I think it's undeniable that the Midrange archetype has fallen on hard times in Modern and there must be a reason for it. It's curious since the archetype with BG/x as the frontman used to be a force to be reckoned with.
I will say right away that I am currently not personally invested. I used to be play Jund a few years ago and that's why I still have a certain attachment and keep myself a bit informed about the BG/x decks but Im playing UW Control now and Im thinking about getting into Grixis Death's Shadow too so I haven't actually played a Midrange deck in this meta myself.
The reason why I thought this thread might be appropriate is because I have seen a bit of "unrest" in certain Midrange deck threads and there isn't really a central place to discuss all this even though it looks like the entire archetype is effected and not only certain decks.
So the thread is yours.
Are there actually problems? If so what are those problems?
How could they be solved? Can they even be solved?
Lastly keep in mind that Banlist talk is against the rules and doesn't belong in this thread and I personally don't think it has anything to do with the current lull of Midrange in Modern anyway.
I think, so much as 'what does it take to compete at a large high level tournament' there are issues, much like UWx had issues, and the answer's are largely the same.
1. Shrink the meta into a narrow set of 'problems'.
2. Have answers that are wide enough and brutal enough, to take away the game going late. Terminus, in a world of decks that are winning via combat, with a Walker as good as Teferi providing backup allows the Control player to turn a match on its head.
What took BGx down? In my opinion its a combination of.
1. Fatal Push hit Goyf comically hard. Suddenly decks had an answer to Goyf that was more efficient that it was, so the finisher of BGx was taken down several slots.
2. Other decks such as GDS, 4C DS, or just straight Jund DS, took over the title of 'thoughtseize' decks. They ran the same, or better, disruption, with an ability to close the door that Jund has never had, in the way of DS + Temur Battle Rage.
3. The format diversity in the last 2 years has exploded. You can lose to Spell Based Combo, Creature Based Combo, 'Go Wide' Creatures, Big Mana, Tribal, the list is endless.
4. Certain decks have put the squeeze on sideboards that in the past has been terminal. Dredge, is now back at the top.
I dont know that the format will ever be friendly to straight up BGx again, because the moment the meta constricts to the point BGx can target it, it then spreads out again to combat it.
Modern's cyclical diversity has hit a point where even decks which have not received a new card in years, are suddenly 'competitive' again because frankly they never stopped being competitive. Things like Infect, or Amulet, for example.
Its certainly been an interesting year to take part in the meta development.
Perhaps the general increase in power level of creatures and decks? Years ago, Tarmogoyf was considered one of the best creatures in modern, not really that good today.. because of better removal like Fatal Push and faster decks like Hollow One, Arclight.
Maybe if the format slows down a little, midrange will be good again?
I would not say power of creatures that is problem. Its the Synergy of Humans and Spirits on one side and the cost cheating/recursion on the other side.
But that is good point Fatal Push did ruin Tarmagoyf it use to only fear Path.
Even Path was not 'feared' as Ramping the Jund Player and thinning their deck for them hurt you as much as the Jund player losing a single Goyf.
Jund/Junk, if targeting Humans/Spirits, should imo be able to bring that match up into favourable territory. Its similar again to UWR was at the start of the year. If you said 'I refuse to lose to Humans' you absolutely could warp your deck in such a way as to favour you.
The problem as Fluff mentions is, ok you load up on Push/Bolt/Terminate...then you face 2+ Hollow Ones and a few Bloodghast...on your Turn 0.
Now what?
The diversity of Modern is what has done in BGx (imo) and if not for the hilarity that is Terminus (seriously, look at that card) UWx would be no better off.
We see some success of Jund on MTGO in the last few weeks, why? Because Dredge/Bridgevine was literally everywhere, and Jund said 'nope' with Leylines, Bolts, and BBE to turn the corner.
An inbred meta, allows the tri-colour Jund/Junk/UWR decks to tune as required to handle it.
1. Fatal Push hit Goyf comically hard. Suddenly decks had an answer to Goyf that was more efficient that it was, so the finisher of BGx was taken down several slots.
I completely agree with this. Recently, I've been playing RG/x Assault Loam to good finishes at my lgs, which is the quintessential midrange deck. I think it has been having more success than the other more straightforward BGx decks there because there are a lot of good answers for creature threats nowadays and not a lot of good answers for noncreature stuff. Assassin's Trophy and Maelstrom Pulse are good, but when they try to go against recursive threats like Life from the Loam and Seismic Assault along with the rest of the threats in the deck like Sarkhan, Fireblood, it feels like they can't compete. Creature removal is really efficient in the meta right now, and I think that's what has really hindered traditional BGx decks.
I read a post on FB by a team member that said that Humans is stifling Midrange. Midrange is just not cutting it when a disruptive Aggro deck can Midrange much better. There was a point to that which I had not thought of myself.
I know I'm going to be discredited, but I feel that a Deathrite Shaman unban would greatly help Midrange. Yes, the card is super good, banned in Legacy, and caused a terrible meta many years ago in Modern, but Modern is the Wild West. Deathrite Shaman would get played a bunch, but I doubt more than 1-2 Deathrite Shaman decks would be Tier 1. Maybe Punishing Fire should be tried first? I don't actually believe that Punishing Fire can help Midrange enough.
Outside of that, what helps Midrange the most is knowledge of your deck and dodging the many, many poor matchups. This is the key in Modern!
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I think it would take a lot of bans of unfair stuff to bring midrange back, along with a new concentration of printings of midrange creatures that are tough in combat against most remaining aggro creatures and lower cmc than them removal.
This may require a mechanic like Diffusion Sliver or Icefall Regent just to force those removal CMCs higher without making the creature fully broken like giving an already tough mid-cost creature hexproof. Another option is recursive creatures with mechanics like undying/persist, so long as grave hate and exile removal doesn't become too common in the metagame.
The creatures involved also needs to be beating most aggro creatures in combat that can get out by that point in the game somewhat reliably, and even many 'combo' creatures, which might mean that some things just simply need to be banned, like Hollow One, for midrange to even fit properly in the format, even if they technically don't deserve any bans for any normal reasons, but _only_ to make midrange work better as an archetype. You'd also have to make fast combos decks less able to win the game when their combo doesn't go off, or if their combo pieces are discarded. Not so much to the point that combo decks are super-delicate to midrange, they should still be more reliable against midrange than they are against control, but they should be weaker to midrange than it is against them, if only slightly. Now, this specifically applies only to fast combo, 'slow combo' (which relies on defensive measures like fogs or defender creatures), or 'combo control' or 'combo tempo' should be more likely to beat midrange more reliably than the other way around.
The main thing midrange needs to be able to reliably beat is aggro, as it is basically developed around hating on aggro, what with it's small target focused removal and tougher, efficiency and reliability but mid-costed focused creatures that should beat the small creatures of aggro decks. This may mean aggro decks need to be nerfed with a variety of targeted bans. Aggro decks being nerfed this way may have other helpful effects on the format in terms of archetype balance besides letting midrange do it's job again, as aggro decks are _supposed_ to be slower than fast-combo decks, but currently rely on being faster than then to be reliable in the weird format we seem to be headed towards, due to the lack of archetypes which reliably prey on fast combo decks.
Another thing likely hurting midrange viability is decent presence of big-mana, which tends to be a super-weakness of midrange decks. There are too many decks playing tron lands or other big mana decks in the format for the traditional archetype of midrange to work properly, as the higher cmc, removal resistant threats big-mana decks play are something midrange's removal suite is normally a sort to ignore (in favor of smaller threat focused removal), while midrange plays less creatures and ones that aren't usually evasive so can't aggro around or under them, like a tempo or aggro deck might. I'd suspect in this case that a ban of Ancient Stirrings and/or an increase in the number of decks that hate on big-mana decks in the format to reduce their metagame share would help, as midrange isn't meant to really exist in decent numbers in a format with higher numbers of big-mana decks.
Honestly though, midrange isn't a type of deck that is necessary for format health. You need a cycle of archetypes that prey upon each-other of course, such as aggro, combo, and control, with no deck in the top tiers not having other top tier decks that are it's weaknesses, but midrange doesn't need to be one of those for a healthy format.
My ideal format, would probably be something along these lines:
25% Aggro (at least 2 different T1's at any time, representing no more than 10% of the meta share each, and a smattering of other decks, some of which would be teir 2 that occasionally shift into T1 due to meta shifts)
25% Control (at least 2 different T1's at any time, representing no more than 10% of the meta share each, and a smattering of other decks, some of which would be teir 2 that occasionally shift into T1 due to meta shifts)
25% Combo (at least 2 different T1's at any time, representing no more than 10% of the meta share each, and a smattering of other decks, some of which would be teir 2 that occasionally shift into T1 due to meta shifts)
5% Midrange
5% Tempo
5% Big Mana
5% 'weird hybrid' such as combo/tempo, or combo/big-mana, bogles, etc.
5% Other, such as less aggro-style tribal decks, hatebears, toolbox decks, etc.
In this format, almost universally, with rare exceptions, the win rates would tend towards, aggro would beat control, control would beat combo, and combo would beat aggro.
Tempo and midrange are both aggro-control hybrid decks, but with different positioning and focus of the combo and control elements, which adjusts which decks each does better against. Tempo has it's creatures closer to aggro decks, and tends to be weaker against them compared to midrange, and have it's control elements be costlier, making it better against big-mana and slower combo decks and control decks. Midrange on the other hand tends to be better against aggro, with lower cost control elements and slightly bigger creatures, and focusing much of it's efficiency against faster combo decks and aggro decks, but being worse against big-mana and control compared to tempo.
Midrange being any higher than about 5% meta share in this case would be a metagame call for when creature based aggro and faster versions of the combo decks are on the rise, but big mana isn't.
Of course, I doubt WotC could reasonably shape this kind of ideal format without extreme measures that frankly aren't necessary, and the format can easily be balanced in weirder ways and more complex interactions between top tier decks that might not entirely fit into normal archetype standards, just as long as none of them lack in other top tier weaknesses in the same meta and none of them gather too much of a meta share and meta advantage.
Modern would need to have six viable decks instead of sixteen. I mean, you'd also most likely kill the format because you would be banning several times over as many players than you would be boosting.
Spiegel posted to the State thread about cantrips and velocity. I disagreed with some of his statements and implications, but agree with a general point he makes about midrange being bad aggro and bad control with misaligned answers. I also think cantrips are a powerful deckbuilding tool that midrange would benefit from.
If I wanted to start solving the midrange issue, or specifically the BGx or Bx Midrange issue, I would look towards cantrips. They revitalized an otherwise dead Grixis midrange style in GDS and are singlehandedly enabling Phoenix decks. They also catapulted Mardu and Gerry T to a big PT finish (i.e. Looting in a BRW deck). Velocity is also the secret weapon in Tron and KCI decks which helps them tick so smoothly. Applying these theories to midrange isn't particularly revolutionary, as we see many Shadow midrange strategies trying to maximize card velxoity already. but I think we can push it further into Jund and even Abzan/BG Rock.
For Jund, already a red deck, the solution is easier: play Faithless Looting and cards that can synergize with Looting. This digs through more Jund cards and lets you filter away inappropriate answers while looking for aligned ones. Or lets you dig through answers when you need to find threats. Jund purists will likely balk at this idea and say it fundamentally misinterpreted the deck's purpose, to which I would counter that the decks might need updating given its terrible 2018 results. For Abzan/Rock, as well as Jund, you have Street Wraith, Bauble, Traverse, and Manamorphose. Maybe even Discovery or Night's Whisper, although the difference between CMC 1 and CMC 2 is pretty huge. I'd look into all of those as a way to dig through decks and take the decks to the next level.
The problem with these is of course that the biggest part of BG decks are their non-creature spells so playing cantrips that are not able to find your removal or discard is sup-optimal. Finding that Tarmogoyf when you are ahead and need to close the game is great but when you are behind it doesn't do much.
The problem with these is of course that the biggest part of BG decks are their non-creature spells so playing cantrips that are not able to find your removal or discard is sup-optimal. Finding that Tarmogoyf when you are ahead and need to close the game is great but when you are behind it doesn't do much.
This is why I recommend Looting, Bauble, and Wraith. These kinds of unconditional cantrips help dig for the cards you need regardless of what that card is. Looting is particularly strong in digging two and binning cards you don't need. Stirrings is a little different because it generally does find all the cards a deck would need, whether combo pieces, engines, or even answers (see O-Stone in Tron and Explosives in KCI). Even Nihil Spellbomb isn't horrible in that regard, because it both answers a significant Modern threat and digs deeper for more cards. This is where midrange decks should be moving towards in the future.
imo traditional GBx has to either go bigger or go smaller. the traditional builds are dead-ending at a spot that isnt achieving any of its goals particularly well because its both no longer in that mid position and the tools available cant adequately cover enough above and below it. low end decks, especially aggro, are deploying faster with harder to deal with threats; and the top end can more easily overpower them with value or inevitability.
really if you wanted to have builds mostly as they are but have them succeed (or at least do better); then they would need a card like deathrite shaman. we saw what DRS did for jund, and a lot of it was having mana acceleration that could double up as a disruptive threat. so not only could jund keep pace with card deployment, but it offered a layer of redundancy as another decent topdeck.
that is really what it comes down to. GBx needs cards that can do more 'stuff' to achieve better consistency. particularly of the creature variety (ie think scavenging ooze).
if you cant build redundantly, then you need tools to help you find what you need. personally i think faithless lootings is a nonstarter. if jund is doing anything like its doing now there just isnt anything to generate GY value, and no matter how much people think lootings is busted decks cant run it just because. punishing fire could certainly help to alleviate this problem, but that isnt likely to happen any time soon. bauble + traverse would make more sense.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
As a long time B/G/x player that moved to Death's Shadow and is considering just playing Infect, I think that the problems with midrange (and I'm lumping Shadow in because it has the same issues) go well beyond just needing better card selection.
The Creatures
The first issue with midrange in Modern is the threats that it has access to. I think that the clock started ticking on B/G/x when BfZ/Oath of the Gatewatch released. Up until that point, Tarmogoyf had largely been the poster child for "undercosted, efficient threat". The tradeoff to Tarmogoyf's incredible stats for 2 CMC is that it doesn't do anything else. The price you pay for raw power is that he's just a big dumb idiot, but in the days before Fatal Push that tradeoff was very worth it. The only common creatures at that size were Tasigur and Gurmag Angler, but Angler is also a vanilla beater and Tasigur's ability is only relevant in the late-game. The new Eldrazi upended this paradigm, giving us efficiently costed creatures with very powerful ETB abilities. Even after Eye of Ugin was banned, Bant Eldrazi (and later, Eldrazi Tron) continued to be a tier 1 deck for months because it's creatures just pushed the limits of what a midrange threat is capable of. Since then, we've seen a slew of new threats enter the format, with most either providing powerful ETB effects (Spell Queller, Bedlam Reveler, new Ulamog), cheating on mana to an egregious degree (Hollow One, Prized Amalgam, Arclight Phoenix), or threatening to take over the game if left unanswered (Thing in the Ice, Tireless Tracker). The bar for a creature that costs 2 actual mana in Modern is absurdly high at this point, and paying 2 mana for a vanilla creature, even one with super-high stats, is very suspect. When you consider that Goyf really only reaches its full potential in Death's Shadow, a deck like Jund looks like it's just bringing a knife to a tank fight. Jund, specifically, really suffers from the fact that most of it's creatures are small (Confidant, BBE) or take time and investment to build up to a reasonable size (Ooze, Raging Ravine). Tarmogoyf is the best creature in that deck, and it's really far from the best creature in the format right now.
The Answers
I never played with Jund when DRS was legal, but I've been playing the deck since the days of Splinter Twin and 3 maindeck copies of Abrupt Decay. I honestly don't think Jund's answers have ever been better than they are right now, and I even think that the argument of "you can't build a 75 to beat everything" is less true than it's ever been (though still a challenge). The problem is finding those answers when you need them. While the obvious solution is to run more cantrips, you risk running into the Grixis Shadow issue of "too many cantrips that cost actual mana but might not do anything". There's a real tension between running enough cantrips to find your answers, and running enough answers to not spin your wheels pointlessly, and this is exacerbated by the best blue cantrips currently being banned. Ancient Stirrings and Faithless Looting putting cards in your hand right now is a huge part of why they're so powerful. Would Stirrings be even half as good if it put the card on top of your library? I'm of the opinion that a little consistency is a good thing, and I actually like having Stirrings and Looting in the format, but the power level disparity between these two cantrips and the third one on the list is significant. I don't think it's surprising at all that some of the decks that have seen the most success this year are generally running one or the other.
I think that this issue is extremely difficult to answer without changes to the banlist, one way or another. It's hard to imagine Wizards printing new cantrips at the power level they need to be for Modern, and it's even harder to imagine what a cantrip strong enough to slot into B/G/x or Death's Shadow but somehow unappealing to anything unfair would look like. I think that the current trends in Modern are somewhat a result of what happens when fair decks have worse card selection than unfair ones. Why spend 2 cards to dig for an answer when you can spend 1 to find a threat?
The mana curve
When BBE was unbanned, the next several weeks of discussion on the Jund forums were dominated by the question of 24 vs 25 lands. 24 is already an insanely high land count for Modern in a deck already prone to flooding out, so people largely solved the 25th land by adding another creature land. This led to lists running 25 lands, 4-5 of which were manlands that came into play tapped, and the plan was to pay the full amount of mana for all of the 3/4 CMC spells in the deck. At the same time, Humans and Hollow One were running 20ish lands with multiple ways to mitigate flooding and cheat on mana. Jund's shell just looked so antiquated next to what those decks were doing in the average game. In general, we've seen a trend in Modern towards more 20ish land decks with few, if any, creature lands, more ways to find your lands when you need them, and more ways to prevent or mitigate flooding. My personal opinion is that Traverse Shadow is the classic Jund shell updated for the current Modern format, and I'm not sure why anyone would play traditional Jund instead.
An increase in graveyard strategies
Up until this point I've mostly whined about Jund's problems, but this is actually not as big a deal for that deck. While messing with Tarmogoyf is annoying, for the most part Jund is still fairly functional with a Rest in Peace or Relic of Progenitus in play.
However, the increase in graveyard strategies has definitely been felt by both Shadow variants, most notably Grixis. Players originally transitioned from Traverse to Grixis Shadow because of an increased resilience to Fatal Push, alongside 4 copies of Snapcaster Mage, leading to a huge edge in the mirror. Graveyard hate at the time was pretty low, with Dredge having recently eaten a ban and Hollow One not released yet. This meant that you could pretty reliably deploy Tasigur and Gurmag Angler on turns 2/3 without having to warp your deck beyond a playset of Thought Scour. Fast forward to today, and an abundance of degenerate graveyard strategies have required the format to have the highest amounts of graveyard hate since Dredge was dominant enough to require a ban. Grixis Shadow has warped so fully around its delve threats that its now playing multiple copies of Mishra's Bauble, on top of 4 Thought Scour and 0-2 Faithless Looting. Even then, sometimes you have to mulligan your 7 card hand and keep a 6 with an Angler that you cannot cast before turn 4. Relic of Progenitus is a beating out of Tron, KCI, and Scapeshift, where you need to be deploying your threats on turn 2. Relic being a colorless card means that decks running Ancient Stirrings have an excellent chance of finding it, and being forced to take Relic with Thoughtseize over an actual win condition or enabler, purely because you can't deploy a threat otherwise, is a common component in how Grixis Shadow loses those matchups.
I think that each of the B/G/x and Shadow variants have specific issues beyond what I've outlined, but in general I think that they all suffer from the above issues in some way or another. I won't pretend to be the person with the answer, but I've spent a lot of time trying to find a way to make one of the two archetypes really feel like it's on the same power level as the other top tier decks of the format, and these are the problems I've run into with the most consistency.
TLDR:
- You're investing either more mana or setup for your threats than other decks, and those threats can be outclassed
- Generally speaking, it's easier for decks in Modern to find threats than it is to find answers right now
- B/G/x's curve as an archetype is absurdly high compared to the rest of the format
- You're either an underdog to the graveyard strategies (B/G/x) or affected by the splash hate (Shadow)
I think this thread really only seems about BGx midrange and not modern midrange. To me, midrange means decks that pack early disruption but can close the game reasonably quick when the opportunity arises. Some non-BGx examples are Unburial Gifts, Classic splinter twin (RIP), and Mardu Pyromancer. These decks try to keep a wide range of decent match-ups with very few poor or great ones.
Modern has some great midrange decks right now and the best deck IMHO is humans which is undoubtedly midrange. Just because their answers and disruption are creature-based instead of spell-based doesn't make them an aggro deck. Also Spirits (T1) and Deaths Shadow (T2) are both midrange decks that are completely viable in this meta game.
Midrange doesn't have to be traditional tarmogoyf decks with 40% non-creature spells. They come in many forms. A deck with well-rounded answers but can reasonably win the game by turn 5 is what I would define as midrange
I disagree that Humans is midrange. It's clearly tribal aggro, like Merfolk or 'Fish' decks. That you would call Twin midrange...well best not even start with that. :]
When most of us talk midrange, its BGx (Jund/Junk) or early versions of Mardu Pyromancer.
So "midrange" implies only non-combo Thoughtseize decks? I would disagree. What about Jeskai midrange?
Humans is a disruption deck, not a linear deck (such as aggro). They win with creature beats sure, but then again don't most decks? Meddling Mage, Kitesail Freebooter, Reflector Mage, Thalia... these all rank fairly low on the aggressive scale, but are crucial to the deck.
I don't think tribal is a relevant classification when comparing midrange, combo, aggro, and control. But maybe I'm wrong. Elves and Humans play COMPLETELY differently but stillboth considered tribal.
Maybe the generally accepted meaning of midrange is running not too many creatures (otherwise you're aggro) and not too many spells (otherwise you're control).
To me, aggro is leaner, low mulligan beats. They love to goldfish turn 4 wins, and typicallyhave little interaction tools to deal with opponents plans. Lots of redundancy
To me, midrange is early disruption, plenty of outs, but reasonable threat density to close games. Reasonable amount of interaction. Little redundancy, but catch-all answers.
Combo is, like aggro, very linear with little interaction. Very redundant, loves to win quickly. Though different than aggro, they mulligan more and rely on specific synergy between cards.
Control is a plethora of answers, with few threats. Long term card advantage is prioritized. Exhausting opponents resources, knowing you'll have the inevitability.
I don't feel like the ratio of creatures to spells should affect these definitions. Martyr-Proc is a control deck, but it relies on creatures. Burn is an aggro deck, but it relies on spells. Just because Humans is "Tribal" and often wins by going wide, doesn't keep their overall strategy from being considered midrange.
TLDR, and back on topic:
Midrange is fine in modern, its just not well represented by BGx and that makes people sad.
I've been aggro killed by Humans on Turn 3. Thats not Midrange, and no BGx (non-shadow) deck can do that, same as UWR Midrange (Bolts, Counters, Turn the Corner with Resto/Snap Burn) and so on.
I do believe that striking that middle ground between Creature Aggro/Control (Fish/Humans/Spirits) and Control, is exactly what Midrange is. The problem is the creature decks get out of hand, and can go overtop what used to be the Midrange niche of undercosted beaters (Goyf).
Thoughtseize decks are most commonly thought of in this way, as outside a select few, UWR Midrange and UW Midrange are not a 'thing' as Discard > Counters, in a midrange shell in Modern, mostly.
I've been aggro killed by Humans on Turn 3. Thats not Midrange, and no BGx (non-shadow) deck can do that, same as UWR Midrange (Bolts, Counters, Turn the Corner with Resto/Snap Burn) and so on..
Would you care to share that line of play? Assuming you're not dealing most of the damage to yourself (a la Shadow) how on earth did a humans deck kill you on turn 3?
Right but how often does that happen? The gameplan for Hollow One, Arclight or Dredge can involve getting Turn 3 Kills on a fairly regular but that is more a nice bonus for Humans then the gameplan.
I stand by my argument the old midrange is dead. Human and Spirits also known as the Vial Decks are the new midrange. Faithless Decks are the Aggro. Stirrings Deck are Big Mana or Combo. Blue Cantrips gives you Storm for Combo and UW Control.
I think people have mentioned it, but you really need to ask what midrange IS. Jund was historically just a pile of the best cards, there was no exceptional synergy, they were just cards that were never really going to be bad. if you really define what midrange is, unless BGx is part of your definition, that color combo might not be there, but I will think you find that it exists in Modern already. so, what exactly is Midrange?
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I will say right away that I am currently not personally invested. I used to be play Jund a few years ago and that's why I still have a certain attachment and keep myself a bit informed about the BG/x decks but Im playing UW Control now and Im thinking about getting into Grixis Death's Shadow too so I haven't actually played a Midrange deck in this meta myself.
Still I have made a speculative post about the topic for everyone who might be interested that I will just link to here in order to save space.
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/801804-the-state-of-modern-thread-b-r-26-11-2018?comment=273
The reason why I thought this thread might be appropriate is because I have seen a bit of "unrest" in certain Midrange deck threads and there isn't really a central place to discuss all this even though it looks like the entire archetype is effected and not only certain decks.
So the thread is yours.
Are there actually problems? If so what are those problems?
How could they be solved? Can they even be solved?
Lastly keep in mind that Banlist talk is against the rules and doesn't belong in this thread and I personally don't think it has anything to do with the current lull of Midrange in Modern anyway.
1. Shrink the meta into a narrow set of 'problems'.
2. Have answers that are wide enough and brutal enough, to take away the game going late. Terminus, in a world of decks that are winning via combat, with a Walker as good as Teferi providing backup allows the Control player to turn a match on its head.
What took BGx down? In my opinion its a combination of.
1. Fatal Push hit Goyf comically hard. Suddenly decks had an answer to Goyf that was more efficient that it was, so the finisher of BGx was taken down several slots.
2. Other decks such as GDS, 4C DS, or just straight Jund DS, took over the title of 'thoughtseize' decks. They ran the same, or better, disruption, with an ability to close the door that Jund has never had, in the way of DS + Temur Battle Rage.
3. The format diversity in the last 2 years has exploded. You can lose to Spell Based Combo, Creature Based Combo, 'Go Wide' Creatures, Big Mana, Tribal, the list is endless.
4. Certain decks have put the squeeze on sideboards that in the past has been terminal. Dredge, is now back at the top.
I dont know that the format will ever be friendly to straight up BGx again, because the moment the meta constricts to the point BGx can target it, it then spreads out again to combat it.
Modern's cyclical diversity has hit a point where even decks which have not received a new card in years, are suddenly 'competitive' again because frankly they never stopped being competitive. Things like Infect, or Amulet, for example.
Its certainly been an interesting year to take part in the meta development.
Spirits
Maybe if the format slows down a little, midrange will be good again?
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But that is good point Fatal Push did ruin Tarmagoyf it use to only fear Path.
Jund/Junk, if targeting Humans/Spirits, should imo be able to bring that match up into favourable territory. Its similar again to UWR was at the start of the year. If you said 'I refuse to lose to Humans' you absolutely could warp your deck in such a way as to favour you.
The problem as Fluff mentions is, ok you load up on Push/Bolt/Terminate...then you face 2+ Hollow Ones and a few Bloodghast...on your Turn 0.
Now what?
The diversity of Modern is what has done in BGx (imo) and if not for the hilarity that is Terminus (seriously, look at that card) UWx would be no better off.
We see some success of Jund on MTGO in the last few weeks, why? Because Dredge/Bridgevine was literally everywhere, and Jund said 'nope' with Leylines, Bolts, and BBE to turn the corner.
An inbred meta, allows the tri-colour Jund/Junk/UWR decks to tune as required to handle it.
Spirits
I completely agree with this. Recently, I've been playing RG/x Assault Loam to good finishes at my lgs, which is the quintessential midrange deck. I think it has been having more success than the other more straightforward BGx decks there because there are a lot of good answers for creature threats nowadays and not a lot of good answers for noncreature stuff. Assassin's Trophy and Maelstrom Pulse are good, but when they try to go against recursive threats like Life from the Loam and Seismic Assault along with the rest of the threats in the deck like Sarkhan, Fireblood, it feels like they can't compete. Creature removal is really efficient in the meta right now, and I think that's what has really hindered traditional BGx decks.
I know I'm going to be discredited, but I feel that a Deathrite Shaman unban would greatly help Midrange. Yes, the card is super good, banned in Legacy, and caused a terrible meta many years ago in Modern, but Modern is the Wild West. Deathrite Shaman would get played a bunch, but I doubt more than 1-2 Deathrite Shaman decks would be Tier 1. Maybe Punishing Fire should be tried first? I don't actually believe that Punishing Fire can help Midrange enough.
Outside of that, what helps Midrange the most is knowledge of your deck and dodging the many, many poor matchups. This is the key in Modern!
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Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Midrange is a thing, its just not a highly prevalent thing, just like UWR at the start of the year.
Spirits
This may require a mechanic like Diffusion Sliver or Icefall Regent just to force those removal CMCs higher without making the creature fully broken like giving an already tough mid-cost creature hexproof. Another option is recursive creatures with mechanics like undying/persist, so long as grave hate and exile removal doesn't become too common in the metagame.
The creatures involved also needs to be beating most aggro creatures in combat that can get out by that point in the game somewhat reliably, and even many 'combo' creatures, which might mean that some things just simply need to be banned, like Hollow One, for midrange to even fit properly in the format, even if they technically don't deserve any bans for any normal reasons, but _only_ to make midrange work better as an archetype. You'd also have to make fast combos decks less able to win the game when their combo doesn't go off, or if their combo pieces are discarded. Not so much to the point that combo decks are super-delicate to midrange, they should still be more reliable against midrange than they are against control, but they should be weaker to midrange than it is against them, if only slightly. Now, this specifically applies only to fast combo, 'slow combo' (which relies on defensive measures like fogs or defender creatures), or 'combo control' or 'combo tempo' should be more likely to beat midrange more reliably than the other way around.
The main thing midrange needs to be able to reliably beat is aggro, as it is basically developed around hating on aggro, what with it's small target focused removal and tougher, efficiency and reliability but mid-costed focused creatures that should beat the small creatures of aggro decks. This may mean aggro decks need to be nerfed with a variety of targeted bans. Aggro decks being nerfed this way may have other helpful effects on the format in terms of archetype balance besides letting midrange do it's job again, as aggro decks are _supposed_ to be slower than fast-combo decks, but currently rely on being faster than then to be reliable in the weird format we seem to be headed towards, due to the lack of archetypes which reliably prey on fast combo decks.
Another thing likely hurting midrange viability is decent presence of big-mana, which tends to be a super-weakness of midrange decks. There are too many decks playing tron lands or other big mana decks in the format for the traditional archetype of midrange to work properly, as the higher cmc, removal resistant threats big-mana decks play are something midrange's removal suite is normally a sort to ignore (in favor of smaller threat focused removal), while midrange plays less creatures and ones that aren't usually evasive so can't aggro around or under them, like a tempo or aggro deck might. I'd suspect in this case that a ban of Ancient Stirrings and/or an increase in the number of decks that hate on big-mana decks in the format to reduce their metagame share would help, as midrange isn't meant to really exist in decent numbers in a format with higher numbers of big-mana decks.
Honestly though, midrange isn't a type of deck that is necessary for format health. You need a cycle of archetypes that prey upon each-other of course, such as aggro, combo, and control, with no deck in the top tiers not having other top tier decks that are it's weaknesses, but midrange doesn't need to be one of those for a healthy format.
My ideal format, would probably be something along these lines:
25% Aggro (at least 2 different T1's at any time, representing no more than 10% of the meta share each, and a smattering of other decks, some of which would be teir 2 that occasionally shift into T1 due to meta shifts)
25% Control (at least 2 different T1's at any time, representing no more than 10% of the meta share each, and a smattering of other decks, some of which would be teir 2 that occasionally shift into T1 due to meta shifts)
25% Combo (at least 2 different T1's at any time, representing no more than 10% of the meta share each, and a smattering of other decks, some of which would be teir 2 that occasionally shift into T1 due to meta shifts)
5% Midrange
5% Tempo
5% Big Mana
5% 'weird hybrid' such as combo/tempo, or combo/big-mana, bogles, etc.
5% Other, such as less aggro-style tribal decks, hatebears, toolbox decks, etc.
In this format, almost universally, with rare exceptions, the win rates would tend towards, aggro would beat control, control would beat combo, and combo would beat aggro.
Tempo and midrange are both aggro-control hybrid decks, but with different positioning and focus of the combo and control elements, which adjusts which decks each does better against. Tempo has it's creatures closer to aggro decks, and tends to be weaker against them compared to midrange, and have it's control elements be costlier, making it better against big-mana and slower combo decks and control decks. Midrange on the other hand tends to be better against aggro, with lower cost control elements and slightly bigger creatures, and focusing much of it's efficiency against faster combo decks and aggro decks, but being worse against big-mana and control compared to tempo.
Midrange being any higher than about 5% meta share in this case would be a metagame call for when creature based aggro and faster versions of the combo decks are on the rise, but big mana isn't.
Of course, I doubt WotC could reasonably shape this kind of ideal format without extreme measures that frankly aren't necessary, and the format can easily be balanced in weirder ways and more complex interactions between top tier decks that might not entirely fit into normal archetype standards, just as long as none of them lack in other top tier weaknesses in the same meta and none of them gather too much of a meta share and meta advantage.
If I wanted to start solving the midrange issue, or specifically the BGx or Bx Midrange issue, I would look towards cantrips. They revitalized an otherwise dead Grixis midrange style in GDS and are singlehandedly enabling Phoenix decks. They also catapulted Mardu and Gerry T to a big PT finish (i.e. Looting in a BRW deck). Velocity is also the secret weapon in Tron and KCI decks which helps them tick so smoothly. Applying these theories to midrange isn't particularly revolutionary, as we see many Shadow midrange strategies trying to maximize card velxoity already. but I think we can push it further into Jund and even Abzan/BG Rock.
For Jund, already a red deck, the solution is easier: play Faithless Looting and cards that can synergize with Looting. This digs through more Jund cards and lets you filter away inappropriate answers while looking for aligned ones. Or lets you dig through answers when you need to find threats. Jund purists will likely balk at this idea and say it fundamentally misinterpreted the deck's purpose, to which I would counter that the decks might need updating given its terrible 2018 results. For Abzan/Rock, as well as Jund, you have Street Wraith, Bauble, Traverse, and Manamorphose. Maybe even Discovery or Night's Whisper, although the difference between CMC 1 and CMC 2 is pretty huge. I'd look into all of those as a way to dig through decks and take the decks to the next level.
Spirits
There is also the option of "BG Eldrazi" which use the power of Ancient Stirrings to their advantage with a colorless creature base.
Along the lines of this - https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/769244-bg-eldrazi-midrange
The problem with these is of course that the biggest part of BG decks are their non-creature spells so playing cantrips that are not able to find your removal or discard is sup-optimal. Finding that Tarmogoyf when you are ahead and need to close the game is great but when you are behind it doesn't do much.
This is why I recommend Looting, Bauble, and Wraith. These kinds of unconditional cantrips help dig for the cards you need regardless of what that card is. Looting is particularly strong in digging two and binning cards you don't need. Stirrings is a little different because it generally does find all the cards a deck would need, whether combo pieces, engines, or even answers (see O-Stone in Tron and Explosives in KCI). Even Nihil Spellbomb isn't horrible in that regard, because it both answers a significant Modern threat and digs deeper for more cards. This is where midrange decks should be moving towards in the future.
really if you wanted to have builds mostly as they are but have them succeed (or at least do better); then they would need a card like deathrite shaman. we saw what DRS did for jund, and a lot of it was having mana acceleration that could double up as a disruptive threat. so not only could jund keep pace with card deployment, but it offered a layer of redundancy as another decent topdeck.
that is really what it comes down to. GBx needs cards that can do more 'stuff' to achieve better consistency. particularly of the creature variety (ie think scavenging ooze).
if you cant build redundantly, then you need tools to help you find what you need. personally i think faithless lootings is a nonstarter. if jund is doing anything like its doing now there just isnt anything to generate GY value, and no matter how much people think lootings is busted decks cant run it just because. punishing fire could certainly help to alleviate this problem, but that isnt likely to happen any time soon. bauble + traverse would make more sense.
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WCDeath and Taxes(sold)The Creatures
The first issue with midrange in Modern is the threats that it has access to. I think that the clock started ticking on B/G/x when BfZ/Oath of the Gatewatch released. Up until that point, Tarmogoyf had largely been the poster child for "undercosted, efficient threat". The tradeoff to Tarmogoyf's incredible stats for 2 CMC is that it doesn't do anything else. The price you pay for raw power is that he's just a big dumb idiot, but in the days before Fatal Push that tradeoff was very worth it. The only common creatures at that size were Tasigur and Gurmag Angler, but Angler is also a vanilla beater and Tasigur's ability is only relevant in the late-game. The new Eldrazi upended this paradigm, giving us efficiently costed creatures with very powerful ETB abilities. Even after Eye of Ugin was banned, Bant Eldrazi (and later, Eldrazi Tron) continued to be a tier 1 deck for months because it's creatures just pushed the limits of what a midrange threat is capable of. Since then, we've seen a slew of new threats enter the format, with most either providing powerful ETB effects (Spell Queller, Bedlam Reveler, new Ulamog), cheating on mana to an egregious degree (Hollow One, Prized Amalgam, Arclight Phoenix), or threatening to take over the game if left unanswered (Thing in the Ice, Tireless Tracker). The bar for a creature that costs 2 actual mana in Modern is absurdly high at this point, and paying 2 mana for a vanilla creature, even one with super-high stats, is very suspect. When you consider that Goyf really only reaches its full potential in Death's Shadow, a deck like Jund looks like it's just bringing a knife to a tank fight. Jund, specifically, really suffers from the fact that most of it's creatures are small (Confidant, BBE) or take time and investment to build up to a reasonable size (Ooze, Raging Ravine). Tarmogoyf is the best creature in that deck, and it's really far from the best creature in the format right now.
The Answers
I never played with Jund when DRS was legal, but I've been playing the deck since the days of Splinter Twin and 3 maindeck copies of Abrupt Decay. I honestly don't think Jund's answers have ever been better than they are right now, and I even think that the argument of "you can't build a 75 to beat everything" is less true than it's ever been (though still a challenge). The problem is finding those answers when you need them. While the obvious solution is to run more cantrips, you risk running into the Grixis Shadow issue of "too many cantrips that cost actual mana but might not do anything". There's a real tension between running enough cantrips to find your answers, and running enough answers to not spin your wheels pointlessly, and this is exacerbated by the best blue cantrips currently being banned. Ancient Stirrings and Faithless Looting putting cards in your hand right now is a huge part of why they're so powerful. Would Stirrings be even half as good if it put the card on top of your library? I'm of the opinion that a little consistency is a good thing, and I actually like having Stirrings and Looting in the format, but the power level disparity between these two cantrips and the third one on the list is significant. I don't think it's surprising at all that some of the decks that have seen the most success this year are generally running one or the other.
I think that this issue is extremely difficult to answer without changes to the banlist, one way or another. It's hard to imagine Wizards printing new cantrips at the power level they need to be for Modern, and it's even harder to imagine what a cantrip strong enough to slot into B/G/x or Death's Shadow but somehow unappealing to anything unfair would look like. I think that the current trends in Modern are somewhat a result of what happens when fair decks have worse card selection than unfair ones. Why spend 2 cards to dig for an answer when you can spend 1 to find a threat?
The mana curve
When BBE was unbanned, the next several weeks of discussion on the Jund forums were dominated by the question of 24 vs 25 lands. 24 is already an insanely high land count for Modern in a deck already prone to flooding out, so people largely solved the 25th land by adding another creature land. This led to lists running 25 lands, 4-5 of which were manlands that came into play tapped, and the plan was to pay the full amount of mana for all of the 3/4 CMC spells in the deck. At the same time, Humans and Hollow One were running 20ish lands with multiple ways to mitigate flooding and cheat on mana. Jund's shell just looked so antiquated next to what those decks were doing in the average game. In general, we've seen a trend in Modern towards more 20ish land decks with few, if any, creature lands, more ways to find your lands when you need them, and more ways to prevent or mitigate flooding. My personal opinion is that Traverse Shadow is the classic Jund shell updated for the current Modern format, and I'm not sure why anyone would play traditional Jund instead.
An increase in graveyard strategies
Up until this point I've mostly whined about Jund's problems, but this is actually not as big a deal for that deck. While messing with Tarmogoyf is annoying, for the most part Jund is still fairly functional with a Rest in Peace or Relic of Progenitus in play.
However, the increase in graveyard strategies has definitely been felt by both Shadow variants, most notably Grixis. Players originally transitioned from Traverse to Grixis Shadow because of an increased resilience to Fatal Push, alongside 4 copies of Snapcaster Mage, leading to a huge edge in the mirror. Graveyard hate at the time was pretty low, with Dredge having recently eaten a ban and Hollow One not released yet. This meant that you could pretty reliably deploy Tasigur and Gurmag Angler on turns 2/3 without having to warp your deck beyond a playset of Thought Scour. Fast forward to today, and an abundance of degenerate graveyard strategies have required the format to have the highest amounts of graveyard hate since Dredge was dominant enough to require a ban. Grixis Shadow has warped so fully around its delve threats that its now playing multiple copies of Mishra's Bauble, on top of 4 Thought Scour and 0-2 Faithless Looting. Even then, sometimes you have to mulligan your 7 card hand and keep a 6 with an Angler that you cannot cast before turn 4. Relic of Progenitus is a beating out of Tron, KCI, and Scapeshift, where you need to be deploying your threats on turn 2. Relic being a colorless card means that decks running Ancient Stirrings have an excellent chance of finding it, and being forced to take Relic with Thoughtseize over an actual win condition or enabler, purely because you can't deploy a threat otherwise, is a common component in how Grixis Shadow loses those matchups.
I think that each of the B/G/x and Shadow variants have specific issues beyond what I've outlined, but in general I think that they all suffer from the above issues in some way or another. I won't pretend to be the person with the answer, but I've spent a lot of time trying to find a way to make one of the two archetypes really feel like it's on the same power level as the other top tier decks of the format, and these are the problems I've run into with the most consistency.
TLDR:
- You're investing either more mana or setup for your threats than other decks, and those threats can be outclassed
- Generally speaking, it's easier for decks in Modern to find threats than it is to find answers right now
- B/G/x's curve as an archetype is absurdly high compared to the rest of the format
- You're either an underdog to the graveyard strategies (B/G/x) or affected by the splash hate (Shadow)
Modern has some great midrange decks right now and the best deck IMHO is humans which is undoubtedly midrange. Just because their answers and disruption are creature-based instead of spell-based doesn't make them an aggro deck. Also Spirits (T1) and Deaths Shadow (T2) are both midrange decks that are completely viable in this meta game.
Midrange doesn't have to be traditional tarmogoyf decks with 40% non-creature spells. They come in many forms. A deck with well-rounded answers but can reasonably win the game by turn 5 is what I would define as midrange
Draft My Cube!
When most of us talk midrange, its BGx (Jund/Junk) or early versions of Mardu Pyromancer.
Spirits
Humans is a disruption deck, not a linear deck (such as aggro). They win with creature beats sure, but then again don't most decks? Meddling Mage, Kitesail Freebooter, Reflector Mage, Thalia... these all rank fairly low on the aggressive scale, but are crucial to the deck.
I don't think tribal is a relevant classification when comparing midrange, combo, aggro, and control. But maybe I'm wrong. Elves and Humans play COMPLETELY differently but stillboth considered tribal.
Maybe the generally accepted meaning of midrange is running not too many creatures (otherwise you're aggro) and not too many spells (otherwise you're control).
To me, aggro is leaner, low mulligan beats. They love to goldfish turn 4 wins, and typicallyhave little interaction tools to deal with opponents plans. Lots of redundancy
To me, midrange is early disruption, plenty of outs, but reasonable threat density to close games. Reasonable amount of interaction. Little redundancy, but catch-all answers.
Combo is, like aggro, very linear with little interaction. Very redundant, loves to win quickly. Though different than aggro, they mulligan more and rely on specific synergy between cards.
Control is a plethora of answers, with few threats. Long term card advantage is prioritized. Exhausting opponents resources, knowing you'll have the inevitability.
I don't feel like the ratio of creatures to spells should affect these definitions. Martyr-Proc is a control deck, but it relies on creatures. Burn is an aggro deck, but it relies on spells. Just because Humans is "Tribal" and often wins by going wide, doesn't keep their overall strategy from being considered midrange.
TLDR, and back on topic:
Midrange is fine in modern, its just not well represented by BGx and that makes people sad.
Draft My Cube!
I do believe that striking that middle ground between Creature Aggro/Control (Fish/Humans/Spirits) and Control, is exactly what Midrange is. The problem is the creature decks get out of hand, and can go overtop what used to be the Midrange niche of undercosted beaters (Goyf).
Thoughtseize decks are most commonly thought of in this way, as outside a select few, UWR Midrange and UW Midrange are not a 'thing' as Discard > Counters, in a midrange shell in Modern, mostly.
Spirits
Would you care to share that line of play? Assuming you're not dealing most of the damage to yourself (a la Shadow) how on earth did a humans deck kill you on turn 3?
Draft My Cube!
I stand by my argument the old midrange is dead. Human and Spirits also known as the Vial Decks are the new midrange. Faithless Decks are the Aggro. Stirrings Deck are Big Mana or Combo. Blue Cantrips gives you Storm for Combo and UW Control.