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

Spsiegel1987
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Post by Spsiegel1987 » 3 years ago

gkourou wrote:
3 years ago
I am here to actually disturb your peace. I think companions are a super cool design, and I love it. Even Lurrus, I think it's not the problem, but busted old cards like LED and Mishra's Bauble. Don't touch companions, they make the game better! If anything needs to be banned, ban Bauble, and see where we go from there! Maybe that could leave a Tier 1 UR Bolt-Snap-Bolt tempo deck back.

Bro, take the bias sunglasses off. You are way too logical of a player to be turning your head to this. This card design is egregious and pointing at Bauble is laughable.

I'm barely even playing MTG right now, I'm tired of this format constantly becoming busted. I doubt I'll buy Lurrus in paper, the card will be banned format wide,

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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

idSurge wrote:
3 years ago
I mentioned last week, if you think they test at all for competitive, stop.
They definitely do. Like I mentioned a few days ago though, what Sam Black revealed about their current testing process has alarm bells ringing in my head. It explains so, so much about recent development mistakes. And with that process still in place, implies we're going to see set wide mistakes for a while longer.

Powerful cards should exist and enter into formats, but Wizards has really messed that up right now. Rather than things getting there naturally as powerful cards (often mistakes from Wizards) enter the game, they've been releasing a far higher quantity than normal of pushed cards.

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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

idSurge wrote:
3 years ago
I wouldn't be so sure. The game will become repetitive, but honestly this has been the direction for a long time.
And yet, they argue against cantrips because that provides too much repetitive gameplay for specific archetypes.

Maybe they're not against consistency, they're just against reserving consistency for a small subset of decks?

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Post by Mikefon » 3 years ago

gkourou wrote:
3 years ago
Ym1r probably described way better what I meant. The whole mechanic is not busted and wizards needs to exlore new paths. I actually think companion is way too cool. Also, its week #1, too early.
They should not care about modern. If sth breaks it, ban the old cards that limit their design space and thats over.
I understand their actions.

I think companion can be a success, even if sth is banned.
I 100% agree here. Companion is a cool new way of development. As any other new thing they did in the past, the first iteration leads to bans somewhere (see planeswalkers, vehicles, energy, now companions). They pushed it too much as they're pushing things since 2019. They have plenty of way to fix this problem. We'll see which way they want to take this time.
Note that I don't like commander so that's not why I like them. And I started playing with Urza's Saga so I'm not a new player either. It's just nice to have new things to play with.

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Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Ym1r wrote:
3 years ago
In the case of companion, respond to it for what it is, a new design space, and respond to it from a design point of view. Shouting "IT BREAKS THE RULEZ" says absolutely nothing.
Then we better see some unbans. If repetitive and explosive gameplay is no longer an issue unban some cards.
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Post by ktkenshinx » 3 years ago

I honestly think some of the biggest problems with companion are totally external to the mechanic and the formats where companions do well. These are multi-tiered community problems that go from online communities all the way up to Wizards. Here's a quick and dirty breakdown of these issues and their intersection:

1. At the ground level, we have players who are constantly clamoring for bans (understandable, because Wizards keeps printing broken stuff with minimal testing, Wizards keeps conditioning us with endless bans), don't want to have nuanced discussions about cards/formats (Twitch, Reddit, Discord, Twitter, etc. are not great platforms for this kind of discussion), and want to rake in upvotes/likes/views/clicks so they can be the next big personality (they know hyperbole sells).

2. Moving up, we have pros/authors/personalities who have strong incentive to drop blazing hot takes and oversold opinion pieces. To some extent, these figures are setting the community tone. To another extent, they're just delivering what their audience wants with the platforms that audience is familiar with. More nuanced pieces get put behind paywalls or aren't written altogether. They also are increasingly and justifiably reactive to the increasingly broken stuff Wizards prints.

3. Just under Wizards, we have the community platforms like Reddit, Twitch, Twitter, Discord, content sites, etc. The vast majority of these are not set up for long-form discussion and favor quicker takes, sound bites, memes, and quotables. The platforms reward people who play into this scheme with more visibility, upvotes/likes, and even literal money. They are designed to be echo chambers where dissenting voices get squashed and the court of the majority rules. They'd probably argue, mostly with justification, that this is just what their community members want (i.e. the ground level players).

4. At the top, we have Wizards who still hasn't updated Modern's vision, continues to print super broken cards that need banning, lacks transparency in its R&D/format management decisions, and has no clear community points of contact for formats like Modern. Wizards appears to be working at cross purposes in various areas (e.g. Play Design supposedly balancing sets, someone pushing attractive and broken product for higher sales). Wizards also seems hesitant, even scared, to engage the hot community issues due to legal/corporate/personal stakes.

(5. As many U.S. members probably know, all of these issues are actually just microcosms of the political and social climate in this country, so it's not like this is a Magic-specific problem)

All of this creates a perfect storm where we can't reasonably ask a question like "What makes it good/bad that companions show up in 75%+ of competitive constructed decks?" and instead must spit out takes like "ban all companions, they are garbage," and "companions are amazing, it's the best certain formats have ever been." We've lost the middle ground on so many critical issues because most community elements (players all the way up to Wizards) no longer seem interested in middle grounds. I'm not sure how we get out of this problem, but I am very confident that any fix must start at the top with Wizards. Whether that's as small as an updated format vision/mission statement or as big as a total Play Design/product overhaul or even a Modern Rules Committee is a topic of debate. But whatever Wizards chooses to do, they need to do something to set a different tone.

Re: companions as a mechanic
If we believe Modern's goal is competitive diversity and if companions support that, empowering a broad range of archetypes and not just a few top-tier decks, I don't see any problem with them. We will be able to assess this better as the metagame evolves. But I'm not convinced it's a problem if Lurrus/Jegs/Yorion/etc. see play in 90% of decks as long as all those decks represent strategic and archetypal diversity.
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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
3 years ago
2. Moving up, we have pros/authors/personalities who have strong incentive to drop blazing hot takes and oversold opinion pieces. To some extent, these figures are setting the community tone. To another extent, they're just delivering what their audience wants with the platforms that audience is familiar with. More nuanced pieces get put behind paywalls or aren't written altogether. They also are increasingly and justifiably reactive to the increasingly broken stuff Wizards prints.
I would argue that this also coincides with a decline in Magic writing. The more nuanced writers have either left the game or have smaller audiences these days, the writing is harder to find and there's fewer such writers. And writing for websites is losing ground to videos, twitter, etc where the conversations aren't as nuanced. Some of that is because like you said, hyperbole sells. Another part of it though is that the platforms where people discuss Magic these days just doesn't support those discussions well.

Magic writing/communities have devolved from scholarly articles to youtube comments.

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Post by drmarkb » 3 years ago

gkourou wrote:
3 years ago
Ym1r probably described way better what I meant. The whole mechanic is not busted and wizards needs to exlore new paths. I actually think companion is way too cool. Also, its week #1, too early.
They should not care about modern. If sth breaks it, ban the old cards that limit their design space and thats over.
I understand their actions.

I think companion can be a success, even if sth is banned.
So in Modern ban the old cards? The ones people want to play with because they are old? The point of these formats is to play old cards.
What about Legacy?
When you go to to Legacy players to say "oops, Lion's Eye Diamond is too strong fort this new card, let us ban LED because the new card is cool" I will have a whip round for your dentist bill. I have no idea what a collective noun for angry storm/dredge/bomberman players is, but we would soon have to make one up.

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Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

It's flawed logic to ban old cards, in old formats, because new cards are broken.

Why play old formats at all in this scenario? They have already lost their identity by being warped.
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Post by ThatStoryTeller » 3 years ago

Alright, I am going to disturb your peace. Warn or ban me if you must, but this is what everyone has said. This is a host of the Masters of Modern podcast Ben Bateman along with TCC discussing the twin ban and debate if the aftermath that has led us here could have spawned from that (potentially) poor decision.

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Post by Ym1r » 3 years ago

idSurge wrote:
3 years ago
Ym1r wrote:
3 years ago
In the case of companion, respond to it for what it is, a new design space, and respond to it from a design point of view. Shouting "IT BREAKS THE RULEZ" says absolutely nothing.
Then we better see some unbans. If repetitive and explosive gameplay is no longer an issue unban some cards.
How does what you said follows from what I said?
Counter, draw a card.

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Post by Tzoulis » 3 years ago

ThatStoryTeller wrote:
3 years ago
Alright, I am going to disturb your peace. Warn or ban me if you must, but this is what everyone has said. This is a host of the Masters of Modern podcast Ben Bateman along with TCC discussing the twin ban and debate if the aftermath that has led us here could have spawned from that (potentially) poor decision.
The professor is a bit all over the place here and consistently misunderstands the power of Twin and attributes too much on its banning and I'd rather not go over it again for the 5th time in this thread alone.

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Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Because 'it breaks the rules' DOES say something.

Card's are banned for breaking the rules. If the rules do not apply, and nobody will ever convince me that these cards improve diversity or decrease repetitive game play, then unban the cards that were banned under rules which clearly no longer apply.

The ban list is a joke, the format health is a wild west (and no despite what corporate shills will tell you they dont test, they dont plan, and they have barely a care in Modern at all, and if you are honest with yourself you know this) so simply unban cards.

Unban: Preordain, Ponder, Pod, Twin, and DRS. Why? Because why the hell not?

Maro is a bold faced liar if he actually wants to say that these cards are not 'stronger than cards in those formats', and the only reason he MAY even believe that, is because they printed absolute clown show cards like Uro and Oko before it.

---

TLDR: They dont care about the format's health beyond its ability to generate revenue. New Cards = New Revenue. There will not be paper events any time soon, and the people who grind online couldnt care less, they just want to play the best deck to keep churning through tickets.

In that environment, there is no reason to keep old cards that as have been proven by SFM, Jace, BBE, AV, and Nacatl before, are all fine in an environment super charged by tragicly short sighted design mistakes.

So unban it all.

EDIT: Oh and that said? I hope Uro eats a ban in a few other formats, so I can play SnowSnake without paying 1000 tix on MTGO. I love that little snake, and that archetype is comically pushed so probably can hang without the need for a companion (though you can just add more 2019+ cards and play Yorion because why the %$#% not right? MUCH RESTRICTION VERY HARD DECK BUILDING)
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Post by ThatStoryTeller » 3 years ago

And you know what, you dont have to. Freedom of your time and efforts man, but the professor has gone from vocal supporter of wizards of the coast to pseudo intellectual and emotionally critic of the policies of the company. And yes I believe that the factors of this discussion, and some of his perspective on what the format needed to be, is VERY relevant.

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Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Christ, its an hour? I dont care to discuss Twin itself, I was hoping to see if general discussion points could be extracted from it. :p
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Post by ThatStoryTeller » 3 years ago

idSurge wrote:
3 years ago
Christ, its an hour? I dont care to discuss Twin itself, I was hoping to see if general discussion points could be extracted from it. :p
Well the twin perspective of mine thats reinforced by this video personally is the THEORY that the requirement for interaction similar to the deck helps keeps some of the new pushed printings in check, But this video is much more than twin itself, its talking about bannings and the induction of power level intended to shake up modern. Eldrazi Modern Horizons War of the Spark and the like.

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Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

I think its a nearly impossible task to articulate and debate.

I've always believed that the existence of Twin (and we know this by its win percentages) was good for the format. It kept Affinity, and Infect from overwhelming the format along with Jund, while it also was able to keep Tron (the version that existed) at bay from dominating everything else.

That was the rise of Bloom/Titan decks as well.

Ultimately however it wasnt the loss of Twin that dealt the hammer blow, it was Eldrazi and the set design's which came after it. I believe Eldrazi was the first set that absolutely broke Modern in half. It has then happened a few more times, with Kaladesh block (Dredge) MH1 (Hogaak/Urza) Throne (Oko) and now Ikoria that has hit everyone.

Oh and Phoenix, cannot forget that little bird.

It's simply Wizard's design approach has changed. No more Theros (original) sets. Everything needs to keep on ramping up the power level, and its not debatable. New sets do not sprinkle in some innovation here or there, or add a card or 2 which hit existing decks or are ignored while spawning some Tier 2/3 jank.

No. Sets now rewrite the history of the format. They erase the metagame and reshape it.

This is preferable for Wizards. Everyone plays the same pushed cards.

Paper is not being played, you cannot order cards online, but Uro is still $50.
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Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

gkourou wrote:
3 years ago
Saying "they rotate modern, a format which does not rotate" or "don't ban the old cards" makes no sense. Since they are decided to print busted cards and since they are(which I admit, is wrong), it's better to be a realist and recognize that they should ban old, broken cards because this helps them sell new packs.
Now, there is a chance where they are stuck in a situation where they can't ban lurrus. If they decide to ban him, fine. If they decide they want to make money off of Ikoria that hasn't still been released, Mishra's Bauble is what's going to be banned.

Please, do understand that I don't agree with them printing such busted cards, which in line, leads them to ban the old cards, because they want to sell. But it's a chain and we can't fix that. Hasbro has probably decided that this sells. And hasbro aren't such fools to let them ban urza like or lurrus like cards.
I agree with the latter (Hasbro, Cards sell, Make $$$) but disagree on the former.

They dont need to ban anything anymore. Its obvious. Jace, BBE, Nacatl, AV, Sword of the Meek, SFM. Irrelevant

They dont need to ban cards, they dont need to leave cards banned, because their design methodology is no longer based on pre-2018 design paradigms.

The game is no longer under the constraints of leadership choices which lead to distinct, vibrant communities. So let them go. Unban near everything, it is no longer relevant if formats are balanced or healthy, or sustainable, because they will change fundamentally with the next set.

Unban it all, let us play what we want (and make no mistake, most of it wont be able to hang with the top new cards anyway) and just let Wizards move all their focus to Limited and Commander.

I'm just tired of being lied to, and that is what it is. Uban it all, let the chips fall where they may, because ever set rebooting the format is not (was not?) the promise of non-rotation.
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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
3 years ago
The professor is a bit all over the place here and consistently misunderstands the power of Twin and attributes too much on its banning and I'd rather not go over it again for the 5th time in this thread alone.
What makes you think that? He very clearly articulates and supports his opinions. Do you have a specific claim or stance you take issue with?
idSurge wrote:
3 years ago
Christ, its an hour? I dont care to discuss Twin itself, I was hoping to see if general discussion points could be extracted from it. :p
The good thing about Prof is that he speaks slowly and enunciates. Makes it very easy to watch/listen pretty much all of his stuff at 1.75x or 2x speed.
Last edited by cfusionpm 3 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by drmarkb » 3 years ago

idSurge wrote:
3 years ago
It's flawed logic to ban old cards, in old formats, because new cards are broken.

Why play old formats at all in this scenario? They have already lost their identity by being warped.
People enjoy old formats (well Legacy). They want to play LED (current cost 100GBP each, min). They don't want some 5 $ card breaking it removing its identity (and every other 0cc artifact). They liked Legacy, they don't want it to radically change. If a new card comes and warps it, the new card gets banned, because the format is generally in a good place most of its existence,

Witness- Breach, not the stuff that was being escaped.


Modern- different kettle of fish. They format is rarely in a good place, and nobody has an identity for the format. Ban what you want there. But when you have a cherished format and a new card upsets that, the new card goes.

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Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Legacy and Vintage, VINTAGE, were rebuilt over the weekend as well.
gkourou wrote:
3 years ago
Realistically speaking what you say, won't happen. Because if they unban cards, the odds of the new sets impacting modern are now lower and they don't sell and even if that's wrong, old cards don't sell! Lurrus and the co. are cards that are aimed to sell not only in std, but also non rotating formats, like Pioneer & Modern.
The odd's may be lower, but not remotely low. Again, Legacy and Vintage events were WON with Companions.

We are all Standard now boys. Every set is going to rebuild every format, until they hit a power creep wall, and have to revert.

Maro is not an idiot. He has already written on this before! This is the cycle they have put us on.

Yawgmoth's Will
Underworld Breach

We have been here before. They.did.this.on.purpose.



EDIT: And here.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 05-07-18-0
Important Need #1 – Curbing Power Creep
R&D wants to keep the power level of the game consistent. While there will be variance from year to year (so yes, Mirrodin block was more powerful than Kamigawa block), the overall power level of the game is kept at an even keel in a long term big picture way. In simplest terms, all the sets, even those years apart, are designed and developed to have a similar power level.

Power creep negates the value of older cards.

This is important for several reasons. First, an unchecked power level will eventually spiral out of control and kill the game. All game designs have limits. While Magic's base design is very flexible, it does have its stress points. Push on one of these too hard and the game will collapse. (And no, I won't tell you what they are.)
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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

idSurge wrote:
3 years ago
That's a 'yikes' if I ever saw one.

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Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Thats why I say, between the combined experience of Maro and Aaron, hey knew. You all think they are gonna stomp on the brakes in 2021? 2022? Give us a few sets at Original Theros power levels?

lol

Enjoy the ride while it lasts.
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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 3 years ago

Here are some of my thoughts on the Professor Video.

I don't believe that the Splinter Twin banning caused Modern to fall apart. That thing was something independent that WotC decided to do; change their philosophy on Modern. Infect may have been able to survive a banning if Twin was not banned, but everything else needed to be banned, regardless of another powerful deck existing. Also, WotC has shown their distaste for Gitaxian Probe and that they had been looking to ban it for a while now, so I doubt that Modern would have been able to keep that card.

Twin and Summer Bloom were both banned. I was really upset at the time, more so upset about Summer Bloom being banned for a few reasons - 1, I hadn't played it as much as I wanted to since there were many other decks that appealed to me and 2, many players overestimated the Titan deck (saying, oh it wins on turn 1 all the time, while showing on camera that they don't know how to play against it). I personally think that Amulet at the time was a deck that nobody sided correctly for. The only card that was in the SB for Amulet was Blood Moon and Blood Moon would have been in SBs even if Amulet didn't exist, just to combat other decks. It was a very useful card. But I do see the Summer Bloom ban as an important one if they want to tone down the power of Modern.

Flash to nowadays. WotC keeps pushing cards like Oko, Underworld Breach, Emry, Uro, AA, War of the Spark PWs, and more. I agree with idSurge that if this is going to be their new design philosophy, it is a JOKE that certain cards remain on the banlist. Why can't I play Green Sun's Zenith if every opponent has Lurrus as their companion? I personally did think that the Modern meta was becoming stale at the time. Affinity, Twin, Jund, Tron, and Burn. It gets boring playing against those all the time and not seeing many new, cool decks. But is the alternative a meta changing completely (having a rotation) every single MTG set that comes out? I hope not because if I had to choose between the two, I'd stay with a stale format a bit longer. I prefer in the middle, leaning more toward the format being stale (I like maybe 5 new cards and maybe 1-2 new decks coming out each set at most). It's hard to keep up.

If I am Spikey McSpikington that always has to play the best perceived deck, I don't want to switch decks in Modern every 3 months constantly. It's just not sustainable and to add insult to injury, there's cards on the ban list that are far more innocuous and obviously less powered than newer cards. That being said, Lurrus of the Dream Den is certainly going to get banned. My first thoughts when I saw the card? Wow, this is powerful. I want to buy this card and play it. Then I think, oh %$#%, it will get banned soon or worse yet, WotC will ban all the pieces around it so that it is mediocre. Okay, I made my decision. I'm not going to play the decks that wins. I will not buy it. Is this the mentality that WotC wants players to have ... every new set that comes out?
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 » 3 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
3 years ago
If I am Spikey McSpikington that always has to play the best perceived deck, I don't want to switch decks in Modern every 3 months constantly. It's just not sustainable and to add insult to injury, there's cards on the ban list that are far more innocuous and obviously less powered than newer cards. That being said, Lurrus of the Dream Den is certainly going to get banned. My first thoughts when I saw the card? Wow, this is powerful. I want to buy this card and play it. They I think, oh %$#%, it will get banned soon or worse yet, WotC will ban all the pieces around it so that it is mediocre. Okay, I made my decision. I'm not going to play the decks that wins. I will not buy it. Is this the mentality that WotC wants players to have ... every new set that comes out?
This is why the only solution is to simply stop the ban mania, and let it play out. If its a degenerate mess? Who cares. If its a 1 deck meta? Who cares.

The banlist is an insult to the collective intelligence of anyone invested in the history of the format.

Why would I pull the trigger on the 3 or 4 Uro's I need to play SnowControl and cast my Snow Snakes (Japanese no less, love the difference in card quality) when...it could be pulled out from under me? Or made irrelevant by the next Zendikar set?

"The game would eventually collapse from its top-heaviness."
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