Anyone advocating for multiple bans across differing archetypes to "improve the format" is delusional, and should be disregarded from any constructive discussion about format health. Seriously, this should be infraction worthy.
Back to the subject of KCI...it wins way over rate compared to everything else in the format, and all signs point to it becoming more played, not less. It manages this in the face of multiple early hate cards. Further committing to keeping the deck in check through deck and card selection is going to warp the format. It's going to take a ban soon, possibly in the next announcement. I do hope that they unban a card or two at the same time to reduce the sting, but the writing is on the wall for the deck at this point.
I like how we went from "midrange creature decks completely suck vs terminus" to "salty jund players wanting their deck to be the best again".
Newsflash: Wanting Midrange to be able to compete in Modern does not equate to wanting Midrange to be the best archetype.
And how would that work?
Modern is a non-rotating format. Have you looked at the other non-rotating formats? There isn't much Midrange around in them. Can you play something like Jund /Naya/Abzan etc. in Legacy? Of course. It is actually a good idea? No, it isn't.
I have made a big post about Midrange in this thread quite a while ago and also made a separate thread about it so I don't want to repeat everything.
In the end Midrange is a jack of all trades, master of none archetype. It trades power for adaptability and versatility. It does multiple things but nothing really well. That's fine in Standard because the power level isn't that high to begin with and it was also fine in Modern when it was younger. But as the format grows older it grows more powerful and that's where the problem lies. Every other archetype absolutely knows what it wants to do and is focused on that and if they get to do it that will always trump everything a Midrange deck is capable of doing.
Someone achieving a win rate of above 80% with a deck across multiple Grand Prix should clearly ring some alarm bells. The deck is extremely fast, resilient and consistent while also having access to a maindeck answer to any problematic permanent which is recurrable in multiple ways AND incidentally contributes to the combo.
I actually don't find the deck as obnoxious as the vast majority, the biggest issue I have with it is how resilient it is to any kind of hate. Before the printing of Sai for example, the deck had a much harder time beating Stony Silence, now they have another way of powering through it while also making both comboing easier and providing an alternative win condition.
KCI is currently the most busted thing. Banning it only allows the new most busted thing to take it's place. It will 'rotate' like this forever, and that's why modern gets so exhausting because you constantly have to prune back the branches of decks like this and the most innocuous cards are capable of breaking a deck in half - Cathartic Reunion, Opt, Ichor Wellspring, etc.
I don't play Jund. I don't care if Jund is good. I'm simply willing to admit that the play patterns available in this format (crushingly controlling OR ridiculously fast/punishing aggro/combo) aren't leading to satisfying gameplay. If you're here for EV or to scratch your desire to cheat on mana costs or miracle people out of games, then so be it. But there are a spectrum of reasons as to why people play this game and this format. Myself and a VERY large group of people want to play cards that were favorites for us from standards past. Desiring for the format to at least be non-hostile to that isn't outrageous. The point of *any* magic format and this game as a whole is to be fun and to serve the desires of the base of players willing to invest their time into it. Desiring changes in the modern format is no more frivolous than simply playing modern itself.
Anyone advocating for multiple bans across differing archetypes to "improve the format" is delusional, and should be disregarded from any constructive discussion about format health. Seriously, this should be infraction worthy.
Delusional? Sure. Infraction worthy? Police discussion more I suppose.
Anyone advocating for multiple bans across differing archetypes to "improve the format" is delusional, and should be disregarded from any constructive discussion about format health. Seriously, this should be infraction worthy.
Delusional? Sure. Infraction worthy? Police discussion more I suppose.
You must agree with certain people as to how modern should look, or else! *spooky noises*
Alright Mad Statistician how would you bury KCI for good? What would you ban to make sure it stays dead?
To kill KCI, you ban KCI itself. I doubt Wizards will do that though as all they don't want to kill decks. They didn't even totally kill Eldrazi by banning both Eye and Temple! So a more likely ban is Trawler. KCI players will tell you this kills the deck, but history has showed that most strong decks survive bans like this: see Amulet, Death's Shadow, Infect, and Dredge for recent examples of decks surviving bans and evolving. All other ban targets are too cute and indirect (e.g. Ruins, Fair, etc.) or hit too many other decks that aren't offending (e.g. Opal, Stirrings).
KCI is currently the most busted thing. Banning it only allows the new most busted thing to take it's place. It will 'rotate' like this forever, and that's why modern gets so exhausting because you constantly have to prune back the branches of decks like this and the most innocuous cards are capable of breaking a deck in half - Cathartic Reunion, Opt, Ichor Wellspring, etc.
KCI is unusually busted and deserves a ban. It's not an artificial rotation. It's a targeted ban on a problematic strategy. The real problem, as I said before, is that there is so much endless and unjustified ban mania in Modern that when a truly bannable deck emerges, we are all too exhausted to address it seriously. After 2-3 years of calls with varying degrees of seriousness for bans on Cavern, Vial, Hierarch, DS, Temple, Company, E Bridge, Bridge from Below, Looting, Tron, Stirrings, Moon, Prime Time, fetchlands, Baral, Opal, Teferi, Nahiri, and others I'm too worn out to list, it's hard to have an informed discussion about a legitimate issue like KCI.
Classic Eggs could easily exist even without KCI. It would use the Faith's Reward loop like the original did with Second Sunrise. It would be tier 2 at best, but it hasn't been innovated recently due to the rise of current Ironworks. We have gotten a lot more tools like Whir of Invention, so who know, it could be a decent deck. Can't foresee it being tier 1 any time soon at all though. I don't even think Second Sunrise version was tier 1, and the card itself wasn't banned due to power level/ meta share reasonings.
Classic Eggs is dead after the Second Sunrise banning. The "adaptation" was to go the KCI route (which existed back than too btw) since Faith's Reward and Open the Vaults (the two effects for recurring your cards) are noticeable more expensive (not being able to get cast of a single Lotus is a huge deal). Also, Open the Vaults has the huge problem, that it brings back all artefacts and enchantments on BOTH sides, so a destroyed Stony will also return, which will "lock" you out again (aka needing another destroy piece for each Vault you are casting). Hence, a Eggs deck without KCI does simply not work (Note: As long as there are no new printings).
I played Second Breakfast even before it won the PT RTR and I tried to play it after the bannings (with Vaults/Faiths Reward), the deck is just hot garbage without KCI. What the KCI version "broke" was Scrap Trawler, which suddenly allowed to generate decent loops. There was a reason, why the old kill con was Emmi and not anything else.
No, I dont. I do however think that is what it would take to bring us back to center, or 2 unban's that are variously felt to 'do nothing' or would 'break the format'.
No, not Jund fans, Jund, Junk, Bant, GW, Big Zoo, heck even Mardu (fair versions). None of those decks, or anything like them is ever going to see play in Modern again, unless something fundamental changes in the format.
You have 2 ends. Looting, with its explosive 'cheat into play' decks, and then you have Terminus keeping them in check, well I should say PRETENDING to keep them in check, because it doesnt.
Due to those poles, you have anyone even remotely pretending to play fair, getting just dumpstered, and you then have the decks that linear and powerful enough to not care about either pole all that much, and still hang with the big kid table.
As long as people are cool with Looting, Burn, Storm, Dredge, Tron, KCI, Terminus. Thats going to be the format, I dont see any reasonable way around it at this point.
Note: REASONABLE. We need to either unban SFM and Twin, which some think is unreasonable, or we need to ban multiple cards, which I think would be bad for players, but probably better for the format in the abstract.
The notion of "have anyone even remotely pretending to play fair getting just dumpstered..." is flawed, as we can see with both Humans as Spirits, two creature based interaction decks which just wreck those Looting decks while having either a bad (Humans) or even-ish (Spirits) Terminus match-up.
Also, I want to point out, that SFM won't do anything, for what questions modern raises it is just a Squire (even against Midrange the card is just meh at best). It would just push back the more fair aggro decks (like traditional Zoo or Meerfolk) as tested here: http://modernnexus.com/testing-stoneforge-mystic-part-two/ (there is a part 1 too btw).
Twin on the other hand would not fix the format, it would be an ugly bandaid, which is not even clear, if it would do anything positive. Keep in mind, there was a time in Modern (back in 2011/2012 aka the first two years) where it was just an arms race, which is similar as what we have today, and while there were some Tempo version of Twin, the more all-in version were more successful. Only due to fundamental shift of the metagame this changed btw. Hence, there might be the scenario, where Twin would not "push out" problematic decks but itself become a problem. Just keep this in mind.
(and honestly speaking, I give a crap about if Twin gets unbanned or stays banned, I'm fine with either)
Just think about it folks, and think about if you actually find this Modern fine, or what it would take to change it. I'm going to play some Overwatch.
Find this modern fine? I played and loved this format in way worse situations (metagame wise), be it PT Philly metagame (*puke*), Eldrazie Winter, DRS train or even the TC/DTT months.
Sure, the format looks kinda ugly due to the printings of the last two years, but I would hate to see getting the format ripped apart AGAIN. I would rather unban the following cards and than see what will happen:
- DRS (Midrange says hi)
- SFM (would do close to nothing)
- GSZ (would do little)
- Ponder (big impact)
Will those unbans fix the format? No idea. Might the format get worse? Maybe. Might it get better? Dunno. Are they evening the playing field somewhat? Jup.
However, I would hate it to see so many cards getting banned, if we go the ban hammer route (Terminus, Stirrings, Looting, Noble Hierarch, Scrap Trawler and Manamorphose are the ones I'm thinking about if wizard would go the full ban hammer route).
However, what will most likely happen is a ban towards KCI and an irrelevant unban (something like SFM or GSZ basically).
The discussion of the "salty jund players" was born out of the "need to ban" the whole format. Nuking the entire format including the "Fair Midrange deck killer" would just make Jund the best deck again. Maybe I'm missing something... but that's what it sounds like.
I don't like how the format is right now. I really wish we had an archetype distribution more similar to the one we had a couple of years ago. With more midrange and control decks. But I think we should address the extreme linearity of the format and then, if Terminus or Control in general are too oppressive for the fair midrange decks ban Terminus or print solutions. Bringing a next level problem right now accomplishes little. Unless you're implying that because Terminus is oppressing the other midrange decks, we now lack a solution for the linear decks that we would have if BGx was more prevalent.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Modern close to always had a screwed archetype distribution. The format had metagames where it was 40%+ Midrange, 60%+ Combo, 50%+ big mana and so on. Heck, the only time where it was NOT screwed in any way was post Inistrad and pre RTR IIRC, and that is now what, close to 7 years ago?
Since then the metagame was nearly ALWAYS screwed into a direction, it was basically a Pendulum swinging around, but was close to never right in the middle (aka the "even-ish" spread). That the decks got "faster" due to new printings happens, the same thing happened with Legacy or Extended (when it was still the 7-8-9 year format basically). Heck, even Vintage was "speeding up" a couple of times and a boatload of cards needed to get restricted (again) to get it back in line. Gush Mentor was hilariously broken e.g.
So nope, Modern was "always" screwed into a direction, newer players just didn't live through all those rollercoasters Modern had
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: And yes, I'm playing this format since its inception and basically played any Tier 0/1/2 deck it ever had, close to 8 years of playing Modern results in this ^^
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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)
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Modern close to always had a screwed archetype distribution. The format had metagames where it was 40%+ Midrange, 60%+ Combo, 50%+ big mana and so on. Heck, the only time where it was NOT screwed in any way was post Inistrad and pre RTR IIRC, and that is now what, close to 7 years ago?
Since then the metagame was nearly ALWAYS screwed into a direction, it was basically a Pendulum swinging around, but was close to never right in the middle (aka the "even-ish" spread). That the decks got "faster" due to new printings happens, the same thing happened with Legacy or Extended (when it was still the 7-8-9 year format basically). Heck, even Vintage was "speeding up" a couple of times and a boatload of cards needed to get restricted (again) to get it back in line. Gush Mentor was hilariously broken e.g.
So nope, Modern was "always" screwed into a direction, newer players just didn't live through all those rollercoasters Modern had
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: And yes, I'm playing this format since its inception and basically played any Tier 0/1/2 deck it ever had, close to 8 years of playing Modern results in this ^^
I would prefer the unban route too, but Twin better be on that list.
I just dont see either all bans, or a tide of unban's happening, and I also think that the meta of 2015, was far less tilted, than this one.
Twin on the other hand would not fix the format, it would be an ugly bandaid, which is not even clear, if it would do anything positive. Keep in mind, there was a time in Modern (back in 2011/2012 aka the first two years) where it was just an arms race, which is similar as what we have today, and while there were some Tempo version of Twin, the more all-in version were more successful. Only due to fundamental shift of the metagame this changed btw. Hence, there might be the scenario, where Twin would not "push out" problematic decks but itself become a problem. Just keep this in mind.
That version was playing Ponder and Preordain and fighting against Blazing Shoal infect and Storm casting Rite of Flame and Seething Song. Not only is that wholly irrelevant to today, it's completely different from how the deck looked and functioned in 2015. All-in Twin builds were mostly dead long before it was banned, and going back to an all-in version today, when things like Hollow One and BGx/GDS are ripping your hand to pieces, seems like a recipe for failure.
Honestly wish we could just kill sitrrings and lootings already regardless if its right or not. They are always at the center of all degenerate decks and the enablers that make them so consistent. I feel even banning KCI within 6 months there will be another stirrings or lootings deck on everyone's rader
Honestly wish we could just kill sitrrings and lootings already regardless if its right or not. They are always at the center of all degenerate decks and the enablers that make them so consistent. I feel even banning KCI within 6 months there will be another stirrings or lootings deck on everyone's rader
There's also the hypocrisy of allowing Stirrings and Looting in a format where Preordain is banned. It's kind of silly.
I wouldn't advocate for multiple bans. Given a couple of above comments and my experience, this is actually one of the more healthy times in recent modern history it would seem. Modern has traditionally rewarded knowledge of the format/deck/reading opponents and game state. I'm not a great player, but I can tell when I lost because I was outplayed versus my deck just wasn't good in that situation. I have seen some good players take largely unplayed decks and wipe the floor with Tier 1 decks.
Having said that, given the data I just saw on KCI, it would seem some part of it is a logical choice.
I would prefer the unban route too, but Twin better be on that list.
I just dont see either all bans, or a tide of unban's happening, and I also think that the meta of 2015, was far less tilted, than this one.
Ad Twin, if Twin comes off, than Pod too and I dread Pod to say it this way.
Ad Metagame 2015, difference is between "far less tilted" and "not tilted". 2015 was still a mess regarding this:
Beginning of the year: 23% hyper aggro/aggro combo (Affinity, Burn and Infect) decks in Tier 1, and another 10% in the Tier 2, adding the dedicated combo decks (aka not Twin to say it this way) we are adding an additional 12%)
Early Summer: nearly 40% Midrange (Junk, Jund, Abzan Liege, Value CoCo, UWR Midrange (ft. Resto and Geist) and Grixis Control)
Fall: 70% metagame share of Midrange and fast aggro/combo (so BGx vs Affinity and friends) in Tier 1 & 2.
Winter: Rise of the anti Midrange decks (Tron, Amulet Bloom, Burn, Affinity (had a good game 1 vs Midrange), Scapeshift, Bogles and friends, clocked nearly in at 50% of the metagame)
Sure, the "mess" might be nicer to play with, but in the end it still was a mess where it simply said: either go under or go over Midrange (Big Mana was hyper Aggro/Combo).
That version was playing Ponder and Preordain and fighting against Blazing Shoal infect and Storm casting Rite of Flame and Seething Song. Not only is that wholly irrelevant to today, it's completely different from how the deck looked and functioned in 2015. All-in Twin builds were mostly dead long before it was banned, and going back to an all-in version today, when things like Hollow One and BGx/GDS are ripping your hand to pieces, seems like a recipe for failure.
I'm perfectly aware against what kind of decks it had to fight (Blazing Infect and Cloudpost where the two most important, Storm was quite crappy to say it this way without PiF). Which brings us to the (currently obvious question for a lot of players): "Who wins the arms race?". I definitely would want to go the faster (and more consistent) route than trying to mess with my opponent to much (this is exactly what you are saying all the time btw regarding on which deck you should play). The only difference is, that you can build Twin for a more "control-ish" set-up, but than again, being required to draw the correct half of the deck is always iffy
"Ripping your hand apart", you should be aware, that playing more copies of combo elements usually means, that you get to draw more redundant pieces of it, hence Discard gets "worse" against it (chance of re-drawing it is just higher). With the overall low metagame share of BGx and GDS this argument doesn't count.
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)
Twin never hit Pod levels though, did it not stand alone in the Treasure Cruise era as the best deck?
Beginning of the year: 23% hyper aggro/aggro combo (Affinity, Burn and Infect) decks in Tier 1, and another 10% in the Tier 2, adding the dedicated combo decks (aka not Twin to say it this way) we are adding an additional 12%)
Early Summer: nearly 40% Midrange (Junk, Jund, Abzan Liege, Value CoCo, UWR Midrange (ft. Resto and Geist) and Grixis Control)
Fall: 70% metagame share of Midrange and fast aggro/combo (so BGx vs Affinity and friends) in Tier 1 & 2.
Winter: Rise of the anti Midrange decks (Tron, Amulet Bloom, Burn, Affinity (had a good game 1 vs Midrange), Scapeshift, Bogles and friends, clocked nearly in at 50% of the metagame)
So we go from 23% aggro, to 40% Midrange across a wide diversity, to a combo of the 2 being the vast majority (70%) across both Tier 1 AND Tier 2 and then the anti-mid as you put it taking up 50% (you have a mix of Aggro and Ramp/Big Mana) and thats...not better than what we have now?
That actually (at a glance) looks like its almost balanced.
I'm perfectly aware against what kind of decks it had to fight (Blazing Infect and Cloudpost where the two most important, Storm was quite crappy to say it this way without PiF). Which brings us to the (currently obvious question for a lot of players): "Who wins the arms race?". I definitely would want to go the faster (and more consistent) route than trying to mess with my opponent to much (this is exactly what you are saying all the time btw regarding on which deck you should play). The only difference is, that you can build Twin for a more "control-ish" set-up, but than again, being required to draw the correct half of the deck is always iffy
If you're trying to compete in the "arms race," then trying to fight against decks capable of winning on turn 2 and 3 with a deck that cannot win before turn 4 (and is incredibly loose and risky to do so on 4), it seems like there are much better options available.
"Ripping your hand apart", you should be aware, that playing more copies of combo elements usually means, that you get to draw more redundant pieces of it, hence Discard gets "worse" against it (chance of re-drawing it is just higher). With the overall low metagame share of BGx and GDS this argument doesn't count.
If Twin exists, it can help prey on the decks which make BGx/GDS's lives difficult. They then rise up to fight Twin, and will do so with fairly good success; especially GDS, since it has access to all four elements for stopping Twin: discard, counters, removal, fast clock.
I'm failing to see what redundant combo pieces you're referring to? Thoughtsieze routinely wrecked Twin decks. Also, Abrupt Decay is a card people seem to have forgotten about...
I'm failing to see what redundant combo pieces you're referring to? Thoughtsieze routinely wrecked Twin decks. Also, Abrupt Decay is a card people seem to have forgotten about...
Again, I'm all for measured Twin unban arguments. But please stop stating/suggesting that TS/Decay was a significant issue for Twin. Twin was 50/50 against both Jund and Abzan in 2015.
I'm failing to see what redundant combo pieces you're referring to? Thoughtsieze routinely wrecked Twin decks. Also, Abrupt Decay is a card people seem to have forgotten about...
Again, I'm all for measured Twin unban arguments. But please stop stating/suggesting that TS/Decay was a significant issue for Twin. Twin was 50/50 against both Jund and Abzan in 2015.
Is 50% not a fair target? I mean...what was GW's % against Twin? A touch worse than 50% I would say.
Myself and a VERY large group of people want to play cards that were favorites for us from standards past. Desiring for the format to at least be non-hostile to that isn't outrageous.
And I ask you too. How should that work?
Would you play with Gatekeeper Gargoyle and Deadly Visit in current Standard because you like those cards?
Probably not because those cards are bad compared to what else is in Standard.
You can play with any card in Modern that is your favorite. Nobody is stopping you from doing that. There are many people out there doing just that and they have fun doing it but it's honestly quite naive to think that you also get to have real success with that. Some cards will simply be better than others. That's just how it is and it's true for every single format in existence. From Limited to Vintage.
What you are asking for is impossible in anything but kitchen table Magic.
Also, as ktk is saying, Jund and Abzan were totally even, after the Keranos print. Just go Grixis and wreck that BGx's
You honestly think that an Kiki deck, has enough reps to REALLY claim the balance against GDS is accurate? I mean I'm sure you have tried Kiki as much as I have...
I'm failing to see what redundant combo pieces you're referring to? Thoughtsieze routinely wrecked Twin decks. Also, Abrupt Decay is a card people seem to have forgotten about...
Again, I'm all for measured Twin unban arguments. But please stop stating/suggesting that TS/Decay was a significant issue for Twin. Twin was 50/50 against both Jund and Abzan in 2015.
The bigger point of that post was to highlight how GDS tears it to pieces on all fronts. A deck that did not exist in 2015. Also Jund/BGx got many good, meaningful upgrades in the past 3 years, while UR did not.
I'm failing to see what redundant combo pieces you're referring to? Thoughtsieze routinely wrecked Twin decks. Also, Abrupt Decay is a card people seem to have forgotten about...
Again, I'm all for measured Twin unban arguments. But please stop stating/suggesting that TS/Decay was a significant issue for Twin. Twin was 50/50 against both Jund and Abzan in 2015.
Is 50% not a fair target? I mean...what was GW's % against Twin? A touch worse than 50% I would say.
Not really when those were supposed to be your "bad" matchups.
I'm failing to see what redundant combo pieces you're referring to? Thoughtsieze routinely wrecked Twin decks. Also, Abrupt Decay is a card people seem to have forgotten about...
Again, I'm all for measured Twin unban arguments. But please stop stating/suggesting that TS/Decay was a significant issue for Twin. Twin was 50/50 against both Jund and Abzan in 2015.
Is 50% not a fair target? I mean...what was GW's % against Twin? A touch worse than 50% I would say.
There's nothing wrong with 50/50! That's totally fine. I take issue with this notion that BGx was a bad matchup for Twin or that TS "routinely wrecked Twin decks." Let's just admit the matchup was 50/50 and accept that as an okay thing. That would only be an issue if Twin had no bad matchups if unbanned and anyone claimed that BGx would police Twin based on an erroneous historical precedent.
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Back to the subject of KCI...it wins way over rate compared to everything else in the format, and all signs point to it becoming more played, not less. It manages this in the face of multiple early hate cards. Further committing to keeping the deck in check through deck and card selection is going to warp the format. It's going to take a ban soon, possibly in the next announcement. I do hope that they unban a card or two at the same time to reduce the sting, but the writing is on the wall for the deck at this point.
And how would that work?
Modern is a non-rotating format. Have you looked at the other non-rotating formats? There isn't much Midrange around in them. Can you play something like Jund /Naya/Abzan etc. in Legacy? Of course. It is actually a good idea? No, it isn't.
I have made a big post about Midrange in this thread quite a while ago and also made a separate thread about it so I don't want to repeat everything.
In the end Midrange is a jack of all trades, master of none archetype. It trades power for adaptability and versatility. It does multiple things but nothing really well. That's fine in Standard because the power level isn't that high to begin with and it was also fine in Modern when it was younger. But as the format grows older it grows more powerful and that's where the problem lies. Every other archetype absolutely knows what it wants to do and is focused on that and if they get to do it that will always trump everything a Midrange deck is capable of doing.
I actually don't find the deck as obnoxious as the vast majority, the biggest issue I have with it is how resilient it is to any kind of hate. Before the printing of Sai for example, the deck had a much harder time beating Stony Silence, now they have another way of powering through it while also making both comboing easier and providing an alternative win condition.
I don't play Jund. I don't care if Jund is good. I'm simply willing to admit that the play patterns available in this format (crushingly controlling OR ridiculously fast/punishing aggro/combo) aren't leading to satisfying gameplay. If you're here for EV or to scratch your desire to cheat on mana costs or miracle people out of games, then so be it. But there are a spectrum of reasons as to why people play this game and this format. Myself and a VERY large group of people want to play cards that were favorites for us from standards past. Desiring for the format to at least be non-hostile to that isn't outrageous. The point of *any* magic format and this game as a whole is to be fun and to serve the desires of the base of players willing to invest their time into it. Desiring changes in the modern format is no more frivolous than simply playing modern itself.
Delusional? Sure. Infraction worthy? Police discussion more I suppose.
Spirits
You must agree with certain people as to how modern should look, or else! *spooky noises*
Spirits
To kill KCI, you ban KCI itself. I doubt Wizards will do that though as all they don't want to kill decks. They didn't even totally kill Eldrazi by banning both Eye and Temple! So a more likely ban is Trawler. KCI players will tell you this kills the deck, but history has showed that most strong decks survive bans like this: see Amulet, Death's Shadow, Infect, and Dredge for recent examples of decks surviving bans and evolving. All other ban targets are too cute and indirect (e.g. Ruins, Fair, etc.) or hit too many other decks that aren't offending (e.g. Opal, Stirrings).
KCI is unusually busted and deserves a ban. It's not an artificial rotation. It's a targeted ban on a problematic strategy. The real problem, as I said before, is that there is so much endless and unjustified ban mania in Modern that when a truly bannable deck emerges, we are all too exhausted to address it seriously. After 2-3 years of calls with varying degrees of seriousness for bans on Cavern, Vial, Hierarch, DS, Temple, Company, E Bridge, Bridge from Below, Looting, Tron, Stirrings, Moon, Prime Time, fetchlands, Baral, Opal, Teferi, Nahiri, and others I'm too worn out to list, it's hard to have an informed discussion about a legitimate issue like KCI.
I played Second Breakfast even before it won the PT RTR and I tried to play it after the bannings (with Vaults/Faiths Reward), the deck is just hot garbage without KCI. What the KCI version "broke" was Scrap Trawler, which suddenly allowed to generate decent loops. There was a reason, why the old kill con was Emmi and not anything else.
The notion of "have anyone even remotely pretending to play fair getting just dumpstered..." is flawed, as we can see with both Humans as Spirits, two creature based interaction decks which just wreck those Looting decks while having either a bad (Humans) or even-ish (Spirits) Terminus match-up.
Also, I want to point out, that SFM won't do anything, for what questions modern raises it is just a Squire (even against Midrange the card is just meh at best). It would just push back the more fair aggro decks (like traditional Zoo or Meerfolk) as tested here: http://modernnexus.com/testing-stoneforge-mystic-part-two/ (there is a part 1 too btw).
Twin on the other hand would not fix the format, it would be an ugly bandaid, which is not even clear, if it would do anything positive. Keep in mind, there was a time in Modern (back in 2011/2012 aka the first two years) where it was just an arms race, which is similar as what we have today, and while there were some Tempo version of Twin, the more all-in version were more successful. Only due to fundamental shift of the metagame this changed btw. Hence, there might be the scenario, where Twin would not "push out" problematic decks but itself become a problem. Just keep this in mind.
(and honestly speaking, I give a crap about if Twin gets unbanned or stays banned, I'm fine with either)
Find this modern fine? I played and loved this format in way worse situations (metagame wise), be it PT Philly metagame (*puke*), Eldrazie Winter, DRS train or even the TC/DTT months.
Sure, the format looks kinda ugly due to the printings of the last two years, but I would hate to see getting the format ripped apart AGAIN. I would rather unban the following cards and than see what will happen:
- DRS (Midrange says hi)
- SFM (would do close to nothing)
- GSZ (would do little)
- Ponder (big impact)
Will those unbans fix the format? No idea. Might the format get worse? Maybe. Might it get better? Dunno. Are they evening the playing field somewhat? Jup.
However, I would hate it to see so many cards getting banned, if we go the ban hammer route (Terminus, Stirrings, Looting, Noble Hierarch, Scrap Trawler and Manamorphose are the ones I'm thinking about if wizard would go the full ban hammer route).
However, what will most likely happen is a ban towards KCI and an irrelevant unban (something like SFM or GSZ basically).
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Modern close to always had a screwed archetype distribution. The format had metagames where it was 40%+ Midrange, 60%+ Combo, 50%+ big mana and so on. Heck, the only time where it was NOT screwed in any way was post Inistrad and pre RTR IIRC, and that is now what, close to 7 years ago?
Since then the metagame was nearly ALWAYS screwed into a direction, it was basically a Pendulum swinging around, but was close to never right in the middle (aka the "even-ish" spread). That the decks got "faster" due to new printings happens, the same thing happened with Legacy or Extended (when it was still the 7-8-9 year format basically). Heck, even Vintage was "speeding up" a couple of times and a boatload of cards needed to get restricted (again) to get it back in line. Gush Mentor was hilariously broken e.g.
So nope, Modern was "always" screwed into a direction, newer players just didn't live through all those rollercoasters Modern had
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: And yes, I'm playing this format since its inception and basically played any Tier 0/1/2 deck it ever had, close to 8 years of playing Modern results in this ^^
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
KCI if you want it dead (cause traditional Eggs is hot garbage), Scrap Trawler if you want to kick it down to Tier 2 territory.
Phoenix sucks balls against Midrange and Tempo decks, so I doubt it.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I would prefer the unban route too, but Twin better be on that list.
I just dont see either all bans, or a tide of unban's happening, and I also think that the meta of 2015, was far less tilted, than this one.
Spirits
That version was playing Ponder and Preordain and fighting against Blazing Shoal infect and Storm casting Rite of Flame and Seething Song. Not only is that wholly irrelevant to today, it's completely different from how the deck looked and functioned in 2015. All-in Twin builds were mostly dead long before it was banned, and going back to an all-in version today, when things like Hollow One and BGx/GDS are ripping your hand to pieces, seems like a recipe for failure.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
There's also the hypocrisy of allowing Stirrings and Looting in a format where Preordain is banned. It's kind of silly.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Having said that, given the data I just saw on KCI, it would seem some part of it is a logical choice.
Ad Twin, if Twin comes off, than Pod too and I dread Pod to say it this way.
Ad Metagame 2015, difference is between "far less tilted" and "not tilted". 2015 was still a mess regarding this:
Beginning of the year: 23% hyper aggro/aggro combo (Affinity, Burn and Infect) decks in Tier 1, and another 10% in the Tier 2, adding the dedicated combo decks (aka not Twin to say it this way) we are adding an additional 12%)
Early Summer: nearly 40% Midrange (Junk, Jund, Abzan Liege, Value CoCo, UWR Midrange (ft. Resto and Geist) and Grixis Control)
Fall: 70% metagame share of Midrange and fast aggro/combo (so BGx vs Affinity and friends) in Tier 1 & 2.
Winter: Rise of the anti Midrange decks (Tron, Amulet Bloom, Burn, Affinity (had a good game 1 vs Midrange), Scapeshift, Bogles and friends, clocked nearly in at 50% of the metagame)
Sure, the "mess" might be nicer to play with, but in the end it still was a mess where it simply said: either go under or go over Midrange (Big Mana was hyper Aggro/Combo).
I'm perfectly aware against what kind of decks it had to fight (Blazing Infect and Cloudpost where the two most important, Storm was quite crappy to say it this way without PiF). Which brings us to the (currently obvious question for a lot of players): "Who wins the arms race?". I definitely would want to go the faster (and more consistent) route than trying to mess with my opponent to much (this is exactly what you are saying all the time btw regarding on which deck you should play). The only difference is, that you can build Twin for a more "control-ish" set-up, but than again, being required to draw the correct half of the deck is always iffy
"Ripping your hand apart", you should be aware, that playing more copies of combo elements usually means, that you get to draw more redundant pieces of it, hence Discard gets "worse" against it (chance of re-drawing it is just higher). With the overall low metagame share of BGx and GDS this argument doesn't count.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
So we go from 23% aggro, to 40% Midrange across a wide diversity, to a combo of the 2 being the vast majority (70%) across both Tier 1 AND Tier 2 and then the anti-mid as you put it taking up 50% (you have a mix of Aggro and Ramp/Big Mana) and thats...not better than what we have now?
That actually (at a glance) looks like its almost balanced.
Spirits
If you're trying to compete in the "arms race," then trying to fight against decks capable of winning on turn 2 and 3 with a deck that cannot win before turn 4 (and is incredibly loose and risky to do so on 4), it seems like there are much better options available.
If Twin exists, it can help prey on the decks which make BGx/GDS's lives difficult. They then rise up to fight Twin, and will do so with fairly good success; especially GDS, since it has access to all four elements for stopping Twin: discard, counters, removal, fast clock.
I'm failing to see what redundant combo pieces you're referring to? Thoughtsieze routinely wrecked Twin decks. Also, Abrupt Decay is a card people seem to have forgotten about...
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Again, I'm all for measured Twin unban arguments. But please stop stating/suggesting that TS/Decay was a significant issue for Twin. Twin was 50/50 against both Jund and Abzan in 2015.
Is 50% not a fair target? I mean...what was GW's % against Twin? A touch worse than 50% I would say.
Spirits
And I ask you too. How should that work?
Would you play with Gatekeeper Gargoyle and Deadly Visit in current Standard because you like those cards?
Probably not because those cards are bad compared to what else is in Standard.
You can play with any card in Modern that is your favorite. Nobody is stopping you from doing that. There are many people out there doing just that and they have fun doing it but it's honestly quite naive to think that you also get to have real success with that. Some cards will simply be better than others. That's just how it is and it's true for every single format in existence. From Limited to Vintage.
What you are asking for is impossible in anything but kitchen table Magic.
You honestly think that an Kiki deck, has enough reps to REALLY claim the balance against GDS is accurate? I mean I'm sure you have tried Kiki as much as I have...
Spirits
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Not really when those were supposed to be your "bad" matchups.
There's nothing wrong with 50/50! That's totally fine. I take issue with this notion that BGx was a bad matchup for Twin or that TS "routinely wrecked Twin decks." Let's just admit the matchup was 50/50 and accept that as an okay thing. That would only be an issue if Twin had no bad matchups if unbanned and anyone claimed that BGx would police Twin based on an erroneous historical precedent.