The State of Modern
Modern forum
Posted on April 16, 2015, 8:19 a.m. by FAMOUSWATERMELON
Last night, I had a conversation with some users here (CanadianShinobi, klone13 and Ryotenchi) about Modern and we agreed that it was doing pretty terribly. According to MTGtop8, U/R twin, RDW, Affinity and Junk take up a huge 47% of the meta right now, and control decks in general are plummeting at a measly 13% of the meta. So what do you guys think should be done (by WoTC, primarily)? What cards do you hope to see in upcoming spoilers? What decks do you think could potentially rise?
DISCUSSION!!
CanadianShinobi says... #2
vishnarg I don't think anyone here has demanded drastic change. This has been a fairly civil and well thought out discussion. And I have to agree with slovakattack to some degree that Modern is having an identity crisis so to speak. And as I've stated previously there's no simple solution to such a thing. I think removing the pro tour might help to some extent though.
April 17, 2015 9:32 a.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #3
CanadianShinobi Removing the Pro tour? So that no one knows what the best deck is? It won't take long for them to figure it out again...
April 17, 2015 10:16 a.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON, I agree.
CanadianShinobi, If you remove the Pro Tour, then what are you playing for competitive magic? Grands Prix can only go so far. The Pro Tour is the dream, the level to aspire to in magic, removing it because too many people were copying ideas is not the way to go. What if brewers want to bring their UNIQUE decks and win the pro tour? Proving to the world that they did it, they broke the system. Also, as FAMOUSWATERMELON said, people will find the best decks anyways. We all already know what the top tier decks are, removing the Pro Tour won't stop us from thinking of them.
April 17, 2015 10:20 a.m.
bijschjdbcd says... #5
To be the Grinch, Brews never win PTs for a reason.
April 17, 2015 10:25 a.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #6
kameenook are you aware that Wizard's wanted to removethe pro tour from Modern and only backed down due to public outcry?
One of the reasons the pro tour is so dangerous for Modern is because it exists as the basis for Wizards to make their judgements on bans. And that can have detrimental effects for the who Magic community. Pod is a recent example of this. I can't speak for everyone, especially since I don't do FNM (I play online) but I would say that FNM is strictly more social and casual environment.
April 17, 2015 1:22 p.m.
OK, you are talking rubbish. They weren't removing the pro tour from modern. They were having the next 4 (aka block) be standard. After that there would be some modern ones.
Modern right now is very hostile to decks that can't beat a 4/5 on the ground, blood moon or a large vomiting of creatures.
So unbanning is an option, but that in turn creates problems. For example, you unban Dark Depths and ban Vampire Hexmage, you can potentially swing for 20 on turn 4. You can beat the deck with land d, or removal such as Path to Exile, Repeal or Vapor Snag, but then the Junk decks might just change to play KoTR and Life from the Loam. Or you unban Sword of the Meek and suddenly the only deck you can play control wise is Thopterblade.
Right now, modern is getting stale. Birthing Pod was oppressive but it was an interesting deck to play or against and allowed decks like Scapeshift and Tron to prey on it. I think the next big shake up we will see will probably be new cards printed in Magic Origins. If they put some commander/planechase cards in, we could see new decks forming.
April 17, 2015 6:07 p.m.
Modern's really not that stale though, that's the thing. I'm playing far more decks online than I was when Pod was still around. The meta is still dominated by a handful of decks - but there are quantitatively more of them than there were previously. The format has been blown wide open in many ways because now my peculiar midrange brews aren't all unanimously word than Pod. Control's having a hard time and that is lamentable but it would still be erroneous to say that things are worse than they were.
April 17, 2015 6:15 p.m.
LeaPlath Keep Dark Depths banned, nobody is playing that card unless they are abusing it. While nobody is playing Vampire Hexmage, it inherently isn't a card to be abused, but instead a relevant sideboard card.
April 17, 2015 6:43 p.m.
@CanadianShinobi If you think any deck should have a 2 mana "catch all" you either aren't playing competitive or you don't have a firm grasp on how the game is designed for continued growth. Additionally, don't try to say Doom Blade is a catch all, it's not, Murder is. Wait, how much does Murder cost?
April 17, 2015 8:35 p.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #13
A catch-all would be too much, but control definitely needs more tools.
April 17, 2015 9:05 p.m.
FreddyFlash311 says... #14
Why are you using MTG Top 8 for stats? I like the site but using it as a reference for a metagame breakdown is horribly inaccurate. Junk has both vanilla and little kid junk combined, Tron has GR and Gifts, UWx Midrange has at least 4 different styles of decks, etc.
April 17, 2015 9:23 p.m.
@Khanye Dreadbore being sorcery speed probably won't catch much. :/ also, it's two different colors so it technically costs more than two mana.
April 17, 2015 9:34 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #16
Disfigure I have a fine grasp on the game, thank you. And while I would never consider myself to be a good player by any standard, I think I have enough knowledge to assess the weaknesses of the style of deck I frequently play. And furthermore, I was merely pointing out what control lacked to be viable in the current environment and pointing out that Counterspell would be a solid answer. I never suggested it should be printed though. Well, in my wildest it dreams possibly, but I was putting forth a rational argument. Perhaps next time you should read more carefully.
Also, where is this nonsense of Doomblade coming from? I don't recall mentioning Doomblade. Nor do I see how Doom Blade is remotely relevant to what you were saying.
April 17, 2015 9:43 p.m.
JexInfinite says... #17
I find that Lightning Bolt is a 'catch-almost-all' card. Back it up with counterspells and sick win cons and you have a deck.
The thing with Dig Through Time is that it made Scapeshift way better than twin, which was a bit of an issue. It could provide control decks with a lot more gas, and make UR Delver playable once again, which is probably worth nerfing twin.
April 18, 2015 12:25 a.m.
wwhitegoldd says... #18
people keep comparing modern to how it USE to be pre pod ban, in stead of comparing it to what it SHOULD be. If you look at the format there are bout 3 decks that you can actually win a gp with that doesn't involve CRAZY amounts of luck. twin, burn, jund/junk/midrange (I consider those three basically in the same category). there are other played decks but, grixis delver hasn't been doing to well and I think is week to junk and affinity and tron are just WAY to easy to hate on. affinity also just has it bad period because of revelry.
April 18, 2015 10:03 a.m.
wwhitegoldd says... #19
legacy on the other hand has at least 6-7 decks that could win a gp. anykind of delver, shardless sultai, miracles, elves, storm, stone blade, infect, burn (of the top of my head). the point is modern is NOT a healthy format nor is it diverse.
April 18, 2015 10:08 a.m.
bijschjdbcd says... #20
Affinity, Burn, Abzan, Little Kid Junk, Twin, Infect.
That statement is just wrong, Metagaming and an extensive knowledge of the format plays a much bigger role than people give it credit it for.
To give a semi recent example Gerard Fabiano and his Sultai deck. Won't go into specifics on card choices as this isnt the point of the thread but hos deck was built incredibly well for the expected metagame.
April 18, 2015 10:40 a.m.
FreddyFlash311 says... #21
I think bijschjdbcd really hit it right there, major props man.
The control deck requires the correct set of answers. When it has those answers it wins, as evidenced by the listed example (though Fabiamo is a very good player too, can't ignore that). When it doesn't have the right set of answers it loses, period. So if you think about it, wouldn't a meta that was control heavy be a sign that it's stale? All the same decks so you just have to bring all the same answers? Like RTR/Theros standard...
April 19, 2015 9:15 a.m.
FreddyFlash311 I think the Sultai deck also proved that for results you have to stray from the ordinary. I would have never considered running Tarmogoyf in my control deck, but it gave the deck an ability to resist the early game, or turn the tempo around.
We just have to start jam packing our control decks with threats, no longer is burn a wincon, we've got to go big or go home.
April 19, 2015 9:22 a.m.
This is when I start to get irritated with these conversations because people assert things that have absolutely no evidence base. bijschjdbcd really addressed this well. It's absolute RUBBISH to say there's no deck variety in modern. Go out and actually play the format or read the top 8s. Stop making shit up.
If you bother to go back and actually look at the last few events, even the winning deck is rotating. According to mtggoldfish I'm seeing - Delver, Affinity, Delver, Junk, Twin, Burn, Twin, etc. That's only looking at the winner. Compare the actual top 8s and you see TONS of decks being played to 4-0 finishes. Whats more look at the colour variety there - every single colour has been present at the number one spot. In fact between Junk and Grixis Delver, there's representation for all 5 alone - that's without looking at any others.
I understand that the lack of control is problematic. I understand that wizards should fix this. But we shouldn't let a molehill become a mountain. I mean jesus. To go from 'there's not enough to control' to 'there's only a handful of top decks in modern' is ludicrous. I'm not diminishing the actual argument of this thread. There ARE problems. But lets not blow them out of proportion.
April 19, 2015 9:37 a.m.
FreddyFlash311 says... #24
kameenook, Goyf's just a different wincon you know? Thragtusk is a wincon that helps stabalize via the ETB/LTB triggers. It's permanents versus direct damage, sure, but bolt snap bolt is still a thing that's hilarious to finish burn opponents off with. If UWR control isn't doing so good right now maybe it needs to develop and adapt.
April 19, 2015 9:51 a.m.
All of that
I hate a lot of choices in UWR control right now. Burn is bad, and it's made bad by abzan. Sorry. We need to move on. I have my eyes on esper.
April 19, 2015 9:54 a.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #26
ChiefBell good call, though Grixis doesn't need a burn suite to be a control deck. It can just swap the traditional bolts for more delicious removal or draw power.
April 19, 2015 10:37 a.m.
@Disfigure 2 cmc is 2 cmc, no matter what the color...no idea how you came to that reasoning...
April 19, 2015 11:59 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #28
People keep forgetting that WotC WANTS a creature based modern meta. They WANT green to be top and turn sideways decks to be prevalent. All WotC is doing is following their pet project. Their pet project is a specific envision of how they want modern to be, and that's creature oriented.
The aspect of economics is definitely an important issue when discussing the modern meta. RDW is popular purely because it is inexpensive. Those who have the money and go to tournaments don't want to go to a tournament with a deck that most likely will not give them a victory for the time and money spent to actually go to a tournament. You have the plane ticket the hotel prices the tournament entry price ... would you waste all that money and the time needed just to lose the entire tournament because your deck isn't actually good? No. It's illogical.
To top it off, most modern players aren't actually that skilled in modern. I say this, because a LARGE majority of modern's player base is post MMA, and they entered perhaps within about a 6 month time period from when it was released. In other words, most of them have only had about 1 year of experience. 1 year is definitely enough to learn the meta, but definitely not enough to learn modern as a format, meaning, learning how to brew. Topping this off again, modern experienced TWO heavy meta shifts within the course of this year. These new modern players have to re-learn the entire meta all over again. Whatever two decks they had, one before TCC and one post TCC are now irrelevant and all that income spent on them gone. TCC now leaves again and they have to spend ANOTHER investment amount at getting a new deck. Now not only are these modern players short on modern knowledge, they are now short on cash. They would do what any respectful player would do in their place: They would net-deck whatever they have the investment for. They will eventually gain the experience and the money necessary to brew, but this won't happen until another year or so. So everyone, stay a while and listen, because eventually the modern meta will become a lot more diverse.
Let's take on another aspect with the modern's new player base. It's widely known that MtG's number one consumer type is the casual. That's who they make their money off of. This is reflected in Standard in a simple thing: Newer players are attracted to newer sets, and when they decide to take it to "the next level", so to speak, they will head into the format where their cards hold most relevance. For a majority of these casual players, this is standard. Because that is the set that a majority of their cards will see play. Now this changed with Modern Masters, casual players were getting modern stock by just opening the most recent set. Topping this off with word of mouth and player to player trades, the casual player now has cards that see play in modern, and this where their attention turns to.
I basically describe this scenario for a reason as to why WotC wants modern to be a creature based format: Because it has a seen a surge in new players. New players like green decks. They like red decks. They like decks that basically turn sideways. It is no wonder then, that WotC's vision for modern takes this recent surge of players into account, since that is now a large population of modern. Well you ask, "but Femme! these players will gain experience and no longer have new player mentality!" Sure that's true. But may I remind you that MMA2.0 is coming out, and the same thing will happen? WotC is basically refueling the player base to support their envision. Pretty ingenious if you ask me.
Now for control. There are three main aspects that control players have to take into account in this meta. Your win conditions have to be A) Bolt evasive, B) Rhino evasive and C) Abrupt Decay evasive. This means that your win conditions need to be a 4+ cmc creature that gets through rhino while surviving a bolt. There are a large number of cards that do this. Wurmcoil Engine, Inferno Titan, Abyssal Persecutor, Stormbreath Dragon, Sigarda, Host of Herons ... basically, you need a new win condition that's a more effective beater than most decks out there. (Alternatively, you can use shroud/hexproof. I'm finding joy in running Neurok Commando). Finally, your control base needs to be things that hurt the decks of the meta, and that is a creature and damage based meta. In other words, run lots of non-conditional removal. Terminate and Path to Exile both come to mind. Mainboarding lifegain is also a really good idea, considering Twin's main plan once you've defeated twin is to just control, burn and turn sideways, and because burn is prevalent. I run Elixir of Immortality as a 4 of main, and so far, it works REALLY well.
But you know, that's just me and the successes I've had so far, and the things I've seen. Make no mistake, WotC is a business, and that in order to understand them, you must think like a business.
April 19, 2015 1:11 p.m.
Your paragraph about new win conditions doesn't make sense though because things like AEtherling, Keranos, God of Storms, and Celestial Colonnade ARE bolt-proof, decay-proof, and rhino-proof.....
You say wizards wants modern to be a creature orientated format. That's a large predicate of your argument. Prove it.
April 19, 2015 1:18 p.m.
IzzetFanatic says... #30
I think that Mono U tron might rise? Especially if Infect and Burn fall in popularity.
April 19, 2015 2:07 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #31
AEtherling costs 6 mana + a greater investment. Keranos, God of Storms rarely is ever a creature and therefore is a little too slow. Celestial Colonnade is incredibly pricey to run, basically it costs 6 mana a turn.
Unfortunately, google hates it when I try to search for WotC related news. Because most of this stuff is said through twitter posts or facebook blogs which don't stand the test of time. The best I can give you is the PAX East Panel saying that WotC were quite happy with where modern is right now and don't really care for the under-representation of U based control.
April 19, 2015 2:29 p.m.
Celestial colonnade has vigilance actually.
I mean last I remembered they printed some pretty powerful draw spells for control and tempo decks...... so powerful they were banned actually. Or am I forgetting something?
There's verbal evidence that they're not CONCERNED with modern. There's no evidence anywhere that they want modern to be a 'turn creatures sideways derp' format. Also with Grixis delver on the rise, that just isn't even true at the moment.
April 19, 2015 2:34 p.m.
IzzetFanatic, in modern RG tron will pretty much always be better than U tron. This has been discussed many times on this site, but most modern decks are aggro decks, and RG tron has a chance at stopping those decks because of it's speed, where U tron has very little chance to. Both Tron builds are really meta based decks, because if the top deck in the meta became a devoted combo deck, U tron would rise in popularity to stop it, and if an aggro/attrition midrange deck became the best deck in modern (such as Abzan currently), RG tron would rise in popularity as a way of crushing that deck in particular.
April 19, 2015 2:57 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #34
It still costs 6 mana because you can't tap with the thing before or during combat.
The East Pax Panel statement was placed before the Grixis Delver came to rise and post the bannings, when everyone else was really complaining about the state of Modern in full force. I know for certainty that they have stated that they wanted modern to be creature based (or even just the future of magic, I have seen twitter posts where they have stated that would rather have the various formats move towards creature orientation). I've also stated you can't really dig up Twitter or Facebook posts and WotC has serious communication problems when it comes to their envision of modern, their definition of archetypes, and their specific criteria for what constitutes as bannable.
Another point I want to bring forth, is that because of this lack of communication, the players have developed their own beliefs and ideals of what modern should be. So when WotC tries to figure out exactly what a solution to modern is, 20 different ideas get thrown at them at once from the public and they don't hear any of it. They just hear "MODERN PLAYERS ARE MAD" and go ahead to change modern to how they see fit through criterias and guidelines and visions that are never portrayed to the common modern player.
April 19, 2015 3:12 p.m.
...but you can tap it in their turn for instants, which is what control wants to do anyway.
Ok. Something about burden of proof.
April 19, 2015 3:17 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #36
Can't do anything Chief, because WotC's own business models and communication models prevent me from being able to reference anything. Trust me, I'm trying to find references, but it's not like WotC's hidden news material becomes the top picks in a google search.
April 19, 2015 3:34 p.m.
WovenNebula says... #38
@Femme_Fatale I'm on your side with WoTC wanting Modern to be creature based. I have read it somewhere multiple times before coming from a WoTC source. I believe they have chosen that model because it attracts new standard players to other formats and a lot of new players don't like to play versus control.
April 19, 2015 4:44 p.m.
bijschjdbcd says... #39
Colonnade and Keranos are bad.
Ill be leaving this thread now.
April 19, 2015 6:18 p.m.
@Khanye It's because mathematically it's harder to get two different colored mana than one, so technically two different colored mana costs more than two of the same color mana or a single colored and a colorless mana. That's why fetchlands are such a big deal because it helps to reduce the difficulty of getting the second color of mana.
April 19, 2015 8:47 p.m.
UrbanAnathema says... #41
I think the biggest example WotC wanting to have Magic in general be more creature based is in the power creep we have seen over the past 4-5 years. Creatures have been getting consistently better for quite some time. Half of the logic of the Birthing Pod banning was to remove it as a development obstacle for continued creature power creep in the future.
April 20, 2015 12:45 p.m.
That doesn't prove that Wizards wants modern to be a creature based format, its just an acknowledgement that in a meta of counterspells and killspells we require more value from our creatures. If anything thats an indictment of how powerful control options are in shaping what we consider to be bad or good. In no way does creature power creep mean Wizards wants us to only play creatures in the format, it just means that they want creature based decks to be as powerful as the decks that can easily remove creatures for 2 mana. It's about value discrepancy.
April 20, 2015 12:54 p.m.
UrbanAnathema says... #43
I don't think they want us to play "only" creatures in the format. I think the focus has shifted due to the fact that creatures force interaction, and WoTC likes interaction. They also like new players to be able to recognize the value of the cards, and this is easiest to do with creatures. Thats just good business, and this has been acknowledged by Mark Rosewater.
April 20, 2015 1:32 p.m.
Ok, but then the comment still stands; Wizards do not want a 'turn creatures sideways' derpy format. Either it is that or it isn't that. You can't want interaction and then only print creatures because creatures don't actually interact.
Creatures encourage interaction, but its the control players that do all the interaction. Creatures breed a necessity TO interact but they don't DO it on their own. It's the other guys that do the interacting. If you want to encourage interaction then you print creatures worth playing alongside control spells worth playing. This is what wizards are doing. They do not appear to be doing one more than the other.
There's no evidence of biasing.
April 20, 2015 1:43 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #45
I dunno Chief. I submit Siege Rhino as a counter argumment.
April 20, 2015 1:58 p.m.
Siege Rhino is not a counter argument when printed alongside Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Murderous Cut which were all fantastic pluses for control. Tasigur, the Golden Fang is also pretty nice for both sides. I'm sure there's more but I'm not a pure control player.
No creature on its own is a counter argument because we need things to actually counter and destroy - or else what are you controlling? haha. A counter argument would be examples of counter or killspells becoming strictly worse with creatures strictly better or a lack of new control spells with an abundance of new creatures. Saying 'look at this awesome creature' does not prove wizards hates control. It proves they like creatures.
It's a logical fallacy to infer that that evidence disproves the latter. There's a name for that fallacy but i forgot. Essentially you are proving that creatures are good, but not that they hate control and it is bad.
April 20, 2015 2:02 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #47
ChiefBell I was kidding. It was a joke. The internet is no place for a man like me it seems. You took my sarcasm seriously and thus you wound me. Deeply.
Also, Dig Through Time was glorious, too bad it was banned for stupid stupid reasons.
April 20, 2015 2:27 p.m.
lemmingllama says... #48
@ChiefBell You are looking for the fallacy of the False Dilemma if I remember correctly.
Also just to mention, control has loads of efficient one for one cards. The issue is that they don't have many two for ones and no real way to get enough card advantage to defeat an opponent with a lot of threats. That is why Twin is doing so well, it's a control deck that can close games out before they run out of cards. So it's not that Wizards desires a creature based format, it's that creatures demand a response, whether from other creatures or removal, and control decks don't have enough good responses to outlast their opponents.
April 20, 2015 2:29 p.m.
CanadianShinobi - sorry. Its hard to judge tone on the internet.
April 20, 2015 2:37 p.m.
UrbanAnathema says... #50
ChiefBell I wasn't putting forward an argument that Wizards wants Modern to become creature only "derpy" format. Only that Modern is affected by Wizards stated intent of increasing the power of creatures, and the development focus on creatures.
Modern doesn't have access to the best spells of Legacy, they ban the new spells like Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time because those spells offer more power than they ended up being comfortable with, yet all of the increased power level creatures like Siege RhinoBaneslayer Angel and the Titans enter and remain in the Modern card pool.
FreddyFlash311 says... #1
RE: Silumgar's Scorn -> CFB Article
Modern's still not in it's death throes. MTG Goldfish has quite a different take on the Modern format breakdown.
April 16, 2015 10:44 p.m.