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

Tomatotime
Posts: 197
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
How the %$#% do you go from "midrange loses to big mana" to "Do you have data that shows that players enjoy solitaire formats more than mid range formats" is beyond me.I never even implied something even remotely close to the latter. I said simply that "midrange loses to big mana", because that's what happens to every format in Magic. Nothing more.
If Modern became defined by decks with roughly 50/50 matchups and allowed for archetype diversity what exactly would be broken about it? Even if mid range decks were considered the top archetype in this scenario? How is that any worse than what we have now?

Tomatotime
Posts: 197
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
I disagree completely. The deck isnt broken by Titan. The deck exists for Titan.
This is all well and good, but we can apply this logic to many banned cards like Hogaak, KCI, etc. Ultimately the T3 goldfish for the deck are facilitated by Titan, even if Titan gets a pass this time around can we honestly assume Wotc just isn't going to print more OUaT or Utility lands in the future?

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

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Free ones? With rules that enable more aggressive mulligans?

Well, they could wise up and just...not.
UR Control UR

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

Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

I still say summoners pact is the one to hit. It lets you tutor and cast Titan in the same turn, then titans ETB pays for half the pact on its own, and the Titan trigger while also putting you up 2 mana gets to tutor you another pact for another Titan.

Cards like OUaT are far less consistent with that, and even if they weren't they go in multiple decks while pact pairs almost exclusively with Titan.

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

Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
If Modern became defined by decks with roughly 50/50 matchups and allowed for archetype diversity what exactly would be broken about it? Even if mid range decks were considered the top archetype in this scenario? How is that any worse than what we have now?
How is that better? You're arguing for a deck to keep its good match ups while eliminating its bad ones, making it the de facto best deck in the format by far, which will hurt diversity. We've had periods where mid range was the best thing with DRS Jund and Colorless Eldrazi. The foil to Colorless Eldrazi was UR Eldrazi that went (way) over it with cards such as Drowner of Hope.

Your solution is to bring midrange so over the top so it can reliably beat big mana, and not bringing big mana back in line with the rest.

For all its problems, Modern at the moment is pretty diverse, with Amulet Titan flirting with being the de facto best deck, but not by far.

@gkourou For the Titan match ups, I don't reaaaaally have a problem when I'm playing Grixis Urza, but then I have like 10 cards in my SB for it. Amulet destroys my Control decks though...

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

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Field of the dead + Once Upon A time + Veil of summer are the cards Wizards should ban if they want the upcoming PT's to be healthy and innovative and fair decks to have a chance to do well.
I'm good with that. Roll back the London Mulligan joke of a rule, and we are probably looking at the best Modern has been in a long long time.

Oh, and %$#% T3feri.
UR Control UR

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

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Teferi, I can understand why you don't like it, but modern is full of those cards and I don't think this card even makes it into the top 10 of worse designs.
Give me 10 worse cards for Modern, or Magic that are Modern legal. T3feri absolutely is one of the worst, without question.
UR Control UR

User avatar
Simto
Posts: 396
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Simto » 4 years ago

I miss playing Karn and grabbing Lattice from the sideboard against all those titan decks. It was the best hehe.

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

Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Free ones? With rules that enable more aggressive mulligans?

Well, they could wise up and just...not.
I seriously laughed pretty hard for it being 1 am. :laugh:

@everyone else - I also am in the camp of "don't ban Titan." I would be really sad to see the big guy go. Someone here asked does a Once Upon a Time ban hurt Amulet? Yes, most certainly it does. The card is bonkers in the deck and I have yet to play a deck that it's better in - mostly because there is no current deck better than Amulet (although non-Green Red Prowess is close). A Field of the Dead ban would knock Amulet down quite a notch and with OUaT banned as well, Amulet would go from the best deck to top 10. Trust me. I run the deck.
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

User avatar
Bearscape
Posts: 233
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

I think that Veil and OoAT (and tef3 to not be a massive hypocrite) should just be banned due to being awful, awful designs regardless of whether it would nerf Titan decks enough. After that we could just see whether Titan is still too much.

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

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

I just struggle to understand the other views on this.

You can either continue to ban out the REASON for decks to exist, effectively you can kill those decks, or you can ban the cards that make those decks too good.

What do you people want?

To me its simple, you ban out the cards that make decks too consistent or too strong, while you retain the point (Titan, whatever) of the deck.
UR Control UR

Tomatotime
Posts: 197
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
I just struggle to understand the other views on this.

You can either continue to ban out the REASON for decks to exist, effectively you can kill those decks, or you can ban the cards that make those decks too good.

What do you people want?

To me its simple, you ban out the cards that make decks too consistent or too strong, while you retain the point (Titan, whatever) of the deck.
The thing is this is one of the key sticking points that people cannot fully agree on in the first place. Let me be clear, reasonable people can disagree on this matter, but there simply is no consensus, if you went to a place like Reddit, from what I have seen, more people tend to favor just banning the problem card and not the support cards, though plenty of content creators like TCC would disagree.

But lets be honest here, this is not the first time Titan has grown out of control in Modern, it already helped dumpster the format once, and it is poised to do so again, how many tournaments were sacrificed on the alter of "pillars" being too special to get rid of. Even if you ban around the edges again, at the rate that Wotc is releasing product and the abject failure of Play Design, how long before Titan gets out of hand a third time? How many events can Modern afford to be a dumpster fire at this point?

People need to understand that if we want Modern to be commercially viable (some people might not actually want this which is fair) we need to actually make the format presentable to the public in a way that makes people want to play it. If people are shown Modern and all they see is degenerate crap, does this increase or decrease interest for the format? People need to think long and hard about what they actually want Modern to be,

User avatar
AvalonAurora
Posts: 182
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: they / them

Post by AvalonAurora » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
To me its simple, you ban out the cards that make decks too consistent or too strong, while you retain the point (Titan, whatever) of the deck.
While I don't think Titan is the problem, I am curious why you think it is the 'point' of the deck. Isn't the point more like things like Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle or Field of the Dead, with Titan primarily being another form of ramp to get lands out stapled to a big body? Effectively something that makes the deck more consistent by allowing quicker second state ramp once the early stage ramp to reach it is done? I can't think of any ramp similar quality to it, especially for getting out non-basics, off the top of my head, so I suspect a lot of decks wouldn't work nearly as well without it of course, but that doesn't make it the point of the deck, that makes it a key enabler that tutors and puts on the field the actual points of the deck at once.

Of course, it does so at 6 mana, and the format is supposed to be a 'turn 4 format' so I have a hard time seeing a 6 cmc card as the problem, so much as the lack of ability to slow or punish deck design that allows early ramping to get to that point consistently in goldfish.

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

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Well thats another issue all together. The fact (is it fact?) that the Titan decks have been able to consolidate into one. Is it Amulet? Is it Valakut/Field, or is it Titan?

I struggle to think that its the titan which is the issue, or that its a scapeshift. That is the bar for the format as you say.

Or, is the problem that there is no viable way to prevent ramp, there is no strategy other than to go under it blisteringly fast, because it is too consistent (OUAT/London Mull)?
Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
But lets be honest here, this is not the first time Titan has grown out of control in Modern, it already helped dumpster the format once, and it is poised to do so again, how many tournaments were sacrificed on the alter of "pillars" being too special to get rid of. Even if you ban around the edges again, at the rate that Wotc is releasing product and the abject failure of Play Design, how long before Titan gets out of hand a third time? How many events can Modern afford to be a dumpster fire at this point?

People need to understand that if we want Modern to be commercially viable (some people might not actually want this which is fair) we need to actually make the format presentable to the public in a way that makes people want to play it. If people are shown Modern and all they see is degenerate crap, does this increase or decrease interest for the format? People need to think long and hard about what they actually want Modern to be,
Titan went a VERY long time in obscurity after the ban to Bloom, and yes Play Design is a failure, but just how much wreckage do we need to leave behind before we understand that 'hey maybe we just dont introduce this %$#% design into Modern?'

Veil is bad.
OuaT is bad.
T3feri is bad.
Oko was bad.

These are cards that just dont need to be, and certainly dont need to be for longer periods of time.

Essentially what I'm getting at is this.
Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
People need to think long and hard about what they actually want Modern to be,
I want to time capsule the format, if something is able to organically grow and prosper (GDS) then so be it, but these forced injections of power are simply unable to be accounted for, and wildly swing the needle from playable, to tier, to broken, within weeks.

Modern's identity, should be tied to the decks which make up the meta game. I dont mean 'Modern is a Graveyard format' or 'Modern is linear'.

I mean Modern is Jund. Modern is Scapeshift. Modern is Tron. Modern is UW. Modern is Burn, and Modern is GDS and GW Combo.

These decks need to be within arms reach of balance, with eachother. They need to form the ecosystem. Introduce Urza? Fine. Break things with consistency cards that have no business being free, or cards that actively suppress the 'control' colors of the game? Not Fine.

Let Magic be played. Remove the cards that have no business existing, and let us get back to the formative stage of meta development.

Ban Veil, OuaT, and T3feri.
UR Control UR

Spsiegel1987
Posts: 38
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Spsiegel1987 » 4 years ago

So, I have seen Titan become extremely prevalent on MTGO, the Philadelphia Classic and a 75 man IQ I attended this weekend. The room literally must have been at least 15% of Titan decks. The winner of the recent classic played against Titan----a whopping 6 times.

The deck is absolutely a problem. It's not hoogak levels, but it's a problem.

While a ban to OUaT would make me sad as a 4C Shadow player, the card is an absolute all-star design mistake.

Field was an extremely poor design mistake, too.

Ban the two simultaneously and see if it's enough. OUaT is problematic in general. Field would target Titan specifically. Players literally saw entire decks become unplayable with Mox and Loot banned. Mardu doesn't exist, Phoenix straight up died, Lantern and Affinity variants are dead. The Mox opal ban was so significant that I don't even feel I need to run artifact hate anymore.

I think a Titan ban would really scare more players.


However, I would preface one thing: If a Field and OuAt ban is not enough to make Titan just another good deck, then Titan itself absolutely deserves the hammer. Titan has broken modern twice now---there are only so many passes it should get and if WOTC keeps developing cards for standard/limited that keep doing so, Titan needs to go.


WOTC needs to stop printing free cards or extremely devastating 1 mana spells that do like 3 things that have no building restrictions.

Uro isn't splashable, but god, imagine if he was like a UG 2 colorless. If Oko had been BBU or UUB he wouldn't have been in every single deck (Although his numbers still made him a mistake).

Also, I think it's time blue got a real cantrip, green for some reason cantrips better than blue.

Mapccu
Posts: 90
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Mapccu » 4 years ago

I think the problem with titan is how many lands we have that function as spells (or recurring spells). If titan was mana fixing, it's not a big deal. When cards like titan start becoming endless ranks of the dead or scapeshift shift becomes like 4 mana bolt you 7 times, we have issues.

They know they shouldn't staple effects that scale like this to lands and yet we see it happen again and again.

They know tutoring is dangerous, let alone cheap tutors.

They know free spells are dangerous.

A land with essentially landfall? Sounds like a design no no to me.

Here we are with free tutors or lands that act like free spells every turn. The problem with modern is a card design problem I think. I really don't see that getting any better in the short term. They've continuously broken their own rules or advice. If I had the patience I could comb maro's design articles to dig into dos and don'ts and find examples of a lot of what people are complaining listed as what not to do.

Green can't have direct damage like hornet's sting but we can have colorless zombie token machines on a hard to interact with permanent type. Shocker, green is the best at utilizing the card too, not even black.

Tomatotime
Posts: 197
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Titan went a VERY long time in obscurity after the ban to Bloom, and yes Play Design is a failure, but just how much wreckage do we need to leave behind before we understand that 'hey maybe we just dont introduce this %$#% design into Modern?'
I mean its kind of semantics, but Titanshift/Amulet Titan lists have been consistently T1-T2 post Summer Bloom banning over the years (Hoogak type metas notwithstanding).
idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Veil is bad.
OuaT is bad.
T3feri is bad.
Oko was bad.

These are cards that just dont need to be, and certainly dont need to be for longer periods of time.
What is this logic based off exactly? I could just as easily say that Tron lands "dont need to be for longer periods of time" or apply it to MANY other cards or archetypes in Modern which have had a provably greater impact on the format either currently or over the years, and I could back up my assertions with data if needed, after all, there is no data that proves T3feri is some menace on the format (not that I myself require data for bannings in the first place of course).
idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
I mean Modern is Jund. Modern is Scapeshift. Modern is Tron. Modern is UW. Modern is Burn, and Modern is GDS and GW Combo.

These decks need to be within arms reach of balance, with eachother.
The issue is that these two sentences don't even make sense, Jund has never been within arms reach of balance with Tron, nor has Tron ever been within an arms reach of balance with decks like Burn/Infect. It almost seems like you are simply romanticizing a format which never existed in the first place.
idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Let Magic be played. Remove the cards that have no business existing, and let us get back to the formative stage of meta development.
What exactly is the criteria for determining if a card had no business existing? And could you explain what a "formative stage of meta development" is exactly?

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

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
The issue is that these two sentences don't even make sense, Jund has never been within arms reach of balance with Tron, nor has Tron ever been within an arms reach of balance with decks like Burn/Infect. It almost seems like you are simply romanticizing a format which never existed in the first place.
I disagree. 60/40 is within reach, pre-board, to me.
UR Control UR

Tomatotime
Posts: 197
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
I disagree. 60/40 is within reach, pre-board, to me.
I mean....Do we have actual winrate data to prove that?

Mapccu
Posts: 90
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Mapccu » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
I disagree. 60/40 is within reach, pre-board, to me.
I mean....Do we have actual winrate data to prove that?
I see it like this. Decks like hogaak or oko urza are posting 55%+ win rates against several good decks, in large events, and there was a ton of data prior to those large events to take action. Why let these win rates get so far out of hand before action is taken.

I agree with idsurge. Do I want to see decks that have 50/50 against everything tier 1-3? No. But I would like that number to be somewhere between 35%-70% (tighter if possible) expected win rates based on dedicated sideboard hate and primary game plan of both decks. You should gave matches you're favored in and others your not.

If I run soul sisters into a heavy burn meta, I should be favored but I want burn to at least have a chance.

These titan decks don't really have that natural predator that doesn't completely fold to everything else. Not only that but titan can interact with a metric ton of game zones/states off lands...

You have life gain land, GY hate land, haste my dude land, double strike my dude land, zombie army land, spit out blockers land, transmute (uncounterabel tutor) land, Rachet bomb land...

If your primary plan regardless of sideboard can't kill them before any of those lands come online by t3 you're probably going to be in for a rough match.

We don't need to feed 4-6 GPS and a PT to titan to realize it's unfair...we didn't need to feed the volume of events to hogaak to figure it out. But here we are again.

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

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
I mean....Do we have actual winrate data to prove that?
I'll see if I can find it. @ktkenshinx do you have that mtgo data set? My google search ability sucks.

@gkourou did you see the Manaless Dredge too? lol.
UR Control UR

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

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
What is this logic based off exactly?
Game design. Every one of those cards is an absolute joke from basic principles of design, if we wish for the game to be played.

Veil - Dunks so hard on the decks that promote interactive play, that there is even less a reason to play them.
OuaT - Free. Cantrips + Dig. Do I need to discuss this?
T3feri - Shuts down a fundamental part of the game, draws a card, and steals tempo. Zero reason this should exist if we want good, interactive magic to be played.
Oko - Should not need to be discussed. This guy broke everything and is legal in 3 formats. The 3 most powerful formats in the game, nothing else could handle him and even Legacy would probably break, if it wasnt a forgotten format.
Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
What exactly is the criteria for determining if a card had no business existing? And could you explain what a "formative stage of meta development" is exactly?
1. I know it when I play it. :p
2. The stage after every ban/unban, when we pretend Modern is going to revert to a more fair, more diverse, state, before we all realize there are fundamental issues remaining.

Veil, OuAT, T3feri, London Mulligan, and no way to hate out ramp sufficiently.
UR Control UR

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

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Perhaps someone can bust Inverter/Oracle + TS and/or IoK + Leak/Remand.

The format needs a tempo/combo deck that can sufficiently slow Ramp/Big Mana, and push those decks down, while simultaneously being on par with an Attrition/Discard deck.

Until those things happen, especially now that we have a better Yawgmoth's will...(seriously Wizards...wtf are you even DOING) in the format, Ramp or blazing fast Aggro, or weird combo, is what the format will be.
UR Control UR

User avatar
Ed06288
Posts: 211
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Ed06288 » 4 years ago

Dryad of the Ilysian Grove is the primary problem, with Once upon a Time being another offender. Field of the dead and Primeval Titan never struck me as being too strong for the format.

Amulet titan should not get to run Valakut the molten pinnacle. You basically stapled together a prismatic omen and an Oracle of Mul Daya together, minus the top of library thingy. The Dryad should have costed at least 4 mana, probably double green too.

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

Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
What do we make of this?

I've seen similar lists, but were running Urza. This deck folds hard to Stony Silence and RiP/Leyline. I think it's reminiscent of the Urza Ascendancy lists that were (and stll are) bad. I'll give a try sometime though :p

Also, more evidence that Emry/Astrolabe are the problem and not Opal.
Also, also, the deck plays 4 of the most broken/obnoxious cards printed in the past year, 2 of which were printed in the pas 4 months.
Ed06288 wrote:
4 years ago
Dryad of the Ilysian Grove is the primary problem, with Once upon a Time being another offender. Field of the dead and Primeval Titan never struck me as being too strong for the format.

Amulet titan should not get to run Valakut the molten pinnacle. You basically stapled together a prismatic omen and an Oracle of Mul Daya together, minus the top of library thingy. The Dryad should have costed at least 4 mana, probably double green too.
Dryad is a "problem" only with Valakut.

Veil is always a problem.
Once Upon a Time is always a problem.
T3feri is always a problem.
Oko was always a problem.

I don't mid Dryad, it doesn't hose whole strategies or colors. It isn't a free cantrip and it's not Oko.

I kinda-sorta hate Field and haven't really formed an opinion on whether it should go or not.

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic

Return to “Modern”