Do people really think modern is the healthiest it's ever been. I'm not saying it's terrible but at least to me it seems like it's just GDS vs big mana and linear aggro/combo. Maybe that's what people like and I'm out of touch, but I'm not exactly thrilled with what the top decks are at the moment
I think it depends, if you liked the previously combo dominated Modern in which Pod/Twin combos defined the format then you probably very much dislike it. If you prefer a wider window for more fair decks to be competitive than you probably prefer it now. IMO both formats have issues and I tend to prefer the post Pod/Twin meta-game overall.
I liked the pod and twin metas because there were more fair decks than compared to now. But I guess this all depends on your definition of fair
absolutely. a meta where the top decks are twin jund and pod are wayyyyyyyyy better than the current pillars in eldra tron, death shadow aggro, affinity
Like I said it boils down to if you liked the Combo dominated Twin/Pod meta or the current aggro centered one.
I tend to prefer the current simply because it does have more options, Like the recent DnT lists doing well while being perhaps unexpected wasn't shocking, if DnT put 2 into the top 8 during the Twin/Pod era it would be a huge surprise.
Do people really think modern is the healthiest it's ever been. I'm not saying it's terrible but at least to me it seems like it's just GDS vs big mana and linear aggro/combo. Maybe that's what people like and I'm out of touch, but I'm not exactly thrilled with what the top decks are at the moment
I think it depends, if you liked the previously combo dominated Modern in which Pod/Twin combos defined the format then you probably very much dislike it. If you prefer a wider window for more fair decks to be competitive than you probably prefer it now. IMO both formats have issues and I tend to prefer the post Pod/Twin meta-game overall.
I liked the pod and twin metas because there were more fair decks than compared to now. But I guess this all depends on your definition of fair
I disagree, essentially BGx decks were the only "fair" decks that could contend, BGx was kinda the only color segment with main deck tools to combat both combo decks. I actually attribute the decline of Jund/Junk over all from losing these decks in the format. BGx had 50/50 match ups with most every deck but the fact that win G1 against those decks is really what kept it in high standing. It was notorious for being able to beat anything post board but this is kind of because the meta-game was so hostel to other fair decks that you didn't need to really consider decks like merfolk, burn, infect etc... in your 75 because Pod was so good against those decks that they didn't see much play over all.
I would say that there are certainly more linear strategies now then there was then but the competitive options were also far more restrictive.
Do people really think modern is the healthiest it's ever been. I'm not saying it's terrible but at least to me it seems like it's just GDS vs big mana and linear aggro/combo. Maybe that's what people like and I'm out of touch, but I'm not exactly thrilled with what the top decks are at the moment
I think it depends, if you liked the previously combo dominated Modern in which Pod/Twin combos defined the format then you probably very much dislike it. If you prefer a wider window for more fair decks to be competitive than you probably prefer it now. IMO both formats have issues and I tend to prefer the post Pod/Twin meta-game overall.
Here's a snapshot of the "combo dominated Modern" from May of 2015 (all decks 2% or higher on Modern Nexus):
Abzan 9.1%
UR Twin 8.5%
Burn 7.9%
Affinity 5.8%
Jund 5.4%
Grixis Delver 5.3%
Abzan Company 4.7%
RG Tron 3.8%
Infect 3.6%
Amulet Bloom 3.2%
Merfolk 3.1%
Elves 3%
Grixis Twin 2.8%
And another look from December 2015, immediately before the Twin/Bloom ban:
Affinity 8.3%
RG Tron 6.9%
Jund 6.6%
UR Twin 6.2%
Burn 6%
Abzan 5.2%
Amulet Bloom 4.2%
Grixis Twin 3.8%
Infect 3.7%
Merfolk 3.6%
Scapeshift 3.1%
Abzan Company 2.5%
Naya Company 2.3%
Living End 2.2%
Grixis Midrange 2.0%
Wow. Modern was in such an awful place. How could anyone consider that healthy? I mean, Twin was an unbeatable, unstoppable machine, destroying the format and oppressing everyth-- oh, wait. No, it wasn't and it didn't.
Kind of unfair to characterize what I said to mean a very narrow period in the post Pod pre-Twin banning. But that does showcase that linear strategies like Burn, Infect, and such saw increases in the post Pod meta and that Twin didn't really do much to stifle that. the Dec #'s you posted have about 20% of the meta being combo decks of one type or another. Mid-range actually didn't look to be doing as good as combo or linear aggro.
The point I was making was that during the majority of Moderns history as a format it was dominated simultaneously dominated by Pod/Twin which for years had the lofty title of "pillars" of the format.
Do people really think modern is the healthiest it's ever been. I'm not saying it's terrible but at least to me it seems like it's just GDS vs big mana and linear aggro/combo. Maybe that's what people like and I'm out of touch, but I'm not exactly thrilled with what the top decks are at the moment
I think it depends, if you liked the previously combo dominated Modern in which Pod/Twin combos defined the format then you probably very much dislike it. If you prefer a wider window for more fair decks to be competitive than you probably prefer it now. IMO both formats have issues and I tend to prefer the post Pod/Twin meta-game overall.
It would force Eldrazi Tron to play more Dismember or Warping Wail in the mainboard.
It would cause dredge to sacrifice some of its speed in order to interact with the combo.
Even affinity would need to run more removal, even if that means maxing out on Galvanic Blasts.
So basically, every deck would end up playing more interaction which is a great thing IMO
First off cards like Dismember essentially always sucked against Twin which runs peek and MD dispel to combat/play around any removal that isn't Abrupt Decay.
Second I don't think that the race to your death type decks like Affinty or Dredge would be inclined to play anymore interaction, more likely it would favor attempting to run the fastest possible MD configuration and hope to race the combo game one. When Pod was banned and Twin was still legal both Burn and Infect rose to T1 simply because they could easily race the combo and the actual deck that policed them was gone.
Twin wasn't a real police deck it was a instant win button for a deck that otherwise isn't able to actually compete, it was far better against other fair decks and simply provided means for beating non-interactive decks with the possibility of T4 instant win. When you play against decks that are looking to mindlessly race the best plan was to dig for the combo and kill them before they kill you, Remand, Cryptic and crew are just as bad now as they had been then in those types of match ups.
Well thought out post. I think what Twin sympathizers will argue with is that interaction (discard and creature removal) being necessary in the meta (or autolose/outrace Twin) are a positive. I remember when Burn ran 3 Dismember mainboard. Yes, those were the Twin days. Affinity did not need to bend its deck list. They ran 4 Galvanic Blast, which Frank Karsten at the Vegas GP told my friend is correct right now, like has been the usual "best" way for Affinity to run.
They will also say that the meta had become very noninteractive until the recent Shadow lists forced some interaction. I wish it could be somewhere in the middle personally, but it's certainly fine to me right now. I wish there could be some unbans, Blue countermagic got a bit better, along with some other Legacy legal cards to be ported to Modern (like Fact or Fiction).
Honestly I looked around and couldn't find any burn lists or primers running dismember, Path sure but that has been the go to SB answer for road blocking fatties like Gofy, Tas, Angler, and now DS since essentially forever. For Burn the Twin match up was always about do they have the combo on 4 or not? If yes then you likely lose if no then you odds of winning sky rocket.
Certainly a interesting article and pretty much echo's a lot of the criticisms of the "all blue needs is counterspell for control to be good" arguments; I happen to agree with the article that while counterspell would be nice the other needed elements don't exist either. I think the biggest crime that counterspell ever committed was making mid-range creature decks bad, that is the origins of the "feels bad to have your spell countered" thing came from , WotC wanted to let your 3-6 mana creature who looks so cool actually be playable and counters did a lot of work in making sure that they generally sucked.
The issue isn't Twin vs BGx, man (which, I agree, was overstated by many people, and the overrall mu was something like 50-50 between pre and post side). The main problem is Twin against Tempo strategies. And Classic Twin had a hard time fighting against Grixis Delver, Tarmo Twin, Esper/Grixis Delve exactly for this reason. And Grixis Shadow is a Grixis Delver three times more powerful, against whom you can't even Bolt their starter, and which plays a cc1 counterspell.
We all know about Twin pro and cons. But you seems the only one to believe Twin had the edge against everything. Which is clearly wrong.
Its worth noting also that Grixis Delver, and most every other Blue deck really had to warp its main deck to either compete with Twin or compete with the remainder of the field. Every set that would come out with anything worthy of trying out I would and I like the majority of other modern blue mages would come to the conclusion that whatever new card x added, Tas, Kcommand etc... that it was simply better in Twin every time for the same reasons; you would have to build your deck to either beat Twin and lose to nearly everything else or have 50/50 match ups against nearly everything but Twin.
It would force Eldrazi Tron to play more Dismember or Warping Wail in the mainboard.
It would cause dredge to sacrifice some of its speed in order to interact with the combo.
Even affinity would need to run more removal, even if that means maxing out on Galvanic Blasts.
So basically, every deck would end up playing more interaction which is a great thing IMO
First off cards like Dismember essentially always sucked against Twin which runs peek and MD dispel to combat/play around any removal that isn't Abrupt Decay.
Second I don't think that the race to your death type decks like Affinty or Dredge would be inclined to play anymore interaction, more likely it would favor attempting to run the fastest possible MD configuration and hope to race the combo game one. When Pod was banned and Twin was still legal both Burn and Infect rose to T1 simply because they could easily race the combo and the actual deck that policed them was gone.
Twin wasn't a real police deck it was a instant win button for a deck that otherwise isn't able to actually compete, it was far better against other fair decks and simply provided means for beating non-interactive decks with the possibility of T4 instant win. When you play against decks that are looking to mindlessly race the best plan was to dig for the combo and kill them before they kill you, Remand, Cryptic and crew are just as bad now as they had been then in those types of match ups.
"It doesn’t just stop at metagame positioning. Grixis Shadow (and Jund Shadow, for that matter) is simply a far better Modern deck than BGx Rock."
"Grixis Shadow’s rise to dominance has ravaged the once-diverse aggro-combo lineup"
"Aggro-combo devolving into only Burn, Affinity, and Dredge lowers format diversity."
"Shadow now controls not just the vast majority of the midrange shares but a good deal of the aggro-combo shares, simply by virtue of fulfilling the latter’s roles more effectively."
Remarks like these read like they are straight out of a ban announcement. In fact, they are striking similar to most of the exact words said about Twin: "We also look for decks that hold a large enough percentage of the competitive field to reduce the diversity of the format. ... Decks that are this strong can hurt diversity by pushing the decks that it defeats out of competition. They can also reduce diversity by supplanting similar decks."
One of three things has to be true:
1. Twin and Shadow both create extremely similar problems and both should be banned.
2. Twin and Shadow are both fine and should both be legal based on a reassessment of priorities.
3. Shadow is fine but Twin is not, despite having effectively the same impact on the meta.
One of these outcomes makes Wizards look like a wildly inconsistent hypocrite, either citing things that don't actually matter or totally reversing their stance(s). The other two, whether correct or incorrect, at least assert consistency in rationale. As someone who spent nearly a decade in management and is now a teacher, there is nothing more important to maintaining credibility than clear and consistent rules and enforcement.
You fail to point out that WotC gave Twin years and multiple direct hate cards printed with no headway made against the deck. If in 2-3 years XDS decks are still putting up the same kind of results then I think it would be worth considering it in the same way that they did Twin.
I personally doubt that DS will sit on top for as long as Twin given that it isn't a fundamentally broken instant win combo, it is far more fair and we will likely see other fair decks that can hinder it.
They didn't, but considering how cryptic they are about everything I'm surprised they admitted to it at all.
Considering standard is how we get new cards and the issues that we do see with modern are a lack of good answers to specific strategies, the strain on sideboards by having so many specific strategies to fight off without having more good modal cards like rakdos charm, and the fact that the disparity in answers between colors forces certain play styles into certain colors, I am (trying to be) hopeful that the lessons being applied to standard will positively effect modern as well.
Edit: for years one of the biggest complaints about modern was that black, the color of removal and death, had some of the worst cheap removal spells forced it to be paired with red to have bolt for the early game. Fatal push completely alleviated that and now we see black as the most complete color and the best color in the format. I'm hoping we are only a few good prints from all the colors being equally viable in all stages of the game as well.
Would take more than "a few good prints" wouldn't it? I mean with color fixing being as good as it is in Modern you would have to see cards printed that are at a minimum as powerful as the options that Black offers. If not you would have to justify not simply making the super easy splash for black. Anything that gets printed into the pool is in direct competition with every other option at the same cost and function. For instance this is really the only reason to play Blue, no other card filtering does what Serum Visions does without some wonky aspect stapled on like Ancient Stirrings, which while "better" in terms of value really can only go into a very narrow spectrum of decks. We have seen this with the drop off of bolt in decks running black, no need for it anymore.
Given that what black has is the product of 15 years worth of design and it literally only equals like 7 playsets of cards I doubt that any kind of balance could be achieved in less than a decade. They would need to print cards in other colors that are on par or better than the available black options and just looking at how bad Thoughtseize warped the last standard it was in I doubt WotC will be printing the kinds of spells at a cheap enough rate to really see modern play.
People will literally say anything about stoneforge. Last week it was a danger if making coco decks tier zero.
No way does any ten build have room for sfm. Maybe as a sb package. Please learn to understand deck construction before making statements of certainty regarding deck building.
Because decks never change to accommodate new more powerful options. This is the same things people said about LotH, about Grim Flayer, about Baral, etc....
I'm not saying that SFM couldn't come off the list, I'm saying that this argument really has no founding in Magic. Newer more powerful options will always find room in a deck at the expense of the less powerful current options that is just a fundamental truth of Mtg. You seem to be advocating a position of non-deck building where lists are set in stone instead of reevaluated consistently and potentially consisting of very different counts and potentially cards included. Is it crazy to say that SFM would make CoCo decks T0? yes, but it isn't crazy to assume a card on the power level of SFM wouldn't find its way into almost every deck with access to W.
What I'm saying is that decks do not often warp to include strategies that don't mesh well with their gameplans and if you understand how decks like twin and company are constructed you won't be worried about them warping to include sfm.
I don't see including SFM in a Jeskai Twin list any different than Grixis "warping" the deck to include Kcommand and Tas, this is always the nature of the game if a more powerful option becomes available it will find its way into a previously established list. You seem to be arguing that innovation will not occur and that decks would remain static.
For CoCo decks I think it would be far easier as they can run a much smaller number of SFM and targets because they can cords it up.
Jeskai Twin could easily find space, cutting back on far less proactive things like Wall of Omens and such. SFM would actually be a great improvement for the deck IMO as SFM would improve the quality of redundant combo creatures when you have get to draw your Splinter Twin as Pestermite/Exarch both carry equipment well enough and SFM's instant speed placement of the equipment allows the deck to maintain its EOT play style. Possibly drop the much more easily disrupted Kiki/Angel side of the deck and instead up the Twin count from 3 to 4 and probably shave some Walls as those tend to be the clunkiest parts of the deck that don't do much.
Ok, good, I'm glad from your experience that Rejection actually changed that matchup. Thank god, if blue fair decks can at least not fold to Tron I feel better.
I wonder if midrange decks without blue are being left behind in the meta for now. It happens, and I'm not complaining, it does made me sad though; fulminators is still garbage that's obligated to run
Rejection has been fantastic in testing, countering so much of the format with 1 mana and then flashing it back with snaps feels good. Stubborn denial being so easy to activate has really shown how much a cheap counter helps blue out; yes, it's a 1 mana counter as opposed to 2, but man, it's so relevant throughout most of a game in Shadow.
GDS is not a mid-range deck, its a aggro-control deck. It isn't looking to win in the mid-range of the game its looking to aggro the opponent out while protecting its threats with discard and denial. Can it win in the mid to late game yes, but so can Burn. Jund is a mid-range deck that has the potential to have more aggro-ish hands but it is looking to deploy its game winning threats in the mid-range of the game. Has mid-range become a hippish not just a phase of the game but a state of mind?
GDS is much closer to a traditional Sligh deck that favors discard over burn than a Jund style mid-range deck.
People will literally say anything about stoneforge. Last week it was a danger if making coco decks tier zero.
No way does any ten build have room for sfm. Maybe as a sb package. Please learn to understand deck construction before making statements of certainty regarding deck building.
Because decks never change to accommodate new more powerful options. This is the same things people said about LotH, about Grim Flayer, about Baral, etc....
I'm not saying that SFM couldn't come off the list, I'm saying that this argument really has no founding in Magic. Newer more powerful options will always find room in a deck at the expense of the less powerful current options that is just a fundamental truth of Mtg. You seem to be advocating a position of non-deck building where lists are set in stone instead of reevaluated consistently and potentially consisting of very different counts and potentially cards included. Is it crazy to say that SFM would make CoCo decks T0? yes, but it isn't crazy to assume a card on the power level of SFM wouldn't find its way into almost every deck with access to W.
Jeskai Twin would be fantastic with both SFM, Twin, AV
What example test list do you have to show this? What 8-10 cards are you cutting to make room for the SFM package and AV copies? This is yet another unfounded myth that has been around for a while.
I can say from my personal experience with Grixis Twin, it was hard enough finding room for 1-2 Tasigurs, never mind fitting in a 6 to 7-card SFM package and 2-4 additional card draw cards that do nothing for 4 turns. The full SFM package would have to be in the main (what are you cutting?) and AV would be out of the side (what are you cutting?).
Jamming both packages into the same deck just makes both individual parts weaker because you are removing support cards and protection (and risk simply losing to faster decks and interaction).
The same kind of things are true of Grixis Twin but people still jammed Tas and crew into that deck.
but of course a decks will never accommodate powerful new cards they will just sit back and say, the list is in stone and can never change because that is what happens. LotH was not as good as LotV and would never see play, that is what people said when it came out gets played in the same deck often.
You don't need to run 6-7 cards to run a SFM package, 2-3 SFM 1 target is the smallest and SFM is far better in the late to mid-game people keep acting like you want to slam her on turn 2.
I would ask you what proof you have that players wouldn't run those cards?
Just like Twin, very interactive and very linear.
Like I said it boils down to if you liked the Combo dominated Twin/Pod meta or the current aggro centered one.
I tend to prefer the current simply because it does have more options, Like the recent DnT lists doing well while being perhaps unexpected wasn't shocking, if DnT put 2 into the top 8 during the Twin/Pod era it would be a huge surprise.
I disagree, essentially BGx decks were the only "fair" decks that could contend, BGx was kinda the only color segment with main deck tools to combat both combo decks. I actually attribute the decline of Jund/Junk over all from losing these decks in the format. BGx had 50/50 match ups with most every deck but the fact that win G1 against those decks is really what kept it in high standing. It was notorious for being able to beat anything post board but this is kind of because the meta-game was so hostel to other fair decks that you didn't need to really consider decks like merfolk, burn, infect etc... in your 75 because Pod was so good against those decks that they didn't see much play over all.
I would say that there are certainly more linear strategies now then there was then but the competitive options were also far more restrictive.
Kind of unfair to characterize what I said to mean a very narrow period in the post Pod pre-Twin banning. But that does showcase that linear strategies like Burn, Infect, and such saw increases in the post Pod meta and that Twin didn't really do much to stifle that. the Dec #'s you posted have about 20% of the meta being combo decks of one type or another. Mid-range actually didn't look to be doing as good as combo or linear aggro.
The point I was making was that during the majority of Moderns history as a format it was dominated simultaneously dominated by Pod/Twin which for years had the lofty title of "pillars" of the format.
I think it depends, if you liked the previously combo dominated Modern in which Pod/Twin combos defined the format then you probably very much dislike it. If you prefer a wider window for more fair decks to be competitive than you probably prefer it now. IMO both formats have issues and I tend to prefer the post Pod/Twin meta-game overall.
Honestly I looked around and couldn't find any burn lists or primers running dismember, Path sure but that has been the go to SB answer for road blocking fatties like Gofy, Tas, Angler, and now DS since essentially forever. For Burn the Twin match up was always about do they have the combo on 4 or not? If yes then you likely lose if no then you odds of winning sky rocket.
Certainly a interesting article and pretty much echo's a lot of the criticisms of the "all blue needs is counterspell for control to be good" arguments; I happen to agree with the article that while counterspell would be nice the other needed elements don't exist either. I think the biggest crime that counterspell ever committed was making mid-range creature decks bad, that is the origins of the "feels bad to have your spell countered" thing came from , WotC wanted to let your 3-6 mana creature who looks so cool actually be playable and counters did a lot of work in making sure that they generally sucked.
Its worth noting also that Grixis Delver, and most every other Blue deck really had to warp its main deck to either compete with Twin or compete with the remainder of the field. Every set that would come out with anything worthy of trying out I would and I like the majority of other modern blue mages would come to the conclusion that whatever new card x added, Tas, Kcommand etc... that it was simply better in Twin every time for the same reasons; you would have to build your deck to either beat Twin and lose to nearly everything else or have 50/50 match ups against nearly everything but Twin.
First off cards like Dismember essentially always sucked against Twin which runs peek and MD dispel to combat/play around any removal that isn't Abrupt Decay.
Second I don't think that the race to your death type decks like Affinty or Dredge would be inclined to play anymore interaction, more likely it would favor attempting to run the fastest possible MD configuration and hope to race the combo game one. When Pod was banned and Twin was still legal both Burn and Infect rose to T1 simply because they could easily race the combo and the actual deck that policed them was gone.
Twin wasn't a real police deck it was a instant win button for a deck that otherwise isn't able to actually compete, it was far better against other fair decks and simply provided means for beating non-interactive decks with the possibility of T4 instant win. When you play against decks that are looking to mindlessly race the best plan was to dig for the combo and kill them before they kill you, Remand, Cryptic and crew are just as bad now as they had been then in those types of match ups.
You fail to point out that WotC gave Twin years and multiple direct hate cards printed with no headway made against the deck. If in 2-3 years XDS decks are still putting up the same kind of results then I think it would be worth considering it in the same way that they did Twin.
I personally doubt that DS will sit on top for as long as Twin given that it isn't a fundamentally broken instant win combo, it is far more fair and we will likely see other fair decks that can hinder it.
Would take more than "a few good prints" wouldn't it? I mean with color fixing being as good as it is in Modern you would have to see cards printed that are at a minimum as powerful as the options that Black offers. If not you would have to justify not simply making the super easy splash for black. Anything that gets printed into the pool is in direct competition with every other option at the same cost and function. For instance this is really the only reason to play Blue, no other card filtering does what Serum Visions does without some wonky aspect stapled on like Ancient Stirrings, which while "better" in terms of value really can only go into a very narrow spectrum of decks. We have seen this with the drop off of bolt in decks running black, no need for it anymore.
Given that what black has is the product of 15 years worth of design and it literally only equals like 7 playsets of cards I doubt that any kind of balance could be achieved in less than a decade. They would need to print cards in other colors that are on par or better than the available black options and just looking at how bad Thoughtseize warped the last standard it was in I doubt WotC will be printing the kinds of spells at a cheap enough rate to really see modern play.
I don't see including SFM in a Jeskai Twin list any different than Grixis "warping" the deck to include Kcommand and Tas, this is always the nature of the game if a more powerful option becomes available it will find its way into a previously established list. You seem to be arguing that innovation will not occur and that decks would remain static.
For CoCo decks I think it would be far easier as they can run a much smaller number of SFM and targets because they can cords it up.
Jeskai Twin could easily find space, cutting back on far less proactive things like Wall of Omens and such. SFM would actually be a great improvement for the deck IMO as SFM would improve the quality of redundant combo creatures when you have get to draw your Splinter Twin as Pestermite/Exarch both carry equipment well enough and SFM's instant speed placement of the equipment allows the deck to maintain its EOT play style. Possibly drop the much more easily disrupted Kiki/Angel side of the deck and instead up the Twin count from 3 to 4 and probably shave some Walls as those tend to be the clunkiest parts of the deck that don't do much.
I approve this message as it proves my point lol.
GDS is not a mid-range deck, its a aggro-control deck. It isn't looking to win in the mid-range of the game its looking to aggro the opponent out while protecting its threats with discard and denial. Can it win in the mid to late game yes, but so can Burn. Jund is a mid-range deck that has the potential to have more aggro-ish hands but it is looking to deploy its game winning threats in the mid-range of the game. Has mid-range become a hippish not just a phase of the game but a state of mind?
GDS is much closer to a traditional Sligh deck that favors discard over burn than a Jund style mid-range deck.
Because decks never change to accommodate new more powerful options. This is the same things people said about LotH, about Grim Flayer, about Baral, etc....
I'm not saying that SFM couldn't come off the list, I'm saying that this argument really has no founding in Magic. Newer more powerful options will always find room in a deck at the expense of the less powerful current options that is just a fundamental truth of Mtg. You seem to be advocating a position of non-deck building where lists are set in stone instead of reevaluated consistently and potentially consisting of very different counts and potentially cards included. Is it crazy to say that SFM would make CoCo decks T0? yes, but it isn't crazy to assume a card on the power level of SFM wouldn't find its way into almost every deck with access to W.
The same kind of things are true of Grixis Twin but people still jammed Tas and crew into that deck.
but of course a decks will never accommodate powerful new cards they will just sit back and say, the list is in stone and can never change because that is what happens. LotH was not as good as LotV and would never see play, that is what people said when it came out gets played in the same deck often.
You don't need to run 6-7 cards to run a SFM package, 2-3 SFM 1 target is the smallest and SFM is far better in the late to mid-game people keep acting like you want to slam her on turn 2.
I would ask you what proof you have that players wouldn't run those cards?