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By: walkerdog, Tyler Walker
Apr 14 2014 12:00pm
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Creation of Modern

Modern was created a few years ago.  Some history is probably warranted - people tend to view modern as a bit of a child because it is only 2.5 years old.  The first Modern Pro Tour was held in Philly in September of 2011.  The format was not immediately well-liked, for a few reasons.  The biggest one is that Magic players weren't sure what the format was supposed to "mean" to them.

Modern's root are in Extended.  Extended is a really weird format historically - it was meant to bridge the gap between Standard (a rotating format) and Legacy/Vintage (eternal formats).  I believe it even predated Legacy.  Extended would rotate, but only periodically, every few years, creating an interesting mix of old cards and new, with some decks that would persist across rotations, and some that died out.

The best time came when Ravnica was printed.  Extended encompassed Ravnica and went back to Invasion-block.  The most important interaction was between the Onslaught fetchlands and the Ravnica shocklands.  Suddenly, mana-bases could be everything to everyone.  Want to play 8 fetchlands to thin your deck and fuel Grim Lavamancer?  That was an option before, and remained.  Want to play 3, 4, 5 colors in your control deck or aggro deck?  Go for it! 

Ravnica brought some important engines into the format.  Dark Confidant and the Dredge Mechanic enabled new decks and empowered old decks.  The format was pretty wide-open.  By wide-open I mean, everyone just went with Tog and RDW, and then there were a few random other decks, but that your pet deck from an old standard format was probably competitive, if not a top-tier choice.  As the format (and players) adapted to the addition of Ravnica, there were a series of rapid shifts that drastically changed the look of the format.  It turned out that dredge was quickly identified as being broken, but it was mostly viewed in terms of growing one's graveyard for a quick Tog kill - if you had a Tog out, casting Gift's Ungiven for 3 cycling lands and a Life from the Loam would kill the other player fairly quickly, especially if you were dredging out Wonder and/or Brawn.

It's also important to note that Ravnica: City of Guilds (lol what a dumb name) was the only set that had been released from the Ravnica block when this Pro Tour occurred, so your available shocks were Watery Grave, Overgrown Tomb, Sacred Foundry and Temple Garden, and broken mechanics such as Forecast and Graft were not around (just kidding!).  Around this time, John Rizzo was breaking the Dredge mechanic much more aggressively than (almost) anyone else.

As the rest of Ravnica block was released, the additional shocklands filled out the format.  Then a quick one-two punch by Wizards resulted in the addition of Counterbalance and approximately one million relevant cards from the Time Spiral block joining the current card pool. Dredge went from being a cute sidenote/finisher mechanic for Tog decks to suddenly making the Best Creature of All Time irrelevant - Bridge from Below, Narcomoeba, Dread Return, and Street Wraith gave 4 very important cards to a skeleton printed in Ravnica (don't forget Boros's addition - Flame-kin Zealot!).  Tarmogoyf though, man, he did some work too - suddenly the Blue decks were not Tog decks - why pay 3 for a 1/2 that could grow to a 5/6 with some small effort when you could pay 2 for a 1/2 that could grow to a 5/6 with almost no effort?

Around the "Tarmogoyf is good!" realization came an explosion of decks, but the format never fully took off.  While it was a REALLY good format, it had

Extended Pro Tour Winner (really!)

one strike against it - the dreaded ROTATION!  Extended would rotate, taking out everything up to Mirrodin.  No more Goblins, no more fetches, no more lots-of-things. It was a bad deal.  Wizards briefly tweaked the rotation, keeping Onslaught in the format, but eventually, a full rotation occurred.  If you'd like to look at that format, you might want to reconsider - White Weenie was 1/4 of the top 8.  Wizards appeared to realize that rotation has a psychological effect on players.  Legacy was booming at the time, thanks primarily to Starcitygames, but it is also a format where your deck tends to stay legal for very long periods of time unless, of course, you break Survival too thoroughly.

We don't know exactly what happened internally, but externally Gavin Verhey was writing about Extended-like variants at SCG.  His overextended series was a decent hit, and appeared to be a viable (and probably superior) variant of format, especially compared to the miserable newextended. Gavin was hired by Wizards, and suddenly newextended hit the crapper, while overextended appeared to be implemented almost completely, setting up the new format, "Modern" (named, I think, for the cutoff of 'modern cardframes').

Modern was not a perfect format either, especially at the start.  The first issue was that Wizards pre-banned most of the recent "big" decks from standard, due to being miserable to play against, along with some decks from previous extended iterations, which also were considered miserable to play against.  Wizards also implemented a "turn 3 kills aren't okay" rule, which didn't strictly ban any deck that could kill an opponent on turn three (hi Tinfins), but does go after decks that can "consistently" kill the opponent on turn 3 or earlier.  Here is the original banlist:

Ancestral Vision
Ancient Den
Bitterblossom
Chrome Mox
Dark Depths
Dread Return
Glimpse of Nature
Golgari Grave-Troll
Great Furnace
Hypergenesis
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Mental Misstep
Seat of the Synod
Sensei's Divining Top
Skullclamp
Stoneforge Mystic
Sword of the Meek
Tree of Tales
Umezawa's Jitte
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Vault of Whispers

You can see the mix of powerful standard decks and miserable mistakes. 
Mistakes: Jitte, Dredge, Mental Misstep, Top, Skullclamp, dredge effects

Standard decks: Artifact lands, Jace, SFM, Valakut, and Ancestral Visions

There are also a few cards that are more nods to prior powerful Extended decks: Sword of the Meek, Hypergenesis, Dark Depths, and Chrome Mox.

There is also some overlap, such as dredge being both a design mistake and a previously powerful extended deck. 
People didn't immediately love Modern!  Some were "furious," "heart-broken," or "cry-babies" about their favorite deck not being in the format.  "SFM IS FINE FOR MODERN OMG OMG OMG," "WHY BAN JACE UGGGGG," "WTF DID YOU BAN JITTE (no one actually said this, we were all fine with no Jittes iirc)!?!?!?"

The first Pro Tour in the new format was mildly successful, but also showed the holes remaining in Wizards's "No T3 kill!" wall - Storm, Cloudpost, and

Wait, I take how much Infect?

Infect could drop you to 0 (or 10 infect) on the third turn. Or second turn, given the silly hands. And consistently on the fourth turn. With some protection for the kill.  Additionally, Splinter Twin was extremely consistent, helped by Ponder and Preordain.  Cloudpost and Twin in particular tended to hold down aggressive decks very effectively, and Punishing Fire was deemed too obnoxious as well!  There were plenty of bans in the two following banlist updates.   Wild Nacatl ate the dust along with Punishing Fire - Fire for holding down aggro too effectively (and being pretty inevitable - this was pre-Deathrite Shaman, pre-Scavenging Ooze).  Wild Nacatl (which is talked about some more below) was determined to be too efficient, to the point of obsoleting non-Affinity aggro decks.

It might have felt like Wizards was going to smash any unfair deck, but soon after we began to see unfair decks that played within the "wait until turn 4 or later" rule-set - Jund, Pod, Twin, UWR, and Tron.  These decks interacted with their opponents, gave the opponents opportunities to interact with them on one "axis" or another, and generally would be able to overcome these limitations with most hands. 

The turn 4 rule is rather arbitrary, if we're being honest.  It handicaps (rather unfairly) decks that are fragile against some interaction, but strong against others, and it also ends up killing off weaker decks that share some cards with stronger decks - see Hive Mind, a fringe deck, getting wrecked by a banning of Seething Song.  The ban of Song may well be necessary, but it ruined Hive Mind's playability (which wasn't HIGH before, but it could win a tournament here and there).

It also does little to address decks that can be unbeatable consistently on turn 4 or later.  Before banning both Bloodbraid Elf and then Deathrite Shaman (maybe we can quit printing OP Elves huh Wizards????), Jund was one of the 2-3 best decks (and it might still be, I'm not sure), who was able to prey on the fact that opposing decks weren't allowed to kill it on turn 3 if it kept a hand that played 1 discard spell and 2 manlands in the first 3 turns. 

UWR control and Tron could have similar games.  They would slow down the opponent just enough to seize control of the long game, and then kill you with one of their great endgames (Karn/Wumrcoil/Eldrazi, or Burn + manlands).  The fact that you were effectively dead from turn 3-4 on doesn't make it okay!  Wizards appeared to recognize this by recently unbanning some trouble for those sorts of decks in Wild Nacatl and Bitterblossom, while banning Deathrite Shaman. 

Deathrite Shaman also had a little bit of splash-damage that was done to Birthing Pod, which was similarly effective to Jund in being able to have you dead from the word go, despite your interaction.  It just was going to happen on turn 4 or later.  This is a little bit overly dramatic, but there were times that unless you had exactly the right pieces of interaction or disruption, that you weren't even in the game against these decks, let alone winning the game.  This gives the opponent the illusion of playing a game, but to my mind, it isn't better than losing on turn 3 to a combo.  At the same time, I don't think it is totally invalid to say that a deck that gives the opponent more chances (turns) to beat it may be marginally more acceptable in a tournament environment, as there are more chances that the pilot screws up, or that the opponent just outplays them.  The problem, to my mind, is that decks like Pod and Jund have many decision points, but making the wrong decision is rarely very punishing because you have so much natural resilience and as much disruption as you want to play in those colors.  UWR and Tron may not be quite as resilient, but they're not far behind, at least pre-banning of Deathrite.

The unbanning of Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle was a bright spot in the format.  Valakut had been part of a miserable standard format - possibly one of the most unenjoyable (for many players, not everyone! I thought it was cool) standard formats ever.  Keep in mind that that was the same standard format that had a little deck known as Caw-Blade when evaluating.  The main competition would probably be pre-banning Ravager Affinity standard and Faeries/Jund standard (although I didn't think that one was that bad, just not exciting).  Feel free to nominate your least-favorite that I've missed!

Valakut was banned to start the format, as covered above.  After a few months, Wizards felt comfortable unbanning it, and it immediately destroyed the format was a fine addition to the format, albeit yet ANOTHER deck that was hostile to aggressive decks.  One thing you may have noticed about Modern: it's not really a place you want to attack with 1-drops!  The relatively low amount of aggressive decks other than Affinity and Zoo was the reason for banning Wild Nacatl, right? So it turned out that the reason that those were the only two aggressive decks (or main two) was that they were the only two with powerful enough 1-drops (Nacatl) or synergy (Affinity, or Robots if you prefer) to actually win!  

Valakut being unbanned was important.  It showed that Wizards was willing to unban a combo deck (which is generally the kind of deck you would expect them to be leery of), and it showed that Wizards would unban cards from their initial list of "these decks suck to play against!"  It may have helped that Tectonic Edge was played at least occasionally in main-decks of many decks already, giving them a bit of a buffer.  Plus, Valakut doesn't play terribly differently than Tron.  It is more controlling with permission, and less explosive, due to needing 7 lands to do the (likely) minimum of 18 damage, but it, like Tron, wants to drop lands and play something big around turn 4-6 (consistently!).

This leads us up to the most recent Pro Tour.  Deathrite Shaman was banned just before the event, and Wild Nacatl and Bitterblossom were unbanned.  These were seen as a Big Deal.  Wild Nacatl was considered by many players to be a "bad" banning, and here Wizards appeared to agree, and possibly even be admitting a mistake (or at least admitting that it didn't have the desired effect on the format). I suppose that one might argue that it was fine to ban the cat to see if it would result in the desired change (BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO...), and that since the ban didn't have the right result, this was the logical next step.

Faeries was a second deck, after Valakut, to be unbanned despite not being well-liked during its standard run.  During the pre-unbanning stages, it was still lightly played, as mono-Blue, UB (splashing for your Thoughtseize and removal effects) and UR (which was a more aggressive deck, using Lightning Bolt and Electrolyze as finishers).  The only Fae (trolling Paulo here) in these decks were typically a mixture of Spellstutter Sprite, Mutavault, and maybe a couple-two-or-three Mistbind Clique.  It was occasionally successful, but was mostly a way to play Snapcaster Mage in a non-UWR shell.  Unbanning Bitterblossom felt like a Big Deal.  

It wasn't.  The combination of lifeloss from Bitterblossom, Wild Nacatl rejoining the format, and the still-missing Ancestral Visions ended up with a nearly-useless Faeries deck, or at least one that wasn't a tier 1 deck as many (including myself) expected.  In addition, Bitterblossom had potential to give Jund yet another great option, but Deathrite Shaman's ban kneecapped Jund just enough to keep it from mattering much.  

Wild Nacatl didn't feel like it would be a problematic card (to me), and wasn't.  It did seem to result in a slightly better deck than Faeries, but the new Zoo decks were not exactly amazing either.  This is probably because it's not like a 3/3 for 1 is actually that great when everyone is playing Lightning Bolt. 

The Big Payoff

Modern appears to be quickly growing in popularity, at least if one judges by the cost of the cards for the format.  Magic players have warmed up to it, and it appears that it is here to stay.  It also looks like Magic players have realized that it is an eternal format.  

A quick aside - you may not like the use of "eternal" here, but too bad.  It doesn't rotate, and the prices are getting crazy - it's eternal!

Once Magic players (or most of them) have fully grasped the implications this new eternal format, and once they (mostly) started having fun playing modern, prices were bound to increase.  There is a demand for modern cards that is at least partly based on the fact that they will. not. rotate.  They may be reprinted, but even that has been shown to be a lesser threat than one would imagine - Thoughtseize, for example, was reprinted in the first block of a new standard set, which destroyed its price in paper hurt its price, but hasn't been nearly as impactful as many would expect.  Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant were reprinted with new (worse!) art, and increased in price as new modern players decided to get in with the printing of Modern Masters!

It's not that reprints can't hurt card value - they can, and do, in the case of cards such as Lightning Helix, Knight of the Reliquary, Kitchen Finks, Random old Spirit Dragons, and so on, but many of those cards have partly or completely recovered their value since the reprints!  It feels insane to say it, but increased supply, especially in the case of small print runs, can cause increased demand, as folks feel that they have a "good time" to buy/trade in to a format. 

The permanence and support that the format has been given has given any card that is playable, even if it's just a 2-3-of sideboard card, a lot more value than it did in previous times, when Extended-only cards generally only had a little value during "extended season."

"So is now a good time to buy into Modern?" you might be wondering - yes and no!  If you can afford to, certainly!  It's a lot of fun.  It is worth considering a buy-in strategy.  For example, fetchlands, Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, Snapcaster Mage, Vendilion Clique, Cryptic Command, and so on are not cheap cards!  It is worth planning ahead, and thinking about possible actions by Wizards of the Coast in buying in. 

As an example, were I to have to re-buy-in to Modern right now, I'd focus on decks that do not use (or can substitute other options) fetch-lands.  Many players feel like either (or both, I guess?) one of the allied, or enemy, sets of fetchlands will be reprinted in the next block.  It isn't a sure thing, but at this point, I'd be skittish about trading for them or buying them.  Instead, I would look at decks like Soul Sister, UR Storm, UR Splinter Twin, UW tap-out control, Affinity, and so on.  Affinity and UR decks are probably the best options.  Affinity plays a bunch of carts that are hard to reprint in new sets (not impossible, but hard, and Modern Masters reprints have already recovered for the little robots), while UR can function reasonably well with Steam Vents, Sulfur Falls, Shivan Reef, and Cascade Bluffs.  Sure, they aren't as good as fetchs, but they will get the job done almost every time - UW's mana is similarly effective, and also gets a sick man-land.

Other than that, if I were to go "whole-hog," making an expensive deck my choice, I'd look at something like the URW core or the GWB core.  If you were to buy the URW core, you can play any Twin build you like (well, URG, not so much), any UWR midrange or control deck you want, UR storm, and probably something I'm missing.  With the GWB core, you have the GB rock deck, most of Jund (although you'd want Jund shocks, and Lightning Bolts, but mostly stuff that is not terribly costly to add to your deck.), and Birthing Pod.  

Those are the two best ways to buy into modern if you want to go big.  Again, Affinity is probably the best cost-conscious choice, and may just be the best buy-in, but if you don't want to go with it, that's understandable.  To buy in (or trade in) to modern from scratch, you're looking at a couple hundred dollars minimum, and that's putting together either a non-optimal version of a top deck, or a deck (such as Affinity) that doesn't really build towards other decks.  To buy fully into something like all of the UWR options - that's closer to $1500-2000, depending how overboard on sideboard cards you go.

Many of the decks that are written about on Puremtgo tend to skirt the budget line - that is for a reason: many people won't find an article about an expensive, well-known deck to be appealing.  Simply put, "I'm not that interested in reading an underaccomplished player's take on a deck that I already hate!" (this is the generic point of view, not mine). Plus, the odds are decent that the average MODO'r (and hence, the average Puremtgo author) doesn't have a deep Modern collection, capable of building every deck.  The average non-Modern player might have half of UR Splinter Twin, or Storm, or some Ravagers and Mox Opals, or the random Soul Sisters or Boggles pieces that are expensive.

Should You Play Modern?

This is the big question - if you aren't playing modern, why would you want to? Or should you want to? And so on.  First, you should review whether you enjoy the concept of a non-rotating format.  Do you hate the thought that a top deck can have a key component banned if it is performing too effectively, or if it slows down tournaments too much (a category that encompasses Sensei's Divining Top and Second Sunrise).

On the other hand, if you enjoy a stable pool of cards and a wide variety of decks, Modern might be a good choice.  It also helps to have some or all of a current deck, but even if you don't, it is still feasible to pick up a Modern deck.  There are other considerations to make in determining if Modern would be a good fit for you.  

The format is wide-open (in that a lot of a decks are competitive), but it isn't Legacy from 8 years ago.  Decks will kill you on their fourth turn fairly regularly, especially if you have no disruption.  "True" prisons, locks, and inevitable end-games are hard to build, and even harder to assemble in a game before dying.  At the same time, it is also hard to run people over with pure aggression.  

Having the "best end-game" is very difficult, because decks have a variety of ways to kill the bad-guys, and there are so many powerful effects that it is hard to set up a finisher that can handle all of them.  That means that one of the key skills involved in playing modern is understanding when you have to go for the throat, and how to build your deck so that it can go for the throat in matchups where you cannot have an inevitable end-game.

A good example of this might be something like Zoo against UWR.  UWR (any version, really) can typically crush Zoo.  The combination of Lightning Bolts and other removal spells, Snapcaster Mage to run them back, and finishers that are hard for Zoo to interact with (such as Geist of Saint Traft or Celestial Collonade) can lead to a longgggg uphill battle for Zoo.  Zoo will frequently vomit out 4 creatures by turn 3, then watch them get picked off by turn 4 or 5 and the opponent stabilize just out of burn reach. 

At that point, the sheer card advantage will tend to negate the burn-based end-game that Zoo would rely on to close the game, and the burn and powerful finishers will eat up the Zoo player.  What if Zoo has sided in 2-3 trolls though?  Cards like Troll Ascetic and Thrun, the Last Troll can flip the script.  Now, instead of having to be the aggressor, Zoo can shift into a finisher that may be impossible for the UWR deck to beat - it is possible that Thrun gets hit by Supreme Verdict on the turn he is played, but barring that, the Zoo player has a pretty good chance of winning the game.

So if you're the UWR player, you have to know how to end the game if it becomes apparent that you may not have the inevitability that you rely on normally against Zoo.  You'll start using your Snapcaster Mages as attackers backed up with Cryptic Command's to keep the opponent from killing you on their turn, and finish with burn.

Compared to the Extended of old, it is much more difficult to establish the "best" end-game.  Back in the day, you could slam Top, Counterbalance, and Tarmogoyf in successive turns, putting up a brick wall  in the form of Goyf, and a roof over your head in the Countertop lock.  For those few threats that might somehow wriggled through all of these cracks, there was a hard Counterspell to plug any leaks.  You just don't get that level of "NO!" in Modern.  There is almost no unbeatable end-game.  Even a quick Emrakul, Karn, or Wurmcoil Engine from Tron may be dealt with by a timely Cryptic Command.  

On the other end of the spectrum, you are limited in how aggressive you can be in tapping out for creatures by the presence of Lightning Bolt, Snapcaster Mage, Liliana of the Veil, Path to Exile, and various combo decks.  It is very hard to play win by dropping dudes that die to bolt, trade with Snapcaster Mage (and die to the Bolt he flashed back!), or just get outraced by a combo deck. There is certainly a weakness inherent in playing 1-dimensional aggressive decks.  Burn is something of an exception to this, because it plays minimal creatures and relies on spells to the dome instead.

Creature-heavy decks, more than in most formats, rely on creatures that pull their weight in ways other than simply attacking or blocking.  Goblin Guide gets in for 2 before the opponent has taken a turn (on the play).  Dark Confidant draws cards.  Clique clears out the opponent's biggest threat, and helps against combo decks in particular.

The other big appeal to modern is that it is not a "broken" format.  Legacy and Vintage are formats where Brainstorm, Lion's Eye Diamond, Daze, Force of Will, Dark Ritual, Ancient Tomb, Show and Tell, and similar old, broken cards are legal.  There is certainly some appeal to playing with these cards, but there is also some appeal to knowing that your turn 1 play won't be hit with Force of Will, or that you won't (probably!?!?) die to Storm on turn two. 

Personally, I'm a huge fan of Modern, and if you have a local shop where it is played frequently, get into it!  If you are willing to play it online, do it! It is excellent - the decks are mostly fun, and Wizards is paying attention to decks that are causing unfun results in the format, which in my mind, is a huge plus.