Control just counters spells and draw cards.. no skill
Aggro just plays creatures and attack .. no skill
Midrange just goes t1 discard- t2 goyf-t3 lili .. no skill
Valakut just plays lands.. no skill
All decks draw cards and play the cards they draw.. all decks take no skill why do we even play this game.
Guys please opinions on japanese cards. Lost a 3/3 creature against Japan celestial colonade. This guy played all creatures and spells in english cards, but some cards in his manabase was japanese. I dont registrated this really ( my brain say its all fine and all english to me lets attack his empty board)...and i am sure it is a Kind of legal cheating. It is not ok, but i know legal. I Hate such people. I never forget colonade normally, but with this Tricks it can happen one time in 3 years and such people take advantage of this
If I am a customer spending premium amount of dollars, I expect a premium service. Jund falls into the category of a premium deck costing more dollars than a majority of the rest of the format. I'm not getting the desired performance ratio per dollars spent out of the Jund deck because WOTC decided to make the format more diverse.
Play all the time just don't think wizards need to ban anything anymore. Except in extreme situations like Eldrazi Winter.
I can see the mods think I was coming from an evil place but I wasn't. I see you have a lot of post and have been playing awhile so I was trying to get an idea of where thought that considering many cards have been banned already after the last modern PT. Legacy/vintage is still ( seeing bans/restrictions too and they aren't a PT format and it's even less of a gp format than modern if I'm not mistaken. WOTC isn't just going to stop regulating the formats just because they aren't pt formats.
It's all good. I just want a more hands off approach from wizards. I do fear that when standard gets better wizards will start interfering with modern to flush players back into standard.
"I do fear that when standard gets better wizards will start interfering with modern to flush players back into standard."
They are already doing a good job at that in how they are managing modern.
How is that at all true, Modern by all measures has only gained in popularity year after year. And many of the bannings in the format have aided in this as it has allowed for less established decks become playable by IEDS.
In some ways it is decent in some ways it is not. I guess that depends on how you look at it.
Control just counters spells and draw cards.. no skill
Aggro just plays creatures and attack .. no skill
Midrange just goes t1 discard- t2 goyf-t3 lili .. no skill
Valakut just plays lands.. no skill
All decks draw cards and play the cards they draw.. all decks take no skill why do we even play this game.
based off of my testing using bots with very limited strategical intelligence based off of approximately 100 games:
edit: only got to get games in, with the best of each archtypes deck.
Aggro( burn, merfolk, elves, affinity) - played with relative ease, almost felt like playing against a real person.
Big mana (valakut,eldrazi)- minor misplays( incorrect path targets). ramped, slapped fatty, and turned it sideways for the win.
Combo-( ad nauseum, dredge,knightfall, coco,storm) couldn't understand combos. but played the plan b game plan of coco/knightfall decently.
Midrange( ds decks, jund, abzan)- slapped threats easily, struggled with correct interactions in regards to what targets to fatal push, and cards to remove with thoughtsieze ect. but doable for casual gameplay.
Control- (uw control,jeskai control) struggled with counter spells and interacting on the stack, improper timing of wrath plays. struggled with correct removal interactions, used planeswalkers decently. but was generally playing very poorly.
Takeaways:
-Being proactive/linear takes less "processing" than being reactive.
-Interaction takes more "processing"
-Combo decks take more "Processing" to play than people think? however,to be fair the computer is not programmed to understand any combo interactions. with better programming this might be easily debunked. more so in regards to dredge/coco/ knightfall
I can see the mods think I was coming from an evil place but I wasn't. I see you have a lot of post and have been playing awhile so I was trying to get an idea of where thought that considering many cards have been banned already after the last modern PT. Legacy/vintage is still ( seeing bans/restrictions too and they aren't a PT format and it's even less of a gp format than modern if I'm not mistaken. WOTC isn't just going to stop regulating the formats just because they aren't pt formats.
It's all good. I just want a more hands off approach from wizards. I do fear that when standard gets better wizards will start interfering with modern to flush players back into standard.
"I do fear that when standard gets better wizards will start interfering with modern to flush players back into standard."
They are already doing a good job at that in how they are managing modern.
How is that at all true, Modern by all measures has only gained in popularity year after year. And many of the bannings in the format have aided in this as it has allowed for less established decks become playable by IEDS.
In some ways it is decent in some ways it is not. I guess that depends on how you look at it.
do we all have aspirations for modern that currently haven't come to fruition sure.
I personally would like to see U be good at the things its color is supposed to be good at, I don't think it will happen because great counters are not a aspect of Standard and great card draw hurts B based attrition strategies to much for it be allowed by the player base.
I would like to see lots of things that just are not likely to ever happen because the game has changed so much since I started playing and WotC just doesn't produce the game to behave in those ways anymore.
I would like to Modern move away from forced mulligans from hyper efficient cheap discard, as I don't think every game boiling down to top deck war by turn 4 is very skill intensive. Will not happen as people love those types of spells regardless of the impact it haves on the meta-game.
It's all good. I just want a more hands off approach from wizards. I do fear that when standard gets better wizards will start interfering with modern to flush players back into standard.
"I do fear that when standard gets better wizards will start interfering with modern to flush players back into standard."
They are already doing a good job at that in how they are managing modern.
How is that at all true, Modern by all measures has only gained in popularity year after year. And many of the bannings in the format have aided in this as it has allowed for less established decks become playable by IEDS.
In some ways it is decent in some ways it is not. I guess that depends on how you look at it.
do we all have aspirations for modern that currently haven't come to fruition sure.
I personally would like to see U be good at the things its color is supposed to be good at, I don't think it will happen because great counters are not a aspect of Standard and great card draw hurts B based attrition strategies to much for it be allowed by the player base.
I would like to see lots of things that just are not likely to ever happen because the game has changed so much since I started playing and WotC just doesn't produce the game to behave in those ways anymore.
I would like to Modern move away from forced mulligans from hyper efficient cheap discard, as I don't think every game boiling down to top deck war by turn 4 is very skill intensive. Will not happen as people love those types of spells regardless of the impact it haves on the meta-game.
Except this asperation shouldn't be aspired it should just BE.
There should be colour balance and there should be archtype balance but there is not.
I understand if someone wants Thier pet deck to get a new card/unban so it can be better. But this issue is much larger than that.
If you ask me it's incompetence on wizards behalf, and it shows in standard aswell. Thier staff is either overeworked or they are just bad at what they do.
People commentating scg yelling out don't make any changes the format is perfect. Well what happens when new sets come out? Changes! Almost every new set changes modern in some way so therefore I don't see a reason not to do some unbans if they don't need to be on the list.
"I do fear that when standard gets better wizards will start interfering with modern to flush players back into standard."
They are already doing a good job at that in how they are managing modern.
How is that at all true, Modern by all measures has only gained in popularity year after year. And many of the bannings in the format have aided in this as it has allowed for less established decks become playable by IEDS.
In some ways it is decent in some ways it is not. I guess that depends on how you look at it.
do we all have aspirations for modern that currently haven't come to fruition sure.
I personally would like to see U be good at the things its color is supposed to be good at, I don't think it will happen because great counters are not a aspect of Standard and great card draw hurts B based attrition strategies to much for it be allowed by the player base.
I would like to see lots of things that just are not likely to ever happen because the game has changed so much since I started playing and WotC just doesn't produce the game to behave in those ways anymore.
I would like to Modern move away from forced mulligans from hyper efficient cheap discard, as I don't think every game boiling down to top deck war by turn 4 is very skill intensive. Will not happen as people love those types of spells regardless of the impact it haves on the meta-game.
Except this asperation shouldn't be aspired it should just BE.
There should be colour balance and there should be archtype balance but there is not.
I understand if someone wants Thier pet deck to get a new card/unban so it can be better. But this issue is much larger than that.
I think that my aspiration for the most part don't line up with overall magic design. Most of the problems that the kind of strategies I enjoy suffer from is a kind of lost identity for U WotC decided that they wanted creature based mid-range to be the main draw for Standard. U being good in the ways it used to be was antithetical to mid-range strategies and I understand this on a game theory level but I would like for WotC to at least cycle through various phases of Strategic Dominance in Standard to help enrich non-attrition based mid-range.
But that really is to my other point, I don't think that any new cards outside of this established norm would be acceptable to the player base. Part of IEDS relies on is the majority of players being happy or at least okay with the current situation in the Strategic Dominance spectrum of viable decks. Look at Treasure Cruise, the biggest crime it committed in Modern was that it invalidated all of the black based attrition decks, I think this would likely be true of any widely playable U modern card draw. Card draw in Modern is essentially only playable in a few types of decks UW can play Visions with a deck designed to try and make it to the late game, or mid-range Black based decks that run things like Painful Truths for the attrition mirrors and of course Bob. This is a identity crisis for U in Modern that I don't think would actually be accepted if reversed by WotC anyways as the one time in a long time that WotC printed a card powerful enough in U to make U a player in Modern it was rejected by the players.
I don't see how we see WotC print Modern playable cards that don't in some way invalidate the very types of decks that the draw back in power level was designed to empower in first place? WotC has intentionally reduced the power level of essentially every thing in U's color identity because they are strong against the widely loved mid-range attrition strategies that are by design the main feature of most all modern decks.
I have had people criticize the dating of the article but I think it is actually the dating that makes it so informative as it was written at the time in magic design history that WotC started actively shifting the game into the direction it has headed ever since.
I also think that the opinions of a person like Ken Nagle on the issue of Mid-range and MTG game theory such as the bits about what make mid-range bad.
Nagle was and is still currently designing MTG sets, his credits are actually very enlightening when informed by his views given in the articles.
designing, Morningtide, Eventide, Shards of Alara, Conflux, Zendikar, Woldwake, Morrodin Besieged, New Phyrexia, Magic 2012, Avacyn Restored, return to Ravinica, Theros, Born of the God, Khans of Tarkir, Fate Reforged, Oath of the Gatewatch, Shadows over Innistrad, Eldritch Moon, Aether Revolt, Hour of Devastation, and Ixalan.
Sorry to put all that in but I want to deflect undue criticisms with a slight preemptive rebuttal.
edit: revomed conspiracy from the list because I intentionally ignored every other non-Modern legal set or product he was on the design team for.
True! They know the problem with colour balance since a while and dont stop printing better and cheaper answers in the best modern colour too. Best creatures in black and green...now best answer too like push and best tutors in green. Hey, they even try a cheaper wrath in black. I dont think they can solve the colour problem with this strategy
The color balance is not as bad as it seems. Blue is actually a strong color in modern and it only lacked a proper wincon such as death's shadow. White is the only color that seems to be behind only really being a color to splash path and sideboard cards.
The only reason that blue was percieved as a weak color is because people want it to showcase a strategy that only works in narrow formats. I blame a lot of this urge to want a true control deck on miracles. A lot of people would point to miracles and say that control works in legacy but why not in modern when in rrality miracles is a proactive deck. Miracles was a combo prison deck which was just as degenerate as the fast combo decks with insane answers like 1 mana wraths in terminus. For any deck to work in eternal formats you need to be proactive which is why blue has been combo/control, tempo decks, or u midrange throughout the history of vintage and legacy and it won't be any different in modern. This is seen in the twin era and now the grixis shadow era.
The color balance is not as bad as it seems. Blue is actually a strong color in modern and it only lacked a proper wincon such as death's shadow. White is the only color that seems to be behind only really being a color to splash path and sideboard cards.
The only reason that blue was percieved as a weak color is because people want it to showcase a strategy that only works in narrow formats. I blame a lot of this urge to want a true control deck on miracles. A lot of people would point to miracles and say that control works in legacy but why not in modern when in rrality miracles is a proactive deck. Miracles was a combo prison deck which was just as degenerate as the fast combo decks with insane answers like 1 mana wraths in terminus. For any deck to work in eternal formats you need to be proactive which is why blue has been combo/control, tempo decks, or u midrange throughout the history of vintage and legacy and it won't be any different in modern. This is seen in the twin era and now the grixis shadow era.
Grixis Shadow is good because of its black cards, not the blue ones.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
Lots of Grixis Shadow (about 20%) and then massive diversity below that. Interestingly, all the other DS decks failed to make Day 2 at all.
The Top 8/16/32 stats will clearly be more important, but Day 2 numbers provide a key baseline for calculating conversion ratess. DS making up more than 20% of the T8 or T16 would be worrisome and suggest overperformance on a Twin scale, and we all know how Wizards handled that in 2016. Underperformance would suggest that many showed up with the deck but that it isn't as strong as its Day 2 showing suggested.
The deck choice patterns of SCG tourneys really seem strange. It might reflect only my personal biases but it seems like there tends to be a preponderance of a certain deck at many of the events that often does not reflect reality.
Back before the git probe ban there was a period where everyone was jamming infect, everyone was jamming dredge, and the last couple tourneys were company and then now grixis shadow. The infect period was where it really seemed egregious, there was a short span of time where you'd see like 3 infect decks in the top 8 and everyone in the SCG coverage team was whining about it, but it was not reflected in the overall metagame.
I called it out explicitly because the SCG tour seems to follow much different patterns than a GP. It could just be that there're a lot of the same folks and a higher ratio of them to non-regulars than pros to joes at GPs.
Ever played on a 9 round or more tournament? On the top tables and among the competive grinder the metagame is most of the time very narrow.
edit: for a just for fun or not so serious grinder you can play in modern what ever you want and will find a lot of decks viable. But SCG want promote there tour and there "vips" and the vips are serious spikes most of the time. so you see most of the time the tier 1 decks or the future tier1 decks.
edit2: I would love more data about decks and meta and win% like in hearthstone.
so you can better metagame as a player and as a company who want promote something like e sport in the future you have to invest more in game balance.
Wizards disabled MTGO replays, barred players from using data-scraper scripts, and asked websites to remove this data from its 2015 collection. Wizards does not want this data to exist in player hands, at least not with any considerable N.
PS: Also U colour is being represented by Grixis Shadow now and it's a kind of reconciliation for the Splinter Twin purge from Modern.
Which is sad because Shadow is primarily a Black deck that doesn't even want to play Lightning Bolt anymore. It's about as far away from a "Blue Snap-Bolt Tempo deck" as you could get.
PS: Also U colour is being represented by Grixis Shadow now and it's a kind of reconciliation for the Splinter Twin purge from Modern.
Which is sad because Shadow is primarily a Black deck that doesn't even want to play Lightning Bolt anymore. It's about as far away from a "Blue Snap-Bolt Tempo deck" as you could get.
I don't think it's a Black deck entirely. I mean it's core is, but Wizards is just going to be happy that there is a Tier 1 Snapcaster Mage attrition style deck. IMO, that's a fair assessment.
There's nothing wrong with liking the deck, but to assume that all Twin/Delver/Control players will embrace this deck as what they want out of a Snap/Bolt deck is really misrepresenting what all these decks do and how they operate. Shadow is a Thoughtseize/high value threat deck with a Black core and plays much more similarly to other black/BG decks than it does any blue/UR deck. You can be happy that Snapcaster Mage is in the deck, but it's a deck that plays nothing like the way UR Snapcaster decks usually want to play.
3% - Burn, Abzan Company, Living End, RG Scapeshift, Abzan Midrange, BG Midrange, Esper Control
First batch always seems wonky to me due to n=100, but apparently Grixis Shadow and Humans are enjoying the most success right now and are both +8% compared to last month. As someone mentioned earlier, WU players are probably branching out into Jeskai and Esper. Everything else is more or less what I'd expect. Keep enjoying yoú Modern weekend guys Any thoughts?
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern:WU WU Control | WBG Abzan Company Frontier:UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
I think using a deck like Shadow as an example of "positive blue color diversity" is both laughable and embarrassing. At this point, I'd rather play Bloo.
By the way, imagine how great tempo/Delver-like decks would be if TarmoDrake cost UR instead of 1UR. I mean, if BG can get Grim Flayer no problem, it doesn't seem unreasonable at all to make a mythic flyer that promotes playing the weakest cards in recent years of Magic.
Harlan Firer wins the SCG Modern Classic with Jeskai Control.
This guy was just a random dech tech highlight. Don't know where this info comes from, but it's unlikely the Classic has even finished yet (it's only 3pm EST).
On the other hand, I believe tht saying the deck is just a B deck and not a U one as well is laughable and embarassing.
This is a silly and pointless argument. We can agree to disagree, because this is going nowhere. But the bottom line is: The deck CAN exist without blue, the deck CANNOT exist without black. Blue is not an essential color to the deck, it's main gameplan, its win conditions, its primary disruption, or its primary answers.
You are a blue deck when your lands tap for blue mana and you cast blue spells.
I really find amusing that now that blue has multiple Tier 1 decks the "blue sucks" crowd's narrative shifts into "it's UB, not UR", "it's not pure control", "it's not blue" and other gems. I guess some people just want to complain... and that's fine as long as this thread isn't completely hijacked.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern:WU WU Control | WBG Abzan Company Frontier:UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
You are a blue deck when your lands tap for blue mana and you cast blue spells.
I really find amusing that now that blue has multiple Tier 1 decks the "blue sucks" crowd's narrative shifts into "it's UB, not UR", "it's not pure control", "it's not blue" and other gems. I guess some people just want to complain... and that's fine as long as this thread isn't completely hijacked.
deck's color identity is definetly not blue since
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Serum Vision
4 Thought Scour
are there only to help playing black cards.
the only blue cards in DS grixis are denials and rejections but i wouldn't call a deck blue only because 6 cards in the 60 it has
You are a blue deck when your lands tap for blue mana and you cast blue spells.
I really find amusing that now that blue has multiple Tier 1 decks the "blue sucks" crowd's narrative shifts into "it's UB, not UR", "it's not pure control", "it's not blue" and other gems. I guess some people just want to complain... and that's fine as long as this thread isn't completely hijacked.
The "blue sucks" narrative has taken many forms since Twin's banning. Ultimately, the only consistent argument behind the "blue sucks" camp is often "unban Twin because I want Twin," even if that narrative can go unspoken at times. There were certainly months where blue did suck, particularly from August 2016 through January 2017, but I imagine the narrative will continue until either Twin is unbanned or we get the equivalent of Modern Miracles. Personally, I just don't engage these posts if I want to talk about something else. Posters can only hijack a thread as much as one chooses to engage their arguments.
Watching Charlotte this weekend and the recent GP in the past, it's so puzzling to me that people still hold some odd Modern beliefs. There's the "ban Tron" camp, despite its negligent metagame presence. There's the "ban SSG" camp, despite its virtually nonexistent metagame presence. Then there's the "SFM too strong" camp, despite the far more powerful things most other top-tier decks are doing. Lots of strange cognitive dissonances in this format and its community.
by the way thread's title is state of modern not state of blue so we should talk about the health of the format as a whole
DS isn't healty since it warped the format and should go imho. why playing jund when ds jund is better? why playing grixis control when grixis shadow is better?? this is not something i'd call healty.
Aggro just plays creatures and attack .. no skill
Midrange just goes t1 discard- t2 goyf-t3 lili .. no skill
Valakut just plays lands.. no skill
All decks draw cards and play the cards they draw.. all decks take no skill why do we even play this game.
In some ways it is decent in some ways it is not. I guess that depends on how you look at it.
decks playing:
none
based off of my testing using bots with very limited strategical intelligence based off of approximately 100 games:
edit: only got to get games in, with the best of each archtypes deck.
Aggro( burn, merfolk, elves, affinity) - played with relative ease, almost felt like playing against a real person.
Big mana (valakut,eldrazi)- minor misplays( incorrect path targets). ramped, slapped fatty, and turned it sideways for the win.
Combo-( ad nauseum, dredge,knightfall, coco,storm) couldn't understand combos. but played the plan b game plan of coco/knightfall decently.
Midrange( ds decks, jund, abzan)- slapped threats easily, struggled with correct interactions in regards to what targets to fatal push, and cards to remove with thoughtsieze ect. but doable for casual gameplay.
Control- (uw control,jeskai control) struggled with counter spells and interacting on the stack, improper timing of wrath plays. struggled with correct removal interactions, used planeswalkers decently. but was generally playing very poorly.
Takeaways:
-Being proactive/linear takes less "processing" than being reactive.
-Interaction takes more "processing"
-Combo decks take more "Processing" to play than people think? however,to be fair the computer is not programmed to understand any combo interactions. with better programming this might be easily debunked. more so in regards to dredge/coco/ knightfall
decks playing:
none
do we all have aspirations for modern that currently haven't come to fruition sure.
I personally would like to see U be good at the things its color is supposed to be good at, I don't think it will happen because great counters are not a aspect of Standard and great card draw hurts B based attrition strategies to much for it be allowed by the player base.
I would like to see lots of things that just are not likely to ever happen because the game has changed so much since I started playing and WotC just doesn't produce the game to behave in those ways anymore.
I would like to Modern move away from forced mulligans from hyper efficient cheap discard, as I don't think every game boiling down to top deck war by turn 4 is very skill intensive. Will not happen as people love those types of spells regardless of the impact it haves on the meta-game.
Except this asperation shouldn't be aspired it should just BE.
There should be colour balance and there should be archtype balance but there is not.
I understand if someone wants Thier pet deck to get a new card/unban so it can be better. But this issue is much larger than that.
If you ask me it's incompetence on wizards behalf, and it shows in standard aswell. Thier staff is either overeworked or they are just bad at what they do.
decks playing:
none
I think that my aspiration for the most part don't line up with overall magic design. Most of the problems that the kind of strategies I enjoy suffer from is a kind of lost identity for U WotC decided that they wanted creature based mid-range to be the main draw for Standard. U being good in the ways it used to be was antithetical to mid-range strategies and I understand this on a game theory level but I would like for WotC to at least cycle through various phases of Strategic Dominance in Standard to help enrich non-attrition based mid-range.
But that really is to my other point, I don't think that any new cards outside of this established norm would be acceptable to the player base. Part of IEDS relies on is the majority of players being happy or at least okay with the current situation in the Strategic Dominance spectrum of viable decks. Look at Treasure Cruise, the biggest crime it committed in Modern was that it invalidated all of the black based attrition decks, I think this would likely be true of any widely playable U modern card draw. Card draw in Modern is essentially only playable in a few types of decks UW can play Visions with a deck designed to try and make it to the late game, or mid-range Black based decks that run things like Painful Truths for the attrition mirrors and of course Bob. This is a identity crisis for U in Modern that I don't think would actually be accepted if reversed by WotC anyways as the one time in a long time that WotC printed a card powerful enough in U to make U a player in Modern it was rejected by the players.
I don't see how we see WotC print Modern playable cards that don't in some way invalidate the very types of decks that the draw back in power level was designed to empower in first place? WotC has intentionally reduced the power level of essentially every thing in U's color identity because they are strong against the widely loved mid-range attrition strategies that are by design the main feature of most all modern decks.
This is in my opinion one of the most informative articles written about modern MTG design and game theory.http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/midrange-archetype-2007-03-26
I have had people criticize the dating of the article but I think it is actually the dating that makes it so informative as it was written at the time in magic design history that WotC started actively shifting the game into the direction it has headed ever since.
I also think that the opinions of a person like Ken Nagle on the issue of Mid-range and MTG game theory such as the bits about what make mid-range bad.
Nagle was and is still currently designing MTG sets, his credits are actually very enlightening when informed by his views given in the articles.
designing, Morningtide, Eventide, Shards of Alara, Conflux, Zendikar, Woldwake, Morrodin Besieged, New Phyrexia, Magic 2012, Avacyn Restored, return to Ravinica, Theros, Born of the God, Khans of Tarkir, Fate Reforged, Oath of the Gatewatch, Shadows over Innistrad, Eldritch Moon, Aether Revolt, Hour of Devastation, and Ixalan.
Sorry to put all that in but I want to deflect undue criticisms with a slight preemptive rebuttal.
edit: revomed conspiracy from the list because I intentionally ignored every other non-Modern legal set or product he was on the design team for.
The color balance is not as bad as it seems. Blue is actually a strong color in modern and it only lacked a proper wincon such as death's shadow. White is the only color that seems to be behind only really being a color to splash path and sideboard cards.
The only reason that blue was percieved as a weak color is because people want it to showcase a strategy that only works in narrow formats. I blame a lot of this urge to want a true control deck on miracles. A lot of people would point to miracles and say that control works in legacy but why not in modern when in rrality miracles is a proactive deck. Miracles was a combo prison deck which was just as degenerate as the fast combo decks with insane answers like 1 mana wraths in terminus. For any deck to work in eternal formats you need to be proactive which is why blue has been combo/control, tempo decks, or u midrange throughout the history of vintage and legacy and it won't be any different in modern. This is seen in the twin era and now the grixis shadow era.
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
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/4081_day_2_metagame_breakdown_.html
Lots of Grixis Shadow (about 20%) and then massive diversity below that. Interestingly, all the other DS decks failed to make Day 2 at all.
The Top 8/16/32 stats will clearly be more important, but Day 2 numbers provide a key baseline for calculating conversion ratess. DS making up more than 20% of the T8 or T16 would be worrisome and suggest overperformance on a Twin scale, and we all know how Wizards handled that in 2016. Underperformance would suggest that many showed up with the deck but that it isn't as strong as its Day 2 showing suggested.
Back before the git probe ban there was a period where everyone was jamming infect, everyone was jamming dredge, and the last couple tourneys were company and then now grixis shadow. The infect period was where it really seemed egregious, there was a short span of time where you'd see like 3 infect decks in the top 8 and everyone in the SCG coverage team was whining about it, but it was not reflected in the overall metagame.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Wizards disabled MTGO replays, barred players from using data-scraper scripts, and asked websites to remove this data from its 2015 collection. Wizards does not want this data to exist in player hands, at least not with any considerable N.
Which is sad because Shadow is primarily a Black deck that doesn't even want to play Lightning Bolt anymore. It's about as far away from a "Blue Snap-Bolt Tempo deck" as you could get.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
There's nothing wrong with liking the deck, but to assume that all Twin/Delver/Control players will embrace this deck as what they want out of a Snap/Bolt deck is really misrepresenting what all these decks do and how they operate. Shadow is a Thoughtseize/high value threat deck with a Black core and plays much more similarly to other black/BG decks than it does any blue/UR deck. You can be happy that Snapcaster Mage is in the deck, but it's a deck that plays nothing like the way UR Snapcaster decks usually want to play.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
- 15% - Grixis Shadow
- 9% - Humans
- 6% - Eldrazi Tron, UR Storm
- 5% - Affiniy, Dredge, Jeskai Control
- 4% - WB Taxes
- 3% - Burn, Abzan Company, Living End, RG Scapeshift, Abzan Midrange, BG Midrange, Esper Control
First batch always seems wonky to me due to n=100, but apparently Grixis Shadow and Humans are enjoying the most success right now and are both +8% compared to last month. As someone mentioned earlier, WU players are probably branching out into Jeskai and Esper. Everything else is more or less what I'd expect. Keep enjoying yoú Modern weekend guysFrontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
I think using a deck like Shadow as an example of "positive blue color diversity" is both laughable and embarrassing. At this point, I'd rather play Bloo.
By the way, imagine how great tempo/Delver-like decks would be if TarmoDrake cost UR instead of 1UR. I mean, if BG can get Grim Flayer no problem, it doesn't seem unreasonable at all to make a mythic flyer that promotes playing the weakest cards in recent years of Magic.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
This guy was just a random dech tech highlight. Don't know where this info comes from, but it's unlikely the Classic has even finished yet (it's only 3pm EST).
On the plus side, this guy shares my view on what decks to enjoy, and explains exactly why he's playing what he is and not Death's Shadow.: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/jeksai_control_with_harlan_fir.html
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
This is a silly and pointless argument. We can agree to disagree, because this is going nowhere. But the bottom line is: The deck CAN exist without blue, the deck CANNOT exist without black. Blue is not an essential color to the deck, it's main gameplan, its win conditions, its primary disruption, or its primary answers.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I really find amusing that now that blue has multiple Tier 1 decks the "blue sucks" crowd's narrative shifts into "it's UB, not UR", "it's not pure control", "it's not blue" and other gems. I guess some people just want to complain... and that's fine as long as this thread isn't completely hijacked.
Frontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Serum Vision
4 Thought Scour
are there only to help playing black cards.
the only blue cards in DS grixis are denials and rejections but i wouldn't call a deck blue only because 6 cards in the 60 it has
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
The "blue sucks" narrative has taken many forms since Twin's banning. Ultimately, the only consistent argument behind the "blue sucks" camp is often "unban Twin because I want Twin," even if that narrative can go unspoken at times. There were certainly months where blue did suck, particularly from August 2016 through January 2017, but I imagine the narrative will continue until either Twin is unbanned or we get the equivalent of Modern Miracles. Personally, I just don't engage these posts if I want to talk about something else. Posters can only hijack a thread as much as one chooses to engage their arguments.
Watching Charlotte this weekend and the recent GP in the past, it's so puzzling to me that people still hold some odd Modern beliefs. There's the "ban Tron" camp, despite its negligent metagame presence. There's the "ban SSG" camp, despite its virtually nonexistent metagame presence. Then there's the "SFM too strong" camp, despite the far more powerful things most other top-tier decks are doing. Lots of strange cognitive dissonances in this format and its community.
DS isn't healty since it warped the format and should go imho. why playing jund when ds jund is better? why playing grixis control when grixis shadow is better?? this is not something i'd call healty.
URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U
pauper:
UB Servitor Control
xenob8 : you know you are going to have a bad time when opponent starts with snow covered island
Frontier: UBR Grixis Control | BRG Jund Delirium