Ali's Sultai Control made it to the finals amid a sea of G/Wx. And his one copy of Emrakul did work throughout the day.
He lost to Devin Koekpe's Bant Company in game three: he was on the draw and Devin's deck did what Company does best when on the play. Spell Queller was a beating, keeping Ali from establishing any type of board that last game.
Company is def the deck to beat, and looks to be frustrating to play/lose against.
Really disappointing to see Bant Company take 16 of the top 32 decks, hopefully with some time for the metagame to settle some more archetypes can come out. From this tournament it just looks like UW spirits is the only new archetype to place well. Todd Stevens' G/B delirium at 20th looks interesting. No red in the T32 except for the single G/R goggles deck and the two W/r humans decks.
If you recall, RG Goggles was one way to beat Bant Company in the fall. It stopped seeing play since resolved Gideons were a huge problem. Case in point, the Goggles player got paired vs. GW Tokens in the T8.
Once Coco rotates we'll see a big shift in decks, that is for sure. I'd say that rotating will have an even stronger impact than the fetches rotating out of standard.
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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!
If you recall, RG Goggles was one way to beat Bant Company in the fall. It stopped seeing play since resolved Gideons were a huge problem. Case in point, the Goggles player got paired vs. GW Tokens in the T8.
Nahiri's Wrath certainly can help those token matchups for Goggles. Tokens were on a decline this week though, but we'll see if they bounce back since there are a lot of anti-GW Token cards like Thalia, Queller, and Spirits in general.
If anything, I'd suspect there will be a lot more hate against coco in general come next tourney, which may give some other decks a shot at taking the lead since some of the better counters for coco are rather specific, like Hallowed Moonlight. Also, while I agree with someone earlier that cheap removal is key to dealing with Bant Company, the issue is in the current standard we don't have a lot of cheap removal options that aren't conditional. We've got Searing Light, Galvanic Bombardment, and a sorcery speed option with Incendiary Flow.
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!
Wanted to watch Ali's Sultai delirium in action but couldn't catch the live coverage. When and where do they archive the footage?
That's a good question. I saw the top 8 against the g/b delerium player who should've won game 1. (He could have made a 4/4 token off of Nissa) I didn't catch many interactions with LtLH, but she seemed strong.
CoCo blew up the format, which should have been fairly obvious to the stupid designers when they started crafting so many overpowered 3cc (and less) creatures. It's ridiculous. How much card and board advantage do GWx aggro decks need? I will be very glad when it rotates.
Collected Company is wrecking these tournaments, but I'm more disappointed by people who fail to get a clue for many months at this moment. You know that Bant Company is nuts and you know Spell Queller will see a ton of play, so stop building these crappy decks that fold to these established archetypes. It really feels like the good players play with Bant and GW and the majority of those who don't can't analyze what they are doing wrong in their deckbuilding.
Sylvan Advocate is the best 2-drop in the format? lets put Grim Flayers into our deck!
Reflector Mage is a 4-off in Company decks? lets play Hangarback Walker!
Spell Queller is the best 3-drop in the format? lets make sure our curve is bloated with sorcery-speed 4-mana spells!
What do you recommend doing then ? Please solve the equation, we would all like to know. I know one thing , spirits has a decent match up against bant coco. G/w tokens maybe ? Spell queller scared a lot of g/w pilots away, but even then it made top 4.
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Standard Arena: Eh? Gruul or Die
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
What do you recommend doing then ? Please solve the equation, we would all like to know. I know one thing , spirits has a decent match up against bant coco. G/w tokens maybe ? Spell queller scared a lot of g/w pilots away, but even then it made top 4.
I have figured out what works for me already. You can try my decklist and see if it works for you too. I'm not trying to advertise my deck though, I'm just wondering why people are so persistent on banging their head on the wall when they could apply some common sense. start to play on instant speed and trade up on mana for starters.
Ali Aintrazi, for one, built a reasonable decklist and he was successful last weekend because of this. He didn't use new flashy mythics just because they look cool and have a big prize tag like Grim Flayer, he opted for the actual good cards (in the context of this metagame). many people could learn from him.
EDIT: of course Bant will still be the best deck even if people start to build better decks, I'm only arguing people could actually start to approach ~50% winrates or better if the meta stays like this.
There are ways to beat CoCo. The problem is that none of them are better than CoCo itself. It'll be over soon thankfully, and the massive results it put up were likely due to sheer volume as opposed to the deck just being unbeatable.
There are ways to beat CoCo. The problem is that none of them are better than CoCo itself. It'll be over soon thankfully, and the massive results it put up were likely due to sheer volume as opposed to the deck just being unbeatable.
Yeah, Languish based control decks (of which I play one regularly) were great against CoCo but now with Spell Queller in the mix that becomes a much less viable route. Going to be interesting going forward for sure.
People need to really stop complaining. This is a brewers paradise right now. Brewing doesn't work when there are 5 established decks or more. When there are 3 that is the sweet spot for brewers. This is why Ali and Jeff Hoogland put up such good results. Brad Nelson will probably crush this standard. Good players are running hot because CoCo is a great engine by itself but it is no BBE.
Questions..
Why did they create Spell queller and reflector Mage in the same playable format?
The real questions are why did they print Sylvan Advocate in the format when no other color has 2-drops even close to its powerlevel, and why did they print Collected Company
You can call it what you want, but I wouldn't say that calling it a delirium deck is all that desperate. One of the main goals of the deck is to hit delirium. You would never play a card like gnarlwood dryad in a deck that didn't have that as a primary goal. There are definitely some new archetypes and I garentee there will be more after pro tour. The first open of every season is often a lot of people playing the same stuff from last season. Most people that compete at major events are not brewers and just play what they think will is the best deck (Bant Company).
Questions..
Why did they create Spell queller and reflector Mage in the same playable format?
The real questions are why did they print Sylvan Advocate in the format when no other color has 2-drops even close to its powerlevel, and why did they print Collected Company
Cause slowly we are going back to a better time in magic and the next set will have force spike and counterspell in it *crosses fingers in hope*
Jace SHOULD be unbanned in modern. I hate all the people saying "JACE IS BROKEN OHMYGOD HE'LL TAKE OVER AND CAWBLADE WILL REIGN SUPREME AGAIN" when bloodbraid elf literally comes down after jace and kicks jace right in the crotch, takes jace's lunch money, and jace is left to bleed out on the sidewalk in agonizing pain.
Questions..
Why did they create Spell queller and reflector Mage in the same playable format?
The real questions are why did they print Sylvan Advocate in the format when no other color has 2-drops even close to its powerlevel, and why did they print Collected Company
The answer to the Advocate question is beyond me; the card is so incredibly pushed beyond what is available elsewhere that I just don't understand what they were doing. Considering that they consider Goyf a tad to strong, I just don't get why they printed a card that is likely better than Goyf in Standard specifically (Not in general, but Advocate is likely stronger given the context of Standard). At the very least I'd say it's rather comparable in the format. Had advocate stopped its text at getting +2/+2 when you hit six lands, it would *still* be one of the best creatures in the format. The fact that the text just keeps on going is insane.
The answer to the Reflector Mage and CoCo questions, however, is both known and completely gob-smacking. They didn't consider Collected Company to be strong enough for constructed play at all (And would be a casual build-around card with some janky Modern use), and didn't even consider testing Reflector Mage for Standard.
Say what you will about everything else, but the fact that they completely missed these two cards power level in Standard is... just plain wrong. I get that they can't get everything right, but good lord. It really indicates how narrow their developmental focus is towards nuking Removal and the like. They are so incredibly scared that permission is going to be too good that they completely missed several incredibly potent cards that define the meta game (To the point where they didn't even consider these cards as constructed quality).
While I get that they don't want things like Bolt, Counterspell, Swords, etc, they need to be cognizant that no format has [b]every[b/] been broken by too good permission. In fact, Standard has only ever been broken when proactive decks had tools that were miles and away better than the answers. Combo Winter, Affinity, Faeries, and Caw-Blade all had one thing in common: They were exceedingly good at advancing their own gameplan (While Faeries and Caw-Blade were exceedingly good at doing their thing while stopping you from doing yours).
So, after watching some of the coverage again, I realized something odd was going on when Patrick and Sullivan kept commenting on the weird records that were live for top 8 (Some 11-3s and the like were live). The only way this is possible is if the attendance was too low for the number of rounds, and so I decided to go take a look.
Attendance of SCG Columbus was 536 people. The last Standard open in Columbus had 578 attendees, however it was an invitational event which likely pulled a good number of people who would attend the event away (How many is impossible to say). The previous Open before that in Columbus was in January, which had 698 attendees. Between January and this last weekend, Columbus has seen somewhere between an 8-25% drop in attendance at their standard opens.
I will note that Columbus is an interesting test case so far; it's difficult to come up with expected attendance numbers that indicate if attendance is up or down, as location, format played, and time of years likely will all have some impact on the numbers over all. Few other cities offer a consistent baseline, as they are not revisited often (Thus making any difference difficult to ascertain if it is because of one reason or another). It's a good thing Baltimore had a Standard Open not terrible long ago this year, which hould provide some insight into whether or not this decline is consistent or aberrant. As of right now, SCG Columbus has had a 25% drop from the begginning of the year and an 8% drop from the last Columbus open.
So, after watching some of the coverage again, I realized something odd was going on when Patrick and Sullivan kept commenting on the weird records that were live for top 8 (Some 11-3s and the like were live). The only way this is possible is if the attendance was too low for the number of rounds, and so I decided to go take a look.
Attendance of SCG Columbus was 536 people. The last Standard open in Columbus had 578 attendees, however it was an invitational event which likely pulled a good number of people who would attend the event away (How many is impossible to say). The previous Open before that in Columbus was in January, which had 698 attendees. Between January and this last weekend, Columbus has seen somewhere between an 8-25% drop in attendance at their standard opens.
I will note that Columbus is an interesting test case so far; it's difficult to come up with expected attendance numbers that indicate if attendance is up or down, as location, format played, and time of years likely will all have some impact on the numbers over all. Few other cities offer a consistent baseline, as they are not revisited often (Thus making any difference difficult to ascertain if it is because of one reason or another). It's a good thing Baltimore had a Standard Open not terrible long ago this year, which hould provide some insight into whether or not this decline is consistent or aberrant. As of right now, SCG Columbus has had a 25% drop from the begginning of the year and an 8% drop from the last Columbus open.
Probably because this season is even more boring than the "4 color goodstuff" and "Siege Rhino.dec" that we had previously.
He lost to Devin Koekpe's Bant Company in game three: he was on the draw and Devin's deck did what Company does best when on the play. Spell Queller was a beating, keeping Ali from establishing any type of board that last game.
Company is def the deck to beat, and looks to be frustrating to play/lose against.
Modern: RW Burn
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!
Nahiri's Wrath certainly can help those token matchups for Goggles. Tokens were on a decline this week though, but we'll see if they bounce back since there are a lot of anti-GW Token cards like Thalia, Queller, and Spirits in general.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
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!
That's a good question. I saw the top 8 against the g/b delerium player who should've won game 1. (He could have made a 4/4 token off of Nissa) I didn't catch many interactions with LtLH, but she seemed strong.
Sylvan Advocate is the best 2-drop in the format? lets put Grim Flayers into our deck!
Reflector Mage is a 4-off in Company decks? lets play Hangarback Walker!
Spell Queller is the best 3-drop in the format? lets make sure our curve is bloated with sorcery-speed 4-mana spells!
smh
Youtube Channel
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
I have figured out what works for me already. You can try my decklist and see if it works for you too. I'm not trying to advertise my deck though, I'm just wondering why people are so persistent on banging their head on the wall when they could apply some common sense. start to play on instant speed and trade up on mana for starters.
Ali Aintrazi, for one, built a reasonable decklist and he was successful last weekend because of this. He didn't use new flashy mythics just because they look cool and have a big prize tag like Grim Flayer, he opted for the actual good cards (in the context of this metagame). many people could learn from him.
EDIT: of course Bant will still be the best deck even if people start to build better decks, I'm only arguing people could actually start to approach ~50% winrates or better if the meta stays like this.
Youtube Channel
Yeah, Languish based control decks (of which I play one regularly) were great against CoCo but now with Spell Queller in the mix that becomes a much less viable route. Going to be interesting going forward for sure.
Go to the SCGLive Twich page and hit "Past Broadcasts" there.
The real questions are why did they print Sylvan Advocate in the format when no other color has 2-drops even close to its powerlevel, and why did they print Collected Company
Youtube Channel
Cause slowly we are going back to a better time in magic and the next set will have force spike and counterspell in it *crosses fingers in hope*
The answer to the Advocate question is beyond me; the card is so incredibly pushed beyond what is available elsewhere that I just don't understand what they were doing. Considering that they consider Goyf a tad to strong, I just don't get why they printed a card that is likely better than Goyf in Standard specifically (Not in general, but Advocate is likely stronger given the context of Standard). At the very least I'd say it's rather comparable in the format. Had advocate stopped its text at getting +2/+2 when you hit six lands, it would *still* be one of the best creatures in the format. The fact that the text just keeps on going is insane.
The answer to the Reflector Mage and CoCo questions, however, is both known and completely gob-smacking. They didn't consider Collected Company to be strong enough for constructed play at all (And would be a casual build-around card with some janky Modern use), and didn't even consider testing Reflector Mage for Standard.
Say what you will about everything else, but the fact that they completely missed these two cards power level in Standard is... just plain wrong. I get that they can't get everything right, but good lord. It really indicates how narrow their developmental focus is towards nuking Removal and the like. They are so incredibly scared that permission is going to be too good that they completely missed several incredibly potent cards that define the meta game (To the point where they didn't even consider these cards as constructed quality).
While I get that they don't want things like Bolt, Counterspell, Swords, etc, they need to be cognizant that no format has [b]every[b/] been broken by too good permission. In fact, Standard has only ever been broken when proactive decks had tools that were miles and away better than the answers. Combo Winter, Affinity, Faeries, and Caw-Blade all had one thing in common: They were exceedingly good at advancing their own gameplan (While Faeries and Caw-Blade were exceedingly good at doing their thing while stopping you from doing yours).
Attendance of SCG Columbus was 536 people. The last Standard open in Columbus had 578 attendees, however it was an invitational event which likely pulled a good number of people who would attend the event away (How many is impossible to say). The previous Open before that in Columbus was in January, which had 698 attendees. Between January and this last weekend, Columbus has seen somewhere between an 8-25% drop in attendance at their standard opens.
I will note that Columbus is an interesting test case so far; it's difficult to come up with expected attendance numbers that indicate if attendance is up or down, as location, format played, and time of years likely will all have some impact on the numbers over all. Few other cities offer a consistent baseline, as they are not revisited often (Thus making any difference difficult to ascertain if it is because of one reason or another). It's a good thing Baltimore had a Standard Open not terrible long ago this year, which hould provide some insight into whether or not this decline is consistent or aberrant. As of right now, SCG Columbus has had a 25% drop from the begginning of the year and an 8% drop from the last Columbus open.
Probably because this season is even more boring than the "4 color goodstuff" and "Siege Rhino.dec" that we had previously.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate