I largely agree with this article. It's why players like Craig Wescoe T8 a GP with a deck they've been playing for years. Or why Daniel Wong got to the Vegas T8 with Taking Turns. Or why Todd Stevens and his beloved Eldrazi Tron have so much recent success. Just take a look at some of the MTGO regulars who play their decks all the time and routinely repeat 5-0 performances in the Leagues, whether in this current metagame or in past ones. The format is significantly more skill-rewarding than many claim.
In Legacy, you have fewer matchups and overall less diversity, so skill plays out in choices on Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, FoW, Daze, Wasteland, Therapy, etc. These cards are hugely skill-tesitng, and the matchups between the top decks reflect the skill in using those cards effectively. In Modern, you don't have those same kinds of skill-testing cards (indeed, we don't have any of the above cards) but you have significantly more deck diversity. This requires more knowledge of more decks, their sideboards, your sideboarding plan against them, and your/their overall gameplan. It means you need to change how you use your cards every game.
I've watched the pros and vocal streamers that complain about variance, and when I see their games, I see endless misplays and small errors that result in losses. Slamming TS on T1 against decks with no significant T1 or T2 plays and then moaning about a topdeck that won the opponent the game. Mindlessly Bolting dorks before losing to Druid combo. Picking the wrong card off IoK/TS. Choosing the wrong mode on Esper Charm, K-Command, or Cryptic for the matchup. Killing a Baral and then tapping out with more removal in hand and getting wrecked by a T4 Electromancer into the combo after an opponent cantripped three times in the match. Keeping Affinity or Elves hands with no business spells against decks with sweepers. Making awful sideboard decisions like Leyline of Sanctity against Ad Nauseam. Choosing to stay on the play against discard decks like 8Rack. Endless misplays and misjudgments of opposing decks.
Then I watch the games of more technical pilots with deeper format knowledge and see them pick up huge margins from format knowledge. They don't tilt, complain, or blame external factors, and they break down all their choices against opposing possibilities. I don't remember the player, but I recently watched a game where a streamer was in G2 or G3 against a Storm deck. Without even looking up the opposing list, he was worried about the opponent boarding in a Blood Moon plan B and he mulliganed his first hand because it didn't have fetchlands. He kept his second and fetched an Island to Serum Visions on the draw. Sure enough, the opponent rituals into a Moon on their second turn. This is where players in that first category I described above would rage about swingy Modern cards but this guy already knew it and already had the out. Modern needs more of that play and clarity, not the complaining.
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ktkenshinx posted a message on Ne w (6-27-17) Channelfireball Article - Brian DemarsPosted in: Modern -
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ktkenshinx posted a message on Banlist change for 1/9/2017Posted in: Modern ArchivesQuote from Lilijuana »
Their reason for banning probe was as succinct and to the point as it gets...and correct. I don't see how tournament reports are necessary when they are addressing how the card influences gameplay.
You mentioned the Delver deck above. It runs 17 lands and essentially 56 cards b/c Probe enables such a composition to be viable when normally it would not.
This rationale is arbitrary and applies to dozens of cards in the format. Gameplay reasons are all subjective. That is why we should prefer objective reasons like T4 rule violations and format diversity violations. Name a Tier 1 staple in Modern and I'm sure half a dozen people in this thread could knit together a rhetorical argument about why that card is busted because it is too strong in gameplay. We cannot have Wizards start banning cards for those reasons because it's completely unpredictable and doesn't necessarily improve the format.
Here's the Probe rationale I would have written, assuming I had their data:
"Looking at the results of Modern games on MTGO, we found that no single top-tier deck was consistently winning before turn four and violating the turn four rule. That said, many players complained about how fast the format was. We did a deeper dive and also found that too many overall games were ending before turn four as a result of numerous fast, linear, aggressive strategies, although no single deck was to blame. Rather than ban individual cards from each of these decks (no one of which was alone in violation), we looked at cards shared between all of them to decrease the overall number of games won before turn four. Probe was the most offensive of those shared cards, appearing in the greatest percentage of pre-turn four wins relative to any other shared card.
This finding is supported by Probe's gameplay: it gives perfect information, draws a card, fuels delve, and even pumps creatures for basically no investment. Although it is unfortunate other decks will suffer from Probe's removal (e.g. Delver, U/R Storm), we believe Probe's banning will have a net positive on the format as it overall decreases the chance of fast, top-tier decks winning before turn four. Those decks will likely also find replacements and stay viable. In the interest of the turn four rule, Gitaxian Probe is banned."
This took me ten minutes to write and probably summarizes Wizards' analysis of the card. It also would have preemptively addressed most of the anger around the ban. -
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ktkenshinx posted a message on Banlist change for 1/9/2017The anger at this announcement is unusually overblown and unwarranted, even considering the general Modern outcry at such changes. Although there are definitely some legitimately scary elements of the ban update, most people are complaining about elements that are totally fine, or even heartening.Posted in: Modern Archives
The GGT ban is perfectly fine. It keeps the deck a top-tier contender without leaving it a Tier 1 mainstay. This lets other GY decks return (remember old faithful Abzan Company?) and lets everyone free up SB slots to fight other decks. The "scary" part about this ban is that it's a reversal of a previous ban, which is unprecedented but not really that scary. I'm fine with companies and organizations changing their minds based on new realities. In these regards, the GGT ban gets top marks from me.
Probe ban gets a B-. Yes, it's effective at taking a little bit off the top of most fast decks without killing any of them outright. In that regard, it's a solid A. Unfortunately, it does this at the expense of very fair Delver decks, which were great for format health. That's C-, unintended consequence ban territory. More importantly, these kinds of silly bans just underscore Modern's problems: WHERE THE HECK ARE OUR GENERIC ANSWERS AND POLICING CARDS/STRATEGIES?? You don't see these absurd bans in Legacy because the format has internal regulation from cards, not external regulations from bans. I'm not saying we need Legacy's exact answers, but we do need answers and we needed them a year ago. Push is a good step in the right direction, but it can't be the final step. If we don't get these kinds of cards, we'll keep stomaching more corner-case bans like Probe and keep inciting even more ban mania and format instability.
So, if the bans themselves aren't that terrible, what's the real problem?
The problem is the update itself. It doesn't cite tournament finishes, doesn't refer back to format guidelines and rules, doesn't anticipate objections to the bans, and overall doesn't build format confidence. It looked like the article was thrown together in less than an hour, when I'm sure Wizards did mountains of testing and analysis before deciding on some of those bans. If Wizards communicated this to their audience, people wouldn't be so up in arms about these changes. Especially if they threw us a bone about how they want to see how the new format shakes out before deciding on possible unbans. That would have been great! Instead, we got a very elementary update with extremely basic reasons. No wonder people are upset: Wizards hasn't done anything to try and build confidence after a big banlist shakeup.
I hope we get some clarification in the coming weeks. I'm sick and tired of delving through AMAs and Twitter posts to figure out Wizards' banlist policy and process. This lack of transparency makes it very difficult to advocate on behalf of the format and entice players to join. With ban mania everywhere, it's hard to stay evidence-based and level-headed, particularly when Wizards doesn't give us any tools to help that fight. -
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MakoEyesX posted a message on [Primer] Kiki Pod (7/2012 - 1/2015)I actually wasn't a huge fan of exarch. The key situations came up slightly less frequently than the mana caused problems.Posted in: Modern Archives - Established - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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Edit: Anger of the Gods reprint?
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But that's the thing about 5-0s, not all of them get published so impossible to see the whole picture.
The deck is obviously good and it's interactive and let's you have tons of decisions. It's what many people want to play.
It's still the 'new hot thing' give the meta some time to adapt. Burn lists will up their instant speed spells and players will learn how to play against the deck, Affinity can either switch their Galvanic Blasts for Dispatch or start playing Shrapnel Blast for some serious burn reach etc. Good MUs against Death Shadow decks and Bant Eldrazi may give people some Tier 2 hard control options in UW and Esper, which is something many have asked for.
With Jund falling off so hard, maybe we actually get to play with BBE again (I think most people agree that the only reason to not unban it was that Jund was Tier 1 already anyway).
Could we just wait 1-2 months morr, collect more data and see how the meta adapts before starting ban talk at least once?
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I'm pretty sure combo decks would max out on Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand first before they consider Opt. They don't need the instant speed.
Fair Snapcaster Mage decks (especially Delver) would probably like a few copies.
As far as cantrips go, Opt seems to be the safest bet that can actually have a little impact on the format.
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Funnily enough, it just won GP Vancouver as a SB card in Death Shadow Jund.
Art is super sweet, gonna be interesting to see what one-drops you can draft to accompany him.
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It took more than two years until people put it together and started to realize how potent it was.
Don't really wanna contradict your point Ktkenshinx, fair decks are not as hard to put together like unfair decks and I agree that reactive blue simply lacks power currently. Just wanted to point out that modern still is an awesome format to brew in.
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Also IIRC, no way to hate on 4 colour decks, no Tectonic Edge, no shuffle hate, nothing. Same problem as with the lacking graveyard hate that was definitely part of what got Emrakul banned.
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How is Grixis Control not a blue deck?
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If wou got the Goyfs and Vials already you should really give RUG Eternal Command a try. The deck is powerful and a blast to play.
I just love getting beats in with Goyf/Clique while holding up countermagic. The deck is very flexible and can play a tempo role while also packing lots of CA to grind. Deciding on your role for each match and when to shift gears is quite difficult but also what makes the decks super awesome. Tons and tons of decisions.
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That said I think Parallel Lives is overkill as your only way of creating tokens is Mechanized Production (which you only play 2 copies of). I would replace the Coursers with Tireless Tracker as Clue tokens + Mechanized Production are actually a wincon or card advantage engine.
Mirrorweave is another interesting card to consider with Biovisionary.