MTG Salvation

Quote from Ayiluss »

~block of text~

Look there is already one tier 1 control (Jeskai control) and I don't see a reason why we need more of them now. It looks like control has to be the best archetype, clearly above others and that just out of nowhere. Control got AV, Jeskai control got Nahiri but it seems there's never enough for blue players and thus they still want more reprints to help it although there is absolutely no need for that. At least I admit that Jund doesn't need help now and there's no point of unbanning BBE while blue players doesn't realize or just don't want to that blue is fine and it doesn't need any help.

Srsly?

So you find it a problem, when there are two Control like decks tier 1 (Grixis is more of a Midrange build these days, with Strix it will go further down this road)? You could also claim in the same sentence (following your logic), that we need only 3 Tier 1 decks (one Aggro/Combo/Control deck), everything else should be Tier 2 or lower cause there is already a deck from that Archetype Tier 1.

We have currently 2 Midrange like decks as Tier 1 (Jund and CoCo), 2 Ramp/Combo hybrid decks (RG Tron (ramp) and Scapeshift (ramp/combo)), 2 hyper Aggro decks (Burn and Affinity), one aggro/combo hybrid (Infect) and one Control deck (UWR Control).

In the Tier 2 department, we have:
Aggro + Combo: 3 (Suicide Zoo, Elves, Gruul Aggro)
(Aggro/Combo) + Midrange: 6 (Eldrazi, Naya CoCo, Death and Taxes, Meerfolk, Kiki Chord) - aka all decks which are more Midrangy than aggro but have a other elements too.
Midrange: 2 (Junk, Grixis)
Ramp/Combo: 2 (Titanshift, Ad Nauseaum)

So, still no "Control" deck, while there are plenty of other archetypes there (I smashed some together, cause for a perfect one I have no time), while there are more than enough decks for other playstyles.

Don't get me wrong, I do not play classic Control (Eternal Ruse is the only thing I really play in that direction, my UW Control deck is rather a tap-out version), and those decks are even good against what I'm playing. However, for all people out there, who want to play a at least decent Control deck, they shouldn't be forced to just play UWR. As a Midrange player, you have 4 different decks between Tier 1 and 2, a Control player has 1.5 (you can build Control Grixis, but it is just straight up worse than the Midrange version).


Also, the UBx colour combination (which would get help from Strix) currently resides at astonishing 4%, if we include ADN than we are at 6,3%. UGx is also a very weak combination, only Infect and Scapeshift are playing that combination (there are some RUG/BUG/Bant decks out but their metagame share is below 0,5% overall) which compensate that problem quite well. So what is wrong with buffing a colour combination, which is already a lackluster (really bad removal and creatures), when especially Tier 3 or lower decks are profiting from it? Grixis won't become oppressive and the metagame share won't shift into more linear decks, cause if Strix has ever a metagame share above 15% (note: sole reason Strix, not Strix + something), than I would be more than surprised.

Greetings,
Kathal

PS: And I know, Jund is the classic "Control" deck from Modern.

@FoodChainGoblins, I played good old Tezz in good old Exteneded and when Sword got unbanned I said, that it will do exactly nothing in that deck, since it is not something the deck needs (it has already the best finisher in Tezzeret), what the UB version really needs, is a good 2 Drop (and no, a Signet is not a good 2 drop). Strix would be perfect for this and would push the deck into playable range.

@All, everybody who says, that Strix is to good for modern is just wrong. It would be the same as Innocent Blood, which looks broken if you look at it but when you start to think about the context of the format, it looks just like a decent removal spell. Same is true for Strix.

Greetings,
Kathal

Quote from ktkenshinx »

Quote from Spsiegel1987 »

I agree that women being visible in a game filled with nerdy men is nice, but it still doesn't mean she gets the thumbs up from me, just because of her being a female. I'm being less sexist saying I don't think she's very good as a commentator than saying, "she's a girl! It's great! it's fine!"

She needs to work on learning modern better, maybe giving better insight into modern, not just clinging to every word LSV says. I'm not trying to be rude, but in these Keep or Mulls, I could care less what she thinks, I don't think she's a good player from what I've heard.

Unfortunately, it might be hard to find women who have an LSV level of knowledge about Magic and Modern. I'm willing to endure a bit of bad commentary for a while if Gaby can help raise the bar across the board for the future. She was also better this weekend than the last time I saw her on stream, which suggests the kind of gradual improvement we'd want to see.

I highlighted the important part. Furthermore, do not forget, that a women with that kind of knowledge level would need to have the soft skills for commentary (it is way harder than it seems) AND would take the time to take that job.

Hence, I prefer Gabby atm, which lacks knowledge, which can be fixed over the time, than somebody, who lacks the soft skills for commentary. Yes, as Modern expert it is annoying, but if you are not an expert, she does a perfectly fine job. Cedric and Sullivan had also to learn their commentary skill over the years.

Greetings,
Kathal

A list for the Esper thingy would be nice ^^

Otherwise, I played nearly every version but the PT TTB version (no Jaces) and I simply like the Shoal version the most, due to it's explosiveness. If I would want to play the most stable one, I would either run @xBattleSpawnx list (just with different cantripps ) or a Necrotic Ooze version.

Greetings,
Kathal

Why think small scale, Emrakul, Aeons Torn

On a more serious note (only cards, which got not mentioned yet):
"I win"
Geist of Saint Traft
Sigarda, Host of Herons
Thragtusk
Monestary Mentor
Keranos, God of Storms (and in general all the gods)

"Removal"
Shriekmaw
Bounty Hunter
Fiend Hunter/Baneshing Priest

"value"
Restoration Angel (especially with Snapcaster Mage/E-Witness)

Greetings,
Kathal

Trust me on this one, Scapeshift wants rather Remand, since it cantripps. If it would want another card like Prohibit, it would run Leak. As for the Tempo decks, I think, that they will run Leak over Prohibit which is already even with Remand (since you HAVE TO answer some threads, cause otherwise you will get rekt (Siege Rhino says hi)).

Than again, Control would love to play something like this, it is just a problem, that it doesn't hit CMC 3, which is surprisingly important (Lilliana and Lingering Souls are both cards, which Control don't like to face).

Greetings,
Kathal

Take my response with a grain of salt, since it has been way to long since I played this version.

IMO, I wouldn't run all 4 SSG, I would even consider to run Pentad Prism over it (allows turn 3 TTB). Also, you are running more lands, which makes the need of SSG also less. I dislike the lack of raw carddraw, especially in combination with 7 Looting spells (Voice is at least even). I would suggest you to run 2 Read the Bones (they are better than Night's Whisper in your deck) instead of 1 Tormenting Voice and 1 SSG.

As for the Manabase, I definitely want the playset Temple here. You are already relative low on dig spells, hence getting a "free" one is great. I know, that it bites with the Blood Moon plan, but you can switch one Polluted Delta and 1 Swamp for them without having a "real" impact.

As for the SB, I do not really like it (the 1 of LotV looks really strange e.g.), but I cannot help you here, because of my lack of experience with that shell.

Greetings,
Kathal

Ad Nauseam is a very tricky match-up. There are two possible ways to win it: a) win before they can assemble their combo and grind through Angel's Graces (Unlife is no problem) and b) go off in response to the ADN on the stack, set-up a triple kill for the next turns AND if they still try to go of, win the lands battle.

Another possibility, though rarely usable is by gaining enough life to deny the Lightning Storm kill. However, they will board in Lab Man for those situations, so you will need to either counter board for it (you need something like Sudden Shock here) or just hope that you are faster.

Regarding b) why triple kill? You have to assume, that they have at least 1 additional Angel's Grace, if they went for full combo and want to Lab Man you out, than they will have all 3 in hand. This means, you have to have enough Lands in hand + reanimation spells to get the job done (they are already at 1 life, so on your turn you go reanimate Griselbrand, attack, kill, opp needs Angel's Grace, in his turn Borbor).

Yes, it is wonky, and yes it is hard to pull of (I only did it once), but if you are at exactly this position, you need to find these kind of set-ups.

Greetings,
Kathal

PS: Your own Lab Man is also a way to play around Angel's Grace, since they will board out their Slaughter Pacts. Than you do not need Borbor at all.

If you have Lillies, you can play something like this:

http://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-calebd-modern-pptq-with-howltooth-breach/
http://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-calebd-modern-griselbrand-vengeance/

However, the deck is out of date, so it needs a rework of some form

Edit says: Just for a rough draft, I would go with something like this:

21 lands (including 4 Temples and maybe 1 or 2 Howltooth Hallow)

4 Discard spells
3 Lighting Bolts
3 Liliana of the Veil

4 Lootings
4 Night's Whisper
2 Tormenting Soul

4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Through the Breach
3 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul


However, you might want to run a Quicksilver Amulet and/or a Pentad Prism. Also, Read the Bones would be another option as a cantripp.

Greetings,
Kathal

Topplegeist is a classic example of a great card, which needed to be a little bit better to be bonkers. Now, it is decent, but has no home :/

Greetings,
Kathal

Repost from the Pro Tour thread.
https://www.facebook.com/CardboardCrack/photos/a.392547720852547.1073741827.391985404242112/749570211816961/?type=1

I feel like in fair match-ups he will really shine; maybe even more-so than Goyf. Being able to dodge Decay, Inquisition, block opposing Goyfs/Rhonos (and Tasigurs) and grind value in the GBx mirror just seems very good to me. Needless to say, I think this card is bananas.

I'll explain in more detail why these lists (and the original Four Horsemen list) doesn't work in tournaments.

First of all, the deck isn't illegal to play. However, the combo relies on you doing something which constitutes the Tournament Error of Slow Play. Unlike Game Play Errors, Tournament Errors get upgraded penalties the second time in a day you commit them rather than the third time. That means that, if you play this deck at a competitive REL tournament, you will get a Warning the first time you execute the combo, and a Game Loss the second time you execute the combo. At regular REL tournaments, the IPG doesn't apply, and you could likely get away with playing Four Horsemen. My local game store has a legacy tournament once a month (or maybe more?) at regular REL (such as FNM), so now I want to play this deck there. I would advice checking with your local judge before trying this, as I bet that the answer varies greatly by judge. The general philosophy of regular REL is good customer service, so judges are often encouraged to deviate from policy if they believe it will provide a better experience for the players.

Second, I want to warn people about the possibility of a disqualification for playing Four Horsemen. In the MIPG, a Tournament Error is defined as

Quote from MIPG »

Tournament errors are violations of the Magic Tournament Rules. If the judge believes that the error was intentional, he or she should consider Unsporting Conduct - Cheating.

If you play this deck and execute the combo, a judge should explain to you why this is a Tournament Error (as I'll do below). If you execute the combo a second time, it is completely safe to assume that you are intentionally committing Slow Play, and the judge should then consider the possibility of Cheating. At that point, it is up to them to decide if they think this counts as cheating. I do not believe that it is cheating, but I also disagree with policy as I believe the deck should be allowed.

Now for why this is Slow Play. According to the MIPG, Slow Play is defined as

Quote from MIPG »

A player takes longer than is reasonably required to complete game actions. If a judge believes a player is intentionally playing slowly to take advantage of a time limit, the infraction is Unsporting Conduct - Stalling.

It is also slow play if a player continues to execute a loop without being able to provide an exact number of iterations and the expected resulting game state.

In the Four Horsemen deck (and in these variants which are legal in Modern), the combo works by milling yourself infinitely, occasionally shuffling your graveyard into your library when Emrakul (or in this case Gaea's Blessing) is milled. While milling yourself, you'll occasionally get a Narcomoeba onto the battlefield, which will let you untap Blasting Station and then activate it to put Narcomoeba back into your graveyard (and later library) and to deal one damage to your opponent.

The expected resulting game state you want is your opponent with zero life. However, it is possible (however unlikely) that, once you start the loop, the top card of your library will be Emrakul, you'll shuffle, the top card is again Emrakul, and this will continue forever. The fact that shuffling is supposed to randomize the cards in your library means that this is possible. That means that it is impossible to provide an exact number of iteration required to get your opponent to zero life. It is possible to compute an expected number of iterations it will take to get your opponent to zero life, but that is different from an exact number.† If you had a way to change the combo to be able to guarantee finishing within a certain number of iterations, this deck would work.

I will now suggest ways to make the deck "legal", regardless of format (legacy or modern).

If you have a way to sort your deck, you're good. Each time you shuffle, just sort your deck so that Emrakul is at the bottom, and mill everything. You know that, with N cards in your library, you'll mill N times, get 3 Narcomoebas, sacrifice them to deal 3 damage, and then the last mill of those N will shuffle your library. Then you can repeat, starting with sorting Emrakul to the bottom. Every N times you mill 1, you deal 3 damage. You know those numbers, so you can say how many iterations of the loop it will take.

The easiest way to sort your deck is by scrying. If you can generate a loop that lets you scry 1, that lets you scry each card in your deck to the bottom to learn the order, and to then keep going until you scry a certain card to the bottom. This takes N scrys to learn the order of your library, and then some specific number of scrys to get Emrakul on the bottom. In essence, you can take a shortcut by looking through your library and cutting wherever you want. Mystic Speculation lets you spend 3 mana to scry 3 on your turn (if it's in your hand). Scrying 3 can work the same as scrying 1, if you put what was the top on the bottom and the other two on top in the same order (or you can speed up the process, but whatever). Stormcaller of Keranos also lets you scry 1 at the cost of mana. If you're using the Grand Architect build, you mill yourself 1,000,000 times to get 1,000,000 mana. Then you spend some to cut Emrakul to the bottom. Then you mill to get Blasting Station into play. Then you mill to shuffle Emrakul back in. Then you spend some mana to cut Emrakul to the bottom, then you mill to deal 3 damage, and you repeat this and the previous step. This deck is weaker (because it requires more pieces in order to combo), but no longer causes Slow Play.



† Another example of a similar thing is how long it takes sorting algorithms to finish. A commonly-used algorithm is called quicksort. It is used because it's expected runtime is about c*n*log(n), where c is a constant (which depends on processor speed, among other things) and n is the number of things to sort. However, it's worst case runtime is c*n^2, which is considered too slow for large lists. Another algorithm is mergesort, which has a worst case and an expected runtime of c*n*log(n). People often use quicksort instead, because it's expected runtime has a smaller constant, so the algorithm is expected to take a bit less time, even though it is possible for it to take much more time. The Four Horsemen deck is more similar to something called bogosort, which is a silly algorithm. It can be described as shuffling the list of things until the list is in order. The expected runtime is c*n!, where n!=n*(n-1)*(n-2)*...*3*2*1. However, its worst case runtime is infinite, because you can't guarantee that it will finish within any specific amount of time.