How are you guys feeling about Izzet still? It seems insane that despite a LOT of hate it's still performing this well. Humans and Shadow were eventually tamed.
Ignoring limited play, it did quite well at the pro tour
Indeed though I doubt Modern Horizons does much to contain it maybe by accident I guess but when they made Horizons...Izzet Phoenix didn't exist lol.
This line about Phoenix not existing at the time always bugs me. Sure that specific deck didn't exist, but there has been a deck trying to do those things pretty much at all times since the format existed. The specifics may be new, but at any point in Modern if you were designing hate cards, something that shuts it down would have been an obvious inclusion.
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Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
Yeah I don't think Allosaurus Rider deck is any good. It seems to have early kills decent enough, but it is super glass cannon and Bolt, Path, or Spell pierce is like a 4 or 5 for 1. The deck needs to be able to play a longer game to be any threat, like how Storm and Amulet can
Spell pierce and thoughtseize are good if you live to play your first land. Disrupting shoal is the best answer so you can not lose on turn 0. The griselform deck can still win through path, I won a game through a turn 1 dispel cause I had 2 pact's in hand. Bolt does nothing.
yeah, I tried it for a day, got a buncha turn 1 kills to feel the power and then traded it back. I didn't even use an optimal version at all. I do think they should let it show up in paper for a few events and just see how it goes. Magic Online is way ahead of the game at the moment, it's always fun to see how surprised people and even commentators are when new stuff like this comes out of nowhere. When my opponent played cinder glade, pass and then died I can only imagine the look on their face if it was at a big paper tournament.
yeah we've mostly been mentioning its speed in the context of pre-turn 4; however even then the difference between going off on turn 1 opposed to turn 2 (or 3) is substantial.
so like for instance both deck A and B win before turn 4 10% of the time, but deck A does it turn 1 and B does it turn 3. without any other information deck A is clearly stronger. i get that the example isnt very realistic, but the point is that lumping turns 1-3 together is only so useful in deck by deck comparisons.
of the enablers in the combo, chancellor of the tangle stands out because its fast mana for only turn 1. ill admit ive never even seen the card before this deck (i knew a chancellor cycle existed, but yeh). guess it just speaks to the depth of the card pool.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Pact of Negation has made it's way into the main because gotta have all the 0 mana stuff. I just lost a game on turn 2 through double path. Then game 2 I played turn 1 Graf cage, he claimed it, turn 2 I pathed his grisel and he pact of negationed it. So lost 2 games through 4 disruptions in 4 turns total.
Pact of Negation has made it's way into the main because gotta have all the 0 mana stuff. I just lost a game on turn 2 through double path. Then game 2 I played turn 1 Graf cage, he claimed it, turn 2 I pathed his grisel and he pact of negationed it. So lost 2 games through 4 disruptions in 4 turns total.
what win con are you seeing most often? or do lists include both seismic/lightning storm and lab man?
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
The real question is if this deck can become a Tier 1 deck or if it stays untiered like cheerios. MODO is back on Vancouver mulligan and even if this deck needs cards, it seems to be lower on numbers today.
It needs the London Mulligan rule the most, without it, its mulligans are way worse.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
We'll see our first weekend of paper War results in a few days. This will include a variety of regional events and an SCG Classic. We'll also get another Modern Challenge on MTGO. These are the sort of results that matter more for assessing a deck's strength than the data we currently have. We won't have a Modern GP until late June and won't have a Modern SCG Open until late May. On the one hand, this means we won't see the most important, large-scale event results for a while. On the other hand, it will give the metagame time to stabilize and the lists time to refine themselves. By the time we do have results, it will be a lot clearer if the deck is just another glass cannon strategy or if it's a new T4 rule violator. Remember that a deck must be both top-tier AND win too consistently before T4 to violate the rule.
So far, our only relevant result is a 30th place finish at an MTGO Challenge (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-challenge-2019-04-30), which isn't the most convincing datapoint. I encourage everyone to be very skeptical of Twitch streamers, article authors, pros, and Twitter/Reddit personalities who speak publicly on this issue. These people aren't necessarily wrong, dishonest, or misleading. But their position gives them extreme incentive to oversell, misrepresent, or outright lie about big issues if it results in clicks, views, popularity, revenue, etc. If such figures are not citing their sources or making supported arguments, that should be a bright red flag.
CFB has an article, CFB sells singles. Simple as that.
Very much so. I actually dropped a number of those writers from my follow post because it became clear they just wanted to push bad decks to sell stuff.
At what point did we start calling people 'influencers' instead of shills?
CFB has an article, CFB sells singles. Simple as that.
Very much so. I actually dropped a number of those writers from my follow post because it became clear they just wanted to push bad decks to sell stuff.
At what point did we start calling people 'influencers' instead of shills?
I can't tell you how many articles I see where it's basically people saying "I found this list from the 5-0 postings, now watch me go 2-3 with it and show how aggressively mediocre it is! Better yet, buy all the cards from us and try it yourself!
At least Goldfish is upfront with its deck techs and articles: "Here's this wonky, weird thing! Let's see if we can win a match with it!"
Serious question/TLDR: If the neoform deck gets handled by Modern(which is a possibility), is the road for possible unbans more open than ever? Isn't it a kind of hypocrisy to keep a disruptable turn 4(!!) deck in the banlist, or a turn 3 tap out twice to play a 4/4 lifelink vigilance on the BanList?
The modern banlist has looked like a joke for a very long time, IMO. Even at the very outset of the twin ban I was 50/50 on whether the ban was justified and it has always felt like a "rotation" ban. I feel that WotC's policy on Modern has become much, much more hands off in the last couple of years, perhaps in the spirit of them already planning for the upcoming nonrotating format and wanting to give Modern more of the Legacy treatment.
In general I have never found the banlist as sacred as many other people here deem it and would like them to be more active in both banning and unbanning of cards. Especially Stoneforge Mystic could have come off a long time ago.
Fair enough. In that case, I don't know how good the Neoform deck actually is yet. It's the exact kind of deck I did NOT want to see spawn from WAR, but we've had low tier turn 2 kill decks for a long time. It'll depend on whether this is another Cheerios or another preban Amulet.
Next to that, I don't think Modern being able to handle A says much about whether it could handle B. If powerlevel is the only thing you look at, fairness of a card says nothing about whether it should be banned or not; if Neoform is fine but every single fair deck turns into Stoneforge Mystic decks then SFM is clearly detrimental to the format.
We have gone 0 days without mention of a new eternal format to kill modern.
Modern remains high in online viewership, paper play at GPs and SCGs, and WOTC can continue to make money through modern-focused sets. Legacy's issues with support come from one source - the reserved list. If WOTC is going to back off modern, they can at least expand the reserved list so those of us left standing have valuable collections and decks. Otherwise, modern isn't leaving any time soon.
Who the hell says anything about killing Modern? A new nonrotating format has been confirmed and it would be beyond foolish of WotC to not have RnD look at initial balance issues; hell, the community can't even agree on the right starting set for it.
Ban policy appears to have shifted, this coincides with RnD preparing the upcoming nonrotating format. No mention of impending doom.
I'm still convinced that the Neoform deck is too inconsistent even with the new mulligan rule. It's a deck that needs 4 cards to combo off (aka good luck against discard), can't beat a counterspell G1 except with speed or preboarding, has 3 dead draws (2 Griselbrand and the wincon), and has the possibility of fizzling by not drawing Shoal.
People are reporting T1, T2 kills on MTGO. Here's the thing: hearing lots of reports of T1 kills just means people are playing lots of games with Neoform. Which is to be expected, since it's a shiny new card. It doesn't tell you anything about how consistently those kills happen.
That said, while I don't think the deck is broken, it fits a criterion for, shall we say, objectionable. Namely, the "turn one: make a huge play. If you can beat it, you win; if not, I win" gameplay that has been stated as not something the designers want to encourage in Modern.
If you literally won as soon as you casted Neoform or Evolution on Rider then the deck would be too broken, but as it stands now, you still have to play the purely luck-based subgame of "will I draw my Shoals". That's both a good and bad thing: good because the subgame has the effect of tanking the deck's win rate compared to a hypothetical world where resolving Neoform/Evo is an immediate win, bad because that drop in win rate is in the hands of luck, not skill.
Before I say that it's broken and should be banned, even like the people playing it online are saying, let me say I really cannot wait to see it on camera / big events... Hopefully this weekend? Haven't really looked at the schedule. Lemme give you a run down of a match I can't believe I won last night.
Game 1: I'm on the draw. Opponent draws 7 cards, keeps, kills me on turn 1 with Lab Man.
Game 2: I play a plains, pass. Opponent combos off again with a natural 7, I path his griselbrand, he ends up with 3 riders in play and at like 27 life.
Turn 2: I play a plains and pass. His Turn 2, attacks me with 3 riders, Survive until turn 3.
Turn 3: I top deck Runed Halo, name Rider, his Lab Man is in the GY from discard (that was probably not smart) he concedes.
Game 3: He plays island Serum Visions, passes (I DID IT!) I play a ghost quarter and a Grafdigger's Cage and he concedes
His biggest mistake was killing me on turn 1 in game 1 before I did anything because he had no idea what I was playing. RIP.
Before I say that it's broken and should be banned, even like the people playing it online are saying, let me say I really cannot wait to see it on camera / big events... Hopefully this weekend? Haven't really looked at the schedule. Lemme give you a run down of a match I can't believe I won last night.
Game 1: I'm on the draw. Opponent draws 7 cards, keeps, kills me on turn 1 with Lab Man.
Game 2: I play a plains, pass. Opponent combos off again with a natural 7, I path his griselbrand, he ends up with 3 riders in play and at like 27 life.
Turn 2: I play a plains and pass. His Turn 2, attacks me with 3 riders, Survive until turn 3.
Turn 3: I top deck Runed Halo, name Rider, his Lab Man is in the GY from discard (that was probably not smart) he concedes.
Game 3: He plays island Serum Visions, passes (I DID IT!) I play a ghost quarter and a Grafdigger's Cage and he concedes
His biggest mistake was killing me on turn 1 in game 1 before I did anything because he had no idea what I was playing. RIP.
This is extremely high-variance play and very poor play patterns. I sincerely hope I never see this deck in person.
You can't side with a lifetime sworn ENEMY. Tron haters for life!
Anywho, I agree with you and Bearscape, Bearscape that the Modern banlist has been a joke for a while now and you that the Neoform deck being around probably just laughs in the face of lesser cards that will remain banned cuz...I guess Preordain makes Storm win 99% of its matches, Stoneforge Mystic makes UW Control the only viable deck, Green Sun's Zenith (which seemingly has a grave with Finale of Destruction printed) makes Elves unbeatable, while Splinter Twin would take up 50% of the meta if unbanned? I guess those are reasons to keep these cards on the banlist a bit longer...
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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)
Can't comment much because haven't encountered the Allosaurus deck here in our store.
However, by reading the comments here.. glad that my main modern deck has 8 discard in the main. The allosaurus combo seems fast, and will happen before turn 4 unless disrupted right away.
This line about Phoenix not existing at the time always bugs me. Sure that specific deck didn't exist, but there has been a deck trying to do those things pretty much at all times since the format existed. The specifics may be new, but at any point in Modern if you were designing hate cards, something that shuts it down would have been an obvious inclusion.
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
URStormRU
GRTitanshift[mana]RG/mana]
so like for instance both deck A and B win before turn 4 10% of the time, but deck A does it turn 1 and B does it turn 3. without any other information deck A is clearly stronger. i get that the example isnt very realistic, but the point is that lumping turns 1-3 together is only so useful in deck by deck comparisons.
of the enablers in the combo, chancellor of the tangle stands out because its fast mana for only turn 1. ill admit ive never even seen the card before this deck (i knew a chancellor cycle existed, but yeh). guess it just speaks to the depth of the card pool.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Spirits
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Keep in mind, that Lab Man plays around Leyline, which is relevant.
It needs the London Mulligan rule the most, without it, its mulligans are way worse.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
So far, our only relevant result is a 30th place finish at an MTGO Challenge (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-challenge-2019-04-30), which isn't the most convincing datapoint. I encourage everyone to be very skeptical of Twitch streamers, article authors, pros, and Twitter/Reddit personalities who speak publicly on this issue. These people aren't necessarily wrong, dishonest, or misleading. But their position gives them extreme incentive to oversell, misrepresent, or outright lie about big issues if it results in clicks, views, popularity, revenue, etc. If such figures are not citing their sources or making supported arguments, that should be a bright red flag.
Very much so. I actually dropped a number of those writers from my follow post because it became clear they just wanted to push bad decks to sell stuff.
At what point did we start calling people 'influencers' instead of shills?
Spirits
At least Goldfish is upfront with its deck techs and articles: "Here's this wonky, weird thing! Let's see if we can win a match with it!"
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
The modern banlist has looked like a joke for a very long time, IMO. Even at the very outset of the twin ban I was 50/50 on whether the ban was justified and it has always felt like a "rotation" ban. I feel that WotC's policy on Modern has become much, much more hands off in the last couple of years, perhaps in the spirit of them already planning for the upcoming nonrotating format and wanting to give Modern more of the Legacy treatment.
In general I have never found the banlist as sacred as many other people here deem it and would like them to be more active in both banning and unbanning of cards. Especially Stoneforge Mystic could have come off a long time ago.
Next to that, I don't think Modern being able to handle A says much about whether it could handle B. If powerlevel is the only thing you look at, fairness of a card says nothing about whether it should be banned or not; if Neoform is fine but every single fair deck turns into Stoneforge Mystic decks then SFM is clearly detrimental to the format.
We have gone 0 days without mention of a new eternal format to kill modern.
Modern remains high in online viewership, paper play at GPs and SCGs, and WOTC can continue to make money through modern-focused sets. Legacy's issues with support come from one source - the reserved list. If WOTC is going to back off modern, they can at least expand the reserved list so those of us left standing have valuable collections and decks. Otherwise, modern isn't leaving any time soon.
Ban policy appears to have shifted, this coincides with RnD preparing the upcoming nonrotating format. No mention of impending doom.
People are reporting T1, T2 kills on MTGO. Here's the thing: hearing lots of reports of T1 kills just means people are playing lots of games with Neoform. Which is to be expected, since it's a shiny new card. It doesn't tell you anything about how consistently those kills happen.
That said, while I don't think the deck is broken, it fits a criterion for, shall we say, objectionable. Namely, the "turn one: make a huge play. If you can beat it, you win; if not, I win" gameplay that has been stated as not something the designers want to encourage in Modern.
If you literally won as soon as you casted Neoform or Evolution on Rider then the deck would be too broken, but as it stands now, you still have to play the purely luck-based subgame of "will I draw my Shoals". That's both a good and bad thing: good because the subgame has the effect of tanking the deck's win rate compared to a hypothetical world where resolving Neoform/Evo is an immediate win, bad because that drop in win rate is in the hands of luck, not skill.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Game 1: I'm on the draw. Opponent draws 7 cards, keeps, kills me on turn 1 with Lab Man.
Game 2: I play a plains, pass. Opponent combos off again with a natural 7, I path his griselbrand, he ends up with 3 riders in play and at like 27 life.
Turn 2: I play a plains and pass. His Turn 2, attacks me with 3 riders, Survive until turn 3.
Turn 3: I top deck Runed Halo, name Rider, his Lab Man is in the GY from discard (that was probably not smart) he concedes.
Game 3: He plays island Serum Visions, passes (I DID IT!) I play a ghost quarter and a Grafdigger's Cage and he concedes
His biggest mistake was killing me on turn 1 in game 1 before I did anything because he had no idea what I was playing. RIP.
This is extremely high-variance play and very poor play patterns. I sincerely hope I never see this deck in person.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Anywho, I agree with you and Bearscape, Bearscape that the Modern banlist has been a joke for a while now and you that the Neoform deck being around probably just laughs in the face of lesser cards that will remain banned cuz...I guess Preordain makes Storm win 99% of its matches, Stoneforge Mystic makes UW Control the only viable deck, Green Sun's Zenith (which seemingly has a grave with Finale of Destruction printed) makes Elves unbeatable, while Splinter Twin would take up 50% of the meta if unbanned? I guess those are reasons to keep these cards on the banlist a bit longer...
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)However, by reading the comments here.. glad that my main modern deck has 8 discard in the main. The allosaurus combo seems fast, and will happen before turn 4 unless disrupted right away.
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