...Billion, Chalice is barely relevant in the format right now
The meta is cyclical. It will come back.
Also, others apparently agree with me as it was the 2nd most suggested card for banning during the last poll behind Eldrazi Temple
I agree with you on Chalice. The problem is that it just passively sits there and warps the game around it at potentially a very early point in the game. It also can make games turn into a coin flip where it's all about whether chalice lands or not, which is also why I don't like leylines. However, at least with the Leyline of Sanctity, it's a bit of a high variance affair since usually someone isn't running 4x of them, they are bad in multiples, and if one doesn't get it in their opening hand it comes down kind of late.
I normally stay out of this thread, but I have to disagree here. As uncomfortable to play against as Chalice may be, it's critical for allowing fair decks to exist in the format. In my experience, Chalice is most effective against decks that go all in on a combo. It primarily acts as a safety gauge on decks like Storm, or UG Infect. Those sorts of combo decks are usually unable to answer a Chalice in Game 1, and must dilute their gameplan to answer it or lose outright. Basically, when this card starts showing up in most deck lists, it's a signal that the format has gotten too fast and linear. Bannings are likely to follow. Value based decks get to run things like Abrupt Decay, Cyclonic Rift, Spell Snare, Engineered Explosives, Kolaghans's Command, etc. etc. to answer it. If you're unable to play around Chalice because of how all of your interaction is 1 cmc or whatever- that's on you as a deckbuilder. The only edge case where Chalice could be considered a problem IMO is Turn 1 Chalice on 1, and even then I still think there are enough answers available to answer it.
I normally stay out of this thread, but I have to disagree here. As uncomfortable to play against as Chalice may be, it's critical for allowing fair decks to exist in the format. In my experience, Chalice is most effective against decks that go all in on a combo. It primarily acts as a safety gauge on decks like Storm, or UG Infect. Those sorts of combo decks are usually unable to answer a Chalice in Game 1, and must dilute their gameplan to answer it or lose outright. Basically, when this card starts showing up in most deck lists, it's a signal that the format has gotten too fast and linear. Bannings are likely to follow. Value based decks get to run things like Abrupt Decay, Cyclonic Rift, Spell Snare, Engineered Explosives, Kolaghans's Command, etc. etc. to answer it. If you're unable to play around Chalice because of how all of your interaction is 1 cmc or whatever- that's on you as a deckbuilder. The only edge case where Chalice could be considered a problem IMO is Turn 1 Chalice on 1, and even then I still think there are enough answers available to answer it.
You have to admit though. He is right about this - Chalice of the Void causes games and matches to be decided just on that card. It is similar to Legacy Belcher vs. Eldrazi. Eldrazi can literally not keep any hand that is not going to do turn 1 disruption in the form of Chalice of the Void, Thorn of Amethyst, and perhaps Sphere of Resistance out of the side. Keeping a hand with lands and early 5/5s is not going to do a thing. I had to mulligan a hand that had turn 2 and turn 3 Thought-Knot Seer on the draw. Too slow, but I should digress talking about Legacy since it's an extreme example.
At California SCG Regionals, I got my first loss in Round 3 to a RW Prison deck that played turn 2 Chalice of the Void on 1 and turn 3 Blood Moon all THREE games. I was on the play in Game 2. Guess which one I won? The match literally came down to him winning the die roll, so he was on the play at worst after losing game 2 and because of the variance of drawing Chalice of the Void or not. I sided out only 1 mana spells during the side, yet I counted 19 draw steps after a resolved Chalice on 1 where I drew 1 mana spells 16 times and land 3 times. In short, Chalice increases the variance in Modern and I think for Wizards, that is a good thing! I should point out that the fact that this sort of thing happens often is something that Wizards actively wants for Modern. Same thing at an RPTQ. In a 73 person field, I played against the 1 guy I rode with in the car to San Diego. He rolled a 9 and I rolled an 8. He won 2-1. There's no reason to go into the match because the die roll was much more interesting. Chalice is just one of many cards that facilitates these sort of matches, so I doubt that Wizards is going to even come close to considering canning it until it takes up a huge metashare.
*I hope the only rebuttal to this is that I shouldn't play so many 1 mana spells. (For what it's worth, I had 4 Seal of Primordium in my board that were sided in during games 2 and 3. I even drew 2 in game 2.) That's what Bogles does. The reason that got me to play this deck in the first place was the idea that I could NOT get mana screwed with this deck. After playing many games where I had 2-3 lands, I realized that this seemed par for the course. There is a lot of variance with this deck, but it usually doesn't include peeling 5 lands in a row in the late game. I guess I'll clarify that I don't mind drawing 1 of 4 Horizon Canopy usually, so I won't count that as a land.
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)
...Billion, Chalice is barely relevant in the format right now
The meta is cyclical. It will come back.
Also, others apparently agree with me as it was the 2nd most suggested card for banning during the last poll behind Eldrazi Temple
I agree with you on Chalice. The problem is that it just passively sits there and warps the game around it at potentially a very early point in the game. It also can make games turn into a coin flip where it's all about whether chalice lands or not, which is also why I don't like leylines. However, at least with the Leyline of Sanctity, it's a bit of a high variance affair since usually someone isn't running 4x of them, they are bad in multiples, and if one doesn't get it in their opening hand it comes down kind of late.
I normally stay out of this thread, but I have to disagree here. As uncomfortable to play against as Chalice may be, it's critical for allowing fair decks to exist in the format. In my experience, Chalice is most effective against decks that go all in on a combo. It primarily acts as a safety gauge on decks like Storm, or UG Infect. Those sorts of combo decks are usually unable to answer a Chalice in Game 1, and must dilute their gameplan to answer it or lose outright. Basically, when this card starts showing up in most deck lists, it's a signal that the format has gotten too fast and linear. Bannings are likely to follow. Value based decks get to run things like Abrupt Decay, Cyclonic Rift, Spell Snare, Engineered Explosives, Kolaghans's Command, etc. etc. to answer it. If you're unable to play around Chalice because of how all of your interaction is 1 cmc or whatever- that's on you as a deckbuilder. The only edge case where Chalice could be considered a problem IMO is Turn 1 Chalice on 1, and even then I still think there are enough answers available to answer it.
So you view the card as more of an alarm bell? Fair enough. I'm more on board with having broad answers be a bit softer and not so strict. I still feel Rule of Law is too slow as a soft answer and would rather have something like Chalice that can only hit turn 2 minimum.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Re: Chalice
The rebuttal to all these anti-Chalice arguments is that the card never sees regular play. It's like Blood Moon: it can theoretically be a knockout, but in practice, it has little format impact. There are plenty of decks that play around both cards. Indeed, THE hallmark Chalice deck of Modern (ETron) sees very little play right now, in no small part because Chalice isn't well-positioned. And no other decks really play Chalice because those decks, and Chalice itself, aren't well-positioned either. Overall, this is just another example of people picking a card they personally dislike and reframing it as a format problem.
Re: Chalice
The rebuttal to all these anti-Chalice arguments is that the card never sees regular play. It's like Blood Moon: it can theoretically be a knockout, but in practice, it has little format impact. There are plenty of decks that play around both cards. Indeed, THE hallmark Chalice deck of Modern (ETron) sees very little play right now, in no small part because Chalice isn't well-positioned. And no other decks really play Chalice because those decks, and Chalice itself, aren't well-positioned either. Overall, this is just another example of people picking a card they personally dislike and reframing it as a format problem.
It's more a case that modern is a format characterized by a lot of powerful cards that alter how the game itself plays. It's one of the weaknesses the format has, which honestly isn't that bad considering it does let people play hypothetically the largest variety of strategies of any format. After playing a format that doesn't have these strong hate cards I don't think people quite realize how important they are, as the new "soft answer" strategy adopted by wizards in more recent sets aren't really effective. That's why I posted earlier that I'd rather see something like a fixed version of certain hate cards get reprinted first before any kind of ban happens, assuming wizards would even do that.
The way I'm envisioning this would go down is that wizards would print a fixed hate card of say Chalice of the Void, people talk it down, then they ban Chalice of the Void and every modern deck builder suddenly gets that uplifting feeling of not being oppressed by it. Then everyone starts seeing a lot of linear deck strategies start popping up on MTGO and eventually in the paper game until the new hate card gets adopted. Not saying this would absolutely happen, but I've seen it in other types of games like MOBAs that have a similar competitive nature. It's reasons like that why I doubt wizards would ever ban Blood Moon, Chalice of the Void, etc, even if they printed a fixed version.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Re: Chalice
The rebuttal to all these anti-Chalice arguments is that the card never sees regular play. It's like Blood Moon: it can theoretically be a knockout, but in practice, it has little format impact. There are plenty of decks that play around both cards. Indeed, THE hallmark Chalice deck of Modern (ETron) sees very little play right now, in no small part because Chalice isn't well-positioned. And no other decks really play Chalice because those decks, and Chalice itself, aren't well-positioned either. Overall, this is just another example of people picking a card they personally dislike and reframing it as a format problem.
This leads to increased variance. Something like this is not a big problem if it doesn't see too much play. But when something like this does see a lot of play, then some see that increased variance. It doesn't help that there are many other cards that are similar. Then again, many don't see it as a problem. They see it as a positive.
Nobody is saying Chalice of the Void is a format problem. I don't think any more people than have said Mental Misstep should be unbanned (the net number) believe that it should be banned. I think people are just laying out an example of some inconsistencies. If this format should be one based on variance, then why are artifact lands banned? I personally believe that they should be so, but I that's because I don't want the explosiveness of Affinity to be doubled while the vulnerability to hate cards tripled. Maybe Affinity would be played too often?
I feel safe bringing up this argument here, as Wizards will not consider it to be even remotely possible. Simian Spirit Guide. Does a card like this being legal fall in line with Wizard's "turn 4 format?" Even if the card was not played by anyone. Let's say there's a Colorless Spirit Guide where you have to exile another card as well to get the effect. The card simply doesn't do anything within the boundaries of a turn 4 format.
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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)
Re: SSG
This card is totally fine. There is only one top-tier deck that uses it, Ad Naus, and it's not a T4 violator by any measure. It's also barely top-tier these days. No one cares about the random Tier 4 glass cannons because they are neither consistent nor top-tier. All the other alleged SSG T4 violators are also inconsistent and have been for years. People need to stop misinterpreting or misrepresenting the T4 format idea. A T4 format doesn't mean "no decks can ever win before T4." Wizards has been super clear about this in multiple updates.
Modern is fine right now. I wish we spent more time talking about real issues, like trying to predict the potentially warped PT metagame, rather than go back and forth on these tired ban suggestions that aren't even format factors. The PT is a real question we should be discussing; if this format has cracks, we'll see them ripped open in February.
I dislike SSG in the format when so much other fast mana pieces have been banned, but as fast mana goes, it's probably the worst possible piece we could have.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
Why would the Pro Tour be warped when the format is so diverse and wonderful? I think some people really think that 150 players play testing can come to a better conclusion than millions of people over years. The only thing warping I can see is a lot of Pros choosing Grixis Shadow, but I think there are plenty ways to beat the deck.
I personally don't see the Pro Tour changing much. BTW, when is the infamous "Modern" Pro Tour?
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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)
Re: SSG
This card is totally fine. There is only one top-tier deck that uses it, Ad Naus, and it's not a T4 violator by any measure. It's also barely top-tier these days. No one cares about the random Tier 4 glass cannons because they are neither consistent nor top-tier. All the other alleged SSG T4 violators are also inconsistent and have been for years. People need to stop misinterpreting or misrepresenting the T4 format idea. A T4 format doesn't mean "no decks can ever win before T4." Wizards has been super clear about this in multiple updates.
Modern is fine right now. I wish we spent more time talking about real issues, like trying to predict the potentially warped PT metagame, rather than go back and forth on these tired ban suggestions that aren't even format factors. The PT is a real question we should be discussing; if this format has cracks, we'll see them ripped open in February.
As far as the PT goes, I'd imagine the pros will try to bust open whatever can win fastest. Right now that seems like Storm, but going all in on the combo leaves you open to all manner of hate. I could also see pros trying to do something with Tron, Eldrazi or otherwise. It's also entirely possible they'll find something else to try and slam through (Dredge, Infect, Goryo's Vengeance?). I'd like to see how pros take Death's Shadow, whether it's GDS or the 5c variant. Not sure if they'll hop on the Humans train.
Why would the Pro Tour be warped when the format is so diverse and wonderful? I think some people really think that 150 players play testing can come to a better conclusion than millions of people over years. The only thing warping I can see is a lot of Pros choosing Grixis Shadow, but I think there are plenty ways to beat the deck.
I personally don't see the Pro Tour changing much. BTW, when is the infamous "Modern" Pro Tour?
I think many players do not pick the best deck, even when there is a clear best deck in the format. With minimal data and spaced-out GP events, it is possible (how likely remains to be seen) that Modern really does have 2-3 best decks and most people are unknowingly picking a worse strategy. If that's true, incentivized pros will definitely pick the better strategies and deflate our sense of diversity. It's also possible that Modern isn't currently solvable or reducible like that, in which case the PT would be very diverse. I don't know what will happen. I do know it's an open question and I'm curious to hear players' takes on this question.
You have to admit though. He is right about this - Chalice of the Void causes games and matches to be decided just on that card. It is similar to Legacy Belcher vs. Eldrazi. Eldrazi can literally not keep any hand that is not going to do turn 1 disruption in the form of Chalice of the Void, Thorn of Amethyst, and perhaps Sphere of Resistance out of the side. Keeping a hand with lands and early 5/5s is not going to do a thing. I had to mulligan a hand that had turn 2 and turn 3 Thought-Knot Seer on the draw. Too slow, but I should digress talking about Legacy since it's an extreme example.
Err... I agree that Chalice can decide matches, in fact I predicated my post on that premise, but I don't really care about all of the Legacy stuff. Chalice is an effective way to punish a deck that has a specific CMC that it relies on, usually 1 or 0, but occasionally 2. I don't see Chalice's effectiveness as a bad thing for the format though. The other point worth making is that it definitively doesn't win the game on it's own. Most decks have some way to win the game through a Chalice, even if that method is hardly optimal, and the ones that don't are usually the kinds of deck you don't want in Modern anyway.
At California SCG Regionals, I got my first loss in Round 3 to a RW Prison deck that played turn 2 Chalice of the Void on 1 and turn 3 Blood Moon all THREE games. I was on the play in Game 2. Guess which one I won? The match literally came down to him winning the die roll, so he was on the play at worst after losing game 2 and because of the variance of drawing Chalice of the Void or not. I sided out only 1 mana spells during the side, yet I counted 19 draw steps after a resolved Chalice on 1 where I drew 1 mana spells 16 times and land 3 times. In short, Chalice increases the variance in Modern and I think for Wizards, that is a good thing! I should point out that the fact that this sort of thing happens often is something that Wizards actively wants for Modern. Same thing at an RPTQ. In a 73 person field, I played against the 1 guy I rode with in the car to San Diego. He rolled a 9 and I rolled an 8. He won 2-1. There's no reason to go into the match because the die roll was much more interesting. Chalice is just one of many cards that facilitates these sort of matches, so I doubt that Wizards is going to even come close to considering canning it until it takes up a huge metashare.
*I hope the only rebuttal to this is that I shouldn't play so many 1 mana spells. (For what it's worth, I had 4 Seal of Primordium in my board that were sided in during games 2 and 3. I even drew 2 in game 2.) That's what Bogles does. The reason that got me to play this deck in the first place was the idea that I could NOT get mana screwed with this deck. After playing many games where I had 2-3 lands, I realized that this seemed par for the course. There is a lot of variance with this deck, but it usually doesn't include peeling 5 lands in a row in the late game. I guess I'll clarify that I don't mind drawing 1 of 4 Horizon Canopy usually, so I won't count that as a land.
So you played a linear deck, Bogles, into a Chalice deck and lost. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Chalice of the Void punishes a type of overly homogeneous deckbuilding. You played a deck that leans heavily on 1 CMC spells, and that's the risk you ran. If you were seeing Chalice every match at regionals, that would be worrying. It would be like if every deck was running 4 copies of Hurkyll's Recall or Shatterstorm in the main. Otherwise, I think we're pretty much on the same page about Chalice being fine in the format.
The thing is Chalice kind of sucks against a deck that has answers at multiple points on the curve and a diversified threat base, which describes most midrange, control, tempo, ramp, and aggro decks. Also, there are so many mechanics that get around Chalice, like Replicate, Delve, Convoke, Uncounterable spells... I just can't really see how anyone feels the need to ban the card. Yeah, you have to respect that it exists and if your deck folds to Chalice that's something you can fix by slowing it down or running enough hate cards. Sure, it's unpleasant to play against like any prison card.
@Colt47: I think the card you're looking for is Ethersworn Canonist. And yes, I maintain that when you see Chalice show up in large numbers, that's a canary in the coal mine for linearity.
@ktkenshinx: The reason it rarely sees play is that the meta has never been degenerate enough where Chalice is necessary for fair decks. ETron ran it because it broke the symmetry imposed with Chalice by having no significant 1 cmc spells. I've run it in weird Tezzerator brews for the same reason. That said, even if it doesn't see wide play, it's a card that helps beat decks looking go under the turn 4 rule, and it's something that deckbuilders have to account for. Simply by existing Chalice helps slow down Modern.
Chalice is a good card, but people who don't actually play the card tend to overrate it. As someone who plays it, I can tell you that it's not nearly as consistently impactful as people make it out to be. I'm actually running it in the side now, and it stays there in a lot of matchups. It's also heavily dependent on being on the play because it can be pretty bad on the draw. In a lot of matchups, I kind of just see it as a card that draws Thoughtseize/IoK hate so that I can keep my threats in my hand.
I am super excited for the modern Pro Tour, because we may see things do well that we could not have predicted. Given that these are the best players in the world, some crazy tech is sure to emerge.
That said, I expect a lot of Grixis Shadow because it has some of the most options available to it at any given turn and thus more rewarding for better players - of which the Pros should be overall.
Compare this to Eldrazi Tron which really has some of the most obvious lines of play turn after turn, and the difference between playing it poorly or playing it well is not as great.
So you played a linear deck, Bogles, into a Chalice deck and lost. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Chalice of the Void punishes a type of overly homogeneous deckbuilding. You played a deck that leans heavily on 1 CMC spells, and that's the risk you ran. If you were seeing Chalice every match at regionals, that would be worrying. It would be like if every deck was running 4 copies of Hurkyll's Recall or Shatterstorm in the main. Otherwise, I think we're pretty much on the same page about Chalice being fine in the format.
What non linear deck should I play that beats Eldrazi Tron? (the number one Chalice deck in terms of metashare and strength)
It's the same risk anybody runs when they run any deck. There are BGx players at my LGS, most being Junk, that run into Titanshift or the occasional Tron and have hardly any chance to win. It has nothing to do with linear or non linear; it has to do with matchups. And I think most players can agree right now that you're either running 4 Color Shadow or a linear deck or you're losing a LOT. I was sort of happy to not draw any way to kill my Junk opponent in Round 1 tonight at FNM with Titanshift because this gave him his first win against me at 1-11, most of this being Titanshift (4-0 with Humans and Knightfall). I thought he was going to literally lose his ***** if he didn't get over that hump because he always talks about how his draws were poor against me. Every deck has a bad matchup against something and his "fair" deck didn't give him any reprieve against Titanshift.
Regarding the Pro Tour, I think the only guarantee we have is that E Tron, 4 Color Shadow, and Storm will be played in some numbers. Does anyone have a link or a date for this Pro Tour?
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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)
What non linear deck should I play that beats Eldrazi Tron? (the number one Chalice deck in terms of metashare and strength)
If I've got the dates right, UW control would have been well positioned if you were worried about GDS and Etron. The trade off would have been that you'd have been a bit soft to Bogles.
It's the same risk anybody runs when they run any deck.
Yep. That's why I don't really get why people want to ban Chalice. Every deck has a "silver bullet"- Dredge has RIP, Tron has Blood Moon, Storm has Canonist, and so on.
There are BGx players at my LGS, most being Junk, that run into Titanshift or the occasional Tron and have hardly any chance to win. It has nothing to do with linear or non linear; it has to do with matchups. And I think most players can agree right now that you're either running 4 Color Shadow or a linear deck or you're losing a LOT.
No. I don't agree with any of this. I don't think many matchups are as lopsided as you're supposing (I think Tron vs BGx is something like 60-40 in Tron's favor before player experience is factored in) and while I think linear decks are doing well, also think Jeskai Tempo decks have been performing well because they prey on linear decks which can't answer Spell Queller consistently. I also think that UWx Control has been adjusting to the more aggro centric format and will still be a reasonable choice.
I also think that if you're experienced with a deck, that's significantly more important than what tier it is.
Regarding the Pro Tour, I think the only guarantee we have is that E Tron, 4 Color Shadow, and Storm will be played in some numbers. Does anyone have a link or a date for this Pro Tour?
I'd say that if you add Burn, Dredge, Affinty, and Jeskai to the list of virtual guarantees you're going to be running into, then you're golden. Also, here's the Pro Tour Schedule.
What non linear deck should I play that beats Eldrazi Tron? (the number one Chalice deck in terms of metashare and strength)
If I've got the dates right, UW control would have been well positioned if you were worried about GDS and Etron. The trade off would have been that you'd have been a bit soft to Bogles.
I think we have differing opinions on some matchups. Firstly, I realize that UW Control has so many reiterations that there is no way to get a distinct matchup ratio. But I copied a UW list formerly by (I wish I could remember the MTGO name) a guy on MTGO who has played UW Control since the beginning. I felt like it would be good vs. Death's Shadow at the time. I went 3-1 at an FNM, losing to E Tron. Yes, with 4 Spreading Seas, 2 Tectonic Edge, and 3 Ghost Quarter at the time, I lost to E Tron. They have too many threats while I sit around diddling my deck. I had no way to finish. Also ran into 0 Death's Shadow unfortunately, but was lucky to play against a Jund
Jeskai Queller wins by being proactive. The deck is essentially a better version of the former UWR Geist because you now have Quellers to exile stuff like Supreme Verdict or Abrupt Decay (the odd time that could come up). The plan of sitting back and trying to burn your opponent out is shaky at best or else you would see every UWR player running a more "Ali Aintrazi/Shaun McLaren" version with 1 T Gearhulk and 1-2 Snappies - more of a true "Control" deck. That deck has occasionally done well, probably as often as Bogles, so I wouldn't count on that one to do too well.
Big Tron vs. BGx is just something where we have to agree to disagree. I cannot see this matchup being worse than 70/30 for Big Tron and I have heard much worse stories from seasoned BGx AND Big Tron players. E Tron is a different beast. I could agree here that it's 60/40 vs. Junk. Jund probably has a much worse time.
Affinity is SO good, but I doubt you'll see much at the Pro Tour. Players have determined that in the best of 5 games that Affinity is incapable of winning key matches during 3-4 sideboarded games. Burn is super good vs. Storm and solid vs. Shadow, but I feel that players won't want to take a chance with Burn. Also many Pro players like to leverage their play skill in these tournaments and Burn doesn't allow for much of that. I could see Dredge perhaps making a surprise splash, but it's going to be a game of "dodge the hate" much more than anything else. Of course, speculations on a tournament in February is anybody's guess and anything can change from now to then. Thanks for the link!
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)
Big Tron vs. BGx is just something where we have to agree to disagree. I cannot see this matchup being worse than 70/30 for Big Tron and I have heard much worse stories from seasoned BGx AND Big Tron players. E Tron is a different beast. I could agree here that it's 60/40 vs. Junk. Jund probably has a much worse time.
Unless you have some data from personal experience, I doubt these matchup guesses are accurate. People are notoriously bad at predicting the true matchup %s vs. many decks. Fun fact: in 2015, Jund vs. RG Tron was 46/54, and Twin vs. Jund and Junk was 49/51 and 50/50 respectively. But if you had asked people at that time, as we often found on forums and in articles, people wildly overestimated or underestimated those matchups.
But if not, I suspect that most matchup % estimates are consciously/unconsciously influenced by someone's personal biases about the format. This makes data collection projects even more important when it comes to matchups: it's very hard to just guess these based on anecdotal experience. Personal match tracking can definitely do it, but I haven't seen that in this thread in a very long time.
Unless you have some data from personal experience, I doubt these matchup guesses are accurate. People are notoriously bad at predicting the true matchup %s vs. many decks. Fun fact: in 2015, Jund vs. RG Tron was 46/54, and Twin vs. Jund and Junk was 49/51 and 50/50 respectively. But if you had asked people at that time, as we often found on forums and in articles, people wildly overestimated or underestimated those matchups.
But if not, I suspect that most matchup % estimates are consciously/unconsciously influenced by someone's personal biases about the format. This makes data collection projects even more important when it comes to matchups: it's very hard to just guess these based on anecdotal experience. Personal match tracking can definitely do it, but I haven't seen that in this thread in a very long time.
I don't know the BGx vs. Big Tron (RG, GW, and now GB) all that much personally, having played it probably around 10 matches myself, from both sides. I played Jund against Big Tron 2 times and the games were hilarious. I stood no chance, despite some less than stellar plays from my opponent, including even getting Tron on turn 4 when it could have been done on turn 3. But I also played vs. Jund and Junk as GR Tron mostly and GW Tron twice. The first time I tried RG Tron at a tournament, since I assumed the deck to be hilariously easy, I actually misplayed quite a bit in the first match and a little bit in my 2nd match as well. Both were against Jund and they just got trounced. So, I've seen it a little from both sides. At the LGS that I go to, there are a lot of seasoned GBx players and they all agree that Tron is super rough for them. I've heard estimates ranging from 90/10 to 60/40. I have NEVER heard, from either side, anyone saying it's worse than 60/40, other than here on MTGS. I somewhat wish that I had evidence or at least an audio of the GBx players sharing their experiences, but for the most part, I could care less. Tron and GBx have only usually been barely annoyances to me during my Modern career and probably have given me something close to a 70% win rate against (since my win rate vs. Twin/Infect/Bloom is all less than 50% by far). I simply don't care about those decks much, even if it is hard for me to not take in what other GBx players say (I don't count Tron players as much because we all know that players like to toot their own horn, myself included).
People like to say it's a wonderful format because most of these decks have 50/50 win rates against each other. I've played enough to know that's bull*****. There's a lot of matchups in Modern that are closer to 70/30 and even some matchups that range on 90/10 (something that honestly has rarely ever happened in the history of Magic). Go play Standard if you want to talk 50/50 matchups. I lost for the first time in 15 matches to Junk Midrange with Titanshift. I did not draw a win-con in the 2nd game and he top decked Fulminator Mage the turn before I win, while he had Surgical Extraction in hand and again, I drew nothing in the 3rd games. This is one game, but please, don't come in trying to tell me that Junk Midrange vs. Titanshift is "50/50."
I like Finalnub. He's my forum friend and I regret getting so busy (playing in all 3 Las Vegas GPs and side events after) to meet him in Las Vegas. We share a love for Grishoalbrand. It's my favorite deck in any format currently and I'm pretty sure it's up there for him too. He has stuck with it, even though I thought he was going to ship it for Grixis Shadow around the GP LV times, lol. Even though I've played Modern only in paper (never played MTGO in my life) and up to 6 Modern events per week, right now I cannot play enough to show any meaningful stats. I have past stats on Bogles, Grishoalbrand, and a few others, but those are really the only decks I played more than 3 months straight.
P.S. - Even if Twin vs. GBx was 50/50 (which it wasn't) and Big Tron vs. GBx is 50/50 (which it isn't), it still doesn't make Modern "appear" to have a lot of 50/50 matchups. I can spout off a bunch of other lopsided matchups that can only be discounted because someone will say those decks are irrelevant (yet they will agree with my claim that Modern is so diverse that you cannot know what you'll play against in any given tournament).
P.S.S. - I don't also just accept results that have happened to me in tournaments. For the longest time with Bogles, I was just destroying RG Tron players (before Ugin was printed). I won my first 18 times in a row and was 31-2 against them at one point. I honestly wondered if it was that bad, so I tested it against myself at home. I came to the conclusion that it is a 50/50 matchup and my opponents just drew poorly or misplayed (including SB options, mulligans, etc.). The same thing happened to me with Bogles vs. Jund. Despite having an over 70% win rate vs. them in tournament play over the course of a year and at least 15 Comp REL tournaments, including 2 PPTQ wins, I tested it at home vs. myself to be 50/50. My opponents got unlucky, didn't know the matchup well, and didn't have the necessary cards or keeps to win the matches. But I know the matchup, so when I test it at home, it's much different.
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)
Re: matchups
I can't speak to current matchups because I don't have the data. I can speak to the 2015 matchups, which were exactly as I described them. It's funny that you say with such confidence that Twin vs. BGx "wasn't" 50/50 because it was and this proves my point beautifully; people don't know matchup %s and think they do. In an n>1000ish MTGO sample (28k overall, smaller for just BGx and Twin), Twin and BGx had a 50/50 matchup. See Karsten's old article: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/magic-math-the-new-modern-by-the-numbers/
I also have the dataset that led to those matchup calculations and can confirm the math. I remember everyone saying that matchup was 60/40 or 40/60 or whatever, and the data clearly shows they were wrong and it was actually 50/50. This is undoubtedly being repeated today.
EDIT: To be super clear, I'm not saying Modern has some number of 50/50 matchups today or that any given matchup today is a certain %. I'm saying that people are so confident about extreme matchup %s when that historically isn't true and the real % is more even. I'm also saying that it's inaccurate/misleading/irresponsible to claim a certain matchup % without having the real data.
People do overestimate matchups, especially when someone says that a matchup is 90/10 or even 80/20. Eyebrows should be raised. But when seasoned BGx players who have had success with the deck and continue to play it in metas where it hasn't been the best (like Eye Eldrazi), some of what they say should be taken into consideration.
Regarding Twin vs. BGx, for me it came down to the cards that win the matchup for BGx all cost 1 or 2, outside of Liliana of the Veil. The Twin cards that swing the matchup cost 4 or 5. That in itself is going to lend itself to more wins for BGx, a deck that had answers to the Combo. If Twin doesn't draw the 5th land in time, Keranos doesn't matter. If they get flooded, they have less interaction and it's easy for Thoughtseize #2 to clear the way for Goyf and others. The "burn out plan" that everyone says was "SO GOOD" for Twin rarely worked against BGx (unless you know players that stupidly fetch shock to 11 every game, not giving 2 ****s about Blood Moon). I don't know those players myself.
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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)
Re: Jund vs Twin, I can confirm that game 1 was horrendous, but it felt like 55/45 in Twin's favour after sideboard. Overall, ~ 50/50, maybe a + on Jund's favour seems about right. All this of course while Twin had Roast and Keranos, God Of Storms. So, my experience co-aligns with those numbers as well.
Re: Tron vs Jund, this seems awfully wrong.
PS: Numbers/Data is not everything. Just a tool to help you out.
With matchup %s, data is way more important than other sources. If I personally believe X vs. Y is 30/70 (and maybe it really is when I track my games) but it's actually 50/50 for hundreds of other players, I'm both wrong about the matchup AND probably doing something wrong in my games.
There is a good counter-argument to this which is also data-based; maybe matchups change at different levels. So the general MTGO matchup for X vs. Y is 50/50 but the pro matchup for players ranked over N it's 70/30. That's certainly possible, and you could probably crunch some PT #s to confirm or reject it. But a) this would still be a data-based argument and b) it probably wouldn't affect most players in this thread who are still playing in that general metagame.
I've been thinking about the concept of a rotating banned list, and wondered why modern could not benefit from such an idea.
This could transform modern into a format that gets shaken up more than it currently does, but still less than standard does.
Here is the basic idea - once a year, at the same time of the standard rotation, about 5 or so cards get banned from the current top decks. Then, an equal number of cards which were previously banned must now be unbanned to compensate.
At the end of the next year, if any of these new cards overperformed they would be contenders for the next rotation list
Pros: the metagame changes significantly every rotation, even though only a few cards are actually rotated out/in compared with standard.
More liberal unbans allows players to use powerful cards, even if its only for a short period of time
Could drop the price of certain cards
Cons: would make modern more expensive, as your decktype may have lost something crucial in the rotation or it may not be as well positioned due to a metagame shift
.Card prices would fluctuate wildly as some cards are guaranteed to be lost and others gained but its never quite certain which ones it will be
.Deciding which cards will be unbanned are hard to predict, and it could take many years for a particular card you want to come back into rotation
. Disincentive to perform well with certain decks or cards as the best ones will be banned
I've been thinking about the concept of a rotating banned list, and wondered why modern could not benefit from such an idea.
This could transform modern into a format that gets shaken up more than it currently does, but still less than standard does.
Here is the basic idea - once a year, at the same time of the standard rotation, about 5 or so cards get banned from the current top decks. Then, an equal number of cards which were previously banned must now be unbanned to compensate.
At the end of the next year, if any of these new cards overperformed they would be contenders for the next rotation list
Pros: the metagame changes significantly every rotation, even though only a few cards are actually rotated out/in compared with standard.
More liberal unbans allows players to use powerful cards, even if its only for a short period of time
Could drop the price of certain cards
Cons: would make modern more expensive, as your decktype may have lost something crucial in the rotation or it may not be as well positioned due to a metagame shift
.Card prices would fluctuate wildly as some cards are guaranteed to be lost and others gained but its never quite certain which ones it will be
.Deciding which cards will be unbanned are hard to predict, and it could take many years for a particular card you want to come back into rotation
. Disincentive to perform well with certain decks or cards as the best ones will be banned
While an interesting concept, I feel like the downsides significantly outweigh the upsides - especially since part of the reason I play Modern is that when I buy a card, I want there to be a strong chance that I'll be able to play it (although it might be not good in a given meta) in 2, 3, 5 years.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
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I normally stay out of this thread, but I have to disagree here. As uncomfortable to play against as Chalice may be, it's critical for allowing fair decks to exist in the format. In my experience, Chalice is most effective against decks that go all in on a combo. It primarily acts as a safety gauge on decks like Storm, or UG Infect. Those sorts of combo decks are usually unable to answer a Chalice in Game 1, and must dilute their gameplan to answer it or lose outright. Basically, when this card starts showing up in most deck lists, it's a signal that the format has gotten too fast and linear. Bannings are likely to follow. Value based decks get to run things like Abrupt Decay, Cyclonic Rift, Spell Snare, Engineered Explosives, Kolaghans's Command, etc. etc. to answer it. If you're unable to play around Chalice because of how all of your interaction is 1 cmc or whatever- that's on you as a deckbuilder. The only edge case where Chalice could be considered a problem IMO is Turn 1 Chalice on 1, and even then I still think there are enough answers available to answer it.
You have to admit though. He is right about this - Chalice of the Void causes games and matches to be decided just on that card. It is similar to Legacy Belcher vs. Eldrazi. Eldrazi can literally not keep any hand that is not going to do turn 1 disruption in the form of Chalice of the Void, Thorn of Amethyst, and perhaps Sphere of Resistance out of the side. Keeping a hand with lands and early 5/5s is not going to do a thing. I had to mulligan a hand that had turn 2 and turn 3 Thought-Knot Seer on the draw. Too slow, but I should digress talking about Legacy since it's an extreme example.
At California SCG Regionals, I got my first loss in Round 3 to a RW Prison deck that played turn 2 Chalice of the Void on 1 and turn 3 Blood Moon all THREE games. I was on the play in Game 2. Guess which one I won? The match literally came down to him winning the die roll, so he was on the play at worst after losing game 2 and because of the variance of drawing Chalice of the Void or not. I sided out only 1 mana spells during the side, yet I counted 19 draw steps after a resolved Chalice on 1 where I drew 1 mana spells 16 times and land 3 times. In short, Chalice increases the variance in Modern and I think for Wizards, that is a good thing! I should point out that the fact that this sort of thing happens often is something that Wizards actively wants for Modern. Same thing at an RPTQ. In a 73 person field, I played against the 1 guy I rode with in the car to San Diego. He rolled a 9 and I rolled an 8. He won 2-1. There's no reason to go into the match because the die roll was much more interesting. Chalice is just one of many cards that facilitates these sort of matches, so I doubt that Wizards is going to even come close to considering canning it until it takes up a huge metashare.
*I hope the only rebuttal to this is that I shouldn't play so many 1 mana spells. (For what it's worth, I had 4 Seal of Primordium in my board that were sided in during games 2 and 3. I even drew 2 in game 2.) That's what Bogles does. The reason that got me to play this deck in the first place was the idea that I could NOT get mana screwed with this deck. After playing many games where I had 2-3 lands, I realized that this seemed par for the course. There is a lot of variance with this deck, but it usually doesn't include peeling 5 lands in a row in the late game. I guess I'll clarify that I don't mind drawing 1 of 4 Horizon Canopy usually, so I won't count that as a land.
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)So you view the card as more of an alarm bell? Fair enough. I'm more on board with having broad answers be a bit softer and not so strict. I still feel Rule of Law is too slow as a soft answer and would rather have something like Chalice that can only hit turn 2 minimum.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The rebuttal to all these anti-Chalice arguments is that the card never sees regular play. It's like Blood Moon: it can theoretically be a knockout, but in practice, it has little format impact. There are plenty of decks that play around both cards. Indeed, THE hallmark Chalice deck of Modern (ETron) sees very little play right now, in no small part because Chalice isn't well-positioned. And no other decks really play Chalice because those decks, and Chalice itself, aren't well-positioned either. Overall, this is just another example of people picking a card they personally dislike and reframing it as a format problem.
It's more a case that modern is a format characterized by a lot of powerful cards that alter how the game itself plays. It's one of the weaknesses the format has, which honestly isn't that bad considering it does let people play hypothetically the largest variety of strategies of any format. After playing a format that doesn't have these strong hate cards I don't think people quite realize how important they are, as the new "soft answer" strategy adopted by wizards in more recent sets aren't really effective. That's why I posted earlier that I'd rather see something like a fixed version of certain hate cards get reprinted first before any kind of ban happens, assuming wizards would even do that.
The way I'm envisioning this would go down is that wizards would print a fixed hate card of say Chalice of the Void, people talk it down, then they ban Chalice of the Void and every modern deck builder suddenly gets that uplifting feeling of not being oppressed by it. Then everyone starts seeing a lot of linear deck strategies start popping up on MTGO and eventually in the paper game until the new hate card gets adopted. Not saying this would absolutely happen, but I've seen it in other types of games like MOBAs that have a similar competitive nature. It's reasons like that why I doubt wizards would ever ban Blood Moon, Chalice of the Void, etc, even if they printed a fixed version.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
This leads to increased variance. Something like this is not a big problem if it doesn't see too much play. But when something like this does see a lot of play, then some see that increased variance. It doesn't help that there are many other cards that are similar. Then again, many don't see it as a problem. They see it as a positive.
Nobody is saying Chalice of the Void is a format problem. I don't think any more people than have said Mental Misstep should be unbanned (the net number) believe that it should be banned. I think people are just laying out an example of some inconsistencies. If this format should be one based on variance, then why are artifact lands banned? I personally believe that they should be so, but I that's because I don't want the explosiveness of Affinity to be doubled while the vulnerability to hate cards tripled. Maybe Affinity would be played too often?
I feel safe bringing up this argument here, as Wizards will not consider it to be even remotely possible. Simian Spirit Guide. Does a card like this being legal fall in line with Wizard's "turn 4 format?" Even if the card was not played by anyone. Let's say there's a Colorless Spirit Guide where you have to exile another card as well to get the effect. The card simply doesn't do anything within the boundaries of a turn 4 format.
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)This card is totally fine. There is only one top-tier deck that uses it, Ad Naus, and it's not a T4 violator by any measure. It's also barely top-tier these days. No one cares about the random Tier 4 glass cannons because they are neither consistent nor top-tier. All the other alleged SSG T4 violators are also inconsistent and have been for years. People need to stop misinterpreting or misrepresenting the T4 format idea. A T4 format doesn't mean "no decks can ever win before T4." Wizards has been super clear about this in multiple updates.
Modern is fine right now. I wish we spent more time talking about real issues, like trying to predict the potentially warped PT metagame, rather than go back and forth on these tired ban suggestions that aren't even format factors. The PT is a real question we should be discussing; if this format has cracks, we'll see them ripped open in February.
I personally don't see the Pro Tour changing much. BTW, when is the infamous "Modern" Pro Tour?
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)As far as the PT goes, I'd imagine the pros will try to bust open whatever can win fastest. Right now that seems like Storm, but going all in on the combo leaves you open to all manner of hate. I could also see pros trying to do something with Tron, Eldrazi or otherwise. It's also entirely possible they'll find something else to try and slam through (Dredge, Infect, Goryo's Vengeance?). I'd like to see how pros take Death's Shadow, whether it's GDS or the 5c variant. Not sure if they'll hop on the Humans train.
I think many players do not pick the best deck, even when there is a clear best deck in the format. With minimal data and spaced-out GP events, it is possible (how likely remains to be seen) that Modern really does have 2-3 best decks and most people are unknowingly picking a worse strategy. If that's true, incentivized pros will definitely pick the better strategies and deflate our sense of diversity. It's also possible that Modern isn't currently solvable or reducible like that, in which case the PT would be very diverse. I don't know what will happen. I do know it's an open question and I'm curious to hear players' takes on this question.
Err... I agree that Chalice can decide matches, in fact I predicated my post on that premise, but I don't really care about all of the Legacy stuff. Chalice is an effective way to punish a deck that has a specific CMC that it relies on, usually 1 or 0, but occasionally 2. I don't see Chalice's effectiveness as a bad thing for the format though. The other point worth making is that it definitively doesn't win the game on it's own. Most decks have some way to win the game through a Chalice, even if that method is hardly optimal, and the ones that don't are usually the kinds of deck you don't want in Modern anyway.
So you played a linear deck, Bogles, into a Chalice deck and lost. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Chalice of the Void punishes a type of overly homogeneous deckbuilding. You played a deck that leans heavily on 1 CMC spells, and that's the risk you ran. If you were seeing Chalice every match at regionals, that would be worrying. It would be like if every deck was running 4 copies of Hurkyll's Recall or Shatterstorm in the main. Otherwise, I think we're pretty much on the same page about Chalice being fine in the format.
The thing is Chalice kind of sucks against a deck that has answers at multiple points on the curve and a diversified threat base, which describes most midrange, control, tempo, ramp, and aggro decks. Also, there are so many mechanics that get around Chalice, like Replicate, Delve, Convoke, Uncounterable spells... I just can't really see how anyone feels the need to ban the card. Yeah, you have to respect that it exists and if your deck folds to Chalice that's something you can fix by slowing it down or running enough hate cards. Sure, it's unpleasant to play against like any prison card.
@Colt47: I think the card you're looking for is Ethersworn Canonist. And yes, I maintain that when you see Chalice show up in large numbers, that's a canary in the coal mine for linearity.
@ktkenshinx: The reason it rarely sees play is that the meta has never been degenerate enough where Chalice is necessary for fair decks. ETron ran it because it broke the symmetry imposed with Chalice by having no significant 1 cmc spells. I've run it in weird Tezzerator brews for the same reason. That said, even if it doesn't see wide play, it's a card that helps beat decks looking go under the turn 4 rule, and it's something that deckbuilders have to account for. Simply by existing Chalice helps slow down Modern.
That said, I expect a lot of Grixis Shadow because it has some of the most options available to it at any given turn and thus more rewarding for better players - of which the Pros should be overall.
Compare this to Eldrazi Tron which really has some of the most obvious lines of play turn after turn, and the difference between playing it poorly or playing it well is not as great.
What non linear deck should I play that beats Eldrazi Tron? (the number one Chalice deck in terms of metashare and strength)
It's the same risk anybody runs when they run any deck. There are BGx players at my LGS, most being Junk, that run into Titanshift or the occasional Tron and have hardly any chance to win. It has nothing to do with linear or non linear; it has to do with matchups. And I think most players can agree right now that you're either running 4 Color Shadow or a linear deck or you're losing a LOT. I was sort of happy to not draw any way to kill my Junk opponent in Round 1 tonight at FNM with Titanshift because this gave him his first win against me at 1-11, most of this being Titanshift (4-0 with Humans and Knightfall). I thought he was going to literally lose his ***** if he didn't get over that hump because he always talks about how his draws were poor against me. Every deck has a bad matchup against something and his "fair" deck didn't give him any reprieve against Titanshift.
Regarding the Pro Tour, I think the only guarantee we have is that E Tron, 4 Color Shadow, and Storm will be played in some numbers. Does anyone have a link or a date for this Pro Tour?
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)If I've got the dates right, UW control would have been well positioned if you were worried about GDS and Etron. The trade off would have been that you'd have been a bit soft to Bogles.
Yep. That's why I don't really get why people want to ban Chalice. Every deck has a "silver bullet"- Dredge has RIP, Tron has Blood Moon, Storm has Canonist, and so on.
No. I don't agree with any of this. I don't think many matchups are as lopsided as you're supposing (I think Tron vs BGx is something like 60-40 in Tron's favor before player experience is factored in) and while I think linear decks are doing well, also think Jeskai Tempo decks have been performing well because they prey on linear decks which can't answer Spell Queller consistently. I also think that UWx Control has been adjusting to the more aggro centric format and will still be a reasonable choice.
I also think that if you're experienced with a deck, that's significantly more important than what tier it is.
I'd say that if you add Burn, Dredge, Affinty, and Jeskai to the list of virtual guarantees you're going to be running into, then you're golden. Also, here's the Pro Tour Schedule.
I think we have differing opinions on some matchups. Firstly, I realize that UW Control has so many reiterations that there is no way to get a distinct matchup ratio. But I copied a UW list formerly by (I wish I could remember the MTGO name) a guy on MTGO who has played UW Control since the beginning. I felt like it would be good vs. Death's Shadow at the time. I went 3-1 at an FNM, losing to E Tron. Yes, with 4 Spreading Seas, 2 Tectonic Edge, and 3 Ghost Quarter at the time, I lost to E Tron. They have too many threats while I sit around diddling my deck. I had no way to finish. Also ran into 0 Death's Shadow unfortunately, but was lucky to play against a Jund
Jeskai Queller wins by being proactive. The deck is essentially a better version of the former UWR Geist because you now have Quellers to exile stuff like Supreme Verdict or Abrupt Decay (the odd time that could come up). The plan of sitting back and trying to burn your opponent out is shaky at best or else you would see every UWR player running a more "Ali Aintrazi/Shaun McLaren" version with 1 T Gearhulk and 1-2 Snappies - more of a true "Control" deck. That deck has occasionally done well, probably as often as Bogles, so I wouldn't count on that one to do too well.
Big Tron vs. BGx is just something where we have to agree to disagree. I cannot see this matchup being worse than 70/30 for Big Tron and I have heard much worse stories from seasoned BGx AND Big Tron players. E Tron is a different beast. I could agree here that it's 60/40 vs. Junk. Jund probably has a much worse time.
Affinity is SO good, but I doubt you'll see much at the Pro Tour. Players have determined that in the best of 5 games that Affinity is incapable of winning key matches during 3-4 sideboarded games. Burn is super good vs. Storm and solid vs. Shadow, but I feel that players won't want to take a chance with Burn. Also many Pro players like to leverage their play skill in these tournaments and Burn doesn't allow for much of that. I could see Dredge perhaps making a surprise splash, but it's going to be a game of "dodge the hate" much more than anything else. Of course, speculations on a tournament in February is anybody's guess and anything can change from now to then. Thanks for the link!
This is what I would copy now for UW Control. McWinSouce's list.
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=17540&d=308666&f=MO
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)Unless you have some data from personal experience, I doubt these matchup guesses are accurate. People are notoriously bad at predicting the true matchup %s vs. many decks. Fun fact: in 2015, Jund vs. RG Tron was 46/54, and Twin vs. Jund and Junk was 49/51 and 50/50 respectively. But if you had asked people at that time, as we often found on forums and in articles, people wildly overestimated or underestimated those matchups.
Maybe you have more data like this excellent Reddit post on Grishoalbrand:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/7fawrh/500_matches_of_grishoalbrand_in_competitive/
But if not, I suspect that most matchup % estimates are consciously/unconsciously influenced by someone's personal biases about the format. This makes data collection projects even more important when it comes to matchups: it's very hard to just guess these based on anecdotal experience. Personal match tracking can definitely do it, but I haven't seen that in this thread in a very long time.
I don't know the BGx vs. Big Tron (RG, GW, and now GB) all that much personally, having played it probably around 10 matches myself, from both sides. I played Jund against Big Tron 2 times and the games were hilarious. I stood no chance, despite some less than stellar plays from my opponent, including even getting Tron on turn 4 when it could have been done on turn 3. But I also played vs. Jund and Junk as GR Tron mostly and GW Tron twice. The first time I tried RG Tron at a tournament, since I assumed the deck to be hilariously easy, I actually misplayed quite a bit in the first match and a little bit in my 2nd match as well. Both were against Jund and they just got trounced. So, I've seen it a little from both sides. At the LGS that I go to, there are a lot of seasoned GBx players and they all agree that Tron is super rough for them. I've heard estimates ranging from 90/10 to 60/40. I have NEVER heard, from either side, anyone saying it's worse than 60/40, other than here on MTGS. I somewhat wish that I had evidence or at least an audio of the GBx players sharing their experiences, but for the most part, I could care less. Tron and GBx have only usually been barely annoyances to me during my Modern career and probably have given me something close to a 70% win rate against (since my win rate vs. Twin/Infect/Bloom is all less than 50% by far). I simply don't care about those decks much, even if it is hard for me to not take in what other GBx players say (I don't count Tron players as much because we all know that players like to toot their own horn, myself included).
People like to say it's a wonderful format because most of these decks have 50/50 win rates against each other. I've played enough to know that's bull*****. There's a lot of matchups in Modern that are closer to 70/30 and even some matchups that range on 90/10 (something that honestly has rarely ever happened in the history of Magic). Go play Standard if you want to talk 50/50 matchups. I lost for the first time in 15 matches to Junk Midrange with Titanshift. I did not draw a win-con in the 2nd game and he top decked Fulminator Mage the turn before I win, while he had Surgical Extraction in hand and again, I drew nothing in the 3rd games. This is one game, but please, don't come in trying to tell me that Junk Midrange vs. Titanshift is "50/50."
I like Finalnub. He's my forum friend and I regret getting so busy (playing in all 3 Las Vegas GPs and side events after) to meet him in Las Vegas. We share a love for Grishoalbrand. It's my favorite deck in any format currently and I'm pretty sure it's up there for him too. He has stuck with it, even though I thought he was going to ship it for Grixis Shadow around the GP LV times, lol. Even though I've played Modern only in paper (never played MTGO in my life) and up to 6 Modern events per week, right now I cannot play enough to show any meaningful stats. I have past stats on Bogles, Grishoalbrand, and a few others, but those are really the only decks I played more than 3 months straight.
P.S. - Even if Twin vs. GBx was 50/50 (which it wasn't) and Big Tron vs. GBx is 50/50 (which it isn't), it still doesn't make Modern "appear" to have a lot of 50/50 matchups. I can spout off a bunch of other lopsided matchups that can only be discounted because someone will say those decks are irrelevant (yet they will agree with my claim that Modern is so diverse that you cannot know what you'll play against in any given tournament).
P.S.S. - I don't also just accept results that have happened to me in tournaments. For the longest time with Bogles, I was just destroying RG Tron players (before Ugin was printed). I won my first 18 times in a row and was 31-2 against them at one point. I honestly wondered if it was that bad, so I tested it against myself at home. I came to the conclusion that it is a 50/50 matchup and my opponents just drew poorly or misplayed (including SB options, mulligans, etc.). The same thing happened to me with Bogles vs. Jund. Despite having an over 70% win rate vs. them in tournament play over the course of a year and at least 15 Comp REL tournaments, including 2 PPTQ wins, I tested it at home vs. myself to be 50/50. My opponents got unlucky, didn't know the matchup well, and didn't have the necessary cards or keeps to win the matches. But I know the matchup, so when I test it at home, it's much different.
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)Then there's Burn vs Storm, Humans vs Storm, Ad Nauseam vs Infect (although not so common anymore)
Of course minor variations on "stock" lists can change the ratios somewhat.
I can't speak to current matchups because I don't have the data. I can speak to the 2015 matchups, which were exactly as I described them. It's funny that you say with such confidence that Twin vs. BGx "wasn't" 50/50 because it was and this proves my point beautifully; people don't know matchup %s and think they do. In an n>1000ish MTGO sample (28k overall, smaller for just BGx and Twin), Twin and BGx had a 50/50 matchup. See Karsten's old article:
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/magic-math-the-new-modern-by-the-numbers/
I also have the dataset that led to those matchup calculations and can confirm the math. I remember everyone saying that matchup was 60/40 or 40/60 or whatever, and the data clearly shows they were wrong and it was actually 50/50. This is undoubtedly being repeated today.
EDIT: To be super clear, I'm not saying Modern has some number of 50/50 matchups today or that any given matchup today is a certain %. I'm saying that people are so confident about extreme matchup %s when that historically isn't true and the real % is more even. I'm also saying that it's inaccurate/misleading/irresponsible to claim a certain matchup % without having the real data.
Regarding Twin vs. BGx, for me it came down to the cards that win the matchup for BGx all cost 1 or 2, outside of Liliana of the Veil. The Twin cards that swing the matchup cost 4 or 5. That in itself is going to lend itself to more wins for BGx, a deck that had answers to the Combo. If Twin doesn't draw the 5th land in time, Keranos doesn't matter. If they get flooded, they have less interaction and it's easy for Thoughtseize #2 to clear the way for Goyf and others. The "burn out plan" that everyone says was "SO GOOD" for Twin rarely worked against BGx (unless you know players that stupidly fetch shock to 11 every game, not giving 2 ****s about Blood Moon). I don't know those players myself.
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)With matchup %s, data is way more important than other sources. If I personally believe X vs. Y is 30/70 (and maybe it really is when I track my games) but it's actually 50/50 for hundreds of other players, I'm both wrong about the matchup AND probably doing something wrong in my games.
There is a good counter-argument to this which is also data-based; maybe matchups change at different levels. So the general MTGO matchup for X vs. Y is 50/50 but the pro matchup for players ranked over N it's 70/30. That's certainly possible, and you could probably crunch some PT #s to confirm or reject it. But a) this would still be a data-based argument and b) it probably wouldn't affect most players in this thread who are still playing in that general metagame.
This could transform modern into a format that gets shaken up more than it currently does, but still less than standard does.
Here is the basic idea - once a year, at the same time of the standard rotation, about 5 or so cards get banned from the current top decks. Then, an equal number of cards which were previously banned must now be unbanned to compensate.
At the end of the next year, if any of these new cards overperformed they would be contenders for the next rotation list
Pros: the metagame changes significantly every rotation, even though only a few cards are actually rotated out/in compared with standard.
More liberal unbans allows players to use powerful cards, even if its only for a short period of time
Could drop the price of certain cards
Cons: would make modern more expensive, as your decktype may have lost something crucial in the rotation or it may not be as well positioned due to a metagame shift
.Card prices would fluctuate wildly as some cards are guaranteed to be lost and others gained but its never quite certain which ones it will be
.Deciding which cards will be unbanned are hard to predict, and it could take many years for a particular card you want to come back into rotation
. Disincentive to perform well with certain decks or cards as the best ones will be banned
While an interesting concept, I feel like the downsides significantly outweigh the upsides - especially since part of the reason I play Modern is that when I buy a card, I want there to be a strong chance that I'll be able to play it (although it might be not good in a given meta) in 2, 3, 5 years.