2 Phoenix decks in the finals, don't think many people saw that coming.
I'm not. Bunch of people play various builds locally, been nuts on a few streams, loved it so much I dropped the ridiculous $80 for a playset myself. Card is busted.
Very diverse Top 8. 2 Pro's showing their skills on UWR.
PS: Practice on your chosen Archetype is probably more important than chasing the 'best deck' in Modern.
Also, as Brad Nelson showed on camera twice, just be sure to have your opponent mulligan and draw all your sideboard cards on time!
Edit: BTW, Miriam's UR Phoenix looks absolutely delicious.
He still won all those off camera games to make it in the top 8...
I mean, it's also two top caliber players who are a cut above SCG grinders.
The top 8 was surprisingly an interactive bunch, it's odd seeing those results with how ugly the day 2 meta looked.
Can we completely just blame dredge for the battle of the sideboard issue? We have a TON of graveyard decks, to the point that 4x Leyline isn't unreasonable. Would we really be laying off the sideboard if not for dredge? If dredge eats a ban, it shouldn't be chill. The actual mechanic is a toxic, mistake of a design. Modern is never better off when it's at the top.
Yes, in my OPINION dredge is unique in the pressure it applies.
Dredge doesn't win that 2nd game against UW that R Phoenix just aggro/burned it's way through.
On the flip side, it's immensely favoured in game 1 when no hate is present.
Perhaps MTGO doesn't line up directly with Paper, but look at the top decks in the Challenge a page or 2 back. 4+ hate, and that only started when Chill caught on.
reading some comments in this thread do make me chuckle. Modern’s fine and you know ? i might just try them arch light decks. They seem very fun to pilot.
Still need to ban stirrings? need to ban chill?
brah,formats fine. let’s enjoy this top 8 for what it represents.
I've been testing Dredge the past few days and WHEW, it feels almost the same as the Golgari Grave-Troll Dredge. I can't imagine most decks, outside of decks that try to goldfish you turn 3 or 4 (like Storm or KCI), having a solid matchup in Game 1. Yes, the sideboard games once again are battle of the boards. If I do pick up the deck, I will only do so after memorizing what grave hate is played in all of the top 10 decks. Some of this is fairly easy to guess of course (Surgical Extraction with Snapcaster Mage), Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus, or Leyline of the Void for other possible graveyard decks, etc. etc.
Also if you wanna see the UR Phoenix deck in action a few weeks ago, a local friend played the Atlanta Regionals after dropping out of the Pro Tour and lost in Round 1. He proceeded to win the next 7 rounds and then the top 8, top 4, and finals. He beat Mono Red Phoenix in the finals. 10 Rounds in a row! I've never done more than 7 in one single tournament.
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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)
2 Phoenix decks in the finals, don't think many people saw that coming.
I'm not. Bunch of people play various builds locally, been nuts on a few streams, loved it so much I dropped the ridiculous $80 for a playset myself. Card is busted.
It's good that you already bought some, because phoenix is now 30$ in some places.
2 Phoenix decks in the finals, don't think many people saw that coming.
I'm not. Bunch of people play various builds locally, been nuts on a few streams, loved it so much I dropped the ridiculous $80 for a playset myself. Card is busted.
Yep, I think it is just the better Delver. You can have a 3/2 flyer attacking by T2/3, but if it dies, it will come back!
I do like the Izzet Deck. Uses graveyard recursion as one avenue but not dependent on it. And it dominates the air I mean does anything besides Ponza drop fliers of real note? Fairy Tokens...Mantis Rider I guess.
Makes sense Crackling is better in Modern, the power from exile actually matters in Modern. Whereas in Standard Enigma is better cause its cheaper and no one is exiling graveyard.
Gitaxian Probe would going to be banned ultimately. But, kind of the same thing is happening with Faithless Looting also, yes?
Not really, Gitaxian Probe could be played in literally any deck without even using blue mana, the fact that it also let's you see if you are able to go off without being disrupted is also promoting bad play patterns. Imagine playing a GBx deck vs Infect, you didn't draw any removal but decide to keep mana up so they don't go for it. With Gitaxian Probe you are dead as they are going to see you don't have the answer and are going for it without even having to spend 1 single mana. It also fuels delve very easily and now would be busted with Arclight Phoenix as well. IMO, it is a mistake on a similar level as Mental Misstep
There's a difference in thinking a card is powerful and wanting it banned. Banning Lootings would just eliminate a totally new archetype... and for what reason? People don't like playing against it? If anything, Aether Vial decks are and have been the most oppressive decks in Modern within the past year. Calling for bans is honestly somewhat immature.
I've seen it so many times on this forum. Remember the Grapeshot/ PiF discusion a year ago? It's ridiculous with the ban craze
I do like the Izzet Deck. Uses graveyard recursion as one avenue but not dependent on it. And it dominates the air I mean does anything besides Ponza drop fliers of real note?
Yeah. Ever heard of Spirits? It's a pretty good deck.
I do like the Izzet Deck. Uses graveyard recursion as one avenue but not dependent on it. And it dominates the air I mean does anything besides Ponza drop fliers of real note?
Yeah. Ever heard of Spirits? It's a pretty good deck.
Fair enough I am trying to think of big fliers though not much can trade with x/4 in the air. But Spirits can put some counters to handle that issue. Course that is where spot removal comes in.
Stuff like that can help with the sideboard planning and hopefully show that things can actually be beaten.
What is a bit weird/funny, is that decks with a good mixture of say they highest disruption tools (i.e. removals, counters and discard), for example Faeries or Sultai midrange/control, are the ones struggling the most.
Stuff like that can help with the sideboard planning and hopefully show that things can actually be beaten.
What is a bit weird/funny, is that decks with a good mixture of say they highest disruption tools (i.e. removals, counters and discard), for example Faeries or Sultai midrange/control, are the ones struggling the most.
Yeah, there are ways to deal with each of these strategies individually but a sideboard only has 15 slots so you are likely going to give up answers for some specific pairings as you are limited in the number of cards you can put in.
Therefore, getting paired vs the decks you have the right cards is going to reward you but you are going to be punished when you are paired vs those decks you didn't have room for hate cards, even if you know what cards are needed for those pairings. If the format was narrower as Standard is right now, you could probably have a sideboard able to cover more percentage of the field since the answers wouldn't be so specific and they could be useful for more pairings.
Sideboarding isn't supposed to be a bunch of silver bullets to cover your back against all other decks. It's supposed to help you in matchups where you have a disadvantage. That's why a card like Abrade is actually a lot better than Stony Silence.
I played the modern last change qualifier at Face to Face Toronto this weekend and from what I understand, a lot of the KCI wasn't doing well. I'll have to link to the Top 8 when it gets posted but I think a lot of people were expecting it. I personally saw a lot of control variants (mostly UW/Jeskai) and prime time decks (amulet and titan shift) at the event.
I personally went 3-2-1 with Mardu Pyro, last round probably being a win and in to top 8 but lost to Spirits. It's not a place for a report so I won't goo too into it but I did better than I expected with mardu considering I was expecting the format to be hostile to gy based decks and mardu is a pretty fair deck that uses the gy. But I guess I did okay, buddy said blood moon would be good this weekend
There are no banlist conclusions that can be drawn from a single SCG Open. You can't determine what's inoffensive and you can't determine what's too powerful from this one event. There isn't even any evidence to suggest Wizards considers these events in B&R decisions. This means that nothing about SCG Baltimore can help us decide if Looting, Stirrings, Phoenix, Dredge, etc. are bannable.
The combination of GP Portland. GP ATL, and MTGO Challenge/PTQ results, plus RPTQ results when we get those, will be much more telling. I am withholding all banlist judgment until that time and I suggest others do the same. We simply don't currently have enough meaningful data to discuss card bannability at the end of 2018.
Sideboarding isn't supposed to be a bunch of silver bullets to cover your back against all other decks. It's supposed to help you in matchups where you have a disadvantage. That's why a card like Abrade is actually a lot better than Stony Silence.
That's how I think it should be. The problem is that right now, broad answers are not enough to deal with specific strategies, Abrade is not enough to deal with artifact strategies so if you are playing red and have to deal with them you are more likely to need Shattering Spree or Ancient Grudge if you can play green. The same happens when you compare vs other strategies, a card like Rakdos Charm should be a sideboard all star since it's so versatile but unfortunately none of it's modes does enough (Dredge can take the exile and rebuild, artifact decks get 1for 1 and keep doing their thing)
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I'm not. Bunch of people play various builds locally, been nuts on a few streams, loved it so much I dropped the ridiculous $80 for a playset myself. Card is busted.
But Stoneforge is still too good!
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Yes, in my OPINION dredge is unique in the pressure it applies.
Dredge doesn't win that 2nd game against UW that R Phoenix just aggro/burned it's way through.
On the flip side, it's immensely favoured in game 1 when no hate is present.
Perhaps MTGO doesn't line up directly with Paper, but look at the top decks in the Challenge a page or 2 back. 4+ hate, and that only started when Chill caught on.
I was flipping through my Knightfall build.
3 RIP, 2 Scooze, 2 Exile Spirit.
That's not normal imo.
Spirits
Spirits
blue is dead in modern
unban twin!
reading some comments in this thread do make me chuckle. Modern’s fine and you know ? i might just try them arch light decks. They seem very fun to pilot.
Still need to ban stirrings? need to ban chill?
brah,formats fine. let’s enjoy this top 8 for what it represents.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
Also if you wanna see the UR Phoenix deck in action a few weeks ago, a local friend played the Atlanta Regionals after dropping out of the Pro Tour and lost in Round 1. He proceeded to win the next 7 rounds and then the top 8, top 4, and finals. He beat Mono Red Phoenix in the finals. 10 Rounds in a row! I've never done more than 7 in one single tournament.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)It's good that you already bought some, because phoenix is now 30$ in some places.
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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
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
I do like the Izzet Deck. Uses graveyard recursion as one avenue but not dependent on it. And it dominates the air I mean does anything besides Ponza drop fliers of real note? Fairy Tokens...Mantis Rider I guess.
Makes sense Crackling is better in Modern, the power from exile actually matters in Modern. Whereas in Standard Enigma is better cause its cheaper and no one is exiling graveyard.
Not really, Gitaxian Probe could be played in literally any deck without even using blue mana, the fact that it also let's you see if you are able to go off without being disrupted is also promoting bad play patterns. Imagine playing a GBx deck vs Infect, you didn't draw any removal but decide to keep mana up so they don't go for it. With Gitaxian Probe you are dead as they are going to see you don't have the answer and are going for it without even having to spend 1 single mana. It also fuels delve very easily and now would be busted with Arclight Phoenix as well. IMO, it is a mistake on a similar level as Mental Misstep
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Not that any single Top 32 tells you much.
I've seen it so many times on this forum. Remember the Grapeshot/ PiF discusion a year ago? It's ridiculous with the ban craze
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Yeah. Ever heard of Spirits? It's a pretty good deck.
Top 32 - 5 Phoenix, 5 Vial, 4 Control, 4 Infect, 3 Midrange, 3 Tron, 3 Scales, 2 KCI, 1 Prison, 1 Dredge, 1 Storm
2 Phoenix, 3 Control, 2 Midrange, 1 KCI
Izzet Phoenix 1st
Mono-Red Phoenix 2nd
UW Control 3rd
Grixis Death's Shadow
Jund 5th
Jeskai Control 6th
Jeskai Control 7th
Ironworks 8th
2 Infect, 2 Tron, 1 Prison, 1 Control, 1 Midrange, 1 Vial
Grixis Death's Shadow 9th
Bant Spirits 10th
Mono-White Martyr 11th
Colorless Eldrazi 12th
Mono-Green Tron 13th
Infect 14th
Grixis Whir 15th
Infect 16th
2 Infect, 2 Scales, 2 Vial, 1 Phoenix, 1 Storm
Storm 17th
Hardened Scales 18th
Humans 19th
Izzet Phoenix
Infect 21st
Infect 22nd
Hardened Scales 23rd
Bant Spirits 24th
2 Vial, 2 Phoenix, 1 Dredge, 1 Tron, 1 Scales, 1 KCI
Hardened Scales 25th
Izzet Phoenix 26th
Mono-Green Tron 27th
Dredge 28th
Bant Spirits 29th
Runaway Red 30th
Ironworks 31st
Bant Spirits 32nd
Spirits
Fair enough I am trying to think of big fliers though not much can trade with x/4 in the air. But Spirits can put some counters to handle that issue. Course that is where spot removal comes in.
Stuff like that can help with the sideboard planning and hopefully show that things can actually be beaten.
What is a bit weird/funny, is that decks with a good mixture of say they highest disruption tools (i.e. removals, counters and discard), for example Faeries or Sultai midrange/control, are the ones struggling the most.
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
As for Fairies, need more and better Fairy options printed. Doesn't hold up compared to Humans or Spirits.
Yeah, there are ways to deal with each of these strategies individually but a sideboard only has 15 slots so you are likely going to give up answers for some specific pairings as you are limited in the number of cards you can put in.
Therefore, getting paired vs the decks you have the right cards is going to reward you but you are going to be punished when you are paired vs those decks you didn't have room for hate cards, even if you know what cards are needed for those pairings. If the format was narrower as Standard is right now, you could probably have a sideboard able to cover more percentage of the field since the answers wouldn't be so specific and they could be useful for more pairings.
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
I personally went 3-2-1 with Mardu Pyro, last round probably being a win and in to top 8 but lost to Spirits. It's not a place for a report so I won't goo too into it but I did better than I expected with mardu considering I was expecting the format to be hostile to gy based decks and mardu is a pretty fair deck that uses the gy. But I guess I did okay, buddy said blood moon would be good this weekend
The combination of GP Portland. GP ATL, and MTGO Challenge/PTQ results, plus RPTQ results when we get those, will be much more telling. I am withholding all banlist judgment until that time and I suggest others do the same. We simply don't currently have enough meaningful data to discuss card bannability at the end of 2018.
That's how I think it should be. The problem is that right now, broad answers are not enough to deal with specific strategies, Abrade is not enough to deal with artifact strategies so if you are playing red and have to deal with them you are more likely to need Shattering Spree or Ancient Grudge if you can play green. The same happens when you compare vs other strategies, a card like Rakdos Charm should be a sideboard all star since it's so versatile but unfortunately none of it's modes does enough (Dredge can take the exile and rebuild, artifact decks get 1for 1 and keep doing their thing)