- Izzet Phoenix is good
- Mono Red Phoenix is good
- Urza’s Prison is good
- Bridgevine is good
- Human is the usual beast
- UW Control has game against everyone
- Eldrazi Tron and Creature Toolbox are on the resurgence
We have, more or less, every strategy covered. Can someone explain to me how playing in this environment isn’t fine?
You'll have to forgive me, as my post history would probably show that I came to this realization late.
Objectively? Nothing is wrong with Modern right now. Even Jund appears to have found some upgrades, and if your objective is to play X type of deck, there is one for nearly everyone.
What I feel is the basis of most arguments right now, even if its not explicitly stated is that SUBJECTIVELY, people do not like the decks that make up much of Modern. People will wrap it up as if there is something wrong with the format, I myself was guilty of this, because we find the decks distasteful, but thats not a flaw, thats perception.
Surgical is our FoW, there is nothing wrong with that.
I think this is a fair statement. What our FOW is changes, it was thoughtsieze for years until the graveyard decks got better. We are looking at an unusually high number of games ending before turn 4 in this meta. With any good new deck it will warp the format for a bit, cut down on diversity, ect, ect. So there are problems, but there are pluses too. All the new MH1 cards have made big changes in many decks adding churn to the meta. Even without hogaak the meta would still be shifting due to these new changes. This churn, including hogaak, is what keeps the game fresh and intersting. Fun is subjective. I enjoy the hogaak deck while others do not. The meta swings so right now I'm having fun with a powerful combo deck, next time maybe it's the UW control deck with a new toy. I believe the format is ok right now but I may feel differently in September.
For what it's worth, I took UW to FNM last week. Died on Turn 3 (while on the draw) to Breach Titan, then got Chalice'd for 1 turn 1 game 2 with Surgical, Field, and 2x Path in hand. Then I lost to regular old Galvanic Blast Affinity on turn 3, twice (game 1 and 3, each I was on the draw. Game 3 I had turn 2 Stony Silence).
It’s not that I don’t believe you. It may just happens. But this argument doesn’t lead to the fact that UW isn’t a top Tier deck at the moment. Cause it is.
By the way, that’s another reason why Force of Negation is a mainstay, and not running it in the maindeck is digging your own grave.
@idSurge
I’m sure that there are people displeased by it. But, to me, it seems that Modern is still widely played and most people ARE having fun. For the same reason that, even though I don’t particularly enjoy playing/facing Prison decks, there are lots of players who actually do. Fun is subjective, indeed.
By the way, that’s another reason why Force of Negation is a mainstay, and not running it in the maindeck is digging your own grave.
I've gone up to 2 now. Would have saved me both matches, hitting Breach and Plating. Doesn't change the utter *****show of experiences though. Luckily, some poor sap was on Jund that evening as well, and we had an amazing, long, back and forth game of resource trading and relevant game decisions. If only there were more of that, and less of the trash (or at least better, more reasonable means to deal with the trash. Force isn't enough). I guess that's what I get for changing stores to a place that actually represents the garbage fire of the actual Modern meta, instead of a bunch of stubborn people like me jamming BGx and bad blue decks all day.
By the way, that’s another reason why Force of Negation is a mainstay, and not running it in the maindeck is digging your own grave.
I've gone up to 2 now. Would have saved me both matches, hitting Breach and Plating. Doesn't change the utter *****show of experiences though. Luckily, some poor sap was on Jund that evening as well, and we had an amazing, long, back and forth game of resource trading and relevant game decisions. If only there were more of that, and less of the trash (or at least better, more reasonable means to deal with the trash. Force isn't enough). I guess that's what I get for changing stores to a place that actually represents the garbage fire of the actual Modern meta, instead of a bunch of stubborn people like me jamming BGx and bad blue decks all day.
See this is what I'm talking about.
It's not that you have issue or that Modern has issue, it's that you simply don't like what Modern is. That's it.
I get it too. Seeing E Tron across the table draws out a physical disgust from me.
In the end though we are not going back. They won't ban 75% of the format. 2016 is a long time ago.
I just keep holding on to the hope that one day I will find a deck I enjoy enough to play, and will allow me to look past the utter misery of terrible gameplay being pushed by the top decks. And I don't want to sell all my cards just to see it happen "next time", so I'm stuck in a perpetual state of limbo. Playing *****ty deck after *****ty deck, awful experience after awful experience hoping that at least one of my matches will have game decisions beyond "do I have exactly the right cards in the top 10 of my library?"
It won't happen, because it's not about the deck we are on. It just isn't. Play UR Wizards. It's almost all Flash, and Tempo and reactive. Play UW, it's reactive and Tier 1. Play Esper, it's reactive, and competitive.
Play Blue Moon, or Breach.
In the end we both know, 1000s of $ and 3 years later, that it doesn't matter. You'll still have to play against decks that don't care what you are doing, and force you to warp to them, instead of playing with/against you.
You know why people loved Dominaria/Ravnica Standard? Because it reminded them of 2016 Modern, when it was BGx vs URx.
Moderns moved on. Heck Standard has moved on.
What you play matters a who lot less I think than what everyone else is playing.
I loved Ravnica/Kamigawa Standard while Gifts Ungiven with Kami was a real deck. Maybe the best I have played in any format, just a tad bit below Almost Blue in Vintage.
That said, I enjoyed Modern in 2014, I enjoy it today.
Before saying which card we need to ban to make modern great,
I think there is problem with the design of the cards.
I don't mind having some broken strategies in modern, some good combos, I don't mind that graveyard decks are going well right now but...
They need to be better when they design cards.
Sometimes they add a card without seeing that there is a combo with it: Like Saheeli + Felidar combo in standard. I don't blame them for that.
But they designed some cards that don't make any sense to me.
For example:
Treasure cruise is banned.
It costs 8. At a modern level, drawing 3 cards costs 4.
So the card would cost 4 without delve, it costs 8 with delve and it's banned.
Tasigur is a 4/5 with an extra ability, it would cost 4 without delve and it costs only 6 mana with only one colored mana.
I don't say the card needs a ban right now, but why did they print that for a such low cost...
Now we have modern horizons.
First of all, why adding a set that skips standard?
Obviously, they did it to add some more powerful answers that would be too strong in standard (like lightning bolt, path to exile...).
But the problem is that modern was made to have a powerlevel that follows standard and without the old cards which belongs to legacy/vintage.
So they need to think about standard AND modern when they design standard sets, and avoid having sets like battle for zendikar with a powerlevel that's way too low for modern.
If you look at modern horizons there is:
-Old abilities ==> Could have been printed in a standard set
-Good cards ==> Could have been printed in a standard set at the right time
-Brokens cards ==> Shouldn't have been printed
-Forces ==> That's the only cycle that's too strong for standard, but too bad 2 of them are useless
-Not modern legal cards ==> Reprint them in a core set
And M20 and War of the spark doesn't seems to have a really lower powerlevel. So the set doesn't seem interesting to me.
About broken cards of modern horizons we have:
-Hogaak:
7 mana Convoke Delve, can be cast from graveyard for a 8/8 trample?
I mean... I couldn't predict in which deck it would be played, if it would be played at all...
But why do they print stuff like this? When can this be used fairly? They took risks for no reason and they know how delve destroyed the format last time they put it in standard...
-Scale up
For 1 mana, you give 5 power to a 1/x creature, even if it's a sorcery, even if we can push/bot/pte in response, even if Infect isn't tier 1 right now... why do they print that? It's just here to increase the chances of a turn 2 win.
-Altar of dementia
Question here is: Does it really add interesting stuff to modern?
I could say the same for the new +10/+10 hammer in M20, when you put that in modern, you know people will find a way to cheat the equip cost, and you know a t2 win will be possible...
About the forces, we could have the best possible answer for unfair graveyards decks, something like: Force of "Rest in peace" - 1WW
Enchantment
Flash
*Rest in peace effect
If it's not your turn, you can exile an other white card from your hand instead of paying Force of "Rest in peace" mana cost.
Instead we have Force of virtue? Why???
Sometimes I don't get how they make so much mistakes when they design cards, and this is why we often have to consider bans.
In the end we both know, 1000s of $ and 3 years later, that it doesn't matter. You'll still have to play against decks that don't care what you are doing, and force you to warp to them, instead of playing with/against you.
Honestly, that's really where I'm at. I could buy a new car with the value of my collection, so it's just so demoralizing to have it sit unused. But forcing myself to play miserable games doesn't feel any better. Sophie's choice, I guess.
But hey, at least Modern is "healthy," by whatever messed up standards people use these days... things that multiple decks have been banned for in the past are allowed free reign.
I'm in the same boat! My LGS wont even buy my collection, its too much for them to take on at once. I'll have to ship out to Face to Face or Card Kingdom.
By the metric of 'is anything seeing too much Top 8 success that cannot be hated out, and across all archetypes?' Yes, sadly its healthy.
We have our 'brainstorm'. It is Faithless Looting.
We have our 'FoW'. It is Surgical, with the added benefit of it being playable in every single deck in the format.
We have cards that punish Faithless Looting, in the form of Leyline, RIP, Ravenous, and Surgical.
We have Control, Disruptive Aggro (Humans, Folk, Spirits), Combo, Prison, Dredge/GY, Xerox, Burn, Creature Combo, Artifact Abuse, Ramp, Tron, Infect, and if Jund can stick, Midrange. Heck, is GDS/Esper Shadow Midrange?
What else could we want other than a shift in the types of decks being played by %? We wont get that. It just wont happen, as Modern is too diverse for that to be a thing. Its no shock to me that UW Control/Esper and Jund, see an increase when the meta warps around a deck or 2, because thats what those decks NEED.
When Modern goes back to its average, which is now wildly diverse, Control drops down.
We should I guess be thankful for Hogaak and Phoenix, for tightening up the meta.
I loved Ravnica/Kamigawa Standard while Gifts Ungiven with Kami was a real deck. Maybe the best I have played in any format, just a tad bit below Almost Blue in Vintage.
That said, I enjoyed Modern in 2014, I enjoy it today.
@CpFusion, IdSurge, and others - I haven't enjoyed Standard since Lorwyn. Faeries, Merfolk, Elves, Reveillark (did you read that freaking card?), Swans of Bryn Argoll, Quick n Toast and later 5 Color Control, and on and on. I did play UW Delver years later a lot. People may have thought I enjoyed the deck, but really honestly I just loved how good Ponder was, and to a lesser degree, the rest of the cards in the deck. "Mono Blue Burn, lol"
What I'm saying is still play the format. You don't have to love it to play it. If it gets too disgusting, take some time off. Find a format that you love. For me, I am really enjoying Legacy right now, so even though I have to drive 55-80 mi. on the weekend to play it, I will do it. I don't enjoy Modern right now. I still play it because Hogaak is too good to turn down, but when I'm playing Hogaak, I run into all kinds of turn 2/3 decks - Neoform, Cheerios, Devoted Devastation, Mono Red Prowess or I run into 8 graveyard hate card.deck. I stick with Modern and don't sell my cards (yet) because I know things will get better. Maybe (probably) it won't be as good as it was before (I will never have Lorwyn back again; WotC will never do "Return to Lorwyn," but I can have a better time than now) But right now, I'll embrace that Legacy tournament once a week, lol.
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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'll root for a Faithless Looting ban until the day it happens. I expect to only see Hogaak targeted bans next week but just maybe Hogaak was enough to make someone at RnD realize Looting has be the thorn in Modern for a very long time now.
I'm also incredibly disappointed that Magic Arena's Historic format got announced with he excitement of a wet fart without any old sets being brought in. I yearn for a new eternal format that isn't kept in a chokehold by the reserved list
I'll root for a Faithless Looting ban until the day it happens. I expect to only see Hogaak targeted bans next week but just maybe Hogaak was enough to make someone at RnD realize Looting has be the thorn in Modern for a very long time now.
I'm also incredibly disappointed that Magic Arena's Historic format got announced with he excitement of a wet fart without any old sets being brought in. I yearn for a new eternal format that isn't kept in a chokehold by the reserved list
I can't tell you how disappointed and sad I am that the new Historic format doesn't have Kaladesh and Amonkhet in it....... I know they basically said "sometime down the line" which sounds like 2 years or something lel..... kill me.
I'll root for a Faithless Looting ban until the day it happens. I expect to only see Hogaak targeted bans next week but just maybe Hogaak was enough to make someone at RnD realize Looting has be the thorn in Modern for a very long time now.
I'm also incredibly disappointed that Magic Arena's Historic format got announced with he excitement of a wet fart without any old sets being brought in. I yearn for a new eternal format that isn't kept in a chokehold by the reserved list
I can't tell you how disappointed and sad I am that the new Historic format doesn't have Kaladesh and Amonkhet in it....... I know they basically said "sometime down the line" which sounds like 2 years or something lel..... kill me.
I am really fearing another Brawl fiasco where they toss a ruleset at the playerbase and hope it sticks without any support. Arena doesn't even have a Historic ladder... I kind of feel they don't WANT Historic to become popular so people keep dumping money into Standard rotation.
I am really fearing another Brawl fiasco where they toss a ruleset at the playerbase and hope it sticks without any support. Arena doesn't even have a Historic ladder... I kind of feel they don't WANT Historic to become popular so people keep dumping money into Standard rotation.
Wouldn't Arena's economy keep players buying the old packs though? Since there is no trading, there cannot be a market outside what WotC provides. As such, in 5 years, if say Carnage Tyrant is still a big player in Historic, the only method of acquisition will be to buy old packs or to use wild cards (I'm not actually familiar with Arena's economy at all, so please correct me if I've misunderstood how that works). That would be sales enough at only the cost of the servers they're already using. There's no real cost to making Historic a functioning Arena only format. Though I doubt it'll stay Arena only if it does actually pick up popularity; LGSs will still benefit from the after market it creates, so it can easily be adopted at that level.
I think the issue with Brawl was that they immediately broke the format, they can only make so many legends in every set, and it rotates. With the last probably being the most important.
I'll root for a Faithless Looting ban until the day it happens. I expect to only see Hogaak targeted bans next week but just maybe Hogaak was enough to make someone at RnD realize Looting has be the thorn in Modern for a very long time now.
I'm also incredibly disappointed that Magic Arena's Historic format got announced with he excitement of a wet fart without any old sets being brought in. I yearn for a new eternal format that isn't kept in a chokehold by the reserved list
I can't tell you how disappointed and sad I am that the new Historic format doesn't have Kaladesh and Amonkhet in it....... I know they basically said "sometime down the line" which sounds like 2 years or something lel..... kill me.
I am really fearing another Brawl fiasco where they toss a ruleset at the playerbase and hope it sticks without any support. Arena doesn't even have a Historic ladder... I kind of feel they don't WANT Historic to become popular so people keep dumping money into Standard rotation.
These kinds of conspiracy theories are routinely unfounded. I think you (maybe another poster but I seem to recall you participating) had similar speculations about Wizards deliberately tanking Modern in some way to help Standard. Wizards will likely continue to develop Historic and we will ultimately see more sets added and a ladder.
I'm being hyperbolic. Did you see the way Historic got presented after months of hype? They would have been better off delaying Historic entirely if there are technical reasons for not adding older sets immediately. "They'll fix it later" is an awful excuse.
And no, I absolutely never claimed they keep Modern bad to promote Standard.
They HAD to roll out Historic soon. With a new rotation coming up, players are about lose a ton of cards on Arena. This gives the cards rotating some sort of use once they are no longer playable in standard. If they didn't do this, plenty of people would have peaced out of Arena because all of those cards that they spent money, gold, and/or wild cards acquiring would be absolutely worthless.
They needed to create Historic in order to show that they have a plan on Arena for cards rotating out of Standard. My guess is that they support it more if it becomes widely popular in the Arena community, or when the card pool is larger and more robust to produce a metagame that's different enough from Standard.
WotC is a business. It wants to keep as many people engaged with their product as possible. If a format is popular, it makes more sense to support it and produce product aimed at that playerbase than it does try to cripple in hopes they playerbase will switch to Standard to support that product. Why do you think they kept making Masters sets and Modern Horizons? It would be like Coca-Cola purposely tanking Sprite, in hopes of former Sprite drinkers to start buying Coca-Cola.
I don't believe it was bearscape who suggested that. I however added our resident conspiracy lover to my ignore months ago, so I'm not going to go confirm.
Either way, Historic is going to be nothing for a few rotations and that's how Wizards wants it. They don't want to invest energy in another format, just let it be there so ppl don't cry about their virtual content being lost.
They HAD to roll out Historic soon. With a new rotation coming up, players are about lose a ton of cards on Arena. This gives the cards rotating some sort of use once they are no longer playable in standard. If they didn't do this, plenty of people would have peaced out of Arena because all of those cards that they spent money, gold, and/or wild cards acquiring would be absolutely worthless.
They needed to create Historic in order to show that they have a plan on Arena for cards rotating out of Standard. My guess is that they support it more if it becomes widely popular in the Arena community, or when the card pool is larger and more robust to produce a metagame that's different enough from Standard.
WotC is a business. It wants to keep as many people engaged with their product as possible. If a format is popular, it makes more sense to support it and produce product aimed at that playerbase than it does try to cripple in hopes they playerbase will switch to Standard to support that product. Why do you think they kept making Masters sets and Modern Horizons? It would be like Coca-Cola purposely tanking Sprite, in hopes of former Sprite drinkers to start buying Coca-Cola.
But rotation doesn't happen until the set after M20, right? That gives another 3 months to make Historic into something that isn't just current standard again. Considering WotC is a business, wouldn't they want to make me excited about a new format on their booming digital platform? And considering WotC is a business, wouldn't adding sets that have at least partially been programmed into Arena already not be a good thing to incentivise me to burn wild cards?
I don't believe it was bearscape who suggested that. I however added our resident conspiracy lover to my ignore months ago, so I'm not going to go confirm.
Either way, Historic is going to be nothing for a few rotations and that's how Wizards wants it. They don't want to invest energy in another format, just let it be there so ppl don't cry about their virtual content being lost.
Wait, am I a conspiracy lover? Why? Or am I misunderstanding?
About the forces, we could have the best possible answer for unfair graveyards decks, something like: Force of "Rest in peace" - 1WW
Enchantment
Flash
*Rest in peace effect
If it's not your turn, you can exile an other white card from your hand instead of paying Force of "Rest in peace" mana cost.
Instead we have Force of virtue? Why???
Sometimes I don't get how they make so much mistakes when they design cards, and this is why we often have to consider bans.
You have Ravenous Trap. Not a permanent effect like RiP, but it does almost the same.
Remember way way back when we were asking if Modern was going to be Little Legacy or Big Standard? At this point I think it is fair to say that Modern is Little Legacy. Historic is going to be Big Standard. It will be a lower powered non-rotating format post New World Order.
Remember way way back when we were asking if Modern was going to be Little Legacy or Big Standard? At this point I think it is fair to say that Modern is Little Legacy. Historic is going to be Big Standard. It will be a lower powered non-rotating format post New World Order.
And it will have both Teferi, Narset and instant Time Warps.
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UW Spirits
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I think this is a fair statement. What our FOW is changes, it was thoughtsieze for years until the graveyard decks got better. We are looking at an unusually high number of games ending before turn 4 in this meta. With any good new deck it will warp the format for a bit, cut down on diversity, ect, ect. So there are problems, but there are pluses too. All the new MH1 cards have made big changes in many decks adding churn to the meta. Even without hogaak the meta would still be shifting due to these new changes. This churn, including hogaak, is what keeps the game fresh and intersting. Fun is subjective. I enjoy the hogaak deck while others do not. The meta swings so right now I'm having fun with a powerful combo deck, next time maybe it's the UW control deck with a new toy. I believe the format is ok right now but I may feel differently in September.
It’s not that I don’t believe you. It may just happens. But this argument doesn’t lead to the fact that UW isn’t a top Tier deck at the moment. Cause it is.
By the way, that’s another reason why Force of Negation is a mainstay, and not running it in the maindeck is digging your own grave.
@idSurge
I’m sure that there are people displeased by it. But, to me, it seems that Modern is still widely played and most people ARE having fun. For the same reason that, even though I don’t particularly enjoy playing/facing Prison decks, there are lots of players who actually do. Fun is subjective, indeed.
I've gone up to 2 now. Would have saved me both matches, hitting Breach and Plating. Doesn't change the utter *****show of experiences though. Luckily, some poor sap was on Jund that evening as well, and we had an amazing, long, back and forth game of resource trading and relevant game decisions. If only there were more of that, and less of the trash (or at least better, more reasonable means to deal with the trash. Force isn't enough). I guess that's what I get for changing stores to a place that actually represents the garbage fire of the actual Modern meta, instead of a bunch of stubborn people like me jamming BGx and bad blue decks all day.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
See this is what I'm talking about.
It's not that you have issue or that Modern has issue, it's that you simply don't like what Modern is. That's it.
I get it too. Seeing E Tron across the table draws out a physical disgust from me.
In the end though we are not going back. They won't ban 75% of the format. 2016 is a long time ago.
Spirits
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Play Blue Moon, or Breach.
In the end we both know, 1000s of $ and 3 years later, that it doesn't matter. You'll still have to play against decks that don't care what you are doing, and force you to warp to them, instead of playing with/against you.
You know why people loved Dominaria/Ravnica Standard? Because it reminded them of 2016 Modern, when it was BGx vs URx.
Moderns moved on. Heck Standard has moved on.
What you play matters a who lot less I think than what everyone else is playing.
Spirits
That said, I enjoyed Modern in 2014, I enjoy it today.
I think there is problem with the design of the cards.
I don't mind having some broken strategies in modern, some good combos, I don't mind that graveyard decks are going well right now but...
They need to be better when they design cards.
Sometimes they add a card without seeing that there is a combo with it: Like Saheeli + Felidar combo in standard. I don't blame them for that.
But they designed some cards that don't make any sense to me.
For example:
Treasure cruise is banned.
It costs 8. At a modern level, drawing 3 cards costs 4.
So the card would cost 4 without delve, it costs 8 with delve and it's banned.
Tasigur is a 4/5 with an extra ability, it would cost 4 without delve and it costs only 6 mana with only one colored mana.
I don't say the card needs a ban right now, but why did they print that for a such low cost...
Now we have modern horizons.
First of all, why adding a set that skips standard?
Obviously, they did it to add some more powerful answers that would be too strong in standard (like lightning bolt, path to exile...).
But the problem is that modern was made to have a powerlevel that follows standard and without the old cards which belongs to legacy/vintage.
So they need to think about standard AND modern when they design standard sets, and avoid having sets like battle for zendikar with a powerlevel that's way too low for modern.
If you look at modern horizons there is:
-Old abilities ==> Could have been printed in a standard set
-Good cards ==> Could have been printed in a standard set at the right time
-Brokens cards ==> Shouldn't have been printed
-Forces ==> That's the only cycle that's too strong for standard, but too bad 2 of them are useless
-Not modern legal cards ==> Reprint them in a core set
And M20 and War of the spark doesn't seems to have a really lower powerlevel. So the set doesn't seem interesting to me.
About broken cards of modern horizons we have:
-Hogaak:
7 mana Convoke Delve, can be cast from graveyard for a 8/8 trample?
I mean... I couldn't predict in which deck it would be played, if it would be played at all...
But why do they print stuff like this? When can this be used fairly? They took risks for no reason and they know how delve destroyed the format last time they put it in standard...
-Scale up
For 1 mana, you give 5 power to a 1/x creature, even if it's a sorcery, even if we can push/bot/pte in response, even if Infect isn't tier 1 right now... why do they print that? It's just here to increase the chances of a turn 2 win.
-Altar of dementia
Question here is: Does it really add interesting stuff to modern?
I could say the same for the new +10/+10 hammer in M20, when you put that in modern, you know people will find a way to cheat the equip cost, and you know a t2 win will be possible...
About the forces, we could have the best possible answer for unfair graveyards decks, something like:
Force of "Rest in peace" - 1WW
Enchantment
Flash
*Rest in peace effect
If it's not your turn, you can exile an other white card from your hand instead of paying Force of "Rest in peace" mana cost.
Instead we have Force of virtue? Why???
Sometimes I don't get how they make so much mistakes when they design cards, and this is why we often have to consider bans.
Horizons is a new revenue stream that recognizes Modern as a format some of us play exclusively.
It's going to be a higher power level because the only cards to see play are well above curve, or have synergy not present in Standard.
I don't see anything wrong with Horizons power level.
Spirits
Honestly, that's really where I'm at. I could buy a new car with the value of my collection, so it's just so demoralizing to have it sit unused. But forcing myself to play miserable games doesn't feel any better. Sophie's choice, I guess.
But hey, at least Modern is "healthy," by whatever messed up standards people use these days... things that multiple decks have been banned for in the past are allowed free reign.
I guess I didn't see graphite on the ground.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
By the metric of 'is anything seeing too much Top 8 success that cannot be hated out, and across all archetypes?' Yes, sadly its healthy.
We have our 'brainstorm'. It is Faithless Looting.
We have our 'FoW'. It is Surgical, with the added benefit of it being playable in every single deck in the format.
We have cards that punish Faithless Looting, in the form of Leyline, RIP, Ravenous, and Surgical.
We have Control, Disruptive Aggro (Humans, Folk, Spirits), Combo, Prison, Dredge/GY, Xerox, Burn, Creature Combo, Artifact Abuse, Ramp, Tron, Infect, and if Jund can stick, Midrange. Heck, is GDS/Esper Shadow Midrange?
What else could we want other than a shift in the types of decks being played by %? We wont get that. It just wont happen, as Modern is too diverse for that to be a thing. Its no shock to me that UW Control/Esper and Jund, see an increase when the meta warps around a deck or 2, because thats what those decks NEED.
When Modern goes back to its average, which is now wildly diverse, Control drops down.
We should I guess be thankful for Hogaak and Phoenix, for tightening up the meta.
Spirits
I loved that deck! Played it exclusively until I saw the monstrosity of Heartbeat of Spring with Maga, Traitor to Mortals.
@CpFusion, IdSurge, and others - I haven't enjoyed Standard since Lorwyn. Faeries, Merfolk, Elves, Reveillark (did you read that freaking card?), Swans of Bryn Argoll, Quick n Toast and later 5 Color Control, and on and on. I did play UW Delver years later a lot. People may have thought I enjoyed the deck, but really honestly I just loved how good Ponder was, and to a lesser degree, the rest of the cards in the deck. "Mono Blue Burn, lol"
What I'm saying is still play the format. You don't have to love it to play it. If it gets too disgusting, take some time off. Find a format that you love. For me, I am really enjoying Legacy right now, so even though I have to drive 55-80 mi. on the weekend to play it, I will do it. I don't enjoy Modern right now. I still play it because Hogaak is too good to turn down, but when I'm playing Hogaak, I run into all kinds of turn 2/3 decks - Neoform, Cheerios, Devoted Devastation, Mono Red Prowess or I run into 8 graveyard hate card.deck. I stick with Modern and don't sell my cards (yet) because I know things will get better. Maybe (probably) it won't be as good as it was before (I will never have Lorwyn back again; WotC will never do "Return to Lorwyn," but I can have a better time than now) But right now, I'll embrace that Legacy tournament once a week, lol.
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'm also incredibly disappointed that Magic Arena's Historic format got announced with he excitement of a wet fart without any old sets being brought in. I yearn for a new eternal format that isn't kept in a chokehold by the reserved list
I can't tell you how disappointed and sad I am that the new Historic format doesn't have Kaladesh and Amonkhet in it....... I know they basically said "sometime down the line" which sounds like 2 years or something lel..... kill me.
I am really fearing another Brawl fiasco where they toss a ruleset at the playerbase and hope it sticks without any support. Arena doesn't even have a Historic ladder... I kind of feel they don't WANT Historic to become popular so people keep dumping money into Standard rotation.
I think the issue with Brawl was that they immediately broke the format, they can only make so many legends in every set, and it rotates. With the last probably being the most important.
"Reveal a Dragon"
These kinds of conspiracy theories are routinely unfounded. I think you (maybe another poster but I seem to recall you participating) had similar speculations about Wizards deliberately tanking Modern in some way to help Standard. Wizards will likely continue to develop Historic and we will ultimately see more sets added and a ladder.
And no, I absolutely never claimed they keep Modern bad to promote Standard.
They needed to create Historic in order to show that they have a plan on Arena for cards rotating out of Standard. My guess is that they support it more if it becomes widely popular in the Arena community, or when the card pool is larger and more robust to produce a metagame that's different enough from Standard.
WotC is a business. It wants to keep as many people engaged with their product as possible. If a format is popular, it makes more sense to support it and produce product aimed at that playerbase than it does try to cripple in hopes they playerbase will switch to Standard to support that product. Why do you think they kept making Masters sets and Modern Horizons? It would be like Coca-Cola purposely tanking Sprite, in hopes of former Sprite drinkers to start buying Coca-Cola.
Either way, Historic is going to be nothing for a few rotations and that's how Wizards wants it. They don't want to invest energy in another format, just let it be there so ppl don't cry about their virtual content being lost.
Spirits
But rotation doesn't happen until the set after M20, right? That gives another 3 months to make Historic into something that isn't just current standard again. Considering WotC is a business, wouldn't they want to make me excited about a new format on their booming digital platform? And considering WotC is a business, wouldn't adding sets that have at least partially been programmed into Arena already not be a good thing to incentivise me to burn wild cards?
Also offtopic, but Coca Cola actually has advertised sodas with the sole purpose of failing
Wait, am I a conspiracy lover? Why? Or am I misunderstanding?
Spirits
You have Ravenous Trap. Not a permanent effect like RiP, but it does almost the same.
UR Murktide
Pauper
RW Monarch
UW Caw-Gate
UBR Affinity
And it will have both Teferi, Narset and instant Time Warps.
Spirits