I think what Cfusionpm's complaint really comes down to is that WotC isn't playing in the space that might produce Modern playable counterspells. They're being too conservative with that particular kind of interaction. I don't think they're willing to print a 3 cmc counterspell with enough upside to make it Modern playable. A 3 cmc counter would need to have significant upside to see play. The window of Modern playability is in 2 cmc counters with downside, or 1 cmc counters that are narrow, and they rarely tread in this territory. Ceremonious Rejection was a great printing. It did practically nothing in Standard, and it's nothing more than a sideboard card, although a nice one, in Modern. Other than that, when was the last time they designed a Modern playable counterspell? Disdainful Stroke and Stubborn Denial back in Khan's block, like 4 years ago? And thank God we got those two, because before that it was Spell Pierce and Countersquall, back in 2009!!
They've designed THREE Modern playable counter spells in almost 10 years. That's just being lazy and not exploring that design space enough. Here's an idea: UW: Counter target noncreature spell, you gain 2 life. There, in 5 seconds I thought up a Negate variant that would probably be playable in Modern and is absolutely fine from a power level standpoint. Why can't they play with different effects and casting costs like this instead of printing Negate in every set? That is the argument here about counterspells. It's not that people want something crazy busted, we just want something playable, and it's so rare for WotC to get adventurous enough to design something like that.
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Wraithpk posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 20/08/2018)Posted in: Modern Archives -
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cfusionpm posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 20/08/2018)Posted in: Modern ArchivesQuote from FoodChainGoblins »Wizards is really being too overly cautious when it comes to countermagic. Perhaps they are trying to "phase it out" in many ways. I do agree that if we are not going to see good multicolor countermagic in a set and block like Ravnica, then where will we see it? I really don't know what else to say.
Between on-cast and uncounterable and poor counterspells, it seems they just want to make the game more and more like Hearthstone. Rather than cater to what made the game so amazing, and stand head and shoulders above basically every other card game (stack interaction and manipulation), they would rather shift focus back to: "You play your thing, get an effect. I kill the thing, then I play my thing" or just keep playing things until you have a cluttered mess board state. I find that level of "Battlecruiser Magic" the most bland and boring that could possibly be. Magic is better than that. Wizards should be embracing stack interaction, not shoveling it to the back. Nothing disgusts me more than feeling like this is their goal for the game moving forward (attached image). -
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FoodChainGoblins posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 20/08/2018)Although I agree that it can be somewhat disconcerting to see cards like Assassin's Trophy pushed to make it in to Modern (and beyond), but no countermagic. I feel that Wizards really wants Negate and Cancel to be in every Magic set from now on and just be the go-to for countermagic. It's pretty sad to be quite honest, considering that some players like myself saw it as a slap in the face to see those in EVERY SINGLE SET. Now we don't bat an eye.Posted in: Modern Archives
Wizards is really being too overly cautious when it comes to countermagic. Perhaps they are trying to "phase it out" in many ways. I do agree that if we are not going to see good multicolor countermagic in a set and block like Ravnica, then where will we see it? I really don't know what else to say.
I've long moved on from countermagic. I don't expect everyone else to do so, but I think people are really getting a broad picture of how Wizards wants to do (or "not do") countermagic from here on out. If they did a really good countermagic card, I would fully expect to see more creatures have CAST abilities just like Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger so that the countermagic doesn't really do much. Creatures win again!
P.S. - I don't really know where I was going with that post. -
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idSurge posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 20/08/2018)I mean honestly, its hard to complain for anyone right now with how the Modern meta has shaped up. We are down to complaint's about niche decks at this point.Posted in: Modern Archives
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FoodChainGoblins posted a message on RGx TitanshiftI can tell you a list, but it's baaad.Posted in: Big Mana
Things I see wrong with the deck. It probably needs GY hate in the SB. Crumble to Dust and Beast Within (sad to say) can go. Reclamation Sage probably needs to be main. Growth Spasm is bad. Bloodbraid Elf is potentially bad. I just don't know where else to go. The 3 Obstinate Baloth are very good. Thrun may not be necessary, as well as the 2 Tireless Tracker (my current favorite Modern legal card).
I actually don't think that Titanshift is poised to do well in this metagame. There are not enough fair decks running around and we can't rely on seeing Company, Humans, and Tron enough to get big time results. In the Modern metagame thread in the past 4 GPs and SCG Opens, Titanshift has won only 45% of its matches. There are simply better choices in my opinion.
I love the deck. I know how to play it well. It's one of the few decks that I can play a whole tournament knowing I probably made every mulligan decision and play correctly, but that is simply not enough. It's better to play a top deck, like KCI, UW Control, or Company less than optimally than play this deck optimally in my opinion. Now if you have a local meta where you think this would shine, who am I to argue with that? I just don't think it's well placed overall right now in the larger meta. -
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ashtonkutcher posted a message on Does anyone else feel "lost" in Modern?Food, your post inspired me to get around to writing this article last night. Take a look:Posted in: Modern
http://modernnexus.com/love-what-you-play-taking-the-taste-test/
Hope it helpsQuote from "Love What You Play: Taking the Taste Test" »This article explains my own strategic preferences and applies those to my deck choices in Modern. Hopefully, witnessing the process will help those lost in the format establish their own playstyle priorities, and serve as a friendly wake-up call to players stagnating on a deck they understand well enough to prize with, but don’t enjoy enough to learn more deliberately. I’ll close things out with some practical tips for identifying preferences. -
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cfusionpm posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 16/04/2018)Posted in: Modern ArchivesQuote from tronix »i also think the swords are an open question for SFM in modern.
If the Swords go from "unplayable trash" to "another cool and powerful option" I think that's a move forward. -
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idSurge posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 16/04/2018)I wouldn't lose sleep if TKS and Smasher got banned.Posted in: Modern Archives
In all seriousness though I don't want to ban anything.
Unban preordain, and SFM, and call it a day for a bit. -
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ktkenshinx posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 16/04/2018)I know there is some anti-Human sentiment in here but let's try and stay honest with our criticisms of the deck. Humans winning on T3 is a particularly disingenuous allegation. Here's the line that was identified:Posted in: Modern Archives
T1: Land, Champion (1/1)
T2: Land, Champion (2/2 - 1/1), Champion (3/3 - 2/2 - 1/1), swing with Champion (Opp 17)
T3: Land, Lieutenant (5/5 - 4/4 - 3/3), Hierarch/Champion (6/6 - 5/5 - 4/4), swing with all (Opp 2)
So this T3 "kill" requires 3 Champion, 3 Lands, a Lieutenant, and then either the remaining 4th Champion or Hierarch. So that's 9 or 10 cards seen to draw 8 specific cards. This is an EXTREMELY unlikely draw. It's also the only draw in the entire deck that gets there. Oh, and it also doesn't actually kill the opponent if they didn't play an untapped shock or didn't fetch twice, so it's not even a goldfish T3 kill. I'm calling shenanigans on this entire accusation of Humans being able to kill T3. There may be legitimate issues with Humans, but it's ability to kill on T3 is not one of those issues.
Speaking of which, Humans is exactly the kind of close-to 50/50+ deck that pros want to play in Modern. It's also the kind of 50/50+ policing deck many of this thread's most vocal Modern critics always want to play. It has a proactive game plan, a matchup spectrum right around 50/50, inherent disruption that hits multiple decks, a few flex slots to tailor to metagames, and is relatively easy to pick up but also relatively hard to play "perfectly" due to stuff like Mage and appropriate Vial usage. This is the exact same kind of deck many of the pro-blue mages want. Except it's not blue combo/control, it's a type of rainbow aggro. It's basically doing what Twin would be doing in Modern, just not in Twin colors or with a Twin theme. And for some people, that's unacceptable and "broken." So if people don't want Humans around because of its impact on the metagame, that's fine, but then let's not also argue for a policing blue deck that has the same effect. Humans IS the current policing deck of Modern. If you don't like policing decks, then be genuine and don't like ALL of them, not just Humans because of its aggro nature. If you do purport to like policing decks, great! But don't apply a double standard to Humans when you would be happy with a blue deck (or UR combo/control deck) in its place. -
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FoodChainGoblins posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 16/04/2018)People (and mostly Wizards) needs to be less scared of unleashing cards like Preordain in the format. Yes, Storm and Infect were too good at the time. Yes, Twin was damn good at that time. But was it Preordain? Or was it cards like Rite of Flame, Blazing Shoal, and Seething Song? Okay, Twin didn't have those. It had Ponder and Preordain. Many people here agree that Twin is not necessarily too strong for this current format, but with Twin gone in the format, is Preordain all that strong? Yes, it will get played. It is better than Serum Visions most of the time (the only time it's not better is when you want to scry the card that you need to the top to avoid discard for the current turn).Posted in: Modern Archives
I think people need to identify the real culprits of those decks being too strong. Will Preordain break Infect? Infect doesn't have Blazing Shoal, Ponder, or Gitaxian Probe anymore, not even to mention new cards like Fatal Push. Will Preordain break Storm? Storm had Rite of Flame, Seething Song, Ponder, and Gitaxian Probe. Now, I will admit that I personally would like to see Gitaxian Probe back, but I am NOT arguing for that now. I just feel that identifying the real culprits of broken decks is more important than saying, "Infect and Storm used to run Preordain, therefore Preordain IS currently busted." I hate, hate, hate to hear these arguments all the freaking time. I hear them locally. I hear them on this forum. I see them in the comments section of CFB and SCG. Although I see many people coming around on some of these, it still just gets to me.
I just want to point out that with decks like Humans being super strong in the current format, many Combo decks are currently kept in check. Burn also helps with this and it will always be somewhat played. People are SCARED TO DEATH of Combo decks because that 1 time they lost to Grishoalbrand on turn 2 twice in a match, but don't care about the last 10 times they played against Humans and lost 8 of those matches. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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I also hope that when I do brew my next combo deck, a card wont get banned again, since I guess if my combo deck is on the same level as trash-nauseum, then people wont cry about it. Or I can just go back to storm, and let people cry for a grapeshot ban like they did a year ago
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I didn't play during Alliances, but I actually disagree that FoW is too powerful for Standard. I only know the card in the context of powered up formats like Legacy, Vintage, and Cube. I can imagine a format where the power is lower, and control isn't even that powerful, which isn't that uncommon when it comes to Standard. FoW has major drawbacks.
And so what if it is? Right now Teferi is being designed around straight up, what's the difference if its Force of Will (or any other Blue card) instead? In my opinion, Teferi is a more powerful card than Force of Will in a format that can actually tap out on 5 and not die. At the end of the day, FoW is still just a counterspell with -1 card advantage
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A good test to measure when something is broken is to ask the question: in any situation, would I just rather be playing "X broken thing" over pretty much anything else?
"Would I rather just play Ancestral Recall here over anything else?" Most likely no.
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Agreed, Preordain looks pretty stupid being on the ban list right now
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My opinion is that if it wasn't for the RL, more people would play Legacy.
Legacy is extremely punishing when it comes to in game decisions, but Modern is super punishing for things like deck choice and mulligan decisions, which is kinda feels bad.
One dude at my LGS said something like, if you had the ability to look at each player's top 10 cards, you can almost always predict who is going to win. I don't really think you can do that in Legacy. (Same could probably be said about Standard too)
It basically comes down to accessibility. New cards are easier to obtain, and people who play standard already have the cards to play with an eternal format. Its a whole snowball effect. More people with new cards want a format to play with, so they go to Modern. That means more tournaments are Modern, which in turn brings more people to the format.
I'm not trying to bash Modern by any means, I just think if we look at it through a complete competitive lense with no outside factors like card/tourney accessibility, I just personally think Legacy might be more popular.
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Na, UW needs better card draw like Brainstorm or Portent to become truly dominate. The reason for this is because in most games they straight up just need to miracle Terminus or they lose. Creature based decks have become basically Legacy creature decks, Vial or Cavern or bust. These decks are playing 2 three drop creatures at instant speed with counterspells attached to them on the same turn, that's why Terminus needs to be Miracled, same as Legacy.
Preordain, most likely will only help unfair decks, it's not good enough for UW to play because it's a Sorcery.
UW would most likely play Ponder, but there is a giant fear about Ponder amongst Modern players for some reason. Ponder is a huge step up from all the other cantrips, and almost every blue deck would run it.
Brainstorm is something we can all agree we don't need to have in Modern. Just look to Legacy for reference.
Portent could be a cool inclusion in Modern mostly buffing UW strictly, but I would be fine with that. Seems like a cool card and I'm a huge advocate for cantrips, which some people are against, but who knows.
Here's the cons: cantrips crate very consistent gamestates to the point of the game becoming "samey." Having too many good cantrips can create a state we have in Legacy where not only is Blue warped around these cards (mandatory 4x of Brainstorm and Ponder), but it also can warp the entire metagame around these cards/color. However I'd argue Legacy is far from "samey" and that if you want to look for an example of samey gameplay, Standard is prime example, and Legacy is far from it. Contrips create insane amount of decisions just with one single card.
I'd rather we have powerful control decks in Modern than other linear decks, and this is coming form a combo deck player. If we do look to Legacy, UW control and Grixis control are amongst the most powerful decks, alongside other fair decks, mostly being Terbo Xerox, and because these fair decks are so powerful, it is hard for decks that run broken turn 2 kills to run rampant. (This does not imply we need a control-combo police deck like Splinter Twin however)
Decision making becomes more ingrained in the gameplay, and overall agency is increased because of it.
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