Actually I would love a series videos about that. Would be awesome and extremely nostalgic, many past standard have been really amazing and others were WILD like mirrodin, og zendkiar (aka: cawblade) or eldrain.
Great video! Surprised the decapitation of faithless looting with Hogaak wasn’t discussed more. It hit way more decks than just the Hogaak decks. 🪦 Mardu Pyromancer 🕊️ Sleep well sweet prince.
ah yes, the entire reason anyone would actually ask about looting unban unironically when looting is responsible for so many other nonsense at the other times its playable in any deck
20:30 I think it deserves a mention that the recent printing of Fatal Push was huge for Death's Shadow, powering up Black's removal immensely as it was the best creature removal in the format, even if the key life-total lowering cards existed for years. While it also killed Shadow, it was key to playing an efficient suite of cards to be able to stay aggressive with the Shadow (to stave aggro) and also get out Gurmag Angler quickly. Also sad to not see Lantern Control getting a mention. Such a unique deck even if it didn't get anything banned and alongside Bloom Titan a deck that went undiscovered for a long time.
Absolutely love videos like this! I used to go to my LGS all the time for drafts because I was too poor to play Modern, so I'd only ever hear about various cards on the periphery. It's really cool to hear about all the context I missed during that time!
As if it matters but: It don't really matters who created what because its a card-game and prestige is pointless. He was the one that showed the deck on youtube and got some traction before others did. So I find it fitting to give an comment on the same platform in case people want to check out his old videos about it. Not everyone's taste but I fond him entertaining and the brews solid
This is a fantastic video! I appreciate the time and dedication that went into condensing over a decade of info into a consumable and entertaining end product. There are reasonable nitpicks around necessarily brief sections but the video as a whole is an awesome testament to one of Magic's staple formats.
I loved modern from Theros to Just before eldrazi winter. It was an amazing format in those days, and you really could play anything beat anything and lose to anything. Nowadays I watch modern and all I see is just another Legacy format with all the free to play cards, auto includes, and ect
Appreciate the depth and accuracy with which this covers the ever-evolving landscape of the format. However, it wouldn't be a UA-cam comment section if I didn't point out a few things missed. I can understand why rules errata was left out of the video for brevity's sake, but you can't mention the history of modern without talking about Tibalt Cascade (not talking about Tibalt's Trickery, but Tibalt the Cosmic Impostor himself). There was a brief period of time when the cascade mechanic allowed you to reveal Valki while casting his double-faced side. With accelerants like Simian Spirit Guide and Gemstone Caverns, players were dropping 7-mana planeswalker bombs as early as turn 1. All they had to do from there was sit behind free or cheap interaction like Force of Negation and Commandeer while Tibalt took over the battlefield singlehandedly. This also only lasted a few weeks before the errata was issued, at the same time as the Trickery banning. Shoutout to the Companion errata as well. You used to have free access to Lurrus every single game! Not just a free card in every starting hand, but a free powerful card. What the hell were they thinking lol And I feel like Urza's Saga deserved a mention for being the consistent card advantage engine/Hammer tutor that allowed Hammer decks to push to the forefront. Lastly, I want to address the controversy of the Splinter Twin banning, though this is more of an opinion. At the time of its banning, Modern had an acceptably diverse top tier of decks, but there were piles upon piles of good and interesting archetypes sitting in the lower tiers that just couldn't crack the top. The biggest reason for this was Splinter Twin -- the archetype was a true gatekeeper. You had to start every single Modern deck, every single *idea*, by asking the question, "how do you beat Twin?". The fact that it was fast, resilient, and required so few pieces meant that most ideas were meaningless in comparison, especially combo decks. Why do anything if Twin just wins on turn 4? The metagame was centered around beating it, which propped up a certain echelon of decks while critically hampering the rest of the field. Once Twin was banned (and Eldrazi was sent back to the shadow realm), the Modern metagame normalized into a place where you could actually take a pet archetype, put in a bunch of hard work, and end up with something competitively viable. Would Matt Nass be able to singlehandedly ascend KCI to the heights of the banlist if his under-represented deck was laughed out of the metagame before it even got off the ground? Would Lantern Control ever win a PT? The banning of Twin, in my opinion, was directly responsible for Modern reaching its pinnacle of deckbuilding ingenuity. Anyways, nowadays Modern has been warped so hard by the Horizons releases and F.I.R.E. design that I think Twin poses a significantly less risky question towards the metagame. But just speaking from personal experience, I don't want to go back to the days of wondering "how do I beat Twin"
About Twin, it's important to also emphasize how the answer to "how do you beat twin ?" was often "just play Twin yourself". Grixis Twin, TarmoTwin, you also saw from time to time even Temur Scapeshift becoming Temur Twin post-board. With anything between 5 and 10 slots, you had a combo that could win at basically any time and thus the opponent would always need to keep mana up for interaction. For this exact reason, I believe Twin should never be unbanned. While a pure UR Twin would probably never be relevant once again, Twin could fit very easily in many decks, mana is as good as ever making it very splashable, card selection has improved to the point where you wouldn't need the 10 slots while cards like 3Feri and Binding provide interaction and protection the deck never had access to in it's prime. It's just another angle of attack if the opponent ever underestimates it.
What a blast from the past! It's cool to be reminded of all the past top decks but also kind of depressing how many of the recent ones are MH2 adjacent. It would be nice to see most of that set (and leyline binding) banned and have the power of the format reduced a bit. MH3 terrifies me lol.
Very much appreciate that this video is already very long and had a lot of work and research put in, so you were only really had time to highlight the most played deck of each era. But I must say, only alluding to cascade valki in an offhand mention when many who played during that time consider it to be the most broken and best deck in the history of the format is a shame. Especially as it was during a time where there were so few eyes on the format, so it's a deck a lot of people who don't closely follow the format wouldn't have heard of. Either way, great work on this. ✌️
Um... so I remeber that deck being stupid and good, but I never heard anyone calling it the "most broken and best deck in the history of the format". There have been many broken decks in modern that I would list above it. I don't know if I somehow completely missed the hype?
@@ianshevlin8675that's just because they're shitty game designers and don't actually have the ability to forward think. Cascade has been a broken and bad mechanic since it was introduced.
Great video! Love this recap of the best modern decks. Here are some other decks that deserve recognition in modern's history: Jund Saga, Living End, Burn, Yawgmoth, Oko Titan, Hardened Scales, UWx Control, Rhinos.
The idea behind overextended was in fact the use of previous cards from sets already outside the 2 and 4 years of standard and extended, without pushing to hard as to go to legacy levels and it's cost of investment... That change with sets printed solely for modern (Now is all about the money. The variety of strategies and cards used in tournaments has being reduced to however can pay to stay in the tournaments)
My entire home town quit playing magic just after the Splinter Twin banning. They were sick and tired of pro tours making them lose their favorite decks. The B&R committee kills small town magic.
You know what’s fun about WotC? They hire all these geniuses who just adopt fan made formats, print cards directly to it, then ruin the spirit of said format Thank bob for MaRo and Gavin. Saviors.
It's both super interesting and sad to see this video. Seeing "power creep" (rather power explosion) dominate the game's design crew so blatantly since 2019 makes me VERY happy I made the decision to make my own cube. Probably never playing competitive again. Started playing modern in 2017, those times are unfortunately over.
5:27 FYI, WotC gave previews to sites and podcasts in those days as well. Specifically, the podcast I co-hosted at the time (In Contention) was given the card Slitherhead to preview from RTR 🙂
I love this video. I really hope the analytics bear that out so you can make more like this. I rarely watch a video entirely from start to finish but this one I did. Seth is so good at narrating with his up and down inflection. He can make Hogaak seem interesting...
I have a random copy of Second Sunrise in my collection that I decided to throw in my Equipment EDH deck recently, I had no idea it saw any play let alone was/is banned in a format
Seth's hatred for eggs is hilarious, i for one really liked the archetype (though my favourite version is the one with aetherflux reservoir and mystic forge)
Have you tried the new version that runs beseech the mirror and amulet of vigor with lotus field? Got 2 turn 2 kills with it and consistent turn 3's.....so what I'm saying is....eggs are back on the menu. Stay sunny side up 🤓
@@Matti_Mattsen the Aetherflux in the side you switch out for codex against graveyard hate and the preordain are the flex slots. Switch out a hallowed fountain for breeding pool if you want to run the haywire mites 4 Amulet of Vigor 4 Beseech the Mirror 1 Bolas's Citadel 4 Chromatic Sphere 4 Chromatic Star 1 Codex Shredder 4 Conjurer's Bauble 4 Faith's Reward 4 Flooded Strand 2 Hallowed Fountain 2 Island 4 Lotus Bloom 4 Lotus Field 1 Otawara, Soaring City 1 Plains 4 Preordain 1 Pyrite Spellbomb 4 Reshape 4 Urza's Saga 2 Wizard's Rockets 1 Zuran Orb Sideboard 1 Aetherflux Reservoir 1 Breeding Pool 2 Haywire Mite 4 Leyline of Sanctity 1 Pithing Needle 2 Prismatic Ending 4 Silence
Thank you! I've been getting back into the game after stop for 20 years and this helped me catch up on all the changes. The power creep is a thing but its been learning all the new stuff and catching up. This gives me a good idea of how the format works and what kind of deck I want to invest in building.
I appreciate this kind of content from you and the fishbowl! it would be fun to explore some other formats, or even some of the most used spells, to drill down further. cheers!
I was an affinity player from 2012 until it was banned in 2020. Then I was no longer a Modern player because they killed my poor robot children. Also I had actual children and just kinda got too busy to play MTG as much as I was but I’ll continue to blame WotC for banning my Mox.
One quick add is that scam being good v creativity is 100% not the reason creativity fell off, it was the one ring and a meta change where combo decks were stronger after fury got banned. When all the other decks got one ring, and people assumed (falsely) that creativity had a bad scam matchup, they stopped playing it. Then, when the meta became all combo like living end and rhinos after fury got banned, creativity had a lot of really bad matchups. The deck is quite a bit better now that murk and scam are good again (creativity preys on both slightly, good pilots dumpster scam and are above 50/50 vs murk), and the addition of elesh norn grand cenobite has given the deck a lot of reach vs yawgmoth. That aside, and other than some of the minor things others here pointed out, what an amazing and nostalgic video. Moder has a huge history to celebrate and a really bright future. I can't wait to see what modern horizons 3 brings.
Grief still needs to catch a ban before i can recommend the format. Two cards being ripped from your opening hand and leaving an evasive creature behind is busted, no question. Even if you've got two answers, you dont now, you have to topdeck a new one. With fury banned, ephemerate grief is the new pain in the ass and cant even hate on that with grave hate
I still remember the day....I walked into my local tournament with my 2 favorite decks at the time. Paradoxical outcome and affinity 😂. That night I created an amulet titan deck and have been meaning to create hardened scales to get that archbound ravanger "itch".
On one hand banning Fury over Grief is a better idea, because of how easily Fury can go +2 in card advantage as well as leaving you with a 4/4 Double striking body on the field by turn 1. Fury was also stopping creature decks from being in the format. However, now that we don't have Fury, the headlights are on Grief and he it should have been banned instead. Fury was a bigger issue in the format compared to Grief. Grief is still a problem and if it's not banned by the next modern banlist, modern as a format is going to die. While they're at it they should ban also ban Orcish Bowmasters, and the One Ring (Or maybe just the One Ring).
Just starting this video and im getting massive nostalgia from when I started playing magic. Pyromancer storm was my first construced deck and it never really had the chance to shyne. In standard Valakut Prime titans withs Gaea's Vengance derstroyed it, and in moderm it got its wings ripped before it could even fly. After watching some mroe all I cann say is amazing video, this was truly a treat to walk down the nostalgia road of my entire magic career :)
It amuses me that Wizards still cannot bring itself to call Scam by its proper name and still refers to it as "Rakdos Midrange". It's like a string of mistakes they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge and learn from.
I've been playing Modern since the start and I love this video. It always irks me when ppl talk about Modern being "eternal", "diverse", "non-rotational"... The reality is Modern has only ever been nice like that for brief periods, or if you're okay with not playing tier 1. It's always been a format of broken metas being succeeded by new printings and bans "rotating" the tier 1 over and over. Your (very expensive) deck could be rendered unplayable or tier 2/3 by the meta or a ban, which have always happened constantly. Some decks have had longevity, like mono-red burn, infect, lantern, 8-Rack, Dredge... but these were tier 2 or tier 3 (or tier 4 sorry 8-rack lol) decks for most of their longevity (I did love when Infect and Dredge were tier 1 though). I just love the Modern powerlevel. It's a great format if you don't go in with the illusion that it's "eternal" and "non-rotational" (no format truly is if you want to play tier 1) and instead enjoy it for what it is: Really fun and competitive Magic. Peak Magic, one may say. :) The true "eternity" of Modern is just that you can carry fetch lands and shock lands through the years, making the financial burden of the meta a little less frustrating (specially now with 10$ fetches and 5$ shocks, thank you WotC!)
I'd watch like an 8 hr version of this ngl. the meta shifts are fascinating, i remember scrolling through old Frank lepore videos when he was still with and just watching the story play out in video titles "what is jund? Junds not that good. okay junds pretty good, i've finally found the jund killer (repeat 8x), so anyway i'm playing jund"
I don't want to sound like a purist, but I really feel there needs to be a revamp of formats to cope with horizons, universes beyond, alchemy etc. I think there should be a parallel system with one set of formats including these and the other (using the same era designations) including only cards that have been printed in standard legal sets (and not the commander pre-cons for those). I find the core idea of older sets is the wonder of pretty banal a standard cards becoming amazing when clever people think about how they work with a much larger cardpool. Having cards just jump into those formats, particularly when designed for them, really degrades that puzzle.
My only hope and dream is that wizards stop printing 'money' and return to the olden ways of Magic that looks and plays like Magic used to before Modern Horizons...
How could no one noticed that the video has a huge mistake at 11:50? Patrick Chapin was NOT the world champion in 2013. Shahar got his second world championship that year.
40:35 Fury was the primary problem of the deck, not grief. The issue with fury was that it made pretty much all creature-based decks unplayable, while also being a turn one 4/4 with double strike. Grief is still a pretty busted card, but fury was just on another level.
It probably wasn't a healthy format but Treasure Cruise Modern was my favorite. Delver was a deck full of commons. Even Mono Red burn played a playset of treasure cruise. Still waiting to see it eat a ban in Pioneer
The chance of Cruise getting banned in Pioneer are close to 0 as you don`t have actual fetchlands to speed up the grave. I am more concerned about Amalia seeing a ban than anything else in Pioneer really.
@@zirilan3398Problem isn't really Amelia though, it's collected company. Amelia combo is about level with Greasefang in terms of power but one uses CoCo way better and is a much stronger deck because of it.
Expressive Iteration truly died for Cruise's sins, and banning Iteration over it basically soft banned all other Izzet+ decks except Phoenix out of the format as there are no other Izzet multicolors even close to what other multicolors have in the format. It's sad, and kind of crazy with people like Gab Nassif running UB Phoenix now showing you don't even need red mana to play the deck (though you probably definitely would if Cruise and Iteration were legal).
How long were they in in the format? Wouldn't phoenix decks be now good vs scam even without looting since you need to exile them instead of discarding or killing to get rid of them?
0:46 there was a time when Extended was very popular. I think the worst thing they did was cut down the rotation to 4 years. If the rotation had stayed around 6-8 years then it would have been much better. I honestly think the worst thing they did for Pioneer was make it non-rotating.
Great video! I know there was a lot to cover but surprised to see no mention of the hallow one and phoenix decks in 2018. 2017-2019 was by far the golden era of modern. I miss that era so much. It hasn’t been the same since MH2 and now LOTR. Wizards makes “modern” sets but they seem to be more for commander players, which in turn hurts modern. Commander has been ruining modern for years now, which is unfortunate.
I stopped MTG in 2014 but that 2016 infect deck looks a lot like my very first infect build. I hadnt even discovered standard yet, I was just getting into the game, and with some old cards and some new cards, I built an infect deck that my friends hated because I could consistently win turn 2 or 3 with a cheap infect boy and mutagenic growth, giant growth, and might of old krosa (from a friends older collection).
(@28:50), rolling your voice/eyes at Hogaak's first attempted ban. In hindsight, the Bridge from Below banning looks woefully insufficient. I mean, it *was* woefully insufficient. But that was overwhelmingly the consensus of the playerbase and pros at the time, that that was the banning to make and it would be fine from there. Few people were asking for more at that point, and the momentum to ban Faithless Looting was limited to Redditers, mostly Jund'ers who wanted to play 1-for-1 attrition games, just hating graveyard strategies entirely. The Phoenix complaining had largely ended at that point and people had accepted it into the format.
33:38 that two weeks of tibalts trickery made me quit magic and sell my cards for almost 2 years lol. At the time I only ever played 60 card in paper, and was so fed up with the modern format after Oko and Uro and Omnath that I just quit on the spot. I hadn't been able to play any of my fair fun magic decks because MTGO was dominated by nonsense. I wish I'd held out a little longer. I had some really nice cards that are much harder to find in their original printings, and I would've loved to have them in edh decks. Now I'm back playing magic, usually EDH and pioneer but will hop on mtgo to see whats up with modern sometimes.
Modern was what brought me into magic and even though I left the format right before MH1 (because my local meta at the time was all death & taxes, or control) it’s still my favorite format. That being said, it honestly really depresses me to look at what it’s become. Gone are the days when I could roll up with my $90 mono red burn deck or some other cheap jank pile and have a good time. To somewhat quote Dr. Seuss/The Lorax “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."
Can't wait for the 23 hour long Complete History of Standard
I rather see complete history of legacy.
Seth:welllllllllllll😅
I would actually love to watch that. It would be a great trip down memory lane, remembering decks like UG Madness and Fires
Actually I would love a series videos about that. Would be awesome and extremely nostalgic, many past standard have been really amazing and others were WILD like mirrodin, og zendkiar (aka: cawblade) or eldrain.
Can we get Crim to do that video? I cannot stand Seth's voice.
Up to 2019 the best decks where made by mostly old cards. Then from 2019 up until today it is only "Wizard printed this card and broke the format"
Great video! Surprised the decapitation of faithless looting with Hogaak wasn’t discussed more. It hit way more decks than just the Hogaak decks. 🪦 Mardu Pyromancer 🕊️ Sleep well sweet prince.
Also Rakdos Hallowed Ones, that was a fun deck that Faithless's ban outright slaughtered.
ah yes, the entire reason anyone would actually ask about looting unban unironically when looting is responsible for so many other nonsense at the other times its playable in any deck
Also phoenix which hasn't been mentioned yet.
Faithless looting had to die for the sins of many degenerate decks :'( rest in peace indeed mardu pyromancer.
i miss grishoalbrand
Ah yes Deathrite Shaman my favorite Planeswalker
It's a joke based on it having three abilities. Confused me a bit at first.
Even better, it can't be attacked!
instantly opened the comment when he said that 😂
I’m so happy to have him in timeless
Have you literally never heard this joke lol
29:20 Oh yeah, the classic Tron lands. Urza's Mine, Urza's Tower and Urza's Tower 😌
Almost as powerful as the PLANESWALKER Deathright Shaman :P 5:52
@@doodimgood nah people have been calling deathrite shaman a one mana planeswalker for a loooong time
@@SkyBlade79As a long time tron player, I miss deathrite, so many jund players for Karn and team to eat.
It’s hilarious every time a card “designed for Commander” like Hogaak or Omnath accidentally breaks constructed
20:30 I think it deserves a mention that the recent printing of Fatal Push was huge for Death's Shadow, powering up Black's removal immensely as it was the best creature removal in the format, even if the key life-total lowering cards existed for years. While it also killed Shadow, it was key to playing an efficient suite of cards to be able to stay aggressive with the Shadow (to stave aggro) and also get out Gurmag Angler quickly.
Also sad to not see Lantern Control getting a mention. Such a unique deck even if it didn't get anything banned and alongside Bloom Titan a deck that went undiscovered for a long time.
Fatal push really is a godlike card considering how many broken creatures are 1 to 2 mana
As for Lantern, tecnically it had Mox Opal banned, but what really banned it was the release of Shenanigans.
This video has really put into perspective how much Timeless is just recreating all of the old best Modern decks on Arena
Maybe that's why I've been enjoying Timeless so much :)
And it's amazing.
Titan Field, Rakdos Storm, Necropotence?
I'm just getting back into Mtg after a 4-5 year break. What is this Timeless, you speak of?
@@BioMaterialzyes
Incredibly hot and controversial take that literally no one has expressed before: I think Modern Horizons is inherently bad for Modern.
Yeah, no one ...among Wizards execs.
Modern was truly a great and fantastic format. It will be missed.
Yeah modern is my fav format and its nowhere near as good as it was in the early days.
Absolutely love videos like this! I used to go to my LGS all the time for drafts because I was too poor to play Modern, so I'd only ever hear about various cards on the periphery. It's really cool to hear about all the context I missed during that time!
Glad you like them!
Oh man, I SERIOUSLY miss the early days of Modern 😢
A nod towards Magic Aids as one of the pioneers of modern humans deck
he was there was drama at the time too because i forgot which pro player tried to claim he made it and magic aids video predated his stake
Not this bullshit again. Aids takes claim for anything and everything. His name really is true to his role in the community.
He did say "The depths of UA-cam"...
As if it matters but: It don't really matters who created what because its a card-game and prestige is pointless. He was the one that showed the deck on youtube and got some traction before others did. So I find it fitting to give an comment on the same platform in case people want to check out his old videos about it. Not everyone's taste but I fond him entertaining and the brews solid
@@Atmapalazzo exactly
Another great video Seth and crew! Thank thanks for the quality content!
Thanks!
This is a fantastic video! I appreciate the time and dedication that went into condensing over a decade of info into a consumable and entertaining end product. There are reasonable nitpicks around necessarily brief sections but the video as a whole is an awesome testament to one of Magic's staple formats.
29:16: *Urza’s Power Plant has left the chat.*
I love these historical videos. Thanks for the content, Seth!
early era of modern was the best magic will ever be, and it will never be nearly that good again
Your not wrong. What a golden age we didn’t know how good we had it.
the best at what?
you just enjoyed it the most. doesn't mean it was better
there was no such thing as a wrong opinion until you posted this on the internet@@bexclue3007
Ah yes, the "the best era was the era of my youth" fallacy.
Love the shoutout for two of my favorite magic creators. MagicAids is amazing, and ManaCymbal is GOATed
I loved modern from Theros to Just before eldrazi winter. It was an amazing format in those days, and you really could play anything beat anything and lose to anything.
Nowadays I watch modern and all I see is just another Legacy format with all the free to play cards, auto includes, and ect
Yeah, every format has been ruined by WOTC's greed. Just printing super powerful cards to sell more and more packs
Grixis Control with Goblin Dark Dwellers and Cryptic Command in the same deck was just unbelievable.
Appreciate the depth and accuracy with which this covers the ever-evolving landscape of the format. However, it wouldn't be a UA-cam comment section if I didn't point out a few things missed.
I can understand why rules errata was left out of the video for brevity's sake, but you can't mention the history of modern without talking about Tibalt Cascade (not talking about Tibalt's Trickery, but Tibalt the Cosmic Impostor himself). There was a brief period of time when the cascade mechanic allowed you to reveal Valki while casting his double-faced side. With accelerants like Simian Spirit Guide and Gemstone Caverns, players were dropping 7-mana planeswalker bombs as early as turn 1. All they had to do from there was sit behind free or cheap interaction like Force of Negation and Commandeer while Tibalt took over the battlefield singlehandedly. This also only lasted a few weeks before the errata was issued, at the same time as the Trickery banning.
Shoutout to the Companion errata as well. You used to have free access to Lurrus every single game! Not just a free card in every starting hand, but a free powerful card. What the hell were they thinking lol
And I feel like Urza's Saga deserved a mention for being the consistent card advantage engine/Hammer tutor that allowed Hammer decks to push to the forefront.
Lastly, I want to address the controversy of the Splinter Twin banning, though this is more of an opinion. At the time of its banning, Modern had an acceptably diverse top tier of decks, but there were piles upon piles of good and interesting archetypes sitting in the lower tiers that just couldn't crack the top. The biggest reason for this was Splinter Twin -- the archetype was a true gatekeeper. You had to start every single Modern deck, every single *idea*, by asking the question, "how do you beat Twin?". The fact that it was fast, resilient, and required so few pieces meant that most ideas were meaningless in comparison, especially combo decks. Why do anything if Twin just wins on turn 4? The metagame was centered around beating it, which propped up a certain echelon of decks while critically hampering the rest of the field. Once Twin was banned (and Eldrazi was sent back to the shadow realm), the Modern metagame normalized into a place where you could actually take a pet archetype, put in a bunch of hard work, and end up with something competitively viable. Would Matt Nass be able to singlehandedly ascend KCI to the heights of the banlist if his under-represented deck was laughed out of the metagame before it even got off the ground? Would Lantern Control ever win a PT? The banning of Twin, in my opinion, was directly responsible for Modern reaching its pinnacle of deckbuilding ingenuity.
Anyways, nowadays Modern has been warped so hard by the Horizons releases and F.I.R.E. design that I think Twin poses a significantly less risky question towards the metagame. But just speaking from personal experience, I don't want to go back to the days of wondering "how do I beat Twin"
not that serious
About Twin, it's important to also emphasize how the answer to "how do you beat twin ?" was often "just play Twin yourself". Grixis Twin, TarmoTwin, you also saw from time to time even Temur Scapeshift becoming Temur Twin post-board. With anything between 5 and 10 slots, you had a combo that could win at basically any time and thus the opponent would always need to keep mana up for interaction.
For this exact reason, I believe Twin should never be unbanned. While a pure UR Twin would probably never be relevant once again, Twin could fit very easily in many decks, mana is as good as ever making it very splashable, card selection has improved to the point where you wouldn't need the 10 slots while cards like 3Feri and Binding provide interaction and protection the deck never had access to in it's prime. It's just another angle of attack if the opponent ever underestimates it.
2016 was peak Modern, splinter twin and Abzan Leige Decks plus Jund, zoo, Merfolk, and good control decks
What a blast from the past! It's cool to be reminded of all the past top decks but also kind of depressing how many of the recent ones are MH2 adjacent. It would be nice to see most of that set (and leyline binding) banned and have the power of the format reduced a bit.
MH3 terrifies me lol.
Overextended sounds wonderful. Modern with no Horizons
We used to just call that Modern.
Honestly wish Wizards would stop with "Horizons" and just bring back Modern Masters.
Thanks for putting this together! It was a fun lookback through one of my favorite ways to play!
Very much appreciate that this video is already very long and had a lot of work and research put in, so you were only really had time to highlight the most played deck of each era.
But I must say, only alluding to cascade valki in an offhand mention when many who played during that time consider it to be the most broken and best deck in the history of the format is a shame. Especially as it was during a time where there were so few eyes on the format, so it's a deck a lot of people who don't closely follow the format wouldn't have heard of.
Either way, great work on this. ✌️
Um... so I remeber that deck being stupid and good, but I never heard anyone calling it the "most broken and best deck in the history of the format". There have been many broken decks in modern that I would list above it. I don't know if I somehow completely missed the hype?
@@evanmurdzek2935i mean they literally changed a whole keyword so-
@@ianshevlin8675that's just because they're shitty game designers and don't actually have the ability to forward think. Cascade has been a broken and bad mechanic since it was introduced.
@@ianshevlin8675 There were several much more broken modern decks than valki
Yeah this is a ridiculously shallow video tbh
11:50 It’s a minor detail, but Patrick Chapin lost in the finals of that World Championship in 2014. That was the year Shahar won his second title.
Great video! Love this recap of the best modern decks.
Here are some other decks that deserve recognition in modern's history: Jund Saga, Living End, Burn, Yawgmoth, Oko Titan, Hardened Scales, UWx Control, Rhinos.
Shocked that some of these decks didn’t even get so much as a shout out. Also, don’t forget Phoenix!
The idea behind overextended was in fact the use of previous cards from sets already outside the 2 and 4 years of standard and extended, without pushing to hard as to go to legacy levels and it's cost of investment... That change with sets printed solely for modern (Now is all about the money. The variety of strategies and cards used in tournaments has being reduced to however can pay to stay in the tournaments)
My entire home town quit playing magic just after the Splinter Twin banning.
They were sick and tired of pro tours making them lose their favorite decks. The B&R committee kills small town magic.
I started following modern in 2012. This history lesson felt like a gaming life journey.
Nice video, I missed a mention to UR Phoenix or Temur Rhinos at the end of the video. Anyway, a really good video! :D
You know what’s fun about WotC? They hire all these geniuses who just adopt fan made formats, print cards directly to it, then ruin the spirit of said format
Thank bob for MaRo and Gavin. Saviors.
It's both super interesting and sad to see this video. Seeing "power creep" (rather power explosion) dominate the game's design crew so blatantly since 2019 makes me VERY happy I made the decision to make my own cube. Probably never playing competitive again. Started playing modern in 2017, those times are unfortunately over.
5:27 FYI, WotC gave previews to sites and podcasts in those days as well. Specifically, the podcast I co-hosted at the time (In Contention) was given the card Slitherhead to preview from RTR 🙂
I love this video. I really hope the analytics bear that out so you can make more like this. I rarely watch a video entirely from start to finish but this one I did. Seth is so good at narrating with his up and down inflection. He can make Hogaak seem interesting...
I have a random copy of Second Sunrise in my collection that I decided to throw in my Equipment EDH deck recently, I had no idea it saw any play let alone was/is banned in a format
Seth's hatred for eggs is hilarious, i for one really liked the archetype (though my favourite version is the one with aetherflux reservoir and mystic forge)
Have you tried the new version that runs beseech the mirror and amulet of vigor with lotus field? Got 2 turn 2 kills with it and consistent turn 3's.....so what I'm saying is....eggs are back on the menu. Stay sunny side up 🤓
@@LaughingDepressed oh i don't know that deck, do you have a decklist? sounds fun
@@Matti_Mattsen I do I'll go ahead and put the list in a copy paste one sec
@@Matti_Mattsen the Aetherflux in the side you switch out for codex against graveyard hate and the preordain are the flex slots. Switch out a hallowed fountain for breeding pool if you want to run the haywire mites
4 Amulet of Vigor
4 Beseech the Mirror
1 Bolas's Citadel
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
1 Codex Shredder
4 Conjurer's Bauble
4 Faith's Reward
4 Flooded Strand
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Lotus Field
1 Otawara, Soaring City
1 Plains
4 Preordain
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Reshape
4 Urza's Saga
2 Wizard's Rockets
1 Zuran Orb
Sideboard
1 Aetherflux Reservoir
1 Breeding Pool
2 Haywire Mite
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Pithing Needle
2 Prismatic Ending
4 Silence
@@LaughingDepressed awesome, thanks a lot!
Thank you! I've been getting back into the game after stop for 20 years and this helped me catch up on all the changes. The power creep is a thing but its been learning all the new stuff and catching up. This gives me a good idea of how the format works and what kind of deck I want to invest in building.
I appreciate this kind of content from you and the fishbowl! it would be fun to explore some other formats, or even some of the most used spells, to drill down further. cheers!
I was an affinity player from 2012 until it was banned in 2020. Then I was no longer a Modern player because they killed my poor robot children.
Also I had actual children and just kinda got too busy to play MTG as much as I was but I’ll continue to blame WotC for banning my Mox.
1:03 lol how the times have changed
One quick add is that scam being good v creativity is 100% not the reason creativity fell off, it was the one ring and a meta change where combo decks were stronger after fury got banned. When all the other decks got one ring, and people assumed (falsely) that creativity had a bad scam matchup, they stopped playing it. Then, when the meta became all combo like living end and rhinos after fury got banned, creativity had a lot of really bad matchups. The deck is quite a bit better now that murk and scam are good again (creativity preys on both slightly, good pilots dumpster scam and are above 50/50 vs murk), and the addition of elesh norn grand cenobite has given the deck a lot of reach vs yawgmoth.
That aside, and other than some of the minor things others here pointed out, what an amazing and nostalgic video. Moder has a huge history to celebrate and a really bright future. I can't wait to see what modern horizons 3 brings.
I've been waiting for a video like this for 3 years. Thank you Seth
Love these MTG History videos with narration by Seth. Would love to see more of these!!
This was a nice stroll down memory lane
Great video only comment is that you missed out my favourite deck, LANTERN
Grief still needs to catch a ban before i can recommend the format.
Two cards being ripped from your opening hand and leaving an evasive creature behind is busted, no question.
Even if you've got two answers, you dont now, you have to topdeck a new one.
With fury banned, ephemerate grief is the new pain in the ass and cant even hate on that with grave hate
Mr. Olive I don't think you put enough emphasis on how cold that winter was... It was just as intense as Hogaak Summer.
As a long time lover of affinity, I’ll never forgive them for banning opal
I still remember the day....I walked into my local tournament with my 2 favorite decks at the time. Paradoxical outcome and affinity 😂. That night I created an amulet titan deck and have been meaning to create hardened scales to get that archbound ravanger "itch".
On one hand banning Fury over Grief is a better idea, because of how easily Fury can go +2 in card advantage as well as leaving you with a 4/4 Double striking body on the field by turn 1. Fury was also stopping creature decks from being in the format. However, now that we don't have Fury, the headlights are on Grief and he it should have been banned instead. Fury was a bigger issue in the format compared to Grief. Grief is still a problem and if it's not banned by the next modern banlist, modern as a format is going to die. While they're at it they should ban also ban Orcish Bowmasters, and the One Ring (Or maybe just the One Ring).
23:45 OMG Daddy is mentioned here by Seth! 🤩
Great video, would love to see more modern content in general. You guys have really cut back over the least year
Just starting this video and im getting massive nostalgia from when I started playing magic. Pyromancer storm was my first construced deck and it never really had the chance to shyne. In standard Valakut Prime titans withs Gaea's Vengance derstroyed it, and in moderm it got its wings ripped before it could even fly.
After watching some mroe all I cann say is amazing video, this was truly a treat to walk down the nostalgia road of my entire magic career :)
It amuses me that Wizards still cannot bring itself to call Scam by its proper name and still refers to it as "Rakdos Midrange". It's like a string of mistakes they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge and learn from.
Love the video!
I have to say though, I was floored by the lack of mention of Izzet Phoenix and the Faithless Looting ban.
I've been playing Modern since the start and I love this video. It always irks me when ppl talk about Modern being "eternal", "diverse", "non-rotational"... The reality is Modern has only ever been nice like that for brief periods, or if you're okay with not playing tier 1. It's always been a format of broken metas being succeeded by new printings and bans "rotating" the tier 1 over and over. Your (very expensive) deck could be rendered unplayable or tier 2/3 by the meta or a ban, which have always happened constantly. Some decks have had longevity, like mono-red burn, infect, lantern, 8-Rack, Dredge... but these were tier 2 or tier 3 (or tier 4 sorry 8-rack lol) decks for most of their longevity (I did love when Infect and Dredge were tier 1 though).
I just love the Modern powerlevel. It's a great format if you don't go in with the illusion that it's "eternal" and "non-rotational" (no format truly is if you want to play tier 1) and instead enjoy it for what it is: Really fun and competitive Magic. Peak Magic, one may say. :)
The true "eternity" of Modern is just that you can carry fetch lands and shock lands through the years, making the financial burden of the meta a little less frustrating (specially now with 10$ fetches and 5$ shocks, thank you WotC!)
I'm surprised there was no mention of Izzet Phoenix. That deck was solid solid for a bit.
The Splinter Twin ban bumped me out of mtg for like 5 years. Just didn't have the time and money to rebuild and relearn a new deck.
I'd watch like an 8 hr version of this ngl. the meta shifts are fascinating, i remember scrolling through old Frank lepore videos when he was still with and just watching the story play out in video titles "what is jund? Junds not that good. okay junds pretty good, i've finally found the jund killer (repeat 8x), so anyway i'm playing jund"
I love these kinds of videos as someone who wasn't following magic for the last dozen years.
Awesome informative video Seth ! I love all your content, these are very cool as a long time magic player
I don't want to sound like a purist, but I really feel there needs to be a revamp of formats to cope with horizons, universes beyond, alchemy etc. I think there should be a parallel system with one set of formats including these and the other (using the same era designations) including only cards that have been printed in standard legal sets (and not the commander pre-cons for those).
I find the core idea of older sets is the wonder of pretty banal a standard cards becoming amazing when clever people think about how they work with a much larger cardpool. Having cards just jump into those formats, particularly when designed for them, really degrades that puzzle.
Shoutout to GP Dallas 2016 winner Kevin Mackie with Skred Red
My only hope and dream is that wizards stop printing 'money' and return to the olden ways of Magic that looks and plays like Magic used to before Modern Horizons...
Same man same… but it has been a long time
How could no one noticed that the video has a huge mistake at 11:50? Patrick Chapin was NOT the world champion in 2013. Shahar got his second world championship that year.
I love how Seth says “Gol-Gary Grave Troll” 😂
Now I want a "Gol-Gary Merchant of Asphodel"
40:35 Fury was the primary problem of the deck, not grief. The issue with fury was that it made pretty much all creature-based decks unplayable, while also being a turn one 4/4 with double strike. Grief is still a pretty busted card, but fury was just on another level.
I love this Magic history series!!! Thanks!!
Oh, this took me back... Thanks for the great video!
Bruh didn’t even mention astrolabe.
I love your MTG history vidoes so much
Glad you enjoy it!
Amazing content Seth. Thank you so much
What are the odds that with the release of MH3, all of the top 20 cards played in modern will have been printed from 2019 on?
It probably wasn't a healthy format but Treasure Cruise Modern was my favorite. Delver was a deck full of commons. Even Mono Red burn played a playset of treasure cruise. Still waiting to see it eat a ban in Pioneer
It prob never will. Only 1 deck in the entire format plays it.
The chance of Cruise getting banned in Pioneer are close to 0 as you don`t have actual fetchlands to speed up the grave. I am more concerned about Amalia seeing a ban than anything else in Pioneer really.
@@zirilan3398 Amelia loses to gravehate and simple interaction.
@@zirilan3398Problem isn't really Amelia though, it's collected company. Amelia combo is about level with Greasefang in terms of power but one uses CoCo way better and is a much stronger deck because of it.
Expressive Iteration truly died for Cruise's sins, and banning Iteration over it basically soft banned all other Izzet+ decks except Phoenix out of the format as there are no other Izzet multicolors even close to what other multicolors have in the format. It's sad, and kind of crazy with people like Gab Nassif running UB Phoenix now showing you don't even need red mana to play the deck (though you probably definitely would if Cruise and Iteration were legal).
Thank you for the trip down memory lane :)
Does the fact that izzet Phoenix wasn't even briefly mentioned mean that faithless looting was unjustifiably banned? I like to think so
How long were they in in the format? Wouldn't phoenix decks be now good vs scam even without looting since you need to exile them instead of discarding or killing to get rid of them?
5:55 deathrite shaman is my favorite planeswalker!!
Super cool to take a trip down memory lane.
Love the magicaids credit. While a bit problematic, his builds and humor are still great, and he deserves the recognition.
Lol someone did the F6 gag on Commander at Home's most recent episode. I knew what F6 meant, but I didn't know the historical context. Good stuff
"someone" being the Professor from the Tolarian Community College channel
@@KynElwynn I couldn't remember exactly who it was
0:46 there was a time when Extended was very popular. I think the worst thing they did was cut down the rotation to 4 years. If the rotation had stayed around 6-8 years then it would have been much better. I honestly think the worst thing they did for Pioneer was make it non-rotating.
Great video! I know there was a lot to cover but surprised to see no mention of the hallow one and phoenix decks in 2018.
2017-2019 was by far the golden era of modern. I miss that era so much. It hasn’t been the same since MH2 and now LOTR.
Wizards makes “modern” sets but they seem to be more for commander players, which in turn hurts modern. Commander has been ruining modern for years now, which is unfortunate.
I stopped MTG in 2014 but that 2016 infect deck looks a lot like my very first infect build. I hadnt even discovered standard yet, I was just getting into the game, and with some old cards and some new cards, I built an infect deck that my friends hated because I could consistently win turn 2 or 3 with a cheap infect boy and mutagenic growth, giant growth, and might of old krosa (from a friends older collection).
loved this video since I am a relative new player !
Glad you liked it!
(@28:50), rolling your voice/eyes at Hogaak's first attempted ban. In hindsight, the Bridge from Below banning looks woefully insufficient. I mean, it *was* woefully insufficient. But that was overwhelmingly the consensus of the playerbase and pros at the time, that that was the banning to make and it would be fine from there. Few people were asking for more at that point, and the momentum to ban Faithless Looting was limited to Redditers, mostly Jund'ers who wanted to play 1-for-1 attrition games, just hating graveyard strategies entirely. The Phoenix complaining had largely ended at that point and people had accepted it into the format.
I miss classic Modern so much
33:38 that two weeks of tibalts trickery made me quit magic and sell my cards for almost 2 years lol.
At the time I only ever played 60 card in paper, and was so fed up with the modern format after Oko and Uro and Omnath that I just quit on the spot. I hadn't been able to play any of my fair fun magic decks because MTGO was dominated by nonsense.
I wish I'd held out a little longer. I had some really nice cards that are much harder to find in their original printings, and I would've loved to have them in edh decks.
Now I'm back playing magic, usually EDH and pioneer but will hop on mtgo to see whats up with modern sometimes.
Thanks lot of for this video because modern it's my favorite format ! I love so much this and know this history it's so good really ! 👍👍
Modern was what brought me into magic and even though I left the format right before MH1 (because my local meta at the time was all death & taxes, or control) it’s still my favorite format. That being said, it honestly really depresses me to look at what it’s become. Gone are the days when I could roll up with my $90 mono red burn deck or some other cheap jank pile and have a good time. To somewhat quote Dr. Seuss/The Lorax “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."
I'm so glad I've gotten to see Modern grow and flourish and become riddled with exactly the money problems that legacy had.
Awesome video. Hope to see more videos like it!
Ooo this is cool content
Thanks!
Love these wouldn’t mind more thank you!!
I’m pretty sure khans of tarkir also brought the og fetch lands into modern
I always thought that eggs as an archetype referred to the mana cost 0. I didn't know the egg cycle even existed.
Love this type of content!
Awesome video. Fingers crossed for this summer with MH3!
Love these kinds of videos help me wake up and have a positive day
I've never agreed with Seth more than when he referred to Magic_Aids, the creator of five colored humans, as "the depths of UA-cam".
11:50 Patrick Chapin did not win Worlds in 2014. It was tragic how he lost to shahar when everyone was rooting for him.