A new format: Postmodern (RtR onwards, nonrotating, fetches banned)
General forum
Posted on April 9, 2016, 11:55 a.m. by 326
So, me and a couple of friends were trying to come up with a new format to play for fun amongst ourselves. We came to the conclusion that a non-rotating format would probably be better than a rotating one and that RtR would be a pretty natural place to start.
Most blocks before RtR have some pretty silly cards (Snapcaster Mage etc.) that could dominate the format. We also decided to ban the Khans fetchlands from the format to keep the manabases from getting too wild and to keep the format more diverse.
Looking at recent Standard decks that gain a lot from the format, Black Devotion, GR Ramp, MonoR/GR Aggro, UWB control/dragons, Megamorph/CoCo and Rally seem like some pretty good ones.
Thoughts on the format? What do you think would be some of the better decks of the format?
...except that I own at least a playset of every Khans fetchland, as do most people involved. Their pricetag has nothing to do with the decision to ban them. While the manabases they would enable would most certainly be amusing, fetches and shocklands and generally just too good together. Deck diversity suffers when everyone can just splash for the best cards. We might include them at some point, though we're quite confident that the format is more enjoyable without them.
I really don't understand how you think choosing the starting set based on gameplay reasons is arbitary. RtR is just a good block in general in that it has some sweet cards but nothing too over the top. Innistrad has quite a few problematic cards for such a small format, so cutting it out of the format makes a whole lot of sense imho.
April 9, 2016 12:32 p.m.
If lands tapped for every color of mana with very little downside, would magic be a more diverse game than it is now? I think the issue with fetch lands in every format that can't punish them somehow (blood moon, stifle, decks that are aggressive enough to punish shock lands/tap lands) is that there is no reason to play less than 3 colors, since you can just jam all the good cards into one pile. While there are ten color pairs and ten 3 color combinations there are only 5 four color combinations and only one five. So generally speaking, if every 1-3 color combination had 1 deck that was viable, there would be 25 decks in the format. If only 3-5 color decks are viable, there would be 16 viable decks in the format. This is an oversimplification, but I hope you get my point. Also, I think fetchlands slow the game down by a lot due to shuffling. I don't think owning/not owning fetch lands has anything to do with wanting/not wanting them being legal.
Isn't choosing the starting set for the format for gameplay reasons EXACTLY the right reason? Isn't the change of borders more of an arbitrary reason?
And yes, siege rhino is a card. So are Sphinx's Revelation, Supreme Verdict, Atarka's Command, Pack Rat and Elvish Mystic. There are good cards in every format. I don't think siege rhino would be oppressive in any way, since it wasn't really unbeatable in standard and there a lot of cards at a similiar or higher power level in the format.
Honestly I think the format seems sweet and deserves a shot. Seems like grindy midrange decks should be pretty good, but I think aggro and control have some great options, while there are a couple of semi-interesting combo options too in rally and jeskai ascendancy.
April 9, 2016 2:02 p.m.
There's nothing wrong with fetches and shock combos. The lifeloss makes a significant difference against aggro decks and three colour decks in modern can suffer from inconsistency. Jund in modern gave up trying to cast Anger of the Gods, Courser of Kruphix and Liliana of the Veil all on T3 for example during metas in which creature based aggro was high.
Unfortunately you did just cut Blood Moon out of the format - a key card in controlling wild manabases.
Also RtR is craaaazy. Deathrite Shaman? Pack Rat? If you are picking it as an example of a set with non-format-warping cards then I believe you need to look elsewhere.
All of the recent blocks have offered wild cards that have dominated formats though. You want to start with RTR - then control will likely dominate with Sphinx's Revelation, Supreme Verdict, and Detention Sphere.
You want to start with Theros? Then Mono-Aggro will likely dominate due to cards like Eidolon of the Great Revel and Prophetic Flamespeaker along with Purphoros, God of the Forge.
You want to start with Khans? Then 2/3 colour midrange will likely dominate with cards like Siege Rhino, Mantis Rider, or Surrak Dragonclaw.
One of the nice things about an old format is that due to the diversity in card selection it self regulates because you have HUGE selection in varied strategies. The more sets you cut out, the lower the card diversity is, the fewer strategies become viable.
This is actually a really interesting topic in balance though.
What you want to play is based on your goals and what you look for in magic.
Why don't you guys play pauper (only commons but all of them ever), or only commons and uncommons as another variation?
April 9, 2016 2:36 p.m.
I was going to write a longer reply, but then I realized that I would be attempting to have a conversation with a person that 1: thinks DRS, Eidolon and Flamespeaker are cards that would be dominant cards in this format 2: fails to grasp that when you put a bunch of cards together, you actually get a healthy metagame ("You want to start with RTR" ->) 3: thinks Blood Moon is a good way to regulate manabases in a healthy format 4: assumes that life loss is equally punishing in two completely different formats.
So yeah... Any other ideas?
April 9, 2016 4:18 p.m.
Way to sidestep every issue with a complete non-response.
This is your proposal. It is therefore UP TO YOU to persuade US that this is a good idea, not for us to persuade you. Tell me why, in your infinite wisdom, you think that DRS won't dominate this format? Tell me why you think that these particular cards will produce a healthy metagame? Tell us why your proposal to artificially control manabases with arbitrary bannings is better than a card that can easily be played around but punishes greed. Tell us why you think these well balanced lands are so broken in this new format you're designing.
As a designer the impetus is on YOU, not US to sell the idea and explain the choices you have made. We have all come in here and made proposals and poked holes in your faulty logic. You have made assumptions and failed to actually address anything head on. This is the natural designing process - you need to sell something and think it through.
Because the reality is that actually, no, when you put a "bunch of cards together" you do not get a "healthy metagame". And no there is no evidence you have presented to say that DRS would not dominate this format given its strong showings in literally every other format its been in etc etc.
I am willing to engage in an interesting discussion about designing a new format but not one that literally refuses to engage on every issue
April 9, 2016 5:01 p.m.
ducttapedeckbox says... #9
Unless I read the original post incorrectly, you asked for thoughts on the format - you got them. While neither one of us may be "correct," I gave my opinion and stated why I think the way I do.
In some regard I misunderstood your position, but having an aggressive discussion is not going to get anywhere.
I'm open to hearing your reasons for why RTR is your desired starting point, but I have yet to see valid reasons other than it doesn't contain "silly cards" or the contents are "sweet" and "cool." These words can be used to describe any set depending on who you ask, so if you're looking to get an outside opinion, you'll need to be more specific.
April 9, 2016 5:05 p.m.
DRS loses its most important function (being a mana dork) when you put in in a format wihout fetchlands. The other abilities are relevant, but without the mana ability, the card is very mediocre. It saw very little play in Standard during the time it was legal for exactly this reason.
As I said earlier, there really aren't any cards in RTR that are that problematic. There certainly are strong cards (Burning-Tree Emissary, Pack Rat, Revelation, Verdict, Jace, Smiter) that will absolutely see play in the format, but nothing that seems obviously problematic. The previous block, Innistrad, has cards like Snapcaster Mage that are obviously massively problematic. RtR is a good cutting point because it has a cycle of excellent (but not obviously broken) manafixers in the shocklands.
Fetchland-based manabases are problematic for the reason that they enable four-coloured manabases - as Lahlborg said earlier, without restrictions on mana, there really isn't a point in not just playing all the best cards in your chosen four colours. The question should be what CAN you play and access to which cards are you prepared to sacrifice in order to access others.
It's insane you could just jam Mantis Rider, Dig Through Time, Kalitas and Crackling Doom into the same deck and still have a stable manabase. It was an interesting experiment, but that generally shouldn't happen in Magic for rather obvious reasons. Fetch + Shock -powered manabases would even be superior to the ones from Khans/Zendikar Standard. It's just not something we want in the format for what are in my opinion some pretty good reasons.
I was trying to point out the flaw in the logic of "Well, since there are good control cards in RtR, control will just dominate the format!", but I misworded the sentence slightly.
The point that I was trying to make is that if you start from RtR, sure: you do get strong control cards. But since the format includes cards from outside of RtR that are good for Midrange/Combo/Aggro, you actually have very strong decks of different varieties. Revelation is a messed up card, but so are Siege Rhino and Atarka's Command. It's entirely possible that some cards actually prove overpowered (Rally the Ancestors is definitely on the watchlist, though there are some quite potent hate cards against it in the format; same goes for Atarka's Command), but there most certainly are excellent cards for a plethora of different archetypes. Saying that starting with RtR will lead to a control-dominated format is just flat-out wrong.
As I said in the op, the format is for funsies amongst a group of friends. The point of this thread isn't to convert the tappedout community to playing the format, but to stir conversation on what a format with the aforementioned card pool would actually look like and what the best decks would be. You can take it or leave it. It really doesn't bother me at all if you don't like the parameters set for the format.
"You have made assumptions and failed to actually address anything head on. This is the natural designing process - you need to sell something and think it through."
"[...]artificially control manabases with arbitrary bannings"
Sorry, but this is patently false. I already explained my stance on fetchlands in the format sufficiently (twice, I think) - the fetchland ban isn't arbitary in the slightest.
Also, I really shouldn't have to explain why a card that's only good with fetchlands suddenly isn't good in a format without fetchlands. If you want to prove that DRS would be busted in the format then by all means, do so in a logical manner. Just stating that "DRS is a good card, it would be too good in this format" in one manner or another simply doesn't cut it. Same goes for Eidolon, which most people understand to be far weaker in Standard and similar formats than in older formats.
April 9, 2016 6:03 p.m.
I think you are assuming too little of Deathrite Shaman. Yes it's a good ramp card. But equally its ability to drain the opponent for 2 every turn in a control deck is very good. There was a strong standard deck during that period that ran DRS in a midrange shell and whilst the ramp was useful it was also identified as a great attrition engine, being able to drain the opponent for 2 without even having to attack.
I think that perhaps you are overestimating the power of the fetch-shock combo and underestimating the disincentive to run such a painful and/or slow and/or inconsistent mana-base posed by aggressive decks.
The proposed format includes cards like Zurgo Bellstriker, Monastery Swiftspear, Satyr Firedancer, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Firedrinker Satyr, Young Pyromancer, Crater's Claws, Skullcrack, Magma Jet and Searing Blood. That deck sounds pretty strong, and would definitely present a fast clock against decks that opted to go for very intensive manabases.
I understand your concern about the 4-colour decks but I think it's possible they'd be punished enough, to some extent. Though, as I said without Blood Moon, you can't be sure.
April 9, 2016 6:58 p.m.
DRS's two other modes do have some utility, mostly as a sb card, but they're nowhere near good enough to be considered dominant or overpowered.
Khans/Zendikar Standard also had one of the better Standard aggro decks in a while, Atarka Red. It didn't stop people from playing fetchland-based manabases and being fine against the deck. With fetches, battlelands and shocklands in the format you could play essentially the same manabases, just with a couple of shocklands to fetch up when you have to get them out untapped. You don't have to fetch for the shocklands most of the time - fetches can get basics and that will be good enough a good amount of the time - but you still have the chance to fetch for a shockland should you desire to do so.
I agree, though, on that the GR aggro deck seems quite good. Some of the cards you listed are generic aggro cards that aren't likely to cause that much trouble, but stuff like Atarka's Command with Swiftspear and Burning-Tree Emissary seem pretty silly. I threw together a GR aggro list today and it seems pretty silly. Postmodern GR Aggro
April 9, 2016 7:28 p.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #13
i'm hearing a lot of issues about where to start the format that won't contain dumb, bonkers cards....
lets have it start at dragon's maze, skip theros, go into born of the gods and journey, skips khans, go into fate reforged and dragons, then into both zendikar sets.
April 9, 2016 10:11 p.m.
EverythingIsK says... #14
Saw this format called Current, which was what was described from above, as anything standard runned m15 and up. It looks like something wizards would seriously consider to support because most of the cards in the format are still in stores.
April 10, 2016 12:48 p.m.
Femme_Fatale had a similar idea but also posted a really long discussion about the meta and which cards would be all-stars.
April 10, 2016 2:05 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #16
Here's a full article on the details of Current, the format that starts from M15 and onward. No, you don't want to start any earlier, as it is designed to be like modern in that it starts with the new border. Any sooner and it will just cause confusions and unbalances. Remember that the bulk of WotC's ideology changes (no 1 mana dorks, removal being conditional, no combo etc) started around KTK.
I haven't done any deck-building since SOI has been released, and probably won't for a while. I'll be doing a tourney here on tappedout for the format within a couple of months (with feature tokens as prizes, maybe 25 for first place, 10 for second and 5 for third.) or so to help with the deck-building and article building of future Current articles.
April 10, 2016 5:30 p.m. Edited.
"No, you don't want to start any earlier, as it is designed to be like modern in that it starts with the new border."
I don't see how this is relevant to the proposed format.
"Any sooner and it will just cause confusions and unbalances. Remember that the bulk of WotC's ideology changes (no 1 mana dorks, removal being conditional, no combo etc) started around KTK."
You didn't point out how would this cause unbalance. Elvish Mystic, for an example, is strong enough to be a very prominent card in pretty much any Standard format, but this is most definitely not Standard. Violating semantic design philosophies made for Standard in a format with so many great cards is a definite non-issue. RtR is definitely a reasonal cut-off set.
Also, what confusions? The format is, as I previously stated, to be played within a group of friends - confusion as to which sets are legal and which aren't is not going to occur, if that's what you're referring to.
April 10, 2016 6:27 p.m.
EverythingIsK says... #18
@326 you quoted the answer to your last paragraph. Good format for friends I suppose, but from a design perspective, it makes no sense just to include RTR and THS to a post modern format. Wizards designs sets with two things in mind, limited and standard. But note that since M15, not only did they change the border, but they are redesigning standard as a format with a different power level in mind.
tl;dr: your format is good for a small playgroup, but in a wider spectrum, it'll be inconsistent to design & development power level, thus M15-Up is a better overall format.
April 10, 2016 9:09 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #19
Current is the "post-modern" everyone is talking about. However post-modern is a shit name. I use the same naming conventions as WotC to name this format.
Just name your format "RTR-Up". As that is what makes sense for your format. Everyone else's idea of "post-modern" is M15 and onward. Some include Theros because it is the same power level, but I don't as it denies the convention of border. You won't have so much backlash to your format by naming it something other than what is already defined among the community.
April 11, 2016 7 a.m.
As I already said, this is not Standard. Most things that would be problematic in Standard definitely aren't in this format, so there really isn't a point in repeatedly brinding up a change in Wizards Standard design philisophies. M15-> is different, not better, and semantic Standard design philosophies aren't relevant to the comparison.
It's the name we're using among ourselves, so whatever. If people are going to have a hissy fit over the name, they will. It truly doesn't concern me in the slightest.
Be that as it may, I'm really not interested in having this conversation, since RtR-> is the format that we're going to play and people on tappedout won't change that. So, if possible, I'd like the rest of the conversation to be about how the format would function within the set parameters (i.e. what decks would form the t1 metagame), not how good the set parameters are (i.e. should the format start from RtR or Innistrad).
April 11, 2016 8:03 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #21
I have no idea where you are getting Standard from as not once did I discuss Standard in any of my discussions. But whatever, people will forever get your format confused if you continue to name it that.
April 11, 2016 4:04 p.m.
If someone manages to get confused in this thread then I must congratulate them for lacking reading comprehension. People confusing the format for something it is not outside this thread or our group of friends doesn't matter to me in the slightest. So.
The shifts in design philosophy (no mana elves, no universal removal) is pretty much exclusively Standard and limited - Elvish Mystic very obviously isn't a problem in Modern or Legacy.
April 11, 2016 4:54 p.m.
@ 326
There's my contribution to this thread.
Why don't you quit being an asshat and condescending people who are actually trying to have a discussion with you.
So you came up with a format? Good job kid. Doesn't mean you are smarter than everybody else in the room.
A short look at your profile proves you're just here to condescend people.
Good game kid.
April 12, 2016 12:52 p.m.
DERPLINGSUPREME says... #24
@TMBRLZ be condescending TO people
someone doesn't know their grammar, do they?
:3
(this is a joke, if it's not clear)
April 12, 2016 1:11 p.m.
Well, depends what you mean by "cute". If you mean to comment on my looks then sure, I'd prefer to be described as handsome rather than cute. Then again, I've no clue why would some random person be telling me their opinion of my appearance on the internet, so idk.
ducttapedeckbox says... #2
Your decision for starting set sounds arbitrary. The starting point should not be dictated by "silly" cards but rather a distinctive change. Some have suggested M15 with the new borders, but we're still too early for that format to emerge.
Banning fetchlands to "keep the manabases from getting too wild" sounds like you just don't want to pay for them. They would add diversity to your format because it makes more color combinations available. This ban is not justified if you want to grow this outside of your friend circle.
April 9, 2016 12:12 p.m.