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

iTaLenTZ
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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

Primeval Titan is the symptom of a fundamental problem. 6 Mana cards should never be susceptible to a ban. The fundamental problem is that ramp is too good and Primeval Titan is just the current flavour of the meta. Its either Tron, Urza, Amulet, Eldratron etc and its been so for years. The fundamental problems are that ramp has become too resilient to sideboard cards because of Veil of Summer and they no longer have a one-dimensional gameplan but attack over various angles, have become too consistent because of OUaT and have a strong matchup against traditional aggro, more board wipes are available for 3 mana. Ramp/big mana decks have definitely become inevitable so people resort to play faster non-interactive stuff that doesn't use the attack phase. This isn't healthy.

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Post by motleyslayer » 4 years ago

I feel that OUaT was made a lot of these big mana decks even more obnoxious, especially when the colourless E-Tron splashes green for it now. the new dryad from Theros is also super annoying and has kind of made decks easy to jam together (like valakut into amulet)

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Post by Bearscape » 4 years ago

We're really in the aftershock of 2019 now it seems. Modern seems very fun and diverse, Amulet seems like the best deck but not oppressive. We just have to put up with these awful designs like OUaT and Veil of Summer just stinking the place up since they're not really objectively bannable.

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Post by Simto » 4 years ago

I just wish I had the dosh to play all the decks I want hehe. I saw a recent video with Ried Duke playing a really cool Sultai Midrange deck on youtube.
The deck looks like it's a blast to play, but sometimes the opponet drops 4 mana %$#% on turn 2 and then you're like... uh.... so what's my turn 2 play again? I would never put so much money into a deck knowing it'll be %$#% over so hard, but man, it still looked like a sick deck and I doubt it'll have elements that get banned too.
Sultai midrange is like a dream deck for me.

That's one reason why I like Eldrazi Tron. You can have reality smashers running attack really fast, or you can adjust to slower games too. It has those midrange / decision elements which makes it fun to play and not just on rails.

I just wish I had more money and could play more than once a week lol.

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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
As I expected, you did not address any of my points, about your inconsistencies and wrong statements(which are a lot).
- You said UR Phoenix was susceptible to hate, before MH, yet RIP literally hurt the deck in a significant way, until Aria of flame + Lava dart happened(which were MH cards)
- You are comparing Twin to Phoenix, even if Twin was a legal deck since Modern's beginning, while Phoenix was a new one. Stop making this comparison, only to somewhat show Twin was not a fine ban. The bias is for one more time clear. Honestly, there are so many cases for one to make if he wants Twin to be unbanned. I put in the legwork in that thread, even if it was a small one, and you are here making wrong cases and wrong statements and speaking so much about it, that you are making people sick of this discussion and literally pushing everybody to not care. I think your arguments about Twin were always wrong, biased and inconsistent and Tzoulis really showcased that.
Some examples include: every time there is a busted deck you say: if X is fine, and it is not banned, at least give me my splinter twin back.
Another bad take of yours is comparing UR Phoenix, a new deck, to Splinter Twin, an old deck.
- You say I have my opinion and then somehow think yours is better because people are hyperbolic about Twin and they are wrong in it not being fine. All opinions should be respected. Your is, even if it's based on wrong statements and one can clearly understand you lack arguments and playtest time with the deck. You have spend 1 million hours writing about it, and some of this time could easily be on a playtest, just like I did.

The time is here to listen to other people, people who can make a better case about Twin and are not biased about the card.

Aside from this thread I made, I asked Nikachu to make a Video about Twin and told him my arguments about the card and why it should be unbanned(this all happened pre-Veil of summer, the video took a little time to be made). If Veil was not legal, those would be my arguments about why Splinter Twin should be unbanned.

Arguments(if you leave Veil of summer aside):
1) We need a good Blood Moon deck to keep this new busted, super bannable Amulet Titan in check - We live in a Big Mana Modern.
We need a new policeman in the format.
2) Some answers against Twin were printed.
3) Power level has risen, we have too many Turn 3 kills.

Look again

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

Simto wrote:
4 years ago
I just wish I had the dosh to play all the decks I want hehe. I saw a recent video with Ried Duke playing a really cool Sultai Midrange deck on youtube.
The deck looks like it's a blast to play, but sometimes the opponet drops 4 mana %$#% on turn 2 and then you're like... uh.... so what's my turn 2 play again? I would never put so much money into a deck knowing it'll be %$#% over so hard, but man, it still looked like a sick deck and I doubt it'll have elements that get banned too.
Sultai midrange is like a dream deck for me.

That's one reason why I like Eldrazi Tron. You can have reality smashers running attack really fast, or you can adjust to slower games too. It has those midrange / decision elements which makes it fun to play and not just on rails.

I just wish I had more money and could play more than once a week lol.
I was thinking of putting that together, I've got most of the cards. He had an interesting Jund list too that was also focused on Titans and curved out at 3, not using Bloodbraid Elf. Though, I wasn't sold on the 4 Raven's Crimes in it.

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

I'm just going to keep restating the line I've been making for about 1.5 months now. OUaT is a multi-format design mistake that disproportionately benefits big mana decks. These big mana decks have been waving bright orange and red flags since mid-January, a point I've brought up in almost all MTGO Modern Challenge write-ups on Reddit. Weekend after weekend proves this is a major format crack. A PT scene will definitely exploit this crack which will result in a horrible showing for Modern that the format can't withstand at this time. OUaT is a perfect ban candidate if you want to trim ramp decks at the margins. It hits both E and G Tron as well as Titan variants (Amulet and no-Amulet). It also hits other combo decks like Infect and Company that simply don't need the help (Traverse DS is an unfortunate side effect but DS decks will likely continue to thrive in its absence anyway).

Titan itself cannot be the banned card. Modern, and exhausted Modern players, can't take more bans on format-defining cards. Nonrotating formats have too many players invested in these kinds of cards and it's imperative Wizards bans at the margins to preserve deck cores, especially going forward even if this was not what Wizards did in the past. In that regard, egregious, recent design mistakes like OUaT need to go. If we need to trim even further, Wizards can hit other niche bullets like Dryad or Field, but honestly, OUaT should be enough. This has been a brewing format problem for months now and it's been in sharp focus since mid-January. We've had more than enough data to support this ban even before the most recent batch of MTGO results. It's important Wizards gets ahead of this ban before the PT so players have an exciting weekend to look forward to, not a sense of big mana dread that will continue to crush a format still struggling to find identity and a following after a horrible year.
Over-Extended/Modern Since 2010

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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
I'm just going to keep restating the line I've been making for about 1.5 months now. OUaT is a multi-format design mistake that disproportionately benefits big mana decks.
I have been saying the same for months. It benefits linear non-interactive decks disproportionally more than it benefits creature based decks. I like OUaT in my creature deck because it makes it more consistent and viable but degenerated bigmana decks benefit a lot more from it than I would ever do so its fine for me if it goes and it should. Same with Veil of Summer. Both are living on borrowed time.

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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

I agree titan will be a little bit less good If once upon get banned, but it doesn't change anything for eldrazi tron. I see a lot of results with once upon and a lot of without. This means it is not important for them. If I look at titan, there is always now once upon

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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

Once again the OUaT scapegoating begins. Look guys, we can all agree Modern is a big mana format right now, but lets be real here, Big mana was broken before 2019, decks like Tron have preyed on fair decks for literally years now which inevitably devolves the format into big mana vs aggro/combo to just see who has the faster goldfish while interactive decks sit on the side lines. We need to honestly acknowledge that banning OUaT isn't going to make the mid range vs big mana matchups even, it will still be completely lopsided which will ultimately bear the same result as now. People say that Modern can't handle too many more bans, I might agree, but I think its more complicated than that, the community is tired of bans not actually working, we have had multiple years of bans to get artifact combo decks under control, we had multiple rounds of bannings to get hogaak under control (dredge is now very powerful again even without looting), all of this wastes entire years of the formats life all to still have a degenerate format anyways. In my opinion, the Modern community can still handle some more bans, but they need to actually see the bans have a HUGE and LASTING impact on the format that actually fundamentally changes things, we can't just have another looting type ban that doesn't actually change the archetype hierarchy and call it a day, it won't do anything and we shouldn't pretend it will.

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Post by Mtgthewary » 4 years ago

I agree, even titan will be same with this new dyrad I believe and eldrazi tron just play it without and have same success, because new karn is the key card there. I don't understand why some people believe banning once upon could change anything

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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
Look guys, we can all agree Modern is a big mana format right now, but lets be real here, Big mana was broken before 2019, decks like Tron have preyed on fair decks for literally years now which inevitably devolves the format into big mana vs aggro/combo to just see who has the faster goldfish while interactive decks sit on the side lines. We need to honestly acknowledge that banning OUaT isn't going to make the mid range vs big mana matchups even, it will still be completely lopsided which will ultimately bear the same result as now.
Regarding this, banning Veil will change more than banning OUaT.

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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
Regarding this, banning Veil will change more than banning OUaT.
Honestly, from what I've seen at my local meta, it might not even matter that much. The general logic at my store at least is that when everyone is just trying to goldfish faster then the other person (which amulet can), Veil ends up being a dead sideboard slot most of the time. I mean what are you even bringing in Veil for in the first place? Against mid range? How much mid range do you actually think youll have to face against in this meta?

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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
Once again the OUaT scapegoating begins. Look guys, we can all agree Modern is a big mana format right now, but lets be real here, Big mana was broken before 2019, decks like Tron have preyed on fair decks for literally years now which inevitably devolves the format into big mana vs aggro/combo to just see who has the faster goldfish while interactive decks sit on the side lines. We need to honestly acknowledge that banning OUaT isn't going to make the mid range vs big mana matchups even, it will still be completely lopsided which will ultimately bear the same result as now. People say that Modern can't handle too many more bans, I might agree, but I think its more complicated than that, the community is tired of bans not actually working, we have had multiple years of bans to get artifact combo decks under control, we had multiple rounds of bannings to get hogaak under control (dredge is now very powerful again even without looting), all of this wastes entire years of the formats life all to still have a degenerate format anyways. In my opinion, the Modern community can still handle some more bans, but they need to actually see the bans have a HUGE and LASTING impact on the format that actually fundamentally changes things, we can't just have another looting type ban that doesn't actually change the archetype hierarchy and call it a day, it won't do anything and we shouldn't pretend it will.
We're not scapegoating OUaT. No amount of non-broken cards will enable midrange to have a positive match up against Big Mana decks.
Midrange is supposed to lose to Big Mana, that's by design.

Cutting OUaT will nerf (mostly) the Titan decks that have gotten several major buffs in the past 2 sets (Dryad, Veil, OUaT) and bring them more in line with other archetypes. Midrange isn't one of them. Control and Tempo (nigh non-existent as it is) are. Tron isn't a problem, they've also stopped playing OUaT more or less. (Amulet) Titan decks are.

They're far too consistent, too explosive and too resilient to hate.

So you either kill ALL titan decks by banning Titan (absurd imo), kill the archetype by banning Amulet (which decklists have started experimenting without successfully) or nerf ALL Big Mana decks via banning OUaT.

And then you ban Veil and T3feri and Modern is golden :p

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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
Midrange is supposed to lose to Big Mana, that's by design.
Okay but why should we even accept this premise, why not want more out of Modern than a goldfish simulator where the actual game is more of a nuisance than anything else? When the game becomes so linear and matchups so polarizingly lopsided what value does the game actually have? If I'm playing mid range, and I go to a tournament and I see Tron on the other side of the table, should I just sign the slip and go grab food to save time?

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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
Midrange is supposed to lose to Big Mana, that's by design.
Okay but why should we even accept this premise, why not want more out of Modern than a goldfish simulator where the actual game is more of a nuisance than anything else? When the game becomes so linear and matchups so polarizingly lopsided what value does the game actually have? If I'm playing mid range, and I go to a tournament and I see Tron on the other side of the table, should I just sign the slip and go grab food to save time?
Because a MID-range will lose to the TOP-range. When something can't kill fast enough, then whoever spent the first turns of the game setting up/ramping will be making far more impact full plays. I mean, seriously how is it even in question? That's evident in every format of Magic and other resource based games. A mid range that can race/beat ramp/big mana will destroy the format, because of no weakness.

The rest of your post is something I didn't even say or allude to. You can do whatever you want, but the fact remains: Midrange loses to (Control and) Big Mana. Whether they're goldfish games or not is irrelevant to what I said.

Nerfing Big Mana will push midrange up, since as I've said (and history shows) Big Mana destroys Midrange. Your approach of boosting midrange so far up that it can reliably beat Big Mana without big concessions to its side- or main-board will lead to a worse format.

At the moment, the ONLY problem with Modern that I can see is that Titan decks aren't being affected by focused hate that much. Because of that I think that cutting off OUaT will nerf them adequately to be more in line.

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Post by Tomatotime » 4 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
A mid range that can race/beat ramp/big mana will destroy the format, because of no weakness.
What is this based on? Do you have data that shows that players enjoy solitaire formats more than mid range formats? When has this even happened in Modern?

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Post by Wraithpk » 4 years ago

Banning OUaT instead of Titan will be Bridge instead of Hogaak all over again. Gkourou can correct me if he thinks i'm wrong, but I doubt losing OUaT even puts a dent in Amulet Titan. Titanshift doesn't even play the card.
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ubr Grixis Shadow ubr
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gbr Jund gbr

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urIzzet Phoenixur
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uwAzorius Controluw

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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
iTaLenTZ wrote:
4 years ago
Regarding this, banning Veil will change more than banning OUaT.
Honestly, from what I've seen at my local meta, it might not even matter that much. The general logic at my store at least is that when everyone is just trying to goldfish faster then the other person (which amulet can), Veil ends up being a dead sideboard slot most of the time. I mean what are you even bringing in Veil for in the first place? Against mid range? How much mid range do you actually think youll have to face against in this meta?
I only play 1 or 2 in my SB because I hardly bring them in but when I do its the best and most impactful card of my deck. The mere existence of the card is enough to make people not want to play black discard and removal and blue interaction as a whole. The moment Veil is banned people will actually have incentives again to play Thoughtseize etc. At this moment its a cat and mouse mindgame. People don't put too many Veils in SB because black and blue reactive spells aren't being played much so people cut on the Veils so people end up playing black/blue reactive spells so in turn people up the count of Veils in SB etc.

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Post by Aazadan » 4 years ago

I'm not sure what ban would be correct for Titan decks, but I do think OUaT is the wrong one. I've said since the card came out that it's good, but I strongly believe it is not a good ban target.

If I had to throw out a card, I would say Summoner's Pact is the most ban worthy card to hit at the edges, as that leads to endless waves of Titans.

Tron would need a completely different nerf.

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Post by Tzoulis » 4 years ago

Tomatotime wrote:
4 years ago
What is this based on? Do you have data that shows that players enjoy solitaire formats more than mid range formats? When has this even happened in Modern?
How the %$#% do you go from "midrange loses to big mana" to "Do you have data that shows that players enjoy solitaire formats more than mid range formats" is beyond me.I never even implied something even remotely close to the latter. I said simply that "midrange loses to big mana", because that's what happens to every format in Magic. Nothing more.

Also, are you implying that a deck with no real weaknesses is healthy? Because if you make midrange good against big mana, either by letting them race or with powerful disruption, then you hose Control decks as well because they traditionally go over the top of them.

Big mana, specifically Non-RG Valakut Titan decks, are an issue not because mid range can't beat them, but because Control and Aggro are struggling to keep up.
Aazadan wrote:
4 years ago
I'm not sure what ban would be correct for Titan decks, but I do think OUaT is the wrong one. I've said since the card came out that it's good, but I strongly believe it is not a good ban target.

If I had to throw out a card, I would say Summoner's Pact is the most ban worthy card to hit at the edges, as that leads to endless waves of Titans.

Tron would need a completely different nerf.
Tron's fine, Lattice ban hurt it enough to bring it in line with the rest.

Amulet is different. RG Valakut is narrow and focused enough that it isn't a problem and a Pact ban would hurt it. I'd go with either a OUaT or an Amulet ban if the trend continues.

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Post by iTaLenTZ » 4 years ago

Just ban Veil of Summer already so we can interact because that card is busted and everyone knows it and knows its not a healthy card to have around.

Other than that I don't think they should ban more. They need to tackle the big mana decks at a fundamental level by printing real answers. Damping Sphere was a step in the right direction.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
4 years ago
So you either kill ALL titan decks by banning Titan (absurd imo), kill the archetype by banning Amulet (which decklists have started experimenting without successfully) or nerf ALL Big Mana decks via banning OUaT.

And then you ban Veil and T3feri and Modern is golden :p
Yes please.
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Post by Wraithpk » 4 years ago

The ban has to be Titan himself. That's the broken card. He already broke Modern once 4 years ago, and he's doing it again now. They're not going to stop printing green creature cantrips or value lands, so he'll just break again in the near future if you ban something else. Titan may be a longtime part of the format, but that doesn't mean he should get a pass. We're not even talking about a banning people's $100 Mox Opals situation, Titan is a $10 card. And there's definitely a place for people's cards to go in a similar deck. Scapeshift still exists, and there are plenty of other strong ramp payoffs.
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ubr Grixis Shadow ubr
uwg Bant Stoneblade uwg
gbr Jund gbr

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Wraithpk wrote:
4 years ago
The ban has to be Titan himself. That's the broken card. He already broke Modern once 4 years ago, and he's doing it again now. They're not going to stop printing green creature cantrips or value lands, so he'll just break again in the near future if you ban something else. Titan may be a longtime part of the format, but that doesn't mean he should get a pass. We're not even talking about a banning people's $100 Mox Opals situation, Titan is a $10 card. And there's definitely a place for people's cards to go in a similar deck. Scapeshift still exists, and there are plenty of other strong ramp payoffs.
I disagree completely. The deck isnt broken by Titan. The deck exists for Titan. This is the issue with cards like OUAT and rules like the London Mulligan.

You break the balance that variance introduces, and you make things too consistent. Once you do that, decks break, and formats lose their identity.
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