OK,as a preface to this post, I did not play magic during Caw Blade. It looks like a super fun deck to play but any deck, yes even my own beloved Dragons, would get old if 3-7 of them appeared in every top 8. So this thread has 2 questions:
As I type this *checks MTGGoldfish*, Bant company has a 31.69% meta game share. I've been checking since the PT and it's been above 25% Yep, you remember when you thought Emerge and Emrakul would save you from Coco...that company just keeps collecting.
1. So is this % comparable to Caw Blade in ubiquity and annoyance? Side question: Would I hear more calls for a ban if Coco didn't rotate in 42 days?
2. Just incase that answer is an easy yes or no. Chew on this: Beside's Caw Blade, what is the most oppressive deck/standard in Modern years(about the last 15 years) and can you give examples of what the meta game looked like and any deck that could beat it?
Played optimally bant is extremely tough to keep down. It is able to play magic forever , it has mana sinks and card advantage engines. It is not unbeatable , and has some legimatly bad match ups. Even those aren't bad , the issue with is after sb it gets better and worse for ever other deck. If you can milk bant for all its lines of play you will edge out opponents due to your higher skill play, it's a deck that favors skilled pilots. Plus coco is dumb when surrounded by these 3 drops.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
Update. Bant now has a 37%+ Share? Are we now approaching Caw Blade? If not, remember the second question: Beside's Caw Blade, what is the most oppressive deck/standard in Modern years(about the last 15 years) and can you give examples of what the meta game looked like and any deck that could beat it?
Update. Bant now has a 37%+ Share? Are we now approaching Caw Blade? If not, remember the second question: Beside's Caw Blade, what is the most oppressive deck/standard in Modern years(about the last 15 years) and can you give examples of what the meta game looked like and any deck that could beat it?
Affinity in Standard, Eldrazi in Modern this past winter.
Yeah, sorry, meant oppressive decks in standard. What kind of % was Affinity? Was there a meta game deck that preyed on Affinity?
Eldrazi Winter is the easiest example for Modern. We remember that, when WotC let the format remain broken for 3.5 months until they ban the wrong eldrazi land.
Update. Bant now has a 37%+ Share? Are we now approaching Caw Blade? If not, remember the second question: Beside's Caw Blade, what is the most oppressive deck/standard in Modern years(about the last 15 years) and can you give examples of what the meta game looked like and any deck that could beat it?
Affinity in Standard, Eldrazi in Modern this past winter.
Yeah, sorry, meant oppressive decks in standard. What kind of % was Affinity? Was there a meta game deck that preyed on Affinity?
Eldrazi Winter is the easiest example for Modern. We remember that, when WotC let the format remain broken for 3.5 months until they ban the wrong eldrazi land.
AFAIK, Affinity was in the 40-50% range in its hay-day pre-banning overall. It likely would have crept up higher if nothing changed, however. It's "bad" match-ups was Elves, however that deck wasn't so much an Affinity killer as it was a deck that could keep up with affinity and slow them down just enough to pull out a win.
While I despise Bant Company and do honestly feel at this point that CoCo should have left standard the hard way with EMN, it's not quite on the level of Caw-Blade. Caw-Blade (And specifically Jace) at it's height was close to 70% of the winning metagame and Day 2 decks. Jace specifically was in around 80-90% of all decks.
To be frank, I honestly don't believe Bant Company has any actually bad match-ups. It has some slightly unfavorable match-ups in Black, but those are not particularly bad and can easily win with a good pilot. Temurge has a truly horrendous match-up due in no small part to Selfless Spirit making it very difficult to pull ahead. I had the experience of playing against a Company deck that had 0 boardstate and two cards in hand to my 2 Deep Fiends. A Collected Company later that hit Duskwatch Recruiter and Selfless Spirit, followed by running Reflector Mages and Recruiter Activations, and I lost the game and hard. The deck has some truly disgusting lines of play that are far and above what the rest of the field has available.
Frankly, the majority of the time I watch CoCo lose it has far more to do with pilot error than it does with bad match-ups. This is a big reason why Temurge thrived at the Pro-Tour, even though it has a pretty poor CoCo match-up. Equally so to B/W variants.
If you look at the pro tour and other tournaments or simply play the game yourself it is quite easy to notice that CoCo can be beaten by a lot of decks, yes it is very popular, but it isn't unbeatable or stronger than other tier 1 decks.
It is far from the days where one single deck was simply a lot better than the others and couldn't be beaten.
I feel that this is true, while Bant CoCo is very strong and popular, it can be beaten on a regular basis. I played Wr humans at Game day and find that the matchup isn't great but I still managed to beat it for 2 of my 3 wins at a 4 round game day on the Sunday of Game Day weekend
Threat-heavy BW variants are good against Bant CoCo and also solid against the rest of the field. If you're preparing for a tournament, you should be more concerned about BW shutting you down than Bant out-advantaging (is that a word?) you, in my opinion.
As a spirits player I find bant to be one of the hardest match ups on the field. I can easily take down B/W, but bant has a lot of instant speed shinanigans that it can pull as well at any time, so it becomes a game of C-Spell / Hallowed moonlight and trying not to tap out at any moment, while also keeping ones hand full of answers. The good news is that it is one of the decks that dies with rotation of Coco, as the entire deck relies on the power of that one card. Kaladesh will bring with it a new coat of paint for the standard environment and finally put the Kahns block and origins block to rest...
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!
As a spirits player I find bant to be one of the hardest match ups on the field. I can easily take down B/W, but bant has a lot of instant speed shinanigans that it can pull as well at any time, so it becomes a game of C-Spell / Hallowed moonlight and trying not to tap out at any moment, while also keeping ones hand full of answers. The good news is that it is one of the decks that dies with rotation of Coco, as the entire deck relies on the power of that one card. Kaladesh will bring with it a new coat of paint for the standard environment and finally put the Kahns block and origins block to rest...
While I do rejoice in seeing coco leave, languish is one of the only things that keeps it in check. The deck would be nigh unbeatable if it was a straight damnation reprint since selfless spirit basically saves your team.
I agree with Kaladesh being a huge reset button. Reflector Mage is a great card. It's power level is fine at sorcery speed. Instant speed makes it broken.
As a spirits player I find bant to be one of the hardest match ups on the field. I can easily take down B/W, but bant has a lot of instant speed shinanigans that it can pull as well at any time, so it becomes a game of C-Spell / Hallowed moonlight and trying not to tap out at any moment, while also keeping ones hand full of answers. The good news is that it is one of the decks that dies with rotation of Coco, as the entire deck relies on the power of that one card. Kaladesh will bring with it a new coat of paint for the standard environment and finally put the Kahns block and origins block to rest...
languish and collected company rotating is gonna warp the format so much IMO. Being able to cheat 6 mana worth of creatures at instant speed for 4 mana has obviously led to a powerful deck
the turn 4 board wipe has punished agro decks since Origins came out. I'm really interested for post kaladesh standard
I personally don't find Bant Co so offensive, but I don't play PTQs or Invs. I only play FNMs, so net decks piloted by amateurs aren't really that scary.
It seems to me that IF you find Bant Co to be so bad, then you should probably brew to beat it. I hear Brisela means game over. Brisela made 9th place, so she's probably not a bad option.
This is simply not true, you have outs, and I have seen the CoCo into Reflector Mage Gross live and upfront. Me doing it to an opponent (proceed to vomit) hitting mage and advocate and swinging for lethal next turn.
I have also lost to Brisela, and been completely shut out, but the deck has tools like OJ's Command to prevent troublesome creatures from ruining your day, and Summary Dismissal is a nice NOPE to effects that would otherwise end the game. Looking at you Emrakul. Lili Ult, Brisela meld and any other emerge non sense.
Bant is beatable, but sometimes (and by sometimes I mean often) that deck casts a CoCo hits 2 R Mages, cracks back for 10, eats you PW and then proceeds to hold Quellers. That's when you start to roll your eyes at the grossness.
What beats bant?
U/B Zombies
Jund Delirium
U/W Spirits
G/B Delirium is 50/50
The Mirror
Bant Humans
Humans is dicey
It's not unbeatable, but when Bant is good, it's really good.
I officially cashed out of Magic over the past few weeks. This primarily due to U being ***** in Standard and modern. Bant made standard one of the worse formats in a while and self proclaimed "bant mirror" experts show casing their stomach muscles I mean rolls as proof.
Yes it's oppressive, it's leaving and with it this player. The day counterspell returns to magic is the day I'll comeback, until then Dream Theater is coming to San Antonio, yeah, that sounds like a great plan.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
I think we are now approaching Caw Blade Territory. Your thoughts?
Also, if Coco was not leaving standard, would it be time for a Coco Ban when the next ban list comes out in a couple weeks?
In all likelihood, it would be banned with the next B&R update if it weren't rotating. There is an argument it should have been banned already, but that point is moot.
Winning 10 times as much as the next deck is... a little bit absurd. I feel at this point people are playing other decks just because they refuse to admit the deck is just beyond everything else in the format.
One thing, and this is coming from someone who has never played against or even seen a match with Caw, but has read alot about it: Bant Company seams more "beatable" within it's meta than Caw Blade was. It is clearly the best deck in the sense that it has the best % win rate across all the decks.
That said, I agree Coco should have been at least restricted after last standard to maybe 2 copies per deck. It's clearly too good for the current standard. when it was released, it wasn't too good because red decks were really good and abzan with it's amazing curve could just beat it. It basically took loosing abzan and red, and adding reflector mage. Spell Queller is really good but I feel Mage was the real thing that put it over the top.
I officially cashed out of Magic over the past few weeks. This primarily due to U being ***** in Standard and modern. Bant made standard one of the worse formats in a while and self proclaimed "bant mirror" experts show casing their stomach muscles I mean rolls as proof.
Yes it's oppressive, it's leaving and with it this player. The day counterspell returns to magic is the day I'll comeback, until then Dream Theater is coming to San Antonio, yeah, that sounds like a great plan.
aww, that's sad to see someone in my general area throwing in the towel.
I didn't play Caw-Blade when it was in Standard (I don't play much Standard at all, but I digress), but I was drafting in a Standard-heavy metagame. I kept up with a lot of tournament details, and the people I talked to always talked about what was going on. In Caw-Blade's hayday (specifically Jace), the only deck you could use is Caw-Blade, or a deck that was built solely to beat Caw-Blade. The decks built to beat Caw-Blade would still lose to it a bit, but any deck that wasn't Caw-Blade would steamroll that anti-deck, so it scared a lot of people away from it. The problem came to a very obvious head when some tournament (I don't remember which one. World Tour? Some Grand Prix?) had everyone in top 8 have 4 copies of Jace, each, in their deck. I don't remember specific statistics (I think 1 was not caw-blade but just a U/W control list; I think all decks had some amount of Stoneforge Mystic, etc.), but it was not long after when they finally did the bannings.
To bring that into perspective today, CoCo decks are a dominating force in Standard, but not as oppressive as Caw-Blade. I'm seeing a lot of decks that use mainboard and sideboard options to attempt to counter it, but still keep the main deck similar. I've also seen a very great mix of decks in general. I understand, and in some ways agree, with people calling for bannings. However, as far as my information is concerned, this isn't as bad as Caw-Blade, which was apparently akin to Fairies back in Lorwyn block (though others have said even THAT deck wasn't as oppressive).
I didn't play Caw-Blade when it was in Standard (I don't play much Standard at all, but I digress), but I was drafting in a Standard-heavy metagame. I kept up with a lot of tournament details, and the people I talked to always talked about what was going on. In Caw-Blade's hayday (specifically Jace), the only deck you could use is Caw-Blade, or a deck that was built solely to beat Caw-Blade. The decks built to beat Caw-Blade would still lose to it a bit, but any deck that wasn't Caw-Blade would steamroll that anti-deck, so it scared a lot of people away from it. The problem came to a very obvious head when some tournament (I don't remember which one. World Tour? Some Grand Prix?) had everyone in top 8 have 4 copies of Jace, each, in their deck. I don't remember specific statistics (I think 1 was not caw-blade but just a U/W control list; I think all decks had some amount of Stoneforge Mystic, etc.), but it was not long after when they finally did the bannings.
To bring that into perspective today, CoCo decks are a dominating force in Standard, but not as oppressive as Caw-Blade. I'm seeing a lot of decks that use mainboard and sideboard options to attempt to counter it, but still keep the main deck similar. I've also seen a very great mix of decks in general. I understand, and in some ways agree, with people calling for bannings. However, as far as my information is concerned, this isn't as bad as Caw-Blade, which was apparently akin to Fairies back in Lorwyn block (though others have said even THAT deck wasn't as oppressive).
Yeah, I agree Bant Coco in this standard doesn't seem as ubiquitous but if Coco wasn't rotating, I could def see a ban coming and it would be warranted.
Here's a question to hijack my own thread: Would Stoneforge Mystic be safe for standard today given the relatively weak equipments currently in standard?
IIRC, what made Caw Blade were the amazing equipments including batterskull. There is nothing on the power level of the swords or batterskull in standard right now. IMO, I think she is safe for Standard and Modern but your thoughts?
As I type this *checks MTGGoldfish*, Bant company has a 31.69% meta game share. I've been checking since the PT and it's been above 25% Yep, you remember when you thought Emerge and Emrakul would save you from Coco...that company just keeps collecting.
1. So is this % comparable to Caw Blade in ubiquity and annoyance? Side question: Would I hear more calls for a ban if Coco didn't rotate in 42 days?
2. Just incase that answer is an easy yes or no. Chew on this: Beside's Caw Blade, what is the most oppressive deck/standard in Modern years(about the last 15 years) and can you give examples of what the meta game looked like and any deck that could beat it?
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
Yeah, sorry, meant oppressive decks in standard. What kind of % was Affinity? Was there a meta game deck that preyed on Affinity?
Eldrazi Winter is the easiest example for Modern. We remember that, when WotC let the format remain broken for 3.5 months until they ban the wrong eldrazi land.
AFAIK, Affinity was in the 40-50% range in its hay-day pre-banning overall. It likely would have crept up higher if nothing changed, however. It's "bad" match-ups was Elves, however that deck wasn't so much an Affinity killer as it was a deck that could keep up with affinity and slow them down just enough to pull out a win.
While I despise Bant Company and do honestly feel at this point that CoCo should have left standard the hard way with EMN, it's not quite on the level of Caw-Blade. Caw-Blade (And specifically Jace) at it's height was close to 70% of the winning metagame and Day 2 decks. Jace specifically was in around 80-90% of all decks.
To be frank, I honestly don't believe Bant Company has any actually bad match-ups. It has some slightly unfavorable match-ups in Black, but those are not particularly bad and can easily win with a good pilot. Temurge has a truly horrendous match-up due in no small part to Selfless Spirit making it very difficult to pull ahead. I had the experience of playing against a Company deck that had 0 boardstate and two cards in hand to my 2 Deep Fiends. A Collected Company later that hit Duskwatch Recruiter and Selfless Spirit, followed by running Reflector Mages and Recruiter Activations, and I lost the game and hard. The deck has some truly disgusting lines of play that are far and above what the rest of the field has available.
Frankly, the majority of the time I watch CoCo lose it has far more to do with pilot error than it does with bad match-ups. This is a big reason why Temurge thrived at the Pro-Tour, even though it has a pretty poor CoCo match-up. Equally so to B/W variants.
I feel that this is true, while Bant CoCo is very strong and popular, it can be beaten on a regular basis. I played Wr humans at Game day and find that the matchup isn't great but I still managed to beat it for 2 of my 3 wins at a 4 round game day on the Sunday of Game Day weekend
Yes, no more languish or Collected Company. The world couldn't be more perfect.
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!
While I do rejoice in seeing coco leave, languish is one of the only things that keeps it in check. The deck would be nigh unbeatable if it was a straight damnation reprint since selfless spirit basically saves your team.
I agree with Kaladesh being a huge reset button. Reflector Mage is a great card. It's power level is fine at sorcery speed. Instant speed makes it broken.
But we're deviating from the topic some.
languish and collected company rotating is gonna warp the format so much IMO. Being able to cheat 6 mana worth of creatures at instant speed for 4 mana has obviously led to a powerful deck
the turn 4 board wipe has punished agro decks since Origins came out. I'm really interested for post kaladesh standard
It seems to me that IF you find Bant Co to be so bad, then you should probably brew to beat it. I hear Brisela means game over. Brisela made 9th place, so she's probably not a bad option.
I have also lost to Brisela, and been completely shut out, but the deck has tools like OJ's Command to prevent troublesome creatures from ruining your day, and Summary Dismissal is a nice NOPE to effects that would otherwise end the game. Looking at you Emrakul. Lili Ult, Brisela meld and any other emerge non sense.
Bant is beatable, but sometimes (and by sometimes I mean often) that deck casts a CoCo hits 2 R Mages, cracks back for 10, eats you PW and then proceeds to hold Quellers. That's when you start to roll your eyes at the grossness.
What beats bant?
U/B Zombies
Jund Delirium
U/W Spirits
G/B Delirium is 50/50
The Mirror
Bant Humans
Humans is dicey
It's not unbeatable, but when Bant is good, it's really good.
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 think we are now approaching Caw Blade Territory. Your thoughts?
Also, if Coco was not leaving standard, would it be time for a Coco Ban when the next ban list comes out in a couple weeks?
Yes it's oppressive, it's leaving and with it this player. The day counterspell returns to magic is the day I'll comeback, until then Dream Theater is coming to San Antonio, yeah, that sounds like a great plan.
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
In all likelihood, it would be banned with the next B&R update if it weren't rotating. There is an argument it should have been banned already, but that point is moot.
Winning 10 times as much as the next deck is... a little bit absurd. I feel at this point people are playing other decks just because they refuse to admit the deck is just beyond everything else in the format.
That said, I agree Coco should have been at least restricted after last standard to maybe 2 copies per deck. It's clearly too good for the current standard. when it was released, it wasn't too good because red decks were really good and abzan with it's amazing curve could just beat it. It basically took loosing abzan and red, and adding reflector mage. Spell Queller is really good but I feel Mage was the real thing that put it over the top.
To bring that into perspective today, CoCo decks are a dominating force in Standard, but not as oppressive as Caw-Blade. I'm seeing a lot of decks that use mainboard and sideboard options to attempt to counter it, but still keep the main deck similar. I've also seen a very great mix of decks in general. I understand, and in some ways agree, with people calling for bannings. However, as far as my information is concerned, this isn't as bad as Caw-Blade, which was apparently akin to Fairies back in Lorwyn block (though others have said even THAT deck wasn't as oppressive).
Yeah, I agree Bant Coco in this standard doesn't seem as ubiquitous but if Coco wasn't rotating, I could def see a ban coming and it would be warranted.
Here's a question to hijack my own thread: Would Stoneforge Mystic be safe for standard today given the relatively weak equipments currently in standard?
IIRC, what made Caw Blade were the amazing equipments including batterskull. There is nothing on the power level of the swords or batterskull in standard right now. IMO, I think she is safe for Standard and Modern but your thoughts?
She could tutor the new goggles in Kaladesh in that Artificer deck. the jank is real