Skitz, I consider myself an ok player. Not good, but not bad. I felt my results were too generous for someone who just picked the deck up. With Ponza, I could see I wasn't keeping the best hands, but my game sense said it still has some fundamental issues.
I think anyone who has knowledge about modern and knows its interaction can play this easily. I didn't find it very skillful to Collective brutaltity away my Ghast and Flamewake.
The deck is for SURE tier 1, in terms of power level, I have no doubt. It's way underplayed for now, even with it picking up steam.
I can't comment on the ease or difficulty of Dredge, since I had no interest in a deck that was shut down by a relic.
I mean...I couldn't believe the deck was making creature aggro chump block from the amount of pressure. Usually decks like this have issues from combo decks or aggro going underneath.
My results isn't what I'm basing this off of, it's the awkward angles of attack it forces a reaction deck to answer thats an issue. It also races the none reactionary decks.
The ingenious factor of this deck being built is awesome, but I can't honestly say decks like this are healthy or contribute anything to modern outside of it being "another option!"
This was exactly my point
Yes, BR Hollow One is a good deck. But it is also a deck that doesn't need you to be a Pro Level player in order to do well with it. Yes if you are a better player, you will do better with the deck. But someone new to Modern can pick up the deck, and probably do decently well at small to medium sized tournaments.
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Skitz, I consider myself an ok player. Not good, but not bad. I felt my results were too generous for someone who just picked the deck up. With Ponza, I could see I wasn't keeping the best hands, but my game sense said it still has some fundamental issues.
I think anyone who has knowledge about modern and knows its interaction can play this easily. I didn't find it very skillful to Collective brutaltity away my Ghast and Flamewake.
The deck is for SURE tier 1, in terms of power level, I have no doubt. It's way underplayed for now, even with it picking up steam.
I can't comment on the ease or difficulty of Dredge, since I had no interest in a deck that was shut down by a relic.
I mean...I couldn't believe the deck was making creature aggro chump block from the amount of pressure. Usually decks like this have issues from combo decks or aggro going underneath.
My results isn't what I'm basing this off of, it's the awkward angles of attack it forces a reaction deck to answer thats an issue. It also races the none reactionary decks.
The ingenious factor of this deck being built is awesome, but I can't honestly say decks like this are healthy or contribute anything to modern outside of it being "another option!"
I think Hollow One is quite literally RNG terrible. I've had it go off, and I've had it fall on its face. I dont think its 'good' at all, and in a meta anywhere close to hostile to artifacts, its scrubbing out instantly.
I don't see the problem with a deck existing that is good and relatively easy to play. It's not like some online job listing where every deck says you need to have a BA in mathematics and at least two years experience in order to succeed...
The hell it is. I had the grixis control player have all the answers for the Hollow One but then he couldn't answer GY occursion creatures and had to deal with Gurmag.
Siding in ancient grudge for a creature based deck feels so bad, as I've done it myself with Jund. It's probably incorrect, but I have no clue how to fight the deck as Jund nor did Reid Duke in testing with his Abzan deck for the PT.
The RNG didn't feel terrible at all, the amount of looting, lore and inquiry made it difficult not to get something in the GY.
Flameblade shores up the matchup against solitaire decks to race.
I truly thought this deck was way more of, "spin the wheel", now I feel like it has loaded dice and is going to get what you need. Whoever came up with this latest build is an incredible deck builder.
I have no clue if this is a ban worthy deck, it isn't played enough or posted the results to say something that bold yet.
I just know what this deck is criminally underplayed right now.
It depresses me, because I've been loving new Jund. I even got top 8 at a 1K this past weekend with it. But then I play this deck that just jams its own plan and its a reminder that being a solitaire deck (with a tiny bit of interaction in the bolts) is just better.
The hell it is. I had the grixis control player have all the answers for the Hollow One but then he couldn't answer GY occursion creatures and had to deal with Gurmag.
Siding in ancient grudge for a creature based deck feels so bad, as I've done it myself with Jund. It's probably incorrect, but I have no clue how to fight the deck as Jund nor did Reid Duke in testing with his Abzan deck for the PT.
The RNG didn't feel terrible at all, the amount of looting, lore and inquiry made it difficult not to get something in the GY.
Flameblade shores up the matchup against solitaire decks to race.
I truly thought this deck was way more of, "spin the wheel", now I feel like it has loaded dice and is going to get what you need. Whoever came up with this latest build is an incredible deck builder.
I have no clue if this is a ban worthy deck, it isn't played enough or posted the results to say something that bold yet.
I just know what this deck is criminally underplayed right now.
It depresses me, because I've been loving new Jund. I even got top 8 at a 1K this past weekend with it. But then I play this deck that just jams its own plan and its a reminder that being a solitaire deck (with a tiny bit of interaction in the bolts) is just better.
Meh, play Jund, enjoy it, because you are doing powerful things in Jund too.
I dont even play RIP and I have not lost to Hollow One yet, but I have Path...
Possibly, but I've come to a point where its irrelevant to me. Playing 'the meta' in Modern is an exercise in futility.
'Oh I see the Tier 1 is Affinity, and Tron, and Eldrazi, and Burn, and Jund/GDS/JDS and Storm...' how do you meta that? On top of Zoo, on top of Hollow One, on top of any number of Tier 2/3 decks that can (and do!) spike events and then go back to that deck nobody has heard of?
You can't. You can only look at what YOU want to play, and shore up your sideboard to try and account for the stupidity (and I say that in a positive way, you see the Hollow One clip on Twitter?) as much as one can.
Is it Dredge, Hollow One, Storm, and Grixis smashing face? Well maybe RiP goes in the Side. I've literally given up on fighting xTron decks. If my Counter's dont get me there, forget it. Fighting the mana is a losing position when I already have to go long as UWR anyway.
So as ktk and many others have said. Find your strategy, learn it, and grind it out. Thats the only way to find success in Modern for the average person.
Unless, you simply like throwing money at Wizards chasing the tiger of 'the meta deck'.
Possibly, but I've come to a point where its irrelevant to me. Playing 'the meta' in Modern is an exercise in futility.
'Oh I see the Tier 1 is Affinity, and Tron, and Eldrazi, and Burn, and Jund/GDS/JDS and Storm...' how do you meta that? On top of Zoo, on top of Hollow One, on top of any number of Tier 2/3 decks that can (and do!) spike events and then go back to that deck nobody has heard of?
You can't. You can only look at what YOU want to play, and shore up your sideboard to try and account for the stupidity (and I say that in a positive way, you see the Hollow One clip on Twitter?) as much as one can.
Is it Dredge, Hollow One, Storm, and Grixis smashing face? Well maybe RiP goes in the Side. I've literally given up on fighting xTron decks. If my Counter's dont get me there, forget it. Fighting the mana is a losing position when I already have to go long as UWR anyway.
So as ktk and many others have said. Find your strategy, learn it, and grind it out. Thats the only way to find success in Modern for the average person.
Unless, you simply like throwing money at Wizards chasing the tiger of 'the meta deck'.
Its hard to predict what you are going to face in a tournament despite the meta. Some people have 1 modern deck, and just is going to play it no matter what because thats all they got, and you might have to face them
BR Hollow one sees A LOT of play online. It likely is the one I've played the most against in the past 2 weeks.
On 5-0s, unless a deck doesn't appear, we can't know how many 5-0s it has done. Well if it plays Kiln Fiends we can assume it was just me, but a deck like Lantern could have a bunch and just get 1 posted.
what do you think of the deck? bloo probably doesnt care about what its doing, but i figure playing against it a bunch gives you a pretty good vantage to judge its power level.
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Well I used to think the deck was trash but now seeing the results and everything it looks like it's good.
It works in a weird "reliably chaotic" way, in that it does random stuff but due to high density of stuff it often finds something to put in front of you. It might be 2 Hollow Ones, it might be an Angler with a Phoenix and a Bloodghast, or a combination. And then, while you are dealing with that, which can be easy or not depending on what you are playing, their deck keeps flowing and adding to the board.
Faithless Looting is a very potent consistency tool, in addition to combo enabler.
Bloo obviously doesn't care much, it's in the same category as Titanshift, Affinity, Elves, Dredge, Bogles: they do a lot of stuff I don't care much about and then they die.
I expect we'll keep seing a lot of Hollow One in the near future. I don't think that's bad though, it encourages people to play particularly well suited interactive decks like Jeskai which are good for the format imo.
It'll be interesting and nerve-wracking to see how that plays out. Best-case scenario, it plays out just like you described, with high-interaction decks keeping them in check. Worst-case scenario, it plays out like a hybrid of Infect (blisteringly fast but dies to removal) and Dredge (cheats out too much stuff too fast and just recurs its threats until you die) that's less soft to graveyard hate.
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Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
Well I used to think the deck was trash but now seeing the results and everything it looks like it's good.
It works in a weird "reliably chaotic" way, in that it does random stuff but due to high density of stuff it often finds something to put in front of you. It might be 2 Hollow Ones, it might be an Angler with a Phoenix and a Bloodghast, or a combination. And then, while you are dealing with that, which can be easy or not depending on what you are playing, their deck keeps flowing and adding to the board.
Faithless Looting is a very potent consistency tool, in addition to combo enabler.
Bloo obviously doesn't care much, it's in the same category as Titanshift, Affinity, Elves, Dredge, Bogles: they do a lot of stuff I don't care much about and then they die.
I expect we'll keep seing a lot of Hollow One in the near future. I don't think that's bad though, it encourages people to play particularly well suited interactive decks like Jeskai which are good for the format imo.
I really think the "RNG" accusations are absurd, The phrase "loaded dice" is really apt for the deck, it doesn't really seem to care one bit about the hollow ones getting discarded because even then they effectively become treasure tokens for Angler. The big RNG aspect I would be afraid of isn't "Turn one hollow ones" since that is a really unlikely happening, the RNG I worry about is the "Turn one Burning Inquiry that takes this really good hand I kept into trash cause I discarded down to 1 land."
well isnt what you are describing part of the rng? if so how are the rng accusations absurd lol?
its clear the deck uses built in redundancies to mitigate the effects of random discard. for the most part its a quality found in good deckbuilding in general.
taking a random sampling from any deck should yield a selection that is similar in function. this is true for some decks more than others. for example decks that are looking to combine A + B components in their strategy such as bogles with hexproof threats + auras or infect with threats + pump spells. sort of a good indicator is how well a given deck is perceived at mulliganing. if i discard a handful of removal spells and countermagic from my jeskai deck, well i dont really care because thats like 90% of what the deck is.
in theory i think given a large enough data set of resolved burning inquiries and goblin lores the net result should be pretty even. whether it be the hollow one deck putting 12 power out on turn 1, the deck discarding all action and crashing and burning, or the opponents hand getting appreciably better or worse. you could find yourself with no lands/spells, or you could get mono removal spells.
i think what people are worried about is the more localized impact. the game of magic features rng elements already, and people accept that as the cost of doing business. what is worrisome is that effects like burning inquiry add an extra layer of variance, which compounds into some small chance that games are polarizing in the extreme.
its hard to care that hollow ones win percentages are within acceptable levels when, like in your example, you keep a decent hand and suddenly its non-functional and the opponent has 8 power on the board.
i personally dont think there is enough information to pass judgment on the hollow one deck. however i think its completely reasonable to look at how the deck operates and feel uneasy about it.
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I mean if we're talking about hollow one, we DO have reliable information, because it's an easy deck to calculate success conditions for. Essentially, as I understand it, your main gameplan kind of relies on landing hollow one right? At least against aggressive decks like affinity/burn, or even decks which pack a sufficient clock to race like jund/junk/humans, etc.
1. We mull on hands containing 0,1,6, or 7 lands
2. Spell priority is optimized for our ability to cast hollow one (so t1 we cast Burning Inquiry over Faithless Looting
3. Discard priority is also optimized for our ability to cast hollow one early
4. Casting Hollow One takes priority over other plays.
You get the following result:
TURN 1: 16.6% for 1, 2.5% for 2, .2% for 3-4
TURN 2: 16.8% for 1, 2.7% for 2, .2% for 3-4
TURN 3 +: 61.0%
For keeping all one landers with looting and or burning inquiry the nubmers are better; the probability of pre turn 3 hollow one is now 54.3%, the percentage of hands that utterly fail to do anything also increase. Also the percentage of such hands which depend on one creature also increase pretty dramatically.
I'd argue that while hollow one probably does have several very good matchups, the above numbers kind of imply it has several very poor ones, and that variance can just sink you even in a good matchup.
You have a ~ 39% chance to cast hollow one before turn 3. Which means that your flamewake phoenix is also probably not coming back. You might be able to cast a gurmag angler turn 2, but that probability is also relatively low (gurmag turn 3 is pretty reasonable though).
Now consider situations which I would deem "losing". Not "lost", but it seems pretty tough to win in most likely scenarios. Basically considering hollow one t3 feels really awful against most aggressive decks.
vs. UWR - opponent (on the play) resolves a jace and bounces t3 hollow one or opponenet (on the draw) paths my t3 hollow one, the spell quellers a flamewake the next turn. Or logic knot on HO, and path the phoenix/bloodghast.
vs. Jund - opponent plays tarmo t2 as I get a bloodghast and a t3 hollow one. They decay or terminate the hollow one. They have a 4/5 on board and their draws are a billion times stronger.
vs. Humans - opponent cocos for reflector mage and any other card targeting my t3 hollow one. Or honestly, an opponent plays their t3 reflector mage vs. my t3 hollow one.
vs. Affinity - opponent has a cranial plating on a vault skirge when I drop a t3 4/4. or opponent has a master of etherium in general. or a steel overseer on t2 or t1. Really affinity seems real bad in my head.
vs. Storm - any situation where their life total is still untouched on t3.
Now you may say it "feels" strong when playing, but any deck can "feel" strong. Nobody would claim taking turns is a good deck, but I have lost literally every game I've played against it no matter my deck choice. It "feels" really solid to me, but upon analysis, I realize I'm just in a skewed sample.
Regarding the RNG element. As long as the deck isn't actually "strong", I don't mind that high variance decks exist simply because, well, what are you going to do? Grishoalbrand randomly wins on turn 2 some material percentage of the time, but there isn't really much to be done unless wizards wants to just ban all the cards that could possibly make a high RNG deck possible.
So, just me in the mtgo practice rooms, but I did play quite a few games against and with Hollow one
Had some pretty absurd hands against me. Turn 1 thoughtseize on someone, stripping their hollow one. He inquiries into a hollow one. Turn 2 Bloodghast and flamewake, turn 3 Gurmag. I'm not sure many decks in modern can handle this, I know as Jund I felt helpless as I stared as a terminate, Goyf and BBE in my hand.
Another opponent had turn 2 2 hollow one.
I had a game just now against blue tron, turn 1 Hollow one, turn 2 double flame blade adept, turn 3 swing for lethal
Next game I turn 1 into Hollow One, turn 2 Bloodghast and Flamewake, opponent scoops
This doesn't look like a healthy deck in the format to me, guys. This isn't something decks are equipped to fight. I think the blue control decks probably match up the best.
I'm definitely not calling for bans, but I think we have our first serious deck to be on watch for the first time since dredge in 2016.
Outside of the deck building genius of this deck, I don't think this is healthy for a format to have.
I mean if we're talking about hollow one, we DO have reliable information, because it's an easy deck to calculate success conditions for. Essentially, as I understand it, your main gameplan kind of relies on landing hollow one right? At least against aggressive decks like affinity/burn, or even decks which pack a sufficient clock to race like jund/junk/humans, etc.
1. We mull on hands containing 0,1,6, or 7 lands
2. Spell priority is optimized for our ability to cast hollow one (so t1 we cast Burning Inquiry over Faithless Looting
3. Discard priority is also optimized for our ability to cast hollow one early
4. Casting Hollow One takes priority over other plays.
You get the following result:
TURN 1: 16.6% for 1, 2.5% for 2, .2% for 3-4
TURN 2: 16.8% for 1, 2.7% for 2, .2% for 3-4
TURN 3 +: 61.0%
For keeping all one landers with looting and or burning inquiry the nubmers are better; the probability of pre turn 3 hollow one is now 54.3%, the percentage of hands that utterly fail to do anything also increase. Also the percentage of such hands which depend on one creature also increase pretty dramatically.
I'd argue that while hollow one probably does have several very good matchups, the above numbers kind of imply it has several very poor ones, and that variance can just sink you even in a good matchup.
You have a ~ 39% chance to cast hollow one before turn 3. Which means that your flamewake phoenix is also probably not coming back. You might be able to cast a gurmag angler turn 2, but that probability is also relatively low (gurmag turn 3 is pretty reasonable though).
Now consider situations which I would deem "losing". Not "lost", but it seems pretty tough to win in most likely scenarios. Basically considering hollow one t3 feels really awful against most aggressive decks.
vs. UWR - opponent (on the play) resolves a jace and bounces t3 hollow one or opponenet (on the draw) paths my t3 hollow one, the spell quellers a flamewake the next turn. Or logic knot on HO, and path the phoenix/bloodghast.
vs. Jund - opponent plays tarmo t2 as I get a bloodghast and a t3 hollow one. They decay or terminate the hollow one. They have a 4/5 on board and their draws are a billion times stronger.
vs. Humans - opponent cocos for reflector mage and any other card targeting my t3 hollow one. Or honestly, an opponent plays their t3 reflector mage vs. my t3 hollow one.
vs. Affinity - opponent has a cranial plating on a vault skirge when I drop a t3 4/4. or opponent has a master of etherium in general. or a steel overseer on t2 or t1. Really affinity seems real bad in my head.
vs. Storm - any situation where their life total is still untouched on t3.
Now you may say it "feels" strong when playing, but any deck can "feel" strong. Nobody would claim taking turns is a good deck, but I have lost literally every game I've played against it no matter my deck choice. It "feels" really solid to me, but upon analysis, I realize I'm just in a skewed sample.
Regarding the RNG element. As long as the deck isn't actually "strong", I don't mind that high variance decks exist simply because, well, what are you going to do? Grishoalbrand randomly wins on turn 2 some material percentage of the time, but there isn't really much to be done unless wizards wants to just ban all the cards that could possibly make a high RNG deck possible.
thanks for posting that. it was an interesting read, and frank karsten is a resource i trust.
yeah it was like i said. in the grand scheme of things the deck might have a pretty mundane win percentage. if you assume that the most explosive starts out of the deck revolve around dropping hallowed ones sooner rather than later, then the chance looks relatively small.
its important to note that the logic used in the simulations focused on lines of play that resulted in the highest chance of getting hallowed ones into play. which doesnt necessarily mean that those same lines would have resulted in dealing damage as quickly as possible. its probably a good approximation though.
also one thing that was brought up, that isnt really possible to simulate, is the variance associated specifically with burning inquiry and the opponents. its hard to tell if the opponents hand is negatively affected AND if it mattered for the result of the game (opposed to them losing regardless of what happened). there are also of course the cases where you actually improve your opponents hand, and whether that affected the outcome.
you brought up the perceived strength of the deck, which i think matters a lot too. the random discard effects are easy to point at and say "THATS why i lost the game", when in reality it was no different from some random deck having a nut draw and running you over.
all we can really do is wait for more tournament results, but it might be good to have that article on hand if people start to get up in arms about it.
edit: and oh yeah, im gonna keep saying this, but i reeeeallly dislike resolving random discard effects in paper magic.
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Regarding the inquiry: this is completly hypothetical, but I'd imagine that the discard effect is most likely a wash? Not sure myself to be honest. This is a guess based on intuition:
I think you may make your opponent's hand slightly worse on average, given a turn 1 inquiry. Given they kept their current hand, the chances of it degrading (any reduction of lands below 3 or increase of lands to above 3) is probably higher than the chances of their number of lands in hand becoming 3. The chances that their card selection gets better in terms of spells is probably a wash.
Hollow one is ok with 2 or 3 lands as I understand it, and a reduction below 2 is more unlikely than a reduction below 3. However, card selection decreases are far more likely in that if you discard hollow one it hurts your hand a lot more than discarding flamewake or bloodghast helps. (Again, that's a guess too).
Overall both edges are small, and I'd expect it to not materially affect things? But anyways, tournament results are the way to tell.
Other topic, are there any new jace decks that are particularly surprising? I know UW and whatnot is on the uptick, but is any spicy brew starting to build momentum?
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Modern UWUW ControlUW UGWSpiritsUGW GHardened ScalesG WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
Other topic, are there any new jace decks that are particularly surprising? I know UW and whatnot is on the uptick, but is any spicy brew starting to build momentum?
There are lots of sweet and spicy brews, but so far to my knowledge there hasn't been an actual breakthrough new Jace deck. He's been kind of quiet compared to Bloodbraid Elf, actually. BBE can be jammed into basically any GRx deck and it'll do well. Jace clearly needs a shell to make him work at all, and he might not be optimal in the main of the decks he does work in. Crazy thought, no? That said, my money has been invested in UB Jace + discard, which seems to be around as powerful as UW before the unbannings. Maybe I'll move back to Grixis or Esper Draw-go. I dunno.
Maybe jace ends up being a repeat of sword and av.
Bbe has made a significant impact on modern though
I think jace would have been an oppressive card with splinter twin as part of that transformational sideboard. Right now I question his contribution to modern, as of now no one has cracked a shell for him
Maybe jace ends up being a repeat of sword and av.
Bbe has made a significant impact on modern though
I think jace would have been an oppressive card with splinter twin as part of that transformational sideboard. Right now I question his contribution to modern, as of now no one has cracked a shell for him
A gp is more likely to see a real jace deck.
I'm very interested to see what happens if he can't find a home. People have wanted to play him in modern for a long time because he was great in standard and never got a chance to exist in the format. If he can't even compete in modern, does that mean he is worth less than even a 50 dollar price tag?
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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!
I agree, I really want to see what happens with him, though I think he will probably stay above 50 just with how dominant he is in legacy.
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Commander: UBG Tasigur, the lab enabler UR Planeswalker Control UBRW Breya's personal box of combos BRW Vampire beats, by Dre 1 Karn, where all lands are command towers UBR Inalla's Venser lock UBRGW Atog Atog contraption tribal WUB Xur's second chance UGW Derivi, bird tribal R Brother's Yamazaki BRG Prosh, the scourge of multiplayer GW Capt. Sisay's Deck Dumping Service UB All Your Spells do Belong to Me UG Tapioca Pearl BG Meren's grinder
Maybe jace ends up being a repeat of sword and av.
I've been saying exactly that for nearly two years. Or at least since those two did nothing. Jace is a cool card to be playing with, but I've argued for quite a while that his impact on modern would be minimal. I've firmly held that he should definitely be legal, but that unbanning him would also be kind of a "waste" of a big, meaningful unban. We'll see if it pans out, but my own experience (and that of nearly every article and YouTube video) is lukewarm at best to Jace.
It's not a problem of finding a "home," it's just that his role is basically to function as a pretty good midrange/finisher card once you're at parity or ahead. He'll see play because he's cheaper and easier to cast than Elspeth or Keranos, so he'll fill that role in any deck that can cast UU.
It's just funny to look back at all the doomsday comments about how Jace will destroy the format.
This was exactly my point
Yes, BR Hollow One is a good deck. But it is also a deck that doesn't need you to be a Pro Level player in order to do well with it. Yes if you are a better player, you will do better with the deck. But someone new to Modern can pick up the deck, and probably do decently well at small to medium sized tournaments.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I think Hollow One is quite literally RNG terrible. I've had it go off, and I've had it fall on its face. I dont think its 'good' at all, and in a meta anywhere close to hostile to artifacts, its scrubbing out instantly.
Spirits
Siding in ancient grudge for a creature based deck feels so bad, as I've done it myself with Jund. It's probably incorrect, but I have no clue how to fight the deck as Jund nor did Reid Duke in testing with his Abzan deck for the PT.
The RNG didn't feel terrible at all, the amount of looting, lore and inquiry made it difficult not to get something in the GY.
Flameblade shores up the matchup against solitaire decks to race.
I truly thought this deck was way more of, "spin the wheel", now I feel like it has loaded dice and is going to get what you need. Whoever came up with this latest build is an incredible deck builder.
I have no clue if this is a ban worthy deck, it isn't played enough or posted the results to say something that bold yet.
I just know what this deck is criminally underplayed right now.
It depresses me, because I've been loving new Jund. I even got top 8 at a 1K this past weekend with it. But then I play this deck that just jams its own plan and its a reminder that being a solitaire deck (with a tiny bit of interaction in the bolts) is just better.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Meh, play Jund, enjoy it, because you are doing powerful things in Jund too.
I dont even play RIP and I have not lost to Hollow One yet, but I have Path...
Spirits
I think for now playing a blue deck is an extremely bad idea, too many people are gunning for them
'Oh I see the Tier 1 is Affinity, and Tron, and Eldrazi, and Burn, and Jund/GDS/JDS and Storm...' how do you meta that? On top of Zoo, on top of Hollow One, on top of any number of Tier 2/3 decks that can (and do!) spike events and then go back to that deck nobody has heard of?
You can't. You can only look at what YOU want to play, and shore up your sideboard to try and account for the stupidity (and I say that in a positive way, you see the Hollow One clip on Twitter?) as much as one can.
Is it Dredge, Hollow One, Storm, and Grixis smashing face? Well maybe RiP goes in the Side. I've literally given up on fighting xTron decks. If my Counter's dont get me there, forget it. Fighting the mana is a losing position when I already have to go long as UWR anyway.
So as ktk and many others have said. Find your strategy, learn it, and grind it out. Thats the only way to find success in Modern for the average person.
Unless, you simply like throwing money at Wizards chasing the tiger of 'the meta deck'.
Spirits
Its hard to predict what you are going to face in a tournament despite the meta. Some people have 1 modern deck, and just is going to play it no matter what because thats all they got, and you might have to face them
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Spirits
what do you think of the deck? bloo probably doesnt care about what its doing, but i figure playing against it a bunch gives you a pretty good vantage to judge its power level.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)It'll be interesting and nerve-wracking to see how that plays out. Best-case scenario, it plays out just like you described, with high-interaction decks keeping them in check. Worst-case scenario, it plays out like a hybrid of Infect (blisteringly fast but dies to removal) and Dredge (cheats out too much stuff too fast and just recurs its threats until you die) that's less soft to graveyard hate.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
I really think the "RNG" accusations are absurd, The phrase "loaded dice" is really apt for the deck, it doesn't really seem to care one bit about the hollow ones getting discarded because even then they effectively become treasure tokens for Angler. The big RNG aspect I would be afraid of isn't "Turn one hollow ones" since that is a really unlikely happening, the RNG I worry about is the "Turn one Burning Inquiry that takes this really good hand I kept into trash cause I discarded down to 1 land."
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
its clear the deck uses built in redundancies to mitigate the effects of random discard. for the most part its a quality found in good deckbuilding in general.
taking a random sampling from any deck should yield a selection that is similar in function. this is true for some decks more than others. for example decks that are looking to combine A + B components in their strategy such as bogles with hexproof threats + auras or infect with threats + pump spells. sort of a good indicator is how well a given deck is perceived at mulliganing. if i discard a handful of removal spells and countermagic from my jeskai deck, well i dont really care because thats like 90% of what the deck is.
in theory i think given a large enough data set of resolved burning inquiries and goblin lores the net result should be pretty even. whether it be the hollow one deck putting 12 power out on turn 1, the deck discarding all action and crashing and burning, or the opponents hand getting appreciably better or worse. you could find yourself with no lands/spells, or you could get mono removal spells.
i think what people are worried about is the more localized impact. the game of magic features rng elements already, and people accept that as the cost of doing business. what is worrisome is that effects like burning inquiry add an extra layer of variance, which compounds into some small chance that games are polarizing in the extreme.
its hard to care that hollow ones win percentages are within acceptable levels when, like in your example, you keep a decent hand and suddenly its non-functional and the opponent has 8 power on the board.
i personally dont think there is enough information to pass judgment on the hollow one deck. however i think its completely reasonable to look at how the deck operates and feel uneasy about it.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)So how likely is hollow one? Well thankfully someone else already coded it up:
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/how-reliable-is-hollow-one/
Assumptions
1. We mull on hands containing 0,1,6, or 7 lands
2. Spell priority is optimized for our ability to cast hollow one (so t1 we cast Burning Inquiry over Faithless Looting
3. Discard priority is also optimized for our ability to cast hollow one early
4. Casting Hollow One takes priority over other plays.
You get the following result:
TURN 1: 16.6% for 1, 2.5% for 2, .2% for 3-4
TURN 2: 16.8% for 1, 2.7% for 2, .2% for 3-4
TURN 3 +: 61.0%
For keeping all one landers with looting and or burning inquiry the nubmers are better; the probability of pre turn 3 hollow one is now 54.3%, the percentage of hands that utterly fail to do anything also increase. Also the percentage of such hands which depend on one creature also increase pretty dramatically.
I'd argue that while hollow one probably does have several very good matchups, the above numbers kind of imply it has several very poor ones, and that variance can just sink you even in a good matchup.
You have a ~ 39% chance to cast hollow one before turn 3. Which means that your flamewake phoenix is also probably not coming back. You might be able to cast a gurmag angler turn 2, but that probability is also relatively low (gurmag turn 3 is pretty reasonable though).
Now consider situations which I would deem "losing". Not "lost", but it seems pretty tough to win in most likely scenarios. Basically considering hollow one t3 feels really awful against most aggressive decks.
vs. UWR - opponent (on the play) resolves a jace and bounces t3 hollow one or opponenet (on the draw) paths my t3 hollow one, the spell quellers a flamewake the next turn. Or logic knot on HO, and path the phoenix/bloodghast.
vs. Jund - opponent plays tarmo t2 as I get a bloodghast and a t3 hollow one. They decay or terminate the hollow one. They have a 4/5 on board and their draws are a billion times stronger.
vs. Humans - opponent cocos for reflector mage and any other card targeting my t3 hollow one. Or honestly, an opponent plays their t3 reflector mage vs. my t3 hollow one.
vs. Affinity - opponent has a cranial plating on a vault skirge when I drop a t3 4/4. or opponent has a master of etherium in general. or a steel overseer on t2 or t1. Really affinity seems real bad in my head.
vs. Storm - any situation where their life total is still untouched on t3.
Now you may say it "feels" strong when playing, but any deck can "feel" strong. Nobody would claim taking turns is a good deck, but I have lost literally every game I've played against it no matter my deck choice. It "feels" really solid to me, but upon analysis, I realize I'm just in a skewed sample.
Regarding the RNG element. As long as the deck isn't actually "strong", I don't mind that high variance decks exist simply because, well, what are you going to do? Grishoalbrand randomly wins on turn 2 some material percentage of the time, but there isn't really much to be done unless wizards wants to just ban all the cards that could possibly make a high RNG deck possible.
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
Had some pretty absurd hands against me. Turn 1 thoughtseize on someone, stripping their hollow one. He inquiries into a hollow one. Turn 2 Bloodghast and flamewake, turn 3 Gurmag. I'm not sure many decks in modern can handle this, I know as Jund I felt helpless as I stared as a terminate, Goyf and BBE in my hand.
Another opponent had turn 2 2 hollow one.
I had a game just now against blue tron, turn 1 Hollow one, turn 2 double flame blade adept, turn 3 swing for lethal
Next game I turn 1 into Hollow One, turn 2 Bloodghast and Flamewake, opponent scoops
This doesn't look like a healthy deck in the format to me, guys. This isn't something decks are equipped to fight. I think the blue control decks probably match up the best.
I'm definitely not calling for bans, but I think we have our first serious deck to be on watch for the first time since dredge in 2016.
Outside of the deck building genius of this deck, I don't think this is healthy for a format to have.
thanks for posting that. it was an interesting read, and frank karsten is a resource i trust.
yeah it was like i said. in the grand scheme of things the deck might have a pretty mundane win percentage. if you assume that the most explosive starts out of the deck revolve around dropping hallowed ones sooner rather than later, then the chance looks relatively small.
its important to note that the logic used in the simulations focused on lines of play that resulted in the highest chance of getting hallowed ones into play. which doesnt necessarily mean that those same lines would have resulted in dealing damage as quickly as possible. its probably a good approximation though.
also one thing that was brought up, that isnt really possible to simulate, is the variance associated specifically with burning inquiry and the opponents. its hard to tell if the opponents hand is negatively affected AND if it mattered for the result of the game (opposed to them losing regardless of what happened). there are also of course the cases where you actually improve your opponents hand, and whether that affected the outcome.
you brought up the perceived strength of the deck, which i think matters a lot too. the random discard effects are easy to point at and say "THATS why i lost the game", when in reality it was no different from some random deck having a nut draw and running you over.
all we can really do is wait for more tournament results, but it might be good to have that article on hand if people start to get up in arms about it.
edit: and oh yeah, im gonna keep saying this, but i reeeeallly dislike resolving random discard effects in paper magic.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I think you may make your opponent's hand slightly worse on average, given a turn 1 inquiry. Given they kept their current hand, the chances of it degrading (any reduction of lands below 3 or increase of lands to above 3) is probably higher than the chances of their number of lands in hand becoming 3. The chances that their card selection gets better in terms of spells is probably a wash.
Hollow one is ok with 2 or 3 lands as I understand it, and a reduction below 2 is more unlikely than a reduction below 3. However, card selection decreases are far more likely in that if you discard hollow one it hurts your hand a lot more than discarding flamewake or bloodghast helps. (Again, that's a guess too).
Overall both edges are small, and I'd expect it to not materially affect things? But anyways, tournament results are the way to tell.
Other topic, are there any new jace decks that are particularly surprising? I know UW and whatnot is on the uptick, but is any spicy brew starting to build momentum?
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
There are lots of sweet and spicy brews, but so far to my knowledge there hasn't been an actual breakthrough new Jace deck. He's been kind of quiet compared to Bloodbraid Elf, actually. BBE can be jammed into basically any GRx deck and it'll do well. Jace clearly needs a shell to make him work at all, and he might not be optimal in the main of the decks he does work in. Crazy thought, no? That said, my money has been invested in UB Jace + discard, which seems to be around as powerful as UW before the unbannings. Maybe I'll move back to Grixis or Esper Draw-go. I dunno.
Bbe has made a significant impact on modern though
I think jace would have been an oppressive card with splinter twin as part of that transformational sideboard. Right now I question his contribution to modern, as of now no one has cracked a shell for him
A gp is more likely to see a real jace deck.
I'm very interested to see what happens if he can't find a home. People have wanted to play him in modern for a long time because he was great in standard and never got a chance to exist in the format. If he can't even compete in modern, does that mean he is worth less than even a 50 dollar price tag?
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!
UBG Tasigur, the lab enabler UR Planeswalker Control
UBRW Breya's personal box of combos BRW Vampire beats, by Dre
1 Karn, where all lands are command towers UBR Inalla's Venser lock
UBRGW Atog Atog contraption tribal WUB Xur's second chance
UGW Derivi, bird tribal R Brother's Yamazaki
BRG Prosh, the scourge of multiplayer GW Capt. Sisay's Deck Dumping Service
UB All Your Spells do Belong to Me UG Tapioca Pearl
BG Meren's grinder
I've been saying exactly that for nearly two years. Or at least since those two did nothing. Jace is a cool card to be playing with, but I've argued for quite a while that his impact on modern would be minimal. I've firmly held that he should definitely be legal, but that unbanning him would also be kind of a "waste" of a big, meaningful unban. We'll see if it pans out, but my own experience (and that of nearly every article and YouTube video) is lukewarm at best to Jace.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I've won more games with a Search for Azcanta than Jace.
Spirits
It's just funny to look back at all the doomsday comments about how Jace will destroy the format.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate