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

[Aazadan]

I have no idea, I really don't follow league seasons. It's so hard to track any sort of competitive level of organized play after they've changed things year in and out that I gave up even trying (having very little interest in online play doesn't help much either, though it's all we have for now). Really only looked at that thread as it was recent and relevant to the current competitive meta.

[Simto]

I know it's not a strong meta deck, but damn I want to build a Blue Tron deck. Looks fun and combines two deck types I like into one. Tron + Control/Tempo. Also mostly to make my group of friends I play with hate me even more combining what they hate into one deck lol.

[Ed06288]

What's the pull rate on a phyrexian vorinclex?

[GrAsH]

Violent Outburst/Demonic Dread/Bloodbraid Elf cascading into Valki, God of Lies is insane. A streamer named Squachief played it (Jund Cascade) and got good results, putting Tibalt at first or second turn frequently, with Gemstone Caverns and Simian Spirit Guide.

I've also seen blue and white lists with an enchantment with exalted and cascade doing the same thing, can't remember the name.

[drmarkb]

I have no idea, I really don't follow league seasons. It's so hard to track any sort of competitive level of organized play after they've changed things year in and out that I gave up even trying (having very little interest in online play doesn't help much either, though it's all we have for now). Really only looked at that thread as it was recent and relevant to the current competitive meta.

They don't want you to know or care about league seasons.
They want you to play arena.
They want you to buy cards, esp collector boosters
They want you to have a favourite pro.
They want you to watch mtg for fun supporting that pro
But they no longer want you to aspire to be that pro,
They don't want you to have a history or trackable measure of performance in paper mtg.
They no longer want you to play events where there is one huge prize, and they would prefer it if we all went back to brewing 1995 style, though they know that won't happen. Whisper it quietly, they would much prefer you to play Pioneer post pandemic, but would accept it if you went and played Legacy as long as you still played Commander.

[Aazadan]

I'm not quite that cynical. But, I'm not going to play arena. I'll happily buy certain special borders because I'm a sucker for them.

I have three favorite pro's and none are top tier, honestly former pro is more accurate at this point: Patrick Sullivan, Andrew Cuneo, Patrick Dickmann (Twin specifically, those were fantastic games he played).

Given that I have a collection of dual lands and other RL cards, this is more of a self serving argument, but I would love it if I could play Legacy in paper post pandemic.

[cfusionpm]

I played Arena for a while. Even dropped $100 to build a competitive deck and really enjoyed it. Then rotation happened, and I didn't really feel like dropping another $100+. Even with Historic, it's just as "rotating" as Standard with their numerous random influxes of new cards that either totally invalidate or supplant previous strategies (Not that the same thing isn't happening in Modern too...).

Just a.... weird time to love Magic.

But as mentioned... if you're a Commander fan, and are able to get things in with SpellTable or Zoom.... it's pretty fantastic.

[cfusionpm]

Well, they did it. Or at least they're going to. And my entire MTGO collection is effectively worthless. Bye bye several hundred dollars flushed down the toilet, because buybots aren't even touching Uro at the moment. Glad they were able to destroy massive values in a random wednesday footnote announcement. Way to go. Even doing the right thing you piss people off.

[BeneTleilax]

The broken deck is dead, all hail the broken deck!

[cfusionpm]

Yep. I just sold my Uros for $15 tix. I paid $60 tix each. Represents a 75% loss.

I am happy they're doing it. But I wish they hadn't named it by name. I wish they would announce that "It may be addressed at a future B&R" to keep speculation. Lots of players just got f**ked out of a lot of money. Uro and Uro decks were by far the most expensive things in Modern, and who knows how they will exist (or if they will exist) without a key piece.

[Simto]

Sorry you lost so much on them We all basically knew it was coming. Wonder how the meta will shape up now.

[Ulka]

I'm also super interested in where the format will end up now. I'm starting to look at what deck I want to rebuild to start playing online again with.

[cfusionpm]

Sorry you lost so much on them We all basically knew it was coming. Wonder how the meta will shape up now.

I think that's what bothers me the most. This wasn't a B&R announcement, this wasn't a Monday "we're going to make a B&R announcement next Monday" announcement, this was a footnote in a totally unrelated article that openly and explicitly named Uro. Which means there was no period of speculation or "maybe" as people could choose to sell or hold based on individual interpretations. It was straight-up "We are banning Uro. And we're telling you at a random, unconventional time, in a random, unconventional manner. Enjoy your financial loss."

It's like WOTC can't do anything right. And even when they DO do something right, they find a way to screw it up.

I'm also super interested in where the format will end up now. I'm starting to look at what deck I want to rebuild to start playing online again with.

Assuming Tibalt's Trickery gets dealt with, the Omnath/Titan/Field decks will likely continue to be great, which is why I only sold my Uros and kept everything else. Honestly, Uro was great, but so is almost every other card in that deck.

[Bearscape]

-4 Uro
+4 Growth Spiral\

if they dont ban Field of the Dead too. But hey, better than nothing. I'm curious to see if we'll get more changes. I expect the cmc of MDFCs to be erratad sometime in the near future at the least

[The Fluff]

some of the twitter comments are hilarious.

now the question is.. would Uro decks evolve into another form and still be competitive?

[cfusionpm]

Honestly, I've won a LOT of games and matches with Omnath Uro, having never actually cast Uro. I could see myself easily replacing Uro with 3x Growth Spiral 1x Primeval Titan and calling it a day.

[Tzoulis]

I think that's what bothers me the most. This wasn't a B&R announcement, this wasn't a Monday "we're going to make a B&R announcement next Monday" announcement, this was a footnote in a totally unrelated article that openly and explicitly named Uro. Which means there was no period of speculation or "maybe" as people could choose to sell or hold based on individual interpretations. It was straight-up "We are banning Uro. And we're telling you at a random, unconventional time, in a random, unconventional manner. Enjoy your financial loss."

Unrelated? It's an article that sells a card they've decided to ban in several formats. If anything it is one of the best times to say it.

If anything you're upset about your financial loss not about the health of the format, and given that you were willing to sell for a while now you've only yourself to blame and you're shifting the blame to WotC for something that had a high probability of happening.

I've got 4 foil physical Uros that I never got to play with and I'm not upset about it, my fear is that they leave FotD out of the announcement.

now the question is.. would Uro decks evolve into another form and still be competitive?

As @Bearscape said, if FotD remains, the replacement is Growth, and the decks will probably have a slightly worse aggro match up, but midrange/non green control still won't be able to keep up with Gxx control/Ramp. If they ban Field (and depending on whether they unban anything) many things change, but I can see aggro dominating.

I think they'll also apply the split card rule change to stop the cascading shenanigans with Valki-Tibalt.

[cfusionpm]

Unrelated? It's an article that sells a card they've decided to ban in several formats. If anything it is one of the best times to say it.

If anything you're upset about your financial loss not about the health of the format, and given that you were willing to sell for a while now you've only yourself to blame and you're shifting the blame to WotC for something that had a high probability of happening.

I've got 4 foil physical Uros that I never got to play with and I'm not upset about it, my fear is that they leave FotD out of the announcement.

I'm not mad that they banned, I'm mad that they randomly banned it NOW. On a Wednesday, for totally unrelated-to-gameplay reasons. If they wanted to ban it for gameplay reasons, it should have been banned MONTHS ago. But it wasn't. It was allowed to stay, as a considerable part of the meta, month after month. So WOTC was effectively telegraphing to us "this is OK." Which led to people (like me) buying into it under the premise that if it was going to be banned, we would at least be given a heads up in the form of "We have a B&R affecting multiple formats next Monday," which gives ample opportunity for those who think it could be Uro to dump them before the official announcement and avoid a crash that sees its value plummet by the minute.

But no. It's not until they sell us a Secret Lair that they suddenly think: "Well.... I guess if we might ban it in the near future anyway, people are going to be SUPER MAD if they spend a bunch of money on a new reprint. So we might as well just ban it now, to be sure!"

So, totally unrelated to its toxic metagame presence, and totally unrelated to any tournament scene, paper, digital, or otherwise, Uro randomly banned out of nowhere, outside of a B&R announcement, buried in an unrelated article, on a Wednesday morning.

Jesus Christ, they could not have done this in a worse way.

*I am using today as effectively a "ban" because they conclusively said they are banning it, it just won't take effect until Monday.

[FoodChainGoblins]

Firstly, I don't care that much about mtg right now, having lost my local paper tournaments and competition. But ... I do care enough to respond here.

I am a bit torn on how WotC said that they would ban Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. I think it's good that people KNOW before they buy a product that the product is going to have banned card(s) in the near future. It's a whole hell of a lot better than letting you buy the product, then banning a week later. THAT would be ... TERRIBLE.

But I guess technically it's better to ban now and then come out with the product. In this situation, it helps the consumer more, but WotC will lose a bit more profit. When a card HAS been banned and is in a product, they will sell significantly fewer copies than if they say a "ban is in the future." Uro is only usable in Legacy after this and the pimped out versions they play are full art foils. I know Legacy players. I was one for quite a long time with many pimped decks and I saw many pimped decks. SL foils are not common.

[cfusionpm]

But I guess technically it's better to ban now and then come out with the product.

The best time to ban Uro was 3-6 months ago. At least when they let Faithless Looting rot in Modern for a year longer than it should have, there was a cataclysmic broken mess that forced their hand. Here? Absolutely nothing gameplay related. Purely money and sales.

If the card is broken, ban it. Theros Beyond Death released over a year ago, and Uro's brokenness was a mystery to noone. The timing of this ban screams that they do not give a f**k about Modern. Because nothing related to Uro has changed for at least 5 months, since the printing of Omnath.

[The Fluff]

Money and sales are important. A lot more people would be enraged if wotc let them buy product, then ban something from said product.

[iTaLenTZ]

They also said they are still working on the full announcement hinting there are more bannings to come. Uro was too strong and I understand the ban but I don't think it will change much. So many fundamentally broken cards have been printed in such a short time frame that it is easily replaced with something else that is just as broken.

For instance Omnath kind of fulfills the same role and W6 is just too good. All these 4c/5c goodstuff piles have taken away a lot of deck and colour restrictions. Veil of Summer is still legal. This balance must be restored. The problem is that the best thing to do in Modern is to ignore your opponent and just play the most degenerate deck out there and that has been the case for at least 4-5 years now.

[motleyslayer]

I'll start this off by saying I'm really glad they let us know their intent on banning Uro before people went out and bought the secret lair, it'll save a bunch of angry people after.

I'm really hoping this Uro ban weakens the 4c/5c good stuff piles or makes them unplayable (I'd be fine with weakening). Uro just snowballs games way too much, so I'll be glad it's gone from the formats I mostly play.

I'm intrigued by them saying they're internally discussing a larger update, so do you think we'll see more bans? or even unbans?

[cfusionpm]

Money and sales are important. A lot more people would be enraged if wotc let them buy product, then ban something from said product.

Yeah, I can't imagine what that would be like!

But in case it wasn't clear, I'm not mad that Uro is banned. I'm mad that, if they were going to ban it, it should have been banned at least 2-3 months ago.

I'm intrigued by them saying they're internally discussing a larger update, so do you think we'll see more bans? or even unbans?

I'm guessing they're figuring out how they want to deal with Tibalt, and likely tossing around Field of the Dead as well.

[robertleva]

I know this isnt technically part of the topic but why would you knowingly sell 4x Uros at a 75% loss? Aren't they worth more in play value as staples of another format? I get that you don't play pioneer, but why not save them in case you change your mind? I don't play legacy, but I never get rid of cards that get banned from my primary format on the off chance I might want them for a diff one later.