I agree we should not ban cards based on how unfun they are (Blood Moon, Chalice), but only how often they show up in high level play (Ancient Stirrings, Faithless Looting)
Enough answers exist to these lockdown strategies which keeps them from ever attaining too high of a meta percentage. Lantern came close after the modern Pro Tour but died off quickly afterwards. Now there is Grixis Whir but it has yet to prove itself in GPs.
I agree we should not ban cards based on how unfun they are (Blood Moon, Chalice), but only how often they show up in high level play (Ancient Stirrings, Faithless Looting)
Enough answers exist to these lockdown strategies which keeps them from ever attaining too high of a meta percentage. Lantern came close after the modern Pro Tour but died off quickly afterwards. Now there is Grixis Whir but it has yet to prove itself in GPs.
The thing is, Looting actually doesn't have a big share. In fact, Looting's share is lower than SV's share! Just looking at the GP/PT numbers, we see
Looting GP T8 share: 9.1% (Bridgevine + H1 + Mardu + Dredge)
SV GP T8 share: 13.6% (UW Control + Jeskai Control + Storm)
This excludes the UW Control list that ran Opt instead of SV (1) and the Jeskai Control list that dropped SV (1). None of the GDS lists played it. Jeskai Tempo didn't play it either; nor did BtL Scapeshift. If we add in the PT numbers, we'd go up to 11% for Looting and 13% for SV. That's still less than half of Stirrings. In fact, SV + Lootings deck TOGETHER are combined less than the Stirrings decks.
Re: banning "unfair/too powerful" cards
Again, these are subjective characterizations of cards. I only judge power level based on the performance of the decks that use the cards. For instance, Bridge, Moon, and Chalice are barely competitive if we judge by GP finishes. Even MTGO suggests these cards just aren't that good from results. Banning them for experiential reasons is biased and subjective with no evidentiary backing that it would improve the format. Again, this is just a subset of players that enjoy a certain type of Magic experience trying to argue that their type of Magic is "better." Thankfully, Wizards disagrees so we don't need to worry about this approach materializing.
Listen, I love the card Blood Moon, I have played Blood Moon decks many times in my Modern days, but even I admit that it doesn't make for good games of Magic. When Blood Moon works, one person doesn't get to play Magic anymore. How can you say it's subjective whether or not that is bad gameplay? One player being locked out of playing the game is bad gameplay, objectively.
It's clearly subjective in that I know a good number of people who actually really like formats where things like that are possible, even when playing against them.
And let's not forget: The whole reason Modern exists is because they realized Legacy was super popular but knew the Reserved List would eventually be its death knell, so Legacy wasn't really supportable in the long term. But Legacy was filled with cards and decks designed to lock out the opponent. The claim it makes for objectively bad gameplay seems to not work when you consider how many people were clearly satisfied enough with this "bad gameplay" to play in a format that was filled with it.
I'd also say that even if we accept it is "bad gameplay" it's still gameplay. Getting clobbered by an aggro deck like Burn is worse because it results in no gameplay because the game is over.
And there are a ton of cards in Modern that do things like that. Does that mean they should all get banned? No, not necessarily. But you can't honestly tell me that the format wouldn't be objectively more fun if you removed all these cards that lock people out of playing the game. It would be better. But I like playing Blood Moon, even though I know I'm a *****ty person for playing it, lol. So if I get to keep my Blood Moons, you can keep your Chalices or Ensnaring Bridges. That's what we sign up for when we play Modern.
I would find the format less fun if those cards were removed, and I rarely if ever play with them.
Yeah its not even 'slippery slope' its 'teetering cliff'.
Ban what? Tron? Surgical? Moon? Coco? RIP? Terminus? Breach? Amulet?
Nah, it would be a disaster. Modern is unfair, fact of life.
We change nothing really with a few bans, the meta shifts with unbans if anything.
I love you man.
So true. Unbans are going to do more positive for Modern than any bans could ever do. Ban Ancient Stirrings? Why not try unbanning Preordain instead? I'm not the only one who thinks so. Preordain is a card that should have a chance, at least, of seeing similar play to something like Looting or Ancient Stirrings.
Regarding the success of KCI. It stands that KCI should have done well at this GP. Big mana did well last week and KCI does amazing vs. Big Mana, while BGx kind of loses to it (Titanshift, Amulet, Tron). I was going to say that KCI would probably swing the pendulum back this week, but I was kind of scared that it may swing too much, forcing a ban of something from KCI. Hopefully and rightfully, 2 in the top 8 is not enough to do so.
I was actually surprised more people didn't try Infect, which also annihilates Big Mana AND most Combo decks. It is actually in a pretty good place and to a lesser extent, something like Cheerios (but I guess we're not at that uninteractive of a meta yet). I was surprised that more people didn't try Amulet or Titanshift, although both did have higher numbers than the usual for a GP. Our own local Infect player (beast of a player) lost his win-and-in to Day 2 or else we'd probably see another competing for the top 8-32, while our local UW Control guy went 3-4 in Day 2. Sad times, as I was hoping for them to freaking kill it.
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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)
So after a good number of reasonably diverse SCG Opens, we had a not-so-diverse Grand Prix event, which leads of people people to dismiss the SCG Open results because they're at a lower level of play. So here's a question. Why should we care so much about Grand Prix results?
99.99% of experiences playing Modern aren't going to be at a Grand Prix. I consider myself a much more competitive player than most, and it's been years since I was at a Modern Grand Prix (within the last year, the biggest Modern events I was at were an SCG Open and an RPTQ). There's not that many of them and they're so scattered around the world that your typical Modern player, even a more competitive one like me, isn't likely to go to even one per year. So why care so heavily about the results of a type of event that almost all Modern players don't actually play at?
If SCGs are just large FNMs, as I've seen multiple people assert, then they're actually a great benchmark for how people are actually experiencing the format, because that's the way most people experience the format! If they're closer to what most people will be experiencing in playing Modern, shouldn't that sort of be the metric by which the format is evaluating, not a type of event that only a very small minority of Modern players actually go to?
The Eldrazi infested Modern on all levels, to the point people who didn't play at larger events than FNMs were asking for bans so they wouldn't have to keep facing the deck so constantly. During the last PPTQ season (only a few months ago), I remember people complaining about Grand Prix results that were totally different than my experiences at the PPTQs, which were pretty diverse outside of perhaps Humans being slightly overrepresented sometimes. And sure, that's just my own personal experience. But it's odd for so many SCG Opens to indicate the format is fine and then suddenly decide a Grand Prix result should toss that information out despite the fact SCG Opens are "closer" to the metagame your typical Modern player will actually be playing in.
So after a good number of reasonably diverse SCG Opens, we had a not-so-diverse Grand Prix event, which leads of people people to dismiss the SCG Open results because they're at a lower level of play. So here's a question. Why should we care so much about Grand Prix results?
Because they feed directly into the most competitive environments for Magic. As such, it stands to reason people play what they think is best, instead of whatever brew they want.
Because we have EVERY reason to believe that those competitive environments (GP, Pro Tour) lead DIRECTLY to Ban's, while we have no reason that I am aware of to believe SCG events are looked at.
I disagree that 'most of us dont see this level', as these, Tron, KCI, Dredge, etc, are EXACTLY what we see online.
So after a good number of reasonably diverse SCG Opens, we had a not-so-diverse Grand Prix event, which leads of people people to dismiss the SCG Open results because they're at a lower level of play. So here's a question. Why should we care so much about Grand Prix results?
99.99% of experiences playing Modern aren't going to be at a Grand Prix. I consider myself a much more competitive player than most, and it's been years since I was at a Modern Grand Prix (within the last year, the biggest Modern events I was at were an SCG Open and an RPTQ). There's not that many of them and they're so scattered around the world that your typical Modern player, even a more competitive one like me, isn't likely to go to even one per year. So why care so heavily about the results of a type of event that almost all Modern players don't actually play at?
If SCGs are just large FNMs, as I've seen multiple people assert, then they're actually a great benchmark for how people are actually experiencing the format, because that's the way most people experience the format! If they're closer to what most people will be experiencing in playing Modern, shouldn't that sort of be the metric by which the format is evaluating, not a type of event that only a very small minority of Modern players actually go to?
The Eldrazi infested Modern on all levels, to the point people who didn't play at larger events than FNMs were asking for bans so they wouldn't have to keep facing the deck so constantly. During the last PPTQ season (only a few months ago), I remember people complaining about Grand Prix results that were totally different than my experiences at the PPTQs, which were pretty diverse outside of perhaps Humans being slightly overrepresented sometimes. And sure, that's just my own personal experience. But it's odd for so many SCG Opens to indicate the format is fine and then suddenly decide a Grand Prix result should toss that information out despite the fact SCG Opens are "closer" to the metagame your typical Modern player will actually be playing in.
I agree to an extent and have said as much before. Most of us play at LGS tourneys or in MTGO Leagues. We might attend some 5-8 round events every other month or so. GP are 15 rounders that are heavily influenced by Byes and top player pressure to get points, which often drives people to audible to popular/perceived-best decks that allow them time between formats. I actually think ive read a few pros, maybe PVDDR and BBD, who talked about how Modern makes for a great format for all events but those with the brightest spotlights. GP might highlight that issue more than anywhere else. For most players, we should not always look at GP to determine what we should bring to our local or League experience.
That said, I do know that GP results should matter for helping us determine if metagame issues exist. In that regard, Stirrings is again re-rearing its head as an issue. Also, GP/PT/MTGO are the datasets that determine bans. So if we want to predict or suggest bans, or unbans, I tend to look at these venues.
So after a good number of reasonably diverse SCG Opens, we had a not-so-diverse Grand Prix event, which leads of people people to dismiss the SCG Open results because they're at a lower level of play. So here's a question. Why should we care so much about Grand Prix results?
people care about it GPs for two reasons:
1)its the only large tournaments wizards cite outside of pro-tours for unban/bans
2)they have the most attendees and the largest prize pool
for #1 there might be a case of them mentioning other tournaments, but for the most part GP results are regularly used when explaining their actions; hence players discussing what wizards may or may not be thinking in regards to the format also caring about them.
#2 is obvious, but its implications arent. you are absolutely correct that the majority, even the vast majority, not taking part in GPs or other top level events. even still, in a big way, GPs and the pro-tour act as the face of competitive magic, and it comes down to the stakes. as the prizes increase, so does the seriousness because its more and more about one thing: winning. so its insight into an important perspective that many players may not experience, which by its very existence motivates people to improve and maybe give it a go themselves. however if what we see at this top level of play doesnt look fun, healthy, or whatever; its a blow to the integrity of the format as a whole.
its like when wizards acknowledged the 'gentleman's agreement' phenomenon they observed when deciding to ban Mystical Tutor.
Our research took another turn, however, when we investigated how Legacy is played in the real world. We discovered something rather interesting, and that is that Mystical Tutor decks were quite rare at Legacy tournaments that did not have tons of money on the line. At Grand Prix and other cash tournaments, people were happy to bust out their Mystical Tutorss. However, in the comfort of their home stores they seemed to prefer doing other things that were more fun, if perhaps less powerful. This struck me as being a sort of gentleman's agreement; everyone knew what sick decks were out there, but they chose not to play them.
...
The fascinating thing about the aforementioned agreement is that it seemed that the people who were part of the gentleman's agreement were having more fun than the people who weren't. Whether or not they were aware that there was anything special going on, they were experiencing a better variety of decks and a higher quantity of recognizable baseline Magic gameplay—even though they were still playing with nearly every Magic card that has been printed. We saw the world they had made, and we liked it. We liked it so much more than the competitive world that had Mystical Tutor decks that we decided to give that happier world to everyone.
sound familiar?
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
So after a good number of reasonably diverse SCG Opens, we had a not-so-diverse Grand Prix event, which leads of people people to dismiss the SCG Open results because they're at a lower level of play. So here's a question. Why should we care so much about Grand Prix results?
Because they feed directly into the most competitive environments for Magic. As such, it stands to reason people play what they think is best, instead of whatever brew they want.
And if they actually "trickle down" to venues like SCG, then perhaps that would be an issue. But in that case, the problem would be when it reaches the lower levels, not because it might do so.
Because we have EVERY reason to believe that those competitive environments (GP, Pro Tour) lead DIRECTLY to Ban's, while we have no reason that I am aware of to believe SCG events are looked at.
If you want to talk about how WOTC sees it that might be reasonable, but I was referring more to player feelings about the metagame. Though I know they mentioned SCG events in the Stoneforge/Jace bans.
I disagree that 'most of us dont see this level', as these, Tron, KCI, Dredge, etc, are EXACTLY what we see online.
I never said people don't see Tron/KCI/Dredge/whatever outside of Grand Prix. But from my experience, they're not overrepresented in the way they might have been in this particular Grand Prix.
Do you play online? Tron and dredge are literally a constant presence? I dont know that a day has gone by when I have not played multiples of Tron, Dredge or UW, at least 2 of those 3, daily. Throw in Storm and I would be shocked if thats not the most common decks online.
The T32 is packed with players who have 2 or 3 Byes. Literally 30 of the 32 players have either 2 or 3 Byes. That's 94% of the T32 field going in with 2 Byes. By comparison, the dataset to-date (minus GP Stockholm and GP HK which I haven't added) averages 72% of the T32 field on 2 or 3 Byes.
The only two players who didn't have 2 or 3 Byes were Mattia Lido on Bant Spirits (12-3) and Edward Vance on Tron (12-3). The main thing I'd conclude from that is that Bant Spirits is a really good deck. Not only did it win the event, but it posted a strong Day 2 to T32 conversion rate. Plus it has a strong GP pedigree going into this event, not to mention the 12-3 run by a 0 Bye player. This deck is probably better than its metagame share would suggest. Of course, the second thing to conclude about that is we see yet another Stirrings deck take a notable performance metal.
Speaking of Stirrings decks, it's interesting to observe the top most common T32 decks by number of Byes. Note again that 2 GP aren't included yet, but will be updated later. Here's the breakdown:
0 Byes: Gx Tron (23%) and Humans (10%) 1 Bye: Hollow One (14%), Burn (11%), UW Control (11%) 2 Byes: Humans (10%) and Gx Tron (9%) 3 Byes: KCI (15.5%) and UW Control (15.5%)
With the exception of the 1 Bye crowd, every other Bye bracket favors a Stirrings deck as one of their top choices. Notably, Gx Tron is BY FAR the most common 0 Bye deck that makes it to the T32. This again underscores this deck's power. Of course, the KCI pedigree requires no additional introduction, given the breakout GP performance we've seen the deck put up this year.
There are lots of interesting takeaways from this, but for me, the most interesting is again the giant orange (red?) flag we keep seeing on Ancient Stirrings. Stirrings decks continue to appear the standout GP decks of 2018 by most performance metrics I've seen and it's not super close. They shine in both individual GP and as a whole. I will definitely return to my ban-Stirrings/unban-Preordain platform if we see another GP like this one. For now, I'm keeping it as a bright orange flag, but could probably be convinced to fly it red. Maybe adding the other 2 GP will change the numbers too.
Do you play online? Tron and dredge are literally a constant presence? I dont know that a day has gone by when I have not played multiples of Tron, Dredge or UW, at least 2 of those 3, daily. Throw in Storm and I would be shocked if thats not the most common decks online.
Heck, no way its not this.
Tron
Dredge
Hollow One
Storm
UW
Burn
Easily, those are the most common decks online.
How comes that mtggoldfish says something different?
Re: banning "unfair/too powerful" cards
Again, these are subjective characterizations of cards. I only judge power level based on the performance of the decks that use the cards. For instance, Bridge, Moon, and Chalice are barely competitive if we judge by GP finishes. Even MTGO suggests these cards just aren't that good from results. Banning them for experiential reasons is biased and subjective with no evidentiary backing that it would improve the format. Again, this is just a subset of players that enjoy a certain type of Magic experience trying to argue that their type of Magic is "better." Thankfully, Wizards disagrees so we don't need to worry about this approach materializing.
Wondering why is Moon a ban topic now. I currently play Ponza with 3 main deck Blood Moon, and the they really are not that good these days. Turn 2 moon can be played around by several decks... for example, Hollow One is one of my worst match almost completely unaffected by it. Our deck is not very strong, no need to take away one of the key cards.
That is an interesting thought, I would even go further and say, that the pillars look like this atm:
Stirrings: Colourless stuff
Thoughtseize: Bxx Midrange/value decks
Noble: Green Value Decks
Cavern: Tribal (would be interested in that Top 8 Metagame share a lot)
Looting: Graveyard decks (and a tiny bit of tempo decks)
"SV": U based decks
I think, close to 90% of the modern decks play one of these 6 cards, some decks even multiple of them.
Is there any card I'm missing?
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
That is an interesting thought, I would even go further and say, that the pillars look like this atm:
Stirrings: Colourless stuff
Thoughtseize: Bxx Midrange/value decks
Noble: Green Value Decks
Cavern: Tribal (would be interested in that Top 8 Metagame share a lot)
Looting: Graveyard decks (and a tiny bit of tempo decks)
"SV": U based decks
I think, close to 90% of the modern decks play one of these 6 cards, some decks even multiple of them.
Is there any card I'm missing?
Greetings,
Kathal
I like this list and I think it's quite accurate. I think a way to phrase these cards is: cards that make the rest of your deck better.
Even though not all of them provide cards selection, they help extract or increase the value/quality of your cards.
Card selection (SV/Looting/Stirring) does it by either helping find what you are looking for or place the cards in the zone that they would be more profitable. I would like to add here a SV/Opt since the latter is also played quite a bit nowadays.
Cavern makes all your creatures uncounterable, thus increasing their quality
Noble makes all your 3 drops (especially in value decks) better by helping them get out there a turn earlier and/or giving them extra stats
Thoughtseize helps the rest of your deck be better by lowering the quality/unfrairness of your opponent's hand.
Even though, of course, they don't play the same or are the same type of interaction/mechanic/style, they benefit each deck in a very specific way, which making the rest of it be better.
That is an interesting thought, I would even go further and say, that the pillars look like this atm:
Stirrings: Colourless stuff
Thoughtseize: Bxx Midrange/value decks
Noble: Green Value Decks
Cavern: Tribal (would be interested in that Top 8 Metagame share a lot)
Looting: Graveyard decks (and a tiny bit of tempo decks)
"SV": U based decks
I think, close to 90% of the modern decks play one of these 6 cards, some decks even multiple of them.
Is there any card I'm missing?
Greetings,
Kathal
Very cool idea. I wonder if there's a set of rules we can come up with to help newer players (who haven't memorized Modern's vast roster of playable decks) rapidly identify the pillar they are facing in an event, and know which elements to prioritize in their games. Going to tinker with this a bit and get back to you! 😊
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
I don't think that the cantrips are the answer to Storm getting better, it is already super consistent. If that deck ever got too prevalent or powerful again, I really do think that the best call would be banning Grapeshot or Gifts. Might as well be the one fewer people brew with, make them win with Goblins.
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Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
~stuff~
@Kathal That list is exactly what a healthy format would look for me. Granted that every pillar is on the same power level. If we look at it through this prism we can clearly see that the U based decks are the ones that have it worse.
The main argument for the Preordain ban is that Ux combo would be too good, namely Storm. Would it, I wonder? What would a Storm list with Preordain look like? 4 Serum Visions, 4 Preordain, 4 Opt/SoH? Would Storm kill on turn 3 more often? Would they fizzle less? They hardly fizzle as is...
ad 1) Theoretically: It also depends what the pillar supports. While a pillar can be rather "wonky" to say it this way (low raw power), if it can support the most bonkers stuff, than increasing the power of the pillar might not be the correct move. So, is a stronger SV problematic for the decks which would want to play (aka the decks "supported" by the pillar)? We have three possibilities here:
a) Educated Guess (what most of us are doing)
b) Pulling Information from the past (hard to do, but doable)
c) Assembling a somewhat testing number
Since (c) is the most difficult to do (resources, knowledge and skill level are problematic) it is the one who reaps the most accurate result, compared to (a) which is heavily biased on personal preference, knowledge and ESPECIALLY the meta you are playing it which results unaware bias towards some things (people at my LGS would go nuts if Pod would get unbanned simply because I crushed them all day long while it was legal (and no, I do not want to have Pod unbanned)).
That leaves us with (b) which is really hard to do, since the time period, where those potential cards were legal (if at all) was basically in a different world and thus the whole context might be wrong. Ponder and Preordain got banned not because of Storm, but because of Blazing Shoal Infect, which then itself got banned.
ad 2) It would make Storm more consistent, but not in the turn 3 kill but getting the kill overall. This means they can easier find stuff they need, especially anti hate cards which in return makes it more reliable to kill.
Now the question is, by how much? I can not honestly say it atm (would need to do some math to calc it out), but basing my opinion on (a) and somewhat on (b) (played back in the days), I would even say, that Ponder would be fine to unban, but not both.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Very cool idea. I wonder if there's a set of rules we can come up with to help newer players (who haven't memorized Modern's vast roster of playable decks) rapidly identify the pillar they are facing in an event, and know which elements to prioritize in their games. Going to tinker with this a bit and get back to you!
I usually need 1-4 cards + the expression from my opp so that I know what deck he is on
IMO creating a flow diagram is quite easy, if you identify the respective pillars (or see them). I would need to look more into it (for redundant pillars e.g.) to be able to create an actually accurate flow diagram, but I struggle to find the time for it
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
i dont think the conditions that preordain was banned should even be considered. modern existed for a month, and the ban wave that it was caught in was an obvious kneejerk reaction to swing the format in the right direction. yes it was part of decks that were doing seriously broken stuff, but so was ponder and so many other cards.
better to just look at the card in the context of now. the density of 'playable' blue cantrips in modern is high enough to where i cant see it lowering the cmc of the decks that might play it. for example think of blue decks that currently run no cantrips, but would move into preordain. the list is slim, and doesnt contain any 'top tier' decks (by whatever metric). for the most part its just a swap/upgrade.
the last and only hurdle in preordain's way is one thing imo: blue combo decks. i can say that i personally dont think they would improve the consistency of these decks to kill before turn 4 to a point where they are a problem, but its just conjecture; and we all know how risk averse wizards is.
i can also say that i think that working to better balance these sort of 'pillar' cards kathal calls them is good for the long term health of the format. id rather see them do that, then ban anything that may become too good. but again, wizards has never expressed caring about such a thing as far as i know, and it also might (even if the chance is slight) result in some other ban.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
the last and only hurdle in preordain's way is one thing imo: blue combo decks. i can say that i personally dont think they would improve the consistency of these decks to kill before turn 4 to a point where they are a problem, but its just conjecture; and we all know how risk averse wizards is.
Preordain would just increase consistency in something like Storm. Cards like Seething Song or Rite of Flame are different stories however. Both are cards I dont think have a chance of coming off ever, and Rite of Flame 100% should never be unbanned
Re: banning "unfair/too powerful" cards
Again, these are subjective characterizations of cards. I only judge power level based on the performance of the decks that use the cards. For instance, Bridge, Moon, and Chalice are barely competitive if we judge by GP finishes. Even MTGO suggests these cards just aren't that good from results. Banning them for experiential reasons is biased and subjective with no evidentiary backing that it would improve the format. Again, this is just a subset of players that enjoy a certain type of Magic experience trying to argue that their type of Magic is "better." Thankfully, Wizards disagrees so we don't need to worry about this approach materializing.
Wondering why is Moon a ban topic now. I currently play Ponza with 3 main deck Blood Moon, and the they really are not that good these days. Turn 2 moon can be played around by several decks... for example, Hollow One is one of my worst match almost completely unaffected by it. Our deck is not very strong, no need to take away one of the key cards.
On the last page or so, Wraith talked about how the format would be "better" if "bad gameplay" cards like Moon were banned. I believe this was in reference to Hoogland's argument to the same effect. I find this argument to be incredibly subjective, biased, and out of alignment with everything Modern represents. That's why I was saying it was a bad ban suggestion.
Re: Preordain unban
I'm totally fine with this card remaining banned as a powerful enabler, especially if we agree that SV being in 15% of top decks vs Looting at 9% might already indicate Preordain could become too strong. But Stirrings at 30% seems too high. There's none of the other proposed pillars which hit that level of prevalence.
Re: Stirrings ban
Speaking of which, it will only take one more GP like the last one for me to move for a Stirrings ban. This would suggest to me, as GP Atlanta already suggested to some extent, that Stirrings isn't really being regulated from tournament to tournament. Rather, it's just an omnipresent force that is constantly shifting the metagame too heavily towards decks like KCI, Hardened Scales, Tron, Amulet, RG Eldrazi, Lantern, and others. As I said before, however, for now it's merely an orange flag.
Re: format pillars
Some of the blue-based decks aren't running SV anymore and are instead running Opt. The proposed pillar system also doesn't classify Burn at all, despite that being an undeniable top-tier deck. Maybe Burn gets put in the category of all-in aggro via Guide or Bolt? Noble Hierarch being in Infect also seems like a false top-tier positive for "green-based value", so that might need adjustment too. Overall, this could be a useful system with some tweaking.
That is an interesting thought, I would even go further and say, that the pillars look like this atm:
Stirrings: Colourless stuff
Thoughtseize: Bxx Midrange/value decks
Noble: Green Value Decks
Cavern: Tribal (would be interested in that Top 8 Metagame share a lot)
Looting: Graveyard decks (and a tiny bit of tempo decks)
"SV": U based decks
I think, close to 90% of the modern decks play one of these 6 cards, some decks even multiple of them.
Is there any card I'm missing?
Greetings,
Kathal
Noble Hierarch is much more tied to decks like humans and bant spirits than green value decks. Green value decks arent really a significant part of the meta.
Here's an observation: the next ban update is Nov 26th. UMA drops Dec 7, with the spoilers coming a week prior. I wouldn't be surprised if stoneforge mystic gets unbanned in the next update. Obviously this is baseless speculation and i have no information supporting my claim but i dont think you need to be a psychic to see that move coming. Just like you didn't need to be one when jace was unbanned.
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Ban what? Tron? Surgical? Moon? Coco? RIP? Terminus? Breach? Amulet?
Nah, it would be a disaster. Modern is unfair, fact of life.
We change nothing really with a few bans, the meta shifts with unbans if anything.
Spirits
Enough answers exist to these lockdown strategies which keeps them from ever attaining too high of a meta percentage. Lantern came close after the modern Pro Tour but died off quickly afterwards. Now there is Grixis Whir but it has yet to prove itself in GPs.
The thing is, Looting actually doesn't have a big share. In fact, Looting's share is lower than SV's share! Just looking at the GP/PT numbers, we see
Looting GP T8 share: 9.1% (Bridgevine + H1 + Mardu + Dredge)
SV GP T8 share: 13.6% (UW Control + Jeskai Control + Storm)
This excludes the UW Control list that ran Opt instead of SV (1) and the Jeskai Control list that dropped SV (1). None of the GDS lists played it. Jeskai Tempo didn't play it either; nor did BtL Scapeshift. If we add in the PT numbers, we'd go up to 11% for Looting and 13% for SV. That's still less than half of Stirrings. In fact, SV + Lootings deck TOGETHER are combined less than the Stirrings decks.
And let's not forget: The whole reason Modern exists is because they realized Legacy was super popular but knew the Reserved List would eventually be its death knell, so Legacy wasn't really supportable in the long term. But Legacy was filled with cards and decks designed to lock out the opponent. The claim it makes for objectively bad gameplay seems to not work when you consider how many people were clearly satisfied enough with this "bad gameplay" to play in a format that was filled with it.
I'd also say that even if we accept it is "bad gameplay" it's still gameplay. Getting clobbered by an aggro deck like Burn is worse because it results in no gameplay because the game is over.
I would find the format less fun if those cards were removed, and I rarely if ever play with them.
I love you man.
So true. Unbans are going to do more positive for Modern than any bans could ever do. Ban Ancient Stirrings? Why not try unbanning Preordain instead? I'm not the only one who thinks so. Preordain is a card that should have a chance, at least, of seeing similar play to something like Looting or Ancient Stirrings.
Regarding the success of KCI. It stands that KCI should have done well at this GP. Big mana did well last week and KCI does amazing vs. Big Mana, while BGx kind of loses to it (Titanshift, Amulet, Tron). I was going to say that KCI would probably swing the pendulum back this week, but I was kind of scared that it may swing too much, forcing a ban of something from KCI. Hopefully and rightfully, 2 in the top 8 is not enough to do so.
I was actually surprised more people didn't try Infect, which also annihilates Big Mana AND most Combo decks. It is actually in a pretty good place and to a lesser extent, something like Cheerios (but I guess we're not at that uninteractive of a meta yet). I was surprised that more people didn't try Amulet or Titanshift, although both did have higher numbers than the usual for a GP. Our own local Infect player (beast of a player) lost his win-and-in to Day 2 or else we'd probably see another competing for the top 8-32, while our local UW Control guy went 3-4 in Day 2. Sad times, as I was hoping for them to freaking kill it.
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)99.99% of experiences playing Modern aren't going to be at a Grand Prix. I consider myself a much more competitive player than most, and it's been years since I was at a Modern Grand Prix (within the last year, the biggest Modern events I was at were an SCG Open and an RPTQ). There's not that many of them and they're so scattered around the world that your typical Modern player, even a more competitive one like me, isn't likely to go to even one per year. So why care so heavily about the results of a type of event that almost all Modern players don't actually play at?
If SCGs are just large FNMs, as I've seen multiple people assert, then they're actually a great benchmark for how people are actually experiencing the format, because that's the way most people experience the format! If they're closer to what most people will be experiencing in playing Modern, shouldn't that sort of be the metric by which the format is evaluating, not a type of event that only a very small minority of Modern players actually go to?
The Eldrazi infested Modern on all levels, to the point people who didn't play at larger events than FNMs were asking for bans so they wouldn't have to keep facing the deck so constantly. During the last PPTQ season (only a few months ago), I remember people complaining about Grand Prix results that were totally different than my experiences at the PPTQs, which were pretty diverse outside of perhaps Humans being slightly overrepresented sometimes. And sure, that's just my own personal experience. But it's odd for so many SCG Opens to indicate the format is fine and then suddenly decide a Grand Prix result should toss that information out despite the fact SCG Opens are "closer" to the metagame your typical Modern player will actually be playing in.
Because they feed directly into the most competitive environments for Magic. As such, it stands to reason people play what they think is best, instead of whatever brew they want.
Because we have EVERY reason to believe that those competitive environments (GP, Pro Tour) lead DIRECTLY to Ban's, while we have no reason that I am aware of to believe SCG events are looked at.
I disagree that 'most of us dont see this level', as these, Tron, KCI, Dredge, etc, are EXACTLY what we see online.
Spirits
I agree to an extent and have said as much before. Most of us play at LGS tourneys or in MTGO Leagues. We might attend some 5-8 round events every other month or so. GP are 15 rounders that are heavily influenced by Byes and top player pressure to get points, which often drives people to audible to popular/perceived-best decks that allow them time between formats. I actually think ive read a few pros, maybe PVDDR and BBD, who talked about how Modern makes for a great format for all events but those with the brightest spotlights. GP might highlight that issue more than anywhere else. For most players, we should not always look at GP to determine what we should bring to our local or League experience.
That said, I do know that GP results should matter for helping us determine if metagame issues exist. In that regard, Stirrings is again re-rearing its head as an issue. Also, GP/PT/MTGO are the datasets that determine bans. So if we want to predict or suggest bans, or unbans, I tend to look at these venues.
people care about it GPs for two reasons:
1)its the only large tournaments wizards cite outside of pro-tours for unban/bans
2)they have the most attendees and the largest prize pool
for #1 there might be a case of them mentioning other tournaments, but for the most part GP results are regularly used when explaining their actions; hence players discussing what wizards may or may not be thinking in regards to the format also caring about them.
#2 is obvious, but its implications arent. you are absolutely correct that the majority, even the vast majority, not taking part in GPs or other top level events. even still, in a big way, GPs and the pro-tour act as the face of competitive magic, and it comes down to the stakes. as the prizes increase, so does the seriousness because its more and more about one thing: winning. so its insight into an important perspective that many players may not experience, which by its very existence motivates people to improve and maybe give it a go themselves. however if what we see at this top level of play doesnt look fun, healthy, or whatever; its a blow to the integrity of the format as a whole.
its like when wizards acknowledged the 'gentleman's agreement' phenomenon they observed when deciding to ban Mystical Tutor.
sound familiar?
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WCDeath and Taxes(sold)If you want to talk about how WOTC sees it that might be reasonable, but I was referring more to player feelings about the metagame. Though I know they mentioned SCG events in the Stoneforge/Jace bans.
I never said people don't see Tron/KCI/Dredge/whatever outside of Grand Prix. But from my experience, they're not overrepresented in the way they might have been in this particular Grand Prix.
Heck, no way its not this.
Tron
Dredge
Hollow One
Storm
UW
Burn
Easily, those are the most common decks online.
Spirits
The T32 is packed with players who have 2 or 3 Byes. Literally 30 of the 32 players have either 2 or 3 Byes. That's 94% of the T32 field going in with 2 Byes. By comparison, the dataset to-date (minus GP Stockholm and GP HK which I haven't added) averages 72% of the T32 field on 2 or 3 Byes.
The only two players who didn't have 2 or 3 Byes were Mattia Lido on Bant Spirits (12-3) and Edward Vance on Tron (12-3). The main thing I'd conclude from that is that Bant Spirits is a really good deck. Not only did it win the event, but it posted a strong Day 2 to T32 conversion rate. Plus it has a strong GP pedigree going into this event, not to mention the 12-3 run by a 0 Bye player. This deck is probably better than its metagame share would suggest. Of course, the second thing to conclude about that is we see yet another Stirrings deck take a notable performance metal.
Speaking of Stirrings decks, it's interesting to observe the top most common T32 decks by number of Byes. Note again that 2 GP aren't included yet, but will be updated later. Here's the breakdown:
0 Byes: Gx Tron (23%) and Humans (10%)
1 Bye: Hollow One (14%), Burn (11%), UW Control (11%)
2 Byes: Humans (10%) and Gx Tron (9%)
3 Byes: KCI (15.5%) and UW Control (15.5%)
With the exception of the 1 Bye crowd, every other Bye bracket favors a Stirrings deck as one of their top choices. Notably, Gx Tron is BY FAR the most common 0 Bye deck that makes it to the T32. This again underscores this deck's power. Of course, the KCI pedigree requires no additional introduction, given the breakout GP performance we've seen the deck put up this year.
There are lots of interesting takeaways from this, but for me, the most interesting is again the giant orange (red?) flag we keep seeing on Ancient Stirrings. Stirrings decks continue to appear the standout GP decks of 2018 by most performance metrics I've seen and it's not super close. They shine in both individual GP and as a whole. I will definitely return to my ban-Stirrings/unban-Preordain platform if we see another GP like this one. For now, I'm keeping it as a bright orange flag, but could probably be convinced to fly it red. Maybe adding the other 2 GP will change the numbers too.
How comes that mtggoldfish says something different?
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/modern#online
I read somewhere that Wotc reduced the amount of online results they are giving out so that could be a part of it.
Still the list of goldfish comes close to the top decks of the GP day 2 which was Humans, Burn, Jund, UW Control, Bant Spirits, Tron,etc.
So you seeing Hollow One and Storm in big numbers but for some reason no Jund at all makes me question your list a bit. You could be just unlucky.
Wondering why is Moon a ban topic now. I currently play Ponza with 3 main deck Blood Moon, and the they really are not that good these days. Turn 2 moon can be played around by several decks... for example, Hollow One is one of my worst match almost completely unaffected by it. Our deck is not very strong, no need to take away one of the key cards.
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Stirrings: Colourless stuff
Thoughtseize: Bxx Midrange/value decks
Noble: Green Value Decks
Cavern: Tribal (would be interested in that Top 8 Metagame share a lot)
Looting: Graveyard decks (and a tiny bit of tempo decks)
"SV": U based decks
I think, close to 90% of the modern decks play one of these 6 cards, some decks even multiple of them.
Is there any card I'm missing?
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Even though not all of them provide cards selection, they help extract or increase the value/quality of your cards.
Card selection (SV/Looting/Stirring) does it by either helping find what you are looking for or place the cards in the zone that they would be more profitable. I would like to add here a SV/Opt since the latter is also played quite a bit nowadays.
Cavern makes all your creatures uncounterable, thus increasing their quality
Noble makes all your 3 drops (especially in value decks) better by helping them get out there a turn earlier and/or giving them extra stats
Thoughtseize helps the rest of your deck be better by lowering the quality/unfrairness of your opponent's hand.
Even though, of course, they don't play the same or are the same type of interaction/mechanic/style, they benefit each deck in a very specific way, which making the rest of it be better.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
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Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
ad 1) Theoretically: It also depends what the pillar supports. While a pillar can be rather "wonky" to say it this way (low raw power), if it can support the most bonkers stuff, than increasing the power of the pillar might not be the correct move. So, is a stronger SV problematic for the decks which would want to play (aka the decks "supported" by the pillar)? We have three possibilities here:
a) Educated Guess (what most of us are doing)
b) Pulling Information from the past (hard to do, but doable)
c) Assembling a somewhat testing number
Since (c) is the most difficult to do (resources, knowledge and skill level are problematic) it is the one who reaps the most accurate result, compared to (a) which is heavily biased on personal preference, knowledge and ESPECIALLY the meta you are playing it which results unaware bias towards some things (people at my LGS would go nuts if Pod would get unbanned simply because I crushed them all day long while it was legal (and no, I do not want to have Pod unbanned)).
That leaves us with (b) which is really hard to do, since the time period, where those potential cards were legal (if at all) was basically in a different world and thus the whole context might be wrong. Ponder and Preordain got banned not because of Storm, but because of Blazing Shoal Infect, which then itself got banned.
ad 2) It would make Storm more consistent, but not in the turn 3 kill but getting the kill overall. This means they can easier find stuff they need, especially anti hate cards which in return makes it more reliable to kill.
Now the question is, by how much? I can not honestly say it atm (would need to do some math to calc it out), but basing my opinion on (a) and somewhat on (b) (played back in the days), I would even say, that Ponder would be fine to unban, but not both.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I usually need 1-4 cards + the expression from my opp so that I know what deck he is on
IMO creating a flow diagram is quite easy, if you identify the respective pillars (or see them). I would need to look more into it (for redundant pillars e.g.) to be able to create an actually accurate flow diagram, but I struggle to find the time for it
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
better to just look at the card in the context of now. the density of 'playable' blue cantrips in modern is high enough to where i cant see it lowering the cmc of the decks that might play it. for example think of blue decks that currently run no cantrips, but would move into preordain. the list is slim, and doesnt contain any 'top tier' decks (by whatever metric). for the most part its just a swap/upgrade.
the last and only hurdle in preordain's way is one thing imo: blue combo decks. i can say that i personally dont think they would improve the consistency of these decks to kill before turn 4 to a point where they are a problem, but its just conjecture; and we all know how risk averse wizards is.
i can also say that i think that working to better balance these sort of 'pillar' cards kathal calls them is good for the long term health of the format. id rather see them do that, then ban anything that may become too good. but again, wizards has never expressed caring about such a thing as far as i know, and it also might (even if the chance is slight) result in some other ban.
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BURGrixis Death's Shadow
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WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Preordain would just increase consistency in something like Storm. Cards like Seething Song or Rite of Flame are different stories however. Both are cards I dont think have a chance of coming off ever, and Rite of Flame 100% should never be unbanned
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
On the last page or so, Wraith talked about how the format would be "better" if "bad gameplay" cards like Moon were banned. I believe this was in reference to Hoogland's argument to the same effect. I find this argument to be incredibly subjective, biased, and out of alignment with everything Modern represents. That's why I was saying it was a bad ban suggestion.
Re: Preordain unban
I'm totally fine with this card remaining banned as a powerful enabler, especially if we agree that SV being in 15% of top decks vs Looting at 9% might already indicate Preordain could become too strong. But Stirrings at 30% seems too high. There's none of the other proposed pillars which hit that level of prevalence.
Re: Stirrings ban
Speaking of which, it will only take one more GP like the last one for me to move for a Stirrings ban. This would suggest to me, as GP Atlanta already suggested to some extent, that Stirrings isn't really being regulated from tournament to tournament. Rather, it's just an omnipresent force that is constantly shifting the metagame too heavily towards decks like KCI, Hardened Scales, Tron, Amulet, RG Eldrazi, Lantern, and others. As I said before, however, for now it's merely an orange flag.
Re: format pillars
Some of the blue-based decks aren't running SV anymore and are instead running Opt. The proposed pillar system also doesn't classify Burn at all, despite that being an undeniable top-tier deck. Maybe Burn gets put in the category of all-in aggro via Guide or Bolt? Noble Hierarch being in Infect also seems like a false top-tier positive for "green-based value", so that might need adjustment too. Overall, this could be a useful system with some tweaking.
Noble Hierarch is much more tied to decks like humans and bant spirits than green value decks. Green value decks arent really a significant part of the meta.