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

User avatar
FoodChainGoblins
Level 47
Posts: 900
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Riverside

Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

FWIW, I am not complaining about Plague Engineer. I am saying that I can understand why someone would complain. I actually think that this card was an amazing card done by Research and Development (for all the flack they get for other trash cards). They aimed a card at the Modern Humans deck, which was on top of the meta at one point. There was a point where there was ban talk about Humans because of its win rate, but we all accepted it because it was a "fair" deck (that sometimes killed on turn 3). These are the types of cards that WotC needs to do more of - cards that could have tried to bring down the mighty UR Phoenix deck without the banning of Faithless Looting. But I digress.

With Plague Engineer, I think there's a few different ways to see it.
1. You are okay with Engineered Plague seeing a reprint in Modern Horizons.
2. You are okay with an easier to remove version in Plague Engineer.
3. You are not okay with that type of card, which can seriously invalidate strategies.

I can be ranging from 1.5 to 2.5 on some days. I am not completely okay with Engineered Plague being reprinted, but I don't feel that the creature version is completely off the table either.

*I enjoy playing Tribal strategies for fun. But I can always default to a top deck if I'm not allowed to do so.
**cfusionpm - don't kill me for saying this, but this is the way I felt - Splinter Twin invalidated my ability to play the card Primeval Titan because if I wasn't winning on the spot, I probably lost the next turn. Also, Deceiver Exarch kind of makes Through the Breach Primeval Titan look pretty foolish. I'm not even going to mention what it does to Through the Breach Emrakul, the Aeon's Torn because I may actually shed a tear. :shhh:
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
Bearscape
Posts: 233
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

Plague Engineer isn't that much of a big deal in Modern, but has had a bigger effect on Legacy. There's a boatload of relevant x/1s and Plague Engineer can easily be mainboarded, just being a decent 2 for 1 as a floor. In Modern Plague Engineer is completely fine, in Legacy I could see the argument that it's busted, but the strategy it hoses most is True Name Nemesis which is MUCH more offensive than Plague Engineer.

As for Oko, I'm ironically kind of excited to see how busted it is turning out to be. I thought Oko would be format defining but fair, forcing me to have to play with it in the format (or, more likely, just not playing Modern at all). But looking at SCG PC he might actually be warping enough to get the hammer eventually (doubtful it will be today though).

Quietly cheering for a Twin unban today.

iTaLenTZ
Posts: 252
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

30 copies of Oko in top8. That is format-warping. Only Abrupt Decay is a good answer against Oko and that card is just very bad positioned against the rest of field and as long as Veil of Summer is legal black is the worst color in Modern. Oko will be banned because there are no good answers against Oko.

My final prediction for today; I firmly believe these are set in stone:
- Veil of Summer
- Emry
- Mycosynth Lattice

- Oko = 50/50. They might as well ban him now because its been proven over and over again this card is busted. There are no answers and Oko invalidates half the field. They might opt to wait 2 months and see how the meta adjust but there is no reasonable doubt that Modern could handle Oko when a case could be made that even Legacy can't handle him. Not banning Oko right now would be a monetary decision, not a gameplay decision.

A case could be made for:
- Astrolabe
- OUAT
- Mox Opal
- Urza

Banning Urza would kill off the deck and put the nail in the coffin for MH. My LGS still has tons of MH on the shells not selling already. It would be totally justified ban in terms of gameplay but I don't think they will pull the trigger. Maybe without Emry (and perhaps another bannerf) they deck would become a healthy addition to the meta.

I like OUAT because it helps creature decks reach more consistency when fighting through all the degenerate stuff but the problem of OUAT is that it actually supports degenerate decks better than it helps fair decks in being more consistent. Amulet, Devoted, Infect, Tron take more advantage of this card than any fair deck ever will.

Legacy:
- Veil of Summer

Its seeing play maindeck because there is almost no tradeoff in doing so. Most decks play blue so at worst it cycles for 1 green.

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

Saw plenty of people today in our facebook group selling their Oko. He still fetches a good price despite ban fears. And I also saw at least one person looking for a foil Oko.

Stoneforge is down to almost half her price from the time she got unbanned.

Come on Oko... dodge the hammer one more time... I still got plenty of breeding pools to sell. Funnily enough, there was one time I made a sell post on facebook, and the post was not created because fb censored the word "breeding pool", not kidding. Only happened once though. Is there something improper about the word breeding pool? must have been an fb error. :grin:
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

metalmusic_4
Posts: 279
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by metalmusic_4 » 4 years ago

Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
Card like plague Engineer need to exist and if anything we need more of them as well for other strategies as well. If anything it's one of the more important cards introduced from Modern Horizons as it's a hate card that needs to be in place for modern. Hopefully we get more answers that are this strong or help more for the current modern meta.
I agree. PE is in the same vein as bloodmoon, choke, plague sliver and other powerful hate cards. Modern is a format full of hate cards and they are important safety valves. It is understandable for people to not like any of that category of cards, but I think they are important. If we looked at legacy there are even more powerful hate cards, I think it's just part of the game and has been a long time.

Hope for tomorrow: UNBAN bridge from below and twin, I just don't agree with the principal of those bans at all. BAN lattice and something else from urza, not sure the best card to hit because there are several good targets.

Actual prediction: ban somethng from urza.

Really, god only knows what they will do! So many inconsistencies with bannings and bans dictated by timing of event schedules can let known problem cards continue to exist because there is no big event coming up. Or hogaak was to new to ban so let's ban bridge from below and see how that does. Or [insert twin arguement point here]. I just don't think the planning is solid and consistant enough to really accurately predict what they will do.

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

Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Last minute predictions before we're live:

Scenario 1: No changes
There haven't been enough large, paper Modern events for Wizards to take action, especially as they have been distracted by Pioneer, Historic, and Standard. On a spreadsheet, the format probably looks pretty balanced to them, especially if MTGO Challenges/PTQs/Premiers are any indication.

Scenario 2: Urza-focused ban
Urza is without a question the secret/not-so-secret best deck in Modern, and even though MTGO numbers don't currently support a ban, MWP numbers have clearly shown this is the best thing you can be doing for months. Wizards might take action now to curb the deck's rise. This could take the form of a nerf to the deck, in the form of an Oko ban (pre-Oko versions of Urza seemed much more specialized and beatable), Emry (another unnecessary buff to an already strong deck), or it could just be Urza himself; the Whir/Oko/Emry elements could exist on their own in different strategies. Opal seems unlikely because other Opal decks are doing just fine or even struggling right now.

Scenario 3: nerf bans!
I really want Wizards to pull the trigger on this, but doubt they will. This includes fringe nerfs to top-tier decks that hurt the deck's ability to beat competition without hurting a deck's core identity. Lattice, Veil, T3feri, and Oko are all in this category as cards that give unnecessary power to various strategies at the expense of struggling competitors. Other than Veil/Oko bans in other formats, Wizards hasn't given any strong indication that this option is on the table.
Over-Extended/Modern Since 2010

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

Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

And we're live: no changes.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... ncement?en

Wizards will now ban cards whenever they need to, not on a schedule. Prepare for EVEN MOAR ban mania than we are accustomed to. That said, I am glad Wizards is no longer going to withhold obvious, needed changes just because of their artificial B&R schedule. Hogaak Summer was 100% avoidable when the writing was already on the wall, but Wizards' policies made sure Hogaak got to ruin an entire month of major event Modern. Indeed, Wizards seems to speak to this issue (and other Standard-related fiascos in 2019) in this quote:
We've also learned that, yes, some players may be affected by having their planned deck change or no longer work shortly before an event, but we've found another consideration to be more impactful. The most likely result of an imbalanced or unfun format is that players simply don't play. They cancel plans, skip side events, or don't engage in a format that isn't healthy. Attendance numbers at MagicFests for formats that later received bans bear that out.
Over-Extended/Modern Since 2010

User avatar
Mikefon
Posts: 29
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Modena (Italy)
Contact:

Post by Mikefon » 4 years ago

I expected "no changes" due to lack of big events.
About B&R announcement timing: I like their freedom to act whenever they feel like, but already hate ban mania that will rise in certain periods. We can't have everything.

User avatar
Arkmer
Opinionated and Wrong
Posts: 327
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Minnesota

Post by Arkmer » 4 years ago

The hope: WotC responds more readily to format needs.
The likely result: Now we don't even get a "No change" during the long hauls of radio silence.

I used to keep a calendar event for the bans, now that's impossible. There's no date.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. I remember the twitter poll they took awhile back was overwhelmingly in favor of some type of more frequent announcements. I forget if it was in the vein of unscheduled or scheduled though I think both options were available.

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

Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Mycosynth Lattice (The Karn-Lattice combo is severly hurting most interactive strategies)
Mox Opal or Urza, Lord High Artificer (Urza is a busted card. Opal if they go for a Looting like effect)
Small possibility on Expedition Map (I don't know if they have enough data to ban it, MODO data will play a role into that, but a Lattice ban will probably be enough for Eldra Tron)
We get it, you hate artifacts and especially Mox Opals. That doesn't give you a pass when making such wrong statements.
Interactive strategies are good against Karn-Lattice strategies, especially control and Shadow.
If you wanna go for a "Looting effect" you kill Emry, not the card that lets artifact strategies able to compete. When will you understand this?
Tron decks are fine, the perpetual hate on them is getting boring. Move on or at least try and do some objective critiques of the strategies.

Hint: The 2 cards that are problematic and hurting interactive strategies are: Mono Green and Simic.

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

Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

Personally I feel we aren't going to get even look at by wizards for a while is nothing compares to the current disaster fire that is the last few years of standard design, especially the last 12 months. The fact that it is so out of control and gotten so bad that their only answer was again more B&R updates. We are in for a rocky one guys this next year I bet, doesnt matter if its standard, modern, pioneer or legacy we are going to get see more of this incompetent design mistakes.
Last edited by Amalgam 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

iTaLenTZ
Posts: 252
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

"The most likely result of an imbalanced or unfun format is that players simply don't play. They cancel plans, skip side events, or don't engage in a format that isn't healthy. Attendance numbers at MagicFests for formats that later received bans bear that out."

That is a clear message. Vote with your wallet and don't attend to tourneys if you are dissatisfied with the format. I will keep boycotting Modern. No changes is absolutely outrageous. Not only can't I play Modern but my cards aren't selling either and are just going down more and more. I can't even get out of this crap format unless I take a huge financial loss. I want to make the transition to Pioneer but I am stuck with all these cards nobody even wants any more.
Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
That doesn't give you a pass when making such wrong statements.
Keep defending your petdeck, in the meantime we switch over to Pioneer and in the end you will have nobody to play with because people like me are sick and tired of Urza and in general the degenerancy and uninteractiveness of the format.

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

Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
"The most likely result of an imbalanced or unfun format is that players simply don't play. They cancel plans, skip side events, or don't engage in a format that isn't healthy. Attendance numbers at MagicFests for formats that later received bans bear that out."

That is a clear message. Vote with your wallet and don't attend to tourneys if you are dissatisfied with the format. I will keep boycotting Modern. No changes is absolutely outrageous. Not only can't I play Modern but my cards aren't selling either and are just going down more and more. I can't even get out of this crap format unless I take a huge financial loss. I want to make the transition to Pioneer but I am stuck with all these cards nobody even wants any more.
Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
That doesn't give you a pass when making such wrong statements.
Keep defending your petdeck, in the meantime we switch over to Pioneer and in the end you will have nobody to play with because people like me are sick and tired of Urza and in general the degenerancy and uninteractiveness of the format.
So your answer is to move to a format that is hyper linear and has zero safety valves with none on the horizon? Pioneer is popular because it's the new hotness and because its cheaper than modern. At a tournament level pioneer is worse than modern for interactivenes currently and it will only get worse as it has no efficient hate cards or removal. So you enjoy your pioneer but it you ever try take it past FNM level you will be in for a rude awakening. Just wait for pioneers honeymoon phase to pass to see what people really think about that format

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

Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
Keep defending your petdeck, in the meantime we switch over to Pioneer and in the end you will have nobody to play with because people like me are sick and tired of Urza and in general the degenerancy and uninteractiveness of the format.
Other than what [mention]Amalgam[/mention] mentioned above, I've made my arguments very clear. You didn't counter ANY of my points, you just decided to attack me personally and draw up a strawman.

Go play Pioneer, a format that's fresh enough that you can't even see it's massive problems and somehow think that Legacy questions can be answered by Standard (not even Modern) answers. I'm not the one that's whining for bans on the wrong cards. You are.

For weeks now the writing's on the wall: Urza decks are declining or are morphing into midrange/control strategies -you know, interacting.

I'll be explicit since you seem to have read only my first 2 sentences: Ban Oko and Veil. Hell, throw in T3feri. There. Interaction is back on the menu. But no, %$#% Opal and Urza and Emry, because people are unable to correctly diagnose a problem. If you want to cut your leg because your toe's hurting no-one's stopping you, but don't drag blame us afterwards for your inability to run.

Mtgthewary
Posts: 220
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

Declining? Really? Scg championchip yesterday had 3 urza decks in top 8...all urzas by the way in this tournament. You allways repeat this decline even each tournament every time on reality paper has urza as best deck. How often again? No deck with 5 different styles, everyone of this on top, should exist. Core is to strong, no matter if they use oko, karn, thopter, whirza, Sai emry goblin engineer cryptic loop, ascendancy, Saheeli......

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

Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
Declining? Really? Scg championchip yesterday had 3 urza decks in top 8...all urzas by the way in this tournament. You allways repeat this decline even each tournament every time on reality paper has urza as best deck. How often again? No deck with 5 different styles, everyone of this on top, should exist. Core is to strong, no matter if they use oko, karn, thopter, whirza, Sai emry goblin engineer cryptic loop, ascendancy, Saheeli......
Because both it and the last scg example you keep parroting have been mixed formats which heavily takes away from their relevance. Not to mention how inbred the scg tournament metagame always are. Even if this data was relevant(it's not relevant) I instead ask you to pull in your hatred of artifact strategies just a little just so you can see the amount of Oko/veil being played in that top 8

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

Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Hard to see how there are any next steps that are not the removal of Veil, Oko, and in my dreams, T3feri.

You do that, and you and determine next steps.
UR Control UR

User avatar
Bearscape
Posts: 233
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

Welp, no changes.

No more scheduled announcements is in practice a good thing, but I'm gonna miss the excitement they brought.

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

Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

Amalgam wrote:
4 years ago
Personally I feel we aren't going to get even look at by wizards for a while is nothing compares to the current disaster fire that is the last few years of standard design, especially the last 12 months. The fact that it is so out of control and gotten so bad that their only answer was again more B&R updates. We are in for a rocky one guys this next year I bet, doesnt matter if its standard, modern, pioneer or legacy we are going to get see more of this incompetent design mistakes.
This is how I'm interpreting things. If you scroll back a bit you'll see my theory based on R&D communication so far, that they've got all/most of 2020 under the same design ideas that they had in 2019. I take this change to the B&R updates as yet another indicator that they believe numerous problems are about to appear, and that they're going to need to be extremely flexible in bans.

I really hope that's not the case, but all indications so far are that 2020 is going to be a very rough year.

User avatar
Arkmer
Opinionated and Wrong
Posts: 327
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Minnesota

Post by Arkmer » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
I really hope that's not the case, but all indications so far are that 2020 is going to be a very rough year.
The only real hope I have for 2020 is that they said Eldrain is supposed to be towards the top of the power rating for what they want in Standard; theoretically, that should mean that the next few sets should be more tame? By default there is only one direction to go if they're actually imposing an "upper limit". On the other hand, if for some reason another set in the next year blows Eldrane out of the water then I may just throw up my hands and be done with Magic in its entirety.

I've already been on the fence for not actually Magic related reasons.

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

Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

Arkmer wrote:
4 years ago
The only real hope I have for 2020 is that they said Eldrain is supposed to be towards the top of the power rating for what they want in Standard; theoretically, that should mean that the next few sets should be more tame? By default there is only one direction to go if they're actually imposing an "upper limit". On the other hand, if for some reason another set in the next year blows Eldrane out of the water then I may just throw up my hands and be done with Magic in its entirety.

I've already been on the fence for not actually Magic related reasons.
A power rating for the set doesn't really mean much though in terms of what needs to be banned. It just takes a pushed card or two.

True-Name Nemesis
Posts: 156
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by True-Name Nemesis » 4 years ago

Re: Plague Engineer

Good to have but not something that was really needed. If there's something that Modern was NOT lacking, it's ways to deal with small creatures.

Not sure how even more answers to tiny tribal creatures would be at the top of anyone's priority list compared to the other crap we need to deal with in Modern.

User avatar
Bearscape
Posts: 233
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

Sets are designed years in advance but I doubt they are set in stone so hard that RnD can't respond to a yearlong tsunami of blowback. I wouldn't jump to conclusions about how 2020 is going to go.

User avatar
pierreb
Posts: 280
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Up North

Post by pierreb » 4 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
Other than what Amalgam mentioned above, I've made my arguments very clear. You didn't counter ANY of my points, you just decided to attack me personally and draw up a strawman.
...
But no, %$#% Opal and Urza and Emry, because people are unable to correctly diagnose a problem. If you want to cut your leg because your toe's hurting no-one's stopping you, but don't drag blame us afterwards for your inability to run.
Kettle, pot.
Warning for trolling.
-ktkenshinx-

True-Name Nemesis
Posts: 156
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by True-Name Nemesis » 4 years ago

In other news. Oko just got banned in Pioneer too. Alongside Nexus of Fate.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... ouncement/

In the case of Nexus of Fate, WoTC also demonstrates willingness to ban cards not just on power level but also on potential for frustrating play patterns and long matches. For better or worse, this does open a can of worms.

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic

Return to “Modern”