[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

iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
If they are honourable and truly want to try fix the format they ban:

Urza, Emry, Veil of Summer

I wouldn't mind if Oko and Wrenn got banned as well.
Why do you even want Wrenn banned in Modern? It is played in 1-2 decks and hardly has the impact it had in legacy. If we had wasteland it might be another story but as we stand Wrenn is doing nothing even note worthy in modern at the moment.

Also let's be honest there will be no changes this upcoming ban/unban. Modern is already cooling off and we have seen the emergence of Bant Control decks in the last few weeks and there has been a spread of decks over various tournaments. Your best decks are probably still E Tron/GDS/Sultai Urza, however none of them are pushing new boundaries and the Urza decks have started playing a lot more fair and even dropping the sword combo completely in place of Oko and karn/lattice lock.

Also even if hypothetically there was a ban targeted at Sultai Urza decks it wouldn't be Opal, it would be Urza. Opal ban hurts too many other decks and with how much the Urza deck has changed the deck could probably quite easily adjust

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Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago

Also even if hypothetically there was a ban targeted at Sultai Urza decks it wouldn't be Opal, it would be Urza. Opal ban hurts too many other decks and with how much the Urza deck has changed the deck could probably quite easily adjust
Also even if hypothetically there was a ban targeted at Hogaak decks it wouldn't be Looting, it would be Hogaak. Looting ban hurts too many other decks and with how much the Hogaak deck has changed the deck could probably quite easily adjust.
Except for the fact decks such as a affinity that depend on opal aren't even on the rader at all. We had just come off back to back metas dominated by different decks built around looting. At least make a case for why you think opal is the correct choice rather than blind hate for the card

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Pre-PT(now or post january's GP): Mox opal or urza banned. I know its a difficult task to ask, but veil of summer is a card that would be better off banned, even if I am running two copies in my amulet sideboard.
I think there is a chance at this, we will need 1 GP at least to 'prove' if we have an Opal/Urza issue. I think the chance is really low however, because I think the real problem in Modern is the London Mulligan.

That said, Veil 100% needs to go. That card is not fine for Magic. It just isnt.
UR Control UR

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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
Why do you even want Wrenn banned in Modern? It is played in 1-2 decks and hardly has the impact it had in legacy. If we had wasteland it might be another story but as we stand Wrenn is doing nothing even note worthy in modern at the moment.
Its a card a personally hate. The CA it creates, you never miss a landdrop, it pings everything, all at no cost beyond the first 2 mana. It does the same thing like DRS did for Legacy, it breaks the colorpie. If I were still invested into Modern I would buy them and play them alongside 4 Astrolabe and make a nice 4 color goodstuff.

I don't even care any more what is getting banned. Today Dutch Open Series announced Modern will be held at the same day as Pioneer because the attendance for Modern qualifiers is dropping. That means I won't be playing any big Modern tourneys until at least May 2020. And if the meta stays like this I won't attend any Modern FNM either. The decision to sell my Modern cards has really paid off. I don't remember ever feeling so frustrated with a format and selling so many cards of my collection, cards I had since release like LotV, Cavern of Souls, Valakuts etc.

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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
Its a card a personally hate. The CA it creates, you never miss a landdrop, it pings everything, all at no cost beyond the first 2 mana. It does the same thing like DRS did for Legacy, it breaks the colorpie. If I were still invested into Modern I would buy them and play them alongside 4 Astrolabe and make a nice 4 color goodstuff.
Except Wrenn and Six doesn't break the color pie.....

And the only reason DRS arguably did was due to it's hybrid mana cost.

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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

You keep bashing Urza decks, but Amulet and Eldrazi decks keep posting better and better results, namely the on the PTQ you linked. It was won by an Amulet deck, 4 E-Tron in the top 8, one Urza deck came 11th (with Karn) and one 15th (no Karn, all-in on Thopter/Sword). Also, another Amulet deck 16th (with Karn).

So, where's your outrage on Amulet decks? Because you keep whinging about Urza, but lately, Amulet, E-Tron, Bant Control and Shadow decks have been fairing WAY better.
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Fastest Lattice combo or make you lose on the spot?
Or you know, Exarch into Twin. T2-T3 Infect kills, T3-T4 Storm kills, T3 (and the occasional T2) kill from Amulet and on and on... Eternal Magic has always been a %$#% of linear combos and decks and some fair decks fighting tooth and nail to compete. It's not a Modern (format) problem, it's one of the ways Magic is intended to work.

This:
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
really, really do not know. Please, do not consider this as a bashing of the format,
Followed by this:
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
I don't ask for any bans on this post. I just think that Modern is as toxic, degenerate, unfair, uninteractive and the less interesting it ever was. That's my input regarding the health(or the absense of it) of Modern.
Are paradoxical (HA!).
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Modern is not interactive any more, and we have to understand this. Maybe those days are passed. If we accept it as a reality, it will be better off.
Modern never was, and legacy is less interactive that its made out to be. T4 Twin is no less interactive than T3-T4 Karn into Lattice.
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
And during the last GP and SCG, the overall oko-urza numbers were in bannable metrics
Citation %$#% needed for the GP...
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Simic Urza(which, is control/midrange, but can turn 3 kill you
With a even with a godhand it literally can't. Only if they're playing Thopter/Swiord, and the lists that play Karn only play one of each and lose extremely valuable sideboard slots. So your "lol t3 kill" is much more infrequent than your Titan deck's "lol T3 kill".

You (royal "you") keep whining about Urza, Tron etc., and hey, maybe something needs to be cut from Simic Urza, but it's definitely not Opal and I'm starting to think it's not even Urza. You keep ignoring the warping effects of Oko, who invalidates every and all small creatures by using his +1 defensively, and invalidates all big creatures with no immediate impact on the board, by using his +1 offensively. Cut Oko and Urza will revert to its more fragile Paradoxical version. Midrange, Aggro and Tribal will appear again since their creatures will be relevant again. Control will not have to use Oko to compete against Oko. Hell, the PTQ winning Amulet deck had 2 Oko in the main, plus Infect played 2 in the main as well.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Fastest Lattice combo or make you lose on the spot?
Or you know, Exarch into Twin.
I don't want to hear this. It is such a frustratingly false equivalence. One uses a Planeswalker to get an Artifact that prevents you from playing Magic. It uses odd permanents that are difficult to deal with. The other is super easy to interact with, as it relies on a creature and an enchantment on that creature.

I mean, you all run main deck PW-specific and artifact-specific removal, right? No?

Twin was super easy to interact with if your deck chose to interact in even the most basic and broad ways. So... considerably easier to disrupt than Karn/Lattice, and definitely weaker than Urza.

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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Modern needs no other catastrophic PT.
I think they won't mind if Modern has a bad year and a poor-to-near catastrophic PT. That keeps Pioneer on the up whilst it is newborn as it takes players from Modern- it must succeed for them, so a bit of a downturn in Modern's fortunes whilst not killing it will do no harm to the big picture.

It is hard to see new product for Modern like a MH2 type set next year, that will probably be the year after, and will inject hype into the format when Pioneer is well established.
Modern will have a quiet year at a guess.

I don't think there will be unbans next year. Previous unbans have happened where people questioned their motives- like bumping a potentially flopping masters set with Jace in, or shaking up a pro tour. Remember unbans don't happen just because a card is safe- otherwise Legacy would have Mind Twist, and would have had Land Tax and Black Vise years earlier, Bitterblossom would have been earlier etc. There needs to be a benefit to WOTC somewhere.

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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Fastest Lattice combo or make you lose on the spot?
Or you know, Exarch into Twin.
I don't want to hear this. It is such a frustratingly false equivalence. One uses a Planeswalker to get an Artifact that prevents you from playing Magic. It uses odd permanents that are difficult to deal with. The other is super easy to interact with, as it relies on a creature and an enchantment on that creature.

I mean, you all run main deck PW-specific and artifact-specific removal, right? No?

Twin was super easy to interact with if your deck chose to interact in even the most basic and broad ways. So... considerably easier to disrupt than Karn/Lattice, and definitely weaker than Urza.
Lattice-Karn is easy to interact with if you have lots of creatures in play when it gets cast- you let the lattice live and attack the PW and then there is just a lattice, and it is GG otherwise, short of floating mana and instant speed kill with Assassins' trophy or similar. So it depends what type of deck, surely? Comparing with twin - well that is apples and oranges. Those men on the board don't look very impressive against a resolved pesterexarch-twin combo- unless one of those men is Linvala. That critter removal spell looks a bit rubbish against a lattice combo, unless it is a trophy and you have the mana to float.

Answers in Modern are the issue as ever- not enough of them, not flexible enough and not enough ways to make sure you draw them when you aboslutly need them against combo. I have lost hundreds of games where I have ten answers in my 60, have seen and used two, and a few turns to get one of the remainder but don't. That doesn't happen as much in Legacy, and although they are trying to improve selection with cards like Fae of wishes, but all that ever does is increase the combos- see Nexus decks in Pioneer.


That said Pithing Needle or Revoker on Karn preemptively and there is not another way to activate the Lattice combo- that is what stops me in Legacy where I run a lot of GTC decks.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
Lattice-Karn is easy to interact with if you have lots of creatures in play when it gets cast- you let the lattice live and attack the PW and then there is just a lattice, and it is GG otherwise, short of floating mana and instant speed kill with Assassins' trophy or similar. So it depends what type of deck, surely? Comparing with twin - well that is apples and oranges. Those men on the board don't look very impressive against a resolved pesterexarch-twin combo- unless one of those men is Linvala. That critter removal spell looks a bit rubbish against a lattice combo, unless it is a trophy and you have the mana to float.
I'm just getting really sick of people pretending like removing a creature is some impossible task. And putting Twin on this pedestal like it was some unstoppable, unbeatable force that was impossible to deal with. It's exhausting. It was probably the single easiest combo to deal with in Modern's history. It relies on a creature, an enchantment resolving on that creature, that creature surviving making copies, and those copies being able to attack through the combat step. I don't even WANT to be discussing this, but people keep bringing it up as comparisons, when it's nothing like the nonsense we deal with today that all require narrow, specialized answers and specific sideboard hate.

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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

Karn+Lattice lockout is really unfun to play against. However, the increasing prevalence across the meta makes it easy to plan for. If you aren't building your Modern deck with ways to remove planeswalkers instantly then you are doing it wrong.

On the other hand, destroying Karn in response to Lattice is a great way to blow out your opponent. They have to commit a lot of resources to the lock and if you are able to dismantle it with a cheap response it can often put you ahead on mana.

For example, in Goblins I can vial in munitions expert or goblin cratermaker and destroy Karn for 0 or 1 mana. This is a great mana trade off and cannot be countered thanks to vial. Cavern of Souls + Expert also offers uncounterable planeswalker removal.

Point being, lots of people are relying on planeswalkers for their central strategy and thus main-decking planeswalker removal will put you ahead.
This is different from basically any other point in the history of Modern. Sure planeswalkers like Liliana and Jace have seen a lot of play in Modern but that was in a small subset of decks and primarily in roles that were not central to the wincon of those decks. Instead, those PWs basically offered those decks (Jund & Control) an efficient way to do more of what they were already doing. In the past year the huge number of PWs printed has led to the birth of decks which rely more directly on them to win. As a result, packing efficient PW removal is more valuable than it has ever been by a long shot.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
Lattice-Karn is easy to interact with if you have lots of creatures in play when it gets cast- you let the lattice live and attack the PW and then there is just a lattice, and it is GG otherwise, short of floating mana and instant speed kill with Assassins' trophy or similar. So it depends what type of deck, surely? Comparing with twin - well that is apples and oranges. Those men on the board don't look very impressive against a resolved pesterexarch-twin combo- unless one of those men is Linvala. That critter removal spell looks a bit rubbish against a lattice combo, unless it is a trophy and you have the mana to float.

Answers in Modern are the issue as ever- not enough of them, not flexible enough and not enough ways to make sure you draw them when you aboslutly need them against combo. I have lost hundreds of games where I have ten answers in my 60, have seen and used two, and a few turns to get one of the remainder but don't. That doesn't happen as much in Legacy, and although they are trying to improve selection with cards like Fae of wishes, but all that ever does is increase the combos- see Nexus decks in Pioneer.


That said Pithing Needle or Revoker on Karn preemptively and there is not another way to activate the Lattice combo- that is what stops me in Legacy where I run a lot of GTC decks.
Lattice-Karn is not easy to interact with. You can play a bunch of creatures, but those types of decks are not even doing so well right now. Not to mention, they get stopped from attacking (Ensnaring Bridge), blocked for days (Matter Reshaper/Thought-Knot Seer), or backed up by multiple Karns. I play a lot of Combo decks that normally would care less about a 4 mana spell and Karn, the Great Creator has stopped me many times. Some of the times, it has been a stumble in drawing or mulligans. Other times, it has just been powered out super quickly and backed by enough protection to ensure the game is locked. I do not think Karn, the Great Creator "adds anything of substance to Modern," for those who believe that it should be a factor. I think Bridge from Below adds way more substance and play against than Karn-Lattice.

Perhaps Karn, the Great Creator is needed against decks like Urza type decks? But it is now IN Urza type decks. This is a bad sign; a sign that something needs to go or something needs to change.
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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
Perhaps Karn, the Great Creator is needed against decks like Urza type decks? But it is now IN Urza type decks. This is a bad sign; a sign that something needs to go or something needs to change.
I don't think this is a real concern. Urza decks want their artifacts in the mainboard while Karn wants your artifacts in the wishboard. People were experimenting with Karn in Urza decks when the deck was first created but he was quickly dropped. I also played around with it at the time and the deckbuilding demands of Karn do not agree with those of Whir. It may be that later Whir-less versions don't have the same conflicts but I still don't see it. Urza's ultimate wants cards in your library, not sideboard.

People might be building these decks because they are bad at deck building and think that making two good strategies together makes a good deck. However, I don't think that this combination is anything to worry about.

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
For example, in Goblins I can vial in munitions expert or goblin cratermaker and destroy Karn for 0 or 1 mana. This is a great mana trade off and cannot be countered thanks to vial. Cavern of Souls + Expert also offers uncounterable planeswalker removal.
FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
Lattice-Karn is easy to interact with if you have lots of creatures in play when it gets cast- you let the lattice live and attack the PW and then there is just a lattice, and it is GG otherwise, short of floating mana and instant speed kill with Assassins' trophy or similar. So it depends what type of deck, surely?
my maindeck Karn planeswalker stoppers would be discard and 4 stubborn denial. Game two, a pair of unmoored ego from my sideboard join the party. Of course, there are some games where they can still pull off the lattice lock.. but that's just the way it is with mtg, you win some, you lose some. ;)
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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

Karn, Bridge and lattice is much harder to deal with, but I said Karn Lattice. No mention of bridge until now, unless I missed it. That would be analagous not to twin plus exarch, but twin exarch with a counter in hand for your first bit of removal, or any 13 mana over three turn board state. I was talking about just Karn, Lattice, nothing else, but yeah, if you can't kill Karn or Bridge it is not going to end well.

Now if critter decks are doing poorly because of other decks pushing them out like Urza or regular Tron then you have an imbalanced format, but that is not the fault of the ten mana over two turns combo, that is the problem with the format making burn, stompy, fish and goblins and their ilk rubbish in the face of pretty broken decks. In a vacuum the combo is not an issue, it is the format being full of decks making those decks that would normally stomp the Karn bad that is the issue.

I would have added energy field to MH1 given half a chance.

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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
Lattice-Karn is easy to interact with if you have lots of creatures in play when it gets cast- you let the lattice live and attack the PW and then there is just a lattice, and it is GG otherwise, short of floating mana and instant speed kill with Assassins' trophy or similar. So it depends what type of deck, surely? Comparing with twin - well that is apples and oranges. Those men on the board don't look very impressive against a resolved pesterexarch-twin combo- unless one of those men is Linvala. That critter removal spell looks a bit rubbish against a lattice combo, unless it is a trophy and you have the mana to float.
I'm just getting really sick of people pretending like removing a creature is some impossible task. And putting Twin on this pedestal like it was some unstoppable, unbeatable force that was impossible to deal with. It's exhausting. It was probably the single easiest combo to deal with in Modern's history. It relies on a creature, an enchantment resolving on that creature, that creature surviving making copies, and those copies being able to attack through the combat step. I don't even WANT to be discussing this, but people keep bringing it up as comparisons, when it's nothing like the nonsense we deal with today that all require narrow, specialized answers and specific sideboard hate.
I am not saying it is hard to remove a critter. I am not saying it is hard to remove an artifact or pw either. Just pointing out they need different removal. Frankly I think both are easy to remove, Karn, Twin. No problem either way, but like everything, you can be stuck with the wrong answers because modern has poor filtering.

People say x is impossibly hard to deal with, it is normally not, but it will be that some decks are better with one than the other.....

I think complaining that Twin or Lattice combo is impossible to deal with is nonsense. Both of them. Pretending twin is easy and lattice hard is nonsense. Just to be clear. Pretty easy, but different.

My post does not say either is hard, let alone impossible, but it does say they are different and different decks will have different perspectives. .

I will not argue any more on either. In my opinion thete is no problem with cards existing to deal with any combo, but difficulty in drawing them at the right time because modern has poor filtering.

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
I don't want to hear this. It is such a frustratingly false equivalence. One uses a Planeswalker to get an Artifact that prevents you from playing Magic. It uses odd permanents that are difficult to deal with. The other is super easy to interact with, as it relies on a creature and an enchantment on that creature.

I mean, you all run main deck PW-specific and artifact-specific removal, right? No?

Twin was super easy to interact with if your deck chose to interact in even the most basic and broad ways. So... considerably easier to disrupt than Karn/Lattice, and definitely weaker than Urza.
Not everyone does, but you most certainly can. There's more cards in every deck that can deal with Planeswalkers than there are of any other type of interaction. Not only can you hit them, and even attack them directly, but it's in the color pie of every single color to use some sort of removal on them.

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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

Twin is borderline toxic as well. From turn 3 and forward you are prevented from developing your gameplan in fear of 'end of turn exarch, play Twin'. You always need to keep mana open and only Abrupt Decay is really good against them. Everything else might ge countered. And if you don't develop your gameplan they will start playing flash creatures like Clique and Brazen and beat you down any way and play bolt+snap.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
Twin is borderline toxic as well. From turn 3 and forward you are prevented from developing your gameplan in fear of 'end of turn exarch, play Twin'. You always need to keep mana open and only Abrupt Decay is really good against them. Everything else might ge countered. And if you don't develop your gameplan they will start playing flash creatures like Clique and Brazen and beat you down any way and play bolt+snap.
You know that works both ways, right? From the Twin side, if the opponent is holding up mana to represent removal, that stunts and slows Twin's ability to jam. It was called bluffing and representation, and was a fascinating aspect of the game that has long since disappeared. Today, it's vomit your hand as fast as possible and cross your fingers. God forbid players slow their advancement for strategic reasons, making games longer and more back-and-forth. I'm really glad we don't have more of that anymore!

Calling Twin "toxic" is the ultimate irony, as it preyed on "toxic" decks, and got beat up on by fair and interactive decks. More misrepresentations, exaggerations, myths, and legends. It's getting old.

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
Twin is borderline toxic as well. From turn 3 and forward you are prevented from developing your gameplan in fear of 'end of turn exarch, play Twin'. You always need to keep mana open and only Abrupt Decay is really good against them. Everything else might ge countered. And if you don't develop your gameplan they will start playing flash creatures like Clique and Brazen and beat you down any way and play bolt+snap.
Best of all, Temur Twin could now use Veil of Summer to stop Abrupt Decay.

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Post by pierreb » 4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
Karn+Lattice lockout is really unfun to play against. However, the increasing prevalence across the meta makes it easy to plan for.
For example, in Goblins I can vial in munitions expert or goblin cratermaker and destroy Karn for 0 or 1 mana. This is a great mana trade off and cannot be countered thanks to vial. Cavern of Souls + Expert also offers uncounterable planeswalker removal.
If you vial-in a goblin against Karn, you're just cheating. Karn prevents vial from working *at all*. I should know, I play humans often in modern and Karn is just a big pain, mostly game-over when he lands as he immediately tutors a key hate piece.

Karn is an abomination.

I still think modern would be better off with principle-based bans in addition to broken-power-based bans. For example, a few starting principles should be based on the fact that every card game has a built-in pacing mechanism, In Magic, it's mana and your mana base. So:
  • No multi-mana lands, unless the drawback is really, really huge and unavoidable.
  • No free mana (mox, spirit guide).
  • Free spells need to be very, very bad, so no OuaT, no phyrexian mana.
So, no more turn-two TKS off two temples. I don't care about probabilities, there should not be a probabilities of a broken start without some huge drawback. Temple + playing eldrazis is not a drawback. Playing a colorless deck is not a drawback.

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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

pierreb wrote:
4 years ago
Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
Karn+Lattice lockout is really unfun to play against. However, the increasing prevalence across the meta makes it easy to plan for.
For example, in Goblins I can vial in munitions expert or goblin cratermaker and destroy Karn for 0 or 1 mana. This is a great mana trade off and cannot be countered thanks to vial. Cavern of Souls + Expert also offers uncounterable planeswalker removal.
If you vial-in a goblin against Karn, you're just cheating. Karn prevents vial from working *at all*. I should know, I play humans often in modern and Karn is just a big pain, mostly game-over when he lands as he immediately tutors a key hate piece.

Karn is an abomination..
Sorry yes you are right, Karn turns of vial. However, it works to vial Cratermaker in response to Karn being cast, before he resolves and shuts off vial. Then you sac him and blow up Karn for two. A two mana answer to any non-colored permanent is pretty awesome against a field of Karns and Eldrazi. In a similar vein, Expert has flash so as long as you keep up 2 mana you can deal with Karn/Lattice. Once the lattice is on the stack (or just after they -2 Karn) pop in Expert and kill Karn. Pashalik Mons and Sharpshooter (in Legacy) also give me mainboard responses to planeswalkers.

It is a pain but my original point was that it's mana intensive for them to cast Karn and their sideboard hate piece same turn. Therefore, having a response is a great way to gain advantage and take over a game.

More broadly, because there are lots of planeswalkers running around it makes sense to pack mainboard hate. Planeswalker removal is often underpriced compared to creature removal/direct damage. I don't see planeswalkers going anywhere in the near future so we have to adapt.

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Post by True-Name Nemesis » 4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
More broadly, because there are lots of planeswalkers running around it makes sense to pack mainboard hate. Planeswalker removal is often underpriced compared to creature removal/direct damage. I don't see planeswalkers going anywhere in the near future so we have to adapt.
Outside of the narrow spyglass and pithing needle, what are these mainboardable planeswalker hate and where can I find them outside of black? I really can't think of anything else that is not colour-specific.

Besides, Elderspell, Abrupt Decay, Dreadbore, Angrath's Rampage and Assassin's Trophy are most certainly not underpriced compared to creature removal.

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idSurge
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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Anyone looking at the list from 2015, the kinds of games those decks promote, and then those of today, and thinking Modern is anywhere near healthy in comparison?

Well we have wildly different views on what is good for the game.
UR Control UR

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Tzoulis
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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

True-Name Nemesis wrote:
4 years ago
Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
More broadly, because there are lots of planeswalkers running around it makes sense to pack mainboard hate. Planeswalker removal is often underpriced compared to creature removal/direct damage. I don't see planeswalkers going anywhere in the near future so we have to adapt.
Outside of the narrow spyglass and pithing needle, what are these mainboardable planeswalker hate and where can I find them outside of black? I really can't think of anything else that is not colour-specific.

Besides, Elderspell, Abrupt Decay, Dreadbore, Angrath's Rampage and Assassin's Trophy are most certainly not underpriced compared to creature removal.
Creatures are Planeswalker removal. The most common actually.
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Thank you, cfusionpm. That's my point. Maybe tzoulis did not get it.
No, I got it perfectly fine. You bemoan a T4 kill, but somehow Twin's T4 kill is fine. YOU didn't get it or you refuse to. I'm still not sure which.

[mention]gkourou[/mention] Cherry picking one month to suit your narrative isn't helping. The spells you described have even more relevant targets now. Especially, 2 of them can target Planeswalkers as well. Small islands of "interactivity" have happened all the time, but you ignore the sea so you can philosophize and romanticize old Modern metagames.

I told you in my last post (that you seem to have ignored):

1. Simic Urza RARELY if ever kills on T3 if it playes Karn. IF it plays Karn, why is a T4 kill somehow relevant? Your Amulet deck kills on T3 regularly (and can definitely kill on T2 on some extreme cases). Hell, one list played 7 modal triple blue spells, and 2 counters the other forgoes the charms and uses "just" cryptics and rebukes. If that's not interactive, then Twin never was.
2. Modern was ALWAYS about questions first, answers later. It's how the format has been built. Without access to Legacy answers, Legacy threats always dominated. Those few islands of "interactivity" were just that, extremely small periods where some fair/interactive decks were at the top.

Affinity fair? LOL. You've been on a crusade against Mox Opal and somehow Affinity is now fair?

We have interactable decks. You wouldn't see the metagame evolve if we didn't. And we have seen some major movement on online challenges and PTQ's, it's just decks that you don't like, not some all powerful non-interactable, must-ban decks.

You made a list and somehow you put the description "uninteractable". Every single deck that you labeled as such is interactable. Every, Single. One. On different axes and at different times. What did you want to say by that term?

And after all that, you still think that Urza, Opal, Karn or whatever is the problem, yet you're blind on the warping effects of Oko. He destroys control, he invalidates almost ALL creatures, is hard to remove (even harder than others due to high loyalty and simic colors) and is epic against aggro. It seems that you have an axe to grind against cards/archetypes and that you don't really worry about Modern (or Magic's) health.
idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Anyone looking at the list from 2015, the kinds of games those decks promote, and then those of today, and thinking Modern is anywhere near healthy in comparison?

Well we have wildly different views on what is good for the game.
Actually, it is not much different than what you have today. Many decks forcing one or two "interaction" checks or you're dead, Burn, some tribal/company decks and more or less the same percentage of midrange/control decks.

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