MTG Salvation

Tron crushes control. The one time that I did better than 50% vs tron was when I was playing UW with 4x spreading seas, 4x field of ruin, 1x ghost quarter and 2x gideon of the trials. You either suck up the loss to tron or play a different deck.

Against mill, people were playing one eldrazi in the sideboard.

Here's Larsson's article: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/my-preparation-for-pro-tour-25th-anniversary-and-u-w-miracles/

I was actually playing the 4 ancestral 4 snap 4 cryptic 4 terminus list, since truckis(Larsson's friend) streamed a modern challenge and got 2nd. I went on a 22-3 winning streak with it in the friendly leagues. But have since cooled down to a 62% win rate (still friendly leagues). I think I won that much because I had some sick miracle draws and I faced a lot of creature decks. But I haven't been drawing those timely terminus as much, and people are playing around it more often (no more 6 for 1s). Also terminus destroys spirits which has now went down in popularity. I've currently switched to the Lax PT list since I wanted to try something different as I wasn't getting 4 to 5 wins as much.

I guess there are two schools of thought. Play a high Variance deck where you hope your draws line up, as modern is linear in nature (so these people advocate the terminus and/or ancestral). Play a consistent 45-50% deck have game versus everything (Nassif, heatchecker) , then increase your win percentage with white sideboard cards.

I think UW is a good deck in general so you are not a bad person for picking either version.

Heat checker was streaming recently and he had a pretty impartial opinion. All versions of UW are good (it's the best blue based control deck). There's not much percentage points difference between Miracles and seas/verdict versions. Seas is better vs tron and GDS, and terminus version is worse vs GDS but better vs graveyard recursion decks. With how well both versions do, it seems like a meta call.

Quote from idSurge »

Modern MTGO Challenge.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-challenge-2018-07-22

Knightfall (keep that dream alive with Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants!)

The guy was drunk and meant to play Gideon, Ally of Zendikar.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernMagic/comments/90zvi8/4c_knightfall_modern_challenge/

Quote from ktkenshinx »

Lots of ideas, lots of data to pick through. What are people interested in?

I've seen it mentioned several times on social media that modern is too fast to care about card advantage and card quality is more important. So that's why more fair decks are playing faithless looting (Mardu and now GDS), being down a card doesn't matter as much if it gets you closer to your more impactful cards.

Is there a way to quantify that? What's the actual average kill turn in modern? How many cards does the loser end up with when the game is over?

Jund only plays 1 maybe 2 terminates, so switching to a card that does not kill tasigur is not going to make jund cry.

The problem with UW is not that path gives people extra land, or that we need additional removal spells to beat creature decks.

The problem with UW is the linear decks who try to kill us on turn 4 (dredge, storm, hollow one, breach, bogles). We need a better unconditional counter spell and a to a lesser extent a better life gain card that you can main deck.

Black helps against the blue based combo deck with discard, but discard sucks if you don't have a clock. If you're playing black, one of the best cards is liliana of the veil. Liliana forces you to play a more proactive game forcing your opponents to react than trying to answer all of the opponent's threats. Then you're playing less sweet instant speed cards like counters and snapcasters. Then it's like why aren't you playing jund or some shadow deck?

If you wanted to play some UBw version, i'd go with this list Shaun McLaren tried out a month ago. And make some tweaks to it.

Quote from darkvoidman »

Thinking picking up the deck(pyro titi version cause i dont have the combo).My main consern is jund how good is young pyro vs jund ,and how good is titi?Also how you guys deal with veil ?

If you want to beat jund you should play the hard control version, where you make most of their removal spells bad, and liliana's edict less of a back breaking thing. Also to hedge against jund you can main deck an entrancing melody over a clique.

Jund has too many ways to mess with pyromancer (removal, discard it or your spells) and it's a bad top deck. Ideally you'd play pyromancer on turn 4 and kill something, double cantrip, or both.

I've played a version of this deck where it had 3 YPs, and 3 TITIs. The non-bo of those two cards didn't come up that much. However you probably want to play one or the other not both. They're both really powerful two drops so you want to pick one and just play 4 of it so you have a better chance of drawing it.

The way to beat liliana is to not let the jund opponent get value out of her. You don't want them to get edict value. You don't want them to plus her with no cards in their hand. You don't want to throw multiple cards away to get her off the table. Against liliana, and jund in general, you want to keep track of how you trade cards with them.

If you're on the draw, don't slam your two drop creature on turn 2, if the opponent plays turn 3 liliana and edicts you, you just got wrecked. Then on your turn 3 you bolt the liliana, the liliana just got 2 cards, your bolt and creature. That's like the super basic obvious situation to not put yourself in.

If you get edicted, you can get back on card parody if you had an electrolyze. In that instance you traded your 2 drop for their liliana, and cycled an electrolyze (which is card neutral).

Also something to think about is how strong are the cards in your hand. If you are flooded, or have weak/dead cards like opt/remand blood moon, then it might be worth letting the opponent tick up the liliana so you're both trading cards. If your opponent trades their spell for your land with the liliana discard, that's a great trade for you, as you'll have better top decking equity than them. Then you can bolt/snap bolt the liliana at 6 counters, or you can bolt/electrolyze a liliana at 5 counters, and come out even on card parody.

Jace, Cryptic, Snapcaster, electrolyze, clique, young pryomancer are the cards that can help you beat a resolved liliana.

Here is a pretty good article about the archetype:

https://www.massdrop.com/talk/3551/blue-moon-at-gp-phoenix?utm_source=mtg&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=talkposts&utm_term=15572

It doesn't seem like there is a consensus of the best version of this deck, 1) breach, 2) two drop creatures (YP, TITI), 3) madcap, or 4) hard control. Kiki Jiki appears to be ruled out of the conversation.

The article advocates for the hard control version, and gives solid reasoning. However the hard control version has some bad match ups (linear aggro decks, eldrazi, bogles, and hollow one). The madcap combo is solid vs eldrazi and hollow one. Thing in the ice is good against all three of those decks.

With that said, it seems like which version to play is more of a meta call. You can also build your sideboard to have multiple angles of attack.

Quote from micarc »

Any tip/suggestion (on the decklist too)

Cut cards for two more lands if you're not playing serum visions.

Comment Hidden

Traditionally speaking, the deck has never wanted mainboard discard because you're trying to get to turn 20 before winning with rev > zenith.
Things are a little bit different these days, but fundamentally, you are still trying to play a long game.
The nature of playing a pile of lands over everyone else in the format means you need to draw that many more cards in order to balance out on interaction for their threats.
The more cards you add that neither draw cards nor (reliably) answer something, the more you stress the card advantage you already have.
The nature of planeswalkers means that discard is probably better now than its ever been, but you are still fundamentally trying to play a long game, which discard doesn't work well with, not to mention the fact that thoughtseize causes lifeloss (while iok/duress miss a lot of important things we're scared of), discard doesnt require them to spend mana, and lets them spend their turn still deploying a threat, and of course the fact that a lot of the format is simply not that weak to discard, especially discard thats not on turn 1/2.
Its better in the board because its functional (but not great) in a lot of matchups (shadow, tron, etc) where some of our interaction is very bad (cryptic command, supreme verdict) so making the swap lets us keep the same amount of interaction post board.

Just went 3-0-1 tonight using 2x Puzzle Box and 4x Narset.

Matchups:

UW vs UW = Draw
UW vs UW = 2-0 Win
UW vs BG Midrange = 2-1 Win
UW vs Waste Not Brew = 2-1 Win

Overall Puzzle box was great, even on its own it digs towards the combo and allows for filtering. We also play a lot of instant speed maindeck so we can respond to the trigger. Being able to curve out Narset into puzzle box on an empty board can virtually win the game on the spot, its a really nice thing to have access to in UW. Sanitarium was amazing all night, highly recommend this with 4x Narset.

Quote from SpeedGrapher »

Does anyone have any long term speculation targets on cards prices for this set? Such as X card is good and it's under $5. Or X card is only $15 better get it while you can. For me the set seems price out already with no real targets. I wouldn't speculate on anything more $5 or else even long term I wouldn't make that much money. All of the mythics are obvious targets. Does anyone one have a few long term targets at rare ? Everyday I look at the prices and they keep decreasing so the set isn't even at bottom price yet. Bottom price is usually a month or two after release. I'm personally wondering how low they can go. I'm looking at the bottom 30 rares in the set all priced in the $1 to $2 range. That's a lot of low value cards. So clearly players aren't going to feel the singles price. Some of those Canopy lands are at $13.

Well, recents metagame developments have reenforced the saying "Always invest in pitch spells" - I'd buy up all the forces in this set, they *will* gain value a few years down the road. The horizon lands, too, will probably always be in demand. Also, the full art snow lands. People love full art lands, and I'm sure Snow.dec will have its time in the sun in the near future.

You also don't need Snow-Covered Plains for OTI, it goes on any snow land. You just need one of your early fetches to be a Snow-Covered Island, and to also have a white source to cast OTI.

Quote from user-100015232 »

buying this set basically feels like getting mugged by a cop. a few cool cards I want to play with, but a lot of filler.

That's every single set ever, though. You either draft or buy singles

The set is called "Modern Horizons".

You can lawyer it all you want that they tEcHnIcAlLy never said it was purely a Modern set, but when we get cards that are clearly designed for commander, people will feel robbed. I've seen plenty of people make the "Commander Horizons" joke, which although I think is way too cynical shows that there are a lot of people who are disappointed in sharing the spotlight. Commander gets their own product every year; those cards aren't even Modern legal AND have brought Legacy cards like True-Name Nemesis, Council's Judgment and Leovold which are design disasters for a 1v1 format. Add to that the two-month silence between the spoilers of Serra/Cabal Therapist and the rest and you fuel false expectations even if you don't set it black on white.

I don't even really want to argue this point because as I said I'm satisfied with the set, but these apparent 5c Commander precon rejects are a blight on an otherwise good product.

EDIT: Leovold and Council's Judgment actually weren;t in commander precons now I think about it, but they were originally in sets designed for multiplayer

I won't touch Generous Gift personally. It sounds like a terrible idea to spend a card on a permanent and give them a creature to kill me with then have to kill that creature before it actually kills me. I am not sure how many cards all that requires, but it seems like a lot that I don't want to waste. Instant part isn't worth all that. I would rather find a sideboard card for the actual problem instead of a generic one that creates another.

We have path, on thin ice, oust, condemn and more for creatures.
We have field of ruin for problematic lands.
We have detention sphere and counterspells, teferi bounce for nonland permanents.

If something goes through, well tough *****, it happens.

eh i just read that nassif article and tbh i dont think its worth much credence. nassif is a UW control master no doubt, but he has a penchant for unconventional card choices. also his analysis is just surface level and noncommittal since he admits to not even testing any of the cards yet. that and the click-baity title has me thinking its forced content from CFB having the 'control guy' just put something out there.

like he admits that his evaluation of FoF is based on him being big on glimmer of genius for a while; a card that saw intermittent play but was never adopted as standard tech in any UWx control deck. though i will acknowledge his point on it being able to play through an opposing narset; which may be very relevant to someone like nassif who has to prepare against a tournament meta riddled with UW.

i do agree with his rationale of cutting colonnades. the card just isnt carrying as much weight as it once did, and the liability of a ETB tapped land became more pronounced. whether 'cutting' means going down to 1-2 or 0 im less confidant about. i remember a random UW list showing up at some point last year with no colonnades, a lower land count, and mishra's bauble including (some number i cant recall) monastery mentors. i thought it was a novel idea, but never explored it beyond that.

the big question mark with archmage's charm is: can you play it and field of ruin? (with it still being good) field is one of those innocuous things that has acted as a pillar of this decks success for over a year now, making it hard to see UW control without it unless there is a major divergence in builds. blast zone is also strong, but until proven to be much more impactful than i believe it is, its kind of a 1-A flex inclusion.

5-8? She is a 1-2 of. But she plays best with, again a tapout style control deck.

I think she will be strong, on the same tier as Kalitas at 4.

Quote from Aeonsz »

I understand that many of you will disagree, but I have yet to see a single main deck playable level card spoiled from MH1, excluding the slivers and the canopy land cycle.

1. Card evaluators are notoriously inconsistent. As a recent example, the overwhelming majority of card reviewers had no idea just how impactful Arclight Phoenix would be in late 2018. It singlehandedly created a Tier 1 archetype. Almost everyone missed it. Just like many missed Narset in WAR. This means we need to treat early card evaluations skeptically.

2. Acknowledging point 1, I expect the following cards to see some degree of MD play in various Tier 1-2 decks: Giver (D&T, E&T), Archmage's Charm (Ux), Fact or Fiction (Mono U Tron), FoN (Ux, especially Ux with creatures), Lava Dart (Phoenix), Collector Ouphe (CoCo/Chord decks), Scale Up (Infect), Eladamri's Call (Devoted Company), Scrapyard Recombiner (Hardened ScaleS), and, as you said, Canopy Lands (everywhere).

3. Dozens of cards will see play in various lower tier strategies, potentially improving their playability. There are also tons of cards that create brewing potential. Examples include, but are not limited to, all the Slivers, many of the Goblins, Urza/Sword/Thopter, Urza/Architect, Pillage in Ponza, Seasoned Pyromancer in Mardu, Wrenn and Six in something (cycling lands will make this excellent), Kess in Grixis, etc.

4. Dozens more cards will see significant and impactful SB play. It is important to acknowledge SB cards as much, if not more than, MD cards. It's less obvious to do so, but 2/3 of all competitive Modern games are impacted by SB cards and just as game-defining as MD cards. Force of Vigor alone is huge, as is FoN even just as a SB card.

Ever since what feels like day 3 of previews, I've seen a significant amount of unwarranted negativity around this set. Part of this is probably Wizards' fault by failing to communicate expectations appropriately. But a big responsibility still lies with players, who just are setting expectations unreasonably high for a product that never promised to meet those expectations. Wizards was fairly clear in their articles that the product needs to meet Modern, Commander, Cube, and draft experiences at the same time. Wizards also doesn't need to do deliberate, heavy-handed shakeups of Modern in a format that has evolved organically with every new set. We don't need a Modern TNN or Leovold experiment that totally reshapes the format.

The only notable omissions at this time, that I still expect to happen, would be:
1. BGx throwbacks/reprints/fixes (e.g. Hymn, Deluge, Deed, DRS, etc.)
2. Iconic eternal card throwbacks/fixes (e.g. Wasteland, Brainstorm, Swords to Plowshares, Daze)
3. Graveyard hate