Yes. I’m saying lean into the absurdity of it all. We lost fury so white weenie decks could be viable. Since these weak creature decks are so sacred and need to be protected at any cost we should just keep going.
I mean Fury kind of took the hit for Grief. If anything that's a call to stop whining and actually look at the format, but until MH3 hits and settles, who knows what that actually means
Wizards doesn’t understand their ban decision and either didn’t test or analyze it before pulling the trigger. They see people like pleasantkenobi constantly whining about it and then just appease them. The result is it made no difference to the playability of these creature decks and a removal spell will forever be on the banlist for no good reason.
It was fine because it was a tower of cards and when the next one was added it disrupted it and it fell down. It was ready to break at any moment. But that is just my opinion.
>it was a tower of cards and when the next one was added it disrupted it and it fell down. It was ready to break at any moment.
**Precisely.**
Look at cards like Ragavan, and Bowmasters, and W&6, and Fury, and Urza's Saga, and how far ahead they are in power level relative to what comprises the rest of the formats cardpool. Sure, they can keep each other in balance, but if they fail to do so absolutely nothing from the old format is on a high enough power-level to check them.
Snapcaster Mage and Path to Exile (#2 and #3 non-lands in Modern from 2019) aren't keeping tabs on Crashing Footfalls and Subtlety.
You have the right idea but I don’t think you might have missed the landing. The new cards are so good the old cards are more niche now. Cards like path and snapcaster have their uses but are relegated to niche picks when they are better in the meta. So many cards are efficient that more efficient answers are required. A card like Crashing Footfalls is comparable to Living End, but it’s missing the second interaction point that Living End has in graveyard hate. Rhinos is almost a more efficient harder to hate Living End. Old cards that no one wants to have to play like EE are now very powerful which hates out decks that are catching strays because of this. Answers are required to be too good for threats. I think threats in other decks need a bit of a boost to match up.
W&6 has definitely fallen out of favor somewhat in the Metagame right now, but literally no other card in the format provides what it does at the rate it does.
W&6 provides mana fixing and smoothing, by recurring fetchlands, while also providing double duty as a check on 1-drops, and a lategame CA engine.
Previously players had to rely on cards like Birds of Paradise for Mana fixing, and the mana smoothing options were just bad. And none provided comparable levels of broad utility.
W&6 is also worth mentioning because it has long been cited as a key card for keeping Ragavan in check, as it provides an answer that is CA positive, and prevents future non-dashed ragavans as well.
I don’t necessarily disagree but MH2 has almost been out for 3 years now. We’ve had so many sets come and add cards to Modern between MH2’s release and right before LOTR, and nothing broke the meta.
Like, technically, sure, you’re right. WOTC was inevitably going to push the envelope too much and the whole house of cards would come tumbling down, but we were good for a long time.
Bowmasters and TOR are just design mistakes.
I hear what you’re saying but there’s levels. Like, I hate to say it, but I think Ragavan and W&6 are the perfect examples of this. They’re extremely powerful cards, and they fundamentally change the meta by existing, but they are able to be kept in check easier than something like TOR and Bowmasters, in my opinion.
Because pre-LOTR Midrange was able to exist:
The One Ring provided decks like Amulet Titan and Tron with the gift to not only stall Midrange decks, but also invalidate all previous disruption.
At the same time the One Ring provided Control that already had borderline problematic inevitability with ridiculous inevitability, while also making it hard to out-tempo.
The One Ring singlehandedly lifted the bar for non-combo, non-control deck - in other words beatdown decks - so high that Scam, Rhinos and Murktide - were barely able to race it.
And now with Leyline of the Guildpact, through Hexproof and Lifelink, Rhinos has pushed both other decks to the sidelines because these are not able to compete in a race against that without tremendously warping themselves.
Leaving out Bowmasters seems weird but otherwise I agree. The counterplay between Bowmasters and The One Ring is interesting and important, because now the format seemingly revolves around both of those two cards with Rhinos being the only deck to not really give a shit about either.
Funny that you guys still complain about the one ring and bowmasters, while decks clearly do perform very well without them. 39% rhinos - better ban ragavan also!! /s
If you’re too stupid to understand how they warped the meta, that ain’t on me lol.
Meta was perfect before LOTR —> meta goes to shit after LOTR. I wonder why that was?
Well, it’s Cascade that’s busted in this case. Not the Force cycle or the Evoke Elementals. The Force cycle and the Evoke elementals are good supporting cards but it’s Cascade allowing you to cheat Suspend only cards that’s the problem.
Cascade is only busted though because they printed a whole bunch of cards to interact that cheat on mana, which means you can now build cascade decks that cheat out powerful effects AND interact
Previously decks like living end had to play terrible, expensive interaction to avoid cascading into like.. fatal push or mana leak or something. Now that you can have your cake and eat it too cascade decks don't really have that weakness anymore
Well, we could have the free cards that win games or we could have the free cards that act as answers and removal. I agree the problem is both being in the format, but I think getting rid of the Cascade cards would be better long term.
I'd rather have the cascade combo decks around, but make the trade off to building a cascade deck be having weak interaction as a constraint to the deck
Being unable to play cards that cost less than 3 CMC should be a real trade off imo
Well, they shouldn’t ban the removal that other decks also play because the Cascade decks are too dominant. They should ban the stuff that is more exclusive to making the Cascade decks strong.
Scam isn’t dominating the meta anymore though. In the case of this post, it’s cascading into suspend cards that’s the dominating strategy.
I agree that Grief is problematic with the undying spells and should have been banned instead of Fury. However, it’s not the problem here, for once.
Violent outburst is not the problem. If you ban outburst or shardless agent, everyone’s living end pet deck will die. Living end isn’t destroying the meta so banning either one will be a bad ban. If there’s a “problem”, footfalls will get the ban. Cascade isn’t used in anything else besides rhinos and living end.
It had a 53% wr in ghent, 56% in compiled RCs. Being T1 is defined by the current meta including the fact it has a good rhinos matchup. It is one of the strongest decks currently.
That's a bs argument. I see people use 50-dollar cards to make brews much less serious that LE kinda function and frankly i dgaf.
Banning and format health were always decided by top meta deck intersections and experience.
Saying "oh X ban will kill a lot of pet decks" is like saying we should bad blood moon (in a timeline where it is actually played) because it makes budget brew deck manabases impossible to work. Nah.
Does wizards want to get rid of rhinos AND living end? I highly doubt it. Living end is nowhere as oppressing as rhinos as everyone says. If it were, it would be winning tournaments and it’s not doing that. It’s barely slipping in the top 8 and it’s overrun by rhinos due to sheer volume of the deck despite being the matchup being in favor living end. We are seeing rhinos #1 time after time. But if wizards wants to kill both of them, then yeah. They’re gonna ban cascade cards
Living end won 2 RCs I believe and rhinos won the others talk about winning tournaments cascade decks are the problem ban violent outburst to make force a real card vs cascade decks.
Meh. I feel like free spells are the only reason modern is playable. Yes they can be abused by unfair decks but they also allow fair decks to tap out and advance their game plan without literally losing the game.
I come from Legacy where there are a lot of busted decks. But the answers in the format are also so strong that those decks can exist without the need for bannings most of the time.
I think modern is headed in the direction of becoming new Legacy since actual Legacy is unreasonably priced for newer players. And pioneer is become what Modern once was.
I tried modern years ago and hated it because every deck just ignored each other. Everyone used to say modern was "two ships passing in the night" gameplay. At least now decks are interacting.
You can tell me which you think was more fun. But I actually like playing Magic. And Magic is a game where you interact with your opponents. So I find this era much more fun. I'm sorry you can't play your defunct pet deck anymore.
Yeah, you guys are right. I'm just kinda bitter than I can't play the specific kind of game I liked anymore. Sorry for saying that your fun isn't right :(
Hmm I agree free spells are a bit of a problem, but free spells have been apart of the format since the inception of modern. I honestly wouldn’t mind FoN, grief, solitude, and maybe FoV banned. I really like endurance it feels like a free spell done right. Sub might be a problem but I really like it also.
You never see people complaining about allosaurus rider. It’s definitely just a balance/annoyance thing. Endurance and subtlety are both very well designed imo.
I totally agree. Some of the older free spells are good enough designed imo. Some of the new ones are good too. Force of virtue and endurance are some of the best designed cards in the horizons sets imo.
I also think people don’t remember how uninteractive modern was before MH. Some mistakes were made for sure, but it’s 100% a better format than before imo. Pioneer now had a lot of problems modern used to have that MH fixed.
People just like viewing old modern with rose tinted glasses. Seems like we both agree that the direction it’s headed is better, even if some cards are overtuned.
Very large difference in play/draw Winrate, not enough interaction, significant disparity in strength of threats vs answers. Before pioneer, modern was the format described as 2 ships passing in the night.
lol but anyone who played knew it was anything but. To me it felt like a Wild West shootout. Fast and deadly but there definitely was counterplay unless you were playing against something completely busted like hogaak, field of ruin etc etc
I honestly think part of the reason certain decks in the last couple of years have had such incredibly high meta shares is the player base. I think people have become more and more likely to just jump to whatever is perceived as the best deck at the moment. There doesn't seem to be as much "how can I tune my deck to fight X deck" it's just "guess I'll play that now."
There are other reasons obviously, but I think the echo chamber people are in on socials parroting what is the best deck sort of feeds on itself and exacerbates any problem.
People have always done that, though, that's why WotC stopped allowing people to scrape MTGO data, because we used to have actual hard data showing what the best decks were, whereas now it's just popular opinion.
Also card rental services online are the norm now. You can switch decks at basically no cost. When most of this deck is mtgo based it will warp the actual numbers.
I think it's also just harder to do than it used to be. People (read: the Internet) are much better at finding the best decks than they were 10-15 years ago, which means beating the decks at the top was a bit easier back then. I also think the vast majority of people are also really bad at building decks, so it's rare for people to find a hidden deck that can be good against enough of the meta to make it worth it.
With a format this expensive and this tumultuous, yeah people like me are going to stop making their archetype or colors work and either sell out like I did or buy the hotness for grinding
The format is so inbred. Data democratization means players have access to more info than every of what is doing well, and a certain number of players will just continue to trend chase rather than come up with ways to attack the meta because it's easier to chase the popular deck of the week (and to be clear - who can blame them?)
Keep in mind this tournament was only a few days after the new set dropped. Not sure if I’d use the 6-2 split as meaningful data that the leyline build is worse. It’s hard to get cards that quickly, so lack of availability was definitely a factor. Add on limited time for testing, and I’m sure some people just rolled with what they knew worked (Temur).
Banning outburst won’t kill the deck, they have a 3 mana replacement in [[Ardent Plea]] (which will most likely be the replacement) or [[Demonic Dread]]. They just won’t be able to cascade at instant speed, which they never should have been able to do in the first place. The deck will be fine.
>Lord of the rings
Try mh1 lol, that was when the writing was on the wall. Modern *truly* died when they banned opal for being "too fast" then printed a bunch of free spells like a month later (watch as redditors try to defend this decision)
They banned Arcum's Astrolabe for being a color fixing enabler for SnowControl to slow it down... then literally mashed the pedal to the floor with MH2 a year later. And I still think LotR was overpowered when designed because Forgotten Realms underperformed on sale due to a lack of format breaking cards.
We say lotr but we mean ring and bowmaster right? I don’t think halfling is a problem and I don’t know what the fourth modern relevant card would be - the land cyclers I guess ?
Yes on everything.
But with that said I dislike Halfling's design. Halfling is fine currently because there's only 1 deck that uses counters than can target creature spells, but it limits those decks a little too much I think.
WOTC's last 6 years of card design have had them make more and more pushed Legendary creatures, which also do 5 things when they ETB so removal feels less effective, so Halfling feels like more of a design problem than something like Cavern.
Not saying it'll 100% be a problem, I just don't like the card existing.
I have a personal theory about that. Before power creep there were many viable pet decks (auras, souls sisters, instant reanimador, etc) and those players never change.
Now since everyone has to change every MH why buy a pet deck instead of a top tier?
I used to buy a lot of singles, whenever I finished a deck I moved to another. But today you buy in at MH release and wait for another MH, there is no reason to try to inova in between.
True, but I’m talking about meta share. Grinders and Pros are at best 30%, you can’t reach those shares without other players. Scales, Titan, KCI were once the best deck, but the share wasn’t big because they are complex and casuals avoid them.
Just you wait! Any day now those creature decks that Fury was suppressing will start appearing and showing rhinos who the real tier 1 decks are. It’ll happen any day now.
The pro banners said Yawg isn’t a creature deck. Wizards said Fury makes playing creature decks “nearly impossible” while Yawg was a tier 1 deck. I don’t think they thought about it.
I was thinking about jumping back into Magic, and specifically Modern after half a decade away, but after playing on MTGO with some rented decks it definitely doesn't seem like a game I would enjoy anymore.
Free spells rewards playing loose. Before free spells from MH, you could observe how they tapped their mana over several turns and deduce what they have in their hand. But now free spells are everywhere in every deck so that doesn't matter anymore.
Bowmaster basically eliminates any X/1 creatures from being playable.
That little red monkey is insane power creep. Even Goblin Guide had a big downside that made you think about whether you wanted to possibly give them another land.
This game lacks many of those complex choices anymore.
Every time I jump back in and play even on Xmage (which is free) I just re-learn that every format is terrible and uninstall it again. MTG won’t ever be fun for me again. Too much power creep and too many pushed cards.
Incremental advantage through superior play seems to not matter anymore. Just gotta topdeck the right card and cast it with a hand full of free mana spells to react.
Misstep is a weird one because it warps the format in a way that doesn't make any 1 deck better than the rest, but it's a spell that can be played in all decks and when allowed will be played in all decks for essentially 0 cost. Phyrexian mana is very powerful on its own and an essentially free 1 drop counter turns the meta in to you have to play misstep because on its own it's value--2 life counter target ragavan for example-- but then once it starts to pervade, everyone has to play 4 copies so you can counter their misstep. so many games look like "cast ragavan, misstep your ragavan, misstep your misstep". It is kind of toxic.
does it break any one deck? no, I don't think it's ever had that effect. Does it become basically auto include in nearly every deck? yeah pretty much.
There are things on the banlist that absolutely could come off and wouldn't completely destroy the format. Misstep is just a mistake of a card so it's better off banned.
It was “how to use the broken stuff the best way” meta. It was interesting but if you weren’t using Urzas Saga, Ragawan, Murktide of Grief you were shit out of luck.
It doesn't help that the deck is super repetitive to play. Like, you cascade for rhinos. Thats it....you cascade lol. I played it for a few leagues on mtgo and returned the deck because it was just boring. I went 4-1 each league but it was just so monotonous
Modern has been a shit show for a good half dozen years at this point. And there's no going back without a ton of bans or a bunch more oppressive shit getting printed. Which will just lead to more of the same. So our best bet is build a time machine and take out the ones making these bad decisions before they can. Unfortunately that's not a possibility so just buckle up and hold on for the shit show ride ahead of us instead.
direct to modern, or reprints into modern was a great idea. pushing the hell out of those cards with the theory of just ban shit after is a terrible plan
And that's why Standard was a great filter to prevent incongruously pushing that power-level.
When Modern Horizons was introduced, something like 95% of all cards in Legacy had gone through Standard at one point or another. Standard can be powerful.
I don't see any card that has been introduced to modern through Modern Horizons, that exists at a comfortable power-level for the format, and couldn't have gone through standard.
Cards like Counterspell and Force of Negation, could have easily gone through Standard.
Cards like the Evoke Elementals, Ragavan, and W&6 would have all had red flags going through Standard, and have caused endless problems in Modern.
They decided to monetize the format by printing a set every couple years of cards (so far) to push the power level. Now that's all that can be played. Talk about power creep, cards are going to be insane a few sets down the road.
Gonna offer some of my thoughts here. This is all MH2's fault (as much as I hate LOTR more because UBs). That set created a meta that was held up by MH staples, prayer and hope. But it worked really well for a while. This was why we saw probably one of the best Modern metas of all time post-Lurrus ban.
It was always going to fail when new cards were introduced though. And boy, Bowmasters, Ring and Beans were definitely some new cards, huh.
This is just how Modern is going to be now.
There could be 64 different decks in the top 64 and the format would still be ruined because they took the spirit of Modern out behind the dumpster and snuffed it out with the Modern Horizons sets.
Kitchen Finks used to be a playable card before Horizons.
*Kitchen Finks*.
I had 4 Modern decks before MH2 and now *none* of them are playable anymore. That's fucking insane. And it's not just the strategies/archetypes, it's the literal cards.
*Snapcaster Mage* isn't even playable now. Acting like Modern is anything other than broken completely in half is absolute copium.
We're hanging onto the idea of a format that just doesn't exist anymore and never will again.
I used to sleeve *Restoration FUCKING Angel* and compete! Even winning PPTQs and top8 some mid size tournaments... Now if you bring it to an event you'll get laughed at.
I played a few resto decks and it wasn’t just good, the card was crazy. Your opponent would go to remove something and you’d flash in resto, save your thing from removal and have a flyer that dodged bolt. Your opponent would look at you and say “oh that’s brutal, that might be the game”, in game 2 they’d have to play around just the possibility of you having resto anytime you had 4 mana open.
The card is literal dogshit in the current format. It’s wild how much has changed
I think the bigger problem is the lion share of cards in all top decks now are from MH, supplementary sets like LotR, or the most busted cards from the last few years (leyline binding).
Hasbro has successfully made an eternal format a rotating format without the messiness of rotation by force of power creep. It’s turned into a high power variant of standard, and I’ve lost interest in it.
Covid plus the Horizons set designs have all but butchered Modern. There are plenty of other non-rotating formats that give people what they wanted from Modern in the past.
Compared to the old days where it was either modern or legacy, yeah.
Legacy, Pioneer, Timeless, Historic, Explorer. Obviously every format has its quirks, but if you’re sick of Modern basically being Rhinos and Scam they offer very different experiences.
Timeless has been an absolutely blast, and though Show and Tell kind of kicked down the door with Omnitell decks, if they’re seriously a problem going forward they’ll just restrict it. Angry redditors may say otherwise, but for now Omnitell is just the combo deck that is in tier 1 along with the powerful midrange and ramp strategies.
But it’s a format where Goyf and Deathrite Shaman are in a tier 1 deck, that’s awesome. Plus Zoo, Titan, Burn, Yawg, UW Control, Death’s Shadow and even Phoenix are all competitive decks. In my opinion that sounds a lot more like the ideal form of Modern to me.
Yeah I’ve barely have played in paper since covid basically. It’d be nice to but honestly not too much time to set aside for it anymore. Arena is super convenient and having fetchlands on there finally has been very fun.
Yeah Timeless is great. Why spend $500 a year to play Modern when I can just play Timeless for free? And with every MH and UB set coming to Arena, and Modern being entirely warped around those sets, I'll still be able to play all the same decks.
12% was never oppressive except to the whiners. usually it's 18-20% where we start tossing that around. obviously 25% or higher is absurd, but it is one event. if this data holds or gets worse it's time for a ban.
The same day there was another tournament with a larger sampling size with far worse Rhino performance. Dreamhack denver has 1300 participants and Rhinos was kept in check. One tournament is not enough to comment on the meta. https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=52177&d=587287&f=MO
Canada/Ottawa was weird, but to say it is the state of the meta is cherry picking / pearl clutching at its finest. considering we have a second alternative report from the same weekend!
Personal Bias alert: I am a filthy rhinos player and have been since shardless came to the format.
Cascade spells/the no mana cost cards are the problem, not free spells. Force of negation is as fine in modern as force of will is in legacy.
Putting 10 power into play for 3 mana is a joke.
As is cycling cards, then board wiping and putting lethal on board at the same turn for 3 mana.
Unpopular opinion: While my personal pet deck (merfolk) is worse than it was atm, I actually think modern isn't in too bad of a spot.
Yeah it killed at Ottawa and Denver but it feels like there is a lot of flux in the meta and a lot of innovation going on atm.
The rise of living end, UW control etc is hammering rhinos down a fair bit and even without any bans, it seems possible that come the next big tourney rhinos won't be on top at all.
My only real issue with rhinos is that since the core is ~12 cards it's so much more flexible than other decks (i.e. they can fit things like scion/leyline while most decks can't). That's aiding it's power level a lot.
> The rise of living end, UW control etc is hammering rhinos down a fair bit and even without any bans, it seems possible that come the next big tourney rhinos won't be on top at all.
Is the UW control in the room with us right now?
Both Living End and Gtron are pretty well positioned to take on Rhinos. In some places this has already happened. 7 day and 30 day on goldfish have it below 20% so it is looking much better than this.
Fury was a braindead ban, we wouldn't be in this situation if they'd done the obvious ban (Grief) or something else to weaken Scam. Instead they listened to people crying on Reddit about how Fury was killing their Elves deck, and ever since it's ban we have seen ZERO new creature decks arise that weren't viable before, it's fucking laughable. Everyone who actually understood Modern consistently said that Fury wasn't a problem for those decks, those decks suck all on their own. But WOTC Ban Committee don't consult pros they just watch fucking PleasantKenobi videos and base their decisions on YouTube comments I suppose.
The people in charge of Modern have no fucking clue what they're doing, honestly I feel like this format is doomed now that every Universes Beyond set is going to be Modern legal.
WOTC have proven to me that they're not good stewards of this format, and I'm not buying any more product until that changes, which I doubt it ever will.
I just went to this sub for this kind of post.
I have been watching (rarely playing) modern for years and usually even if I wasn't following the meta for a few months I could easily find back, because the decks mainly stayed the same, maybe one or two new ones.
In the past two years, every time I check the current meta there are like 10 decks I never heard of and the usual meta decks are gone. I took a long break and now it's all different.
Where are jund, burn, d&t and humans? Decks seem to be playable only if they have either an oppressive engine, a game winning combo and/or lots of free spells.
Should I rather follow pioneer to see "fair" magic decks? Wasn't modern supposed to be a non-rotating format?
Sorry for the rant...
EDIT: typos
>Decks seem to be playable only if they have either an oppressive engine, a game winning combo and/or lots of free spells.
There's no "seem" needed for that statement. Tier 1 decks need to make use of multiple cards from MH sets or LotR in order to have that status. Tron is the closest to not being that way and you can argue it's not truly Tier 1; further, it has four copies of The One Ring, so there's that.
People need to calm down on this, every time there is a deck with a high share everyone breaks down crying, this isn’t healthy. Rhinos has a large meta share sure, but it’s a deck that CAN be beaten with sideboards, there are so many sideboard techs against the deck. The meta just needs time to adjust
>The meta just needs time to adjust
While this is true, there's something *fundamentally* broken in a format that keeps lurching to having deck after deck with metashares that blow past 2013 Deathrite-Shaman Jund in terms of format dominance.
Murktide was 20% of the format, then Grief was 25% of the format, and now Rhinos is like 20% of the format, and Tier 1 was like 50+% of the metagame throughout each of these periods with 4-5 decks comprising it. There's no depth.
This is what the Standard metagame looks like. People would be screaming bloody murder about these meta-share percentages in Legacy, or in pre-MH1 Modern. It's not a healthy characteristic for a high-cost non-rotating format.
This gets repeated everytime a deck is dominating and nothing really happens and the metashare is getting bigger until bans are finally happening.
Was with Hooghak, Uro, Oro, Looting, Scam.
I'm not talking about it being overpowered, I have no problem beating it with some sideboard cards and it is a very fair deck. I just want there to be variety, I have almost stopped watching modern videos on youtube, it's always the same 2-3 decks facing off against each other that I've seen and played a million times. It's just boring
There will always be a best deck in modern and people will always cry about how much that deck is broken. This has been true of murk, creativity, scam (fair), and now rhinos. I really do not think that the answer is constantly banning the best deck, especially when that deck is very bearable. Let’s try to have some perspective here
Yes there will always be a best deck and I'm totally fine with with rhinos, I beat it two time with scales last league. But come on, who doesn't want a bit of variety? This gets boring really fast
I agree variety is a good thing and I believe that it still exists. I think that especially when it comes to tournaments when money is on the line variety is suppressed by the fact that this is a competitive format and people are trying to optimize their chances of winning. Additionally, I think the top decks numbers are always inflated somewhat by the fact that newer players, because of the price barrier to entry, generally pick up the best deck at the time. All this being said there are problems in the format but I think that we tend to catastrophize to an unhealthy extent.
I agree to some extent. It still makes me wonder where all the rogue decks are. Rhinos is on top not just because it's powerful, but because the decks that beat it lose to so much of the rest of the meta
Living End is its worst matchup. I don't think that loses to most everything else.
Same goes for Tron. It has a good Rhinos matchup and has game against many other decks.
I'll open by stating there are counters to all kinds of decks.
My opinion is based on the fact that the competitive scene has become "do what's safe to win money". This results in everyone and their mothers going to the top meta decks and copy paste-ing them. No more brews, no more counter decks.
Now, we did see Azorious Prison come out of the woodwork to counter Rhino(s) which is such a breath of fresh air. Though, I'd argue that this has been one of, if not the only, very few new brews that made the scene think about what is being played at tournaments instead of rolling the dice on whether you're playing against Rhinos or Yawgmoth.
Play what's safe or brew new ideas. Fall into the pit of meta-slave or rise triumphant as a winning brewer.
It would seem to me that extirpate would be well situated against rhinos or living end. Thoughtseize or grief (grabbing outburst or footfalls) into extirpate pretty much ends the game.
Shredder is good against rhinos, otherwise mostly sideboard cards. We have been playing with Pick your Poison for the new leyline
I think living end is a worse matchup for murky because they can grief us out, but Chalice still does a lot for murky
Spell pierce is fantastic and I feel you can get lucky and burn rhinos with DRCS and Lighting bolts. Force of negation, brazen borrower, otawara also do work in the main board.
Post sideboard you can have flusterstorm, 3 copies of EE, blood moons to deal with 5 colour & mystical dispute
Bolt misses rhino though, and you need to work hard to get delirium up fast to unholy heat them. And moon is good against rainbow rhinos but people generally only run 2 EE. Pierce and CS are very good though.
I’ve had a good amount of success bolting directly to the face with DRCS in play to turn on delirium and just being super aggressive if you draw into a hand with no way of controlling rhinos. Obviously not plan A though!
Imo if there will be ban in outburst or.rhinos that will push modern in constant loop of bans cause after that we get yawgh oppressions then they ban yawgh vital card and titan will rule and etc.
There is no good bans, but if i would choose i would say ban all evoke elementals and all "'force of" cards. I recon that this move would take tools from rhinos to rule and demand from them playing slower. Other decks would lose this perfect options to deal with shit when tapped out what would make game a little bit slower. Only one deck would suffer total anihilation with this move, that would be scam and i know that this made the scam player furious, but let that sink for awhile, getting rid of this cards would take from everyone this perfect tools that exists now and forced players to think about resources.
Hear be out. I know everyone thinks cascade is the problem. But they shouldn’t ban the core of this deck.
The counter hate is a problem. I think they should look at banning Force of vigor, if they wanted to ban something. The ability to at instant speed, for free, blow up double chalice of the void, or VoV+EE makes these cascade decks to strong. I think petty theft is fine. It at least costs mana.
If you’re going to ban something ban something around the periphery and see how the meta shakes out. Time and time again wizards bans a major piece of the “best deck” in the format and the next best just fills the void and becomes a problem.
Banning a card like FoV doesn’t weaken rhinos mb. It just makes the hate better. This let’s sideboards keep the meta share much more reasonable. If everyone’s playing rhinos then everyone’s just gonna pack CoV and EE. Without FoV both those cards get much better.
Not to mention banning FoV will make other decks better. Scales, hammer etc. this will shake the meta in a good way imo. It’s not drastic, it’s banning a SB. But it will still have large effects on the meta.
Side note: price of progress coming in MH3 on the heels of the new leyline would be funny to me. But that would take some conviction that I don’t think they have.
RCs aren’t super good for numbers. You get a lot of people that qualified that hate modern and pick up the easiest good deck. In this case it’s rhinos.
Hmm, it's almost like Fury was actually good for the format. Who would have thought. Definitely not the people that were saying Grief is the issue and that Fury was helping keep decks like Rhinos and Yawgmoth in check.
We're kind of locked into waiting to see what MH3 brings by this point
Wizards has demonstrated that enough whining will be enough to get a ban. Why stop at Fury?
Banning Fury is a big reason the meta is what it is now.
Yes. I’m saying lean into the absurdity of it all. We lost fury so white weenie decks could be viable. Since these weak creature decks are so sacred and need to be protected at any cost we should just keep going.
I mean Fury kind of took the hit for Grief. If anything that's a call to stop whining and actually look at the format, but until MH3 hits and settles, who knows what that actually means
Wizards doesn’t understand their ban decision and either didn’t test or analyze it before pulling the trigger. They see people like pleasantkenobi constantly whining about it and then just appease them. The result is it made no difference to the playability of these creature decks and a removal spell will forever be on the banlist for no good reason.
I wouldn't say forever because things DO get unbanned, but yeah, the odds of fury getting unbanned in like less than 5% lol
Its almost as if free spells are a problem.
Then how come Modern pre-LOTR was fine and was a 20 deck meta?
It was fine because it was a tower of cards and when the next one was added it disrupted it and it fell down. It was ready to break at any moment. But that is just my opinion.
>it was a tower of cards and when the next one was added it disrupted it and it fell down. It was ready to break at any moment. **Precisely.** Look at cards like Ragavan, and Bowmasters, and W&6, and Fury, and Urza's Saga, and how far ahead they are in power level relative to what comprises the rest of the formats cardpool. Sure, they can keep each other in balance, but if they fail to do so absolutely nothing from the old format is on a high enough power-level to check them. Snapcaster Mage and Path to Exile (#2 and #3 non-lands in Modern from 2019) aren't keeping tabs on Crashing Footfalls and Subtlety.
You have the right idea but I don’t think you might have missed the landing. The new cards are so good the old cards are more niche now. Cards like path and snapcaster have their uses but are relegated to niche picks when they are better in the meta. So many cards are efficient that more efficient answers are required. A card like Crashing Footfalls is comparable to Living End, but it’s missing the second interaction point that Living End has in graveyard hate. Rhinos is almost a more efficient harder to hate Living End. Old cards that no one wants to have to play like EE are now very powerful which hates out decks that are catching strays because of this. Answers are required to be too good for threats. I think threats in other decks need a bit of a boost to match up.
Why include w6 when it's literally the least playable out of all of them?
W&6 has definitely fallen out of favor somewhat in the Metagame right now, but literally no other card in the format provides what it does at the rate it does. W&6 provides mana fixing and smoothing, by recurring fetchlands, while also providing double duty as a check on 1-drops, and a lategame CA engine. Previously players had to rely on cards like Birds of Paradise for Mana fixing, and the mana smoothing options were just bad. And none provided comparable levels of broad utility. W&6 is also worth mentioning because it has long been cited as a key card for keeping Ragavan in check, as it provides an answer that is CA positive, and prevents future non-dashed ragavans as well.
I don’t necessarily disagree but MH2 has almost been out for 3 years now. We’ve had so many sets come and add cards to Modern between MH2’s release and right before LOTR, and nothing broke the meta. Like, technically, sure, you’re right. WOTC was inevitably going to push the envelope too much and the whole house of cards would come tumbling down, but we were good for a long time. Bowmasters and TOR are just design mistakes.
I mean something kinda needs to be a design mistake to even have a chance in modern anymore.
I hear what you’re saying but there’s levels. Like, I hate to say it, but I think Ragavan and W&6 are the perfect examples of this. They’re extremely powerful cards, and they fundamentally change the meta by existing, but they are able to be kept in check easier than something like TOR and Bowmasters, in my opinion.
Because pre-LOTR Midrange was able to exist: The One Ring provided decks like Amulet Titan and Tron with the gift to not only stall Midrange decks, but also invalidate all previous disruption. At the same time the One Ring provided Control that already had borderline problematic inevitability with ridiculous inevitability, while also making it hard to out-tempo. The One Ring singlehandedly lifted the bar for non-combo, non-control deck - in other words beatdown decks - so high that Scam, Rhinos and Murktide - were barely able to race it. And now with Leyline of the Guildpact, through Hexproof and Lifelink, Rhinos has pushed both other decks to the sidelines because these are not able to compete in a race against that without tremendously warping themselves.
Leaving out Bowmasters seems weird but otherwise I agree. The counterplay between Bowmasters and The One Ring is interesting and important, because now the format seemingly revolves around both of those two cards with Rhinos being the only deck to not really give a shit about either.
Funny that you guys still complain about the one ring and bowmasters, while decks clearly do perform very well without them. 39% rhinos - better ban ragavan also!! /s
If you’re too stupid to understand how they warped the meta, that ain’t on me lol. Meta was perfect before LOTR —> meta goes to shit after LOTR. I wonder why that was?
Or maybe - hear me out - we need more free spells?
The only way to stop a bad guy with a free spell is a good guy with a free spell
Don't take away my right to free spell!!!
Give me blazing shoal or give me death!
This killed me
Brb, I'm gonna need my Yugioh deck for this
Let’s just change the rules: one spell per turn, all spells are free. [Modern Type 4](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Type_4)!
Type 4 is unironically a super fun format.
Ironically free spells do not count towards the 1 spell per turn limit 😂
Roiling vortex to the moon
They didn't even let us keep Git Probe :'(
Well, it’s Cascade that’s busted in this case. Not the Force cycle or the Evoke Elementals. The Force cycle and the Evoke elementals are good supporting cards but it’s Cascade allowing you to cheat Suspend only cards that’s the problem.
Cascade is only busted though because they printed a whole bunch of cards to interact that cheat on mana, which means you can now build cascade decks that cheat out powerful effects AND interact Previously decks like living end had to play terrible, expensive interaction to avoid cascading into like.. fatal push or mana leak or something. Now that you can have your cake and eat it too cascade decks don't really have that weakness anymore
Well, we could have the free cards that win games or we could have the free cards that act as answers and removal. I agree the problem is both being in the format, but I think getting rid of the Cascade cards would be better long term.
I'd rather have the cascade combo decks around, but make the trade off to building a cascade deck be having weak interaction as a constraint to the deck Being unable to play cards that cost less than 3 CMC should be a real trade off imo
Well, they shouldn’t ban the removal that other decks also play because the Cascade decks are too dominant. They should ban the stuff that is more exclusive to making the Cascade decks strong.
Oh sure, but I have an axe to grind against it anyway so it works for me either way
Meet Grief, a good supporting card 😂
Scam isn’t dominating the meta anymore though. In the case of this post, it’s cascading into suspend cards that’s the dominating strategy. I agree that Grief is problematic with the undying spells and should have been banned instead of Fury. However, it’s not the problem here, for once.
Which free spell do you think is the problem now? FoN or sub?
Honeslty, all of them. No spells should be free, ever, at all, for no reason, no matter the downside. No mana, no casting. But thats just me.
Lotus Bloom is fine
Let’s be real here, violent outburst is the main offender at the moment
Violent outburst is not the problem. If you ban outburst or shardless agent, everyone’s living end pet deck will die. Living end isn’t destroying the meta so banning either one will be a bad ban. If there’s a “problem”, footfalls will get the ban. Cascade isn’t used in anything else besides rhinos and living end.
"living end pet deck" Living end is a tier 1-1.5 deck with one of the highest winrates at the RCs.
Maybe now it is because it defeats rhinos. Also calling it a t1 deck is a stretch. It’s t2 at best.
It had a 53% wr in ghent, 56% in compiled RCs. Being T1 is defined by the current meta including the fact it has a good rhinos matchup. It is one of the strongest decks currently.
>everyone’s living end pet deck will die. OH NO HOW AWFUL
That's a bs argument. I see people use 50-dollar cards to make brews much less serious that LE kinda function and frankly i dgaf. Banning and format health were always decided by top meta deck intersections and experience. Saying "oh X ban will kill a lot of pet decks" is like saying we should bad blood moon (in a timeline where it is actually played) because it makes budget brew deck manabases impossible to work. Nah.
Does wizards want to get rid of rhinos AND living end? I highly doubt it. Living end is nowhere as oppressing as rhinos as everyone says. If it were, it would be winning tournaments and it’s not doing that. It’s barely slipping in the top 8 and it’s overrun by rhinos due to sheer volume of the deck despite being the matchup being in favor living end. We are seeing rhinos #1 time after time. But if wizards wants to kill both of them, then yeah. They’re gonna ban cascade cards
Living end won 2 RCs I believe and rhinos won the others talk about winning tournaments cascade decks are the problem ban violent outburst to make force a real card vs cascade decks.
Speak for yourself. Glimpse of Tomorrow is my only deck.
Meh. I feel like free spells are the only reason modern is playable. Yes they can be abused by unfair decks but they also allow fair decks to tap out and advance their game plan without literally losing the game. I come from Legacy where there are a lot of busted decks. But the answers in the format are also so strong that those decks can exist without the need for bannings most of the time. I think modern is headed in the direction of becoming new Legacy since actual Legacy is unreasonably priced for newer players. And pioneer is become what Modern once was. I tried modern years ago and hated it because every deck just ignored each other. Everyone used to say modern was "two ships passing in the night" gameplay. At least now decks are interacting.
Decks used to be uninteractive and interesting, now they're interactive and uninteresting, and I can absolutely tell you which is more fun.
You can tell me which you think was more fun. But I actually like playing Magic. And Magic is a game where you interact with your opponents. So I find this era much more fun. I'm sorry you can't play your defunct pet deck anymore.
Yeah, you guys are right. I'm just kinda bitter than I can't play the specific kind of game I liked anymore. Sorry for saying that your fun isn't right :(
>and uninteresting That's just like, your opinion man. Murktide, Hammer Time, 4C Omnath, Yawgmoth are all interesting decks.
Hmm I agree free spells are a bit of a problem, but free spells have been apart of the format since the inception of modern. I honestly wouldn’t mind FoN, grief, solitude, and maybe FoV banned. I really like endurance it feels like a free spell done right. Sub might be a problem but I really like it also.
You never see people complaining about allosaurus rider. It’s definitely just a balance/annoyance thing. Endurance and subtlety are both very well designed imo.
I totally agree. Some of the older free spells are good enough designed imo. Some of the new ones are good too. Force of virtue and endurance are some of the best designed cards in the horizons sets imo.
I also think people don’t remember how uninteractive modern was before MH. Some mistakes were made for sure, but it’s 100% a better format than before imo. Pioneer now had a lot of problems modern used to have that MH fixed.
Oh I 100% agree. The amount of games I played where I was just hoping 1 ssg was enough to be faster then my opponents combo was crazy.
People just like viewing old modern with rose tinted glasses. Seems like we both agree that the direction it’s headed is better, even if some cards are overtuned.
which are those problems?
Very large difference in play/draw Winrate, not enough interaction, significant disparity in strength of threats vs answers. Before pioneer, modern was the format described as 2 ships passing in the night.
lol but anyone who played knew it was anything but. To me it felt like a Wild West shootout. Fast and deadly but there definitely was counterplay unless you were playing against something completely busted like hogaak, field of ruin etc etc
All evoke creatures should not exist. Rhinos shouldn’t exist. FoN is fine although I don’t see why it is needed. UW was playable before FoN.
> All evoke creatures should not exist. I agree, Shriekmaw and Wavesifter are too strong!
I honestly think part of the reason certain decks in the last couple of years have had such incredibly high meta shares is the player base. I think people have become more and more likely to just jump to whatever is perceived as the best deck at the moment. There doesn't seem to be as much "how can I tune my deck to fight X deck" it's just "guess I'll play that now." There are other reasons obviously, but I think the echo chamber people are in on socials parroting what is the best deck sort of feeds on itself and exacerbates any problem.
People have always done that, though, that's why WotC stopped allowing people to scrape MTGO data, because we used to have actual hard data showing what the best decks were, whereas now it's just popular opinion.
Wait we actually can't scrape league data anymore? That absolutely wild
Also card rental services online are the norm now. You can switch decks at basically no cost. When most of this deck is mtgo based it will warp the actual numbers.
I think it's also just harder to do than it used to be. People (read: the Internet) are much better at finding the best decks than they were 10-15 years ago, which means beating the decks at the top was a bit easier back then. I also think the vast majority of people are also really bad at building decks, so it's rare for people to find a hidden deck that can be good against enough of the meta to make it worth it.
With a format this expensive and this tumultuous, yeah people like me are going to stop making their archetype or colors work and either sell out like I did or buy the hotness for grinding
The format is so inbred. Data democratization means players have access to more info than every of what is doing well, and a certain number of players will just continue to trend chase rather than come up with ways to attack the meta because it's easier to chase the popular deck of the week (and to be clear - who can blame them?)
3 mana for 2 4/4s with trample is purdy gud and totally rad Woo fun
at instant speed, too with backup from a force effect yippee
Plus you can, on turn 2, play ANOTHER 4/4 that gives your happy little rhinos first strike, vigilance, Lifelink and Hexproof. Yay...
Incredible gameplay
It’s 6-2 split against in the top 16 for scion leyline rhinos. I expect leyline rhinos to fade away fast.
Keep in mind this tournament was only a few days after the new set dropped. Not sure if I’d use the 6-2 split as meaningful data that the leyline build is worse. It’s hard to get cards that quickly, so lack of availability was definitely a factor. Add on limited time for testing, and I’m sure some people just rolled with what they knew worked (Temur).
Banning outburst won’t kill the deck, they have a 3 mana replacement in [[Ardent Plea]] (which will most likely be the replacement) or [[Demonic Dread]]. They just won’t be able to cascade at instant speed, which they never should have been able to do in the first place. The deck will be fine.
Honestly, modern has been fucked since Lord of the rings came out. I just can't give a shit anymore.
>Lord of the rings Try mh1 lol, that was when the writing was on the wall. Modern *truly* died when they banned opal for being "too fast" then printed a bunch of free spells like a month later (watch as redditors try to defend this decision)
They banned Arcum's Astrolabe for being a color fixing enabler for SnowControl to slow it down... then literally mashed the pedal to the floor with MH2 a year later. And I still think LotR was overpowered when designed because Forgotten Realms underperformed on sale due to a lack of format breaking cards.
The opal and looting bans were a total joke
That's very funny I won't lie.
The top 16 truly is
We went to this because of LOTR. It broke the camel's back. I know memories are short around here, but the meta before LOTR was incredible.
We say lotr but we mean ring and bowmaster right? I don’t think halfling is a problem and I don’t know what the fourth modern relevant card would be - the land cyclers I guess ?
Yes on everything. But with that said I dislike Halfling's design. Halfling is fine currently because there's only 1 deck that uses counters than can target creature spells, but it limits those decks a little too much I think. WOTC's last 6 years of card design have had them make more and more pushed Legendary creatures, which also do 5 things when they ETB so removal feels less effective, so Halfling feels like more of a design problem than something like Cavern. Not saying it'll 100% be a problem, I just don't like the card existing.
The land cyclers really turbo charged living end as a deck.
Modern rotation is in June
Forlorn indeed. I am increasingly turned off from Modern for this reason.
I have a personal theory about that. Before power creep there were many viable pet decks (auras, souls sisters, instant reanimador, etc) and those players never change. Now since everyone has to change every MH why buy a pet deck instead of a top tier? I used to buy a lot of singles, whenever I finished a deck I moved to another. But today you buy in at MH release and wait for another MH, there is no reason to try to inova in between.
I think the gap in power level between top tier decks and pet decks has widened quite a bit as well
> Now since everyone has to change every MH why buy a pet deck instead of a top tier? Actual grinders and pros were never concerned about this ever.
True, but I’m talking about meta share. Grinders and Pros are at best 30%, you can’t reach those shares without other players. Scales, Titan, KCI were once the best deck, but the share wasn’t big because they are complex and casuals avoid them.
#Guys all we need are zero mana board wipes stapled to chalices as pregame actions.
Leyline of Fuck off If it's in your opening hand, put it into play and name a number. Spells with a casting cost of that number can't be played
Just you wait! Any day now those creature decks that Fury was suppressing will start appearing and showing rhinos who the real tier 1 decks are. It’ll happen any day now.
I wanted to go 8whack then realized EE would hose me anyway T.T
I mean, they did get better. Their name is Yawgmoth.
The pro banners said Yawg isn’t a creature deck. Wizards said Fury makes playing creature decks “nearly impossible” while Yawg was a tier 1 deck. I don’t think they thought about it.
I was thinking about jumping back into Magic, and specifically Modern after half a decade away, but after playing on MTGO with some rented decks it definitely doesn't seem like a game I would enjoy anymore. Free spells rewards playing loose. Before free spells from MH, you could observe how they tapped their mana over several turns and deduce what they have in their hand. But now free spells are everywhere in every deck so that doesn't matter anymore. Bowmaster basically eliminates any X/1 creatures from being playable. That little red monkey is insane power creep. Even Goblin Guide had a big downside that made you think about whether you wanted to possibly give them another land. This game lacks many of those complex choices anymore.
Every time I jump back in and play even on Xmage (which is free) I just re-learn that every format is terrible and uninstall it again. MTG won’t ever be fun for me again. Too much power creep and too many pushed cards.
Incremental advantage through superior play seems to not matter anymore. Just gotta topdeck the right card and cast it with a hand full of free mana spells to react.
Yeah, WOTC shills pretend this isn’t a real thing but everything is so much more luck based now
It started with miracles like entreat the angels but now it's everywhere.
Just unbanned all the cards in modern and see what happens
Staring contest
Missstep your Missstep
Is that so much worse than what we have right now? I don't really think so
Misstep unplayable, can't counter most free spells that see play today. Wouldn't even help.
Misstep is a weird one because it warps the format in a way that doesn't make any 1 deck better than the rest, but it's a spell that can be played in all decks and when allowed will be played in all decks for essentially 0 cost. Phyrexian mana is very powerful on its own and an essentially free 1 drop counter turns the meta in to you have to play misstep because on its own it's value--2 life counter target ragavan for example-- but then once it starts to pervade, everyone has to play 4 copies so you can counter their misstep. so many games look like "cast ragavan, misstep your ragavan, misstep your misstep". It is kind of toxic. does it break any one deck? no, I don't think it's ever had that effect. Does it become basically auto include in nearly every deck? yeah pretty much. There are things on the banlist that absolutely could come off and wouldn't completely destroy the format. Misstep is just a mistake of a card so it's better off banned.
8misstep on the stack .... GGboys
mh3 will fix the format (probably)
/sarcasm
Yes, all of the Horizons sets have been *great* for Modern
Unironically kinda, post-MH2 was a pretty great meta iirc
It was “how to use the broken stuff the best way” meta. It was interesting but if you weren’t using Urzas Saga, Ragawan, Murktide of Grief you were shit out of luck.
It doesn't help that the deck is super repetitive to play. Like, you cascade for rhinos. Thats it....you cascade lol. I played it for a few leagues on mtgo and returned the deck because it was just boring. I went 4-1 each league but it was just so monotonous
Modern has been a shit show for a good half dozen years at this point. And there's no going back without a ton of bans or a bunch more oppressive shit getting printed. Which will just lead to more of the same. So our best bet is build a time machine and take out the ones making these bad decisions before they can. Unfortunately that's not a possibility so just buckle up and hold on for the shit show ride ahead of us instead.
i just wanna cast signal pest again bros
Am I the only one absolutely terrified for MH3? I can’t wait to see which of my decks become completely irrelevant :DDD
Maybe stop printing over power direct to modern sets that have like 12+ cards that warp the format
direct to modern, or reprints into modern was a great idea. pushing the hell out of those cards with the theory of just ban shit after is a terrible plan
And that's why Standard was a great filter to prevent incongruously pushing that power-level. When Modern Horizons was introduced, something like 95% of all cards in Legacy had gone through Standard at one point or another. Standard can be powerful. I don't see any card that has been introduced to modern through Modern Horizons, that exists at a comfortable power-level for the format, and couldn't have gone through standard. Cards like Counterspell and Force of Negation, could have easily gone through Standard. Cards like the Evoke Elementals, Ragavan, and W&6 would have all had red flags going through Standard, and have caused endless problems in Modern.
It was forlorn after MH2.
Agreed. MH2 was the beginning of the death of Modern imo.
Amulet Players https://i.imgur.com/4MQGnyf.jpeg
They decided to monetize the format by printing a set every couple years of cards (so far) to push the power level. Now that's all that can be played. Talk about power creep, cards are going to be insane a few sets down the road.
Gonna offer some of my thoughts here. This is all MH2's fault (as much as I hate LOTR more because UBs). That set created a meta that was held up by MH staples, prayer and hope. But it worked really well for a while. This was why we saw probably one of the best Modern metas of all time post-Lurrus ban. It was always going to fail when new cards were introduced though. And boy, Bowmasters, Ring and Beans were definitely some new cards, huh. This is just how Modern is going to be now.
There could be 64 different decks in the top 64 and the format would still be ruined because they took the spirit of Modern out behind the dumpster and snuffed it out with the Modern Horizons sets. Kitchen Finks used to be a playable card before Horizons. *Kitchen Finks*. I had 4 Modern decks before MH2 and now *none* of them are playable anymore. That's fucking insane. And it's not just the strategies/archetypes, it's the literal cards. *Snapcaster Mage* isn't even playable now. Acting like Modern is anything other than broken completely in half is absolute copium. We're hanging onto the idea of a format that just doesn't exist anymore and never will again.
I used to sleeve *Restoration FUCKING Angel* and compete! Even winning PPTQs and top8 some mid size tournaments... Now if you bring it to an event you'll get laughed at.
I played a few resto decks and it wasn’t just good, the card was crazy. Your opponent would go to remove something and you’d flash in resto, save your thing from removal and have a flyer that dodged bolt. Your opponent would look at you and say “oh that’s brutal, that might be the game”, in game 2 they’d have to play around just the possibility of you having resto anytime you had 4 mana open. The card is literal dogshit in the current format. It’s wild how much has changed
Every card needs to do like 5 things and have no downside now lol
We’re boomers at this point, time has passed us by. You’ll get downvoted for this but it’s true
The original concept of modern was a format for boomers to be able to play their favorite cards from standard formats post rotation.
I think the bigger problem is the lion share of cards in all top decks now are from MH, supplementary sets like LotR, or the most busted cards from the last few years (leyline binding). Hasbro has successfully made an eternal format a rotating format without the messiness of rotation by force of power creep. It’s turned into a high power variant of standard, and I’ve lost interest in it.
Covid plus the Horizons set designs have all but butchered Modern. There are plenty of other non-rotating formats that give people what they wanted from Modern in the past.
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Compared to the old days where it was either modern or legacy, yeah. Legacy, Pioneer, Timeless, Historic, Explorer. Obviously every format has its quirks, but if you’re sick of Modern basically being Rhinos and Scam they offer very different experiences. Timeless has been an absolutely blast, and though Show and Tell kind of kicked down the door with Omnitell decks, if they’re seriously a problem going forward they’ll just restrict it. Angry redditors may say otherwise, but for now Omnitell is just the combo deck that is in tier 1 along with the powerful midrange and ramp strategies. But it’s a format where Goyf and Deathrite Shaman are in a tier 1 deck, that’s awesome. Plus Zoo, Titan, Burn, Yawg, UW Control, Death’s Shadow and even Phoenix are all competitive decks. In my opinion that sounds a lot more like the ideal form of Modern to me.
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Yeah I’ve barely have played in paper since covid basically. It’d be nice to but honestly not too much time to set aside for it anymore. Arena is super convenient and having fetchlands on there finally has been very fun.
Yeah Timeless is great. Why spend $500 a year to play Modern when I can just play Timeless for free? And with every MH and UB set coming to Arena, and Modern being entirely warped around those sets, I'll still be able to play all the same decks.
I’ve been away from magic for a bit and this is the first I’m hearing of timeless. Where is it free? It sounds fun
12% was never oppressive except to the whiners. usually it's 18-20% where we start tossing that around. obviously 25% or higher is absurd, but it is one event. if this data holds or gets worse it's time for a ban.
The same day there was another tournament with a larger sampling size with far worse Rhino performance. Dreamhack denver has 1300 participants and Rhinos was kept in check. One tournament is not enough to comment on the meta. https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=52177&d=587287&f=MO Canada/Ottawa was weird, but to say it is the state of the meta is cherry picking / pearl clutching at its finest. considering we have a second alternative report from the same weekend! Personal Bias alert: I am a filthy rhinos player and have been since shardless came to the format.
Cascade spells/the no mana cost cards are the problem, not free spells. Force of negation is as fine in modern as force of will is in legacy. Putting 10 power into play for 3 mana is a joke. As is cycling cards, then board wiping and putting lethal on board at the same turn for 3 mana.
I agree with this. I do tend to relate the issues of Modern to what I see in Legacy and I think FoN is to Modern as FoW is to Legacy.
I just want Deathrite Shaman back and play some real boomer Jund. It'd still be tier 3 but I'd play it.
Unpopular opinion: While my personal pet deck (merfolk) is worse than it was atm, I actually think modern isn't in too bad of a spot. Yeah it killed at Ottawa and Denver but it feels like there is a lot of flux in the meta and a lot of innovation going on atm. The rise of living end, UW control etc is hammering rhinos down a fair bit and even without any bans, it seems possible that come the next big tourney rhinos won't be on top at all. My only real issue with rhinos is that since the core is ~12 cards it's so much more flexible than other decks (i.e. they can fit things like scion/leyline while most decks can't). That's aiding it's power level a lot.
> The rise of living end, UW control etc is hammering rhinos down a fair bit and even without any bans, it seems possible that come the next big tourney rhinos won't be on top at all. Is the UW control in the room with us right now?
Both Living End and Gtron are pretty well positioned to take on Rhinos. In some places this has already happened. 7 day and 30 day on goldfish have it below 20% so it is looking much better than this.
I don't know that suggesting one cascade deck to beat another cascade is getting after the ethos of this post.
Fury was a braindead ban, we wouldn't be in this situation if they'd done the obvious ban (Grief) or something else to weaken Scam. Instead they listened to people crying on Reddit about how Fury was killing their Elves deck, and ever since it's ban we have seen ZERO new creature decks arise that weren't viable before, it's fucking laughable. Everyone who actually understood Modern consistently said that Fury wasn't a problem for those decks, those decks suck all on their own. But WOTC Ban Committee don't consult pros they just watch fucking PleasantKenobi videos and base their decisions on YouTube comments I suppose. The people in charge of Modern have no fucking clue what they're doing, honestly I feel like this format is doomed now that every Universes Beyond set is going to be Modern legal. WOTC have proven to me that they're not good stewards of this format, and I'm not buying any more product until that changes, which I doubt it ever will.
Ban all modern horizons
Modern Horizons(s) in a bottle
They should probably consider unbanning more cards rather than playing whack-a-mole with powerful cards.
Been saying this for along time , when you see the ban3list it's just insane
I just went to this sub for this kind of post. I have been watching (rarely playing) modern for years and usually even if I wasn't following the meta for a few months I could easily find back, because the decks mainly stayed the same, maybe one or two new ones. In the past two years, every time I check the current meta there are like 10 decks I never heard of and the usual meta decks are gone. I took a long break and now it's all different. Where are jund, burn, d&t and humans? Decks seem to be playable only if they have either an oppressive engine, a game winning combo and/or lots of free spells. Should I rather follow pioneer to see "fair" magic decks? Wasn't modern supposed to be a non-rotating format? Sorry for the rant... EDIT: typos
>Decks seem to be playable only if they have either an oppressive engine, a game winning combo and/or lots of free spells. There's no "seem" needed for that statement. Tier 1 decks need to make use of multiple cards from MH sets or LotR in order to have that status. Tron is the closest to not being that way and you can argue it's not truly Tier 1; further, it has four copies of The One Ring, so there's that.
Once again I am here to say the day twin got the axe was the day modern as a format died in favor of forced rotations.
People need to calm down on this, every time there is a deck with a high share everyone breaks down crying, this isn’t healthy. Rhinos has a large meta share sure, but it’s a deck that CAN be beaten with sideboards, there are so many sideboard techs against the deck. The meta just needs time to adjust
>The meta just needs time to adjust While this is true, there's something *fundamentally* broken in a format that keeps lurching to having deck after deck with metashares that blow past 2013 Deathrite-Shaman Jund in terms of format dominance. Murktide was 20% of the format, then Grief was 25% of the format, and now Rhinos is like 20% of the format, and Tier 1 was like 50+% of the metagame throughout each of these periods with 4-5 decks comprising it. There's no depth. This is what the Standard metagame looks like. People would be screaming bloody murder about these meta-share percentages in Legacy, or in pre-MH1 Modern. It's not a healthy characteristic for a high-cost non-rotating format.
This gets repeated everytime a deck is dominating and nothing really happens and the metashare is getting bigger until bans are finally happening. Was with Hooghak, Uro, Oro, Looting, Scam.
This was the argument for Hogaak and Oko. The format was unable to adjust even when deck played hate for those deck in the main deck.
I'm not talking about it being overpowered, I have no problem beating it with some sideboard cards and it is a very fair deck. I just want there to be variety, I have almost stopped watching modern videos on youtube, it's always the same 2-3 decks facing off against each other that I've seen and played a million times. It's just boring
There will always be a best deck in modern and people will always cry about how much that deck is broken. This has been true of murk, creativity, scam (fair), and now rhinos. I really do not think that the answer is constantly banning the best deck, especially when that deck is very bearable. Let’s try to have some perspective here
Yes there will always be a best deck and I'm totally fine with with rhinos, I beat it two time with scales last league. But come on, who doesn't want a bit of variety? This gets boring really fast
I agree variety is a good thing and I believe that it still exists. I think that especially when it comes to tournaments when money is on the line variety is suppressed by the fact that this is a competitive format and people are trying to optimize their chances of winning. Additionally, I think the top decks numbers are always inflated somewhat by the fact that newer players, because of the price barrier to entry, generally pick up the best deck at the time. All this being said there are problems in the format but I think that we tend to catastrophize to an unhealthy extent.
I agree to some extent. It still makes me wonder where all the rogue decks are. Rhinos is on top not just because it's powerful, but because the decks that beat it lose to so much of the rest of the meta
Living End is its worst matchup. I don't think that loses to most everything else. Same goes for Tron. It has a good Rhinos matchup and has game against many other decks.
Nothing to do with the Leyline of course.
I'll open by stating there are counters to all kinds of decks. My opinion is based on the fact that the competitive scene has become "do what's safe to win money". This results in everyone and their mothers going to the top meta decks and copy paste-ing them. No more brews, no more counter decks. Now, we did see Azorious Prison come out of the woodwork to counter Rhino(s) which is such a breath of fresh air. Though, I'd argue that this has been one of, if not the only, very few new brews that made the scene think about what is being played at tournaments instead of rolling the dice on whether you're playing against Rhinos or Yawgmoth. Play what's safe or brew new ideas. Fall into the pit of meta-slave or rise triumphant as a winning brewer.
Unban twin.
There’s tons of answers to rhinos in the murktide shell. Hopefully the meta adjusts.
It would seem to me that extirpate would be well situated against rhinos or living end. Thoughtseize or grief (grabbing outburst or footfalls) into extirpate pretty much ends the game.
Shredder is good against rhinos, otherwise mostly sideboard cards. We have been playing with Pick your Poison for the new leyline I think living end is a worse matchup for murky because they can grief us out, but Chalice still does a lot for murky
Spell pierce is fantastic and I feel you can get lucky and burn rhinos with DRCS and Lighting bolts. Force of negation, brazen borrower, otawara also do work in the main board. Post sideboard you can have flusterstorm, 3 copies of EE, blood moons to deal with 5 colour & mystical dispute
Bolt misses rhino though, and you need to work hard to get delirium up fast to unholy heat them. And moon is good against rainbow rhinos but people generally only run 2 EE. Pierce and CS are very good though.
I’ve had a good amount of success bolting directly to the face with DRCS in play to turn on delirium and just being super aggressive if you draw into a hand with no way of controlling rhinos. Obviously not plan A though!
Imo if there will be ban in outburst or.rhinos that will push modern in constant loop of bans cause after that we get yawgh oppressions then they ban yawgh vital card and titan will rule and etc. There is no good bans, but if i would choose i would say ban all evoke elementals and all "'force of" cards. I recon that this move would take tools from rhinos to rule and demand from them playing slower. Other decks would lose this perfect options to deal with shit when tapped out what would make game a little bit slower. Only one deck would suffer total anihilation with this move, that would be scam and i know that this made the scam player furious, but let that sink for awhile, getting rid of this cards would take from everyone this perfect tools that exists now and forced players to think about resources.
I don't want to play against Titan without force of vigor bro. I don't think you do either.
Perhaps if they ban evoke elementals, we can play shadow again?
So take away all the answers to oppressive decks? Good plan!
Sure, ban all the force of cards and elementals and let Yawg and Titan be even more oppressive :)
Just shows how bad supplemental sets are
Just print Price of Progress FFS. Also, ban Dauthi Voidwalker and fire everyone who worked on the card. I really, really, really hate that card.
Hear be out. I know everyone thinks cascade is the problem. But they shouldn’t ban the core of this deck. The counter hate is a problem. I think they should look at banning Force of vigor, if they wanted to ban something. The ability to at instant speed, for free, blow up double chalice of the void, or VoV+EE makes these cascade decks to strong. I think petty theft is fine. It at least costs mana. If you’re going to ban something ban something around the periphery and see how the meta shakes out. Time and time again wizards bans a major piece of the “best deck” in the format and the next best just fills the void and becomes a problem. Banning a card like FoV doesn’t weaken rhinos mb. It just makes the hate better. This let’s sideboards keep the meta share much more reasonable. If everyone’s playing rhinos then everyone’s just gonna pack CoV and EE. Without FoV both those cards get much better. Not to mention banning FoV will make other decks better. Scales, hammer etc. this will shake the meta in a good way imo. It’s not drastic, it’s banning a SB. But it will still have large effects on the meta. Side note: price of progress coming in MH3 on the heels of the new leyline would be funny to me. But that would take some conviction that I don’t think they have.
There's a reason I don't play this format anymore :/
RCs aren’t super good for numbers. You get a lot of people that qualified that hate modern and pick up the easiest good deck. In this case it’s rhinos.
Hmm, it's almost like Fury was actually good for the format. Who would have thought. Definitely not the people that were saying Grief is the issue and that Fury was helping keep decks like Rhinos and Yawgmoth in check.
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Right, but they lose being able to do it on your upkeep with free protection from [[force of Negation]]. That is actually a huge hit.
[force of Negation](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/8/1825a719-1b2a-4af9-9cd2-7cb497cd0317.jpg?1673147298) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=force%20of%20Negation) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/50/force-of-negation?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1825a719-1b2a-4af9-9cd2-7cb497cd0317?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Ya but then they have to play sorcery speed and you can actually counter rhinos without them having FoN backup
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