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

Aazadan
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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
3 years ago
Yep, 11 bans, each of them pretty solidly justified.

Regarding Modern, I do actually believe that the Arcum's Astrolabe ban did have a very positive effect so far. There still are some issues. I think that Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath should be banned. More importantly, I do think some things should be unbanned. But if WotC refuses to do unbans, then I think that Modern is about as good as it can get.
It says so much to me about the current state of the game when the response is "11 bans, each justified".

Then I think back to their announcement, where they got away from any scheduled time and tried to rebrand these as an early rotation. And I end up reading that as 11 emergency bans, and they call out possibly more needed.

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Post by drmarkb » 3 years ago

On fun, it is bull to ban on it, but for digital play actual multi clicks is not banning on fun, it is banning on the ability of the platform to implement shortcuts or not without laboriously taxing both players.
We have seen four horsemen effectively banned in paper for the same reason in some format- Legacy I think, iirc. In that case the combo took stupid amounts of time to resolve, de facto ban ensues. In this case it is the same regarding the oven- bit it is fine in paper, not digital. That is not the same as banning Chalice because it is not fun.

For the record, 2020 is not fun
Bans are not fun
Walkers are really not fun
Oko is not fun
Uro is not fun
U G everything is not fun
White being rubbish is not fun
Escape and companions were not fun
Field of the dead is not fun
Oh, wait
Land destruction is fun- if your opponent is playing field of the dead. Field of the dead was fine. The absence of landkill was what made it not fun.
Hmm what makes something that is too powerful and unfun suddenly be ok....oh yeah, answers. Bingo. Fun.

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Post by blkdemonight » 3 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
3 years ago
blkdemonight wrote:
3 years ago
War of the Spark planeswalkers were horribly designed solely for the fact they didn't print efficient pw killers like Deadbore and Red Elemental Blast within the same standard rotation that also included flexible mana fixing.
One brilliant part of the design of several of them with static abilities was that they only had negative effects. The power level was still off, but that's a key aspect to making such a design work.
That would have been fine if all of the WoS walkers only had statics and negative abilities needing to be babied with proliferate cards to uptick loyalty counters. Alas, they had to release a certain number of static walkers with positive and negative abilities .


As for pioneer bans. Good job Wizards with emergency bans that might be too late to revive a dead format competing with Arena's Historic format.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

drmarkb wrote:
3 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
drmarkb wrote:
3 years ago
No one is playing Pioneer, and it might have died.
Bad news for Modern, as really Modern, Legacy and Pioneer can't all exist for the next five years, and only one is popular with its audience.
I don't know. Their firm reversal on anti-combo in Pioneer (nuking it from orbit), after previously getting the thumbs up may leave the door for things like that to exist in more "crazy old formats" like Modern. Who knows.

But either way, if Pioneer is supposed to be "Standard Plus" instead of "Modern Lite" it's going to continue to struggle with the several years of back to back to back design failures across nearly every block in its library.
Yes, but in Legacy you can play way more crazy combo than modern

...

You get the drift. Way more crazy combo and answers than Modern, which sort of falls between the two pillars....
Well yeah, but one of those two formats can be supported by reprints, and one will continue to die a slow and steady death in paper, as it is further relegated to irrelevance thanks to the Reserve List. The main idea is if Pioneer is supposed to be "Standard Plus," then of the supported old formats, the "crazy" stuff can be more free in Modern. At least that could be a vision if they ever get around to releasing an updated article explaining what their vision for Modern actually is.

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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
Well yeah, but one of those two formats can be supported by reprints
I find this argument interesting, because as we've seen with Modern, if they want to silently acknowledge collector value, then even without the reserved list, the opportunity for reprints is rather limited. The average T1 deck in Modern keeps going up in price because they can't reprint enough.

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Post by The Fluff » 3 years ago

Tzoulis wrote:
3 years ago
The Fluff wrote:
3 years ago
oh, so there's a UR variant too.

mine is only mono red, cannot afford to splash for now. I'm liking the deck because unlike regular Burn which can run out of gas fast, mono red prowess can often reload and keep bum rushing people with Bedlam Reveler + cantrips. Really fun deck... ok, I know fun is subjective..
Arguably, the UR is more consistent and can go late easier, but Mono-R is far more explosive. Plus, UR has counters/tempo plays. Personal choice would be UR, just because I can't really play anything without blue :P
nice to see another prowess player here. Anyway, to each their own, I'm not in the mood to argue the pros and cons of each.

might switch mine to ur if combo decks become more numerous in my area.

good thing the horizon lands have become so cheap, it's easier to build the deck. :)
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Post by Ed06288 » 3 years ago

This looks fun, had to think of drmarkb since he likes prison decks. I might build it. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/m ... 657a#paper

Anyway, I would argue that Commander and Modern are the most popular right now. Draft and standard will come back eventually. Legacy has been dead to me for a while now but I would imagine it's played more on the coasts. Pioneer feels like the odd man out right now.

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Post by Mtgthewary » 3 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
3 years ago
cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
Well yeah, but one of those two formats can be supported by reprints
I find this argument interesting, because as we've seen with Modern, if they want to silently acknowledge collector value, then even without the reserved list, the opportunity for reprints is rather limited. The average T1 deck in Modern keeps going up in price because they can't reprint enough.
I see the opposite. prices on modern goes down and reprints are more now. look at tron after double masters, it was one of the expensive decks and soon only half. modern is now a lot cheaper it was 2 years bevore. look at liliana, snapcaster, cavern, even they don't reprinted this cards in double master, all of them are cheaper now... even fetch lands. cards they reprinted several times like noble hierarch for each green deck or engineered explosives are now free. tarmogoyf, death shadow, Bob... all important cards get down, horizon canopy and so on... which cards are really expensive now compared to to past years? reprints really helped

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Post by Simto » 3 years ago

Ed06288 wrote:
3 years ago
This looks fun, had to think of drmarkb since he likes prison decks. I might build it. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/m ... 657a#paper

Anyway, I would argue that Commander and Modern are the most popular right now. Draft and standard will come back eventually. Legacy has been dead to me for a while now but I would imagine it's played more on the coasts. Pioneer feels like the odd man out right now.
That deck looks absolutely %$#% filthy!!! Would be fun to try, but also interesting to play against.

As far as I can tell, Commander is more or less the number one format in terms of popularity. Prices for popular, good and staple commander cards keep going up, but modern cards are pretty much the lowest they've been since I started getting into it. Too bad I'm broke as %$#% :( So many cards I want to buy.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Nothing says "fun" quite like "Turn 1: Accelerate out a permanent that prevents opponents from playing the game!"

Honestly, one of the best things about being forced to play online is I get to dodge all the feelbads of playing against garbage like this in paper. Online, someone goes T1 Moon when I have I handful of fetches (and no Force), I right click --> Concede Match. When playing at FNM, I have taken 0 game actions, and effectively need to mulligan to Force, or else I'll be sitting for the next hour looking for things to do while others are actually playing.

Re: Costs - Honestly, I think there's one specific thing that makes the game "feel" expensive now, despite decks overall being generally cheaper, and many core staples being considerably cheaper than they used to be. It's the constant onslaught of new ~$50 Rares and Mythics that keep getting printed, supplanting the old cards that are dropping in value, and forcing you to either buy in or be left behind.

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Post by Ed06288 » 3 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
Nothing says "fun" quite like "Turn 1: Accelerate out a permanent that prevents opponents from playing the game!"

Re: Costs - Honestly, I think there's one specific thing that makes the game "feel" expensive now, despite decks overall being generally cheaper, and many core staples being considerably cheaper than they used to be. It's the constant onslaught of new ~$50 Rares and Mythics that keep getting printed, supplanting the old cards that are dropping in value, and forcing you to either buy in or be left behind.
My games never play out like that though. The prison decks have consistency problems and most decks have counterplay. I beat one of these decks with titanshift in 3 games because I topdecked a summoner's pact to fetch reclamation sage. My opponent should have played a second blood moon off his chandra, torch of defiance +1, but wanted to ping me for 2 instead. There's still a lot of decisions to be made and the games go long. I had another long match against mono-red prison with mardu pyromancer. Not with tron though, When I play tron these kind of decks blow me out lol.

I half agree with what you're saying on bans/new cards/costs ect. Needing Uro feels bad. But a lot of decks just need minor upgrades. If you're flexible and have a lot of deck cores built, you should be able to sleeve up a 75 that's pretty good for pretty cheap.

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Post by Simto » 3 years ago

cfusionpm wrote:
3 years ago
Nothing says "fun" quite like "Turn 1: Accelerate out a permanent that prevents opponents from playing the game!"
Yeah, it does sound fun to play hehe. I prefer decks with more than one game plan, but would still be fun to try.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Ed06288 wrote:
3 years ago
I half agree with what you're saying on bans/new cards/costs ect. Needing Uro feels bad. But a lot of decks just need minor upgrades. If you're flexible and have a lot of deck cores built, you should be able to sleeve up a 75 that's pretty good for pretty cheap.
One can easily build Dredge, UR/Mono-R Prowess, G-Tron, E-Tron, Ponza, Burn, or any number of decks for around (or under) $500. So it's definitely possible to be competitive for cheap. I think it sucks that many decks which create complex decision trees, and are usually more interactive, tend to shoot up above $1000. Not necessarily a problem for enfranchised players, but price could also be a factor in why popular Modern decks are frequently these cheap, fast, linear decks.

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Post by Ed06288 » 3 years ago

Some decks I built around 2014 or so were titan breach, ad nauseam, and affinity because they didn't require enemy fetches. Khans of tarkir at least helped me get allied fetches to build valakut decks. I should have sold the affinity deck during eldrazi winter but I liked it too much.

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Post by Mtgthewary » 3 years ago

Never doubt mox opal get banned, so yes you should sold it after Kci ban. This was the clear sign next time mox will go. I personally don't understood other people not believing this or thinking it's not justified. Zero mana extra landdrop... No way it could stay. I told 2 friends too they need to sell this deck, but they never believed me.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 3 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote:
3 years ago
Never doubt mox opal get banned, so yes you should sold it after Kci ban. This was the clear sign next time mox will go. I personally don't understood other people not believing this or thinking it's not justified. Zero mana extra landdrop... No way it could stay. I told 2 friends too they need to sell this deck, but they never believed me.
I don't think it's a question of whether it will go, but how much value can I get from it before it goes?. If you played Mox Opal since Modern started, you've gotten your value from it. I bought 2 Hogaaks for over $30 each, and was lucky as heck to borrow 2 from a friend. Did I think it was going to get banned? Absolutely. But can I win over $60 in the meantime? Absolutely. I was able to slaughter quite a few tournaments, with the highlight being abroad when I was visiting the Philippines at Top 4 (we didn't play it out because it was super late, but there were no decks that could beat me in the other top 3).

When I played Eye of Ugin with all of those overpowered Eldrazi, did I know something was going to get banned? Yep. I played as many tournaments as I could during this time, playing up to 6 times per week (the most I've done in my life). I played a lot because my deck was on borrowed time - essentially like playing a Legacy deck in Modern. For this one, I did calculate over $1,300 in winnings over this time. (No GPs or Opens)

I think you can go too far when you tell someone not to play a card because it is too good. If you tell someone not to play a good card because it could get banned, then basically you're telling someone to not try to win in Modern. The players that are going to have the best results overall are willing to switch decks to what's winning at that time and be flexible enough to play them. Sure, players that have played decks forever play it better than most other players, but if you're not willing to play the Eye of Ugins, Hogaaks, Okos, Treasure Cruises, OUaT, Uros of the format, then you can't really expect to have an overwhelming advantage over your opponent.
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 Mtgthewary » 3 years ago

Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
Ultimately, how much fun players are having with the environment is the most important driving force behind B&R updates, and so we're choosing to ban four cards to shake things up and push the competitive metagame away from combo decks.

This is a paragraph from their last b&r announcement(note that it reads fun is the most important factor behind B&R's, not behind pioneer's BnR).
that's it. we don't need waiting allways so extremely long bevore using our own brain. fun is a really important point and was it bevore too... how someone ever could believe fun is not so important in a game? IN A GAME? come on.... so we talked about Data and forget to think about logic till they beat us hard? till Noone can ignore it and we are the last ones ignoring still? we could evaluate state of modern better, if we accept next times realitys faster and don't waste words and time for unlogically statements

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Post by Aazadan » 3 years ago

Mtgthewary wrote:
3 years ago
that's it. we don't need waiting allways so extremely long bevore using our own brain. fun is a really important point and was it bevore too... how someone ever could believe fun is not so important in a game? IN A GAME? come on.... so we talked about Data and forget to think about logic till they beat us hard? till Noone can ignore it and we are the last ones ignoring still? we could evaluate state of modern better, if we accept next times realitys faster and don't waste words and time for unlogically statements
The problem with fun isn't that it's a bad metric, it's that it can't be quantified other than indirectly through things that can be quantified.

Everyone finds certain cards unfun, the post prior to yours mentioned Teferi and Veil. Interestingly, the highly played cards tend to be the cards most cited as being unfun, which means that players themselves aren't capable of giving useful feedback on what creates fun because what they're actually saying with such a comment is that a lack of variety is unfun. But those same players will then turn around and want specific format staples, when staples are the antithesis of variety as it's very nature implies repeating cards between archetypes or formats.

Fun is also only loosely correlated to power level. There are fun and unfun cards at both high and low power levels, as well as moderate power levels. See Teferi (moderate to high), Second Sunrise (low), Mycosynth Lattice (low), Stasis (low), Erayo (low), Leovold (high).

Fun is certainly a valid metric but it's not something that WotC will ever be able to quantify and measure directly.

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Post by cfusionpm » 3 years ago

Aazadan wrote:
3 years ago
The problem with fun isn't that it's a bad metric, it's that it can't be quantified other than indirectly through things that can be quantified.
Does using quantifiable data really matter when the data they use to make decisions is literally obscured, forbidden, misrepresented, or hidden from us? 🤷‍♂️

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Post by Arkmer » 3 years ago

Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
Player participation prompted them to quantify fun. People found the pioneer environment unfun, thus the participation dropped. They literally correlated fun to player participation
I agree with this. I think it's important, however to realize that the two things are very different from each other. As stated, one is quantifiable and the other is not. Let's cut out the middle man before we go too far into the weeds and establish a norm.

WotC did not use "fun" as a metric, they used "player participation". While the former was what they said was the case, the later was what they actually used as a measure.

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Post by Arkmer » 3 years ago

Sure. I just don't think it's a good idea to get caught up in the word "fun" is all. The next time it comes up we may just get buried in who has fun with what when the real answer is event participation. I wouldn't take issue with a statement along the lines of "things are getting really boring and repetitive, I bet we see event participation slide in the next few months", they may well be wrong in the long run but it avoids things like "this is unfun, we need to ban it now". The first acknowledges that one leads to the other while the second makes a rash statement to push a desired result.

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 3 years ago

Arkmer wrote:
3 years ago
Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
Player participation prompted them to quantify fun. People found the pioneer environment unfun, thus the participation dropped. They literally correlated fun to player participation
I agree with this. I think it's important, however to realize that the two things are very different from each other. As stated, one is quantifiable and the other is not. Let's cut out the middle man before we go too far into the weeds and establish a norm.

WotC did not use "fun" as a metric, they used "player participation". While the former was what they said was the case, the later was what they actually used as a measure.
I think it's fine to use the word "fun." Todd Anderson hasn't played much Magic in the past 3 months. Whenever I went to watch his streams, he's doing non mtg, so I don't watch. Yesterday, he told about how excited he was to play Magic again. Reid Duke is in a similar boat, although he's not going to be as forthright about shortcomings from WotC.

Pioneer just wasn't played because it was a format that was "figured" out months ago and super boring. Toxicity was another word brought up by many players. But this is the Modern forum, so I'll throw in something about Modern. I think Modern is much better than when Arcum's Astrolabe was around, but the format right now from what I've seen online is Prowess decks, E Tron, and Sanctuary decks. It's rare to see something else, except a bit of RG Midrange and tribal decks.
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 Aazadan » 3 years ago

Greeksis wrote:
3 years ago
True, but as long as there is a correlation among those two, I am fine with the one being the cause and the other one being used as a measure.
There isn't really a correlation. All bans use the underlying logic of event participation. When it drops they take action. Reasons it can drop are boring metas, unfuns metas, and solved metas, among other reasons. Fun in the context of why they're banning is perfectly reasonable like I said before, if your game isn't fun your game is a failure.

That said, fun is really hard to quantify, meaning that it can't be measured. At best there's a perception of if it is or isn't present. For example, if a format is unfun and people are still playing it (this does happen from time to time), Wizards is a lot less likely to take action.

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Post by Mtgthewary » 3 years ago

I except something in tron gets banned next year for same fun reasons, even they maybe dont tell fun is the reason. first of all, people don't like tron, second it is always strong and on top no matter in which meta. After map is banned in pauper tron, I believe it's a small test too for modern.. yes it's not the same like modern, but map or little karn can go next year. now you all can hate me, but time will come soon. only chance to avoid this scenario is if they print a really good anti tron hate card or meta gets again and again busted new hoogaks and okos.

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Post by AvalonAurora » 3 years ago

I actually think Tron has a potential get parts of it banned on existing principles. Specifically, the one they used for Birthing Pod, in that it's too efficient of a way to get out things that are increasingly diverse and powerful over time, as more mostly colorless cost large cmc things are printed. Tron might not tutor like Pod did, but Pod still needed the correct cmc to tutor specific things, so the tutoring wasn't the only aspect that led to it being ban worthy just for more and better creatures arriving in the format.

Tron gets better the more good high cmc mostly colorless cost things are printed that it can help get out early, especially with colorless not being treated as quite as much of a penalty as it once was in general to what cards can do, and high cmc 'mistake' cards building up over time. The more powerful and diverse tron's options are, the higher chances a tron deck will push things far enough to get the treatment Birthing Pod did (around the time of Siege Rhino?) and gain enough of a metagame dominance and/or win rates to move into the ban crosshairs.

This might take a while though, and if the format is filled with too much broken stuff, it might never happen, especially since a lot of high cmc stuff is allowed to be flexible on it's own in ways that make it just as devastating as the likes of tutoring specific creatures in your deck with Birthing Pod.

The question then becomes do they ban the Tron Lands themselves, end the London Mulligan, or ban enablers like Ancient Stirrings?

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