Extremely disappointed not to see any unbans. If there was ever a time to do it, it's alongside a large and predictable ban.
Honestly... I don't think so. Banning Bridge from Below is ultimately not that big a shift in the metagame. Worst case scenario, it does nothing and we have the same metagame we have right now. Best case scenario, we just swap back to the metagame we had before Hogaak. Most likely it'll be something in between. The point is, you really don't have to make any major changes to your deck as the result of this change (unless you were on Hogaak), and people have made it clear they really don't like WOTC's tendency to do "shakeups" before the Pro Tour. Granted, the dislike is more towards pre-Pro Tour bans, but I feel the shakeups in general aren't liked.
Unlike a ban on Bridge from Below, which as noted ultimately doesn't shift the metagame that much, an unbanning could have some pretty big changes and require people to construct new decks entirely. I suppose this sort of encourages creative deckbuilding, but it means people who qualified would suddenly have to scramble to get the required copies of whatever is unbanned at whatever inflated price it ends up at. I'm in favor of unbans, but I would prefer they occur after the Pro Tour. (an accompanying reprint would also be nice...)
Another ban on a tier 1 combo deck. Why does wizards refuse to allow combo to be anymore than tier 2 at best? Pod, Twin, Bloom, KCI, now Bridge. Sends a strong message that combo has no place in the modern format.
The format lacks the tools to deal with combo. If Combo is winning 60% of its matches, through hate, that is not a balanced place to be.
Pod/Twin died for reasons that are no longer applicable, not because they where combo.
Bloom died for going off too early, and some nice twitch clips that showed it to be absurd.
KCI died for winning too much, through hate, on an axis that was quite difficult to interact with even with Split Second text. I mean...come on.
Bridge was nerfed, not killed (yet/yet to be confirmed) because even with a format's worth of hate, free, 'colourless' instant speed hate, it was carrying a dominate pre-turn 4, win rate.
This isnt about Combo not being allowed to be tier 1, but being Tier 0.
Another ban on a tier 1 combo deck. Why does wizards refuse to allow combo to be anymore than tier 2 at best? Pod, Twin, Bloom, KCI, now Bridge. Sends a strong message that combo has no place in the modern format.
bridgevine was only a combo deck in the loosest sense. at its core its still just spitting out power and toughness as quickly as possible to run down opponents. the fact that it had a combo mill finish was just another angle of attack even further circumventing forms of resistance.
also combo-esque interactions are the sort of thing that have the highest chance of breaking something and applying too much pressure to format stability. it stands to reason this would translate to the types of things targeted for bans more frequently.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
The problem was, it wasn't a Tier 1 combo deck but a Tier 0 combo deck. When people are being forced to SB 6-8 cards just to have a chance to beat it games 2 and 3, then that's warping the metagame more than is acceptable.
Also, really fast, really consistent combo decks are the decks most likely to violate the basic speed tenets that are supposed to exist in Modern. They're also probably the least interactive.
I'm pretty sure no 'pure combo' deck will ever be allowed to be better within the context of the meta than Storm. That decks been hit a half dozen times and its still just a 'did you kill my guy on turn 2?' question.
I can see this however the one major tournament (GP) there was, as well as the SCG team event, didn’t show that the deck was all that oppressive. Only 2 copies in the top 8 doesn’t quite live up to the hype of this obscene win rate wotc claims and isn’t exactly tier 0. UW Control also put 2 copies in the same top 8 and we aren’t calling for bans on Control.
I can see this however the one major tournament (GP) there was, as well as the SCG team event, didn’t show that the deck was all that oppressive. Only 2 copies in the top 8 doesn’t quite live up to the hype of this obscene win rate wotc claims and isn’t exactly tier 0. UW Control also put 2 copies in the same top 8 and we aren’t calling for bans on Control.
There will be, in 6 months.
I did not think they would pull the trigger after last weekend either, but it does do broken things and it was only going to improve, you could see many people playing it had not yet tightened up the lines of play. Similar to when Amulet broke out originally.
I can see this however the one major tournament (GP) there was, as well as the SCG team event, didn’t show that the deck was all that oppressive. Only 2 copies in the top 8 doesn’t quite live up to the hype of this obscene win rate wotc claims and isn’t exactly tier 0. UW Control also put 2 copies in the same top 8 and we aren’t calling for bans on Control.
Maybe not here directly but I have certainly seen people elsewhere being salty about UWs ever increasing power level. Maybe Midrange and Jank players
I can see this however the one major tournament (GP) there was, as well as the SCG team event, didn’t show that the deck was all that oppressive. Only 2 copies in the top 8 doesn’t quite live up to the hype of this obscene win rate wotc claims and isn’t exactly tier 0. UW Control also put 2 copies in the same top 8 and we aren’t calling for bans on Control.
Maybe not here directly but I have certainly seen people elsewhere being salty about UWs ever increasing power level. Maybe all the Midrange and Jank players
If you're a lingering souls mid range player you want to see UW. When I was playing Esper Midrange (granted, a jank deck) I'd love to see UWx control across from me. It's not too difficult to build mid-range decks to be positive against UW. There are certainly a fair amount of grindy tools in the format. A deck like Mardu would also love to sit across from UW every round. UW is certainly a strong deck, but it's not a giant.
I can see this however the one major tournament (GP) there was, as well as the SCG team event, didn’t show that the deck was all that oppressive. Only 2 copies in the top 8 doesn’t quite live up to the hype of this obscene win rate wotc claims and isn’t exactly tier 0. UW Control also put 2 copies in the same top 8 and we aren’t calling for bans on Control.
Maybe not here directly but I have certainly seen people elsewhere being salty about UWs ever increasing power level. Maybe all the Midrange and Jank players
If you're a lingering souls mid range player you want to see UW. When I was playing Esper Midrange (granted, a jank deck) I'd love to see UWx control across from me. It's not too difficult to build mid-range decks to be positive against UW. There are certainly a fair amount of grindy tools in the format. A deck like Mardu would also love to sit across from UW every round. UW is certainly a strong deck, but it's not a giant.
True but then don't make the mistake of comparing a deck specially targeted against UW against UW lists that don't target them back. Midrange is basically dead currently in the format so UW isn't really built with them in mind. It still has the natural advantage of the all the value its spells have but that's it.
If those decks that you have mentioned would actually be a big part of the metagame than UW would look different too. More Jaces, more Teferis, Sphinx's Revelation, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, stuff like Fact of Fiction, etc. You can reconfigure the entire deck basically.
I was joking with my comment about Midrange players being the salty ones but I don't think Im that far off because some of these salty people called UW Control "Tron 2.0" which is telling about them. I don't think they are wrong about that though. If Midrange ever gets big again Tron certainly won't be the only thing that will smell blood. That's for sure.
As much as I hate to vote for the fella, I sided mostly with Cedric Phillips. Regarding Rampaging Ferocidon, if nobody cares, then why not unban it? I personally know some locals who actually do care.
I do not understand the Ban decision. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is only $4 right now. Altar of Dementia is only $3 right now. They don't need these cards to sell the set, unlike the Eldrazi.
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)
As much as I hate to vote for the fella, I sided mostly with Cedric Phillips. Regarding Rampaging Ferocidon, if nobody cares, then why not unban it? I personally know some locals who actually do care.
I do not understand the Ban decision. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is only $4 right now. Altar of Dementia is only $3 right now. They don't need these cards to sell the set, unlike the Eldrazi.
Because both of those cards go up enough to sell packs within a week because they dodged a ban, they weren't going to be expensive while things were so risky.
Less cynical, cards that break with Bridge are going to come along again, Wizards seems to be addicted to that particular mistake. After the last couple years of Dredge, I actually think it's deliberate. But cards that break Altar and Hogaak that badly are extremely rare. Wizards made the choice that was less likely to result in more bans later. On their own, those are two neat cards that bring something new to the format without being broken on the surface. People not initially getting hyped about Hogaak is not us being bad at evaluation, it was us not thinking about taking the big obvious midrange value creature and shoving it in a combo deck. I STILL view it as more of a Tarmogoyf. Those two can exist in healthy shells that don't lead to toxic busted decks. Bridge really can't, there is no 'good enough to play with the big dogs but not a complete busted monster' with that card
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Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
I do not understand the Ban decision. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is only $4 right now. Altar of Dementia is only $3 right now. They don't need these cards to sell the set, unlike the Eldrazi.
Huh?
60% Match Win Rate.
66% Game 1 Win Rate.
Warped the Meta.
Won through Main and Sideboard Hate.
Won more 5-0 Leagues by 3 x than the next best deck.
The ban choice was more obvious than we have seen in years. Bridge was the core issue.
I do not understand the Ban decision. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is only $4 right now. Altar of Dementia is only $3 right now. They don't need these cards to sell the set, unlike the Eldrazi.
Huh?
60% Match Win Rate.
66% Game 1 Win Rate.
Warped the Meta.
Won through Main and Sideboard Hate.
Won more 5-0 Leagues by 3 x than the next best deck.
The ban choice was more obvious than we have seen in years. Bridge was the core issue.
Re-reading the announcement I noticed that WotC could be cherrypicking the data showed to us:
In the case of the Hogaak Bridgevine deck, its initial overall win rate on Magic Online was over 60%.
Initial? Was it decreasing after people started adjusting to it? Remember MH1 was released less than 1 month ago so taking the initial results before people adapted to it seems intentional to put more emphasis on how dominant it is. If it was still 60% I am pretty sure they would have told us but they didn't
In recent weeks, Hogaak Bridgevine has been the most played Modern deck on Magic Online and has earned over three times as many 5-0 League trophies as the deck with the next most.
So, the most played deck gets the most trophies, 3 times more than the second most played deck. This really doesn't say anything unless you compare how much presence each deck had. If there were 3 Hogaak decks for every second best deck, it means both have the same conversion rate. Why not tell us how its winrate was compared to other decks?
I don't disagree with the ban and I could totally get behind the battle of sideboard argument but the reasoning used makes me think that winrates were not so insane as of lately and WotC wanted to present some numbers that showcase how busted it was (even if they are not the usual ones like winrate was mentioned for KCI)
Banning Bridge from Below was the right thing to do, but I still think wizards is a bit too disingenuous with their banning decisions. I've talked to a few card game designers and one of the big problems that always comes up is that short term thinking shoppers love high powered cards, so the marketing side always pushes for more broken cards to enter the game. But then there is the part where people actually play the game, and in the long run powerful and broken cards actually degrade the entire experience. This is especially true if the card gets dominant.
Spoilers came out, people saw Hogaak, and even though the market didn't really react right away to it even I could see it would be broken with bridge from below as a component to some shell. If someone like me can see that, I don't know how a game developer couldn't, so most likely it got printed because of the marketing side and not the design side.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
As much as I hate to vote for the fella, I sided mostly with Cedric Phillips. Regarding Rampaging Ferocidon, if nobody cares, then why not unban it? I personally know some locals who actually do care.
I do not understand the Ban decision. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is only $4 right now. Altar of Dementia is only $3 right now. They don't need these cards to sell the set, unlike the Eldrazi.
One of things that quickly becomes apparent playing the Hogaakvine deck after the bannings is that while it took a serious hit in power, it's still a very strong deck. It's just not overwhelmingly so. It's slowed down by about a turn or so, which is quite in line with the format, and seems to be a lot more fragile to hate. Based on that, my opinion is that they banned Bridge to avoid a situation where they ban a deck out of existence- like with Twin or Pod. Luckily, that even seems to be the result they got! Most of the truly degenerate draws of the deck required multiple Bridges in the graveyard. By and large, I don't think the secondary market was the deciding factor in banning Bridge. I think it was the fact that the Hogaak deck could put out some truly ridiculous P/T on the board with it. I think someone worked out that with an optimal sequence, it could output just under 5000 power of zombies on turn 3, though admittedly I'm not 100% sure where I heard that.
It's important to remember that wizards does not want to be bound to the past and that has been a constant source of drama the past few years. Both set and ban decisions pivot around this desire.
I know this is not the popular opinion around here, but as much as I loved the idea of an eternal paradise where all my cards are playable, modern and legacy have proven that such a thing is not viable. Even if someone were to buy all the top tier cards now, that desire to not be held to the past will eventually mean a rotation will happen, and that rotation can cost someone hundreds of dollars if they follow the competitive scene.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Re-reading the announcement I noticed that WotC could be cherrypicking the data showed to us:
In the case of the Hogaak Bridgevine deck, its initial overall win rate on Magic Online was over 60%.
Initial? Was it decreasing after people started adjusting to it? Remember MH1 was released less than 1 month ago so taking the initial results before people adapted to it seems intentional to put more emphasis on how dominant it is. If it was still 60% I am pretty sure they would have told us but they didn't
I don't disagree with the ban and I could totally get behind the battle of sideboard argument but the reasoning used makes me think that winrates were not so insane as of lately and WotC wanted to present some numbers that showcase how busted it was (even if they are not the usual ones like winrate was mentioned for KCI)
Good points. I do believe they cherry picked the data (the 3 kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics!) but even so, Bridge was the obvious choice when compared to Hogaak itself, or Altar.
I agreed with the article that bridge is the most likely card to become problematic mostly due to how weird it really is. It was basically equivalent to an unglued card when it got released because it is an enchantment that you never want on the field and operates on a very odd angle mechanically. Even dredge isn't as weird as that card.
To put this in perspective, there was a card in unstable that splits the main deck into four parts. I think bridge is weirder than that.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Bridge was the obvious choice but not because of any reason listed by wizards or anyone here. It was the obvious choice because wizards always bans the oldest card. Hogaak is brand new, altar is new to modern, and bridge was already around. With the exception of Treasure cruise and dig through time, I can’t think of a single time the format broke because new cards busted previously unbroken things and it was the new cards that got the ax. Wotc doesn’t take action against the newest cards unless it absolutely, unquestionably, without any shadow of doubt have to.
WOTC does whatever they want, whenever they want, for whatever reasons they want. Consistency over time has all but completely evaporated. We give them far too much credit for doing anything beyond looking at spreadsheets of MTGO data, GP Top 8s, and decklist name comparisons. They do whatever they were going to do, then hand-waive some mumbo jumbo (which can change at any time for any reason) to support whatever that is.
Initial? Was it decreasing after people started adjusting to it? Remember MH1 was released less than 1 month ago so taking the initial results before people adapted to it seems intentional to put more emphasis on how dominant it is. If it was still 60% I am pretty sure they would have told us but they didn't
I think it was falling slightly, but I don't think those numbers are particularly meaningful. For starters, the deck hadn't really evolved to deal with any hate yet. Second, it was effectively tier 0 so everyone was gunning for it, and despite that it was still over 50% (even if not over 60% anymore). Third, in order to get it's win rate down slightly, and not even below 50% people were mainboarding 4 pieces of GY hate and having another 6 to 8 in the SB.
That is unhealthy for the meta no matter how you cut it, because it then means every deck is either SB'ing specifically for Hogaak and losing to everything else, or SB'ing for everything else and losing to Hogaak.
It was definitely a very quick ban, I think that's the fastest they've ever taken action on a ban outside of emergency bans. Mental Misstep lasted 3 or 6 months (I don't remember) and Treasure Cruise lasted 3 months. Hogaak lasted 3 weeks. Definitely controversial as to what should be banned, but I think everyone agrees the deck was too good in it's current incarnation.
Bridge was the obvious choice but not because of any reason listed by wizards or anyone here. It was the obvious choice because wizards always bans the oldest card. Hogaak is brand new, altar is new to modern, and bridge was already around. With the exception of Treasure cruise and dig through time, I can’t think of a single time the format broke because new cards busted previously unbroken things and it was the new cards that got the ax. Wotc doesn’t take action against the newest cards unless it absolutely, unquestionably, without any shadow of doubt have to.
Well, yeah. The choice would ultimately come down to either banning the brand new card or banning the older one. It makes no sense to ban the new card that just got released into modern as it would hurt the bottom line of the sealed product sales such as with what happened during Kaladesh Era. They even pulled out a new PR figure to take peoples attention away from Maro with Gavin, so you know it was a big deal internally as well.
The thing is that isn't something to demonize, though. That's literally someone making the right decision so that they still have a job and money on the table. The kind of thing to really grill them on is not banning Faithless looting. Yes, they don't want to kill graveyard decks in modern, but I just have to ask why? I just don't get the reasoning.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Initial? Was it decreasing after people started adjusting to it? Remember MH1 was released less than 1 month ago so taking the initial results before people adapted to it seems intentional to put more emphasis on how dominant it is. If it was still 60% I am pretty sure they would have told us but they didn't
I think it was falling slightly, but I don't think those numbers are particularly meaningful. For starters, the deck hadn't really evolved to deal with any hate yet. Second, it was effectively tier 0 so everyone was gunning for it, and despite that it was still over 50% (even if not over 60% anymore). Third, in order to get it's win rate down slightly, and not even below 50% people were mainboarding 4 pieces of GY hate and having another 6 to 8 in the SB.
That is unhealthy for the meta no matter how you cut it, because it then means every deck is either SB'ing specifically for Hogaak and losing to everything else, or SB'ing for everything else and losing to Hogaak.
It was definitely a very quick ban, I think that's the fastest they've ever taken action on a ban outside of emergency bans. Mental Misstep lasted 3 or 6 months (I don't remember) and Treasure Cruise lasted 3 months. Hogaak lasted 3 weeks. Definitely controversial as to what should be banned, but I think everyone agrees the deck was too good in it's current incarnation.
I agree with the ban, something had to go, I just don't like WotC cherrypicking data to make the ban look more convincing, that's it, they could present all the data they had and nobody would have claimed that the deck was fine. What bothers me is how WotC deliberately decided to show just some of it.
By the way, how do you know its winrate was above 50% vs hate? I couldn't find it in the announcement.
Fighting through 4 maindeck GY hate and another 6 to 8 hate pieces in the sideboard? C'mon, don't inflate the numbers, nobody played so much hate
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Honestly... I don't think so. Banning Bridge from Below is ultimately not that big a shift in the metagame. Worst case scenario, it does nothing and we have the same metagame we have right now. Best case scenario, we just swap back to the metagame we had before Hogaak. Most likely it'll be something in between. The point is, you really don't have to make any major changes to your deck as the result of this change (unless you were on Hogaak), and people have made it clear they really don't like WOTC's tendency to do "shakeups" before the Pro Tour. Granted, the dislike is more towards pre-Pro Tour bans, but I feel the shakeups in general aren't liked.
Unlike a ban on Bridge from Below, which as noted ultimately doesn't shift the metagame that much, an unbanning could have some pretty big changes and require people to construct new decks entirely. I suppose this sort of encourages creative deckbuilding, but it means people who qualified would suddenly have to scramble to get the required copies of whatever is unbanned at whatever inflated price it ends up at. I'm in favor of unbans, but I would prefer they occur after the Pro Tour. (an accompanying reprint would also be nice...)
The format lacks the tools to deal with combo. If Combo is winning 60% of its matches, through hate, that is not a balanced place to be.
Pod/Twin died for reasons that are no longer applicable, not because they where combo.
Bloom died for going off too early, and some nice twitch clips that showed it to be absurd.
KCI died for winning too much, through hate, on an axis that was quite difficult to interact with even with Split Second text. I mean...come on.
Bridge was nerfed, not killed (yet/yet to be confirmed) because even with a format's worth of hate, free, 'colourless' instant speed hate, it was carrying a dominate pre-turn 4, win rate.
This isnt about Combo not being allowed to be tier 1, but being Tier 0.
Spirits
also combo-esque interactions are the sort of thing that have the highest chance of breaking something and applying too much pressure to format stability. it stands to reason this would translate to the types of things targeted for bans more frequently.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Also, really fast, really consistent combo decks are the decks most likely to violate the basic speed tenets that are supposed to exist in Modern. They're also probably the least interactive.
Spirits
There will be, in 6 months.
I did not think they would pull the trigger after last weekend either, but it does do broken things and it was only going to improve, you could see many people playing it had not yet tightened up the lines of play. Similar to when Amulet broke out originally.
Spirits
Maybe not here directly but I have certainly seen people elsewhere being salty about UWs ever increasing power level. Maybe Midrange and Jank players
If you're a lingering souls mid range player you want to see UW. When I was playing Esper Midrange (granted, a jank deck) I'd love to see UWx control across from me. It's not too difficult to build mid-range decks to be positive against UW. There are certainly a fair amount of grindy tools in the format. A deck like Mardu would also love to sit across from UW every round. UW is certainly a strong deck, but it's not a giant.
True but then don't make the mistake of comparing a deck specially targeted against UW against UW lists that don't target them back. Midrange is basically dead currently in the format so UW isn't really built with them in mind. It still has the natural advantage of the all the value its spells have but that's it.
If those decks that you have mentioned would actually be a big part of the metagame than UW would look different too. More Jaces, more Teferis, Sphinx's Revelation, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, stuff like Fact of Fiction, etc. You can reconfigure the entire deck basically.
I was joking with my comment about Midrange players being the salty ones but I don't think Im that far off because some of these salty people called UW Control "Tron 2.0" which is telling about them. I don't think they are wrong about that though. If Midrange ever gets big again Tron certainly won't be the only thing that will smell blood. That's for sure.
As much as I hate to vote for the fella, I sided mostly with Cedric Phillips. Regarding Rampaging Ferocidon, if nobody cares, then why not unban it? I personally know some locals who actually do care.
I do not understand the Ban decision. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is only $4 right now. Altar of Dementia is only $3 right now. They don't need these cards to sell the set, unlike the Eldrazi.
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)Because both of those cards go up enough to sell packs within a week because they dodged a ban, they weren't going to be expensive while things were so risky.
Less cynical, cards that break with Bridge are going to come along again, Wizards seems to be addicted to that particular mistake. After the last couple years of Dredge, I actually think it's deliberate. But cards that break Altar and Hogaak that badly are extremely rare. Wizards made the choice that was less likely to result in more bans later. On their own, those are two neat cards that bring something new to the format without being broken on the surface. People not initially getting hyped about Hogaak is not us being bad at evaluation, it was us not thinking about taking the big obvious midrange value creature and shoving it in a combo deck. I STILL view it as more of a Tarmogoyf. Those two can exist in healthy shells that don't lead to toxic busted decks. Bridge really can't, there is no 'good enough to play with the big dogs but not a complete busted monster' with that card
Huh?
60% Match Win Rate.
66% Game 1 Win Rate.
Warped the Meta.
Won through Main and Sideboard Hate.
Won more 5-0 Leagues by 3 x than the next best deck.
The ban choice was more obvious than we have seen in years. Bridge was the core issue.
Spirits
Re-reading the announcement I noticed that WotC could be cherrypicking the data showed to us:
Initial? Was it decreasing after people started adjusting to it? Remember MH1 was released less than 1 month ago so taking the initial results before people adapted to it seems intentional to put more emphasis on how dominant it is. If it was still 60% I am pretty sure they would have told us but they didn't
So, the most played deck gets the most trophies, 3 times more than the second most played deck. This really doesn't say anything unless you compare how much presence each deck had. If there were 3 Hogaak decks for every second best deck, it means both have the same conversion rate. Why not tell us how its winrate was compared to other decks?
I don't disagree with the ban and I could totally get behind the battle of sideboard argument but the reasoning used makes me think that winrates were not so insane as of lately and WotC wanted to present some numbers that showcase how busted it was (even if they are not the usual ones like winrate was mentioned for KCI)
Spoilers came out, people saw Hogaak, and even though the market didn't really react right away to it even I could see it would be broken with bridge from below as a component to some shell. If someone like me can see that, I don't know how a game developer couldn't, so most likely it got printed because of the marketing side and not the design side.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
One of things that quickly becomes apparent playing the Hogaakvine deck after the bannings is that while it took a serious hit in power, it's still a very strong deck. It's just not overwhelmingly so. It's slowed down by about a turn or so, which is quite in line with the format, and seems to be a lot more fragile to hate. Based on that, my opinion is that they banned Bridge to avoid a situation where they ban a deck out of existence- like with Twin or Pod. Luckily, that even seems to be the result they got! Most of the truly degenerate draws of the deck required multiple Bridges in the graveyard. By and large, I don't think the secondary market was the deciding factor in banning Bridge. I think it was the fact that the Hogaak deck could put out some truly ridiculous P/T on the board with it. I think someone worked out that with an optimal sequence, it could output just under 5000 power of zombies on turn 3, though admittedly I'm not 100% sure where I heard that.
I know this is not the popular opinion around here, but as much as I loved the idea of an eternal paradise where all my cards are playable, modern and legacy have proven that such a thing is not viable. Even if someone were to buy all the top tier cards now, that desire to not be held to the past will eventually mean a rotation will happen, and that rotation can cost someone hundreds of dollars if they follow the competitive scene.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Good points. I do believe they cherry picked the data (the 3 kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics!) but even so, Bridge was the obvious choice when compared to Hogaak itself, or Altar.
Spirits
To put this in perspective, there was a card in unstable that splits the main deck into four parts. I think bridge is weirder than that.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I think it was falling slightly, but I don't think those numbers are particularly meaningful. For starters, the deck hadn't really evolved to deal with any hate yet. Second, it was effectively tier 0 so everyone was gunning for it, and despite that it was still over 50% (even if not over 60% anymore). Third, in order to get it's win rate down slightly, and not even below 50% people were mainboarding 4 pieces of GY hate and having another 6 to 8 in the SB.
That is unhealthy for the meta no matter how you cut it, because it then means every deck is either SB'ing specifically for Hogaak and losing to everything else, or SB'ing for everything else and losing to Hogaak.
It was definitely a very quick ban, I think that's the fastest they've ever taken action on a ban outside of emergency bans. Mental Misstep lasted 3 or 6 months (I don't remember) and Treasure Cruise lasted 3 months. Hogaak lasted 3 weeks. Definitely controversial as to what should be banned, but I think everyone agrees the deck was too good in it's current incarnation.
Well, yeah. The choice would ultimately come down to either banning the brand new card or banning the older one. It makes no sense to ban the new card that just got released into modern as it would hurt the bottom line of the sealed product sales such as with what happened during Kaladesh Era. They even pulled out a new PR figure to take peoples attention away from Maro with Gavin, so you know it was a big deal internally as well.
The thing is that isn't something to demonize, though. That's literally someone making the right decision so that they still have a job and money on the table. The kind of thing to really grill them on is not banning Faithless looting. Yes, they don't want to kill graveyard decks in modern, but I just have to ask why? I just don't get the reasoning.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I agree with the ban, something had to go, I just don't like WotC cherrypicking data to make the ban look more convincing, that's it, they could present all the data they had and nobody would have claimed that the deck was fine. What bothers me is how WotC deliberately decided to show just some of it.
By the way, how do you know its winrate was above 50% vs hate? I couldn't find it in the announcement.
Fighting through 4 maindeck GY hate and another 6 to 8 hate pieces in the sideboard? C'mon, don't inflate the numbers, nobody played so much hate