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Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 6:19 am
by Yawgmoth
metalmusic_4 wrote:
4 years ago
FYI, legacy dredge lands are CHEAP! (LED is not though) Manaless dredge or a few other decks have decent mana bases, UB deaths shadow uses shock lands, reanimator works in mono black pretty well, and then there is always belcher which will work just fine off of a stomping ground, and burn does exist.
Now to relate this back to modern.......our mana is rediculos too, scalding tarns are outrageous. I paid more for my tarns than I did for some of my beat up duels.
This is super helpful! I hadn't even considered turning my Modern Mardu DS into Legacy. The painful mana is totally fine in this deck so the need for duals just isn't there, can't believe I missed that!

Re Tarns, yes, so stupid. Verdant Catacombs are pretty rough too but Tarns are one of the reasons I play Mardu and not Grixis (other than play style preference). I just don't feel like Scalding Tarns are worth as much as people want. I don't know if that makes sense but it's the same reason I never bought Goyfs at $150...

I could be wrong but it looks like Tarns are dropping in price lately. According to MtgGoldfish they've been in a slow decline over the past 6 months (down $20). Hopefully this trend continues with other staples as vendors start dumping stock to get in on the Pioneer speculation game.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 10:10 am
by iTaLenTZ
GP Legacy had 900 more players than GP Modern a week ago. Legacy looks pretty good at the moment. I am only worried about the amount of Oko's I am seeing and Veil of Summer maindeck.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:08 pm
by Ym1r
iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
GP Legacy had 900 more players than GP Modern a week ago. Legacy looks pretty good at the moment. I am only worried about the amount of Oko's I am seeing and Veil of Summer maindeck.
It makes a ton of sense to have maindeck Veil of Summer in Legacy where the most played interactive card is Force of Will. That being said, I now stand with the idea that Veil of Summer is a busted card. I love answers, I am a control player, Veil is not the type of answer that should be out there.

Right now, the trend in control is to drop Cryptic Command even completely, just because Veil is SO toxic and over-efficient. It is ridiculous to think that any combo deck that runs U and G has access to basically 2 1-mana hard counters to dominate every control MU (Mystical Dispute and Veil).

I believe that right now the best control deck to run is Bant Snow Control, not because of its access to the Snake Strix (that's just a nice bonus), but because it can run Oko and Veil. Temur snow is on the rise for the same reason, because it can run Oko and Veil.

At the same time, there is almost no way to beat combo decks that run G if you are in UB colors. UB colors are basically dead because their interaction (discard and counter) is deemed irrelevant by a single card.

I don't know about Oko in modern, I tend to hate it but I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt that it might be just good in a format of such power level as modern, but Veil is just toxic and I think it should go, now.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:42 pm
by ktkenshinx
iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
GP Legacy had 900 more players than GP Modern a week ago. Legacy looks pretty good at the moment. I am only worried about the amount of Oko's I am seeing and Veil of Summer maindeck.
GP Bologna Legacy looked awesome, as long as you enjoy that particular style of blue-heavy, spikey, stack-oriented, cantrip-focused Magic. A lot of more enfranchised, older players tend to enjoy this style, and I suspect many people on these forums fit in that category. Unfortunately, as I and others have noted already, Legacy is an amazing format that Wizards is intent to write out of its long-term (or even short-term) strategic plan. With virtually no North American paper support over the coming year, and with the Reserved List going absolutely nowhere, the format is a nonstarter at any competitive level outside of MTGO and the local scene. I fully believe Wizards is capable of supporting Legacy better, both in paper and especially online. They are just choosing not to, probably for the same reasons they are creating Pioneer and Brawl, along with forcing MTG Arena events and esports down the players' throats. It's a shame because Legacy has significantly more intrinsic pull than Modern and is capable of sustaining a robust spike playerbase. It's just not something Wizards is interested in supporting at this time. Unless we see a major top-level strategic shift, they will continue to deliberately write Legacy out of the picture.

In theory, this could benefit Modern if Modern became the older, nonrotating format of choice. Unfortunately on that count too, Wizards has been quite silent about its MTG Arena future. I'll believe a lot more in Modern's future if it becomes clear Modern is coming to MTG Arena, but it is alarming that this is anything but clear at this time. Pioneer and Standard are clearly the big two dogs right now, with Limited and Brawl also in the mix.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 3:43 pm
by pierreb
Just a random data point.

This week-end's Montreal F2F Open had 61 players. That's less than half the ones I've attended in the past. I know it was a pretty cold week-end and Christmas is coming, but that was not a good sign.

I did badly, but it still reinforced my opinion. I went 1-3 drop because:
  • I lost to simic snow because I seem to not realize that 3 + 2 + 2 is not equal to 8. I'm dumb.
  • I lost to jund because I had no deputy in my SB, and got wrecked by plague engineer + wren and six. Again, I take the blame.
  • I lost to tron. There was zero thing I did wrong and nothing I could do.*
* Game 1: natural tron on turn 4 (top decked tower) into karn, the great sideboarder. Game over. Game two, turn 2 thought-knot into turn 3 thought-knot, while I mulliganed to 5. Even on 7 cards it would have been nearly unbeatable. Tron is annoyingly good.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 5:35 pm
by idSurge
Ym1r wrote:
4 years ago
I don't know about Oko in modern, I tend to hate it but I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt that it might be just good in a format of such power level as modern, but Veil is just toxic and I think it should go, now.
This is the real take away. Especially with a reason to be in green (oko alone is good enough) it just becomes a no brainer and dunks on everything that is good about Magic.

Mystical dispute, whatever I can live with that, but Veil is grotesque.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 5:58 pm
by Amalgam
Another data point today from mtgo. Top 16 for wuartly format playoffs, featuring agood spread of decks and zero urza. Before people go off on a tangent, plenty of people signed up with the deck

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 6:34 pm
by iTaLenTZ
Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
Another data point today from mtgo. Top 16 for wuartly format playoffs, featuring agood spread of decks and zero urza. Before people go off on a tangent, plenty of people signed up with the deck
I don't care. As long as Urza and Emry are legal I won't play Modern any more. That way you can play those enjoyable Urza decks all day long.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 7:31 pm
by True-Name Nemesis
I actually don't mind Veil in Legacy, I think it's a great equalizer. For a format with so many broken blue cards, I find it hilarious that people are complaining about a great blue hoser while Legacy blue players have been reveling in riches for so long.

The main problem in Legacy as always being: If a non-blue card is strong enough, it inevitably performs much better in a blue(delver) deck. Recent examples being W6 and DRS, and you're now seeing it as well in Veil of Summer. All good cards that slot in well in a bunch of non-blue decks, subsequently absolutely stupid when played in a blue shell.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Mon Dec 02, 2019 8:10 pm
by Aazadan
ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
GP Bologna Legacy looked awesome, as long as you enjoy that particular style of blue-heavy, spikey, stack-oriented, cantrip-focused Magic. A lot of more enfranchised, older players tend to enjoy this style, and I suspect many people on these forums fit in that category. Unfortunately, as I and others have noted already, Legacy is an amazing format that Wizards is intent to write out of its long-term (or even short-term) strategic plan. With virtually no North American paper support over the coming year, and with the Reserved List going absolutely nowhere, the format is a nonstarter at any competitive level outside of MTGO and the local scene. I fully believe Wizards is capable of supporting Legacy better, both in paper and especially online. They are just choosing not to, probably for the same reasons they are creating Pioneer and Brawl, along with forcing MTG Arena events and esports down the players' throats. It's a shame because Legacy has significantly more intrinsic pull than Modern and is capable of sustaining a robust spike playerbase. It's just not something Wizards is interested in supporting at this time. Unless we see a major top-level strategic shift, they will continue to deliberately write Legacy out of the picture.
So on the subject of supporting Legacy better, Wizards did actually make an attempt not all that long ago when they included it as one of the team PT formats. The result was to put it bluntly, not healthy for the format. Prices on RL cards spiked hard, but more than that, several new decks emerged which did well. The most notable of those was the UB Death's Shadow deck.

For years before that PT, Wizards said they had been putting less high level tournament focus on Legacy because there's some hard truths about the format that players are better off not recognizing. Among other things, it's that the format can't actually handle the cards players believe it can handle. It's only due to the lack of giving pro's a reason to break the format that the format doesn't break (much). It's the same rationale they use for EDH.

Putting a minor focus on it for that PT, threw prices into massive flux, and had a large impact on the metagame. I actually think that Wizards may be right here and if they really put a competitive focus on it by involving it in the pro scene more than they already do, they would force themselves to have to ban a lot of cards.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 2:16 am
by cfusionpm
"That Field of the Dead ramp decks are suppressing controlling and reactive decks" - Pioneer B&R.

*cries in Modern*

Maybe they'll actually extend that feeling here one day.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 3:01 am
by Albegas
For what it's worth, the Modern dilemma regarding reactive decks seems more complex and harder to solve than Pioneer's. Control had 2 answers to Field, and Field was likely getting axed no matter what. Such an approach to Modern would come off as draconian after they were done shaving the top until Jund and UWx Control were near the top. Unbans and new cards are the key: control needs better cantrips, control and grindier midrange decks need better modal cards, and unbanning Twin wouldn't hurt, though that's less important than the former 2

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 3:09 am
by Amalgam
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
"That Field of the Dead ramp decks are suppressing controlling and reactive decks" - Pioneer B&R.

*cries in Modern*

Maybe they'll actually extend that feeling here one day.
One issue is Pioneer will continue to have more and more bans for even trivial threats. The ban mania for this format is far from over

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 3:12 am
by idSurge
Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
"That Field of the Dead ramp decks are suppressing controlling and reactive decks" - Pioneer B&R.

*cries in Modern*

Maybe they'll actually extend that feeling here one day.
One issue is Pioneer will continue to have more and more bans for even trivial threats. The ban mania for this format is far from over
GOOD! %$#% these stupid broken cards that have ruined the game.


Albegas wrote:
4 years ago
Unbans and new cards are the key: control needs better cantrips, control and grindier midrange decks need better modal cards, and unbanning Twin wouldn't hurt, though that's less important than the former 2
And no, Twin is actually what they should do first. It's the single most important thing they could do, on par with the banning of Faithless Looting.

I'll not be fielding questions at this time, as the potential meta impact of Twin is fundamentally more important than any cantrip or modal card could literally ever be.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 3:25 am
by Amalgam
idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
"That Field of the Dead ramp decks are suppressing controlling and reactive decks" - Pioneer B&R.

*cries in Modern*

Maybe they'll actually extend that feeling here one day.
One issue is Pioneer will continue to have more and more bans for even trivial threats. The ban mania for this format is far from over
GOOD! %$#% these stupid broken cards that have ruined the game.
Agreed that the power creep is wrecking the game but I mean more in the context that Pioneer can't realistically deal with any form of threat. This doesn't just mean unfair/linear cards will be banned, This also means you will have fair cards banned that are considered fine in other formats as they have safety valves that the format currently lacks. Also if the ban mania stays in full force next year it will kill consumer confidence in the format.
Again I re iterate the only people I have met who currently enjoy this format are brewing and playing it casually between themselves. The format at the high levels is a bunch of linear decks pretending they are fair and interact with your opponent

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 3:42 am
by metalmusic_4
I was looking over the banned in pioneer and standard cards and wanted to ask for opinions on them for modern. Obviously some of these cards have shown no problem so far in Modern, like smuggler's copter, but some others are new enough they could still cause problems in the near or distant future.

The cards I'm primarily asking about are field of the dead, veil of summer and once upon a time (and to a lesser extent oko).

These are each new and banned in standard / pioneer. I feel these are each powerful, but so far seem to be at an acceptable power level for modern. Does anyone disagree? Design philosophy and direction of the game or whatever aside, I am looking at a comparision of the standard and Pioneer ban lists to moderns on power level and the merits. I have not encountered anything I would consider broken from any of these cards yet. (the urza decks need fixed, but I don't think oko is the biggest problem with that deck. Oko is real good, but we'll see what happens with the urza decks. Outside urza I think oko is ok.)

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 3:56 am
by Yawgmoth
Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
Also if the ban mania stays in full force next year it will kill consumer confidence in the format.

Again I re iterate the only people I have met who currently enjoy this format are brewing and playing it casually between themselves. The format at the high levels is a bunch of linear decks pretending they are fair and interact with your opponent
Re Ban Mania: this is a real thing. I spent a year settling on which Modern deck I wanted, buying it (and all of its possible permutations so I could playtest each), and practicing with it only to have it destroyed by the Looting ban. I was playing Mardu Pyro which was loads of fun and very interactive but not competitive at the top tiers without Looting. I like to be able to aspire to competitive play even if I don't compete often. Maybe I should have seen it coming but that ban was rough. I went from having a deck (+100 related cards) to having a pile of 160+ related cards and no deck.

To convert to Mardu Shadow I had to 1. Spend more money and 2. Switch to a different play style. I did it because I felt like otherwise I'd have a pile of unused cards but honestly I just don't find Mardu Shadow that much fun (compared to Pyromancer). I'm good at playing it but don't enjoy it much.

As a result, I now play more mid tier decks which I modify with my own tech. I'll take these decks to FNM over Mardu Shadow because it is more fun even though I know I won't win as much. I don't care as much about wining as having fun. However, the high prevalence of hyperlinear decks makes it a lot harder to have fun while playing anything mildly interesting.

I have infinitely more fun playing casually with my friends because even though they may play Urza Thopter and Tron they make their own changes to the deck to make them more fun and interesting. It's too bad that this can't exist in a broader environment.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 6:02 am
by idSurge
Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
Also if the ban mania stays in full force next year it will kill consumer confidence in the format.
Again I re iterate the only people I have met who currently enjoy this format are brewing and playing it casually between themselves. The format at the high levels is a bunch of linear decks pretending they are fair and interact with your opponent
I actually think your first point (confidence) is a good thing. If Wizard's has to continue to ban things over and over and over....they will get the hint. They have screwed up this year, and the game cannot actually support the kinds of card's they are pushing.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 6:04 am
by FoodChainGoblins
Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
"That Field of the Dead ramp decks are suppressing controlling and reactive decks" - Pioneer B&R.

*cries in Modern*

Maybe they'll actually extend that feeling here one day.
One issue is Pioneer will continue to have more and more bans for even trivial threats. The ban mania for this format is far from over
Yep.

I seriously think WotC tried to recreate this format without a premade ban list (outside of the fetches); the way they should have done with Modern. Maybe this is to show us that it was not a viable option for Modern or maybe it's to actually see if it's better to begin a format like this? I'm not quite sure, but the different approach seems interesting. In my opinion, they should have not started with a ban list for Modern, but they probably should have done it for Pioneer.

We'll see. In Pioneer, my decks were all banned, except UR Phoenix and Spirits, so I'll go with those. :smirk:

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 6:14 am
by idSurge
I just dont see it from the same perspective. I love this. I want these cards gone because they are FLAWED CARDS.

As someone alluded to, Legacy probably/maybe only skates by because its essentially a non-entity. If it was a main stream format, it would likely break.

Modern, well Modern is broken. I dont care what anyone says.

Pioneer, is ALSO broken, and every week we have a chance to make it less so.

Standard has had TINY periods of being great. Absolutely tiny, in the scope of the last 4 or 5 years. Its honestly a travesty how bad it is and people are supposedly paid to make it NOT terrible.

Honestly, people need to be fired over everything post WAR + MH. These sets have been an absolute abomination for Standard, and have had lasting negative impact in eternal formats.

I mean...when people are willing to reset an entire YEAR.


Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 6:45 am
by Yawgmoth
idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Answer: No

Modern Horizons got me excited about Modern again after 5yr hiatus. The format may be unhealthy but I'm very happy I'm playing it again. They took a huge risk with MH. I think it was a good idea. Even if the outcome was suboptimal I think it showed two things:

1. WotC is willing to print powerful cards for beating people over the head with in unfun formats (standard isn't the only way to feed competitive Magic).

2. WotC is willing to take risks with card development and try new types of products. PERIOD FULL STOP.

MH may have contained a lot of individually bad cards but conceptually I think it shows that they haven't given up on powerful magic. Imagine how good MH2 could be if they took the lessons from MH1 to heart. They could introduce more older cards into the Modern pool while also printing new responses to overpowered Standard threats.

In theory, MH is literally exactly what people here are calling for to fix Modern (better responses to balance the format). They just need to dial in the power level and print more responses than threats.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 6:46 am
by FoodChainGoblins
My post got erased, so I'll just shorten it. I appreciate the effort to make cards have a lasting effect on eternal formats, but Research and Development overdid themselves. It's just too much in too little time for us. Overload...

FWIW I don't mind if WotC prints a card that busts stuff. This keeps it interesting. When it's 10 cards in a year, yes, THAT is too much.

EDIT> I agree with Yawgmoth. One of our newest buddies in our playgroup got his start at MH as well. He was very interested in Urza and started right when it dropped after not having played for years.

It would definitely be amazing if WotC learned their lessons from MH1 when they do MH2, but I feel that consumer confidence in WotC actually "learning" from it is diminished after the M20/War of the Spark debacle. We have been so used to bans in the past year that nobody batted an eye when 3 cards (Field of the Dead/Smuggler's Copter/Once Upon a Time) were banned in Pioneer today and there have been days with more overall bans in every format than this. We thought, wow, that's not even that many bans. That right there shows that consumer confidence has been trashed and you can read it in the comments here on MTGS.

MH2 could safely have stuff like Counterspell, Containment Priest, Leovold, basically all the stuff we talked about here that they didn't print. Yes, they can't print it all, but they actually did a somewhat small amount. Hopefully MH2 shatters expectations!

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 9:16 am
by Bearscape
Pioneer's current banning sets a fantastic precedent for the format. The banlist is not a sacred list, use it, change it. Especially since the lower price of the format allows it without people getting blown out like in the older eternal formats.

And I would take that Genie's deal 100%, this year was miserable.

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 9:31 am
by Amalgam
Bearscape wrote:
4 years ago
Pioneer's current banning sets a fantastic precedent for the format. The banlist is not a sacred list, use it, change it. Especially since the lower price of the format allows it without people getting blown out like in the older eternal formats.

And I would take that Genie's deal 100%, this year was miserable.
It may be cheaper than modern but most people can't just get up and change deck when they cost $500 like in pioneer as the result of a ban. Also not to mention if the format picks up stream competitively there will be spikes in card prices for the format. In 12 months if Pioneer is still a thing and gaining stream expect it to be pushing modern prices.
We may only be doing weekly bans till the end of the year however expect consistent bans to continue to hit this format with how broken it is right now alongside wizards current design methodology for standard

Re: [Official] State of Modern Thread (B&R 11/18/2019)

Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2019 12:10 pm
by The Fluff
[mention]Bearscape[/mention]

about Pioneer. It feels good that they seem dedicated to powering down the format with the recent bannings of copter and ouat.