With what is essentially a turbo xerox deck winning the last SCG Open, I really do not think Preordain or Ponder are coming off the banned list anytime soon, if ever.
Interestingly, both Tron and KCI are almost turbo xerox themselves because of Stirrings, the Chromatic cards, Ichor Wellspring, Expedition Map, and others.
What is Turbo Xerox? I've seen it describe Vintage decks, Legacy, and now Modern, but all the decks look very different.
Yeah Turbo Xerox is just trading lands for cantrips. Describes Grixis Death's Shadow, UR Phoenix, and arguably Gx Tron and to a lesser extent KCI as well. I am treating Expedition Map and Sylvan Scrying as psuedo-cantrips for purposes of this discussion, even though they are really tutors, but I think we can all agree that they both help allow the deck to get away with playing sub-20 lands. But even excluding it, the 2 Chromatic artifacts and Stirrings put the cantrip count at 12. With them, they put it at 20.
EDIT: Thats really interesting, because even in standard, you could look at UR Drakes/Arclight, with an Electromancer in play, and its just a ton of card selection at that point.
EDIT: Thats really interesting, because even in standard, you could look at UR Drakes/Arclight, with an Electromancer in play, and its just a ton of card selection at that point.
The Standard UR Phoenix deck is definitely a xerox deck. I pretty often get like 30 or 40 cards deep into my deck. They usually have 1 or 2 things they want to do, and a TON of velocity to increase their consistency so they can do one of those things.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
EDIT: Thats really interesting, because even in standard, you could look at UR Drakes/Arclight, with an Electromancer in play, and its just a ton of card selection at that point.
The Standard UR Phoenix deck is definitely a xerox deck. I pretty often get like 30 or 40 cards deep into my deck. They usually have 1 or 2 things they want to do, and a TON of velocity to increase their consistency so they can do one of those things.
This just seems like it's where modern is going. Not that modern is anywhere there, but these are just signs of modern catching up with legacy. If you take a look at mttgoldfish, these decks are playing low land counts and finding redundant ways to find their win cons, rip through their decks with cantrips, etc. If these decks aren't ripping through their deck they're playing a low land count for hopefully more live draws. Decks like Humans and Spirits have early tempo and early acceleration to counter some of that bad topdecking.
I think part of this is where midrange decks in modern are getting it wrong. Playing 24 to 25 lands seriously feels like a death sentence. Jund definitely stopped using the motto, "my topdeck is better than yours" when fatal push was printed. It probably lost that title a year or so before that, but it just absolutely wasn't true by push's release.
Without the debate of arena hurting or killing modern off, if Modern lasts 10 years from now, will midrange decks be seriously viable or tier 1 without either being forced into something like Sultai or Grixis? Decks like Phoenix are ripping through their decks and playing a consistent plan. That, "whoops, wrong half of my deck" thing happens less when you can see so deep into a deck.
I'm not really against preordain or ponder or whatever it is some people advocate for here---I will say that definitely plunges the knife deeper into non blue midrange decks though. As more players demand for more good stuff blue it makes Rock or Jund look sillier and sillier.
I'm seeing GBx decks really becoming more and more obsolete as modern evolves. GBx is a style that people love, but it's way overpresented for a deck as weak and expensive as it is. This is by all means not me saying, "Well, just ban stirrings or loot so we aren't left so behind". If this is where modern is going then you adapt. Loot really breaks the color pie, and on a much weaker scale tormenting Voices does as well.
I've been jamming Grixis Shadow/4C and only having 17 or 18 lands feels massively significantly. Grixis being a turbo xerox deck helps. Unlike GBx, Shadow decks know where they are in the totem poll, they want to kill fast after a very quick discard and/or hold up a counter. Post game it can go midrange against certain aggro decks.
Midrange decks outside of Shadow are just very confused. Someone posted a quote by Patric Chaplin a week or so ago about midrange being a poorer version of a control deck and a poorer version of an aggro deck. He said it more eloquently than my paraphrase but I do think that issue is really pronounced in modern.
It feels like Rock colors need some kind of cantrip but that's not happening, I don't imagine. By no means am I suggesting this or asking for this unban, but I don't see how midrange becomes a good option without getting something like DRS, POD or even a Sylvan Scrying type of card.
The good news is that UW Control was a joke in modern until in the span of 1 year it received Azcanta, Teferi, a Jace unban and Terminus to pair it up.
I know this sounds like all doom and gloom, it's more or less a speculation on where modern is going and where midrange could see itself in the future. I am getting my midrange itch off of Shadow Decks (But all it takes is 1 or 2 new cards to somehow make Shadow itself unplayable).
I know Sheridan is going to post some stuff, say I'm being absurd and negative, but when you listen to these podcasts or top tier players and articles, a lot of them seem to agree that they'd like something like Jund to thrive but that it's just not what you want to do in the format. Gerry Thompson had a huge modern podcast recently saying that, too.
Yea, I have groaned and moaned over the format while trying to make reactive strategies work but now I'm biting the bullet and buying into KCI. On the plus side, learning how to pilot the deck has improved my understanding on how to stop it if I ever go back to UR_sucks.dek.
Part of my reservation of buying combo decks like that is that it doesn't really go into much else. One ban or just a deck/card to invalidate an entire deck makes me nervous.
Just from naturally playing GBx and whatnot I have most of the Arclight deck minus Arclight and Manamorphose. There's a bunch of the smaller pieces but they're not expensive.
UR Control dominated over the summer, just the recent graveyard decks is making it difficult to navigate.
EDIT: Thats really interesting, because even in standard, you could look at UR Drakes/Arclight, with an Electromancer in play, and its just a ton of card selection at that point.
The Standard UR Phoenix deck is definitely a xerox deck. I pretty often get like 30 or 40 cards deep into my deck. They usually have 1 or 2 things they want to do, and a TON of velocity to increase their consistency so they can do one of those things.
This just seems like it's where modern is going. Not that modern is anywhere there, but these are just signs of modern catching up with legacy. If you take a look at mttgoldfish, these decks are playing low land counts and finding redundant ways to find their win cons, rip through their decks with cantrips, etc. If these decks aren't ripping through their deck they're playing a low land count for hopefully more live draws. Decks like Humans and Spirits have early tempo and early acceleration to counter some of that bad topdecking.
I think part of this is where midrange decks in modern are getting it wrong. Playing 24 to 25 lands seriously feels like a death sentence. Jund definitely stopped using the motto, "my topdeck is better than yours" when fatal push was printed. It probably lost that title a year or so before that, but it just absolutely wasn't true by push's release.
Without the debate of arena hurting or killing modern off, if Modern lasts 10 years from now, will midrange decks be seriously viable or tier 1 without either being forced into something like Sultai or Grixis? Decks like Phoenix are ripping through their decks and playing a consistent plan. That, "whoops, wrong half of my deck" thing happens less when you can see so deep into a deck.
I'm not really against preordain or ponder or whatever it is some people advocate for here---I will say that definitely plunges the knife deeper into non blue midrange decks though. As more players demand for more good stuff blue it makes Rock or Jund look sillier and sillier.
I'm seeing GBx decks really becoming more and more obsolete as modern evolves. GBx is a style that people love, but it's way overpresented for a deck as weak and expensive as it is. This is by all means not me saying, "Well, just ban stirrings or loot so we aren't left so behind". If this is where modern is going then you adapt. Loot really breaks the color pie, and on a much weaker scale tormenting Voices does as well.
I've been jamming Grixis Shadow/4C and only having 17 or 18 lands feels massively significantly. Grixis being a turbo xerox deck helps. Unlike GBx, Shadow decks know where they are in the totem poll, they want to kill fast after a very quick discard and/or hold up a counter. Post game it can go midrange against certain aggro decks.
Midrange decks outside of Shadow are just very confused. Someone posted a quote by Patric Chaplin a week or so ago about midrange being a poorer version of a control deck and a poorer version of an aggro deck. He said it more eloquently than my paraphrase but I do think that issue is really pronounced in modern.
It feels like Rock colors need some kind of cantrip but that's not happening, I don't imagine. By no means am I suggesting this or asking for this unban, but I don't see how midrange becomes a good option without getting something like DRS, POD or even a Sylvan Scrying type of card.
The good news is that UW Control was a joke in modern until in the span of 1 year it received Azcanta, Teferi, a Jace unban and Terminus to pair it up.
I know this sounds like all doom and gloom, it's more or less a speculation on where modern is going and where midrange could see itself in the future. I am getting my midrange itch off of Shadow Decks (But all it takes is 1 or 2 new cards to somehow make Shadow itself unplayable).
I know Sheridan is going to post some stuff, say I'm being absurd and negative, but when you listen to these podcasts or top tier players and articles, a lot of them seem to agree that they'd like something like Jund to thrive but that it's just not what you want to do in the format. Gerry Thompson had a huge modern podcast recently saying that, too.
I have bought into Grixis Death's Shadow yesterday and played a few matches with it. I can certainly see that it's a very skill intensive deck with a ton of moving parts. That can be both a positive and a negative.
What can also be a blessing or a curse is the low land count of the deck. A few games were decided by me simply not drawing the required lands to make the plays I wanted to. I guess you just have to accept that these kind of losses will just happen with the deck.
At the end of the day even though Shadow mimics a Legacy Delver deck we still don't play with Brainstorm, Ponder and so on.
EDIT: Thats really interesting, because even in standard, you could look at UR Drakes/Arclight, with an Electromancer in play, and its just a ton of card selection at that point.
The Standard UR Phoenix deck is definitely a xerox deck. I pretty often get like 30 or 40 cards deep into my deck. They usually have 1 or 2 things they want to do, and a TON of velocity to increase their consistency so they can do one of those things.
This just seems like it's where modern is going. Not that modern is anywhere there, but these are just signs of modern catching up with legacy. If you take a look at mttgoldfish, these decks are playing low land counts and finding redundant ways to find their win cons, rip through their decks with cantrips, etc. If these decks aren't ripping through their deck they're playing a low land count for hopefully more live draws. Decks like Humans and Spirits have early tempo and early acceleration to counter some of that bad topdecking.
I think part of this is where midrange decks in modern are getting it wrong. Playing 24 to 25 lands seriously feels like a death sentence. Jund definitely stopped using the motto, "my topdeck is better than yours" when fatal push was printed. It probably lost that title a year or so before that, but it just absolutely wasn't true by push's release.
Without the debate of arena hurting or killing modern off, if Modern lasts 10 years from now, will midrange decks be seriously viable or tier 1 without either being forced into something like Sultai or Grixis? Decks like Phoenix are ripping through their decks and playing a consistent plan. That, "whoops, wrong half of my deck" thing happens less when you can see so deep into a deck.
I'm not really against preordain or ponder or whatever it is some people advocate for here---I will say that definitely plunges the knife deeper into non blue midrange decks though. As more players demand for more good stuff blue it makes Rock or Jund look sillier and sillier.
I'm seeing GBx decks really becoming more and more obsolete as modern evolves. GBx is a style that people love, but it's way overpresented for a deck as weak and expensive as it is. This is by all means not me saying, "Well, just ban stirrings or loot so we aren't left so behind". If this is where modern is going then you adapt. Loot really breaks the color pie, and on a much weaker scale tormenting Voices does as well.
I've been jamming Grixis Shadow/4C and only having 17 or 18 lands feels massively significantly. Grixis being a turbo xerox deck helps. Unlike GBx, Shadow decks know where they are in the totem poll, they want to kill fast after a very quick discard and/or hold up a counter. Post game it can go midrange against certain aggro decks.
Midrange decks outside of Shadow are just very confused. Someone posted a quote by Patric Chaplin a week or so ago about midrange being a poorer version of a control deck and a poorer version of an aggro deck. He said it more eloquently than my paraphrase but I do think that issue is really pronounced in modern.
It feels like Rock colors need some kind of cantrip but that's not happening, I don't imagine. By no means am I suggesting this or asking for this unban, but I don't see how midrange becomes a good option without getting something like DRS, POD or even a Sylvan Scrying type of card.
The good news is that UW Control was a joke in modern until in the span of 1 year it received Azcanta, Teferi, a Jace unban and Terminus to pair it up.
I know this sounds like all doom and gloom, it's more or less a speculation on where modern is going and where midrange could see itself in the future. I am getting my midrange itch off of Shadow Decks (But all it takes is 1 or 2 new cards to somehow make Shadow itself unplayable).
I know Sheridan is going to post some stuff, say I'm being absurd and negative, but when you listen to these podcasts or top tier players and articles, a lot of them seem to agree that they'd like something like Jund to thrive but that it's just not what you want to do in the format. Gerry Thompson had a huge modern podcast recently saying that, too.
I don't think that's doomsaying or absurd and negative in any way. It's a little reactionary but it's mostly based on sound theory. We know cantrips and dig cards are some of the best things you can be doing in Modern. That's why I've been championing SV in the Cheeri0s thread for 1-2 years now. It's why izzetmage always blasts people for not playing enough cantrips. It's why GDS was good in the first place and why Looting and Phoenix decks are good in Modern and Modern/Standard respectively. Building decks around card velocity is often good Magic, so in that sense, you're just saying that Modern decks are aligning with good deckbuilding trends, which is a natural observation.
It gets reactionary because your timeframe is too narrow. In fact, this is the same problem we saw a lot of in the period between GP ATL and present. People are observing trends in that period which don't have enough elapsed time supporting them to be trends. I'm reminded of GK challenging UW Control's tiering based on that one month period. Or fear about Looting decks. Or your comments here. There simply isn't enough time that has gone by to make those kinds of conclusions or predictions with any certainty. Even if some of them turn out to be correct, that doesn't make it appropriate to make them. If you throw enough darts at a dart board you'll eventually hit a bullseye, even if your technique sucks. When that happens, we don't look at the bullseye and vindicate the bad technique. We chuckle that it actually hit and fix the technique anyway. It's the same thing here.
Maybe Modern decks do arc towards more cantrips. Maybe not. This trend has cycled up and down for the last two years, and I see no compelling evidence in the last month to suggest it's changing. When GDS was huge and LSV infamously called for a ban in early 2017, people were worried about this too. But this theory was not at all in the vogue when Humans arose in 2018 as a major force. This suggests it's just one of many viable and powerful ways to build Modern decks, not a format shaping trend.
A better question might be why BGx seems to suck. That's a more specific and longstanding question we can diagnose. I also think, as you suggest, the answer revolves around velocity. But we can ask that question without observing format trends on shaky grounds.
I really dont think modern is like Legacy at all. No Ponder or Preordain, no Dark Depths. Turnbo Xerox exists within basically one archetype, with maybe Death's Shadow as a second. The most dominate decks are Aether Vial decks, which isn't remotely true for Legacy. The Phoenix decks work differently than a turnbo xerox in Legacy like UR Delver or Grixis Delver. Our control decks even function pretty differently than Legacy control decks
I don't think that's doomsaying or absurd and negative in any way. It's a little reactionary but it's mostly based on sound theory. We know cantrips and dig cards are some of the best things you can be doing in Modern. That's why I've been championing SV in the Cheeri0s thread for 1-2 years now. It's why izzetmage always blasts people for not playing enough cantrips. It's why GDS was good in the first place and why Looting and Phoenix decks are good in Modern and Modern/Standard respectively. Building decks around card velocity is often good Magic, so in that sense, you're just saying that Modern decks are aligning with good deckbuilding trends, which is a natural observation.
It gets reactionary because your timeframe is too narrow. In fact, this is the same problem we saw a lot of in the period between GP ATL and present. People are observing trends in that period which don't have enough elapsed time supporting them to be trends. I'm reminded of GK challenging UW Control's tiering based on that one month period. Or fear about Looting decks. Or your comments here. There simply isn't enough time that has gone by to make those kinds of conclusions or predictions with any certainty. Even if some of them turn out to be correct, that doesn't make it appropriate to make them. If you throw enough darts at a dart board you'll eventually hit a bullseye, even if your technique sucks. When that happens, we don't look at the bullseye and vindicate the bad technique. We chuckle that it actually hit and fix the technique anyway. It's the same thing here.
Maybe Modern decks do arc towards more cantrips. Maybe not. This trend has cycled up and down for the last two years, and I see no compelling evidence in the last month to suggest it's changing. When GDS was huge and LSV infamously called for a ban in early 2017, people were worried about this too. But this theory was not at all in the vogue when Humans arose in 2018 as a major force. This suggests it's just one of many viable and powerful ways to build Modern decks, not a format shaping trend.
A better question might be why BGx seems to suck. That's a more specific and longstanding question we can diagnose. I also think, as you suggest, the answer revolves around velocity. But we can ask that question without observing format trends on shaky grounds.
When UB Deaths Shadow was ripping up the legacy portion of the Team Pro Tour, it became obvious that all that keeps a deck like that from existing in Modern fully, is Force of Will, Daze, and the 'free' kill spells + better cantrips.
I'd actually at this point caution Preordain, because in all the things I've read since yesterday on Xerox decks, I'm not sure we want to tilt Modern that direction further.
As it is, I feel like we are one more good Looting away from red being able to just go nuts, and if we get one next Rav set (RG and BR are 2 guilds coming) I think we get something broken in Modern as a result.
I've had literally obnoxious turns with Runaway, and if I had 8 Looting instead of 4, I'd be living the dream. As it is, the difference between UR and R Phoenix in my testing comes down to if the R build was able to get to Turn 3 with the Faithless looting in hand, while UR sculpts to get there, and then the slightly different mid game (Drake).
Part of my reservation of buying combo decks like that is that it doesn't really go into much else. One ban or just a deck/card to invalidate an entire deck makes me nervous.
Just from naturally playing GBx and whatnot I have most of the Arclight deck minus Arclight and Manamorphose. There's a bunch of the smaller pieces but they're not expensive.
UR Control dominated over the summer, just the recent graveyard decks is making it difficult to navigate.
Yea, same, arclight and manamorphose is pretty much all I need for UR arclight. I share your fears about a possible ban hampering KCI, but as long as it's not MOpal I figure I could also move into hardened scales.
Part of my reservation of buying combo decks like that is that it doesn't really go into much else. One ban or just a deck/card to invalidate an entire deck makes me nervous.
Just from naturally playing GBx and whatnot I have most of the Arclight deck minus Arclight and Manamorphose. There's a bunch of the smaller pieces but they're not expensive.
UR Control dominated over the summer, just the recent graveyard decks is making it difficult to navigate.
Yea, same, arclight and manamorphose is pretty much all I need for UR arclight. I share your fears about a possible ban hampering KCI, but as long as it's not MOpal I figure I could also move into hardened scales.
Without a massively negative PT or overwhelming player outcry, I really see nothing being banned any time soon. It's not that KCI isn't degenerate misery, but if we go down the path of banning all degenerate misery, we lose half of Modern!
Part of my reservation of buying combo decks like that is that it doesn't really go into much else. One ban or just a deck/card to invalidate an entire deck makes me nervous.
Just from naturally playing GBx and whatnot I have most of the Arclight deck minus Arclight and Manamorphose. There's a bunch of the smaller pieces but they're not expensive.
UR Control dominated over the summer, just the recent graveyard decks is making it difficult to navigate.
Yea, same, arclight and manamorphose is pretty much all I need for UR arclight. I share your fears about a possible ban hampering KCI, but as long as it's not MOpal I figure I could also move into hardened scales.
Without a massively negative PT or overwhelming player outcry, I really see nothing being banned any time soon. It's not that KCI isn't degenerate misery, but if we go down the path of banning all degenerate misery, we lose half of Modern!
I know right....
I don't feel like a ban is coming for stirrings or mox opal, so KCI should be a clean choice. Plus it's way more fun to play than to play against! #CantBeatEm,JoinEm
imo its about efficiency. decks are just doing more 'stuff' in the opening turns. traditional GBx falls behind in tempo too easily and its catchup mechanics arent very strong. i mean just look at jund lists. tap lands, and sorcery speed discard/creatures/walkers with no methods to help find any of it.
i know people often throw around the statement 'x deck is too fair', but that is what i believe is actually the case for GBx. like Galerion pointed out in that quote from Chapin's book. trying to minimize your worst cases to truly hit that mid-range just isnt feasible in a format so wide. not that i think decks like jund or GB rock are unplayable, rather its just a case of a deck built in a manner that makes it hard to do what you want or need to at the right times. GDS or 4c traverse have one foot in the midrange gameplan, but can also move into a quick kill all while leveraging stubborn denial.
side note, but its why i kept saying in the first half of the year that GDS/4c traverse wasnt going anywhere despite people saying it was dying off. decks that low to the ground/mana efficient dont necessarily need to care about what is going on around it. they really do look like legacy decks because so many small decisions/interactions are condensed into the first few turns.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Kind of speaks to something I mentioned a few posts back. These powerful decks do not, in a format as wide and diverse as Modern, 'become bad'.
Infect, Amulet, GDS. These decks are not going anywhere. Maybe people dont like to play them, but the strategies are inherently potent, proactive, and demand you answer them, not the other way around.
Part of my reservation of buying combo decks like that is that it doesn't really go into much else. One ban or just a deck/card to invalidate an entire deck makes me nervous.
Just from naturally playing GBx and whatnot I have most of the Arclight deck minus Arclight and Manamorphose. There's a bunch of the smaller pieces but they're not expensive.
UR Control dominated over the summer, just the recent graveyard decks is making it difficult to navigate.
Yea, same, arclight and manamorphose is pretty much all I need for UR arclight. I share your fears about a possible ban hampering KCI, but as long as it's not MOpal I figure I could also move into hardened scales.
This is the ultimate fear of any combo deck player in Modern, and quite frankly, it shouldn't exist, unless the deck is over dominate when it comes to meta share.
Fair decks should get more of a leeway when it comes to bannings. If a deck that promotes healthy interaction and gameplay, like humans, has a high meta share, they should be afforded some percentage points due to the policing nature of a deck like that. One of the stated goals, and rightfully so, of Modern was to make sure non-interactive combo decks didn't run rampant to avoid the two situations that arise:
1. both players ignoring each other, creating a dice roll format
2. The format becomes a sideboard war, whoever draws the sideboard cards first, or more of them, wins.
With keeping in mind of that goal, that doesn't give a responsible game designer a free pass on banning cards that would hinder top tier combo decks. I advocate so much for metagame share to be the "be all" rule when it comes to banning due to this sentiment of fear of constantly having your deck banned out. How could you possibly tell someone that thier $500+ deck is now unplayable because of some other reason? Meta game share is able to be proven empirically.
For example, I've yet to see any good reason why Mox Opal should be banned ever on this forum or on any other website other than "the card is powerful lul."
Right now we have a very diverse format with a lot of very powerful decks. I have to agree that we lack GBx midrange options, and also stron counter magic to police the format but we're not legacy. If you go to Golfish or MTGtop8 you see a lot of options and no option is more thant 6% in goldfish and 8% in top8 of the metagame. As it has been for the past year, I see no need for a ban. We've been clear off of banning cards since 2017 if I'm no wrong, and we should keep it that way.
Just that GBx is being left behind. I've been feeling like this for maybe---a year or so? It's less reactionary.
Maybe they could give us another Tarmogoyf? Not someone as strong as him, but maybe someone almost as good?
These days my Ponza also has to use goyf... because it's the only creature that comes down fast enough and big enough to stop early Hollow One and Anglers. I only have one playset, so Ponza and BGx have to borrow from each other. I use the same color sleeves anyway.
I still think something like Grim Flayer, and letting them gain some additional value off the Graveyard, like a better Undergrowth or Delve or 'Goyf Like' boost, would be something that would be right up BGx's alley, and give it some additional velocity and punch.
When the best 'midrange' creatures are the Eldrazi...well thats an issue for BGx as an archetype.
Tiers are the representation of a deck's popularity. In that regard, UW Control has stopped being Tier 1, after a brief period with a very strong high tier presence. Unfortunately, we don't have numbers, but if the cutoff was at ~5%, I would say that UW Control is a high Tier 2 deck nowadays.
That is not what a tier list is. That would be called a popularity list. A tier list here is a list, in order, of the power level of decks within the current metagame. And power level is defined by something like theoretical power plus results plus metashare, each with different weight, depending on what is usually deemed most important. Popularity is part of it (metashare), but not all of it
I still think something like Grim Flayer, and letting them gain some additional value off the Graveyard, like a better Undergrowth or Delve or 'Goyf Like' boost, would be something that would be right up BGx's alley, and give it some additional velocity and punch.
When the best 'midrange' creatures are the Eldrazi...well thats an issue for BGx as an archetype.
Agreed on the Grim Flayer. I do have one in the main, and he compliments the goyfs pretty well. unfortunately, my deck is also the victim of splash hate from Dredge. When people know I'm on gbx game 1, game 2 surely there is a Rest in Peace or some other form of yard hate. This is the first time in years that our meta is saturated with so much leyline, rip, and relics.
Faithless looting decks are strong these days, so the anti graveyard cards would probably be staying for awhile.
I don't think that's doomsaying or absurd and negative in any way. It's a little reactionary but it's mostly based on sound theory. We know cantrips and dig cards are some of the best things you can be doing in Modern. That's why I've been championing SV in the Cheeri0s thread for 1-2 years now. It's why izzetmage always blasts people for not playing enough cantrips. It's why GDS was good in the first place and why Looting and Phoenix decks are good in Modern and Modern/Standard respectively. Building decks around card velocity is often good Magic, so in that sense, you're just saying that Modern decks are aligning with good deckbuilding trends, which is a natural observation.
Can attest that I love cantrips and wholeheartedly recommend them in combo decks. I'm proud to say that I was a proponent of playing cantrips in Cheeri0s when other people were using stuff like Spoils of the Vault or Muddle the Mixture. The most recent tech is Artificer's Assistant, and needless to say, I'm not convinced it's better than Serum Visions (though it's hard to tell either way since the deck puts up so few results).
Take a guess as to whether I think UR Arclight Phoenix is better than mono-red...
I also agree that playing cantrips in your deck is just good deckbuilding. Don't read too much into it. It's a bit like playing fetch+shock mana bases, or burn spells in aggro decks, or blue in control decks...it's just what has been shown to work, and people will play what works. And it's not like there is no variation in the types of decks with cantrips that you can play.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/ub-trippin’-2005-04-21
in short: low number of lands, high number of cantrips, with a couple of cheap threats and usually some disruption
EDIT: Thats really interesting, because even in standard, you could look at UR Drakes/Arclight, with an Electromancer in play, and its just a ton of card selection at that point.
Spirits
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
This just seems like it's where modern is going. Not that modern is anywhere there, but these are just signs of modern catching up with legacy. If you take a look at mttgoldfish, these decks are playing low land counts and finding redundant ways to find their win cons, rip through their decks with cantrips, etc. If these decks aren't ripping through their deck they're playing a low land count for hopefully more live draws. Decks like Humans and Spirits have early tempo and early acceleration to counter some of that bad topdecking.
I think part of this is where midrange decks in modern are getting it wrong. Playing 24 to 25 lands seriously feels like a death sentence. Jund definitely stopped using the motto, "my topdeck is better than yours" when fatal push was printed. It probably lost that title a year or so before that, but it just absolutely wasn't true by push's release.
Without the debate of arena hurting or killing modern off, if Modern lasts 10 years from now, will midrange decks be seriously viable or tier 1 without either being forced into something like Sultai or Grixis? Decks like Phoenix are ripping through their decks and playing a consistent plan. That, "whoops, wrong half of my deck" thing happens less when you can see so deep into a deck.
I'm not really against preordain or ponder or whatever it is some people advocate for here---I will say that definitely plunges the knife deeper into non blue midrange decks though. As more players demand for more good stuff blue it makes Rock or Jund look sillier and sillier.
I'm seeing GBx decks really becoming more and more obsolete as modern evolves. GBx is a style that people love, but it's way overpresented for a deck as weak and expensive as it is. This is by all means not me saying, "Well, just ban stirrings or loot so we aren't left so behind". If this is where modern is going then you adapt. Loot really breaks the color pie, and on a much weaker scale tormenting Voices does as well.
I've been jamming Grixis Shadow/4C and only having 17 or 18 lands feels massively significantly. Grixis being a turbo xerox deck helps. Unlike GBx, Shadow decks know where they are in the totem poll, they want to kill fast after a very quick discard and/or hold up a counter. Post game it can go midrange against certain aggro decks.
Midrange decks outside of Shadow are just very confused. Someone posted a quote by Patric Chaplin a week or so ago about midrange being a poorer version of a control deck and a poorer version of an aggro deck. He said it more eloquently than my paraphrase but I do think that issue is really pronounced in modern.
It feels like Rock colors need some kind of cantrip but that's not happening, I don't imagine. By no means am I suggesting this or asking for this unban, but I don't see how midrange becomes a good option without getting something like DRS, POD or even a Sylvan Scrying type of card.
The good news is that UW Control was a joke in modern until in the span of 1 year it received Azcanta, Teferi, a Jace unban and Terminus to pair it up.
I know this sounds like all doom and gloom, it's more or less a speculation on where modern is going and where midrange could see itself in the future. I am getting my midrange itch off of Shadow Decks (But all it takes is 1 or 2 new cards to somehow make Shadow itself unplayable).
I know Sheridan is going to post some stuff, say I'm being absurd and negative, but when you listen to these podcasts or top tier players and articles, a lot of them seem to agree that they'd like something like Jund to thrive but that it's just not what you want to do in the format. Gerry Thompson had a huge modern podcast recently saying that, too.
Just from naturally playing GBx and whatnot I have most of the Arclight deck minus Arclight and Manamorphose. There's a bunch of the smaller pieces but they're not expensive.
UR Control dominated over the summer, just the recent graveyard decks is making it difficult to navigate.
I have bought into Grixis Death's Shadow yesterday and played a few matches with it. I can certainly see that it's a very skill intensive deck with a ton of moving parts. That can be both a positive and a negative.
What can also be a blessing or a curse is the low land count of the deck. A few games were decided by me simply not drawing the required lands to make the plays I wanted to. I guess you just have to accept that these kind of losses will just happen with the deck.
At the end of the day even though Shadow mimics a Legacy Delver deck we still don't play with Brainstorm, Ponder and so on.
I don't think that's doomsaying or absurd and negative in any way. It's a little reactionary but it's mostly based on sound theory. We know cantrips and dig cards are some of the best things you can be doing in Modern. That's why I've been championing SV in the Cheeri0s thread for 1-2 years now. It's why izzetmage always blasts people for not playing enough cantrips. It's why GDS was good in the first place and why Looting and Phoenix decks are good in Modern and Modern/Standard respectively. Building decks around card velocity is often good Magic, so in that sense, you're just saying that Modern decks are aligning with good deckbuilding trends, which is a natural observation.
It gets reactionary because your timeframe is too narrow. In fact, this is the same problem we saw a lot of in the period between GP ATL and present. People are observing trends in that period which don't have enough elapsed time supporting them to be trends. I'm reminded of GK challenging UW Control's tiering based on that one month period. Or fear about Looting decks. Or your comments here. There simply isn't enough time that has gone by to make those kinds of conclusions or predictions with any certainty. Even if some of them turn out to be correct, that doesn't make it appropriate to make them. If you throw enough darts at a dart board you'll eventually hit a bullseye, even if your technique sucks. When that happens, we don't look at the bullseye and vindicate the bad technique. We chuckle that it actually hit and fix the technique anyway. It's the same thing here.
Maybe Modern decks do arc towards more cantrips. Maybe not. This trend has cycled up and down for the last two years, and I see no compelling evidence in the last month to suggest it's changing. When GDS was huge and LSV infamously called for a ban in early 2017, people were worried about this too. But this theory was not at all in the vogue when Humans arose in 2018 as a major force. This suggests it's just one of many viable and powerful ways to build Modern decks, not a format shaping trend.
A better question might be why BGx seems to suck. That's a more specific and longstanding question we can diagnose. I also think, as you suggest, the answer revolves around velocity. But we can ask that question without observing format trends on shaky grounds.
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
When UB Deaths Shadow was ripping up the legacy portion of the Team Pro Tour, it became obvious that all that keeps a deck like that from existing in Modern fully, is Force of Will, Daze, and the 'free' kill spells + better cantrips.
I'd actually at this point caution Preordain, because in all the things I've read since yesterday on Xerox decks, I'm not sure we want to tilt Modern that direction further.
As it is, I feel like we are one more good Looting away from red being able to just go nuts, and if we get one next Rav set (RG and BR are 2 guilds coming) I think we get something broken in Modern as a result.
I've had literally obnoxious turns with Runaway, and if I had 8 Looting instead of 4, I'd be living the dream. As it is, the difference between UR and R Phoenix in my testing comes down to if the R build was able to get to Turn 3 with the Faithless looting in hand, while UR sculpts to get there, and then the slightly different mid game (Drake).
Spirits
Yea, same, arclight and manamorphose is pretty much all I need for UR arclight. I share your fears about a possible ban hampering KCI, but as long as it's not MOpal I figure I could also move into hardened scales.
Without a massively negative PT or overwhelming player outcry, I really see nothing being banned any time soon. It's not that KCI isn't degenerate misery, but if we go down the path of banning all degenerate misery, we lose half of Modern!
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I know right....
I don't feel like a ban is coming for stirrings or mox opal, so KCI should be a clean choice. Plus it's way more fun to play than to play against! #CantBeatEm,JoinEm
i know people often throw around the statement 'x deck is too fair', but that is what i believe is actually the case for GBx. like Galerion pointed out in that quote from Chapin's book. trying to minimize your worst cases to truly hit that mid-range just isnt feasible in a format so wide. not that i think decks like jund or GB rock are unplayable, rather its just a case of a deck built in a manner that makes it hard to do what you want or need to at the right times. GDS or 4c traverse have one foot in the midrange gameplan, but can also move into a quick kill all while leveraging stubborn denial.
side note, but its why i kept saying in the first half of the year that GDS/4c traverse wasnt going anywhere despite people saying it was dying off. decks that low to the ground/mana efficient dont necessarily need to care about what is going on around it. they really do look like legacy decks because so many small decisions/interactions are condensed into the first few turns.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Infect, Amulet, GDS. These decks are not going anywhere. Maybe people dont like to play them, but the strategies are inherently potent, proactive, and demand you answer them, not the other way around.
Spirits
This is the ultimate fear of any combo deck player in Modern, and quite frankly, it shouldn't exist, unless the deck is over dominate when it comes to meta share.
Fair decks should get more of a leeway when it comes to bannings. If a deck that promotes healthy interaction and gameplay, like humans, has a high meta share, they should be afforded some percentage points due to the policing nature of a deck like that. One of the stated goals, and rightfully so, of Modern was to make sure non-interactive combo decks didn't run rampant to avoid the two situations that arise:
1. both players ignoring each other, creating a dice roll format
2. The format becomes a sideboard war, whoever draws the sideboard cards first, or more of them, wins.
With keeping in mind of that goal, that doesn't give a responsible game designer a free pass on banning cards that would hinder top tier combo decks. I advocate so much for metagame share to be the "be all" rule when it comes to banning due to this sentiment of fear of constantly having your deck banned out. How could you possibly tell someone that thier $500+ deck is now unplayable because of some other reason? Meta game share is able to be proven empirically.
For example, I've yet to see any good reason why Mox Opal should be banned ever on this forum or on any other website other than "the card is powerful lul."
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
Just that GBx is being left behind. I've been feeling like this for maybe---a year or so? It's less reactionary.
One of the Jund guys said, "What deck do we actually like sitting across nowadays?" I honestly couldn't answer that.
Maybe they could give us another Tarmogoyf? Not someone as strong as him, but maybe someone almost as good?
These days my Ponza also has to use goyf... because it's the only creature that comes down fast enough and big enough to stop early Hollow One and Anglers. I only have one playset, so Ponza and BGx have to borrow from each other. I use the same color sleeves anyway.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)When the best 'midrange' creatures are the Eldrazi...well thats an issue for BGx as an archetype.
Spirits
That is not what a tier list is. That would be called a popularity list. A tier list here is a list, in order, of the power level of decks within the current metagame. And power level is defined by something like theoretical power plus results plus metashare, each with different weight, depending on what is usually deemed most important. Popularity is part of it (metashare), but not all of it
Agreed on the Grim Flayer. I do have one in the main, and he compliments the goyfs pretty well. unfortunately, my deck is also the victim of splash hate from Dredge. When people know I'm on gbx game 1, game 2 surely there is a Rest in Peace or some other form of yard hate. This is the first time in years that our meta is saturated with so much leyline, rip, and relics.
Faithless looting decks are strong these days, so the anti graveyard cards would probably be staying for awhile.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Take a guess as to whether I think UR Arclight Phoenix is better than mono-red...
I also agree that playing cantrips in your deck is just good deckbuilding. Don't read too much into it. It's a bit like playing fetch+shock mana bases, or burn spells in aggro decks, or blue in control decks...it's just what has been shown to work, and people will play what works. And it's not like there is no variation in the types of decks with cantrips that you can play.
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Big Johnny.