I figured this would be the best place to post this, but feel free to ignore me if it isn't constructive.
How does anyone beat Merfolk?
My lifetime record against the deck is like 0-15, Modern and Legacy combined.
Delver, Miracles, ANT, Gifts Control, Jund, Zoo. It doesn't matter what deck I play, how clear I keep the board, or how fast my clock is I always get overrun by evasive 4/4s while they have the one counter that keeps me from stabilizing.
I get punished for holding removal since Kira and Spellskite shut it down late and I get punished for using removal early since I run out allowing them to get a critical mass of lords. Counters are useless because of Cavern and Vial.
The only games I win I cast 3 sweepers or they have mana issues; even that isn't enough sometimes.
As a Merfolk pilot what cards or strategies do you hate playing against?
Is there some secret to using removal that I'm missing?
Are triple lord + vial + Mutavault draws normal or am I just exceedingly unlucky?
I basically tilt to the point of scooping against Island, Vial, Go. Please help me.
Thank you. As I have already said, I am a high school freshman. I get $10 a week for my allowance and $3 of that goes to charity. Am I honestly supposed to keep saving up? The only reason why I was even close to having the money for the blue fetchlands before they spiked was because of my Bar Mitzvah 2 years ago. If I saved up at my current rate (not including my summer job at $60 a week, since I'll be using most of that to buy Remands, Thoughtseizes, and all 40 shocklands so that I don't miss the spike again), even including the amount that I already have saved up, I will be able to afford the blue fetchlands in 13 and a half months, and that is assuming that I don't pay for anything else (such as actually playing magic, going out to eat with my friends, seeing movies, concert tickets, and so forth) and that prices don't spike again. How is that fair?
You know what you can do if you really want to play UWR Delver? Make friends. Go to you local shop and show the eternal players you know what you're doing and ask to borrow cards you need to finish the deck. I always bring a second Modern/Legacy deck and binder of staples with me to loan out as needed. Eternal players just want to play fun, interactive games against good players with Tier 1/2 decks. Show that you're a good player with interest/knowledge in the format and most of us would be ecstatic to help you play the decks you want.
What reality do you live in where everyone can just afford to piss away money on expensive hobbies in addition to actual important things like health insurance, rent / mortgage, food, clothing, car payments / insurance, electricity, etc? No one I know has that kind of money. In fact things like healthcare and retirement funds often are forgone not because they aren't necessary but people just can't afford it. And you think that dropping a grand or more on a single deck is just a thing you can decide to do?
Why is dropping a grand or more on a deck unreasonable?
I don't play Standard not because of the format, but because of the players. Low investment of money in a deck = low investment of time/thought in a deck.
Yes, there are bad eternal players and good standard players. But generally if you're spending $2-4k on a deck you're going to know how to play it and what other decks/cards in the format do. Not something I always see in Standard players. I hate playing someone who obviously doesn't know how their deck works and has no idea how to play around or against what I'm trying to do.
I am more than willing to help people play the formats they want to play as long as they are willing to invest the time and effort into learning a format and deck. I think most eternal players, or "greedy elitist staple hoarders", are in this camp.
This poor thread is so far off the rails we should probably rename it to "Complain about Modern Prices & Availability Thread" like over in the Legacy subforum. Which says something about Modern in and of itself.
Sigh. New World Order was about the restructuring of rarities according to perceived complexity. That was it. It had nothing to do with card design or development.
New World Order required a radically different way of looking at Magic expansions, but once R&D shifted our mindset, we found something even more exciting. When we started playing with the New World Order-shifted sets, we discovered that they were more fun. I'm not talking about for beginners; I'm talking about for R&D, a very established group of longtime Magic players. Why? Simply put, New World Order brought clarity to the game.
and
The real lesson of today's story hits another common theme of this column: the holistic nature of design.
That was a small part of my post, you can consider the cutoff to be just as arbitrary as 8th edition if it is bothering you.
I guess while we're bandying about crazy ideas (banning fetches?!?) I should throw out mine.
What if to shake up the format Wizards redefined the format cutoff moving it from 8th Edition to Lorwyn. This is where the New World Order truly began and in the long term (3-7 years) might be best for the format.
With the new cutoff these banned cards would no longer be in the format:
They are all just too individually powerful. Maybe in a year they can be re-evaluated.
This would undoubtedly kill Tron, so the Tron lands would need reprints in M15.
Affinity would move towards a Tempered Steel deck again, and select core cards like Arcbound Ravager could be reprinted in M15 as well. Living End would unfortunately die, I can't think of a way to save it.
Do I actually believe this is best for the format? Probably not.
Have I actually thought through all the repercussions? Definitely not.
Is this an interesting thought experiment? Would this really shake up the format before the Pro Tour? Undoubtedly yes.
I'm well aware of that. But we aren't (most likely) getting stifle, so these are the stifle effects we have in the format. At least trickbind can't be countered, and squelch draws a card. Searing spear does neither of those things so it's not really a direct comparison.
Stifle is effective in Legacy because you have Wasteland. In modern the fundamental turn is later plus every deck is running more lands so it wouldn't impact the format as much.
It's more like comparing Chain Lightning in Legacy to Shard Volley in Modern. They are almost the same, but one sometimes sees play and the other is just a bad fit for the metagame.
The 4 Mutavaults are huge because they don't cost a card. It's not a fair comparison between Mutavault and Tarmogoyf. That's like saying would you rather have Celestial Colonnade or Serra Angel? Not even close in power levels even though the activation is similar
Tarmogoyf is great, but the reality is that by having Tarmogoyf, you're short one burn spell or counter spell. We're incredibly threat light, and cutting down 4 more threats I think just allows Jund to 1 for 1 us all day.
I don't want to discount Tarmogoyf either because it's the fastest clock we can have, but I really like the Sword of Light and Shadow that's showing up some lists because it directly counters some of our main issues... Lingering Souls, Loxodon Smiters, and black/white removals. Getting back a Snapcaster once or twice can easily be game.
The only decks that can 1 for 1 us with removal are Jund and U/W/R. Blood Moon comes in against both of them. Mutavault isn't much help in those matchups.
I'm interested in Sword of Light and Shadow. I ran it as a singleton in the sideboard for awhile, but it never got cast. Definitely post how your testing with it goes.
2 Islands with Blood Moon? Try changing the Shivan Reefs for more Islands.
I like this use of Young Pyromancer better than in the more counter heavy version. The only issue might be having to use cantrips before casting him to find your second and third land drops.
Mana Leak and Goblin Guide don't play well together. It looks like you're trying to use the Mana Leak as more of "Counter the spell that will kill me" rather than "Upset their tempo through early game disruption". If this is the case, look at Deprive. It doesn't look like you're going to hit land drops consistently past turn 3 so the drawback really doesn't apply.
How is your matchup against Twin, Living End, Storm and Tron? It seems like they'll all be able to walk through your disruption. Pod seems bad as well, as a resolved Kitchen Finks or Restoration Angel could just kill you. You pretty much destroy Jund though, right?
no manlands makes me very critical of URg, vault is a huge bonus to this deck from testing.
When are you winning games with man lands in U/R? I'm assuming you run ~20 lands with 3-4 being Mutavault and 8 fetches?
When I tried it, I couldn't attack with Mutavault and keep up Remand/Leak/Spellstutter until at least turn 4 but more likely turn 6 or 7. Then you have to spend 2 every main phase just to have a 10 turn non-evasive clock. Having Mutavault turns on opposing Tectonic Edges as well. Goyf is a one turn commitment for a faster and earlier clock that also blocks incredibly well. The only argument I could see is to mitigate flooding to a degree, but Burst Lightning and Snapcaster Mage do a decent job of that already.
Playing U/R Delver over RUg just for 3-4 Mutavaults feels wrong. You may have come to a different conclusion in you own testing and I'd be interested to hear it.
So would you advise just straight UR with scions or RUG with both Goyf and Scion, I imagine that Goyf helps out a lot in the mid range matchups though?
Advise is such a strange word...
There's plenty of time before the next big Modern event to find out for yourself what fits your playstyle best.
U/R Faeries with Scion is a very different deck than Delver even if they share many cards; it essentially ignores mid-range by flying over it while burning their utility creatures. In a deck as threat light as U/R Delver, you do need Tarmogoyf to help your clock and to actually stick in a format of Pyroclasms, Electrolyzes and Lightning Bolts.
Does anyone have any experience with RUG Delver in Modern? I. e., a deck along the lines of Hoogland's, but with Tarmogoyfs instead of Spellstutter Sprites?
Though this makes the mana more difficult, it seems like it could be a strong addition. Goyf is both a good threat and a creature which can, incidentally, battle one of this deck's most problematic cards - other Tarmogoyfs.
Moreover, it is also a good threat if games go longer. Of course, this would probably entail removing the Mutavaults.
Any opinions?
I'm a huge proponent of RUg in modern and think it adds some consistency and power to the straight U/R version. Here is the list I took to Detroit last weekend:
I ended up going 5-3 and dropping. I lost to Bogles, B/W tokens(wtf?) and Rbw Burn; I won against UWR Geist, U/R Splinter Twin, Living End, RG Tron and Rb Burn. This deck was setup for all the Pod, Jund and Tron that was there but I never actually faced...
All that said. I think that Delver is just too high variance to put up serious results. Sometimes you flip a Delver and counter/kill everything they play. Other times you just lose to a 4/4. Trying to string together 15 matches while walking that tightrope is never going to get there. Legacy RUG does so well because it gets to play some of the best cards in the format. That isn't the case in Modern, especially for U/R. The metagame in Legacy is less focused creature destruction as well, and there is no replacement for Nimble Mongoose.
I like the direction Hoogland is going with the Faeries (Scion is a beast!) and see that as the future of U/R in Modern. If you want to keep flipping Delvers, Grixis or BUG are the best color combinations at this point. The access to discard, hardremoval and cardadvantage shore up most of the weaknesses this deck has.
Feel free to ignore anything I just said though and go back to talking about how Serum Visions allows you to run Cryptic Command in a deck with 7-9 blue sources and Blood Moon.
I didn't notice this before, but he isn't running any cantrips. In his faq he mentions running Telling Time and Isochron Scepter so it's probably outdated.
Does anyone know why he dropped them?
To my understanding, turn and burn does help deal with bigger bodies. It is just very slow at doing so. The up side is that the card isn't dead if you get your better board options like Go for the Throat as you could still burn their face or possibly turn a creature and block it.
Some good examples of when it shines that I saw are when there is a stubborn creature like a Wurmcoil (grrrrr). We can turn and burn it before it can gain life; and by casting turn on it, it loses its effect and does not yield any tokens. This and other similar situations are nightmares in which we can no longer 1-for-1 a threat while we keep chipping away at their life.
If you let them resolve a Wurmcoil Engine you've lost. Period. This deck wins by playing 2-3 spells a turn off of 3-4 lands and disrupting the opponent just long enough to count to 20. Look at the legacy version. A resolved Batterskull or Jace is gg so the deck tries to win before they are relevant.
You can't really compare the list the Hoogland is playing to a real Delver deck. I agree running things like Magma Jet and Telling Time just to flip Delvers is a bad strategy in a similar vein to running Mutagenic Growth and Gutshot just to activate Young Pyromancers.
The way Hoogland approached the problem was to go more controlling by upping the land count and cmc. He's definitely a better player than I am and I offer him all the respect in the world but the deck he's playing looks like U/R Faeries and not U/R delver.
In my (probably wrong) opinion adding green to the U/R shell also solves the problem of relying on delver as the only real threat. Tarmogoyf ends games quicker and cheaper than Mutavault or Grim Lavamancer, which is exactly what this deck wants to be doing.
In case anyone was wondering how my search for a third creature threat is going Stromkirk Noble, Jace's Mindseeker and Scute Mob are all unplayable (obvious in hindsight, but I'm getting desperate). The last 1 drop I'm looking at is Kird Ape. After that I'm moving to Mire Boa (Hello Jund and U/W/R), Flinthoof Boar, and a Spellstutter Sprite/Rancor split. Maybe I should just learn how to play with Young Pyromancer...
How does anyone beat Merfolk?
My lifetime record against the deck is like 0-15, Modern and Legacy combined.
Delver, Miracles, ANT, Gifts Control, Jund, Zoo. It doesn't matter what deck I play, how clear I keep the board, or how fast my clock is I always get overrun by evasive 4/4s while they have the one counter that keeps me from stabilizing.
I get punished for holding removal since Kira and Spellskite shut it down late and I get punished for using removal early since I run out allowing them to get a critical mass of lords. Counters are useless because of Cavern and Vial.
The only games I win I cast 3 sweepers or they have mana issues; even that isn't enough sometimes.
As a Merfolk pilot what cards or strategies do you hate playing against?
Is there some secret to using removal that I'm missing?
Are triple lord + vial + Mutavault draws normal or am I just exceedingly unlucky?
I basically tilt to the point of scooping against Island, Vial, Go. Please help me.
You know what you can do if you really want to play UWR Delver? Make friends. Go to you local shop and show the eternal players you know what you're doing and ask to borrow cards you need to finish the deck. I always bring a second Modern/Legacy deck and binder of staples with me to loan out as needed. Eternal players just want to play fun, interactive games against good players with Tier 1/2 decks. Show that you're a good player with interest/knowledge in the format and most of us would be ecstatic to help you play the decks you want.
Why is dropping a grand or more on a deck unreasonable?
I don't play Standard not because of the format, but because of the players. Low investment of money in a deck = low investment of time/thought in a deck.
Yes, there are bad eternal players and good standard players. But generally if you're spending $2-4k on a deck you're going to know how to play it and what other decks/cards in the format do. Not something I always see in Standard players. I hate playing someone who obviously doesn't know how their deck works and has no idea how to play around or against what I'm trying to do.
I am more than willing to help people play the formats they want to play as long as they are willing to invest the time and effort into learning a format and deck. I think most eternal players, or "greedy elitist staple hoarders", are in this camp.
This poor thread is so far off the rails we should probably rename it to "Complain about Modern Prices & Availability Thread" like over in the Legacy subforum. Which says something about Modern in and of itself.
From the article.
and
That was a small part of my post, you can consider the cutoff to be just as arbitrary as 8th edition if it is bothering you.
What if to shake up the format Wizards redefined the format cutoff moving it from 8th Edition to Lorwyn. This is where the New World Order truly began and in the long term (3-7 years) might be best for the format.
With the new cutoff these banned cards would no longer be in the format:
(As an aside, it's crazy how many banned cards are from the earliest sets in the format. Kind of like legacy in this regard...)
These cards could come off the banned list:
There won't be Grove of the Burnwillows or Dryad Arbor to break the first two. With Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and the storm out of the format the cantrips should be fine. With no Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant Jund won't be the undisputed best deck anymore. Without Kird Ape the consistency argument for Zoo becomes weaker.
The following cards probably need to stay on the list while the "new" format shakes itself out:
They are all just too individually powerful. Maybe in a year they can be re-evaluated.
This would undoubtedly kill Tron, so the Tron lands would need reprints in M15.
Affinity would move towards a Tempered Steel deck again, and select core cards like Arcbound Ravager could be reprinted in M15 as well.
Living End would unfortunately die, I can't think of a way to save it.
Do I actually believe this is best for the format? Probably not.
Have I actually thought through all the repercussions? Definitely not.
Is this an interesting thought experiment? Would this really shake up the format before the Pro Tour? Undoubtedly yes.
Stifle is effective in Legacy because you have Wasteland. In modern the fundamental turn is later plus every deck is running more lands so it wouldn't impact the format as much.
It's more like comparing Chain Lightning in Legacy to Shard Volley in Modern. They are almost the same, but one sometimes sees play and the other is just a bad fit for the metagame.
The only decks that can 1 for 1 us with removal are Jund and U/W/R. Blood Moon comes in against both of them. Mutavault isn't much help in those matchups.
I'm interested in Sword of Light and Shadow. I ran it as a singleton in the sideboard for awhile, but it never got cast. Definitely post how your testing with it goes.
2 Islands with Blood Moon? Try changing the Shivan Reefs for more Islands.
I like this use of Young Pyromancer better than in the more counter heavy version. The only issue might be having to use cantrips before casting him to find your second and third land drops.
Mana Leak and Goblin Guide don't play well together. It looks like you're trying to use the Mana Leak as more of "Counter the spell that will kill me" rather than "Upset their tempo through early game disruption". If this is the case, look at Deprive. It doesn't look like you're going to hit land drops consistently past turn 3 so the drawback really doesn't apply.
How is your matchup against Twin, Living End, Storm and Tron? It seems like they'll all be able to walk through your disruption. Pod seems bad as well, as a resolved Kitchen Finks or Restoration Angel could just kill you. You pretty much destroy Jund though, right?
When are you winning games with man lands in U/R? I'm assuming you run ~20 lands with 3-4 being Mutavault and 8 fetches?
When I tried it, I couldn't attack with Mutavault and keep up Remand/Leak/Spellstutter until at least turn 4 but more likely turn 6 or 7. Then you have to spend 2 every main phase just to have a 10 turn non-evasive clock. Having Mutavault turns on opposing Tectonic Edges as well. Goyf is a one turn commitment for a faster and earlier clock that also blocks incredibly well. The only argument I could see is to mitigate flooding to a degree, but Burst Lightning and Snapcaster Mage do a decent job of that already.
Playing U/R Delver over RUg just for 3-4 Mutavaults feels wrong. You may have come to a different conclusion in you own testing and I'd be interested to hear it.
Advise is such a strange word...
There's plenty of time before the next big Modern event to find out for yourself what fits your playstyle best.
U/R Faeries with Scion is a very different deck than Delver even if they share many cards; it essentially ignores mid-range by flying over it while burning their utility creatures. In a deck as threat light as U/R Delver, you do need Tarmogoyf to help your clock and to actually stick in a format of Pyroclasms, Electrolyzes and Lightning Bolts.
I'm a huge proponent of RUg in modern and think it adds some consistency and power to the straight U/R version. Here is the list I took to Detroit last weekend:
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Steam Vents
1x Forest
1x Mountain
5x Island
Creatures - 15
3x Snapcaster Mage
3x Spellstutter Sprite
4x Delver of Secrets
4x Tarmogoyf
1x Vendilion Clique
4x Remand
4x Mana Leak
3x Spell Snare
2x Spell Pierce
1x Deprive
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Burst Lightning
Sorceries - 3
3x Pillar of Flame
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Vedalken Shackles
2x Threads of Disloyalty
3x Blood Moon
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Spellskite
I ended up going 5-3 and dropping. I lost to Bogles, B/W tokens(wtf?) and Rbw Burn; I won against UWR Geist, U/R Splinter Twin, Living End, RG Tron and Rb Burn. This deck was setup for all the Pod, Jund and Tron that was there but I never actually faced...
If I play RUg again I'll be adding another Spellstutter Sprite and Snapcaster Mage instead of a land and Vendilion Clique. Maindeck Pillar of Flame is also questionable unless you expect heavy Pod presence.
All that said. I think that Delver is just too high variance to put up serious results. Sometimes you flip a Delver and counter/kill everything they play. Other times you just lose to a 4/4. Trying to string together 15 matches while walking that tightrope is never going to get there. Legacy RUG does so well because it gets to play some of the best cards in the format. That isn't the case in Modern, especially for U/R. The metagame in Legacy is less focused creature destruction as well, and there is no replacement for Nimble Mongoose.
I like the direction Hoogland is going with the Faeries (Scion is a beast!) and see that as the future of U/R in Modern. If you want to keep flipping Delvers, Grixis or BUG are the best color combinations at this point. The access to discard, hard removal and card advantage shore up most of the weaknesses this deck has.
Feel free to ignore anything I just said though and go back to talking about how Serum Visions allows you to run Cryptic Command in a deck with 7-9 blue sources and Blood Moon.
I didn't notice this before, but he isn't running any cantrips. In his faq he mentions running Telling Time and Isochron Scepter so it's probably outdated.
Does anyone know why he dropped them?
If you let them resolve a Wurmcoil Engine you've lost. Period. This deck wins by playing 2-3 spells a turn off of 3-4 lands and disrupting the opponent just long enough to count to 20. Look at the legacy version. A resolved Batterskull or Jace is gg so the deck tries to win before they are relevant.
You can't really compare the list the Hoogland is playing to a real Delver deck. I agree running things like Magma Jet and Telling Time just to flip Delvers is a bad strategy in a similar vein to running Mutagenic Growth and Gutshot just to activate Young Pyromancers.
The way Hoogland approached the problem was to go more controlling by upping the land count and cmc. He's definitely a better player than I am and I offer him all the respect in the world but the deck he's playing looks like U/R Faeries and not U/R delver.
In my (probably wrong) opinion adding green to the U/R shell also solves the problem of relying on delver as the only real threat. Tarmogoyf ends games quicker and cheaper than Mutavault or Grim Lavamancer, which is exactly what this deck wants to be doing.
There's a pretty good primer about Grixis Delver, which is quite a bit different from U/R or RUG since Creeping Tar Pit, Deathrite Shaman, Dark Confidant, and Thoughtseize require more commitment to black than just a splash.
In case anyone was wondering how my search for a third creature threat is going Stromkirk Noble, Jace's Mindseeker and Scute Mob are all unplayable (obvious in hindsight, but I'm getting desperate). The last 1 drop I'm looking at is Kird Ape. After that I'm moving to Mire Boa (Hello Jund and U/W/R), Flinthoof Boar, and a Spellstutter Sprite/Rancor split. Maybe I should just learn how to play with Young Pyromancer...
At 23 lands is this even the same archetype?