Hey guys, I just got home from Indy. I was the guy in 11th with the Bant Conscription deck. In the last round some of the x-1's didn't want to ID, so one 6-2 made Top 8, but unfortunately my pretty good breakers were not quite good enough.
The field at large had a seemingly ENORMOUS amount of Affinity in it. I played against Affinity 4 times out of 8 rounds (3 in the early rounds including against one of the guys who Top 8'd with it, and once in the late rounds). A few other players I talked to remarked about the relative lack of Junk decks, I believe only two Junk decks were spotted near the top tables. Looking around at the top tables, I didn't see any Scapeshift players at all and only saw one Tron deck -- the lack of pyroclasms obviously was nice for me and for the guy who was tearing it up with Elves but came up just short.
The most interesting rogue deck I saw was in Round 8, a guy was playing a Soul Sisters deck with Return to the Ranks and had Viscera Seers and Blood Artists. He told me that Sam Black had written about it and he and his buddy had adjusted it from that list, iirc.
BTW, I was amazed at how many people had to read Sovereigns of Lost Alara. Like I think all day maybe only one guy didn't pick it up and stare at it. I had to fetch the English copy of Conscription all day instead of my foreign one just to avoid a million calls for oracle text. Both these cards were played in what was arguably the best deck in Standard only 4 years ago, so I have to surmise there are a lot of people playing Modern who didn't play in ALA/ZEN standard, which says something about the game's growth during that span.
Congrats! Your deck is amazing. Are there any changes that you would make to it (just thinking about getting it)? Also, why are you running Explore?
I was maindecking the Thalias, but only played two decks all day that they were good against. It's probably still correct to maindeck them though.
The Explores were there to facilitate the most explosive Cobra starts. Basically you want to start with Forest + manadork, then Turn 2 Cobra plus landdrop for an additional 2 mana (3 with fetch). Explore busts those starts wide open, easily threatening Turn 3 Sovereigns, but unlike other options it cycles in the lategame. Maybe it should be Coiling Oracle instead, since I'm maindecking the Thalias now. At one point I had additional removal in those slots, but I took it out in favor of just advancing the linear strategy when I realized there wasn't much that I couldn't go over the top of. My very crude plan was to play all-in for the most explosive possible starts in Game 1's, then for Game 2 I would side out whichever threat package was weak depending on my opponent's deck and mull aggressively for hate cards.
I think the field was strange overall, and I hate to say this about a tournament I did well in, but I wouldn't read it as representative of what to expect. I'm not saying the players were weak, but they didn't come to Indy planning to play Modern with carefully tuned decks for the expected metagame. I asked everybody I played over the course of the day if they had played in the Legacy event the previous day, and 7/8 of them had done so (the Small Zoo player who made Top 8 was at a PTQ the previous day.) I would ask if they played a lot of Modern, and a couple guys said it was their main format, but a few others said they played it sporadically and viewed it as "Legacy Lite" -- I think a lot of people (and this basically includes me) chose to spend the day playing Modern because the alternative was Standard. We weren't really planning to play Modern, we all obviously hoped to make Day 2 of Legacy. Lots of good players didn't make Day 2, it was a cut from 580 to 100-ish, but this Modern tournament was probably not what everybody was practicing for all week.
Given the amount of aggro, I don't think more Junk lists would have really made a huge difference in the results. I think the relative absence of Tron and Scapeshift players is why things shook out this way. If I was going to play this deck again (and I have it pretty pimped out, so that answer is yes) I would probably have some plan for Pyro/Anger other than just a couple Mana Leaks.
I think the field was strange overall, and I hate to say this about a tournament I did well in, but I wouldn't read it as representative of what to expect. I'm not saying the players were weak, but they didn't come to Indy planning to play Modern with carefully tuned decks for the expected metagame. I asked everybody I played over the course of the day if they had played in the Legacy event the previous day, and 7/8 of them had done so (the Small Zoo player who made Top 8 was at a PTQ the previous day.) I would ask if they played a lot of Modern, and a couple guys said it was their main format, but a few others said they played it sporadically and viewed it as "Legacy Lite" -- I think a lot of people (and this basically includes me) chose to spend the day playing Modern because the alternative was Standard. We weren't really planning to play Modern, we all obviously hoped to make Day 2 of Legacy. Lots of good players didn't make Day 2, it was a cut from 580 to 100-ish, but this Modern tournament was probably not what everybody was practicing for all week.
First congrats on the finish!
I was wondering this exactly thing, it seemed a strange top16 tbh more a "between rounds of legacy play fast modern games" with almost all aggro deck and just one combo deck (that obv won in a all aggro meta).
- L
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"The problem isn't when Scissors says Rock is overpowered, it's when Paper says it is."
-Mark Rosewater
BUT some cool decks in there. Kiki Twin Pod and Cruel Control are nice showings there. The RUG Twin and RG Tron "tech" is also a nice metagame adaption.
BUT some cool decks in there. Kiki Twin Pod and Cruel Control are nice showings there. The RUG Twin and RG Tron "tech" is also a nice metagame adaption.
Kiki Pod was so utterly unique in deck composition and the lines you could take that I don't think it's fair calling that a Pod/Twin hybrid. Maybe if it ran some number of Chord I'd be on board but from the looks of it it just seems like a twin list heavy on the midrange, light on the tempo. I could see if having success in an aggressive field; I really like the deck idea.
That grixis deck is 4 colors splashing sphinx's revelation and timely in the sideboard. It's the typical no cheap cantrips hope to draw enough lands control deck.
The temur deck doesn't seem very great either. Flameslash doesn't kill siege rhino or tasigur. I think it's just a bad dismember. And huntmaster is laughable vs tasigur and rhino. Those cards don't seem very good in the current meta.
That grixis deck is 4 colors splashing sphinx's revelation and timely in the sideboard. It's the typical no cheap cantrips hope to draw enough lands control deck.
The temur deck doesn't seem very great either. Flameslash doesn't kill siege rhino or tasigur. I think it's just a bad dismember. And huntmaster is laughable vs tasigur and rhino. Those cards don't seem very good in the current meta.
That rug twin deck is sweet. Its not very good though. trying to out midrange bgx was possible before siege rhino and banana man. But your right in that trying to fight bgx with midrange threats that dont beat their midrange threats is bad. Keranos and batterskull used to be windmill slams, now their marginal at best. I also dont think trying to fight bgx with tarmogoyf in twin right now is where twin wants to be. It doesn't actually help the bgx matchup that much and its bad to dilute the consistency of twin vs its better matchups anyways. To note I havent been using flame slash Ive been using harvest pyre instead which is actually pretty good. Even lavamancer + bolt is better
We are always going to see a weird meta for Modern 5ks that encourage aggro snd thus decks good against aggro. I think the Gricis deck is fine for mana it judt touches white with plenty of fetches to get it off.
The temur deck doesn't seem very great either. Flameslash doesn't kill siege rhino or tasigur. I think it's just a bad dismember. And huntmaster is laughable vs tasigur and rhino. Those cards don't seem very good in the current meta.
Pretty sure most twin decks laugh when their opponent plays a siege rhino or a tasigur, its usually met with a remand and then they combo, or they twiddle it for a few turns then combo. Flame slash does the job that it's meant to do.
The temur deck doesn't seem very great either. Flameslash doesn't kill siege rhino or tasigur. I think it's just a bad dismember. And huntmaster is laughable vs tasigur and rhino. Those cards don't seem very good in the current meta.
Pretty sure most twin decks laugh when their opponent plays a siege rhino or a tasigur, its usually met with a remand and then they combo, or they twiddle it for a few turns then combo. Flame slash does the job that it's meant to do.
Flame slash doesn't stop almost any of bgx's creatures and the combo is so bad vs any open mana. You need some nonsense like mizzium skin or spellskite to really try and combo out.
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Currently Playing:
Modern: RUGScapeshift[RUG...Occasionally with goyfs RUGTarmotwinRUG(RIP)
Legacy: UWxuwr miracles and stonebladeUWx
Commander: UWRShu Yun/Ruhan SmashUWR
Sweet new metagame! Aggro, Aggro, Aggro, Twin, Twin, Aggro, Aggro, did I miss something?
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Sweet new metagame! Aggro, Aggro, Aggro, Twin, Twin, Aggro, Aggro, did I miss something?
Well, we have 2/3 of a cyclical metagame here. We have Junk beating all the fair decks and aggro beating Junk. So now we just need something that can beat aggro without also breaking the format. Given that aggro was not doing so hot before August of this year, this is a sort-of improvement.
That Temur Twin deck in 5th is crazy, but wow is there a huge amount of variance to the deck. It literally looks like someone took a rare binder and shoved it into sleeves. 3 Cavern of Souls? I guess naming Faeries or humans? It is definitely weird, but I hope it puts up more good results.
Sweet new metagame! Aggro, Aggro, Aggro, Twin, Twin, Aggro, Aggro, did I miss something?
Yeah, infect isn't aggro.
I guess Wizards calls it Combo. As a Combo player, I should be enthused. Burn can also be Combo where 7 spells X 3 damage does lethal.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
The metagame looks a lot better when you call the decks by their name instead of lumping stuff into catchall categories.
You might as well go "The meta is made of 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck."
Just because a burn deck is aggressive doesn't mean it plays the same as say a zoo deck. Or two kinds of twin decks etc.
The metagame looks a lot better when you call the decks by their name instead of lumping stuff into catchall categories.
You might as well go "The meta is made of 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck."
Just because a burn deck is aggressive doesn't mean it plays the same as say a zoo deck. Or two kinds of twin decks etc.
Sorry. It's just I can imagine the impending Ban Announcement if the archetype, Combo took up 6 of the top 8 spots. The next ban announcement would be a sad day for Magic (or a happy day for those who want Combo eliminated completely from Magic).
Also Zoo compared with Burn is nearly the same comparison as "75 card deck with 75 card deck."
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Sorry. It's just I can imagine the impending Ban Announcement if the archetype, Combo took up 6 of the top 8 spots. The next ban announcement would be a sad day for Magic (or a happy day for those who want Combo eliminated completely from Magic).
Fair enough. I quite like the current modern metagame as it stands. More bannings would be quite sad.
Congrats! Your deck is amazing. Are there any changes that you would make to it (just thinking about getting it)? Also, why are you running Explore?
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
The Explores were there to facilitate the most explosive Cobra starts. Basically you want to start with Forest + manadork, then Turn 2 Cobra plus landdrop for an additional 2 mana (3 with fetch). Explore busts those starts wide open, easily threatening Turn 3 Sovereigns, but unlike other options it cycles in the lategame. Maybe it should be Coiling Oracle instead, since I'm maindecking the Thalias now. At one point I had additional removal in those slots, but I took it out in favor of just advancing the linear strategy when I realized there wasn't much that I couldn't go over the top of. My very crude plan was to play all-in for the most explosive possible starts in Game 1's, then for Game 2 I would side out whichever threat package was weak depending on my opponent's deck and mull aggressively for hate cards.
I think the field was strange overall, and I hate to say this about a tournament I did well in, but I wouldn't read it as representative of what to expect. I'm not saying the players were weak, but they didn't come to Indy planning to play Modern with carefully tuned decks for the expected metagame. I asked everybody I played over the course of the day if they had played in the Legacy event the previous day, and 7/8 of them had done so (the Small Zoo player who made Top 8 was at a PTQ the previous day.) I would ask if they played a lot of Modern, and a couple guys said it was their main format, but a few others said they played it sporadically and viewed it as "Legacy Lite" -- I think a lot of people (and this basically includes me) chose to spend the day playing Modern because the alternative was Standard. We weren't really planning to play Modern, we all obviously hoped to make Day 2 of Legacy. Lots of good players didn't make Day 2, it was a cut from 580 to 100-ish, but this Modern tournament was probably not what everybody was practicing for all week.
Given the amount of aggro, I don't think more Junk lists would have really made a huge difference in the results. I think the relative absence of Tron and Scapeshift players is why things shook out this way. If I was going to play this deck again (and I have it pretty pimped out, so that answer is yes) I would probably have some plan for Pyro/Anger other than just a couple Mana Leaks.
It was like 4 posts above yours.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
First congrats on the finish!
I was wondering this exactly thing, it seemed a strange top16 tbh more a "between rounds of legacy play fast modern games" with almost all aggro deck and just one combo deck (that obv won in a all aggro meta).
- L
"The problem isn't when Scissors says Rock is overpowered, it's when Paper says it is."
-Mark Rosewater
1. Affinity
2. Burn (RWg))
3. Infect (UG)
4. UWR Twin
5. Kiki Pod Twin (hybrid of Kiki Pod and Twin)
6. Infect (UG)
7. Burn (RWg)
8. Junk
9. RG Tron (w/ Wall of Roots and Sundering Titan)
10. Burn (RWg)
11. RUG Twin (w/ Vedalken Shackles)
12. Merfolk
13. Affinity
14. Cruel Control
15. Affinity
16. Infect (UG Infect)
dat. is a lot. of aggro.
BUT some cool decks in there. Kiki Twin Pod and Cruel Control are nice showings there. The RUG Twin and RG Tron "tech" is also a nice metagame adaption.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
Kiki Pod was so utterly unique in deck composition and the lines you could take that I don't think it's fair calling that a Pod/Twin hybrid. Maybe if it ran some number of Chord I'd be on board but from the looks of it it just seems like a twin list heavy on the midrange, light on the tempo. I could see if having success in an aggressive field; I really like the deck idea.
The temur deck doesn't seem very great either. Flameslash doesn't kill siege rhino or tasigur. I think it's just a bad dismember. And huntmaster is laughable vs tasigur and rhino. Those cards don't seem very good in the current meta.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
That rug twin deck is sweet. Its not very good though. trying to out midrange bgx was possible before siege rhino and banana man. But your right in that trying to fight bgx with midrange threats that dont beat their midrange threats is bad. Keranos and batterskull used to be windmill slams, now their marginal at best. I also dont think trying to fight bgx with tarmogoyf in twin right now is where twin wants to be. It doesn't actually help the bgx matchup that much and its bad to dilute the consistency of twin vs its better matchups anyways. To note I havent been using flame slash Ive been using harvest pyre instead which is actually pretty good. Even lavamancer + bolt is better
Modern:
RUGScapeshift[RUG...Occasionally with goyfs
RUGTarmotwinRUG(RIP)
Legacy:
UWxuwr miracles and stonebladeUWx
Commander:
UWRShu Yun/Ruhan SmashUWR
Grand Arbiter
Omnath
Skittles
Pretty sure most twin decks laugh when their opponent plays a siege rhino or a tasigur, its usually met with a remand and then they combo, or they twiddle it for a few turns then combo. Flame slash does the job that it's meant to do.
Flame slash doesn't stop almost any of bgx's creatures and the combo is so bad vs any open mana. You need some nonsense like mizzium skin or spellskite to really try and combo out.
Modern:
RUGScapeshift[RUG...Occasionally with goyfs
RUGTarmotwinRUG(RIP)
Legacy:
UWxuwr miracles and stonebladeUWx
Commander:
UWRShu Yun/Ruhan SmashUWR
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Well, we have 2/3 of a cyclical metagame here. We have Junk beating all the fair decks and aggro beating Junk. So now we just need something that can beat aggro without also breaking the format. Given that aggro was not doing so hot before August of this year, this is a sort-of improvement.
Yeah, infect isn't aggro.
I guess Wizards calls it Combo. As a Combo player, I should be enthused. Burn can also be Combo where 7 spells X 3 damage does lethal.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)You might as well go "The meta is made of 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck, 75-card deck."
Just because a burn deck is aggressive doesn't mean it plays the same as say a zoo deck. Or two kinds of twin decks etc.
Modern: Jund Legacy: RUG Delver EDH: Captain Sisay
Sorry. It's just I can imagine the impending Ban Announcement if the archetype, Combo took up 6 of the top 8 spots. The next ban announcement would be a sad day for Magic (or a happy day for those who want Combo eliminated completely from Magic).
Also Zoo compared with Burn is nearly the same comparison as "75 card deck with 75 card deck."
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Fair enough. I quite like the current modern metagame as it stands. More bannings would be quite sad.
Modern: Jund Legacy: RUG Delver EDH: Captain Sisay