Modern Tiered List (Now) Bi-Weekly Update for 7/17/17

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EverythingIsK

17 July 2017

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Heeeello everyone, it's Zac, also known as EverythingIsK, and it’s time for this week’s (final) weekly update, as we’re transitioning to a bi-weekly update schedule. Lots to cover as to what will happen for the future of the tiered list and the content I produce for you all. First off...

Once upon a time, MTGGoldFish generated some Match-Up win percentage charts for each deck, and Wizards of the Coast (hereafter referred to as WotC) decided that wasn't really good for the health of constructed formats, as they felt that Standard was very quickly solved when this data was publicly available. Because of that, MTGGoldfish was asked to cease and desist, as SaffronOlive describes here. Since then, MTGO results have trickled in as ten presumably random 5-0s from MTGO competitive leagues every day. I assume that even this limited influx of data is leading to Standard being solved for WotC, so they have decided to limit it even further. This is a somewhat-reasonable excuse for Standard, but in eternal formats, this makes little to no sense because the format is much more self-regulating with its own checks and balances. As of last week at time of this writing, it was put into effect that we only get five 5-0s per day, and they each must have least 10 unique cards between them. What does this mean? Not only does it cut the results we got weekly from MTGO in half, but it is now a selective set of data now, which would mean the data is even less representative of the modern metagame. In the past, 70 weekly results from 5-0s used to somewhat resemble what the modern metagame looked like in both paper and online. No more.

The saying we go by is “data is data.” We will still use online results, but what this will cause our updates to run bi-weekly to better show change. One thing that was so useful about the 70 results per week was that in weeks that didn’t have any larger events happening, they still managed to move the meta around slightly. This week, only 40 results were added to the spreadsheet. There was hardly any movement, and we knew this had to call for a change in how we operate. Now we’re up to date, onward to...

As already mentioned, 40 results were added, but 190 results have been removed, including 120 non-online events, many of which were two and three star events. Decks that had majority of their results in larger events that had their data rotated will fall astronomically. This was seen a few weeks ago with GWx Company decks. And to no surprise to me, with all of its larger event results rotating, the deck plummeted for a second time to the abyss of tier three.

There was a pretty notable format shake-up involving UBx Shadow and Affinity. As you can see, they are now tied for the number 1 spot in the format. This hasn't been the case since the last update in May when Affinity was the number 1 seed. Affinity having a lot of success in recent weeks and still putting up results through the adapting meta proved that it’s just as, if not more threatening than UBx Shadow.

We also have lots of good tidings for blue mages: UW Control, Jeskai Draw-Go, and Merfolk all rose in metagame share this week. The only exception was non-draw-go Jeskai Control decks, which had a good portion of their results in larger events.

For a few firsts, a new deck that came out of Amonkhet got its first modern listing in UW Monument, a white-weenie based deck built around going wide with Oketra's Monument. I'll go further into that deck in the next section. As for the Jund mages, at long last, after 10 weeks, you pulled out of the depths of Tier 3 and found Tier 2.

Here's the data for this week. If you're interested in looking more into any of the decks on the spreadsheet, check them out on MTGGoldfish.

As mentioned above, UW Monument made its first listing in modern, even through the new barrier WotC now has in place. I guess it's not too hard to have 10 different cards from other decks when you’re playing such a fresh deck like this one. Here's the 5-0 list put up by GiantKiller4.

Overall, I think the deck has definite legs to find further success in the modern environment. Dusk / Dawn is straight gas for a deck that doesn't run any creatures it wants to cast with more than 2 power, then being able to reload on the aftermath (because naturally, modern has a thing about killing creatures a lot). Spell Queller and Reflector Mage found their way into another deck where they are again one of the best cards in the deck because of how much of a tempo swing they give.

As much as I like this deck, I think the namesake card Oketra's Monument could bring even more to the table. A deck that has always been an earshot away from everyone, Soul Sisters, has finally gotten a card that gives the deck some juice. Here's my go at putting together a list that really brings this new interaction to light.

And that's all folks. While updating weekly would be ideal, I don’t see WotC changing this new policy back to the old one just for eternal formats, which mean that we’ll have to go to bi-weekly updates in order to visualize any real movements in the metagame. But with two weeks to prepare updates for the community, I feel as though I can provide much more than a spreadsheet and a wall of text. I have brainstormed about a few ideas that could be of interest, such as more deck features (for weekly enjoyment), video updates (to go with the bi-weekly updates), or even just opinion pieces about various topics to our lovely game. Please be sure to comment either here, or on Reddit as to what you want to see in the future. For those who just want to click a button, I made a straw poll link just to gauge interest. So until next time, here's to a brighter metagame analysis future.

Straw Poll Link