I know something new is coming, but shucks, this was always the first place I came to read about decks I was building. Even just the other week when I was building GDS.
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Modern: UR Gifts Storm URB Grixis Death's Shadow R12 Bolt
Pauper: UR Puzzle Pieces
EDH: UB Phenax, God of Deception UR The Locust God UR Saheeli the Gifted WBG Anafenza, the Foremost
"You can only play degenerate things", then you look at the metagame and see that Humans and UW Control are Tier1. Affinity, if you sum up Hardened Scales and the classic Robots, also is. UR Phoenix is a very interactive deck, although it does unfair things. The only tiers who aren't fair are Gx Tron and Dredge.
Then, we've got a lot of Tier 1,5 strategies. There are both fair and unfair decks. Amulet Titan, Grixis Shadow, Titanshift, Spirits, Storm, etcetera.
HOW is this metagame non-sensical? Please tell me. Argue with real reasons, not with "I prefer playing x, y, z".
"You can only play degenerate things", then you look at the metagame and see that Humans and UW Control are Tier1. Affinity, if you sum up Hardened Scales and the classic Robots, also is. UR Phoenix is a very interactive deck, although it does unfair things. The only tiers who aren't fair are Gx Tron and Dredge.
Then, we've got a lot of Tier 1,5 strategies. There are both fair and unfair decks. Amulet Titan, Grixis Shadow, Titanshift, Spirits, Storm, etcetera.
HOW is this metagame non-sensical? Please tell me. Argue with real reasons, not with "I prefer playing x, y, z".
what or who is this aimed at? no one said anything about only being able to play degenerate decks or anything about the meta being nonsensical.
it making sense and people expressing their dislike of it are different things. we were just talking about whether or not ur phoenix qualifies as a degenerate deck and general thoughts on deck classifications, which at this point we can safely say a lot of modern players arent on the same page when it comes down to specifics thanks to varying internalized definitions.
look at the decks you listed:
-amulet
-tron
-dredge
-titanshift
-GDS
-storm
-spirits
-humans
-affinity (assuming you include hardened scales as well)
-humans
-UW control
all the above have interactive elements (to some degree), distinctly different or unique play patterns, and generally enough going on to be skill testing. however you can also see that its heavily skewed towards proactive decks built in a fashion that frequently has them running past or just through eachother. some more decks:
-infect
-burn
-GB rock
-goryo's
-devoted company
-eldrazi and taxes // eldrazi stompy
-mono-r prison
-hollow one
i mean the list goes on forever. seems great right? still has those good things i mentioned above. however its still the same with a heavy skewing towards the proactively inclined. at this point its almost a requirement for any deck to carve out a spot, because on some level you just need something to power through and leverage your skill when you can, and leverage your deck (to win) when you cant.
all of this makes sense. its just a byproduct of so many decks doing so many wildly different, yet similarly powerful, things. is this more or less 'healthy' than a format more grounded in a subset of powerful responsive tools and thus more focused such as legacy? i dunno, different formats are different. regardless though it doesnt preclude people from disliking certain aspects, the types of decks seeing a lot of play, and or wishing for a shift in (at the least) in a different direction.
its like ktkenshinx has been saying, modern is trying to do a whole lot, and at the end of the day some people have to endure disappointment and unrealized expectations; or...just not play modern
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
I may have comprehension issues, but sentences such as:
The format feels awful because playing against Dredge, Phoenix, Hollow One, Tron, and Titan all the time is pretty awful
are all over this thread.
its like ktkenshinx has been saying, modern is trying to do a whole lot, and at the end of the day some people have to endure disappointment and unrealized expectations; or...just not play modern
I never said Phoenix is as fair as Jund/UWx (which have "degenerate" plays like cheating on mana with BBE and Terminus or ignoring timing restrictions -more evident now with T3feri) or just "fair".
Phoenix is a mesh of aggro/tempo/combo elements which show depending on their opening hands and which turn of the game you are in. It isn't a monolithic aggro/combo deck that wants to smash face as fast as possible, it can and will grind.
My problem is with putting Phoenix on the same level of "degeneracy" as Dredge, Griselbrand decks etc. If Phoenix is degenerate on that level, then the decks I mentioned in my previous post are also degenerate if not more, because their fastest draws beat Phoenix dead. Words like "degenerate" have been bestowed with (severe) negative connotations that provide nuance. If you're fine with completely different things being lumped together and described with the same term, then ok, but it isn't based on their inherent structural properties. Dredge abuses the graveyard and needs it to win, while Phoenix simply uses it as a resource, as many decks are doing (including Jund/Rock and UWx), just with more intensity. There's a fundamental difference there.
That was the point of my previous post, degenerate is a subset of unfair decks, and Phoenix is (probably most of the time) an unfair deck which modern has plenty, not degenerate. (Ab)Using that loaded term as one and the same as "unfair" will get us nowhere, the words have differing intensity. We as a community should start distinguishing and establishing those terms if we want to have a conversation where we're all on the same wavelength and not just flailing around. It will help keep the conversation grounded and probably help fit decks in molds faster.
Most posters here have established that every deck is on a sliding scale of linearity/reactiveness/degeneracy, whatever. Just because someone used the word "degenerate" doesn't mean that it's 100% BS combo or whatever, just that the sliding scale is farther on the degenerate/unfair side of things versus the fair side. I see your point of using unfair instead of degenerate as 'lighter' language, but I think most of us see the caveat of it being the sliding scale, moreso than a black-and-white definition. Just my $0.02, /shrug.
"You can only play degenerate things", then you look at the metagame and see that Humans and UW Control are Tier1. Affinity, if you sum up Hardened Scales and the classic Robots, also is. UR Phoenix is a very interactive deck, although it does unfair things. The only tiers who aren't fair are Gx Tron and Dredge.
Then, we've got a lot of Tier 1,5 strategies. There are both fair and unfair decks. Amulet Titan, Grixis Shadow, Titanshift, Spirits, Storm, etcetera.
HOW is this metagame non-sensical? Please tell me. Argue with real reasons, not with "I prefer playing x, y, z".
No need to get upset. Some people might be having a bad time playing against or maybe getting tired having to play repeatedly against some of those decks, and just want to vent here on the thread.
On personal experience, my UW has two remorseful cleric in the main now because the loot decks are still going strong.
Nobody is upset. Just pointing out that the format IS sane. If you dislike degenerate decks in such a way that you can't afford to play against one or two in five/six rounds, than you shouldn't play Modern. If you want to play (or play against) Midrange every time, again, that doesn't mean Modern isn't a well-rounded format.
There's a difference between personal preferences and objective truths.
A curated online metagame spreadsheet that shows healthy ratios and numbers might be an objective truth, but it could also mean absolutely nothing in the context of a local environment.
Telling someone that certain fair decks have a good metagame share on mtggoldfish or whatever mean jack ***** when they could actually be playing against tron/dredge/H1/Phoenix 3/4 of the time locally which causes the negative feelings towards the format.
Online stats do not magically invalidate someone's local experience of Modern.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
I may have comprehension issues, but sentences such as:
The format feels awful because playing against Dredge, Phoenix, Hollow One, Tron, and Titan all the time is pretty awful
are all over this thread.
its like ktkenshinx has been saying, modern is trying to do a whole lot, and at the end of the day some people have to endure disappointment and unrealized expectations; or...just not play modern
I agree with this statement.
Are you implying that my experience is not valid because it doesn't match your experience?
Believe me, I would love nothing more than to play against BGx and blue mirrors all day every day, but that's just not what happens, especially where I play.
So... what? GTFO? Go play Standard, where my deck rotates every year? Go play Legacy where I could buy a car for the price of a manabase, and paper events don't fire because there's no support from players? Or grit my teeth, play the format I used to love with decks that I enjoy, and hope that one day it's not a sh*tstorm of degenerate nonsense and feelbads? Maybe Horizons changes that? Judging from the "Commander Masters" design of the set, perhaps our expectations for these things helping slow down the format or make things more interactive were a bit optimistic.
As I have said multiple times, the format becomes much better when you don't actually care about winning. The top of Modern is a painfully degenerate garbagefire that, on the whole, creates awful play patterns. Once that is accepted, along with losing the need to actually win, the format is at least tolerable. Especially for those lucky enough not to face the top of Modern, and instead get to smash a bunch of mediocre T2 and 3 decks against each other. That is great fun.
The top of Modern is a painfully degenerate garbagefire that, on the whole, creates awful play patterns
I just demonstrated you that your argument is invalid with data. Again, anyone can argue about anything, but spreading disinformation is just not the way to go.
Believe me, I would love nothing more than to play against BGx and blue mirrors all day every day
You. Others don't. And that hasn't anything to do with the format being healthy.
You. Others don't. And that hasn't anything to do with the format being healthy.
I think you missed the point made by a few people.
'Modern' is only healthy based on the metrics, teirs, and play experiences once chooses to pull from.
If my local shop was nothing but Tron and Phoenix, is that a healthy meta?
If my local shop was nothing but Eldrazi and Grishoalbrand, is that a healthy meta?
If my local shop was nothing but the 'winners meta' of Modern, is THAT a healthy meta?
The only healthy meta, is the one we see at the highest vantage point looking down. The one that has Tier 2 decks as 'somewhat playable' when at the highest level of play, they are anything but.
What Wizards think is a healthy meta is one thing, what one experiences, can be WILDLY different.
What should I say, that one's unlucky because in its shop only degenerate decks are played? I mean, it can happens, but how has that anything to do with the fact that the current Modern IS a well-rounded format?
I don't see how this is even a reasoning for complaining about WOTC. If local players are 9 out of 10 on Burn the issue isn't "Modern".
I was saying that but then I though I had some comprehension issue and scrapped it.
My LGS everyone is super competitive and only plays T1/T1.5 decks... Sometimes it's cool but can be a nuisance if you're looking to brew something new you'll just get stomped really hard. Then since it's super diverse, almost GP level diversity, you can't build your deck around that (specially important when playing UW Control which is one my main decks).
What should I take from this? Is this supposed to be a bad meta and thus Modern be a bad format? Should this be a good meta and Modern should be understood as being amazing?
In reality, I believe the format is ok, even though I hate playing against Dredge and Tron (specially when I know they are bad players...). What matters is what Wizards sees with the paper and online results and that's the objective discussion I believe we should have when addressing this issue. Even if our LGS has a stupid and obnoxious meta.
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In reality, I believe the format is ok, even though I hate playing against Dredge and Tron (specially when I know they are bad players...). What matters is what Wizards sees with the paper and online results and that's the objective discussion I believe we should have when addressing this issue. Even if our LGS has a stupid and obnoxious meta.
Exactly this.
I also hate playing vs Dredge (just saying) but I can't complain about its presence in the metagame.
I think what makes the game so frustrating is that aside from the baked in issues of drawing random cards - the vast majority of the player base assuming there hasn't been a wild shift in age since I last looked, doesn't have the discretionary income to maneuver a meta shift.
I love playing modern elves but when my opponents are plopping down haymakers on t3-4 that essentially win the game or ripping through 4+ spells a turn with value on the backend it can't compete.
What is frustrating about modern to me is that it really is legacy lite. There are very few "affordable" decks and if I were 15 and sweating my butt off for hours a week making minimum wage just for crap like Phoenix to hit the meta and largely invalidate my deck in the local meta I would throw my hands up and give up.
One of the things I dislike about the game is people specifically hating on particular decks locally. If all I can afford is fetchless storm and I run hot one week, how depressing is it for everyone in the room to pack 2-4 dampening spheres next week...it's the pinnacle of poor sportsmanship in my eyes.
Locally I've seen a bunch of great players with great attitudes fall out of love with the game before they hit the tournament scene because the price barrier of the format stops them from switching decks/archetypes to be able to play and grow locally. There are a lot of, imho not so small, negative hurdles one has to overcome if you decide to play at the higher end tournaments.
Shrug, the only issue here is that to some people, having a bunch of different deck types are good. And that's the be-all-end-all.
Which is true, it is a good thing.
But on the other side of the fence, you realise that a majority of those decks generate very similar type of gameplay. Sit down vs tron/dredge/burn/affinity etc you know almost exactly what's going to happen and how the game and match is going to play out. For the most part, win or lose, there isn't anything thought-provoking about the match. Are there interesting gameplay decisions to be made? Occasionally maybe.
And that's not a knock against those decks or people who enjoy playing those decks. They're made to do their thing efficiently.
The decks do different things but the general blueprint of how the game progresses is the same.
The only "unfair" deck that's interesting to play against imo is UR Phoenix and that's only because of how flexible it is at switching roles and its multiple angles of attack.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
One of the things I dislike about the game is people specifically hating on particular decks locally. If all I can afford is fetchless storm and I run hot one week, how depressing is it for everyone in the room to pack 2-4 dampening spheres next week...it's the pinnacle of poor sportsmanship in my eyes.
Yes, this is definitely not fun. I still recall the time when Ravnica was spoilered, I was playing something similar to MUC (Next Level Blue?) and my local opponents - bad at playing MTG - decided to go full Choke and the likes of them in the sideboard for postboard games. Welp, there are people hating on someone else in every context, Magic is no exception. Poor sportsmanship, that's exactly it.
Its certainly not poor sportsmanship lol. 'WTF you guys are dropping into a zone when I need to get a 30 yard pass? Not fair, stuff 8 into the box and blitz instead please'.
What is frustrating about modern to me is that it really is legacy lite. There are very few "affordable" decks and if I were 15 and sweating my butt off for hours a week making minimum wage just for crap like Phoenix to hit the meta and largely invalidate my deck in the local meta I would throw my hands up and give up.
One of the things I dislike about the game is people specifically hating on particular decks locally. If all I can afford is fetchless storm and I run hot one week, how depressing is it for everyone in the room to pack 2-4 dampening spheres next week...it's the pinnacle of poor sportsmanship in my eyes.
I sympathize with the fact that Modern isn't a format that is cheap to get into. To be fair Magic as a whole isn't a cheap hobby and we can't blame the format's health for that. When I was in college money was so tight that I couldn't enter Modern with a big deck. I couldn't afford keeping up with Standard either... I bought into a cheap tier 3 deck and slowly built a tier 1 deck (Tron for that matter...). After being able to sustain myself I slowly bought all the staples of the format, or at least the ones I wanted to play.
My path was Eggs (followed by a ban in less than 1 month) -> GW Hatebears -> Tron -> RUG Scapeshift -> BTL -> Esper Control (when it was really bad) -> GDS -> UW Control
Meanwhile I have the cards to play pretty much every deck aside from Phoenix and Dredge, because I don't own Phoenixes and don't like Dredge as a playstyle.
When I was getting a beating by all the good decks when I was playing Hatebears I didn't complain... I was doing what I could and trying to win the matches I was able to. When I was playing Tron and autolosing against Twin every game and winning against Melira every game... I didn't complain about the format even though it made me super mad to just lose to Twin! The bottomline is don't judge the format by your own personal experience because it will sound a bit disconnected to the "bigger picture" and leading to more frustration when things don't go "your way".
About people metagaming FNMs it makes me super mad. Me and my 2 teammates, we have a rule that is to build the deck and SB like if it was a GP and we have a broad SB because of that and we follow the Paper and Online trends. For my deck in particular (UW Control) it's a really poor decision because it's one of the decks where you play with 75 more than 60. In contrast there are a couple of guys in my LGS that have brought Chokes in their sideboards when I was the only guy in the room playing Islands... The chances of finding me between 4 rounds are very slim... but for some reason they don't like to lose to me. Sometimes I take it as a compliment sometimes it makes me super mad. It's just the way it is. Try and focus on the times you beat the hell out of them even after they metagame for you.
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One of the things I dislike about the game is people specifically hating on particular decks locally. If all I can afford is fetchless storm and I run hot one week, how depressing is it for everyone in the room to pack 2-4 dampening spheres next week...it's the pinnacle of poor sportsmanship in my eyes.
Yes, this is definitely not fun. I still recall the time when Ravnica was spoilered, I was playing something similar to MUC (Next Level Blue?) and my local opponents - bad at playing MTG - decided to go full Choke and the likes of them in the sideboard for postboard games. Welp, there are people hating on someone else in every context, Magic is no exception. Poor sportsmanship, that's exactly it.
Yes it can be annoying, but I don't at all think that it's poor sportmanship, it's great local metagaming. If I know that there is a bunch of tron/prison at my LGS and I load up 3 ceremonious rejection in my board, is that me being a poor sport? I definitely don't see it that way, but to each their own.
being able to metagame against a narrower more known field is a good part of underpowered or fringe stuff succeeding. it looks stupid from the perspective of someone with a top competitive deck sleeving up dedicated hate for some budget deck; which probably just says something about that person and their motivations. from the other side though, using the example of choke; is it unsportsmanlike for someone on a budget mono-G stompy deck to get some chokes if his meta is infested with islands? no of course not.
likewise if people start packing hate against you, you go to the next level and look for ways around it. that is what meta-gaming is - the game above and outside the game. maybe modern has just been in this non-meta state with all its 'diversity' that people dont see it like that anymore. fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your perspective, a common characteristic of top modern decks has been their robust and therefore hard to pin nature. decks need to be able to do everything, sideboards need to cover everything, etc. so more often we see entire decks rise up to counter one another, which drives people to the idea of needing to be able to switch decks to keep up.
likewise if people start packing hate against you, you go to the next level and look for ways around it. that is what meta-gaming is - the game above and outside the game. maybe modern has just been in this non-meta state with all its 'diversity' that people dont see it like that anymore. fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your perspective, a common characteristic of top modern decks has been their robust and therefore hard to pin nature. decks need to be able to do everything, sideboards need to cover everything, etc. so more often we see entire decks rise up to counter one another, which drives people to the idea of needing to be able to switch decks to keep up.
I honestly wonder if thats part of what some people think makes Modern great. The ability to not be meta gamed against, which we know in smaller meta's is not possible to avoid.
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UW Spirits
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Also, unban Twin.
Pauper: UR Puzzle Pieces
EDH: UB Phenax, God of Deception UR The Locust God UR Saheeli the Gifted WBG Anafenza, the Foremost
"You can only play degenerate things", then you look at the metagame and see that Humans and UW Control are Tier1. Affinity, if you sum up Hardened Scales and the classic Robots, also is. UR Phoenix is a very interactive deck, although it does unfair things. The only tiers who aren't fair are Gx Tron and Dredge.
Then, we've got a lot of Tier 1,5 strategies. There are both fair and unfair decks. Amulet Titan, Grixis Shadow, Titanshift, Spirits, Storm, etcetera.
HOW is this metagame non-sensical? Please tell me. Argue with real reasons, not with "I prefer playing x, y, z".
it making sense and people expressing their dislike of it are different things. we were just talking about whether or not ur phoenix qualifies as a degenerate deck and general thoughts on deck classifications, which at this point we can safely say a lot of modern players arent on the same page when it comes down to specifics thanks to varying internalized definitions.
look at the decks you listed:
-amulet
-tron
-dredge
-titanshift
-GDS
-storm
-spirits
-humans
-affinity (assuming you include hardened scales as well)
-humans
-UW control
all the above have interactive elements (to some degree), distinctly different or unique play patterns, and generally enough going on to be skill testing. however you can also see that its heavily skewed towards proactive decks built in a fashion that frequently has them running past or just through eachother. some more decks:
-infect
-burn
-GB rock
-goryo's
-devoted company
-eldrazi and taxes // eldrazi stompy
-mono-r prison
-hollow one
i mean the list goes on forever. seems great right? still has those good things i mentioned above. however its still the same with a heavy skewing towards the proactively inclined. at this point its almost a requirement for any deck to carve out a spot, because on some level you just need something to power through and leverage your skill when you can, and leverage your deck (to win) when you cant.
all of this makes sense. its just a byproduct of so many decks doing so many wildly different, yet similarly powerful, things. is this more or less 'healthy' than a format more grounded in a subset of powerful responsive tools and thus more focused such as legacy? i dunno, different formats are different. regardless though it doesnt preclude people from disliking certain aspects, the types of decks seeing a lot of play, and or wishing for a shift in (at the least) in a different direction.
its like ktkenshinx has been saying, modern is trying to do a whole lot, and at the end of the day some people have to endure disappointment and unrealized expectations; or...just not play modern
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)are all over this thread.
I agree with this statement.
Most posters here have established that every deck is on a sliding scale of linearity/reactiveness/degeneracy, whatever. Just because someone used the word "degenerate" doesn't mean that it's 100% BS combo or whatever, just that the sliding scale is farther on the degenerate/unfair side of things versus the fair side. I see your point of using unfair instead of degenerate as 'lighter' language, but I think most of us see the caveat of it being the sliding scale, moreso than a black-and-white definition. Just my $0.02, /shrug.
No need to get upset. Some people might be having a bad time playing against or maybe getting tired having to play repeatedly against some of those decks, and just want to vent here on the thread.
On personal experience, my UW has two remorseful cleric in the main now because the loot decks are still going strong.
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There's a difference between personal preferences and objective truths.
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Telling someone that certain fair decks have a good metagame share on mtggoldfish or whatever mean jack ***** when they could actually be playing against tron/dredge/H1/Phoenix 3/4 of the time locally which causes the negative feelings towards the format.
Online stats do not magically invalidate someone's local experience of Modern.
Are you implying that my experience is not valid because it doesn't match your experience?
Believe me, I would love nothing more than to play against BGx and blue mirrors all day every day, but that's just not what happens, especially where I play.
So... what? GTFO? Go play Standard, where my deck rotates every year? Go play Legacy where I could buy a car for the price of a manabase, and paper events don't fire because there's no support from players? Or grit my teeth, play the format I used to love with decks that I enjoy, and hope that one day it's not a sh*tstorm of degenerate nonsense and feelbads? Maybe Horizons changes that? Judging from the "Commander Masters" design of the set, perhaps our expectations for these things helping slow down the format or make things more interactive were a bit optimistic.
As I have said multiple times, the format becomes much better when you don't actually care about winning. The top of Modern is a painfully degenerate garbagefire that, on the whole, creates awful play patterns. Once that is accepted, along with losing the need to actually win, the format is at least tolerable. Especially for those lucky enough not to face the top of Modern, and instead get to smash a bunch of mediocre T2 and 3 decks against each other. That is great fun.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
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I just demonstrated you that your argument is invalid with data. Again, anyone can argue about anything, but spreading disinformation is just not the way to go.
You. Others don't. And that hasn't anything to do with the format being healthy.
I think you missed the point made by a few people.
'Modern' is only healthy based on the metrics, teirs, and play experiences once chooses to pull from.
If my local shop was nothing but Tron and Phoenix, is that a healthy meta?
If my local shop was nothing but Eldrazi and Grishoalbrand, is that a healthy meta?
If my local shop was nothing but the 'winners meta' of Modern, is THAT a healthy meta?
The only healthy meta, is the one we see at the highest vantage point looking down. The one that has Tier 2 decks as 'somewhat playable' when at the highest level of play, they are anything but.
What Wizards think is a healthy meta is one thing, what one experiences, can be WILDLY different.
Spirits
I don't see how this is even a reasoning for complaining about WOTC. If local players are 9 out of 10 on Burn the issue isn't "Modern".
My LGS everyone is super competitive and only plays T1/T1.5 decks... Sometimes it's cool but can be a nuisance if you're looking to brew something new you'll just get stomped really hard. Then since it's super diverse, almost GP level diversity, you can't build your deck around that (specially important when playing UW Control which is one my main decks).
What should I take from this? Is this supposed to be a bad meta and thus Modern be a bad format? Should this be a good meta and Modern should be understood as being amazing?
In reality, I believe the format is ok, even though I hate playing against Dredge and Tron (specially when I know they are bad players...). What matters is what Wizards sees with the paper and online results and that's the objective discussion I believe we should have when addressing this issue. Even if our LGS has a stupid and obnoxious meta.
WUMiracles ControlUW
RUBGrixis Death's ShadowBUR
Exactly this.
I also hate playing vs Dredge (just saying) but I can't complain about its presence in the metagame.
It's not Eldrazi Winter, guys.
I love playing modern elves but when my opponents are plopping down haymakers on t3-4 that essentially win the game or ripping through 4+ spells a turn with value on the backend it can't compete.
What is frustrating about modern to me is that it really is legacy lite. There are very few "affordable" decks and if I were 15 and sweating my butt off for hours a week making minimum wage just for crap like Phoenix to hit the meta and largely invalidate my deck in the local meta I would throw my hands up and give up.
One of the things I dislike about the game is people specifically hating on particular decks locally. If all I can afford is fetchless storm and I run hot one week, how depressing is it for everyone in the room to pack 2-4 dampening spheres next week...it's the pinnacle of poor sportsmanship in my eyes.
Locally I've seen a bunch of great players with great attitudes fall out of love with the game before they hit the tournament scene because the price barrier of the format stops them from switching decks/archetypes to be able to play and grow locally. There are a lot of, imho not so small, negative hurdles one has to overcome if you decide to play at the higher end tournaments.
Which is true, it is a good thing.
But on the other side of the fence, you realise that a majority of those decks generate very similar type of gameplay. Sit down vs tron/dredge/burn/affinity etc you know almost exactly what's going to happen and how the game and match is going to play out. For the most part, win or lose, there isn't anything thought-provoking about the match. Are there interesting gameplay decisions to be made? Occasionally maybe.
And that's not a knock against those decks or people who enjoy playing those decks. They're made to do their thing efficiently.
The decks do different things but the general blueprint of how the game progresses is the same.
The only "unfair" deck that's interesting to play against imo is UR Phoenix and that's only because of how flexible it is at switching roles and its multiple angles of attack.
Yes, this is definitely not fun. I still recall the time when Ravnica was spoilered, I was playing something similar to MUC (Next Level Blue?) and my local opponents - bad at playing MTG - decided to go full Choke and the likes of them in the sideboard for postboard games. Welp, there are people hating on someone else in every context, Magic is no exception. Poor sportsmanship, that's exactly it.
Spirits
My path was Eggs (followed by a ban in less than 1 month) -> GW Hatebears -> Tron -> RUG Scapeshift -> BTL -> Esper Control (when it was really bad) -> GDS -> UW Control
Meanwhile I have the cards to play pretty much every deck aside from Phoenix and Dredge, because I don't own Phoenixes and don't like Dredge as a playstyle.
When I was getting a beating by all the good decks when I was playing Hatebears I didn't complain... I was doing what I could and trying to win the matches I was able to. When I was playing Tron and autolosing against Twin every game and winning against Melira every game... I didn't complain about the format even though it made me super mad to just lose to Twin! The bottomline is don't judge the format by your own personal experience because it will sound a bit disconnected to the "bigger picture" and leading to more frustration when things don't go "your way".
About people metagaming FNMs it makes me super mad. Me and my 2 teammates, we have a rule that is to build the deck and SB like if it was a GP and we have a broad SB because of that and we follow the Paper and Online trends. For my deck in particular (UW Control) it's a really poor decision because it's one of the decks where you play with 75 more than 60. In contrast there are a couple of guys in my LGS that have brought Chokes in their sideboards when I was the only guy in the room playing Islands... The chances of finding me between 4 rounds are very slim... but for some reason they don't like to lose to me. Sometimes I take it as a compliment sometimes it makes me super mad. It's just the way it is. Try and focus on the times you beat the hell out of them even after they metagame for you.
WUMiracles ControlUW
RUBGrixis Death's ShadowBUR
Yes it can be annoying, but I don't at all think that it's poor sportmanship, it's great local metagaming. If I know that there is a bunch of tron/prison at my LGS and I load up 3 ceremonious rejection in my board, is that me being a poor sport? I definitely don't see it that way, but to each their own.
likewise if people start packing hate against you, you go to the next level and look for ways around it. that is what meta-gaming is - the game above and outside the game. maybe modern has just been in this non-meta state with all its 'diversity' that people dont see it like that anymore. fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your perspective, a common characteristic of top modern decks has been their robust and therefore hard to pin nature. decks need to be able to do everything, sideboards need to cover everything, etc. so more often we see entire decks rise up to counter one another, which drives people to the idea of needing to be able to switch decks to keep up.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I honestly wonder if thats part of what some people think makes Modern great. The ability to not be meta gamed against, which we know in smaller meta's is not possible to avoid.
Spirits