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

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tronix
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Post by tronix » 4 years ago

re: w6 hyperbole

modern continues to churn due to new powerful cards being printed. im not sure why anyone would be surprised or outraged given that its basically been the premise of modern for quite a while now. powerful cards, and in turn powerful decks get to the point where they are a consistent driving force in the format (ie 'tier 1'/'winners meta' or however you want to classify it); by displacing and stepping on the dead bodies of less powerful cards and decks.

admittedly i have been more distracted from modern in the last few weeks, but from where im standing w6 and crew looks to be empowering/lifting up jund (or presumably jund style decks) when such decks were lacking and at best occasionally appearing side characters in someone elses story. outside of w6 being the source of some really skewed results similar to deathrite shamans presence (w6 seems familiar to DRS imo); that looks like a net positive to me.

how else do people think fair interactive decks are going to genuinely expand their foothold in modern? 'narrow-conditional-answer card #23436' certainly isnt the answer. its powerful multifunctional cards that are pushed to provide support on different fronts; generic answer, value, threat, defense, baked in synergy, etc. such things will inevitably leave less powerful tools behind. just contrast what it took to have UW(x) control climb its way to relevancy and the perpetual state of mediocrity for the entire 'blue control' archetype that existed before. mostly a cast of cards that bodied unfair and fair decks alike.

it brings to mind the different 'unfair' component cards people are always criticizing and advocating bans for; like stirrings, lootings, opal, manamorphose, or whatever. i think patrick sullivan made a salient comment on one broadcast i watched a while back when arguing to ban lootings in bridgevine; it was along the lines of modern never being able to get out from under the card. that is basically it imo, modern just isnt going to get out from being under such cards continually facilitating new 'broken' interactions as more sets are printed. wizards banning one or any number of them seems less likely as time goes on, so the only outcome i can see is an arms race.

also a good-stuff card/deck 'forcing people to go under' (or anything for that matter) is a 'problem', then the modern has been suffering from such problems for nearly a decade. tron and what people perceive the existence of the deck does is basically a meme. with many other examples i think the premise of the argument is a nonstarter.

w6 might plausibly be 'DRS: the sequel', but there is little to no evidence to corroborate the claim right now.
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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

If you look at the metagame picture Wrenn only improved Junds matchup vs UW Control, Humans and Company decks. So out of 20 tier 1 decks only 3 really care about Wrenn, the rest bypasses its CA because it seeks to win on turn 3 or goes big. Meanwhile if you look at tier 2 they all fold to Wrenn. Modern's meta cycle will look like this: People play Jund and get pushed out of the meta by goldfish decks --> without Jund other midrange and creature decks become viable --> with other midrange decks entering the format pushing away the goldfish decks Jund becomes viable again --> rinse and repeat.

So yes, Wrenn warps the meta around itself but Jund doesn't function like a police deck like 4-5 years ago because it doesn't do anything vs the uninteractive tier 1. It only made the gap between tier 1 and tier 2 a lot bigger and pushed a lot of strategies and decks out of playability.

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
As long as you don't care about winning, and are willing to accept a nonzero number of awful, fast, and/or unfulfilling rounds of play, you can play pretty much whatever you want. My stance on this was heavily influenced by the fact that I only get to play 4-5 rounds in paper every 2 weeks thanks to a baby and wife that already think's that's a lot. So wildly swingy outcomes and massively unsatisfying gameplay is amplified greater than someone who can grind match after match every day. Having played some on MTGO, some of those feelings have subsided a bit, but only because I do not play Leagues (I refuse to pay money for Modern events), and can concede, leave, and go find another match when faced with most of the awful bullsh*t that makes up the best Modern decks. I love nothing more than smashing my terrible Blue Moon deck against some other random T2/3 deck, and other poor souls playing some random grindy value deck.
The Fluff wrote:
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the reshaping that WAR gave to modern for me is that now little t3feri and narset are put into consideration when building a deck. For example, I would think.. "what to do when an opponent cast a t3feri or narset? get rid of it or keep going?" These two walkers are strong.
In paper, you shrug and play out the losing battle. Online, I give myself one draw step to remove it. If I can't, right click → concede.
I remember now how much you dislike little T3feri because he shuts down instants. For me, Narset is the more annoying one because she shuts down more than 8 cards in my deck. Thank goodness there is detention sphere. :P
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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

yeah, she's brutal against phoenix and shuts down big teferi in traditional uw control. Which is why I have two narset of my own in the sideboard. Thank goodness, got a playset when she was still a dollar a copy. Still have not given up trying to get one copy of her alternate art - will get one someday. :)
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Post by Hesperos » 4 years ago

The Fluff wrote:
4 years ago
yeah, she's brutal against phoenix and shuts down big teferi in traditional uw control. Which is why I have two narset of my own in the sideboard. Thank goodness, got a playset when she was still a dollar a copy. Still have not given up trying to get one copy of her alternate art - will get one someday. :)
They both do mean things to my fabourite deck :(.

W6 is interesting though. It's undeniably a very powerful card, and W6 and big pyro have completely revived Jund. I'm all in favour of Jund being a thing again, but I am a little worried about how big of an impact W6 has on the overall meta. At this point Jund is midrange, there just doesn't seem to be a point to play any other midrange deck. And that is, to me, never a good sign. Modern is still going through a period of upheaval with all the new toys we have to play with, so it'll be interesting to see where all of this ends up.

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Post by Wolffman » 4 years ago

There is some extreme hyperbole going on in this thread right now. W&6 is not warping the format, let's not lose our minds that people are picking up jund again to try out some new cards. Yes the card punishes things with 1 toughness, yes it generates card advantage in the form of lands from the graveyard, but these effects are pretty tame in the context of modern and no decks have been obsoleted by this card.

I also think it is incorrect to say that jund is the only midrange deck in the format. Death's shadow is still really powerful and hasn't gone anywhere. The popularity of a deck for the last month should not be the sole indicator of deck viability or whether a deck is 'Dominating' the format. We need to be more patient and consider larger data sets before making extreme claims that are backed by zero evidence. (ie. ban W&6 cuz I lost to jund last fnm!!!)

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

I do think people are just too lazy to try alternatives. I know UW is great (and I play it since Modern's inception) but in the last two months I've been trashing my local leagues with Blue Moon, and yet nobody cares about thinking it may be good again (with the addition of new cards) because, simply, no one is playing it.

And this is just an example, of course.

People don't want to invest in archetypes that didn't put results in big tournaments, and Magic isn't the cheapest of the games.

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Post by tronix » 4 years ago

iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
If you look at the metagame picture Wrenn only improved Junds matchup vs UW Control, Humans and Company decks. So out of 20 tier 1 decks only 3 really care about Wrenn, the rest bypasses its CA because it seeks to win on turn 3 or goes big. Meanwhile if you look at tier 2 they all fold to Wrenn. Modern's meta cycle will look like this: People play Jund and get pushed out of the meta by goldfish decks --> without Jund other midrange and creature decks become viable --> with other midrange decks entering the format pushing away the goldfish decks Jund becomes viable again --> rinse and repeat.

So yes, Wrenn warps the meta around itself but Jund doesn't function like a police deck like 4-5 years ago because it doesn't do anything vs the uninteractive tier 1. It only made the gap between tier 1 and tier 2 a lot bigger and pushed a lot of strategies and decks out of playability.
tbh im confused at what you are even arguing. based on your post im assuming you think w6 should be banned, but your reasoning is vague hyperbolic statements and a few non-sequitur conclusions.

most of what you are laying at w6's feet just describes...regular stuff the strongest decks and cards do. the term 'warp' is some grey area. how warping is the current iteration of jund, and specifically w6, compared to arclight phoenix and its associated decks? the new karn or narset? chalice or ensaring bridge? (etc)

perhaps it isnt that w6 is 'warping' and is therefore a problem, but rather that you dont like the manner it is doing so. there is room to debate what is ultimately good or 'healthy' for a format, but convincing others its enough to ban something...

when decks cycle to the top of a format, usually because of trending popularity just as much as anything else, it sets the baseline for the inevitable responses. if jund is indeed one such deck, and the meta can respond to it as you said, its no different than any number of other decks.

you mention police decks. how is jund not being able to 'police' as it did years ago ,when the meta was smaller and it was closer to its 50/50 ideal, relevant? decks like that dont exist, and they havent for a while. similarly if it cant handle uninteractive decks, which you state comprises the majority of top decks; then jund being a top deck itself wouldnt be possible. so which is it? also, what are these other fair midrange and creature strategies and how are they countering 'uninteractivity' and jund cant?

as for 'tier 2' decks, which is another grey area; they 'fold' to any number of things. the idea that w6 by itself single handedly beats so many disparate decks/strategies cant be anything other than hyperbole. decks are tier 2 because they have some fundamental weakness that precludes them from staying relevant for any extended period of time. if, as you say, there are TWENTY tier 1 decks how concerned should wizards be about some subset of tier 2 decks falling however further behind?

any 'fair' type of deck including more responsive/reactive elements typically has to rely on more individually powerful pieces at the cost of synergy. jund and its GBx counterparts are long standing examples of this in action. decks adhering to the 'good-stuff' policy, given strong enough, are particularly well suited to beating up on untuned brews, rogue decks, and decks lacking the power relegating them to 'tier 2'. this is also a feature of UW control, which you didn't also bring up as a problem. its what i was trying to get across in my previous long-winded post - it takes the addition of powerful versatile tools if slower fair decks want to compete in an environment like modern that is as skewed as it is. if people want or expect better balance than 50%+ aggressive creature strategies (including those with combo-esque elements) at any given point in time, its either done with bans or printing pushed cards aimed at separating certain decks.

lastly w6 is undoubtedly the strongest addition to jund, but it wasnt the only. its still essentially just one more powerful piece among many. it isnt an enabler or payoff. applying your logic, isnt this also justification to ban goyf or liliana? that would be absurd. this is why i said in my last post w6 would have to be doing things similar to deathrite shaman, appearing across multiple decks in a manner that also has similar strategies converge around it. signs show that it might be doing this in legacy, but not (yet) in modern. if it does happen then it would go beyond your issue with the one deck you mentioned: jund.
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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
I will reiterate my same concerns the last time this came up; namely the methodology and how byes/drops were factored into it. As well as which players were used in the data set (IE someone could come in with 3 byes, lose 3 matches, and drop with an extremely misleading 3-3 record. I don't remember how that was weighted or if the opportunity cost of matches post-drop factored either).
Byes were weighted and found to have no impact between formats. Byes absolutely, 100% mattered in reaching T32, but not more/less in any format compared to any other format.
But more specifically to the illustration I was trying to make, regardless of the methodology, any individual game or match can and will be heavily dependent on the matchup. That's why we specifically say things like "how do I sure up some of my bad matchups?" There are simply decks that you are statistically more likely to lose to than win against, due to the construction of your deck and their deck. And if that discrepancy is high enough, you can see people fumble and stumble their way through misplays and sloppy decisions completely crush someone playing a terrible deck at its highest capabilities. Additionally, players are heavily rewarded for playing decks with a highly swingy set of matchups instead of something "50/50" as shown in this recent CFB article, so long as you can predict/dodge/minimize the poor matchups.
I may have been unclear in my last post but know I made this caveat when I wrote up the original analysis. The analysis just found that matchup variance had no impact comparing formats. It did not necessarily show matchup variance having an impact winning an individual event, independent of the format. I expect the CFB article accurately describes how matchup variance benefits top players, but that's true in all formats, not just Modern. All I know is that in Modern, there is no difference in MWP and top player performance than in any other format. The same problems that apply in all tournament Magic (e.g. maybe swingier decks are slightly better, Byes are hugely important, matchup variance may or may not determine games) applies equally to players playing Modern as players playing Legacy or Standard. Limited was excluded from this and might be less variable. But the Modern vs. Standard vs. Legacy outcomes were largely the same.
Perhaps I am skewed by the stuff I teach middle schoolers, especially about choices and representation in data sets. But what specifically seems to bug me is that the average statistics don't take into account how the games played out. For example one could quantify each of the wins and losses on some metric that demonstrates how swingy the game was (IE was someone crushed out of existence quickly and decisively, or was it a long, slow, grindfest of difficult decisions; not sure how to do this other than something like weighing each win and loss with a turn count, and making some compound between match/game win % and turns per game). I could imagine how that data spread (MAD/IQR) would look for different formats. Perhaps Standard looks much more clumped together and low in this metric, where Modern would be more spread across the gamut. Even if their averages ended up the same, the data distribution could be wildly different. I would give my left arm to be able to pull these kinds of numbers from MTGO and crunch them myself. And as much as I would love to do a grass roots effort like the turn-count hero, school starts up again in a month and I simply couldn't undergo such a project.
There was a slight difference in the Standard vs. Modern data on this measure. Namely, when looking at recent MWP and tournament finishes (N=320 Standard events, N=130 Modern events) for the top 40 players over the last 2-3 years (effective 2018), the overall tournament MWP distribution had some differences. Here are the bins for Standard and Modern, read as "When the top 40 players played this format, Y% of them finished with an X% MWP."

Standard tournament MWP vs. % of players achieving that MWP
0% MWP: 3.1%
10% MWP: 0%
20% MWP: 2.8%
30% MWP: 2.5%
40% MWP: 10%
50% MWP: 16.6%
60% MWP: 19.4%
70% MWP: 18.8%
80% MWP: 19.1%
90% MWP: 6.6%
100% MWP: 1.3%

Modern tournament MWP vs. % of players achieving that MWP
0% MWP: 1.6%
10% MWP: 0%
20% MWP: 0%
30% MWP: 1.6%
40% MWP: 15%
50% MWP: 10.2%
60% MWP: 18.9%
70% MWP: 20.5%
80% MWP: 22.8%
90% MWP: 7.9%
100% MWP: 1.6%

The biggest immediate difference is in the 40% vs 50% MWP bins. For 40% it was 15% (M) vs. 10% (S), and for 50%, it was 10.2% (M) vs. 16.6% (S). At first glance, we might think this means Modern is slightly swingier than Standard, but the cumulative bins at the top and bottom show different stories. 18.4% of Standard players finished with 40% MWP or less in their events. For Modern, it was an identical 18.1%. This is because there were actually more 0%, 20%, and 30% MWP finishes in Standard events than in Modern events. So at the bottom of the performance spectrum, there was no difference between formats. There was a slight difference at the top. Standard players went 60%+ MWP plus in 65% of events. For Modern players, they performed 60%+ MWP in 71.7% of events. The best players were actually more likely to have a higher Modern performance than a Standard one. They were also likelier to go 50% in Standard than Modern (10% Modern vs. 16.6% Standard).

All of this shows Modern may be slightly swingier than Standard, but it benefits the top players! Also, there was no difference between the formats for sub-40% performance. The top player analysis suggests a good player will see slightly more 50/50 performances in Standard, but a proportionate slight increase in 60%+ performances in Modern.

Finally, in case anyone cares about averages, the average MWP for top players in Standard events was 58.4%. For Modern, it was 60.9%.
tronix wrote:
4 years ago
how else do people think fair interactive decks are going to genuinely expand their foothold in modern? 'narrow-conditional-answer card #23436' certainly isnt the answer. its powerful multifunctional cards that are pushed to provide support on different fronts; generic answer, value, threat, defense, baked in synergy, etc. such things will inevitably leave less powerful tools behind. just contrast what it took to have UW(x) control climb its way to relevancy and the perpetual state of mediocrity for the entire 'blue control' archetype that existed before. mostly a cast of cards that bodied unfair and fair decks alike.
I agree with the entirety of your post, but this quote is particularly important. Fair decks need "powerful, mutli-functional cards" to support the decks on "different fronts." Otherwise there is no way for these decks to compete with the wide variety of proactive decks that simply ask too many questions than fair decks can answer. This becomes a problem when the fair deck stops having bad matchups and can just attack every proactive deck on every front, pushing all its matchups to the 50/50+ range. As Stoddard said and the bans continue to support, if your worst matchup is the mirror, chances are you're getting banned. But to say W6 or any other card that has been around for 1.5 months is doing that, when we've had one GP and a metagame that was horribly warped by a legitimately busted deck in Hogaak Bridgevine? That is outrageous and unsupportable hyperbole. Ban arguments need to be supported with data and evidence. Wizards' own method has followed this for years, and our own predictions have been most accurate when they followed the same method. The whole "my subjective gut experience says this is busted" argument is just blindly throwing darts at a board. If you miss ten times (Coco busted! Temple busted! GDS busted! Humans busted! etc.) and then hit once (Hogaak/W6/T3feri/etc. busted!), that doesn't mean one's gut instinct is meaningful or accurate. It just means if you cry wolf enough times in a format with as many top dogs as Modern, eventually one of those top dogs is going to be a wolf.

Fair decks need cards like W6. These types of engines are why decks like UW Control are even viable. If we prefer a format where it's all proactive strategies posing questions/threats on multiple fronts with fair decks completely unable to keep up and choked out of the top, by all means, hate on the cards like W6. But as tronix suggests, if we prefer a balanced format where lots of strategies are viable (HINT: THIS IS WHAT WIZARDS WANTS), then we need these cards.
iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
If you look at the metagame picture Wrenn only improved Junds matchup vs UW Control, Humans and Company decks. So out of 20 tier 1 decks only 3 really care about Wrenn, the rest bypasses its CA because it seeks to win on turn 3 or goes big. Meanwhile if you look at tier 2 they all fold to Wrenn. Modern's meta cycle will look like this: People play Jund and get pushed out of the meta by goldfish decks --> without Jund other midrange and creature decks become viable --> with other midrange decks entering the format pushing away the goldfish decks Jund becomes viable again --> rinse and repeat.

So yes, Wrenn warps the meta around itself but Jund doesn't function like a police deck like 4-5 years ago because it doesn't do anything vs the uninteractive tier 1. It only made the gap between tier 1 and tier 2 a lot bigger and pushed a lot of strategies and decks out of playability.
These types of indirect arguments rarely pan out in practice or for any meaningful length of time. A great example, which I believe someone else already mentioned, is the 2018 Tron situation. Tron is a notorious midrange, control, and fair deck killer. In theory, when Tron proliferates, that shift incentivizes people to move away from fair decks and towards decks that go under Tron. Then when Tron gets suppressed by these goldfish decks that go under Tron, you might see fairer decks rise to beat them. Then Tron comes back and the cycle restarts. Sound like a familiar theory? It's exactly what you just posed for W6 Jund except replacing it with Tron. And as with the Tron argument, it is likely entirely speculative.

People play TRON and get pushed out of the meta by goldfish decks --> without TRON other midrange and creature decks become viable --> with other midrange decks entering the format pushing away the goldfish decks TRON becomes viable again --> rinse and repeat.

We can replace this kind of hypothetical, reductionist construction with any number of perceived best decks in Modern. For instance, one could do the same with Humans' impact on the metagame cycle due to Humans allegedly pushing out aggro decks. And whenever we do this, we find that history shows bans never happen as a result of that model. Tron is a particularly glaring example of this, because the italicized model above gets predicted every year and has been predicted every year for most of Modern's history. And yet, Tron does not get banned and routinely gets checked down to size while other decks emerge on top. It's just part of metagame cycling and it's just part of Modern. If Tron with 11 GP finishes in 2018 (8.6%) and Humans with 12 finishes (9.4%) were not bannable, there is simply no way W6 Jund is even on the table when we're 1.5 months out from W6's legalization. This is ban mania at its most hyperbolic. Claims need to be proportionate to the available and presented evidence of that claim. Your current W6 ban suggestion is completely out of proportion to any of that.
BloodyRabbit wrote:
4 years ago
I do think people are just too lazy to try alternatives. I know UW is great (and I play it since Modern's inception) but in the last two months I've been trashing my local leagues with Blue Moon, and yet nobody cares about thinking it may be good again (with the addition of new cards) because, simply, no one is playing it.

And this is just an example, of course.

People don't want to invest in archetypes that didn't put results in big tournaments, and Magic isn't the cheapest of the games.
There is absolutely something to be said for netdecking and laziness in contemporary tournament Magic. I also think it's not entirely irrational, and may even be smart for most players. Magic is a hard game. Deck building is hard, testing and tuning is time consuming, building good decks requires a grasp of numerous complicated Magic and format-specific dynamics, and the entire process is very resource-intensive. You are financially punished for failing by losing tournament entry money, and you often aren't financially rewarded with success any more than if you just used an established deck to get the same result. There are definitely some incentives to innovate (it's cool to be the next Chapin, next-leveling the metagame can result in lots of rewards if you succeed, brewing is fun, etc.), but those rewards are often lighter than the risks.

I will say that the MTGO 5-0 League dumps are a great way of encouraging brewing, and the sheer diversity of decks in any given dump is always awesome. This highlights a deck's success without necessarily showing how many tries it took for that deck to get there. Or that the metagame is .1% Goblins and 20% Dredge variants. But none of this is necessarily a Modern-specific issue, and applies to all formats more or less equally. If anything, it is better in Modern because there are so many diverse ways to 5-0 a League. And it's probably getting better in Standard because Arena gives you so many free opportunities to test and iterate. Overall, however, I agree with you that Magic would benefit from a little more experimentation and innovation, but also understand the reasons people don't do that.
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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
Meanwhile if you look at tier 2 they all fold to Wrenn. Modern's meta cycle will look like this: People play Jund and get pushed out of the meta by goldfish decks --> without Jund other midrange and creature decks become viable --> with other midrange decks entering the format pushing away the goldfish decks Jund becomes viable again --> rinse and repeat.

So yes, Wrenn warps the meta around itself but Jund doesn't function like a police deck like 4-5 years ago because it doesn't do anything vs the uninteractive tier 1. It only made the gap between tier 1 and tier 2 a lot bigger and pushed a lot of strategies and decks out of playability.
Those decks where not playable though. The gap between the real Tier 1, and actual Tier 2, is massive. What other Midrange decks even existed pre W6 (I like that shorthand) for Jund to 'suppress'? I dont think there are any.

If you want to argue it makes the gap/suppression worse, I mean sure I guess but thats impossible to prove because Midrange as an entity was already basically gone.

If anything Unearth has pumped some new life (undeath?) into Mardu, and various DS builds, but Jund is not suppressing anything, this is like the topic ktk mentioned yesterday. Actual suppression is probably not a thing. Other decks are simply not good.
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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

At this point there isn't enough data to support any of my claims. Its all theoretical. I still think Wrenn sets the entry-bar way too high for any other midrange or creature decks that want to enter the format but only time will tell. Jund isn't and will never be a top deck in its current iteration. The best it can do is turn 1 Thoughtseize, turn 2 Wrenn/Goyf, turn 3 Liliana and it will still lose to a large portion of the meta. This is coming from a used-to-be long time Jund player.

I think it should follow UW control example by cutting all creatures for PW's and focusing on attrition, CA, control and small combo's like Loam+Wrenn+Seismic Assault. It also means you can play the best card in the format Faithless Loothing.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

Nothing is stopping Jund from running Faithless Looting and trying to miss that "wrong half of the deck." I know this because I was hesitant to run Faithless Looting in RG Breach, but I realized how good it can be as just a 2 of. It may have even been correct to run 4?
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 Zorakkiller » 4 years ago

even if w6 is homogenizing midrange into jund (which I personally doubt), midrange has bigger issues in the format. having decks like tron and dredge being top tier just punishes midrange on a fundamental level. having cards like sfm and gsz banned also limits what midrange decks show up.

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Post by motleyslayer » 4 years ago

Latest episode of the Arena Decklist podcast is a deep dive on Jund and they seem to be high on the deck. Gerry T should be playing it this weekend.

W6 and Seasoned Pyro just seem to be pretty hyped cards right now. I feel that tron is just still too good vs a lot of midrange even with the additions

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

motleyslayer wrote:
4 years ago
Latest episode of the Arena Decklist podcast is a deep dive on Jund and they seem to be high on the deck. Gerry T should be playing it this weekend.

W6 and Seasoned Pyro just seem to be pretty hyped cards right now. I feel that tron is just still too good vs a lot of midrange even with the additions
WAR gave tron Karn, the great creator. Still find it hard to believe they think it's alright to put null rod on a 4 cmc hard to remove walker. Biased opinion from me. I simply dislike this latest iteration of karn. He shuts down my mainboard nihil spellbomb and one hangarback walker. :dizzy:
Hesperos wrote:
4 years ago
The Fluff wrote:
4 years ago
yeah, she's brutal against phoenix and shuts down big teferi in traditional uw control. Which is why I have two narset of my own in the sideboard. Thank goodness, got a playset when she was still a dollar a copy. Still have not given up trying to get one copy of her alternate art - will get one someday. :)
They both do mean things to my fabourite deck :(.

W6 is interesting though. It's undeniably a very powerful card, and W6 and big pyro have completely revived Jund. I'm all in favour of Jund being a thing again, but I am a little worried about how big of an impact W6 has on the overall meta. At this point Jund is midrange, there just doesn't seem to be a point to play any other midrange deck. And that is, to me, never a good sign. Modern is still going through a period of upheaval with all the new toys we have to play with, so it'll be interesting to see where all of this ends up.
we just have to adapt to the new threats.
and plenty of new fun things to test. :)

Well, and I haven't faced a deck with W6 yet so cannot comment on that.
Last edited by The Fluff 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Simto » 4 years ago

Hogaak is 21% of the Mythic Championship meta and Leyline of the Void is the most played card.

Time to watch this thread explode I guess hehe

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Post by LeoTzu » 4 years ago

The deck is still really good. This is a good chance to see it in action to see if Bridge was the correct choice. I'm quite curious to see what happens!
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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

curious to see what happens as well on Hogaak. It was spared from the ban, so it seems several people have decide to now invest in the deck. This is the time for the deck to show what it can really do.
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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Simto wrote:
4 years ago
Hogaak is 21% of the Mythic Championship meta and Leyline of the Void is the most played card.

Time to watch this thread explode I guess hehe
For reference;
https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/cov ... 2019-07-26

I am going to reiterate what I said on Reddit. Day 1 stats are all but meaningless at the PT/MC level. Pros routinely fail to predict the best deck, and the most-played deck is often not the best deck available. Three quick examples illustrate this point. First, PT FRF 2015 saw a field that was 28% (!!) Abzan on both Day 1 and Day 2. Abzan subsequently received no bans, was not at all the best deck for any length of time, and was far worse than two decks that saw less than three quarters of Abzan's share: Twin and Bloom.

Second, Eldrazi Winter PT Oath 2016 saw Eldrazi as only a top 4 Day 1 deck and only a top 3 Day 2 deck, neither of those shares exceeding around 12%. The leading decks were Burn, Affinity, and Infect, all of which (except Affinity with a decent Eldrazi matchup) completely crumbled after the Eldrazi takeover. Again, Day 1 numbers missed the best deck and misrepresented what was to come.

Finally, MC2 2019 saw Tron at 14% on Day 1 and Phoenix only at 12%. Tron fell to 12% by Day 2, Phoenix was flat, and Tron ultimately stunk with a sub-50% win rate (47%). Phoenix went on to be the best deck of the weekend. Yet Again, Day 1 stats missed the mark.

It is important that we retain perspective when discussing these results. Hogaak may end up being broken and bannable, but that should not influence our method of format analysis. Day 1 numbers are bad indicators of a tournament narrative and a format's health. We cannot suddenly revise that picture because a dominant, online narrative driven by a relatively inbred tournament has propped up a high Day 1 share. Day 2 numbers and win rates are SIGNIFICANTLY more important.
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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Also, for thread info, if you can't join the Twitch stream due to work firewall or connectivity issues, I am live Tweeting the event from the MTG Nexus Twitter account: https://twitter.com/mtgnxs

Join in if you can't catch the stream! Or if you can and just want to see some extra text coverage/have some Twitter conversation.
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

Based on the last few weeks and the MC, maybe this wasn't exactly a fluke, and my friend was absolutely right that the power level remains absurd?
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Looks like Hogaak is still doing just fine. A casual 20 power in play, and attacking for 9 on their turn 2, on the draw.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/9523/XYLG9Z.png

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

I'm actually surprised, if you had asked me a week ago if we would have seen this level of saturation.

I said on twitter yesterday there are about 6 real decks though and look at that drop off. :p

Hogaak 98 21.4%
Izzet Phoenix 48 10.5%
Eldrazi Tron 42 9.2%
Humans 38 8.3%
W/U Control 38 8.3%
Jund 36 7.9%
Tron 19 4.2%
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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Based on the last few weeks and the MC, maybe this wasn't exactly a fluke, and my friend was absolutely right that the power level remains absurd?
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Looks like Hogaak is still doing just fine. A casual 20 power in play, and attacking for 9 on their turn 2, on the draw.

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/9523/XYLG9Z.png
I cannot emphasize enough how little Day 1 numbers matter at these types of events. We have known this for years and widely repeat that fact whenever we get new Day 1 numbers. This shouldn't change because suddenly the Day 1 numbers fit a popular and hot-take narrative that has dominated the summer. As usual, we need to wait until we have Day 2 numbers for conversion rates, and final standings for overall performance and win rate calculations. Day 1 is just a popularity contest in an inbred pro-level echo chamber, which has been particularly loud as Modern has been increasingly dominated by Tweets, soundbites, and hyperbole. Even if Hogaak ends up going crazy into Day 2 and beyond, the Day 1 numbers cannot be taken as an indicator of anything.
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

I understand that. But I think the strength that Hogaak keeps is on the back of a free, early, repeatable 8/8 trampler. That is almost always going to be good and almost always going to be powerful. If you remember this conversation, I was blasted for overstating the strength of the deck for simply repeating the sentiments held by someone who heavily plays the deck. It is still extremely powerful to flood the board with lots of power in the first few turns, and it's clear many pros feel the same way. I will be interested to see the Day 2/TopX numbers, especially given that Leyline of the Void is by far and away the most played card of the weekend (with Faithless Looting the second). People generally don't register memes or pet decks in a PT like they might in a GP. Several players (Reid Duke included) have actively chosen to play Hogaak, and that tells me a lot.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
Day 1 is just a popularity contest in an inbred pro-level echo chamber, which has been particularly loud as Modern has been increasingly dominated by Tweets, soundbites, and hyperbole. Even if Hogaak ends up going crazy into Day 2 and beyond, the Day 1 numbers cannot be taken as an indicator of anything.
Even Day 2 numbers dont mean much, there is still a draft portion here is there not?

The only part that matters at all, is Modern win rate.
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