Cook’s Kitchen: B&R Update – January 2013

[Bryant Cook]

Cook’s Kitchen: B&R Update – January 2013 (http://jupitergames.info/articles/2013/52829/cooks-kitchen-br-update-january-2013)

It's an article. On modern.

[kombatkiwi]

Cook’s Kitchen: B&R Update – January 2013 (http://jupitergames.info/articles/2013/52829/cooks-kitchen-br-update-january-2013)

It's an article. On modern.

It was okay

A lot of people have done articles on this topic recently and I like how you tried to go into more detail about the anti-slippery slope that happens when you start unbanning cards ("if you unban Bitterblossom, then Faeries could become good, but that's fine, because you can unban X, which achieves Y, etc).

I think that you could have improved the article by being more careful with your writing. Sentences like "Not even combo decks, decks like UWr tempo should have to worry about finding their third land for Geist of Saint Traft." stand out as being especially clumsy. You also tend to be a bit heavy-handed with regard to hedging your claims: "I’m not convinced that Bitterblossom would even share the same power level it once did in standard." It would be fair to be more confident with this assertion considering that the modern card pool has however many additional sets and decks compared to Lorwyn standard, and if you look through your article you can find other examples. Writing this piece in such an unconvincing style is not great considering that it's essentially a persuasive essay.

Despite this complaint, I have enjoyed your previous writing (tournament reports and things) and I think that maybe you just didn't put as much effort into this as you have done for other articles.

[joemauer]

The reason a lot of cards are on the banned list is because WotC has "vision of what an eternal format should be.". They want an eternal format completely devoid of storm and dredge. Dredge probably wouldn't even be a top tier deck if Grave Troll and Dread Return were unbanned; these cards stay banned because of some kind of disdain for dredge.

[SpikeyMikey]

Bryant, I've been playing Modern since the announcement of the format for the Community Cup. The difference between Cloudpost decks and Tron decks, and the reason the former are so much more powerful than the latter, is Glimmerpost. Yes, having to find 3 different lands is more difficult than finding a Cloudpost. That makes a difference too. But the biggest difference is gaining 10-12 life in a turn from a pair of Glimmerposts. It's much easier for the deck to hit the late game vs. aggro/mid-range when it's working with 30 or 40 life instead of 20. Properly built, combo isn't really an issue for it either. At the PT, Post performed poorly because people were trying to race combo with TtB. That's the wrong way to do it, as you're always a slower and less consistent combo deck than dedicated combo. The correct answer was LD to slow decks like Twin down. Beast Within was an amazing catchall answer and disruptive sideboard options like Ethersworn Canonist and Suppression Field help slow them down long enough for you to get Eldrazi out. In any case, unbanning Post would not be a good idea.

[Amon Amarth]

Bryant, I've been playing Modern since the announcement of the format for the Community Cup. The difference between Cloudpost decks and Tron decks, and the reason the former are so much more powerful than the latter, is Glimmerpost. Yes, having to find 3 different lands is more difficult than finding a Cloudpost. That makes a difference too. But the biggest difference is gaining 10-12 life in a turn from a pair of Glimmerposts. It's much easier for the deck to hit the late game vs. aggro/mid-range when it's working with 30 or 40 life instead of 20. Properly built, combo isn't really an issue for it either. At the PT, Post performed poorly because people were trying to race combo with TtB. That's the wrong way to do it, as you're always a slower and less consistent combo deck than dedicated combo. The correct answer was LD to slow decks like Twin down. Beast Within was an amazing catchall answer and disruptive sideboard options like Ethersworn Canonist and Suppression Field help slow them down long enough for you to get Eldrazi out. In any case, unbanning Post would not be a good idea.

Wouldn't Faeries be good against 12 Post if it also had it's marquee cards unbanned?

[Phoenix Ignition]

Wouldn't Faeries be good against 12 Post if it also had it's marquee cards unbanned?

No, not at all. The problem with post, as Mikey said, is that many of its lands gain life. Not only that, it's a ridiculous amount of life. The other problem is that you don't need to "assemble Exodia" like you do with Tron lands, you just need 1 of them and then Vesuva it as much as you want. Fast aggro decks couldn't beat it because it could easily gain 7 life just off of its land drops. Faeries wouldn't stand a chance because they 1) Aren't nearly fast enough to race it and 2) Play no counterspells relevant to stopping Eldrazi. Combo was the only thing that could deal enough damage before 12-post had the lands required to win, but I agree with Mikey again that if they had just built properly the combo decks wouldn't have even had a positive matchup vs it.

I didn't want to comment on this article, I think it's silly that someone not even watching the format thinks they know enough to write something about it, especially something along the lines of "just unban everything and then the cards you just banned won't be so powerful." It's great that your fame on this site brings readers to your articles regardless of their subject, but so many of the points you bring up are just wrong, and not just wrong, obviously wrong to the point of being ill-informed, that it's hard to swallow anything here.

[kwis]

Hit's the nail on the head, the development doesn't seem to realize that powerful cards in a diverse environment will generate their own metagame while being fun to play with and against.

[Lord Seth]

I agree with you on some things, but writing an article analyzing the ban list of a format you admit you understand little about is not particularly informative nor useful to readers. For example, you completely underestimate the power of 12-Post in Modern. It's quite a bit better than Urzatron for reasons people have mentioned, so wondering why Urzatron is legal but 12-Post isn't is like wondering why Tinker is banned in Legacy while Show and Tell isn't.

Though I do think a reasonable argument could be made that they should unban Cloudpost and ban Vesuva in its place, as it would allow the basic deck to remain in a significantly weakened state rather than taking it out of the format entirely.

[Anusien]

Two paragraphs in and it's clear you didn't understand what Wizards is trying to do with Modern. One of the core principles of the format is "No consistent turn 3 kills". You say, in essence, "I don't think banning Seething Song was the right idea. Clearly they should have unbanned Rite of Flame instead!" Maybe you're right, and maybe if you unban Preordain, Ponder, Rite of Flame, Bitterblossom and Ancestral Vision, you set up a Rock/Paper/Scissors metagame with Faeries > Storm > Jund > Faeries. But it's clear that's not what Wizards wants. One of their principle goals is to not just make it look like you throw every block's premiere deck against each other; that's why there are a lot of things that are banned. And they clearly care about format diversity significantly. In other formats, Wizards seems to be okay with a best deck, but not so much in Modern.

You also fall victim to the very classic "X card has an answer so it is safe". This is pretty bad when discussing Abrupt Decay v Faeries, because of the existence of one very commonly played trump to Abrupt Decay (Mistbind Clique) and one somewhat played trump (Scion of Oona).

[JDK]

In other formats, Wizards seems to be okay with a best deck, but not so much in Modern.
I don't agree with the article, but this is kinda ironic, given the percentage of Jund in the metagame. Compare that to Legacy and Standard.

[SpikeyMikey]

I don't agree with the article, but this is kinda ironic, given the percentage of Jund in the metagame. Compare that to Legacy and Standard.

Most field saturation is not the same as "the best deck". I just posted the numbers on Ari's article on SCG today. Pod is 1/3rd the saturation as Jund and has a similar # of PTQ T8's and wins.

[Anusien]

Most field saturation is not the same as "the best deck". I just posted the numbers on Ari's article on SCG today. Pod is 1/3rd the saturation as Jund and has a similar # of PTQ T8's and wins.
Wizards pays more attention to GPs and PTs because they're more high profile and they show what the pros think.

[SpikeyMikey]

Wizards pays more attention to GPs and PTs because they're more high profile and they show what the pros think.

That's not really a good way to go with a new format, but then again, I expect Wizards to do things poorly, so I'll buy that logic.

Pros are really good at playing the game but most of them are balls when it comes to theory and creating decks. Tweaking, sure, creating, not so much. I worked with Dave Caplan on Modern for Worlds and what he was telling me was that everyone there was really up on the 5c Zoo with Snapcaster and Tribal Flames. I told him it was terrible and sure enough, the deck went something like 42% vs. the field, compared to more traditional Naya Zoo which was around 56%. As I pointed out above, the builds at Philly were really loose too.

I'm not really sure what the solution is. Wizards obviously doesn't have anyone that has a clue about Modern (although you'd think Gavin would be pretty good with it, since, you know, Overextended...) and they don't know how to capture the correct metrics to really grasp the format. It's not like they read threads here anyway or that they'd give any credence to what they read if they did (they're too busy patting themselves on the back for "preventing the war"). So until the format finally crashes hard despite all the support they're giving it, they're going to continue thinking that they're doing a good job.