MTG Salvation

Quote from cfusionpm »

Quote from bocephus »

I dont agree with your thinking either, maybe I should start calling you a troll too.

Disagreeing with people doesn't make you a troll. Being hypocritical and self-contradicting makes you a troll. You very vocally supported the Twin ban, which was banned on the basis of, what you have described as a "big stage" in which "the masses don't play in" (which easily refers to using Top 8 percents as justification for ban). But then you say this about Eldrazi: "I really hope April comes and goes with no changes and Wotc comes out with a statement along the lines of, everyone has complained about messing with the format too much too often, now go solve it." In addition to: "On the big stage yes the format looks broken but, what percentage of us play on that stage? 5%? 10%? The masses are complaining about a meta they dont play in." This implies you wish nothing were banned because it doesn't affect your local meta (yet!) and would rather people keep trying to figure it out or something. Whether or not you actually believe this, it is contradictory and extremely trolling to hold this opinion after supporting the Twin ban so adamantly.

Thank you. It never ceases to amaze me that his trolling is tolerated here.

I know these stats have been posted already, but I'm going to add my 2 cents.

SCG Louisville Open
1) Day 2 metagame breakdown: 31 out of 65 decks are eldrazi. (48%)
2) Top 32: 20 out of 32 decks are eldrazi. (63%)
3) Top 8: 4 out of 8 decks are eldrazi. (50%)

MTG Top 8 Meta (Last 2 weeks)
Eldrazi at 39% of metagame.
MTG Top 8 meta

Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch
Top 8: 6 out of 8 decks are eldrazi. (75%)

I have to say that I feel pretty vindicated dropping modern as a format. It makes me a little sad, but I can't condone the blatant disregard that WOTC displays for the format's health. Probably the only way to guarantee that eldrazi is permanently crippled is to ban both Eye and Temple. Even if that were to happen in April, I don't think I'll come back.

Well guys. The post PT meta has gotten off to a good start: First MTGO Daily

/popcorn

Scenario:

1) Put the 400 best magic players in the world in a room.
2) Give them 2 weeks to figure out what the strongest deck choice in the format is. Almost every major deck type is represented. There was BGx, Infect, Zoo, Burn, Tron, Scapeshift, varieties of CoCo Chord, Affinity, URx control, oh and this new eldrazi archetype. Basically the only thing not present is grixis, merfolk, and elves.
3) Pit them against each other for 10 rounds.
4) Observe results.

Conclusion: Only ONE archetype that existed before 2 weeks ago manages to crawl into the top 8. The entire metagame was obliterated in one fell swoop.

Now maybe decks can be tuned to deal with eldrazi aggro. But I doubt it. I hope someone screencaps the meta as it exists today, and the meta as it exists in 2 months. I for one am done with modern.

Quote from UrMazuku »

Quote from lucashungaro »

Decks like Scapeshift, Gifts, UWR Control/Geist just all got *worse*, not better. They lost a good matchup + the bad matchups got a bump. I really don't get the rationale.

Precisely.

I'd like to address two bad arguments that I've seen crop up.

1. "The Splinter Twin ban makes sense, because it allows for more diversity in tempo/control/blue decks."

This relies on a misunderstanding of why diversity exists and why decks are viable (or not viable). Magic is roughly a Rock–Paper–Scissors type of game. An idealized version of a healthy Magic format is: Midrange beats Aggro, Combo and Ramp beat Midrange, Control and Tempo (Aggro-Control) beat Combo and Ramp, and finally Aggro beats Control and Tempo.

However, decks and archetypes are not viable in a vacuum, they are *only* viable because they beat something else. Think of it like this: a format in competitive equilibrium doesn't want to keep the Scissors decks viable just because, instead it "wants" to have as few decks and archetypes as possible. Scarcity, not surplus, is the natural rule.

So, let's say Twin was the best Scissors deck. It could usually beat Paper (Tron and linear Aggro like Infect or Affinity) and lose to Rock (UWR Control, or other blue/control decks; also Jund and other BGx midrange and disruptive decks). When Scissors disappears because of something external to the game (a banning), the Rock decks won't magically step in to fill its role. Instead, they'll become worse because they've lost their natural prey. With Scissors dead, Rock begins to starve, and Paper cleans up.

I know it's a bummer to be brewer and always be told, "If you like blue control, why not play Twin?" but you have to appreciate that Twin is what created the niche for other control decks to exist in the first place. With the major Tempo/Control deck gone, the Ramp, Combo (except Bloom), and linear Aggro (nearly combo decks themselves) decks have nothing to fear.

When the dinosaurs died out, our rat-like mammalian ancestors peaked out of their holes and said, "What's stopping us now?" The answer was nothing.


2. "The Splinter Twin ban makes sense, because WOTC doesn't want a solved format."

This incorrectly implies that Modern was solved or was near to being solved. It was not. In the past year we've seen the competitive ascent of some old decks (Amulet Bloom, Grishoalbrand, Lantern) and we've seen entirely new decks (Eldrazi, CoCo, Grixis) thanks to new cards being printed (BFZ cards, Collected Company, and Tasigur/KCommand/Angler, respectively).

If absolutely no cards had been banned for another year, I guarantee that the meta would have continued to evolve. Slowly and subtlely, yes, but surely. Slow and subtle changes are what we should want for a non-rotating format. (Even chess — considered by some to be a "static" game — has an evolving metagame.) Standard should be fast and drastic, obviously appealing to new players. Modern should be slow and subtle, appealing to players who have been playing for at least two years and who plan to play for many more. The only bad thing about Legacy is its price*, its barrier to entry, not its stability or subtlety.

*And perhaps its lack of color balance. I will go on the record as saying archetype balance (which Legacy has) is far more important than color balance, because balance is only worth having when the things being balanced are inherently different. I'd much rather have a format where, for example, blue control, blue combo, and blue aggro are all viable, than a format with five colors of midrange.

Quoted for best post in the thread.

Quote from idSurge »

I dont see why a Twin-less meta wouldnt just be Burn/Infect/Goryo/Zoo and win before anyone else can get Tron online.

Without the deck that slows people down, just jam your cards thoughtlessly and swing.

In my humble opinion, the format will devolve into Tron/Heartless Eldrazi or Bx Eldrazi on the top-end, and Affinity/Burn/Infect/Grishoalbanned on the bottom end. There is no room in modern anymore for midrange. I literally don't know if Naya Company is even fast enough to remain a relevant part of the meta.

Quote from Luck »

One thing I can say for sure, with a reasonable amount of confidence here, is that Bloodmoon x4 is a fantastic start to cracking the meta. Assuming Twin is essentially dead (I have my reservations, I still think the deck is still completely viable), the only other major deck that isn't fazed is burn (skred red doesnt count lol). Tron, the Eldrazi decks, jund, zoo, b/w tokens, infect, affinty, I could go on. Bloodmoon is going to be crazy good.

I mostly disagree with that analysis.

Decks Blood Moon is good against:
Tron
Bx Eldrazi (Not game-winning, needs fast clock in combination with blood moon)
Jund (Likely going to drop out of tier 1, so not too relevant)

Decks that can ignore Blood Moon:
Zoo (Plays blood moon in the sideboard, has 4 basics + 5ish mana dorks, etc)
Affinity (seriously?... the deck universally boards blood moon itself, and can kill you by turn 3, utterly useless here)
Infect (Can kill you turn 2. Easily kill by turn 3, can easily fetch basics to play around blood moon, also runs 4 dorks to mana-fix)

Decks I'm not sure about:
BW Tokens (Plays at least 4 basics, and 4 fetches. Might not play around maindecked blood moons game 1?)

Mainboarded Blood Moon are not as good as you think. If you accelerate them out turn 2 with Simian Spirit Guide they can definitely catch your opponent off-guard, but then you run into the consistency issues of top-decking SSGs later in the game.

Quote from Ludafish »

Quote from headminerve »

I run 2 Burrenton Forge Tender in my SB instead of the more common Kor Firewalker to protect against sweepers like clasm/anger. He works just as well vs Kozilek's Return.

Unfortunately, K's Return is colorless.

Yea, this card is ****ed.

Oh Jesus Christ... that should have been instantly apparent to me.

Well.. @#$& me sideways I guess? The GR Tron match-up was already real bad, this just makes it that much worse. We may need to add some Mark of Asylum to the SB. Our SB slots are at a premium as it is though. I already run Negate in the SB, and am considering a copy of Unified Will. That being said, I'd way rather be getting their Karn/Ugin/Wurmcoils than needing to blow those on sweeper protection. More than 1/2 the creatures in the 4C version of the deck will die from 2 dmg.

Way worse than the devoid part is the being able to find it with Ancient Stirrings in my opinion. Sometimes Tron just died due to not having a sweeper early enough. This massively increases the chances that they have their sweeper on time.

Quote from Blair Phoenix »

Quote from KeMT »

Through the history of lands in magic, all emblematic dual-lands came in 10, in two cycle of 5, 5 ally colors and 5 enemy colors , I expected from the 3rd cycle of dual "fetchable" lands to be available in all 10 color combination.
In my opinion the battleland cycle in Zendikar's expedition is incomplete, if you can't understand that, I can't explain it more to you, and you saying that a cycle of 5 is complete don't convince me.

Mind you, Alpha only had 9 of the 10 original Dual lands. It wasn't until Beta that they printed Volcanic Island

Also, Enemy colored Battle Lands need to get in line behind Enemy colored Fastlands. Just saying.

Beaten to it. The most relevant 1/2 cycle I can think of are the fastlands by far. Once those get reprinted, you guys can have the rest of your battle lands lol.

Generally I agree with everything Wpgstevo says, and we run nearly identical Bant Knightfall lists (although I just switched to the 4C Zoo variant to test it out) but I've played a total of 4 4-round tourneys without Sejiri Steppe, and never once had a Knight removed after i'd started comboing off.

Now that's not the largest sample size in the world, but I find that opponents don't wait around to use their removal until after you can combo. I've also jammed 25+ matches against my friends and never had it come up either, and they obviously know my deck pretty well.

I'm personally not willing to risk a CIPT land for a shot at protecting the combo.

Hey guys, here is a list that I went 3-1 with at a local FNM last week:



Obviously the mana base needs some work. Verdant Catacombs --> Misty Rainforest, 1x Temple Garden --> Kessig Wolf Run. I'm also not sure that the deck can support 3 colorless lands. Not sure if I should cut Ghost Quarter or Gavony. Leaning towards GQ. I can't remember my matches too clearly, but I'll briefly summarize them.

Match 1 vs Jund Burn: Win 2-1
Lost the roll. Identified his deck right away. Fetched for basics, got blockers down for his Guides, etc. All that wasn't enough. I stabilized the board at probably 6 life, and then died to burn to the face. Boarded in Kitchen Finks, BFTs, Thalias, Eidolon. Don't think I brought in the EE. Game 2 I cant really remember very well. I think I accelerated out a turn 2 Geist and outraced him from there. Game 3 he kept a 1 lander. I went turn 1 Forge Tender, Turn 2 Thalia, and he never drew a 2nd land. Killed him easily from there.

Match 2 vs Merfolk: Loss 0-2
Lost the roll. He started off very slowly for a merfolk deck. No Aether Vial. I had no acceleration either and went T2 Voice into T3 Smiter. He Spreading Seas my dual to give his guys islandwalk after playing the merfolk that lets him draw a card a couple times, and was able to islandwalk with lords while chumping my guys to win the race. Boarded in Chokes, Stonys, EE. Game 2 I started with a T2 Stony Silence which shut off his Aether Vial. But he Rest in Peaceed my GY to shut off my Voice/Knights. I flooded out a little bit this game and wasn't able to muster much resistance. Also made the mistake of not GQing my dual which he had a Spreading Seas on.

Match 3 vs Grixis Twin: Win 2-0
Lost the roll. Started with T1 dork into T2 Smiter, effectively timewalking his 2nd turn. He was forced to take a Knight of the Reliquary out of my hand with an IoK, and I had an early Path to Exile which I left open mana for every turn. He couldn't combo off in the face of the PtE, and stalled for time tapping down my attackers with Cryptics and Exarchs, but I grinded him out of cards and won easily. Boarded in Burrentons, Chokes, Thalias. Game 2 played out very similarly to Game 1. He saw from an Inquisition that I could drop the combo every turn, but I just slowly beat him down with Qasali/Smiter while leaving mana open to Path/Qasali his threats and he died to the pressure.

Match 4 vs UWR Control: Win 2-0
Won the roll. Accelerated into a T2 Smiter. And then a T3 Retreat. I was patient with my resources. He was forced to Path my threats one at a time (which allowed me to scry with Retreat), and eventually I landed a Geist which ran away with the game quickly. Retreat was able to smooth out my draw steps quite nicely. Boarded in BFTs, Eidolon, Thalia. Game 2 we both kept 7. I can't remember my hand too much, but I basically executed the same gameplan as the game before, and he stalled at 3 lands and couldn't find a 2nd white source for his Supreme Verdict and died quickly.

I never comboed off once in the tournament. I lacked a KWR to do so, which I'll fix ASAP. I felt very favored vs the control decks. I've jammed a lot of games vs my friends stock UR Twin list, and I think that its at least a 60-40 matchup for my build of Knightfall. Merfolk I felt pretty helpless against. Short of an early combo, I'm not too sure how we handle that deck. I was impressed with Geists/Smiters in the deck. The Scoozes seemed underwhelming. I'll need to jam more matches before I decide on any cuts to the deck though. Collected Company never failed to find 2 creatures, all of them were good that night.

Let me know your thoughts guys.

Quote from idSurge »

Quote from Colt47 »

The great mistake with Modern wizards made was not having a support system in place soon enough to prevent the market bubble on cards. If we wound back the clock to zendikar block, that is where modern masters should have started as they could have had lower msrp boxes without issue. The trouble is they let the bubble grow and now they can't print those expensive format staples anywhere but in a luxury set. It's a victim of its own rapid growth period.

Also a lot of people don't like it because it's too fast of a format. Too many turn 4 kills.

They can play standard or Frontier? Turn 4 kills, higher power level, these are FEATURES of the format and certainly do not detract from it. The issue has nothing to do with Support, and everything to do with perception.

Or they can play Legacy, where most of Magic's history is showcased, the ban list is rarely used to police the format, and the games still go longer than four turns because control has the tools that it needs to be competitive.

Everybody wins! (Except people who don't like Brainstorm. Those people lose.)

Quote from Lord Seth »

Well, Wizards of the Coast has successfully killed any interest I had in watching future Pro Tours as well as any interest I had in any PTQs that aren't in my home city (and possibly even those). It makes me feel like they're actively trying to push me away from the game (it's not for nothing I've taken up Force of Will).

I still don't know why they don't have at least some of the Pro Tours be split Standard/Modern. It just solves everything. It gives the Modern fans something interesting. It keeps the Pro Tour NEW AND EXCITING because you have the Standard portion, so even if the Modern part is a bit repetitive the Standard portion is NEW AND EXCITING. The only downside is that it drops the draft portion, and legitimate question: Is anyone actually that interested in watching that part? Most people I know just ignore the Pro Tour until the first three rounds are done. I can understand a desire for limited in order to 'challenge' people but that doesn't mean they have to do it every Pro Tour. They could easily have every other Pro Tour being Standard+Limited and the intervening ones being Standard+Modern.

Am I missing something? This just seems such an obvious solution to everything.

(I posted this in the banlist topic, but then noticed this one and realized it was more relevant here)

u probably missed the fact that they make the most money from draft/limited and standard, lol

Quote from bocephus »

Quote from Spsiegel1987 »

I say this with no trolling intentions, but seriously, do you work for WOTC or something? I've never seen someone so adamantly defend every polar defining decesion made by a gaming company

Aaron forscythe could take tips from you

Nope, just understand both sides of this.

I don't think you actually do. Otherwise you would offer understanding and counterpoints from multiple angles, rather than ignoring criticisms and talking to us like we are children needing to be lectured to by the adult in the room.

People want what they want, even if its not the best move for the game. People are inherently selfish and want things to go their way so they can enjoy something. Life isnt like that. For every person that likes interactive Magic, there is at least another player that dislikes it. I have been playing since the beginning and there have always been players upset over control, removal, and fast combo and people stopping them from doing what they want. We may have come to the point where those people out number those who like interactive Magic and its is financially the correct thing to do to follow the masses.

OR... now stay with me here, OR we have come to a point where Wizards is out of touch with the way Modern has grown. Wizards is out of touch with the nuanced ebb and flow of a format that saw lots and lots of natural growth and evolution over the past year. Wizards can't even provide adequate commentary and coverage of a wildly popular format. Wizards, rather than looking at the metagame as a self-regulating ecosystem, decided to come in and poach all the lions, not understanding the effect it will have down the rest of the food chain. Wizards has set a precedent in banning a deck which broke no rules that were public knowledge to the players, and in fact was highly regarded as the benchmark for what was allowed in Modern (turn 4 combo, highly interactive, not immune to hate, never represented oppression in the meta, etc). So, it COULD be that. Or we could just call all the players a bunch of whining children who want what they want and don't understand business.

Quote from acc95 »

Quote from Lord Seth »

Quote from bocephus »

Now I have not read where AF said this move was a PT shake up. All I have seen from him was now AV will be looked at in a Twinless meta and SotM is not coming off. All I have read about these bans is what Wotc put on the mothership.

Here you go:
https://twitter.com/mtgaaron/status/688454987668557824

https://mobile.twitter.com/mtgaaron/status/688457411724587008

Well that just makes the whole thing even dumber. Deciding to ban Splinter Twin to shake up the Pro Tour is stupid, but it at least makes a sort of sense. Thinking Twin is some kind of actual problem in the format is even more stupid.

Bocephus, honest question: have you ever seen a criticism of WOTC that you agreed with? You've been playing Magic since the 1990s; in the past two decades, has Wizards ever done something that made you think, "This is a wrong move. They should have done [alternative course of action] instead" ?

I'm beginning to suspect that you have what amounts to a philosophical objection to people lodging complaints at the behavior of a company with which they are engaged in business. Do you also oppose people's criticism of elected officials ("We chose them, after all..."), people's neighbors ("You chose to live next to them..."), people's friends and loved ones ("You chose to be friends..."). Does voluntary choice eliminate the grounds for criticism? Is the use of force the only thing worth complaining about?

It would be too easy and cheap to say that you're a WOTC employee, and I don't believe it besides. What I think is that you're in the grip of just world theory. Just world theory can take many forms, but two of them are, "You chose voluntarily to interact with Person/Organization, so because you made that choice, any criticism of the subsequent behavior of that Person/Organization is invalid" and "Person/Organization knows better than we do—they must, because they are in power, after all". Just replace "Person/Organization" with "Wizards". Here is more information on this relatively well-known cognitive bias: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

Maybe you're just a extraordinarily optimistic person, or maybe you really do happen to authentically agree with every single action that WOTC takes. Maybe. But it is a bit... suspicious.

Quote from bocephus »

Wotc has been pretty consistent with bans. Some may not like it, but Wotc cannot please everyone, so they stick to the criteria they set forth in the inception of the format.

I don't agree with that statement at all. See the following:

"Splinter Twin was the quintessential Modern deck. Not too powerful, not overly successful, wins on turn 4 on its best day, and highly interactive. Its banning is based on typical tier 1 success levels, and on the fact that Twin made it difficult to justify playing any other blue deck. Both of these reasonings seem artificial. ... Twin has been around since Modern's birth, and it really hasn't changed much. It hasn't been getting many new tools to make it better. It's still roughly the same deck as it was years ago. ... Twin is even directly in line with what Wizards has stated that they want for the format. They've said they want the combo decks to be interactive and not win before turn 4. Twin practically defines those constraints. ... Twin's metagame percentage had been unchanged. It's sat at around 10% for the longest time. It didn't suddenly get more popular and push out blue decks. ... Finally, Twin isn't holding anything out of the format. The reason that Twin is the only way to play blue in Modern is because blue kind of sucks in Modern. We don't have any truly good counter spells, and there's almost no playable card advantage. Cryptic Command is about all we've got. If we had real counter magic, I'm sure control would take its place in the format."

http://themeadery.org/b/ElvishJerricco/read/modern-is-now-a-rotating-format/

Twin did not break the rules WOTC provided, and a Twin ban is not consistent with past bans.

Quote from badmand »

For all those citing websites in regards to twin's metashare I'm pretty sure that wizards has way more data on the subject than those sites. On the twin banning I feel in my opinion it was right. I feel that infinite combos have no place in any tcg, not just magic. I also disliked the fact that the most efficient answers to the combo were very color specific.

Spellskite is color specific now?

I was thinking this was a bit of a reckless decision and based on flawed interpretation of meta game shares before. Now I'm seeing suggestions that wotc did this to since up the pro tour and I'm absolutely furious. How the **** can you tell anyone "buy into modern, it's going to cost you around a grand give or take a few hundred dollars, and hopefully you can play your deck for more than a year and wizards doesn't decide to ban it just to shake things up for pro tour viewers". That's the kind of ***** you do for a format where prices allow you to easily switch decks on a dime, that's not something you do for a format where we're sometimes paying hundreds of dollars for a play set of one ******* card.


What a stupid, stupid thing to do. GTFO of my format wizards

Quote from lucashungaro »

Decks like Scapeshift, Gifts, UWR Control/Geist just all got *worse*, not better. They lost a good matchup + the bad matchups got a bump. I really don't get the rationale.

Precisely.

I'd like to address two bad arguments that I've seen crop up.

1. "The Splinter Twin ban makes sense, because it allows for more diversity in tempo/control/blue decks."

This relies on a misunderstanding of why diversity exists and why decks are viable (or not viable). Magic is roughly a Rock–Paper–Scissors type of game. An idealized version of a healthy Magic format is: Midrange beats Aggro, Combo and Ramp beat Midrange, Control and Tempo (Aggro-Control) beat Combo and Ramp, and finally Aggro beats Control and Tempo.

However, decks and archetypes are not viable in a vacuum, they are *only* viable because they beat something else. Think of it like this: a format in competitive equilibrium doesn't want to keep the Scissors decks viable just because, instead it "wants" to have as few decks and archetypes as possible. Scarcity, not surplus, is the natural rule.

So, let's say Twin was the best Scissors deck. It could usually beat Paper (Tron and linear Aggro like Infect or Affinity) and lose to Rock (UWR Control, or other blue/control decks; also Jund and other BGx midrange and disruptive decks). When Scissors disappears because of something external to the game (a banning), the Rock decks won't magically step in to fill its role. Instead, they'll become worse because they've lost their natural prey. With Scissors dead, Rock begins to starve, and Paper cleans up.

I know it's a bummer to be brewer and always be told, "If you like blue control, why not play Twin?" but you have to appreciate that Twin is what created the niche for other control decks to exist in the first place. With the major Tempo/Control deck gone, the Ramp, Combo (except Bloom), and linear Aggro (nearly combo decks themselves) decks have nothing to fear.

When the dinosaurs died out, our rat-like mammalian ancestors peaked out of their holes and said, "What's stopping us now?" The answer was nothing.


2. "The Splinter Twin ban makes sense, because WOTC doesn't want a solved format."

This incorrectly implies that Modern was solved or was near to being solved. It was not. In the past year we've seen the competitive ascent of some old decks (Amulet Bloom, Grishoalbrand, Lantern) and we've seen entirely new decks (Eldrazi, CoCo, Grixis) thanks to new cards being printed (BFZ cards, Collected Company, and Tasigur/KCommand/Angler, respectively).

If absolutely no cards had been banned for another year, I guarantee that the meta would have continued to evolve. Slowly and subtlely, yes, but surely. Slow and subtle changes are what we should want for a non-rotating format. (Even chess — considered by some to be a "static" game — has an evolving metagame.) Standard should be fast and drastic, obviously appealing to new players. Modern should be slow and subtle, appealing to players who have been playing for at least two years and who plan to play for many more. The only bad thing about Legacy is its price*, its barrier to entry, not its stability or subtlety.

*And perhaps its lack of color balance. I will go on the record as saying archetype balance (which Legacy has) is far more important than color balance, because balance is only worth having when the things being balanced are inherently different. I'd much rather have a format where, for example, blue control, blue combo, and blue aggro are all viable, than a format with five colors of midrange.