All B/R update speculation.

[H]

I still want Mind Twist for legacy, but I think there will be no changes. Modern Horizons has really shaken up the format with W&6, Force of Negation, Urza, Yawgmoth, and lots of other cards. War of the Spark gave us Dreadhorde Arcanist and Narset, Parter of Veils. I predict no changes.

Indeed, given that the last few Challenges (and MCQ) have had somewhat "different seeming" top 8 compositions:

8/11: ANT x2, 4c Pile, 4c Aggro Loam, Depths, RUG Delver, Maverick Depths and Miracles
8/10 MCQ: Dragon Stompy x3, Humans, Depths, Reanimator, 4c Astrolabe Pile, UW StoneBlade
8/4: 4c Delver, RUG Delver, UR Delver, Mono-Red Painter, Bant "Maverick", Hogaak Depths, Death and Taxes, Grixis
7/28: UW StoneBlade, Sneak and Show, ANT, 4c Delver x2, Hogaak Depths, Jund Aggro Loam-less Loam, Jund

I could go on, but really, the format is pretty "open" despite the clear trends going on, on Depths being good, 4c Delver being popular, and people seemingly unclear on what to do to attack that, besides jamming Dragon Stompy. "No changes" seems like even more of a clear safe bet right now.

[LOLWut]

Has anyone noticed how non-blue Legacy is in very recent results? MTGTop8's most played cards stat includes tournaments of all sizes, and for the last two weeks, Brainstorm is no longer the most-played card, well below Wasteland (at 56%) and at only 40%. I've never seen it in 2nd place before, or with a number that low.

We've had five bigger tournaments of at least seven rounds in the last two weeks. Decks in blue have Brainstorm.

Top 8 for--
8/11 MTGO Challenge: Depths, 4C Control, Depths, Miracles, Aggro Loam, ANT, 4C Delver, Hogaak Depths
8/10 MTGO MCQ with 210 players: Stoneblade, Dragon Stompy, Dragon Stompy, B/R Reanimator, Dragon Stompy, Humans, 4C Control, Depths
8/4 MKM Frankfurt 2019 with 282 players: 4C Delver, U/R Delver, Dragon Stompy, 12 Post, Dragon Stompy, Eldrazi & Taxes, Grixis Control, Aggro Loam
8/4 MTGO Challenge with 117 players: 4C Delver, 4C Delver, Ruby Storm, Imperial Painter, Bant, Depths, Death & Taxes, Grixis Control
8/4 Bagual Anthologies @ Porto Alegre with 84 players: Stoneblade, Slivers, RUG Delver, Eldrazi, Dredge, Elves, U/R Delver, Miracles

That's 42.5% of the top 8s of big tournaments in the last two weeks that have Brainstorm. It must have been, what, 70-75% a few years ago? Probably just a two week blip being that low, or a function of the meta being in flux, but it's definitely dropped, and I've never seen two week spans like this, with it in 2nd place and below 45%.

[H]

That's 42.5% of the top 8s of big tournaments in the last two weeks that have Brainstorm. It must have been, what, 70-75% a few years ago? Probably just a two week blip being that low, or a function of the meta being in flux, but it's definitely dropped, and I've never seen two week spans like this, with it in 2nd place and below 45%.

Well, I think several of us "predicted" something like this could happen, specifically because of the London Mulligan. Cantrips do equal higher consistency over time, but with all decks being more consistent out of the Mull, that "advantage" toward Blue cantrips is likely mitigated to some extent. In iteration over X rounds, this likely means that Blue decks are now less "favored" over "non-Blue" decks than they were pre-London, although exactly how much less is likely unable to be known. However, the results seem to imply this could likely be the case.

In other words, it seem plausible that the "left-tail" of variance for non-Blue decks is now higher (i.e. less variant), meaning less games that Blue decks win just off sheer "my opponent mulls to oblivion/non-cantrip repairable hand" games. This means that some "powerful, high variance" strategies, which are often non-Blue, are more likely now to win over time, than they would obviously be without the London Mulligan.

[Rood]

Announcement coming up on 8/26, any predictions? The modern community is clamoring for a Hogaak ban, which I think is fairly inevitable, which could result in a Stoneforge unban (prisoner exchange program.) That's my prediction for modern.

I still want Mind Twist for legacy, but I think there will be no changes. Modern Horizons has really shaken up the format with W&6, Force of Negation, Urza, Yawgmoth, and lots of other cards. War of the Spark gave us Dreadhorde Arcanist and Narset, Parter of Veils. I predict no changes.

The only card i could realistically see them hit is GRiselbrand. Cards been on the chopping block for some time

[Jax-]

The only card i could realistically see them hit is GRiselbrand. Cards been on the chopping block for some time

Banning Griselbrand makes no sense for a lot of reasons.

[Jax-]

Well, I think several of us "predicted" something like this could happen, specifically because of the London Mulligan. Cantrips do equal higher consistency over time, but with all decks being more consistent out of the Mull, that "advantage" toward Blue cantrips is likely mitigated to some extent. In iteration over X rounds, this likely means that Blue decks are now less "favored" over "non-Blue" decks than they were pre-London, although exactly how much less is likely unable to be known. However, the results seem to imply this could likely be the case.

In other words, it seem plausible that the "left-tail" of variance for non-Blue decks is now higher (i.e. less variant), meaning less games that Blue decks win just off sheer "my opponent mulls to oblivion/non-cantrip repairable hand" games. This means that some "powerful, high variance" strategies, which are often non-Blue, are more likely now to win over time, than they would obviously be without the London Mulligan.

It's not the London Mulligan. They printed some cards that made some strategies obsolete reducing the range of the good fair blue decks and increasing the number of some non blue strategies.

Im talking about Wrenn and Six and Plague Engineer.
Miracles and UW Blade decline lead to an increase of Depths based decks that have a good matchup vs those new black based control decks.
Depths increased number leads to the rise of Moon Stompy decks (another non blue deck that isnt great in a UW based meta).

[H]

It's not the London Mulligan. They printed some cards that made some strategies obsolete reducing the range of the good fair blue decks and increasing the number of some non blue strategies.

Im talking about Wrenn and Six and Plague Engineer.
Miracles and UW Blade decline lead to an increase of Depths based decks that have a good matchup vs those new black based control decks.
Depths increased number leads to the rise of Moon Stompy decks (another non blue deck that isnt great in a UW based meta).

That is an interesting point, but both that and my point about the London Mulligan, could in fact be true as neither is mutually exclusive. Indeed, both likely "feed into" each other, since both Depths and Moon decks are "answers" to the rise in Black decks and corresponding decline in UW decks (and, likely I think a decline in D&T decks, which is usually somewhat "good" vs. Depths and Moon) and are also decks that likely benefit from the Mulligan rule "more so" (even if only slightly so) than most UXX decks.

Ergo, in the past, it might have been case that new cards would just have pushed around the proportions of individual decks within the Blue proportion of the metagame, due to non-Blue's inherent variance. Now with the London Mulligan though, non-Blue suffers comparatively less variance, and so is a more "viable" answer to the metagame forces (which you point out) at hand.

[Dice_Box]

I think with the new rule, an argument can be made that some stripe of Hex Depths might be the best deck in the format right now.

[Fox]

I think with the new rule, an argument can be made that some stripe of Hex Depths might be the best deck in the format right now.

Not to worry, I’m sure Wrenn/Vista/Astrolabe will find some way of working Karakas into their maindecks for Hogaak and Lage.

[Megadeus]

Banning Griselbrand makes no sense for a lot of reasons.

Would love to hear those reasons. Because I can't think of a single one

[NeckBird]

Would love to hear those reasons. Because I can't think of a single one

The only reason why is current metagame percentage and that could change with any new printing. Anybody that says Griselbrand enables Reanimator and Sneak & Show ignore the fact that those decks existed before Griselbrand was printed and other cards have been printed since that can compete with Griselbrand - those cards just don’t necessarily produce the dullest, least skill intensive games of Magic you can possibly play.

[porcupinetreeman]

IMO Ban these for healthier meta

Griselbrand
Dark Depths
Brainstorm

[Mr. Safety]

That is an interesting point, but both that and my point about the London Mulligan, could in fact be true as neither is mutually exclusive. Indeed, both likely "feed into" each other, since both Depths and Moon decks are "answers" to the rise in Black decks and corresponding decline in UW decks (and, likely I think a decline in D&T decks, which is usually somewhat "good" vs. Depths and Moon) and are also decks that likely benefit from the Mulligan rule "more so" (even if only slightly so) than most UXX decks.

Ergo, in the past, it might have been case that new cards would just have pushed around the proportions of individual decks within the Blue proportion of the metagame, due to non-Blue's inherent variance. Now with the London Mulligan though, non-Blue suffers comparatively less variance, and so is a more "viable" answer to the metagame forces (which you point out) at hand.

Great post, I just want to add one thing to it: there is a perceived gain in consistency for non-blue decks which makes people want to play non-blue decks again. Whether the consistency gain is relevant enough to affect the format mix (still too early to tell, in my opinion) doesn't really matter if everyone thinks the non-blue decks are more viable. All this aside, some people just don't like playing blue. Some are getting a small uptick in percentage points for their non-blue decks and it's giving them a major chubby.

[Fox]

Is Griselbrand even performing well? The printing of FoN should decrease win% coming out of BR Reanimator. SnT is still just doing SnT it’s usual tier 1 to 1.5 bouncing, but Vista would have been a minor free boost to win % (Wrenn/Plague Engineer pushing out DnT would definitely making longer tournament runs for SnT easier though).

What exactly are people ticked off with about Grisel - is it the BR Griselcannon, or is it SnT? If it’s BR Reanimator, you could just ban Chancellor (parasitizes first-player advantage) and let blue deck FoW it out of existence - at which point they have to revert to real Reanimator (UBx), which doesn’t seem like a problem deck. If it’s SnT’s Grisel, you’d probably want to ban Wrenn to get DnT back to holding SnT down. Sure SnT can run Omniscience to play around DnT, but removing Emrakul would be a better way to keep them [specifically] honest.

There’s quite a few moving pieces to get Grisel into play, and while pay 7:draw 7 is powerful, the route there is a bit janky. So what’s the issue: the turn 0-1 kills of BR or getting aped by anything SnT can ramp out?

[Dice_Box]

Meh. Just ban TNN and then do nothing for 24 months.

[KobeBryan]

ban W&6...this card is overpowered and degenerate.

[LOLWut]

IMO Ban these for healthier meta

Griselbrand
Dark Depths
Brainstorm

Meh. Just ban TNN and then do nothing for 24 months.

ban W&6...this card is overpowered and degenerate.

Giving voice to the silent majority: Nah.

[Megadeus]

I feel like the lack of results for Griselbrand are more people are bored playing it more than anything

[Jax-]

You can't ban Griselbrand because:

You kill one archetype and make another one way worse

No, Reanimator won't survive a Griselbrand ban. It would be playable like others tier 3 / fringe decks, but thats it. Reanimator is not a Toolbox Creature deck, it's an all in resource based combo that needs to win the game once its spells resolves, the way it does it is by drawing 14 cards with Griselbrand. Even silver bullets like Elesh Norn or Iona aren't good enough to win the game, even in the matchups where they are good.
Banning Griselbrand is not like banning DRS or Probe. Griselbrand is a combo piece in a A+B combo deck. You will kill the combo and you will make the whole archetype a lot worse.

There are zero datas supporting a Griselbrand ban

Reanimator won exactly zero decent sized tournaments, neither online where its over rapresented or in paper.
It barely top8.
Saying players are bored of playing it is obviously wrong, I found a lot of popular decks boring. A lot of people love to win, if it was the best deck it would be easily over played and it would place tons of results. Thats not the case.
You are trying to make one card banned , a card that no one play, in a deck that barely see plays and hardly make any results. Why even trying outside your personal biased opinion? Flat Earth stuff to me.

You make Fair Blue strategies even better

Reanimator has a really good game 1 against those decks. They must play something in their sideboard to fix the matchup. By killing Reanimator you are freeing up the sideboard slots of those decks, making them better.

You make other combo decks worse

There are currently 7 combo decks with over a 2% meta share on mtgtop8.

Depths, Reanimator, Show and Tell, Dredge, Elves , Storm and Infect.

While Reanimator is usually considered a combo deck killer, so it seems counter-intuitive saying that other combo decks will get worse, you need to keep in mind that if you ban Griselbrand, fair strategies will now have more slots to play their Plague Engineer, or even narrow silver bullets like Alpine Moon or Canonist, making the life of those decks even worse (that arent well positioned in the current meta already).
The few % points you get from not facing Reanimator anymore wouldnt make up for it.

The only deck that really gets better here is Dredge, losing a bad matchup, less graveyard hate around, fringe deck that is barely played, another non interactive deck that is unfun to play against, more resilient to Surgical Extraction and that can still turn 1 kill you pretty often, especially now with the London Mulligan.

You make aggro strategies a lot better but they are housed by cards like Plague Engineer, Wrenn and Six and Terminus

Yeah thats the whole point of the banning. I doubt that you want to ban Griselbrand to make fair blue strategies better, you are banning it to make non blue fair strategies better and have an easier life, sadly the number 1 enemy of those decks isnt Griselbrand, but cards largely played in FAIR BLUE decks, like Plague Engineer that completely wrecks tribals, or Terminus, or Wrenn and Six that makes Death and Taxes and decks with X/1 creatures a lot worse. Those are the oppressive cards.

Graveyard strategies are the most easily hateble

Graveyard hate is by far the most efficient kind of hate. We have zero cmc colorless cards that can be played in any deck. Almost all the cards , from surgical Extraction to Leyline of the void can be played regardless of your deck composition and they are turn 0 interactions.

You are messing with the Aggro/Combo/Control equilibrium

By banning combo pieces/engines you are messing with some stuff that would probably lead to a worse and narrow metagame.
New efficient combo engines rarely gets printed, while fair strategies gets new toys every expansion. If you make combo worse a lot of good players will just switch to some fair blue deck until something new will get printed, probably never.

[Dice_Box]

Giving voice to the silent majority: Nah.

It they are all silent, how do you know?