It's a much, much, much smaller and more dedicated community than you'd find anywhere in Magic. A Pro Tour would show you the same dedicated community but would also give you a much, much larger field.
But because of said "small and dedicated" part, it's more stremlined, it's more predictable and it's a lot easier to build a deck to hate it.
It is in no way indicative of what kind of meta you will find on paper. It is, at best, only a useful tool to find an efficient decklist that even then would likely need to be tweaked for your meta.
Realistically though, decks can be a lot more rigid and fit into the MTGO meta. For things like PTQ's you usually need a much more flexible deck - it's drastically harder to predict what you'll be against in a paper PTQ than if you were to play in a PE on MTGO.
How 'small' do you think MTGO is? I am willing to go out on a limb and say there are more people playing MTGO at anyone time then the majority of peoples LGS. Its like being at a large mid to high end tourny 24/7.
I was waiting for this. Anyone who doesnt play the cards you feel the deck should, you usually say its an awful replacement.
Innovation comes in many ways. The trick is having an open mind when that innovation comes your way.
Nice pick the low road and try to make me sound like an ass when you know exactly what I'm talking about. You sir would make a great politician.
Sometimes cards just aren't good. Its as simple as that. half the cards some people put in decks I wouldn't even draft. When a card/deck choice is obviously bad or worse than others it is bad.
In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
Same thing was said when some said, hey I'm going to completely jack up my manabase to play 4 Bant Charms in my Zoo deck. It worked. Granted there are alot of people in the TP rooms playing weird decks, but I've never ran into a crappy deck in a pe/de in any format.
Same thing was said when some said, hey I'm going to completely jack up my manabase to play 4 Bant Charms in my Zoo deck. It worked. Granted there are alot of people in the TP rooms playing weird decks, but I've never ran into a crappy deck in a pe/de in any format.
Thats far from true. Bant charm has been a card of choice for zoo decks fighting a format ruled by combo for a few years now.
I don't play on MTGO anymore, but from different tournament results I could compile quite this list of jank that shows up in daily events.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
Yeah, but who started it? Just because it's been going for a while does it mean that no one had to think of that?
Well obviously someone started it. I can't figure out where the deck originally started. I get back to extended a few years back and I can't find a big pros name attached to it. Then I go back a page and find adds for buying zoos.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
Well, unfortunately we don't have a complete new meta until Nov 1, and even then I'd like at minimum a weeks worth of data before we present anything.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
ZOO and Affinity
Splinter-twin
Pod
Jund
Some sort of control
Storm(it will get bigger when people realize the bannings did very little)
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
Storm got slowed down a bit. Conditional ritual might be played, which will help.
I am wondering if they drop blue from Zoo. With the banning of GSZ will Zoo builds have the room to play the blue spells?
Twin just gets different cantrips and keeps rolling along.
Pod is untouched more or less.
Jund and Doran/rock decks will be able to be played now.
I expect some type of tempo/bounce control to pop up since true counter control is lacking. I think the changes in the format make UG Fae a bit stronger. At least the build played in Philly.
Storm got slowed down a bit. Conditional ritual might be played, which will help.
I am wondering if they drop blue from Zoo. With the banning of GSZ will Zoo builds have the room to play the blue spells?
Twin just gets different cantrips and keeps rolling along.
Pod is untouched more or less.
Jund and Doran/rock decks will be able to be played now.
I expect some type of tempo/bounce control to pop up since true counter control is lacking. I think the changes in the format make UG Fae a bit stronger. At least the build played in Philly.
I agree with true U-based control being banned. Some sort of faeries list is probably the best you can do. I think UR might be better though.
Honestly I think blue decks will still at least splash blue, because living end should get pretty big if zoo gets big. I don't know that they will have any blue in their main decks, but I figure a few counterspells in board would help that matchup. I also expect to see a lot of big zoo decks like kiblers deck from PT Austin a few years back.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
LOL..I didnt say blue was banned. It may be lacking in some ways but it is still playable.
You know what I meant by that lol. True U control doesn't have the cards is what that meant...I was agreeing with you.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
slipknot72102- you are one of the biggest advocates of controls beeing unplayable and uncompetitive and honestly I'm a little bit confused. I was reading Tezzerator thread, and i found few of your posts:
So what has happened? What has changed? Once you were saing that the biggest problem for control was 12 post - without him controls could exist. And now- 12 post is gone, combos are slower, and still you are saing that control is too weak to be played, format ist too fast etc
Honestly ;P Make up your mind
TBQH it is mostly wistful thinking. The deck is still terrible against zoo, but it wins sometimes. That's better than I was getting against 12post.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
<-- knows nothing about Tezz and is legitimately asking:
Isn't Ensnaring Bridge a hardcounter to Zoo decks and whatnot now that they don't have MD Pridemages? Some might have Maelstrom Pulse but I personally haven't seen any that had them MD. It seems like Tezz decks could sit back, keep a low hand, make a ton of 5/5s, steal dudes with Shackles, and eventually crush Zoo. They also have access to the Engineered Explosives and Academy Ruins "lock" if I'm not mistaken.
Again, I'm not claiming that this is true, I'm just asking if anyone's tried/tested this with any success.
<-- knows nothing about Tezz and is legitimately asking:
Isn't Ensnaring Bridge a hardcounter to Zoo decks and whatnot now that they don't have MD Pridemages? Some might have Maelstrom Pulse but I personally haven't seen any that had them MD. It seems like Tezz decks could sit back, keep a low hand, make a ton of 5/5s, steal dudes with Shackles, and eventually crush Zoo. They also have access to the Engineered Explosives and Academy Ruins "lock" if I'm not mistaken.
Again, I'm not claiming that this is true, I'm just asking if anyone's tried/tested this with any success.
In my testing you do decently on game 1. Its hard to have so few cards in hand that ensnaring bridge actually works unless you run something like bottled cloister which is pretty bad against some zoo builds, and almost every other deck. Its game 2 when they sideboard in artifact hate that you essentially have no chance. Also not to mention they also run a few Ghost quarters typically in board. If they get your academy ruins and crucible of worlds both in the yard then you can only draw noxious revival to set it all back up again...if you run it.
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In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
<-- knows nothing about Tezz and is legitimately asking:
Isn't Ensnaring Bridge a hardcounter to Zoo decks and whatnot now that they don't have MD Pridemages? Some might have Maelstrom Pulse but I personally haven't seen any that had them MD. It seems like Tezz decks could sit back, keep a low hand, make a ton of 5/5s, steal dudes with Shackles, and eventually crush Zoo. They also have access to the Engineered Explosives and Academy Ruins "lock" if I'm not mistaken.
Again, I'm not claiming that this is true, I'm just asking if anyone's tried/tested this with any success.
All of this stuff works, it's just very slow. Even if you drop Ensnaring Bridge on Turn 3 your hand is still going to have plenty of cards in it, and Zoo really only needs 4 ish turns to run you over. I played Planeswalker Stax in Legacy (where I leaned heavily on Ensnaring Bridge, Propaganda, Maze of Ith, and other lock pieces to keep me alive until I could drop Tezz/Jace) and it had the same problem. Even if I had the lock pieces I was often almost dead by the time they mattered, and then I would just get burned out.
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Legacy: UBRGW T.E.S. UUUSpiral Tide
Modern: UBR Grixis Control
EDH: UB Oona, Queen of the Fae
Combo is a part of magic. If you cant deal with combo then your not a magic player.
All of this stuff works, it's just very slow. Even if you drop Ensnaring Bridge on Turn 3 your hand is still going to have plenty of cards in it, and Zoo really only needs 4 ish turns to run you over. I played Planeswalker Stax in Legacy (where I leaned heavily on Ensnaring Bridge, Propaganda, Maze of Ith, and other lock pieces to keep me alive until I could drop Tezz/Jace) and it had the same problem. Even if I had the lock pieces I was often almost dead by the time they mattered, and then I would just get burned out.
Yes.
The problems with control are that everything Unfair that you can do happens so slow that you have already lost. that is the void left by the sword of the meek banning, not to mention chrome mox and seat of the synod. That was the closest thing to unfair that control could do and it was essentially a timely reinforcements that could actually win you the game late. Not to mention if gave you a reason to run gifts ungiven and uped your artifact count to run thirst for knowledge.
People say I'm dumb and I don't know anything when I say how bad control has got hosed by the ban list, but few people actually understand the loss of even seat of the synod. Control was nearly unplayable in the MRD^ extended season, and that was without the ban list.
In life all we can do is try to make things better. Sitting lost in old ways and fearing change only makes us outdated and ignorant.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.
To be fair Jace-Stoneforge decks dominated Extended once people realized how abusive the cards were. There's a reason why the cards were banned :P. Control hasn't exactly been "stuggling" in Extended lately. Most people assume that Jund and Fae will be the new decks of choice, so I'm pretty that Control will still have a strong showing in Extended. Still, that's neither here nor there.
The problem with artifact-based answers vs Zoo is that they have access to Qasali Pridemage game 1 and Ancient Grudge game 2. It's not where you really want to be after board.
How 'small' do you think MTGO is? I am willing to go out on a limb and say there are more people playing MTGO at anyone time then the majority of peoples LGS. Its like being at a large mid to high end tourny 24/7.
Nice pick the low road and try to make me sound like an ass when you know exactly what I'm talking about. You sir would make a great politician.
Sometimes cards just aren't good. Its as simple as that. half the cards some people put in decks I wouldn't even draft. When a card/deck choice is obviously bad or worse than others it is bad.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=519290
Thats far from true. Bant charm has been a card of choice for zoo decks fighting a format ruled by combo for a few years now.
I don't play on MTGO anymore, but from different tournament results I could compile quite this list of jank that shows up in daily events.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
On MTGO there are daily events that are 4 rounds. So it just means the decks that go through a daily losing only 0-1 matches.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=519290
Well obviously someone started it. I can't figure out where the deck originally started. I get back to extended a few years back and I can't find a big pros name attached to it. Then I go back a page and find adds for buying zoos.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=519290
"Blue Zoo" as an archetype comes from Legacy, not Extended afaik.
UBRGW T.E.S.
UUUSpiral Tide
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
EDH:
UB Oona, Queen of the Fae
Combo is a part of magic. If you cant deal with combo then your not a magic player.
I think you need to go back another year. I know that there where some that did well, but didn't make top 8 because of the draft rounds.
Yeah several decks in PT Berlin were charming zoo. Slightly hard to recognize, but they have 4 Tarmogoyf 4 Wild Nacatl, and burns spells.
Also I think it was charles gindy that started it. Or at least his playtest team.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
Can I speculate?
ZOO and Affinity
Splinter-twin
Pod
Jund
Some sort of control
Storm(it will get bigger when people realize the bannings did very little)
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
I am wondering if they drop blue from Zoo. With the banning of GSZ will Zoo builds have the room to play the blue spells?
Twin just gets different cantrips and keeps rolling along.
Pod is untouched more or less.
Jund and Doran/rock decks will be able to be played now.
I expect some type of tempo/bounce control to pop up since true counter control is lacking. I think the changes in the format make UG Fae a bit stronger. At least the build played in Philly.
I agree with true U-based control being banned. Some sort of faeries list is probably the best you can do. I think UR might be better though.
Honestly I think blue decks will still at least splash blue, because living end should get pretty big if zoo gets big. I don't know that they will have any blue in their main decks, but I figure a few counterspells in board would help that matchup. I also expect to see a lot of big zoo decks like kiblers deck from PT Austin a few years back.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
You know what I meant by that lol. True U control doesn't have the cards is what that meant...I was agreeing with you.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
TBQH it is mostly wistful thinking. The deck is still terrible against zoo, but it wins sometimes. That's better than I was getting against 12post.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
Isn't Ensnaring Bridge a hardcounter to Zoo decks and whatnot now that they don't have MD Pridemages? Some might have Maelstrom Pulse but I personally haven't seen any that had them MD. It seems like Tezz decks could sit back, keep a low hand, make a ton of 5/5s, steal dudes with Shackles, and eventually crush Zoo. They also have access to the Engineered Explosives and Academy Ruins "lock" if I'm not mistaken.
Again, I'm not claiming that this is true, I'm just asking if anyone's tried/tested this with any success.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
In my testing you do decently on game 1. Its hard to have so few cards in hand that ensnaring bridge actually works unless you run something like bottled cloister which is pretty bad against some zoo builds, and almost every other deck. Its game 2 when they sideboard in artifact hate that you essentially have no chance. Also not to mention they also run a few Ghost quarters typically in board. If they get your academy ruins and crucible of worlds both in the yard then you can only draw noxious revival to set it all back up again...if you run it.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
All of this stuff works, it's just very slow. Even if you drop Ensnaring Bridge on Turn 3 your hand is still going to have plenty of cards in it, and Zoo really only needs 4 ish turns to run you over. I played Planeswalker Stax in Legacy (where I leaned heavily on Ensnaring Bridge, Propaganda, Maze of Ith, and other lock pieces to keep me alive until I could drop Tezz/Jace) and it had the same problem. Even if I had the lock pieces I was often almost dead by the time they mattered, and then I would just get burned out.
UBRGW T.E.S.
UUUSpiral Tide
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
EDH:
UB Oona, Queen of the Fae
Combo is a part of magic. If you cant deal with combo then your not a magic player.
Yes.
The problems with control are that everything Unfair that you can do happens so slow that you have already lost. that is the void left by the sword of the meek banning, not to mention chrome mox and seat of the synod. That was the closest thing to unfair that control could do and it was essentially a timely reinforcements that could actually win you the game late. Not to mention if gave you a reason to run gifts ungiven and uped your artifact count to run thirst for knowledge.
People say I'm dumb and I don't know anything when I say how bad control has got hosed by the ban list, but few people actually understand the loss of even seat of the synod. Control was nearly unplayable in the MRD^ extended season, and that was without the ban list.
Albert Einstein
Thomas Jefferson
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
We Glare guys feel your pain, Tezzeret guys.