Ok, for a while I was pretty uninterested on the regular "power rankings" episodes, but I feel like you guys have really grown this to be really focused on the shifting meta, as it's the general trends that are way more interesting to me that what deck falls where in a 1-10 scale. If you ever feel like this format is getting stale, just having a monthly "meta report" episode would be something I know I'd prefer.
I basically already *do* that on Twitter. I try to work in as much of it as possible. I also like the power rankings because it gives us a chance to contextualize numbers that sometimes get lost
The reason I play Blue Farm is I want to play the deck that gives me the best chances of taking down a tournament and I don’t have much time to play magic each week because I’m a dad and work full time. I was recently able to top 4 with it and was one force of will away from taking it down on turn two.
Been playing Stella Lee. Deck is very expolsive and can win out of nowhere. I will say from my experience so far that it is very commander dependant. I've never seen so many red blasts and pyroblasts in my life lol.
Looks like the metagame is shifting in a way that's more hostile to midrange. Can't just sit and draw cards to force a window. All of the top 5 decks are good at punishing that. Even Krark and Sakashima is solid at doing that. If I were to make a bold estimate for next month, you'll see slightly more consolidation of the top 3 with Atraxa and Tivit leaving the top 10. A fast deck with a couple stax pieces like Tymna Jeska but probably not actual Tymna Jeska will enter the top 10. The following month will see another turbo deck and a stax deck like Ellivere enter the lower half of the top 10 or honorable mentions. Midrange will never truly go away though because Rhystic Study + countermagic + compact combos will only ever be so bad. Also, Ian, love you buddy, but Cal's right about the challenges. If you're following cEDH closely enough to listen to hour long monthly power ranking videos, you're more than likely familiar enough with competitive 60 card constructed to know the gist of big MTGO tournaments.
I get where Cal is coming from. Though that is most likely because the last format I enjoyed before getting into cEDH a year ago was modern back before pod got banned. (Also played a ton in Nebraska back in that day). Maybe not for everyone, but the analogy speaks to me.
Definitely on Cal’s side on this one. I don’t play on modo and definitely know how challenges work. Almost agreed with Ian solely because there was no new green scooter saga chapter this week
I think Stella is what everyone thought Kinnan was, an easy, powerful, cheap commander for new players to pick up. Kinnan has like 5 wincons: 2 grindy wincons (Seedborn/Sphinx) and 2-3 infinite mana combos. Knowing what lines you can go for in a matchup is tough. Stella has one wincon and zero pivots, you just jam Wisps/Refocus/Twitch or something to search for it then your library becomes your hand. The only other combo in the deck is Breach/Brain Freeze, but you have no realistic way of assembling that. You could say that the lack of pivot potential is a weakness, but my point is that it makes it an easy deck to pilot. I can easily see Stella hitting boogeyman status like Codie was.
As someone who has been playing paper magic for nearly 2 decades, who also hasn't touched a non-EDH format since pod was banned in Modern, and who has never used MTGO, I just wanted to say that I still understood Cal'a comparison of Modern's Esper midrange to cEDH's Blue Farm.
In a somewhat unrelated note, I also want to say that I greatly miss the presence of Playing with Power. Not only were they a great source of consistent tournaments (despite a few bad apples ruining the bunch), but just great content overall. I genuinely hope to see the channel return some day!
I know what a modern challenge is, even if I've never played modern or mtgo. I get what you mean, they are. Tournaments that help us get a good pulse on the. Meta. When you were talking about earlier I the episode about all the new players picking up decks and putting up bad to meh results, it. Made me think about the validity of the stats you guys are using. What do they really tell us? Maybe those old online tournies with consistent participation in the 100s could give us better reads?
Just to add to the discussion about new players lowering numbers on decks; i dont think that means the decks are bad, and i dont think it is a problem that influxes of new players are lowering the stats of some top decks. I think it should actually be praised that new players are coming in from casual or other formats and trying these decks, eventually they will learn, and it keeps relevant decks more diverse. Maybe i misinterpreted the discussion, but it sounded like issue was being taken with new players trying to play control/complex decks, which i do not think should be discouraged
I believe that you misinterpreted. It's a criticism of the deck that it is hard for new players not the players for being new. There is also something to be said about hoping new players pick up easier things to start as to not have to learn too many factors all at once. I can speak for myself in this only, but my career is literally dedicated to getting players into the format so I would hope it shows that
I think Ian is horribly wrong about people not knowing MODO challenges. Also the video starts at X is more of an issue if the podcaster not getting the format than the viewers. Retention beats and a little bit of scripting the start goes a long way. Yes podcasts can have a long intro but grinding youtube is very similar to grinding magic and tweaking your format to fit the meta and there are things you can do to grow your podcasts reach.
I think the modo challenge comparison is apt because the modo challenges are recurring weekly things that shape the metagame of the format. But I also played tournament modern for years both on modo and in paper. I also agree with Cal that modo is a great way to get reps in for any format it offers. Did practicing on modo mean i was a bit worse at the Devoted Druid match ups in modern? yes but it also took me from a beginner player to intermediate way faster than paper could have.
I know this was done before the Play To Win event this past weekend but seeing dwarf queen fall out of top 10 hurt even with the tourney win. I think a big thing with low conversion rate this past month was a lot more of the metagame is accounting for the deck, and on top of that, a lot of pilots right now are experimenting with lists that aren't familiar to them. You see the more stax or turbo focused lists fell to the wayside but the big midrange/control lists were the ones that performed well. Huge shout-out to axisplus and PapaSquats for their wins this month for sure though. Glad to see the work were doing getting some dubs despite the extra metagame shift recently
It won the queen and Rook event yesterday too. Deck is very solid but a part of doing this monthly means if a deck has peaks and valleys we will definitely reflect that with the rankings
Wanna point out, especially as someone that regularly is playing this deck and that deck. There seems to be no good beginner deck that ISNT bluefarm. The sheer amount of content I consume for this format points to what amounts to for new players. BlueFarm or get married. Kinnan Sisay Najeela Rog/Si Winota Temur Dargo Tymna/Jeska Thrasios/Bruse Kenerith Amazing decks. U can pick them up and just play. But they don't play well if u don't understand their tiny nuances. T1 Fetch for a Tropical Island or Underground Sea? Pivot point when u have X card in hand and Y card exists in opponents board. Tap out for advantage engine t3 for seat 2? Or play commander hold up interaction? So if not BlueFarm. We're are u sending the new flux of players?
Just won a tournament 64p in the city with Sisay. It's my pet deck for long. I'm very happy to see its growth to the level that can stand shoulder with Bluefarm and Rogsi
I was curious as everyone seems very high on Etali and while the amount of clone effects that every deck seems to be playing to take advantage of the advantage engines everywhere help the deck, not a lot has been said of the double edged Etali sword of I have seen the deck whiff quite a bit and then the next person able to clone Etali can often win off of it / pull ahead of the deck. Atraxa also operated like this but there is a meaningful difference between drawing 3-5 cards and casting 4 spells for free.
Do you feel that people learn to play their decks well by bringing them to a tournament and playing against other people of equal skill level, or should people learn to play their decks optimally before coming to a tournament so they don't skewer the numbers? I'm interested to get your opinion
Great point that needs to be stressed more about control players. You're not supposed to be Table Police, your role is to protect your game plan is cEDH
CEDH player from Finland, whos played since 2014 here, I have never played MODO. No clue whats happening there except that they added cEDH there and that Rebell plays back decks there.
Whats the cutoff for # of players in an event for it to be taken into consideration? I played at a 40 person something event this past month and there were 3 sisays entered and all 3 of us made top 4. It was a nightmare pod. With the fall of MM and Ka0s and webcam in general, maybe consider widening the dataset to compensate?
Yall mentioned two types of control player, but forgot one. 1. People who attempt to counter everything their opponents do, 2. People who know to hold counters back for important targets, and the one you missed.. 3. People who refuse to use any of their counter spells ever, including to prevent their opponent from winning the game. Given how many times I hear people talking about "all three control players refused to use their counter spell on the obvious target so the fourth player won," my guess is that the majority of control players fall into camp #3.
I'm primarily a 60 card player and I play cedh on the side. Most edh and cedh players have no idea whatsoever about modern, what goes on in modern, and they don't care about modern or any other 60 card format whatsoever. And they don't really have a reason to, tbh. So I don't blame them. I try to bring up similar lines of play and cool strategies all the time and I get dead silence and blank stares.
I’m in Japan where proxies are not allowed and I can’t justify the expense of any other deck right now, so I, too, am pretty bummed out by this development. I guess I’m just going to quit for a while.
Ian is wrong! about modern challenges. Anybody who plays modern enough to listen to podcasts will always hear the modern podcasts talk about going over the weekend challenges and talk about what top 8’d etc. and every Monday the metagame breakdown would post on Reddit. So even if you only played at the LGS, you would keep up on the modern meta by checking the challenge results via Reddit or podcasts.
Is the "new players dragging down this dexk" pure conjecture? I mean, there is data out there for player perfoemance. I mean, to me it just seems like a cop out to say, every popular deck that underperforms is being dragged down by new players without data.
How would you explain that certain players are constantly topping on the list, it gets popular and suddenly the WR tanks? Dont think its a cop out bc It seems like a safe assumption so people keep on repeating it…. but I agree with your first part there is not factual evidence to support it.
I mean I personally average a tournament every other week, usually with 50+ players, and all over the US, as well as coach new players for a living. Doesn't feel that crazy that I would have an idea what is popular with new players
The discussion generally gets thrown around with Kinnan, which is a really big name when people ask what they should enter the format with. It's an easy deck to understand but a very difficult deck to master; listen to Wounded's tourney reports and some of his lines are pretty wild. There's a few decks like this that look really appealing to newer players and just require a lot of reps to really pilot to significant success. All that said I don't think anyone is saying it's not a good thing newer players are entering the format, it's totally a good thing.
Ian...... How could you....... Our bestest boi........😢 I get that ranking with data from the community, but we are talking experienced players playing any deck to say 'what is actually the best' Kinnan's gotta be higher than 10 - WoundedSatellite
@@ComedIanMTG if you are mostly talking data then 100%, i more so mean if we are talking best deck as in highest capability of the deck, I think kinnan is still tier 1
