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

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idSurge
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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Ed06288 wrote:
4 years ago
i just finished playing mardu pyromancer on forge and then i'll read comments on here about how the looting ban killed the deck. just pick a deck you like and go play modern somewhere. modern is doing fine.
Saying a format is fine because your local or 'somewhere' is hardly reflective of the high level meta discussions which are based upon the 'winners meta' of GP/SCG and competitive Online play.

I would argue that if you are not discussing the meta at those levels at least, then the info is essentially irrelevant.
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Post by ModernDefector » 4 years ago

Once Upon a Time has overtaken Lightning Bolt as the most-played nonland card in Modern, at a whopping 33.6% of decks. Bolt has, of course, been the most-played Modern card each year since its inception. It's January 30, so we have two clean, solid weeks of data after the January 13 announcement. I believe that Oko, OuaT, and maybe even Astrolabe were also higher than Bolt before the most recent bannings.

The table on the left is from the last two weeks; the table on the right is from all of 2019, for reference, which as is often the case, has different eras because of new (2019's crazy) sets and Modern's constant bannings.
https://www.mtgtop8.com/topcards

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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

ModernDefector wrote:
4 years ago
Once Upon a Time has overtaken Lightning Bolt as the most-played nonland card in Modern, at a whopping 33.6% of decks. Bolt has, of course, been the most-played Modern card each year since its inception. It's January 30, so we have two clean, solid weeks of data after the January 13 announcement. I believe that Oko, OuaT, and maybe even Astrolabe were also higher than Bolt before the most recent bannings.
This is little surprise given that Once Upon a Time is a better tool in the format than Bolt is. Personally, I have said this before but I will repeat myself for posterity though please don't take this to mean this statement is directed to you at all. I don't actually believe Once Upon a Time needs a ban, I genuinely don't see any broken interaction it has in the format, I think it is a very good tool that Wotc made to reduce the number of non-games of MTG which occur and the card absolutely succeeds at this. I think the biggest boogyman who uses this card is Titan decks and its variants, however that archetype has already showed its potential for bannings in the past, I'm not sure banning OUaT to cover for Titan again is worth the collateral damage. I'm not even saying that Titan necessarily needs a ban, but if the deck ends up getting to big again, surely there are more deck specific tools to be banned in place of OUaT, unless Wotc decides to simply rip the band aid off and get rid of Titan.

Admittedly a lot of this also stems from the somewhat unclear future plans that Wotc may have for pushing best of 1's in competitive going forward as they have been inclined to do with Arena, I don't have the article in front of me, but I believe they showed the Arena statistics at one point which showed that the majority of competitive players on Arena actually prefer best of 1 to best of 3, though I don't play Arena myself so I can't talk to it much, perhaps the ranking or rewards system simply skew the statistics in this manner. But that notwithstanding, if Wotc (for whatever reason) wants to push best of 1, cards like OUaT will become necessary whatever format this principle is extended to. As such whether you like the card or not, if this is in fact Wotc's plan for the future, we may as well learn to co-exist.

Just as an aside, I love OUaT, I think its a great tool for midrange decks to start the game off on a consistent manner.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Which midrange decks are running it? It's not in Jund, so....Amulet is Midrange now?
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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
Which midrange decks are running it? It's not in Jund, so....Amulet is Midrange now?
Sorry I'm talking about lower tiered decks, we can't really use T1 mid range decks as an example to base our discussion off of if mid range doesn't really exist to a large degree in Modern currently. Although Jund easily could run it if it wanted to, but you would necessarily have to build it in a way to actually leverage the advantage of OUaT. Do I think Amulet is a mid range deck? Nope, its clearly a big mana/combo/solitaire/gold fish pile which many of the Modern playerbase are sick to death of as it is, but banning OUaT doesn't get rid of Amulet, they just go back to Ancient Stirrings and keep on chugging along, all the while lower tiered decks who want more consistent games are left without it. Just my 2 cents.

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Post by ModernDefector » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
Personally, I have said this before but I will repeat myself for posterity though please don't take this to mean this statement is directed to you at all.
You're totally fine! I didn't take it like that.

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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

True-Name Nemesis wrote:
4 years ago
Stupid cards like Swords to Plowshares deserve stupid threats like True-Name Nemesis and Ancient Tomb+Chalice.
Good luck playing any fair creature deck with STP in the format.
Sounds great. Stupid threats, stupid answers, stupid answers to answers. Hell of a lot better than banning cards like Field of The Dead in standard because we don't like landkill. Everything needs an answer, including answers, and some tutoring to get them. In legacy all those exist, and death and taxes, a fair critter deck, is more than fine.

Path is unplayably bad in Modern. What a brown shower of a format, answers to threats are at an all time low.
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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

Shmanka wrote:
4 years ago
I have to share my quick distaste for more powerful removal such as Swords to Plowshares existing in Modern. Death's Shadow is a really unique deck in the format, losing two of them to the same singular spell is just beyond ridiculous.
Is this sarcasm? Why not just ban all white card or any instant speed removal while we are at it?

Path is literally one of the only effective way to interact with DS in the format! I played Mardu DS for a while too. If you hate it so much just run silence effects. For example, Ranger-Captain of Eos, tutor DS, then sac Ranger-Captain on your kill turn... if you can't protect the queen then why are you playing DS?

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

StP not existing in Modern is a flaw. Not going to cry that the deck running discard and 1 mana counters to it could be blown out.

Answers are a joke, you have no reason to be running them.
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Post by pierreb » 4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
Shmanka wrote:
4 years ago
I have to share my quick distaste for more powerful removal such as Swords to Plowshares existing in Modern. Death's Shadow is a really unique deck in the format, losing two of them to the same singular spell is just beyond ridiculous.
Is this sarcasm? Why not just ban all white card or any instant speed removal while we are at it?
How is it sarcasm? StP makes all DS in play die and prevent playing more until you lose more life. You don't need to wait for their "kill turn", just play StP as soon as you can and you set the DS deck back, possibly stranding cards in hand. When GDS first came out, condemn was played to counter it. It's effective.

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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

pierreb wrote:
4 years ago
Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
Shmanka wrote:
4 years ago
I have to share my quick distaste for more powerful removal such as Swords to Plowshares existing in Modern. Death's Shadow is a really unique deck in the format, losing two of them to the same singular spell is just beyond ridiculous.
Is this sarcasm? Why not just ban all white card or any instant speed removal while we are at it?
How is it sarcasm? StP makes all DS in play die and prevent playing more until you lose more life. You don't need to wait for their "kill turn", just play StP as soon as you can and you set the DS deck back, possibly stranding cards in hand. When GDS first came out, condemn was played to counter it. It's effective.
White needs all the help it can get. Shadow is doing more than fine and currently preys on the lack of answers in Modern. For example, DS exists in Legacy but is not near as dominant. Its just another tempo deck, which is okay.

One of the reasons I cooled on Modern was that 50% of the local meta was DS of various flavors. It got old.

If we had StP what deck would suddenly become OP?

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
If we had StP what deck would suddenly become OP?
None.
Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
Sorry I'm talking about lower tiered decks, we can't really use T1 mid range decks as an example to base our discussion off of if mid range doesn't really exist to a large degree in Modern currently. Although Jund easily could run it if it wanted to, but you would necessarily have to build it in a way to actually leverage the advantage of OUaT. Do I think Amulet is a mid range deck? Nope, its clearly a big mana/combo/solitaire/gold fish pile which many of the Modern playerbase are sick to death of as it is, but banning OUaT doesn't get rid of Amulet, they just go back to Ancient Stirrings and keep on chugging along, all the while lower tiered decks who want more consistent games are left without it. Just my 2 cents.
You dont spare T2, just because it shares a card that is being abused by T1 or T0 decks.

Its similar to Veil, and T3feri. These cards simply should not exist. Conditionally free dig for land or creature? In a game that has leaned towards creatures for years?

Comically poor design, and it will eventually be banned.
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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

OUaT is done for. 35% is just way too much and though it helps and its good in midrange decks its simply way better in linear decks and that is the problem. Its another consistency tool for degenerate decks. Maybe if OUaT and Veil are gone the format and the community can start healing.

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Post by pierreb » 4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
White needs all the help it can get. Shadow is doing more than fine and currently preys on the lack of answers in Modern. For example, DS exists in Legacy but is not near as dominant. Its just another tempo deck, which is okay.

One of the reasons I cooled on Modern was that 50% of the local meta was DS of various flavors. It got old.

If we had StP what deck would suddenly become OP?
I still fail to see why all this makes the claim that StP would hit DS hard sarcasm.

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Post by The Fluff » 4 years ago

About Ouat, since people are talking about it. Feel fairly neutral about this card. If the most powerful deck this goes into is Amulet Titan, then I could live with it. They lost Oko, but still fairly challenging to play against, this deck is the reason why I have 3 Ashiok in the sideboard. Just dropping my 2 cents.
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Post by TheAnnihilator » 4 years ago

As an Amulet player, the most egregious card in the deck is absolutely Field of the Dead. OuaT is also played in GW Devoted Druid decks, Infect, sometimes ETron, and the more fringe strats mentioned above. I actually think OuaT is fine for the format.

Edit: I want to add that I feel Modern is a Veil banning + Twin unbanning away from being fairly balanced. If Field has to go too, so be it.

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Post by drmarkb » 4 years ago

Don't mention twin.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

TheAnnihilator wrote:
4 years ago
As an Amulet player, the most egregious card in the deck is absolutely Field of the Dead. OuaT is also played in GW Devoted Druid decks, Infect, sometimes ETron, and the more fringe strats mentioned above. I actually think OuaT is fine for the format.

Edit: I want to add that I feel Modern is a Veil banning + Twin unbanning away from being fairly balanced. If Field has to go too, so be it.
I thought about this a lot last night, and I'm almost OK with OuaT.

I do feel that Veil has to go, and Twin coming back would improve Modern dramatically.
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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

I don't feel anything needs to go at this moment

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Post by Yawgmoth » 4 years ago

pierreb wrote:
4 years ago
Yawgmoth wrote:
4 years ago
White needs all the help it can get. Shadow is doing more than fine and currently preys on the lack of answers in Modern. For example, DS exists in Legacy but is not near as dominant. Its just another tempo deck, which is okay.

One of the reasons I cooled on Modern was that 50% of the local meta was DS of various flavors. It got old.

If we had StP what deck would suddenly become OP?
I still fail to see why all this makes the claim that StP would hit DS hard sarcasm.
I'm sorry for the confusion. I was just so surprised to see the need to protect DS given as the reason to not introduce more white interaction into Modern. I honestly thought it could have been a joke. Similar to saying, "we can't have any land destruction because then Tron players couldn't reliably assemble Turn 3 Tron."

The point of creature-based interaction is that it will allow other decks to interact with your creatures. If you don't want that to be possible then that is you prerogative but your goals are incompatible with those who want more efficient removal in the format.

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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

Personally I don't think Modern's issues stem from a lack of creature removal perse, it is more an issue of a lack of answers that can respond to a variety of card types and board states (including graveyard/stack states). What Modern needs, is more answers in the vein of Kaya's Guile which tackle a wide variety of problems, but we need it to go further in the sense that they need to interact with a variety of card types as well. The whole issue with Modern is that even if a deck is T1, you can easily build a 75 to utterly dumpster it, but in doing so it makes you a complete dog against way too much of the rest of the field for this to be a viable option. On the topic of Swords to Plowshares, I have no strong opinions on it one way or the other, it is a bit better than path most of the time. In terms of not printing Swords in order to treat Death's Shadow as a sacred meta cow, I don't like that approach, that type of approach of elevating arbitrary decks to special status's has not worked well for Modern up to this point. Plus, literally the strongest card that Death's Shadow decks have access to is Stubborn Denial, which is played correctly, will mitigate the risk of removal, whether it is path or swords.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
In terms of not printing Swords in order to treat Death's Shadow as a sacred meta cow, I don't like that approach, that type of approach of elevating arbitrary decks to special status's has not worked well for Modern up to this point. Plus, literally the strongest card that Death's Shadow decks have access to is Stubborn Denial, which is played correctly, will mitigate the risk of removal, whether it is path or swords.
100%

To say 'we cannot have this answer' regarding the deck that can dumpster anyone that tries to interact on the stack (TS, IoK, Stubborn) when your threats also cost 1 Mana...give me a break.

People just dont like to be interacted with, thats the fatal flaw of today's players. I say fatal, because the game design that panders to 'dont interact with my deck's plan!' will kill this game.
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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

TheAnnihilator wrote:
4 years ago
As an Amulet player, the most egregious card in the deck is absolutely Field of the Dead. OuaT is also played in GW Devoted Druid decks, Infect, sometimes ETron, and the more fringe strats mentioned above. I actually think OuaT is fine for the format.

Edit: I want to add that I feel Modern is a Veil banning + Twin unbanning away from being fairly balanced. If Field has to go too, so be it.
As an Amulet player, I believe that a Once Upon a Time ban would hurt more than a Field of the Dead ban. Once Upon a Time is played in nearly every archetype, as most decks are skewed to play Green anyway (it's where the goodies are). Field of the Dead gives Amulet another win-con. This is true. I just don't see Field of the Dead being banned in Modern. It seems like a Modern appropriate card. I will try to explain. There is at least somewhat of a cost to getting 7 lands with 7 different names and running a colorless land in your deck. It may not be much of a cost, but it IS a cost. For Once Upon a Time, you literally just need Green mana in your deck. Heck, even Colorless Eldrazi runs the card, alongside Serum Powder.

I believe that a Veil of Summer and Once Upon a Time ban would help Modern, but Modern needs an unban to get more interest from players. We know which unbans draw the most attention and attendance. It's not Green Sun's Zenith, even if that one should be unbanned also. (so everyone that fears Dryad Arbor can cry).
Standard - Will pick up what's good when paper starts
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Legacy - No more cards, will rebuy Sneak Show when I can
Limited - Will start when paper starts
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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
believe that a Veil of Summer and Once Upon a Time ban would help Modern, but Modern needs an unban to get more interest from players. We know which unbans draw the most attention and attendance. It's not Green Sun's Zenith, even if that one should be unbanned also. (so everyone that fears Dryad Arbor can cry).
For the sake of argument, what exactly does a Veil + OUaT ban actually change? I'm not saying that Veil shouldn't be banned, but can we actually say that it would fundamentally change which decks are viable and which decks aren't? Would it fundamentally change which archetypes are viable and which aren't?

From my perspective, even though Veil may be a justified ban request, until you get the real roadblocks out of the way, the format isn't actually going to change or progress forward, chief among them being Tron.

Simply to advocate on behalf of underrepresented archetypes, how does Mid Range actually become a consistent and reliable player in the format with Tron in the way? Similar arguments can also be made with Control, although it is certainly a bit more muddled since UW can have a bit more of an even game against Tron and the Veil ban would help Control in particular, but what about other Control decks that don't have the same degree of access to cards like Field of Ruin?

To summarize, the request to ban Veil is totally fine by me, but if we don't look to pre-2019 pain points within the format I myself don't think were actually going to get anywhere. And as the Stoneforge Mystic unban has shown, the spike in interest that an unban causes is always temporary in nature, the unbans don't actually get rid of the underlying problems within the format itself which always inevitably become visible to the general player base after enough time anyways, at which point when Wotc simply doesn't act then interest falls again.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
believe that a Veil of Summer and Once Upon a Time ban would help Modern, but Modern needs an unban to get more interest from players. We know which unbans draw the most attention and attendance. It's not Green Sun's Zenith, even if that one should be unbanned also. (so everyone that fears Dryad Arbor can cry).
For the sake of argument, what exactly does a Veil + OUaT ban actually change? I'm not saying that Veil shouldn't be banned, but can we actually say that it would fundamentally change which decks are viable and which decks aren't? Would it fundamentally change which archetypes are viable and which aren't?

From my perspective, even though Veil may be a justified ban request, until you get the real roadblocks out of the way, the format isn't actually going to change or progress forward, chief among them being Tron.

Simply to advocate on behalf of underrepresented archetypes, how does Mid Range actually become a consistent and reliable player in the format with Tron in the way? Similar arguments can also be made with Control, although it is certainly a bit more muddled since UW can have a bit more of an even game against Tron and the Veil ban would help Control in particular, but what about other Control decks that don't have the same degree of access to cards like Field of Ruin?

To summarize, the request to ban Veil is totally fine by me, but if we don't look to pre-2019 pain points within the format I myself don't think were actually going to get anywhere. And as the Stoneforge Mystic unban has shown, the spike in interest that an unban causes is always temporary in nature, the unbans don't actually get rid of the underlying problems within the format itself which always inevitably become visible to the general player base after enough time anyways, at which point when Wotc simply doesn't act then interest falls again.
These are small changes that are necessary to work toward increasing Modern's attendance, which would be lovely to me. Perhaps it's not for everyone. I know lots of people that HATE Modern, but I would love to have more players to battle.

Veil of Summer is just a card that has to be on the mind of anyone who utilizes Thoughtseize effects, Abrupt Decay effects, and countermagic. There are plenty of other reasons not to play those cards, but Veil is kind of the final nail in the coffin. We don't need this nail. There were already reasons not to play those cards, as they are/were commonly sided out in certain matchups.

Once Upon a Time is just way too efficient for what it does. This card makes a ban of Preordain look like a joke. Blue is much worse at doing this kind of effect than Green. Which, all in all, is pretty terrible because I see it like this. Green is waaaaay above other colors. Blue is second. Black is somewhat close, then Red way down and finally, White, the joke color of Modern. The colors need to be a lot more balanced. There is a reason that Stoneforge Mystic has made a minimal impact in Modern. Once Upon a Time just doesn't have any positive effects, other than helping a lot of decks. We have to remember the decks that it breaks, like Amulet, not the Tier 2 and Tier 3 decks that it bolsters. Faithless Looting was a card just like this and if you agree with its ban, then the same thing goes for OUaT.

There are a lot of problems is Modern. There is no 1 thing that will solve this. There are no 10 things that will solve this. The first thing to work on are the inconsistencies in the ban list in my opinion. I don't think that there is any "solving Modern's problems" if you avoid inconsistencies on the ban list. There simply are people that won't play a format when "Shock" is banned, but "Lightning Bolt" is deemed "okay." Obviously you cannot appease everyone and that's one of the things that people love the most about Modern, but it doesn't mean you give up completely. Banning something from Tron solves NOTHING in my opinion. Titanshift is much more of a problem for Jund and Control than Tron is. Ask Reid Duke, who commonly beats Tron with Jund, but admits to almost never beating Titanshift, despite obviously "getting (understanding)" the matchup.
Standard - Will pick up what's good when paper starts
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Pioneer - DEAD
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Legacy - No more cards, will rebuy Sneak Show when I can
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