I am not demanding WOTC balance the local meta either...the competitive meta on the other hand?
Yeah I think they could do more to balance Aggro against Control and Midrange.
I mean sure we see Tron Hate and Combo Hate printed regularly of late. But how much Aggro hate have we seen of late?
Settle the Wreckage is some powerful anti-aggro hate that sees play in both Standard and Modern. Jeskai is also an indisputable top-tier Standard deck that has extensive anti-aggro game, in no small part due to Settle. It's tough to balance a card that is a functional Modern anti-aggro tool while also being fair in Standard. Wizards really doesn't want to break Standard control, and Settle is that card which strikes that balance. That said, I agree it's definitely better in Standard than in Modern. I expect we'll keep seeing cards like that as design keeps refining its formula and Play Design has a more active role.
Incidentally, Terminus already does this, and I don't see us getting a sweeper that's much better.
I am saying Jeskai is better fit against Humans or Spirits then its Dredge and Phoenix.
But also Aggro not the only threat Stirrings Decks are still abundant.
Do you play Jund? @The_Fluff Still in general given the abundance of grave shenanigans in general yeah I use Ooze. Its main deckable and there always something to eat even if its only optimal against grave decks.
UWR can absolutely beat Dredge and Phoenix.
But you have just hit on the real issue.
It's not all Aggro, and if you tune to beat it, Tron going to Karn all over you and Ulamog your lands.
I am not demanding WOTC balance the local meta either...the competitive meta on the other hand?
Yeah I think they could do more to balance Aggro against Control and Midrange.
I mean sure we see Tron Hate and Combo Hate printed regularly of late. But how much Aggro hate have we seen of late?
Settle the Wreckage is some powerful anti-aggro hate that sees play in both Standard and Modern. Jeskai is also an indisputable top-tier Standard deck that has extensive anti-aggro game, in no small part due to Settle. It's tough to balance a card that is a functional Modern anti-aggro tool while also being fair in Standard. Wizards really doesn't want to break Standard control, and Settle is that card which strikes that balance. That said, I agree it's definitely better in Standard than in Modern. I expect we'll keep seeing cards like that as design keeps refining its formula and Play Design has a more active role.
Incidentally, Terminus already does this, and I don't see us getting a sweeper that's much better.
Your the stats expert how much do you trust the mtggoldfish data? I ask this cause yes Jeskai is A Top deck in Standard but its still only 12% of the meta. So yeah Jeskai Control exist and is stronger in Standard then Modern cause aggro is not nearly as fast in Standard. Plus you don't have to tune for combo or big mana. The meta share is hardly balanced between Aggro, Midrange and Control in Standard. Cause the rest of the top decks are all Aggro and Midrange. And yet even with that imbalance MARO and Friends still thinks Control is too good and unfair hence we got Gruul Settle Wrecker.
As for sweepers as I noted we don't need something strictly better then Terminus, we need something that activates when your opponent is barfing up way too many creatures on a single turn in the early game cause they got massive cost reduction or too many things escaping the graveyard. So like a better Hour of Revelation that is less color intensive, instant speed and doesn't turn on with ten permanents. Sadly a wipe by turn 4 is too slow these days.
Or creatures that as I noted with my change to Lavinia stop opponents from casting creatures with more lands then they have for the Hollow Ones of the world. Since clearly better counters are off the table.
So yeah I prefer better boardwipes but I could get results with better control creatures as is the WOTC Design Focus these days. WOTC though aint really interested in curtailing aggro be it with counters, wipes or control creatures.
I am not demanding WOTC balance the local meta either...the competitive meta on the other hand?
Yeah I think they could do more to balance Aggro against Control and Midrange.
I mean sure we see Tron Hate and Combo Hate printed regularly of late. But how much Aggro hate have we seen of late?
Settle the Wreckage is some powerful anti-aggro hate that sees play in both Standard and Modern. Jeskai is also an indisputable top-tier Standard deck that has extensive anti-aggro game, in no small part due to Settle. It's tough to balance a card that is a functional Modern anti-aggro tool while also being fair in Standard. Wizards really doesn't want to break Standard control, and Settle is that card which strikes that balance. That said, I agree it's definitely better in Standard than in Modern. I expect we'll keep seeing cards like that as design keeps refining its formula and Play Design has a more active role.
Incidentally, Terminus already does this, and I don't see us getting a sweeper that's much better.
Your the stats expert how much do you trust the mtggoldfish data? I ask this cause yes Jeskai is A Top deck in Standard but its still only 12% of the meta. So yeah Jeskai Control exist and is stronger in Standard then Modern cause aggro is not nearly as fast in Standard. Plus you don't have to tune for combo or big mana. The meta share is hardly balanced between Aggro, Midrange and Control in Standard. Cause the rest of the top decks are all Aggro and Midrange. And yet even with that imbalance MARO and Friends still thinks Control is too good and unfair hence we got Gruul Settle Wrecker.
As for sweepers as I noted we don't need something strictly better then Terminus, we need something that activates when your opponent is barfing up way too many creatures on a single turn in the early game cause they got massive cost reduction or too many things escaping the graveyard. So like a better Hour of Revelation that is less color intensive, instant speed and doesn't turn on with ten permanents.
Or creatures that as I noted with my change to Lavinia stop opponents from casting creatures with more lands then they have for the Hollow Ones of the world. Since clearly better counters are off the table.
So yeah I prefer better boardwipes but I could get results with better control creatures as is the WOTC Design Focus these days. WOTC though aint really interested in curtailing aggro be it with counters, wipes or control creatures.
I'm really not sure what the metagame share is. I don't follow Standard shares too much. I just know it's a Tier 1 deck with lots of finishes this season.
I don't think the issue with UWx or Ux is inability to deal with aggro. Jeskai and UW can do that with ease between sweepers, Path, Oust, Cryptic, etc. The problem is tuning UWx to beat those decks while remaining viable against all the non-aggro decks. You can refine your answers to smash Dredge, HS Affinity, Humans, Bant Spirits, and all those creature strategies. But then you have a deck that's 33% or more dead against KCI, Tron, Storm, Titanshift, Amulet, the mirror, and other decks that ignore removal.
If you play a proactive deck, you typically don't have dead cards or dead draws. If you play reactive, you run that risk in every matchup and game. That risk is even higher in Modern than Standard and Legacy because as opposed to Standard, we have more diverse threats, and as opposed to Legacy, some of our answers are less powerful and encompassing. Such reactive decks can succeed, but you have to work a lot harder in games and deckbuilding.
i mean lets not sugarcoat it here. blue has the most powerful form of interaction in countermagic that doesnt care if your card is a creature or a pokemon card.
its as AUTUMN says about blue being marginalized. wizards messed up, made it too strong, let it define various formats, and they want modern to be different. 2 mana counters just havent kept up with the format, the cantrips are outshown by similar effects in other colors, and card 'draw' has historically (and still to some degree) been relegated to cards like snapcaster and cryptic getting 2-for-1s.
dont get me wrong im not saying this as some blue 'woe is me' nonsense, just a statement of reality. blue control still does fine, and countermagic still sees play. my point is that an axis of interaction that could be used to balance, which is arguably unfairly brought to the table by only one color, has been purposefully weakened and there is no support on the horizon because the gap between standard and modern grows wider with time.
if death shadow hadnt been discovered and uniquely situated to use stubborn denial, which is of more appropriate power, itd be delver decks trying to stay tempo positive with freaking mana leak.
counter magic is really good in standard, even at 3 mana. so there is no recourse until wizards purposefully goes out of their way and tailor make a 1 mana or functionally free spell more widely applicable just for modern.
just consider that we were talking about generic answers, and the first things that came to mind were creatures. we have been conditioned to not expect help from blue in something it is by far the best at.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Blue is very strong in Modern, but not strong at doing what it does elsewhere.
Context is all, in GRN there is a dumb vanilla 4/5 for 5 in black, and often people say in draft "why are you not playing that?", whereas in most formats an identical card is pants. Cards don't exist in a vacuum, and neither do colours.
Blue gets lots of goodies, from Snappy to Thing in the ice which is now spiking, a decent tribe or two in Spirits and Merfolk, It has generic bounce that deals with almost any hate permanent. It has 1 and 2 cc strong soft counters or narrow hard ones counterspells but not free ones outside of Pact of Negation and Shoal. The colourless stuff in Modern all gives options for dealing with bins and problem lands. Mana fixing is fine in the format. The only thing blue can't do is Daze and Force, and as anyone in Legacy will tell you these are not great anti aggro measures. The reason why blue based control is weaker than Legacy is actually the selection. When you can't Brainstorm that Terminus it makes all the difference, when you can't get rid if the useless anti critter card and shuffle it away, control struggles.
The entire discussion above relates to creatures. Aggro/Midrsnge/control are bring defined but are all about creatures and ignores the fact that big mana exists. Other weird control/prison decks lurk in the fringes too, ever seen Martyr proc against some of the aggro decks? Hilarious.
You can always lose to a random 8 rack or big red or whatever in any event, so the idea that X vs Y archetype is an issue is always going to be a problem.
For what it is worth, I hate midrange, more than any archetype in Modern, it was the best of everything and the most forgiving of play mistakes. I saw many a player in the days of Deathrite play jund like a dog but still tear up trees.
The way the format is there are few decks that punish people for playing dudes. Bridge stands out, and it is rather fragile. Having answers to creatures then yields the issue of the wrong answer, something that can be solved only by better selection. That to me is the only issue I have with Modern, I would like better selection, not Brainstorm, of course, but more lands and spells with Scry on them, but it is hard to do when decks like Storm lurk in the fringes if the format. I would rather the format had better non creature options in the early part if the curve, but in reality they are designing with Standard in mind and today everything is creatures, creatures, creatures. I accept Modern for what it is, just I accept the ban list is operated to help Wizards sell packs and keep attendance high, rather than a desire to ferment perfect metas.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
I am saying Jeskai is better fit against Humans or Spirits then its Dredge and Phoenix.
But also Aggro not the only threat Stirrings Decks are still abundant.
Do you play Jund? @The_Fluff Still in general given the abundance of grave shenanigans in general yeah I use Ooze. Its main deckable and there always something to eat even if its only optimal against grave decks.
Don't have Jund. My deck is RG Ponza, but my creatures are different from usual ponza creatures... using 2 Glorybringer and 2 Batterskull instead of the stock list Stormbreath and Inferno Titan. And also added 4 tarmogoyf to the deck to be able to fight early Hollow One.
I am not demanding WOTC balance the local meta either...the competitive meta on the other hand?
Yeah I think they could do more to balance Aggro against Control and Midrange.
I mean sure we see Tron Hate and Combo Hate printed regularly of late. But how much Aggro hate have we seen of late?
Settle the Wreckage is some powerful anti-aggro hate that sees play in both Standard and Modern. Jeskai is also an indisputable top-tier Standard deck that has extensive anti-aggro game, in no small part due to Settle. It's tough to balance a card that is a functional Modern anti-aggro tool while also being fair in Standard. Wizards really doesn't want to break Standard control, and Settle is that card which strikes that balance. That said, I agree it's definitely better in Standard than in Modern. I expect we'll keep seeing cards like that as design keeps refining its formula and Play Design has a more active role.
Incidentally, Terminus already does this, and I don't see us getting a sweeper that's much better.
I believe Settle the Wreckage is actually better than Wrath of God or Verdict in some match ups because Settle exiles. With so many things that come back from the yard these days like Arclight Phoenix, Flamewake Phoenix, Bloodghast, the creatures of Dredge, the guys from living end -- a board wipe that exiles is better than something that just puts things back into the yard where they can be reanimated again. There is also the surprise since it is an instant.
Playing a control deck with blue in modern seems like a gigantic mistake. There's way, way too many decks. While its true we have like "30 decks that could win a GP" they are shades of the same goldfish decks. There's just way too many dead cards in these UWx decks.
Izzet Phoenix can discard and tare through its deck for some answers, a ton of cantrips, and can interact and do its thing. The deck is happy to do its own thing and interact JUST enough. It also has some unfair openers. This is what's making the deck real.
Grixis Shadow can outright win a game before it starts, and see's fairly deep with all the baubles, wraiths, loots, etc.
Unless Twin comes back, I sold off a ton of the UW staples with very little intention on using them. I kept 3x Jaces, 3x Commands and other staples so I don't have to spend big to buy into Twin (not that I'm holding my breath). For the most part, these control decks are just awful. Using top notch players like Brad Nelson and Seth Manning at an SCG tournament to prop up Jeskai seems like a trap.
That being said, it looks like Phoenix decks are having spell-based combo decks come out to prey on them. Meanwhile, I think something like Grixis profits from that. Jund may see a boost because there's more combo and it beats up on Phoenix decks. The days of Jund/Rock beating up on aggro decks is over, though. Those matchups used to be THE reason to play something like Jund.
I don't personally think it's a good idea to play a GBx deck, you may as well go some variant of Traverse/Grixis Shadow.
I see little reason to be pessimistic about the future of this format (which should inform how we feel about the present state of Modern, of course).
WotC very obviously realizes the need to print powerful answer cards in new sets. KTK and id listed most of the recent ones a few pages back: Trophy, Sphere, etc. To me, this development is extremely encouraging, and I don’t think it’s quite recieved its due among the Modern community as a clear sign that answers (and therefore interaction) are going to be designed to thrive in eternal formats.
Would I like Modern to be more interactive than it is now? Yes, without question, and it seems that the majority shares this view. Still, the demise of interactive decks has been greatly exaggerated. We’re still doing fine in the meta—not amazing, but fine—and moving forward we can expect 1) new answers will continuously be printed with Modern (or Legacy) in mind, 2) any realistic unbans will surely help “fair”/interactive decks more than linear ones, and 3) any possible bans (which will likely only be used as a last resort) are almost certainly going to be aimed at something hyper-linear that shrugs off interaction, like Dredge.
Finally—and this is merely anecdotal—my two most recent (Friendly) leagues with Golgari went 4-1 and 5-0, and I did it while commentating live, which, let me tell ya, definitely makes playing optimally a lot harder, especially if you’re as new to it as I am! My advice is this: find a reasonably powerful deck that you love on every level and stick with it through thick and thin. Knowing your own deck is the key to success in this format, and the broader the metagame gets, the truer that will become IMO.
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GB Golgari Midrange GB YouTube Channel, with deck techs, gameplay, analysis, spoiler reviews, and more!
Playing a control deck with blue in modern seems like a gigantic mistake. There's way, way too many decks. While its true we have like "30 decks that could win a GP" they are shades of the same goldfish decks. There's just way too many dead cards in these UWx decks.
We already know from this year that UWx has top tier potential and history. Just because it's not there now, doesn't mean it won't return as the metagame cycles. Many top-tier Modern decks do just that, and it's a mistake to sell out of a deck because it isn't well positioned in a 1-2 month span.
I don't personally think it's a good idea to play a GBx deck, you may as well go some variant of Traverse/Grixis Shadow.
Dan Geitner got T8 and ultimately second at GP Portland with BG Rock and zero byes. That's the kind of commanding performance which undercuts your position about BGx being a bad choice. He even played if for the very reason many here would ostensibly like to play it: "I played Golgari Midrange because it was a deck with close matchups that allowed me to leverage decision making."
I think it just comes down to people don't like losing. I played Knightfall myself. I loooooved the deck! It was one of the most fun decks I've played in Modern; probably top 5. But my win percentage that I tracked was about 59%. I can't justify playing a deck that I have that percentage with. Now I can't really truly say that the deck is bad. Maybe it's just me as a player? But it's also easy for many to just say that the deck is in a bad place because their own metagame is not friendly to it or they're not playing it (deck tweaking too) to it's potential.
Right now I am playing Cragganwick Cremator. My win percentage was over 80% early on. After 11-9, it dropped to 72%. I went 4-2 at the Staples tournament, so now it's 69%. If this trend of drawing poorly continues, I simply am going to stop playing the deck. And I am going to call the deck bad and be mad that Wizards didn't make my deck better.
*I know I talk a lot about the lack of play in Modern, but there definitely still is some. Many, no most players are not playing a deck to its full potential, myself included. Also some decks just aren't good for their metagame or they just keep getting unlucky pairings. There's a lot of factors as to why a deck doesn't do well at a small local area. That's why many of us only look at GP and/or Open statistics to make an overall decision on a deck's place in the meta. There's just too many factors.
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)
If you want the best deck, you should be on GDS or KCI imo.
I learned in Modern that it's not about the best deck. If you want to win, you play the deck that you get the luckiest with and for me right now, that's Cragganwick. If I can start chaining 4-0s and 3-1s again, I can definitely get that record up. If I get less than that and don't prize, I probably will ship it soon. I haven't enjoyed my recent streak of land clumps and spell clumps in the deck. It prevents me from emptying out my hand to "Twin them out.
P.S.- GDS got me 2-1-1 and 3-1 in 2 tournaments. That's not super bad, so maybe I try it again? KCI got me 2-2 and 3-1. That was through a lot of hate. I could try it again, but I have a similar record with a, for all intents and purposes, trash deck.
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)
If you want the best deck, you should be on GDS or KCI imo.
From a data perspective, KCI is probably the indisputable best deck. It has the highest MWP, the most favorable matchup spectrum, and is in the top five (top three?) of decks with the most GP T8 finishes this year. In my experience, the main reasons it sees less play are because it is legitimately difficult to play on MTGO, it doesn't fully function on MTGO as it does in paper, and there is a perception that the deck is very hard to pilot period, even in paper.
I agree that people don't like losing, but I also don't know where people get their MWP benchmarks from. The top 40 best players in the world average a 58.4% MWP in Standard and a 60.9% MWP in Modern (at least, as of September this year). That's across GP/PT events. We don't know what their MTGO or local event MWPs are. But I can say that people consistently overestimate personal performance in games. It's like the old DOTA/League surveys where you asked people what their actual ELO/ranking is and then ask them what they feel they should be. Players overwhelmingly rated themselves better than their performance indicated, often by magnitudes. Magic is probably the same. FCG is probably not alone in wanting an 80% MWP, but is that realistic? What's the basis of that benchmark other than it sounds good?
I believe, as FCG said, this same mentality is at play in people wanting fair decks with higher MWPs. Something like GDS has a roughly 50% flat MWP across the field, with many matchups in the 45/55 or 55/45 range. UW Control is about 51% with a similar spectrum. That seems like the kind of tight decisionmaking deck interactive players would enjoy.
I don't know about others, but I personally got my statistics from kavu.ru. Now they've been out of service for about 1-2 years, but I've used mtgstats.net since then. I hadn't looked at it for about 3 months now and just 2 days ago, I told someone he could check there. He said IT'S out of service, so I am looking for that "new site" that has someone's lifetime stats. I'm sure there's a way to do it by copy pasta the Planeswalkerpoints.com History, but I'm really not computer savvy enough to figure it out easily and I'm not really going to put in the work. I'd just rather wait until someone suggests it.
Also, I am counting the higher win percentage, aka the win percentage NOT counting Draws. This is a higher win percentage because essentially a Draw is similar to a loss when doing that type of win percentage because...well, it's not a win.
I'll leave with an example to make it simple for those who can't figure it out easily.
6-3-1 record.
Win percentage not counting draws - 66.67%
Win percentage counting draws - 60%
Obviously when you've played a million matches, the numbers tend to get closer to each other. That is, unless you play exclusively slow decks, lol.
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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)
If you want the best deck, you should be on GDS or KCI imo.
GDS is far from being the best deck, imo. It has real and several weaknesses. Many games you don't draw a threat early enough, many games you draw 1 and the opp draws 2 spot removals. It also has some abysmal matchups, such as UW Control and some bad ones as Humans.
Is it a deck that can win down a tourney, while being interactive? Yes, it is!
Does it have real weaknesses? Yes, it does.
Could it ever betray you during one tournament? Yes, it can.
Also, if you remember the win rates of the decks that were shared in here during the latest GP's, GDS was on 50% win perentage.
It is one of the best decks, and I dont believe there is much room to argue against that, especially if one wants to interact.
Goes it have a real weakness? Find me a deck that doesnt.
Could it betray you and fail to itself? Find me a deck that doesnt.
Could it also smash your opponent within 4 Turns? Sure it can.
I can say that unless RNA gives me some busted reason to play UW again, I'll be floating between GDS and UR Phoenix indefinitely. As much as I would love to counter things and interact with my opponent, there's really no justifiable reason to continually put myself at disadvantage playing a reactive, "answers" deck.
Best way to think of it is that if you build your reactive deck perfectly, and you play your deck perfectly, and your matchups mostly lineup perfectly, and you don't stumble or mulligan or flood or screw, you will probably have about the same winning outcomes as your average fast linear deck under pretty much any average circumstance.
Well then I expect you to be disappointed unless they print something broken from a miss print or not paying attention ala Creeping Chill.
The only "disappointment" is looking at all my UW/Jeskai foil staples sitting in a binder. That includes full art Cryptics foil Jaces and Mythic Ed. Teferis. But then I remember how "disappointing" the deck performs, and just smile as I rock every week with GDS or Phoenix.
I'm not confused at all, you can easily be staring at multiple 4/4s with your hand gutted, and them sitting on Stubborn Mana by turn 4.
Is it like the old pump zoo? No. It's better.
It's not a turn 3 deck, granted, but you downplaying how good it is doesn't change the reality of its power.
It's a deck that is rewarded by shocking, and thoughtseize, with a natural 1 mana Negate, and removal for days.
It surely is not faster than the old DSZoo deck. Better? I firmly believe DSZoo was a slightly better deck to be honest. Consistent Turn 3 kills is a great thing to have. Even if so, my only disagreement is that you (in a past post) and now cfp claimed a lot of times that GDS is a turn 3 deck, which is not.
Another disagreement is that you have the notion that GDS is not such an interactive deck, because "it's plan is to kill with a TBR though a wall of blockers". Maybe in your mind, the twin combo was a more interactive combo(?) to have, I don't know.
Bottomline is that, GDS is not a turn 3 deck and GDS is one of the most interactive tiered decks in Modern's history.
Reading all these posts about GDS being a turn 3 deck confuse me. Maybe people tend to play differently with it?
The GDS players in my area have never turned 3 me, no matter what deck I use the game always turns into a grind with them using Kolaghan's command, snap, and tasigur to try to outgrind whatever deck I'm using. In addition to thoughtseize and wraith, they also use Dismember to reduce their life totals. Usually the game ends around turn 8 or something. One game I lost from 18 life got attacked by two 11/11 shadows. The method to beat the shadow decks here is to bum-rush them with plenty of early aggro - so a tribal deck like Humans do it just fine with an aggressive opener, or a fast start by Hollow One decks.
Anyway, today is Dec 25 here in my country. Merry Christmas everyone. Has been nice discussing in this thread.
I'm at the point where the hate is there, you simply cannot be on something dead ass slow, and expect to 'oh I'll just counter it all', that simply is not an answer in Modern, and it isnt really an answer in Legacy either, people just have this perception that Counterspell would do something, it wouldnt, it doesnt even see Legacy play. FREE counters, that someone can spend the mana to dig for, would do something.
The ideal of an interactive deck in Modern, is GDS.
Here it is, a few pages back.
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UW Spirits
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Settle the Wreckage is some powerful anti-aggro hate that sees play in both Standard and Modern. Jeskai is also an indisputable top-tier Standard deck that has extensive anti-aggro game, in no small part due to Settle. It's tough to balance a card that is a functional Modern anti-aggro tool while also being fair in Standard. Wizards really doesn't want to break Standard control, and Settle is that card which strikes that balance. That said, I agree it's definitely better in Standard than in Modern. I expect we'll keep seeing cards like that as design keeps refining its formula and Play Design has a more active role.
Incidentally, Terminus already does this, and I don't see us getting a sweeper that's much better.
UWR can absolutely beat Dredge and Phoenix.
But you have just hit on the real issue.
It's not all Aggro, and if you tune to beat it, Tron going to Karn all over you and Ulamog your lands.
Spirits
Your the stats expert how much do you trust the mtggoldfish data? I ask this cause yes Jeskai is A Top deck in Standard but its still only 12% of the meta. So yeah Jeskai Control exist and is stronger in Standard then Modern cause aggro is not nearly as fast in Standard. Plus you don't have to tune for combo or big mana. The meta share is hardly balanced between Aggro, Midrange and Control in Standard. Cause the rest of the top decks are all Aggro and Midrange. And yet even with that imbalance MARO and Friends still thinks Control is too good and unfair hence we got Gruul Settle Wrecker.
As for sweepers as I noted we don't need something strictly better then Terminus, we need something that activates when your opponent is barfing up way too many creatures on a single turn in the early game cause they got massive cost reduction or too many things escaping the graveyard. So like a better Hour of Revelation that is less color intensive, instant speed and doesn't turn on with ten permanents. Sadly a wipe by turn 4 is too slow these days.
Or creatures that as I noted with my change to Lavinia stop opponents from casting creatures with more lands then they have for the Hollow Ones of the world. Since clearly better counters are off the table.
So yeah I prefer better boardwipes but I could get results with better control creatures as is the WOTC Design Focus these days. WOTC though aint really interested in curtailing aggro be it with counters, wipes or control creatures.
I'm really not sure what the metagame share is. I don't follow Standard shares too much. I just know it's a Tier 1 deck with lots of finishes this season.
I don't think the issue with UWx or Ux is inability to deal with aggro. Jeskai and UW can do that with ease between sweepers, Path, Oust, Cryptic, etc. The problem is tuning UWx to beat those decks while remaining viable against all the non-aggro decks. You can refine your answers to smash Dredge, HS Affinity, Humans, Bant Spirits, and all those creature strategies. But then you have a deck that's 33% or more dead against KCI, Tron, Storm, Titanshift, Amulet, the mirror, and other decks that ignore removal.
If you play a proactive deck, you typically don't have dead cards or dead draws. If you play reactive, you run that risk in every matchup and game. That risk is even higher in Modern than Standard and Legacy because as opposed to Standard, we have more diverse threats, and as opposed to Legacy, some of our answers are less powerful and encompassing. Such reactive decks can succeed, but you have to work a lot harder in games and deckbuilding.
its as AUTUMN says about blue being marginalized. wizards messed up, made it too strong, let it define various formats, and they want modern to be different. 2 mana counters just havent kept up with the format, the cantrips are outshown by similar effects in other colors, and card 'draw' has historically (and still to some degree) been relegated to cards like snapcaster and cryptic getting 2-for-1s.
dont get me wrong im not saying this as some blue 'woe is me' nonsense, just a statement of reality. blue control still does fine, and countermagic still sees play. my point is that an axis of interaction that could be used to balance, which is arguably unfairly brought to the table by only one color, has been purposefully weakened and there is no support on the horizon because the gap between standard and modern grows wider with time.
if death shadow hadnt been discovered and uniquely situated to use stubborn denial, which is of more appropriate power, itd be delver decks trying to stay tempo positive with freaking mana leak.
counter magic is really good in standard, even at 3 mana. so there is no recourse until wizards purposefully goes out of their way and tailor make a 1 mana or functionally free spell more widely applicable just for modern.
just consider that we were talking about generic answers, and the first things that came to mind were creatures. we have been conditioned to not expect help from blue in something it is by far the best at.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Context is all, in GRN there is a dumb vanilla 4/5 for 5 in black, and often people say in draft "why are you not playing that?", whereas in most formats an identical card is pants. Cards don't exist in a vacuum, and neither do colours.
Blue gets lots of goodies, from Snappy to Thing in the ice which is now spiking, a decent tribe or two in Spirits and Merfolk, It has generic bounce that deals with almost any hate permanent. It has 1 and 2 cc strong soft counters or narrow hard ones counterspells but not free ones outside of Pact of Negation and Shoal. The colourless stuff in Modern all gives options for dealing with bins and problem lands. Mana fixing is fine in the format. The only thing blue can't do is Daze and Force, and as anyone in Legacy will tell you these are not great anti aggro measures. The reason why blue based control is weaker than Legacy is actually the selection. When you can't Brainstorm that Terminus it makes all the difference, when you can't get rid if the useless anti critter card and shuffle it away, control struggles.
The entire discussion above relates to creatures. Aggro/Midrsnge/control are bring defined but are all about creatures and ignores the fact that big mana exists. Other weird control/prison decks lurk in the fringes too, ever seen Martyr proc against some of the aggro decks? Hilarious.
You can always lose to a random 8 rack or big red or whatever in any event, so the idea that X vs Y archetype is an issue is always going to be a problem.
For what it is worth, I hate midrange, more than any archetype in Modern, it was the best of everything and the most forgiving of play mistakes. I saw many a player in the days of Deathrite play jund like a dog but still tear up trees.
The way the format is there are few decks that punish people for playing dudes. Bridge stands out, and it is rather fragile. Having answers to creatures then yields the issue of the wrong answer, something that can be solved only by better selection. That to me is the only issue I have with Modern, I would like better selection, not Brainstorm, of course, but more lands and spells with Scry on them, but it is hard to do when decks like Storm lurk in the fringes if the format. I would rather the format had better non creature options in the early part if the curve, but in reality they are designing with Standard in mind and today everything is creatures, creatures, creatures. I accept Modern for what it is, just I accept the ban list is operated to help Wizards sell packs and keep attendance high, rather than a desire to ferment perfect metas.
Don't have Jund. My deck is RG Ponza, but my creatures are different from usual ponza creatures... using 2 Glorybringer and 2 Batterskull instead of the stock list Stormbreath and Inferno Titan. And also added 4 tarmogoyf to the deck to be able to fight early Hollow One.
I believe Settle the Wreckage is actually better than Wrath of God or Verdict in some match ups because Settle exiles. With so many things that come back from the yard these days like Arclight Phoenix, Flamewake Phoenix, Bloodghast, the creatures of Dredge, the guys from living end -- a board wipe that exiles is better than something that just puts things back into the yard where they can be reanimated again. There is also the surprise since it is an instant.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Izzet Phoenix can discard and tare through its deck for some answers, a ton of cantrips, and can interact and do its thing. The deck is happy to do its own thing and interact JUST enough. It also has some unfair openers. This is what's making the deck real.
Grixis Shadow can outright win a game before it starts, and see's fairly deep with all the baubles, wraiths, loots, etc.
Unless Twin comes back, I sold off a ton of the UW staples with very little intention on using them. I kept 3x Jaces, 3x Commands and other staples so I don't have to spend big to buy into Twin (not that I'm holding my breath). For the most part, these control decks are just awful. Using top notch players like Brad Nelson and Seth Manning at an SCG tournament to prop up Jeskai seems like a trap.
That being said, it looks like Phoenix decks are having spell-based combo decks come out to prey on them. Meanwhile, I think something like Grixis profits from that. Jund may see a boost because there's more combo and it beats up on Phoenix decks. The days of Jund/Rock beating up on aggro decks is over, though. Those matchups used to be THE reason to play something like Jund.
I don't personally think it's a good idea to play a GBx deck, you may as well go some variant of Traverse/Grixis Shadow.
WotC very obviously realizes the need to print powerful answer cards in new sets. KTK and id listed most of the recent ones a few pages back: Trophy, Sphere, etc. To me, this development is extremely encouraging, and I don’t think it’s quite recieved its due among the Modern community as a clear sign that answers (and therefore interaction) are going to be designed to thrive in eternal formats.
Would I like Modern to be more interactive than it is now? Yes, without question, and it seems that the majority shares this view. Still, the demise of interactive decks has been greatly exaggerated. We’re still doing fine in the meta—not amazing, but fine—and moving forward we can expect 1) new answers will continuously be printed with Modern (or Legacy) in mind, 2) any realistic unbans will surely help “fair”/interactive decks more than linear ones, and 3) any possible bans (which will likely only be used as a last resort) are almost certainly going to be aimed at something hyper-linear that shrugs off interaction, like Dredge.
Finally—and this is merely anecdotal—my two most recent (Friendly) leagues with Golgari went 4-1 and 5-0, and I did it while commentating live, which, let me tell ya, definitely makes playing optimally a lot harder, especially if you’re as new to it as I am! My advice is this: find a reasonably powerful deck that you love on every level and stick with it through thick and thin. Knowing your own deck is the key to success in this format, and the broader the metagame gets, the truer that will become IMO.
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We already know from this year that UWx has top tier potential and history. Just because it's not there now, doesn't mean it won't return as the metagame cycles. Many top-tier Modern decks do just that, and it's a mistake to sell out of a deck because it isn't well positioned in a 1-2 month span.
Dan Geitner got T8 and ultimately second at GP Portland with BG Rock and zero byes. That's the kind of commanding performance which undercuts your position about BGx being a bad choice. He even played if for the very reason many here would ostensibly like to play it: "I played Golgari Midrange because it was a deck with close matchups that allowed me to leverage decision making."
Right now I am playing Cragganwick Cremator. My win percentage was over 80% early on. After 11-9, it dropped to 72%. I went 4-2 at the Staples tournament, so now it's 69%. If this trend of drawing poorly continues, I simply am going to stop playing the deck. And I am going to call the deck bad and be mad that Wizards didn't make my deck better.
*I know I talk a lot about the lack of play in Modern, but there definitely still is some. Many, no most players are not playing a deck to its full potential, myself included. Also some decks just aren't good for their metagame or they just keep getting unlucky pairings. There's a lot of factors as to why a deck doesn't do well at a small local area. That's why many of us only look at GP and/or Open statistics to make an overall decision on a deck's place in the meta. There's just too many factors.
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 you want the best deck, you should be on GDS or KCI imo.
Spirits
I learned in Modern that it's not about the best deck. If you want to win, you play the deck that you get the luckiest with and for me right now, that's Cragganwick. If I can start chaining 4-0s and 3-1s again, I can definitely get that record up. If I get less than that and don't prize, I probably will ship it soon. I haven't enjoyed my recent streak of land clumps and spell clumps in the deck. It prevents me from emptying out my hand to "Twin them out.
P.S.- GDS got me 2-1-1 and 3-1 in 2 tournaments. That's not super bad, so maybe I try it again? KCI got me 2-2 and 3-1. That was through a lot of hate. I could try it again, but I have a similar record with a, for all intents and purposes, trash deck.
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)From a data perspective, KCI is probably the indisputable best deck. It has the highest MWP, the most favorable matchup spectrum, and is in the top five (top three?) of decks with the most GP T8 finishes this year. In my experience, the main reasons it sees less play are because it is legitimately difficult to play on MTGO, it doesn't fully function on MTGO as it does in paper, and there is a perception that the deck is very hard to pilot period, even in paper.
I agree that people don't like losing, but I also don't know where people get their MWP benchmarks from. The top 40 best players in the world average a 58.4% MWP in Standard and a 60.9% MWP in Modern (at least, as of September this year). That's across GP/PT events. We don't know what their MTGO or local event MWPs are. But I can say that people consistently overestimate personal performance in games. It's like the old DOTA/League surveys where you asked people what their actual ELO/ranking is and then ask them what they feel they should be. Players overwhelmingly rated themselves better than their performance indicated, often by magnitudes. Magic is probably the same. FCG is probably not alone in wanting an 80% MWP, but is that realistic? What's the basis of that benchmark other than it sounds good?
I believe, as FCG said, this same mentality is at play in people wanting fair decks with higher MWPs. Something like GDS has a roughly 50% flat MWP across the field, with many matchups in the 45/55 or 55/45 range. UW Control is about 51% with a similar spectrum. That seems like the kind of tight decisionmaking deck interactive players would enjoy.
Also, I am counting the higher win percentage, aka the win percentage NOT counting Draws. This is a higher win percentage because essentially a Draw is similar to a loss when doing that type of win percentage because...well, it's not a win.
I'll leave with an example to make it simple for those who can't figure it out easily.
6-3-1 record.
Win percentage not counting draws - 66.67%
Win percentage counting draws - 60%
Obviously when you've played a million matches, the numbers tend to get closer to each other. That is, unless you play exclusively slow decks, lol.
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)It is one of the best decks, and I dont believe there is much room to argue against that, especially if one wants to interact.
Goes it have a real weakness? Find me a deck that doesnt.
Could it betray you and fail to itself? Find me a deck that doesnt.
Could it also smash your opponent within 4 Turns? Sure it can.
Spirits
Best way to think of it is that if you build your reactive deck perfectly, and you play your deck perfectly, and your matchups mostly lineup perfectly, and you don't stumble or mulligan or flood or screw, you will probably have about the same winning outcomes as your average fast linear deck under pretty much any average circumstance.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
The only "disappointment" is looking at all my UW/Jeskai foil staples sitting in a binder. That includes full art Cryptics foil Jaces and Mythic Ed. Teferis. But then I remember how "disappointing" the deck performs, and just smile as I rock every week with GDS or Phoenix.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Humans falling out of favor and UW being mostly irrelevant.
It also helps being a turn 3 deck that plays Thoughtseize.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Is it like the old pump zoo? No. It's better.
It's not a turn 3 deck, granted, but you downplaying how good it is doesn't change the reality of its power.
It's a deck that is rewarded by shocking, and thoughtseize, with a natural 1 mana Negate, and removal for days.
Spirits
Spirits
Reading all these posts about GDS being a turn 3 deck confuse me. Maybe people tend to play differently with it?
The GDS players in my area have never turned 3 me, no matter what deck I use the game always turns into a grind with them using Kolaghan's command, snap, and tasigur to try to outgrind whatever deck I'm using. In addition to thoughtseize and wraith, they also use Dismember to reduce their life totals. Usually the game ends around turn 8 or something. One game I lost from 18 life got attacked by two 11/11 shadows. The method to beat the shadow decks here is to bum-rush them with plenty of early aggro - so a tribal deck like Humans do it just fine with an aggressive opener, or a fast start by Hollow One decks.
Anyway, today is Dec 25 here in my country. Merry Christmas everyone. Has been nice discussing in this thread.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Here it is, a few pages back.
Spirits