First at all, if I´m in a Subforum it is not possible to go to the latest posting of a thread. Maybe, I´m just to dumb to find it. If this feature isn´t in yet, you should upgrade the FAQ in this point.
EDIT: Dumb me found it
Second, in the FAQ, if you are using the Black Version of the Forum, the font colour isn´t correct. There are some points, where the font colour is black although it should be white.
Sincerly,
Kathal
PS: The new Forum is pretty insane, love it
Very interesting read btw.
Greetings,
Kathal
AIR had no good Storm cards (grabbing 4 Hellkites via Dragonstorm was the best you could have done back then) so they needed to relay on different things (prison elements and fatties and the occasional Dragonstorm build). So Song/Rite of Flames is fine in that deck. However, those two in a deck with PiF, Mancers/Ascension is a completely different animal. If you would ban Grapeshot, Empty and Dragonstorm there is little to no reason to not unban Song (still little bit wary about Rites, cause of Chalice).
And yeah, I totally agree with your statement with Tron. However, this mainly stems from the bonkers payoff cards you can nowadays grab. If the best thing you could have done with the mana is playing Keiga, the Tide Star or Tooth and Nail for Kiki-jiki + Sky Hussar (or something as filthy as Plow Under in the Mirror...) it is something completely different than if you slam a Karn, Wurmcoil or Ulamog with it. The payoff cards just are so far and beyond better, it is not even funny.
That is also the reason, that only the most dedicated old school Tron players are playing those Tron style decks. Why should I try to Mindslaver somebody out of the game (although quite funny to do so) when I can just Karn reliable on Turn 3? Why should I play UW Tron with the Gifts package, when I can play Ugin the same turn they usually reanimate a fatty?
That is the reason, why people are hating Tron. Not because of the mana that it generates, but what spells you can cast with it.
To get back to your initial point. A lot of "design mistakes" are always contextual. Is Eye of Ugin a problem? Only when you are printing pushed Eldrazie cards with CMC not a billion. Is Dark Depths a problem? Only if you print Hexmage/Thespian Stage. Is Grapeshot/Empty a problem? Only if you have the necessary tools to abuse it. Is DRS a mistake? As Standard would have suggested, no. As we know, yes.
You can reprint so many broken cards in different environments, which would be absolutely atrocious (DRS in standard as a prime example). However, in a format as Modern, which is a huge pond, a small ripple can result into some huge waves. So while in hindsight you can always say: "XYZ was a design mistake", the context matters a ton. And that is why Modern cannot and will not become Standard++ nor Pauper (Pauper, at least till a few years ago, was more treniding towards a Vintage style than anything else). You would need a huge banlist to do so, which would kill the format outright.
There will always be big mana decks which will do a similar job to what Tron is doing. Should we now ban all big mana pay off cards too? So Titan, Scapeshift, Valakut,...?
Those decks struggle against big mana decks, cause they are weak to that archtype in general. If I play a Tempo deck (like Delver or Bug Shadow) I always moan when I need to play against Midrange decks, cause those are just the natural enemies of the deck. However, I am super happy when I can play against any form of Combo, which is usually a pretty darn good match-up.
That is the normal Rock-Paper-Scissor thematic of the Archetypes. If something has no bad match-ups it usually indicates that the deck is way to strong.
IMO Wizard had two paths back in the day, two decision which would been shaping the whole format. One was the Path they took, ban Pod, TC, DTT. That was the more conservative Path, since it was still done with the "what-a-mole" mentality of trying to keep the ever increasing powerlevel of non rotating formats down (especially Modern). The rest is history.
The other one would not to go that route and instead go the unban route of unleashing more cards into the format, things like Stoneforge and BBE would have been great cards back than, but it would have been the more risky path, since no one could say, where this would have lead too.
So, to get back to your initial question, yes, Pod needed to be banned, cause they decided to continue "whack-a-mole". Pod in summer already had peak performances (and that was with a more harmful environment), although in the Kiki Pod version. When TC and DTT entered the format, Rhino.Pod (or rather Angel Pod) became the (in my opinion) second best deck in the format, only DTT Scapeshift (which nobody played for w/e reason, echo champer syndrome I assume) was better. Pod had a decent to great match-up against all the Tier 1 meta decks, either they outvalued any value deck (BGx and UWR) or could keep on par with the card advantage of TC Delver. That combo decks (as in pure combo decks like Storm, Ad Nauseam, Griselbanned or something like Amulet Titan) where either non existent (cause they either didn't "exist" yet (Amulet Titan or Dredge), got no attention at all (Griselbanned, Ad Nauseam) or were considered bad decks (Storm)) helped Pod a lot. Combo and somewhat big mana (depends on which Pod version you played) were the worst match-ups for Pod. Only Infect with the freshly printed Become Immense (in conjunction with Probe) and Affinity were the only top tier decks (which saw play) could have been labeled as a combo deck back than. Sure, there was still Burn with the freshly printed Eidolon (just one set old), but even against that deck Angle.Pod had little to no trouble (Kitchen Finks into Resto into Rhino is gg).
So, tl;dr: Given the path they have chosen back then, it absolutely needed to get banned.
Greetings,
Kathal
Sorry to burst your bubble, but that train is long gone. Modern cannot become Standard++ nor can it become something like Pauper. It is shaped from all kinds of different and big (contextual) design mistakes over the years.
Greetings,
Kathal
Greetings,
Kathal
It does not really work. Narset adds so many "bad" cards to the deck (to be able to get actually benefits of her) that it is not really worth it. However, what I noticed was, that Pull from Eternity combined with both Serum Powder and Gemstone Caverns led to some very interesting turn 2 kills via Griselbrand. How it works: You are on the draw, use Powder or Gemstone Cavern (ideally) to exile Griselbrand, so you can go for Pull into Vengeance on turn 2. Increased the speed (and also the consisntency) by quite a noticeable margin.
So, next version I will try is a Powder version, something I wanted to do since quite a while.
Greetings,
Kathal
If you really want to go the Fury route, I suggest to do the following:
Play Narset, Enlightened Master, Serum Powder, Pull from Eternity and different Fury effects (Fury of the Horde, Relentless Assault or Waves of Aggression) + maybe Spoils of the Vault. That is probably the most consistent Fury deck out there, since it is purely graveyard focused (cause of the interaction of Powder, Pull and Goryo's), can still play Breach without any problems and can spell based ramp (Morphose works too) to generate extra mana of Narset to do stuff with cards in your hand.
Sure, if you go more the Narset route, than stuff like Conflux, Brilliant Ultimatum, Enter the Infinite or Omniscience could be played (see here and here for more infos). However, that are details and more important the question, how deep you want to go down that rabbit hole.
Thing is, I would try to avoid playing Emmi atm (but if you want to beat Infinite Life, Warship and co where Lab Man would do the trick too), cause she is kinda clunky and more often than not cannot kill on the spot. Than you need to play Bolt to have a way to kill the opp. Also Grisel is not a sure win, more of an set-up, since you more often than not need another combo turn to actually close out the game. Hence, I would go the more brutal approach with Narset tbh.
Greetings,
Kathal
Note: I am only playing 23 lands, so I need the cantrips to reliable find my lands. Hence why I play 4 Opts + 2 Hiro.
Greetings,
Kathal
Round 1 vs Colourless Eldrazie:
Game 1 he found one of his 2 Scavenger Grounds when I had 3 Loams in the graveyard. Couldn't really recover from that, even with an active Seismic Assault.
Game 2 he got double Chalice on 2 (correct call from him btw) which rendered my Grudge quite useless and since I didn't board in the Beast Within (and just the one Nature's Claim) I had no out to kill them. So it turned in a slugfest, where he won in the end cause he found a Smasher (survived at 2 life for 10+ turns). However, my mana was atrocious, which basically costed me the game. I needed to Ghost Quarter myself twice to be able to cast Looting + Assault in turn 3 and 4. With any untapped dual I should have won that game without any problems.
Round 2 vs UW Control
Game 1 I fked up. I missed two damage cause I used Assault instead of Flame Jab to kill of the Teferi which resulted into one less token from Pyro. He survived with 1 hp... . He finished me with an big Entreat.
Game 2 he had a clunky draw, double Angel and Jace which looks quite bad against an active Assault Loam. Won thanks to a huge Tracker and Reveler.
Game 3 I kept a clunky hand, it went to time, he won in the last turn due to an EOT Clique + 2x Snappy flash in into untap into double removal spell. I also drew kinda *****ty + he killed of 3 Seimsic Assaults, so it was really hard to win. I really missed Tec Edge for that match-up (and Thrun...)
Round 3 vs bye (feelsbadman)
Round 4 vs Copy Cat + Kiki
Game 1 I had an Bolt for the Lotus Cobra into a Crusher which Crushed him within 3 turns (first killed the PW than with two swings him).
Game 2 I again killed an turn 2 Cobra + had a Dismember + Beast Within for his Combo. Went again for a Crusher, Dismembered an Glorybringer and got a 11/11 Crusher within one turn due to two Wayfinder.
Deck felt nice, but I am super rusty with that archetype (last time I played it Deathrite Shaman was legal...), hence a lot of mistakes and lost games because of this.
Btw, what is the reason for no Bloodbraid in that shell? It would replace the Reveler's most likely, cause it is a high end drop (only casted a Reveler for 3 or 2 mana once). Furthermore, I somehow want to play with Traverse in that shell, getting Delirium is super easy (especially thanks to Wayfinder and the Dredge from Loam). However, I do not know what silver bullets I would want to play.
The thing I noticed the most was, that the SB was kinda crappy in the given meta. We have a lot of big mana deck (Amulet, Tron and Titanshift mainly) and Alpine Moon, while being decent, is mostly not really enough. Hence, I will play the 4th Quarter in the SB (vs Amulet + Tron) and a 3rd Alpine Moon next time (Damping Sphere is nice vs Tron and Amulet, but not really game changing). I also need something vs Control, or at least I have the feeling that I need something here.
Greetings,
Kathal
What do you consider "trolling"? Usage of Sarcasm/Irony? Making hyperboles?
If somebody considers something as trolling 10 other people will go "Dafuq, why is that considered trolling!?!"
Some clear examples would be nice, so that everybody understands what is considered as "trolling" and what not.
E.g. this post can be understood as trolling or as a genuine question. I might get banned or I might get an answer, I dunno yet.
@idSurge: IIRC TC Delver and DRS Jund had similar numbers on several occasions, but I would need to look through the events to find it out exactly.
@Depian: Here is the more up-to-date analysis: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/the-most-massive-modern-metagame-matchup-analysis-yet/
Greetings,
Kathal
Than again, I expect something like Careful Study like card more than anything else for this deck. There won't be a new (playable) cheat spell, there won't be hard tutors like Entomb, we just might get a better Wurm card or cantrip, nothing more and nothing less.
Greetings,
Kathal
Besides this, in general I would advise against playing/learning Griselbanned. The hassle of learning the deck is not really worth it, when there are other decks out there, which are as good or even better than Griselbanned but way easier to learn.
Greetings,
Kathal
Greetings,
Kathal
Missed that I only had 18 lands, will definitely go back up to 19
K-Return for those match-ups which can race you by going wide. Affinity, H-Scales and similar strategies. You could play Anger or Bontus over it, it was just a gut call based on what I expected.
Know that feeling mate.
Greetings,
Kathal
Greetings,
Kathal
Search is clunky, I cannot describe it in a different way :/
Surgical cannot really remove Nexus of Fate (cause it is a replacement effect and not a trigger) and BSZ shuffels itself back into the Library, so again no time to target it with Surgical.
Only paired up with Discard or Counters it can be problematic and even than, against those decks Teachings is the correct Surgical target and not Nexus (which you should board out in those match-ups). However, you can play around the Surgical Problem with Teachings by leaving flashback mana open and flashback it in response to the Surgical (surgical fizzles) or just recast it immediately. Sure, in some situations it is not really possible (when you need to grab X and cast it immediately), but it is doable.
I'm more annoyed by things like Stone Rain or Relic than Surgical.
Greetings,
Kathal