Narset is ok, but 3 is a bit excessive. I would not want to have more than 1 3CMC-do nothing spell, especially if your meta is aggro (from what I understand). Search isn't necessarily an auto include, but in a relatively slower meta I would always want at least one.
Yahenni's expertise is just ok. There are better mass removals (engineered explosives and/or damnation) however that I would look at first. The chaining off of the Expertise is more often cute than effective, especially considering most of your spells are removals/counters which don't benefit from chaining them with a mass removal. If you were to play Ancestral Vision that would be a different story.
For me, I play 2x Mana Leak. However I go the heavy discard/tap out route. If you want to play a bit more on your opponents turn then probably go for the 3-4x Crytpics for the raw power.
K.command into Snapcaster into Snap-K.command is why the deck functions in the first place. It is the thing we have going over every other control deck. It is the most relevant interaction. K. command their draw step to take their card and get back a snapcaster and repeat next turn with snapping back the k. command. I would suggest if you can find older videos of Corey Burkhart to watch, it will be immensely helpful to understand the play patterns of the deck.
Shriekmaw can't kill black creatures, and the most important creature atm is black (Death's Shadow).
Lili TLH ranges from OK to great depending on your meta.
I think it is a fundamentally wrong question. We know that Wizards designs only with Standard in mind and not Modern.
In every set there will be cards fitting all archetypes (i.e. aggro, midrange, control). From this cards, it follows that at some point there will be printings powerful enough to slot into decks of that type in eternal formats.
Further, there will be cards that are "fun" designs, but that can be broken in card pools as large as modern.
I don't think it's either a personal or a design bias. It is literally how magic is designed. If anything, we know that in the last decade or so Wizards would like to have a more creature focused environment, without pushing spells completely out of the way. Even in this environment, however, we still get tools for all and any deck. Quantifying and qualifying them doesn't really show anything about design intention.
If anything, it shows that the design team can still come up with unique and powerful card designs that have play even in eternal formats and can compete with old, broken spells. That's something we should compliment the design team for and not bash them, as they often get way too much flack.
yeah that's my main concern... though i'm still debating. gonna get a 3rd one and give it a try
Not discouraging you, but I think an interesting data point you may wish to consider is Mythic Championship contenders Luis and Petr played UW control and they both had 2 copies of Teferi, and 3 copies of JTMS. Their curve and land count is not unlike ours, so I think this could be relevant.
Yeah I wanted to make exactly the same point. NBDG is much like Teferi in the sense that if it lands on an empty board, we are pretty much locked to win. However, as a control deck, you don't want to get overloaded in win conditions, because then you just draw them far too often.
However, it is a matter of fact that we will be wanting to land NBDG on T5 much more often than UW wants to have Teferi on T5. I maintain that playing 2 is the correct number, especially considering that we have several lines of play on 5cc anywya (i.e. Snapcaster K. Command, Tasigur+activation/kill spell), and to compensate for the 3rd, the correct choice is to play 4x Serum Visions so you can dig deep enough to find him in the first turns.
How have you guys found Nicol Bolas? To me its - is very weak, but its + is very strong in an already even game.
That said i prefer Kalitas and Tasigur for the cloak over planeswalkers right now so i need to be convinced NB is worth playing
Imho they fulfill different roles. I play 1 Tasigur alongside the 2 NBs. Kalitas, as much as I hate to admit it, is not MB material in this time and age. I have been trying him on and off, and maybe sometimes he is good against creature decks, but otherwise his clock is not something relevant (3 power in T4 is not the most impressive thing you can do).
What NB has going for him is his versatility and his power to close out games, even more than Tasigur. In a heavy discard shell, where the opponent will often have 0-1 cards in hand, Bolas' +1 just rules. In addition, he only needs 3 turns to win you the game just with plus-ing.
His -3 is not even that bad considering that you can land him and have him protect himself. Also, if you are worried about the clock against PWs, Bolas literally kills a PW when he comes into play with his -3
Overall in all the games I played Bolas I was extremely impressed with how powerful he was. Especially against Tron he basically locked the opponent out of the game together with K.Command.
I really like those lists guys, I'd be going in similar directions. JtMS is also definitely a card to try out as he works very well together with discard.
Yeah I agree very much with this. The 1 off I had worked really well. I am thinking of whether I should crank it up to 2 or whether that will make the deck too heavy.
Didn't have the opportunity to play since Friday but I have been tinkering with the list and I have to say that I REALLY like it. Not sure if it is gonna reach tier 2 status (or any higher for that matter), but it definitely has legs and it definitely has some potential in certain metas. As is the case with Grixis Control (the draw-go) version it has some really difficult lines, mostly involving K.Command, snapcaster and the role of Bolas.
With this new build, if you have a Bolas in play it is not EVEN MORE important to K.Command them on their draw-step, since that makes bolas basically a land destruction+draw ability (that's how I won against Tron).
Bearscape I would be very interested in you brewing up a list if you have the time, to explore maybe some alternative ideas in there.
I also think SV is the card we need here and not Opt, since we don't care that much about instant speed, but we do want to dig deep.
Hey guys, this is what I played yesterday at my LGS to a 2-1 finish, not something too impressive, could had won all my matches more easily, but I made several mistakes and I am rusty with the deck. The most impressive thing is that I managed to win against Tron straight up, without them really stumbling. Overall Bolas is THE NUTS. He is SUCH a strong card, basically if you manage to untap with him you win. With this type of build around (discard+removals) this can happen easily. The edict effects were not that impressive, I guess modern is not really the type of format that edicts are all stars. The 3 lilis are probably enough, so I'll cut the Triumph for another removal. The bolts were not bad, not sure if I really want them in there though. I also need some more black mana in this build, so I'll cut the Spirebluff Canal for another Shores.
T1 - IOK or TS
T2 - Wrench Mind or Fall
T3 - Lily of the Veil or removal of early creatures + more discard
T4 - by the time you cast JTMS here, there should be hardly any opposition. If there's threat you can bounce it and uptick lily, or downtick lily to kill it and brainstorm.
T5 - NBDG comes down and its downhill for the opponent from here.
I mean, I do love magic Christmas, but this will rarely be happening unfortunately, both because of our own deck, as well as because opposing decks can play multiple threats/disrupt/don't care about what we are doing :/
T2 will most likely always be keep mana up for removal/counter (if any), or having to react on our own turn to their T1/2 play. Not to spoil the fun, but I honestly think our T2 will need different things than Wrench Mind, I think having 2 copies of Fall should be way more than enough. Also, keep in mind that there are a ton of decks that would be extremely happy to discard 2 on T2!
I agree with Rise // Fall, but I don't think we would need Wrench Mind, since there is not enough space. I think you still want to be on the snapcaster-K.Command plan, which takes about 7 slots. Since we are in red running a number of bolts is also going to be useful to not fold hard to aggro decks. Therefore, I think cards like Wrench Mind don't really have a place in the deck.
Playing with Nicol Bolas Dragon God in standard has gotten me pretty excited; his +1 closes the game incredibly fast
My own WIP take on him is that you want to go close to the old "blue jund" decks, running a ton of discard and little to no countermagic. You want to shred your opponent's resources as soon as possible so that when Nikki B comes down, his +1 starts stone raining as soon as possible. In Standard this is pretty powerful already but in a format like modern where people greed on their lands all the time, this becomes really devastating really fast and forces your opponent to play into your answers without getting time to set up a multispell turn.
Tons of discard with IOK, TS, LotV and ColBrut, gross CA with Snap Kommand loops, 2x MB Surgical because Modern is a broken awful format and then spot removal and maybe SV to set up your mana. I like CalebD's take of Cryptic being the only mainboard counterspell but I also kind of like staying mostly monoblack.
I agree with this. I have been rocking the creature-less Grixis midrange/control in MTGA and Nicol Bolas Dragon God has been one of the most powerful cards I had the opportunity to resolve. He protec, he attac, he closes the game fast.
Looking at an opponent with 1 card in hand who decides to sacrifice a land only for me to proceed with a discard spell to take it away is just great. Also, he closes the game in a rather timely fashion, without needing extra cards (Nahiri's issue), or taking forever basically (Teferi's issue). Might be a great push for Blue Jund style decks with Bolas, Liliana, discards and removals.
Kanister's results are interesting, but we (I at least) don't have an N of total games to see frequency. Someone who is knowledgable and able could run some goldfish tests to see how often it would go off T0-2 without disruption and we would know. Because in the end, this is what this deck does, if it doesn't go T0-2 then it loses to itself.
It definitely is the hype of the moment, so we will be seeing this all over the place in MODO and it makes sense. There is no assertion to be made from this as for now it's just the hot potato and everyone wants to have a bite. Resilience and consistency in performance will tell us if this deck it to be considered as trash, mid-tier, top tier, or tier 0/bannable material.
IMHO, the deck is just another glass cannon and has the hype the Cheerios had. People in this thread talked about banning pieces from Cheerios even before the deck had a showing in a GP, or said that it would dominate the field. In the end Cheerios is still a fringe deck with nothing to show for itself. I believe this will be the case with the new combo-kid on the block.
I don't know, this list feels a little bit all over the place in terms of when it wants to play. It has a midrange plan with the discard and lili, and an instant speed plan with removal/cryptic, but it is unclear whether it can go well in either direction. Choosing when to tap out and when not will be exceptionally hard in this configuration. It also feels like it would just get stomped by combo decks or non-creature decks, especially game 1. Finally, I am not sure why Nicol Bolas the Ravager needs to be there (except flavor).
So according to this tweet: https://twitter.com/emmmzyne/status/1122513518887092226 Modern Horizons will be a rather complex set, sort of a Time Spiral 2:
Interesting thoughts from Maro's Q&A at #MtGLondon.
Modern Horizons was originally dubbed as 'Timespiral / Planar Chaos 2' in concept due to set complexity. It won't be an entry level set and has *a lot* of mechanics, but is a love letter to the Time Spiral block. #MTGModern
That is a good thing, imho, which allows for creative design and will possibly give us exciting new tools to play with that we would otherwise never see in standard.
Certainly, but I think something must account for Humans showing.
Was it seeing a burn out period and was always good?
We have not had a top8 like this since early 2018.
It just further shows that Modern is cyclical, and decks, if left out of the radar for too long, can have surprise showings, because people tend to "forget" about them. This has been shown during several years with the rise and fall of several decks like burn, dredge, grixis shadow, tron etc.
Narset is ok, but 3 is a bit excessive. I would not want to have more than 1 3CMC-do nothing spell, especially if your meta is aggro (from what I understand). Search isn't necessarily an auto include, but in a relatively slower meta I would always want at least one.
Yahenni's expertise is just ok. There are better mass removals (engineered explosives and/or damnation) however that I would look at first. The chaining off of the Expertise is more often cute than effective, especially considering most of your spells are removals/counters which don't benefit from chaining them with a mass removal. If you were to play Ancestral Vision that would be a different story.
For me, I play 2x Mana Leak. However I go the heavy discard/tap out route. If you want to play a bit more on your opponents turn then probably go for the 3-4x Crytpics for the raw power.
K.command into Snapcaster into Snap-K.command is why the deck functions in the first place. It is the thing we have going over every other control deck. It is the most relevant interaction. K. command their draw step to take their card and get back a snapcaster and repeat next turn with snapping back the k. command. I would suggest if you can find older videos of Corey Burkhart to watch, it will be immensely helpful to understand the play patterns of the deck.
Shriekmaw can't kill black creatures, and the most important creature atm is black (Death's Shadow).
Lili TLH ranges from OK to great depending on your meta.
In every set there will be cards fitting all archetypes (i.e. aggro, midrange, control). From this cards, it follows that at some point there will be printings powerful enough to slot into decks of that type in eternal formats.
Further, there will be cards that are "fun" designs, but that can be broken in card pools as large as modern.
I don't think it's either a personal or a design bias. It is literally how magic is designed. If anything, we know that in the last decade or so Wizards would like to have a more creature focused environment, without pushing spells completely out of the way. Even in this environment, however, we still get tools for all and any deck. Quantifying and qualifying them doesn't really show anything about design intention.
If anything, it shows that the design team can still come up with unique and powerful card designs that have play even in eternal formats and can compete with old, broken spells. That's something we should compliment the design team for and not bash them, as they often get way too much flack.
However, it is a matter of fact that we will be wanting to land NBDG on T5 much more often than UW wants to have Teferi on T5. I maintain that playing 2 is the correct number, especially considering that we have several lines of play on 5cc anywya (i.e. Snapcaster K. Command, Tasigur+activation/kill spell), and to compensate for the 3rd, the correct choice is to play 4x Serum Visions so you can dig deep enough to find him in the first turns.
What NB has going for him is his versatility and his power to close out games, even more than Tasigur. In a heavy discard shell, where the opponent will often have 0-1 cards in hand, Bolas' +1 just rules. In addition, he only needs 3 turns to win you the game just with plus-ing.
His -3 is not even that bad considering that you can land him and have him protect himself. Also, if you are worried about the clock against PWs, Bolas literally kills a PW when he comes into play with his -3
Overall in all the games I played Bolas I was extremely impressed with how powerful he was. Especially against Tron he basically locked the opponent out of the game together with K.Command.
Didn't have the opportunity to play since Friday but I have been tinkering with the list and I have to say that I REALLY like it. Not sure if it is gonna reach tier 2 status (or any higher for that matter), but it definitely has legs and it definitely has some potential in certain metas. As is the case with Grixis Control (the draw-go) version it has some really difficult lines, mostly involving K.Command, snapcaster and the role of Bolas.
With this new build, if you have a Bolas in play it is not EVEN MORE important to K.Command them on their draw-step, since that makes bolas basically a land destruction+draw ability (that's how I won against Tron).
Bearscape I would be very interested in you brewing up a list if you have the time, to explore maybe some alternative ideas in there.
I also think SV is the card we need here and not Opt, since we don't care that much about instant speed, but we do want to dig deep.
1x Blackcleave Cliffs
2x Blood Crypt
1x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Darkslick Shores
2x Island
1x Mountain
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Spirebluff Canal
2x Steam Vents
2x Swamp
2x Watery Grave
Instant (13)
3x Fatal Push
3x Kolaghan's Command
2x Lightning Bolt
1x Liliana's Triumph
2x Mana Leak
2x Terminate
1x Angrath's Rampage
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Rise // Fall
4x Serum Visions
1x Thoughtseize
Creature (6)
1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4x Snapcaster Mage
1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Planeswalker (6)
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3x Liliana of the Veil
2x Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God
2x Collective Brutality
1x Damnation
1x Disdainful Stroke
1x Dispel
2x Engineered Explosives
3x Fulminator Mage
2x Negate
3x Surgical Extraction
T2 will most likely always be keep mana up for removal/counter (if any), or having to react on our own turn to their T1/2 play. Not to spoil the fun, but I honestly think our T2 will need different things than Wrench Mind, I think having 2 copies of Fall should be way more than enough. Also, keep in mind that there are a ton of decks that would be extremely happy to discard 2 on T2!
Looking at an opponent with 1 card in hand who decides to sacrifice a land only for me to proceed with a discard spell to take it away is just great. Also, he closes the game in a rather timely fashion, without needing extra cards (Nahiri's issue), or taking forever basically (Teferi's issue). Might be a great push for Blue Jund style decks with Bolas, Liliana, discards and removals.
It definitely is the hype of the moment, so we will be seeing this all over the place in MODO and it makes sense. There is no assertion to be made from this as for now it's just the hot potato and everyone wants to have a bite. Resilience and consistency in performance will tell us if this deck it to be considered as trash, mid-tier, top tier, or tier 0/bannable material.
IMHO, the deck is just another glass cannon and has the hype the Cheerios had. People in this thread talked about banning pieces from Cheerios even before the deck had a showing in a GP, or said that it would dominate the field. In the end Cheerios is still a fringe deck with nothing to show for itself. I believe this will be the case with the new combo-kid on the block.
Interesting thoughts from Maro's Q&A at #MtGLondon.
Modern Horizons was originally dubbed as 'Timespiral / Planar Chaos 2' in concept due to set complexity. It won't be an entry level set and has *a lot* of mechanics, but is a love letter to the Time Spiral block. #MTGModern
That is a good thing, imho, which allows for creative design and will possibly give us exciting new tools to play with that we would otherwise never see in standard.