I'm more of the opinion at this point that War of the sparks spoilers and Modern Horizon spoilers can't come fast enough. It's very comparable to childlike anticipation of Christmas.
I agree. I need to rub it in the faces of my friends if Counterspell is back. Many others online are saying that it's a shoo-in, so I hope they are not letting me down.
I bought a playset of Counterspell from Jace's spellbook. To add to that I also bought a playset of Baleful Strix and Shardless Agents. My body is ready.
I have foil playset of mercadian masques and FNM counterspell that I picked up recently.
I am also going to buy some baleful strix because I love that card. If we get those and swords to plowshares that's all I want personally.
I have foil playset of mercadian masques and FNM counterspell that I picked up recently.
I am also going to buy some baleful strix because I love that card. If we get those and swords to plowshares that's all I want personally.
As much as I wish it were so, I don't really believe they will actually give us Swords to Plowshares. With that being said, I did hedge my bets and pick up a couple judge foils
I do feel strongly that Counterspell will make it in though so I made sure to pick up my foil copies of that.
Even if SFM is unbanned there is no way wizards ever reprints her in standard regardless of the power level of the equipment in the format at the time. Her being previously banned in standard is very different than her being banned in a non rotating format like modern
Not that I think they'll actually print her in Standard, but SFM was actually fine in Standard until they printed Batterskull. If the equipment in the format isn't good, she's not even playable.
Well I hope they know something about War of the Spark or Modern Horizons that we don't cause I don't see this being self corrected.
Phoenix hasn't really been around that long. It took people a while to find that deck, so it's only been putting up results for like 3 months. People will figure out how to beat it. The players who play the deck probably already know what beats it. I remember when people thought GDS was unstoppable back in 2017. I had been playing the deck since right after the Jund version broke out in GP Vancouver because I love shoving blue cards into a good deck and making it a bad deck. Turns out the blue cards were actually good this time, though, lol. I knew the deck had some very serious vulnerabilities, though, and others who played it knew what its weaknesses were as well. It took the meta in general a while to figure that out, though. I remember so many people calling for bans, but they left it and people eventually figured out how to beat it.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
If it weren't for the three Modern GPs in March and Modern Horizons on the horizon (ba-dum tss), this sort of announcement, lacking any information regarding the overall format, would be disappointing. However, there's honestly no point in announcing bans/unbans or relaying thoughts on the current meta when 250 new-to-modern cards are about to be dumped into the card-pool; the sheer number of cards introduces a metric *****-load of new variables that will almost surely re-shape the metagame into something that will look much different than it does today. Sure, current T1 archetypes likely won't fall off the face of the Earth or anything, but unless all of those 250 cards end up being absolute garbage (highly unlikely), there will be an exciting period of uncertainty in Modern while players brew/experiment with their new toys.
Think back over the last 3-5 years of Modern and recall all the instances when the addition/removal of a single card/new-found strategy impacted the format (e.g. Death's Shadow, Twin/Pod ban, Dredge-enablers, Hollow One, Arclight, Push, etc); now extrapolate that to include 250 cards coming directly from Legacy's card pool or designed specifically with Modern's power level in mind. Even if 200 of those cards end up being draft fodder and/or "unplayable", we're still looking at a major meta shakeup post-horizons.
If it weren't for the three Modern GPs in March and Modern Horizons on the horizon (ba-dum tss), this sort of announcement, lacking any information regarding the overall format, would be disappointing. However, there's honestly no point in announcing bans/unbans or relaying thoughts on the current meta when 250 new-to-modern cards are about to be dumped into the card-pool; the sheer number of cards introduces a metric *****-load of new variables that will almost surely re-shape the metagame into something that will look much different than it does today. Sure, current T1 archetypes likely won't fall off the face of the Earth or anything, but unless all of those 250 cards end up being absolute garbage (highly unlikely), there will be an exciting period of uncertainty in Modern while players brew/experiment with their new toys.
Think back over the last 3-5 years of Modern and recall all the instances when the addition/removal of a single card/new-found strategy impacted the format (e.g. Death's Shadow, Twin/Pod ban, Dredge-enablers, Hollow One, Arclight, Push, etc); now extrapolate that to include 250 cards coming directly from Legacy's card pool or designed specifically with Modern's power level in mind. Even if 200 of those cards end up being draft fodder and/or "unplayable", we're still looking at a major meta shakeup post-horizons.
Yes, it's super exciting! Although I'd be lying if I didn't also say that I feel a little trepidation at having my in-the-mail deck that I just bought get invalidated within the next 4-6 months. Granted, it was silly to buy in to a new deck with everything coming, but I didn't have much of a choice, the money was catching my pants on fire....
Wizards isn't going to ban anything with multiple GP and the MC around the corner. Doubly so with MH also coming soon. But I think this might change depending on the MC results. Right now, I would pick Izzet Phoenix as the hands-down frontrunner at the MC. That's not to say it's the best deck: I don't think we have definitive MWP data to prove that. But it is probably perceived as the best deck by pro players, and is the type of turbo-Xerox deck with proactive/reactive elements that pros love. It's an easy pick up with a high ceiling, and given how much time pros have put into Arena and Standard, many will look for the most obvious and immediately appealing Modern contender. This could lead to an over-inflated Phoenix presence at the MC relative to the broader metagame.
This sort of high profile dominance could result in Wizards taking action, especially if preceded by similar GP results. But we need to see those results collectively to make a prediction. It's easy to isolate GP LA as an example of Modern ugliness, but GP Toronto, a mere month earlier, was a lot cleaner. Wizards will likely take a similar view; just look at their treatment of 2018 GP as proof of this conservative approach.
Wizards isn't going to ban anything with multiple GP and the MC around the corner. Doubly so with MH also coming soon. But I think this might change depending on the MC results. Right now, I would pick Izzet Phoenix as the hands-down frontrunner at the MC. That's not to say it's the best deck: I don't think we have definitive MWP data to prove that. But it is probably perceived as the best deck by pro players, and is the type of turbo-Xerox deck with proactive/reactive elements that pros love. It's an easy pick up with a high ceiling, and given how much time pros have put into Arena and Standard, many will look for the most obvious and immediately appealing Modern contender. This could lead to an over-inflated Phoenix presence at the MC relative to the broader metagame.
This sort of high profile dominance could result in Wizards taking action, especially if preceded by similar GP results. But we need to see those results collectively to make a prediction. It's easy to isolate GP LA as an example of Modern ugliness, but GP Toronto, a mere month earlier, was a lot cleaner. Wizards will likely take a similar view; just look at their treatment of 2018 GP as proof of this conservative approach.
You highlighted one of the main issues Modern has. It's one of the favorite formats of the general playerbase, however not all of the pros play it since Standard is where most of the general action is for them. When they have to play it they usually just pick the so-called "best deck". When the pros flock all to the best deck available usually that decks tends to overperform, not necessarily due to raw power. Pros make less bad decisions, which in turn rewards them, even when playing the wrong deck of the week. This leads to the general population to flock to that deck as well because they feel that if the pros are playing that must be the right choice. This leads to an extreme overrepresentation of certain decks that may lead to the banmaniacs to start typing their angry tweets/posts or just say stupid things on twitch (Hoogland and his crew's M.O.). This happened with GDS last year and is happening now with Phoenix.
I think Phoenix has the potential to generate more polarized points of view than GDS, mainly due to those obscene turn 2 double Phoenix. They may not come up all that often but it certainly makes you feel helpless.
To summarize, I think nothing needs to be addressed up until both War of the Spark and Modern Horizons settle down. We'll have 36 PWs plus a couple of goodies from War of the Spark to pick from, plus over 200 reprints or cards designed for modern to play with that will shake the foundations of the format.
Exciting time to be a Modern player! Those sets couldn't come fast enough!
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Currently Playing: WUMiracles ControlUW RUBGrixis Death's ShadowBUR
I feel like "it will be better soon" is something I've been saying for several years. So I'm skeptical that anything meaningful can be done at this point, without nuking the format and starting over. Maybe Horizon will do that? /shrug
Wizards isn't going to ban anything with multiple GP and the MC around the corner. Doubly so with MH also coming soon. But I think this might change depending on the MC results. Right now, I would pick Izzet Phoenix as the hands-down frontrunner at the MC. That's not to say it's the best deck: I don't think we have definitive MWP data to prove that. But it is probably perceived as the best deck by pro players, and is the type of turbo-Xerox deck with proactive/reactive elements that pros love. It's an easy pick up with a high ceiling, and given how much time pros have put into Arena and Standard, many will look for the most obvious and immediately appealing Modern contender. This could lead to an over-inflated Phoenix presence at the MC relative to the broader metagame.
This sort of high profile dominance could result in Wizards taking action, especially if preceded by similar GP results. But we need to see those results collectively to make a prediction. It's easy to isolate GP LA as an example of Modern ugliness, but GP Toronto, a mere month earlier, was a lot cleaner. Wizards will likely take a similar view; just look at their treatment of 2018 GP as proof of this conservative approach.
You highlighted one of the main issues Modern has. It's one of the favorite formats of the general playerbase, however not all of the pros play it since Standard is where most of the general action is for them. When they have to play it they usually just pick the so-called "best deck". When the pros flock all to the best deck available usually that decks tends to overperform, not necessarily due to raw power. Pros make less bad decisions, which in turn rewards them, even when playing the wrong deck of the week. This leads to the general population to flock to that deck as well because they feel that if the pros are playing that must be the right choice. This leads to an extreme overrepresentation of certain decks that may lead to the banmaniacs to start typing their angry tweets/posts or just say stupid things on twitch (Hoogland and his crew's M.O.). This happened with GDS last year and is happening now with Phoenix.
I think Phoenix has the potential to generate more polarized points of view than GDS, mainly due to those obscene turn 2 double Phoenix. They may not come up all that often but it certainly makes you feel helpless.
To summarize, I think nothing needs to be addressed up until both War of the Spark and Modern Horizons settle down. We'll have 36 PWs plus a couple of goodies from War of the Spark to pick from, plus over 200 reprints or cards designed for modern to play with that will shake the foundations of the format.
Exciting time to be a Modern player! Those sets couldn't come fast enough!
I think you've just described the reason why Wizards cut mtgo data. They want to hide the best deck or the perceived best one to avoid meta polarizations (true ones if the deck is the real best deck. Artificial if the deck is only the flavor of the moment.)
Just my two cents.
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Decks played: Modern:
0 Affinity;
URG Delver
URGW Countercats
(Here you can find some video contents about Countercats and Temur Delver decks)
Paul Cheon and Melissa De Tora speak about how everything is totally fine in Modern at the moment.
If that's truly the view of WOTC, I might as well sell my cards now. That's extremely disappointing. But then again, these are the same group of people who claim UW is the 2nd best deck in Modern, and Jeskai is 3rd...
Isn’t there some conflict when you say Modern is one of the best it’s ever been then also say “Modern will hopefully self regulate itself”? I’m not saying you need to show some panic that Modern is going to crumble or anything, I just think these two sentiments look strange together.
I guess the question is: Does Modern need to change (self regulate) or is it good to stay as is?
good. the folks at wotc may **** up on aesthetics, design and storyline a lot, but at least they don't go around banning things idiotically (most of the time, i mean)
good. the folks at wotc may **** up on aesthetics, design and storyline a lot, but at least they don't go around banning things idiotically (most of the time, i mean)
Seems like you are playing the wrong game my friend.
good. the folks at wotc may **** up on aesthetics, design and storyline a lot, but at least they don't go around banning things idiotically (most of the time, i mean)
Seems like you are playing the wrong game my friend.
why? MtG is the best game of its kind. I'm not fond of some aspects of its present state, but it's a great game still. did i sound that negative?
I mean Control is on Life Support. I suppose if you like swinging with creatures the state of modern is strong.
I agree. This is a wonderful time to learn how to race your opponents and learn what hands to keep against potential quick racing hands. Other aspects of the game just don't matter much. I didn't play against a single Control deck in 20 Rounds of the GP and PPTQs. The best results for 2 Control players I've seen at local tournaments is a top 4 and a 9th place. There were probably around 10 others that failed to come close to that, despite being very good players.
Then again, "very good players" know what decks to play that will do well, so maybe I need to readjust my own thinking on that wording?
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I mean We have seen some UWx but the only one guy can essentially do anything with UB Faeries
One of our local good Control players (even won a 54 person store invitational qualifier on Cruel Control) ran Faeries at our 45 person Invitational Qualifier (different LGS a year apart) this Saturday and dropped after 3 rounds. I saw on FB that he went 4-0 at FNM the day before, but I briefly talked to him on the way out. He loved trying Faeries, but the meta was just too tough for him at this tournament. He said he read some of Yuta Takahashi's translated playing guide and some of the ideas were out there. Very interesting stuff, as Faeries was a deck that I used in Standard to just demolish opponents who played inferior decks. My, how times have changed, lol. (Modern being a much stronger format of course.)
For what it's worth, our meta had Burn, UR Phoenix, Ad Nauseam, and Dredge as the most played decks. I feel like these can all be tough for the Fae.
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)
Well I hope they know something about War of the Spark or Modern Horizons that we don't cause I don't see this being self corrected.
They do; they know 250 legacy/built-for-modern cards will be dumped into the format three months from now. Any qualms with the format will fall on deaf ears, because the announcement of MH included an expiratory date being slapped onto the lifespan of the current meta. Since 2015, roughly 1/3 of the discussion in this thread has been empty rhetoric about the banning of one single card and how that incident is the root cause for all things ***** in Modern. Thus, it's reasonable to argue that any complaints regarding perceived issues with the present format are irrelevant until we see what happens in t-minus three months when Modern is blasted in the ass with not one, but 250 new cards.
Well my issue is more they should have just said that...I mean the argument cannot be we want the format to stabilize when in a few months they plan to inject 250 new cards into Modern. Just say we want to see the impact of Modern Horizons and the London Mulligan before we make any new ban decisions.
Ok, that's understandable and I would agree. IMO, they took the safe route staying silent, because there's a non-zero chance that taking a shotgun approach to shaking up Modern with 250 unknown variables will completely blow up in their faces and the last thing they would want on record is a B&R where they're quoted saying something along the lines of, "Our plan with MH is to make modern great again, so we're holding off on any major decisions until we see how awesome that turns out". Like I mentioned in a previous comment, normally I'm pissed when we get these announcements that are void of any reasoning or explanation, however, I think it's same to assume Modern will look much different come June, so that'll be when I'm expecting to hear what WotC has to say about the format as a whole.
Oh I agree we got 36 Walkers you assume at least a few will be Modern Playable and perhaps some of the other cards. Then you got Horizons and between that a New Mulligan Rule to test now I figure the new mulligan rule will basically make the rich richer ie Izzet Phoenix and Dredge will love it. It could help control I suppose but that depends more on the quality of the support cards ie the counters and wipes 3 CMC and below at least conditionally that show up in Horizons.
I've been saying for literal years that Control needs one of two things: a timely win condition that inspires fear, or otherwise causes opponents to hold back and slow their deployment of their aggressive strategy, OR a complete overhaul of dozens of new tools to be able to combat against the onslaught of powerful, fast, and linear decks attacking on dozens of different angles. It'd be awesome to get both, but until either of those things happen, Control will never be more than a second class deck that will randomly be hot for a month or two then fade back into irrelevance.
I have foil playset of mercadian masques and FNM counterspell that I picked up recently.
I am also going to buy some baleful strix because I love that card. If we get those and swords to plowshares that's all I want personally.
I do feel strongly that Counterspell will make it in though so I made sure to pick up my foil copies of that.
Phoenix hasn't really been around that long. It took people a while to find that deck, so it's only been putting up results for like 3 months. People will figure out how to beat it. The players who play the deck probably already know what beats it. I remember when people thought GDS was unstoppable back in 2017. I had been playing the deck since right after the Jund version broke out in GP Vancouver because I love shoving blue cards into a good deck and making it a bad deck. Turns out the blue cards were actually good this time, though, lol. I knew the deck had some very serious vulnerabilities, though, and others who played it knew what its weaknesses were as well. It took the meta in general a while to figure that out, though. I remember so many people calling for bans, but they left it and people eventually figured out how to beat it.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Think back over the last 3-5 years of Modern and recall all the instances when the addition/removal of a single card/new-found strategy impacted the format (e.g. Death's Shadow, Twin/Pod ban, Dredge-enablers, Hollow One, Arclight, Push, etc); now extrapolate that to include 250 cards coming directly from Legacy's card pool or designed specifically with Modern's power level in mind. Even if 200 of those cards end up being draft fodder and/or "unplayable", we're still looking at a major meta shakeup post-horizons.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
Yes, it's super exciting! Although I'd be lying if I didn't also say that I feel a little trepidation at having my in-the-mail deck that I just bought get invalidated within the next 4-6 months. Granted, it was silly to buy in to a new deck with everything coming, but I didn't have much of a choice, the money was catching my pants on fire....
This sort of high profile dominance could result in Wizards taking action, especially if preceded by similar GP results. But we need to see those results collectively to make a prediction. It's easy to isolate GP LA as an example of Modern ugliness, but GP Toronto, a mere month earlier, was a lot cleaner. Wizards will likely take a similar view; just look at their treatment of 2018 GP as proof of this conservative approach.
I think Phoenix has the potential to generate more polarized points of view than GDS, mainly due to those obscene turn 2 double Phoenix. They may not come up all that often but it certainly makes you feel helpless.
To summarize, I think nothing needs to be addressed up until both War of the Spark and Modern Horizons settle down. We'll have 36 PWs plus a couple of goodies from War of the Spark to pick from, plus over 200 reprints or cards designed for modern to play with that will shake the foundations of the format.
Exciting time to be a Modern player! Those sets couldn't come fast enough!
WUMiracles ControlUW
RUBGrixis Death's ShadowBUR
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Just my two cents.
Modern:
If that's truly the view of WOTC, I might as well sell my cards now. That's extremely disappointing. But then again, these are the same group of people who claim UW is the 2nd best deck in Modern, and Jeskai is 3rd...
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I guess the question is: Does Modern need to change (self regulate) or is it good to stay as is?
"Reveal a Dragon"
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
why? MtG is the best game of its kind. I'm not fond of some aspects of its present state, but it's a great game still. did i sound that negative?
I agree. This is a wonderful time to learn how to race your opponents and learn what hands to keep against potential quick racing hands. Other aspects of the game just don't matter much. I didn't play against a single Control deck in 20 Rounds of the GP and PPTQs. The best results for 2 Control players I've seen at local tournaments is a top 4 and a 9th place. There were probably around 10 others that failed to come close to that, despite being very good players.
Then again, "very good players" know what decks to play that will do well, so maybe I need to readjust my own thinking on that wording?
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)One of our local good Control players (even won a 54 person store invitational qualifier on Cruel Control) ran Faeries at our 45 person Invitational Qualifier (different LGS a year apart) this Saturday and dropped after 3 rounds. I saw on FB that he went 4-0 at FNM the day before, but I briefly talked to him on the way out. He loved trying Faeries, but the meta was just too tough for him at this tournament. He said he read some of Yuta Takahashi's translated playing guide and some of the ideas were out there. Very interesting stuff, as Faeries was a deck that I used in Standard to just demolish opponents who played inferior decks. My, how times have changed, lol. (Modern being a much stronger format of course.)
For what it's worth, our meta had Burn, UR Phoenix, Ad Nauseam, and Dredge as the most played decks. I feel like these can all be tough for the Fae.
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)They do; they know 250 legacy/built-for-modern cards will be dumped into the format three months from now. Any qualms with the format will fall on deaf ears, because the announcement of MH included an expiratory date being slapped onto the lifespan of the current meta. Since 2015, roughly 1/3 of the discussion in this thread has been empty rhetoric about the banning of one single card and how that incident is the root cause for all things ***** in Modern. Thus, it's reasonable to argue that any complaints regarding perceived issues with the present format are irrelevant until we see what happens in t-minus three months when Modern is blasted in the ass with not one, but 250 new cards.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
This is every deck in Modern.
GWUBRDraft my Old Border Nostalgia Cube! and/or The Little Pauper Cube That Could!RBUWG
Modern:WDeath & TaxesW | RUGRUG DelverRUG
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate