If anything I have noticed that there seems to be a higher amount of players who actually don't know how powerful he is and what he does to games.
Just yesterday I played against some GR Ramp deck. I was on Jund.
It was game 1 so I had of course no idea what he was on. I cast Inquisition of Kozilek and see a hand with lands, those mana-adding land auras, a Garruk Wildspeaker and a Karn Liberated. I take one of the auras since I didn't really have a choice to take something else. I play a Tarmogoyf and my plan is to keep killing his mana creatures to keep him of his big stuff. Sadly didn't work out that way and he got a Garruk Wildspeaker on the field. On his next turn he casts Obliterate(!!!) and his Garruk was the only permanent remaining on the battlefield. I played a land and passed.
He minuses him to make a beast token trying to kill me while I don't have stuff. I play a second land and a Dark Confidant.
Want to know how the game ended? I had a Dark Confidant, a Tarmogoyf and 4 lands in play with more cards in hand while he only had a single Forest on the field as he died.
That is what an uncontested Confidant does in a game. In game 2 a Turn 2 Confidant basically also won the game.
And yet I have met people who didn't kill my Confidant even though they could have done so. What are those people thinking? That I take 4+ damage every turn or what? That it is a good idea to let a deck draw two cards every turn which has on average way more powerful cards than you?
Always fun meeting people who don't respect good, old Bob.
In the spirit of this topic, my article for the Nexus today discusses the recent rise of Jund. Bob is a big piece of that, and I explain some of the reasons he has contributed to its success. http://modernnexus.com/three-cases-for-modern-jund/
Although there are now, and will always be, hostile metagame factors working against Bob, the overall metagame is very vulnerable to him right now. Some decks can't interact with him at all, and others can't do so at parity. There are also a lot more decks that just fold to an active Bob on the board. All of this makes him a great choice for Jund, and is one of the big reasons I expect to see Jund continue its climb to the top.
Another point to make is that Wizards current development seems to be pushing spell power, particular of the creature variety (Watchwolf into Fleecemane Lion to illustrate) and generally the better spells get at low cmc, the better Bob is at his job.
In the spirit of this topic, my article for the Nexus today discusses the recent rise of Jund. Bob is a big piece of that, and I explain some of the reasons he has contributed to its success. http://modernnexus.com/three-cases-for-modern-jund/
Although there are now, and will always be, hostile metagame factors working against Bob, the overall metagame is very vulnerable to him right now. Some decks can't interact with him at all, and others can't do so at parity. There are also a lot more decks that just fold to an active Bob on the board. All of this makes him a great choice for Jund, and is one of the big reasons I expect to see Jund continue its climb to the top.
I enjoyed reading your article. It was nice to see someone giving an in depth input on bob. Your argument that Jund is going to be a heavy presence moving forward might also increase the relevance in Abzan indirectly because Jund tends to be one of those "fair" decks that Abzan tends to do well against. It is always going to be a guessing game though as to what percent of the meta at an event will be running what though. Its likely going to be a matter of time after Jund shows that its seeing play in numbers that will drive people to lists that do better against it though.
The fact that the company decks are still new is probably also in favor of Jund right now. People like new shiney things so probably based more on that I suspect that you are right that Jund will probably be set up to do well right now.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
My biggest issue with running Tas over Bob is that Tas is somewhat weak to graveyard hate, something that hasn't really been a huge issue for BGx decks before. While gravehate can hurt Goyf, it never feels like you completely shut him down, but if youcan make a BGx player actually hard cast Tas at full cost you are doing well for yourself. While Tas can provide CA, he does so at a much steeper cost than Bob, and is typically run as a two of, instead of a four of, which further impacts a decks consistency tools.
Tas is great for metas were you need to go over the top of other midrange decks, but against more linear aggro decks that lack removal, Bob is king in my mind.
The problem with Bob is that the game as a whole has moved away from incremental advantage and towards just aggro-ing out your opponents as fast as possible. While the activated ability on Tasigur is by all measures a worse form of card advantage than Bob's triggered ability, the reality is that a big, dumb body that dodges Abrupt Decay wins games a lot more reliably than a fragile 2/1 that can also just be a liability in certain matchups.
The problem with Bob is that the game as a whole has moved away from incremental advantage and towards just aggro-ing out your opponents as fast as possible. While the activated ability on Tasigur is by all measures a worse form of card advantage than Bob's static ability, the reality is that a big, dumb body that dodges Abrupt Decay wins games a lot more reliably than a fragile 2/1 that can also just be a liability in certain matchups.
That's just not as true anymore today as it was back in January and February. Jund is hugely on the rise (it's over 6% of the paper metagame now!), Infect has plummeted down to less than 3% of BOTH the paper and MTGO metagame, and decks like Podless Pod, Grixis Delver, Grixis Moon, etc. are also moving up through the ranks. Bob is much better in this style of metagame than it was when everyone was just trying to be as non-interactive and linear as possible. Of course, it's totally possible that June's GPs change all that, but the current signs point towards a fairly balanced metagame (or at least, a different one from the one we saw around PT Fate Reforged). I expect to see both Jund and Bob do well in this kind of metagame.
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Just yesterday I played against some GR Ramp deck. I was on Jund.
It was game 1 so I had of course no idea what he was on. I cast Inquisition of Kozilek and see a hand with lands, those mana-adding land auras, a Garruk Wildspeaker and a Karn Liberated. I take one of the auras since I didn't really have a choice to take something else. I play a Tarmogoyf and my plan is to keep killing his mana creatures to keep him of his big stuff. Sadly didn't work out that way and he got a Garruk Wildspeaker on the field. On his next turn he casts Obliterate(!!!) and his Garruk was the only permanent remaining on the battlefield. I played a land and passed.
He minuses him to make a beast token trying to kill me while I don't have stuff. I play a second land and a Dark Confidant.
Want to know how the game ended? I had a Dark Confidant, a Tarmogoyf and 4 lands in play with more cards in hand while he only had a single Forest on the field as he died.
That is what an uncontested Confidant does in a game. In game 2 a Turn 2 Confidant basically also won the game.
And yet I have met people who didn't kill my Confidant even though they could have done so. What are those people thinking? That I take 4+ damage every turn or what? That it is a good idea to let a deck draw two cards every turn which has on average way more powerful cards than you?
Always fun meeting people who don't respect good, old Bob.
http://modernnexus.com/three-cases-for-modern-jund/
Although there are now, and will always be, hostile metagame factors working against Bob, the overall metagame is very vulnerable to him right now. Some decks can't interact with him at all, and others can't do so at parity. There are also a lot more decks that just fold to an active Bob on the board. All of this makes him a great choice for Jund, and is one of the big reasons I expect to see Jund continue its climb to the top.
I enjoyed reading your article. It was nice to see someone giving an in depth input on bob. Your argument that Jund is going to be a heavy presence moving forward might also increase the relevance in Abzan indirectly because Jund tends to be one of those "fair" decks that Abzan tends to do well against. It is always going to be a guessing game though as to what percent of the meta at an event will be running what though. Its likely going to be a matter of time after Jund shows that its seeing play in numbers that will drive people to lists that do better against it though.
The fact that the company decks are still new is probably also in favor of Jund right now. People like new shiney things so probably based more on that I suspect that you are right that Jund will probably be set up to do well right now.
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I'm already bored of Tasigur.
Tas is great for metas were you need to go over the top of other midrange decks, but against more linear aggro decks that lack removal, Bob is king in my mind.
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That's just not as true anymore today as it was back in January and February. Jund is hugely on the rise (it's over 6% of the paper metagame now!), Infect has plummeted down to less than 3% of BOTH the paper and MTGO metagame, and decks like Podless Pod, Grixis Delver, Grixis Moon, etc. are also moving up through the ranks. Bob is much better in this style of metagame than it was when everyone was just trying to be as non-interactive and linear as possible. Of course, it's totally possible that June's GPs change all that, but the current signs point towards a fairly balanced metagame (or at least, a different one from the one we saw around PT Fate Reforged). I expect to see both Jund and Bob do well in this kind of metagame.