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

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
I think the difference between what Probe meant for Storm, and DS, and Infect, is VASTLY different, from what Looting means to Mardu, Phoenix, Dredge, Hogaak.

Its not comparable. Phoenix would literally not function.
Why not? In straight UR there is Tormenting Voice, Chart a Course, Izzet Charm, and bunches of Looting effects. Thought Scour and other self-mil effects like Tome Scour could be used to great effect; even Dream Twist or Stream of Thought. It could also run Burning Inquiry or Goblin Lore. Splashing black, Collective Brutality is amazing. Maybe it has to evolve and change, and be a turn slower. Of the Probe decks, the ones that saw huge success underwent massive transformations to key elements.

And if Mardu is an innocent victim for the crimes of the other 3, so be it. That is, unless Wizards is content with seeing half their Top 8s full of Looting decks. I imagine with Hogaak out of the spotlight, and people thinking it's safe to cut back on GY hate (especially fast, free GY hate), these will see a strong resurgence.
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Post by TheAnswer » 4 years ago

I don't really want to dive back into the "Is Faithless Looting Bad" argument again, especially after the ban announcement didn't even mention Looting as a possible piece to be banned, but the difference between 1 and 2 mana is absolutely gigantic in Modern. I don't believe that anyone can, with a straight face, say that decks will adopt a 2 mana replacement (without Flashback) for Looting and carry on their merry ways. Modern is far and away the format of 0 and 1 mana spells. To suggest a core supporting card in a swath of the format could be replaced by a card that costs a huge 2 mana is either disingenuous or misinformed.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

TheAnswer wrote:
4 years ago
I don't really want to dive back into the "Is Faithless Looting Bad" argument again, especially after the ban announcement didn't even mention Looting as a possible piece to be banned, but the difference between 1 and 2 mana is absolutely gigantic in Modern. I don't believe that anyone can, with a straight face, say that decks will adopt a 2 mana replacement (without Flashback) for Looting and carry on their merry ways. Modern is far and away the format of 0 and 1 mana spells. To suggest a core supporting card in a swath of the format could be replaced by a card that costs a huge 2 mana is either disingenuous or misinformed.
It's a mixture between "suck it up, I don't care" and "these decks are too good, and this is the thread that connects them all." There are also plenty of options to self mill at 1 mana in those colors (which was edited into the comment while you were likely typing). That assessment is of course, entirely my own.

Though again, a lot rides on the next MC and GPs; if these Looting decks go back to their previous levels, something has to be done. In the next month and a half, we have a Modern Mythic Championship and then three back to back to back Modern GPs. The results of these events, and the subsequent action (or inaction) will tell us much more than their vague words and ominous omissions.

Ironically, after that slew of events, Modern essentially ceases to exist at the individual GP level. There is literally no other individual Modern event for the rest of the year, except for a single event at the end of November. Read into that what you will.
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Post by Necrofish » 4 years ago

Not taking a stance against a specific card does not mean approval of such.
What WotC said was that GY strategies have a place in modern.

I do believe Faithless Looting is a very strong card. There are a lot of strong cards in Modern that all have their place. Whether this one is unhealthy for the format or not we will see; WotC have a way to gather that data. It's just a waiting game at this point.
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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Why not? In straight UR there is Tormenting Voice, Chart a Course, Izzet Charm, and bunches of Looting effects.
Not a single one is 1 Mana. You know as well as I do where the power in Phoenix is, and its not in casting a 2 mana Loot card. This is not Dredge that can leverage Cathartic Reunion. If we had Careful Study? Sure, hit Looting and there is a replacement, but as we know, Phoenix already PLAYS the other cantrips, practically all of them that are the appropriate for Modern cost, of 1.

Being a turn slower matters and so does going up to 3 colours, and I should not have to remind you why.

We both know that a looting ban kills Phoenix. :p
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
We both know that a looting ban kills Phoenix. :p
What happens if it continues its dominance? It just got several recent upgrades in Finale of Promise, Aria of Flame, Magmatic Sinkhole, and Fiery Islet. What then?

I'll repeat what I believe was the most important part (and most overlooked part) of my post:
a lot rides on the next MC and GPs; if these Looting decks go back to their previous levels, something has to be done. In the next month and a half, we have a Modern Mythic Championship and then three back to back to back Modern GPs. The results of these events, and the subsequent action (or inaction) will tell us much more than their vague words and ominous omissions.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Ironically, after that slew of events, Modern essentially ceases to exist at the individual GP level. There is literally no other individual Modern event for the rest of the year, except for a single event at the end of November. Read into that what you will.
There is nothing ironic here or mysterious.

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Also, with that set comes Standard rotation. It makes perfect sense to only have 1 Modern event in the last quarter.
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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Appreciate the props and feedback! If I missed a question or point that needs addressing, @me and I'll get it. On mobile now with more limited responding capabilities, so I'm only replying to two of the bigger points#
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
I agree with pretty much everything but this. Not because I don't think it's true (it very well could be), but that a lack of mention, in of itself, does not necessarily mean anything. For all we know, they are keeping their feelings on Looting purposely-vague so as to not incur a panic among players. While they do mention Dredge, it seems highly suspicious not to mention Phoenix (the other premiere Looting deck), which put up competitive dominance numbers greater than 2015 Twin across the board, and in half the time.

Considering their willingness to selectively act or ignore... pretty much anything, I don't know how much I would read into their lack of mentioning Looting. For all we know, it's on the "Wait till the next MC, then act" train. We have a Modern MC coming up in two weeks, and another B&R shortly after. It's anybody's guess at this point, but I imagine something will happen if the MC ends up with 5+ Looting decks in the Top 8, and God forbid one of them wins. The last 8 GPs before Hogaak had an average of 3.625 decks with Looting per Top 8. Five of the events had 4 or more (4, 2, 5, 5, 5, 4, 1, 3). Is this what Wizards wants Modern to be?
Necrofish wrote:
4 years ago
Not taking a stance against a specific card does not mean approval of such.
What WotC said was that GY strategies have a place in modern.

I do believe Faithless Looting is a very strong card. There are a lot of strong cards in Modern that all have their place. Whether this one is unhealthy for the format or not we will see; WotC have a way to gather that data. It's just a waiting game at this point.
A few important points about Looting:

1. Looting's absence from the article alone doesn't mean much. But its absence in the context of the KCI ban article is huge. They explicitly called out Stirrings in that article and made an active choice not to call out the Stirrings analog, FL, here. They also said MC2 Dredge was fine (the premier FL deck after Bridgevine), as were GY strategies (almost all of which are FL-powered). This is a signal about Looting, and that signal is at worst neutral, at best positive.

2. I have not run the current FL numbers, but the 2018 Stirrings numbers were also very high. 30% of GP T8 decks, excluding Team events if I remember correctly, played Stirrings that year. All that did was get Stirrings called out on a watch list when Wizards banned KCI. The average number of FL decks now would probably need to at least exceed that, and might need to exceed that by a lot, for Wizards to take action.

I'm open to FL being on a watchlist, and I'm open to FL eventually exceeding the Stirrings precedeng. I'm also open to the idea that Looting is different than Stirrings and demands additional scrutiny. I expect Wizards is open to all that too. But these are major cases that require significant case building, not just off the cuff opinions. For me, the precedent is pretty clear and should set a bar we need to clear for future FL talk.
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
What dominance are you talking about? Phoenix scored 0 top 8 in the last GP. In the beginning, it was the best deck yes. Now? 0 top8's and just a Tier 1 deck, anybody can handle.
What do you mean? Mythic Championship London had a Phoenix in T8, and and GP Dallas was overrun with Phoenix, despite being skewed heavily by Hogaak. Phoenix decks were 14.1% of day 2, second only to Hogaak, at 18.6%. The next highest deck was Humans at 7.3% and then a bunch at and under 5%. So Phoenix decks accounted for about double the next highest archetype, in a period where main-decking multiple copies of Surgical Extraction was correct. Did we ever get T16 or T32 for Dallas? I'm curious how many Phoenix may have shown up there. I can't seem to find that info.

I'm not sure what narrative you're trying to sell about Phoenix being "Just another T1 deck," as it had put up ban-worthy dominance numbers over the span of 8 months, before the entire format was upended into chaos. The next MC and upcoming GPs will tell us a lot.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
&TLDR: UR Phoenix had 7% day 2 presence and 0 Top 8's in GP Dallas. That's just a Tier 1 deck that's on a decline(because it started off of 3ple top 8's, the double, then single and went on to 0 Top 8's, because War Of the sparks hurt it)
UR was 7.3% and Mono R Phoenix was 6.8%. Both utilize Phoenix and Looting as the core of their strategy and combine to 14.1% (it's also why I phrased it as I did). Do you find it unfair to group those? Is it any more or less fair than it was to group Pod decks together? Twin decks together? Even though they had different colors and shells?

I am curious what will happen in the upcoming events, because the last 2 months really tell us nothing.

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

How can someone relate even remotely a Burn deck that happens to play Phoenix with a ‘proper’ Phoenix deck?

People really tend to exaggerate.

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Post by TheAnswer » 4 years ago

I think that grouping Mono-R Phoenix and UR Phoenix serves to push a certain agenda. The decks operate very differently, and share a few cards (I don't have the lists in front of me because mobile, but I assume Phoenix, Looting, and Bolt are the biggest overlap). Plus, R Phoenix existed to combat Hogaak, which is no more. It's meta-share surely will not continue in the current meta.

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

It has been months that Izzet Phoenix win rate isn’t the best, even if it keeps being one of the most played archetype. I really don’t get all of this hate for a Tier that has the same power level of numerous other decks,

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

For the third or fourth time now: it looks like we will learn a lot in the next four events.

Until then, everything is speculation and opinion about a chaotic meta that no longer exists

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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
For the third or fourth time now: it looks like we will learn a lot in the next four events.

Until then, everything is speculation and opinion about a chaotic meta that no longer exists
Then why do you keep contradicting yourself?

First is ‘Looting is too good, Phoenix had too many good results, should be banned according to Twin data!’. Then, when we focus on data to prove that Phoenix isn’t at its best right now ‘we have to wait’.

That makes no sense.

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Post by metalmusic_4 » 4 years ago

I consider mono red and UR pheonix to be very close. I built them both and prefer mono red. They are different, but the idea is about the same. Play a bunch of spells, reanimate phenoix, attack. UR has thing in the ice and card draw, mono red has small prowess creatures and burn spells. Again, different but are similar. I lump them together for meta share comparison too, but I would split them apart if looking at a choice of which deck to play for a given meta or looking at top 8s

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Post by Zorakkiller » 4 years ago

unban: stoneforge mystic, green suns zenith, splinter twin and punishing fire

having these cards banned is just a bad joke that has gone in too long. just let me die on turn 3 with a bunch of expensive cards in my hand

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

BloodyRabbit wrote:
4 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
For the third or fourth time now: it looks like we will learn a lot in the next four events.

Until then, everything is speculation and opinion about a chaotic meta that no longer exists
Then why do you keep contradicting yourself?

First is ‘Looting is too good, Phoenix had too many good results, should be banned according to Twin data!’. Then, when we focus on data to prove that Phoenix isn’t at its best right now ‘we have to wait’.

That makes no sense.
What is difficult to follow? For 8 months, before Hogaak broke the format, Phoenix was putting up numbers that would have gotten any other deck banned. It wasn't banned because "WAR and MH1 and London Mull are supposed to shake up Modern!" Well, Hogaak broke the format into pieces, so anything between MH1 and now is null. We have seen mixed results post-Hogaak, but I have no reason to believe Phoenix won't go right back to its place at the top, especially when it got multiple really good upgrades itself from WAR and MH1.

And for the fifth time: we will learn a lot in the next four events.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

metalmusic_4 wrote:
4 years ago
I consider mono red and UR pheonix to be very close. I built them both and prefer mono red. They are different, but the idea is about the same. Play a bunch of spells, reanimate phenoix, attack. UR has thing in the ice and card draw, mono red has small prowess creatures and burn spells. Again, different but are similar. I lump them together for meta share comparison too, but I would split them apart if looking at a choice of which deck to play for a given meta or looking at top 8s
I agree. Mono Red is the more all-in version, while Blue Red is the more consistent (due to cantrips), yet slower, version.

I think cfusionpm can lump them because everyone lumped all of the decks that had *redacted in it. RUG Twin, Jeskai Twin (lol since it literally would not have been a thing to anyone, outside a local level, if Alex ? hadn't won a GP with it), UR Twin, and Grixis Twin. Those decks don't all play out the "same" either. If you think UR plays the same as RUG, sorry bud, big difference when you're jamming Goyfs in it too (and not relying on Blood Moon, even if RUG did occasionally do it). More tappy dudes as well... Jeskai, Path, Lightning Helix?, is more like a Jeskai Control running Twin. Nobody, and I mean nobody lumped all Twin decks until WE tried to justify the reasoning behind its banning. I hate myself for bringing this up, but it's the truth. All of a sudden, 6.7 + 6.4 + 2.1 + 1.4 added up to 16.6%. That is enough reason to ban a deck. It can also be used as reasoning for Faithless Looting when Mono Red and Blue Red share similarities, although being different decks of course.

*On another note, after trying out Finale of Devastation, I realized that I do not care much about Green Suns Zenith anymore. Finale has some advantages, like getting stuff from your graveyard, getting non Green creatures, not being shuffled in so you can E Witness it, and it's better with infinite Green mana. I still am pushing for Stoneforge Mystic and Preordain though (even if I don't think Preordain is close to being considered. Many players believe the difference between Serum Visions and Preordain is the same difference between Brainstorm and Reach Through Mists and you cannot convince them otherwise.) Free Stoneforge Mystic! Let us play something new, even if MH was a breath of fresh air (as well as a demolisher of my wallet, which is 10 pounds lighter right now).
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Modern - Jund Sacrifice, Amulet, Elementals, Trollementals, BR Asmo/Goryo's, Yawmoth Chord
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Post by BloodyRabbit » 4 years ago

By the way, Jeskai Twin has been my very favorite deck in Modern, and the one I was most successful with (except a small parenthesis with U-Tron in a non-hostile metagame). I also am convinced that the current cantrips are powerful enough.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

I'm positive nothing good would come from having better cantrips right now. At this point we dont know what the meta is going to shake out as, but again I'm HOPEFUL that Jund is a big part of the picture.

I wouldnt change anything, we have the upcoming GPs and we have alternating Team Constructed and Modern SCG's for the next 4 events.

Going into the next B&R Announcement: August 26, 2019, with the next set in October.

The next few weekends will formulate what Modern's meta currently is.
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Post by Zorakkiller » 4 years ago

I remember when people would lose it over someone suggesting that gsz should be unbanned. I'm glad the player base is coming to its senses. imo the banned list has a few bitterblossoms and wild nacatls left but are held back by irrational fear

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

It does, but if given the choice, I would take more Modern Horizon's and the shake up that introduced, instead of a few unban's of cards that would almost certainly do nothing.

Wrenn is up to $100 on Card Kingdom though, so thats probably an issue. lol
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Post by Zorakkiller » 4 years ago

why not both. if push comes to shove give me the safe unbans over a horizon type product that possibly breaks the format like the last one did

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

Honestly, I think products like Horizon are a terrible idea. Besides the ridiculous explosion of prices, it might be better if they did extensive testing on the format. It's clear that their testing and knowledge of Modern rarely extends beyond spreadsheets of MTGO data, and loose, basic, surface-level understanding. I would be terrified if they ever did this again; from a financial standpoint and "breaking the format" standpoint.

I'd like to add that it's definitely neat to get a bunch of cool new cards, but I don't think WOTC is capable of doing that without breaking the format or massively inflating prices. :woozy:
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