It just depends on what you want out of the format. Some people spent thousands of dollars investing in a format that no longer exists and is more or less depressingly unrecognizable. And it's entirely understandable that those players are less than thrilled with the direction the format has been trending to over the years.
It is entirely possible to have absolutely magnificent, decision-heavy, intensive, back-and-forth games in Modern. But more and more, those seem to be the exception and not the norm. I know I personally have had much more fun once I stopped caring about winning or playing in high level competitive events. The top decks at any given time are almost always miserable, linear nonsense, fighting on a weird angle that requires narrow hate. But if your FNM rejects that as a whole, and simply "plays what they own and plays what they like", you get to see a larger variety of archetypes and strategies, and can have wonderful times tweaking and tuning for your local meta.
The format isn't "good" or "bad" because the individual experiences are so heavily dependant on what you play, where you play, and why you play. But just because you feel one way about a format, doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people who feel the opposite. At any given time, there are many things, both good and bad, that at least make Modern the "best" constructed format available for doing powerful things, while not restricted by the Reserved List.
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cfusionpm posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 21/01/2019)Posted in: Modern Archives -
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cfusionpm posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 21/01/2019)Posted in: Modern Archives
Bingo. WOTC staff parroting the same old exaggerated horror stories is fairly tilting. It means that not only do people hold these opinions at WOTC, but it's simply accepted fact in their bubble. What a shame that we, in the community, ever believed they would be capable of thinking otherwise. Time and time again, WOTC staff show their utter incompetence in grasping even the basic fundamentals of Modern. I guess I shouldn't be surprised in the least bit?Quote from tronix »Quote from The Fluff »It's just a part of the life cycle of thread. Discussions flow smoothly for days or a few weeks, then twin would be revisited one way or the other. Although I'm surprised it came back with a lot of intensity today.
in fairness it wasnt out of the blue. that whole bit in the TCC + Blake Rassmusen + Steve Sunu 'fact/fiction' interview about twin was a ****-up. the fact that it was a user/player submitted question, the way it was phrased, it being selected as something worth talking about, and the subsequent almost dismissive and unrelated response.
it just highlights how naive the community has and continues to be, and goes to show why wizards employees are often better served not saying anything at all lest it be blown out of proportion after being put under a microscope. 2 guys who likely have minimal to no say in ban/unban decisions, one of which openly said he wasnt even there when the twin ban decision was made (Steve), giving an unrelated and opinionated answer to a loaded question isnt some special insight to be used as proof/evidence of anything. -
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Drowsy Emperor posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 21/01/2019)Posted in: Modern ArchivesQuote from rcwraspy »
Doesn't this contradict your point, thought? There are 5 colors in Magic and blue takes up exactly 1/5th of the top spells? And 60% of those cards are more than just cantrips?Quote from Drowsy Emperor »In the top 50 most played spells in modern there are 10 blue cards. 4 are cantrips (so, essentially ways to create non-cards and increase deck consistency) and the rest are counterspells, most of which are fringe sideboard inclusions.
I think there is space there they just aren't using.
Of that 60% practically all are narrow sideboard counterspells, or cards with a very specific fit to a particular deck: Ceremonious, Spell Pierce, Dispel. Disdainful Stroke and Stubborn Denial. The only really 'good' card and an interesting design to boot is Cryptic Command and that is always going to of limited use due to its mana cost (nothing wrong with that, it's strong and there's a good reason for it's mana cost).
In terms of raw power (taking into account CMC) and flexibility (in terms of how many decks you can jam them in, or how many things they hit), they're all far behind Bolt, Thoughtsieze, Fatal Push and others top modern cards. Low CMC + wide range of targets/uses = power.
Anyway, I didn't say blue was underrepresented, I said the design space for the cards they're printing is unexplored. First, counterspells are supposed to be narrow now, because of the power of interacting on the stack. So they take a hit - let's say that's fine. BUt on top of this, free counterspell hate has become available. In the decks where it's played Caverns is a no drawback card. Aether Vial is not, but it still makes counterspells all but dead in the part of the game where it's relevant. All these cards come online before meaningful interaction with them is available.
So you're strictly worse off trying to fight on the stack in many (but not all) situations. Okay. But bounce is generally worse than it was as well. Many creatures have value just by being cast, sometimes to the point that bounce is a disaster for the player using it. Tuck is very expensive on the few cards it appears - completely overcosted for Modern playability. Case in point, not a single bounce or tuck spell is among the blue cards played in modern.
If you can't reliably deal with things on the stack and you can't deal with resolved permanents, that suggests to me that there is a gap. Don't get me wrong, no card deals with all things, all the time - otherwise we'd all be playing it. But to say that Thougthsieze and any of the one mana counterspells I listed are in the same league is just wrong.
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Drowsy Emperor posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 26/11/2018)Don't get me wrong, I'm always amazed at the refined way the decks are put together. Linear ones too. It's really an art. I couldn't do it. The players really do the best they can with what they're given.Posted in: Modern Archives
But Magic has built a box of hard coded rules around itself in order to deliver a consistent product (consistent return on investment I mean), and the artificial limitations imposed on the game for that purpose are glaring in every standard set. They're glaring in Modern too, although less than in Standard. Super obvious in Blue card design for example. Design permutations are only allowed within these rules and straying from the path is rare.
Inevitably, the game has lost some of the wild swings and creative lunacy of old. I've stopped expecting crazy stories from tournaments and silly winning decks a long time ago (although they do pop up once in a blue moon). It has also sacrificed a lot of its charm (I find a lot of the art now depressingly homogenous and tacky, but that's just me - and the flavor text has arguably never been worse) along the way, just to keep the money churning. It used to be a funky game made by fantasy geeks for other geeks, nowadays it's more of a slick corporate e-sport tuned to dig the gold and work without fail.
I'm not complaining though, not really. I lost all interest in Standard other than as a card pool for Modern, specifically Blue Tron. I won't bother with any other deck, just update the one I have, don't invest or support WotC really in any direct way. That's just the way it is - maybe things change somewhere down the road, maybe not. -
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Renegade Rallier posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 26/11/2018)Posted in: Modern ArchivesQuote from Galerion »Quote from Renegade Rallier »Quote from Galerion »Quote from Renegade Rallier »I like how we went from "midrange creature decks completely suck vs terminus" to "salty jund players wanting their deck to be the best again".
Newsflash: Wanting Midrange to be able to compete in Modern does not equate to wanting Midrange to be the best archetype.
And how would that work?
Modern is a non-rotating format. Have you looked at the other non-rotating formats? There isn't much Midrange around in them. Can you play something like Jund /Naya/Abzan etc. in Legacy? Of course. It is actually a good idea? No, it isn't.
I have made a big post about Midrange in this thread quite a while ago and also made a separate thread about it so I don't want to repeat everything.
In the end Midrange is a jack of all trades, master of none archetype. It trades power for adaptability and versatility. It does multiple things but nothing really well. That's fine in Standard because the power level isn't that high to begin with and it was also fine in Modern when it was younger. But as the format grows older it grows more powerful and that's where the problem lies. Every other archetype absolutely knows what it wants to do and is focused on that and if they get to do it that will always trump everything a Midrange deck is capable of doing.
Yes actually. Midrange is actually doing just fine in legacy compared to modern. Both blue-based and otherwise. Maverick continues to find its way around. Greedy 4 color value machines like Czech pile can carve a niche just fine in legacy. Grixis control, despite its name plays very much like a midrange deck, as does stoneblade.
If anything, legacy lacks in aggro, not midrange.
Not strong enough to be at the top consistently but able to perform decently to carve out a niche for dedicated players. Is that an unreasonable expectation for midrange in modern?
I would say that it already is that way but obviously that requires an exact definition to actually measure things. If we look at tournament results we often see at least some number of Midrange decks in them. Maybe they haven't won, maybe they didn't even make top 8 but they were in the upper echelons of a tournament. There is also the issue of defining the Death's Shadow decks because if you define them as Midrange as it is on this site for example then things look even better.
I assume that is not good enough for you so how much more should it be in your opinion?
Well yes and no. The formats are so radically different that it's difficult to measure. For instance, blue is heads and shoulders above every other colour in Legacy, followed by black. And just by virtue of playing brainstorm, ponder and force you have game vs almost everything. You could bring something whacky like BUG ninjas and not feel bad about it.
Regarding Grixis Death's Shadow. I've already acknowledged in a previous post that the format has evolved for better or worse and that GDS is the new standard for midrange, the natural evolution if you will. BG rock has put up spattering of placings here and there but it's a distant 2nd place. If 'traditional' midrange dying off is the direction that Modern is going then so be it.
As to your last question. A little bit of background about my history in Modern. I've never played tier 1 decks until 2018 when I picked up Humans and Spirits. I've been rocking various flavours of GWx Midrange(Naya Company, Bant Retreat, Domain Zoo etc), decks that are on the more aggressive side of the midrange spectrum. Basically decks that hover around tier 2. And despite playing only Tier 2 or lower decks for a good 2 years, I've always felt like I could enter an event and be relatively competitive.
This changed drastically in the latter half of 2018. Sure if I really wanted to do well at an event, I could bring out spirits or humans. I did well with these decks but it just wasn't fun. So I tried tuning and playing my pet GWx midrange decks and I basically became a walking bye. Weeks worth of tuning and re-tuning with no semblance of results to show for it.
So what I want is for any Modern player, to be able to register any archetype (aggro, midrange, combo, ramp, control, Tier 1, Tier 2, whatever) at a competitive event and not feel like you're doing yourself a disservice. The one thing that drew me and many people to Modern is because we can "play what we know and we can do well".
Can anyone really say that the current Modern format is one where we can compete with any deck as long as we put the time into practicing and mastering it? Modern is so much more than Looting vs Stirrings vs Vial vs Terminus.
At this point, I'd like to emphasize for context that this series of terminus 'rants' started off by idSurge suggesting that in a hypothetical scenario where Stirrings, Looting etc take bans to slow down the format, Terminus might have to go along with them because hyper aggro and 1 mana sweeper are foils to each other. I agree with him and offered the viewpoint that in a hypothetical slowed down format, there is little incentive to play interactive midrange decks because without hyper-streamlined linear decks keeping Terminus in check, UW control would dominate any other archetype attempting to play 'fair'. Therefore, in a scenario where Looting and Stirrings go, Terminus would probably need to go too. Neither of us actually think this will happen or are calling for a Terminus ban in the context of the current modern format. We've also repeated a few times at least that Terminus is NECESSARY right now because of those decks. -
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Ym1r posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 26/11/2018)Posted in: Modern Archives
Sadly we had no good Faeries after the original deck I don't think it's Wizard's being afraid, mostly the planes not being suitable for getting a tribal themed Faeries. When we get the tribe back, that's when we get good Faeries again.Quote from Galerion »Quote from Ym1r »An interesting article on disrupting fast decks: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/the-fastest-decks-in-modern-and-how-to-beat-them?fbclid=IwAR1bJJF-AUHnVi6sgM92ZbWVtxVfUYjibo-69cm0oqzC-GNamZIUlZHxnYw
Stuff like that can help with the sideboard planning and hopefully show that things can actually be beaten.
What is a bit weird/funny, is that decks with a good mixture of say they highest disruption tools (i.e. removals, counters and discard), for example Faeries or Sultai midrange/control, are the ones struggling the most.
This reminds me. When was actually the last time Wizards printed a good Faeries card and Im not talking about a generic spells in UB colors like Fatal Push?
Humans obviously gets tons of tribal support. There is now also Spirits, then there is Elves, Merfolk and Goblins. All of these got good cards in recent times maybe even a few more tribes Im currently forgetting.
But it's like Wizards is thinking Faeries dominated Standard once. We will never print a good Faerie card again.
And in regards to speed, Fae can turn the corner pretty easily, it's mostly the fact that you play too much with your lifetotal. -
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Colt47 posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 01/10/2018)Posted in: Modern ArchivesQuote from tronix »maybe it is a problem that exists outside of modern. but that in itself doesnt trivialize or invalidate complaints about the modern format based on it. primarily because modern is uniquely situated to where it could be addressed without jumping through too many hoops. the tools are out there, and formats do and have existed where the issue isnt as prevalent. whereas for standard its something they have to address with shifts in their fundamental design philosophy; which involves trial and error. in the mean time, they could work to make modern a stabilizing force in the game. as in 'hey we keep effing up standard, but modern still has it good'. legacy cant fulfill that role, even though it seems it isnt suffering from this hypothetical problem (just other ones), because of the reserved list.
id say that modern is already doing this to an extent, like i mentioned before though its a matter of the direction modern is heading; not where it is right now.
The real stabilizing factor that would help modern and just about all formats is constructed products that show people how real decks are built. Right now the game is incredibly dependent on online deck listings to demonstrate proper construction and play, with pre-con products being horribly constructed catastrophes of random reprints and questionable includes. To date, they are the only game that I've played as a TCG that does a horrific job at constructed products, having dedicated far too much of their respective resources to trying to teach "garbage decks are good" through limited and draft.
Starter products should not be so inherently weak that it is 100% assured they will lose to a tournament deck. Who do they think that new player is going to play against at an FNM? Another newbie? How many newbies are there in any given community at a time? There's probably just one or two new people introduced into a community and they have to survive absolute hell to make it into being a permanent member of the community. They could easily introduce people with pauper decks and have pauper as the intro non-rotating format, then slowly graduate those players into modern. -
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Colt47 posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 01/10/2018)The Design team is learning from what they see in modern and are reeling from the absolute blunder in game design they went through in the last standard. The problem that happened in the last standard is that they designed the game to literally be about smashing each others face and negating removal / blockers. We had creatures that could come back via embalm / Eternalize, a walking semi-indestructible god that could eternalize things out of an opponents graveyard, creatures that could ETB negate blockers or just exert to do the same, and a 5 drop dragon with haste that basically can one shot most early drops to do the same thing, and lets not forget Rekindling Phoenix that keeps leaving a baby unless it gets exiled. That is AFTER dealing with the years of uninteractible energy mechanics that never got an answer card until the twilight days of the entire standard.Posted in: Modern Archives
The only reason modern survived this hell is because the speed of modern makes most of these strategies bubbling up in standard poor choices and modern doesn't typically evolve much without some push from social media articles or pros. That, and modern actually has spells that EXILE! Isn't that a wonderful thing? Exiling indestructible nightmare creatures that negate blocking and break the freaking game?
... I almost forgot we are talking about modern. Please continue. -
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idSurge posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 01/10/2018)The issue rcwraspy, is we are told 'prove it' whenever Twin is brought up. Nobody says 'prove it' when someone says the format is better off.Posted in: Modern Archives
EDIT: So yes, there actually is a difference. And when KTK continues to say 'Twin defenders provide no arguments' its a lie. We've done this, he and I did this, and he looked at the data and AGREED WITH ME, weeks ago.
So I mean, we can continue to see this passive aggressive 'well its just the same old Twin Defenders' without naming names to bypass Moderation, or we can stop the lies, accept that there is no argument for Twin remaining banned other than it IS banned, accept that there is no 'proof' that could ever be offered because Modern's complexity is far beyond any handful of players ability to test, the results of which would be ignored, dismissed or argued over for eternity because the sample size will NEVER be large enough, and yet its only the faceless (done so as to avoid making a hard stance or personal statement) 'Twin Defenders' who get called out.
Fascinating.
- The ban failed in its goals.
- The ban did not create space for 'blue decks'.
- Diversity in the format at the T8 GP level is nearly identical now, as when Twin was in the format.
- Wizards does not test Modern.
- Wizards felt Kiki was a viable replacement.
- It took 3 years of new product and unbannings (!!!) for the goal of 'Blue Diversity' to be reached.
The above list is fact.
This has been shown, the Top 8 Data is there (https://mtgtop8.com/) and the GP lists are there (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Magic:_The_Gathering_Grand_Prix_events) and I've provided the outputs on this before before anyone decides to say 'bUt nOBOdy lO0keD aTT thE DaTA'.
People dont want to talk about Twin? Ban it from the thread, but it's the ANTI-Twin people who have no position to defend, and that's been 'proven' to the extent that is possible.
Meanwhile, I'm just getting out of any financial investment in MTGO/Paper other than UR (keeping it in Paper) and Knightfall, and I'll play Arena and Mtgo 'for free' because its clear Wizards wont fix their mistake. -
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idSurge posted a message on The State of Modern Thread (B&R 01/10/2018)Yeah I don't have issue with Modern itself, the archetype variance I've seen in a week is more than I will type on my phone.Posted in: Modern Archives
It's a personal issue of what I want to grind with.
I think though, 3 years is long enough to 'hold out' for. When I get back to my PC I'll sell out of UR and just wait till Twin is returned. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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To be honest, if the Inventions and Expeditions were at most twice a rate of say Timeshifted cards I would agree with you. But I hardly see this a case situation where accessible reprints is even close to a benefit.
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4 Nebelgast Herald
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Selfless Spirit
4 Rattlechains
4 Lingering Souls
4 Serum Visions
2 Mana Leak
2 Remand
4 Path to Exile
2 Spell Snare
4 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Godless Shrine
1 Watery Grave
2 Seachrome Coast
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Moorland Haunt
4 Island
3 Plains
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the ModernNexus article http://modernnexus.com/spirit-thing-spell-queller-modern/ was more proof of the deckbuilding shortcut and its existence to me, and proof that the aether vial aggro strategy wont work outside of grindy games. So Im thinking there has to be a full analysis of what each spirit brings to the table individually since from the results I have been reading rattlechains is the card that overperforms and lingering souls has already proven itself.
So if anyone would entertain the discussion what are the strategic advantages of being in spirits with reference to "modern" being kept in mind?
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And Anthony's recent positive results showcase, to me, a variation of the strategy that I believe is better for the modern environment. Sideboard Ancestral Visions always seemed like it was the right call.
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Oh man So many ways to build thopter combo that I hope it doesnt get compared to splinter twin
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This card is going to see modern play, shoot Im going to get two for tribal shamans because both sides are everything that deck wants outside of a 1-drop manadork or a solid bodied 1drop