This is a fantastic summation of the format, in my honest opinion. Ancestral Vision, Bitterblossom, Jace, and Misstep would have given control a foothold. Zoo can still beat that lineup (it does it frequently in legacy, just sub in Force for MM) but it would still be a top deck. Combo decks can beat that lineup (they do it in legacy, again sub in Force for MM) but there would still be opportunities for control to win the matchup.Originally Posted by honestabe
I don't understand this 'turn 4 interactive format' bullshit that Wizards is forcing modern to be. Doesn't standard meet that criteria already...you know, the format that makes them the most money? I say let modern be what it could be: a super-fast format with a great card pool.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Of the four cards you mention, ancestral and jace do nothing before turn 4, which is a turn later than the combo decks were killing and/or setting up unbeatable board positions. Bitterblossom can make a faerie and allow you to play a spellstrutter for 2 or 3 if you have a mutavault. In exchange all you have to do is tap out on your second turn and risk dying on the spot. So mental misstep is really the only viable candidate for staving off the broken combo decks. It's something, bit I don't think it would be enough. Saying misstep would just do for modern what force of will does for legacy is ludicrous. Most of the combo decks could either shrug off a mental misstep or ignore it completely. I'm pretty sure the reason it was banned was to make wild nacatl decks more viable. However, if they successfully nerfed combo like they wanted after philly, I could have seen an argument for unbanning misstep and maybe bitterblossom instead of banning nacatl and punishing fire.
Was I being arrogant? Yes. Was it justified? Certainly. I am an expert on this format. I am an excellent theorist. I could be passive about it and just go, "oh, guys, but, yeah, umm, I don't really think, and I mean, I could be wrong, but I don't think that's right." Or I could say look, I've got the credentials. I've been with this format since the Community Cup. I have the history of deconstructing new formats and solving them. I did predict how Philly was going to fall out. And Wizards doesn't. They haven't been testing Modern. They don't have a history of figuring out Eternal formats (we're still not playing with Great Sable Stag). They couldn't have been more clueless about Philly. So yes, I am going to say that I know better than they do.
Prior to Misstep, the best flavor for Natural Order decks was Bant. After Misstep, it was RUG. That switch was not just a random fluctuation. Prior to Misstep, Natural Order was bad vs. Fish. With Force, Daze and Pierce, NO was unlikely to ever resolve. You needed to have a real aggro plan, especially since you're running Islands and giving them free unblockability. You can't rely on Green Sun's Zenith into a billion Tarmogoyfs because GSZ is just as vulnerable to Pierce. Does it completely break the matchup? Of course not. They're only going to see their Pierce in maybe 45-50% of the games. But can it swing the matchup 8-10%? Absolutely. If they see Pierce half the time and 1/5th of the time, it wins the game by countering a Natural Order or Green Sun's Zenith that would've otherwise won, that's a 10% shift in GWP right there. And that's not at all a stretch.
Once Fish stops running Pierce, say your matchup vs. them with RUG improves that 10%. Now you're at say 55% vs them. And you've got a natural edge in the "mirror" because you've got the burn to remove your opponents mana dorks whereas all they have is 4xStP. And Pridgemage is good, fine and great, but a random assortment of Bant creatures is not as good, on the whole, as consistently having 3-4 Tarmogoyfs every game. Especially when Grim Lavamancer gives you a bigger advantage in the 'goyf battle than a few exalted creatures on their side.
There are other factors as well, but in the interest of keeping this relatively short, we'll call that an example and move on. It's not like Misstep was any good vs. Fish to begin with. NO RUG isn't trying to keep Aether Vial off the board and Vial and Misstep were the only CMC1 spells the deck ran. Think about that for a minute. Misstep was usually dead against Fish for NO RUG (it's a little different for U/W Stoneblade where Vial was a big enough factor in the outcome that they *had* to counter it). It wasn't Misstep being good in RUG that put it over the top, it was that Misstep was bad vs. RUG and people who ran it lowered their percentage against RUG.
Punishing Fire was useless vs. Zoo. The relevant creatures had toughness' high enough that they weren't dying to a single Fire anyway. And if you're a control deck with 5 mana available and nothing better to do with it than answer a single 1 mana creature, you were winning anyway. Most of the time, at that point in the game you're still scrambling to find a Damnation or some other way to avoid dying [i]right fucking now[/]. Yes, Punishing Fire helps put games away, but it does so only in the very late game when you've already broke to parity on the board. And in the early game, where you most need the help vs. real aggro decks, it's a millstone around your neck because it's too much mana and not enough damage. With the high cost of reusing (or even getting initial value out of) Punishing Fire, it was really only effective vs. an empty board where you could kill the 1 creature they dropped in a turn.You're changing your story from "zoo is unplayable" to "people will think zoo is unplayable." But setting that aside, is that really what we know people will think? Isn't it a bit premature to say that? I mean yes, zoo lost wild nacatl but control decks also lost punishing fire. It might not be a wash but it's not completely one-sided either.
What Punishing Fire did for control decks like Shuhei's Gifts was it gave them some sort of incremental advantage that provided inevitability vs. midrange recursive strategies. Because those are the decks that you really don't want representing your top end inevitability.
It's not that Zoo is suddenly completely unplayable. But it was overrated to begin with. It posted a 51% overall GWP at Worlds in a loose field that naturally favors aggressive decks like Zoo. Take the Snapcaster versions out of that and you move to 56%, which makes it the low end of tier 1. It's not like, say Survival in Legacy, which was over 60% overall GWP over the course of numerous tournaments in a settled field. But like I said, perception is more important sometimes than actual performance. Punishing Fire didn't perform at Worlds either; it showed up in 25% of the 4-2 and better decks and was a stretch in some of those. But the perception was that Zoo was too dominating and the perception was that Punishing Fire was good.
If I were in charge of Modern, it would've started with Masques. But there's no point in rehashing that argument; that was talked to death when they first announced the format. I said, when we were still using the CC banned list, that the format was going to be equal parts Elves, Hypergenesis and 12Post. Note that it's not because I felt those were the strongest 3 but because everyone perceived Hypergenesis as the best combo deck. So rather than play something like Twin or Hive Mind or Ad Nauseam, they'd play Hyper. Hyper was kind of like Belcher in that it was pretty easy to disrupt (CotV for 0 was a problem for them and quite often a single Oblivion Ring would be enough to render them manageable) but also incredibly fast. Glimpse Elves was the 1 combo deck in the format that could race Hypergenesis (sometimes) but had a game outside of the combo (they could just aggro out). 12Post lost to Elves but beat Hypergenesis (because it ran more Eldrazi and got to swing first after Hypergenesis resolved). There was your classic Rock/Paper/Scissors. There were, of course, other decks. People tried playing Zoo and Bant Stoneblade and Living End and even Restore Balance. But Zoo was crushed by Hypergenesis and had issues with 12Post and Bant lost to 12Post and Elves. Living End and Restore Balance were kind of joke decks, even then. They were slower than other combo decks and did less. They were strictly sub-par. I would like to note that I was very impressed with All-In Red back then, since Blood Moon was fantastic vs. both Hypergenesis and 12Post."Just because you don't think that what's happening is ideal doesn't mean you should change it if the most likely possibility is that you'll make it worse..."
You still haven't really given a reason why it will be worse, or why it's the most likely possibility. Do you really think affinity will dominate the upcoming PTQ season? Do you think they should have started out the format without banning anything?
In any case, no, I wouldn't have gone into Philly without a banned list. But I can guarantee that Jace, Visions and Bitterblossoms would not have been on it. None of those cards were viable with the CC banned list. Banning cards that weren't good enough to play in the first place is just stupid, especially when those cards could, given the right bannings, impact the format in a positive way (by, you know, restoring control to a viable archetype). Jitte wouldn't have been on it either.
I doubt that you're going to see Affinity dominating come the very start of January. But I think it's going to put up results and it's going to snowball as people realize that there's not really an effective board strategy to deal with the deck. It's something that not every color combination can deal with and it's going to seriously hamper the development of the format. By the time the GP rolls around, I think you're looking at 12-16% metagame saturation and a 55% GWP vs. the field.
The ideal approach? The ideal approach would've been to do a little research and testing on the format. The ideal approach would've been to talk to the Modern community at MTGSalv and MTGModern about a banned list prior to creating one for Philly. They recognized, when they took over EDH, that they didn't know the format and weren't qualified to administer the banned list. They should've recognized it with Modern as well. Read Tom LaPille's article on the Philly banned list. It's a whole lot of "this was good in one iteration of Extended or Standard, so we decided not to chance it." They had no clue. They were flying by the seat of their pants. And it showed. They looked as incompetent at Philly as they have looked at any point in the history of the company, including Combo Winter.Basically I'm asking, if you think they've done such a terrible job with a brand new format, what would have been the ideal approach to take?
My .2 cents is that if they hadn't banned anything, PT Philly still would have been full of degenerate combo decks. Then they would have either had to suck it up and say "this is what the format will be like" and watch everyone walk away, reprint force of will, which is what prevents legacy from being like modern, or ban a bunch of cards. Except they probably would have missed something, and modern from worlds would have been like philly was. Then by the time PTQ season rolled around, they wouldn't have had a format in the best state it could be. By doing it before the PT, they gave themselves extra tournaments to achieve their stated goal: An interactive format with an average turn 4 goldfish kill/win at the earliest.
I think the banning of Nacatl is very consistantly following what wizards seems to be planning. Basically Modern is wanted to be a slower Legacy, at least it looks like that if you keep in mind what wizards is doing at the moment. Cripple Combo, take some aggro - slow it down overall. The format still is young and they are still on the way to shape it like its planned to look like. Give them another announcement, and watch the PT next year. I bet the format can still be interesting. Of course the biggest cuts in any format need to be made when its new - what did you expect. Modern wont stand out from that.
And please.... everytime anything gets banned, its the god damn army of trolls coming from under every rock screaming how dead something is now. Relax, test and think again.
Sorry to DP, but I wanted to answer this.
Imagine that you can create a deck that goes toe to toe with Zoo for the first 3 turns. The problem is, after that, you're left depleted. You need to continue to draw the right things to answer their threats. In order to do that, you either need to be incredibly lucky or you need some sort of card advantage engine. Whether it's Sensei's Divining Top to improve your long term card quality or just raw card advantage in the terms of a card like Fact or Fiction, you've got to have something to allow you to generate an advantage once you stalemate the board. That's where a card like Jace comes in. You can't shove it into an existing deck and go "hey, this beats Zoo now because it has Jace in it" but Jace can allow you to construct a deck that beats Zoo by giving you a way to recover in the mid-to-late game.
Now I'm not saying that I think Jace and Visions would suddenly make control good. I think they'd need to do a lot more than just unban those two. But that's how a card with no obvious impact on a matchup can actually have a pretty serious impact.
Thanks Spikey I get how a control is supposed to beat an aggressive deck, but that wasn't what was being addressed in my post.
Yes, you were speaking more about combo than aggro. But it's kind of the same principle. Again, I'm not disagreeing with you that Jace and AV wouldn't suddenly make combo bad at Philly or make control good. But there exists the potential for cards that don't directly deal with an issue to deal with the issue indirectly by opening another line of attack.
Sure, I mean it's hard to disagree with that in principle. As for your other post, you do raise a lot of good points about wizards not consulting with the modern/overextended community enough, if in fact they did not, before PT philly.
I think you are misunderstanding what I was saying about the analogy between misstep vs. tormod's crypt (which is as simple as one does something, while the other does nothing) but maybe not. I am not seeing how discussing the slight percentages of the merfolk vs. NO RUG matchup is an argument against banning misstep, since there is still the matter of all the other decks in the format to contend with, but ok.
Completely disagree that punishing fire was worthless vs. zoo. Yes, I understand you still need other removal and it doesn't do enough against their best draws, but that doesn't make it worthless. Killing their topdecked tarmogoyf/nacatl in the midgame is totally relevant.
Even if it was useless there, that doesn't change the argument that it severely constrains other aggro and aggro control strategies, just like wild nacatl did.
The discussion about hypergen/elves/12post is interesting but it makes pretty obvious the problems with modern they had to contend with. They made an effort to prevent the rock/paper/scissors meta from consisting of 3 combo decks, but they didn't succeed quite well enough. So they banned more cards afterwards.
Basically it sounds like you expected them to have it completely right from the start, which while it would be nice, doesn't seem totally realistic considering that the format was new. Taking as a given that they will be wrong about some things, doesn't it seem better for them to have painted with a broad brush (or hammer) and then subsequently remove things if necessary (like they've been doing with legacy), rather than underbanning?
Nah, I don't expect them to have it right the first time around. Cocky as I am, I wouldn't expect to get it right the first time around. Blazing Infect, for example, was completely off my radar. I mean, I'd heard whispers, but I hadn't seen a Blazing Shoal deck that I thought was anything more than semi-casual jank. Like Kavu Predator decks in Legacy. You might lose some games to nut draws, but overall just a weak concept. And I really didn't expect as much U/R storm as there was simply because Splinter Twin was more stable. But had they talked to the people that knew the format, they'd have gotten a lot closer to a "fair" format than they did. Anyone who'd played for a week or two could've told you that 12Post was a stifling deck. It represented a level of inevitability that was simply too strong.
I threw the Tormod's Crypt out there just because it's kind of the same thing. There *is* some logic to it, i.e. it does exactly what you say you want it to do, but it doesn't do what you need it to do. Merfolk insisted on running Misstep because they said they wanted a way to counter Swords to Plowshares. But it was a red herring. It didn't do what they needed it to do. I just used Folk as an example because it made up the largest percentage of the metagame, RUG and UW not withstanding. There were other decks using Misstep of course that shouldn't have been, and overall, Misstep did do small things to the percentage points for UW and RUG but the bigger effect was the detrimental effect it had on the other decks that ran it over Daze/Pierce/Snare.
Perhaps a better example would be Snapcaster Mage in Modern Zoo. It sounds good in theory; recasting burn spells gives you more reach while increasing your board presence. But in actuality, it was bad. Tribal Zoo was 12% better vs. the field than Tribal Zoo with Snapcaster because Snapcaster represents a move away from what actually makes Zoo good; the fact that it's so goddamn fast without giving up all its resiliency. Snapcaster increases resiliency, but at the cost of tempo. Running Snapcaster in Zoo is kind of like maining Krosan Grip. Yeah, sometimes it's tits, but it's not really what the deck wants to be drawing in most matches. Until Qasali Pridemage comes along, you just settle for losing G1 to artifacts and enchantments and throw 4 Grips in your board. That's what Mental Misstep was for most decks. It was Krosan Grip in Zoo. And people would talk about the problems it solved but not the problems it caused when you weren't getting value out of it.
If you've managed to clear the board against Zoo and run their hand size down to where you can effectively Fire lock them, great. But at that point, you've already got control of the game. All it does there is make sure that you don't lose a game that you already have won. It's no good if you're behind or even with Zoo. If they're uptempo of you (and they ought to be, it's Zoo), Punishing Fire is too slow to be of consequence. Take Shuhei Gifts for example. I don't play with it (I wasn't a huge fan of the style) but I've played enough games against it to know that Fire/Grove/Raven's/LftL is a Gifts package you only grab in the late game. Early game, you're too busy trying to do things that are relevant.
The things that weren't relevant because of Punishing Fire (say Bob or Meddling Mage) are still not relevant because of Shrapnel Blast, Galvanic Blast, Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix. This format really revolves around ass ends of 4+ because Lightning Bolt is so prevalent. I can't, off the top of my head, think of a creature I wouldn't play with Fire legal that I would play now that it's banned.
To be completely honest, Wizards has kind of hamstrung themselves with the sets they used to make this format. Modern set design does not lend itself well to large formats. Without a strong presence of counterspells or land destruction, big, inevitable effects become too strong. And you can ban all the accelerants and filter spells, but you'll be banning for a long time if you want to keep combo from overrunning the format. As much as people bitch about blue, blue is a necessary evil if you want a format that changes. If you want a format that doesn't settle into a single state, you need control to be viable, because that's where the changes come from. Decks adapt to beat the current iteration of control, control adapts to regain superiority. That's the balance. You can't do that with combo because beating combo is more often about bringing enough hate to bear, not changing the strategy of your deck. The hate for counterspells just isn't good enough, and that's what keeps Legacy healthy. As long as aggro control is the top dog, there's room to exploit its soft underbelly. When something like Dredge is top dog, either there's enough hate to deal with it or there's not. There is no other line of play that "trumps" Dredge, you either hate it out or lose to it.
For what it's worth, I emailed relevant parties at WOTC about a week and a half ago with my thoughts on the matter. I can only hope that some of my ideas were considered.
On a larger note, I don't think the idea that WOTC is crazy and out of control should be answered with statements that are crazy and out of control ("dead format!" "banning all the best cards!" "Zoo is dead!"). There's a serious cadre of players who compete for PTQs, no matter what the format is. That will guarantee a vigorous turnout for the season. You'll be up to your eyes in Modern coverage for three months. There's a GP in two months. I think Modern will catch on where Extended didn't in the casual scene because Modern doesn't have the two-turn reputation of Extended. Nobody wants a game of Magic to be their opponent dropping an Urborg, Chrome Mox, Hexmage and then Depthing and it being all over. Modern is a little slower, a little more interesting. I'm astounded that people react so negatively to a format where you get to see a lot of cards in your deck and make some pretty interesting play decisions. I'd hope that People Who Like To Play Magic look at this as another opportunity to play Magic.
I'm interested in Modern for both business and personal reasons. I run a website that sells subscriptions for trading advice and card tips. A robust Modern format means that we have a lot more to talk about and there are greater swings in prices. That aside, I still love Modern. I like having a little bit of room to develop a strategy and maybe play a deck that can lace together something more complicated or robust. I'd wager that a lot of players, for example, like triple Innistrad limited, where you can regularly flash back expensive spells, over triple Zendikar limited, where games lasted four turns.
Finally, I'll reiterate that with a PTQ season or SCG events, we simply don't have enough public information and exposure to Modern yet. Give it time.
Dude, Withered Wretch is absurd.I can't, off the top of my head, think of a creature I wouldn't play with Fire legal that I would play now that it's banned.
Funny you should mention that one. I was tinkering with an odd variant of the old Eternal Witness/Crystal Shard deck that also happened to run Bloodbond March and so I was using Wretch as a way to break the symmetry of March. And, let's face it, it's damn good against Martyr/Proc. But I abandoned it after a day. The deck durdled with the best of them, but never really seemed to *do* anything.
I agree. The format's not dead, not by a long stretch. Because it's a PTQ format, people will play it. But I don't really see it being any more popular than Extended. Even before Extended was run over by Thopter/Depths, it was unpopular. Has *been* unpopular ever since they started it rotating and axed the dual lands. My guess is, at the time they were looking to bring the costs down, since duals were starting to cost as much or more than chase Standard rares, but it tanked the popularity of the format which had never been all that high to begin with. And once they split Legacy off into its own format...
I doubt Wizards listened. The problem with WotC is that because so many people have Chicken Littled in the past and because the sky has yet to fall, they assume that every time there's negative feedback that it's just people blowing shit out of proportion again. But really, they are doing a terrible job.
The realpolitik of the situation is also that they didn't want 3mo of PTQs for their new format to be Wild Nacatls and Fire lockdowns/battles. I don't blame them for that. You've sometimes got to do what you think is in the best interest of the company...
Thank you for saying what I was trying to say...lol, read my signature and you'll understand where I'm coming from.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
People will always play Modern, if for no other reason than PTQs and GPs.
BUT
If WoTC ever wants the format to catch on in the way that Standard, Legacy, and Commander did and Vintage used to (SCGs, small local tournaments, and people playing just for fun), they're really going to have to unban the cards that people really enjoy playing with. One of the draws of Legacy and Vintage is that you get to play with the "fun" cards. This is what initially brought me to Modern around the time of the community cup. I loved the fact that there was a format where I could play cards that weren't good enough for Legacy, but still really good, such as Bitterblossom and Scapeshift. The bannings have killed just about all interest I have in the format. I'm testing for a local tournament that I think is going to be soft, and an easy way to win a set of Goyfs, but I'm not buying the deck, and I really doubt I ever will buy any Modern staples, or really embrace the format in any way if this is the attitude WoTC is going to have. I know I'm not alone, as the only people I see who are really in favor of bannings also have a "Now I can play my mono green treefolk deck" at the end of their post.
@ SpikyMikey
I pretty much agree 100% of what you've been saying. I'm really surprised they've continued such liberal bannings, considering how conservative Gavin was with Overextended, and how he even said he expected the Modern banned list to be half of what it was in a year's time after the FIRST bannings, nevermind the 2 banning sprees they went on after that. Really makes me think if he has any say in what's going on, or if WoTC simply knows something we don't.
TIME POLICE
You sir summed up exactly how I feel about modern, almost 100%. I play legacy for the same reason, and I wanted modern to be what you described. I've gone back to investing in legacy (safe bet, I think) and just ripping up the kitchen table.
I also think you're on to something with your last line...WotC most likely does know something we don't, and that reasoning may be reprints (Goyf possibly) or newer, better creatures that require some actual synergy to work (unlike Nacatl that only needs the ever-present fetchlands/duals to make it good.)
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
I agree they've went overboard with the bannings, but I'm guessing come 20th March they'll start to unban things.
I think they didn't unban anything this time because they were still banning stuff and they'd rather not introduce bans and unbannings simultaneously into the format. I bet we'll start seeing stuff getting unbanned just like we did in Legacy. A lot of stuff initially banned in Legacy was eventually unbanned. I have faith Modern will follow the same path.
\"Is it just me or are magic players a very very special breed. Who else would try and determine the viability of a fold by what kind of ink was used? Or maybe its the people squinting at tiny illegible print or the people reviewing pages upon pages of this. We should all be detectives or something, because we are an amazing bunch here.\" - Beefybot at mtgnews.com
I am not a Zoo player and never played Nacatl in my whole life (really hate the fast aggro archetypes, it is just not my playstyle), however I did not liked the ban. Nacatl was responsable for a big part of the metagame, and preparation for tournaments was kinda easy when it comes to deckbuilding haha (Sadly, most of the players do not think like this, what justifies wizards). For me, it was just a matter of time until the meta changed for a Zoo-less one. And if it stayed like this, I would not mind.
The Punishing Fire ban was understandable. Now there will be more creature-based strategies avaiable, and if the ban turns deckbuilding less linear, then it is a good ban.
... or you shoot your own grim lavamancer ... it's not like they even tried to let modern dredge get rolling; they must know something about these last 2 sets of the block.
On a related but non-Modern related note:
I thought WotC likes to ban engines/enablers rather than specific cards? In the case of Vengevine/Survival, they chose to ban Survival despite the fact that the enabler is argubly Vengevine that broke the Survival.archetype that has been stable for years.
I just feel that if they are so willing to ban cards that are responsible for format stagnation and imbalance, they could apply the same principle to banning Vengevine and unbanning Survival. I want to play with my jank and fun Survival deck!
/rant
Decks that I care about:
Steel Stompy
UWx Landstill
Dreadstalker
DDFT (10% practice)
Mangara on MWS? You must be masochistic. -kiblast
I wish they had banned vengevine and not survival. That was a case where the explanation from wizards was complete BS (Lauer stating that there were survival decks doing well that didn't run the vengevine plan, which was just not true).
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