It also really doesn't matter how rigorous any collection of data is. It's not as if wizards uses data the playerbase comes up with to make ban decisions. It's really all speculation at the end of the day. Especially since wotc stopped publishing entirely accurate data on mtgo. So really i don't think hooglands analysis is any less useful then most.
His data is def far from rigorous lol. I think his overall point is modern has sped up and that thing's should be un-banned to accommodate for that. I'm open for anyone doing data driven analysis because I'm not totally convinced wotc even does that when they consider ban list updates outside of gp and pro tour performance.
Im not a huge fan of everything hoogland says but he put together a decent pie chart about modern's speed after farming some data over some past big events if that's kind of interesting.
Now obv his sample size isn't massive but he makes a decent point about how much the format has sped up. Especially including decks like tron into the "ending the game" by turn 3 category. While yes technically they don't win the game on the spot on turn 3, casting karn/wurmcoil against a fair deck is lights out a massive amount of the time. His point also, wasn't banning a bunch of cards but unbanning cards like pod/twin which again i totally agree with.
This is fair. Again I am biased to a format with more midrange and control i fully admit that lol. Do you think wotc sees the data points the same way and pushes for no bans anyway though? The only reason I say that is all of the comments from wotc employees about modern have been that they dont think modern needs any changes. Again yes no individual stirrings/lootings decks is above 10% but to me green and red having better card filtering than blue just seems weird. Plus wizards has banned cards that haven't preformed above that threshold. Summer bloom comes to mind. Yea you could make the point about the turn 4 rule but amulet still can kill before t4 so their certainly seems to be caveats to their ban decisions.
See, i just hate the logic behind the "we can't unban x because the unfair decks would abuse it". Maybe the problem isn't the cantrip but the combo deck. No offense to anyone making that argument of course. I just don't get it, you ban the offender not the enabler. That being said i see no reason to unban preordain. The upgrade for the fair u(x) decks is pretty marginal and ban swaps never happen.
I think it's pretty obvious at this point that the stirrings,looting and vial/hierarch decks are performing significantly better than the rest of the field in both win and conversion rates. I think both stirrings and looting could be banned and the format would be better for it. It makes no sense to me that red and green have the best card filtering while blue is using cards like serum visions and opt. Now ill fully admit to preferring midrange/control so im def biased. But modern has gotten super linear over the past year or so. People always say "oh you can't ban those cards what will those decks play?" And i say, something else. Would those decks be slower? Yea. Would they less consistent? Sure. Maybe thats what the format needs. Decks like jund and amulet titan have lost powerful cards, gotten less consistent and they've found a way to remain relevant.
I think sfm would be fine to unban but what deck does it really push over the edge? Uwx? Junk? Does it do anything to fix matchups like tron or dredge? Probaly not. Maybe it makes the aggro game a bit better for those decks but sfm dies to literally every piece of removal in the format and every top deck has access to premium artifact hate so will it really make a difference? I dont think so. Now if you want make the argument that it shouldn't be banned simply for that reason, sure. But the decks i see getting more use out of sfm are ones like spirits that don't meed the help in the first place. Worse you risk hurting the fair aggro decks that get demolished to cards like sfm. That being said its pretty laughable compared to some of thr other cards on the list like skullclamp or glimpse.
The more i think about it the more i come to the conclusion that twin needs to be unbanned. I was a big proponent of the twin ban when it happened but i think the format has evolved enough that twin would simply be another good deck. Now idk if wotc sees it that way but a deck like twin is exactly the kind of thing you need to force some of these uninteractive decks to play removal and make the format more honest. Midrange decks thrived when twin was legal specifically because they ran interaction. Maybe twin would eat up some of the metagame shares from decks like tron sure, but those decks would still have a big place in the format because they beat up on the fair decks. My only worry about a twin unban is would their be a point to play anything else but twin if you're in blue? Maybe not. But honestly theirs not a ton of diversity amongst the blue tempo/control archetypes anyway. Really the only thing that keeps uw afloat is the power of cards like terminus.
I look at alot of these cards on the banned list and they just dont seem fast enough. Gsz would help elves,boggles,infect and company decks but would it be enough to push the meta to be more interactive? Even cards like pod have way tighter deck building constraints them stirrings/looting. And again in a format with turn 3 karns and double hollow ones on turn 1 is tapping out on turn 3 then waiting a turn to cycle a creature really good enough? Even with a potential toolbox and a combo kill hidden away in deck?
Modern is super diverse and it always has been. But right now their are clearly decks that stand leagues above the rest in power level. Maybe an unban is what the format needs to shake things up.
So heres my theory on bolas's plan and why he chose the guilds he did.
In order to take over ravnica he needs the azorious. They make the laws on rav and nothing happens w/o their say so. But esperia would never be foolish enough to trust bolas. So that's where golgari comes in.
With jerrad out of the way he could install vraska. Who he knows had a deep seated hatred of the azorious,from being tortured by them as a youth. So it was only a matter of time before she killed esperia. And with her gone dovin could take over the azorious from within. But having dovin wouldn't be enough. They'd need to find a way to get bolas into power. Thats where emergency powers come into play. But they'd need some sort of upheaval for that to be enacted. Enter the Gruul. The outsiders of ravnica. It wouldn't take much to prod them into rioting through the streets and creating havoc, with the promise of recognition. But that wouldn't be enough. Eventually the boros will quell the riots and bring order back to ravnica. He'd need to topple ravnicas financial sector as well. And for that he'd need the orzhov. But with the eternal ghost council running the show hed never be able to take the reins from them. But if the ghost council could be eliminated it would be all too easy to decimate ravnicas economy. And with kaya in his employ the leaders of the orzhov are all to easy to eliminate. But theirs still one x-factor. Niv mizzet and the izzet league. Not only do they control ravnicas resouce infrastructure but niv might be the one being smart enough to figure out bolas's plan. Plus with project lighting bug niv was close to figuring out not only the truth about planeswalkers but the true nature of the spark. Luckily for bolas he found in ral a willing party who could not only unseat niv mizzet but could have niv chassing ghosts and out of the picture. All culminating with the eternal army as bolas's strike force as he walks onto ravnica and seizes power. Waiting to lay the eternal sun and trap any walkers who dare stand in his way.
So what is the pack art of? Dig through time has its khans art and the pack art isn't on any card. So are there alternate art promos somewhere or what? I know they've used art for promotions before that didn't show up in set but they've never done it with a masters set before.
I think dig is super powerful but idk if its fast enough in the current modern meta. I played modern when dtt was legal and i think splinter twin was the bigger issue when it came to warping the overall meta. My thoughts on any unban start with, what deck would use this? Dtt probably wouldn't fit into any of the combo shells currently being played. Well maybe storm. Spirits wouldn't want it, ad naus, titan,infect. The obvious 3 are uw and jeskai and maybe shadow. But is giving those decks dtt going to break the meta? Idk tbh. Dig isnt like treasure cruise, it doesnt just just give you 3 free cards. I dont have any data to back it up but i think dig might be fine without twin legal. As fast as modern is does dig fix uw(x)s bad matchups? Whats the earliest you can fire off dig in those decks? Turn 4+ maybe? Maybe giving blue decks a solid card advantage tool would slow the format. Im pretty sure blue decks wouldnt play more than 2 maybe 3. I will admit fully i am biased. I think moderns too fast/unfair and would love to see control decks get a sweet toy.
I think I'm more on the train that dif through time is getting unbanned. The face card of UMA arguably looks a lot like dtt. Ya dig could be in the set and still not get unbanned but why commission a new art for card that's banned in modern and legacy? With twin out of the format dtt doesn't seem to be nearly as powerful. Its probably to slow for the combo shells to want it so the only decka that would probably jam it are the uw(x) onea. Maybe im wrong dig ia super powerful but ia it better than scapeshift or w/e trons casting on t3.
Here's an observation: the next ban update is Nov 26th. UMA drops Dec 7, with the spoilers coming a week prior. I wouldn't be surprised if stoneforge mystic gets unbanned in the next update. Obviously this is baseless speculation and i have no information supporting my claim but i dont think you need to be a psychic to see that move coming. Just like you didn't need to be one when jace was unbanned.
I actualy had an incident like this the other night at a modern fnm. I was playing uw control and my opponent was on ur storm. Which is already a pretty rough match if your trying to end the match on time. And the person im playing against, whom i play all the time. Is a notorious slow player. I don't think im exaggerating when i say every match ive ever played with him has gone to time. And its hard to catch him on it because A. My shops very casual and laid back and B. The judge/tournament organizer plays in the events he judges. So its very obvious he wont come over to our gsme midmatch and scrutinize my opponent for slowplay.
So game 1 goes on and my opponent is just trying his damndest to drag out every interaction. Each time i present my deck for a cut after a fetchland/field of ruin he rifle shuffles for a solid 30sec. Which doesnt sound like alot but he does this every time i search my deck and takes even longer in between games. Worse he mulls over basic decisions forever. Such as being at 1 mana and playing a cantrip. He even goes to phases hes not going to utilize. For inatance he goes "go to combat" ok. "No attacks"
So he starts to storm off and i should've scooped as i was tapped out and the likelihood of him whiffing was fairly low. But he plays it out and wins game 1. So i start sideboarding and finish in a minute or 2 and notice he isnt boarding. I figure hey whatever he must be really confident in his deck. But no as soon as i present my deck for a cut, then he starts looking through his sideboard. So game 2 i play an early rest in peace to nullify his graveyard and despite having relatively few options he continues to mull over every decision. I end up winning game 2 and notice theirs only about 10mins left on the round clock. So i shuffle as fast as possible and start game 3 keeping an excellent hand. He keeps his 7 with only one land, and never sees another land. Im playing at a break neck speed trying to finish before time. I field of ruin is ur dual and counter the few cantrips he casts. Play rest in peace on turn 2. I start attacking with snapcaster mage a few times when its time in the round. We take our 5 turns, he still never sees a second land. I swing him to 6 when it's the final turn and the match ends in a draw. I show him my hand with 3 counterspells and the mana to cast them and his hand is nothing playable. Its obvious had the game ended on time i wouldve won. His response "yep draw".
Now i dont expect anyone to scoop(i didnt even ask having drawn with him before and knowing he wouldn't). Especially when theres an advantage to a draw over a loss. Now obviously i have no proof that he intentionally plays slowly in an attempt to draw the game but its frustrating to be faced with the same result every time we play. The only solace i can take is i ended up getting 1st anyway, with him getting second. But still i probaly wont allow something like that to happen again and if the tournament organizer wont adress the issue I'll certainly stop frequenting their shop.
Ya I feel ya man I've had this happen to me every once in awhile. You should definitely not feel afraid to call a judge for concerns over slowplay. Moreso you shouldn't feel intimidated by judges/store personnel if you feel your opponent is playing intentionally slow. Obv some people may take offense to this but it's both players responsibility to make moves in a timely manner and judges/organizers to police it. I dont think your opponent was too egregious though tbh. It just sounds like he was someone who doesn't play competitively a lot and wasn't used to playing the game in a timed setting. I don't think you were out of line addressing the issue but sometimes unfortunately slow players are just gonna get you. It especially sucks when your opponent is just skirking the line of slowplay enough that its not against the rules but is causing games to go to time. There's really no easy solution. Just play as you would normally and hope it's good enough. Don't sweat it you acted appropriately
Hey all. So Ive been thinking about assembling a Invasion/Shards of Alara cube. I really think the multi-color and ally color themes would play well and be fun. Any tips to what I should be looking for when putting it together? I was gonna go singleton because I think there should enough cards to put together a decent list(maybe doubling up on important stuff like fixing). I played during Alara but not during the Invasion cycle, is there any particular archetypes I should be looking for in particular or supporting? I've read up a bit on the draft environment and I know ally colors are good,in addition to mono green multi-color good stuff. And obviously the ally shards are supported pretty heavily in the Alara side. Is there any glaring picks I should drop off the bat? IE overpowered cards,chaff. The difference in power level on creatures is also pretty significant too but Im not certain on what might be too good/too weak. Any help would be much appreciated thanks in advance!
https://twitter.com/jeffhoogland/status/1073037384407793664
Now obv his sample size isn't massive but he makes a decent point about how much the format has sped up. Especially including decks like tron into the "ending the game" by turn 3 category. While yes technically they don't win the game on the spot on turn 3, casting karn/wurmcoil against a fair deck is lights out a massive amount of the time. His point also, wasn't banning a bunch of cards but unbanning cards like pod/twin which again i totally agree with.
I think it's pretty obvious at this point that the stirrings,looting and vial/hierarch decks are performing significantly better than the rest of the field in both win and conversion rates. I think both stirrings and looting could be banned and the format would be better for it. It makes no sense to me that red and green have the best card filtering while blue is using cards like serum visions and opt. Now ill fully admit to preferring midrange/control so im def biased. But modern has gotten super linear over the past year or so. People always say "oh you can't ban those cards what will those decks play?" And i say, something else. Would those decks be slower? Yea. Would they less consistent? Sure. Maybe thats what the format needs. Decks like jund and amulet titan have lost powerful cards, gotten less consistent and they've found a way to remain relevant.
I think sfm would be fine to unban but what deck does it really push over the edge? Uwx? Junk? Does it do anything to fix matchups like tron or dredge? Probaly not. Maybe it makes the aggro game a bit better for those decks but sfm dies to literally every piece of removal in the format and every top deck has access to premium artifact hate so will it really make a difference? I dont think so. Now if you want make the argument that it shouldn't be banned simply for that reason, sure. But the decks i see getting more use out of sfm are ones like spirits that don't meed the help in the first place. Worse you risk hurting the fair aggro decks that get demolished to cards like sfm. That being said its pretty laughable compared to some of thr other cards on the list like skullclamp or glimpse.
The more i think about it the more i come to the conclusion that twin needs to be unbanned. I was a big proponent of the twin ban when it happened but i think the format has evolved enough that twin would simply be another good deck. Now idk if wotc sees it that way but a deck like twin is exactly the kind of thing you need to force some of these uninteractive decks to play removal and make the format more honest. Midrange decks thrived when twin was legal specifically because they ran interaction. Maybe twin would eat up some of the metagame shares from decks like tron sure, but those decks would still have a big place in the format because they beat up on the fair decks. My only worry about a twin unban is would their be a point to play anything else but twin if you're in blue? Maybe not. But honestly theirs not a ton of diversity amongst the blue tempo/control archetypes anyway. Really the only thing that keeps uw afloat is the power of cards like terminus.
I look at alot of these cards on the banned list and they just dont seem fast enough. Gsz would help elves,boggles,infect and company decks but would it be enough to push the meta to be more interactive? Even cards like pod have way tighter deck building constraints them stirrings/looting. And again in a format with turn 3 karns and double hollow ones on turn 1 is tapping out on turn 3 then waiting a turn to cycle a creature really good enough? Even with a potential toolbox and a combo kill hidden away in deck?
Modern is super diverse and it always has been. But right now their are clearly decks that stand leagues above the rest in power level. Maybe an unban is what the format needs to shake things up.
In order to take over ravnica he needs the azorious. They make the laws on rav and nothing happens w/o their say so. But esperia would never be foolish enough to trust bolas. So that's where golgari comes in.
With jerrad out of the way he could install vraska. Who he knows had a deep seated hatred of the azorious,from being tortured by them as a youth. So it was only a matter of time before she killed esperia. And with her gone dovin could take over the azorious from within. But having dovin wouldn't be enough. They'd need to find a way to get bolas into power. Thats where emergency powers come into play. But they'd need some sort of upheaval for that to be enacted. Enter the Gruul. The outsiders of ravnica. It wouldn't take much to prod them into rioting through the streets and creating havoc, with the promise of recognition. But that wouldn't be enough. Eventually the boros will quell the riots and bring order back to ravnica. He'd need to topple ravnicas financial sector as well. And for that he'd need the orzhov. But with the eternal ghost council running the show hed never be able to take the reins from them. But if the ghost council could be eliminated it would be all too easy to decimate ravnicas economy. And with kaya in his employ the leaders of the orzhov are all to easy to eliminate. But theirs still one x-factor. Niv mizzet and the izzet league. Not only do they control ravnicas resouce infrastructure but niv might be the one being smart enough to figure out bolas's plan. Plus with project lighting bug niv was close to figuring out not only the truth about planeswalkers but the true nature of the spark. Luckily for bolas he found in ral a willing party who could not only unseat niv mizzet but could have niv chassing ghosts and out of the picture. All culminating with the eternal army as bolas's strike force as he walks onto ravnica and seizes power. Waiting to lay the eternal sun and trap any walkers who dare stand in his way.
So game 1 goes on and my opponent is just trying his damndest to drag out every interaction. Each time i present my deck for a cut after a fetchland/field of ruin he rifle shuffles for a solid 30sec. Which doesnt sound like alot but he does this every time i search my deck and takes even longer in between games. Worse he mulls over basic decisions forever. Such as being at 1 mana and playing a cantrip. He even goes to phases hes not going to utilize. For inatance he goes "go to combat" ok. "No attacks"
So he starts to storm off and i should've scooped as i was tapped out and the likelihood of him whiffing was fairly low. But he plays it out and wins game 1. So i start sideboarding and finish in a minute or 2 and notice he isnt boarding. I figure hey whatever he must be really confident in his deck. But no as soon as i present my deck for a cut, then he starts looking through his sideboard. So game 2 i play an early rest in peace to nullify his graveyard and despite having relatively few options he continues to mull over every decision. I end up winning game 2 and notice theirs only about 10mins left on the round clock. So i shuffle as fast as possible and start game 3 keeping an excellent hand. He keeps his 7 with only one land, and never sees another land. Im playing at a break neck speed trying to finish before time. I field of ruin is ur dual and counter the few cantrips he casts. Play rest in peace on turn 2. I start attacking with snapcaster mage a few times when its time in the round. We take our 5 turns, he still never sees a second land. I swing him to 6 when it's the final turn and the match ends in a draw. I show him my hand with 3 counterspells and the mana to cast them and his hand is nothing playable. Its obvious had the game ended on time i wouldve won. His response "yep draw".
Now i dont expect anyone to scoop(i didnt even ask having drawn with him before and knowing he wouldn't). Especially when theres an advantage to a draw over a loss. Now obviously i have no proof that he intentionally plays slowly in an attempt to draw the game but its frustrating to be faced with the same result every time we play. The only solace i can take is i ended up getting 1st anyway, with him getting second. But still i probaly wont allow something like that to happen again and if the tournament organizer wont adress the issue I'll certainly stop frequenting their shop.