Modern Format Primer
Modern forum
Posted on Nov. 30, 2014, 12:38 p.m. by ChiefBell
Hello everyone,
I hope you're having a good Sunday.
Me, and a team of multiple others have recently reached stage where we felt comfortable unveiling our primer about the modern format. You can find it here.
It is still a work in progress; we have somewhere around 5 decks left and the formatting is a bit dodgy. However, at this stage it would be super useful if you guys could give it a read through and just leave a message if there's anything you don't like, any typos, or other issues.
Also just appreciate the fact that we wrote small descriptions for like 25 decks. K cool.
TurboFagoot says... #3
Only bone I have to pick is that you guys are pretty liberal with putting things at Tier 1, 1.5 and 2.
Things like Living End and 8-Rack are pretty terrible decks. Calling them Tier 2 overstates both their quality, and their popularity in the metagame.
November 30, 2014 3:46 p.m.
lemmingllama says... #5
Well, anything that isn't Tier 2 or above is normally just jank, I'd leave them at Tier 2 since they do see a decent amount of play, and with the right draws they can beat higher tiered decks.
Also the primer is pretty great. Thanks to everyone who helped make it
November 30, 2014 5:06 p.m.
I noticed you didn't have a primer for U/R Pyromancer Ascension Storm in your discussion. I'm guessing you excluded it because it's a bit of a fringe deck now, but I wrote a primer for it a while back and if you want to add it I wouldn't mind letting you use it.
November 30, 2014 5:36 p.m.
storm combo is in there but not completely done. Could you email it to me? If I give you my email address on your wall, can you delete it after you've noted it down?
November 30, 2014 5:40 p.m.
ChiefBell - I'm not sure this is the format you want, but I made this earlier when there was talk about the primers being folders, so here is the primer. Unless you'd rather get it via email, I can do that a bit later.
November 30, 2014 5:58 p.m.
Hey, just a heads up, the sample decklist for boggles isn't up.
November 30, 2014 7:25 p.m.
Still being worked on. Fixed to be less confusing. To be honest the large primers and example lists may take some time to come.
November 30, 2014 7:30 p.m.
This is great! Thanks for the many hours you and your team have put it. Maybe I should start playing modern?
November 30, 2014 7:46 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #13
@TurboFagoot You are pretty spot-on with that observation. While writing this we figured that touching on too many decks was better than leaving things out, especially since this is the first effort of its magnitude on the site.
November 30, 2014 9:10 p.m.
TurboFagoot says... #14
There's nothing wrong with including them, but more specificity on what tiers mean would've been nice. "This deck is really good" "this deck is ok" "this deck is good depending on the meta" "this deck is pretty bad, but sometimes you might see it". Or whatever.
November 30, 2014 9:18 p.m.
JexInfinite says... #15
TurboFagoot There are many disputes on what a tier actually is. Some say how much success a deck has, others say how much the deck is played in professional Magic.
December 1, 2014 8 p.m.
Named_Tawyny says... #16
Loving it so far. One things I noticed though, you use 'Timeshifted' to refer to Damnation. Maybe it's just my playgroups, but I've generally heard the phrase 'planeshifted' for cards like Damnation and 'timeshifted' being reserved for cards like the Tarmogoyf
December 1, 2014 8:27 p.m.
Fair enough.
Regarding the tier thing. I think blurring t2 and below t2 is ok. They're all arbitrary categories anyway so it's not like it can ever be 'wrong'. Some people might just consider it a bit liberal in its rating of what's a decent deck. No big deal.
It's always always better to cover more stuff than less.
As we've seen from the feedback; we've covered around 25 decks and already people are asking for 3 more (balance, skred, bloom).
December 1, 2014 8:32 p.m.
TurboFagoot says... #18
There is actually something bad about not being specific enough. This is for people who don't know the format. They should know that certain decks aren't good enough to see a lot of play. Someone might build a deck, and over board for their bad Living End match up, and never really know that no one plays that deck because it's shit.
This is a corner case, I get that. But when you're making an article for people who know nothing of a format, why not be as specific as possible? I'm not advocating cutting those decks from your article, just more specificity that they aren't nearly as played/good as something else listed as Tier 2.
December 1, 2014 8:49 p.m.
lemmingllama says... #19
How about listing what each tier means? By explaining what tier means, then people will understand that the tier 2 decks aren't well positioned in the current meta.
Something like "Tier 1 decks are the most widely played, and since they make up a majority of the meta then they are also seen as more powerful than the lower tiered decks. Tier 1.5 see less play, but still see enough play to be considered competitive and see play in tournaments. Tier 2 decks see little play, but are still viable strategies and can have some success against higher tiered decks. However, due to their lack of play they are seen as being weaker than tier 1 and tier 1.5 decks." Then just add a statement "Decks change tiers as the meta shifts and new cards enter the card pool. When new cards enter that make a deck more viable, such as with Treasure Cruise strengthening the Izzet Delver deck, it can increase or decrease the rank of a deck. This doesn't mean that the deck is less powerful, it simply means that it is seeing less play and as such is less capable of handling the current Modern meta."
December 1, 2014 9:03 p.m.
Living end's actually a really decent, reliable deck with options against graveyard hate and counterspells, but if we look at something like ad nauseam thay just completely folds to hate; then I agree 100%.
A description of both uses of the word tier would help: competitiveness and popularity. Including below t2 may be warranted.
December 1, 2014 9:31 p.m.
TurboFagoot says... #21
Living End is really not a good deck. I used to play it frequently, I know there are options against the hate. But that is a combo deck that really needs "critical mass". The ability to sideboard effectively and not dilute your deck is one the deck doesn't have. There are just better things to be doing.
But that's a different discussion.
JakeHarlow says... #2
Nice! I'll be happy to peruse your hard labors.
November 30, 2014 12:54 p.m.