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

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Amalgam
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Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

Honestly I know oko is an issue but how would a possible banning look if we banned around other issue cards just to see what happens. How would the meta look if we did the following.
Ban Astrolobe, veil, Emery as this alone is a massive nerf to both urza and oko style decks without hitting the key card in both decks.

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idSurge
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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Oko is so far above curve it has to die. :p
UR Control UR

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Post by pierreb » 4 years ago

Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
Ban Astrolobe, veil, Emery as this alone is a massive nerf to both urza and oko style decks without hitting the key card in both decks.
Yes, this would hit every oko decks, like infect, jund oko, bant snow, titanshift, ... no.

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
Honestly I know oko is an issue but how would a possible banning look if we banned around other issue cards just to see what happens. How would the meta look if we did the following.
Ban Astrolobe, veil, Emery as this alone is a massive nerf to both urza and oko style decks without hitting the key card in both decks.
Banning around issues is a recipe for disaster. Oko flattens the metagame into two categories: grindy Oko decks that can sustain the long-game in Oko mirrors and fast decks which ignore Oko entirely. If Modern can't even fulfill its basic promise of having dozens of diverse, viable, top-tier options, the format is going to keep losing both diehards and more casual participants. Oko was an egregious design mistake by a Play Design team that (from what a user just told me earlier today) literally admitted in a public setting that they thought Oko's +1 wouldn't be used offensively to negate opposing creatures. They then deep-sixed the design files on Oko and notably omitted his entire entry from the recent ELD M Files articles. Wizards should not ban around these nonsense 2019 mistakes that have damaged and destroyed multiple formats. They need to aggressively ban those cards to restore some semblance of metagame balance. This is on top of the more surgical bans I am advocating, things like Creeping Chill and Force of Vigor, that hit decks at the margins while not invalidating their core identities.
Over-Extended/Modern Since 2010

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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

And again, it was way to good bevore veil, urza, oko, Astro, emry.... You all still talking about banning only some mix of this cards. This makes zero sense to me. The only way you can stop this deck... Try to stop.... Is banning mox too in a mix

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Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
And again, it was way to good bevore veil, urza, oko, Astro, emry.... You all still talking about banning only some mix of this cards. This makes zero sense to me. The only way you can stop this deck... Try to stop.... Is banning mox too in a mix
Do you have any experience playing the deck? Bans like astrolobe are significant nerfs to the deck.
If the next b&r hit oko/veil/astrolobe/Emery the deck would have a significant drop off. You dont need to ban opal to hurt this deck especially when opal is core to the identity of any other artifact deck that would ever exist in modern + outright kill any hope for affinity ever again

Also to everyone else yes you are right that oko has to go I just wanted to discuss what the meta impact would be in that scenario

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
And again, it was way to good bevore veil, urza, oko, Astro, emry.... You all still talking about banning only some mix of this cards. This makes zero sense to me. The only way you can stop this deck... Try to stop.... Is banning mox too in a mix
Do you have any experience playing the deck? Bans like astrolobe are significant nerfs to the deck.
If the next b&r hit oko/veil/astrolobe/Emery the deck would have a significant drop off. You dont need to ban opal to hurt this deck especially when opal is core to the identity of any other artifact deck that would ever exist in modern + outright kill any hope for affinity ever again

Also to everyone else yes you are right that oko has to go I just wanted to discuss what the meta impact would be in that scenario
If you ban those, it turns back into Paradoxical/Engineer versions, minus Astrolabe. That seems fairly reasonable as a deck.

Oko needs to go, I'm probably one of the few who wasn't 100% convinced, but my mind has changed at this point. The card is literally above JTMS at it's peak in terms of dominance in any format. It cannot stay.

I won't repeat my arguments on Astrolabe, I'm on record on that one. In a set of mistakes, I think Astrolabe is the most egregious card in the set, and that should really say something.

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
They then deep-sixed the design files on Oko and notably omitted his entire entry from the recent ELD M Files articles.
When I looked, it appeared that they avoided almost all of green. Definitely not a good look for them. I'm starting to wonder if we're going to get an article like we got post Skullclamp one year where they talked about seeing a problem coming, and being powerless to fix it.

Edit: Took some digging but at the peak of Eldrazi Winter, 47% of the competitive format was Eldraizi, putting Thought Knot Seer at 1.88 copies per deck. Oko is not quite there yet, since it's fewer copies per deck, but in percentage it's only behind at 45.4 to 47.

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Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

Also of note outside of nerfing urza decks immensenly an astrolobe ban nerfs the snow plan which right now seems to slot into just about anything. Playing snow in your deck has no downside and let's you run astrolobe and ice-fang while running 3 colors and basic lands. An astrolobe ban goes a long way here to nerfing this package while still letting it exist

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Post by metalmusic_4 » 4 years ago

I support an astrolabe ban completely.....among other bans. Blood moon used to be very powerful but because of astrolabe it now does very little. Blood moon is, and should be, an important check in the format.

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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

Yeah sure, let's play after paradoxial outcome + emry... Seems fair, or not? You will see it soon. If you let this deck again alive, it will terrorizing modern again and again. And no, blood moon doesnt stop it like it doesn't did in past. We need to go out if this wheel bevore it starts again rolling

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Post by th33l3x » 4 years ago

TLDR:
1) Astrolabe dissolves color as one of the basic structures of MTG, making the game "lose itself", dissolving the game if you will.
2) Veil of Summer could be the product of a "create the most ridiculous protection spell you can think of", answers close to every interaction spell in modern and should not exist.

It is noteable (and I'm sure someobdy has mentioned this somewhere here) that blue control decks, especially their flagship UW Control, have completely disappeared from modern. Color identity has been washed away in many archetypes, and one of UW's strenghs was its solid mana base that could pack a lot of utility at the same time.

That's problem nr. ONE: color identity doesn't matter anymore. Offender: Astrolabe. If a 3-color deck wanted to run blood moon in the sb and splash a 4th color at the same time, screw it, go for it. Bant's snow mana base is less painful and more consistent than UW's non-snow mana base ever was. That's just ridiculous.
The other deck able to support 4c easily is Death's Shadow, but the essential difference is the about 10 damage/game that mana base does as part of their game plan. There's a reason non-shadow 4c decks never where successful in the past. They were killing themselves. Now, you take 0 damage for 4c. To me, that's the game of MTG losing it's most basic structure to the point where... the game itself is lost. Dunno how else to put it.

Second problem is Veil of Summer: Veil is not simply a very good card, it is so good that it could have conceivably been the result of one of those unofficial "create your dream card" things. And the weird thing, nobody is arguing against that: It happens to me all the time that somebody casts Veil of Summer against me AND THEN APOLOGIZES for playing that card. Almost NOBODY thinks Veil of Summer is an ok card to have in modern. Everybody is like "yea sorry I know it's pretty damn stupid, I'm a little ashamed for playing that".

So I guess the question is: If its factually overpowered AND there seems to be broad agreement that it is WAY too good for modern, mixed with this sheepish sentiment of "yea sorry I feel bad about it but as long as its there I'll take it" (this is personal experience not empirical fact), why is it around?

For full disclosure, I'm mostly on Grixis Control so Veil probably hits me the hardest of all decks in modern, but I think its pretty clear that Veil pushes A TON of decks out of the format.

Don't really mind Oko or Urza tbh. What I do mind is an Oko protected by Veil of Summer. And imo the "banning around things doesnt work" argument doesn't hold water here because Veil is just so omnipresent. Looking at MTGGoldfish's stats, Veil is actually the most played card in modern at 47%, as stated above those are Eldrazi-Winter-stats. Its in the sb of course, but still.

Normally, discussions like this are about answers lagging behind threats. But Veil of Summer is an end-all-answer to a massive chunk of modern's interaction. Hitting every discard spell, every counterspell AND almost every remoal spell in the format for 1cmc is just blatantly obviously not ok.

I'll leave it at that. I'm genuinely interested if anybody can think of an argument pro Veil of Summer. Have a nice day :)

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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

Problem is you and lot of others here talking about cards in generally while I am talking about this omnipresent urzas, whirs, ascendancys, thopter foundrys, oko urzas and whatever you call it bevore and after. Maybe Astro and veil is to strong and you need to ban it generally, let's agree with this, but this doesn't stop this archetyp because it was busted bevore urza, bevore colour fixing, bevore emry, oko, goose, hell bevore even their new I repeat my spells 24 times land. Can someone talk to me how you all want stopping "urza" if they all don't need each of your ban suggestions? How should this work??

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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

Veil protects against almost every removal spell...
Bolt and Path are unaffected, they used to be the mainstay removal spells, but are not now. They aren't now as their colours have been nerfed by power creep to green and black.
I would rather a couple of over powered answers to answers lurking in boards than overpowered threats. It creates stack based interaction. The issue is Veil is protecting overpowered threats, Veil is near universal because the most meaningful interaction has been black, whilst white chuggs along with the bottom of the barrel scraping like 3 managed sorcery speed removal and nothing to do at one mana, whilst black has better removal and discard. If we went back to old times, white had the premier removal spells. That is why veil is so good, the colours it nerfs are the only ones that give control. If wotc had not let the green power creep and white nerfing over half a decade, veil would not be as nuts.

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Post by th33l3x » 4 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
Can someone talk to me how you all want stopping "urza" if they all don't need each of your ban suggestions? How should this work??

I happen to think the modern card pool is large and powerful enough to regulate both Urza and Oko. Spells like Mystical Dispute, Dreadbore, Thoughtseize and a number of playable counterspells, even Detention Sphere, answer both of them cleanly and effectively. Veil of Summer prevents that regulation from taking effect.
Last edited by th33l3x 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

I can't believe how you all forget our meta bevore veil. Veil was not the beginning, it is a little part of it. And like I allways said, it doesnt matter if you think banning veil stops urza... If we knew they was busted bevore veil too. This is unlogical thinking it's a solution. It's not possible and will cost modern again time and time is nothing we can spend now in this format. Please wotc, ban mox too or we gained nothing for health of meta. Only some weeks till same again

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Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
I can't believe how you all forget our meta bevore veil. Veil was not the beginning, it is a little part of it. And like I allways said, it doesnt matter if you think banning veil stops urza... If we knew they was busted bevore veil too. This is unlogical thinking it's a solution. It's not possible and will cost modern again time and time is nothing we can spend now in this format. Please wotc, ban mox too or we gained nothing for health of meta. Only some weeks till same again
Because you simply dont even understand the deck enough to think the only answer is banning mox opal. Banning astrolobe/emry in addition to oko/veil goes a long way to nerf the deck while still letting artifact decks exist in modern.
If you dialed back your blind hate a little maybe you could explain and discuss the potential ways around the current problem in modern. Please understand urza on it's own in not the only issue in modern right now

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Post by th33l3x » 4 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
I can't believe how you all forget our meta bevore veil. Veil was not the beginning, it is a little part of it. And like I allways said, it doesnt matter if you think banning veil stops urza... If we knew they was busted bevore veil too. This is unlogical thinking it's a solution. It's not possible and will cost modern again time and time is nothing we can spend now in this format. Please wotc, ban mox too or we gained nothing for health of meta. Only some weeks till same again
Urza was released a month before Veil, and Oko was released months after Veil. What meta are you talking about? There has never been a mate with Oko/Urza but without Veil...

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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

Forget this fake name urza. I allready explained several times how this archetyp changes its names. It was as example in hoogak meta, the second best deck only less behind hoogak himself.... Yes, without urza, oko and veil as paradoxial outcome too or as whir prison. This is the key point I am trying to explain. By the way, people still talking about my hate versus this deck even now we all see it needs to be banned? Same sentences I heared here in past too even I was allways right in this case like we all can see now... But much to late. Should we start again from beginning? You all need to call me again hater or whatever, till we again see truth in some months? Loosing time for modern? Is it worth? Or can we finally nuke this toxic deck? Give it a new name and it starts again? Please not again several times like in past. Maybe amalgam yourself don't understand how this archetyp works, not me? By the way, this deck himself killed all other artefact decks... Tell me where they are? If you play artefact, you play this. So saying it would kill other artefact decks is wrong because it allready happened

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Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

@mtgthewary every post you make is nothing but hate directed at the deck and it always just seems ignorant at best. You're just like the people who want to nuke tron out of the format or nuke other archetypes because they have a dislike for them. I perfectly understand the deck and even grinded on it for a number of months online and on paper so I feel confidant in calls for different bans to nerf it rather than outright killing all artifact decks for the remainder of moderns time.
I do agree the deck is probably too strong right now but look at other top decks that are performing right now and you will notice they are all running mostly the same cards or package.

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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

So, now we see why you pretend this deck still. You are one of the players like allways if someone disagree strong. By the way, I will nuke this deck out because it nukes out modern. It needs to stop now. This circle of this deck is to much. It's more important trying rescue modern as safing your feelings about this deck. Lantern, Kci, thopter, whir, ascendancy, outcome, urza, oko urza... All same terrorizing deck which hurts modern so much and all use mox. You know why you will no ban of mox? Say truth please, why it's OK banning veil or urza or oko... But not mox? Because this is the card which stops this decks at most and this is the reason you don't want hear it. It is the holy grail for urza players. They all knew they can be still busted as long mox doesnt get away too. My tolerance and tolerance of others, after all this years is finally zero.. Z-E-R-O

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Post by True-Name Nemesis » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
CurdBros wrote:
4 years ago
Ym1r wrote:
4 years ago
This Oko-Urza-Titan slugfest is soooo annoying to watch. At least we get to see a Yawgmoth or Bant Snow Control/Snowblade from time to time.
The GP coverage was much better in terms of games and decks. I have found that the SCG meta in general always seems to be much more inbred than GP metas. They cover a lot of the same players on the same teams and they all typically always bring similar or the same decks.
Ya, SCG being a glorified regional circuit has this issue for sure.
It wasn't really that different tbh, SCG is just incentivised to show their tour regulars more. We still saw the typical Urza/Oko decks on both streams as main matches most of the time.

What I did like was the CFB stream showing matches from lower brackets with fun-tier decks as backup matches to make things more interesting, showing that Modern can still be fun and wacky outside of the top 3 or 4 decks.

CFB has this one on entertainment value, actual stream quality-wise CFB still can't do it as well as SCG.

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Post by metalmusic_4 » 4 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
Forget this fake name urza. I allready explained several times how this archetyp changes its names. It was as example in hoogak meta, the second best deck only less behind hoogak himself.... Yes, without urza, oko and veil as paradoxial outcome too or as whir prison.
I'm ok with the power level whir prison had a few months back. It was good and annoying but I wouldn't use words like broken or teir zero. Emry alone would have been a big upgrade but still ok I imagine. When you add in oko, urza, astrolabe, veil and mystic sanctuary on top of emry this deck got way out of hand.

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Post by True-Name Nemesis » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Mox Opal is so expensive that it can prevent Wizards from banning it
Man I hate this stupid logic so much. Imagine not balancing your game because some players get butthurt about "mUh inVeSTmenT".

I wish they would reprint staples into oblivion so card prices never ever get used as a pathetic excuse not to ban cards.

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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

We have 2 guaranteed bans.
- Oko is gone.
- Veil of Summer is gone

The big question is: Will they ban Urza or will they ban around Urza. If they ban around Urza at least 2 pieces must go.
- Ban Urza
-or ban Mox Opal/Astrolabe/Emry

Next question is what will they do with Tron. The London Mulligan rule has been a big buff as well as little Karn because now they run their SB in their maindeck
- Hard ban: Expedition map/little Karn
- Soft ban: Lattice

The final question regarding bans is whether they want or need to undo some damage 2019 has done to Modern
- T3feri: Shuts off 1 player of playing MTG
- OUaT: Helps linear non-interactive decks become more consistent more than it helps creature based or value/midrange strategies
- Scale up: Enables turn 2 infect kills even though infect is already at least a tier 1 deck (I consider Urza, Snow Oko, EldraTron, Amulet tier 0)
- Field of the Dead: Nerf Amulet

Last topic is unbans. There are a lot of candidates but it also depends on the bans. If you are lowering the powercreep for Modern it becomes pointless to unban certain cards because they have proofed to be too strong in the past already. If they do conservative bans and leave the powerbar as it is then they could unban a lot of cards.

100% safe
- Preordain: Modern needs better card selection for blue/reactive and needs a Delver tempo deck to emerge to police the format.
- Artifact lands: Pre-emptively banned because of Arcbound Ravager. That strategy is a relic of the past.
- Birthing Pod: Banned when fetching multiple Siege Rhino's was considered to be OP

If nothing gets banned or not enough they might even consider unbanning
- Green Sun's Zenith: If OUaT is legal then having this banned is a joke
- Umezawa's Jitte: Played in fair decks, slow and substantial conditions must be met for it to function.
- Deathrite Shaman: Historically always played in fair decks. Compared to Tron, Amulet, Urza this card doesn't win on turn 3.
- Ponder: See Preordain. Improving Storm also wouldn't hurt as it is easily disruptable.
- Even Twin, the card I refuse to discuss.

The banning of Veil of Summer and Oko and something from Urza must come with an apology and explanation of why they didn't act sooner. I want to see accountability. It was clear months ago, even upon its release, Veil of Summer is broken by any standards. Same goes for Oko. Urza has been the not-so-secretly best deck since and even during Hogaak. The last 2 ban announcements I was already shouting for those bans like many others while they preferred to look away while Modern was in shambles. I want to make very clear than a couple of bans and unbans and some lousy context is NOT enough.

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