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

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cfusionpm
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
It's self tuck was missed by WotC if I remember correctly.
Outside of draft mechanics and blatantly obvious "players will like this!" synergies, they literally do not do any meaningful competitive testing. Tons of things are "missed" by them all the time because they do not test things. They live somewhere on a triangular spectrum between lazy, incompetent, and negligent.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

And frankly, I'm ok with that. It's not the 'we missed it' that does us in, its the plainly over tuned design's.

Look at Uro. Look at it again.

1GU - Draw a Card, Gain 3 Life, You may Play an Additional Land, with hidden text - Put this card in your GY, you may cast it from the GY for GGUU.

When this card ETB OR ATTACKS, Draw a Card, Gain 3 Life, You may play an Additional Land.

6/6.

You cannot trade with this, it can just be recast. You can thankfully chump it, but it will continue to ramp into additional value and life.

This card is not a miss. Just like Urza is not a miss. Just like Yawgmoth is not a miss. Just like Hogaak is not a miss. Veil is not a miss. Oko, was PROBABLY a miss, but even then, its clearly pushed.

These are over tuned, poorly considered designs, that were absolutely without a doubt intentionally pushed by Development.

In and off themselves, thats an issue, however the fact they are SO PUSHED that they have obliterated decades of built up history and design space, is more than unacceptable, it is actually tragic for the history of the game, and any format that does not rotate out.

You could seriously ban every single card printed in 2019/2020, and Magic would be BETTER on the whole, when considering all formats.
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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

The side effect of Uro and Oko in Legacy is the format becomes decks that ignore you and combo first, plus the Uro/Oko pile decks or fringe decks that just don't care about creatures in some way. A lopsided meta with so many favourites excluded. The side effect in Modern is that the format becomes unplayable guff with all but a couple of decks excluded and nowhere to go for almost anyone, fringe or otherwise.The side effect in Pioneer is that this stuff gets banned quickly, so people keep playing it till the next broken green stuff or walker comes along. The long term effect is to drive people away from competitive mtg, which is something they may be aiming for- please the casuals, balls the rest.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
The side effect of Uro and Oko in Legacy is the format becomes decks that ignore you and combo first, plus the Uro/Oko pile decks or fringe decks that just don't care about creatures in some way. A lopsided meta with so many favourites excluded. The side effect in Modern is that the format becomes unplayable guff with all but a couple of decks excluded and nowhere to go for almost anyone, fringe or otherwise.The side effect in Pioneer is that this stuff gets banned quickly, so people keep playing it till the next broken green stuff or walker comes along. The long term effect is to drive people away from competitive mtg, which is something they may be aiming for- please the casuals, balls the rest.
I mean I dont really want to get into conspiracy too much...but it's honestly 2 things.

1. Gross incompetence. I dont buy it. Forsythe and Maro are not idiots. They have designed Magic cards longer than most have played, and have learned many many many lessons over the decades.

2. Planned Obsolescence. Maybe. It could simply be that they do not see a viable monetary reason to continue to promote Modern (forget Legacy) if Set's are not impacting those formats at a fundamental level. Wouldnt be the first time.

3. Upper pressure. Hasbro. 'Push the new cards, every set.' This is where I sit. They have sold their souls to make a buck, and they never really cared about Modern/Legacy anyway, while Standard will rotate and in case of major issues, to paraphrase Sam Black 'just ban the card if its an issue after testing.'

Ultimately, its probably a combination of the above, but does that make you feel good, like you would care to buy into the game and play it?

EDIT: Sitting and thinking on it a bit more. I'll probably fire off a tweet that questions their professional integrity. You just cannot tell me that Oko and Uro were acceptable, and someone should have stopped it.
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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

It is not really a conspiracy.
Wotc- we have different people playing the game
Hasbro- who makes us most money?
Wotc - casuals
Hasbro - who quits the game if we screw up?
Wotc casuals
Hasbro - what do these casuals like?
Wotc- to rip boosters even though it is financially a mistake, turn up whenever they want, have a game where everyone gets to do their thing nobody says 'no' and then they decide who has won by politics. They also like story, planeswalkers and creatures.
Hasbro - design for them

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Post by TheBoulderer » 4 years ago

TBH the logical consequence would be that management of eternal formats is taken out of WotC's hands. Ban list updates should not be issued by WotC. Of course, they are the ones designing new sets, but who said eternal formats had to be managed by WotC as well?

I realize that this is hugely problematic. For one, WotC's support for local game stores, tournaments, rankings, online platforms etc is essential, 2) who would decide who is in charge and it would be impossible to form a long-term neutral body of decision making to determine bans. It would probably end very very messy.

At this point, the whole reason for eternal formats has vanished. You are supposed to be able to buy into a strategy you like, and then be bale to stay afloat by tuning/adapting to the meta. As it is, each new set necessitates a new ban, and both set release and ban usually make the format do at least a partial flip, invalidating huge swaths of strategies.

It should be hard for new cards to break into eternal formats, but instead, new cards are frequently BREAKING eternal formats.

Now if we take into account that sets are not tested for the modern format, frequent bans are the only logical consequence and should be a non-controversial part of modern. BUT!!!: the consequence concerning ban policy should be that NEW cards should be banned in modern rather than old ones. If new cards screw up an eternal format, THEY should be banned, not some card that has existed for years (Mox Opal was somewhat of an exception because it severely limited design space). An "eternal format" should mean that new cards are the ones on the chopping block first.

Of course that goes against every marketing and prophit grain of WotC... but logically it would be the correct thing to do. Have an untouchable, "eternal" pool of cards. Lets say pass a policy that cards older than 2 years are safe forever and cannot be banned. That way, it would HAVE to be the new cards that have to pass the test of not being broken.

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Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

The Commander banlist isn't handled by R&D and it's the biggest joke of all the format banlists. It's kind of an accepted fact that top tier competitive commander is absolutely miserable and the format thrives on house rules and its inherent casual nature. Although I do have to say I madly respected them instantly banning Lutri; that's really the kind of pro-activity I'd like to see from R&D.

Nevertheless, my point is that maintaining a banlist is hard and letting someone else do it wouldn't automatically fix any issues. Furthermore, with the current design philosophy, improving the banlist is a Sisyphean task to begin with,

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Post by Spsiegel1987 » 4 years ago

I'll be so pissed if Uro is banned in pioneer.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
Wotc- to rip boosters even though it is financially a mistake, turn up whenever they want, have a game where everyone gets to do their thing nobody says 'no' and then they decide who has won by politics. They also like story, planeswalkers and creatures.
That is limited and/or commander.

Which is fine and all, and I agree 100% that they only test for Limited. But casuals are not about that $50 Uro life.
Spsiegel1987 wrote:
4 years ago
I'll be so pissed if Uro is banned in pioneer.
Why? You think its actually a healthy card in any sense? In what way is it even remotely defensible design?
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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

In a format meta where everyone plays green and shells out the $$$$$, Uro is fine, he ramps, trades with himself etc. Everyone needs lands, everyone needs Uro- same deal really. That is of course an issue with US, as we want a good meta where we don't have to play this atrociously designed card that is head and shoulders above where it should be. WOTC want everyone to be chasing the new mythic, everyone to have the new mythic and run their big monsters into each other. The don't care about diversity in older formats. They care about commander and (maybe) limited. They don't care about us.

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Post by pierreb » 4 years ago

Honestly, at least in standard, Uro would not be so bad if it didn't gain 3 life. Many competing deck beat up the Uro down to 3-6 life, then Uro brings them back to 9, 12, 15, ... The Uro decks would lose badly were it not for the life gain.

I have not watched modern/legacy uro decks. I don't know if it is the same.

PS: and I want to comment on all the critics.

As Uro would have been fine without lifegain in std, it shows how the power of a card hinges on little things. We see the end-result , but during design everything is up for grabs. CMC, P/T, all abilities. I'm sure there were dozens of Uro designs and variations. A small tweak can change a card between unplayable, playable, good, dominating and broken. How many actually claimed righ off the bat when Uro was spoiled where it landed in that spectrum? The RB titan is much more power balanced. It could have been the Uro instead of Uro given small tweaks.

That does not excuse all, Wizards should be able to figure out cards much better during testing. But thefact remain that such card must be in constant flux during design.

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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Why? You think its actually a healthy card in any sense? In what way is it even remotely defensible design?
I mean it gives you 3 life doesn't it? :P

Seriously though, I don't think that Uro is a problem especially in formats like Modern.. I think the problem lies with pushing one or more colors unevenly, thus making their presence bigger. If Green didn't have so many pushed cards in such a short period this wouldn't be an issue.
pierreb wrote:
4 years ago
That does not excuse all, Wizards should be able to figure out cards much better during testing. But thefact remain that such card must be in constant flux during design.
I think Play Design is strapped for time. They don't have the resources to test for older formats, and frankly it'd be a bad idea. Outside of problems like Oko the rest are simple tweaks. A system where they could edit designs faster would be better. I think their current window of opportunity is like 9-12 months. They also work 2 years ahead, which limits their windows of opportunity to interject solutions.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

pierreb wrote:
4 years ago
Honestly, at least in standard, Uro would not be so bad if it didn't gain 3 life. Many competing deck beat up the Uro down to 3-6 life, then Uro brings them back to 9, 12, 15, ... The Uro decks would lose badly were it not for the life gain.

I have not watched modern/legacy uro decks. I don't know if it is the same.

PS: and I want to comment on all the critics.

As Uro would have been fine without lifegain in std, it shows how the power of a card hinges on little things. We see the end-result , but during design everything is up for grabs. CMC, P/T, all abilities. I'm sure there were dozens of Uro designs and variations. A small tweak can change a card between unplayable, playable, good, dominating and broken. How many actually claimed righ off the bat when Uro was spoiled where it landed in that spectrum? The RB titan is much more power balanced. It could have been the Uro instead of Uro given small tweaks.

That does not excuse all, Wizards should be able to figure out cards much better during testing. But thefact remain that such card must be in constant flux during design.
During the rise of Uro, I told friends that the next card to spike was gonna be Kroxa. The card is incredibly powerful, but no one notices because Uro makes it look like complete crap right now. I told people that would change. The card market is all about what people are currently paying attention to at the time.

Sure enough, Kroxa started seeing some play in Modern Jund and RB Unearth, among other decks. Not close to what Uro is seeing across formats, but enough to see a bump. Many people ask me why Uro is so much better than Kroxa and all I can come up with is that card draw is always going to be better than opponent discard a card of their choice and gaining 3 life unconditionally is always better than possibly losing 3 life, but mostly when you don't have to discard a card.
idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Spsiegel1987 wrote:
4 years ago
I'll be so pissed if Uro is banned in pioneer.
Why? You think its actually a healthy card in any sense? In what way is it even remotely defensible design?
It is not defensible design. No, not at all. But I can see Spsiegel's point.

If Uro was banned in Pioneer, it would look odd for several reasons. WotC printed the damn card, now they should live by it for at least a little bit longer. What about other formats? So Pioneer can't play it, but Standard, Modern, and Legacy can be dominated by it? Also look within the Pioneer format. Sultai Delirium has tools to barely compete with decks like Inverter, Lotus Breach, and White Ballista/Heliod only because it slaughters the Aggro decks trying to beat those (not White so much, but the others). Without Uro, Sultai Delirium just fades into obscurity and Midrange dies in Pioneer because of it. It would be pretty messed up if Delirium took a hit over any of the 3 aforementioned decks.

*I know this is completely off topic, but did anyone ever think about this? So, WotC decides not to ban anything in Pioneer from Inverter because it only wins 49% of the time. Did anyone find that number odd? How was it exactly 1% less than half the time? Inverter plays Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, and Dig Through Time and wins only 49% of the time. That's sad. Imagine Modern Twin with all of those cards or at least access to all of those cards. Maybe Inverter/Oracle is not the right shell for those cards? Because those are insanely powerful cards on their own and that would be pretty freaking sad if a deck only won 49% of the time with them. I'm just saying...

On another note, I found this article interesting about the Modern meta in April.
https://goodgriefgames.wordpress.com/20 ... p_VTO1xaWM
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 idSurge » 4 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
If Uro was banned in Pioneer, it would look odd for several reasons. WotC printed the damn card, now they should live by it for at least a little bit longer. What about other formats? So Pioneer can't play it, but Standard, Modern, and Legacy can be dominated by it? Also look within the Pioneer format. Sultai Delirium has tools to barely compete with decks like Inverter, Lotus Breach, and White Ballista/Heliod only because it slaughters the Aggro decks trying to beat those (not White so much, but the others). Without Uro, Sultai Delirium just fades into obscurity and Midrange dies in Pioneer because of it. It would be pretty messed up if Delirium took a hit over any of the 3 aforementioned decks.
I suppose, but Pioneer is not a healthy format in my opinion. It's tool kit is far too shallow, I didnt enjoy it.

The problem is..I have zero faith in Wizard's motivations, or lack thereof, in terms of actually managing Modern, or Pioneer.

I'd rather be back on UWR or Esper, but Veil is such a joke, and thats saying nothing of T3feri, that I find myself instead just loading up WoW.

EDIT: Wait, Veil is banned in Pioneer? Instantly more interested in the format lol.
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Post by Spsiegel1987 » 4 years ago

Pioneer doesn't have midrange except sultai

Modern honestly looks pretty awful now and I've been wasting time on reddit, or playing overwatch and final fantasy 7.

The snowdecks are just head and shoulders better.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
I suppose, but Pioneer is not a healthy format in my opinion. It's tool kit is far too shallow, I didnt enjoy it.

The problem is..I have zero faith in Wizard's motivations, or lack thereof, in terms of actually managing Modern, or Pioneer.

I'd rather be back on UWR or Esper, but Veil is such a joke, and thats saying nothing of T3feri, that I find myself instead just loading up WoW.

EDIT: Wait, Veil is banned in Pioneer? Instantly more interested in the format lol.
I completely agree with you. Pioneer is shallow.

That last comment about Veil. That made me literally laugh out loud. Almost woke up my son. :shhh:
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 idSurge » 4 years ago

I'm not kidding. A format without Veil, at least we can attempt to attack it with a Control deck. With Veil, its absolutely (Modern/Legacy) a lost cause, you are just looking to throw away games.

We dont have the lightning bolts really, so maybe I look at Esper again.
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
During the rise of Uro, I told friends that the next card to spike was gonna be Kroxa. The card is incredibly powerful, but no one notices because Uro makes it look like complete crap right now. I told people that would change. The card market is all about what people are currently paying attention to at the time.

Sure enough, Kroxa started seeing some play in Modern Jund and RB Unearth, among other decks. Not close to what Uro is seeing across formats, but enough to see a bump. Many people ask me why Uro is so much better than Kroxa and all I can come up with is that card draw is always going to be better than opponent discard a card of their choice and gaining 3 life unconditionally is always better than possibly losing 3 life, but mostly when you don't have to discard a card.
What makes them so drastically different is that one is a value gain for you, and the other is a punishment for the opponent. The value gain for you is ALWAYS going to be good and ALWAYS going to be relevant. The punishment for the opponent will only SOMETIMES be good and SOMETIMES be relevant. One helps a shell stabilize, gains card advantage, and gains possible mana ramp. One deals some damage and makes them discard.

The question that has to be asked is which does more to help the shell its in? Uro ticks a lot of boxes for a control shell, in that it does everything a control finisher could want. It gains life, draws cards, ramps mana, attacks hard, and recurs. By contrast, Kroxa only wants to be in a deck that is already dealing damage and already attacking the hand, as the effects individually are fairly weak and inconsequential most of the time (even if it has a big body that attacks "3 damage" harder), and the shells that want it are kind of mediocre.

Uro does a lot of things that are helpful to control decks in a single card, and as such is both unique and fairly irreplaceable. Kroxa does what other cards in its shells already do, and is just an additional, redundant effect on a big body.

Edit Re: Veil: Ironically, I almost never even bring this in... maybe because I'm not facing things that I would benefit from it often (because non-Bant interactive decks are being forcefully pushed out because of Veil), but it is fairly infuriating to be able to see the likes of Dredge, Infect, Tron, and Titan have access to 1 mana better-than-Cryptic-Command with no downside. It needs to go.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
But I am planning on working on a Jeskai Control deck with Yidaro, Wandering Monster as win con in Pioneer. And I know it won't be that far off of Tier 1. I am pleased with that, as I always love brewing and I can't do that in Modern.
Thats cute actually, like that one.
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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
FoodChainGoblins, Inverter is not Tier 0, as in some games the earlier turn you can combo out is turn 6. It's a turn 5-6 combo honestly and it has it's fair share of bad matchups. It could be the best deck, but Mono White, Spirits, Sultai Delirium, Mono green are also in contention for that spot alltogether(the breach deck is somewhat below that). That's the difference with other combos, like Twin in Modern. It's not fully unconditional, but a 3rd pseudo combo piece is the no. of cards in your graveyard. It's a slow combo deck, but with lots of disruption.

I have tried esper control/midrange and esper dragons in Pioneer. Deck's totally viable(both of them). I have also tried Grixis Dragons, but my first option is UW Control, which is a blast to play with. Bant control (uw splashing for uros, growth spirals and 1-2 more cards) is also a competitive deck.
That's why I think Pioneer is in a much, much better state than Modern. The gap is so small.(maybe inverter is half a notch upper than it should be, but then again, Wizards probably does not want Pioneer to be the ban format, where you always should be afraid of your deck). That's another complaint of mine from Modern. All Tier 1 decks will inevitably banned. I have face two extremely dissapointing bans in the past: Splinter Twin & Gitaxian Probe in Grixis Delver. I know probe is busted, but it made the delver decks irrelevant(that and other reasons). My one buddy was on Goryos and the other one, on Mardu Pyromancer for some months. They got also obliterated, because of stupid MH. And then I had to sell out my Amulet deck, because I was afraid of once and/or titan himself getting banned. I knew Titan wasn't that possible to be banned, but then again, you never know with Wizards. I sold it out. Now, I would love to play me some Bant snow or Temuro Urza, but I know Arcum's Astrolabe is probably going to get the axe also. What's the point? And now I see many people saying that Uro, Titan's Wrath is too much and should meet Oko's fate across all formats(both here and on reddit/twitter). I know it's the case exactly, but should I cash on in Bant Snow (modo and/or paper)? We are talking big money(even if i own the manabase on paper).
Side not, Our LGS also organized a tour in my city some months ago, and the format would be Modern, but the LGS owner cancelled it out at the last minute in favour of limited(because of the modern's feedback-most players basically told him the format is unfun and only 5 decks are viable).
So, I switched to Pioneer(me and half of my meta) and got to play a Tier 2 deck(uw-bant control and other Tier 3 midrange/control decks), while also not having to be afraid of Tier 0 supervillains, like Tron variants, Snow variants, Dredge, Titan variants, etc. If I was to play Modern, I would just jam UR Control with Yidaro, Wandering Monster as my win con. I know it's not going to work in Modern.

But I am planning on working on a Jeskai Control deck with Yidaro, Wandering Monster as win con in Pioneer. And I know it won't be that far off of Tier 1. I am pleased with that, as I always love brewing and I can't do that in Modern.

Veil of summer was banned in Pioneer, because "Green-based aggro and ramp decks still remain overrepresented in the competitive metagame at the expense of midrange and control. Therefore, we are banning Veil of Summer to better allow for natural metagame forces to provide counterpressure against these strategies."

The reason is this one, but the real reason behind it, is that Wizard's new toy, Pioneer will never left to it's fate and be a drug race.

This post may be mentioning Pioneer a lot, but Modern is highly relevant to it; as it's explaining my perspectives about why Pioneer is in a better state than Modern's state during the last years(and now).
I understand your perspective and that many people lost their decks to bans. This is a bad situation that WotC should be actively working on to improve. Bans are always better to avoid if possible.

But let's look at Pioneer. People lost Copy Cat, Leyline of Abundance, and Oath of Nissa. The bans in Pioneer have happened super quickly at an alarming rate, just like WotC said they would do. This format has not been stable until just a few months ago when WotC randomly decided, we're going to say that Inverter has won 1% less than half the time, so it's okay. The best deck previously had things banned, what, I don't know, 9 times already? What happens when WotC realizes that Pioneer with Inverter as the best deck is stale? Then they're on the ban train again. Pioneer is not going to have even close to the staying power as Modern, for a plethora of reasons, mostly their own management since the beginning to now.

Modern has a larger card pool to be able to swing the pendulum back. Pioneer doesn't have as many options, naturally because the card pool is smaller. Yes, it also means that fewer problems can arise because the card pool doesn't have as many moving parts. Yes, that is true.

I do think that Inverter has some poor matchups. My friend has been playing Inverter online for months now and hasn't gotten a 5-0 yet. He was 9-0 in the mirror until a recent loss after drawing 11 lands in game 3 put him at 9-1 in the mirror. But you can also hedge against those matchups as well, for example Aggro has been popping up in droves (uptick in RG Whack). But the deck has freaking Thoughtseize, regarded my many as the best spell in Pioneer and it has Dig Through Time, regarded by me as the best spell in Pioneer. It has a combo finish. What more could it possibly have?

*My point is this - if WotC can allow the Oko fiasco to drag on in several formats, then they could have allowed longer for Pioneer to adjust to what was the perceived best deck at the time instead of just banning it every Monday. That's what should have happened with Oko - just allow people to sell them back to WotC, then tear them up and just say that it is no longer a legal Magic card. It is now an Unglued card.
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 FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
The difference is that people did not lost Copy Cat, Leyline of Abundance, and Oath of Nissa, because Wizards has warned people to not buy decks on paper until it stabilizes. I also did not make that error, and this way I did not lose anything.

In Modern, I bought Splinter Twin after it got reprinted and got the axe, even if I was reading KTK on modern nexus saying it's near to 0% to be banned(and we are talking about KTK, who predicted all bans, besides this and probe, and I am saying this as a hats off to him).
Some months later, I bought grixis delver and probe got banned, then my friends buy into goryos and mardu mancer, and now i want to buy snow. No, that's more of a ban wagon of a format. Just look at it: KCI was terrorizing Modern, got banned, then looting was, then hogaak was, bridge got banned, then hogaak and looting got banned. Instantly oko/opal breaks the format wide open, while e-tron gets super powerful, they both get the axe. Then the format because an OuaT. format, it gets the axe, and then bant snow takes over. Covid slow any possible bannings down, but when the first PT happens, are you certain astrolabe+Uro+veil of summer will all be legal?

Those are some major differences right there. And as you said, the big card pool is there. But the big card pool is not always a problem. It's just that any set from Innistrad and moving backwards, has some freaking busted cards in it. Just think of 8th/9th, mirrodin, innistrad, kamigawa, and so many other sets. Color hate is another problem in Modern. People are playing Choke, Boil and Veil to win vs Snow? Just think of me trying to play Grixis control/UR control in this economy, lol. Why should I autolose the game, when one of them happens? And the sad truth is you can't ban choke, boil, or even veil(?). But those are creating some non games. And are a collateral damage to other non-snow blue based control decks. Which I hate.
I had most of the cards for Pioneer decks already sitting around. For Leyline of Abundance, I did buy that card because Green Devotion was something I really wanted to play, having play GR Devotion in Standard many years ago for most of its legality in Standard. The options I saw were don't play Pioneer, play the worst deck possible, or prepare to have your stuff banned. I chose #3, even if I was close to doing #1. #2 simply wasn't an option for me.

Yes, Modern does have many problems. And they are being covered up by more serious problems in day to day life. I feel like a lot of my perspective and bias comes from playing in PAPER. I don't have to see tons and tons of these new decks pop up. At FNM, there's only a handful of players that are willing to try these new decks. So, the meta only changes when different players show up from week to week (many don't come consistently). When I play Comp REL on weekends, players are known for certain decks and don't change that too often. It's what they're good at, so a small percentage of players actually flock to the newest, best deck or something spicy. When I go to GPs, I metagame for the strongest decks. Then I end up playing against them a lot less than I wish I could have. I know it sounds terrible, but I want the metagame to be similar to when I 7-0 vs. Delver in Standard at an SCG Open to easily make the top 8 many years ago. When I have metagamed for a specific matchup, I know that matchup and what I need to do to beat it. My perspective comes from paper.

I have been watching a lot more online streams than normal. I see where many others get there perspectives from much more and I have gained a lot of respect for the MTGO metagame. It basically shapes everything, not the other way around in the slightest.
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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idSurge
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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
I have been watching a lot more online streams than normal. I see where many others get there perspectives from much more and I have gained a lot of respect for the MTGO metagame. It basically shapes everything, not the other way around in the slightest.
This has been the case forever, because of the amount of iteration that can take place. Outside of decks that lose to the clock because you cannot demonstrate the loop, MTGO is what defines the actual winners meta.
UR Control UR

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FoodChainGoblins
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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
I have been watching a lot more online streams than normal. I see where many others get there perspectives from much more and I have gained a lot of respect for the MTGO metagame. It basically shapes everything, not the other way around in the slightest.
This has been the case forever, because of the amount of iteration that can take place. Outside of decks that lose to the clock because you cannot demonstrate the loop, MTGO is what defines the actual winners meta.
I would say that I had a suspicion that it was true, but now seeing it, I realize that it is true. Before this, I am not just going to take someone's word for it. I have to see it myself.
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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idSurge
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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Too bad, I been telling you for years. :p
UR Control UR

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FoodChainGoblins
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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Too bad, I been telling you for years. :p
That is why I had the suspicion. But now all of it adds up.
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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