Modern has always been like this, but it is getting more extreme. Tron always beat Pod. Bloom always beat Tron and Burn. But nowadays, it's nearly getting to the point where matchups are decided before the die roll. Sometimes it's worth trying because your opponent can always mull to 4, miss land drops, get mana flooded, or make a huge egregious mistake. But if these things don't happen, you literally have no chance. And yes, I'm exaggerating. But me being 4-23 lifetime vs. Infect with Grishoalbrand is just not acceptable to me. (just an example)
If you're asking for a magical way for your powerful but somewhat inconsistent combo deck - which can play through graveyard hate, mind - to stop losing versus another powerful combo deck that tends to be more consistent, I don't know what to tell you.
You are literally choosing to play a deck with minimal removal which is offset by the fact it can win very quickly. Of course you're going to lose to another combo deck that is just as fast, but more consistent. That's the trade-off you made when you chose that deck.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
If all your matches are 50/50 (or thereabouts), you don't have any "free wins." So hypothetically, you give up having free wins in order avoid having terrible matchups. Decks with horrendously bad matchups should be balanced by having about as many free win matchups too. It should be a risk/reward system. Want to play Storm? Cool, you take your unwinnable matchups alongside your totally free wins. Decks like Jeskai have a bunch of relatively even matchups, several really, really bad matchups, and very few (if any) "free-win" matchups. It's a high risk/low reward deck. It's fun to play, challenging, and engaging. But it has virtually no "free wins" to balance out it's laughably bad matchups (of which there are several in the top tiers). So it's probably not a good choice to bring to a large tournament unless you just cross your fingers to dodge/get lucky in your bad matchups.
Speaking from hundreds of games on MTGO, Jeskai(Both Tempo and Control) does in fact have a few free wins from my personal percentages. Namely Tribal decks, such as Elves, Goblins, Merfolk, and Burn.
If you're asking for a deck that can maintain it's position as the top deck of the meta for, well, ever, I don't think we can even have a conversation here.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
If you're asking for a deck that can maintain it's position as the top deck of the meta for, well, ever, I don't think we can even have a conversation here.
Well Legacy has actually done that, along with Vintage. So it's not completely out of the question to demand a similar feature for Modern. Here I have to agree with cfusionpm, because that is a defining feature of a non-rotating format.
Yet from my recollection, it hasn't ever been an explicitly stated goal. To paraphrase I do believe Wizards has said they wanted Modern to be a transition point for powerful Standard decks, but never disclaiming that those decks could or would be permanently viable.
If you're asking for a deck that can maintain it's position as the top deck of the meta for, well, ever, I don't think we can even have a conversation here.
Well Legacy has actually done that, along with Vintage. So it's not completely out of the question to demand a similar feature for Modern. Here I have to agree with cfusionpm, because that is a defining feature of a non-rotating format.
In both cases, mainly because there are disproportionately powerful cards that they can't ban (Mishra's Workshop) or won't (Top, then DRS and Probe, for example). Given that WotC seems to more active with the Modern banlist, and cards in new sets are usually more likely to have an impact on Modern than on the other two formats, expecting a static metagame seems unrealistic at best.
Also, I'm not specifically talking about a deck being "top-tier" forever, I'm talking about a deck being literally the best deck in a given format. The Modern metagame shifts - somewhat slowly, but it does shift, and as a result you will never be able to buy into a deck and expect that it will remain on top for the rest of time.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
Can confirm that UWR has some pretty lopsided victories. Affinity? Easy. Elves? Easy. Humans? Fish? Easy easy easy. Every deck in Modern should have good and bad matchups. A metagame that cycles from Combo/Aggro > Ramp > Midrange > Combo/Aggro is a much better than a meta game with a few 50% decks in it.
THIS 100X!!! If you don't agree with this then there is no amount of logic that will ever convince you that good, non-oppressive, combos should be allowed. If you don't agree with it then just don't play this game, and you certainly shouldn't feel entitled to make any comment on ban lists ever.
If you're asking for a deck that can maintain it's position as the top deck of the meta for, well, ever, I don't think we can even have a conversation here.
Well Legacy has actually done that, along with Vintage. So it's not completely out of the question to demand a similar feature for Modern. Here I have to agree with cfusionpm, because that is a defining feature of a non-rotating format.
Yet from my recollection, it hasn't ever been an explicitly stated goal. To paraphrase I do believe Wizards has said they wanted Modern to be a transition point for powerful Standard decks, but never disclaiming that those decks could or would be permanently viable.
WOTC doesn't regulate those formats as much. If modern didn't exist, SDT would have been a long time ago, and with a most likely follow up of DRS, seeing as how he's in 50% of the decks in the meta.
If you're asking for a deck that can maintain it's position as the top deck of the meta for, well, ever, I don't think we can even have a conversation here.
LOL are you implying Jeskai is a top deck of the format?? If so, which build? I think it's pretty good most of the time, but I don't consider it at the top whatsoever. Not when Storm, Affinity, and GDS are all so much stronger and robust.
I already said Storm and GDS are better decks. I said Jeskai, as of now, is a top 8 deck. Which Jeskai deck, I don't know, it can transition into what the expected meta is
And Earthbound just listed a bunch of lopsided matchups for Jeskai, more so than Jund had.
He also forgot to mention Company decks
Rossum, in his words, said that matchup is a joke.
You aren't posting objective, non-biased facts, just really odd opinions.
I'm sorry Jeskai has a few really lopsided matchups, like Tron, Titanshift, and especially dredge (probably it's hugest predator)
Sheridan already posted some fairly hopeful stats saying the matchup isn't some unwinnable monster.
I also think the 'free wins' for UWR are overrated. Feasting on the jank is about all you can hope for, and that's fine to me.
The only issue I have, is a personal bias against Tron and Eldrazi. I despise those decks and simply hate to have to sit across from them, and not because they are bad for what I want to play, but because I hate their style. Desperately.
For good players, I can see this being true. Not so much for other players, who may try to avoid those decks because those 50/50 matchups turn slightly lower when they can't leverage their play skill to gain the small edges.
A "50/50 deck" that's also perfectly balanced can't exist due to metagame shifts. Even if only players with significantly above average skill played the 50/50 deck, that's still a massive portion of the meta. Of course, there are also a massive number of players who aren't that good but think they are, or will just copy what the pros are winning with, making the deck even bigger. I'd expect a "50/50 deck" to quickly reach at least 20% of the meta, and likely more. Once you start to grow beyond 20% of the meta people start metagaming against that deck because it's now worth sacrificing other matchups for free wins against it. If strategies dedicated to fighting the deck can't get better than 50/50 against it that means the "50/50 deck" is obviously stronger than 50/50. If those strategies can get free wins, then it's no longer a 50/50 deck.
Modern has always been like this, but it is getting more extreme. Tron always beat Pod. Bloom always beat Tron and Burn. But nowadays, it's nearly getting to the point where matchups are decided before the die roll. Sometimes it's worth trying because your opponent can always mull to 4, miss land drops, get mana flooded, or make a huge egregious mistake. But if these things don't happen, you literally have no chance. And yes, I'm exaggerating. But me being 4-23 lifetime vs. Infect with Grishoalbrand is just not acceptable to me. (just an example)
If you're asking for a magical way for your powerful but somewhat inconsistent combo deck - which can play through graveyard hate, mind - to stop losing versus another powerful combo deck that tends to be more consistent, I don't know what to tell you.
You are literally choosing to play a deck with minimal removal which is offset by the fact it can win very quickly. Of course you're going to lose to another combo deck that is just as fast, but more consistent. That's the trade-off you made when you chose that deck.
You could say that about any deck. So, someone chooses to play Jund. Their tradeoff is that they get destroyed by Titanshift and Big Tron. I'm not asking for every matchup to be positive. I'm just hoping (pretty futile here) that not every matchup will be 70/30 or 30/70 or worse as you see here.
I can literally say something like that about every deck. Why did someone choose Dredge? Because they expected to lose to Bogles around 80% of the time. I could go on and on, literally, because this is what the meta is comprised of. There simply are VERY FEW matchups like Jund vs. Pod used to be or Twin vs. Pod used to be (for what it's worth, I always hear that Pod beat Twin, but I personally disagree. I actually think it's close to 60/40 for Twin)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
We all talk about auto losses that fair decks take
But doesn't Tron and Titanshift have really popular matchups that are devastatingly bad?
And Storm, in my opinion, a top 3 deck, is a huge dog to burn. Burn. The most overrepresented deck I see in every tournament.
Even with the popularity of TBR in GDS, there's still a bunch of matchups Grixis dreads seeing...
If we had a true 50/50 deck, it would greatly hurt modern. It definitely wouldn't be a Winter Eldrazi, but I'd be shocked if meta shares didn't reach 15% to 20%.
Why shouldn't it, I'd be fine earning all my 50/50s if it meant no 30/70s
Even then, card variance is just a thing, as is dice roll.
I took Tron to FNM this week...I drew very poorly, the other guy's deck ran like a top, but I got stomped by Naya Dinos, a Standard deck. I should be just stupidly favored in that match. i'm sure i could have done things differently, I'm sure i made some mistakes, but it just goes to show that some of the decks with lopsided matchups, especially combo decks, they can be playing against themselves as much as against the other deck. i don't think Naya Dinos has a home in Modern, it's not even the best deck in Standard, but anybody can have a good or bad night, and it's not even about matchup lottery. I worry that too many people are letting their opinions be colored by nights that went that poorly....but for me, it's one bad night, and Tron will mop the floor with a T-rex next time
Other weeks at FNM, we have a mix of decks, Standard and jank all the way to top tier. I have been playing for longer than a fair number of the people there, and Modern almost exclusively for most of that time. I am not the best player in there, but I try to rotate through my decks, never bring the same one twice in a row. I rarely win, but if i am on my game myself, I can usually top 8-top 4 with any deck I like. The only person I really struggle against is on GW Eldrazi and Taxes of some flavor, and it doesn't matter what deck i bring. i try the decks that are theoretically heavily skewed against him, and he still wins, because he is BETTER, and that deck is the only one i have seen him play, and I can't remember the last time i saw him mess up. Pros complain that they can't leverage their skill, that's silly. if they focused heavily on Modern instead of it being just when they have to play it, if they picked a deck for themselves and really put the time into it instead of trying to out metagame people, they would do better, they would be able to take something like Burn and consistently do well.
Note that these are not my feelings about the Tron v BGx matchup. when i am on Tron, if I lose, it is due to drawing poorly, that matchup in my experience is hard for the Tron player to lose unless the Magic gods REALLY have it out for you that night.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
I've subbed to his channel since I first started Modern (and Geist was the first deck I built, because of GreatNate, before eventually switching to Twin). His recent series of videos have been great, and this roundtable was awesome. Can't wait for part 2.
Though, interestingly enough, Rossum played Humans instead of Jeskai at the last Open.
If all your matches are 50/50 (or thereabouts), you don't have any "free wins." So hypothetically, you give up having free wins in order avoid having terrible matchups. Decks with horrendously bad matchups should be balanced by having about as many free win matchups too. It should be a risk/reward system. Want to play Storm? Cool, you take your unwinnable matchups alongside your totally free wins. Decks like Jeskai have a bunch of relatively even matchups, several really, really bad matchups, and very few (if any) "free-win" matchups. It's a high risk/low reward deck. It's fun to play, challenging, and engaging. But it has virtually no "free wins" to balance out it's laughably bad matchups (of which there are several in the top tiers). So it's probably not a good choice to bring to a large tournament unless you just cross your fingers to dodge/get lucky in your bad matchups.
50/50+ decks are almost always the best choice for an event because a skilled player will leverage the lack of bad matchups into consistent wins. This is why Stoddard famously said something to the effect of "If a deck's worst matchup is the mirror, something is probably getting banned." These decks do not exist long in contemporary Magic formats. If they do, it's just because Wizards hasn't gotten around to dealing with them yet, or because they aren't as consistent as their critics/proponents claim.
Incidentally, I don't find these decks particularly skillful in practice. 50/50+ format monsters are generally just broken. This is because the matchup spectrum for a 50/50+ deck is rarely clustered around 50/50. It tends to be 50/50 against top-tier decks and like 70/30 or better against everything else. This means you pick up a ton of free wins against nonsense and are still favored against mainstream players. Broken. Now, I will admit that the mirrors are certainly high-skill, low-variance nail-biters. But this isn't particularly rewarding in a game like Magic. I'd rather play chess for that particular experience.
Though, interestingly enough, Rossum played Humans instead of Jeskai at the last Open.
And then we have Benjamin Nikolich who played Jeskai at literally every single recorded Open, Regionals, and Invitational from 06/2017 through present. Rosum did switch to Humans and did just as well at Columbus 2018 (7th) as he did on his last two recorded Jeskai forays in Richmond (5th: 08/2017) and Syracuse (4th: 08/2017).
I just want to say - I appreciate seeing the Modern Challenge results. I don't have MTGO, nor want to do it, but the data is something I am interested in.
Kind of glad to see Burn beat GDS in the finals, lol. People keep telling me that GDS is favored in that matchup and I just don't buy it. (I do realize that it's one match though and even Burn has beaten Soul Sisters in a match before.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Who says GDS is favored against burn? I have never thought this for the 6 months or so I played GDS. It was a constant stress test and very tricky to navigate.
If you're asking for a magical way for your powerful but somewhat inconsistent combo deck - which can play through graveyard hate, mind - to stop losing versus another powerful combo deck that tends to be more consistent, I don't know what to tell you.
You are literally choosing to play a deck with minimal removal which is offset by the fact it can win very quickly. Of course you're going to lose to another combo deck that is just as fast, but more consistent. That's the trade-off you made when you chose that deck.
Speaking from hundreds of games on MTGO, Jeskai(Both Tempo and Control) does in fact have a few free wins from my personal percentages. Namely Tribal decks, such as Elves, Goblins, Merfolk, and Burn.
And look where it is now.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
If you're asking for a deck that can maintain it's position as the top deck of the meta for, well, ever, I don't think we can even have a conversation here.
Well Legacy has actually done that, along with Vintage. So it's not completely out of the question to demand a similar feature for Modern. Here I have to agree with cfusionpm, because that is a defining feature of a non-rotating format.
Yet from my recollection, it hasn't ever been an explicitly stated goal. To paraphrase I do believe Wizards has said they wanted Modern to be a transition point for powerful Standard decks, but never disclaiming that those decks could or would be permanently viable.
In both cases, mainly because there are disproportionately powerful cards that they can't ban (Mishra's Workshop) or won't (Top, then DRS and Probe, for example). Given that WotC seems to more active with the Modern banlist, and cards in new sets are usually more likely to have an impact on Modern than on the other two formats, expecting a static metagame seems unrealistic at best.
Also, I'm not specifically talking about a deck being "top-tier" forever, I'm talking about a deck being literally the best deck in a given format. The Modern metagame shifts - somewhat slowly, but it does shift, and as a result you will never be able to buy into a deck and expect that it will remain on top for the rest of time.
Jund was a top 3 deck for years and had a really long run.
You're not proving me wrong at all.
WOTC doesn't regulate those formats as much. If modern didn't exist, SDT would have been a long time ago, and with a most likely follow up of DRS, seeing as how he's in 50% of the decks in the meta.
LOL are you implying Jeskai is a top deck of the format?? If so, which build? I think it's pretty good most of the time, but I don't consider it at the top whatsoever. Not when Storm, Affinity, and GDS are all so much stronger and robust.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
And Earthbound just listed a bunch of lopsided matchups for Jeskai, more so than Jund had.
He also forgot to mention Company decks
Rossum, in his words, said that matchup is a joke.
You aren't posting objective, non-biased facts, just really odd opinions.
I'm sorry Jeskai has a few really lopsided matchups, like Tron, Titanshift, and especially dredge (probably it's hugest predator)
Sheridan already posted some fairly hopeful stats saying the matchup isn't some unwinnable monster.
Between RIP, Anger, Path, I mean when expected is it an issue?
Spirits
The only issue I have, is a personal bias against Tron and Eldrazi. I despise those decks and simply hate to have to sit across from them, and not because they are bad for what I want to play, but because I hate their style. Desperately.
Spirits
...I mean, Firer and Rosum both said the matchup is a nightmare and even worse than E-Tron. I'm inclined to believe them more
If expecting it though, I doubt they would say its a 'nightmare' may a 40/60 dog at worst.
Spirits
Instead of us going back and forth, I'm going to post this, if you decide to sit through it it's straight out of their mouths
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIQZ__2hWVc&t=64s
A "50/50 deck" that's also perfectly balanced can't exist due to metagame shifts. Even if only players with significantly above average skill played the 50/50 deck, that's still a massive portion of the meta. Of course, there are also a massive number of players who aren't that good but think they are, or will just copy what the pros are winning with, making the deck even bigger. I'd expect a "50/50 deck" to quickly reach at least 20% of the meta, and likely more. Once you start to grow beyond 20% of the meta people start metagaming against that deck because it's now worth sacrificing other matchups for free wins against it. If strategies dedicated to fighting the deck can't get better than 50/50 against it that means the "50/50 deck" is obviously stronger than 50/50. If those strategies can get free wins, then it's no longer a 50/50 deck.
I'll watch that actually, thanks!
Spirits
You could say that about any deck. So, someone chooses to play Jund. Their tradeoff is that they get destroyed by Titanshift and Big Tron. I'm not asking for every matchup to be positive. I'm just hoping (pretty futile here) that not every matchup will be 70/30 or 30/70 or worse as you see here.
I can literally say something like that about every deck. Why did someone choose Dredge? Because they expected to lose to Bogles around 80% of the time. I could go on and on, literally, because this is what the meta is comprised of. There simply are VERY FEW matchups like Jund vs. Pod used to be or Twin vs. Pod used to be (for what it's worth, I always hear that Pod beat Twin, but I personally disagree. I actually think it's close to 60/40 for Twin)
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)But doesn't Tron and Titanshift have really popular matchups that are devastatingly bad?
And Storm, in my opinion, a top 3 deck, is a huge dog to burn. Burn. The most overrepresented deck I see in every tournament.
Even with the popularity of TBR in GDS, there's still a bunch of matchups Grixis dreads seeing...
If we had a true 50/50 deck, it would greatly hurt modern. It definitely wouldn't be a Winter Eldrazi, but I'd be shocked if meta shares didn't reach 15% to 20%.
Why shouldn't it, I'd be fine earning all my 50/50s if it meant no 30/70s
Even then, card variance is just a thing, as is dice roll.
Other weeks at FNM, we have a mix of decks, Standard and jank all the way to top tier. I have been playing for longer than a fair number of the people there, and Modern almost exclusively for most of that time. I am not the best player in there, but I try to rotate through my decks, never bring the same one twice in a row. I rarely win, but if i am on my game myself, I can usually top 8-top 4 with any deck I like. The only person I really struggle against is on GW Eldrazi and Taxes of some flavor, and it doesn't matter what deck i bring. i try the decks that are theoretically heavily skewed against him, and he still wins, because he is BETTER, and that deck is the only one i have seen him play, and I can't remember the last time i saw him mess up. Pros complain that they can't leverage their skill, that's silly. if they focused heavily on Modern instead of it being just when they have to play it, if they picked a deck for themselves and really put the time into it instead of trying to out metagame people, they would do better, they would be able to take something like Burn and consistently do well.
Note that these are not my feelings about the Tron v BGx matchup. when i am on Tron, if I lose, it is due to drawing poorly, that matchup in my experience is hard for the Tron player to lose unless the Magic gods REALLY have it out for you that night.
I've subbed to his channel since I first started Modern (and Geist was the first deck I built, because of GreatNate, before eventually switching to Twin). His recent series of videos have been great, and this roundtable was awesome. Can't wait for part 2.
Though, interestingly enough, Rossum played Humans instead of Jeskai at the last Open.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
50/50+ decks are almost always the best choice for an event because a skilled player will leverage the lack of bad matchups into consistent wins. This is why Stoddard famously said something to the effect of "If a deck's worst matchup is the mirror, something is probably getting banned." These decks do not exist long in contemporary Magic formats. If they do, it's just because Wizards hasn't gotten around to dealing with them yet, or because they aren't as consistent as their critics/proponents claim.
Incidentally, I don't find these decks particularly skillful in practice. 50/50+ format monsters are generally just broken. This is because the matchup spectrum for a 50/50+ deck is rarely clustered around 50/50. It tends to be 50/50 against top-tier decks and like 70/30 or better against everything else. This means you pick up a ton of free wins against nonsense and are still favored against mainstream players. Broken. Now, I will admit that the mirrors are certainly high-skill, low-variance nail-biters. But this isn't particularly rewarding in a game like Magic. I'd rather play chess for that particular experience.
And then we have Benjamin Nikolich who played Jeskai at literally every single recorded Open, Regionals, and Invitational from 06/2017 through present. Rosum did switch to Humans and did just as well at Columbus 2018 (7th) as he did on his last two recorded Jeskai forays in Richmond (5th: 08/2017) and Syracuse (4th: 08/2017).
Kind of glad to see Burn beat GDS in the finals, lol. People keep telling me that GDS is favored in that matchup and I just don't buy it. (I do realize that it's one match though and even Burn has beaten Soul Sisters in a match before.)
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate