Pod was fine before siege rhino. those are the days I'm mentioning.
When twin pod and jund where not oppressive, and the top decks in the format where: mid range,
combo control and Combo midrange.
Aggro was still good here aswell.
And tron was good too.
A less linear top tier.
You are right that Pod was fine before Siege Rhino, but I don't agree that Aggro was very viable. Pod had slowly started to knock Aggro decks like Zoo, Burn, and Infect out the meta. Also there was no other fair deck better than Pod, although some decks occasionally competed. Now, Affinity was a good Aggro deck at the time, only because Affinity is made to withstand any meta since 2011.
But yes, I actually enjoyed that meta. I always loved watching Pod opponents play against me or play testing it myself at home or playing the few tournaments that I did play it. I actually enjoyed it pushing Burn and Zoo out. I was sad to see it go for many reasons, one of them being an increase in Zoo and Burn.
I mean, I do believe that Pod had to go given Wizard's current philosophies on creatures. Every day at the WotC headquarters, someone brings up that they need to make a stronger creature and nobody disagrees. But I was sad to see such an elegant deck banned out of existence at the time. Not to mention, those Twin stats from December that show Bloom Titan at 4.2% are also pretty sad. I honestly don't care if a deck wins on turn ******* 0 every game if only 4.2% of the players play it.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Pod was fine before siege rhino. those are the days I'm mentioning.
When twin pod and jund where not oppressive, and the top decks in the format where: mid range,
combo control and Combo midrange.
Aggro was still good here aswell.
And tron was good too.
A less linear top tier.
You are right that Pod was fine before Siege Rhino, but I don't agree that Aggro was very viable. Pod had slowly started to knock Aggro decks like Zoo, Burn, and Infect out the meta. Also there was no other fair deck better than Pod, although some decks occasionally competed. Now, Affinity was a good Aggro deck at the time, only because Affinity is made to withstand any meta since 2011.
But yes, I actually enjoyed that meta. I always loved watching Pod opponents play against me or play testing it myself at home or playing the few tournaments that I did play it. I actually enjoyed it pushing Burn and Zoo out. I was sad to see it go for many reasons, one of them being an increase in Zoo and Burn.
I mean, I do believe that Pod had to go given Wizard's current philosophies on creatures. Every day at the WotC headquarters, someone brings up that they need to make a stronger creature and nobody disagrees. But I was sad to see such an elegant deck banned out of existence at the time. Not to mention, those Twin stats from December that show Bloom Titan at 4.2% are also pretty sad. I honestly don't care if a deck wins on turn ******* 0 every game if only 4.2% of the players play it.
affinity was and always has been, our good aggro deck.
and having those 3 decks as the pillars looks a heck of alot better than eldrazi tron shadow and affinity #linear
this is our current top 10
linear:
affinity
elra tron
titanshift
burn
dredge
tron
gifts storm
in between:
grixis shadow
counters company
non linear:
uw control
why is shadow in between? because its game plan ( death shadow) in being suicidal just to win a race, does in fact make the deck more linear than jund or urx control.
but ok, even if I humored the ( death shadow is not linear at all!) audience.
and moved death shadow into the non linear section.
it still makes little difference as to how linear the top decks of this format are.
and its this amount of linearity that really yells to me how badly we need more non linear strategies in the top tiers of the game.
so unban sfm and maybe jace wizards, and we can finally have a bit more balance like we did in the days of pod and twin before they got oppressive in numbers.
and having those 3 decks as the pillars looks a heck of alot better than eldrazi tron shadow and affinity #linear
this is our current top 10
linear:
affinity
elra tron
titanshift
burn
dredge
tron
gifts storm
in between:
grixis shadow
counters company
non linear:
uw control
why is shadow in between? because its game plan ( death shadow) in being suicidal just to win a race, does in fact make the deck more linear than jund or urx control.
Shadow is one of the single most interactive decks Modern has ever seen. Unlike UW, it regularly interacts as of the first turn of the game and every turn following until its opponent has been totally exhausted of further plays.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
and having those 3 decks as the pillars looks a heck of alot better than eldrazi tron shadow and affinity #linear
this is our current top 10
linear:
affinity
elra tron
titanshift
burn
dredge
tron
gifts storm
in between:
grixis shadow
counters company
non linear:
uw control
why is shadow in between? because its game plan ( death shadow) in being suicidal just to win a race, does in fact make the deck more linear than jund or urx control.
Shadow is one of the single most interactive decks Modern has ever seen. Unlike UW, it regularly interacts as of the first turn of the game and every turn following until its opponent has been totally exhausted of further plays.
read my edit I made..
also that classification of death shadow is incorrect
it is an aggro mid range/tempo deck.
with a more linear game plan(suicidal) than jund or grixis control
im not disputing wether or not its interactive . im talking about how linear its game plan is.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
Grixis shadow is not linear at all. I agree with what Jordan said, as he almost always makes the best definitions amd analysis regarding the archetypes in mtg.
The deck can literally kill on turn 4 with a super fast suicidal wincon. Just because it runs discard and push doesn't make it a control deck like Jordan thinks.
It's an aggro mid deck so on the terms of the linearity spectrum I would put it between abzan coco and jund.
Lots of rose-tinted glasses in this thread, especially with Pod. That deck was around 20% of the metagame and quite polarizing. With the current complement of new creatures and spells, it would be even more problematic today. I also much prefer a format where you can play basically anything you want (i.e. Modern today) rather than a format where you have to pick from the top 5-6 decks (i.e. the Modern of 2014-2015). This makes it harder to metagame at the deck level, which is why pros get annoyed with Modern; they can't just audible to the best deck like in Standard. But it greatly rewards deck familiarity, customization, and sideboarding, which is awesome for someone like me who has played Modern for years and has a handful of decks I really enjoy.
Also, if you genuinely don't think Modern is interactive, I strongly encourage you to try UW Control. It's an excellent, interactive, "pure"-feeling control deck that is very competitive.
Pod was fine before siege rhino. those are the days I'm mentioning.
When twin pod and jund where not oppressive, and the top decks in the format where: mid range,
combo control and Combo midrange.
Aggro was still good here aswell.
And tron was good too.
A less linear top tier.
Yeah, times were good back then. But times have changed. Let's deal with the meta we got, not the want we used to have.
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WoTC, thank you for finally announcing the Modern format, an eternal format where everyone can participate.
I mean, I always thought that modern was supposed to be the format that people could build a non-rotating deck to play with friends and potentially take to the store to participate in tournaments with. Without any kind of serious interaction and everyone focused on their own game plans, though, it has sort of gone from a format that is fun to play, to a format that is about as exciting as playing a game of blackjack. Given the amount of money someone puts into these decks that is a lot of expense for something that can be done better in a 5 dollar pack of cards from a drug store.
To really play magic, the games have to last at least to turn 6 most of the time. If every game basically is over by turn 3 or 4 what kind of game are we actually playing? What makes this annoying as well is that by saying this it sounds like I'm implying sly decks, burn decks, and pure aggro decks are bad things, but it's not that those are bad either. Death's Shadow decks are not the satanic spawn of hell any more than (former) twin decks were, current burn decks, or eldrazi decks.
If someone builds a deck to win on turn 3 or 4 my own impression is that they aren't there to play magic. They are there on "business" and don't really want to socialize (Or they are just playing the tournament to win packs while simultaneously playing commander? There usually is enough time on the clock left to get a game in for one vs one ). They want the tournament to be over asap so they can collect whatever packs they win and then book it. At least when I played twin players a few times we had enough time to actually have a conversation at the game table.
And oh boy, I'm opening that can of worms again.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Bloodbraid Elf - Jund is falling way behind. It is no longer even Tier 1. BBE was unjustly crucified for Deathrite Shaman's sins. Unbanning this would give people incentive to play jund again
Preordain - Even though Grixis Shadow would end up playing it over Serum Visions, it is only a minor upgrade. And it helps all blue decks equally, not just a couple.
Stoneforge Mystic - This may not happen because Death and Taxes is actually good for once, but even with Stoneforge the deck doesn't suddenly become an unstoppable monster. Other strategies like Abzan and Jeskai can incorporate her too.
That's about it. I don't see anything else likely coming off
Twin - Too soon. Maybe in another year
Jace - I've since reversed my position on Jace - too unfun to play against. It's like lantern control in a single card. There are better things to print to help UW control. Leave Jace for legacy/commander
Preordain is not coming off, especially with the top deck being blue
UW Control, Storm and Jeskai benefit greatly from it; I imagine this change would shrink BGx even further, a Jace unban would probably drop Jund and Junk even further below the 1.90% mark.
I do think two years from now Twin has a good shot, but I'm not going to spend another year and a half complaining about it.
I mean, I always thought that modern was supposed to be the format that people could build a non-rotating deck to play with friends and potentially take to the store to participate in tournaments with. Without any kind of serious interaction and everyone focused on their own game plans, though, it has sort of gone from a format that is fun to play, to a format that is about as exciting as playing a game of blackjack. Given the amount of money someone puts into these decks that is a lot of expense for something that can be done better in a 5 dollar pack of cards from a drug store.
To really play magic, the games have to last at least to turn 6 most of the time. If every game basically is over by turn 3 or 4 what kind of game are we actually playing? What makes this annoying as well is that by saying this it sounds like I'm implying sly decks, burn decks, and pure aggro decks are bad things, but it's not that those are bad either. Death's Shadow decks are not the satanic spawn of hell any more than (former) twin decks were, current burn decks, or eldrazi decks.
If someone builds a deck to win on turn 3 or 4 my own impression is that they aren't there to play magic. They are there on "business" and don't really want to socialize (Or they are just playing the tournament to win packs while simultaneously playing commander? There usually is enough time on the clock left to get a game in for one vs one ). They want the tournament to be over asap so they can collect whatever packs they win and then book it
Positions like this are totally unsupportable. "Real" Magic now has a time requirement of how long the game needs to go? That's incredibly biased and doesn't even make sense in the context of your own post. Grixis DS and many other fair decks before it, including Jund and Twin, can regularly win before your arbitrary cutoff of T6. It also discounts a huge swath of players that play aggro, combo, and more aggressive tempo/midrange decks.
There remains a hyper-vocal, hyper minority of players who have extremely narrow and biased preferences for the format. This blows my mind because Wizards always talks about how Modern is the format of "play what you want," not "play decks so neither player can win before t6." It's like these players don't even care about the format's goals and just want their own preferences to reign. People who want this kind of format should play Standard or Limited, not a high-powered format like Modern.
Also, this nonsense about how Grixis DS is an "aggro, tempo, midrange" deck needs to stop. It's like the minority critics will do anything to define the deck in a negative light so they can keep criticizing the format. The deck interacts on virtually every turn of the game. It's neither linear nor noninteractive, but the hyper-vocal minority seems to only recognize decks that meet their personal speed limit and other narrow benchmarks. Hilariously, not even the coveted Twin meets thosr standards, which just proves to me how biased, inconsistent, and, honestly, selfish those arguments are.
Preordain is not coming off, especially with the top deck being blue
UW Control, Storm and Jeskai benefit greatly from it; I imagine this change would shrink BGx even further, a Jace unban would probably drop Jund and Junk even further below the 1.90% mark.
I do think two years from now Twin has a good shot, but I'm not going to spend another year and a half complaining about it.
Yes UW control, Storm, Jeskai, and Grixis all get better. So do infect, UR delver, mono blue tron, and other lesser played decks. That's the point. Help all blue decks regardless of their current tier.
Also why is it bad for BGx to shrink in representation when other color combinations such as RG, UG, BW, UW, or UB have had much less representation over the course of modern's history and some of these have only recently had time to shine?
Preordain is not coming off, especially with the top deck being blue
UW Control, Storm and Jeskai benefit greatly from it; I imagine this change would shrink BGx even further, a Jace unban would probably drop Jund and Junk even further below the 1.90% mark.
I do think two years from now Twin has a good shot, but I'm not going to spend another year and a half complaining about it.
Yes UW control, Storm, Jeskai, and Grixis all get better. So do infect, UR delver, mono blue tron, and other lesser played decks. That's the point. Help all blue decks regardless of their current tier.
Also why is it bad for BGx to shrink in representation when other color combinations such as RG, UG, BW, UW, or UB have had much less representation over the course of modern's history and some of these have only recently had time to shine?
I think my biggest reservation with BBE is that it generally forces BGx players into Jund. Abzan would probably fall off the radar. I don't see Wizards wanting to empower such a narrow band of decks. I'm also unconvinced BGx is as bad as people in this thread claim. Many critics here said the same about UW Control and, as I learned and the tierings later reflected, they were completely wrong. I suspect it's the same story with BGx.
Grixis shadow is not linear at all. I agree with what Jordan said, as he almost always makes the best definitions amd analysis regarding the archetypes in mtg.
The deck can literally kill on turn 4 with a super fast suicidal wincon. Just because it runs discard and push doesn't make it a control deck like Jordan thinks.
It's an aggro mid deck so on the terms of the linearity spectrum I would put it between abzan coco and jund.
Hellfire, it's incredibly clear you don't play Grixis Shadow and just saw some games happen.
The deck isn't linear---at all. It's definitely as interactive as Jund.
I think you're confusing linear with consistency, the twelve cantrips and snapcasters make the deck operate far smoother than GBx.
The deck is less likely to draw the wrong half of its deck because of the low land count and how many cards you see from the cantrips, thought scouring an important spell for snapcaster is also fairly reliable.
I think it's unfair to call the deck linear because it tries to ping itself to around the 8 life mark. It's discarding, it's killing, it's playing vanilla beaters (big one's), it's countering a little, it's going for the tempo
The deck isn't winning THAT fast and you're greatly exaggerating. Turn 1 thought scour, turn 2 Fish, if I tempo out the fish perfectly that's a turn 6 win--and that's usually one of the best hands
Jund turn 1 thoughtseize, turn 2 Goyf, turn 3 LOTV is Jund's best curve, and that's if they aren't a go wide deck.
I think you're shortchanging E-Tron, I'd put it somewhere in the in-between, it's not as brainless as old Tron, there's some thought into the deck.
Metas come and go, I'm just freaking relieved the meta isn't infect and dredge, that meta had me stop playing modern and watching MTG for almost half a year, watching Dredge v infect or Dredge v Dredge was atrocious. I had most of GBx, it wouldn't have been that expensive to invest into dredge, but it was still a horrible modern play time.
God, remember the people in this thread defending dredge? They look incredibly ridiculous in hindsight defending their broken ass deck.
I think people have to kind of accept that modern isn't really a format to play fairly, and it's why jund and junk are becoming outdated decks, people can flat out win turn 4 or 5 while you're still laying out Goyfs and bolts.
The meta is healthy, it may not be your perfect vision, but it looks diverse, as a GBx/Twin player you have to accept that you play Grixis or UWx as your interactive deck, that's not so different from when people had to decide to play Jund/Junk/Twin.
I don't really see any particular archetype being weeded out too much, it's probably the weakest I've seen linear aggro in a while, but they had almost all of last year, I'm not crying for them, especially when Affinity and burn have very healthy, large numbers.
Preordain is not coming off, especially with the top deck being blue
UW Control, Storm and Jeskai benefit greatly from it; I imagine this change would shrink BGx even further, a Jace unban would probably drop Jund and Junk even further below the 1.90% mark.
I do think two years from now Twin has a good shot, but I'm not going to spend another year and a half complaining about it.
Yes UW control, Storm, Jeskai, and Grixis all get better. So do infect, UR delver, mono blue tron, and other lesser played decks. That's the point. Help all blue decks regardless of their current tier.
Also why is it bad for BGx to shrink in representation when other color combinations such as RG, UG, BW, UW, or UB have had much less representation over the course of modern's history and some of these have only recently had time to shine?
I think my biggest reservation with BBE is that it generally forces BGx players into Jund. Abzan would probably fall off the radar. I don't see Wizards wanting to empower such a narrow band of decks. I'm also unconvinced BGx is as bad as people in this thread claim. Many critics here said the same about UW Control and, as I learned and the tierings later reflected, they were completely wrong. I suspect it's the same story with BGx.
Not that you have the time, but you should probably take a look at the matchup percentages in the top 12ish decks in modern and see how Jund, even Junk, fair. It's a bunch of 40/60's with some hard earned 50/50's--it didn't fall into tier 3 by accident, and it's not solely due to Shadow. Why on earth would I play Jund with top deck being a grindy 50/50, Affinity being difficult, burn being close, Shift rolling over me, UWx being about a 40-45% win (more if they're looking to grind against midrange and fair decks), and dredge? E-Tron is easier than traditional Tron, which is also making a comeback, but you're too slow and they go overhead. On top of that, when I see a GBx it's more likely to run lingering souls. The deck is definitely worse, for now, at the moment than you think. GBx is historically awful against dredge, too. It's why it was such a shock to see Reid Duke hit the top 8 with it (and he's a god, I've never seen such a successful GBx player refuse to play boardwipes).
Preordain is not coming off, especially with the top deck being blue
UW Control, Storm and Jeskai benefit greatly from it; I imagine this change would shrink BGx even further, a Jace unban would probably drop Jund and Junk even further below the 1.90% mark.
I do think two years from now Twin has a good shot, but I'm not going to spend another year and a half complaining about it.
Yes UW control, Storm, Jeskai, and Grixis all get better. So do infect, UR delver, mono blue tron, and other lesser played decks. That's the point. Help all blue decks regardless of their current tier.
Also why is it bad for BGx to shrink in representation when other color combinations such as RG, UG, BW, UW, or UB have had much less representation over the course of modern's history and some of these have only recently had time to shine?
I think my biggest reservation with BBE is that it generally forces BGx players into Jund. Abzan would probably fall off the radar. I don't see Wizards wanting to empower such a narrow band of decks. I'm also unconvinced BGx is as bad as people in this thread claim. Many critics here said the same about UW Control and, as I learned and the tierings later reflected, they were completely wrong. I suspect it's the same story with BGx.
Not that you have the time, but you should probably take a look at the matchup percentages in the top 12ish decks in modern and see how Jund, even Junk, fair. It's a bunch of 40/60's with some hard earned 50/50's--it didn't fall into tier 3 by accident, and it's not solely due to Shadow. Why on earth would I play Jund with top deck being a grindy 50/50, Affinity being difficult, burn being close, Shift rolling over me, UWx being about a 40-45% win (more if they're looking to grind against midrange and fair decks, and dredge? On top of that, when I see a GBx it's more likely to run lingering souls. The deck is definitely worse, for now, at the moment than you think. It's why it was such a shock to see Reid Duke hit the top 8 with it (and he's a god, I've never seen such a successful GBx player refuse to play boardwipes).
Are there actual percentages from real games? Or is it just player estimates? Players are horrible at estimating their win percentage in matchups, especially in Modern.
I also don't care too much about the overall win % these days. I feel like UW is no more than 55-45 against Tier 1 decks, with most games in the 50-50 range. But tight plays and experience picks up a big edge. I'd bet BGx is similar but people prefer 60-40s. Amusingly, those same people often complain about decks that require less skill, despite simultaneously wanting to play decks with good matchups across the format. It's a huge, and funny, dissonance.
I mean, I always thought that modern was supposed to be the format that people could build a non-rotating deck to play with friends and potentially take to the store to participate in tournaments with. Without any kind of serious interaction and everyone focused on their own game plans, though, it has sort of gone from a format that is fun to play, to a format that is about as exciting as playing a game of blackjack. Given the amount of money someone puts into these decks that is a lot of expense for something that can be done better in a 5 dollar pack of cards from a drug store.
To really play magic, the games have to last at least to turn 6 most of the time. If every game basically is over by turn 3 or 4 what kind of game are we actually playing? What makes this annoying as well is that by saying this it sounds like I'm implying sly decks, burn decks, and pure aggro decks are bad things, but it's not that those are bad either. Death's Shadow decks are not the satanic spawn of hell any more than (former) twin decks were, current burn decks, or eldrazi decks.
If someone builds a deck to win on turn 3 or 4 my own impression is that they aren't there to play magic. They are there on "business" and don't really want to socialize (Or they are just playing the tournament to win packs while simultaneously playing commander? There usually is enough time on the clock left to get a game in for one vs one ). They want the tournament to be over asap so they can collect whatever packs they win and then book it
Positions like this are totally unsupportable. "Real" Magic now has a time requirement of how long the game needs to go? That's incredibly biased and doesn't even make sense in the context of your own post. Grixis DS and many other fair decks before it, including Jund and Twin, can regularly win before your arbitrary cutoff of T6. It also discounts a huge swath of players that play aggro, combo, and more aggressive tempo/midrange decks.
There remains a hyper-vocal, hyper minority of players who have extremely narrow and biased preferences for the format. This blows my mind because Wizards always talks about how Modern is the format of "play what you want," not "play decks so neither player can win before t6." It's like these players don't even care about the format's goals and just want their own preferences to reign. People who want this kind of format should play Standard or Limited, not a high-powered format like Modern.
Also, this nonsense about how Grixis DS is an "aggro, tempo, midrange" deck needs to stop. It's like the minority critics will do anything to define the deck in a negative light so they can keep criticizing the format. The deck interacts on virtually every turn of the game. It's neither linear nor noninteractive, but the hyper-vocal minority seems to only recognize decks that meet their personal speed limit and other narrow benchmarks. Hilariously, not even the coveted Twin meets thosr standards, which just proves to me how biased, inconsistent, and, honestly, selfish those arguments are.
There's always people with biased opinions about how magic should be played, but the expectation is that if someone plays a format, games should have a variety of turns to win on and not just turn 3-4 wins. That is the core problem of having a format where decks are only concerned about their own gameplans: The only direction the game can go as more sets are added to the pool is a faster and faster win unless something is printed to throw a wrench into the plans. And also I'm not pointing fingers at Grixis Shadow or Twin in specific. Just that it's a hard problem to solve in a format with as many sets legal as modern. Personally, I think Modern is really a turn 4-6 format and not a turn 3-4 (thankfully), but a lot of the time it can feel like it is a turn 3-4 if people are playing budget decks and someone walks in with a dredge, grixis shadow, affinity, etc without the right sideboard answers.
That also goes back to why I dislike wizards way of doing reprints. Standard right now is proving why modern level answers and removal are needed in a format along with the flexibility to play around those strong answers. If we didn't have Chalice of the Void, Blood Moon, etc, in modern the entire format would be unplayable. At the same time, if we had those and didn't have the variety of decks the format would also be unplayable.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Nothing is going to happen in August unless someone comes up with some radical warping tech in the next month and a half. In fact, baring a new broken deck, I predict there will be no B/R changes for Modern for the rest of 2017. The Jace-SFM-Twin train is permanently stuck in the station, guys.
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WoTC, thank you for finally announcing the Modern format, an eternal format where everyone can participate.
I think Twin and SFM unbans have been a running joke on this very thread for the last three years. We all know it will never happen, yet we keep bringing it up over and over again. The twin talk on the other hand is probably never stopping because that scar is from a wound that went right through the raw muscle and sinew and strait into the bone, leaving an ever aching, arthritic pain that never ceases. You just don't see this kind of reaction even from former pod players.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I don't think any die hard jund player ever expects to see a bunch of 60/40s, it's just a strip-mine of bad matchups currently in the meta right now. I get that you're having positive results with UWx Control, but I think you're minimizing it's downfall
I do want to make it clear this isn't me throwing a fit to ban things to accommodate the rise of Jund/Junk again, metas are cyclic.
I'm just mentioning that in all the articles, streams and pros opinions, the top decks have traditionally been matchups Jund has struggled with, no, they aren't all 35/60s, but I think when you're edging closer to more 40/60s than 50/50s, with some 45s/55 and 55/45, you're hurting yourself.
Jund seemed more viable when it had traditional Tron with some Titanshift in the mix, the added graveyard decks and extra big mana/eldrazi flavors is maybe a little too much
I don't think any die hard jund player ever expects to see a bunch of 60/40s, it's just a strip-mine of bad matchups currently in the meta right now. I get that you're having positive results with UWx Control, but I think you're minimizing it's downfall
I do want to make it clear this isn't me throwing a fit to ban things to accommodate the rise of Jund/Junk again, metas are cyclic.
I'm just mentioning that in all the articles, streams and pros opinions, the top decks have traditionally been matchups Jund has struggled with, no, they aren't all 35/60s, but I think when you're edging closer to more 40/60s than 50/50s, with some 45s/55 and 55/45, you're hurting yourself.
Jund seemed more viable when it had traditional Tron with some Titanshift in the mix, the added graveyard decks and extra big mana/eldrazi flavors is maybe a little too much
Jund isn't good right now because Tarmogoyf isn't good right now. With Deathrite Shaman and Bloodbraid Elf on the banned list, there's no reason to play green over blue in a midrange deck. GDS is the new Jund. Until goyf gets good again or some elves come off the banned list, you'll have to get your Jund fix via Grixis.
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WoTC, thank you for finally announcing the Modern format, an eternal format where everyone can participate.
I don't think any die hard jund player ever expects to see a bunch of 60/40s, it's just a strip-mine of bad matchups currently in the meta right now. I get that you're having positive results with UWx Control, but I think you're minimizing it's downfall
I do want to make it clear this isn't me throwing a fit to ban things to accommodate the rise of Jund/Junk again, metas are cyclic.
I'm just mentioning that in all the articles, streams and pros opinions, the top decks have traditionally been matchups Jund has struggled with, no, they aren't all 35/60s, but I think when you're edging closer to more 40/60s than 50/50s, with some 45s/55 and 55/45, you're hurting yourself.
Jund seemed more viable when it had traditional Tron with some Titanshift in the mix, the added graveyard decks and extra big mana/eldrazi flavors is maybe a little too much
Jund isn't good right now because Tarmogoyf isn't good right now. With Deathrite Shaman and Bloodbraid Elf on the banned list, there's no reason to play green over blue in a midrange deck. GDS is the new Jund. Until goyf gets good again or some elves come off the banned list, you'll have to get your Jund fix via Grixis.
Yeah, I have grixis now, and it actually feels a lot like Jund. I haven't really gotten enough reps with it so I'm not very good with the deck just yet. The pro's make the deck look so easy.
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You are right that Pod was fine before Siege Rhino, but I don't agree that Aggro was very viable. Pod had slowly started to knock Aggro decks like Zoo, Burn, and Infect out the meta. Also there was no other fair deck better than Pod, although some decks occasionally competed. Now, Affinity was a good Aggro deck at the time, only because Affinity is made to withstand any meta since 2011.
But yes, I actually enjoyed that meta. I always loved watching Pod opponents play against me or play testing it myself at home or playing the few tournaments that I did play it. I actually enjoyed it pushing Burn and Zoo out. I was sad to see it go for many reasons, one of them being an increase in Zoo and Burn.
I mean, I do believe that Pod had to go given Wizard's current philosophies on creatures. Every day at the WotC headquarters, someone brings up that they need to make a stronger creature and nobody disagrees. But I was sad to see such an elegant deck banned out of existence at the time. Not to mention, those Twin stats from December that show Bloom Titan at 4.2% are also pretty sad. I honestly don't care if a deck wins on turn ******* 0 every game if only 4.2% of the players play it.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)and having those 3 decks as the pillars looks a heck of alot better than eldrazi tron shadow and affinity #linear
this is our current top 10
linear:
affinity
elra tron
titanshift
burn
dredge
tron
gifts storm
in between:
grixis shadow
counters company
non linear:
uw control
why is shadow in between? because its game plan ( death shadow) in being suicidal just to win a race, does in fact make the deck more linear than jund or urx control.
but ok, even if I humored the ( death shadow is not linear at all!) audience.
and moved death shadow into the non linear section.
it still makes little difference as to how linear the top decks of this format are.
and its this amount of linearity that really yells to me how badly we need more non linear strategies in the top tiers of the game.
so unban sfm and maybe jace wizards, and we can finally have a bit more balance like we did in the days of pod and twin before they got oppressive in numbers.
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Shadow is one of the single most interactive decks Modern has ever seen. Unlike UW, it regularly interacts as of the first turn of the game and every turn following until its opponent has been totally exhausted of further plays.
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
read my edit I made..
also that classification of death shadow is incorrect
it is an aggro mid range/tempo deck.
with a more linear game plan(suicidal) than jund or grixis control
im not disputing wether or not its interactive . im talking about how linear its game plan is.
decks playing:
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Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
How so? What about show and tell? An extremely linear wincon. Yet very interactive.
You think interactive means zero linearity?
If so your wrong
decks playing:
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The deck can literally kill on turn 4 with a super fast suicidal wincon. Just because it runs discard and push doesn't make it a control deck like Jordan thinks.
It's an aggro mid deck so on the terms of the linearity spectrum I would put it between abzan coco and jund.
decks playing:
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Yeah, times were good back then. But times have changed. Let's deal with the meta we got, not the want we used to have.
To really play magic, the games have to last at least to turn 6 most of the time. If every game basically is over by turn 3 or 4 what kind of game are we actually playing? What makes this annoying as well is that by saying this it sounds like I'm implying sly decks, burn decks, and pure aggro decks are bad things, but it's not that those are bad either. Death's Shadow decks are not the satanic spawn of hell any more than (former) twin decks were, current burn decks, or eldrazi decks.
If someone builds a deck to win on turn 3 or 4 my own impression is that they aren't there to play magic. They are there on "business" and don't really want to socialize (Or they are just playing the tournament to win packs while simultaneously playing commander? There usually is enough time on the clock left to get a game in for one vs one ). They want the tournament to be over asap so they can collect whatever packs they win and then book it. At least when I played twin players a few times we had enough time to actually have a conversation at the game table.
And oh boy, I'm opening that can of worms again.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Bloodbraid Elf - Jund is falling way behind. It is no longer even Tier 1. BBE was unjustly crucified for Deathrite Shaman's sins. Unbanning this would give people incentive to play jund again
Preordain - Even though Grixis Shadow would end up playing it over Serum Visions, it is only a minor upgrade. And it helps all blue decks equally, not just a couple.
Stoneforge Mystic - This may not happen because Death and Taxes is actually good for once, but even with Stoneforge the deck doesn't suddenly become an unstoppable monster. Other strategies like Abzan and Jeskai can incorporate her too.
That's about it. I don't see anything else likely coming off
Twin - Too soon. Maybe in another year
Jace - I've since reversed my position on Jace - too unfun to play against. It's like lantern control in a single card. There are better things to print to help UW control. Leave Jace for legacy/commander
UW Control, Storm and Jeskai benefit greatly from it; I imagine this change would shrink BGx even further, a Jace unban would probably drop Jund and Junk even further below the 1.90% mark.
I do think two years from now Twin has a good shot, but I'm not going to spend another year and a half complaining about it.
Positions like this are totally unsupportable. "Real" Magic now has a time requirement of how long the game needs to go? That's incredibly biased and doesn't even make sense in the context of your own post. Grixis DS and many other fair decks before it, including Jund and Twin, can regularly win before your arbitrary cutoff of T6. It also discounts a huge swath of players that play aggro, combo, and more aggressive tempo/midrange decks.
There remains a hyper-vocal, hyper minority of players who have extremely narrow and biased preferences for the format. This blows my mind because Wizards always talks about how Modern is the format of "play what you want," not "play decks so neither player can win before t6." It's like these players don't even care about the format's goals and just want their own preferences to reign. People who want this kind of format should play Standard or Limited, not a high-powered format like Modern.
Also, this nonsense about how Grixis DS is an "aggro, tempo, midrange" deck needs to stop. It's like the minority critics will do anything to define the deck in a negative light so they can keep criticizing the format. The deck interacts on virtually every turn of the game. It's neither linear nor noninteractive, but the hyper-vocal minority seems to only recognize decks that meet their personal speed limit and other narrow benchmarks. Hilariously, not even the coveted Twin meets thosr standards, which just proves to me how biased, inconsistent, and, honestly, selfish those arguments are.
Yes UW control, Storm, Jeskai, and Grixis all get better. So do infect, UR delver, mono blue tron, and other lesser played decks. That's the point. Help all blue decks regardless of their current tier.
Also why is it bad for BGx to shrink in representation when other color combinations such as RG, UG, BW, UW, or UB have had much less representation over the course of modern's history and some of these have only recently had time to shine?
I think my biggest reservation with BBE is that it generally forces BGx players into Jund. Abzan would probably fall off the radar. I don't see Wizards wanting to empower such a narrow band of decks. I'm also unconvinced BGx is as bad as people in this thread claim. Many critics here said the same about UW Control and, as I learned and the tierings later reflected, they were completely wrong. I suspect it's the same story with BGx.
Hellfire, it's incredibly clear you don't play Grixis Shadow and just saw some games happen.
The deck isn't linear---at all. It's definitely as interactive as Jund.
I think you're confusing linear with consistency, the twelve cantrips and snapcasters make the deck operate far smoother than GBx.
The deck is less likely to draw the wrong half of its deck because of the low land count and how many cards you see from the cantrips, thought scouring an important spell for snapcaster is also fairly reliable.
I think it's unfair to call the deck linear because it tries to ping itself to around the 8 life mark. It's discarding, it's killing, it's playing vanilla beaters (big one's), it's countering a little, it's going for the tempo
The deck isn't winning THAT fast and you're greatly exaggerating. Turn 1 thought scour, turn 2 Fish, if I tempo out the fish perfectly that's a turn 6 win--and that's usually one of the best hands
Jund turn 1 thoughtseize, turn 2 Goyf, turn 3 LOTV is Jund's best curve, and that's if they aren't a go wide deck.
I think you're shortchanging E-Tron, I'd put it somewhere in the in-between, it's not as brainless as old Tron, there's some thought into the deck.
I think demanding for the meta to be
Jund, Affinity, Burn, Junk, Twin isn't completely reasonable
Metas come and go, I'm just freaking relieved the meta isn't infect and dredge, that meta had me stop playing modern and watching MTG for almost half a year, watching Dredge v infect or Dredge v Dredge was atrocious. I had most of GBx, it wouldn't have been that expensive to invest into dredge, but it was still a horrible modern play time.
God, remember the people in this thread defending dredge? They look incredibly ridiculous in hindsight defending their broken ass deck.
I think people have to kind of accept that modern isn't really a format to play fairly, and it's why jund and junk are becoming outdated decks, people can flat out win turn 4 or 5 while you're still laying out Goyfs and bolts.
The meta is healthy, it may not be your perfect vision, but it looks diverse, as a GBx/Twin player you have to accept that you play Grixis or UWx as your interactive deck, that's not so different from when people had to decide to play Jund/Junk/Twin.
I don't really see any particular archetype being weeded out too much, it's probably the weakest I've seen linear aggro in a while, but they had almost all of last year, I'm not crying for them, especially when Affinity and burn have very healthy, large numbers.
Not that you have the time, but you should probably take a look at the matchup percentages in the top 12ish decks in modern and see how Jund, even Junk, fair. It's a bunch of 40/60's with some hard earned 50/50's--it didn't fall into tier 3 by accident, and it's not solely due to Shadow. Why on earth would I play Jund with top deck being a grindy 50/50, Affinity being difficult, burn being close, Shift rolling over me, UWx being about a 40-45% win (more if they're looking to grind against midrange and fair decks), and dredge? E-Tron is easier than traditional Tron, which is also making a comeback, but you're too slow and they go overhead. On top of that, when I see a GBx it's more likely to run lingering souls. The deck is definitely worse, for now, at the moment than you think. GBx is historically awful against dredge, too. It's why it was such a shock to see Reid Duke hit the top 8 with it (and he's a god, I've never seen such a successful GBx player refuse to play boardwipes).
Are there actual percentages from real games? Or is it just player estimates? Players are horrible at estimating their win percentage in matchups, especially in Modern.
I also don't care too much about the overall win % these days. I feel like UW is no more than 55-45 against Tier 1 decks, with most games in the 50-50 range. But tight plays and experience picks up a big edge. I'd bet BGx is similar but people prefer 60-40s. Amusingly, those same people often complain about decks that require less skill, despite simultaneously wanting to play decks with good matchups across the format. It's a huge, and funny, dissonance.
There's always people with biased opinions about how magic should be played, but the expectation is that if someone plays a format, games should have a variety of turns to win on and not just turn 3-4 wins. That is the core problem of having a format where decks are only concerned about their own gameplans: The only direction the game can go as more sets are added to the pool is a faster and faster win unless something is printed to throw a wrench into the plans. And also I'm not pointing fingers at Grixis Shadow or Twin in specific. Just that it's a hard problem to solve in a format with as many sets legal as modern. Personally, I think Modern is really a turn 4-6 format and not a turn 3-4 (thankfully), but a lot of the time it can feel like it is a turn 3-4 if people are playing budget decks and someone walks in with a dredge, grixis shadow, affinity, etc without the right sideboard answers.
That also goes back to why I dislike wizards way of doing reprints. Standard right now is proving why modern level answers and removal are needed in a format along with the flexibility to play around those strong answers. If we didn't have Chalice of the Void, Blood Moon, etc, in modern the entire format would be unplayable. At the same time, if we had those and didn't have the variety of decks the format would also be unplayable.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
-Doubtful.
-Nope.
-Nope.
-Never.
-Never Ever.
Nothing is going to happen in August unless someone comes up with some radical warping tech in the next month and a half. In fact, baring a new broken deck, I predict there will be no B/R changes for Modern for the rest of 2017. The Jace-SFM-Twin train is permanently stuck in the station, guys.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I do want to make it clear this isn't me throwing a fit to ban things to accommodate the rise of Jund/Junk again, metas are cyclic.
I'm just mentioning that in all the articles, streams and pros opinions, the top decks have traditionally been matchups Jund has struggled with, no, they aren't all 35/60s, but I think when you're edging closer to more 40/60s than 50/50s, with some 45s/55 and 55/45, you're hurting yourself.
Jund seemed more viable when it had traditional Tron with some Titanshift in the mix, the added graveyard decks and extra big mana/eldrazi flavors is maybe a little too much
I don't expect Jund/Junk to be gone forever, but I'm definitely moving on for now.
Jund isn't good right now because Tarmogoyf isn't good right now. With Deathrite Shaman and Bloodbraid Elf on the banned list, there's no reason to play green over blue in a midrange deck. GDS is the new Jund. Until goyf gets good again or some elves come off the banned list, you'll have to get your Jund fix via Grixis.
Goyf was a headache when bolt was the best removal
I knew push would be the best removal, I didn't foresee how much worse it'd make Goyf, because it seemed too much of the "dies to doom-blade" argument
Yeah, I have grixis now, and it actually feels a lot like Jund. I haven't really gotten enough reps with it so I'm not very good with the deck just yet. The pro's make the deck look so easy.