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

User avatar
drmarkb
Posts: 634
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

[quote="The Fluff" post_id=51068 time=1575549838 user_id=109]
[quote=drmarkb post_id=51062 time=1575547401 user_id=233]
[quote="The Fluff" post_id=51017 time=1575506019 user_id=109]
I see this is just a never ending debate, since people have different preferences / playstyle. And this is what makes mtg the fun game that it is, plenty of different decks to play against.

My only modern deck right now is full of spells, and only 10 or so creatures. But the creatures are the win cons, because I like to win with creatures.
[/quote]
I am always amazed at how many 'control' decks in Standard have ten critters. In my day they had a couple of Mishras' and a Blinking spirit. Then people wonder why I won't play Standard.
[/quote]

Is there a problem with a Standard deck with.... ten critters? I'm curious on the reason for this.
[/quote]
Yeah, one sixth of the deck is creatures. Lots of tapping creatures sideways sounds like midrange with a few reactive spells tacked on.
Miracles is a UW control deck and runs/ran maybe 3 snappy and a couple of mentor, and about half the wins were Jace ultimates.
Rip helm versions use combo too.
Pox is a control prison deck and runs, 1-4 manlands, and a Nether spirit, maybe one or two more in the board, maybe a Phyrexian Totem main in the odd build.
The biggest issue I have with standard control decks is they seemingly almost exclusively win with combat. When someone says UW control I sort of expect 4 creatures and not 10, 12 etc. Just my preconceptions and definitions, but enough to make sure I never darken Standard's door again.

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

Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
Honestly I don't think I've ever seen a year this thread has been happy even back in the 2015 days. Do we really need to make the format boil down to hill giants hitting eachother?
Also linear/combo decks are allowed to exist in non rotating formats, the fact people in these threads argue for Neobrand to be banned because they don't like it should say enough.
Also I love how we are casually ignoring that Bant Control has been doing incredibly well recently which is a full blown control deck. Just because UW control has dropped down doesn't mean control is dead. Bant control has legs and is getting results
To be fair, even back in 2015 the format still had the same fundamental problem it had today in terms of the dichotomy between solitaire and non-solitaire decks, the difference was the magnitude. Back in 2015, Tron would still stomp mid range decks, but there was at least an illusion of intractability back when it's win con was a 15cmc Emrakul compared to the embarrassment of riches it has access to today.

In terms of whether linear combo decks are allowed to exist or not, I mean yes, but it would be nice if they weren't literally the overwhelming majority of the metagame. Also in terms of boiling the format down to hill giants hitting each other, that is nothing more than a strawman, I'll just ignore that segment of your post.

Ultimately let me show you the format from my perspective, I work a soul crushing corporate cubicle-slave job, when I get off of work it has a great personal cost for me to actually attend FNM's, both in terms of time and energy commitments. I show up with my fun reactive deck (5 color Niv), I get paired against decks like Tron or Scale up Infect and get stomped. All told I get about 10 minutes of combined gameplay per round with about 30 minutes of sitting around awkwardly. And once this occurs, it makes it even harder to convince myself to try to come to more FNM's in the future since I know what awaits me.

The reason this type of thing occurs is due to fundamental disparities between threats and answers, I can mulligan and commit resources to keep a Tron player off of Tron, it ends of not mattering if all they actually need to win the game is 6 lands of ANY type since they can just go Karn into Lattice anyways. Mind you this disparity between threats and answers has surely always existed, but the disparity has grown proportionately over time, and as the shear quantity of solitaire decks in the format has increased, it compounds this problem.

User avatar
Amalgam
Posts: 151
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
Honestly I don't think I've ever seen a year this thread has been happy even back in the 2015 days. Do we really need to make the format boil down to hill giants hitting eachother?
Also linear/combo decks are allowed to exist in non rotating formats, the fact people in these threads argue for Neobrand to be banned because they don't like it should say enough.
Also I love how we are casually ignoring that Bant Control has been doing incredibly well recently which is a full blown control deck. Just because UW control has dropped down doesn't mean control is dead. Bant control has legs and is getting results
To be fair, even back in 2015 the format still had the same fundamental problem it had today in terms of the dichotomy between solitaire and non-solitaire decks, the difference was the magnitude. Back in 2015, Tron would still stomp mid range decks, but there was at least an illusion of intractability back when it's win con was a 15cmc Emrakul compared to the embarrassment of riches it has access to today.

In terms of whether linear combo decks are allowed to exist or not, I mean yes, but it would be nice if they weren't literally the overwhelming majority of the metagame. Also in terms of boiling the format down to hill giants hitting each other, that is nothing more than a strawman, I'll just ignore that segment of your post.

Ultimately let me show you the format from my perspective, I work a soul crushing corporate cubicle-slave job, when I get off of work it has a great personal cost for me to actually attend FNM's, both in terms of time and energy commitments. I show up with my fun reactive deck (5 color Niv), I get paired against decks like Tron or Scale up Infect and get stomped. All told I get about 10 minutes of combined gameplay per round with about 30 minutes of sitting around awkwardly. And once this occurs, it makes it even harder to convince myself to try to come to more FNM's in the future since I know what awaits me.

The reason this type of thing occurs is due to fundamental disparities between threats and answers, I can mulligan and commit resources to keep a Tron player off of Tron, it ends of not mattering if all they actually need to win the game is 6 lands of ANY type since they can just go Karn into Lattice anyways. Mind you this disparity between threats and answers has surely always existed, but the disparity has grown proportionately over time, and as the shear quantity of solitaire decks in the format has increased, it compounds this problem.
You are also playing an incredibly polarizing deck that generates insane amounts of value and crushes decks that try to play fair. Niz Mizzet is a pure meta deck and might not be the best example of a deck to discuss fair vs unfair decks. Niv Mizzet is designed to crush other fair decks with insane amounts of value so of course it will struggle with decks that go under it.

The meta changes and different fair decks can be viable at different points in time, even on going back 3 months or so Niv Mizzet was winning endlessly online until the meta changed.

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

Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
You are also playing an incredibly polarizing deck that generates insane amounts of value and crushes decks that try to play fair. Niz Mizzet is a pure meta deck and might not be the best example of a deck to discuss fair vs unfair decks. Niv Mizzet is designed to crush other fair decks with insane amounts of value so of course it will struggle with decks that go under it.

The meta changes and different fair decks can be viable at different points in time, even on going back 3 months or so Niv Mizzet was winning endlessly online until the meta changed.
I'm not sure we can in good faith call 5 color Niv a polarizing deck while giving Tron a pass. Also not to get into the nitty gritty, but the deck doesn't really generate that much value, I get to draw an average of 3 cards per Niv, I'm not lattice locking people or going infinite with thoper/sword, so lets keep this in perspective.

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

Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Kind of hard to sell a deck that to someone who wants to play lots of cantrips, counters, removal/direct damage, and hates Ensnaring Bridge. It's one of the best examples of how much I hate the fact that spells stapled to creatures are better than spells as spells.


Fair enough, but if you don't want any board presence at all, you're probably not going to find anything you like in Magic going forward anymore. Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Standard, Limited, Cube... creatures and planeswalkers are dominant in all of them.

I guess the deck closest to what you want if you just want lands and non permanents is probably Scapeshift, possibly of a RUG variety.

User avatar
Amalgam
Posts: 151
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
You are also playing an incredibly polarizing deck that generates insane amounts of value and crushes decks that try to play fair. Niz Mizzet is a pure meta deck and might not be the best example of a deck to discuss fair vs unfair decks. Niv Mizzet is designed to crush other fair decks with insane amounts of value so of course it will struggle with decks that go under it.

The meta changes and different fair decks can be viable at different points in time, even on going back 3 months or so Niv Mizzet was winning endlessly online until the meta changed.
I'm not sure we can in good faith call 5 color Niv a polarizing deck while giving Tron a pass. Also not to get into the nitty gritty, but the deck doesn't really generate that much value, I get to draw an average of 3 cards per Niv, I'm not lattice locking people or going infinite with thoper/sword, so lets keep this in perspective.
Generating value and swamping your opponent in card advantage is literally the entire point of the deck. It is not a good example of a fair deck and yes it does have polarizing matchups, it's why it either does incredibly well or terribly depending on the meta. A deck can both be fair and polarized.
Tron is another example of a polarized deck just on the other spectrum just like you mentioned

User avatar
drmarkb
Posts: 634
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Kind of hard to sell a deck that to someone who wants to play lots of cantrips, counters, removal/direct damage, and hates Ensnaring Bridge. It's one of the best examples of how much I hate the fact that spells stapled to creatures are better than spells as spells.


Fair enough, but if you don't want any board presence at all, you're probably not going to find anything you like in Magic going forward anymore. Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Standard, Limited, Cube... creatures and planeswalkers are dominant in all of them.

I guess the deck closest to what you want if you just want lands and non permanents is probably Scapeshift, possibly of a RUG variety.
Legacy is not a creature format in the way standard is or Pioneer will be. Playing creatures is not the same as creature decks to my mind. Take turbo depths or Lands- no creatures, then bam -20/20 -dead that turn, probably. No assessing combat- wondering if I should attack- you have a 20 you attack 99.9 % of the time, basically. You might have won with a creature but you did not win with five successive combats, you do not consider combat tricks or if the opponent is holding wrath, which is what proper creature decks feel like. It would be like saying the dreaded Twin is a critter deck, it is not what people think of. I am ok with someone Show and Telling Emrakul t2, they never actually attack with it because it is answered or its GG. A reanimated Grissel dude t1 does not feel like a creature deck, as you had to cast a bunch of spells to cheat it. Similarly elves is not really a creature deck when it combos t3- it draws its deck and then you scoop- no assessing combat as the field is a bunch of enormous elves. That is not the same as a tribal or stompy deck in Pioneer, say. Whilst they are not all top tier a lot of Karn decks do have a sneaky habit of dropping a t1 3 sphere and then preventing the opponent ever casting a spell with a wastelock. Delver and d n t are both fine decks, RUG was nuts, but they are a part of a healthy meta, one where fringe decks can grindstone kill you, or rip/helm, and a Jace and counterbalance can win the game with a bunch of basics and blue spells in hand. You will never remove walkers or critters totally, it is more about how a deck feels regarding creatures than whether it has them. I mean technically bomberman and dredge have creatures, but most Legacy players don't think of them as a creature deck in the way Merfolk or some delver decks do. Pure storm type combo is not going to happen suddenly, sure, but there will be plenty of decks that avoid the patter of dude/spell/dude/spell/dude/sweep, dude spell etc. I am not really concerned as to what people call the decks, it is more about how they feel,

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

Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

[mention]drmarkb[/mention]

According to the metagame breakdown post a couple pages ago, well over 50% of the format was actual creature decks (not counting decks like S&T as creature decks obviously). And that's typical of Legacy. And over time, the percent that are creature decks is rising.

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

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
I guess the deck closest to what you want if you just want lands and non permanents is probably Scapeshift, possibly of a RUG variety.
Actually is that at all viable? Thats something I've always wanted to play but worried it would get banned out (4 mana sorcery = win game).
UR Control UR

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
Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
I guess the deck closest to what you want if you just want lands and non permanents is probably Scapeshift, possibly of a RUG variety.
Actually is that at all viable? Thats something I've always wanted to play but worried it would get banned out (4 mana sorcery = win game).
I will preface this by saying that I haven't played RUG Scapeshift for many years. I will say this though. I think it's probably fairly viable. To be fair, I don't think anything is viable outside of Sultai Urza or Amulet right now. But after that, sure, it's viable. RG Titanshift is the better Scapeshift deck right now. It's better to be proactive, blah blah (you've heard it from every member here and it's true). I think you can build a SB to at least have nearly a 50% matchup vs. the decks you intend to face, at least if you don't have a super varied metagame.
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
Tzoulis
Posts: 323
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
I guess the deck closest to what you want if you just want lands and non permanents is probably Scapeshift, possibly of a RUG variety.
Actually is that at all viable? Thats something I've always wanted to play but worried it would get banned out (4 mana sorcery = win game).
The 4-5c version for bring to light and general sideboarding options wreck Urza decks also.

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

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Yeah, I'd stick to RUG, not out of a question of competitiveness, but just for aesthetic reasons. :p
UR Control UR

User avatar
drmarkb
Posts: 634
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
drmarkb

According to the metagame breakdown post a couple pages ago, well over 50% of the format was actual creature decks (not counting decks like S&T as creature decks obviously). And that's typical of Legacy. And over time, the percent that are creature decks is rising.
You mean the GP breakdown by True Name? That depends on how you classify some decks, decks like d n t or goblins are really prison decks, d n t was often known as white prisin. I often scoop with quite high life against them, which does not happen with Burn, for example. There are a lot of tempo or tempo hybrid decks in the format which is where the critters come into the format, even decks like maverick run the depths combo, lots of different angles exist- red prison is sometimes a stompy deck. If you want to make Pioneer or Modern like that I would be happy. I don't see them popping Wasteland et al into the format, sadly and it is cards like that that allow hybridised decks, I would like decks to hybridise more as in Legacy.
Of course after 6 months of rug, things are in flux.

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

Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
drmarkb

According to the metagame breakdown post a couple pages ago, well over 50% of the format was actual creature decks (not counting decks like S&T as creature decks obviously). And that's typical of Legacy. And over time, the percent that are creature decks is rising.
You mean the GP breakdown by True Name? That depends on how you classify some decks, decks like d n t or goblins are really prison decks, d n t was often known as white prisin. I often scoop with quite high life against them, which does not happen with Burn, for example. There are a lot of tempo or tempo hybrid decks in the format which is where the critters come into the format, even decks like maverick run the depths combo, lots of different angles exist- red prison is sometimes a stompy deck. If you want to make Pioneer or Modern like that I would be happy. I don't see them popping Wasteland et al into the format, sadly and it is cards like that that allow hybridised decks, I would like decks to hybridise more as in Legacy.
Of course after 6 months of rug, things are in flux.
D&T and Goblins being prison decks in no way shape or form change the fact that they are playing 25+ creatures and win by turning creatures sideways. They are creature decks through and through.

User avatar
The Fluff
Le fou, c'est moi
Posts: 2398
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted
Location: Gradius Home World
Contact:

Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
The Fluff wrote:
4 years ago
Is there a problem with a Standard deck with.... ten critters? I'm curious on the reason for this.
Yeah, one sixth of the deck is creatures. Lots of tapping creatures sideways sounds like midrange with a few reactive spells tacked on.
Miracles is a UW control deck and runs/ran maybe 3 snappy and a couple of mentor, and about half the wins were Jace ultimates.
Rip helm versions use combo too.
Pox is a control prison deck and runs, 1-4 manlands, and a Nether spirit, maybe one or two more in the board, maybe a Phyrexian Totem main in the odd build.
The biggest issue I have with standard control decks is they seemingly almost exclusively win with combat. When someone says UW control I sort of expect 4 creatures and not 10, 12 etc. Just my preconceptions and definitions, but enough to make sure I never darken Standard's door again.
oh, I see. just your personal preconceptions and definitions.

I thought there was something seriously wrong with control decks having 10 creatures.
Image
AnimEVO 2020 - EFZ Tournament (english commentary) // Clearing 4 domain with Qiqi
want to play a uw control deck in modern, but don't have Jace or snapcaster? please come visit us at the Emeria thread

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

Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
You mean the GP breakdown by True Name? That depends on how you classify some decks, decks like d n t or goblins are really prison decks, d n t was often known as white prisin. I often scoop with quite high life against them, which does not happen with Burn, for example. There are a lot of tempo or tempo hybrid decks in the format which is where the critters come into the format, even decks like maverick run the depths combo, lots of different angles exist- red prison is sometimes a stompy deck. If you want to make Pioneer or Modern like that I would be happy. I don't see them popping Wasteland et al into the format, sadly and it is cards like that that allow hybridised decks, I would like decks to hybridise more as in Legacy.
Of course after 6 months of rug, things are in flux.
That doesn't stop them from being creature decks.

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

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

The Fluff wrote:
4 years ago
drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
The Fluff wrote:
4 years ago
Is there a problem with a Standard deck with.... ten critters? I'm curious on the reason for this.
Yeah, one sixth of the deck is creatures. Lots of tapping creatures sideways sounds like midrange with a few reactive spells tacked on.
Miracles is a UW control deck and runs/ran maybe 3 snappy and a couple of mentor, and about half the wins were Jace ultimates.
Rip helm versions use combo too.
Pox is a control prison deck and runs, 1-4 manlands, and a Nether spirit, maybe one or two more in the board, maybe a Phyrexian Totem main in the odd build.
The biggest issue I have with standard control decks is they seemingly almost exclusively win with combat. When someone says UW control I sort of expect 4 creatures and not 10, 12 etc. Just my preconceptions and definitions, but enough to make sure I never darken Standard's door again.
oh, I see. just your personal preconceptions and definitions.

I thought there was something seriously wrong with control decks having 10 creatures.
Depends on what you call control.
UR Control UR

Yawgmoth
Posts: 170
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
D&T and Goblins being prison decks in no way shape or form change the fact that they are playing 25+ creatures and win by turning creatures sideways. They are creature decks through and through.
I think people may different conceptions of what makes a "creature deck."

For example, I don't consider Goblins to be a creature deck., Goblins use lots of creatures and attack to win but they are not just a 1 dimensional aggro deck. They work through synergy, interaction, combos, and sequencing. They also offer multiple win conditions depending on the board state. Combat is one way to win but it isn't the only. You can also lock down the board and win through non-combat mechanisms (ie sacrificing goblins to Sling-Gand Lieutenant and Pashalik Mons ). I did this in response to a lethal attack by Amulet Titan and won on the spot, super satisfying.

Ironically, I don't like to play with what I call "creature decks" but I love playing with Goblins. It's literally my favorite deck to play with. I'm not sure how best to describe what I mean by "creature deck" but in my mind it's a deck that just plays big creatures and beats you over the head with them. Goblins use lots of creatures but "beating you over the head" is only one of many options. "Creature decks" are more unidimensional in terms of strategy.

I would consider my Mardu Deaths Shadow deck more of a "creature deck" than my Jund Goblins because of how linear and dependent on attacking turn after turn the game game plan is. To me, Mardu DS is basically a creature deck with hand disruption. If I can't attack with Shadow or Fishy then I cannot win the game. Jund Goblins is literally four decks in one and I can completely change my strategy as the game state requires.

User avatar
drmarkb
Posts: 634
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago

That doesn't stop them from being creature decks.
If Wotc want to populate Pioneer or Modern with a bunch of them I would be happy. I am not complaining about such decks. I pointed out how I don't want to play critter decks as defined by me, not you, and whilst I am happy to clarify what I mean I am not going to discuss whether my definition is what you define as a creatute deck or vice versa. You are welcome to view Legacy d n t as a critter deck, or as an aggro deck, I will view it as a prison deck and neither of us is wrong. I just want to be clear, that is all.

Those decks stop people playing, which is good in my book, makes for a better format with more axis of attack. I would love a death and taxes prison deck to be more viable, I used to contribute hugely back in the day to forum in Modern. Sadly cards like Hushwing, Thalia, Arbiter et al don't form a strong enough shell to compete in Modern. Maybe with Port and Wasteland they would.

I dislike matches where both players play creatures whose sole ability is to smash face, whose abilities just make combat better or redyce the opponent's life or advance board position, but which don't interact with the opponent's ability to cast spells or perform actions. Those I like.

Debating what is a deck type is not much use, as long as we are clear I have no reason to want to change anyone's definitions.
Ditto my desire to not play Standard because control decks with double figure creature counts don't feel like control - my feelings, my descision and no desire to make others either follow my lead or accept my definition of control. Simply my own explanation.

User avatar
ktkenshinx
Posts: 571
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: West Coast
Contact:

Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

I had a few responses drafted throughout the week, but ultimately discarded them because I think they needed more context. All of this discussion drew me back to my longstanding project of trying to quantify/grade the core qualities of decks, i.e. where decks sit on the linear<->nonlinear, unfair<->fair, and noninteractive<->interactive spectra. I'm trying a few scoring systems, but need to test the systems against widely understood perceptions. So for everyone here, what are some examples of these different decks? This will help me score a bunch of decks using different systems and see how many false/true negatives/positives they create.

To be clear, here are my definitions:

Linearity (the linear to nonlinear spectrum): How many different decision trees does a deck pose in any given game/match? (Of course, this might be matchup dependent)
Fairness (the unfair to fair spectrum): How far ahead of the one card per turn, N mana on turn N, and N mana in total spells does the deck get?
Interactivity (the non-interactive to interactive spectrum): How frequently/infrequently does or can the deck interact with resources on the other side of the board?

So what are some examples of decks on these spectra? Here's an example of what I'm looking for:

UW Control: Very nonlinear, moderately fair, very interactive
G Tron: Very linear, very unfair, not very interactive
Burn: Very linear, very fair, not very interactive

Thoughts and classifications?
Over-Extended/Modern Since 2010

Yawgmoth
Posts: 170
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

[mention]ktkenshinx[/mention] I like what you are trying to do with this classification system. I would suggest trying to reduce dimensionality to only two dimensions if possible. Doing any sort of analysis will be must easier if you only have two dimensions and it will still give you lots of different subtypes (9-12 by my count). If you have three dimensions you will end up with a system where all of the major archetypes have their own subtype which gives your model zero explanatory power.

Two things;

I would suggest collapsing linear and interactive. My reason being that linear decks do the same thing each game regardless of what the opponent does, this is very uninteractive.

You could consider changing the term "fairness" with efficiency. People have different views of fairness but mana efficiency is indisputable. Basically 0 would be on curve +1 would be most efficient possible (ie Tron lands) -1 would be least efficient/unfair.

Thoughts?

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

Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
To be clear, here are my definitions:

Linearity (the linear to nonlinear spectrum): How many different decision trees does a deck pose in any given game/match? (Of course, this might be matchup dependent)
Fairness (the unfair to fair spectrum): How far ahead of the one card per turn, N mana on turn N, and N mana in total spells does the deck get?
Interactivity (the non-interactive to interactive spectrum): How frequently/infrequently does or can the deck interact with resources on the other side of the board?

So what are some examples of decks on these spectra? Here's an example of what I'm looking for:

UW Control: Very nonlinear, moderately fair, very interactive
G Tron: Very linear, very unfair, not very interactive
Burn: Very linear, very fair, not very interactive

Thoughts and classifications?
By your metric I assume most combo decks would immediately fall into the unfair category to some extent? I suppose for this to go any further we would need a control of some kind to compare to. If I were to give a historic example, perhaps Pod would suffice, Pod (mostly in earlier interations) played the melira combo which required 3 separate creatures to be on board simulateneously to occur, all of whom were soft to bolt, if we were to compare that to combos that are prevalent today, most far exceed this danger. For instance, if we were to look at a typical Urza deck, it too requires 3 pieces, being Urza, sword, and thopter foundry, however 2 of those permanents are not creatures, and the one creature is not soft to bolt.

User avatar
Ym1r
Posts: 153
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Ym1r » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago

UW Control: Very nonlinear, moderately fair, very interactive
Just to comment on the control variant, particularly UW. It definitely is very interactive, counters, removals sweepers. However, at the same time it is not VERY nonlinear. Most of the time it just tries to do the same thing, counter cards, remove creatures, land big PW or win with collonades. I have played hundreds of games with the deck and I can't say there are particularly many different ways to win. Yes post board some lists bring in say, Monastery Mentor, but in principle the game plan is more or less the same, and moderately adjusts on what the opponent is doing (i.e. focusing more on removing or countering). For that reason I would say moderately nonlinear is more correct.
Counter, draw a card.

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

Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
Linearity (the linear to nonlinear spectrum): How many different decision trees does a deck pose in any given game/match? (Of course, this might be matchup dependent)
Fairness (the unfair to fair spectrum): How far ahead of the one card per turn, N mana on turn N, and N mana in total spells does the deck get?
Interactivity (the non-interactive to interactive spectrum): How frequently/infrequently does or can the deck interact with resources on the other side of the board?
[mention]ktkenshinx[/mention]
I want to write a bit about decision trees, because this is something I actually looked at rather in depth a couple years ago. People may (or more likely, may not) remember some of my writings back on MTGS where I went about making a somewhat rudimentary AI that could take lists of cards and play Magic. I would have two decks play each other with various deck lists, then analyze them for what cards over/under performed in each list. Decisions were made by a heuristic of clock speed, essentially, winning before your opponents estimated turn to win. This only worked for non combo decks (aggro, midrange, and control all handled this heuristic very well), but it gave a lot of insight into decision trees.

As I would look over the data from matches, there would naturally be decisions on each turn. Where you had various sequences of plays available, each of which could lead to different results on the heuristic. Most decks that I examined, followed a pattern of having their number of good options gradually increasing as the turns went by until about turn 4 or 5 (it has been a while so I don't remember the specific turn in detail). At that point mana would cease to be the limiting resource and card rate would instead become the limitation. As such, the decisions that needed to be made shifted from making plays from your hand, to attacking and blocking.

After realizing this, I started playing a lot with the idea of card velocity. Certainly not a new concept by any means, but I would brew decks that essentially would focus on trying to play a lot of low mana cards each turn that could replace themselves, plus some ramp to actually get there. I played with this concept a lot in Nic Fit in Legacy but tried it in Modern too with Experimental Frenzy in both Jund and Affinity to good success.

So, I want to apply this to the definition here of being linear and how you best measure that. Think of the game like a tree, lets say that an opening hand is 3 lands (fetch, shock, basic), 2 1 drops, a 2 drop, and a 3 drop. So your turn 1 decision is playing a land, which leads to 3 decisions, and a 1 drop (for the sake of simplicity lets say both 1 drops can be cast by the basic), or no play. So you have 3 decisions for the land, 2 decisions for the 1 drop (I'm going to ignore the no play option). So turn 1 for that deck results in 6 distinct outcomes.

At some point I built a spreadsheet and some formulas to measure score in this form. I called it a complexity score, based off of the idea of decision trees. It's modeled fairly closely on the game complexity idea, which can be read about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_complexity.

Actually, while I was doing this, I had emailed MaRo at one point (I used to email him about Magic AI all the time) and even had a short private discussion on this concept (he usually doesn't respond to emails but he did to this one), and it turns out that internally Wizards has these metrics on cards/decks to some extent though I'm unaware as to how much they use them, or how they're measuring it.

This probably wouldn't help much as far as the fair and interactive criteria go, but linear by the definition provided is something that very much can be quantified, meaning that statistics can be compiled on it and it can be measured.
Last edited by Aazadan 4 years ago, edited 2 times in total.

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

Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
I guess the deck closest to what you want if you just want lands and non permanents is probably Scapeshift, possibly of a RUG variety.
Actually is that at all viable? Thats something I've always wanted to play but worried it would get banned out (4 mana sorcery = win game).
I forgot to answer this, sorry. I think the RG decks are better positioned in the meta because they leverage Primeval Titan a lot better. That said, RUG ends up being a better choice when interaction is needed. RUG or a Bring to Light version should remain competitive against any tier 2 and lower deck. I doubt you would see the deck take down a GP or anything, but at an FNM level I think it's plenty powerful. We have a guy locally who does very well with a RG version (though he doesn't show up much these days), so I know the basic strategy is viable.

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic

Return to “Modern”