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

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

Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
About Standard, I think believing Titan's Nest is a problem shows the writer's lack of understanding about Standard. Is it 10/10? No, it's not. But I prefer to look at the bright side. I know Fires is a problem, but other than that, it feels skill intensive. And for me, it feels fun.

The baseline here is, nobody seems high power level is risky. Nobody can't deny that. Here is to M21, introducing high power level answers and not threats.

But fun is totally subjective, and I know a lot of people that think current magic actually feels fun. I also seen a lot of people saying this very thing on Maro, in his blogatog. I also seen a ton of people defending the companions over there. You can't deny those things for sure.

Magic is not dying, neither it's flawed, because some people yell at a forum that it is dead. Or at twitter. And no, this is not a reference to you @idSurge, but the community as a whole. Even if Magic is not at it's finest, it will not die.
He's not saying that particular card is a problem. The problem is, its patterned. It's formula design, and if you hit on something that is repetitive, and you keep it up, it doesnt cease to be repetitive.

Fun is subjective. Magic is not dying, but modern (not Modern) design is absolutely flawed. How can you claim it is not? The product itself, is absolutely flawed. The game is not dead, but it is not healthy. You cannot look at the parade of ban's and issues, and say its healthy.
UR Control UR

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

Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
I agree there were some bad printings, oko, veil of summer, all of that stuff. But look at the standard card pool. 98% of the cards are super cool and interesting and there is this 2% that is a problem. I know it is a problem, but I prefer to focus on the other 98.

If I say the game is flawed, what do we have to gain? We have been shooting this dead horse for some weeks now.

I hope WOTC will get better at handling the really broken stuff. Until then, I enjoy pio and std right now. Will enjoy modern sometime in the future too, I guess.
2% of Standard, what percentage of Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, Vintage?

If you say the game is flawed, well nothing is gained. If you DENY that the game is flawed? You essentially continue to support the design/development practices that have been ruining formats for the last 2+ years.

You dont just shrug, pick up the flawed designs of today and keep on playing.

You shoot that dead horse, then you take the dead horse to Wizards, and you drop it at their feet, and then you kick it again. Until they start to grasp, just like Maro has, that 'hey, we seem to have screwed up.'

You think Maro kicked off all those polls because people decided to focus on the other 98% of the Standard card pool? Or do you understand that he posted all those polls because of people telling him on Twitter, and Tumblr, and wherever else 'hey Maro, about this dead horse, I'm going to have to kick at it some more until you HEAR ME.'

Enjoy whatever you will. The Pro(motional) Players are again dismayed that Wizards isnt treating them as Professionals, Standard cannot handle its own power level, Paper is a figment of our imaginations, and the '2% of Standard' cards? They keep on overwhelming formats that have thousands of more cards than Standard. Funny that.

I'll keep on grinding Arena Coins and Wildcards, because what else am I going to do when the world is closed, but I'm also going to continue to discuss the fact that how Wizards is making cards, is flawed.

I just hope they print a replacement for Brineborn Cutthroat and Quench and Ionize, so I can keep laughing at people trying to curve out once they rotate.
UR Control UR

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

Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
3 years ago
If we throw away the idea that these mistakes are intentional and rather that it's just a massive accident, I would argue that adding all of these stages to the process has created a situation where things keep getting passed on, assuming it's the role of another wave to fix it. Then they hit the end with no changes. That or the development and especially play design teams are bad at their jobs. I'm not unwilling to rule that one out either, because making a game is a very different skill set from playing a game, and development tends to recruit their game makers from the ranks of game players.
Going back to my previous post, I don't think it is an accident at all. Breaking down those loose estimations, let's round both lists to "about 55 cards." It's give or take a few, but the two lists are eerily close to each other in volume, despite massive time differences. That led me to dive a little bit more and look at these:

BFZ - RNA
Number of sets in sample: 14
Cards seen in Modern: ~55
Cards per set: ~3.9
Bans in that period: 3
Bans per set: ~0.2

WAR - IKO
Number of sets in sample: 6
Cards seen in Modern: ~55
Cards per set: ~9.2
Bans in that period: 8 (and likely at least two more soon)
Bans per set: ~1.3

So in less than half the time, we've had more than double the cards influence the format per set, and more than two and a half times as many bans, or six and a half times as many bans per set.

Let's let that sink in when discussing the problems facing Modern (and Magic in general). Somewhere during/after the completion of Ravnica, they flipped a switch and have not looked back. Unclear how to rectify this at all moving forward...

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

Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Thats embarrassing.
UR Control UR

blkdemonight
Posts: 80
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by blkdemonight » 3 years ago

There's a reason why I said before in this topic. The game direction is too focused on tempo plays thus making answers that are fair or oriented around Card Advantage theory useless. What's the use of assassin's trophy if it doesn't prevents a planeswalker from activating a pw ability as soon it enters the battlefield after resolving as a spell, we're not talking about the fact that certain ones now have static abilities. Tempo plays where you must worry about abilities constantly entering the stack without proper answers, land/mana fixing being very lenient and cards entering the game outside of the hand too easily makes MTG less about resource management and more about resource conversion.

As for Greeksis, I'm going to agree with cfusionpm. There's no use of being condescending about Splinter Twin research if it isn't shared. I say this as someone who would like Twin banned forever if it wasn't for the current state of modern and mtg as a whole.

Lear_the_cat
Posts: 19
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Lear_the_cat » 3 years ago

Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
About Pioneer, I think that it's already a very good format, but I recognize there is a problem with yorion + lurrus. They will be banned, I am sure. The format looks skill intensive for sure, now. But not diverse at all.
With rise of Lukka and Winota it's less about skill sadly. For me, they and companion mechanic made format much worse. =\

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

Post by drmarkb » 3 years ago

I want new cards.
I want cards that allow me to make a fist of playing Magic The Gathering, not Creatures- The Gathering or Walkers - The Gathering.
All the new cards that are pushed, bar the outliers Breach and Veil, have been creatures or walkers. I don't want to brew with the next Oko. I want to brew with the next Smokestack or Humility.

Lear_the_cat
Posts: 19
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Lear_the_cat » 3 years ago

Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
Do you think Lukka and Winota are that good in Pioneer? I think people might try them, but they are not that powerful. Or at least, I hope so.
Yeah, Pioneer lacks good answers for theese kind of strategies so they can do their stuff pretty safely.
Maybe it's a tempororal metashift but Lukka at least feels really powerfull bcs of it's other powerfull planewswalker cards and Yorion for a good grind plan if something is off.

Lear_the_cat
Posts: 19
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Lear_the_cat » 3 years ago

Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
About companions(in Pioneer and Modern), what non-Lurrus, non-Yorion companions are affecting Pioneer in a way you didn't want to?
About this I think I don't like Gyruda. It's reaally hard to interact with it if it's not a counterspells, Rest feels fine.

User avatar
Tzoulis
Posts: 323
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Tzoulis » 3 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
Aazadan wrote:
3 years ago
If we throw away the idea that these mistakes are intentional and rather that it's just a massive accident, I would argue that adding all of these stages to the process has created a situation where things keep getting passed on, assuming it's the role of another wave to fix it. Then they hit the end with no changes. That or the development and especially play design teams are bad at their jobs. I'm not unwilling to rule that one out either, because making a game is a very different skill set from playing a game, and development tends to recruit their game makers from the ranks of game players.
Going back to my previous post, I don't think it is an accident at all. Breaking down those loose estimations, let's round both lists to "about 55 cards." It's give or take a few, but the two lists are eerily close to each other in volume, despite massive time differences. That led me to dive a little bit more and look at these:

BFZ - RNA
Number of sets in sample: 14
Cards seen in Modern: ~55
Cards per set: ~3.9
Bans in that period: 3
Bans per set: ~0.2

WAR - IKO
Number of sets in sample: 6
Cards seen in Modern: ~55
Cards per set: ~9.2
Bans in that period: 8 (and likely at least two more soon)
Bans per set: ~1.3

So in less than half the time, we've had more than double the cards influence the format per set, and more than two and a half times as many bans, or six and a half times as many bans per set.

Let's let that sink in when discussing the problems facing Modern (and Magic in general). Somewhere during/after the completion of Ravnica, they flipped a switch and have not looked back. Unclear how to rectify this at all moving forward...
Now do that for Scars-RtR or Zen+ or Inn-Theros. You're comparing two extremes in power level (with some questionable choices in the cards as well. Also, Including MH in that comparison is completely dishonest. That set was designed for Modern (and decried as Commander Horizons).

Design philosophy is one thing to compare, cards entering Modern from Standard is another. MH has no place in the latter.

User avatar
The Fluff
Le fou, c'est moi
Posts: 2398
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted
Location: Gradius Home World
Contact:

Post by The Fluff » 3 years ago

After some playtesting a companion card with Ponza...
Limited testing because can only play with people in the house... still quarantined.

So glad wotc printed this companion. This guy solves or at least partially solves the weakness of the deck of not drawing enough threats - because he himself is a threat that can be summoned out of nowhere, as long as I can pay 5 mana. Everyone is basically double power when he's around.. Klothy's do 4 direct damage to the opponent with her ability, molten rain is now a burn spell that can kill people, glorybringer do 8 damage if it hits - amazing. Now, if only my country would stop blocking USPS shipping, so that I could order a copy of Obosh instead of playing with proxy. Excited to play the real card. Now, I'm hoping more for terravore reprint.. because he fits into the strategy with 3 cmc.
Image
AnimEVO 2020 - EFZ Tournament (english commentary) // Clearing 4 domain with Qiqi
want to play a uw control deck in modern, but don't have Jace or snapcaster? please come visit us at the Emeria thread

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

Post by drmarkb » 3 years ago

Standard is eternal pants
Pioneers is pretty pants.
Modern is a two turds in a swimming pool of vomit. There is a bloke called FIRE about to take another dump in it too.
Legacy was two turds in a swimming pool of water and is back to one in the corner which you just have to stay away from.
Vintage was a swimming pool full of companion turds on fire and is now fine.
Ikoria limited is unappealing and soporific. Not a swimming pool in sight but utterly snooze worthy.

Pretty hard to be positive, but here is one for those looking for one on one....

Canlander, was good, is competitive, told companions where to shove it, almost nothing is banned, games are balanced, does not rely on wotc ban lists, can innovate as there is relatively little data, going to be hard to screw up.

In seriousness, community driven Modern through to Vintage is very appealing.

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

Post by ktkenshinx » 3 years ago

Modern Nexus posted a MN metagame update, but I really dislike its presentation. I have no idea why David is claiming Lurrus is on the donwswing, or really making any positive claims about Lurrus when it's 46% of the format and now at 51.9% (!) of the top-tier decks. He also did this weird thing where he put the "Other" category over the top deck as if to underscore you can still play other decks in Modern. He also never aggregated the weeks, so instead of a big 4-5 week metagame picture with a large N we have a bunch of small N pictures from week to week. I think that's an interesting approach... if you ultimately aggregated everything. Overall, I've never seen a metagame update presented this way and it feels a little misleading. David's a smart guy so I'm sure he had reasons for this presentation; I just think it does not actually tell the Modern story right now.

Here's our current N=803 top-tier:

MTGO MODERN META 04/18 - 05/19
1. Prowess: 9.7% (78)
2. Burn: 9.6% (77)
3. Jund: 8.1% (65)
4. Amulet Titan: 4.9% (39)
5. Devoted Devastation: 4.7% (38)
6. Ponza: 4.5% (36)
7. Bant Snow Control: 3.7% (30)
8. Temur Urza: 3.7% (30)
9. Humans: 3.5% (28)
10. Eldrazi Tron: 3.1% (25)
11. Hardened Scales: 2.9% (23)
12. Ad Nauseam: 2.6% (21)
13. Mono G Tron: 1.9% (15)
14. The Rock: 1.9% (15)
15. Bogles: 1.9% (15)
16. Grixis Delver: 1.6% (13)
17. 5C Niv: 1.6% (13)
18. Azorius Control: 1.6% (13)
19. 4C Uro Snow Control: 1.5% (12)
20. Neobrand: 1.4% (11)

This is a metagame that Lurrus is unequivocally dominating. 4 of our top 5 decks are Lurrus decks. Rx Aggro (Burn/Prowess) makes up 19.3% of the format, which is literally higher than URx Delver in the 1.5 months prior to its ban (17.4%). Beyond Lurrus, companions are still hyper-dominant. Every Tier 1 deck but Amulet Titan is a companion deck. There are still some lower tier decks which don't use companions (ramp and some combo, also the surprising Humans), but it's really just companions all the way down. To emphasize that point, here's the table:
image.png
71% (!!) of top-tier decks use companions. That's way up from our last meta update where it was "just" 66%. In that regard, I agree with David's conclusion that companions as a whole are a problem, but a) want to restate it much more strongly because they are a BIG problem, b) want to emphasize Lurrus is not just a "better" companion but a singular problem on its own (51% of top-tier being Lurrus decks is unacceptable), and c) need people to realize Lurrus is overwhelmingly helping a few decks and not leading to an overall renaissance in diversity. Early on, it appeared Lurrus was actually helping other strategies like weird Ux control decks, Grixis Delver, Shadow variants, The Rock, and others. By the end of Week 4, however, it's clear Lurrus is really just helping Burn, Prowess, Jund, and Devastation. All the other decks are losing points from week to week as people realize they are just worse versions of existing decks. Even Shadow decks collectively make up just 2.2% across all color combinations.

All of this points to big changes happening in the next month. Hopefully sooner, but almost certainly by mid-June. I just don't know what those changes will be because there are a ton of options with varying likelihoods.

Scenario 1: Ban Lurrus
There's virtually no Modern scenario where Lurrus emerges unscathed. The cat is broken and has broken the format. It is just way too prevalent and leads to hyper-repetitive gameplay in a format that is supposed to be diverse and open to lots of decks. In this targeted scenario, Wizards keeps companion the way it is but just gets rid of Lurrus (As they did in Vintage and Legacy). I actually think this is unlikely because the combination of all competitive Constructed formats suggests it's not just one companion that's broken, but the mechanic as a whole. Side note: why it took Wizards so long to realize this is beyond me when the online community determined this in about an hour, but that's another problem for another post.

Scenario 2: Ban Lurrus and Yorion
In this scenario, you still don't hit the overall mechanic because the remaining companions are legitimately more restrictive. You just hit the worst two offenders and let every other deck maintain its little companion edge. This would also match the Legacy model, but still might not go all the way. I think this is a little likelier than just a Lurrus ban, because Wizards historically gets ahead of the next broken deck with a ban. Yorion would undoubtedly rise to Lurrus shares (at least, OUaT shares) if Lurrus went away.

Scenario 3: Ban Lurrus and/or Yorion as a companion
Don't change the mechanic at all and allow people to use these interesting critters in maindecks, just not as companions. This is sort of a half measure that doesn't address potential companion takeovers elsewhere, but it's actually better than scenarios 1 and 2 because you at least allow players to keep their cards. It also fits Wizards profit motive in that players now may need to buy additional copies, and it generally preserves pack value in their new set.

I acknowledge these scenarios are possible, but Wizards is definitely considering a mechanical change to companions (see their B&R article). I don't think they would have published that quote in the article without genuinely believing that change was a real possibility. This means they are thinking bigger than just single-card bans.

Scenario 4: Change the mechanic, no bans
There are lots of ways to change the mechanic to make it a little less busted. Two possible examples include:
a. Draw hand, put N+1 to the bottom where N is times mulliganed, add companion to hand.
b. Draw hand at N-1 cards where N is times mulliganed. No extra card seen and put on the bottom, because comps are already an edge.

Scenario 5: Change the mechanic, ban Lurrus and/or Yorion anyway
Here, you both change the mechanic to prevent other companions from being a future problem (I'm sure Wizards has more coming), and then you ban the worst offenders just to be safe. This prevents formats from collapsing if the mechanical change is still too weak to prevent a Lurrus/Yorion takeover.

Scenario 6: ban the companion mechanic in certain Constructed formats
In this final option, you just write off the companion mechanic in certain formats and leave it in others. I think this is the least likely of the mechanical-level changes because Wizards probably wants to salvage their brainchild and has a number of different tools to do that.

Overall, I really don't know exactly what will happen. I'm just confident we'll see one of these scenarios, or a materially similar scenario, in the next month. Hopefully sooner.
Over-Extended/Modern Since 2010

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

Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
3 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
SPOILER
Show
Hide
Aazadan wrote:
3 years ago
If we throw away the idea that these mistakes are intentional and rather that it's just a massive accident, I would argue that adding all of these stages to the process has created a situation where things keep getting passed on, assuming it's the role of another wave to fix it. Then they hit the end with no changes. That or the development and especially play design teams are bad at their jobs. I'm not unwilling to rule that one out either, because making a game is a very different skill set from playing a game, and development tends to recruit their game makers from the ranks of game players.
Going back to my previous post, I don't think it is an accident at all. Breaking down those loose estimations, let's round both lists to "about 55 cards." It's give or take a few, but the two lists are eerily close to each other in volume, despite massive time differences. That led me to dive a little bit more and look at these:

BFZ - RNA
Number of sets in sample: 14
Cards seen in Modern: ~55
Cards per set: ~3.9
Bans in that period: 3
Bans per set: ~0.2

WAR - IKO
Number of sets in sample: 6
Cards seen in Modern: ~55
Cards per set: ~9.2
Bans in that period: 8 (and likely at least two more soon)
Bans per set: ~1.3

So in less than half the time, we've had more than double the cards influence the format per set, and more than two and a half times as many bans, or six and a half times as many bans per set.

Let's let that sink in when discussing the problems facing Modern (and Magic in general). Somewhere during/after the completion of Ravnica, they flipped a switch and have not looked back. Unclear how to rectify this at all moving forward...
Now do that for Scars-RtR or Zen+ or Inn-Theros. You're comparing two extremes in power level (with some questionable choices in the cards as well. Also, Including MH in that comparison is completely dishonest. That set was designed for Modern (and decried as Commander Horizons).

Design philosophy is one thing to compare, cards entering Modern from Standard is another. MH has no place in the latter.
I am not as familiar with those eras, but was not necessarily the point I was going for (those eras also included when the card pool was less than half of what it currently is).

The point was we saw twice as much flux and influence in the past year, compared to the previous 3 and a half years. Never mind the increased bans. WOTC was adding cards at an exorbitant rate with pushed and broken cards left and right. Some have been banned, many remain. And I have no issue including MH, especially since it single handedly contributed to one of the worst mistakes Modern has ever seen, and its ripple of mistakes still have yet to be dealt with. It reflects a design philosophy of pushing things to higher and higher power levels without fear of consequence. Because they believe the safety valve is "well we could just ban the broken stuff!" :explode: :explode: :explode: :explode: :explode:

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

Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Please get the stats here into an article we can link to forsythe and Duke.

Comically busted.
UR Control UR

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

Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
I often wonder: Do people want to try out new cards, or are they just lost into a constant ban mania or WOTC bashing? And if yes, is Wizards to blame for them both?

It seems to me that nobody is brewing with new cards, nobody is experimenting with new cards. If people spent half as much time on it, as they do in complaining(and spending a certain amount of money trying to convince us about Twin, even if this is ludicrous), they should have more fun than this misery that comes with constant ban mania and WOTC bashing.
People do this, try new cards and brew, with EVERY SINGLE SET.

You dont need factually BUSTED cards to do this. New archetypes are created every single set release. Some are good, some are flash in the pan, some just dont quite get there, and some are jank, but it happens.

I dont know how long you have played, or if you followed things on MTGS before everyone decided to run and hide in their little discord echo chambers, but there was a history and growth in Modern that was far far better than we have had for absolute years, and its factually due to the pushed power level of Standard, obliterating organic, natural growth.

Its forced evolution of eternal formats, invalidating historical deck types, dismissing hundreds if not thousands of dollars of people's investment, and pushing everyone into the same cycle of rotation via obsoleting one's decks via power level.

Look at @ktkenshinx numbers. I do not believe you are arguing in bad faith, you cannot simply CANNOT tell me that the format is healthy, and its 100% due to Standard mistakes.

Wizards has BETTER data than we do, and they do NOTHING. Why? Conflict of interest.
UR Control UR

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

Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Oh, and Doubling Masters will likely be as naked a 'short term interest' cash grab as we have seen yet. They have the reprint equity, but often have been very careful on how to burn it up.

Now? I doubt they even care anymore. Short term profits trump all.
UR Control UR

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

Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

idSurge wrote:
3 years ago
Oh, and Doubling Masters will likely be as naked a 'short term interest' cash grab as we have seen yet. They have the reprint equity, but often have been very careful on how to burn it up.

Now? I doubt they even care anymore. Short term profits trump all.
Given their opening spoiler cards are Doubling Season and Blightsteel Colossus, I imagine they're shooting for the Commander crowd. Which is weird because isn't a specific "Commander Masters" set coming later? Or is this that set?

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

Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Shooting for the Commander crowd or not, if there are high value reprints, it pushes a set, at the cost of every later set not having the equity. Double the number of rare's is potentially (there are many garbage rares) a lot of equity.
UR Control UR

User avatar
Tzoulis
Posts: 323
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Tzoulis » 3 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
The point was we saw twice as much flux and influence in the past year, compared to the previous 3 and a half years. Never mind the increased bans. WOTC was adding cards at an exorbitant rate with pushed and broken cards left and right. Some have been banned, many remain. And I have no issue including MH, especially since it single handedly contributed to one of the worst mistakes Modern has ever seen, and its ripple of mistakes still have yet to be dealt with. It reflects a design philosophy of pushing things to higher and higher power levels without fear of consequence. Because they believe the safety valve is "well we could just ban the broken stuff!"
But still, you're comparing 2 wildly different eras (while ignoring the context of past powerful sets) and also including MH. There is an argument to be made about how Wizards designs new cards, but what you're doing is wrong. You're crafting your data set that way to come to conclusions to support your arguments

Of course a set directly aimed at Modern will increase the number of cards that enter in the format. Of course more powerful sets will also increase that number. However, the average number of cards that enter from Standard per set is about the same. Some grave mistakes have happened (we agree on most, we disagree on some), but the way you're framing it is dishonest.
cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
Given their opening spoiler cards are Doubling Season and Blightsteel Colossus, I imagine they're shooting for the Commander crowd. Which is weird because isn't a specific "Commander Masters" set coming later? Or is this that set?
Commander Legends (which I assumed would get the summer slot, but now it's in the winter slot) has some reprints and plenty of new cards. Including around 90-100 commanders. So, it's just a reprint set.
idSurge wrote:
3 years ago
Shooting for the Commander crowd or not, if there are high value reprints, it pushes a set, at the cost of every later set not having the equity. Double the number of rare's is potentially (there are many garbage rares) a lot of equity.
They have plenty of equity to draw from. Even at 2 rares/mythics per slot, there are many, many cards that need to be reprinted. Both for Commander and Eternal formats.

I wonder if the Wordly Tutor buyout had something to do with this set.

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

Post by idSurge » 3 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
3 years ago
They have plenty of equity to draw from. Even at 2 rares/mythics per slot, there are many, many cards that need to be reprinted. Both for Commander and Eternal formats.

I wonder if the Wordly Tutor buyout had something to do with this set.
All true, I just have zero reason to trust anything Wizard's does right now. Its aggrivating.

I would not be shocked if the Tutor buyout was motivated by this, insider trading in Magic is noted.
UR Control UR

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

Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
3 years ago
Scenario 4: Change the mechanic, no bans
I think this is the most likely solution. It's also one that was suggested by I think Jim Davis very early on. This introduces the problem of functional errata which is a line in the sand that WotC said they won't cross, but I think they've screwed up so bad that they have no choice (and I hope the realization of that makes them look at their processes). This would also let them undo their companion bans so far which might be a small PR win.

I'm not really sure how they can change it, but I think it's the cleanest solution.

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

Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
So in less than half the time, we've had more than double the cards influence the format per set, and more than two and a half times as many bans, or six and a half times as many bans per set.

Let's let that sink in when discussing the problems facing Modern (and Magic in general). Somewhere during/after the completion of Ravnica, they flipped a switch and have not looked back. Unclear how to rectify this at all moving forward...
I don't think the number of cards is really all that important. New cards should be entering the format. What really matters is how widespread they are, and how influential they are.

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

Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
3 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
The point was we saw twice as much flux and influence in the past year, compared to the previous 3 and a half years. Never mind the increased bans. WOTC was adding cards at an exorbitant rate with pushed and broken cards left and right. Some have been banned, many remain. And I have no issue including MH, especially since it single handedly contributed to one of the worst mistakes Modern has ever seen, and its ripple of mistakes still have yet to be dealt with. It reflects a design philosophy of pushing things to higher and higher power levels without fear of consequence. Because they believe the safety valve is "well we could just ban the broken stuff!"
But still, you're comparing 2 wildly different eras (while ignoring the context of past powerful sets) and also including MH. There is an argument to be made about how Wizards designs new cards, but what you're doing is wrong. You're crafting your data set that way to come to conclusions to support your arguments

Of course a set directly aimed at Modern will increase the number of cards that enter in the format. Of course more powerful sets will also increase that number. However, the average number of cards that enter from Standard per set is about the same. Some grave mistakes have happened (we agree on most, we disagree on some), but the way you're framing it is dishonest.
No, it's not. It's the last year vs the previous 3.5 years. MH is part of the design philosophy change to push extra power into cards that is also existing in Standard. The fact that it goes straight into our format is irrelevant. They had the same goals, same lack of testing, and created the same problems.

If you want to crunch numbers on those eras, by all means. I was not playing Modern pretty much at all until MM15, and am not familiar with what specific cards had an impact *at the time* (many of which are somewhere between just OK and unplayable today). If you want to do that analysis, by all means.

While you're at it, cross reference it with number of bans needed in those periods. In the entirety of Modern, following the 2011 growing pains chaos, there have been 12 bans from 2012-2018. Of those 12 (Valakut, BBE, Seething Song, DRS, DTT, TC, Pod, Twin, Bloom, Eye, Probe, GGT)
For a total of 0.14 bans per month (or about 1 ban every 7 months), with the knowledge that 2 of those are already undone.

By contrast, in 2019 and 2020 alone, there have been 8 bans in the 17 months since Jan 2019 (KCI, Bridge, Hogaak, Looting, Oko, Opal, Lattice, Once)
For a total of 0.47 bans per month (or about 1 ban every 2 months), with the knowledge that at least 1 more is coming soon.

In no way was I trying to give a comprehensive look at the entire history of Modern. But just looking at the Post-Twin-Pre-WAR era compared to the Post-WAR era. And that difference is both quantifiable and terrifying.
Last edited by cfusionpm 3 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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

Post by FoodChainGoblins » 3 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
3 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
So in less than half the time, we've had more than double the cards influence the format per set, and more than two and a half times as many bans, or six and a half times as many bans per set.

Let's let that sink in when discussing the problems facing Modern (and Magic in general). Somewhere during/after the completion of Ravnica, they flipped a switch and have not looked back. Unclear how to rectify this at all moving forward...
I don't think the number of cards is really all that important. New cards should be entering the format. What really matters is how widespread they are, and how influential they are.
I think that's what he's getting at. Cards entering that are having a "damning" influence, thus causing widespread bans across formats. It's bad enough when just one format gets a ban; imagine 4 formats getting bans on the same day. Not to mention, there could easily have been more bans, as many players allude to cards that potentially also need banning, but haven't received it (Arcum's Astrolabe, Veil of Summer).

Within a week of Lurrus of the Dream-Den entering the MTGO format, it got 1st place in Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, and Standard, in addition to hundreds of top 32s. That is too much of an influence. Whole formats are changed. Some lasting damage is done because as we know, when something is banned, it doesn't automatically go back to where it was before. It usually takes some time to adjust. Sometimes the damage is lasting.
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

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic

Return to “Modern”