I believe nothing needs to be banned. Is there any offenders? Maybe. But none of them are warping the format. Banning Mox Opal will cripple Affinity's ability to generate any colored mana because they rely on grixis colors heavily in the sideboard. Banning Become Immense or Mutagenic Growth to hurt Infect and Suicide Zoo may seem alright, but let's be honest that one Bolt, Path, Dismember, Spellskite, or Thalia can literally shut down their entire strategy as these decks are nothing without their pump spells. Even Spell Pierce and Dispel ruins their day. Banning SSG completely kills Ad Nauseam as the whole strategy would be forced to adapt to the more fragile Laboratory Maniac style.
Good, Anakin, gooooood. We have a control list in tier 1 again. It can survive against aggressive decks like burn and zoo; hold off high synergy decks like affinity and elves; dismantle glass cannon strategies like infect and kiki-chord; and it can apply just enough pressure and maintain enough conservatism to outplay against other control decks like grixis.
Of course some fights aren't ideal, but the circle would be incomplete without bad match ups. You can't be the Ryu of the game and cover all your bases. (That's why sideboards exist)
The hype is real and the results are very real. This is the next big thing. Just as Tasigur and Kolaghan's Command helped give Grixis a boost into prominence -- Nahiri has cemented Jeskai control as a real contender in Modern. The deck was always good, but now they have a card on turn 4 that practically wins the game if unanswered for three turns. There is bad match ups, of course. Tron and Scapeshift comes to mind. But still, it's great that control is having such breakthroughs in a meta dominated by combos and just turning your cards sideways.
Nahiri is basically a one card combo though
No, no. She's just a win condition for control and can be situatonal removal for enchantments or tapped artifacts and creatures. That's all she is. Stop killing our dream of a control deck being tier 1. Keep it alive.
The hype is real and the results are very real. This is the next big thing. Just as Tasigur and Kolaghan's Command helped give Grixis a boost into prominence -- Nahiri has cemented Jeskai control as a real contender in Modern. The deck was always good, but now they have a card on turn 4 that practically wins the game if unanswered for three turns. There is bad match ups, of course. Tron and Scapeshift comes to mind. But still, it's great that control is having such breakthroughs in a meta dominated by combos and just turning your cards sideways.
white sideboard cards are so good i never know what to sideboard when i play another color, example: let say we play against affinity, almost every deck that plays or splash white will have a couple of stony silence or Kataki, War's Wage in there sideboard.
black gives hand disruption, terminate, kolaghan's command and delve creatures. I also like Ashiok as a sb card in some matches
so I guess it depends on what you'd rather play in your meta. I love Grixis but haven't had enough experience with Jeskai
Grixis hasn't a lot of problem versus Affinity (or others artifacts based decks) thanks to Kolaghan's Command and red hate cards (Vandalblast and Shatterstorm, but also good spot removal like Bolt and Terminate).
I think the most used SB cards, in white, are
Stony Silence -> Already mentioned
Supreme Verdict -> It's good versus counters (Merfolk) but Damnation/*** are better versus regeneration (Elves and Thrun), so we are there...
Wear/Tear -> Point for white. Grixis need to fall back on E.E.
Elspeth -> Good alternate wincon. But Keranos/Kalitas/P&K/Batterskull/Tasigur are not bad either
Celestial Purge -> Point for white
Timely Reinforcements -> Point for white
Rest in Peace -> Relic of Progenitus is good too
In the maindeck the main difference is not Path (Terminate is excellent, and so are Dismember and Murderous Cut) but Lightning Helix. Black has not such good accidental lifegain.
For these reasons I think Jeskai is better positioned in an aggressive meta - like the current one - but Grixis is better in a Combo/Control/Grindy metagame (Inquisitions, Thoughtseize, Duress, Liliana, K-ommand, Rise/Fall, Kalitas and the early pressure delve creatures can give you).
This guy gets it. Jeskai can handle more aggressive strategies that's trying to get your life down fast; Grixis can handle decks that use high synergy or grind things out. My buddy has been playing Grixis control for a year and he regularly devastates affinity or another control deck, but against something like burn or blitz... Lightning Helix and Sphinx's Revelation look much substantial.
Can someone explain why some decks are listed or called under their newly established names like Abzan and Sultai but this one is more universally called "American control" or "UWR control"? Is Jeskai not cool because it sounds like "just guy"?
Nothing needs to be banned or changed. But if they did ban something... Don't you think they'd ban the card who's name is actually in the name of the deck and appears in like three other decks?
I am amused and glad to see people saying that Tron is dead, take out your SB hate if you think that, go ahead. I don't think I ever really NEEDED Eye to win. Was it nice to have? Sure, but Wurmcoil, Karn, and a few tricks I am working on, it will survive. I just hope this shuts people up about banning the Tron lands, if it keeps you quiet, you can have Emmy too
Yeah, Tron still does what it always did best: create insane amounts of mana and play massive threats. People are too quick to dismiss a deck after a nerf. Here's a kicker: Wild Nacatal, Golgori Grave Troll, AV, and Sword of the Meek were all banned at one point, so what are the odds Eye of Ugin gets released?
Can someone explain to me how this is productive as Wizards just said a year ago they were doing away with core sets and could focus more on doing reprints and then announce they're closing the PT event for the biggest and most popular external format?
If they ban Inkmoth Nexus then all the infect players will have to rely on inchor myr or the snake to compensate. I think they only ran 12 infect creatures to begin with. I think if they really wanted it dead they'd ban either Might of Old Krosa, Groundswell, Mutagenic Growth, or Become Immense. Maybe all of them. Everyone keep in mind that Infect DOES have a card on the banned list to keep it in check.
MTG Goldfish says Infect is currently 9% of the meta. If WOTC bans cards based on how much of the pie a deck is currently eating then either Inkmoth Nexus or one of the pump spells will be gone in September or January. My ship feels a little rocky, so maybe I should abandon ship.
Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
It makes sense that they wouldn't actually ban something unless it becomes prevalent in the meta, but people do act like that's the only criteria that decides if something is ban worthy.
I'm very serious. I almost sold my inkmoths back in December because I was convinced they are a possible target for a future ban. It would hurt both infect and affinity losing them, you know.
MTG Goldfish says Infect is currently 9% of the meta. If WOTC bans cards based on how much of the pie a deck is currently eating then either Inkmoth Nexus or one of the pump spells will be gone in September or January. My ship feels a little rocky, so maybe I should abandon ship.
I had so much fun at prerelease. Whoever invented the Clue mechanic deserves a pay raise or a free coke. It was essentially having a Think Twice artifact on the field and gave players options during games. I was not impressed with Delirium and I very rarely saw the mechanic become active, but I'm sure it's much more viable in other formats. This seal and draft was way better than BoZ and Oath.
I know a lot of people who want SSG banned because it's free mana, but I really don't want to hurt Ad Nauseam and Griselshoal. I think those decks are inconsistent and easy enough to answer that SSG is fine unless I'm forgetting something else.
I had a huge argument over infect earlier today. My bud would either ban the infect keyword or might and groundswell if he could. I think my buddy bottles his infect rage and directs it towards me just because I play it. The argument came back to him hating several points that the deck can do.
- Win early without interacting
- The creatures have a mechanic that makes several others redundant like life gain, 1+ counters.
- The creatures in essence deal double damage to players
We compared his Eldrazi deck and the first question I asked is how many aggressive creatures he ran and compared it to my infect creatures: 29 to my 16 with Inkmoth included. The basic UG infect list normally runs about 13 infect creatures which equals 22% vs Eldrazi's 49%. So my list is 27% vs 49%. So me losing a creature is far more difficult to replace than him.
He hates that infect has pumps that double as protection, though I pointed out there's no way to protect an infect creature if he's played on curve without assistance from Noble Hierarch and that players usually don't hold back removal on their turn, but we still went through it. Vines and Apostles are normally 6-7 depending and he runs 4 path to exiles. So it is more likely infect will have protection, but only 8 infect creatures would likely get through the Eldrazi wall with unblockable or flying. I run 13 pump spells if you count vines and no Apostles, so only 4 protection spells.
He asked if a creature that says "Discard a card: this creature gains 8+ 8+" is fair, basing it off infect dealing poison lethal at 10. I pointed out Might and Groundswell have stipulations and he shrugged off groundswell as sitting a land is dumb but adjusted Might as a sorcery speed for his example. We eventually made a scenario using glistner elf with tons of pumps and me throwing eye and mimics. Elf keeps pumping and attacking and I just trade eldrazi creatures and he said these pumps also pull double duty as removal since it allows the infect creature to kill creatures and survive, but I was like "you've dealt 0 in damage or infect to me." It really bothers how often we argue over something like this. I wish I had made Affinity now.
Of course some fights aren't ideal, but the circle would be incomplete without bad match ups. You can't be the Ryu of the game and cover all your bases. (That's why sideboards exist)
- Win early without interacting
- The creatures have a mechanic that makes several others redundant like life gain, 1+ counters.
- The creatures in essence deal double damage to players
We compared his Eldrazi deck and the first question I asked is how many aggressive creatures he ran and compared it to my infect creatures: 29 to my 16 with Inkmoth included. The basic UG infect list normally runs about 13 infect creatures which equals 22% vs Eldrazi's 49%. So my list is 27% vs 49%. So me losing a creature is far more difficult to replace than him.
He hates that infect has pumps that double as protection, though I pointed out there's no way to protect an infect creature if he's played on curve without assistance from Noble Hierarch and that players usually don't hold back removal on their turn, but we still went through it. Vines and Apostles are normally 6-7 depending and he runs 4 path to exiles. So it is more likely infect will have protection, but only 8 infect creatures would likely get through the Eldrazi wall with unblockable or flying. I run 13 pump spells if you count vines and no Apostles, so only 4 protection spells.
He asked if a creature that says "Discard a card: this creature gains 8+ 8+" is fair, basing it off infect dealing poison lethal at 10. I pointed out Might and Groundswell have stipulations and he shrugged off groundswell as sitting a land is dumb but adjusted Might as a sorcery speed for his example. We eventually made a scenario using glistner elf with tons of pumps and me throwing eye and mimics. Elf keeps pumping and attacking and I just trade eldrazi creatures and he said these pumps also pull double duty as removal since it allows the infect creature to kill creatures and survive, but I was like "you've dealt 0 in damage or infect to me." It really bothers how often we argue over something like this. I wish I had made Affinity now.