If Splinter Twin is to be sacrificed I hail Preordain, Ancestral Vision and more unbans to come and so do other players. No more spam please.
Yes, cards that will do little to nothing to help the kinds of decks we want to be helping.
I know you have an agenda to unban Twin, but how does Preordain not help the kind of decks we want to help? I can see someone arguing that Preordain doesn't help enough (I disagree but it's at least arguable). But arguing that Preordain helps the wrong kind of decks? Doesn't make sense to me.
Preordain gives a massive boost to decks already running 8x dig/cantrip effects (like Ad Nauseam with 4 Serum 4 Sleight) and would have a minimal boost to ones only running Serum Visions (like most interactive/control decks). It would only be a replacement 4 of, unless they cut something else, which would increase the number of "dead" cards when searching for answers. Jeskai would likely straight swap Serum for Preordain, gaining a very small advantage. They would likely prefer to run AV over additional Serum Visions because raw cards are more important than individual cards most of the time. At least that was the case when I played Jeskai. Grixis would much rather run Preordain + Thought Scour over Preordain + Serum Visions because of heavy graveyard synergies and delve creatures, so it would again be a straight swap for minimal gains. There may be some fringe decks that would run the complete set of 8, but the improvements it has over Serum in a 1 for 1 swap are very small; at least in my opinion and (extremely) limited testing among friends. Basically, the decks that will benefit the most are uninteractive combo, not interactive/reactive/control decks.
One more wrong assumption is the fact that Ancestral Vision/Preordain/Jace, The Mind Sculptor and possibly Stoneforge Mystic either wont help the meta, or they can happen together with Twin. None is wrong.
It's either Twin
or AV+Preordain+JTMS (or) SFM.
My base for this is that when Twin got unbanned, AV got unbanned almost instantly. AV would surely help Twin battle the BGx decks. Now, that it's unbanned, Splinter Twin is out of the question for them. With Preordain, it will have a tombstone.
I am not saying Twin could not be unbanned, all I am saying if Twin as to be unbanned, AV should be rebanned and preordain+JTMS+SFM never to be touched.
Instead, I prefer AV+Preordain+JTMS plus SFM probably over Twin.
You're making the assumption that this series of unbannings will actually happen. What evidence or statements from Wizards do you have to support this? Specifically Jace and SFM.
One more wrong assumption is the fact that Ancestral Vision/Preordain/Jace, The Mind Sculptor and possibly Stoneforge Mystic either wont help the meta, or they can happen together with Twin. None is wrong.
It's either Twin
or AV+Preordain+JTMS (or) SFM.
My base for this is that when Twin got unbanned, AV got unbanned almost instantly. AV would surely help Twin battle the BGx decks. Now, that it's unbanned, Splinter Twin is out of the question for them. With Preordain, it will have a tombstone.
I am not saying Twin could not be unbanned, all I am saying if Twin as to be unbanned, AV should be rebanned and preordain+JTMS+SFM never to be touched.
Instead, I prefer AV+Preordain+JTMS plus SFM probably over Twin.
You're making the assumption that this series of unbannings will actually happen. What evidence or statements from Wizards do you have to support this? Specifically Jace and SFM.
AV did happen, SOTM did happen. I don't believe the y re going to change to Birthing Pod or Green Sun's Zenith now(well, certainly not into mistakes of the past like Mental Misstep etc)
My instinct says that Preordain is the safest bet in the Banlist. And this comes in line with a lot of other people's instincts as well(bfrie, rwcraspy and A LOT of other people concurred).
In addition, they say they are testing cards.
PS: I am not a blue control mage. I am not going to play those cards if unbanned, so no bias there.
And I AM a blue control mage, which is why I understand that the impact Preordain would have on the kinds of decks I want to play would be extremely minimal. That also says absolutely nothing about Jace or SFM, which apparently was part of this big unban package we were/are supposed to get now that Twin is gone. But you yourself even argued many times that SFM is not safe because it would make Abzan Tier 0, so I'm confused why you want it now.
One more wrong assumption is the fact that Ancestral Vision/Preordain/Jace, The Mind Sculptor and possibly Stoneforge Mystic either wont help the meta, or they can happen together with Twin. None is wrong.
It's either Twin
or AV+Preordain+JTMS (or) SFM.
My base for this is that when Twin got unbanned, AV got unbanned almost instantly. AV would surely help Twin battle the BGx decks. Now, that it's unbanned, Splinter Twin is out of the question for them. With Preordain, it will have a tombstone.
I am not saying Twin could not be unbanned, all I am saying if Twin as to be unbanned, AV should be rebanned and preordain+JTMS+SFM never to be touched.
Instead, I prefer AV+Preordain+JTMS plus SFM probably over Twin.
You're making the assumption that this series of unbannings will actually happen. What evidence or statements from Wizards do you have to support this? Specifically Jace and SFM.
AV did happen, SOTM did happen. I don't believe the y re going to change to Birthing Pod or Green Sun's Zenith now(well, certainly not into mistakes of the past like Mental Misstep etc)
My instinct says that Preordain is the safest bet in the Banlist. And this comes in line with a lot of other people's instincts as well(bfrie, rwcraspy and A LOT of other people concurred).
In addition, they say they are testing cards.
PS: I am not a blue control mage. I am not going to play those cards if unbanned, so no bias there.
And I AM a blue control mage, which is why I understand that the impact Preordain would have on the kinds of decks I want to play would be extremely minimal. That also says absolutely nothing about Jace or SFM, which apparently was part of this big unban package we were/are supposed to get now that Twin is gone. But you yourself even argued many times that SFM is not safe because it would make Abzan Tier 0, so I'm confused why you want it now.
The point is not SFM, it's mainly AV, Preordain and JTMS. People consider SFM to be fine too and I disagree but we have to respect their opinion. Thus, even if I disagree there is a chance for SFM. It's not that she is the super busted card like Mental Misstep for example.
PS:
I have played A LOT of Grixis Control and UR Twin and Grixis Control in the past(a little bit of Jeskai and UW as well) and I own those decks on paper and played several hours online as well.
I have played A LOT of legacy with blue decks, like Shardless BUG and other decks as well, mainly on programs like Xmage though and with proxies IRL.
I know my stuff and I know Preordain while not being the no.1 help for the blue control/attrition decks, it would be a big boost.
The fact that you said, "played on Xmage" throws your argument out the window. Unless you are Makis Matsoukas, since your profile says you are from Greece, I cannot take your opinion seriously just due to the fact that Xmage has much lower quality players than on MTGO. If you have legitimate credentials to back up your claim, I want to hear them because as far as I am concerned your opinion is worth about as much as mine and mine isn't worth very much.
For the record, according to MTG Goldfish, almost no deck in Legacy is playing Preordain. And of the 1 or 2 that are (besides OmniTell) they're only running 1 or 2 copies. Which makes sense when they're already running 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder.
So in addition to Legacy stuff being mostly irrelevant to Modern anyway, decks aren't even playing that card.
So the relevance of what Preordain may or may not do for Modern based on play in Legacy is wildly pointless. The decks it helps the most in Modern are NOT attrition/reaction decks, they're combo decks.
Yeah, accept that Twin is not coming back. It hurts diversity, and as long as there are playable combo decks, I think it's fine to keep it that way. Even if you go and unban Ponder instead of Preordain, you get decks like Delver, Ad Nauseam, and Storm as the big winners, which seems healthy for the format. Storm being low tier 1 or high tier 2 is great for a format, because it makes Storm playable while not broken. You want to have some amount of combo decks like that be powerful. That's also the kind of deck that's good against some of the more recent decks like Eldrazi, Dredge, and RG Titanshift, since Storm is faster than them and they tend not to play the right kinds of reactive answers. Delver is similarly a very healthy deck, it's not oppressive in any way and has some really awful matchups like Burn. The fact you give Ad Nauseam and Storm enough tools to be what I'd guess is at least tier 2 and not broken is ideal for the format.
Infect doesn't currently play Serum Visions, though they might play Ponder because of how much better it is. UWR Control would play it, and I would be perfectly fine with that. Decks like 4C Gifts, Mono U Tron, UW Tron, Esper Thopters, etc. are all decks I'm fine letting have Ponder or Preordain.
For the record, according to MTG Goldfish, almost no deck in Legacy is playing Preordain. And of the 1 or 2 that are (besides OmniTell) they're only running 1 or 2 copies. Which makes sense when they're already running 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder.
So in addition to Legacy stuff being mostly irrelevant to Modern anyway, decks aren't even playing that card.
So the relevance of what Preordain may or may not do for Modern based on play in Legacy is wildly pointless. The decks it helps the most in Modern are NOT attrition/reaction decks, they're combo decks.
This is right on the money. I never understood why a controlling deck would want cards like Preordain when it's not actually searching for a specific card or combo piece that would instantly win the game. I'd rather play a combo deck in that case where the card selection of Preordain would actually win me the game, rather than not lose me the game for the current turn. I know for sure, I won't be playing Preordain in my control decks if it gets unbanned since AV is all I need in terms of a CA spell. Unbanning Preordain, would require banning Serum Visions, because Combo decks would run riot and it would be way too awkward to make those changes. And I don't think wizards would like unfair combo decks like Ad Nauseam or Storm to be T1, especially since we don't have force in the format and because it would make the format even more uninteractive than it supposedly is.
In regards to the current meta.
There's 3 midrange decks - Jund, Junk, Eldrazi
There's 3 aggro decks - Burn, Affinity, Infect
And then there's Dredge
I can't see how control is the extinct anchovy in modern. Control decks like Jeskai Nahiri have an even to favorable match up against the 3 T1 midrange decks. They also have even to arguably somewhat favorable match ups against the 3 T1 aggro decks, while having an unfavorable match up against Dredge, which can be easily be dealt with by jamming a play set of RIP or SE in the board. This is not to say any of the match ups, are easy, in fact they're hard to play and anything can happen in magic, but you'd have to be delusional to really believe interactive decks don't have the tools to compete in modern.
You run Serum Visions because you desperately need consistency. The problem with control decks in Modern is that they have bad win conditions, so they have to play 26 lands. 26 lands creates a lot of inconsistent draws, where you need certain answers and enough lands to do everything. UWR Control players know that they often have the wrong removal spell, too many, or too few lands. Consistency is a problem and there's a reason they started playing Serum Visions. Miracles plays 20 lands, Shardless BUG plays 21, Stoneblade plays 23. They simply get away with fewer lands when the CMC of spells drop and the consistency goes up thanks to cards like Brainstorm and Ponder.
It's my opinion that Preordain and Serum Visions in the format together doesn't break combo decks. I could be wrong, but I think a deck like Storm still doesn't get that good. AV turned out to not be that good, which is why not every UWR build is playing it, and they're mor or less the only deck that plays it. UWR decks play more Serum Visions than they do AVs, to put it into perspective.
The problem with UWR isn't that it has bad matchups, it's the consistency of the deck. Affinity is a heavy favourite for you, but none of the others are really any better than 50/50. Infect is unfavourable pre-board, and with people cutting down on Helix, Burn's probably less than 50%. Eldrazi seems like it's less than 50% to me, Jund and Junk are both coin flips. Dredge you lose game 1 and then hope game 2 goes better, after you board in at least 5 cards. That doesn't give me enough reason to want to play UWR. With only one actually favourable matchup among the 7 decks you listed, it becomes an unattractive option.
I agree to disagree on your opinion of favorable/unfavorable match ups
Shaun Mclaren won pro tour born of gods running 0 Serum Visions.
Consistency is always important, but at what cost? I'd argue, you'd need to already have the answers in hand before turn 3 or you'll just die anyway against those fast decks and card selection has too insignificant of an impact in that regards. By playing card selection cards like Preordain in control, you're effectively hoping to hit a one time removal spell for that turn, but that doesn't fix the issue that you will lose to the inevitability of your opponents topdeck 20 creatures vs your 10 removal spells. In regards to AV, AV at least will pull you ahead when you get to that topdecking stage so you just don't die to their topdeck. Cards that replace themselves cannot offer this. They offer a one time use of a removal spell you hopefully drew, just to delay the inevitable without giving you a proper goal to reach once you stabilise like AV does.
In regards to land. Playing 24-26 has been mathematically proven to give you a certain % of hitting land drops naturally, and with the amount of land destruction cards, I don't think this is a bad thing. Playing more lands also allows you to play more powerful cards like Cryptic and Sphinx Rev.
Playing card selection cards like Serum Visions allows you to cut lands, yes, but it also increases the amount of bad hands you have to keep due to only 1 land and a serum vision where you are hoping to scry a land while in the process bottoming relevant early game interaction.
There are pros and cons to both. I'm just suggesting true control decks are better off playing the classic, trade 1 for 1, take your 2 for 1's and pull ahead with a true card advantage spell while you're opponent is topdecking.
McLaren won PT Born of the Gods more than two years ago. He won a GP with that deck around the same time, I think it was GP Richmond. The list he had also had Sphinx's Revelation, should we all go and play that card again? The latest deck he's playing is a Kiki + Nahiri UWR Control that runs Serum Visions. His channel has a video from a year ago of him playing another UWR Kiki deck running Serum Visions as well. Regardless, basically every UWR deck I can see right now runs at least as many Serum Visions as AVs, usually more, and I've yet to see 0 Serum Visions. For the record, the current deck doesn't have AV, nor does it have Cryptic Command (his list from the PT had 3 Cryptics).
AV makes sense as a card, I don't argue what the purpose is. I argue that your deck needs consistency to the point that you're willing to play Serum Visions to help with it. Nahiri versions don't need card draws as much because they can use the combo to win, rather than traditional control decks that have to win by long-term card advantage. You don't need to stabilize the way pre-Nahiri, non-Kiki versions do, you simply need to stall long enough for Nahiri to do her thing. She's very solid and is a very fast clock when she's online.
The math suggests that if you're on the draw, the odds of casting Cryptic on turn 4 is about 70% with 26 lands. That's part of why you want those filter cards, because they let you see what you're drawing or find what you need. Sometimes you need a 4th land for Cryptic, sometimes you need spells. Especially in a deck with lots of 1 and 2 mana interaction, it's easy to find time to cast Serum Visions on turns 1-3.
The bottom line is that UWR Control traditionally struggles from not drawing the right set of cards. Sometimes they have a 3/4 Goyf and your answer is a Bolt, sometimes you draw Electrolyze and they have a 2/3. Reactive decks that play as many lands as UWR Control do traditionally have these kinds of consistency problems. Bolt and Path do similar but different things. Spell Snare, Mana Leak, and Remand all do similar but different things. Especially when you play stuff like AV, you're dropping immediate card advantage for future card advantage, and you can sometimes get overwhelmed in the early game.
What are you talking about. The meta for the majority of moderns existence was BG/x,UR/x twin, Tron, Pod, Affinity. Any other deck that qualified as T1 likely got a banning like 12Post or Seething Song Storm. UR twin, BG/x decks invalidated aggro, Pod invalidated burn, infect, and non-Pod non-Jund/Junk decks. Looking at top 8's for the majority of Modern Pre-banning doesn't show a variety of decks and this is why Pro's got so bent out of shape about the banning. What archetypes viability was destroyed?
And that's what made modern great. "BG/x,UR/x twin, Tron, Pod, Affinity" is way funnier than fifty shades of uninteractive linear decks.
Well I disagree. Pod was a mistake and had to go and the meta has been far better since its banning. I would also contend that most of the "uninteractive" decks actually do interact just not in the same way that say Jund/Junk type decks do. This complaint seems odd to me given that Pod, Affinity,Tron all didn't really plan on interacting with the opponent and focused on simply doing their own thing. In a way so did UR Twin; its primary plan was to play a simple tempo game until end of opponents t3 start of your t4; I played Twin and understand that it could win in other ways but this was the primary reasoning to on the deck in the first place. Personally I don't see much difference in BG/x decks invalidating my mulligan choice with 1 c.c. discard and Infect invalidating my removal with hexproofing spells; in a way the Infect line of play is more interactive since I actually attempted to play my cards while BG/x simply removed them from my hand without the chance to interact with the discard spell.
I don't think that the issue with the meta is that linear decks just beat BG/x I think it is that no one has figured a way to build BG/x that beats linear aggro decks and Bant Eldrazi. Bant Eldrazi has thrown a wrench in the structure of the format that has existed since its inception that you can build Jund/Junk to win any given event if you can predict the general deck choices of the event. Jund/Junk has traditionally only had one impossible match up in Tron and now Bant Eldrazi has jumped on that band wagon. This wouldn't be that problematic if Bant Eldrazi was good against linear aggro decks but its not so you have linear aggro racing to get under control/combo, Bant Eldrazi preying on other mid-range creature decks, and Jund/Junk just hasn't/can't find a build that can deal with both.
I disagree with the idea that Twin was a policing deck. Infect, Burn, and all the rest of the low end linear decks existed and started and where good choices against Twin since the rule of thumb was you either run a deck with access to Abrupt Decay or you go under the Combo which pretty much every deck that people complain about now does anyways.
Interactivity of decks isn't black and white, it's gray. A lot of what people end up calling interaction is merely ways to interact. Affinity is easy to interact with because they win through repeated combat. They need several turns, slowly eat at your life, and use permanents that any deck trying to interact with you will be capable of interacting with. On the other end, Storm is very difficult to interact with because they win in one turn and use almost all spells. Of the permanents they play, the main one is an enchantment, so it's hard to interact with. Part of why people are much happier with Infect is that creatures are inherently easier to interact with. Sure, Blossoming Defense, Vines of Vastwood, etc. all kind of suck to play against, but it usually feels better to do things and have your spells not work rather than twiddle your thumbs because you literally do nothing. BGx tends to be very high on the interaction scale because they play removal, targeted discard, and win through combat. They interact with your cards in two very different ways while giving you ways to interact with theirs.
The bottom line is that people want to interact in reasonable ways. I already talked about Storm, but another recent example is Amulet. People disliked Amulet because it could frequently put a Primeval Titan into play on turn 2. It was hard to interact with because you only had targeted discard and counters as a way, so like half the format just had to say go ahead. And of course, early Primeval Titan is incredibly difficult to interact with, you have Path, double Bolt? The list is incredibly short, and dealing with it wasn't even always a good enough answer because of the free ramp. It's really about how easy it is to interact with. Infect is incredibly easy to interact with, whether your interaction does anything is a different story, but you're still capable of interacting. Pod was also not so bad to interact with for the same reason, especially during versions that played less combo and more midrange.
As far as BGx goes, midrange decks tend to lose to bigger midrange decks. You play your 3/4, then maybe I take 3 the next turn, and then play my 5/5 that brick walls you. Eldrazi stand up well to Jund creatures as a whole (unless Goyf gets out of hand). It's exactly why RG Tron was a problem, because cards like Karn and Wurmcoil were good brick walls the way Eldrazi are. It's really good that Jund can't deal with both, because dealing with both would be unhealthy. The fact Jund dealt with most decks favourably (either pre-board or after bringing in answers) is what made it the best deck in Modern since they stabilized the ban list (aside from the three months of Eldrazi).
The problem with a deck like Twin is that it does all its interaction at instant speed while also demanding that you never tap out. UWR Control interacts all at instant speed but they don't just win if you play your threat. Twin very reasonably won when you tapped out in the mid game, so it was a lot like UWR Control but with extra restrictions imposed. It basically limited your ability to do what you wanted while also being able to progress itself. A deck like Jeskai Nahiri tends to rely on Nahiri to win games, so they play stuff at sorcery speed to do the job, and then still need some time, whereas Twin had instant speed win conditions (Pestermite/Exarch could be win conditions) while their sorcery win condition immediately ended the game. Twin pushed out a lot of fair linear decks as a result. Twin was good at policing decks like Bant Eldrazi, because they punish you for just tapping out to play a big threat. It had a fairly good pre-board game against RG Tron for doing basically the same thing Bant Eldrazi did, and the only reason Twin didn't slaughter RG Tron is that some sideboards were like 12 cards for that matchup. Infect has since filled that role, but it's much more linear in the game plan. I think it would crush Dredge as well.
Interactivity of decks isn't black and white, it's gray. A lot of what people end up calling interaction is merely ways to interact. Affinity is easy to interact with because they win through repeated combat. They need several turns, slowly eat at your life, and use permanents that any deck trying to interact with you will be capable of interacting with. On the other end, Storm is very difficult to interact with because they win in one turn and use almost all spells. Of the permanents they play, the main one is an enchantment, so it's hard to interact with. Part of why people are much happier with Infect is that creatures are inherently easier to interact with. Sure, Blossoming Defense, Vines of Vastwood, etc. all kind of suck to play against, but it usually feels better to do things and have your spells not work rather than twiddle your thumbs because you literally do nothing. BGx tends to be very high on the interaction scale because they play removal, targeted discard, and win through combat. They interact with your cards in two very different ways while giving you ways to interact with theirs.
The bottom line is that people want to interact in reasonable ways. I already talked about Storm, but another recent example is Amulet. People disliked Amulet because it could frequently put a Primeval Titan into play on turn 2. It was hard to interact with because you only had targeted discard and counters as a way, so like half the format just had to say go ahead. And of course, early Primeval Titan is incredibly difficult to interact with, you have Path, double Bolt? The list is incredibly short, and dealing with it wasn't even always a good enough answer because of the free ramp. It's really about how easy it is to interact with. Infect is incredibly easy to interact with, whether your interaction does anything is a different story, but you're still capable of interacting. Pod was also not so bad to interact with for the same reason, especially during versions that played less combo and more midrange.
As far as BGx goes, midrange decks tend to lose to bigger midrange decks. You play your 3/4, then maybe I take 3 the next turn, and then play my 5/5 that brick walls you. Eldrazi stand up well to Jund creatures as a whole (unless Goyf gets out of hand). It's exactly why RG Tron was a problem, because cards like Karn and Wurmcoil were good brick walls the way Eldrazi are. It's really good that Jund can't deal with both, because dealing with both would be unhealthy. The fact Jund dealt with most decks favourably (either pre-board or after bringing in answers) is what made it the best deck in Modern since they stabilized the ban list (aside from the three months of Eldrazi).
The problem with a deck like Twin is that it does all its interaction at instant speed while also demanding that you never tap out. UWR Control interacts all at instant speed but they don't just win if you play your threat. Twin very reasonably won when you tapped out in the mid game, so it was a lot like UWR Control but with extra restrictions imposed. It basically limited your ability to do what you wanted while also being able to progress itself. A deck like Jeskai Nahiri tends to rely on Nahiri to win games, so they play stuff at sorcery speed to do the job, and then still need some time, whereas Twin had instant speed win conditions (Pestermite/Exarch could be win conditions) while their sorcery win condition immediately ended the game. Twin pushed out a lot of fair linear decks as a result. Twin was good at policing decks like Bant Eldrazi, because they punish you for just tapping out to play a big threat. It had a fairly good pre-board game against RG Tron for doing basically the same thing Bant Eldrazi did, and the only reason Twin didn't slaughter RG Tron is that some sideboards were like 12 cards for that matchup. Infect has since filled that role, but it's much more linear in the game plan. I think it would crush Dredge as well.
I don't get why you responded to me for the most part as you just proved my point for most of my post. I understand that interaction is a subjective grey area that was pretty much the point I made without distilling it into a new players guides explanation.
Same goes for why Bant Eldrazi beats Jund/Junk which is why I said it is essentially a unwinnable match for the deck. I was simply pointing out that much of what people are complaining about regarding the meta is rooted in the fact that Jund/Junk is no longer the best deck; it has picked up a major bad match up and its against a deck that is mostly terrible against linear aggro.
I disagree that Twin would do much to keep Bant Eldrazi or Dredge in check. Bant Eldrazi has access to multiple ways of disrupting the Twin combo in TKS and Displacer and running them out as early as t2 or off of cavern would actually be fairly ruff for Twin. Dredge actually wants to play a longer game more often then not and is mostly fine with just not casting anything and discarding to hand size. Not to mention that they often run main the 1c.c. instant that deals 5 to a creature and either MD or SB anti-enchantment/artifact hate.
So, let's face it: the only thing positive that unbanning Twin would do for Blue Control in the current meta (especially with Ancestral Vision being unbanned) is make Twin a tier one deck. The only reason any other Blue contol deck would do well in said meta is by beating Twin. Is this not inherently format warping?
Wouldn't it be better for players who want to play said archetype (Blue Control) if they were given better cantrips and answers so that they would be able to brew and have a multitude of decks to choose from? Why limit Blue Control to Twin and Whatever Beats Twin (unless, of course, you're a diehard Twin player, in which case the answer is obvious)?
So, let's face it: the only thing positive that unbanning Twin would do for Blue Control in the current meta (especially with Ancestral Vision being unbanned) is make Twin a tier one deck. The only reason any other Blue contol deck would do well in said meta is by beating Twin. Is this not inherently format warping?
Wouldn't it be better for players who want to play said archetype (Blue Control) if they were given better cantrips and answers so that they would be able to brew and have a multitude of decks to choose from? Why limit Blue Control to Twin and Whatever Beats Twin (unless, of course, you're a diehard Twin player, in which case the answer is obvious)?
Honestly I don't think in a format as wide as modern you can have "blue control" in the classic draw go sense. Control has always arisen after the pecking order of aggro has been established; with so many viable aggro decks in Modern the pecking order isn't defined enough to build a "control" deck around. Even if they printed straight up counterspell I don't think it would be possible. The only true control deck in modern is lantern control and it can only achieve control by completely cutting off the opponent from access to useful cards.
Those types of classic control decks are still viable in Standard simply because the card pool restricts non-control players options enough to formulate a valid control plan to begin with. It doesn't matter that the answers in standard are not powerful enough for modern because they don't need to be.
If Preordain is unbanned, most control decks will play it. This isn't standard where CA is the most important thing to control decks - in this format card selection is king because most games can end between 3 and 4 turns. 4 turns isn't enough to accrue card advantage or for it to even matter. Its vastly more important to find your sb hate cards by digging 7 - 10 cards over 2 or 3 turns than just randomly drawing 2 or 3 extra cards.
I agree to disagree on your opinion of favorable/unfavorable match ups
Shaun Mclaren won pro tour born of gods running 0 Serum Visions.
Consistency is always important, but at what cost? I'd argue, you'd need to already have the answers in hand before turn 3 or you'll just die anyway against those fast decks and card selection has too insignificant of an impact in that regards. By playing card selection cards like Preordain in control, you're effectively hoping to hit a one time removal spell for that turn, but that doesn't fix the issue that you will lose to the inevitability of your opponents topdeck 20 creatures vs your 10 removal spells. In regards to AV, AV at least will pull you ahead when you get to that topdecking stage so you just don't die to their topdeck. Cards that replace themselves cannot offer this. They offer a one time use of a removal spell you hopefully drew, just to delay the inevitable without giving you a proper goal to reach once you stabilise like AV does.
In regards to land. Playing 24-26 has been mathematically proven to give you a certain % of hitting land drops naturally, and with the amount of land destruction cards, I don't think this is a bad thing. Playing more lands also allows you to play more powerful cards like Cryptic and Sphinx Rev.
Playing card selection cards like Serum Visions allows you to cut lands, yes, but it also increases the amount of bad hands you have to keep due to only 1 land and a serum vision where you are hoping to scry a land while in the process bottoming relevant early game interaction.
There are pros and cons to both. I'm just suggesting true control decks are better off playing the classic, trade 1 for 1, take your 2 for 1's and pull ahead with a true card advantage spell while you're opponent is topdecking.
These are my opinions.
You fail to remember that Birthing Pod and Twin were in the format. The metagame was a lot more narrow back then, because in my mind you really only needed to metagame for 5 decks that Pro Tour, which were Pod, Twin, Jeskai Control, Jund and Zoo. Birthing Pod made Infect and Burn non-decks especially at the Pro Tour stage. It's easier to build a control deck for 5 decks in the format than it is to build a control deck for 30+ decks that have a shot at winning.
I don't remember Pod being heavily favoured against Burn. They used to shock themselves a lot, it was not uncommon for them to turn 1 fetch + shock, turn 2 fetch + shock to play Pod. They're already at 14. Sure, four Kitchen Finks, but that doesn't offset how much damage they'd normally ping themselves.
At least Melira Pod had a positive Burn match-up. Kiki Pod had a worse match-up but it was only in a short period of time a tier 1 deck (roughly 6 months).
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I agree to disagree on your opinion of favorable/unfavorable match ups
Shaun Mclaren won pro tour born of gods running 0 Serum Visions.
Consistency is always important, but at what cost? I'd argue, you'd need to already have the answers in hand before turn 3 or you'll just die anyway against those fast decks and card selection has too insignificant of an impact in that regards. By playing card selection cards like Preordain in control, you're effectively hoping to hit a one time removal spell for that turn, but that doesn't fix the issue that you will lose to the inevitability of your opponents topdeck 20 creatures vs your 10 removal spells. In regards to AV, AV at least will pull you ahead when you get to that topdecking stage so you just don't die to their topdeck. Cards that replace themselves cannot offer this. They offer a one time use of a removal spell you hopefully drew, just to delay the inevitable without giving you a proper goal to reach once you stabilise like AV does.
In regards to land. Playing 24-26 has been mathematically proven to give you a certain % of hitting land drops naturally, and with the amount of land destruction cards, I don't think this is a bad thing. Playing more lands also allows you to play more powerful cards like Cryptic and Sphinx Rev.
Playing card selection cards like Serum Visions allows you to cut lands, yes, but it also increases the amount of bad hands you have to keep due to only 1 land and a serum vision where you are hoping to scry a land while in the process bottoming relevant early game interaction.
There are pros and cons to both. I'm just suggesting true control decks are better off playing the classic, trade 1 for 1, take your 2 for 1's and pull ahead with a true card advantage spell while you're opponent is topdecking.
These are my opinions.
Sphinx's Control decks are designed to draw into the answers they need for the specific metagame and then fire off a giant Sphinx's Relevation to bury their opponent. They don't need deck manipulation because every card in the deck is designed to be great throughout the entire matchup. UWR control decks (and control decks) are really good if the metagame is more closed and you know what type of a metagame you will face.
I don't remember Pod being heavily favoured against Burn. They used to shock themselves a lot, it was not uncommon for them to turn 1 fetch + shock, turn 2 fetch + shock to play Pod. They're already at 14. Sure, four Kitchen Finks, but that doesn't offset how much damage they'd normally ping themselves.
Pat Cox said "Pod decks play 4 Kitchen Finks and can pod into 2 siege rhinos. Thats too much lifegain. Its unbeatable [As a zoo player]"
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
If Preordain is unbanned, most control decks will play it. This isn't standard where CA is the most important thing to control decks - in this format card selection is king because most games can end between 3 and 4 turns. 4 turns isn't enough to accrue card advantage or for it to even matter. Its vastly more important to find your sb hate cards by digging 7 - 10 cards over 2 or 3 turns than just randomly drawing 2 or 3 extra cards.
Honestly how does Preordain help Ux control not lose to the faster decks? The answers that are available to Ux decks is just not on par with BG/x decks generally and this is why Jund/Junk tends to be the better controlling decks against those decks. Uxx decks can already go bigger than BG/x decks and have a favorable match up against them.
While I agree that if Preordain was unbanned it would be played in every U deck of every stripe I disagree that card advantage isn't priority #1 for control decks in Modern. Jund is a control deck and leans heavily on CA it just does so in a different way than a U deck would but LotV + Bob is still one of the best board states you can aim for when attempting to control the game; the difference is that they get Abrupt Decay, Malestrom Pulse, Lightning Bolt, etc... While U has Mana Leak, Vapor snag.....
Digging for S.B. Hate is fine and all but decks like Dredge tend to have access to more post board anti-hate hate cards than you do hate cards and can play through them more often than not.
For the record, according to MTG Goldfish, almost no deck in Legacy is playing Preordain. And of the 1 or 2 that are (besides OmniTell) they're only running 1 or 2 copies. Which makes sense when they're already running 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder.
So in addition to Legacy stuff being mostly irrelevant to Modern anyway, decks aren't even playing that card.
So the relevance of what Preordain may or may not do for Modern based on play in Legacy is wildly pointless. The decks it helps the most in Modern are NOT attrition/reaction decks, they're combo decks.
This is so far off base. Legacy gets to play 4x Brainstorm and 4x Ponder. Of COURSE you have a hard time finding Preordain.
You know where you DO find Preordain? In Vintage, where you can only play 1x Brainstorm and 1x Ponder. In Vintage Preordain is a 4x in quite a lot of decks, including both combo and control shells, and is the 11th most played non-mana, non-power card with 38.5% of decks playing an average of 3.1 copies.
Preordain gives a massive boost to decks already running 8x dig/cantrip effects (like Ad Nauseam with 4 Serum 4 Sleight) and would have a minimal boost to ones only running Serum Visions (like most interactive/control decks). It would only be a replacement 4 of, unless they cut something else, which would increase the number of "dead" cards when searching for answers. Jeskai would likely straight swap Serum for Preordain, gaining a very small advantage. They would likely prefer to run AV over additional Serum Visions because raw cards are more important than individual cards most of the time. At least that was the case when I played Jeskai. Grixis would much rather run Preordain + Thought Scour over Preordain + Serum Visions because of heavy graveyard synergies and delve creatures, so it would again be a straight swap for minimal gains. There may be some fringe decks that would run the complete set of 8, but the improvements it has over Serum in a 1 for 1 swap are very small; at least in my opinion and (extremely) limited testing among friends. Basically, the decks that will benefit the most are uninteractive combo, not interactive/reactive/control decks.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
You're making the assumption that this series of unbannings will actually happen. What evidence or statements from Wizards do you have to support this? Specifically Jace and SFM.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
And I AM a blue control mage, which is why I understand that the impact Preordain would have on the kinds of decks I want to play would be extremely minimal. That also says absolutely nothing about Jace or SFM, which apparently was part of this big unban package we were/are supposed to get now that Twin is gone. But you yourself even argued many times that SFM is not safe because it would make Abzan Tier 0, so I'm confused why you want it now.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
The fact that you said, "played on Xmage" throws your argument out the window. Unless you are Makis Matsoukas, since your profile says you are from Greece, I cannot take your opinion seriously just due to the fact that Xmage has much lower quality players than on MTGO. If you have legitimate credentials to back up your claim, I want to hear them because as far as I am concerned your opinion is worth about as much as mine and mine isn't worth very much.
So in addition to Legacy stuff being mostly irrelevant to Modern anyway, decks aren't even playing that card.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/legacy#paper
Plus, it doesn't even hit in the top 50 non-creature spells:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/format-staples/legacy/full/spells
So the relevance of what Preordain may or may not do for Modern based on play in Legacy is wildly pointless. The decks it helps the most in Modern are NOT attrition/reaction decks, they're combo decks.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Infect doesn't currently play Serum Visions, though they might play Ponder because of how much better it is. UWR Control would play it, and I would be perfectly fine with that. Decks like 4C Gifts, Mono U Tron, UW Tron, Esper Thopters, etc. are all decks I'm fine letting have Ponder or Preordain.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
This is right on the money. I never understood why a controlling deck would want cards like Preordain when it's not actually searching for a specific card or combo piece that would instantly win the game. I'd rather play a combo deck in that case where the card selection of Preordain would actually win me the game, rather than not lose me the game for the current turn. I know for sure, I won't be playing Preordain in my control decks if it gets unbanned since AV is all I need in terms of a CA spell. Unbanning Preordain, would require banning Serum Visions, because Combo decks would run riot and it would be way too awkward to make those changes. And I don't think wizards would like unfair combo decks like Ad Nauseam or Storm to be T1, especially since we don't have force in the format and because it would make the format even more uninteractive than it supposedly is.
In regards to the current meta.
There's 3 midrange decks - Jund, Junk, Eldrazi
There's 3 aggro decks - Burn, Affinity, Infect
And then there's Dredge
I can't see how control is the extinct anchovy in modern. Control decks like Jeskai Nahiri have an even to favorable match up against the 3 T1 midrange decks. They also have even to arguably somewhat favorable match ups against the 3 T1 aggro decks, while having an unfavorable match up against Dredge, which can be easily be dealt with by jamming a play set of RIP or SE in the board. This is not to say any of the match ups, are easy, in fact they're hard to play and anything can happen in magic, but you'd have to be delusional to really believe interactive decks don't have the tools to compete in modern.
It's my opinion that Preordain and Serum Visions in the format together doesn't break combo decks. I could be wrong, but I think a deck like Storm still doesn't get that good. AV turned out to not be that good, which is why not every UWR build is playing it, and they're mor or less the only deck that plays it. UWR decks play more Serum Visions than they do AVs, to put it into perspective.
The problem with UWR isn't that it has bad matchups, it's the consistency of the deck. Affinity is a heavy favourite for you, but none of the others are really any better than 50/50. Infect is unfavourable pre-board, and with people cutting down on Helix, Burn's probably less than 50%. Eldrazi seems like it's less than 50% to me, Jund and Junk are both coin flips. Dredge you lose game 1 and then hope game 2 goes better, after you board in at least 5 cards. That doesn't give me enough reason to want to play UWR. With only one actually favourable matchup among the 7 decks you listed, it becomes an unattractive option.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
Shaun Mclaren won pro tour born of gods running 0 Serum Visions.
Consistency is always important, but at what cost? I'd argue, you'd need to already have the answers in hand before turn 3 or you'll just die anyway against those fast decks and card selection has too insignificant of an impact in that regards. By playing card selection cards like Preordain in control, you're effectively hoping to hit a one time removal spell for that turn, but that doesn't fix the issue that you will lose to the inevitability of your opponents topdeck 20 creatures vs your 10 removal spells. In regards to AV, AV at least will pull you ahead when you get to that topdecking stage so you just don't die to their topdeck. Cards that replace themselves cannot offer this. They offer a one time use of a removal spell you hopefully drew, just to delay the inevitable without giving you a proper goal to reach once you stabilise like AV does.
In regards to land. Playing 24-26 has been mathematically proven to give you a certain % of hitting land drops naturally, and with the amount of land destruction cards, I don't think this is a bad thing. Playing more lands also allows you to play more powerful cards like Cryptic and Sphinx Rev.
Playing card selection cards like Serum Visions allows you to cut lands, yes, but it also increases the amount of bad hands you have to keep due to only 1 land and a serum vision where you are hoping to scry a land while in the process bottoming relevant early game interaction.
There are pros and cons to both. I'm just suggesting true control decks are better off playing the classic, trade 1 for 1, take your 2 for 1's and pull ahead with a true card advantage spell while you're opponent is topdecking.
These are my opinions.
AV makes sense as a card, I don't argue what the purpose is. I argue that your deck needs consistency to the point that you're willing to play Serum Visions to help with it. Nahiri versions don't need card draws as much because they can use the combo to win, rather than traditional control decks that have to win by long-term card advantage. You don't need to stabilize the way pre-Nahiri, non-Kiki versions do, you simply need to stall long enough for Nahiri to do her thing. She's very solid and is a very fast clock when she's online.
The math suggests that if you're on the draw, the odds of casting Cryptic on turn 4 is about 70% with 26 lands. That's part of why you want those filter cards, because they let you see what you're drawing or find what you need. Sometimes you need a 4th land for Cryptic, sometimes you need spells. Especially in a deck with lots of 1 and 2 mana interaction, it's easy to find time to cast Serum Visions on turns 1-3.
The bottom line is that UWR Control traditionally struggles from not drawing the right set of cards. Sometimes they have a 3/4 Goyf and your answer is a Bolt, sometimes you draw Electrolyze and they have a 2/3. Reactive decks that play as many lands as UWR Control do traditionally have these kinds of consistency problems. Bolt and Path do similar but different things. Spell Snare, Mana Leak, and Remand all do similar but different things. Especially when you play stuff like AV, you're dropping immediate card advantage for future card advantage, and you can sometimes get overwhelmed in the early game.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
Well I disagree. Pod was a mistake and had to go and the meta has been far better since its banning. I would also contend that most of the "uninteractive" decks actually do interact just not in the same way that say Jund/Junk type decks do. This complaint seems odd to me given that Pod, Affinity,Tron all didn't really plan on interacting with the opponent and focused on simply doing their own thing. In a way so did UR Twin; its primary plan was to play a simple tempo game until end of opponents t3 start of your t4; I played Twin and understand that it could win in other ways but this was the primary reasoning to on the deck in the first place. Personally I don't see much difference in BG/x decks invalidating my mulligan choice with 1 c.c. discard and Infect invalidating my removal with hexproofing spells; in a way the Infect line of play is more interactive since I actually attempted to play my cards while BG/x simply removed them from my hand without the chance to interact with the discard spell.
I don't think that the issue with the meta is that linear decks just beat BG/x I think it is that no one has figured a way to build BG/x that beats linear aggro decks and Bant Eldrazi. Bant Eldrazi has thrown a wrench in the structure of the format that has existed since its inception that you can build Jund/Junk to win any given event if you can predict the general deck choices of the event. Jund/Junk has traditionally only had one impossible match up in Tron and now Bant Eldrazi has jumped on that band wagon. This wouldn't be that problematic if Bant Eldrazi was good against linear aggro decks but its not so you have linear aggro racing to get under control/combo, Bant Eldrazi preying on other mid-range creature decks, and Jund/Junk just hasn't/can't find a build that can deal with both.
I disagree with the idea that Twin was a policing deck. Infect, Burn, and all the rest of the low end linear decks existed and started and where good choices against Twin since the rule of thumb was you either run a deck with access to Abrupt Decay or you go under the Combo which pretty much every deck that people complain about now does anyways.
The bottom line is that people want to interact in reasonable ways. I already talked about Storm, but another recent example is Amulet. People disliked Amulet because it could frequently put a Primeval Titan into play on turn 2. It was hard to interact with because you only had targeted discard and counters as a way, so like half the format just had to say go ahead. And of course, early Primeval Titan is incredibly difficult to interact with, you have Path, double Bolt? The list is incredibly short, and dealing with it wasn't even always a good enough answer because of the free ramp. It's really about how easy it is to interact with. Infect is incredibly easy to interact with, whether your interaction does anything is a different story, but you're still capable of interacting. Pod was also not so bad to interact with for the same reason, especially during versions that played less combo and more midrange.
As far as BGx goes, midrange decks tend to lose to bigger midrange decks. You play your 3/4, then maybe I take 3 the next turn, and then play my 5/5 that brick walls you. Eldrazi stand up well to Jund creatures as a whole (unless Goyf gets out of hand). It's exactly why RG Tron was a problem, because cards like Karn and Wurmcoil were good brick walls the way Eldrazi are. It's really good that Jund can't deal with both, because dealing with both would be unhealthy. The fact Jund dealt with most decks favourably (either pre-board or after bringing in answers) is what made it the best deck in Modern since they stabilized the ban list (aside from the three months of Eldrazi).
The problem with a deck like Twin is that it does all its interaction at instant speed while also demanding that you never tap out. UWR Control interacts all at instant speed but they don't just win if you play your threat. Twin very reasonably won when you tapped out in the mid game, so it was a lot like UWR Control but with extra restrictions imposed. It basically limited your ability to do what you wanted while also being able to progress itself. A deck like Jeskai Nahiri tends to rely on Nahiri to win games, so they play stuff at sorcery speed to do the job, and then still need some time, whereas Twin had instant speed win conditions (Pestermite/Exarch could be win conditions) while their sorcery win condition immediately ended the game. Twin pushed out a lot of fair linear decks as a result. Twin was good at policing decks like Bant Eldrazi, because they punish you for just tapping out to play a big threat. It had a fairly good pre-board game against RG Tron for doing basically the same thing Bant Eldrazi did, and the only reason Twin didn't slaughter RG Tron is that some sideboards were like 12 cards for that matchup. Infect has since filled that role, but it's much more linear in the game plan. I think it would crush Dredge as well.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
I don't get why you responded to me for the most part as you just proved my point for most of my post. I understand that interaction is a subjective grey area that was pretty much the point I made without distilling it into a new players guides explanation.
Same goes for why Bant Eldrazi beats Jund/Junk which is why I said it is essentially a unwinnable match for the deck. I was simply pointing out that much of what people are complaining about regarding the meta is rooted in the fact that Jund/Junk is no longer the best deck; it has picked up a major bad match up and its against a deck that is mostly terrible against linear aggro.
I disagree that Twin would do much to keep Bant Eldrazi or Dredge in check. Bant Eldrazi has access to multiple ways of disrupting the Twin combo in TKS and Displacer and running them out as early as t2 or off of cavern would actually be fairly ruff for Twin. Dredge actually wants to play a longer game more often then not and is mostly fine with just not casting anything and discarding to hand size. Not to mention that they often run main the 1c.c. instant that deals 5 to a creature and either MD or SB anti-enchantment/artifact hate.
Wouldn't it be better for players who want to play said archetype (Blue Control) if they were given better cantrips and answers so that they would be able to brew and have a multitude of decks to choose from? Why limit Blue Control to Twin and Whatever Beats Twin (unless, of course, you're a diehard Twin player, in which case the answer is obvious)?
Honestly I don't think in a format as wide as modern you can have "blue control" in the classic draw go sense. Control has always arisen after the pecking order of aggro has been established; with so many viable aggro decks in Modern the pecking order isn't defined enough to build a "control" deck around. Even if they printed straight up counterspell I don't think it would be possible. The only true control deck in modern is lantern control and it can only achieve control by completely cutting off the opponent from access to useful cards.
Those types of classic control decks are still viable in Standard simply because the card pool restricts non-control players options enough to formulate a valid control plan to begin with. It doesn't matter that the answers in standard are not powerful enough for modern because they don't need to be.
You fail to remember that Birthing Pod and Twin were in the format. The metagame was a lot more narrow back then, because in my mind you really only needed to metagame for 5 decks that Pro Tour, which were Pod, Twin, Jeskai Control, Jund and Zoo. Birthing Pod made Infect and Burn non-decks especially at the Pro Tour stage. It's easier to build a control deck for 5 decks in the format than it is to build a control deck for 30+ decks that have a shot at winning.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
Sphinx's Control decks are designed to draw into the answers they need for the specific metagame and then fire off a giant Sphinx's Relevation to bury their opponent. They don't need deck manipulation because every card in the deck is designed to be great throughout the entire matchup. UWR control decks (and control decks) are really good if the metagame is more closed and you know what type of a metagame you will face.
Pat Cox said "Pod decks play 4 Kitchen Finks and can pod into 2 siege rhinos. Thats too much lifegain. Its unbeatable [As a zoo player]"
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
Honestly how does Preordain help Ux control not lose to the faster decks? The answers that are available to Ux decks is just not on par with BG/x decks generally and this is why Jund/Junk tends to be the better controlling decks against those decks. Uxx decks can already go bigger than BG/x decks and have a favorable match up against them.
While I agree that if Preordain was unbanned it would be played in every U deck of every stripe I disagree that card advantage isn't priority #1 for control decks in Modern. Jund is a control deck and leans heavily on CA it just does so in a different way than a U deck would but LotV + Bob is still one of the best board states you can aim for when attempting to control the game; the difference is that they get Abrupt Decay, Malestrom Pulse, Lightning Bolt, etc... While U has Mana Leak, Vapor snag.....
Digging for S.B. Hate is fine and all but decks like Dredge tend to have access to more post board anti-hate hate cards than you do hate cards and can play through them more often than not.
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StaffI'm not sure much of the difference
is it just one list runs through the breach and Emrakul and the other is just a RG scapeshift deck?
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Staffthat helps, thanks a lot
You know where you DO find Preordain? In Vintage, where you can only play 1x Brainstorm and 1x Ponder. In Vintage Preordain is a 4x in quite a lot of decks, including both combo and control shells, and is the 11th most played non-mana, non-power card with 38.5% of decks playing an average of 3.1 copies.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero