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

Aazadan
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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

Trazaeth wrote:
4 years ago
Cards like Veil are great designs for Stompy Green decks that are trying to fight control decks that are constantly killing and countering their stuff.

The problem is, in an environment where you have fetches and shocks you can easily get 1 green mana in order to simply tell your opponent no, This completely kills stack magic for one side of the table and in a deck like ad nauseum or storm, this might as well be a hard counter in those matchups and it's mana efficiency means that there is virtually no downside.

If you're saying that it's not exactly like cryptic since it's only affecting two colors of the color pie, and doesn't do the same exact things then sure you're technically correct it's not tapping all of your opponent's creatures or returning a permanent.

It's only providing the player and their permanents hexproof from black and blue, stopping spells their spells from being able to be countered in general and drawing a card for their opponent daring to play a black or blue spell.

That and cryptic costs four mana, so it definitely shouldn't do more or be more versatile right?
Is it killing stack based magic or opening up such interaction to more decks?

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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
The Fluff wrote:
4 years ago
it's the allure of one mana pseudo-cryptic command..
It's not Cryptic Command. It's powerful, and it's very efficient when you can use it, but it equals one of the 6 modes Cryptic offers, and that mode still only works against decks with specific colors. Notably, it's completely useless against white or red removal.
Although this is true in a vacuum, Veil starts to become significantly more powerful than Cryptic in the context of the current Modern card pool. Notably, it was the second most-played card at GP Austin after only Oko and ahead of every other land including Misty Rainforest, Mountain, and Snow Covered Island. It's true that GP Austin was heavily shifted to green-based strategies because of Oko himself, but this just underscores how much context matters in card assessment. Veil was just far too powerful in a heavily green metagame. It both benefits from a metagame where green decks rule, and it pushes decks even deeper into green.

White and red removal are easy to ignore given the current card pool. There is only one widely playable white removal spell, Path, but white is so weak as a color that you rarely see Path in top decks. Just take a look at the top played Modern decks and look for white; it's a really sad showing. Red has the format-defining Bolt, which is a great card but still doesn't hit the biggest threats that blue and black do reliably hit. Modern already struggles to line up answers with threats, so if the proactive decks gain access to a 1 CMC cantrip that invalidates two of the primary answer colors, this puts even more burden on reactive players to try and line up their answers. The end result is even more proactive strategies with the few reactive strategies remaining (Jund, Azorius Control) both losing access to a huge chunk of their interaction.

Veil absolutely should go. It does not define any deck in Modern and creates significant negative side effects for players trying to engage in reactive, answer-based Magic.
Instead of veil going because only U and B are decent at control, how about making white the control bastion it always was? Veil is an issue due to the card pool, so change the card pool so veil is not an issue.

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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
th33l3x wrote:
4 years ago
don't think threats are too diverse, and as you say, removal is good enough, Drown in the Loch, Trophy, Path take care of most things.

The problem is veil of Summer, pure and simple. It's too good, to broad. End of story
Veil is not the problem at all.

Removal is not just good enough. You seem to be thinking in creature terms in terms of removal, which is what Standard and Pioneer players do and Legacy players don't. Planeswalkers are bloody hard to remove, removal for them is not good enough. 2/3 of those removal spells you list don't kill them, and we can add bolt onto the list to boot, and they certainly don't kill them before they can be used. Incidentally, Path is not a good Mtg card in these modern times- ramping your opponent if they are on these broken strategies is awful. Planeswalkers have dominated 2019- Narset, Tef, Oko, Karn etc., and if you have good tools to fight them that don't involve combat please let me know, because I can't see any.

I don't think Veil is a huge issue itself, if veil were protecting a 3/3 for 3 there would be no issue. The fact is it protected nuts stuff like Oko made veil egregious. Veil protects a bit too much, sure-it could be toned to be more situational, but I would much rather answers to answers be played and we have some stack based mtg.

Veil is a great card, but not a problem in Legacy, where the format is so blue even pyroblast effects have sometimes been boarded in the USA at least. An answer to Abrupt decay is a good thing. Astrolabe is an issue in legacy, making the card too easy to play, but even as a Pox player I don't have an issue with Veil.
Creatures are intended to be the primary the removal spell for Planeswalkers. That's intentional, because they want the combat step to be the focus of the game. Any other sort of interaction, such as stack based is something they're trying to make facilitate making your combat step more or less effective.
Agree that is what they want, players must push back because that is fine for Pioneer and Standard but not Legacy or Modern.

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
Is it killing stack based magic or opening up such interaction to more decks?
Time will tell, but I suspect the answer is "no." If you can't effectively use blue or black interaction, you're left with colors that are historically too narrow. White has Path and that's it. It has no viable ways of dealing with planeswalkers, and it can't effectively interact with instants/sorceries period. Red has Bolt and that's also it. Bolt does hit walkers and a variety of relevant creatures, but it still misses on some of Modern's most critical haymakers. You can't two-for-one (or three-for-one) yourself against creatures like Titan or Wurmcoil, nor walkers like Karn and Ugin. It's totally fine that white and red have these kinds of limitations because you can pair them with colors that fill the gaps. Veil, however, prevents interactive players from filling interaction gaps at all. It's an "answer to answers" card that largely serves to protect strategies which don't want to lose to interaction.

We already know proactive threats are better in Modern than reactive answers. There's no good reason to continue hamstringing strategic diversity by pushing that dial further towards proactive strategies.
drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
Instead of veil going because only U and B are decent at control, how about making white the control bastion it always was? Veil is an issue due to the card pool, so change the card pool so veil is not an issue.
I have no issue with Wizards gradually improving white. That color needs a huge overhaul and Wizards continues to let it down. But there is no way they are going to fix that in the near or even mid-term future. We are looking at most of 2020 and probably part of 2021 before white gets better. Moderners shouldn't be stuck with this catch-all answer-to-answers for 1.5 or so years because Wizards let down white in the past.
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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
Agree that is what they want, players must push back because that is fine for Pioneer and Standard but not Legacy or Modern.
In theory, this is where a set like Modern Horizons would be perfect. They could print stack based responses for permanents like planeswalkers which would be over powered for standard/pioneer. Even in a format like Legacy where there are lots of (viable) reactive cards, Oko is starting to warp the format. The solution doesn't have to be one size fits all formats though.

I'm still optimistic that MH2 could fix a lot of the issues that Modern has. Banning 3 cards is not going to solve the larger structural problems in the format. However, printing format defining cards which lead to gameplay which differs from standard/pioneer could. Horizons could help with both the mechanics and identity crisis that Modern finds itself in.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
Instead of veil going because only U and B are decent at control, how about making white the control bastion it always was? Veil is an issue due to the card pool, so change the card pool so veil is not an issue.
OK, see you in that 'changed card pool' in 2 years?

Come now. Ban Veil. Its idiotic.
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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
Time will tell, but I suspect the answer is "no." If you can't effectively use blue or black interaction, you're left with colors that are historically too narrow. White has Path and that's it. It has no viable ways of dealing with planeswalkers, and it can't effectively interact with instants/sorceries period. Red has Bolt and that's also it. Bolt does hit walkers and a variety of relevant creatures, but it still misses on some of Modern's most critical haymakers. You can't two-for-one (or three-for-one) yourself against creatures like Titan or Wurmcoil, nor walkers like Karn and Ugin. It's totally fine that white and red have these kinds of limitations because you can pair them with colors that fill the gaps. Veil, however, prevents interactive players from filling interaction gaps at all. It's an "answer to answers" card that largely serves to protect strategies which don't want to lose to interaction.
White has plenty of in color pie answers to planeswalkers. Outside of creatures there's pacifism, taxing, and oblivion ring style effects. Now, it's an issue that they have none of those that have been pushed enough to be playable in Modern. But it's not right to say that White doesn't have them at all. White also has on occasion gotten taxing effects for instants and sorceries that were good enough. Mana Tithe, Judge's Familiar (tied as the card other than basic lands that has the most copies in the game in PT winning decks), Thalia, and so on, and sometimes those cards have been pushed enough as Thalia has been for general use and Wingmare for specific decks. White also gets flash on occasion, which lets them better time their cards. Just as green has always had it in color pie to give it's own stuff shroud or hexproof, but rarely has it pushed enough to be playable.

I get what you're saying about the answers to answers side of things, but simply respecting a players representation of Veil forces them to play a turn behind just to keep it up, while blue has plenty of end of turn options, and it's true that Green also gets flash, but not nearly as often or as powerful. All of which is to say that the card is good, but I don't see it completely invalidating all blue and black stack interaction. That's not to say I don't have complaints about the card though, I don't think it should give non creatures uncounterable, or it should apply only to green cards, and the draw a card part should probably also somehow rely on you having creatures.

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Post by AvalonAurora » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
Is it killing stack based magic or opening up such interaction to more decks?
Time will tell, but I suspect the answer is "no." If you can't effectively use blue or black interaction, you're left with colors that are historically too narrow. White has Path and that's it. It has no viable ways of dealing with planeswalkers, and it can't effectively interact with instants/sorceries period. Red has Bolt and that's also it. Bolt does hit walkers and a variety of relevant creatures, but it still misses on some of Modern's most critical haymakers. You can't two-for-one (or three-for-one) yourself against creatures like Titan or Wurmcoil, nor walkers like Karn and Ugin. It's totally fine that white and red have these kinds of limitations because you can pair them with colors that fill the gaps. Veil, however, prevents interactive players from filling interaction gaps at all. It's an "answer to answers" card that largely serves to protect strategies which don't want to lose to interaction.

We already know proactive threats are better in Modern than reactive answers. There's no good reason to continue hamstringing strategic diversity by pushing that dial further towards proactive strategies.
drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
Instead of veil going because only U and B are decent at control, how about making white the control bastion it always was? Veil is an issue due to the card pool, so change the card pool so veil is not an issue.
I have no issue with Wizards gradually improving white. That color needs a huge overhaul and Wizards continues to let it down. But there is no way they are going to fix that in the near or even mid-term future. We are looking at most of 2020 and probably part of 2021 before white gets better. Moderners shouldn't be stuck with this catch-all answer-to-answers for 1.5 or so years because Wizards let down white in the past.
White totally gets counters:
Dawn Charm
Lapse of Certainty
Mana Tithe
Rebuff the Wicked

They might have issues with Modern, but it's not as much of a color pie issue as it is a 'wizards hasn't printed enough stuff good for Modern in the color for that kind of thing' type issue.

They also get some options for dealing with resolved planeswalkers, at least in theory (although generally not so well in the modern metagame and power levels), with things like:
Banishing Light
Celestial Purge
Generous Gift
Glare of Heresy
Conclave Tribunal

Taxing effects can be involved in anti-planeswalker play as well:
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

I could easily imagine cards being designed and printed to let white effectively deal with opposing planeswalkers or do more stack interaction with the right setup and have them be modern playable. The question is if Wizards realizes the importance of doing so and understands what makes a card modern playable, and how long it would take to happen (Standard set or a new Horizons set?).

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Post by Trazaeth » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago

Is it killing stack based magic or opening up such interaction to more decks?
Probably both. However, if the decks primarily using this are combo decks that can just shut down an entire archetype they are weak against, it's not healthy for the meta game.

Especially since it's extremely splashable.

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

@[mention]Azadan[/mention] and @[mention]AvalonAurora[/mention]:
Neither I nor anyone criticizing Veil is saying white and red categorically have zero answers across Gatherer for these different threats. I used the word "viable" in my post for a reason. White and red have no Modern-playable alternatives to blue/black catch-all answers. The answers they have are narrow, slow, inefficient, and bad. Modern players cannot be forced to wait until Wizards decides to fix their awful design decisions to have viable, playable reactive answers to powerful threats. If (not "when" because it's not guaranteed) Wizards decides to reempower white answers, maybe Veil would be more appropriate. But for now, it absolutely is not.
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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
@Azadan and @AvalonAurora:
Neither I nor anyone criticizing Veil is saying white and red categorically have zero answers across Gatherer for these different threats. I used the word "viable" in my post for a reason. White and red have no Modern-playable alternatives to blue/black catch-all answers. The answers they have are narrow, slow, inefficient, and bad. Modern players cannot be forced to wait until Wizards decides to fix their awful design decisions to have viable, playable reactive answers to powerful threats. If (not "when" because it's not guaranteed) Wizards decides to reempower white answers, maybe Veil would be more appropriate. But for now, it absolutely is not.
That's not really how Wizards approaches card cycles though. Have they ever printed an entire cycle where it has all been at a power level high enough for Modern? Outside of lands, none are coming to mind.

I'm generally bad at determining when something is vs isn't over the threshold to ban, but having a good answer to an answer in a color, when other colors don't have that probably isn't a good reason to ban on it's own because cycles have never been printed at equal power levels. The Finale cycle is the closest I can think of to something that was.

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Post by th33l3x » 4 years ago

no offence, but imo its an incredibly dumb argument to say "Veil is too good because white and red are too bad". Red interaction is damage-based and most of it can go to the face as opposed to black removal so it HAS to be worse in terms of killing threats. And white has Path. Path may not be positioned perfectly at times, but its one of the very best removal spells in modern overall.

Imagine if Veil covered red. The burn community would be running absolute havoc. it's unimaginable to gain pro-red while drawing a card. that would be the absolute best card vs burn.

Black has discard and decent removal. Discard is SUPPOSED to be very good in the early turns because it totally sucks late game.

Andblue? has counter magic. duh.

But lets turn this whole Veil thing around for a second: Imagine black had an instant "if an opponent cast a green or white spell this turn, draw a card. Destroy target green or white nonland permanent.

Everybody would tell WotC to %$#% off.

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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
@Azadan and @AvalonAurora:
Neither I nor anyone criticizing Veil is saying white and red categorically have zero answers across Gatherer for these different threats. I used the word "viable" in my post for a reason. White and red have no Modern-playable alternatives to blue/black catch-all answers. The answers they have are narrow, slow, inefficient, and bad. Modern players cannot be forced to wait until Wizards decides to fix their awful design decisions to have viable, playable reactive answers to powerful threats. If (not "when" because it's not guaranteed) Wizards decides to reempower white answers, maybe Veil would be more appropriate. But for now, it absolutely is not.
That's not really how Wizards approaches card cycles though. Have they ever printed an entire cycle where it has all been at a power level high enough for Modern? Outside of lands, none are coming to mind.
That's sort of the point. Modern is at a turning point. They either need to start making cards specifically geared towards the power level of Modern or they need to tell players that the format is done. Right now we have this weird situation where the occasional standard card (designed without Modern in mind) is good enough to see play in Modern. Because this is not systematic, it usually (always) contributes to power imbalances across colors.

When was the last time a standard set gave all 5 colors something equally powerful? All of these micro imbalances have contributed to the dangerously unbalanced meta we currently have.

In theory, Modern Horizons gives WotC the ability to introduce balanced card cycles into Modern. We'll see if that happens.

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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
Instead of veil going because only U and B are decent at control, how about making white the control bastion it always was? Veil is an issue due to the card pool, so change the card pool so veil is not an issue.
OK, see you in that 'changed card pool' in 2 years?

Come now. Ban Veil. Its idiotic.
No more idiotic than letting white and red do sod all about these problematic cards, and by that I mean problematic permanents, because some Jonny big monster does not like to be told "no". Why should I be forced to play a narrow range of answers in blue or black to problem permanents? I don't want to be forced to play those cards. What you want is a ban so that you get to play for two years without worrying about Veil and meanwhile I don't get any meaningful interaction for the strategies I like. If we all suffer maybe they will actually ban the problem permanents.

White is supposed to say 'no.'. Nevermore, and suppression field type cards need to be printed at Modern quality. Prison cards, basically, because if white does not blow up the board efficiently and does not have prison effects it does nothing. Orim's chant and silence type effects are needed, but actually good. Chant is close to good but sadly it is not legal. As it stands veil is the only interesting stack interaction in the Modern game. Red too used to have cards like Aftershock iirc. It has hatebears like harsh mentor, but as usual underpowered. Chaos Warp would be fine. Landkill can help nerf things, but it would need to be better. Try crumble to dust at 3 and uncountable and see how good tron is.

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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

Some of you guys needed to play in the days of Gloom, Conversion, Karma. That was really hard stuff. Veil is nowhere near the devastating power of ritual into gloom. Strangely it did not always mean a win as the lower power dudes meant the white player could recover.

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

Many of the complaints the past few pages is mostly about one card - Veil of summer. If so many people are having a tough time with it, then it's probably really a problem? Most things have been said already, but I feel veil is a legacy power level card that deviously found it's way into modern. Biased opinion since my only active modern deck is ub angler... but seriously, this card veil really has to be got rid of.
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Post by KarnDaddy » 4 years ago

I don't get people, Urza without Opal comes down on turn 4, and the ETB is a dumb beater. if you can't deal with this deck without Opal, it honestly feels like you SHOULD play a different format.

Blue- counter the blasted thing

Black- hahahahahaha...oh, you're serious?

White- Path, wipe, Pacify

Green- okay? Urza resolves, swing for a million

Red- okay? it's turn 4, you are at like 3 life, Bolt, GG?

I say it over and over again, but this format has so much interaction it's ridiculous. tune your deck, beat what you want to beat. I'm not even packing artifact hate anymore

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

KarnDaddy wrote:
4 years ago
I don't get people, Urza without Opal comes down on turn 4, and the ETB is a dumb beater. if you can't deal with this deck without Opal, it honestly feels like you SHOULD play a different format.

Blue- counter the blasted thing

Black- hahahahahaha...oh, you're serious?

White- Path, wipe, Pacify

Green- okay? Urza resolves, swing for a million

Red- okay? it's turn 4, you are at like 3 life, Bolt, GG?

I say it over and over again, but this format has so much interaction it's ridiculous. tune your deck, beat what you want to beat. I'm not even packing artifact hate anymore
FYI, had this gem the other day. The issue with Urza isn't the strength of any individual angle it attacks on, it's that EVERYTHING IT DOES is good, and powerful, and can win the game on its own. Even if you deal with one, two, or more of their threats.

I also forgot to mention in the tweet, in addition to a turn 2 Stony and turn 3 Scooze, they had a turn 1 Path for my first Emry. Their series of game actions was literally Path → Stony → Scooze → Concede.


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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
KarnDaddy wrote:
4 years ago
I don't get people, Urza without Opal comes down on turn 4, and the ETB is a dumb beater. if you can't deal with this deck without Opal, it honestly feels like you SHOULD play a different format.

Blue- counter the blasted thing

Black- hahahahahaha...oh, you're serious?

White- Path, wipe, Pacify

Green- okay? Urza resolves, swing for a million

Red- okay? it's turn 4, you are at like 3 life, Bolt, GG?

I say it over and over again, but this format has so much interaction it's ridiculous. tune your deck, beat what you want to beat. I'm not even packing artifact hate anymore
FYI, had this gem the other day. The issue with Urza isn't the strength of any individual angle it attacks on, it's that EVERYTHING IT DOES is good, and powerful, and can win the game on its own. Even if you deal with one, two, or more of their threats.

I also forgot to mention in the tweet, in addition to a turn 2 Stony and turn 3 Scooze, they had a turn 1 Path for my first Emry. Their series of game actions was literally Path → Stony → Scooze → Concede.

I mean, Stony was almost mediocre before Urza and after him the deck shifted to a more midrange list that doesn't even care about it. Nothing's changed, just your opponent not understanding that without Opal, there's no point in having Stony anymore since all artifact decks will be Urza decks. Kataki/Explosives are way more effective.

My guess on your list would be a mix of the Thopter/Sword prison with the more trinkets/value plan of Paradoxical lists. No creature oriented deck will be able to compete with that board presence. This was also true before Urza as well.

Your snapshot only shows what happens when:

A. You have an extremely good draw (2x Emry, Urza, Saheeli by T4 is not a common draw).
B. Your opponent playing a bad matchup.
C. You playing practice/fun rooms and not leagues.

Either way, Opal was the wrong ban. Everyone who knew the Urza decks said that this will happen.

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
4 years ago
No more idiotic than letting white and red do sod all about these problematic cards, and by that I mean problematic permanents, because some Jonny big monster does not like to be told "no". Why should I be forced to play a narrow range of answers in blue or black to problem permanents? I don't want to be forced to play those cards. What you want is a ban so that you get to play for two years without worrying about Veil and meanwhile I don't get any meaningful interaction for the strategies I like. If we all suffer maybe they will actually ban the problem permanents.

White is supposed to say 'no.'. Nevermore, and suppression field type cards need to be printed at Modern quality. Prison cards, basically, because if white does not blow up the board efficiently and does not have prison effects it does nothing. Orim's chant and silence type effects are needed, but actually good. Chant is close to good but sadly it is not legal. As it stands veil is the only interesting stack interaction in the Modern game. Red too used to have cards like Aftershock iirc. It has hatebears like harsh mentor, but as usual underpowered. Chaos Warp would be fine. Landkill can help nerf things, but it would need to be better. Try crumble to dust at 3 and uncountable and see how good tron is.
Again, I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you that white needs better answers and cards generally. But the bolded bit above is an absolutely horrible argument. It's not even logical. Wizards isn't going to ban allegedly problematic permanents because the two colors that have historically answered them are suddenly neutered. They're just going to ban the neutering card because none of those strategies are problematic if they have answers to check them. But when Wizards chops out two entire colors of answers, of course there's a deeper imbalance. Moreover, you're totally off base if you think Wizards is going to identify these issues because of Veil. Wizards can't even test basic rares and mythics for Standard without multiple, consecutive, egregious design mistakes. We're going to be lucky if they identify the problems with white power-level in the next 1-1.5 years, let alone think to ban so-called problem permanents because of Veil.

White needs better answers, better control pieces, better design overall, etc. We all agree on this. But you really need to tone down this zero sum "if my white can't be good, none of you can be good either" approach. It's neither accurate nor winning a lot of support. If you want white to be better, that's the position to argue. Tons of people, myself included, will agree with you. Doing that through the Veil issue, however, doesn't make a lot of sense.
The Fluff wrote:
4 years ago
Many of the complaints the past few pages is mostly about one card - Veil of summer. If so many people are having a tough time with it, then it's probably really a problem? Most things have been said already, but I feel veil is a legacy power level card that deviously found it's way into modern. Biased opinion since my only active modern deck is ub angler... but seriously, this card veil really has to be got rid of.
To be fair, I imagine players on our forums are spikier, veteran players who enjoy optimized strategies and winning off tight margins in skill-based games. That is also to say, we're a group of players who prefer U and B strategies probably more than most. Many of us will naturally dislike Veil for those reasons.

That said, Veil is absolutely a problem independently of the player pool in this thread. It does not define any deck's core identity and just serves to protect unfair, less interactive green strategies from regulatory answers. Amulet Titan, Titanshift, Infect, Yawgmoth Combo, Devoted Devastation, and other decks are totally fine in nonrotating formats because there are plenty of interactive spells to regulate them. At least, until there aren't because Veil invalidates the best options. The solution is not to get rid of the proactive decks, which are always going to exist in large, nonrotating formats. If you don't like those decks, play Standard. The solution is to get rid of the non-defining sideboard card that is pushing this envelope.
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
KarnDaddy wrote:
4 years ago
I don't get people, Urza without Opal comes down on turn 4, and the ETB is a dumb beater. if you can't deal with this deck without Opal, it honestly feels like you SHOULD play a different format.

Blue- counter the blasted thing

Black- hahahahahaha...oh, you're serious?

White- Path, wipe, Pacify

Green- okay? Urza resolves, swing for a million

Red- okay? it's turn 4, you are at like 3 life, Bolt, GG?

I say it over and over again, but this format has so much interaction it's ridiculous. tune your deck, beat what you want to beat. I'm not even packing artifact hate anymore
FYI, had this gem the other day. The issue with Urza isn't the strength of any individual angle it attacks on, it's that EVERYTHING IT DOES is good, and powerful, and can win the game on its own. Even if you deal with one, two, or more of their threats.

I also forgot to mention in the tweet, in addition to a turn 2 Stony and turn 3 Scooze, they had a turn 1 Path for my first Emry. Their series of game actions was literally Path → Stony → Scooze → Concede.

I mean, Stony was almost mediocre before Urza and after him the deck shifted to a more midrange list that doesn't even care about it. Nothing's changed, just your opponent not understanding that without Opal, there's no point in having Stony anymore since all artifact decks will be Urza decks. Kataki/Explosives are way more effective.

My guess on your list would be a mix of the Thopter/Sword prison with the more trinkets/value plan of Paradoxical lists. No creature oriented deck will be able to compete with that board presence. This was also true before Urza as well.

Your snapshot only shows what happens when:

A. You have an extremely good draw (2x Emry, Urza, Saheeli by T4 is not a common draw).
B. Your opponent playing a bad matchup.
C. You playing practice/fun rooms and not leagues.

Either way, Opal was the wrong ban. Everyone who knew the Urza decks said that this will happen.
I'm playing, almost card for card, this list:


I did have a good draw, but good draws are fairly common with London Mulligan. At least powerful starts. I'm also heavy in the Thopter Sword camp, so Stony does shut that off (and I had no real way to get rid of it).

You better believe I'm not paying money to play in Leagues. Some of the most fun I've had here has been *specifically because* money is not on the line. Plus I literally picked up the deck less than a week ago and am still learning lines and optimal plays.

Either way though, this deck is nuts, and orders of magnitude better than the trash piles I normally jam. Which was mostly my point (well that, and "have answers" simply isn't good enough). Tier 2 decks are so much worse than the top of the field it's not even funny. Finally seeing that from the other side of the table just cements that belief.

Edit: forgot to mention a different turn 4 win, in which the opponent had lethal damage waiting to resolve (I was at 6 and he double bolted with me "tapped out"). I was able to tap 5 artifacts at instant speed and Whir for my missing Thopter Sword piece, and he conceded after the second thopter. 🤣

Edit2 another side note...



"Splinter Twin is from a long bygone era. If Jace came in and was non-existent, if Bloodbraid came in and was non-existent, if Stoneforge came in and was non-existent, I think Splinter Twin is fine."
Last edited by cfusionpm 4 years ago, edited 2 times in total.

Tomatotime
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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

In my opinion, declawing Urza would require 2 main things:

1. Banning Ensnaring Bridge, this card has been a thorn in Modern's side for too long as it is, banning it would be great all around.

2. Banning Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek - breaking up the thopter sword combo seems critical at this point, honestly I think Foundry might even be the stronger card at this point compared to sword simply due to it's synergy with Goblin Engineer, Foundry allows you to negate opposing removal and keep your key pieces safe in the graveyard until Engineer can grab them back for you as required.

This is all of course hinging upon the premise of Urza still being too strong (if the data shows this) as well as if we are not wanting to actually ban Urza itself.

In terms of other bans that would improve Modern, I could write a thesis at this point, but hopefully we can lobby in favor of scapegoat bans to get rid of some bad actors along the way for the greater good.


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Tzoulis
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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

[mention]cfusionpm[/mention] Yeah, the list is the one I thought it'd be. These kind of lists post board trim Thopter/Sword (and always have) because of them being less effective in G2/G3 in non aggro/combo lists, that's why Stony is ineffective against them. You just board in Tezzerets and go Sai's/Saheeli's. RiP is a better card.

A midrange deck that is relevant against Urza Thopter/Sword is 5-Color Niv, it has enough disruption (Unmoored Ego maindeck as well) and a relatively fast clock.

My point about Leagues was about the kind of players you'd expect to find there. If you're doing it for fun, sure, all the more power to you, but I think you'd agree that balancing around casual play is a lost cause. I'll also agree on your point on the power lever discrepancy between T1 and T2.

[mention]Tomatotime[/mention] So we went from allegedly banning around Opal, to banning around Urza?

Bridge is fine. If you ban Bridge, then you must also ban other prison/lockpieces such as Blood Moon.
Thopter/Sword is fine. Thopter/Sword with Urza is also fine. None of these come even close to getting to the bottom of actually hurting Urza decks. Unless you want to erase every and all artifact decks from Modern.

The correct card to (have) hit is (was) either Emry and/or Astrolabe, with emphasis on the latter. The cards you mentioned are more than fine in the context of Modern.

Tomatotime
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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
So we went from allegedly banning around Opal, to banning around Urza?
I was never one for sacred cows, Mox Opal being gone is fine by me and as may be shown, artifact decks still have legs without it (or at least Urza does).
Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
Bridge is fine. If you ban Bridge, then you must also ban other prison/lockpieces such as Blood Moon.
That would be a dream come true.
Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
The correct card to (have) hit is (was) either Emry and/or Astrolabe, with emphasis on the latter. The cards you mentioned are more than fine in the context of Modern.
I fully admit I could be wrong in my Urza assesment, and honestly Astrolabe has always been more of a behind the scenes card with an obscure power level, it could very well be much stronger than me or others initially surmized simply on the basis of it color fixing to let Urza decks play.....Well anything with no downside compared to 5-color Niv has much more real deck building constraints and a less powerful top end power curve.

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