Honestly, I think I'm just going to keep going with my old list for the time being. I don't have the money to pick up AV at the moment (although I did get one for cheap a few weeks back), and I have no idea what my local meta is going to be like for the next coming weeks. Honestly, I think the "old" lists will be just fine.
Chances are AV will spawn a different deck from ours entirely. Amalek0's Gifts deck that he's mentioned, or something else entirely. I'm certainly not worried about the Draw-Go shell becoming "bad" or obsolete
I happened to stumble across this deck the other day while browsing through another forum with a link to this primer. I decided to toss a list together on XMage and give it a shot. My list was the stock RG version in the primer, with Lightning Bolt replaced by Serum Powder.
Holy cow. Most fun I've had playing Magic since Pod was banned. I don't think I've laughed as much in a game of magic as I did when I activated Belcher for the first time on T4 and killed a Soul Sisters player. Now I'm going to have to build this in paper. Chances are if I can finish the deck before the SCG Open in Indy this May I'll wind up taking it there instead of my usual Esper Control or Storm.
Sorry Ktk, without trying to be pedantic here, could you give me
An example to a "better answer"? Is it Fow type of answer or Kolaghans
Cmand type?.
Right now im just feeling that wotc should terminate the "good" combo decks And let us go on a grindfest, because Standard is a grindfest a lots of people love it, with a longer card pool we should be able to stay in modern, i mean those who play modern because its different than Standard.
Sorry, what? So just because standard is a massive grindfest of turning dudes sideways turn after turn, Modern should be that way too? There isn't even a "true" combo deck in Modern at T1 right now. Sure infect bounces between T2-T1 pretty regularly, and some people consider it combo. Would you ax that? Other than Infect and Ad Nauseam, all combo in Modern is arguably T3 at best.
Edit: Completely forgot about the Abzan Company decks, which often run one of two combos. So there's one T1 combo deck at the very least. Kiki-Chord is another combo deck I forgot about.
So lets say Wizards decides to just ban all the combo enablers in Modern, leaving us with just aggro, midrange, and (maybe) control. Now all the combo players just have to play Legacy, a format that Wizards doesn't even support? Tron would have to get the ax due to how it roundly smashes midrange and control. The power level in general would probably have to be further reduced in order to balance for Modern now only having three (arguably two, unless control magically gets some halfway decent tech) of the five deck archetypes. Not to mention how this would cause even more of an uproar than the banning of Twin did. Talk about a PR nightmare.
TL;DR - If you want a grindy, combat-centric format, go play Standard. Modern is still fairly creature/combat-centric, but lets not have it become any more so than it already is.
good player, playing BGx or URx (save Twin) since the inception of Modern and always competitively, gets paired with a guy who says: Hi! i'm Timmy and i play modern for 2 months, so if i'm a bit slow please bear with me', he replies: 'yeah, sure, no worries' and loses to a T3 Wurmcoil +T4 Karn + T5 ulamog... what does this guy do? he hates Tron ofc, perfectly normal reaction and way healtier than hating Timmy who just picked the deck he liked and didn't even read about the MUs
Even worse is T3 Karn (Exile your land), T4 Wurmcoil, T5 Ulamog, in my experience. The deck is just insane in its ability to windmill slam threat after threat and only truly worry about aggro. Control? No worries, Eye makes sure the control player is busy trying to answer a steady stream of huge threats. Midrange? Same deal. Granted I may be a bit biased as I'm primarily a control player, and my local meta has at least four Tron decks on a an average night.
Personally, I love playing against Storm. Yeah, I said it. Now, I do play storm myself, so obviously there's a little bias there. But getting the chance to watch someone else play the deck and see how they play out their lines is something I enjoy greatly.
Other decks that I enjoy playing against include Control due to my love of counter wars, Jund, and Infect. I just find infect fascinating to watch, and playing against it is usually pretty fun as well. For me at least. Death and Taxes is also a fun one due to how it messes with the math of the game. Its a deck that is on a completely different axis than the majority of decks you run into, so I enjoy getting to play against it when I get the chance.
As far as decks that I hate playing against... well, Burn is definitely one of them, as is Tron. My reason for disliking playing against them is that I dislike playing them personally. I find both to be fairly boring, with most matches playing out to be very similar. Just my opinion though, as I know the vast majority of players absolutely hate playing against storm.
I play Esper Control and UR Storm at the moment, for reference.
Heya, folks. I've decided to work my way into Modern to see how I like it and although this may not necessarily be the greatest deck to be testing the waters with (based on the fact that you need to have a decent knowledge of format trends, matchups, etc.), I've played almost exclusively control for about the last 8-10 years... so this is right in my wheelhouse. Thanks for all the great reading up to this point; It's certainly helped me begin to understand some of the finer points of how to play control in this environment.
One card I haven't seen a lot of, but seems savage in the appropriate metagame is Night of Souls' Betrayal. Does anyone have any experience with this card? It seems insane against Infect, pretty solid against Affinity if you can keep crap like Steel Overseer under control, and has some applications elsewhere. Are wraths good enough to contain a lot of this stuff in most situations, or would jamming a few of these in the board help shore up some of these (what I assume would be) problem matchups? Is it worth the slots in our sideboard or is it overkill?
Sorry for the somewhat stream-of-consciousness rambling here, but I would be curious to hear some opinions or anecdotes on the card.
My local meta at college has tons of infect, tokens, and other similar strategies. If you can manage to land Night against those decks, its lights out for them as typically any answers they may have are easy to counter. Definitely a good card in a meta that you can take advantage of. If you have a good but of Jund/Tron/Control in your meta though and less of the quick low to the ground stuff, it quickly becomes a less than optimal slot. Since my meta tends to swing back and forth between the two extremes depending on who shows up, I tend to just keep a bunch of the more narrow sideboard cards on me and switch them out depending on who I see show up just before the event.
If Ad Nauseam doesn't have SSG, then it relies far too heavily on its mana fixing artifacts in the early game, much more so than it already does. I've not played the deck much myself other than testing it out on XMage. I'd probably build it in paper as it'd be nice to have/play a combo deck, however I'm not touching it (or any other deck with even remotely "questionable" pieces) as I'm not touching anything I even think might go, and getting the deck to function without SSG is laughably difficult.
Have you tried KMC Hyper Matt? I find them to be less sticky than the normal sleeves.
I haven't yet. My LGS stocks only Dragonshields and then a bunch of absolutely awful generic sleeves. I'll have to look into those. Thanks for the suggestion!
I guess it depends on what you consider dirty. I have a couple hundred Ultra Pro deck protectors I have used for various card games which I originally bought in 1998/99 and they still work just fine. They have scuff/rub marks in places from friction, but are all still clear and clean for the most part. I only play on a clean surface (usually a clean table cloth) so maybe you just play somewhere where they do not clean the tables regularly? I even still have decks using penny sleeves I have had for 15+ years. Some of them are a bit cloudy but still work perfectly fine.
Well, the tables aren't the posterchild of clean, but I use a clean playmat that is washed about once a week. I honestly think my hands just might be abnormally oily or something along those lines.
Its probably the table thats dirty or the environment simply has some form of dust.
The dirt on the sleeves is usually just some dust that accumulates with naturally wet hands (you will allways have that to some extend, its totally normal).
A helpfull solution is to use a playmate that is clean, so you do not accumulate dirt from the table.
If the sleeves get dirty still, while using a clean playmate, then theres little you can do.
If sleeves get dirty and you do not want to simply get new ones, you can clean them, as its just dust/dirt (a tiny bit of water on a tissue is allready enough, just pile shuffle and clean the cards and make sure they are not wet after doing so).
Sleeves will get slightly sticky no matter what, its more a form of grip, which i like more than totally fresh sleeves (which have allmost no grip).
You can also buy some sleeves that have naturally more grip with a more rough backside.
But the most important might be to have a clean playmate so your cards do not mop up all the dirt on a table.
Yeah, I use a playmat that I clean between uses. I've actually found that matte sleeves get sticky even faster, but I may try them again. Its been awhile since I've used matte sleeves for that reason. I'll definitely try cleaning the backs/fronts with a damp tissue though, I hadn't thought of that before.
I have a consistent problem with my sleeves getting dirty/sticky incredibly fast. I bought a brand new set of Gold Dragonshield sleeves two weeks ago and they're now sticky and dirty after just two weeks of using them Tuesday/Thursday and Saturday at events. I wash my hands before every event, and between rounds if I get the chance. I have even more trouble with matte sleeves, which get sticky/gunky after only a few uses.
How do you deal with your sleeves getting sticky/dirty? Do your sleeves not get sticky? Do you just buy new ones every couple of weeks?
Also, on an unrelated note, I've received some foils recently that have a cloudy film on them. Is that just oxidation that can't be cleaned off, or is it possible to clean off with a damp paper towel?
Mid-event update. Will update this post with a full report when I get back to my room after things are over. Currently 0-2 against Burn and Goblin Storm. Have the bye right now. Had 1 close game against both decks but ended up not being able to pull it out then got blown out game 2.
Alright. Wound up going 2-1-2 (with one of my wins being a bye). Games were Burn, Goblin Storm, Bye, Grixis Control, and Burn. In that order. My decklist is below, but not much has changed.
No big changes other than the Elixir in the main, which was in anticipation of the control mirrors I normally would face. None of the Emeria players showed today. Soooo that was an easy thing to sideboard out when I needed to.
Match 1: Naya Burn - 0-2 Game 1: Not much to see here. He counted to 20 despite my countering a few spells and landing a Lingering Souls. Game 2: Sided in 2 Leylines, 2 Firewalkers, and Baneslayer. Out came 1 Think Twice, 3 Cryptic, 1 Elixir. Landed a Firewalker, but he Pathed it and went about his business. Didn't see any other sideboard cards and he counted to 20.
Match 2: Goblin Storm - 0-2 Game 1: He lands a T1 Goblin Rabblemaster by exiling a SSG, casting some Manamorphoses and Rituals, and then goes to town. I land a Path on it after its first swing, we go back and forth for a turn or two, then he storms out with Empty the Warrens and swings for lethal the next turn. I didn't have any more counterspells or boardwipes at that point. Game 2: I find myself staring down the barrel of 8 1/1 goblins on Turn 1 after he storms off with an exiled SSG. His turn 2 he lands a kicked Bushwacker, and that was game. I had brought in Ratchet Bomb and 2 Kor Firewalkers, but didn't see any.
Bye
Match 4: Grixis Control - Draw Game 1: I was in a dominant position for the majority of the game, but he kept my colonnades at bay with Ghost Quarters and removal. Wound up using Elixir twice as I tried to get him to deck out since I couldn't find Zenith. We went to time, and that was the end of that. I was playing as quickly and efficiently as I could, but I think he was slow playing maybe a touch. At a bigger event I would have called judge, but I didn't feel like being a douche at a small local event.
Match 5: Burn - 2-1 Game 1: He counted to 20. Nothing to see here. Game 2: He didn't side, and I sided in the same stuff as my other Burn match. Landed turn 2 Firewalker, turn 3 Firewalker, and rode them to victory. Game 3: He sided in Paths (I'm assuming). Had a turn 0 Leyline, and he scooped as he hadn't sided in enchantment removal. He was new to Modern, so we chatted and I answered a bunch of his questions about the format as a whole and my deck. Pretty cool guy.
So yeah, that was my night. Nothing spectacular. There's SO much aggro in my meta, but there's also a bunch of control as well, so siding and planning my main can be a bit wonky. Got to watch a fellow control player play some BUG Control, which was interesting. Chatted about Ancestral Vision with him, did some trades, and overall had a decent night despite my placing.
Speaking of AV, how would that affect us? He said he'd be slamming it into BUG as a 4-of if he could and replacing Serum Visions in his build.
I'll have to see if I can play when it gets closer to that date. I'll be home with family over Spring Break and that means I may be busy. I'll try and message you at least a few days in advance.
I'm actually envious that you get to play with Elixir now. I really want to, but decking my opponent isn't really my forte and it doesn't seem reliable against the midrange decks running around (that and that I know everyone at my LGS, so I don't want to upset them by decking them every round -- maybe they'd think it's funny?)
You have to tell us how many times your opponents just scoop once Elixir hits the table.
Hah, I'll make sure to post a list of how all my matches went when I get back after the event Saturday. With no midrange decks to deal with and tons of other control decks I'm going to give it a shot this week and see how it turns out.
@amalek0 - Unfortunately I don't have my Surgical Extractions yet. They should have come in the mail yesterday but no dice. Hopefully they'll come today. That would greatly improve the Emeria matchup game 2. I also hadn't thought of that particular line against other control decks. I'll have to see if I get myself into a position where I can do that this weekend.
If you want to run an Elixir, I say go for it. I was already just entertaining the idea (since who doesn't love chaining Revs for 10+? xD), but since you actually have a meta reason to do so, I would 100% support it -- if you do it, I actually suggest playing 2 Elixirs (as I learned in RTR Control era, since you don't want your one-of to get milled somehow or countered). Just be careful, since Snap and Logic Knot's exile clauses become quite relevant on the Elixir plan.
Unfortunately this weekend I'm just stuck on the 1 Elixir plan if I go this route, and I think I'm going to give it a shot. We don't have any Jund/Junk in our meta, so discard isn't something I have to worry about too much. Same goes with mill, and if I'm casting Elixer I plan on having quite a bit of countermagic to back it up.
Yeah I was just thinking about Snap and Logic Knot. I think I mainly just want to delve away fetchlands with Knot, and avoid hitting Wraths with Snappy if I'm on the Elixir plan. Other than that hitting stuff like a Spell Snare or a Remand with Snappy wouldn't be so bad. In fact, I kinda have to delve away used fetches with Logic Knot. Thinning my "new" deck that way would be pretty great for drawing gas the second go around.
Chances are AV will spawn a different deck from ours entirely. Amalek0's Gifts deck that he's mentioned, or something else entirely. I'm certainly not worried about the Draw-Go shell becoming "bad" or obsolete
Holy cow. Most fun I've had playing Magic since Pod was banned. I don't think I've laughed as much in a game of magic as I did when I activated Belcher for the first time on T4 and killed a Soul Sisters player. Now I'm going to have to build this in paper. Chances are if I can finish the deck before the SCG Open in Indy this May I'll wind up taking it there instead of my usual Esper Control or Storm.
Sorry, what? So just because standard is a massive grindfest of turning dudes sideways turn after turn, Modern should be that way too? There isn't even a "true" combo deck in Modern at T1 right now. Sure infect bounces between T2-T1 pretty regularly, and some people consider it combo. Would you ax that? Other than Infect and Ad Nauseam, all combo in Modern is arguably T3 at best.
Edit: Completely forgot about the Abzan Company decks, which often run one of two combos. So there's one T1 combo deck at the very least. Kiki-Chord is another combo deck I forgot about.
So lets say Wizards decides to just ban all the combo enablers in Modern, leaving us with just aggro, midrange, and (maybe) control. Now all the combo players just have to play Legacy, a format that Wizards doesn't even support? Tron would have to get the ax due to how it roundly smashes midrange and control. The power level in general would probably have to be further reduced in order to balance for Modern now only having three (arguably two, unless control magically gets some halfway decent tech) of the five deck archetypes. Not to mention how this would cause even more of an uproar than the banning of Twin did. Talk about a PR nightmare.
TL;DR - If you want a grindy, combat-centric format, go play Standard. Modern is still fairly creature/combat-centric, but lets not have it become any more so than it already is.
Even worse is T3 Karn (Exile your land), T4 Wurmcoil, T5 Ulamog, in my experience. The deck is just insane in its ability to windmill slam threat after threat and only truly worry about aggro. Control? No worries, Eye makes sure the control player is busy trying to answer a steady stream of huge threats. Midrange? Same deal. Granted I may be a bit biased as I'm primarily a control player, and my local meta has at least four Tron decks on a an average night.
Other decks that I enjoy playing against include Control due to my love of counter wars, Jund, and Infect. I just find infect fascinating to watch, and playing against it is usually pretty fun as well. For me at least. Death and Taxes is also a fun one due to how it messes with the math of the game. Its a deck that is on a completely different axis than the majority of decks you run into, so I enjoy getting to play against it when I get the chance.
As far as decks that I hate playing against... well, Burn is definitely one of them, as is Tron. My reason for disliking playing against them is that I dislike playing them personally. I find both to be fairly boring, with most matches playing out to be very similar. Just my opinion though, as I know the vast majority of players absolutely hate playing against storm.
I play Esper Control and UR Storm at the moment, for reference.
My local meta at college has tons of infect, tokens, and other similar strategies. If you can manage to land Night against those decks, its lights out for them as typically any answers they may have are easy to counter. Definitely a good card in a meta that you can take advantage of. If you have a good but of Jund/Tron/Control in your meta though and less of the quick low to the ground stuff, it quickly becomes a less than optimal slot. Since my meta tends to swing back and forth between the two extremes depending on who shows up, I tend to just keep a bunch of the more narrow sideboard cards on me and switch them out depending on who I see show up just before the event.
I haven't yet. My LGS stocks only Dragonshields and then a bunch of absolutely awful generic sleeves. I'll have to look into those. Thanks for the suggestion!
Well, the tables aren't the posterchild of clean, but I use a clean playmat that is washed about once a week. I honestly think my hands just might be abnormally oily or something along those lines.
Yeah, I use a playmat that I clean between uses. I've actually found that matte sleeves get sticky even faster, but I may try them again. Its been awhile since I've used matte sleeves for that reason. I'll definitely try cleaning the backs/fronts with a damp tissue though, I hadn't thought of that before.
How do you deal with your sleeves getting sticky/dirty? Do your sleeves not get sticky? Do you just buy new ones every couple of weeks?
Also, on an unrelated note, I've received some foils recently that have a cloudy film on them. Is that just oxidation that can't be cleaned off, or is it possible to clean off with a damp paper towel?
Mid-event update. Will update this post with a full report when I get back to my room after things are over. Currently 0-2 against Burn and Goblin Storm. Have the bye right now. Had 1 close game against both decks but ended up not being able to pull it out then got blown out game 2.Alright. Wound up going 2-1-2 (with one of my wins being a bye). Games were Burn, Goblin Storm, Bye, Grixis Control, and Burn. In that order. My decklist is below, but not much has changed.
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Glacial Fortress
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Watery Grave
1 Godless Shrine
2 Ghost Quarter
3 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
Card-Draw
4 Think Twice
4 Esper Charm
3 Remand
2 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Cryptic Command
3 Spell Snare
2 Logic Knot
Removal
4 Path to Exile
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
Creatures
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Lingering Souls
Artifact
1 Elixir of Immortality
Win-Con
1 White Sun's Zenith
2 Thoughtseize
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Dispel
2 Stony Silence
1 Celestial Purge
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Rest in Peace
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
No big changes other than the Elixir in the main, which was in anticipation of the control mirrors I normally would face. None of the Emeria players showed today. Soooo that was an easy thing to sideboard out when I needed to.
Match 1: Naya Burn - 0-2
Game 1: Not much to see here. He counted to 20 despite my countering a few spells and landing a Lingering Souls.
Game 2: Sided in 2 Leylines, 2 Firewalkers, and Baneslayer. Out came 1 Think Twice, 3 Cryptic, 1 Elixir. Landed a Firewalker, but he Pathed it and went about his business. Didn't see any other sideboard cards and he counted to 20.
Match 2: Goblin Storm - 0-2
Game 1: He lands a T1 Goblin Rabblemaster by exiling a SSG, casting some Manamorphoses and Rituals, and then goes to town. I land a Path on it after its first swing, we go back and forth for a turn or two, then he storms out with Empty the Warrens and swings for lethal the next turn. I didn't have any more counterspells or boardwipes at that point.
Game 2: I find myself staring down the barrel of 8 1/1 goblins on Turn 1 after he storms off with an exiled SSG. His turn 2 he lands a kicked Bushwacker, and that was game. I had brought in Ratchet Bomb and 2 Kor Firewalkers, but didn't see any.
Bye
Match 4: Grixis Control - Draw
Game 1: I was in a dominant position for the majority of the game, but he kept my colonnades at bay with Ghost Quarters and removal. Wound up using Elixir twice as I tried to get him to deck out since I couldn't find Zenith. We went to time, and that was the end of that. I was playing as quickly and efficiently as I could, but I think he was slow playing maybe a touch. At a bigger event I would have called judge, but I didn't feel like being a douche at a small local event.
Match 5: Burn - 2-1
Game 1: He counted to 20. Nothing to see here.
Game 2: He didn't side, and I sided in the same stuff as my other Burn match. Landed turn 2 Firewalker, turn 3 Firewalker, and rode them to victory.
Game 3: He sided in Paths (I'm assuming). Had a turn 0 Leyline, and he scooped as he hadn't sided in enchantment removal. He was new to Modern, so we chatted and I answered a bunch of his questions about the format as a whole and my deck. Pretty cool guy.
So yeah, that was my night. Nothing spectacular. There's SO much aggro in my meta, but there's also a bunch of control as well, so siding and planning my main can be a bit wonky. Got to watch a fellow control player play some BUG Control, which was interesting. Chatted about Ancestral Vision with him, did some trades, and overall had a decent night despite my placing.
Speaking of AV, how would that affect us? He said he'd be slamming it into BUG as a 4-of if he could and replacing Serum Visions in his build.
Hah, I'll make sure to post a list of how all my matches went when I get back after the event Saturday. With no midrange decks to deal with and tons of other control decks I'm going to give it a shot this week and see how it turns out.
@amalek0 - Unfortunately I don't have my Surgical Extractions yet. They should have come in the mail yesterday but no dice. Hopefully they'll come today. That would greatly improve the Emeria matchup game 2. I also hadn't thought of that particular line against other control decks. I'll have to see if I get myself into a position where I can do that this weekend.
Unfortunately this weekend I'm just stuck on the 1 Elixir plan if I go this route, and I think I'm going to give it a shot. We don't have any Jund/Junk in our meta, so discard isn't something I have to worry about too much. Same goes with mill, and if I'm casting Elixer I plan on having quite a bit of countermagic to back it up.
Yeah I was just thinking about Snap and Logic Knot. I think I mainly just want to delve away fetchlands with Knot, and avoid hitting Wraths with Snappy if I'm on the Elixir plan. Other than that hitting stuff like a Spell Snare or a Remand with Snappy wouldn't be so bad. In fact, I kinda have to delve away used fetches with Logic Knot. Thinning my "new" deck that way would be pretty great for drawing gas the second go around.