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

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Simto
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Post by Simto » 4 years ago

Please no Tron bans.....................

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Wraithpk
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Post by Wraithpk » 4 years ago

The ban is most likely going to be Pioneer, something from Inverter, and maybe Underworld Breach. I wouldn't be shocked if there was also a Modern ban to hit Amulet Titan, but I'm guessing they'll hold off a little longer.
Modern
ubr Grixis Shadow ubr
uwg Bant Stoneblade uwg
gbr Jund gbr

Pioneer
urIzzet Phoenixur
rMono-Red Aggror
uwAzorius Controluw

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bg Meren of Clan Nel Toth bg

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idSurge
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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Veil, OuaT, T3feri.

They are cowards though, and won't do it.
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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Veil, OuaT, T3feri.

They are cowards though, and won't do it.
I see a ban on Underworld Breach and a possible ban on Once Upon a Time.
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 drmarkb » 4 years ago

Pioneer will get bans. Not sure about Modern.

In Modern I just cannot see veil going, nor teferi. Then again I could not see lattice going.

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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

Putting the words 'you win the game' on a 2 mana card named Thassa's Oracle is the real problem. Underworld breach is yet another retarded design. Those kind of effects need to cost 6 mana at least. They never learn.

Veil of Summer ban in Modern and Legacy is set in stone. Precious time has been lost by not banning Veil sooner to see how the meta would settle. I believe it could be enough but OUAT is the most played card with almost 40% and 3.7 cards per deck. That is too much and the card will be banned to nerf big mana decks. It won't accomplish anything though because all the other decks will lose OUAT as well but big mana decks can recur to Ancient Stirrings and Expedition Map while the other decks don' t have clear substitutes. OUAT is only broken when its played for free, any addition casts are pretty fair.

Veil of Summer is being played maindeck by Storm and all Oko/snow variants. Enough is enough. Veil of Summer prevents a Chalice on zero to counter your spells, it stops Lavinia etc.

Modern: Veil of Summer, OUAT
Pioneer: DTT and TC
Legacy: Veil of Summer, Astrolabe

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Post by DarthDrac » 4 years ago

In pioneer I could see Dig Through Time being banned, honestly the fact Inverter is a turn 5 combo, I think it's ok. LotusBreach is more awkward to deal with, but harder to play.

In modern, Once Upon A Time is still a new card selling packs and it isn't broken other than the initial free cast. If the goal is to slow down Titan then maybe Tolaria West or Summoner's Pact eat a ban. One of those cards wouldn't look out of place on the banned list and WotC are going to keep printing lands that have spells attached...

In legacy, Underworld Breach just does stupid things, I could see it eating a ban there...

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Post by Ed06288 » 4 years ago

I don't like that e-tron is playing OUAT.

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Legacy: I agree about Veil, but Astrolabe? Don't think it will happen, we'll see.
I hate to be the person with nothing but hate for a card, but Astrolabe is one of the worst cards they've ever made. It's practically up there with Mental Misstep in terms of how much it should be getting played. It's incredibly strong mana fixing, while also being a cantrip, and you can cast it off of any type of basic land so long as you swap your lands to snow.

It is far too easy to splash for far too high a payoff.

Astrolabe is the sort of card that basically removes any downside to playing snow (not that there was much of one to begin with).

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Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

I am fairly certain Astrolabe is going the same way as Gitaxian Probe eventually, for similar reasons. It's just way too free. I doubt we're seeing any changes to Modern on Monday though.

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Realistically, this upcoming B&R update is going to focus overwhelmingly on Pioneer. Pioneer has had multiple large paper events and continued MTGO data to support a ban on Inverter and/or Breach decks. There is a virtual guarantee something from one or both decks is getting banned, and my money is on the multi-format mistake of DTT. The bans might not stop there and could realistically extend to Breach itself or other supporting cards, but it's as close to a sure bet as you can get with B&Rs that Pioneer is getting at least 1 ban, probably 2.

This means Modern will probably not be the focus of R&D's conversation going into next week. This makes predictions a little challenging. For one, there's just not that much Modern data to discuss. We've had zero major paper events since the last B&R update, and I don't remember the last time a Modern B&R update didn't have at least a single GP to inform it. Even the questionable Bridge ban of last summer had one GP behind it, despite being primarily based on MTGO data. All other bans had either multiple GP and/or PT in addition to the MTGO backing. To me, this suggests a ban is less likely on Monday than in previous updates, but it's also possible Wizards recognizes the Modern crisis state and wants to act prior to a bad format showing on a PT/GP stage. In addition to this limited data, Wizards also has limited time. R&D might budget their individual time, and team meeting, for just enough to focus on Pioneer and only tangentially discuss other formats. I'm sure Modern would be #2 in that meeting, but it might not be enough agenda time to guarantee a Modern change.

Given all these limitations, we need to be realistic about what Wizards will/can do about Modern next week. I think the likeliest outcome is "No changes," but I think the second likeliest outcome is still an OUaT ban. If we're focusing solely on the data we know and Wizards is likely to reference (i.e. larger MTGO events), there's only one subset of decks that emerge as dominant players every week: the big mana strategies. If we're looking at one common card that hits both the Tron and Titan variants, that card is really just OUaT. Wizards might also go after an individual card from each respective deck, but I think if they go after anything at all, it will be a shared card that they have already recognized as a multi-format design mistake. An OUaT ban also hits a bunch of other linear decks like Neobrand, Infect, and the Company Combos strategies, which is an added bonus I imagine Wizards would entertain.

Final predictions, which I don't think will change by next week:

Scenario 1: 1-2 Pioneer bans, No Changes in Modern
Scenario 2: 1-2 Pioneer bans, OUaT banned in Modern

Not sure about scenarios 3 and up at this point, but those seem the likeliest two for Modern. They'd probably involve Astrolabe, Breach, and/or potentially other ramp pieces.
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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago

Edit; Mox Opal did not kill decks. It certainly did not kill Scales.

That's not an artifact deck that would run opal, it's a Heliod/Balista deck that tries to emulate the original version.

It's as much an artifact deck as Tron. They run the same amount of artifact cards too. So, no, "scales" isn't alive, a list playing it won an event, nothing more.

Edit: I agree that Astrolabe is heading the Probe way, but as it stands atm a ban of Astrolabe in Modern will completely wipe even Urza decks from Modern. Witching Well and other baubles just aren't as good.

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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

On the topic of Astrolabe, I think it is important to recognize that without Astrolabe, Snow as an archetype is effectively killed off in the format, it seems to be the only thing holding it together in the first place. Are we okay killing the archetype off for now? If we are okay with that, why kill this archetype and not others? It kind of just seems arbitrary in terms of which decks are considered pillars and which ones are considered aberrations of the meta. Personally if Wotc wants to ban Astrolabe, then anything is to be considered fair game, no matter how well entrenched it has become over time.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
On the topic of Astrolabe, I think it is important to recognize that without Astrolabe, Snow as an archetype is effectively killed off in the format, it seems to be the only thing holding it together in the first place. Are we okay killing the archetype off for now? If we are okay with that, why kill this archetype and not others? It kind of just seems arbitrary in terms of which decks are considered pillars and which ones are considered aberrations of the meta. Personally if Wotc wants to ban Astrolabe, then anything is to be considered fair game, no matter how well entrenched it has become over time.
1. Yes.
2. Because it's not an identity, its just 'how many messed up cards can I leverage when I have perfect mana, and oh its a cheap artifact that cantrips'.

'Snow' is not the archetype here that is getting banned. After all, you could still play https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/m ... 4111#paper

Look up at @gkourou lists, those are not 'snow' decks. They are artifact abuse decks. This is not an identity. This is 'well they took away opal, whats the next stupid artifact I can force into my list and loop through my deck casting.

Honestly mind blowing to me that people cannot identify that these cards are just bad designs for the game.
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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
1. Yes.
2. Because it's not an identity, its just 'how many messed up cards can I leverage when I have perfect mana, and oh its a cheap artifact that cantrips'.

'Snow' is not the archetype here that is getting banned. After all, you could still play https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/m ... 4111#paper

Look up at @gkourou lists, those are not 'snow' decks. They are artifact abuse decks. This is not an identity. This is 'well they took away opal, whats the next stupid artifact I can force into my list and loop through my deck casting.

Honestly mind blowing to me that people cannot identify that these cards are just bad designs for the game.
I acknowledge this reality, but is it really Wotc's fault for making it an artifact? What other card type were they supposed to use in order to give snow decks universal filtering (assuming this was reasonable ask in the first place)?

Also, I think on some level we should talk about how quick the goldfish is for snow decks, are they killing people on T4 or essentially ending the game that quickly? Is their card advantage in the mid-late game comparable to Tron? What kind of winrates are we talking about, and against who? Just some things to mull over.

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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
It's not their fault for making that an artifact. But it's their fault for making it having such a small deck building cost. This card is too pushed. It could be an artifact, but fixing your mana, plus having a redraw is too close to mox opal power level and new degenerate decks are always going to take advantage off of it. It's their fault also for printing cards like Underworld breach.
Jund and Control decks are going down in drain and breach decks are picking up steam, replacing their position in the metagame.
Sure, if the argument is that Astrolable could have and perhaps should have costed 2 I could accept that. In regards to the list you posted, is Astrolabe actually the problem or is it Breach/Thassa's Oracle? I don't actually know as I don't keep up with the meta specifics like I used to.
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
They are too fast and too uninteractable/unfun to play against. Mtg is supposed to provide an interactive, fun experience in a game. Having all of those unhealthy decks at tier 1 is not the way to go.
Also, having two huge unifiers dictating modern is not the way to go.
I agree fully, in a perfect world we would have answers strong enough to act as actual roadblocks to degenerate decks or simply ban out a ton of stuff, it just remains to be seen what Wotc actually wants Modern to be, apparently Forscythe was going to release a new mission statement for Modern but that hasn't happened yet?

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
I acknowledge this reality, but is it really Wotc's fault for making it an artifact? What other card type were they supposed to use in order to give snow decks universal filtering (assuming this was reasonable ask in the first place)?
lol thats the big assumption isnt it? The answer should be 'no, its not reasonable.'

I'm beyond asking about winrates, and metagames, and archetypes. Its not relevant when they are allowing these flawed designs to run rampant.

I think the astrolabe vs ouat comparison is worth looking at, because what do these do?

Draw, either free or cheap.
Fix mana.

On top of the london mull, what levels of consistency are we really looking at here? We are not IMPROVING THE GAME. We are putting the game on rails.

We cannot have 'strong answers' to cards which are free, or cost 1. We have hit the point where the option of going even cheaper, is untenable. Are we just going to print leylines for every 'answer' we need? Is that the kind of Magic we want?
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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
We cannot have 'strong answers' to cards which are free, or cost 1. We have hit the point where the option of going even cheaper, is untenable. Are we just going to print leylines for every 'answer' we need? Is that the kind of Magic we want?
Well you don't really need an answer to beat all free/1cmc spells you go against. Take Titanshift, the reason that deck is good isn't because they resolved 1 copy of OUaT on T1 or so, its because they have a variety of ways to ramp, which leads to either Titan coming out so they can tutor for exactly what they want, or simply scapeshift to kill you on the spot, which has always been a feature of the deck, long before OUaT was ever printed.

So in a perfect world, you don't really need an answer card to be printed to stop OUaT, lets say Wotc made something like this:

U/B (Hybrid 1cmc)

Sorcery

Choose one of the following:
- Target player reveals their hand and you choose a noncreature, nonland card of CMC 3 or less, that player discards that card.
- Surveil 2
- Players cannot search their libraries this turn, if this mode is selected, treat this spell as if it had flash.

This is of course just spitballing, not saying the answers would have to be like this, but there are ways that Wotc could craft cards that are potentially maindeckable while having relevant play against top tier wincons, after all, OUaT is not a wincon, titan or scapeshift is though.

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Post by Spsiegel1987 » 4 years ago

1 cmc for card-filtering, discard and tutors would be way too powerful. It'd also reduce the drawback of having discard in all matchups.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Spsiegel1987 wrote:
4 years ago
1 cmc for card-filtering, discard and tutors would be way too powerful. It'd also reduce the drawback of having discard in all matchups.
It's not though. Look at what Modern is right now. Look at the cards that have been unfathomably pushed. A modal answer for 1cmc is about right at this point. That is how stupid Wizards has gotten here.

The number of blatantly flawed designs is absolutely comical, and yes, it would take answers of the same caliber or MULTIPLE bans, to course correct.
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Post by Spsiegel1987 » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Spsiegel1987 wrote:
4 years ago
1 cmc for card-filtering, discard and tutors would be way too powerful. It'd also reduce the drawback of having discard in all matchups.
It's not though. Look at what Modern is right now. Look at the cards that have been unfathomably pushed. A modal answer for 1cmc is about right at this point. That is how stupid Wizards has gotten here.

The number of blatantly flawed designs is absolutely comical, and yes, it would take answers of the same caliber or MULTIPLE bans, to course correct.
I'd probably fire you along with the rest of the 2019 team.

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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

Spsiegel1987 wrote:
4 years ago
I'd probably fire you along with the rest of the 2019 team.
Lol big oof. Honest question Spsiegel, do you think Modern needs better answers or more bans in an ideal world?

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Post by Spsiegel1987 » 4 years ago

A combination of both. I think looting and mox needed to go for a while and i made my feelings clear about them, especially loot.

I do believe modern would be healthier without titan and would elect to keep tron as the ramp deck to reign in midrange. Tron lands can be interacted with easier than the titan flavors. I'm not pushing for a titan ban, however

I do think modern would be healthier with the following cards gone

Astrolabe
Prievean titan
T3feri
Mystic santuctuary
Once upon a time
Veil
Field of the dead
Breach
Neoform

2019 was just...too much.

I think better answers Is still what we need.

Wotc needs to stop making cards with a free cost. It doesnt lead to fun play. Last night I beat a prowess deck with 0 lands in the opener 2 games in a row because of ouat.

I'd rather wotc focus on experimental and powerful answers and safety valves, not questions. They also need to evaluate if cards like veil help fair decks or things like ramp.

Ramp decks are difficult to interact with. I believe they should exist to reign in midrange and control. I believe the cards surrounding titan are becoming too much. I think titan is on borrowed time, whether that's a year from now or several, much like opal.

I'd love to see healthy experiments that could be safety valves. Things like force of negation was the right step.

W6 was an example of a powerful card but not broken.

Astrolabe is an example of a low key broken card.

T3feri being 3 mana with asymmetrical play was poorly designed. At 3 mana it fits into so many strategies.


Modern needs a good scrub followed by healthier printed answers that dont benefit more goldfish decks (veil)

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

Astrolabe combined with a manabase of mostly basic snow lands, allows my snow deck to skirt around blood moon effects easily. Just the experience of using it. Well, I didn't know it's now also the target of a possible ban. Is this card a part of a broken deck or something? :/
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Post by Spsiegel1987 » 4 years ago

Nothing that's snapping the format in half, its just an unhealthy card with no drawback.

Blood Moon can't even fight the meta properly because of that card, though.

I think Titan is on borrowed time, even though Sheridan has expressed the community being short on losing more modern pillars.

I like WOTC pushing the limits, I just wish they'd push the answers not the questions.

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