I highly recommend against putting JTMS in Knightfall. Moreover, the execution of how to include JTMS in knightfall is questionable: you obviously want to be able to play 4x jace in a deck in order to test the card, but you are ignoring the negative effect of reducing the creature count for Coco by so much. By doing this, you've put in a good card that has next to no synergy in the deck at the cost of making one of the best cards in the deck significantly worse (the creature count needs to be close to 28+ for coco including dorks). All the builds presented are going to be debated, but the Knightfall list is pretty tight when it comes to non-creature slots (jace would have to replace coco essentially, and in this deck I can't see jace being better).
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Since I'm pretty much in the process of selling all my staples that aren't GBx and burn, I don't want to play blue control unless it offers something different than Jund/Junk/Shadow. I liked having Twin and GBx since outside a few decks they combated different things. If we get Jace, I feel it'll have most of the same matchups as Jund
"Since I'm pretty much in the process of selling all my staples that aren't GBx and burn"
I may be doing the same, if wizards thinks jace will help us I think they are mistaken and I dont have much confidecnce in them. we need to close out the game not durdle even further. especially with our crappy countermagic.
Shadow Jund seems like the only fast tier 1 deck right now, look at mtggoldfish right now, it's a bunch of slow decks with only Delver and Merfolk as tempo
If Shadow Jund has a bunch of 50/50s a bunch of 60/40s and only a few bad matchups, that's an issue. I'm currently foiling some of the Shadow pieces out though, gonna see where this goes. Only found 2 Death Shadow foils for reasonable prices, I'm not paying 40 dollars per piece unless it can reasonably prove to be safe from a ban.
I got to put in more games with my control deck than I have really been able to before yesterday, I got to play for a solid couple hours. I had been fine with Mana Leakand spells of that ilk, but my group doesn't sideboard, we don't want our meta to get inbred, so it is about the best possible maindeck. I know the issues here, I say it to explain why I didn't side in other spells.
Counterspellneeds to be in the format. I had t2 Delver swinging with all of the counterspells I could want (I saw 7 total in one game)and it didn't do enough because my opponent drew them again from Remand or got to be able to pay the tax. the games went long and I know part of it was on me and even more on the quirks of the group, but even in a format with as little mana as Modern often has, Leak just isn't good enough alone, nor is Remand. Counterspell proper is what is needed, or the Revolt equivalent
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I got to put in more games with my control deck than I have really been able to before yesterday, I got to play for a solid couple hours. I had been fine with Mana Leakand spells of that ilk, but my group doesn't sideboard, we don't want our meta to get inbred, so it is about the best possible maindeck. I know the issues here, I say it to explain why I didn't side in other spells.
Counterspellneeds to be in the format. I had t2 Delver swinging with all of the counterspells I could want (I saw 7 total in one game)and it didn't do enough because my opponent drew them again from Remand or got to be able to pay the tax. the games went long and I know part of it was on me and even more on the quirks of the group, but even in a format with as little mana as Modern often has, Leak just isn't good enough alone, nor is Remand. Counterspell proper is what is needed, or the Revolt equivalent
The quickest way for your meta to get inbred is to omit sideboards. Sideboards are meant to help you deal with strategies that attack from weird or unfair angles. The first person who shows up with Dredge, Bogles or any deck that plays magic on a slightly different access just cleans house. Sideboards are your friend in regulating degenerate activity.
Why should we take your word for needing Counterspell in the format when your limited testing ignores a key piece of the format? We play more games post-board than pre-board. Although I agree that Counterspell would be a welcome addition to the format, I highly doubt it solves much of blue's current "problem" in the format.
Since I'm pretty much in the process of selling all my staples that aren't GBx and burn, I don't want to play blue control unless it offers something different than Jund/Junk/Shadow. I liked having Twin and GBx since outside a few decks they combated different things. If we get Jace, I feel it'll have most of the same matchups as Jund
"Since I'm pretty much in the process of selling all my staples that aren't GBx and burn"
I may be doing the same, if wizards thinks jace will help us I think they are mistaken and I dont have much confidecnce in them. we need to close out the game not durdle even further. especially with our crappy countermagic.
Thing is, there is just no way we.get Twin back. Preordain is questionable on if it helps more than Jace, and if even the mighty Jace cannot help blue in 6 months, then I think that would send a very interesting message.
Personally, I think Jace is worth a few percentage points in some matches, but I'm not testing it much unless he's unbanned.
If Jace doesn't do it, then due to the fact I don't believe they will back off on Twin, it would be Preordain (meh) or they go nuts and give Dig. Which...would be funny.
If Jace is unbanned splinter twin would be pretty much be a guaranteed ban for a minimum of 3 years. Twin would be far too powerful boarding in Jace against the fair decks. It would be a mess. SFM with twin scares me, too. The next unban announcement could determine is twin stays banned for years to come
Thinking about the GP, I remember one poster saying that the level one players avoided playing Fatal Push thinking people would bring ramp decks in response to it's printing. This lead to an environment that was ripe for decks like Death's Shadow. Is it possible that Modern has finally gotten to a point where you just play the deck you know, and craft your sideboard to fight to meta, instead of trying to choose a meta deck? Before there where obvious boogie men in the format, but they've all been axed, neutered, or can be dealt with with crushing sideboard cards. It'd be a big milestone if Modern was actually at that point.
I had mused in that thread that Fatal push was incentivizing players into eldrazi/tron/valakut decks to some extent as a way of benefiting from both the depression on aggro decks, and the boost to midrange. What we witnessed was a deck vulnerable to fatal push get 3 copies into the top8 at least partially on the back of a strong eldrazi/tron matchup.
Some level 2 stuff going on there indicates to me the opposite of you conclusion: the only thing better than a great player who is a great pilot of their deck of choice is one who has those skills with a level 2 meta deck.
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Modern Decks
KnightfallGWUR
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Modern is definitely more of a play what you know format than trying to meta the room.
Playing Abzan Company for the very first time with a 0 and 2 start made me realize I was foolish for owning so many of the formats staples as a non investor/collector. You're going to be a way better player in this meta putting in months or years into a deck as opposed to trying to meta the room. If your deck is unplayable and atrocious in a certain meta that's one thing, but you really are better not being pulled into multiple directions.
I speculated on that level 2 call as well, since on the surface the deck looks weak to push, it may just be the deck is grossly on point period.
As to playing what you want or like, I consumed a ton of content during and after the GPs, and that was a key takeaway, from pro players and commentators. It's why, to me, Modern is the best format.
Unless you are on terrible jank, decks from Tier 1 to Creation, can all take an event.
We had 8 rack punt to miss top 8, turns was win and in to top 8, SCG regularly shows that even blue decks can top 8 or win.
For all of our individual bias and desires, Modern allows us to do that, and it's a feature many appreciate that we should keep in mind.
I forgot to add that additionally to getting in massive amounts of reps with your deck, consuming as many articles and videos and knowing what each deck does and it's outs are a huge part of it.
I understand you can level people for small edges, but had the meta ignored the possible meta game implications of Fatal Push, and played the card instead of hedging against ramp, it's possible Death's Shadow would not have been quite as impressive as it was.
Level 0: Fatal Push is a great card, I'll be playing x amount.
Level 1: I'll play Ramp to punish people playing Push.
Level 2: People may try to punish Fatal Push by playing Ramp. With that in mind I will not be playing a significant number of them.
Level 3: People will not be playing Push in fear of Ramp. I'll play a deck weak to Push and strong against Ramp to exploit this.
Level 4(?): Some people are going to play a strategy that punishes ramp, and hopes to dodge Fatal Push. I'll play Push to beat these people.
At the end of the day these "levels" seem to be cylindrical repeating themselves over and over. What I suspect is that it may just be better to play against the overall meta game than try to predict an inbred meta game. From what I see, when you make moves to try to predict a meta, you open new holes that other can exploit. If you just jam what you know (as long as it's a reasonable deck like idSurge pointed out) I really think people would see more success.
I never said tiers didn't matter, and I agree with you
Look at 2nd place though, all he plays is Merfolk, which is usually just a solid tier 2 deck, and he nearly took the whole tournament. He didn't just get there by accident, he plays the deck obsessively and foiled the deck in all weebo.
The top 3 players were also world class, HOF players, Sam Black straight up outplayed every single person in that tournament, even in his losses.
If Ponder and Preordain are too efficient when it comes to hand sculpting, why are Inquisition and Thoughtseize not considered too powerful when it comes to hand dismantling?
Is it because ponder/preordain encourage a particular type of deck that wizards does not like, whereas the discard spells encourage a type of deck they do like?
I'd say we should bring back P+P as an experiment, and if anything goes wrong we can always ban them later (i mean, they are only 50 cent commons after all)
If Ponder and Preordain are too efficient when it comes to hand sculpting, why are Inquisition and Thoughtseize not considered too powerful when it comes to hand dismantling?
Is it because ponder/preordain encourage a particular type of deck that wizards does not like, whereas the discard spells encourage a type of deck they do like?
I'd say we should bring back P+P as an experiment, and if anything goes wrong we can always ban them later (i mean, they are only 50 cent commons after all)
P&P increased the consistency of combo decks, specifically blue-based combo decks. It has nothing to do with increasing consistency in a vacuum. It's that the cards increased consistency specifically for the combo decks. Wizards has said this in basically every article on the two cards, including their original justification:
A large number of blue-red combination decks kept the field less diverse. One thing that made them so efficient was the cards that would find their combinations. Ponder and Preordain were the most widely used of those cards. Banning these should make those combination decks somewhat less efficient without removing the possibility of playing them.
Discard doesn't factor into blue-red combination decks so Wizards doesn't care.
Those blue-based combo decks are all dead and gone now, but the irrational and largely unsupported fear of P&P, not to mention blue combo, still exists.
How much difference has the banlist order made? For example, what if Bitterblossom was always unbanned and a Faeries deck was a thing early on. Would Faeries be tier 2 today?
Popularity vs cream rising to the top.
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How much difference has the banlist order made? For example, what if Bitterblossom was always unbanned and a Faeries deck was a thing early on. Would Faeries be tier 2 today?
Popularity vs cream rising to the top.
Definitely! If Bitterblossom had been legal in Modern from the outset, Faeries would have probably been the deck to beat for the format's early life. It would also be pushing Tier 0 status right now unless Wizards banned a card or two from it.
the card itself really isn't worth the card board its printed on...does it serve a purpose? Sure its a blue 1 drop that might not be a 1/1. I would not put it in a list and expect to win a PTQ or GP though.
How much difference has the banlist order made? For example, what if Bitterblossom was always unbanned and a Faeries deck was a thing early on. Would Faeries be tier 2 today?
Popularity vs cream rising to the top.
Definitely! If Bitterblossom had been legal in Modern from the outset, Faeries would have probably been the deck to beat for the format's early life. It would also be pushing Tier 0 status right now unless Wizards banned a card or two from it.
thanks for the vote of confidence in the capabilities of the deck. Im sure if we had more people working on the deck tier 1 isnt a far stretch /s
Decks I have in my bag of tricks- Needless to say, someone who wants to play will probably have a deck UB/x Faeries UR Storm XURWB Affinity G Elves UW control
While Wizards has never done something like that, I'd really like to discuss the possibility of a Twin/Exarch swap unban/ban.
Would UR Twin and/or Grixis Twin still be viable options with only 4x Pestermite? (honestly asking ex-Twin players here)
My guess is no, which would mean Jeskai and RUG (which are colour combinations currently struggling) would be the go to Twin colours because of Village Bell-Ringer (which brings 4 toughness but a lot less utility than Exarch as it can't tap down lands or creatures and can't untap your own lands) and Bounding Krasis (which is more vulnerable (Bolt) but an ok tempo card).
I think there is no doubt that the Twin Combo gets worse without Exarch. Their tempo plan gets worse as they can't tap down your lands and we also just got another option to kill their creatures at only 1 mana (Push).
Grixis is currently the best URx reactive strategy and it would actually love having Twin back as it's a good MU that also keeps some of its bad MUs (big mana decks like Tron) in check meta wise.
From what I understand, the reasons that got Twin banned where not only because it was a too good deck, but also because it stifled diversity in the URx decks (or reactive blue decks in general, but that was also because other colour pairs where lacking good early removal). Grixis Control was popular for a few months until people realized 'why am I not just playing Grixis Twin?'.
If my assumptions are correct, a Twin/Exarch swap ban would leave us with a card on the ban list that looks absolutely hilarious there, yes. But I think chances are high that it will also lead to a healthier metagame. RUG/Jeskai Twin would force more linear decks to interact with them without invalidating ALL other URx decks because 'why not just play Twin'? Reactive Strategies would get a new good MU while big mana decks would get a bad one. Sounds promising to me.
Opions? Flaws in my thinking?
The real question is, "how come you weren't running Turns?"
No, that actually seems like a pretty sweet deck! I am tempted to build it right now. (probably would if I had Saheelis)
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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)
Modern is definitely more of a play what you know format than trying to meta the room.
Playing Abzan Company for the very first time with a 0 and 2 start made me realize I was foolish for owning so many of the formats staples as a non investor/collector. You're going to be a way better player in this meta putting in months or years into a deck as opposed to trying to meta the room. If your deck is unplayable and atrocious in a certain meta that's one thing, but you really are better not being pulled into multiple directions.
Play what you know, and if what you know is good you have a lot more chances than if what you know is garbage. I mean, we saw a GP full of people playing fringe decks they knew and then a group of pros playing an actual good deck that they had picked up some days earlier completely murdered the field. I think people are taking that effect the wrong way. The reason those fringe decks are playable, in the sense that you see them up there, even in the top8, is that there's a large percentage of the field playing equally bad decks and some of them will have the tournament of their lives and float up there.
If instead of 5 guys playing Death's Shadow this was a Pro-Tour and we had 70 guys playing Death's Shadow, it's not hard to imagine the fate of almost all of those players playing low tier 2 or tier 3 decks. In any case, yes, it is what it is, and reality is that half the field are straight bad or suboptimal decks, but that doesn't make the 1% of those suboptimal decks that float to the top on numbers any better than they fundamentally are.
you can perform well with many decks true, but there is a correlation between a tier 1 deck and its performances.
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I highly recommend against putting JTMS in Knightfall. Moreover, the execution of how to include JTMS in knightfall is questionable: you obviously want to be able to play 4x jace in a deck in order to test the card, but you are ignoring the negative effect of reducing the creature count for Coco by so much. By doing this, you've put in a good card that has next to no synergy in the deck at the cost of making one of the best cards in the deck significantly worse (the creature count needs to be close to 28+ for coco including dorks). All the builds presented are going to be debated, but the Knightfall list is pretty tight when it comes to non-creature slots (jace would have to replace coco essentially, and in this deck I can't see jace being better).
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
"Since I'm pretty much in the process of selling all my staples that aren't GBx and burn"
I may be doing the same, if wizards thinks jace will help us I think they are mistaken and I dont have much confidecnce in them. we need to close out the game not durdle even further. especially with our crappy countermagic.
decks playing:
none
If Shadow Jund has a bunch of 50/50s a bunch of 60/40s and only a few bad matchups, that's an issue. I'm currently foiling some of the Shadow pieces out though, gonna see where this goes. Only found 2 Death Shadow foils for reasonable prices, I'm not paying 40 dollars per piece unless it can reasonably prove to be safe from a ban.
Counterspellneeds to be in the format. I had t2 Delver swinging with all of the counterspells I could want (I saw 7 total in one game)and it didn't do enough because my opponent drew them again from Remand or got to be able to pay the tax. the games went long and I know part of it was on me and even more on the quirks of the group, but even in a format with as little mana as Modern often has, Leak just isn't good enough alone, nor is Remand. Counterspell proper is what is needed, or the Revolt equivalent
RGTron
UGInfect
URStorm
WUBRAd Nauseam
BRGrishoalbrand
URGScapeshift
WBGAbzan Company
WUBRGAmulet Titan
BRGLiving End
WGBogles
The quickest way for your meta to get inbred is to omit sideboards. Sideboards are meant to help you deal with strategies that attack from weird or unfair angles. The first person who shows up with Dredge, Bogles or any deck that plays magic on a slightly different access just cleans house. Sideboards are your friend in regulating degenerate activity.
Why should we take your word for needing Counterspell in the format when your limited testing ignores a key piece of the format? We play more games post-board than pre-board. Although I agree that Counterspell would be a welcome addition to the format, I highly doubt it solves much of blue's current "problem" in the format.
Thing is, there is just no way we.get Twin back. Preordain is questionable on if it helps more than Jace, and if even the mighty Jace cannot help blue in 6 months, then I think that would send a very interesting message.
Personally, I think Jace is worth a few percentage points in some matches, but I'm not testing it much unless he's unbanned.
If Jace doesn't do it, then due to the fact I don't believe they will back off on Twin, it would be Preordain (meh) or they go nuts and give Dig. Which...would be funny.
Spirits
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
Some level 2 stuff going on there indicates to me the opposite of you conclusion: the only thing better than a great player who is a great pilot of their deck of choice is one who has those skills with a level 2 meta deck.
KnightfallGWUR
Azorius Control UW
Burn RBG
Playing Abzan Company for the very first time with a 0 and 2 start made me realize I was foolish for owning so many of the formats staples as a non investor/collector. You're going to be a way better player in this meta putting in months or years into a deck as opposed to trying to meta the room. If your deck is unplayable and atrocious in a certain meta that's one thing, but you really are better not being pulled into multiple directions.
As to playing what you want or like, I consumed a ton of content during and after the GPs, and that was a key takeaway, from pro players and commentators. It's why, to me, Modern is the best format.
Unless you are on terrible jank, decks from Tier 1 to Creation, can all take an event.
We had 8 rack punt to miss top 8, turns was win and in to top 8, SCG regularly shows that even blue decks can top 8 or win.
For all of our individual bias and desires, Modern allows us to do that, and it's a feature many appreciate that we should keep in mind.
Spirits
Tier 3 decks can definitely hit a top 8
I forgot to add that additionally to getting in massive amounts of reps with your deck, consuming as many articles and videos and knowing what each deck does and it's outs are a huge part of it.
Level 0: Fatal Push is a great card, I'll be playing x amount.
Level 1: I'll play Ramp to punish people playing Push.
Level 2: People may try to punish Fatal Push by playing Ramp. With that in mind I will not be playing a significant number of them.
Level 3: People will not be playing Push in fear of Ramp. I'll play a deck weak to Push and strong against Ramp to exploit this.
Level 4(?): Some people are going to play a strategy that punishes ramp, and hopes to dodge Fatal Push. I'll play Push to beat these people.
At the end of the day these "levels" seem to be cylindrical repeating themselves over and over. What I suspect is that it may just be better to play against the overall meta game than try to predict an inbred meta game. From what I see, when you make moves to try to predict a meta, you open new holes that other can exploit. If you just jam what you know (as long as it's a reasonable deck like idSurge pointed out) I really think people would see more success.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
Look at 2nd place though, all he plays is Merfolk, which is usually just a solid tier 2 deck, and he nearly took the whole tournament. He didn't just get there by accident, he plays the deck obsessively and foiled the deck in all weebo.
The top 3 players were also world class, HOF players, Sam Black straight up outplayed every single person in that tournament, even in his losses.
If Ponder and Preordain are too efficient when it comes to hand sculpting, why are Inquisition and Thoughtseize not considered too powerful when it comes to hand dismantling?
Is it because ponder/preordain encourage a particular type of deck that wizards does not like, whereas the discard spells encourage a type of deck they do like?
I'd say we should bring back P+P as an experiment, and if anything goes wrong we can always ban them later (i mean, they are only 50 cent commons after all)
P&P increased the consistency of combo decks, specifically blue-based combo decks. It has nothing to do with increasing consistency in a vacuum. It's that the cards increased consistency specifically for the combo decks. Wizards has said this in basically every article on the two cards, including their original justification:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/explanation-september-2011-br-changes-2011-09-20-0
Discard doesn't factor into blue-red combination decks so Wizards doesn't care.
Those blue-based combo decks are all dead and gone now, but the irrational and largely unsupported fear of P&P, not to mention blue combo, still exists.
How much difference has the banlist order made? For example, what if Bitterblossom was always unbanned and a Faeries deck was a thing early on. Would Faeries be tier 2 today?
Popularity vs cream rising to the top.
David Ochoa: "Mono-bacon!..."
Counter-Cat
Colorless Eldrazi Stompy
thanks for the vote of confidence in the capabilities of the deck. Im sure if we had more people working on the deck tier 1 isnt a far stretch /s
UB/x Faeries
UR Storm
XURWB Affinity
G Elves
UW control
Would UR Twin and/or Grixis Twin still be viable options with only 4x Pestermite? (honestly asking ex-Twin players here)
My guess is no, which would mean Jeskai and RUG (which are colour combinations currently struggling) would be the go to Twin colours because of Village Bell-Ringer (which brings 4 toughness but a lot less utility than Exarch as it can't tap down lands or creatures and can't untap your own lands) and Bounding Krasis (which is more vulnerable (Bolt) but an ok tempo card).
I think there is no doubt that the Twin Combo gets worse without Exarch. Their tempo plan gets worse as they can't tap down your lands and we also just got another option to kill their creatures at only 1 mana (Push).
Grixis is currently the best URx reactive strategy and it would actually love having Twin back as it's a good MU that also keeps some of its bad MUs (big mana decks like Tron) in check meta wise.
From what I understand, the reasons that got Twin banned where not only because it was a too good deck, but also because it stifled diversity in the URx decks (or reactive blue decks in general, but that was also because other colour pairs where lacking good early removal). Grixis Control was popular for a few months until people realized 'why am I not just playing Grixis Twin?'.
If my assumptions are correct, a Twin/Exarch swap ban would leave us with a card on the ban list that looks absolutely hilarious there, yes. But I think chances are high that it will also lead to a healthier metagame. RUG/Jeskai Twin would force more linear decks to interact with them without invalidating ALL other URx decks because 'why not just play Twin'? Reactive Strategies would get a new good MU while big mana decks would get a bad one. Sounds promising to me.
Opions? Flaws in my thinking?
I still don't think it happens, but whatever.
A lot of people if I remember took up 10 slots with the combo.
4 Twin
4 Exarch
2 Mite
Swapping to RUG gets you Goyf, and is where I would probably go.
Either way, it would be a significantly less powerful deck without Exarch but viable.
Had a big laugh playing my Harbinger deck last night against what I though was Mono green ramp.
1 Noble
2 Oath of Nissa
3 Saheeli
4 Copy Cat.
I didn't have bolt in hand as I didn't think it was coming, and that was it.
In game one, they ramped to Prime Time so I had no reason to think Mono G was dropping Copy Cat, but ***** happens.
It would certainly be tier 2, if we got Twin back.
Spirits
No, that actually seems like a pretty sweet deck! I am tempted to build it right now. (probably would if I had Saheelis)
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)you can perform well with many decks true, but there is a correlation between a tier 1 deck and its performances.
decks playing:
none