MTG Salvation

Since the PTQ results are starting to come in and since the old thread was largely pre-banlist discussion I think we can safely restart this thread.

I am attempting to keep the OP current with representitive lists if I can get them in a timely manner, but bear in mind that metagames differ, so what may be good in Brazil might face a different field in Canada.




Decks to Beat








Old Thread for Reference:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=355639

Select relevant quotes from the old thread:

Quote from DOLZero

I was digging through my lists and updating some decks, while removing others. Thought it might be interesting to see what archtypes everybody is testing against. My list is a little long and I dont usually get around to testing all of them thoroughly, so I will break it down into decks I definitely should test against (decks I expect to see at a PTQ) and decks that I want to test against (decks that I might see at a PTQ):

Definitely:
Jund
Blue Zoo
Gifts
Storm
Melira Pod
Twin

Maybe:
Rb Burn
Affinity
Hive Mind
Living End
Martyr
Elves
Boros
Teachings

I guess you could say that this is my list of decks to beat and decks to watch.

Quote from Ember_Twilight

Okay, so based on the Modern Daylies, here's what I see as the Modern Meta as of 1-8-12:

Red Affinity
Tez Affinity
Jund
UW Tron
Martyr Proc
White Weenie
Polymorph Token.dec
RDW (pure red, RB, RW, RU)
Tribal Zoo
Pyromancer Storm
Teachings
Splinter Twin
Melira Pod

Notable Rogues:

RUG
Sunnyside Up
Esper Gifts Reanimator
Mono-Blue Control
Faeries
Shaman Tribe
Hive Mind
Living End

Is that about right?

Quote from Goryus

Yes, that looks reasonable. But, I would caution you that the Modern dailies may not be representative of what people bring to PTQs.

That said, there wasn't a single Zoo deck in the top 8 of the Seattle PTQ.

Quote from maxmaceachern

What do you attribute a lack of Zoo in the top 8 of Seattle's PTQ to?

Quote from Tanarin

Lee_Sharpe Lee Sharpe
Top 8 decks at Seattle PTQ (Modern): 4x Affinity, Jund, Birthing Pod, UB aggro-control, and aggro-control planeswalkers.

Via twitter

My friend Top 4'd with his Bant "counter-cat" deck (4 counters main, 4 Mindbreak in sb). He told me his matchups included tribal zoo, hive mind, 2 twin combo, BUG, Melira pod (no storm or rdw for him lol).

WELL! Looks like affinity is getting banned

Quote from Catrix

WELL! Looks like affinity is getting banned

Affinity isn't even the best deck in the format...

Personally, the metagame right now to me looks like this:

Tier 1:
Jund
Zoo
Affinity
Storm
Twin
Melira Pod
UW Tron

Tier 2:
Delver Tempo (UB, RUG, BUG, Grixis... though this deck is very new and will most likely be Tier 1)
Twin Pod
Living End
Martyr-Proc
Teachings
Solar Flare
Red Variants (RB, Boros, RDW)

It will be intresting to see if merfolk played competitivly, they have been tearing up mtgo dailys.

Quote from danman

It will be intresting to see if merfolk played competitivly, they have been tearing up mtgo dailys.

I've never seen a format where the meta is so different on MTGO than in paper. White is all over the place online too but not getting much love from paper players.

Quote from the_cardfather

I've never seen a format where the meta is so different on MTGO than in paper. White is all over the place online too but not getting much love from paper players.

Yeah I'm expecting jund, zoo, affinity, pod and storm. But I'd love to see some rogue decks make an appereance. (Not that I consider Merfolk to be rogue)

Curious to see how the Ub tempo deck looks compared to what I have been working on.

Where are you guys seeing Grixis tempo? I've been keeping mine under-wraps locally but I'll share with you if you share your lists with me! =D


This is not the place for decklists that haven't placed well in a tournament. t_c

Quote from Koopa

. . . Personally, the metagame right now to me looks like this:

Tier 1:
Jund
Zoo
Affinity
Storm
Twin
Melira Pod
UW Tron

. . .

Wait, TRON is tier 1 now? Have I been living under a rock?

Quote from Raalic

Wait, TRON is tier 1 now? Have I been living under a rock?

I've been accused of such, but the best result I've seen for the deck so far is 4th place in a MTGO Premier event which is probably equal in skill/depth to a smaller PTQ. I think its showing up heavily in certain metas.

Quote from beanman1000

Curious to see how the Ub tempo deck looks compared to what I have been working on.

If you look around you'll find the threads you are looking for:

Grixis Tempo
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=381652

Quote from Raalic

Wait, TRON is tier 1 now? Have I been living under a rock?

Just goes to show how wide open the meta is, in my opinion. I'm looking forward to seeing not only the spread of the decklists, but how the win percentages among the varied decks are.

Wait, TRON is tier 1 now? Have I been living under a rock?

I think people are paying a lot more attention to the MTGO dailies then they deserve at the moment. They're 30-50 man tournaments with 4 rounds. People are grinding them for tix so a lot of the "top decks" might actually be top players playing deck x with good success. There's also the small point that players who want to PTQ with a deck generally won't want to go on MTGO and go 4-0 in dailies all month with it before their PTQ. It's a good indicator, but I think when we get some more PTQ top8s it'll be a better idea of the actual tiers.

There are a lot of variants and options in the format, they all have there strengths, but Im quite sure you can say what decks are the best already at this point.
Jund: Why play any other midrange strategy? Stupid inherent card advantage, universal answers, debilitating discard, reasonable clock. Secretly the best control deck.
Delver Tempo + Merfolk: In all its flavors, just the most efficient agro control cards.
Pod Decks: Creature combo is good cuz it can just win by beat down or out of nowhere.
Affinity +Boros+Zoo: Fastest posible agro decks.
Going into a tourney why would you play anything besides these?
Everything else is tier 1.5 because its easily disrupted, too clunky or just playing to fair.
I love me some U/Wx control but if I could afford Goyf I would play jund. Not playing Goyf decks just seems wrong more or less.

Quote from the_cardfather

If you look around you'll find the threads you are looking for:

Grixis Tempo
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=381652

Sorry, I should have specified the list from the top 8 at the PTQ. Seeing as it was classified as UB rather than grixis, I am curious to see what card choices they felt were advantagous enough to keep from splashing.

Quote from beanman1000

Sorry, I should have specified the list from the top 8 at the PTQ. Seeing as it was classified as UB rather than grixis, I am curious to see what card choices they felt were advantagous enough to keep from splashing.

Fair enough. I'll see what I can find. The poster right after you posted up a random Grixis list (which I redacted), so that link was for him as well.

---------------

This is a strange meta because a lot of people are playing somewhat budget decks because they don't want to commit to the format, or they don't want to commit to a deck until they know thier choice isn't really a fad deck, or a deck that will be tier 2 when/if the meta becomes less diverse.

This is a strange meta because a lot of people are playing somewhat budget decks because they don't want to commit to the format, or they don't want to commit to a deck until they know thier choice isn't really a fad deck, or a deck that will be tier 2 when/if the meta becomes less diverse.

Or get nailed with the banhammer. Who wants to buy a Reanimator, Tron, or Jund deck if Bloodbraid Elf and/or Gifts Ungiven get banned in March? There's going to have to be two or three cycles of banning announcements before people feel really confident in this meta.

Online PTQ currently in round 6. After five rounds the following decks are 5-0.

Mono Blue Faeries
Red Affinity
Melira Pod
GW Tokens
Mono U Merfolk
Bant Aggro
UW Control/Midrange (Hawks, Finks, Cliques, manlands, swords, and counters)

There looked to be plenty of Jund and Twin winning in the early rounds but seem to have all lost in the last round or two.

For me the top 2 decks are jund and twin. Jund can beat twin thanks to its discard compared to other aggro or midrange strategies.

Won by splinter twin and 3 twins on the top8. Not surprising. Let's see how this works out, but twin seems like the clear best combo deck in the format because of its resiliency against hate. In the final, it beat a deck with maindeck hate (soul warden) and sideboard hate in the form of gaddock teeg and ghostly prisons. But spellskite, firespout and echoing truth gave the tournament to the combo deck.

Quote from Pein

Won by splinter twin and 3 twins on the top8. Not surprising. Let's see how this works out, but twin seems like the clear best combo deck in the format because of its resiliency against hate. In the final, it beat a deck with maindeck hate (soul warden) and sideboard hate in the form of gaddock teeg and ghostly prisons. But spellskite, firespout and echoing truth gave the tournament to the combo deck.

You do realise that having hate is a guarantee of a better chance of winning, not actually winning the match up, right?

Looks like a very unexpected top 8 to me:

2 control decks
No spot for Jund
No fast aggro ala Affinity or Zoo

Beating Twin doesn't just require chucking a bit of hate in, it also requires a solid gameplan for interacting with it (since it needs to land a creature, has a plan of it's own to bounce your Torpor Orb etc). It'll ebb and flow in success according to the amount of respect it's given. It'll do very well right now because it had a bad worlds and people are just paying the match-up lip service.

Splinter Twin also took down a Canadian PTQ this weekend.

Quote from WTFernan

Yeah it was a very surprise for me too. I think that Jund is the most optimal deck right now (with all the discards cards it can beat splinter twin easily imo), and also surprising neither an affinity deck or a zoo one. We`ll see how today`s PTQ works out.
As for Splinter, i remember one game were he bounce the warden end of turn, plays the pestermite, and then next turn combo without danger. It is the best combo deck, by far. But as for the best deck of the format, is too soon to tell.

Yep, if you present one roadblock to Splinter Twin it's just slowing them a bit i.e. they go off once they have the bounce.

The way to beat twin is to either do something with the bit of time you buy, or buy enough time anyway (double up on the hate, just make sure it's diverse so you don't lose to echoing truth).

Jund = discard their combo piece and they need to spend turns digging for another. Apply enough pressure and they may run out the creature unprotected and you terminate it.

Zoo = Canonist or Gaddock Teeg and aggro = they're forced to run it out there before they have mana to roil AND pestermite. So you path them.

Affinity = I usually bring in Canonist and Torpor Orb. I'm sure you can guess by now the plan being that I buy enough time to kill them or force them to go off and hope I 'don't have it' (Galvanic/Shrapnel Blast/Dispatch? You Betcha).

Clear plans, not just hate. This isn't Dredge where you mull down for Leyline to auto win

PTQ 3290352 (1/15) ongoing now, but the T8:

1. Faeries (same player as 3rd from yesterday's PTQ)
2. Twin
3. Jund
4. Boros Deck Wins (seen this guy in the DEs, although slightly different deck)
5. Affinity
6. UWg CawBlade/AggroControl (same player as 5th from yesterday's PTQ)
7. Melira
8. Jund