Is anybody even playing 26, still? Even UW (which has a higher curve than this deck) is running 25, and some lists have dropped to 24 + Crucible. You also have several times the card draw in this deck, which makes for a higher effective land density.
I can see 24 being scary for some people, especially the ones not running Serum Visions or Opt. 26 just sounds antiquated, though.
Speaking of old cards coming back, with Eldrazi and Death's Shadow losing so much market share, I've been seeing more and more UW(x) lists running 1-of Spell Snares. I'm not a fan of running singletons of conditional cards unless they have high ceilings, but it could be that Snare fits in as part of the early gameplan at 2-4 copies.
Well, I'm assuming everyone is at least testing Azcanta. The more I see the card in action, the more I'm sure the ideal deck for it utilizes more prison elements, possibly the UW Spreading Seas package. Still we have options available like Remand and Shadow of Doubt to slow games down. In a sense, the original gameplan of this deck was to draw the game out indefinitely, which is why cards that don't trade with mana and not spells (Remand and Shadow of Doubt) were occupying the flex slots.
It's possible the deck doesn't have enough come-back spells to make up for the sorcery, but Think Twice sets a pretty low bar. Like Borlow mentioned, the games where your only card draw is 1 or 2 Think Twice and you run out of gas before your opponent in the late game are the most frustrating.
Random tangent, but I saw an interview once where they asked Forsythe about whether they thought Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise would be broken in eternal formats. He shrugged and said something like "We figured they'd be good", which in my mind implies they just never tested them. Future league only gives a damn about Standard; I suppose that means there's hope we'll get more busted draw spells that are broken in Modern.
Yea it sucks they’re choking out data but I can understand potentially why - it creates an overbearing culture of inbred metagames, which doesn’t explore possibilities of new decks very often.
Nah, they just want less pressure on them to ban cards in imbalanced Standard after imbalanced Standard. A lot of good it did them; a few months later it's happening all over again.
Personally I think the nerfs to spells make it so there's never going to be metagame diversity in Standard for long. The best cards are all creatures or planeswalkers, so the best decks will always be an assortment of midrange piles. 24 creatures, 8 removal spells, 24 land, and a couple of flex slots. Same deck, different flavors. Been like this since Revelation rotated and they stopped printing Titans and Doom Blades. It's funny that they blamed Aetherworks Marvel for ruining Standard, when after they banned it the same midrange core minus the combo was still the best deck in Standard. Combo decks can have clearly defined weaknesses, but not when they get to play 20+ creatures as Plan B.
The current Caleb Schreier Storm plan against Esper is roughly:
bring out the Electromancers, Opt, 2- 4 Gifts Ungiven, 1 PiF, 0-1 Noxious Revival, 1 Grapeshot
bring in a couple Gigadrowse, a Wipe Away or 2, dispel if they have it, 2-3 empty the warrens, 2-4 pieces of the puzzle
Storm honestly won’t expect their dudes to be living long so they likely won’t jam them on T2 unless you only have a W mana up AND they have a second one in hand. They’re gonna try to get the PtE ramp from your auto-response.
Their game plan is essentially going to be “hit land drops and cantrip to sculpt the perfect hand”, they’ll play Baral on the combo turn because all of their mana acceleration is instant speed so they can respond to removal on the stack.
Reason im saying all of that: Surgical on a sizable portion of that list isn’t likely against a higher-level storm player, because they either boarded out some or all copies of the cards. And to that point prior: surgical on Grapeshot or EtW means you made them discard it previously, because if they went off then chances are you died.
Just my $0.02, like we discussed a few pages back, Storm is a difficult MU for the deck unless you make a conscious decision to pack your 75 with hate.
Them holding their Baral's for the combo turn is helpful information. I'm not sure how often that's the case, but I can see how at a large event the Storm players you see late would actually pilot the deck in that way. I'd been debating whether Path was worth it post-board.
I think Storm is a deck with a high win rate that just gets underplayed. Now that Wizards butchered the MODO League data, it's difficult to really tell what decks are on top, anyway. They even went after GP data, and don't release Top 32 lists anymore, according to Chapin.
I wonder how many people on this forum play in MODO (Competitive) Leagues? A Google document with a list of decks encountered would be a great tool. There was a time when I swore a third of the decks I face were Death's Shadow, but these days just form watching streams it seems to be less than 10%.
You're looking at what answers they have; I'm looking at what threats and/or card advantage. I played UWR for long enough to know how ineffective blue midrange is against decks like that.
Seems interesting that a list like that could perform so well, but I suppose scooping to Eldrazi is OK if you beat Death's Shadow every time. I'd also be a bit worried about beating the creature swarm decks, since you have only a few removal spells to disrupt combos, almost no way to snowball (which is what you expect from an actual Control deck), and only 10 creatures to provide a clock.
It kind of reminds me of Sam Black's Delverless Delver deck, but applied to Esper Death's Shadow, instead. Beats up on creature decks that are smaller than it, but loses to anything going over the top of it. I'd rather play Jeskai Flash if I was going to go that route, though.
Seeing Lingering Souls being put to work does make me wonder about the Search for Azcanta synergies. Biggest problem with Lingering Souls is that it's ultimately useless defensively since it trades with so little in the format. It does chump-block the hell out out of every deck, though. Azcanta can mill over copies, making it cheaper to cast, and it would provide a clock against combo decks, allowing you to win by chaining counterspells without necessarily drawing something like Runed Halo or tapping out for Colonnade repeatedly.
Nothing about it is Draw-go, but an Esper version of UW built around Azcanta could utilize it. The planeswalker synergies with Lingering Souls are always great.
I know its just an example but verdict handles empty the warrens. Multiple bridges would be bad but what did you do with your counterspells that they got multiples out? And how many decks actually play bridge? This seems corner case and not a reason to maindeck a sphere.
The noncreature nonenchantment cards that cause grief are basically planeswalkers like lotv and nahiri. If one of these slips through you have a limited window in which to deal with them so its not going to be "late game detention sphere". Itll be turn five or six detention sphere passing with 2-3 mana up which is a relatively vulnerable place to be as a draw-go deck.
I mean the card can never be terrible, but it also doesnt really stick to the draw-go script so will create tension that you may rather avoid. Im ok with the tension on runed halo because its such a great card vs valakut and does work vs stuff like grapeshot and eidolon - I dont see the same gamebreaking application of a sphere.
I wouldn't maindeck Sphere, but in the sideboard it does well. The specific thing that made me adopt it was Storm, where it answered (multiple) Blood Moons and Empty the Warrens, making it the best answer you have to both of the angles of attack post-board. When you're trying to get out of a Blood Moon lock, the nail in the coffin is usually when they drop the second; this kills them both in 1 shot.
It kills the same things as Celestial Purge, but also answers Lingering Souls. It even turns Cryptic Command into a cantrip sweeper against tokens.
I imagine if you Teaching into Hurkyl's Recall, you'll untap hellbent and pass turn while they replay everything. But maybe I'm wrong, here.
What are people hitting with Surgical that makes it good v. Storm? Are you removing Empty or Grapeshot after they cast it already? I can see Thoughtseize -> Surgical if you manage to set it up, but if Surgical is only happening once they've already tried to go off I'm just not seeing how that's worth it.
Not sure if Burn is worth more than the Collective Brutalities I already run, or how many of each effect is necessary to have a reliable post-board plan. Rule of Law works against both Storm and Ad Nauseum, and Runed Halo/NoSB have multiple archetypes they lock out; Burn hate tends to only work against Burn.
Like I was saying, I haven't had the time to test any of it out. It's possible there's even a "spell-hate" package that combines a soft-lock of sorts, similar to Thopter-Sword against creature decks.
I've said this a lot on this forum but, once again, it's not "proactive or reactive" that matters, it's how many mechanics in your deck allow you to snowball or lock your opponent out. When people are saying "reactive" they really mean to say 1-for-1 answers that trade with their opponent's cards. People assume that card advantage engines have to be necessarily be "proactive" when cards like Counterbalance are reactive by definition.
Perhaps the act of casting Counterbalance turn 2 against a Storm deck is considered proactive? It's all just semantics, anyway.
In Standard you only have to worry about beating creature decks, therefore you only need a standard disruption package and draw spells or planeswalkers to snowball the game. This is what UW is doing in Modern. It's built like a Standard Control deck and basically forfeits the game 1 against combo. As a result, Storm became a popular deck and all the UW pilots jumped ship (presumably to play Jeskai Flash).
In Modern and Legacy, combo is nearly 50% of the metagame. Counterbalance (the only successful Control deck in either format) had Counterbalance + Top to lock out Combo decks and Terminus and Entreat to wreck the creature decks. Believe me when I say that Terminus and Entreat was all that was needed to wreck the Delver decks; Counterbalance was something you actively sided out in those Abrupt Decay matchups. 4 Swords + 4 1-mana Wraths was completely broken against the Delver decks, and playing Miracles against those decks felt like you were going to win automatically unless they managed to "pull some kinda *****". Don't even get me started on the games where you realized you had Entreat for 2 and everything they had done up until that point no longer mattered... The current Miracles list is just as good against the Delver decks, it just doesn't matter because it no longer has a gameplan for Combo matchups.
We can easily pile spot removal in this deck, just like Miracles. Run 6 spot removal, 4 Supreme Verdict, cut Cryptic and run Careful Consideration or other draw spells and I'm sure you'll be 80/20 against Death Shadow (well I don't know if 80/20 is possible against a Thoughtseize deck, but something ridiculous). What's needed is a way to be 60/40 in all of the combo matchups.
I'm sure most people will go on about how their combo matchups are good because they can draw a bunch of counterspells or whatever, but that's just no possible. You need something to lock them out, similar to Counterbalance. Snowballing disruption spells, which normally works for Draw-Go, doesn't work against decks that can win through all kinds of disruption by turn 5. If Runed Halo worked more universally it might be the answer, but that would be like asking for a 1-card combo to lock out half the metagame.
I think the solution is to focus on crushing non-creature matchups in sideboard games with prison pieces tailored to matchup. I don't think Thoughtseize + Extraction is a plausible thing. I'm currently still trying the 3x Vendilion Clique + 2 Collective Brutality package that gives you access to 10 discard effects, but that clearly isn't world-shaking either. I've been trying to work on a list that uses lock pieces and Search for Azcanta for effectively, though due to some serious life changes I haven't been able to play since Azcanta even came out.
It looks like a Esper Flash deck that's missing 4-6 more creatures.
You have Geist of Saint Traft, but only 6 removal spells to remove the blockers.
Also, targeted discard is bad if you don't follow it up with a threat of some sort. Think of every game against Jund that they played triple Thoughtseize into nothing.
I think Stony on T2 is more important to me than NoSB on t4, even though I believe it’s a better Card against them in a vacuum.
I think me and my partner decided we are going to ship off most of the deck, U/x control doesn’t look to be an archetype with a long future ahead of it. Cards like Freebooter are just so good against us.
Obviously Stony Silence is the best card imaginable against Affinity. My point was that Affinity is an easy enough matchup that you could consider giving up points if you had it out for another archetype. If this humans deck was what you're worried about (deck seems to just be a Thalia deck that was hot on a weekend with a lot of Storm), I'd be willing to bet Night of Soul's Betrayal would make the match unlosable, if drawn. They either kill you with the early blitz, or their Champions, Thalia's Lieutenants, and Mayors are dead draws and they have to win with a bunch of Grizzly Bears.
Of course if you're just "done" with the archetype then no need to front. Control was never going to be Tier 1 in Modern and you were always going to be a temporary resident...
I can see 24 being scary for some people, especially the ones not running Serum Visions or Opt. 26 just sounds antiquated, though.
It's possible the deck doesn't have enough come-back spells to make up for the sorcery, but Think Twice sets a pretty low bar. Like Borlow mentioned, the games where your only card draw is 1 or 2 Think Twice and you run out of gas before your opponent in the late game are the most frustrating.
I think Storm is a deck with a high win rate that just gets underplayed. Now that Wizards butchered the MODO League data, it's difficult to really tell what decks are on top, anyway. They even went after GP data, and don't release Top 32 lists anymore, according to Chapin.
I wonder how many people on this forum play in MODO (Competitive) Leagues? A Google document with a list of decks encountered would be a great tool. There was a time when I swore a third of the decks I face were Death's Shadow, but these days just form watching streams it seems to be less than 10%.
It kind of reminds me of Sam Black's Delverless Delver deck, but applied to Esper Death's Shadow, instead. Beats up on creature decks that are smaller than it, but loses to anything going over the top of it. I'd rather play Jeskai Flash if I was going to go that route, though.
Seeing Lingering Souls being put to work does make me wonder about the Search for Azcanta synergies. Biggest problem with Lingering Souls is that it's ultimately useless defensively since it trades with so little in the format. It does chump-block the hell out out of every deck, though. Azcanta can mill over copies, making it cheaper to cast, and it would provide a clock against combo decks, allowing you to win by chaining counterspells without necessarily drawing something like Runed Halo or tapping out for Colonnade repeatedly.
Nothing about it is Draw-go, but an Esper version of UW built around Azcanta could utilize it. The planeswalker synergies with Lingering Souls are always great.
It kills the same things as Celestial Purge, but also answers Lingering Souls. It even turns Cryptic Command into a cantrip sweeper against tokens.
What are people hitting with Surgical that makes it good v. Storm? Are you removing Empty or Grapeshot after they cast it already? I can see Thoughtseize -> Surgical if you manage to set it up, but if Surgical is only happening once they've already tried to go off I'm just not seeing how that's worth it.
Not sure if Burn is worth more than the Collective Brutalities I already run, or how many of each effect is necessary to have a reliable post-board plan. Rule of Law works against both Storm and Ad Nauseum, and Runed Halo/NoSB have multiple archetypes they lock out; Burn hate tends to only work against Burn.
Like I was saying, I haven't had the time to test any of it out. It's possible there's even a "spell-hate" package that combines a soft-lock of sorts, similar to Thopter-Sword against creature decks.
Perhaps the act of casting Counterbalance turn 2 against a Storm deck is considered proactive? It's all just semantics, anyway.
In Standard you only have to worry about beating creature decks, therefore you only need a standard disruption package and draw spells or planeswalkers to snowball the game. This is what UW is doing in Modern. It's built like a Standard Control deck and basically forfeits the game 1 against combo. As a result, Storm became a popular deck and all the UW pilots jumped ship (presumably to play Jeskai Flash).
In Modern and Legacy, combo is nearly 50% of the metagame. Counterbalance (the only successful Control deck in either format) had Counterbalance + Top to lock out Combo decks and Terminus and Entreat to wreck the creature decks. Believe me when I say that Terminus and Entreat was all that was needed to wreck the Delver decks; Counterbalance was something you actively sided out in those Abrupt Decay matchups. 4 Swords + 4 1-mana Wraths was completely broken against the Delver decks, and playing Miracles against those decks felt like you were going to win automatically unless they managed to "pull some kinda *****". Don't even get me started on the games where you realized you had Entreat for 2 and everything they had done up until that point no longer mattered... The current Miracles list is just as good against the Delver decks, it just doesn't matter because it no longer has a gameplan for Combo matchups.
We can easily pile spot removal in this deck, just like Miracles. Run 6 spot removal, 4 Supreme Verdict, cut Cryptic and run Careful Consideration or other draw spells and I'm sure you'll be 80/20 against Death Shadow (well I don't know if 80/20 is possible against a Thoughtseize deck, but something ridiculous). What's needed is a way to be 60/40 in all of the combo matchups.
I'm sure most people will go on about how their combo matchups are good because they can draw a bunch of counterspells or whatever, but that's just no possible. You need something to lock them out, similar to Counterbalance. Snowballing disruption spells, which normally works for Draw-Go, doesn't work against decks that can win through all kinds of disruption by turn 5. If Runed Halo worked more universally it might be the answer, but that would be like asking for a 1-card combo to lock out half the metagame.
I think the solution is to focus on crushing non-creature matchups in sideboard games with prison pieces tailored to matchup. I don't think Thoughtseize + Extraction is a plausible thing. I'm currently still trying the 3x Vendilion Clique + 2 Collective Brutality package that gives you access to 10 discard effects, but that clearly isn't world-shaking either. I've been trying to work on a list that uses lock pieces and Search for Azcanta for effectively, though due to some serious life changes I haven't been able to play since Azcanta even came out.
You have Geist of Saint Traft, but only 6 removal spells to remove the blockers.
Also, targeted discard is bad if you don't follow it up with a threat of some sort. Think of every game against Jund that they played triple Thoughtseize into nothing.
Of course if you're just "done" with the archetype then no need to front. Control was never going to be Tier 1 in Modern and you were always going to be a temporary resident...