So, is Modern beginning to feel like "play Astrolabe or go home"? I will answer that question after today's PTQ has been published. Prediction: Yes. There are currently many non-Astrolabe decks in Modern, and have been for months. There are also viable blue decks without Astrolabe and via...

Veil is awful. Full stop. I hope that things is banned by the end of the year. As for Astrolabe, it's hard to separate out the experimental diversity (I.e. people who are playing around with Astrolabe in different builds) from the true diversity (I.e. different viable Astrolabe decks coexisting). It...

Strap in, and play those powerful decks, but I have a sneaking suspicion that we have both been down this road. Nah, I'm good. The point of a non-rotating format is supposed to be that you can just buy into a deck and get to keep/play it. Between inevitable bans and planned obsolescence, that is no...

How do you propose we do anything about that? Or do we just let the format die as attendance continues to drop and people don't like the linear rat races combined with constant bannings? I care because I have invested thousands of dollars and years of my life into something I loved, and watch it sp...

The most important quote: The criteria we'll be looking at include overall and matchup-by-matchup win rates, success in tournaments, population in the metagame, and community sentiment playing with and against these decks. At last, we have an official quote on their ban metrics: One of them is even...

OUAT definitely makes more openers keepable for Titan decks. It was a good attempt. I think if Titan becomes too good after this, they should really consider Titan himself. Let's see if OUAT curbs the deck though. I would much rather they hit Field or Dryad if they need to ban another card. Wizards...

Also, OH BOY OH BOY!!!

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... uncement?j

Once Upon a Time is BANNED in Modern

(Changes to other formats too, but interestingly NOT Pioneer??)

The obvious point to me Ktkenshinx is that Modern needs to not be a PT format, because it cannot have balance by itself. If Legacy is secretly broken with better answers, and I suspect there is some truth in that, Modern is perma-broken without them, so there is literally no hope. Maybe we should a...

I would assume that in the case of scenarios 2 or 3 we would see some unbans as well. I'm not sure there is anything worth unbanning, if all they ban is OuaT. Green Sun's maybe?? Personally, I'm in the 1-2 from Pioneer, and OuaT camp. I think at that point we see a potential meta game shake out tha...

You should write an article on this ktkenshinx because its an angle I had missed. Yeah, it's an interesting point I hadn't considered myself until recently. Maybe worth an article in the long-term, but I'm holding off on writing anything until Wizards publishes this new article Forsythe promised us...

From a metagame perspective, what's wrong with a variety of different, unique 3C+ Astrolabe decks coexisting? Astrolabe does more than just fundamentally breaking the colour pie by creating perfect manabases. It also fundamentally breaks the snow mechanic. Snow cards are more powerful relative to t...

Re: Veil This is still an awful design that I want to go, but it has importantly not really led to the extinction of UB interaction. Jund remains viable in its own right and there's a slew of Ux Astrolabe decks running barrels of countermagic. As long as Veil isn't suppressing those options, it's le...

Overall, I'd be happy with a Modern format, or a Modern PT, where 25% of the room is on 3C+ Astrolabe good stuff variants. I wouldn't be fine with 50 shades of Astrolabe. It breaks a fundamental definition of what MTG is in that is colour pie. Card needs to go but I fear they will only ban OUAT and...

I don't fully understand why Astrolabe is bad for Modern. One of Modern's biggest criticisms is that it doesn't support a wide variety of strategic diversity. By most accounts, Astrolabe appears to push a large subset of midrange and control decks towards new viability. Sure, Astrolabe has some unfo...

Realistically, this upcoming B&R update is going to focus overwhelmingly on Pioneer. Pioneer has had multiple large paper events and continued MTGO data to support a ban on Inverter and/or Breach decks. There is a virtual guarantee something from one or both decks is getting banned, and my money...

I feel like giving more of my opinion here, but I don't play online. My tournaments have been between 4 and 14 players at most, which don't tell %$#%. It's pretty sad. I wish I had more practice for Regionals in San Diego, CA. I've been pretty close and these types of tournaments have a lot less co...

Super interesting MTG Arena Historic anthology released: https://www.destructoid.com/exclusive-magic-arena-is-getting-new-historic-cards-and-a-secret-lair-tie-in-581262.phtml https://imgur.com/a/c5RFrVt (Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/fb2sow/historic_anthology_ii_visualized_offic...

I'm just going to keep restating the line I've been making for about 1.5 months now. OUaT is a multi-format design mistake that disproportionately benefits big mana decks. These big mana decks have been waving bright orange and red flags since mid-January, a point I've brought up in almost all MTGO ...

Digital MTG will ultimately die, it is soulless and will be ephemeral. Short term profits borrowing from tomorrow. Community led mtg is the way forward in paper. No planeswalker points- who gives a rat's arse?- not sanctioniond- ditto. Hugely successful.non sanctioned Legacy events go ahead now wit...

I think it's important to emphasize a point Aazadan and others have made: these attendance and engagement problems are Magic-wide, not simply Modern issues. It's easy to get caught up in Modern's problems because we all focus on Modern and this is a Modern forum. But it's important to acknowledge th...

Is anything written there in any way exaggerated, incorrect, inaccurate, or misleading about Modern? Because regardless of my feelings on the format today, it really seems that Modern is, at best, defined by broken decks, banned decks, fear of bannings, pockets of chaos between bannings. How else c...

Don't remove moderns identity any more. Modern does not have an identity beyond "the best decks get banned." 'Pillars' are just "What hasn't been banned yet?" and "What just got a busted new card?" Highlighting this post as format bashing, even though it's definitely n...

This thread sure took a turn for the gloomy over the past few pages, and although I think some of that criticism is unwarranted (e.g. this notion that Modern is unsaveable), a lot of it is legitimate. Wizards' recent doubling-down on data restrictions is a particularly worrisome way to start of 2020...

Inverter as a deck will eat a ban in the near future, as well it should. That type of deck is not okay if Pioneer is supposed to be a home for Standard alumni. It's particularly egregious in its dual use of DTT, a multi-format mistake, as a combo piece and a dispoprtionately powerful draw spell. 5 T...

I don't know that it's 99% perfect, but it seems the meta has shifted a bit. If we will stay serious, we should not always complain no matter how good or bad modern is. At this moment I feel we are in a good shape but we still talk like it is hoogak summer Modern at this moment is really good. It's...