I did look through them. Decks with 0 SV run 4 Terminus on average. For 1 SV, it's 4 as well. For 2 SV, it's 3.5 Terminus. For 4 SV, it's 2.
Yes, so there's a very clear connection between how many SV you want and how many Terminus there are in your deck. If you're only running a couple Terminus you probably want 4 SV because it's the best cantrip in a vacuum, but if you're leaning all the way into the Terminus plan you want fewer of them and more Opt. And to be honest, I don't look at lists from major events that are running less than 4 Terminus, because those people are just wrong. Terminus is the reason why UW is so good right now, as you said earlier, and to maximize your odds of finding one when you need it you have to play 4 copies.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Well sure but should cards on the Ban List not be reelevated as the overall meta shifts? Although I suppose that can be solved as WOTC can do basically functional reprints.
looks like the results of GP hong kong are in (900 players):
top8:
bridgevine
humans
jund
jeskai tempo
humans
jeskai control (miracles)
tron
burn
top16:
bant company
bant spirits
goblins
jeskai control
humans
bant spirits
humans
humans
edit: note that the top 8 lists arent up on the mothership yet. they posted the 9-16 lists, and i pulled the others from the player profiles which had the version of jeskai each player was on.
It's so interesting how disparate the results can be in different regions. That's almost no blue control in that top 16, while 45% of the 3 bye pros at the European GP were on UW or Jeskai.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
It's so interesting how disparate the results can be in different regions. That's almost no blue control in that top 16, while 45% of the 3 bye pros at the European GP were on UW or Jeskai.
That T8, except for that weird Jeskai Tempo deck, is just a who's-who of top tier Modern strategies with a few tech innovations that deviate from traditional builds. This includes 4 Flayer in Jund or Bolt/Helix in that Miracles list. Overall, this could be a T8 in any SCG Open. MTGO event. or GP, with most of these lists having already appeared multiple times in previous such events. I'm not denying regional differences in many contexts, but this GP T8 seems fairly representative.
@ktk, twin is red, lol. /sarcasm
Fully agreed. 7 out of 8 decks are blue. Blue is literally the best colour atm.
Also, white in too many decks. Not sure about sfm.
Green and toolbox decks are literally dying for more than a year and GSZ at this point seems logical, but new creatures are going to be printed for sure.
And we know SCG will have a UWx deck or 2 in the top. Preordain and sadly SFM are likely nonstarters.
Yeah, I think all those cards are nonstarters for various reasons, ranging from perceived to actual issues. Blue and white-based decks just seem to be doing so well. But I do think that GSZ is an increasingly interesting and viable unban topic. Again, I'm not convinced it's a net benefit to the format. I'm a little worried about Elves, and don't think Titanshift and/or Amulet necessarily need to explore that possible upgrade. BG Rock with GSZ also feels strong. But it might give all those decks enough of a boost to make them more competitive than they are now. I don't know; I'm curious about arguments on both sides.
I think we're at a confident "No changes" for the upcoming B&R and have a visibly diverse metagame with tons of viable options. We'll see how the Modern-focused cards in Guilds changes the scene and check back in for B&R changes in early 2019.
I think we're at a confident "No changes" for the upcoming B&R and have a visibly diverse metagame with tons of viable options. We'll see how the Modern-focused cards in Guilds changes the scene and check back in for B&R changes in early 2019.
Let's be honest here, it's the same scenario I've said for at least the past year: nothing is going to be unbanned unless A) Wizards wants to shake up the format or B) Wizards has supplemental product to sell. But most importantly, it has to have maximum public image improvement.
There is no other reason they do anything, and their actions in the last 3 years showcase this.
Regardless of how tame or safe any card is, nothing is going to come off unless Wizards can benefit from it either financially or from a PR standpoint. It has absolutely nothing to do with actual format health or "safeness" of a card.
Honestly, I do not really see atm why Birthing Pod should remain banned, considering new stuff like Abrade and trophy. It would help toolbox become a thing again and it is not too strong considering what other decks are allowed to do in modern currently. It also would not slot in any current deck, as chord/company follows a different gameplan and deckbuilding restrictions.
They printed the fixed version Eldritch Evolution Pod is never coming back.
As for "design space", they apparently don't have a problem with spells despite Snapcaster Mage, for which almost the same reasoning may apply.
Outside of black-based removal, they have printed mostly awful and overcosted spells for years. The ones that do sneak through are usually an accident.
Well, I don't see Wizards unbanning anything blue or white for a while. Let's talk GSZ?
I don't think this precludes SFM because she doesn't slot into Miracles. On the contrary, it probably makes her an even better unban because you have to build a different deck with her, more of a tap-out tempo or midrange shell, which would undoubtedly cannibalize meta share from UW Miracles and Jeskai Control.
UWR has a very decent matchup vs Burn, given Helix and sideboard. UW doesn’t , but again, it has a strong sb vs Burn strategies, so it can be tuned according to the meta. Tron, meh, it’s not terrible either, even though mono-red is favoured. Burn is the usual: strong when you have good hands and don’t draw too many lands, a terrible choice otherwise.
UW has a good Burn matchup. Most lists run 1 to 3 Timely Reinforcements, sometimes main, you can Oust your own Snapcaster in a pinch, and we can stabilize and take a pretty firm control against them if we survive to the late game. Post board we get more cheap counter magic and the angels, which are just back breaking. I've several times had a Burn player run out of gas getting me to 1, and I cast Timely, then Snapped it back the next turn, followed up by a concession Baneslayer.
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Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
looks like strasky wins GP stockholm with bant spirits (consecutive GP top8s). 9-28 decklists are up, looks like another UW control and jund deck missed out on tiebreakers.
bridgevine showing up for both GPs. relatively poor showing for humans in stockholm, but it did well in hong kong. similarly UW control didnt show up in hong kong, but had a dominating performance in stockholm.
some notably missing decks are hollow one, mardu pyro, kci, and tron. (i know tron top8'd, and there was a single hollow one list) both mardu and tron have been on a downswing, but kci and hollow one are a different story. not enough to draw any conclusions, but noteworthy nonetheless.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Mardu was good in the Humans-shaped meta, but control has shifted the meta to a spot where Mardu is less good, even though it's not bad against control itself. It'll be interesting to see how the meta shifts when Guilds comes out. If BGx rises back to prominence, Mardu could find itself well positioned again.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Well, I don't see Wizards unbanning anything blue or white for a while. Let's talk GSZ?
I don't think this precludes SFM because she doesn't slot into Miracles. On the contrary, it probably makes her an even better unban because you have to build a different deck with her, more of a tap-out tempo or midrange shell, which would undoubtedly cannibalize meta share from UW Miracles and Jeskai Control.
Wizards R&D has shown that they are both not smart enough to recognize this, nor care enough to do anything about it. They look at data sheets of shared cards, GP Top 8s, and MTGO analysis numbers. Nobody who makes these decisions understand the inner workings of a deck, how it functions, or how it interacts with other decks.
well there will no doubt be a resurgence in bgx regardless of how good it ends up being, the hype alone will ensure some amount of inflation.
there are multiple decks right now that are particularly good at invalidating spot removal. spirits for example is a deck that could care less about the printing of a 2 mana removal spell. spirits and those other decks will ultimately be the hurdle bgx has to overcome.
i agree though, in a world where the bgx meta share is higher; mardu pyro isnt a bad spot to be. if tron takes an exaggerated dip thanks to the trophy scare, all the better.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
looks like strasky wins GP stockholm with bant spirits (consecutive GP top8s). 9-28 decklists are up, looks like another UW control and jund deck missed out on tiebreakers.
bridgevine showing up for both GPs. relatively poor showing for humans in stockholm, but it did well in hong kong. similarly UW control didnt show up in hong kong, but had a dominating performance in stockholm.
some notably missing decks are hollow one, mardu pyro, kci, and tron. (i know tron top8'd, and there was a single hollow one list) both mardu and tron have been on a downswing, but kci and hollow one are a different story. not enough to draw any conclusions, but noteworthy nonetheless.
As I've said before, the hyper-focused Hollow One lists are very flawed once opponents understand how the deck works and are no longer caught unawares by it anymore. You need multiple angles of attack and more singular recursive threats than you need FREE BOIS.
Mardu was good in the Humans-shaped meta, but control has shifted the meta to a spot where Mardu is less good, even though it's not bad against control itself. It'll be interesting to see how the meta shifts when Guilds comes out. If BGx rises back to prominence, Mardu could find itself well positioned again.
Mardu is 43.9% against Humans in the GP/SCG Open sample with 66 matches total. This is surprising to me and could represent some variance, but I also stand by a statement I made in another thread: Humans is a lot better than people think. I'm of the mindset that whatever you think your Humans matchup is, it's probably >5% worse than that if we really had a large sample. I expect the true Mard vs. Humans MWP is probably much closer to 50-50 than the Mardu pilots admit. As another example, Humans vs. UW Control is about 51% in Humans' favor with N=70 and that's supposed to be a good matchup. The only truly unfavorable matchup I've seen Humans hit is Jeskai vs. Humans, which is about 55% in Jeskai's favor (N=86). But that's still "only" a 45-55 slightly unfavored matchup when I expect many Jeskai pilots probably sell it as a 60-40 matchup. I think this all just speaks to the power of Humans and how people are less favored against Humans than they might believe.
As I've said before, the hyper-focused Hollow One lists are very flawed once opponents understand how the deck works and are no longer caught unawares by it anymore. You need multiple angles of attack and more singular recursive threats than you need FREE BOIS.
100% agreed.
The Humans discussion is also applicable to Spirits I think. Both can be a lot more explosive than most assume.
I hope BGx gets a real boost, I'll be on Blue Moon regardless.
2 Humans
2 Burn
1 Living End
1 Hardened Scales
1 UW Control
1 Storm
Burn and Grishoalbrand missed on breakers. From a format perspective, I'm comfortable affirming that the format is in a really great spot with viable decks across all archetypes and colors. I'm really excited for Guilds to offer some excellent Modern tech to boost up even more decks. From a B&R perspective, Stirrings decks have really fallen off since earlier this year, and that ban talk makes decreasing sense from a numbers perspective. The only unban that looks to be completely off the table is Preordain, given the success of various blue decks that will adopt Preordain to varying extents and with varying impact. 2018's overall results continue to suggest that GSZ could still be in the conversation, but I see both the risks and benefits of the card. SFM is less risky and would still probably be fine, but I can see likely scenarios where Wizards doesn't want more white cards at top tables to blunt aggressive strategies.
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Over-Extended/Modern Since 2010
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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
top8:
bridgevine
humans
jund
jeskai tempo
humans
jeskai control (miracles)
tron
burn
top16:
bant company
bant spirits
goblins
jeskai control
humans
bant spirits
humans
humans
edit: note that the top 8 lists arent up on the mothership yet. they posted the 9-16 lists, and i pulled the others from the player profiles which had the version of jeskai each player was on.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Probably UWR Queller?
Spirits
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
Should have Stockholm soon as well.
Spirits
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
That T8, except for that weird Jeskai Tempo deck, is just a who's-who of top tier Modern strategies with a few tech innovations that deviate from traditional builds. This includes 4 Flayer in Jund or Bolt/Helix in that Miracles list. Overall, this could be a T8 in any SCG Open. MTGO event. or GP, with most of these lists having already appeared multiple times in previous such events. I'm not denying regional differences in many contexts, but this GP T8 seems fairly representative.
Edit: Stockholm T8 is up
https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpsto18/top-8-decklists-grand-prix-stockholm-2018-2018-09-16
2 Bant Spirits
3 UW Control
1 Jeskai Control
1 Storm
1 Martyr Proc
Well, I don't see Wizards unbanning anything blue or white for a while. Let's talk GSZ?
Spirits
Yeah, I think all those cards are nonstarters for various reasons, ranging from perceived to actual issues. Blue and white-based decks just seem to be doing so well. But I do think that GSZ is an increasingly interesting and viable unban topic. Again, I'm not convinced it's a net benefit to the format. I'm a little worried about Elves, and don't think Titanshift and/or Amulet necessarily need to explore that possible upgrade. BG Rock with GSZ also feels strong. But it might give all those decks enough of a boost to make them more competitive than they are now. I don't know; I'm curious about arguments on both sides.
I think we're at a confident "No changes" for the upcoming B&R and have a visibly diverse metagame with tons of viable options. We'll see how the Modern-focused cards in Guilds changes the scene and check back in for B&R changes in early 2019.
Let's be honest here, it's the same scenario I've said for at least the past year: nothing is going to be unbanned unless A) Wizards wants to shake up the format or B) Wizards has supplemental product to sell. But most importantly, it has to have maximum public image improvement.
There is no other reason they do anything, and their actions in the last 3 years showcase this.
Regardless of how tame or safe any card is, nothing is going to come off unless Wizards can benefit from it either financially or from a PR standpoint. It has absolutely nothing to do with actual format health or "safeness" of a card.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Spirits
They printed the fixed version Eldritch Evolution Pod is never coming back.
Outside of black-based removal, they have printed mostly awful and overcosted spells for years. The ones that do sneak through are usually an accident.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
UW has a good Burn matchup. Most lists run 1 to 3 Timely Reinforcements, sometimes main, you can Oust your own Snapcaster in a pinch, and we can stabilize and take a pretty firm control against them if we survive to the late game. Post board we get more cheap counter magic and the angels, which are just back breaking. I've several times had a Burn player run out of gas getting me to 1, and I cast Timely, then Snapped it back the next turn, followed up by a concession Baneslayer.
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
https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpsto18/9th-28th-decklists-2018-09-16
bridgevine showing up for both GPs. relatively poor showing for humans in stockholm, but it did well in hong kong. similarly UW control didnt show up in hong kong, but had a dominating performance in stockholm.
some notably missing decks are hollow one, mardu pyro, kci, and tron. (i know tron top8'd, and there was a single hollow one list) both mardu and tron have been on a downswing, but kci and hollow one are a different story. not enough to draw any conclusions, but noteworthy nonetheless.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)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
Wizards R&D has shown that they are both not smart enough to recognize this, nor care enough to do anything about it. They look at data sheets of shared cards, GP Top 8s, and MTGO analysis numbers. Nobody who makes these decisions understand the inner workings of a deck, how it functions, or how it interacts with other decks.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
there are multiple decks right now that are particularly good at invalidating spot removal. spirits for example is a deck that could care less about the printing of a 2 mana removal spell. spirits and those other decks will ultimately be the hurdle bgx has to overcome.
i agree though, in a world where the bgx meta share is higher; mardu pyro isnt a bad spot to be. if tron takes an exaggerated dip thanks to the trophy scare, all the better.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)As I've said before, the hyper-focused Hollow One lists are very flawed once opponents understand how the deck works and are no longer caught unawares by it anymore. You need multiple angles of attack and more singular recursive threats than you need FREE BOIS.
Mardu is 43.9% against Humans in the GP/SCG Open sample with 66 matches total. This is surprising to me and could represent some variance, but I also stand by a statement I made in another thread: Humans is a lot better than people think. I'm of the mindset that whatever you think your Humans matchup is, it's probably >5% worse than that if we really had a large sample. I expect the true Mard vs. Humans MWP is probably much closer to 50-50 than the Mardu pilots admit. As another example, Humans vs. UW Control is about 51% in Humans' favor with N=70 and that's supposed to be a good matchup. The only truly unfavorable matchup I've seen Humans hit is Jeskai vs. Humans, which is about 55% in Jeskai's favor (N=86). But that's still "only" a 45-55 slightly unfavored matchup when I expect many Jeskai pilots probably sell it as a 60-40 matchup. I think this all just speaks to the power of Humans and how people are less favored against Humans than they might believe.
100% agreed.
The Humans discussion is also applicable to Spirits I think. Both can be a lot more explosive than most assume.
I hope BGx gets a real boost, I'll be on Blue Moon regardless.
Spirits
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/150918_syracuse.html
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/4438_top_16_modern_open_decklists.html
2 Humans
2 Burn
1 Living End
1 Hardened Scales
1 UW Control
1 Storm
Burn and Grishoalbrand missed on breakers. From a format perspective, I'm comfortable affirming that the format is in a really great spot with viable decks across all archetypes and colors. I'm really excited for Guilds to offer some excellent Modern tech to boost up even more decks. From a B&R perspective, Stirrings decks have really fallen off since earlier this year, and that ban talk makes decreasing sense from a numbers perspective. The only unban that looks to be completely off the table is Preordain, given the success of various blue decks that will adopt Preordain to varying extents and with varying impact. 2018's overall results continue to suggest that GSZ could still be in the conversation, but I see both the risks and benefits of the card. SFM is less risky and would still probably be fine, but I can see likely scenarios where Wizards doesn't want more white cards at top tables to blunt aggressive strategies.