Its pretty unbearable to watch work. At least with Lantern you know when to scoop.
KCI is way better than Lantern for closing. It has a series of demonstrable loops that shortcut to a win. Stubborn and mad Lantern opponents won't concede against that deck. Even stubborn and mad KCI opponents lose to a demonstrated repeatable loop. I also think Nass and Elsik in all their publicized wins were well under time in matches.
people know when to scoop with lantern? we must be thinking of different decks. it has way worse of a problem with people not identifying when they are beat. kci is just newer(ish).
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Double KCI is reeeeally impressive. That's clearly my top contender for secret best deck in the format.
Jeskai and GDS in the T8 of a gigantic GP? And it's a hard control version of Jeskai? Seems like blue is doing just fine and seems like the Jeskai naysayers were dealt a serious blow to their arguments. This also aligns with SCG results, which deals yet another blow to some of the common arguments in this thread.
Humans beats KCI (Emmy) 2-1.
GDS vs Devoted Company is 1-1.
KCI vs UWR Control - 2-0 for KCI (and with that Sideboard, I'm not surprised)
G-Tron vs G-Tron - Who cares! lol
So its
Humans vs G-Tron
KCI vs GDS
Predictions, Humans vs GDS final.
EDIT: KCI is certainly the sleeper hit here. G-Tron, GDS, Humans, and UWR BECAUSE of Humans, are among the 'good decks' of the format.
Is KCI that good? Is it Lantern levels of Good? I dont know.
GDS is not a 'blue deck and blue mages should STFU' but I have it in Paper, maybe I should get it for MTGO and play around with it...
EDIT x 2: Tron in the final. Lol, people sleep on Tron so hard...
Humans beats KCI (Emmy) 2-1.
GDS vs Devoted Company is 1-1.
KCI vs UWR Control - 2-0 for KCI (and with that Sideboard, I'm not surprised)
G-Tron vs G-Tron - Who cares! lol
So its
Humans vs G-Tron
KCI vs GDS
Predictions, Humans vs GDS final.
EDIT: KCI is certainly the sleeper hit here. G-Tron, GDS, Humans, and UWR BECAUSE of Humans, are among the 'good decks' of the format.
Is KCI that good? Is it Lantern levels of Good? I dont know.
GDS is not a 'blue deck and blue mages should STFU' but I have it in Paper, maybe I should get it for MTGO and play around with it...
EDIT x 2: Tron in the final. Lol, people sleep on Tron so hard...
Well Tron is favored against humans. Many humans players consider it their hardest common matchup so it's not exactly a surprise it won. I also wouldn't consider Tron a deck people are sleeping on. It's a popular known deck that just doesn't put up results very often.
I think people downplay just how good it is though, I know we talked about this a few pages ago here, but Ulamog/World Breaker/Ugin pushed it to another level.
If we wanted to talk a 'real' tier 1 in terms of power.
Tron, xDS, Mardu, and Humans is probably it.
Is KCI there? I dont know. I have only played it a few times but I play hurkyl's recall in my decks for things like Affinity and Lantern already...
EDIT: Really curious on the top 16, the win and in's looked like more Tron/KCI.
KCI certainly has the power and speed. i wasnt kidding about mox opal and stirrings. they are outliers in power level within the format, and a deck that can use them both gets a considerable edge (ie lantern). the 'egg's let it dig through its deck and it has a tutor and methods to recur pieces from the GY. the fact that it gets to exploit EE being a 0 cost artifact is a factor as well.
it does take some skill to play though, but probably not as much as lantern might. there are just a lot of weird, non-intuitive interactions such as the timing of sphere and star adding mana/drawing cards and the stacking of triggers.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
I think people downplay just how good it is though, I know we talked about this a few pages ago here, but Ulamog/World Breaker/Ugin pushed it to another level.
If we wanted to talk a 'real' tier 1 in terms of power.
Tron, xDS, Mardu, and Humans is probably it.
Is KCI there? I dont know. I have only played it a few times but I play hurkyl's recall in my decks for things like Affinity and Lantern already...
EDIT: Really curious on the top 16, the win and in's looked like more Tron/KCI.
Why are you not counting UWx Control? It's the only deck that's been in the Top 8 of each and every one of the last 4-5 big Modern events: This Grand Prix, SCG Minneapolis, GP Toronto (if you want to count a team event), MKM Hamburg, and SCG Louisville.
What makes UWx a meta deck as opposed to KCI, Mardu, or even Tron. Tron in particular seems like a meta deck when the meta is filled with humans and UWx
Is KCI that good? Is it Lantern levels of Good? I dont know.
It absolutely is. However if anyone thinks Lantern is challanging to play, KCI is probably a good 5 steps up. It's an extremely challanging deck to play well. Not hard to play averagely, but to do it well? That's skill. That's why it's Nass and Elsik one see's doing well with it. Combo players to the Nth degree.
Question:
If WOTC were to ban a card out of humans what card would it be?
I am not calling for a ban at all but I own the humans deck and am a bit worried about it. I've been hit by to many bans to not be worried a bit. My thought is meddling mage or thalia's lieutenant, I really hope it is not noble, aether vial or cavern of souls.
Meddling mage eh?
Interesting. Only because I was listening to the GAM podcast the other day and Gerry was speaking about how he thinks Meddling Mage is a garbage card and a relic from when the deck was originally made to beat Storm. Now that no one but Caleb and Paul are regularly winning with Storm, he's pretty firm on them needing to go. Though I don't recall what his suggestions were to replace it.
why are you guys saying UWx. its jeskai control doing good. decks like UW, or even UR variants, are doing alright; but it isnt on the same level.
most every deck will wax and wane depending on whats going on. some decks are less affected than others. humans is an example of a deck that is proving to be very resilient; which isnt surprising given the near universal application of its disruption.
id consider jeskai control a tier 1 deck right now, but that may not be true a few months from now. past that there just isnt enough information on matchup win percentages to determine which decks have more bad matchups, therefore making them more susceptible to changes in the format.
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Power level. Without Humans, I dont think UWR has enough game against the other power decks to keep it up.
Right, but what makes Tron not a metagame deck then. It has a better matchup against humans than UWx and it has never done well in the past. That the current meta game is humans, UWx, mardu which are good matchups and little burn/storm which are bad matchups would seem to make it the real metagame deck.
Not that I want to start up more Tron discussion in here but I've seen this from a few people in here and I'm a bit confused by it. Why do people think Tron is great against Humans? It's a disruptive aggro deck that can kill by turn 4. The sweepers are great if you can land one but you only have 6, and again, they have disruption and pressure. You're powerless against their good draws. It's no better than 55% from the Tron side in my experience (45 matches played against the current iteration of the deck).
I agree and disagree about Jeskai just being a 'meta deck"; it is legitimately powerful and better at playing on the backfoot than any other deck I've known. On the
other hand, very reactive strategies are fundamentally at a disadvantage in Modern.
Jeskai Control does a lot of things well. Having ~8 burn spells and 4x Snapcaster Mage means you can cheese bad matchups out a non-zero amount of the time. You have one of the best sideboards in the format, though it could be argued that is a bare necessity for a deck that hopes to cover so many bases.
But really, the deck is full of good cards. Snapcaster Mage, Cryptic Command, Serum Visions, Lightning Bolt, Path to Exile, Search for Azcanta, Teferi, Supreme Verdict-- certainly an all-star cast. Not just that, but it's arguably the best deck for those cards to call home.
Without meaning to contradict everything I've just said, I don't think the Humans matchup is that great for Jeskai-- I'd peg it around 55/45 in favour of the control deck. Humans is really, really good, and their strong draws can make Jeskai look plain embarassing.
both you and sicsmoo pointed it out. thats the 'thing' with humans. its disruption is potent against almost any strategy conceivable, so even its presumably bad matchups arent that bad. it may or may not be too good, but its the closest thing we've seen to a 50/50 deck in a while.
edit: what i mean by 'too good' is when a deck is heavily favored against most things, but with maybe a few fringe bad matchups (such as eldrazi pre-ban). humans certainly isnt doing that.
Funny, we were thinking the same thing at the same time. I kind of chuckle when I hear people talk about their deck crushing Humans. Play some more matches and see if it holds true!
I'm a combo guy, but I couldn't fully follow the KCI in the finals. I don't expect a ban, I think the deck itself if fine enough. But I do expect some minor rules changes like WOTC does periodicly to fix things. Nass kept talking about taking advantage of some rules that no body initially understood to produce more mana. It reminded me of mogg fanatic killing two creatures or cascading into beck//call. This deck fine and would survive those small changes.
A bigger risk is the same thing that happened with second sunrise. New people playing it real slow and causing tournament problems could happen. I think the emrakul version we saw will be the version we see the most of moving forward because it's simpler and cleaner.
Not that I want to start up more Tron discussion in here but I've seen this from a few people in here and I'm a bit confused by it. Why do people think Tron is great against Humans? It's a disruptive aggro deck that can kill by turn 4. The sweepers are great if you can land one but you only have 6, and again, they have disruption and pressure. You're powerless against their good draws. It's no better than 55% from the Tron side in my experience (45 matches played against the current iteration of the deck).
All I know is that I really rarely lose to Humans while on Tron, and the various Humans players I've talked to think Tron is a terrible matchup from their end, with one declaring it their worst matchup.
But if one wants more direct information, the ability to kill by turn 4 doesn't mean they actually will; if they don't get the aggressive hand it'll take longer than that. So Tron can generally survive long enough to get one of their bombs down. And while it's true they "only" have 6 sweepers (though plenty of cantrips to find them with), Tron also has Wurmcoil Engine (Humans' only real out to it is Reflector Mage) and Walking Ballista to thwart Humans.
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KCI is way better than Lantern for closing. It has a series of demonstrable loops that shortcut to a win. Stubborn and mad Lantern opponents won't concede against that deck. Even stubborn and mad KCI opponents lose to a demonstrated repeatable loop. I also think Nass and Elsik in all their publicized wins were well under time in matches.
Spirits
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)KCI vs UWR Control!
GDS vs Devoted Company (1-0)
Humans vs KCI (Emmy) (1-1)
G-Tron vs G-Tron
Spirits
oh nice didnt know jeskai was in the running. /cheer
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gplv18-modern/top-8-decklists-2018-06-16
Spirits
Jeskai and GDS in the T8 of a gigantic GP? And it's a hard control version of Jeskai? Seems like blue is doing just fine and seems like the Jeskai naysayers were dealt a serious blow to their arguments. This also aligns with SCG results, which deals yet another blow to some of the common arguments in this thread.
Humans beats KCI (Emmy) 2-1.
GDS vs Devoted Company is 1-1.
KCI vs UWR Control - 2-0 for KCI (and with that Sideboard, I'm not surprised)
G-Tron vs G-Tron - Who cares! lol
So its
Humans vs G-Tron
KCI vs GDS
Predictions, Humans vs GDS final.
EDIT: KCI is certainly the sleeper hit here. G-Tron, GDS, Humans, and UWR BECAUSE of Humans, are among the 'good decks' of the format.
Is KCI that good? Is it Lantern levels of Good? I dont know.
GDS is not a 'blue deck and blue mages should STFU' but I have it in Paper, maybe I should get it for MTGO and play around with it...
EDIT x 2: Tron in the final. Lol, people sleep on Tron so hard...
Spirits
Well Tron is favored against humans. Many humans players consider it their hardest common matchup so it's not exactly a surprise it won. I also wouldn't consider Tron a deck people are sleeping on. It's a popular known deck that just doesn't put up results very often.
If we wanted to talk a 'real' tier 1 in terms of power.
Tron, xDS, Mardu, and Humans is probably it.
Is KCI there? I dont know. I have only played it a few times but I play hurkyl's recall in my decks for things like Affinity and Lantern already...
EDIT: Really curious on the top 16, the win and in's looked like more Tron/KCI.
Spirits
it does take some skill to play though, but probably not as much as lantern might. there are just a lot of weird, non-intuitive interactions such as the timing of sphere and star adding mana/drawing cards and the stacking of triggers.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Spirits
Spirits
It absolutely is. However if anyone thinks Lantern is challanging to play, KCI is probably a good 5 steps up. It's an extremely challanging deck to play well. Not hard to play averagely, but to do it well? That's skill. That's why it's Nass and Elsik one see's doing well with it. Combo players to the Nth degree.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
Meddling mage eh?
Interesting. Only because I was listening to the GAM podcast the other day and Gerry was speaking about how he thinks Meddling Mage is a garbage card and a relic from when the deck was originally made to beat Storm. Now that no one but Caleb and Paul are regularly winning with Storm, he's pretty firm on them needing to go. Though I don't recall what his suggestions were to replace it.
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
most every deck will wax and wane depending on whats going on. some decks are less affected than others. humans is an example of a deck that is proving to be very resilient; which isnt surprising given the near universal application of its disruption.
id consider jeskai control a tier 1 deck right now, but that may not be true a few months from now. past that there just isnt enough information on matchup win percentages to determine which decks have more bad matchups, therefore making them more susceptible to changes in the format.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Right, but what makes Tron not a metagame deck then. It has a better matchup against humans than UWx and it has never done well in the past. That the current meta game is humans, UWx, mardu which are good matchups and little burn/storm which are bad matchups would seem to make it the real metagame deck.
other hand, very reactive strategies are fundamentally at a disadvantage in Modern.
Jeskai Control does a lot of things well. Having ~8 burn spells and 4x Snapcaster Mage means you can cheese bad matchups out a non-zero amount of the time. You have one of the best sideboards in the format, though it could be argued that is a bare necessity for a deck that hopes to cover so many bases.
But really, the deck is full of good cards. Snapcaster Mage, Cryptic Command, Serum Visions, Lightning Bolt, Path to Exile, Search for Azcanta, Teferi, Supreme Verdict-- certainly an all-star cast. Not just that, but it's arguably the best deck for those cards to call home.
Without meaning to contradict everything I've just said, I don't think the Humans matchup is that great for Jeskai-- I'd peg it around 55/45 in favour of the control deck. Humans is really, really good, and their strong draws can make Jeskai look plain embarassing.
edit: what i mean by 'too good' is when a deck is heavily favored against most things, but with maybe a few fringe bad matchups (such as eldrazi pre-ban). humans certainly isnt doing that.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)A bigger risk is the same thing that happened with second sunrise. New people playing it real slow and causing tournament problems could happen. I think the emrakul version we saw will be the version we see the most of moving forward because it's simpler and cleaner.
But if one wants more direct information, the ability to kill by turn 4 doesn't mean they actually will; if they don't get the aggressive hand it'll take longer than that. So Tron can generally survive long enough to get one of their bombs down. And while it's true they "only" have 6 sweepers (though plenty of cantrips to find them with), Tron also has Wurmcoil Engine (Humans' only real out to it is Reflector Mage) and Walking Ballista to thwart Humans.