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

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
The only problem Modern is facing now, is that it has too many 1 drops, whatever 1 drop this is. Wizards needs to find further ways to make the avg(CMC) of the format bigger. JTMS, BBE unbans were successful at that. I remember people said JTMS would be useless. Where are they now? It's being played at a Tier 1 control deck. And yes, control is super strong now. UW is a great Tier 1 control deck and Esper control is better than people give it credit for. But, sure, Esper and UW must seem bad for some people to make the "unban Twin" case seem like a stronger contender.
The meta being saturated with 1 drops is part of this. Our current meta being saturated with 0 drops (like Hogaak) only adds to this. I do agree with you that there are too many 1 drops right now in Modern. I actually thought that this format could devolve into a Chalice of the Void vs. 1 drop meta eventually. Hopefully that will not happen and if there is an argument outside of price of why Legacy is not as good as it can be, this is it in my opinion (Chalice of the Void vs. 1 drop.dec).

If Modern starts to devolve into a Chalice of the Void vs. 1 drop.dec, then I really do think that Looting and Ancient Stirrings should get the axe. Outside of that, I feel that Blue could get a minor upgrade from Opt to Preordain while Tier 3 strategies like Ad Nauseam could upgrade from Sleight of Hand to Preordain. But it really doesn't matter how I feel. Preordain may as well be Brainstorm because it's not getting unbanned. WotC has shown us what they feel is acceptable in Scour all Possibilities. I can argue until I'm blue in the face and I have done so, both here and at my LGS and it's not going to change the fact that they printed that card in Modern Horizons. :( :(
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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
Interestingly, this is a great point for reasons I'm not sure were intended. Many players and prominent pros were either convinced BBE would make Jund a thing again, certain JTMS was too good for Modern, or certain JTMS was unplayable. Basically all of those strong opinions were wrong. BBE is playable but by no means the thing Jund needed; that was W6. JTMS was unquestionably appropriate for Modern, absolutely playable, but not nearly as decisive as many hoped.
You played UW for a time, do you actually think without all the other additions to the format, that Jace was playable in a Tier 1 deck?
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
The lesson should be clear for anyone trying to say "New card X/unban Y/ban Z will have effect A/B/C on the metagame." These types of statements reduce an intricate, complex issue to a meaningless generalization in order to prove a point and distract from the underlying complexities.
I definitely agree with this sentiment. This is why I, personally, would try to rationalize or quantify any of my opinions with supporting evidence or reason. (side note: in teaching, we commonly use CRE, or Claim-Reason-Evidence, to justify answers. Basically, you make a claim of some sort, and then support that claim with some kind of reasoning, and then use evidence to both support your reasoning.) So I don't think that claims of "New card X/unban Y/ban Z will have effect A/B/C on the metagame" are inherently bad, but they are incredibly bad when made in a vacuum and with no supporting reasoning or evidence.

I think examples of good discussion could look like: "I think XYZ will be good for the format, because it can/will/did do ABC. That is a positive attribute because (insert reason/evidence to support). While DEF could happen, (insert claim/reason/evidence for why DEF either isn't as bad, or may not happen)." This produces fruitful discussion because people have to articulate why their claim is true, instead of just saying it's true. Ironically, Jeff Hoogland applies this to both his Twitch chat and Twitter feed; forcing people to justify and support their opinions. He is heavily criticized for it, but it's likely because people simply don't want to take the time, effort, and thought into justifying their claims. People are lazy, and it's much easier to just say a thing, then say a thing and say why that thing should be true. I think more CRE around here would be beneficial to all.

Re Jace: I would gladly try and dig up my old statements on him, but if I remember correctly, they were all centered around not being able to tap out for a minimally-impactful card, that it was win-more in many cases when it's not dead, and that it does nothing against fast/wide/aggressive strategies that dominated the format most of the time.

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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
Interestingly, this is a great point for reasons I'm not sure were intended. Many players and prominent pros were either convinced BBE would make Jund a thing again, certain JTMS was too good for Modern, or certain JTMS was unplayable. Basically all of those strong opinions were wrong. BBE is playable but by no means the thing Jund needed; that was W6. JTMS was unquestionably appropriate for Modern, absolutely playable, but not nearly as decisive as many hoped.
You played UW for a time, do you actually think without all the other additions to the format, that Jace was playable in a Tier 1 deck?
At the time JTMS was unbanned, probably not, for reasons we've discussed. But then the evaluation of JTMS should've been "Right now, JTMS does not address the biggest issues facing Ux control and will not enable the archetype on its own. It will, however, be a strong tool for the deck if/when it picks up other tools to fix other issues." That's the kind of measured, open-minded opinion that appreciates the complexities of metagame development with new cards in the picture. The point is not whether or not JTMS was (un)playable at the time it was unbanned. It's how hard it is to predict what unbanned cards will do because metagame evolution includes so many complicate and unknowable factors.
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
The lesson should be clear for anyone trying to say "New card X/unban Y/ban Z will have effect A/B/C on the metagame." These types of statements reduce an intricate, complex issue to a meaningless generalization in order to prove a point and distract from the underlying complexities.
I definitely agree with this sentiment. This is why I, personally, would try to rationalize or quantify any of my opinions with supporting evidence or reason. (side note: in teaching, we commonly use CRE, or Claim-Reason-Evidence, to justify answers. Basically, you make a claim of some sort, and then support that claim with some kind of reasoning, and then use evidence to both support your reasoning.) So I don't think that claims of "New card X/unban Y/ban Z will have effect A/B/C on the metagame" are inherently bad, but they are incredibly bad when made in a vacuum and with no supporting reasoning or evidence.
I agree with this. Those claims can be quite good with evidence to back them up. But the strength of a claim needs to be proportionate to the strength of the underlying evidence. For instance, not to pick on Bearscape who retracted this statement a few posts later, Bearscape initially claimed a few pages back that Izzet Phoenix would remain Tier 1 after Looting was gone, suggesting the CMC 2 discard/draw enablers were good replacements. I don't know if that's true, but at the time, Bearscape provided very little evidence to support this claim and all available evidence has historically proven HUGE differences between CMC 1 and CMC 2 enablers, to say nothing of Looting's added flashback benefit. Again, Bearscape totally admitted he was off base here which I respect, but this is an example of the kind of strong claim-making we need to avoid without strong evidence to back it up.
Ironically, Jeff Hoogland applies this to both his Twitch chat and Twitter feed; forcing people to justify and support their opinions. He is heavily criticized for it, but it's likely because people simply don't want to take the time, effort, and thought into justifying their claims. People are lazy, and it's much easier to just say a thing, then say a thing and say why that thing should be true. I think more CRE around here would be beneficial to all.
Hoogland is not a great Magic personality to demonstrate this. As a recent example, in April 2018 he published this under-researched article on CoolStuffInc: https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/jeffhoog ... nlist-talk. This article, although better than his truly outrageous 2017 piece (https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/jeffhoog ... anned-list) is a great example of strong claims being made without strong evidence. His justification for removing two of Modern's strongest, most prevalent pillars is just 400 words with zero statistical backing, despite Wizards including numerical justification for basically every ban in the last 8 years except the shoddily written Probe/GGT article. No GP T8s. No MTGO #s. No MWPs. No nothing. I get that we have limited numbers and Wizards throttles data, but it's not hard to use some of the numbers we have to predict Wizards' ban decisions and inform ban cases. He even dismisses the counter-argument to Looting/Stirrings being unbanned in about three sentences, again with no numbers:

"I do not think removing them would single handedly kill any major archetype. While some people will disagree with this assessment, I would like to remind everyone out there that people thought banning Eye of Ugin would kill Tron or that banning Summer Bloom would kill Amulet Titan. As with those bannings, though, they simply made these strategies weaker, but still competitive. "

I don't even think half of this statement is true: did anyone really think an Eye ban would "kill Tron"? He doesn't even discuss alternate spell replacements for these banned cards. I'm not saying he needs to write a peer reviewed journal article to justify a ban. But a banning argument is probably the strongest Modern argument you can make. Authors and claimants need to justify those arguments with the same kind of numerical analyses Wizards includes in articles. "Wizards throttles data" is not an excuse to exclude the data we do have, especially when there is a ton of data out there that many people (authors and players alike) either don't care to look up, don't care to include in arguments, or don't care about generally.
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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
At the time JTMS was unbanned, probably not, for reasons we've discussed. But then the evaluation of JTMS should've been "Right now, JTMS does not address the biggest issues facing Ux control and will not enable the archetype on its own. It will, however, be a strong tool for the deck if/when it picks up other tools to fix other issues."
Fair enough.
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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago

Outside of that, I feel that Blue could get a minor upgrade from Opt to Preordain while Tier 3 strategies like Ad Nauseam could upgrade from Sleight of Hand to Preordain. But it really doesn't matter how I feel. Preordain may as well be Brainstorm because it's not getting unbanned. WotC has shown us what they feel is acceptable in Scour all Possibilities. I can argue until I'm blue in the face and I have done so, both here and at my LGS and it's not going to change the fact that they printed that card in Modern Horizons. :( :(
I disagree here. Preordain, would slot into top tier strategies like Izzet Phoenix and UWx Control. They rarely unban a card that is slotting right into Tier 1 strategies, because there is a case they will be too good. I strongly think Phoenix will get the axe with Preordain and UWx will be a lot stronger too.
That's okay. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

At my LGS, there are several players (I asked a year or 2 ago) who literally think that if Preordain is unbanned, Storm would be the best deck. So just like people are entitled to believe that Umezawa's Jitte should be unbanned or Urza's Tower should be banned, I am entitled to believe that Preordain is just a minor upgrade and Storm and Ad Nauseam would not be propelled to Tier 0 (as I also believe that UR Phoenix and UW Control also would not be Tier 0 after Preordain). Even if UR Phoenix was to be Tier 0 after Preordain, what is really fueling it? Is it the cantrips or is it Manamorphose or is it Faithless Looting and Phoenixes? They all contribute, but do you really believe that the cantrips are the biggest offender? Yes, turn 1 you can't beat a cantrip. After that, the other cards really pick up value, although Preordain itself picks up value late too.

Basically what WotC is saying is that UR Phoenix and UW Control don't need Preordain, but they do need Aria of Flame, Finale of Promise, T3feri, Narset, and other cards. I'm not sure if that's the right way to go about things, although admittedly I LOVE how they "unbanned" Deathrite Shaman by printing Wrenn and Six - the kind of "Deathrite Shaman" that they do feel is acceptable.

*As a besides, you would hope that a card unbanned would slot into a deck that is played or at least make a deck that is not played now playable. It's not like Bridge from Below that if unbanned after Hogaak gets banned would literally slide into a Tier 2 Bridgevine deck that maybe 1 person at 3 LGS plays just because they love the deck.
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
At the time JTMS was unbanned, probably not, for reasons we've discussed. But then the evaluation of JTMS should've been "Right now, JTMS does not address the biggest issues facing Ux control and will not enable the archetype on its own. It will, however, be a strong tool for the deck if/when it picks up other tools to fix other issues."
This is essentially exactly what I said minus the "if/when it picks up new tools" clause. Mostly because for nearly 3 years I had absolutely zero faith in that ever happening. And even now, this is only forcefully in UW, which ironically pushes OUT diversity of OTHER control decks (grixis/UB/UR/etc), though that is another topic all together...
ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
That's the kind of measured, open-minded opinion that appreciates the complexities of metagame development with new cards in the picture. The point is not whether or not JTMS was (un)playable at the time it was unbanned. It's how hard it is to predict what unbanned cards will do because metagame evolution includes so many complicate and unknowable factors.
Let's remember the perspective that, for the longest time, they continued to print awful counterspells, unplayable cantrips, horrendously mediocre card draw, and zero meaningful answer cards. They have ramped up considerably, likely as direct backlash from banning Twin and destroying an entire control archetype for years on end. We had absolutely no reason to believe new tools were coming. And they didn't come for 3+ years (and still only give love to UW).
ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
As a recent example, in April 2018
...
truly outrageous 2017
I mean, one of these is from a year and a half ago, and another is from nearly two. But sure? I am more talking about how he interacts with people, rather than writes his opinion pieces (which, let's be honest, nearly everyone who writes Magic articles outside of Frank Karsten is all a bunch of hand-waiving mumbo jumbo).
gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
People need to stop being extreme about their opinions.
Some people need to look in the mirror with comments like this. And since you have me blocked and don't wish to have an actual discussion, I guess it's not worth addressing your additional points, as wildly unsupported and totally off-bases as they may be (and have been addressed in previous posts).

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

But Ross Merriam said that UR Phoenix is unplayable. His Premium article literally said, "it's time to put Izzet Phoenix down in Modern." Doesn't anyone trust Ross anymore? I saw a statistic that showed his win percentage on the SCG Tour to be the highest of any player with a minimum of 100 matches at SCG. 70%, while second highest at the time was Ben Nikolich at 68%.

Admittedly, Gerry Thompson followed it up on Premium by saying, "Don't give up yet Ross, Izzet Phoenix is actually great now." I like these kinds of little stabs that Pros and SCG Grinders make at each other regarding their opinions on where a deck stands.
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
All in all, Wizards will never unban preordain as the case of Phoenix being tier 0 is real and that would affect many players and would make several future combo decks potentially better again, to the point that there is a case that new bannings would have to be made in the future
The kind of discussion I do not like is when people have extreme opinions and are not presenting a "in my opinion" tag :)
Why do you consider your assertion of Preordain making Phoenix Tier 0 and leading to several future bans correct?

Didn't you just say, like 15 minutes ago, that "People need to stop being extreme about their opinions."?

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Post by FoodChainGoblins » 4 years ago

I mean, the first step is to ban Hogaak, just like it should have been already. Then WotC has to analyze the new meta.

I don't agree when people say that Faithless Looting and Ancient Stirrings should be banned, but can you blame people? In a format where Stoneforge Mystic, Preordain, and Green Sun's Zenith are currently banned, a 0 mana 8/8 is wrecking things. Can't we have Stoneforge Mystic to wreck things for at least half the time that Hogaak did? Or are new cards only allowed to do that? You can say that WotC doesn't test Modern, which they have admitted to, but they should be at least somewhat careful about what they print when their ban list has Preordain (but not Faithless Looting, which is strictly better as of now in Modern). I would love to see someone's argument how Preordain would be better than Faithless Looting in today's Modern, lol.

I'm not mad. I could have literally bought 100s of Leyline of the Void when it plummeted after the M20 reprint and then resold them for 1.5 times what I paid or more. I hate this current Modern meta more than any other time. I'd rather play Legacy. Yes, I'd rather play Chalice of the Void vs. 1 drops. I'd rather play against 1 Reanimator, 1 Storm, and 2 Dredge that I faced in a 5 round tournament last weekend (faced RUG Delver in the other round). I still play Modern though and I still have faith in WotC to get some things right.

*Even my logical friend told me that Simian Spirit Guide and Mox Opal should be banned because they don't conform to the "turn 4" Modern rule and that makes sense to me. What are those cards even doing legal in a turn 4 format? (but I would be pissed if they weren't)
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

FoodChainGoblins wrote:
4 years ago
You can say that WotC doesn't test Modern, which they have admitted to, but they should be at least somewhat careful about what they print when their ban list has Preordain (but not Faithless Looting, which is strictly better as of now in Modern). I would love to see someone's argument how Preordain would be better than Faithless Looting in today's Modern, lol.
It is silly to see Preordain banned. And the literal only justification is that "BuT iT SlOtS iNtO TiEr DeCkS!" Which would literally be true of any cantrip ever printed. If that is the case, then no cantrip will ever exist that is better than disappointingly mediocre Opt, Sleight of Hand, and Serum Visions. This is a horrible justification, whether it's WOTC's official position or not, and there doesn't appear to be any other grounds on which to justify its place on the banned list.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Look guys, I hate to break it to you but...Opt and Serum ARE as good as Wizards will let us have. Someone there wakes up screaming that Storm beat them 6 years ago, and the starts shaking as they think about having to hold up mana for Twin, or playing removal against SFM.

Just accept it.

As to a lot of this back and forth otherwise, you know your wasting keystrokes cfusionpm. You know it.

RE: Listening to grinders? I'm afraid not. People need to start seeing these ppl for what they are. I listen to a few here or from MTGS when I still went there, and a select few on Twitter who don't write for the big sites. Why?

They are biased, have a conflict of interest, and outside a tiny % are plainly wrong about the format.

No, understanding your own deck, understanding other decks, that's all you really need. The insights from SCG and CFB shills are very very rare. I'd pay ktk and h0lydiva before I paid for SCG Premium.
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Post by SaberTooth » 4 years ago

I think that is more silly to see cards like SFM, zenith and preordain banned that looting and stirrings not in the banned list. Modern is a format with powerful strategies that attack from different angles and i get that (and that's why i play the format), what i dont really get is the justification of those cards banned. At some point the "ban the consistency" argument loses some gas, cause this cards are not good enough

Im a combo player and i understand the power of consistency, but at the same time, if a deck becomes too good, you just ban the offender, i mean... if phoenix becomes too good, for example, ban the card, cause it is what is causing problems. This kind of surgical (lol) aproach is less complicated than banning a pillar of the format

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
As to a lot of this back and forth otherwise, you know your wasting keystrokes cfusionpm. You know it.
Most of it is wasted because at least one individual doesn't want to actually have a discussion, because he's blocked/muted me here. That same one that supposedly wants to have more open discussions and wants people to calm down their extreme opinions, but keeps shouting his extreme opinions and ignoring people he disagrees with. The same one that is being sly and coy about "calling them out" without actually engaging with them. Whatever. I guess it is a waste of time.
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Post by SaberTooth » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
SaberTooth wrote:
4 years ago
I think that is more silly to see cards like SFM, zenith and preordain banned that looting and stirrings not in the banned list. Modern is a format with powerful strategies that attack from different angles and i get that (and that's why i play the format), what i dont really get is the justification of those cards banned. At some point the "ban the consistency" argument loses some gas, cause this cards are not good enough

Im a combo player and i understand the power of consistency, but at the same time, if a deck becomes too good, you just ban the offender, i mean... if phoenix becomes too good, for example, ban the card, cause it is what is causing problems. This kind of surgical (lol) aproach is less complicated than banning a pillar of the format
The problem with that, is that banlist will be huge if this happens. Does Arclight Phoenix deserves to be on the banlist rather than Preordain(if it was to be unbanned it and pushed it too much)?
Not really... all what i was trying to say is that this discussion is like sayin' that you should ban green chancellor because is what makes neobrand cappable of goin off on turn 1
As i said before (in an old post) the problem with banning pillars of the format (talkin about looting now) is that it can cause a chain type effect
Always some strategies are gonna be over the top (tier 1 decks)
You just cant keep banning things forever at this rate
Hogaak (the card) is a mistake. Ban it, then move on

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Sabertooth: it becomes a question then, do you kill decks, or Nerf them?

I prefer Nerf personally.
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

SaberTooth wrote:
4 years ago
You just cant keep banning things forever at this rate
I think their "management" style post-Twin has been to dramatically scale back bannings. But in doing so, they have also allowed to flourish some pretty awful things that would have been banned outright under old ideology. WOTC needs to pick a side. Either they continue their old strict (and predictable) management of the format, or they should give us back some of our old toys if they don't care about banning and removing oppressive and obnoxious nonsense.

They are treating cards on the banned list like someone sitting in jail for marijuana possession, who remains there even after pot was made legal.

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

They did pick a side. The saw the outrage/confusion over Twin, and who's died since? The only intentional one was KCI, which is last in the line of Eggs decks, that had an insane win % at the GP level, and messed with rules interactions Wizard's did not like.

Eldrazi lived.
Amulet lived.
Dredge lived.
Hogaak lived.

They picked their side. Unfortunate for the Format they do not go back and revisit choices made prior to this shift, otherwise the format could (since we cannot predict...) look quite different today.
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
They picked their side. Unfortunate for the Format they do not go back and revisit choices made prior to this shift, otherwise the format could (since we cannot predict...) look quite different today.
Exactly! Hence the: "they should give us back some of our old toys if they don't care about banning and removing oppressive and obnoxious nonsense."

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

It is what it is, I took your advice and just am exploring EDH. I just dont think that there is enough momentum in the community to undo some of those past choices.

I mean again, we cannot predict the meta/format, whatever, fine. I still struggle DEEPLY with SFM being banned on ANY pretense in Modern. It just makes no sense to me.

Yet here we are.

At this point I just thank the stars for people who still have the fortitude to brew up interesting decks, and not 'here's my next refinement on Mono R Phoenix, now with W6!' or 'We now have Jund Hogaak...with W6!' or whatever.
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Post by ktkenshinx » 4 years ago

SaberTooth wrote:
4 years ago
As i said before (in an old post) the problem with banning pillars of the format (talkin about looting now) is that it can cause a chain type effect
Always some strategies are gonna be over the top (tier 1 decks)
You just cant keep banning things forever at this rate
Hogaak (the card) is a mistake. Ban it, then move on
I agree with this line of argument. Banning pillars is at the very least risky and at most disastrous. If we ban them solely because they are good or at the top, we just create a race to the bottom where all top decks get something banned. Wizards has avoided this since the Twin ban, which has benefited metagame evolutions. I'm fine banning cards from top-tier decks when the deck creates measurable format issues. KCI had an outrageous win-rate and a wildly disproportionate GP T8 share relative to its Day 1 shares. It also created other issues. Wizards said it best in the update itself:

"While the primary reasons for banning a card from the Ironworks deck are its raw win rate and high GP Top 8 conversion rate, we also considered its highly polarized Game 1 (pre-sideboard) win rate, sometimes long turn length, and difficult rules interactions as secondary factors."

This is the kind of combination of factors we need to see in order to lead to a ban. Note that three of those are measurable performance statistics. One of them is logistical. A third is experiential. So far, I've seen a lot of anti-Looting and Stirrings talk based almost exclusively on an experiential argument. This is wildly misaligned with Wizards' approach and that's good. If we just banned things out of experience, we'd be in big trouble in our non-rotating formats. I'm not saying Stirrings and Looting don't have ban cases. They probably do. But I don't see them made like KCI's ban case was. It's just people talking about negative play experience without any numbers. Thankfully, Wizards does not act on this, which is why the race to the bottom problem isn't materializing.
idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
They picked their side. Unfortunate for the Format they do not go back and revisit choices made prior to this shift, otherwise the format could (since we cannot predict...) look quite different today.
I agree they have shifted heavily on bans, but it's unfair to say they won't revisit old choices. They unbanned BBE and JTMS well after this shift, one of which was banned as part of a broken Modern deck, not just a pre-format ban. That's a clear signal of revisiting old decisions. That said, I agree it's basically impossible to predict unbans. Sometimes they unban in stable environments (2018 unbans), other times they unban in super volatile ones (end of Eldrazi Winter). I fully believe bans are predictable and measurable. Unbans play by another set of obscure, opaque rules. I certainly don't pretend to understand them.
cfusionpm wrote:
4 years ago
idSurge wrote:
4 years ago
They picked their side. Unfortunate for the Format they do not go back and revisit choices made prior to this shift, otherwise the format could (since we cannot predict...) look quite different today.
Exactly! Hence the: "they should give us back some of our old toys if they don't care about banning and removing oppressive and obnoxious nonsense."
Again, this throwaway line about "oppressive and obnoxious nonsense" is the kind of experiential Modern complaint that needs evidence to back it up. I understand you are frustrated with the state of the format and have been for most of the last 3.5 years. But these kinds of hyper-negative comments need backing or it's just format-bashing/venting. They are just as problematic as GK claiming somewhere in the last page that Izzet Phoenix would be Tier 0 with Preordain (I might be paraphrasing him here). Both of you might have cases. Both of you need to present that evidence.
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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
I agree they have shifted heavily on bans, but it's unfair to say they won't revisit old choices. They unbanned BBE and JTMS well after this shift, one of which was banned as part of a broken Modern deck, not just a pre-format ban. That's a clear signal of revisiting old decisions.
There was unban's prior to the Twin ban, which to me is the cut off of a paradigm shift within Wizard's approach to Modern, and its Ban List. We know why those (and other) cards came off the list, but none of them said 'we have reviewed our prior choices in terms of Ban Logic, and have found ourselves lacking in regards to SFM.'

They can and do still review things, thats a given, but not in a holistic 'does this make sense now' approach. At least not that we have ever been communicated with to believe from what I can remember.

(No, I'm not going to look up all the ban verbiage.... lol)

EDIT: In fact, I would absolutely love for them to write a complete review of the ban list, and provide their current logic around what sits on it
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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

ktkenshinx wrote:
4 years ago
Again, this throwaway line about "oppressive and obnoxious nonsense" is the kind of experiential Modern complaint that needs evidence to back it up. I understand you are frustrated with the state of the format and have been for most of the last 3.5 years. But these kinds of hyper-negative comments need backing or it's just format-bashing/venting. They are just as problematic as GK claiming somewhere in the last page that Izzet Phoenix would be Tier 0 with Preordain (I might be paraphrasing him here). Both of you might have cases. Both of you need to present that evidence.
I have shown plenty that Phoenix, and secondarily Looting, was a destructive force in competitive Magic that would have been banned at any other point in history. As it stands today? Maybe, maybe not. But Phoenix (and Dredge) were allowed to dominate Modern more than several other banned decks and have been ostensibly obnoxious and oppressive. If that is OK, then they are allowing oppressive and obnoxious nonsense to "work itself out naturally" instead of banning it. And if that is the case, then my stance is that MULTIPLE pieces on the banned list should be revisited and allowed the same luxury that Looting decks have had. The fact that they do not even acknowledge several of the banned cards' existence is both infuriating and insulting.

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Post by cfusionpm » 4 years ago

gkourou wrote:
4 years ago
Also, if Preordain was unbanned, Twin would be a no go for ever, I think.
Can we please stop with these utterly baseless and unsupported claims?

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Post by idSurge » 4 years ago

Stop reading them, because no he wont. Its the only way you will have any semblance of sanity around here. I'd probably be infracted already. :p
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