I totally get your point as regards counterspells and no colourless mana added by pillar of the paruns. When you compare this to all the options they gave to creature-based decks, this is indeed outrageous ! Please wizards if you read us, make something about this
If you think that you can't run more than 2 Jace's or your counterspells will be useless, you're not doing yourself any favors. There are very few decks in Modern at this point where you lose the game if you tap out. Against those combo decks you already have 8-10 completely dead cards, and Jace can simply be played after you use your 1 counterspell to stop them from going off. Or you play it on turn 6 with Logic Knot. With so many dead cards, Jace's brainstorms become pretty close to Ancestral Recalls, not to mention the fateseal ability gives you the best lategame against those decks that we've ever had.
The other problematic deck to tap out against is Tron. But once again, you have dead cards to get rid of and the only way to win game 1 is to draw so many cards that you have answers for everything they're doing. This once again makes Jace a great card in those matchups.
Here's to hoping the card goes down in price; the sooner people get to try the card in large numbers, the sooner the optimal decks utilizing him can become Tier 1 in Modern.
Hundreds of pages ago a few of us talked about using Bant to break Revelation. I'm not certain that's exactly what's going on here, but if this shell can't break Revelation, I don't think anything can.
Yea I saw that. I've been brewing a little in a similar vein.
I'm surprised that time warp made it but temporal manipulation did not. The upside of miracle seems worth it to me, and this deck can afford casting a 7 mana time walk if it has to. That being said, 23 lands is a little low.
Not in love with the emrakul either, or the lack of countermagic, but I could see something like this working out alright.
I've backed out of inquisition. I've played a couple events now on 2 thoughtseize and a collective brutality. The ability to take cryptic or large creatures after bouncing them with Jace has been more relevant than the disruption to early curve from inquisition.
The flexibility of brutality makes me want to try dimir charm again.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
If you think that you can't run more than 2 Jace's or your counterspells will be useless, you're not doing yourself any favors. There are very few decks in Modern at this point where you lose the game if you tap out. Against those combo decks you already have 8-10 completely dead cards, and Jace can simply be played after you use your 1 counterspell to stop them from going off. Or you play it on turn 6 with Logic Knot. With so many dead cards, Jace's brainstorms become pretty close to Ancestral Recalls, not to mention the fateseal ability gives you the best lategame against those decks that we've ever had.
The other problematic deck to tap out against is Tron. But once again, you have dead cards to get rid of and the only way to win game 1 is to draw so many cards that you have answers for everything they're doing. This once again makes Jace a great card in those matchups.
Here's to hoping the card goes down in price; the sooner people get to try the card in large numbers, the sooner the optimal decks utilizing him can become Tier 1 in Modern.
No, my thoughts is rather that there are too many decks against which you cannot tap 4 mana on turn 4 (5 or 6) without risking to get a backfire straight in the face. We have so much digging power that I see jace more like a late game utility/ finisher which does not require many copies and to be honest the fewer finishers I put in this deck; the better it works.
I agree that IoK is pretty lackluster right now. It overlaps poorly with snare and fatal push (while generally being less desirable than them) and there are a couple of 4 drops that are everywhere right now.
If dimir charm was slightly better I could get behind it, but envelope feels like the only useful mode sometimes. It misses so many creatures and the fateseal mode just seems like a waste of a card even if it cost 0 mana.
For wafo, we don't really know.
Supposedly the mr.cafoulette (or whatever it was) account was not actually wafo (just a friend of his). We don't really know if wafo plays much modern, or what he's playing.
Not in love with the emrakul either, or the lack of countermagic, but I could see something like this working out alright.
I thought the same thing about Emrakul, but he has Instant, Sorcery, Creature, Land, and Planeswalker, all pretty easily dumped in the graveyard. If Emrakul costs as low as 8, he's probably going to played around turn 6-8 and basically 1-shots a combo deck. You probably kill them with Emrakul + Colonnade the following turn, and the majority of decks like Storm would be untapping with an empty hand. You could probably even flashback their Past in Flames and kill them instead of you Maybe it's too cute, but it might also be genius.
No, my thoughts is rather that there are too many decks against which you cannot tap 4 mana on turn 4 (5 or 6) without risking to get a backfire straight in the face. We have so much digging power that I see jace more like a late game utility/ finisher which does not require many copies and to be honest the fewer finishers I put in this deck; the better it works.
Not sure that you said anything different here, but OK. If you're afraid to slam Jace because you want to never let them resolve Liliana or a Collected Company, go ahead. These permanents are all easily answerable once you're drawing multiple cards each turn, though. If you've got the "afraid to tap out syndrome" you're probably also missing lines where you can hold up a Cryptic against a Jund deck with no board, or just give them 3 draw steps to hit something relevant with Colonnade attacks.
does anyone know if wafo-tapa has been playing some list recenently? I mean, after the unban? I'm kind of lost since then, so maybe good old MrChafoulette does have some old fashioned list to start working on...
Like Cody said, MrCaffouilette was another French player that was friends with Wafo. Gabriel Nassif and Guillame Matignon were laughing about it on a Nassif's stream. Wafo finished 10-1-5 at the PT in January but I haven't heard anything in regards to decklists. My guess is he drops MODO leagues at 4-0 like other pros to keep his tech from being public. I think it's possible this Bant deck from Guillame Matignon is the something a bunch of the French players are working on, for example.
Let me preface this by saying I'm not a very accomplished modern player, having mostly played std (I got into the format after standard started going down the toilet, and even then I haven't played in a super regular fashion). However, I had some decent MODO success with a draw-go Esper Jace shell. The trifecta of ancestral vision, esper charm and Jace has felt super powerful.
Charm emptying their hand into Jace fateseal is a pretty hard lock to get out of, but I suspect this is well known.
I posted about visions+Jace a couple of pages back and people were skeptical, but I found those cards can really complement each other. Filling your hand with answers prior to landing Jace has been super relevant. The burst of cards also lets you fateseal out of bolt range in situations where you'd normally have to brainstorm in order to fix your hand. Sure, its too slow vs something like burn, but against slower decks it's felt truly broken (though I have beat a couple of burn players on the back of surviving until the visions-Jace 2 punch comes online).
I don't quite remember the manabase or the sideboard (i copied them from some other deck I saw online), I only remember that it had the 4x field of ruin and 3x surgical extraction "combo" for tron/cavern of souls decks. The rest of the deck is as follows
I definitely remember seeing wafo's name at the pro tour, but I don't believe he was ever on camera, nor do we know what he played.
Its also quite possible he did well in limited and bombed in modern.
Wafo is z great guy but I do not think he has had many good results lately. Last two modern GPs I saw him were pretty miserable for him. He made day 2 each time but you should not forget he had three byes before starting and he just had the minimum required wins for day 2.
So are you running into a lot of blue mirrors and you're looking for a trump? I play on MODO and the metagame has become maybe 50% Blood Moon decks so I haven't been much concerned with mirrors. IF you are concerned, Anguished Unmaking is a great card, but Vendilion Clique is practically a combo with JAce, and I've been running 2 maindeck in every list since I started playing him. Not only does it block attackers, it strips card like Blood Moon so that you can actually tap out for the Jace the next turn.
Also, I played a UWR deck through a league the other day and had so much room in the aideboard that I tried out a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. Still haven't gotten to use it, but it should work well given how people are just slamming planeswalkers in mirrors, these days.
On another note, I don't find that Esper Charm synergizes with Jace at all, in fact I think the two are bumping shoulders, similar to Snapcaster and Jace.
So are you running into a lot of blue mirrors and you're looking for a trump? I play on MODO and the metagame has become maybe 50% Blood Moon decks so I haven't been much concerned with mirrors. IF you are concerned, Anguished Unmaking is a great card, but Vendilion Clique is practically a combo with JAce, and I've been running 2 maindeck in every list since I started playing him. Not only does it block attackers, it strips card like Blood Moon so that you can actually tap out for the Jace the next turn.
Also, I played a UWR deck through a league the other day and had so much room in the aideboard that I tried out a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. Still haven't gotten to use it, but it should work well given how people are just slamming planeswalkers in mirrors, these days.
On another note, I don't find that Esper Charm synergizes with Jace at all, in fact I think the two are bumping shoulders, similar to Snapcaster and Jace.
You must be playing in friendly leagues or having a bad string of MUs, because I’ve recorded almost 100 matches in comp since the unbanning and even POSSIBLE blood moon decks (stretching to include fetchless storm, every UR deck even though not all play it, et al) is still less than 15%.
Re: Esper charm + Jace, Esper charm dumps their hand, hits that blood moon you’re worried about, blows up D sphere on your jace, draws cards when you’re at parity, et al. Charm is more important now than ever, in my opinion.
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Yup, I played a list somewhat similar to the one @micarc posted, and found that the charm -> Jace line is very good. While I'd love to pair Esper charm with K-command, I'm skeptical of our mana can handle it. I'm still getting the feeling for the deck so I'll test pure esper a bit more, but I'd be very curious to see if the red splash is worth it.
You must be playing in friendly leagues or having a bad string of MUs, because I’ve recorded almost 100 matches in comp since the unbanning and even POSSIBLE blood moon decks (stretching to include fetchless storm, every UR deck even though not all play it, et al) is still less than 15%.
Re: Esper charm + Jace, Esper charm dumps their hand, hits that blood moon you’re worried about, blows up D sphere on your jace, draws cards when you’re at parity, et al. Charm is more important now than ever, in my opinion.
Competitive Leagues, obviously. 4 Ponza decks in last 2 Leagues, random unplayable decks with Blood Moon slotted in, etc. Variance happens.
Esper Charm doesn't dump their hand, it makes them choose 2 cards to discard. Only against a deck that's already dumped their hand on the battlefield is it going to make them hellbent, which is part of why I'm saying that board control matters more than cards in hand. Not going to beat the dead horse on the discard + Jace thing, but I gotta say that conflating discard with targeted discard is a mistake.
Not to go all pre-Jace, but Esper Charm into Verdict is a great way of making sure you don’t get destroyed T4-5 and gets around Vial super nicely.
Right, the card is great. My point was just that if you build around Jace then a lot of the classic Control cards seem like they're accomplishing the same goal but by taking a different route. If you had Clique, Esper Charm, and Jace in your hand, for example, you'll almost always end up playing the Jace on turn 3. The Esper Charm looks more and more each game like it doesn't fit in as well with the deck, which is why I cut it down to 2 and then 0.
But if you only run an opportunistic 1 or 2-of Jace then you're not expecting to maximize the cards effectiveness. It makes sense to keep the original shell and just slot the Jace in there. If that's the route you're going that's fine; I was only speaking to the clash between the two cards because Micarc specifically stated he was trying to break Jace in this deck. I understand not everyone will want or be able to afford 3-4 copies of Jace for what used to be a chain-draw deck with 3 sorceries.
I totally get your point as regards counterspells and no colourless mana added by pillar of the paruns. When you compare this to all the options they gave to creature-based decks, this is indeed outrageous ! Please wizards if you read us, make something about this
The other problematic deck to tap out against is Tron. But once again, you have dead cards to get rid of and the only way to win game 1 is to draw so many cards that you have answers for everything they're doing. This once again makes Jace a great card in those matchups.
Here's to hoping the card goes down in price; the sooner people get to try the card in large numbers, the sooner the optimal decks utilizing him can become Tier 1 in Modern.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/972247#online
Hundreds of pages ago a few of us talked about using Bant to break Revelation. I'm not certain that's exactly what's going on here, but if this shell can't break Revelation, I don't think anything can.
I'm surprised that time warp made it but temporal manipulation did not. The upside of miracle seems worth it to me, and this deck can afford casting a 7 mana time walk if it has to. That being said, 23 lands is a little low.
Not in love with the emrakul either, or the lack of countermagic, but I could see something like this working out alright.
The flexibility of brutality makes me want to try dimir charm again.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
No, my thoughts is rather that there are too many decks against which you cannot tap 4 mana on turn 4 (5 or 6) without risking to get a backfire straight in the face. We have so much digging power that I see jace more like a late game utility/ finisher which does not require many copies and to be honest the fewer finishers I put in this deck; the better it works.
If dimir charm was slightly better I could get behind it, but envelope feels like the only useful mode sometimes. It misses so many creatures and the fateseal mode just seems like a waste of a card even if it cost 0 mana.
For wafo, we don't really know.
Supposedly the mr.cafoulette (or whatever it was) account was not actually wafo (just a friend of his). We don't really know if wafo plays much modern, or what he's playing.
Not sure that you said anything different here, but OK. If you're afraid to slam Jace because you want to never let them resolve Liliana or a Collected Company, go ahead. These permanents are all easily answerable once you're drawing multiple cards each turn, though. If you've got the "afraid to tap out syndrome" you're probably also missing lines where you can hold up a Cryptic against a Jund deck with no board, or just give them 3 draw steps to hit something relevant with Colonnade attacks.
Like Cody said, MrCaffouilette was another French player that was friends with Wafo. Gabriel Nassif and Guillame Matignon were laughing about it on a Nassif's stream. Wafo finished 10-1-5 at the PT in January but I haven't heard anything in regards to decklists. My guess is he drops MODO leagues at 4-0 like other pros to keep his tech from being public. I think it's possible this Bant deck from Guillame Matignon is the something a bunch of the French players are working on, for example.
Charm emptying their hand into Jace fateseal is a pretty hard lock to get out of, but I suspect this is well known.
I posted about visions+Jace a couple of pages back and people were skeptical, but I found those cards can really complement each other. Filling your hand with answers prior to landing Jace has been super relevant. The burst of cards also lets you fateseal out of bolt range in situations where you'd normally have to brainstorm in order to fix your hand. Sure, its too slow vs something like burn, but against slower decks it's felt truly broken (though I have beat a couple of burn players on the back of surviving until the visions-Jace 2 punch comes online).
I don't quite remember the manabase or the sideboard (i copied them from some other deck I saw online), I only remember that it had the 4x field of ruin and 3x surgical extraction "combo" for tron/cavern of souls decks. The rest of the deck is as follows
3 Snapcaster Mage
Draw Spells (14)
4 ancestral vision
2 search for azcanta
4 Esper Charm
3 Jace, the mind sculptor
1 Sphinx's revelation
4 path to exile
4 fatal push
1 condemn
3 logic knot
4 Cryptic command
2 Supreme Verdict
If anyone who has better knowledge of the format and wants to help out a relative modern noob with MB/SB suggestions, please do
Are you sure about this? I searched the PT standings and it seems like Wafo didn't even play.
Its also quite possible he did well in limited and bombed in modern.
Also, I played a UWR deck through a league the other day and had so much room in the aideboard that I tried out a Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir. Still haven't gotten to use it, but it should work well given how people are just slamming planeswalkers in mirrors, these days.
On another note, I don't find that Esper Charm synergizes with Jace at all, in fact I think the two are bumping shoulders, similar to Snapcaster and Jace.
You must be playing in friendly leagues or having a bad string of MUs, because I’ve recorded almost 100 matches in comp since the unbanning and even POSSIBLE blood moon decks (stretching to include fetchless storm, every UR deck even though not all play it, et al) is still less than 15%.
Re: Esper charm + Jace, Esper charm dumps their hand, hits that blood moon you’re worried about, blows up D sphere on your jace, draws cards when you’re at parity, et al. Charm is more important now than ever, in my opinion.
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Esper Charm doesn't dump their hand, it makes them choose 2 cards to discard. Only against a deck that's already dumped their hand on the battlefield is it going to make them hellbent, which is part of why I'm saying that board control matters more than cards in hand. Not going to beat the dead horse on the discard + Jace thing, but I gotta say that conflating discard with targeted discard is a mistake.
But if you only run an opportunistic 1 or 2-of Jace then you're not expecting to maximize the cards effectiveness. It makes sense to keep the original shell and just slot the Jace in there. If that's the route you're going that's fine; I was only speaking to the clash between the two cards because Micarc specifically stated he was trying to break Jace in this deck. I understand not everyone will want or be able to afford 3-4 copies of Jace for what used to be a chain-draw deck with 3 sorceries.