4x Serum Visions and your win-cons being 1 drops helps quite a bit. Back when I played RUG Twin I ran 23 lands I think because of 4x Visions, and I didn't have problems hitting 4 lands by turn 4.
It still is a stretch. Back when I played Grixis control I ran a similar configuration and still had occasional mana problems.
Although I am happy to see control at the top tables... it doesn't necessarily mean control is a viable choice for tier 1 deck.
The issue with control has always been drawing the wrong half of your deck. Since alot of the answers in Modern are powerful but one sided - the viability of control often hinges on draws.
From what games I saw of the Grixis player... he drew exceptionally.
Yeah I would not run 22 lands in Grixis either. In UWR I run 24 with 3x Serum Visions and that seems adequate.
What happens if Dredge draws the wrong half of their deck tho? Just a bunch of Dredgers and no way to pitch them? Or Grishoalbrand? Or Twin for that matter? I had plenty of games where I drew every copy of Twin and like two Cryptics and just died. I played against a Scapeshift dude last friday who drew too many Mountains and scooped. Just part of Magic.
So what's the new narrative now ? Dredge is fine, metagame is diverse, control players over on here need to get good ?
Reddit and MTGSalvation have a long history of 'Control doesn't work in Modern' and then as soon as someone wins a GP/PT/SCG with Control, people say they got the good side of variance (someone will likely quote this saying "Well they DID get the good side of variance") when in reality if you know your deck well and have a little luck (it is magic after all) you will do just fine with your choice.
I have the options to play Jund, Junk, Merfolk, Grixis variants, or UWR. I played Tron in the past, I played Twin, I played some Abzan Company. I still put up my best results and have the most fun with UWR Control. Does that mean UWR is the best deck? Nope. Just works for me.
Control players just need to git gud. n00bs.
How do you play control against dredge?
They are not afraid of your discard spell, counter spell, and most of the removal.
This is really a painful match-up.
Path their Bloodghasts and go to Game 2 for Rest in Peace
If you have a lot of Dredge in your meta just run 3 RiP and a couple Surgicals. You'll get there sometimes
Then how many SB cards you need to take in order to compete with Dredge?
If you do that, how can you do the SB against other decks such as Affinity and Tron?
The problem for control is, there is no easy way to build your 75 cards and fight against so many types of the decks in Modern.
But somehow Control decks still do well with the people that know how to play them.
I run 2x Rest in Peace. I bring it in against Grixis, Jund, Junk, Grishoalbrand, and Dredge and Storm.
2x Stony Silence - Affinity and Lantern and Tron
2x Negates - UWR, Scapeshift, Grixis, Burn, Delver
1x Dispel - Infect, Scapeshift (if it's blue), Burn, Delver, Grixis
1x EE - aggro
2x Anger - Affinity, Dredge, Fish, etc
1x Wear // Tear - Affinity, Blood Moon decks
1x Elspeth - Grixis, Jund, Junk, Bant Eldrazi
1x Lightning Helix - Burn, aggro
1x Spellskite - Infect, Boggles
1x Celestial Purge - Blood Moons, Burn, Jund, Junk, Grixis
This is just an example, but I did not have to over-sideboard for any particular matchup and I have many of my bases covered. As long as you know how to build your mainboard you'll be fine.
Every deck in modern has a weakness, and those decks hope to dodge or have a SB for it. Same with Control. I would much rather be on UWR and have some answers that give me a shot than on Dredge and face turn 0 Leyline or turn 2 Rest in Peace.
4x Serum Visions and your win-cons being 1 drops helps quite a bit. Back when I played RUG Twin I ran 23 lands I think because of 4x Visions, and I didn't have problems hitting 4 lands by turn 4.
If WOTC listens to some of the earlier concerns they may ban something from infect, but I personally don't think the recent results warrant any bannings this time around. We will see though. I don't think I have every accurately predicted the banning/unbanning announcement :).
I don't think WOTC listens to the community much when it comes to bannings (which is a good thing). Now that it is no longer a PT format I think it takes more time/more egregiously lopsided tournament results to warrant a ban. Hopefully that helps with unbans as well.
So what's the new narrative now ? Dredge is fine, metagame is diverse, control players over on here need to get good ?
Reddit and MTGSalvation have a long history of 'Control doesn't work in Modern' and then as soon as someone wins a GP/PT/SCG with Control, people say they got the good side of variance (someone will likely quote this saying "Well they DID get the good side of variance") when in reality if you know your deck well and have a little luck (it is magic after all) you will do just fine with your choice.
I have the options to play Jund, Junk, Merfolk, Grixis variants, or UWR. I played Tron in the past, I played Twin, I played some Abzan Company. I still put up my best results and have the most fun with UWR Control. Does that mean UWR is the best deck? Nope. Just works for me.
Control players just need to git gud. n00bs.
How do you play control against dredge?
They are not afraid of your discard spell, counter spell, and most of the removal.
This is really a painful match-up.
Path their Bloodghasts and go to Game 2 for Rest in Peace
If you have a lot of Dredge in your meta just run 3 RiP and a couple Surgicals. You'll get there sometimes
is Titan Shift supposed to be an atrocious matchup for us? I played about 7-8 games vs it and maybe got a win or two
is there any way to make it better? I guess crumble to dust is a thing
Yeah it is supposed to be tough. If I know I am playing against TitanShift I will often YOLO Jam Nahiri in game 1 as soon as I can. Game 2 I bring in Negates and will counter everything that they try to do early on (Sakura Tribe Elder, Search for Tomorrow, Farseek, etc.)
I am running 2x Crumble in the side and may up it to 3. We have a ton of Shift players at my shop.
EDIT: Also I beat TitanShift one time by very carefully staying above 18 with Helixes and Snaps while ticking Nahiri up. He had to waste bolts and Valakut triggers on Nahiri to keep her at bay while I snap bolted him over and over.
I think I may put a crumble in my side as a one of, there's one guy who has it but he's got a few decks that he can witch between so I might not see it that often
Yeah it becomes a tempo game. Sometimes the best bet is to slam Nahiri and hope they stumble on their next draw. But Crumble on Valakut ends the game. At that point all they have are Titan beats and we have plenty of Paths for that.
To be more exact: Control players need to find a deck, which fits for them and than get good with it ^^
Greetings,
Kathal
And hope to dodge bad matchups. That's really helpful!
That's kind of every decks game plan tho isn't it? Jund hopes to dodge Tron and TitanShift, Tron hopes to dodge Burn and Infect, Infect hopes to dodge decks with removal, Dredge hopes to dodge Rest in Peace.
I dunno, I feel like that is the nature of the game.
So what's the new narrative now ? Dredge is fine, metagame is diverse, control players over on here need to get good ?
Reddit and MTGSalvation have a long history of 'Control doesn't work in Modern' and then as soon as someone wins a GP/PT/SCG with Control, people say they got the good side of variance (someone will likely quote this saying "Well they DID get the good side of variance") when in reality if you know your deck well and have a little luck (it is magic after all) you will do just fine with your choice.
I have the options to play Jund, Junk, Merfolk, Grixis variants, or UWR. I played Tron in the past, I played Twin, I played some Abzan Company. I still put up my best results and have the most fun with UWR Control. Does that mean UWR is the best deck? Nope. Just works for me.
is Titan Shift supposed to be an atrocious matchup for us? I played about 7-8 games vs it and maybe got a win or two
is there any way to make it better? I guess crumble to dust is a thing
Yeah it is supposed to be tough. If I know I am playing against TitanShift I will often YOLO Jam Nahiri in game 1 as soon as I can. Game 2 I bring in Negates and will counter everything that they try to do early on (Sakura Tribe Elder, Search for Tomorrow, Farseek, etc.)
I am running 2x Crumble in the side and may up it to 3. We have a ton of Shift players at my shop.
EDIT: Also I beat TitanShift one time by very carefully staying above 18 with Helixes and Snaps while ticking Nahiri up. He had to waste bolts and Valakut triggers on Nahiri to keep her at bay while I snap bolted him over and over.
Man that's great.
For what it seems to me it's a matter of the inevitability; the real problem are the valakut themselves, if somehow i'm able to counter or surgical extract the scape or titans they only have to do landrops and kill me. In fact all the times i won was a GQ on Valakut and SE it, or crumble it.
Nahiri it's supergood though, but at turn 4 they're able to go off with Scapeshift so i'm skeptical to land her tapping out.
I usually try to counter their Steves and Search for Tomorrows so I can do land math and figure if I am safe for Nahiri. We have enough Shift players at my LGS now that I am running 2x Crumbles in my SB.
I think the GP results were very telling. If the meta is prepared for Dredge it is not overly dominant. I was very mistaken about my GP predictions and am happy I was wrong. Leylines, RIPS, Relics, etc. did their job, just like Stony does it's job.
I am thinking and hoping for no bans in January and a Preordain unban
It seems very unlikely that both Jeskai and Grixis independently dodged the 2nd and 3rd most-played decks in the Day 2 Top 100. Anyone who is seriously suggesting that better actually have the matchups to prove it.
All the rounds I could find info on:
Burkhart (Grixis):
R7 vs Lantern, 2-0
R8 vs Eldrazi & Taxes, 2-1
R10 vs Abzan, 2-1
R11 vs Lantern, 2-0
R12 vs Titanshift, 2-0
R13 vs Infect, 2-0
R14 vs Knightfall, 2-1
R15 ID with Dredge
Mitas (Jeskai):
R7 vs Grishoalbrand 1-2
R10 vs Lantern: 2-1
R11 vs Merfolk? 2-0
R12 vs RG Tron 1-2
R13 vs Bant Eldrazi 2-1
R14 vs Thing/PA 2-1
Given those matchups, things went as expected and would explain why they top 8'ed if those were the matchups they got.
Admittedly Corey's ID with Dredge would likely have been a loss, but still these matchups seemed pretty indicative of the metagame as a whole. Merfolk can be a tough matchup for UWR (I have been on both sides of that) and the UWR player beat Bant Eldrazi, which is supposed to prey on control builds. Like most people say about Modern, knowing how to play your deck well is often more important than the matchup roulette. I think the control players just knew their decks.
That said, I did hear the Skred player put his deck together on Friday and basically spiked the tournament with Blood Moons and Stormbreath Dragons lol
I agree with TappingStones, the tiers are just a rate of which deck is played the most, not about power or consistence. And since you could win on turn 3 people will go on that direction rather than play a (beautiful) attrition game. Unfortunately the whole "meta" seems to like a non interactive kind of decks for large tournaments.
So, I don't play MTG since the Twin ban, and went Jeskai now, and I was following the latest news and I have a couple of questions.
How's the field going? I mean, it's all about BGx, Affinity, Infect, Tron/Eldrazi? If so, does Mana Leak perform better than Remand?
What about Torrential Gearhulk? A guy has just top8d with a singleton of it.
Also, I quote the user who said that UWR needs something to shine, specially in the proactive term, and needs to put pressure on the opponent, but I don't know which card could do that. Geist of Saint Traft is something but that's not excellent, specially in this meta.
Right now the worst matchup, at least for me are RG Valakut, Eldrazi and if you don't draw the right cards even Dredge and Infect. Jund became pretty easy right now, Affinity is the same as always; instead i've not seen Tron in a while, perhaps 'cause infect is so prominent.
I haven't tested Torrential Gearhulk yet, but could be the threat we needed, it's a Snapcaser on Steroid. Geist is good only in some case, but i wouldn't put it in main. It's super efficient out of the side, when they don't expect it.
On the counter package i'm considering going on something like that:
1) 2 Snare 2 Remand 2 Logic Knot 1 Leak 2 Cryptic
2) 2 Snare 2 Remand 2 Leak 3 Cryptic
(right now i'm running a split similar to the latter but 2-2-2-2)
The reason is that i was impressed by the power of CC that was used as a 4 of in both control decks that made top8 yesterday. Many people seems don't like them but for me they overperfomed every time. Logic Knot is better than Leak in lategame, but could be awkward if we discard emmy or with all this GY hate around.
For some reason I am 2-0 (4-1 in games) against Valakut decks at my LGS. I played against a BTL variant (2-1) and TitanShift (2-0). I got pretty lucky drawing my negates whenever I needed them, but Nahiri provides a good clock for them. Ajani should be decent as well if they are stumbling on green sources at all (unlikely but possible).
I am mainboarding 2x Verdicts and 1x Ajani as a concession to Eldrazi.
I will be sticking to Jeskai Nahiri for the foreseeable future. Too much fun to put down.
I will be testing a list with 1x Ajani as an alternate win con, 2x MB Verdicts (no dredge in my meta, lots of Grixis), and a 3/3 split of Serum and Ancestral. So far in testing Ajani is as great as he's always been.
Yeah I would not run 22 lands in Grixis either. In UWR I run 24 with 3x Serum Visions and that seems adequate.
What happens if Dredge draws the wrong half of their deck tho? Just a bunch of Dredgers and no way to pitch them? Or Grishoalbrand? Or Twin for that matter? I had plenty of games where I drew every copy of Twin and like two Cryptics and just died. I played against a Scapeshift dude last friday who drew too many Mountains and scooped. Just part of Magic.
But somehow Control decks still do well with the people that know how to play them.
I run 2x Rest in Peace. I bring it in against Grixis, Jund, Junk, Grishoalbrand, and Dredge and Storm.
2x Stony Silence - Affinity and Lantern and Tron
2x Negates - UWR, Scapeshift, Grixis, Burn, Delver
1x Dispel - Infect, Scapeshift (if it's blue), Burn, Delver, Grixis
1x EE - aggro
2x Anger - Affinity, Dredge, Fish, etc
1x Wear // Tear - Affinity, Blood Moon decks
1x Elspeth - Grixis, Jund, Junk, Bant Eldrazi
1x Lightning Helix - Burn, aggro
1x Spellskite - Infect, Boggles
1x Celestial Purge - Blood Moons, Burn, Jund, Junk, Grixis
This is just an example, but I did not have to over-sideboard for any particular matchup and I have many of my bases covered. As long as you know how to build your mainboard you'll be fine.
Every deck in modern has a weakness, and those decks hope to dodge or have a SB for it. Same with Control. I would much rather be on UWR and have some answers that give me a shot than on Dredge and face turn 0 Leyline or turn 2 Rest in Peace.
I don't think WOTC listens to the community much when it comes to bannings (which is a good thing). Now that it is no longer a PT format I think it takes more time/more egregiously lopsided tournament results to warrant a ban. Hopefully that helps with unbans as well.
Path their Bloodghasts and go to Game 2 for Rest in Peace
If you have a lot of Dredge in your meta just run 3 RiP and a couple Surgicals. You'll get there sometimes
Yeah it becomes a tempo game. Sometimes the best bet is to slam Nahiri and hope they stumble on their next draw. But Crumble on Valakut ends the game. At that point all they have are Titan beats and we have plenty of Paths for that.
That's kind of every decks game plan tho isn't it? Jund hopes to dodge Tron and TitanShift, Tron hopes to dodge Burn and Infect, Infect hopes to dodge decks with removal, Dredge hopes to dodge Rest in Peace.
I dunno, I feel like that is the nature of the game.
Lol when he got to his bad one he ID'd haha
Reddit and MTGSalvation have a long history of 'Control doesn't work in Modern' and then as soon as someone wins a GP/PT/SCG with Control, people say they got the good side of variance (someone will likely quote this saying "Well they DID get the good side of variance") when in reality if you know your deck well and have a little luck (it is magic after all) you will do just fine with your choice.
I have the options to play Jund, Junk, Merfolk, Grixis variants, or UWR. I played Tron in the past, I played Twin, I played some Abzan Company. I still put up my best results and have the most fun with UWR Control. Does that mean UWR is the best deck? Nope. Just works for me.
Control players just need to git gud. n00bs.
Yeah it is supposed to be tough. If I know I am playing against TitanShift I will often YOLO Jam Nahiri in game 1 as soon as I can. Game 2 I bring in Negates and will counter everything that they try to do early on (Sakura Tribe Elder, Search for Tomorrow, Farseek, etc.)
I am running 2x Crumble in the side and may up it to 3. We have a ton of Shift players at my shop.
EDIT: Also I beat TitanShift one time by very carefully staying above 18 with Helixes and Snaps while ticking Nahiri up. He had to waste bolts and Valakut triggers on Nahiri to keep her at bay while I snap bolted him over and over.
I usually try to counter their Steves and Search for Tomorrows so I can do land math and figure if I am safe for Nahiri. We have enough Shift players at my LGS now that I am running 2x Crumbles in my SB.
I am thinking and hoping for no bans in January and a Preordain unban
Admittedly Corey's ID with Dredge would likely have been a loss, but still these matchups seemed pretty indicative of the metagame as a whole. Merfolk can be a tough matchup for UWR (I have been on both sides of that) and the UWR player beat Bant Eldrazi, which is supposed to prey on control builds. Like most people say about Modern, knowing how to play your deck well is often more important than the matchup roulette. I think the control players just knew their decks.
That said, I did hear the Skred player put his deck together on Friday and basically spiked the tournament with Blood Moons and Stormbreath Dragons lol
For some reason I am 2-0 (4-1 in games) against Valakut decks at my LGS. I played against a BTL variant (2-1) and TitanShift (2-0). I got pretty lucky drawing my negates whenever I needed them, but Nahiri provides a good clock for them. Ajani should be decent as well if they are stumbling on green sources at all (unlikely but possible).
I am mainboarding 2x Verdicts and 1x Ajani as a concession to Eldrazi.
I will be sticking to Jeskai Nahiri for the foreseeable future. Too much fun to put down.
I will be testing a list with 1x Ajani as an alternate win con, 2x MB Verdicts (no dredge in my meta, lots of Grixis), and a 3/3 split of Serum and Ancestral. So far in testing Ajani is as great as he's always been.