Switching out 16% of a deck could constitute a new brew. It does not mean it is a new brew. Switching out 10 lands would most likely not make it a brew. Catch my drift?
Lets be serious. The format has plenty of room to stabilize, but too many people just want to netdeck the best decks and win. Seeing more brews at your LGS is a good thing, not bad.
The issue with this argument is that it can be used at any time, anywhere. The Eldrazi have taken over? Enh, people are just netdecking rather than coming up with new ideas. Deathrite Shaman is all over the place? People are just being lazy and not coming up with brews. Treasure Cruise and Birthing Pod have taken over the format? A lack of creativity on the part of the playerbase! No matter how problematic a format is, you can always pull this argument out.
I just caught up on the "Frontier" situation. Are we really at the stage where people are inventing new formats so they don't have to play modern?
I generally seems to have nothing to do with Modern beyond the "barrier-of-entry" problem. The format was created so Hareruya could move the pile of now useless Khans cards and was taken up because: A) There seems to be some real backlash towards standard at the moment. B) There are a subset of players that dislike losing cards through rotation but don't have an old enough collection to play modern. C) Pretty much everyone already has the cards. D) People really just like playing Magic will play just about any format.
Overall it seems logistically difficult for the format to survive. For every community driven format that thrived (EDH) many have failed to truly take hold (Eternal, Tiny Leaders). Ultimately a format like Frontier is probably inevitable, but I can't see WotC creating a new for at least another 4-5 years.
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In play: Jund Death Shadow, Grixis Control, Eldrazi Stompy, Ponza
In the yard: RUG Delver, Kiki-Chord, Grixis Twin, Mardu Control, Smallpox, Jeskai Control, Jeskai Delver, Assault Loam, Elves, Deathcloud, Eggs, Storm
I am now and always will be indifferent to Frontier or any community created format for that matter. My views are exactly the same as the Professor on TCC; you are not wrong if you having fun at Magic. The one constant I've noticed the last month as Frontier has gained both popularity and notoriety is that Modern players are the most vocal against it. Instead of being snarky, elitist and pessimistic towards Frontier we should try letting people enjoy what they like. If Frontier fails than so be it, but we as Modern players shouldn't be hostile to those who want to give it a good try.
But I digress, this isn't a thread to discuss Frontier but I feel the negativity about it isn't justified.
I think a lot of modern players are justified because its likely to pull players away from modern (as well as standard).
In most places, standard is still run at normal rates, but if communities want frontier, its likely to eat into modern's time slots.
That being said, it does seem to get a lot of hate.
I've never played it, partially because none of the decks seem all that interesting, but nothing about it strikes me as particularly offensive or anything.
I am now and always will be indifferent to Frontier or any community created format for that matter. My views are exactly the same as the Professor on TCC; you are not wrong if you having fun at Magic. The one constant I've noticed the last month as Frontier has gained both popularity and notoriety is that Modern players are the most vocal against it. Instead of being snarky, elitist and pessimistic towards Frontier we should try letting people enjoy what they like. If Frontier fails than so be it, but we as Modern players shouldn't be hostile to those who want to give it a good try.
But I digress, this isn't a thread to discuss Frontier but I feel the negativity about it isn't justified.
Opining that a format idea is a half-thought-out cash grab is not necessarily 'being snarky, elitist and pessimistic', nor does it prevent anyone from indulging themselves in said format. Plenty of people think that Standard is 'just turning creatures sideways' and Modern is 'aggro hell', as well as that Legacy is ridiculously expensive. A lot of said people don't play the formats they feel negatively about (although a lot of them do!). People have their stupid opinions and nobody should take that personally or let it interfere with their enjoyment of Frontier. Yes, it's still trying to get off the ground. If it doesn't succeed, it probably won't be because of something some Modern player said about it here or on Reddit.
Lets be serious. The format has plenty of room to stabilize, but too many people just want to netdeck the best decks and win. Seeing more brews at your LGS is a good thing, not bad.
Go play test every possible combination against the internet and tell me what you find. I'm pretty interested.
Lets be serious. The format has plenty of room to stabilize, but too many people just want to netdeck the best decks and win. Seeing more brews at your LGS is a good thing, not bad.
Go play test every possible combination against the internet and tell me what you find. I'm pretty interested.
What? So because you dont want to spend time to actually take part in a fundamental step in playing competitive (or semi-competitive) Modern, you just google "best modern decks 2016" and build that? Thats fine, its your prerogative. But its also a big problem in how people tend to flock to a very small set of decks. AND its a problem when people call Modern "not diverse". Its not diverse because a lot of people want to be told what will win them more games. They dont want to go find out for themselves. (you also dont need to test against every single deck in Modern when brewing, just major archetypes)
I started as a netdecker, and I quickly became aware that it is not what I wanted to do. I much preferred brews, or non-conventional takes on certain archetypes. Or archetypes that are currently not well positioned in the meta. I find trying to make them work far more rewarding than downloading infect.dec and going to my local fnm every week. Its not an accomplishment to win with Tom Ross' Infect build for Modern.
I share and admire the approach you are taking as far as actually developing skill with the brews of the format, but you should also be able to discern that some of those archetypes need a lot of help. Player skill can get you very far, but it takes collectives of different ideas to evolve them, I think...and even then there are some decks (like mine) where with a little help they become worth more attention from the netdeckers (how you know your deck is respectable in the meta apparently). Some strategies have too much time investment as a necessity and very little competitive payout and thats just how it is until those ecs get support (maybe only accidentally)
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Decks I have in my bag of tricks- Needless to say, someone who wants to play will probably have a deck UB/x Faeries UR Storm XURWB Affinity G Elves UW control
I think that to look down upon "netdeckers" as some sort of lesser class of player is insulting and disrespectful. Do you really think pro players all design and craft their decks from scratch? Go watch the interview with Tom Ross after he won the Columbus SCG Open with the "innovative" GW Tron. His exact words in the post-event interview were "It's not my deck, I just found it online." Source: https://youtu.be/OO6z0qwRYtg?t=3m49s
I get it that people take pride in their concoctions, but these concoctions are rarely better or more powerful than existing strategies. They can be fun to play, but unless you think you are the next Zac Elsik and are going to come up with a brand new archetype out of nowhere, basically everything is a collective effort of many players trying many things and coming to a consensus about what is best. Faulting people for then taking these best strategies and playing them is like faulting a driver for driving the fastest car in the race instead of one he built himself. It's silly.
i don't think he is implying that they are lesser players or people. i think the point he was making is that when someone is looking for a deck to play they tend to hit up "randommagicsite.co m" and click the number 1,2, or 3 deck and build it. This means that deck number 4 or 5 (for instance) will have less people wanting to play it not because they are less viable but because it is not one of the top decks at the moment. (obviously my numbers in this case are made up for clarity but only to illustrate what he was trying to say)
i don't think he is implying that they are lesser players or people. i think the point he was making is that when someone is looking for a deck to play they tend to hit up "randommagicsite.co m" and click the number 1,2, or 3 deck and build it. This means that deck number 4 or 5 (for instance) will have less people wanting to play it not because they are less viable but because it is not one of the top decks at the moment. (obviously my numbers in this case are made up for clarity but only to illustrate what he was trying to say)
Successful and powerful decks make their way to the top, or at least gain notoriety and popularity. If it's not doing those two things, it's probably not a powerful or successful deck. Brews are great and fun for FNM laughs, but they also often just lose to many of the "top netdecks." So I don't blame players whatsoever for taking a list someone else built and playing with it. Nor do I think any less of them as a player.
You are taking offense to something that was not ment as offensive tho. Net-decking is fine and i don't think people are disrespecting anyone for net-decking. However, the point is very true that if you net deck a deck that was tuned for a specific meta that it will under-perform for you in your own specific meta. I must have read his comment MUCH different than you.
I was making reference to netdecks as perceived status in the metagame, so I dont know how my comment was offensive. sorry if you feel slighted though
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Decks I have in my bag of tricks- Needless to say, someone who wants to play will probably have a deck UB/x Faeries UR Storm XURWB Affinity G Elves UW control
Actually, he is taking offense to something that wasnt even said or implied (but it definitely was inferred!)
Netdecking invariably warps either the secondary market or the meta (or both). If 10% of the meta ran blood moon (basic example), then Jund players would stop playing Jund, and it would fall out of favor. But since most top netdecks dont use Blood Moon, we dont see a lot of Blood Moon decks.
I use BM because its a basic and somewhat extreme example, but it illustrates my point. So if we allowed more room for innovation, then chances are new deck archetypes would bubble to the surface and may become valid contenders for higher tiers.
Which is why I dont mind having an open format like we do now. Tier decks cant get the same success as they did before because there is a slew of (some good, some bad) ideas that are popping up everywhere. And if we let Modern go like this a little more, we will start to see new deck rise. And older decks will evolve to deal with them, but thats a good thing.
A format is "solved" when a handful of players post some good brews and then everyone copies them and assumes no other options are available. This is something we should strive to change.
I think that to look down upon "netdeckers" as some sort of lesser class of player is insulting and disrespectful. Do you really think pro players all design and craft their decks from scratch? Go watch the interview with Tom Ross after he won the Columbus SCG Open with the "innovative" GW Tron. His exact words in the post-event interview were "It's not my deck, I just found it online." Source: https://youtu.be/OO6z0qwRYtg?t=3m49s
I get it that people take pride in their concoctions, but these concoctions are rarely better or more powerful than existing strategies. They can be fun to play, but unless you think you are the next Zac Elsik and are going to come up with a brand new archetype out of nowhere, basically everything is a collective effort of many players trying many things and coming to a consensus about what is best. Faulting people for then taking these best strategies and playing them is like faulting a driver for driving the fastest car in the race instead of one he built himself. It's silly.
I just don't understand Anti-Netdeckers, you use whatever tools are available. Let's say you were playing Hockey, and you're the guy on the rink bashing the other guy for not making his own home-made Hockey Stick.
I just caught up on the "Frontier" situation. Are we really at the stage where people are inventing new formats so they don't have to play modern?
I generally seems to have nothing to do with Modern beyond the "barrier-of-entry" problem. The format was created so Hareruya could move the pile of now useless Khans cards and was taken up because: A) There seems to be some real backlash towards standard at the moment. B) There are a subset of players that dislike losing cards through rotation but don't have an old enough collection to play modern. C) Pretty much everyone already has the cards. D) People really just like playing Magic will play just about any format.
Overall it seems logistically difficult for the format to survive. For every community driven format that thrived (EDH) many have failed to truly take hold (Eternal, Tiny Leaders). Ultimately a format like Frontier is probably inevitable, but I can't see WotC creating a new for at least another 4-5 years.
Actually, a lot of people are wondering why WoTC didn't do it sooner. The Frontier format really doesn't feel like something Hareruya just threw out there spontaneously to sell out of date kahns cards and more so something WoTC may have been planning. There was a new border started in m2015, hollow tags to prevent fraud, and a lot of other changes such as the block structure and elimination of the core sets. To be frank, there's a lot of surprise that any core set got included at all in Frontier. A ton of people expected the format to be BFZ and up, but then it would have just been standard until the next block got released. I think the real reason we got m15 and Kahns in frontier is because the weak secondary market forced places like Hareruya to jump the gun early on a new eternal window to try and get attendance up at tournaments and keep interest up in magic. We wont really know for sure until probably a year or so from now when more sets are present.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I think that to look down upon "netdeckers" as some sort of lesser class of player is insulting and disrespectful. Do you really think pro players all design and craft their decks from scratch? Go watch the interview with Tom Ross after he won the Columbus SCG Open with the "innovative" GW Tron. His exact words in the post-event interview were "It's not my deck, I just found it online." Source: https://youtu.be/OO6z0qwRYtg?t=3m49s
I get it that people take pride in their concoctions, but these concoctions are rarely better or more powerful than existing strategies. They can be fun to play, but unless you think you are the next Zac Elsik and are going to come up with a brand new archetype out of nowhere, basically everything is a collective effort of many players trying many things and coming to a consensus about what is best. Faulting people for then taking these best strategies and playing them is like faulting a driver for driving the fastest car in the race instead of one he built himself. It's silly.
I just don't understand Anti-Netdeckers, you use whatever tools are available. Let's say you were playing Hockey, and you're the guy on the rink bashing the other guy for not making his own home-made Hockey Stick.
[quote from="Sei »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/764899-state-of-modern-thread-bans-format-health-reprints?comment=61"] It seems to be a resentment that what has always been good against everything except Tron is now bad against Tron, Dredge, and Bant Eldrazi. This puts it more in line with the majority of other modern decks which tend to have 2-4 bad match ups. I don't hold the opinion that Jund or any other deck is a "pillar" of the health of the format and that any shifts in the format which invalidate its status as tier 1 is automatically a negative reflection of the health of the format.
But I also hold a generally optimistic view of things like this so...
It's the issue in relation to the banned list for most Mid-range players (myself included), we have some basic questions for the community as a whole.
Why does Bant Eldrazi take my best card on turn 2? and I can't even cast Bloodbraid Elf Turn 4?
Why does Dredge look at their top 18, 15, or 12 cards of their deck with ETB triggers but I'm not allowed to cast Ponder?
Why does Infect punish you to not tap out on turn 2 but we can't use Splinter Twin to punish people for tapping out on turn 3?
Why does Burn kill me turn 3 but I can't even cast a Stoneforge Mystic?
MTGGoldfish says in Legacy it's the 25th commonly played spell, with an 11.66% dominance rate, in 12.57% of the decks. Then half this forum is crapping their pants about never unbanning it. We are talking about a format with less board removal pretty much shrugging at a Stoneforge Mystic. Now scroll down even more, then you'll notice Bloodbraid Elf.... isn't even in the top 50.
We have to stop claiming that these cards are gonna steroid decks like Abzan and Jund. Newsflash! they already did steroid Abzan and Jund, it's called Bant Eldrazi, and it's the kind of steroid they use on those freaky Bulls.
This complete joke of a banned list, has seriously gone on long enough. If you think I'm wrong, why are people fleeing and playing Frontier? What's the actual purpose of that entire format? Ask yourselves.
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I find the first point slightly laughable as Jund/Junk has been playing the "take my best card turn 1" play since forever, plus its a far more common draw of only needed 1 card vs. 3 cards in Bant Eldrazi.
Ponder was banned because of its greater consistency for combo decks. I would be open to pulling it off the ban list since most of the modern combo decks are slow and PyroAcen decks have been nerfed in the ramp spells so it might not put it back into broken range.
I've been happy with the twin ban. It did constrict the viability of other RUx non-combo decks and it stifled aggro decks. The meta-game has been friendlier to more decks since its banning and that isn't a bad thing. Infect doesn't have this affect on the meta-game, removal heavy decks are good against it and its existence doesn't invalidate every other aggro deck.
How often does burn kill you on T3? People could just put the counter argument of why is it ok for Jund/Junk to put me in top deck mode by turn 3? How is that any more fair than anything else other decks do?
IMO the cries for SFM and BBE being unbanned does nothing for any of the "problem" match ups in any of the Mid-range decks but does everything to introduce and reintroduce Mid-range vs. Mid-range trump cards. BBE is objectively OP'ed while it was legal it was a 4 of in every Jund build exactly because its oppressive against other "fair" decks; You would see the far more conditionally good 4cc creatures go back to the SB like before. SFM while already having very good interactions in the format also puts the format back into a Pod type issue that now every equipment that WotC prints potentially breaks the card and the format. What if WotC prints a very good equipment card or brings back Living-Weapon in the future? Should be just ban any and all dangerous equipment cards so SFM can be off the list? Its just another highly risky tool box card that works as a trump card to any "fair" deck not running W
SFM would be the 16th most played modern available card in that list and a major reason that BBE isn't in the top 50 is that Legacy isn't Modern. Legacy has a curve that goes 0-3 where modern has a curve of 1-4 comparing the two formats is night and day, the only decks hard casting a 4cc spell are control decks.
I completely disagree with the Idea that Bant Eldrazi is near as oppressive as juiced up Jund/Junk, its a deck that preys on Jund/Junk decks by going over them in regards to the threats but its also a deck that folds much easier to URx decks and aggro decks. This falls right in line with traditional MTG game theory of bigger mid-range trumping smaller mid-range.
I only know 2 types of people who prefer Frontier to Modern. 1-Newer players/ players who live in regions with less access to modern staples who are still buying into modern, at my LGS they have been running small normally 8 man frontier events and with the store credit they only get 1 of 2 things Modern staples or booster packs and nearly everyone who plays in it are newer players with a little more than a year playing at most. If WotC would do a full print run on MMxx instead of a limited run it would deflate the market value of modern staples down to a reasonable level and most would jump into modern. The restriction no access to cards is actually the main reason the Japanese players invented the format the market for Magic cards in Japan was historically much lower for the majority of the games existence so the cards that they have actual access to are newer cards and thus the format is more a out growth of the supply side of Mtg than a comment on the format of Modern.
The other type of frontier players are players who are salty that their deck doesn't crush the way they want it to and are happier playing super standard. This is fine if its what your looking for but to me and most others I know its a very boring format that is ruled by nothing but mid-range decks(p.s. I am a mid-range player Jund, Grixis, UR).
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Your own logic is inconsistent. If bant eldrazi going larger than jund is perfectly in line, then stoneforge mystic is also fine, especially given that its form of mana acceleration (stoneforge) can be profitably interacted with via removal whereas eldrazi temple cannot.
The design space argument on stoneforge mystic is a straw man. Living weapon was extremely more powerful than they anticipated and they have stated that batterskull was a mistake. Every other pushed equipment will fall into one of two buckets: pushed on powerlevel but balanced by equip cost (not abusable with stoneforge) or pushed on powerlevel and initial mana cost but not equip cost (known poor design choice for limited, far more vulnerable to getting stranded by removal, and has multiple points of failure to removal).
In short: equipment is naturally balanced by the equip ability happening at sorcery speed. Living weapon dodges this, which is why they admit batterskull was a mistake. Therefore if stoneforge can do something more busted than batterskull, quest for the holy relic.dec is actually the stronger deck.
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SFM isn't going "big" its grindy value card. So no I'm not being inconsistent in any of my assessments.
The design arguement isn't a straw man, of the two modern legal sets focused on Artifacts both have over powered design mistakes. A observation of the evidence would point towards the chances of WotC printing more OP'ed design mistakes in future is more likely than not.
Stoneforge Mystic is part of that group of cards that ended up being way too good at all points in the game much like Umezawa's Jitte and Deathrite Shaman. As much as a lot of equipment deck folks want it unbanned, I think it would cause more problems eventually than it would fix since they wouldn't be able to print strong equipment. Speaking of which, they haven't printed strong equipment in quite a while outside of the reprinting of swords as master pieces so why is that argument point even valid? I'm pretty sure that it was a design article somewhere that WoTC published that even mentioned that detail about equipment, and now they are printing arguably the two strongest artifact pseudo equipment cards they've ever printed in a very long time with Smuggler's Copter and Heart of Kiran instead.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
We know Wizards considers Batterskull and the Scars-block Swords mistakes. In the off chance they make a critical mistake, it would be treated like previous (and much more obvious/format-warping/oppressive) mistakes like New Eldrazi and Cruise/Dig. Plus it just seems so unlikely to me after that last 5 years of Equipment in Standard we'll ever see anything even close to Batterskull. And the thing that really makes SFM-Batterskull powerful (Living Weapon) is high on the Storm Scale.
That's not to say I don't have any concerns when it comes to SFM, but I've never really found the "But Equiptment!" argument very persuasive. I know WotC doesn't like locking itself out of design space, but by their own admission, that design space is closed for good anyways.
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Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
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RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
The issue with this argument is that it can be used at any time, anywhere. The Eldrazi have taken over? Enh, people are just netdecking rather than coming up with new ideas. Deathrite Shaman is all over the place? People are just being lazy and not coming up with brews. Treasure Cruise and Birthing Pod have taken over the format? A lack of creativity on the part of the playerbase! No matter how problematic a format is, you can always pull this argument out.
Overall it seems logistically difficult for the format to survive. For every community driven format that thrived (EDH) many have failed to truly take hold (Eternal, Tiny Leaders). Ultimately a format like Frontier is probably inevitable, but I can't see WotC creating a new for at least another 4-5 years.
In the yard: RUG Delver, Kiki-Chord, Grixis Twin, Mardu Control, Smallpox, Jeskai Control, Jeskai Delver, Assault Loam, Elves, Deathcloud, Eggs, Storm
But I digress, this isn't a thread to discuss Frontier but I feel the negativity about it isn't justified.
In most places, standard is still run at normal rates, but if communities want frontier, its likely to eat into modern's time slots.
That being said, it does seem to get a lot of hate.
I've never played it, partially because none of the decks seem all that interesting, but nothing about it strikes me as particularly offensive or anything.
I didnt know "a couple" meant 10+ cards.
I think this is a "lets understand what words mean" issue. We can leave it at that
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
Opining that a format idea is a half-thought-out cash grab is not necessarily 'being snarky, elitist and pessimistic', nor does it prevent anyone from indulging themselves in said format. Plenty of people think that Standard is 'just turning creatures sideways' and Modern is 'aggro hell', as well as that Legacy is ridiculously expensive. A lot of said people don't play the formats they feel negatively about (although a lot of them do!). People have their stupid opinions and nobody should take that personally or let it interfere with their enjoyment of Frontier. Yes, it's still trying to get off the ground. If it doesn't succeed, it probably won't be because of something some Modern player said about it here or on Reddit.
Go play test every possible combination against the internet and tell me what you find. I'm pretty interested.
What? So because you dont want to spend time to actually take part in a fundamental step in playing competitive (or semi-competitive) Modern, you just google "best modern decks 2016" and build that? Thats fine, its your prerogative. But its also a big problem in how people tend to flock to a very small set of decks. AND its a problem when people call Modern "not diverse". Its not diverse because a lot of people want to be told what will win them more games. They dont want to go find out for themselves. (you also dont need to test against every single deck in Modern when brewing, just major archetypes)
I started as a netdecker, and I quickly became aware that it is not what I wanted to do. I much preferred brews, or non-conventional takes on certain archetypes. Or archetypes that are currently not well positioned in the meta. I find trying to make them work far more rewarding than downloading infect.dec and going to my local fnm every week. Its not an accomplishment to win with Tom Ross' Infect build for Modern.
But I digress....
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
I get it that people take pride in their concoctions, but these concoctions are rarely better or more powerful than existing strategies. They can be fun to play, but unless you think you are the next Zac Elsik and are going to come up with a brand new archetype out of nowhere, basically everything is a collective effort of many players trying many things and coming to a consensus about what is best. Faulting people for then taking these best strategies and playing them is like faulting a driver for driving the fastest car in the race instead of one he built himself. It's silly.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Successful and powerful decks make their way to the top, or at least gain notoriety and popularity. If it's not doing those two things, it's probably not a powerful or successful deck. Brews are great and fun for FNM laughs, but they also often just lose to many of the "top netdecks." So I don't blame players whatsoever for taking a list someone else built and playing with it. Nor do I think any less of them as a player.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
Netdecking invariably warps either the secondary market or the meta (or both). If 10% of the meta ran blood moon (basic example), then Jund players would stop playing Jund, and it would fall out of favor. But since most top netdecks dont use Blood Moon, we dont see a lot of Blood Moon decks.
I use BM because its a basic and somewhat extreme example, but it illustrates my point. So if we allowed more room for innovation, then chances are new deck archetypes would bubble to the surface and may become valid contenders for higher tiers.
Which is why I dont mind having an open format like we do now. Tier decks cant get the same success as they did before because there is a slew of (some good, some bad) ideas that are popping up everywhere. And if we let Modern go like this a little more, we will start to see new deck rise. And older decks will evolve to deal with them, but thats a good thing.
A format is "solved" when a handful of players post some good brews and then everyone copies them and assumes no other options are available. This is something we should strive to change.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
I just don't understand Anti-Netdeckers, you use whatever tools are available. Let's say you were playing Hockey, and you're the guy on the rink bashing the other guy for not making his own home-made Hockey Stick.
Actually, a lot of people are wondering why WoTC didn't do it sooner. The Frontier format really doesn't feel like something Hareruya just threw out there spontaneously to sell out of date kahns cards and more so something WoTC may have been planning. There was a new border started in m2015, hollow tags to prevent fraud, and a lot of other changes such as the block structure and elimination of the core sets. To be frank, there's a lot of surprise that any core set got included at all in Frontier. A ton of people expected the format to be BFZ and up, but then it would have just been standard until the next block got released. I think the real reason we got m15 and Kahns in frontier is because the weak secondary market forced places like Hareruya to jump the gun early on a new eternal window to try and get attendance up at tournaments and keep interest up in magic. We wont really know for sure until probably a year or so from now when more sets are present.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Thats a false equivalency.
RUG Temur Deprive Delver
BUG Sultai Deprive Delver
SFM isn't going "big" its grindy value card. So no I'm not being inconsistent in any of my assessments.
The design arguement isn't a straw man, of the two modern legal sets focused on Artifacts both have over powered design mistakes. A observation of the evidence would point towards the chances of WotC printing more OP'ed design mistakes in future is more likely than not.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
That's not to say I don't have any concerns when it comes to SFM, but I've never really found the "But Equiptment!" argument very persuasive. I know WotC doesn't like locking itself out of design space, but by their own admission, that design space is closed for good anyways.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon