MTG Salvation

Stormkirk Mystic seems pretty busted if madnessed EOT. Two mana 3/2 trample with half the effect of a Prophetic Flamespeaker? Jeez
Maybe there's a viable Madness deck somewhere after Eldrich.


I'm not usually into Magic lore but I do find the Innistrad plane fascinating, so I have a question: I had the idea that Emrakul's influence is not unlike that of the Derelict Reaper in Mass Effect 2 (for those who have played that masterpiece), which contaminated the minds of all the tripulaction who lived inside him and make them go crazy. It was a long, insidious process.

But I see that Emrakul also makes people go all tentacly and alien (Emrakul's Evangel), much like the typical parasite tropes of films like The Faculty.

My question is, how does he also physically invade them and make people parasites similar to him, with her same appendages, and not only corrupts their minds?

Quote from rcwraspy »

Quote from Danteh »

Quote from rcwraspy »

Quote from Danteh »

Quote from rcwraspy »

All you've done is make a slightly worse Delver deck, though. Sure, Traverse has a couple of nice moments in that deck, but overall the deck would simply be better without it.

Um what? Have you tried the deck? And you are telling this to me, the actual creator of Shoal Delver (the version with Mandrils) to make a "worse" delver deck? I ditched Delver Shoal exactly because Delver is not good in modern (I'm a delver fanatic, but Brainstorm and Ponder are important). This deck has nothing to do with Delver, it's got quite long term/grindy plan if necessary, it tries to chain Snapcasters into the field and "create" 3 spells in a row with Traverse (Traverse-Snapcaster-Traverse-Snapcaster-Serum), removing counters from Thing, flipping it and getting value by using those Snaps again.

The other main plan is the deck's actual most powerful play: getting an Erayo lock, which is pretty easy to do on turn 3, but you only fetch her if the coast is clear.

It also plays Mishra's baubles which are unplayable in Delver shells (trust me, I tried) but here they also makes Goyfs much mbetter.

I mean, I think it's clear that you haven't played the deck, otherwise you would have picked up on the interactions- the deck is pretty hard to play.

But, again, what I find amusing is that you tell me, the creator of one of only competitive delver decks left in modern (tier 3, though) together with Grixis, to create a worse delver deck, when this has a completely different gameplan, much grindier and not looking to tempo-ing out the opponent.


PS: I also cannot insist enough on how worse the deck is without Traverse, it is the only card that I always ever want to draw. You assertion of "this deck would be better without Traverse" demonstrates a profound and a bit disconcerting lack of experience or basic knowledge on deckbuilding.

I'm sorry but I don't care what deck you think you created. The lines in this deck are easy to see, and overall it just feels lackluster. There are about 12-16 slots that should be upgraded to make the deck better, after which it's basically a Delver deck. If you like it and do well with it then fine, kudos to you. Modern has a large card pool and it's great to see people brew and do well at FNM.

What lines are obvious? Please do tell me.

This deck is in no way a tempo deck, it doesn't seek to protect a threat and win with it, it's a synergy deck which has an Erayo lock, some silver bullets for specific matchups, Thing against creature decks and to get maximum value with Traverse ans Snaps, incidentally huge goyfs, and unorthodox but EXTREMELY important lines like Gitaxian Probe - hold priority - Remand - Gitaxian Probe - "have drawn 2 cards"- cast any spell- flip Thing in 1 turn.

I've played Delver for as long as I can remember and this plays nothing like it, so don't argue on that front, son. In fact, please don't argue if you are not even going to play the game of Magic: the Gathering and just theorycraft, it never leads anywhere

First, calling a stranger on the internet "son" to demean them or bolster your own credibility is exceedingly lame.

Second, Remanding your own spell to up your cast count or dig an extra card deep is not unorthodox. People have been doing it since Remand was printed. If you sleeve that card up you better know that's a possibility if you need it.

And third, please don't assume someone doesn't play Magic just because they don't think your pet deck is competitively viable.

I hope you have fun with it and do well, but I believe you've included 12 to 16 cards that are simply downgrades from what could be in those slots. To each their own.

Remanding your spell to get off counters in Thing is quite unorthodox because almost nobody plays that card, and I just explained it to you because it's a line that you would clearly not get, as you call this deck "tempo" (which means you haven't played it)

And about having every deck being spoon fed to you, that is "la gota que colma el vaso" as we say in Spanish. You basically just stated that every new deck, every new synergy, and every new card is already known and that every new deck is not actually new, but is inmediately invented and solved as soon as it comes out. Meaning that, actually, there cannot be new decks in Modern, because everything has already been said and thought of and done. I think I don't have to say much more, lol. Betrayed by your keyboard, huh?

That Hymn to Tourach is very intriguing. Delirium is much harder to get than people think, and you'd want it by turn 2, and while spending only 1 mana to set it up on t1. Pretty hard, but something may be viable.

Rough sketch:

Traverse the Whispers




Lacks a bit of removal, but its a start

Quote from rcwraspy »

Quote from Danteh »

Quote from rcwraspy »

Quote from Danteh »

To all the people who say Traverse hasn't found the right shell... umm have you tried this deck? This is one of the manay possibilities, btw

DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
4 Tarmogoyf 4 Snapcaster Mage 4 Thing in the Ice 1 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant 1 Vendilion Clique	4 Serum Visions 4 Gitaxian Probe 4 Traverse the Ulvenwald 4 Mishra's Bauble 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Tarfire 4 Remand	18 Lands

It's really not that difficult to dedicate some hours to testing and see if something is good or not. This deck, for example is very very good, and can win against any of the tier 1 or 2 decks. It's not broken by any means, but it's just a good, synergic, competitive deck. Try it out if you want.

Also, Erayo flip is very easy to do with the deck and not something many decks can beat.

Cheers

All you've done is make a slightly worse Delver deck, though. Sure, Traverse has a couple of nice moments in that deck, but overall the deck would simply be better without it.

Um what? Have you tried the deck? And you are telling this to me, the actual creator of Shoal Delver (the version with Mandrils) to make a "worse" delver deck? I ditched Delver Shoal exactly because Delver is not good in modern (I'm a delver fanatic, but Brainstorm and Ponder are important). This deck has nothing to do with Delver, it's got quite long term/grindy plan if necessary, it tries to chain Snapcasters into the field and "create" 3 spells in a row with Traverse (Traverse-Snapcaster-Traverse-Snapcaster-Serum), removing counters from Thing, flipping it and getting value by using those Snaps again.

The other main plan is the deck's actual most powerful play: getting an Erayo lock, which is pretty easy to do on turn 3, but you only fetch her if the coast is clear.

It also plays Mishra's baubles which are unplayable in Delver shells (trust me, I tried) but here they also makes Goyfs much mbetter.

I mean, I think it's clear that you haven't played the deck, otherwise you would have picked up on the interactions- the deck is pretty hard to play.

But, again, what I find amusing is that you tell me, the creator of one of only competitive delver decks left in modern (tier 3, though) together with Grixis, to create a worse delver deck, when this has a completely different gameplan, much grindier and not looking to tempo-ing out the opponent.


PS: I also cannot insist enough on how worse the deck is without Traverse, it is the only card that I always ever want to draw. You assertion of "this deck would be better without Traverse" demonstrates a profound and a bit disconcerting lack of experience or basic knowledge on deckbuilding.

I'm sorry but I don't care what deck you think you created. The lines in this deck are easy to see, and overall it just feels lackluster. There are about 12-16 slots that should be upgraded to make the deck better, after which it's basically a Delver deck. If you like it and do well with it then fine, kudos to you. Modern has a large card pool and it's great to see people brew and do well at FNM.

What lines are obvious? Please do tell me.

This deck is in no way a tempo deck, it doesn't seek to protect a threat and win with it, it's a synergy deck which has an Erayo lock, some silver bullets for specific matchups, Thing against creature decks and to get maximum value with Traverse ans Snaps, incidentally huge goyfs, and unorthodox but EXTREMELY important lines like Gitaxian Probe - hold priority - Remand - Gitaxian Probe - "have drawn 2 cards"- cast any spell- flip Thing in 1 turn.

I've played Delver for as long as I can remember and this plays nothing like it, so don't argue on that front, son. In fact, please don't argue if you are not even going to play the game of Magic: the Gathering and just theorycraft, it never leads anywhere

Quote from izzetmage »

Quote from Danteh »

It is by far the best card of the set, just look at the Temur deck. It's pretty simple (and yes, that is the correct deck to put it on).

I think the deck will become more powerful with the Dryad, though.

Pigeon chess at its finest again. 6 Suicide Zoos vs 1 Temur and you're telling me that Temur is the right deck. 61 Nahiri decks vs 8 Traverse decks = Traverse is better than Nahiri.

If you're trolling, you're doing a damn good job at it.

I'm seriously thinking that you are the one trolling. I'm not talking about percentages, how the hell would that temur deck have a significant percentage? As far as I know, nobody plays it but me and some online buddies, and I don't usually share lists - Sam Blacks was pretty good too, but IMO Tireless Trackers is too slow for Modern. Why are you asserting that "amount of a card played at time X = how good it is"? This fact REALLY puzzles me

I feel like I don't really get you, sorry, you just always talk about data and stats and stuff, but do you actually test, or play? I mean, do you think Mono Blue Devotion in Standard was made by looking at already made decks and magically appeared? How do you think Chalice Eldrazi came to be? Don't you, for one second, imagine that decks are made by trying and playing games? I don't get this approach of just looking at websites, again, how can you know is something is good if nobody is even testing the deck? Do you think Pros just "pigeon chess" and are sometimes lucky?

I've played this deck for almost 3 months now, again, I'm no Pro, mainly cause I can't dedicate that time (I wish), but every time I get home and get some time to play, I do it with that. After more than 100 hours of testing and a whole lot of previous decks I've played over 10+ years of magic, this one is good. Not broken, but good.

I think we should just stop discussing because our mindsets are clearly too different, it's clear you are not the "let's disrupt the meta and try new cards with potential to see if they actually suck or not" type (I still wonder what that pigeon chess strutting is, I really hope you aren't refering to something as crucial in the world and in any kind of job as "innovation"), but that is fine too.

Quote from izzetmage »

Well, there's some good news to be had. Over the past few days Traverse the Ulvenwald has put up 3 more League 5-0s on mtgtop8, bringing the total number of Traverse decks to 8. In the same span of time Nahiri has jumped to 61 decks, and Insolent Neonate/Prized Amalgam 34/33 respectively.

Of the 8 Traverse decks on mtgtop8, 6 of them (all Suicide Zoo) played it as a SB 1-of, 1 (Jund) played it as a maindeck 1-of, and the last one (Temur midrange) played it as a maindeck 3-of.

It's far from accepted as a SB card in Suicide Zoo - by my count (entering Death's Shadow and Wild Nacatl into mtgtop8's search) there are 36 Suicide Zoo decks from 8/4/16 to 29/6/16. Only 6 of them play Traverse. Let's not even get into Jund - Traverse is just 1 out of 100 Jund decks in that time period.

Traverse still has a long way to go before it catches up with the actual best card in the set, Nahiri, or even Neonate/Amalgam. I don't know what is worse: thinking that Traverse is better than Nahiri, or saying that Traverse is a good card and then pointing to the wrong deck to back up your claim.

It is by far the best card of the set, just look at the Temur deck. It's pretty simple (and yes, that is the correct deck to put it on).

I think the deck will become more powerful with the Dryad, though.

Quote from rcwraspy »

Quote from Danteh »

To all the people who say Traverse hasn't found the right shell... umm have you tried this deck? This is one of the manay possibilities, btw

DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
4 Tarmogoyf 4 Snapcaster Mage 4 Thing in the Ice 1 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant 1 Vendilion Clique	4 Serum Visions 4 Gitaxian Probe 4 Traverse the Ulvenwald 4 Mishra's Bauble 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Tarfire 4 Remand	18 Lands

It's really not that difficult to dedicate some hours to testing and see if something is good or not. This deck, for example is very very good, and can win against any of the tier 1 or 2 decks. It's not broken by any means, but it's just a good, synergic, competitive deck. Try it out if you want.

Also, Erayo flip is very easy to do with the deck and not something many decks can beat.

Cheers

All you've done is make a slightly worse Delver deck, though. Sure, Traverse has a couple of nice moments in that deck, but overall the deck would simply be better without it.

Um what? Have you tried the deck? And you are telling this to me, the actual creator of Shoal Delver (the version with Mandrils) to make a "worse" delver deck? I ditched Delver Shoal exactly because Delver is not good in modern (I'm a delver fanatic, but Brainstorm and Ponder are important). This deck has nothing to do with Delver, it's got quite long term/grindy plan if necessary, it tries to chain Snapcasters into the field and "create" 3 spells in a row with Traverse (Traverse-Snapcaster-Traverse-Snapcaster-Serum), removing counters from Thing, flipping it and getting value by using those Snaps again.

The other main plan is the deck's actual most powerful play: getting an Erayo lock, which is pretty easy to do on turn 3, but you only fetch her if the coast is clear.

It also plays Mishra's baubles which are unplayable in Delver shells (trust me, I tried) but here they also makes Goyfs much mbetter.

I mean, I think it's clear that you haven't played the deck, otherwise you would have picked up on the interactions- the deck is pretty hard to play.

But, again, what I find amusing is that you tell me, the creator of one of only competitive delver decks left in modern (tier 3, though) together with Grixis, to create a worse delver deck, when this has a completely different gameplan, much grindier and not looking to tempo-ing out the opponent.


PS: I also cannot insist enough on how worse the deck is without Traverse, it is the only card that I always ever want to draw. You assertion of "this deck would be better without Traverse" demonstrates a profound and a bit disconcerting lack of experience or basic knowledge on deckbuilding.

To all the people who say Traverse hasn't found the right shell... umm have you tried this deck? This is one of the manay possibilities, btw






It's really not that difficult to dedicate some hours to testing and see if something is good or not. This deck, for example is very very good, and can win against any of the tier 1 or 2 decks. It's not broken by any means, but it's just a good, synergic, competitive deck. Try it out if you want.

Also, Erayo flip is very easy to do with the deck and not something many decks can beat.

Cheers

Really excited for Gnarlwood Dryad, a one mana 3/3 Wild Insectile Nacatl Aberration with Deathtouch attacking on turn 2? Damn!!!
It even has "evasion" because it cannot be blocked by goyfs or big dudes profitably, it can only be chumped. It's the Delver we need and the delver we deserve, since the insect is not so good without Brainstorm and Ponder. Definitely has enormous potential.. to be honest Nimble Mongoose has always been my Modern wet dream, but after thinking and seeing that Modern is much more combat oriented, I don't think the old Goose would even be that good. This may be better here!!


As for Unsubstantiate, I'm genuinely curious. Froma design perfective I'd say it's one of the most brilliant tempo-oriented cards in the last 5 years, because it does SO much for that kind of deck. It doesn't mess around, it is a pure, sharply focused card for one purpose and one purpose only, let the efficient dudes in those tempo decks do their job and kill the dude before the card disadvatage even matters, either by gaining time (pure tempo), countering old nemesis for tempo like Abrupt Decay or Supreme Verdict, or bouncing that annoying blocker EOT to get in those last points of damage.
Make no mistake, this card is terrible for typical Control or even Midrange, but for classical Delver decks? A dream come true, IMO. I really don't know if it will be good or not, it may even be unplayable, as has not been a card like this before, but it will surely be interesting.

Docent of Perfection is sadly quite unplayable at 5 mana, but the idea and lore is awesome. At that cost I would much rather have surefire bombs like Keranos or Dark Dwellers


Overall very exciting set, again

Hmmmm.

For me that's exactly the non-creative personality that I've never really understood. I'll be clear here, I'm not trying to bash you now, but I just saw your post on the Eldrich Moon spoiler - something bout the delirium Dryad maybe fitting in some deck from Chapin and Suicide Zoo. Are you seriously, honestly telling me that you CANNOT thing of a shell from that dryad? Like, I simply refuse to believe it

Even if someone is not a native brewer, Dryad, some Goyfs, some Traverses, some Tarfires, some Mishras. Maybe it could be a new archetype or maybe not, but, again, are you telling me that the first thing that occurs to you is some old deck instead of all the new possibilities?. I have serious trouble understading that kind of thinking, sorry if I come too obnoxious but I'm genuinely surprised that someone can see that card and not instantly be spurred by thoughts.

I'm personally a much, much better brewer than player. By a long shot. As a player I'm very mediocre, I learn every day, but I definitely struggle to 5-0 leagues, even which tier 1 decks. I like improving every day though, that's what's fun. I would also never have time to attend a GP or Pro Tour (I can't even play on paper), much less win it, because of my work and life. I'm sure it would be fun, though!

But brewing, I always have my Notes app open and scribble down every idea I have, 95% never come to fruition, but I do have a very active imagination, and in over 4 years I've scribbled more than 400 decks, 98% tier 3 or worse or not even playable, some of them quite great. Most of them are just exploration of concepts.

And by all this I'm not saying this in the "DUDE THERE A SECRET SUPER DECK THAT NOBODY KNOWS" way, but every deck has a beginning, from unknown to known. It's an established pattern

Imagine if all the players thought like you and said, "I trust in results"... there would never ever be a new deck - exactly because of that (I say this as objectively as possible, I actually work in the Life Sciences field so I have to reason like this) - imagine 1000 Izzets who say, there aren't any results for X deck!. There are only results for Jund, Infect, and Affinity!. Izzet N.1 plays Jund, Izzet N.2 plays Infect, Izzet N.999 plays Affinity. It would be an eternal "who was first, the chicken or the egg", but with no beggining or end, a perfect circle. Of course, people are differrent and because of that, there is innovation.


But every deck comes from something, and it's usually gradual. You would get laughed at playing Amulet Bloom in the beggining, then after many months it even got banned. Same with Boggles, I remember getting infuriated the first time on MTGO where a completely unknown deck stomped me with a random 1/1 hexproof limited garbage.


Tiers in magic, and especially in MTG Salvation, IMO, don't define precisely how "good" a deck is, just how widely played it is. It most cases, it correlates, in some cases, they are underepresented, be it because people usually follow what is considered the best (wise choice) or simply because it's not really good in the meta. An unrelated example for me - RUG Delver - the deck is not tier 1 by no means, but it's not tier 3+ either, it just has very bad matchups against Jund and most removal-heavy midrange decks (Modern in a nutshell). As a deck, it can easily stomp Combo and most Control.


What I mean by all this is that you can never truly say that X card is unplayable, the end, it will be until it gradually increases it's share of metagame and becomes, suprise, Tier X. I don't know if Traverse will ever be Tier 1, but it definitely has the potential- I never, ever, "do not want to draw it", it's always insane except in the presence of a Rest in Peace, and I've been playing that deck for 2 months now (around 100 hours I'd say) so I so have quite a bit of testing to support my views. That's the mark of a good card.


Finally, it's different from Zenith, you cannot ramp with it, but you can get non-green cards like Snapcaster, which makes it a card for a completely different deck than the typical Hatebears toolbox. It can also be used to find creatures to combo, and even utility lands like Lighthouse, to put an example.

Quote from izzetmage »

There's a term called "pigeon chess": if you try to play chess with a pigeon, it will knock over the pieces, ***** on the board, and strut around like it won.

I don't find playing pigeon chess a meaningful use of my time, so I'll keep this short. I trust in results. Traverse the Ulvenwald has very few results. Hence it's a bad card (you don't have to defend me on this Lantern). If you think it's good, go 5-0 a few leagues so that your results will be displayed for the world to see.

Hmmmm.

For me that's exactly the non-creative personality that I've never really understood. I'll be clear here, I'm not trying to bash you now, but I just saw your post on the Eldrich Moon spoiler - something bout the delirium Dryad maybe fitting in some deck from Chapin and Suicide Zoo. Are you seriously, honestly telling me that you CANNOT thing of a shell from that dryad? Like, I simply refuse to believe it

Even if someone is not a native brewer, Dryad, some Goyfs, some Traverses, some Tarfires, some Mishras. Maybe it could be a new archetype or maybe not, but, again, are you telling me that the first thing that occurs to you is some old deck instead of all the new possibilities?. I have serious trouble understading that kind of thinking, sorry if I come too obnoxious but I'm genuinely surprised that someone can see that card and not instantly be spurred by thoughts.

I'm personally a much, much better brewer than player. By a long shot. As a player I'm very mediocre, I learn every day, but I definitely struggle to 5-0 leagues, even which tier 1 decks. I like improving every day though, that's what's fun. I would also never have time to attend a GP or Pro Tour (I can't even play on paper), much less win it, because of my work and life. I'm sure it would be fun, though!

But brewing, I always have my Notes app open and scribble down every idea I have, 95% never come to fruition, but I do have a very active imagination, and in over 4 years I've scribbled more than 400 decks, 98% tier or worse or not even playable, some of them quite great. Most of them are just exploration of concepts.

And by all this I'm not saying this in the "DUDE THERE A SECRET SUPER DECK THAT NOBODY KNOWS" way, but every deck has a beginning, from unknown to known. It's an established pattern

Imagine if all the players thought like you and said, "I trust in results"... there would never ever be a new deck - exactly because of that (I say this as objectively as possible, I actually work in the Life Sciences field so I have to reason like this) - imagine 1000 Izzets who say, there aren't any results for X deck!. There are only results for Jund, Infect, and Affinity!. Izzet N.1 plays Jund, Izzet N.2 plays Infect, Izzet N.999 plays Affinity. It would be an eternal who was first, the chicken or the egg, but with no beggining or end, a perfect circle. Of course, people are differrent and because of that, there is innovation.


But every deck comes from something, and it's usually gradual. You would get laughed at playing Amulet Bloom in the beggining, then after many months it even got banned. Same with Boggles, I remember getting infuriated the first time on MTGO where a completely unknown deck stomped me with a random 1/1 hexproof limited garbage.


Tiers in magic, and especially in MTG Salvation, IMO, don't define precisely how "good" a deck is, just how widely played it is. It most cases, it correlates, in some cases, they are underepresented, be it because people usually follow what is considered the best (wise choice) or simply because it's not really good in the meta. An unrelated example for me - RUG Delver - the deck is not tier 1 by no means, but it's not tier 3+ either, it just has very bad matchups against Jund and most removal-heavy midrange decks (Modern in a nutshell). As a deck, it can easily stomp Combo and most Control.


What I mean by all this is that you can never truly say that X card is unplayable, the end, it will be until it gradually increases it's share of metagame and becomes, suprise, Tier X. I don't know if Traverse will ever be Tier 1, but it definitely has the potential- I never, ever, "do not want to draw it", it's always insane except in the presence of a Rest in Peace, and I've been playing that deck for 2 months now (around 100 hours I'd say) so I so have quite a bit of testing to support my views. That's the mark of a good card.


Finally, it's different from Zenith, you cannot ramp with it, but you can get non-green cards like Snapcaster, which makes it a card for a completely different deck than the typical Hatebears toolbox. It can also be used to find creatures to combo, or even utility la

Quote from izzetmage »

Quote from Lantern »

I think I'm going to start a list of the cards people think are going to be awesome then revisit those cards a year later. So what is the top cards people think will be awesome. We got Skin Invasion, Avacyn, Topplegeist, Thing in Ice, Epiphany at the Drownyard, Rattlechains, Heir of Falkenrath, Asylum Visitor, Relentless Dead, Incorrigible Youths, Vessel of Volatility, Arlinn Kord, Nahiri, the Harbinger, Prized Amalgam, The Gitrog Monster,

How about three months?

Eldritch Moon spoilers don't start until Monday, so I decided to dig around mtgtop8 to find the best cards of Shadows over Innistrad before that takes over my time. Below is a list of some of the more hyped cards from SoI, and the number of decks they saw play in (regardless of maindeck/SB; as long as at least 1 copy was included in a deck, it counts as 1 deck). Disclaimer: the number of decks says nothing about the number of copies of the card that are played in that deck. I left out reprints (Lightning Axe) - it's not fair to compare something that has had 5 years in the format with things that have only had 3 months.

Archangel Avacyn: 9
Bygone Bishop: 1
Declaration in Stone: 4
Eerie Interlude: 2
Open the Armory: 4
Thalia's Lieutenant: 1
Thraben Inspector: 1
Topplegeist: 0
Town Gossipmonger: 0
Engulf the Shore: 0
Epiphany at the Drownyard: 5
Geralf's Masterpiece: 0
Invasive Surgery: 3
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets: 0
Pieces of the Puzzle: 3
Rattlechains: 0
Rise from the Tides: 0
Stitchwing Skaab: 9
Thing in the Ice: 10
Welcome to the Fold: 0
Asylum Visitor: 5
Heir of Falkenrath: 0
Mindwrack Demon: 0
Pick the Brain: 0
Relentless Dead: 0
Tooth Collector: 0
Triskaidekaphobia: 0
Avacyn's Judgment: 0
Dual Shot: 0
Falkenrath Gorger: 0
Goldnight Castigator: 0
Harness the Storm: 0
Insolent Neonate: 30
Sin Prodder: 4
Skin Invasion: 0
Stensia Masquerade: 0
Vessel of Volatility: 0
Autumnal Gloom: 0
Crawling Sensation: 0
Cryptolith Rite: 0
Howlpack Resurgence: 0
Seasons Past: 0
Silverfur Partisan: 0
Tireless Tracker: 7
Traverse the Ulvenwald: 5
Anguished Unmaking: 13
Arlinn Kord: 5
Fevered Visions: 0
The Gitrog Monster: 2
Nahiri, the Harbinger: 54
Olivia, Mobilized for War: 0
Prized Amalgam: 29
Sigarda, Heron's Grace: 0
Sorin, Grim Nemesis: 0
Brain in a Jar: 0
Choked Estuary: 0
Drownyard Temple: 2
Foreboding Ruins: 0
Fortified Village: 0
Game Trail: 0
Port Town: 0
Westvale Abbey: 6

Only five cards made it to, or past, the 10-deck mark. Nahiri is the clear winner (54 decks). Second place goes to the Dredge cards: Insolent Neonate (30 decks) and Prized Amalgam (29 decks). Third is Anguished Unmaking (13 decks), and last of all Thing in the Ice (10 decks).

I didn't see Nahiri coming, but I correctly predicted that Thing in the Ice and Traverse the Ulvenwald were overhyped. Nahiri did much more for blue control than Thing did. Traverse the Ulvenwald was just a case of people thinking only of the best-case scenario. It's not even a "better Green Sun's Zenith": even if you somehow had delirium on turn 1, you can't put a Dryad Arbor into play with it, unlike GSZ.

Werewolves, Vampires and Zombies went nowhere. The best Vampire was Insolent Neonate and the best Zombie was Prized Amalgam. Both of them were used in Dredge, not tribal decks. Madness (closely related to Vampires) was also a bust.

Humans got some hype, but turned out to be much better in Standard than Modern.

Spirits weren't expected to make much of an impact, but certain Spirits taught me valuable lessons about spoiler season. Topplegeist taught me that people will always overrate the first few cards to be spoiled. Rattlechains taught me that people will always overrate any 2/1 flier that costs 1U (see also: Stratus Dancer, Dimensional Infiltrator).

Cryptolith Rite, The Gitrog Monster, Brain in a Jar had no combo applications. The other build-around-me cards (Bygone Bishop, Eerie Interlude, Fevered Visions) went nowhere too.

Skin Invasion is so much worse than Delver. So was Aberrant Researcher, by the way, but at least that was easy to figure out.

Sin Prodder is bad. There are few exceptions to the 3 mana dies to Bolt test, and Sin Prodder fails another playability test (punisher cards suck) on top of that.

The duals were bad, but that was about as easy to see as Aberrant Researcher.

Traverse the Ulvenwald is ridiculously good, by far the best card of the set and not even close. It needs a pretty dedicated shell, tho. Also, chaining Snaps can outvalue pretty much any midrange deck.

I would advise people to buy them btw, the spike is inevitable and they are only like 1 Tix ;)ç

As for Thing, I've found it can make creature mathcups a bye and is s'ecially good against Bogles, but it also needs a very dedicated shell, possibly even with Manamorphoses. Very fun card too

Hmm, I'm actually very surprised that people are immediately trying it in Tron, I mean, yes it's a big dude, but there are a lot of big dudes and winning once you assemble Tron is usually trivial with Karn/Ugin/Newlamog. But that reduction cost? I regularly have 6 types of cards in my Traverse deck ( I don't play enchantments or planeswalkers) and another similar deck could easily be even more focused, playing Seal of Fire and some decent planeswalkers, potentially costing only 5 (I think the biggest Goyf i've ever seen was 8/9 so that must be the limit). This effect is very very powerful at 5 mana.

I'm not saying it's playable, because 5 mana and a whole lot of different cards is quite difficult to achieve even in very focused decks, but the Mindslaver effect is absolutely backbreaking and well worth the effort, plus it provides inevitability. I think this card at 11 mana could actually have been amazingly good, but at least it also indicates that they are really going for the Delirium mechanic, so we may get many more awesome cards for that kind of deck

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Quote from bocephus »

Yet it was beatable, we saw it week in and week out.

The game is about adapting. Sometimes that adapting (if you want to be competitive) is to start playing a deck maybe you dont like. Like I said, those that complain the loudest are those who dont wish to adapt in general. Last winter it was the Eldrazi, before that it was Lantern control or Jund or Azban.

Yes it was a strong deck, maybe the best Modern has ever seen, but in the life of Magic, no way. Not even close.

Again, this is fantasy. Whenever a format so widely folds or warps to a deck in such a quick time, it's not "beatable" or healthy. Maybe you can beat it by playing AntiEldrazi.dec, but we already saw that in previous metagames (e.g. Mirrodin Affinity) and Wizards isn't interested in repeating it. Nor are players. Healthy and diverse metagames don't see 40% of players all flocking to one deck because the metagame is fine and no one deck is broken. When it happens on that scale, it's broken and not about adaptation.

I really have no idea why you are arguing this. It's totally unsupportable and really undermines your otherwise decent argument that people should listen to. This one, however, makes no sense and is out of dialogue with basically all meaningful evidence.

Yes, you are right. The Eldrazi won every event for 3 months and filled top 8s with all Eldrazi decks.

It was more then 'anti' decks that ere top 8ing. The Eldrazi just changed the food chain of the format that everyone had gotten use to. Some dont like change.

I am off to go play the game and stop fighting about it.

Get out and play.

I always find it interesting that some people simply can't let things go or admit they were wrong, even it it makes them look completely ridiculous.

Every deck can be beaten. Every-single-deck. Even Old Afinity with Skullclamp and artifact lands, even Grandeur-Donation in its time, even Cawblade, even decks with 4 Black Lotuses and 4 Ancestral in them. Magic has an element of luck in it, and you will inevitably lose some games because of it, because you won't draw lands, or the correct spells, etc. That's what makes it fun.

But aberrations like Eldrazi (and I can assess that it IS by far the most broken deck Modern has seen since the in initial bannings, and I've been playing since almost the beginning) are not a question of it they can be beaten or not. They will dominate and destroy the format swiftly, and people wil "adapt" by playing decks specifically made to destroy them and maindeck ridiculous cards to beat them, just because of them (see Painter's Servant).

It's not a question of thinking outside the box, and in fact as an avid brewer which absolutely loves to create new competitive decks (Traverse is my best one yet), it offends me A LOT that you would even think playing terrible cards and warping absolutely everything in the game just to beat a single deck is thinking outside the box. Do not ever say that again if you don't want to embarass yourself.

In a nutshell, Eldrazi Winter was the worst period I've seen in Modern, but fortunately it seems like the calm comes after the storm, and I'm thoroughly enjoying this new Modern, extremely balanced, extremely varied and overall extremely fun to play.

Just, on last time, don't ever bring up again how Eldrazi made you think outisde the box, It's just counterproducive for your reputation, online persona or however you want to call it. Cheers.

The problem with Revoker are exactly its legs.

I remember having it as a target for my Traverse the Ulvenwald deck, which in theory seemed awesome. I would fetch it for Nahiri Jeskai, it would inmediately get killed for no value. I would fetch it against Jund, it would get Kolaghan Kommanded for negative value. Against hatebears, I would never bring it since I want to sweep the board with Anger. Against Affinity and Elves, the same. Against Lantern, it only stops mill effects which they have a ton of different and redundant ones, but does nothing against Lantern of Insight or Bridge. Against Tron, it can be good sometimes, it's the only deck, but they can still Pyroclasm it or kill it with Karn/Ugin if you don't name the correct one.

Also, Thalia has no abilities that I know of