I have never found it to be problem outside of new players at FNM. In the 4-5 PPTQs I did in the last Modern season, I didn't run a single english non-land card and I think I had a grand total of 2 Judge calls for errata, and I was playing Tarfire, Simic Charm and Disrupting Shoal. I typically find that most competitive modern players know just about every playable card in the format.
Grixis Control is a lot of fun and has a lot of play to it. Plus it can be fairly easily turned into Grixis Deathshadow if you want.
Not entirely sure how well it will fit into your budget though, it depends on how many of the cards you already own.
You could probably add the "pay the pros" debacle and the walking back of the Gatewatch.
I think WotC might have actually been stoned for the last couple of years.
Blah, more click bait crap from pros, I really wish they would cut this out. My only hope is that a lack of a Modern Pro Tour will stay their hand, given it was the source of some of their more questionable bans.
Holy ***** they gave us almost Unearth! I have been wanting this for years. Down side it can't get back Mentor like it does in legacy but Claiming back a Snapcaster is going to feel amazing! Not to mention DS and Goyf.
Grixis is more popular, has an edge against DSJ and is ~$500 cheaper. Grixis is also probably generally better in the current meta but I've never been convinced that the difference is as big as most people say it is. I still prefer Jund but it is largely a personal preference at this point, Traverse has rapidly become one of my favorite cards in modern.
I primarily play FNMs (20-30 people) with PPTQs and GPTs thrown in when the season is right (I live in Australia so the number of large tournaments is limited). I have never really understood the idea that modern lacks skill or that it contains a large number of "non-games", at least in comparison to any other format or game. I agree with Pokken that mulliganning is a often overlooked skill in modern, I have seen too many people keep a hand of lands and spells that doesn't actually do anything in the match-up.
It does feel like a lot of the complaining about modern comes from writers and pro players that don't actually have a lot to do with the format. Which makes a certain level of sense; standard goes stale pretty quick, and the legacy audience is smaller so why not slap together 800+ words about the format that is in a constant state of ban-mania and get some guaranteed views?
Someone at Kobe (forget the list or name) was running the white splash main with 1 Watery Grave, 3 Stubborn Denial, and 3 Lingering Souls in the board. I am kind of tempted to give that build a spin, especially due to the changes in my meta lately.
What do people think of cutting a fetchland for a 2'nd blood crypt in the mana base? It looks like there's a lot of dredge and a lot of company running around right now, so I really want to run 2 angers in my SB.
I'm not a huge fan of cutting fetches. Flaying Tendrils does a lot of the same work in again CoCo and Dredge (barring Prized Amalgam) but it is worse in the Zoo match up.
Someone at Kobe (forget the list or name) was running the white splash main with 1 Watery Grave, 3 Stubborn Denial, and 3 Lingering Souls in the board. I am kind of tempted to give that build a spin, especially due to the changes in my meta lately.
From the sound of what you want to play and the card you have I would look at Grixis Death's Shadow. (Example list here)
I haven't played the deck myself but I have played a lot of Grixis Control, and the Snapcaster Mage + Kolaghan's Commmand loop sounds pretty close to what you are after. Plus it is a ton of fun.
I will finish out the few Zen fetches I am missing and some Voices if they drop enough. As for decks I am looking at Death Shadow Jund, as Death's Shadow is the only card I am missing from the deck.
Not entirely sure how well it will fit into your budget though, it depends on how many of the cards you already own.
I think WotC might have actually been stoned for the last couple of years.
It does feel like a lot of the complaining about modern comes from writers and pro players that don't actually have a lot to do with the format. Which makes a certain level of sense; standard goes stale pretty quick, and the legacy audience is smaller so why not slap together 800+ words about the format that is in a constant state of ban-mania and get some guaranteed views?
While not important to modern directly the article is a really interesting read and look into how they handle bannings.
That's the one, thanks. Not sure about the main deck Ranger though. I'm not a huge fan of cutting fetches. Flaying Tendrils does a lot of the same work in again CoCo and Dredge (barring Prized Amalgam) but it is worse in the Zoo match up.
I think this needs to be in bold at the top of the thread.
I haven't played the deck myself but I have played a lot of Grixis Control, and the Snapcaster Mage + Kolaghan's Commmand loop sounds pretty close to what you are after. Plus it is a ton of fun.