Should WOTC just errata the rules on how to pay for spells to nerf KCI? I do not know any other deck that specifically relies on that feature (or flaw depending on one's perspective).
Should WOTC just errata the rules on how to pay for spells to nerf KCI? I do not know any other deck that specifically relies on that feature (or flaw depending on one's perspective).
Gosh, that would be huge! I'd rather just ban Stirrings. I don't want any ban, but before such a change I'd accept it gladly.
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Decks played: Modern:
0 Affinity;
URG Delver
URGW Countercats
(Here you can find some video contents about Countercats and Temur Delver decks)
From what I've seen, there are numerous illegitimate complaints about KCI (illegitimate insofar as they don't lead to bans) and one possible justification for worry. Illegitimate complaints include T4 rule violations (the deck appears to win on T3 even less than Infect or Storm, both of which are also top-tier), play experience being bad (subjective and this never mattered for top-tier Lantern), KCI being "too strong" (not played out in numbers as KCI has fallen off hard since earlier this year), the deck being non-intuitive (subjective, plus Modern is the format for weird decks to succeed and be viable), and others. Most of these failed critiques have a few commonalities: they are subjective, they don't have a banning precedent, and/or they aren't supported by GP/large event MTGO #s.
KCI's biggest concern is logistical. As the theory goes, a single KCI turn might take too long to play out. If a round has already gone to turns, this means a KCI pilot could get an untimed 15 minute turn that pushes the entire tournament behind. This would be even worse for an inexperienced KCI pilot who is fumbling through a winning turn. Tat said, this theory has yet to be proven, but it is at least a) provable through tournament and testing data, b) verifiable through on-the-ground tournament experience, and c) in line with the Sunrise precedent. I'd be interested in hearing objective and transparent analyses of this issue. Most other KCI complaints, however, are just typical Modern noise about certain players disliking certain decks.
I have been testing KCI non stop for the past month now. I would say it's 50% of my play testing time overall. I agree with you completely that it is NOT a rule violator. It does occasionally win on turn 3 with help from Mox Opal or Mind Stone. But it is suuuuuper consistent at going off on turn 4, mostly because there are something like 20 "eggs" in the deck, so it is essentially a 40 card or less deck. Engineered Explosives helps slow down decks that are faster than KCI. I would say it's even more consistent at the turn 4 than Storm in my own opinion of course. (I haven't played or tested Gifts Storm with Baral all that much though, so I definitely could be wrong.)
I personally don't think that the turns even take that long once you establish a loop. If there is a mistake made during the set up for the loop, then yes, it can take a bit longer than usual. If there are 15 neck beards breathing down your neck while a Judge is watching disgustingly at you, yes, turns can take a long time. I will admit that they can also take a long time when fighting through on board hate OR instant speed hate. But there is also a point where the opponent should concede in my opinion; maybe ask, "did you leave in Pyrite Spellbomb or have Sai for infinite ducks if you don't have a way to deal with them." Maybe I just haven't seen terrible KCI players? (at the last PPTQ, there was a kid on KCI and he did have some warnings from what I heard) This was the worst I heard all season.
All of what I said above makes it seem that KCI is much stronger than Storm, which it is, and other Combo decks. Why should it NOT be banned then? Because it also has a really rough time with a lot of hate. Have you ever felt the feel of a Stony Silence in play while your opponent kills you when you have sided in 4 Nature's Claim and 2 Natural State? Those things happen. Stony Silence, Rest in Peace, Gaddock Teeg, and other cards to a lesser extent all put a big damper in KCI's plan. This makes it not as resilient as some other Combo decks because you simply can't do anything. (If I can't cast a 100/100 Walking Ballista in Company, I can still Gavony Township 2 turns and kill you with creatures. Not so with KCI, although I did see that SCG vid where the KCI player won with a Scrap Trawler and Myr Retriever when the Jund opponent had no creatures, but all hate.
*Sorry, I just realized. I think that's the SB for Scales, not KCI. No Natural State in teh SB of KCI; got mixed up because I've been testing Scales too the past 2 weeks.
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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)
Should WOTC just errata the rules on how to pay for spells to nerf KCI? I do not know any other deck that specifically relies on that feature (or flaw depending on one's perspective).
Gosh, that would be huge! I'd rather just ban Stirrings. I don't want any ban, but before such a change I'd accept it gladly.
How would it be huge? 99.9% of the time a player pays the mana before casting the spell. No bans, stirrings opal etc all stay. The game receives clarity on a weird gray area that allows a deck to exist basically via loophole. Aside from the knee jerk reaction of "changing any rule ever would ruin the game," it's a non-issue. Rules change. Damage used to go on the stack.
I mean, you say "a lot" of hate, but it's mostly just, "Do you have removal for Stony?" Anything else can be dealt with eventually. Damping Sphere, RiP, Teeg, and Leylines can be dealt with, while single-use GY hate like Relic is almost worthless, and then actual artifact removal IS basically worthless, and apparently Extraction type effects are worse than useless. Saffron kept a hand with 2x Extraction, Damping Sphere, and Abrade; totally lost.
It's basically just "Play White or lose to KCI" right now, and even sometimes then you lose anyway. I dislike that effect on the meta, personally.
Isnt that usually how it goes when something degenerate goes down in Modern? Play White or win faster then they can are generally the options.
The problem with Humans is more then any other deck type it will always get better as WOTC will always print more Humans that is not even accounting for their love of tribal in general. We are unlikely to ever to go back to the days of bad creatures and great spells with a few broken artifact sets ever so often.
Isnt that usually how it goes when something degenerate goes down in Modern? Play White or win faster then they can are generally the options.
My baseline has always been, "Can Skred or Jund stop this combo deck? If not, then it shouldn't be Tier 1." That has held true for pretty much all of Modern the past few years, until now. I'm sure WotC uses different measures to judge Format Health of specific decks and all, but that's just how I've seen it.
KCI reminds me a lot of Amulet Bloom. I think it's secretly the strongest deck in Modern, but it's underplayed because it's so complicated, so it takes a lot of practice and a skilled pilot to reach its full potential.
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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
There are 150894 ways to stop KCI. The issue is only the time.
When the deck isn't losing to itself, if you're not resolving Stony Silence or killing on or before turn 3, you're going to have a hard time actually dealing with its recursion engine.
Probably doesn't help that the mechanics of how KCI's particular recursion engine works was confusing to even Pros...that just be my interpretation from watching people play against it.
KCI's recursion engine is a super intricate use of the game rules, I personally think it's really cool that the recursion engine hides in the minutiae of the rules, but that's just my opinion.
Of course people are going to be confused by it the first time they see it, the rules of Magic are hella confusing, even to professionals who are learning about a particular rule for the first time. Similar to explaining how Bolting a Goyf with 3 toughness but no Instants in the yard doesn't kill it. Doesn't make sense until you explain why.
I could see Wizards changing the rule to forcing people to pick an order for each action that produced mana to happen in, when paying for costs after declaring a spell to cast, and then having each trigger happen as if only that action and the ones chosen before it had taken place (basically expand the instantaneous action of mass-mana-production to multiple instantaneous actions of mana production and stack them on top of each other, with effects triggering in between). I'd be disappointed by stifling the incredible creativity that it took to come up with the recursion engine, but it's similar in my mind to the split-card change (though in my mind that was a much more confusing rule, especially for people who aren't into programming). A strategy is exploiting the way the rules are set up, and if Wizards thinks it goes beyond what is acceptable, the rule should be made more intuitive. I'd be sad to see such an interesting deck go, but sometimes the interesting decks aren't what's best for the format.
You don't have to beat KCI with only White SB cards. You can also play decks that are quicker than KCI - Infect, Grishoalbrand, GW Company, Storm, and probably some that I'm forgetting are all quicker than KCI. Besides, WHITE sideboard cards have always had a huge impact in Modern, namely Stony Silence and Rest in Peace.
I personally played a lot of Jeskai vs. KCI and I felt favored in that matchup. I beat my teammate something like 25 out of 35 matches in a 2 Thursday in 2 week testing period. You have to interact and then put a clock before you get buried in Buried Ruin/Inventor Fair activations. I don't know how UW does against them, but I assume it's somewhat fine. Sometimes you don't have Logic Knot and you lose, but often you have Logic Knot and a Cryptic or 2 and you get there after drawing into more permission.
KCI cannot be compared to Bloom because even I have to admit that Bloom killed earlier. The deck was way more explosive, even if technically KCI does "infinite" damage. It is somewhat annoying that they have infinite Engineered Explosives activations AND Pyrite Spellbomb activations. I guess honestly I've been mostly on the playing side of KCI or playing a quicker Combo deck, so I have a different experience. (I did get clobbered when I ran Bogles (barely) and Titanshift, but those decks don't hold a candle to KCI)
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)
UB Control destroys KCI, doubly so with the new card as well. Counter/Discard/Thought Scour > surgical your KCI and it's pretty much trivial to win from there assuming you had the foresight to board in such a way that you acknowledge that Sai is also a card. Now that we have 6+ Snap effect with Briefing and Unmoored Ego, I'm frothing at the mouth to just play KCI every round. In our local PPTQ I went 2-0, 2-0, against KCI in the Swiss. I've only lost against the deck once. Granted, you can say UB control is super niche, but I think it's probably one of the best meta decks right now. Crushing KCI, UW Control, and being fairly decent against Humans and other aggro strats (such as Spirits). As long as you can dodge having to play Tron/H1/HollowVine/Burn 2+ times in a long tournament then you should do very well (and burn is fairly close as well as long as you play 3+ Brutalities and some number of Kalitas).
UB Control destroys KCI, doubly so with the new card as well. Counter/Discard/Thought Scour > surgical your KCI and it's pretty much trivial to win from there assuming you had the foresight to board in such a way that you acknowledge that Sai is also a card. Now that we have 6+ Snap effect with Briefing and Unmoored Ego, I'm frothing at the mouth to just play KCI every round. In our local PPTQ I went 2-0, 2-0, against KCI in the Swiss. I've only lost against the deck once. Granted, you can say UB control is super niche, but I think it's probably one of the best meta decks right now. Crushing KCI, UW Control, and being fairly decent against Humans and other aggro strats (such as Spirits). As long as you can dodge having to play Tron/H1/HollowVine/Burn 2+ times in a long tournament then you should do very well (and burn is fairly close as well as long as you play 3+ Brutalities and some number of Kalitas).
Whats a UB list look like, I'm only familiar with Faeries.
UB Control destroys KCI, doubly so with the new card as well. Counter/Discard/Thought Scour > surgical your KCI and it's pretty much trivial to win from there assuming you had the foresight to board in such a way that you acknowledge that Sai is also a card. Now that we have 6+ Snap effect with Briefing and Unmoored Ego, I'm frothing at the mouth to just play KCI every round. In our local PPTQ I went 2-0, 2-0, against KCI in the Swiss. I've only lost against the deck once. Granted, you can say UB control is super niche, but I think it's probably one of the best meta decks right now. Crushing KCI, UW Control, and being fairly decent against Humans and other aggro strats (such as Spirits). As long as you can dodge having to play Tron/H1/HollowVine/Burn 2+ times in a long tournament then you should do very well (and burn is fairly close as well as long as you play 3+ Brutalities and some number of Kalitas).
Whats a UB list look like, I'm only familiar with Faeries.
I tightened up the list I won my PPTQ with and it looks like this right now:
That is a sweet list! Congrats on winning your PPTQ; much more than I could do this time.
Every time someone says that UB Control is viable in Modern, I am very unconvinced (being a super skeptical UB mage). Hopefully this and Guilds of Ravnica makes it a reality (cuz Mill is pretty played out and not really what I'm interested in playing).
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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)
That is a sweet list! Congrats on winning your PPTQ; much more than I could do this time.
Every time someone says that UB Control is viable in Modern, I am very unconvinced (being a super skeptical UB mage). Hopefully this and Guilds of Ravnica makes it a reality (cuz Mill is pretty played out and not really what I'm interested in playing).
It's definitely viable, but it's more difficult to play than UW control. I think Guilds gives it some upgrades for sure as while Gearhulk and Search can be good, more often they're just too slow even if you generally prolong the game enough for them to be very useful, and Briefing is more efficient and redundant making my SB cards much better (e.g. more likely to be able to recast Brutality on 4, Surgical on T2, Thoughtseize T3, etc.). Plus I think Insight is quite a bit better than Glimmer and if BGx gets more popular this card is bananas against them.
So, in regards of toolbox decks (and some more green decks), getting forced out of modern,
I was thinking that Coco/Chord/Evolution decks, are forced out of the meta, because they fold to combo plus Terminus is a thing.
Vs Terminus: Persist does not matter, indestructible does not matter, other similar mechanics do not matter. The powerful miracle sweeper just wipes them clean.
Those decks are powerful, but as long combos(mainly KCI), and Terminus are things, I can not see those decks returning to modern.
If this trend continues, Green Sun's Zenith should be the card unbanned together with Stoneforge Mystic in Modern, as early as the upcoming February.
I mean green creature strategies have pretty good answers to KCI, though notably many are also white - Teeg, Revoker, Damping Sphere, Thorn of Amethyst, etc. If you're also in white there are more good permanent based answers. If you can ever get the KCI in the GY then surgical also works, but not sure how effective that is. That's mostly just the nature of the beast though that green creature decks are weak to combo and control and beat up on aggro and other mid-range decks, UNLESS, you have Pod then you just beat mostly everything.
I think GSZ is perfectly fine in the format, though my only consternation with the card is that it gives Bogles a tiny weeny bit more consistency - also helps them grab Teeg post-board. Overall though, it's probably on the weaker side - probably with a slightly larger effect than the unban of Bitterblossom.
SFM is also an easy one to unban as well. I think they're more hesitant to unban SFM because its play patterns are extremely repetitive rather than any power concerns (my speculation anyways).
I'm not sure the Rock style decks would even want GSZ. Like, straight GB Rock just plays Tracker, Scooze, and Goyf, all three of which are powerful threats, so in most situations you won't really care which one of the three you have. In that case, you have to ask yourself whether you actually want to pay an extra mana to fetch your threat, and in a lot of cases I think the answer to that question is no. Maybe you'd play a copy or two, but I don't see GSZ being like a 4-of in GB decks.
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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
Toolbox decks are just worse versions of midrange decks. Rather than packing powerful generic answers, they have overall weaker answers that are very good in super specific scenarios. The only time that doesn't turn out to be the case is if the tutor card is so powerful it pushes out other midrange decks. This kinda goes back to an earlier discussion on strategy diversity where I posed the idea that at some point, the goal of diversity breaks down the categories into way too specific of items.
Toolbox decks are just worse versions of midrange decks. Rather than packing powerful generic answers, they have overall weaker answers that are very good in super specific scenarios. The only time that doesn't turn out to be the case is if the tutor card is so powerful it pushes out other midrange decks. This kinda goes back to an earlier discussion on strategy diversity where I posed the idea that at some point, the goal of diversity breaks down the categories into way too specific of items.
I disagree. Look at Birthing Pod. You'd probably say that Pod itself, being the tutor card, is super powerful. But if you look at it, it requires a creature already on the board plus 4 mana (if you count casting it), plus a good chunk of the deck to be designed around the whole +1 toughness mechanic. What made the Pod decks so good is that fact that it had so much flexibility and consistency, which is the innate power of a toolbox style deck. Its essentially a BGx shell with a toolbox put in.
Toolbox decks are just worse versions of midrange decks. Rather than packing powerful generic answers, they have overall weaker answers that are very good in super specific scenarios. The only time that doesn't turn out to be the case is if the tutor card is so powerful it pushes out other midrange decks. This kinda goes back to an earlier discussion on strategy diversity where I posed the idea that at some point, the goal of diversity breaks down the categories into way too specific of items.
I disagree. Look at Birthing Pod. You'd probably say that Pod itself, being the tutor card, is super powerful. But if you look at it, it requires a creature already on the board plus 4 mana (if you count casting it), plus a good chunk of the deck to be designed around the whole +1 toughness mechanic. What made the Pod decks so good is that fact that it had so much flexibility, which is the innate power of a toolbox style deck. Its essentially a BGx shell with a toolbox put in.
To be fair though, what really busted Pod was getting added to Abzan midrange. You got to play good, solid cards and have way more copies than anyone else. Repeatable tutors do enable toolbox decks, but they're much stronger in midrange decks as a support element or in combo decks. GSZ is probably fine in the current meta, since most of the cards you'd want to get with it are Push/Bolt/Path targets and frankly, green creature combo could probably use a shot in the arm.
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Gosh, that would be huge! I'd rather just ban Stirrings. I don't want any ban, but before such a change I'd accept it gladly.
Modern:
KCI's biggest concern is logistical. As the theory goes, a single KCI turn might take too long to play out. If a round has already gone to turns, this means a KCI pilot could get an untimed 15 minute turn that pushes the entire tournament behind. This would be even worse for an inexperienced KCI pilot who is fumbling through a winning turn. Tat said, this theory has yet to be proven, but it is at least a) provable through tournament and testing data, b) verifiable through on-the-ground tournament experience, and c) in line with the Sunrise precedent. I'd be interested in hearing objective and transparent analyses of this issue. Most other KCI complaints, however, are just typical Modern noise about certain players disliking certain decks.
I personally don't think that the turns even take that long once you establish a loop. If there is a mistake made during the set up for the loop, then yes, it can take a bit longer than usual. If there are 15 neck beards breathing down your neck while a Judge is watching disgustingly at you, yes, turns can take a long time. I will admit that they can also take a long time when fighting through on board hate OR instant speed hate. But there is also a point where the opponent should concede in my opinion; maybe ask, "did you leave in Pyrite Spellbomb or have Sai for infinite ducks if you don't have a way to deal with them." Maybe I just haven't seen terrible KCI players? (at the last PPTQ, there was a kid on KCI and he did have some warnings from what I heard) This was the worst I heard all season.
All of what I said above makes it seem that KCI is much stronger than Storm, which it is, and other Combo decks. Why should it NOT be banned then? Because it also has a really rough time with a lot of hate. Have you ever felt the feel of a Stony Silence in play while your opponent kills you when you have sided in 4 Nature's Claim and 2 Natural State? Those things happen. Stony Silence, Rest in Peace, Gaddock Teeg, and other cards to a lesser extent all put a big damper in KCI's plan. This makes it not as resilient as some other Combo decks because you simply can't do anything. (If I can't cast a 100/100 Walking Ballista in Company, I can still Gavony Township 2 turns and kill you with creatures. Not so with KCI, although I did see that SCG vid where the KCI player won with a Scrap Trawler and Myr Retriever when the Jund opponent had no creatures, but all hate.
*Sorry, I just realized. I think that's the SB for Scales, not KCI. No Natural State in teh SB of KCI; got mixed up because I've been testing Scales too the past 2 weeks.
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)How would it be huge? 99.9% of the time a player pays the mana before casting the spell. No bans, stirrings opal etc all stay. The game receives clarity on a weird gray area that allows a deck to exist basically via loophole. Aside from the knee jerk reaction of "changing any rule ever would ruin the game," it's a non-issue. Rules change. Damage used to go on the stack.
It's basically just "Play White or lose to KCI" right now, and even sometimes then you lose anyway. I dislike that effect on the meta, personally.
The problem with Humans is more then any other deck type it will always get better as WOTC will always print more Humans that is not even accounting for their love of tribal in general. We are unlikely to ever to go back to the days of bad creatures and great spells with a few broken artifact sets ever so often.
My baseline has always been, "Can Skred or Jund stop this combo deck? If not, then it shouldn't be Tier 1." That has held true for pretty much all of Modern the past few years, until now. I'm sure WotC uses different measures to judge Format Health of specific decks and all, but that's just how I've seen it.
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
When the deck isn't losing to itself, if you're not resolving Stony Silence or killing on or before turn 3, you're going to have a hard time actually dealing with its recursion engine.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Of course people are going to be confused by it the first time they see it, the rules of Magic are hella confusing, even to professionals who are learning about a particular rule for the first time. Similar to explaining how Bolting a Goyf with 3 toughness but no Instants in the yard doesn't kill it. Doesn't make sense until you explain why.
I could see Wizards changing the rule to forcing people to pick an order for each action that produced mana to happen in, when paying for costs after declaring a spell to cast, and then having each trigger happen as if only that action and the ones chosen before it had taken place (basically expand the instantaneous action of mass-mana-production to multiple instantaneous actions of mana production and stack them on top of each other, with effects triggering in between). I'd be disappointed by stifling the incredible creativity that it took to come up with the recursion engine, but it's similar in my mind to the split-card change (though in my mind that was a much more confusing rule, especially for people who aren't into programming). A strategy is exploiting the way the rules are set up, and if Wizards thinks it goes beyond what is acceptable, the rule should be made more intuitive. I'd be sad to see such an interesting deck go, but sometimes the interesting decks aren't what's best for the format.
I personally played a lot of Jeskai vs. KCI and I felt favored in that matchup. I beat my teammate something like 25 out of 35 matches in a 2 Thursday in 2 week testing period. You have to interact and then put a clock before you get buried in Buried Ruin/Inventor Fair activations. I don't know how UW does against them, but I assume it's somewhat fine. Sometimes you don't have Logic Knot and you lose, but often you have Logic Knot and a Cryptic or 2 and you get there after drawing into more permission.
KCI cannot be compared to Bloom because even I have to admit that Bloom killed earlier. The deck was way more explosive, even if technically KCI does "infinite" damage. It is somewhat annoying that they have infinite Engineered Explosives activations AND Pyrite Spellbomb activations. I guess honestly I've been mostly on the playing side of KCI or playing a quicker Combo deck, so I have a different experience. (I did get clobbered when I ran Bogles (barely) and Titanshift, but those decks don't hold a candle to KCI)
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)Whats a UB list look like, I'm only familiar with Faeries.
Spirits
I tightened up the list I won my PPTQ with and it looks like this right now:
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Vendillion Clique
1 Nimble Obstructionist
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Removal:
4 Fatal Push
2 Cast Down
1 Murderous Cut
2 Damnation
Counters:
1 Spell Snare
2 Countersquall
3 Cryptic Command
Discard:
3 Thoughtseize
Utility:
3 Thought Scour
1 Dimir Charm
1 Collective Brutality
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Search for Azcanta
1 Hieroglyphic Illumination
1 Glimmer of Genius
Lands:
4 Field of Ruin
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Creeping Tar Pit
1 River of Tears
2 Drowned Catacomb
2 Watery Grave
4 Island
2 Swamp
1 Dispel
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Disfigure
1 Cast Down
2 Collective Brutality
1 Flaying Tendrils
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Kalitas Traitor of Ghet
1 Vendillion Clique
After Guilds of Ravnica comes out I intend to:
-1 Gearhulk
-1 Search for Azcanta
-1 Glimmer
-1 Field of Ruin
for:
+2 Mission Briefing
+1 Chemister's Insight
+1 River of Tears
and SB:
-1 Disdainful Stroke
+1 Unmoored Ego
Possible I want to try a second Ego out in the board, but not entirely sure what to replace.
Every time someone says that UB Control is viable in Modern, I am very unconvinced (being a super skeptical UB mage). Hopefully this and Guilds of Ravnica makes it a reality (cuz Mill is pretty played out and not really what I'm interested in playing).
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)It's definitely viable, but it's more difficult to play than UW control. I think Guilds gives it some upgrades for sure as while Gearhulk and Search can be good, more often they're just too slow even if you generally prolong the game enough for them to be very useful, and Briefing is more efficient and redundant making my SB cards much better (e.g. more likely to be able to recast Brutality on 4, Surgical on T2, Thoughtseize T3, etc.). Plus I think Insight is quite a bit better than Glimmer and if BGx gets more popular this card is bananas against them.
I mean green creature strategies have pretty good answers to KCI, though notably many are also white - Teeg, Revoker, Damping Sphere, Thorn of Amethyst, etc. If you're also in white there are more good permanent based answers. If you can ever get the KCI in the GY then surgical also works, but not sure how effective that is. That's mostly just the nature of the beast though that green creature decks are weak to combo and control and beat up on aggro and other mid-range decks, UNLESS, you have Pod then you just beat mostly everything.
I think GSZ is perfectly fine in the format, though my only consternation with the card is that it gives Bogles a tiny weeny bit more consistency - also helps them grab Teeg post-board. Overall though, it's probably on the weaker side - probably with a slightly larger effect than the unban of Bitterblossom.
SFM is also an easy one to unban as well. I think they're more hesitant to unban SFM because its play patterns are extremely repetitive rather than any power concerns (my speculation anyways).
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
I disagree. Look at Birthing Pod. You'd probably say that Pod itself, being the tutor card, is super powerful. But if you look at it, it requires a creature already on the board plus 4 mana (if you count casting it), plus a good chunk of the deck to be designed around the whole +1 toughness mechanic. What made the Pod decks so good is that fact that it had so much flexibility and consistency, which is the innate power of a toolbox style deck. Its essentially a BGx shell with a toolbox put in.
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
To be fair though, what really busted Pod was getting added to Abzan midrange. You got to play good, solid cards and have way more copies than anyone else. Repeatable tutors do enable toolbox decks, but they're much stronger in midrange decks as a support element or in combo decks. GSZ is probably fine in the current meta, since most of the cards you'd want to get with it are Push/Bolt/Path targets and frankly, green creature combo could probably use a shot in the arm.