No Country for old Johnnys - Modern State
Modern forum
Posted on Aug. 8, 2023, 7:16 a.m. by sergiodelrio
I have not played Modern, or any kind of Magic in years. Precisely since MH2 came out. Modern has been my go-to format, and almost exclusively the format I played, with a little splash of Pauper occasionally.
That had been a very conscious decision when I got into MTG, after becoming aware what formats even are. Modern was quite new back in the day, but it was the format whose premises I liked the most so I went with it. Big card pool with many interesting and viable cards, not too fast not too slow ('turn 4 format'). I was sold, especially since everyone's mantra about it was 'your cards won't rotate out and will always be playable'.
Well guess what, my cards rotated out with MH2.
Snapcaster Mage? Who's that? Dark Confidant? I saw his picture on a milk pack. Path to Exile is indefinitely closed for construction. You get the idea, but I'll stop the list here even tho I could mention many more.
All of this after I had spent a lot of cash and time accumulating cards for my collection.
When people conclude that 'Modern is a healthy format' right now, they seem to only account for win% and diversity within top8 lists. What should also be accounted for, imho, is how many cards in the card pool are actually relevant in the format in that they are not strictly worse than other cards or can at least find a home in Tier2 & Tier3 decks. As far as I can tell most of those went off the radar for good.
I had always been a true 'Johnny' in that I had a lot of fun theorycrafting rogue decks up to the point where they at least were semi-competitive. Granted, I almost never won FNM with those, but I also NEVER came out last, and had so many precious table-flipping-opponent moments which were all the fun to me.
Heck, one time during Eldrazi winter I WON a 70 player event and got a Judge Promo Snappy, so please don't assume my rogue builds could never compete in the first place (with my own pre-Adam-Bowman Slivers list, if you must know).
I understand that many and most other players might not feel the same way about what is fun, and that's fair, but the game had been set up to ALSO accomodate my type of fun. Now that's gone, so I'm gone as well.
Just to be clear. I, personally, don't mind new cards entering the format, au contraire. Johnny loves more toys.
But what they did, especially with MH2, was a conscious decision to raise the power level of Modern. This is most evident in the introduction of Counterspell.
That, in turn, resulted in altering the core premises of the 'Modern Horizon' product series (HORIZONTAL progression) and also the premises of the format as a whole. I can therefore no longer play the game and enjoy it, since the choices are now:
1) Spend a ridiculous amount of cash on new cards (Monkey, W6, elementals, triomes, etc), play competitively but lose the joy of theorycrafting rogue decks
2) Get more into Pauper maybe
3) Quit
So in conclusion I just want people to be aware that there are more vectors to a 'healthy format' than a diverse top8 and that there are many more players like me, who for one reason or the other stopped playing this game, and that probably contributed to a general decline of MTG as a whole, which in turn also negatively affects card prices, especially those older cards that have been rendered unplayable.
This is not supposed to be a rant even, I just wanted to share and express my resignation and maybe all this is just the result of me being naive.
How do other people feel about this? I'd really like to know, since Tappedout has been a great part of MTG continuity for me over the years. I've seen people come and go, but I still come back from time to time even now just to check what's up with the community.
sergiodelrio says... #3
Caerwyn thank you for sharing your POV on this, I appreciate it!
That is likely what has been going on, structurally, over the past couple of years, yes. And I probably have to accept the fact that the format of Modern will remain in its restructured form.
However, when it comes to accomodating my 'needs' in regards to having fun while playing, and evenmoreso theorycrafting, MTG, I do not see a satisfactory alternative. The next best thing to me would be Pauper, but the stakes there are so much lower.
I have been monitoring Pioneer for a long time tbh and never really warmed up with it. Hard to point to something specific, but I mostly miss the 'fringe' cards and effects I guess. Maybe given enough time that can change, but sadly I will still be sitting on a pile of once-great modern cards that can never reasonably be played with again, outside of casual settings.
Thank you again for the input. I'm not necessarily looking to resolve my situation regarding this topic... really more interested in how other people perceive the situation as a whole. I respect your opinion when you say Modern is in a good place, since you elaborate your point quite well. It's just that my set of premises differs from yours, but I will also admit that my POV is quite subjective. Maybe cognitive dissonance on my part xD
August 8, 2023 9:33 a.m.
I am also butthurt over Modern horizons/universes beyond introducing cards that never touch standard... Modern is becoming the new legacy we have without the prestige of owning original magic we will simply have to accomidate spin-off products now apparently.
Modern was never a perfect format and was pleaged with problematic cards for YEARS like Simian Spirit Guide/Mox Opal/Faithless Looting.... people say competitive magic was 2 ships passing in the night well... yeah there was a lot of unfair uniteractive nonsense (that were well known kinda like how The One Ring is a known issue but the banlist says otherwise)... those cards got banned with modern horizons though... then people say "thank god we have interaction like Force of Negation now"... yeah it feels really good when used in the context of Violent Outburst and Crashing Footfalls... or getting hit with Grief with hiw that's being used... gross.
As much as I share your frustration though and absolutely hate Modern being a soft rotating format... it really isn't all bad news... I also brew my own decks and have taken them to the LGS and yes I lose... but I still felt like I had a chance (if that makes any sense).
I'd be a liar if I said I was forever done with Modern. Despite the frustration it really is the best 60 card format imo... just as before modern horizons it is not without its flaws but I do think that it could be time to shift focuse into Pioneer for me anyway.
Well cheers until Modern Horizons 3/Dr. WHO/Songebob/Diablo 5 sets release!
August 8, 2023 9:35 a.m.
sergiodelrio says... #5
Icbrgr thank you for your POV on this.
I see you are willing to bite the bullet here. How likely would you say it is for you to actually change formats for good? Or maybe us Johnnys just have to work harder to pull off the rogue deck success?
I really wish there was some middle ground, or maybe I'm just not seeing it.
August 8, 2023 9:45 a.m.
@Caerwyn I Think what you said is a really great way of putting what I have been thinking/wresting around with my own thoughts... it was nice to read that in a well put together way... the reserved list is the biggest reason why I chose Modern when I began to invest into the game... but something i didnt account for that legacy has that Modern didnt was the injection of spin-off products like Commander Cards or Planchase cards ect ect... because I never played legacy i never thought about it... so now with the introduction of Modern Horizons and Universes Beyond sets now Im starting to have to face that aspect and its just jarring to get used to... I may be personally Butthurt/whine/complain but overall with what your saying i think I can just go with it and agree its probably just whats best for the game.... I am taking a leap of blind faith that Pioneer wont fall into the same pattern though... I would be sad for a Pioneer horizons or a Lord of the rings "Pioneer Edition" for the future.
@sergiodelrio I honestly do believe there is room for homebrews in Modern. And I really think skill and knowledge of the meta can be rewarded still... at my LGS I beat the players who are frankly just bad... but the guys playing Tron/Cascade/ponza at he shop are also just really good players too so when I do even just beat them 1/3 times it really feels like an achievement whether im playing with Jank or being as spikey as possible.
As for changing formats for good... I dont Care for EDH/Multiplayer... i know im in the minority but it just doesnt jive with me... Pauper is just nuts; commons or not that is a super powerful format that outside of burn has quite a big learning curve...Pioneer feels like playing Arena/explorer to me....there is room to brew there like I have been with See the Truth control.... but just like modern the wins just dont come easy and Tier decks are just Tier decks for a reason.
- TL;DR
Just keep the faith! you are valid in your frustrations but if your willing to open up you will see that the Magic is still there.
August 8, 2023 11:03 a.m.
plakjekaas says... #7
I was introduced to Modern by the wrong people. Ever since I learned what formats were, Modern was shown as the format where you need to spend €600 on your land base too even start have a chance to be relevant. I was a poor student at the time, and most of the FNMs at my LGS were Standard anyway, where I could go 2-2 with my €60 deck, even after rotation. Lots of things have changed since then, I have bought cards that are worth more than a Modern manabase, yet that first impression still stuck and I really never got into the format, no matter how many people had shared their pleasant experiences in the format afterwards.
I have been playing Standard from 2016, meaning I have prereleased and played with most of the cards legal in Pioneer, making that a very interesting format for me to play, ever since paper Standard was forced out of the market by MTG Arena. But I still miss the shakeup of rotation after I've played the same pioneer deck for almost two years.
Good points are made in this thread about the function of Modern as a format, especially related to the difficulties with Legacy, but I mostly feel your nostalgia over the way you used to play Magic that doesn't seem to exist anymore. Even though the names and the cards are still there, it doesn't feel like it used to. Which, is mostly human nature, "the good old days" are an almost universal experience, not limited to cardgames or anything.
Complaining about unhealthy formats is universal within Magic as well. As I started playing standard about 6 months before Kaladesh block and Saheeli Guardian combo's, right after CoCo humans rotated out, I don't know if I've ever experienced a Standard format that everyone agreed on it was a healthy one. Unfair/expensive/overubiquitous cards and decks have guided basically every Magic conversation since I started actively playing the game, and it's part of the experience for me now.
All I know for sure (because I've seen it happen multiple times): if you don't enjoy playing, and you force yourself to anyway, you're setting yourself up for unhappiness. Try not to do that, it's a burden on yourself and everyone you play with. Don't sell your cards yet if you have hope it might be better in the future, but don't make yourself play a game that makes you unhappy either.
August 8, 2023 12:50 p.m.
Caerwyn If the people of Legacy were encouraged to move to Modern, and Modern players to Pioneer, what's the expected future? At the risk of stepping onto a slippery slope, in 5-10 years or so, will Pioneer be at the same place Modern is now, with a Pioneer Horizons 3 announcement? Will a new format be created for disenfranchised Pioneer players?
The non-rotating formats will only grow more expansive, not decline or become static, and my interpretation and projection of your comment is that as these formats grow and settle into a defined metagame, new formats will continually be created to accommodate the less competitive. I understand this is only one possible outcome, but just as Modern is the new Legacy and Pioneer is the new Modern, what will be the new Pioneer in 2033?
If the current format design doesn't end in a conveyor belt of new formats as the older formats keep expanding and becoming more competitive, then what do you see for the future of format divisions?
This post has a lot of questions, and I have a lot of respect for your judgements. But to me, moving Legacy players to Modern, and Modern players to Pioneer, sounds unsustainable for more than a few years, especially with the current rate of card production and specialty products like Modern Horizons.
August 8, 2023 2:56 p.m.
@legendofa I agree with you... and frankly its wishful thinking for Pioneer not to go the same way as Modern years from now... at least until we hear something a little more concrete from WOTC.... the logic of moving players does makes sense as a means of working around The reserved List and I myself have thought this too... but some reassurance would be nice... at this point im willing to go on faith that thats the intention (despite not having any official evidence)... but if that confidence breaks then I think I will just abandon eternal formats and just play submit and play Standard lol.
August 8, 2023 3:07 p.m.
legendofa - There is nothing a WotC product user loves more than wild speculation about the worst case scenario. Is it possible Wizards tries to spin out an ever evolving set of formats? Sure, but we have no evidence that might occur, other than trying to extrapolate a singular data point into a line with a very slippery slope.
I see no reason to be concerned right now.
Wizards was pretty fine with Modern for years and years, and only began to tweak it directly around the time they started downplaying Legacy, trying to promote Oathbreaker (a non-RL Commander format, which flopped), etc. There was a concentrated effort by Wizards to kill off popularity of RL-era formats, to various degrees of success.
There is no reason to think Pioneer would be treated any differently from pre-Modern Horizons Modern - the motivation for the release of MH sets and rebalancing of Modern, the RL, simply never will be applicable to the present circumstance.
So, could Pioneer become like post-Modern Horizons Modern? Sure. But, with one of the key motivators for the change not applicable, is that likely? Perhaps not - and certainly not likely enough for one to justify wild speculation about what could happen. This really does not seem like something worth stressing over - there just is not enough present data to support such an extrapolation.
August 8, 2023 3:28 p.m.
Caerwyn It's certainly too early to know to make any solid predictions. But, my speculation is based less on the constraints of the Reserved List and more on the nature of competitive games.
Your first comment points out that "Pioneer might not have super taken off yet - but that is because it is still new. Over time, as Modern becomes more like Legacy and more full of former Legacy players, folks like you will move to Pioneer, seeking the Modern experience you missed." In my experience, it won't be just the disenfranchised Modern players moving in. There will also be the hypercompetitive "Spike" players who simply don't have the resources to enter a Modern tournament. As those players design the best possible decks, the meta will stabilize around them, and the difficulty of finding a usable, even semi-competitive original brew will increase.
Competitive games tend to punish originality and experimentation. They also tend to attract the players most willing to study and invest in the most successful strategies. This is pretty much universally true--card games, board games, digital games, sports--and these factors make an environment averse to innovation.
To use the M:tG psychographic profiles, the player type being punished here is the Spike-J(o/e)nny. The player who wants to win with an original and unique deck. The competitive scene is a difficult place for this player to thrive, and the casual scene often doesn't offer enough reward. To tie this back around, Pioneer is still young. To me, that means it hasn't reached its competitive peak yet. As it develops, the meta stabilizes, and that competitive peak grows closer, there will be less and less room for successful brewing. And that's where my conveyor belt starts.
I realize the perfect format for this, a competitive scene that doesn't coalesce around a meta, is impossible. This also means that finding a home for these sort of player is impossible. The most likely available options are to conform to the meta, lose to the meta, or play noncompetitively. For every Rakdos Scam that takes over a format in under a year (and is built around deliberately pushed cards), there are dozens of satisfyingly original decks scraping and struggling at the edges of the lower tiers. As a brewer, I've accepted the the default is "conform or die," and I'm okay playing casually. I don't enjoy the idea that I can't enter anything other than a local, permissive Modern tournament with one of my brews and expect to get more than a game win or two against unprepared opponents.
I agree that Modern, as an independent format, is in a strong, functional place right now. I see no reason to believe that Pioneer won't grow in competitiveness as it grows in size, and that this growth won't put the squeeze on deck brewing.
August 8, 2023 4:29 p.m.
sergiodelrio says... #12
Icbrgr Thank you for what you said in post #6 , that actually cheered me up a bit
legendofa I 100% agree with post #11 , chef's kiss hit the nail on the head with a sledgehammer and we are completely on the same page, thank you for participating in this conversation
plakjekaas thanks to you as well for contributing to the thread. Certainly nostalgia plays a part with my perception here, but my reservation in regard to what Caerwyn said is that I don't actually believe Modern needed such a push in power lvl to become the competitive successor of legacy. Could they not have pulled that off without compromising most of the card pool? Maybe not, but that's what I'm scratching my head over...
August 8, 2023 5:04 p.m.
legendofa - Modern was around for eight years, with a fourteen-year-old card pool, and was relatively healthy and open-to-Johnnys environment. Sure, it got new cards, but those were all cards vetted for the relatively low-power environment of Standard, with a banlist which could address some of Standard’s mistakes.
It was not until Modern Horizons, and the drastic increase of power from that set, where we saw a major shift away from Standard power levels and into a format dominated by a couple of straight to Modern sets.
For that reason, even if we get influxes of new cards, I think there is reason to believe Pioneer will be fine long-term. After all, Modern was, until Wizards rocked the boat for understandable, necessary, and no longer applicable reasons.
August 8, 2023 5:08 p.m.
sergiodelrio - I do think they needed to drastically increase the power to capture the Legacy feel. High risk plays with cards which can win you the game. The necessity of surprise spells like Force of Negation. The speed, where every turn can be game-defining. Those are the major reasons folks played Legacy - and you cannot really make a successor format without them.
August 8, 2023 5:11 p.m.
Caerwyn I hope you're right. For now, though, we wait and see what happens.
August 8, 2023 5:21 p.m.
I don't really know for sure, but the change in modern might have more to do with the popularity of commander than it does the want to make a home for legacy players. Commander players are usually looking for more top endy cards because of the format, but more than that, what makes someone buy a card for their commander deck is how unique it is. People want the new Rhystic Study or the new Craterhoof Behemoth, something that does what the current card pool doesn't, but if you print that stuff into standard then it makes players resent the rotation more because if you constantly rotate cards with unique and powerful effects, and you want those cards to stay unique, then what do you do? Well, it turns out, you print them in modern and say hey, this is the format now.
Sorry, this is a little tin-foiley maybe : ) But I just think that the core problem is, most players don't play multiple formats competitively, but wizards wants to have sets that attract players of multiple formats, and to do that they've ended up making a horizons-legends mashup. I mean, how many commander staples are in a typical set? A couple maybe? How many are in a modern horizons set? That's not an accident, that's double demand, which is actually great, well, great for everybody except players like me and you who came into modern because it was the more stable and long term format.
Solutions, I have no idea on : ) I struggle with solutions constantly. But I do think that the reason is as simple as, they want to cross pollinate MH sets with buyers.
August 8, 2023 7:10 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #17
I’ve been feeling a greater and greater urge to put together high-speed decks (relying on speed for maybe winning) that have a weird twist or focus to modern, but I haven’t broken through the necessary gravity well because I’ve felt bad about paying money to probably lose. I borderline-purposefully lose at EDH regularly, so it’s not an emotional thing about losing... it’s just that money. Having said that, bringing something like a =<2cmc monored warriors deck keeps scratching at the corner of my mind. I’ll let you all know when I finally break down and do it. Please don’t tell me if that’s already in the meta, by the way, I’ve been curating an obliviousness to the meta for a number of years now and don’t want to lose it lol.
August 9, 2023 9:13 a.m.
sergiodelrio says... #18
FormOverFunction unless whatever deck you're throwing together can take a hit from Fury, I have bad news for you
August 9, 2023 9:17 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #19
Lol yeah, no. Mono-red Goma Fada Vanguard and Kargan Intimidator will not survive that. Having said that I would propose the notion, similar to that of poker, “make them do it.” One thing that I’ve heard for years, as we all have, is the eternal discussion of “this beats that” and “the answer would be X” or whatever. There will (hopefully) always be answers in magic to everything in magic; that’s how the game works. Whether your opponent (a) has it in the deck, and (b) gets their hands on it, is what really matters. That fury card is a good example for the warrior deck I’ve been tinkering with because it’s unlikely that the opponent will have an answer to the Roiling Vortex I try to get out turn two or three (my initial brief at-work read on that card is that it’s cast without paying mana). Maybe they do, I don’t know, but the opponent needs to make it happen. Rolling the dice on that for me is the juice. That’s the action I would be seeking if/when I get out to a modern event. All of those decks that I might be competing against are stellar examples of “how to make a good deck” but they still have to pull the cards, hence my focus on a fast deck. Built a cool race car? Great. I hope you can get it running and in gear before I sprint the full 20 feet of the race ;p
August 9, 2023 1:13 p.m.
I have no idea on the meta really, but effects like Make a Stand could give a warrior deck some back up against Fury and also provide those splashy, "I can block everything" turns. It's kinda lame to go down mana against fury, but it is a 2-1 in cards at least.
August 10, 2023 7:47 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #22
Niko9’s comment about not knowing the meta is another good point, imo. This game is more fun for me when I pay zero attention to that sort of thing. IMPORTANT POINT: this is the opposite of something that can be extremely enjoyable, so don’t get me wrong. I wanted to mention before, though, surprises can be good and I enjoy not locking everyone into “oh they’ve got the Praxis-variant Tron” or “ugh another blue-splashed selesnia token-pop”. Also: subverting those expectations (for the win) can be the sweetest of fruit.
Caerwyn says... #2
Modern is exactly what it needs to be right now.
There are lots of different types of Magic player, and Wizards wants to ensure everyone who wants to play competitively has a format which vibes with their playstyle.
Historically, Legacy was the format for hyper competitive players who wanted to play with and against well oiled machines. Modern was a little more forgiving - it was competitive, but gave you more room to fiddle with your design.
That is good and healthy for the game… or it would be if Legacy did not suffer from a fatal flaw. Legacy is stuck with the Reserved List and therefore stuck with an increasingly prohibitively expensive card pool. With Wizards risking significant legal liability if they removed the RL, they cannot really fix Legacy’s problem - and therefore cannot fix Legacy.
What can Wizards fix? They can shift players around.
Wizards has made a fairly concentrated push to move Legacy players away from the unfixable format of Legacy into Modern. Modern is faster, more brutal, and now has non-Standard mechanisms to inject cards. At the same time, Wizards has been reducing their focus on Legacy, drastically limiting Legacy events.
For folks who enjoyed the previous version of Modern, they invented a new format - Pioneer - at about the same time. Pioneer provides a fairly large card pool, insulated from non-standard sets, with enough room to experiment and build for a different pace than hyper-competitive.
Pioneer might not have super taken off yet - but that is because it is still new. Over time, as Modern becomes more like Legacy and more full of former Legacy players, folks like you will move to Pioneer, seeking the Modern experience you missed.
And that is really good for the game. Everyone deserves to have a format they can play in, including hyper competitive players. It was not fair to an entire playstyle to force them into a format dominated by cards which could not be reprinted - and shifting them to Modern, and Modern players to Pioneer is the best way to ensure the game has something to offer everyone.
August 8, 2023 9:06 a.m.