Man, what an atrocious T8. One year ago, five Ancient Stirrings decks made T8 at GP Lyon. History repeats itself. 9th-16th is no better, with 3 Burn and 3 UR Phoenix.
It's time for Ancient Stirrings to go. If Ponder and Preordain are banned, there's no case for Stirrings staying unbanned given the results it has put up. They can always print a nerfed version that looks at 3 or 4 cards after it's gone. When Ponder and Preordain were banned, the decks that played them just moved to Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand. It's not the end of the world if a cantrip is banned as long as there's a slightly weaker one to replace it.
Phoenix is another deck that seems problematic. It's taken 4 slots each time in the T16 of GPs Portland and Oakland. It's a bit like Dredge in that it has threats that come back from the graveyard for 0 mana, but also not like Dredge because grave hate only hoses 4 cards out of their 60, and they have threats that survive Anger of the Gods.
I get nervous about a deck's prospects when it has both speed and resilience. Amulet and Dredge had both (speed = T2 Titans/10 power on the board with good dredges, resilience = fetching Tolaria West -> Summoner's Pact -> more Titans/getting Bloodghasts and Prized Amalgams back after they were killed). Both decks ate bans, and perhaps chillingly (no pun intended), both are still contenders today. Phoenix doesn't seem to be getting the heat it deserves; maybe it's a new deck so it's being treated with more curiosity than dread, or maybe it's easier for people to focus on Stirrings or Mox Opal because T8s are more eye-catching than T16s.
The last thing I will say is that it took nearly a year for both Summer Bloom and Golgari Grave-Troll to be banned after they made their presence felt in the format. The way I see it, the clock has started ticking for Phoenix, it's just a matter of how long it takes for people to wise up.
Where was all the spirits to hold down the Combo though?
Also KCI in a Thopter Sword deck is much different and much worse. The reason why Ironworks is so good is because of how hard it is to hate out. Graveyard hate hardly hurts them. There's a reason why Thopter Sword is nowhere to be seen
Mengucci has hated modern for years for the same reason that many pros dislike it - they always want a best deck, and modern basically never has a best deck due to the size of the field. I like this because its ultimately fair - everyone's deck has a major weakness or two and we all have the chance of running into that rough matchup on a given weekend.
Mengucci has hated modern for years for the same reason that many pros dislike it - they always want a best deck, and modern basically never has a best deck due to the size of the field. I like this because its ultimately fair - everyone's deck has a major weakness or two and we all have the chance of running into that rough matchup on a given weekend.
Which is what I find supremely ironic about all the hate KCI is getting from Pros - it is literally what they are constantly asking for! A clear best deck that takes skill to pilot. I don't know what would make Pros happy with Modern at the point.
Yes Twin IS problematic. Banned rightfully or not, the past 3 years have shown that the mere mention of a 4 mana red enchantment is beyond toxic. However you cut it, Twin was/is a problem for a significant portion of the playerbase and for Wizards themselves.
People's subjective feelings aren't a good reason for banning a deck or keeping it banned. There are always going to be people who hate any deck. Besides, Twin was considerably less hated than a lot of decks that are still legal to play right now.
What deck is hated the most is a metric you don't have and there are thousands if not millions of players that haven't enjoy the misery of EOT Exarch into Twin, since they started playing after it got banned. Besides that wasn't even my point. Twin is problematic according to Wizards because they banned it. The optics that come if they unban a problematic deck to fix another problematic deck (that might not be even a problem) and also allow Twin to cover up the lack of answers in the format (which it did before) is even worse. Then comes what the community thinks and the "hatemail" Wizards will endure, because clearly the Twin topic is still controversial, 3 years after it's banning.
Also, no meaningful upgrades? Then what is Jace? What is Azcanta? What is Ancestral? What is Opt? Hell, what is Teferi, if not meaningful upgrades to fight UWx control/midrange and bury BGx, the two historically bad matchups of 45-55?
Twin would not play Azcanta or Ancestral. Azcanta doesn't find your combo creatures, and Ancestral has been proven to be too slow for Modern. And it doesn't really matter if Teferi would go into Jeskai Twin, because that was a bad deck, so I don't really care what they do. Opt is really a sidegrade for the deck. It's a worse cantrip than Serum Visions in terms of digging, which is very important for Twin, but Opt's instant speed just plays better with the instant speed nature of the deck. Finally, yeah I'm sure we'd replace Jace, AoT with Mind Sculptors for the fair matchups, but if this last year has proven anything, it's that Jace is just ok in Modern. So yeah, Twin has not been upgraded at the same rate as the format as a whole.
You posit that Twin would slow down the format and then suggest that it wouldn't play cards to fight in that slowed down format? Twin will absolutely play Azcanta and/or Ancestral. Azcanta might be good even in the main because it helps all 3 plans of the deck. They, along with Jace are perfect cards to fight through their worst matchups (and by worst we're talking about 45-55). Jace is "ok" in Modern in the sense that it didn't break it. It's one of the best decks in the control decks that play it and it'll be one of the best in Twin for the grindy matchups.
It's not Wild Nacatl, it's more Grave Troll after Eldritch Moon and Kaladesh. Saying that Twin is a safe unban and there is no chance of supplanting KCI as the best deck in the format is asinine and a very strong assumption.
Twin is a safe unban because it probably would have been safe to just not have banned it when they did in the first place. Yeah, Twin was the best deck of 2015, a bit better than Affinity and Jund were. It was 12% of the meta in December. Well, GDS was over 12% at one point in 2017, and Humans was 12% for a large portion of 2018, and both were considered the de facto "best deck" in those years, and yet they were both left alone. And thankfully so, because the meta shifted and they both settled into a comfortable position as just another good deck in the format. If you think Twin would still dominate the format today, look at what I said were the second and third best decks of 2015. Traditional Affinity practically doesn't exist anymore, and Jund has been on life support for years, despite WotC desperately pumping the shell with cards to keep it alive. You're absolutely out of your mind if you think Twin would be as good in 2019 as it was in 2015.
And finally, Twin itself was not inherently problematic. Twin being at 12% of the meta was borderline problematic, but any deck being that ubiquitous is a bit of a problem. WotC had never taken action on a deck as low as 12% before the Twin ban, though, and they haven't taken action on other decks that have reached the same metashare level that Twin did in the last couple years. And that's largely because of the backlash from the Twin ban. The outcry from that, along with the people who weren't happy about the Pod ban, made WotC realize that whack-a-mole bannings every year to keep the format power down weren't what the players wanted.
Twin is not safe now for the same reasons it wasn't then; for fear of being the best deck in the format and hiding the inherent problems of the format behind a mask of "interactiveness" and the idea that it will force other decks to interact with it.
I like the irony though. People were saying that the 3 UW control Top 8 in June was a fluke and a regional oddity, same as the 3 Twin Top 8, but KCI has 4 -one from the man that won 2 GPs with it- and the unban Twin pitchforks are out. The playing definitely wasn't suited to beat KCI or artifact decks in general, why isn't this top 8 considered a fluke.
(Before you go on about resilience to hate/best deck in the format etc., Twin was also all of them).
I don't have the numbers in front of me, but hasn't KCI been putting up numbers for half a year now? The fact that it now gets 4 Top8 slots just means that more and more people are recognizing its dominance and position as best-deck right now, and they're succeeding with it. It's not like Humans being 20% of the field but only getting 1 or 2 Top8 slots, a full half of the best performing decks in a GP were the same archetype.
Mengucci has hated modern for years for the same reason that many pros dislike it - they always want a best deck, and modern basically never has a best deck due to the size of the field. I like this because its ultimately fair - everyone's deck has a major weakness or two and we all have the chance of running into that rough matchup on a given weekend.
Which is what I find supremely ironic about all the hate KCI is getting from Pros - it is literally what they are constantly asking for! A clear best deck that takes skill to pilot. I don't know what would make Pros happy with Modern at the point.
Its not what they want. They want an interactive deck that can leverage skill
Mengucci has hated modern for years for the same reason that many pros dislike it - they always want a best deck, and modern basically never has a best deck due to the size of the field. I like this because its ultimately fair - everyone's deck has a major weakness or two and we all have the chance of running into that rough matchup on a given weekend.
Which is what I find supremely ironic about all the hate KCI is getting from Pros - it is literally what they are constantly asking for! A clear best deck that takes skill to pilot. I don't know what would make Pros happy with Modern at the point.
Its not what they want. They want an interactive deck that can leverage skill
Engineered Explosives, Nature's Claim, Spine of Ish Shah, Pyrite Spellbomb, and various counterspells and removal spells out of the sideboard are all interactive elements found in KCI.
Maybe it's not the type of interaction they want, but it's hard to deny that the deck interacts at least somewhat.
As ktk has proven countless times, Pro's can leverage skill, assuming they actually put in the reps to learn the format.
Anyway, I'm not sure I disagree with the actual point of Mengucci's post re: Should Modern be on the Pro Tour?
At this point it would be Xerox Phoenix, vs KCI, with the 'I play what I want' types sticking to their guns like Corey did last time with Grixis.
I'm not sure I need that kind of meta in my life.
So it comes to, what is the fix?
I dont believe a ban does it, you would need over a 5+ to have an impact.
If you are doing unbans, what if not Twin makes ANY kind of impact on this format?
There's not going to be a simple, one-action fix to this. What people are asking for is for interaction to be viable again, or at least more viable (we did get UW control in the Top8 of a GP yesterday). The solution for that is better interactive tools, and honestly a better way to get to those tools. Part of this might just be inertial; Looting is probably the best generic digging tool we have right now, and interactive decks should be utilizing it more to filter through the wrong answers to get to the proper ones for matchups. Those answers also need to be updated; as R&D continues to design around Arena's Bo1 format, we'll get more maindeckable answer cards, a la Knight of Autumn. Over time, we should build up answers to Artifacts, the graveyard, etc. Problem is, during that time, we'll continue to get more Arclight Phoenixes and Scrap Trawlers, because it's easier for cards to accidentally break older cards and strategies than it is to fit meaningful interaction into Standard without warping Standard. The corollary to this is the addition of a Modern-only product, which would allow for new tech to be printed for Modern without needing to work around Standard. I think this is more likely than not, but I don't know if it would be used to right the scales of interaction.
We can try unbanning Twin, we can try unbanning SFM, but I don't think either of those adequately answers the question of format interaction (sure, Twin demands you interact or die, but so does KCI, so does every non-interactive deck in the format). We need better means to interact if we want interaction to be a better option.
The "fix" is probably switching over to Standard+/Origins format.
If you look at the modern banned list, the vast majority of cards on it are from the first half of sets that comprise the format's history:
Ancient Den Birthing Pod Blazing Shoal Chrome Mox
Cloudpost Dark Depths
Deathrite Shaman
Dig Through Time Dread Return
Eye of Ugin Gitaxian Probe Glimpse of Nature
Golgari Grave-Troll Great Furnace Green Sun's Zenith Hypergenesis Mental Misstep Ponder
Preordain Punishing Fire Rite of Flame Seat of the Synod
Second Sunrise
Seething Song
Sensei's Divining Top
Skullclamp
Splinter Twin Stoneforge Mystic Summer Bloom
Treasure Cruise Tree of Tales
Umezawa's Jitte
Vault of Whispers
The cards in bold are all from sets that were released from the 1st half of modern sets (8th edition through Scars of Mirrodin), while the remaining few are from the second half (Innistrad through Guilds of Ravnica)
From the original Mirrodin block alone? Almost 1/3rd of the entire list. Add KCI to this list and there's another card from Mirrodin block.
From innistrad onward, they have been much more careful when designing cards. Yes there have been slip-ups now and then but for the most part its the older sets that have contained the most number of bannables. Through this, one could almost argue that Modern was an awful idea from the start, at least starting it where it did at one of the most broken Magic sets of all time.
The one difference between Twin's 'Interact or Die' and the rest, is that Twin itself, Interacts.
Its that pressure alone, which granted we are now 3 years in on this experiment, slowed down the format, and allowed for the decks that can prey on reactive styles, BGx for example, to maintain their presence.
The threat of a Turn 2 Remand, Turn 3 Pestemite, Turn 4 Twin, simply needs to be there, as we have proven its otherwise 'how fast can get to point B, and can anyone get there first'.
And for the record, Affinity was a legit 30-70 dog to Twin, and STILL put decks into the Top 8.
Just keep that in mind when saying Twin would 'remove decks' from the meta.
To "fix" modern they would have to probably ban:
- Ancient Stirrings
- Faithless Looting
- Manamorphose
I think this would be the step one, if we are going the ban route.
Mengucci has hated modern for years for the same reason that many pros dislike it - they always want a best deck, and modern basically never has a best deck due to the size of the field. I like this because its ultimately fair - everyone's deck has a major weakness or two and we all have the chance of running into that rough matchup on a given weekend.
Which is what I find supremely ironic about all the hate KCI is getting from Pros - it is literally what they are constantly asking for! A clear best deck that takes skill to pilot. I don't know what would make Pros happy with Modern at the point.
I've played enough Mtg and League of Legends to know this: skill is just something talked about for bragging purposes. "Oh, not only did I win but it was complex and tough so I'm even more awesome." That's why people who lose to me on burn occasionally say things like how I only won because I didn't have to think. Well duh, dude. Why intentionally make something harder if the goal is to win?
Mengucci has hated modern for years for the same reason that many pros dislike it - they always want a best deck, and modern basically never has a best deck due to the size of the field. I like this because its ultimately fair - everyone's deck has a major weakness or two and we all have the chance of running into that rough matchup on a given weekend.
Which is what I find supremely ironic about all the hate KCI is getting from Pros - it is literally what they are constantly asking for! A clear best deck that takes skill to pilot. I don't know what would make Pros happy with Modern at the point.
Its not what they want. They want an interactive deck that can leverage skill
Engineered Explosives, Nature's Claim, Spine of Ish Shah, Pyrite Spellbomb, and various counterspells and removal spells out of the sideboard are all interactive elements found in KCI.
Maybe it's not the type of interaction they want, but it's hard to deny that the deck interacts at least somewhat.
Dude its a combo deck. Look at all the combo deck sideboards, they pack removal for hate cards. EE for Stony Silence, Spellbomb for Thalia, etc. I'm a combo deck player and against bans most of the time, but I understand why Mengu doesn't like Modern tbh
Mengucci has hated modern for years for the same reason that many pros dislike it - they always want a best deck, and modern basically never has a best deck due to the size of the field. I like this because its ultimately fair - everyone's deck has a major weakness or two and we all have the chance of running into that rough matchup on a given weekend.
Which is what I find supremely ironic about all the hate KCI is getting from Pros - it is literally what they are constantly asking for! A clear best deck that takes skill to pilot. I don't know what would make Pros happy with Modern at the point.
I've played enough Mtg and League of Legends to know this: skill is just something talked about for bragging purposes. "Oh, not only did I win but it was complex and tough so I'm even more awesome." That's why people who lose to me on burn occasionally say things like how I only won because I didn't have to think. Well duh, dude. Why intentionally make something harder if the goal is to win?
"Skill" is just the wrong term. I would say that the correct terms are usually Difficulty, Skill/Difficulty Ceiling or Skill/Difficulty Floor or Skill Intensiveness. What happens is that a deck or champion or whatever is deemed high skill when there becomes a plethora ways to approach a game state and the clear cut win condition isn't easily identified. Lee Sin from LoL and Amulet Titan is a prime example. Amulet has super hard lines to identify but they also have the double amulet braindead kill. Lee has his RQQ combo. Burn is seen as less skill intensive because in most matchups, you just Lava Spike
I've been out of Modern for a few months and I see plenty of new archetypes, based on threats that have been printed throughout 2018, but the best answers keep being Thoughtseize, Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile. Oh well, we got a fringe sideboard card in Damping Sphere, and Assassin's Trophy!
Possible solutions:
1. Print good answers in Standard, where Mana Leak is de facto banned because it's too strong. We'd have to ask design team to look for alternative costs easy to pay in Modern but not in Standard (delve anyone?) that don't lead to the reprint of Ancestral Recall at common frequency this time.
2. Look banlist to strong answer cards being banned. Mental Misstep? It warped Legacy because it was abused by blue decks in a format which is already unbalanced towards blue. It also made the format slower, which wouldn't be bad news in Modern. Problem is the same way it counters unfair cards (Stirrings, Looting, Amulet, Vial), it hits the most efficient answers in the format (discard, removal, itself). I guess this is even more unlikely to happen, but I always like to bring it up.
3. Make reactive decks that slow down the format stronger. Unbanning Twin could help that. Then I'd start building my deck with 4 of Deceiver Exarch, Splinter Twin, Snapcaster Mage, Lightning Bolt, Serum Visions, Remand, Scalding Tarn... and I'd have half the deck done before deciding its game-plan. Twin kills deckbuilding creativity. I don't know about the impact Stoneforge Mystic could have.
4. Try to circumvent 1. with some Modern specific products. Declare Commander sets legal in Modern, print paper only sets that aren't launched in Arena or something along those lines.
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Who is truer: you who are, or you who are to be?
Currently sleeved: WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
I've never been into the notion of having a fixed FoW in Modern. I always thought we could manage with just Counterspell and Preordain to help control the degeneracy of the format. I'm not that convinced anymore. Every set they make they produce a card that just ends up exploiting something with a couple of stupid cards of old.
KCI is on the spotlight now and I wouldn't be surprised if it took a hammer on its head but it won't stop there. After KCI, it will be Phoenix or another Stirrings/Looting deck, after that another thing. Every ban hits the format's credibility more than it hurts anyone's wallets. And that's the real fear... I'm afraid Modern will end up being the "Only4Fun" format that Mengucci and a couple of other idiots are pleading. That certain will end up happening if they don't start to take action... and by action I mean unbanning cards, even if they look risky, printing cards just for Modern...
They could just release a statement saying something along these lines:
"We saw what happened at GP Oakland and at SCG Columbus and we're concerned just as you are. We are currently investigating the best possible way to bring strategical diversity back into Modern with more non-linear decks and upping the quality of the interactivity of the metagame. We currently can't announce a solution but we are exploring different scenarios like x, y, z...."
It could definitely save a couple of angry tweets and definitely a couple of Pages on this topic.
this is basically why the next b&r announcement just being a ban to kci would be the worst possible outcome.
you can read the sentiment in most of the posts here. there is uncertainty or lingering doubts on whether its even possible to get the format on a course away from this. so yeah banning kci might help, and fwiw i personally dont like the deck as well; both that it is probably the best thing and the play experience it offers. however just banning it right now and nothing else, after the efforts we saw from wizards last year, would be a confirmation that wizards has lost faith in their ability to course correct and we go back to the whack-a-mole banmania driven modern.
on top of this, whether we want to openly admit it or not, moderns continued role in the competitive magic scene is in question. i dont care if someone at wizards has said otherwise. they have an enormously vested interest in making sure mtg as a game is putting its best foot forward for onlookers. there is literally a 1 million dollar tournament 2ish months from now to start off one of the largest single endeavors in all of esports. there are no do-overs. the scope and scale of the competition in the scene they are trying to break into is insane. it is either going to happen this year, or it wont happen ever. the enormity of how this will determine what magic will be going into the future cant be stressed enough.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
In assessing next steps for Modern, we need to be clear about differentiating between 1) What is Wizards likely to do? (i.e. we are trying to predict their actions) and 2) What should Wizards do? (i.e. we are recommending a course of action). These are likely very different arguments. A prediction accepts their past decision-making as a baseline and tries to build a likely outcome from there, even if we don't agree with that past decision-making. This would mean accepting that Modern's current diversity (sans KCI) is probably something Wizards supports, even if it represents deck diversity and not archetype diversity. Contrast this with a recommendation, which challenges Wizards' decisions in the past and pushes them to do something different/new, even if they haven't done it before. People who want a Twin unban are almost certainly in the recommendation category and not the prediction category, as are people who want 3+ cards banned. People seeking something more limited like an SFM unban, a Stirrings/KCI/Trawler ban, etc. are probably making both a recommendation and a prediction to varying extents.
One of the problems, as 13055 already noted, is that there's no one-action fix to some of Modern's issues. Modern would benefit from both bans, unbans, new cards, and/or reprints. Wizards is also in the business of long-term format changes, not short-term fixes, so they are unlikely to pursue a course of action which hurts the format in the long-term. As Modern has shown itself to be remarkably adaptive and robust since 2017 until maybe the last few months, I expect Wizards will pursue more limited changes (e.g. banning a targeted issue in KCI) than something that will hurt too many decks for too many months/years (e.g. banning something like Looting).
That said, here are the final T8 #s for all GP/PT decks from 2018 (including 2019's Oakland). Let me know if you spot any errors:
We know Wizards takes both an annual perspective when it comes to banlist decisions (see rationale for BBE/DRS/Twin bans and basically all unbans), as well as a more immediate 3-4 month picture (see TC/DTT). We also know that MTGO is a major factor in their decision-making. Although we don't have MTGO data the same way Wizards does, we also know that factor is generally secondary to GP/PT T8s, which are the highest profile events and are frequently cited in decisions. This allows us to make educated guesses based on the data we have.
Just a clarification question, ktk, are those Top8 numbers? Obviously there were more than 14 people who brought KCI to GPs in 2018.
Yep, T8s. I edited it to be clearer. This also does not include any people who missed on breakers. There is no published indication that Wizards cares about this from a banlist or format health perspective. I have also personally received a very mixed reaction when I talked about people missing on breakers. I would have to go back over 6 months to find the exchanges and specific people I was arguing with, but I distinctly remember mentioning how a few interactive strategies were barely missing on breakers and being told this was irrelevant and that those decks were still not good.
The most obvious and elegant solution is to include Commander products in Modern (don't know the power level enough to judge) or at least include a supplementary product just for Eternal formats aimed at making Modern healthier.
It puzzles me how Modern is a 8/9 (?) years old and had 6 editions of Masters sets where all of them were missed opportunities to introduce cards into the Modern card pool.
They actively decided that Modern is only Standard legal sets past a certain point. In recent years they've started internal discussions about changing this, but there obviously has not been any affirmative action about it yet.
It's time for Ancient Stirrings to go. If Ponder and Preordain are banned, there's no case for Stirrings staying unbanned given the results it has put up. They can always print a nerfed version that looks at 3 or 4 cards after it's gone. When Ponder and Preordain were banned, the decks that played them just moved to Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand. It's not the end of the world if a cantrip is banned as long as there's a slightly weaker one to replace it.
Phoenix is another deck that seems problematic. It's taken 4 slots each time in the T16 of GPs Portland and Oakland. It's a bit like Dredge in that it has threats that come back from the graveyard for 0 mana, but also not like Dredge because grave hate only hoses 4 cards out of their 60, and they have threats that survive Anger of the Gods.
I get nervous about a deck's prospects when it has both speed and resilience. Amulet and Dredge had both (speed = T2 Titans/10 power on the board with good dredges, resilience = fetching Tolaria West -> Summoner's Pact -> more Titans/getting Bloodghasts and Prized Amalgams back after they were killed). Both decks ate bans, and perhaps chillingly (no pun intended), both are still contenders today. Phoenix doesn't seem to be getting the heat it deserves; maybe it's a new deck so it's being treated with more curiosity than dread, or maybe it's easier for people to focus on Stirrings or Mox Opal because T8s are more eye-catching than T16s.
The last thing I will say is that it took nearly a year for both Summer Bloom and Golgari Grave-Troll to be banned after they made their presence felt in the format. The way I see it, the clock has started ticking for Phoenix, it's just a matter of how long it takes for people to wise up.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Where was all the spirits to hold down the Combo though?
Also KCI in a Thopter Sword deck is much different and much worse. The reason why Ironworks is so good is because of how hard it is to hate out. Graveyard hate hardly hurts them. There's a reason why Thopter Sword is nowhere to be seen
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
I have to disagree with this..
Phoenix is an easy matchup for fair deck..
Gbx and Uw control just rekt the deck.
I am 6-1 against the deck with jund shadow.. (12-2)
If the meta shift and modern get more fair.. The deck will go down in %.
No nerf is needed for phoenix.
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
Please link the URL here when it's done !
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
Which is what I find supremely ironic about all the hate KCI is getting from Pros - it is literally what they are constantly asking for! A clear best deck that takes skill to pilot. I don't know what would make Pros happy with Modern at the point.
What deck is hated the most is a metric you don't have and there are thousands if not millions of players that haven't enjoy the misery of EOT Exarch into Twin, since they started playing after it got banned. Besides that wasn't even my point. Twin is problematic according to Wizards because they banned it. The optics that come if they unban a problematic deck to fix another problematic deck (that might not be even a problem) and also allow Twin to cover up the lack of answers in the format (which it did before) is even worse. Then comes what the community thinks and the "hatemail" Wizards will endure, because clearly the Twin topic is still controversial, 3 years after it's banning.
You posit that Twin would slow down the format and then suggest that it wouldn't play cards to fight in that slowed down format? Twin will absolutely play Azcanta and/or Ancestral. Azcanta might be good even in the main because it helps all 3 plans of the deck. They, along with Jace are perfect cards to fight through their worst matchups (and by worst we're talking about 45-55). Jace is "ok" in Modern in the sense that it didn't break it. It's one of the best decks in the control decks that play it and it'll be one of the best in Twin for the grindy matchups.
Twin is not safe now for the same reasons it wasn't then; for fear of being the best deck in the format and hiding the inherent problems of the format behind a mask of "interactiveness" and the idea that it will force other decks to interact with it.
I like the irony though. People were saying that the 3 UW control Top 8 in June was a fluke and a regional oddity, same as the 3 Twin Top 8, but KCI has 4 -one from the man that won 2 GPs with it- and the unban Twin pitchforks are out. The playing definitely wasn't suited to beat KCI or artifact decks in general, why isn't this top 8 considered a fluke.
(Before you go on about resilience to hate/best deck in the format etc., Twin was also all of them).
Humans fall off is due to spirits being the better version, but! I don't if that remains true against a potential GDS meta.
I'm not sure on a KCI ban, I just don't know that it would matter.
Play 3+ RIP main right now.
Spirits
Its not what they want. They want an interactive deck that can leverage skill
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Engineered Explosives, Nature's Claim, Spine of Ish Shah, Pyrite Spellbomb, and various counterspells and removal spells out of the sideboard are all interactive elements found in KCI.
Maybe it's not the type of interaction they want, but it's hard to deny that the deck interacts at least somewhat.
Anyway, I'm not sure I disagree with the actual point of Mengucci's post re: Should Modern be on the Pro Tour?
At this point it would be Xerox Phoenix, vs KCI, with the 'I play what I want' types sticking to their guns like Corey did last time with Grixis.
I'm not sure I need that kind of meta in my life.
So it comes to, what is the fix?
I dont believe a ban does it, you would need over a 5+ to have an impact.
If you are doing unbans, what if not Twin makes ANY kind of impact on this format?
You all hate to see it, but #FreeTwin
Spirits
We can try unbanning Twin, we can try unbanning SFM, but I don't think either of those adequately answers the question of format interaction (sure, Twin demands you interact or die, but so does KCI, so does every non-interactive deck in the format). We need better means to interact if we want interaction to be a better option.
If you look at the modern banned list, the vast majority of cards on it are from the first half of sets that comprise the format's history:
Ancient Den
Birthing Pod
Blazing Shoal
Chrome Mox
Cloudpost
Dark Depths
Deathrite Shaman
Dig Through Time
Dread Return
Eye of Ugin
Gitaxian Probe
Glimpse of Nature
Golgari Grave-Troll
Great Furnace
Green Sun's Zenith
Hypergenesis
Mental Misstep
Ponder
Preordain
Punishing Fire
Rite of Flame
Seat of the Synod
Second Sunrise
Seething Song
Sensei's Divining Top
Skullclamp
Splinter Twin
Stoneforge Mystic
Summer Bloom
Treasure Cruise
Tree of Tales
Umezawa's Jitte
Vault of Whispers
The cards in bold are all from sets that were released from the 1st half of modern sets (8th edition through Scars of Mirrodin), while the remaining few are from the second half (Innistrad through Guilds of Ravnica)
From the original Mirrodin block alone? Almost 1/3rd of the entire list. Add KCI to this list and there's another card from Mirrodin block.
From innistrad onward, they have been much more careful when designing cards. Yes there have been slip-ups now and then but for the most part its the older sets that have contained the most number of bannables. Through this, one could almost argue that Modern was an awful idea from the start, at least starting it where it did at one of the most broken Magic sets of all time.
Its that pressure alone, which granted we are now 3 years in on this experiment, slowed down the format, and allowed for the decks that can prey on reactive styles, BGx for example, to maintain their presence.
The threat of a Turn 2 Remand, Turn 3 Pestemite, Turn 4 Twin, simply needs to be there, as we have proven its otherwise 'how fast can get to point B, and can anyone get there first'.
And for the record, Affinity was a legit 30-70 dog to Twin, and STILL put decks into the Top 8.
Just keep that in mind when saying Twin would 'remove decks' from the meta.
I think this would be the step one, if we are going the ban route.
Spirits
I've played enough Mtg and League of Legends to know this: skill is just something talked about for bragging purposes. "Oh, not only did I win but it was complex and tough so I'm even more awesome." That's why people who lose to me on burn occasionally say things like how I only won because I didn't have to think. Well duh, dude. Why intentionally make something harder if the goal is to win?
Dude its a combo deck. Look at all the combo deck sideboards, they pack removal for hate cards. EE for Stony Silence, Spellbomb for Thalia, etc. I'm a combo deck player and against bans most of the time, but I understand why Mengu doesn't like Modern tbh
"Skill" is just the wrong term. I would say that the correct terms are usually Difficulty, Skill/Difficulty Ceiling or Skill/Difficulty Floor or Skill Intensiveness. What happens is that a deck or champion or whatever is deemed high skill when there becomes a plethora ways to approach a game state and the clear cut win condition isn't easily identified. Lee Sin from LoL and Amulet Titan is a prime example. Amulet has super hard lines to identify but they also have the double amulet braindead kill. Lee has his RQQ combo. Burn is seen as less skill intensive because in most matchups, you just Lava Spike
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Possible solutions:
1. Print good answers in Standard, where Mana Leak is de facto banned because it's too strong. We'd have to ask design team to look for alternative costs easy to pay in Modern but not in Standard (delve anyone?) that don't lead to the reprint of Ancestral Recall at common frequency this time.
2. Look banlist to strong answer cards being banned. Mental Misstep? It warped Legacy because it was abused by blue decks in a format which is already unbalanced towards blue. It also made the format slower, which wouldn't be bad news in Modern. Problem is the same way it counters unfair cards (Stirrings, Looting, Amulet, Vial), it hits the most efficient answers in the format (discard, removal, itself). I guess this is even more unlikely to happen, but I always like to bring it up.
3. Make reactive decks that slow down the format stronger. Unbanning Twin could help that. Then I'd start building my deck with 4 of Deceiver Exarch, Splinter Twin, Snapcaster Mage, Lightning Bolt, Serum Visions, Remand, Scalding Tarn... and I'd have half the deck done before deciding its game-plan. Twin kills deckbuilding creativity. I don't know about the impact Stoneforge Mystic could have.
4. Try to circumvent 1. with some Modern specific products. Declare Commander sets legal in Modern, print paper only sets that aren't launched in Arena or something along those lines.
Currently sleeved:
WUR Copycat ft. Stoneforge Mystic
this is basically why the next b&r announcement just being a ban to kci would be the worst possible outcome.
you can read the sentiment in most of the posts here. there is uncertainty or lingering doubts on whether its even possible to get the format on a course away from this. so yeah banning kci might help, and fwiw i personally dont like the deck as well; both that it is probably the best thing and the play experience it offers. however just banning it right now and nothing else, after the efforts we saw from wizards last year, would be a confirmation that wizards has lost faith in their ability to course correct and we go back to the whack-a-mole banmania driven modern.
on top of this, whether we want to openly admit it or not, moderns continued role in the competitive magic scene is in question. i dont care if someone at wizards has said otherwise. they have an enormously vested interest in making sure mtg as a game is putting its best foot forward for onlookers. there is literally a 1 million dollar tournament 2ish months from now to start off one of the largest single endeavors in all of esports. there are no do-overs. the scope and scale of the competition in the scene they are trying to break into is insane. it is either going to happen this year, or it wont happen ever. the enormity of how this will determine what magic will be going into the future cant be stressed enough.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)One of the problems, as 13055 already noted, is that there's no one-action fix to some of Modern's issues. Modern would benefit from both bans, unbans, new cards, and/or reprints. Wizards is also in the business of long-term format changes, not short-term fixes, so they are unlikely to pursue a course of action which hurts the format in the long-term. As Modern has shown itself to be remarkably adaptive and robust since 2017 until maybe the last few months, I expect Wizards will pursue more limited changes (e.g. banning a targeted issue in KCI) than something that will hurt too many decks for too many months/years (e.g. banning something like Looting).
That said, here are the final T8 #s for all GP/PT decks from 2018 (including 2019's Oakland). Let me know if you spot any errors:
1. KCI: 14 (10.9%)
2. Gx Tron: 11 (8.6%)
3. Humans: 12 (9.4%)
4. UW Control: 9 (7%)
5. Jeskai Control: 8 (6.3%)
6. Bant Spirits: 6 (4.7%)
7. Burn: 5 (3.9%)
8. Abzan: 4 (3.1%)
9. Hollow One: 5 (3.9%)
10. Hardened Scales: 4 (3.1%)
11. Affinity: 3 (2.3%)
12. Bogles: 3 (2.3%)
13. Elves: 3 (2.3%)
14. GDS: 3 (2.3%)
15. RG Eldrazi: 3 (2.3%)
16. UR Phoenix: 3 (2.3%)
17. Mardu: 4 (3.1%)
18. Infect: 3 (2.3%)
19. Amulet Titan: 2 (1.6%)
20. Bridgevine: 2 (1.6%)
21. Jund: 2 (1.6%)
22. Storm: 2 (1.6%)
23. Traverse Shadow: 2 (1.6%)
24. Titanshift: 2 (1.6%)
25. Abzan Evolution: 1 (0.8%)
26. Bant Company: 1 (0.8%)
27. Bant Knightfall: 1 (0.8%)
28. BG Rock: 1 (0.8%)
29. BtL Scapeshift: 1 (0.8%)
30. Death and Taxes: 1 (0.8%)
31. Dredge: 1 (0.8%)
32. Faeries: 1 (0.8%)
33. Grishoalbrand: 1 (0.8%)
34. Jeskai Tempo: 1 (0.8%)
35. Martyr Proc: 1 (0.8%)
36. Lantern: 1 (0.8%)
37. UR Pyromancer: 1 (0.8%)
And here are the T8 numbers for just regular GP, excluding Team events and Pro Tours.
1. KCI: 13 (12.5%)
2. Gx Tron: 10 (9.6%)
3. UW Control: 7 (6.7%)
4. Jeskai Control: 7 (6.7%)
5. Humans: 6 (5.8%)
6. Bant Spirits: 5 (4.8%)
7. Burn: 5 (4.8%)
8. Abzan: 3 (2.9%)
9. Hardened Scales: 3 (2.9%)
10. Affinity: 3 (2.9%)
11. Bogles: 3 (2.9%)
12. Elves: 3 (2.9%)
13. GDS: 3 (2.9%)
14. RG Eldrazi: 3 (2.9%)
15. UR Phoenix: 3 (2.9%)
16. Hollow One: 2 (1.9%)
17. Mardu: 2 (1.9%)
18. Infect: 2 (1.9%)
19. Amulet Titan: 2 (1.9%)
20. Bridgevine: 2 (1.9%)
21. Jund: 2 (1.9%)
22. Storm: 2 (1.9%)
23. Traverse Shadow: 1 (1%)
24. Titanshift: 1 (1%)
25. Abzan Evolution: 1 (1%)
26. Bant Company: 1 (1%)
27. Bant Knightfall: 1 (1%)
28. BG Rock: 1 (1%)
29. BtL Scapeshift: 1 (1%)
30. Death and Taxes: 1 (1%)
31. Dredge: 1 (1%)
32. Faeries: 1 (1%)
33. Grishoalbrand: 1 (1%)
34. Jeskai Tempo: 1 (1%)
35. Martyr Proc: 1 (1%)
36. Lantern: 0 (0%)
37. UR Pyromancer: 0 (0%)
We know Wizards takes both an annual perspective when it comes to banlist decisions (see rationale for BBE/DRS/Twin bans and basically all unbans), as well as a more immediate 3-4 month picture (see TC/DTT). We also know that MTGO is a major factor in their decision-making. Although we don't have MTGO data the same way Wizards does, we also know that factor is generally secondary to GP/PT T8s, which are the highest profile events and are frequently cited in decisions. This allows us to make educated guesses based on the data we have.
Yep, T8s. I edited it to be clearer. This also does not include any people who missed on breakers. There is no published indication that Wizards cares about this from a banlist or format health perspective. I have also personally received a very mixed reaction when I talked about people missing on breakers. I would have to go back over 6 months to find the exchanges and specific people I was arguing with, but I distinctly remember mentioning how a few interactive strategies were barely missing on breakers and being told this was irrelevant and that those decks were still not good.
What about; how many players has been playing the decks in the whole tournaments?
Exemple:
KCI ---> 12,5% of the top8 -----> while 1,5% of players played the deck.
I'm pretty sure KCI is not played alot and is still the number 1 deck.
(sorry bad english)
BGUSultai Shadow
BURGrixis Shadow
BGUSultai midrange
BRWMardu Pyromancer
BGRJund
They actively decided that Modern is only Standard legal sets past a certain point. In recent years they've started internal discussions about changing this, but there obviously has not been any affirmative action about it yet.
I dont know that we have those numbers, but it clearly over performed in each event it hit top 8.
Its by far the best performing deck.
Spirits