[Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 07/13/2020)

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Post by Albegas » 4 years ago

It probably won't be important to figure out which one is more broken in the long run, but for what it's worth, Eldrazi Winter aggro will likely go down as the more broken deck. Its lack of hard hate compared to Hogaak really shows in its tournament results. Hogaak may have needed 8 pieces of hate before Bridge's ban, but at least hate exists. Eldrazi aggro had what, Bridge and a massive hand dump?

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

The Hogaapocalypse marches on!
https://www.channelfireball.com/article ... its-games/

Karsten found you can get a T2 Hogaak in 60% of games. Ban Looting and you're at 58.6% of games. Ban Supplier and you're at 39.3% of the time. Clearly we need to ban Supplier... But seriously, a) this analysis gives some statistical weight behind Hogaak's inherent brokenness, b) Karsten shows we shouldn't be paying any attention to Looting at this particular time, and c) I'm confident at least a few players will think Supplier is the "real" problem here. (A) is the real deal, reinforcing everything we already know about this outrageously broken deck. (B) emphasizes the distraction of Looting; we cannot diagnose this card and Modern's overall health while Hogaak is so dominant. (C) is a straight distraction I trust everyone here will argue against.

As for GP Birmingham, we already have our first troubling datapoint of the data: attendance. Birmingham had only 911 players in attendance on Day 1. Many, MANY factors go into attendance, but that attendance is awful for a 2019 European Modern GP. It's the lowest European Modern GP attendance of all time (second is 2013 GP Bilbao at 988), and the sixth lowest Modern GP attendance ever. It's also much lower than 2018's GP Birmingham back-to-back Standard and Legacy GP at 1169 and 1200 players respectively.

Finally, we got Day 1 numbers!! This is a rarity at the GP level and it's great work by Karsten and the CFB team:


Hogaak variants collectively at around 11.6% for Day 1. Before anyone says that's not bad, remember that Day 1 numbers don't tell any tale of performance. Day 2 numbers and beyond matter, as it allows us to track conversion from that 10.3% (traditional Hogaak) baseline.
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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

interesting numbers by Hogaak, they even separated it from Dredgegaak.

Also surprised there is Mardu Shadow instead of Grixis Shadow.
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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

Turn 3 Batterskull in which my opponent used a lot of resources (5 mana spread over 2 turns and a Squire) would be the LEAST of my worries considering what every other deck is doing by turn 3.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

The Fluff wrote:
4 years ago
Also surprised there is Mardu Shadow instead of Grixis Shadow.
Besides Path to Exile being super relevant, Ranger-Captain of Eos is a very, very useful card by both fetching your Death's Shadows and prevenging the opponent from casting spells. Pair it with Unearth and you have a chain of tutor + Silence effects. Plus, Grixis shadow is a ton of air and doesn't really do a whole lot. They have some mild protection and disruption, but at the end of the day, they're just attacking with one or two big vanilla ground creatures and hoping to "gotcha" the opponent with Temur Battle Rage. I played the deck a lot and can see a lot of benefit to going Mardu, especially with the combinations of Ranger, Unearth. White just adds so many more useful things than blue. Which is sad, because Grixis is by far my favorite color combination...

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Approximate numbers based on the data we have available. In short, Day 2 is looking awful. We'll see how the actual numbers compared to the estimates based on Day 1 metagame %s and Karsten's Day 1 lists that didn't make Day 2.



Hogaak abominably ahead at +11.6% conversion, more than doubling its Day 1 share into Day 2.

EDIT: Also, Hogaak continues its dominance with an outrageous Day 1 MWP. Urza ThopterSword, a deck we identified as an MC4 performer, is also very strong.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

Maybe they knew about Hogaak ahead of time, and that's why we got no video coverage this week or last?

/conspiracytheory

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Post by Wraithpk » 4 years ago

Oh damn, I was about to build Whirza, and now I'm not so sure I should, lol.
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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Wraithpk wrote:
4 years ago
Oh damn, I was about to build Whirza, and now I'm not so sure I should, lol.
If you're worried about bans, I'd buy it. The odds of Wizards going after any deck after Hogaak is very slim for a while. The format will likely either be a largely balanced mix of Tron/Humans/Phoenix/UW Control/Jund/Whirza/etc. or have a heavy Looting-dominant presence. Either way, Whirza seems like a totally safe investment.

Also, the Day 2 estimates were very close. This is a disturbing picture of dominance:

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

The format will be mostly forgotten after Aug. Unless something WILD happens online, we wont see any changes after Hogaak is banned until next year I would predict.

As to the image here? I say again, if you care about winning and you dont play Hogaak...you actually dont care REALLY about winning. :p
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
The format will be mostly forgotten after Aug. Unless something WILD happens online, we wont see any changes after Hogaak is banned until next year I would predict.
You know what could really shake up people caring about Modern after the Hogaak ban? And do so with no real consequence, since there are no meaningful large tournaments until at least next year? :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :crazy: :love: :party:

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Post by Albegas » 4 years ago

To add to what KTK said about UrzaSword, my initial assumption was that it's been doing well because it's simply well positioned. Hogaak eats up a lot of the decks running Baby Karn, UrzaSword can "tutor" up its hate and bring it back, and mass artifact hate like Shatterstorm and Stony Silence in the side seems to be at an all time low. I haven't really been watching a lot of tournament footage so I could be wrong, but that's my initial impression given what I've seen from deck lists and Hogaak's win rates.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
You know what could really shake up people caring about Modern after the Hogaak ban? And do so with no real consequence, since there are no meaningful large tournaments until at least next year?
Far too little, far too late for me. I hope you all have fun though when SFM comes off as an apology.
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
You know what could really shake up people caring about Modern after the Hogaak ban? And do so with no real consequence, since there are no meaningful large tournaments until at least next year?
Far too little, far too late for me. I hope you all have fun though when SFM comes off as an apology.
I mean, I'll personally have 6 periods worth of kids come next Thursday, so I don't know how much I'll be able to do of anything. But would at least be a nice gesture! :laugh:

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Post by tronix » 4 years ago

been away for a bit, but funny you guys bring up unbans because if i were wotc and looking for an opportune time to unban something; this would be it (presuming hogaak gets the axe).

we always talk about how one card or another just doesnt seem feasible given the format climate or the timing not being right. well the way i see it this upcoming announcement hits all the right points. not to mention ban list swaps is a tactic we know wotc employs; presumably to soften the blow of a ban. we are far enough out from mh1 release that most everything the set has to offer has been discovered, however hogaak was just a big enough menace to distort the format; removing any expectations. so as far as disrupting the 'meta' goes, an unban now would be less noticeable. the mythic championships are over, and the bulk of modern GPs is done with for the year (most happening in the spring-> early summer). we are also in a lull from standard infusions since core sets typically offer less, and ToE is still a few months away; giving any potential unban some time to marinate.

i dunno, outside of waiting to reprint the card they plan to unban; which is really only something theorized to be something they care about; i cant think of a better time to unban a card.
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Post by AvalonAurora » 4 years ago

tronix wrote:
4 years ago
not to mention ban list swaps is a tactic we know wotc employs; presumably to soften the blow of a ban.
I'd be wary of letting Wizards think we feel that way and can forgive them like that. Because you know what it motivates them to do? More questionable bans so that they have things to unban when they are forced later to do major bans out of recent sets that people have bought into decks of. They should be unbanning stuff as soon as they can if won't cause problems in the format, not waiting until they can give it to us only when they have need of an apology or to spice up the format.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

AvalonAurora wrote:
4 years ago
tronix wrote:
4 years ago
not to mention ban list swaps is a tactic we know wotc employs; presumably to soften the blow of a ban.
I'd be wary of letting Wizards think we feel that way and can forgive them like that. Because you know what it motivates them to do? More questionable bans so that they have things to unban when they are forced later to do major bans out of recent sets that people have bought into decks of. They should be unbanning stuff as soon as they can if won't cause problems in the format, not waiting until they can give it to us only when they have need of an apology or to spice up the format.
Bitterblossom and Wild Nacatl were unbanned alongside Deathright Shaman's ban.
Golgari Grave-Troll was unbanned alongside Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Birthing Pod's ban.
Ancestral Vision and Sword of the Meek were unbanned alongside Eye of Ugin's ban.

This is entirely in their wheelhouse, whether we want to admit it or not.
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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Should/Could? It's not relevant. They DON'T.

Best we can hope for is reparations. 'Sorry we ruined your format, here's SFM.'
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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
The Fluff wrote:
4 years ago
Also surprised there is Mardu Shadow instead of Grixis Shadow.
Besides Path to Exile being super relevant, Ranger-Captain of Eos is a very, very useful card by both fetching your Death's Shadows and prevenging the opponent from casting spells. Pair it with Unearth and you have a chain of tutor + Silence effects. Plus, Grixis shadow is a ton of air and doesn't really do a whole lot. They have some mild protection and disruption, but at the end of the day, they're just attacking with one or two big vanilla ground creatures and hoping to "gotcha" the opponent with Temur Battle Rage. I played the deck a lot and can see a lot of benefit to going Mardu, especially with the combinations of Ranger, Unearth. White just adds so many more useful things than blue. Which is sad, because Grixis is by far my favorite color combination...
oh, that's a nice interaction between ranger captain and death shadow. I now understand why the ranger is 10$ each.

white is a really good support color. Offers exile removals that are useful in today's environment where many things come back from the yard.
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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Should/Could? It's not relevant. They DON'T.

Best we can hope for is reparations. 'Sorry we ruined your format, here's SFM.'
Spot on here!

Even if I truly don't believe that Splinter Twin should be currently banned or even banned after Hogaak leaves, it doesn't matter what I think. I know it may sound sick to some of you, but I feel that Wizards believes the Twin ban to be a success. At the very best, we get Stoneforge Mystic as a consolation prize and at the worst, we get freaking nothing. Modern Horizons was great in my opinion, although expensive, outside of the mistake in an 8/8 trample for free. Even if I don't feel that MH helped to slow down the format much, it helped or spawned many decks.

Hogaak was a mistake and even if I don't think that "everyone knew that Bridge was fine and Hogaak wasn't," WotC may have tried to do the right thing, but it blew up in their face because they threw darts at a board. They tried to let people still play with their new toys, but it proved to destroy, it not outright KILL attendance. My LGS is down to freaking under 20 players for Modern FNM and it's MODERN SEASON. Last Modern season, there were 40 players the first day of that time, even if that time was GDS mostly.

*Look at all the super powerful cards in MH - Urza, Horizon lands, Arcum's Astrolabe, Plague Engineer, W&6, Seasoned Pyromancer, Captain-Ranger of Eos, Hogaak, and much more! Fun cards like Lightning Skelemental, Unearth, etc. Even without some possibly cool stuff they could have done like Containment Priest and much more, the set was a HUGE success in my opinion, but it's always going to go down as the worst set in history because they printed Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis. Take away that card and think, "was this set a success?" I think the answer is clearly, yes.
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Post by metalmusic_4 » 4 years ago

I bought 2 boxes and I know several people from my shop that bought multiple boxes. MH was clearly a financial success in my area and I expect world wide. I expect they will do a MH2 relatively soon, but I expect they will play safer with the card design. Dredge in vintage is the most powerful it has ever been due to force if vigor, W6 is really big in legacy synergizing with wasteland, Modern hogaak required 2 bans. For all these reasons I expect the power level of MH2 to be lower.

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

In case anyone missed it, Hogaak marched 3 copies into the T8 to complete its conversion rate trifecta: 10.3% Day 1 --> 21.9% Day 2 --> 37.5% T8. Interestingly, Urza ThopterSword was also a strong performer all event, admittedly with a smaller N, as was underdog Mardu Shadow! Nice to see other success stories in an outrageously warped field. Wizards will fix this problem on 08/26, but the damage to their credibility and Modern image will be done and we'll be in recovery mode for months.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
Wizards will fix this problem on 08/26, but the damage to their credibility and Modern image will be done and we'll be in recovery mode for months.
I mean, if we're honest with ourselves when was the last time they actually had credibility in managing Modern?

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Imagine if we didnt have only 10% of the field on the deck Day 1? Woof.

Mardu looks like its real, which is nice. I do wonder if without GY hate, and people able to cover Artifact hate a bit more, would Urza and Scales fold?

I do believe leaving Hogaak this long is doing damage, it's been a bad format for a year, I'm sorry it just has been.

EDIT: Here's the thing as I go take my dog out.

This year has damaged the format in a real way. It honestly has. You have decks that are significantly above curve in comparison to the field, and the play patterns are NOT mutually interactive for the majority of decks. They just are not. If the top of the format was Jund/Blue Moon it would be significantly different from today, where even if you end up removing Hogaak, its Artifact/Walker Lock, Burn/Prowess, Xerox, or hyper Aggro like Infect/Scales.

There is a cost to having the game run like this for as long as it has, and its evidenced by anecdotes like FCG, who lives in one of the most competitive area's in the US for magic, saying attendance is taking a hit. You can only goldfish for so long before you say "what else can i be playing WITH others?'

KtK has it right, there will be a long recovery from this, because on top of Hogaak, on top of a poor meta, the Horizon's impact has been an expensive ($$$) one!

I really think Wizard's has done a number on things now, and we wont have anything to show its better until next year. 2019 has literally been wasted, as far as Modern goes.
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Post by Ym1r » 4 years ago

Been watching some SCG Team coverage. It's a lot of Urzas, a TON of Gaaks, and the mix of their MUs :P. In a way, kinda glad we don't get to see coverage of the awful GPs with the Gaak. Currently watching UW control vs Gaak, impressively UW won G1, but it was PAINFUL to watch how much he had to struggle, plus the Gaak player is playing the suboptimal crab list. G2 was a joke of course. Edit: Oh hey UW won! :) :love:

Generally, Gaak is suuuuch a miserable card. I am not one to ever doomsay, or to call for bans or to make absurd statements (at least I try not to), but man Gaak is SO. FREAKING. MISERABLE. Happy that only a dredge player picked up the tech in my LGS and the rest were like, nah, we ain't playing this. The ban can't come quickly enough. And then we should ritualistically burn all the copies of this card and remove its memory from existence.

Now that it's out of my system, the Soulherder deck looks super sick. Gonna try to get my hands on it.
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