MTG Salvation

Quote from SpeedGrapher »

So this new mill deck wins either by dredge style creature rush or turbo mill. That means pillow port will have a spot light or turbo fog. Ghostly Prison and singleton main deck Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. That's so much fun. For those of you who have never thought of that as an anti-mill card, it's amazing. I play it in one of my decks all of the time. O and you're welcome. I only give you all the best SB cards solutions ever.

Gaea's Blessing is better for this, since it actually does something, if you draw it.

Furthermore, Ghostly Prison is rather mediocre, when it comes down on turn 3 and the opp can attack with an 8/8 through it. It only gets relevant, if you follow up with a Sphere, but than again, needing to draw two specific cards to not just die on turn 4 sucks.

Greetings,
Kathal

Quote from The Fluff »

Thanks for the information kathal.

Which one should be pithing needle'd first. The feeder or the altar?

If Needle is the only interaction to their engine, than Altar, otherwise he can win without ever attacking if he ever draws Altar.

Feeder just generates big bodies or a wide board (depending on what exactly they have), which can be dealt with either sweeper (especially Terminus, Hallowed Burial or Anger of the Gods) or big dumb beaters from your self (+ have an out to an 8/8).

Ideally watch some games on twitch/youtube to get a better understanding for what I meant (like to one of Kanisters streams: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/436193956). Within 4-5 games you should get the grasp of how to play against that deck (assuming you know how to play against Dredge already).

Greetings,
Kathal

Quote from pierrebai »

IIUC, the deck merely needs a 1-mana self-sac creature and a way to fill the GY (looting + dredge), as the deck functions off having two bridge from below and a hogaak in the GY? The deck seems to require to have turn 1 or 2 GY hate, which probably means a lot of first-game wins.

The question is not if the deck can be countered, but how much metagame warping happens due to it forcing player to maindeck GY hate.

The deck needs either:
1) Altar of Dementia and a few creatures/set-up tools to start a chain mill (wins if unchecked)
2) Carrion Feeder and re-curring sac outlets for the Vine kills (generates tons of pressure if unchecked)

Most of the lists do not even run the Dredge package, since it is rather mediocre (+ you only have 2-3 slots available to begin with). A Needle on Altar shuts down close to all early wins and thus forces the deck to win via a Beatdown plan, which can be fast (in theory you can have 24+ power on turn 2 on the battle field, but the chance of this happening is basically 0 (god draw)) but generally needs a couple of turns to be able to clock you where it is basically an aggro deck, with a recurring creature package without reach (so basically Dredge without Flag or Chill).

So basically: Either remove Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis via Surgical (hampers the Aggro plan also) or deal with Altar and you are facing basically dredge.

Greetings,
Kathal

0-5, where as 0 and 5 are both extremes. On average you are at 2 cards.

Currently I'm looking at the following cards:

So I'm looking at roughly 20 cards where I'm quite confident, that they will make a splash, which is honestly way more than what I originally expected (expected roughly 10 high impact cards).

Greetings,
Kathal

Quote from destroyermaker »

Anotha one.

No need to splash U anymore, Trade Routes in Red is here

Greetings,
Kathal

Quote from RedGauntlet »

Why are these cards in a Moderm focused product instead of a commander one?

Read the dailymtg post from today, it explains it quite well. Tl;dr: While it is primarily a Modern product, they want to cater towards other player groups too.

Greetings,
Kathal

Quote from Bearscape »

I had a reply but I'm not satisfied with how I worded it so I'm going to think about it a bit more.

In short, mainboardable Surgical Extraction means the format is too unfair for my taste, and it is very easy to post a Simpson's clip and say "just adapt".

When Mirrodin block became so inbred people mainboarded 4x Oxidize, they also adapted, but that does not mean the format wasn't warped.

The difference is: In Mirrodin Block you could run 4x Oxidize, 4x Shatter and 4x Viridian Shaman MD and it would STILL be NOT enough to deal with the Artefact decks. That is beyond levels of a broken metagame. Heck, even after the bannings Kataki, War's Wage was basically a must play, since the Artefact decks were still that freaking good.

However, does anybody run even close to 6+ graveyard hate pieces in the MD atm? No, the most you see is either the 2 off Surgical or Nihil Spellbomb which you can play the playset of, cause in the worst case it cycles for 2 mana, which is below Modern standards but it still does something. Ooze is a special case, since you profit from creatures in general in the graveyard, but it is more often than not to slow to stop things like Dredge or a fast Phoenix draw, hence, it is better in the slower, removal heavy match-ups. Kaya is similar, although better in the Phoenix match-up since the decks which play her have access to good removal and thus can even exile the Phoenixes after they hit you once/twice. That she has also other applications (e.g vs Hardening Scale, or as mini lifegain vs Burn) makes her a more all-arounder instead of being a very specific interaction card like Surgical.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to be able to play pre RTR Modern again, since it was the by far most fun I ever had in Modern. Playing Gifts Storm with Seething Song (Increasing Vengeance is hella strong with Song), RUG Delver with Shackles and Cryptics or even Kiki Pod was so much fun. What makes it even better was, that of those decks where pretty darn good, but all either faded away due to an evolving metagame (Delver), or ate a ban (or two).

Holistic speaking, it was probably the most balanced and exciting Modern format I ever had the fortune to both play and watch, but than again, time went on.

Greetings,
Kathal

Quote from Bearscape »

As long as skillful players deem it necessary to put Surgical Extraction in their mainboard I will not consider Modern to be "fine".

Why? When everybody and their mom were playing Midrange (aka DRS times) people played things like Elspeth, Sun's Champion in their main, cause it was so darn good vs the metagame. Heck, there where time periods where playing counter spells was the dumbest thing you could have done, cause that form of interaction aligned really badly to the metagame.

There are currently two decks, which see a lot of play where you would want some form of MD graveyard hate, namely Dredge and Phoenix, against most other decks that type of interaction (yes, it is interaction) just sucks. Humans, Spirits, Hardening Scales simply do not care about graveyard hate, and G Tron only cares about Surgical if combined with LD.

It would be the same, if suddenly everybody plays Sweepers, cause there is so many go wide Aggro strategies. Would that also be suddenly a problem?

Also, the format is fine, it just evolved over the years, currently we are at a point in Modern history, where the graveyard for the first time really matters. The deck which abused it the most previously was Squeeflagrate (a Zombie Infestation, Life from the Loam, Squee, Goblin Nabob, Bloodghast and Conflagrate deck #stomper of all Aggro decks) and that deck never took off, cause even while nobody played graveyard hate, nobody played it (cause no exposure but one GP).

When I read something along that line it always remembers me of that clip: https://youtu.be/LV0wTtiJygY

Modern changes, Legacy did too ('member when Goblins was a Tier 1 deck and not just a dumbster fire?), new cards allow new/old strategies to thrive, more cards always increase the power level, regardless of how supposed crappy the set was (every set, even Theoros and Cold Snap, has a wealth of cards contributing to Modern). While Modern is a behemoth, it slowly moves forward, one set after another.

Greetings,
Kathal

Here: https://twitter.com/finalnub/status/1121794331642187776

Greetings,
Kathal

Quote from cfusionpm »

Running bad, narrow cards to fight a horrible, high-variance deck that you might never even see is just asking to feel bad playing Modern.

Quote from Mikefon »

I think Kathal was referring to Conley Wood's narset control deck naming shoal an commandeer. That decks is such a blast and just wrecks neoform! It seems pretty good against the field too.

About goldfished pre turn 4 wins: it's quite impressive so far. Curious to know the difference on the draw (should even increase thanks to the card drawn).

I wanted to primarily point out, that there IS Turn 0 interaction in modern which can deal with that deck, should it rise in a metagame share. Furthermore, some of those cards saw a lot of play in different time periods, Snapback in the beginning (Blazing Shoal Infect hated that card so much), Disrupting Shoal also had several time periods, where it saw a lot of play, especially back in RUG Delver days (after the Shackles builds btw).

Hence, there were and will be metagames where "trash cards, which are super narrow" are suddenly REALLY good. Just take a look at Surgical Extraction, back in 2015 it would have been idiotic to run that card at all, let alone in the main deck!

Meta changes, decks evolve, those cards can come back (or not), same is true with other super narrow and "garbage" cards

Greetings,
Kathal

Not trying to play the devil's advocate but if we actually think about it, like idSurge said, most if not all of the decks use the graveyard in some way. Having hate for it, is it that "hateful"? Graveyard "hate" is "less" dead than creature removal since every player uses the graveyard because it's a part of the game and not all of the decks have creatures, like LeoTzu said.

Maybe this decks only looks this dumb because nobody wants to play MB GY hate and feels that they shouldn't but probably is the right way to go. As a UW Control Player it feels super bad when I'm paired against a mirror match and all I drew was Paths and Wipes and they have the walkers and the counters. Adding more potential blanks feels strange but I'm positive that probably this is the way forward. Modern has a lot going on for it that we all enjoy and love. It's the reason why I play it over Standard. It would be somewhat hypocritical if I said that I like Modern because there are a lot of weird and cool decks that play from strange angles but I don't want them to be any good because I'd have to play actual interaction for them.

Playing more with the Legacy analogy, if we actually think about it, Legacy is the "normal people" format where the real busted stuff can happen. Larger card pool meaning more dumb stuff... But playing it feels really good. At least I always enjoyed it a lot. Most of that was due to FoW and its role. If Surgical or GY Hate does this in Modern, the degenerate decks will have to settle down on the dumbness and be more down to earth. It will make for more interesting games because you're not just free to do your goldfish because there's the real risk of the losing the game on the spot if you overextend into the GY hate. This all would result in the format slowing down a lot and making for more compelling gameplay.

Quote from CavalryWolfPack »

Also, if you haven't yet, you should read this.

This is very depressing. The Reddit Modern community feels so much more scattered at times. I will miss actual conversation here instead of just people shouting opinions into the internet void.

Quote from SyntheticDreamer »

Quote from 1110mystic »

Doesn't seem that it overwrites their keywords, cards that do usually say "lose all abilities" or something like that?

Nope, they don't lose their abilities, although they do lose their creature types and colors. They just become green Wurms with base power and toughness 6/4.

Urza: "I am Urza, Lord High Artificer!"
Me: "Well now you are a giant worm!"
Urza: "This is so cool! I am giant and powerful!"
Me: "You also don't have hands anymore! I guess you are Urza, the Broken now!
Urza:

Thats your hill to die on? Why?

Quote from idSurge »

Quote from AUTUMNTWILIGHT »

I mean that makes sense with Graduation and Finals on the Horizon. Is it different from the previous year or something?

Yes. 2018 was not nearly as bad/slow as it is right now. Its the format. I mean even looking around at most of the forum, traffic certainly appears way down.

I would attribute the slowdown to a wide combination of factors including the rise of Discord, increased Reddit traffic, heightened Standard/Arena popularity, increased Arena streaming, entrance into a slower Modern season after the GP stretch, uncertainty about what to play due to MH, the decline of traditional forums like ours (both generally and specifically), and a host of other factors. We have seen posts every few months for literal years that Modern is losing players and/or popularity in an often isolated or small N context. I remember it in basically every metagame from Eldrazi Winter to present. The format is now, and continues to be, largely fine.

Ugin looks like he's Wile E Coyote and just noticed he ran off the cliff. Flapping his arms furiously trying to fly.

the win rate is just an average taken over players of varying skill levels. it isnt a literal representation of how much any given person can win with the deck. the more players piloting a deck means that range of skill levels likely widens, thus pulling win rates towards some expected value around 50/50. its why win rates for decks usually always float in that area given enough match data; yet we arent here claiming 10+ decks are '50/50'. this is also why decks like kci, amulet, or whir that have a smaller population have frequently shown top win rates; because the influence of any one highly skilled player is greater. couple that with barriers, perceived or otherwise, that keep less skilled players away and the difference is only more pronounced.

so the GP results are what they are; the reality we have to rationalize/explain. right now im seeing claims that a deck that presumably can win only half the time is coincidentally posting these level of results because the number of players.

according to tobi henke's GP analysis articles going back 4-5 months, where he tries to measure representation of the day 1 fields, UR phoenix started out near 5% in dec-jan, increased to around 8% in feb, and broke into 11-13% range in march making it the most played deck. in the case of GP calgary burn actually beat out phoenix as the most played. note the consistency of the GP placements during this period of ramping popularity.

the stellar day 2 representation that meets those day 1 numbers, and in cases exceeding them by a good amount, therefore is probably because of the decks day 2 conversion rate. which would in turn explain the abnormally high top8 conversions.

so consider a deck roughly 1 in 10 GP attendants are bringing to the event, with a 50% win-rate, placing multiple copies in the top 8 on average for 8 consecutive events (where the environment is increasingly hostile towards the strategy no less). i dont know about you but at face value that seems absurdly improbable. more likely there is something else going on.

granted i think there are plenty of justifications for UR phoenix's success that go beyond the decks power level, most of which deal with the decks qualities that tournament grinders find attractive and the timeline of the events themselves. that said, i believe anything along the lines of 'look at its 50% win rate, its just a lot of players' does little to nothing to explain what the deck has accomplished.

Quote from Trazaeth »

I'd say that it's effect is less degeneracy and more that it makes decks partially homogenized. Basically, unless there's a very good reason not to, you should be starting every deck with 4 Chrome Mox, if it's legal. If anything though, it makes traditionally "fair" decks (aggro, control, ramp, and midrange) better against "unfair" (combo) decks. Admittedly, I think labeling decks "fair" or "unfair" is a bit loaded, but it's how the developers seem to think of things.

No, not all decks would run a chrome mox. However, ramping in that manner only really suits combo decks and ramp decks towards early powerful spells. The loss of a card in hand would mean that aggro wouldn't want it since it's trying to just race on curve, and control would only use it in a prison tezzerator build at best. Being able to be possibly two turns up on mana can lead to virtual locks. Either way, what is being accomplished with having this unbanned eludes me.

Basically all major archetypes in NBLM can or do run Chrome Mox, if they can support it. UWx Miracles, Tezzerator, WW, Storm (Non-Swath builds at least; PiF Storm builds love Chrome Mox, since they can absorb the CA hit), UR Turbo Twin, Pyroclamp, Elves, Dredge, GBx Hexdepths, 12 post, Bant Pod, Shoal Infect, Fairies... Really, the only decks that don't run it are Affinity, Eggs, Living End, Hypergenesis, and Eldrazi Aggro. Affinity and Eggs get Mox Opal as a replacement. Living End and Hypergenesis can't run it but usually have SSG in the list as a pseudo-Mox, though even the terrible lists that run off of the Expertise cycle from Kaladesh and As Foretold use Chrome Mox. Eldrazi get their Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temples, but the lack of a viable Mox replacement is a major issue with the deck. It's why they tend to get wrecked by Bridge decks and by Miracles.

Honestly, I think that Chrome Mox is probably the format defining card of NBLM. No other card has warped the meta on the same scale; not even Dark Depths or Skullclamp, which is insane.

Still a better love story than twilight.

ALL the data from GP Bilbao! https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/full-meta-packet-the-99-of-grand-prix-bilbao/