I initially considered Jeskai with Ojutai's Command, but I think when you get down to it discard it too powerful to forfeit - it both protects, and flips, TITI. KCommand is not the main reason to be in black.
Good point. Yes, that sounds like an interesting direction (though Lingering Souls sounds terribly slow for the purpose of flipping TITI).
I think all these color combinations are probably worth testing at least to some degree. And I wonder how to mitigate TITI being such a crap topdeck - how does Esper do that where Grixis doesn't?
From Esper, though, we would get Ojutai's Command, Geist, the new flash Angel, Wall of Omens, Path, and Sphinx's Revelation, all of which seem decent.
Grixis is just lower on the curve in general which seems nice. Speaking of Grixis, do we want to run Flip Jace as additional Snapcasters? The build I posted is very threat-light and might benefit from them.
I think we should move away from green. Grixis seams to be the best build. You get bolt, kolagans command, terminate, possible side board moon, anger, pyroclaspe, faithless looting, and many other amazing cards in red. Plus you can still play your noxious revivals. The combo with natural affinity does not seem that good and hard to pull off. Plus with out spellskite they can just kill the thing in the ice. Instead of completely relying on it. I think it would fit better as a finisher in grixis control or in some grixis delver or other tempo strategies. This way you don't scoop to multiple removal spells on you things. Like I said Grixis just seems to be the best color choice.
Yeah, I also think that natural affinity is cumbersome and a 'win by more' idea, not that simic or temur is a bad shell. I wouldn't say that grixis is the best shell since there's also ojutai's command and a jeskai would also be good. I've tested a little and in my opinion the thing in the ice works better with cards like remand and cryptic command. I don't think there's too much value recovering the thing in the ice with a kolaghan's command since you would need to cast it again and by then you should be turn 4 or above which would be just as bad as top decking it. I think a grixis shell might as well just play 2 copies, while one advantage of playing ojutai's command is that at least it places the thing in the ice directly in the battlefield...
The thing is that this card might be more useful as a threat than actually wiping out the board.
I initially considered Jeskai with Ojutai's Command, but I think when you get down to it discard it too powerful to forfeit - it both protects, and flips, TITI. KCommand is not the main reason to be in black.
Is now the time for Disrupting Shoal to finally shine? Most removal cost 1 or 2. Conveniently same costs as Probe, Delver and Snag, or 2 for Shoal, Ice Thing, Snapcaster. Clique, Geist, Cryptic fill other cmcs
Interesting idea. I think I'd want to move to a more Mono-U list or at least be splashing only 1 color if I was to play Shoal. So I'm not sure it's better than playing Grixis, which gives access to discard.
Still, it seems worth brewing a list. I'd be tempted to go UR with 4 SCM, 4 TITI, 3 Clique, 1 Spellskite, and then 4 Visions, 4 Probe, 4 Remand, 4 Bolt, 4 Shoal, 2 Electrolyze, 1 Spell Snare, 3 Cryptic Commands, and 22 lands.
@Johnny_Tempel I like your Grixis list too. But I think Muddle the Mixture is a garbage card and isn't salvaged by Thing in the Ice. Instead, I recommend Vendilion Clique and more Remand, both of which have natural synergy with TITI.
Look, Wizards seems to have no coherent or thought-out policy about bannings in Modern. Decks that are not exhibiting any dominance get the ax, while far more dominant decks go on as if nothing happened; the power-level of the format is continuously scaled back, so that each year, the "best deck" defaults to what was the second best deck before the old best deck got the banhammer. This is just stupid and creates a format where innovation is driven by bans instead of new printings, and where investment becomes extremely risky due to the possibility that your deck is going to go kaput.
I, however, have a proposal: we should look at Legacy to determine what should be unbanned in Modern. If a card on the Modern banlist is legal in Legacy but sees no play there, it's probably worth looking at unbanning it in Modern. This will lead to a Modern that is the "little sister" of Legacy, instead of a Modern that is just a bunch of random cards from 8th edition onwards.
So, here are the cards I would consider rather safe to unban:
- Birthing Pod
- Splinter Twin
- Summer Bloom
Twin, Pod, and Bloom see no play in Legacy, and for good reason. They're just not good enough. Nor was either deck dominant in Modern, although all are of course powerful decks. Letting all three decks back into the metagame would create a new Tier 1 without creating a single dominant deck. Existing tier 1 strategies, like Affinity and Jund, however, would still be viable.
These cards I consider safe-ish to unban, and at least worth looking at:
- Sword of Vengeance
- Bloodbraid Elf
- Preordain
- Deathrite Shaman
- Second Sunrise
- Seething Song
Sword of Vengeance sees almost no play in Legacy and I have trouble imagining that paying 5 mana for a 1/1 Thopter and 1 life will be super viable in Modern either. And even if it is viable, it doesn't seem unfair, just good. Jund is obviously a powerful deck in Legacy but it still doesn't see much play, so maybe a hampered version of Jund with either Bloodbraid or DRS would be fair; it's probably unsafe to unban them both, however (though I think such a deck would be worth testing in Modern to see if it would be unfair or not). Preordain sees almost no play in Legacy; granted, that's because better options (Brainstorm and Ponder) are legal, but it's still worth testing in Modern. Eggs was a hassle to play against, but it wasn't really dominant and would be fine in a metagame that included Twin, Bloom, Pod, and DRS or Bloodbraid Elf. Finally, I think Seething Song is a good candidate for unbanning because UR Storm is not a serious contender right now and Song would make it at least playable. I think UR Storm needs more than just Song to become tier 1, however. It's possible that a Song and Preordain unban would spawn a too powerful version of UR Storm.
I think these ideas are all worth looking into and all seem smart. Some of the things that people who are paid to write about Magic talk about are just so dumb I can't even fathom who these idiots think they are. Like, unbanning Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, The Mind Sculptor? Are you serious? Have you played Legacy for even a day? These cards are powerhouses in a much more powerful format than Modern for a reason! There are many good candidates for unbannings in Modern - I think I've highlighted most of them - but SFM and Jace are NOT among them.
Wizards will never follow my advice on this, because... I have no idea why. These suggestions seem very logical to me. I have no idea who's making the decisions over at WotC but obviously they're dumb-dumbs.
This is so annoying. Twin was one of the defining decks of Modern, and one of the decks you had to think about when making almost anything. Wizards shouldn't just come in and cut down a deck because it was on top for a long time -- look at the dominance of Threshold or Goblins or even Miracles in Legacy. These are great decks that were certainly powerful and were also fun to figure out how to beat, but they weren't unfair, they weren't unfun, and they were certainly beatable. Now everyone who put money into Twin is going to have to spend more money... ugh. It seems like Wizards is just intent on making people spend $$$. That's honestly the only reason I can fathom for this banning.
We're at the beginning of something Really Excellent here.
So I am thinking of a curve for this deck.
>Eldrazi Temple, pass
>Eye of Ugin, Thought-Knot Seer
> Urborg, Reality Smasher, Inquistion of Kozilek
You pull the 2 best cards out of their hand and stick a 5/5 with Trample and Haste that's going to further shrink their hand size to remove. Combine with Lilliana of the Veil and Sea Gate Wreckage and grind them out. Is the processor/Progenitus angle even required anymore?
I fully agree that this is first and foremost a TEMPO DECK. This deck does not excel at control-- the mana base is at odds with removal (An abundance of excellent colourless creatures, a lack of quality colorless removal ((Yes, Spatial Contortion, yes, Warping Wail, but really nothing that compares to the efficiency of Path, Bolt, Dismember)) as are the creatures themselves. What is a turn 3 Blight Herder, Oblivion Sower, et al. doing that any other curve topper can't? A trigger that can't be countered? True, but is sticking 3 1/1s or gaining 1 to 2 lands really what the control deck wants to be doing with it's "win con"? Even if you wanted to stick with the Processors, Wasteland Strangler is the definition of tempo- deconstructs your opponent's board while building your own. It's not efficient at either thing separately (3 mana for -3/-3 or 3 mana for a 3/2) but combined it's a powerful motion. Backed by cheap removal it plays much more like Delver, a tempo deck.
That said, I am getting the impression that the processing angle is not really valuable. Relic of Progenitus isn't a fantastic card in most matchups so you are running suboptimal cards to enable a so-so pay-off. Against Bloom for example, you're running nearly 8 dead cards and this is true for basically any combo match-up that doesn't use the graveyard (So Tron as well)
I like the direction of a <>B deck here and capitalizing on the turn-2 4 mana Eldrazi (That protect themselves/don't die to removal) to overtake the game before it begins.
I keep seeing Eldrazi Mimic be undervalued and this example perfectly illustrates why it shouldn't be. You're talking about this as a tempo deck with no T1 first of all, so I'm going to add Mimic into this curve.
T1, Temple, Mimic
T2, Eye, Thought-Knot Seer, (Attack with Mimic for 4)
T3 Urborg, Reality Smasher, Inquisition (Attack with Smasher, Seer and Mimic for 14)
Thats attacking for a potential 18 damage on a not particularly unreasonable hand in monoBC, make Eye a T1 play to play as many Mimics and Endless Ones as your hand allows and then you're really cooking.
I think we will see 3 different versions of this deck in the future:
- mono b, more a ramp deck
- b/w midrange
- b/r aggro
Eldrazi mimic is undervalued, you can cast it turn one and attack for 4 next turn, as you said
Interesting stuff. So a more aggro list might look like:
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Endless One
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
1 Endbringer
2 Bearer of Silence
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Warping Wail
2 Dismember
1 Expedition Map
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Eye of Ugin
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Sulfurous Springs
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
The mana is still a bit funky because I'm not sure exactly how the BR base should be built: obviously we want some number of Sulfurous Springs, but then what's the proper Fetch/Dual/Basic ratio after that? Not sure.
For creatures, I like the idea of early Endless Ones and Eldrazi Mimics curving into Seers and Smashers. Seems strong.
And I like cutting exile-reliance from the deck. Makes it less explosive but more consistent. Lili + Sea Gate Wreckage seems like a solid way to grind. Maybe we should find room for more Sea Gate or more Expedition Maps.
Without reading your analysis (though I went back and read it later) and keeping in mind that I'm no expert either, I would have kept Hand #5 -- even though it has no bombs, it has a powerful turn 1 and only needs a good topdeck to become extremely powerful (Thoughcast, Etched Champion, Cranial Plating). Worst case scenario, on turn 2 you activate nexus and get in there for 6. That's not shabby.
I think I might mull #10: it doesn't do much until turn 3 at the earliest. That's not great.
We're at the beginning of something Really Excellent here.
So I am thinking of a curve for this deck.
>Eldrazi Temple, pass
>Eye of Ugin, Thought-Knot Seer
> Urborg, Reality Smasher, Inquistion of Kozilek
You pull the 2 best cards out of their hand and stick a 5/5 with Trample and Haste that's going to further shrink their hand size to remove. Combine with Lilliana of the Veil and Sea Gate Wreckage and grind them out. Is the processor/Progenitus angle even required anymore?
I fully agree that this is first and foremost a TEMPO DECK. This deck does not excel at control-- the mana base is at odds with removal (An abundance of excellent colourless creatures, a lack of quality colorless removal ((Yes, Spatial Contortion, yes, Warping Wail, but really nothing that compares to the efficiency of Path, Bolt, Dismember)) as are the creatures themselves. What is a turn 3 Blight Herder, Oblivion Sower, et al. doing that any other curve topper can't? A trigger that can't be countered? True, but is sticking 3 1/1s or gaining 1 to 2 lands really what the control deck wants to be doing with it's "win con"? Even if you wanted to stick with the Processors, Wasteland Strangler is the definition of tempo- deconstructs your opponent's board while building your own. It's not efficient at either thing separately (3 mana for -3/-3 or 3 mana for a 3/2) but combined it's a powerful motion. Backed by cheap removal it plays much more like Delver, a tempo deck.
That said, I am getting the impression that the processing angle is not really valuable. Relic of Progenitus isn't a fantastic card in most matchups so you are running suboptimal cards to enable a so-so pay-off. Against Bloom for example, you're running nearly 8 dead cards and this is true for basically any combo match-up that doesn't use the graveyard (So Tron as well)
I like the direction of a <>B deck here and capitalizing on the turn-2 4 mana Eldrazi (That protect themselves/don't die to removal) to overtake the game before it begins.
Thank you for a post actually worth reading here!
What is the other 4-mana Eldrazi that's powerful? I haven't found one that isn't mediocre. Only Thought-Knot Seer makes the cut. Maybe you mean Endless One?
So you're advocating on Lili replacing the graveyard hate we currently play? Lili and what else? More removal? It's an interesting idea at least. I'm just worried that Reality Smasher and Seer aren't enough to really win the game — they're still vulnerable and don't possess the inevitability of things like Oblivion Sower and Blight Herder, which enable you to ramp into Ulamog.
A radically different vision of the deck, I think, and one that has its appeal. But I think we're not quite there yet in terms of creatures.
The main reason to running Urborg isn't making Eye tap for B, it is for all those fetches u get from Sower tapping for B instead of just being there doing nothing.
Both modes are pretty important and about equally common, I think.
Good point. Yes, that sounds like an interesting direction (though Lingering Souls sounds terribly slow for the purpose of flipping TITI).
I think all these color combinations are probably worth testing at least to some degree. And I wonder how to mitigate TITI being such a crap topdeck - how does Esper do that where Grixis doesn't?
From Esper, though, we would get Ojutai's Command, Geist, the new flash Angel, Wall of Omens, Path, and Sphinx's Revelation, all of which seem decent.
Grixis is just lower on the curve in general which seems nice. Speaking of Grixis, do we want to run Flip Jace as additional Snapcasters? The build I posted is very threat-light and might benefit from them.
I initially considered Jeskai with Ojutai's Command, but I think when you get down to it discard it too powerful to forfeit - it both protects, and flips, TITI. KCommand is not the main reason to be in black.
Interesting idea. I think I'd want to move to a more Mono-U list or at least be splashing only 1 color if I was to play Shoal. So I'm not sure it's better than playing Grixis, which gives access to discard.
Still, it seems worth brewing a list. I'd be tempted to go UR with 4 SCM, 4 TITI, 3 Clique, 1 Spellskite, and then 4 Visions, 4 Probe, 4 Remand, 4 Bolt, 4 Shoal, 2 Electrolyze, 1 Spell Snare, 3 Cryptic Commands, and 22 lands.
Something like that.
My list would be something like:
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Spellskite
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Serum Visions
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Remand
2 Electrolyze
3 Terminate
1 Murderous Cut
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
2 Watery Grave
1 Darkslick Shores
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Blood Crypt
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Desolate Lighthouse
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Apostle's Blessing
3 Shattering Spree
1 Duress
1 Gut Shot
2 Blood Moon
2 Dispel
1 Slaughter Games
Something like that.
So a base of something like:
4 Kazuul's Toll Collector
2-3 Sunforger
3-4 Steelshaper's Gift
2 Steam Augury
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
3 Lightning Helix
2 Boros Charm
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Body and Mind
3-4 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Serum Visions
Probably a few more creatures are needed. And the 3-drop slot is a bit too cluttered. But how does that look?
================
I also saw an interesting brew somewhere playing that giant that costs 4W and can grab an equipment for 1W
=============================================================================================
Cards that should be UNBANNED in Modern:
Look, Wizards seems to have no coherent or thought-out policy about bannings in Modern. Decks that are not exhibiting any dominance get the ax, while far more dominant decks go on as if nothing happened; the power-level of the format is continuously scaled back, so that each year, the "best deck" defaults to what was the second best deck before the old best deck got the banhammer. This is just stupid and creates a format where innovation is driven by bans instead of new printings, and where investment becomes extremely risky due to the possibility that your deck is going to go kaput.
I, however, have a proposal: we should look at Legacy to determine what should be unbanned in Modern. If a card on the Modern banlist is legal in Legacy but sees no play there, it's probably worth looking at unbanning it in Modern. This will lead to a Modern that is the "little sister" of Legacy, instead of a Modern that is just a bunch of random cards from 8th edition onwards.
So, here are the cards I would consider rather safe to unban:
- Birthing Pod
- Splinter Twin
- Summer Bloom
Twin, Pod, and Bloom see no play in Legacy, and for good reason. They're just not good enough. Nor was either deck dominant in Modern, although all are of course powerful decks. Letting all three decks back into the metagame would create a new Tier 1 without creating a single dominant deck. Existing tier 1 strategies, like Affinity and Jund, however, would still be viable.
These cards I consider safe-ish to unban, and at least worth looking at:
- Sword of Vengeance
- Bloodbraid Elf
- Preordain
- Deathrite Shaman
- Second Sunrise
- Seething Song
Sword of Vengeance sees almost no play in Legacy and I have trouble imagining that paying 5 mana for a 1/1 Thopter and 1 life will be super viable in Modern either. And even if it is viable, it doesn't seem unfair, just good. Jund is obviously a powerful deck in Legacy but it still doesn't see much play, so maybe a hampered version of Jund with either Bloodbraid or DRS would be fair; it's probably unsafe to unban them both, however (though I think such a deck would be worth testing in Modern to see if it would be unfair or not). Preordain sees almost no play in Legacy; granted, that's because better options (Brainstorm and Ponder) are legal, but it's still worth testing in Modern. Eggs was a hassle to play against, but it wasn't really dominant and would be fine in a metagame that included Twin, Bloom, Pod, and DRS or Bloodbraid Elf. Finally, I think Seething Song is a good candidate for unbanning because UR Storm is not a serious contender right now and Song would make it at least playable. I think UR Storm needs more than just Song to become tier 1, however. It's possible that a Song and Preordain unban would spawn a too powerful version of UR Storm.
I think these ideas are all worth looking into and all seem smart. Some of the things that people who are paid to write about Magic talk about are just so dumb I can't even fathom who these idiots think they are. Like, unbanning Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, The Mind Sculptor? Are you serious? Have you played Legacy for even a day? These cards are powerhouses in a much more powerful format than Modern for a reason! There are many good candidates for unbannings in Modern - I think I've highlighted most of them - but SFM and Jace are NOT among them.
Wizards will never follow my advice on this, because... I have no idea why. These suggestions seem very logical to me. I have no idea who's making the decisions over at WotC but obviously they're dumb-dumbs.
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Eye of Ugin
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Sea Gate Wreckage
2 Cavern of Souls
6 Swamp
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Endbringer
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Dismember
2 Spatial Contortion
It is possible that Bearer of Silence has a place in this deck. Very possible, indeed.
I like that this deck is no non-reliant on black. 8 Black spells, 2 of which are Dismember. That's it.
The build I was proposing is more midrange anyways. Around 20 threats backed by disruption. It's not straight-up aggro by any means.
Vile Aggregate just seems bad. A 1/5 for 3? I'll pass.
Eldrazi Obligator should probably make the cut, yeah.
Dust Stalker's drawback also seems fairly hefty.
Flayer Drone also seems fairly underpowered.
I don't love Terminate because I don't want to be wed to having BR on turn 2.
So yes, I'd like to make room for some number of Obligator's. I'll think about how.
Lili + Sea Gate seems so good. But maybe going down to 1-2 Lilis is OK.
Interesting stuff. So a more aggro list might look like:
4 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Endless One
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
1 Endbringer
2 Bearer of Silence
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Warping Wail
2 Dismember
1 Expedition Map
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Eye of Ugin
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
1 Cavern of Souls
4 Sulfurous Springs
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
The mana is still a bit funky because I'm not sure exactly how the BR base should be built: obviously we want some number of Sulfurous Springs, but then what's the proper Fetch/Dual/Basic ratio after that? Not sure.
For creatures, I like the idea of early Endless Ones and Eldrazi Mimics curving into Seers and Smashers. Seems strong.
And I like cutting exile-reliance from the deck. Makes it less explosive but more consistent. Lili + Sea Gate Wreckage seems like a solid way to grind. Maybe we should find room for more Sea Gate or more Expedition Maps.
Without reading your analysis (though I went back and read it later) and keeping in mind that I'm no expert either, I would have kept Hand #5 -- even though it has no bombs, it has a powerful turn 1 and only needs a good topdeck to become extremely powerful (Thoughcast, Etched Champion, Cranial Plating). Worst case scenario, on turn 2 you activate nexus and get in there for 6. That's not shabby.
I think I might mull #10: it doesn't do much until turn 3 at the earliest. That's not great.
I don't think so.
Thank you for a post actually worth reading here!
What is the other 4-mana Eldrazi that's powerful? I haven't found one that isn't mediocre. Only Thought-Knot Seer makes the cut. Maybe you mean Endless One?
So you're advocating on Lili replacing the graveyard hate we currently play? Lili and what else? More removal? It's an interesting idea at least. I'm just worried that Reality Smasher and Seer aren't enough to really win the game — they're still vulnerable and don't possess the inevitability of things like Oblivion Sower and Blight Herder, which enable you to ramp into Ulamog.
A radically different vision of the deck, I think, and one that has its appeal. But I think we're not quite there yet in terms of creatures.
Both modes are pretty important and about equally common, I think.