[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
cfusionpm Yeah, the list is the one I thought it'd be. These kind of lists post board trim Thopter/Sword (and always have) because of them being less effective in G2/G3 in non aggro/combo lists, that's why Stony is ineffective against them. You just board in Tezzerets and go Sai's/Saheeli's. RiP is a better card.
I know this. And most people know this. But Stony is just in a lot of peoples' sideboards. And whether or not it is effective against everything, it does have purposes besides just stopping the combo (like it shuts off my ability to produce mana from Astrolab and Amber, which hurts my ability to make red and black).

I feel like this comment is similar to saying something like: "Twin players always board out pieces of the combo, because it's less effective G2/G3, that's why Spellskite is ineffective against them. You just board in Blood Moons and Keranos and beat in with Snapcasters. More discard and counterspells are just better."

Except that the comparison of Urza's backup plans (make a huge amount of token creatures, as well as massive constructs, as well as outright win with Tezz, in addition to tutoring and recurring hate pieces like Needle and Bridge) seem a lot better than "cross fingers that Blood Moon does anything" and "hope Keranos isn't discarded before you can tap out to cast a 5 drop." This deck is so much better than Twin, it's not even close.
A midrange deck that is relevant against Urza Thopter/Sword is 5-Color Niv, it has enough disruption (Unmoored Ego maindeck as well) and a relatively fast clock.
Maybe? I've only seen it once, and won 2-1. But I've seen Unmoored Ego a few times. They keep naming either Foundry or Sword instead of Urza though. Ego has yet to cost me a game.
My point about Leagues was about the kind of players you'd expect to find there. If you're doing it for fun, sure, all the more power to you, but I think you'd agree that balancing around casual play is a lost cause. I'll also agree on your point on the power lever discrepancy between T1 and T2.
I also stand by that Leagues themselves are mostly irrelevant and pointless too. Besides the skewed and purposely misleading reporting that tells us nothing about what the format looks like, the construction of Leagues in general has no analog to paper. It is non-swiss and you could literally be paired up against five 0-X's or five X-0's. Meaning your matchups are so wildly variance-dependent that putting any weight on them competitively is silly, IMO. They're a neat bragging right, and maybe enough of them could show that a pile of cards isn't totally non-functional, but they say nothing about a deck's true competitive strength. Never mind that decks which require tedious clicking loops (like Urza) are artificially lowered due to the nature of playing them on a digital platform that doesn't automate loops and you can lose to the clock in a game or match you decisively would have won in paper (had that happen a few times too).

Edit: I'll add that my personal stance is that Emry or Urza should have been banned outright. Opal was NOT the problem with this deck. And the only reason I bought into it was because of the price drops before people realize this deck is still one of the best things you can be doing in Modern.
Last edited by cfusionpm 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

It has not even been a week and already there are calls for new bans! This is silly. There is no way to know yet with any confidence if last week's bans did anything to Urza decks.

This conversation went from talking about how Veil leads to one dimensional games of Magic to literally exactly where we were last week (and the week before), whining about how Urza is too strong. It's remarkable how quickly our discussions devolve into ban mania.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
It has not even been a week and already there are calls for new bans! This is silly. There is no way to know yet with any confidence if last week's bans did anything to Urza decks.

This conversation went from talking about how Veil leads to one dimensional games of Magic to literally exactly where we were last week (and the week before), whining about how Urza is too strong. It's remarkable how quickly our discussions devolve into ban mania.
Blame Wizards for that. Look at the past 12 months:

7 Modern bans
25 Non-Pioneer bans
34 Total bans


Maybe they should stop printing stupid, busted, powerful things. :thinking:

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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Blame Wizards for that. Look at the past 12 months:

7 Modern bans
25 Non-Pioneer bans
34 Total bans

Maybe they should stop printing stupid, busted, powerful things.
I could also extrapolate this to show justification in Wotc putting more attention into Modern in terms of banning to get it's gameplay standards into a productive and fun area.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Blame Wizards for that. Look at the past 12 months:

7 Modern bans
25 Non-Pioneer bans
34 Total bans

Maybe they should stop printing stupid, busted, powerful things.
I could also extrapolate this to show justification in Wotc putting more attention into Modern in terms of banning to get it's gameplay standards into a productive and fun area.
If that's actually the case, we got a LONG way to go.

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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
It has not even been a week and already there are calls for new bans! This is silly. There is no way to know yet with any confidence if last week's bans did anything to Urza decks.

This conversation went from talking about how Veil leads to one dimensional games of Magic to literally exactly where we were last week (and the week before), whining about how Urza is too strong. It's remarkable how quickly our discussions devolve into ban mania.
Blame Wizards for that. Look at the past 12 months:

7 Modern bans
25 Non-Pioneer bans
34 Total bans


Maybe they should stop printing stupid, busted, powerful things. :thinking:
I do not fault them for trying to print more powerful cards. Modern Horizons was a risk and it was largely successful in my opinion. Hogaak was obviously a mistake but there are lots of cards from that set which have been widely adopted across Modern.

If they are paying any attention, they could use MH2 to start printing Modern power level responses to balance all the new threats in the format.

From a discussion perspective, this thread goes through cycles of useful dialogue and reversion to ban mania. It gets tiring. I don't know how many times I (and others) can argue that bans won't get us out of this mess. We need a clear mission statement from WotC and well designed new interaction to bring things into balance and restore player confidence.

Bouncing from ban to ban without any other actions will only further destabilize the format and contribute to its premature ending.

Bans without a mission statement from WotC will kill Modern faster than printing broken cards.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Edit: I'll add that my personal stance is that Emry or Urza should have been banned outright. Opal was NOT the problem with this deck. And the only reason I bought into it was because of the price drops before people realize this deck is still one of the best things you can be doing in Modern.
This is exactly what I was thinking. But I haven't heard much buzz about Urza decks the past week (I haven't heard anybody say that they are going to break it again). Now I'm not so sure. Affinity and Hardened Scales definitely took hits, even if both were Tier 2 and Tier 3.
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 Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Edit: I'll add that my personal stance is that Emry or Urza should have been banned outright. Opal was NOT the problem with this deck. And the only reason I bought into it was because of the price drops before people realize this deck is still one of the best things you can be doing in Modern.
This is exactly what I was thinking. But I haven't heard much buzz about Urza decks the past week (I haven't heard anybody say that they are going to break it again). Now I'm not so sure. Affinity and Hardened Scales definitely took hits, even if both were Tier 2 and Tier 3.
I've not played against Urza much since Emry joined the team. However, people were calling for an Urza ban before Emry was printed so I'm not sure that this whole process is logical.

Before Emry joined the team I tested against Urza more frequently than any other deck. It is beatable if you know what you are doing. I was playing Mardu Pyro or Shadow. If I tried to play a grindy long game I would lose. If I played the beat down role then I could win. If Opal made an early appearance it was very hard to race. I think the Opal ban will make the deck more reasonable. Mox Amber forces color concessions which weakens the deck as a whole.

My point is that I don't think the deck is as egregious as people want it to be. Oko was a very bad design that slotted effortlessly into Simic/BUG Urza which took a borderline deck and made it broken. People should play some games against the Oko/Opal-free Urza decks before calling for more bans.

People are maybe rightfully scared of another Hogaak situation where they ban the wrong card and wait before acting again. Except, Oko was clearly the most broken card in the deck, probably in the entire format.

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Post by motleyslayer » 4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Edit: I'll add that my personal stance is that Emry or Urza should have been banned outright. Opal was NOT the problem with this deck. And the only reason I bought into it was because of the price drops before people realize this deck is still one of the best things you can be doing in Modern.
This is exactly what I was thinking. But I haven't heard much buzz about Urza decks the past week (I haven't heard anybody say that they are going to break it again). Now I'm not so sure. Affinity and Hardened Scales definitely took hits, even if both were Tier 2 and Tier 3.
I've not played against Urza much since Emry joined the team. However, people were calling for an Urza ban before Emry was printed so I'm not sure that this whole process is logical.

Before Emry joined the team I tested against Urza more frequently than any other deck. It is beatable if you know what you are doing. I was playing Mardu Pyro or Shadow. If I tried to play a grindy long game I would lose. If I played the beat down role then I could win. If Opal made an early appearance it was very hard to race. I think the Opal ban will make the deck more reasonable. Mox Amber forces color concessions which weakens the deck as a whole.

My point is that I don't think the deck is as egregious as people want it to be. Oko was a very bad design that slotted effortlessly into Simic/BUG Urza which took a borderline deck and made it broken. People should play some games against the Oko/Opal-free Urza decks before calling for more bans.

People are maybe rightfully scared of another Hogaak situation where they ban the wrong card and wait before acting again. Except, Oko was clearly the most broken card in the deck, probably in the entire format.
I understand not wanting another Hogaak situation where they banned the wrong card but I don't think it'll happen this time around.

In between Oko and opal being banned, I think that people will have to essentially reinvent the deck to something else. And I think the decks will be much slower without opal around.

Hogaak as a card was partially ridiculous because of how easy it was to cast it so cheap, in between using your little creatures to the delve cost, which was really easy in the deck.

I think only time will tell before we should call for another ban

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Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Edit: I'll add that my personal stance is that Emry or Urza should have been banned outright. Opal was NOT the problem with this deck. And the only reason I bought into it was because of the price drops before people realize this deck is still one of the best things you can be doing in Modern.
This is exactly what I was thinking. But I haven't heard much buzz about Urza decks the past week (I haven't heard anybody say that they are going to break it again). Now I'm not so sure. Affinity and Hardened Scales definitely took hits, even if both were Tier 2 and Tier 3.
I've not played against Urza much since Emry joined the team. However, people were calling for an Urza ban before Emry was printed so I'm not sure that this whole process is logical.

Before Emry joined the team I tested against Urza more frequently than any other deck. It is beatable if you know what you are doing. I was playing Mardu Pyro or Shadow. If I tried to play a grindy long game I would lose. If I played the beat down role then I could win. If Opal made an early appearance it was very hard to race. I think the Opal ban will make the deck more reasonable. Mox Amber forces color concessions which weakens the deck as a whole.

My point is that I don't think the deck is as egregious as people want it to be. Oko was a very bad design that slotted effortlessly into Simic/BUG Urza which took a borderline deck and made it broken. People should play some games against the Oko/Opal-free Urza decks before calling for more bans.

People are maybe rightfully scared of another Hogaak situation where they ban the wrong card and wait before acting again. Except, Oko was clearly the most broken card in the deck, probably in the entire format.
It's just ban mania at this point and nothing in the last week has suggested that Urza is dominating the format. The decks that have been doing well the last week are Titan style decks and hyper aggro decks like Mono Red Prowress. This is to be expected as they are easy decks to fall back on following a big banning such as the one we just experienced. It's way too early to make any calls and this includes cards such as Veil as the format hasn't calmed down enough to make any fair assessments

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Post by Trazaeth » 4 years ago

Let's hope MH2 has better answers and less pushed threats.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

Trazaeth wrote:
4 years ago
Let's hope MH2 has better answers and less pushed threats.
Answers don't sell packs. :sweat:

But in all seriousness, my personal stance on Urza is that the correct ban prior to Mox Opal, should have been Emry or Urza himself. With the banning of Mox Opal, some of the starts aren't as explosive, but I could imagine it feels like playing Amulet Titan without Summer Bloom. It's still doing stupid busted things, but it's doing them on turn 3 and 4 instead of turn 1 and 2. Whether or not this is OK for Modern is up to interpretation, and the lasting impact of Oko-less Modern has yet to be seen. Honestly Mox seems to have changed nothing meaningful at top tables. And Lattice was more of a side annoyance than any prevalent problem. Modern hasn't really changed as a result of this ban, especially if you consider the Oko blip just a fluke. The best decks are still the best decks, and they are still orders of magnitude better than the Tier 2+ decks.

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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
It has not even been a week and already there are calls for new bans! This is silly. There is no way to know yet with any confidence if last week's bans did anything to Urza decks.

This conversation went from talking about how Veil leads to one dimensional games of Magic to literally exactly where we were last week (and the week before), whining about how Urza is too strong. It's remarkable how quickly our discussions devolve into ban mania.
I understand your perspective, but what I perhaps failed to clarify is that bans no longer have to be strictly viewed through the lens of deck performance, the last announcement made it abundantly clear that fun can be the primary banning reason, for me, that means its open season on a lot of decks or cards that probably should have been hit years ago.

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Post by Albegas » 4 years ago

To this day, I don't think fun factor is a true ban factor. Rather, I think it's a litmus test for Wizards to see if a deck needs to be adjusted. Looking back on decks hit for being "unfun":
  • Marvel in Standard: this is already weird in the fact that Standard cannot fail and thus is already more subject to loosely defined bans, but Marvel decks already had a non-negligible chance of ending games on T5 in an era where the power of answers was at an all-time low
  • Nexus in Pioneer: Nexus decks were already lined up to be dominant, and while Nexus was labeled frustrating, it's also incompatible with Arena, so in the long run it was destined to be unplayable or banned
  • Lattice in Tron: Tron decks in general were actually doing well in spite of Oko decks, and the Lattice combo was murder on decks that are slow to develop board states like Control or Jund (which were on a notable decline) so it's not unreasonable to apply a slight nerf that keeps the deck intact while creating opportunities for dying decks to thrive again
So while decks being "unfun" may lead to bans, I don't think they have been or should be the deciding factors on bans outside of Standard or Limited

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

Albegas wrote:
4 years ago
To this day, I don't think fun factor is a true ban factor. Rather, I think it's a litmus test for Wizards to see if a deck needs to be adjusted. Looking back on decks hit for being "unfun":
It's one test among many. While fun isn't outright stated as a banning criteria for Modern, data shows that unfun formats sell worse. And there have now been three bans in Modern based on fun.

Second Sunrise which didn't explicitly call for it, but was mentioned in other articles by Wizards. And the popular sentiment of people just checking out mid combo (remember Kiblers F6 paper?)

KCI, which did explicitly mention fun
We're sensitive to community feedback that the combination of polarized matchups, complex interactions, and long turns can lead to unenjoyable gameplay and viewing experiences.

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Post by Ed06288 » 4 years ago

I understand why mox opal had to go and I want it to stay for personal reasons. But at the same time I don't understand why mox opal and kci get banned when stuff like scrap trawler gets a pass. or whatever other nonsense they recently printed. mox opal and kci existed together in the format for a long time together without any problems, we already had a ban on second sunrise.

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Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
Albegas wrote:
4 years ago
To this day, I don't think fun factor is a true ban factor. Rather, I think it's a litmus test for Wizards to see if a deck needs to be adjusted. Looking back on decks hit for being "unfun":
It's one test among many. While fun isn't outright stated as a banning criteria for Modern, data shows that unfun formats sell worse. And there have now been three bans in Modern based on fun.

Second Sunrise which didn't explicitly call for it, but was mentioned in other articles by Wizards. And the popular sentiment of people just checking out mid combo (remember Kiblers F6 paper?)

KCI, which did explicitly mention fun
We're sensitive to community feedback that the combination of polarized matchups, complex interactions, and long turns can lead to unenjoyable gameplay and viewing experiences.
Secound Sunrise wasn't banned from a fun stand point at all though, instead it was a logistical one. Maybe you don't remember but it was making every round at major tournaments drag in turns. Basically time would be called and the round could go for another 20 mins during turns due to how long it took the eggs player to go off

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
I've not played against Urza much since Emry joined the team. However, people were calling for an Urza ban before Emry was printed so I'm not sure that this whole process is logical.

Before Emry joined the team I tested against Urza more frequently than any other deck. It is beatable if you know what you are doing. I was playing Mardu Pyro or Shadow. If I tried to play a grindy long game I would lose. If I played the beat down role then I could win. If Opal made an early appearance it was very hard to race. I think the Opal ban will make the deck more reasonable. Mox Amber forces color concessions which weakens the deck as a whole.

My point is that I don't think the deck is as egregious as people want it to be. Oko was a very bad design that slotted effortlessly into Simic/BUG Urza which took a borderline deck and made it broken. People should play some games against the Oko/Opal-free Urza decks before calling for more bans.

People are maybe rightfully scared of another Hogaak situation where they ban the wrong card and wait before acting again. Except, Oko was clearly the most broken card in the deck, probably in the entire format.
Urza, Lord High Artificer will eat a ban, guaranteed. I just talked to my friend who qualified for his first Pro Tour with Whirza (before Oko). He's in a group that is testing RUG Whirza. They already have a list and it looks...insane. I wouldn't say that it's Hogaak after the Bridge from Below ban because Bridge literally only made Hogaak win via non combat, but the clock was nearly the same, but it's damn strong looking. I look forward to rubbing it in WotC's face again that they banned the wrong card because they're actively avoiding the real problem.
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 Albegas » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
Albegas wrote:
4 years ago
To this day, I don't think fun factor is a true ban factor. Rather, I think it's a litmus test for Wizards to see if a deck needs to be adjusted. Looking back on decks hit for being "unfun":
It's one test among many. While fun isn't outright stated as a banning criteria for Modern, data shows that unfun formats sell worse. And there have now been three bans in Modern based on fun.

Second Sunrise which didn't explicitly call for it, but was mentioned in other articles by Wizards. And the popular sentiment of people just checking out mid combo (remember Kiblers F6 paper?)

KCI, which did explicitly mention fun
We're sensitive to community feedback that the combination of polarized matchups, complex interactions, and long turns can lead to unenjoyable gameplay and viewing experiences.
There is a small, but significant, difference between detecting a problem because a format is deemed "unfun" and banning specifically because a deck is deemed "unfun". With the sole exception of Aether Marvel (which arguably merits its own discussion), every deck that's ever been deemed unfun had an underlying factor that made bans necessary. As Amalgam pointed out, in the very example you gave, Second Sunrise created absurd logistical issues that lead to unforgivably long turns (you shouldn't be able to buy lunch during an opponent's turn and still come back to that same turn). Sure, maybe complaints of it being unfun lead to WotC investigating if the deck needed a hit, but in the end, the logistical issues were the reason it was hit.

To clarify my point, there's a difference between:
A deck is considered "unfun" by players → The deck commits format sins (logistics, too many 50/50+ match-ups, etc.) → ban something to nerf it significantly
and
A deck is considered "unfun" by players → ban something to nerf it significantly

The former is simply decent format management. Format dissatisfaction is easily measured by player attendance, and ignoring it otherwise is nothing short of extremely dumb. The latter sends a message that you're only allowed to have fun in predetermined ways, and anything that goes against that flow is subject to a ban even if the deck is relatively harmless, a mindset that would be detrimental to any non-rotating format

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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
I've not played against Urza much since Emry joined the team. However, people were calling for an Urza ban before Emry was printed so I'm not sure that this whole process is logical.

Before Emry joined the team I tested against Urza more frequently than any other deck. It is beatable if you know what you are doing. I was playing Mardu Pyro or Shadow. If I tried to play a grindy long game I would lose. If I played the beat down role then I could win. If Opal made an early appearance it was very hard to race. I think the Opal ban will make the deck more reasonable. Mox Amber forces color concessions which weakens the deck as a whole.

My point is that I don't think the deck is as egregious as people want it to be. Oko was a very bad design that slotted effortlessly into Simic/BUG Urza which took a borderline deck and made it broken. People should play some games against the Oko/Opal-free Urza decks before calling for more bans.

People are maybe rightfully scared of another Hogaak situation where they ban the wrong card and wait before acting again. Except, Oko was clearly the most broken card in the deck, probably in the entire format.
Urza, Lord High Artificer will eat a ban, guaranteed. I just talked to my friend who qualified for his first Pro Tour with Whirza (before Oko). He's in a group that is testing RUG Whirza. They already have a list and it looks...insane. I wouldn't say that it's Hogaak after the Bridge from Below ban because Bridge literally only made Hogaak win via non combat, but the clock was nearly the same, but it's damn strong looking. I look forward to rubbing it in WotC's face again that they banned the wrong card because they're actively avoiding the real problem.
I'm not worried about Urza. Your friends may have a good list but going into a Modern tournament Urza is not my biggest consideration. That alone is why we don't need another ban.

I want Urza to exist as a competitive deck. It is a strong card. It doesn't have to be bannable to be playable.

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Post by Ed06288 » 4 years ago

The pattern is to print broken cards that fit into an archetype with a powerful old card but ban the old card so you can't play the same deck for 10 years.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
I'm not worried about Urza. Your friends may have a good list but going into a Modern tournament Urza is not my biggest consideration. That alone is why we don't need another ban.

I want Urza to exist as a competitive deck. It is a strong card. It doesn't have to be bannable to be playable.
This is not my friends playtesting for a Modern tournament. It's my friend with a dedicated group of Pros keeping the deck competitive and trying to play the best deck they can.

You may want Urza to be a competitive deck, but I can assure you Urza is not going to get the Mishra's Workshop treatment. WotC will not continue to ban 10 cards around Urza so that it doesn't stay the best deck. Hogaak proved that. Everyone knew that Hogaak was the problem, not a card that had existed in Modern for 9 years without a problem … no, not even ever played until Gerry Thompson played a flash in the pan Bridge from Below deck with Stitcher's Supplier (hell of a card!). I hope for your sake that something else doesn't eventually get banned from Urza decks because it will indeed be Urza this time. It was just an excuse to ban a card that WotC could have banned any time in Modern honestly. But they chose to do it now.

*I could care less. I play Amulet. I will be sad to see Once Upon a Time or more likely, Primeval Titan banned. I could care less about other cards. I bought Mox Opals at $18 when they came out in Standard and literally never played them until Urza decks (outside of a tiny bit of Affinity and Scales).
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 ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Albegas wrote:
4 years ago
To clarify my point, there's a difference between:
A deck is considered "unfun" by players → The deck commits format sins (logistics, too many 50/50+ match-ups, etc.) → ban something to nerf it significantly
and
A deck is considered "unfun" by players → ban something to nerf it significantly

The former is simply decent format management. Format dissatisfaction is easily measured by player attendance, and ignoring it otherwise is nothing short of extremely dumb. The latter sends a message that you're only allowed to have fun in predetermined ways, and anything that goes against that flow is subject to a ban even if the deck is relatively harmless, a mindset that would be detrimental to any non-rotating format
This is an important distinction, and was (if I remember correctly, which I might not) the crux of an argument I had with [mention]gkourou[/mention] a few years back. With the exception of Marvel, which had an entire article justifying the ban, I can't think of a contemporary ban that was based solely on an unfun play pattern. There's certainly no Modern ban that fits this model. Every other ban from 2011 through 2019 (more on 2020 in a moment) cited multiple factors in addition to the alleged unfun factor. And that was if Wizards even noted the deck having an unfun play pattern, as many ban updates never said that. KCI is a good example of an update that clearly discusses the deck not being fun, but also clearly establishes the ban baseline with a laundry list of other violations.

Oko and Opal also don't fit this model, as both bans primarily revolved around win rates and metagame share. That is to say, they were dominance bans. Lattice is a different story. For reference (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... nouncement):
Lastly, we'd like to take this opportunity to address another problematic interaction between Karn, the Great Creator and Mycosynth Lattice. This combination, popular in Eldrazi and other Tron decks, can completely lock the opponent out from casting further spells. While decks featuring this combination often win in other ways, the deckbuilding cost to include this interaction is low, causing it to show up more often than is fun in competitive play. As a result, we are banning Mycosynth Lattice in Modern.

While the primary motivation for this last change is the unfun play pattern, we also intend for this to be a small but meaningful balance change to Eldrazi and other Tron decks. We feel this is warranted based on the popularity and strength of those decks in the metagame.
Emphasis added. This is the first Modern format ban that was primarily driven by an unfun play pattern, with the metagame justifications coming in second. Note that metagame justifications are still included! Fun alone did not kill Lattice. Wizards explicitly cites this secondary motivation ("we also intend...") to "balance" Eldrazi and Tron decks in the post-ban metagame. But even so, Wizards couldn't be clearer about fun being "the primary motivation for this last change."

Based on this, it is very clear that Modern bans can now happen even if the primary offense is an unfun play pattern. This is distinct from an unfun play pattern being symptomatic of a dominant deck that wins too much, too fast, or eats up too much metagame share. I am a big fan of this change in ban policy because Modern needs more curation in order to nerf problematic decks without killing them outright. Indeed, I am such a fan of this change that I went on the record calling for the Lattice ban prior to the 13th. We need more bans like this to smooth out Modern's Tier 1 and even Tier 2 decks.

Re: Urza ban talk
I am much more hesitant to participate in Urza ban speculation or axe-waving at this time. Unlike Lattice, Urza is actually the core, defining feature of a certain kind of deck. The bar to go after these kinds of cards is much higher than it is for Lattice. Contrast this with nonsense like Veil and OUaT which provide significant buffs to decks that were already playable. They also do this without actually adding anything to the deck's core identities. Infect, Amulet Titan, Titanshift, Simic Titan, Devoted Devastation, Yawgmoth Combo, and others are perfectly functional, legitimate Modern contenders without these added consistency/resiliency boosts. OUaT is particularly egregious with green getting both Stirrings and OUaT while blue is stuck with Opt, SV, and 2 CMC Preordain. So for now, I'm going to wait and see if we can gather more Urza data to make a case on that. But these other ridiculous 2019 design mistakes that empower unfair decks at the margin? I'm happy blasting those all day.
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Yawgmoth
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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
I'm not worried about Urza. Your friends may have a good list but going into a Modern tournament Urza is not my biggest consideration. That alone is why we don't need another ban.

I want Urza to exist as a competitive deck. It is a strong card. It doesn't have to be bannable to be playable.
This is not my friends playtesting for a Modern tournament. It's my friend with a dedicated group of Pros keeping the deck competitive and trying to play the best deck they can.

You may want Urza to be a competitive deck, but I can assure you Urza is not going to get the Mishra's Workshop treatment. WotC will not continue to ban 10 cards around Urza so that it doesn't stay the best deck. Hogaak proved that. Everyone knew that Hogaak was the problem, not a card that had existed in Modern for 9 years without a problem … no, not even ever played until Gerry Thompson played a flash in the pan Bridge from Below deck with Stitcher's Supplier (hell of a card!). I hope for your sake that something else doesn't eventually get banned from Urza decks because it will indeed be Urza this time. It was just an excuse to ban a card that WotC could have banned any time in Modern honestly. But they chose to do it now.
I'm not sure what your point is. To be clear, I don't play Urza but I love playing against it. People have claimed it was broken for the past year but I have not had issues with it personally.

Maybe your friends will break Urza, good for them I suppose. I want Modern to be a diverse format with multiple competitive decks rather than a format which jumps from one broken deck to another. At that point you may as well play Standard. This is why I have been gravitating towards Legacy lately, there is no obviously best deck and people arent hellbent on breaking the game.

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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

Legacy is bar far and away better in terms of ban talk.
Fewer bans because the crowd as a whole does not like them and the control tools are there.
Veil is an insanely good card in Legacy, where blue dominates, and yet very, very few people think of banning it, partly because Show and Tell is insanely great, Grisselbrand is great, Chalice is great....you get the picture. Obviously maindecking Veil comes at a cost when decks like DnT, Goblins, Maverick etc. all exist and in a format as wide as it is, even sideboard slots are important too. Astrolabe is a more likely long term ban, as it violates the unwritten rule that five colours comes at a cost namely vulnerability to Moon and Wastelands. Obviously nerfing five colour piles won't affect dual land prices, so they are in a better position to act without hurting wallets.

They are reluctant to ban entire strategies in Modern, and try to slightly reduce power, leading to frustration from those hurt and from those who feel that the ban is insufficient, which it was in the Hoogy ban, for example. In Legacy Top was banned, nerfing the whole countertop strategy, and Miracles, or so we thought at the time. The new predict Miracles decks appeared 6 months after, so everyone was a winner, though 90 PC if players thought the deck was dead post ban. Pile decks went the same way post DRS, and W6 nerfed RUG to UR.

Generally Modern has such a diverse crowd the bans seem to be a compromise, nerfing the entire strategy does not happen as often, leading to frequent bans. The card pool is more balanced in Legacy, it has 6 colours to Modern's 4...) Paying for the sins of X is not an idea that resonates in Legacy, unlike Modern where talk has been of banning Moon, Bridge, Veil, Lattice and other cards that are not issues in themselves but are issues in the format because of the decks they are in or because the card pool is unbalanced. They almost never ban Tron lands or Urza, say. Twin and Pod type bans are the exception to the rule in Modern.

Financially Legacy is better once you get your staples, the requirement to keep up is not as bad as Modern. Because of the paucity of events, lack of incentive and data, breaking the format open is hard, add in a superb pool where answers abound and everyone has fast mana, even if you have a superb deck there is always the ability to sit down and just get locked out or comboed out, people accept this as a part of the format.

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