Yeah I don't think Allosaurus Rider deck is any good. It seems to have early kills decent enough, but it is super glass cannon and Bolt, Path, or Spell pierce is like a 4 or 5 for 1. The deck needs to be able to play a longer game to be any threat, like how Storm and Amulet can
One of the many problems with BTL is that it's secondary win condition is really not good (Madcap Experiments/ Platinum Emperion). RG has other major win conditions outside scapeshift for leathal. Using Primeval Titan in combination with Valakut, craeting a gamestate where every card is a lightning bolt or multiple bolts per card, or just beat down with Tireless Tracker, BBE (if you still run her), and other creatures like Baloth.
RG also has the luxury of resolving a Titan against certain matchups and the opponent not being able to deal with that. Some decks won't hurt themselves to 18, and Scapeshift with 8 lands just is way too slow and not reliable. Scapeshift all of a sudden becomes the first cut you take out when sideboarding. Artifact decks like Affinity and Hardened Scales is a good example. Burn would probably be good to take out 1 or 2, as a resolved titan just wins the game unless you are dangerously low. BGx decks you take out a non zero amount of Scapeshifts due to the fact that you will be low on resources and it becomes very hard to even get up to 7 lands before they kill you.
As for BTL, they have coutnerspells that can stop a lot of things. On top of actual BTL being a utility card, we might want to cut a single scapeshift, but not necessarily cut a BTL. Depends on the matchup most of the time, but I fond myself never really wanting to cut BTL, but I could be wrong.
I think the future of the U version is not Bring to Light. I think like the above poster said, the future of the deck is going back to RUG. Having W right now is super tempting due to all the graveyard stuff, but the inconsistency with the mana base plus the overall clunkiness of the BTL versions just isn't cutting it. I think RUG is the new hope.
3 major cards have been printed and made legal for modern since RUG's hay day: Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Search for Azcanta, and Growth Spiral. We have the tools, we just need to find a good build and show that RUG can be a contender again
I actually think it'll do nothing maybe besides making a deck like Amulet better by a very few percentage points. Basically it increases all deck's consistency. So in turn, makes "almost there decks" jsut as good as they were before because the real decks will be better in turn to answer them. Both good and bad decks get better, no one really gets better.
After reading the past few posts on chrome mox, I can say that if it were legal nothing good would come of it. If the goal is to slow down the format, chrome mox being unbanned is a step in the other direction.
One card for an additional mana source? Yep definitely not broken lol.
EDIT: Just so we're clear yes I understand with the chrome mox it's two cards out of your hand, still leads to degeneracy though.
I'd say that it's effect is less degeneracy and more that it makes decks partially homogenized. Basically, unless there's a very good reason not to, you should be starting every deck with 4 Chrome Mox, if it's legal. If anything though, it makes traditionally "fair" decks (aggro, control, ramp, and midrange) better against "unfair" (combo) decks. Admittedly, I think labeling decks "fair" or "unfair" is a bit loaded, but it's how the developers seem to think of things.
I would order cards safe to come back in this order of the ones Mortal Coil listed...
1. Dread Return - even though I've read all the "proof" here of a turn 2 Iona, I just don't see it
2. Sensei's Divining Top - it is only an issue because of players taking too long (I guess that's enough, but it's sad)
As a former legacy player, have have been on the receiving end of a mad rush of multiple zombies from Dredge too many times. Shaped my thinking not to go to any legacy FNM without at least 4 pieces of grave hate. ------ Would Dread Return enable those mad rush of zombies here?
Sensei Top... would this bring to life the Counterbalance-Top kind of decks to modern? If I'm going to lose, I prefer the swift death from aggro .. than to be staring at someone fix their top deck with "top" for who knows how many number of times already.
Besides those two. I agree with the others things you said.
It is not nearly as bad as in Legacy, since many of the really good supporting tools (be it Cabal Therapy, Breakthrough, LED or Ichorid) are not legal. This means, while the peak performance is similar (winning on turn 2 based on a Hugs into Dread Return into Griselbrand into Dread Return into Zealot for lethal with a theoretically turn 1 win), the consistency for this is way lower. However, turn 2 wins are already rather feels bad man so I basically see no reason at all to unban it.
Greetings,
Kathal
This. My dude, the last thing you want is Dread Return available to Dredge.
Having played against amulet enough to more or less understand it, I can say with confidence that it has the greatest variance of any combo deck I have ever seen. Unlike an infect or storm combo where, if you can stop the key card you can cause them to lose a lot of resources titan doesn't really put itself far behind when it goes off and faces disruption. If you remove the titan, they just have extra mana to play another or any other wincon. But the deck is a bad midrange deck without amulets. I'm around .500 against it on burn and 3-0 against it since picking up grixis shadow.
Honestly, if dredge, tron and phoenix are going to be on top, amulet is definitely a good pick. Though I'd also consider infect if I had the budget.
I'm surprised Amulet didn't get banned over Summer Bloom when they had the chance. But then again, everyone thought the deck was dead without Bloom - joke's on them now
Honestly, I'm happy they didn't ban it into the ground. I don't buy the hype around the current incarnation of the deck. It's just another resilient combo package with a few low percentage early wins. The only thing exceptional about it is that it doesn't rely on the graveyard as much as other combo shells, so people often don't build sideboards with cards that work well against it. I don't really get why people get resentful about losing to a combo deck, but I see it a lot, since I'm on Dice Factory Combo in paper. It's not as resilient to hate as Amulet combo, but it's got a better early win chance.
I'm glad as well. I honestly hate that it has the double Amulet fast combo kill because outside of that line, its more of a tooblbox style deck than anything else. If it didn't have that double amulet kill, I think the deck wouldn't get as much as a bad rep as it does, especially since a lot pf people don't know how the deck actually works (people literally ask me "Am I dead" when I just cast a titan with 1 Amulet in play) and Summer Bloom is still remembered.
I am a combo deck defender, as I think a lot of the time people unfairly are too afraid of combo decks. They get banned faster than anything else, as the fear of "two ships passing in the night: the format" is a real thing. But right now, combo (outside dredge) is pretty low and I think Amulet is a good place for combo to be for Modern
I think diversity is over exaggerated when it comes to the spikiest of spikes. It always seems that if you want to totally maximize you chances of winning then theres usually just 3 or 4 decks that you should be playing and thats it.
Not saying its a good or bad thing. Modern is diverse because you can win with almost anything. But if you are grinding every tournament to win then usually you are limited to just a few if you are being totally serious
Discard can create non-games and I don't think its a great form of "interaction." When backed up with Stubby D and other removal packages, it happens often, not only against combo. There's a reason it is Grixis and not just UB too. Stealing games out of nowhere with Temur Battle Rage is very important for the deck. I have fun when I play against UW control. I rarely leave a game after playing GDS, especially game 1, feeling like it was a good game of magic. I don't think it really is that easy to interact with the deck tbh
Maybe this top 8, but hardly the story of the format. Aggro is king and has been for a while. If you count Dedge as aggro and not combo, then well combo hardly exists at all, with Titanshift, Amulet and I guess Ad Naus or Storm as the best combo decks. Storm is garbage now though. According to MTG Goldfish, combo is way down. According to MTGtop8, they consider Dredge combo. But since its really much more of an aggro deck, then Combo would be like not even half of the other archtypes.
As for Control, there really is only two classic Control Archtypes, Jesaki and UW and UW is looking just to be so much better. Tron is also a control deck I guess, but its kind of its own thing.
Here's my summation of the format:
Tron and GDS create non games of magic. GDS and Burn push out any semblance of combo. Dredge creates a mini game of drawing you hate piece or be run over. Humans I personally like as a police deck, but it isnt as good as it was a few months ago. I don't have a problem with Phoenix besides just how good it is, and it begs the question, "why play any other deck?." UW control is Terminus Lottery: the deck.
Deterministic kill with repeatable loop:
With Sidisi, Undead Vizier's Trigger on the stack targeting himself, activate Conjurer's Bauble targeting Faith's Reward to shuffle it back into library, activate Pyrite Spellbomb to deal 2 damage to opponent. Let Sidisi trigger resolve, grab the Faith's Reward again. Pop all your artifacts to cycle and activate Lotus Blooms, Ghost Quarters, and Mox Opal to gain mana, Cast Faith's Reward. Rinse and repeat.
This loop is also not 100% needed as you can do the classic version where you loop faith's rewards to thin your deck to only have Faith's Rewards and Open the Vaults in Library and loop with Pyrite Spellbomb
Conjurer's Bauble on Faith's Reward or Open the Vaults to put back in library. Ghost Quarter and/or fetch lands or other tutor effects to shuffle library to get it off bottom. You eventually end up with your library with only Faith's Rewards and Open the Vaults. Then Loop Pyrite Spellbomb over and over.
Another combo I'm interested in, which I'm nost sure is even viable in Modern due to basically no mana positive mana rocks is Shimmer Myr + Aetherflux Reservoir. Its a classic EDH combo where you cast artifacts at instant speed. The reason you do this is not only able to combo off on opponent's turn, but you respond with Aetherflux triggers on the stack. The trigger checks total spells cast, not spells before the trigger, which means the life gain gets out of control and you can easily get 50 health easily. Thing is, like i said, it relies on mana positive rocks. So if we have discounted artifacts then maybe we can somehow do this, idk
There's a lot of things we can argue that this guys said, but its probably been done beofre. I'm just going to look at his closing statement:
As to my personal views, I’m unsure of whether the card was too good for Modern, but I definitely think that the banning was poorly executed and poorly explained. As such I think WOTC ought to unban the card, and then if necessary do a proper banning, with hard numbers and clear arguments, as they did with KCI.
There's many cards you can say the same thing about. Actually, I would even argue that the vast majority of cards up until the last few (in which wotc has been very good about) Didn't quite receive a proper banning.
You want splinter twin unbanned, but that's not enough. You also want it's fair backup blue moon plan be a great deck also by it's own
Another side note: the card Counterspell does little to nothing to help anything meaningful in Modern. We need free or 1cmc counters to help fight the free/1cmc threats. Never mind all the uncountereable shenanigans through Vial/Cavern/etc.
I think something like Pernicious Deed as well as something like Counterspell, or literal Counterspell existing in the format would probably make it better.
One of the many problems with BTL is that it's secondary win condition is really not good (Madcap Experiments/ Platinum Emperion). RG has other major win conditions outside scapeshift for leathal. Using Primeval Titan in combination with Valakut, craeting a gamestate where every card is a lightning bolt or multiple bolts per card, or just beat down with Tireless Tracker, BBE (if you still run her), and other creatures like Baloth.
RG also has the luxury of resolving a Titan against certain matchups and the opponent not being able to deal with that. Some decks won't hurt themselves to 18, and Scapeshift with 8 lands just is way too slow and not reliable. Scapeshift all of a sudden becomes the first cut you take out when sideboarding. Artifact decks like Affinity and Hardened Scales is a good example. Burn would probably be good to take out 1 or 2, as a resolved titan just wins the game unless you are dangerously low. BGx decks you take out a non zero amount of Scapeshifts due to the fact that you will be low on resources and it becomes very hard to even get up to 7 lands before they kill you.
As for BTL, they have coutnerspells that can stop a lot of things. On top of actual BTL being a utility card, we might want to cut a single scapeshift, but not necessarily cut a BTL. Depends on the matchup most of the time, but I fond myself never really wanting to cut BTL, but I could be wrong.
I think the future of the U version is not Bring to Light. I think like the above poster said, the future of the deck is going back to RUG. Having W right now is super tempting due to all the graveyard stuff, but the inconsistency with the mana base plus the overall clunkiness of the BTL versions just isn't cutting it. I think RUG is the new hope.
3 major cards have been printed and made legal for modern since RUG's hay day: Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Search for Azcanta, and Growth Spiral. We have the tools, we just need to find a good build and show that RUG can be a contender again
I'm glad as well. I honestly hate that it has the double Amulet fast combo kill because outside of that line, its more of a tooblbox style deck than anything else. If it didn't have that double amulet kill, I think the deck wouldn't get as much as a bad rep as it does, especially since a lot pf people don't know how the deck actually works (people literally ask me "Am I dead" when I just cast a titan with 1 Amulet in play) and Summer Bloom is still remembered.
I am a combo deck defender, as I think a lot of the time people unfairly are too afraid of combo decks. They get banned faster than anything else, as the fear of "two ships passing in the night: the format" is a real thing. But right now, combo (outside dredge) is pretty low and I think Amulet is a good place for combo to be for Modern
Not saying its a good or bad thing. Modern is diverse because you can win with almost anything. But if you are grinding every tournament to win then usually you are limited to just a few if you are being totally serious
Maybe this top 8, but hardly the story of the format. Aggro is king and has been for a while. If you count Dedge as aggro and not combo, then well combo hardly exists at all, with Titanshift, Amulet and I guess Ad Naus or Storm as the best combo decks. Storm is garbage now though. According to MTG Goldfish, combo is way down. According to MTGtop8, they consider Dredge combo. But since its really much more of an aggro deck, then Combo would be like not even half of the other archtypes.
As for Control, there really is only two classic Control Archtypes, Jesaki and UW and UW is looking just to be so much better. Tron is also a control deck I guess, but its kind of its own thing.
Here's my summation of the format:
Tron and GDS create non games of magic. GDS and Burn push out any semblance of combo. Dredge creates a mini game of drawing you hate piece or be run over. Humans I personally like as a police deck, but it isnt as good as it was a few months ago. I don't have a problem with Phoenix besides just how good it is, and it begs the question, "why play any other deck?." UW control is Terminus Lottery: the deck.
4 Flooded Strand
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Hallowed Fountain
5 Island
2 Plains
Artifact
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Mox Opal
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Conjurer's Bauble
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
2 Elsewhere Flask
2 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Sorcery
4 Serum Visions
2 Sleight of Hand
4 Reshape
2 Open the Vaults
Instant
4 Faith's Reward
1 Whir of Invention
Sideboard
4 Erase
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Negate
3 Silence
2 Sai, Master Thopterist
1 Defense Grid
Deterministic kill with repeatable loop:
With Sidisi, Undead Vizier's Trigger on the stack targeting himself, activate Conjurer's Bauble targeting Faith's Reward to shuffle it back into library, activate Pyrite Spellbomb to deal 2 damage to opponent. Let Sidisi trigger resolve, grab the Faith's Reward again. Pop all your artifacts to cycle and activate Lotus Blooms, Ghost Quarters, and Mox Opal to gain mana, Cast Faith's Reward. Rinse and repeat.
This loop is also not 100% needed as you can do the classic version where you loop faith's rewards to thin your deck to only have Faith's Rewards and Open the Vaults in Library and loop with Pyrite Spellbomb
Ramp:
Reshape + Lotus Bloom
Ghost Quarter + Faith's Reward
Conjurer's Bauble on Faith's Reward or Open the Vaults to put back in library. Ghost Quarter and/or fetch lands or other tutor effects to shuffle library to get it off bottom. You eventually end up with your library with only Faith's Rewards and Open the Vaults. Then Loop Pyrite Spellbomb over and over.
Another combo I'm interested in, which I'm nost sure is even viable in Modern due to basically no mana positive mana rocks is Shimmer Myr + Aetherflux Reservoir. Its a classic EDH combo where you cast artifacts at instant speed. The reason you do this is not only able to combo off on opponent's turn, but you respond with Aetherflux triggers on the stack. The trigger checks total spells cast, not spells before the trigger, which means the life gain gets out of control and you can easily get 50 health easily. Thing is, like i said, it relies on mana positive rocks. So if we have discounted artifacts then maybe we can somehow do this, idk
There's a lot of things we can argue that this guys said, but its probably been done beofre. I'm just going to look at his closing statement:
There's many cards you can say the same thing about. Actually, I would even argue that the vast majority of cards up until the last few (in which wotc has been very good about) Didn't quite receive a proper banning.
I think something like Pernicious Deed as well as something like Counterspell, or literal Counterspell existing in the format would probably make it better.
Also whats your guys' thoughts on cards like Red Elemental Blast or Blue Elemental Blast being in Modern?