only thing it doesn't do is use a Planeswalker.
If there is a common thread, its simply that 'aggro' (and stop with the but its not aggro..) is simply too much of the meta, BUT, is also extremely diverse so it cannot be punished.
Once/If Humans because the defacto Aggro deck (and Affinity then escapes again...lol) then it can be targetted and punished.
When did UW Control become a thing? When GDS was the meta.
I dont think anyone has issue if Humans is even the best deck (and I think it is) or if Affinity keeps dodging bans (it does) but instead the issue is, there's too much aggro, and not enough of a meta share within aggro, to punish it.
I think we are getting close though.
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The thing with the aggro decks of Modern right now is that its so hard to stabilize. The draw to combo traditionally is usually two fold: the speed and the inevitability. If left unchecked and undisturbed, the combo deck will eventually go off without their opponent being able to do anything about it. This is usually not the case for aggro. Aggro tries to dominate the board super early on and pressure your life total that it becomes very hard to overcome. Eventually the opponent will stabilize and turn the advantage, but this seems no the case in Modern. Humans is super disruptive and because they don't run any burn to get over the top, every card they draw is straight gas and a threat that must be dealt with. Hallow one has Blood Gasts and phoenixs coming back every turn.
You do have a point about the turn 4 rule. I am very much against it being a hard rule, and it should really only be a soft guideline. The way in which the Storm deck works with its decently high turn 3 percentage kills is totally fine (if I had to guess, 30-40% to turn 3 kill goldfishing). The only thing I'd like to see is people to hold the turn 4 rule standard to any deck and not just combo especially now that combo is easier to slow down than aggro in the current meta
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Champion of Parish-> Champion, Champion -> Thalia's Lieutenant, Any 1 Drop Human
You end up with a 6/6 a 5/5, and a 4/4 plus 3 damage on t2 for 18 damage so if the opponent fetched twice, shocked themselves, or thoughtseized they'd be dead. I think that's the max damage on t3 though, but I'm not positive.
It already isn't a hard rule, though. The B&R committee considers the percentage of the time a deck can execute a turn-3 kill and how easy it is to disrupt.
Although you could be saying that you think it should just be looser than it is now, which is valid. Can't quite tell with how you phrased it.
The point about top aggro being slower than top combo right now is pretty much spot-on. I think the reason for this is because Midrange and URx are always waiting in the wings to prey on creature-based decks. The two responses to that are a) go under them, or b) blank their interaction. The latter has proven to be the better strategy now. That lengthens their clock by a few turns, but with the benefit of pushing back hard against the forces that usually keep them in check - either by disrupting the interaction (Humans) or overtaxing it with numerous angles of attack (Hollow One).
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
T1: Land, Champion (1/1)
T2: Land, Champion (2/2 - 1/1), Champion (3/3 - 2/2 - 1/1), swing with Champion (Opp 17)
T3: Land, Lieutenant (5/5 - 4/4 - 3/3), Hierarch/Champion (6/6 - 5/5 - 4/4), swing with all (Opp 2)
So this T3 "kill" requires 3 Champion, 3 Lands, a Lieutenant, and then either the remaining 4th Champion or Hierarch. So that's 9 or 10 cards seen to draw 8 specific cards. This is an EXTREMELY unlikely draw. It's also the only draw in the entire deck that gets there. Oh, and it also doesn't actually kill the opponent if they didn't play an untapped shock or didn't fetch twice, so it's not even a goldfish T3 kill. I'm calling shenanigans on this entire accusation of Humans being able to kill T3. There may be legitimate issues with Humans, but it's ability to kill on T3 is not one of those issues.
Speaking of which, Humans is exactly the kind of close-to 50/50+ deck that pros want to play in Modern. It's also the kind of 50/50+ policing deck many of this thread's most vocal Modern critics always want to play. It has a proactive game plan, a matchup spectrum right around 50/50, inherent disruption that hits multiple decks, a few flex slots to tailor to metagames, and is relatively easy to pick up but also relatively hard to play "perfectly" due to stuff like Mage and appropriate Vial usage. This is the exact same kind of deck many of the pro-blue mages want. Except it's not blue combo/control, it's a type of rainbow aggro. It's basically doing what Twin would be doing in Modern, just not in Twin colors or with a Twin theme. And for some people, that's unacceptable and "broken." So if people don't want Humans around because of its impact on the metagame, that's fine, but then let's not also argue for a policing blue deck that has the same effect. Humans IS the current policing deck of Modern. If you don't like policing decks, then be genuine and don't like ALL of them, not just Humans because of its aggro nature. If you do purport to like policing decks, great! But don't apply a double standard to Humans when you would be happy with a blue deck (or UR combo/control deck) in its place.
I think the problem people have is that when the police deck is aggro, it's unfair because now you have a deck that is consistently good against combo, which naturally should pray on aggro, while also still being good or at least fair against control, and also simultaneously be the best aggro deck against other aggro decks. It's just a weird wedge to put a police deck because its not only insanely versatile, but the conditions for it to be made better (human subtype creatures) are also assumed overwhelmingly abundant in the future.
Just to clarify, before some accuses me of otherwise, I don't play Humans and I think the deck is fine/not ban worthy (and I also could care less about Twin), but I am not going to go as far as pretending like other peoples criticisms aren't valid here.
Humans is so close to the midrange spectrum that it's just a matter of format relative perspective to be thinking of it as an aggro deck.
The best deck in any "category" always gets that way by making sacrifices. Humans is the "midrangiest" of the current aggro decks and beats them by a midrange gameplan of killing them while disrupting their threats. In much the same way that Junk historically beat Jund by being the midrangiest of the midrange decks, but sacrificed some points vs. most aggro decks.
And in the same way Esper beats most control decks by being the controlliest of the control decks (except U-tron which goes one step further ;)).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Some criticisms are not valid. Humans violating the T4 rule would be an invalid criticism. Humans being hypothetically "too good" is invalid without stats to back that claim up. Humans beating combo and therefore being a problem is invalid as well. Because if we're talking about the deck being "problematic" we're really just speaking in thinly-coded terms about its bannability. Some people will pretend that's not their intent, but most of us have been around Modern and this thread long enough to know otherwise. Given that intent, we need to remember that decks only get hit with bans when they meet certain criteria, which no deck has met in 15 months. So unless someone can specify which criteria is being violated, back that up with numbers, and then show how no previous deck over 15 months met those same numbers, then the "Humans is problematic" (I.e. bankable or potentially bankable) claim is invalid.
I don't think anyone called out humans in particular and the post giving an example of T3 humans kill was specifically asked for from another user.
I have no anti humans sentiment (if it my my comment you were referring to, if not sorry) as I'm about to pick up the rainbow lands to finish off the deck.
Edit - hoping it is moderns delver and is good when grixis shadow isn't so can play 2 decks instead of the nearly double figures of decks I'm currently playing.
Legacy - LED Dredge, ANT & WDnT
In my experience:
Moderately favored vs. any spell based combo deck (goryo's, storm, ad naus)
Slightly Favored vs. burn, hollow one, tron
The cool thing about the deck is you don't have any dog matchups you can't win except Elves and maybe Bogles. Bogles feels super awful, though I know it can be won. Elves and Merfolk both feel basically unwinnable to me. But you can get on the "get lucky and draw your staticaster g2 and g3" vs. elves.
Being a deck that beats most aggro and most combo and most big mana decks but also having a passable matchup vs. midrange/control is very special.
But it's also literally exactly what it's supposed to be doing; it beats most combo/aggro and loses to most midrange/control exactly as one would expect for a deck positioned in between aggro and midrange on the chart People are mostly whining about the fact that the midrange/control matchup is closer than they'd like.
Well, welcome to Splinter Twin my friends. That's the exact same thing people complained about for that deck, except it could sideboard into a nearly hard control deck but humans cannot due to the lack of cantrips.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I actually suspect (though haven't tested) that humans has a losing matchup vs. primetime decks, but I think Jund is a much bigger dog to those decks (at least to hear my Jund friend tell it).
But that's just a wild guess honestly.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Getting bored of big mana though and looking to move on to a fair deck that is good in the meta. Maybe it's just jund because its got scavenging ooze.
Probably because even if they're okay against Humans, Midrange and Traditional Control is definitely at a disadvantage against the rest of the field. Hollow One is a terrible match up for non-white decks, Tron is usually favored against slower fair decks, Bogles is fantastic against value decks... Prison decks on the other hand, like Lantern and UR Prison, are doing fine- though Humans is usually a tougher matchup for those decks.
Can infect make a comeback or is there too much midrange in the room?
Modern is a very fast format. I'm seeing a lot of people complaining in this format that combo is going obsolete because aggro is faster/more consistent. Also combo is pretty clearly easier to hate out. A few Rest in peaces hate out most combo decks, hand disruption is always good etc. I'll get back to modern, but I'd like to reference a parallel in legacy really quick. Legacy has some very fast goldfish kills. If you are a combo deck in legacy, your Goldfish kill should be t2 at least. And yet, combo is still rarely seen at GPS. Why? Because good players tend to dislike inconsistency. The same is true in modern. U/R storm is the biggest combo deck right now because gifts adds more consistency/inevitability than a combo deck that can just fold to 2 discard spells. Humans is pretty clearly a tempo deck. Freebooters plus Meddling mage are much more tempoesque cards. Sure it has a turn 3 kill, and U/R storm can turn 2, but that doesn't make it absurdly unlikely. Humans is pretty clearly a turn 4 deck.
Now onto the "turn 4" rule. This is pretty clearly garbage. Anyone who has played against any dedicated aggro deck can testify that turn 3 kills are common. And sometimes, just because the game lasts until turn 5 doesn't mean that the game didn't end on turn 3. If you stabilize at 2 life against a burn deck, sure it might take them a few turns to draw well, but the game is all but over. Yet, even with all the speed in modern, I'm playing a midrange deck, and I find most of my games go until turn 10-11. So by the format getting faster, it's created an interesting rift from my observation. Really fast kills, and really slow kills. I can't remember the last time I saw a turn 5-6 kill. I'm sure it happens, but it fells like the format has created 2 decks--super fast and super slow. Just what I've seen. Interaction seems to be at an all time low. Thats my 2 cents.
Its still a filthy aggro creature deck running rainbow lands one of which provides 'cannot stop me' protection to nearly the whole deck.
Its a perfectly valid, and fine aggro deck (aggro is 'I am casting spells that apply pressure' for the sake of simplicity?) and thats fine.
It can be the Modern police for all I care, I'll still turn up my nose at it.
I dont know that anyone thinks its honestly 'broken'.
'Special' is a word I guess. Just like the pillars of the format were 'special' when they ruled the format.
I think (speculation) that the issue is Humans have not, even now, gotten enough press as the best thing to be doing. If we still had MTGO numbers, and we KNEW it was a 50/50, I think we would have seen an explosion of it, and at that point, Control would stop messing around, and tune to beat it.
UWR is on the 'favourable' side of the coin flip, especially if it gears up to beat it, in my experience.
Humans is certainly far and away better than Hollow One, that deck is RNG "please let me win", in all my experience playing against it, and is a more adaptable Affinity.
Spirits
also comparing humans to twin? yeah get back to me in 3+ years when humans is still a dominant force.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I would be ecstatic if Humans got up to 10% of the meta.
Spirits
But I think what grinds most peoples gears is the knowledge that hell will freeze over before WOTC bans anything that would hurt Humans. Humans represents everything WOTC loves in Tribal Aggro. The only thing it doesn't do is use a Planeswalker.
If there is a common thread, its simply that 'aggro' (and stop with the but its not aggro..) is simply too much of the meta, BUT, is also extremely diverse so it cannot be punished.
Once/If Humans because the defacto Aggro deck (and Affinity then escapes again...lol) then it can be targetted and punished.
When did UW Control become a thing? When GDS was the meta.
I dont think anyone has issue if Humans is even the best deck (and I think it is) or if Affinity keeps dodging bans (it does) but instead the issue is, there's too much aggro, and not enough of a meta share within aggro, to punish it.
I think we are getting close though.
Spirits