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

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Albegas
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Post by Albegas » 3 years ago

It really seems too soon to make judgments. Yeah MH1 gave us Hogaak and Astrolabe, but we also got FoN, Coatl, Urza and Yawgmoth. We also know that when FIRE was introduced, Standard was supposed to have feweer bans, not more. Basically, I can't condemn MH2 because I can't really trust the Play and Design team yet. I can only pray that WotC is slowly learning from their seemingly neverending failures

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Post by robertleva » 3 years ago

See I would think Standard should be allowed to have more powerful cards (and bans) than a dedicated Modern set. Cards that destroy eternal formats sometimes are perfectly fine in the standard card pool. IE they have avoided printing new playable counterspells for this very reason.

MH2 should in a perfect world provide a bunch of answers to borderline problems areas, a bunch of reprints for expensive staples and some new staples in the form of planewalkers or what have you. That's my theory anyways hehe.
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Post by Ed06288 » 3 years ago

My thinking is that modern horizons 2 already has fetchlands to sell the set so they wont need to powercreep it.

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Post by The Fluff » 3 years ago

I'm simply glad they're giving us a bunch of new cards,, so excited if it would boost some tribes, because our playgroup right now is mostly playing tribal wars games in modern.

would we get astrolabe v2, and gaak v2? who knows.. the banhammer is always ready if such things happen anyway. Bring in the new cards, so we can have some fun! ;)
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Post by blkdemonight » 3 years ago

ModernInExile wrote:
3 years ago
I guess folks forgot GY hate, land hate, or extraction exists?

A card that in a vacuum is coming online 'late' by modern standards is too much?

Look at the deck you are playing. Format simply became a monstrosity. Glad you are able to enjoy it, but Wizards screwed the format over years ago.

If that's an acceptable deck? But locking someone in a loop is just too much?

LOL.
late response. Modern is at apoint where pro active win cons/synergies are way stronger than the answer suite. Unsurprisingly land synergies and graveyard shenanigans don't always need to worry about Wizards accidentally releasing answers powerful to gimp them for Modern card pool.

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Post by drmarkb » 3 years ago

Bans are a symptom of answers being too weak. Pure and simple, really. Nearly all banned cards in every post vintage format were combo enablers, busted mana producers for said combos, or OP threats. OP answers are rare, and you have to go back to things like Mind Twist and Balance to find an era with too much in the way of answers.

Answers have been weakened, and you all know why. I grow tired of having the same discourse as to why- we all know that wotc use data and interpret that players hate counter spells, landkill, hand destruction and even creature kill. They also hate bans and losing money but that type of person is probably the most likel to doublethink and yes, I think WOTC have it wrong and misinterpret the data and respond incorrectly too often.

I think at this point it is clear that
(a) there are people who bought up in the modern era who think that countering a spell is just a nasty thing to do, and that path to exile is a really good removal spell. The idea of even a stone rain sends them mad. These people have obviously never pathed an Uro and won, because that never hapened and path is still a pathetic card when placed against Uro and Oko et al. We have to accept that some people think a 6/6 for 2/3/4 whatever mana is fine, but swords to plowshares or stone rain is OP and/or unfun.
(b) they design all sets with commander players in mind.
(c) those who welcome bans upon bans upon bans and are OK with it are often those who get hit financially but don't mind and keep playing. Those who don't just leave the format afte being stung repeatedly.
(d) those still playing Modern in paper are probably well aware that their hobby is costing them lots of money, and more than anyone, they are probably getting the bummest deal, the brownest end of the stick, and basically any other format will be safer and better value in the long run. They accept that or delude themselves, and I think at this point those players are in the former category.
Online is different, and will keep the format alive.
(e) Planeswalkers are actually quite hated by a lot of players, including commander players, but they have no other method to sell the game so they will continue to be the face of the game with little to discourage people putting them in their decks.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
3 years ago
(e) Planeswalkers are actually quite hated by a lot of players, including commander players, but they have no other method to sell the game so they will continue to be the face of the game with little to discourage people putting them in their decks.
It's not so much that they're "hated," but they're also just generally not very good. Because Commander is a format where 3 players get to take a turn after a single activation, and they can be attacked, if you're not cheating extra activations or loyalty counters, they're often just bad inclusions to most decks. The static abilities somewhat change that, but you still don't see them nearly as much as any 60-card constructed format.

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Post by Simto » 3 years ago

I'd be happy if I could just have the same deck, with a couple of adjustments, and do 3-2 or 2-3 results at fnm without having to buy more and more expensive stuff. I don't care if I lose or anything, I just have fun playing. As long as I can do that I'll play Modern.

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Post by Ed06288 » 3 years ago

I usually try playing tier 2 decks for as long as theyre competitive. If im not at least breaking even on entry fees i switch over to a different tier 2 deck.

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Post by robertleva » 3 years ago

I'd like to chime in on the Planeswalker good or bad topic. Personally I love them and I think that walkers are possibly the most enjoyable part of the game for me. I have always had an aversion to creatures and creature decks, but I also enjoy having permanents on the board to play with. Planeswalkers let me have the best of both worlds and I fell in love with MTG all over again the moment they were introduced.

Fast forward to today and we still see walkers being the face of MTG so I am guessing a lot of folks enjoy them for their own reasons as well.
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Post by Simto » 3 years ago

Maybe not so much related to Modern, but Magic in general, but am I the only one who doesn't like the fact that FNM and tournaments in that style has actual money prizes? I just thought about it from the comment about breaking even on entry fees.
I think that's at least one reason why Magic has so many more "alpha nerds", passive aggressiveness, putting others down etc. etc.
That's something I noticed a lot and actually annoys me quite a bit compared to Warhammer tournaments/players. Even the big tournaments, you'd at best win the honour and maybe a gift card for £50 or something like. People were way more chill and encouraging compared to Magic players who so much has that attitude of, no matter how broken something is, they will at best say "looks decent" or "seems good" to not lose face. And my LGS was even a fairly uncompetitive but still had that going. It was so annoying everybody trying to psych each other out and push others down.
Sorry for ranting a bit, I just caught a train of thought of something that really pisses me off. I care 0% about winning or losing, but those bad attitudes and putting others below them to better themselves somehow gets me.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 3 years ago

Simto wrote:
3 years ago
Maybe not so much related to Modern, but Magic in general, but am I the only one who doesn't like the fact that FNM and tournaments in that style has actual money prizes? I just thought about it from the comment about breaking even on entry fees.
I think that's at least one reason why Magic has so many more "alpha nerds", passive aggressiveness, putting others down etc. etc.
That's something I noticed a lot and actually annoys me quite a bit compared to Warhammer tournaments/players. Even the big tournaments, you'd at best win the honour and maybe a gift card for £50 or something like. People were way more chill and encouraging compared to Magic players who so much has that attitude of, no matter how broken something is, they will at best say "looks decent" or "seems good" to not lose face. And my LGS was even a fairly uncompetitive but still had that going. It was so annoying everybody trying to psych each other out and push others down.
Sorry for ranting a bit, I just caught a train of thought of something that really pisses me off. I care 0% about winning or losing, but those bad attitudes and putting others below them to better themselves somehow gets me.
Without the prize structure, you won't have those who like to play competitively and test their meddle. I wouldn't play if there was no prize structure. Many years ago, I was able to pay for my deck, gas, sleeves, and basically everything through prizes. There is an allure to that and I know at my own LGS, at least 10 fewer people would show up if their were no "okay" prizes.

Regarding the attitudes, that's an individual thing. Those people need to work on themselves. They are likely to act similarly when doing other things as well, at least IMO.
Standard - Will pick up what's good when paper starts
Pre Modern - Do not own anymore
Pioneer - DEAD
Modern - Jund Sacrifice, Amulet, Elementals, Trollementals, BR Asmo/Goryo's, Yawmoth Chord
Legacy - No more cards, will rebuy Sneak Show when I can
Limited - Will start when paper starts
Commander - Nope

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Post by Simto » 3 years ago

I don't think real money prizes would be needed for competitive people to attend, but I guess maybe it's me who's got a totally different mindset. The more competitive people I've run into at least have an attitude about them that FNM's are for scrublords who are barely worth their time.
It is cool though that you've been able to finance so much stuff from winning, so I'm not completely oblivious to that fact of prizes being an incentive. I've been able to buy some dices and sleeves or whatever with the few times I've gotten prizes, but it was more of a souvenir kinda thing for me than something actually valuable.
To me at least, the entry fee should just be more of a token of support to the store hosting the event rather than a prize pool.
"But what if you're just a sensitive sore loser yourself?", I of course play to win as best as I can, but I don't care at all if I do or not. And back when we actually could play FNM's, it was one of the few times during the week where I could just play some games and have fun, but then having to deal with those attitudes really ruined it a lot for me at least.

The attitudes are definitely an individual thing, but there has to be something with Magic given the fact that so many people I've run into at FNM's (I haven't played at a higher level tournament than that) act that way. I started getting into Warhammer in '94 and have been into "nerdy hobbies" ever since then and I just don't experience that behaviour at the same level with any other stuff I'm into.

Sorry for ranting so much, it just struck a nerve with me I guess and I have no life anymore. I just get so annoyed with people who come in with that attitude and behaviour when we're all just nerds sitting in a stinky basement (buy %$#% deodorant guys... it's not expensive) playing a fantasy card game. It's not the %$#% big leagues man. I worked with musicians as my job for many years and had to deal with fewer inflated egos there than when I play FNM. What gives man.

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Post by Ed06288 » 3 years ago

@simto What you've touched on is very much a big problem in magic. I try to stick to stores where i'm treated best. I personally prefer an environment of "friendly competition" but its hard to strike that perfect balance.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Simto wrote:
3 years ago
Sorry for ranting so much, it just struck a nerve with me I guess and I have no life anymore. I just get so annoyed with people who come in with that attitude and behaviour when we're all just nerds sitting in a stinky basement (buy %$#% deodorant guys... it's not expensive) playing a fantasy card game. It's not the %$#% big leagues man. I worked with musicians as my job for many years and had to deal with fewer inflated egos there than when I play FNM. What gives man.
I can tell you that one of the stores I used to play at was pressured by its players to restructure the prize payouts to make them more top-heavy. All the people that regularly 4-1 or better of course supported that, while many that 3-2 and 2-3 or worse got extremely shafted. It's been so long since playing in paper that I honestly don't even remember which store did that, but I remember it took the wind out of every 3-2 night that didn't even make back the $5 entry fee.

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Post by drmarkb » 3 years ago

One of the advantages of paper Legacy- fewer arses..When your deck cost x thousands and others do too you can't switch easily to the 'best deck', thus by playing you accept a lower win PC than you could theoretically get. The type of person who plays the best deck no matter what it is better have real deep pockets, and by and large they are not interested in the format anyway. Nobody has any bragging rights in the format because the best player can lose to a t1 show and tell if they don't hold a force. Hell I have sol landed into sphere of resistance and my opponent has never cast a spell. Hardly a measure if their skill. Modern at one point was full of people behaving like alpha males but they have been in retreat. The format has always been a match up lottery and as bans have kicked in with more frequency and competitive mtg in general has been in decline there has been less room for the salty guy in the corner who has travelled 200 miles trying to make big. Wotc have shifted the focus towards content creators anyway. No one wants to be Kai Budde or Nassif. They want to be the next Prof or Rudy. There is no ranking of note, and so the game has become casual. In time there will be fewer people taking it seriously,which comes with its own downsides as people get salty because your deck does not let them win the way they want to.

Ultimately it is not prizes that cause the issue, but they contribute. It is a sort of alpha male attitude that exists in Standard and to a lesser extent Modern, but one I have not encountered often in limited or Legacy. It is a symptom of young men with ego behaving like young men with ego and always was. I don't think it is sexist to suggest it is predominantly male issue, normally ones with issues who would like to be what Anericans call jocks who don't have the inclination to play sports. Most of them just grow up when they start having a life or getting sex, or both. I have seen the same behaviour in the changing rooms. It is a minority, but one enough to upset the rest of us who have grown up. One of the benefits of the shift towards commander has been a more welcoming LGS and better experiencences, even for people like me who gave not played multiplayer in 20 years and only want one vs one competition.

Basically the age of the alpha male ' go big or go home' stuff is over. The bug websites don't cater to it any more. WOTC don't sell it as that sort of game any more. The lure of being a pro is not something wotc sell any more either. Commander is dominant, and the alpha male stuff becomes harder to justify for the people doing it. The game is sold on planeswalkers not game play, and lore and art and not rules. It is sold on
epic plays, not tight ones, not two people trying to win with a bunch of playing pieces they bought to a mind sport event. Hell the league of whomever wotc wanted to showcase the game with happens to be a diverse bunch of people from all over the planet where the game is bought and sold. It sounds reasonable but every other non athletic sport has top players that look less diverse- to randomly come up with that group defies experience and logic. It is a curated group.on very good players representing the widest possible demographic they could get, not simply a list of the top 32 best players or whatever. The idea of measuring performance is not something wotc encourage any more.
I would expect in five years that mtg becomes far more casual with smaller prizes and a larger number of small communities.where the best known players are amateurs and the content creators are better known than the players at the top.of the tree. I worry for the number of bans and weakness of answers, but don't mind the death of the pro dream and concomitant arse behaviour, although I fear the day when I get scooped at because I dared to drop.a ghostly prison.
Last edited by drmarkb 3 years ago, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by Simto » 3 years ago

@drmarkb It's all downhill from here and has been for a while, not just Magic, but life in general. %$#% sucks man.

That being said, those Mystical Archive cards sure look cool, and it looks like there will be some nice reprints for Modern decks too. I'm definitely eyeing some stuff to pimp up some of my decks. I particularly like the Japanese alt-art cards because I'm a psuedo weeb.

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Post by drmarkb » 3 years ago

Personally I enjoyed the era of competitive mtg, I disliked those types,many great players I met did not feel the need to massage their egos. I enjoyed developing decks seriously. That said I was a limited player in most respects, constructed mtg was something I enjoyed but did not put the reps in.
I am looking forward to seeing what strixhaven has. I am concentrating right now playing finance trying to a fund getting beta cards for Canlander and Legacy decks. I am looking forward to playing Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Canlander, Sealed and draft in paper when this %$#% abates.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Simto wrote:
3 years ago
@drmarkb It's all downhill from here and has been for a while, not just Magic, but life in general. %$#% sucks man.

That being said, those Mystical Archive cards sure look cool, and it looks like there will be some nice reprints for Modern decks too. I'm definitely eyeing some stuff to pimp up some of my decks. I particularly like the Japanese alt-art cards because I'm a psuedo weeb.
The Mystical Archive decks are reminding me why I never want to invest any time or money into Historic on Arena, as it continues to be a fake "non-rotating" format that gets artificially shaken up all the time. It wouldn't be so much of a big deal if you could dust cards and switch decks, but with how difficult and expensive it is to get Wildcards, and the frequency by which multiple sets of cards completely turn the format on its head, just asking for feelbads and loss. I don't even care how "healthy" or "good" the format may feel at any given time, because it is guaranteed to be irrelevant every few months.

Not SUPER relevant to your comment, but definitely seeing people online losing their minds over the cards being added to Historic from this (and the recent Anthology).

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Post by Simto » 3 years ago

I didn't know those cards got into the Historic card pool. Historic is so weird to me knowing that. I haven't played anything in Arena in so long. I can't remember when I played it last. I was really into standard when I got back into Magic, but I haven zero interest in it now.
I'm all about modern, then I play some commander, anything goes and sealed with my mates too.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Simto wrote:
3 years ago
I didn't know those cards got into the Historic card pool. Historic is so weird to me knowing that. I haven't played anything in Arena in so long. I can't remember when I played it last. I was really into standard when I got back into Magic, but I haven zero interest in it now.
I'm all about modern, then I play some commander, anything goes and sealed with my mates too.
They get random "Anthologies" added... whenever they feel like it, which effectively turns the format on its head every time. What makes this important is that unlike the Anthologies, it does not appear you can actually buy these Mystical Archive cards individually. You have to either open them in packs or craft from Wildcards. And nearly every single Mystical Archive, except for a small handful, will be Historic legal. According to WOTC: "7 of the 63 cards to be featured in the archive will not be usable in Historic" which means 56 new cards, many of absurd power levels.

Besides being a "MTGA Only" format with no analog in paper, the constant artificial shake ups make me further consider this "not a real format." I know many that love it, but a lot of those who do don't actually pay for their own cards (or get them subsidised, because they are content creators who do this as a job).

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Post by drmarkb » 3 years ago

Historic is just rot if it were in paper. As it is it is not, and so they can take liberties with what is an easy ride for them to curate.

I have no interest in any format beyond Pioneer where I cannot seriously play prison or combo prison. My remaining modern interests are effectively as prison-ish as the format allows, and are divided into 'keels over to tron and control but beats most aggro/,tempo and anything looking to combo' and 'blows up Tron lands and makes them rip their hair out but loses to combo'. How well they do depends on what the top.dogs are at the time, but they can be tweaked a little. By and large though they just rely on dodging the 10 pc matches. I doubt there will be much of a modern scene to return to- anyway. IT was on the decline pre pandemic. I think it will more likely be groups trying to get 6 people for FNM pre arranging, and not much else. If you are going to invest in expensive cards, better to have some safety, and that means not Modern staples. If you don'twant to invest, then Pioneer exists at a fraction of the cost of old Modern decks. . Sad, really, but EDH is king and Pioneer, standard, Legacy etc. all compete for a little bit of LGS time.

I tolerate pioneer because I don't mind tempo decks and it is absurdly cheap. Even then my favourite deck is effectively a WU pillow fort with a transformational sideboard to turn it into UW control, winning via second sun as often as anything, although stanfield and heliods are decent win cons. Also surviving long enough to cast gideon's intervention against some of the combo decks was about the.measure of the plan against the old inverter decks. Worked too.

In reality wotc want people playing historic but I don't think they mind bans etc. A fast rotating format that exists to support another fast rotating format and generate easy revenue is an easy win, and it creates no resentment among the paper crowd as the format is online only.

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Post by Simto » 3 years ago

Those Japanese alt-art Mystic Archive cards man.... my wallet is screaming "noooo!!!! Don't do it to me!!!". I want a playset of all the ones I use in Modern.

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Post by drmarkb » 3 years ago

Must admit to little interest, all these different looking cards look good until they go in a deck, where things start to jar. I am an OG printing man, or at least old border a la TSR. Other than that alt art is fine, I much prefer most of it to the generic stuff we have mainly, but I do not especially go a bundle on these.

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Post by Simto » 3 years ago

I generally prefer original art too, especially the old blue frame since I got my first magic cards around the time Tempest was released, so those new reprints with the old frame... ooooh baby they're nice! But really, when I actually get around to buying cards, I'll just look at the variations on cardmarket and get whatever art I like the best. I don't really care about how old or new but I do have a soft spot for certain things.
But yeah, they sure are going nuts with printing so many variations of cards, I can barely keep up.

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