The State of Modern

[dontbiteitholmes]

When Modern first came around it was pretty apparent that it was a cop out on WotC part to not breaking the reserved list. It seemed as though most of the people speaking loudly for the creation of a new format only wanted one because Legacy was too expensive. There was a lot of apprehension by many in the community here that Modern would ruin Legacy and steal away some of the current player base and hasten our inevitable slide into Vintage territory.

So far none of this has come to pass. As I speculated early, and suspect is now the case, many of the people who complained about the price of Legacy have not made the jump to Modern because it is still (significantly) more expensive than Standard and has less support (and is arguably less fun) than Legacy. As the format came out obviously speculation of prices and excitement for a new format lead to huge interest. Now after it's first PT test and first wave of bannings Modern seems to have practically gone into hiding. Not a single Modern side event has fired at SCG as far as I am aware and there are all of 10 Modern events listed in the tournaments section. Despite much initial excitement, the local Modern events in Milwaukee never attracted more than 3 people. Though they may exist I'm unaware of any currently active Modern communities. Tom Lapelle recently tweeted to ask if ANYONE knew of a local Modern event that fired weekly.

Granted Modern GPs/PTs will probably stoke interest in the format, if for nothing more than people want to play in GPs/PTs but does Modern have a future outside of this area while Legacy still exists? I know a lot of people are banking on many expensive cards being reprinted to bring the price down and create new interest. While I do expect some of these cards (especially the lands) to see reprint soon in some form I doubt some staples will be reprinted in any form that lowers their value in the near future. If reprints of Goyf, Clique, ect. don't show up in the near future will Modern be a viable format outside of the official WotC tournament scene? I can't find any Modern events from recent MTGO, do events even fire there?

Basically, what do you think the future of the format is? Are we looking at a PT only format like Extended for the next 5 or so years or do you expect things to pick up after the first real PT season of Modern? Has WotC failed to find the right format? Should they keep looking or settle on Modern if it doesn't take off in the next year? Any other thoughts on the format welcome.

[kicks_422]

I think what WotC should have done is that they should have just provided more support for the "other" formats of Magic - Vintage, Legacy, and EDH. Maaaybe Extended, but I think it would have died a natural death anyway (discussion of which should be on another thread).

They could have done so by reprinting staples, providing more tournament support, or whatever - just NOT make a new format.

If you have a pizza chain and out of the five kinds of pizza you have, only one sells like crazy, you should probably just make the other four kinds better than make a sixth one. Right?

[Lemnear]

Tom LaPille btw.

WotC gave Modern all Vial-strategies and Legacy Zoo but banned/crippled every other strategy. It's a Format without combo (that can race Vial/Zoo relyable) and without decent control cards. The recent T8 lists since the last B&R update show all 1-2 Control attempt rest aggro (3+ zoo). Why would you play zoo mirrors all day? The format is plain boring.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I was personally of the mindset that the format was doomed from the start, what they did to the ban list just sealed the coffin.

First off to me it was obvious that 99% of the people who wanted a format really wanted to be playing Legacy they just can't afford it are don't want to invest in it. Most of them had some grand dream of a format that was as fun as Legacy but still as affordable as Standard, which is just never going to happen (unless WotC sanctions Pauper offline in which case, my new 2nd favorite format...). Like everyone with a brain knew would happen prices exploded out the gate and suddenly a format that is less fun/diverse than Legacy still costs almost just as much to build a Zoo deck. The fact they banned everything fun just makes things 10x worse. Zoo is soooo boring, but there is practically no reason not to play it now. The core audience now seems to be serious players who NEED to play GPs/PTs and more casual players who can't afford Legacy but want Eternal. Now the larger 1/2 of the core is pretty much priced out of the format from the jump and while it's not Modern season there is no reason for the pros to play, so basically Extended version 3.

IMO WotC should keep Modern but get rid of Extended and introduce Pauper to takes it's place. Modern becomes the new Extended, something that only the pros play in season for a while and eventually as more sets come in and Legacy gets less accessible (and hopefully some UNbannings and reprints of land) Modern will slowly grow into a real format that non-pros actually want to play for fun. Then all the people who wanted an affordable Eternal format get Pauper, which is the shit in case anyone here has not played it. They could run 2-4x Pauper GPs and even a Pauper PT. Don't even laugh the format is amazing and it's basically what people thought they wanted when they asked for OverExtended (Cheap + Eternal + OMG so fun). It would probably pull a lot of old school players who have moved on back into the game since the format is both affordable and highly addictive, but it will probably never happen, oh well.

[John Cox]

I don't think Modern is going to take off and become as thriving a format as legacy is now. I also disagree with you that legacy is has the potential to become like vintage.
From my perspective the reason legacy players aren't buying modern cards and playing modern is because they own legacy cards and can play in legacy events. -they have a investment in their format, this keeps players in the format, where in vintage people come and go largely due to the number of proxies available, and lack of investment.
I also think cost is a factor for modern. While modern was supposed to be the inexpensive alternative to legacy looking at the cost of fetchlands and goyfs it's nearly on par with legacy. Since anything that's combo, jace or brainstorm isn't legal in modern I would feel obligated to play Something like Zoo (a deck I don't play or currently own any of the cards for).
This is coming from a legacy player's perspective, if you play standard, then you would be looking at spending close to the initial output of a less expensive legacy deck to get into a new and untested format.

[hi-val]

The reason Modern hasn't picked up much is because SCG or an equivalent store has not begun running $5Ks to support it. Look at Legacy's growth and it charts pretty closely to those events.

[lordofthepit]

The reason Modern hasn't picked up much is because SCG or an equivalent store has not begun running $5Ks to support it. Look at Legacy's growth and it charts pretty closely to those events.

That's a huge factor, but it simply isn't as vibrant a format as Legacy is. Even if Modern became extremely popular, the format is inherently imbalanced because of the lack of checks and balances in the form of Force of Will (or even Counterspell, Daze, etc.) and Wasteland. To compensate, the DCI must aggressively ban strategies that run amok, which is an unappealing option.

In addition, Modern really only exists because of the price of Legacy, as it was intended to be an Eternal format with the lower barrier of entry. Unfortunately, because of speculators, Modern is hardly a budget format, as can be seen in the price of crappy cards like shocklands. So really, you can decide to play a format that is certainly cheaper than Legacy, but has a steep price nonetheless; and in doing so, you are buying into a format that is not as enjoyable as Legacy and will not hold value as well as Legacy (both because of the possibility of reprints as well as the volatility caused by the ban list).

[lordofthepit]

The reason Modern hasn't picked up much is because SCG or an equivalent store has not begun running $5Ks to support it. Look at Legacy's growth and it charts pretty closely to those events.

That's a huge factor, but it simply isn't as vibrant a format as Legacy is. Even if Modern became extremely popular, the format is inherently imbalanced because of the lack of checks and balances in the form of Force of Will (or even Counterspell, Daze, etc.) and Wasteland. To compensate, the DCI must aggressively ban strategies that run amok, which is an unappealing option.

In addition, Modern really only exists because of the price of Legacy, as it was intended to be an Eternal format with the lower barrier of entry. Unfortunately, because of speculators, Modern is hardly a budget format, as can be seen in the price of crappy cards like shocklands. So really, you can decide to play a format that is certainly cheaper than Legacy, but has a steep price nonetheless; and in doing so, you are buying into a format that is not as enjoyable as Legacy and will not hold value as well as Legacy (both because of the possibility of reprints as well as the volatility caused by the ban list).

[Gocho]

Modern was fun, but the B&R update makes everyone hate it.

Take a look to the recent MTGO Modern Tournaments. Nobody is playing it but it was played a lot before.

So, Wizards maked a good format, to destroyed it a month later.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I don't think Modern is going to take off and become as thriving a format as legacy is now. I also disagree with you that legacy is has the potential to become like vintage.
From my perspective the reason legacy players aren't buying modern cards and playing modern is because they own legacy cards and can play in legacy events. -they have a investment in their format, this keeps players in the format, where in vintage people come and go largely due to the number of proxies available, and lack of investment.
I also think cost is a factor for modern. While modern was supposed to be the inexpensive alternative to legacy looking at the cost of fetchlands and goyfs it's nearly on par with legacy. Since anything that's combo, jace or brainstorm isn't legal in modern I would feel obligated to play Something like Zoo (a deck I don't play or currently own any of the cards for).
This is coming from a legacy player's perspective, if you play standard, then you would be looking at spending close to the initial output of a less expensive legacy deck to get into a new and untested format.

While I don't see Legacy becoming Vintage in the next 2-3 years it's hard not to see it if you look 10 years into the future and imagine what Duals will cost then, not even to think about other reserved list cards like LED, Candelabras, Tabernacles, ect. that saw even smaller print runs than duals. Unless WotC changes course and somehow circumvents the reprint policy the fact is eventually Legacy staples on the reserve list will just be too expensive, then people will have to hold proxy events just to get a turnout because every deck costs maybe triple what it costs now adjusted to inflation. When Legacy truly gets too expensive it's going to be the downward spiral of Vintage. Lower turnout -> less events -> people sell off cards because less events -> people start running proxy events -> more people start to sell off cards because they can use proxies -> next thing you know we might as well be playing Vintage unless it's GenCon. I'm not saying it's going to happen in 3 years, I'm not even saying it's going to happen in 5 years, but 10 years down the road when duals have all been out of print for a quarter centurty it's hard to not see some decks in the $4000+ range and at that point.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Modern was fun, but the B&R update makes everyone hate it.

Take a look to the recent MTGO Modern Tournaments. Nobody is playing it but it was played a lot before.

So, Wizards maked a good format, to destroyed it a month later.

The format was terrible even before the B/R update.

It was just combo.format, the fact that most regular players didn't realize this made things enjoyable for more casual players but if the B/R hadn't happened it's still the same game just everyone playing combo instead of everyone playing Zoo. Once everyone realized what the format was as the pros pulled back the curtain things would have gotten stupid really quickly either way. Now it's just obvious to everyone that Zoo > all.

[Amon Amarth]

The big problem with Modern is that it was advertised (I think) as an "affordable" Eternal format. However, it got a ton of interest, as new formats are want to do, and got Legacy-esque prices for worse cards (Tundra vs Hallowed Fountain) as a result. They needed to reprint shocklands in M12. Now there is at least a year of lag before any staples are reprinted. Seems like Modern becomes Extended 2.0. And don't even get me started on that shitty ban list...

[Pippin]

Take a look to the recent MTGO Modern Tournaments. Nobody is playing it but it was played a lot before.


To be fair, Legacy dailies are also failing to fire on MTGO

[Picc]

Honestly I like modern as the new extended (and I expect it to be about as popular) that said I still have no idea why they want to support modern, new extended and standard.

[Sims]

The format was terrible even before the B/R update.

It was just combo.format, the fact that most regular players didn't realize this made things enjoyable for more casual players but if the B/R hadn't happened it's still the same game just everyone playing combo instead of everyone playing Zoo. Once everyone realized what the format was as the pros pulled back the curtain things would have gotten stupid really quickly either way. Now it's just obvious to everyone that Zoo > all.

Eh, I enjoyed playing hilarious combo decks, and I agree that they needed to be hit with the nerf bat so they wouldn't dominate the format forever. However, I do disagree that Zoo > the format.

I don't have any cards on MTGO anymore, so I can't speak for what people play in modern on that medium, but from my experience the deck still has trouble with Splinter Twin combo, and well built and played Melira and even Soul Sisters decks give it a run for it's money. Sure it'll stomp random jank, but it's not > everything.

The format is still popular in concept, at least around here, I just think a lot of players want to wait until the DCI says "okay, format is stable now" or they reprint certain cards.

BTW: Shock Duals aren't 30 each anymore. If you're paying that for any shockland you're ripping yourself off.

[Barook]

To be fair, Legacy dailies are also failing to fire on MTGO
Doesn't Legacy on MTGO also have to fight with the crippled card pool?

[Admiral_Arzar]

The state of modern is basically summed up by what happened in my local meta. There was a surge of interest for the first few weeks the format was available, and we got 20+ people (more than Legacy usually) for weekly events. Then after the combo PT and following bans, attendance dropped to about 8 for one week. I don't think a sanctioned event has fired since then. There's another shop around here that has been advertising modern - I went there a few weeks ago for the tournament and was the only person who showed up. So yeah, nice job WOTC. You fed people's unattainable dream of a cheap, fun eternal format. Now that they've realized that's not actually the case, people are leaving the format in droves. I'm actually rather annoyed that I spent a couple hundred bucks on shocklands and other random staples. Time to go play more Legacy.

[Pippin]

Doesn't Legacy on MTGO also have to fight with the crippled card pool?

That didn't stop it from having regular events firing until few months ago

[joemauer]

WotC: "Hmm let make an affordable eternal format. First we must get rid of those broken cards Wasteland, Force of Will, and Lion's Eye Diamond.

Next we will get rid of all the combo decks people like playing like elves, dredge, and Ant.

Ok looking good, but we forgot to get rid of fun cards like daze and brainstorm. We don't want too many blue decks in this format so make sure counterspell is out too. Good nerf on control, no one wants their spells countered.

It is coming together just make sure U\G madness and goblins aren't in our new format, I really hate those decks.

Whew done, wait a minute I thought we eff'd up combo. What happened? Ugh, let's do some more bannings and....... fixed.

Ok now this is an eternal format that the kids will love. Let's pat ourselves on the back everyone."


I am 99% sure this is how modern was created.

[GGoober]

Tom LaPille btw.

WotC gave Modern all Vial-strategies and Legacy Zoo but banned/crippled every other strategy. It's a Format without combo (that can race Vial/Zoo relyable) and without decent control cards. The recent T8 lists since the last B&R update show all 1-2 Control attempt rest aggro (3+ zoo). Why would you play zoo mirrors all day? The format is plain boring.

QFT. As much as I don't think Tom LaPille should take the main blame for it, but in general, DCI's approach and philosophy for Modern is the key reason why it's not as successful as it should have been. You are advertising a new "eternal" format that could be possibly cheaper than Legacy etc, but what the DCI has done with the initial banlist + post-GP banlist was really creating a format that in many ways is worse off than existing Extended.

There are more decks in Modern than there are for the current extended, but when you string the extended seasons together using cards from the Modern sets, you start realizing that Modern is way worse than any given Extended season. We saw many brilliant combo/aggro/control decks in Extended seasons: Dredge, Faeries, Tronslaver, Tooth and Nail, Darkdepths, Thopterfoundry etc. What do we have in Modern? Really, nothing outside of Standard decks packing better cards e.g. Goyfs/Bobs/Knights etc.

If such an eternal format has its initial philosophy that we need to ban every possible broken interaction in the game (refer to the Tom Lapille thread on the source on how he hates dredge etc), then the format ceases to become an eternal format at heart, it ceases to interest people that want to explore eternal. Modern will be no different than Extended or Standard at this rate. And I think we know how sick people were with the new extended anyway.

It's sad, I would love to play modern, but the principles/philosophy for the format is wrong. Even if DCI feels that that's the philosophy for the format, then I won't be playing it because it does not appeal to me. Outside of fundamental mis-aligned principles for an eternal format, this format also sucks because of heavy financial speculation. I just don't want to deal with a format where the only interest in the format occurs on market/trade sub-forums.

[Malchar]

Why would anyone want to play a constructed format other than standard if they don't even get to use broken combos? There might be a point where it makes sense to have a pseudo-eternal budget format, but why ban combo decks outright? I don't foresee a large overlap between the group of people who want to play casual kitchen-table magic with absolutely no unfair cards and the group of people who want to attend premier eternal constructed tournaments.

[Admiral_Arzar]

general, DCI's approach and philosophy for Modern is the key reason why it's not as successful as it should have been.

If such an eternal format has its initial philosophy that we need to ban every possible broken interaction in the game (refer to the Tom Lapille thread on the source on how he hates dredge etc), then the format ceases to become an eternal format at heart, it ceases to interest people that want to explore eternal.

Exactly. The DCI has heavily mis-managed the banlist - also, the lack of CONCRETE proof that reprints are coming has just made things worse. Sure, Aaron Forsythe has said that cards will be reprinted, but until I see shocklands or whatever other specific cards in a spoiler or an official announcement, I'm not going to believe it. I mean, they reprinted Ghost Quarter in Innistrad, was that what he was talking about? I think proof that they're actually going to reprint the cards people want reprinted asap would help revitalize some interest in the format.


Why would anyone want to play a constructed format other than standard if they don't even get to use broken combos? There might be a point where it makes sense to have a pseudo-eternal budget format, but why ban combo decks outright? I don't foresee a large overlap between the group of people who want to play casual kitchen-table magic with absolutely no unfair cards and the group of people who want to attend premier eternal constructed tournaments.

A lot of the people that want to attend "premier eternal constructed tournaments" bitch and moan about combo too, if you haven't noticed. Apparently it was necessary to ban the piss out of combo because they already banned the piss out of control. If there's no control deck that stands a chance against both Zoo and combo, there's no reason to play control. Thus you either end up with all combos banned and Zoo.format (what it is now) or combo.format (what it was before bans). Neither of those formats is particularly attractive to large groups of players - there needs to be a better balance. I personally love combo, but I think a large chunk of the intended player base for modern doesn't.

[umbowta]

OMG. Are all of you really just a bunch of whining ADD babies who missed their morning Adderall/Ritalin. So many of you sound like you were, "Oooh. Look at that distraction" when Modern came out and now you you're crying because nobody gave you a built in metagame that you could net deck.

Either that or you're just pushing propaganda in order to push opinions back toward playing Legacy. ?

I think the real problem is that Modern deck building, and building the foundations of the format's meta, combined with the post MM banning realignment of Legacy is too much to handle. Yes, the Modern banlist stinks like the diaper you might be wearing. Yes, I agree with the opinion that WotC effed it up. Yes, some folks who were initially attracted to Modern walked away. Go take a nap and wait for the adults to handle it. Maybe you won't be so cranky when you wake up.

[Koby]

To be fair, Legacy dailies are also failing to fire on MTGO


Doesn't Legacy on MTGO also have to fight with the crippled card pool?


That didn't stop it from having regular events firing until few months ago

There is more afoot than simply people not playing. MTGO always has cycles that coincide with new set releases. In this case, there was a overlong delay on the September B&R update (which only went into effect on Oct 12th). This happened at the same time Innistrad was released, so right now the entire MTGO population is playing release events. In about 2 weeks there should be more interest in Constructed formats online.

This happens about 3-4 times a year, with a general Constructed clump while Release Events are hot.

[Anusien]

If you don't understand the enjoyment people find in Modern, you shouldn't criticize it. Or is this just whining about how you feel slighted by Wizards?
...
2 Modern GPs and only 1 Legacy GP? That answers that question.

[Lemnear]

OMG. Are all of you really just a bunch of whining ADD babies who missed their morning Adderall/Ritalin. So many of you sound like you were, "Oooh. Look at that distraction" when Modern came out and now you you're crying because nobody gave you a built in metagame that you could net deck.

Either that or you're just pushing propaganda in order to push opinions back toward playing Legacy. ?

I think the real problem is that Modern deck building, and building the foundations of the format's meta, combined with the post MM banning realignment of Legacy is too much to handle. Yes, the Modern banlist stinks like the diaper you might be wearing. Yes, I agree with the opinion that WotC effed it up. Yes, some folks who were initially attracted to Modern walked away. Go take a nap and wait for the adults to handle it. Maybe you won't be so cranky when you wake up.

What bullshit is this? It has nothing to do that Modern is TOO different from Legacy and people want to copy strategies but because of a plain imbalance of the remaining cardpool.

Why should a 3/3 for G be ok if the best available counterspell costs 1uu? Why is a perm Black Lotus for creatures that gives them flash (vial, of course) ok but a consumeable card that creates RR(R) out of one R is not?

The cardpool is artificialy crippled to make a eternal format where aggro shines. They succeed ... whatever this means

[Admiral_Arzar]

OMG. Are all of you really just a bunch of whining ADD babies who missed their morning Adderall/Ritalin. So many of you sound like you were, "Oooh. Look at that distraction" when Modern came out and now you you're crying because nobody gave you a built in metagame that you could net deck.

Either that or you're just pushing propaganda in order to push opinions back toward playing Legacy. ?

I think the real problem is that Modern deck building, and building the foundations of the format's meta, combined with the post MM banning realignment of Legacy is too much to handle. Yes, the Modern banlist stinks like the diaper you might be wearing. Yes, I agree with the opinion that WotC effed it up. Yes, some folks who were initially attracted to Modern walked away. Go take a nap and wait for the adults to handle it. Maybe you won't be so cranky when you wake up.

I think this thread is titled "The state of modern" not "[Bullshit] Here's a bunch." Thanks for that.


What bullshit is this? It has nothing to do that Modern is TOO different from Legacy and people want to copy strategies but because of a plain imbalance of the remaining cardpool.

Why should a 3/3 for G be ok if the best available counterspell costs 1uu? Why is a perm Black Lotus for creatures that gives them flash (vial, of course) ok but a consumeable card that creates RR(R) out of one R is not?

The cardpool is artificialy crippled to make a eternal format where aggro shines. They succeed ... whatever this means

Pretty much. I'm not sure how they expected that banning the shit out of two of the three major archetypes while barely nerfing the other would create a balanced format.

[SpikeyMikey]

What bullshit is this? It has nothing to do that Modern is TOO different from Legacy and people want to copy strategies but because of a plain imbalance of the remaining cardpool.

Why should a 3/3 for G be ok if the best available counterspell costs 1uu? Why is a perm Black Lotus for creatures that gives them flash (vial, of course) ok but a consumeable card that creates RR(R) out of one R is not?

The cardpool is artificialy crippled to make a eternal format where aggro shines. They succeed ... whatever this means

Except they didn't. Zoo still doesn't beat Splinter Twin. And Caleb Durward's latest article on CFB includes a 4-0 MTGO 0-land belcher deck. Hi-Val is still tooling around with Melira combo and while Cloudpost's banning opened the door for control, it's still not good enough to keep combo in check. Death Cloud is the best control deck in the format. When Rock is your format's premiere control deck, you may have a bad format. Frankly, aggro, as in straight aggro, not combo-aggro, is a dead-end. It's still PLAYED, but it's not viable.

The banned list is terrible. No question about it. The second round of additional bannings was better than the first, unquestionably. But it still fell short of the stated mark of killing fast combo and it does nothing to balance the metagame. But the banned list isn't the biggest problem. The legal set list is what really makes this format fall short.

[umbowta]

What bullshit is this? It has nothing to do that Modern is TOO different from Legacy and people want to copy strategies but because of a plain imbalance of the remaining cardpool.

Why should a 3/3 for G be ok if the best available counterspell costs 1uu? Why is a perm Black Lotus for creatures that gives them flash (vial, of course) ok but a consumeable card that creates RR(R) out of one R is not?

The cardpool is artificialy crippled to make a eternal format where aggro shines. They succeed ... whatever this means I think you misunderstood me a bit. Perhaps I was a bit too fired up when I posted my initial response.

There exist players who are unable to divide their attention between two different formats without netdecking in established metagames. If a player isn't comfortable brewing decks in a developing format then that player should stay where they're comfortable while the fledgling meta takes shape.

The state of Modern is a fledgling meta and, last time I checked, the sky is not falling.

Oh...If you think Vial is so amazing in Modern as to compare it with Black Lotus, then I challenge you to prove it. Build a Modern deck that makes Vial look like the second coming. Good luck.

[SpikeyMikey]

WotC: "Hmm let make an affordable eternal format. First we must get rid of those broken cards Wasteland, Force of Will, and Lion's Eye Diamond.

Next we will get rid of all the combo decks people like playing like elves, dredge, and Ant.

Ok looking good, but we forgot to get rid of fun cards like daze and brainstorm. We don't want too many blue decks in this format so make sure counterspell is out too. Good nerf on control, no one wants their spells countered.

It is coming together just make sure U\G madness and goblins aren't in our new format, I really hate those decks.

Whew done, wait a minute I thought we eff'd up combo. What happened? Ugh, let's do some more bannings and....... fixed.

Ok now this is an eternal format that the kids will love. Let's pat ourselves on the back everyone."


I am 99% sure this is how modern was created.

I lol'd. But seriously, quoted for truthiness. They've been creating sets to the specification of what the masses SAY they want. Which is not the same thing as what the masses actually want. And the flaw of this design strategy is magnified the more sets you put in a format. Legacy doesn't suffer this fate only because there's still a lot of old cards that are viable. And the sad thing is, they think they're doing a good job. TLP brags about how he's a professional game designer and how all the naysayers just don't understand that he's better at this than they are.



The format was terrible even before the B/R update.

It was just combo.format, the fact that most regular players didn't realize this made things enjoyable for more casual players but if the B/R hadn't happened it's still the same game just everyone playing combo instead of everyone playing Zoo. Once everyone realized what the format was as the pros pulled back the curtain things would have gotten stupid really quickly either way. Now it's just obvious to everyone that Zoo > all.

The pros were playing bad lists, almost across the board. I mean, they had the right idea with playing combo, but all the lists I saw were just sub par. The 12Post lists were wrong, the Twin lists were wrong, storm shouldn't have seen nearly as much play as it did. Saying they pulled back the curtain implies that they were the ones that discovered that it was combo.format. Anyone that was serious about Modern already knew that. The casuals maybe didn't, but they'd continue to play casual decks anyway.

And I disagree that Zoo is the top deck right now. I think Twin is still the top deck. Zoo is going to see play because it beats all the bad decks, but it doesn't beat the good decks. The Bant deck that we've been working on does pretty well against Zoo (I went 4-1 in matches and 9-4 in games against a Cat Sligh variant in testing with KevinTrudeau on Wednesday. That's 80% MW and 70% GW) and has a much better combo matchup than Zoo with 4 Pierce main and Leaks after board.

[KevinTrudeau]

They really need to stress the word 'eternal' if they want Modern to succeed instead of trying to make another iteration of Extended— that means making all 6th edition/MMQ-present sets legal and actually TESTING not only a serviceable ban list, but whether or not the format would be better off with several non-Reserve List Legacy staples [such as Force of Will (which would probably make the format a lot better actually), Wasteland, etc.].


The pros were playing bad lists, almost across the board.

This. People were actually playing Simian Spirit Guide in Living End (which, if you didn't know, enables you to combo off before you can actually cycle anything).

[hi-val]

It seems that the banning policy is a floor on anything that kills before turn 3. From an academic standpoint, it's fascinating because it's the first format we've seen with that kind of policy. It's actually a lot easier to understand than other B&R policies - you'll remember the guesswork and problems that come up whenever someone brings up "tournament dominance" or lack of it to support or attack a banning proposal.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Another major problem with Modern is the Extended still exists. God they need to kill Extended so bad and just make Modern replace it.

I realize MTGO goes through a transition every now and then, at the same time base support for Modern seems to be rock bottom right now. I counted 3 of the last 180 tournaments on M-L as Modern format and one was a Trial (That only got 24 people). I just fear we are going to be stuck with 2 EXTs for the next several years until Modern becomes more interesting. I'm also concerned WotC may have picked the wrong horse. There seem to be several more interesting options for formats that we could have received instead of what we have now.

[KevinTrudeau]

I just fear we are going to be stuck with 2 EXTs for the next several years until Modern becomes more interesting. I'm also concerned WotC may have picked the wrong horse. There seem to be several more interesting options for formats that we could have received instead of what we have now.

The thing is, with current WotC design philosophies in mind, I don't ever see Modern improving. Without ye olde instant speed draw and cost-efficient countermagic, I don't ever see Modern really changing at all, only clumping on new proactive strategies that randomly trump other proactive strategies evermore.

Also, I'm fully behind Pauper becoming a real format. It's not as good as Legacy, but it is better than Modern, and is certainly meritorious enough to house a biannual GP or some other large tournament.

[dontbiteitholmes]

The thing is, with current WotC design philosophies in mind, I don't ever see Modern improving. Without ye olde instant speed draw and cost-efficient countermagic, I don't ever see Modern really changing at all, only clumping on new proactive strategies that randomly trump other proactive strategies evermore.

Also, I'm fully behind Pauper becoming a real format. It's not as good as Legacy, but it is better than Modern, and is certainly meritorious enough to house a biannual GP or some other large tournament.

Damn would that make my day if the next announcement from WotC was Extended ceases to be a format after next season, Modern replaces Extended, 2x Legacy GPs in America a year and 2x Pauper GPs in America a year.

[TsumiBand]

The thing is, with current WotC design philosophies in mind, I don't ever see Modern improving. Without ye olde instant speed draw and cost-efficient countermagic, I don't ever see Modern really changing at all, only clumping on new proactive strategies that randomly trump other proactive strategies evermore.

Also, I'm fully behind Pauper becoming a real format. It's not as good as Legacy, but it is better than Modern, and is certainly meritorious enough to house a biannual GP or some other large tournament.

+1 on both counts. Newer players constantly fail to realize how much better their aggro decks are when combo players have to compete against Blue mage's Force of Wills. It's not a perfect rock/paper/scissors model, but it's true enough that control decks fighting combo makes aggro a better choice. I still think a Force of Will reprint, printed in the right Standard environment, would shave a ton of pitch off the Modern banned list and actually move it closer to a proper equilibrium.

[DragoFireheart]

When the most viable aggro deck AND tier 1 deck is Zoo followed by other aggro decks or aggro/combo, there might be an issue with your format:

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/metagame.php?format=Modern

Zoo followed by RDW. Good god, the ban list is going to continue to grow as they make more sets since they will inevitably make more cards that can allow turn 3 or sooner combos.

Edit:


I still think a Force of Will reprint, printed in the right Standard environment, would shave a ton of pitch off the Modern banned list and actually move it closer to a proper equilibrium.

- This could happen since FoW is NOT on the reserved list. How about a FoW re-print with Jace art? I can dream...

[dahcmai]

Personally I think it's failure so far is a combination of several factors.


1. Lack of tournament support.

SCG, TCG, and others obviously aren't on board yet. That would change in time though.

It took them a bit before stores were even allowed to sanction the format. Our local store just got it sanctioned. Having that in place beforehand would have helped somewhat to further it. If anything, it would show the flaws it had early.

2. Cost of staples.

It kind of hurt having the top cards to play already being Legacy staples and fairly out of reach for the casual player who might want to try it out. Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, and the equivalent dual lands were already out of my players price range before it even started.

3. Inherent instability

Obviously the combo start was a huge turn off to most casual players right out of the gates. Seriously though, what did they expect? Force of Will doesn't exist to stop degenerate combos and they kept fueling the fire by giving the format more and more red rituals. Those are the types of decks that run off newer players in droves. They hate it with a passion. Making a format with no holds barred on combo was a recipie for disaster. Probably should have seen that one coming.


4. The changing banned list.

Banning cards right off the bat for a new format is discouraging when people had just picked up cards for it. Bannings are a good way to kill value on a card instantly. This one probably could have been avoided, but maybe they don't test as much as they say. MTGO is not a good testing arena. Announcing the format then allowing a lot of time before the first tournament would have probably been better to see what was going to come out of it if they really had no idea what was going to happen. Heck, I didn't expect that infect Blazing Shoal combo deck. lol


All of these contributed and it was pretty obvious. It's still hurting in some ways. Especially the prices since they kept saying they would reprint some of the staples and nothing has come out of the printer to say they are going to keep that promise yet.

[Lemnear]

If WotC doesn't allow combo-decks to go off before turn 4 (Zoo, Affinity and meerfolks common kill-range), what's the point of playing the archetype?

@umbowta: If you can't understand that vial cheats more mana than Lotus over every game it's on the field I can't help you anymore. It's not my duty to pair it with SFM, Serra avenger etc. for success just to prove a point in Modern that was/is/will be true in Legacy. We all know the potential of Vial regardless of the format because it's power rises with every creature printed. WotC's no.1 cardtype are creatures. So you tell me that vial isn't Tier 1 material?

[Zunam]

Why is Vial always mentioned when Modern is discussed. Currently there is no top-tier deck using it so for me it is currently not even worth discussing it.

It is a strong card and all but it isn't running hot in Modern. The doesn't mean that it doesn't have the potential to break the format but at the moment I don't see a point in mentioning it.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Why is Vial always mentioned when Modern is discussed. Currently there is no top-tier deck using it so for me it is currently not even worth discussing it.

It is a strong card and all but it isn't running hot in Modern. The doesn't mean that it doesn't have the potential to break the format but at the moment I don't see a point in mentioning it.

It is always mentioned because it remains unbanned while 987986798 control and combo staples are unbanned. Vial is simply the poster boy of broken aggro cards allowed in modern - the fact that it's not heavily played right now has a lot to do with the lack of control decks.

[Gheizen64]

It is always mentioned because it remains unbanned while 987986798 control and combo staples are unbanned. Vial is simply the poster boy of broken aggro cards allowed in modern - the fact that it's not heavily played right now has a lot to do with the lack of control decks.

Too bad even in the old overextended , where the banned list was 6 cards and the format was Invasion forward, Vial remained relatively scarcely played. Vial is a good card but require a very specific meta to be, and lack of wastes, port and free counterspells make it mostly a non-issue in a format.

[Zunam]

It is always mentioned because it remains unbanned while 987986798 control and combo staples are unbanned. Vial is simply the poster boy of broken aggro cards allowed in modern - the fact that it's not heavily played right now has a lot to do with the lack of control decks.

I think the reason might be that it is just not good at the moment and especially in the aggro heavy Meta that Wizards planned for the format. So why would DCI ban it?
It is absolutely no problem at the moment. isn't it?
A completely different question is if the format itself is enjoyable at all as it is now. But if one doesn't like it, Vial for sure is not the card to blame.

[Lemnear]

Isn't it an indicator for the format that one of the best aggro related cards ever isn't even needed in the meta? I don't want a ban discussion here I just took it and Nacatl (as I could take other cards too) as example how the powerlevel of aggro divides from control and combo in Modern.

[Gheizen64]

One of the "best aggro card ever" was banned in old extended and standard only because of raffinity and get played in legacy in Merfolk and Goblin and scarcely elsewhere. Yes, Vial is a good card, but there's a reason it's not played in most aggro decks: it's not as good as it's praised to be (by being a tempo black hole and by being unplayable in decks with no card advantage engine).

Vial being unbanned isn't really indicative for the aggro-fest modern is. Modern is an aggro-fest (won't be for long however) only because there are way too many (especially reactive) cards on its banned list and due to the lack of good permission. Unbanning MM would solve a lot of the problems the format has (starting from the combo problem that was solved by just banning everything and the lack of a real control deck) too bad LaPille banned it because "it's too played in legacy", well this is another format maybe try it before acting? Good lord.

[Lemnear]

I agree. The format was doomed as they banned cards like Jitte, Visions etc. just because ... erm ... sorry I can find a sane reason ... and then followed up with an anhilation of the cardpool based on a single event with still experimental decks

[Phoenix Ignition]

If you don't understand the enjoyment people find in Modern, you shouldn't criticize it. Or is this just whining about how you feel slighted by Wizards?
...
2 Modern GPs and only 1 Legacy GP? That answers that question.

Bingo.

I hate to voice my opinion in the circle jerk of Legacy players trashing other formats, but I think Modern is still successful. How many people commented on the format sucking without ever giving it a real chance?

I started Modern because I hate current Legacy. I think a big part of that is the creatures they've printed lately, as cheating a 10/10 pro-everything into play on turn 3 seems like an unskillful game of magic to me. Reanimating a creature who makes the opponent unable to play their spells is dumb. Cheating 15/15 nuke the boards into play is equally unfun for me, but I don't go around to every thread on this forum saying that current Legacy is an unskillful game of who can land the first "oops I win" combo. It is exclusively a problem that I have, not a problem that most of you have. I have seen the Modern section bombarded with bullshit like that, however, and if anyone actually wanted to learn about the format instead of just bitching I would tell you why you're wrong.

Modern tournaments have been sanctioned every week in Davis, CA, whereas Legacy tournaments are over 2 hours away and only happen once or twice a month. Modern is a tournament in places where Legacy never took hold.

The reasons I play Modern are to have a game of magic that doesn't need FoW and Daze to keep stupid "oops I win"s in check. The combos have been nerfed enough that zoo has a chance to fight it. That may make everyone who loves their blue cards shiver but as a deckbuilder I love the challenges it gives me. Synergy is a thing to build around now instead of just getting crushed by Natural Orderesque cards. Having decks like Zoo be good means you can play decks like Deathcloud and other non-blue controls. It's like people have completely forgotten that non-blue decks can fight combo.

And yes, I know that all of you who blindly hate Modern will not have your opinions changed by me writing this. You'll go on circle jerking each other, trying to find any tournament result and turn it into "wow, that format sucks" but the tournament results are only true because no one is yet making non-net decks.

[dahcmai]

People that make non-net decks are few and far between anymore. Very few of us old deck builders are still around. It's mainly Sheeples now. I wouldn't expect things to change anytime soon.

[makochman]

It is this mage's opinion that Modern suffers heavily from the lack of Force of Will or a comparable catch-all answer. Disrupting Shoal and Thoughtseize aren't able to play that role. FoW is the cushion that protects Legacy from fast and consistent combo; Modern has no such protection, so it's inherently a breakable format. Combos that barely see Legacy play (e.g. Hexmage Depths, or Splinter Twin) can be powerful enough to dominate a FoW-less format.

History shows that potential combo decks in Modern will appear all the time as new sets come out. Without FoW all the good ones will just keep getting banned and the format won't be very diverse.

Also, Pauper does indeed deserve to be a "proper" format.

[Phoenix Ignition]

It is this mage's opinion that Modern suffers heavily from the lack of Force of Will or a comparable catch-all answer. Disrupting Shoal and Thoughtseize aren't able to play that role. FoW is the cushion that protects Legacy from fast and consistent combo; Modern has no such protection, so it's inherently a breakable format. Combos that barely see Legacy play (e.g. Hexmage Depths, or Splinter Twin) can be powerful enough to dominate a FoW-less format.

I don't believe this at all, especially with the lack of good digging cards. FoW is not necessary to shut down Splinter Twin in modern, but if you say it enough it sure sounds like it might be!!

This is the problem, people making judgments on things they have never even tried. Dark Depths has been banned since before the PT in modern, but it's still a boogeyman to those who want to keep thinking Modern is a bad format. Splinter Twin is a viable deck, but not any ridiculous turn 3 win consistent deck. If it combos out on you by turn 4 I would be surprised, but at that point you hopefully have done something to either disrupt or kill your opponent.


History shows that potential combo decks in Modern will appear all the time as new sets come out. Without FoW all the good ones will just keep getting banned and the format won't be very diverse.

I wouldn't even agree with this. It was true in Legacy because cards like Eureka,Show and Tell, and Natural Order existed. Power creep is a thing, but within the last few years there have only been a few under-the-radar good cards that could rival the above. The enablers of old haven't been printed in the Modern time bracket, so I'd be surprised if any inherently broken combo was discovered.

If there is some ridiculous combo they'll just ban it. You don't need an overbearing blue presence to keep combo down.

[stealth]

If there is some ridiculous combo they'll just ban it. You don't need an overbearing blue presence to keep combo down.

This is why i dont like it, spend time effort and $$ getting cards together to play a competitive deck and next week banhammer...

[stealth]

If there is some ridiculous combo they'll just ban it. You don't need an overbearing blue presence to keep combo down.

This is why i dont like it, spend time effort and $$ getting cards together to play a competitive deck and next week banhammer...

[DragoFireheart]

If there is some ridiculous combo they'll just ban it. You don't need an overbearing blue presence to keep combo down.

- Then what the hell is the point in having an eternal format where you are wondering if your cards are going to be banned next week?

[Phoenix Ignition]

This is why i dont like it, spend time effort and $$ getting cards together to play a competitive deck and next week banhammer...

Completely valid reason, I don't debate anyone's dislike if this is the reason. Personally, that doesn't matter to me since I have all of the Legacy and Modern playable cards. I dropped 20$ on a set of Blazing Shoals to see them banned. It doesn't affect me much, but I understand why it would to some.


- Then what the hell is the point in having an eternal format where you are wondering if your cards are going to be banned next week?

I don't think that's the point of an eternal format, bans happen in Legacy quite frequently, and I really don't see them banning any non-combo cards from now on. Of course the first few months of a format will see new decks that are above the normal power level of other decks, which clearly need to be banned if a level playing field is to be achieved. Just like they had to ban things in legacy like Oath of Druids and the like, as decks sift to the top some of the overpowered (relatively of course) will get banned.

[Einherjer]

I started Modern because I hate current Legacy. I think a big part of that is the creatures they've printed lately, as cheating a 10/10 pro-everything into play on turn 3 seems like an unskillful game of magic to me. Reanimating a creature who makes the opponent unable to play their spells is dumb. Cheating 15/15 nuke the boards into play is equally unfun for me, but I don't go around to every thread on this forum saying that current Legacy is an unskillful game of who can land the first "oops I win" combo. It is exclusively a problem that I have, not a problem that most of you have. I have seen the Modern section bombarded with bullshit like that, however, and if anyone actually wanted to learn about the format instead of just bitching I would tell you why you're wrong.



This quote shows me one thing:"You like your pet-decks and are raging when you get nuked down by T2 Emrakul"?

[Sims]

This quote shows me one thing:"You like your pet-decks and are raging when you get nuked down by T2 Emrakul"?

My Pet deck was Goblins. I haven't played Goblins in years... In the time frame between putting down Goblins for good and selling my Legacy collection I played Merfolk, Dredge, Reanimator, NLT/TES, NoPro Bant, OozeCombo, Nourishing Lich, Dragon Stompy/Armageddon Stax, etc..

I've played decks with NoPro, SNT -> Emrakul, EOT Entomb -> Reanimate Iona/Jin, etc.. Somewhere along the line Legacy stopped being fun. I don't find it enjoyable to dump Jin on the table turn 2 with force backup. I don't find it fun to turn 2 emrakul. I don't find it fun to turn 3 NoPro. Of all those decks I had the most fun playing Stax and Storm combo because the decks were like puzzles. You had to find and put together the right peices to win, and when you did you were rewarded, but when you misplayed you were heavily punished.

I, like Pheonix, hate the current Legacy. The default argument against anyone who doesn't like the legacy metagame is "Stop playing pet decks, noob!" Guess what, until recently, I didn't PLAY pet decks. I played the top tier to beat the top tier and it was boring as fuck. Nothing is shittier than playing the "I have force and some pressure, I should be fine.... oh, Force your turn 2 SnT... oh, you've got double force? I guess I get tentacle raped by cthulu again." Try that argument somewhere else. I think Legacy is a rather unskillful game right now. Thank you, Philipp802, for being a lemming and jumping on the bandwagon of "if people don't agree, they must just be scrubs hugging their pet decks."

As for Modern, I like that there are MULTIPLE decks where I can piece together the puzzles to win. I can play that the easy way and find Untap creature + Twin/Kiki. I can play that way and find Melira, Sac outlet, and a Finks or Redcap. I've even had some success against Zoo playing a bunch of walls and mana ramp -> Warpworld -> Hellkites and ObNix. The format, even through ban hammers, which should slow down as there is no longer a clear head and shoulders best deck, imo, is a brewers paradise and I get to figure out the best deck for the meta at any given time. And they can be completely different decks, not just stoneblade + or - a color.

tl;dr: Haters gonna Hate. Stop spewing cliche bullshit that isn't true.

[TeenieBopper]

My Pet deck was Goblins. I haven't played Goblins in years... In the time frame between putting down Goblins for good and selling my Legacy collection I played Merfolk, Dredge, Reanimator, NLT/TES, NoPro Bant, OozeCombo, Nourishing Lich, Dragon Stompy/Armageddon Stax, etc..

I've played decks with NoPro, SNT -> Emrakul, EOT Entomb -> Reanimate Iona/Jin, etc.. Somewhere along the line Legacy stopped being fun. I don't find it enjoyable to dump Jin on the table turn 2 with force backup. I don't find it fun to turn 2 emrakul. I don't find it fun to turn 3 NoPro. Of all those decks I had the most fun playing Stax and Storm combo because the decks were like puzzles. You had to find and put together the right peices to win, and when you did you were rewarded, but when you misplayed you were heavily punished.

I, like Pheonix, hate the current Legacy. The default argument against anyone who doesn't like the legacy metagame is "Stop playing pet decks, noob!" Guess what, until recently, I didn't PLAY pet decks. I played the top tier to beat the top tier and it was boring as fuck. Nothing is shittier than playing the "I have force and some pressure, I should be fine.... oh, Force your turn 2 SnT... oh, you've got double force? I guess I get tentacle raped by cthulu again." Try that argument somewhere else. I think Legacy is a rather unskillful game right now. Thank you, Philipp802, for being a lemming and jumping on the bandwagon of "if people don't agree, they must just be scrubs hugging their pet decks."

As for Modern, I like that there are MULTIPLE decks where I can piece together the puzzles to win. I can play that the easy way and find Untap creature + Twin/Kiki. I can play that way and find Melira, Sac outlet, and a Finks or Redcap. I've even had some success against Zoo playing a bunch of walls and mana ramp -> Warpworld -> Hellkites and ObNix. The format, even through ban hammers, which should slow down as there is no longer a clear head and shoulders best deck, imo, is a brewers paradise and I get to figure out the best deck for the meta at any given time. And they can be completely different decks, not just stoneblade + or - a color.

tl;dr: Haters gonna Hate. Stop spewing cliche bullshit that isn't true.

I take it back. We an be internet friends again. I'm even with you on Emrakul; but if I can hardcast that motherfucker on turn 5, that's the deck I wanna play.

[makochman]

The enablers of old haven't been printed in the Modern time bracket, so I'd be surprised if any inherently broken combo was discovered.

I think it would be more accurate to say the best Modern-era enablers have been banned already, or else are under the radar. They actually printed many enablers just recently: Ad Nauseam, Past in Flames, Pyromancer Ascension, Primeval Titan, Windbrisk Heights, Lorwyn block Elves, Eldrazi, cheap guys with Infect, Birthing Pod, Heartless Summoning... Stoneforge Mystic should probably count as well. Magic without combo enablers is just boring, such cards are an integral part of the game. It's only natural when a combo enabler turns out to be good and a viable combo deck appears. And this happens regularly, it's not some kind of aberration to fix by banning the card(s) in question and pretending it didn't happen.

TL;DR I firmly believe combo decks shouldn't have to be fought by bannings as a rule.

[SpikeyMikey]

I don't believe this at all, especially with the lack of good digging cards. FoW is not necessary to shut down Splinter Twin in modern, but if you say it enough it sure sounds like it might be!!

What are you beating Twin with G1?


This is the problem, people making judgments on things they have never even tried. Dark Depths has been banned since before the PT in modern, but it's still a boogeyman to those who want to keep thinking Modern is a bad format.

I think his point was that it was preemptively banned because it was expected to be a problem.


Splinter Twin is a viable deck, but not any ridiculous turn 3 win consistent deck. If it combos out on you by turn 4 I would be surprised, but at that point you hopefully have done something to either disrupt or kill your opponent.

What non-combo deck is killing consistently on turn 4? Twin is a consistent turn 4 deck.




I wouldn't even agree with this. It was true in Legacy because cards like Eureka,Show and Tell, and Natural Order existed. Power creep is a thing, but within the last few years there have only been a few under-the-radar good cards that could rival the above. The enablers of old haven't been printed in the Modern time bracket, so I'd be surprised if any inherently broken combo was discovered.

Wizards has shifted the power balance between offensive strategies and defensive strategies. Long ago, defensive strategies were better. Cards like Jayemdae Tome and Mana Drain were simply better than cards like Erg Raiders and Orcish Artillery. That is not the case anymore. You can argue the validity of using Legacy as an example of what to expect in Modern as time goes on. But you can just look at Extended to see that it has been years since a defensive strategy was a good idea. U/W Tron is the last thing I can think of. Reactive strategies don't have the tools necessary to compete and so whether you're playing Splinter Twin or Zoo, you're playing non-reactive decks because if you're not on the offensive, you're losing.

In a race between two decks that are trying to avoid interaction, combo will beat aggro because combo can bring more disruption to bear on their opponent than an aggro deck can; simply by virtue of the fact that combo does not need nearly as much redundancy to function.


If there is some ridiculous combo they'll just ban it. You don't need an overbearing blue presence to keep combo down.

That's worked so well so far, right? There was the initial ban list and the Community Cup was dominated by combo. There was the ban list right before the PT. The PT was dominated by combo. There was another round of bannings, and whether you choose to believe it or not, combo is still dominant. Casual players are going to play casual decks no matter what. And that's fine. But it doesn't change the fact that Twin is still the best deck in the format and the only deck that I've heard of with a real chance of handling Twin consistently is an aggro-combo deck, Soul Sisters.

And this has nothing to do with deck designers or a lack thereof. Great designers have always been few and far between. But this format is no poorer in terms of deck designers than any other format. There just isn't anything out there that's better than Twin and therefore no reason NOT to play Twin.

[4eak]

I think you can build several decks which have a positive matchup against Twin (perhaps even very positive). The risk of building a deck specifically to answer Twin is that other good decks (Zoo, for example) may prey upon it too effectively, pushing it out of general viability.


peace,
4eak

[Phoenix Ignition]

This quote shows me one thing:"You like your pet-decks and are raging when you get nuked down by T2 Emrakul"?

Aside from being obvious troll bait, Sims was pretty much dead on in his response, so I won't respond to this.


I think it would be more accurate to say the best Modern-era enablers have been banned already, or else are under the radar. They actually printed many enablers just recently: Ad Nauseam, Past in Flames, Pyromancer Ascension, Primeval Titan, Windbrisk Heights, Lorwyn block Elves, Eldrazi, cheap guys with Infect, Birthing Pod, Heartless Summoning... Stoneforge Mystic should probably count as well. Magic without combo enablers is just boring, such cards are an integral part of the game. It's only natural when a combo enabler turns out to be good and a viable combo deck appears. And this happens regularly, it's not some kind of aberration to fix by banning the card(s) in question and pretending it didn't happen.

TL;DR I firmly believe combo decks shouldn't have to be fought by bannings as a rule.

I don't think bannings will be the rule. How many people think they could have made the perfectly balanced ban list for Modern immediately? Do you know how ludicrous this sounds, to think up every possible combination for Modern before the format was even played? I don't think the bannings will continue in the numbers they are in (or even at all really), but I completely understand them banning the combos that were clearly better to begin with.


What are you beating Twin with G1?
My Zur deck and Zoo. You'd be surprised how good some cards can be against them that people don't seem to use. Try out Spellskite to at least shut off half of their combo, and always keep at least a Path to Exile or EE @ 0 ready. G1 isn't a shut out by any means, but sideboards after game 1 are good I hear.


I think his point was that it was preemptively banned because it was expected to be a problem.
And it would have been... so good job by WotC?


What non-combo deck is killing consistently on turn 4? Twin is a consistent turn 4 deck.
"You hopefully have done something to either disrupt or kill the opponent". I never said a non-combo deck kills consistently by turn 4... why are you trying to misquote me? If you don't interrupt a combo deck you might lose to it. If you have no interruption to combo you've hopefully got a very fast clock yourself. Also, Zoo and Modern Merfolk have the ability to kill by turn 4, but again, I never argued that was a thing...


In a race between two decks that are trying to avoid interaction, combo will beat aggro because combo can bring more disruption to bear on their opponent than an aggro deck can; simply by virtue of the fact that combo does not need nearly as much redundancy to function.
Are you arguing that combo beats straight up aggro most of the time? I agree with you, Professor.



That's worked so well so far, right? There was the initial ban list and the Community Cup was dominated by combo. There was the ban list right before the PT. The PT was dominated by combo. There was another round of bannings, and whether you choose to believe it or not, combo is still dominant.
I believe this would not be the case at the next large Modern tournament. Firstly, I believe I am one of the very few people with access to a weekly Modern event, which has proven that Splinter Twin isn't as good anymore as you keep saying. It's still a viable deck, but it is not a clear winner. Second, there are cards and decks that are just good at beating it, and they aren't even specialized decks or terrible cards against other things. Having multiple little bumps against a combo deck is generally enough to slow them down past the turn where you should beat them.

I'll also say this again: Pros play combo decks. It isn't that combo decks are necessarily better (blue zoo got 2nd), it's just that pros love combo. This means that a flood of combo decks played in the last tournament, which creates a "combo dominance" feel. If a combo deck takes every slot in the top 8 but 95% of decks in the tournament were combo decks, this does not mean that combo is the best deck!



And this has nothing to do with deck designers or a lack thereof. Great designers have always been few and far between. But this format is no poorer in terms of deck designers than any other format. There just isn't anything out there that's better than Twin and therefore no reason NOT to play Twin.

I disagree, but neither of us can prove this with post cantrip-ban data, so there's no point in arguing it further.

[Artowis]

There was another round of bannings, and whether you choose to believe it or not, combo is still dominant

This is impressive in a world where there are no real Modern events.

[Trentemoller]

My Zur deck and Zoo. You'd be surprised how good some cards can be against them that people don't seem to use. Try out Spellskite to at least shut off half of their combo, and always keep at least a Path to Exile or EE @ 0 ready. G1 isn't a shut out by any means, but sideboards after game 1 are good I hear.

EE @ 0 does not work, since they are actual copies and not tokens and have a CMC of 3.

[SpikeyMikey]

I think you can build several decks which have a positive matchup against Twin (perhaps even very positive). The risk of building a deck specifically to answer Twin is that other good decks (Zoo, for example) may prey upon it too effectively, pushing it out of general viability.


peace,
4eak

I perhaps should've issued this caveat myself, but I took it as a given. Yes, you can build a deck that beats Twin 90% of the time if you want. The question is how much ground can you afford to give up to the rest of the format. People are going to play Zoo whether it's good or not. People are going to try weird off the wall stuff that they swear up and down beats the DtB but actually doesn't. You need to beat Zoo and you need to beat random but you also need to beat Twin. Because Twin wrecks random and it beats Zoo.




This is impressive in a world where there are no real Modern events.

So because there are no Modern SCG Opens or Modern GP's going on right now, evaluation is impossible? It was a cute snide comment, but we both know it was pointless. How was it that everyone knew what the expected meta and the tier 1 decks were prior to the Pro Tour? The last major Modern tournament before that was the Community Cup with an entirely different banned list and odd design constraints. And yet...


I believe this would not be the case at the next large Modern tournament. Firstly, I believe I am one of the very few people with access to a weekly Modern event, which has proven that Splinter Twin isn't as good anymore as you keep saying. It's still a viable deck, but it is not a clear winner.

You've already admitted you're not a Spike. You're playing because you want to have fun. You're not the guy that spends 6 hours a day practicing counting cards so you can run the blackjack table at the casino. You're not the guy that spends 8 hours a day farming for the next raid in WoW. You're not the guy spending $10,000 to shave 3 pounds off the weight of his car to try and win the next race. And since I have to imagine that you wouldn't have fun in an environment with those kind of people, I have a difficult time trusting the results you're reporting. But I'll tell you what. You play 10 matches against me on Workstation with whatever deck you want. If you can win 4 of them, I'll shut up. Until then, everything I've seen shows that Twin is still the best thing going.

[umbowta]

@umbowta: If you can't understand that vial cheats more mana than Lotus over every game it's on the field I can't help you anymore. It's not my duty to pair it with SFM, Serra avenger etc. for success just to prove a point in Modern that was/is/will be true in Legacy. We all know the potential of Vial ...So you tell me that vial isn't Tier 1 material?What you allege requires your assumption to be true and that I somehow missed it. This is easily disprovable. Black Lotus is capable of generating more mana in one game than the sum of mana cheated by every Vial activation over every game in which it has or will see play from its' printing to any arbitrary date you choose. Just ask Auriok Salvagers. Next, you didn't help me in the first place, thus helping me anymore is a blatant impossibility. You called my rant bullshit...and then compared Vial to Lotus? Are you kidding me?

If you don't want to meet my challenge just say so. I don't care about your duties. It was just a challenge. However, if you want to prove your point, that Vial is a perm Black Lotus for creatures in Modern, then you should make it your duty. Otherwise, you might just want to stop trying to argue about it. Seriously. How can you even complain about the card when none of the current best decks in Modern use it? We don't need it to dodge counters. Counter control and counter based aggro control are currently a non issue. Even you claim the best counter in the format costs :u::u::1:. In addition to this, there's no Wasteland in Modern so any greedy mana base gets the job done--no cheating/smoothing necessary. Why use Vial? So one can decrease their actual threat density and further reduce their chances of beating Twin and Melira Pod? Yeah. Good idea. Lets sum this up:


Why is a perm Black Lotus for creatures that gives them flash (vial, of course) ok...?

1. Vial is not a permanent Black Lotus. That would cost :0:, tap for 3 mana of any color, have sacrifice eliminated from the activation cost, and break the game in half. Vial annoys control players and smooths mana but it's no where close to Lotus.
2. Vial does not currently enable any consistent turn 3 combo so it meets the acceptable criteria for Modern
3. The State of Modern is currently such that Vial is not played.

Q.E.D.

[SpikeyMikey]

The thing with Vial is that yes, it's a good card. But in the right circumstances, so is Force Bubble. You have to ask yourself, what circumstances is this card good in and what does it DO that makes it good?

Vial, on turn 1, is not good. You're expending 1 additional mana and a card that gives Memnite or Ornithopter flash. Vial, on turn 2, is not good either. You're expending 0 additional mana and a card to give a CMC 1 creature flash. On turn 3, Aether Vial finally starts to provide some value. You've gained 1-2 mana and lost a card to give 1-3 creatures flash. But you net 0 gain out of Vial until turn 3.

And there are very few decks that need Vial to begin with. In order for Vial's ability to dodge counters to be important, you have to have creatures that you care about resolving individually. The amount of additional mana generated by Vial, the scope of the time it takes to generate that mana and the conditional nature of that acceleration means that unless dodging counters is important to you or flash is important to you or you expect the game to go on at least 4-5 activations, Vial is a wasted slot.

Zoo, for instance, doesn't run counters because they don't really care if you counter their Kird Ape. They don't even care if you counter their Tarmogoyf. They have other threats and they're all more or less interchangable.

Fish cares because its threats become exponentially scarier the more there are. And because their mana to "you're fucked" ratio is so good, generating an additional 2 or 3 mana (in essence) means far more damage to them than it would to Zoo. It's not at all unheard of for a lord to drop and generate an extra 5 damage the turn it comes into play and set up an additional 10 damage the next turn. In that instance, Vial's explosiveness and the incremental mana advantage it generates can not only generate a sizeable real advantage but also a sizeable mental advantage; there's a lot of stress on you when you know that EoT lord, untap, lord, swing for the win is a possibility.

Goblins cares because it has creatures that it really wants to resolve like Ringleader. Most decks that run the requisite 20+ creatures needed to make Vial useful don't have a need to resolve specific creatures. Or any creatures, really. As long as you're generating tempo (spending less on the threat than they do on the counter) and trading evenly or ahead on cards (I'm looking at you, Force of Will), you're happy to let them waste resources countering what you're doing now instead of what you did two turns ago. You've got a threat on the board, you've got the clock and the onus is on them to change the boardstate.

Affinity got value out of Vial because the nature of the Affinity mechanic got double duty out of Vial's mana generation. The affinity creatures became less vital to the deck? Vial was replaced by Springleaf Drum.

Some decks with Stoneforge Mystic care only because an uncounterable threat that searches for and then uncounterably plays a threat enhancement is pretty solid. But there aren't a lot of decks that want Mystic and run the insanely high creature count to keep Vial useful. You need at least some removal and some way to interact outside of the red zone and balancing 20+ creatures with equipment, removal and draw-smoothing effects is pretty difficult.


It's not that Aether Vial is some mystical "Black Lotus for creatures". Even if you wanted to use the "this is how much mana it generates" line and ignore the conditionality of that mana, it'd be more on par with Lotus Bloom, given that it can't generate any mana at all until several turns into the game.

[4eak]

Drop the personal dispute and stay on topic.

-4eak

[Mr. Safety]

I think the conversation on this thread is pretty close to hitting the truth. The only other factor that may be missed is the double-dip the economy is having, we are definately in another recession right now (I feel it at work, having gone down to 32 hr work weeks.) I know I don't have as much money to spend on hobbies, so everyone else may be feeling the same pinch.

I loved the idea of modern, not because it would be 'legacy-lite' as it has been touted, but because I wanted a different format with it's own identity. PT-Philly established that the identity was more combo-centric than any other format (legacy in general is more control-centric, and standard will most likely always be an aggro-centric format.) I was thinking 'awesome, it's time to start really figuring out how to brew some combos to compete.' Then they nerfed the combo decks with more bans, essentially taking the strong-arm approach to defining Modern. I would say modern is FUBAR now.

[ramanujan]

I agree with Mr. Safety on the above analysis. I was also looking forward to a combo-centric format. I think it should be worth mentioning that many formats were junk when they were first introduced. I remember when limited allowed trading. Yeah, that was awsome, if I had more friends. I also remember well when people thought that Legacy was an endless sea of goblin mirrors. After that, thresh was the big dog.

I think modern is not doing well. Wizards seemed to have a vision of what it should look like initially, and this vision was not an accurate approximation of the environment. Pros did what pros do and they found the weaknesses of the format. Ironically, the weakness in the format was probably the one pillar, aggro, which Wizards was wanting to push to the forefront, as seen by the initial and newest banned lists.

However, I have not lost all hope for the format. As time has shown again and again, eventually, Wizards will find a way to make the format work. It might then be able to slowly sculpt the format with cards from new sets which target Modern decktypes and strategies.

Make no mistake, it is a tall order. Currently, Wizards designs cards for Vintage, Legacy, and Standard well with a few exceptions. I like that they gamble a bit with the power level of cards. My money is on modern working out after a long stint being unfun. It could eventually be a format with a unique feel, similar to how Legacy is to Vintage now. Legacy would remain awesome, but Modern would also be awesome, but in a totally different way. I hope this is the vision for the future of Modern that Wizards has, because they can make it happen so long as they don't alienate the believers too much by mass bannings.

[dahcmai]

Most people really didn't like Legacy during it's run as 1.5. Granted I personally loved having 4 Bazaar of Baghdad's in Legacy. I enjoyed bashing people with Nicol Bolas. It won me a nice beta Mox Sapphire and 1k once.


Modern will probably take about the same length of time to straighten out also.

[Mr. Safety]

Most people really didn't like Legacy during it's run as 1.5. Granted I personally loved having 4 Bazaar of Baghdad's in Legacy. I enjoyed bashing people with Nicol Bolas. It won me a nice beta Mox Sapphire and 1k once.


Modern will probably take about the same length of time to straighten out also.

I'm curious, how long did it take for legacy to settle? I'm guessing more than the few months that modern has been live.

[Sims]

That depends on how you would define 'settled.'

Legacy was being pushed by the few dedicated people that stuck with it through the naysayers who kept screaming legacy was going to be nothing but long.dec. I'd say it took a year, probably up to the first GP, for it to settle and people to stop viewing the format and people negatively, but it took much longer to stabalize into the format people love (or hate) today.

[SpikeyMikey]

That depends on how you would define 'settled.'

Legacy was being pushed by the few dedicated people that stuck with it through the naysayers who kept screaming legacy was going to be nothing but long.dec. I'd say it took a year, probably up to the first GP, for it to settle and people to stop viewing the format and people negatively, but it took much longer to stabalize into the format people love (or hate) today.

The job they did with the initial Legacy banned list was head and shoulders above what they did with Modern. I think Modern is still very combo-centric. That's a turn on for some people and a turn off for others.

The problem is, Modern didn't really have a die-hard fan base when they made it a format. Legacy did. Legacy wasn't huge before the split from the BR list, it was no EDH or Pauper, but there was a definite following and some pretty good designers throwing up lists. Modern didn't have a following. It was created out of thin air. Most of its following is either casual players looking for a format where they can design subpar decks and still win with them or Overextended followers settling for Modern instead. The only way they're going to get this format off the ground is to jumpstart it with Wizards' sponsored major events. Nobody is going to play it at an FNM level unless there's buzz surrounding it and there's no buzz without high level events.

This isn't a grass roots format like Legacy was or EDH was, it's the other way around entirely. And the semi-casual players who can't compete at the top but still like the competition (i.e. your FNM and PTQ crowd) are driven from above.

[luckme10]

The solution to increasing the viability of the Modern format has many possible solutions. The DCI can continue to aggressively banning viable cards, however, they can rotate them based solely on price availability.

How about if they were to use legacy's natural tendency to rotate cards and create an modern environment that regulates advantages to archtypes based entirely on the seasonal calender? I would be interested in seeing an fall control, aggro summer, combo winter and aggro control spring.

Another possible solution would be to continue banning cards to the extent of banning all rares and uncommons. Pauper is a format everyone can enjoy, is at decent price levels, and most importantly, can be picked up everywhere. Choose Your Own Standard can also be implemented as well. I like how wizards creates new formats every season and am looking forward to the day that they stops supporting Modern and brings something for next season.

For the time being, I think they need to rename Modern and call it new new extended. This way they can flush out the few people that still play new extended and force them to convert to new new extended.

[honestabe]

I definitely think that WoTC's best option would have been to give up on extended, print some duals, and push Legacy. From what we have been told by WoTC, they wanted to do this too, but collectors threatened to sue. At this point, they had two options

1) Print Snow-Covered Duals (and other similar but not exact reprints of reserve listed cards), and try to push Legacy or

2) Run with Modern

At worlds, they had proxies of snow duals that they tested and thought about putting in the EDH precons, but they eventually decided Modern was the way to go.

The idea of a "Modern" format was initially embraced by players both as the Overextended league that Gavin was running, and just players building Modern decks and running them as "freeform" on MTGO. The popularity of Modern eventually pushed WotC to announce it as a "real" format, which is when it died.

One of the reasons people wanted to play Modern was because they wanted to run 1) Powerful cards without having to shell out hundreds for legacy, (stoneforge, jace, zoo) and 2) play with cards that are strong, but not really good enough for legacy (Bitterblossom, gifts ungiven). The initial bannings by WoTC drove away the very people that first supported it. The initial bans killed everything but superfast aggro and superfast combo, which resulted in more bans to kill combo.

Basically, the format is a victim of WoTC trying to neuter it before it even began. I'll bet anything that the only way to make the popular again would be to unban a *lot* of cards. WoTC recently employed Overextended designer Gavin Verhey. Gavin was able to keep a format with 3 more sets healthy with only 8 banned cards; a far cry from Modern's banned list. Hopefully Gavin can breathe some life into the format, because I liked it a lot before everything got banned.

[dahcmai]

I'm curious, how long did it take for legacy to settle? I'm guessing more than the few months that modern has been live.


It took quite a while since Legacy was full of broken things like Scroll Tax and Reanimators with Bazaars in them. Unrestricted Vampirics, Mana Drain, etc... It was fun, but still weighted toward certain decks pretty heavily. They eventually banned a few things here and there, but it was still the red headed stepchild. It pretty much followed the Vintage list exactly except banning anything that was restricted there.

The trick was that at the time Vintage was still pretty fun. So you had that competition. They banned out a few things and totally separated the banned/restricted list from Vintage and that was the biggest turnaround. People whined to high heaven, but it was such a good change.

All of a sudden the big money cards were out. That was one of the biggest incentives to play Legacy. People can argue all they like, but that's why our store kicked out Vintage and I doubt the reason was much different for anywhere else. Play with all the old stuff and not need expensive stuff to do good? Sign up here.

So in the end, it took about maybe 3 months for Legacy to really shape up and be fun once the bitching was done. It wasn't popular though. SCG made it what it is today. you have to give them credit for showing everyone what the format was. There was quite a few of us from the Mana Drain, Beyond Dominaria, Dojo, and further back days even playing it and having a ball in our own world, but we never expected to see it become what it is now. It exploded with SCG. I give them full credit for making it popular.

[dontbiteitholmes]

It took quite a while since Legacy was full of broken things like Scroll Tax and Reanimators with Bazaars in them. Unrestricted Vampirics, Mana Drain, etc... It was fun, but still weighted toward certain decks pretty heavily. They eventually banned a few things here and there, but it was still the red headed stepchild. It pretty much followed the Vintage list exactly except banning anything that was restricted there.

The trick was that at the time Vintage was still pretty fun. So you had that competition. They banned out a few things and totally separated the banned/restricted list from Vintage and that was the biggest turnaround. People whined to high heaven, but it was such a good change.

All of a sudden the big money cards were out. That was one of the biggest incentives to play Legacy. People can argue all they like, but that's why our store kicked out Vintage and I doubt the reason was much different for anywhere else. Play with all the old stuff and not need expensive stuff to do good? Sign up here.

So in the end, it took about maybe 3 months for Legacy to really shape up and be fun once the bitching was done. It wasn't popular though. SCG made it what it is today. you have to give them credit for showing everyone what the format was. There was quite a few of us from the Mana Drain, Beyond Dominaria, Dojo, and further back days even playing it and having a ball in our own world, but we never expected to see it become what it is now. It exploded with SCG. I give them full credit for making it popular.

Legacy was great as soon as the banned list was separated. It was still fun before that but you really felt like you were missing out if you didn't have Workshops/Bazaars/Drains so that kept most people from playing it.

Once the banned list was separated it was pretty much just Virginia vs. New York for a long time and you can still see ripples of that even today, just look at where the majority of non-SCG Legacy takes place and SCG's home address. Most of the people from Virginia are still kicking around the North East being ringers and day 2ing Legacy GPs.

As far as Vintage falling off and Legacy coming on strong it wasn't just that Legacy was cheaper. Look at the Vintage decks of the time, wasn't Sphere still unbanned? I seem to remember Welder Prison being the DTB at the time, so I don't know if I'd just put it all on price of cards so much as people wanting something new.

[DragoFireheart]

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/metagame.php?format=Modern&fecha=2011-10

Such a healthy format! Look at that viable diversity! /sarcasm

Modern is going to die because S.Twins and Zoo will be the only viable decks. The variety of a good, healthy meta should look more like this:
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/metagame.php?format=Legacy

Notice how an aggro deck is tier 1 yet isn't overwhelmingly so?

Splinter Twin, Wild Nacatal, and maybe Tarmogoyf need to be banned.

[Gheizen64]

I definitely think that WoTC's best option would have been to give up on extended, print some duals, and push Legacy. From what we have been told by WoTC, they wanted to do this too, but collectors threatened to sue. At this point, they had two options

1) Print Snow-Covered Duals (and other similar but not exact reprints of reserve listed cards), and try to push Legacy or

2) Run with Modern

At worlds, they had proxies of snow duals that they tested and thought about putting in the EDH precons, but they eventually decided Modern was the way to go.

The idea of a "Modern" format was initially embraced by players both as the Overextended league that Gavin was running, and just players building Modern decks and running them as "freeform" on MTGO. The popularity of Modern eventually pushed WotC to announce it as a "real" format, which is when it died.

One of the reasons people wanted to play Modern was because they wanted to run 1) Powerful cards without having to shell out hundreds for legacy, (stoneforge, jace, zoo) and 2) play with cards that are strong, but not really good enough for legacy (Bitterblossom, gifts ungiven). The initial bannings by WoTC drove away the very people that first supported it. The initial bans killed everything but superfast aggro and superfast combo, which resulted in more bans to kill combo.

Basically, the format is a victim of WoTC trying to neuter it before it even began. I'll bet anything that the only way to make the popular again would be to unban a *lot* of cards. WoTC recently employed Overextended designer Gavin Verhey. Gavin was able to keep a format with 3 more sets healthy with only 8 banned cards; a far cry from Modern's banned list. Hopefully Gavin can breathe some life into the format, because I liked it a lot before everything got banned.

I agree. Overextended was a way better format, MM and a lot of burn kept elves and most combo (Dragonstorm) in check, and worse versions of popular legacy decks like dredge (no Bridge) and even Reanimator were serious contenders (with Life/Death as the go-for reanimation spell). Post was probably the best control deck in the format, meaning land destruction like Molten Rain was effective, especially with no Fow. Cryoclasm on a cip untapped Hallowed Fountain was so much sexy, 5 damage and a stone rain for 3 mana. Faeries and Merfolk were also both good, especially in heavy blue metagames (Merfolk could play Vial)

And what's even better, with Mercadia on MODO we could have played ports as mana denial (strenghtening monocolor decks), and Gush and Dark ritual in a format where they would have been probably fair (no duals for gush, no LED/Petal for storm and MM present). Not to talk about brainstorm.

And instead we get a format that's getting more blue by the minute (snapcaster and Delver gg legacy color diversity) and a format that for now seems nothing but people racing each other.

[Mr. Safety]

It looks like they have picked 'Modern' for a theme this week at the mothership. Rosewater dodged the issue entirely by writing about 'modern card design'. I'm guessing that we'll see a deck from Jake Van Lunen on Wednesday for modern, an update from Flores on Thursday about the format, and a mx of of 'qft' and 'wtf' from Tom LaPille on Friday.

My prediction...

[Admiral_Arzar]

It looks like they have picked 'Modern' for a theme this week at the mothership. Rosewater dodged the issue entirely by writing about 'modern card design'. I'm guessing that we'll see a deck from Jake Van Lunen on Wednesday for modern, an update from Flores on Thursday about the format, and a mx of of 'qft' and 'wtf' from Tom LaPille on Friday.

My prediction...

Lapille will probably talk about how awesome a job they did with the banlist.

http://astro.temple.edu/~tuc67336/big-pics/TrollFace.png

[honestabe]

Lapille will probably talk about how awesome a job they did with the banlist.


Yeah, either that, or emergency ban Gifts Ungiven, Slight of Hand, Mana Leak, and Lotus Bloom. lol

[nedleeds]

The format would be fine, but most kids are too lazy / poor / busy / dumb to build decks. I've done fine here and overseas with non-net decked stuff, Wgb Rock-wish, W/r Prison, mono-white vial. Looking at dailies isn't going to tell you much about modern, it's the same deck lists being copied and played out of laziness. There needs to be incentive for most people to try new decks and right now the format has no reward, and as I understand it not a staple of FNM (i don't usually go so I may be wrong there).

[Mr. Safety]

The format would be fine, but most kids are too lazy / poor / busy / dumb to build decks. I've done fine here and overseas with non-net decked stuff, Wgb Rock-wish, W/r Prison, mono-white vial. Looking at dailies isn't going to tell you much about modern, it's the same deck lists being copies and played out of laziness. There needs to be incentive for most people to try new decks and right now the format has no reward, and as I understand it not a staple of FNM (i don't usually go so I may be wrong there).

+1

I'm sick and tired of seeing lousy net-decks on MWS when I go searching for a modern game. I'm not against net-decking; I mean what I said with 'lousy'. They are taking stock lists off the net that don't even fit the atmosphere they are playing in. It shows a basic misunderstanding of modern's card pool. I'm not saying modern is an established and stable format (far from it...) but folks need to know which cards are good at a fundamental level.

I've seen a few decent lists (ones that do a great job of working legacy-based lists into something appropriate for modern) and I've seen only 1, maybe 2 home brews. I myself have been hustling a BUG control list with Gifts Ungiven as well as a B/r/w aggro-control list (not quite Team Italia) with great results.

[SpikeyMikey]

It's better for those people to play lousy net decks than to build their own. Most people don't have the first clue when it comes to construction. It's like the one thing in this game people are actually worse at than sideboarding.

Sometimes, a metagame will have an easy to design solution. When the meta shifts to too much of x strategy, y becomes a natural foil. I'm not talking about a particular deck, I'm talking about multiple decks that do the same thing. For example, in Legacy, Canadian Thresh and Team America do the same thing. Their over-arching strategy is disrupt the opponent's mana and ride a cheap threat to victory. They have two different routes to victory, but both run a significant amount of removal, a small amount of cheap, efficient threats, a little counter magic and a lot of disruption. If the metagame consists of C. Thresh and TA, you have to design a deck that beats the early disruption. Generally through cheap cards that generate incremental advantage. Snapcaster, Stoneforge, Confidant, Sensei's Divining Top, etc. Being able to cycle through your deck quickly is important because you'll often need to bring multiple copies of a certain category of card (threat/removal/etc.) to bear in rapid-fire succession as these decks are designed to stop you early but will quickly run out of cards. As long as you can survive the initial burst of pressure, you should have inevitability; these decks don't do well in the long game.

Sometimes, a metagame has a very difficult solution. Say your metagame consists of C. Thresh and Maverick. We've already discussed how C. Thresh operates. Maverick operates on the idea of generating incremental advantage. With Maverick, the deck gets stronger the longer the game goes on. 1-for-1 removal is weak against them, because cards like Mom or Stoneforge or Pridemage can generate card advantage so easily. You need to apply pressure early and outrace the deck (which is not that difficult, as it's not a "fast" aggro deck) or run broad effects that generate a lot of card advantage (Humility, Engineered Explosives, Swords, etc.).

Here, what is effective against 1/2 of the meta is ineffective against the other half and vice versa. Against 1/2 you need redundancy and incremental advantage. Against the other 1/2, you need speed or broad effects that don't work well as redundant effects (Humility makes a lousy 4-of). Finding a deck that can handle both strategies is very difficult.

This is where Modern is at. Finding a deck that can handle the fast pressure of Zoo while dealing with the inevitability of Splinter Twin is very difficult. To beat Twin, you need a fast clock backed by control elements. You need an aggro-control deck. A true control deck, besides straight up just not being viable right now, won't be able to handle Twin in the long game. It's easier to protect what's essentially an instant speed combo than to stop it. Especially post-board with Gigadrowse. But Zoo will prey on the Twin-killing aggro-control decks all day long. Aggro control creatures just aren't as aggressive and the threat density of an aggro-control deck isn't there. Counterspells just aren't much good against Zoo as they're almost always negative tempo against a deck that is balls to the walls fast to begin with.

Now I'm not saying that solutions don't exist. I'm just saying, right now, it's a difficult metagame to solve. So if you're not good at solving environments, i.e. you're not one of the best builders in the world, you're better off playing something you can be comfortable with and work on winning through playskill, not construction skill. Even if it's not the right deck for the meta, outplaying your opponents goes a long, long way towards giving you W's.

[Mr. Safety]

Agree completely, thank you for the analysis. My only point to end my contribution to the discussion is this: on MWS, they were also sucky players, lol. I play janky homebrews and beat them; not by having a better deck, but by making better decisions and knowing how to approach the match.

I'm not a fantastic deck builder, far from it. I took the principles of a known deck (River Rock, Intuition-Loam B/G/u from legacy) and thought it would port well using Gifts Ungiven, Loam, Raven's Crime, and a toolbox of control elements. I've been walking in circles trying to figure out the best formulation of control elements, which I'm sure a better deck-builder/developer would spot much easier. But for me, and I think this is true of many players, the journey of discovery and development of a deck is by far one of the most rewarding aspects of magic. If I didn't enjoy building decks, I wouldn't play magic. I'd play poker and chess.

[Admiral_Arzar]

None of the columns for today mention the modern format either. I'm pretty sure the "modern" theme is just a huge troll now...

[SpikeyMikey]

Well, perfecting lists is always hard. And even great builders put together a lot more chaff than good stuff. For every successful Conley deck out there, there are a dozen Conley failures. But this meta is a tough one. Wizards correctly realized (probably only because it had been pointed out by the better builders in the community) that Cloudpost, while not performing well at the PT, was the single greatest factor holding back midrange and control. Its inevitability in a format without LD or a way to consistently stop Primeval Titan was insurmountable. But I feel that right now, Zoo holds much the same spot. Or Twin. Take your pick. Between the two, they stretch decks enough in two different directions that beating both is just difficult to do.

[Mr. Safety]

Well, perfecting lists is always hard. And even great builders put together a lot more chaff than good stuff. For every successful Conley deck out there, there are a dozen Conley failures. But this meta is a tough one. Wizards correctly realized (probably only because it had been pointed out by the better builders in the community) that Cloudpost, while not performing well at the PT, was the single greatest factor holding back midrange and control. Its inevitability in a format without LD or a way to consistently stop Primeval Titan was insurmountable. But I feel that right now, Zoo holds much the same spot. Or Twin. Take your pick. Between the two, they stretch decks enough in two different directions that beating both is just difficult to do.

Not trolling here: there are 2 decks that I feel could become contenders to beat both zoo and twin:

1) Bant (which I know you are working on)
2) A RUG w/W 'thresh' setup.

Hear me out here, I'm getting most of this opinion from the recent GP-Amsterdam (Can Thresh was 2nd, Mystic Bant was 1st)

I will be testing out a Delver/Rug list for modern. The sucky part is the lack of Nimble Mongoose. The good news is that Delver is a house. No Daze/FoW...load up x4 each of Spell Snare/Spell Pierce (or maybe Mana Leak.) No cantrips...that sucks. No Fire/Ice (getting worse) but what it CAN do is splash white. That brings Wild Nacatl, Path to Exile, and some utility plays like Lightning Helix.

Potential 4-Color "thresh" list for modern:

4x Delver of Secrets
4x Wild Nacatl
3x Grim Lavamancer
4x Tarmogoyf

4x Lightning Bolt
4x Lightning Helix
4x Spell Snare
4x Spell Pierce
4x Mana Leak
3x Path to Exile
2x Jace Beleren

20x Lands

Land a threat, protect it, ride it to victory. Pick off zoo's dudes, counter Twin's key pieces by wining the counter war with Spell Pierce) Playing 12 maindeck counters, 11 maindeck removals, and 12 solid beaters alongside the fantastic Mr. Grim.

I also like how Mr. Grim can handle Bant and Rock's mana-dorks, allowing the countermagic and Path's to take apart bigger threats.

Thoughts? Is the lack of Ponder/Preordain too much for a deck like this to overcome?

P.S. - This week's theme of 'modern' on the mothership is a complete pile of douchebag bullshittery that will only dissapoint modern's small demographic. This kind of bait-and-switch is just plain childish, and makes me angry. :mad:

[Mr. Safety]

My prediction has come true so far...Jake Van Lunen put up a deck for modern. I didn't want to bet on it, but I figured he'd post a combo deck. I assumed Second Sunrise (he's somewhat associated with that deck.) Now lets see what Flores does tomorrow and what kind of douchebag bullshittery Lapille will be puking up on Friday.

[Zombie]

the mothership is a complete pile ... bullshittery that ... makes me angry. :mad:

Hasn't it been like that from Shards onwards? At least I felt a palpable rise in bs and decrease in substance from when Ferret left and the Mythic announcement was made onwards.

[Mr. Safety]

From Mike Flores today:

3.R&D has shown a willingness to ban problem cards. This has been the promise of envelope-pushing advocates for as long as I've been playing, but with Modern, we see it in action for reals for the first time. Blazing Shoal? Banning it seems silly in the abstract, but Inkmoth Nexus looked a little too good on turn two. Green Sun's Zenith? The Dryad Arbor // Knight of the Reliquary split card had the flexibility of an Olympic gymnast, but the format is looking for the flexibility only of a talented high school gymnast. Again, just a little too good. R&D really seems to know what kind of a format they want Modern to be, and are crafting their decisions to realize that end.

5.Wild Nacatl has been anointed as the go-to best card (whether we've quite gotten there or not) ... and isn't that something?

6.Bitterblossom is banned, and it looks like it's staying that way! (Bitterblossom is my least favorite Magic card of all time.)

This is quite amusing...I nabbed the stuff that seems the most pertinent (the spots where reading between the lines will give you a clear picture of modern.)

#3) R&D has shown an overzealous and pet-card-supportive willingness to ban powerful and problematic cards.

There, fix'd. They also want it to be high-school level, not Olympic level (his words.) Welcome to the eternal-format version of Herp Derp: The Derrpening.

#5) Duh. The format has been neutered, almost to the point of only having aggro decks be viable. You're surprised that Wild Nacatl is the de facto best card in the format? Intelligence must be questioned here...

#6) Reinforces why this man is on Wizard's payroll: he even throws in his own little 'preferential' opinion on one powerful card and touts it as being 'good and fair for the format.' It doesn't matter if you don't like a card. If it doesn't warp the format (and it wouldn't, it would give control in the format a much needed boost) then man-up and deal with it.

[makochman]

This is quite amusing...I nabbed the stuff that seems the most pertinent (the spots where reading between the lines will give you a clear picture of modern.)

Yeah, I couldn't believe it when I read those bits. 2/3 of Flores' article is not about Modern anyway. Frankly they this "Modern week" is turning out so badly I'm losing hope for the format. And I must say I was very very happy when it was announced, even after the August 12 bannings I was optimistic :((

[TonyRo]

Yeah, I couldn't believe it when I read those bits. 2/3 of Flores' article is not about Modern anyway. Frankly they this "Modern week" is turning out so badly I'm losing hope for the format. And I must say I was very very happy when it was announced, even after the August 12 bannings I was optimistic :((

Modern Week has been a complete and utter downer thus far. I think only two actual articles have addressed the Modern Format, and it's not clear to me that you can even really count Flores'. Combine that with all the OP/PPC announcements, and you've got a really winner of week going here.

I really want the Modern Format to be good, but it's looking like Wizards doesn't really give a shit about anything at the moment.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Modern Week has been a complete and utter downer thus far. I think only two actual articles have addressed the Modern Format, and it's not clear to me that you can even really count Flores'. Combine that with all the OP/PPC announcements, and you've got a really winner of week going here.

I really want the Modern Format to be good, but it's looking like Wizards doesn't really give a shit about anything at the moment.

I'm pretty sure "Modern Week" is just WOTC trolling people that actually care about the format. All but one columnist has either completely ignored the theme or skillfully sidestepped it so far. TBH, I was surprised that the one column was even allowed to talk about storm combo though, knowing how AF and company feel about that deck/mechanic.

[Mr. Safety]

I'm pretty sure "Modern Week" is just WOTC trolling people that actually care about the format. All but one columnist has either completely ignored the theme or skillfully sidestepped it so far. TBH, I was surprised that the one column was even allowed to talk about storm combo though, knowing how AF and company feel about that deck/mechanic.

I have a lot of respect for Jake Van Lunen...they attempt to neuter the combo in the format and he brings a combo deck that can win as early as turn 2, about 35-40% of the time on turn 3, and reliably on turn 4 (with a 75-85% success rate.) Those are rough guesstimates based on my own experience with the deck and his own testing.

Hows that humble pie tasting Tom Lapille? Owned by Building on a Budget... :eek:

[Admiral_Arzar]

I have a lot of respect for Jake Van Lunen...they attempt to neuter the combo in the format and he brings a combo deck that can win as early as turn 2, about 35-40% of the time on turn 3, and reliably on turn 4 (with a 75-85% success rate.) Those are rough guesstimates based on my own experience with the deck and his own testing.

Hows that humble pie tasting Tom Lapille? Owned by Building on a Budget... :eek:

Modern combo is basically always budget, because the only money card is Steam Vents. By nerfing combo they actually made the format more expensive :eek:. But yeah, suck it Lapille.

[Mr. Safety]

Yeah, I forgot that the rituals/dig spells/storm spells are all common. Essentially the only rares you need in modern storm combo are Pyromancer's Swath or Pyromancer Ascension (besides the aforementioned Steam Vents/Scalding Tarn) I was just trying to make this ironic statement: not only does combo still exist in modern, but it can be built cheap...and it can still break their 'turn 4 fundamental turn' rule. (BTW, I'm diggin' the Pyro/Grapeshot maindeck and Warrens/Whacker sideboard in JVL's deck...I don't understand the Lotus Blooms in the board though...I thought the idea was to avoid dead cards in a combo deck, and a Bloom drawn mid-combo is dead for sure. Some decks need it [see: Dragonstorm, Second Sunrise, Enduring Ideal] but not Swath/Storm.)

Regardless, I'm holding my breath (snicker) for what Lapille has to say tomorrow.

[makochman]

I have a lot of respect for Jake Van Lunen

This.

Alas, tomorrow Pyromancer's Swath is getting emergency banned.

[TonyRo]

This.

Alas, tomorrow Pyromancer's Swath is getting emergency banned.

:cool:

It's funny - I must have spied 5 separate people testing this deck out last night on MODO - looked fun. Seven hours till a LaPille gem.

[makochman]

I really want the Modern Format to be good, but it's looking like Wizards doesn't really give a shit about anything at the moment.

Maybe they were all too preoccupied with the "Changes to 2012 Tournament and Event Structure, Part 3" thing. Which is generating lots of nerd rage. They're probably in damage control mode now and Modern is off their radar.

[honestabe]

Well, Tom LaPille's article was amazing. For those who don't want to read it, here's the gist;

"I swear, Modern doesn't suck"

the end





made me laugh

[Cynicath]

Maybe they were all too preoccupied with the "Changes to 2012 Tournament and Event Structure, Part 3" thing. Which is generating lots of nerd rage. They're probably in damage control mode now and Modern is off their radar.

Speaking of the changes, I wonder what effect this will have on modern. It seems the pros (at least PV and Conley) are pretty angry about the changes and are questioning whether or not it's worth grinding PTs next year due to the vagueness of the announcement. With the modern PTQ season starting in January, and Wizards stating in the announcement that more information regarding the changes will be coming 'next year', it's very possible Wizards is shooting their shiny new format in the foot (again). With reduced interest from pros, the modern meta will languish. Not to mention the fact that the only reason I can fathom for these changes is a mandate from up the corporate ladder to reduce the costs of running tournaments (partly prize money), and since Wizards is the only entity currently supporting modern, where is the incentive to innovate in the format going to come from? Certainly not from the average player (~90% of who netdeck exclusively).

[Lemnear]

Hilarious! To summarize:

- "Aggro and Control were beaten by cloudpost and combo so we had to ban more" (ignoring that they nerfed control from the very beginning causing the situation themselves)

- "We don't want anything to be faster or more consistant than Aggro and will continue to react with bannings"

- "Pro's and other people complaining have no understanding of the format. I changed it for the better."

- "The reason people don't play modern atm isn't because the format is boring but because People are lazy and dumb. They all want to netdeck instead of brewing. We know this and the problem will be solved then we spoiler the T8 decks from Pro Tour/Worlds people can copy and enjoy Modern themselves."

- "Each format becomes more popular over Time"



Hope i didn't miss something "important" (lol). The verdict: Honestabe hit the nail.

[Mr. Safety]

Well, I bought my Pyromancer's Swath #2-4 on wednesday (had one) in speculation of the potential of Swath Storm being a top-combo deck in the format. I play a metric shit-ton of casual magic, so these cards will not be wasted even with an emergency ban on Swath (not overly likely, but very possible.)

EDIT: I think Lapille deliberately avoided a poll at the end for modern...because it might support the obvious fact that folks are dissapointed in modern.


From Tom Lapille: The good news is that Modern is going to get the kind of support that it took to make Legacy happen on a grand scale very quickly.

Modern will get support only through forced play in sanctioned events. The fact that StarCity hasn't jumped onto modern weekly tourneys should be a HUGE RED FLAG.

He's got it backwards 180 degrees. He says the format isn't popular yet because places aren't making opportunities to play it. One hundred percent wrong. Places aren't making opportunities to play it because the format is unpopular.


From Tom Lapille: Legacy has a very high popularity right now, but it's had seven years to grow to that point. Modern has only had three or four months, and only a month or so of that has allowed stores to sanction their own Modern events. Comparing Modern to Legacy at this point is patently unfair.

What is 'patently unfair' is the constant stream of negative publicity Wizards gives Modern. What happens when you publicize exciting tournament reports and then ban more cards? People get discouraged, dissapointed, and give up on trying to find a way to make the format work. What happens when every announcement is only a preceding message to another ban? Negative pressure from the people that claim they want modern to last.

There hasn't been more than a whisper (metaphorically speaking) of modern, and this in an age of instant-speed communications via the internet and smartphones. Listen closely Mr. Lapille to the silence. The magic community is making their opinion quite easily understood by saying nothing.

Thanks gain, Asshat Lapille.

[GGoober]

How to fix Modern: get Tom out of Modern development/decision-making.

I do agree with him on one thing: that it takes time for a format to develop and become popular. Legacy underwent such a progress. It wasn't easy because people just didn't care, but the format was obviously better to begin with, and the community is stronger.

I'm happy for Legacy the way it turned out, hope Modern will follow the same suite, but Tom has to be out of this because he is bad at understanding how and what a format means (it's not really "I/We want this for the format etc"). If you really want something for a format, demonstrate that you understand the key governing factors to the format

e.g. if you want to kill fast combo, the solution isn't banning every combo enabler, this makes the format stale and is the exact reason why people are netdecking instead of brewing decks because there is nothing to brew with the current banlist. Why would I brew a deck when the cards/decks (based off Legacy and old-extended) have already demonstrated that in competitive play, those are the decks that will win tournaments?

The good example is the most recent banning. Rite of Flame, Cloudpost etc are all banned. Ponder/Preordain banned as well. This reduces the chance of turn 3 combo but it doesn't kill it entirely. With the lack of Ponder/Preordain/SDT, control will still have limited ability to answer either aggro or new combo decks. The real way to solve the problem is to unban Mental Misstep, which is fairer in Modern than in Legacy (and it also keeps the best 1-drop creature in the format in check i.e. Nacatl). But with Tom's philosophy, the correct way to approach Modern is banning anything dangerous, rather than letting the format/pros adapt and sculpt the metagame

There is absolutely no reason why someone should not play Zoo in Modern. Your next consideration is Twin but if you consider something else, you are severly limiting your options to win tournaments. It's not even a matter on people are lazy to brew instead of netdeck, it's a matter that you can't brew anything competitive with the current banlist at this moment. Pre-Sept banlist had a significantly more diverse format, despite the fact of faster combo existing.

[Richard Cheese]

I still don't understand why they choose to ban things that are "enablers" rather than actual combo pieces. Don't like Twin or Pyromancer? Ban Splinter Twin and Pyromancer's Ascension! Hell, ban ETW too. Don't ban a bunch of filter cards that are useful in a variety of decks just because you're afraid that new combos will keep showing up. They'll keep showing up anyway because you don't do any testing for the format. At least by banning actual combo pieces you just nerf those decks, rather than nerfing a ton of potentially good decks with this shitty shotgun approach.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Lapille will probably talk about how awesome a job they did with the banlist.

I actually wasn't even surprised when this is exactly what he discussed. I'm used to the fail now.

[SpikeyMikey]

Well, Tom LaPille's article was amazing. For those who don't want to read it, here's the gist;

"I swear, Modern doesn't suck"

the end





made me laugh

"Look, we understand you guys are too stupid to put together your own decks. We'll get some pros to make decks for you at Worlds."

I was a little disappointed, honestly. I was hoping for some more asshattery on par with the infamous Gentleman's Agreement or Great Sable Stag. Instead, all I got was a consistent low level of stupid. It might've been the most well-written article TLP has ever put together.

The difference between Legacy and Modern is that Legacy was primarily a grass-roots format. Did the Wizards' sponsored GPs help? Of course. But even without the GPs, Legacy was a format that people wanted to play and wanted to proselytize. It was a wide format, even back then.

You want to see the difference between Legacy and Modern? Compare the early days of the Source (which I'm pretty sure existed even before the split) with the current MTGModern. There was a die-hard fan base for Legacy that kept this website going. There aren't enough people for whom Modern is their #1 priority to keep MTGModern going. It's a side project for a lot of Legacy players, some Pauper players and maybe some casual players. But the casuals don't invest enough time into the game, individually, to keep a site going. Collectively, they may invest more than we do, but on an individual level, even the lurkers here spend more time thinking about the game than the casual players do.

I mean, I care about Modern. It's a lot of fun designing decks and Modern is new enough that it hasn't had time to really congeal into a hard metagame yet. But that's all I enjoy about Modern, is designing. Actually playing the format really isn't that much fun. Let's face it, set design over the last decade has been pretty lame. Yeah, cards are flashy and good and there's lots of flavor, but the cards don't lend themselves well to broader formats. Extended has been a mess for years because it's so unbelievably unbalanced. Modern has shown that it has the same problem. The only reason Legacy doesn't suck is because it's anchored by a few dozen old sets that the new R&D didn't get a chance to fuck up.

It's not a ground-up format the way Legacy was. The way EDH was. The way Pauper is going. It's a top-down format. The format would've been better off had they simply adopted Gavin's Overextended. Far more popular and far more balanced and instead of writing articles defending their format and imploring people to play it, they could be writing articles apologizing for only having 2 Modern GP's.

Finally, pros don't innovate. They don't create new decks. They tune what already exists. Name 1 innovative deck from PT Philly designed by a pro. Give me just 1. If Wizards' plan is to wait for the pros to create a format, they're going to be sorely disappointed, because most of them will be playing Twin, Zoo, Pod or something from a previous Extended season.

[TheCramp]

Jesus, modern is fine. The new ban list is fucking awesome. What this proves is that players don't build decks and pros do because they have to. I mean come on, modern should be a shinny new toy, a wild frontier. But when I go out, no one even has a god damn deck proxied. I have been playing standard a bit because the events are easier to get to and the amount of net decking is as rampant as ever, but one refrain that i hear from newer players, that is new to me, when you ask them about their numbers, is: "well talk to the winner of the Kentucky open, he designed it." As if , upon sleaving it up you were entirely in his hands. I mean, the fuck? For those of us who have to travel to play legacy, Modern should offer the hope that we can leverage our collections in tournaments that are more approachable to newer players, and, you know, play eternal magic more. I like that I can't jam ponder/preordain in every blue deck. I have legacy for real card selection, modern will make me think as hard as brainstorm does without ponder/preordain not with them. But I'm a cunning fuck, I game to have a intellectual contest. This total lack of deck builders is NOT Tom's fault, but it does say volumes about magic players as a community.

[Menteith]

This total lack of deck builders is NOT Tom's fault, but it does say volumes about magic players as a community.

There's not a complete lack of deck builders - I've seen a number of interesting ports from both Standard and Legacy make it in, as well a decent number of old Extended decks and homebrewed lists. Most of the people I was tested with have lost interest in the format, since a lot of the prep work and testing done was made irrelevant with the bannings drastically changing the metagame, or they dropped a decent amount of money for now worthless cards because of speculation and insta-banning unexpectedly (RIP Green Sun's Zenith).

The ban list really isn't "fucking awesome". It is what it is - a pointed attempt to fit the format to their vision, and an unsuccessful one. Even with the widespread bannings, Splinter Twin is very strong, and Melira was more or less unaffected. Sure, 12post got beaten to death, but the deck wasn't unstoppable anyway, and had no real game against anything combo or fast aggro (notice how it didn't place even with huge representation).

You can't blame Tom for everything, but he's a good representative of why people are frustrated with the format right now. His vision for Modern is at odds with my own - I really want to play in Modern or a format like it, but I disagree with many of the choices on the banned list, the policy of banning so many cards so early (with the threat of banning more), and the overall heavy handedness involved in the format right now. Wizards has a definitive idea of what they want to see happen, and instead of letting a format develop and tune itself (the way every other Eternal format has done), they're going to meddle.

[Lemnear]

There isn't a lack of deckbuilders but why should you invest time to create a deck that can win faster than Zoo (should be hard now) or beat Aggro consistantly (with all decent control-card not in the Pool) if WotC whole-hearted announces to ban anything that is able to do either?

Control doesn't give you anything without combo in the meta and Twin is creature based so even Zoo does have a good matchup against it with mainboard removal. Cardpool and meta made control irrelevant. Why should we brew inside aggro?

The final nail in the coffin will be the PT with T8 including several zoo, a affinity, 2 twin and a gifts-tron ... my prediction. Looking forward to it

[kues]

I made top8 on a 60 person tournament yesterday. And i have to say the format is really funny.
The top8 was: 2 Blue Zoo (with snapcasters), 1 UB Faeries, 1 Rock, 1 Naya land destruction, 1 Landfall Boros, 1 Melira pod and a 5cc zoo (with tribal flames).

[DragoFireheart]

My prediction thus far is modern is going down the same road extended went. In the event that modern does finally settle down I have a mono-red aggro/burn deck ready for butt kicking. :wink:

[Mr. Safety]

I made top8 on a 60 person tournament yesterday. And i have to say the format is really funny.
The top8 was: 2 Blue Zoo (with snapcasters), 1 UB Faeries, 1 Rock, 1 Naya land destruction, 1 Landfall Boros, 1 Melira pod and a 5cc zoo (with tribal flames).

Now I'm trolling, but I want Mental Misstep and Bitterblossom in modern...for the exact reasoning of those top decks.

[Menteith]

Lemnear brings up a really good point. What is the motivation in trying to find a better deck if you know your new deck is going to get banned, as it doesn't fit the vision that Wizards has for this format? They've decided that Zoo should be the best deck in the format, so the competitive options (if they succeed) are to play Zoo or to play a deck that's worse than Zoo, and this goes against everything eternal deck design is about. What's the point?

Who remembers when Landstill was one of the DTB in Legacy? Who also remembers how, without input from Wizards, it rotated out of that slot naturally due to the format shifting? It was a really strong deck in its heyday, and it didn't need any bannings for people to figure out how to beat it. We won't see that happen with this style of format management, and that's disappointing to me.

[makochman]

The final nail in the coffin will be the PT with T8 including several zoo

They will list it like this:

1. Molten Zoo
2. ...
3. Naya Midrange
4. Counter-Cats
5. ...
6. ...
7. Punishing Zoo
8. Domain Zoo

Problem solved.

Seriously though, I expect people with rogue decks will get into the Top 8, but once people learn how to beat these decks with Zoo, everything will go back to normal.

[honestabe]

Will there be blue decks in the top 8? Yeah, but they will most likely have focused almost 100% on aggro, and will have had to dodge Combo/Control throughout the day. I'd expect 4 Zoo, 1-2 combo, 1 Midrange (Jund, Doran) and 1 Gifts-like control deck and maybe 1 Tempo Deck. However, a balanced format that is not.

The reason Legacy was so successful is because WoTC left it alone. The format and its players found definition, the tier decks, and solved it's own problems. But with Modern, WoTC decided Zoo would be the best deck, and any problems would be banned. It just makes the format feel artificial, which is one of the reasons it's failing.

[SpikeyMikey]

Will there be blue decks in the top 8? Yeah, but they will most likely have focused almost 100% on aggro, and will have had to dodge Combo/Control throughout the day. I'd expect 4 Zoo, 1-2 combo, 1 Midrange (Jund, Doran) and 1 Gifts-like control deck and maybe 1 Tempo Deck. However, a balanced format that is not.

The reason Legacy was so successful is because WoTC left it alone. The format and its players found definition, the tier decks, and solved it's own problems. But with Modern, WoTC decided Zoo would be the best deck, and any problems would be banned. It just makes the format feel artificial, which is one of the reasons it's failing.

I expect that the T8 will have more Splinter Twin than it does Zoo of all varieties. People have sort of dismissed combo for some reason since Ponder and Preordain were banned, but Twin could've been a tier 1 deck without any manipulation whatsoever. If people continue to ignore Splinter Twin's existence, there is no deck in the format better. It's like Dredge in that regard; it's winning game 1 and if you don't have hate, it's winning the match too.

It's too early for T8 breakdown predictions; most of the players who are qualified for Worlds haven't given it a second thought since there's nothing established for them to work from. But B/G Deathcloud is reasonably strong, Zoo is strong, Twin is nuts, Soul Sisters beats the pants off the expected meta (although it loses to a lot of random) and Living End will probably be heavily played enough to make some waves, since control is every bit as bad now as it was before the last round of bannings.

[Menteith]

There's no better deck in the format than Twin until core components of it are banned, you mean. Twin is just better than Zoo, and has way more slots that can be changed up depending on metagame - but I don't want to put together what I believe is the best deck in the format because I think it'll get banned. There's also no incentive for me to innovate or to bring a new, unique deck like Mono Blue Infect because succeed in making a strong new deck and it doesn't fit their guidelines my time and effort are pointless.

I'll agree it's a bit to early to tell what decklists are going to show up at the PT, but I would expect to see some Sligh. It has no terrible matchups preboard, and takes a different set of hate tools than most of the other decks in the format. Generally the worst postboard card people can bring in is Kitchen Finks.

[Mr. Safety]

Restore Balance is incredibly strong as well. I played against a 4-color version last night, and it raped my BUG control deck hardcore. When you have to pay for your counterspells, it hurts. It wasn't incredibly fast, it was just resilient. I played Inquisition of Kozilek, stealing Violent Outburst and seeing borderpost, borderpost, land, Ardent Plea. I had 2 lands in play, he has 2 borderposts already on the table. I don't have mana open to play my Mana Leak, so I play BoP and pass the turn.

He cascades into Restore Balance. He follows that up with a few more borderposts and Gideon Jura. Game.

Game 2 was about the same...he was building mana and had too many cascade spells to deal with them all. I gained a little ground by Raven's Crime digging into his hand, but nuts draws are nuts draws...topdeck FTW.

I'm seeing Pyromancer's Swath as a pretty good contender as the best combo deck in the format. It has a pretty solid turn 3 goldfish (oh no!) and can switch over to Warrens/Whacker in the board.

[SpikeyMikey]

There's no better deck in the format than Twin until core components of it are banned, you mean. Twin is just better than Zoo, and has way more slots that can be changed up depending on metagame - but I don't want to put together what I believe is the best deck in the format because I think it'll get banned. There's also no incentive for me to innovate or to bring a new, unique deck like Mono Blue Infect because succeed in making a strong new deck and it doesn't fit their guidelines my time and effort are pointless.

I'll agree it's a bit to early to tell what decklists are going to show up at the PT, but I would expect to see some Sligh. It has no terrible matchups preboard, and takes a different set of hate tools than most of the other decks in the format. Generally the worst postboard card people can bring in is Kitchen Finks.

There are worse things. Pulse of the Fields, Rhox War Monk, etc. And Soul Sisters is a pretty terrible matchup for it, just because it can't deal with Auriok Champion.

I guess the way I look at it is that I still have incentive to brew because I can create something that breaks the metagame. Whether or not the deck lasts beyond a single tournament is irrelevant to me. However, I don't own any cards; when I go to play in the GP next year, I'll be borrowing from a friend. So there's no cost at all to me if something gets banned and the price plummets. In fact, I'd probably like getting something banned, just for the bragging rights.

I'm interested to see what's going to come out of the Online Championships and Worlds.

Edit:

Mr Safety: People were playing Restore Balance back during the Community Cup ban-list era. It was a pain in the ass for 12-Post only because you were necessarily slow. It's not an issue for most of the good decks in Modern. Twin has enough counters, Zoo is fast enough and has burn for reach. It's a turn 4 combo (or turn 3 if you don't mind your opponent getting to keep a land) that doesn't win the game. Don't get me wrong, it's not like it'll never win games, but it shouldn't consistently beat the tier 1 decks. Interesting on the Gideon Jura though. The versions I've seen have all been Phyrexian Totem and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas as their win-cons.

[DragoFireheart]

I'm seeing Pyromancer's Swath as a pretty good contender as the best combo deck in the format. It has a pretty solid turn 3 goldfish (oh no!) and can switch over to Warrens/Whacker in the board.

I'd die laughing if Pyromancer's Swath got banned.

[Menteith]

I'd die laughing if Pyromancer's Swath got banned.

Why would the ban the actual combo piece when they can hit far more general cards instead? I expect to see things like Manamorphose and Seething Song get the axe before a core combo, based on how they handled Green Sun's Zenith, Rite of Flame, Ponder, and Preordain.

SpikeyMikey, I'd agree that Soul Sisters isn't a good matchup for Sligh (preboard or postboard), I just don't expect that it would be heavily played. It's a really strong deck, but it hasn't had the publicity of other major decks, and is fairly exclusive to The Source and its readers (which aren't the majority of Modern players). There are really strong cards that people can side in against Sligh, I just don't expect any of them to be in sideboards right now.

[Mr. Safety]

I'd die laughing if Pyromancer's Swath got banned.

But sadly, you'd be dead...not even Dread Return would bring you back. :frown:

I think I see what you mean though: a bargain-bin rare like Swath getting banned? Before modern was announced, you could pick up a playset of Swath for $4 (or less!)

I've been feeling this for a while. Burning Shoal is banned because someone took a rogue deck like infect and brought Dragonstorms to enable turn 2 kills. What kind of world are we living in that Burning Shoal is a competitive card?!?!?!? I feel the same about Swath.

It is a very clear sign as to the horrible nature of modern as a format. Banning bad cards because they are the only one's left? Epic fail there Mr. Lapille...

I got some Swaths to play in modern, should it survive. If it doesn't...I'll just go casual with it and put in more powerful options with Rite of Flame and Brainstorm. Problem solved, and I'm having fun!

EDIT: I realize it was rather vague on which subject I was mentioning with the 'should it survive' comment. It's applicable to both actually. I was specifically mentioning Swath (which shows my poor use of syntax) but the truth is, Modern's survival is not very likely.

[DragoFireheart]

But sadly, you'd be dead...not even Dread Return would bring you back. :frown:

:cry:




EDIT: I realize it was rather vague on which subject I was mentioning with the 'should it survive' comment. It's applicable to both actually. I was specifically mentioning Swath (which shows my poor use of syntax) but the truth is, Modern's survival is not very likely.

Yep...

Years from now, when we look back on Modern, we can point and say "Dr. Jones, this is why you don't ban Force of Will."

[Menteith]

Years from now, when we look back on Modern, we can point and say "Dr. Jones, this is why you don't ban Force of Will."

I don't think that the lack of Force of Will is the problem with the format. I don't even buy that there isn't a strong control presence in the metagame - Splinter Twin is (arguably) the best deck in the format, and decks running Firespout and Cryptic Command qualify as control decks to me. It has a good win condition, but it's still about controlling the game through creature and stack sanction, gaining card advantage on exchanges, and preserving its life total.

This issue is really how much "meddling" (for lack of a better word) Wizards is doing with the format. Prices are already really high with speculation, and new Modern players are less likely to dump $150 on cards if there's a chance their deck will be worthless in a month. Not only that, you can't establish a metagame with that many rapid changes. Lastly, I don't agree with their stated goal for Modern. I don't think there's some special joy in beating someone to death with a Tarmogoyf. You can argue that the longer a game goes on, the more choices each player is faced with, but I would argue that many of the choices that arise aren't meaningful - combat math is extremely simple compared to correctly assembling a Doomsday pile, manipulating Survival (RIP) correctly, or even deciding how to play with and around Counterbalance.

[DragoFireheart]

WotC wouldn't need to meddle so much if paper was strong enough to keep rock in check. Instead, WotC wants everyone to cut each other with scissors.

[Menteith]

WotC wouldn't need to meddle so much if paper was strong enough to keep rock in check. Instead, WotC wants everyone to cut each other with scissors.

We had no idea if the format was balanced or not. There was a single event which had a pretty wide range of deck in a format that had never existed. It was too early to conclude, well, anything from the data we have now - which I why I disagree with making some pretty widespread bans based off of it. Would 12post's popularity have dropped off given its poor performance? Would we have seen Ascension get prominent enough that people started running MD graveyard/enchantment hate? We'll never know now.

[Mr. Safety]

WotC wouldn't need to meddle so much if paper was strong enough to keep rock in check. Instead, WotC wants everyone to cut each other with scissors.

Maybe that's why Lapille is crazy...he's a cutter! Although, he should stick to just cutting himself (thank you very much!) :confused:

On a serious note, modern needs Force of Will. I'm not saying literally...it just needs a trump spell to keep the combo in check, and then we can all relax (if we decide to continue pursuing modern.)

Mental Misstep might do the trick, but I think a new counterspell like this would be hawt:

Torqued Broken Pipes :2::u::u:

Counter target spell unless it's controller pays 3.

You may exile a blue card in your hand from the game rather than pay Broken Pipe's mana cost. If you do, counter target spell unless it's controller pays X, where X is the exiled cards converted mana cost.

There... it's a mish-mash of Mana Leak and Force of Will. Honestly, if Disrupting Shoal had been more like this it would see a lot more play (in my humble opinion...) Even Brainstorm would make it a hybrid of Daze/Force of Will.

EDIT: I'm pretty sure that card is too strong, and would probably cause more headaches. Oh well...farewell potential Force of Will substitute, we never knew thee...

[SpikeyMikey]

We had no idea if the format was balanced or not. There was a single event which had a pretty wide range of deck in a format that had never existed. It was too early to conclude, well, anything from the data we have now - which I why I disagree with making some pretty widespread bans based off of it. Would 12post's popularity have dropped off given its poor performance? Would we have seen Ascension get prominent enough that people started running MD graveyard/enchantment hate? We'll never know now.

Yes but there was certainly testing done outside of that single event. Splinter Twin winning was not a fluke. And Melira was not much behind it in power level.

[Menteith]

Yes but there was certainly testing done outside of that single event. Splinter Twin winning was not a fluke. And Melira was not much behind it in power level.

I'd agree. I'd still also say that it was way to early to conclude anything substantial about the format at that point. It was the first tournament of the new format. Twin and Melira both can be hated out by prepared decks - would they have survived playing against prepared decks, instead of the slow, non interactive 12post that was designed to crush control and midrange? Power levels are going to be relative depending on what you're playing against. Going back in time in Legacy again, Goblins was an incredibly strong deck - the best deck for a period - and it was also a weak choice in a metagame that was prepared for it.

[Mr. Safety]

Has anyone seen any interest for modern in your area? I'm really curious about it because I may try and set up some modern events in my town. I can get a mailer out to every resident in town for like $75 or less, which could be made back (hopefully) with the first event.

[Anarky87]

Where I live there was a little bit of interest in it. The usual tournament outline for a month was usually: Modern>Modern>Legacy>Vintage. But as of recently, most of the people have given up playing Magic to play Star Wars Mini's or something. Which unfortunately was the large part of the group, leaving only 4-5 people to play Magic (for whatever format) and 5-7 other people playing retired, out of print games. And that kinda blows for me as I drummed up about 3 decks to play and loan out only to have people quit.

Though, that is kind of the mentality of the city I play in. Play a couple tournaments with terrible decks, get beat by better constructed decks (not even top tier decks), lose a couple tournaments, then quit playing altogether and stop showing up at the store. However, my wife and I have gotten into Pauper pretty heavily and we've just been table top playing that a lot. Talked to the TO about maybe switching Vintage to Pauper.

/blog

[Sims]

Where I live there was a little bit of interest in it. The usual tournament outline for a month was usually: Modern>Modern>Legacy>Vintage. But as of recently, most of the people have given up playing Magic to play Star Wars Mini's or something. Which unfortunately was the large part of the group, leaving only 4-5 people to play Magic (for whatever format) and 5-7 other people playing retired, out of print games. And that kinda blows for me as I drummed up about 3 decks to play and loan out only to have people quit.

Though, that is kind of the mentality of the city I play in. Play a couple tournaments with terrible decks, get beat by better constructed decks (not even top tier decks), lose a couple tournaments, then quit playing altogether and stop showing up at the store. However, my wife and I have gotten into Pauper pretty heavily and we've just been table top playing that a lot. Talked to the TO about maybe switching Vintage to Pauper.

/blog

Totally off topic: but I would kill for Pauper events in my local area. I'd have to really get back into it and brush up on the format but i've still got Post, B/u Control, Infect, TPPS, and MucFae built in paper from where I used to play those in all my casual games.. I should really try drumming up interest again.

[Anarky87]

/continuing off topic

Yeah, her and I started playing it as a way for me to kind of teach her the ropes (most of the deck were pretty simple play creatures and swing with them). Then it actually started to become really fun and entertaining and she became better at it. So we put together U/R Post, U/b Post, Goblins, Dead Dog, Delver Blue, Infect, and WW and basically just take a couple hours every now and then cycle through them for kicks.

Though my wife and I wouldn't mind having some local events to throw down the commons at. =P

[dontbiteitholmes]

Has anyone seen any interest for modern in your area? I'm really curious about it because I may try and set up some modern events in my town. I can get a mailer out to every resident in town for like $75 or less, which could be made back (hopefully) with the first event.

There was a lot of interest initially when the format first came out. It pretty much all died out as soon as the first update to the banned list came out before the protour. I went to the local Modern event once and only one other guy showed up. I asked the store manager the other day because it's still listed as a regular event but he said it still has never pulled enough people to actually fire and sometimes no one will show up. In contrast at this same store we usually get 25-60 for FNM (it dies down a lot during PTQ season) and usually 12-20 for Legacy, sometimes more in the Summer or during breaks from school.

Edit - This is in Milwaukee, WI which has a pretty strong community, you can usually fill 2-3 carloads of people at least for events within 8-9 hours drive. I know most of the more serious players who play multiple events weekly and travel for most big events and none have expressed any interest in Modern since the post PT bannings.

[KevinTrudeau]

It would be really awesome if Pauper replaced Modern as the accessible PTQ Eternal format of the future, since I can't foresee Modern getting revamped any time soon (which would be my ideal occurrence; something resembling the Extended of old would be awesome). It would be a nice, safe bet to fill that role. If it got enough player support like EDH did, I could see it realistically supplanting Modern in two years or so. Anyone with some pull up for the task?

Modern as is is probably the worst format, Constructed or Limited, that's currently being supported by WotC. I don't even know if it's better than the Extended format it was relieving.

[SpikeyMikey]

There was a lot of interest initially when the format first came out. It pretty much all died out as soon as the first update to the banned list came out before the protour. I went to the local Modern event once and only one other guy showed up. I asked the store manager the other day because it's still listed as a regular event but he said it still has never pulled enough people to actually fire and sometimes no one will show up. In contrast at this same store we usually get 25-60 for FNM (it dies down a lot during PTQ season) and usually 12-20 for Legacy, sometimes more in the Summer or during breaks from school.

Edit - This is in Milwaukee, WI which has a pretty strong community, you can usually fill 2-3 carloads of people at least for events within 8-9 hours drive. I know most of the more serious players who play multiple events weekly and travel for most big events and none have expressed any interest in Modern since the post PT bannings.

Yeah, but Legacy is proxy allowed and Modern is not, right? I might be interested in going if it were proxy allowed and I wasn't wasting my time driving out there.

[Lemnear]

Yeah, but Legacy is proxy allowed and Modern is not, right? I might be interested in going if it were proxy allowed and I wasn't wasting my time driving out there.

Wasn't the Point about Modern to have a an Eternal format which doesn't cost a fortune so proxies are not needed? Moreover the new frame cards could be reprinted anytime on demand which is huge to balance costs but this instrument of Control is still unused for whatever reason. Speculation ruined it from day 1 with Vendillion Cliques for about 25€ and shit.

Pauper would have been the better replacement but I understand that Not only the old cards (reprint issue) but the power of some commons like brainstorm, dark ritual and gush could become harmful. Modern dodges this and As far As I know the market, in case of pauper as a PT/GP format, the prices would be explode too and i wouldn't Be surprised if the chase-cards would be 3-4€ themselves looking at all the uncommon removal of the last Sets like GftT or dismember

[KevinTrudeau]

Pauper would have been the better replacement but I understand that Not only the old cards (reprint issue) but the power of some commons like brainstorm, dark ritual and gush could become harmful. Modern dodges this and As far As I know the market, in case of pauper as a PT/GP format, the prices would be explode too and i wouldn't Be surprised if the chase-cards would be 3-4€ themselves looking at all the uncommon removal of the last Sets like GftT or dismember

-Commons aren't affected by the Reserve List.
-Brainstorm isn't all that good without proper fetchlands in the format, hence why it doesn't really see play in MTGO Pauper. Individual cards need to be evaluated differently in each format they're legal in.
-If a card/strategy becomes too oppressive, they could, you know, ban it.
-Go for the Throat and Dismember are uncommons (as of now), and are therefore not legal in Pauper.

Damn, sanctioning Pauper just keeps sounding better and better, especially when you consider the MTGO banlist is only two cards long right now. More would likely need to be added if it were to be transposed to paper (High Tide being the biggest offender I think), but you're still looking at far and away the shortest banlist of any Eternal format. It even passes the LaPille test in that it feels a lot like 'real Magic'. In addition, every legal card post-Stronghold is easily identifiable for newer players, which is something WotC was going for with the modern borders when they made Modern 8th edition-present.

[Lemnear]

My point about GftT and Dismember (knowing that they are uncommons but widely played) is, that they costed around 2€ in their heights without speculation and I was just guessing that real chase commons (high tide and other engine cards) would be about that high.

[UnderwaterGuy]

My point about GftT and Dismember (knowing that they are uncommons but widely played) is, that they costed around 2€ in their heights without speculation and I was just guessing that real chase commons (high tide and other engine cards) would be about that high.

Nah I think you're really misunderstanding Pauper. There is no reprint issue and the cards are fairly cheap. Only really Lotus Petal would probably cost more than a dollar or two. It's a decently balanced format, certainly better than Modern.

[Lemnear]

Nah I think you're really misunderstanding Pauper. There is no reprint issue and the cards are fairly cheap. Only really Lotus Petal would probably cost more than a dollar or two. It's a decently balanced format, certainly better than Modern.

I'm not talking about the recent price of cards like nightscape familiar but of their potential price if pauper would be a supported PT/GP format. Blazing Shoal was a crap Card, worth a few cent and exploded to 10€ over here. Don't you think it's obvious that this would happen to pauper cards as well? The point I was trying to make with GftT is that rarity alone is not a 100% indicator for the price as cards like Berserk, GftT, Wasteland etc. show

In short:

You: "Pauper is cheap"
Me: "...as long as it isn't a widely played and supported format. Otherwise the secondary market of those cards would gain steam and prices explode"
You: "no, pauper is cheap atm."

So you disagree that any of my arguments is able to influence the card prices even with the recent prove modern offered?

[dontbiteitholmes]

I'm not talking about the recent price of cards like nightscape familiar but of their potential price if pauper would be a supported PT/GP format. Blazing Shoal was a crap Card, worth a few cent and exploded to 10€ over here. Don't you think it's obvious that this would happen to pauper cards as well? The point I was trying to make with GftT is that rarity alone is not a 100% indicator for the price as cards like Berserk, GftT, Wasteland etc. show

In short:

You: "Pauper is cheap"
Me: "...as long as it isn't a widely played and supported format. Otherwise the secondary market of those cards would gain steam and prices explode"
You: "no, pauper is cheap atm."

So you disagree that any of my arguments is able to influence the card prices even with the recent prove modern offered?

Commons will always be cheap for the most part because there are just way more of them out there. If they were to make Pauper a supported format I'm sure the very first thing they would do is to ban Sinkhole since it's actually borderline broken in real Pauper which I'm sure is part of the reason it was reprinted at uncommon in MTGO. Commons are already played in literally every format and almost without exception they are cheap. I can't even think of the most expensive Legacy common outside of Sinkhole, maybe Daze? Most of the commons that are "expensive" are still under $3. It doesn't matter if people need these cards for Legacy, Vintage, or Pauper, they still only need 4x. Commons are also wide open to be reprinted so WotC could stick them in FtVs and Duel Decks until the end of time. There are lots of reasons Pauper will probably never be supported by WotC but lets not bullshit ourselves into thinking that the format making a handful of otherwise unplayable commons shoot up in value so much that the format is too expensive is one of them. There are commons only printed in one set over 10 years ago that every Legacy players wants 4x of and they are still very affordable, it's not like Pauper would break the game.

[Mr. Safety]

Commons will always be cheap for the most part because there are just way more of them out there. If they were to make Pauper a supported format I'm sure the very first thing they would do is to ban Sinkhole since it's actually borderline broken in real Pauper which I'm sure is part of the reason it was reprinted at uncommon in MTGO. Commons are already played in literally every format and almost without exception they are cheap. I can't even think of the most expensive Legacy common outside of Sinkhole, maybe Daze? Most of the commons that are "expensive" are still under $3. It doesn't matter if people need these cards for Legacy, Vintage, or Pauper, they still only need 4x. Commons are also wide open to be reprinted so WotC could stick them in FtVs and Duel Decks until the end of time. There are lots of reasons Pauper will probably never be supported by WotC but lets not bullshit ourselves into thinking that the format making a handful of otherwise unplayable commons shoot up in value so much that the format is too expensive is one of them. There are commons only printed in one set over 10 years ago that every Legacy players wants 4x of and they are still very affordable, it's not like Pauper would break the game.

Bingo. I think the most expensive common aside from Sinkhole is probably Chain Lightning.

The format wouldn't get too expensive to play...but once a defined metagame was established, you'd see a minor bump in prices.

To my knowledge, the only card banned in Pauper is Cranial Plating. Is this right?

[Sims]

Bingo. I think the most expensive common aside from Sinkhole is probably Chain Lightning.

The format wouldn't get too expensive to play...but once a defined metagame was established, you'd see a minor bump in prices.

To my knowledge, the only card banned in Pauper is Cranial Plating. Is this right?

Online the banned cards are Cranial Plating and Frantic Search.

Edit for clarity:

Sinkhole and High Tide are paper commons that are not legal in online Pauper due to being printed as uncommons in masters editions. By that proxy there are also cards that are illegal in paper but are legal online such as Thermokarst that were printed in ME as commons but are uncommons in their paper printings.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Online the banned cards are Cranial Plating and Frantic Search.

Edit for clarity:

Sinkhole and High Tide are paper commons that are not legal in online Pauper due to being printed as uncommons in masters editions. By that proxy there are also cards that are illegal in paper but are legal online such as Thermokarst that were printed in ME as commons but are uncommons in their paper printings.

Yeah the only relevant cards not online I can think of are Sinkhole, High Tide, and Hymn to Tourach. All of which would potentially be banned if the format were to transition to paper.

[Sims]

Yeah the only relevant cards not online I can think of are Sinkhole, High Tide, and Hymn to Tourach. All of which would potentially be banned if the format were to transition to paper.

Forgot about Hymn, which makes me feel rather stupid.

There are people who played pauper tournaments with no banned list in a thread about it a hwile back that claimed Hymn actually kept the Tide and Frantic Search combos pretty well in check, but I'd be leary of having Tide/Search in the format at all. Hymn, without those, might be too powerful but who knows.

I really wish Wizards would pick up Pauper as an official paper format as well, it was always my favorite format online before I cashed out of MTGO entirely. Perhaps I might have to reinvest into some modo pauper.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Forgot about Hymn, which makes me feel rather stupid.

There are people who played pauper tournaments with no banned list in a thread about it a hwile back that claimed Hymn actually kept the Tide and Frantic Search combos pretty well in check, but I'd be leary of having Tide/Search in the format at all. Hymn, without those, might be too powerful but who knows.

I really wish Wizards would pick up Pauper as an official paper format as well, it was always my favorite format online before I cashed out of MTGO entirely. Perhaps I might have to reinvest into some modo pauper.

Frantic Search is already banned and I don't see that changing. Mono-Black is already tier 1 online even without Sinkhole and Hymn, it's likely Sinkhole would at least be banned and maybe Hymn as well. I don't think High Tide would change too much. Empty the Warrens combo or WildGrowth/Temporal Fissure are much better in the end than any Tide deck I can think of and High Tide would let your opponent leave a single Island untapped and still have access to Counterspell.

[ColeM]

My group has played quite a bit of paper pauper for the last year or so (although, I don't think we've kept up with any recent changes in the last few months). Our banned list only included Cranial Plating and High Tide (which may or may not have been deserving of the ban). I'll just add some of our observations about this format here:

1) High Tide with Frantic Search is far and away the best combo deck. It's fast (usually turn 3), consistent, and packs 4 demonic tutors (Merchant Scroll) and has access to the best spell against countermagic (Gigadrowse). The variants incorporating Mnemonic Wall are absolutely ridiculous. However, Faerie Macabre is virtually unanswerable hate for the Mnemonic Wall version and other kill methods (Grapeshot) can also be combated with appropriate hate cards. We banned High Tide simply because it appeared to warp the format too far (you either ran hate cards or ran Suicide-Black or you lost).

2) Hymn decks are probably the best. UB control with Hymn + Mulldrifter may be the best deck.

3) Sinkhole probably isn't ban worthy. It's good, but it's mostly a sideboard card. Mono Black suicide would need better creatures to make Sinkhole a real problem.

3) Combo isn't all that scary without High Tide + Frantic Search legal. Hymn + hate keeps those decks in check from what we saw. Sinkhole also effectively punishes Cloudpost decks and anything trying to abuse Frantic Search.

If this format was actually official in paper I imagine that Cranial Plating and High Tide would be banned. Hymn would probably be the only other card possibly banned.

[dontbiteitholmes]

My group has played quite a bit of paper pauper for the last year or so (although, I don't think we've kept up with any recent changes in the last few months). Our banned list only included Cranial Plating and High Tide (which may or may not have been deserving of the ban). I'll just add some of our observations about this format here:

1) High Tide with Frantic Search is far and away the best combo deck. It's fast (usually turn 3), consistent, and packs 4 demonic tutors (Merchant Scroll) and has access to the best spell against countermagic (Gigadrowse). The variants incorporating Mnemonic Wall are absolutely ridiculous. However, Faerie Macabre is virtually unanswerable hate for the Mnemonic Wall version and other kill methods (Grapeshot) can also be combated with appropriate hate cards. We banned High Tide simply because it appeared to warp the format too far (you either ran hate cards or ran Suicide-Black or you lost).

2) Hymn decks are probably the best. UB control with Hymn + Mulldrifter may be the best deck.

3) Sinkhole probably isn't ban worthy. It's good, but it's mostly a sideboard card. Mono Black suicide would need better creatures to make Sinkhole a real problem.

3) Combo isn't all that scary without High Tide + Frantic Search legal. Hymn + hate keeps those decks in check from what we saw. Sinkhole also effectively punishes Cloudpost decks and anything trying to abuse Frantic Search.

If this format was actually official in paper I imagine that Cranial Plating and High Tide would be banned. Hymn would probably be the only other card possibly banned.

Yeah with Frantic Search gone there just isn't as much of a reason to run Tide though and we can safely assume the Online rules would carry over the bans for Frantic Search + Cranial Plating. The potential for a combo still exists, but without Frantic Search I just don't see it being more broken then other combos that are already out there and we can assume that Frantic Search banned online where High Tide doesn't even exist means it probably needs to be banned IRL where High Tide does exist. Mono-Black is really good even without Hymn+Sinkhole. With them you just build a slightly more midrange version then the ones that go around online and it stomps most decks. WotC probably did right by leaving Sinkhole and Hymn out of the equation. I might have my list for IRL pauper without Sinkhole and Hymn banned around somewhere, I'd have to dig it up, but it was pretty savage and had solid matchups across the board. One or the other or both probably would have to go. It's debatable whether it's less fun to get Sinkholed turns 2 and 3 or Hymned T2+T3. The only matchups that should concern you that I can think of would be maybe mono-white or mono-red since Mono-White has pro-black guys and mono-red can potentially burn you out if you don't draw into Tendrils or get overrun since you are also hitting yourself for damage on the way up the curve.