SSG, Serum Powder, and Gemstone Caverns have all seemed like poor ideas for any balanced format, IMO. As someone who owns quite a few of them, I'd be happy to see them all leave the format. The numbers never backed up that kind of decision in the past, but seeing inconsistent super-speed decks wipe out a few players randomly in big tournaments always seemed like poor format health to me. If they're even more problematic now, that just makes me happy to push them out with other "free" broken stuff in Modern.
Fair decks don't "get worse," they just don't gain AS much. Which is no surprise, as people are testing pre-London decklists. The London Mulligan works to improve inconsistent decks, so decks like Jund or Burn (with 90+% consistency) mathematically CAN'T gain very much, while a deck like Tron (with 70-80% consistency of super-powerful opening hands) has much more to gain. No one is currently testing WIN PERCENTAGE, as this would take thousands upon thousands of games to conclusively show the results; they're just speculating and confirming suspicions based on a very limited scope of experimentation with regards to opening hands.
Post-London "Fair" decks will probably cut some more lands and run more singleton copies of silver bullets; cutting consistency for more power would cancel out with how beneficial the London Mull is for all decks, as BlueTron was talking about.
So are they using MCQ Promos to help out with Modern prices?? That seems like a great idea, honestly. I was sick of seeing Progenitus a year or so ago, but you give me an Arcbound Ravager for playing at bigger events? Yes please!
Yeesh. Think I'll avoid the Modern Reddits and this Thread for a while. The negativity and tantrums are absurd right now. Not a single good discussion on anything productive in the past week now.
Guys, my point was that people need to stop using the term "Fair". Use "Interactive" or "Uninteractive," because that's what you're all actually discussing.
Phoenix is Fair in that it has to spend plenty of time durdling, casting spells, maybe removing a few things here or there, and plays out a few threats like Thing or Crackling Drake that are easy to answer, but can take over a game if ignored. Can Phoenix put out a few free dudes pretty fast and pressure a life total? Sure, but Jund gets 2-for-1s for free any time it casts BBE, possibly even more if they hit Lili or something really nuts. Terminus is insane, despite being in a Fair deck. The difference is that Jund and U/W are highly interactive, while Phoenix is not.
Is Bloodbraid Elf a fair card? I always thought it wasn't, yet Jund gets to be a "Fair" deck. Terminus is DEFINITELY not a fair card, but U/W is a "Fair" deck? Death's Shadow, as mentioned is completely unfair, and heck, most Delve cards are super unfair, as well; but hey, Death's Shadow is generally called a "Fair" deck, as well!
I'm pretty sure most people complaining about how poorly "Fair" decks are doing in the Modern Meta are just back on the usual, "The format isn't interactive enough," train and are using their terminology incorrectly. Any good deck in Modern is doing something unfair; even Skred Red deals 5+ damage for 1 mana.
I think the majority of posts that have ever had the word "Tron" in them in the past 10 years have commented on how BS Turn 3 Karn is, and as someone who started with Skred Red, I also mirrored that sentiment. Nowadays there is plenty of hate to run against Tron, and it doesn't put up backbreaking numbers; however, admittedly the group think of "WOW **** TRON" does still remain.
I've thought for quite a while now that Hollow One is as far linear as Modern should go, so I was very happy to see KCI go. Nowadays I look at the top decks and think, "Gee, Skred or Soul Sisters feels like it would crap all over 80% of these decks pretty hard..."
Unfortunately, Modern has cooled off for quite a while in my neck of the woods, and I'm the area's TO now as well as weekend shop manager, so I never get to play in anything!
SCG has said "Out of Stock" for a bunch of the most expensive Modern cards for a few months now. I know a lot of people lean on the equity argument when it comes to regular reprint discussions, but it really feels like WotC is just leaving money on the table when the market gets like this, and there's no relief in sight.
If demand was greater than supply, I couldnt buy 8 off of any number of sites, right now, of Tarns.
I can however.
No, you can buy them from other Magic players who own shops and are willing to sell them. SCG is out of them, CFB barely has any in stock; one of the few places you can buy them is TCGPlayer, which connects to shops like mine, and yeah, there are maybe a hundred Scalding Tarns available. Compare that to almost any other card in Modern, and I'd say that demand is heavily outpacing the supply.
Until Fetches are printed at the same rate as basics, demand will always be greater than the supply. The question is simply, "Where does WotC feel like making money, once every half a decade, or spread out on an annual basis?" One of these is great for the format and the player-base, and one of them is good for Whales and financiers. The answer here seems obvious to me.
Maybe an analysis of Day 2 conversion rates would be better than this silly approach of, "ThE nUmBeRs ArE rEaLlY hIgH!" If there were 2,000 Dredge decks and 200 G/B Rock decks, the numbers become a bit hazier on the "best decks," or how degenerate GY strategies are.
Post-London "Fair" decks will probably cut some more lands and run more singleton copies of silver bullets; cutting consistency for more power would cancel out with how beneficial the London Mull is for all decks, as BlueTron was talking about.
Phoenix is Fair in that it has to spend plenty of time durdling, casting spells, maybe removing a few things here or there, and plays out a few threats like Thing or Crackling Drake that are easy to answer, but can take over a game if ignored. Can Phoenix put out a few free dudes pretty fast and pressure a life total? Sure, but Jund gets 2-for-1s for free any time it casts BBE, possibly even more if they hit Lili or something really nuts. Terminus is insane, despite being in a Fair deck. The difference is that Jund and U/W are highly interactive, while Phoenix is not.
I'm pretty sure most people complaining about how poorly "Fair" decks are doing in the Modern Meta are just back on the usual, "The format isn't interactive enough," train and are using their terminology incorrectly. Any good deck in Modern is doing something unfair; even Skred Red deals 5+ damage for 1 mana.
I've thought for quite a while now that Hollow One is as far linear as Modern should go, so I was very happy to see KCI go. Nowadays I look at the top decks and think, "Gee, Skred or Soul Sisters feels like it would crap all over 80% of these decks pretty hard..."
Unfortunately, Modern has cooled off for quite a while in my neck of the woods, and I'm the area's TO now as well as weekend shop manager, so I never get to play in anything!
As someone in the industry, this is a hell of an understatement, uggghhh.
No, you can buy them from other Magic players who own shops and are willing to sell them. SCG is out of them, CFB barely has any in stock; one of the few places you can buy them is TCGPlayer, which connects to shops like mine, and yeah, there are maybe a hundred Scalding Tarns available. Compare that to almost any other card in Modern, and I'd say that demand is heavily outpacing the supply.