It is all very subjective, and the very things that you dislike many other players like about Modern right now. What I think we can all agree on is that lack of paper play is severely impacting the format. Wizards has been neglecting us as they lavish praise on Arena (which I’d really like to know if it’s paying off) and unfortunately, content creation on Modern is also very down. Just the breaks this year. It also makes me think that Wizards won’t consider action (assuming it’s even necessary) until paper resumes.

As for the measuring health, it is an unsolvable issue. Any measurement is at least somewhat arbitrary and will be great at measuring some aspect while ignoring others. The least subjective is to look at the participation data, as I do, but that doesn’t measure player satisfaction. And there’s no way to reliably measure that outside of polling, which has lots of its own problems. I’ve not been happy with just MTGO data (not that I have a choice) because there’s no accounting for the impact that popular streamers and ease of deck choice have on the metagame. Overcoming such problems would require effort and funding on par with getting a PhD.

But I really don’t think it’s okay. Anything more than a cursory look would glean that, while there’s a slew of “decks” out there, there are really very few enjoyable play experiences to be had in modern. My experience (obviously take this with a whole shaker of salt) has been that there’s really only four genuine competitively viable options: Piles decks, Shadow decks, Titan decks, and Prowess decks (in all their various flavors–granted, there are many). That’s seems to be it.

I’m of the mindset that these decks have oversaturated the format, contributing to a mediocre play experience. These decks just make the playing modern redundant, and frustrating and, frankly, off-putting. There’s gulf which exists with regards to the level of consistency of play and power here that few other decks can bridge. Moreover, these groups of decks are remarkably resilient to hate and/or avenues of attack by opponents. The few decks that can keep up with them, like “Oops All Spells” are so fundamentally busted that they’re worth looking at a banning on principle (at least in my view–and let’s be honest, squaring off against an “oops all spells” deck isn’t really what I’d call an enjoyable play experience either). All of which leads me to wonder–should we be less focused on diversity (how many decks there are) and more focused on addressing power and consistency discrepancies that exist between decks and, more broadly, archetypes? I don’t imagine that I am the only one who is frustrated by the gap that exists between the haves and have-nots of modern.

But even if this were a concern Wizards and the community decided to consider, how would we even quantify it? Numbers of players participating in competitive play? I mean, maybe that would work, but even if numbers were dipping in modern, how would we know why? Especially in 2020.

I’m desperate for Wizards to say something, ANYTHING, about these format boogeymen (that’s what I’m going to call them). I’m desperate to hear something, ANYTHING, from Wizards about what their plans are to bolster archetypes that are struggling at the fringes of playability and relevance. But I don’t honestly know where to go to hear genuine and nuanced discussion apart form the few resources out there like Modernnexus. If you happen to know, I’d be very appreciative of a point in the right direction.