Between MTGO and SCG, we have a few high-performing lists to serve as a BGx baseline going into the post Trophy world. Here are some themes:
3-4 Trophy: many of us suspected this was the right number but the recent lists confirm it. Trophy is just a valuable, high-performing addition to the deck.
Decay more prevalent than Pulse: there is a slight preference towards Pulse over Decay, with most BGx players going with the singletons Pulse in SB or MD. Some do still run Decay, but it's a minority.
BG Rock over Abzan: with the notable exception of Fallleaf's Abzan Traverse, BG Rock appears to be the early frontrunner over Abzan. This suggests Souls and bomb SB cards may be less viable than a painless, simple manabase.
Tron hate in SB: we're still seeing specialized hate in the SB even with MD Trophy x4. This includes up to 3 Fulm Mage and 3 Sphere.
Extrapolating anything about the BGx Tron matchup from a single potentially misplayed game on Weekend 1 of Trophy legality seems problematic. There are also some weird assessments here, as FoR doesn't give any mana. It Just cycles lands in play and actually decreases their chance of hitting drops. The key for Tron is always establishing a clock off targeted disruption. Trophy is excellent targeted distuption. BGx needs something like Flayer or Goyf to turn that corner. Jund is the best at this with BBE, Bolt, and KCommand, and Abzan Traverse is second best with consistent 4/4 Flayers and giant 5/6+ Goyfs.
According to mtgtop8, the metagame breakdown for mediocre (or worse) Trophy match-ups looks like this. (In this scenario, "mediocre" implies that Trophy has some relevant applications but mostly you'd rather have Decay. "Bad" implies that you'll almost always prefer decay over Trophy)
Keep in mind I'm referring to how AT compares specifically to Abrupt decay in these match-ups. Not that it's completely dead in the "bad" match-ups I've cited, just that Decay would be strongly preferred. Now let's look at the metagame breakdown of decks where Trophy is favored over Decay. (In this second list, "good" implies Trophy is preferred for some critical targets but Decay is still important and useful. "Great" implies you'll almost always prefer Trophy over Decay)
UWx Control 13% (good)
Tron 4% (great)
KCI 3% (great)
Hollow One 4% (great)
Mardu Pyro 3% (good)
Infect 2% (good)
For my assessments I've factored in which perms are relevant that Decay can't hit and how badly ramping your opponent can screw you over in a match-up.
26% you will strongly prefer Abrupt Decay over Assassin's Trophy
11% you will strongly prefer Assassin's Trophy over Abrupt Decay.
Now there's something to be said for the matches you actually want to hedge your main deck against, such as Tron. Shoring up the Tron game (our deck's arch nemesis) is probably worth more than the metagame presence breakdown suggests. This all of course depends on what meta you're talking about and how much you can anticipate.
I like this analysis style, but there are two significant issues with its execution here.
First, it assumes that all matchups are significantly affected by a bad Trophy application even if the matchup is already very close or favored. Let's say Humans is about 50/50. It's probably 45/55 because Humans is way better than people think, but let's assume it's 50/50. Does playing a 3/1 Trophy/Decay split instead of a 2/2 Trophy/Decay split cost so many matchup percentage points in Humans that it isn't worth picked up matchup points in something like 40/60 Tron? This seems very unlikely. A few Trophy critics consistently hyperboilze the card's so-called drawbacks, but we already know that the correct Decay number in this metagame is 2. So we're not arguing about increasing the Decay count to 3. We are arguing about whether to run 1-3 Trophies and 1-2 Decays. So, does that 2nd copy of Decay and 2nd/3rd copy of Trophy cost us as many percentage points as the overselling critiques are suggesting? My guess is no. In the example above, I suspect that Trophy adds at least 3%-5% to our Gx Tron matchup while cutting less than 1% in Humans.
Second, it assumes you will actually encounter these decks in these estimated percentages. You rarely do even at large events. You certainly don't on MTGO, where a 5 match League could see a 3/2 Humans/UWx split or 3 aggro decks and 2 ramp decks. It's going to vary wildly every time. That is why we want catchall answers that do something in all matchups, not hedging against a 10% deck we might never play against. Assuming Humans is 10% of the metagame on MTGO, you have an approximately 60% chance of seeing exactly ZERO Humans matchups in a 5 match league. We can't make card slot choices on those odds. Instead, we need to assume truly open metagames where your maindeck includes cards that are as universally relevant as possible. Trophy meets that standard. Decay doesn't which is why 2 is by far the established number.
I can't find any relevant BGx lists that play 2+ Decays and you are arguing for Decay like we should be play 3+. People don't play 3+ Decay specifically because it's so narrow and so dead in so many matchups. But your arguments seem so consistently anti-Trophy and pro-Decay that I feel like you want to be playing 0-1 Trophy and 3+ Decay, which is almost certainly wrong even by current standards.
BG decks often play three copies of Abrupt Decay. That does not conflict with your statement about BGx. I'm just sayin'.
In the most recent top-placing 20 BG Rock decks I found, 1 played 1 copy, 10 played 2 copies, 2 played 3 copies, and 7 played 3 copies but all 7 of those were the same player (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/player/edward40hands), who appears to have played 4 copies since 2017. Fallleaf, the MTGO player with the most BGx finishes in the last 2-3 months, plays 2. I looked at 33 BG Rock/Abzan lists from 08/01 through present and found only 5 lists total that played 3+ Decays, and 4 of those lists were edward40hands. Every other list played 1-2.
If we look to GP, we see Duke playing 2 at PT Rix, Siow playing 2 at GP Toronto, Carvalho/de Togni/Jansen playing 2 at GP Lyon, and Giucci playing 2 at GP SP. Only the 26th place Abzan Aggro list at GP Lyon played by Boussaud played 3 copies of Decay, but it was also playing 4 Hierarch/1 Doran/4 Rhino and is far from conventional.
Based on this and our previous theoretical analysis, I am reasonably confident that 2 is the correct number for Decay. Unless, of course, you are edward40hands and you are playing BG Rock.
Firing it off is suboptimal except when it's your only out and you have to fire it off because the alternative is you lose the game but you still end up losing the game because you ramp'd your opponent.
I don't know why you are so fixated on this ramp effect. We know ramping the opponent isn't the end of the world. That's why the most successful recent Abzan lists are using 3 Paths. That's why UW Control uses 4 Paths. Ramping is only a problem if the deck can't deal with the end result, either by answering it or closing the game. BGx can be tuned to accomplish either of those, whether through grinding or through turning the corner. It's not nearly as disastrous as you are making it out to be.
It's just not a card that digs you out of a hole but just delays the inevitable pretty much so it shouldn't be relied on as an universal answer.
Again, I'm not sure why you are overselling the dangers of ramping. There are many decks that cannot take advantage of ramping consistently, and many board states where it won't matter. We can also all agree that the ramping stops mattering on T4 for most machups. Add to this the ability to hit cards that BGx is otherwise unable to hit at all, and the tradeoff is more than worth it.
I just do not understand the forecefulness of your argument. You appear to be arguing entirely about the 3rd Trophy and nothing else. I haven't seen a single BGx player outside of this thread argue that 0-1 is the correct number, and I've seen most people argue for 3-4. You seem to be arguing that 2 is correct instead of 3. That isn't an unreasonable position itself. But then you are selling that argument by making Trophy sound positively terrible in most matchups, which leads me to question why you want 2 in the first place. Instead, it reads to me as if you have decided that 2 is the correct number and you are willing to oversell and overemphasize Trophy's shortcomings to argue against that 3rd copy, but not apply those same arguments to the first 2 copies you already seem to want.
EDIT: The other thing I don't understand is why you keep citing Decay's relevance in this metagame. I can't find any relevant BGx lists that play 2+ Decays and you are arguing for Decay like we should be play 3+. People don't play 3+ Decay specifically because it's so narrow and so dead in so many matchups. But your arguments seem so consistently anti-Trophy and pro-Decay that I feel like you want to be playing 0-1 Trophy and 3+ Decay, which is almost certainly wrong even by current standards.
I can see a world where we would play a 3/2 split on Trophy and Decay instead of 3/1/1 on AT/AD/Pulse. But there's just no way that a 2/2 or 2/3 split is correct on Day 1 of the new meta. Decay is a really narrow card. There are matchups where it has virtually, or literally, zero relevant targets. Trophy always does something and it often does a lot. We can't hedge on Decay being good in matchups when you might go an entire tournament without seeing those matchups. At least Trophy is always removing something and often removing something that Decay can't hit at all. This is the same reason we often see 3 TS in BGx even if TS is harmful and risky in many matchups. It's a catchall answer in a very diverse format. Trophy fits that bill.
I'm glad you brought up this point. Have you noticed how IOK outnumbers TS is nearly every deck that uses both (except Shadow for obvious reasons). IOK is obviously far more narrow but it has no drawback. Then why on Earth is the split usually 4iok/2ts rather than reversed? Your logic here is already proven (incorrect) by the way people play TS and IOK.
This is an inaccurate comparison. To start, IoK isn't narrow at all. IoK is live in literally every Modern matchup. It always hits something and often hits some of the best cards. By contrast, Decay is not live in every matchup. It sometimes hits literally/virtually nothing and sometimes only hits irrelevant things. Decay is itself narrow in the first place and is not comparable to the decidedly not-narrow IoK. This isn't even a radical point. We already know Decay is narrow. If Decay was truly comparable to the flexible and versatile IoK, we would already be playing 4 in every list. Instead, we see 1-2 in most lists because we know the card is narrow and isn't live in a lot of matches. The overwhelming majority of BGx players run at most 2 copies of Decay while simultaneously playing 4 IoK. This right there should show us that IoK and Decay are not comparable.
I'm not saying run Decay instead or run more Decays than Trophy, even. But there are relevant targets (albeit rare) in UW and Tron for Decay so it's not totally dead, and the fact that it's superior to Trophy in at least 25% of (other) match-ups in the metagame leads to believe that running small and equal numbers of each is probably correct, but that all depends on what metagame you're talking about. Local where you know what 80% of the players are on? Great, make the call. But in an open meta or competitive REL, I would say to be conservative with assassinating your opponents trophies 😁
All of my testing and experience is in the extremely broad and unpredictable MTGO metagame. It's about as close to an open meta as you can get and it's very competitive. You can run multiple leagues without facing UW Control or Humans once, and you can play a League where you play both decks twice each. This is the environment where catchalls shine and where I'd want the 3/2/0 or 3/1/1 split on Trophy/Decay/Pulse. There is no MTGO universe where I'm starting on any other interaction piece in that 3rd Trophy slot because Trophy does something in every single matchup.
Again, as I said in a few previous posts, I can envision a Day N metagame where we don't want 3 Trophy in the MD and instead want 2 MD and +1 in the SB. But that requires some format shifts that have not yet happened, and I'm not going to try and next level the next level of the metagame. That's a great way to just fall apart and get lost with a bad deck and bad cards. The correct Day 1 number is almost certainly 3 because you want catchall answers in an open format that gets more open with post-release uncertainties. The correct Day N number may well be the 2/1 MD/SB split.
I'm also not suggesting running decay instead of Trophy, but say a 2 Trophy - 1 Pulse split with maybe a 3rd Trophy in the board. Decay will probably end up being cut from 75 altogether anyway.
This part I disagree with.. Burn, Spirits, Humans, & Jund are all very popular decks in the format and Decay is actively better than Trophy here. I wouldn't want trophy at all for these matches (or maybe 1x post board against Jund) and Decay is so good especially against humans/spirits because it takes care of AEther Vial and nearly all creatures they use.
I can see a world where we would play a 3/2 split on Trophy and Decay instead of 3/1/1 on AT/AD/Pulse. But there's just no way that a 2/2 or 2/3 split is correct on Day 1 of the new meta. Decay is a really narrow card. There are matchups where it has virtually, or literally, zero relevant targets. Trophy always does something and it often does a lot. We can't hedge on Decay being good in matchups when you might go an entire tournament without seeing those matchups. At least Trophy is always removing something and often removing something that Decay can't hit at all. This is the same reason we often see 3 TS in BGx even if TS is harmful and risky in many matchups. It's a catchall answer in a very diverse format. Trophy fits that bill.
Re: Spell Snare
If UWx adapts with this card, fine. Let's force them to have 6 lands in play, Teferi and Snare in hand every game to feel confident casting Teferi. If they want to run 1-2 Snare and compromise their countermagic against Lily, that's fine too. Running more Decays in place of Trophy doesn't solve any of these issues because Decay is often terrible in that matchup.
You guys are really focusing on citing the best case scenarios and not actual situations where you can't use the card tbh.
Trophy is more or less unplayable against Valakut, Burn and Storm. Similiar to how path is almost unplayable in these matchups in Abzan.
E.g. 1. When affinity plays and equips Cranial Plating, you'll fire it off on it to not take 5-10 extra damage and they'd still get to use the land on their 2nd main phase. Ramping isn't "optional", you always ramp except when you fire it on a nonbasic and you'll rarely get to fire it off on a nonbasic.
E.g. 2. When you fire it off eot against Infect when they're tapped out, they'd still get an extra land to protect their other threats during your turn. Even if you sequence this differently and fire Trophy on your turn, they'd still get an extra land and another card in the graveyard on their turn for pump spells unless you've killed exactly an Inkmoth Nexus where in that situation, they don't get the extra land. So yea, you gave them 2 different type of resources by killing one of their threats, delve fodder and an extra mana to spend on their turn while you are likely tapped out.
E.g. 3. Against Ad Nauseam, would you fire it off on Pentad Prism just to cut them off a single extra mana? Decay or any other artifact removal does its job here and Trophy is stuck in your hand in the same situation because it just doesn't have an impact. Killing Leyline with Golgari Charm instead of Trophy is miles better since they're not 1 step closer to combo off when they untap and discard spells in your hand might just not be enough to keep them off combo next turn now that you've ramped them. Similiarly, Trophy isn't ideal to fire off on Lotus Bloom either.
E.g. 4. Trophy is solid against Boogles, unless they've kept a greedy 1 lander with a hand full of action and you just gave them what they needed to run away with the game, hitting their leyline so they can empty out their hand after you've cast a discard spell or two.
Against GDS, do you think you'll get to fire it off on a nonbasic in an attirition match? Your first Trophy won't cut them off colors unless they only have 1 red source(they got basic Swamp&Island). Will cutting them off red matter? I don't think so because the cards they keep in their deck postboard are mostly blue and black(they are likely to side out TBR, wraith and looting)when playing against any GBx midrange deck except kcommand, bolts, pyromancer and maybe staticaster against souls and that's mostly 5-6 red cards pretty much. You're not realistically cutting them off blue or black and they'll fetch for 2 red sources if they're playing against a trophy deck. Pyromancer is also a possibility post board but it's rare at this point.
So I don't think Trophy is good against leylines since I don't think it's a spell you want to fire off on T1-3 and even T4 if your opponent missed a land drop tbh. That's why I'm suggesting 2 copies instead of 3 but 3rd copy can have a slot in the board against Tron and H1 or other similiar decks where it's playable on T2.
3 TS is reasonable in Abzan Traverse, Leonardo played 3-3 split with his GP Sao Paulo top8'ing list. Like I've cut 3rd copy from my list just because I added a Bob to my 60. If midrange decks were able to manage aggro & gy aggro decks more efficiently, everyone would still be on 3 Thoughtseizes since it's still good against most of the format, hitting a ton of problematic cards like CoCo even from aggro decks. Jund has to cut 3rd copy because of bob. BG Rock can play 3 copies without bob. I also don't think Trophy is nowhere near TS level of an answer tbh.
I also don't think WotC will unban anything. I think they printed it against some busted things in the format like H1, delve threats and urza lands. They needed to print good answers anyway after printing just threats for a while now. I expect 1 more similiar power level answer printed for Orzhov colors in near future, something along the lines of BW, instant, exile target nonland permanent, your opponent gets a tapped basic, a card similiar to Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Path and Trophy.
Again, we can do this exact same analysis for dead modes on Push, Path, Lily, and TS, all of which routinely see 3+ copies. The average Trophy is still way better than the average Decay in more matchups. The below average Trophies are still often find. Bad Trophy is admittedly very bad, but it's generally just as bad as bad Decay, bad TS, bad Push, etc.
When Trophy is bad, it's mostly just disappointing and not actively harmful (except probably Bant Spirits). When Decay is bad, it's really, REALLY bad and is basically a dead card: see Tron, H1, and UWx Control. And honestly, even though Trophy is very bad against Bant Spirits, it still does something there, unlike Decay in the Tron matchup.
I find this assessment wrong. When Trophy is bad, it's stuck in your hand since casting it does more harm than good because your opponent missed a couple of land drops or require another land drop so they could get to their top end and you're ramping your opponent. Alternatively, you cast it and you lose the game because your opponent now has more resources unlike path where they get a delayed land drop if you cast it at any step of their turn.
Trophy never has to ramp an opponent. In its absolute worst mode, Trophy targets a nonbasic land and cycles it for a basic land. This actually makes it harder for an opponent to make a land drop, as it removes a live draw from their deck. It also could create a color screw. You will rarely, if ever, encounter a tiered Modern matchup where Trophy has literally no targets in play. Decay frequently has this problem where it can't target anything at all. As for combat-step ramping, we already know this can be a problem: I explicitly called this out as a risk in the Burn matchup, for instance. The slot versatility is still almost always going to be worth it, because now we have a removal spell that both kills a T3 5/5 Mantis Rider and kills a T2 Urza's Tower.
Trophy is really just another conditional removal and I don't think you should play more than 2 copies of this in your 60 pretty much.
This is likely incorrect. BGx decks play way more than 2 copies of their creature removal spells, which are effectively conditional removal in a format as diverse as Modern. Something like Push, which we can all basically agree is a card we want 3+ copies of, is completely dead against Tron, 98% dead against Titanshift, largely dead against KCI and UWx Control, and merely meh against H1. Despite that, basically every list still runs 3+. Same with Lily, a card that is a very unwelcome draw/topdeck against many of Modern's most aggressive decks like Humans, Burn, Bridgevine, H1, HS Affinity, Spirits, etc. And yet, again, we still run 3+ in basically all lists. Trophy's dead mode is so much rarer than creature removal or Lily.
It also won't make Tron or UWx matchup favorable for BGx midrange decks no matter how many copies of this you play in your 60. It'll help much more in postboard games against UWx because you'll have more slots, mainly for discard, cutting some amount of fulminators. Targeted discard like Duress is way better against UW compared to Trophy, hitting the payoffs in their hand before they get to play them. Extra sweepers in the board should also help against decks like spirits/humans/elves. Trophy basically reduces the Tron/Valakut Tax in your board but your valakut matchup might still end up being worse because of it.
We don't use Trophy to make the matchups favorable. We use it to make the matchups MORE favorable. You can't maindeck Mage or Duress in Modern, so Trophy becomes a catchall hedge in G1. As a comparison, someone like Fallleaf is running 3 Thoughtseize in basically every one of his MTGO lists. This is true even though TS is a card we frequently board out against the huge subset of aggressive Modern decks, where it is actively harmful. Trophy is just another type of TS effect.
I do not envision a Day 0 of the new Modern where it is correct to run fewer than 3 Trophies. I can see metagame shifts happening by December that make it better to run 2 instead of 3, but that is not the case right now.
Re: Trophy assessment
I like Funeral's approach to this issue and think it's a productive way to decide on number of copies, removal ratios, sideboarding, and other important BGx decisions. It also helps us temper expectations relative to Abrupt Decay. Here's my take:
Humans: Decay is better
Decay is almost always better as it hits basically everything that Trophy does with no upside. The slight exception to this is a potential mana-denial angle if the opponent has already searched, played, or drawn their first/second basic, in which case we can Sinkhole some 5C lands. But that's very situational. Trophy also hits major corner-cases like Hostage Taker and stuff, but again, this isn't a major consideration. Trophy will be at its worst here in its inability to effectively answer Hierarch on the play.
UWx Control: Trophy is significantly better
Yes, Decay is uncounterable, which might suggest this card is better against UWx decks that run lots of countermagic. Unfortunately for Decay, it just doesn't hit a lot of relevant targets. Our only realistic hits are unflipped Search (a good hit), Snapcaster (yuck), and Clique (fine). You also hit Spheres if they run them (a great hit). But then you miss a ton of their best cards: Teferi, Jace, Colonnade, Azcanta, and Field of Ruin. The ability to answer JTMS/Teferi at instant-speed is particularly critical, as it forces UWx players into awkward scenarios where they have to either bet on their walkers surviving or delay their playing for numerous turns until they have countermagic backup. Colonnade killing is also key, as now you don't have to keep in awkward removal to kill creature lands that might never animate and are otherwise dead cards. Plus, you can also STILL hit Search/Snapcaster/Clique. The only disadvantage here is that ramping UWx is not trivial: control/midrange grinds can often be decided by mana advantage. Even so, the ability for Abzan and BG Rock to kill these cards at instant speed (Jund has Bolt/KCommand) is spectacular and redefines the matchup.
BGx mirror: Decay is better
This is a really critical case that pushes me to 3 MD Trophies instead of 4. With very few exceptions, Decay is going to hit everything that Trophy hits. The only exceptions are creaturelands (Ravine/Village/Vents/etc.), BBE herself, and the random curvetoppers like Huntmaster/Chandra/Rhino/etc. Of these, the scariest are the lands: creatures can be answered neatly by existing removal options or combat, unlike the lands which can hideout until our resources are depleted. Even so, there are significant downsides to Trophying a T2 Bob/Goyf/Flayer, and I wouldn't want our Trophy count to heavily pigeonhole us into that line. This mathcup is one of the main reasons I intend on keeping a 3/1/1 Trophy/Decay/Pulse split on Day 0.
Tron: Trophy is significantly better
It's so obvious there's not much to add. My only caution: be careful with ramping Tron to natural O-Stone activations, Wurmcoils, and Karns. Otherwise, have a blast.
KCI: Trophy is better
Although KCI plays countermagic, a) the countermagic is split between Guttural Response and Dispel/Song/blue options, and b) Trophy still hits more targets. The obvious target is KCI itself, which gives BGx players a huge new window to stop the combo if Trawlers comes down after KCI (just blow up KCI in response). The less obvious but very important targets are Fair and Ruin, which are two of KCI's secret strengths in establishing redundant wins over many turns. Sure, Decay can try and bust up the combo by hitting Trawler, but this really only works if Trawler comes down first and doesn't do anything to stop the mana engine itself. Even if KCI brings in countermagic, this still forces them to delay their combo at least a turn to get the Dispel mana, which gives us more time to win, get a discard spell, get GY hate, or otherwise enhance our position.
H1: Trophy is better
Decay misses three of the most important cards in this deck: H1 itself, Angler, and Tasigur. This means H1 can't get crazy openings where Decay is just a dead card. It's true that I would prefer Decay in the T1 Adept, T2 Lore line, but when Decay is sitting in your hand doing literally nothing but insulating you from Inquiry against a 2 boi board, Trophy feels much better.
Burn: Decay is better
I can't think of a viable card in Burn that traditional/performing lists play that Decay doesn't hit. Accelerating Burn can also be a disaster, especially if it's an untapped mana source they can use to Bolt you. Or worse, if played during combat before a land drop on Guide or something, accelerate Burn into a post-combat Eidolon when they otherwise would have been stuck with Spike. Yuck. That said, Trophy does give us a mana denial route on Burn's white/green mana, which will sometimes be relevant.
Hardened Scales: Even
This is a tough one. On the one hand, I don't like accelerating a deck that has XX spells to abuse the mana. In that regard, Decay is better as it hits most things without a downside: Trophying a Karn token feels particularly bad. On the other hand, Trophy has some significant upsides in hitting Karn himself and, most importantly, hitting Inkmoth/Blinkmoth. These lands are some of HS Affinity's best weapons against midrange and a great way to overload removal and hide +1/+1 counters. I think both have merits so I'm going with a tie here.
Spirits: Decay is significantly better
Remember how Trophy had some downsides to Decay in the Humans matchup? It's even worse here. By a lot. The mana denial plan isn't feasible because both Bant and UW run more basics than Humans. Spirits has literally zero non-land permanents that Decay misses and Trophy hits. Moreover, and this is what really makes Trophy bad, Spirits runs BOTH maindeck and sideboarded countermagic. Mausoleum Wanderer is a significant threat to Trophy and it just gets worse after SB with Unified Will. More reasons why this card is bad? Collected Company. A T2 or T3 (on their turn) Trophy (T2 on the draw) ramps Bant Spirits to a T3 Company, which is not a card we want to see sooner rather than later. More reasons? Spirits also has the Humans Hierarch issue and Rattlechains gives Spirits more opportunities to use untapped mana. Blah. Overall, this is a matchup where I'd definitely want more Decays than Trophies, but because it's just one of many decks in Modern, I probably wouldn't cut Trophies for Decays at the expense of the other more important matchups.
Storm: Decay is significantly better
Not much to add here either. This is not only another deck with zero commonly played cards that Decay misses, but it has a ton of basics and plays SB countermagic. It also really takes advantage of ramped mana, which is its primary bottleneck on most turns. Inadvertent ramping creates bad scenarios where Storm can generate massive mana advantages even with a removal spell on the stack, or just get enough lands to win off storm=5 Empties. Storm also has a similar payoff card to Company in Gifts: a T2 or T3 (your turn) Trophy on the play or T2 on the draw will ramp to that earlier Gifts which is not what we want to be enabing.
I think that covers the tiered decks. Overall, that leaves us 5 matchups where Decay is better, 1 where it's even, and 3 where Trophy is better. This actually surprised me but doesn't change my mind. Here's why: we might think this leads us towards a more even 2/2 split on Trophy/Decay because Decay shines brighter in more matchups, but this isn't quite accurate. When Trophy is bad, it's mostly just disappointing and not actively harmful (except probably Bant Spirits). When Decay is bad, it's really, REALLY bad and is basically a dead card: see Tron, H1, and UWx Control. And honestly, even though Trophy is very bad against Bant Spirits, it still does something there, unlike Decay in the Tron matchup.
All of this keeps me on the 3/1/1 Trophy/Decay/Pulse plan.
Is there no merit to playing non-Traverse / Hierarch Abzan builds anymore? I think I've seen like one put up results lately but it just doesn't seem nearly as good as Traverse.
Hierarch is really good and one of the secretly (maybe not so secretly) best cards in Modern. Its presence takes a number of decks to the next level including Infect, Humans, Bant Spirits, and others. It's similar to Looting or Opal in that respect (I.e. archetype defining cards). Mana accel/cheating is so important in Modern and basically all the best decks do it in various ways (e.g. Opal/Tron through obvious means, cost reduction with stuff like Terminus, Vial, Looting to bin H1 and Dredge stuff, etc.). Hierarch is "just" a dork but also accomplishes the same effect.
Hierarch's pedigree of success suggests that it might well be very good in Abzan decks. BGx doesn't have great ways to cheat on mana, at least nothing like Opal decks or Humans. Hierarch can fit That bill. That said, I fear the payoff isn't as good for us as other strategies. Our best evasion is trample with Flayer/Rhino or little Soul tokens. That's no Mantis Rider or Blighted Agent. Worse evasion makes it hard to capitalize on Hierarch's ability to facilitate corner turning. We also don't take advantage of the blue mana and really want black mana for stuff like Lily. All the other top Hierarch decks are either Bant, 5c, or GW or UG: they use all Hierarch's colors or they use only two with no non-Hierarch splash.
Finally, I don't think our Hierarch payoffs are that great. Humans gets an on-tribal dork that ramps into T2 Mantis and helps cast most of its cards. Infect effectively doubles the Hierarch bonus and lets you T2 Agent with hexproof backup. Bant Spirits gets T3 Company. Our ceiling is mediocre T3 Rhino (laughable in many top Modern matchups), and T2 Lily. Lily is actually a strong payoff but she's matchup dependent, and as great as T2 Lily is, I don't know if that payoff is good enough.
Overall, I'm curious to see if renewed BGx interest thanks to Trophy moves players to experiment with Hierarch. I feel like there is something there because Hierarch is just sooo good, but maybe we need more people working on the deck to figure it out.
Is there any advantage to playing a GB traverse list instead of an Abzan traverse list?
Historically, straight BG Rock (not specifically Traverse), allows you to run 3-4 Field as mana denial, run a relatively painless manabase to insulate life totals, maximize Tracker synergies with Field and fetches, avoid mana mismatched hands (e.g drawing basic Plains and BG creature land when you need T1 I'll), and protect our manabase from Moon/Field/etc. I'm sure there are other advantages I'm not mentioning too.
BG Traverse feels like it interferes with some of these advantages. For one, Traverse seems to want lower land counts (19-20) and BG doesn't. Two, Traverse wants Flayer and Flayer really wants Souls. Three, Traverse wants white creatures in the toolbox SB like Teeg, new Knight, Kambal, etc. and BG doesn't get those bullets. Finally, Abzan gets Path as an added 1 cmc instant for delirium and BG Rock will be lighter in that instant slot. This all pushes me away from BG Traverse and towards Abzan Traverse. BG Rock without Traverse still has lots of strengths, but I just don't see them with Traverse included.
How do we feel about 4 Field vs. 3 Field in traditional BG Rock? On the one hand, I love 4 Field as it allows us to play the Rock's gtibdiest game of Magic and solidifies a number of key matchups if the game goes long. It also really turns on mana denial as a viable strategy against most 3+ colored decks. On the other hand, between Quagmire, Village, and Field, the 4th Field is a slight ding on our ability to consistently hit T2 Trophy. Is that worth it? What will all of you lean towards?
In general, these lists have lower land counts, 4 Bauble, 4 Flayer/4 Goyf, and 3 Traverse with the usual BGx complement around it.
Post-Trophy, I'd go -1 Decay, -1 Path, -1 something and +3 Trophy in the MD. -1 LotV/land/Brutality for that 3rd Trophy, and maybe 1-2 more flex slots. Trophy also lets you trim -1 Mage from the SB.
It appears to me that many of these deck lists are built believing that is the only deck running assassin's trophy. Running fewer lands, and fewer basics, may mean that when you meet someone whose deck has more you will lose. For instance, playing path, seige rhino, etc. and not having a basic plains will open yourself up to land destruction from your opponant. This is one reason why BG may have an advantage.
I don't disagree and am actively exploring BG as well, primarily because I prefer Tracker to Bob and still love 4 Field in the MD. The only card I don't really want to lose is Stony Silence, but that still might be worth it for a straight BG Rock transition (or BG Rock plus maybe 2-3 white sources for some SB splashes). This would be even leaner than the Souls/Silence/Path build.
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3-4 Trophy: many of us suspected this was the right number but the recent lists confirm it. Trophy is just a valuable, high-performing addition to the deck.
Decay more prevalent than Pulse: there is a slight preference towards Pulse over Decay, with most BGx players going with the singletons Pulse in SB or MD. Some do still run Decay, but it's a minority.
BG Rock over Abzan: with the notable exception of Fallleaf's Abzan Traverse, BG Rock appears to be the early frontrunner over Abzan. This suggests Souls and bomb SB cards may be less viable than a painless, simple manabase.
Tron hate in SB: we're still seeing specialized hate in the SB even with MD Trophy x4. This includes up to 3 Fulm Mage and 3 Sphere.
What other takeaways have you all noticed?
I like this analysis style, but there are two significant issues with its execution here.
First, it assumes that all matchups are significantly affected by a bad Trophy application even if the matchup is already very close or favored. Let's say Humans is about 50/50. It's probably 45/55 because Humans is way better than people think, but let's assume it's 50/50. Does playing a 3/1 Trophy/Decay split instead of a 2/2 Trophy/Decay split cost so many matchup percentage points in Humans that it isn't worth picked up matchup points in something like 40/60 Tron? This seems very unlikely. A few Trophy critics consistently hyperboilze the card's so-called drawbacks, but we already know that the correct Decay number in this metagame is 2. So we're not arguing about increasing the Decay count to 3. We are arguing about whether to run 1-3 Trophies and 1-2 Decays. So, does that 2nd copy of Decay and 2nd/3rd copy of Trophy cost us as many percentage points as the overselling critiques are suggesting? My guess is no. In the example above, I suspect that Trophy adds at least 3%-5% to our Gx Tron matchup while cutting less than 1% in Humans.
Second, it assumes you will actually encounter these decks in these estimated percentages. You rarely do even at large events. You certainly don't on MTGO, where a 5 match League could see a 3/2 Humans/UWx split or 3 aggro decks and 2 ramp decks. It's going to vary wildly every time. That is why we want catchall answers that do something in all matchups, not hedging against a 10% deck we might never play against. Assuming Humans is 10% of the metagame on MTGO, you have an approximately 60% chance of seeing exactly ZERO Humans matchups in a 5 match league. We can't make card slot choices on those odds. Instead, we need to assume truly open metagames where your maindeck includes cards that are as universally relevant as possible. Trophy meets that standard. Decay doesn't which is why 2 is by far the established number.
In the most recent top-placing 20 BG Rock decks I found, 1 played 1 copy, 10 played 2 copies, 2 played 3 copies, and 7 played 3 copies but all 7 of those were the same player (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/player/edward40hands), who appears to have played 4 copies since 2017. Fallleaf, the MTGO player with the most BGx finishes in the last 2-3 months, plays 2. I looked at 33 BG Rock/Abzan lists from 08/01 through present and found only 5 lists total that played 3+ Decays, and 4 of those lists were edward40hands. Every other list played 1-2.
If we look to GP, we see Duke playing 2 at PT Rix, Siow playing 2 at GP Toronto, Carvalho/de Togni/Jansen playing 2 at GP Lyon, and Giucci playing 2 at GP SP. Only the 26th place Abzan Aggro list at GP Lyon played by Boussaud played 3 copies of Decay, but it was also playing 4 Hierarch/1 Doran/4 Rhino and is far from conventional.
Based on this and our previous theoretical analysis, I am reasonably confident that 2 is the correct number for Decay. Unless, of course, you are edward40hands and you are playing BG Rock.
I don't know why you are so fixated on this ramp effect. We know ramping the opponent isn't the end of the world. That's why the most successful recent Abzan lists are using 3 Paths. That's why UW Control uses 4 Paths. Ramping is only a problem if the deck can't deal with the end result, either by answering it or closing the game. BGx can be tuned to accomplish either of those, whether through grinding or through turning the corner. It's not nearly as disastrous as you are making it out to be.
Again, I'm not sure why you are overselling the dangers of ramping. There are many decks that cannot take advantage of ramping consistently, and many board states where it won't matter. We can also all agree that the ramping stops mattering on T4 for most machups. Add to this the ability to hit cards that BGx is otherwise unable to hit at all, and the tradeoff is more than worth it.
I just do not understand the forecefulness of your argument. You appear to be arguing entirely about the 3rd Trophy and nothing else. I haven't seen a single BGx player outside of this thread argue that 0-1 is the correct number, and I've seen most people argue for 3-4. You seem to be arguing that 2 is correct instead of 3. That isn't an unreasonable position itself. But then you are selling that argument by making Trophy sound positively terrible in most matchups, which leads me to question why you want 2 in the first place. Instead, it reads to me as if you have decided that 2 is the correct number and you are willing to oversell and overemphasize Trophy's shortcomings to argue against that 3rd copy, but not apply those same arguments to the first 2 copies you already seem to want.
EDIT: The other thing I don't understand is why you keep citing Decay's relevance in this metagame. I can't find any relevant BGx lists that play 2+ Decays and you are arguing for Decay like we should be play 3+. People don't play 3+ Decay specifically because it's so narrow and so dead in so many matchups. But your arguments seem so consistently anti-Trophy and pro-Decay that I feel like you want to be playing 0-1 Trophy and 3+ Decay, which is almost certainly wrong even by current standards.
This is an inaccurate comparison. To start, IoK isn't narrow at all. IoK is live in literally every Modern matchup. It always hits something and often hits some of the best cards. By contrast, Decay is not live in every matchup. It sometimes hits literally/virtually nothing and sometimes only hits irrelevant things. Decay is itself narrow in the first place and is not comparable to the decidedly not-narrow IoK. This isn't even a radical point. We already know Decay is narrow. If Decay was truly comparable to the flexible and versatile IoK, we would already be playing 4 in every list. Instead, we see 1-2 in most lists because we know the card is narrow and isn't live in a lot of matches. The overwhelming majority of BGx players run at most 2 copies of Decay while simultaneously playing 4 IoK. This right there should show us that IoK and Decay are not comparable.
All of my testing and experience is in the extremely broad and unpredictable MTGO metagame. It's about as close to an open meta as you can get and it's very competitive. You can run multiple leagues without facing UW Control or Humans once, and you can play a League where you play both decks twice each. This is the environment where catchalls shine and where I'd want the 3/2/0 or 3/1/1 split on Trophy/Decay/Pulse. There is no MTGO universe where I'm starting on any other interaction piece in that 3rd Trophy slot because Trophy does something in every single matchup.
Again, as I said in a few previous posts, I can envision a Day N metagame where we don't want 3 Trophy in the MD and instead want 2 MD and +1 in the SB. But that requires some format shifts that have not yet happened, and I'm not going to try and next level the next level of the metagame. That's a great way to just fall apart and get lost with a bad deck and bad cards. The correct Day 1 number is almost certainly 3 because you want catchall answers in an open format that gets more open with post-release uncertainties. The correct Day N number may well be the 2/1 MD/SB split.
I can see a world where we would play a 3/2 split on Trophy and Decay instead of 3/1/1 on AT/AD/Pulse. But there's just no way that a 2/2 or 2/3 split is correct on Day 1 of the new meta. Decay is a really narrow card. There are matchups where it has virtually, or literally, zero relevant targets. Trophy always does something and it often does a lot. We can't hedge on Decay being good in matchups when you might go an entire tournament without seeing those matchups. At least Trophy is always removing something and often removing something that Decay can't hit at all. This is the same reason we often see 3 TS in BGx even if TS is harmful and risky in many matchups. It's a catchall answer in a very diverse format. Trophy fits that bill.
Re: Spell Snare
If UWx adapts with this card, fine. Let's force them to have 6 lands in play, Teferi and Snare in hand every game to feel confident casting Teferi. If they want to run 1-2 Snare and compromise their countermagic against Lily, that's fine too. Running more Decays in place of Trophy doesn't solve any of these issues because Decay is often terrible in that matchup.
Again, we can do this exact same analysis for dead modes on Push, Path, Lily, and TS, all of which routinely see 3+ copies. The average Trophy is still way better than the average Decay in more matchups. The below average Trophies are still often find. Bad Trophy is admittedly very bad, but it's generally just as bad as bad Decay, bad TS, bad Push, etc.
Trophy never has to ramp an opponent. In its absolute worst mode, Trophy targets a nonbasic land and cycles it for a basic land. This actually makes it harder for an opponent to make a land drop, as it removes a live draw from their deck. It also could create a color screw. You will rarely, if ever, encounter a tiered Modern matchup where Trophy has literally no targets in play. Decay frequently has this problem where it can't target anything at all. As for combat-step ramping, we already know this can be a problem: I explicitly called this out as a risk in the Burn matchup, for instance. The slot versatility is still almost always going to be worth it, because now we have a removal spell that both kills a T3 5/5 Mantis Rider and kills a T2 Urza's Tower.
This is likely incorrect. BGx decks play way more than 2 copies of their creature removal spells, which are effectively conditional removal in a format as diverse as Modern. Something like Push, which we can all basically agree is a card we want 3+ copies of, is completely dead against Tron, 98% dead against Titanshift, largely dead against KCI and UWx Control, and merely meh against H1. Despite that, basically every list still runs 3+. Same with Lily, a card that is a very unwelcome draw/topdeck against many of Modern's most aggressive decks like Humans, Burn, Bridgevine, H1, HS Affinity, Spirits, etc. And yet, again, we still run 3+ in basically all lists. Trophy's dead mode is so much rarer than creature removal or Lily.
We don't use Trophy to make the matchups favorable. We use it to make the matchups MORE favorable. You can't maindeck Mage or Duress in Modern, so Trophy becomes a catchall hedge in G1. As a comparison, someone like Fallleaf is running 3 Thoughtseize in basically every one of his MTGO lists. This is true even though TS is a card we frequently board out against the huge subset of aggressive Modern decks, where it is actively harmful. Trophy is just another type of TS effect.
I do not envision a Day 0 of the new Modern where it is correct to run fewer than 3 Trophies. I can see metagame shifts happening by December that make it better to run 2 instead of 3, but that is not the case right now.
I like Funeral's approach to this issue and think it's a productive way to decide on number of copies, removal ratios, sideboarding, and other important BGx decisions. It also helps us temper expectations relative to Abrupt Decay. Here's my take:
Humans: Decay is better
Decay is almost always better as it hits basically everything that Trophy does with no upside. The slight exception to this is a potential mana-denial angle if the opponent has already searched, played, or drawn their first/second basic, in which case we can Sinkhole some 5C lands. But that's very situational. Trophy also hits major corner-cases like Hostage Taker and stuff, but again, this isn't a major consideration. Trophy will be at its worst here in its inability to effectively answer Hierarch on the play.
UWx Control: Trophy is significantly better
Yes, Decay is uncounterable, which might suggest this card is better against UWx decks that run lots of countermagic. Unfortunately for Decay, it just doesn't hit a lot of relevant targets. Our only realistic hits are unflipped Search (a good hit), Snapcaster (yuck), and Clique (fine). You also hit Spheres if they run them (a great hit). But then you miss a ton of their best cards: Teferi, Jace, Colonnade, Azcanta, and Field of Ruin. The ability to answer JTMS/Teferi at instant-speed is particularly critical, as it forces UWx players into awkward scenarios where they have to either bet on their walkers surviving or delay their playing for numerous turns until they have countermagic backup. Colonnade killing is also key, as now you don't have to keep in awkward removal to kill creature lands that might never animate and are otherwise dead cards. Plus, you can also STILL hit Search/Snapcaster/Clique. The only disadvantage here is that ramping UWx is not trivial: control/midrange grinds can often be decided by mana advantage. Even so, the ability for Abzan and BG Rock to kill these cards at instant speed (Jund has Bolt/KCommand) is spectacular and redefines the matchup.
BGx mirror: Decay is better
This is a really critical case that pushes me to 3 MD Trophies instead of 4. With very few exceptions, Decay is going to hit everything that Trophy hits. The only exceptions are creaturelands (Ravine/Village/Vents/etc.), BBE herself, and the random curvetoppers like Huntmaster/Chandra/Rhino/etc. Of these, the scariest are the lands: creatures can be answered neatly by existing removal options or combat, unlike the lands which can hideout until our resources are depleted. Even so, there are significant downsides to Trophying a T2 Bob/Goyf/Flayer, and I wouldn't want our Trophy count to heavily pigeonhole us into that line. This mathcup is one of the main reasons I intend on keeping a 3/1/1 Trophy/Decay/Pulse split on Day 0.
Tron: Trophy is significantly better
It's so obvious there's not much to add. My only caution: be careful with ramping Tron to natural O-Stone activations, Wurmcoils, and Karns. Otherwise, have a blast.
KCI: Trophy is better
Although KCI plays countermagic, a) the countermagic is split between Guttural Response and Dispel/Song/blue options, and b) Trophy still hits more targets. The obvious target is KCI itself, which gives BGx players a huge new window to stop the combo if Trawlers comes down after KCI (just blow up KCI in response). The less obvious but very important targets are Fair and Ruin, which are two of KCI's secret strengths in establishing redundant wins over many turns. Sure, Decay can try and bust up the combo by hitting Trawler, but this really only works if Trawler comes down first and doesn't do anything to stop the mana engine itself. Even if KCI brings in countermagic, this still forces them to delay their combo at least a turn to get the Dispel mana, which gives us more time to win, get a discard spell, get GY hate, or otherwise enhance our position.
H1: Trophy is better
Decay misses three of the most important cards in this deck: H1 itself, Angler, and Tasigur. This means H1 can't get crazy openings where Decay is just a dead card. It's true that I would prefer Decay in the T1 Adept, T2 Lore line, but when Decay is sitting in your hand doing literally nothing but insulating you from Inquiry against a 2 boi board, Trophy feels much better.
Burn: Decay is better
I can't think of a viable card in Burn that traditional/performing lists play that Decay doesn't hit. Accelerating Burn can also be a disaster, especially if it's an untapped mana source they can use to Bolt you. Or worse, if played during combat before a land drop on Guide or something, accelerate Burn into a post-combat Eidolon when they otherwise would have been stuck with Spike. Yuck. That said, Trophy does give us a mana denial route on Burn's white/green mana, which will sometimes be relevant.
Hardened Scales: Even
This is a tough one. On the one hand, I don't like accelerating a deck that has XX spells to abuse the mana. In that regard, Decay is better as it hits most things without a downside: Trophying a Karn token feels particularly bad. On the other hand, Trophy has some significant upsides in hitting Karn himself and, most importantly, hitting Inkmoth/Blinkmoth. These lands are some of HS Affinity's best weapons against midrange and a great way to overload removal and hide +1/+1 counters. I think both have merits so I'm going with a tie here.
Spirits: Decay is significantly better
Remember how Trophy had some downsides to Decay in the Humans matchup? It's even worse here. By a lot. The mana denial plan isn't feasible because both Bant and UW run more basics than Humans. Spirits has literally zero non-land permanents that Decay misses and Trophy hits. Moreover, and this is what really makes Trophy bad, Spirits runs BOTH maindeck and sideboarded countermagic. Mausoleum Wanderer is a significant threat to Trophy and it just gets worse after SB with Unified Will. More reasons why this card is bad? Collected Company. A T2 or T3 (on their turn) Trophy (T2 on the draw) ramps Bant Spirits to a T3 Company, which is not a card we want to see sooner rather than later. More reasons? Spirits also has the Humans Hierarch issue and Rattlechains gives Spirits more opportunities to use untapped mana. Blah. Overall, this is a matchup where I'd definitely want more Decays than Trophies, but because it's just one of many decks in Modern, I probably wouldn't cut Trophies for Decays at the expense of the other more important matchups.
Storm: Decay is significantly better
Not much to add here either. This is not only another deck with zero commonly played cards that Decay misses, but it has a ton of basics and plays SB countermagic. It also really takes advantage of ramped mana, which is its primary bottleneck on most turns. Inadvertent ramping creates bad scenarios where Storm can generate massive mana advantages even with a removal spell on the stack, or just get enough lands to win off storm=5 Empties. Storm also has a similar payoff card to Company in Gifts: a T2 or T3 (your turn) Trophy on the play or T2 on the draw will ramp to that earlier Gifts which is not what we want to be enabing.
I think that covers the tiered decks. Overall, that leaves us 5 matchups where Decay is better, 1 where it's even, and 3 where Trophy is better. This actually surprised me but doesn't change my mind. Here's why: we might think this leads us towards a more even 2/2 split on Trophy/Decay because Decay shines brighter in more matchups, but this isn't quite accurate. When Trophy is bad, it's mostly just disappointing and not actively harmful (except probably Bant Spirits). When Decay is bad, it's really, REALLY bad and is basically a dead card: see Tron, H1, and UWx Control. And honestly, even though Trophy is very bad against Bant Spirits, it still does something there, unlike Decay in the Tron matchup.
All of this keeps me on the 3/1/1 Trophy/Decay/Pulse plan.
Hierarch is really good and one of the secretly (maybe not so secretly) best cards in Modern. Its presence takes a number of decks to the next level including Infect, Humans, Bant Spirits, and others. It's similar to Looting or Opal in that respect (I.e. archetype defining cards). Mana accel/cheating is so important in Modern and basically all the best decks do it in various ways (e.g. Opal/Tron through obvious means, cost reduction with stuff like Terminus, Vial, Looting to bin H1 and Dredge stuff, etc.). Hierarch is "just" a dork but also accomplishes the same effect.
Hierarch's pedigree of success suggests that it might well be very good in Abzan decks. BGx doesn't have great ways to cheat on mana, at least nothing like Opal decks or Humans. Hierarch can fit That bill. That said, I fear the payoff isn't as good for us as other strategies. Our best evasion is trample with Flayer/Rhino or little Soul tokens. That's no Mantis Rider or Blighted Agent. Worse evasion makes it hard to capitalize on Hierarch's ability to facilitate corner turning. We also don't take advantage of the blue mana and really want black mana for stuff like Lily. All the other top Hierarch decks are either Bant, 5c, or GW or UG: they use all Hierarch's colors or they use only two with no non-Hierarch splash.
Finally, I don't think our Hierarch payoffs are that great. Humans gets an on-tribal dork that ramps into T2 Mantis and helps cast most of its cards. Infect effectively doubles the Hierarch bonus and lets you T2 Agent with hexproof backup. Bant Spirits gets T3 Company. Our ceiling is mediocre T3 Rhino (laughable in many top Modern matchups), and T2 Lily. Lily is actually a strong payoff but she's matchup dependent, and as great as T2 Lily is, I don't know if that payoff is good enough.
Overall, I'm curious to see if renewed BGx interest thanks to Trophy moves players to experiment with Hierarch. I feel like there is something there because Hierarch is just sooo good, but maybe we need more people working on the deck to figure it out.
Historically, straight BG Rock (not specifically Traverse), allows you to run 3-4 Field as mana denial, run a relatively painless manabase to insulate life totals, maximize Tracker synergies with Field and fetches, avoid mana mismatched hands (e.g drawing basic Plains and BG creature land when you need T1 I'll), and protect our manabase from Moon/Field/etc. I'm sure there are other advantages I'm not mentioning too.
BG Traverse feels like it interferes with some of these advantages. For one, Traverse seems to want lower land counts (19-20) and BG doesn't. Two, Traverse wants Flayer and Flayer really wants Souls. Three, Traverse wants white creatures in the toolbox SB like Teeg, new Knight, Kambal, etc. and BG doesn't get those bullets. Finally, Abzan gets Path as an added 1 cmc instant for delirium and BG Rock will be lighter in that instant slot. This all pushes me away from BG Traverse and towards Abzan Traverse. BG Rock without Traverse still has lots of strengths, but I just don't see them with Traverse included.
I'm just going to defer to Fallleaf on MTGO, who has consistent PTQ/Challenge/League placements with all flavors of Abzan for months throughout 2018. He recently T16d the MTGO PTQ last weekend:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-ptq-2018-09-17
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Creatures:
4 Grim Flayer
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
Instants/Sorceries:
1 Collective Brutality
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Lingering Souls
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Thoughtseize
3 Traverse the Ulvenwald
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
4 Mishra's Bauble
Lands:
2 Blooming Marsh
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
2 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Shambling Vent
1 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
1 Treetop Village
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Collective Brutality
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Damnation
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
1 Shriekmaw
2 Stony Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
In general, these lists have lower land counts, 4 Bauble, 4 Flayer/4 Goyf, and 3 Traverse with the usual BGx complement around it.
Post-Trophy, I'd go -1 Decay, -1 Path, -1 something and +3 Trophy in the MD. -1 LotV/land/Brutality for that 3rd Trophy, and maybe 1-2 more flex slots. Trophy also lets you trim -1 Mage from the SB.
I don't disagree and am actively exploring BG as well, primarily because I prefer Tracker to Bob and still love 4 Field in the MD. The only card I don't really want to lose is Stony Silence, but that still might be worth it for a straight BG Rock transition (or BG Rock plus maybe 2-3 white sources for some SB splashes). This would be even leaner than the Souls/Silence/Path build.