MTG Salvation

Quote from gkourou »

Serious question/TLDR: If the neoform deck gets handled by Modern(which is a possibility), is the road for possible unbans more open than ever? Isn't it a kind of hypocrisy to keep a disruptable turn 4(!!) deck in the banlist, or a turn 3 tap out twice to play a 4/4 lifelink vigilance on the BanList?

The modern banlist has looked like a joke for a very long time, IMO. Even at the very outset of the twin ban I was 50/50 on whether the ban was justified and it has always felt like a "rotation" ban. I feel that WotC's policy on Modern has become much, much more hands off in the last couple of years, perhaps in the spirit of them already planning for the upcoming nonrotating format and wanting to give Modern more of the Legacy treatment.

In general I have never found the banlist as sacred as many other people here deem it and would like them to be more active in both banning and unbanning of cards. Especially Stoneforge Mystic could have come off a long time ago.

I'm of the opinion that sheer power is not the only reason to ban a strategy. Magic is a game and it should be enjoyable, if there are strategies that a large portion of the playerbase finds unfun that is plenty reason to ban it. Now what the threshold is for enough people disliking a deck that it should become a consideration for a ban I don't know, but I feel that there are a lot of people who think that, although there is no single overpowered linear strategy in Modern, the sheer amount of different linear decks has become a big downside to the format.

So when this Neoform deck pops up I think it's completely understandable a bunch of people go "dear God, here we go AGAIN, please ban this asap". Overly reactionary yes, but understandable.

A comparison can be made to a discussion currently going on in the Smash Bros. Melee community, where a bunch of tournaments have started to ban "wobbling"; a technique with which Ice Climbers can kill every single character in one shot off of getting a single grab. It is a divisive discussion because Ice Climbers aren't that good of a character and good players know how to play around ever getting grabbed, and banning wobbling might make Ice Climbers a useless character in a game with an already quite small roster. However wobbling is considered so obnoxious, major tournaments are now banning it.

The reveal date of Modern Horizons was so odd, it's so frustrating we have to twiddle our thumbs for another month before the spoiler season starts. If War of the Spark wasn't as huge as it turned out to be it would have just passed through my mind as white noise waiting for Horizons.

If Tarmogoyf was banned, would we be talking about how unbanning Goyf would push all the midrange decks to play Goyf?

I think that argument is silly, there is always a best midrange creature. And I don't even think it's true all midrange and UWx decks would run SFM.

Quote from Mtgthewary »

Quote from Crimson Lancer »

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.

broken? Which tier 1 decks using this cards you talk about? Can't see any.... Even not 1. Our ban decisions now only feelings what could be broken in the future? If there is no deck using this cards and beeing broken, so it is not needed talking about bannings

The London Mulligan significantly boosts these "all in" decks. Especially the all in Druid combo list would probably be tier 1

Not saying I would immediately agree but when discussing the London Mulligan I can definitely see a future where those cards eventually have to go

Quote from Spsiegel1987 »

Any decks in particularly worrying you, Bearscape?

I do wonder if Shadow/Rock benefit much from this change. Seems like a huge boon to Tron, Dredge and Amulet more than any deck as of now in modern.

I like the London Mulligan, I think it benefits all decks by removing some non-games. However it benefits combo decks much more than fair decks, and from what I've seen from MTGO there's a bunch of stuff popping up like abusing Simian Spirit Guide and Gemstone Caverns to do something absurd on turn 1 or 2.

I think the London Mulligan is a great addition to any healthy mtg format. It breaking Modern says much more about current Modern than it does about the mulligan rule.

Is there a deadline when we will know whether the London Mulligan is being permanently implemented not? I am convinced that decision will have more effect on the future of modern than anything they could possibly print in Modern Horizons except for maybe Force of Will.

I'm still down for a faithless looting ban, however with Horizons coming up I think it's fair to sit it out and see if it really does shake up modern (I doubt it).

I'm also rooting for the London Mulligan getting implemented. It removes some non-games for all decks universally, makes sideboarding more impactful and is more skill intensive than the current rule. That it makes linear decks even more powerful is a tradeoff that can be fixed with bans if needed.

WotC reeaaaaallly wants us to cast Living End for

Alternatively, for 3 mana UR Phoenix gets to flashback 2 spells and return all their birds to play

I'm excited for the London Mulligan. It will reduce the amount of nongames you play for all decks regardless of powerlevel. I do think it will make good decks better and (most) weaker decks worse, but at worst it will bring to light whether a deck is actually too good for modern and we'll just see bans accordingly.

If Avacyn is printed, it will 100% be mythic. I actually see Voice at rare, it's not stunningly expensive or a huge effect, just efficient. 2 colors as well, multicolor tends to get fewer mythics and they would save that for something like the other Innistrad angels Bruna and Gisela

Quote from Bearscape »

Do you never miss being able to fetch Emrakul? Although the Annihilator trigger does not matter too much to them, 15 damage tends to oneshot them and they can basically never block it. I see the logic but would worry about stealing my own win away. And what do you think about boarding in Negates, as countering their self-discard spells is so powerful?

I'm not saying it's 100% correct. Perhaps it's wrong but here's my reasoning. I've played the match-up a lot and I rarely get to tick up Nahiri to 8 and untap like that. First of all I'm almost always under the gun in game one and Nahiri goes -2 to exile a dude and then eats 2 damage on the way back (if I'm not already dead). I feel like if I am ticking up Nahiri like that then something is very wrong for the dredge player. I must have a RIP or got a very nice Anger sweep. So I think ticking her up to high loyalty and grinding them to deck is not much worse. TL;DR-I don't think there is much upside to leaving in Emrakul, but drawing it and usually never having the luxury of discarding is a major downside. I never anticipate having the time to discard that card unless I'm already winning, which means I don't need Emrakul.

Otherwise I trim a few card like one of each counterspell because occasionally you get that 3 couterspell hand or 2 counterspells plus keep drawing more and then I usually die. While have a couple AV could still ensure a nice hand refill.

Made top 4 of a 43 person GPT, split with top 4 and I got the byes since no one else was actually going to GP Vancouver.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/08-09-16-AUk-uwr-nahiri/

First round: Lost 0-2 to RG Breachshift. I didn't have enough counterspells in my hand first game and then in the second game I punted by tapping out for Nahiri on turn 5 after missing a land drop, since I thought my opponent didn't have the sixth land for Primeval Titan considering we both mulliganed to six.

Second round: Won 2-0 against Kiki chord.

Third round: Won 2-0 against the RW Pyrohemia Swans deck I saw on camera before. I was so excited to finally meet him. I had my only basic Plains in play which he Ghost Quartered, but I was able to find white mana later on to float to destroy both of the Blood Moons he played. I didn't really care about the Grafdigger's Cages.

Fourth round: Won 2-0 against the mirror, and he was from my LGS so we had fun. Both games I had Vendilion Clique to clear the way for Nahiri, and took down both games that way.

Fifth round: Won 2-0 against Infect. In the first game we both thought I was dead but I was able to find removal and win the game with Nahiri. Second game I had enough removal to destroy his board, then won the game by swinging with colonnade over and over again. We had a removal and pump spell war going on until I flashed in Izzet Staticaster to kill the creature we were fighting over.

Sixth round: Drew with my opponent to make top 8. We had one player with 15 points, one with 13 points, and six of us with 12 points so we all drew to make it so that we were all guaranteed top 8, because even if someone had 12 points after round 6, they'd only have 12 points while the rest of us would have 13 points.

Quarterfinals: Won 2-1 against affinity. Game 1 I had enough removal and counterspells to keep the board clear, game 2 he resolved a Chalice on 1 and I was stuck with five 1 mana spells in my hand at the end of the game. Game 3 I had a basic Plains and a Stony Silence in play, so when he cast Blood Moon I played Wear//Tear destroying Blood Moon and one of his artifacts.

All in all I'm pretty excited that I made top 4 and got the byes. First try!

Wow, there's quite a lot to go through here....

Quote from thnkr »

I have an idea on what the problem is. It's not the format, it's the people.

This is entirely possible. Though it calls into question what data are we looking at? Local personal stories? Or aggregate data? And what kind of data?

Modern is incredibly diverse right now.

Sort of. There is a lot of diversity in the specific collection of cards with which you can win, but there is a greatly disproportionate level of fast, aggressive decks that seek to win as quickly and efficiently as possible and interact as little as possible. So there is diversity between individual deck types, but not as much gameplans and archetypes.

With that diversity comes the likelihood of any given deck having one or more bad matchups. People don't like facing bad matchups, they get the "feelbads". People don't like losing, and often want to try to shift blame to something other than themselves for their losses.

This is projecting words into the mouths of others. I for one have no issue losing based on my own gameplay decisions, my own actions, and the choices I make throughout a match, etc. I have had some of my most enjoyable matches be losses because they were long, well-fought games where player decisions mattered more than our opening 7. What I cannot stand is a format in which matches are often decided by the pairings board and the die roll. Matches that can be so lopsided that you might as well sign the slip and go across the street for beer and snacks than play a deck you have almost no chance beating. Then there are the decks which require a narrow and specific answer or you simply lose. Draw that card and you win, don't drat that card and you lose. It does not create fun, engaging, entertaining, or enjoyable games. Blaming players for not enjoying this kind of gameplay is extremely callous.

So they'll use catchphrases, like, "The format is too linear", or, "the format is non-interactive". Those statements are vague on the details (as are the supporting arguments), but they sound technical enough to make them feel like they are smart, and therefore right.

Take a look at this list of the top 12 decks in Modern on Goldfish and go ahead and tell me that the format is not linear and that the format has a lot of interactivity:

Sometimes the format is broken. That's usually not too hard to see, though. For example, during the Eldrazi winter. Or, if we look at the trend of decks to beat in 2015, as Splinter Twin decks slowly crept to the top and pushed other decks out of tier 1. People clamored (and still do) over how unjust the ban was.

Your single-point data with no context is a horrible representation of what Twin did for the format. It was a 10% deck (with less metagame presence than BGx currently has), and did nothing to push decks out of tier 1. That list is laughably bad, placing things like Jund into Tier 3.... Tier 3??? Let's remember some perspective here: 2015 saw more than 30 different deck types placing in their GP Top 8s all year with 6 of 7 completely different winners (7 of 7 different if you count Jeskai kiki/resto/elspeth Twin as different from standard UR Twin). The deck was not oppressive, was not too dominant, was not suppressing decks, and was definitely not supplanting them. There has been piles of analysis covering those very topics, which is why the ban was so controversial; it did not line up with the criteria observed for every other diversity ban Modern has ever had.

The irony there is that WotC has data that we don't have - They have the percentages of decks on MTGO that run Twin, and their win percentages. The best we have is the historical data from sites like MTGGoldfish and MTGTop8, and even they imply that Twin was dominating the format. But somehow the data that we have that implies that Twin was, with holes, is more accurate than the data that WotC has? That detail doesn't seem to be brought up when people attempt to make their arguments against Wotc banning Twin.

Wizards also runs a business and makes business decisions. Their decision was that they didn't like seeing Twin all the time at the top tables (especially at Pro Tours). Based on informal comments from key people in Wizardse (as well as laughably incorrect text in the ban announcement itself), it's pretty safe to assume Wizards made the ban to shake up the Pro Tour and used some extremely questionable and borderline justifications for masking this reason. But as you said, we don't have access to the data Wizards does, so until someone comes out and says it, we can only analyze the data we have access to.

But the key here is to note the major indicator of a truly broken format - Lack of diversity. The more diverse the format, the healthier it is. But, again, the more likely that any one of us will have one or more bad matchups. That means we just have to accept that as part of the game and not get butthurt when we face a bad matchup. Sure, it makes winning something like a GP a bit more about predicting major metagame shifts and dodging bad matchups, but so be it. If someone pays the entry fee, that person's gambling that their deck will dodge those bad matchups. If they lose that bet, so be it. If they don't like losing bets, then it's probably best that they don't gamble in the first place.

So, overall, the format is fine.

So you support the idea that the format is healthy, despite the roulette wheel of matchups and sideboard lottery variance often used to decide games? A format defined where the best dozen decks are almost entirely linear aggressive decks attacking from completely different angles, making the act of trying to answer them almost impossible? And since answers are so difficult and ineffective relative to the array of threats, it's just better to try and race them, roll the dice, and hope for the best? That is not the kind of format I would classify as "healthy."

If you're bringing in a card like stony silence to combat a deck that wants to win by playing a critical mass of non-artifact creatures, you're not going to be interacting with them on a favorable axis.

Every time someone has cast a stony silence, or an ancient grudge, or what have you on my aether vial, I've always been happy.

Being able to remand or spell snare or mana leak something even some of the time is much stronger than siding in a sorcery speed card that is going to be mediocre at best, and useless at worst.
If you're playing anger of the gods, being able to leak/snare their spreading seas is key.
Being able to counter sideboard cards of theirs (especially since they're likely to board in dispel/negate/unified wills) is better than playing stony silence.
On top of that, kira is rarely going to be uncounterable, as they won't often bring vial up to 3, and they rarely name spirit with cavern.
On top of that, they won't always be casting every creature they have uncounterably, and if thats not enough, they certainly won't always have/be relying on aether vial.
While turning off relic is alright, stony silence does nothing to grafdigger's cage.

The only time I would even consider bringing in stony silence is if you are dead certain they have multiple copies of relic and multiple copies of spellskite.

I did it fam. Undefeated in the Swiss rounds (#1 seed) to get to Top 8 and lost to the Hoogly Boogly man the first match (1-2). Full write up will come tomorrow or the next day.

Jeskai Nahiri Top 8 SCG Baltimore Modern Classic by Paradox Omega

Yes, everything you stated is correct.

The thing to keep in mind is that X always = 0 in this case due to a game rule. Decreasing the cost of a spell that costs 0 by 1 still makes it 0. You don't get to change the value of X just because the math works out the same.

Note that a cost decrease still comes into effect if there is something to decrease. Normally, the spell costs nothing. However, if you had Thalia and Goblin Electromancer, the Electromancer would decrease the additional cost imposed by Thalia, thus making it truly "free" again. Also note that this isn't limited to just "free" spells. The exact same thing happens for spells without X in their costs so decreasing a Time Spiral off Mind's Desire by 1 still makes it cost 0 so the same thing applies to X spells because X always = 0 in that case.

I work with a few Muslims - we talk politics on occasion, and this subject came up a while back.
From memory;
Their take, was that ISIL are not deeply religious at all, it is a sham, they are using Islam as a brainwashing tool to recruit soldiers from across the globe for their war. They told me to observe that ISIL has been killing Muslims of all persuasions to achieve their goals, which directly contradicts any Islamic faith.
FWIW, many of the ISIL soldiers identify as Sunni's, but I don't that is really all that relevant given the history of the middle east.

This is a very simplistic little comic about ISIL I found that explains a few things. I showed it to my teenage son who was curious;
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-06/where-did-is-come-from,-and-what-does-it-really-want/7369802

Quote from Bearscape »

EDIT: Something else I wanted to briefly talk about; in what matchups do you guys take out Ancestral Vision? Personally I tend to shave one copy against superaggro decks like infect, burn, zooicide and affinity, but not all, as resolving one is still very common and really powerful but drawing multiples can be backbreaking. I've heard many people board out AV in the matchups where card advantage doesn't matter much, namely tron and RG Breach, but I'm not sure I agree with that.

After reviewing the sideboarding guide in Jim Davis' article that I linked in this post, it seems like a general rule of thumb for sideboarding Ancestral Vision is something like this:

• The "Jim Davis" builds (23 lands, 0-1 Cryptic Command, no Electrolyze) rely on Remand and Ancestral Vision for card advantage (along with Nahiri and Serum Visions, of course).
You need at least one source of card advantage; thus you never want to take out both Remand and Ancestral Vision.

• Against aggressive decks with many low-CMC spells (Burn, Zoo, Infect, Death's Shadow), take out Remand (since they can replay the spells easily) and keep in Ancestral Vision (for card advantage).
• Against decks with larger spells (Tron, Scapeshift/Valakut), keep in Remand for the 'time walk' effect, and sideboard out Ancestral Vision in favor of more powerful options (Crumble to Dust, Geist of Saint Traft, etc.).

I suppose another way to say it more simply is: in the (non-control mirror) matchups where we don't have inevitability, take out Ancestral Vision and bring in something more aggressive.

I have yet to play a game vs. Tron or Scapeshift/Titanshift/BreachTitan, so I could be totally wrong. These observations are mostly the result of a lot of thinking and reading and watching streams rather than personal experience, so take them for whatever they're worth.