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

Yawgmoth
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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
Of all the people that generally contribute to conversation here, how often do you all play? Especially in paper?
I play paper at the LGS one or two times a week. Usually Modern on Friday's and Legacy on Wednesday. We usually get the same 8 for Legacy each week. Modern is more varied, between 6-16 per week. I play at home as often as possible, depends on our mood. Generally play 1-3 nights a week at home. I have no interest in digital Magic I very much enjoy playing with physical cards.

Aazadan
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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
Legacy is the best paper constructed format, it slowly evolves and everyone can play almost any style. The differences between tiers is small. You might bring a couple of revolvers to a machine gun fight, but they still fire bullets.
I strongly disagree with this. Legacy has some good things going for it for sure, but if it were an actual competitive format (meaning something that gets you streaming contracts or onto the pro tour) I think it would be a mess.

I went into this before but the format ran into some significant issues when they did the team PT a couple years ago. The format could barely handle it. In a casual setting or even something like the SCG Tour the format can be ok, but that's because those settings don't really drive deck development. And so long as budget isn't an issue, people can play against each other and the format can handle normal threats.

It's a very fun format as it is, but there's some hard truth in the format that are kept hidden by the fact that it doesn't get high level tournament support. EDH is similar, some, formats are simply better left as being casual and perhaps this is simply true of the nature of the game once the format gets to a certain sized card pool.

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FoodChainGoblins
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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
If it wasn't for amulet titan though, I would have stopped modern, as I think the format is in a bad shape. I disagree with sheridan in that the only reason for that is pioneer getting its way into arena and I do think modern needs some shakeup, but I am certain its going to get it until mid january. The attendance in my region has been steadily dropping, pioneer is dead at the moment, and most people I have been talking to have dropped modern, as they think its too linear and not strategically diverse. If you want to win, its either an urza variant, a tron variant, a shadow variant. Maybe titan also, but this deck needs a lot of time to learn, so its not that easy. Poeple want to be able to play with control, jund midrange, tribal decks, tempo decks, toolbox decke, as they once could. Also a lot of people are wondering why cards like twin and pod are banned, at the moment there are much stronger decks than those roaming around.
I feel a similar way. I only enjoy Modern because of Amulet and the pet deck that I've been stomping with (20-4 so far baby) - Elementals. I can play formats that I don't enjoy. How else can you explain me buying Standard cards for PTQs? Or playing Pioneer at a 2.5K, yes $2, 500 total prizes? Outside of that, I'd just play Modern because any other format that is accessible for me is way worse. Legacy is tough to get out to, especially recently with carpool buddies trying to concentrate on Pro Tour formats.

As for me, I've literally never played any Magic on a computer. I realize this hampers my ability to grow as a player, but I'm semi-okay with that. I tried Cockatrice once a long time ago, but it took me a while to figure out the buttons and my opponent got mad. I never played after that and I don't want to get into MTGO because I'll most likely be addicted to it (like I am to paper and collecting as well). I play FNM every week. It's my fun time since that's where some of my buddies are. Then I play sparingly on Wednesdays, Mondays, and weekends have been super sparingly recently. I have gone to a bit more GPs than usual. I used to only go to the California ones and Las Vegas. But now I've been to a few more and may attend GP Austin (Modern) this coming year. My PW points probably tells how much I play more than anything else - 2001 points and 29th in CA. This is the first year I'm behind 2 of my buddies and sometimes more than a 3rd, lol. So I guess I'm playing less.
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

Aazadan
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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
I understand your point. You are right in that I did not express that right in this post.
I think Modern's problem is that it's too linear at the moment. It's not only mine. For example, according to ktk's calculations, 11% of Modern's overall meta is about traditional interactive decks. During past years, that same numbers was at least double that figure. So, it is a problem.

Birthing Pod & splinter Twin are two totally different matters. Obviously, Twin is not a linear deck, except for it's combo. Pod, I think it's complex about whether it is or not, but i want it back, because I think it would be relatively weak at this modern. It's just that power creep has gone so much, that it caught up with Twin and Pod and has surpassed those decks. So, from a power level perspective, since there are many decks that are better than those two, they should be unbanned, because they would be too fine. That's the argument about Twin and Pod.
This is not to say I would want them unbanned, if they were to turn 3 kill people though. For example, I strongly believe Blazing Shoal would not be played nearly at all, and would be fine if unbanned. This does not mean we should unban those type of cards though, because saying Pod is a linear deck is one thing and saying Blazing Shoal infect is a linear deck is another. We have been having too much of hyper linear/hyper aggressive decks in Modern for years. That said, I hope Shoal will rot in the Banlist, even if I don't think it would make waves in Modern if unbanned(especially with no ponder, preordain, probe and with Force legal). It would just be (IMO) another 2-3% tier 2-3 deck that would add a small stone in the already existing modern problem: too many linear decks wanting to kill you as fast as possible, in the most linear of ways.
I strongly believe Birthing Pod is not a Blazing Shoal type of card in the linearity degree. Pod is about chaining value creatures one after another. I don't hate that. I don't mind that. I think that's healthy in Modern. Turn 2 Pod into Turn 3 voice into turn 4 finks into turn 5 rhino is totally fine. You are probably mean that the Viscera Seer combo and it is, but
A. Seer combo is a 3 card combo
B. Seer combo is boltable/easy to interact with
C. We already have a better combo in a better deck. Devoted Druid-Vizier of Remedies combo.

All that said, I will make a bold statement: The Devoted Druid-Vizier of Remedies combo/deck is better positioned than Birthing Pod, because it just kills faster and in today's meta, there is no time with durdling around with voice, finks and other creatures that were once great and now are sub-par: Value in modern has died.

PS: Unban Birthing Pod, Splinter Twin, ban Oko, thief of crowns, Veil of Summer, Mycosynth Lattice, and then see where Urza decks go from there. That's my message.
Wizards can make hype come back in Modern and in a way that's healthy and safe.

PS2: I have a feeling that FoodChainGoblins & cfusionpm will like my post, for different reasons :P
I should start by saying that I have very, very strong opinions on Birthing Pod. I don't talk much about the card these days, but I was on that deck back in overextended, and posted extensively on the deck thread while it was a current deck, including coming up with a lot of the tech that the deck played. I'm not really a fan of rehashing history to determine if something was right or wrong, and prefer to just look at history as a point of reference for the current state of things. I do think that Pod was banned at the wrong time, the deck was just unfortunate enough to be the one deck that could keep pace with Treasure Cruise fueled UR Delver and the deck ran rampant because Delver pushed out all of Pods bad matchups. Suffice it to say, I loved Pod more than many of the more vocal Twin players loved that deck and I very nearly quit the game entirely over the Twin ban and I really wish that the card could be allowed back into the format.

That said, I also believe that in the context of creatures that have been printed since, that there's absolutely no way the deck would be fine right now. Vannifar is fine, but that's because of the summoning sick drawback to creatures. But, I messed with that deck too, and there were pod chains that were instant wins. Pod chains are slightly more restricted in their instant win ability as they don't have Scryb Ranger for a 2 mana untapper, but a T2 pod into a T3 2 drop can still chain itself into a win on that turn. The deck would have a very high T3 win rate and that wouldn't be acceptable.

Alternatively, there's also the value creature builds which would be significantly stronger at this point as well (but as you said value creatures aren't really where you want to be at the moment). I can go into a lot of detail on these chains if you wish, but if not trust me when I say the value plan would be so good that if value creatures ever became playable again, Pod would be the only realistic option for playing them because it does it so much better than any other deck could hope to. The format currently is struggling with decks that can reduce any big creature to a vanilla 3/3, imagine what a deck that can spam threats larger than that would do in the current format. Oko would be unable to elk things fast enough to disrupt the deck. For example, lets take a very basic example of Voice of Resurgence. Let's say you play it, then Oko elks it. Now, you pod it as it's still a 2 drop, into Renegade Rallier, returning your Voice. Now you've got a 3/2 which has a favorable interaction with an elk, and you've got your voice back.

If the opponent Elks your rallier you swing a 2/2 and 3/3 at the Oko. One of them connects. If the elk connects, you then pod the Elk into a 4 drop like Entomber Exarch (something else like Golgari Findbroker would probably be the choice today, but I'm sticking to what I know when possible), return your rallier, cast your rallier, and return the Voice that died. If the voice connects and the elk instead dies, you pod the voice into witness, get your rallier back, cast your rallier, and get your voice back.

If the opponent instead elks your voice, the line is similar, if rallier hits and voice dies, you do the entomber exarch line and they're back. If the elk hits and rallier dies, you do the witness line and they're back.

And that's just one of the new cards, there's several value cards that are even more absurd than that.

Pod should absolutely not be allowed back into the format, and that's before even getting into the absurd tapper/untapper stuff they've put in blue like Hippocamp that get you to Mikaeus/Triskellion combos in one turn from any 2 drop or higher. Birthing Pod plus 5 mana (maybe 3), and any 2 mana creature is an instant win, and that's way too easy a combo to put together in decks that run mana dorks, or higher drops like a 3 drop requires less mana. It's easily within the top 5 cards in the format that should never be unbanned.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

I think these conversations are good and it's great to feed off other's insight, even if people disagree. Disagreeing is fine. People should disagree. People still to this very day think that Stoneforge Mystic is too good for Modern, lol.

That being said, I feel like I'm leaning more toward gkourou's opinion here on Birthing Pod. I am assuming that Aazadan is referring more to Kiki Pod, that can infinite combo you out of nowhere. That is actually something good for the format because it is just like Twin in that it can be stopped by creature removal. I kind of get where you're coming from because Pod (and Twin for that matter) can then go the value route and beat you there. But I feel Modern has enough strong cards to fight this and not automatically die to the combo/value routes that Pod (and Twin can present). We actively WANT removal to be good in this format because right now, outside of killing Urza and a Thought-Knot Seer, it's not. Creature removal for the most part is NOT good, well...at least I mean it's at a low point currently.

With Junk Pod, it's mostly a value deck and there are infinite answers to Pod compared with when it was banned. I actually think that it DID need to be banned when it was because the Rhino chain was too strong at that moment. Well, I personally wanted Siege Rhino banned and not Birthing Pod. Maybe we could have seen if with Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time banned, would infinite Siege Rhinos starting on turn 3 be enough to dominate Modern? Who knows? But at that very moment, it did dominate Modern, mostly because of what Treasure Delver did to the format.

With Kiki Pod, it can be interacted with the Pod itself or removal on the creatures. Yes, they can go the value route. Yes, they can search up Glen-Elendra Archmage or Spellskite prior to the combo, but these are all things that can be done right now in Vannifar. They take time and each turn is precious in Modern where you could be buried the next turn. I personally think that Birthing Pod is only moderately worse than Vannifar. With more creature removal in the format, I will change my opinion.

*I will admit my bias toward Birthing Pod. I didn't play the deck much myself, but I loved how the deck played. I thoroughly enjoyed playing against Pod opponents and seeing what their lines were, how they would play, what tricks including spicy cards would they include. Every time I played against them, I felt like it was a puzzle and for me to play the best, I had to know how to play Pod myself. I usually played many decks that had good Pod matchups - Amulet, Scapeshift, and super quick combo decks, because I actively hedged against a deck that I knew was the deck to beat at the time. I felt like I could outplay many of my opponents, but the good Pod players would be tough, so I wanted to give myself that deck matchup advantage, which is part of the reason I played decks with good matchups against Pod. But I would welcome with open arms the card Birthing Pod back into the meta with no regrets. :)

**I should also say that if Birthing Pod was back in the format, it would hurt Burn and BGx decks even more though. These types of decks are already way on the decline and basically limping right now, but Pod decks were known for smashing these decks. BGx occasionally kept up, but Burn just has a lot of trouble beating Kitchen Finks into Siege Rhino.
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

Aazadan
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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Let's start here. So, you are saying this is a Turn 2 Pod, if Birds of paradise sticks to the battlefield. That means it's not a Turn 3 kill and it can be bolted, and if you do bolt/push/use a removal on it, you are making it a Turn 4 potential combo.
But that's not the whole thing. Even if you use a removal on the bird and the Pod player tries to go off at Turn 4, you can bolt the Turn 4 combo again, right? That encourages interaction and is even more fine. Really, can't understand the problem.
If you bolt the bird on T1 you can delay Pod, if you bolt on T2 which is a very possible thing in game 1's if you're on the play it will either greatly disrupt your curve, or you'll settle for needing to deal with the pod fuel. A t2 pod can still do some very powerful things when you untap on T3 (even if it can't win the game). And I would argue that just saying bolt the bird isn't a reasonable solution because we can say that to dealing with a T2 Oko right now, and that's still a problem.
Ok, point no. 2. Pod got stronger sure. But what were Pod's bad matchups? Tron, combos, hyper synergistic decks that if you don't interact with, you lose. Right? Well, Modern is full of that at this point. Tron would be an atrocious matchup, Amulet Titan would be a bad matchup, even Urza would use it's removals/seizes and try to go off quicker.
Also, we have K-Com, Oko, Force of negation, Force of vigor, plague engineer. I believe those cards would hamper Pod's ability that much, that the deck would not even be close to the upper tiers.
The view I always had while playing Pod was that Pod was basically a gatekeeper. If you had an even to slightly favorable matchup against Pod, you were a T1 deck. If you didn't, you were a T2 or lower deck. Essentially, due to how prevalent Pod was, you either played to beat Pod or to beat the rest of the format. Every T1 deck at the time was even to slightly favorable against Pod, or it was Tron and crushed Pod. And while it's true that many answers have been added to the format, for every answer added there has been at least two good threats Pod would be interested in added. And Pod would play a lot of those while each deck would only adopt a couple of answers.
That's what a Pod unban wants to achieve. Well, not creatures in it's entirety, but toolbox decks. Toolbox are dead, playing with value creatures is dead, and if this is the only thing that can bring them back(without it being Tier 0), that's highly welcomed.
Possible, but I'm actually optimistic that we see some planeswalker answers soon. Wizards typically puts answers to the previous years blocks a year after that block releases in order to phase out the old cards and phase in the new. If we don't start seeing some planeswalker removal in Theros, I will likely radically alter my opinion on this. I'm not super optimistic they'll completely address the 2019 design issues, but since PW's were a major theme of 2019 I do think we'll see something on that front. Whether those answers are Modern playable or not though is an open question.
That's not what Oko would do to Pod. Oko would not turn voice into an Elk. Oko, thief of crowns would make Birthing Pod into an Elk and the Pod player would basically lose half of the game right then, right now. Don't get me wrong, and I don't want to be hostile(I am really not), but I disagree with your analysis, because it's very base is wrong, in my humble opinion. I strongly believe Oko (with K-com, plague engineer, k-com, fon, fov) literally make Pod unplayable right now.
Sure, that's another line and one that I didn't address. But, if you took that line, say the player goes T1 Hierarch into T2 Pod, the Oko player then +1's to elk the pod. This leaves them tapped out with an Oko on 5. The elk then swings, exalts to 4 (Pod generally preferred Hierarch after the DRS ban rather than birds), and Oko goes to 1. At that point, the players Oko is probably dead or at least not in a safe position. From this spot, it starts getting too hypothetical as to what cards each deck is running so I'll end that scenario there but a value based deck would still be just fine in this spot. Especially since should the Elk pod ever die you enable Chord of Calling (assuming the deck still runs this) to get Eternal Witness and get the Pod back.
All that said, if you want to be linear there is no reason trying to get cute with Hippocamp and stuff. There is a more linear deck and a better deck to just turn 3 kill people who play tron, and that kind of decks. And it would be better positioned that tron.
The difference is that while those decks combo Pod was able to combo while also mainboarding several hate pieces to disrupt the opponents. It was also able to have a wider sideboard because it only needed 1 or 2 pieces of sideboard hate for any given strategy, in order to consistently find it. Pod never had the strongest combo, but what the combo lacked in strength was the ability to effortlessly interact with whatever the opponent was trying to do. Eventually, once Rhino came out most builds even dropped the combo entirely in favor of playing a disruption+clock strategy which fared far better, but those are of course meta specific considerations.

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
With Kiki Pod, it can be interacted with the Pod itself or removal on the creatures. Yes, they can go the value route. Yes, they can search up Glen-Elendra Archmage or Spellskite prior to the combo, but these are all things that can be done right now in Vannifar. They take time and each turn is precious in Modern where you could be buried the next turn. I personally think that Birthing Pod is only moderately worse than Vannifar. With more creature removal in the format, I will change my opinion.
Vannifar is considerably worse. It costs 1 mana more to cast and takes 1 turn longer to activate. In most situations Pod is one turn faster, though the fail case on Vannifar is considerably higher where Pod is in some cases 2 turns faster. It also forces you into a second color which drastically shrinks the range of things you can do without compromising your mana.

Vannifar to Pod is analogous to Kiki/Resto in a Twin shell and saying it's the same thing.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
With Kiki Pod, it can be interacted with the Pod itself or removal on the creatures. Yes, they can go the value route. Yes, they can search up Glen-Elendra Archmage or Spellskite prior to the combo, but these are all things that can be done right now in Vannifar. They take time and each turn is precious in Modern where you could be buried the next turn. I personally think that Birthing Pod is only moderately worse than Vannifar. With more creature removal in the format, I will change my opinion.
Vannifar is considerably worse. It costs 1 mana more to cast and takes 1 turn longer to activate. In most situations Pod is one turn faster, though the fail case on Vannifar is considerably higher where Pod is in some cases 2 turns faster. It also forces you into a second color which drastically shrinks the range of things you can do without compromising your mana.

Vannifar to Pod is analogous to Kiki/Resto in a Twin shell and saying it's the same thing.
I can get behind this.

But this is the beauty of a potential unban on Birthing Pod. Vannifar is non existent right now. A Birthing Pod deck can somewhat be a serious contender. (and by serious contender, I mean around the strength of Stoneforge Mystic decks) Like gkourou said, toolbox decks (other than Amulet) can be powered up.
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

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Post by True-Name Nemesis » 4 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
A Birthing Pod deck can somewhat be a serious contender. (and by serious contender, I mean around the strength of Stoneforge Mystic decks)
Stoneforge decks are not serious contenders. Oko decks are. The only relevant Stoneforge deck is good because of Oko not Stoneforge.

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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
Legacy is the best paper constructed format, it slowly evolves and everyone can play almost any style. The differences between tiers is small. You might bring a couple of revolvers to a machine gun fight, but they still fire bullets.
I strongly disagree with this. Legacy has some good things going for it for sure, but if it were an actual competitive format (meaning something that gets you streaming contracts or onto the pro tour) I think it would be a mess.

I went into this before but the format ran into some significant issues when they did the team PT a couple years ago. The format could barely handle it. In a casual setting or even something like the SCG Tour the format can be ok, but that's because those settings don't really drive deck development. And so long as budget isn't an issue, people can play against each other and the format can handle normal threats.

It's a very fun format as it is, but there's some hard truth in the format that are kept hidden by the fact that it doesn't get high level tournament support. EDH is similar, some, formats are simply better left as being casual and perhaps this is simply true of the nature of the game once the format gets to a certain sized card pool.
I think you missed the word paper.
You can't stream paper, and I specifically excluded online, where Legacy can turn into a mess with a single card such as W6. The whole reason Legacy works is that in paper you cannot just change to this week's best deck in paper unless you own all the cards. Those of us who do are generally not the sort who would do that, because most tend to be old and have had their time in the more competitive stuff and will want to play certain decks. GP/SCG tour level stuff is exactly as high a level as Legacy, or indeed, any non sealed/draft Mtg needs.

If we are honest any constructed mtg with your definition of high level support is broken. Standard is always broken and banned nowadays, and when it was not all about the bans it was dull as dishwater and solved in seconds. Dull or broken, make your choice. Block was dull and often broken. Modern is perma broken. At least Legacy can have a best deck lurking for ages before discovery, similar to modern having decks lurk before discovery like RW prison and Top control. Any format that is streamed by pros and can generate that level of interest will fail. The reason legacy is better than those others is that there are way more decks and more answers in the pool, and the format rewards experience more than most. I certainly don't remember the PT team generating issues, but that might be old age, but as I am not disagreeing with your suggestion that it gets protection played at the level it is, there is no issue. I am disagreeing with the implication that there is a better format out there that could live with streaming, pro contract level of support. There is no constructed format that can live with that.
Legacy as it is will be ideal, and is better than any other non vintage format would be with a similar level of support, for the reason that it has all the archetypes viable whereas Modern to an extent lacks beatdown and prison, and standard lack prison, combo and often control decks. When judging the best format I want all archetypes to exist, including those which have play patterns that annoy a certain type of person (the type that does not know when to scoop). If standard was played to the level of Legacy with similarly poor support it would be better than it is now but always inferior to Legacy due to the design paradigm of prioritising combat and interaction to the exclusion of traditional archetypes. Modern will soon have the level of support Legacy enjoys, and it still won't be as good as Legacy.

As a related aside I would wager that the days of pros, grinders and the game sold as a competitive card game are numbered for the reason you suggest for Legacy writ large for all formats. High level MTG does not work.
Last edited by drmarkb 4 years ago, edited 5 times in total.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

True-Name Nemesis wrote:
4 years ago
FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
A Birthing Pod deck can somewhat be a serious contender. (and by serious contender, I mean around the strength of Stoneforge Mystic decks)
Stoneforge decks are not serious contenders. Oko decks are. The only relevant Stoneforge deck is good because of Oko not Stoneforge.
I'm nearly certain that you are right. There is a player at my FNM that does fairly well with Bant Stoneforge, but something is missing. He only owns 1 Oko, Thief of Crowns and is constantly asking to borrow some. The issue is that others are using theirs. :P He feels that something is not quite there and after he lost to me last FNM (which doesn't mean that much, other than conversation), he said that he's going to put it down now.
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

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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

[mention]Aazadan[/mention] I got into Modern at the tail end of Pod's existence, so bear with me, but wouldn't Pod in this era go for the Felidar/Kiki-Saheeli combo? I think it'd probably make it even faster/consistent than the old Kiki-Pod and have an equally good value plan with "just" Saheeli. Not to mention Once Upon A Time etc...

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
I think you missed the word paper.
No, I got the word paper. I took that into account with my arguments. Legacy is much, much more broken than it lets on, and the only reason it doesn't break is that there's not really a competitive focus on the format. If there were the meta would become absolutely miserable. And, while it's true that deck mobility is considerably less in Legacy, especially in paper... if you've got dual lands, particularly blue duals it's not that much less.

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
Aazadan I got into Modern at the tail end of Pod's existence, so bear with me, but wouldn't Pod in this era go for the Felidar/Kiki-Saheeli combo? I think it'd probably make it even faster/consistent than the old Kiki-Pod and have an equally good value plan with "just" Saheeli. Not to mention Once Upon A Time etc...
It might go with Felidar/Kiki, but that's not really that much different from Restoration Angel/Kiki, which is what the Kiki Pod decks already did. Going with Saheeli is unlikely as you can't pod or chord into it.

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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

Last mtgo challenge urza on first place. Seems in top 8 are 50% okos. Place 1, 2, 4 and 5.So next boogeyman which will safe again urza style decks. Again no time fixing this problem

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
I think you missed the word paper.
No, I got the word paper. I took that into account with my arguments. Legacy is much, much more broken than it lets on, and the only reason it doesn't break is that there's not really a competitive focus on the format. If there were the meta would become absolutely miserable. And, while it's true that deck mobility is considerably less in Legacy, especially in paper... if you've got dual lands, particularly blue duals it's not that much less.
agreed that legacy is broken, or at least the legacy I've experienced. Others may have a different experience, so take this with a grain of salt.

Played paper legacy during Scars block.. modern was newly created sometime later, and legacy is still tiered by ktken in mtgsalvation. The Legacy I experienced is a very high powered format where combo kills happen fairly often.. or if not combo, some really fast aggro is gonna kill ya. Combo Elves, TES, Natural Order decks that search progenitus, Dredge and Reanimator decks so strong only a fool goes to fnm without any yard removal. Oh, and don't be forgetting to bring null rod for all the variety of artifact decks.

oh well... I'm off to greet friends on other forums. Have a safe Christmas everyone! ;)
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AnimEVO 2020 - EFZ Tournament (english commentary) // Clearing 4 domain with Qiqi
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metalmusic_4
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Post by metalmusic_4 » 4 years ago

I play exclusively on paper. I play with friends at home every week. My LGS events fire off maybe every other week or a bit less frequently than that. If the event doesn't fire I still play with the other people that showed up to play. Occasionally I drive an hour to play at Jacksonville FL and I went to a PTQ in Orlando FL recently.

DO NOT UNBAN POD! Believe me, I would love to play with my birthing pod deck that I still have. It was a fun versitial deck with complex lines of play. But read it's ban announcement again, it was banned because that deck was on top of the meta AND GETTING BETTER with every new set release. Unbanning pod would very likely create a pod deck as dominant as urza and require other bans. They banned pod so as to not have to consistently ban the pod peices every time there is another card it abuses. I don't believe pod will ever come back.

UNBAN TWIN, great idea, it's a powerful police deck but is beatable. We discuss twin all the time so I will say no more.

UNBAN BRIDGE, this card just doesn't belong on the ban list. We all agree it was wrongly banned because of hogaak, but we disagree on whether it has value returning it to the format. I don't think unfun play patterns are a reason to leave a card banned because fun is subjective. Lots of people dont like dredge or bogles or other unusual play style decks but I hear very very few calls for bans on those because they are not that dominant. Dominance has to be the driving force to ban a card, the hogaak deck needed a ban but bridge was hit by mistake for hogaak's sins. Hogaak was the correct ban and the faithless looting ban makes bridge less powerful than it had been even before hogaak. It's just a travesty this card was banned in the first place and to keep this on the ban list is just wrong imo.

BAN MYCOSYNTH LATTICE AND SOMETHING FROM URZA (urza or Oko most likely). I think most of us are generally on board with bans that look like this right now. Karn → Lattice is just too dumb and I compare it to the dark depths → vampire hexmage combo, just get that out of here. An urza deck ban is very likely imo soon, but I'm not sure what it will hit. Oko is a likely target and it is very powerful, but I think urza is the real powerhouse of the deck. They could also ban more than one card from the deck, I just dont know what they are going to do with this but I really believe they'll hit something from this deck soon.

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drmarkb
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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
I think you missed the word paper.
No, I got the word paper. I took that into account with my arguments. Legacy is much, much more broken than it lets on, and the only reason it doesn't break is that there's not really a competitive focus on the format. If there were the meta would become absolutely miserable. And, while it's true that deck mobility is considerably less in Legacy, especially in paper... if you've got dual lands, particularly blue duals it's not that much less.
Well you need to name a better format to convince me.

It is not Modern, I think everyone bemoaning the format on threads like this shows that. It is the most moaned about format, correctly, because it is often dire.


It is not Standard, it is solved too easily and creates bans the moment the envelope is pushed.

Pioneer is a possibility but not for those who want all the archetypes, combo will be fringe, prison fringe.


Limited? Sure I agree it is nearly always excellent to play, but I thought we were talking constructed.

I could buy pre modern or can lander but both are identical to Legacy in that they could be broken with more exposure. Great, great formats though.


Legacy remains the format where I have seen spicy brews win fifty and 100 plus player events beating recognised archetypes.

Incidentally, it is not the duals that are always the big costs in Legacy, you don't need many now due to Astrolabe, it is the 2000 dollar Tabies, the Chains, the Cities, Mox Diamonds, LEDs and then the corner case stuff like Moat, NetherVoid, Abyss, Drops that cause the most financial issue, especially outside the US. Japan and Europe are far, far less blue Xerox engine based.

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Tzoulis
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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote:
4 years ago
Last mtgo challenge urza on first place. Seems in top 8 are 50% okos. Place 1, 2, 4 and 5.So next boogeyman which will safe again urza style decks. Again no time fixing this problem
You mean this challenge? Because it has only 2 Urza decks in the top 16 and 8 Oko decks in total.
metalmusic_4 wrote:
4 years ago
urza is the real powerhouse of the deck
While Urza is extremely powerful, he's secondary to the Cryptic loops and Oko beats. Urza can easily be removed and be "just" a 2-1. Oko shores many bad matchups of the deck and in general invalidates creatures.


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Tzoulis
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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

Even so, that doesn't mean strong decks can't win tournaments. What is your point exactly?

metalmusic_4
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Post by metalmusic_4 » 4 years ago

***serious question****

Now that the B&R announcement has no set date, do we need to be more or less aggressive with our rhetoric?

Should we be more aggressive all the time to promote action promptly, whether bans or unbans, or should we just be less aggressive because there is not a set schedule to focus rage out (implying if we dont raise our voices together we are less likely to be heard, so we have to become more accepting.).

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FoodChainGoblins
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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

I don't know how aggressive we should be, but Oko seems like an obvious ban. The card never should have been printed as it was. It probably would have been okay in at least some formats (lol) with the "Elk" making being a -1.

Regarding Urza, Lord High Artificer, yes, the 5 mana ability is not used as much nowadays. That is because getting a random card for free is not as powerful as what Oko and Mystic Sanctuary are doing. That's the only reason. The goal of the deck is mostly get Urza to resolve, then the world is your oyster. Remember, multiple Mox Sapphires are pretty solid. (I like them anyway)
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

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idSurge
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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

metalmusic_4 wrote:
4 years ago
***serious question****

Now that the B&R announcement has no set date, do we need to be more or less aggressive with our rhetoric?

Should we be more aggressive all the time to promote action promptly, whether bans or unbans, or should we just be less aggressive because there is not a set schedule to focus rage out (implying if we dont raise our voices together we are less likely to be heard, so we have to become more accepting.).
Very much more aggressive.

I mean Oko AND Veil are still legal. This format is untouchable until both are gone.
UR Control UR

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Amalgam
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Post by Amalgam » 4 years ago

What is your point? You can bring up the rest of the challenge events for the last month and build a spread if you want to get a more accurate picture of the metagame. You can't just pick and choose data that meets your own agenda.
A good deck is allowed to win a tournament and it certainty isn't even close to even winning a solid amount either at the moment. Heck the last challenge before this one was won by bant stoneblade running a full creature package, the one before that was won by Death's Shadow.

Also veil/Oko are for sure the strongest thing you can be doing in modern right now. However also I feel the format will become less interactive with it's removal. At least right now you have decks like Bant Control/Snowblade, spirits, humans etc getting to exist.
It's a really hard thing to workout where the meta would head if they removed these two cards and I'm unsure it would be for the better even if they are blatantly overpowered

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