I'm sorry, but if you think Tron before with Eye of Ugin was more powerful than Tron now with Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Sanctum of Ugin, Worldbreaker, Walking Ballista, and NO TWIN OR SUMMER BLOOM to stomp on Tron, then you are seriously delusional. You can say that Tron hasn't pushed out Control. Sure, it's not the only deck that has pushed out Control. It's not the main reason. But we saw Jeskai and Jund make a resurgence to the top 8, then 6 Tron in the top 32 of the next large tournament. I doubt that's an aberration. Perhaps there's a reason? Perhaps there's not and the only Control players losing to Tron are very terrible players?
Let's take a look at the decks that got affected by bans - Twin, Bloom, Dredge, and Infect. All of these decks literally stomped Tron. Tron has lost many of its predators. Are there other predators? Certainly, there are. Does something need to be banned. ABSOLUTELY NOT. But acting like Tron has no influence in the Modern metagame is just plain wrong. I know loads of players who hate Tron, mainly because they don't want to play the strategies that BEAT Tron. I do … play those strategies and I rarely mind Tron.
*P.S. - Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is a card that literally just auto-wins certain matchups if it resolves. Sure, there are some matchups in which it's poor, but there's also matchups where the opponent is literally dead on board if it lands and is active.
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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)
Sure Ugin can essentially auto-win certain matchups, but it's a card that doesn't come down until turn 4 at the earliest and requires 3/4 lands played before that to be specific ones. One of the defining characteristics of modern is that it is a turn 4 format and for Ugin is exactly that.
All this Tron talk is exhausting. I'm not a fan by any means, but I can recognize that a large part of that comes from exclusively playing mid-range as my entry into Modern. If you are a player frustrated by Tron, try playing aggro or combo for a bit. You'll quickly find you don't give a damn about Tron anymore and there's a new archetype you find "un-fun" -- Control gets sweepers and Jund discard. That's the nature of a generally cyclical rock-paper-scissors format.
If you want to play mid-range, accept that Tron is not a great match-up (but can likely be hedged to 40-60 depending on your 75). Sure, some of your losses will feel lopsided and most of your wins will feel very close. But that's what you're signing up for when you play mid-range, and that's manageable when Tron is <5% of the metagame.
Eh for some of us at least, its not about being a dog to Tron. I've got Storm, Burn, 1cmc Tribal Flame Zoo, UWR Control, and Turns. In the past I had Twin. None of those but UWR are a dog to Tron, I still find it a bad/unfun, poor experience.
'Land, Land, Land, natural Tron, Karn, yay!'
There is no deck I enjoy dunking on, as hard as I do Tron.
I just don't understand why some midrange and control players can't accept their bad matchup and refrain from complaining about it, particularly in veiled/open ban terms. Every other archetype seems to accept their bad matchups, or at least they aren't in this thread, on Twitch, and/or on Reddit complaining.
I know one of the flimsy counter-arguments to this: "they are playing X and should EXPECT bad/polarizing matchups." First off, I don't buy this to begin with, particularly for the decks on the fairer end like good old aggro Burn. But even if those players should expect bad matchups, which maybe they should. the control/midrange players should at least admit that they are themselves NOT expecting the same degree of bad/polarizing matchupss by virtue of their deck choice. I know this is hard to admit because it means admitting to something Wizards doesn't support (I.e. the 50/50+ deck), but it would at least feel more genuine.
EDIT: To be clear, there might be good control/midrange arguments around Tron that could be made, e.g. "my matchup is 20/80 and I just want it at 35/65 like old Twin vs. Affinity." But we don't often hear those.
yeah that play sequence, which includes map -> turn3 tron + karn, is the reason the deck gets so much hate. i think there is more play to the deck than people give it credit, especially when there is a lot of hate/bad matchups for it floating around. however the nut draws are so straight forward (a few land drops into huge stuff you can never beat) that players cant help but feel like theyve been robbed of something.
there is a reason the meme of 'they always have natty tron' exists. not really a reason to ban the deck, but no amount of logic is going to make people suddenly see the deck in a new light and enjoy the games where they lose that way.
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I can completely understand people disliking Tron mechanically. I feel about the same about it as I do about RGScapeshift, which is that I don't enjoy decks that use lands as a weapon in a format where lands are difficult to interact with. Field of Ruin was a huge step in the right direction there honestly that is mostly why I have shut up about it.
But mechanically I still find the whole "My entire deck is stuff that finds lands, or both lands and threats" design pretty bleh.
And then inevitably some Tron player will whine about Green Sun's Zenith being "good both on turn 1 and turn 6" and not recognize the irony that expedition map is literally the same thing in their deck except sometimes it ramps 4.
I've played all kinds of decks in Modern and I'm not supportive of the blue narrative in general (outside of being pro-Counterspell); I just find the mechanics of a deck that functionally plays 40 lands getting to act like a deck that plays 20 lands to be frustrating. The unbridled consistency just feels super out of place in the format.
Don't think it should be banned but that doesn't mean anyone is wrong for disliking it
I mean I did complain against Twin, but then I was playing Elves or Slivers or Shamans. I didn't like having to have 1-4 Spellskites in the mainboard, but I did it anyway.
I’m not a fan of Tron at all, but I’m not calling for any bannings. I’ve been calling for better land hate in modern for years and we recently got Field of Ruin and Damping Sphere.
What are we expecting for the announcement on July 2nd? SFM unban?
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
T3 Karn happens about 20% of the time. Storm literally wins the game through disruption about 15% of the time on turn 3. Infect wins a similar amount of the time as storm. How are people really that mad about Karn when people are winning the game at a similar rate.
I just don't understand why some midrange and control players can't accept their bad matchup and refrain from complaining about it, particularly in veiled/open ban terms. Every other archetype seems to accept their bad matchups, or at least they aren't in this thread, on Twitch, and/or on Reddit complaining.
I know one of the flimsy counter-arguments to this: "they are playing X and should EXPECT bad/polarizing matchups." First off, I don't buy this to begin with, particularly for the decks on the fairer end like good old aggro Burn. But even if those players should expect bad matchups, which maybe they should. the control/midrange players should at least admit that they are themselves NOT expecting the same degree of bad/polarizing matchupss by virtue of their deck choice. I know this is hard to admit because it means admitting to something Wizards doesn't support (I.e. the 50/50+ deck), but it would at least feel more genuine.
EDIT: To be clear, there might be good control/midrange arguments around Tron that could be made, e.g. "my matchup is 20/80 and I just want it at 35/65 like old Twin vs. Affinity." But we don't often hear those.
There's like one person here talking about banning something because midrange is a dog to tron.
I despise the deck, I dont want anything banned. Just give me Preordain and SFM for people who will play it (I wont) and call it a day.
If they just stop printing giant On Cast triggers I'll be a happy camper. We've got enough of that in the format TYVM Game ain't designed to cope with that.
i dunno, i find it hard to believe that all the players who play linear/unfair/whatever decks are this group of people who are stoically accepting things because they are wise in the ways of the game, and everyone else is just whining because of ignorance or entitlement.
some types of gameplay are just more preferred than others, particularly in certain settings (ie small LGS event vs GP). there is no way to gather such data, but the pool of players is finite and each person has to have some preferences. in a setting like this forum or other places we only have access to a vocal minority. whether this group of people who are willing to talk about the format is mainly comprised of disgruntled midrange and control players seems unlikely, but i guess it could be possible.
modern has a reputation for having games that are over too quickly, requiring no skill, and or prone to being lopsided due to variance. fighting to show the truth of things is an ongoing battle; however its not like those initial opinions are randomly generated or appear out of thin air. there IS a lot of degenerate stuff going on in modern that there is little to nothing opponents can do about, and distinguishing these games from fair deck X murdering deck Y is difficult. especially when the games look drastically different, and in only one of them was a semblance of a normalized game of magic being played.
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Honestly the only issue I have is if someone takes 30 minute non- interactive turns.
Also, people's complaints about tron is the deck is difficult to interact with and your sideboard cards like Fulminator Mage/ stony silence/ disdainful stroke often do very little against them and you need to hope they stumble from their best draws
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
i dunno, i find it hard to believe that all the players who play linear/unfair/whatever decks are this group of people who are stoically accepting things because they are wise in the ways of the game, and everyone else is just whining because of ignorance or entitlement.
some types of gameplay are just more preferred than others, particularly in certain settings (ie small LGS event vs GP). there is no way to gather such data, but the pool of players is finite and each person has to have some preferences. in a setting like this forum or other places we only have access to a vocal minority. whether this group of people who are willing to talk about the format is mainly comprised of disgruntled midrange and control players seems unlikely, but i guess it could be possible.
modern has a reputation for having games that are over too quickly, requiring no skill, and or prone to being lopsided due to variance. fighting to show the truth of things is an ongoing battle; however its not like those initial opinions are randomly generated or appear out of thin air. there IS a lot of degenerate stuff going on in modern that there is little to nothing opponents can do about, and distinguishing these games from fair deck X murdering deck Y is difficult. especially when the games look drastically different, and in only one of them was a semblance of a normalized game of magic being played.
Except that in this thread the math has been done several times showing that skilled players in modern win at essentially the same rate as skilled players in other formats. There is as much skill in modern as anywhere else.
Except that in this thread the math has been done several times showing that skilled players in modern win at essentially the same rate as skilled players in other formats. There is as much skill in modern as anywhere else.
which is why i said its reputation, and how it differed from the truth. yet despite this the reputation still exists, and it didnt just appear magically. at some point players observed something, or in worse cases just heard about someone elses observation, and an opinion was formed. more likely than not these observations were of cases where some unfair deck nutted all over their opponent, which looks entirely different from a fair deck merciless beating their opponent because those games are composed of more elements typical of 'normal magic'; thus making the lopsidedness less apparent.
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Except that in this thread the math has been done several times showing that skilled players in modern win at essentially the same rate as skilled players in other formats. There is as much skill in modern as anywhere else.
which is why i said its reputation, and how it differed from the truth. yet despite this the reputation still exists, and it didnt just appear magically. at some point players observed something, or in worse cases just heard about someone elses observation, and an opinion was formed. more likely than not these observations were of cases where some unfair deck nutted all over their opponent, which looks entirely different from a fair deck merciless beating their opponent because those games are composed of more elements typical of 'normal magic'; thus making the lopsidedness less apparent.
Just because it's a widely promulgated myth doesn't make it one worth repeating. I don't care too much as to why people believe it. My guess is that many of them try to succeed in Modern using decks and approaches that don't work in Modern, and then look to blame some external factor for their personal shortcomings. That's been my experience of these complaints, anyway. If enough vocal people experience this, they will all eventually gravitate towards the same vocal narratives. That said, no one here should even be repeating this narrative as anything other than a myth; it's been thoroughly debunked at this point.
As I said before, I have also seen Tron players complain about their opponent's deck, most often about the amount of sideboard hate they are exposed to.
I have been told by Tron players that Burning Inquiry needs to be banned. I have been told that Crumble to Dust shouldn't be played in any deck just after I got rid of Urza's Tower with it. And I can't even count how many times a Tron player prematurely quit a match in the training room of MTGO when they didn't have the nut draw - which is kinda counterproductive, since sub-optimal draws usually result in a considerably greater learning experience. It just doesn't make sense and feels unsportsmanlike to me, robbing the opponent of the kind of open game that they need to improve their tron matchup. There is little to learn from T1 Expedition Map into T3 Karn.
As I said before, I have also seen Tron players complain about their opponent's deck, most often about the amount of sideboard hate they are exposed to.
I have been told by Tron players that Burning Inquiry needs to be banned. I have been told that Crumble to Dust shouldn't be played in any deck just after I got rid of Urza's Tower with it. And I can't even count how many times a Tron player prematurely quit a match in the training room of MTGO when they didn't have the nut draw - which is kinda counterproductive, since sub-optimal draws usually result in a considerably greater learning experience. It just doesn't make sense.
So, what is your point exactly? These are just anecdotes involving less experienced players (presumably, if they're in the training room, and players complaining about SB hate in general). This has nothing to do with Tron as a deck.
If they just stop printing giant On Cast triggers I'll be a happy camper. We've got enough of that in the format TYVM Game ain't designed to cope with that.
Yeah, my biggest beef with Tron is that I have no feasible way to interact with their cast triggers. Ulamogs and Worldbreakers are rage-educing. I don't think it deserves to be banned, but it's probably one of my saltiest matchups and I don't lose any sleep over anything bad that happens to it.
In fact, with your continued complaining about how Tron got so much better in the last 2 years (ironic, considering its biggest buffs occurred prior to the last 2 years), you're ignoring how the various other decks got better.
What do you mean by "biggest buffs"? The biggest buffs to Tron in recent time have been the big Eldrazi with their enters-the-battlefield-effects.
Do the math. 2 years ago Eldritch Moon was released. Ulamog and World Breaker were released in the sets before that. You can fudge the dates a little for World Breaker, I suppose (though World Breaker isn't that amazing), but Ulamog was released back in 2015, and Ugin before even that. So yes, the biggest buffs (which I would qualify to be Ulamog and Ugin) occurred prior to the last 2 years.
And just because other decks also received buffs doesn't mean that the buffs for Tron where for the better for the format. This finger pointing in a different direction is a diversion tactic.
My point is that it's silly to claim "Tron got cards that made it better!" as some kind of argument that Tron in the format is better, when it's ignoring the increases in power other decks got. Sure, Tron got better. So did other decks. In the context of the full format, is Tron particularly better than it was back then? I don't think so. If anything, it seems to have shrunk off slightly.
Eye of Ugin was way better than Sanctum. Sanctum can be great, but it's unreliable if you can't activate it (which happens quite often) and is one-shot.
I agree with you that Eye of Ugin is the more problematic card, but in what world can Tron not activate Sanctum? If they can't activate it, they usually don't tutor it. But it gets tutored a lot against me. And used a lot.
Because sometimes you'll be unable to activate Sanctum due to not having something to cast to trigger it. Sure, a lot of time you can. But it isn't inherently reliable in the way Eye of Ugin was. Tron+Eye of Ugin=Repeated search. Tron+Sanctum of Ugin+Expensive Spell=One-time search. The former is much more reliable and, again, repeated, which means if they have an answer for your first thing you can just grab another.
Are Ulamog and Ugin annoying? Sure. But they can be dealt with. Emrakul was basically an "I win!" button that was only possible to play because of Eye of Ugin. That guaranteed "I win!" button is what sealed the deal on Tron being a nightmare for control (and to a lesser extent midrange), because of their lack of ways to deal with it.
I played many matches against the old Tron and never got the impression that Emrakul was too powerful. There is a reason why Ulamog replaced Emrakul. It's just way more powerful in this deck.
I never said Emrakul was too powerful. I was saying that Eye of Ugin allowed you to run Emrakul and give you a guarantee of a later game win in a way that the current stuff it runs doesn't.
The main place Sanctum of Ugin is better is against fast decks, because the ability to tutor repeatedly, or tutor up Emrakul, generally comes too late. So the ability to tap out and then search out a Wurmcoil Engine or whatever is more useful. But again, that's against the faster decks, not the slower ones.
This is just plain wrong. When I play fast against Tron with my Snapcaster-based decks, which can be very good at playing the tempo game, the Tron player's main problem is that they can usually only produce one big threat per turn. So, what they do is not tutor up Wurmcoil Engine, but Ulamog (see a pattern?), to get rid of my two best creatures even if I have a counterspell for it. And I don't always have a counterspell, so in the pre-supercharged-Edlrazi world of MtG, where the mere attempt of casting a spell wouldn't have a huge impact on the game, the Tron player would have to calculate the odds of me having a counterspell and then decide if they want to bait it out with their second best card etc. pp. But since they now have Ulamog, they just slam. This is the kind of change in the play experience against Tron that I criticize. I don't have a problem with Tron doing powerful stuff in general.
I'm not sure exactly how this related to my point regarding Sanctum of Ugin and Eye of Ugin? Is what you're complaining about here any less possible with Eye of Ugin? You're quoting something I said and then raising a point wholly irreleavnt to what I was saying.
The simple fact is that Tron is not the metagame-controlling monster you've claimed it is, as it is, as I've noted, at about 5% of the metagame. That isn't anywhere close enough to have the kind of effect you're proclaiming it does.
You are accusing the person you reply to of not sticking to the facts, but seem to have a problem with the facts as well. Just because the metagame share of a deck archetype is around the 5% mark (which is true for most current Modern decks, including Humans) doesn't mean that its presence doesn't have a major impact on the format.
In which case it has the same "major impact" that any other decent deck does, and thus it's absurd to complain about it keeping other decks out. Where's all the complaints about how Humans is keeping decks out? It has a bigger metagame share than Tron does.
Of course it's silly to claim that Tron, or any decent deck, has no impact on the format. But the claim made was that it was having such a giant impact on the format that it was making decks that were bad against it hard to play. I was responding to that claim. And once again, I present my evidence: Tron doesn't have the metagame share to be actively pushing decks out, and one can easily see all the decks (including the supposedly maligned control decks) that have a poor matchup against it that are thriving to show that, no, Tron is not such a big part of the format that you can't compete because you have a bad matchup against it.
And I don't think that there is something fundamentally wrong with Tron. As others are not tiring to point out, there has been no "metric evidence" that Tron is too good.
So why are you arguing against me if you seem to be in agreement that Tron isn't such a problem in the format that it needs some kind of ban?
But denying that Tron's presence has a significant impact on the format is absurd. There are literally dozens if not hundreds of threads on forums all other the internet in which midrange and control players discuss what they can do about Tron. That's a tale-tell sign of how much Tron influences deck building and sideboard choices, even at 5% metagame share at some point in time.
People tend to discuss how to approach bad matchups. You don't think that Storm players never thought to themselves "hrm, this Humans deck is really good against me. How do I deal with it?" and discussed it?
I never made that argument. I responded to the claim that Sanctum of Ugin was better than Eye of Ugin and rightfully called that claim nonsense. How in the world did you misread my post so badly you ended up with the interpretation you post here?
You can say that Tron hasn't pushed out Control. Sure, it's not the only deck that has pushed out Control. It's not the main reason.
We're in agreement, then, that Tron is not why control has been pushed out! (although whether it has been "pushed out" is highly debatable, particularly in light of its recent big finishes) Why are you arguing against me?
But we saw Jeskai and Jund make a resurgence to the top 8, then 6 Tron in the top 32 of the next large tournament. I doubt that's an aberration. Perhaps there's a reason? Perhaps there's not and the only Control players losing to Tron are very terrible players?
I'm really confused as to what point you're trying to make here. Obviously, when a particular deck does well, people will switch to decks that are good against that deck. Jund and Control did well, so more people were playing Tron. I doubt you're trying to just state the obvious in that way, so could you clarify what you're trying to say here? I'm not even sure what tournaments you're referring to.
Let's take a look at the decks that got affected by bans - Twin, Bloom, Dredge, and Infect. All of these decks literally stomped Tron. Tron has lost many of its predators. Are there other predators? Certainly, there are. Does something need to be banned. ABSOLUTELY NOT. But acting like Tron has no influence in the Modern metagame is just plain wrong.
So, I'm again confused. What exactly are you taking issue with in my post? Because you're not arguing against anything I said. I never said Tron had "no influence" in the Modern metagame. It has the same amount of influence that any decent deck does. My point is the silliness in claiming it was so influential in pushing out control that a ban was warranted or else the format would devolve into Tron vs. Fast decks. You've stated that bans are "absolutely not" necessary, so what is your disagreement, exactly?
Though I should note something: You mention how the decks that got banned were good against Tron. I won't dispute Bloom, Dredge, or Infect, but that's not actually that true with Twin. Yes, once upon a time, Tron was basically a bye for Twin. But as time went on, Tron decks better adapted themselves to handle the matchup, and I've seen some people say that at the time of banning, Twin was actually disadvantaged against Tron. I'm not sure if I'd go that far, but see this post for an example of a Twin player expressing frustration with the matchup. Second, Twin was always good against the decks that beat Tron, so it leaving the format was honestly a negative for Tron.
Of course, who knows what Twin vs. Tron would be like today if Twin were unbanned. Eye of Ugin was a key piece in that matchup, as the general strategy for Tron against Twin was to just stop them from comboing off long enough to search out your Emrakul and win the game off of it.
At any rate, despite the noting of decks good against Tron getting worse... Tron doesn't seem to be doing better in the metagame than it was in the last few years. In fact, paradoxically, its metagame share seemed higher back when Amulet Bloom was running around.
So on the whole, you seem to be arguing against claims I didn't make.
Just because it's a widely promulgated myth doesn't make it one worth repeating. I don't care too much as to why people believe it. My guess is that many of them try to succeed in Modern using decks and approaches that don't work in Modern, and then look to blame some external factor for their personal shortcomings. That's been my experience of these complaints, anyway. If enough vocal people experience this, they will all eventually gravitate towards the same vocal narratives. That said, no one here should even be repeating this narrative as anything other than a myth; it's been thoroughly debunked at this point.
i still think there is something to be gained by attempting to understand what drives perceptions. im fine with defending the format, if i wasnt then i probably wouldnt be playing it exclusively. however modern isnt perfect, and if we are here to talk about the state of things i would think that includes how it might be better. some number of dissenters are likely not good enough or trying hard enough, but i cant see that being the only reason.
for me its not so much that i want my deck, or any other particular fair deck, to be 50/50 against the field. honestly i see the format as being TOO diverse. which may sound like an absurd notion, but if we assume that a format with 1000 decks at 0.1% meta share would be bad then there has to be some point where the scales tip from good to bad. i think modern would be better served with more 10%+ decks running around rather than fewer.
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As I said before, I have also seen Tron players complain about their opponent's deck, most often about the amount of sideboard hate they are exposed to.
I have been told by Tron players that Burning Inquiry needs to be banned. I have been told that Crumble to Dust shouldn't be played in any deck just after I got rid of Urza's Tower with it. And I can't even count how many times a Tron player prematurely quit a match in the training room of MTGO when they didn't have the nut draw - which is kinda counterproductive, since sub-optimal draws usually result in a considerably greater learning experience. It just doesn't make sense and feels unsportsmanlike to me, robbing the opponent of the kind of open game that they need to improve their tron matchup. There is little to learn from T1 Expedition Map into T3 Karn.
I'm not really sure what this statement is trying to argue. If it's trying to anecdotally show that some Tron players are salty jerks, I am sure we can all counter with just as many anecdotal examples of other archetype pilots being salty jerks when games/matchups don't go their way. I saw this daily when I played Cheeri0s, and even saw it on UW Control if I removed a key critter or Sead a key land. If so, all that seems to prove is that salty jerks exist on all decks on MTGO, especially in tournament practice, which hardly seems like a point worth making.
Another possibility is that Tron players are unusually salty about losses, but this gets us back to the problem with anecdotal evidence. I think we've talked about that enough that I can be reasonably confident you aren't making that claim. As we can all see, some negative experiences in MTGO tournament practice don't really constitute a case.
Yet another possibility is that Tron pilots who are salty jerks need to learn how to beat their worst case scenarios, e.g. disrupted Maps, Quarters/Fields on their lands, T3 Karn met with Stubborn, etc. I would totally agree with this. But I would take it to the next step and argue that everyone needs to push themselves to improve from bad scenarios. This includes not just Tron players disrupted before T3 but also Storm players who mull to 6 and lose their engine, Affinity players who get hit with T2 Stony Silence when they are on the draw, Dredge players who face T1 Leyline, and Jeskai players who are battling Tron. All of these players, fair deck pilots included, would benefit from not getting so upset in bad situations and instead looking for and playing to outs. This is a better recipe for improvement.
Let's take a look at the decks that got affected by bans - Twin, Bloom, Dredge, and Infect. All of these decks literally stomped Tron. Tron has lost many of its predators. Are there other predators? Certainly, there are. Does something need to be banned. ABSOLUTELY NOT. But acting like Tron has no influence in the Modern metagame is just plain wrong. I know loads of players who hate Tron, mainly because they don't want to play the strategies that BEAT Tron. I do … play those strategies and I rarely mind Tron.
*P.S. - Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is a card that literally just auto-wins certain matchups if it resolves. Sure, there are some matchups in which it's poor, but there's also matchups where the opponent is literally dead on board if it lands and is active.
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 you want to play mid-range, accept that Tron is not a great match-up (but can likely be hedged to 40-60 depending on your 75). Sure, some of your losses will feel lopsided and most of your wins will feel very close. But that's what you're signing up for when you play mid-range, and that's manageable when Tron is <5% of the metagame.
'Land, Land, Land, natural Tron, Karn, yay!'
There is no deck I enjoy dunking on, as hard as I do Tron.
Spirits
I know one of the flimsy counter-arguments to this: "they are playing X and should EXPECT bad/polarizing matchups." First off, I don't buy this to begin with, particularly for the decks on the fairer end like good old aggro Burn. But even if those players should expect bad matchups, which maybe they should. the control/midrange players should at least admit that they are themselves NOT expecting the same degree of bad/polarizing matchupss by virtue of their deck choice. I know this is hard to admit because it means admitting to something Wizards doesn't support (I.e. the 50/50+ deck), but it would at least feel more genuine.
EDIT: To be clear, there might be good control/midrange arguments around Tron that could be made, e.g. "my matchup is 20/80 and I just want it at 35/65 like old Twin vs. Affinity." But we don't often hear those.
there is a reason the meme of 'they always have natty tron' exists. not really a reason to ban the deck, but no amount of logic is going to make people suddenly see the deck in a new light and enjoy the games where they lose that way.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)But mechanically I still find the whole "My entire deck is stuff that finds lands, or both lands and threats" design pretty bleh.
And then inevitably some Tron player will whine about Green Sun's Zenith being "good both on turn 1 and turn 6" and not recognize the irony that expedition map is literally the same thing in their deck except sometimes it ramps 4.
I've played all kinds of decks in Modern and I'm not supportive of the blue narrative in general (outside of being pro-Counterspell); I just find the mechanics of a deck that functionally plays 40 lands getting to act like a deck that plays 20 lands to be frustrating. The unbridled consistency just feels super out of place in the format.
Don't think it should be banned but that doesn't mean anyone is wrong for disliking it
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
What are we expecting for the announcement on July 2nd? SFM unban?
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
There's like one person here talking about banning something because midrange is a dog to tron.
I despise the deck, I dont want anything banned. Just give me Preordain and SFM for people who will play it (I wont) and call it a day.
Spirits
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Spirits
some types of gameplay are just more preferred than others, particularly in certain settings (ie small LGS event vs GP). there is no way to gather such data, but the pool of players is finite and each person has to have some preferences. in a setting like this forum or other places we only have access to a vocal minority. whether this group of people who are willing to talk about the format is mainly comprised of disgruntled midrange and control players seems unlikely, but i guess it could be possible.
modern has a reputation for having games that are over too quickly, requiring no skill, and or prone to being lopsided due to variance. fighting to show the truth of things is an ongoing battle; however its not like those initial opinions are randomly generated or appear out of thin air. there IS a lot of degenerate stuff going on in modern that there is little to nothing opponents can do about, and distinguishing these games from fair deck X murdering deck Y is difficult. especially when the games look drastically different, and in only one of them was a semblance of a normalized game of magic being played.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Also, people's complaints about tron is the deck is difficult to interact with and your sideboard cards like Fulminator Mage/ stony silence/ disdainful stroke often do very little against them and you need to hope they stumble from their best draws
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
Except that in this thread the math has been done several times showing that skilled players in modern win at essentially the same rate as skilled players in other formats. There is as much skill in modern as anywhere else.
which is why i said its reputation, and how it differed from the truth. yet despite this the reputation still exists, and it didnt just appear magically. at some point players observed something, or in worse cases just heard about someone elses observation, and an opinion was formed. more likely than not these observations were of cases where some unfair deck nutted all over their opponent, which looks entirely different from a fair deck merciless beating their opponent because those games are composed of more elements typical of 'normal magic'; thus making the lopsidedness less apparent.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Just because it's a widely promulgated myth doesn't make it one worth repeating. I don't care too much as to why people believe it. My guess is that many of them try to succeed in Modern using decks and approaches that don't work in Modern, and then look to blame some external factor for their personal shortcomings. That's been my experience of these complaints, anyway. If enough vocal people experience this, they will all eventually gravitate towards the same vocal narratives. That said, no one here should even be repeating this narrative as anything other than a myth; it's been thoroughly debunked at this point.
I have been told by Tron players that Burning Inquiry needs to be banned. I have been told that Crumble to Dust shouldn't be played in any deck just after I got rid of Urza's Tower with it. And I can't even count how many times a Tron player prematurely quit a match in the training room of MTGO when they didn't have the nut draw - which is kinda counterproductive, since sub-optimal draws usually result in a considerably greater learning experience. It just doesn't make sense and feels unsportsmanlike to me, robbing the opponent of the kind of open game that they need to improve their tron matchup. There is little to learn from T1 Expedition Map into T3 Karn.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
My point is that it's silly to claim "Tron got cards that made it better!" as some kind of argument that Tron in the format is better, when it's ignoring the increases in power other decks got. Sure, Tron got better. So did other decks. In the context of the full format, is Tron particularly better than it was back then? I don't think so. If anything, it seems to have shrunk off slightly.
Because sometimes you'll be unable to activate Sanctum due to not having something to cast to trigger it. Sure, a lot of time you can. But it isn't inherently reliable in the way Eye of Ugin was. Tron+Eye of Ugin=Repeated search. Tron+Sanctum of Ugin+Expensive Spell=One-time search. The former is much more reliable and, again, repeated, which means if they have an answer for your first thing you can just grab another.
I never said Emrakul was too powerful. I was saying that Eye of Ugin allowed you to run Emrakul and give you a guarantee of a later game win in a way that the current stuff it runs doesn't.
I'm not sure exactly how this related to my point regarding Sanctum of Ugin and Eye of Ugin? Is what you're complaining about here any less possible with Eye of Ugin? You're quoting something I said and then raising a point wholly irreleavnt to what I was saying.
In which case it has the same "major impact" that any other decent deck does, and thus it's absurd to complain about it keeping other decks out. Where's all the complaints about how Humans is keeping decks out? It has a bigger metagame share than Tron does.
Of course it's silly to claim that Tron, or any decent deck, has no impact on the format. But the claim made was that it was having such a giant impact on the format that it was making decks that were bad against it hard to play. I was responding to that claim. And once again, I present my evidence: Tron doesn't have the metagame share to be actively pushing decks out, and one can easily see all the decks (including the supposedly maligned control decks) that have a poor matchup against it that are thriving to show that, no, Tron is not such a big part of the format that you can't compete because you have a bad matchup against it.
So why are you arguing against me if you seem to be in agreement that Tron isn't such a problem in the format that it needs some kind of ban?
People tend to discuss how to approach bad matchups. You don't think that Storm players never thought to themselves "hrm, this Humans deck is really good against me. How do I deal with it?" and discussed it?
We're in agreement, then, that Tron is not why control has been pushed out! (although whether it has been "pushed out" is highly debatable, particularly in light of its recent big finishes) Why are you arguing against me?
I'm really confused as to what point you're trying to make here. Obviously, when a particular deck does well, people will switch to decks that are good against that deck. Jund and Control did well, so more people were playing Tron. I doubt you're trying to just state the obvious in that way, so could you clarify what you're trying to say here? I'm not even sure what tournaments you're referring to.
So, I'm again confused. What exactly are you taking issue with in my post? Because you're not arguing against anything I said. I never said Tron had "no influence" in the Modern metagame. It has the same amount of influence that any decent deck does. My point is the silliness in claiming it was so influential in pushing out control that a ban was warranted or else the format would devolve into Tron vs. Fast decks. You've stated that bans are "absolutely not" necessary, so what is your disagreement, exactly?
Though I should note something: You mention how the decks that got banned were good against Tron. I won't dispute Bloom, Dredge, or Infect, but that's not actually that true with Twin. Yes, once upon a time, Tron was basically a bye for Twin. But as time went on, Tron decks better adapted themselves to handle the matchup, and I've seen some people say that at the time of banning, Twin was actually disadvantaged against Tron. I'm not sure if I'd go that far, but see this post for an example of a Twin player expressing frustration with the matchup. Second, Twin was always good against the decks that beat Tron, so it leaving the format was honestly a negative for Tron.
Of course, who knows what Twin vs. Tron would be like today if Twin were unbanned. Eye of Ugin was a key piece in that matchup, as the general strategy for Tron against Twin was to just stop them from comboing off long enough to search out your Emrakul and win the game off of it.
At any rate, despite the noting of decks good against Tron getting worse... Tron doesn't seem to be doing better in the metagame than it was in the last few years. In fact, paradoxically, its metagame share seemed higher back when Amulet Bloom was running around.
So on the whole, you seem to be arguing against claims I didn't make.
i still think there is something to be gained by attempting to understand what drives perceptions. im fine with defending the format, if i wasnt then i probably wouldnt be playing it exclusively. however modern isnt perfect, and if we are here to talk about the state of things i would think that includes how it might be better. some number of dissenters are likely not good enough or trying hard enough, but i cant see that being the only reason.
for me its not so much that i want my deck, or any other particular fair deck, to be 50/50 against the field. honestly i see the format as being TOO diverse. which may sound like an absurd notion, but if we assume that a format with 1000 decks at 0.1% meta share would be bad then there has to be some point where the scales tip from good to bad. i think modern would be better served with more 10%+ decks running around rather than fewer.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I'm not really sure what this statement is trying to argue. If it's trying to anecdotally show that some Tron players are salty jerks, I am sure we can all counter with just as many anecdotal examples of other archetype pilots being salty jerks when games/matchups don't go their way. I saw this daily when I played Cheeri0s, and even saw it on UW Control if I removed a key critter or Sead a key land. If so, all that seems to prove is that salty jerks exist on all decks on MTGO, especially in tournament practice, which hardly seems like a point worth making.
Another possibility is that Tron players are unusually salty about losses, but this gets us back to the problem with anecdotal evidence. I think we've talked about that enough that I can be reasonably confident you aren't making that claim. As we can all see, some negative experiences in MTGO tournament practice don't really constitute a case.
Yet another possibility is that Tron pilots who are salty jerks need to learn how to beat their worst case scenarios, e.g. disrupted Maps, Quarters/Fields on their lands, T3 Karn met with Stubborn, etc. I would totally agree with this. But I would take it to the next step and argue that everyone needs to push themselves to improve from bad scenarios. This includes not just Tron players disrupted before T3 but also Storm players who mull to 6 and lose their engine, Affinity players who get hit with T2 Stony Silence when they are on the draw, Dredge players who face T1 Leyline, and Jeskai players who are battling Tron. All of these players, fair deck pilots included, would benefit from not getting so upset in bad situations and instead looking for and playing to outs. This is a better recipe for improvement.