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

Tomatotime
Posts: 197
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
I follow a number of magic folks (shocker) on twitter, and the fact you can Mull to 3 in this format and still win is not a positive feature.
To be fair though, if there is literally only 1 or 2 decks in the format that can do that, what is more the problem, the LM or those decks?

User avatar
idSurge
Posts: 1121
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
I follow a number of magic folks (shocker) on twitter, and the fact you can Mull to 3 in this format and still win is not a positive feature.
To be fair though, if there is literally only 1 or 2 decks in the format that can do that, what is more the problem, the LM or those decks?
I'll take 'LM' 'those decks' and 'format that supports both'. For 200 Alex. :D

It goes back to what I have been saying. Design/Development process will not change to account for the increased consistency. It just wont. The rule is there first and foremost I believe to help casual players avoid the 'feelbads'.

Unfortunately, and I do see this anecdotally, the good players can simply mull more aggressively, avoid being punished, and more often have the nut draw.

The gap between Tier 1 and Tier 2 has never been larger, the rule does not bridge the gap, because it helps 'both'. The good decks just started further ahead by default, and so lock down the game's even more consistently.

I'm fine moving on from the topic. I never want to discuss Twin again either, but people are missing the boat on the LM.
UR Control UR

User avatar
FoodChainGoblins
Level 47
Posts: 900
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Riverside

Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote: Unfortunately, and I do see this anecdotally, the good players can simply mull more aggressively, avoid being punished, and more often have the nut draw.
I do too.

I doubt anyone will do the stats on it, as it would just be for fun or whatever. It's not like WotC would actually take it into consideration and they are very set in their ways. Also, anyone could just discount their findings, as most stats based (read: all) are biased and that actually can be proven.

What I've seen anecdotally. While I haven't seen it much with Dredge recently (actually I haven't seen Dredge recently), I see it with Tron. The number of mulligans that Tron players take is up because there is no reason right now NOT to mulligan a hand with 6 or 7 cards that does not have Tron rolled up. There just isn't. Games where they mulligan to 3 and 4 is up. Sometimes they find that last Tron land and they're golden. Other times, they literally play a Chromatic Sphere and a Chromatic Star and you goldfish them. This is what I've seen. Maybe I'm the only one? We have dedicated Tron players around my area and 2 of my friends are some of the best Tron players (1 has played it for 9 years) locally.
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

User avatar
idSurge
Posts: 1121
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
I doubt anyone will do the stats on it, as it would just be for fun or whatever. It's not like WotC would actually take it into consideration and they are very set in their ways. Also, anyone could just discount their findings, as most stats based (read: all) are biased and that actually can be proven.
I dont think it can be done. Only Wizard's via MTGO, would have any amount of relevant data and they are even cutting back on decklists again at the PT/GP level because they know their testing and development is a god awful joke.
UR Control UR

User avatar
pierreb
Posts: 280
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Up North

Post by pierreb » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote: Then drop some wisdom on us. What should we talk about that is pierreb approved?
Blarh. Literally blargh. You can't understand that seeing the same posters repeat their views ad nauseam every 3 posts is bad and annoying? Really?

And yes, they're merely views. And they're not even coherent.You yourself admit the LM is FINE in limited, standard, pioneer, legacy, vintage. Then post after post repeat the same opinion that the LM should be reverted because it's bad in modern. You even admit that it's only about a few decks. Obviously if' it's fine in all format but you have a problem with it in modern, it's not the mulligan rule that is the problem. Yet, yada yada yada LM LM LM on every page of this thread. -- Edit: mis-attribution.

And then with get gems about LM like these:
Are you pretending not to understand the difference in power between

a) You opponent having a good 7 and you having a decent 5(having seen a full 7 and keeping the best 5)
vs
b) your opponent having a good 7 and you have a barely playable 5 and a scry(and having no choice but to keep)
AKA "some deck mulligan better than others". Duh! Sherlock. But do go on, all of you, reply half a dozen more posts about it. Like I said, new cancer.
Last edited by pierreb 4 years ago, edited 3 times in total.

User avatar
idSurge
Posts: 1121
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

pierreb wrote:
4 years ago
You yourself admit the LM is FINE in limited, standard, pioneer, legacy, vintage. Then post after post repeat the same opinion that the LM should be reverted because it's bad in modern. You even admit that it's only about a few decks. Obviously if' it's fine in all format but you have a problem with it in modern, it's not the mulligan rule that is the problem. Yet, yada yada yada LM LM LM on every page of this thread.
No, the only format I am fine with it is Limited.

So suggest a new topic. I'll move on.
UR Control UR

User avatar
pierreb
Posts: 280
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Up North

Post by pierreb » 4 years ago

Indeed. It was a quote of gkourou in your post, he said it was fine in other formats, it was not your own opinion. I mis-remembered that.

User avatar
Ed06288
Posts: 211
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Ed06288 » 4 years ago

is green tron even that good right now? amulet titan and mono red-blitz seem to be the best.

Aazadan
Posts: 547
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote: Based on all that, I'm just going to focus on some of the higher-level changes that need to happen, starting with the topic I'm working on now: identifying and maintaining a clear Modern point of communication in Wizards' structure.
I'm going to expand my point earlier about Mental Misstep, but I can't do that until after work. Instead, I want to talk about something very high level here which is information. I think this is more or less the highest level discussion you can have for a format because everything derives from information. Decisions made for a format, acceptable constraints, bans and unbans, deck choice, metagame decisions, sideboarding, and everything else. Design, development, deck building, investment, and playing all stem from information in one form or another.

Wizards has some information, but is lacking other information. Some they can infer, and some they build metrics on, but we don't know how well their information gathering is. We also don't know what sort of assumptions they make about formats or their process to arrive at a conclusion, but given what we've seen players assume about formats, and the fact that those players make the same assumptions after having worked at WotC, I think we can strongly assume that Wizards is making less than optimal decisions.

As such, I think that Modern has a real opportunity to be the format of information. Various unban strategies will help, but they don't have to be the only way that can be accomplished. It could also be accomplished by releasing more information which may help to reign in cards that are starting to take over the format, by helping the community to iterate more quickly. Perhaps an experiment such as releasing more information when we're further away from a major tournament (PT's) or just after those tournaments involving Modern, and less information as we approach those major tournaments.

In short, this would mean that the formats tournament scene would be actively curated, not just at tournament time where all the top decklists come out, but in how players can evolve the format from week to week by having access to better information.

That said, I believe this is a very hard argument to make because for years Wizards has been seemingly afraid of players having too much information as they solve the game quickly. But, my counterpoint to that argument, is that they primarily are concerned with Standard and Draft which are the narrowest and most competitive formats and as such can benefit from hiding this information. While in larger formats that are pushed more seasonally, we have only seen deck diversity increase, as information increases. Additionally, the Magic community is currently very fractured, there's no longer unifying websites to discuss a bunch of decks in general which has massively reduced the cross pollination of ideas. By releasing more information, that effect can be countered and the format will likely improve, or at least be more resistant to any cards potentially being too good.

True-Name Nemesis
Posts: 156
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by True-Name Nemesis » 4 years ago

pierreb wrote:
idSurge wrote: Then drop some wisdom on us. What should we talk about that is pierreb approved?
Blarh. Literally blargh. You can't understand that seeing the same posters repeat their views ad nauseam every 3 posts is bad and annoying? Really?

And yes, they're merely views. And they're not even coherent.You yourself admit the LM is FINE in limited, standard, pioneer, legacy, vintage. Then post after post repeat the same opinion that the LM should be reverted because it's bad in modern. You even admit that it's only about a few decks. Obviously if' it's fine in all format but you have a problem with it in modern, it's not the mulligan rule that is the problem. Yet, yada yada yada LM LM LM on every page of this thread. -- Edit: mis-attribution.

And then with get gems about LM like these:
Are you pretending not to understand the difference in power between

a) You opponent having a good 7 and you having a decent 5(having seen a full 7 and keeping the best 5)
vs
b) your opponent having a good 7 and you have a barely playable 5 and a scry(and having no choice but to keep)
AKA "some deck mulligan better than others". Duh! Sherlock. But do go on, all of you, reply half a dozen more posts about it. Like I said, new cancer.
And those decks already mulliganed better before London mulligan. Anymore brilliant insights 'sherlock' ?

Actually amazing that seeing more cards on a Mulligan is being framed as some kind of downside.


To take a step back and be more constructive instead of aggressive. I will just say I like the idea of the London Mulligan. Unfortunately as long as the top tier goldfish decks are heads and shoulders above everything else, it's going to be more of a problem than a solution especially when those decks also have better consistency tools.

My initial response was never about LM in isolation. It was about LM and the gulf in consistency and power. But somehow that got completely ignored because '7 cards is better than 5'

User avatar
cfusionpm
With that on the stack...
Posts: 1182
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: California, USA
Contact:

Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote: - Modern initially started as a way for a player to expand his collection and play his favourite standard deck in that format. As Modern grew bigger, and the gap in power level between Standard and Modern grew bigger, this stopped being the case. Thus, they saw a hole in the mtg ecosystem and filled that hole with Pioneer, which now fills this very role(of someone being able to play in Pioneer his favourite Standard deck, that he can because it just rotated out).
I find this stance interesting, given how much Modern has radically changed over the past few years. This "non rotating" format has seen so many of its best decks banned or made irrelevant due to artificially pushed new cards (mostly WAR and MH1, but some idiotic broken gems seem to sneak through every other set).

Even the identity of "keeping your deck" is laughable these days. Either your deck gets banned, or they force you to buy something else (or abandon your deck entirely) to remain relevant. For those lucky enough to have dodged both of these (mostly Tron and Amulet), I hope you understand how good you've had it.

User avatar
Bearscape
Posts: 233
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

Complaining that decks fall out of favour or get banned over the span of a decade is silly. Holding a year as turbulent as 2019 as an example of the average Modern experience is silly.

Btw, I've started almost every decklist I drafted with "4 Snapcaster Mage" for 8 years now.

User avatar
Simto
Posts: 396
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Simto » 4 years ago

This is a massive sidenote, but it's about a modern staple.
I'm so sad my favorourite Chalice of the void artwork is the Kaladesh invention with a price trend of €126... The normal is so ugly, and it's hard for me to put so much money into a card that has such ugly artwork hehe.... I need four though......
I want more Kaladesh art direction :) The inventions look so cool.
(Also little sidenote.... if Lattice was banned for being "not fun", then how on earth can Chalice not be banned? you can drop it turn 1 in some builds against a burn deck and completely %$#% them up)

Also, I think it's cool seeing Mono Red Blitz style decks at the top of the game right now. It's cheap and looks like a "classic Magic" deck to me. No thrills, just a %$#% ton of burn and fast creatures tearing it up.

User avatar
Ed06288
Posts: 211
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Ed06288 » 4 years ago

nobody knows if they banned lattice for fun reasons. eldrazi tron probably had too high of a win rate. that would be consistent with bans in the past.

User avatar
robertleva
Posts: 582
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by robertleva » 4 years ago

Right now the fractured Modern players and opinions are because of the way WOTC has handled the format for the last couple years. It would be impossible for anyone to cobble together some sort of unified "Vision" of how the format is supposed to be operating based on WOTC's actions towards modern.

Do they hate Dredge? Who knows. Do they hate Artifact combo? Who knows. Do they hate Tron? Who knows.

You could make a case for them keeping those decks in check with bans, or you could make a case for WOTC taking special measures to protect the above decks from obliteration by not banning enough. Then you get cards like Oko and Ox further muddying the waters.

So we have a broad format full of people who have no idea what decks they should be investing in because, how could they? The format needs a vision statement and strong leadership from WOTC, and so far the only thing WOTC has committed to is milking the format with MH2 sometime next year. Great.
Robert Leva
Creator of Modern's 8Rack Deck
Image

User avatar
pierreb
Posts: 280
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Up North

Post by pierreb » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote: On pioneer though, one can see this is happening. My basic decks at the moment are UR Phoenix and UW Approach of the second sun, two decks that were recently played in Standard, rotated out, (banned in Modern) and I get to play them on Pioneer. Why that is? Because the starting set was rightly chosen to be a recent set and a set with no old wtf cards.
That's pretty revisionist history, IMO.

When they started modern, it was designed to be very close to what extended was at the time. People could bring their extended decks. This meant decks were going to be more powerful than standard decks, but the best of standard decks could be upgraded to be playable. At the time, there were not as many sets in modern.

The only reason it currently works in pioneer is because it is a new format, so standard decks are okayish. You still can't play your standard deck as-is, you need to upgrade them with other cards, and it will become less and less possible as the number of sets in pioneer grows.

OTOH, there is the opposite problem in pioneer. Because they started it with so few sets and nerfed its power-level from the start. As the format grows older, at some point there will emerge deck as powerful as in modern due to inter-set interactions. They will either need to keep banning more and more cards or to let older decks become irrelevant.

If they chose the former, then modern will become more and more relevant, as it will accept these more powerful decks.

You can have one of:
  • An old eternal format in which you can bring your standard deck, but which will ban a lot of cards (possibly making older deck illegal!)
  • An old eternal format with more powerful decks.

User avatar
drmarkb
Posts: 634
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
ktkenshinx
You are talking about unbanning twin and what wotc want without the obvious point, they do not want Twin. Or Pod. How have you not got that yet? You want support from the community, then please stop talking about reversing the most polarising bans Stop talking about a rehash of the format with selected Pioneer style testing. Neither of these are realistic.
If Modern is to continue it needs bans, although they won't be enough to save it- we agree on that. It does not need unbans.
WOTC being stubborn about how stupid and wrong their past mistakes may have been doesn't make them any less stupid and wrong. Same goes with continuing to uphold stupid and wrong bans to this day. Modern has changed to an absolutely unrecognizable form, and outside of the totally egregiously broken things and T4 violators, most stuff on the list could and should be freed and reevaluated.

But they don't because they "save" the equity so they can use it as apology fodder for the next time their design teams make mistakes and break a format into pieces. There's really nothing in their history of actions and statements that would lead me to believe anything else.
Well I certainly agree that they could unban stuff, and ban nothing (including Veil). I just don't think they will.
They could also ban loads of current stuff (that absolutely should be banned if you take the earlier bans as a benchmark) head on. I don't think that is likely, but probably more likely.
A pioneer style experiment is hugely unlikely.
A change of sets hugely unlikely, and would probably be the only way they could justify a Pioneer style experiment. I don't see them taking huge steps like this. I think they could, they may be justified in drastic action but it is really unlikely.


Most likely is they edge ban decks, and try and fix it with MH2 being full of direct hosers, none of which are Force of Will or Wasteland etc., but might include Swords.

As you know, Ktken, I, and many others here think the format will die in a couple of years for more reasons than simply the banlist and design paradigms, so it might be largely moot.

User avatar
idSurge
Posts: 1121
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Ed06288 wrote: nobody knows if they banned lattice for fun reasons. eldrazi tron probably had too high of a win rate. that would be consistent with bans in the past.
From the article?
While decks featuring this combination often win in other ways, the deckbuilding cost to include this interaction is low, causing it to show up more often than is fun in competitive play. As a result, we are banning Mycosynth Lattice in Modern.
While the primary motivation for this last change is the unfun play pattern, we also intend for this to be a small but meaningful balance change to Eldrazi and other Tron decks. We feel this is warranted based on the popularity and strength of those decks in the metagame.
UR Control UR

User avatar
pierreb
Posts: 280
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Up North

Post by pierreb » 4 years ago

Yes, alas!, they chose to present the justification in that order. I wish they Had said that they had banned lattice as a power tweak to tron first and foremost. Then add that they had selected that card because they estimated it was widely regarded as unfun. It would have avoided all the drama about Wizards banning cards for not being "fun". Since "fun" is extremely subjective, it's a bad idea to give the impression it is now a ban criterion.

Oh well.

User avatar
idSurge
Posts: 1121
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

pierreb wrote:
4 years ago
Yes, alas!, they chose to present the justification in that order. I wish they Had said that they had banned lattice as a power tweak to tron first and foremost. Then add that they had selected that card because they estimated it was widely regarded as unfun. It would have avoided all the drama about Wizards banning cards for not being "fun". Since "fun" is extremely subjective, it's a bad idea to give the impression it is now a ban criterion.

Oh well.
Yeah I agree its subjective, but there is no reading that gives us anything else. "Fun" is now a ban consideration.
UR Control UR

Mtgthewary
Posts: 220
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

Fun was always important as a ban criteria. I don't get it why people don't believed this in the past. It is a game, fun is fundamental important. By the way, they talk about it at ban announcement of kci and second sunrise too. People should start accepting points even if they don't like them

User avatar
ktkenshinx
Posts: 571
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: West Coast
Contact:

Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote: Fun was always important as a ban criteria. I don't get it why people don't believed this in the past. It is a game, fun is fundamental important. By the way, they talk about it at ban announcement of kci and second sunrise too. People should start accepting points even if they don't like them
"Fun" has never been cited as a primary ban factor before. It was only mentioned as a distant consideration or as a symptom of a dominant or overly fast deck. But now it's clearly a consideration. To be very clear, I support this change given Modern's state and support its application with Lattice, a card I too wanted banned. I just think we need to set limits on its use because literally every element of Magic is unfun to someone. There needs to be more to the fun factor than just preference.
Over-Extended/Modern Since 2010

Mtgthewary
Posts: 220
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

Primery or not, who cares about semantics? There are a lot of criteria and fun is one of them. This discussion reminds me on: "wotc don't care about secondary market"... Really? Why people always believe such strange things? Now look at secret lair and you can see how important secondary market prices are. I even get warnings here because I always believed how important price of secondary market is. We should just accept reality and stop fooling around ourselves

User avatar
Ed06288
Posts: 211
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Ed06288 » 4 years ago

okay so it looks like the lattice ban is outside the norm for bannings. but we still don't have mtgo win rates of decks, or matchup percentages.

User avatar
Ed06288
Posts: 211
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Ed06288 » 4 years ago

"fun" should never be a factor for bannings. it makes deck-building decisions irrelevant. this applies to cards like blood moon, chalice of the void, tron lands, and lattice. some people think that only in-game decisions should matter; that should only be half the equation.

i'm also still skeptical on banning veil of summer. unless the decks running it have an unusually high win percentage, it should remain.

if people simply don't like these cards, and they ban them anyway, i'm fine with that, not everything has to over analyzed with data or whatever. but for the sake of saying something different here, i don't think veil is the most problematic.

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic

Return to “Modern”