I'm not sure whether the forums were intentionally nuked or not, here's hoping someone didn't hit the wrong button, and there's a way to restore all the posts.
*edit*
Nevermind, just read the Daily Announcements.
4. I am nuking the entire main T2 forum at 00:01 Wednesday, 5 May 2010. Keep this in mind when making new threads tonight, as they will be lost at 00:01.
Anyway, in order to keep my thread relevant, discuss your thoughts on the current meta, and how healthy you think it is. I think we're starting to get a much more balanced meta than we had 6 months ago, though it would be nice to see a couple of more interesting combo decks thrown in. The Polymorph lists are cool and all, but I don't really consider them real combo decks (like Elves and Time Sieve).
Jund seems to be declining slightly, and there's far more Control decks showing up thanks to powerful cards like Jace and Wall of Omens. As a Control player, this is good for me, especially as most of these decks don't involve any permission - I guess this was Wizard's goal, ultimately.
My guess was all the threads were wiped since we have a pretty 'fresh' meta with RoE.
My opinion is that the current T1 is:
U/W(x) control
Jund
Soverign Bant
Honorable mention:
Polymorph
My problem is that even with all these decks in development; few if any have made their way to the tourney scene. It's nice seeing some home-brews T8ing, but overall I don't feel like the meta is that diverse yet. Hopefully that will change in the upcoming months.
Standard is definitely much more healthy now than it was when Zendikar first rotated in. Not really going to list any tiers or anything, but all of these decks can be considered competitive to some degree (listed in no particular order):
Jund
Blue/White Tapout
Blue/White Counterspells
Blue/White/red Planeswalkers
Mythic Bant + Conscription
Red-black Deck Wins
Red Deck + Devastating Summons
Polymorph
Time Sieve
Vampires
White Weenie
Junk
Boss Naya
Eldrazi Green
Summoning Trap
Grixis Control
Compared to when Zendikar was first released...
Jund
Jund hate decks:
RDW
White Weenie
Vampires (to some degree)
Planeswalker.dec is looking pretty powerful, I knew it was coming because the threshold of playable PWs has been exceeded in the meta... so that means that Pithing Needle should see some SB play and Maelstrom Pulse/O-Ring are better than they were a week ago.
Beyond that there is still Jund and the second most represented deck U/W to deal with and most of us have already built our decks to handle the best decks. Even if that means playing the best deck. Personally I think Mythic Bant is prime to take advantage of the meta, that or another Naya deck like Boss Naya.
Really right now I think that it is anyones guess as to what to expect but I sense U/G Polymorph becoming even more popular since it recently placed 2nd and is still cheap enough to make... well besides Jace 2 and Garruk.
My opinion is a bit biased but I think Naya will creep up again and show everyone it is still competitive. No one thought it was competitive, then it won worlds and everyone jumped on the bandwagon, it started to fall out of favor again and then Boss Naya picked up the slack. Right now it's on the decline again so I suspect some new list to pop up at the next PT or maybe even at the standard Grand Prix coming up.
Unfortunately every try hard from Sacramento to Shanghai preaches from the top of their 27 lands + Mana Reflection that Tooth and Nail and Time Stretch are fine to play in the same turn but Armageddon is unfair.
Understand, Dredge is not really a Magic: The Gathering deck. When a card is playable in it, it doesn't mean it's a tournament playable card. It means it's playable in whatever crazy fantasy world that Dredge operates in.
I don't think Jund is declining because it's not the beast that it used to be.
I think Jund is declining because people have a sideboard with 10/15 cards that are Jund hate. When people begin to open up these slots to help fight control, Jund will rise again.
I also believe that a large portion of Jund players are playing with other decks, which results in less top 8's.
Planeswalker control is a very good deck right now, in all honesty I think jund is the top deck but only by a smidge. Planeswalker control beats jund, UW control is a much harder matchup post ROE, but with all that said I'm still rocking jund in 2 weeks at regionals jut because I feel that it is better in a verse metta.
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Retired:
ANT, Legacy (75% Foiled) Over all record 21-5-4. RIP
U/R Splinter Twin, Standard 39-10-15 TWINNING!
i won a WPN qualifier with boros bushwhacker field was full of control and i think migth see some play fAst decks can give suprises.
I also saw a Bushwhacker deck win a WPN qualifier recently in my area. Final was Bushwhacker vs UW-tapout. Tapout generally has a very hard time against ultra-fast decks though.
I like how the meta is developing; more diverse now as already stated, which opens to the doors to a lot of different options. I think it also makes specific cards more playable in a varied field; for example I may try Duress maindeck in an Esper control deck I'm working on.
A few things to note:
1.) Jund is still and will continue to be the deck to beat. Dont fool yourselves into thinking that just because it lost two tournaments that it will not win a lot more. Jund is not good becuase one form is unbeatable. It is good becuase it has the best backbone and perhaps the most answers in its color. I highly suspect that Jund will win in the future.
2.) I still don't like bush waker there are no cards which give it more consistency which was always its problem. Any time you see a bush waker win something its becuase people were not quite ready and he got a good draw on his mana. I am not trying to insult the skill of the player I am sure he had to make the best plays possible to make a shakey deck work, but it is far to inconsistent to ever be tier 1.
3.) Because I want to end on a positive note: the meta is definitely healthier Although someone above was right that even now there needs to be a significant amount of slots devoted to Jund thats bound to happen. To tell you the truth in most decks you need just about as many slots to beat U/W
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Originally Posted by badjuju
As the Last of the Control Players, we are all part of a sacred brotherhood; a band of brothers who would rather die on their knees tapping islands and giving permission than live on our feet cascading into Blightning.
I am really expecting RDW to have some good showing. People are going to be more focused on hating Jund, U/W Tapout/Chapin, American Gladiators, Polymorph and such. As long as there arent to many RDW decks, the hate wont be there for it, and it should do well.
If you can consistantly do T3 or T4 bushwhacker and summons, you got them on tilt.(admit, I havent gottent to really test to see if its consistant, need to get some more summons to playtest.)
Ok, perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions here but...
The plainswalker dec is THE DECK to beat, imo. I've been playing it against everything and more often than not I'm just wrecking face.
As for the meta. I was a Jund player after Zendikar's release, then got sick of playing it. Once worldwake released I switched to UWr, and lost more often than when I played Jund. So so sick of Jund. I feel the meta is shifting because some people actually own the expensive stuff now. Jund is around $300 buck where UWr is around $600.
Anyways, I'm loving the the new UWx varients. Looks like MBC didn't make any showings. I doubt bRDW will be viable. Polymorph still has a chance to trick an unprepared meta. So, without further ado...
1. UWr Plainswalkers Teir 1
-----------------------------
2. UW
3. UWG Soveriegns
4. Jund / Naya
No Order
-----------------------------
5. bRDW / RDW
6. Polymorph
In no particular order. Hopefully new decks will arize. I've been wanting to play UWr since the release of Worldwake and I'm sticking to it.
Plainswalker Control is going to certainly knock Jund down a peg. That's a good thing. Granted, knocking Jund down a peg still leaves it as one of the tier 1 decks in the format, but thats fine.
Realistically, your tier 1 is a 3 decktype setup:
Jund
Mythic
U/W based control (obv a lot of different builds)
Below that the key players are
Red Based Speed Aggro
Polymorph style decks
Inferior Derivatives of Previously listed Archetypes
It's a pretty simple format to understand, with room for a lot of variation and innovation. The U/W control decks are so varied that alone they can spawn so many different archetypes. I love the Esper Version that combines the power of a heavy plainswalker suite with the combo win of Brilliant Ultimatum into Emrakul. The American Gladiator Planeswalker version is obviously a house, and the U/W variations have merit as well. They all do nasty thing and get to play 8 of the powerful disruptive 2 casting cost cantrips (spreading seas and wall of omens).
The big 3 archetypes create an impressive gauntlet.
To be viable a deck needs to:
Be able to deal with 4 tougness blockers without getting destroyed by Day of Judgement and is still fast enough to win before being verwhelmed by walkers.
Be resilient enough to Removal and Discard to have game against creatures that generate persistant advantage.
Have an answer to the blatant creature superiority of a deck that slams down the best creatures in the format and explodes with Conscription.
Some decks answer those questions with speed (like the red decks). Some answer them with combo into instant wins or the most disruptive creatures ever printed (polymorph). And some decks are outclassed becuase they were built to attack one prong of the top tier, but the other 2 will crush them (white weenie, vamps).
My opinion is a bit biased but I think Naya will creep up again and show everyone it is still competitive. No one thought it was competitive, then it won worlds and everyone jumped on the bandwagon, it started to fall out of favor again and then Boss Naya picked up the slack. Right now it's on the decline again so I suspect some new list to pop up at the next PT or maybe even at the standard Grand Prix coming up.
One of the interesting things about Naya is how versatile the colors are. It can be aggro, midrange, or control, and it can be tweaked for any metagame.
Vengevine and Gideon haven't been tested much, but both could be powerful additions to that deck.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
A good Time Sieve/OTV combo player schooled my UW control deck the other day. It was close to the UWr list...I'm wondering what to do vs. that deck.
Or just let other decks in the meta hate it out...or just play better...but I guess I don't know how, other than to combo the pieces...and that means you have to get lucky CA by turn 5 to have the counter waiting for it.
I've only just begun playing Time Sieve, but I've been testing the deck a lot and one thing I've yet to play against that I fear are counterspells. I honestly think that U/W Tapout is just straight up worse than the U/W Counterspells variant. Tapout loses to Jund, and Tapout loses to the few combo decks that are popping up. (Time Sieve, Open the Vaults, Polymorph) The counterspell version can keep up with Jund by 1-for-1ing them with counterspells long enough to make them run out of steam. Tapout drops a board wipe to which Jund simply shrugs off by Bloodbraiding into a Sprouting Thrinax or dropping a Broodmate.
I think naya will reappear in some form. The deck had to be retooled after WWK to make it good again as well, but the combination of ranger of eos and bloodbraid elf available in those colours gives you alot of flexibility and power. I'm not sure people have found the right version yet though.
I would say tier one right now is Jund, U/W, bant and RDW. As mentioned those decks create a difficult gauntlet.
You have one extremely quick deck, one deck with an excellent long-game, and two mid-range decks (one with a ton of card advantage, and the other with very high card quality).
Should be interesting to see what the 'answer' to the format is. I don't think its been found yet.
I've only just begun playing Time Sieve, but I've been testing the deck a lot and one thing I've yet to play against that I fear are counterspells. I honestly think that U/W Tapout is just straight up worse than the U/W Counterspells variant. Tapout loses to Jund, and Tapout loses to the few combo decks that are popping up. (Time Sieve, Open the Vaults, Polymorph) The counterspell version can keep up with Jund by 1-for-1ing them with counterspells long enough to make them run out of steam. Tapout drops a board wipe to which Jund simply shrugs off by Bloodbraiding into a Sprouting Thrinax or dropping a Broodmate.
Are you joking? Tapout pretty much beats jund, which the chapin versions of the deck don't. At all. They're better against the mirror and random combo decks...well, time seive/OTV. But they are much worse against the entire rest of the format.
I'm not sure whether the forums were intentionally nuked or not, here's hoping someone didn't hit the wrong button, and there's a way to restore all the posts.
*edit*
Nevermind, just read the Daily Announcements.
Anyway, in order to keep my thread relevant, discuss your thoughts on the current meta, and how healthy you think it is. I think we're starting to get a much more balanced meta than we had 6 months ago, though it would be nice to see a couple of more interesting combo decks thrown in. The Polymorph lists are cool and all, but I don't really consider them real combo decks (like Elves and Time Sieve).
Jund seems to be declining slightly, and there's far more Control decks showing up thanks to powerful cards like Jace and Wall of Omens. As a Control player, this is good for me, especially as most of these decks don't involve any permission - I guess this was Wizard's goal, ultimately.
Thoughts?
Ultimatly and unfortunatly
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Modern (I collect the format):
WURDelver
[/MANA]MANA]R[/MANA]GTron WDeath and Taxes WSoul Sisters RWG Pod Combo URSplinter Twin URStorm RBurn
@ the person who thinks RDW will emerge as a good deck.
I like the idea of a good RDW unfortunately the deck usually just rolls to kor Firewalker and wall of denial. two cards that are good against both RDW and jund. RDW is beter than it has been for a long time unfortuntely the hate for it is just as good and works against other top dcks as well.
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Originally Posted by badjuju
As the Last of the Control Players, we are all part of a sacred brotherhood; a band of brothers who would rather die on their knees tapping islands and giving permission than live on our feet cascading into Blightning.
Can somebody give me a link to a decklist for this UWr Planeswalker deck? I'm not having any luck finding it, either on these forums or on the WotC site.
I think the meta is not going to fundamentally change right now. you will still see all the normal variants.
i think what will happen, is that Jund will show up in smaller numbers, and by sheer odds, will allow other decks to sneak into T8 where they may not have been before...or in greater numbers than before.
Why is Jacerator no longer considered even remotely competitive?
Sure, Eldrazi ability to shuffle is annoying, but is it really something the deck cannot handle? I think not.
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Standard: Abzan Aristocrats
Modern: Storm
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*edit*
Nevermind, just read the Daily Announcements.
Anyway, in order to keep my thread relevant, discuss your thoughts on the current meta, and how healthy you think it is. I think we're starting to get a much more balanced meta than we had 6 months ago, though it would be nice to see a couple of more interesting combo decks thrown in. The Polymorph lists are cool and all, but I don't really consider them real combo decks (like Elves and Time Sieve).
Jund seems to be declining slightly, and there's far more Control decks showing up thanks to powerful cards like Jace and Wall of Omens. As a Control player, this is good for me, especially as most of these decks don't involve any permission - I guess this was Wizard's goal, ultimately.
Thoughts?
My opinion is that the current T1 is:
U/W(x) control
Jund
Soverign Bant
Honorable mention:
Polymorph
My problem is that even with all these decks in development; few if any have made their way to the tourney scene. It's nice seeing some home-brews T8ing, but overall I don't feel like the meta is that diverse yet. Hopefully that will change in the upcoming months.
T2:?
MWSTesting:URRuneflare Trap
My Trade Thread
Jund
Blue/White Tapout
Blue/White Counterspells
Blue/White/red Planeswalkers
Mythic Bant + Conscription
Red-black Deck Wins
Red Deck + Devastating Summons
Polymorph
Time Sieve
Vampires
White Weenie
Junk
Boss Naya
Eldrazi Green
Summoning Trap
Grixis Control
Compared to when Zendikar was first released...
Jund
Jund hate decks:
RDW
White Weenie
Vampires (to some degree)
Planeswalker.dec is looking pretty powerful, I knew it was coming because the threshold of playable PWs has been exceeded in the meta... so that means that Pithing Needle should see some SB play and Maelstrom Pulse/O-Ring are better than they were a week ago.
Beyond that there is still Jund and the second most represented deck U/W to deal with and most of us have already built our decks to handle the best decks. Even if that means playing the best deck. Personally I think Mythic Bant is prime to take advantage of the meta, that or another Naya deck like Boss Naya.
Really right now I think that it is anyones guess as to what to expect but I sense U/G Polymorph becoming even more popular since it recently placed 2nd and is still cheap enough to make... well besides Jace 2 and Garruk.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=5401186#post5401186
Jund variations
UWx control variations
Mythic Bant variations
And maybe Polymorph.
Gotta be a clown to play anything else unless you got a sweet brew that you are keeping secret.
Modern:
Something new every week
Legacy:
Something new everyweek
I think Jund is declining because people have a sideboard with 10/15 cards that are Jund hate. When people begin to open up these slots to help fight control, Jund will rise again.
I also believe that a large portion of Jund players are playing with other decks, which results in less top 8's.
ANT, Legacy (75% Foiled) Over all record 21-5-4. RIP
U/R Splinter Twin, Standard 39-10-15 TWINNING!
I also saw a Bushwhacker deck win a WPN qualifier recently in my area. Final was Bushwhacker vs UW-tapout. Tapout generally has a very hard time against ultra-fast decks though.
I like how the meta is developing; more diverse now as already stated, which opens to the doors to a lot of different options. I think it also makes specific cards more playable in a varied field; for example I may try Duress maindeck in an Esper control deck I'm working on.
1.) Jund is still and will continue to be the deck to beat. Dont fool yourselves into thinking that just because it lost two tournaments that it will not win a lot more. Jund is not good becuase one form is unbeatable. It is good becuase it has the best backbone and perhaps the most answers in its color. I highly suspect that Jund will win in the future.
2.) I still don't like bush waker there are no cards which give it more consistency which was always its problem. Any time you see a bush waker win something its becuase people were not quite ready and he got a good draw on his mana. I am not trying to insult the skill of the player I am sure he had to make the best plays possible to make a shakey deck work, but it is far to inconsistent to ever be tier 1.
3.) Because I want to end on a positive note: the meta is definitely healthier Although someone above was right that even now there needs to be a significant amount of slots devoted to Jund thats bound to happen. To tell you the truth in most decks you need just about as many slots to beat U/W
If you can consistantly do T3 or T4 bushwhacker and summons, you got them on tilt.(admit, I havent gottent to really test to see if its consistant, need to get some more summons to playtest.)
The plainswalker dec is THE DECK to beat, imo. I've been playing it against everything and more often than not I'm just wrecking face.
As for the meta. I was a Jund player after Zendikar's release, then got sick of playing it. Once worldwake released I switched to UWr, and lost more often than when I played Jund. So so sick of Jund. I feel the meta is shifting because some people actually own the expensive stuff now. Jund is around $300 buck where UWr is around $600.
Anyways, I'm loving the the new UWx varients. Looks like MBC didn't make any showings. I doubt bRDW will be viable. Polymorph still has a chance to trick an unprepared meta. So, without further ado...
1. UWr Plainswalkers Teir 1
-----------------------------
2. UW
3. UWG Soveriegns
4. Jund / Naya
No Order
-----------------------------
5. bRDW / RDW
6. Polymorph
In no particular order. Hopefully new decks will arize. I've been wanting to play UWr since the release of Worldwake and I'm sticking to it.
Realistically, your tier 1 is a 3 decktype setup:
Jund
Mythic
U/W based control (obv a lot of different builds)
Below that the key players are
Red Based Speed Aggro
Polymorph style decks
Inferior Derivatives of Previously listed Archetypes
It's a pretty simple format to understand, with room for a lot of variation and innovation. The U/W control decks are so varied that alone they can spawn so many different archetypes. I love the Esper Version that combines the power of a heavy plainswalker suite with the combo win of Brilliant Ultimatum into Emrakul. The American Gladiator Planeswalker version is obviously a house, and the U/W variations have merit as well. They all do nasty thing and get to play 8 of the powerful disruptive 2 casting cost cantrips (spreading seas and wall of omens).
The big 3 archetypes create an impressive gauntlet.
To be viable a deck needs to:
Be able to deal with 4 tougness blockers without getting destroyed by Day of Judgement and is still fast enough to win before being verwhelmed by walkers.
Be resilient enough to Removal and Discard to have game against creatures that generate persistant advantage.
Have an answer to the blatant creature superiority of a deck that slams down the best creatures in the format and explodes with Conscription.
Some decks answer those questions with speed (like the red decks). Some answer them with combo into instant wins or the most disruptive creatures ever printed (polymorph). And some decks are outclassed becuase they were built to attack one prong of the top tier, but the other 2 will crush them (white weenie, vamps).
It's an interesting puzzle.
One of the interesting things about Naya is how versatile the colors are. It can be aggro, midrange, or control, and it can be tweaked for any metagame.
Vengevine and Gideon haven't been tested much, but both could be powerful additions to that deck.
Or just let other decks in the meta hate it out...or just play better...but I guess I don't know how, other than to combo the pieces...and that means you have to get lucky CA by turn 5 to have the counter waiting for it.
Don't count out the time-sieve combo.
I would say tier one right now is Jund, U/W, bant and RDW. As mentioned those decks create a difficult gauntlet.
You have one extremely quick deck, one deck with an excellent long-game, and two mid-range decks (one with a ton of card advantage, and the other with very high card quality).
Should be interesting to see what the 'answer' to the format is. I don't think its been found yet.
2011-2012:Bantblade, BantPod
2010-2011:Bant Shaman, Naya Shaman, Naya allies + Scars, URG Turboforce
2009-2010:Naya allies, Mono-White Titan Control
Are you joking? Tapout pretty much beats jund, which the chapin versions of the deck don't. At all. They're better against the mirror and random combo decks...well, time seive/OTV. But they are much worse against the entire rest of the format.
Mythic with or without Conscription
Jund
U/W Tapout Control
U/W/r Planeswalkers
Tier 1.5
Red deck wins and offshoots
Polymorph
U/W Chapin Control
Tier 1.75
Poly/Trap
Summoning Trap
Tier 2
Green Elves/Monster
G/W aggro/midrange
Bossssss Naya
Time Sieve/Open the Vaults/Turbofog
Spread 'Em style decks
Cruel Control
Junk
Tier 8, the Ocho
Infinite mana combo
Decks that try to hardcast Eldrazi
Mono black control
Merfolk
Goblins
Ultimatly and unfortunatly
WURDelver
[/MANA]MANA]R[/MANA]GTron
WDeath and Taxes
WSoul Sisters
RWG Pod Combo
URSplinter Twin
URStorm
RBurn
I like the idea of a good RDW unfortunately the deck usually just rolls to kor Firewalker and wall of denial. two cards that are good against both RDW and jund. RDW is beter than it has been for a long time unfortuntely the hate for it is just as good and works against other top dcks as well.
i think what will happen, is that Jund will show up in smaller numbers, and by sheer odds, will allow other decks to sneak into T8 where they may not have been before...or in greater numbers than before.
Sure, Eldrazi ability to shuffle is annoying, but is it really something the deck cannot handle? I think not.
Modern: Storm