In almost every game, going first is an advantage- an obvious consequence of a zero sum game (both players can't win, so you have to win first). The size of the advantage depends on how it is offset, and in magic we do that by giving the opponent an extra card.
In modern, this method of offsetting the advantage is particularly ineffective. The reason for this is that modern is a format that tends to have games over fairly quickly, where a player might not have had the chance to use their extra card. The more likely a player is to die before using their extra card, the stronger the "on the play" position becomes.
In chess, going first is also an advantage. In order to make sure this advantage is shared equally by all, the tournament structure is designed to make sure that going first is distributed as equitably as possible - and alternating as much as possible.
I think the best answer here is just as is used in chess. You are not going to be able to negate the advantage, so it is best to simply make sure the advantage is distributed as best as possible.
Agree to disagree. I don't believe that marginal case (and those of that sort) are worth giving up all the value in dead mana leaks. This preference might be due to the fact that I am running the full 4 ancestral vision, so I have less tolerance for dead draws? Mana leak has been tried repeatedly and repeatedly cut, having played the archtype for a couple years now. /shrug. I understand why people value it, I just see more value in cashing in those mana leaks for negates.
And if they drew Scapeshift instead of Primeval Titan, you lose the game on the spot if Negate is Mana leak instead. If they draw the titan and you have negate, you can still survive and path the titan, tec edge the valakuts, etc.
Scapeshift is a much more dangerous card in the matchup. It is positive without mana leak - at least from my own experience.
Running 3 Negate and 0 Leak means folding to Primeval Titan and Vizier CoCo most of the time. Nobody likes the fact that Leak is dead in the late-game, but you can't actually play only non-creature-counterspells in your list (Cryptic is too slow for this purpose).
I agree the list is a bit weaker to primetime, but I hardly see how coco/chord isn't better answered by negate than mana leak. The deck has a positive matchup against scapeshift/titanshift, so I'm not looking to play some cards that will be dead late. On the other hand, if they hit 7 land and cast scapeshift, that mana leak is embarrassing. Moreover, a resolved titan is easier to deal with than a resolved scapeshift. No, scapeshift is an example matchup where negate > mana leak.
I really do not value the theoretical creature-countering aspect of MAna leak not only because it is a soft counter and dead late, but also because Cavern of Souls/Aether Vial embarrasses the card too readily.
You can use Coco right now to do what BBE does at instant speed, only you might get a better creature than a 3/2. I don't see how this play pattern is problematic - right now when I play knightfall I am cocoing into knight/gofy + rallier to bring back another goyf.
I have not really played a whole lot recently, and my presence here has been down a bit. Always interesting to read what other people are playing.
I'm going to update the OP, and would like suggestions if anyone has them.
A couple weeks ago I played a small ~20 player event with UW control, losing in the finals after a 4 round + top4. Matches went Storm 2-0, Affinity 2-0, Scapeshift 2-1, Burn 2-1. Top 4 I beat Grixis Shadow 2-1 before losing the rematch to the scapeshift player 1-2. Super fun deck that is well positioned it seems.
I didn't get on board with md Spreading Seas for a long time, but it's hard to argue with results.
Interesting to hear Supreme Will being a card - I dislike mana leak so much that I refuse to play it over negate. I guess having exactly one in your hand might not be so awful for the digging, but it really looks bad. That card will have to appear in a top32 paper event before I get on board :).
What other cards are people liking in the meta right now? I didn't play runed halo, but that still seems pretty well positioned.
Right, the (valid) logic is the inverse of how spike4972 is interpreting. Jund's tier 2-3 status doesn't mean the card should be unbanned so that it can go in the deck, instead it simply means that the issue forcing BBE to the banlist (i.e: a dominant tier 1 Jund) is no longer present.
People really are kind. I'm single-handedly holding back Modern? Do I do emergency bans too? I'm trying really hard not use slander in my comments here but expecting the same courtesy seems like a fool's errand.
I've playing Jund for years now (before bbe was banned) and I honestly don't see how you don't jam 4 BBE in every list. Find me someone who thinks otherwise and I'll show you a bold-faced liar.
Funny thing is I wasn't even against the unban as such. I just wanted to point out some potential side effects of such a move but here I am holding the format back and throwing spokes into the wheel of progress...
Although I understand why you read it the way you did (he was a bit unclear), I think he was meaning the [ideas you espouse] set format back. I think the salient point here is that a goal of modern is the keep the shortest banlist possible, and keeping the 4-drop slot in Jund diverse hardly should trump the stated goals of the format. It is an extremely weak argument and I also understand the derision it was met with - it is not a relevant consideration (to most people, and afaik, wotc).
The old big zoo decks evolved into Knightfall since they were using Knight of the Reliquary and Kessig wolf run already. BBE might make for a reasonable Coco replacement since it hits both halves of the combo. Sounds neat.
I'd do it. I mean, who could possibly resist playing that pile? That being said, it's actually unclear to me that this is better than what is seeing play right now. Coco has a strong chance of being just better than BBE in the decks that have the choice (both at 4 cmc is awkward and unlikely in the same list).
I also find it strange that the tension between Stoneforge Mystic and DnT's build-around Leonin Arbiter is being ignored. There is a non-trivial chance SFM isn't good enough to see play in DnT because of the Leonin arbiter issue, and modern nexus revealed that the only thing it did for abzan was improve the burn matchup at a slight cost to almost every other matchup. UW control then is the most likely place for the card, which sounds like a positive thing to me. I'm biased for sure, but does UW control featuring SFM sound like it's going to need to be banned?
As I said in the announcement poll and have said now since I tested it about 6 months ago: there is a non-trivial chance that Stoneforge Mystic isn't good enough to see wide play. By that, I mean that SFM is most likely to find a home in a tier 2-3 deck at best. It just doesn't do enough without Umezawa's Jitte to be a real house.
I recently gave one away through a technical play mistake that left me winning, but I resigned.
After a long back and forth game of my Knightfall against a solid Abzan Midrange player left me at low life facing an attack step with 3 untapped mana including a ghost quarter and Spell Queller in hand. I know he has a lethal siege rhino in hand, so in order to stay alive, I had to ghost quarter my own tapped land to get a forest into play and tap a potential attacker with Retreat to Coralhelm.
I survive the attack step and he jams the rhino, I look at my board and see only two untapped lands. I quickly concede, unsure of how I had miscounted the mana for the Spell Queller. Afterwords, a friend of mine was bewildered that I had conceded. Whilst explaining that I had miscounted the mana, I realized that I had put the land from Ghost Quartering myself into play tapped erroneously. I had the game won - my counterattack was extremely lethal. But I conceded! Haha won't forget how to play ghost quarter again anytime soon.
I find it sad that people can label Etron play-patterns "problematic" while it follows all of moderns stated rules, and call for it's banning on that basis even though the collateral damage is that a lot of their peers and friends loose a deck. I don't see why one cares particularly either way if one gets stormed out of the game or TKS into Smashed out of the game. Modern is a format comprised primarily of decks doing unfair things, and a few decks trying to play enough interaction to keep up. Etron is hardly more guilty than anyone else. It's just on top or near enough to draw the attention.
I still don't get the unbans. We have grindy interactive decks at the top of the format. Why do they need to be supplanted by Jund or Abzan running BBE or SFM? I played a four round modern event last night and played UW control twice, Abzan once, and finally Grixis Delver. I looked around, and granted out of about thirty people I barely saw Affinity, Valakut, maybe two burn decks, and myself on Storm. My real question: how does the format improve with BBE, SFM, or JTMS unbans?
By achieving a modern format goal of `the smallest banlist possible` by removing the cards that don`t belong on the banlist. The format improves because the cards are strong enough to be close the the top level seeing play in the format, without being better than what is already going on in the format. If you think that SFM is dangerous, remember that Ancestral Vision was also depicted by many as the end of Jund and dangerous for the meta. That proved to be a massive overestimation: the card was strong enough to find its way into decks that needed the effect, while not being strong enough to supplant other strong cards in their respective strategies. Most people advocating SFM/BBE/JTMS believe the impact on the format will be similar to bitterblossom or ancestral vision: they will expand the archtypes with cards strong enough to see play, not decrease it. A card having been a boogeyman-of-standard-past does not really mean much for it's ability to dominate modern.
Literally every player in every event needs a little luck in dodging bad matchups to make top 8. That's inevitable, especially if there's more than a couple dozen participants. I think it's poisoning the well to take that top 8 and give every single deck an excuse that almost says "no, I know there were six unique decks but really it should have been eight grixis shadow, except this one thing happened..."
That's why it has been said many times that modern rewards understanding your deck as opposed to trying to metagame.
I agree to an extent but honestly good modern players can play most decks really well. I play a lot of different decks and sure I could pick up a few percentage points just grinding 1 but I think those same points if not more can be picked up just making sure you have a better deck for the meta.
Yeah it does seem too broad to say that "understanding your deck" is more important than metagaming. At a certain point, I think you'll pick up more % to win an event if you give yourself a second or even third option to attack the top decks. Even that is part of the skill of modern: figuring out which deck you should put your practice into. Sometimes your best deck isn't well positioned, and more reps aren't going to change that. The more time you put into the second deck, the more precisely you will know the relative positioning.
UW control seems fairly well positioned now, so I'm jamming that. But I'm normally the Knightfall guy - it's just the meta which gives a number of incentives to attack from a different direction. (Gideon of the trials is such a beating vs Grixis Shadow).
In modern, this method of offsetting the advantage is particularly ineffective. The reason for this is that modern is a format that tends to have games over fairly quickly, where a player might not have had the chance to use their extra card. The more likely a player is to die before using their extra card, the stronger the "on the play" position becomes.
In chess, going first is also an advantage. In order to make sure this advantage is shared equally by all, the tournament structure is designed to make sure that going first is distributed as equitably as possible - and alternating as much as possible.
I think the best answer here is just as is used in chess. You are not going to be able to negate the advantage, so it is best to simply make sure the advantage is distributed as best as possible.
Scapeshift is a much more dangerous card in the matchup. It is positive without mana leak - at least from my own experience.
I agree the list is a bit weaker to primetime, but I hardly see how coco/chord isn't better answered by negate than mana leak. The deck has a positive matchup against scapeshift/titanshift, so I'm not looking to play some cards that will be dead late. On the other hand, if they hit 7 land and cast scapeshift, that mana leak is embarrassing. Moreover, a resolved titan is easier to deal with than a resolved scapeshift. No, scapeshift is an example matchup where negate > mana leak.
I really do not value the theoretical creature-countering aspect of MAna leak not only because it is a soft counter and dead late, but also because Cavern of Souls/Aether Vial embarrasses the card too readily.
I'm going to update the OP, and would like suggestions if anyone has them.
A couple weeks ago I played a small ~20 player event with UW control, losing in the finals after a 4 round + top4. Matches went Storm 2-0, Affinity 2-0, Scapeshift 2-1, Burn 2-1. Top 4 I beat Grixis Shadow 2-1 before losing the rematch to the scapeshift player 1-2. Super fun deck that is well positioned it seems.
I didn't get on board with md Spreading Seas for a long time, but it's hard to argue with results.
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Hallowed Fountain
3 Island
2 Plains
4 Tectonic Edge
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Gideon of the Trials
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Gideon Jura
4 Serum Visions
4 Path to Exile
4 Spreading Seas
2 Blessed Alliance
3 Negate
1 Detention Sphere
3 Cryptic Command
3 Supreme Verdict
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Stony Silence
2 Celestial Purge
2 Disdainful Stroke
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Disenchant
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Summary Dismissal
Interesting to hear Supreme Will being a card - I dislike mana leak so much that I refuse to play it over negate. I guess having exactly one in your hand might not be so awful for the digging, but it really looks bad. That card will have to appear in a top32 paper event before I get on board :).
What other cards are people liking in the meta right now? I didn't play runed halo, but that still seems pretty well positioned.
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Spell Queller
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Kessig Wolf Run
As I said in the announcement poll and have said now since I tested it about 6 months ago: there is a non-trivial chance that Stoneforge Mystic isn't good enough to see wide play. By that, I mean that SFM is most likely to find a home in a tier 2-3 deck at best. It just doesn't do enough without Umezawa's Jitte to be a real house.
After a long back and forth game of my Knightfall against a solid Abzan Midrange player left me at low life facing an attack step with 3 untapped mana including a ghost quarter and Spell Queller in hand. I know he has a lethal siege rhino in hand, so in order to stay alive, I had to ghost quarter my own tapped land to get a forest into play and tap a potential attacker with Retreat to Coralhelm.
I survive the attack step and he jams the rhino, I look at my board and see only two untapped lands. I quickly concede, unsure of how I had miscounted the mana for the Spell Queller. Afterwords, a friend of mine was bewildered that I had conceded. Whilst explaining that I had miscounted the mana, I realized that I had put the land from Ghost Quartering myself into play tapped erroneously. I had the game won - my counterattack was extremely lethal. But I conceded! Haha won't forget how to play ghost quarter again anytime soon.
Don't ban peoples' decks. It's not cool. IMHO.
UW control seems fairly well positioned now, so I'm jamming that. But I'm normally the Knightfall guy - it's just the meta which gives a number of incentives to attack from a different direction. (Gideon of the trials is such a beating vs Grixis Shadow).