Nothing is blue unless the blue mages in here say it is.
Black discard, black creatures, black card draw, black removal. You can call it blue all you want, but it is a distant, distant, secondary color to black.
Nothing is blue unless the blue mages in here say it is.
Black discard, black creatures, black card draw, black removal. You can call it blue all you want, but it is a distant, distant, secondary color to black.
Yeah, it seems like maybe Snapcaster Mage, Serum Visions, Stubborn Denial, Thought Scour and Ceremonious Rejection are more powerful than some people want to give them credit for because their effects are indirect.
Nothing is blue unless the blue mages in here say it is.
Black discard, black creatures, black card draw, black removal. You can call it blue all you want, but it is a distant, distant, secondary color to black.
EDIT: I left out Tassiger because I forgot his ability was part blue.
This is a silly discussion that I immediately regret getting back into, so I'll say my piece and duck out: All Death's Shadow variants are primarily black, rely on black cards for their primary forms of disruption, removal, life loss, and win conditions. While "Grixis" Death's Shadow does technically contain blue cards, for the most part, they only exist to find, protect, or re-cast the black spells in the deck. The deck can (and does) function perfectly well without blue. The deck cannot exist in any form without black. It's about the least "blue" blue deck I have ever played.
I am going to say again that I love the fact that we get to play a Tier 1 Snapcaster Mage deck in Modern. I am really grateful for it, and having a ton of fun.
Saying "unban X card, because Grixis Shadow is a Jund style deck and we want a blue deck that fit our standards only" is totally biased and I am utterly confident that Wizards will treat the Grixis Shadow deck as a deck that it is :
a Grixis deck: BUR
Grixis is one of five shards of Alara. It is primarily black-aligned, with blue and red as secondary colors.
Don't get me wrong, I love casting Snapcaster too. I just wish it was alongside Delvers or Pyromancers or Bolts or Cliques or Cryptics or Pestermites; cards traditionally aligned with the idea of a "blue" tempo/reactive deck, and not a giant pile of black midrange cards.
Nothing is blue unless the blue mages in here say it is.
Black discard, black creatures, black card draw, black removal. You can call it blue all you want, but it is a distant, distant, secondary color to black.
EDIT: I left out Tassiger because I forgot his ability was part blue.
This is a silly discussion that I immediately regret getting back into, so I'll say my piece and duck out: All Death's Shadow variants are primarily black, rely on black cards for their primary forms of disruption, removal, life loss, and win conditions. While "Grixis" Death's Shadow does technically contain blue cards, for the most part, they only exist to find, protect, or re-cast the black spells in the deck. The deck can (and does) function perfectly well without blue. The deck cannot exist in any form without black. It's about the least "blue" blue deck I have ever played.
But the blue draw, spell recursion and protection... ARE ALL BLUE. Its like saying jund the midrange deck isnt really a red deck, because even though it runs BG creatures, the burn and red utility in it doesnt really exist, and the deck would be the same exact deck without the red.
It runs those blue cards for exactly the reasons you stated... And it can only get those effects IN BLUE. Its a black deck, yes... But its also a blue and red deck. In fact.. Its a black, blue, red deck. And apparently blue in that deck is better than green or white, because those color combos werent optimal.
Is it not a full blue deck like, I dunno... mono blue taking turns? Sure. But its about as blue as jund was red... so a third of the deck of a 3 color deck.
Its cool to want blue to be more viable across the board and have more decks WITH blue in em. But denying the fact there is a top tier deck that happens to also run blue is not right.
Yeah, it seems like maybe Snapcaster Mage, Serum Visions, Stubborn Denial, Thought Scour and Ceremonious Rejection are more powerful than some people want to give them credit for because their effects are indirect.
Nobody is denying the power of those spells but 16 spells does not a deck make. (ceremonious rejection is SB and if you're mostly U you're probably not playing stubborn denial either sadly - just checked and there are 0 mono-coloured creatures that activate this without being illusions or having significant additional cost to cast/turn that card on for 4 mana or less). Cryptic being the next card you add. We're still nowhere near a functioning deck that does anything in modern.
Basically there isn't a coherent whole, there is an amazing foundation though.
The list FYI - TiTi (once flipped), dormant gomazoa (always tapped), hunted phantasm (illusion), kefnet (7 cards seriously!), ludevic's abomination (once flipped), makeshift mauler (exile creature card from gy), phantasmal abomination phantasmal dragon phantom beast (illusions), squab ruinator (3 creature cards exiled from gy- best of the bunch though), finally Thassa (not a creature without devotion)
Splinter twin and UWR control and RUG Scapeshift were blue decks. You can tell by the # of blue sources and the # of blue spells.
The core color of a deck is easily identifiable. This is not a difficult discussion.
Is Jund a green deck because it splashes green for a powerful removal spell and the best creature in the format? No, Jund is a black deck that splashes green.
There're a couple core green decks in the format (see: Elves, Abzan company, RG Scapeshift). There are core Black decks (Jund, Junk, DSJ, Grixis Shadow). There are core blue decks (esper control, UW control, UWR control).
The diff between Grixis Shadow and UW control from a mana base and spell distribution perspective is blindingly obvious.
I don't get how this argument is difficult for people to grasp:
You can see that core blue decks (and to a greater extent core white decks) are worse than core black and green decks, and this has been true for the last year or two give or take.
Tier 1 breakdown:
Storm - blue
Dredge - red (kinda weird though)
Abzan Company - green
Eldrazi Tron - colorless
Affinity - colorless
DSJ - black
Grixis shadow - black
burn - red
Tier 2 breakdown:
D&T - white
Abzan - black
Living End - red (/black) thought his one is kinda weird like dredge
UW Control - blue
Elves - Green
Knightfall - green
RGx titanshift - green
Gx tron - colorless (green)
3 red decks, 4 green decks, 3 black decks, 2 blue decks, 1 white deck, 3 colorless decks.
There are as many colorless decks in tier 1/2 as there are blue+white decks.
Is there where Modern is now? Where the goalposts have shifted from "No Tier 1 Blue decks!" to "No Tier 1 Blue decks that aren't Merfolk or Taking Turns" to "No Tier 1 Blue decks that don't run Cryptic Command and Remand"?
If blue is just a supplement in Grixis Shadow and can easily be replaced, I invite you to try. Build Rakdos, replace all the blue cards since they don't seem to do much, and let's see how you do.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
Is there where Modern is now? Where the goalposts have shifted from "No Tier 1 Blue decks!" to "No Tier 1 Blue decks that aren't Merfolk or Taking Turns" to "No Tier 1 Blue decks that don't run Cryptic Command and Remand"?
Considering that Twin was banned in order to promote similar suppressed and supplanted decks, and nothing "similar" has existed in any regularity on a competitive level since that point, then yes. That's exactly the problem. FFS, we can't even have Delver playable because our spells are so bad.
Is there where Modern is now? Where the goalposts have shifted from "No Tier 1 Blue decks!" to "No Tier 1 Blue decks that aren't Merfolk or Taking Turns" to "No Tier 1 Blue decks that don't run Cryptic Command and Remand"?
Considering that Twin was banned in order to promote similar suppressed and supplanted decks, and nothing "similar" has existed in any regularity on a competitive level since that point, then yes. That's exactly the problem. FFS, we can't even have Delver playable because our spells are so bad.
So you want a control deck... that runs blue spells... but cannot run too many spells of other colors otherwise it doesn't count... and a combo win condition... that also runs counter magic... but cannot use black...
Okay... have fun with that. I don't see that deck appearing. But I could be wrong.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
Is there where Modern is now? Where the goalposts have shifted from "No Tier 1 Blue decks!" to "No Tier 1 Blue decks that aren't Merfolk or Taking Turns" to "No Tier 1 Blue decks that don't run Cryptic Command and Remand"?
Considering that Twin was banned in order to promote similar suppressed and supplanted decks, and nothing "similar" has existed in any regularity on a competitive level since that point, then yes. That's exactly the problem. FFS, we can't even have Delver playable because our spells are so bad.
So you want a control deck... that runs blue spells... but cannot run too many spells of other colors otherwise it doesn't count... and a combo win condition... that also runs counter magic... but cannot use black...
Okay... have fun with that. I don't see that deck appearing. But I could be wrong.
Not the point at all, but I've already wasted enough time on this silly topic. I'm just going to keep begrudgingly playing Shadow because an actual blue tempo deck does not exist at a competitive level and all the brews I've tried in the last year and a half are either terrible or have been banned (Probe).
Is there where Modern is now? Where the goalposts have shifted from "No Tier 1 Blue decks!" to "No Tier 1 Blue decks that aren't Merfolk or Taking Turns" to "No Tier 1 Blue decks that don't run Cryptic Command and Remand"?
Considering that Twin was banned in order to promote similar suppressed and supplanted decks, and nothing "similar" has existed in any regularity on a competitive level since that point, then yes. That's exactly the problem. FFS, we can't even have Delver playable because our spells are so bad.
So you want a control deck... that runs blue spells... but cannot run too many spells of other colors otherwise it doesn't count... and a combo win condition... that also runs counter magic... but cannot use black...
Okay... have fun with that. I don't see that deck appearing. But I could be wrong.
That's the point. I agree with this post. People have to lower their standards. You want to be playing a Control deck? You can play UW or something else. You want a powerful deck that is playing the controllish role from time to time and uses many blue cards, but it isn't a primarily blue one? You can play Grixis Shadow. Do you want something else? You should brew your own deck and who knows, something might come out of this.
And this is why the argument of "Go play Legacy" isn't a strawman like some are claiming. If you want to play a blue completely reactive deck without having to use black's engine, your options are Legacy, Vintage, and that's it. That style of deck is likely never coming back to Modern unless Wizards completely changes how they do power in standard.
That's always been the fundamental problem with entirely reactive blue control "draw-go": it is either too weak to matter, or so strong that it warps the format around it.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
Is there where Modern is now? Where the goalposts have shifted from "No Tier 1 Blue decks!" to "No Tier 1 Blue decks that aren't Merfolk or Taking Turns" to "No Tier 1 Blue decks that don't run Cryptic Command and Remand"?
If blue is just a supplement in Grixis Shadow and can easily be replaced, I invite you to try. Build Rakdos, replace all the blue cards since they don't seem to do much, and let's see how you do.
Don't get me wrong, blue is fine with both Grixis Shadow and UR Storm in Tier 1, however:
While there are some control decks that would use Ancestral Vision, it is an underplayed portion of the metagame. To allow for an increase in the number of blue-based control or attrition decks, we are unbanning Ancestral Vision.
So, let's see the evolution of the online numbers of these blue-based control decks (WU, UB, UR, Jeskai, Grixis and Esper):
Jan 16 - 3.3%
Feb 16 - 3.4%
Mar 16 - 4.5%
Ancestral Vision unbanned
Apr 16 - 6.1%
May 16 - 8.4%
Jun 16 - 7.9%
Jul 16 - 8.9%
Aug 16 - 6.8%
Sep 16 - 8.4%
Oct 16 - 5.0%
Nov 16 - 5.6%
Dec 16 - 7.4%
Jan 17 - 7.7%
Feb 17 - 8.2%
Mar 17 - 5.3%
Apr 17 - 5.7%
May 17 - 7.7%
Jun 17 - 7.1%
It would seem Ancestral Vision's unban improved the monthly average (from 3.7% to 7.1%) but it could very well be that they still think it's an underplayed portion of the metagame. After all, we are still talking about 6 decks together, not to mention that in these last 15 month only Jeskai (3 times last year) and WU (last month) have ever gone over 4.0%. I still believe something can be done about it, even if I find the format fine and enjoyable right now. Preordain is no longer an option with Storm, so my sights are on either Stoneforge or Jace, but no changes for a while is totally fine.
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Modern:WU WU Control | WBG Abzan Company Frontier:UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
And this is why the argument of "Go play Legacy" isn't a strawman like some are claiming. If you want to play a blue completely reactive deck without having to use black's engine, your options are Legacy, Vintage, and that's it. That style of deck is likely never coming back to Modern unless Wizards completely changes how they do power in standard.
1. You're putting words in other peoples' mouths and misrepresenting peoples' stances.
2. If that truly is the stance Wizards holds, then they need to unban Twin, plain and simple.
And this is why the argument of "Go play Legacy" isn't a strawman like some are claiming. If you want to play a blue completely reactive deck without having to use black's engine, your options are Legacy, Vintage, and that's it. That style of deck is likely never coming back to Modern unless Wizards completely changes how they do power in standard.
1. You're putting words in other peoples' mouths and misrepresenting peoples' stances.
2. If that truly is the stance Wizards holds, then they need to unban Twin, plain and simple.
1. How exactly? You want a blue reactive counterspell deck, but if you use black's engine than "it isn't blue". Correct me if I am wrong.
2. So your solution to one of the most open Modern formats ever is to bring back one of the most powerful combo decks ever?
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
And this is why the argument of "Go play Legacy" isn't a strawman like some are claiming. If you want to play a blue completely reactive deck without having to use black's engine, your options are Legacy, Vintage, and that's it. That style of deck is likely never coming back to Modern unless Wizards completely changes how they do power in standard.
1. You're putting words in other peoples' mouths and misrepresenting peoples' stances.
2. If that truly is the stance Wizards holds, then they need to unban Twin, plain and simple.
First off, Teysa is completely right. This style of deck is never cutting it to Modern and if you do not know it by now, you should read some more Maro quotes about the future counterspells they are going to introduce to Standard.
(Question: What do you say to the people who feel that their favorite parts of magic (for example, heavy control elements and discard) are being pushed out of the game? Is magic just not for them anymore?
Maro: "Note, I’m not saying that elements of those strategies are unplayable. The decks that do nothing but that thing(draw-go-countering things) are purposely unplayable. For example, there have been playable counterspells. We just haven’t allowed Draw, Go decks that do nothing but counter spells to be good.
If you’ve been playing long enough to remember decks that were centered solely on those strategies, that means you been playing Magic for about fifteen years without them.
I don’t understand how you can be playing for so many years if the thing that makes Magic special to you, that you don’t want to play without, the thing that the game just isn’t fun if it’s missing hasn’t existed for fifteen years.")
Why? Because Censor and Disallow are the best Counterspells you are going to find around.
Concerning Twin, it is a diversity reducer in their books and you know it. Modern is super diverse and fun atm. Even Grixis Shadow, which we all thought it was by far the best deck, did not make a single top 8. This shows that even a very good deck is super beatable and hateable. They won't change a thing in this diverse format.
But this is not my opinion. Twin should be unbanned in my opinion as well. It always was a nice deck to have around. If it was top8ing a lot(which it did) they could fix that by introducing a better card for the control decks which Twin could never play. For example, I genuinely believe Twin would still prefer Remand over the original Counterspell. This flexibility in cards could make people have a variety of blue decks to choose from in Modern: from draw-go Control decks, to other tempo strategies.
Sadly, this is not happening either.
You do realize that control decks still regularly exist in Standard, right? It looks like you are really misunderstanding what he is saying or you for some reason believe that if people here talk about control they mean some 20 year old deck with 30 counterspells, all he is saying is that they don't want 20+ counterspells decks to exist anymore(those haven't been a top tier strategy for probably more than 15 years anyway), it has nothing to do with "normal" control decks most people here are talking about.
If blue is just a supplement in Grixis Shadow and can easily be replaced, I invite you to try. Build Rakdos, replace all the blue cards since they don't seem to do much, and let's see how you do.
People have been playing Jund, Abzan, and Mardu Shadow lists, and they're all pretty decent.
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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
Black as a color is too good. That's my opinion and I think it's justified. Not just too good at midrange but also control. Right at this very moment, the best threats and answers are all in black in modern (discard spells, death's shadow). That is a problem that should be fixed, whether it's fixed via unbannings or otherwise.
My solution is as I've stated to print some slightly better blue cards and unban stoneforge. I don't honestly understand how anyone can object to this.
Unbanning twin seems meh to me. The last thing I want to see is Grixis DSTwin as the only deck in the format
Then you should also realize that it's not unreasonable to expect to someday for a longer period of time see a strategy in tier 1 that's also regularly tier 1 in both Standard and Legacy.
How did this devolve into a discussion about reactive blue decks? Weren't we discussing how Tron is pushing mid-range decks out of the format? How it's a big mana deck that plays a better mid-range game than any other mid-range decks outside of shadow? How did this become about reactive control? Can we get back to talking about the fundamental issues the format is currently having?
Then you should also realize that it's not unreasonable to expect to someday for a longer period of time see a strategy in tier 1 that's also regularly tier 1 in both Standard and Legacy.
It's Tier 1 in legacy because Brainstorm and Force of Will are cards. It exists in standard because the threat level matches the answer level far far better than in Modern.
There would have to be a lot of powerful answers placed into Modern to make the deck that people want to happen. That chance isn't likely.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
How did this devolve into a discussion about reactive blue decks? Weren't we discussing how Tron is pushing mid-range decks out of the format? How it's a big mana deck that plays a better mid-range game than any other mid-range decks outside of shadow? How did this become about reactive control? Can we get back to talking about the fundamental issues the format is currently having?
In Legacy you have fast combo decks keeping down big mana decks and they in return lose to FoW decks. Neither of those things exist in Modern. So you can either nerf them via bans or via new hate cards which are unlikely to see print.
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Card advantage? From my blue spells?
Black discard, black creatures, black card draw, black removal. You can call it blue all you want, but it is a distant, distant, secondary color to black.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
You left out the Blue Creature, The 7 Blue draw spells, and the Blue counterspell. A deck with 15 blue cards and 12 blue sources is blue. Here's the list I used for this: 1st place SCG Charlotte https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-grixis-death-s-shadow#paper
EDIT: I left out Tassiger because I forgot his ability was part blue.
This is a silly discussion that I immediately regret getting back into, so I'll say my piece and duck out: All Death's Shadow variants are primarily black, rely on black cards for their primary forms of disruption, removal, life loss, and win conditions. While "Grixis" Death's Shadow does technically contain blue cards, for the most part, they only exist to find, protect, or re-cast the black spells in the deck. The deck can (and does) function perfectly well without blue. The deck cannot exist in any form without black. It's about the least "blue" blue deck I have ever played.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Don't get me wrong, I love casting Snapcaster too. I just wish it was alongside Delvers or Pyromancers or Bolts or Cliques or Cryptics or Pestermites; cards traditionally aligned with the idea of a "blue" tempo/reactive deck, and not a giant pile of black midrange cards.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
But the blue draw, spell recursion and protection... ARE ALL BLUE. Its like saying jund the midrange deck isnt really a red deck, because even though it runs BG creatures, the burn and red utility in it doesnt really exist, and the deck would be the same exact deck without the red.
It runs those blue cards for exactly the reasons you stated... And it can only get those effects IN BLUE. Its a black deck, yes... But its also a blue and red deck. In fact.. Its a black, blue, red deck. And apparently blue in that deck is better than green or white, because those color combos werent optimal.
Is it not a full blue deck like, I dunno... mono blue taking turns? Sure. But its about as blue as jund was red... so a third of the deck of a 3 color deck.
Its cool to want blue to be more viable across the board and have more decks WITH blue in em. But denying the fact there is a top tier deck that happens to also run blue is not right.
Nobody is denying the power of those spells but 16 spells does not a deck make. (ceremonious rejection is SB and if you're mostly U you're probably not playing stubborn denial either sadly - just checked and there are 0 mono-coloured creatures that activate this without being illusions or having significant additional cost to cast/turn that card on for 4 mana or less). Cryptic being the next card you add. We're still nowhere near a functioning deck that does anything in modern.
Basically there isn't a coherent whole, there is an amazing foundation though.
The list FYI - TiTi (once flipped), dormant gomazoa (always tapped), hunted phantasm (illusion), kefnet (7 cards seriously!), ludevic's abomination (once flipped), makeshift mauler (exile creature card from gy), phantasmal abomination phantasmal dragon phantom beast (illusions), squab ruinator (3 creature cards exiled from gy- best of the bunch though), finally Thassa (not a creature without devotion)
Legacy - LED Dredge, ANT & WDnT
The core color of a deck is easily identifiable. This is not a difficult discussion.
Is Jund a green deck because it splashes green for a powerful removal spell and the best creature in the format? No, Jund is a black deck that splashes green.
There're a couple core green decks in the format (see: Elves, Abzan company, RG Scapeshift). There are core Black decks (Jund, Junk, DSJ, Grixis Shadow). There are core blue decks (esper control, UW control, UWR control).
The diff between Grixis Shadow and UW control from a mana base and spell distribution perspective is blindingly obvious.
I don't get how this argument is difficult for people to grasp:
You can see that core blue decks (and to a greater extent core white decks) are worse than core black and green decks, and this has been true for the last year or two give or take.
Tier 1 breakdown:
Storm - blue
Dredge - red (kinda weird though)
Abzan Company - green
Eldrazi Tron - colorless
Affinity - colorless
DSJ - black
Grixis shadow - black
burn - red
Tier 2 breakdown:
D&T - white
Abzan - black
Living End - red (/black) thought his one is kinda weird like dredge
UW Control - blue
Elves - Green
Knightfall - green
RGx titanshift - green
Gx tron - colorless (green)
3 red decks, 4 green decks, 3 black decks, 2 blue decks, 1 white deck, 3 colorless decks.
There are as many colorless decks in tier 1/2 as there are blue+white decks.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
If blue is just a supplement in Grixis Shadow and can easily be replaced, I invite you to try. Build Rakdos, replace all the blue cards since they don't seem to do much, and let's see how you do.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Considering that Twin was banned in order to promote similar suppressed and supplanted decks, and nothing "similar" has existed in any regularity on a competitive level since that point, then yes. That's exactly the problem. FFS, we can't even have Delver playable because our spells are so bad.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
So you want a control deck... that runs blue spells... but cannot run too many spells of other colors otherwise it doesn't count... and a combo win condition... that also runs counter magic... but cannot use black...
Okay... have fun with that. I don't see that deck appearing. But I could be wrong.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Not the point at all, but I've already wasted enough time on this silly topic. I'm just going to keep begrudgingly playing Shadow because an actual blue tempo deck does not exist at a competitive level and all the brews I've tried in the last year and a half are either terrible or have been banned (Probe).
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
And this is why the argument of "Go play Legacy" isn't a strawman like some are claiming. If you want to play a blue completely reactive deck without having to use black's engine, your options are Legacy, Vintage, and that's it. That style of deck is likely never coming back to Modern unless Wizards completely changes how they do power in standard.
That's always been the fundamental problem with entirely reactive blue control "draw-go": it is either too weak to matter, or so strong that it warps the format around it.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
So, let's see the evolution of the online numbers of these blue-based control decks (WU, UB, UR, Jeskai, Grixis and Esper):
- Jan 16 - 3.3%
- Feb 16 - 3.4%
- Mar 16 - 4.5%
Ancestral Vision unbanned
- Apr 16 - 6.1%
- May 16 - 8.4%
- Jun 16 - 7.9%
- Jul 16 - 8.9%
- Aug 16 - 6.8%
- Sep 16 - 8.4%
- Oct 16 - 5.0%
- Nov 16 - 5.6%
- Dec 16 - 7.4%
- Jan 17 - 7.7%
- Feb 17 - 8.2%
- Mar 17 - 5.3%
- Apr 17 - 5.7%
- May 17 - 7.7%
- Jun 17 - 7.1%
It would seem Ancestral Vision's unban improved the monthly average (from 3.7% to 7.1%) but it could very well be that they still think it's an underplayed portion of the metagame. After all, we are still talking about 6 decks together, not to mention that in these last 15 month only Jeskai (3 times last year) and WU (last month) have ever gone over 4.0%. I still believe something can be done about it, even if I find the format fine and enjoyable right now. Preordain is no longer an option with Storm, so my sights are on either Stoneforge or Jace, but no changes for a while is totally fine.Frontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
1. You're putting words in other peoples' mouths and misrepresenting peoples' stances.
2. If that truly is the stance Wizards holds, then they need to unban Twin, plain and simple.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
1. How exactly? You want a blue reactive counterspell deck, but if you use black's engine than "it isn't blue". Correct me if I am wrong.
2. So your solution to one of the most open Modern formats ever is to bring back one of the most powerful combo decks ever?
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You do realize that control decks still regularly exist in Standard, right? It looks like you are really misunderstanding what he is saying or you for some reason believe that if people here talk about control they mean some 20 year old deck with 30 counterspells, all he is saying is that they don't want 20+ counterspells decks to exist anymore(those haven't been a top tier strategy for probably more than 15 years anyway), it has nothing to do with "normal" control decks most people here are talking about.
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
My solution is as I've stated to print some slightly better blue cards and unban stoneforge. I don't honestly understand how anyone can object to this.
Unbanning twin seems meh to me. The last thing I want to see is Grixis DSTwin as the only deck in the format
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
It's Tier 1 in legacy because Brainstorm and Force of Will are cards. It exists in standard because the threat level matches the answer level far far better than in Modern.
There would have to be a lot of powerful answers placed into Modern to make the deck that people want to happen. That chance isn't likely.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
In Legacy you have fast combo decks keeping down big mana decks and they in return lose to FoW decks. Neither of those things exist in Modern. So you can either nerf them via bans or via new hate cards which are unlikely to see print.