If Grixis Shadow is a blue deck then Infect was a blue deck.
Infect ran a blue creature and maybe a spell pierce or two in the main. DS runs serum, snap, stubborn, and though scour. That gives it some blue identity. I don't understand how GDS is not thought of as a deck that has one foot solidly in the blue camp. My point from earlier is that almost all 'blue' decks use the blue cards to find things from other colors. Blue is not known for it's finishers.
@KTROJAN: Sorry, I misread what you were saying. I agree with that statement for sure. Blue definitely needs help despite DS doing well. The problem is that blue's main color identity (ie counter magic and card draw/selection) has been deemed far too strong for modern, and we are left with pretty stunted versions of this. Blue shouldn't have heymaker creatures and bomb threats (maybe a good walker. Jace please???) but having a decent counterspell on 2 or having some proper card draw and filtering would go a long way to bolster the color's natural strengths. Even something like a weaker brainstorm (something like draw 2 put one on top) would be great since it would give you some sort of thoughtseize defense. Supreme will was so close to being great. That at UU would have been perfect.
Well both of those are true, so I don't see what you are trying to say. Blue doesn't just mean reactive control.
counterspells are one of blues main thing and they are reactive..
The whole reason he made that comment was to point out what people mean when they say BLue deck. Or most importantly how blue needs help. Which in fact it does . Are you getting it now?
The whole discussion is pointless, the people that criticize Grixis DS want a tier 1 deck that plays counterspells as its primary form of interaction not black discard, that's all there is to it.
exactly. Counterspells at thoughtsiezes/inq power level. It's a pretty fair thing to ask.
If Grixis Shadow is a blue deck then Infect was a blue deck.
Infect ran a blue creature and maybe a spell pierce or two in the main. DS runs serum, snap, stubborn, and though scour. That gives it some blue identity. I don't understand how GDS is not thought of as a deck that has one foot solidly in the blue camp. My point from earlier is that almost all 'blue' decks use the blue cards to find things from other colors. Blue is not known for it's finishers.
2-3 interactive blue spells and 0 threats. The deck plays blue exclusively to find black cards and ramp them out (thought scour). It is clearly a splash.
It's about the same splash as Jund to green except it seems bigger because it wants to use serum visions to find its land drops so there's a moderately heavier blue commitment.
The way blue is played in modern tells you that its threats and answers are miserable, because no one really plays any of those types of cards. It's pure filtering. If a deck ran 8 discard spells and then nothing but green creatures, green planeswalkers and green removal, it'd be a green deck not a black deck.
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Another thing you can thing you can think about is that the best modern removal spells (excepting terminate) are played in legacy - bolt, push, abrupt decay.
The best blue answer spells (force, counterspell, daze) don't exist in modern. Of corresponding blue cards in modern the only ones to see any legacy play are spell snare (extremely fringe) and spell pierce (usually only in combo decks). Mana leak obviously sees no play in legacy.
I'm not sure exactly what to take away from this except to say that it has always felt somewhat unfair to me that blue's answer spells get lumped in with their overpowered filtering spells from legacy.
My inclination is to say that blue needs an answer based powerup in modern and I would do this long before considering loosing improved filtering on the format.
One of the reasons for this is that blue filtering like Preordain or Ponder would see pretty much the same treatment as we see in Death's Shadow -- people playing blue exclusively to shrink the virtual size of their decks.
Well said sir
It's funny because there are some ppl on this forum that will actually disagree with your post and call it bias
Or try and say you are a spoiled blue player, and to just go play legacy. LOL
I would settle for counterspells at counterspell power level. Thoughtseize is a much stronger card than counterspell in general.
{U / counter target spell of CMC 3 or less} is far more than I personally want for the format, similarly to {U / counter target spell, pay 2 life}.
Because of the tempo gain of counterspells I think it's fine for the unconditional ones to cost 2.
Printing counterspell (and/or possibly memory lapse) and unexpectedly absent would do a lot for the format, probably push it more the direction I'd personally like than stoneforge mystic.
(Edit:Then a year afterward when no one plays counterspell as a 4-of I can say LOOK I TOLD YOU SO IT'S NOT REALLY GOOD ENOUGH and maybe they'll print a fixed counterspell that exiles target spell instead of countering)
It has everything to do with what you're getting at, because you're using objective descriptors to try and describe subjective properties and I'm telling you we already have a series of descriptors for that. A deck either is or is not blue based on the color of cards contained within. There are rules of the game that clearly define what a blue deck is. If I tell my opponent I'm playing a blue deck it doesn't tell them anything. Illusions was a blue aggro deck. MUC was a blue control deck. Polymorph is a blue combo deck. They're all blue because being blue doesn't describe how the deck plays, and if you think it does then you haven't been playing against a wide enough array of decks. The only reason why we call it Grixis instead of RUB is because one rolls off the tongue and the other I feel embarrassment over even though it's my favorite local bbq place. How a deck plays is only tangentially related to its colors, and if blue decks not playing blue enough for you is the hill you wish to die then so be it. Personally I wish we would stop using them too, but that's because I think the names from Tarkir were really cringey.
*Sigh* I feel like we have this discussion every other month. What people mean when they say "blue deck" in this context is not literally any deck with blue cards in it. It means a fair, somewhat reactive, tempo/midrange/control deck whose main interaction is counterspells. Decks like Delver, blue control decks, Stoneblade in Legacy, and so on. Merfolk is not the type of deck people mean with this term, because while it plays blue cards and is a tempo deck, it doesn't play much in the way of non-creature interaction. As I always say when we have this argument in these threads, think Snapcaster decks. That's what people mean by "blue deck." That said, some blue players don't consider Grixis Shadow a "blue deck" because its main interaction is discard instead of counters. I'm happy with playing the deck, but I think it's perfectly reasonable for someone who wants to play a counterspell deck to not be.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
What is it with people not accepting anything but a true control deck in Tier 1? This thread was always filled with those kind of people and that's really fine but as a player who enjoyed Control decks, I felt like at home when I was on Grixis Shadow for the first time(and I beggining playing it since only Jund lists were around)
As a player who enjoyed jund I found Grixis death shadow to be decent aswell, But not control.
See with control it feels good to have generic non conditional answers at all stages of the game with counterspells. Discard really doesn't scratch that itch. And versatile early/lategame counterspells are non existent in this format.
For me it's more about color parity and options than tiers. I think blue and white should have better tools. Answers and threats are the gaps primarily.
But I wouldn't mind seeing Land Tax reprinted into modern tbh. White's old 'search for lands' mechanic was pretty cool. Weathered wayfarer, tithe, land tax, etc. Recruiter of the Guard style critter would be neat. Some consistency options.
If Grixis Shadow is a blue deck then Infect was a blue deck.
Infect ran a blue creature and maybe a spell pierce or two in the main. DS runs serum, snap, stubborn, and though scour. That gives it some blue identity. I don't understand how GDS is not thought of as a deck that has one foot solidly in the blue camp. My point from earlier is that almost all 'blue' decks use the blue cards to find things from other colors. Blue is not known for it's finishers.
I'm not saying the strengths of the deck are blue, I am saying that using blue cards to dig for your answers/threats or using snap to flashback removal is still a blue thing to do. When I would play jeskai control, my blue spells were all about finding and/or protecting nahiri, or snapping back bolt several times. (I'm by no means arguing that DS is as blue as jeskai control, just making a point). I see what you're saying, and I still think that blue needs help, despite that I also think DS is a blue deck. Someone previously talked about not just color identity, but shard/wedge identity. And GDS certainly 'feels' grixis to me.
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Modern: UWR Breach, UWB Esper control
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
If Grixis Shadow is a blue deck then Infect was a blue deck.
Infect ran a blue creature and maybe a spell pierce or two in the main. DS runs serum, snap, stubborn, and though scour. That gives it some blue identity. I don't understand how GDS is not thought of as a deck that has one foot solidly in the blue camp. My point from earlier is that almost all 'blue' decks use the blue cards to find things from other colors. Blue is not known for it's finishers.
I'm not saying the strengths of the deck are blue, I am saying that using blue cards to dig for your answers/threats or using snap to flashback removal is still a blue thing to do. When I would play jeskai control, my blue spells were all about finding and/or protecting nahiri, or snapping back bolt several times. (I'm by no means arguing that DS is as blue as jeskai control, just making a point). I see what you're saying, and I still think that blue needs help, despite that I also think DS is a blue deck. Someone previously talked about not just color identity, but shard/wedge identity. And GDS certainly 'feels' grixis to me.
As someone who spent the majority of their time in modern playing Twin and Delver strategies, Shadow is about the least "blue" blue deck I have ever played. It's certainly a fun and powerful deck to play, but literally 75% of the deck is black (most of which mono black), all of the cards that do anything of significance are black, and the deck does not function whatsoever without black mana. This means it plays more like a BGx attrition deck than a URx tempo deck.
I would personally love to be playing Delvers and Remands and Young Pyromancers again, but that's just not where the format is right now. You either need to be doing something fast, broken, and powerful, or accept being at a significant disadvantage in most matchups.
Which would lead me to believe some colors need some help still. Every color seems only to "support black" in some way. I'd rather all colors be good on their own as well.
Commander GUR Maelstrom Wanderer BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith RRR Feldon of the Third Path WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
I mean by the same logic of Grixis Shadow not being blue Show and Tell decks in legacy are mono-black because all the blue cards serve to further getting Griselbrand or Emrakul into play. I just don't understand why Serum Visions shouldn't count as a blue card, but Thoughtseize is a black card.
I'm not saying the strengths of the deck are blue, I am saying that using blue cards to dig for your answers/threats or using snap to flashback removal is still a blue thing to do. When I would play jeskai control, my blue spells were all about finding and/or protecting nahiri, or snapping back bolt several times. (I'm by no means arguing that DS is as blue as jeskai control, just making a point). I see what you're saying, and I still think that blue needs help, despite that I also think DS is a blue deck. Someone previously talked about not just color identity, but shard/wedge identity. And GDS certainly 'feels' grixis to me.
I agree that it's a blue deck, but for a lot of people who were asking for help for blue, it's not what they had in mind. Shadow probably satisfies the Delver people, but it doesn't satisfy the draw-go people. Those types of decks do still need help.
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I mean by the same logic of Grixis Shadow not being blue Show and Tell decks in legacy are mono-black because all the blue cards serve to further getting Griselbrand or Emrakul into play. I just don't understand why Serum Visions shouldn't count as a blue card, but Thoughtseize is a black card.
It's not that Serum Visions isn't a blue card, but that the people who aren't satisfied with Grixis Shadow are looking for a permission style deck, which Shadow is not, really. You're generally not using Denial to counter threats in the deck, you're using it to counter their answers to your threats.
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I mean by the same logic of Grixis Shadow not being blue Show and Tell decks in legacy are mono-black because all the blue cards serve to further getting Griselbrand or Emrakul into play. I just don't understand why Serum Visions shouldn't count as a blue card, but Thoughtseize is a black card.
It's not that Serum Visions isn't a blue card, but that the people who aren't satisfied with Grixis Shadow are looking for a permission style deck, which Shadow is not, really. You're generally not using Denial to counter threats in the deck, you're using it to counter their answers to your threats.
Right and it's fair to say that a permission style deck in Modern is lacking and that there should be at least a tier 2 option available to play, but conflating blue to only be permission style decks isn't right.
Right and it's fair to say that a permission style deck in Modern is lacking and that there should be at least a tier 2 option available to play, but conflating blue to only be permission style decks isn't right.
It's just a commonly used colloquial term, like how Tempo can be a style of deck or a game mechanic that's loosely related, or how Fish can mean either a group of decks that includes things like Slivers and Death & Taxes, or it could specifically mean the singular namesake of the group, Merfolk. "Blue deck" is a term that has commonly come to mean the subset of decks with blue cards in them that play a fair permission game, to some extent. These types of decks also tend to be indicative of the quality of blue's usual effects. If there's a top tier control deck, the cantrips and counterspells in the format are probably pretty good, as we see in Legacy. A deck like Merfolk, on the other hand, isn't very indicative of the color as a whole, because it minimally uses those effects, so it can be good or bad independent of its color in general.
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Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
If you want a mainstay Tier 1 draw go control, sadly you should look into Legacy instead, as I don't think Wizards is stating that such a deck should be Tier 1 also and this makes me believe they won't never try such a thing with new prints.
Mainstay Tier 1 draw go control? In Legacy? Draw Go has been dead in Legacy for years; Legacy's an even worse place for that than Modern. This is like telling someone to play Standard if they're complaining that the land destruction in Modern isn't good enough.
If you want a mainstay Tier 1 draw go control, sadly you should look into Legacy instead, as I don't think Wizards is stating that such a deck should be Tier 1 also and this makes me believe they won't never try such a thing with new prints.
Mainstay Tier 1 draw go control? In Legacy? Draw Go has been dead in Legacy for years; Legacy's an even worse place for that than Modern. This is like telling someone to play Standard if they're complaining that the land destruction in Modern isn't good enough.
Well, not sure about Draw go, but at least you can play Control at Legacy. The new 4c Control decks are picking up steam; the topless Miracle UW deck is doing fine also. Your comparison seems to be out of place. I Don't care about semantics that much.
And neither of those control decks you just cited are Draw-Go.
This isn't a matter of semantics. Calling them "Draw-Go" is nearly as off base as saying GR Tron is an aggro deck. My comparison is completely apt because for whatever deficiencies Draw-Go may have in Modern, it's even worse off in Legacy, so telling someone to play Legacy instead of Modern if they want to play Draw-Go is like telling someone to play Standard instead of Modern if they want to play land destruction.
I'm not saying the strengths of the deck are blue, I am saying that using blue cards to dig for your answers/threats or using snap to flashback removal is still a blue thing to do. When I would play jeskai control, my blue spells were all about finding and/or protecting nahiri, or snapping back bolt several times. (I'm by no means arguing that DS is as blue as jeskai control, just making a point). I see what you're saying, and I still think that blue needs help, despite that I also think DS is a blue deck. Someone previously talked about not just color identity, but shard/wedge identity. And GDS certainly 'feels' grixis to me.
I agree that it's a blue deck, but for a lot of people who were asking for help for blue, it's not what they had in mind. Shadow probably satisfies the Delver people, but it doesn't satisfy the draw-go people. Those types of decks do still need help.
I agree, but this kind of people that are still unsatisfied weren't satisfied even with Splinter Twin. Take a person like cfusionpm for example(@cf hope you don't mind this). He is kind of like me in the decks he is liking, and maybe as you. Proactive Ux based decks. This proactivity was residing in Twin, Delver and it's residing in the DS deck as well, even if it's a somewhat more distant cousin to the traditional blue control speciment.
Bottomline is that the people who are looking for a hardcore U based draw-go control deck, aren't having one. A true draw go control deck was never a Tier 1 mainstay in Modern(except for Jeskai Control that won PT for just some months) and it will probably never be a mainstay Tier 1 deck. Tier 2 though? We have UW Control maybe, but another one is mandatory I feel also.
If you want a mainstay Tier 1 draw go control, sadly you should look into Legacy instead, as I don't think Wizards is stating that such a deck should be Tier 1 also and this makes me believe they won't never try such a thing with new prints.
its never been a tier 1 long term option because we lack better answers in blue...... twin scratched that itch and now its gone.
The issue is the stuff blue normally does are all better in other colors:
1) ancient stirrings, oath of nissa, mishra's bauble and traverse are all better card filtering than serum visions
2) discard and removal are much better than counter spells in terms of control
3) card advantage cards like dark confidant, painful truths are about the same as the blue card advantage cards like ancestral visions. (Not to mention, decks like affinity, lantern and eldrazi tron get to play Seagate wreckage which is an insane card in those decks for card advantage)
4) Blue walkers are nonsense in modern.
5) lockout control cards such as ensuring bridge and blood moon are not in blue. (In legacy, there is stasis and opposition etc
6) as an added bonus, blue has literally zero good sideboard cards outside of counter spells
bonus 7) blue creatures such as delver and Merfolk are being pushed out of the format by similar better creatures such as death's shadow and company decks.
Wizards needs to print something good in blue. (Yes the best card in modern is blue snapcaster Mage, but that's about it)
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5) lockout control cards such as ensuring bridge and blood moon are not in blue. (In legacy, there is stasis and opposition etc
While I agree with you in general, I should point out that Stasis and Opposition are practically unplayable in Legacy. Outside of CounterTop (which is banned now), the best lockout cards aren't in Blue. Death & Taxes is a deck of prison cards and it's mono-White, and Lands (with Life from the Loam+Ghost Quarter/Wasteland) doesn't have a trace of Blue in it.
In fact, it's odd people seem to regard Stasis as such a powerful card. As I understand, the thing was a basically a junk rare until Necropotence became the deck to beat and then Stasis became good because it was really good against Necropotence because a mono-Black deck had very few ways to deal with enchantments.
Wizards needs to print something good in blue. (Yes the best card in modern is blue snapcaster Mage, but that's about it)
I'd honestly disagree with this. The best card in Modern is definitely not Snapcaster Mage. I'd put Fatal Push, Lightning Bolt, and Thoughtseize above it.
IMHO, the real problem with blue control strategies is that counterspells are just completely outclassed by the family of black discard spells that let you see your opponent's hand and remove a card (Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Duress...).
Think about it-
Both trade a card for a card, but the black discard spells are proactive, not reactive.
The black discard spells give you knowledge of your opponent's hand. The importance of this cannot be overstated.
The black discard spells cost a single mana! The decent blue counterspells are 2-4 mana.
Now imagine a format without these spells. Do you think blue control decks would have a more prominent place in the meta?
If there is a problem, it's that there is too much power in the single black mana "see your hand and take away a card" spells.
Well both of those are true, so I don't see what you are trying to say. Blue doesn't just mean reactive control.
counterspells are one of blues main thing and they are reactive..
The whole reason he made that comment was to point out what people mean when they say BLue deck. Or most importantly how blue needs help. Which in fact it does . Are you getting it now?
I'm not getting it. Permission decks just make the meta uninteresting and unfun. Wizards is never going back to the Ice Age-Tempest era and thank goodness for that.
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WoTC, thank you for finally announcing the Modern format, an eternal format where everyone can participate.
Now imagine a format without these spells. Do you think blue control decks would have a more prominent place in the meta?
If there is a problem, it's that there is too much power in the single black mana "see your hand and take away a card" spells.
No, all that would happen is that the fair decks would completely die to the combo decks. If Grixis Shadow has taught us anything, it's that while the counterspells aren't strong enough to keep you alive, the discard spells back up by light counter magic are. If you take that away, fair decks die.
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Infect ran a blue creature and maybe a spell pierce or two in the main. DS runs serum, snap, stubborn, and though scour. That gives it some blue identity. I don't understand how GDS is not thought of as a deck that has one foot solidly in the blue camp. My point from earlier is that almost all 'blue' decks use the blue cards to find things from other colors. Blue is not known for it's finishers.
@KTROJAN: Sorry, I misread what you were saying. I agree with that statement for sure. Blue definitely needs help despite DS doing well. The problem is that blue's main color identity (ie counter magic and card draw/selection) has been deemed far too strong for modern, and we are left with pretty stunted versions of this. Blue shouldn't have heymaker creatures and bomb threats (maybe a good walker. Jace please???) but having a decent counterspell on 2 or having some proper card draw and filtering would go a long way to bolster the color's natural strengths. Even something like a weaker brainstorm (something like draw 2 put one on top) would be great since it would give you some sort of thoughtseize defense. Supreme will was so close to being great. That at UU would have been perfect.
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
The whole reason he made that comment was to point out what people mean when they say BLue deck. Or most importantly how blue needs help. Which in fact it does . Are you getting it now?
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See the last line of this post: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/773038-state-of-modern-thread-bans-format-health-metagame?page=139#c3475
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Well said sir
It's funny because there are some ppl on this forum that will actually disagree with your post and call it bias
Or try and say you are a spoiled blue player, and to just go play legacy. LOL
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{U / counter target spell of CMC 3 or less} is far more than I personally want for the format, similarly to {U / counter target spell, pay 2 life}.
Because of the tempo gain of counterspells I think it's fine for the unconditional ones to cost 2.
Printing counterspell (and/or possibly memory lapse) and unexpectedly absent would do a lot for the format, probably push it more the direction I'd personally like than stoneforge mystic.
(Edit:Then a year afterward when no one plays counterspell as a 4-of I can say LOOK I TOLD YOU SO IT'S NOT REALLY GOOD ENOUGH and maybe they'll print a fixed counterspell that exiles target spell instead of countering)
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
As a player who enjoyed jund I found Grixis death shadow to be decent aswell, But not control.
See with control it feels good to have generic non conditional answers at all stages of the game with counterspells. Discard really doesn't scratch that itch. And versatile early/lategame counterspells are non existent in this format.
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But I wouldn't mind seeing Land Tax reprinted into modern tbh. White's old 'search for lands' mechanic was pretty cool. Weathered wayfarer, tithe, land tax, etc. Recruiter of the Guard style critter would be neat. Some consistency options.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I'm not saying the strengths of the deck are blue, I am saying that using blue cards to dig for your answers/threats or using snap to flashback removal is still a blue thing to do. When I would play jeskai control, my blue spells were all about finding and/or protecting nahiri, or snapping back bolt several times. (I'm by no means arguing that DS is as blue as jeskai control, just making a point). I see what you're saying, and I still think that blue needs help, despite that I also think DS is a blue deck. Someone previously talked about not just color identity, but shard/wedge identity. And GDS certainly 'feels' grixis to me.
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
As someone who spent the majority of their time in modern playing Twin and Delver strategies, Shadow is about the least "blue" blue deck I have ever played. It's certainly a fun and powerful deck to play, but literally 75% of the deck is black (most of which mono black), all of the cards that do anything of significance are black, and the deck does not function whatsoever without black mana. This means it plays more like a BGx attrition deck than a URx tempo deck.
I would personally love to be playing Delvers and Remands and Young Pyromancers again, but that's just not where the format is right now. You either need to be doing something fast, broken, and powerful, or accept being at a significant disadvantage in most matchups.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
GURB Grixis/Jund Shadow
RBG Dredge
xUx U Ballista Tron
Commander
GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius
BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth
WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
RRR Feldon of the Third Path
WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Right and it's fair to say that a permission style deck in Modern is lacking and that there should be at least a tier 2 option available to play, but conflating blue to only be permission style decks isn't right.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
This isn't a matter of semantics. Calling them "Draw-Go" is nearly as off base as saying GR Tron is an aggro deck. My comparison is completely apt because for whatever deficiencies Draw-Go may have in Modern, it's even worse off in Legacy, so telling someone to play Legacy instead of Modern if they want to play Draw-Go is like telling someone to play Standard instead of Modern if they want to play land destruction.
its never been a tier 1 long term option because we lack better answers in blue...... twin scratched that itch and now its gone.
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1) ancient stirrings, oath of nissa, mishra's bauble and traverse are all better card filtering than serum visions
2) discard and removal are much better than counter spells in terms of control
3) card advantage cards like dark confidant, painful truths are about the same as the blue card advantage cards like ancestral visions. (Not to mention, decks like affinity, lantern and eldrazi tron get to play Seagate wreckage which is an insane card in those decks for card advantage)
4) Blue walkers are nonsense in modern.
5) lockout control cards such as ensuring bridge and blood moon are not in blue. (In legacy, there is stasis and opposition etc
6) as an added bonus, blue has literally zero good sideboard cards outside of counter spells
bonus 7) blue creatures such as delver and Merfolk are being pushed out of the format by similar better creatures such as death's shadow and company decks.
Wizards needs to print something good in blue. (Yes the best card in modern is blue snapcaster Mage, but that's about it)
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
In fact, it's odd people seem to regard Stasis as such a powerful card. As I understand, the thing was a basically a junk rare until Necropotence became the deck to beat and then Stasis became good because it was really good against Necropotence because a mono-Black deck had very few ways to deal with enchantments.
I'd honestly disagree with this. The best card in Modern is definitely not Snapcaster Mage. I'd put Fatal Push, Lightning Bolt, and Thoughtseize above it.
Think about it-
Now imagine a format without these spells. Do you think blue control decks would have a more prominent place in the meta?
If there is a problem, it's that there is too much power in the single black mana "see your hand and take away a card" spells.
I'm not getting it. Permission decks just make the meta uninteresting and unfun. Wizards is never going back to the Ice Age-Tempest era and thank goodness for that.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW